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Your 'dream update'
illcadia
Member Posts: 1,412 Bug Hunter
Everyone has something they want more than anything else, and everyone knows that there's a lot Cryptic will never put in the game- but what's your dream update? I'm talking either a generalization of content "space pvp revamp!" or specific systems "dynamic exploration"- but stuff that would be big, and would be a significant change (and improvement) to the game.
For me, I'd love to do away with how ships are handled for your characters- factionally speaking of course.
Instead of a character owning a bunch of ships that only he can fly- instead open the game up so that all characters on your account, divided by faction, can use all ships on your account, divided by faction.
But what does that mean?
It means, like, let's take your venerable RA token ship. You get it when you hit RA (or pay dilithium or whatever), and you fly it a while- but eventually you get something else, maybe a C-store ship, maybe a much less expensive lockbox mirror ship, maybe even a lobi or lockbox capstone ship.
Your RA ship gathers dust, and while you occasionally fly it, you don't do it so much that it does anything other than take up space.
But if Cryptic took the separation between characters on an account and partially did away with it, you'd have something interesting.
Let's say that, as it was for me, your RA ship is a galaxy class clunker. visually iconic, but slow, simple, and outclassed by 90% of the ships at that tier. You got it with dilithium or a RA token- so it's a specific ship.
And any fed on your character who is at least RA or higher can fly that specific ship, if no other fed is flying it.
Get rid of the normal 'captains have so many ship slots', and combine them together into sort of ship rotation. Do a cool visual graphic on ESD or your fleet starbase or whatever where your characters can look out and see all your ships.
So like, my new tac captain has just hit RA, and used his token to buy a patrol escort. He takes it around a bit, but he's got crappy gear and really wants to get into that elite space STF action.
So he parks his patrol escort at the starbase and hops into my engineering main's spare MVAM advanced escort, which is loaded with the reman prototype XI space set, plasma weapons, a full set of XI purple plasma energy consoles (and one plasma infuser for the torp), and select C-store consoles either from other ships bought from the C-store, or via the lockbox crossfaction stuff.
He plows through a bunch of elite STFs, and logs off- taking that ship with him to explore strange new worlds.
Meanwhile, I log onto my sci captain. I dock my Artimage, which as a C-store unlock, is always available to each of my captains, even if someone else is already 'flying one'. And then I swap over into my fleet recon to go chart some anomalies.
This system would make some identification between not just 'single ships' versus 'global unlocks', but also between those single ships and 'rare' things like lockbox/lobi capstone ships.
For instance, lets say I have a trill science officer who has been (fluff) developing relations with a small group of tholians. She eventually acquires their assistance fighting enemies of the federation, and acquires an orb weaver. As a ship so fantastically difficult to acquire, and not something that 'everyone' flies, it would be 'character bound' to that character in the ship rotation.
You could dock it at the station and go use another ship, but while your other characters could click on the ship and look at the stats, only you would be able to use it, change its gear, or any of that.
Now, some people are inordinately lucky, blessed, or incredibly wealthy and have every lock box ship released, and all the lobi ships too, all on their account. What for them?
Well that's a good question- and one I think Cryptic would be able to make some money off of. These ships are 'bound' to that specific character and cannot be used by your other captains- but you would be able to purchase, from the C-store, a "Ship Transfer Order", which would let you take one of your character bound ships and transfer it to another character on the account, accepting factional limitations (No, Admiral Yayooz didn't order you to give the Klingons your MVAM advanced escort)
As a necessity to this system, all your space gear would by bound to the account- and the 'ship rotation' would house a sort of account bank where you could put it in. Moreover, this 'ship rotation' would serve as sort of an account hub, letting you freely change your characters from that faction, manage their gear without being logged into that character, and otherwise eliminate a lot of the busywork you usually have to go through to do it, running from one side of the starbase to the other to go to the tailor, or access the bank.
this idea would totally change the paradigm of ships and space gear- and I think would be way too much work and too radical a change for Cryptic to ever consider.
But I'd love them for always if they did it.
For me, I'd love to do away with how ships are handled for your characters- factionally speaking of course.
