I am curious to know the logic behind Cryptic's obsession with button mashing. We can't have auto-fire in all our guns, forcing us to mash the spacebar. We also can't set our ground weapons to autofire at all, forcing us to mash numpad-1 repeatedly (the hand muscle beneath my tumb is very sore). Also, unlike Starfleet Command (from where Cryptic obviously got a lot of ideas, cool ones nonetheless), we can't permanently reinforce a shield arc, again forcing us to mash the arrow keys if we are aboard a T4 or T5 cruiser and need to keep reinforcing the shield facing the enemy.
The interaction key (F by default) also needs to be pressed twice when a action is avaible. Once to "mark" the option box and a second time to execute it.
Star Trek Online is beginning to remind me of my old The King of Fighters arcade days.
I am curious to know the logic behind Cryptic's obsession with button mashing.
There are things Cryptic will never change. For instance, changing the word "Admiral" into the word "Commodore" would break the laws of physic and shatter the whole universe. To spare your wrists would create a temporal anomaly turning us all into saurians.
There are things Cryptic will never change. For instance, changing the word "Admiral" into the word "Commodore" would break the laws of physic and shatter the whole universe. To spare your wrists would create a temporal anomaly turning us all into saurians.
They know that, so they protect us.
I honestly don't know if they think that it would hurt to actually make a referendum or something.
I mean, do a quick study of small gameplay things like auto-fire. Does changing it affects gameplay in any form? No, it does not.
Ok, so let's have a dev make a thread asking if the players want it to be changed. If enought people (read 500+ posts say that yes, that indeed they want, then they could modify this.
Players, critics, the press, EVERYONE would put Cryptic in high heavens for such an exemplary demonstration of community care. THIS is what Blizzard is all about. They may not catter to everyone's wishes, but they at least try to.
Inflicting a high DPS on your own spacebar is playing the game? My keyboard will have 4 years of lifetime taken away from it.
Granted the spacebar will get a fair amount of hammering, but personally, I would rather mash my spacebar (using a cheap keyboard for gaming), than just watch the game play itself, by autofire, macro's and whathavewe
Granted the spacebar will get a fair amount of hammering, but personally, I would rather mash my spacebar (using a cheap keyboard for gaming), than just watch the game play itself, by autofire, macro's and whathavewe
But you're the captain! You simply give the Fire order and have your officers fire away.
And the 3 seconds shield reinforce is very annoying imo.
Granted the spacebar will get a fair amount of hammering, but personally, I would rather mash my spacebar (using a cheap keyboard for gaming), than just watch the game play itself, by autofire, macro's and whathavewe
Mashing the spacebar is not playing. People want auto-fire so they can *play* instead of mashing the spacebar.
There are things Cryptic will never change. For instance, changing the word "Admiral" into the word "Commodore" would break the laws of physic and shatter the whole universe. To spare your wrists would create a temporal anomaly turning us all into saurians.
They know that, so they protect us.
like one of their games launching with a max lvl higher than 50? lol
I agree, unfortunatley the mashing is getting boring very fast. I hate it on ground more then in space. What makes it annoying is that my eyes are always on the cooldowns so that I know when I have to press again.
Mashing the spacebar is not playing. People want auto-fire so they can *play* instead of mashing the spacebar.
Auto-fire is not playing the game its what we call being lazy. The only playing they are doing is turning the ship, if thats all they are doing then I can see they will get bored fast.
The king of spacebar mashing space games is Darkspace, and there people had to learn to group their weapons using the 1,2,3,4 keys to be used effectively. I see no difference here, deal with it and adjust.
Most people have. There are many easy ways to enable full autofire in this game, from G15 keyboards, to autohotkey.com, to just quickly right clicking on your weapons when there is a bit of lag.
Auto-fire is not playing the game its what we call being lazy. The only playing they are doing is turning the ship, if thats all they are doing then I can see they will get bored fast.
