I'm the only one doing the remastered episodes. The rest of the content team is working on new content (the new weekly series stuff). The remastered episodes are meant to fill in the times between the gaps in the new weekly content. Several things happen when I touch these old episodes, I've already mentioned the cutsceens, but it also includes having the encounters scale to player level. new loot, new accolades, bug fixes, adding optional objectives that are class specific, and much much more.
Think of them like "Fan Favorite" reruns of TOS,TNG,DS9 you watch on the Sci FI channel.
We won't be remastering everything, just the episodes that have had the most positive feedback (belive me, we know which ones they are). Currently we don't have any plans to remaster fleet actions, but that's not set in stone for the future.
Anyhow, we will give you more info on these when they get closer to getting them out to you...
Goz
So...you already know which ones eh? Any way we could get you to let us in on how many remastered episodes and maybe a few titles?
I'm the only one doing the remastered episodes. The rest of the content team is working on new content (the new weekly series stuff). The remastered episodes are meant to fill in the times between the gaps in the new weekly content. Several things happen when I touch these old episodes, I've already mentioned the cutsceens, but it also includes having the encounters scale to player level. new loot, new accolades, bug fixes, adding optional objectives that are class specific, and much much more.
Think of them like "Fan Favorite" reruns of TOS,TNG,DS9 you watch on the Sci FI channel.
We won't be remastering everything, just the episodes that have had the most positive feedback (belive me, we know which ones they are). Currently we don't have any plans to remaster fleet actions, but that's not set in stone for the future.
Anyhow, we will give you more info on these when they get closer to getting them out to you...
Goz
Great. More re-hashing of the same thing...3 ways to do the same mission (levelling, episode replay and now remastered missions)? Overusing the same content much?
Cynical on my part i know. But NEW would be better than redone - which is all STO seems to get.
Great. More re-hashing of the same thing...3 ways to do the same mission (levelling, episode replay and now remastered missions)? Overusing the same content much?
Cynical on my part i know. But NEW would be better than redone - which is all STO seems to get.
Season 3 is about polish. Just so happens what pains you was mentioned by Gozer in the very statement you quoted. The rest if the content team is working on "NEW" content. So simmer, things are coming. And with foundry just around the corner, we will all have more new content then we know what to do with.
I'm the only one doing the remastered episodes. The rest of the content team is working on new content (the new weekly series stuff). The remastered episodes are meant to fill in the times between the gaps in the new weekly content. Several things happen when I touch these old episodes, I've already mentioned the cutsceens, but it also includes having the encounters scale to player level. new loot, new accolades, bug fixes, adding optional objectives that are class specific, and much much more.
Think of them like "Fan Favorite" reruns of TOS,TNG,DS9 you watch on the Sci FI channel.
We won't be remastering everything, just the episodes that have had the most positive feedback (belive me, we know which ones they are). Currently we don't have any plans to remaster fleet actions, but that's not set in stone for the future.
Anyhow, we will give you more info on these when they get closer to getting them out to you...
Goz
The doors please for the love of all that is holy when you remaster these episodes put in the new (un-barn like) doors!!!!
Season 3 is about polish. Just so happens what pains you was mentioned by Gozer in the very statement you quoted. The rest if the content team is working on "NEW" content. So simmer, things are coming. And with foundry just around the corner, we will all have more new content then we know what to do with.
That's all fine and dandy but considering how much time goes into the featured episodes for such a small amount of new content added with each, the developers will never be able to keep up let alone add anything new and to boot the only dev not working on the FE's is rehashing the same content...again. At least hopefully this time his content wont be for a minority of players in l33t 5 man groups only.
At the rate this game is going, new content and systems are a pipedream. Dev time either goes into FE's or redeveloping shoddily designed and implemented systems that were launched to live (sector space, crafting, ground combat etc etc) but I remember a lot of what was talked about and where the game was hoped to be at one year after launch and what's been delivered is, to be polite underwhelming at best.
