Why not adjust your ground play to follow the rules seen in other games such as mass effect? In that game, you have to duck behind cover, and when behind cover, it's pretty hard to be hit.
Mortars, instead of firing through the walls, can just aim for their target that's visible and open fire. If they can establish an arc, great! Otherwise it'd act like a missile launcher. If it acts as a missile launcher, there's no real arc, it just adds a lot more knockback damage. In Mortar mode, it adds more armour piercing damage.
As for weapons, add a sort of a clip. Rapid fire weapons can have larger clips added as a mod, but they fire a lot, do a bit of damage, but can take time to reload, time to recharge, and slow down your movement speed. You could modify your kit in S9 to be able to reduce reloading/recharge time, increase movement speed, or increase the size of the clip.
You could modify your weapons, each weapon is given a energy output scale, that's your clip. The larger the gun, the larger that clip.
White guns cannot be modified
Green guns can be modified with 1 slot.
Blue guns can be modified with 2 slots.
Purple guns can be modified with 3 slots.
Reputation guns, 4 slots
Fleet guns, 5 slots.
Items to add to those slots;
1. Anti-gravity field - reduce mass and increase movement speed. Cannot run faster than unarmed. Can eliminate the time that you fired before you can run again for shotguns.
2. Field generator - more charge to the gun, increased damage and rate of fire. Can be three types of field generators. 1 for damage, rate of fire or both. Only fleet can provide both.
3. Sensors - increased range of shot.
4. Cooling plant - increase firing time before cooling down. Less time between shots.
5. Advanced Computer core - automatically aims for you, increasing expose, exploit and critical damage. 5 types. Expose, exploit, critical damage, critical chance, and all. (this works as long as your shot hits the target, then what you have slotted will then add to the calculations).
6. Energy field modulator - shapes the shot to be - armour piercing, explosive, shield dissipating or heat intensive (vaporizing the target)
Each of those items above, work in percentages based on their colour ranking. Higher ranking can add a bonus to your weapon's stats. Now you'll notice I said fleet adds the best. It's a matter of perspective, their 'all inclusive' bonus may have a damage output lower than a reputation or a MKXII Ultra Rare item you've crafted.
Crafting can generate items that increase those abilities. Say I want a gun that increases critical chance by 10 percent. The fleet only provides a 4.2 percent chance of increase of that, but it also gives me critical damage. I don't care for the critical damage, just want to increase the chance, I go crafting for that, and I get a device that increases the chance by 10, but not the damage at all.
(this encourages crafting, to finetune your ground items' bonuses)
Lastly, those devices, cannot slot more than 1 of a type. I can't have two computer cores, only 1. However, if the device is unique, that's a different matter.
Apply those rules to the game, where cover works, energy shots don't follow targets but where you aimed... and it's possible to bleed out.
Bleed out, here, when you bleed out, you automatically respawn. The more you go down, the less that respawn timer is. You go down rarely, you get like 45 seconds before you must respawn, for your teammates to heal you. If you're revived, no injuries. If you're respawned, you automatically get an injury.
While we're on that note, can we make injuries actually affect gameplay? Concussions make you harder to aim (like aiming down a sniper rifle, it just wobbles a little). Bone injuries reduce movement speed. Cranial injuries reduce your abilities, either by removing a random ability such as beaming in security, setting a turret, or... increases their cooldown time. It would be capped, of course, but make it more than a slight annoyance. If i got 20 concussions, my shots will be wild!
Perhaps concussions can work like this. If I have 5 concussions, I have a 1 in 5 chance of hitting my target. 1 concussion can be the same as 2. 1 in 2 chance of hitting/missing. If I have 20 concussions i'll have a 1 in 20 chance of hitting.
If a person does not have the parts necessary to treat themselves, a science officer can treat them. Tactical can give them an adrenaline boost that ignores the injuries for a short time. However, injuries already sustained moved up 1 class, from minor to major, major to critic. Critical cant get worse. Engineers can bound their injuries, effectively halving the injuries recorded. The injuries don't go away, they just are half as damaging as they would be.
On that note... minor, major and critical... yeah. We can take those injuries and classify them. Minor would be 20 percent of intended injury debuff. Major would be 50 percent and critical would be 100.
So a soldier with a minor concussion, instead of a 1 in 2 chance of hitting, would be 1 in 8 chance of missing. Major would be 1 in 5, and critical is 1 on 2.
One other thing, no treatment of injuries will result in them getting worse. Minor injuries move up to major the next time you go down. Same for major to critical.
