I find Space is just plain better and more customizable.
Space tends to be slower, with large open areas. With Space, I have 9 console slots, 7 weapon slots, 3 equipment slots (Deflector, Shield, Engines) and 12 BOff abilities I can customize and build synergies for.
Ground tends to be more hectic, in smaller cramped areas that the UI really isn't comfortable with. (That was what turned me off about melee in Champions Online. I'm primarily playing both Arkham City and Star Trek Online right now, and the difference in usability is fairly large.) With Ground, I have 2 discrete weapons slots, 2 equipment slots (Shield, Armor), and 4 Kit abilities I can customize and build with.
Of course, we have 4 BOffs in Ground with their own 3 equipment slots (Weapon, Shield, Armor) and 4 abilities, but you can't rely on them being there. (By which I mean you can only bring one along to New Romulus, none to a 5-man STF, and so on. So if your effectiveness depends on your BOffs...)
fire caves you need to be a strat player not a fps player
moving boffs individually by orders on short leash
Right, essentially Ground is a lot more finicky due to the UI/engine. Space, at worse you have fighters to order around, and because space is empty we don't usually see them grind their faces into walls and run around like headless chickens when we quickly turn around.
If you use 1 ,2 and 3 to fire you have to move your hands.
I might have short fingers and low flexibility because I can't use 1 and 2 to fire without having to move my fingers away from being instantly ready, what finger do you use to fire with?
But in addition to having to move your fingers before you can fire, you are also doing a set of more complex, un-intuitive set of movements.
Anyway as I said before I'd love to hear a suggestion for mapping keys that is cost efficient in rpg mode. So far you are losing both time and simplicity and intuition.
Is it really that hard for you to aim you'd rather hold down needless buttons and move your fingers around?
And yeah also, we haven't even touched on aim mode yet.
It simply makes more sense, and for a reason, to use what you always use so you don't have to rehearse new co-ordination.
I had a similar discussion with people before who said the arrow keys are superior, now I don't agree but I'd certainly love to hear the argument for it.
I actually find it quite interesting to disguss because I like to play ground and if there is anything I can learn or build on I'd love input.
Ask and ye shall receive.
The way I do it is to have my left hand on the asdw keys and my right on the numeric keypad.
My left is mainly used for moving my character around, and sometimes tabbing to a new target. My right is for activating skills and using weapon attacks. I can usually fit all of my combat skills in two trays, so I have 0-9 and Ctrl 0-9 that I use for ground skills.
Because it's such an icky disease that must be avoided at all costs! :P
With New Romulus and the possibility of more adventure zones in the near future, the pure space players have lashed out, expressing their discontent about stepping foot outside of their ships for ANY reason. They want more space content, and I somewhat agree. But I also don't mind braving the surface of a planet in pursuit of progressing in the game.
So let's have another round. Do you like ground? Do you hate ground? What do you think could be improved? Should Cryptic just remove ground sections of the game entirely? Do you dip your toes onto a planet's surface and immediately scurry back into your shuttle? Will you forever forgo any future ground-related content added to this game?
Coming from a Quake / FPS background, the ground-game's auto-aiming has always bothered me. Yes, there is a first-person shooter mode, but using it is difficult and conveys no benefits whatsoever. My suggestion -- since aiming actually takes skill, why not reward using manual aim mode with some kind of increased damage output bonus? This will give players incentive to use manual aim instead of having the game aim for them.
PS: Sorry if this suggestion has already been made... didn't go through the entire thread.
EDIT: Another suggestion -- how about getting rid of the sniper secondary aimed shot delay when in shooter mode? This will make the sniper rifle more practical as a ground weapon in the hands of someone who can actually aim!
Ground just looks silly. Armor? Helmets? Oversized rifles, grenadelaunchers, heavy weaponry, even miniguns and now a flamethrower? STO's version of Star Trek ground combat seems to be more inspired by Star Wars and Mass Effect than from what we could see on the shows. I can live with personal shields but those armors are just wrong. A cover system would have been nice instead and more in line with the show, and Cryptic should have made rifles the heaviest weapons in STO.
I think the Breen CRM was the only heavy weapon ever featured in Star Trek, and it was just a holo-presentation by Quark (oh, and btw it shot a red beam and was NOT a cold weapon). Even in fullscale war Starfleet, KDF and Romulan Military always used pistols and rifles in combat, not oversized superguns.
Ground just looks silly. Armor? Helmets? Oversized rifles, grenadelaunchers, heavy weaponry, even miniguns and now a flamethrower? STO's version of Star Trek ground combat seems to be more inspired by Star Wars and Mass Effect than from what we could see on the shows. I can live with personal shields but those armors are just wrong. A cover system would have been nice instead and more in line with the show, and Cryptic should have made rifles the heaviest weapons in STO.
