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If you or I owned this MMO.....
section31agent
Member Posts: 665 Arc User
ACCEPT "FREE" VOLUNTEER HELP FROM THE TECHNICALLY QUALIFIED PLAYER BASE. After all you have volunteer Forum Moderators. While we are at it what would be quite useful would be to have volunteer zone chat moderators especially on ESD. Some people refuse to use common courtesy and need to be called down.
Open up modding to the playerbase like WoW did.
Limit the F2P to Commander level. After that they would need to pay for a gold membership or become a lifer.
FIX THE BUGS there would be no new anything until the bug list got completely and totally handled. Yes there are still bugs from 5 years ago.
Bring back Tribble testing and veteran rewards rather than rushing broken content on to the holodeck server.
Unleash the Foundry and give it the same abilities they gave to Neverwinter Nights.
"NERF THE GRIND" give Universal Marks for Rewards this would help with the queques.
Open up every exploration cluster and insert "Approved" Foundry Missions.
Put Veteran Human bridge officers in the C-store.
Make everything in the game craftable up to MKXIV "EPIC" Including DOFFS!
Create Romulan/Reman only content and give the Klingons more content [many of the missions would be easy to tweak to faction specific missions]
Create a Trading Faction that would allow for missions transporting and trading goods and services across the Universe.
Recycle "Old content" as temporal missions.
Have the accolades actually count for something like say extra skill points.
Offer T-6 upgrade to every lock box ship through a C-store module purchase.
Open up modding to the playerbase like WoW did.
Limit the F2P to Commander level. After that they would need to pay for a gold membership or become a lifer.
FIX THE BUGS there would be no new anything until the bug list got completely and totally handled. Yes there are still bugs from 5 years ago.
Bring back Tribble testing and veteran rewards rather than rushing broken content on to the holodeck server.
Unleash the Foundry and give it the same abilities they gave to Neverwinter Nights.
"NERF THE GRIND" give Universal Marks for Rewards this would help with the queques.
Open up every exploration cluster and insert "Approved" Foundry Missions.
Put Veteran Human bridge officers in the C-store.
Make everything in the game craftable up to MKXIV "EPIC" Including DOFFS!
Create Romulan/Reman only content and give the Klingons more content [many of the missions would be easy to tweak to faction specific missions]
Create a Trading Faction that would allow for missions transporting and trading goods and services across the Universe.
Recycle "Old content" as temporal missions.
Have the accolades actually count for something like say extra skill points.
Offer T-6 upgrade to every lock box ship through a C-store module purchase.
Post edited by section31agent#8506 on
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This is just one example of exactly why I am glad you don't own this game.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
While I'm not going to say I agree with everything the OP says, I DO wish this game was still a subscription based MMO, rather than F2P. But too many people aren't willing to spend 15 bucks a month, so we get this ... "free" model.
Take a look at the sucessful games the ones who are stable and do not have a incessant grind. You will find the Disney or Blizzard model makes money and doesn't have nearly the issues STO does.
Quick version. Your ideas would kill STO faster than what players think Delta Rising did.
Limiting F2P works for Blizzard. If you haven't noticed, almost every major mmo out there atm is either B2P or F2P. The market isn't going to allow for a subscription based fee anymore. That ship has sailed.
"Fix the bugs" is not as simple as people think it is. And no, not adding anything new until all bugs in an mmo are fixed means we would never see new content. Because there are ALWAYS bugs.
Tribble testing with rewards actually didn't garnish as much as you think it did. Most people logged in for the specified time, then logged out. Again, broken content isn't new and comes down to not a lot of people test. And yes, I'm aware of the bugs that still get released even when tested.
NWN? o_O You mean Neverwinter right? In that case yes agreed.
Won't touch the grind subject and I'm confused about opening up clusters especially with the whole "no more sector space walls" concept.
Crafting doffs is kinda.. bizzare. I don't think the transporter works that way :P
A "tweak" to make it fit for one faction isn't exactly as simple as it sounds. Not to mention they've done this and gotten mixed reviews.
Trading faction has been pushed for awhile, never heard anything.
Old content - meh sure why not.
Accolades are just accolades. If they go for skill points I'll hit 60 with just logging in :P
T-6 upgrade for every lockbox ship for free is a nice idea.
Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker.
Tiktok: @Askray Facebook: Askray113
I think he meant bring back the old exploration missions ... which I personally don't understand why anyone would want back. Those missions were absolutely terrible ... and you could tell as soon as you warped in which of the five or so possibilities you had received.
First, I'd talk with the dev team about threat, damage multipliers, and how they want to deal with gameplay balance. I would like to at least know the reasoning behind it - hey, if I'm paying their salary, I can at least get their ear on some things.
Then, after listening to the highly paid professionals who know how to do their job, and taking their advice, I'd probably sit back and mostly let them run the game. If I seriously own STO, I'll be paying people to make decisions that have more experience and knowledge of those decisions, and for the most part I'll let them make those decisions so that I can keep making money.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
Different games are different. One game might thrive on a subscription model. STO definitely did not. If we had stuck with subscription only, STO likely would have shut down by now.
If you think that WOW doesn't have a incessant grind, then you haven't played it. Seriously, people are grinding raids for weeks to get essentially a WOW doff and that is the more popular one at the moment.
The f2p model is the best part of the game, well second best, Star Trek duh. The rest of the stuff minus the bug fixing are more personal junk that you want that sound very fun outside of your own personal view.
While it's unrealistic to expect the game to have no bugs, I would say that the large number and the severity of bugs in this game shows that Cryptic does not spend enough time and resources on testing and bug fixing. Every release is full of bugs and unfinished work. Many of the bugs reported on Tribble make it live to Holodeck. Yes, Cryptic fixes some bugs, but they also leave many unfixed for years. Cryptic is expecting to attract new players with the Delta Recruitment event. If a new player asks why his bridge officers keep getting removed from their stations or why the camera keeps zooming in on his ship, I'll just say that those are old bugs that Cryptic has yet to fix and that there are many more unfixed bugs in this game.
Thus the players would be responsible for the exploration content in the game and this would not cost cryptic a dime just the will to allow players to create missions for the clusters and nebulas.
~ Make crafting mats, doffs and special consoles available from the GPL vendors.
~ Make GPL vendors have the option to sell special materials for ships like the Neutronium based alloys for example, the gold color.
~Give the option of buying actual ships with GPL or unlocking permanent skins with GPL so that ships already in existence can use these skins instead of their standard skins.
Oh and definitely NERF the grind by restoring XP to their previous levels so people can level specializations without spending years on one character trying to achieve it, thus killing alts.
Or worse, we could have gotten *shudder* turned in a Babylon 5 MMO.
:eek:
-Leonard Nimoy, RIP
One of the things I would do is make sure that each queue had an Elite difficulty option. Also, I would put a per shot DPS cap on Normal, and Advance difficulties. The Elite will be fully open for the DPS chasers to have at it.
Then, I would bring the hp pools of the NPCs on Advance down to Advance difficulty.
I would fix the Advance queues so that optionals on Normal are optional on Advance.
For every Fed ship that is released from this point on, there will be an equal number of KDF, and Rommy ships also. And I would drop prices of the ships down so that a T6 didn't cost more than about $20 max.
I would want to give T5-U ships star ship traits of their own. And, a single C-Store T5-U ships will not cost more than a T6 C-Store ship.
I would do a T6 Veteran ship for the veteran players, and ones with a lifetime sub.
I would lower the Dil cost for upgrades by a great deal.
The xp needed to level the R&D will also be reduces a lot.
The crafting system will be setup to give you the ability to control mods at certain levels. For example, from 1-5, would not give you this ability. If you got something better than a common quality, then it will be random.
If you were level 6-10, then you will be able to choose 1 mod, and you will get no lower than an uncommon quality. If you got a higher quality, then any mods higher than the one you are allowed to choose will be random.
For level 11-15, you get to choose two mods, and it will be rare quality or better. If it is better than rare quality, then the extra mods will be random.
Levels 16-20, you have three mods you can choose, and it will be very rare quality or better. If it is higher quality, then the higher mods will be random.
You will not be able to choose more than x3 of any mod, and any random mod cannot increase the total of that mod above x3.
For weapons, I would give Antiprotons a 2.5% chance to bypass shields. Also, I would take away the x-tra damage it does anytime it gets a crit. This will be to help balance it with almost all the other weapon types. Either that, or give it the 2.5% chance, and let all weapon types do the same extra damage when they crit.
