I'm of the opinion that levels and rank titles should be decoupled altogether, and that ranks should be earned as milestones, much like accolades.
In other words, by level 40, one could earn the right to be called RALH, but choose not to. Said player would instead use their Captain title, and ALL NPCs would refer to them as Captain accordingly and not accidentally revert to calling them RALH or something.
The player would still have the option of changing their title to RALH at a later date, or revert, as many times as they like.
Another advantage of this decoupling is when adding level caps for accessing future episode missions/FE series - the devs can increase this number ad infinitum without having to associate with them ever-increasing ranks.
tl;dr version
Levels = strictly experience grade and restrictions on which episode missions / FEs are available
Ranks = titles that can be earned at various levels, but not forced on you, and NPCs will honor that
Laws of thermodynamics as applied to life: 0 - You must play the game. 1 - You can't win. 2 - You can't break even. 3 - You can't quit.
but I believe there are bigger issues which will always rise up which will take priority.
That's pretty much my take on things. Why bicker over something that's mainly cosmetic when there are bugs popping up everywhere, not to mention how the whole dilithium thing, especially in regards to crafting, should be reworked. So what if there are tons of Vice Admirals running around, how does MY being a Vice Admiral affect YOU being a Vice Admiral? Hmmmm, let's see...........oh yeah, it doesn't make a heap of difference.
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
Admiral Janeway was an Admiral and she had her own show. As far as I remember she keep that post and still may have that post in STO.
Kyle
Ah but she wasn't Admiral on Voyager now was she? Except in Endgame, and that was a parallel timeline that has now never happened. She wasn't an admiral till Nemesis.
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
Dan Stahl said smth like that: Long-term STO-players are Trek-Fans. Catering to their needs (i.e. adding Trek-feel to the game wherever possible/sensible) ensures STO's long-term viability.
Shame he doesn't do what he preaches.
Support the Game by Supporting the KDF, equality and uniqueness for all factions!
In "All Good Things" it was shown the After he had become an Admiral, Riker STILL stuck around on the Enterprise-D. Admiral or not he apparently lived on or spent most of his time on the ship.
how about this, we change the levels to something like this.
01 to 10 Lt jg
11 to 20 Lt
21 to 30 Lt Commander
31 to 40 Commander
41 to 50 Captain
51 to 60 Commodore
60+ Admiral
A progression like this would make sense and reduce the Vice Admirals in game to be the NPC's that dish out the orders. While still keeping the Admirals around in the big chair. And allowing us to promote Boffs to captain status and giving us our own mini task force of owned ship.....
Unless it comes with a kind of lite overhaul which disconnecs Levelranks from Titles/Promotions. But... no. My faith about that was beaten to death in a dark basement about over a year ago with cryptics lethargy towards this IMO immense immersion killer.
1 fill in 700 transfer applications
2 fill in 14,000 sexual harassment forms from female bridge officers forced to wear seven of nines outfit
3 assign a dozen real captains to missions
4 attend meeting with the vulcan ambassadors mother
While I sympathize with both sides I'd rather be a Captain than a Vice Admiral, but my reasoning is because I don't get to command a fleet or task force (yet), so what's the point? I'm just a Captain with a glorified title really.
That said, the main reason I find the high ranks bothersome isn't game play or canon trek related at all; it's a story issue. After all, we were given command of our first ship at a Lieutenant all because Starfleet is so short handed on command level officers. How is that credible with thousands of Vice Admirals running around? Not to mention, we each have at least half a dozen Commander level BOFFs.
But these ranks are established, so we must live with them. I would suggest three small modifications however.
First, rename the beginning rank from Ensign to Lieutenant Junior Grade (seems more likely anyway versus an Ensign magically being the only officer left) and expand the Lt. jg rank out to 5 levels so that, essentially, those couple beginning missions like the Azura which are pretty much training missions anyway are encompassed by these levels. This would mean that the Klingon front episodes would be entirely covered by Lieutenant, giving a bit of a distinction between awkward learning missions and real story missions and would also give us 5 more levels to work with. Second, expand the Rear Admiral levels from 5 to 10 to match the other ranks. (Not really sure why it isn't already that way). Third, reduce the XP earned per mission. As it stands, on Elite, if you do every patrol mission, episode and continually send your DOFFs on side missions you can hit Vice Admiral before you even complete the Romulan front! While it shouldn't be a terrible grind, the number of missions should roughly correspond to the number of steps required to advance in rank. (Obviously leaving room for exploration, patrol, etc.)
