Is it possible that the reason for that is because the cloak wasn't dropping when it was supposed to before that patch?
Making it work the way it used to might actually BE a bug from Cryptic's viewpoint.
Or maybe they did change the interact system in a way that made it incompatible with the cloak.
But you're assuming they can just put it back the way it was and I suspect that they can't without breaking a lot more than just the cloak.
I agree that Cryptic needs to figure out how to prevent breaking cloak unnecessarily. I don't agree that cloaking should never drop.
It would be possible, but that would mean that all the statements by Cryptic devs about this issue prior to Dan's latest Ask Cryptic response were wrong. Are we to believe that Salami_Inferno and Gozer were completely mistaken on how cloak was supposed to work in STO (HappyHappyJoyJoy has a recap post here)? Seems extremely unlikely, doesn't it? It seems more likely that Cryptic/PWE decided that it's just too much trouble to mess with, put out a 'you've got it all wrong' PR-spin statement, and are quietly sitting back hoping the forums will forget about it.
And I'm not suggesting they roll back whatever patch broke cloaking in the first place. I'm saying to fix it so it works logically within the confines of the game (my suggestions for that are in this thread).
Cryptic has been utterly incompetent at managing the expectations of the playerbase. Some playerbase expectations are unreasonable, but this cloaking issue? The fleet uniform issue? The 700 android Boff options? The KDF content issue? On and on it goes and each time it's a Cryptic PR fail. I'm sure the cloak fix isn't easy, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. They need to do something other than "lolwut? U mizunderstand cloak!1!!" Especially when we have multiple quotes from devs stating the exact opposite.
Star Trek: Online - Now with 100% more dinosaurs!!
Thanks for the clarification... I wasn't really playing KDF at the time and wasn't following the problem all that closely.
That sounds about right and partly confirms what I was thinking about the current situation. It is an issue with interacts being too generic and not filtered, then. I was just wrong about how it got that way.
IF there's a way to set flags on certain interactions to make them cloak-proof, then maybe this will be fixable someday.
And I'll stop looking at the issue from Cryptic's point of view from here on out. They broke it, they're responsible, they should fix it.
I'm just not very optimistic it will be anytime soon.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
The following indented paragraph was suggested by someone in this thread, somewhere, but I cannot find it easily enough.
I feel as well that they should just remove the current Cloaking Power(s) from the game and replace them with ones that are properly functional and meant to work properly with the dialogue system. Seems like that would be the best course of action.
As it stands now, the way we are de-cloaked has no place in Star Trek and if I were CBS/Paramount, I would require that PWE/Cryptic make it function correctly, as it functions in the rest of the Star Trek Universe (IP).
Mayhap we need to instead write CBS/Paramount with our Trekkie dissatisfaction with how the Cloak system is being portrayed.
Full Name: Zeryn Zebulon Zebular 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 Species / Birth Date / Birth Place: Half-Betazoid, Half-Human / Stardate 27481.22 / Rixx City, Betazed Handles:@zebular (PC) • @MtnDewFreak (XBOX) • @Terraseer (PS4)
As it stands now, the way we are de-cloaked has no place in Star Trek and if I were CBS/Paramount, I would require that PWE/Cryptic make it function correctly, as it functions in the rest of the Star Trek Universe (IP).
Mayhap we need to instead write CBS/Paramount with our Trekkie dissatisfaction with how the Cloak system is being portrayed.
that and among other things like romulan shortcuts
I'm sure the cloak fix isn't easy, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.
According to Gozer they just need to make sure a flag is in place on each interact, which should be ridiculously easy... just very time consuming.
Thing is, it's been broken since at leastmid-January 2011. If they made sure the flags were properly in place since they were implemented onward (which would have been around July 2011) then the problem shouldn't have been getting any worse. It's something they could chip away at and eventually solve... but they haven't. The problem hasn't been getting any better.
Realistically this is something an intern should even be able to handle, so why has it endured for one year and eight months? This game doesn't have so much content as to make this an insurmountable problem.
The only possible excuse would be if the flagging system was an utter failure and didn't work... and if that's the case, why hasn't that been fixed?
You know what might go a small ways to relieving a portion of the problem? Reduce the cooldown on standard cloaking to zero. There'd be no sizable advantage in a fight since you can't use it then anyway. It would, however, make being decloaked by dialogue outside of combat nearly a non-issue, which is something that's currently a pain as it provokes a cooldown and wastes our time.
Since you can't use that type of cloak in combat there's basically no real reason to have a cooldown on it.
Obviously it wouldn't solve the problem, but it would make it slightly less annoying for anyone who's flying a ship that cloaks and isn't a Bird-of-Prey.
