Ask Cryptic: October 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.

mattmiracle

Not too bad, though I wish we had more information about Season 7. I am getting impatient waiting for Season 7 stuff.

origcaptainquack

still nothing said about the crystal entity. why?

sonulinu2

Good open and thorough discussion. I'm looking forward to the future of STO.

jcsww

origcaptainquack wrote: »

still nothing said about the crystal entity. why?

That honestly needs to be brought back as a 5 person STF. Redo it to take it down in stages like one epic boss battle. Make it cross-faction also and have it roam more of the Galaxy. Maybe a few days in Klingon space and a few more in Fed space, etc.

Edit: The only thing that seems to be on deck for Season 7 are more epic grinds that just make me want to play less!

ltsmith

Had some great information I really liked how Season 7 is now a tentative date for Novemember.

azurianstar

When can we see a major bug pass to fix the problems yet fixed from Season 6's release? Like the Fleet Mark Daily for Klingons? Or the sound bugs with the 20-person Fleet Defense Event?

When can we see Fleet Marks outside of Fleet Events, like STFs so we don't have to rely on Queued Events or grinding Nukara and Defera?

Are we going to see somekind of system implemented to handle those who purposely abuse the Fleet Mark Events by not particpating or delayed zoning?



What kind of improvements will we see with Fleet Starbases?

Will we see other methods to get Fleet Modules besides those in the C-store or on the Exchange for massive ammounts of EC?

Will we see Starbase Projects costs go down?

Will we see ways to decorate our Starbase that's beyond the Starbase Projects?




Aside from the Vesta, Ambassador, and the Andorian Starship, out of the remaining 20+ canonical Federation Starships that remaing. How many of these ships are currently in development?

And any idea how you could fit them in?

matteo716maikai

no pvp related questions, and this omega force TRIBBLE has me worried that it wont be earnable/obtainable by pvp in any way what so ever..... considering itll give you passive's to your captain. what a bunch of bs.

way to keep killing pvp guys. GG

allyoftheforce

Can we expect to see the Reputation System monetized to the C-Store?

matteo716maikai

ltsmith wrote: »

Had some great information I really liked how Season 7 is now a tentative date for Novemember.

itll be pushed out november reguardless if its ready or not. thats the way they do things 'round these parts.

diogene0

Well i just hope that these individual projects aren't zen sinks, because it would mean we should start to pay to play the game itself. I'm already gold just to support the game itself (no point being gold for another purpose) and i don't intend to pay to play. If there are dil costs and a ****ton of doffs to toss into these projects I think you can close the game right now because season 7 will be an epic fail.

tehjonel

if the omega fleet reputation system will be based on the fleet advancement system but on a single character level, i would guess it would look something like this:

1000 fleet marks
100 edcs
20 non-civilian duty officers
20 cordazine hypo
20 immunosupport nanite injector
5 prototype borg salvage
1 prototype weapon tech

and probably a "omega fleet module" (similar to the fleet ship module used to purchase fleet ships).

i'm hoping this will not be the case.

daveyny

Since when has the 700 Day Vet Reward been a "Side Project" of a particular Dev????

One would think something like that would be important to the overall team...

:rolleyes:

daveyny

tehjonel wrote: »

if the omega fleet reputation system will be based on the fleet advancement system but on a single character level, i would guess it would look something like this:

1000 fleet marks
100 edcs
20 non-civilian duty officers
20 cordazine hypo
20 immunosupport nanite injector
5 prototype borg salvage
1 prototype weapon tech

and probably a "omega fleet module" (similar to the fleet ship module used to purchase fleet ships).

i'm hoping this will not be the case.

What ever it is you can be dang sure it'll cost ZEN.

diogene0

daveyny wrote: »

What ever it is you can be dang sure it'll cost ZEN.

Well if it does we can collectively decide to boycott season 7 content. :rolleyes:

captainluke85

What did you expect from each Ask Cryptic? PvP is dead. Get it over.

kobayashlmaru

Edited original response for brevity:

Q: (tilarium1979) Why do projects die as staff rotates out or take leaves of absence? 700-day veteran android, First Officer, Department Heads, Off-Duty clothing revamp, etc ? all were close to being done, but then the person(s) working on it left the dev team (or on a leave of absence) and the project was scrapped.

Dstahl: ...Many times, these are after work projects, or items never scheduled to be in the game, that the individual owners wanted to get done out of their own desires to answer player feedback. So when that person leaves, it is not always the case that the feature was anywhere near done, nor is it the case that they had communicated what their intentions where to begin with. We allow this level of entrepreneurial spirit on the team, but as I'm well aware, when you communicate what you would "like" to do, it can haunt you when it doesn't get done. For the most part, the individuals who mentioned these features should not have done so until they were certain they could be implemented...

While that may be the case for the last three, it surely doesn't apply to the 700 day vet reward. We've had several dev comments on that one and their progress towards fixing it, including the big thread about it. Also, in previous Ask Cryptic's you have specifically responded to questions about the 700 day vet reward problems and possible resolution. It would be nice to get a straight answer and not a different one each month.

