Ask Cryptic: September 2012

pwebranflakes

In this brand-new edition of Ask Cryptic, Executive Producer Dan Stahl delivers answers to player submitted questions.


Link to the Ask Cryptic.


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The poll from the last question of the Ask Cryptic can be found above.

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=

altechachan

Uh, Bran you might want to check your link. It's going to the August 2012 one.

Edit: nvm, it's linking to the September one now.

tobar26th

Wohoo!

/em reads

icegavel

look at that, KDF content has a full SIXTY-SIX percent of the vote at this time. I think that's a sign...

PS: When we DO get more KDF Content, could we also get a Klingonese Dictionary item in-game?

bloctoad

More cherry-picked questions for the Cryptic prefab answerbot. I love how he continually provides the most absurd of excuses for not fixing the cloaking device.

The main issue here is not communication coming from outside the ship, say from Qo'noS, decloaking the ship repeatedly that irritates people the most even though this itself should not force a vessel to decloak. It's the intraship communication between the Captain and the Bridge Officers decloaking the ship, which it definitely should not, that really bothers people.

Incoming extraship communication should not decloak the ship, merely make it increasingly possible to locate the ship should there be anyone who might notice or be looking. Intraship communication, no matter the reason, should never decloak a vessel. This isn't The Hunt for Red October where Seaman Jones can be heard piping Paganini. Sound cannot travel in a vacuum.

chalpen

nice ask cryptic.

voporak

I rarely once in a blue moon play on my KDF character (Vo'porak... I'm very good with names aren't I ) but I'd rather see the KDF developed first because if you don't you guys will hand a us a moldly, half baked cookie called the Romulan faction.

And speaking of the cloaking device... my first officer, sitting in a chair a few yards away from me on my Defiant should not decloak the ship.

First Officer: Cap-
Me: shhh!
First Officer: But ca-
Me: SHHHHHHHH!
first Officer: Captain, you decloaked us because you shushed me too loudly.

josephdridgeway

Most Interesting:

Q: (tovalmorgan) Are you ever going to fix the decloaking bug? Whenever your bridge officers talk to you or any kind of interaction window pops up on the screen while you are cloaked, the pop up window forces your ship to decloak.
Dstahl: To clear up some confusion about this issue, let me shed some light on how cloak is intended to relate to interactions within the game. It is our intention that any interaction within the game will remove stealth. Anytime you are expected to take a game action of clicking on a button to respond, whether it is to scan something, or acknowledge a bridge officer, or make a command decision via a contact option, it should pull you out of stealth. With that said, there are undoubtedly missions out there that were made prior to the inception of the mini-contacts (the ones that fly across your screen) which are just providing information and shouldn?t need to be acknowledged. One reason we created mini-contacts was to allow information to be given by your bridge crew without you needing to acknowledge it for game design purposes. If you feel that a specific mission contact could be switched to a mini-contact that doesn?t need acknowledgement, then that is the type of suggestion that should be made. We can then look at the mission specifically and determine whether it warrants a mini-contact or not.

So, instead of asking for the cloak to be fixed, we need to find missions where this situation can kill, and list them. But, where should we put this list? Will there be a thread here in the forums for this, or should we create in-game tickets for it?

pwebranflakes

josephdridgeway wrote: »

Most Interesting:



So, instead of asking for the cloak to be fixed, we need to find missions where this situation can kill, and list them. But, where should we put this list? Will there be a thread here in the forums for this, or should we create in-game tickets for it?

Feel free to list them in here -- the team is watching this thread.

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=

josephdridgeway

Thanks for the quick response, Brandon!

dastahl

bloctoad wrote: »

More cherry-picked questions for the Cryptic prefab answerbot. I love how he continually provides the most absurd of excuses for not fixing the cloaking device.

The main issue here is not communication coming from outside the ship, say from Qo'noS, decloaking the ship repeatedly that irritates people the most even though this itself should not force a vessel to decloak. It's the intraship communication between the Captain and the Bridge Officers decloaking the ship, which it definitely should not, that really bothers people.

Incoming extraship communication should not decloak the ship, merely make it increasingly possible to locate the ship should there be anyone who might notice or be looking. Intraship communication, no matter the reason, should never decloak a vessel. This isn't The Hunt for Red October where Seaman Jones can be heard piping Paganini. Sound cannot travel in a vacuum.

The probelm is, you are oversimplifying the issue. Whenever a Contact pops onto your screen which contains a button to click, this action causes the cloak power to turn off. If a content designer wants that NOT to happen, then they need to use a mini-contact that slides in with no button, and then it won't decloak your ship. So the fact is the behavior is working as designed in the editor, but designers could be doing a better job to communicate in the mission if there is a concern about decloaking. Without an understanding of the editor, this might not make sense, but that is why I'm urging that if you find a mission where you feel a contact can communicate via mini-contact instead of a full contact with a button, then send that in as a suggestion if you think that cloak is critical to that mission's gameplay. You can either submit a ticket, or post in this thread.

rrincy

would have liked some info on when s7 and the vesta are actually planned for release ( end of the year is pretty vague , but thats just me being greedy lol )

but nice to see KDF actually getting looked at seriously ( for a change )

josephdridgeway

Q: (wazzagiow) on a side note, I think you need to do more official polls.
Dstahl: I totally agree! Here?s one that may have an impact on what we do next, so vote wisely! (Feel free to leave your vote in the Blog comment section, or visit the forum thread linked below to participate in the poll.)
Which of these features would you like to see most in 2013?