You know what might go a small ways to relieving a portion of the problem? Reduce the cooldown on standard cloaking to zero. There'd be no sizable advantage in a fight since you can't use it then anyway. It would, however, make being decloaked by dialogue outside of combat nearly a non-issue, which is something that's currently a pain as it provokes a cooldown and wastes our time.
Since you can't use that type of cloak in combat there's basically no real reason to have a cooldown on it.
Obviously it wouldn't solve the problem, but it would make it slightly less annoying for anyone who's flying a ship that cloaks and isn't a Bird-of-Prey.
It is still annoying for people who fly a BoP - the least shielding, least hull and still get the 20 seconds cool down - we die faster than the other ships who also get pulled out of cloak.
I wonder if we all just got on at CBS with a ton of letters about the issue would it get fixed then?
(fixed = restore the cloak to what it should be and fix the missions that are broken that were the reason for the cloak change)
It is still annoying for people who fly a BoP - the least shielding, least hull and still get the 20 seconds cool down - we die faster than the other ships who also get pulled out of cloak.
The KDF character I play the most flies a Bird, so yeah I'm aware.
I'm not sure that there's a possible "quick and easy" fix there though.
The KDF character I play the most flies a Bird, so yeah I'm aware.
I'm not sure that there's a possible "quick and easy" fix there though.
It doesn't need to be quickly and easily fixed, it just needs fixed. At the very least, it needs to be made to work as it is intended to work in the Star Trek Universe.
I understand that there has to be some functional deviations in a game based on the franchise. This cloaking bug (yes, it is a bug) however, is so far from the way it works in the I.P. that is should be of something of importance, to both PWE/Cryptic and CBS/Paramount, to get right.
I'm quite sure that CBS/Paramount wouldn't allow the publishing of a Novel that depicted all cloaking devices as decloaking the ship whenever Bridge Officers communicated with the Captain or each other, or hailed other ships, colonies, or planets. Why such a deviation would be allowed here, I am not sure.
Full Name: Zeryn Zebulon Zebular 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 Species / Birth Date / Birth Place: Half-Betazoid, Half-Human / Stardate 27481.22 / Rixx City, Betazed Handles:@zebular (PC) • @MtnDewFreak (XBOX) • @Terraseer (PS4)
It doesn't need to be quickly and easily fixed, it just needs fixed.
Thing is, we know it's not going to be. They've already decided (retroactively) that this is working as intended, obviously because they refuse to do anything that isn't quick and easy. Now, sure, we can complain about that but ultimately...
KDF Content
Time Gated Content
Dilithium Crafting
Drop Rates
etc.
etc.
etc.
Complaints tend not to produce results, and even when they do rarely are those results what the community wants anyway. Thus quick and easy alternatives are likely the best we can actually hope for.
Really, I think the best solution is an alternate cloak state that dialogues bump cloaked ships into. They're invisible to players but NPCs can see through this alternate cloak state. This prevents broken missions where aggro is required. The ship still appears cloaked. PvP works.
Either that or halt dialogues until players decloak and eliminate the cooldown on standard cloak.
That doesn't mean you can't read dialogues while cloaked. It just means that any dialogue trigger completion halts until you decloak. So your BOs talk to you, fine. But the mission progress freezes there until you decloak.
I don't use cloak really, but I think that is really stupid. Fix it and be done with it. It seems they ignore a lot of the little things that really kill immersion. For instance, why is my captain beaming off the bridge when leaving bridge view... is it really that hard to kill the beaming animation and cut straight to a loading screen when on the bridge?
Remember about a year ago when the cloak broke and Dan said "we have to go map by map to fix it, will take a long time but it will get done" and now he says "oh it was always meant to be like that" this really makes me mad as a KDF player who uses cloak i Kerrat.
Ps. This is my first post in over two years I though i need to expose this lie, as if we don't remember.
Completely agree with you, this issue made klingons a pointless faction to play for me.
and yes, saying this is working as intended in a lie.
While we're on the subject, I also hate how these popup messages will cause you to cut your throttle to zero. It's just as stupid as it forcing a decloak.
I've sometimes been killed because I was too close (for example) to a Tac Cube in the last stage of ISE and when it blows up you get a message from your XO... with your speed now at zero. And then the secondary explosion takes you with it. THANKS A LOT NUMBER ONE.
While we're on the subject, I also hate how these popup messages will cause you to cut your throttle to zero. It's just as stupid as it forcing a decloak.
