test content
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc

"The cloak was always meant to disengage when a contact pops up" Pure BS BS

124»

Comments

  • bluegeekbluegeek Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    I said it elsewhere and I'll repeat it here.

    I suspect that the basic problem is the nature of how players interact with the mission storyline and with contacts and objects. I'm basing my guesses off my understanding of the game as represented in the Foundry.

    I'm thinking that the game literally can not distinguish the difference between an interaction that actively scans a satellite, an interaction that demands the opposing ship to surrender, an interaction with your bridge officer that's supposed to trigger an external event, and an interaction with your bridge officer that's just a dialog tree.

    At the heart of it, every interaction is simply an event trigger. And there is probably no mechanism in the game code governing the cloak that is able to distinguish between types of event triggers -- assuming there even are different kinds as far as the code is concerned.

    If that's the basic problem, then there is no easy fix. The mini-contact is way better than nothing, and I really wish that were available from inside the Foundry. As far as I know, Foundry authors are kind of stuck.
    My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here
    Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
  • zordar01zordar01 Member Posts: 318
    edited September 2012
    bluegeek wrote: »
    I said it elsewhere and I'll repeat it here.

    I suspect that the basic problem is the nature of how players interact with the mission storyline and with contacts and objects. I'm basing my guesses off my understanding of the game as represented in the Foundry.

    I'm thinking that the game literally can not distinguish the difference between an interaction that actively scans a satellite, an interaction that demands the opposing ship to surrender, an interaction with your bridge officer that's supposed to trigger an external event, and an interaction with your bridge officer that's just a dialog tree.

    At the heart of it, every interaction is simply an event trigger. And there is probably no mechanism in the game code governing the cloak that is able to distinguish between types of event triggers -- assuming there even are different kinds as far as the code is concerned.

    If that's the basic problem, then there is no easy fix. The mini-contact is way better than nothing, and I really wish that were available from inside the Foundry. As far as I know, Foundry authors are kind of stuck.

    Cloaking used to work. Then they patched and it became what we've got. So instead of saying "I'm thinking that the game literally can not distinguish...", it's more accurate to say "Cryptic changed the game so that it literally can not distinguish..." That means they can change it back, or otherwise correct the situation so it works as before. But Dan's Ask Cryptic statement removes that possibility, doesn't it? Cryptic doesn't consider the cloak bug a bug at all. Personally, I think that, and the reason(s) behind that, are the real problem here.
    Star Trek: Online - Now with 100% more dinosaurs!!
  • bluegeekbluegeek Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    zordar01 wrote: »
    Cloaking used to work. Then they patched and it became what we've got. So instead of saying "I'm thinking that the game literally can not distinguish...", it's more accurate to say "Cryptic changed the game so that it literally can not distinguish..." That means they can change it back, or otherwise correct the situation so it works as before. But Dan's Ask Cryptic statement removes that possibility, doesn't it? Cryptic doesn't consider the cloak bug a bug at all. Personally, I think that, and the reason(s) behind that, are the real problem here.

    Is it possible that the reason for that is because the cloak wasn't dropping when it was supposed to before that patch?

    Making it work the way it used to might actually BE a bug from Cryptic's viewpoint.

    Or maybe they did change the interact system in a way that made it incompatible with the cloak.

    But you're assuming they can just put it back the way it was and I suspect that they can't without breaking a lot more than just the cloak.

    I agree that Cryptic needs to figure out how to prevent breaking cloak unnecessarily. I don't agree that cloaking should never drop.
    My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here
    Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
  • happyhappyj0yj0yhappyhappyj0yj0y Member Posts: 699 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    bluegeek wrote: »
    Is it possible that the reason for that is because the cloak wasn't dropping when it was supposed to before that patch?

    Making it work the way it used to might actually BE a bug from Cryptic's viewpoint.

    Or maybe they did change the interact system in a way that made it incompatible with the cloak.

    But you're assuming they can just put it back the way it was and I suspect that they can't without breaking a lot more than just the cloak.

    I agree that Cryptic needs to figure out how to prevent breaking cloak unnecessarily. I don't agree that cloaking should never drop.

    Gozer bluntly said that cloaking was working properly before (a quote of it is already in this thread even). We also know exactly what broke cloaking thanks to him: different interacts used to be handled/filed differently within the game, which was a pain to work with for them, so they put them all under one umbrella to make it easier on their end, doing so made everything decloak you, including a tonne of stuff that was never supposed to.

