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Ground Combat Revamp - Major Improvement or New Game Enhancement?

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  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Wilam wrote:
    Short version: ME2 ground combat good! Knee high walls, twitch shooting, or anything resembling Quake, Gears of War, or Call of Duty BAD.

    ME2 was very similar to Gears of War (including knee high walls that you even use in the boss fight),
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    I don't really have a problem with the ground combat as is. Nothing really screams bad to me its mostly just not that exciting. However i have a huge distain for most FPS type games so if they went that route i would have a major problem and it would in effect ruin my enjoyment of near half the game.

    I wouldn't mind it going The Tabula Rasa combat system (if you dont know it heres a vid)route, that was quite fun and there was a distinct feel to each weapon and you didn't need to have a ton of abilities to be effective. In a sense i think one of the major downers of the ground system is that the weapons don't feel very different and each character is shoved into a can of skills through the kit system. I think if they added a more unique feel to the weapons and allowed players to customize their kits to abilities they like it would feel better.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    I already covered this in the OP.

    I'm not talking so much about the specific changes but about the effect that it will have on the player base.

    That is specifically why I mentioned ED from City of Heroes/Villains. It wasn't nearly as sweeping as the NGE, it was essentially CoH/V's CU really, but it had an effect more similar to the NGE in that it drove many subscribers away and it's something that's still talked about years later.

    I tried to be clear in the OP that I was talking more about the effect that it would have on the amount of subscribers, rather than on the actual game play specifics.

    Perhaps the OP wasn't clear enough because you guys don't know what ED is, or is it possible that emotions still flare when the NGE is mentioned?

    sorry to rain on your parade, but enhancement diversification didn't kill COX for me, I just got bored of playing the game.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Now that this is all mentioned though...
    man, I kinda miss my fire tanker. The Nuclear Zippo... alas, life wasn't long enough for you.

    Man, I wish there was a version of "Dust in the Wind" for game avatars. Ah well.

    But yet, ED, not so bad. It was a little irritating at first, since I had already specced out my characters, but in the end, it wasn't game breaking in the least.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Wilam wrote:
    I am of two minds on this subject I am rather worried that the ground combat could become a cheap twitch FPS game style.

    The Devs have stated that they are not REMOVING the current way ground combat works for those who like it, they are simply adding another OPTION.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    The Devs have stated that they are not REMOVING the current way ground combat works for those who like it, they are simply adding another OPTION.

    QFT.

    It's a toggle-able feature; not a requirement.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    as i see it there are two parts to the ground combat revamp

    -the new (optional) FPS-alike controls
    -a (non-optional) sweeping rebalance of existing powers/weapons

    I dont think we'll really see a sweeping redesign. I doubt combat will be hugely faster because there is a huge risk of invalidating RPG development (i.e. if a phaser kills minions in one hit regardless, tac damage buffs become a lot worse)

    in particular, we will probably never see a GOW/ME2 style cover system, because that requires heavy reconstruction of *every map* in the game to not be half assed. Also a lot of animation work. A corner-peering cover system might be more practical with existing maps but also has anim issues. And AI issues. And practicality issues (only one dude can peer around a corner at a time - what's your away team doing?)

    There really isn't an abundance of waist high cover in convenient locations on existing maps :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    The Devs have stated that they are not REMOVING the current way ground combat works for those who like it, they are simply adding another OPTION.
    They did? Really?

    I'd ask you for a link, but let's be honest for a minute. It doesn't matter what they've said in the past. I think we all know that nothing they've said in the past really matters to them. Check the links in my signature for proof of that.

    If you still don't believe me I can provide links to STO dev statements such as, "STO will have a Dynamic Universe." I also have "Competitive PvE", "Universe Unending" and "Weekly E... I mean Featured Episodes" for your consideration.

    So yeah. Let's be honest for a second and just admit, if only to ourselves, that nothing they've said in the past matters to them.

    And that's the real reason that I'm worried about this upcoming revamp.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    They did? Really?

    I'd ask you for a link, but let's be honest for a minute. It doesn't matter what they've said in the past. I think we all know that nothing they've said in the past really matters to them. Check the links in my signature for proof of that.

    If you still don't believe me I can provide links to STO dev statements such as, "STO will have a Dynamic Universe." I also have "Competitive PvE", "Universe Unending" and "Weekly E... I mean Featured Episodes" for your consideration.

    So yeah. Let's be honest for a second and just admit, if only to ourselves, that nothing they've said in the past matters to them.

    And that's the real reason that I'm worried about this upcoming revamp.