Poker (which i personally have no interest in) Functional Bridges, more minigames meaningful crew and ship interactions are all things that have been shelved until only Q knows when for flashy blink of an eye content updates that are forgotten 2 days after they've been played and now we get yet another way to do already done (repeatedly) missions.
As for Foundry, that's a joke. The time that's been devoted to designing and implementing that has hurt the games (both CO and STO) as much as the poorly implemented and constantly resdesigned content has. For every 1 mission that's even playable, let alone legible there will be dozens of missions designed to exploit the game and apart from the die hards, i imagine most people will make very little use of it's tool set.
As i said, i am cynical but frankly Cryptic has a shocking track record on delivering what it promises in it's games and STO has taken that to a whole new level.
I'll echo remaster for Divide et Impera. I hate that particular mission so much. Especially when the "admiral" tells me to kill everyone because we can't leave any witnesses, like that isn't a total tip off that something is wrong. Ugh. I hate it so much.
That's all fine and dandy but considering how much time goes into the featured episodes for such a small amount of new content added with each, the developers will never be able to keep up let alone add anything new and to boot the only dev not working on the FE's is rehashing the same content...again. At least hopefully this time his content wont be for a minority of players in l33t 5 man groups only.
At the rate this game is going, new content and systems are a pipedream. Dev time either goes into FE's or redeveloping shoddily designed and implemented systems that were launched to live (sector space, crafting, ground combat etc etc) but I remember a lot of what was talked about and where the game was hoped to be at one year after launch and what's been delivered is, to be polite underwhelming at best.
Poker (which i personally have no interest in) Functional Bridges, more minigames meaningful crew and ship interactions are all things that have been shelved until only Q knows when for flashy blink of an eye content updates that are forgotten 2 days after they've been played and now we get yet another way to do already done (repeatedly) missions.
As for Foundry, that's a joke. The time that's been devoted to designing and implementing that has hurt the games (both CO and STO) as much as the poorly implemented and constantly resdesigned content has. For every 1 mission that's even playable, let alone legible there will be dozens of missions designed to exploit the game and apart from the die hards, i imagine most people will make very little use of it's tool set.
As i said, i am cynical but frankly Cryptic has a shocking track record on delivering what it promises in it's games and STO has taken that to a whole new level.
Have you experienced the player made content first hand? There are already about 300 new missions out on Tribble right now. Some are inevitably not so good, but there sre also some good ones. Go and try some of the ones at the top of the top rated list.
I hope that when you data mine for most popular missions you take a step back, and see some are used for kills. They are not fav's but they are the only way to get certain kill counts. I'd hate to have something revamped just because it was the only way to kill x amount a enemy.:cool:
If I were you, I would go and touch the ones with negative feedback...
I have to agree. I mean, why make the divide between the faves and the least faves even wider by redoing the faves? It makes more sense to redo the least faves to try to make them more likable.
Have to agree with others here, rather see cinematics added to foundry and just see the resources spent on getting the foundry on holodeck, getting mission colaberation, triggers and branching options. After seeing the amount of excellent community content with limited tools I want to see the foundry number one on the list until its stable and filling content gaps
We won't be remastering everything, just the episodes that have had the most positive feedback (belive me, we know which ones they are). Currently we don't have any plans to remaster fleet actions, but that's not set in stone for the future.
That sounds really counter-intuitive. Why not fix the crappy missions that no one liked? If anything shouldn't you be working on bringing the shovel-ware TRIBBLE missions up in quality instead of increasing the divide?
I'm the only one doing the remastered episodes. The rest of the content team is working on new content (the new weekly series stuff). The remastered episodes are meant to fill in the times between the gaps in the new weekly content. Several things happen when I touch these old episodes, I've already mentioned the cutsceens, but it also includes having the encounters scale to player level. new loot, new accolades, bug fixes, adding optional objectives that are class specific, and much much more.
Think of them like "Fan Favorite" reruns of TOS,TNG,DS9 you watch on the Sci FI channel.