*sigh*
So, you don't use any BOs abilities? You don't use any of your own abilities? You don't use batteries? You don't reinforce shields? Are you one of those people that thinks taking on 3 equal level ships is too hard? There's plenty of multitasking involved in playing in space without hitting one key over and over.
Thanks for your concern over my potentially being bored with the game if I only have to worry about firing my torpedoes instead of all my weapons, but guess what...I'm getting bored with the game already because of the mind-numbing repetitiveness of tapping my thumb on the spacebar. No one is suggesting YOU have to use any autofire feature.
My tier 2 escort is already annoying. I can promise you I will be running a macro on my G15 in the very near future until my free month runs out if Cryptic doesn't start listening.
Um... theres two autofires for your ship and none for ground. >.> All I have to do it hit the spacebar once while in ship... though I tend to do do it manually while its autofiring. lolhabit.
So, you don't use any BOs abilities? You don't use any of your own abilities? You don't use batteries? You don't reinforce shields? Are you one of those people that thinks taking on 3 equal level ships is too hard? There's plenty of multitasking involved in playing in space without hitting one key over and over.
Thanks for your concern over my potentially being bored with the game if I only have to worry about firing my torpedoes instead of all my weapons, but guess what...I'm getting bored with the game already because of the mind-numbing repetitiveness of tapping my thumb on the spacebar. No one is suggesting YOU have to use any autofire feature.
My tier 2 escort is already annoying. I can promise you I will be running a macro on my G15 in the very near future until my free month runs out if Cryptic doesn't start listening.
Thanks for sharing your are bored with the game already, I hope you find something even more easy mode for you.
Thanks for sharing your are bored with the game already, I hope you find something even more easy mode for you.
There is more, a lot more, to a combat encounter than just mashing the space bar. You have BOFF skills, your own skills, items, shield distribution, energy distribution, all on top of maneuvering and positioning during combat. Hammering the space bar is the most simplistic of these tasks and it's a gross exaggeration, if not outright dishonest to claim that relegating that task to a toggle is putting the entire game on autopilot.
It's a mundane task and should be made into a toggle as part of the general UI scheme.
I suspect that this, as well as numerous other gameplay problems/limitations are caused by them using the CO engine. Limited ship pitch, single autofire toggle, limited hotkey slots, etc. I hope that they have engineers going through the engine code to change and improve it.
The only thing I can figure is that limited the autofire helps prevent weapon energy from hitting zero.
Logically one could say, "Let the player decide and balance", but they might be of the mind that players will thoughtlessly set everything to autofire, shoot the equivalent of low-speed BBs, then complain about how they're not doing any damage or running out of energy.
Anyhow... that's the only thing I could think they'd gain by the limit.
The only thing I can figure is that limited the autofire helps prevent weapon energy from hitting zero.
Logically one could say, "Let the player decide and balance", but they might be of the mind that players will thoughtlessly set everything to autofire, shoot the equivalent of low-speed BBs, then complain about how they're not doing any damage or running out of energy.
Anyhow... that's the only thing I could think they'd gain by the limit.
Actually, in that type of situation, the correct thing to do would be to only use autofire on the number of weapons that you can effectively use concurrently, and then fire the rest manually. Just sayin'.
I fail to see how the requirement of pressing spacebar adds skill and depth to gameplay. I have yet to see a sensible argument on it that is not trollling about the game playing itself which doesn't even make sense. Really, pressing the same key instead of focusing more on movement/abilities means playing for you?
However, I don't think shield management should be available as auto-mode for a certain facing, although it would be nice if reinforcing the same facing again after a second or so would further extend it to the full duration again, cause the current way I have to wait until it ends to do it again. It would make things a bit more easier though, instead of the spacebar thing which is only about not having to constantly be pressing a key to do something that should be a continuous operation (talking about beams/cannons alright, autofire for torpedoes is just stupid).
When I play I'm really not mashing the spacebar. My phasers are on autofire and the rest are torpedos, and I know when to fire those cause the timer is up. The rest of the time I am using reverse shield polarity, charged particle burst, tachyon beam, attack pattern beta, etc., etc., you get the idea, while keeping a dominant position.
