1) Its too late to making sweeping changes like this, please don't make them, it will anger the player base.
2) I agree with the idea in principle and believe the game should have been like this since day 1, tac in an escort, eng in a cruiser, sci in a sci. Differences between each character makes them unique. As of right now basicaly every character regardless of class is the same with very small differences. I have always thought not restricitng classes to ships was odd. That being said, look my first point its too late to do this.
3) Never mind point 3, somehow I had always thought Kirk was a helmsman but a little reading and a little watching proves he was a tactical officer. I wonder where I got that crazy idea 25 years ago and what kept perpetuating it?
The concept of "roles" is sound as you describe it, but personally I've never been fond of restricted roles. I like emphasis to give different characters different overarching strengths, but not restriction. By allowing mix-n-match, there is more variety and customizability which enhances gameplay.
Also, as noted, "canon" definitely supports mixing classes and ships: Picard (sci/cruiser) and Kirk (tac/cruiser) are prime examples.
That said, I know one of the main drawbacks for my wife is the complexity of the skill tree. She's not as much of a "tech"-oriented player as I am. She's more of a fantasy fan; I'm pretty evenly split between fantasy and sci-fi (lifetimers in LOTRO and now in STO have bases covered ). However, simply restricting ship class might not accomplish much in that regard because I think it's one of the easier to understand portions of the tree.
That doesn't fit the Trek genre though. If you were to use this pigeonholing of class to ship, Sisko should have been commanding the Enterprise while Picard and Janeway fought over Voyager and Kirk captained the Defiant.
What the game currently allows is variety and that IMO is a good thing.
Sisko was not a tactical officer, Kirk was not a tactical officer, Picard and Janeway, not science officers.
They were all command officers.
However there is no such thing in this game.
I guess what it comes down to is that this game is not Star Trek. Its Star Trek Online.
That said, I know one of the main drawbacks for my wife is the complexity of the skill tree.
this is a good point, the skill tree is a complex web of complex complexness. it could be so much easier to understand and follow.
if they are going to overhaul something, overhaul the tree structure itself so people can very quickly and easily identify what points go where, what skills they change and what advantages they provide when you click on them.
the ability to freely chose the ship and class that fits your playstyle is something that should be left to the player and not set by an game mechanic.
Insted we should go the other way.
getting the lower tier ships into the higher tiers, so we can get a broader mix of ships at end game.
And that's why the scientific orientated Picard ended up commanding cruisers or the more Sisko (who said he'd only wanted to design starships) ended up commanding an escort....
Also don't forget Kirk, Spock(which he did take command when Kirk was mia afew times), & also Data got command of a starship for a short time(an he's was not a Tactical officer). Plus Riker got temporary field promotion to captain by Adm. Hanson during Borg crisis. And I think Riker was a tactical officer.
I agree with the OP, no to restricting a captain/player to a certain ship type. I've been playing a tac/cruiser since launch & back in Open Beta a engineer/escort. Think about it, if Cryptic did put a restriction. Then they have to make a Light Escort, & Light Science, because not changing Lt. on having a Light Cruiser around would not make sense to new players or even vet players too. All in all bad idea.
If you hate on the idea, then you are banned from canon arguments,
You don't chose what you want to fly in Starfleet unlike what have now. You're a Tac, Starfleet offers you a tac ship or you stay 2nd officer.
I'm assuming this was a tongue-in-cheek statement since canon clearly indicates mixing classes and ship types is part of Star Trek lore.
Picard was a Science officer, not an Engineer, and became a cruiser commander. Kirk was most likely Tactical and commanded a Cruiser (less defined).
From a character-type standpoint, I lean toward Tactical. But my favorite ships are Cruisers. I currently only have one character that does not match class/ship (I have no alts, but do have lots of mains ), but that one is a Tac/Cruiser captain.
Since canon easily supports such diversity, I would be comfortable participating in canon arguments, in spite of disagreeing with the idea.
Cryptic always says they are so proud of their customization abilities, and this restriction would be the opposite.
Splitting Ground and Space... maybe.
Make less T5 shipskills... ok.
A skill tree UI overhaul... yes please this is really something which needs to be done and has been a problem for over a year now.
The career to ship isn't a good idea at all. I have heard plenty say they love the freedom to choose what class ship to fly. I think most fly what their class ship is, but I don't think many would like this idea.
