I was batting around an idea with friends a few nights ago...up until LCDR, you could have a ship of players with an NPC Captain who "tells you where to go", also known as gives you your missions / quests. Especially with the F2P model forcing a single line of mission progression (at least in its current build), it's not like you'd have much of a choice on where to go or what to do whether you were the designated commanding officer or not.
Perhaps once you made LCDR, you could have the option of moving on to the game play as it exists now. Various permutations of the above could also occur. I realize that it would likely be cumbersome to support two such disparate game modes, but I'm just tossing out ideas.
Perhaps, too, the option could be there for fleets...maybe fleetmates wouldn't mind to volunteer to serve on a ship together? Just thinking aloud.
I get that a big issue is tech, or at least that's what everyone seems to say when the idea of multiple players on a ship is brought up, but we've seen another game get the crew of a player run starship down pretty well, so I know it's at least possible, although maybe not with STO's particular engine. Dunno...not a techie by any stretch of the imagination.
Now returning to my sizeable minority buddies...
The idea of fleets as crew is not practical. The legistics involved mean that the only way you could play is if you can find a fleet that 1, you like 2, likes you and 3, is active at the same time you want to play. For most people that is going to mean that they don't play STO.
The idea of all low level players starting out on the same ship taking orders from an NPC captain isn't a bad one (it would mean the early game is like the tutorial). You could even get your own shuttle and have some space missions. However it's not the direction Cryptic took, and it's too late to make that sort of change now. Muct the same way that it's too late to remove ship tiers from the game.
The idea of fleets as crew is not practical. The legistics involved mean that the only way you could play is if you can find a fleet that 1, you like 2, likes you and 3, is active at the same time you want to play. For most people that is going to mean that they don't play STO.
The idea of all low level players starting out on the same ship taking orders from an NPC captain isn't a bad one (it would mean the early game is like the tutorial). You could even get your own shuttle and have some space missions. However it's not the direction Cryptic took, and it's too late to make that sort of change now. Muct the same way that it's too late to remove ship tiers from the game.
They can do a simpler thing - you could have your own initial ship with a NPC captain instead of being given full-command. For ground missions, you are in charge of the away team just like Riker in TNG. For space missions "you have the Conn. lieutenant" (just like Paris in VOY, Dax in DS9, etc.). It just requires a bit of tweaking with the comm dialog boxes, which would display your captain instead of the BOffs that are shown now. The rest of the gameplay would be quite similar.
You can start as the captains favorite protege (while getting more and more privileges, e.g. PvP access, as you progress through lvl 2-11), then become the first officer at lvl 12 (when the DOff system opens up and you are in charge of the roster like Riker in TNG), and then get your first command somewhere during the Commander rank. The gameplay shouldn't change much - just some text (and maybe some UI tweaks). You could still be in charge of exploration missions, etc., just like Dax and Worf were de facto in charge of some missions even though Sisko was the de jure captain.
Your ship-stationed BOffs will be your trusted shift-mates (there are usually command-shifts on the ship's bridge, as shown several times on TNG). Buying a new ship would be considered a reassignment, so you would get a new NPC captain for the new ship. All other game elements can also be explained under this background story in similar ways. So you don't REALLY need to change that much of the gameplay - just the text. It also fits perfectly that your missions are basically happening on your command-shift, since one plays the game for a few hours a day, and when you're logged-out it's the "other guys" shift/s.
For the KDF one can have a cool mission where he is supposed to fight his own captain (a boss fight) in order to take command of the ship. The storyline could lead to that by showing "weak" decisions from the captain in a mission, and then revealing that he is in fact an Undine.
(this reply became too large to check for typos - so please excuse any of them )
They can do a simpler thing - you could have your own initial ship with a NPC captain instead of being given full-command.
Yeah, but for those of us who WANT to play the Captain? Honestly, it seems simpler that there should just be more social places where Captains can shoot the breeze and possibly Captain's only action zones. That seems more like a "cake and eat it too" place.
I guess as a causal gamer my needs are more clear. I want to, AT THE START, be able to do this:
* Go anywhere I want to go.
* Immediately engage in starship fun fleet action.
* Assemble a crew I like.