On the ground, same thing. I actually rarely press the fire button, because I am busy using stasis field, tachyon harmonic, tricorder scan, and other expose abilities which have 10-30 second timers on that all while pressing G to find the exposed enemy and using the exploit attack on my rifle, not to mention getting better position and switching to Bat'leth (if I have to). What's worse, is if I am in the middle of an autofire, I can't use my tricorder if my expose timers are up. I'm not sure how I see the button mashing.
The only thing I can figure is that limited the autofire helps prevent weapon energy from hitting zero.
That's probably the whole of why Cryptic set up autofire the way it is. What would work better is if they just had better in game documentation about these sorts of things.
I'm a Commander grade Science officer and I have a ton of skills to use in my hotbars. What I'm finding is that all my time spent mashing the spacebar is taking away time from the part of space combat I enjoy - redistributing shields, my energy levels, activating skills, PILOTING. I feel like they're gimping their own game for reasons I haven't heard. If I know I want all my beams firing, then I want them all to fire. I'll use my thumb for hitting alt and ctrl to activate other powers. I already have several skills bound to my extra mouse buttons and I can still do things I want, just not in the time I want to. I don't see how limiting autofire serves any purpose but to act as a safety net for those that don't know about weapon energy levels.
If this isn't something they want to change, I'll probably just use one of the workarounds floating in the forums. I'm OK with that, I just want to know why Cryptic wants it that way.
Honestly, I think we need a "thrust forward" button instead of having our ship move forward by just pressing a button once. That way there will be even more skill required to play.
Ohhh ohhh I vote mouse wheel forward! That way you can kind of "roll" through space. Man, I'd have mad skills!
Oh well, I guess people defending the spacebar mashing are so thick they won't listen to reason anyway.
Comments
There are things Cryptic will never change. For instance, changing the word "Admiral" into the word "Commodore" would break the laws of physic and shatter the whole universe. To spare your wrists would create a temporal anomaly turning us all into saurians.
They know that, so they protect us.
I honestly don't know if they think that it would hurt to actually make a referendum or something.
I mean, do a quick study of small gameplay things like auto-fire. Does changing it affects gameplay in any form? No, it does not.
Ok, so let's have a dev make a thread asking if the players want it to be changed. If enought people (read 500+ posts say that yes, that indeed they want, then they could modify this.
Players, critics, the press, EVERYONE would put Cryptic in high heavens for such an exemplary demonstration of community care. THIS is what Blizzard is all about. They may not catter to everyone's wishes, but they at least try to.
It is called, playing the game
Inflicting a high DPS on your own spacebar is playing the game? My keyboard will have 4 years of lifetime taken away from it.
The higher the server's KPM the more people are playing and having fun. It acts as a game health monitor, similar to checking a human's pulse.
Granted the spacebar will get a fair amount of hammering, but personally, I would rather mash my spacebar (using a cheap keyboard for gaming), than just watch the game play itself, by autofire, macro's and whathavewe
But you're the captain! You simply give the Fire order and have your officers fire away.
And the 3 seconds shield reinforce is very annoying imo.
You are not a Captain if you can not get your hands dirty once in a while
like one of their games launching with a max lvl higher than 50? lol
Thats probably the funniest thing ive ever read... you want the game tpo play FOR you... dont sugar coat it.... you want it to drive for you too?
So while ship autofires, macros are running in background, etc etc....what exactly is it you do then??? Mash another 4 buttons to turn ship??
Auto-fire is not playing the game its what we call being lazy. The only playing they are doing is turning the ship, if thats all they are doing then I can see they will get bored fast.
The king of spacebar mashing space games is Darkspace, and there people had to learn to group their weapons using the 1,2,3,4 keys to be used effectively. I see no difference here, deal with it and adjust.
Most people have. There are many easy ways to enable full autofire in this game, from G15 keyboards, to autohotkey.com, to just quickly right clicking on your weapons when there is a bit of lag.