We won't be remastering everything, just the episodes that have had the most positive feedback (belive me, we know which ones they are). Currently we don't have any plans to remaster fleet actions, but that's not set in stone for the future.
Anyhow, we will give you more info on these when they get closer to getting them out to you...
Goz
Just one thing - don't just look at the "Fan Favorites". Also take a look of the type of missions people hate the most and see if you can fix that. Unless that is beyond what you think you can do with a mission.
I have to agree. I mean, why make the divide between the faves and the least faves even wider by redoing the faves? It makes more sense to redo the least faves to try to make them more likable.
I think the reason is that for players, the good missions are probably more likely to stay in memory then the bad ones. If people see the occassional gem, they are more motiviated to continue playing and find another one, regardless if there are some turds between them, too. But if there are only mediocre missions, well, it won't be so exciting.
Oh great, remastered episodes will have zerg mobbing and/or timers, at least I know to not waste time on those until they let someone like Heinig do some.
If you blame the zerg mobbing on Gozer, you are missing your mark! Zerg mobbing can be avoided in his missions, you just have to plan ahead. (I can't believe some players see the need to use their brains as a mission defect...)
And timers? Can be really fun!
That said, i enjoyed Heinigs work. Ofc he obviously had massive art resources to draw on, and i still think his mission design does not equal Gozers work in the STFs. Not for teams that like challenging teamwork.
The reason you beam to the station is to kill the Devidians and prevent them from killing any of the people from the 23rd century, so why would you have your phasers set to stun before even beaming down? You would've only set them to stun after realizing that you were going to have to attack bar patrons as well.
Mostly what bothered me was that nothing was that there was no acknowledgment that they were right.
I think he was referring to a different mission: In "Treasure Tradin Station" at Argelius II you're defending yourself - and killing - bar patrons. (So he wasn't referring to the Devidian mission, Imho)
3) The Klingons being right on P'Jem (and of course nobody ever gets upset that the "honorable" Klingons massacre a bunch of unarmed, helpless monks, but that bothers me.)
kilingons do not view honour in the same way we do. there is many a tale of klingons wiping out entire villages of women and children because they are 'the enemy'. and being then celebrated as an honourable victory.
Nthing the "remaster Divide Et Impera" comments myself. That actually could have been a really cool mission, if it used the branching dialogue trees we have now to allow the player to "out" Zelle earlier. It really begs for remastering so that players can follow that most crucial of Picard maxims: "A Starfleet officer's first duty is to the truth". It could be really cool if done properly.
Please, please make those optional objectives mean something.
The two optional objectives that you mention in "What Lies Beneath" are as follows:
1. Disrupting the Devidian portal by activating the field and power system controls: These allow you to use a set of consoles that are in the final room. Each console that you use will banish one of the Devidians, forcing it out of synch with the time continuum, so that you don't have to fight it. That includes one of the fairly tough ones. If you activate the earlier consoles but do not then activate the consoles in the final room with the portal . . . no bonus for you. Note: While this is an optional objective, it is not career-specific.
2. Tactical objective: Tactical officers have the option to activate a pair of defense turrets in the computer core room. In the initial release of the mission the turrets were set to the wrong faction and wouldn't attack the Devidians, but this has since been fixed and tested; they are now capable of helping in combat, although their most important functions is arguably drawing Devidian aggro away from your team.
And the plasma in the environmental systems floor is supposed to actually be lethal, but for some reason the power isn't scaling correctly; next time I have a chance to go back and do bug fixes, you can expect the plasma jets to become fatal. Right now I'm working on the next weekly episode series, though, so I'm kind of busy.
Remember as well that "What Lies Beneath" was the first time that we had career-specific objectives at all, so it was something of an experiment.
For example, when doing Descent into the Depths, the Devidian arc mission, you can do a couple of optional objectives. One is supposed to disrupt the devidian portal, the other I think you're activating some defense system, don't quite recall.
