I don't want you to change the current death penalty AT ALL. If you do implement a harsher DP, you'll HAVE to tweak the aggressive Enemy Signal Contacts in Sector Space, move the Flagship and Friends spawn to somewhere besides the common spawn point, buff Ramming Speed and Abandon Ship, and completely rework space PVP. And that's just the ones I personally thought up. A harsher DP is asking for more work and trouble for nothing.
What's wrong with the current DP anyway? This isn't a free MMO; there's no reason to make the game harder for everyone but the paying customers. We're ALL paying customers, here. I have quit RPGs that had too harsh of a Death Penalty (Everquest and Runes of Magic among them) and been a loyal promoter of games that had a light DP, (such as Guild Wars and Bioshock, even though that last isn't an MMO.) I don't want to quit this one. I'm begging you.
@Sheldon-Cooper: I quit during the first week of Burning Crusade. I also have received numerous WoW trial keys, all of them begging me to return. I have yet to use a single one, after they made it clear that the time/money/love we spent on them before is forgotten for the money they can gain from yet another expansion of higher level but lower difficulty. That game made me so bitter and jaded, I can barely hear the word "WoW" without exploding into a rant.
Well I'm really glad this message went out. It' s not so much the bugs and stuff that are the issue... it's that when there's no official statement as to the fact that stuff is being worked on, we start to feel forgotten. This looks like a lot of great stuff is in the works and now we all have something to look forward to!
Cryptic needs to work on more end game content, more quests, get the raids working, and work out the bugs and secure the game's fanbase before TRIBBLE them with death penalty.
simply put, give me somthing to die for before you penalize me for it
So would there be some kind of rewards for these minigames? I am one of those who would have prefered not to have a DP. I know it is quite popular on these forums to tell people who disagree about something that they should go play a different game. But this is the first post I've ever seen that will actually force us to play a different game. Fascinating!
If you wanted to opt out, you could do something like click "cancel" and poof respawn with a temporary debuff, just like if you would have lost the minigame. And the respawn would be someplace LESS convenient than if you had successfully completed the minigame. If you complete the minigame, which again would be designed to be relatively fast, then you get back into the action with a minor buff, out of the incapped state.
Im not sure about other rewards for successfully completed them...perhaps random skill pt rewards, or whatever. Bottom line is, there would be no harsh penalty, but there would be additional, appropriate content. We have seen over and over that captains would do just about anything rather than lose their ship, their command. Episode after episode is based off of heroic actions to save their ships and their crew. I think these could be the kind of minigames that would offer real immersion into that aspect of trek lore. Lets face it, when your ship gets incapped, there should be a consequence. Its a big deal in trek lore. At the same time I am very sensitive to "griefer" mechanics and the pain of penalties like irreparable decay. I hate em. And they are FAR from what I am proposing.
While some people complain and leave. There are those of us who see the game has huge possibilities and are sticking around. We might complain but in the end we are here for the ride.
Ok why does STO HAVE to HAVE a Death Penalty?!? Why is that even listed?? And 2nd below Respecs?? What about Fed v Fed PvP options, options to set the number of players in a PvP private match ... How about some story driven PvE for the Klingons?? How about more T5 content than just raidisodes??
I love the idea of more playable races, etc. Raidisodes are a good start for more T5 content. But really now a death penalty?? Does not having a death penalty seriously impact the playability of STO like the lack of T5 content?? Or not having respecs?? Does not having a DP really matter so much to so many of the community that the DEV's feel the need put it up there with RESPECS???
But WTH does STO need to have a Death Penalty for?? Because other MMO's have one?? Because it's "supposed" to ?? What is the reasoning behind having a DP anyway? What is the DP going to be? Losing skill points?? How is a DP going to be implemented into PvP matches? Into PvE?? Raally the game is perfectly fine w/o a death penalty now ... If it ain't broke don't try and "fix" it ...
Seriously the LEAST of STO's problems is lack of a Death Penalty ... There are MANY, MANY more issues that need addressing and dealing with.
