Star Trek Online: Divide et Impera is one of the worst missions in the history of video games and the reason I quit

Published on June 11, 2013 By taltamir In PC Gaming

Star trek online is unusual for an MMO; sure there is the pointless boring grind. However, STO also has a series of about 50 special unique missions per faction which are done in order, constitute the plot, and will take you from level 1 to level 50. They are listed here http://sto.gamepedia.com/Episode

So you can choose to ignore the grind, play those missions as if it was an offline RPG, and when you finish all the missions quit the game. This was my intent, however I hit a snag halfway through the federation plot missions. One bad enough to justify quitting. (not that the missions were terribly well written to begin with)

http://sto.gamepedia.com/Mission:_Divide_et_Impera

This is one of the worst "quests" in RPG history

First a bit of background, there is a race called "undine" who is infiltrating various factions using shapeshifting and then starts wars between various factions to weaken them for an undine invasion. When you get to this mission you had already encountered and fought them about 4 times or so.

You are supposedly off to stop the development of some superweapons by the romulans; you are being accompanies by a FLEET ADMIRAL who arranged this mission. First you clear out the ships guarding a space station, then you teleport down with an away team.

As soon as you teleport to the base you are told by the fleet admiral who is with you for some reason "this is NOT how we federation does things but use lethal force, we must stop their super evil subspace weapons!"... ok fine...

Enter first room, kill a bunch of enemies labeled as medical doctors; their screams of death and rage at your unprovoked attack on a medical facility make it ridiculously obvious that they are peaceful researchers... scan the crates, nothing but medical supplies

The obvious undine tells you those trixy romulans put stuff in the box that is tricking your scanners (you are not allowed to open the crates and verify).

She then suggests you try a data terminal for proof of her claims... look at terminal, purpose of station is "medical research and discovering ways to identify undine infiltrators". At which point it is so blatantly obvious that the so called admiral with you is an undine. But you are not allowed to accuse her.
Try "where are the weapons" on the data console... permission denied. Admiral tells you the data would be at the commander's personal console.

Proceed to butcher doctors for 10 more minutes, reaching the final room where the obvious undine says "kill everyone and leave no witnesses, the romulans mustn't find out that it was the federation that attacked here (as if the warbirds fighting you couldn't have sent out a message as soon as you warped into the system...) you have no choice but to do it.
Then scan the consoles, find nothing about weapons... commander of station teleports in with a single aide (I have a 6 person away team armed with weapons that have a stun setting), he ACCUSES me of being an undine for destroying their work. I have no option but to murder him and then...

THE BIG REVEAL "mwhaha, I was an undine all along! instead of maintaining my cover as an ADMIRAL in federation I am going to reveal myself to you for the lulz and then kill you, and then take the place of the romulan doctor we killed! oh and no way could I have brought a second undine to assume the role of the person we just butchered, I will do so myself discarding my wonderful admiral position for that".

Then after a slight beating the undine takes on the appearance of the good dead doctor, calls for help from the romulans, gets beamed up by romulan ships that came out of nowhere... who proceed to IGNORE being told he is an undine infiltrator and proceed to die under my hand (because shooting to disable is not allowed in this mission even though you have done so hundred of times in other missions). and the undine got away somehow even though you killed all the romulan ships.

This is one of the worst "quests" in RPG history, and it is completely unskippable, if you want to finish the plot missions you must finish this mission exactly as described above. So screw you STO, I quit.

Comments (Page 1)

taltamir

on Jun 11, 2013

reserved

Galacticruler5000

on Jun 12, 2013

{insertslowclaphere}

GJ guys, you failed to make a simple mission playable.

Gj, really....GRAB YOUR KEYBOARDS AND PITCH-MICE, RUN THEM OFF THE EARTH!

honestly, get over it man, there are some issues, think about it.

Would YOU have been able to focus on that with hundreds of other bugs and issues to deal with?