What I would have expected for both is that not doing them would have made the final fight harder. Say the first causing additional devidians to spawn throughout the fight until you destroy a portal, while the second would cause some automated defenses to activate, a few NPC turrets fighting on your side.
But, as far as I can tell, and this is from someone who has done these missions an awful lot, they make no difference. So I just skipped them to make the mission faster.
For that matter, disabling the plasma leak didn't mean much either, since the thing hit for 1 hp. Just avoided the annoying of going into combat mode. Standing in that plasma vent really ought to be doing a percent of player's health in damage, like 25% per tick.
And this isn't the only mission where I noticed this. The Undine mission with the telepathic ambassador. Rescuing the other captives doesn't mean much, other than a couple more ground fights, in a mission where you are probably already skipping bunches of enemy groups anyway.
"What's Old is New", on the other hand, uses it right. Doing the optional things save time in doing the mission and the optional objective makes the player aware that they can do so.
And the same should apply to other uses there of. Some examples of uses, though no doubt you could think of plenty more, hehe: An optional objective might lead you to a fight with a boss that always drops an uncommon or better. Freeing prisoners leads to at least some of them fighting beside you. Freeing a scientist leads to him nullifying a field in the final fight room that decreases healing by 50%, so you can heal fully. Or maybe he gives you a tribble-like (goes poof when you hit space) buff to damage and resists. Checking out a computer core gives a hint about what the Klingons are up to, so when some future mission says "some recent intelligence we acquired indicates blah blah", you can smile and nod knowing the backstory behind that intell, adding a bit of extra satisfaction for the RP crowd. And so on.
But please don't just throw stuff in with the optional tag just to do it. It needs to tie in to things, change stuff.
The two optional objectives that you mention in "What Lies Beneath" are as follows:
1. Disrupting the Devidian portal by activating the field and power system controls: These allow you to use a set of consoles that are in the final room. Each console that you use will banish one of the Devidians, forcing it out of synch with the time continuum, so that you don't have to fight it. That includes one of the fairly tough ones. If you activate the earlier consoles but do not then activate the consoles in the final room with the portal . . . no bonus for you. Note: While this is an optional objective, it is not career-specific.
2. Tactical objective: Tactical officers have the option to activate a pair of defense turrets in the computer core room. In the initial release of the mission the turrets were set to the wrong faction and wouldn't attack the Devidians, but this has since been fixed and tested; they are now capable of helping in combat, although their most important functions is arguably drawing Devidian aggro away from your team.
And the plasma in the environmental systems floor is supposed to actually be lethal, but for some reason the power isn't scaling correctly; next time I have a chance to go back and do bug fixes, you can expect the plasma jets to become fatal. Right now I'm working on the next weekly episode series, though, so I'm kind of busy.
Remember as well that "What Lies Beneath" was the first time that we had career-specific objectives at all, so it was something of an experiment.
odd...i like the fact you pointed this out now...lol
never knew this as it was easier to pull the mobs into the hallway rather then go into the room. most times we tried to go into the room, we were eliminated rather fast compared to the hallway.
and while i ilke the turrets for tac careers, why them only down there? is there no other secondary benefit for the med and engy careers?
dont get wrong, i am a huge fan of the series, and feel STO is progressing extremely well, so i ask these in defense of other classes.
They had their own objectives earlier in the mission.
i read about that somewhere as well...but where? i think one was for a door (no actual help in fighting) and not sure about the other.
i was just pointing out it seems offsides that the tac class gets help with the last group while other classes are left out from the last group.
the objectives for all classes should help then on the final engagement. tac gets turret help. the other two - nada.
like i said, i am not sure what the other "tasks" do in aiding the mission. if this were explained, then maybe i can see the balance better then i do now.
All of the STF's should be remasterd so they dont suck balls and be made like the other borg mission "Assimilation".
Assimilation is stupid. A complete failure of story telling.
"Sir. We've disabled the borg vessel. They are defenseless. We should destroy them immediately before they can assimilate the Undine!"
