For some sort of visual representation of your potential dps, you would need a graph like this, where the goal would be to push the curve to right as much as possible. This give instant feedback on what everything does.
Assuming that DPS is your goal...
That's the problem - so many people in this thread assume exactly that. That's why they want the game to give you their ship-builds, and to teach you how to build their ships in the future, because my builds (for example) are perfectly survivable for all the storyline content in the game, but they don't push the DPS envelope. All they do is kill my enemies, which apparently isn't sufficient for some folks.
It's sufficient for me, though most of the DPS people would laugh at my output. But it does what I want to do, which is kill enemies and not blow up in the process.
Now a LTS and loving it.
Just because you spend money on this game, it does not entitle you to be a jerk if things don't go your way.
I have come to the conclusion that I have a memory like Etch-A-Sketch. I shake my head and forget everything.
BTW....I should mention... I finally put together something the other day: Expose and Exploit ON GROUND.
Yes, I been told there is "expose" and "exploit" on ground weapons and attacks...it may have even been mentioned during the tutorial. But the part that never got connected was this line that I just read two days ago on the STO Ground Wiki article:
A target must first be exposed before an exploit attack can be performed.
This entire paragraph is the most useful piece of info I have learned for playing GROUND in STO...and, most likely, applies to any modern MMO video game (which I had absolutely no experience with until I started playing STO). I am assuming for most people who regularly play MMOs or video games know this already and it is second nature....and forget to tell new players.
"A target must first be exposed before an exploit attack can be performed. Exposed targets take a minimum of 200% more damage from exploit attacks, there are traits that can increase this bonus percentage. Exploit attacks consume the expose placed on a target and can only be consumed by one attack from one person. The exploit attack function will flicker with a gold ring when a nearby target is exposed. The game supports the ability to bind a button to target any exposed targets, it is bound to the G key by default."
There is a need for a glossary easily accessible some where in this game.
Include things like this bit of info:
"Control" Effects on Ground = Hold, Stun, Disable, Root, Slow, Placate, Confuse, Knockback and Repel.
Players need to be able to look up each individual effect, too. Like: what are the Placates, what are the Repels.
This is what I mean about things not being connected together...yeah, we know there are control effects on ground and space...but which ones are they? Which skill applies to which abilities to make them greater??? We used to be able to look at that in the previous incarnation of the skill tree.
I was looking for KB3. I hunted around and finally found what I was looking for in the Wiki, in all places, under an obsolete skill called WILLPOWER. Willpower is now just a clickable at the bottom bar paired up with Device Expertise.
(I stopped looking once I found this, so not sure if it is in an updated format on another page)
Willpower
Captain
Resist Ground Control Effects
This skill improves your resistance to control effects on the ground. The more points you spend in this skill, the more you will increase your resistance to Hold, Stun, Disable, Root, Slow, Placate, Confuse, Knock and Repel.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
There is a need for a glossary easily accessible some where in this game.
This would be a great reason to re-introduce Memory Alpha, wouldn't it?
Not a place to travel to...more like a button you click on the mini map or stats page and BAM...glossary pops up. Hmm....might even be useful to have access to that when in the Exchange, too....we got a TRIBBLE ton of kit modules and modifiers....etc..etc..etc....
(I am only here because I want to write this very complicated e-mail with a ton of links in it...and I am trying to avoid it.)
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
The game could teach almost all the systems better but please don't resort to mandatory hand holding for doing so! perhaps add a series of written tutorials which can be easily shut off or turned back on at will.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Take the "Normal" STF runs, and slot them in at lower levels. STF's on 'normal' used to be available at level 45
Unlocking all the difficulties at once was what killed Normal difficulty, and makes the time between lvl 40 and lvl 50 the most hated in all the levelling (and I do enjoy levelling a lot). Furthermore, I remember great fun in Starbase Fleet Defense when it wasn't a lvl 50+ queue, and actually popped. Nowadays, when I play a below-50-KDF in the only Kamarag available to them (T3) and want to earn some fleet marks to help my fleet to make the Fleet-Kamarag available, I'm queued for hours and out of the ship without playing one Fleet Alert (I know, the KDF-player drought plays a role in this, too).
Edit: I apologize, I've gone off topic, too...
Post edited by pork77 on
... and of course, I'd love to have a T5/6 Kamarag, like there is a T5/6 Ambassador.
I vote for teaching keybinds, or just implement autofire on our boff abilities like our weapons, right click to autofire
Instead of teaching key bindings, why not just bake into the game the ability to craft your own attack patterns, which in effect are just a single icon press, grouping of other actions.