Quoted from June Ask Cryptic:

Q: (GT01) What happened to the extra Android BOFF options? We were informed that we'd not only get male and female Androids to choose from, but that we'd also have Tactical and Science branch officers to choose from too.

Dstahl: This question required some investigation to determine what happened. Turns out that at the time there was an issue that prevented those additions from happening. That issue appears to be resolved in Season 6 and so now it boils down to having one of the developers revisit this and put in the options.

trek21

captainluke85 wrote: »

What did you expect from each Ask Cryptic? PvP is dead. Get it over.

Uh, not one single poster in this thread mentioned PvP at all... why say that?

kobayashlmaru

trek21 wrote: »

Uh, not one single poster in this thread mentioned PvP at all... why say that?

See post #8.

amayakitsune

Why are the Fleet Starbase featured project all worth 200,000 dilithium and why are they all pushed live with absolutely no QA at all?

atatassault

pwebranflakes wrote: »

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


Link to the Ask Cryptic.

With how much Cryptic has monetized Tier 5 ships, you had better not introduce Tier 6 Ships. Or, if you do, you need to allow a way to upgrade or trade in Tier 5 Ships (Especially the Lockbox and Fleet Ships) for a T6 version of it.

usscapital

i see the question myself and many others have asked about poor texture placement on some of the c-store ships has been ignored again :eek:

zeuxidemus001

It's glad to see Dstahl answering my question even if it was only half of my original questions I asked on the matter. I basically wanted an explanation on why there was contradiction between Gozer and Salami on the fact of exploitation of tech drops. In which there was never any evidence or explanation given on how it could actually be exploited when it was mentioned and explained by Gozer before hand how it couldn't be exploited if you actually earn the Tech by playing the STF's.

The answer from Stahl said everything though. Being there isn't anything that could be exploited out of it what has happened is PWE has jumped in and forced the hand of the PER CHARACTER massive grind for a cash grab dipping into STF's. I can expect a daily requirement of EDC's, Tech Drops, and Dilithium for daily projects is what its telling me. So doing account bound tech would potentially kill this system. As well it will be a way for people who don't do stfs or atleast not ground STF's to just buy their way into XII gear/costumes.

pwebranflakes

tehjonel wrote: »

and probably a "omega fleet module" (similar to the fleet ship module used to purchase fleet ships).

i'm hoping this will not be the case.

Not the case. There are no direct C-Store items required as inputs or as part of the rewards.

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=

starkaos

atatassault wrote: »

With how much Cryptic has monetized Tier 5 ships, you had better not introduce Tier 6 Ships. Or, if you do, you need to allow a way to upgrade or trade in Tier 5 Ships (Especially the Lockbox and Fleet Ships) for a T6 version of it.

We also anticipate Admirals being able to assign crew to ships in their command that can either assist the Admiral in space, or attempt their own special assignments.

I assume that if the Admiral rank is ever added that T6 ships will be only pilotable by our characters and every ship that you have purchased would be pilotable by Bridge Officers. So we could have an Atrox Carrier, Mobius Class Temporal Destroyer, and Advanced Escort with MVAM being commanded by our T6 ship or whatever combination that would give the best benefit. Might even be possible to solo space STFs with them.

brandonfl

More grind? Really? And (I'm with MaiKai on this one) probably no way to incorporate PvP? With all the grinding there is now, we barely have time for pew, and they want to add more...

Seriously?

purplegamer

At first I was excited about the reputation system, but now that we know it's just going to be another resource and currency grind, I'm out.

For shame.

wolfpacknz

Why does PW feel the future of STO is lock boxes and endless grinding? We have been asking for new content (Missions) for more then I care to remember esp on KDF side, with very little return. Why give us something that has caused so much backlash over and over?

commodoreshrvk

pwebranflakes wrote: »

Not the case. There are no direct C-Store items required as inputs or as part of the rewards.

Cheers,

Brandon =/\=

Got it, there will be tons of dilithium inputs in this then, the indirect inputs.

Overall I thought answers were good, but one thing concerns me. More items for the reputation system means more currencies which means less free inventory space.

Seriously you guys had better get all these "middle items" under control.

yreodred

As always, most important questions have been ignored in favour of more convenient questions.
It's funny to see things don't change over the years.

Q: (xxxhellspawnyxxx) The requirements for T3 Fleet Projects are very high. Are you planning on adjusting the system for smaller fleets, e.g. depending on the number of members?

Dstahl: We review the status of all Fleet Starbases on Holodeck regularly and have been adjusting project inputs and prices in some cases to find more balance given the progress different sized Fleets are making. In some cases, instead of reducing the inputs of projects, we have instead increased the abundance at which you receive inputs needed for projects. We will continue to adjust and monitor these numbers to ensure that all Fleets are making progress as expected over time. As we introduce a new Fleet Holding in Season 7, we will be making some additional adjustments on project requirements.

