Hi all. Im a huge fan of STO and Im really having a good time. Ive got a science RA5 and now Im toying around with a Klingon and an Engineering alt. Now, I wanted to give Cryptic some feedback.
Quick demographic: 29 years old, male, married, kids, 20 hours a week for gaming. I work in IT (hardware AND programming, yay!) for a Casino, Im a former developer on the HeroEngine and Heros Journey projects (3.5 years, heroengine.com). HeroEngine is the meat and potatoes for Star Wars: The Old Republic. If you visited our booth at GDC 2006 or 2007, you probably met me

Anyway, on with the wall of text.
Bugs & Polish
I know well enough that bugs happen and they can indeed take a good deal of time to fix properly. I, like most people, are therefore pretty forgiving with bugs. However, it always has to be stated, and I would argue, at least in my case, bugs and lack of polish early on prevent me from even worrying about things like end game content. The end game argument has to be worth getting to, you know what I mean?
STO is in great shape compared to some other recent games Ive played, but theres a few immersion and gameplay killing bugs that really ought to be taken care of. Soon!
The big ones for me are:
Ships flying into asteroids making them un-attackable
Ships spawning inside other objects (Borg PvP zone)
Animation state problems in ground combat (sliding, weapon switching, grenades not playing their graphic, etc).
Beams stop working at random after Beam Overload.
I know you posted that the firing and sliding issue was fixed, but another sliding issue must still exist, because it still happens to me (albeit not as frequently).
Skills
I really like the skill system overall, but it is quite daunting to look at and take in as a new player. The biggest issue is its not always clear what skills affect what. I know you recently added the skill drop down, and this is great -- but it has some flaws. Some ideas for improvement might be:
Give the option to list all skills, not just ones you and your current assigned BOs have.
Remove items from the list if no modifiers are present. Meaning, I shouldnt have to sort through drop down menu items if theres no skills I possess that modify them.
In their tooltip, skills should list all BO abilities they modify, not just examples. This would help with confusion as well.
In addition, there is a pretty strong dichotomy between ground and space skills. Granted these are supposed to be two different types of play, its rather unfair to make such a strong line distinction in skill choices this is the same game afterall. I tend to prefer space over ground game play (and Ive noticed others feel similar), because not only is it more fun, but you simply get more for your points. Now, the strong distinction in skill choices wouldnt be an issue if I could pick exactly how I wanted to play, but the game as a whole does not really allow me to do that.
Unfortunately, virtually all major episodes require me to do both, and for someone who is heavily emphasized in space over ground, I tend to not look forward to ground game play. For example, if I kill really quickly in space, then get on the ground, the game can become a snore fest because my progress feels much slower this breaks pacing, which is detrimental for me (and Im sure others).
Take a look at the skills. A majority influence Space, and just a few apply to ground. And the ones that do influence ground tend to only influence kit powers or other activated abilities. With space skills you get nice bonuses for using certain types of weapons or ships. Whered the variety go for ground?
Therefore, I think it may be wise to consider synergized skills that include both ground and space bonuses. This would be mainly for base damage and defense (not influencing kit or other activated abilities those are already there in our officer skills). Im not talking about a skill system overhaul, Im talking about skills like Science Team Leader being a little more common (how it gives bonuses for ground and space).
For example, Starship Energy Weapons might become just Energy Weapons and the bonus then applies to ground energy weapons as well. Continuing on that line of thought, focusing on Phasers might increase DPS while using ground Phaser weapon in addition to the space counterparts. Cannons and beams could be made distinct as well.
Starship Combat Maneuvers might become Combat Maneuvers, which might do what it does currently, but also increase Dodge or reduces Hold duration while on away missions.
All Im talking about doing is scaling ground combat in the way space combat scales -- influencing game play in the same way. Right now they feel too different, spec-wise. Not only do I pick if I want to spec as a healer in space, I have to spec as one on the ground. Im all for diversity, so I really dont mind, but if I can spec to deal more damage in space, I should be able to spec to deal more on the ground, eh?
And since adding new skills with a skill cap probably isnt feasible, it seems like making a middle ground set of skills that already exist is a good option. Space only. Space and Ground. Ground only.
Traits
Synergies between space and ground should also be considered for traits. Let me explain. If I want to roll up a Klingon to do space-only PvP, do I really want to pick a Klingon?
