On the subject of the DP I feel the game will eventually need it, challenge makes encounters interesting. However, like others have said, certain issues have to be addressed before it is introduced. Such as the npcs camping the DSE spawn points. My suggestion to combat this is as follows:
When a player respawns / enters the instance, make players not targettable for a certain amount of time e.g. 10 seconds. That gives them enough time to get out of the instance if necessary.
Once the "untargetable period" ends, the player is targettable as usual.
If a player targets and shoots at an npc, then the "non-target period" is automatically cancelled and the player is targettable by the npcs.
Side note: if necessary, put a range on the "mark up" for kills. Players outside of that range will then not get kill markups. The range could be 1/4 the size of the instance zone. This prevents people "camping out" at the spawn points and not put any effort in, whilst encouraging people to keep together in the zone.
To me the above would help with the DSE npc camping situation, whilst still ensuring that people cannot just sit at the spawn point and get credit for kills.
I like the idea of a minimum range. They should also make it so a player can't join the instance when there's only 2 kills left after a long battle and still get the reward.
I'm really glad to see that this interview thoroughsly belies the various doomsayers and other whiners I had been reading so far on these boards... The Cryptic guys care about the game and the community (as was also proven by the recent survey). Not that this will silence whiners, but I'm becoming more and more confident that this game could become something I could entice my non-Trek fan friends to play.
I also belong to the "More character slots" faction. Even more if other playable factions become available.
As for the death penalty, I'm a bit mixed... On the one hand, no DP means I can safely enter by mistake in a combat zone and die a few times before leaving. On the other, while I'm a very casual gamer and not in the least complaining about how a game is too easy, I can't help liking a bit the thrill of not wanting to die in a fight and desperately trying to survive just a little more...
You can play a Ferengi for only 80 cryptic points at the c-store. It's not a faction, but I think you can play either faction.
Not a lot of love for Ferengis on the boards. I was quite offended by the Ferengi smugglers post. Sounds like species profiling to me. Oh well, like the 189th Rule of Acquisition says, "Let others keep their reputation. You keep their money."
Lt. Moogie
Captain, U.S.S. Acquisition
Roaming the universe hoping to heal others, research anomolies, and acquire a little gold-pressed latinum
P.S. Cryptic - Love all you've done so far, love the plans.
But please no on DP
Yes, us Ferengi are getting little respect! We just need to band together into our own Fleet.
I say NO to the death penalty. But if there is one, I hope it's nothing like the death penalty in City of Heroes. That would really suck. Just make the defeated clock longer, or something along those lines.
These updates and future plans sounds very promising. This has the potential to be the best Star Trek game ever made.
Only thing I don't like is the difficulty slider - especially if they add the option to make the game easier.
It's already easy enough and the 'WoW generation' will just slide the difficulty down to easiest and sprint to Admiral.
Wont work like that. Slider down=less XP and lootz. Slider up=More XP better lootz.
A lot of us don't want death penaltys and you can't take that subject seriously until you run a cryptic poll from the logon screen so that you can really see what the majority wants on this issue and not the select few that post on these forums 500 times a day.
A lot of us don't want death penaltys and you can't take that subject seriously until you run a cryptic poll from the logon screen so that you can really see what the majority wants on this issue and not the select few that post on these forums 500 times a day.
I agree. If they do an official poll, it should be an in-game one.
Oh yes it does. If the DP is harsh enough then instead of flying in there like some insane Leeroy perhaps people will have to kite the mobs or perhaps run away every now and again instead of just giving in when being battered because they know 5 seconds later they will re-spawn with a pristine new ship.
I want DP and a major difficulty ramp up. otherwise its just no challenge. No loss, No challenge!