* Engage in awesome Trek-like missions where I can be Kirk talking to the Gren Alien Lady.
Due to instancing, every character of Star Trek: Online is basically playing a single-player campaign built around the fact that he gets a Chris Pine Kirk-esque origin. He's promoted to lieutenant and given command of a garbage scow-esque ship - so it's SLIGHTLY more believable but the same basic principle applies.
From there, the PC proceeds to single handedly carve his way through the Klingon race (if he's Federation) before moving onto blowing up a Romulan warbird with a shuttle on your first Romulan story mission and then only goes from there.
Basically, by the end of things, your character is the most action packed heroic superhero of superheroes Starfleet has ever produced.
Do you like this origin for your character or would you have preferred something slightly more lower-key for your Captain?
Our captains don't shout one-liners like TNG films though. Lower key for us would be better--but at least we're not as godawfully schmaltzy as the TNG films.
Ok, you don't have to be the "official" captain to do these 4 things:
* Go anywhere - when you log-in it's your command-shift (and you have the conn), so you can choose where to fly to, unless you're in a mission, in which case you anyway have your orders (even now).
* engage in fleet actions - you are anyway given orders by someone to report to the fleet action (and to any other task), so it might as well be your captain giving the order or approving it (under the "your shift = you have the bridge" principle). You can also control the spaceship during the fights & flights without being the captain (you don't REALLY know or care where you sit inside the ship, since you control it from the external view).
* Assemble your own team - no problem, you choose the bridge officers on your shift and the task force you want to come with you when you go on an away team, just like Riker chose them and not Picard on TNG.
* Trek-like missions & Kirk-like characters - Riker was much more Kirk-like then Picard, and I'm sure he did more than talking with some green ladies
TNG was mostly based on Picard being a top-level manager, with Riker being the action-man. Also, the captain rarely controlled the ship directly. In DS9 the story evolved around many low-rank officers taking command of Runabout & Defiant runs to the Gamma quadrant, etc. Also, Dax took command of the defiant while being Lt. Commander when Sisko was promoted to assist the admiral.
What I'm saying is that the gameplay itself doesn't necessarily need to change, the background story could be different to accommodate for "traditional" trekkies that want a more believable experience rather than a super-captain one. Personally, I think it would be nice for an alt to have the choice to start from a real low-deck position and work his way up, as an alternative to the borg-based tutorial. A nice touch could be to use the appearances (and names/details) of other suitable captains in the account as his COs at some point.
I actually appreciate the amount of freedom your character possesses in following orders. There's obviously a huge amount of requests made to your PC from various admirals and just not enough time for your character to do them all. So, your character as Captain gets to pick and choose what priority of order that he's going to follow.
To go from another franchise and company, Captain Anderson from Mass Effect is a well-beloved NPC. However, he doesn't LAST very long as the Captain of your starship. You get control over it right after the tutorial. I think that's just the right sort of response there.
Honestly, I'd prefer everyone START as a Captain in Starfleet and just award medals rather than work our way up if that bothers you that much.
Actually, it doesn't bother me at all, since in real military service you usually do command some unit when you become an officer. You get larger and larger units as you advance in rank (just like you do with BOffs, DOffs and ships in STO).
I just said that Cryptic could find a compromise between the current gameplay and the "background story" reservations some people raised in this thread.
As for missions - the F2P version has a new mission journal with a structured chain of storyline missions, which you should complete in serial order - I meant that these could be given to you by your captain instead of your Admiral (e.g. Quinn for the klingon front). Other missions could be given by other NPCs (e.g. Lt. Commander Grall), and if you take on such a mission the captain would give you the lead on it. It only changes the dialog box with, say, Grall to include an additional screen where the captain says - "Ok, you have the conn...." or something. It also aligns well with Cryptics goal to add more shuttle-based missions.
You're also not thinking about alts. Taking the same route from Ensign to VA a second time is much less fun then the first. They do have the KDF route for this, but it's a bit lacking and in general I like the UFP more than it. One way to add variety is another faction (e.g., the Romulans), but another one could be a different view of the starfleet service - from low-decks to command. DStahl also mentioned an idea to have civilians in the STO universe.