I think the Breen CRM was the only heavy weapon ever featured in Star Trek, and it was just a holo-presentation by Quark (oh, and btw it shot a red beam and was NOT a cold weapon). Even in fullscale war Starfleet, KDF and Romulan Military always used pistols and rifles in combat, not oversized superguns.
This, this, this, oh so much this. You want to know what's even worse? Apparently many of the designers that first worked on the game were fans of Mass Effect, Halo, and Star Wars rather than Star Trek.
This is why we have the war with the KDF and so many of the early zones and episodes feel so silly, and out of character.
Ground just looks silly. Armor? Helmets? Oversized rifles, grenadelaunchers, heavy weaponry, even miniguns and now a flamethrower? STO's version of Star Trek ground combat seems to be more inspired by Star Wars and Mass Effect than from what we could see on the shows. I can live with personal shields but those armors are just wrong. A cover system would have been nice instead and more in line with the show, and Cryptic should have made rifles the heaviest weapons in STO.
I think the Breen CRM was the only heavy weapon ever featured in Star Trek, and it was just a holo-presentation by Quark (oh, and btw it shot a red beam and was NOT a cold weapon). Even in fullscale war Starfleet, KDF and Romulan Military always used pistols and rifles in combat, not oversized superguns.
You can equip armor and turn it off.
You can equip the weapons you want.
You can play the way you want...and others can play the way they want.
Seems like a win-win to me.
If the ground game looks silly to you because of armor and helmets...don't wear them...or turn them off so that you get the stats but not the look.
As for the oversized weapons...I agree...and that's why I use dual pistols.
Too many people expect everyone to play the way they do and like the things they like. If someone else likes something that they don't...they get upset.
It makes no sense...especially when we all have the choice to play the way we like.
It's almost as if it's a sin to some people that others like the "modern" style clothing and armor.
Step four against live opponents is to run all over the place since I'm locked on and don't have to worry about keeping lined up.
I'd advise against moving unless you're sprinting to another location. The only advantage moving would have is against another player in shooter mode, as they'd have to keep their aim centered on you. Good players and NPCs use RPG mode and are target locked with 100% accuracy 100% of the time.
If you're moving, you're not crouching, and if you're not crouching, you're taking more damage than you need to be.
Ground just looks silly. Armor? Helmets? Oversized rifles, grenadelaunchers, heavy weaponry, even miniguns and now a flamethrower?
Armour/kit visuals can be turned off. Helmets aren't standard issue. One of the best weapons for damage is actually a pistol and the grenade launcher is total TRIBBLE unless it's the MK XII Klingon one.
The flamethrower is a bit weird, yes, but I haven't seen many people use it. Most people I've grouped with seem content to use the Enemy Neutralization kit or... not use their powers at all because anything past autofire is too complicated.
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the only thing i don't like about ground is occasionally it'll get really rubber band laggy.
for no reason. and i know its not the game itself that's laggy because space is fine. just something in the code in certain situations where the ground combat gets laggy.
personally i love it. i love missions where i can go on board ships and then beam out and continue the fight. so awesome.
Ground isn't bad, but when you deal with enemies with no real cover because they can seemingly shoot thru solid objects kinda defeats the whole purpose of breaking off combat and ducking for cover. Also it would be nicer if you could make for less shooting needed on most enemies specifically the borg and instead implement more of them or at least random beam ins from them, it's annoying to fight borg when they have vast health, adaptation and psg on top of it since they tend to blow thru your psg in 1-2 shots same for your health. Also would be nice if tac captains had some way of decreasing personal item cooldowns so as to use hypos and shield regens just a lil bit quicker, other than that it's not actually bad.
i personally love ground.. however, i feel that most of the ground content sucks.. its the same ole same ole.. you beam down, you kill mobs. the only challenging ground maps are stf's and after playing those a hundred thousand times, they suck now too lol..
honestly, i dont know if it is engine limitations, or just the devs not knowing how to build content, but it would be nice to have some veriety in ground missions..
star trek isnt about killing, it would be nice to add more puzzles, and non combat ground missions (and non combat doesnt mean run back and fourth a hundred times talking to people).. it would be nice to have a mini game that isnt click four buttons to change the shape of something..
it would be nice if ou could beam down, and have multiple objectives that have to take place at the same time.. you could actually delegate your crew and send them off to do something.. the challenge would be knowing who to send to get it done, while keeping everyone alive. also, there is absolutely no risk on ground (or space) missions.. you stand to lose nothing..
having a mission that you could fail and lose something would be cool. the only one i can really think of off the top of my head is the mid term daily.. if you dont get it right, you cant get the dil that day..
as a starfleet captain (or admiral) i want to feel like i am making decisions, delegating my crew, and making it all work out in the end.. right now, i do all the work while the crew sits around and watches me..
a quick example would be, you beam down to the ss azura.. there are three types of missions on there for the players.. so im an engineer, it means i can save the ship, but not the crew.. at no time in star trek did i ever see the main characters of the story leave people to die like they do in this game.. if i have a medic with my away team, i should be able to delegate him to help the crew.. the downside would be that i would have to traverse the corriders without him.. and if i dont leave him with a security officer, maybe he gets injured or captured, or killed..
