test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Options
Collected DOff Community Ideas/Requests (Add Yours!)
System
Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
COLLECTED DOff COMMUNITY IDEAS/REQUESTS
We keep seeing the same new posts in this forum about wanted features (looking at the first page of the forum today, I see three on the same topic of tracking colonial chains in-game, for instance), and also a lot of suggestions in-game via the DOffJOBS channel that never get recorded.
I've been keeping track of the ones I see, and of course have some of my own. I keep seeing the same stuff come up consistently, and some great feedback associated with it - but especially with threads here, they just drift down, and a day or two later someone else posts the same idea.
So this thread is in hopes to consolidate all that down to one place where Heretic and others can see at a glance the types of things players would like to see. I'll start with the list I've been keeping from the sources mentioned above, and please feel free to add yours, or discuss any of the ones already posted.
I've broken them up into several categories, because some of these are going to be outside of the DOff system (i.e. the travel requests, or bridge functionality, etc.) but directly affect DOffing. For example, being able to use the replicator from the bridge - it would have been nice before, but it's downright annoying now to not be able to (especially when you are on someone else's bridge and may not be able to get back). So anything to do with the DOff system itself, or related to how you play it, is fair game.
Here goes...
DOff's THEMSELVES
* MINI-DOFF RECORD - It's been stated that it was way too much database info to keep a service record for your DOff's. That is a pity, but if it's too much, it's too much. However, even the most simple of data would be very useful - example, the last date you used that DOff on an assignment. This would be EXTREMELY useful for weeding out DOff's. And perhaps a bit simpler on the database (Personally, I'd even settle for it stored locally, so it wouldn't affect the DB at all).
* ABILITY TO MARK A DOff "NO-TRADE" (*NOT* BOUND) - We can bind a DOff easily, but sometimes it would be useful to be able to mark a DOff as something you don't want to accidentally delete, sell, or trade away, without permanently binding it to you.
* ADD "CELEBRITY" DOff'S - Add limited-use "celebrity" DOff's which give us a success or other bonus if we put them on a mission, like Icheb, Q, or Naomi Wildman (characters that we have available in-game). In essence, a "Buff" for assignments you really want to make sure you successfully complete, or really are working towards a crit on. These could be one-timed use or multiple limited uses (if that is possible), which would be earned by other DOff missions or another mechanism. It would be great to work in some "name" characters into our DOff experience, and this would also be a nice way to work "buffs" into the DOff system.
DOff INTERFACE
* HAVE THE DOFF COUNT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN SHOW...WHAT IS ON YOUR SCREEN - If we are filtering DOffs, it would be very handy to have the count at the bottom of the window. Example : You filter all DOffs by "Effficent", you could instantly see how many Efficient DOffs you have. Or You want to see how many Rares, etc.
* CHANGE THE HIGHLIGHT COLOR FOR TRAITS/SPECIALITIES - Adding the highlights to the optimum specialties and traits was awesome - but the green color is too similar to the text on the names of Green DOffs. Sometimes it's hard to pick them out at a glance - if we could use a color that wasn't used on DOff names, it would be even more helpful.
* ADD AN (OPTIONAL) DOFF-STATUS MINI-WINDOW TO THE UI - It feels like sometimes we are living in the DOff Interface, and popping it open just to check what the next reset time is, or when our next missions complete, feels clunky. I'm all about keeping my UI as reduced as possible, but I'd really like a small window that would show me : Time Till Next Space Shift, Time to Next Ship Shift, Time To Next Mission Complete, and bonus if it shows TRANSWARP cool-down time. Obviously, make this window optional (so you can "hide" it, like several other UI windows) should people not wish to clutter up their screen with it. I do think those of us who DOff would find it invaluable - and get to see the pretty game much more.
* ADD A DOFF-CENTRIC MAP TO THE DOFF INTERFACE - Along the same lines as above, I am *constantly* jockeying between the main map window and the DOff Interface. I feel like I'm at work, clicking and opening and closing constantly. It would be great if we could add a DOff Map tab to the DOff interace, showing -
- The Galaxy Map (as we have in the Map interface)
- Have outlines or some indicator of where the different duty sectors are (and of what planets, too)
- Allow us to Transwarp from this menu - we see a place we need to go, click on a Transwarp icon on
the map itself. Right now we have to leave the DOff Interface, open the Map to see where we want
to go, and then open up the Transwarp menu to go there...too much window jumping.