Yeah, but consider what happens when player numbers get eroded.... name call all you want... I quite eve, Earth and beyond, and star wars galaxies because it took away from the game. Its simply not something I find interesting. For example I recently tried to build a cat perch (admittedly without carpentry plans) and failed. The only thing I was out was the time and money I put into it at that point. I did not come down with some physical debilitation, my hammer did not break, nor did all my cloths fall off requiring me to go hunt them down, and there certainly was not an undead rogue waiting over the construct waiting to pummel me as I began anew. The psychology of the death penalty simply is counter intuitive. It also takes away from grouping. Why would you want to group with a bunch of people you do not know when anyone of them could set you back hours merely from a simple mistake, or perhaps real life calls and you need to place your attention there. Look they built a skill system, they really need to create a firm challenge for some players... obviously designing instances for groups where the group needs to coordinate and plan out its moves takes some work, but perhaps it will pay off and be far more compelling than merely slapping a cheap death penalty and declaring it a challenge.
Everything sounds good to me except the death penalty. If implemented I hope that it is made optional.
An optional DP tied solely to the player would defeat the whole object of attempting to integrate a sense of risk vs reward into the encounter. However, it COULD be tied into the difficulty setting for each instance which the player selects when entering:
Solo setting : no DP, lowest reward (both for xp and items), Tailored for one player.
Small Group setting: DP, standard reward value (both for xp and items), harder encounters than solo mode. Tailored for duo / trio players. Can be solo'd, but definately not easily for any class.
Large Group setting: DP, higher reward value, harder encounters than Small Group Mode. Tailored for 4 / 5 players
DP would not be bad if you didn't get ganked in deep space encounter by a bunch of +37 ships in a zone because they spawn due to the farmers going in and wasting everything in sight with their admiral ships. Plus nothing like a DS encounter where as soon as you spawn, a flagship fleet is there to greet you. As I mentioned before, a minimum level for open encounters should be instituted so the difficulty scale doesn't shoot through the roof because some lowbies want to check out a higher level system.
An optional DP tied solely to the player would defeat the whole object of attempting to integrate a sense of risk vs reward into the encounter. However, it COULD be tied into the difficulty setting for an instance.
Solo setting : no DP, low reward (both for xp and items), low risk of failure
Small Group setting: DP, standard reward value, harder encounters than solo mode. Tailored for duo / trio players.
Large Group setting: DP, higher reward value, harder encounters than Small Group Mode. Tailored for 4 / 5 players
People should not be punished for wanting to solo. Combat is hard enough as it is and I certainly don't need a death penalty to anchor around my neck.
If the "hardcore" kids have to have it should be optional so it doesn't ruin things for the rest of us.
DP would not be bad if you didn't get ganked in deep space encounter by a bunch of +37 ships in a zone because they spawn due to the farmers going in and wasting everything in sight with their admiral ships. Plus nothing like a DS encounter where as soon as you spawn, a flagship fleet is there to greet you. As I mentioned before, a minimum level for open encounters should be instituted so the difficulty scale doesn't shoot through the roof because some lowbies want to check out a higher level system.
Having an "untargettable timer" on each player when they respawn / enter the zone would combat this, as I mentioned earlier. If the player enters combat before the timer is due to end, then the timer would be cancelled and players are targettable by npcs.
Just remember those deep space encounters which are sometimes forced on you by getting intercepted by an enemy ship in sector space. Sometimes you spawn in the middle of some high level enemies and are dead in seconds. A death penalty in this situation would be really really frustrating.
It's good to hear is SEE That Cryptic is listening, the list of things is good BUT
can we get a complete list of ":Bunch of things?"
graphics glitchs
FIX THE GROUND TARGET keys A and D change from turn to straif ouch!
First Officer is a great idea, but what does he really do?
Commmunications officer would be awsome to hail, ships, planets, star fleet,
Helm officer to plot courses?
Still, you are correct, I love my ships and my bridge officers it will be great to actually interact with them on the bridge.
I fixed this last week, but I only fixed it in one of the two places it needed to be. You can change instances in Deep Space Encounters and Fleet Actions using the Change Instance button on the map window (M Key). The other change instance button (on the HUD minimap) should be fixed in the same build that has the new raidisode.
I think this is missing the point of the person you quoted -- they want to be presented with the instance list *before* they enter the instanced area, as you could choose to be in beta.
People should not be punished for wanting to solo. Combat is hard enough as it is and I certainly don't need a death penalty to anchor around my neck.
If the "hardcore" kids have to have it should be optional so it doesn't ruin things for the rest of us.
