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Let me stir up some chaotic ideas...

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Indeed, let's have a healthy discussion. Note that everything I will say here should be taken with a grain of salt as I, as are most of us, are only players. I am not a software engineer or graphic artist, truthfully I do not know what is possible or how difficult my ideas would be to implement. These are my rambling thoughts that I mostly had while at work. I have a substantial amount of free time there.. lucky me. And possibly lucky for the game we all love!

Also do keep in mind that I am a relatively new player here. I've been inspired to create this thread because I LOVE this game and everything it's trying to be. It's star trek after all..

So with that said, let me jump in here:

Minor Suggestions:

1 - I recently played a fleet event, ground based. It was the Romulan Temple. This was my first genuine ground based large-scale fight. I will say a couple things, but first off, I did have fun. I simply recognize one fundamental issue... respawning enemies. This makes the event drag on, far too long. I don't mind that more enemies beam on down after we complete an objective, to reinforce and add difficulty.. but on every subsequent part after the first objective, reinforcements were infinite. This is not fun. It gets mundane and irritating fairly quickly.

Furthermore, and possibly even more critical a consequence of this for me, is that it makes me feel like my actions have absolutely no effect on the world. I can fight, do my best.. but the enemies just come back to life.

2 - I've been reading up more on duty officers and how the rewards for specific types of missions contribute towards the experience of a title, like diplomacy or medical.

Onto this point, I also do a lot of exploration to gather data samples. What I've found rather odd, is the "Aid the planet" missions offer virtually no reward at all. At first, I thought that it was because I traded the planet merely low-class, cheap medical supplies, but no. Even Seismic stabilizers, very pricey commodities, returned the same reward. A small token of experience, and 10 diplomacy xp.

I find this odd. I think the reward should be increased, perhaps granting a bit of Dilithium, or sometimes an item specific to your level. Or / and increased diplomacy experience. Another idea too, would be to grant duty officer experience based on the commodity traded. For example, medical supplies would grant medical experience, seismic stabilizers could grant development xp, or something like that.

3 - Just a small nitpick here, but changing the warp factor scale to display the maximum normal warp speed to be 9.95 instead of 10. For me, everytime I look at my warp speed, I keep thinking that infinite speed sure is a bit slower than I thought it would be. :p

An alternative would be to simply increase the standard warp speed cap up to, say, 13 or 14. I only know that it's been drilled into my head that warp 10 is infinite speed. Maybe I'm insane though, that's possible.

4 - I like the Dilithium refinement system, but I had a quick idea.. add in the ability to purchase an increased refinement process from the cryptic store, applicable to your account only. It would allow you to process 10,000 Dilithium a day, instead of 8,000. The cost could be debatable, but I was thinking about 250 Cryptic points, or something like that. It would take over 65,000 Dilithium to get that, meaning over 2 months for the purchase to start returning a profit. Not too bad. Again, the price can be debated.

5 - For ground combat, I wanted to add more incentive towards using aiming mode over tab targetting. Simply increase the firing rate of the standard weapon attack while aiming, slightly. Nothing huge, just a nice bonus. The damage increase helps, but it doesn't make up for 100% accuracy for those not aiming manually.

6 - I love gathering Data samples, it just fits into my exploratory play style. Again, it's freaking Star Trek! But, I would love to see another mini-game event beyond just the one we currently have, which gets a bit stale after the thousandth time. :)

Also, for later tier anomalies, I would suggest increasing the difficulty of the scanning event. It's too easy right now. Decrease the time allotted to complete it, but also increase the rewards allotted for doing so successfully. Perhaps a chance at double data samples here and there. That'd be great.

Moderate Suggestions:

1 - Have you been inside your ship lately? It's fun, is it not? But have you noticed how the engineers in starfleet who've designed our vessels are woefully, inexcusably incompetent or insane? No one in their right mind would design a starship, in war times, to have such ridiculously large cathedral type ceilings and bridges! This means more volume, which means more air, which means more mass.. which means slower turn rate, more energy diverted towards maintaining structural integrity, and slower acceleration.

It's silly. Please, scale down the size of starship interiors. Space stations are fine as they are not designed to be in motion.

2 - Sector space.

Two things.