Tac officer: "Now wait just a second. Sure we can just blow them out of the sky, but wouldn't it be more fun just to beam down, work our way to the heart of the cube, and blow it up from the inside?"
Captain "Yeah, that sounds like fun. Whatever"
Whomever created this mission should be ashamed for coming up with such a stupid scenario.
It would be nice if the re-mastering process de-stupefied some of the story lines as well. Cut scenes are nice, but the problem is that a lot of these missions are *bad*. You need to dig deeper than cosmetic improvements to fix that.
Since its limited to post three mission or ideas I will leave it at that.
1. Remastering Fed content as faction agnostic content. All of the Borg/Undine missions, and lmost all of the Romulan missions can be repackaged for the klingons. Some of the Cardie mission and even some of the Klingon mission could be similarly repackaged if you come up with the right story giver. B'Vat could be seen as a rogue element, or rogue house to be dealt with for his actions.
2. Make missions have post mission game world consequences. Things like the 60% buy rate at Outpost 3 were a good thing--if guarded against player exploit, heck make the prorated rate gated behind a daily mission wall, but I'd like my 60%. That extra buy rate made me feel like my good deeds were rewarded. Several missions have already come up the Divide Et Impera, P'Jem. I am okay with my character being a goober idiot in them and actually makes things worse, provided I get a post mission "Nice job breaking it, Hero" that resonates through the rest of the game.
I would love to see accolades tie into mission gates, or even having done mission tie into mission gates. Night of the comet is one example. How's about if you've done Past Imperfect, you can subtly hail B'Vat's ship and get him to break off his attack. Or in Spin the Wheel, Belan mocking mentions the inspection / safety violations used on Qaris in Treasure Trading Station, or you have to do a bit more for Belan if you did something negative to the other Ferengi for example busting his cousin DaiMon Mok in War is Good for Business
On another level, how about some recycling of NPC from previous missions, with some commentary. Obviously, you don't want to have the same guy pop up again and again, but how nice would it be to have
Prohaska from Beytan V show up in something Seeds of Dissent, making a comment about how he was replaced by holographic workers and is now here as a farmer.
Oh the 3rd thing I forgot to add.
3. Feedback on missions. Perhaps privately, but I would love to see a ratings system just like on the foundry missions.
Assimilation is stupid. A complete failure of story telling.
"Sir. We've disabled the borg vessel. They are defenseless. We should destroy them immediately before they can assimilate the Undine!"
Tac officer: "Now wait just a second. Sure we can just blow them out of the sky, but wouldn't it be more fun just to beam down, work our way to the heart of the cube, and blow it up from the inside?"
Captain "Yeah, that sounds like fun. Whatever"
Whomever created this mission should be ashamed for coming up with such a stupid scenario.
It would be nice if the re-mastering process de-stupefied some of the story lines as well. Cut scenes are nice, but the problem is that a lot of these missions are *bad*. You need to dig deeper than cosmetic improvements to fix that.
In fairness, Assimilation's general plot isn't completely stupid. Having to blow the cube up from the inside definitely is; making the objective clearly something to prevent the successful assimilation data from propogating through to the rest of the Collective, with the core breach as a byproduct, wouldn't be complete nonsense.
That said, the mission execution itself is horrible, starting off with a stealthing portion in which the only reliable way to keep your BOs from sabotaging you is to get them killed, then a pointless trash grind, then a ludicrously trivial 'bossfight'.
I'm the only one doing the remastered episodes. The rest of the content team is working on new content (the new weekly series stuff). The remastered episodes are meant to fill in the times between the gaps in the new weekly content. Several things happen when I touch these old episodes, I've already mentioned the cutsceens, but it also includes having the encounters scale to player level. new loot, new accolades, bug fixes, adding optional objectives that are class specific, and much much more.
Think of them like "Fan Favorite" reruns of TOS,TNG,DS9 you watch on the Sci FI channel.
We won't be remastering everything, just the episodes that have had the most positive feedback (belive me, we know which ones they are). Currently we don't have any plans to remaster fleet actions, but that's not set in stone for the future.