Long story short, I think that the rank system is relatively ok, it just needs adjusting. In total, 15 new levels added to the current rank system, and lowering the XP earned per mission to get there.
Actually I don't have a single bridge crew of all commanders
most I have is three (Chief engineer , Chief science officer , First officer (another sci) ) on the Ship Scicom Alpha
admrenlarreck, Commodore is not a real rank for the U.S. Navy anymore, that is call Rear Admiral Lower Half. Star Fleet ranks are still based on the U.S. NAVY ranks. Besides that I like the idea of LT JG and moving Admiral ranks up. Just we would need some new ships at some points.
Kyle
I get your point, but even though it may not be a "real rank" in the navy, it is cannon for the ST universe. During TOS there were a number of characters that were ranked at Commodore, mostly Starbase Commanders. This is where I took the rank from not the navy. It makes a lot more sense to me to have the Commodore rank in there and eliminate 2 Admiral ranks, one of which is only used for 5 levels, and the second of which should be reserved for the big guys at the top who issue the orders.
This to me makes more sense than the way things are currently set up.
information on the rank of Commodore is from the StarFleet Technical Manual copyright 1975
While I sympathize with both sides I'd rather be a Captain than a Vice Admiral, but my reasoning is because I don't get to command a fleet or task force (yet), so what's the point? I'm just a Captain with a glorified title really.
Again: Trek-lore establishes several occasions where mere Captains take command of Starfleet task forces or even fleets:
Picard's tachyon detection fleet in TNG: "Redemption". I guess this is the template for Cryptic's whole idea of assuming command of a task force and handing temporary command of the other vessels to your bridge officers...
Sisko commands the 2nd, 5th AND 9th fleets during Operation Return in DS9: "Favor the Bold" and "Sacrifice of Angels"
Sisko commands the Starfleet forces during the First AND Second Battles of Chin'toka in DS9: "Tears of the Prophets" and "The Changing Face of Evil"
Sisko shares command of the Starfleet forces during the Battle of Cardassia with Admrial Ross in DS9: "What You Leave Behind"
Furthermore, you do NOT need Captains or even Commanders to command ships in your task force:
Lieutenant Commander Data commands the Sutherland in TNG: "Redemption"
Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax commands the Defiant on various occasions in several DS9 episodes, e.g., "Favor the Bold"
Lieutenant Commander Worf becomes semi-permanent CO of the Defiant, depicted in "First Contact", DS9: "Rejoined", "Starship Down" and MANY more...
I see both sides arguments... but STO is a game. If in ST, and we were above the rank of captain, and neglecting our admiral/whatever duties by commanding a starship all the time, then it'd be an issue.
I think a little stretch like this isn't that much of an issue. You can call commanding a starship a personal perogative or whatever.
And on a side note, I'd like commanding a fleet of our Boff's You know, if/when we get the ability for our admirals
Was named Trek17.
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
Why is it that adults have such issues resolving their own imaginations and fitting into other adults imaginations?
Children don't have these issues.
Maybe we should kick out all of the adults and make them stop playing this imaginative game so all of us children can continue to enjoy it and have a good time? :P
I don't want to command a fleet of ships. I just want to captain my very own ship so I set the regulations, dictate the uniforms, tell my crew what to do and where to go in order to make me a richer retired admiral!
I see both sides arguments... but STO is a game. If in ST, and we were above the rank of captain, and neglecting our admiral/whatever duties by commanding a starship all the time, then it'd be an issue.
I think a little stretch like this isn't that much of an issue. You can call commanding a starship a personal perogative or whatever.
And on a side note, I'd like commanding a fleet of our Boff's You know, if/when we get the ability for our admirals
Please, see my post above about the not existing necessity of being an Admiral of any kind to command a task force.
