I know that this a very long post, and many do not like reading in-depth stuff like this, but for anyone who is serious about the future of STO I would ask you to read, consider and post your comments to the following ideas about PvP, Death Penalties, and the in-game Economy. I also recognize that these are not quick fixes, and would take time to implement part or all of any of these concepts.
First and foremost, let me state for the record, that I love STO enough that at the end of OB, I got the lifetime sub, so I am not an anti-Dev troll or even someone who dislikes the game.
Second, I have not yet explored everything currently available so if issues I mention have already been addressed, please feel free to correct me, but please refrain from trolling or flaming, this is meant to be a serious discussion, not a flame war.
Third, I am a hardcore trekkie, and have been for over 40 years, I have literally been waiting for a game like this for most of my life, my suggestions within this letter are not simple complaints, but ideas that I believe could benefit STO in the short, mid, and most importantly the long term.
Finally, I have a BA in Game design, the ideas I am suggesting are not simple rants, these are concepts that an educated person has given serious thought into developing.
Like PvP DPs are also sticky subjects. Many players feel that the game feels to easy without them, others say that the game is not fun with them. I would like to propose a compromise and a DP system that is strong, but not overly harsh.
First, since the entire game is instanced, once DPs are created in code, it should be a relatively simple matter upon character creation to check DP on or DP off in a selection box. Of course the box needs to have a clear definition of what a DP is and a warning if the player selects the on box when playing the game, when a player enters a combat instance, (be it PvE or PvP) players would be segregated into DP and no DP instances to prevent unfair combat strategies. If the NZ idea stated earlier was adopted, the NZ Sector Space would have a DP and no DP instance as well to prevent the possibility of a no DP player from challenging a DP player and vice-versa.
Of the players who support the idea of a DP, the overwhelming majority seam to favor the idea that the DP should first be not too unforgiving (after all we all make mistakes) but strong enough so that it makes reckless tactics a very bad idea. Many support the idea that the DP become harsher over time, this concept follows in this idea. When discussing DP the comparison to Eve Online frequently comes up, and almost universally the kind of crushing and unforgiving DP of Eve is not supported.
Ground:
For ground instances, I recommend that if a player is defeated, and no one is around to revive them that they have the option to beam to sickbay the player (and BOs) would be quickly healed by their doctor, and if the player chooses, beamed back down to the starting point of the ground instance. However in the time it took them to do so, the enemies on the ground also had time to heal their wounded and the player would have to start the ground mission from the beginning unless other players stayed on the ground while the wounded player was in sickbay.
Space:
I propose a progressive DP that is based on the players ship. I have noticed that players are not (for the most part anyway) using the option to add letters after the registration number on their starships, this can be used to the advantage of the DP system. When a player gets a new ship, the registry has no letter in it. Letter are added as the player looses their ships after the first loss the player begins to loose equipped items and eventually could loose their ship:
New ship:
1st death no loss of items, -A added to registry
2nd death loss of one random item, -B added to registry
3rd death loss of two random items, -C added to registry
4th death loss of three random items, -D added to registry
5th death loss of all items, -E added to registry
6th death loss of ship and all equipped items, must buy new ship or fly older ship.
If the player is in a light cruiser, they would get a free replacement but still loose all equipped gear.
The smart player would of course repair their ship as soon as possible after they reach -A
This kind of progressive system gives players plenty of warning before they loose valuable ships and equipment. A player could go back to spacedock and pay to have the DP reset at the shipyard on a progressive scale:
-A reset for free
-B reset for 10% cost of ship replacement
-C reset for 25% cost of ship replacement
-D reset for 50% cost of ship replacement
-E reset for 75% cost of ship replacement
With this system a player could avoid risk by simply returning to a shipyard every time they are blown up, but if they do not want the timesink, they can up the ante by continuing to play in a ship after the first loss
With most online games PvP is a tricky subject, some players live for PvP while others absolutely hate it. PvP content falls into two basic categories, arena combat, and persistent world. I will not address arenas as they are already built into STO, however many subs have been complaining about a lack of meaningful persistant combat. On this I have a suggestion that not only could be compelling for an MMO but fits Trek Cannon.