You can play the way you want...and others can play the way they want.
Seems like a win-win to me.
If the ground game looks silly to you because of armor and helmets...don't wear them...or turn them off so that you get the stats but not the look.
As for the oversized weapons...I agree...and that's why I use dual pistols.
Too many people expect everyone to play the way they do and like the things they like. If someone else likes something that they don't...they get upset.
It makes no sense...especially when we all have the choice to play the way we like.
It's almost as if it's a sin to some people that others like the "modern" style clothing and armor.
Immersion is not only created by what single character may equip but also what others around him have on theirs, or would you be ok with a game set in the Middle Ages in which players run around with machineguns and lightsabers and someone would tell you "duh, you don't have to use them!". Following your logic Cryptic could just say "TRIBBLE canon! We made a deal with J.K. Rowling and soon everybody may use magic in STO! Complete with bad latin!".
Oh, and my suggestion of removing certain un-Trek equipment in ground does not have to necessarily end in fewer choices. There are still hundreds of pistols and rifles in Star Trek canon which Cryptic has not implemented yet. I personally would very much like a Varon T-Disruptor for my mercenary
Ground is terrible in STO, its like playing two distinct and different games. The mechanics are awkward, the skills are waaaay too basic for any in depth setups, and there is no true cover system.
The enemies strategy is merely to over power you with a Greater dmg ratio - basically you stand toe to toe, pew pew pew, use generic kit ability A, B , C.
The arenas, ground maps, and its design are bland and basic, this is more apparent in End Game Ground STFs and in exporables.
Character Graphics & Art work:
are decent to say the least, yet some physics are a bit off and clumsy. It is very apparent that the Ground missions and map is NOT one of STO's strong points. They almost seem to be there for the sake of being there, and giving us something of a Trek Ground experience, which in reality is no experience at all.
There are some bright spots:
Like Starfleet academy & Bajor, sadly there is little to do in those map areas
I have yet to go to New Romulus, but there is a thread on this forum that recently sprung up stating its growing stale. Hmmm?
We want autocover and autofirering but think the game is too simple...
I am from the original school of gamers and I will bet you anyone from my generation will tell you how consolization, here under "covering systems", dumbs down and ruins games.
Without going into too much of a lecture on the stagnation of gaming it's illustrated best with the birth of it all, which was rainbow six vegas.
If you played the originals you will know they were hardcore twitch and strategy, complex and difficult. Everything that was right about that game was thrown out the window for a covering system in rainbow six vegas that alone actually spawned a whole generation of simplistic games with babying people, healing, simple linear maps and so on and so forth.
A mere recent example is mafia 1 and 2. If you know those 2 games well and look at the differences in moving and firering mechanics you will know exactly what consolization is.
Or take a look at GTA from vice city, san andreas to IV, the exact same thing going on.
Same thing with hitting the melee button and watching a 32 hit super combo unfold it's just insulting.
In my day kids were practicing fatalities in mortal combat and ripping it up in takken. It's just a simpler dumbed down design and it's not helping anyone. And to me insulting because quite frankly I am more than just pushing one button when the game tells me do.
Is it really smart to lower the standards to pass an exam so more people get through?
I want to be pushed, I love a fight that forces me to go beyond my max BUT I will agree a twitch styled shooter might not belong here, not in and by itself, but considering the people who play STO might rather be a 2D point and click audience.
The only differences I feel when playing this from a regular shooter is the timing of having to take cover and the pace of the npcs is slow.
If anything I'd want the combat to be a lot faster but I also get what that would ruin it for a lot of people.
Outside the speed of combat I enjoy fighting on the ground and I'd certainly not ask for more help with autofire or autocover.
Immersion is not only created by what single character may equip but also what others around him have on theirs, or would you be ok with a game set in the Middle Ages in which players run around with machineguns and lightsabers and someone would tell you "duh, you don't have to use them!". Following your logic Cryptic could just say "TRIBBLE canon! We made a deal with J.K. Rowling and soon everybody may use magic in STO! Complete with bad latin!".
