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A True Villain Faction. Why Not?

damienvryce2damienvryce2 Member Posts: 428 Arc User
I was just wondering why we don't have one. I think many people would enjoy letting out their inner villain from time to time.

I had thought the Klingons would fill this role, but, that faction has never really lived up to that. And since the introduction of cross-faction STFs and what looks like the apparent end to the Fed-Klingon war with S9, they never will.

It also seems that many people wanted the Romulans to be the anti-Federation baddies of old. The direction of that story arc, at least up to this point, makes that seem unlikely. At least as far as a playable faction is concerned.

I still say why not to a true villain faction in STO? I would find it rather fun to be the "bad guy" once in a while.
STO: Where men are men and the women probably are too.
I support the Star Trek Battles channel.
Post edited by damienvryce2 on
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Comments

  • centersolacecentersolace Member Posts: 11,178 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    We tried it. People didn't like it.
  • damienvryce2damienvryce2 Member Posts: 428 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    Really? With whom? The Klingons?
    STO: Where men are men and the women probably are too.
    I support the Star Trek Battles channel.
  • jonsillsjonsills Member Posts: 10,559 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    Because only bad writers believe in "true villains". Everyone is the hero of their own story. Even the TRIBBLE thought they were working toward a better world.
    Lorna-Wing-sig.png
  • centersolacecentersolace Member Posts: 11,178 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    Eyup.

    They were first released as a true villain faction. The early missions reflect this. Everyone hated it.
  • centersolacecentersolace Member Posts: 11,178 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    jonsills wrote: »
    Because only bad writers believe in "true villains". Everyone is the hero of their own story. Even the TRIBBLE thought they were working toward a better world.

    Just one with fewer not TRIBBLE.
  • dragnockdragnock Member Posts: 55 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    I thought the Iconian's were the true villains they r behind everything lol
    and like any true villain *cough* (Dr. Claw) *cough* we don't even know what they look like
  • fraghul2000fraghul2000 Member Posts: 1,590 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    There is also the issue of having limited rescources. It's cheaper and easier to have factions that are able to run the same missions, recieve the same rewards and occupy the same space on the map.
  • cmdrscarletcmdrscarlet Member Posts: 5,137 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    Yeah, iconians are turning into the Star Trek villain. I'm okay with that.
  • centersolacecentersolace Member Posts: 11,178 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    There is also the issue of having limited rescources. It's cheaper and easier to have factions that are able to run the same missions, recieve the same rewards and occupy the same space on the map.

    It would be different if PvP didn't suck though. :P
  • worffan101worffan101 Member Posts: 9,518 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    Yeah, iconians are turning into the Star Trek villain. I'm okay with that.

    Same. I just wanna be able to actually shoot the b*stards...
  • shpoksshpoks Member Posts: 6,967 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    Eyup.

    They were first released as a true villain faction. The early missions reflect this. Everyone hated it.

    That a rather liberal use of "everyone".

    Anyway, the real question is wheather "everyone" hated the villain part or the pathetic level of the faction's development part?
    HQroeLu.jpg
  • starkaosstarkaos Member Posts: 11,557 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    City of Heroes had a true villain faction and even then, only a couple of contacts were truly villainous. It operated mostly in the grey instead of in the black. Even when you were defeating the heroic factions, it could be considered as prevent foreign powers interfering with the policies of a sovereign nation. Of course, endgame was all cross-faction content. It is just too bad that the game was cancelled when the story was getting really good.
  • centersolacecentersolace Member Posts: 11,178 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    shpoks wrote: »
    Anyway, the real question is wheather "everyone" hated the villain part or the pathetic level of the faction's development part?

    The difference being? :D:D:D:D
  • xsupersnailxxsupersnailx Member Posts: 180 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    Maybe they didn't like the klingon faction. If romulans were given 3 choices (3rd being tal shiar), I would chose the tal shiar because this game is lacking in an evil faction that isn't stupid and annoying like the klingons
  • coupaholiccoupaholic Member Posts: 2,188 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    I don't think it would be much fun if it were available.

    First content will be severely limited. Apart from a handful of low level KDF missions and certain doffing assignments all content leans toward playing the good guys.