- HAVE THIS SHOW OUR CHAIN PROGRESS (as many have suggested we have this, it would be
a perfect place to track this visually)
- BONUS - Have it indicate which sectors we have active missions in
* HIDE "BUY MORE DOff SPACE" ADS - If we could get those hidden for those of us who are already at the max of 400, the interface on that tab would be a lot cleaner. They are kind of obnoxiously huge, and until/unless they raise the limit it's kind of an eyesore as large as they are.
* ASSIGNMENT HISTORY TWEAK - Of course it could go a little further back, but primarily I'd like the completion time listed. It's kind of useless as is, except if you miss something in the fly text and want to go back real quick and check. For example, yesterday I wanted to know how long ago I finished one mission to see if my 24 hour cooldown was in effect; the current UI was useless for that.
* HIDE/GREY OUT DOffS WE CANNOT PURCHASE ON DOff VENDOR - I have seen many players lament this one; if you aren't sure if you have added DOffs or not, or if you missed one, you have to go an click on every single one to try to buy it and get the "you cannot have more than one of this item" message, and it's headache inducing if you have to go through the whole list (not to mention to check when/if additions are made). Other STO systems do this check, hopefully this wouldn't be too difficult here.
* SORTING DOff LISTS FOR ASSIGNMENTS NEEDS TO BE MORE SPECIFIC - If you want a Doctor with Efficiency, and you select Doctor from the specialization list, and then select Efficient from the drop-down for Traits, it goes from just showing you Doctors to showing you everyone who has Efficient. While this can be useful in certain circumstances, most of the time I just want it to narrow down from the list of Doctors I already have up. A way to indicate this would be very helpful. In addition, it would be nice to be able to click and have the system automatically select the recommended professions - yes, we need to do some "work" here, but it would be nice to have a button to click so we do not have to manually select the professions.
* MOVE THE RESET BUTTON - I don't understand why the DOff sort menus need to be nested down in the first place, but if they must be, please move the reset button to the first tier, so you do not have to click on the arrow to bring the bottom of the menu up, and then click reset. It is something one needs often, and shouldn't take an extra step to reveal.
* ALLOW US TO GO INTO AN ASSIGNMENT AND "PLAY AROUND" EVEN IF WE CANNOT INITIATE - There have been times where I've been staring at an assignment I've wanted to do, waiting for a slot to open up. It's frustrating to not be able to go in, stick in some DOffs, see which one you may want to pick. So instead of just blocking you from opening it, just block the "Start Assignment" button until we have an open spot.
* SOMEHOW HIGHLIGHT "BUFF" MISSIONS (AND INDICATE DURATION) - I really haven't done any yet (the missions that say, "Completion gives you a buff to X-skill", partially because I spend all my time DOffing so I don't need them, but when looking for them it would be nice to see which ones gives you buffs without clicking on it. It also would be nice if it gives a specific duration, since I assume they do not last forever.
(CONT)
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
* WARP BETWEEN CLUSTERS/NEBULAS THAT HAVE MULTIPLE VERSIONS WITHOUT LEAVING - If you are in B'TRAN normal, and want to go to B'TRAN RA, you have to leave, turn around, and try to get the warp window up again. It's clunky. Let us jump from one to another without leaving.
* TURN OFF NON-DESTINATION WARP MESSAGES WHILE AUTO TRAVELING - This one personally has been driving me batty. Let's say you want to visit all 3 star clusters at the far bottom of Klingon space. Because they are so closely spaced, when you auto-pilot to one just before you get there, the window comes up asking you if you want to travel to the system you just left. It also happens in Beta Ursae. It's a huge annoyance, and there are many instances where "slow down for a interact window" is useful, we shouldn't have to turn that off just to stop this window for popping up when we have already set the auto-travel destination.
* TRANSWARP or go DIRECTLY TO SECTOR SPACE FROM BRIDGE - It seems kind of silly that we cannot initiate a Transwarp from the bridges. Even if when we come out on the other side we landed in tactical view, it just seems like an extra step that shouldn't be necessary. It's even worse if you are on a planet/Starbase you can access your bridge from - I mean, if you are on ESD, you go to your bridge, and if you are ready to leave to Sector Space, or even just Sol, you have to go back to ESD and then go to Tactical, and then go where you want. It seems we should at least be able to go straight to Tactical from our bridges no matter how we got there.
