The problem with grinding in STO is that we do the same small selection of content over and over while seeing no appreciable difference between Ensign and Vice Admiral.

Mission Types (even most story missions boil down to this):
- Scan 5 things
- Kill 5 to 6 things
- Kill 4 things while scanning 4 things
- Replicate supplies for a colony


Static Game Aspects from Ensign to Vice Admiral:
- Enemy levels: They scale, so everything is equally difficult or easy.
- Locations: Essentially randomly generated. They will be equally bland/interesting.
- Ships: They are a part of your character and can define the character to an extent, but once you pick a type, you are mostly just getting more of the same with each tier.
- Bridge Officers: More of the same.
- Equipment: Exact same equipment you could use at Ensign, but the numbers have been increased for a VA.

So your rewards from doing the above grinding are essentially imperceptible. Once you get out of the Miranda, things feel fun and you keep working for more, thinking it will get better. Eventually you realize that the game at Lieutenant Commander is the same as Vice Admiral.

We call it grind because the actions have no substance and the destination has no real appeal.

this is how i feel. im in no way shap or for a hardcore gamer (with this game atleast).
i made a new character a month ago and leveled it to capt 1. it was not fun to have mk3-5 when your a commander. and i got those of the market. i couldnt not afford any thing from the dilith store. i did the unknown zones for 1500 delith and went to st acd, for the 450 dilith. but after i did this a few timesi found it wasnt fun.
why because the dilith store is way to high. and the "normal" store only sells odd mks. i understand the level prossess wont be this fast. however it does not negate my complait that almost everything is dilith based.

double post

No one has to grind actually - of course without dilithium one cannot optain the 100% perfect gear (apart from the STFs, but one could argue you need very good gear to complete them) - but drops, mission rewards and EC vendors (plus Exchange) should give you equipment that can be worked with.

If you want any kind of decent gear you will have to do alot of grinding, any any body saying grinding isnt that bad on this game hasnt played it very much, like stf gear your gonna have to run them about 180 times for the borg elite gear , ground and space per character and thats for the weaker mk x stuff, and people like myself are going to have to run it alot more then that cause of us helping fleet mates out to get there gear, then you add in my 7 toons , it makes it way too grindy,

are YOU listening? they don't give a rats *** what you want.....it's a take it or leave it situation. Sadly i think more then a small portion of us will leave it.

Grinding is doing the same things over and over to achieve a goal. Technically, every game has it.

However, STO is quickly becoming a grindfest. Everything you do will be directed by how much you want to grind, or how much money you want to spend.

I don't mind a little grinding, but I'd rather see the skillpoint gain cut in half than have to do the new grinds being added.

I may be one of those who leaves STO as well if this keeps up.

My idea of fun is not logging in everyday to do the same few mission for the same reward, it's surely not when I am pretty much forced to do it so that I can compete in the game.

There is a reason I don't play Perfect World, it's a grind. Western gamers dislike grinds, and I have seen Pefect World interviews that shows PW clearly knows this.

I don't think it's PW making STO this way, it's Cryptic. They need to change their ways...and fast.

i dont even grind now on holodeck and dont plan to when this goes f2p. I have grinded for years in other MMO's, i dont plan on doing it more here. All i'll probably do is play with my DOFF's and do the History daily down on SFA.

nobody likes grinding, yet i bet tons of people do it anyway.

its one of those things that games put in to increase its life cycle because players do it anyway despite not liking it.

they cant add new content at the rate players want so you need something to occupy your time and that means playing repeatable content to get the gear. all people do with this gear when they get it is go play the very same content they complain about repeating because there is no new content anyway.

maybe if there was new content all the time or some of that actually required this high end gear it might mean grinding was not needed. at the moment it is to give players something to focus on completing.

that is the absolute maximum. the gear also comes on random drops. you could technically pick up all 3 pieces in your first 3 stf's if you were amazingly lucky. the stf weekends will double drop rates as well.