Going for the path of least resistance is what the players are supposed to do in a game. It's the developers' job to make that path still resistance enough. They set up the challenges, and players do their best to overcome them. Of course players want everything free and easy, but that's not a game. The game is in the obstacles put in their path that they must get through, or around. Simply giving players everything they want is not good game design. And it is my opinion Cryptic gives players too much, which doesn't leave them enough reason to actually play the game.
Whilst I don't necessarily agree with everything being made too easy, queue efforts/rewards normalization is definitely a good start. Otherwise players are just invited to take the easiest route, always. And it is, indeed, the responsibility of the Devs to prevent that.
Just wanted to react to this last bit, and say I completely agree. Even starting Jems at lv 60, with 4 filled-out reps already, is, IMHO, already an acknowledgement, on Cryptic's end, that the duration of getting everything up to speed has already reached near 'insanity' levels as it is. Always consider the road NEW players have to travel, not us veteran players.
As for new rep T6 rewards, I really hope they'll be original, for a change, and not add yet another warpcore or something. Like special SRO/Jem boffs, or cool Space Barbie stuff (Vanity shields, etc).
I would argue the only reason the older sets like the Borg set didn't have warp cores is because warp cores didn't exist back then. They could add warp cores and still do some original stuff on top of it I would argue.
"Force" is the wrong word. Players obviously can't be forced to do anything at all. But they can and must be required to do certain things in a certain way to achieve desired results. That's the definition of a game. To have goals and rules by which those goals must be achieved. Without rules all you have is a sandbox playground.
The answer to why players would want to do things is precisely where STO frequently fails. There is too much choice. Much of the content, the vast majority even, is simply never the best choice for anything at all, in any circumstances. Everything you could possible achieve there, is always better achieved somewhere else. So somewhere else players go. The result is visible in the game.
Going for the path of least resistance is what the players are supposed to do in a game. It's the developers' job to make that path still resistance enough. They set up the challenges, and players do their best to overcome them. Of course players want everything free and easy, but that's not a game. The game is in the obstacles put in their path that they must get through, or around. Simply giving players everything they want is not good game design. And it is my opinion Cryptic gives players too much, which doesn't leave them enough reason to actually play the game.
That's why different content should reward different things. Why do players want to play content X? To get reward X. If players want to avoid certain content or game features, that's always their choice. But then they should not get the rewards from those things, either. Unless Cryptic wants to sell the rewards for money, of course (which I think they totally should).
Perhaps "pigeonholed" would have been a better word but the overall result is the same in that you don't want players to feel like they're being pigeonholed or forced into content they have no interest of playing. I'm not sure how familiar you are with World of Warcraft, but in the last 2 expacs they've basically pigeonholed you into leveling a garrison or a class hall type of thing. If you didn't do so you fell radically behind. It was a long boring slog that added nothing of value to the game in either case and got to the point that if you wanted to stay competitive or up to date you basically had to grind those class halls like a full time job and it sucked the fun out of the game. Something like that is the last thing I would ever want to hit STO. Point being, you can still have rules and goals without making it seem like slog and pigeonholing people.
Like I pointed out prior, the question of "why would I ever go there" is not being adequately answered for some of these queues. Why would I ever go to queue X when I can run queues A B C, and get more reward in the time it would me to run queue X? Point being many of the queues today are not played because the effort and time required, along with possible frustrations, do not justify the reward given. UAA gives close to 300+ marks when you complete everything and do the objectives. Thus the reward is worth the time and effort required. Take something like Dranuur Gauntlet where if even one generator falls for whatever reason, or you miss an objective, all of your effort is wasted and you get less than 35 marks on average. Gravity Kills is another prime example. It's simply not worth the effort most of the time. The problem isn't strictly the queues themselves as much as it is the reward structure behind them. Personally I'm not a fan of the nukara ground maps. If tomorrow it were made the only way to get nukara marks, then that would just mean one less rep I would be worrying about on my toons because I'm not running those maps.
Simply restricting rewards is not going to revitalize those dead queues, all it's going to do is guarantee they don't get played and that those specific reps never get maxed. If you're going to revive those queues you need to make sure the effort required and reward are worth it and right now they're typically not. You fix the reward structure and the queues will fill themselves back up again.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
"Force" is the wrong word. Players obviously can't be forced to do anything at all. But they can and must be required to do certain things in a certain way to achieve desired results. That's the definition of a game. To have goals and rules by which those goals must be achieved. Without rules all you have is a sandbox playground.
The answer to why players would want to do things is precisely where STO frequently fails. There is too much choice. Much of the content, the vast majority even, is simply never the best choice for anything at all, in any circumstances. Everything you could possible achieve there, is always better achieved somewhere else. So somewhere else players go. The result is visible in the game.
Going for the path of least resistance is what the players are supposed to do in a game. It's the developers' job to make that path still resistance enough. They set up the challenges, and players do their best to overcome them. Of course players want everything free and easy, but that's not a game. The game is in the obstacles put in their path that they must get through, or around. Simply giving players everything they want is not good game design. And it is my opinion Cryptic gives players too much, which doesn't leave them enough reason to actually play the game.
That's why different content should reward different things. Why do players want to play content X? To get reward X. If players want to avoid certain content or game features, that's always their choice. But then they should not get the rewards from those things, either. Unless Cryptic wants to sell the rewards for money, of course (which I think they totally should).
Perhaps "pigeonholed" would have been a better word but the overall result is the same in that you don't want players to feel like they're being pigeonholed or forced into content they have no interest of playing. I'm not sure how familiar you are with World of Warcraft, but in the last 2 expacs they've basically pigeonholed you into leveling a garrison or a class hall type of thing. If you didn't do so you fell radically behind. It was a long boring slog that added nothing of value to the game in either case and got to the point that if you wanted to stay competitive or up to date you basically had to grind those class halls like a full time job and it sucked the fun out of the game. Something like that is the last thing I would ever want to hit STO. Point being, you can still have rules and goals without making it seem like slog and pigeonholing people.
If it supposedly added nothing of value, why did you have to do it?
I've never played WoW, but it sounds like they do a better job giving players reason to do things. Mechanics that reward gameplay in a meaningful and important way and leaves you objectively better off for having done things. Game progress meaning the player becomes capable of doing things they weren't before. As opposed to leveling up things like specializations, reps or fleet holdings in STO, which are mostly just for show and really aren't necessary for anything.
