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Simple Question: Any serious talk of a Borg Collective playable faction?
cocoamatrix
Member Posts: 22 Arc User
Thats it, no liberated, Fed-washed, watered down, house Borg. Im talking about the full blown Collective.
For you old vets of the forum, no need to wonder, yeah its me again!
No, Im not trying to be a drone, that's the wrong idea...playing/identifying as an individual is so meat-bag oriented. I want to be a ship's Vinculum (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Vinculum), the localized central control unit for a ship of drones.
As the Vinculum(we dont need no stinkin' Captain), I the player would be the local control center for operating the ship and it's drones in accordance with the interest of the Collective: Explore and seek out technology and lifeforms(including the Undine) in which to Assimilate, to obtain specimens of the Omega molecule, to observe, and if relevant, engage Humanoid activity in the Alpha, Beta and Delta Quadrants.
Really, there isnt really anything in game i could do that wasnt in the interest of the Collective.
As the Vinculum, I would operate small groups of 5 Borg Drones for ground away missions. Their somewhat "disposable" nature would be supplemented through tactical transporter beam downs of replacements from the ship's compliment for any fallen drones(up to the minimum ship complement for the operation of the Borg vessel). Drones can be out-fitted with spealized enhancments and modifications to fill an assortment of roles and needs as deemed necessary by the Vinculum to engage or perform the duties during the away mission in line with the interest of the Collective; ie: Engage, assimilate, acquire.
Regarding ships, the Vinculum can be equipped in an assortmen of Borg ship classes, ranging from a 5 crew Scout Cube, to a 300m in length Borg Probe vessel, all the way to a Borg Sphere...access to the Cube can be left to discussion and assesment by the devs.
In place of bridge officers, Borg ships would have sub-processors which would be specialized/tasked to deal with specific operations such as tactical, science, and ship/drone crew maintenance.
Borg adaption? Really, all that real is is a buff...how is that any different from the various buffs to shields, weapons and hull already in game...just re-name them, paint em up and push out with Borg themes...there arealready(and can be more) Borg specific specials in game.
Free-will, what is free-will. Does your away team in game have free-will when you tell them where to go, who to attack, what special to use? Plus, contrary to popular belief, the Borg does allow for autonomus behavior in the execution of the Collective's interests...its just that the Collective can over-ride a determination and action made a ship or group of Drones. No, they'll never be able to decide what hairstyle to use that day, but they can decide if something is worth assimilating...or even the best means of assimilating. Heck, the group of drones that were thawed out of the ice on Earth [ENT: EP: Regeneration]were totally disconnect from the Collective, but operated very well in their efforts to eascape, acquiring a ship, resources and modifications to get a message to the Collective(which required the construction of a comms array or something...if they were connected to the Collective, they wouldnt have needed to build anything to get the message off). While disconnected from the Collective, they used TACTICS, sabotage, deception(rope-a-dope) and ambushes, etc in order to achieve their goal...with no connection to the Collective, just autonomous and independent strategizing within the small group's hive mind.
What is important to see here is that the Collective isnt much different in the end as the rest of you meat-bags, the Borg are just better in-tune with the whole.
Remember, this isnt playing a Borg...its playing as an autonomous(yet inter-connected) control unit within the Collective...not much different than your Captain who is less intimatly connected to StarFleet or Klingon High Command through sub-space communications...I mean, who would want to play as a Drone?...Thats like you playing as a bridge officer or worst, some red shirt on the away mission.
Discuss...even flame, who cares...we'll adapt.
For you old vets of the forum, no need to wonder, yeah its me again!
No, Im not trying to be a drone, that's the wrong idea...playing/identifying as an individual is so meat-bag oriented. I want to be a ship's Vinculum (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Vinculum), the localized central control unit for a ship of drones.
As the Vinculum(we dont need no stinkin' Captain), I the player would be the local control center for operating the ship and it's drones in accordance with the interest of the Collective: Explore and seek out technology and lifeforms(including the Undine) in which to Assimilate, to obtain specimens of the Omega molecule, to observe, and if relevant, engage Humanoid activity in the Alpha, Beta and Delta Quadrants.