Tetryons will no longer do damage to shields, but will give a chance to shut down weapons.
The Phasers will not have a chance to take a random subsystem offline. They will have a chance to placate the target, or jam their sensors.
I would get the crew to starter making smart AIs for the NPCs. And by smarter I don't mean giving them a new skill that they will mindlessly spam for no reason.
I would either have PVP, and PVE setup separate, so that changes in one will not affect the other, like they have proven in the past can be done, or I will remove the PVP system in the game now, and create a whole new one.
If I were to have them create a whole new PVP system, it will be separate from the PVE part of the game all together. You will have a PVP map galaxy map that you can go to anytime you want. And from here, you will be able to challenge anyone you want, or join areas that are drop in drop out PVP. Along with having the ability to fire upon other players to knock them out of warp, and enter a PVP map.
I would have a whole overhaul done for all of the existing Tac, Sci, and Eng Boff skills. They will be adjusted so that the ones that are under performing will be brought up, and the ones that are over performing will be brought down.
There will not be any cool down timers that are not from AFK that will be longer than 30 mins max.
The cool down timers from the patrols will be removed.
ALL short-term goals will be removed from the CapSpec system all together.
The CapSpec system will be removed from the leveling system from 50-60.
The leveling process from 50-60 will proceed at the normal pace it took from level 1-50.
After reaching level 60, the rate that you level each of the first 10 CapSpec points will be double what it will be to go from 59-60.
After the first 10 points are achieved, the next will take twice as long. This will reach a level at which it will stop increasing in cost, but will not be too long so that it loses the feel of rewarding players.
I would have the team start working on a proficiency system for all weapon types, and energy types. As well as the kinetic weapons as well. This will be a long-term progression system. As each one levels up, it will increase one of the stats for that weapon slightly. The amount by itself will be minor. However, it will add up over time.
The longer someone uses a specific type of weapon, and energy type, the better their DPS, and resistance will be to that weapon type, and energy type. The same goes for kinetic weapons as well.
A proficiency system like this can be capped at a certain level, then the cap increased at anytime later.
New episodes will be released at set distances apart (with some give in the schedule). There will be some that will be focused toward the Fed, and the other factions can play them, and ones that are focused towards that other factions, and the Feds can play them.
So far, they have all be jumbled with Fed acting like warrior Klingons, and it is out of place. The ones where it will focus on the Fed, they will be about trying to work towards peace with help from the Feds. The ones for the Romulans will be focused on intelligence gathering with Romulans. The Klingon ones will be focused on fighting along side the Klingons in combat. This will help the episodes fit the conditions more, instead of it all being one sided. Also, it will give each faction a feel of being a part of the episodes, instead of feeling like one faction always has the spotlight, and the others are just along for the ride.
I have other ideas I would put into place, but these are the main ones that I personally feel will help improve the overall gameplay.
No I agree that there are old, outstanding bugs but a lot of them are trivial or so complex it's hard to track down (for example the boff seating fun hopping). I've never had that problem on either of my accounts *shrugs*, but I have had the camera zooming thing. So yah, those bugs can be annoying but at the very least there are ways around them. Anything that's an actual game stopper seems to be fixed pretty quickly.
Former Community Moderator, Former SSR DJ, Now Full time father to two kids, Husband, Retail Worker.
Tiktok: @Askray Facebook: Askray113
Ship distribution is kind of a vicious cycle like the state of PvP, but worse. Fed's are the 'good guys'. If you only have one character, or if you just have one main, odds are, it's gonna be a Fed. This means that their ships should be focused on fed, if they don't want to carbon-copy ships between factions.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
From my Border Cav days I'd resurrect a few things.
- People perform a whole lot better when they are led rather than sent.
- First in, last out. If I'm the boss then I need to be out in front of my team where they can see me and if need be duck behind me. They also need to see me cover their rear no matter what. Part of being the boss is serving the people I lead as a heat shield. They deserve this.
- The Sundown Rule. If there is a problem, it gets fixed before anyone goes home for the day. Even if it takes until after sundown.
Next, I'd make sure my team had the right amount of time, the right amount of resources, and the right kind of guidance to turn out the product at the quality level they want to. No company has ever failed when they they turn out a quality product. For the most part, STO is good product. My view and if you disagree, then that's your prerogative. Just like it is my prerogative to think you're wrong. This being said, STO is like anything else. It can always be made better.
I'd keep the current business model. No valid reason to change it around to suit myself.
i would take the direction that is offered by my boss and that of PWE and work between the lines rather then strictly in one camp or the other, but i may take elements of both to satify PWE to a point and that of cryptic while pushing through with my own designs. using the financials that exist, i would put some effort into the playtest teams at cryptic (im aware of the irony there) and then get them searching for bugs using the community feedback i setup to find the onlys that cause the biggest problems but that can be solved without needing to get too much into the coding, but far enough that some of the issues are solved.
i would work with PWE to try loosen some of the grind and allow the community a vote option to accept a compromise or not to accept one, then work with that when the results are in, i would get the developers to to create a small ui in game that gives the players the chance to vote in game to avoid and eliminate false positive numbers, virtual IPs, double accounts, characters on the same account, bot agents and so on. i would ask the players; would you accept a 150% increase in post level 50 rewards to the missions and a 15 minute drop off from all queue based reruns and missions in exchange for PWE put this "reasonable idea" into play?
I would bring in someone who can handle the community aspects very well and the community enjoys having around, similar to brandon and his influence he had, i would put trendy in reserve, trendy porbably has other duties on other games.
i would take the direction of the game into another enemy, less reaper and iconian like but more smarter and a more gripping storyline that is a bit more believable. players will know defeat, hopeless situations, victories and dominant victories, strategic calls, loss of a team mate or team mates (permanently) but gain others as well, but put the fight over seasons and put some twists and plots into it that would attract the community to it the whole way. i would give obisek, d'vek and ja'rod more character time so they are not completely ignored and it isnt always shon this, jarok that and koren the other. i would try bring borticus back into the voice acting with a compromise from the union for borticus to do kurland again, expand on his character a bit more and the voice actor for j'mpok as well. in my opinion its worth fighting for their corner and giving them the opportunity again. I would have Nadel more involved in the game as well, she is a high ranking officer in the republic and then suddenly vanished after a point in the romulan arc, same could also be stated of kererek who was never more then a desk jockey, see what he does that deserved him being such a high ranking officer. I would order geko to remove the locks on Tovan Khev after the romulan storyline arc is finished regardless when it is completed in the level progression.
i would give those cryptic alien gen races a bigger factor then being stuck at hessans bar on nimbus, turn them into something, give them some ship designs of their own in addition to the alien gen generic ships you get. turn them into a power of their own, a small alliance called the nyberrite alliance, a collection of smaller races that proves key to a bigger storyline, unfortunately the ultimate sacrific was required to secure victory for the federation and klingons though, making sure the storyline remains gritty but believable.
but this is a tiny portion would could be possible as the EP of sto if i were given the chance. im just as lucky to be a armchair warrior fighting with keyboards and sharp keys.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Nothing would really change, since we'd still be stuck under PWE/PWI's thumb, like Cryptic, who currently "owns" the MMO.
But speaking as if it was somehow independent and in no dire need of a sponsor or larger corporation to help take care of all the things such as marketing, management, funding, and whatever else:
- All players will need to transfer a copy of their accounts over to a holding server for systematic processing to a new game engine. A cutoff date will be mentioned. Once that date has passed, anything gained or earned after it cannot and will not be transferrable, even if you did win some Lockbox ship.
- Put the entire current game into standby (no major updates beyond annual events), or pull a Final Fantasy XIV: Create a destruction end; no matter how many DPS'ers fight, in a massive 50 player room that is a continuous battle (warping out does not result in penalties), the final battles will result in failure and exhaustion, and a scripted cutscene will play on the final day. During this time, everything will be unlocked. This is the end of the old game. This will coincide with the next point.
- Scrap the ancient and outdated engine and get something that works and is readily expandable and flexible. Move as much assets as possible, rebuild or recreate ones that do not transfer, and eventually release it as Star Trek Online: Into Eternity (or something related to rebirth or restart). Players will be transferred in an orderly manner from the account holding system. Beta Testers and Lifers of the old game will have their characters transferred over first, as well as players who buy into Lifer 2.0 for the new game. Followed up by those who bought Priority Transfer or have an active Gold Account by a certain date when the old game went down, with reimbursements to the Gold Players who lost time being refunded those days at no cost (delays renewal processing). Everyone else just has to wait as their accounts are steadily transferred over, and could take months.
- Rebalance C-Store pricing; notably with the ships. T1 starts at 250. T2 @ 500. T3 @ 750. T4 @ 1000. T5 @ 1250. T6 @ 1500. T7 @ 1750. T8 @ 2000. T9 @ 2500. T∞ (Infinity, if it's not showing up as a symbol) @ 3000. If we were to ever go beyond T6, Tier Infinity is the end. At that point, if the level cap is still raised and Specializations are well beyond saturated, Tier Infinity ships just gain fixed weapon or console slots every 10 levels.
- Add more filler ships to all Tiers, both canon kitbash ones and original ones. The current Philosophy of T6s having all the specialized ships being Original designs will remain, to give a sense of progression, while other fairly recent ships (canon-wise and not canon-wise) also get priority to T6, working backwards based on in-game polls that are one vote per account, with a certain threshold needed to be met to bring in even older ships, regardless if they're canon kitbashes or low tier originals. There will still be no Connies or NXs beyond T1.
- To deal with the increased filler ships, there are some changes to the classes:
--- Cruisers, Dreadnoughts, Medium and Heavy Warbirds - Now have Port and Starboard weapon slots (DHCs, QCs, and DCs permitted on select battlecruisers; cannons permitted on all cruisers), starting with 1 on each side at T1, up to 6 at T6 on Unspecialized Cruisers (another tradeoff between access to Cmdr level Specialist skills and abilities or more general firepower). Further, all Cruisers have basic hangar bays. Flight Deck Cruisers, the Gal-X, Bulwark, and Sheshar get 2 (Sheshar able to use 2 bays of frigates), and Carriers get 3 (ships with frigates options are restricted to 2 Frigates and 1 Shuttle/Fighter). Battlecruisers, Battleships, and Dreadnoughts can mount torpedoes in the Port and Starboard weapon slots as well (torpedoes are on their own timers). They will be scaled up, left roughly the same in movement as they are now, but gain extra hull and limited built-in resistances befitting their status and sub-class (cruiser, battlecruisers, flight deck cruiser, dreadnought, battleship).
--- Carriers - Also have Port and Starboard weapon slots, but cannot use cannons or beam banks in them at all, restricted to beam arrays and torpedoes/mines. All Carriers will have Frigate options. All Carriers have a weaker version of the Command ship Inspiration mechanic, but exclusively designed to only support their hangar pets. The BOFF CD is changed to not only cooldown the pets' abilities, but have them auto-reuse them. They also gain more hull and resistances.
---- Escorts, Destroyers, Raptors, BoPs, and Light Warbirds - Will instead gain extra Fore and Aft weapon slots, with 1 dedicated torpedo slot fore and aft at T1~T3, and 2 dedicated torpedo slots at T4+. All Escorts, Destroyers, and Raptors are restricted to 2 Port and 2 Starboard weapons (BoPs and Light Warbirds limited to 1 Port and 1 Starboard), and those are restricted to turrets, and unique to escorts, can be set like pets to either target your enemies or defend you from targettable torpedoes, mines, deployed platforms, and hangar pets. They still rely on weapon power, but gain accuracy bonuses over 75 weapons power, and bonus damage at 100 weapons power, when set to defense mode. Passives include much higher speed and resulting increased chances to miss at high speed, higher weapon power limit vs all other classes, and depending on extent of balance testing by early players, either the same hull/resistances or lowered. More or less glass cannons.
---- Science Ships - Restricted to 1 Port and 1 Starboard weapon at T1~T3, and 2 each at T4+; beam arrays only. However, they have innate bonuses to the "firing" arc for various Sci skills; Gravity Well and Tyken's Rift now have a 180' firing arc for example. Sci skills are also more effective used from Sci ships; Gravity wells can actually lock up escorts at full throttle, Tyken's Rifts can practically Zero all of a target's subsystems in seconds, and they can practically tear apart hull and shields via Tractor Beam, Tractor Beam Repulsors, Gravity Well, and so on. Provided an appropriate level of GravGens, PartGens, FlowCaps, etc is reached. However, like Escorts, they have become glass cannons.
- Add more costume options to all existing costumes and keep the price tag, or reduce their price tag to 100 to 250 Zen depending on the amount of options. As well, release more costumes rather than restricting them.
- Improve AlienGen to truly allow for original species creation, with some limits so that while you might be able to have a "Half-Caitian Half-Human" hybrid (if that's even possible) for some personal RP, It won't just be some anime-inspired neko girl. They're still going to have patches of fur (thickness and coverage pattern adjustable), and they're still going to have distinctly animal traits. They're not going to be a human with just a tail, cat ears, and cat eyes. Non-functional wings will be sold separately as an unlock (among other exotic additions that did exist in some ST works), but they (and other appendages permitted) do animate alongside emotes, such waving having the wings spread out and lightly flapping, or exiling/crossing arms has the wings close around the player.
- Allow for all races to join another faction early on, via an early optional mission (available at 5; locks out at 19; ships of the original faction will be rendered unusable after shifting alliances). They will still start the tutorials as a member of that faction they're initially available in. Races canonically common to all factions will be available in those factions from the start, but those wanting to imitate outliers (Sybok or exchange officers) will have to take the optional mission "Shifting Loyalties" (example name). It will primarily be just a series of Questions and Answers that allow the player to choose a faction choose a reason for the change, and a scripted mission based on your choices that sees you losing all your starter Boffs and ship, and getting a new starter set after switching. Example of reasons why you switched include: an honorable reason (exchange officer), a dishonorable/shameful reason (exiled and shunned from your family), and a traitorous/sinister reason (Tal Shiar or traitor), which will affect further dialogue in future missions. Even if you don't want to change sides, this optional mission allows you to set your overall personality for the remainder of the series.
- Missions will have regular class-specific optionals, and even race-specific optionals. Later faction-agnostic missions will have faction-specific optionals. All these will impact the difficulty of the missions further in; with race-specific ones affecting the least, and faction-specific affecting the most.
- Missions will also have some things affected by the choices made in the "Shifting Loyalties" mission. For example, in Dust to Dust: KDF players and players who chose to be traitors to their own faction (choosing the evil choice but not switching sides) have the choice to verbally abuse the Kobali when aiding them, with "accidental" killing of an occasional Kobali that no one would miss (Jhet'lya excluded for plot reasons, but you can insult her, and later Keten, when talking to him), such as the lone Kobali fighting in the trenches against the Vaadwaur (Captain Kim would miss it being you and your team due to the heat of battle; but the Kobali will be targettable). The shameful/neutral option instead just leads to moderate optional abuse, while the honorable/noble options lead to the same result we have currently.
- The Romulan faction will be redone to be two mini-factions: Romulan Republic and Romulan Empire Remnants. The Republic side mostly plays out the same, though Republic-specific missions will appear among the faction-agnostic content to further develop what's going on back on New Romulus. The Empire side will have its own entire initial storyline, starting with the attack on New Viralit (you are the officer behind the initial attack, but not quite happy about it). The Empire-side story deals with corruption in the Empire, and you as the officer working up the ranks and working to reform it. For a time, Empire players will be Tal Shiar, until they see just how corrupt they are, then turn it all around. They will still butt heads with the Republic, and with the Feds and KDF, but reluctantly work with them against the Undine and Iconians (to keep to the Faction-agnostic missions). The earlier Faction-agnostic missions will have a slight twist on things, you might be the one setting up the trouble that ensues in later missions that others are fixing in their respect faction missions. For example; you were the one who manipulated the drones in Dominion space to attack the Ferengi that would later hide in the asteroid, and were the one who alerted the Dominion to them after a scripted Fed, Republic, or KDF NPC did the aiding.
- With the new engine, players, starting with old Beta and Lifers, will actively test and report bugs in the system as players are systematically moved over. Bugs will be dealt with as much as possible, with remaining non-breaking bugs to be smashed during a bug-fix week every few weeks. After everyone is ported, the rebuilt Tribble server will serve as early release testing, with most bugs preemptively fixed.