    Basically they changed things to make their job easier and it broke the game. They created a way to fix it by adding an option to flag stuff, but instead of actually going back and doing that (despite implying to the community that they had via Salami_Inferno) they instead ran a script that was supposed to auto-flag the stuff they broke, again to make their work easier. The script didn't work. At all. Now, again to make their work easier, they have simply given up and decided that the bug is a feature in classic fashion and given it the good ol' "Working as Intended" stamp.

    Or in a word: laziness.

    It's all about laziness.

    Laziness I would readily excuse IF we were getting the number of Featured Episodes IN ADDITION to Seasonal Updates which Dstahl had said we would back when all of this news was fresh. But, hey, that's not exactly the boat we're in now, is it?
  • zordar01zordar01 Member Posts: 318
    edited September 2012
    bluegeek wrote: »
    Is it possible that the reason for that is because the cloak wasn't dropping when it was supposed to before that patch?

    Making it work the way it used to might actually BE a bug from Cryptic's viewpoint.

    Or maybe they did change the interact system in a way that made it incompatible with the cloak.

    But you're assuming they can just put it back the way it was and I suspect that they can't without breaking a lot more than just the cloak.

    I agree that Cryptic needs to figure out how to prevent breaking cloak unnecessarily. I don't agree that cloaking should never drop.

    It would be possible, but that would mean that all the statements by Cryptic devs about this issue prior to Dan's latest Ask Cryptic response were wrong. Are we to believe that Salami_Inferno and Gozer were completely mistaken on how cloak was supposed to work in STO (HappyHappyJoyJoy has a recap post here)? Seems extremely unlikely, doesn't it? It seems more likely that Cryptic/PWE decided that it's just too much trouble to mess with, put out a 'you've got it all wrong' PR-spin statement, and are quietly sitting back hoping the forums will forget about it.

    And I'm not suggesting they roll back whatever patch broke cloaking in the first place. I'm saying to fix it so it works logically within the confines of the game (my suggestions for that are in this thread).

    Cryptic has been utterly incompetent at managing the expectations of the playerbase. Some playerbase expectations are unreasonable, but this cloaking issue? The fleet uniform issue? The 700 android Boff options? The KDF content issue? On and on it goes and each time it's a Cryptic PR fail. I'm sure the cloak fix isn't easy, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. They need to do something other than "lolwut? U mizunderstand cloak!1!!" Especially when we have multiple quotes from devs stating the exact opposite.
    Star Trek: Online - Now with 100% more dinosaurs!!
  • bluegeekbluegeek Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    Happy...

    Thanks for the clarification... I wasn't really playing KDF at the time and wasn't following the problem all that closely.

    That sounds about right and partly confirms what I was thinking about the current situation. It is an issue with interacts being too generic and not filtered, then. I was just wrong about how it got that way.

    IF there's a way to set flags on certain interactions to make them cloak-proof, then maybe this will be fixable someday.

    And I'll stop looking at the issue from Cryptic's point of view from here on out. They broke it, they're responsible, they should fix it.

    I'm just not very optimistic it will be anytime soon.
    My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here
    Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
  • zebularzebular Member Posts: 729 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    The following indented paragraph was suggested by someone in this thread, somewhere, but I cannot find it easily enough.

    I feel as well that they should just remove the current Cloaking Power(s) from the game and replace them with ones that are properly functional and meant to work properly with the dialogue system. Seems like that would be the best course of action.

    As it stands now, the way we are de-cloaked has no place in Star Trek and if I were CBS/Paramount, I would require that PWE/Cryptic make it function correctly, as it functions in the rest of the Star Trek Universe (IP).

    Mayhap we need to instead write CBS/Paramount with our Trekkie dissatisfaction with how the Cloak system is being portrayed.
    Full Name: Zeryn Zebulon Zebular 
    Short Name: Zebular ( @zebular )
    Starfleet Rank / Serial: Vice Admiral, Field Captain / SZ-872-112
    Fleet Registry / Command Ship: Fleet Admiral of the Betazed Patrol / U.S.S. Zebulon, NX-91333-C
    Diplomatic Registry: Starfleet Ambassador, Betazed Ambassador, Son of the Thirteenth House of Betazed
    Species / Birth Date / Birth Place: Half-Betazoid, Half-Human / Stardate 27481.22 / Rixx City, Betazed

    Handles: @zebular (PC)@MtnDewFreak (XBOX)@Terraseer (PS4)
  • daan2006daan2006 Member Posts: 5,346 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    zebular wrote: »

    As it stands now, the way we are de-cloaked has no place in Star Trek and if I were CBS/Paramount, I would require that PWE/Cryptic make it function correctly, as it functions in the rest of the Star Trek Universe (IP).