I do however think the split of the skill system is necessary. You have a lot of people who ignore putting points in ground combat then say it sucks. It takes to long and is repetitive. There are a lot of skills in the skill tree players can do without in space combat, but put their points in them instead of putting points in ground.
I fully spec'ed one tactical officer space and one ground, both to fly escorts. I spec'ed the ground tactical officer and maxed his skills to the fire team kit. Except grenade and ambush with highest tier in target optics.
The space spec'ed tactical officer I put every point in space skills.
I did just as well with the ground spec'ed character in space PVP. I quit playing the space character.
So I don't think players should be able to ignore putting points into ground. Because all of the weeklies and STF's have some ground combat in them. The quest leveling has ground combat also.
I think if there was a Star Fleet people who served on star ships would have to have some sort of ground training.
Players can still choose to skip the ground missions in explorer quest. Skip ground PVP, ground fleet actions and STF's if they want.
Glad to see a thread on this topic. There have been some interesting discussions internally about the ship/class restrictions. Intrigued to see more of your input.
I am with the OP, I started with a Joined Trill Tac in a Science ship becasue I wanted to at Rear Admiral fly the Nebula...
My Borg Eng is in Escorts because I thought a Borg in a Defient was cool...
And my Ferengi Science is in Cruisers because he makes first contact and brokers deals and needs the cargo room...
All my Fed Captions are in non class ships because of an Idea I had for there back ground, do not remove the idea that I can make choices basied on story...
I'm sorry if I repeat anything that's been said, but I unfortunately don't have time today to read 10 pages of posts.
I am not in favor of restricting captains to their class of ship until Admiral level. I agree it would make learning with your first captain smoother for new players, but if they then wanted to switch they'd suddenly be at admiral level with no idea how to use this new kind of ship they get.
Another reason I'm against it is the simple fact that I now have 4 VA characters, a sci in a sci, tac in an escort, engi in a cruiser, and a sci in a cruiser. I'm now working on a tac in a cruiser and so on. I'm surely not the only one who only has the less common combinations to level up. I wouldn't want my second tac to suddenly be forced to use only tac ships until Admiral level - I've already done that. I want to play around with the strengths/weaknesses of a tac in a cruiser, then a sci in an escort. It takes me from lt. to about captain to get the feel for a given combination, even when its science in science.
One thing I do support is making it possible to fly more than one kind of ship without the need for respecing, especially since you stop getting free tokens at max level.
I like the idea of separating ground and space trees.
I also like the idea of taking all those weapon type skills and making them cost the same. This would break the stranglehold phasers and disruptors have on the player base and generally spice things up.
I'd actually go so far as to separate the command skills from the rest too. I mean, I don't know of anyone who would regularly fly around in a science ship without the necessary points in science vessels, so why not pull that out and make it less optional? Make it so that at level cap you have enough points to max out 2 kinds of ships in the same branch or have enough to put seven points or so in 2 different branches altogether.
So final proposal: 3 completely separate branches of skills: Ground, Space, and Ship Command
Leave the types of weapons at the same tier they are now, but reduce the cost of each to be the same.
Make it possible to fly more than 1 kind of ship without gimping ourselves in other areas.
Sisko was not a tactical officer, Kirk was not a tactical officer, Picard and Janeway, not science officers.
They were all command officers.
However there is no such thing in this game.
I guess what it comes down to is that this game is not Star Trek. Its Star Trek Online.
According to the TNG series, Picard was a Science officer who became a command officer. Yes, they were Command officers -- with specialties.
I think that's what the Tac/Eng/Sci captains are supposed to represent in-game. You are a Captain (Command officer), but here is your specialty (Tac/Eng/Sci background).
It fits the Star Trek theme fairly well, to a certain extent.
What's lacking is the ability to assign helm (Paris), navigation (Sulu), OPs (Data), and so forth to specific Boffs. Maybe the Duty Officer system will help in this area.
Sure I've leveled up a tac/escort, sci/sci, and eng/cruiser but after that I went back to play mixtures. But if they kill the ability to mix and match, then they may as well take the extra character slots off the C-Store because who would bother playing more than 6 characters - 3 Fed and 3 KDF. And if someone does one side exclusively then they would only need 3 slots.