From a role play perspective, sure. Mechanically though, no, not really, just look at their traits. Two of their four traits are forced, and they are ground only traits! It makes more sense to pick an Alien and choose 4 space traits, dont you think?
I think a good solution to that problem would simply be to roll the space-only traits into current ground traits, thus nullifying the advantage, and sprucing up ground traits to be a little more worthwhile. Certain races (like Klingons as I pointed out) offer ground-only bonuses as their racials, and this makes them mechanically inferior in space to Aliens with all space traits selected.
Space already scales better because of skills
capitalizing on it with traits just exacerbates the problem.
For example, lets consider the Accurate (+10% accuracy in space) trait. It could easily be rolled into the following ground-only traits.
Warrior
Lucky
Soldier
These are just examples. Im no expert on the matter, it just seems like a realistic way to address the space-ground trait and scaling issue.
Ground Combat Scaling
Even with MK X weapons, go back and do some LC ground missions. I tried this with my wife. Enemies simply dont die as well as they do if you are in your ship (where I can virtually one or two shot everything at LC level). To me, it seems the issue is that ground combat simply does not scale like space combat. Theres that darn scaling thing again! Not only do we not get general skills to increase our effectiveness on the ground, theres typically more ground enemies to fight (theoretically this would be offset by your away team).
Reviewing the numbers, they seem to add up, but once you consider so many skills increase your damage and defense in your ship, but nothing does on the ground, scaling becomes a problem between space and ground. Personal shields also recharge quite a bit differently than space shields, so you can be stuck against an opponent that lasts far longer than they probably should (Engineers with shield recharge, for example).
The only way around shields, that I know, is melee damage.
Make More Melee!
Maybe you could add some human/federation melee styles (think Sulu in the new Trek movie?)
Anyway, melee is really fun, and currently, for me at least, it seems to be way, way faster than ranged. Its also far more interactive, and less boring than pushing 1 forever (no autofire?) and waiting for a 8-15s cooldown on my second fire ability. Melee is the only way I can stomach solo ground missions with the current level of scaling.
The sad part is, Im a Science Officer, I have nothing but Dylovene (that I know of?) that increases my physical damage (Im a Trill, no traits even), and its still better than shooting them in the face with a sniper rifle. That just seems strange.
I should melee because I want to and its based on my characters roleplay, not because its just better due to scaling. I get something like +60% to Physical Strength with Dylovene III. Better than shooting by a large margin. And this is with a MK VIII common batleth. Combo finishers do around 400-500 damage
not critical
my sniper MK X rifle gets about that WITH a critical (of course it is instant death with an expose, another reason melee is better, more exposes).
Make Combos for Ranged, Too
The combo system for melee is scary fun. Compared to ranged, its like Sunday Mass recited in Latin versus the Top Gun at Great America. Just sayin.
Truthfully, though
I could take ground ranged combat as is, if my weapons just did more damage and progress felt quicker. The way the borg die in the tutorial is roughly how ground combat should feel throughout the game. But it just nose dives immediately after and everything takes 3-4 times longer to kill. Even with a full away team and highest MK level gear! I think about the shows and how people drop after 1 or 2 phaser hits on stun, then shoot this Mirror Engineer 462 times and just wonder why. Not that stuff should die in 2 hits, I mean this is a game, it has to be fun and challenging, but I hope you know where Im coming from.
That, or add promised exposes on a cooldown. The random chance thing is a little
random? Heh.
I wont mind pressing 1 over and over, as long as stuff is dying that is, as long as I feel I am making progress, and not moving so slow I get compelled to log out and do something else.
Missions, Zones, and Replay Value
To add to replay value, you could focus in on each sector block and make redundant-level content across some of them. For example (and trust me, I hate bringing this game up), World of Warcraft has many different zones with content of the same level. This way, you had a little bit of a different experience when trudging through levels again, you could pick Zone A instead of Zone B and experience that stuff instead. If you continue to add more factions, that could be a way to accomplish somewhat the same effect, but Id consider doing it for all factions anyway.
Tons more work and content, but it will add a good deal of player retention via replay value, and really give the game more life of its own.
Right now, your content is linear point A, point B, point C, done. What I am suggesting is point A1, point A2, point B1, point B2, point C1, point C2.
Okay, I'm out of room now. Thanks for reading!
Comments
Oh well O.O