But I'm not even sure if any dev would see this suggestions/discussions, since they seem super-busy with the F2P and judging by the version on Tribble they still have a lot of work ahead of them so we're just having a philosophical debate here.
So if mission replay is now on the main UI, is it fair to assume that the game is taking a direction even farther away from ship interiors with actual purpose?
So if mission replay is now on the main UI, is it fair to assume that the game is taking a direction even farther away from ship interiors with actual purpose?
It'd be fun if ship interiors were outfitted with something like Codex for the lore of the setting.
I agree with this 100%. If there was some sort of mechanic that had multiple players serving on the same ship, then I think the IP could be a better MMO fit.
I have the impression, though, that I am in a minority in my thinking that it's a good thing to have multiple players serving on one ship . Still, some of my fondest gaming moments are from another IP where we could fly POB ships, man multiple stations, and walk around inside a semi-functional (and highly customizable) interior. I think that model could have worked for Star Trek.
Go play Pirates of the Burning Sea, it will cure you of thinking that mechanic ever works.
Aside from the tutorial, if you don't want to be super captain, you can just level advance through the exploration system. It'll be slow and mind numbingly boring, but that sorta sounds like the idea.
Firstly if someone else has posted something like this then sorry I didn't have time to read the whole forum.
But here's what I want to say, I think this hits a flaw in Star Trek Online that flaw being that it's an MMO, being a super-captain would be fine if there wasn't tons of others who are also super. When you think about it it's kind of ridiculous as one of the whole things about Star Trek is going where no man has gone before which is almost impossible in an MMO, so if anything I'd say you're not super enough!! If everyone's super then no one is.
However the thing about being a super-captain is that how do you know every captain in starfleet isn't amazing and super? Also the reason you're given command of a ship so quickly is the fact that the federation is at war with pretty much everyone.
The real question is where they're getting all the ships?
But really this is pretty much a fundamental thing in lots of games because not a lot of people like feeling like support for better, more important people, sure it may be more realistic but if you want real why are you playing video games? And (in my opinion) if you start questioning something like this then why not question how you respawn?
Aside from the tutorial, if you don't want to be super captain, you can just level advance through the exploration system. It'll be slow and mind numbingly boring, but that sorta sounds like the idea.
I'm pretty epic for blowing up Negh'vars, Zilant Battleships and Marauder Battleships in Miranda in exploration too.
I'm pretty epic for blowing up Negh'vars, Zilant Battleships and Marauder Battleships in Miranda in exploration too.
Oh, almost forgot D'deridex Battleships too.
I actually level grind via Exploration for the explicit purpose of trying to recapture the feeling of Star Trek. I'm still a super captain but I at least get the impression that a lot of my missions are studying particiles and exploring (often) empty bases as it is slaughtering Klingons.
(I maintain that most of the ships I "destroy" are just disabled)
Due to instancing, every character of Star Trek: Online is basically playing a single-player campaign built around the fact that he gets a Chris Pine Kirk-esque origin. He's promoted to lieutenant and given command of a garbage scow-esque ship - so it's SLIGHTLY more believable but the same basic principle applies.
From there, the PC proceeds to single handedly carve his way through the Klingon race (if he's Federation) before moving onto blowing up a Romulan warbird with a shuttle on your first Romulan story mission and then only goes from there.
Basically, by the end of things, your character is the most action packed heroic superhero of superheroes Starfleet has ever produced.
Do you like this origin for your character or would you have preferred something slightly more lower-key for your Captain?
I dont want to be known as the "mass murder of starfleet" or "The kligon killer" or somthing lol. I would like if you could disable ships as well as less enamy ships but make them more powerful. Some people have goten to VA in just a few days I meen relly? Day 1 - Ensign day 4- VA... you never see captains in the shows just ordering there ship to plow through a group of kligons and emerge unscratched.
I stopped doing PvE missions a long time ago, there is simply no challenge in PvE, and thus no sense of progress or accomplishment. Other than in the 3 Borg STFs, there isnt even any loot worth the timeinvestment.. And now that they messed up PvP... Again... I havent actually played in 3-4 weeks.