Please, find a way to make it seamless, and expand the total space one can travel in by a substantial amount. I am one of those trekkies who feel the journey is equally as important as the destination. Warp travel is just too fast for my taste. Crossing an entire quadrant in 3 minutes...

Did you know, at warp 10, one travels at roughly 700 billion miles a second in this game?

That is 3,763,440 times the speed of light. Uh, wow.. starfleet have certainly upgraded their warp engines dramatically in the past 40 years...

Finally, please let us cross sector space while on the bridge. I know we'll never fight from the bridge, but travelling in non-combat sector space?

Okay, those are my current ideas, I'm sure I'll have some more later on though. I hope some genuine discussion is had!
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    Usually I don't like to bump my own thread, but in this case I will make a quick exception. Hope you don't mind.

    Really, just one opinion would be welcome. :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    Although I am relatively new to the game, I see nothing in your suggestions but potential to improve on an already very enjoyable experience.....kudos!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    1 - Fleet actions in general are currently a relic of a lot of things that were wrong with STO at launch. You're not the only person hoping for a revamp of them as a lot of other content has gotten, but dev chatter seems to be that exploration will get it first.

    2 - This is another relic. Once upon a time, there was only one commendation category - diplomacy. It maxed out at around 1300 xp and change, and those 10 and 20 xp missions were the only way to raise it. Heretic has said he's trying to get those missions updated, but it's outside of his work in the doff system.

    3 Think of it as rounding - warp speeds post-Voyager were established to be upwards of 9.999, and we only get two decimal places. If you don't have any points in Driver Coils, you'll actually cap out at 9.97 with standard warp engines.

    In Voyager, aside from one episodes 10 was the limit of warp fields, not infinite speed, and there were various ways to far exceed warp 10. In STO, we have three of them, in fact. The MACO engine's asynchronous warp bubble (12), Borg Subtranswarp engine (14), and quantum slipstream (20), and they also break the cap on driver coils, letting you increase warp speed even farther. Quite a few people blazing around at warp 21.

    4 - I actually wouldn't be averse to this as a C-store purchase, but I hope they go with something they talked about before. One of the things they discussed early on for the event system was special events similar to the Mirror incursion that would give players who finished it access to a refinery that would let them process ore beyond their cap.

    5 - Don't know how viable it would be, since the shooter mode is really just bolted on, but it is fair to give some benefit considering you give up the accuracy you get in RPG mode.

    6 - This is why I let my doffs do the scanning, heh. I used to see those waveforms in my sleep.

    Moderate Suggestions:

    1 - This has been a point of contention with the devs forever. Interiors were originally developed to be something they're not. So they're designed to allow multiple players to move around at once. On top of that, they were scaled to accommodate their awful camera. There is good news, though - the camera issues seem to be resolved, and the last interior set they released, the TOS set, is pretty reasonably scaled. It is scaled up from appropriate dimensions, but it's the kind of scaling you learn to expect from 3D games. The Defiant interior that should be coming in the next few weeks looks even closer into scale, though we've only seen it in pictures and video, we haven't actually gotten to walk around it yet..

    2 - Seamless sector space is on the list, they've talked about it before. It'll take some moderate tech, but more importantly, it's a content thing. There are a lot of holes that need to be filled, and a lot of content to put in those holes. Content is the limiting factor as so many things in the game.

    As for the speed, it's a sacrifice for gameplay. Before the driver coils skill, sector space travel was already interminable. Scaled down to canon speeds would be simply unplayable.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    I like the dil refinement idea, but I could easily earn that 65k dil in less than three days. A lot of us earn 8k+ on more than one character and refine the max on several every day.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    I will reply to the larger comment in a bit, I don't have much time right now.. forgive me. I just wanted to comment to the above poster, in that I'm quite surprised you're allowed a daily cap on a character by character basis. I did not even know you could refine more than 8k on additional characters.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    yeah, I earn a minimum of 24k a day.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    hevach wrote: »
    1 - Fleet actions in general are currently a relic of a lot of things that were wrong with STO at launch. You're not the only person hoping for a revamp of them as a lot of other content has gotten, but dev chatter seems to be that exploration will get it first.