So, basically all new injuries should be minor. Old injuries get moved up to the next rank if not treated the next time you go down. Oh and every time you go down, you get hurt.
STO is not a shooter. The crossfire mode is as close as you will ever get to that, according to the devs way back, though). That said, I despise cover-shooters since they are flat out boring. I like the actual use of physical cover the game offers. Sure, animations are a bit lacking but it's ok considering the age and the fact that it's a MMO and not a multiplayer shooter. Also, clips and reloading shouldn't be a issue in a star Trek game. We know that Trek weapons deplete energy cells and the like, yet we never got a grasp on how much a phaser energy cell provides before it is depleted - the type I hand-held ("hidden") phaser is the size of a mobile phone from 2006, yet it offers enough energy to repeatedly desintegrate large targets. Also, reloading would further move the game towards al those awful military shooter games.
It would be nice to craft weapons though. Modifiers that you can strip of loot and fuse with your weapon as well as a choice of your weapon skin would be a great start - I don't think we need all those gravity etc gimmicks we see in space combat on the ground in my opinion.
The injury system is kind of weird right now. The type of injury you recieve seems to not be connected to the kind of damage you take - maybe this could be changed: In DS9, we listen to Dr. Bajir explicitly instructing his medical staff what injuries they are about to face when a Klingon boarding action is imminent - this could give the possibility to apply specific injuries to enemies to cripple them, maybe even allowing to stun the enemy under the right circumstances etc.
Speaking of that scene, I think the melee system should get some kind of overhaul. Yes, we use energy guns and such, but melee was always a big part of Star Trek, the unarmed and melee fights have all been shown in great detail. Some kind of block/counterattack system and more APPROPRIATE melee weapons would be nice (stun batons for Starfleet, more swords for Klingons).
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Honestly they should just go the route the other games of this genre have, and give all weapons modifications. The Modification determines the Damage Type/Color/Bonuses. Low levels get zero-low quality modifications, mid levels get mid level modifications, and high levels can unlock high level mods. Would also give the Rep system more usefulness as the very high level mods would have to be unlocked. Could also have fleet mods, and crafting mods, course then we need a revamped crafting system.
Improving melee would be great. It just feels too stiff at times, with the odd exception of wielding a bat'leth. For some reason that is the only weapon that, for me, FEELS like it works better than everything else in the game.
Why not adjust your ground play to follow the rules seen in other games such as mass effect?
Most obvious reason: This isn't another game such as Mass Effect.
In that game, you have to duck behind cover, and when behind cover, it's pretty hard to be hit.
Thoughts?
One word: Swarmers.
One look at how they work in the Dyson Sphere makes the concept of "cover" utterly laughable as they hide behind a column that blocks your weapons while firing theirs through said column at you.
One easy "fix" for ground play is to acknowledge that this is a squad based shooter game in ground zones(with PVP being the exception) and give us ground zones that require strategy and calling out orders to our away team. I know there are a few situations in this game where it is easier to put away team members at specific waypoints, or give them orders, but honestly there isn't a single part of the single player that is impossible without using the command interface.
Improving melee would be great. It just feels too stiff at times, with the odd exception of wielding a bat'leth. For some reason that is the only weapon that, for me, FEELS like it works better than everything else in the game.
yea, and unless your fighting borg, everything else escapes melee range to fast to be completely useful. And melee is the best borg fighting tactic I've seen in the game.
One look at how they work in the Dyson Sphere makes the concept of "cover" utterly laughable as they hide behind a column that blocks your weapons while firing theirs through said column at you.
So much for cover. :P
Exactly.
For Cryptic to do anything like the OP suggests would require a massive amount of "man hours" to sort out the current borked ground system with have. Which basically means it won't happen due to the expense.
Most obvious reason: This isn't another game such as Mass Effect.
There is already Call of Duty, and yet we see dozens (hundreds ? Thousands ?) of FPS every year. And many of them makes a lot of sales.
The Mass Effect (or something akin) was already suggested many, many times. I think the biggest problem is to make the cover system working. The engine is simply not made for that. Even on SWTOR, where they planned to have a class that use cover, it is limited, using only designated cover, and some of them were even removed during development (like using a vertical thing as cover, for example a column).
Honestly, the ground play needs to be more like Star Wars Republic commando. Where you can tell your team to do things like breach and clear, slice this, engage that.
Make you feel more like a team, not just a bunch of lackeys.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
It really is ridiculous shooting people in the open at point blank. You don't have to go to Mass Effect for an example. Just look at the Star Trek series where they use cover. Sure you can use personal shields and armor, but cover should at least reduce the effect of hits dramatically.