Establish a Sector Space area designated as the Neutral Zone between empires, as more factions are added to the game, more Neutral Zones (NZ) can be added. These areas of sector space need to be large, likely as large as the currant galactic map (only in size) spawn points in the NZ would be random along the border of that faction except in the case of fleets in which they would all Spawn together.
Before any player enters the NZ for the first time they would receive a warning about the dangers within the NZ so that any player wishing to avoid PvP could skip entering that area of Sector Space. Of course players could go around the NZ for exploration purposes, but the NZ would be a large single instance of Sector Space.
Within the NZ, Sector Space would be a simple (but vast) grid. Players could roam around as they see fit, but if they come into close proximity to an enemy player, their warp fields would collapse and they would drop into an instance similar in design to the wandering events. Of course other players could enter the instance as well to lend a hand to their side of the fight. Battles could be one-on-one, fifty-on-fifty, or fifty-on-one depending on the number of players who join the fight. Add a button to the UI allowing for a distress signal to notify other players in the NZ of the battle if the odds are not in your favor to encourage teamwork.
Barring any death penalty changes (see next entry) in a PvP match within the NZ, you could allow a limited number of respawns per ship so that battles do not simply boil down to who can stay at their computer the longest. Once the battle is won, that grid in Sector Space changes color to reflect the winner (I.E. Grey for neutral, Blue for Federation, Red for Klingon, Green for Romulan etc.) until another battle is fought at that location. The loosing team after the battle would respawn in their factions territory just outside the NZ to prevent them from immediately attempting to start a new battle. The entire loosing team would respawn at the same time, so that the first to die cannot rejoin the same battle in progress.
A few planets could be added within the NZ for ground PvP, eventually player owned Starbases could even be added to this concept to defend sections of the NZ captured by their faction.
This kind of persistent PvP could add a whole new level of depth to the game as player factions would have a common goal of taking the entire NZ, if that was accomplished, a reward could be issued to the winning faction such as achievements for taking a grid space, 10 grids, 100 grids etc, and energy/honor points to spend for members of the winning faction.
Economy.
To stimulate a player-driven economy, as well as to stay within Trek cannon, I would suggest the creation of an independent merchant faction. The player could choose any of the major races or alien but they could also choose skills such as the following:
Former Starfleet Officer - +10% bonus when crafting Starfleet gear
Former Klingon Warrior - +10% bonus when crafting KDF Gear
Former Borg - +10% bonus when modifying gear
Miner - +10% resource gathering
Merchants could explore, find rare minerals and craft various items to put up for sale. Their ships can be freighters, miners, and merchant ships that could buy and sell around the entire galaxy. PvE missions for merchants could include running cargo, finding dilythium deposits, or finding lost cargo. Combat would be somewhat limited, but these guys at high level could craft the best gear in the game. Smart merchants might hang around in or near the NZ and sell weapons or shield mods to players looking for an edge, and try to conquer the galaxy through economic means.
Some might find this kind of gameplay boring, however many would do it. And the more you make, the better ships, refining equipment, and presage you can get. Merchants could put their own brand name on their goods, so a new form of torpedo could be named the Archangel MK 1 or whatever they choose, eventually brands could become recognized in the game and people will seek out specific merchants
I was somewhat baffled by the lack of consequences for dying. While your suggestion is well thought out, anything that causes players to lose something they already have won't see the light of day. I'd figure something simple like a reduction in mission rewards for dying and the need to go to a starbase to replace dead crew would suffice.
