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Ship Passives
caocaopuff
Member Posts: 36 Arc User
There is a excellent game (well a mod of a game) called Fleet Operations. It is a mod for the game Star Trek Armada II, and IMO an amazingly well done mod and well worth playing.
One characteristic of this game that the devs might consider incorporating into STO is the concept of ship passives. The devs at fleetops ran into a problem a while back while trying to ensure that every ship had a role to play and came up, among other things, with the concept of ship passive abilities. The end result is that every ship has at least one unique passive, which helps it carve out a niche for itself. For example, the Klingon Vupta' has targeting scramblers as its passive which dramatically increase its torpedo avoidance.
Of course STOs passives would have to work differently to fit into game mechanics, but it would had a new dimension of uniqueness to ships. There are only so many different console/BoFF layouts that we can go through. And of those layouts, some are clearly superior/inferior to others. Why not add passives to help out some of the less desirable ships and define the roles of other ships more clearly
EVE online also has a passives system of sorts in which certain hulls gain bonuses related to one role or another such as missle damage, ECM effectiveness, etc.
What are your thoughts? Criticisms? Passive ability suggestions?
One characteristic of this game that the devs might consider incorporating into STO is the concept of ship passives. The devs at fleetops ran into a problem a while back while trying to ensure that every ship had a role to play and came up, among other things, with the concept of ship passive abilities. The end result is that every ship has at least one unique passive, which helps it carve out a niche for itself. For example, the Klingon Vupta' has targeting scramblers as its passive which dramatically increase its torpedo avoidance.
Of course STOs passives would have to work differently to fit into game mechanics, but it would had a new dimension of uniqueness to ships. There are only so many different console/BoFF layouts that we can go through. And of those layouts, some are clearly superior/inferior to others. Why not add passives to help out some of the less desirable ships and define the roles of other ships more clearly
EVE online also has a passives system of sorts in which certain hulls gain bonuses related to one role or another such as missle damage, ECM effectiveness, etc.
What are your thoughts? Criticisms? Passive ability suggestions?
Post edited by caocaopuff on
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There are tons of passives already though. Consoles, reps, boff and doff powers. In addition, most sci ships have sensor scan.
So in this game, if I wanted to, I could replicate several stock Armada load outs.
Akira - Chain Reaction Pulsar = Isometric Charge console
Nebula - Point defense = PDS console
Saber - Hyper Impulse = Impulse Cap Cell Console
Come to think of it, perhaps this game is borrowing a bit from Armada.
And your passive like jamming sensors exists in game as boff powers, stealth and defense. So you could build to do something similar.
But I think the point you were trying to get at was trying to make ships more, unique. I think that's more on the player than the devs. After all, the more focused a ship becomes, the less broad appeal it will have (and less profit for the company).
You made a point about appeal. But what appeal do these ships have to the general community? Besides looks, the odd collector, and people who just like because of personal preference. You know what really has appeal? Performance. So guess which ships appeal to players: Mogh, Scimitar, Lockbox ships, Heavy escort carrier, Avenger. Your own sig seems to make my point.
Unique ship passives would add a reason to fly as of now unused ships as well as add a new dimension to the makeup of PvP teams and strategy in fights. As an example (and I say example because I didnt think this through and someone will rip it apart)
The galaxy: a hollow shell of a former flagship. It can't even support a team with heals or tank better than its older cousin, the ambassador.
Passive: Redundant EPS transfer grids
RP lore for trekkies: The galaxy was build as a moving city, with the ability to support a crew and families for long term voyages. In times of war, these massive energy reserves can be channeled to better support its allies in a way that few other ships can manage.
Effect:The galaxy and its allies receive bonuses to weapon damage/shield resilience/defense/perception based on the power levels of the galaxy
And the galaxy suddenly becomes a viable support vessel and a potential asset to a PvP team
If big passives are too game changing for you POV, even small things make each ship stand out just a bit more
Br'el
Passive: Battle Tested
RP w/e: The Br'el has been in service for generations. With each battle, KDF engineers find weaknesses to correct and strengthen so that this venerable ship may serve for many battles to come.
Effect: The Br'el gains 20% bonus damage resistance when being struck by kinetic weapons
It might narrow the focus of ships just a bit. But right now its:
"Should I get ship A, ship B, or ship C"
"Well ship A is clearly better in damage, ship B has more shields, ship C has nothing going for it so f*** ship C"
Why not give every ship at least one purpose besides "Oh I saw that ship on TV once and it looks kinda nice"
Oh wow thats a long post. TLDR: Every ship deserves to have something going for it
I enjoy my set of ships, they're all themed (the Recluse runs Nukara set with refracting tets). But that's how I want to play them, all but my main don't have the "best", but they do have flavor. I'm also a collector, so these ships represent my collection.
If you wanted to, you could strap on a Neutronium console and you've got the BoP you described. But to add a "passive" would just mean more powercreep. And some things, on certain ships, will still be more desirable. For example, giving a ship stealth would be pretty worthless.
I mean the game, is horribly unbalanced, both in PvE and PvP. I don't think any of us would trust the devs to implement a balanced system of ship passives. Some ships just are better than others because the game is so DPS oriented. So yes, in principle, I agree with your idea but it would require a ground up revamp of the game in order to balance things.
I can see ship traits as a thing like genetic resequencers in the future though.
Edit: If this is about giving every ship a fair shot, shouldn't the JHAS or Scimitar get a passive too? I can't imagine trying to justify give a plainly OP power to a Fleet Star Cruiser to bring it in line with the Scimitar and giving the Scimitar essentially a worthless passive. It would have to be something like a constant Attack Pattern Alpha for the Star Cruiser and like +1 to Starship Driver Coil skill for the Scimitar.