    Let's put some perspective:
    Your signature collection has comments from varying settings, periods in the development process and dates: 2008, 2009, and 2011. I don't have to be an apologist to realize that those are considerably long periods for any developmental process where things change dramatically. Some of those comments come from when the game development by Cryptic had just begun, others came from nearly a year after launch. Big changes occurred during that lengthy period.

    What we're actually talking about in this thread is something releasing a few months (June/Jul timeframe) and isn't an entire game. It's a small component that has been confirmed as optional by both dstahl and Gozer.

    We get that you're worried that this will ruin the game.

    However, the likelihood of that policy changing when it's been built up differently and under different management than STO originally had makes those fears seem far-fetched.

    Put simply: the optional FPS mode looks like less of a moving target than a collection of quotes from years back and early in the development process.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011

    And that's the real reason that I'm worried about this upcoming revamp.

    Don't be such negative nancy. Its true that what the dev have said and what has happened doesn't always matchup. But the majority of the time it does. Yes things change, often they change for the better. Right now there is mods that makes the game into an fps. There is no compelling reason to believe that it won't be optional.

    I understand your clearly unhappy, but how can you believe the devs don't care about anything they have said? The Dev's want the game to great! Its absolutely in their best interests for it to be. If you just don't like ground then say so? Or find another constructive argument and make it. Honestly this is not SWG we do not have an army of Jedi Wanna be's to keep happy.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    I have a vailid concern about your thread: do you want the devs to just quit on improving the game? I'm just asking, because if everytime they try and bring something new to the game to improve it you're going to criticize it before it even reaches tribble, then do you want the game to improve at all?

    Are you happy with the lack of content and the current state of ground combat?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Think of it this way, we could either have a development team that makes sure that every b it of STO gets a revamp, a review and improved with the content that they simultaneously put out or....

    they could just slap together a bunch of craptastic content like patrol missions and say "here's your KDF content."
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Uh. the only problem with the ground combat now is people's lack of strategy and the 1 shot mobs.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Put simply: the optional FPS mode looks like less of a moving target than a collection of quotes from years back and early in the development process.[/INDENT]
    So what you're saying is ...

    ... it's not lying because the Statute of Limitations has expired? :(
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    So what you're saying is ...

    ... it's not lying because the Statute of Limitations has expired? :(

    Again, what would you recommend, that they not improve ground combat?

    Do you have a better idea? Better yet, can you actually verify that they are lying, or are you just wildly speculating based on things they said during the pre-release era of the game. Have you tested this ground combat to see whether or not it is optional, game changing, or any of the complaints that you are making?

    Have the devs given you any reason at all to believe that it's going to be so game changing?

    Keep in mind that you are definitely in the minority here as one of the biggest complaints about the game right now is ground combat. So, a change to it is necessary.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Uh. the only problem with the ground combat now is people's lack of strategy and the 1 shot mobs.

    I'd like to spam buttons just a bit faster and think expose-exploit could be more intuitive.

    I'd actually dig it if they detached the effects from specific weapons and made it stance and environmental based extra effect on any special attack, improvable by speccing into it... and made exploit deaths a lot more common to adjust the pace; maybe with an option to enable or disable disintegration effects as a violence preference, with it defaulted on for Klingons and off for Feds.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    So what you're saying is ...

    ... it's not lying because the Statute of Limitations has expired? :(

    I'm saying what should be obvious and I hate saying this because I sound like I'm demeaning your intellect but here it goes:
    • People say stuff Monday about what will occur Wednesday
    • Stuff happens Tuesday.
    • Events change Wednesday.
    What we're talking about is an optional component that was designed from the get-go to be optional and dev statements as late as last week saying "hey, it's going to be optional." The example you bring up is so remotely removed from the current discussion it can't even be used as an metaphor. It doesn't even resemble the circumstances, intents, or probability of being true as your example.

    Also, this whole "they lied" thing sounds like hyperbole. Any reasonable person who watches an interview from the weekend a game is announced by a development house and expects that to be the 100% truth and actuality of what the shipped product years later will look like has moved so far away from reasonable discourse they've let their expectation management run wild.

    TL;DR - there are fewer Tuesdays in the current equation than the one you allude to.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    If you run two science officers with tachyon harmonics 1 & 2. A Tactical with target optics 1& 2. With two officers carrying full auto assault rifles and two carrying split beam rifles. With you carrying two split beam rifles and you use target exposed enemy you get lots of exploit kills.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Englebert wrote:
    If you run two science officers with tachyon harmonics 1 & 2. A Tactical with target optics 1& 2. With two officers carrying full auto assault rifles and two carrying split beam rifles. With you carrying two split beam rifles and you use target exposed enemy you get lots of exploit kills.

