[Suggestion] Ship Away Teams

villainvile

VileVillain wrote:

I hope in the near future we can use our buyed Ships in a Team for Episodes. Like the Away Team.
Not like the Carrier Pets oder Jem’Hadar Escort Pets.
We wish to equip them, like our Ships, and take them with us.

Xillahne wrote:

Oh, that's a brilliant idea! Having a ship away team on space missions would make it easier for players to complete it. I'll forward your suggestion for their review. I also encourage you to post your idea on the official game forums below so you can discuss them with other members of the community.

VileVillain wrote:

And the personal Traits, based on Teams, may be more usefull with Ship Away Teams.

Xillahne wrote:

I'll definitely add that and pass it to the appropriate team that has control of the game design. If you have any other concerns or queries, please let me know and I'd gladly assist you with it.

VileVillain wrote:

I (and i think most of the other players) use my ships as bank for Equipment or different builds/setups.
If we can use ship away teams, so the items and sets from episodes and reputations will be good used.
L40 Rear Admiral Lower Half = 1 ship on team
L45 Rear Admiral Upper Half = 2 ships on team
L50 Vice Admiral = 3 ships on team
L55 Admiral = 4 ships on team
L60 Fleet Admiral = captain abilty “Fleet Support” will be modified. Now one of our own (equipped) ships will warp in or one of our fleet members or friends.

Chroma wrote:

We appreciate the clarification about your feedback and suggestion. We highly appreciate your enthusiasm with providing us such detailed feedback that may help improve the game. Rest assured as we will forward your concern to the developers so they can review if there is a possibility to consider this change in the future.

VileVillain wrote:

One more Thing for the ship away Team: Is it possibly to get a 5th Bridge Officer as Captain?
He/She should be have an universal seat (5 traits) which can use every specialization at once, but no regular Traits (Sci, Tac, Eng).
Every ship with its own Equipment and Bridge Officers. A Dream.

Xillahne wrote:

All of your suggestions and feedback will be passed to the developers for review. I do hope that they will consider them and include them in the future game updates.

warpangel

somtaawkhar wrote: »

azrael605 wrote: »

That idea has been listed in possible upcoming stuff since season 5, in 2012. Not only are the Devs already aware of it it has been considered long ago.

IIRC, they mentioned that the Personal Endeavor system actually morphed out out ideas for having BOFFs be captains.

Didn't they say the same of Admiralty? I forget.

But yeah, old news anyway.

vetteguy904

the real quesion is why? unless you can use them to fill the queue for a TFO.. and then, do you really think the AI is good enough to run the TFO???

markhawkman

vetteguy904 wrote: »

the real quesion is why? unless you can use them to fill the queue for a TFO.. and then, do you really think the AI is good enough to run the TFO???

The best idea I've heard of was basically a way to customize fleet support.

warpangel

vetteguy904 wrote: »

the real quesion is why? unless you can use them to fill the queue for a TFO.. and then, do you really think the AI is good enough to run the TFO???

Given that most non-Elite queue missions are somewhere between "wins itself no matter what you do" and "just shoot whatever until you win," absolutely.

Most of them can easily be won alone, the only thing one even needs other players for is getting the thing to start in the first place. I for one would gladly do away with the waiting to run them alone, with or without AI teammates.

chipg7

Wasn't this the entire idea behind admiralty? We send doffs on away missions, and we send ships on missions as well.

Anything about actually seeing/using the ships as your own mini-squadron has been beaten to death as an idea.

villainvile

vetteguy904 wrote: »

the real quesion is why? unless you can use them to fill the queue for a TFO.. and then, do you really think the AI is good enough to run the TFO???

The idea was never, that the Ship Away Teams can be used for TFOs, only for Episodes.

chipg7

villainvile wrote: »

vetteguy904 wrote: »

the real quesion is why? unless you can use them to fill the queue for a TFO.. and then, do you really think the AI is good enough to run the TFO???

The idea was never, that the Ship Away Teams can be used for TFOs, only for Episodes.

I can see it being in episodes, but not anything dynamic. Like, there being a story element seeing our boffs take command of NPC ally ships, like we've seen in shows before. But I don't think there'd be any choice to it. It'd just be like "you first officer takes this ship" to give flavour to an NPC ally.

villainvile

The Bridge Officers, that you take in your Ship, are not the same, you take in your Ship Away Teams.
You have more Boffs, that a Player need, so you can use them for other Ships.

spiritborn

villainvile wrote: »

The Bridge Officers, that you take in your Ship, are not the same, you take in your Ship Away Teams.
You have more Boffs, that a Player need, so you can use them for other Ships.