    Also there is no real way to play a villain practically. The only real way one player could disrupt the efforts of other players is in an open PvP environment, and PvP will never exist at that scale in STO. Best you can manage now is stalking farmers in Ker'rat.

    As cool as it would to turn up unannounced during an STF to disrupt a teams efforts, can you imagine the backlash if that were to happen? There is enough complaining over players that turn up and do nothing, let alone start shooting at other players :)
  • leviathan99#2867 leviathan99 Member Posts: 7,747 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    I was just wondering why we don't have one. I think many people would enjoy letting out their inner villain from time to time.

    I had thought the Klingons would fill this role, but, that faction has never really lived up to that. And since the introduction of cross-faction STFs and what looks like the apparent end to the Fed-Klingon war with S9, they never will.

    It also seems that many people wanted the Romulans to be the anti-Federation baddies of old. The direction of that story arc, at least up to this point, makes that seem unlikely. At least as far as a playable faction is concerned.

    I still say why not to a true villain faction in STO? I would find it rather fun to be the "bad guy" once in a while.

    It requires a lot of resources, systems, and features that require not just a massive initial investment but ongoing maintenance.

    Look at WoW. It's probably the most commercially successful MMO and while often not the most innovative, it has taken the majority of what worked from its peers and it is probably the best funded and staffed MMO out there.

    WoW does not have a villain faction and much of the content is shared. What content is different often benefits from the nearly seamless open world style of the game which in turn benefits from lower quality graphics in a very stylized style. Point being, there is no villain faction there.

    The only game I can think of with a TRUE villain faction was City of Heroes/Villains and my impression was that Cryptic lost their shirt doing that. Almost every other MMO has factions with shared goals that clash periodically or monster play.

    When the lead WoW developer Ghostcrawler was asked what mistakes the game made, his big one was that they had two factions. This is, again, the best funded MMO on the planet. And when I researched it a few years back and was playing, I noted that while the population was split, most servers (PvE or open PvP) tended to favor one or the other by 70% or more.

    Now... I don't know this means that you can't have multiple factions, have more distinct game mechanics per faction, have faction PvP, etc.

    But every attempt toward what you're talking about hasn't fully worked. I think with what you're talking about, you'd need radically different content design.

    One issue I used to bring up all the time with STO is that the content is designed around a captain's commanding officer leading them by the nose through content that doesn't vary much based on the captain's ship or style when the IP and the shows tended to have quests/missions assigned by third parties with very little contact with command (in that respect, more like WoW where it's even debated whether you're officially in service nof your faction). And thus, the way STO is structured, you get very little choice in what you do with, say, the S.S. Azura or how you save it and it isn't setup in a way that Klingons or Romulans could easily run the scenario.

    In a proper multi-faction game with multiple moral alignments, you'd need for content to be shared but for morality to alter game mechanics and mission flow.

    Some of that could be brought to STO. I still think a morality alignment/personality system would be huge (and I think things like the kit revamp, DOffs, etc. could work with that).

    But I find it more likely that you'd see options to be by-the-book or dirty, honorable or dishonorable, rather than being tied to the Iconians or actively opposing and undermining other players. Because the villains here want to annhilate the galaxy and their own people. The demands of making that realized from a technical standpoint in an enjoyable online game that is continuously supported are just too high.
  • misterde3misterde3 Member Posts: 4,195 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    Maybe they didn't like the klingon faction. If romulans were given 3 choices (3rd being tal shiar), I would chose the tal shiar because this game is lacking in an evil faction that isn't stupid and annoying like the klingons

    If what we've seen of the Tal Shiar in STO so far is any indication, a playable version would be far stupider than the Klingons. So I'm afraid you'd be very disappointed.
    Compared to Hakeev, Colonel Klink and Siegfried from "Get Smart" (the show, not the movie) are more nuanced and intelligent opposition.
  • centersolacecentersolace Member Posts: 11,178 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    When the lead WoW developer Ghostcrawler was asked what mistakes the game made, his big one was that they had two factions. This is, again, the best funded MMO on the planet. And when I researched it a few years back and was playing, I noted that while the population was split, most servers (PvE or open PvP) tended to favor one or the other by 70% or more.

    Now... I don't know this means that you can't have multiple factions, have more distinct game mechanics per faction, have faction PvP, etc.