How long things should take to do is of course a matter of opinion. IMO the most boring condition in a game is having run out of (meaningful) things to do, not having too much or too long objectives.
Like I pointed out prior, the question of "why would I ever go there" is not being adequately answered for some of these queues. Why would I ever go to queue X when I can run queues A B C, and get more reward in the time it would me to run queue X? Point being many of the queues today are not played because the effort and time required, along with possible frustrations, do not justify the reward given. UAA gives close to 300+ marks when you complete everything and do the objectives. Thus the reward is worth the time and effort required. Take something like Dranuur Gauntlet where if even one generator falls for whatever reason, or you miss an objective, all of your effort is wasted and you get less than 35 marks on average. Gravity Kills is another prime example. It's simply not worth the effort most of the time. The problem isn't strictly the queues themselves as much as it is the reward structure behind them. Personally I'm not a fan of the nukara ground maps. If tomorrow it were made the only way to get nukara marks, then that would just mean one less rep I would be worrying about on my toons because I'm not running those maps.
That question is not being answered at all by most of the queues (or indeed most of other content, either). That's what I've been saying. They should reward something unique, it should not come down to players doing math counting how much dilithium-equivalent they can get from each content.
Balancing the numbers would be good, but it's simply impossible to incentivize dozens of queues and uncountable number of other content if they all give the same rewards. Something will always be the best even if slightly, and everyone playing that same thing forms a positive feedback loop, making it better (from shorter queue wait, if nothing else) even if the numbers were fairly close to begin with.
Simply restricting rewards is not going to revitalize those dead queues, all it's going to do is guarantee they don't get played and that those specific reps never get maxed. If you're going to revive those queues you need to make sure the effort required and reward are worth it and right now they're typically not. You fix the reward structure and the queues will fill themselves back up again.
If that were the case (which I'm not at all convinced of), it would be because those reps are themselves too meaningless. An ever-increasing load of equal options, some more equal than others but all of them equally unneeded for anything. They too fail the "why would anyone do this" -question. If the only reason for leveling a rep is "because I got the marks for free doing something else," there's something wrong with the rep.
Which brings us back to your WoW example being a better mechanic. If leveling up a system makes players capable of things they weren't before, they have reason to level it up. A reason to play the game. If they're already capable of doing everything to begin with, they have no reason to actually do anything.
For me, i would be cool adding the warp cores as part of a 4 part set but i would want more unison between the tiers. Some tiers have items and weapons that i would want to see themed under the different reps. Calling in a pair of borg drones like you can the Remans or romulan guards. Consumable drones for the other reps. Armor Variants and visuals. A cool and unique thing to unlock would be skins but that would be more for an account wide unlock for the tailor or alien species. This could also go for more ship visuals as well.
Admittedly, t-6 would be a great time to experiment, as well. Concept art weapons and weapons that we wouldn't normally get. Remember the cool Grenade launcher from Perpetual's concept art? Borg arm weapons that actually cover your arms, like the undine hand cannon. Themed combat pets would be nice, assimilated exocomp Drones, a mini Voth dinosaur with "FRIKKIN' LASER BEAMS!!! Themed small craft would be a cool addition as well, so long as they were different enough from the current ones. Maybe add in the ability to summon them for an attack in both space AND ground, Ground working like orbital strike, space like a fighter summon.
Anything Borg related would be great, for me personally, but there are already a lot of great things IN the sets that it would be great to get them added to the other reps, as well. There is a LOT of potential to adding a new tier to the rep system, i just hope that they get creative with it, rather than just coping out and adding some bit of gear that gets tossed into the bank as soon as it's unlocked.
If it supposedly added nothing of value, why did you have to do it?
I've never played WoW, but it sounds like they do a better job giving players reason to do things. Mechanics that reward gameplay in a meaningful and important way and leaves you objectively better off for having done things. Game progress meaning the player becomes capable of doing things they weren't before. As opposed to leveling up things like specializations, reps or fleet holdings in STO, which are mostly just for show and really aren't necessary for anything.
How long things should take to do is of course a matter of opinion. IMO the most boring condition in a game is having run out of (meaningful) things to do, not having too much or too long objectives.
It added grind for the sake of having grind. In the last expansion of Legion that just wrapped up they had what was known as an Artifact Weapon. This weapon leveled with you and had a very powerful ability tied to it that many of the class specs needed and in 99% of all cases that weapon ended up being your best in slot. You had 3 slots to modify the weapon to better tailor it to your playstyle. The weapon came with 2 unlocked. The class halls were stated to be optional content, yet they tied that 3rd mod slot to the class halls and severely limited your ability to generate artifact power to level the weapon if you didn't level the class hall. without that 3rd slot you were hamstrung big time. So they stated it was optional content, yet severely hamstrung you if you didn't do it. Thus it added nothing of value to the game and just artificially slowed you down for the sake of adding grind.
In STO you can survive without that 5th trait slot and 40 days (no sponsorship) isn't that long of a time to max out a rep. With this artifact stuff, if you didn't level the class hall, it would have taken literal years to unlock everything. Pretty much you did it or got locked out of virtually everything else. Pretty much it was grind for the sake of adding grind. Restricting things in the manor you're stating would essentially add grind for the sake of having grind. I don't think folks mind some bit of grind or we wouldn't be playing MMOs like this one, but folks do expect reasonable reward for their grind.
That question is not being answered at all by most of the queues (or indeed most of other content, either). That's what I've been saying. They should reward something unique, it should not come down to players doing math counting how much dilithium-equivalent they can get from each content.
Balancing the numbers would be good, but it's simply impossible to incentivize dozens of queues and uncountable number of other content if they all give the same rewards. Something will always be the best even if slightly, and everyone playing that same thing forms a positive feedback loop, making it better (from shorter queue wait, if nothing else) even if the numbers were fairly close to begin with.
The problem with that line of logic is that's exactly how most people are going to think, for better or worse. They're going to look at it and count up how much reward a queue is going to give them compared to how much grind is going to be needed. Like it or not that's how most folks in game are going to look at queues is which one gives the most reward for the least amount of effort. If they can do 3 smaller queues and get the same or more reward than doing 1 larger and longer queue, then why would they ever go to the larger queue? I'm glad we can at least agree that the reward structure needs to be looked at even if we may disagree on methods.
