Hi Cryptic, I know you're really big on listening to player feedback, and I've already seen several suggestions from the forums on Tribble. That's awesome, thank you!
This thread is just one (lifetime) player's thoughts as I go through the game. Hopefully you'll take it in the spirit of friendly community feedback and not any kind of criticism, as I'm actually having more fun with STO than any other MMO I've played. Some of these are just fun ideas, others are suggestions for minor improvements here an there that occur to me as I play.
Player community: yes I know there are other suggestion threads, and yes I understand that some of these suggestions may have been made before. I'm not interested in exhaustively cross referening against every other thread to ensure that I never post something that someone else has already mentioned. If there's duplication, consider it another vote for the same idea.
Without further ado:
Non-combat pets
All good MMOs have entire ecosystems of little critters that follow characters around, contributing nothing to the proceedings but looking cool/cute. STO has a couple of these already with the Tribbles (more of a device mechanically, and actually has utility; but still a critter) and the pet shuttle. Here are a few more ideas:
Ground (follows your Captain avatar):
Mobile Tricorder Unit. A floating robotic tricorder. Would be cool if it occasionally scanned the surroundings, pointing out anomalies, enemies or points of interest.
Alpha tribble: this is a large, mobile tribble with amazing fur patterning.
Small Medusan Electromagnetic Container (contains a Medusan observer embedded with your away team)
Borg assimilation device: this is a small cube, sphere, rod or other shape with powerful nano-assimilation weapons used by the Borg in ground assaults. This one is damaged though, and is merely able to spray enemies with pretty green light to no effect. Borg lifetime members only!
Various juvenile/larval aliens from the following species:
Aldebaran Shellmouth (not sure it can live out of water though)
Antarean Dryworm
Aurelian (a chick; maybe you originally find it as an egg)
Berengarian Dragon
Ceti Eel (occasionally attempts to crawl into your Captains ear and take over his/her brain)
Denebian Slime Devil
Dimorusian
Excalabian
Horta
Kaferian Insectoid
Lactran
Melkotian (with your team as part of a cultural exchange program with the Federation)
Mugato
Phylosian
Phylos Retclaw Plant (able to apply a toxic combat debuff)
Phylos Swooper
Piersols Traveller (would be a sprout or a weedy plant thing)
Regulan Bloodworm (occasionally attempts to attach itself to your captain)
Targ piglet (Klingon only)
Saurian
Scora
Space (follows your ship):
Some kind of space slug, orb or other void-dwelling entity that has taken a liking to your vessel and follows it around like an excited puppy.
Space Anomaly: this is a small tear in space/time, tame wormhole, chrono-particle cloud or some other weird space anomaly that has attached to your ship and follows it around.
Alien Probe: some kind of observation device that follows your ship through space, sent by some mysterious race, possibly the same ones that upgraded VGer.
Federation Science Pod: this is a small research station that is towed behind your ship by a tractor beam. It is staffed by Federation scientists and can be dropped off at interesting sites for extended research projects. This one stays with your ship, but maybe grants a small science buff.
Federation Repair Ship: maybe base on the constructors from Star Trek Armada. Maybe adds a small hull repair buff.
Alternate Universe Ship: this is a somewhat ghostly alternate universe version of your own ship, seen in glimpses due to a space/time anomaly.
Damaged Borg Assimilator: this is a small Borg assimilation device that was damaged in battle. It has targeted your ship and is attempting to assimilate it. Locked in its programming, it follows your ship everywhere, occasionally beaming some green energy; however the assimilation beam is damaged so it cant penetrate your shields. But if your shields are completely down, it will start to assimilate your vessel, reducing your available crew! Available to all players.
Borg Micro Matrix: available to Borg lifetime players only, your Borg captain, acting on racial memory, has located a piece of important Borg technology, allowing it to follow his/her ship. This artifact contains important information or technology that would help the Federation or Empire in the battle against the Borg, if only it could be unlocked. The Matrix occasionally produces some wild visual effects, selected at random.
I dont want to get into the whole death penalty debate, but since it looks like theres going to be one, I did have these thoughts:
What if we could repair DP lingering damage with the stuff we get from space or ground anomalies? I know there are to be used for Memory Alpha, but it might be kind of fun as DPs go to be able to undo DP effects on the fly as you go about your business. If we dont want to touch the anomalies to keep them dedicated to Memory Alpha, maybe we could beam minerals and matter aboard your ship from asteroids, gas clouds, etc., to speed repair of your ship.
Someone suggested lingering visual damage on your ship as part of the DP. I think this is an awesome idea. These would go away as you repair your ship.
Just continuing with the notion that the DP results in some kind of damage debuff to your ship that has to be repaired, there should be other ways to do this on the fly, besides harvesting materials:
At any space station you visit
Random Federation repair vessels, that you can encounter in space
Science ships can repair any other vessel
When you destroy another ship in combat, you should be able to harvest bits and pieces for raw materials, enabling you to get back up to full power. Im thinking of Champions Online, where you can undo your DP by winning battles.
I think the key is: you shouldnt have to stop playing and return to some set point to undo the DP. The penalty might actually be kind of fun if doing the repairs is integrated with normal gameplay and has appropriate flavor. After all, the Enterprise didnt have to run back to starbase to scrub off every phaser scorch mark, they had ways of fixing that stuff in space.