Its not a case of being punished for wanting to solo. But with everything in life, every choice has an advantage and a disadavantage. Everything has to be balanced correctly.
If you want to solo, then for the advantage of easier encounters (and therefore quicker kills), you get less of a reward. The advantage is that you possibly can get through each encounter quicker than those in a group situation.
However, if you want more xp and better items, you have to be prepared to put in the effort to get them, i.e. in harder encounters.
The balance is accomplished by measuring the xp reward gain over time and rewarding people who partake in harder encounters with items that are considered of greater value. In short, its a matter of balancing risk vs reward. Something ALL the major MMO's have to do in order to encourage players to partake in the different elements in the game.
At the moment, aside from respawning, there is little risk in the encounters in the game. All damage incurred is reset within seconds, so its as if you never actually failed. Now, in a group situation, this is compounded even more because so long as one ship is still alive, then the encounter never actually resets. Thus the chance of failing the encounter is very low because the loss of a player (because they died) is not actually felt for any longer than a few seconds.
Just remember those deep space encounters which are sometimes forced on you by getting intercepted by an enemy ship in sector space. Sometimes you spawn in the middle of some high level enemies and are dead in seconds. A death penalty in this situation would be really really frustrating.
RIGHT! and if you are going to do death penalties, there needs to ba a viable 'run from a fight' option, either going to warp or at least Full Impluse, sometimes you don't know you're in over your head until it's too late, and there is plenty of canon for avoiding fights, how about a nice convient nebula with sensor blocking radiation everytime we get out numbered
Yeah, but consider what happens when player numbers get eroded.... name call all you want... I quite eve, Earth and beyond, and star wars galaxies because it took away from the game. Its simply not something I find interesting. For example I recently tried to build a cat perch (admittedly without carpentry plans) and failed. The only thing I was out was the time and money I put into it at that point. I did not come down with some physical debilitation, my hammer did not break, nor did all my cloths fall off requiring me to go hunt them down, and there certainly was not an undead rogue waiting over the construct waiting to pummel me as I began anew. The psychology of the death penalty simply is counter intuitive. It also takes away from grouping. Why would you want to group with a bunch of people you do not know when anyone of them could set you back hours merely from a simple mistake, or perhaps real life calls and you need to place your attention there. Look they built a skill system, they really need to create a firm challenge for some players... obviously designing instances for groups where the group needs to coordinate and plan out its moves takes some work, but perhaps it will pay off and be far more compelling than merely slapping a cheap death penalty and declaring it a challenge.
They could scale the DP. I wouldn't want it as harsh as Eve, I hated it and quit cause of that after losing all my implants.
By scaling I mean. Have little or none in Raids, Less in a group and more solo. I have gone in groups where people just sit there doing nothing, Taking the credit for all the kills including XP/skill points just because they can and they can because there's no DP, No loss, No challenge. FAs should not incur a death penalty unless its minor like 1 BO ability being taken off-line for 5 mins if you die above twice or something.
Welcome, you noble purveyors of Federation policy and fierce warlords of the Empire! Welcome one and all!
Wait now... Let's just take a moment to de-cloak, disarm and drop our shields, shall we? This State of the Game is of interest to you all.
So very, very much has happened over the last few weeks! It feels like every single time I began to write a new State of the Game, we'd have to quickly douse live shard fires, juggle major play tests and push critical late night patches. By the time the dousing, juggling and pushing was done, the outline of my State of the Game would be hopelessly out of date.
Given how tirelessly we've been working, if some ethereal, omnipotent resident from the Denorios belt hadn't stepped in and considerately put the breaks on space-time with a bit of temporal wizardry, I might have found myself eternally rewriting this single State of the Game.
Thanks to you, oh great wormhole-y one!
Support:
We. Are. Live. And so, supporting you -- yes, you, specifically -- is an effort that consumes us night and day.
Ask any bedraggled MMO developer about launch and they will inevitably assure you that it never, ever gets any easier. Crunch all you like, friend, it only gets harder after the game actually ships. STO is certainly no exception. Supporting a user base as large as ours requires dedication -- no, devotion! Our crew is, thankfully, more than up to the task. We are pushing the workplace warp core to maximum in an effort to better address any and every bug and issue that comes up in-game.
