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Cryptic your new BOff system s.....!!

forcemajeureforcemajeure Member Posts: 212 Arc User
...seems pretty handy, actually.

I admit I had some doubts when I logged in and found almost all my Candidates/inventoried BOffs had their skills invisibilised.

And my doubts grew into actual trepidations when I went in, changed the 'special' BOffs powers back to what I wanted/had trained them in, and had trouble getting that to 'stick' in the ships Stations/Powers tray (esp when one would show the powers I wanted, and one would show 'the original' powers, and the tray wouldn't show either...).

BUT! BUT, I say! A little jiggling, and getting your 'Create Manual' thing in, and a tip from someone that even if I couldn't see the skills they had, if I right-click on a BOff and use Create Manual I can see the skill list (even before actually creating the manual).

That plus the ability to list them on the exchange, and pretty soon everything smoothed out.

All BOffs now in proper stations, selection of powers I can change on the fly, old BOffs trained up or converted to manuals and sold off... it's looking pretty good I must say.

Am currently working on re-saving all my ships/BOff/skills layouts to see if the current loadout system actually fixes the "AWOL BOffs" problem. If it does, well all I can say is good work, and thank you (even if it took a year to fix a fundamental system bug... better late than never).
Post edited by forcemajeure on

Comments

  • revandarklighterrevandarklighter Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    Agreed. As someone who is always good for bi***ing about cryptics f***ups I have to acknowledge that this new system is a massive improvement, and.... AND... it seems to work from the get go and does not need a year after the implementation until it works *cough*loadouts*cough*
  • davefenestratordavefenestrator Member Posts: 10,501 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    Yes, overall I like the new system much better. With it I can play with different sets of skills without making a trip to ESD and without losing any special "foo III" skills.

    For AWOL boffs, saving to a loadout worked for me. The next time my stations went blank I selected the saved loadout and my boffs re-appeared.

    I haven't tried this yet, but loadouts might also make it easy to have one set of boffs change their skills for different loadouts, like for a "normal" cannons / beams loadout vs. a "kinetic" torps loadout for the crystal entity.
  • flyingtargflyingtarg Member Posts: 105 Cryptic Developer
    edited February 2015
    I haven't tried this yet, but loadouts might also make it easy to have one set of boffs change their skills for different loadouts, like for a "normal" cannons / beams loadout vs. a "kinetic" torps loadout for the crystal entity.

    The Loadouts system is programmed to do this, so if it isn't saving your ability choices, then that is a bug we'll need to fix. But the idea is to allow you to do exactly that, to be able to load a loadout and to not only slot the correct equipment, duty officers and bridge officers, but to also have the bridge officers with the right abilities selected.
    Daniel "FlyingTarg" Razza
    Star Trek Online Lead Programmer
  • khamseenairkhamseenair Member Posts: 2,640 Bug Hunter
    edited February 2015
    Yeah I have to agree.

    When I first heard about the new system, I instantly jumped to "oh god, they're turning something which works into a nightmare and it'll never work again". But I was pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong this time. I actually really love the new BOFF training system. As somebody who likes to have the same set of officers on my 'bridge', I was forever having to go back and forward to a starbase to retrain them in different skills when I switched ships or I had one random BOFF who I never used except with that one build because it saved me retraining another one.

    Now I just have my 'core' BOFFs trained in everything I'm likely to ever use and can switch them around at will, so it's fantastic. Plus no longer having to send BOFFs off to fleet mates or random people on ESD to train in Captain specific powers is such a major improvement. It's also handy when experimenting with the new Intel/Command abilities because I've just trained them in all the powers they can have so I can mess around with them when I'm out in space to see which ones fit the best with my current builds.

    Good work on this, Cryptic!
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  • catliketypingcatliketyping Member Posts: 611
    edited February 2015
    I definitely freed up a couple BOff slots from Nausicaans who were just holding down various ship builds for me...

    And I still ended up buying more BOff slots for different Ground teams for various racial Traits. I just like having the variety on the Ground. Once in a while, you have to go with all-melee when you're KDF!

    Assimilate this!
    :D
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  • zeuxidemus001zeuxidemus001 Member Posts: 3,357 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    Agreed. As someone who is always good for bi***ing about cryptics f***ups I have to acknowledge that this new system is a massive improvement, and.... AND... it seems to work from the get go and does not need a year after the implementation until it works *cough*loadouts*cough*

    For me though the system is a complete and utter nightmare lol. Although they could have put in something to think of long time players such as where when you have more boffs than most fleets have people which in my case I am pretty much a fleet of people when it comes to all of my characters. They should have just put it where all of our boffs had all the unlocks available before this system went live so the only adjusting we would need is for the newer stuff. As well they need an option to reverse the icon changes too lol.
  • kjwashingtonkjwashington Member Posts: 2,529 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    Honestly, I will admit I was a doubter. I figured it would turn into another loadout mess (something good on paper, but bad in implementation). However, I was pleasantly surprised. I haven't encountered any major bugs with it. Just a few minor ones that are extremely quick fixes.
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  • theredcomettheredcomet Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    I managed to slot my shuttle as a tac officer.
    Working as intended. (Lol)
  • leceterleceter Member Posts: 196 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    flyingtarg wrote: »
    The Loadouts system is programmed to do this, so if it isn't saving your ability choices, then that is a bug we'll need to fix. But the idea is to allow you to do exactly that, to be able to load a loadout and to not only slot the correct equipment, duty officers and bridge officers, but to also have the bridge officers with the right abilities selected.