Do NOT do this unless you are really trying hard to kill the game. Oh wait.... F2P like CO? I guess that's step 1. Make it so the player base would sub so they could mix and match like CO is pay to do free form.
Nice. F2P is coming sooner than we thought I guess.
You've done very well so far, Dan. Please do not start to make stupid mistakes now like tying your players hands instead of untying them.
There is another MMO out there that did that. It's called Star Wars Galaxies, and its developer has been concidered a pox in the overall MMO community since. You reduce the freedom of choice your subscribers have, then you will invarriably reduce the number of subscribers you have.
But dont give the players so much choice that you'll never be able to produce enough content to keep up with the many decisions that can be made.
Frankly, I think that where we are at now isnt really that bad. What I think is needed most is more focus on more missions with branching objectives based on our class. So our division means more than just what stats we have and what color our default uniform is... If I am playing a Tactical officer, I would like my mission objectives to be more tactical-oriented. What ship I fly maybe could gain some abilities if my class is more suited to it, but restricting my choices...
Sisko was not a tactical officer, Kirk was not a tactical officer, Picard and Janeway, not science officers.
Sorry, but you are completely and totally wrong.
Janeway served aboard the U.S.S. Al-Batani as Science Officer. Picard was a respected Archaeologist... a Science background. Sisko was stationed at Utopia Planitia where he helped design the U.S.S. Defiant, which he would later command at Deep Space 9. There were also a few episodes where you find he was more interested in engineering and ship design than command early in his career. There is no question that Kirk was a Tactical officer. His first deep space assignment aboard the U.S.S. Farragut was as Tactical officer.
I guess what it comes down to is that this game is not Star Trek. Its Star Trek Online.
STAR TREK is the first part of Star Trek Online. This isn't Star Trek In Name Only Online. Having various kinds of officers able to command whatever ship they feel like is fitting to the genre and the IP.
I agree whole-heartedly that this is not the way to go.
If simplifying the skill tree is really necessary, then use the character creator (tailor) as an example of how to fix it. Have a simplified pre-configured options and then the option to choose an advanced configuration to put points in a specific trait.
I for one would always use the advanced selection, but this might be the answer you are looking for to help with new players.
it would take away some of the freedom, sure, and i certainly like the ability to do whatever the F i want...
but in the end it is the GAMEDESIGNER's choice and if he says that he wants to streamline the experience to take away some of the confusion for new Players (which certainly exists), then i'm cool with that too.
...i most certainly support the idea of seperated ground and space skills.
no more excuses to suck at ground combat because you only care about space!
and get rid of the limiting Kit's while your at it, i want to be able to create my own custom ground build and the Kit's force me to stay in one certain premade role.
Also i would be able to have at least one or two self healing abilities no matter what type of char i play, beyond hypo sprays. It is realy annoying if you switch from Playing with your BOffs to playing without them and suddenly you notice that you can't survive without your EMH if no other player cares to heal you... (and why should they if Fleetactions are competetive instead of cooperative and if it is all about DPS who get's the loot in the end).
I do think that the skills system could use a reworking or a few tweaks. The most glaring problems that I have with it are:
Too many VA ship skills;
Ship weapon tier price disparities;
Space and Ground skills lumped into the same pool.
I think the first issue would be the easiest to solve. Simply consolidate some of the skills together; i.e. all cruisers into one skill.
The second could just have the ship weapons unlock at particular tiers but cost the same regardless of the tier it is in. This would still represent that they are weapons that require more advance knowledge to use, but wouldn't make them less cost efficient than phasers and distruptors.
The last would be much more challenging to change and I don't really have an idea how it could be done without a knowledge of they system's data and coding structure.
One thing that I am not in favor of is limiting player class to ship type. The shows and books certainly didn't follow that line of reasoning. Riker's first ship was a Luna class for example. I don't think such a restriction would be a good direction for the game as a whole. It would remove players' customization choices which is a Cryptic hallmark.
I do like the idea of there being a "Command" tier of skills representing that our captains are no longer truly Science, Tactical, or Engineering specialists any longer. This tier could have skills such as the Tactics and Maneuvers skills which were added a few months back. The "team" skills and piloting skills might fit in the tier as well as they represent more command oriented training.