Due to instancing, every character of Star Trek: Online is basically playing a single-player campaign built around the fact that he gets a Chris Pine Kirk-esque origin. He's promoted to lieutenant and given command of a garbage scow-esque ship - so it's SLIGHTLY more believable but the same basic principle applies.
From there, the PC proceeds to single handedly carve his way through the Klingon race (if he's Federation) before moving onto blowing up a Romulan warbird with a shuttle on your first Romulan story mission and then only goes from there.
Basically, by the end of things, your character is the most action packed heroic superhero of superheroes Starfleet has ever produced.
Do you like this origin for your character or would you have preferred something slightly more lower-key for your Captain?
Gee, are you inferring that Cryptic made STO as a "super-hero-in-space" type of MMO? :rolleyes:
The game already seems to be full of sons and daughters of famous starship captains who aced the Kobayashi Maru test and completed his/her 6th doctorate at the age of 15. And dated the Borg Queen.
I am so going to use that in my next characters back story. ^_^ who doesn't want to date the borg queen. It will be all high school sweet heart stuff.
I stopped doing PvE missions a long time ago, there is simply no challenge in PvE, and thus no sense of progress or accomplishment. Other than in the 3 Borg STFs, there isnt even any loot worth the timeinvestment.. And now that they messed up PvP... Again... I havent actually played in 3-4 weeks.
Yeah, I mostly only play PvE because I really consider Star Trek: Online a single-player video game I can play indefinitely.
Gee, are you inferring that Cryptic made STO as a "super-hero-in-space" type of MMO?
Hehe. Actually, the game does have something over City of Heroes. In Star Trek Online, the Player Character can pretty much be considered the ONLY Super-Captain in his particular instance. At the end of the day, I like to think the reason you're deluged with orders is that after you finish one of the fronts that every Admiral in Starfleet thinks you're EXACTLY the sort of hammer they need for whatever nail they have.
That Tellarite Admiral in the Khazan Cluster, though? GOD, I hate that guy because he basically says, "Yeah, you need to kill all these Klingons/Hirogen/Remans/etc here."
I like to pretend my character is constantly struggling with being considered Starfleet's personal attack Targ.
"It's five squadrons! I'm one ship! Are you insane?"
I can't say I'm a big fan of the "super captain" idea, but I can also see that it's the only real way to run episodes and very in keeping with the source materiel.
Personally, I divorce the "superhero" moments of my Lt Gen characters from their present reality - just as I do their rank (and, indeed, the rank of thier BOffs). Garmokh sutai Krahaan may have carried out some... unusual missions on behalf of Imperial Intelligence, but he's not the savious of the Empire.
Their written background more reflects my PVP skills... one is an exceptional staff officer but a mediocre combat captain, who gets interesting missions because II can trust him to keep his mouth shut. The other is a political appointee. And, actually, this works well with Lt Gen play where they spend most of their time exploring, duelling with the Federation (PVP) or fighting off Borg incursions (collaborative PVE).
I too like being the star of my own show. But like with every MMO that god-mods your backstory, I completely ignore it and make up my own.
Yep. One of my characters is a Starfleet Academy instructor with a ship full of cadets who has found himself stuck commanding a ship as a result of the Borg incursion on the Vega Colony. I find it enjoyable to explore what it's like to be less than ideal but forced into a particular role anyhow.
We don't really HAVE a story to begin with. I mean, we really are all just cogs in the machine on each faction. Everyone has the same experiences and past deeds are only referred to as "We've heard alot of good things about you".
There is no unique storylines that only Engineers can explore, for example, and as for being super-captains, well we've seen Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway and Archer be larger than life so I really don't mind.
We don't really HAVE a story to begin with. I mean, we really are all just cogs in the machine on each faction. Everyone has the same experiences and past deeds are only referred to as "We've heard alot of good things about you".
There is no unique storylines that only Engineers can explore, for example, and as for being super-captains, well we've seen Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway and Archer be larger than life so I really don't mind.
Yeah, but that's not unique in RPGs either. Everyone's Commander Shepard is the same in Mass Effect and everyone's Grey Warden in Dragon Age saves the same world. I wouldn't mind more dialogue choices, though. One of the things I like about Coliseum was the fact that you could be a raging psychopath or a calm, reassuring, Federation officer to the Reman prisoner.