The ship DP for PVE is pretty inventive. The idea actually puts a health bar on ship losses, when you get close to that last ship loss you start to worry, health bar inside a health bar. That may be a new idea for MMOs
It is not difficult to go through most of PVE in first tier with no lost ships, and that is a good thing, many lost ships would take away from the Idea of space combat. But a DP like you suggest would add a flavor to the game
However in the random encounters it is easy to lose many ships, so might have a different scale for fleet areas, it might really lower the amount of people in places like SB 24. Or it could be the same, and people would just have to work together and be smart about it. Or there could be a compensation in drops in tough areas like that.
I also like your crafting idea, as it being non federation, or retired federation where you could make your Fed character a crafter. It is understandable for it to take them awhile to get crafting in, but using the same templates, the skills for crafters would just be different skills.
Also skills like planet side management to make things for trading could be possible.
And some items that could be crafted is limited quantity torpedoes or beam super charging upgrades. Or shielding/hull bonuses that also have a durability so they have to be replaced as used.
If you want to lose your ship when you die go back and play EVE. I don't mind the idea of having to pay for repairs after you die but losing everything is frustrating after weeks or months of work.
If you really have whatever a BA in game design is, you are probably jobless.
If you make people chose between DP and no DP then about 99.99% of the players will choose no DP, even those that want a DP. Reason being, the people that want a hard DP are for one the griefers that like to kill other people and make them suffer, which they cant do if the people they kill dont suffer on death, and secondly the people that want to play a very competetive game in which they can "better" than other players, and this is not happening if everyone else plays without DP and they play with DP.
The same will happen that happened to Twink PvP in WOW as they enabled an option to separate Twink PvPers (that purely exist to kill other people with equipment they shouldnt have at that level) from normal level PvPers... Twink PvPing died, because the Twink players didnt want to fight between themselves, they wanted to kill players that cant defend themselves, and thus there werent enough players left to PvP at all, so basicly they all went on for normal PvPing.
If there is a choice, there will no one be playing with DP.
The harsh DP for space you mention also does not fit into this game at all. It will destroy group play which also will destroy the whole game in the long run. Someone with a BA in "game design" should easily recognize this.
You really think losing your spaceship will be compatible with the concept of open groups and open group PvP? You will simply separate the server into a hardcore server with maybe 0.0001% of the players and a normal server with the rest of the players, and this is not even slightly worth the development effort to implement it.
The "if you wipe, you have to redo the mission" however is a good idea, this should be implemented also to space. As should be reviving dead players or repairing disabled ships.
That your spaceship gets destroyed that often shouldn't even be in the game. If you "die", your ship should just be disabled and floating around while you can watch the others fight from a free camera until you get repaired by them. The only time your spaceship really explodes should be when the entire team wipes and the mission needs to be redone.
Anyway, this game is totally misdesigned, or probably not designed at all. They have some great programmers, but obviously they didnt have a game designer employed.
To your other idea... yeah fine with me, but really I could name a few hundred features that would make this game better, I just doubt we ever see them in game. There is some stuff that needs serious fixing though, for example the skill tree and the DP / zerging / respawn design.
Crafting idea is good, but as has been said before the crafting system in this game isn't developed because Atari made Cryptic rush the game out the door. But hopefully they look at your post because you have some solid ideas there.
Hate the ship PvE idea. You eventually lose your ship, a nd you lose random items on the way? Sorry, never a fan of losing things like items when you die. That ruins the game experience IMO.
The ground one though isn't that bad. The idea of beaming back to Sickbay and then starting over makes perfect sense.
The idea of an actual open world PvP is always popular, but I think it's not necessary right now. As an example look at World of Warcraft. They put in "Lake Wintergrasp", the open world PvP zone, in the last expansion back in late 2008. That's about 4 years after the game was released. Us players were perfectly content with what they had up to that point. Of course I'm normally not big on PvP but I like it in this game.
And please CHANGE THE TEXT COLOR! Make it orange, easier on the eyes.
your comment about not spliting the two options makes sense, and it fits into idea of having rules.
It is possible that most people would pick DP and non DP would die out. And if you wanted to balance it, since DP players would have a money sink, they could get a percentage bump in selling prices. Something equal to an assumed 1 lost ship every couple levels in pve.
But I would guess there might be a need for alot of code for that.
I don't like the idea of losing items as Death Penalty. Some Death Penalty, like repair fees, would be fine, but losing items is what most of the free MMORPGs do, and it creates a lot of grief and haste amongst players. The reason why I would like some Death Penalty, thus I agree with one, is mainly because people will start thinking tactics more often. They will start asking for support classes more often too, because of they'll want to be healed and buffed to avoid death. Tactical ships might want to have Cruisers to tank for them so they don't blow up that often, etc.
A switch of Death Penatly is also not a good idea, as said, most people will have it off. Couple that with the loss of items idea, and you can be sure most people won't choose to have it on.
Crafting idea is nice but I simply hope that Cryptic will put in some sensible crafting system. Somehow what we have in Memory Alpha doesn't quite satisfy me. Maybe make different professions specialising in ground equipment (ground weapons, kits) and space equipment. Make 2 professions or so for each area. For example, one ground profession makes you craft all manners of ground weaopns, the other ground profession makes you craft all manners of kits and devices like hypos or other special devices. For space you'd have something similar, where you have a prof for weapons and such, another for "ship systems" for consoles, batteries and the like.
You took a lot of time in your proposal which is great, it's people like you that make a community and game grow. Like others said though, try to make any long text readable, avoid writing the entire thing in bold and use a colour that makes it easy.
Hate the ship PvE idea. You eventually lose your ship, a nd you lose random items on the way? Sorry, never a fan of losing things like items when you die. That ruins the game experience IMO.
If you get to 4 or 5 losses, he said you could go and repair to get it back to 0. So if carefull you would never lose your ship without a warning first.
Pentalty would be some cost and time, then added risk of how long to go before paying the 'make ship new' cost.
A player could go back to spacedock and pay to have the DP reset at the shipyard on a progressive scale:
If you want to lose your ship when you die go back and play EVE. I don't mind the idea of having to pay for repairs after you die but losing everything is frustrating after weeks or months of work.
which is exactly why the DP is set up so that if you actualy care about that... it would never happen.
this is not a hardcore game and to expect people to have to replace their ship after so many deaths is just too much, especially with the cost of ships in the game, it's just too much.
Corpse runs and durability issues can be a pain but it's more then we have and would be something better(minus corpse runs, makes no sense).
But durability drops, something where shields can't fully recharge or the hull loses maximum efficiency is a better idea.
This game provide such a mundane feeling, anything that fosters a feeling of really playing in an alternate universe, more of a feeling of accomplishment, with risks and rewards and consequences for actions will go along way at chipping away at the mundane feel of this third-person space shooter. And now the life-timers are getting concerned.
Its always been known that you can level fairly easily in STO without any, zilch, consequence to your game-play style since there is no penalty in this game for dieing. In essence, the game is purposely designed for ease of advancement and you play to 'complete' an event rather than the 'accomplishment', I think.
For me, a sense of 'accomplishment' comes with a sense of game-play challenge of some sort, a sense of community cooperation. There just isnt any sense of entertainment challenge when the game is designed to 'carelessly' play without any risk or reward and we continuoulsy see players doing, what is coined now as "suicide leveling". /shrugs lol Serioulsy. . .suicide leveling is what this game amounts to and rewards; game-play careless 'fire all weapons', 'throw all buffs', kill as many game-controlled objects as you can in as little time, and die while doing it. Because, you will respawn in seconds right near the point of combat again, just to complete your 'even't in the shortest time possible without any game-play consequences to you.
