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Romulan Identity Issues
shineshadow
Member Posts: 34 Arc User
This is the "Feedback" section of the forum, so let's try some feedback.
Let me go ahead and preface this with an admission: almost none of what I'm about to complain about had any effect on actual gameplay. This, however, shouldn't matter. I don't play this game to achieve statistical perfection, because I'm not a lunatic. I play it because I like the Star Trek universe, I have a great fondness for it, and I'm deeply interested in a game that allows me to construct a character and a story for that character in that universe. The biggest problems I have with this game aren't balance issues, they're things that infringe upon my ability to build that character and that story.
I realize that integrating a new faction into the game, even a kind of half-faction like the Romulans, is hard. And I'm very happy with a lot of what's been done to make the game accomodating for Romulans: the Romulan-specific episodes are mostly excellent and the missions which have been modified to note your affiliation are nice to play. The Gorn ambassador who notes that trickery is not a tactic for the Klingon empire, but rather for "one of your pointy-eared persuasion" was a magnficent little touch.
On the other hand, there are flaws. Things that make the faction seem rushed, half-finished, and not fully integrated into the game. Things that make my Romulan captain feel like a Vulcan in some kind of deep cover mission, pretending to be a Romulan when it's convenient but dropping the act when it's not.
The big issue, for me, is Bridge Officers. Romulan, and especially Reman bridge officers are wildly expensive and difficult to acquire when compared to their Starfleet and Klingon counterparts. For someone trying to build a crew composed primarily of these races, this is a serious problem. The "Evaluate Romulan Bridge Officer Candidate" doff mission is at least as rare as the equivalent mission for other races, when it should be proportionally more common to account for the fact that there are few races available to the faction. I assume a Reman version of this mission exists, but I've never seen it. Naturally, the other reason that Romulan boffs are so expensive is because the Traits system is incredibly, almost disgustingly broken, with only a tiny number of boffs having the traits that people actually care about: space traits. This is a much broader problem, however, and not quite within the purview of this post.
While on the subject of bridge officers, let me also include the (admittedly tiny) outrage that caused me to feel obligated to write this post in the first place: The "Liberated Borg Romulan Science Officer" is a member of Starfleet (Or the KDF, I imagine.) I'm a Romulan Commander. I acquired, at a cost that can be translated into an uncomfortable amount of actual dollars, a Romulan officer. I, quite reasonably, expected that officer to be a member of the Romulan republic. Instead I received a Starfleet reject with the rank of "ensign." This is a one of the things that makes the Romulan faction feel half-implemented, when a Romulan officer has to be categorized as Starfleet in order to, I assume, work properly with some kind of back-end system. (I'm charitably assuming that this wasn't done out of sheer laziness.)
I have very little hope that this will be corrected, but hopefully someone reading this will realize that making people feel decieved by the things they purchase is a poor way to run a store, and doesn't encourage repeat business.
Aside from bridge officers, there are smaller issues as well. Most of the dialogue associated with the New Romulus faction, and Romulan Marks, treats your character like an ambassador from your affiliated faction. Instead of "Welcome home, brother/sister!" we get "I don't like having your people around, but I suppose we're not in a position to refuse help." It's somewhat strange, actually, that the old content seems to better acknowledge the faction than the new content. Some new dialogue needs to be be put in place here.
Doffs and Doff missions are sometimes a bit funky. Aside from the issue with the recruitment missions being too rare, there are several missions in Romulan space about sabotaging Romulan and Reman facilities and interests. The Romulan ones are okay, but should probably have their text altered to specifically indicate that we're hitting the Tal Shiar Star Empire or whatever that entity is calling itself now that Sela and Hakeev are both gone. The Reman ones are baffling: the only Reman military force that I'm aware of is Obisek's group, and he's (mostly) our buddy. So... which Remans are we fighting, exactly? There are still Reman slaves in Empire, I suppose, but they can't possibly have fleets and independent military installations.
Some others have suggested a Romulan "costume" for the fleet starbase. I don't think I'd personally be in a position to use it, but for I can absolutely sympathize with people in those kinds of fleets.