Could you please clarify what you're meaning there?

The Boffs you use in your ship while in space maps can be the same boffs you use in your away team, they don't have to be but they also can be.

That said people's critizism seems less about the amount of boff and more "what would this add to the game to justify the dev time" adding stuff to the game will take resources that could be better used elsewhere and a thing like this wouldn't be a simple thing to add, so it would take a lot development time and money to impliment.

spiritborn

somtaawkhar wrote: »

I would have to question the effectiveness of BOFFs piloting other ships. Realistically, they wouldn't have access too
-Your captain powers
-Your captain traits
-Your reputation powers
-Your reputation traits
-The powers of your other BOFFs
-Any set item clickable power
They would just be the ship, the one BOFF, and whatever passives you have on the gear. Even if you gave them Mark 15 golds, I doubt they would manage to do as well as even the most casual player.

Not to mention the work that would be needed to create a whole new enemy scaling system for when using BOFF piloted ships in missions or TFOs.

And then there is the problem of the idea of letting you take BOFF piloted ships into TFO being counter-intuitive to the whole "its a MMO, you're supposed to play with other people" thing.

I think boffs have access to set bonus if you give them the whole set, the problem is that boffs are really inefficient at using the powers. (that's obviously assuming that boff ships would have access to gear).

They would not have access to the rest. It would basically be permanent fleet support, with your boffs being the sounds for the other ships with some set powers as extra skills at best.

So I must ask again, what would this add to the game to justify the development cost?

leemwatson

spiritborn wrote: »

somtaawkhar wrote: »

I would have to question the effectiveness of BOFFs piloting other ships. Realistically, they wouldn't have access too
-Your captain powers
-Your captain traits
-Your reputation powers
-Your reputation traits
-The powers of your other BOFFs
-Any set item clickable power
They would just be the ship, the one BOFF, and whatever passives you have on the gear. Even if you gave them Mark 15 golds, I doubt they would manage to do as well as even the most casual player.

Not to mention the work that would be needed to create a whole new enemy scaling system for when using BOFF piloted ships in missions or TFOs.

And then there is the problem of the idea of letting you take BOFF piloted ships into TFO being counter-intuitive to the whole "its a MMO, you're supposed to play with other people" thing.

I think boffs have access to set bonus if you give them the whole set, the problem is that boffs are really inefficient at using the powers. (that's obviously assuming that boff ships would have access to gear).

They would not have access to the rest. It would basically be permanent fleet support, with your boffs being the sounds for the other ships with some set powers as extra skills at best.

So I must ask again, what would this add to the game to justify the development cost?

Have to agree because the first complaint to hit the boards would be about how ineffective the AI is.

spiritborn

leemwatson wrote: »

spiritborn wrote: »

somtaawkhar wrote: »

I would have to question the effectiveness of BOFFs piloting other ships. Realistically, they wouldn't have access too
-Your captain powers
-Your captain traits
-Your reputation powers
-Your reputation traits
-The powers of your other BOFFs
-Any set item clickable power
They would just be the ship, the one BOFF, and whatever passives you have on the gear. Even if you gave them Mark 15 golds, I doubt they would manage to do as well as even the most casual player.

Not to mention the work that would be needed to create a whole new enemy scaling system for when using BOFF piloted ships in missions or TFOs.

And then there is the problem of the idea of letting you take BOFF piloted ships into TFO being counter-intuitive to the whole "its a MMO, you're supposed to play with other people" thing.

I think boffs have access to set bonus if you give them the whole set, the problem is that boffs are really inefficient at using the powers. (that's obviously assuming that boff ships would have access to gear).

They would not have access to the rest. It would basically be permanent fleet support, with your boffs being the sounds for the other ships with some set powers as extra skills at best.

So I must ask again, what would this add to the game to justify the development cost?

Have to agree because the first complaint to hit the boards would be about how ineffective the AI is.

yeah the NPC AI in STO is rather simplistic, it's not really an issue 99% of the time though.

spiritborn

somtaawkhar wrote: »

spiritborn wrote: »

So I must ask again, what would this add to the game to justify the development cost?

Little to nothing. A PVP revamp would be a better use of resources at this point.

That's why I'm asking the OP this, since at the moment I'm seeing nothing that would justify the development costs. So I left to wonder if there's something I'm missing here or is this just another suggestion that either doesn't get the realities of game development or just trying to pad their post count by making a suggestion they know is unviable.

We all have these "pie in the sky" wishes we'd want to be added to STO, but one should think if the suggestion is viable before suggesting it.

baddmoonrizin

Well, I believe this was one of the things mentioned during the livestream with the EP a couple of weeks ago as being considered for the BOFF revamp.

villainvile

spiritborn wrote: »

Could you please clarify what you're meaning there?
The Boffs you use in your ship while in space maps can be the same boffs you use in your away team, they don't have to be but they also can be.