Really, there isnt really anything in game i could do that wasnt in the interest of the Collective.
As the Vinculum, I would operate small groups of 5 Borg Drones for ground away missions. Their somewhat "disposable" nature would be supplemented through tactical transporter beam downs of replacements from the ship's compliment for any fallen drones(up to the minimum ship complement for the operation of the Borg vessel). Drones can be out-fitted with spealized enhancments and modifications to fill an assortment of roles and needs as deemed necessary by the Vinculum to engage or perform the duties during the away mission in line with the interest of the Collective; ie: Engage, assimilate, acquire.
Regarding ships, the Vinculum can be equipped in an assortmen of Borg ship classes, ranging from a 5 crew Scout Cube, to a 300m in length Borg Probe vessel, all the way to a Borg Sphere...access to the Cube can be left to discussion and assesment by the devs.
In place of bridge officers, Borg ships would have sub-processors which would be specialized/tasked to deal with specific operations such as tactical, science, and ship/drone crew maintenance.
Borg adaption? Really, all that real is is a buff...how is that any different from the various buffs to shields, weapons and hull already in game...just re-name them, paint em up and push out with Borg themes...there arealready(and can be more) Borg specific specials in game.
Free-will, what is free-will. Does your away team in game have free-will when you tell them where to go, who to attack, what special to use? Plus, contrary to popular belief, the Borg does allow for autonomus behavior in the execution of the Collective's interests...its just that the Collective can over-ride a determination and action made a ship or group of Drones. No, they'll never be able to decide what hairstyle to use that day, but they can decide if something is worth assimilating...or even the best means of assimilating. Heck, the group of drones that were thawed out of the ice on Earth [ENT: EP: Regeneration]were totally disconnect from the Collective, but operated very well in their efforts to eascape, acquiring a ship, resources and modifications to get a message to the Collective(which required the construction of a comms array or something...if they were connected to the Collective, they wouldnt have needed to build anything to get the message off). While disconnected from the Collective, they used TACTICS, sabotage, deception(rope-a-dope) and ambushes, etc in order to achieve their goal...with no connection to the Collective, just autonomous and independent strategizing within the small group's hive mind.
Excerpt from the ENT: Episode: Regeneration, toward the end of ACT 3..read on into ACT 4 for more http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Regeneration_(episode):
The transport drops out of warp. Ensign Sato reports an incoming transmission; it is an activation sequence. On Archer's order, she tries to stop it, but cannot. The Borg-modified circuits suddenly become active. Main power and other systems, including weapons, begin to fail. Archer angrily realizes the truth: the drones sabotaged the circuits, modifying the appropriate systems so that this signal would cause them to fail.
The transport drops out of warp. Ensign Sato reports an incoming transmission; it is an activation sequence. On Archer's order, she tries to stop it, but cannot. The Borg-modified circuits suddenly become active. Main power and other systems, including weapons, begin to fail. Archer angrily realizes the truth: the drones sabotaged the circuits, modifying the appropriate systems so that this signal would cause them to fail.
What is important to see here is that the Collective isnt much different in the end as the rest of you meat-bags, the Borg are just better in-tune with the whole.
Remember, this isnt playing a Borg...its playing as an autonomous(yet inter-connected) control unit within the Collective...not much different than your Captain who is less intimatly connected to StarFleet or Klingon High Command through sub-space communications...I mean, who would want to play as a Drone?...Thats like you playing as a bridge officer or worst, some red shirt on the away mission.
Discuss...even flame, who cares...we'll adapt.
Post edited by cocoamatrix on
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If they thought like a 'playable faction' either it would have to be relatively unplayable (no running, have to ignore obvious threats until they directly affect you, etc), or they would have to be nerfed to the point they are no longer Borg.
Likely not very practical.
Playing as a Borg removes that choice. All the ships look the same. All the characters look the same. Basically, playing as the Borg does not fit with this game. Look at the nature of the missions in this game. We play a KDF or Starfleet officer that works as a troubleshooter to resolve problems that our government have. The Borg would just send in the closest ship and if that didn't work, then they send in more ships to resolve a problem. The Borg have no need for troubleshooters.
