test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Admiralty
divynal
Member Posts: 2 Arc User
So, Ive been playing the heck out of STO for the past month and a half and I find myself asking why this game is not bigger than it is. One of the answers is admirals. Butt tons of fricken admirals all over the place, flying here and there, to and fro on a quest for end game items.
Why is an admiral ingame commanding one starship instead of a fleet of them? Why is an admiral not responsible for the headquarters and forces of a planet, or a solar system, or a star base, or an entire sector block?
Isnt the admiralty supposed to be something more? An even better question is, isnt Star Trek about being in that captains chair? Any fan knows that James Kirk mourned flying a GDed computer console as an admiral, instead of commanding a starship, so much so that he advised Picard to never leave the bridge behind.
Dont get me wrong: I like the game, but you guys at Cryptic have missed the whole point. Star Trek has never been about racing up the chain to become an admiral: it was about reaching captain, and gaining your own command, your own starship. If you want to let us make admiral, at least give us a way to get busted back down to captain lol.
Why is an admiral ingame commanding one starship instead of a fleet of them? Why is an admiral not responsible for the headquarters and forces of a planet, or a solar system, or a star base, or an entire sector block?
Isnt the admiralty supposed to be something more? An even better question is, isnt Star Trek about being in that captains chair? Any fan knows that James Kirk mourned flying a GDed computer console as an admiral, instead of commanding a starship, so much so that he advised Picard to never leave the bridge behind.
Dont get me wrong: I like the game, but you guys at Cryptic have missed the whole point. Star Trek has never been about racing up the chain to become an admiral: it was about reaching captain, and gaining your own command, your own starship. If you want to let us make admiral, at least give us a way to get busted back down to captain lol.
Post edited by divynal on
0
Comments
My biggest gripe about the current rank/level system is being given commands by lower ranked people. It's ridiculous being the one to ask people to be seated at a gathering of dignitaries by a lower ranked Admiral, or a lowly Commander telling you to run errands on Bajor for her. Completely rips you out any sort of immersion into a character.
The playerbase is quite split between the "no higher than Captain" rank and the "Admirals can command ships, so give me my stars" crowd, with a dash of "don't take my already given rank away"...
Customizable titles, especially in dialog, would go a long way to fixing this, so that the Captains can wear their 4 pips & be referred to that at all times, while us Admirals can wear our stars and get the recognition we "deserve"... :P
And while the "fleet leaders = admiral, rest = captain" thing "sounds" fair, you might have a lot more small fleets just to make Admirals than you'd think.
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Oh yeah, I'm ready this time!
*whack whack whack*
The ranks never bothered me. They're just names placed in the leveling system to label every 10 increments. You get a promotion, you get a new tier of ship every 10 levels. You'll also notice that NPC's never speak and refer to you as admiral (although through text they will refer to your rank). Some voiceovers will call you captain occasionally. It's purposely left out in most voiceovers so the player can easily immerse themselves in whatever role they wish to play as.
Cryptic should just remove the names completely and just have levels 1-50. Change the ranks into unlockable titles that you can choose to display, and then the game will refer to you by that rank.
Customising Our Dialogue reference Titles Would be one of the Best solutions I think, As you point out its hard to take a given rank away since we've gotten used to them.
( Personally I'd edit mine to be Rear Admiral, Little bit more senior than NPC Captains, But low enough that I feel its reasonable for Mission givers to be giving my character orders)
As far as fleets go, I like the concept but am cautious about potential Implimentation, I'd have to reserve judgement until I could see for myself How the Developers would go about it, and of course if it gets to that stage its happening if i like it or not anyway.
Of course you can always go the way of some players and pretend the rest of the Player base isn't of the same rank if you like, But its hard to ignore the Bikini Clad Lt Generals running around Qo'noS, Or the Vice Admiral Wearing the not at all Conspicuous Terran Empire Uniforms making a mockery of the Senior Command structure of the respective "powers of the Alphas Quadrant" With Commanders like these Its little wonder neither side made any progress with the "war"
Ensign: Tutorial
Lt. Junior Grade: 0-9
Lieutenant: 10-19
Lt Commander: 20-29
Commander: 30-39
Captain: 40-49
Fleet Captain: 50
Or Commodore if you wanted a Flag Officer instead of a Line Officer at level 50.
The inclusion of 2 ranks and not having there be a different between 40-44 and 45-50 keeps your character out of the Admiralty.
Joking aside I'm in the you'll take my bars and pips from me camp and the give my Admiral some godforsaken admiral stuff to do camp. Mostly because I already have them and thus that ship has sailed. If the game never had them in the first place I'd be fine with that too. But I have those things, and they are real. I made it up to those ranks and they are real I tell you!
I suspect if they had the fleet system at launch this would have been avaoided by limiting Admirals to fleet leaders only, but hey whats done is done
It's an mmo, could've been...
Different levels of ranks for higher tier ships
Story/(fleet rep?) unlocks tiers
Even time gated (terrible idea? Oh yeah)
I understand that we are our own hero and everyone else is actually of lower class...but it's such a tough, naive pill to swallow
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
One problem I can see with that is that it would be restricted to new content, Since older content was designed for single ships
Then again, If we can team up then I guess actually thats not so much a problem I guess it would have to scale to what is effectively 2 players worth of enemy ships.
Other than that Can we really trust the AI to control our spare ships? Will the AI get a revamp to be a bit less suicidal . And would it be like the carrier system with commands, If so , sign me up
( As a side note , I already have my first Officer in the Captains Uniform with the white shoulders, My Admiral character spends his time with his feet up in the ready room while they make everything go smoothly )
^Words that every player should keep in mind, especially whenever there's a problem with the game...
This scheme would be pretty much perfect.
To me, outside the context of fleets, Admiral ranks should be saved for endgame. Then they could be earned via the reputation system.
Rear Admiral (none of this Lower Half/Upper Half s#|t
Vice Admiral: Complete a second reputation
Anything higher than that should be reserved for NPC mission-givers (Quinn, Tuvok, et al). Players do have to get their orders from someone above them in rank, after all.
My Foundry missions | My STO Wiki page | My Twitter home page