Oh, and my suggestion of removing certain un-Trek equipment in ground does not have to necessarily end in fewer choices. There are still hundreds of pistols and rifles in Star Trek canon which Cryptic has not implemented yet. I personally would very much like a Varon T-Disruptor for my mercenary
That's a bad comparison...because the things the people are complaining about here is not actually out of place in a futuristic setting.
They are just upset because the items in question were never shown in tv shows that date before the year 2000.
It's simply a selfish attitude by people who can't seem to imagine beyond what they see in the tv shows.
Also...no matter how many more choices may come out in the future...taking away current choices will end in fewer choices...it's simple logic.
We want autocover and autofirering but think the game is too simple...
I am from the original school of gamers and I will bet you anyone from my generation will tell you how consolization, here under "covering systems", dumbs down and ruins games.
Without going into too much of a lecture on the stagnation of gaming it's illustrated best with the birth of it all, which was rainbow six vegas.
If you played the originals you will know they were hardcore twitch and strategy, complex and difficult. Everything that was right about that game was thrown out the window for a covering system in rainbow six vegas that alone actually spawned a whole generation of simplistic games with babying people, healing, simple linear maps and so on and so forth.
A mere recent example is mafia 1 and 2. If you know those 2 games well and look at the differences in moving and firering mechanics you will know exactly what consolization is.
Or take a look at GTA from vice city, san andreas to IV, the exact same thing going on.
Same thing with hitting the melee button and watching a 32 hit super combo unfold it's just insulting.
In my day kids were practicing fatalities in mortal combat and ripping it up in takken. It's just a simpler dumbed down design and it's not helping anyone. And to me insulting because quite frankly I am more than just pushing one button when the game tells me do.
Is it really smart to lower the standards to pass an exam so more people get through?
I want to be pushed, I love a fight that forces me to go beyond my max BUT I will agree a twitch styled shooter might not belong here, not in and by itself, but considering the people who play STO might rather be a 2D point and click audience.
The only differences I feel when playing this from a regular shooter is the timing of having to take cover and the pace of the npcs is slow.
If anything I'd want the combat to be a lot faster but I also get what that would ruin it for a lot of people.
Outside the speed of combat I enjoy fighting on the ground and I'd certainly not ask for more help with autofire or autocover.
hey man, dont get me wrong.. what i meant about cover would be that you would have to do all the work to get it.. i dont like 1 button win scenarios.. one thing i will say is the most stagnant part of the ground combat is there is very little about placement.. (where you are standing). when i do a colony invasion, or pretty much anyother multi player combat ground situation, everyone just runs through rambo style.. no one cares that grenades are being thrown, or what not.. the only thing in the game that really makes you think about where your standing is the breen cold aoe.. and that is a simple double click in any direction to jump to safety.. then, your clear of danger..
and again.. i think that grounds biggest downfall is that it is 98 percent combat.. i know i dont feel like a starfleet officer when im running around killing everything that moves.. half the time we break the prime directive, by firing on the enemy b4 they fire on us..
things that would make this game awsome would be to seperate medical from science.. make it a seperate profession. then you could do things like operate on injured people, create innoculations, even having missions where you would have to research databases to come up with cures would be cool.. (weve seen it all a few times, but not nearly enouph)..
missions that have engineers actually be engineeers, not just one or two here and there, but more frequently.. i am an engineer in game, and i also have a sci and a tac, to be honest, the game play feels almost exactly the same from one to the other.. i ask myself why i play an engineer, and the only honest reason is because that toon has more accolades and more per character unlocks.. otherwise i wouldnt care which one i play..
a great space example would be the trealus system satalite repair.. why the hell are tactical and science officers repairing the satalites.. if i had made the mission, i would have made it so engineers who attempt the mission physically fix the satalite. science who attempt the mission go looking for a phenomena that is blocking the signal or what not, and tactical captains would secure the system..
these are the types of missions that could define your role in the star trek universe..
I mostly like ground combat. It really depends on the mission for me. For example, the Romulan missions have a great mix of space and ground, you're never doing either one for too terribly long. Same goes for the Klingon and Devidian missions. Its like, enter system, kill a few ships, beam down, kill 15-20 enemies, back to space to kill another ship or 3 and ... mission complete!