Instead of a character owning a bunch of ships that only he can fly- instead open the game up so that all characters on your account, divided by faction, can use all ships on your account, divided by faction.
But what does that mean?
It means, like, let's take your venerable RA token ship. You get it when you hit RA (or pay dilithium or whatever), and you fly it a while- but eventually you get something else, maybe a C-store ship, maybe a much less expensive lockbox mirror ship, maybe even a lobi or lockbox capstone ship.
Your RA ship gathers dust, and while you occasionally fly it, you don't do it so much that it does anything other than take up space.
But if Cryptic took the separation between characters on an account and partially did away with it, you'd have something interesting.
Let's say that, as it was for me, your RA ship is a galaxy class clunker. visually iconic, but slow, simple, and outclassed by 90% of the ships at that tier. You got it with dilithium or a RA token- so it's a specific ship.
And any fed on your character who is at least RA or higher can fly that specific ship, if no other fed is flying it.
Get rid of the normal 'captains have so many ship slots', and combine them together into sort of ship rotation. Do a cool visual graphic on ESD or your fleet starbase or whatever where your characters can look out and see all your ships.
So like, my new tac captain has just hit RA, and used his token to buy a patrol escort. He takes it around a bit, but he's got crappy gear and really wants to get into that elite space STF action.
So he parks his patrol escort at the starbase and hops into my engineering main's spare MVAM advanced escort, which is loaded with the reman prototype XI space set, plasma weapons, a full set of XI purple plasma energy consoles (and one plasma infuser for the torp), and select C-store consoles either from other ships bought from the C-store, or via the lockbox crossfaction stuff.
He plows through a bunch of elite STFs, and logs off- taking that ship with him to explore strange new worlds.
Meanwhile, I log onto my sci captain. I dock my Artimage, which as a C-store unlock, is always available to each of my captains, even if someone else is already 'flying one'. And then I swap over into my fleet recon to go chart some anomalies.
This system would make some identification between not just 'single ships' versus 'global unlocks', but also between those single ships and 'rare' things like lockbox/lobi capstone ships.
For instance, lets say I have a trill science officer who has been (fluff) developing relations with a small group of tholians. She eventually acquires their assistance fighting enemies of the federation, and acquires an orb weaver. As a ship so fantastically difficult to acquire, and not something that 'everyone' flies, it would be 'character bound' to that character in the ship rotation.
You could dock it at the station and go use another ship, but while your other characters could click on the ship and look at the stats, only you would be able to use it, change its gear, or any of that.
Now, some people are inordinately lucky, blessed, or incredibly wealthy and have every lock box ship released, and all the lobi ships too, all on their account. What for them?
Well that's a good question- and one I think Cryptic would be able to make some money off of. These ships are 'bound' to that specific character and cannot be used by your other captains- but you would be able to purchase, from the C-store, a "Ship Transfer Order", which would let you take one of your character bound ships and transfer it to another character on the account, accepting factional limitations (No, Admiral Yayooz didn't order you to give the Klingons your MVAM advanced escort)
As a necessity to this system, all your space gear would by bound to the account- and the 'ship rotation' would house a sort of account bank where you could put it in. Moreover, this 'ship rotation' would serve as sort of an account hub, letting you freely change your characters from that faction, manage their gear without being logged into that character, and otherwise eliminate a lot of the busywork you usually have to go through to do it, running from one side of the starbase to the other to go to the tailor, or access the bank.
this idea would totally change the paradigm of ships and space gear- and I think would be way too much work and too radical a change for Cryptic to ever consider.
But I'd love them for always if they did it.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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- All bugs in Star Trek Online have been fixed. Absolutely. Every. One. Resistance was futile.
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
Support the "Armored Unicorn" vehicle initiative today!
Thanks for Harajuku. Now let's get a real "Magical Girl" costume!
This is your first MMO isn't it? :P
Im def an avid RP in the game (love the DOFF system for that reason) but I find i lose immersion when I go into the ship with:
Non fed bridge designs (The defiant is a start)
Random positioned crew with empty stations (would love to set up first office/tactical/science stations etc..)
Corridors that are too big and make no sense design wise.
I would also like to see the captains quarters / ready room custimizable..with various artifacts and objects given as mission rewards.