    Whoever came up with this idea ... it adds real improvement to the game and I like it.

    I still didn't try to load/save a loadout yet, but when all the issues will be fixed, I can't imagine someone to seriously complain about the new system.
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    flyingtarg wrote: »
    The Loadouts system is programmed to do this, so if it isn't saving your ability choices, then that is a bug we'll need to fix. But the idea is to allow you to do exactly that, to be able to load a loadout and to not only slot the correct equipment, duty officers and bridge officers, but to also have the bridge officers with the right abilities selected.

    Surprisingly, loadouds now, indeed, seem to retain boffs' individually chosen abilities (even when a boff is used for multiple purposes across multuple loadouts). That makes the new boff system (yes, they go hand-in-hand) totally viable again. Not only that, the new boff system, while I was *extremely* skeptical at first, I must admit, with working integration into the loadouts, is now far superior to the old.

    So, Kudos on a job well done! And training book prices are reasonably fair too; so, thank you, Cryptic, for not overly monetizing that aspect as well.
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  • rodentmasterrodentmaster Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    meimeitoo wrote: »
    Surprisingly, loadouds now, indeed, seem to retain boffs' individually chosen abilities


    Not mine. As of 6 hours ago it was still defaulting ground boff skills on 3 of my characters. Repeatedly. It doesn't take. Now... if it DID, the system would be great. It's a system players have been demanding for quite some time now (years, in fact). I'm glad to finally see it implemented, but I just wish it would be finalized and... you know... work?
  • peterconnorfirstpeterconnorfirst Member Posts: 6,225 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    Not mine. As of 6 hours ago it was still defaulting ground boff skills on 3 of my characters. Repeatedly. It doesn't take. Now... if it DID, the system would be great. It's a system players have been demanding for quite some time now (years, in fact). I'm glad to finally see it implemented, but I just wish it would be finalized and... you know... work?

    I agree with that statement. Cryptic did a good job on the new boff system but for as long as the station bug is at work this system keeps on to annoy even more than the old one did.

    A friend of mine recommended making loadouds of my ships so that when boffs are missing from the stations i could just quickload and be fine. Tell you what… this works on 4 toons. On 2 others nothing happens and I have to reset all manually and on the remaining 2 the boffs are back at their stations just with wrong abilities. ???
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  • revandarklighterrevandarklighter Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    I admit I did not look at the ground skills so far, for space it works fine.
  • jerichoredoranjerichoredoran Member Posts: 195 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    The system is thought out well and that I said since day 1. Still no time for cheers here just because a single time they managed to communicate before ***ing up. Maybe some cheers that they actually and unexpectedly finished it in a timely manner.
    Still this system is set in an environment tortured by uncountable bugs. The loadout system is definately not fixed yet and still vanishes your boffs and resets their abilities, ground and space, giving this bug a new level of cruelty.
    You put them back on station, now only ensign ability is editable the other 3 blocked out. You click on ensign and get Lt abilities to choose and on and on. Not to mention the general UI problems.

    Also, while not understandable for me, look at the at least one a day threads asking how to train BOffs, how to specialize them or where to get the manuals from.
  • flyingtargflyingtarg Member Posts: 105 Cryptic Developer
    edited February 2015
    Not mine. As of 6 hours ago it was still defaulting ground boff skills on 3 of my characters. Repeatedly. It doesn't take. Now... if it DID, the system would be great. It's a system players have been demanding for quite some time now (years, in fact). I'm glad to finally see it implemented, but I just wish it would be finalized and... you know... work?

    Loadouts will not save the ground powers for your bridge officer. I'm actually interested and surprised to see that this is an expected behavior. The loadouts are designed to save the state of things on your ship, and we considered the ground powers separate from that. We are only saving the state of your space powers.

    How often do you all change the set of powers you use for ground on your Bridge Officers? Our assumption was that players would be changing their space powers much more often, since certain powers become useful only if you have the appropriate gear equipped on your ship (Beams vs Cannons vs Torpedoes, etc). For Ground, that matters much less, and so it seemed unnecessary to have some way of storing a pre-configured set of ground powers for your Bridge Officers.
    Daniel "FlyingTarg" Razza
    Star Trek Online Lead Programmer
  • rodentmasterrodentmaster Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    I don't know that it's directly 100% tied to the loadouts, rather than the boff system itself. However, I was switching ships on one char to load up the Samsar. That involved readjusting some boff skills, training some new ones, and all that.