Furthermore: A LITTLE stretch might be tolerable, but 100s of 1000s of FLEET Admirals/Dahar Masters running around is more than a "little" stretch... It's as if a match in Battlefield sees 40 Generals fighting against each other like normal GIs...
It's a fundamental question: Do people want a MMO set in the Trek universe and delivering the best possible immersion, or does everybody desperately demand the rank of god in the end in order to compensate for other short-comings
And again: We're just talking about the mere name of a rank... not about changing or preventing any fundamental game mechanics.
Why is it that adults have such issues resolving their own imaginations and fitting into other adults imaginations?
Children don't have these issues.
Maybe we should kick out all of the adults and make them stop playing this imaginative game so all of us children can continue to enjoy it and have a good time? :P
I don't want to command a fleet of ships. I just want to captain my very own ship so I set the regulations, dictate the uniforms, tell my crew what to do and where to go in order to make me a richer retired admiral!
Actually, children DO have those issues.
When they play cowboys and indians, and suddenly Superman comes flying in, ignoring all arrows and bulletes - that's cause for kindergarden drama for months!
That's actually why roleplaying games for adults developed rulesets and setting, so that everyone would be on the same page and could enjoy the game without someone bursting in on a power-trip.
In this game, admirals ARE the power-trip. There's no need for that title, and no reflection of the title in game at any point. We don't command fleets. We command single ships and a variable amount of crew members (BOffs and DOffs).
And unless you want to change this game into a tactical simulation for fleet operations, there's not going to be a reason for an admiral rank, ever.
It's really hard to keep up a feeling of immersion if you're seeing Superman and his thousand Super-siblings all over the place, no matter how hard you try - not that there's any point in actually trying if you have to FORCE yourself to ignore your surroundings. And don't get me started on Super-bro, Superman's troll'ish half-step-brother-trice-removed, who's actually going out of his way to TRIBBLE everyone off.
There's no need for that title, and no reflection of the title in game at any point. We don't command fleets. We command single ships and a variable amount of crew members (BOffs and DOffs).
And unless you want to change this game into a tactical simulation for fleet operations, there's not going to be a reason for an admiral rank, ever.
And yet again^^: Even IF you take command of your own task force (five ships isn't a "fleet" I'd say), you do NOT have to be anything above a "Captain". Trek-lore establishes sufficient examples showing that...
My main is now retired from Starfleet and runs her very own company with it's very own base of operations (courtesy of Starfleet!) . She has amassed quite the shipyard full of notable, select and rare to find ships over the course of her career.
So I want to change the direction of this topic and make it to be adding the "level" of Grand Nagusess. :P
And yet again^^: Even IF you take command of your own task force (five ships isn't a "fleet" I'd say), you do NOT have to be anything above a "Captain". Trek-lore establishes sufficient examples showing that...
Lesson: don't attack your allies, especially not if you're standing on vulnerable ground.
Let me demonstrate.
Problem with your argument is: all those operations were temporary field actions. The admirals actually in command of the fleets deployed in your examples simply took a backseat and let the local commander, who'd been involved and familiar with the situation handle a crysis.
That's actually quite good leadership, making use of your suborninates talents and knowledge instead of letting the formalities of chain of command override quick decision-making and having to rely on second-hand information and limited perspectives.
If any of those assignments had been long-term, the commanding officer would have been an admiral.
So, if the game changed to a tactical fleet simulation, with constanly assigned fleets ... then yes, an admiral title would actually be mandatory.
Sorry for shooting down your argument.
For this game as it is though, admiral titles are over-the-top.
Well... all of my chars OWN fleets. I mean really. Everyone has multiple ships... we just don't have the ability to use them at the same time.
"Owning" does not really have an impact, does it?
As soon as you're a LT or LCDR you're "owning" a small fleet. 'Doesn't make you an Admiral, does it.
It really comes down to actually "being in command of" a fleet for an admiral title to make sense, and until the game allows that, all we actually have is a choice of ships, not a fleet.
And if the game allowed it ... it would be a totally differnent game.
Comments
In other words, by level 40, one could earn the right to be called RALH, but choose not to. Said player would instead use their Captain title, and ALL NPCs would refer to them as Captain accordingly and not accidentally revert to calling them RALH or something.
