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If no content then make this game incredibly customizable to make up the difference!
thedoctorbluebox
Member Posts: 749 Arc User
Since there is obviously never going to be a consistent stream of content, how about making the game more customizable in every which way in order to fill the gap of content droughts? Since we can't can't count on content, at least we could count on this game being the most customizble Star Trek game out there for building a real "life" for your character in the Star Trek Universe. This can be done for characters, ships and kits, and expanding on the fleet starbase idea by introducing actual rooms we can be assigned to and fix up in our Starbases, or on ESD. I'll explain each idea....
1.) Characters - The character creation system is already quite nice, but we know even more options can be added to really make unique characters. Besides just adding in new alien creatures we can play, having a fully customizable system in which we have more feature options like hair, eyes, nose, mouth and many other exotic alien type features we can add. Having more color choices, size and shape choices, and of course uniform options. While I know what is there is pretty good, take examples from other games and their deep ability to really create unique characters and add those kind of features in STO so players have more options. What is there is good, but it could use a few more things.
2.) Ship Creation - This one is the biggie, right now there is a simple ship tailor whereabouts you are able to change the skin of your ship to a very limited few options, and then only change parts on your ship of the same ship class, and only change variants. We need way more options in really customizing your ship. In fact, ship customization should be right at the start of the game along with character customization. You should be able to literally design your own ship. I have an idea for this, along the way of your leveling new parts are unlocked as you level up at each Rank, that let you mix and match more parts to create more custom ships. Every part of every ship, regardless of class, variant, or whatever should be allowed to be mix matched. You should be able to put Sovereign nacelles on a Miranda if you wanted to. This would lead to an immense amount of custom and creative ship designs made by people designed the way they want their ships to look. By the time you make it to VA all ship parts are unlocked. You should also be able to select from way more skins and textures than there are now, go exotic, give us some good stuff, add to that color, if I want a bright pink ship, allow me the ability to create that. Outside ship appearance is just as important as your character, and we need the ability to customize it a lot more ways. Include warp trail effects, deflector effects, shield effects also.
On the inside of ships it should be exactly the same, let us customize the inside way more than what is there now, let us make our ships a home, color, texture, design, all of it. Ship creation as a whole should be just as important as your character creation, and very flexible.
3.) Kits - I know this has been discussed before, and I believe it is actually a feature in the works for a future season, but the ability to select our own powers for kits that make up new and custom kits for us to use. Mix and match kit powers, and create custom kits so everyone basically has unique kits based on how they want to play.
4.) Making a home for yourself - For long time players of this game, I feel like our characters need a home for themselves. I almost see this turning into a Sims kind of thing, but a bit lighter than that. We need the ability to "rent" out a room on ESD, or on Earth! What a way to make Earth more prominent, give us apartment spaces on Earth! A place we can call home that we customize any way we want, and it's a social zone so others can be in there with us. Give us a place we can call our own. We can beam from home to our ship and go explore the galaxy. Whether that home be on ESD, DS9, or Earth, give us all those options to make one of those places our home base, put a loot box inside so we can store more inventory, like a second bank area connected directly to our home to store lots of stuff. Let us place things on the walls, hang things, unique items and so forth to display them (same for our ships quarters.) It's just a unique idea to make it feel like we have a place. It would allow you to use Earth more anyway.
These ideas are with one goal and intent in mind, give us custom options to make our characters/ship the way we want them, so we have lots of things to play with and customize and configure and design during content droughts to keep us busy. Make this MMO the most customizable Star Trek game out there so players can literally create a "life" for themselves in the game and make it feel like they are in the Star Trek universe!
I'm sure there are even more ideas people will have to fleshing out this customization of things. Lot's more can be done, and I'm sure the great people here in this forum and playing this game have lots of ideas to add.
1.) Characters - The character creation system is already quite nice, but we know even more options can be added to really make unique characters. Besides just adding in new alien creatures we can play, having a fully customizable system in which we have more feature options like hair, eyes, nose, mouth and many other exotic alien type features we can add. Having more color choices, size and shape choices, and of course uniform options. While I know what is there is pretty good, take examples from other games and their deep ability to really create unique characters and add those kind of features in STO so players have more options. What is there is good, but it could use a few more things.