As for balancing, ideally a queue that takes more time and more effort is always going to reward more than a queue that doesn't take as long and requires less effort. This would mean something like a Fleet Alert wouldn't reward nearly as much as something like a Starbase Fleet Defense. Reason being the fleet defense takes more time and effort than the fleet alert does. If the rewards were better normalized the problem of dead queues would fix themselves. Generally one of the longer queues you can still get a pug for is UAA. Reason being UAA when you complete all objectives rewards a huge amount of marks. If the longer and larger queues took direction from UAA as inspiration then those queues would get played more often.
If that were the case (which I'm not at all convinced of), it would be because those reps are themselves too meaningless. An ever-increasing load of equal options, some more equal than others but all of them equally unneeded for anything. They too fail the "why would anyone do this" -question. If the only reason for leveling a rep is "because I got the marks for free doing something else," there's something wrong with the rep.
Which brings us back to your WoW example being a better mechanic. If leveling up a system makes players capable of things they weren't before, they have reason to level it up. A reason to play the game. If they're already capable of doing everything to begin with, they have no reason to actually do anything.
Continuing with the Romulan rep as one example. The reason the Romulan rep stalled out so hard was due to the fact there weren't that many ways back then to get Romulan marks. Once folks did the all of 2 queues, that was it, you had nothing else you could do to get the marks. so it wasn't that folks didn't want to run the queues, it was that there wasn't anything else hardly for them to run. Thus just one reason why Romulan marks were added to the choice packs. If what you're proposing were done it would only artificially slow folks down. Many folks would only grind two or 3 reps at a time and let the other ones go, thus still leaving dead queues.
With the WoW example the thing I don't believe I adequately drove home is that it basically took abilities that you would normally have gotten anyways, put them on a weapon along with other things you would normally have already, and locked them behind a wall to force you to grind for it. Thus again you want it to feel like you've progressed, but you don't want it to feel like a second job either.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
If it supposedly added nothing of value, why did you have to do it?
I've never played WoW, but it sounds like they do a better job giving players reason to do things. Mechanics that reward gameplay in a meaningful and important way and leaves you objectively better off for having done things. Game progress meaning the player becomes capable of doing things they weren't before. As opposed to leveling up things like specializations, reps or fleet holdings in STO, which are mostly just for show and really aren't necessary for anything.
How long things should take to do is of course a matter of opinion. IMO the most boring condition in a game is having run out of (meaningful) things to do, not having too much or too long objectives.
It added grind for the sake of having grind. In the last expansion of Legion that just wrapped up they had what was known as an Artifact Weapon. This weapon leveled with you and had a very powerful ability tied to it that many of the class specs needed and in 99% of all cases that weapon ended up being your best in slot. You had 3 slots to modify the weapon to better tailor it to your playstyle. The weapon came with 2 unlocked. The class halls were stated to be optional content, yet they tied that 3rd mod slot to the class halls and severely limited your ability to generate artifact power to level the weapon if you didn't level the class hall. without that 3rd slot you were hamstrung big time. So they stated it was optional content, yet severely hamstrung you if you didn't do it. Thus it added nothing of value to the game and just artificially slowed you down for the sake of adding grind.
"Optional" means you're not required to do something. It doesn't mean the reward for doing it isn't going to be good.
It's a good reward for gameplay. A good reason to play. I would definitely wish STO did the same. If nobody needs a particular feature for anything, there is no point having that feature in the first place.
In STO you can survive without that 5th trait slot and 40 days (no sponsorship) isn't that long of a time to max out a rep. With this artifact stuff, if you didn't level the class hall, it would have taken literal years to unlock everything. Pretty much you did it or got locked out of virtually everything else. Pretty much it was grind for the sake of adding grind. Restricting things in the manor you're stating would essentially add grind for the sake of having grind. I don't think folks mind some bit of grind or we wouldn't be playing MMOs like this one, but folks do expect reasonable reward for their grind.
And that's exactly how it should be. The rewards you get for completing things makes it possible to do new things.
That question is not being answered at all by most of the queues (or indeed most of other content, either). That's what I've been saying. They should reward something unique, it should not come down to players doing math counting how much dilithium-equivalent they can get from each content.
Balancing the numbers would be good, but it's simply impossible to incentivize dozens of queues and uncountable number of other content if they all give the same rewards. Something will always be the best even if slightly, and everyone playing that same thing forms a positive feedback loop, making it better (from shorter queue wait, if nothing else) even if the numbers were fairly close to begin with.
The problem with that line of logic is that's exactly how most people are going to think, for better or worse. They're going to look at it and count up how much reward a queue is going to give them compared to how much grind is going to be needed. Like it or not that's how most folks in game are going to look at queues is which one gives the most reward for the least amount of effort. If they can do 3 smaller queues and get the same or more reward than doing 1 larger and longer queue, then why would they ever go to the larger queue? I'm glad we can at least agree that the reward structure needs to be looked at even if we may disagree on methods.
For better, of course. But only if the developers enable them to. The queues should give different rewards, so that it wouldn't be possible to do something else to get the same rewards.
As for balancing, ideally a queue that takes more time and more effort is always going to reward more than a queue that doesn't take as long and requires less effort. This would mean something like a Fleet Alert wouldn't reward nearly as much as something like a Starbase Fleet Defense. Reason being the fleet defense takes more time and effort than the fleet alert does. If the rewards were better normalized the problem of dead queues would fix themselves. Generally one of the longer queues you can still get a pug for is UAA. Reason being UAA when you complete all objectives rewards a huge amount of marks. If the longer and larger queues took direction from UAA as inspiration then those queues would get played more often.
No, it wouldn't. There are too many queues to run on just dilithium-equivalent. STO's 30min cooldowns wouldn't stretch to half the queues even if they were all as fast as CCA. Of the timed 15-minute queues it would only cover two. For that matter, Admiralty gives out so much dil these days that people just don't have to play much of anything at all to hit the refining cap anymore. Even CCA has a wait time now.