I believe it was Stormshade who made the comment that one of Cryptics identifying characteristics is the amount of customization that your games provide. I've played tac/cruiser pretty much since Open Beta and would not have found the "restriction" of being forced into an escort enjoyable. Everyone has their "favorite" ship and putting players in the role of an engineer just so they can fly the "Enterprise" would not be a positive change for the game.
I think there can be improvements made to the skillpoint system, however I feel those improvements should be more about simplifying the skillpoint system, not restricting players in which ship they can use.
agree with this and the OP, while the skill tree could use a bit of trimming at admiral levels (3 skills for one ship type is just annoying, if i want to swap between an assault and a refit it costs 3000 merits and is a pain in the rear) taking away player choice in a game that touts it's customization does not strike me as a wise move, let alone one the majority of players would want. as for dividing points between ground and space, the idea has potential but it'll be a fine line to walk getting the amount of points for ground and the amount of points available for space worked out. But I have to admit it would be nice not to have to give up capability in space pvp to spec into some ground skills for STFs.
2) I agree with the idea in principle and believe the game should have been like this since day 1, tac in an escort, eng in a cruiser, sci in a sci. Differences between each character makes them unique. As of right now basicaly every character regardless of class is the same with very small differences. I have always thought not restricitng classes to ships was odd. That being said, look my first point its too late to do this.
You say that differences make characters unique but you also say that you would have preferred it if characters of the same class couldn't fly different ships, which makes them more similar?:eek:
Sisko was not a tactical officer, Kirk was not a tactical officer, Picard and Janeway, not science officers.
They were all command officers.
However there is no such thing in this game.
Sisko was an engineer, Kirk was a tactical officer, Picard and Janeway were science officers. Before going into the command branch. All our characters become command officers the moment Quinn gives us permanent command of our starter ship, but they are still heavily influenced by where they come from.
I do however think the split of the skill system is necessary. You have a lot of people who ignore putting points in ground combat then say it sucks. It takes to long and is repetitive. There are a lot of skills in the skill tree players can do without in space combat, but put their points in them instead of putting points in ground.
I fully spec'ed one tactical officer space and one ground, both to fly escorts. I spec'ed the ground tactical officer and maxed his skills to the fire team kit. Except grenade and ambush with highest tier in target optics.
The space spec'ed tactical officer I put every point in space skills.
I did just as well with the ground spec'ed character in space PVP. I quit playing the space character.
Wouldn't it be a better fix if they made both skill groups equally viable so that would force people to spread their skill points?
Glad to see a thread on this topic. There have been some interesting discussions internally about the ship/class restrictions. Intrigued to see more of your input.
I don't have time to read this whoe thread yet, but I will, and plan to add more in the way of thoughts/suggestions... But I'll subscribe and start by saying that I'm strongly against restricting characters to any given ship type based on class, or anything else for that matter.
Yeah, I'm in with the "no" crowd here. I don't post much... hell, I think I've posted twice on the forums and I've been playing pretty steadily since the good old days of Beta (you though the emergency queue was bad? we had a mandatory queue and limited game time. I felt like a zombie pounding on a fat guy's door trying to play this during beta!) and I am amazed at how far the game has progressed! Everything from simple balance tweaks to the incredible mission quality, the game is fantastic and engaging. I used to play Star Wars Galaxies back in its glory days, back before vehicles and space combat, up until they brought in the New Game Experience. What did that do? Totally removed a player's ability to full customize their character's abilities. (well, that and totally made the game a totally different game... and that STUPID card game... ugh).
STO gives me that old school SWG feeling. Yes, granted, I can't make a captain that can dabble in science, engineering and tactical abilities, I get that, however I CAN choose what I want to specialize in and the style of ship I want to fly. In STO, a player's ship is an extension of their captain and yet another form of character customization, something that Cryptic prides themselves on. Not only that, it would make PVP stagnant. I don't PVP often and the last time I did I was using my friend's high level klingon just to get an idea of what it was like, and I'll admit, I never, ever would roll a science captain and use an Escort. I was caught completely off guard when a Defiant class used photonic fleet.
With all that said, I do have one idea that might make sense: new ships that ARE class specific or universal class ships. Just a for an example, let's make the Nebula class universal. As a science captain, it's abilities stay as they are now; as an Engineering captain, it has a new ability, say either an AOE shield or hull heal and a tactical captain would have either an offense or defense buff. For class specific, I can't think of a good engineering example, but with science and tactical, we do have two in game ships that would fit my idea well: the D'Kyr and Dreadnought Galaxy: each has an ability not found on any other Federation ship. The D'Kyr with it's healing drone for Science vessels and the Galaxy X with it's spinal phaser lance for Tactical.