Cheers guys, I know you are doing a titanic work. I only hope you can make the right choices to keep the game alive for many years and not to finish like The Matrix Online.... tut, there was so much potential in there.....
It's very good to see that the devs of the game are paying attention to the players, and striving to meet expectations and desires. If you guys keep up feedback like this, I have no doubt at all that my Lifetime Sub will have been paid for many times over.
Please, keep up such updates! And Give 'er all she's got!
If you institute this you damn well better fix escorts current issue of dieing. It is currently ridiculous. The escort ship dies more then any ship in game. I made a tactical officer / escort to RA and from pve within 2 hits my shields go plop. Its too much glass not enough balance in the incoming damage. How would this even be fair to Escorts. You will end up seeing 0 escorts in game.
how exactly did the arguments against death penalties get totally overheard?
Don't give up craig. we don't wat dp's ^^
i agree with this.. I would not like the death penalty to be put into place. Granted we want to care for our ships more but srly I do not want this to turn into another eve... where we lose our hard work.. srly I dont want that to happen. <.<
But who am i to say im just one person among thousands. Heh it is what it is I suppose. Great game though! Lifer here!
They may well have that data or they may not, but the crux of it from all the verbal diahorea i have seen spouted about this on the boards makes me think they're just caving to the people who yelled the loudest and ignoring the people enjoying the game as is and actually playing it vs qq'ing on the forums.
If you institute this you damn well better fix escorts current issue of dieing. It is currently ridiculous. The escort ship dies more then any ship in game. I made a tactical officer / escort to RA and from pve within 2 hits my shields go plop. Its too much glass not enough balance in the incoming damage. How would this even be fair to Escorts. You will end up seeing 0 escorts in game.
escort ships are glass cannons. You know this right?
They may well have that data or they may not, but the crux of it from all the verbal diahorea i have seen spouted about this on the boards makes me think they're just caving to the people who yelled the loudest and ignoring the people enjoying the game as is and actually playing it vs qq'ing on the forums.
Only a small fraction of the player base comes to he forums and yes they do have access to a lot of data and feedback from non forum sources.
Alright alright, your hearts are into it. There needs more, but then I knew it would be the case. It'll come I'm sure, just have to wait for it to arrive.
I highlighted the items you are currently working on....
Now, if there are still those that would claim that Cryptic is not listening....well March 3 is just around the corner, and don't let the door hit them in the butt.
Cryptic has not lost my confidence to date, and if even half of these issues are released shortly, you will have me convinced I was correct the whole time.
If you institute this you damn well better fix escorts current issue of dieing. It is currently ridiculous. The escort ship dies more then any ship in game. I made a tactical officer / escort to RA and from pve within 2 hits my shields go plop. Its too much glass not enough balance in the incoming damage. How would this even be fair to Escorts. You will end up seeing 0 escorts in game.
Whatever you decide to use for your DPS will be the 1st targets in any pvp. That is just they way it works. Kill the DPS and then you can whittle down the tanks.
I bet the Escorts/BOPs kill lots of ships along with being killed. Each class has a purpose.
I am very please with how STO has turned out, having played in Beta, Open Beta, and now live. It's been fun. But . . . a death peanlty? For Q's sake, why? (deep breath)
OK, how about this for a death penalty--when you die, start over. That's it. Ship destroyed, BO's gone, Captain gone . . . after all, that's what happens when you normally die.
I have admired Cryptic's take on death and dying from CoH, Champions and now STO. But serious DPs are just pain for no purpose. Minor DPs are annoying . . . so why put them there?
If someone wants to be hardcore, let them. When they die, they can delete and reroll . . . I don't see the need for it. It's just something that one works around if implemented.
My thoughts, certainly not speaking "for the Community."
Wow...just wow. What a nice present I found on the internet waiting for me when I got home from work! Zinc, I can tell you put some thought into this, and I appreciate you taking the time out of what I'm sure is a very hectic schedule to give us some tasty morsels of yummy STO goodness!
First things first: ROMULANS!
2) Respec = good!
