We were talking on IRC about a better way to feel in control of your BOffs during missions and such. Instead of them prompting you, you have to ask them for a report. So we thought of this sort of a setup.
How about a separate
Interaction bar on the right side of your HUD which includes:
- A headshot of each BO (similar to the power bar in level 1)
- A general Starfleet Logo that could take the place of the option in the minimap
- And a general "special case" icon for NPCs, enemy generals, and other environmental concerns
Each of these would flash when they have an update. So your BOffs would flash when they have a report, and this is how you would get more info to continue the mission. This would give YOU the control over your own BOff input, instead of being interrupted by them.
Similarly, the Starfleet icon would flash when there are new missions or when you need to report in on a completed mission. Or if you have a guest NPC as a part of your team, or a guest enemy you're speaking with, they consume the "special case" icon.
This would both clean up the interactions (instead of the little rectangular bars on the right) and also give you a feeling of control over your BOffs and contacting SF.
Thoughts? Anyone want to sketch up a concept screencap? I'm at work, else I'd offer to do so.
Caymen
Comments
Also, Cryptic could make us feel more in control if they let us actually "ask" our Bridge Officers about the reports they tell us about. You know?
Eventually the time will come to make STO feel more like STAR TREK and less like just any MMO out there, and interactions with NPC's can definitely help, at least in my opinion it does...
/signed.
I like your ideas, it also makes me wonder if those future mission designers couldn't standardize on some of the ideas to have consistency across missions.
I think they were removed because they took up too much screen real estate as they were always on. In a later build, they made it so the buttons only appeared when there was an update, more like it is now. However, this was confusing b/c most people didn't notice they had an update (it didn't help that at the time this was where the "hit 'F' to interact" button was also located and the buttons seemed to be inconsistent or switch places all the time) because all the buttons looked identical, you couldn't actually tell if there was an update or if you had loot unless you read what the button was actually saying at a given time.
I'm sure somewhere in the archive there's an old screenshot of how/where these buttons were.