Ok, so, now i'm just ranting so here's the tl;dr answer:
no to making ALL ships class specific, maybe to making some class specific, yes to making Universal ships
Ya Im against forcing people into particular ships. outside of my first toon I leveled everything so far in an escort and even the first toon was a tac in a science so that wouldn't have worked either.
I do put points into ground combat skills normally since it makes it go faster having a separate set of points to use would be nice for that.
I would love to see a way were I could fly more then one type of ship on a single toon. separating out the skill trees would help. The game still gets somewhat unwieldy when it comes to setting up ships you have to make sure your own skills are right your bos skills are right and your ships bits are right and all these things tend to change once you change ships. it can still be done for the most part bo skill points are not to hard to come by and ship bits can be moved around your toons skill point are another matter for the most part since respecing is less an encouraged in sto. Some way to stream line the whole process would be nice.
Why not divorce the skills from their ties to specific ship classes?
Make them more general skills related to play style. One could improve speed and maneuverability, another could hull strength and healing, etc. This would allow us to support the play style we are aiming for in whatever ship suits our fancy.
The newer attack skills that were added a few months ago are a good example of this.
Why not divorce the skills from their ties to specific ship classes?
Make them more general skills related to play style. One could improve speed and maneuverability, another could hull strength and healing, etc. This would allow us to support the play style we are aiming for in whatever ship suits our fancy.
The newer attack skills that were added a few months ago are a good example of this.
I really like this idea, anything to help get away from the Engineering, Science, Cruiser mess is a plus.
Completely agree with the topic title. Please do not under any circumstances implement this absolutely horrible idea Cryptic. The skill tree system needs alot of work IMO, but this is not the way to try and fix it.
At character creation you chose tac/eng/sci which is what you learned on the academy, your basic orientation so to speak.
After you get your own ship officialy, you get transfered into the Command branch.
And open up the skills, let us learn any skill we want, but make our orientation based skills cheaper, or the other more expensive.
Ditch the skill point cap, but instead make learning skills more amd more expensive as we raise them.
Ditch the specific captain skills that we get automaticly, let us learn and ear them through the skills we acually chose to learn as captains.
Ditch the multiple versions of the same skills, the 1,2 and 3 rnaks. make them one skill. and change the BO stations to give a bonus to skills used by the BOs so for exampel a beamoverload used on a ensign station is less effective then a beamoverload used on a comander station.
Make all stations universal. but require to have one of each branch on duty.
Add a helm station for all the fancy flying skills.
Rename to consoles to facilities, the name console just sounds wrong, armor console? rename them
Tactical, engineering and science facilities sound better to me.
I like your general ideas here for the most part. This fits alot closer to Cryptic's original no skill cap skill tree design.
Heh things havnt changed much have they. Almost everyone is against restricting ships, myself included. I'm still for encouragement of some kind, but apart from that...nah. Still think the crew system or including "Command" class/skills could help resolve this... but that's another topic
Comments
the man has an excellent point here.
The concept of "roles" is sound as you describe it, but personally I've never been fond of restricted roles. I like emphasis to give different characters different overarching strengths, but not restriction. By allowing mix-n-match, there is more variety and customizability which enhances gameplay.
Also, as noted, "canon" definitely supports mixing classes and ships: Picard (sci/cruiser) and Kirk (tac/cruiser) are prime examples.
That said, I know one of the main drawbacks for my wife is the complexity of the skill tree. She's not as much of a "tech"-oriented player as I am. She's more of a fantasy fan; I'm pretty evenly split between fantasy and sci-fi (lifetimers in LOTRO and now in STO have bases covered
Sisko was not a tactical officer, Kirk was not a tactical officer, Picard and Janeway, not science officers.
They were all command officers.
However there is no such thing in this game.
I guess what it comes down to is that this game is not Star Trek. Its Star Trek Online.
this is a good point, the skill tree is a complex web of complex complexness. it could be so much easier to understand and follow.
if they are going to overhaul something, overhaul the tree structure itself so people can very quickly and easily identify what points go where, what skills they change and what advantages they provide when you click on them.
the ability to freely chose the ship and class that fits your playstyle is something that should be left to the player and not set by an game mechanic.
