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Q saves the day (and Cryptic too)

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
OK, so you've made it to RA5 and now you have several options:
  • Roll an Alt.
  • Wait for more content.
  • Take a break, or just leave the game.
  • Work on alternate ships/crews for your RA5.
However, I think there is something Cryptic can do (with the help of Q, of course) that will bring us repeatable content that will enrich the gameplay experience for Admirals and solve some other issues as well.

What I propose is a system that will allow Cryptic to:
  • Re-use existing content to introduce a spin on old missions.
  • Offer slightly more challenging content without too much of a DP.
  • Introduce a satisfying crafting system on top of the existing one.
  • Allow most story-missions to automatically expand the end-game experience.
The plan is this:
  1. The system can be used only by Read Admirals V (RA5) players.

  2. Once a RA5 is introduced to the system, they can re-visit every story-based mission by simply approaching the planet/system that mission took place on.

  3. The RA5 player then re-visits the same old mission instances but with several changes to them.

  4. The mission instance will now include a main NPC that the RA5 player must protect from special enemies spawned at certain random points. These special enemies will naturally be RA5 level, and may include Borg, Undine and any other high-level threat the game already offers.

  5. The RA5 player must follow the lead-NPC and ensure it survives through the mission, ignoring normal enemy missions and engaging only the temporal threats presented by Borg cubes, Undine ships etc.

  6. Ground combat will feature temporal patrols of Borg/Undine soldiers etc.

  7. Each time the RA5 player defeats temporal threats, he/she will gain Insight Points (IP) and special futuristic Augmentation Designs (AD).

  8. The mission will fail if the lead-NPC dies at the hands of any of the temporal threats, at which time the mission will end and all IP and AD collected during the mission will be removed from the RA5 player's inventory!

  9. If the mission concluded successfully and the lead-NPC survived, the RA5 player gets to keep the IP and AD and leave the instance.

  10. IP and AD resources can be used by RA5 players to enhance regular equipment in different ways and even create new equipment altogether.

  11. Engineering Admirals enhance/create armors and shields for both personal and ship use.

  12. Tactical Admirals enhance/create weapons for both ground/space combat.

  13. Science Admirals enhance/create consoles and kits.
I leave it to Cryptic and the community to discuss, define and refine the intricate details of how many IP and what sort of AD each temporal threat will be worth, and propose the system be tied in to the story as Q attempting to help you prepare your civilization for the future.

Flame, discuss or ignore as you wish. ;)
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    Here's how Q introduces the system to a RA5 player (just a little bit of roleplay):

    Q :: "Well, well, well. Aren't you something! My son told me you were slightly above average. Interesting indeed."

    <Pause>

    Q :: "OK, so... here's the deal mon-capitan. As you have you learned, your precious existence is at stake.
    There are many threats, and most of them — at least this time — are not due to any Q involvement.

    For reasons that shall remain a secret, Q have decided to change the playing field. Contrary to what
    you may believe Q has no desire to see your petty collection of civilizations perish in the days to
    come."

    <Pause>

    Q :: "Oh, you're still here. Ah, yes, I haven't explained things to you yet. I am so amused by how slow
    your species is in perception and other faculties, but I digress!

    So, here is what I propose to you. As you have probably learned, Knowledge is Power, so those without
    knowledge will be quite powerless in the battlefield which your galaxy shall soon become. This brings
    me to what I am about to offer you.

    I offer you the power to go and learn all you can from the past engagements your civilization has lived
    through. You will go and re-visit major battles, and conflicts, not as the lead combatant mon-capitan,
    but instead as an agent of secrets! You will learn the weaknesses of your enemies and of your own forces.

    Worry not, because this knowledge will eventually allow you to mold your future as one molds tools for
    one's trade."

    <Q coughs and pauses>

    Q :: "Ah, yes... umm. There is a downside to this, of course. You see, I cannot allow you to change history.
    Where your civilization naturally failed in the past, I must not allow you to succeed. Where it would be
    possible, were I to allow it, for you to conquer more than you did, I must hold you back."

    <Q grins>

    Q :: "One more thing before you leave, mon-capitan. If you fail in your mission and let history be changed by the unknown assailants who came to re-write your civilizations' history, I am afraid I must directly fix what you have allowed to be spoiled. So, there shall be a severe price for failure.

    Now... off you go, time's awasting..."

    <Q winks and disappears>
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    I have ti say I would really enjoy something like this, and Im sure they are doing some work with thier own ideas on Q but I hope a Dev takes a look at this and gets an idea or two.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    I do not quite agree with a slightly more challenging content without much higher dp.

    I think people would have serious fun in having a heavy challenge, a significant death penalty, and on top of that a timer as well.

    Perhaps we can just compromise with a difficulty slider where you yourself can decide how tough you want it to be and how much rewards will result from your effort :p
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    I have an idea too...we're on the Holodeck! Nothing we do is real!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    Demitrie wrote:
    I have ti say I would really enjoy something like this, and Im sure they are doing some work with thier own ideas on Q but I hope a Dev takes a look at this and gets an idea or two.
    Thank you kindly. :)
    exlor1986 wrote: »
    I do not quite agree with a slightly more challenging content without much higher dp.