(NOTE: We have been told there is a limitation due to the system seeing the bridge as a ground map in general for some abilities; that said, we have recently been told that some of these features could be tied into a console instead of the basic UI, would be easier developmentally, and I think that would be fine, or even preferred, by many of us anyway.)
* BE ABLE TO USE REPLICATOR WITHOUT LEAVING BRIDGE
* ADD "INVITE TO BRIDGE" TO CHAT RIGHT-CLICK - You can do all kinds of things with right-clicking someones name in the chat. Invite To Bridge should be one of them. When someone has a good mission on their bridge, it's a huge PITA to invite large numbers of people, the majority (if not all) are going to post in a channel or send you a /tell. I had Risa IV Asylum (the first time it had showed up ever for anyone) and I lost count in the mid-40's of how many people I invited. It was a nightmare, really - as I don't show @names in chat, I had to rely on the "finish your thought" interface, and typing each person in manually seemed so archaic when I can do a half-dozen other things just by right-clicking their name in chat.
EXTRAS
* IN-GAME NOTEPAD - I can't figure out how to make the Log system work (I love the idea, it just doesn't seem to work properly with supplemental, etc.) but even working it's still a bit clumsy should you just wish to jot down a few notes. SWG had a great (and easy development-wise) solution to this - /notepad. All it did was open up a window you could type in, and it saved it locally on your hard drive as a txt file (so no server load required). This has the added bonus that you can edit/copy/add/delete data from out-of-game as well by just opening up the text file. In a perfect world, I'd see this as a STO interface where you could have multiple tabs of notes (set up like the chat channel labels) you could keep (each one saved to it's own text file). Bonus if you could use HEX codes to color (this worked well in SWG). I can't be the only one tired of having little notes all around me when I play.
* DABO BRIDGE - Make some variant of DABO BRIDGE (the "rotating missions" that is currently a bug) as a feature. People really enjoy it, it encourages interaction, and if it's a reward or a random occurrence, even if it's in a different form, it adds another bit of fun and randomness that gives some additional excitement to DOffing.
FINALLY...The Three Big Ones :
*HTML5 DOff INTERFACE (DOff "APP") - Players make this request every day. I joked with Heretic the other day that Apple should fund an App - I don't have an iPad yet (only an iPhone), but if this was added I would drive to the store right now and buy one. We've been told this is something they would "very much" like to do - it would be interesting if in this thread people could list the kinds of features they would like in it. My guess is the best route to go would be HTML5 so it's not platform specific, and people could do it anywhere they could access the web from virtually any device.
*DOff SELLING/TRADING - We've been told the Exchange would be very difficult to modify for DOffs. So it seems the solution might be - dump the Exchange for a "DOff Transfer Terminal". It could :
* ALLOW FOR BASIC BUYING/SELLING DOffs, using filters
* ALLOW FOR TRADES - I put up a DOff for trade, I indicate what stats I'll trade for. Say, I want a Green
(or better) Counselor who has Telepathy. I indicate that, and the system will accept any DOff as a
trade for mine that meets those requirements, all handled by the system.
* DOff "PVP" - Okay, this is dangerous to mention because some people see PvP and auto-select NO WAY, but what we basically have here is a TCG, and playing "against" the system is fun, but it would be more fun if in addition we had some mechanism to pit our DOffs against other players for rewards or for the DOffs themselves (i.e. you can capture mine, vice versa). This is beyond the current system, but would be great to think about as "blue sky" for the future.
Phew...that's a lot. And I know there is more. What are your thoughts on the above? What other ideas do you have?
There is no header to tell a new player that the left column will show those with that trait, and the right column will hide those with that trait.
Second, there should be a click box at the top for 'show any' where, if clicked, any doff with any of those traits would show, and when unclicked only those with ALL of the traits chosen would show.
Third, if you choose to show traits AND to hide traits, then even if they have the ones you want to see, they should be hidden if they have a trait you don't want. For example, Aggressive and Honorable, without being Unruly or Unscrupulous. If there are doffs that have unruly or unscrupulous they shouldn't show in the listing at all. As it stands now, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
Fourth, noticed before but in today's patch (jan 26th) it's even worse. Some traits are out of alphabetical order. Some time ago Cunning got moved to the bottom right above Unruly, now there are several others and it's driving my OCD crazy. As a minor thing, the new traits for the photonic Doffs don't have icons, making everything not line up, triggering my OCD too.