Anyhow, we will give you more info on these when they get closer to getting them out to you...
Goz
I can still send coffee, unfortunately the Orion women went on strike and now work for a pimp named SlickBack(?)
odd...i like the fact you pointed this out now...lol
never knew this as it was easier to pull the mobs into the hallway rather then go into the room. most times we tried to go into the room, we were eliminated rather fast compared to the hallway.
and while i ilke the turrets for tac careers, why them only down there? is there no other secondary benefit for the med and engy careers?
dont get wrong, i am a huge fan of the series, and feel STO is progressing extremely well, so i ask these in defense of other classes.
Whether to use the optional consoles is up to you. It is, after all, optional.
Engineering officers can bypass the stuck door on the first floor, which means that they skip the Devidian ceiling trap.
Science officers can remote override the plasma fires on the second floor, which will be much more useful once I update them to be lethal.
The stuck door bypass was the first career-specific check implemented. Where it's located its only effect on gameplay is to allow you to complete the level more quickly and directly. (The Devidian falling ceiling trap is, after all, just a "stinger" designed to build tension, as it is unlikely to kill a character unless something very odd is going on.) Thus the door is a "trainer" that teaches players (you guys!) to expect career-specific material in the future. Normally I'd couple a check like this with an encounter, but that floor of the level was designed so that there are no major encounters until the very end of the floor; everything else is a tension-builder instead of a serious fight.
Whether to use the optional consoles is up to you. It is, after all, optional.
Engineering officers can bypass the stuck door on the first floor, which means that they skip the Devidian ceiling trap.
Science officers can remote override the plasma fires on the second floor, which will be much more useful once I update them to be lethal.
The stuck door bypass was the first career-specific check implemented. Where it's located its only effect on gameplay is to allow you to complete the level more quickly and directly. (The Devidian falling ceiling trap is, after all, just a "stinger" designed to build tension, as it is unlikely to kill a character unless something very odd is going on.) Thus the door is a "trainer" that teaches players (you guys!) to expect career-specific material in the future. Normally I'd couple a check like this with an encounter, but that floor of the level was designed so that there are no major encounters until the very end of the floor; everything else is a tension-builder instead of a serious fight.
Keep it up! And don't forget to lobby for the same tools to be available for Foundry use.
Are you able to segment missions by player race or gender?
Comments
So...you already know which ones eh? Any way we could get you to let us in on how many remastered episodes and maybe a few titles?
Great. More re-hashing of the same thing...3 ways to do the same mission (levelling, episode replay and now remastered missions)? Overusing the same content much?
Cynical on my part i know. But NEW would be better than redone - which is all STO seems to get.
Season 3 is about polish. Just so happens what pains you was mentioned by Gozer in the very statement you quoted. The rest if the content team is working on "NEW" content. So simmer, things are coming. And with foundry just around the corner, we will all have more new content then we know what to do with.
The doors please for the love of all that is holy when you remaster these episodes put in the new (un-barn like) doors!!!!
That's all fine and dandy but considering how much time goes into the featured episodes for such a small amount of new content added with each, the developers will never be able to keep up let alone add anything new and to boot the only dev not working on the FE's is rehashing the same content...again. At least hopefully this time his content wont be for a minority of players in l33t 5 man groups only.
At the rate this game is going, new content and systems are a pipedream. Dev time either goes into FE's or redeveloping shoddily designed and implemented systems that were launched to live (sector space, crafting, ground combat etc etc) but I remember a lot of what was talked about and where the game was hoped to be at one year after launch and what's been delivered is, to be polite underwhelming at best.
Poker (which i personally have no interest in) Functional Bridges, more minigames meaningful crew and ship interactions are all things that have been shelved until only Q knows when for flashy blink of an eye content updates that are forgotten 2 days after they've been played and now we get yet another way to do already done (repeatedly) missions.
