What the console version really needs is a way to bind everything you want to X or something, just like we do with the spacebar now. The console version will live or die based on this.
No menu system will ever come remotely close to keeping up with the kind of ability spam STO space combat is.
What the console version really needs is a way to bind everything you want to X or something, just like we do with the spacebar now. The console version will live or die based on this.
No menu system will ever come remotely close to keeping up with the kind of ability spam STO space combat is.
But this is why spacebar needs to be decommissioned and replaced with this more intuitive UI.
I really wish they'd use the XBox's Smartglass feature as a secondary controller for skill activation! It would be so simple to populate Smartglass with icons for your abilities and you just tap them to activate. With an LCARS (or faction appropriate) appearance to it, it would be amazing.
Honestly? Look at that UI actually gives me ideas.
I think STO would be a much more interesting game if ability spam and keybinds were eliminated entirely, and that instead the use and activation of abilities would be more tactical in nature.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid." - Q
I seem to remember playing some PC game where they used that radial 'skill bar'. Don't remember what it was though.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
I'll definitely never play this game again if they try to unify the platforms. This UI is a nightmare for pc users.
I bet if it had a button on the wheel that was "post forums thread wishing for T6 Connie" it would have near universal PC gamer adoption immediately.
This UI is keeping with the times of touchscreen gaming.
Touchscreen gaming is awful. I don't do it on my own smart devices. Buttons that overlay the screen and actually block some of your view. If they are trying to bring that to pc, people will be angry. We (PC gamers) buy expensive keyboards and mice that have extra programmable buttons for a reason.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,442Community Moderator
Honestly? Look at that UI actually gives me ideas.
I think STO would be a much more interesting game if ability spam and keybinds were eliminated entirely, and that instead the use and activation of abilities would be more tactical in nature.
Pretty sure it was supposed to be more tactical in the first place. Which abilities to use and when. The problem is people spam the Damage dealing ones instantly for the kill, therefor why bother with anything else? Who needs healing or anything like that when you can make the enemy dead on the first shot?
I kind of agree with alexraptorr. PC games often use the availability of buttons on the keyboard as a crutch to avoid designing a streamlined UI. Why make the effort at creating a flexible but intuitive UI when you can just force your users to memorize key mappings? Some games need all those keys like a flight sim (I remember the keyboard quick reference that came with TIE Fighter, good god), but an action RPG doesn't necessarily need all that. It just depends on how you design it. WoW uses bars full of click powers, but is it a deeper game than Dark Souls? STO could have been designed less around constant cycling of click powers, and more about passive abilities, player skill, and fewer but more tactically significant click powers. But it wasn't, it went the WoW route, and we now can barely fit all our click powers on 4 bars in space combat while we make anatomy defying finger contortions trying to hit them all while still flying the ship.
Consoles don't have limited buttons because of some technical limitation. Older consoles like the Atari 5200 and Intellivision had tons of buttons, including 12 button keypads. Nintendo revolutionized game controllers by deliberately creating a controller with fewer buttons, and designing the games to be easily picked up and played. Later consoles ratcheted the number of buttons, but basically hit the limit with when Sony introduced the DualShock. Nintendo's kooky experiments aside, the basic game controller layout hasn't deviated since the PS1 DualShock. You could shoehorn more on there. Six face buttons. Extra triggers. Those buttons start to compromise the original design goal Nintendo laid out with the Famicom, it damages the ability for someone to pick up the controller and figure out how to play.
Of course all this is just philosophical. Cryptic isn't going to scuttle the existing PC interface, just overhaul the backend to help with the lag. At most, the new controller UI will be an option for those that prefer it, but only if it doesn't put those players at a significant disadvantage vs. keyboard players. Hell I might try it out myself, using the keyboard for space combat makes my carpal tunnel ache like nothing else.
I'd prefer a few meaningful buttons to 27 powers in my spacebar.txt file that work 98% as well as if I had them each individually keybound.
Having just about every rank of shadowbolt keybound on top of all the once-in-a-blue-moon spells locks had was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much fun, I tell you what.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,442Community Moderator
I'd prefer a few meaningful buttons to 27 powers in my spacebar.txt file that work 98% as well as if I had them each individually keybound.
Having just about every rank of shadowbolt keybound on top of all the once-in-a-blue-moon spells locks had was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much fun, I tell you what.
Simple solution... unbind those powers from your spacebar and don't rely on macros?
I'd prefer a few meaningful buttons to 27 powers in my spacebar.txt file that work 98% as well as if I had them each individually keybound.
Having just about every rank of shadowbolt keybound on top of all the once-in-a-blue-moon spells locks had was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much fun, I tell you what.
Simple solution... unbind those powers from your spacebar and don't rely on macros?
I'd prefer a skill system where having 255 meaningless powers isn't considered good design and where adding 10 more isn't considered an improvement. Meaningless, thoughtless, short duration buffs you click for the sake of clicking don't deserve any more attention than what they get for the few keys you do hit for a real reason.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Is there any other topic we can start people worrying about for no good reason?