The 'recommendation' algorithms need to be double checked, also. Actually being able to choose how you get the recommendations would be a good thing. Sometimes I want Specialty/Quality/Traits, sometimes I want Quality/Traits/Specialty. having a small check box by the 'officer reccomendations' would be helpful.
But even if that won't work, there's many missions that do things like, suggest a common with one trait and ignoring an uncommon with two or more traits, all in the same specialty. If there's a central place we can report these (if it's helpful) I can start taking notes for you.
All in all, the Doff system is one of the most enjoyable aspects of STO for me. I know it's because of my OCD, but getting the perfect doff into the mission and seeing the 'critical success' is as cool as leveling up to me.
Trixie
Some really good ideas here.
It would be nice to have a AND toggle (Doff must match all selected Traits) as this would make it easier to find that super Doff for the mission at hand...
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=246850
Now I've completed two more commendations (Engineering and Medical). Being able to check these off in the options window, or at least on the fly by collapsing them, would facilitate finding the other fields I need to improve.
While I'm wishing, if all missions that required commodities could pull from the bank and the fleet bank that would be awesome.
As a Senior Officer of a Fleet, I have to vote no to that.
Still I'd love to be able to draw on my own personal bank for all commodities required for any mission.
Great news.
I tried to keep/sort the list keeping Development concerns in mind. Although I had to add some of the more blue sky ones that have incredible interest - do you know that literally every few minutes someone says in DOffJobs, "Man, I wish I could DOff from my phone/iPad/the web"?
You can.
I would love to have the UI show me what doff missions I have on cooldown, and how long that cooldown is please
Agreed!
YES! Thank you for posting that. I was thinking about that the other day and forgot to write it down.
I've had full diplomacy since the system went live, yet there seem to be more Diplomacy missions than anything else. It would be very nice to collapse that menu - no more scrolling down when there are a ton of missions available (though that is certainly a "high class problem", LOL).
Yes, I actually should have mentioned that. It feels...buggy. Either I don't get how it works, or it's not working reliably. I've never found the "hide trait" useful for that reason. If I do Stubborn, some disapear, some don't. I'm not sure what the intended functionality is because it doesn't seem to hide universally.
Fourth, noticed before but in today's patch (jan 26th) it's even worse. Some traits are out of alphabetical order. Some time ago Cunning got moved to the bottom right above Unruly, now there are several others and it's driving my OCD crazy. As a minor thing, the new traits for the photonic Doffs don't have icons, making everything not line up, triggering my OCD too.
I think this is a broader bug. If you notice, it changed depending on what assignment you have up. It reverses whatever two traits it's looking for on the menu. So if the assignment calls for Cunning and Unscrupulous, the drop down menu puts Unscrupulous where Cunning was and vice versa. This says the menu is smart enough to know what the desired traits is - my thought is they were doing something to help indicate that but that something didn't work exactly as intended.
All in all, the Doff system is one of the most enjoyable aspects of STO for me. I know it's because of my OCD, but getting the perfect doff into the mission and seeing the 'critical success' is as cool as leveling up to me.
Trixie
Same here. There are many wonderful aspects of the game I like, but I am downright addicted to DOffing.
A fun way to do that would be to have your Chief Medical Officer alert you on the Comm,
"He's dead, (Captain)!"
Heh. Ok, I jest about them being missing, but seriously, there is one in particular, I'd like to see added: Renown Colonist. This would be awarded to a character that completes all 14 Renown assigments from the Colony chains. Maybe have another for getting 14 Colony Support Crits, too. Similar accolades could be added for future chains, as appropriate. Only "needed" for long chains, similar to the colony ones.
Thanks for the vote of confidence. I've now completed Four Tiers (Diplo, Military, Medical, Engineering, and I'm pretty close to finishing Colonization), and I want this feature all the more!
Especially because not only am I T4 Diplo, but I'm capped (150/100k), so I wouldn't even earn towards the future the way I would with my other T4s, and as you say there are so many Diplomacy missions. Sometimes when I open my Find Assignment window, the whole first page of visible assignments are Diplomacy. Scrolling is a no fun. I mean, on my other characters I love that there are so many of them, but on my Main, it's a pain.