    I think people would have serious fun in having a heavy challenge, a significant death penalty, and on top of that a timer as well.

    Perhaps we can just compromise with a difficulty slider where you yourself can decide how tough you want it to be and how much rewards will result from your effort :p
    Seeing as if the lead-NPC dies in the mission, and since the temporal threats would be so much higher than its level and be able to one-shot it, losing a mission because you died just once to a Borg Cube and it one-shot the lead-NPC and you lost all your IP and AD, would actually be a bundle of challenge with a severe DP. Don't kid yourself. ;)
    StarVoyage wrote:
    I have an idea too...we're on the Holodeck! Nothing we do is real!
    Oh.. sorry, I'm still working on the TL;DR version of this proposal ;)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    LordOfPit wrote: »
    OK, so you've made it to RA5 and now you have several options:
    • Roll an Alt.
    • Wait for more content.
    • Take a break, or just leave the game.
    • Work on alternate ships/crews for your RA5.
    However, I think there is something Cryptic can do (with the help of Q, of course) that will bring us repeatable content that will enrich the gameplay experience for Admirals and solve some other issues as well.

    What I propose is a system that will allow Cryptic to:
    • Re-use existing content to introduce a spin on old missions.
    • Offer slightly more challenging content without too much of a DP.
    • Introduce a satisfying crafting system on top of the existing one.
    • Allow most story-missions to automatically expand the end-game experience.
    The plan is this:
    1. The system can be used only by Read Admirals V (RA5) players.

    2. Once a RA5 is introduced to the system, they can re-visit every story-based mission by simply approaching the planet/system that mission took place on.

    3. The RA5 player then re-visits the same old mission instances but with several changes to them.

    4. The mission instance will now include a main NPC that the RA5 player must protect from special enemies spawned at certain random points. These special enemies will naturally be RA5 level, and may include Borg, Undine and any other high-level threat the game already offers.

    5. The RA5 player must follow the lead-NPC and ensure it survives through the mission, ignoring normal enemy missions and engaging only the temporal threats presented by Borg cubes, Undine ships etc.

    6. Ground combat will feature temporal patrols of Borg/Undine soldiers etc.

    7. Each time the RA5 player defeats temporal threats, he/she will gain Insight Points (IP) and special futuristic Augmentation Designs (AD).

    8. The mission will fail if the lead-NPC dies at the hands of any of the temporal threats, at which time the mission will end and all IP and AD collected during the mission will be removed from the RA5 player's inventory!

    9. If the mission concluded successfully and the lead-NPC survived, the RA5 player gets to keep the IP and AD and leave the instance.

    10. IP and AD resources can be used by RA5 players to enhance regular equipment in different ways and even create new equipment altogether.

    11. Engineering Admirals enhance/create armors and shields for both personal and ship use.

    12. Tactical Admirals enhance/create weapons for both ground/space combat.

    13. Science Admirals enhance/create consoles and kits.
    I leave it to Cryptic and the community to discuss, define and refine the intricate details of how many IP and what sort of AD each temporal threat will be worth, and propose the system be tied in to the story as Q attempting to help you prepare your civilization for the future.

    Flame, discuss or ignore as you wish. ;)

    I like this alot, looks really good I hope they take this into serious consideration
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    I would love to re-visit the mission content. Sounds like fun to me.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    I am sure I am not alone in wanting to face the Dooms Day machine again!

    I was so happy when I got that mission and saw it xD
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    Log dalies log out. Tell I see end game content I am not wasting my time on second R5 to collect dust.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    I like posts like this one......Just wish your efforts were not wasted as I fear they are
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    This is a great idea, I like your storyline too.

    I hope Cryptic reads this and puts a team on it. We need more than 1 raidisode to keep us occupied for long.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    Q him self would love this :D.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    I would love to see this idea in practice, but I have to get to RA first...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    Thank you guys for your support.

    I would like to emphasize that the idea is to first and foremost, allow Cryptic to re-cycle and re-use old episodic content, but adjust it to an RA5 play-field. The gameplay experience therefore will not be the same as it was when you originally played through the mission.

    In essence, you will not be the one shutting off the Plasma leaks, or talking to annoyed miners or even collecting those special torpedoes to fight the Doomsday Machine. What you will be doing however, is shadowing the lead-NPC who will attempt to accomplish these goals while surviving constant attacks from temporal threats (i.e. Borg, Undine and Lv45 enemies).

    Since these temporal threats will spawn at random points in the mission and attack the lead-NPC on-sight, the player(s) must quickly handle the spawns but put the priority on ensuring the survival of the lead-NPC. In other words, if the RA5 player dies, even once, the whole mission may instantly fail!

    I'm talking about offering challenge worthy of an Admiral and if a team of 5 RA5 players enter the mission together, it may very well turn each old story-mission into a mini raid-episode. :D

    The way STO is set up, anyone and everyone can reach RA5, even soloing. It's just a question of time, and in STO's case, not a lot of time even. This system however, aims to allow Cryptic to turn every episodic mission into a challenge that you haven't experienced the first time around playing through the mission.