What if DP results arent always bad? Say your warp coil is damaged, and it causes strange spatial anomalies until repaired, some of which may be damaging to enemy vessels. This could be a rare, random condition.
See also the Sick Bay suggestion in the next entry.
So I have currently already annihilated the entire population of Star Fleet with the number of crew deaths that have occurred aboard my ship, based on the number of little person icons that have blinked out.
Instead of every players ship being an abattoir of blood and corpses, what if these icons represented the number of ready and able crew members? When they arent filled in, this could represent crew members who are shaken, tossed about or otherwise not fully able to do their duty. As the icons fill back in, this would represent crew members picking themselves back up, dusting themselves back off and getting back to work. This would match the TV shows and movies, which frequently depict crew members being thrown over railings, being knocked into walls by explosions, etc.
You could further tie this into the DP. So if some crew members are able to shake it off and return to their stations, some will be more seriously injured and will have to go to sick bay. So what if theres a Sick Bay component to the DP? The Sick Bay fills up with injured crew members the more time your ship bites it, and then if you want immediate improvement you have to return to a star base, get assistance from a wandering Federation medical vessel, etc. The Sick Bay would also empty over time, returning you to full capabilities, assuming you dont die for a while.
So you get a new ship; you modify its appearance and load it up with weapons and consoles. Then you beam up and go about your business. Theres one final step thats missing: the Dramatic Ship Reveal as it is Parked in Spacedock.
Everyone who has seen the movies will be immediately familiar with this. I think they also did it in a couple of the shows. The concept here is that the ship, the Enterprise in particular, is itself a mythic character. Its first reveal is a big, dramatic moment, with swelling orchestral music and crew members staring out of shuttle portholes in dumbstruck awe. Off the top of my head, I can remember variations of this scene in:
Star Trek the Motion Picture (If I recall this scene seemed to last forever, with Kirks shuttle flying around the Enterprise examining every angle of the refit. It was almost kind of dirty.)
Star Trek II (even though they revealed the new Enterprise in the first movie, they did it again here)
Star Trek III (sort of the reverse: big dramatic moment with swelling music as the beaten up Enterprise returns to space dock)
Star Trek Reboot (a much more economical scene, as fitting with the rest of the movie, but the core elements are all here: shuttle, swelling music, gradual reveal of ship and crew members staring out of portals in awe)
Bonus sucky example: the reveal of the Enterprise E in First Contact. In my opinion the best Enterprise ever, and it has the worst, least dramatic reveal ever! Its just there on the screen like weve seen it a hundred times already. Puke.
So my suggestion is this: when you acquire a new ship, the first time you go to it, instead of beaming up you trigger a cut scene where your captain and bridge crew fly up in a shuttle and approach a space dock. The music swells. Gradually your new ship is revealed, intercut with shots of your crew gaping in wonder out the shuttle windows.
Obviously this only happens once per new ship, and can be skipped.
A button right on the HUD to lock/unlock your skill buttons. This is used in Aion, and is really useful. Compare to WOW, where you have to go into options in order to do this (at least as of the last time I played)
Can we have the ability to move the HUD boxes around on our screen? In my current ship theyre kind of crammed together and overlapping. Would be nice to be able to reposition them for ergonomic use.
Would like to have options to turn on/add buttons at various other locations around the screen. For example, I want to keep the bar that shows my BOs, but am having trouble easily adding all the other buttons in the two available bars above that. I never use my weapon/engine/shield batteries because theres no easily accessible place to put them. If I could add a bar along the right side of the screen, then I could put the batteries there.
It would be cool if eventually the HUD could look more like the control panel of an actual starship. A little bit more Star Trek flavor, if you will.
I've posted a couple times on the character creator. A lot of those suggestions are now null, because they are in Episode One! :eek:
I do have these remaining character suggestions:
More cheek options. Currently there is only one slider for cheeks, resulting in all female characters (I don't have a male so I can't speak to that) walking around with similar, rosy, high cheek bones. I'd love to be able to minimize the cheek bones a bit, creating a softer female appearance.
Eye angle: I'd love to be able to tilt the eyes for an Asian look.
It would be nice if we could narrow the width of the head a bit more.
Don't know if this is supported by the current skill system as I haven't gotten to the end game yet, but I'd like to be able to freely jump between two of the three ship types. For example, Cruiser and Science. That would mean being able put full points into both skill paths, while still having enough left over for everything else (just not another full skill set in the third class of ships).
In other words, I'd like to be able to have sufficient variety in my one character, without having to create an alt. The 10 levels between ships isn't too over-long I don't think, but being able to switch between a couple ship types at my current tier adds good variety and helps keep things fresh until the next upgrade. But, I'd like to be able to keep both ships at full power through skills, and not have one main and one "gimped."
I posted this suggestion previously, but here it is again.
When you reach Admiral, you have a stable of outmoded ships that are cool, but will probably never be used again. However, what if you could populate these ships with weapons and BOs, and use them in certain situations like ground BOs?
As Admiral, it makes sense that you would command several ships, not just one. Your old ships could make up this fleet, with your current vessel being the flagship.
