How to make ground combat fun, IMHO

allkorr

I constantly see people bashing ground combat, though I rather enjoy it myself. I suspect it may be because I take a different tact to how I approach the game. Maybe it could help you find a little more enjoyment in the ground game as well?

The key with STO is to realize that it's designed to make you feel good about yourself -- i.e. powercreep out the TRIBBLE.

If you want to actually enjoy ground combat (and it actually can be very fun), do this.

1) Limit yourself! It is very easy to create builds for yourself/boffs that are entirely broken and utterly trivialize everything (for example engineers everywhere spamming a billion turrets). DON'T. It's boring. All you're accomplishing is turning your fun game time into grind time. I personally find Myself + 1 Engineer, 1 or 2 Sci (only 1 healer), and 1 or 2 tac to be the most enjoyable for most single player content. Also, stay away from rep/fleet gear when soloing/not PvPing; it trivializes everything. (I would say stay away from it entirely, but with so many twinks around you're only hurting yourself in group work/PVP, unfortunately).

2) Fights can be surprisingly tactical, use it. Cover actually works--taking too much damage? Get out of sight. Flanking is a thing and can dramatically increase incoming/outgoing damage. Crouch reduces incoming ranged damage/increases incoming melee damage. Aiming increases damage output. Melee and disruption abilities can take things out of a fight. etc. etc. USE THESE TOOLS!

3) MOST IMPORTANTLY: The first person shooter (action mode) element is ****, don't bother. Go to third person (RPG mode), zoom out, and turn it into a tactical battle by pretending you're playing Baldur's Gate or Dragon Age with disruptors. Bind a button to each of set waypoint/clear waypoint/attack my target; you can then select boffs using F2-F5 and issue individual orders. Likewise drag their abilities down to your action bar and you can easily tell them when to use their abilities, you can also tell them to NOT use their abilities without your explicit clearance by right clicking on the ability by their name until it turns red. Finally, you can still issue orders while paused, in fact, that's the point of allowing pausing! Suddenly you're in total control of positioning, including defense/flanking, and setting up ability combos.

All of this combines to actually make for some very dynamic and enjoyable fights. You can reposition to move someone taking too much damage back into cover, send a disrupting melee in to intercept the pursuit, and move someone else up to get the bonus flank damage on the pursuers. etc, etc.

OR it can be boring as **** where you do the exact same thing every time because you've brought the most overpowered build imaginable and you can basically afk the fight....Again the key to fun rather than grinding in this game is to realize that if you don't use the ridiculously broken tools given to you there are more enjoyable alternatives that make victory just as achievable, but far more enjoyable.

xiaoping88

The only way ground combat is fun for me IS the shooter mode.

mikefl

I love ground combat but I would actually like to see real "Cover" like in other games. You can still be shot through objects if you are targeted before hiding, real cover does not work this way.

I just think people misapply their skills to be space heavy and as little on the ground as possible... then they drop like flies constantly. I do a balanced build picking up key areas on the ground specs and then balancing the rest in space. The hardest to do this with is science since science requires a lot more space skills but it's still possible.

Still easy IMO and I don't think you should have to dumb yourself down for a challenge but I love doing ground in this game.

feordilagorge

I've never seen cover work in this game. I can leave a room and run into a corridor and the enemy just fires through the walls, so I don't know how you could use cover.

The melee is simply awful. Slow, clumsy, no feel of combat. Skills are very unresponsive to key presses, takes a couple of seconds after pressing a key for the skill to activate.

I've always said I wish we had the ground game more like SWtOR but their space game is worse than STO's ground game.

jexsamx

Cover doesn't work. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've tried ducking for cover behind a wall or around a door frame only to be shot - repeatedly - through it.

And Shooter mode is the only fun thing about ground combat. RPG mode may be more efficient, but it's wholly dull.

erei1

Cover could work if it was like Mass Effect, but adding that to the game would mean a HUGE work for the devs, as it's not as minor as it look like. Cover like any multiplayer FPS would be a lot harder.

As for engis with turrets... Yeah that's annoying. Be a real DPS engi, use mines. Nothing beats a group of Borg exploding on your mines.

Honestly, I used to hate ground combat. Until I found the auto-attack option. It changed my life. Now I have fun, especially in engi.

sle1989

Any change to ground combat would require an entirely new engine.

Perhaps they could make our ground gear more like space gear. What I mean is that ground gear comes with no modifiers such as DMG or CRTH. Instead gear would come with slots where you could attach items that would give you those modifiers.

This way setting yourself up on the ground would be more like setting up for space.

mcduffie369

This video can help http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YvlJo8u-vQ

ashkrik23

I find ground to be the most exciting.

neoakiraii

Pants off, Dance off will make ground very exciting.

jodarkrider

The only fun way of ground is to melee everything... Mwhahahah.
Besides... guns are uncivillized.

sunfrancks

Nuke ground combat in this game, from orbit. It is the only way to be sure.....