And on top of that, many players I see take this style of game-play that is fostered by Cryptic design into fleet actions/pvp with shields off completely. The object is to also complete the event by killing yourself as quickly as possible and as often as possible in order to complete the event through 'suicide leveling'. Those players are pretty rampant and get as much reward, skill-points, badges, etc. than the players that actually win.
So, yea, this game is designed to easily level in, without any consequences or impactful game-play rationale where death and carelessness is meaningless. The end result, if not addressed asap, is that more people, in addition to the life-timers as this original poster, will continue to become bored to tears with the mind-numbing repetitiveness and mindless nature of this game.
meh, the only dp they need is a simple repair bill when u die, the better yer items the higher the bill, kinda like that "other game" and really I know im bad but i just cant take the term "DP" seriously but i watch WAY to much TRIBBLE
meh, the only dp they need is a simple repair bill when u die, the better yer items the higher the bill, kinda like that "other game" and really I know im bad but i just cant take the term "DP" seriously but i watch WAY to much TRIBBLE
I actually find a lack of repair costs to be one of the selling points of STO. That sort of thing only serves to increase the grind for the sake of grinding.
I can understand having to make repaiars at a station if you do have to respawn. But in terms of "losing the ship" it is highly unlikely that they will implement anything like that as it alienates less skillful players. And a lot of players may not be skillful. Cryptic isn't going to alienate what may be a large part of their player base. Also... they don't want their game to be like EVE. This game is targetted for more casual and less committed players.
Comments
Like PvP DPs are also sticky subjects. Many players feel that the game feels to easy without them, others say that the game is not fun with them. I would like to propose a compromise and a DP system that is strong, but not overly harsh.
First, since the entire game is instanced, once DPs are created in code, it should be a relatively simple matter upon character creation to check DP on or DP off in a selection box. Of course the box needs to have a clear definition of what a DP is and a warning if the player selects the on box when playing the game, when a player enters a combat instance, (be it PvE or PvP) players would be segregated into DP and no DP instances to prevent unfair combat strategies. If the NZ idea stated earlier was adopted, the NZ Sector Space would have a DP and no DP instance as well to prevent the possibility of a no DP player from challenging a DP player and vice-versa.
Of the players who support the idea of a DP, the overwhelming majority seam to favor the idea that the DP should first be not too unforgiving (after all we all make mistakes) but strong enough so that it makes reckless tactics a very bad idea. Many support the idea that the DP become harsher over time, this concept follows in this idea. When discussing DP the comparison to Eve Online frequently comes up, and almost universally the kind of crushing and unforgiving DP of Eve is not supported.
Ground:
For ground instances, I recommend that if a player is defeated, and no one is around to revive them that they have the option to beam to sickbay the player (and BOs) would be quickly healed by their doctor, and if the player chooses, beamed back down to the starting point of the ground instance. However in the time it took them to do so, the enemies on the ground also had time to heal their wounded and the player would have to start the ground mission from the beginning unless other players stayed on the ground while the wounded player was in sickbay.
Space:
I propose a progressive DP that is based on the players ship. I have noticed that players are not (for the most part anyway) using the option to add letters after the registration number on their starships, this can be used to the advantage of the DP system. When a player gets a new ship, the registry has no letter in it. Letter are added as the player looses their ships after the first loss the player begins to loose equipped items and eventually could loose their ship:
New ship:
1st death no loss of items, -A added to registry
2nd death loss of one random item, -B added to registry
3rd death loss of two random items, -C added to registry
4th death loss of three random items, -D added to registry
5th death loss of all items, -E added to registry
6th death loss of ship and all equipped items, must buy new ship or fly older ship.
If the player is in a light cruiser, they would get a free replacement but still loose all equipped gear.