You wouldn't get to call in your fleet in every situation, only in special solo instances or missions. In battle, the ships would act like your ground BOs, supporting you and attacking via AI.
With this concept, you'll never have to feel like your old ships are useless. Even the Miranda class would have utility as a support ship, especially when outfitted with Admiral-class weapons and consoles.
Obviously, the solo missions in which you could use your fleet would need to be freaking hard: insta-death if you were to try them alone.
Plus, this would extend loot gathering and assignment well beyond your captain, ship and BOs. With so many more slots to fill, the economy would get a boost, and gear tweakers like me would have endless hours of amusement, outfitting each ship.
I remember this wireframe Star Trek ripoff game waaaaay back in the day. You piloted two little Enterprise clones around a black hole and blasted at each other. One of the cool things I remember was shooting off the nacelle of my opponent; crippled, his ship got sucked into the black hole.
It would be cool if space combat could result in specific damage that caused crazy effects like this. For example, one nacelle is damaged and vents a concentrated stream of plasma, causing your ship to spin in circles. Or you take damage to the bridge, temporarily disabiling your BOs. Maybe parts of your ship get shot off and have to be replaced via the DP methods discussed earlier. Your warp coil is damaged, venting a cloud that damages all ships in the vicinity, friend or foe.
That's not to say the current effects aren't cool; especailly when electricity is crackling across your nacelles. This is just a classic case of "That's really cool! Now how about..."
I simply love your ideas, you should have been in the circle of development for this game.
Just finished watched the repeating enterprise destruction episode, we need nacelles flying off, now!!
the HUD really should have something like the TNG console Data, or LaForge would use, it would give a more epic feel to it, the sky blue/and red HUDS are a eyesore that can also confuse newer players in pvp.
Expanding on the last point, Target colors should be the same on both fed and kdf.
/cookie
for your well thought out and bright post.
Can we eventually get the infected skin on all exposed flesh? I'd live to put Three in a miniskirt at some point, but it looks weird with her infected face and pristine hands and legs.
One thing this game might want to consider stealing from EVE: being able to click a location right from mission text (or anywhere else a location name appears), and automatically going straight there, including all the warps (load screens). The next time you take control of your ship you should be at your destination.
Currently, if the mission says "Go to Planet Mungo in the Fuzzy Bunny Sector Block," I often have to check my maps to remember where the block is, and then navigate there, which may require one or more loading screens, my ship often stopping at another system asking if I want to enter; and/or being sucked into a deep space battle. Once I get to my first navigation point, I often have to repeat the process until I'm in the general area, and finally can find my specific destination in the system list.
I don't have a big problem with this, but in Star Trek I think the navigation capabilities are a bit more advanced. Although it would be funny if in one of the shows the bridge crew was huddled around a big paper map... "where the hell was DS-9 again?"
Anyway, with EVE you click the destination and select to navigate there, and then often walk away and eat lunch because 20 jumps were involved and it was going to take half an hour. Still, it was a good option to have.
Maybe you could give this some flavor by having a BO pop up on screen and ask you to confirm locking in your course.
I'm sure someone has posted this before, but at some point I'd love the scanner function in the game to develop a bit more.
What I'd most like to see is the scanner picking up multiple signals at once, and differentiating between them. For example, anomalies versus mission objectives, enemies, objects, etc. I'd like to see a lot more specificity in exactly what the signal is, not just a directional pointer.
One thing I've noticed on the ground is that anomalies can give you "false positives" in trying to get the the next glow-y alien device, crate, egg sack or whatever. Recently I was trying to find the last crate of medical supplies but my scanner kept pointing me toward what was probably supposed to be an anomaly, but it wasn't there and I just kept running to the end of the map. I was forced to search for the last crate without the scanner, and finally found it after running back and forth for 10 minutes.
In space, I'll often be told by a BO that I need to fly to a space station, asteroid mine or some other small target, but there's no indication of where this might be on the map, and the scanner just picks up anomalies. It would be great if scanning show you the exact location of your destination; sweeter still would be fluff readouts of station size, personnel compliment, weapon systems, etc.
STO is set in a future where Starfleet's scanning technology is highly advanced, so hopefully this function will be built out. Ultimately it would be very cool to be able to fly to a new planet, scan it and get a detailed readout that you can use to gather raw materials, decide whether or not to beam down and explore, pick up distress signals, identify faint traces of alien artifacts, etc.
I've always gravitated toward pet classes. I was a Warlock in WOW for a while, an a Spiritmaster in Aion for the 10 minutes I played that game. My character in Champions is a Darkness elf thing, but I just gave her a pet: a four-armed golem that's controllable and pretty nifty in a scrape.
I think the universe is wide open for full pet action here in STO. You could have any number of drones, little robots, aliens, etc., and still not be too far from the scope of the shows and movies. You could probably just port the controls over from Champions, at least for a start; they weren't as complex as some of the other pet controls that I've encountered, but I was also fine with that.
As a Borg, of course I would like to control my own miniature Borg cubeling.
I just got my Tier 5 Star Cruiser: the U.S.S. Apotheosis. She's an experimental NX variant on the Noble class. I'm pretty happy with her.