Lol, thats funny.
In other words Mr. Dstahl said everything goes as intended. :P
Smaller fleets are ok to stuck somewhere between tier 2 and 3. If thats what they think of "balance" between different fleet sizes, it would explain a lot.
It's not the grind that's fun, it's archieving the goal which is fun!

Q: (icegavel) You've mentioned this "Reputation" system a lot recently. Any chance we could get a few details to chew on while we wait for its release?

Dstahl: Certainly. We are introducing two new Reputations with Season 7 ? Romulans and Omega Fleet. These Reputations will exist as a new tab on the status window. The system was designed at the
...
In the future, we have plans to add more Reputations for other factions and political entities within the Star Trek universe.

How about to add some real content instead of ANOTHER money/rescources sink?
Seriously how about some game mode that actually provides some variety, i'm tired of grinding the same stuff over and over. How about implementing some missions that do change every time you play them?

Q: (sc0ttish) Is there any news you?d like to share about a possible re-imagining of the exploration system in general?

Dstahl: While we haven?t talked a lot about the exploration system, it is one part of the game that we do intend to address in an upcoming Season, and has been on my personal to do list for some time. We have been reading some of the fine proposals that have been posted on the forums as well as discussing the role that the Foundry should play in Exploration.

The core concept is that exploration should involve heading out into the unknown, which means traveling into new sectors away from known space. In addition, exploration should offer a variety of gameplay other than just combat. As we look at the proposals on the table, the ones that are getting the most traction include new types of gameplay that allow captains to make choices and have strategies for how they approach the unknown. More than one of these proposals finds new purposes for Duty and Bridge Officers. We also see an opportunity for Fleets and Reputations to play a part in discovery.

So while Exploration isn?t on the schedule for Season 7 or 8, it is something we are planning for and will implement as we continue to move forward in the game and past the current storyline.

That doesn't sound promising or especially convincing, to be honest.
It sounds more like Exploration is something you like to defer to somewhen into the future, but only is nothing (or better said ANYTHIG) else comes in the way.

Q: (stomac) When if ever are we going to finally see customizable ground kits?

Dstahl: This is one of the features that is being considered for Season 8, but hasn?t been finalized yet. We do want to get this feature out in the next year, so if it isn?t Season 8, then it will be sometime shortly after.

Season 8 ?!? I was under the impression customizable ground kits would be more iminent.

Q: (jmitchell76) The Jem Hadar Attack Ship ? will we see it again in the Winter Event or will there be another chance at getting one?

Dstahl: While we haven?t announced if the Jem?Hadar ship will be returning for the Winter Event, we do promise that there will be another chance to get one in the near future.

Yeah, answering a question about a escort ship (which is way the best ship in the game, btw.) that already has been availlable in the game is much more important than a question about one of the most iconic Starships in Star Trek which the devs have made completely wrong and which is the most teethless AND boring to fly ship in the game. I am sorry, but i can hardly understand this.
(that's not aimed towards the questioner)


All things considered, there was nothing that really interested me besides the things i quoted.
Many unsettled things like the Cruiser and Science versus Escort balance have been (just as always) completely ignored.

If that's what we can expect for the near future, i am seriously considering to take at least half a year pause and i am afraid i wouldn't miss anything (for me) interesting. It's sad because the devs seemingly have their very own plans for "their" star trek game.
I'm asking myself (on a regular basis) why do i bother to play this game anymore, if it wouldn't be the only ongoing Star Trek game i would have gone long ago, as many Star Trek fans already did...
The devs add more and more things i don't care (in the best case) or i would completely disagree with (more regulary), why should i bother to continue playing this game or even spend so much (for my means) time with it?


Sorry for being so negative in the recent time, but there was little that i would consider as positive in this game recently.


Thank you for reading/ignoring, depending on who you are.

capthayden

The idea of "reputations" is a great one, however the system they're using to impliment them is junk.

Reputations should fluctuate with each mission you do based on the faction you're most loyal to. For instance, if you do a mission for Starfleet Command to blow up a Romulan base, then you should (by default) gain faction with the Federation, Section 31, Starfleet Command, Federation council, ect. You should also lose ALOT of standing with the Romulan Empire, the Tal'Shiar, Romulan High Command and any other Romulan assets, though you could gain faction with some rogue elements like "Romulan dissidents".

The more "points" you gain for each faction, the more lucrative and special the missions are. This is reflected by the fact that you're earning the trust of the entities you're working for. Higher standing, opens up better missions and contacts. Double crossing your faction earns you some serious backlash.

This concept of performing missions on the Romulan colony to gain so called "faction points" would be fine, except that number never decreases as a result of the number of preciously rare Romulan Warbirds you've blown out of the sky. See what I'm getting at? The system they describe is just another point counter (designed to unlock bonuses as points get higher) and not an actual measurement of "reputation" based upon which faction you serve.

Yes, this means that some people "Freelancers" could play both sides of the war effort. Some people could even conceivably "defect" from one side to another by earning a high enough reputation with the opposing faction (to the point where military missions are offered) and annoying their original faction (to the point that missions are no longer offered.)