If a Borg faction is done, then it would have to be a splinter Borg faction that is no longer under the control of the Collective.
1. all the ships are cubes
2. there is no rank progression- ALL are drones to the queen
3. No real storied missions- All the Borg do is wander and destroy (assimilate others)
4. No markets/banks in Borgland
5. No uniqueness at all (no uniform shops, no weapon merchants, no food items, etc)
6. No fleet system to grind for
8. PvP would be limited to throwing them into Kerrat for every other faction to pound on
...of course it wouldn't happen until the other 2 factions were complete (KDF, Romulan), something for the fanboys to wait on.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
I'm not arguing for or against the idea, mind you, just throwing out thoughts.
So how do you maintain the NPC Borg as scary opponents fit for the hardest challenges, and also keep a playable Borg Collective balanced against the other factions in PvP?
If they had their own mission progression, PvE balance wouldn't need to be a big factor. Actually, having a much harder set of missions to play would probably appeal to some players.
But they'd have to be excluded from the existing social zones and some of the cross-faction FE's. They are the enemy, after all.
So, maybe Borg don't need social zones in that sense. Make all of the necessary facilities available on their ships. Give them the ability to transwarp just about anywhere, including a special zone all theirs where the Collective can Collect. Maybe you get new ships by doing some kind of "Assimilate The Planet" mission. They could even be a premium, elite faction you pay for or unlock.
But it still doesn't solve the PvP balance issue. Unless Cryptic throws PvP out entirely, and I hope they don't, that's not going to be easy to do.
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Well... not quite. All you have to do is look at the assimilated Locutus in TNG and 7 of 9 in Voyager to see that they do, sometimes, look and act a little bit differently even as a part of the Collective.
And yeah, differences in ship appearance would be kind of hard to justify. And yeah, they're all green. But the game already does have variations to some extent. We've got probes, spheres, cubes, and tactical cubes. Not to mention the very different looking boss ships in the Borg Alerts.
I do not want to see pink Borg with ponytails running around showing cleavage. There has to be a limit to the customization. But that may not be a good enough argument for excluding the Borg as a playable faction.
My main concern would be balancing them against the existing factions without taking away their deadly foe status.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Tell that to the crew of the first Enterprise...they got rope-a-doped into an ambush using sabotage. The Collective's failings is its complacency and cockyiness...it never expects to lose and assumes it has enough resources to attrite any threat. The Collective is also willing to lose the battle to set up a victory in the war...even if it means constantly burning through drones and ships to do it...they have enough. The Collective doesnt think so linearily or short-term. We think in terms of hours, days, maybe years...the Borg can thinf on the level on centuries or more. As far as they are concerned victory now or victory 1000yrs from now is all the same.
No running is fine, Drones can be tactically teleported into position...they've hot dropped drones on top of people before.
The player can still ignore players until they are deemed threats or worth of assimilation. Drone ships have done it before, ignored a ship in lieu of anothe rtasking deemed more important.
The Borg is already nerfed have you played against them...we were squashing them from day one. The game has already demonstrated that some are easier than others. Players playing as Borg would run the same spectrum.
The Borg Probe is rectangular, the Sphere is...well spherical..but hey, those of us polaying Borg wouldnt be bothered with that.
Rank can be synonomous with drone compliment, as you gain experience and perform tasks, you inevutably gain new drones. More drones means a bigger ship, bigger ship with lots of drones means more localized processing power and man-power for larger taskings...so you'd move up the adjunct chain..tertiary, binary adjuncts of various unimatricies.
How would the procedurally based missions of the Feds/klings any different than wander in destroy? Why cant there be a stroied mission of a Borg ship's(yours) adventures toward acquiring Undien tech, the Omega molecule, encounters with Fed, Kling or Romulan antagonists?
Not everyone cares about the market system, though you could theme a market to imply the use of energy units to "construct" modules witin the ship which are actually being bought.
Uniquiness would come from your drone compliment. As the Vinculum, you get to decide what type of drones you use, for what bonues and for use on away missions.