As for Foundry, that's a joke. The time that's been devoted to designing and implementing that has hurt the games (both CO and STO) as much as the poorly implemented and constantly resdesigned content has. For every 1 mission that's even playable, let alone legible there will be dozens of missions designed to exploit the game and apart from the die hards, i imagine most people will make very little use of it's tool set.
As i said, i am cynical but frankly Cryptic has a shocking track record on delivering what it promises in it's games and STO has taken that to a whole new level.
I have to agree. I mean, why make the divide between the faves and the least faves even wider by redoing the faves? It makes more sense to redo the least faves to try to make them more likable.
That sounds really counter-intuitive. Why not fix the crappy missions that no one liked? If anything shouldn't you be working on bringing the shovel-ware TRIBBLE missions up in quality instead of increasing the divide?
I think the reason is that for players, the good missions are probably more likely to stay in memory then the bad ones. If people see the occassional gem, they are more motiviated to continue playing and find another one, regardless if there are some turds between them, too. But if there are only mediocre missions, well, it won't be so exciting.
If you blame the zerg mobbing on Gozer, you are missing your mark! Zerg mobbing can be avoided in his missions, you just have to plan ahead. (I can't believe some players see the need to use their brains as a mission defect...)
And timers? Can be really fun!
That said, i enjoyed Heinigs work. Ofc he obviously had massive art resources to draw on, and i still think his mission design does not equal Gozers work in the STFs. Not for teams that like challenging teamwork.
I think he was referring to a different mission: In "Treasure Tradin Station" at Argelius II you're defending yourself - and killing - bar patrons. (So he wasn't referring to the Devidian mission, Imho)
kilingons do not view honour in the same way we do. there is many a tale of klingons wiping out entire villages of women and children because they are 'the enemy'. and being then celebrated as an honourable victory.
The two optional objectives that you mention in "What Lies Beneath" are as follows:
1. Disrupting the Devidian portal by activating the field and power system controls: These allow you to use a set of consoles that are in the final room. Each console that you use will banish one of the Devidians, forcing it out of synch with the time continuum, so that you don't have to fight it. That includes one of the fairly tough ones. If you activate the earlier consoles but do not then activate the consoles in the final room with the portal . . . no bonus for you. Note: While this is an optional objective, it is not career-specific.
2. Tactical objective: Tactical officers have the option to activate a pair of defense turrets in the computer core room. In the initial release of the mission the turrets were set to the wrong faction and wouldn't attack the Devidians, but this has since been fixed and tested; they are now capable of helping in combat, although their most important functions is arguably drawing Devidian aggro away from your team.
And the plasma in the environmental systems floor is supposed to actually be lethal, but for some reason the power isn't scaling correctly; next time I have a chance to go back and do bug fixes, you can expect the plasma jets to become fatal. Right now I'm working on the next weekly episode series, though, so I'm kind of busy.
Remember as well that "What Lies Beneath" was the first time that we had career-specific objectives at all, so it was something of an experiment.
in the long run you guys will have to remaster everything to make it at least scale to player level.
Episode Replay and Weekly Series beeing the most important reasons.
I would have no problem though if the Klingon Swordmasters got scaled way down ;P
odd...i like the fact you pointed this out now...lol
never knew this as it was easier to pull the mobs into the hallway rather then go into the room. most times we tried to go into the room, we were eliminated rather fast compared to the hallway.
and while i ilke the turrets for tac careers, why them only down there? is there no other secondary benefit for the med and engy careers?
dont get wrong, i am a huge fan of the series, and feel STO is progressing extremely well, so i ask these in defense of other classes.
They had their own objectives earlier in the mission.
i read about that somewhere as well...but where? i think one was for a door (no actual help in fighting) and not sure about the other.
i was just pointing out it seems offsides that the tac class gets help with the last group while other classes are left out from the last group.
the objectives for all classes should help then on the final engagement. tac gets turret help. the other two - nada.
like i said, i am not sure what the other "tasks" do in aiding the mission. if this were explained, then maybe i can see the balance better then i do now.