    But every attempt toward what you're talking about hasn't fully worked. I think with what you're talking about, you'd need radically different content design.

    EVE works because factions are player made and you can kill and ally with whoever you want. Monster Play just depends on how much of an ******* you feel like being that day.

    APB would work because 100% of that game is PvP based, the issue here being that there are hundreds of other problems with that game.
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  • bluegeekbluegeek Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    The Devs have also repeatedly stated that they do not believe that a villain faction makes sense either economically (bang for the buck) or thematically.

    Even with only two factions (Red vs Blue), STO had difficulty maintaining parity in single-faction PvE mission content and keeping FvK PvP queues popping.

    While one could make a case that Cryptic's rollout of the KDF faction and lack of support for PvP is to blame, the fact is that the game population doesn't favor the KDF. If they can't make the KDF work as a "villain" faction, then they can't make it work for any faction.

    Bottom line, if it does not directly or indirectly contribute to income and offsetting development costs, it's not likely to happen.

    Thematically, a villain needs something to DO. And that something can not be non-consensual PvP without making their bread-and-butter customers very angry. Nor can it be the kind of cross-faction scenarios that Cryptic's been rolling out, because villains are by definition at cross-purposes with the "heroes".

    They would, in short, need their own entirely new and unique content. Not very cost-effective, from their point of view.

    The best one could hope for is some kind of "Monster Play" option for PvP. Which I think could work to some extent, but that's not where the game is headed right now.
    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
  • catoblepasbetacatoblepasbeta Member Posts: 1,532 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    IMO the whole 'villain factions don't make money so we won't support them' thing is a real chicken and egg sort of thing. The KDF has never really had as much support as the Federation, and for the longest time you had to raise your Federation character to a high level before you could even unlock them-only to see just how half-finished they really were. As for City of Heroes/City of Villains I think the reason why one was more popular than the other is pretty evident. It's an expansion to city of heroes, that doesn't let you carry over you hero (you have to make a new one). Sure, there will always be folks who get squeamish playing anything that casts them as anything other than a paragon of virtue, but a lot of people when confronted with the choice of starting over or continuing with a character they have been working with for a while will stick with their old character. The choice becomes easier when you put obstacles on top of that to reach the new content like Cryptic did with the KDF, and when that content is obviously watered down compared to what the 'main' faction got.

    IMO the best way to handle the Romulan faction would have been to split the romulans between reunificationist types allied with the federation, and imperial types allied with the Klignons (Rommies , including Sela herself have been shown to be quite willing to ally with 'bad' Klingons like those predominant in the KDF faction) both sides would be happy, the simultaneous officer exchange/technology sharing with two factions at war with each other, and pvp/pve que issues would make much more sense. But Cryptic missed that bus and now we have a RSE that's a hilarious parody of itself and a Republic whose existence is reliant on slew of half-realized retcons and gaping plot holes.

    If Cryptic couldn't figure out a way to make the Romulans a villain faction, I really wouldn't be optimistic about the chances of getting a True Way/ Dominion/etc faction that holds any resemblance to their past portrayals as antagonists. KDF is about as good as we are going to get, I expect (and even that seems to be going away the way the narrative is going).
  • bobbydazlersbobbydazlers Member Posts: 4,535 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    I don't know about villain but it would be cool to have a playable mercenary who can take missions from kdf or fed and also from private hire, a mission could be as simple as delivering cargo, of course there would be maybe pirates or indeed law officials to fend off or avoid as well as opposing factions of who you were working for, there could also be missions that are covert, there are many possibilities.
    with smaller ships and crew there could be many small ship combat sections as opposed to the larger ship ones we get accustomed to, there would be no rank as such above captain but success in missions could add to your reputation and higher reputation would mean higher rewards.
    it could be fun.

    When I think about everything we've been through together,

    maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,

     and if that journey takes a little longer,

    so we can do something we all believe in,

     I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.

  • leviathan99#2867 leviathan99 Member Posts: 7,747 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    EVE works because factions are player made and you can kill and ally with whoever you want. Monster Play just depends on how much of an ******* you feel like being that day.

    APB would work because 100% of that game is PvP based, the issue here being that there are hundreds of other problems with that game.

    Yeah. Those are two examples of "every person is a faction" design, effectively.