Instead of making new clone zones or tedious rep projects, I'd like to see them spend a season re-doing the ground combat.
Honestly, the ground play needs to be more like Star Wars Republic commando. Where you can tell your team to do things like breach and clear, slice this, engage that.
Make you feel more like a team, not just a bunch of lackeys.
Yep, that would be the best thing they could do. I kind of hate also how "Untrekkie" it is that I'm the captain, and I'm on every single away mission. They could let us be the captain in space, and be a first officer in away teams.
I kind of hate also how "Untrekkie" it is that I'm the captain, and I'm on every single away mission.
Not sure how this qualifies as "Untrekkie." One of the hallmarks of the show was the hilarity of Starfleet seemingly requiring away teams to be comprised mostly of the highest-ranking personnel on board with a couple of token redshirts as needed to provide "drama intensification casualties."
"Their city is under siege, and beaming down is almost certain death. But their emperor's toilet is stopped up. Send the Captain, Chief Medical Officer, Chief Engineer, head of Security, one random security ensign, and a plunger."
Weapons do use clips, but it's energy clips and I do point out that some can recharge.
The goal really is to make ground combat have variety. Yes I understand the original engine isn't the best, but if we adjust the ground targeting so weapons fired goes where they are aiming, not where they were aimed and if a shot hits something solid BEFORE reaching its intended target, then the weapon shot is 100 percent missed. It's not like we latch to the cover, but rather we get behind a wall... it's done in Hive Space, the queen is cover. I hide behind the queen, her ship drones have to come around her to get to me. So cover works. But the problem is, once a shot is fired, and I DIVE for cover, the shot still hits me. Cover needs to be more... important. You'd notice those not using cover in the shows die quickly.
There's nothing much wrong with ground as it stands. There never was, it was always an l2p issue, but Cryptic made it easier to get into, and that was a good thing.
With the amount of customization Cryptic offers, it's possible to play ground in any number of ways - from traditional point-and-click MMO to MMO action/pseudo-shooter.
Ground is just fine, as a combat system. The problem is that the rewards for ground, and for most space things, are fairly pants in comparison to the rewards for a few space things that everyone does because they're easy because everyone knows them and the rewards are decent. When Cryptic give a decent reward for the ground stuff, as in Battlezone, people come, and they enjoy themselves.
IOW, more than looking at ground as a system, Cryptic need to look at how rewards and risk/reward is balanced across reps and missions and STFs.
Some of the OP suggestions are cool, although most of them would require too much of a revamp therefore are unrealistic. But certainly, not gameplay-wise, but customization-wise, a lot could be done.
I wish something could also be done about animations - smoother and more detailed, etc. - but that's also an unrealistic request at this late stage. While the SWTOR system (as a comparison) is much less action-oriented, more static, and involves a GCD (which I hate), the animations are superbly detailed and more immersive for that. Even with Cryptic's own Neverwinter, the animations are much better than in STO.
But in terms of the feel of ground combat, the mechanics and the build system, I don't think there's much wrong. It's fast, frantic fun as far as I'm concerned, and if you're not getting that out of it, you're playing it wrong, or you haven't looked at the extensive options Cryptic offer for player control, and found a way that suits you.
I do enjoy game play. I just hate diving behind a wall and getting killed, LOL...
If we got to stick to shots hit when fired, or whatever the current system is, then fine, at least give us the customized weapons. If it gotta be crafted, that's fine.
I do enjoy game play. I just hate diving behind a wall and getting killed, LOL...
If we got to stick to shots hit when fired, or whatever the current system is, then fine, at least give us the customized weapons. If it gotta be crafted, that's fine.
Here's the deal... if I correctly understand how ranged combat works in this game:
Just like normal torpedoes, the "to hit" chance is resolved the moment the weapon is fired. At that moment, it can't miss no matter what you, the target, do.
If you break line of sight before they shoot, then they can't hit you. If they shot before you ducked, you're getting hit no matter what.
I have no issue with the idea of building customized weapons. We need to wait on a crafting revamp, but I expect that the kit revamp could open the door for that kind of modularization.
However, I do not expect that they will ever get to the point where every weapon is modular.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I do enjoy game play. I just hate diving behind a wall and getting killed, LOL...
I think that's just going to be an occasional accident in MMOs with this type of action-type combat for a while yet, until everyone has superfast broadband. As it is, developers have to develop a system that works fairly well for everyone. But that means it will occasionally glitch, even for people with great connections.