Insted we should go the other way.
getting the lower tier ships into the higher tiers, so we can get a broader mix of ships at end game.
the vulcan ship is a good start.
But STO is base off of Star Trek canon. Yes they were command officers, but their backgrounds traits/skills(from Ensign-LTC.) were different.
Also don't forget Kirk, Spock(which he did take command when Kirk was mia afew times), & also Data got command of a starship for a short time(an he's was not a Tactical officer). Plus Riker got temporary field promotion to captain by Adm. Hanson during Borg crisis. And I think Riker was a tactical officer.
I agree with the OP, no to restricting a captain/player to a certain ship type. I've been playing a tac/cruiser since launch & back in Open Beta a engineer/escort. Think about it, if Cryptic did put a restriction. Then they have to make a Light Escort, & Light Science, because not changing Lt. on having a Light Cruiser around would not make sense to new players or even vet players too. All in all bad idea.
I'm assuming this was a tongue-in-cheek statement since canon clearly indicates mixing classes and ship types is part of Star Trek lore.
Picard was a Science officer, not an Engineer, and became a cruiser commander. Kirk was most likely Tactical and commanded a Cruiser (less defined).
From a character-type standpoint, I lean toward Tactical. But my favorite ships are Cruisers. I currently only have one character that does not match class/ship (I have no alts, but do have lots of mains
Since canon easily supports such diversity, I would be comfortable participating in canon arguments, in spite of disagreeing with the idea.
Cryptic always says they are so proud of their customization abilities, and this restriction would be the opposite.
Splitting Ground and Space... maybe.
Make less T5 shipskills... ok.
A skill tree UI overhaul... yes please this is really something which needs to be done and has been a problem for over a year now.
I do however think the split of the skill system is necessary. You have a lot of people who ignore putting points in ground combat then say it sucks. It takes to long and is repetitive. There are a lot of skills in the skill tree players can do without in space combat, but put their points in them instead of putting points in ground.
I fully spec'ed one tactical officer space and one ground, both to fly escorts. I spec'ed the ground tactical officer and maxed his skills to the fire team kit. Except grenade and ambush with highest tier in target optics.
The space spec'ed tactical officer I put every point in space skills.
I did just as well with the ground spec'ed character in space PVP. I quit playing the space character.
So I don't think players should be able to ignore putting points into ground. Because all of the weeklies and STF's have some ground combat in them. The quest leveling has ground combat also.
I think if there was a Star Fleet people who served on star ships would have to have some sort of ground training.
Players can still choose to skip the ground missions in explorer quest. Skip ground PVP, ground fleet actions and STF's if they want.
I am with the OP, I started with a Joined Trill Tac in a Science ship becasue I wanted to at Rear Admiral fly the Nebula...
My Borg Eng is in Escorts because I thought a Borg in a Defient was cool...
And my Ferengi Science is in Cruisers because he makes first contact and brokers deals and needs the cargo room...
All my Fed Captions are in non class ships because of an Idea I had for there back ground, do not remove the idea that I can make choices basied on story...
Crazey Wayne
I am not in favor of restricting captains to their class of ship until Admiral level. I agree it would make learning with your first captain smoother for new players, but if they then wanted to switch they'd suddenly be at admiral level with no idea how to use this new kind of ship they get.
Another reason I'm against it is the simple fact that I now have 4 VA characters, a sci in a sci, tac in an escort, engi in a cruiser, and a sci in a cruiser. I'm now working on a tac in a cruiser and so on. I'm surely not the only one who only has the less common combinations to level up. I wouldn't want my second tac to suddenly be forced to use only tac ships until Admiral level - I've already done that. I want to play around with the strengths/weaknesses of a tac in a cruiser, then a sci in an escort. It takes me from lt. to about captain to get the feel for a given combination, even when its science in science.
One thing I do support is making it possible to fly more than one kind of ship without the need for respecing, especially since you stop getting free tokens at max level.
I like the idea of separating ground and space trees.
I also like the idea of taking all those weapon type skills and making them cost the same. This would break the stranglehold phasers and disruptors have on the player base and generally spice things up.