Our objective: Implement as many of the stability and gameplay adjustments you asked for as soon as humanoidly possible (as safe practices allow, of course). To this end, Community has put more effort into moderating the boards and CS has recently staffed up in order to get through your tickets quicker. The idea being, "we can hardly fix what we can't see."
We've also thrown a metric ton of hardware and man hours at getting the server capacity up. Our Network Operations crew has been performing admirably, to say the least. I won't begin to count the times I've heard, "Sorry, Captain! I'm giving it all she's got," come out of their work area, only to be quickly followed by a confident, Scotty-like, "It's done." Beautiful. Almost makes me want to demand them to, "fly her apart, then!" I might just because I know those boys and girls will hold it together in the end, whatever I say.
Bottom line: When -- if -- you see Queues, they should be much shorter and stability will be much better.
Game Adjustments:
Now that the game is out and in your loving hands, we're taking long, hard looks at everything each and every one of you is interested in seeing changed. Cruiser turn rates? Death penalties? More open auto-fire? All those topics and more are being scrutinized by the all-seeing eye of... um, us!
Some of the few things on the way:
* Respec
* Death Penalty
* Difficulty Slider
* More open auto-fire
* Replayable missions
* Improving Memory Alpha
* Fixing those Commodity missions
And there are a bunch more. Weve heard you and are working on all these issues, but we want to make sure that they come out clean and finished. We hate rushing out features it inevitably leads to us accidentally breaking things we didnt have time to test. I dunno like the Red Matter Capacitor or something
Tribble Coming
In order to better accommodate our players during the Head Start weekend, we merged the physical machines dedicated to our Public Test Shard (Tribble) into the live Shard (Holodeck). It has since been difficult to find viable hardware to test new patches on before pushing them out to you.
Well, we've got more hardware now and Tribble will be up pretty soon. Problem solved.
Once Tribbles up and running (insert whatever tribble joke youd like to here) well be able to start releasing those core game adjustments to you guys for deeper testing and feedback.
Special Task Force: Infected
We're in the final stages of testing the first STF (the five-man raids we internally referred to as "Raidisodes"). STF: Infected is just about ready to release.
You know, I might actually record one of our internal play sessions. The excited cries for more shielding and healing get the blood pumping. Although, once our testers reach the end room and the action really heats up... Well, it's not exactly "family friendly" in there. Definitely going to be an exciting, thrilling mission for our players, though.
After Infected, we'll roll out more STFs. "The Cure", "The Khitomer Accord" and "Into the Hive" are all coming along nicely. We look forward to regularly releasing these and seeing what everyone thinks.
Update 1: Classy Marketable Name Coming Soon
The first major update is receiving a final coat of paint, too.
There's quite a lot of genuinely cool stuff in Update 1: Classy Marketable Name Coming Soon. Expect to see it pushed to the newly revived Tribble Public Test Shard over the next couple weeks.
New Klingon ships? Oh, my yes. And they look...awesome. Re-specs are also coming, of course. All of Cryptic can't wait to see that particular feature out the door. New PvP maps and Fleet Actions are rather nice, too.
Beyond Update 1?
Right now, we're planning it. We haven't set the future of STO's content into stone because so much of it will be determined by you, but we're laying out what we'd like to focus on for the next 6 to 12 months.
* Who are the Undine and what drives them?
* How can we better exploit the Genesis System to create even more compelling content?
* Where can we boldly go next? Where shall we take exploratory missions, as there's so much potential there?
* Which faction should be playable next? Romulan? Cardassian? Pakled? Dominion? Horta? Okay, not so much the Pakleds.
And thats not even the start of it! Ship interiors, more bridges, crew quarters, First Officers, Fleet advancement... You have subscribed to a service that delivers a universe unending, and we shall see that universe populated with compelling content or, by the Prophets, we will die trying.
Some people get that. Some people don't. We're here for those that do.
Throughout development, we guessed Star Trek Online might be polarizing. Some people don't get it and some people simply don't like it... But, others fall in love with their ships and captains and bridge officers. Those are the ones who can't live without beaming down to strange, new planets and participating in lively stories.