Once you hit the Cardassian missions and beyond, all of that changes. The scenario becomes: Enter system, scan some random junk, beam down to ground to fight packed base of 50-100 enemies, beam up to fight warship + escorts, mission complete. I realize things are supposed to become progressively harder as you get higher level, this isn't my first MMO/RPG. Here is the problem, things don't get harder. They just become tedious. For example, one of the Cardassian missions has you wandering thru the lower levels of DS9. Each hall has multiple groups, each room has multiple groups. And I mean tightly packed groups of 5+ enemies. After the first hallway and the first 100 dead cardassians, I got bored. Sure, I finished the mission, but I didn't have fun doing it. Its not like the 3 Gils, 1 Glin and 1 Interrogator that form each group of enemies become harder to defeat as you go from one to the next. Packing a bunch of enemies into an area doesn't make things fun or challenging, it just makes things seem tedious and never-ending. It gets even worse by the time you get to the Borg missions.
My advice to those who dislike ground combat: Equip all of your bridge officers with either Miniguns or Borg weapons. It won't necessarily make things more fun, but it sure cuts down on the time needed to complete ground assignments.
That's a bad comparison...because the things the people are complaining about here is not actually out of place in a futuristic setting.
They are just upset because the items in question were never shown in tv shows that date before the year 2000.
It's simply a selfish attitude by people who can't seem to imagine beyond what they see in the tv shows.
Also...no matter how many more choices may come out in the future...taking away current choices will end in fewer choices...it's simple logic.
It's also selfish to want things in this game which clearly don't belong in the Star Trek Universe. The reason Roddenberry did not hand out giant weapons of mass destruction to 'his' Federation is that it was meant to be a peaceful organisation, which could also strike back if attacked but in a reasonable way without resorting to weaponry which would contradict their strict code of moral. The latter was subject to dozens of episodes on the shows to explain why the Federation worked and stayed this way. That's why armor and heavy weapons clearly don't belong into this game from a pure canon point of view.
You can't simply throw every futuristic setting into Star Trek just on the pretext that it is science fiction as well.
Starfleet and the Klingon Empire have set out to perform one task, and will not stop until it is absolutely completed. They both are hell bent on committing a mass genocide of every sentient race known.
I don't do ground combat very much but I can't think of why at the moment...
It's also selfish to want things in this game which clearly don't belong in the Star Trek Universe. The reason Roddenberry did not hand out giant weapons of mass destruction to 'his' Federation is that it was meant to be a peaceful organisation, which could also strike back if attacked but in a reasonable way without resorting to weaponry which would contradict their strict code of moral. The latter was subject to dozens of episodes on the shows to explain why the Federation worked and stayed this way. That's why armor and heavy weapons clearly don't belong into this game from a pure canon point of view.
You can't simply throw every futuristic setting into Star Trek just on the pretext that it is science fiction as well.
I want to keep things in this game...that were in this game before I started playing.
I'm not asking for anything to be added...you're asking for things to be taken away because you have this ridiculous "play the way I play...or get out" mentality...and I'm opposed to that.
I want to keep things in this game...that were in this game before I started playing.
I'm not asking for anything to be added...you're asking for things to be taken away because you have this ridiculous "play the way I play...or get out" mentality...and I'm opposed to that.
Star Trek offers a rich variety of weapons and ground equipment which could have been made accessable in this game. My posts have therefore nothing to do with a "play the way I play" attitude: I don't want to restrict ground equipment, I want a different pool to choose stuff from. One that it more in line with the show. It was just totally unnecessary from the devs of this game to implement these un-Trek heavy weapons in the first place.
Nevertheless, I doubt the devs will ever change the way they made ground combat, so you are likely to keep your big guns and Mass Effect look-alike armors.
Which ones? I find most of them underwhelming, especially against Borg. Their high rate of fire lets Borg adapt very quickly, even with the Omega rotating frequency perk.
I don't know what the industry terminology for it is, something like projectile path or w/e, but when someone takes a shot at you the hit is registered not upon impact but upon firering.
What that means is if you take cover at the time where the projectile is moving you will see hits fly through walls.
But it goes both ways. If you click to throw a nade and before the firering animation runs, jump behind a wall, you will throw the nade through the wall because you registered a hit before you started shooting. (and yes I am the only player I ever saw doing it)
The industry terminology is lag. I would be fine with ground combat being twitch based if Cryptic offered a lag free, low latency experience and responsive controls, but they don't. In my opinion using the shooter mode doesn't alleviate those issues, it only makes them worse.
Star Trek offers a rich variety of weapons and ground equipment which could have been made accessable in this game. My posts have therefore nothing to do with a "play the way I play" attitude: I don't want to restrict ground equipment, I want a different pool to choose stuff from. One that it more in line with the show. It was just totally unnecessary from the devs of this game to implement these un-Trek heavy weapons in the first place.
Nevertheless, I doubt the devs will ever change the way they made ground combat, so you are likely to keep your big guns and Mass Effect look-alike armors.
Which is sad, cause the Mass Effect look-alike armors look so stupid.