    Mayhap we need to instead write CBS/Paramount with our Trekkie dissatisfaction with how the Cloak system is being portrayed.

    that and among other things like romulan shortcuts
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    swimwear off risa not fixed
    system Lord Baal is dead
    macronius wrote: »
    This! Their ability to outdo their own failures is quite impressive. If only this power could be harnessed for good.
  • happyhappyj0yj0yhappyhappyj0yj0y Member Posts: 699 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    zordar01 wrote: »
    I'm sure the cloak fix isn't easy, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

    According to Gozer they just need to make sure a flag is in place on each interact, which should be ridiculously easy... just very time consuming.

    Thing is, it's been broken since at least mid-January 2011. If they made sure the flags were properly in place since they were implemented onward (which would have been around July 2011) then the problem shouldn't have been getting any worse. It's something they could chip away at and eventually solve... but they haven't. The problem hasn't been getting any better.

    Realistically this is something an intern should even be able to handle, so why has it endured for one year and eight months? This game doesn't have so much content as to make this an insurmountable problem.

    The only possible excuse would be if the flagging system was an utter failure and didn't work... and if that's the case, why hasn't that been fixed?
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    voporak wrote: »
    If I remember correctly, MES was placed at or near the top of the list by many people in the most useless abilities thread.

    It's a poorman's excuse for a cloak, really. :) Or else everyone would be using MES everywhere... but do you see people using MES? :D
    I was there... I know. I'm just making a point about how it's not only an issue affecting KDF.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My character Tsin'xing
    Costume_marhawkman_Tsin%27xing_CC_Comic_Page_Blue_488916968.jpg
  • happyhappyj0yj0yhappyhappyj0yj0y Member Posts: 699 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    You know what might go a small ways to relieving a portion of the problem? Reduce the cooldown on standard cloaking to zero. There'd be no sizable advantage in a fight since you can't use it then anyway. It would, however, make being decloaked by dialogue outside of combat nearly a non-issue, which is something that's currently a pain as it provokes a cooldown and wastes our time.

    Since you can't use that type of cloak in combat there's basically no real reason to have a cooldown on it.

    Obviously it wouldn't solve the problem, but it would make it slightly less annoying for anyone who's flying a ship that cloaks and isn't a Bird-of-Prey.
  • jockey1979jockey1979 Member Posts: 1,005 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    You know what might go a small ways to relieving a portion of the problem? Reduce the cooldown on standard cloaking to zero. There'd be no sizable advantage in a fight since you can't use it then anyway. It would, however, make being decloaked by dialogue outside of combat nearly a non-issue, which is something that's currently a pain as it provokes a cooldown and wastes our time.

    Since you can't use that type of cloak in combat there's basically no real reason to have a cooldown on it.

    Obviously it wouldn't solve the problem, but it would make it slightly less annoying for anyone who's flying a ship that cloaks and isn't a Bird-of-Prey.

    It is still annoying for people who fly a BoP - the least shielding, least hull and still get the 20 seconds cool down - we die faster than the other ships who also get pulled out of cloak.

    I wonder if we all just got on at CBS with a ton of letters about the issue would it get fixed then?

    (fixed = restore the cloak to what it should be and fix the missions that are broken that were the reason for the cloak change)
  • happyhappyj0yj0yhappyhappyj0yj0y Member Posts: 699 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    jockey1979 wrote: »
    It is still annoying for people who fly a BoP - the least shielding, least hull and still get the 20 seconds cool down - we die faster than the other ships who also get pulled out of cloak.

    The KDF character I play the most flies a Bird, so yeah I'm aware.

    I'm not sure that there's a possible "quick and easy" fix there though.
  • zebularzebular Member Posts: 729 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    The KDF character I play the most flies a Bird, so yeah I'm aware.

    I'm not sure that there's a possible "quick and easy" fix there though.