Let me go ahead and preface this with an admission: almost none of what I'm about to complain about had any effect on actual gameplay. This, however, shouldn't matter. I don't play this game to achieve statistical perfection, because I'm not a lunatic. I play it because I like the Star Trek universe, I have a great fondness for it, and I'm deeply interested in a game that allows me to construct a character and a story for that character in that universe. The biggest problems I have with this game aren't balance issues, they're things that infringe upon my ability to build that character and that story.
I realize that integrating a new faction into the game, even a kind of half-faction like the Romulans, is hard. And I'm very happy with a lot of what's been done to make the game accomodating for Romulans: the Romulan-specific episodes are mostly excellent and the missions which have been modified to note your affiliation are nice to play. The Gorn ambassador who notes that trickery is not a tactic for the Klingon empire, but rather for "one of your pointy-eared persuasion" was a magnficent little touch.
On the other hand, there are flaws. Things that make the faction seem rushed, half-finished, and not fully integrated into the game. Things that make my Romulan captain feel like a Vulcan in some kind of deep cover mission, pretending to be a Romulan when it's convenient but dropping the act when it's not.
The big issue, for me, is Bridge Officers. Romulan, and especially Reman bridge officers are wildly expensive and difficult to acquire when compared to their Starfleet and Klingon counterparts. For someone trying to build a crew composed primarily of these races, this is a serious problem. The "Evaluate Romulan Bridge Officer Candidate" doff mission is at least as rare as the equivalent mission for other races, when it should be proportionally more common to account for the fact that there are few races available to the faction. I assume a Reman version of this mission exists, but I've never seen it. Naturally, the other reason that Romulan boffs are so expensive is because the Traits system is incredibly, almost disgustingly broken, with only a tiny number of boffs having the traits that people actually care about: space traits. This is a much broader problem, however, and not quite within the purview of this post.
While on the subject of bridge officers, let me also include the (admittedly tiny) outrage that caused me to feel obligated to write this post in the first place: The "Liberated Borg Romulan Science Officer" is a member of Starfleet (Or the KDF, I imagine.) I'm a Romulan Commander. I acquired, at a cost that can be translated into an uncomfortable amount of actual dollars, a Romulan officer. I, quite reasonably, expected that officer to be a member of the Romulan republic. Instead I received a Starfleet reject with the rank of "ensign." This is a one of the things that makes the Romulan faction feel half-implemented, when a Romulan officer has to be categorized as Starfleet in order to, I assume, work properly with some kind of back-end system. (I'm charitably assuming that this wasn't done out of sheer laziness.)
I have very little hope that this will be corrected, but hopefully someone reading this will realize that making people feel decieved by the things they purchase is a poor way to run a store, and doesn't encourage repeat business.
Aside from bridge officers, there are smaller issues as well. Most of the dialogue associated with the New Romulus faction, and Romulan Marks, treats your character like an ambassador from your affiliated faction. Instead of "Welcome home, brother/sister!" we get "I don't like having your people around, but I suppose we're not in a position to refuse help." It's somewhat strange, actually, that the old content seems to better acknowledge the faction than the new content. Some new dialogue needs to be be put in place here.
Doffs and Doff missions are sometimes a bit funky. Aside from the issue with the recruitment missions being too rare, there are several missions in Romulan space about sabotaging Romulan and Reman facilities and interests. The Romulan ones are okay, but should probably have their text altered to specifically indicate that we're hitting the Tal Shiar Star Empire or whatever that entity is calling itself now that Sela and Hakeev are both gone. The Reman ones are baffling: the only Reman military force that I'm aware of is Obisek's group, and he's (mostly) our buddy. So... which Remans are we fighting, exactly? There are still Reman slaves in Empire, I suppose, but they can't possibly have fleets and independent military installations.
Some others have suggested a Romulan "costume" for the fleet starbase. I don't think I'd personally be in a position to use it, but for I can absolutely sympathize with people in those kinds of fleets.
Post edited by shineshadow on
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Comments
We're supposed to be a faction, instead we're just a sales gimmick. We barely have our own ships, we DONT have our own clothes ( what we wear is almost straight out of firefly ), we have no faction fleet, starbase or anything outside of new romulus which is just an oversized esd where all races can hang out. Then we're told that no one except romulans can fly romulan birds but guess what?/ Guess whos flying the adopted cruisers and destroyers ( romulan birds ). It aint the romulans.. its everybody..