Expanding on an idea up thread about set bonuses, maybe have something that not only shows which sets you have the parts for, but which shows all sets in a given category (e.g. damage boosting, heal boosting, console sets, weapon/weapon console sets, etc.)
Have toggleable options to gray out sets you are missing part OR all of and a 'show all' option. When you click on a set, highlight the items you have and gray out those you don't.
All in all, make gear sets and set bonuses easier to find, acquire, and assess.
For some sort of visual representation of your potential dps, you would need a graph like this, where the goal would be to push the curve to right as much as possible. This give instant feedback on what everything does.
Assuming that DPS is your goal...
That's the problem - so many people in this thread assume exactly that. That's why they want the game to give you their ship-builds, and to teach you how to build their ships in the future, because my builds (for example) are perfectly survivable for all the storyline content in the game, but they don't push the DPS envelope. All they do is kill my enemies, which apparently isn't sufficient for some folks.
My builds are also survivable, but I really don’t put any thought ordering of the weapons in the slots or anything beyond slotting actions and traits bar. And then try to keep all my actions running. Yeah I know it’s the most inefficient way of running, but I am not spending a lot of time optimizing my builds.
I vote for teaching keybinds, or just implement autofire on our boff abilities like our weapons, right click to autofire
'Teaching keybinds' is trickier than you may think. For one, because the game is essentially horridly broken in this respect: it lets you press keys/activate abilities that interrupt you're firing cycle. You may not visually notice it, but every time you activate an ability, there's a short 'full-stop' period on your weapons (this, btw, is actually what 'global' is, as opposed to the far more commonly used definition of 'brought back to its shortest cd'). And then there's timing an ability properly, in terms of not activating it mid-cycle (so you lose half its effectiveness). Etc.
Teaching stuff like that may prove to be beyond the scope of a (beginners-) tutorial.
at least tie to the tooltips what effects the equipment.. hover over a phaser beam array, and the tooltip shows the dps and all, but shift over lists consoles and traits that enhance the DPS. if you hover over, say an armor console, or the martok defense console, it lists traits that boost THAT.
I have to agree, ship loadouts are something that does need to be explained better. I can't tell you how many times I'd do Queues and people are firing beams/cannons in rainbow colors, and how other players are dropping games because of "noobs" rather then trying to help them.
Those rainbow firing ships seem to really TRIBBLE off more experienced players...
I have to agree, ship loadouts are something that does need to be explained better. I can't tell you how many times I'd do Queues and people are firing beams/cannons in rainbow colors, and how other players are dropping games because of "noobs" rather then trying to help them.
Those rainbow firing ships seem to really **** off more experienced players...
Wow, they're going to hate when I start doing these random TFOs...
'Teaching keybinds' is trickier than you may think. For one, because the game is essentially horridly broken in this respect: it lets you press keys/activate abilities that interrupt you're firing cycle. You may not visually notice it, but every time you activate an ability, there's a short 'full-stop' period on your weapons (this, btw, is actually what 'global' is, as opposed to the far more commonly used definition of 'brought back to its shortest cd').
This isn't actually quite right. What actually happens is that when you manually activate any ability, autofire is temporarily suspended for a brief period. Since weapons are not normally fired manually and you simply rely on autofire to activate your weapons for you, this is what causes weapons fire to cease anytime you activate an ability. It is possible to force the issue by firing the weapon manually, but then you've activated an ability, so...
Yeah, that's just not true.
It's not a matter autofire - it's absolutely every ability activation that gets postponed by a small amount of time, that's including weapons. Manual activation only "seemingly" force the issue because your action of "mouse over to weapon, click on it" is slow, thus the global CD can expire before your manual activation.
STO has a ton of systems in the game, and we're looking to revitalize how we teach them to you. What do you think would be the most important part of STO to teach to a new player, that we don't currently show off well?
I'm talking about the kind of things that you need to know to succeed in the game, but players generally find out by, say, coming here rather than learning organically through gameplay.
Most everything in this game is intuitive. Ship builds seem to be what everyone is talking in this conversation, but in reality, I haven't once played an MMO that said in game, "if you want to tank, then this is what you need". This is what community websites are for, something that STO is seriously lacking. The fact is most ship builds will get you through all the content in STO, including STFs, which only require a group of cookie cutter DPS builds. Ineffective, sure; doable, absolutely.