Oh, and the 300 marks you've quoted for UAA as "a huge amount"...will match CCA only if the average run length is less than 3 minutes.
If that were the case (which I'm not at all convinced of), it would be because those reps are themselves too meaningless. An ever-increasing load of equal options, some more equal than others but all of them equally unneeded for anything. They too fail the "why would anyone do this" -question. If the only reason for leveling a rep is "because I got the marks for free doing something else," there's something wrong with the rep.
Which brings us back to your WoW example being a better mechanic. If leveling up a system makes players capable of things they weren't before, they have reason to level it up. A reason to play the game. If they're already capable of doing everything to begin with, they have no reason to actually do anything.
Continuing with the Romulan rep as one example. The reason the Romulan rep stalled out so hard was due to the fact there weren't that many ways back then to get Romulan marks. Once folks did the all of 2 queues, that was it, you had nothing else you could do to get the marks. so it wasn't that folks didn't want to run the queues, it was that there wasn't anything else hardly for them to run. Thus just one reason why Romulan marks were added to the choice packs. If what you're proposing were done it would only artificially slow folks down. Many folks would only grind two or 3 reps at a time and let the other ones go, thus still leaving dead queues.
Romulan rep stalled? News for me. Rom marks were everywhere from the start. I myself got all my rom marks from epohhs. Never stalled anywhere. I had like 30k spare marks on multiple toons at one point. And who's to say players should be doing everything all at once in the first place?
With the WoW example the thing I don't believe I adequately drove home is that it basically took abilities that you would normally have gotten anyways, put them on a weapon along with other things you would normally have already, and locked them behind a wall to force you to grind for it. Thus again you want it to feel like you've progressed, but you don't want it to feel like a second job either.
Yes, you have. But perhaps I haven't adequately drove home my opinion that that's exactly as things should be done. Important things should be given as rewards for playing. If people already have everything anyway, there is nothing left to reward gameplay with. And therefore no reason to play.
In the case of the different ques I think that keeping the idea of them giving the marks of a given rep is fine, maybe make the longer ques give more elite marks, or that the optional objectives in them are how you get elite marks an the longer ques just give you more elite marks per optional completed. Though i still wish we had some que specific rewards then even if all the ques gave the same rep marks and elite marks, these different que unique rewards could be quite nice an give players more reason to do other ques outside of just the marks/dil they get out of them.
I always though expanding the endeavor system into the rep quest system, where each would out missions to go into specific ques, do certain things in a given area, or what have you that on completion would give you a box that has a variety of rewards
of various kinds an styles could give more reason to go into the other ques. Adding to the line up of rewards you could get out of these rep-boxes could keep them relevant as well, while having it that getting to tier six rep might open this up for you to get the mission.
Besides, there's practically no PvP in most of the PvPrep queues to begin with.
People who actually play(ed) the competitive rep have been pointing out it has nothing* to do with PvP for over a year and the same suspects keep repeating that old silly myth all the same. Waste of time trying to set them straight, they just ignore you.
* Core Assault has that last room where players are allowed to attack eachother, but it doesn't count for anything.
EDIT: And speaking of mythbusting, the Endeavor system proved quite conclusively STO playerbase will happily do PvP if/when there is a reward for it.
Oooh I just thought of it as I was going to bed last night, I'd love for a 360 degree romulan plamsa beam for the set...not only would it be nice but fill the gap since plasma is the only damage type without a second omni beam.
First off there's obviously the missing gear of the older reps - Warp cores, secondary deflectors, experimental weapons
On top of that:-
Vanity shields/engines/deflector - For when you want the effect, but don't want to spend huge amounts of dilithium and marks.
Costume unlocks
Cruiser command ability consoles - Since cruisers so far are the only ship not to have a special piece of equipment.
Admiralty card
To be honest...it's kinda fair how it it...Science ships get both, but they're easily the weakest of the three archtypes, Tactical ships get the experimental weapon but no special abilty, and Cruisers get the special ability but no special equipment.
Cruiser command ability consoles - Since cruisers so far are the only ship not to have a special piece of equipment.
I would love to see them give cruisers a gear slot that would be called something like command array, and which would give you some modifications to your cruiser's auras that might be interesting to see done. Though how you would do for such a gear item for cruisers in a rep would be harder to figure.
I don't know. The issue is not every cruiser has access to all cruiser commands. Meanwhile all Science ships have access to all four innate subsystem target abilities.
I don't know. The issue is not every cruiser has access to all cruiser commands. Meanwhile all Science ships have access to all four innate subsystem target abilities.
Did a quick check on the WIKI, and applied some "hazy memory" here to get the following "trends":
"For the most part", every cruiser/battlecruiser/dreadnought/flight deck carrier has a specific (sub)set of commands that apply to all ships of that class, and the reasoning behind the battlecruisers/dreadnoughts having less than all 4 to begin with was because the battlecruisers / dreadnoughts / FDCs already have "extra abilities" that the baseline cruisers don't, whether it's mounting cannons (Battlecruisers) and having stats to support them, or the hanger and possible BFG of the FDCs and Dreadnoughts.
The "exceptions" to this are a couple of Temporal Cruisers (the straight-up cruiser and battlecruiser both lose a command because of the Temporal Molecular Deconstruction Mechanic, I'd think the Temporal Dreadnought was in line to lose a power too but only having 2 to begin with makes it hard to lose a power) and the Intel ship (loses 2 commands but has the intel mechanics like expose vulnerability and enhanced stealth/cloaking).
But the other half of the cruiser command thing was to give the captains a mechanic that required some thought - which of the available commands would support your team best at a give time with the intent for the active command to be changed periodically throughout the mission, and having a console which boosts only 1 of the available (sub)set runs somewhat counter to that mindset (activate the boosted command and run it all mission)
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]
I don't know. The issue is not every cruiser has access to all cruiser commands. Meanwhile all Science ships have access to all four innate subsystem target abilities.
Well i don't think that is an issue, as if you look at it that you are making a cruiser-specific item that would be similar in design to the secondary deflector of the science ships, and the experimental weapon of the escorts it is not about the sub-system targeting. The secondary deflector buffs specific types of science abilities an even some engineering abilities, so something that could have some aspect of giving different buffs to different abilities based on the aura you use might be nice.