Maybe i'm whining.. i'm tired, its late and its been a long day, but I want a real faction, not this joke of a faction. I want a romulan fleet that isnt attached to the feds or klingons, and i want to be rid of the alliances. I'm romulan i dont need the help of lesser races.
Agreed on the Boff trait variety aside. Agreed on the Reman Borg boff, and one of the reasons I didn't buy that is because, traitwise, it's not Reman, just like the feature ep Reman isn't 'Reman' for the same reason.
Furthermore, I'd rather have liked those feature ep boffs to have joined my RRF crew rather than having them join Starfleet and then be assigned to my ship, which is how I'm choosing to RP that particular oversight.
Basically, a massive +1 OP
Oh... and um... dude, where's my sci ship?
See below for what I really want(ed)...
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
Commission a kdf science boff. You can now train TSS3 from your kdf boff you havent commissioned yet to your RR boff you already have. Repeat for all diff types.
I trained ASIF3 from a KDF to my rom boffs this way.
To say the Romulans have an identity crisis would be an understatement. First it's like "we must join together under new Romulus to save Romulans!" Yay for Romulus!:D Then it's like "we must join with the Federation and Klingons to kill fellow Romulans to save Romulans!" Yay...wait what?!?
Not only do I not want to buy Fed/Klingon doffs I want no part of them. Another annoying fact is your allied teams officers occasionally show up on your bridge once you pick a side unless that's been fixed since the last time I checked. Get off my ship I say I don't like you klingon and federation freaks! *cough cough* I mean....I am fully committed to this alliance between our peoples and would never think of betraying you.<.<>.>
But I concur with what someone else mentioned: With the Romulan storyline, D'Tan has made the Romulan Republic subservient to the Federation and Klingon Empire. D'Tan has lost military control of remnants of the Romulan military that was supposed to serve the Romulan Republic. These ships and crew are splitting off into the Federation and Klingons to fight and die, and kill each other as proxies to their allies and their war with each other, despite them actually originally serving the Romulan Republic. And the storyline with the Romulans has you killing even MORE Romulans, even though they're Tal Shiar.
Anyways, I had said long ago that the Romulans would have been ideal to be a full faction with the return and consolidation of power by Sela. Sela returns, snuffs out the power grab, end the splintering, and preserve the Romulan Star Empire's standing... and NOT be subservient to anyone. And if I had it my way, be pretty pissed off with the Federation and Klingons for taking advantage of them at their moment of weakness with Romulus' destruction.
Evaluating Reman officers is very rare. I had it pop up on a fed alt. And BTW the romulan and reman bridge officer evaluations do not occur at the same time as KDF/ROM and FED/ROM. Not sure why but when I logged into my KDF/ROMs five seconds later I did not get the same boff evaluation mission. FYI the easiest way to get a full complement of Superior Rom Ops w/ subterfuge is to run a 2nd officer and transfer the lvl 25, 35, 45 boffs to your main toon. It kinda sucks, but its reliable and doesn't cost 7-10 million each :eek: Good luck on the Remans though, they don't pop up reliably in those and when they do often don't have the superior infiltrator trait.
If anyone cared about ground traits Tovan Kev would be a good boff :rolleyes: So I agree with you here. I'm fairly certain the Remans in space weren't as popular until Scimitar two set bonus came out. Despite what exchange rate, only Remans are worth anything now. 20 million each goes to show a serious lack of supply though.
So players who previously had selected or bought Reman boffs for this trait were screwed.
This being a "free" to play game with an exchange rate on the currency, you can calculate the cost of each affected Reman at five plus dollars. I've lost it from about five boffs so Cryptic owe me at least $25.
I know there's no chance of my getting that money but what I won't do is spend any more money on the game until they correct the problem. And if they don't then I'll never spend any more money on this game.
Very, very easy problem to fix. No excuse for not doing it. Or better yet, fix the boff trait system. You really can't wave blog entries at us about STO celebrates diversity and have game design which does the exact opposite.
As for Romulan identity, I like my "new age" re-unificationist Romulan attached to the Federation. Suits me just fine. I think the heart of the identity problem is they tried to please people like me and those who prefer old fashioned, sneaky Romulans. As a player it does sometimes feel like you're getting mixed messages about who you (Romulans) are.