3) Replayable missions...thank you! You could make them replayable over a series of a few grades, kind of like how in a traditional MMO you can go to a zone where mobs are "red" and by the time you've gained a few levels they're "blue," but it's actually an episode instead of just a DSE (which are still fun) or a random place where you kill the same mobs over and over as they respawn.
4) Fixing those Commodity missions...again, thank you! Instead of having them be the equivalent of "beaming down medical supplies," maybe have "Aid the Planet" be searching for the cause of a natural disaster on the planet, or preventing a meteor or comet from smashing into the planet...something that requires you to actually take some readings, puzzle out the problems, and come up with a solution (like "set phasers to a wide-beam high power setting and target the comet at these coordinates," that kind of thing).
I like most of the stuff besides death penalty and I am part of the community. One great thing for me about STO is the ability to just login, have fun and log out. I play game to have fun, not to get frustrated. Hopefully Cryptic can find a good way to cater to both side of the players.
Agreed! I played EVE for a long time, and I left because all my hard work could easily be gone at the end of the day. This, more often that not, was frustrating and totally not fun. If you're going to have a DP, just increase the respawn timer to a couple minutes or so. Please don't take away our hard earned merits, xp, or credits. I have a life, I don't get a chance to play every day, and I don't want a bulk of my playtime to be irritating.
And if you're going to implement a DP, then I beg of you...don't have DSE's randomly pull us in against our will anymore. My biggest fear is STO gets a DP, and I get pulled into a DSE and spawn right next a fleet of enemies (which does happen a lot) where my ship is summarily blown out of the stars, losing hard earned credits/merits/xp in the process.
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.
So basically you've been sending out untested patches... That's just amateurish. As a producer you simply failed to anticipate and plan ahead. You should never sacrifice quality for capacity.
""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." "
Well, since I do not know what you intend with it I can't truly comment on it - after all I like the one we have in Guild Wars. It doesn't allow you to zerg you way through a mission but there is no reason why if you see something in the distance you can't go see if you can beat it. I was rather surprised to *not* see something like that - it feels wrong enough to just sit and let yourself be killed for a quick heal that I refuse to do it.
So, I will not say that what you are doing is bad, however when this goes live no matter the case my bet is that you are going to get a flood of the actual community ranting about it. No MMO has ever gained customers by *increasing* their DP, most have by decreasing it. But then I will say I do not know of any totally without one and one that simply stops the "death heal" mentality will not drop enough customers to notice.
I do agree with you about time sinks as DP not being fun, I do agree the zerg mentality is no fun - I also think that GW's system stopped the zerging, made missions you weren't supposed to do undo-able, yet allowed you to go at them if you wanted to give them a try and not have you spend the next week or two regaining what you lost for a fun experiment. Especially true for the vast majority of your gamers that do not have a long time to play to make up that time sink.
This is even more true when you start with *no* DP, that is a drastic change and you better make sure it isn't going to be something that people will feel swindled over. After all if someone has put in weeks (or even months depending on when this rolls out) and suddenly a major game change makes them not want to play, well, you aren't going to make customers happy. I would bet dollars to cents that even a really light one like in GW will get the forum flooded with WAY more than the "we need DP" posts.
Everything else I'm looking forward too - I purchased a lifetime in OB because the world felt like Star Trek and things like content always come down the line in MMO's. You guys did a good enough job that if you just equal it from here on out I'll be happy and as time/experience goes on you should get better at it.
If you institute this you damn well better fix escorts current issue of dieing. It is currently ridiculous. The escort ship dies more then any ship in game. I made a tactical officer / escort to RA and from pve within 2 hits my shields go plop. Its too much glass not enough balance in the incoming damage. How would this even be fair to Escorts. You will end up seeing 0 escorts in game.
I suspect this is a bit of an exaggeration or I suggest getting RSP and/or EPTS.
Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing a few less escorts in the game. Any game that revolves entirely around the highest DPS classes is a poor game.