The smart player would of course repair their ship as soon as possible after they reach -A
This kind of progressive system gives players plenty of warning before they loose valuable ships and equipment. A player could go back to spacedock and pay to have the DP reset at the shipyard on a progressive scale:
-A reset for free
-B reset for 10% cost of ship replacement
-C reset for 25% cost of ship replacement
-D reset for 50% cost of ship replacement
-E reset for 75% cost of ship replacement
With this system a player could avoid risk by simply returning to a shipyard every time they are blown up, but if they do not want the timesink, they can up the ante by continuing to play in a ship after the first loss
With most online games PvP is a tricky subject, some players live for PvP while others absolutely hate it. PvP content falls into two basic categories, arena combat, and persistent world. I will not address arenas as they are already built into STO, however many subs have been complaining about a lack of meaningful persistant combat. On this I have a suggestion that not only could be compelling for an MMO but fits Trek Cannon.
Establish a Sector Space area designated as the Neutral Zone between empires, as more factions are added to the game, more Neutral Zones (NZ) can be added. These areas of sector space need to be large, likely as large as the currant galactic map (only in size) spawn points in the NZ would be random along the border of that faction except in the case of fleets in which they would all Spawn together.
Before any player enters the NZ for the first time they would receive a warning about the dangers within the NZ so that any player wishing to avoid PvP could skip entering that area of Sector Space. Of course players could go around the NZ for exploration purposes, but the NZ would be a large single instance of Sector Space.
Within the NZ, Sector Space would be a simple (but vast) grid. Players could roam around as they see fit, but if they come into close proximity to an enemy player, their warp fields would collapse and they would drop into an instance similar in design to the wandering events. Of course other players could enter the instance as well to lend a hand to their side of the fight. Battles could be one-on-one, fifty-on-fifty, or fifty-on-one depending on the number of players who join the fight. Add a button to the UI allowing for a distress signal to notify other players in the NZ of the battle if the odds are not in your favor to encourage teamwork.
Barring any death penalty changes (see next entry) in a PvP match within the NZ, you could allow a limited number of respawns per ship so that battles do not simply boil down to who can stay at their computer the longest. Once the battle is won, that grid in Sector Space changes color to reflect the winner (I.E. Grey for neutral, Blue for Federation, Red for Klingon, Green for Romulan etc.) until another battle is fought at that location. The loosing team after the battle would respawn in their factions territory just outside the NZ to prevent them from immediately attempting to start a new battle. The entire loosing team would respawn at the same time, so that the first to die cannot rejoin the same battle in progress.
A few planets could be added within the NZ for ground PvP, eventually player owned Starbases could even be added to this concept to defend sections of the NZ captured by their faction.
This kind of persistent PvP could add a whole new level of depth to the game as player factions would have a common goal of taking the entire NZ, if that was accomplished, a reward could be issued to the winning faction such as achievements for taking a grid space, 10 grids, 100 grids etc, and energy/honor points to spend for members of the winning faction.
To stimulate a player-driven economy, as well as to stay within Trek cannon, I would suggest the creation of an independent merchant faction. The player could choose any of the major races or alien but they could also choose skills such as the following:
Former Starfleet Officer - +10% bonus when crafting Starfleet gear
Former Klingon Warrior - +10% bonus when crafting KDF Gear
Former Borg - +10% bonus when modifying gear
Miner - +10% resource gathering
Merchants could explore, find rare minerals and craft various items to put up for sale. Their ships can be freighters, miners, and merchant ships that could buy and sell around the entire galaxy. PvE missions for merchants could include running cargo, finding dilythium deposits, or finding lost cargo. Combat would be somewhat limited, but these guys at high level could craft the best gear in the game. Smart merchants might hang around in or near the NZ and sell weapons or shield mods to players looking for an edge, and try to conquer the galaxy through economic means.
Some might find this kind of gameplay boring, however many would do it. And the more you make, the better ships, refining equipment, and presage you can get. Merchants could put their own brand name on their goods, so a new form of torpedo could be named the Archangel MK 1 or whatever they choose, eventually brands could become recognized in the game and people will seek out specific merchants
You would think that in this day and age we wouldn't still judge people base upon the color of their text!