They could make an ultra-casual system similar to doffing. Login, set what missions you want run without you when you logoff. Then when you next come in you get the XP and a few rewards and check all the assignments you need.
Also. Cryptic, I am trying to be humorous. Please do not do this. . .
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,442Community Moderator
MMORPGs tend to have a wide selection of buffs. The main problem is that the ones in STO that see the most use are the damage augmenting ones. Why bother with heals or damage resist when you can just faceroll spacebar with damage buffs?
What we really need is to make non damage dealing abilities more relevant again. Crystaline sorta has that by scoring heals as well as damage output, but its just not enough to counter this DPS obsession that at times becomes toxic to the community.
Honestly? Look at that UI actually gives me ideas.
I think STO would be a much more interesting game if ability spam and keybinds were eliminated entirely, and that instead the use and activation of abilities would be more tactical in nature.
Occurred to me too, although I'm sure folk would find some way around it.
I remember Bioware's Neverwinter Nights used "radial menus" quite a bit. Left click object to "default" action, right click called up radial menu so you can peruse your option(s) and execute.
NWN also had a lot of "pausing", so you weren't pressured to click-swipe-click.
Right now, on my Fleet Pathfinder, her "opening salvo" is:
3 - GW III
4 - Energy Syphon II
Ctrl-8 - DRB
8 - AP-B
9 - TS
10 - BFaW
Where 1&2 are my "they're starting to hit me" EPtS & TT, and 6&7 are my "oh crud", Sci team & HE. 5 is sensor scan, usually tossed for the "bigger" targets...
For me, most everything else is "situational", therefore can be placed on ALT-binds (rare stuffs) or Ctrl-Binds (stuff that I think can be nifty but almost never use because I'm too worried about either survival, my "main" offense, or dead...
This combo is aimed for "left finger/right hand off mouse" firing execution, and the "oh cruds" are on index finger. Though I'm also going back to a much more - for me - intense focus on using the keypad to fire powers, so left hand can keep up on the steering / oh crudeness / running CTRL, and the right hand alternates between mouse and powers...
(for the record, I'm also "way too conservative" on a lot of my stuffs - always saving Photonic Fleet or Scattering Field for those moments that they'd be "really useful" - and when I recognize them I'm either dead or the moment's past... I've at least "mastered" frequent use of brace for impact...)
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
It looks good for a controller, but please do not force this on PC users!
Seems like it could be handy for PC but only as a toggle when I play in a controller since hitting space-bar all day can hurt my wrist after a while. Looking forward to the X1 release, just hope there's cross-play and cross-toons so I can play my toons on consoles, pc without constantly having to swap them constantly.
In some ways it points to how simple STO already is. Grouping Captain/Sci/Eng/Tac abilities together isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's easy to call it dumbing down, but truth of the matter is there's a fair amount of NOISE in the current system that could stand to be trimmed out.
If you can create macro's in the UI linking together abilities into a single hot-button - so you can have one button trigger Attack Pattern Omega/Fire at Will/Tactical Team with a single press - it'll perform quite well in the current "keep these 6 abilities on constant cooldown" meta we have currently. There's a fair number of abilities that are always used in conjunction.
Also, here's a massaged version of that image for clarity.
The UI has been a consistent issue for many players over the years and it was well overdue for any meaningful sort of overhaul. Especially one that can potentially improve the performance of the game. I'm happy it was finally addressed and if it is ported to the PC version I look forward to being able to plug in my Xbox controller and giving it a go.
Not forced of course, just as an option so PC users can use either interface. Why? Because this would make it so I can play from my couch using my controller.
Some people don't want it, that's fine. Add it as an option. More options aren't going to hurt anyone.
Looks good for Consoles, but BAD for PC. Do not remove the current PC option and replace it with that.
That said, I could see PC players that wanna use a controller the option to use that. But keep our current one as default!
"Please, Captain, not in front of the Klingons." Spock to Kirk, as Kirk is about to hug him.
Star Trek V: "The Final Frontier"
I would not worry. Neverwinter xbox has a different UI than neverwinter PC. Nothing changed when the xbox version came out. They are different games, that run differently, on different servers. this wont affect pc.
Comments
No menu system will ever come remotely close to keeping up with the kind of ability spam STO space combat is.
But this is why spacebar needs to be decommissioned and replaced with this more intuitive UI.
I think STO would be a much more interesting game if ability spam and keybinds were eliminated entirely, and that instead the use and activation of abilities would be more tactical in nature.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
There was a space game called 'I-War' with a similar radial bar. It was brilliant and very ahead of it's time. Very different to STO though.
Touchscreen gaming is awful. I don't do it on my own smart devices. Buttons that overlay the screen and actually block some of your view. If they are trying to bring that to pc, people will be angry. We (PC gamers) buy expensive keyboards and mice that have extra programmable buttons for a reason.