A genuine real-time action combat MMO experience that works really smoothly for everyone all over the world is still a ways off, IMHO. It's not like a multiplayer shooter, there are more factors involved in an MMO, more and more varied kinds of information that have to whizz about the internet and be budgeted in relation to the shooty aspect.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 59,174Community Moderator
edited April 2014
Weapon mods sound like an interesting concept to me, and not really farfetched as we have them in Real Life today with attachments like red dot sights and forward grips.
Maybe a modular weapon would not have mods like our current weapons, but have slots for various quality mods. An accuracy mod could be a kind of sight or an extra grip, a damage mod could be an extra prefire chamber, a crit mod could be a component that alters the energy output... There are ideas that would fit in well with STO. Heck... a mod could also include a flashlight like the Destabalizing Tetryon ground weapons! Phaser rifles from First Contact on had built in ones after all.
The ultimate customization might come with a base model, and one of the slots determines if its a beam or a bolt weapon, then what type of beam or bolt.
Now about the cover situation... its like any RPG really. The second you fire, the equivelent of declaring an attack in a turn based RPG, "Dice" are rolled to see if you hit or not. As STO is a real time RPG and not turn based... we get some funky events like getting shot through solid objects. The one exception I've noticed however is Armek on Cure ground. Used to be you could go into shooter mode and hit him even with his cover shields up, as you were targeting HIM. Can't do that now. You can aim at him all you want, and have him targeted in Shooter mode, but those cover shields get in the way of your shot.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Comments
It would be nice to craft weapons though. Modifiers that you can strip of loot and fuse with your weapon as well as a choice of your weapon skin would be a great start - I don't think we need all those gravity etc gimmicks we see in space combat on the ground in my opinion.
The injury system is kind of weird right now. The type of injury you recieve seems to not be connected to the kind of damage you take - maybe this could be changed: In DS9, we listen to Dr. Bajir explicitly instructing his medical staff what injuries they are about to face when a Klingon boarding action is imminent - this could give the possibility to apply specific injuries to enemies to cripple them, maybe even allowing to stun the enemy under the right circumstances etc.
Speaking of that scene, I think the melee system should get some kind of overhaul. Yes, we use energy guns and such, but melee was always a big part of Star Trek, the unarmed and melee fights have all been shown in great detail. Some kind of block/counterattack system and more APPROPRIATE melee weapons would be nice (stun batons for Starfleet, more swords for Klingons).
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I thought WoW's forums had angry elitist snobs, but I never could have imagined the level STO forums has.
Most obvious reason: This isn't another game such as Mass Effect.
One word: Swarmers.
One look at how they work in the Dyson Sphere makes the concept of "cover" utterly laughable as they hide behind a column that blocks your weapons while firing theirs through said column at you.
So much for cover. :P
One easy "fix" for ground play is to acknowledge that this is a squad based shooter game in ground zones(with PVP being the exception) and give us ground zones that require strategy and calling out orders to our away team. I know there are a few situations in this game where it is easier to put away team members at specific waypoints, or give them orders, but honestly there isn't a single part of the single player that is impossible without using the command interface.
I thought WoW's forums had angry elitist snobs, but I never could have imagined the level STO forums has.
yea, and unless your fighting borg, everything else escapes melee range to fast to be completely useful. And melee is the best borg fighting tactic I've seen in the game.
I thought WoW's forums had angry elitist snobs, but I never could have imagined the level STO forums has.
Exactly.
For Cryptic to do anything like the OP suggests would require a massive amount of "man hours" to sort out the current borked ground system with have. Which basically means it won't happen due to the expense.
The Mass Effect (or something akin) was already suggested many, many times. I think the biggest problem is to make the cover system working. The engine is simply not made for that. Even on SWTOR, where they planned to have a class that use cover, it is limited, using only designated cover, and some of them were even removed during development (like using a vertical thing as cover, for example a column).
Make you feel more like a team, not just a bunch of lackeys.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Instead of making new clone zones or tedious rep projects, I'd like to see them spend a season re-doing the ground combat.
Yep, that would be the best thing they could do. I kind of hate also how "Untrekkie" it is that I'm the captain, and I'm on every single away mission. They could let us be the captain in space, and be a first officer in away teams.
I thought WoW's forums had angry elitist snobs, but I never could have imagined the level STO forums has.