A while back I seem to recall Cryptic saying that they were thinking about what the Tier 6 ships could be like - maybe an entire guild needs to pool together to create them, or whatever. Having flown in my Tier 5 for just an hour or so, another option has immediately come to mind: Tier 6 could be your Tier 5 ship, with a progression of upgrades that allow to become even more powerful over time.
As I tool around in the Apotheosis, it occurs to me that a Star Cruiser is a pretty high-end piece of equipment. It's pretty advanced. I wouldn't mind settling in and keeping it for a while instead of constantly upgrading to an entirely new ship. One of the things that STO does really well is allow you to become attached to your crew; I'd like to become attached to my ship, too.
However, in order to stick with one ship, I think we need to be able to take that ship to new levels. For example: my Star Cruiser has good engineering BO slots, but pretty limited tactical and science. What if I could unlock new BO slots over time, until eventually I had full access to all four talents for each BO station? That way I could actually experience all of my science or tactical officer's skills. I'll never get to use them in my current ship, and even if you add entirely new Tier 6s, I'll just go Cruiser again and probably still never get to use them.
And what if we could upgrade the engines, weapons and other systems even further, based on completing missions or acquiring rare end game loot? Add new weapon slots that hold only experimental alien weapons that we pick up in our adventures? Add shuttle bays, storage space, new crew quarters, scanning systems, etc.?
I like the idea of continually upgrading and retrofitting a ship to improve it, just like you would do with a human(oid) avatar in other MMOs.
Then Cryptic can come up with all kinds of crazy loot based on television and movie lore that players can find and experiment with.
Of course, you could still add new ships designs, but this option would allow anyone who becomes attached to a particular vessel to keep it for as long as they wish.
So I just reached RA5. Here are some thoughts/wishes/ideas/opinions after playing through to the first level cap:
This game is a lot of fun
I know the forums are always full of haters, but TRIBBLE 'em. This game is really very enjoyable. It's got its issues and room for improvement, but so does WOW.
I like upgrading, tweaking and modifying
There is plenty of room for messing around with items and stats here; with not only the main captain and ship, but also all the BOs. I found that I really enjoyed spending time farting around with all this stuff, so the more opportunities to add gear, play with abilities, modify stats, etc., the better.
The skill cap needs to be open
I know this is/was a topic of debate on the forums, but after playing this far I find myself in the "completely unlimited skill accumulation" camp. I simply think it would be more fun. An right now, even at cap, it doesn't seem like I should be anywhere near close to done growing my skills.
Don't make me change ships or BOs
I've grown attached to my crew and now to my current ship. I'd like to be able to keep them, no matter how high the level cap goes. For example, I'm now being offered "purple" BOs. I know I don't have to take them on and can use them to train up existing BOs, but they also seem to come with nifty passive skills that can't be transferred. However, I haven't fought through multiple ranks with these guys - I want to be able to make my current BO crew purple-level.
I'm less concerned about ships - I'll sure I'll eventually see something new and shiny. However, I've created a pretty cutting edge-looking Star Cruiser that looks like it would be the latest and greatest produced by Star Fleet, and so I'm not in any hurry to dump it.
So I'd like to suggest new upgrade paths both for BOs and for starships. Maybe these things can be tied together.
First, for BOs I'd like to see the ability to further train these until they can reach "rare/purple" level or higher. Their names should be color coded to reflect this. In other words, instead of having to dump old BOs and replace them with shiny new ones with better stats, I'd like to be able to build my existing crew up to the highest levels available.
Ships also need multiple new upgrade paths. For example, my Star Cruiser is the latest design, crews 1000 and should theoretically represent the cutting edge of Star Fleet design. While its not a science vessel or an escort, I see no reason why it wouldn't have significant science and tactical capabilities. However, with the current slotting, I'll never be able to use my science officer's higher-level skills for instance, or most of my tactical officers'.
So I'd like to suggest several ideas for being able to stick with one ship and upgrade it over time so it can stay viable as the level cap increases:
1. Be able to unlock BO station slots. So even though my Star Cruiser is initially designed for Engineering, I'd like to be able to open up more Science and Tactical station slots, up to the point where all stations are maxed out with four slots each. Maybe opening these slots is tied into enhanced BO training?
2. In the longer term, it would be cool to be able to upgrade with new modules that add functionality. Like an upgraded sick bay that increases crew readiness; enlarged cargo bays that increase your inventory; drone bays that allow you to turn your ship into a pet class; additional shield layers; additional, experimental or alien weapons, etc.
These would all be additional upgrade paths for ships and BOs, and wouldn't replace the current system.
The Bridge
There's a lot you can do with the Bridge. I'd love to see more actual functionality here. Scanning, training, some kind of interaction with your BOs. It would be cool if the bridge was occasionally invaded by aliens, or if you could pick up special distress signals there. What if the main screen, which is currently just a fixed image of a star field, was interactive?
Maps and scanning
These both need a lot of work. Scanning and maps need to be much more reflective of the kind of technology that the Federation would actually have access too. The maps need to be much more detailed, functional and useful. For example, if I get a mission that says I need to go to DS9, I should be able to click something on the map to scroll right to that location, and then click again to have the ship automatically navigate there, through all map changes and without stopping at every warp point to ask if that's where I want to go. Eventually it would be good to have 3D maps and star charts.