We guessed this and still we made a conscious decision to not water things down and go "mass market". Frankly, I think that's perfectly OK. Because, no matter what, there will be one single thing, now and forever, that drives everything we do: you.
We have a very healthy -- and healthily testy -- core community that gets it. And there's nothing we look forward to more than working together to make STO better.
Sad part is, you may not even know it. Far as I can tell, there're no hidden cameras and mics scattered about Cryptic's office. So, how would you know that we refer to our community almost as if it were an absent developer?
"Well, The Users think that we need to do more non-combat."
"Guys, I'm sorry to interrupt, but The Players really want ground auto-attack back. Drop what we're doing."
"We already know what you think about a death penalty, Craig but The Community really thinks it's a good idea and their opinion is more valid than yours because they probably don't own goats."
Its a little unnerving -- sometimes feels like we work with a giant multi-headed feedback monster that simultaneously loves and hates us. It whips even as it hugs! It rages even as it cries! And it fumes even when it's happy. It's unnerving, yes, but pretty freakin' rad, too.
What you guys post and say and do in-game and on the forums is the biggest factor we consider when making our decisions.
I am sorry if it ever appears that we're not listening to you or trying to make the game better. Because that is pretty much all we ever do.
They could scale the DP. I wouldn't want it as harsh as Eve, I hated it and quit cause of that after losing all my implants.
By scaling I mean. Have little or none in Raids, Less in a group and more solo. I have gone in groups where people just sit there doing nothing, Taking the credit for all the kills including XP/skill points just because they can and they can because there's no DP, No loss, No challenge. FAs should not incur a death penalty unless its minor like 1 BO ability being taken off-line for 5 mins if you die above twice or something.
Correct. Eve's DP should be considered an exception rather than the "norm".
It looks like Cryptic was going to use a durability system based on your crew level. Much like WoW's durability system. Which I still think could work. But it has to be balanced correctly for all classes/roles. And before its implemented the DSE npc situation needs to be sorted.
Imo, death penalties should only apply to things like raid-i-sodes and other pve that requires a group.
Unfortunately like I was saying, my captain toon was doing a PvE open instance when 2 lowbies wandered in and the difficulty jumped up for 3 ships being in there. The lowbies just hung back while I got wasted by the new and improved spawns they caused.
I'm not excited at all. The respec thing, sure I could put points in better places I did, but it's not like my gameplay will change much, if at all. It's not like in other games, where a respec could pretty much redesign your whole character with new powers/abilities/powersets/spells/whatever. Here, you just do more or less damage, or abilities last more or less. Sure, I get how the min/maxers could be screaming inside by not having a perfect build, but to me, it's almost irrelevant.
Now, the main thing I do require to play the game (since I already canceled) is the difficulty selector, and it was only mentioned as "something we'll do someday". So this 'State of the Game' only served to confirm my decision to leave.
I don't care about Risk VS Reward I spent all this money to play a star trek game. I want More trek like content not a stupid death penalty thats a wet blanket on my fun.
Increase the respawn timers for PVP. Adding a death penalty to PVP beyond that will drive away causal PVPers. Either that or add a Shield Bonus to a ship that destroys another ship to prevent Zerg rush attrition. In PVE a player/party defeat results in the full health of the enemy.
Similarly, fix the enemy spwan camping in Deep Space Encounters before bothering with a death penalty in those encounters.
I like the idea of using the Difficulty slider tied to death penalties. It has a very "Riskier the road, the greater the proift."-aspect to it. Again so long as the risk to reward ratio is kept the same and it's "opt-in", I think it will go a long way to pleasing people who want to play the game "their way" as opposed to imposing an across the board solution that alienates half of the playerbase.
Don't add a Death Penalties before LTC1, getting through LT is already enough of a tedious slog without making it longer.
Beyond that Memory Alpha really needs a lot of work. There were some interesting ideas in Champions. (Although the "skill system" wasn't one of them.) about adding specific bonuses to various equipment types. The current system feels like a highly-gated store that relies too much on lucky drops of items that aren't normally sold in NPC shops.
Just remember those deep space encounters which are sometimes forced on you by getting intercepted by an enemy ship in sector space. Sometimes you spawn in the middle of some high level enemies and are dead in seconds. A death penalty in this situation would be really really frustrating.
This is how I feel. I've been dropped in right next to higher level ships that have taken me down in 4 hits. Then it respawned me right next to the same ship. I had to abort the missions just to get out.
Also, when we die because of lousy team members who do absolutely nothing to help out, or just cruise around and snatch up anomalies, the DP would really being annoying.
I say no to the PvP death penalty unless they can even out the teams. Why should we get penalized for dieing when the teams are 6 on 1?
Comments
I like the idea of a minimum range. They should also make it so a player can't join the instance when there's only 2 kills left after a long battle and still get the reward.
I also belong to the "More character slots" faction. Even more if other playable factions become available.
As for the death penalty, I'm a bit mixed... On the one hand, no DP means I can safely enter by mistake in a combat zone and die a few times before leaving. On the other, while I'm a very casual gamer and not in the least complaining about how a game is too easy, I can't help liking a bit the thrill of not wanting to die in a fight and desperately trying to survive just a little more...
Yes, us Ferengi are getting little respect! We just need to band together into our own Fleet.
Lt. Commander Narn
Captain, U.S.S. Dabo Girl and U.S.S. Divine Treasury
I say NO to the death penalty. But if there is one, I hope it's nothing like the death penalty in City of Heroes. That would really suck. Just make the defeated clock longer, or something along those lines.
Wont work like that. Slider down=less XP and lootz. Slider up=More XP better lootz.
I agree. If they do an official poll, it should be an in-game one.
Yeah, but consider what happens when player numbers get eroded.... name call all you want... I quite eve, Earth and beyond, and star wars galaxies because it took away from the game. Its simply not something I find interesting. For example I recently tried to build a cat perch (admittedly without carpentry plans) and failed. The only thing I was out was the time and money I put into it at that point. I did not come down with some physical debilitation, my hammer did not break, nor did all my cloths fall off requiring me to go hunt them down, and there certainly was not an undead rogue waiting over the construct waiting to pummel me as I began anew. The psychology of the death penalty simply is counter intuitive. It also takes away from grouping. Why would you want to group with a bunch of people you do not know when anyone of them could set you back hours merely from a simple mistake, or perhaps real life calls and you need to place your attention there. Look they built a skill system, they really need to create a firm challenge for some players... obviously designing instances for groups where the group needs to coordinate and plan out its moves takes some work, but perhaps it will pay off and be far more compelling than merely slapping a cheap death penalty and declaring it a challenge.
Everything else sounds great. Please make with more non combat content, First Officers, and New Races and CC Options for Klingon faction please.
And I vote Cardassians for next faction.
An optional DP tied solely to the player would defeat the whole object of attempting to integrate a sense of risk vs reward into the encounter. However, it COULD be tied into the difficulty setting for each instance which the player selects when entering:
Solo setting : no DP, lowest reward (both for xp and items), Tailored for one player.
Small Group setting: DP, standard reward value (both for xp and items), harder encounters than solo mode. Tailored for duo / trio players. Can be solo'd, but definately not easily for any class.
Large Group setting: DP, higher reward value, harder encounters than Small Group Mode. Tailored for 4 / 5 players
People should not be punished for wanting to solo. Combat is hard enough as it is and I certainly don't need a death penalty to anchor around my neck.
If the "hardcore" kids have to have it should be optional so it doesn't ruin things for the rest of us.
Having an "untargettable timer" on each player when they respawn / enter the zone would combat this, as I mentioned earlier. If the player enters combat before the timer is due to end, then the timer would be cancelled and players are targettable by npcs.
Just remember those deep space encounters which are sometimes forced on you by getting intercepted by an enemy ship in sector space. Sometimes you spawn in the middle of some high level enemies and are dead in seconds. A death penalty in this situation would be really really frustrating.
can we get a complete list of ":Bunch of things?"
graphics glitchs
FIX THE GROUND TARGET keys A and D change from turn to straif ouch!
First Officer is a great idea, but what does he really do?