Not sure how this qualifies as "Untrekkie." One of the hallmarks of the show was the hilarity of Starfleet seemingly requiring away teams to be comprised mostly of the highest-ranking personnel on board with a couple of token redshirts as needed to provide "drama intensification casualties."
"Their city is under siege, and beaming down is almost certain death. But their emperor's toilet is stopped up. Send the Captain, Chief Medical Officer, Chief Engineer, head of Security, one random security ensign, and a plunger."
The goal really is to make ground combat have variety. Yes I understand the original engine isn't the best, but if we adjust the ground targeting so weapons fired goes where they are aiming, not where they were aimed and if a shot hits something solid BEFORE reaching its intended target, then the weapon shot is 100 percent missed. It's not like we latch to the cover, but rather we get behind a wall... it's done in Hive Space, the queen is cover. I hide behind the queen, her ship drones have to come around her to get to me. So cover works. But the problem is, once a shot is fired, and I DIVE for cover, the shot still hits me. Cover needs to be more... important. You'd notice those not using cover in the shows die quickly.
With the amount of customization Cryptic offers, it's possible to play ground in any number of ways - from traditional point-and-click MMO to MMO action/pseudo-shooter.
Ground is just fine, as a combat system. The problem is that the rewards for ground, and for most space things, are fairly pants in comparison to the rewards for a few space things that everyone does because they're easy because everyone knows them and the rewards are decent. When Cryptic give a decent reward for the ground stuff, as in Battlezone, people come, and they enjoy themselves.
IOW, more than looking at ground as a system, Cryptic need to look at how rewards and risk/reward is balanced across reps and missions and STFs.
Some of the OP suggestions are cool, although most of them would require too much of a revamp therefore are unrealistic. But certainly, not gameplay-wise, but customization-wise, a lot could be done.
I wish something could also be done about animations - smoother and more detailed, etc. - but that's also an unrealistic request at this late stage. While the SWTOR system (as a comparison) is much less action-oriented, more static, and involves a GCD (which I hate), the animations are superbly detailed and more immersive for that. Even with Cryptic's own Neverwinter, the animations are much better than in STO.
But in terms of the feel of ground combat, the mechanics and the build system, I don't think there's much wrong. It's fast, frantic fun as far as I'm concerned, and if you're not getting that out of it, you're playing it wrong, or you haven't looked at the extensive options Cryptic offer for player control, and found a way that suits you.
If we got to stick to shots hit when fired, or whatever the current system is, then fine, at least give us the customized weapons. If it gotta be crafted, that's fine.
Here's the deal... if I correctly understand how ranged combat works in this game:
Just like normal torpedoes, the "to hit" chance is resolved the moment the weapon is fired. At that moment, it can't miss no matter what you, the target, do.
If you break line of sight before they shoot, then they can't hit you. If they shot before you ducked, you're getting hit no matter what.
I have no issue with the idea of building customized weapons. We need to wait on a crafting revamp, but I expect that the kit revamp could open the door for that kind of modularization.
However, I do not expect that they will ever get to the point where every weapon is modular.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I think that's just going to be an occasional accident in MMOs with this type of action-type combat for a while yet, until everyone has superfast broadband. As it is, developers have to develop a system that works fairly well for everyone. But that means it will occasionally glitch, even for people with great connections.
A genuine real-time action combat MMO experience that works really smoothly for everyone all over the world is still a ways off, IMHO. It's not like a multiplayer shooter, there are more factors involved in an MMO, more and more varied kinds of information that have to whizz about the internet and be budgeted in relation to the shooty aspect.
Maybe a modular weapon would not have mods like our current weapons, but have slots for various quality mods. An accuracy mod could be a kind of sight or an extra grip, a damage mod could be an extra prefire chamber, a crit mod could be a component that alters the energy output... There are ideas that would fit in well with STO. Heck... a mod could also include a flashlight like the Destabalizing Tetryon ground weapons! Phaser rifles from First Contact on had built in ones after all.
The ultimate customization might come with a base model, and one of the slots determines if its a beam or a bolt weapon, then what type of beam or bolt.
Now about the cover situation... its like any RPG really. The second you fire, the equivelent of declaring an attack in a turn based RPG, "Dice" are rolled to see if you hit or not. As STO is a real time RPG and not turn based... we get some funky events like getting shot through solid objects. The one exception I've noticed however is Armek on Cure ground. Used to be you could go into shooter mode and hit him even with his cover shields up, as you were targeting HIM. Can't do that now. You can aim at him all you want, and have him targeted in Shooter mode, but those cover shields get in the way of your shot.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode