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Please give us a gameplay reason to use nonhuman boffs in space
amezuki
Member Posts: 364 Arc User
"The Federation is no more than a Homo-sapiens-only club."
-Azetbur, Star Trek VI
...She was right.
In-universe, the Federation was supposedly incredibly diverse. And in fairness, the mechanics of the doff system in STO encourages you to have a diverse crew of junior officers.
The same is not true of boffs--at least, when it comes to manning your stations in space. Think about it: what are your options?
All factions can use Zen to buy a liberated borg boff with Efficient, and you can spend Lobi to get a Xindi-Rep with Impatient or fledits/dil to get a cross-faction Rom from the Embasssy.
For Feds, all humans come with the Leadership trait, which improves subsystem and hull repair. Other than that? Well, Vulcans and Saurians can (rarely) be found with the Efficient trait, improving efficiency at low power levels.
Klinks don't even get a space trait with their native species. Nausicaans come with Pirate, and Letheans have a chance at Efficient.
Roms/Remans at least have a chance at Subterfuge or Romulan Operative. Other than that, just the same premium/cross-faction options as everyone else, depending on who they ally with.
So what does that leave?
Andorians? Sorry, y'all are decent on an away team but got nothing to offer my bridge.
Tellarites? Fugly dwarves, useless in space.
Betazoids? Troi was pretty useful to have on the bridge, for a heads-up on incoming hostility if nothing else. Maybe she was an outlier.
Benzites? Y'all are supposed to be "meticulous", and take note of the slightest details. Guess that doesn't amount to anything notable on a starship.
Android? I guess Data was just there for show.
Alien? You might, if you're super-lucky, find an Alien boff candidate with a spce trait. And then sell them on the Exchange for millions; double the price if the boff is female.
Bajorans? Jem'Hadar? Orions? Breen? Voth? Plenty of space warriors there.
Gorn, Fersans and Caitians are all melee-focused, so it's understandable that excellence in space would be less common--but absent entirely?
In short, I see two species that come with a space trait, five that have an apparently-rare chance at one, three that can be bought, and fourteen species that no player can choose to man a bridge station without sacrificing effectiveness.
If the game mechanics dictate that there are only a very few optimal choices, those are the choices that most players will make. I imagine that Cryptic's internal metrics on boff species demographics would corroborate this.
IMO the norm for all species should be two ground traits, and two space traits. The less space-inclined species might only get one space trait on occasion, but they should always have at least that one--and vice-versa for space-focused species and ground traits.
-Azetbur, Star Trek VI
...She was right.
In-universe, the Federation was supposedly incredibly diverse. And in fairness, the mechanics of the doff system in STO encourages you to have a diverse crew of junior officers.
The same is not true of boffs--at least, when it comes to manning your stations in space. Think about it: what are your options?
All factions can use Zen to buy a liberated borg boff with Efficient, and you can spend Lobi to get a Xindi-Rep with Impatient or fledits/dil to get a cross-faction Rom from the Embasssy.
For Feds, all humans come with the Leadership trait, which improves subsystem and hull repair. Other than that? Well, Vulcans and Saurians can (rarely) be found with the Efficient trait, improving efficiency at low power levels.
Klinks don't even get a space trait with their native species. Nausicaans come with Pirate, and Letheans have a chance at Efficient.
Roms/Remans at least have a chance at Subterfuge or Romulan Operative. Other than that, just the same premium/cross-faction options as everyone else, depending on who they ally with.
So what does that leave?
Andorians? Sorry, y'all are decent on an away team but got nothing to offer my bridge.
Tellarites? Fugly dwarves, useless in space.
Betazoids? Troi was pretty useful to have on the bridge, for a heads-up on incoming hostility if nothing else. Maybe she was an outlier.
Benzites? Y'all are supposed to be "meticulous", and take note of the slightest details. Guess that doesn't amount to anything notable on a starship.
Android? I guess Data was just there for show.
Alien? You might, if you're super-lucky, find an Alien boff candidate with a spce trait. And then sell them on the Exchange for millions; double the price if the boff is female.
Bajorans? Jem'Hadar? Orions? Breen? Voth? Plenty of space warriors there.
Gorn, Fersans and Caitians are all melee-focused, so it's understandable that excellence in space would be less common--but absent entirely?
In short, I see two species that come with a space trait, five that have an apparently-rare chance at one, three that can be bought, and fourteen species that no player can choose to man a bridge station without sacrificing effectiveness.
If the game mechanics dictate that there are only a very few optimal choices, those are the choices that most players will make. I imagine that Cryptic's internal metrics on boff species demographics would corroborate this.
IMO the norm for all species should be two ground traits, and two space traits. The less space-inclined species might only get one space trait on occasion, but they should always have at least that one--and vice-versa for space-focused species and ground traits.
