Damn shizzle. Hell back in the day reading mamuals was actually enjoyable they were well illustrated, pages of details on how stuff works, stupid antipiracy code words and the lucasarts code wheels, the golden age for sure! Imho though most games nowadays have at least a built in help database of various topics,rules,mechanics,etc
Exactly!
But seriously, the in-game database of STO is petty. It does offer low resolution text boxes with just enough information to cover how to identify friend and foe and how to control your ship's throttle, but that's about it and I bet the info is actually outdated
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
But surely 'how things work' should be necessary in understanding 'how to play'?
The only way to actually implement what you want successfully, would be through the tutorial and early missions. A 'user manual' would simply be a waste of time, because 99% of players would never read it.
The game should teach players how things work, through game play.
That's insufficient. You cannot learn the numbers by heart through the tutorial, there needs to be easily accesible documentation on the ruleset so you can look up stuff. Especially you, advertising the dps race, should understand the importance of that. Sure, someone already made the excel tables and it's in the net, but none of that is official and to this day the game never declared how the basic formula for calculating damage is. People aren't required to read it, it's still a standard a game should come with. When you were already around back in the day you surely remember games like "A320 Airbus" or "Falcon 4.0" which came with hundreds of pages of documentation. Role playing games with thick rulebooks to familiarize yourself with everything, even though you have it in the game (the German "Das Schwarze Auge" trilogy for example comes with a thick book actually explaining the adapted pen and paper ruleset, D&D certainly did something similiar). Those were the days
But the problem is that there's no 'basic formula'. There are ridiculously complicated formulas, that are constantly in flux.
Yes, but powers get modified and changed with almost every patch, and new things added, so you would never be able to implement any of that in any kind of documentation realistically.
Well, this is a design issue. If you explain how things work and make it a clean process, you don't have to explain that "this new console +10% mod is applied before the other console +20%, but after that other trait that adds +15% and it doesn't apply when using that ability that adds +30% itself". When +10% is +10% and everyone knows how much it is, no further explanations are needed.
risian4 made good observations about some players' behaviour. What OP talks about will prevent some complaints and make at least a few more players better informed. Lol, at the beggining I use to fly and walk aound with many injuries because I could not afford the cure or was too lazy to go to medical officer of engineer... Now injuries are very rare. And now I just glance over explanations but at the begining I really needed more.
Laziness is something that no end of documentation can overcome. There's actually a mission on ESD that teaches how to use the medical officer. I doubt many have done it.
I used to love doing that on all new characters. It gives you free regenerators and I would sell them on the exchange so my new char had a few EC to spend.
Yes, but powers get modified and changed with almost every patch, and new things added, so you would never be able to implement any of that in any kind of documentation realistically.
Well, this is a design issue. If you explain how things work and make it a clean process, you don't have to explain that "this new console +10% mod is applied before the other console +20%, but after that other trait that adds +15% and it doesn't apply when using that ability that adds +30% itself". When +10% is +10% and everyone knows how much it is, no further explanations are needed.
So what you actually want is a complete re-design of the entire game mechanics from the ground up, and then an in game manual to go with it?
But the problem is that there's no 'basic formula'. There are ridiculously complicated formulas, that are constantly in flux.
That's actually a point in favour of documentation, not against it.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Not really if the documentation will often be out of date or just plain confusing to anyone without a PHD in mathematics
I say it again, you are not required to read it. But there's no need to overexaggerate so much. Of course the system will undergo modification, that's usually when you also update your documentation. Of course this requires work on Crytic's end they probably have no one able to do and all, but there's a point when the lack of personnel and resources somehow leads to not being able to deliver the very bare bones basics of the trade. Not saying this is the case with cryptic, mind you, but that can't always be the argument against everything.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Not really if the documentation will often be out of date or just plain confusing to anyone without a PHD in mathematics
I say it again, you are not required to read it. But there's no need to overexaggerate so much. Of course the system will undergo modification, that's usually when you also update your documentation. Of course this requires work on Crytic's end they probably have no one able to do and all, but there's a point when the lack of personnel and resources somehow leads to not being able to deliver the very bare bones basics of the trade. Not saying this is the case with cryptic, mind you, but that can't always be the argument against everything.
i'm sure they can take some folks off working on the next lock boxes to keep documentation up to date :-P
And the beauty of a wiki is that anyone can edit them or add content.