    I don't have a problem with this overall but I'm kinda thinking it might be more kinetic if every kill was an exploit and the expose/exploit system wasn't tied to equipment loadouts, which creates too much of a gap between good and bad builds/loadouts and stronger and weaker players, who I'm inclined to think should be a lot more level in terms of PvE performance than what they are.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    • People say stuff Monday about what will occur Wednesday
    • Stuff happens Tuesday.
    • Events change Wednesday.
    No insult taken Darren. I totally get what you're saying. Because you've just made my point for me.

    What's to prevent 'stuff changing' from making "GCR = optional targeting reticule" morphing into "something totally different that breaks a bunch of stuff and makes a lot of the players mad"? Like what already happened with the Difficulty Slider/Death Penalty, and with the Department Head/Duty Officer Systems.

    So I'm not worried based on something that's never happened. Cryptic has already taken 'this will be A' and changed it into 'this will be Z instead', and they've done it several times.

    So since they've already done that several times, what's to say they won't do it with this too?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    ? Like what already happened with the Difficulty Slider/Death Penalty, and with the Department Head/Duty Officer Systems.

    speak for yourself, I'm not entirely mad about these things. I'm disappointed that I will not have a first officer system any time soon, but that's really the only complain in those regards. I'm really happy about what they're doing with the duty officer system.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    dorko1 wrote: »
    speak for yourself, I'm not entirely mad about these things. I'm disappointed that I will not have a first officer system any time soon, but that's really the only complain in those regards. I'm really happy about what they're doing with the duty officer system.
    This post has been edited to remove content which violates the [URL=" http://forums.startrekonline.com/announcement.php?f=70&a=2"]Cryptic Studios Forum Usage Guidelines[/URL] GMMeeko
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011

    At no point did I ever say that I was speaking for anyone but myself. And at no point did I say that I or you or anyone else was mad about these things.

    Nah, here ya go:
    What's to prevent 'stuff changing' from making "GCR = optional targeting reticule" morphing into "something totally different that breaks a bunch of stuff and makes a lot of the players mad"? Like what already happened with the Difficulty Slider/Death Penalty, and with the Department Head/Duty Officer Systems.

    I think the only thing that I missed on was that you did actually make some acknowledgment to adjustments to be made in the OP. However, I still don't think that'll make most players happy. And I still think that you are worrying about something that you haven't tried, you don't know how it's going to turn out, and you have no reason to suspect that it will be so game changing.

    Also, you make broad statements about things like ED, but ED wasn't that terrible. There were other reasons not to like COX and ED wasn't something that bothered me too terribly. I didn't like it any more than I liked what happened when they nerfed my fire tanker, but my tanker was over-powered. I got it, see?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Besides all of that, you're simply taking the argument out of its context in your "learn to read" bit. You're not answering the basic question of why can't we move forward? Do we have to stop due to paranoia about everything the devs are going to do? There is more broken with this game than just content, and ground combat is one of those things. We can either move forward or cringe in fear about be stuck with what we've got.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    The only thing broken with ground combat is 1 shot mobs.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    TBH if they make it like This then we are on to a winner... we will gain players!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    The argument would hold more water if the current ground combat weren't so bad.

    SWG had a competent, deep combat system before the CU (which was quite different from the NGE - which further nerfed everything). You see the NGE actually decreased the number of choices players had by hard coding them into roles.

    Everything Cryptic has mentioned so far seems to point to ground combat being faster and having more choices/variety with weaponry (there will be reasons to have sniper rifle over a compression pistol).

    STO has a dizzying lack of choice right now and the new weapon changes seem to remedy that (and hopefully reduce combat times versus NPCs).

    god forbid dont put an NGE version into STO please and follow the mistakes of what $OE did to totally make a great game look like a piece of S^&T!!!!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    B-rad34 wrote:
    god forbid dont put an NGE version into STO please and follow the mistakes of what $OE did to totally make a great game look like a piece of S^&T!!!!
    except STO isn't a great game - not by a mile.

    What the devs are suggesting doesn't at all resemble what SOE did to SWG.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    USSDelphin wrote:
    TBH if they make it like This then we are on to a winner... we will gain players!

    yes this is epic
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    except STO isn't a great game - not by a mile.

    What the devs are suggesting doesn't at all resemble what SOE did to SWG.

    maybe not to you but im enjoying it and that is what matters to me.
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