The player would still have the option of changing their title to RALH at a later date, or revert, as many times as they like.
Another advantage of this decoupling is when adding level caps for accessing future episode missions/FE series - the devs can increase this number ad infinitum without having to associate with them ever-increasing ranks.
tl;dr version
Levels = strictly experience grade and restrictions on which episode missions / FEs are available
Ranks = titles that can be earned at various levels, but not forced on you, and NPCs will honor that
There, debate over. Now let's go play STO.
Fish? Why not Trident Layers?!
That's pretty much my take on things. Why bicker over something that's mainly cosmetic when there are bugs popping up everywhere, not to mention how the whole dilithium thing, especially in regards to crafting, should be reworked. So what if there are tons of Vice Admirals running around, how does MY being a Vice Admiral affect YOU being a Vice Admiral? Hmmmm, let's see...........oh yeah, it doesn't make a heap of difference.
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
Ah but she wasn't Admiral on Voyager now was she? Except in Endgame, and that was a parallel timeline that has now never happened. She wasn't an admiral till Nemesis.
Let us upgrade the Seleya Ceremonial Lirpa and Kri'stak Blade
Shame he doesn't do what he preaches.
Kyle
My character Tsin'xing
01 to 10 Lt jg
11 to 20 Lt
21 to 30 Lt Commander
31 to 40 Commander
41 to 50 Captain
51 to 60 Commodore
60+ Admiral
A progression like this would make sense and reduce the Vice Admirals in game to be the NPC's that dish out the orders. While still keeping the Admirals around in the big chair. And allowing us to promote Boffs to captain status and giving us our own mini task force of owned ship.....
Fleet leader Nova Elite
Fleet Leader House of Nova elite
@ren_larreck
He is a member of a species that lives on fish (non replicated)
serving the empire as a mercenary (for a start he can breath under water )
Arielle the mermaid?
PS: Why did i even hope this thread could start a constructive discussion^^
STOWiki admin.
Urghs. *thumbs down* *Mind presses "dislike" button*
Unless it comes with a kind of lite overhaul which disconnecs Levelranks from Titles/Promotions. But... no. My faith about that was beaten to death in a dark basement about over a year ago with cryptics lethargy towards this IMO immense immersion killer.
todays missions
1 fill in 700 transfer applications
2 fill in 14,000 sexual harassment forms from female bridge officers forced to wear seven of nines outfit
3 assign a dozen real captains to missions
4 attend meeting with the vulcan ambassadors mother
That said, the main reason I find the high ranks bothersome isn't game play or canon trek related at all; it's a story issue. After all, we were given command of our first ship at a Lieutenant all because Starfleet is so short handed on command level officers. How is that credible with thousands of Vice Admirals running around? Not to mention, we each have at least half a dozen Commander level BOFFs.
But these ranks are established, so we must live with them. I would suggest three small modifications however.
First, rename the beginning rank from Ensign to Lieutenant Junior Grade (seems more likely anyway versus an Ensign magically being the only officer left) and expand the Lt. jg rank out to 5 levels so that, essentially, those couple beginning missions like the Azura which are pretty much training missions anyway are encompassed by these levels. This would mean that the Klingon front episodes would be entirely covered by Lieutenant, giving a bit of a distinction between awkward learning missions and real story missions and would also give us 5 more levels to work with. Second, expand the Rear Admiral levels from 5 to 10 to match the other ranks. (Not really sure why it isn't already that way). Third, reduce the XP earned per mission. As it stands, on Elite, if you do every patrol mission, episode and continually send your DOFFs on side missions you can hit Vice Admiral before you even complete the Romulan front! While it shouldn't be a terrible grind, the number of missions should roughly correspond to the number of steps required to advance in rank. (Obviously leaving room for exploration, patrol, etc.)
Long story short, I think that the rank system is relatively ok, it just needs adjusting. In total, 15 new levels added to the current rank system, and lowering the XP earned per mission to get there.
Feel free to attack my position
most I have is three (Chief engineer , Chief science officer , First officer (another sci) ) on the Ship Scicom Alpha
I am in total agreement...... that is my total philosophy also.