Sorry, but I'll have to say that I like ground combat. Ever since "Crossfire," it has been quite tolerable, and even fun at times. Arguably, I enjoy it more than space sometimes. New Romulus has been a godsend, in that it is new ground content. It could be better, but I certainly like it.
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Comments
Space tends to be slower, with large open areas. With Space, I have 9 console slots, 7 weapon slots, 3 equipment slots (Deflector, Shield, Engines) and 12 BOff abilities I can customize and build synergies for.
Ground tends to be more hectic, in smaller cramped areas that the UI really isn't comfortable with. (That was what turned me off about melee in Champions Online. I'm primarily playing both Arkham City and Star Trek Online right now, and the difference in usability is fairly large.) With Ground, I have 2 discrete weapons slots, 2 equipment slots (Shield, Armor), and 4 Kit abilities I can customize and build with.
Of course, we have 4 BOffs in Ground with their own 3 equipment slots (Weapon, Shield, Armor) and 4 abilities, but you can't rely on them being there. (By which I mean you can only bring one along to New Romulus, none to a 5-man STF, and so on. So if your effectiveness depends on your BOffs...)
Edit:
Right, essentially Ground is a lot more finicky due to the UI/engine. Space, at worse you have fighters to order around, and because space is empty we don't usually see them grind their faces into walls and run around like headless chickens when we quickly turn around.
The way I do it is to have my left hand on the asdw keys and my right on the numeric keypad.
My left is mainly used for moving my character around, and sometimes tabbing to a new target. My right is for activating skills and using weapon attacks. I can usually fit all of my combat skills in two trays, so I have 0-9 and Ctrl 0-9 that I use for ground skills.
My character Tsin'xing
Coming from a Quake / FPS background, the ground-game's auto-aiming has always bothered me. Yes, there is a first-person shooter mode, but using it is difficult and conveys no benefits whatsoever. My suggestion -- since aiming actually takes skill, why not reward using manual aim mode with some kind of increased damage output bonus? This will give players incentive to use manual aim instead of having the game aim for them.
PS: Sorry if this suggestion has already been made... didn't go through the entire thread.
EDIT: Another suggestion -- how about getting rid of the sniper secondary aimed shot delay when in shooter mode? This will make the sniper rifle more practical as a ground weapon in the hands of someone who can actually aim!
I think the Breen CRM was the only heavy weapon ever featured in Star Trek, and it was just a holo-presentation by Quark (oh, and btw it shot a red beam and was NOT a cold weapon). Even in fullscale war Starfleet, KDF and Romulan Military always used pistols and rifles in combat, not oversized superguns.
but thats just an upgraded rifle
personally I would limit special and heavy weapons to Tactical boffs but thats just me
And I do admit to a Female Klingon medical officer with a Disruptor minigun
This, this, this, oh so much this. You want to know what's even worse? Apparently many of the designers that first worked on the game were fans of Mass Effect, Halo, and Star Wars rather than Star Trek.
This is why we have the war with the KDF and so many of the early zones and episodes feel so silly, and out of character.
You can equip armor and turn it off.
You can equip the weapons you want.
You can play the way you want...and others can play the way they want.
Seems like a win-win to me.
If the ground game looks silly to you because of armor and helmets...don't wear them...or turn them off so that you get the stats but not the look.
As for the oversized weapons...I agree...and that's why I use dual pistols.
Too many people expect everyone to play the way they do and like the things they like. If someone else likes something that they don't...they get upset.
It makes no sense...especially when we all have the choice to play the way we like.
It's almost as if it's a sin to some people that others like the "modern" style clothing and armor.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If you're moving, you're not crouching, and if you're not crouching, you're taking more damage than you need to be.
Armour/kit visuals can be turned off. Helmets aren't standard issue. One of the best weapons for damage is actually a pistol and the grenade launcher is total TRIBBLE unless it's the MK XII Klingon one.
The flamethrower is a bit weird, yes, but I haven't seen many people use it. Most people I've grouped with seem content to use the Enemy Neutralization kit or... not use their powers at all because anything past autofire is too complicated.
