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Re: Ship Management System mentioned in Season 8.5 overview blog
darramouss1
Member Posts: 1,811 Arc User
So it seems that season 8.5 will give us the opportunity to change our starships in sector space. Good or bad? I say bad.
Being able to change your ship out of spacedock is bad for a number of reasons.
1) It further diminishes the believability of the game.
Yes, games require a person to suspend disbelief, but if something becomes more and more and more unbelievable it becomes a farce.
2) It's lazy and a form of instant gratification.
What is it with the need for instant gratification? I want my other ship NOW, DAMN IT!!! Didn't people get taught patience when they were younger? What's the next instant gratification, being able to call the Azura with no countdown? Then what? No cooldown on transwarp? Then what? Press a button to level up? Every time the game gets its challenges removed the less rewarding it becomes and the less people will play it. What's the point if there's nothing to work through/overcome/spend time doing?
3) It focuses more people in the areas that are deemed useful.
DS9 was a useful location as it was the only place where you could do STF stuff. Now it's a lot more quiet as there's no real need to be there. The need to go to spacedock will be greatly diminished, pushing more people in to other areas. What's next, putting a dabo table and latinum trader on ESD? That would make it so much more easier for those lazy people who want everything now but it would deaden Drozana and DS9 a little bit more. The less and less we need to travel to certain places to do things the lazier this game feels.
SOLUTION
Don't allow players to change ships in sector space. Make people travel to spacedock to do it. Whilst you're at it, start giving more importance to places that the player has to travel to. Give us reasons to actually go somewhere instead of giving us instant access to this mission or that resource. We need something for a mission or for crafting something? Make us work to get it. Product X can only be obtained from K7, item Y can only be crafted at DS9, task Z can only be initiated from Vulcan. After all, the easier the game gets the less interesting it becomes.
I know there will be people who disagree with my opinion but can we please have constructive responses instead of insults?
Being able to change your ship out of spacedock is bad for a number of reasons.
1) It further diminishes the believability of the game.
Yes, games require a person to suspend disbelief, but if something becomes more and more and more unbelievable it becomes a farce.
2) It's lazy and a form of instant gratification.
What is it with the need for instant gratification? I want my other ship NOW, DAMN IT!!! Didn't people get taught patience when they were younger? What's the next instant gratification, being able to call the Azura with no countdown? Then what? No cooldown on transwarp? Then what? Press a button to level up? Every time the game gets its challenges removed the less rewarding it becomes and the less people will play it. What's the point if there's nothing to work through/overcome/spend time doing?
3) It focuses more people in the areas that are deemed useful.
DS9 was a useful location as it was the only place where you could do STF stuff. Now it's a lot more quiet as there's no real need to be there. The need to go to spacedock will be greatly diminished, pushing more people in to other areas. What's next, putting a dabo table and latinum trader on ESD? That would make it so much more easier for those lazy people who want everything now but it would deaden Drozana and DS9 a little bit more. The less and less we need to travel to certain places to do things the lazier this game feels.
SOLUTION
Don't allow players to change ships in sector space. Make people travel to spacedock to do it. Whilst you're at it, start giving more importance to places that the player has to travel to. Give us reasons to actually go somewhere instead of giving us instant access to this mission or that resource. We need something for a mission or for crafting something? Make us work to get it. Product X can only be obtained from K7, item Y can only be crafted at DS9, task Z can only be initiated from Vulcan. After all, the easier the game gets the less interesting it becomes.
I know there will be people who disagree with my opinion but can we please have constructive responses instead of insults?
Post edited by darramouss1 on
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Comments
You make a very valid point, however popular opinion doesn't always make the best decision. I'm sure that if everyone had the ability to choose to not pay taxes then the country would shut down in days.
I just wish that ease and convenience wasn't one of the more important things that people seek in games these days.
I have to agree.
The whole point of Voyager, for instance, was that if you're not at a starbase, you're stuck with whats fitted on your ship or what you can salvage out there.