Relatively speaking, you've already lost.
The content in this game has its bar set so low that you can complete it in anything. So if you think your Nebula is inferior, what is it inferior to?
Relatively speaking, superior and inferior ships mean a great deal in this sense. With regards to power creep, the problem is twofold.
1. Players and ships are becoming ridiculously powerful. NPCs are falling so far behind it's laughable.
2. If NPCs are strengthened, the outdated ships and some new players will be "outclassed" so to speak by NPCs and will rage endlessly about it.
We know that cryptic can make the NPCs smarter and better. They tried it before with an improved NPC AI. Unfortunately, after hundreds of players were slaughtered by this new AI, they complained and cryptic removed the improvements.
I say bring the older ships up to par in some way so ALL ships are ridiculously overpowered. Then once we're "balanced" at that overpowered level, cryptic can boost NPC strength to match. Ship passives are an idea I had while trying to get my old A2 disk to work on Windows 8. I'm just putting it forth as a possible solution to the power curve and the ships and NPC that have fallen woefully behind it. Make every ship useful compared with each other so that if NPCs become stronger, nobody can whine about their particular favorite being neglected.
EDIT: fatman made a few good points. If passives ever become a thing, they should be something more creative then "+X to this skill", you can just toss a console on if you want it that badly. Also, scimitars and such should get useful passives, I've been on the forums long enough to see what happens when anyone thinks that their favorite is being shortchanged in any way.
I'm thinking that passives should add something useful to ships, not necessarily a flat DPS boost but something that makes it a useful contributing member of a team. A self damage boosting passive or cloak enhancing passive for the scim to highlight its role as a predator. Just like the proposed galaxy passive highlights its role as a flagship and a support for the entire fleet.
Here's the problem with the metric you are tying your self esteem to:
The reward is the same for the dated content no matter how much time is left at the end of the optional.
And since the marks you get are time gated to 20 hour completion cycles, the time you save is not significant.
No, they're really not. The Dyson Sphere stuff has shown that the developers are focusing on other things.
Crystaline Entity has also shown the developers can make an encounter that isn't beholden to DPS. People win first in that event for doing things besides DPS.
Power creep is not the problem people think it is. People are measuring their DPS against static borg objects from years old content.
That's not where the game is going.
It's also not going in the standard raid tier progression of other MMOs, but that's got more to do with their business model than anything else.
Still power creep is a myth.
Comparing your damage output from a Borg STF in 2014 to the same output in the exact same fight in 2013 is as boring as it sounds.
If you are that bored, I suggest you try PVPing. It forces you to change your build, and power choices. And it's going to create a lot of fluctuation in your DPS numbers and the challenge comes from something other than static borg objects.
The Research Science Vessel Retrofit and the Fleet Reseach Science Vessel Retrofit come with an integrated +50% crew recovery rate.
As far as I can determine they're the only ships with this integrated feature which I find very neat on my Olympic.
I was a bit surprised Cryptic didn't add more (and varied, there are a lot of different "regular" EC and Dilithiumstore consoles Cryptic could tap for this after all) such features to the retrofits of low-level ships. They make the ships more unique and viable despite some deficiencies compared to "normal" T5 ships IMHO.
You have missed the point entirely. The point was that nobody wants to be a deadweight. As of now, there are ships that are relative deadweights on teams, whether they be PvP or PvE.
Cryptic has shown that it is trying to make endgame less dependent on the sheer amount of damage you can put out. This can be seen with the Voth reflection shields and the Queen's FBP in Hive. I don't remember saying that it was all about DPS though, in all aspects ships have improved since release. The game has evolved and Cryptic/players have figured out which layouts are most effective. The earliest T5 ships, were test cases and have now been rendered obsolete for the most part despite being T5. This is a problem unique to STO. Look at the small but potent romulan lineup if you doubt this. They are the product of Cryptic observing which layouts were actually useful from the selection of KDF and Fed ships.
Power creep is very real, and happens in every MMO. STO has a unique problem in most other MMOs have a single character and stats are determined by your gear. You keep upgrading your gear to keep up with the power curve and the NPCs are scaled to match the current level of endgame gear. STO has starships, which have certain aspects of their stats hard locked (BoFF stations, console slots, etc). Combined with the current state of BoFF abilities (multiple eng slots being redundant, shared CDs on some abilities) it means that some ships will be left behind as the game evolves due undesirable layouts. This is of course barring a major redo of BoFF abilities; this would be incredibly hard as you have to balance new abilities while considering every possible combination of BoFF slots and how synergies might break the abilities.
An alternative solution I guess is to wait for T6 and Admiral rank and start fresh with a new set of ships. I'm just proposing passives as an interim solution, and also a way for them to market more ships (ie more profit) as you can have 2 ships with similar layout/stats but different passives. I mean, there are only so many permutations of BoFF layouts unless you wanna get ridiculous.
I didn't know about the RSV retrofit misterde3. That's pretty interesting, I thought the only ships with a "passive" was the risian corvette which gets a higher +Defense with speed.
People have videos of them completing this content in T1 ships. And shuttles. And using Mk I weapons.
There's no deadweight. At all. There's even THIS THREAD. That exists. In this very sub forum.
The bar is set so low. That deadweight is an even bigger myth than power creep. You can handily assist in the completion of an elite STF rocking the T4 Galaxy in White MK VII weapons. Deadweight does not exist in STO end-game.