Taking the idea of how the secondary deflector buffs a specific type of abilities, and then modifying it to how it might work in a cruiser-item, You could have it that the cruiser-array might modify your command auras to influence how cc-works based on the aura active. While a tactical one might give different buffs based on if you have the weapon aura up it might give the group a buff to damage against enemies that are being focused on, while the speed might buff the weapon firing rate, and the shield aura could give the group a stacking buff to shield resist against a given energy/weapon type.
> @asuran14 said: > So what kind of requests, or ideas do people have for some experimental weapons they could add to those reps that do not have them yet?
Do we have anything like a rapid fire cannon, I know we have experimental cannons but I’m not sure if any fire rapid burst a bit like the tempest tail gun.
Or even something that works a bit like the tr1b ground weapon that transports a projectile pass shields
> @asuran14 said:
> So what kind of requests, or ideas do people have for some experimental weapons they could add to those reps that do not have them yet?
Do we have anything like a rapid fire cannon, I know we have experimental cannons but I’m not sure if any fire rapid burst a bit like the tempest tail gun.
Or even something that works a bit like the tr1b ground weapon that transports a projectile pass shields
Don't think so, though the tempest I think would be the closest example of such a weapon. Though i could see something like a rapid fire proton turret type experimental weapon for the dyson rep.
I actually like the idea of a experimental borg-like weapon for the omega rep that when fired does either no damage, or a small amount of plasma or radiation damage, but the main use is that it reduces the amount of kinetic damage that a shield reduces, or merely increases the damage taken or the damage bypass of the shield of a ship.
> @asuran14 said: > jordan3550 wrote: » > > > @asuran14 said: > > So what kind of requests, or ideas do people have for some experimental weapons they could add to those reps that do not have them yet? > > Do we have anything like a rapid fire cannon, I know we have experimental cannons but I’m not sure if any fire rapid burst a bit like the tempest tail gun. > > Or even something that works a bit like the tr1b ground weapon that transports a projectile pass shields > > > > > Don't think so, though the tempest I think would be the closest example of such a weapon. Though i could see something like a rapid fire proton turret type experimental weapon for the dyson rep. > > I actually like the idea of a experimental borg-like weapon for the omega rep that when fired does either no damage, or a small amount of plasma or radiation damage, but the main use is that it reduces the amount of kinetic damage that a shield reduces, or merely increases the damage taken or the damage bypass of the shield of a ship.
I did think about the omega rep something like the shield neutraliser an experimental weapon with some plasma/radiation damage. I do like your idea with the proton aswell. I’ve always wanted the proton weapons to be a new type of energy weapon. Maybe one day
So what kind of requests, or ideas do people have for some experimental weapons they could add to those reps that do not have them yet?
Does every rep need one? I mean honestly since they launched experimental weapons only one rep has had one and that was the first rep that launched after experimental weapons.
Do we have anything like a rapid fire cannon, I know we have experimental cannons but I’m not sure if any fire rapid burst a bit like the tempest tail gun.
Or even something that works a bit like the tr1b ground weapon that transports a projectile pass shields
It's somewhat similar, but how about a point defense turret? Short range(?), rapid firing, high accuracy against destructible mines and torps, boarding parties, small craft.
So what kind of requests, or ideas do people have for some experimental weapons they could add to those reps that do not have them yet?
Does every rep need one? I mean honestly since they launched experimental weapons only one rep has had one and that was the first rep that launched after experimental weapons.
Depends on how they work the experimental weapon, if they give them some rep-linked mechanics or gimmicks that enhance or alter gameplay, than yeah I would say some or many of them should have experimental. Though making suggestions for experimental weapons that could fit into the reps does not mean we want all of them to, but giving ideas that could work an might spark something that the devs had thought of before an chose to not do for some reason. Honestly when you develop anything you normally have quite afew ideas an concepts ont he table, and then sort thru them till you find what works the best, this is the same thing I was hoping to get a large amount of ideas that could be looked at an used as fodder by a dev to get some inspiration/
I quite liked the idea of the Nukara rep might have something like a shard cannon, which launches a large crystal shard at a target. The effect of the shard on impact would differ based on if if it hit a target with it's shields up, or if it hit bare-hull. Such as when it hits a target with it's shields up it splinters an sends shards of crystals out doing a mini-aoe from the main target, while if it hits bare-hull it might either do a large hit of kinetic damage or a light to medium amount of damage an slow the debuff the target in some way maybe like a stacking slow.
So what kind of requests, or ideas do people have for some experimental weapons they could add to those reps that do not have them yet?
Does every rep need one? I mean honestly since they launched experimental weapons only one rep has had one and that was the first rep that launched after experimental weapons.
No, every rep doesn't need one. Every rep also doesn't need a warp core or whatever. Sameness is boring.
My primary concern with the T6 rep is how much has to be invested per character to level it up.
I'm expecting a lot of XP for this additional Tier, to make it as prolonged as possible.
I don't think it will happen, but I would hope if one character completes the T6 climb, then a megasponsorship token can be created to make it really fast for every other character on the account.
If they all have to complete the Rep T6 climb at the current unsponsored or sponsored rate, then I'm going to be very selective about which ones I progress and for which characters.
In terms of queues, I don't like doing the quick/easy ones because they don't grant the gear token.
A queue that awards marks and no token just means I have to grind extra marks to convert to a gear token because I wasn't able to get any while advancing the Reputation.
Since I'm already having to spend the marks to get the gear and sponsor other characters, I am not doing conversion as a side project.
That's why I think universal choice reward boxes have to go away, so players have to play the queues that grant the gear token and not avoid them.
There have been days where I've waited 1 hour for a token queue to launch and just gave up in the end because it was always at 1-2 players and never launching.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Im just hoping that you don't unlock level 6 only by unlocking it in a discovery toon first. Like with the new R&D with the Dominion Toon. My guess is levels 5 & 6 will have a Space/Ground unlock. so each rep will have a ground and space unlock.
That's why I think universal choice reward boxes have to go away, so players have to play the queues that grant the gear token and not avoid them.
There have been days where I've waited 1 hour for a token queue to launch and just gave up in the end because it was always at 1-2 players and never launching.
That would actually require removing the token conversion project, too. Which they totally should.