    2 - This is another relic. Once upon a time, there was only one commendation category - diplomacy. It maxed out at around 1300 xp and change, and those 10 and 20 xp missions were the only way to raise it. Heretic has said he's trying to get those missions updated, but it's outside of his work in the doff system.

    3 Think of it as rounding - warp speeds post-Voyager were established to be upwards of 9.999, and we only get two decimal places. If you don't have any points in Driver Coils, you'll actually cap out at 9.97 with standard warp engines.

    In Voyager, aside from one episodes 10 was the limit of warp fields, not infinite speed, and there were various ways to far exceed warp 10. In STO, we have three of them, in fact. The MACO engine's asynchronous warp bubble (12), Borg Subtranswarp engine (14), and quantum slipstream (20), and they also break the cap on driver coils, letting you increase warp speed even farther. Quite a few people blazing around at warp 21.

    4 - I actually wouldn't be averse to this as a C-store purchase, but I hope they go with something they talked about before. One of the things they discussed early on for the event system was special events similar to the Mirror incursion that would give players who finished it access to a refinery that would let them process ore beyond their cap.

    5 - Don't know how viable it would be, since the shooter mode is really just bolted on, but it is fair to give some benefit considering you give up the accuracy you get in RPG mode.

    6 - This is why I let my doffs do the scanning, heh. I used to see those waveforms in my sleep.

    Moderate Suggestions:

    1 - This has been a point of contention with the devs forever. Interiors were originally developed to be something they're not. So they're designed to allow multiple players to move around at once. On top of that, they were scaled to accommodate their awful camera. There is good news, though - the camera issues seem to be resolved, and the last interior set they released, the TOS set, is pretty reasonably scaled. It is scaled up from appropriate dimensions, but it's the kind of scaling you learn to expect from 3D games. The Defiant interior that should be coming in the next few weeks looks even closer into scale, though we've only seen it in pictures and video, we haven't actually gotten to walk around it yet..

    2 - Seamless sector space is on the list, they've talked about it before. It'll take some moderate tech, but more importantly, it's a content thing. There are a lot of holes that need to be filled, and a lot of content to put in those holes. Content is the limiting factor as so many things in the game.

    As for the speed, it's a sacrifice for gameplay. Before the driver coils skill, sector space travel was already interminable. Scaled down to canon speeds would be simply unplayable.

    1 - I think they should be timed. They should only occur randomly each day, one time. Increase the reward potential, but make them engaging. The endless respawn system is simply annoying.

    2 - Let's hope he can get it updated. Wouldn't take very long.

    3 - Then just increase the cap of warp drive to 11 or 12 instead of 10, when you're maxed in driver coil. Warp ten, for me, should be off-limits. Like the speed of light. You can't ever accelerate to it, but going faster if you're already traveling at it.. that's okay.

    4 - I love this idea!

    5 - Indeed, personally the best way to balance it is to remove the tab targetting mode, at least in pvp.

    6 - Eh, I personally don't get a lot of data samples, not the higher tier at least, which is of course the ones that matter for me and most players.

    MODERATE

    1 - I'd rather have to be a bit more zoomed in than have corridors bigger than some houses. That doesn't make sense and truly does kill my immersion.

    2 - I never intended to imply I want sector space travel to take as long as in the tv show. That would be ridiculous, it would take months to years to cross the entire space available. No way. I just want it to take a bit longer, draw it out a bit instead of making it a fading passing thought. Do you remember how much happened on the ship in TNG?

    Have more dynamic random events that can occur to one's ship while traveling through space, too. Wormholes, black holes, odd pulsars rotating too fast, stars about to go supernova, etc.. not everything has to be about fighting!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2012
    ValoremVox wrote:

    Minor Suggestions:

    1 - I recently played a fleet event, ground based. It was the Romulan Temple. This was my first genuine ground based large-scale fight. I will say a couple things, but first off, I did have fun. I simply recognize one fundamental issue... respawning enemies. This makes the event drag on, far too long. I don't mind that more enemies beam on down after we complete an objective, to reinforce and add difficulty.. but on every subsequent part after the first objective, reinforcements were infinite. This is not fun. It gets mundane and irritating fairly quickly.