I'd actually go so far as to separate the command skills from the rest too. I mean, I don't know of anyone who would regularly fly around in a science ship without the necessary points in science vessels, so why not pull that out and make it less optional? Make it so that at level cap you have enough points to max out 2 kinds of ships in the same branch or have enough to put seven points or so in 2 different branches altogether.
So final proposal: 3 completely separate branches of skills: Ground, Space, and Ship Command
Leave the types of weapons at the same tier they are now, but reduce the cost of each to be the same.
Make it possible to fly more than 1 kind of ship without gimping ourselves in other areas.
According to the TNG series, Picard was a Science officer who became a command officer. Yes, they were Command officers -- with specialties.
I think that's what the Tac/Eng/Sci captains are supposed to represent in-game. You are a Captain (Command officer), but here is your specialty (Tac/Eng/Sci background).
It fits the Star Trek theme fairly well, to a certain extent.
What's lacking is the ability to assign helm (Paris), navigation (Sulu), OPs (Data), and so forth to specific Boffs. Maybe the Duty Officer system will help in this area.
Sure I've leveled up a tac/escort, sci/sci, and eng/cruiser but after that I went back to play mixtures. But if they kill the ability to mix and match, then they may as well take the extra character slots off the C-Store because who would bother playing more than 6 characters - 3 Fed and 3 KDF. And if someone does one side exclusively then they would only need 3 slots.
Do NOT do this unless you are really trying hard to kill the game. Oh wait.... F2P like CO? I guess that's step 1. Make it so the player base would sub so they could mix and match like CO is pay to do free form.
Nice. F2P is coming sooner than we thought I guess.
There is another MMO out there that did that. It's called Star Wars Galaxies, and its developer has been concidered a pox in the overall MMO community since. You reduce the freedom of choice your subscribers have, then you will invarriably reduce the number of subscribers you have.
But dont give the players so much choice that you'll never be able to produce enough content to keep up with the many decisions that can be made.
Frankly, I think that where we are at now isnt really that bad. What I think is needed most is more focus on more missions with branching objectives based on our class. So our division means more than just what stats we have and what color our default uniform is... If I am playing a Tactical officer, I would like my mission objectives to be more tactical-oriented. What ship I fly maybe could gain some abilities if my class is more suited to it, but restricting my choices...
No.
Sorry, but you are completely and totally wrong.
Janeway served aboard the U.S.S. Al-Batani as Science Officer. Picard was a respected Archaeologist... a Science background. Sisko was stationed at Utopia Planitia where he helped design the U.S.S. Defiant, which he would later command at Deep Space 9. There were also a few episodes where you find he was more interested in engineering and ship design than command early in his career. There is no question that Kirk was a Tactical officer. His first deep space assignment aboard the U.S.S. Farragut was as Tactical officer.
STAR TREK is the first part of Star Trek Online. This isn't Star Trek In Name Only Online. Having various kinds of officers able to command whatever ship they feel like is fitting to the genre and the IP.
If simplifying the skill tree is really necessary, then use the character creator (tailor) as an example of how to fix it. Have a simplified pre-configured options and then the option to choose an advanced configuration to put points in a specific trait.
I for one would always use the advanced selection, but this might be the answer you are looking for to help with new players.
not sure about this...
it would take away some of the freedom, sure, and i certainly like the ability to do whatever the F i want...
but in the end it is the GAMEDESIGNER's choice and if he says that he wants to streamline the experience to take away some of the confusion for new Players (which certainly exists), then i'm cool with that too.
...i most certainly support the idea of seperated ground and space skills.
no more excuses to suck at ground combat because you only care about space!
and get rid of the limiting Kit's while your at it, i want to be able to create my own custom ground build and the Kit's force me to stay in one certain premade role.
Also i would be able to have at least one or two self healing abilities no matter what type of char i play, beyond hypo sprays. It is realy annoying if you switch from Playing with your BOffs to playing without them and suddenly you notice that you can't survive without your EMH if no other player cares to heal you... (and why should they if Fleetactions are competetive instead of cooperative and if it is all about DPS who get's the loot in the end).
I think the first issue would be the easiest to solve. Simply consolidate some of the skills together; i.e. all cruisers into one skill.
The second could just have the ship weapons unlock at particular tiers but cost the same regardless of the tier it is in. This would still represent that they are weapons that require more advance knowledge to use, but wouldn't make them less cost efficient than phasers and distruptors.