Pretty sure it was supposed to be more tactical in the first place. Which abilities to use and when. The problem is people spam the Damage dealing ones instantly for the kill, therefor why bother with anything else? Who needs healing or anything like that when you can make the enemy dead on the first shot?
Consoles don't have limited buttons because of some technical limitation. Older consoles like the Atari 5200 and Intellivision had tons of buttons, including 12 button keypads. Nintendo revolutionized game controllers by deliberately creating a controller with fewer buttons, and designing the games to be easily picked up and played. Later consoles ratcheted the number of buttons, but basically hit the limit with when Sony introduced the DualShock. Nintendo's kooky experiments aside, the basic game controller layout hasn't deviated since the PS1 DualShock. You could shoehorn more on there. Six face buttons. Extra triggers. Those buttons start to compromise the original design goal Nintendo laid out with the Famicom, it damages the ability for someone to pick up the controller and figure out how to play.
Of course all this is just philosophical. Cryptic isn't going to scuttle the existing PC interface, just overhaul the backend to help with the lag. At most, the new controller UI will be an option for those that prefer it, but only if it doesn't put those players at a significant disadvantage vs. keyboard players. Hell I might try it out myself, using the keyboard for space combat makes my carpal tunnel ache like nothing else.
Having just about every rank of shadowbolt keybound on top of all the once-in-a-blue-moon spells locks had was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much fun, I tell you what.
Simple solution... unbind those powers from your spacebar and don't rely on macros?
temple of elemental evil?
I'd prefer a skill system where having 255 meaningless powers isn't considered good design and where adding 10 more isn't considered an improvement. Meaningless, thoughtless, short duration buffs you click for the sake of clicking don't deserve any more attention than what they get for the few keys you do hit for a real reason.
They could make an ultra-casual system similar to doffing. Login, set what missions you want run without you when you logoff. Then when you next come in you get the XP and a few rewards and check all the assignments you need.
Also. Cryptic, I am trying to be humorous. Please do not do this. . .
Originally Posted by pwlaughingtrendy
Network engineers are not ship designers.
Nor should they be. Their ships would look weird.
What we really need is to make non damage dealing abilities more relevant again. Crystaline sorta has that by scoring heals as well as damage output, but its just not enough to counter this DPS obsession that at times becomes toxic to the community.
Occurred to me too, although I'm sure folk would find some way around it.
NWN also had a lot of "pausing", so you weren't pressured to click-swipe-click.
Right now, on my Fleet Pathfinder, her "opening salvo" is:
3 - GW III
4 - Energy Syphon II
Ctrl-8 - DRB
8 - AP-B
9 - TS
10 - BFaW
Where 1&2 are my "they're starting to hit me" EPtS & TT, and 6&7 are my "oh crud", Sci team & HE. 5 is sensor scan, usually tossed for the "bigger" targets...
For me, most everything else is "situational", therefore can be placed on ALT-binds (rare stuffs) or Ctrl-Binds (stuff that I think can be nifty but almost never use because I'm too worried about either survival, my "main" offense, or dead...
This combo is aimed for "left finger/right hand off mouse" firing execution, and the "oh cruds" are on index finger. Though I'm also going back to a much more - for me - intense focus on using the keypad to fire powers, so left hand can keep up on the steering / oh crudeness / running CTRL, and the right hand alternates between mouse and powers...
(for the record, I'm also "way too conservative" on a lot of my stuffs - always saving Photonic Fleet or Scattering Field for those moments that they'd be "really useful" - and when I recognize them I'm either dead or the moment's past... I've at least "mastered" frequent use of brace for impact...)
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Seems like it could be handy for PC but only as a toggle when I play in a controller since hitting space-bar all day can hurt my wrist after a while. Looking forward to the X1 release, just hope there's cross-play and cross-toons so I can play my toons on consoles, pc without constantly having to swap them constantly.
My ultimate Doom open world mod:
http://www.moddb.com/games/doom-compile-project
If you can create macro's in the UI linking together abilities into a single hot-button - so you can have one button trigger Attack Pattern Omega/Fire at Will/Tactical Team with a single press - it'll perform quite well in the current "keep these 6 abilities on constant cooldown" meta we have currently. There's a fair number of abilities that are always used in conjunction.
Also, here's a massaged version of that image for clarity.
Not forced of course, just as an option so PC users can use either interface. Why? Because this would make it so I can play from my couch using my controller.
Some people don't want it, that's fine. Add it as an option. More options aren't going to hurt anyone.
Personally, I think it looks cool.
Personally, I'm more curious as to how this turns out.
Hodor!
That said, I could see PC players that wanna use a controller the option to use that. But keep our current one as default!
Spock to Kirk, as Kirk is about to hug him.
Star Trek V: "The Final Frontier"
Why start now?
It does if you're an experienced console player who has used pretty much that exact layout in the past. Frankly it borders on 'bog-standard'.
As one of those people, it doesn't terrify me, but I'm hopeful that it'll be an additional option on PC and not mandatory in the future.