This decision is more about game and less about star trek.......which, in my view, is not a good sign of things moving forward.
This game stands or falls on how well it reflects the IP.
The funny thing is that I have seen people say that it should be more about the game, not the IP. I agree with you, however, as different companies can make all the space combat games they want but they'll never be able to make a Trek game. That's something that needs to be preserved as it guarantees this game's uniqueness.
Oh, and what you mentioned about Voyager? That was one of the best bits about the show. Awesome example.
That is very true, and if this were a more important matter it would be far better to assess the potential repercussions of any developer or playerbase decision. However, as it stands giving the people their instant gratification won't negatively affect those who will continue to prefer to work for their rewards; and whereas it may be bad for the character integrity of the impatient players who herald this decision, I don't feel that it is my place to enforce my methods of building moral fortitude on others. Especially in a casual gaming environment.
(For the record, I like immersion, and will probably continue to use Starbases for most refitting)
Agreed also, i do see how this change is arrived at.
However, there's a line to be drawn and it can be crossed.
The balance between faithfulness to the IP and good gaming is a tricky one to draw. Not least because it lies in radically different places for different people.
However, there has to be a point where the IP doesn't compromise, or else it dissipates.
This sort of change, while it may not be the tipping point, is a step towards it.
Actually not. It is quite logical that an Admiral ranked player can arrange for an RV in the middle of sector space. I don't see how I cannot arrange for a ship to transwarp to my location, so I can shift my command in the front lines, instead of being out of the fight for a period of time. So really, its only logical.
Yes, it might be called lazy. It might also be called boring to visit a specific locatiom just if you need your Ambassador instead of your Excelsior. As for the rest of the argument, this is a huge overreaction and does not serve to strenghten your point, so no feedback there.
So? Less people in ESD. Can't say I'm crying. Maybe, for once, we finally will be able to actually have a conversation in zone chat now. And the less time you see people just hurling by for their ship, the more time you will see them in missions. They will be filling queues and enjoying content instead of dashing through ESD where they aren't doing anything in which you are involved anyway.
In short, I support the idea. Next to that, its gonna happen. The devs would shoot themselves in the foot by aborting this idea after this kind of announcement.
As for your style of argumentation, you often exaggerate (misspelled, I know, but its 1 am at my place and i'm typing on my tablet) and you see similarities where there are none. I'd try to avoid those.
Hoping this was a constructive reply.
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Instant gratification? Do you even know what that means?
Instantly getting the newest ship for no effort. That is instant gratification.
Switching ships on the fly is eliminating an inconvenience.
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
I would say no to the instant swap. If there would be like an auxiliary ship that you can board / transwarp to, to do that, makes much more sense.
Not meaning to be rude, but essentially your position boils down to, 'its logical'.
I cant wholly disagree, as if we simply look at this as a game you're absolutely correct.
I'd further concede that, one can make an argument that, at least, doesn't contradict canon.
However, I'd suggest a sort of compromise.
Allow us to change ships, as suggested, but only in sectors where we have a friendly starbase.
So, if I'm wandering through Beta Ursae and want to switch ships....no problem.
However, if as a Fed, I take my Galaxy in Omega Leonis and want to switch to my Defiant, I'm SOL......because I'm way out of range.
Like I said in that other thread - we already have an useless sector space in a Star Trek game of all the places, the way this is going we might as well nuke the social zones and group the players in a single room in which there'll be everything and we'll just sit there and join queues.
Your numbers may be wrong, but the groups you identify clearly exist.
As stated before, it is a difficult task to find the correct balancing point between the two.
However, I do think you underestimate the group you characterise as 'canon purists'.
While they may be a minority in terms of number of players, if you were to look at just LTSs I think you'd see a wholly different picture.
Indeed, I'd suggest the probability of someone being a canon purist correlates strongly with how much money they spend on the game.
Thus, while there do have to be compromises of the canon to make the game work, there also have to be parts of the game that do not compromise, lest those canon purists with their wallets leave.
It's not an easy line to draw, its worth repeating that.