Due to instancing, every character of Star Trek: Online is basically playing a single-player campaign built around the fact that he gets a Chris Pine Kirk-esque origin. He's promoted to lieutenant and given command of a garbage scow-esque ship - so it's SLIGHTLY more believable but the same basic principle applies.
From there, the PC proceeds to single handedly carve his way through the Klingon race (if he's Federation) before moving onto blowing up a Romulan warbird with a shuttle on your first Romulan story mission and then only goes from there.
Basically, by the end of things, your character is the most action packed heroic superhero of superheroes Starfleet has ever produced.
Do you like this origin for your character or would you have preferred something slightly more lower-key for your Captain?
I actually just pretend that whole tutorial thing didn't happen for my character and make up a different back story and service record for him.
The whole super-captain thing comes from STO's progression being very similar to swords and sorcery MMO's where you're wandering the land and helping the people that live on it. Not a bad model necessarily, but it's not one I've been very fond of and would prefer a far more open world experience.
It does an okay job of putting your character front and center, making you feel like you're the star of a Star Trek TV show. I really want more 'cog in the machine' kind of feel though injected in there. Something that will hopefully happen if the PvP territory control game that's been mentioned comes out, or the Borg planet assimilation event and ones similar to it.
Comments
The idea of fleets as crew is not practical. The legistics involved mean that the only way you could play is if you can find a fleet that 1, you like 2, likes you and 3, is active at the same time you want to play. For most people that is going to mean that they don't play STO.
The idea of all low level players starting out on the same ship taking orders from an NPC captain isn't a bad one (it would mean the early game is like the tutorial). You could even get your own shuttle and have some space missions. However it's not the direction Cryptic took, and it's too late to make that sort of change now. Muct the same way that it's too late to remove ship tiers from the game.
Command or tactical could keep this origin,but science and engineers could have different back stories.
But that would mean adding content for sci and engin to each mission,which could take a while....if you wanted the whole game to play your story.
And while they were at it they could add klingon content to every mission....
And after that the new races could have content for each mission....
Sounds like a lot of work to me.
They can do a simpler thing - you could have your own initial ship with a NPC captain instead of being given full-command. For ground missions, you are in charge of the away team just like Riker in TNG. For space missions "you have the Conn. lieutenant" (just like Paris in VOY, Dax in DS9, etc.). It just requires a bit of tweaking with the comm dialog boxes, which would display your captain instead of the BOffs that are shown now. The rest of the gameplay would be quite similar.
You can start as the captains favorite protege (while getting more and more privileges, e.g. PvP access, as you progress through lvl 2-11), then become the first officer at lvl 12 (when the DOff system opens up and you are in charge of the roster like Riker in TNG), and then get your first command somewhere during the Commander rank. The gameplay shouldn't change much - just some text (and maybe some UI tweaks). You could still be in charge of exploration missions, etc., just like Dax and Worf were de facto in charge of some missions even though Sisko was the de jure captain.
Your ship-stationed BOffs will be your trusted shift-mates (there are usually command-shifts on the ship's bridge, as shown several times on TNG). Buying a new ship would be considered a reassignment, so you would get a new NPC captain for the new ship. All other game elements can also be explained under this background story in similar ways. So you don't REALLY need to change that much of the gameplay - just the text. It also fits perfectly that your missions are basically happening on your command-shift, since one plays the game for a few hours a day, and when you're logged-out it's the "other guys" shift/s.
For the KDF one can have a cool mission where he is supposed to fight his own captain (a boss fight) in order to take command of the ship. The storyline could lead to that by showing "weak" decisions from the captain in a mission, and then revealing that he is in fact an Undine.
(this reply became too large to check for typos - so please excuse any of them
Yeah, but for those of us who WANT to play the Captain? Honestly, it seems simpler that there should just be more social places where Captains can shoot the breeze and possibly Captain's only action zones. That seems more like a "cake and eat it too" place.
I guess as a causal gamer my needs are more clear. I want to, AT THE START, be able to do this:
* Go anywhere I want to go.
* Immediately engage in starship fun fleet action.
* Assemble a crew I like.