I'm sorry, I was raised a Textist... I can't help it.
The ship DP for PVE is pretty inventive. The idea actually puts a health bar on ship losses, when you get close to that last ship loss you start to worry, health bar inside a health bar. That may be a new idea for MMOs
It is not difficult to go through most of PVE in first tier with no lost ships, and that is a good thing, many lost ships would take away from the Idea of space combat. But a DP like you suggest would add a flavor to the game
However in the random encounters it is easy to lose many ships, so might have a different scale for fleet areas, it might really lower the amount of people in places like SB 24. Or it could be the same, and people would just have to work together and be smart about it. Or there could be a compensation in drops in tough areas like that.
I also like your crafting idea, as it being non federation, or retired federation where you could make your Fed character a crafter. It is understandable for it to take them awhile to get crafting in, but using the same templates, the skills for crafters would just be different skills.
Also skills like planet side management to make things for trading could be possible.
And some items that could be crafted is limited quantity torpedoes or beam super charging upgrades. Or shielding/hull bonuses that also have a durability so they have to be replaced as used.
Although the green text is hard to read.
Don't see the problem, not sure of the need to punish the person that happened to be picked at the target.
If you make people chose between DP and no DP then about 99.99% of the players will choose no DP, even those that want a DP. Reason being, the people that want a hard DP are for one the griefers that like to kill other people and make them suffer, which they cant do if the people they kill dont suffer on death, and secondly the people that want to play a very competetive game in which they can "better" than other players, and this is not happening if everyone else plays without DP and they play with DP.
The same will happen that happened to Twink PvP in WOW as they enabled an option to separate Twink PvPers (that purely exist to kill other people with equipment they shouldnt have at that level) from normal level PvPers... Twink PvPing died, because the Twink players didnt want to fight between themselves, they wanted to kill players that cant defend themselves, and thus there werent enough players left to PvP at all, so basicly they all went on for normal PvPing.
If there is a choice, there will no one be playing with DP.
The harsh DP for space you mention also does not fit into this game at all. It will destroy group play which also will destroy the whole game in the long run. Someone with a BA in "game design" should easily recognize this.
You really think losing your spaceship will be compatible with the concept of open groups and open group PvP? You will simply separate the server into a hardcore server with maybe 0.0001% of the players and a normal server with the rest of the players, and this is not even slightly worth the development effort to implement it.
The "if you wipe, you have to redo the mission" however is a good idea, this should be implemented also to space. As should be reviving dead players or repairing disabled ships.
That your spaceship gets destroyed that often shouldn't even be in the game. If you "die", your ship should just be disabled and floating around while you can watch the others fight from a free camera until you get repaired by them. The only time your spaceship really explodes should be when the entire team wipes and the mission needs to be redone.
Anyway, this game is totally misdesigned, or probably not designed at all. They have some great programmers, but obviously they didnt have a game designer employed.
To your other idea... yeah fine with me, but really I could name a few hundred features that would make this game better, I just doubt we ever see them in game. There is some stuff that needs serious fixing though, for example the skill tree and the DP / zerging / respawn design.
Hate the ship PvE idea. You eventually lose your ship, a nd you lose random items on the way? Sorry, never a fan of losing things like items when you die. That ruins the game experience IMO.
The ground one though isn't that bad. The idea of beaming back to Sickbay and then starting over makes perfect sense.
The idea of an actual open world PvP is always popular, but I think it's not necessary right now. As an example look at World of Warcraft. They put in "Lake Wintergrasp", the open world PvP zone, in the last expansion back in late 2008. That's about 4 years after the game was released. Us players were perfectly content with what they had up to that point. Of course I'm normally not big on PvP but I like it in this game.
And please CHANGE THE TEXT COLOR! Make it orange, easier on the eyes.
It is possible that most people would pick DP and non DP would die out. And if you wanted to balance it, since DP players would have a money sink, they could get a percentage bump in selling prices. Something equal to an assumed 1 lost ship every couple levels in pve.