Comments
What's wrong with the current DP anyway? This isn't a free MMO; there's no reason to make the game harder for everyone but the paying customers. We're ALL paying customers, here. I have quit RPGs that had too harsh of a Death Penalty (Everquest and Runes of Magic among them) and been a loyal promoter of games that had a light DP, (such as Guild Wars and Bioshock, even though that last isn't an MMO.) I don't want to quit this one. I'm begging you.
@Sheldon-Cooper: I quit during the first week of Burning Crusade. I also have received numerous WoW trial keys, all of them begging me to return. I have yet to use a single one, after they made it clear that the time/money/love we spent on them before is forgotten for the money they can gain from yet another expansion of higher level but lower difficulty. That game made me so bitter and jaded, I can barely hear the word "WoW" without exploding into a rant.
As I just did. Dangit!
Thanks Cryptic!
simply put, give me somthing to die for before you penalize me for it
If you wanted to opt out, you could do something like click "cancel" and poof respawn with a temporary debuff, just like if you would have lost the minigame. And the respawn would be someplace LESS convenient than if you had successfully completed the minigame. If you complete the minigame, which again would be designed to be relatively fast, then you get back into the action with a minor buff, out of the incapped state.
Im not sure about other rewards for successfully completed them...perhaps random skill pt rewards, or whatever. Bottom line is, there would be no harsh penalty, but there would be additional, appropriate content. We have seen over and over that captains would do just about anything rather than lose their ship, their command. Episode after episode is based off of heroic actions to save their ships and their crew. I think these could be the kind of minigames that would offer real immersion into that aspect of trek lore. Lets face it, when your ship gets incapped, there should be a consequence. Its a big deal in trek lore. At the same time I am very sensitive to "griefer" mechanics and the pain of penalties like irreparable decay. I hate em. And they are FAR from what I am proposing.
I assume they have more accurate date on how many want DO's or don't than we do.
Can not agree more with that
and you know what they say about assumptions right?
I love the idea of more playable races, etc. Raidisodes are a good start for more T5 content. But really now a death penalty?? Does not having a death penalty seriously impact the playability of STO like the lack of T5 content?? Or not having respecs?? Does not having a DP really matter so much to so many of the community that the DEV's feel the need put it up there with RESPECS???
But WTH does STO need to have a Death Penalty for?? Because other MMO's have one?? Because it's "supposed" to ?? What is the reasoning behind having a DP anyway? What is the DP going to be? Losing skill points?? How is a DP going to be implemented into PvP matches? Into PvE?? Raally the game is perfectly fine w/o a death penalty now ... If it ain't broke don't try and "fix" it ...
Seriously the LEAST of STO's problems is lack of a Death Penalty ... There are MANY, MANY more issues that need addressing and dealing with.
Keep the crew moral high Captain!!
You would have to be a fool to believe otherwise. They clearly would have more accurate data about it than we do. That's not an opinion it's a fact.
Please, keep up such updates! And Give 'er all she's got!
If you institute this you damn well better fix escorts current issue of dieing. It is currently ridiculous. The escort ship dies more then any ship in game. I made a tactical officer / escort to RA and from pve within 2 hits my shields go plop. Its too much glass not enough balance in the incoming damage. How would this even be fair to Escorts. You will end up seeing 0 escorts in game.
But who am i to say im just one person among thousands. Heh it is what it is I suppose. Great game though! Lifer here!
escort ships are glass cannons. You know this right?
Everything sounds Fantastic! Keep up the great work guys!
Only a small fraction of the player base comes to he forums and yes they do have access to a lot of data and feedback from non forum sources.
Look people, if you're not ready for typical MMO mechanics, you shouldn't be playing a MMO.
Almost every MMO has some form of death penalty.
Just saying.
I highlighted the items you are currently working on....
Now, if there are still those that would claim that Cryptic is not listening....well March 3 is just around the corner, and don't let the door hit them in the butt.
Cryptic has not lost my confidence to date, and if even half of these issues are released shortly, you will have me convinced I was correct the whole time.
Whatever you decide to use for your DPS will be the 1st targets in any pvp. That is just they way it works. Kill the DPS and then you can whittle down the tanks.
I bet the Escorts/BOPs kill lots of ships along with being killed. Each class has a purpose.