I've sometimes been killed because I was too close (for example) to a Tac Cube in the last stage of ISE and when it blows up you get a message from your XO... with your speed now at zero. And then the secondary explosion takes you with it. THANKS A LOT NUMBER ONE.
thats something you can disable somewhere in the options. i think in the control tab
No need to apologize, the only stupid question is the one not asked.
I know this cloaking issue and the retro WAI is new for a lot of the newer folks since F2P. But this sort of thing is old hat for the fine folks at Cryptic studios. This isn't the first time, it won't be the last.
Remember about a year ago when the cloak broke and Dan said "we have to go map by map to fix it, will take a long time but it will get done" and now he says "oh it was always meant to be like that" this really makes me mad as a KDF player who uses cloak i Kerrat.
Ps. This is my first post in over two years I though i need to expose this lie, as if we don't remember.
You are exactly correct. They made a change for season 3 and it messed up cloaking at that time and they changed their position, in response to the multitude of gripes about it stating that basically will uncloak us whenever they please.. basically telling us to shut up and deal with it.
Great customer service there. The bug was first reported in January 2011
Here is the history of the bug (main points and by all means.. not every post ever written about it)
Actually, this is not a 100% Bug - as in game error.
We had the problem that the cloak did not always drop when it should. That causes big game balancing issues over time and we addressed them. THIS is a side-effect of what the fix brought in. It is a bug in so far, as that it's not doing what we really wanted, though it did fix the previous problem.
While that's of course not amazingly awesome, we are indeed, as mentioned by other posters, working on shifting things so that what the previous issue was and what the current issue is both don't bother players anymore.
*Contacts and mini-contacts will no longer pull players out of cloak with the following exceptions.
*If you are interacting with something you will still be pulled out of cloak.
*We can still have a contact or mini-contact pull you out of cloak if we feel it benefits the mission!
i.e. they can decloak you anytime they want because it was more cost effective to give that answer than to fix every map. Also, it is no wonder they have so many bugs if they program this way.
They think we forget this TRIBBLE, but we don't. They broke something in season 3 and believed it was too costly to fix it, even though we are paying them to fix it
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
Comments
It would be possible, but that would mean that all the statements by Cryptic devs about this issue prior to Dan's latest Ask Cryptic response were wrong. Are we to believe that Salami_Inferno and Gozer were completely mistaken on how cloak was supposed to work in STO (HappyHappyJoyJoy has a recap post here)? Seems extremely unlikely, doesn't it? It seems more likely that Cryptic/PWE decided that it's just too much trouble to mess with, put out a 'you've got it all wrong' PR-spin statement, and are quietly sitting back hoping the forums will forget about it.
And I'm not suggesting they roll back whatever patch broke cloaking in the first place. I'm saying to fix it so it works logically within the confines of the game (my suggestions for that are in this thread).
Cryptic has been utterly incompetent at managing the expectations of the playerbase. Some playerbase expectations are unreasonable, but this cloaking issue? The fleet uniform issue? The 700 android Boff options? The KDF content issue? On and on it goes and each time it's a Cryptic PR fail. I'm sure the cloak fix isn't easy, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. They need to do something other than "lolwut? U mizunderstand cloak!1!!" Especially when we have multiple quotes from devs stating the exact opposite.
Thanks for the clarification... I wasn't really playing KDF at the time and wasn't following the problem all that closely.
That sounds about right and partly confirms what I was thinking about the current situation. It is an issue with interacts being too generic and not filtered, then. I was just wrong about how it got that way.
IF there's a way to set flags on certain interactions to make them cloak-proof, then maybe this will be fixable someday.
And I'll stop looking at the issue from Cryptic's point of view from here on out. They broke it, they're responsible, they should fix it.
I'm just not very optimistic it will be anytime soon.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
As it stands now, the way we are de-cloaked has no place in Star Trek and if I were CBS/Paramount, I would require that PWE/Cryptic make it function correctly, as it functions in the rest of the Star Trek Universe (IP).
Mayhap we need to instead write CBS/Paramount with our Trekkie dissatisfaction with how the Cloak system is being portrayed.
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
Species / Birth Date / Birth Place: Half-Betazoid, Half-Human / Stardate 27481.22 / Rixx City, Betazed
Handles: @zebular (PC) • @MtnDewFreak (XBOX) • @Terraseer (PS4)
that and among other things like romulan shortcuts
system Lord Baal is dead
According to Gozer they just need to make sure a flag is in place on each interact, which should be ridiculously easy... just very time consuming.
Thing is, it's been broken since at least mid-January 2011. If they made sure the flags were properly in place since they were implemented onward (which would have been around July 2011) then the problem shouldn't have been getting any worse. It's something they could chip away at and eventually solve... but they haven't. The problem hasn't been getting any better.