Fleet Admiral L'Yern - Screenshot and doffing addict
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
Post edited by amezuki on
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Comments
Space: Romulan, Potatoman, Nausicaan, (Saurian)
I dont see really a problem, there are enough species with recognizeable strenghts.
There is also one space warfare specialist on rom side (D'vex), as well as veteran warfare boffs (probably extremely rare).
The delta box boffs come with some extra traits: klingon with leadership, orion with efficient and vulcan with efficient (I know it is not very impressive).
But I totally agree with you. All species should have one specific space trait. I mean, at least on fed side they have to be warp capable to join the federation. That means they need some expertise to build and fly space ships. It is also kind of sad to have a crew that does not include a variation of species because one wants to maximize the potential of a ship. Compare a klingon captain with 5 klingon boffs with a nausicaan captain and 5 nausicaan boffs. In space the latter will have an advantage. Even worse though is that romulans come with a trait that are so much stronger than what feds or klingons can have. There is clearly a need for a boff trait revamp, not only for balance, but also for more variation of species on ship bridges.
OP clearly talks about space traits. How a female orion looks, does have no effect on how the ship performes (even though the thought is kinda fun. Imagine the ship flies worse because the pilot is distracted or so).
edit: sorry for the double post. Wanted to edit and clicked quote (my post) instead.
We are better off filling our stations, with multiple space proficient boffs, while filling ground stations with ground proficient boffs.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Nothing compared to a Romulan Republic player with a full SRO crew :cool:
Nicor, please!!!
There needs to be the possibility of Tellarites, Vulcans, Andorians, Bajorans, Rigelians, etc having some sort of viable space trait. The current situation s silly.
My ground crew consists of a Ferengi, a Talaxian, a Liberated Borg, and an Android.
Diverse bunch, imo.
That's the problem. It's not that you can't put together a racially diverse bridge crew with all space traits. It's that your options for doing so limit you to something like 1/4 of the possible species, most of which are cross-faction or "premium" content. Most, if not all species should be viable choices for bridge stations.
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
But the idea that the game is not diverse is the biggest load of BS ever, heres my Fed, he has probably the most insanely Diverse crew ever:
My Fed's Senior Crew consist of 11 BOFFS atm, 5 for my Ship, 2 for my Shuttle, and 4 for my Away team
my Fed is a Human Male
For my Ship, i have
a Romulan Male (might ditch next time i get a special tactical BOFF)
an Andorian Female
a Human Female
a Liberated Borg Female (From C-Store)
a Heirarchy Male
For my Shuttle i have
a Kobali female (from Dust To Dust)
a Liberated Borg Male (from the easter egg in the Borg Ground STF)
and for my Away team i got pretty much a trophy Shelf of BOFFS, the ones that really spice my crew, and pretty much just there for looks
an Orion Female (From Diplomatic T4, Also gives Klingon Transporter Effect)
a Photonic Male (from Delta Recruit rewards, closest to an Andorid ill ever get)
a Romulan Female (Gives Romulan Transporter Effect)
and a Voth Male (From T5 Dyson rep Mission)
As you can see, i dont think its possible my crew can be any more Diverse XD and its FUn like this, and deffinetly a HELL OF ALOT cheaper
So basically you're saying that if you throw out the one defining quality that the entire complaint is about--having a space trait--then the complaint is BS?
Whether or not you see them as useless is not really the point here.
Eclipse Class Intel Cruiser U.S.S. Dioscuria NX-91121-A - Interactive Crew Roster
Sounds like my human Fed captain, where the only human aboard, is myself!!!
:P
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I can admit that there aren't many more options (there are a few more, just not very many), but with what we have, I managed to make a diverse crew.
If your argument is that more space traits would be nice, I completely agree.
But I actually think that an effective mix of space traits requires some level of diversity... just not with as much variance as we might like.
Cause that's something that would likely bleed over as beneficial for the BOFF situation and make folks happy there too, no?
Species traits are just fine. I see no real issue with them.
SRO and Subterfuge is how us cool kids rolled. Cause, nothing like chaining cloak bonus.
EDIT: To actually help, in the face of Romulan overwhelmingly being favored all other BOFF traits are inconsequential. So much cheap passive crit, defense, and damage and cloaking bonus it makes all other space traits a sad sad joke.
Start there. Really.
Problem is if you make traits customisable then people are just going to stack SRO or whatever the equivalent is for non-romulans. I can't see any way around that other than by preventing the ability to stack those traits. I know that's probably going to be an unpopular idea but really if everyone feels compelled to get romulan boffs it's a sign that their trait is too powerful.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I doubt Cryptic will address this issue in any meaningful way.
Let a Vulcan train to be a Superior (Vulcan) Operative. Let a Bajoran train to have Leadership. As many Orion pirates as I've blown up, why not one with the Pirate trait? And so on.
Let me go back to having the crew I want *, without missing out on +10%(?) critical chance.
* which also means being able to space Tovan Khev once the Romulan story arc is complete