MarvinKosh

on Jun 12, 2013

I agree with the original poster, that mission is seriously messed up. It's also not as good as some of the other content in the game. Hopefully it'll get looked at some time in the future.

taltamir

on Jun 12, 2013

The game STO was released on February 2, 2010. This mission was there in its current incarnation at that time and people complained on it in the forums in 2010.

Originally the game had 2 playable races, klingons and federation. Federation had ~50 their plot missions and the klingons were there only for PvP.

Recently an expansion was released which added a mission chain for the klingons, as well as adding the romulans as a playable race with their own mission chain.

So, it isn't that they failed to make this mission playable, they made a horrible mission that could have easily been solved another way (confront the undine, have it escape, murder the doctor on its own, and then assume his identity and escape).

This mission made me feel like utter shit, as I butchered what I knew to be medical doctors; and their smugness at "tricking" me... ugh! it ruined the game for me.

Malorey

on Jun 12, 2013

I only still play one MMO and that's Lord of the Rings. It's really old but it's still really good and got a great, helpful community.

That said, I still prefer offline 4x and other strategy games.

Aexrael

on Jun 12, 2013

What compels you to post this here of all places and not on the official forum, where it would not only be relevant, but also you might get feedback from the community, or is that what you are afraid of?

This seems little more than a vague attempt at bashing Cryptic Studios.

taltamir

on Jun 12, 2013

1. I did post it on their forums too.

2. I posted this in the general PC gaming discussion.

3. They deserve to be bashed for making one of the worst quests in RPG history and making it unskippable core plot quest. But the way you phrase it is so odd, as if you are implying I have an axe to grind against them and because of that any legitimate complaint I raise can be ignored, which is just stupid

Jythier

on Jun 12, 2013

Because people like myself want to know that STO sucks?

Heavenfall

on Jun 12, 2013

I haven't played ST:O since about a month after it was released (a little more than 3 years) and I STILL remember this quest and how awful it was. Didn't make me quit though, ship pvp was too interesting at the time.

ImperatorPavel

on Jun 13, 2013

The missons are skippable if you've leveled enough to skip them. If you are that misson's level, you won't be able to skip it.

I skipped "Divide et Impera" because I didn't want to do it. Course, I'm almost level 50 and I'm still on the Cardassian series...

taltamir

on Jun 13, 2013

Thanks ImperatorPavel, that is useful to know.

Major Stress

on Jun 13, 2013

STO to me was just WoW in space. Instead of walkity walkity walk. Stabity Sabity Stab. You got Walkity Walkity Walk. Dakka, Dakka, Dak! The mission grinds were the same thing, and the story arc's were just plain uninteresting to outright absurd. There is a reason why it went FTP.

jackswift85

on Jun 13, 2013

I used to play STO back when it was subscription. Very fun game... in space. The ground part always felt needlessly tacked-on, drawn out, no strategy and annoying.

ImperatorPavel

on Jun 13, 2013

And the STO server is down. Again. For what it seems like the hundredth time this month.

That's when you find small programs that will check the server status for you. Saves the login to Steam (Unless you want to play Rebellion, of course.).

The day I hit 50, too...

Actually, I didn't skip "Divide et Impera," I just found that my ship blew up before the enemy ones did. So I canceled it, and skipped it. (I'm science.)

Commander, ISS Eradica (Mirror Universe Patrol Escort), ISS Raganarov (Mirror Universe Recon Science Vessel). Both named after Titans in Rebellion.

ImperatorPavel

on Jun 13, 2013

For those who have played STO...

What's your favorite misson/episode/PvE misson?

Personally, my favorite misson has to be Sh'mar. Basically, you defend a freighter from three waves of enemies. My favorite episode has to be "The_Doomsday_Device". Basically, you get to blow up The Doomsday Device from "The Doomsday Machine."

Yes, I know I'm replying to my own post. I thought this deserved a new one, though.

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