OK, how about this for a death penalty--when you die, start over. That's it. Ship destroyed, BO's gone, Captain gone . . . after all, that's what happens when you normally die.
I have admired Cryptic's take on death and dying from CoH, Champions and now STO. But serious DPs are just pain for no purpose. Minor DPs are annoying . . . so why put them there?
If someone wants to be hardcore, let them. When they die, they can delete and reroll . . . I don't see the need for it. It's just something that one works around if implemented.
My thoughts, certainly not speaking "for the Community."
Back to playing and the occasional lurking . . .
First things first: ROMULANS!
2) Respec = good!
3) Replayable missions...thank you! You could make them replayable over a series of a few grades, kind of like how in a traditional MMO you can go to a zone where mobs are "red" and by the time you've gained a few levels they're "blue," but it's actually an episode instead of just a DSE (which are still fun) or a random place where you kill the same mobs over and over as they respawn.
4) Fixing those Commodity missions...again, thank you! Instead of having them be the equivalent of "beaming down medical supplies," maybe have "Aid the Planet" be searching for the cause of a natural disaster on the planet, or preventing a meteor or comet from smashing into the planet...something that requires you to actually take some readings, puzzle out the problems, and come up with a solution (like "set phasers to a wide-beam high power setting and target the comet at these coordinates," that kind of thing).
:eek::eek::eek::eek:
Agreed! I played EVE for a long time, and I left because all my hard work could easily be gone at the end of the day. This, more often that not, was frustrating and totally not fun. If you're going to have a DP, just increase the respawn timer to a couple minutes or so. Please don't take away our hard earned merits, xp, or credits. I have a life, I don't get a chance to play every day, and I don't want a bulk of my playtime to be irritating.
And if you're going to implement a DP, then I beg of you...don't have DSE's randomly pull us in against our will anymore. My biggest fear is STO gets a DP, and I get pulled into a DSE and spawn right next a fleet of enemies (which does happen a lot) where my ship is summarily blown out of the stars, losing hard earned credits/merits/xp in the process.
So basically you've been sending out untested patches... That's just amateurish. As a producer you simply failed to anticipate and plan ahead. You should never sacrifice quality for capacity.
Well, since I do not know what you intend with it I can't truly comment on it - after all I like the one we have in Guild Wars. It doesn't allow you to zerg you way through a mission but there is no reason why if you see something in the distance you can't go see if you can beat it. I was rather surprised to *not* see something like that - it feels wrong enough to just sit and let yourself be killed for a quick heal that I refuse to do it.
So, I will not say that what you are doing is bad, however when this goes live no matter the case my bet is that you are going to get a flood of the actual community ranting about it. No MMO has ever gained customers by *increasing* their DP, most have by decreasing it. But then I will say I do not know of any totally without one and one that simply stops the "death heal" mentality will not drop enough customers to notice.
I do agree with you about time sinks as DP not being fun, I do agree the zerg mentality is no fun - I also think that GW's system stopped the zerging, made missions you weren't supposed to do undo-able, yet allowed you to go at them if you wanted to give them a try and not have you spend the next week or two regaining what you lost for a fun experiment. Especially true for the vast majority of your gamers that do not have a long time to play to make up that time sink.
This is even more true when you start with *no* DP, that is a drastic change and you better make sure it isn't going to be something that people will feel swindled over. After all if someone has put in weeks (or even months depending on when this rolls out) and suddenly a major game change makes them not want to play, well, you aren't going to make customers happy. I would bet dollars to cents that even a really light one like in GW will get the forum flooded with WAY more than the "we need DP" posts.
Everything else I'm looking forward too - I purchased a lifetime in OB because the world felt like Star Trek and things like content always come down the line in MMO's. You guys did a good enough job that if you just equal it from here on out I'll be happy and as time/experience goes on you should get better at it.
I suspect this is a bit of an exaggeration or I suggest getting RSP and/or EPTS.
Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing a few less escorts in the game. Any game that revolves entirely around the highest DPS classes is a poor game.