If you use the same in space and on ground, it's not a problem. You couldn't play space and ground at the same time.
But you can't use the same bridge officers at the same time, at multiple ships in the same space.

somtaawkhar wrote: »

And then there is the problem of the idea of letting you take BOFF piloted ships into TFO being counter-intuitive to the whole "its a MMO, you're supposed to play with other people" thing.

There was NEVER the idea, that you can ship away teams take with you in TFOs.
Ship away teams are ONLY for Episodes (like Elite difficulty).

somtaawkhar wrote: »

I would have to question the effectiveness of BOFFs piloting other ships. Realistically, they wouldn't have access too

That's not correctly. Ground away teams can use the set item clickables. Also they share skills, doffs, traits, etc.. And the space version of it, should do it too.

somtaawkhar wrote: »

A PVP revamp would be a better use of resources at this point.

Cryptic said, that PvP was never a big part of STO. So it's not supported. It only was implemented, for a very little part of the community. It's useless to ask for a revamp.

spiritborn wrote: »

"pie in the sky"

Simply it's a modified ground away team system.
As you say, the AI is not good, but it could be revamped, as baddmoonrizin hinted.
But my bridge officers are doing well. They're not really stupid.

villainvile

somtaawkhar wrote: »

That makes it even less worthwhile of a feature to develop because most people don't replay episodes, or have much trouble getting through episodes right now to begin with.

I'll replay episodes every day. Most time of it, with other players.
Episodes do more fun then TFOs.

somtaawkhar wrote: »

This is incorrect. BOFFs cannot use ground set item clickables, only passive ones. They can use devices like hyposprays, and the Borg frequency modulators, but not set item clickables.

That's not correct. My Boffs can use the clickables.

somtaawkhar wrote: »

It would be more useful then a BOFF away team you can only use in missions.

I don't think so. And most of my friends and fleet mates, too.

warpangel

Let's face it, boffships being effective in combat was never a question. The game is already a piece of cake without them. But like the ground away teams, they would be fun to play with and thematically appropriate what with our being admirals and stuff. And being able to collect ship XP for 5 ships at once would even be of practical use, at least for players who have lots of ships to trait.

It would be a reason to acquire additional ships, gear to equip them, boffs to crew them and slots to keep it all in (a 5-ship fleet would take 25 boff slots, 29 if you also need one extra to be the captain). Meaning sales.

I do have to agree that making them episode-only would spoil much of the fun, since you couldn't show your fleet to other players. Again, a condition shared with the ground away teams, though at least those you can show some in adventure zones.

And with or without boffships, I think people should be allowed to start (private) queues alone or with a short team if they want.

duasyn

Always thought being able to use a team of ships you have in your garage for missions would be a great thing. Especially if they modified old TFOs 'no one does anymore' into single player missions in the story arcs. I assume the Away Team ships would probably have pre-set loadouts but still it'd be cool to bring your entire Breen fleet to a battle, for example.

warpangel

duasyn wrote: »

Always thought being able to use a team of ships you have in your garage for missions would be a great thing. Especially if they modified old TFOs 'no one does anymore' into single player missions in the story arcs. I assume the Away Team ships would probably have pre-set loadouts but still it'd be cool to bring your entire Breen fleet to a battle, for example.

You used to be able to do those alone before the queue UI revamp.

villainvile

warpangel wrote: »

But like the ground away teams, they would be fun to play with and thematically appropriate what with our being admirals and stuff.

I'm admiral and i can command ... nothing.
The admiralty system is not the same, as commanding real ships. Right?

warpangel wrote: »

And being able to collect ship XP for 5 ships at once would even be of practical use, at least for players who have lots of ships to trait.

Point.

warpangel wrote: »

It would be a reason to acquire additional ships, gear to equip them, boffs to crew them and slots to keep it all in (a 5-ship fleet would take 25 boff slots, 29 if you also need one extra to be the captain). Meaning sales.

It sells.
It sells a lot.
Because almost everyone has more then one character.

warpangel wrote: »

I do have to agree that making them episode-only would spoil much of the fun, since you couldn't show your fleet to other players. Again, a condition shared with the ground away teams, though at least those you can show some in adventure zones.

Sure. To show a fleet is a good idea.
And i'm using my ships as a bank, because my characters bank and inventory are full.

warpangel wrote: »

And with or without boffships, I think people should be allowed to start (private) queues alone or with a short team if they want.

Should be possible.

foxman00

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