This is already in game. On your Completed Assignement screen, if you click that assignment, before completing or acknowledging it, you'll see it's details. This includes the list of DOffs that were sent. If you read each DOff it tells you "Johnny completed the mission and returned successfully" or "Johnny completed the mission, but was injured and was sent to Sick Bay" or "He's is dead, Jim" -- Ok, I'm paraphrasing, 'cause I don't remember the exact syntax (and I know the UI doesn't actually quote Bones, though that would be great lol), but I can assure you that the info is there and what happens to each DOff is spelled out quite clearly.
The process should be easier to filter out what specialized DOFF i want.
Maybe have when i click on Duty Officer there an extra drop down filter underneath the 'quality drop down' for specialization.
Agreed!
As a stop-gap, if you look on the spreadsheet, at the bottom of the links section is a link to some text lists I have put on Google Docs - I took the Wiki lists and have them as name text only; you can then copy/paste into an in-game email.
Again, it's just a stop gap measure - but better than printing out and/or alt/tab constantly.
Seconded! (or thirded at this point?)
As it stands, the name, which is the only searchable DOff field, is the least useful element of DOff searches.
Even swapping the title (station? job?) into the name slot would alleviate that issue.
I.E. instead of ...
Roger Vashona
Security Officer - Ground
if the fields were swapped to
Security Officer - Ground
Roger Vashona
that would allow them to be searched more efficiently.
1) Espionage T3 accolade Saboteur says it rewards the title "Operative" - Why this was going to be the case, I'm not sure, but thankfully it actually does award the title "Saboteur" (Which is so much cooler, anyway. Not to mention we've already got the title "Operative" from a pre-existing accolade in one of the Featured Episodes.). I know because I got T3 Esp last night.
>snip<
2) The rewards lists for Engineering, Medical, and Military Ts 1-4 should mention they unlock the ability to purchase Emergency Hologram DOffs in the replicator. A whole "how to" or otherwised detailed description may be too spacious, but at least the T1 list of rewards should include a sentence:
- Unlocks White Emergency X Hologram DOff, available in ship's replicator.
Ts 2-4 would have a similar sentence, changing the color as appropriate.[/QUOTE]I just checked - this one already seems there. Or am I misunderstanding what is missing?
(But Saboteur's title, as of last night, does need updating. That much I guarantee.
Yes, I confirmed Saboteur was using old text on the KDF side. A fix is in the pipeline now for that.
The Emergency Holograms should be noted as rewards for each of the three commendation categories, though.
Expect to see something on Tribble. Soon(tm). It's at least something I was able to do in a reasonable amount of time.
Like I said, just swap their names for their titles. BOs have names too, you just don't have them as searchable fields.
That way they can show in the Exchange as "Warp Theorist" instead of "Trevor Meriweather".
That would certainly be an improvement, but of course ultimately we'd love to see an ability to search for traits, abilities, etc. (and I mean this for both BOFFs and DOFFs).
But yeah, if we could swap name for title, that would help a lot. Right now searching for DOFFs on the exchange is pretty much un-doable unless you happen to know a name.
I'll post a pic of what I'm talking about when I get home.
Edit: Pic of what I'm talking about...
http://i.imgur.com/kVdkE.jpg
Again, UI displays the title for Saboteur as "Operative", but it did actually award me with "Saboteur" (The "Operative" title I've had since I completed the Night of the Coment FE on Nov 25, 2010).
Doing a job correctly is always more work than doing it half assed. Still that didn't stop cryptic from redoing ground combat, sector space, crafting to name a few. Why is the line being drawn at the exchange? This whole we're only going to polish/ fix half of this game mentality is really toxic and it pains me to see the bar being lowered again and again by the developers of this title.
To be clear, there is no line being drawn at the Exchange.
There are a limited number of programmers, artists and designers, and more that we want to do than can be done in a single development cycle. Depending on time, priority, need, resource requirements and a dozen other considerations, different features and the reworking of existing features are slotted into parts of the development cycle.
It is rather unlikely for any individual to agree with any other individual on exactly what the ideal prioritization should be - different folks are going to focus on different parts of the game. In the end, production, with consultation from management and the team, makes a call as to what should be put where in the schedule.
There is every intent of revisiting the Exchange in detail. However, on this particular point, until we can get to a more substantial overhaul, we are looking at what can be done in the meantime to minimize any pain felt by players as we practically can.