    It doesn't need to be quickly and easily fixed, it just needs fixed. At the very least, it needs to be made to work as it is intended to work in the Star Trek Universe.

    I understand that there has to be some functional deviations in a game based on the franchise. This cloaking bug (yes, it is a bug) however, is so far from the way it works in the I.P. that is should be of something of importance, to both PWE/Cryptic and CBS/Paramount, to get right.

    I'm quite sure that CBS/Paramount wouldn't allow the publishing of a Novel that depicted all cloaking devices as decloaking the ship whenever Bridge Officers communicated with the Captain or each other, or hailed other ships, colonies, or planets. Why such a deviation would be allowed here, I am not sure.
    Full Name: Zeryn Zebulon Zebular 
    Short Name: Zebular ( @zebular )
    Starfleet Rank / Serial: Vice Admiral, Field Captain / SZ-872-112
    Fleet Registry / Command Ship: Fleet Admiral of the Betazed Patrol / U.S.S. Zebulon, NX-91333-C
    Diplomatic Registry: Starfleet Ambassador, Betazed Ambassador, Son of the Thirteenth House of Betazed
    Species / Birth Date / Birth Place: Half-Betazoid, Half-Human / Stardate 27481.22 / Rixx City, Betazed

    Handles: @zebular (PC)@MtnDewFreak (XBOX)@Terraseer (PS4)
  • happyhappyj0yj0yhappyhappyj0yj0y Member Posts: 699 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    zebular wrote: »
    It doesn't need to be quickly and easily fixed, it just needs fixed.

    Thing is, we know it's not going to be. They've already decided (retroactively) that this is working as intended, obviously because they refuse to do anything that isn't quick and easy. Now, sure, we can complain about that but ultimately...

    KDF Content
    Time Gated Content
    Dilithium Crafting
    Drop Rates
    etc.
    etc.
    etc.

    Complaints tend not to produce results, and even when they do rarely are those results what the community wants anyway. Thus quick and easy alternatives are likely the best we can actually hope for.
  • leviathan99#2867 leviathan99 Member Posts: 7,747 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    Really, I think the best solution is an alternate cloak state that dialogues bump cloaked ships into. They're invisible to players but NPCs can see through this alternate cloak state. This prevents broken missions where aggro is required. The ship still appears cloaked. PvP works.

    Either that or halt dialogues until players decloak and eliminate the cooldown on standard cloak.

    That doesn't mean you can't read dialogues while cloaked. It just means that any dialogue trigger completion halts until you decloak. So your BOs talk to you, fine. But the mission progress freezes there until you decloak.
  • notapwefannotapwefan Member Posts: 1,138 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    tebsu wrote: »
    sensor scan? you can find cloaked ships with sensor scan?
    Sci captains can.
    Grinding for MkIV epic gear?
    Ain't Nobody Got Time for That


    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • xanto90xanto90 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    I don't use cloak really, but I think that is really stupid. Fix it and be done with it. It seems they ignore a lot of the little things that really kill immersion. For instance, why is my captain beaming off the bridge when leaving bridge view... is it really that hard to kill the beaming animation and cut straight to a loading screen when on the bridge?
  • onlineangelonlineangel Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    Remember about a year ago when the cloak broke and Dan said "we have to go map by map to fix it, will take a long time but it will get done" and now he says "oh it was always meant to be like that" this really makes me mad as a KDF player who uses cloak i Kerrat.

    Ps. This is my first post in over two years I though i need to expose this lie, as if we don't remember.

    Completely agree with you, this issue made klingons a pointless faction to play for me.

    and yes, saying this is working as intended in a lie.
  • stofskstofsk Member Posts: 1,744 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    While we're on the subject, I also hate how these popup messages will cause you to cut your throttle to zero. It's just as stupid as it forcing a decloak.

    I've sometimes been killed because I was too close (for example) to a Tac Cube in the last stage of ISE and when it blows up you get a message from your XO... with your speed now at zero. And then the secondary explosion takes you with it. THANKS A LOT NUMBER ONE.
  • tebsutebsu Member Posts: 372 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    stofsk wrote: »
    While we're on the subject, I also hate how these popup messages will cause you to cut your throttle to zero. It's just as stupid as it forcing a decloak.