Alas, as things stand waiting for a "token queue" is a waste of time (except Swarm and maybe ISA). You should think of the tokens as just another 100 marks and rather do something to get marks with the least hassle instead of hitting your head into a wall trying to get a token directly.
Im just hoping that you don't unlock level 6 only by unlocking it in a discovery toon first. Like with the new R&D with the Dominion Toon.
I hope they don't take this step as well.
I'm not bothered by the inclusion of Discovery content, but I'm still not interested in making another character just for the sake of unlocking some benefit system tied exclusively to that subgroup.
Heck, the only reason I am working on Gamma Recruit was because I was going to make a Dominion Captain without being encouraged to do so.
If I choose not to make a specific character, then nothing can change that decision.
You should think of the tokens as just another 100 marks and rather do something to get marks with the least hassle instead of hitting your head into a wall trying to get a token directly.
I'm uncertain how much extra work is involved in getting the extra tokens required for a gear project.
Once I've acquired the daily box, the earning drops off rapidly unless it's for something like Omega marks, which has more queues to visit.
And it's not just one token, often it's 5, sometimes 10.
Resulting in 500-1000 marks if I were to go after the tokens via conversion.
Currently, the Voth tokens are the only ones I know how to acquire directly with ease, I just have to go after the V.Rex enough times and I've got what I need.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Comments
Whilst I don't necessarily agree with everything being made too easy, queue efforts/rewards normalization is definitely a good start. Otherwise players are just invited to take the easiest route, always. And it is, indeed, the responsibility of the Devs to prevent that.
I would argue the only reason the older sets like the Borg set didn't have warp cores is because warp cores didn't exist back then. They could add warp cores and still do some original stuff on top of it I would argue.
Perhaps "pigeonholed" would have been a better word but the overall result is the same in that you don't want players to feel like they're being pigeonholed or forced into content they have no interest of playing. I'm not sure how familiar you are with World of Warcraft, but in the last 2 expacs they've basically pigeonholed you into leveling a garrison or a class hall type of thing. If you didn't do so you fell radically behind. It was a long boring slog that added nothing of value to the game in either case and got to the point that if you wanted to stay competitive or up to date you basically had to grind those class halls like a full time job and it sucked the fun out of the game. Something like that is the last thing I would ever want to hit STO. Point being, you can still have rules and goals without making it seem like slog and pigeonholing people.
Like I pointed out prior, the question of "why would I ever go there" is not being adequately answered for some of these queues. Why would I ever go to queue X when I can run queues A B C, and get more reward in the time it would me to run queue X? Point being many of the queues today are not played because the effort and time required, along with possible frustrations, do not justify the reward given. UAA gives close to 300+ marks when you complete everything and do the objectives. Thus the reward is worth the time and effort required. Take something like Dranuur Gauntlet where if even one generator falls for whatever reason, or you miss an objective, all of your effort is wasted and you get less than 35 marks on average. Gravity Kills is another prime example. It's simply not worth the effort most of the time. The problem isn't strictly the queues themselves as much as it is the reward structure behind them. Personally I'm not a fan of the nukara ground maps. If tomorrow it were made the only way to get nukara marks, then that would just mean one less rep I would be worrying about on my toons because I'm not running those maps.
Simply restricting rewards is not going to revitalize those dead queues, all it's going to do is guarantee they don't get played and that those specific reps never get maxed. If you're going to revive those queues you need to make sure the effort required and reward are worth it and right now they're typically not. You fix the reward structure and the queues will fill themselves back up again.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
I've never played WoW, but it sounds like they do a better job giving players reason to do things. Mechanics that reward gameplay in a meaningful and important way and leaves you objectively better off for having done things. Game progress meaning the player becomes capable of doing things they weren't before. As opposed to leveling up things like specializations, reps or fleet holdings in STO, which are mostly just for show and really aren't necessary for anything.
How long things should take to do is of course a matter of opinion. IMO the most boring condition in a game is having run out of (meaningful) things to do, not having too much or too long objectives.
That question is not being answered at all by most of the queues (or indeed most of other content, either). That's what I've been saying. They should reward something unique, it should not come down to players doing math counting how much dilithium-equivalent they can get from each content.
Balancing the numbers would be good, but it's simply impossible to incentivize dozens of queues and uncountable number of other content if they all give the same rewards. Something will always be the best even if slightly, and everyone playing that same thing forms a positive feedback loop, making it better (from shorter queue wait, if nothing else) even if the numbers were fairly close to begin with.
If that were the case (which I'm not at all convinced of), it would be because those reps are themselves too meaningless. An ever-increasing load of equal options, some more equal than others but all of them equally unneeded for anything. They too fail the "why would anyone do this" -question. If the only reason for leveling a rep is "because I got the marks for free doing something else," there's something wrong with the rep.
Which brings us back to your WoW example being a better mechanic. If leveling up a system makes players capable of things they weren't before, they have reason to level it up. A reason to play the game. If they're already capable of doing everything to begin with, they have no reason to actually do anything.
Admittedly, t-6 would be a great time to experiment, as well. Concept art weapons and weapons that we wouldn't normally get. Remember the cool Grenade launcher from Perpetual's concept art? Borg arm weapons that actually cover your arms, like the undine hand cannon. Themed combat pets would be nice, assimilated exocomp Drones, a mini Voth dinosaur with "FRIKKIN' LASER BEAMS!!! Themed small craft would be a cool addition as well, so long as they were different enough from the current ones. Maybe add in the ability to summon them for an attack in both space AND ground, Ground working like orbital strike, space like a fighter summon.
Anything Borg related would be great, for me personally, but there are already a lot of great things IN the sets that it would be great to get them added to the other reps, as well. There is a LOT of potential to adding a new tier to the rep system, i just hope that they get creative with it, rather than just coping out and adding some bit of gear that gets tossed into the bank as soon as it's unlocked.
It added grind for the sake of having grind. In the last expansion of Legion that just wrapped up they had what was known as an Artifact Weapon. This weapon leveled with you and had a very powerful ability tied to it that many of the class specs needed and in 99% of all cases that weapon ended up being your best in slot. You had 3 slots to modify the weapon to better tailor it to your playstyle. The weapon came with 2 unlocked. The class halls were stated to be optional content, yet they tied that 3rd mod slot to the class halls and severely limited your ability to generate artifact power to level the weapon if you didn't level the class hall. without that 3rd slot you were hamstrung big time. So they stated it was optional content, yet severely hamstrung you if you didn't do it. Thus it added nothing of value to the game and just artificially slowed you down for the sake of adding grind.