    I am still trying to think about ways to allow the RA5 player some interaction with the lead-NPC, since I was quite inspired by B'vat and his journey to the past (City of the edge of Never), but I can't talk about this just yet.

    I'm hoping that the whole idea will be exciting enough on several levels and gain support, but even if all it did was get people excited about the game itself, as it is now, and realize the existing potential, I'd be pleased. :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2010
    Look what we're having released in May. :D If you guessed Episode Replayability, you guess right! :D

    I'm hoping the feature is designed so that Q is our contact for replaying missions, and I really really would love it if Cryptic did things the way I laid them out in my original post, however, at least we're getting a way to repeat our favorite missions, and I'm hoping with our RA5 characters to boot!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2010
    Demitrie wrote:
    I have ti say I would really enjoy something like this, and Im sure they are doing some work with thier own ideas on Q but I hope a Dev takes a look at this and gets an idea or two.

    Totally agree! I hope the Devs see this too.

    LOVE the concept!!! HUGE fan of repeatable content to begin with...this is, on the surface, what I want as well, but with a huge twist on it...I love it!

    As always, great idea LordOfPit!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2010
    Ok, I'll play counter-point on this one - the quests I really hated in WoW were the escort/protect quests .... especially the stupid robot chickens! I'd hate to see a large number of these in STO. The occasional one I'll work through (like the odd one we get now), but I'll be avoiding these like the plague if they came in!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2010
    Agreed, there is nothing I hate more in games than stupid timers and escort quests. With the way things are now, dying is an inevitability, even in PVE, making it so basically dying costs you a mission really annoying especially if it's lengthy...

    Have some difficulty is fine, but at the end of the day I do this for fun, if I want difficulty and a sense of accomplishment I'll go work overtime, as this is only a virtual experience afterall.

    Now for replayablilty and simply ramping up the level of the NPCs I'm all for that, I loved city on the edge of never... or whatever one had spock do his voice for... maybe making a replay daily that would award marks of something for purple weapons, or making a few missions the end of chain to get a token for one of the end level items.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2010
    Don't forget guys, the idea is for RA5 players to be able to take whatever missions they've played before and replay through those missions, but with a twist. Instead of you actually trying to accomplish the very same goals you've had to before, you're protecting a "previous" version of yourself so you already know where your "previous" self will go and what they'll face when they get there.

    The idea also isn't to attempt to "help" your previous-self to accomplish the mission, but rather defend your previous-self from temporal enemies that have invaded the time-line. This means that if you fail the mission, the worse that would happen, is Q will show up, get to scold you a little bit and reset the time-line so everything's OK again ;)

    Lastly, the idea is to allow Cryptic to artificially pad the game's PvE content, which they're already working on, but with a twist that will add some sense of both roleplay and worthy challenge. In essence, if I go through a mission I've done before, and see the mission is exactly as it were, only with Lv45+ enemies instead of the originals, well... it'd be more interesting to roll an Alt and go through the content again.

    If however, every old mission I replay through has the chance to pit me against Borg, Undine, Mirror-Universe Terrans... that could actually be fun because I'll know what's happening in the mission, but I'll also have a slightly different challenge everytime I go through the same mission!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited May 2010
    This is actually a really neat concept. Devs take a look please!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    phyriall wrote: »
    This is actually a really neat concept. Devs take a look please!
    Perhaps we ought to have a little chat with John de Lancie first? ;)

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    very kewl idea ,but i have to ask how are they going to get this to work when there are already so many problems in existance now? This feels like a beta test you get to pay for ...just my opinion...stilll OP fricking awesme idea
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    A: I miss John de Lancie as Q. He made the most disasterous events in Trek seem so...whimsical.

    B: So, technically the show is run by Q. But since we're essentially going back in time, maybe in order to complete said mission, you hail Starfleet, (Specifically, the Department of Temporal Investigations. I think i got the name right.) ?

    C: If it's a previous version of yourself, then would something have to record and remember the stats and the ship you flew at the time you did the original one? (Ex: You're RA5 and in a Tier 5 Star Cruiser, but replaying an old Commander mission where you flew a T3 Cruiser. would it have to remember such? or would it just make an image of your current ship and adjust the stats to accomodate someone who's a Commander?)

    D: Dunno if the Temporal encounters should be able to one-shot the ship you're trying to defend. At least give the player a few seconds to at least go full impulse so the ship doesn't get demolished 19 kilometers out just as you start. I mean, even the mission where you destroy the Doomsday machine, the TOS enterprise had to go against a Negh'var and 2 D7 Battlecruisers for a little while before you show up, and although the Enterprise isn't destroyed, it's still pretty beat up.


    Just some ideas.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2010
    There definitely is a lot to plan, design and think about before going to implement such a huge system, so I really doubt Cryptic will ever adopt the idea, even if they'd want to. It might very well be too ambitious for the current state of affairs. Nonetheless, it's awesome to imagine it in action. :)
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