Scanning too needs to be upgraded to reflect actually technology that would be available. For example, I go onto a new instance and the mission says I need to go to a space station. Currently, there's no indication of the station on the map, and scans don't pick it up. The only way to find it is to look for the blinking nav beacon. So scanning really needs to provide a lot more detail about what's around, even if that's a bit of a "spoiler" (such as enemy locations). I should be able to scan and find whatever it is I'm looking for, whether a certain asteroid in space or a mushroom on the ground.
Bugs
There are currently some graphic issues that really should be eliminated once and for all. I recently posted about "flickering floors" in the bug forum; but also ship anti-aliasing looks really bad on the sector space map, and there are issues with pop up, weird little anomalies like targs that run sideways and backwards, etc. I'd like to see these get squashed, as they shouldn't be floating around in a AAA MMO.
Character Creator
I like it, but I'd love to see more options. My big wish item is another slider for cheeks; currently all the female characters at least have the same cheek bones. But anything is always good, including better hair styles. More tattoos would also be welcome.
More stuff
I'd love to see more variety in the stuff that drops, both in space and on the ground. I'm sure this will happen in due course, but right now I feel like I'm seeing the same stuff, over and over.
BO skills
I'd like to see more variety here, too. Just more skills to choose from.
C-store
I really like the C-store. I like getting new stuff, even little cosmetic things. Free stuff is always better, but I don't mind paying if the stuff available is sufficiently cool. My personal interest is in things that enhance my current character or ship, as opposed to new races, etc., but that's just me.
In summary...
I really like this game, and would next love to see new ways to enhance my current captain, crew and ship. I like what you're doing, but more is better!
Comments
I dont want to get into the whole death penalty debate, but since it looks like theres going to be one, I did have these thoughts:
What if we could repair DP lingering damage with the stuff we get from space or ground anomalies? I know there are to be used for Memory Alpha, but it might be kind of fun as DPs go to be able to undo DP effects on the fly as you go about your business. If we dont want to touch the anomalies to keep them dedicated to Memory Alpha, maybe we could beam minerals and matter aboard your ship from asteroids, gas clouds, etc., to speed repair of your ship.
Someone suggested lingering visual damage on your ship as part of the DP. I think this is an awesome idea. These would go away as you repair your ship.
Just continuing with the notion that the DP results in some kind of damage debuff to your ship that has to be repaired, there should be other ways to do this on the fly, besides harvesting materials:
At any space station you visit
Random Federation repair vessels, that you can encounter in space
Science ships can repair any other vessel
When you destroy another ship in combat, you should be able to harvest bits and pieces for raw materials, enabling you to get back up to full power. Im thinking of Champions Online, where you can undo your DP by winning battles.
I think the key is: you shouldnt have to stop playing and return to some set point to undo the DP. The penalty might actually be kind of fun if doing the repairs is integrated with normal gameplay and has appropriate flavor. After all, the Enterprise didnt have to run back to starbase to scrub off every phaser scorch mark, they had ways of fixing that stuff in space.
What if DP results arent always bad? Say your warp coil is damaged, and it causes strange spatial anomalies until repaired, some of which may be damaging to enemy vessels. This could be a rare, random condition.
See also the Sick Bay suggestion in the next entry.
So I have currently already annihilated the entire population of Star Fleet with the number of crew deaths that have occurred aboard my ship, based on the number of little person icons that have blinked out.
Instead of every players ship being an abattoir of blood and corpses, what if these icons represented the number of ready and able crew members? When they arent filled in, this could represent crew members who are shaken, tossed about or otherwise not fully able to do their duty. As the icons fill back in, this would represent crew members picking themselves back up, dusting themselves back off and getting back to work. This would match the TV shows and movies, which frequently depict crew members being thrown over railings, being knocked into walls by explosions, etc.
You could further tie this into the DP. So if some crew members are able to shake it off and return to their stations, some will be more seriously injured and will have to go to sick bay. So what if theres a Sick Bay component to the DP? The Sick Bay fills up with injured crew members the more time your ship bites it, and then if you want immediate improvement you have to return to a star base, get assistance from a wandering Federation medical vessel, etc. The Sick Bay would also empty over time, returning you to full capabilities, assuming you dont die for a while.
So you get a new ship; you modify its appearance and load it up with weapons and consoles. Then you beam up and go about your business. Theres one final step thats missing: the Dramatic Ship Reveal as it is Parked in Spacedock.
Everyone who has seen the movies will be immediately familiar with this. I think they also did it in a couple of the shows. The concept here is that the ship, the Enterprise in particular, is itself a mythic character. Its first reveal is a big, dramatic moment, with swelling orchestral music and crew members staring out of shuttle portholes in dumbstruck awe. Off the top of my head, I can remember variations of this scene in:
Star Trek the Motion Picture (If I recall this scene seemed to last forever, with Kirks shuttle flying around the Enterprise examining every angle of the refit. It was almost kind of dirty.)