    Furthermore, and possibly even more critical a consequence of this for me, is that it makes me feel like my actions have absolutely no effect on the world. I can fight, do my best.. but the enemies just come back to life.

    Agreed. But, the easy way to do it, been since day 1, is to gang up and group em all. This mission is ALOT easier when partied up with 3+ people. If you want a hand, gimme a shout ingame, and I may round a few people up to help out. (@schotty)
    2 - I've been reading up more on duty officers and how the rewards for specific types of missions contribute towards the experience of a title, like diplomacy or medical.

    Onto this point, I also do a lot of exploration to gather data samples. What I've found rather odd, is the "Aid the planet" missions offer virtually no reward at all. At first, I thought that it was because I traded the planet merely low-class, cheap medical supplies, but no. Even Seismic stabilizers, very pricey commodities, returned the same reward. A small token of experience, and 10 diplomacy xp.

    I find this odd. I think the reward should be increased, perhaps granting a bit of Dilithium, or sometimes an item specific to your level. Or / and increased diplomacy experience. Another idea too, would be to grant duty officer experience based on the commodity traded. For example, medical supplies would grant medical experience, seismic stabilizers could grant development xp, or something like that.
    That got borked during the swap from the XP/DXP trees to the XP/DoffXP trees. There used to be alot less DXP needed to hit each tier rank. It sucks now for me on my one fed toon that I didn't grind at all.
    4 - I like the Dilithium refinement system, but I had a quick idea.. add in the ability to purchase an increased refinement process from the cryptic store, applicable to your account only. It would allow you to process 10,000 Dilithium a day, instead of 8,000. The cost could be debatable, but I was thinking about 250 Cryptic points, or something like that. It would take over 65,000 Dilithium to get that, meaning over 2 months for the purchase to start returning a profit. Not too bad. Again, the price can be debated.
    Thats supposedly a perk for doing a monthly sub or going lifetime. You are supposedly allowed/going to be allowed the ability to catch up for free on days not played. I can say I am not sure, since I had been given so much dilithium on my toons during the switchover from the old currency system that I haven't needed to care.
    5 - For ground combat, I wanted to add more incentive towards using aiming mode over tab targetting. Simply increase the firing rate of the standard weapon attack while aiming, slightly. Nothing huge, just a nice bonus. The damage increase helps, but it doesn't make up for 100% accuracy for those not aiming manually.
    You do get a perk for crouching as opposed to standing. FPS mode is unfinished tho. Would be nice to be able to Counterstrike out the ground with headshots and all, but we shall see if that ever occurs.
    6 - I love gathering Data samples, it just fits into my exploratory play style. Again, it's freaking Star Trek! But, I would love to see another mini-game event beyond just the one we currently have, which gets a bit stale after the thousandth time. :)

    Also, for later tier anomalies, I would suggest increasing the difficulty of the scanning event. It's too easy right now. Decrease the time allotted to complete it, but also increase the rewards allotted for doing so successfully. Perhaps a chance at double data samples here and there. That'd be great.
    Well participate in the anomaly events. You earn alot more during those times. Tis what I and a few fleetmates do when we need to farm.
    Moderate Suggestions:

    1 - Have you been inside your ship lately? It's fun, is it not? But have you noticed how the engineers in starfleet who've designed our vessels are woefully, inexcusably incompetent or insane? No one in their right mind would design a starship, in war times, to have such ridiculously large cathedral type ceilings and bridges! This means more volume, which means more air, which means more mass.. which means slower turn rate, more energy diverted towards maintaining structural integrity, and slower acceleration.

    It's silly. Please, scale down the size of starship interiors. Space stations are fine as they are not designed to be in motion.
    Interiors aren't done. Now that Atari is no longer gimping the devs with their withholding of cash, PWE should be getting this done eventually. Trust me, you are not the first to complain about the utter lack of anytthing useful to do on the interiors short of the mission or three that requires it. (I think its three, could be wrong tho -- 1 fed, 2 klink)
    2 - Sector space.

    Two things.

    Please, find a way to make it seamless!

    The devs are already on that. Sector space is going to be a giant space now, akin to how many other MMOs handle their world. Along with the rest of Sol. I cant wait to orbit Neptune :)
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