The compromise I've suggested earlier would satisfy me though.
This is an awesome compromise. It retains believability whilst making ship changing more accessible. This idea has my vote.
This is what I don't want the game to be. Whilst I like the reputation system, Omega reputation did exactly that to STFs. Players have no need to go to the DS9 STF area now and that was a great social place.
Reading through the comments I have to say that every person thus far has made valid points and seem to be covering most of the playing population. Here's another suggestion for the game.
The lower levels of ESD are unused and dormant. Wasted, really. Why not use that space as an area that initiates missions that involve us to travel and actually do things instead of sitting in a social zone, waiting for a queue to fill. Give the missions a small cooldown, say an hour, and have the missions involve travel to particular sectors (with no missions transwarp for X number of EC), battle a little, collect items (bound to prevent people from circumventing this system through the exchange) and then craft these things in to new items and/or consumables. In fact, use it to populate the woefully under-represented ship device category. We want more than batteries, red matter and subspace field modulator.
This system would be optional. You only do it if you want to do it. The missions would need to have an element of randomness. They would have to be VERY challenging, with the possibility of failure. People who like to sit in queues and be relatively sedentary would have no change to their game. People who want to go out and actually do stuff would have something to do. Combine that with rinkster's ship changing idea and the game would be stronger.
I try to treat the game the same way the devs do. When I take it more seriously than them I end up trolling myself. They treat it like ez game with no real strategy requirements (no penalty for losing, instant equipment swaps, etc), so thats how I treat it. Its basically a web game with better graphics. Do you commit to a lot of those?
Non-snarky answer: I role-play as the commander of a large task force comprised of my various ships and I love the idea of having the ability to "transfer my flag" on the fly, as it were.
What's immersion-breaking for some may enhance immersion for others, and in this case Cryptic is leaning towards the needs of the many. If changing ships in sector space breaks immersion for you, don't do it. Return to Starbase and do it there like you're "supposed" to. It should in no way impact you if I'm sitting around at New Romulus and my Army HEC suddenly becomes a Galor.
At any rate, it's a good idea for most of us, and a non-issue for the rest. Nobody can make you take advantage of this new feature.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Not necessarily. Having is not the same as wanting. The idea and the reality are different things. Having gotten this new bit of convenience, players may find that the game has lost something in the process.
Quite. I do actually like this change, I was just being snarky with my remark [too good of an opportunity to be 'Hey we are actually Admirals!'].
There's not a whole lot gained by forcing players to go to New Rom/ESD/DS9/BGO/S39-S/K9 etc. And if you restrict it to zones with an allied starbase, it makes KDF have more frustration.
Me I will still visit the Dock to swap ships. Since I do Role Play, so I won't use that option. Unless the need shows up to "Transfer my Command" for some odd reason.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
believability like beauty and truth as well as reason is in the eye of the beholder. people want to loose game value for quick swapping, thats the end of it no matter what your point maybe after the fact.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I don't see the changing of your flagship as being a huge immersion-breaking deal either. It's just as plausible to say your other ships are current dispatched on other missions and as Admiral, you transfer to them for specific assignments. Also, Voyager did a ton of adjustments to their ship while in transit, it wouldn't be hard to rationalize that a ship is packing some modified equipment that they can hook up when a situation arises(swapping builds).
Conversely, this change cuts down on the tedium and inventory clutter of having different ships designed for specific things, I know I personally went through and built several anti-voth ships when the season launched. I'd love the ability to hotswap to one of my more traditional builds whenever I want to run a queue or what-have-you.
You're correct in saying this to a point. Yes, people can choose not use this feature. But the people who pushed for this will most likely push for another convenience and then another. How can I be sure of this? Because it already happens in other parts of the game. Power creep, anyone?
The line must be drawn here, no further!!
More like they're making stupid things you have to do easier, be thankful.
Any metaphor to voyager is sheer lol cause voyager was sheer lol. Watchers beware, you're in for a scare.
Btw where are you getting this information from?