Sure, I agree that stock ships should not come decked out in every weapon type that fits the ship. I think that cruisers should come equipped with beams and torps; tactical should have cannons, a single rear turret, and torps; and science ships should come with beams and torps as well. The only exception to this would be hybrid ships that can fit cannons over beams, in which case I would have them with stock cannons over beams. In all cases, the consoles should fit the class of ship and the "build" that the stock ship comes with. The only reason, I don't support making a beam boat out of cruiser simply because that's the best thing to do, is because it simply isn't canon, that's it. I have yet to watch an episode of any Star Trek in which the ship was just a bouncing baby of beams. Give new players and ships a build that makes sense for the type of ship they are selecting, that's it. It's for them to decide to make it a beam boat, a hull or shield tank, or any other of a thousand combinations of play that a player can come up with. Let players play through the content and the story, they'll figure out what works best for them or search the forums and websites for that perfect cookie cutter build. No one wants to be told what they have to do in a game that they are told:
"Your Missions, Your Way
As a Captain, build your avatar, bridge crew, and starships for a completely personalized Star Trek experience."
Says so right on the home of the website.
IMO, it's less about what you tell players and more about the mechanics of the existing systems. I'll not hijack the topic with that, since it was not asked about.
“In the strict scientific sense we all feed on death…..even vegetarians.” – Spock
'Teaching keybinds' is trickier than you may think. For one, because the game is essentially horridly broken in this respect: it lets you press keys/activate abilities that interrupt you're firing cycle. You may not visually notice it, but every time you activate an ability, there's a short 'full-stop' period on your weapons (this, btw, is actually what 'global' is, as opposed to the far more commonly used definition of 'brought back to its shortest cd').
This isn't actually quite right. What actually happens is that when you manually activate any ability, autofire is temporarily suspended for a brief period. Since weapons are not normally fired manually and you simply rely on autofire to activate your weapons for you, this is what causes weapons fire to cease anytime you activate an ability. It is possible to force the issue by firing the weapon manually, but then you've activated an ability, so...
Yeah, it's not really about auto-firing per se, but about the brief, global lock-out period on everything, including your weps, when you activate an ability (that's really why it's called 'global'). In programming, you'd call such an 'indivisible' or uninterruptible event 'atomic.'
It's rather deceptive, as the firing visuals don't reflect this brief interruption, but it's definitely there, and harming one's DPS every time you activate an ability at an inopportune moment (but sometimes you kinda have to, of course).
Let the powers that be correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is how it works.
Yeah, it's not really about auto-firing per se, but about the brief, global lock-out period on everything, including your weps, when you activate an ability (that's really why it's called 'global'). In programming, you'd call such an 'indivisible' or uninterruptible event 'atomic.'
It's rather deceptive, as the firing visuals don't reflect this brief interruption, but it's definitely there, and harming one's DPS every time you activate an ability at an inopportune moment (but sometimes you kinda have to, of course).
I am looking at this firing cycle interruption thing...
I need more data, so I will continue observing at this time. But from what I seen in the preliminary run at it, it is most noticeable, if you are using all of the same weapons, as in have the exact same firing cycle.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
I have to agree, ship loadouts are something that does need to be explained better. I can't tell you how many times I'd do Queues and people are firing beams/cannons in rainbow colors, and how other players are dropping games because of "noobs" rather then trying to help them.
Those rainbow firing ships seem to really **** off more experienced players...
the funny thing is that you can have several colors of beams, and all be the same. the quantum phase is blue, the tos phasers are a different blue, phasers are orange, ap are read but the herald ap is dark blue.. can't go by rainbow anymore
Wow, they're going to hate when I start doing these random TFOs...
I thought about making a character just for the most optimized rainbow ship (and ground weapons) build I could find (or just use chroniton beams) and call them skittles, with the battle cry, "TASTE THE RAINBOW!!"
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
How to claim Romulan tier 5 reputation. It's not even close to intuitive. As a fleet leader I had to walk people through how to claim it many dozens of times. It shouldn't be so confusing to new people. Seriously.
Dunno what you said, but if got commented out, it must have been rather insightful (or have hit a nerve; or have been insightful *because* it hit a nerve).
Dunno what you said, but if got commented out, it must have been rather insightful (or have hit a nerve; or have been insightful *because* it hit a nerve).
I don't even remember what I said. It's funny, I never intentionally try to touch a nerve but apparently it happens sometimes and I'm always surprised when I find out that I did.