My character Tsin'xing
Kyle
This to me makes more sense than the way things are currently set up.
information on the rank of Commodore is from the StarFleet Technical Manual copyright 1975
Fleet leader Nova Elite
Fleet Leader House of Nova elite
@ren_larreck
Again: Trek-lore establishes several occasions where mere Captains take command of Starfleet task forces or even fleets:
Furthermore, you do NOT need Captains or even Commanders to command ships in your task force:
STOWiki admin.
I think a little stretch like this isn't that much of an issue. You can call commanding a starship a personal perogative or whatever.
And on a side note, I'd like commanding a fleet of our Boff's
Been playing STO since Open Beta, and have never regarded anything as worse than 'meh', if only due to personal standards.
Children don't have these issues.
Maybe we should kick out all of the adults and make them stop playing this imaginative game so all of us children can continue to enjoy it and have a good time? :P
I don't want to command a fleet of ships. I just want to captain my very own ship so I set the regulations, dictate the uniforms, tell my crew what to do and where to go in order to make me a richer retired admiral!
Please, see my post above about the not existing necessity of being an Admiral of any kind to command a task force.
Furthermore: A LITTLE stretch might be tolerable, but 100s of 1000s of FLEET Admirals/Dahar Masters running around is more than a "little" stretch... It's as if a match in Battlefield sees 40 Generals fighting against each other like normal GIs...
It's a fundamental question: Do people want a MMO set in the Trek universe and delivering the best possible immersion, or does everybody desperately demand the rank of god in the end in order to compensate for other short-comings
And again: We're just talking about the mere name of a rank... not about changing or preventing any fundamental game mechanics.
STOWiki admin.
Actually, children DO have those issues.
When they play cowboys and indians, and suddenly Superman comes flying in, ignoring all arrows and bulletes - that's cause for kindergarden drama for months!
That's actually why roleplaying games for adults developed rulesets and setting, so that everyone would be on the same page and could enjoy the game without someone bursting in on a power-trip.
In this game, admirals ARE the power-trip. There's no need for that title, and no reflection of the title in game at any point. We don't command fleets. We command single ships and a variable amount of crew members (BOffs and DOffs).
And unless you want to change this game into a tactical simulation for fleet operations, there's not going to be a reason for an admiral rank, ever.
It's really hard to keep up a feeling of immersion if you're seeing Superman and his thousand Super-siblings all over the place, no matter how hard you try - not that there's any point in actually trying if you have to FORCE yourself to ignore your surroundings. And don't get me started on Super-bro, Superman's troll'ish half-step-brother-trice-removed, who's actually going out of his way to TRIBBLE everyone off.
And yet again^^: Even IF you take command of your own task force (five ships isn't a "fleet" I'd say), you do NOT have to be anything above a "Captain". Trek-lore establishes sufficient examples showing that...
STOWiki admin.
My main is now retired from Starfleet and runs her very own company with it's very own base of operations (courtesy of Starfleet!) . She has amassed quite the shipyard full of notable, select and rare to find ships over the course of her career.
So I want to change the direction of this topic and make it to be adding the "level" of Grand Nagusess. :P
Lesson: don't attack your allies, especially not if you're standing on vulnerable ground.
Let me demonstrate.
Problem with your argument is: all those operations were temporary field actions. The admirals actually in command of the fleets deployed in your examples simply took a backseat and let the local commander, who'd been involved and familiar with the situation handle a crysis.
That's actually quite good leadership, making use of your suborninates talents and knowledge instead of letting the formalities of chain of command override quick decision-making and having to rely on second-hand information and limited perspectives.
If any of those assignments had been long-term, the commanding officer would have been an admiral.
So, if the game changed to a tactical fleet simulation, with constanly assigned fleets ... then yes, an admiral title would actually be mandatory.
Sorry for shooting down your argument.
For this game as it is though, admiral titles are over-the-top.
My character Tsin'xing
"Owning" does not really have an impact, does it?
As soon as you're a LT or LCDR you're "owning" a small fleet. 'Doesn't make you an Admiral, does it.
It really comes down to actually "being in command of" a fleet for an admiral title to make sense, and until the game allows that, all we actually have is a choice of ships, not a fleet.
And if the game allowed it ... it would be a totally differnent game.
My character Tsin'xing