2.) Ship Creation - This one is the biggie, right now there is a simple ship tailor whereabouts you are able to change the skin of your ship to a very limited few options, and then only change parts on your ship of the same ship class, and only change variants. We need way more options in really customizing your ship. In fact, ship customization should be right at the start of the game along with character customization. You should be able to literally design your own ship. I have an idea for this, along the way of your leveling new parts are unlocked as you level up at each Rank, that let you mix and match more parts to create more custom ships. Every part of every ship, regardless of class, variant, or whatever should be allowed to be mix matched. You should be able to put Sovereign nacelles on a Miranda if you wanted to. This would lead to an immense amount of custom and creative ship designs made by people designed the way they want their ships to look. By the time you make it to VA all ship parts are unlocked. You should also be able to select from way more skins and textures than there are now, go exotic, give us some good stuff, add to that color, if I want a bright pink ship, allow me the ability to create that. Outside ship appearance is just as important as your character, and we need the ability to customize it a lot more ways. Include warp trail effects, deflector effects, shield effects also.
On the inside of ships it should be exactly the same, let us customize the inside way more than what is there now, let us make our ships a home, color, texture, design, all of it. Ship creation as a whole should be just as important as your character creation, and very flexible.
3.) Kits - I know this has been discussed before, and I believe it is actually a feature in the works for a future season, but the ability to select our own powers for kits that make up new and custom kits for us to use. Mix and match kit powers, and create custom kits so everyone basically has unique kits based on how they want to play.
4.) Making a home for yourself - For long time players of this game, I feel like our characters need a home for themselves. I almost see this turning into a Sims kind of thing, but a bit lighter than that. We need the ability to "rent" out a room on ESD, or on Earth! What a way to make Earth more prominent, give us apartment spaces on Earth! A place we can call home that we customize any way we want, and it's a social zone so others can be in there with us. Give us a place we can call our own. We can beam from home to our ship and go explore the galaxy. Whether that home be on ESD, DS9, or Earth, give us all those options to make one of those places our home base, put a loot box inside so we can store more inventory, like a second bank area connected directly to our home to store lots of stuff. Let us place things on the walls, hang things, unique items and so forth to display them (same for our ships quarters.) It's just a unique idea to make it feel like we have a place. It would allow you to use Earth more anyway.
These ideas are with one goal and intent in mind, give us custom options to make our characters/ship the way we want them, so we have lots of things to play with and customize and configure and design during content droughts to keep us busy. Make this MMO the most customizable Star Trek game out there so players can literally create a "life" for themselves in the game and make it feel like they are in the Star Trek universe!
I'm sure there are even more ideas people will have to fleshing out this customization of things. Lot's more can be done, and I'm sure the great people here in this forum and playing this game have lots of ideas to add.
Brent Justice
JustGaming4US - https://www.youtube.com/user/JustGaming4Us/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/Brent_Justice
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/brentjustice
JustGaming4US - https://www.youtube.com/user/JustGaming4Us/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/Brent_Justice
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/brentjustice
Post edited by thedoctorbluebox on
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Foundry= inffinite free content. Don't now how the guys at cryptic could be so stupid as to not see this.
This sig dedicated to the many random objects the Mythbusters crew has blow to smitherines
I would imagine that, sometime in the future, STO will (hopefully) adopt such a reward system for all foundry missions. The only reason I do not play many Foundry missions in STO is because there is no reward, it feels like time wasted.
Short Name: Zebular ( @zebular )
Starfleet Rank / Serial: Vice Admiral, Field Captain / SZ-872-112
Fleet Registry / Command Ship: Fleet Admiral of the Betazed Patrol / U.S.S. Zebulon, NX-91333-C
Diplomatic Registry: Starfleet Ambassador, Betazed Ambassador, Son of the Thirteenth House of Betazed
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"Investigate Officer Reports" gives you 1,440 Dilithium, 189 Skill, and 165 Expertise for doing Foundry missions. Do it in place of one of your other 1,440 Dil dailies.
...You're playing a game instead of doing something meaningful... you are wasting time already.
People are so hung up on getting dilithium that they don't play the game.. they work it.
Dec/2008
I come to Star Trek for the stories. But STO is also a game and as a player I want to be rewarded for my time spent. If the devs aren't going to provide me with new story content on a regular bases and expect me to get that from the Foundry instead then the rewards given need to accurately reflect the time spent to earn them.
Unless you are talking about doing the exploit missions, it would take a couple of hours to do 3 full length foundry missions. That is an absurd amount of time for the small reward, which is the same reward you get for doing 3 star cluster missions.