    I noticed in the same screen my pre-chosen away team was not using the skills they normally had. I clicked on the lower part of the window and chose the appropriate skills, but it didn't take. I went around doing some space stuff and saved the loadout to a new loadout slot (new ship, none defined until then). However later when beaming down I noticed it didn't keep my away team skills. they kept defaulting to the "original" skills -- remen boff, jem'hadar boff, breen boff, and another. They kept going back to the original skills and not what I repeatedly chose.

    I changed chars and was doing some other stuff and noticed the same problem there. Random boffs with trained skills stayed put. The rare boffs that had a pre-trained skill as an option quite often reverted to that and wouldn't "stick". I noticed this one kept reverting even though I did not change anything with my boff loadouts.

    This was the same on 3 chars.


    I wonder, now, as I type this... What I did do was convert a couple of boffs into training manuals and TRAIN a couple of my space boffs in a new skill or two. I did not change the assigned skill nor the mapping or layout on the power tray or anything.

    I wonder if the simple act of training a boff in a skill is reseting them, or others, to the default ground skills?
  • zeuxidemus001zeuxidemus001 Member Posts: 3,357 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    When I am playing I often find myself changing ground powers much more than I do space. Most of it is because I can do most content even the kobali and voth stuff solo or atleast with 1 or 2 people besides myself and don't have to look at all the spam about this and that dps from people who are blowing up every 5 seconds wasting my time lol.

    The other thing is there needs to be an option to be able to go back to having the old icons their original icon look because after 4 something years of it I really cannot tell the difference between the icons unless they were barely changed like attack pattern alpha for example.

    The other issue is with long time players who had to get so many boffs to be able to switch between ships frequently as well as many many alts this new system is designed to be easier but on same token it has become a nightmare too being I still haven't been able to finish it where I can have enough of them all setup on one character yet before it becomes too frustrating to deal with. A lot of design imo and this is something I've observed when changes come or something new is designed it doesn't really ever take in consideration of an already existing player who has grinded for years. Then for something as trivial as these boffs are to be a grind to get your ship space worthy it just feels counter productive to me.
  • toivatoiva Member Posts: 3,276 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    flyingtarg wrote: »
    Loadouts will not save the ground powers for your bridge officer. I'm actually interested and surprised to see that this is an expected behavior. The loadouts are designed to save the state of things on your ship, and we considered the ground powers separate from that. We are only saving the state of your space powers.

    How often do you all change the set of powers you use for ground on your Bridge Officers? Our assumption was that players would be changing their space powers much more often, since certain powers become useful only if you have the appropriate gear equipped on your ship (Beams vs Cannons vs Torpedoes, etc). For Ground, that matters much less, and so it seemed unnecessary to have some way of storing a pre-configured set of ground powers for your Bridge Officers.

    That's funny.

    When I'm in a given ship, I use the ship with the current build as it is. But every time I go to a ground map, I try to tailor the Boffs I choose to go with me along with their gear to the specific task.

    In other words, my space 'configuration' is far more stable than the ground one. (That is, as long as I stay in the currently chosen ship.)
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  • ccarmichael07ccarmichael07 Member Posts: 755 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    The new system would be alot handier if...

    ...the skills you learn to a Boff actually stuck.

    I have lost count of how many times I have headed planetside only to find half way through that my Tac Boffs are chucking Smoke Gernades when I clearly set them up with Overwatch II.

    Right now, this new system only provides more headaches than the old system did.


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  • revandarklighterrevandarklighter Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    toiva wrote: »
    That's funny.

    When I'm in a given ship, I use the ship with the current build as it is. But every time I go to a ground map, I try to tailor the Boffs I choose to go with me along with their gear to the specific task.

    In other words, my space 'configuration' is far more stable than the ground one. (That is, as long as I stay in the currently chosen ship.)

    Same here.
  • khamseenairkhamseenair Member Posts: 2,640 Bug Hunter
    edited February 2015
    flyingtarg wrote: »
    Loadouts will not save the ground powers for your bridge officer. I'm actually interested and surprised to see that this is an expected behavior. The loadouts are designed to save the state of things on your ship, and we considered the ground powers separate from that. We are only saving the state of your space powers.

    How often do you all change the set of powers you use for ground on your Bridge Officers? Our assumption was that players would be changing their space powers much more often, since certain powers become useful only if you have the appropriate gear equipped on your ship (Beams vs Cannons vs Torpedoes, etc). For Ground, that matters much less, and so it seemed unnecessary to have some way of storing a pre-configured set of ground powers for your Bridge Officers.

    Personally, I rarely change my ground abilities or equipment. Though I only really run a few ground missions, because space queues pop faster and usually reward more for your time.
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    True alters don't have a "main". Account wide unlocks for all unique event rewards!!
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