But I would guess there might be a need for alot of code for that.
I don't like the idea of losing items as Death Penalty. Some Death Penalty, like repair fees, would be fine, but losing items is what most of the free MMORPGs do, and it creates a lot of grief and haste amongst players. The reason why I would like some Death Penalty, thus I agree with one, is mainly because people will start thinking tactics more often. They will start asking for support classes more often too, because of they'll want to be healed and buffed to avoid death. Tactical ships might want to have Cruisers to tank for them so they don't blow up that often, etc.
A switch of Death Penatly is also not a good idea, as said, most people will have it off. Couple that with the loss of items idea, and you can be sure most people won't choose to have it on.
Crafting idea is nice but I simply hope that Cryptic will put in some sensible crafting system. Somehow what we have in Memory Alpha doesn't quite satisfy me. Maybe make different professions specialising in ground equipment (ground weapons, kits) and space equipment. Make 2 professions or so for each area. For example, one ground profession makes you craft all manners of ground weaopns, the other ground profession makes you craft all manners of kits and devices like hypos or other special devices. For space you'd have something similar, where you have a prof for weapons and such, another for "ship systems" for consoles, batteries and the like.
You took a lot of time in your proposal which is great, it's people like you that make a community and game grow. Like others said though, try to make any long text readable, avoid writing the entire thing in bold and use a colour that makes it easy.
If you get to 4 or 5 losses, he said you could go and repair to get it back to 0. So if carefull you would never lose your ship without a warning first.
Pentalty would be some cost and time, then added risk of how long to go before paying the 'make ship new' cost.
for those that complained, I changed to white text
if you have nothing better to do than troll... please do it on another thread, thank you.
interesting, how do you find it extreame?
first death is always a freebe... and for a small amout of time lost you can reset for zero cost every time you die...
which is exactly why the DP is set up so that if you actualy care about that... it would never happen.
Corpse runs and durability issues can be a pain but it's more then we have and would be something better(minus corpse runs, makes no sense).
But durability drops, something where shields can't fully recharge or the hull loses maximum efficiency is a better idea.
Someone else said it already about DP in PVP. You die the other side gets the point. It is done that way in a lot of the FPS games and works fine.
As far as crafting goes, YES we need a better system.
Its always been known that you can level fairly easily in STO without any, zilch, consequence to your game-play style since there is no penalty in this game for dieing. In essence, the game is purposely designed for ease of advancement and you play to 'complete' an event rather than the 'accomplishment', I think.
For me, a sense of 'accomplishment' comes with a sense of game-play challenge of some sort, a sense of community cooperation. There just isnt any sense of entertainment challenge when the game is designed to 'carelessly' play without any risk or reward and we continuoulsy see players doing, what is coined now as "suicide leveling". /shrugs lol Serioulsy. . .suicide leveling is what this game amounts to and rewards; game-play careless 'fire all weapons', 'throw all buffs', kill as many game-controlled objects as you can in as little time, and die while doing it. Because, you will respawn in seconds right near the point of combat again, just to complete your 'even't in the shortest time possible without any game-play consequences to you.
And on top of that, many players I see take this style of game-play that is fostered by Cryptic design into fleet actions/pvp with shields off completely. The object is to also complete the event by killing yourself as quickly as possible and as often as possible in order to complete the event through 'suicide leveling'. Those players are pretty rampant and get as much reward, skill-points, badges, etc. than the players that actually win.
So, yea, this game is designed to easily level in, without any consequences or impactful game-play rationale where death and carelessness is meaningless. The end result, if not addressed asap, is that more people, in addition to the life-timers as this original poster, will continue to become bored to tears with the mind-numbing repetitiveness and mindless nature of this game.
I actually find a lack of repair costs to be one of the selling points of STO. That sort of thing only serves to increase the grind for the sake of grinding.