There can be Borg fleet actions, new ones of course.
Borg can easily be applied to PvP...third faction in a 3 way fight.
The various ships of the Collective do have choice, very limited choice...but honestly, the available chices in game are limioted anyway...there is all but nothing a Borg player could or couldnt do that wouldnt be within the confines of the Collectve's interests.
A vinculum can decide what drone types to take on an away mission, which specials to use during a battle, to or not assimilate, to ignore ro to engage. You can decide when to fire the cutting beam, or when to employ the shield drainer.
Make missions for the Borg. Its not like the Collective hasnt issued a command for a Borg cube to work with and protect a federation ship whenit was in the Collective's interests. The ship was even capable of recognizing the benefit of sacrificing itself to protect the Fed ship...meaning teh ship was processing cause and effect for future considerations within the interest of the Collective.
The Borg is just different faction oriented/themed play, but at the core, its all the same.
Just like any other faction, the Borg will feel deadly when you come up against a well player Ship(s).
The game already has easy Borg and difficult Borg. Player Borg will also run the spectrum. i remember routinly solo killing cubes in my BoP. ive also had cubes scrap me off the bottom of their boots.
We could exclude Cubes from player use, but honestly, players will want those. I think we can certainly agree that Tactical Cubes should be AI/NPC only.
But keep in mind, Voyager defeated a Borg Probe all by itself. This was a 300m vessel, appromiatly equal in size and mass as the Intrepid class starship. The Scout-Cube would have been a push over.
You have to remember, one of the reason the Cube was so hard to fight was because it was huge and had an astronmical amount of resources to bring to bear against its target. But it appears Borg ships of approximate mass to a Alpha/Beta quadrant ship isnt so far out the meat-bag ship's league...even with all the adapations and equipment avilable to the Borg ship.
This is my problem as well. The Borg are treated as more of force of nature even within the core Star Trek series. The collective is more like an all consuming termite mound, that only exists to feed, and singlemindedly pursues that goal. While that applies to a lot of MMO players as well, (I honestly can't tell if I'm joking or not) having them as a playable faction isn't in the best interest of the game, franchise, or players. It's a cool idea for sure, and could make an excellent videogame. Just not as an MMO, particularly how this one is set up.
I think the Romulans or the Dominion would make much better factions.
Of course, I haven't gotten to the Borg missions later in the game yet, so, I have no idea what is actually wrong with them. Forgive me if I'm wrong.
You don't.
You want to fly a cube? TOO BAD! YOU'RE STUCK ON A SCIENCE SPHERE!
You want to farm dilithium? TOO BAD! BORG HAVE NO USE FOR CURRENCY!
You want freedom and independance to be able to do whatever you want? TOO BAD! YOU'RE ASSIGNED TO CLEANING THE PLASMA MANIFOLDS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, AND YOUR FREE WILL HAS BEEN TAKEN AWAY SO YOU CANNOT EVEN PROCESS THE THOUGHTS TO CONVEY YOUR DISLIKE FOR YOUR ASSIGNMENT!
Playing as the borg means either you ARE the Borg Queen, or you will never be allowed to do what you want because you're just another cog in the machine.
-The Milkshake Song: Vulcan Edition
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Legendary Starfleet Captain
STO Forum Member since December 2010
the Borg wil be nice to ad but
when they ad they must go back in time when borg stil was a friendly race
for weeks i try to figure out the back ground of there race but its very hard
this is what i found
"Star Trek: Legacy" presented the theory that the 20th century Borg civilization was a peaceful race. When V'Ger encountered them, they studied its programming, repaired the probe, and sent it on its task. When V'Ger returned to the Sol system it could not find its creator, but "a biological infestation." The probe returned to the Borg homeworld and joined with them, and its programming propagated throughout the Collective. Something of a civil war broke out. Massive amounts of knowledge, including the location of Earth, were lost in the resulting conflict, and the Borg of the 24th century were born.
so if this is true there can be a great story to be made
To the OP: bad idea for all the reasons highlighted before.