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That's what it really comes down to. Not sure any amount of new features or fixes will make up the difference in popularity.
for no reason. and i know its not the game itself that's laggy because space is fine. just something in the code in certain situations where the ground combat gets laggy.
personally i love it. i love missions where i can go on board ships and then beam out and continue the fight. so awesome.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
honestly, i dont know if it is engine limitations, or just the devs not knowing how to build content, but it would be nice to have some veriety in ground missions..
star trek isnt about killing, it would be nice to add more puzzles, and non combat ground missions (and non combat doesnt mean run back and fourth a hundred times talking to people).. it would be nice to have a mini game that isnt click four buttons to change the shape of something..
it would be nice if ou could beam down, and have multiple objectives that have to take place at the same time.. you could actually delegate your crew and send them off to do something.. the challenge would be knowing who to send to get it done, while keeping everyone alive. also, there is absolutely no risk on ground (or space) missions.. you stand to lose nothing..
having a mission that you could fail and lose something would be cool. the only one i can really think of off the top of my head is the mid term daily.. if you dont get it right, you cant get the dil that day..
as a starfleet captain (or admiral) i want to feel like i am making decisions, delegating my crew, and making it all work out in the end.. right now, i do all the work while the crew sits around and watches me..
a quick example would be, you beam down to the ss azura.. there are three types of missions on there for the players.. so im an engineer, it means i can save the ship, but not the crew.. at no time in star trek did i ever see the main characters of the story leave people to die like they do in this game.. if i have a medic with my away team, i should be able to delegate him to help the crew.. the downside would be that i would have to traverse the corriders without him.. and if i dont leave him with a security officer, maybe he gets injured or captured, or killed..
Immersion is not only created by what single character may equip but also what others around him have on theirs, or would you be ok with a game set in the Middle Ages in which players run around with machineguns and lightsabers and someone would tell you "duh, you don't have to use them!". Following your logic Cryptic could just say "TRIBBLE canon! We made a deal with J.K. Rowling and soon everybody may use magic in STO! Complete with bad latin!".
Oh, and my suggestion of removing certain un-Trek equipment in ground does not have to necessarily end in fewer choices. There are still hundreds of pistols and rifles in Star Trek canon which Cryptic has not implemented yet. I personally would very much like a Varon T-Disruptor for my mercenary
The enemies strategy is merely to over power you with a Greater dmg ratio - basically you stand toe to toe, pew pew pew, use generic kit ability A, B , C.
The arenas, ground maps, and its design are bland and basic, this is more apparent in End Game Ground STFs and in exporables.
Character Graphics & Art work:
are decent to say the least, yet some physics are a bit off and clumsy. It is very apparent that the Ground missions and map is NOT one of STO's strong points. They almost seem to be there for the sake of being there, and giving us something of a Trek Ground experience, which in reality is no experience at all.
There are some bright spots:
Like Starfleet academy & Bajor, sadly there is little to do in those map areas
I have yet to go to New Romulus, but there is a thread on this forum that recently sprung up stating its growing stale. Hmmm?
We want autocover and autofirering but think the game is too simple...
I am from the original school of gamers and I will bet you anyone from my generation will tell you how consolization, here under "covering systems", dumbs down and ruins games.
Without going into too much of a lecture on the stagnation of gaming it's illustrated best with the birth of it all, which was rainbow six vegas.
If you played the originals you will know they were hardcore twitch and strategy, complex and difficult. Everything that was right about that game was thrown out the window for a covering system in rainbow six vegas that alone actually spawned a whole generation of simplistic games with babying people, healing, simple linear maps and so on and so forth.
A mere recent example is mafia 1 and 2. If you know those 2 games well and look at the differences in moving and firering mechanics you will know exactly what consolization is.
Or take a look at GTA from vice city, san andreas to IV, the exact same thing going on.
Same thing with hitting the melee button and watching a 32 hit super combo unfold it's just insulting.
In my day kids were practicing fatalities in mortal combat and ripping it up in takken. It's just a simpler dumbed down design and it's not helping anyone. And to me insulting because quite frankly I am more than just pushing one button when the game tells me do.
Is it really smart to lower the standards to pass an exam so more people get through?
I want to be pushed, I love a fight that forces me to go beyond my max BUT I will agree a twitch styled shooter might not belong here, not in and by itself, but considering the people who play STO might rather be a 2D point and click audience.
The only differences I feel when playing this from a regular shooter is the timing of having to take cover and the pace of the npcs is slow.
If anything I'd want the combat to be a lot faster but I also get what that would ruin it for a lot of people.
Outside the speed of combat I enjoy fighting on the ground and I'd certainly not ask for more help with autofire or autocover.
That's a bad comparison...because the things the people are complaining about here is not actually out of place in a futuristic setting.
They are just upset because the items in question were never shown in tv shows that date before the year 2000.
It's simply a selfish attitude by people who can't seem to imagine beyond what they see in the tv shows.
Also...no matter how many more choices may come out in the future...taking away current choices will end in fewer choices...it's simple logic.