Dunno what you said, but if got commented out, it must have been rather insightful (or have hit a nerve; or have been insightful *because* it hit a nerve).
You can loosen the tinfoil hat - he replied to a comment that was removed, and it's standard practice to remove all references to those posts in order to prevent flame wars from starting (again). Nothing more, nothing less.
Ship load outs need to be explained better? What is there to explain?
PLAY the way you want to play.
Again, the incorrect assumption that wanting to help new players = telling them how they have to play.
Can we seriously get over this?
No one is trying to tell people how to play, we're talking about giving them the information that they need to decide how they want to play and have that play style actually be rewarding.
The game currently doesn't do this.. it tells you almost nothing about how weapons work, how they synergize with abilities, how they work with each other.. etc.
Every time someone suggests that the do a better job teaching people how to build a ship someone assumes that means dictating to people how they have to play. It's never been true, players should always decide for themselves. We simply want to make them stop guessing and allow their decision to be an informed one.
It's honestly amazing that some people actually oppose this. Of course, they're not the ones that spend all day answering questions on the forums from players who are getting one shotted in story missions.
Comments
It's sufficient for me, though most of the DPS people would laugh at my output. But it does what I want to do, which is kill enemies and not blow up in the process.
Yes, I been told there is "expose" and "exploit" on ground weapons and attacks...it may have even been mentioned during the tutorial. But the part that never got connected was this line that I just read two days ago on the STO Ground Wiki article:
A target must first be exposed before an exploit attack can be performed.
This entire paragraph is the most useful piece of info I have learned for playing GROUND in STO...and, most likely, applies to any modern MMO video game (which I had absolutely no experience with until I started playing STO). I am assuming for most people who regularly play MMOs or video games know this already and it is second nature....and forget to tell new players.
Entire article is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/STOGround/wiki/exploit_expose
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Include things like this bit of info:
"Control" Effects on Ground = Hold, Stun, Disable, Root, Slow, Placate, Confuse, Knockback and Repel.
Players need to be able to look up each individual effect, too. Like: what are the Placates, what are the Repels.
This is what I mean about things not being connected together...yeah, we know there are control effects on ground and space...but which ones are they? Which skill applies to which abilities to make them greater??? We used to be able to look at that in the previous incarnation of the skill tree.
I was looking for KB3. I hunted around and finally found what I was looking for in the Wiki, in all places, under an obsolete skill called WILLPOWER. Willpower is now just a clickable at the bottom bar paired up with Device Expertise.
(I stopped looking once I found this, so not sure if it is in an updated format on another page)
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Not a place to travel to...more like a button you click on the mini map or stats page and BAM...glossary pops up. Hmm....might even be useful to have access to that when in the Exchange, too....we got a TRIBBLE ton of kit modules and modifiers....etc..etc..etc....
(I am only here because I want to write this very complicated e-mail with a ton of links in it...and I am trying to avoid it.)
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Edit: I apologize, I've gone off topic, too...
... and of course, I'd love to have a T5/6 Kamarag, like there is a T5/6 Ambassador.
I vote for teaching keybinds, or just implement autofire on our boff abilities like our weapons, right click to autofire
Instead of teaching key bindings, why not just bake into the game the ability to craft your own attack patterns, which in effect are just a single icon press, grouping of other actions.
Quality of Life Improvements for the Mission Journal
Enhancement for the Duty Office Assignments
Enhancement for Admiralty Missions
Enhancement for Accolades and Reward
Enhancement Bridge Officers
Have toggleable options to gray out sets you are missing part OR all of and a 'show all' option. When you click on a set, highlight the items you have and gray out those you don't.
All in all, make gear sets and set bonuses easier to find, acquire, and assess.
My builds are also survivable, but I really don’t put any thought ordering of the weapons in the slots or anything beyond slotting actions and traits bar. And then try to keep all my actions running. Yeah I know it’s the most inefficient way of running, but I am not spending a lot of time optimizing my builds.
I actually like: But again this needs to be baked into the UI of the game
Quality of Life Improvements for the Mission Journal
Enhancement for the Duty Office Assignments
Enhancement for Admiralty Missions
Enhancement for Accolades and Reward
Enhancement Bridge Officers
'Teaching keybinds' is trickier than you may think. For one, because the game is essentially horridly broken in this respect: it lets you press keys/activate abilities that interrupt you're firing cycle. You may not visually notice it, but every time you activate an ability, there's a short 'full-stop' period on your weapons (this, btw, is actually what 'global' is, as opposed to the far more commonly used definition of 'brought back to its shortest cd'). And then there's timing an ability properly, in terms of not activating it mid-cycle (so you lose half its effectiveness). Etc.