Star Trek II (even though they revealed the new Enterprise in the first movie, they did it again here)
Star Trek III (sort of the reverse: big dramatic moment with swelling music as the beaten up Enterprise returns to space dock)
Star Trek Reboot (a much more economical scene, as fitting with the rest of the movie, but the core elements are all here: shuttle, swelling music, gradual reveal of ship and crew members staring out of portals in awe)
Bonus sucky example: the reveal of the Enterprise E in First Contact. In my opinion the best Enterprise ever, and it has the worst, least dramatic reveal ever! Its just there on the screen like weve seen it a hundred times already. Puke.
So my suggestion is this: when you acquire a new ship, the first time you go to it, instead of beaming up you trigger a cut scene where your captain and bridge crew fly up in a shuttle and approach a space dock. The music swells. Gradually your new ship is revealed, intercut with shots of your crew gaping in wonder out the shuttle windows.
Obviously this only happens once per new ship, and can be skipped.
I have these suggestions for the HUD:
A button right on the HUD to lock/unlock your skill buttons. This is used in Aion, and is really useful. Compare to WOW, where you have to go into options in order to do this (at least as of the last time I played)
Can we have the ability to move the HUD boxes around on our screen? In my current ship theyre kind of crammed together and overlapping. Would be nice to be able to reposition them for ergonomic use.
Would like to have options to turn on/add buttons at various other locations around the screen. For example, I want to keep the bar that shows my BOs, but am having trouble easily adding all the other buttons in the two available bars above that. I never use my weapon/engine/shield batteries because theres no easily accessible place to put them. If I could add a bar along the right side of the screen, then I could put the batteries there.
It would be cool if eventually the HUD could look more like the control panel of an actual starship. A little bit more Star Trek flavor, if you will.
I've posted a couple times on the character creator. A lot of those suggestions are now null, because they are in Episode One! :eek:
I do have these remaining character suggestions:
More cheek options. Currently there is only one slider for cheeks, resulting in all female characters (I don't have a male so I can't speak to that) walking around with similar, rosy, high cheek bones. I'd love to be able to minimize the cheek bones a bit, creating a softer female appearance.
Eye angle: I'd love to be able to tilt the eyes for an Asian look.
It would be nice if we could narrow the width of the head a bit more.
When fighting Targs and those reptile things used by the Klingons, at times they seem to run backwards and even sideways. Just an observation.
Don't know if this is supported by the current skill system as I haven't gotten to the end game yet, but I'd like to be able to freely jump between two of the three ship types. For example, Cruiser and Science. That would mean being able put full points into both skill paths, while still having enough left over for everything else (just not another full skill set in the third class of ships).
In other words, I'd like to be able to have sufficient variety in my one character, without having to create an alt. The 10 levels between ships isn't too over-long I don't think, but being able to switch between a couple ship types at my current tier adds good variety and helps keep things fresh until the next upgrade. But, I'd like to be able to keep both ships at full power through skills, and not have one main and one "gimped."
I posted this suggestion previously, but here it is again.
When you reach Admiral, you have a stable of outmoded ships that are cool, but will probably never be used again. However, what if you could populate these ships with weapons and BOs, and use them in certain situations like ground BOs?
As Admiral, it makes sense that you would command several ships, not just one. Your old ships could make up this fleet, with your current vessel being the flagship.
You wouldn't get to call in your fleet in every situation, only in special solo instances or missions. In battle, the ships would act like your ground BOs, supporting you and attacking via AI.
With this concept, you'll never have to feel like your old ships are useless. Even the Miranda class would have utility as a support ship, especially when outfitted with Admiral-class weapons and consoles.
Obviously, the solo missions in which you could use your fleet would need to be freaking hard: insta-death if you were to try them alone.
Plus, this would extend loot gathering and assignment well beyond your captain, ship and BOs. With so many more slots to fill, the economy would get a boost, and gear tweakers like me would have endless hours of amusement, outfitting each ship.
Admittedly I don't know much about Targ behavior. I might be experiencing the dreaded Butt Velocity Assault.
I remember this wireframe Star Trek ripoff game waaaaay back in the day. You piloted two little Enterprise clones around a black hole and blasted at each other. One of the cool things I remember was shooting off the nacelle of my opponent; crippled, his ship got sucked into the black hole.
It would be cool if space combat could result in specific damage that caused crazy effects like this. For example, one nacelle is damaged and vents a concentrated stream of plasma, causing your ship to spin in circles. Or you take damage to the bridge, temporarily disabiling your BOs. Maybe parts of your ship get shot off and have to be replaced via the DP methods discussed earlier. Your warp coil is damaged, venting a cloud that damages all ships in the vicinity, friend or foe.
That's not to say the current effects aren't cool; especailly when electricity is crackling across your nacelles. This is just a classic case of "That's really cool! Now how about..."
Just finished watched the repeating enterprise destruction episode, we need nacelles flying off, now!!
the HUD really should have something like the TNG console Data, or LaForge would use, it would give a more epic feel to it, the sky blue/and red HUDS are a eyesore that can also confuse newer players in pvp.
Expanding on the last point, Target colors should be the same on both fed and kdf.
/cookie
for your well thought out and bright post.
Can we eventually get the infected skin on all exposed flesh? I'd live to put Three in a miniskirt at some point, but it looks weird with her infected face and pristine hands and legs.
It would be really cool if we could designate one of our BOs as First Officer. Maybe that BO would gain some extra ability.