Ever since Delta Rising when lots of people left the game, STOwiki has been quite slow on updates. Granted, it's gotten better in last few months but it's far from what it used to be. However, even STOwiki never explained, for example, those combat mechanics, bonuses, and how they worked. Some are there, like Damage Resistance w/ Diminishing Returns but one has to know about that issue to even look it up. The wiki is a good, general source of stats but doesn't go into mechanics as much.
@angrytarg : Ha, you're fighting a battle that's been going for years now. It's like my joke I like to use every now and then.
"What is a more significant damage increase? The one that says 3% or the one that says 30%?"
I still recall a few months ago several of us in some channel had to break the bad news on someone that their "150 resist" or whatever Cruiser wasn't really 150 resists and where to look on his ship's stats panel to see the truth. It was still high total resists but nothing at all like he thought it was. I felt sorry for the guy because he was real proud of getting the resists up that high but it simply isn't true and he needed to know.
When I was a new player, it was only when I got into PVP that I *really* got into the weeds of game mechanics, trying to help understand why I was getting pwned so much. Not saying people have to go into PVP to learn the game's mechanics, but if one just goes by ingame texts like I did for a long time, you're not really going to go to that higher level of performance for your ship.
Granted, it doesn't take much to curbstomp the NPCs of this game. But if one wants to do better and better, knowing how the mechanics work enables that. The ingame descriptions, documentation doesn't. There's only so much upgrading gear can do for you and knowing the mechanics in depth can likely wring more performance out of the TRIBBLE you do have.
STO needs to leave the Era of Witch Doctors
P.S. - I still remember the original Falcon 4.0's awesome manual, a.k.a. BINDER of game documentation. Woohoo!
Not really if the documentation will often be out of date or just plain confusing to anyone without a PHD in mathematics
I say it again, you are not required to read it. But there's no need to overexaggerate so much. Of course the system will undergo modification, that's usually when you also update your documentation. Of course this requires work on Crytic's end they probably have no one able to do and all, but there's a point when the lack of personnel and resources somehow leads to not being able to deliver the very bare bones basics of the trade. Not saying this is the case with cryptic, mind you, but that can't always be the argument against everything.
Thing is.... what game IS that well documented in-game? I remember many a discussion about game mechanics on Diablo 2 forums. The biggest one there was in how the defense rating(which was a weird combination of chance to hit and armor value) worked. this was of course not explain in game.
@angrytarg : Ha, you're fighting a battle that's been going for years now. It's like my joke I like to use every now and then.
"What is a more significant damage increase? The one that says 3% or the one that says 30%?" : p
(...)
P.S. - I still remember the original Falcon 4.0's awesome manual, a.k.a. BINDER of game documentation. Woohoo!
Yes, I am afraid I am. But it's not I expect or even demand something happening, but I feel for a long time now that it should be said now and then how weird it actually is that all of us here play a game whose basic ruleset we only grasp through trial and error instead of actually having something to work with and improve upon. I'm neither a PvPer nor am I a min-maxer, but I still like to understand the rules of what I'm doing, wether I'm hand crafting my dwarven druid or trying to complete a theme on my starship.
That P.S. is a sign of awesome Mind you, Im not even big on flightsims or Falcon in particular, but I still like the thought of having the original box including all the gizmos lying around somewhere
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
I would love something that has any sort of explanation of game mechanics. Like, does all damage mean ALL? what procs are per shot and which ones are per cycle? The whole cat 1/2 broken down by specific powers/consoles. When I look theses things up, or ask around here, I get mostly nothing or conflicting information. I want to do better so I read what I can but it shouldn't be spread all over the internet or not out there at all. Dev support on a community driven project would be a compromise that would work but, who would write it?
Thing is.... what game IS that well documented in-game? I remember many a discussion about game mechanics on Diablo 2 forums. The biggest one there was in how the defense rating(which was a weird combination of chance to hit and armor value) worked. this was of course not explain in game.
This is a fair point. I don't know how many games are actually that well documented. In-game would be comfortable but not necessary, a pdf documentation or manual in general would also help a lot. I don't know for sure but I think that Diablo at least explains the basics in the printed manual / readme files. STO doesn't even explain why some things have a relative and some other things have absolute values that contribute to something. Diablo at least explains (but frankly I don't know wether it was 1 or 2) that stat x does mdoify effect y or value z each level.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Hrm. Well I don't know about showing game formulas, that's rare to see in a manual, however, just go in a bit deeper than what we have now would be nice.