*sigh*
So, you don't use any BOs abilities? You don't use any of your own abilities? You don't use batteries? You don't reinforce shields? Are you one of those people that thinks taking on 3 equal level ships is too hard? There's plenty of multitasking involved in playing in space without hitting one key over and over.
Thanks for your concern over my potentially being bored with the game if I only have to worry about firing my torpedoes instead of all my weapons, but guess what...I'm getting bored with the game already because of the mind-numbing repetitiveness of tapping my thumb on the spacebar. No one is suggesting YOU have to use any autofire feature.
My tier 2 escort is already annoying. I can promise you I will be running a macro on my G15 in the very near future until my free month runs out if Cryptic doesn't start listening.
Thanks for sharing your are bored with the game already, I hope you find something even more easy mode for you.
In case you were wondering what that whizzing noise was, it was the point sailing far over your head.
There is more, a lot more, to a combat encounter than just mashing the space bar. You have BOFF skills, your own skills, items, shield distribution, energy distribution, all on top of maneuvering and positioning during combat. Hammering the space bar is the most simplistic of these tasks and it's a gross exaggeration, if not outright dishonest to claim that relegating that task to a toggle is putting the entire game on autopilot.
It's a mundane task and should be made into a toggle as part of the general UI scheme.
I suspect that this, as well as numerous other gameplay problems/limitations are caused by them using the CO engine. Limited ship pitch, single autofire toggle, limited hotkey slots, etc. I hope that they have engineers going through the engine code to change and improve it.
Get to Captain.
Logically one could say, "Let the player decide and balance", but they might be of the mind that players will thoughtlessly set everything to autofire, shoot the equivalent of low-speed BBs, then complain about how they're not doing any damage or running out of energy.
Anyhow... that's the only thing I could think they'd gain by the limit.
Actually, in that type of situation, the correct thing to do would be to only use autofire on the number of weapons that you can effectively use concurrently, and then fire the rest manually. Just sayin'.
However, I don't think shield management should be available as auto-mode for a certain facing, although it would be nice if reinforcing the same facing again after a second or so would further extend it to the full duration again, cause the current way I have to wait until it ends to do it again. It would make things a bit more easier though, instead of the spacebar thing which is only about not having to constantly be pressing a key to do something that should be a continuous operation (talking about beams/cannons alright, autofire for torpedoes is just stupid).
On the ground, same thing. I actually rarely press the fire button, because I am busy using stasis field, tachyon harmonic, tricorder scan, and other expose abilities which have 10-30 second timers on that all while pressing G to find the exposed enemy and using the exploit attack on my rifle, not to mention getting better position and switching to Bat'leth (if I have to). What's worse, is if I am in the middle of an autofire, I can't use my tricorder if my expose timers are up. I'm not sure how I see the button mashing.
That's probably the whole of why Cryptic set up autofire the way it is. What would work better is if they just had better in game documentation about these sorts of things.
I'm a Commander grade Science officer and I have a ton of skills to use in my hotbars. What I'm finding is that all my time spent mashing the spacebar is taking away time from the part of space combat I enjoy - redistributing shields, my energy levels, activating skills, PILOTING. I feel like they're gimping their own game for reasons I haven't heard. If I know I want all my beams firing, then I want them all to fire. I'll use my thumb for hitting alt and ctrl to activate other powers. I already have several skills bound to my extra mouse buttons and I can still do things I want, just not in the time I want to. I don't see how limiting autofire serves any purpose but to act as a safety net for those that don't know about weapon energy levels.
If this isn't something they want to change, I'll probably just use one of the workarounds floating in the forums. I'm OK with that, I just want to know why Cryptic wants it that way.
Ohhh ohhh I vote mouse wheel forward! That way you can kind of "roll" through space. Man, I'd have mad skills!
Oh well, I guess people defending the spacebar mashing are so thick they won't listen to reason anyway.
^^THIS^^
THIS, THIS, THIS.
Me: "Can I have some ketchup please?"
BK guy: "What are you going to want next, my car? How will I get to work then?"
That's not a sensible response.
You could apply this to any mmo on the market.