We have some concepts drawn up and want it to be more Trek when you hail another ship. Even something as simple as seeing the other captain sitting in his chair when you talk to him would be a huge win.
Since there's not much going on in PvP queue land, I started thinking about this idea from the latest Ask Cryptic, and I began to wonder, when in the world would you hail another ship in STO?
Then it occurred to me we're sitting on the perfect Hail Them moment every time we enter a PvP map. Instead of that cheesy screen with your BOFF telling you about the irrelevant backstory behind Cracked Planetoid, you could instead receive a hail from the leader of the enemy team - a warning, a challenge, a taunt - anything they want, set through an interface similar to the one they use to set Captain bios. Ideally, the system would allow a different hail for each map, but it could be by gametype or even general to all PvP maps if the tech or database requirements are prohibitive.
The trick, of course, is determining which enemy player gets the distinction of being the "leader" of the team and appearing in the hail. I'd propose "highest lifetime Merits/Honor earned" (regardless of amount spent/retained) initially, but transitioning it over into Official Cryptic PvP Tournament Rating if such a system ever comes into existence.
A system like this obviously doesn't confer gameplay advantages or fix queue bugs, but it does deliver some of the little things that PvPers have been requesting for a while, like recognition of seniority and a little polish and personal touch before combat. That, and knowing that somewhere out there, some poor sucker is seeing your character's face for the 8th time tonight and crying because he knows he's about to get schooled.
Comments
Have you been assimilated recently?
PS. I like this idea
This idea, it would be a form of UGC. Simply give us a few options we can setup beforehand like a text box to type in what our captain would say in this situation, and maybe an animation or two to play or at least a few static poses to choose from, or even no visual at all. That would be really cool and let you really differentiate one captain from another.
And from there, I would have it be random which captain you see actually doing the talking. Figure for 5 on 5 everyone would match up and each pair would see the other's captain, rather than each team all seeing one captain.
Its a really cool idea and definitely fits into the kind of stuff they want to do in the future.
Your wingman (or enemies) come on the screen and say various things when things go bad or good.
Ah yes, enemy heroes with their own voice packs. It's funny how many good ideas from this series disappeared and have only recently resurfaced (does walking around your ship talking to NPCs after every mission in Starcraft II seem familiar to anyone else?).
That said, I still think it would be nice to give your opponents more of a face in PvP. Maybe an alternative would be to let them show their ships "On Screen" in the hail rather than their captains, if they so choose.