The last would be much more challenging to change and I don't really have an idea how it could be done without a knowledge of they system's data and coding structure.
One thing that I am not in favor of is limiting player class to ship type. The shows and books certainly didn't follow that line of reasoning. Riker's first ship was a Luna class for example. I don't think such a restriction would be a good direction for the game as a whole. It would remove players' customization choices which is a Cryptic hallmark.
I do like the idea of there being a "Command" tier of skills representing that our captains are no longer truly Science, Tactical, or Engineering specialists any longer. This tier could have skills such as the Tactics and Maneuvers skills which were added a few months back. The "team" skills and piloting skills might fit in the tier as well as they represent more command oriented training.
agree with this and the OP, while the skill tree could use a bit of trimming at admiral levels (3 skills for one ship type is just annoying, if i want to swap between an assault and a refit it costs 3000 merits and is a pain in the rear) taking away player choice in a game that touts it's customization does not strike me as a wise move, let alone one the majority of players would want. as for dividing points between ground and space, the idea has potential but it'll be a fine line to walk getting the amount of points for ground and the amount of points available for space worked out. But I have to admit it would be nice not to have to give up capability in space pvp to spec into some ground skills for STFs.
You say that differences make characters unique but you also say that you would have preferred it if characters of the same class couldn't fly different ships, which makes them more similar?:eek:
Sisko was an engineer, Kirk was a tactical officer, Picard and Janeway were science officers. Before going into the command branch. All our characters become command officers the moment Quinn gives us permanent command of our starter ship, but they are still heavily influenced by where they come from.
Wouldn't it be a better fix if they made both skill groups equally viable so that would force people to spread their skill points?
STO gives me that old school SWG feeling. Yes, granted, I can't make a captain that can dabble in science, engineering and tactical abilities, I get that, however I CAN choose what I want to specialize in and the style of ship I want to fly. In STO, a player's ship is an extension of their captain and yet another form of character customization, something that Cryptic prides themselves on. Not only that, it would make PVP stagnant. I don't PVP often and the last time I did I was using my friend's high level klingon just to get an idea of what it was like, and I'll admit, I never, ever would roll a science captain and use an Escort. I was caught completely off guard when a Defiant class used photonic fleet.
With all that said, I do have one idea that might make sense: new ships that ARE class specific or universal class ships. Just a for an example, let's make the Nebula class universal. As a science captain, it's abilities stay as they are now; as an Engineering captain, it has a new ability, say either an AOE shield or hull heal and a tactical captain would have either an offense or defense buff. For class specific, I can't think of a good engineering example, but with science and tactical, we do have two in game ships that would fit my idea well: the D'Kyr and Dreadnought Galaxy: each has an ability not found on any other Federation ship. The D'Kyr with it's healing drone for Science vessels and the Galaxy X with it's spinal phaser lance for Tactical.
Ok, so, now i'm just ranting so here's the tl;dr answer:
no to making ALL ships class specific, maybe to making some class specific, yes to making Universal ships
I do put points into ground combat skills normally since it makes it go faster having a separate set of points to use would be nice for that.
I would love to see a way were I could fly more then one type of ship on a single toon. separating out the skill trees would help. The game still gets somewhat unwieldy when it comes to setting up ships you have to make sure your own skills are right your bos skills are right and your ships bits are right and all these things tend to change once you change ships. it can still be done for the most part bo skill points are not to hard to come by and ship bits can be moved around your toons skill point are another matter for the most part since respecing is less an encouraged in sto. Some way to stream line the whole process would be nice.
Make them more general skills related to play style. One could improve speed and maneuverability, another could hull strength and healing, etc. This would allow us to support the play style we are aiming for in whatever ship suits our fancy.
The newer attack skills that were added a few months ago are a good example of this.
I really like this idea, anything to help get away from the Engineering, Science, Cruiser mess is a plus.
Wholeheartedly agree.
Go any direction, but this one.
Please...
I like your general ideas here for the most part. This fits alot closer to Cryptic's original no skill cap skill tree design.
Heh things havnt changed much have they. Almost everyone is against restricting ships, myself included. I'm still for encouragement of some kind, but apart from that...nah. Still think the crew system or including "Command" class/skills could help resolve this... but that's another topic