In STO you can survive without that 5th trait slot and 40 days (no sponsorship) isn't that long of a time to max out a rep. With this artifact stuff, if you didn't level the class hall, it would have taken literal years to unlock everything. Pretty much you did it or got locked out of virtually everything else. Pretty much it was grind for the sake of adding grind. Restricting things in the manor you're stating would essentially add grind for the sake of having grind. I don't think folks mind some bit of grind or we wouldn't be playing MMOs like this one, but folks do expect reasonable reward for their grind.
The problem with that line of logic is that's exactly how most people are going to think, for better or worse. They're going to look at it and count up how much reward a queue is going to give them compared to how much grind is going to be needed. Like it or not that's how most folks in game are going to look at queues is which one gives the most reward for the least amount of effort. If they can do 3 smaller queues and get the same or more reward than doing 1 larger and longer queue, then why would they ever go to the larger queue? I'm glad we can at least agree that the reward structure needs to be looked at even if we may disagree on methods.
As for balancing, ideally a queue that takes more time and more effort is always going to reward more than a queue that doesn't take as long and requires less effort. This would mean something like a Fleet Alert wouldn't reward nearly as much as something like a Starbase Fleet Defense. Reason being the fleet defense takes more time and effort than the fleet alert does. If the rewards were better normalized the problem of dead queues would fix themselves. Generally one of the longer queues you can still get a pug for is UAA. Reason being UAA when you complete all objectives rewards a huge amount of marks. If the longer and larger queues took direction from UAA as inspiration then those queues would get played more often.
Continuing with the Romulan rep as one example. The reason the Romulan rep stalled out so hard was due to the fact there weren't that many ways back then to get Romulan marks. Once folks did the all of 2 queues, that was it, you had nothing else you could do to get the marks. so it wasn't that folks didn't want to run the queues, it was that there wasn't anything else hardly for them to run. Thus just one reason why Romulan marks were added to the choice packs. If what you're proposing were done it would only artificially slow folks down. Many folks would only grind two or 3 reps at a time and let the other ones go, thus still leaving dead queues.
With the WoW example the thing I don't believe I adequately drove home is that it basically took abilities that you would normally have gotten anyways, put them on a weapon along with other things you would normally have already, and locked them behind a wall to force you to grind for it. Thus again you want it to feel like you've progressed, but you don't want it to feel like a second job either.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
It's a good reward for gameplay. A good reason to play. I would definitely wish STO did the same. If nobody needs a particular feature for anything, there is no point having that feature in the first place.
And that's exactly how it should be. The rewards you get for completing things makes it possible to do new things.
For better, of course. But only if the developers enable them to. The queues should give different rewards, so that it wouldn't be possible to do something else to get the same rewards.
No, it wouldn't. There are too many queues to run on just dilithium-equivalent. STO's 30min cooldowns wouldn't stretch to half the queues even if they were all as fast as CCA. Of the timed 15-minute queues it would only cover two. For that matter, Admiralty gives out so much dil these days that people just don't have to play much of anything at all to hit the refining cap anymore. Even CCA has a wait time now.
Oh, and the 300 marks you've quoted for UAA as "a huge amount"...will match CCA only if the average run length is less than 3 minutes.
Romulan rep stalled? News for me. Rom marks were everywhere from the start. I myself got all my rom marks from epohhs. Never stalled anywhere. I had like 30k spare marks on multiple toons at one point. And who's to say players should be doing everything all at once in the first place?
Yes, you have. But perhaps I haven't adequately drove home my opinion that that's exactly as things should be done. Important things should be given as rewards for playing. If people already have everything anyway, there is nothing left to reward gameplay with. And therefore no reason to play.
I always though expanding the endeavor system into the rep quest system, where each would out missions to go into specific ques, do certain things in a given area, or what have you that on completion would give you a box that has a variety of rewards
of various kinds an styles could give more reason to go into the other ques. Adding to the line up of rewards you could get out of these rep-boxes could keep them relevant as well, while having it that getting to tier six rep might open this up for you to get the mission.
* Core Assault has that last room where players are allowed to attack eachother, but it doesn't count for anything.
EDIT: And speaking of mythbusting, the Endeavor system proved quite conclusively STO playerbase will happily do PvP if/when there is a reward for it.
On top of that:-
Vanity shields/engines/deflector - For when you want the effect, but don't want to spend huge amounts of dilithium and marks.
Costume unlocks
Cruiser command ability consoles - Since cruisers so far are the only ship not to have a special piece of equipment.
Admiralty card
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
To be honest...it's kinda fair how it it...Science ships get both, but they're easily the weakest of the three archtypes, Tactical ships get the experimental weapon but no special abilty, and Cruisers get the special ability but no special equipment.
I would love to see them give cruisers a gear slot that would be called something like command array, and which would give you some modifications to your cruiser's auras that might be interesting to see done. Though how you would do for such a gear item for cruisers in a rep would be harder to figure.
Did a quick check on the WIKI, and applied some "hazy memory" here to get the following "trends":
"For the most part", every cruiser/battlecruiser/dreadnought/flight deck carrier has a specific (sub)set of commands that apply to all ships of that class, and the reasoning behind the battlecruisers/dreadnoughts having less than all 4 to begin with was because the battlecruisers / dreadnoughts / FDCs already have "extra abilities" that the baseline cruisers don't, whether it's mounting cannons (Battlecruisers) and having stats to support them, or the hanger and possible BFG of the FDCs and Dreadnoughts.
The "exceptions" to this are a couple of Temporal Cruisers (the straight-up cruiser and battlecruiser both lose a command because of the Temporal Molecular Deconstruction Mechanic, I'd think the Temporal Dreadnought was in line to lose a power too but only having 2 to begin with makes it hard to lose a power) and the Intel ship (loses 2 commands but has the intel mechanics like expose vulnerability and enhanced stealth/cloaking).