The ones that are good are good, and the ones that are TRIBBLE won't be improved except via a complete rewrite anyway.
Assimilation is stupid. A complete failure of story telling.
"Sir. We've disabled the borg vessel. They are defenseless. We should destroy them immediately before they can assimilate the Undine!"
Tac officer: "Now wait just a second. Sure we can just blow them out of the sky, but wouldn't it be more fun just to beam down, work our way to the heart of the cube, and blow it up from the inside?"
Captain "Yeah, that sounds like fun. Whatever"
Whomever created this mission should be ashamed for coming up with such a stupid scenario.
It would be nice if the re-mastering process de-stupefied some of the story lines as well. Cut scenes are nice, but the problem is that a lot of these missions are *bad*. You need to dig deeper than cosmetic improvements to fix that.
1. Remastering Fed content as faction agnostic content. All of the Borg/Undine missions, and lmost all of the Romulan missions can be repackaged for the klingons. Some of the Cardie mission and even some of the Klingon mission could be similarly repackaged if you come up with the right story giver. B'Vat could be seen as a rogue element, or rogue house to be dealt with for his actions.
2. Make missions have post mission game world consequences. Things like the 60% buy rate at Outpost 3 were a good thing--if guarded against player exploit, heck make the prorated rate gated behind a daily mission wall, but I'd like my 60%. That extra buy rate made me feel like my good deeds were rewarded. Several missions have already come up the Divide Et Impera, P'Jem. I am okay with my character being a goober idiot in them and actually makes things worse, provided I get a post mission "Nice job breaking it, Hero" that resonates through the rest of the game.
I would love to see accolades tie into mission gates, or even having done mission tie into mission gates. Night of the comet is one example. How's about if you've done Past Imperfect, you can subtly hail B'Vat's ship and get him to break off his attack. Or in Spin the Wheel, Belan mocking mentions the inspection / safety violations used on Qaris in Treasure Trading Station, or you have to do a bit more for Belan if you did something negative to the other Ferengi for example busting his cousin DaiMon Mok in War is Good for Business
On another level, how about some recycling of NPC from previous missions, with some commentary. Obviously, you don't want to have the same guy pop up again and again, but how nice would it be to have
Prohaska from Beytan V show up in something Seeds of Dissent, making a comment about how he was replaced by holographic workers and is now here as a farmer.
Oh the 3rd thing I forgot to add.
3. Feedback on missions. Perhaps privately, but I would love to see a ratings system just like on the foundry missions.
In fairness, Assimilation's general plot isn't completely stupid. Having to blow the cube up from the inside definitely is; making the objective clearly something to prevent the successful assimilation data from propogating through to the rest of the Collective, with the core breach as a byproduct, wouldn't be complete nonsense.
That said, the mission execution itself is horrible, starting off with a stealthing portion in which the only reliable way to keep your BOs from sabotaging you is to get them killed, then a pointless trash grind, then a ludicrously trivial 'bossfight'.
I can still send coffee, unfortunately the Orion women went on strike and now work for a pimp named SlickBack(?)
Whether to use the optional consoles is up to you. It is, after all, optional.
Engineering officers can bypass the stuck door on the first floor, which means that they skip the Devidian ceiling trap.
Science officers can remote override the plasma fires on the second floor, which will be much more useful once I update them to be lethal.
The stuck door bypass was the first career-specific check implemented. Where it's located its only effect on gameplay is to allow you to complete the level more quickly and directly. (The Devidian falling ceiling trap is, after all, just a "stinger" designed to build tension, as it is unlikely to kill a character unless something very odd is going on.) Thus the door is a "trainer" that teaches players (you guys!) to expect career-specific material in the future. Normally I'd couple a check like this with an encounter, but that floor of the level was designed so that there are no major encounters until the very end of the floor; everything else is a tension-builder instead of a serious fight.
Keep it up! And don't forget to lobby for the same tools to be available for Foundry use.
Are you able to segment missions by player race or gender?