- With the new engine, space and combat is in full 3 dimensions. Up and down are relative, but optional guide marks for the default up-down can be made visible via HUD options. As well NPCs will always spawn in the original up-down orientation. While there is no top or bottom weapon slots, the firing arcs of weapons still provide the appropriate cover to those spots (as they do in the current and old engine).
- With the new engine, STO can work at HD levels and 60fps average with the appropriate rigs and net connection/bandwidth.
- With the new engine, cutscenes are more dynamic, Quicktime Events and Scripted Actions are more fluid and game cutscene worthy, and everything, especially explosions and backgrounds, are dynamic and pretty. Of course, if toaster machines can't handle it, it can be turned off or turned down, and static backgrounds will replace moving ones, among other settings.
- With the new engine, everything is much closer to scale and more detailed, and some otherwise static objects can now be interacted with. For example, interacting with the large and small space shipyards around ESD can serve as an alternative to just flying close to ESD and docking. Beaming up to ship now allows you to beam to bridge or to the ship. If beaming to the bridge, you can trigger a "Helm, take us out" cutscene as your ship leaves a shipyard or spacedock or station (using your bridge and crew, but the location you exit from is random), followed by "Take us into holding pattern," and your ship will automatically move to be clear of the docks and in formation with other exiting ships just like if you just beamed straight to ship.
- With the new engine, multi-deck interiors are possible. To help speed things along, regular competitions are held to allow players to design interiors for selected ships with no established interior, as long as they meet certain critieria set (obvious ones being the Warp Core cannot also be the bridge for example). If there is an interior somewhat described in books in which the ships are based on (such as the Vesta series), players would also be expected to take it and expand on it. The top one, two, and three designs will be used if and as needed to fill out variants of the ship (for example; top 3 used for each variant of a 3-ship bundle, or the top two used for an Advanced Research Vessel and the Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit).
- Additionally, with this new engine, player housing is possible, with a default free "origin" apartment block on ESD/First City/New Romulus, as well as an expanded Captain's room on your ship. Your plain, tiny, and average home is freely upgraded as you rank up, up to Fleet Admiral and its equivalent ranks with a top-of-the-line suite with a beautiful view of Earth, New Romulus' forests, or First City. Random scripted NPCs appear and disappear with a sense of realism. Decorations cost EC (from a replicator "shop"), grinding (Accolade, Milestone, or Mission Reward), or Zen (C-Store). At Captain and Admiral Rank, you get a free extra Costume Slot. You can interact with the bed to sleep and a low chance to gain an hour-long refreshed bonus (random boost; can be anything from a 5% Captain CD reduction to a 5% boost to ground damage; cannot be reloaded by sleeping again; have to wait the full hour to try for another chance at the Refreshed Bonus). You can buy an extra Housing Bank that is only accessible in your ESD/First City/New Romulus home for EC and Zen (first few drawers are EC, rest are Zen/Refined Dil (can use either to buy)). You can also invite up to 19 players in a Fleet Admiral's suite; Lieutenants can only invite up to 4. DJ sold in C-Store, only available at rank Admiral and higher.
- In addition to the above, For Zen or Refined Dil, players can also buy access to housing on Risa (restricted to a max of 9 invites at once for that room). Meeting a certain Donation Goal or Fleet Rank set by a Fleet's Fleet Admiral allows Fleet Members access to another housing site on the Fleet Starbase.
- With this new engine, BOFFs and NPCs in general are more dynamic, and can be actively interacted with. BOFFS will also have a personality set by the player as part of their initial settings; you could have a polite and tea-loving Gorn (just missing a monocle and top-hat) who wishes to wax philosophy in the middle of combat, or a bloodthirsty, raving-mad Vulcan who inexplicably melees enemies with his rifle, yelling incomprehensible things at the same time, rather than using it as a ranged weapon. NPCs are also scripted to act based on your morality/reasons chosen in "Shifting Loyalties", some honorable NPCs might outright state they distrust your traitorous self, or that Upstanding BOFF might complain about your lazy, scheming ways when idling on the bridge or on the ground as an away-team member. That self-centered/narcissistic BOFF might not revive you or your teammates until there's no more enemies around, then complain that you're crappy at fighting.
- With this new engine, STO will have more things it can do that it cannot currently do for one reason or another.
But I do not own this MMO called Star Trek Online.