* Engage in awesome Trek-like missions where I can be Kirk talking to the Gren Alien Lady.
Our captains don't shout one-liners like TNG films though. Lower key for us would be better--but at least we're not as godawfully schmaltzy as the TNG films.
* Go anywhere - when you log-in it's your command-shift (and you have the conn), so you can choose where to fly to, unless you're in a mission, in which case you anyway have your orders (even now).
* engage in fleet actions - you are anyway given orders by someone to report to the fleet action (and to any other task), so it might as well be your captain giving the order or approving it (under the "your shift = you have the bridge" principle). You can also control the spaceship during the fights & flights without being the captain (you don't REALLY know or care where you sit inside the ship, since you control it from the external view).
* Assemble your own team - no problem, you choose the bridge officers on your shift and the task force you want to come with you when you go on an away team, just like Riker chose them and not Picard on TNG.
* Trek-like missions & Kirk-like characters - Riker was much more Kirk-like then Picard, and I'm sure he did more than talking with some green ladies
TNG was mostly based on Picard being a top-level manager, with Riker being the action-man. Also, the captain rarely controlled the ship directly. In DS9 the story evolved around many low-rank officers taking command of Runabout & Defiant runs to the Gamma quadrant, etc. Also, Dax took command of the defiant while being Lt. Commander when Sisko was promoted to assist the admiral.
What I'm saying is that the gameplay itself doesn't necessarily need to change, the background story could be different to accommodate for "traditional" trekkies that want a more believable experience rather than a super-captain one. Personally, I think it would be nice for an alt to have the choice to start from a real low-deck position and work his way up, as an alternative to the borg-based tutorial. A nice touch could be to use the appearances (and names/details) of other suitable captains in the account as his COs at some point.
I actually appreciate the amount of freedom your character possesses in following orders. There's obviously a huge amount of requests made to your PC from various admirals and just not enough time for your character to do them all. So, your character as Captain gets to pick and choose what priority of order that he's going to follow.
To go from another franchise and company, Captain Anderson from Mass Effect is a well-beloved NPC. However, he doesn't LAST very long as the Captain of your starship. You get control over it right after the tutorial. I think that's just the right sort of response there.
Honestly, I'd prefer everyone START as a Captain in Starfleet and just award medals rather than work our way up if that bothers you that much.
I just said that Cryptic could find a compromise between the current gameplay and the "background story" reservations some people raised in this thread.
As for missions - the F2P version has a new mission journal with a structured chain of storyline missions, which you should complete in serial order - I meant that these could be given to you by your captain instead of your Admiral (e.g. Quinn for the klingon front). Other missions could be given by other NPCs (e.g. Lt. Commander Grall), and if you take on such a mission the captain would give you the lead on it. It only changes the dialog box with, say, Grall to include an additional screen where the captain says - "Ok, you have the conn...." or something. It also aligns well with Cryptics goal to add more shuttle-based missions.
You're also not thinking about alts. Taking the same route from Ensign to VA a second time is much less fun then the first. They do have the KDF route for this, but it's a bit lacking and in general I like the UFP more than it. One way to add variety is another faction (e.g., the Romulans), but another one could be a different view of the starfleet service - from low-decks to command. DStahl also mentioned an idea to have civilians in the STO universe.
But I'm not even sure if any dev would see this suggestions/discussions, since they seem super-busy with the F2P and judging by the version on Tribble they still have a lot of work ahead of them so we're just having a philosophical debate here.
It'd be fun if ship interiors were outfitted with something like Codex for the lore of the setting.
Like "View the Timeline"
and "View Enemy histories" and so on.
Go play Pirates of the Burning Sea, it will cure you of thinking that mechanic ever works.
But here's what I want to say, I think this hits a flaw in Star Trek Online that flaw being that it's an MMO, being a super-captain would be fine if there wasn't tons of others who are also super. When you think about it it's kind of ridiculous as one of the whole things about Star Trek is going where no man has gone before which is almost impossible in an MMO, so if anything I'd say you're not super enough!! If everyone's super then no one is.
However the thing about being a super-captain is that how do you know every captain in starfleet isn't amazing and super? Also the reason you're given command of a ship so quickly is the fact that the federation is at war with pretty much everyone.