Increasing your shields as an example. What does that do exactly? Increase recharge rate? Increase Resistance? Increase the ability to take damage directly? Then provide a small display graph which would provide as an example of what it does. Again no formulas needed per se just something that illustrates on the causes and effect. It can be simple, doesn't need to be over the top.
Asking for formulas is a bit much IMO.
Retired. I'm now in search for that perfect space anomaly.
Hrm. Well I don't know about showing game formulas, that's rare to see in a manual, however, just go in a bit deeper than what we have now would be nice.
Increasing your shields as an example. What does that do exactly? Increase recharge rate? Increase Resistance? Increase the ability to take damage directly? Then provide a small display graph which would provide as an example of what it does. Again no formulas needed per se just something that illustrates on the causes and effect. It can be simple, doesn't need to be over the top.
Asking for formulas is a bit much IMO.
Fair point, but as you said, at least give a comprehensible explanation what everything actually does and means. Graphics can also help to illustrate effects, good idea
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
I've been here since exactly 17/01/FTP and am still picking things up. Generally by myself just pressing buttons until things work.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
I've been here since exactly 17/01/FTP and am still picking things up. Generally by myself just pressing buttons until things work.
Season 4 for me, the same, the same
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
As a business developed by a team of highly competent software engineers, Cryptic has the documentation already produced - otherwise, it'd be impossible to tell whether the code produced was in line with the specifications and feature requests.
The decision not to release this documentation should be seen for what it is - an active effort to ensure a spirit of adventure, exploration, and scientific inquiry exists in Star Trek Online.
Thing is.... what game IS that well documented in-game? I remember many a discussion about game mechanics on Diablo 2 forums. The biggest one there was in how the defense rating(which was a weird combination of chance to hit and armor value) worked. this was of course not explain in game.
This is a fair point. I don't know how many games are actually that well documented. In-game would be comfortable but not necessary, a pdf documentation or manual in general would also help a lot. I don't know for sure but I think that Diablo at least explains the basics in the printed manual / readme files. STO doesn't even explain why some things have a relative and some other things have absolute values that contribute to something. Diablo at least explains (but frankly I don't know wether it was 1 or 2) that stat x does mdoify effect y or value z each level.
The Diablo 2 tooltips were less helpful than the bits of text you see in the STO stat descriptions. It didn't even have enough for you to use in-game resources to calculate how many stat points you needed in order to get a certain amount of HP or MP.
The process of documenting a program can give you insight into your own work, especially if your target audience is a new user. You can compile a "to do" list that's as long as the documentation.
This was brought up in armada chat recently, and I do agree, but imagine the game manual for STO:
"One easy download! Complete in 94,000 pages!".
Seriously. What's with that? "It would be a lot to read" seems to be a totally valid argument not to do something? Again, such a document would not be required to play. Some people treat it as mandatory but that's not the point.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
for what I could not work out for myself I found youtube videos and sto-wiki were all I needed, sure there are still a few things I don't understand fully but I am not sure an encyclopedia Britannica sized reference manual would help as I probably would not understand the gobbledygook within anyway.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
This was brought up in armada chat recently, and I do agree, but imagine the game manual for STO:
"One easy download! Complete in 94,000 pages!".
Seriously. What's with that? "It would be a lot to read" seems to be a totally valid argument not to do something? Again, such a document would not be required to play. Some people treat it as mandatory but that's not the point.
Comments
Exactly!
But seriously, the in-game database of STO is petty. It does offer low resolution text boxes with just enough information to cover how to identify friend and foe and how to control your ship's throttle, but that's about it and I bet the info is actually outdated
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But the problem is that there's no 'basic formula'. There are ridiculously complicated formulas, that are constantly in flux.
Well, this is a design issue. If you explain how things work and make it a clean process, you don't have to explain that "this new console +10% mod is applied before the other console +20%, but after that other trait that adds +15% and it doesn't apply when using that ability that adds +30% itself". When +10% is +10% and everyone knows how much it is, no further explanations are needed.
My character Tsin'xing
So what you actually want is a complete re-design of the entire game mechanics from the ground up, and then an in game manual to go with it?