But the other half of the cruiser command thing was to give the captains a mechanic that required some thought - which of the available commands would support your team best at a give time with the intent for the active command to be changed periodically throughout the mission, and having a console which boosts only 1 of the available (sub)set runs somewhat counter to that mindset (activate the boosted command and run it all mission)
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]
Well i don't think that is an issue, as if you look at it that you are making a cruiser-specific item that would be similar in design to the secondary deflector of the science ships, and the experimental weapon of the escorts it is not about the sub-system targeting. The secondary deflector buffs specific types of science abilities an even some engineering abilities, so something that could have some aspect of giving different buffs to different abilities based on the aura you use might be nice.
Taking the idea of how the secondary deflector buffs a specific type of abilities, and then modifying it to how it might work in a cruiser-item, You could have it that the cruiser-array might modify your command auras to influence how cc-works based on the aura active. While a tactical one might give different buffs based on if you have the weapon aura up it might give the group a buff to damage against enemies that are being focused on, while the speed might buff the weapon firing rate, and the shield aura could give the group a stacking buff to shield resist against a given energy/weapon type.
> So what kind of requests, or ideas do people have for some experimental weapons they could add to those reps that do not have them yet?
Do we have anything like a rapid fire cannon, I know we have experimental cannons but I’m not sure if any fire rapid burst a bit like the tempest tail gun.
Or even something that works a bit like the tr1b ground weapon that transports a projectile pass shields
Don't think so, though the tempest I think would be the closest example of such a weapon. Though i could see something like a rapid fire proton turret type experimental weapon for the dyson rep.
I actually like the idea of a experimental borg-like weapon for the omega rep that when fired does either no damage, or a small amount of plasma or radiation damage, but the main use is that it reduces the amount of kinetic damage that a shield reduces, or merely increases the damage taken or the damage bypass of the shield of a ship.
> jordan3550 wrote: »
>
> > @asuran14 said:
> > So what kind of requests, or ideas do people have for some experimental weapons they could add to those reps that do not have them yet?
>
> Do we have anything like a rapid fire cannon, I know we have experimental cannons but I’m not sure if any fire rapid burst a bit like the tempest tail gun.
>
> Or even something that works a bit like the tr1b ground weapon that transports a projectile pass shields
>
>
>
>
> Don't think so, though the tempest I think would be the closest example of such a weapon. Though i could see something like a rapid fire proton turret type experimental weapon for the dyson rep.
>
> I actually like the idea of a experimental borg-like weapon for the omega rep that when fired does either no damage, or a small amount of plasma or radiation damage, but the main use is that it reduces the amount of kinetic damage that a shield reduces, or merely increases the damage taken or the damage bypass of the shield of a ship.
I did think about the omega rep something like the shield neutraliser an experimental weapon with some plasma/radiation damage. I do like your idea with the proton aswell. I’ve always wanted the proton weapons to be a new type of energy weapon. Maybe one day
Does every rep need one? I mean honestly since they launched experimental weapons only one rep has had one and that was the first rep that launched after experimental weapons.
It's somewhat similar, but how about a point defense turret? Short range(?), rapid firing, high accuracy against destructible mines and torps, boarding parties, small craft.
#PleaseDon'tEatMeEditMonster
Depends on how they work the experimental weapon, if they give them some rep-linked mechanics or gimmicks that enhance or alter gameplay, than yeah I would say some or many of them should have experimental. Though making suggestions for experimental weapons that could fit into the reps does not mean we want all of them to, but giving ideas that could work an might spark something that the devs had thought of before an chose to not do for some reason. Honestly when you develop anything you normally have quite afew ideas an concepts ont he table, and then sort thru them till you find what works the best, this is the same thing I was hoping to get a large amount of ideas that could be looked at an used as fodder by a dev to get some inspiration/
I quite liked the idea of the Nukara rep might have something like a shard cannon, which launches a large crystal shard at a target. The effect of the shard on impact would differ based on if if it hit a target with it's shields up, or if it hit bare-hull. Such as when it hits a target with it's shields up it splinters an sends shards of crystals out doing a mini-aoe from the main target, while if it hits bare-hull it might either do a large hit of kinetic damage or a light to medium amount of damage an slow the debuff the target in some way maybe like a stacking slow.
I'm expecting a lot of XP for this additional Tier, to make it as prolonged as possible.
I don't think it will happen, but I would hope if one character completes the T6 climb, then a megasponsorship token can be created to make it really fast for every other character on the account.
If they all have to complete the Rep T6 climb at the current unsponsored or sponsored rate, then I'm going to be very selective about which ones I progress and for which characters.
In terms of queues, I don't like doing the quick/easy ones because they don't grant the gear token.
A queue that awards marks and no token just means I have to grind extra marks to convert to a gear token because I wasn't able to get any while advancing the Reputation.
Since I'm already having to spend the marks to get the gear and sponsor other characters, I am not doing conversion as a side project.
That's why I think universal choice reward boxes have to go away, so players have to play the queues that grant the gear token and not avoid them.
There have been days where I've waited 1 hour for a token queue to launch and just gave up in the end because it was always at 1-2 players and never launching.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
Alas, as things stand waiting for a "token queue" is a waste of time (except Swarm and maybe ISA). You should think of the tokens as just another 100 marks and rather do something to get marks with the least hassle instead of hitting your head into a wall trying to get a token directly.
I hope they don't take this step as well.
I'm not bothered by the inclusion of Discovery content, but I'm still not interested in making another character just for the sake of unlocking some benefit system tied exclusively to that subgroup.
Heck, the only reason I am working on Gamma Recruit was because I was going to make a Dominion Captain without being encouraged to do so.
If I choose not to make a specific character, then nothing can change that decision.
I'm uncertain how much extra work is involved in getting the extra tokens required for a gear project.
Once I've acquired the daily box, the earning drops off rapidly unless it's for something like Omega marks, which has more queues to visit.
And it's not just one token, often it's 5, sometimes 10.
Resulting in 500-1000 marks if I were to go after the tokens via conversion.
Currently, the Voth tokens are the only ones I know how to acquire directly with ease, I just have to go after the V.Rex enough times and I've got what I need.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
It could, for example, make sense as a new Anti-Borg weapon and as a speciality torpedo launcher in the Borg Reputation, or as experimental weaon.