    I think you could do that in a PvE based game but it requires a different approach to the material.

    CoH was a bit more like this in that mission chains were chyoose your own adventure-type branching and WoW has this in that species have different starting quests and the game is really ambiguous regarding what your status is. At times, you seem like an official soldier of your faction. At times you seem like a total mercenary. It's ambiguous.

    It's hard to be that ambiguous in STO but a start would probably be making all missions originate with civilian requests and distress calls. Which is how the shows more or less did it.
  • warmaker001bwarmaker001b Member Posts: 9,205 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    Yeah, iconians are turning into the Star Trek villain. I'm okay with that.

    The problem with that is you don't really deal with them at all. They're more of a "ghost story to tell around a campfire."
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  • drkfrontiersdrkfrontiers Member Posts: 2,477 Arc User
    edited April 2014

    It's hard to be that ambiguous in STO but a start would probably be making all missions originate with civilian requests and distress calls. Which is how the shows more or less did it.

    A Klingon-piloting-an-organic-ship-dressed-in-Voth-Mech-Armour-armed-to-the-teeth-with-bio-mini-planet-killer-strap-on-shooting-at-dino-with-lazers-on-their-friggin-heads ... how much more ambiguous shall I go? ;)
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  • drkfrontiersdrkfrontiers Member Posts: 2,477 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    skollulfr wrote: »
    sto doesnt have a 'villain' faction, because most people arent so juvenile in their thoughts as to find some trite charichiture 'villain' group palatable.

    I disagree. Chaos cannot be contained nor predicted, and that is why it would have a much deeper storyline than "saving the day". Anyone that has ever read any of the Judge Dredd graphic novels would understand.
  • bluegeekbluegeek Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    A Klingon-piloting-an-organic-ship-dressed-in-Voth-Mech-Armour-armed-to-the-teeth-with-bio-mini-planet-killer-strap-on-shooting-at-dino-with-lazers-on-their-friggin-heads ... how much more ambiguous shall I go? ;)

    Yes, but the point is that the mission scenarios do not really take that kind of, um, flexibility into account.

    You're always getting orders from somebody in some chain of command of some military organization. You never see NPC's flying around with that kind of stuff. And you never get to just fly in some random direction and pick up some random mission from some random NPC.

    If you were a mercenary starship captain, maybe some of that might make sense. Maybe.

    I can role-play being a Ferengi in a D'Kora, or a Cardassian-wannabe alien in a Galor, or a time-displaced captain in a TOS vessel or a timeship, or a mirror universe crossover. I can even hop in an assimilated warbird and pretend to be a Tal Shiar double agent if I work really, really hard at ignoring the Republic.

    I can not role-play as a Tholian, or as an Elachi, or a Voth. They really don't make sense to fly from any perspective, but that's getting off topic.

    The point is, you are definitely tied to a specific faction no matter what stuff you're hauling around with you. That part is not ambiguous at all. The closest we ever get to that are those missions that force us to play through decisions that are questionable from the standpoint of the faction we're in, for the sake of a plot that doesn't fit the faction's traditional behaviors.
    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
  • catoblepasbetacatoblepasbeta Member Posts: 1,532 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    skollulfr wrote: »
    sto doesnt have a 'villain' faction, because most people arent so juvenile in their thoughts as to find some trite charichiture 'villain' group palatable.
    I don't think most people want to play a 'caricature' villain faction-that's what Cryptic wrote the RSE/Tal Shiar into being. Folks wanted to play a RSE faction like the ones from the shows. Dark and tone, antagonistic to the Klingons and the Federation.

    Nobody that was asking for a Romulan faction were asking for what we got. People knew that asking for a Romulan faction was asking for the Romulan Star Empire, and yet it was the most popular request for a new faction. The Republic came out of left field.

    Far more juvenile to demand that everyone fit into whatever your preconceived notions of 'what constitutes a valid protagonist IMO.

    Antiheroes are a thing, and are highly valued by many because of they in many ways are more 'human' what you seem to think is the only appropriate avenue.

    Villain faction(s) are exactly what many folks have been asking for such a long time, and are in no way inherently juvenile.
  • krulltekkrulltek Member Posts: 16 Arc User
    edited April 2014
    There is already Starfleet.
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