Good luck with that!
That's actually a point in favour of documentation, not against it.
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Not really if the documentation will often be out of date or just plain confusing to anyone without a PHD in mathematics
I say it again, you are not required to read it. But there's no need to overexaggerate so much. Of course the system will undergo modification, that's usually when you also update your documentation. Of course this requires work on Crytic's end they probably have no one able to do and all, but there's a point when the lack of personnel and resources somehow leads to not being able to deliver the very bare bones basics of the trade. Not saying this is the case with cryptic, mind you, but that can't always be the argument against everything.
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i'm sure they can take some folks off working on the next lock boxes to keep documentation up to date :-P
Ever since Delta Rising when lots of people left the game, STOwiki has been quite slow on updates. Granted, it's gotten better in last few months but it's far from what it used to be. However, even STOwiki never explained, for example, those combat mechanics, bonuses, and how they worked. Some are there, like Damage Resistance w/ Diminishing Returns but one has to know about that issue to even look it up. The wiki is a good, general source of stats but doesn't go into mechanics as much.
@angrytarg : Ha, you're fighting a battle that's been going for years now. It's like my joke I like to use every now and then.
"What is a more significant damage increase? The one that says 3% or the one that says 30%?"
I still recall a few months ago several of us in some channel had to break the bad news on someone that their "150 resist" or whatever Cruiser wasn't really 150 resists and where to look on his ship's stats panel to see the truth. It was still high total resists but nothing at all like he thought it was. I felt sorry for the guy because he was real proud of getting the resists up that high but it simply isn't true and he needed to know.
When I was a new player, it was only when I got into PVP that I *really* got into the weeds of game mechanics, trying to help understand why I was getting pwned so much. Not saying people have to go into PVP to learn the game's mechanics, but if one just goes by ingame texts like I did for a long time, you're not really going to go to that higher level of performance for your ship.
Granted, it doesn't take much to curbstomp the NPCs of this game. But if one wants to do better and better, knowing how the mechanics work enables that. The ingame descriptions, documentation doesn't. There's only so much upgrading gear can do for you and knowing the mechanics in depth can likely wring more performance out of the TRIBBLE you do have.
STO needs to leave the Era of Witch Doctors
P.S. - I still remember the original Falcon 4.0's awesome manual, a.k.a. BINDER of game documentation. Woohoo!
My character Tsin'xing
Yes, I am afraid I am. But it's not I expect or even demand something happening, but I feel for a long time now that it should be said now and then how weird it actually is that all of us here play a game whose basic ruleset we only grasp through trial and error instead of actually having something to work with and improve upon. I'm neither a PvPer nor am I a min-maxer, but I still like to understand the rules of what I'm doing, wether I'm hand crafting my dwarven druid or trying to complete a theme on my starship.
That P.S. is a sign of awesome
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This is a fair point. I don't know how many games are actually that well documented. In-game would be comfortable but not necessary, a pdf documentation or manual in general would also help a lot. I don't know for sure but I think that Diablo at least explains the basics in the printed manual / readme files. STO doesn't even explain why some things have a relative and some other things have absolute values that contribute to something. Diablo at least explains (but frankly I don't know wether it was 1 or 2) that stat x does mdoify effect y or value z each level.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Increasing your shields as an example. What does that do exactly? Increase recharge rate? Increase Resistance? Increase the ability to take damage directly? Then provide a small display graph which would provide as an example of what it does. Again no formulas needed per se just something that illustrates on the causes and effect. It can be simple, doesn't need to be over the top.
Asking for formulas is a bit much IMO.
Fair point, but as you said, at least give a comprehensible explanation what everything actually does and means. Graphics can also help to illustrate effects, good idea
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Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Season 4 for me, the same, the same
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The decision not to release this documentation should be seen for what it is - an active effort to ensure a spirit of adventure, exploration, and scientific inquiry exists in Star Trek Online.
My character Tsin'xing
"One easy download! Complete in 94,000 pages!".
"If this will be our end, then I will have them make SUCH an end as to be worthy of rememberance! Out of torpedos you say?! Find me the ferengi!".
I was waiting for someone to do that
Seriously. What's with that? "It would be a lot to read" seems to be a totally valid argument not to do something? Again, such a document would not be required to play. Some people treat it as mandatory but that's not the point.
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When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
My character Tsin'xing