The real question is where they're getting all the ships?
But really this is pretty much a fundamental thing in lots of games because not a lot of people like feeling like support for better, more important people, sure it may be more realistic but if you want real why are you playing video games? And (in my opinion) if you start questioning something like this then why not question how you respawn?
I'm pretty epic for blowing up Negh'vars, Zilant Battleships and Marauder Battleships in Miranda in exploration too.
Oh, almost forgot D'deridex Battleships too.
I actually level grind via Exploration for the explicit purpose of trying to recapture the feeling of Star Trek. I'm still a super captain but I at least get the impression that a lot of my missions are studying particiles and exploring (often) empty bases as it is slaughtering Klingons.
(I maintain that most of the ships I "destroy" are just disabled)
I dont want to be known as the "mass murder of starfleet" or "The kligon killer" or somthing lol. I would like if you could disable ships as well as less enamy ships but make them more powerful. Some people have goten to VA in just a few days I meen relly? Day 1 - Ensign day 4- VA... you never see captains in the shows just ordering there ship to plow through a group of kligons and emerge unscratched.
Gee, are you inferring that Cryptic made STO as a "super-hero-in-space" type of MMO? :rolleyes:
I am so going to use that in my next characters back story. ^_^ who doesn't want to date the borg queen. It will be all high school sweet heart stuff.
Yeah, I mostly only play PvE because I really consider Star Trek: Online a single-player video game I can play indefinitely.
Hehe. Actually, the game does have something over City of Heroes. In Star Trek Online, the Player Character can pretty much be considered the ONLY Super-Captain in his particular instance. At the end of the day, I like to think the reason you're deluged with orders is that after you finish one of the fronts that every Admiral in Starfleet thinks you're EXACTLY the sort of hammer they need for whatever nail they have.
That Tellarite Admiral in the Khazan Cluster, though? GOD, I hate that guy because he basically says, "Yeah, you need to kill all these Klingons/Hirogen/Remans/etc here."
I like to pretend my character is constantly struggling with being considered Starfleet's personal attack Targ.
"It's five squadrons! I'm one ship! Are you insane?"
"You've done it before!"
Personally, I divorce the "superhero" moments of my Lt Gen characters from their present reality - just as I do their rank (and, indeed, the rank of thier BOffs). Garmokh sutai Krahaan may have carried out some... unusual missions on behalf of Imperial Intelligence, but he's not the savious of the Empire.
Their written background more reflects my PVP skills... one is an exceptional staff officer but a mediocre combat captain, who gets interesting missions because II can trust him to keep his mouth shut. The other is a political appointee. And, actually, this works well with Lt Gen play where they spend most of their time exploring, duelling with the Federation (PVP) or fighting off Borg incursions (collaborative PVE).
Yep. One of my characters is a Starfleet Academy instructor with a ship full of cadets who has found himself stuck commanding a ship as a result of the Borg incursion on the Vega Colony. I find it enjoyable to explore what it's like to be less than ideal but forced into a particular role anyhow.
There is no unique storylines that only Engineers can explore, for example, and as for being super-captains, well we've seen Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway and Archer be larger than life so I really don't mind.
Yeah, but that's not unique in RPGs either. Everyone's Commander Shepard is the same in Mass Effect and everyone's Grey Warden in Dragon Age saves the same world. I wouldn't mind more dialogue choices, though. One of the things I like about Coliseum was the fact that you could be a raging psychopath or a calm, reassuring, Federation officer to the Reman prisoner.
What do you hate about being a super-captain?
I actually just pretend that whole tutorial thing didn't happen for my character and make up a different back story and service record for him.
The whole super-captain thing comes from STO's progression being very similar to swords and sorcery MMO's where you're wandering the land and helping the people that live on it. Not a bad model necessarily, but it's not one I've been very fond of and would prefer a far more open world experience.
It does an okay job of putting your character front and center, making you feel like you're the star of a Star Trek TV show. I really want more 'cog in the machine' kind of feel though injected in there. Something that will hopefully happen if the PvP territory control game that's been mentioned comes out, or the Borg planet assimilation event and ones similar to it.