• More Feature Episodes
• More KDF Content
• More Fleet Missions / STFs
• More Foundry Improvements
• More Rare Ships
• Playable Romulans
• Improve PVP
• Improve Duty Officer System
• Improve Crafting
• Improve Exploration

All. Of. The. Above!

voporak

Let me just throw one place out off teh top of my head:

Kerrat.

It is so annoying to decloak when the zone resets because my BOff wants to tell me something through word of mouth.

And by the way Cryptic, the solution is NOT to just remove Kerrat altogether.

EDIT: dstahl, I saw your post above... and I maintain my request, do NOT make us decloak in Kerrat.

dastahl

voporak wrote: »

Let me just throw one place out off teh top of my head:

Kerrat.

It is so annoying to decloak when the zone resets because my BOff wants to tell me something through word of mouth.

And by the way Cryptic, the solution is NOT to just remove Kerrat altogether.

EDIT: dstahl, I saw your post above... and I maintain my request, do NOT make us decloak in Kerrat.

We will take a lookt at Kerrat and see if the mission will allow us to communicate the map reset differently so that you don't de-cloak when the contact pops up.

jexsamx

In order as of this post:

KDF Content
Playable Romulans
Featured Episodes

With a combined 68.75% of the vote.


It's a bit early to call it, but I feel confident in saying...

...You have your orders, now carry them out!

dastahl

rrincy wrote: »

would have liked some info on when s7 and the vesta are actually planned for release ( end of the year is pretty vague , but thats just me being greedy lol )

but nice to see KDF actually getting looked at seriously ( for a change )

Unless plans change, November for both.

kadieras

Romulans!! Death to the Klingon Animals!!

rrincy

dastahl wrote: »

Unless plans change, November for both.

if the plans change , hit someone for me

please :P

linyive

Q: (alastorforthrigh) As a member of a small but active fleet I?ve felt the strain on resources that a fleet Starbase gives. It's very difficult for small fleets to acquire the resources to finish featured projects on time. It's even more difficult for small fleets to gather the necessary DOFFs for base and project upgrades. Is there something being talked about by the Dev team to make it less straining on a small fleets resources so that they don?t have to spend 100% of their time grinding resources to devote to the base?

Dstahl: Yes. There are several updates in the works to help alleviate some of the strain of finding some of the rarer items needed by projects. While I don?t expect the feature projects to change much, we do intend to put all feature projects back into rotation at some point in the future. Balancing the Fleet system when Fleet sizes range from 1 player up to 500 players is challenging, and so we?ve tried to find a happy medium by analyzing all of the fleet statistics to come up with the common denominator while still encouraging players to be in a fleet. We recognize that smaller fleets will be challenged but if it were any easier, big fleets wouldn?t be challenged at all. That said, we continue to add benefits and options to help smaller such as the Fleet Mark boost (available from Starbase vendors) that we just started offering for Fleet Credits. If it is any consolation, our internal development has a small active fleet (about 25 devs) on Holodeck (we?re purposely using anonymous non-dev accounts so that we can?t cheat) that is in the same situation. We have internal contests related to getting out team Starbase to various levels before Season 7 releases, so we have an active incentive to keep an eye on this and make sure we are feeling the same pain.

Other words, since scaling the system for smaller fleets will give bigger ones the advantage, Cryptic is unable or unwilling to accommodate smaller groups. After them telling everyone smaller fleets will also be accommodated, Cryptic did a complete 360 degree turn on the issue. Smaller fleets may get tiny pushes, but they will not get any help beyond the boosts.

I hope Cryptic knows that this means less people will have a fleetbase; thus, the majority of their player will not be able to build one. I don't call that having fun.

azurianstar

I'll be honest, the poll wasn't exactly an easy one to single out. If I had to rank the choices, it would be like this:

1. KDF Content
2. Playable Romulans
3. Foundry Improvements
4. Featured Episodes
5. Improved Crafting
6. Improved Exploration
7. Improved DOFF System
8. More Rare Ships
9. More Fleet Missions / STFs
10. Improve PvP

I would like to see Playable Romulans, providing they give unique gameplay and not just another costume.


Foundry Improvements are widely needed and welcome.

Featured Episodes always adds new technology to the game.

Improved Crafting system is needed since it's practically useless.

STO needs REAL exploration, not some random mission generator that repeats.

Only thing with the DOFF system I like to see is more 8,12, 16 hour missions so I can do other things I want in the game.

Rare ships, most likely end up in lockboxes and costing massive ammounts of money (that I don't have), this is very low on my list.

Fleet Missions and STFs, I'm tired of grinding. Therefore low priority.