Realistically this is something an intern should even be able to handle, so why has it endured for one year and eight months? This game doesn't have so much content as to make this an insurmountable problem.
The only possible excuse would be if the flagging system was an utter failure and didn't work... and if that's the case, why hasn't that been fixed?
My character Tsin'xing
Since you can't use that type of cloak in combat there's basically no real reason to have a cooldown on it.
Obviously it wouldn't solve the problem, but it would make it slightly less annoying for anyone who's flying a ship that cloaks and isn't a Bird-of-Prey.
It is still annoying for people who fly a BoP - the least shielding, least hull and still get the 20 seconds cool down - we die faster than the other ships who also get pulled out of cloak.
I wonder if we all just got on at CBS with a ton of letters about the issue would it get fixed then?
(fixed = restore the cloak to what it should be and fix the missions that are broken that were the reason for the cloak change)
The KDF character I play the most flies a Bird, so yeah I'm aware.
I'm not sure that there's a possible "quick and easy" fix there though.
It doesn't need to be quickly and easily fixed, it just needs fixed. At the very least, it needs to be made to work as it is intended to work in the Star Trek Universe.
I understand that there has to be some functional deviations in a game based on the franchise. This cloaking bug (yes, it is a bug) however, is so far from the way it works in the I.P. that is should be of something of importance, to both PWE/Cryptic and CBS/Paramount, to get right.
I'm quite sure that CBS/Paramount wouldn't allow the publishing of a Novel that depicted all cloaking devices as decloaking the ship whenever Bridge Officers communicated with the Captain or each other, or hailed other ships, colonies, or planets. Why such a deviation would be allowed here, I am not sure.
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
Species / Birth Date / Birth Place: Half-Betazoid, Half-Human / Stardate 27481.22 / Rixx City, Betazed
Handles: @zebular (PC) • @MtnDewFreak (XBOX) • @Terraseer (PS4)
Thing is, we know it's not going to be. They've already decided (retroactively) that this is working as intended, obviously because they refuse to do anything that isn't quick and easy. Now, sure, we can complain about that but ultimately...
KDF Content
Time Gated Content
Dilithium Crafting
Drop Rates
etc.
etc.
etc.
Complaints tend not to produce results, and even when they do rarely are those results what the community wants anyway. Thus quick and easy alternatives are likely the best we can actually hope for.
Either that or halt dialogues until players decloak and eliminate the cooldown on standard cloak.
That doesn't mean you can't read dialogues while cloaked. It just means that any dialogue trigger completion halts until you decloak. So your BOs talk to you, fine. But the mission progress freezes there until you decloak.
Ain't Nobody Got Time for That
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Completely agree with you, this issue made klingons a pointless faction to play for me.
and yes, saying this is working as intended in a lie.
I've sometimes been killed because I was too close (for example) to a Tac Cube in the last stage of ISE and when it blows up you get a message from your XO... with your speed now at zero. And then the secondary explosion takes you with it. THANKS A LOT NUMBER ONE.
thats something you can disable somewhere in the options. i think in the control tab
Sorry for my now irrelevant hijack.
I know this cloaking issue and the retro WAI is new for a lot of the newer folks since F2P. But this sort of thing is old hat for the fine folks at Cryptic studios. This isn't the first time, it won't be the last.
Regards,
You are exactly correct. They made a change for season 3 and it messed up cloaking at that time and they changed their position, in response to the multitude of gripes about it stating that basically will uncloak us whenever they please.. basically telling us to shut up and deal with it.
Great customer service there. The bug was first reported in January 2011
Here is the history of the bug (main points and by all means.. not every post ever written about it)
1/18/2011 : reporting
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=3290220#post3290220
1/24/2011 : Another Reporting
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=197322&highlight=cloak
2/21/2011 : Another Plea
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=203333&highlight=cloak+season
3/15/2011 : Cryptic acknowledges bug : # 1 Engineering Report - March 15, 2011 : Under Investigation section
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=3433463&postcount=2
3/24/2011 : First Attempted Fix
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=208478
5/23/2011 : Unknown Dev post (Thank for wiping the names, PWE) stating that this was an in game error that they unintentionally created by are working on fixes for both.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=3554878&postcount=16
7/7/2011 Final Answer
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=222483
i.e. they can decloak you anytime they want because it was more cost effective to give that answer than to fix every map. Also, it is no wonder they have so many bugs if they program this way.
They think we forget this TRIBBLE, but we don't. They broke something in season 3 and believed it was too costly to fix it, even though we are paying them to fix it
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
lmfao this^^^^^
system Lord Baal is dead