Okay, now for the problem. This is pretty much the shitstorm that's been raging nonstop since Delta Rising came out, if not earlier, going by the Tribble section of the forums.
Levelling.
You're familiar with the old routine, I'm guessing. Run a mission, you'll get enough xp to level, meaning you can access the next mission in the story chain with little problem. In fact, you can be confident of hitting 50 long before doing all the story content, which means you don't have to do the old missions in the Cardassian arc that haven't aged well, and instead can just play the fun ones. That still applies... until level 50. From 50 onwards, the xp requirements for each level go up CONSIDERABLY, and the mission rewards of the Delta Quadrant arc are nowhere near enough to cover it. Starting out with a character at level 50 that's done all the older content, if you're very lucky, you'll get enough xp from the missions with an entry requirement of 50 to reach 51. You will NOT get enough from the level 51 missions to reach 52, and the xp requirements get a lot bigger. The devs stated that you're supposed to run STFs to get the extra XP needed. It didn't help they decided to change a lot of the STFs around the launch of DR, leaving a number of them in a flawed state.
So. Run a story mission, two at some levels. Leave the story behind and run STFs. Lots and Lots of STFs. Replay older missions for 2,000 xp or so. Level. Do one or two story missions. Leave the story behind...
I have two characters at 60. One of them only reached 60 a month ago. Ops and Uni each have one, as far as I know. The grind to play the freaking story content was such that we ended up burning out on STO for a while and going to play the Old Republic.
And while this was going on, the Devs were nerfing XP rewards from various locations, claiming that xp rewards dating back years were bugged and not working as intended. They responded to players working out farming methods by dialling their characters back and locking out mission hubs in Tau Dewa to the point people not farming couldn't play republic characters at all, and going on the forums, reddit and twitter to essentially rant and blame the players for not playing the game properly. It was a PR disaster, one that's still ongoing. STO Reddit used to be well regarded for managing to keep the usual MMO forum nonsense to a dull roar (Anyone remember the dear old CoH forums?), but for several months, even that was was a firestorm of flames and chaos. After a recent XP nerf to the Duty Officer system that included the genius of several different devs taking the fight to twitter and blocking anyone that replied to them, it seems to have sunk into their skulls that the current XP method is not working, and they're claiming they're currently working to improve the experience for players.
Right now, damn near everyone has the opinion of 'I'll believe it when you actually do it.'
If you're the sort that runs STFs a lot, or enjoys the various adventure zones, you might be able to avoid some of these headaches. Probably not all though. I'd suggest trying the new Romulan storyarc that was implemented back in Feb. It replaces a lot of the old Romulan missions from the games launch, they're pretty decent, they give some new story notes, and you might get a level out of them.
Levelling.
You're familiar with the old routine, I'm guessing. Run a mission, you'll get enough xp to level, meaning you can access the next mission in the story chain with little problem. In fact, you can be confident of hitting 50 long before doing all the story content, which means you don't have to do the old missions in the Cardassian arc that haven't aged well, and instead can just play the fun ones. That still applies... until level 50. From 50 onwards, the xp requirements for each level go up CONSIDERABLY, and the mission rewards of the Delta Quadrant arc are nowhere near enough to cover it. Starting out with a character at level 50 that's done all the older content, if you're very lucky, you'll get enough xp from the missions with an entry requirement of 50 to reach 51. You will NOT get enough from the level 51 missions to reach 52, and the xp requirements get a lot bigger. The devs stated that you're supposed to run STFs to get the extra XP needed. It didn't help they decided to change a lot of the STFs around the launch of DR, leaving a number of them in a flawed state.
So. Run a story mission, two at some levels. Leave the story behind and run STFs. Lots and Lots of STFs. Replay older missions for 2,000 xp or so. Level. Do one or two story missions. Leave the story behind...
I have two characters at 60. One of them only reached 60 a month ago. Ops and Uni each have one, as far as I know. The grind to play the freaking story content was such that we ended up burning out on STO for a while and going to play the Old Republic.
And while this was going on, the Devs were nerfing XP rewards from various locations, claiming that xp rewards dating back years were bugged and not working as intended. They responded to players working out farming methods by dialling their characters back and locking out mission hubs in Tau Dewa to the point people not farming couldn't play republic characters at all, and going on the forums, reddit and twitter to essentially rant and blame the players for not playing the game properly. It was a PR disaster, one that's still ongoing. STO Reddit used to be well regarded for managing to keep the usual MMO forum nonsense to a dull roar (Anyone remember the dear old CoH forums?), but for several months, even that was was a firestorm of flames and chaos. After a recent XP nerf to the Duty Officer system that included the genius of several different devs taking the fight to twitter and blocking anyone that replied to them, it seems to have sunk into their skulls that the current XP method is not working, and they're claiming they're currently working to improve the experience for players.
Right now, damn near everyone has the opinion of 'I'll believe it when you actually do it.'
If you're the sort that runs STFs a lot, or enjoys the various adventure zones, you might be able to avoid some of these headaches. Probably not all though. I'd suggest trying the new Romulan storyarc that was implemented back in Feb. It replaces a lot of the old Romulan missions from the games launch, they're pretty decent, they give some new story notes, and you might get a level out of them.