What does this button do?
There is, I suppose, three reasons why I would all too often start a new character when I came back to an MMO rather than continuing from where I left off. The first is that I've always liked the possibilities inherent in a new character. There's a sense that this time I'll do it right. It's an opportunity to revisit the early game, only with a better understanding of what I'm actually doing than I had the first time.
The second reason is that I'd forget where I'd got to, and how I'd got there. While a look at the active quest log would usually tell me what I was supposed to do next my recollection of what I'd done up to that point would often be hazy. 24 Hours In... helps with this. I don't write in detail about every quest I've run, but there's usually enough to remind me, in broad strokes, of the story so far.
The third and final reason is the big one, and it's what gave me pause before deciding to return to Star Trek Online this time around. Higher level characters are complicated, and it's very tempting when faced with multiple hotbars of abilities to retreat back to the comfort zone of the lower levels, where I only have a few skills to keep track of, and I'm facing similarly straightforward enemies.
This isn't something that's come up a lot since I started this blog. Of the games I've come back to so far (and on the same character) it's probably Dungeons & Dragons Online where I've spent the most time refreshing my memory on what my character can actually do. But DDO is a relatively slow paced and methodical game so there's not much pressure to get it all right straight away. I've also always taken the time to warm up on easier instances before venturing into anything more challenging, and I'll continue to do that. When I next return to DDO I'll definitely not be running straight back into Temple of Elemental Evil.
Star Trek Online is a bit different. The mission structure is very linear, so all I could really do was head in to whatever was up next and hope for the best. I suppose I could have gone back and replayed an earlier mission but I didn't, perhaps due to my reluctance to redo the same content on the same character.
Anyway, how bad could it be? Well, my first mission put me on the ground with only one bridge officer, rather than the usual full away team.
This actually worked out quite well. It's easy to lose track of what's going on in ground combat in among the beam spam and the particle effects, but this time I could focus on what my captain was bringing to the fight. I even brought my combat pet out. I did okay, considering I didn't notice I was running on Advanced difficulty. At least it did after a couple of defeats and some adjustmets to my keybinds.
My first space battle of this run, on the other hand, didn't go so smoothly. It was a one on one encounter with a Romulan D'deridex Warbird in a mission which I've since discovered is well known as marking a spike in the game's difficulty. In other words this was one of the worst possible missions to take on when I was still working out which key did what.
After being vaporised by plasma torpedoes a few times (I was going from 75% health to dead in a single volley) I lowered the difficulty back to Normal. After being vaporised another few times I redid my keybinds, trained my science officer in a new skill, reworked my hotbar layout, and changed my tactics.
(Which can be summed up as Don't Get Too Close - the Warbird's tractor beam had a relatively short range so I could stay away from it, and the further the torpedoes had to travel to hit me the better my chances were of being able to destroy them en route.)
That got me through the encounter, though I've now racked up as many defeats in the first four hours of this run as I did in the entirety of the last one. Still, I've always said that you learn a lot more from hard fights than from easy ones, so with any luck that battle with the D'deridex has set me up for whatever I'll run into during the rest of this run. It's certainly been an effective reminder that there's more to the combat in this game than just charging in with all guns blazing.
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