PvP - just please put it out of it's misery.

startux

I think they may have underestimated the power of the dar...KDF side lol.

At least it seems Cryptic don't want to do a rush job on those missing levels, and that is a good thing.

voporak

kadieras wrote: »

Romulans!! Death to the Klingon Animals!!

You do realize that developing the KDF is essential to making the RSE faction, right? As I said before, I don't want a moldly and half baked RSE cookie throwing at me that's more useful as a ball and chain.

framesplicerx

dastahl wrote: »

We will take a lookt at Kerrat and see if the mission will allow us to communicate the map reset differently so that you don't de-cloak when the contact pops up.

While you are it, why don't you guys look into adding a second warp-in point. The fact that both factions warp on top of each other at map reset is one of the goofiest things in the game, IMO.

nephilim83

Not surprised to see KDF Conent in the lead (so far). Glad to see it, too. I wonder why people would ask for another playable faction when there is already one that is somewhat incomplete. Do we really want TWO overlooked factions? I know I don't. I want Cryptic to finish what they start before moving on to something new.

starfleetfc

Mr. Stahl, in season 7, will there be more KDF-only missions? And any FED only missions?

voporak

framesplicerx wrote: »

While you are it, why don't you guys look into adding a second warp-in point. The fact that both factions warp on top of each other at map reset is one of the goofiest things in the game, IMO.

yes... the other thing that desperately needs looking into. That's the root of the spawn camps. But I'm not sure the devs heard me...

-pulls out megaphone-

*Make the factions warp in at their appropriate spawn points!*

woodyvalley

It is a shame you can only pick one. There is a few that I would like to see next year and some more things that are not listed, I like to see.

captainrevo1

A really nice ask cryptic this month.

the poll was hard to choose (i literally want all of them developed) but the question was what do you most want to see and what i want to see most is a romulan faction. ive wanted it from the start.

i certainly want more KDF content, more FE etc but these are things we do already have and im sure will continue to be added naturally throughout the life of the game.

the romulan faction is something we dont have so id like to get them in. i fully accept and expect that they will be quite a small faction or somehow will get integrated into the other factions but for nearly 3 years all ive wanted is to fly a d'deridex. once they are in then they can develop the klingons or pvp or whatever to their hearts content.

jared1701

dastahl wrote: »

Dstahl: Given the general feedback regarding the State of the Game blog, let me join you in missing the simplicity of the Engineering Report list of what?s being worked on. The trouble with the Engineering Report is that it is changes frequently as our tasks shift from item to item and so while it is for the most part reflective of what we are investigating or working on at the moment, it is only a snapshot of the bigger picture and would often mislead readers into thinking something being discussed was coming sooner than it was. If there is a format that will allow this level of transparency without causing frustration, then I?d be happy to field any suggestion. Also, I?ve forwarded your request to the software team to see if that is something they can squeeze into their backlog.

Here's a simple idea - have a list of all the things that are "on the table" listed by sections such as ships, maps, PvP, KDF etc. it can be color coded in a way that us trekkies would understand... Green=things that are currently being worked on for release in the near future. Yellow=things in the early stages of development. Red=Things that are NOT currently being worked on but on the table for future development... simple and with a disclaimer that all things are subject to change.

framesplicerx

dastahl wrote: »

The probelm is, you are oversimplifying the issue. Whenever a Contact pops onto your screen which contains a button to click, this action causes the cloak power to turn off. If a content designer wants that NOT to happen, then they need to use a mini-contact that slides in with no button, and then it won't decloak your ship. So the fact is the behavior is working as designed in the editor, but designers could be doing a better job to communicate in the mission if there is a concern about decloaking. Without an understanding of the editor, this might not make sense, but that is why I'm urging that if you find a mission where you feel a contact can communicate via mini-contact instead of a full contact with a button, then send that in as a suggestion if you think that cloak is critical to that mission's gameplay. You can either submit a ticket, or post in this thread.

But WHY is it built this way? What is the fundamental reason?

If you want examples of groanable moments in cloak fail: pretty much any cluster mission that involves initial combat. I will warp in, get a ping from some one who needs help because of raiders, boom raiders appear. I clean them up, go to cloak. DING! Admiral So-n-so calls to tell you it's cool to engage the Alien raiders X, but that drops your cloak.

Same thing happens before you face the "final" Alien raider X in that same mission. You just finish off the 4 or 5 group and go to cloak- PING! Captain BadFace calls to tell you, you are toast... as your cloak is dropping.

I'm pretty sure cloaks didn't need to go down to send communications in the movies or shows.

Interacting with an object makes sense, but are you saying that the issue is that interactable objects/scans and communications are treated the same way? If so, can't one be flagged differently? I mean if you guys are even discussing a ROmulan Faction, then this kind of thing needs to be cleared up if you are expecting a whole ton more of cloaking ships in the game, IMO.


Side note- is it a bug or a feature that I can't see the interactable nodes in Kerrat when I'm cloaked? I have to drop cloak to see them eve before I can interact with them.