Thats not a viable solution. The Foundry just isnt appealing to the majority of players at this time.
Yeah. See, I think this (and a lot of Cryptic's approach) would work great with a toy franchise.
Ninja Turtles, Transformers (taken, currently, with both western and Chinese MMOs in development), G.I.Joe, Power Rangers, Looney Tunes... These are properties with a basic setup that supports broad scenarios. They're action focused. People are used to buying them piecemeal and creating sandbox stories with them from their childhood.
Trek is different. Trek has an element of that but a Trek sandbox is almost like a Dallas or a Twin Peaks action sandbox game. It's like a Law & Order Grand Theft Auto clone. To be Trek, the situations have to be detailed. The plots have to be reactive. This makes the development either handcrafted by necessity or with an in-depth, interpersonal roleplay stat system. Things don't happen in Trek because LOGIC demands it or as a natural consequence of ACTION but because the themes and issues, the character development and ideologies of the stories demand it.
the foundry is not a solution. aside from the fact that the bad missions outnumber the good ones, the fact is, its the developers responsibility to support this game. if they can't do that, the game is simply not going to survive. it is not our job to do their job for them - and pay them to do it. such a mentality is absolutely unacceptable
Bad missions have nothing to do with the foundry spotlights getting rewards. Those missions have already been established as being good. And your right; it isnt our job to make content. But if you are faced with the choice between a foundry spotlight with good rewards every week or...nothing... then feel free to choose "nothing" if that makes you feel better about yourself. But I'll choose the spotlight and be enjoying my rewards.
Which goes back to a feeling I've expressed privately and publicly a lot:
Okay, PWE has questioned what the monetization approach for the Foundry is. We know that from Stahl interviews.
The monetization approach is that it's a good testing ground for expertise. It's been shown that mod tools are one of the best ways to guage and locate job applicants and can also be a way of obtaining cheaper labor.
Expertise costs money. Training costs money. Done right, the Foundry can reduce waste by providing Cryptic with better job applicants with less commitment and less labor overhead.
If the Foundry can be brought up a few notches, professional Foundry authors can be a reality. The thing is, when you have pro Foundry authors, that likely means giving them a bit more advanced toolset than the general Foundry but less advanced than actual dev tools. "Pro Foundry" missions also need to be masked in a way so they look like official missions.
Other game companies use mod tools to test and screen job applicants. If this produces a more specialized workforce, that is where Cryptic and PWE reap the financial rewards of the Foundry... in addition to the idea of remote employees, either "work from home" freelancers or at a second central location that is cheaper to maintain.
It makes sense to have your servers and IT people in silicon valley and I can see perks to centralizing systems design there.
I think you'd see massive savings on content production by locating them offsite in a cheaper city with a tool that is less technical. Because then you could have a farm team of people with English BAs (heck, in this economy? Lit. Ph.Ds) for a third the price of content team in Los Gatos. All you need is an inner city computer lab with a conference room in Cleveland or Chattanooga.
OK, but, you're asking for Cryptic to give you more reasons to do Foundry missions. They take the same amount of time whether the reason you're doing them is because they were called out in the mission journal, or because you want dilithium.
Unless you're saying you want Cryptic to give you more reasons to do them, but you're still not going to do them then either. :rolleyes:
The problem with this is that it's not a content issue, its a reward issue. There is plenty of "Content" in the game in the form of the foundry. We just don't want to do it because the reward sucks.
if it wasn't clear i'm mostly agreeing with you, but its not a content issue.
Content is nearly unlimited thanks to the foundry, it just needs to have better rewards and a better reward system. Investigate Officer Reports giving 1440 dilithium for doing three foundry missions is a joke, most everyone who runs this for farming dilithium are running missions that are completed in seconds by just running up to an NPC (no effort at all). Turn it in, get your dilithium, rinse and repeat when the timer runs out.
Each mission needs to have its own rewards, preferrably based on its difficulty.
Your assuming it has to be one or the other, but it doesnt. You should be able to play a long foundry mission that you actually enjoy and also be rewarded for the amount of time it takes. Lets also remember that the devs have already said they are working on adding rewards to spotlight missions, so this is something that is already in the works. Its not like we're asking for anything unreasonable here, so there is no need to be condescending.
It is very unlikely that every single foundry mission will ever have its own specific rewards based on any factor other than standard loot drops. However, adding rewards to the specific spotlight missions should happen, and it should happen sooner rather than latter.