Gamifying Diplomacy

chandlerashari

Ive been playing STO for a long time, and ive had a blast building ships to tackle the challenging (and yea grindy) end game. And its been great, but while STOs space combat is satisfying, it as many of you has pointed out sidesteps a couple of core Star Trek ideas. One, exploration and Two, diplomacy.

While arguably exploration can be tackled by the foundry and an upgraded genesis engine to make procedural content...what about diplomacy?

My seedling of an idea involves making a card gamey mini game where you try and deplete your opponents leverage points while keeping your own leverage points. It could be an involved mini game on its own and could be a fun pvp thing. Decks of cards an be sold to get special diplo cards etc (to cover that whole mmos arent a charity thing)

Not sure if the engine can support this tho haha but its an idea...

do any of yall have an idea to make diplomacy...gameable?

seriousdave

Cryptic isn't very interested in the whole diplomacy thingy. Just take the DS9 voting as an example.
There used to be a system behind this but over the years it just broke more with every update and then instead of actually fixing it they simply cut it. Now there's just a braindead npc that doesen't do anything at all except reminding us that long ago the game had something beyond grinding for the newest shiny.

gradii

I prefer diplomacy missions where success is determined through careful dialouge choices. like real diplomacy.

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thedarkphenoix

gradii wrote: »

I prefer diplomacy missions where success is determined through careful dialouge choices. like real diplomacy.

There were missions just like this in the Exploration Clusters (First Contact Missions) But sadly they were removed along with those clusters

Sure, it was a case of "read dialogue of NPCs and then parrot the relevant bits back to the ambassador to succeed" but was a step in the right direction for Fed players.

Hopefully we'll see them make a return if/when the inevitable Exploration revamp comes along (which I hope will be "soon" due to it winning the player poll)

chandlerashari

gradii wrote: »

I prefer diplomacy missions where success is determined through careful dialouge choices. like real diplomacy.

Heres the thing about that tho, there isnt a randomizer good enough to get that to a level where one would want to do that over and over again.

The system must be somewhat feasible approximation of the activity but is continuely fun.

Ex. Space combat: pressing spacebar to issue repeating commands to boffs over and over again while firing all weapons all the time (sooo realistic...but we buy it!)

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lordsteve1

Even a slight hint of diplomacy would be if you had reached Lvl 4 in diplomacy and you were able to avoid some combat situations by using specific dialog options.

Other games have systems whereby you can decide to go down the combat or non-combat route, but only really have chance of success if you are above a certain skill.

That would at least make me feel like grinding out these doff reps was worth something.

It wouldn't work against say a Borg cube but numerous patrol missions have a log of dialog leading up to combat. Just add in text choices available only to those who have T4 diplo, or at least so it gives a better chance of success.

And balance the rewards too. Diplomatic outcomes give higher cash rewards (e.g. dilithium) but give less skill points than a violent outcome. Make there be a reason to choose the non-combat route.

chandlerashari

skollulfr wrote: »

all the people designing foundry content, and how much of that content is based around words games?

Foundry content is fun! And im an rp-er so i get a lot of milage from just the room ones. But its very niche, a great fun niche, but id like a Trek-y system (be it diplo or exploration) to be added and could contribute to...the "core" experience bit for some one who wants to test their wits but in a way other than trying to get to the dps 50k channel yknow...

chandlerashari

lordsteve1 wrote: »

Even a slight hint of diplomacy would be if you had reached Lvl 4 in diplomacy and you were able to avoid some combat situations by using specific dialog options.

Other games have systems whereby you can decide to go down the combat or non-combat route, but only really have chance of success if you are above a certain skill.

That would at least make me feel like grinding out /snip

Yea yea maybe commendations could effectively open options in missions or allow foundry missions to use you commendations as a check to open dialog choices!

shadowfirefly00

lordsteve1 wrote: »

Even a slight hint of diplomacy would be if you had reached Lvl 4 in diplomacy and you were able to avoid some combat situations by using specific dialog options...

chandlerashari wrote: »

Yea yea maybe commendations could effectively open options in missions or allow foundry missions to use you commendations as a check to open dialog choices!

And the best part? The mechanics you two are talking about already exist in the game; to my knowledge, however, only 'Mine Enemy' (walkthrough) actually makes any use of them.

lordsteve1

Exactly!

You see this sort of thing in so many RPG's out there that to not have it in the one Trek MMO where diplomacy was a major part of the whole Trek ideology is crazy!

Almost all single player RPG's have some sort of system whereby player certain skills affect dialog options, be it getting to avoid combat situations or to get better prices at vendors; skills like speech-craft or charisma or whatever.

It's what the doff commendation trees should have been used for all along. You have these 10 different trees you've maxed out by they don't really do anything except let you buy more doffs. They should have passive bonuses at least, we already have this with the R&D schools, or at least access to traits.

Give diplomatic outcomes a more enticing reward but have the outcome be heavily reliant on actually be suited to the role (i.e. your diplo skill should help the chance of a better outcome). That way only exceedingly lucky people are going to succeed just by mashing buttons or picking randomly...if that's your play style go shoot the bad guys instead!