Commmunications officer would be awsome to hail, ships, planets, star fleet,
Helm officer to plot courses?
Still, you are correct, I love my ships and my bridge officers it will be great to actually interact with them on the bridge.
Its not a case of being punished for wanting to solo. But with everything in life, every choice has an advantage and a disadavantage. Everything has to be balanced correctly.
If you want to solo, then for the advantage of easier encounters (and therefore quicker kills), you get less of a reward. The advantage is that you possibly can get through each encounter quicker than those in a group situation.
However, if you want more xp and better items, you have to be prepared to put in the effort to get them, i.e. in harder encounters.
The balance is accomplished by measuring the xp reward gain over time and rewarding people who partake in harder encounters with items that are considered of greater value. In short, its a matter of balancing risk vs reward. Something ALL the major MMO's have to do in order to encourage players to partake in the different elements in the game.
At the moment, aside from respawning, there is little risk in the encounters in the game. All damage incurred is reset within seconds, so its as if you never actually failed. Now, in a group situation, this is compounded even more because so long as one ship is still alive, then the encounter never actually resets. Thus the chance of failing the encounter is very low because the loss of a player (because they died) is not actually felt for any longer than a few seconds.
RIGHT! and if you are going to do death penalties, there needs to ba a viable 'run from a fight' option, either going to warp or at least Full Impluse, sometimes you don't know you're in over your head until it's too late, and there is plenty of canon for avoiding fights, how about a nice convient nebula with sensor blocking radiation everytime we get out numbered
They could scale the DP. I wouldn't want it as harsh as Eve, I hated it and quit cause of that after losing all my implants.
By scaling I mean. Have little or none in Raids, Less in a group and more solo. I have gone in groups where people just sit there doing nothing, Taking the credit for all the kills including XP/skill points just because they can and they can because there's no DP, No loss, No challenge. FAs should not incur a death penalty unless its minor like 1 BO ability being taken off-line for 5 mins if you die above twice or something.
Here ya go.
Correct. Eve's DP should be considered an exception rather than the "norm".
It looks like Cryptic was going to use a durability system based on your crew level. Much like WoW's durability system. Which I still think could work. But it has to be balanced correctly for all classes/roles. And before its implemented the DSE npc situation needs to be sorted.
Unfortunately like I was saying, my captain toon was doing a PvE open instance when 2 lowbies wandered in and the difficulty jumped up for 3 ships being in there. The lowbies just hung back while I got wasted by the new and improved spawns they caused.
Now, the main thing I do require to play the game (since I already canceled) is the difficulty selector, and it was only mentioned as "something we'll do someday". So this 'State of the Game' only served to confirm my decision to leave.
Increase the respawn timers for PVP. Adding a death penalty to PVP beyond that will drive away causal PVPers. Either that or add a Shield Bonus to a ship that destroys another ship to prevent Zerg rush attrition. In PVE a player/party defeat results in the full health of the enemy.
Similarly, fix the enemy spwan camping in Deep Space Encounters before bothering with a death penalty in those encounters.
I like the idea of using the Difficulty slider tied to death penalties. It has a very "Riskier the road, the greater the proift."-aspect to it. Again so long as the risk to reward ratio is kept the same and it's "opt-in", I think it will go a long way to pleasing people who want to play the game "their way" as opposed to imposing an across the board solution that alienates half of the playerbase.
Don't add a Death Penalties before LTC1, getting through LT is already enough of a tedious slog without making it longer.
Beyond that Memory Alpha really needs a lot of work. There were some interesting ideas in Champions. (Although the "skill system" wasn't one of them.) about adding specific bonuses to various equipment types. The current system feels like a highly-gated store that relies too much on lucky drops of items that aren't normally sold in NPC shops.
This is how I feel. I've been dropped in right next to higher level ships that have taken me down in 4 hits. Then it respawned me right next to the same ship. I had to abort the missions just to get out.
Also, when we die because of lousy team members who do absolutely nothing to help out, or just cruise around and snatch up anomalies, the DP would really being annoying.
I say no to the PvP death penalty unless they can even out the teams. Why should we get penalized for dieing when the teams are 6 on 1?