Teaching stuff like that may prove to be beyond the scope of a (beginners-) tutorial.
Those rainbow firing ships seem to really TRIBBLE off more experienced players...
PLAY the way you want to play.
Yeah, that's just not true.
It's not a matter autofire - it's absolutely every ability activation that gets postponed by a small amount of time, that's including weapons. Manual activation only "seemingly" force the issue because your action of "mouse over to weapon, click on it" is slow, thus the global CD can expire before your manual activation.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
Most everything in this game is intuitive. Ship builds seem to be what everyone is talking in this conversation, but in reality, I haven't once played an MMO that said in game, "if you want to tank, then this is what you need". This is what community websites are for, something that STO is seriously lacking. The fact is most ship builds will get you through all the content in STO, including STFs, which only require a group of cookie cutter DPS builds. Ineffective, sure; doable, absolutely.
Sure, I agree that stock ships should not come decked out in every weapon type that fits the ship. I think that cruisers should come equipped with beams and torps; tactical should have cannons, a single rear turret, and torps; and science ships should come with beams and torps as well. The only exception to this would be hybrid ships that can fit cannons over beams, in which case I would have them with stock cannons over beams. In all cases, the consoles should fit the class of ship and the "build" that the stock ship comes with. The only reason, I don't support making a beam boat out of cruiser simply because that's the best thing to do, is because it simply isn't canon, that's it. I have yet to watch an episode of any Star Trek in which the ship was just a bouncing baby of beams. Give new players and ships a build that makes sense for the type of ship they are selecting, that's it. It's for them to decide to make it a beam boat, a hull or shield tank, or any other of a thousand combinations of play that a player can come up with. Let players play through the content and the story, they'll figure out what works best for them or search the forums and websites for that perfect cookie cutter build. No one wants to be told what they have to do in a game that they are told:
"Your Missions, Your Way
As a Captain, build your avatar, bridge crew, and starships for a completely personalized Star Trek experience."
Says so right on the home of the website.
IMO, it's less about what you tell players and more about the mechanics of the existing systems. I'll not hijack the topic with that, since it was not asked about.
Yeah, it's not really about auto-firing per se, but about the brief, global lock-out period on everything, including your weps, when you activate an ability (that's really why it's called 'global'). In programming, you'd call such an 'indivisible' or uninterruptible event 'atomic.'
It's rather deceptive, as the firing visuals don't reflect this brief interruption, but it's definitely there, and harming one's DPS every time you activate an ability at an inopportune moment (but sometimes you kinda have to, of course).
Let the powers that be correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is how it works.
I am looking at this firing cycle interruption thing...
I need more data, so I will continue observing at this time. But from what I seen in the preliminary run at it, it is most noticeable, if you are using all of the same weapons, as in have the exact same firing cycle.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
the funny thing is that you can have several colors of beams, and all be the same. the quantum phase is blue, the tos phasers are a different blue, phasers are orange, ap are read but the herald ap is dark blue.. can't go by rainbow anymore
synergy, for one. like the 2 or 3 sets that enhance your favorite energy type, or how inertia or turn rate can be fixed with RCS consoles
I thought about making a character just for the most optimized rainbow ship (and ground weapons) build I could find (or just use chroniton beams) and call them skittles, with the battle cry, "TASTE THE RAINBOW!!"
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
Dunno what you said, but if got commented out, it must have been rather insightful (or have hit a nerve; or have been insightful *because* it hit a nerve).
I don't even remember what I said.
You can loosen the tinfoil hat - he replied to a comment that was removed, and it's standard practice to remove all references to those posts in order to prevent flame wars from starting (again). Nothing more, nothing less.
Again, the incorrect assumption that wanting to help new players = telling them how they have to play.
Can we seriously get over this?
No one is trying to tell people how to play, we're talking about giving them the information that they need to decide how they want to play and have that play style actually be rewarding.
The game currently doesn't do this.. it tells you almost nothing about how weapons work, how they synergize with abilities, how they work with each other.. etc.
Every time someone suggests that the do a better job teaching people how to build a ship someone assumes that means dictating to people how they have to play. It's never been true, players should always decide for themselves. We simply want to make them stop guessing and allow their decision to be an informed one.
It's honestly amazing that some people actually oppose this. Of course, they're not the ones that spend all day answering questions on the forums from players who are getting one shotted in story missions.