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hey man, dont get me wrong.. what i meant about cover would be that you would have to do all the work to get it.. i dont like 1 button win scenarios.. one thing i will say is the most stagnant part of the ground combat is there is very little about placement.. (where you are standing). when i do a colony invasion, or pretty much anyother multi player combat ground situation, everyone just runs through rambo style.. no one cares that grenades are being thrown, or what not.. the only thing in the game that really makes you think about where your standing is the breen cold aoe.. and that is a simple double click in any direction to jump to safety.. then, your clear of danger..
and again.. i think that grounds biggest downfall is that it is 98 percent combat.. i know i dont feel like a starfleet officer when im running around killing everything that moves.. half the time we break the prime directive, by firing on the enemy b4 they fire on us..
things that would make this game awsome would be to seperate medical from science.. make it a seperate profession. then you could do things like operate on injured people, create innoculations, even having missions where you would have to research databases to come up with cures would be cool.. (weve seen it all a few times, but not nearly enouph)..
missions that have engineers actually be engineeers, not just one or two here and there, but more frequently.. i am an engineer in game, and i also have a sci and a tac, to be honest, the game play feels almost exactly the same from one to the other.. i ask myself why i play an engineer, and the only honest reason is because that toon has more accolades and more per character unlocks.. otherwise i wouldnt care which one i play..
a great space example would be the trealus system satalite repair.. why the hell are tactical and science officers repairing the satalites.. if i had made the mission, i would have made it so engineers who attempt the mission physically fix the satalite. science who attempt the mission go looking for a phenomena that is blocking the signal or what not, and tactical captains would secure the system..
these are the types of missions that could define your role in the star trek universe..
I've screwed around with my config to make it feel better, and I still don't like the feel of it.
Other games do ground much better. The only thing unique and interesting to me about STO is the space combat feel.
Once you hit the Cardassian missions and beyond, all of that changes. The scenario becomes: Enter system, scan some random junk, beam down to ground to fight packed base of 50-100 enemies, beam up to fight warship + escorts, mission complete. I realize things are supposed to become progressively harder as you get higher level, this isn't my first MMO/RPG. Here is the problem, things don't get harder. They just become tedious. For example, one of the Cardassian missions has you wandering thru the lower levels of DS9. Each hall has multiple groups, each room has multiple groups. And I mean tightly packed groups of 5+ enemies. After the first hallway and the first 100 dead cardassians, I got bored. Sure, I finished the mission, but I didn't have fun doing it. Its not like the 3 Gils, 1 Glin and 1 Interrogator that form each group of enemies become harder to defeat as you go from one to the next. Packing a bunch of enemies into an area doesn't make things fun or challenging, it just makes things seem tedious and never-ending. It gets even worse by the time you get to the Borg missions.
My advice to those who dislike ground combat: Equip all of your bridge officers with either Miniguns or Borg weapons. It won't necessarily make things more fun, but it sure cuts down on the time needed to complete ground assignments.
It's also selfish to want things in this game which clearly don't belong in the Star Trek Universe. The reason Roddenberry did not hand out giant weapons of mass destruction to 'his' Federation is that it was meant to be a peaceful organisation, which could also strike back if attacked but in a reasonable way without resorting to weaponry which would contradict their strict code of moral. The latter was subject to dozens of episodes on the shows to explain why the Federation worked and stayed this way. That's why armor and heavy weapons clearly don't belong into this game from a pure canon point of view.
You can't simply throw every futuristic setting into Star Trek just on the pretext that it is science fiction as well.
Starfleet and the Klingon Empire have set out to perform one task, and will not stop until it is absolutely completed. They both are hell bent on committing a mass genocide of every sentient race known.
I don't do ground combat very much but I can't think of why at the moment...
I want to keep things in this game...that were in this game before I started playing.
I'm not asking for anything to be added...you're asking for things to be taken away because you have this ridiculous "play the way I play...or get out" mentality...and I'm opposed to that.
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Star Trek offers a rich variety of weapons and ground equipment which could have been made accessable in this game. My posts have therefore nothing to do with a "play the way I play" attitude: I don't want to restrict ground equipment, I want a different pool to choose stuff from. One that it more in line with the show. It was just totally unnecessary from the devs of this game to implement these un-Trek heavy weapons in the first place.
Nevertheless, I doubt the devs will ever change the way they made ground combat, so you are likely to keep your big guns and Mass Effect look-alike armors.
Which ones? I find most of them underwhelming, especially against Borg. Their high rate of fire lets Borg adapt very quickly, even with the Omega rotating frequency perk.
and the borg are not the real enemy
if borg give you trouble
hit them with a sword
pulsewave ? :O
Which is sad, cause the Mass Effect look-alike armors look so stupid.
And honestly, the saddest part about this is the heaviest Trek weapon of them all is not in game yet.
My character Tsin'xing
Original Name: -Gen-Alaris
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