Agreed 10000000x
not like there would be a game left if you got rid of the f2players. whales like people to play with after all
... I would sell it, as fast as possible and as long as it still has buyers.
Sure, you want want constructive ideas, but too much went wrong and the failures reach back to the core design ideas.
It would be simpler to make a completely new MMO.
Holy Grail of Gamification is Addiction | 5 Ways to Accomplisch | and the Psychology of Freemium
If I owned this game it would have shut down after about a week because I have no idea how to run an MMO or a business....
But for that week,
Every ship.... once equipped would become account bound rather than character bound.
All Lobi costume unlocks would be moved to the C-store.
hyperionx09's C-store Price rebalance looks good.
ALL ships would be upgradable to every tier, T1 to T4 could be done with dilithium and player crafted refits, T5 & T6 via the C-store (I really don't care if an NX replica or a Miranda goes toe to toe with the latest T6 ships, it would add variety for my week long game), Each tier would have "ship costume" options added to reflect the ship receiving refits.
PvP would have 2 options,
One like it is now, people enter with their personal ship builds and do as they do.
The second would have you pick a tier in the queues, that will enter you in to a lobby with what ever tier of ships you chose, each class would be balanced so no one would have a special advantage over anyone except their personal skill.
At this moment I got bored typing but I thought I would keep typing anyway because if you got this far that means you are still reading what I'm typing even though you probably got bored of reading what I have typed and continue to type but even if you are not sick of seeing the words type/typed/typing over and over again, I am so I'm going to stop typing now.
*I'd start firing people with each borked FE that gets released.
*I'd also stop the content development schedule in it's tracks and fix the ******n tray bug once and for all. If it is not fixed within six week, company is looking to hire new QA, coders and Devs.
*There would be a massive overhaul of the queue-mission system. Universal Marks across all queues, a consistent and logical amount of Universal Marks for each queue-mission. Each of the three tiers would reward at least one High Mark (power-cell, BNP, implant). Normal would drop one for playing, two for meeting all objectives. Advanced, two for playing, four for meeting objectives. Elite, Three for playing, six for completing objectives.
*I would pour development time into random grind-maps. Colony Run, Defend Ro'Hjo station, Starbase Incursion absolutely suck because they are the exact same map every time. If random map generation proves to be beyond the ability of the development team, then we'd develop a set of 12 maps for each and allow the RNG to pick one at the start.
*Ships... at this point slow down with the ship deployment and introduce ways to upgrade existing ships to use the new abilities. FOR EXAMPLE: Pay for seat upgrade tokens. I want to turn my Lt. Commanded Science seat into an Intel seat or an Ensign seat into a Pilot chair. I should be able to do that without having to pay $30 for a new ship. Figure 100 for ensign on up to 500 Zen for Commander.
*I would also put considerable effort into finishing the KDF faction with a unique storyline, and dialog specific to each race. My Orion shouldn't be talking like a Klingon.
*Flesh out the DOFF system some more -- each new storyline should be introducing new DOFF missions. There should be Iconian themed DOFF missions now but there aren't.
*Finally I would make the gear upgrade system my *****.
Plan and execute pvp akin to WoW's arena/BG's. (emphasis on battlegrounds as they are massive fun even rinse and repeat )
Truth be told aside from that they shot themselves in the foot with the lockboxes - can't add new factions or playable options without hurting the holy "profit". (while at the same time losing money since the game's population dwindles or stagnates as the game stagnates too)
You have from a dev's mouth that the game couldn't have survived on a subscription model. I will have to agree that I'm happy that you, and others who think subs are the way to go, are not in charge. I joined when the game went F2P, have never paid a cent, learned from my fleet, played every facet of the game over the years. I also have a lot of stuff over 7 toons. Who else do you think buys up all that Zen?
I traded about 1.9 million dilithium for the 12,000 Zen DR Pack, all so the whales could rush upgrades. I got the bundle, they got epic quality gear. F2P is good for everyone and it's never going away.
As to the question at hand:
I'd probably change nothing in particular as long as I am making money. The gamer in me would probably say, bug fixes this, balance that, but none of that is really practical. The only thing one could do to achieve those goals would be to start from the ground up. And unless in this scenario I have infinite funds, that's not practical either.
So yeah, the game is pretty good from where I'm sitting.