One of my BOs is my right hand Borg, and I'd like to be able to formally recognize her as such.
The main problem with your ideas is that they make too much sense, and hence, will never be implemented
One thing this game might want to consider stealing from EVE: being able to click a location right from mission text (or anywhere else a location name appears), and automatically going straight there, including all the warps (load screens). The next time you take control of your ship you should be at your destination.
Currently, if the mission says "Go to Planet Mungo in the Fuzzy Bunny Sector Block," I often have to check my maps to remember where the block is, and then navigate there, which may require one or more loading screens, my ship often stopping at another system asking if I want to enter; and/or being sucked into a deep space battle. Once I get to my first navigation point, I often have to repeat the process until I'm in the general area, and finally can find my specific destination in the system list.
I don't have a big problem with this, but in Star Trek I think the navigation capabilities are a bit more advanced. Although it would be funny if in one of the shows the bridge crew was huddled around a big paper map... "where the hell was DS-9 again?"
Anyway, with EVE you click the destination and select to navigate there, and then often walk away and eat lunch because 20 jumps were involved and it was going to take half an hour. Still, it was a good option to have.
Maybe you could give this some flavor by having a BO pop up on screen and ask you to confirm locking in your course.
I'm sure someone has posted this before, but at some point I'd love the scanner function in the game to develop a bit more.
What I'd most like to see is the scanner picking up multiple signals at once, and differentiating between them. For example, anomalies versus mission objectives, enemies, objects, etc. I'd like to see a lot more specificity in exactly what the signal is, not just a directional pointer.
One thing I've noticed on the ground is that anomalies can give you "false positives" in trying to get the the next glow-y alien device, crate, egg sack or whatever. Recently I was trying to find the last crate of medical supplies but my scanner kept pointing me toward what was probably supposed to be an anomaly, but it wasn't there and I just kept running to the end of the map. I was forced to search for the last crate without the scanner, and finally found it after running back and forth for 10 minutes.
In space, I'll often be told by a BO that I need to fly to a space station, asteroid mine or some other small target, but there's no indication of where this might be on the map, and the scanner just picks up anomalies. It would be great if scanning show you the exact location of your destination; sweeter still would be fluff readouts of station size, personnel compliment, weapon systems, etc.
STO is set in a future where Starfleet's scanning technology is highly advanced, so hopefully this function will be built out. Ultimately it would be very cool to be able to fly to a new planet, scan it and get a detailed readout that you can use to gather raw materials, decide whether or not to beam down and explore, pick up distress signals, identify faint traces of alien artifacts, etc.
I've always gravitated toward pet classes. I was a Warlock in WOW for a while, an a Spiritmaster in Aion for the 10 minutes I played that game. My character in Champions is a Darkness elf thing, but I just gave her a pet: a four-armed golem that's controllable and pretty nifty in a scrape.
I think the universe is wide open for full pet action here in STO. You could have any number of drones, little robots, aliens, etc., and still not be too far from the scope of the shows and movies. You could probably just port the controls over from Champions, at least for a start; they weren't as complex as some of the other pet controls that I've encountered, but I was also fine with that.
As a Borg, of course I would like to control my own miniature Borg cubeling.
I just got my Tier 5 Star Cruiser: the U.S.S. Apotheosis. She's an experimental NX variant on the Noble class. I'm pretty happy with her.
A while back I seem to recall Cryptic saying that they were thinking about what the Tier 6 ships could be like - maybe an entire guild needs to pool together to create them, or whatever. Having flown in my Tier 5 for just an hour or so, another option has immediately come to mind: Tier 6 could be your Tier 5 ship, with a progression of upgrades that allow to become even more powerful over time.
As I tool around in the Apotheosis, it occurs to me that a Star Cruiser is a pretty high-end piece of equipment. It's pretty advanced. I wouldn't mind settling in and keeping it for a while instead of constantly upgrading to an entirely new ship. One of the things that STO does really well is allow you to become attached to your crew; I'd like to become attached to my ship, too.
However, in order to stick with one ship, I think we need to be able to take that ship to new levels. For example: my Star Cruiser has good engineering BO slots, but pretty limited tactical and science. What if I could unlock new BO slots over time, until eventually I had full access to all four talents for each BO station? That way I could actually experience all of my science or tactical officer's skills. I'll never get to use them in my current ship, and even if you add entirely new Tier 6s, I'll just go Cruiser again and probably still never get to use them.
And what if we could upgrade the engines, weapons and other systems even further, based on completing missions or acquiring rare end game loot? Add new weapon slots that hold only experimental alien weapons that we pick up in our adventures? Add shuttle bays, storage space, new crew quarters, scanning systems, etc.?
I like the idea of continually upgrading and retrofitting a ship to improve it, just like you would do with a human(oid) avatar in other MMOs.
Then Cryptic can come up with all kinds of crazy loot based on television and movie lore that players can find and experiment with.
Of course, you could still add new ships designs, but this option would allow anyone who becomes attached to a particular vessel to keep it for as long as they wish.
Hi Cryptic,
So I just reached RA5. Here are some thoughts/wishes/ideas/opinions after playing through to the first level cap:
This game is a lot of fun
I know the forums are always full of haters, but TRIBBLE 'em. This game is really very enjoyable. It's got its issues and room for improvement, but so does WOW.