To the devs: Romulan faction, NAO.
But if you want to talk about choice, you dont have choice when your in the military either. You dont get to choose what you wear or what colors you paint on your ship. You are told what to do and when to do it, and if you dont do exactly what you are told you are punished for it. That is how military organizations work.
With that basic concept in mind, playing as a Borg would work exactly the same as playing as a member of Starfleet or the KDF: you are assigned a mission, you complete your mission, rinse and repeat. The only difference would be you are getting missions from "the collective" instead of Starfleet or the High Command.
And for the people who still dont like the idea of playable Borg I have 3 words for you: dont play them. If a playable Borg faction is ever added to the game, I promise I wont come to your house and force you to play it.
Why would controlling a Borg ship in space or an away team of 5 drones be in anyway different in game mechanics as you flying a meat-bag ship or operating its away team as it is now in game?
The core mechanics of the game is the same, because the Borg dont operate that much different than the other factions. They fly ships, they consume resources, they absorb other races and technology into their Federations/Empires/Collective, they all feel a righteous sense of purpose and existance. They all push down rebellion within the State. The Borg has even negotiated cease fires.
Just like everything in game, all that is required is a themed mechanic to give current functions/features a Borg feel. It just requires a little thought and creativity to build-in...but thats nature of building a game.
What makes you think being part of a hive mind removes autonomy? You must think Im proposing we play as a drone...no, Im proposing we play as the autonomous entity within Collective that controls a whole ship(s) and its drones. Playing as a Vinculum is akin to being a Captain or Admiral in command of a ship(s) and its crew.
As in any game, there is a mechnaic used to create the immersion. As a vinculum, you are a disembodied, autonomous command & control structre. What is the difference between commanding a Sphere and its crew through its vinculum...and then controlling a cube through ist vinculum? Its just like you the player jumping from one ship to another. You have to re-arrange your perspective...are you really in the ship, are you really commanding it? Does your AI bridge officers have the ability to defy your orders...or are you just wrapping your brain around a game mechanic base don a meat-bag based perspective...have you just accepted the illusion? If you think about it, you the player are already acting very similar to the vinculum, the unseen force and mind behind the characeters on screen.
Your ship and crew is actually more like the drones connected by the hive mind infrastructure that is your computer, internet and game code. What many have failed to realize is that you are already playing the way player Borg would play...only dressed up as Fed/Kling.
Player Borg couldnt against the Collective in game anymore than you can go against your faction's high command. But you can ignore mission, choose not to d them. Borg players coul ddo teh same, by not having mission presented in a compulsory manner. Instead, missions would be listed as localized taskings of interest to the Collective, the player would be able to tackle those missions as they see fit, in whatever order they want or never do them if they choose...why never? because there will always be things to do that arent on the tasking list that is still consistent with operations in the in interest of the Collective. As the vinculum, you get to decided priority of taskings unkess determined otherwise by direct command/control of the Collective...lucky for us in game, we never have to recieve direct commands or control from the Collective. But with direct command wont borgs ships sit there and sleep? Nope, they are autonomous, the Collective is massive...there is no reason to think a Borg vessel couldnt go decades or centuries without direct intervention/over-ride by the Collective.
Hive mind doesnt mean explicit, second-by-second micro-managment of all activities. the Borg have proven and demonstrated their autonomous operations on numerous occasions in canon..but to see it, you cant focus on the Collective at the level of the drone.
It is still an IP. If you want Borg that are not really Borg, that move and fight normally while retaining all the Borg advantages, is it still a Borg faction rather than a Borg skinned faction?
I mean, you can have a faction with the appearance of waffle cones. That doesn't mean it would make sense within the IP.
Most of the ships in Star Fleet (per the series we have seen) have considerable discretion. This is a necessary side effect of them being out of effective communications so often. The various captains rarely had direct orders with inflexible deadlines.
There is a difference though. Borg handle missions mechanically... slowly and methodically. Again, if they don't they are not Borg. They don't deliberately flank or use any real tactics other than advancing slowly and relying on a superior ability to adapt.