    I've sometimes been killed because I was too close (for example) to a Tac Cube in the last stage of ISE and when it blows up you get a message from your XO... with your speed now at zero. And then the secondary explosion takes you with it. THANKS A LOT NUMBER ONE.

    thats something you can disable somewhere in the options. i think in the control tab
    What ? Calaway.
  • stofskstofsk Member Posts: 1,744 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    tebsu wrote: »
    thats something you can disable somewhere in the options. i think in the control tab
    Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. (seriously)

    Sorry for my now irrelevant hijack.
  • warpedcorewarpedcore Member Posts: 362 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    No need to apologize, the only stupid question is the one not asked.

    I know this cloaking issue and the retro WAI is new for a lot of the newer folks since F2P. But this sort of thing is old hat for the fine folks at Cryptic studios. This isn't the first time, it won't be the last.
  • fafreyxcfafreyxc Member Posts: 14 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    I have to agree that the cloak shouldn't break stealth so easily. There needs to be a better line.

    Regards,
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • edited September 2012
    This content has been removed.
  • erraberrab Member Posts: 1,434 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    I guess the Cloaking Bug has been here for so long now that it has tenure and now is considered a permanent feature :rolleyes:
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • tfomegatfomega Member Posts: 812 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    Remember about a year ago when the cloak broke and Dan said "we have to go map by map to fix it, will take a long time but it will get done" and now he says "oh it was always meant to be like that" this really makes me mad as a KDF player who uses cloak i Kerrat.

    Ps. This is my first post in over two years I though i need to expose this lie, as if we don't remember.

    You are exactly correct. They made a change for season 3 and it messed up cloaking at that time and they changed their position, in response to the multitude of gripes about it stating that basically will uncloak us whenever they please.. basically telling us to shut up and deal with it.

    Great customer service there. The bug was first reported in January 2011

    Here is the history of the bug (main points and by all means.. not every post ever written about it)

    1/18/2011 : reporting
    http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=3290220#post3290220

    1/24/2011 : Another Reporting
    http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=197322&highlight=cloak

    2/21/2011 : Another Plea
    http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=203333&highlight=cloak+season

    3/15/2011 : Cryptic acknowledges bug : # 1 Engineering Report - March 15, 2011 : Under Investigation section
    http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=3433463&postcount=2

    3/24/2011 : First Attempted Fix
    http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=208478

    5/23/2011 : Unknown Dev post (Thank for wiping the names, PWE) stating that this was an in game error that they unintentionally created by are working on fixes for both.
    http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=3554878&postcount=16
    Actually, this is not a 100% Bug - as in game error.
    We had the problem that the cloak did not always drop when it should. That causes big game balancing issues over time and we addressed them. THIS is a side-effect of what the fix brought in. It is a bug in so far, as that it's not doing what we really wanted, though it did fix the previous problem.

    While that's of course not amazingly awesome, we are indeed, as mentioned by other posters, working on shifting things so that what the previous issue was and what the current issue is both don't bother players anymore.


    And on a related note: Please keep it friendly.

    7/7/2011 Final Answer
    http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=222483
    *Contacts and mini-contacts will no longer pull players out of cloak with the following exceptions.

    *If you are interacting with something you will still be pulled out of cloak.
    *We can still have a contact or mini-contact pull you out of cloak if we feel it benefits the mission!

    i.e. they can decloak you anytime they want because it was more cost effective to give that answer than to fix every map. Also, it is no wonder they have so many bugs if they program this way.

    They think we forget this TRIBBLE, but we don't. They broke something in season 3 and believed it was too costly to fix it, even though we are paying them to fix it

    I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
    MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
  • amdarkwolfamdarkwolf Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    Of course it is, DUH. EVERYONE knows, the Boff are REAL LOUD, so the enemy ships can OBVIOUSLY hear you from 10km away..like.. sheesh...
  • daan2006daan2006 Member Posts: 5,346 Arc User
    edited September 2012
    amdarkwolf wrote: »
    Of course it is, DUH. EVERYONE knows, the Boff are REAL LOUD, so the enemy ships can OBVIOUSLY hear you from 10km away..like.. sheesh...

    lmfao this^^^^^
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    swimwear off risa not fixed
    system Lord Baal is dead
    macronius wrote: »
    This! Their ability to outdo their own failures is quite impressive. If only this power could be harnessed for good.
Sign In or Register to comment.