I like upgrading, tweaking and modifying
There is plenty of room for messing around with items and stats here; with not only the main captain and ship, but also all the BOs. I found that I really enjoyed spending time farting around with all this stuff, so the more opportunities to add gear, play with abilities, modify stats, etc., the better.
The skill cap needs to be open
I know this is/was a topic of debate on the forums, but after playing this far I find myself in the "completely unlimited skill accumulation" camp. I simply think it would be more fun. An right now, even at cap, it doesn't seem like I should be anywhere near close to done growing my skills.
Don't make me change ships or BOs
I've grown attached to my crew and now to my current ship. I'd like to be able to keep them, no matter how high the level cap goes. For example, I'm now being offered "purple" BOs. I know I don't have to take them on and can use them to train up existing BOs, but they also seem to come with nifty passive skills that can't be transferred. However, I haven't fought through multiple ranks with these guys - I want to be able to make my current BO crew purple-level.
I'm less concerned about ships - I'll sure I'll eventually see something new and shiny. However, I've created a pretty cutting edge-looking Star Cruiser that looks like it would be the latest and greatest produced by Star Fleet, and so I'm not in any hurry to dump it.
So I'd like to suggest new upgrade paths both for BOs and for starships. Maybe these things can be tied together.
First, for BOs I'd like to see the ability to further train these until they can reach "rare/purple" level or higher. Their names should be color coded to reflect this. In other words, instead of having to dump old BOs and replace them with shiny new ones with better stats, I'd like to be able to build my existing crew up to the highest levels available.
Ships also need multiple new upgrade paths. For example, my Star Cruiser is the latest design, crews 1000 and should theoretically represent the cutting edge of Star Fleet design. While its not a science vessel or an escort, I see no reason why it wouldn't have significant science and tactical capabilities. However, with the current slotting, I'll never be able to use my science officer's higher-level skills for instance, or most of my tactical officers'.
So I'd like to suggest several ideas for being able to stick with one ship and upgrade it over time so it can stay viable as the level cap increases:
1. Be able to unlock BO station slots. So even though my Star Cruiser is initially designed for Engineering, I'd like to be able to open up more Science and Tactical station slots, up to the point where all stations are maxed out with four slots each. Maybe opening these slots is tied into enhanced BO training?
2. In the longer term, it would be cool to be able to upgrade with new modules that add functionality. Like an upgraded sick bay that increases crew readiness; enlarged cargo bays that increase your inventory; drone bays that allow you to turn your ship into a pet class; additional shield layers; additional, experimental or alien weapons, etc.
These would all be additional upgrade paths for ships and BOs, and wouldn't replace the current system.
The Bridge
There's a lot you can do with the Bridge. I'd love to see more actual functionality here. Scanning, training, some kind of interaction with your BOs. It would be cool if the bridge was occasionally invaded by aliens, or if you could pick up special distress signals there. What if the main screen, which is currently just a fixed image of a star field, was interactive?
Maps and scanning
These both need a lot of work. Scanning and maps need to be much more reflective of the kind of technology that the Federation would actually have access too. The maps need to be much more detailed, functional and useful. For example, if I get a mission that says I need to go to DS9, I should be able to click something on the map to scroll right to that location, and then click again to have the ship automatically navigate there, through all map changes and without stopping at every warp point to ask if that's where I want to go. Eventually it would be good to have 3D maps and star charts.
Scanning too needs to be upgraded to reflect actually technology that would be available. For example, I go onto a new instance and the mission says I need to go to a space station. Currently, there's no indication of the station on the map, and scans don't pick it up. The only way to find it is to look for the blinking nav beacon. So scanning really needs to provide a lot more detail about what's around, even if that's a bit of a "spoiler" (such as enemy locations). I should be able to scan and find whatever it is I'm looking for, whether a certain asteroid in space or a mushroom on the ground.
Bugs
There are currently some graphic issues that really should be eliminated once and for all. I recently posted about "flickering floors" in the bug forum; but also ship anti-aliasing looks really bad on the sector space map, and there are issues with pop up, weird little anomalies like targs that run sideways and backwards, etc. I'd like to see these get squashed, as they shouldn't be floating around in a AAA MMO.
Character Creator
I like it, but I'd love to see more options. My big wish item is another slider for cheeks; currently all the female characters at least have the same cheek bones. But anything is always good, including better hair styles. More tattoos would also be welcome.
More stuff
I'd love to see more variety in the stuff that drops, both in space and on the ground. I'm sure this will happen in due course, but right now I feel like I'm seeing the same stuff, over and over.
BO skills
I'd like to see more variety here, too. Just more skills to choose from.
C-store
I really like the C-store. I like getting new stuff, even little cosmetic things. Free stuff is always better, but I don't mind paying if the stuff available is sufficiently cool. My personal interest is in things that enhance my current character or ship, as opposed to new races, etc., but that's just me.
In summary...
I really like this game, and would next love to see new ways to enhance my current captain, crew and ship. I like what you're doing, but more is better!
All upgrades are applied per account, not per character.
Stop resurrecting these vanity necro threads, let them Rest In Peace
No. Go suck on a tribble.