So, you are suggesting a playable Borg faction that no one outside of said faction interacts with at all? Essentially a completely separate Borg game, requiring its own servers, having no PvP (unless you are suggesting Borg vs Borg PvP....)
I really have serious doubts it would be able to recover costs.
That is the Borg, The Queen directs her will to the collective which carries out her commands, the collective has all of the accumulated knowledge and experience of every being assimilated, but it has no self direction, it is not a true hive mind, the collective is under absolute control of the Borg Queen, so much so that her destruction results in the destruction of every Borg under her direct control. When you are are in an incident with the Borg and you hear a group of voices informing you of the futility of the situation and demanding your surrender, that's not really the collective speaking, that's the queen voicing her wishes through the mouths of thousands of helpless slaves. Individual Borg are prisoners of their own bodies, they are often consciously aware of what they are doing but are helpless to do anything, if that doesn't sound like hell I don't know what does.
The only Borg with free will is the Queen, but there are few Queens, rarely more than one per quadrant. Like social insects, the Borg have provisions to elevate a suitable drone to Queen status, should the collective be without a queen for too long.
It is possible to be assimilated during ground missions against the Borg, try it and you will get a taste of how it would be to play as an Unliberated Borg.
So unless the game is going to blow historical canon completely out of the water, it's unlikely that an unliberated borg faction would be implemented.
To the pervious poster, laugh all you like. In the military, KDF, Starfleet, whatever you get your orders and you act on them, but you have free will, you interpret the needs of the mission the condition of the situation and execute accordingly. You would not find yourself in a position where you are a helpless spectator asking yourself why am I going this way, why did I shoot that guy, why can't I control my own body? That is the difference between a living thinking soldier and a mindless drone. If the borg were to be portrayed accurately in game, the player would not be able to do anything, just sit back and watch as his toon automatically plays through the game, doesn't sound like much fun to me.
But if they nerf the Borg, turn them into another faction, which I doubt CBS would allow, then it diminishes the threat and horror of the Borg.
And aside from the rare "Q event" or time loop, you didnt come back to life every time you die either. So as I said previously, the idea of a playable Borg faction is no more unrealistic within the IP than magically coming back to life after your ship blows up.
Not sure how much of this game you have actually played, but you can ALREADY solo Borg cubes. In other words, they have ALREADY nerfed the Borg and removed any scariness about them.
One reason; Currency. It just doesn't make any sense if the Borg, a mindless race, contribute to the economy of the galaxy. I would think the Borg wouldn't be very capitalistic, and really, the whole game revolves around capitalism. From starships, with fleet marks and dilithium, to the exchange. It's just not practical.
But time loops do happen. They would also explain the mix of uniforms and eras of ships.
Between the Devidian plot line and the Kuvah'Magh plot line (among others) there is more than enough time manipulation to explain such instabilities.
That is different from a completely separate, much less restricted Borg that are inconsistent with the Borg in the rest of the game let alone with canon.
Yes, they do. But guess what? That is not the storyline of this game as told by Cryptic and approved by CBS. So regardless of the fact that time loops do occasionally happen in Trek, that is irrelevant to what we are discussing.
The Collective would still need resources, resources on hand still determine the ability or inability to acquire or contruct tangible items.
So, the Collective would use some resource unit (energy, processing or both) to "construct" items...be it modules/equipment, creation of new drones or even ships. You'd never be on the market, but that doesnt mean you wont acquire, or perhaps in the case of the Borg, it may be the assimilation of items to improve, repair or construct a ship. All that is required is a borg themed interface and translation of current items and currency.
Yes, resources. But not credits. Not energy credits. That's money used exchange. I just couldn't see it happen, it would be too impractical. Except, of course, if you play as a conscious borg in a conscious sect. Then, exchange between factions could easily happen.
You are assuming that the characters notice. They are inside the event after all.
Do CBS or Cryptic give any explanation whatsoever for re-spawning? Mine works and is not incompatible with the rest of the IP, including what they have added to it.
The Borg, on the other hand, are consistent. This thread is suggesting a version of the Borg that is not consistent with what is in game let alone the rest of the IP.