First, coming from Eve Online, the biggest thing I'd like to see is a dynamic territory based pvp conflict system that allows you to fight other players with the goal of expanding your faction's territory and resources. This would also tie in with a full balancing of pvp and ships/equipment in general. Several types of missions could be introduced from raiding convoys or freighters, capturing systems or starbases, planetary and starbase invasion ground combat or even just a simple clash in space or ground. A massive benefit here is that this gives consistent and dynamic content from level 1 to end-game. Individual characters would be able to opt-in as a one time option. Once you've opted in, it's flagged for pvp for how ever long you have the character. You cannot opt in and out repeatedly to avoid pvp whenever you feel like. Once you've opted in, you're bound by the territory control systems and can be attacked in sector space by members of the opposing faction providing they're fast enough to be able to intercept you. This has the upside of giving the driver coil skill some benefit as well. Non-pvp flagged characters could still pvp through the queue, but will not impact territory control or the like(not sure about this, but I'd hate to completely cut off characters/people from what could be a great aspect of the game)
Second option would be a full-on content bash. I'd like to see romulans introduced as a third faction with enough missions to be able to start from level 1 in conjunction with the FE's and access to patrol-like missions. Their missions would take a more subterfuge/espionage/stealth-like feel with different ways to complete the missions. Federation content would be slightly reworked so it emphasized a more peaceful stance from your superiors/mission-givers along with options in the missions themselves to complete them peacefully, though you could still complete them by taking a "shoot first and ask questions later" stance. Lastly, 5 or so missions added to the KDF along with gaining access to patrol-like missions but make them more aggressive/tactical in nature, firstly by making them only appear in non-KDF owned systems and by making them marauding or conquering themed. Admittedly this may be 2 expansions worth of content
Third option for me would be a full revamp of character creation and character skills. I'd personally like to have a distinct and noticeable difference between my tac, eng and science characters. On the ground there is some difference, but that's mostly related to how kits work rather than the actual captain's abilities. In space most characters feel like same. I feel that the command paths should work to amplify their current fields, either by somehow restricting certain boff abilities to certain command paths or by having, say, a science character inherently making science powers more powerful. I would like to see a rework of the character trait system to have more impact on your character along with making racial traits inherent rather than giving up picks for them. The best example by far are the Gorn. Three picks are mandatory and severely restrict your ability to customize your character. Instead, these traits should be automatically applied to your character behind the scenes and you can be allowed to still pick 4 traits. Inherent traits that require activation like bite or neural blast would just put that skill into your tray. This expansion/rebalance would give a free respec token to every character that is currently made due to having just shaken everything up.
Rrezeth, Gorn Tactical, primary alt
Nari, Orion Science, secondary alt
UI changes and improvements
- New Overview showing all contacts that you and your team mates have currently detected allowing you to quickly select up to 10 active targets and be able to engage one target and select your ally without DE-aggressing the enemy target and allow you to apply remote heals to your teammates or ally targets while keeping an eye on what everyone else is doing on the field.
overview is fully customizable with various data to display i.e ship distance and whether target has engaged you or not.
also able to create multiple tabs allowing you to create and maintain different overview profiles for different situations i.e a profile just for locking up heavy plasma torpedo's and other targetable ordnance
- Dialog boxes will no longer become the active interaction box when they appear instead moved to a smaller dialog box that will appear in the bottom left of your screen over the chat channel box.
- you will be able to zoom out 5X as far as previously from your ship
- Team status displays have been decreased in size to take up less space and made alot clearer with removal of character portraits and replaced with just the name.
Space Changes
- Space is no longer 2D all ships can now do a loop "Q" and "E" keys now roll your ship on its axis
- All ships will now have top and bottom shields
- collisions with asteroids and other ships now damage your ships, you can also burn up in the atmosphere of planets, people will need to learn how to fly there ships.
- Sensors now work up to 100km and cna be effected by targets moving into a cluster of dense asteroids or varius nebulae that will be effective depending on anomaly type mass and density of the anomaly in question.
- Deflectors will now also be coupled to your sensors and provide boosts to sensor strength for targets going into certain anomaly types and poorer at detecting ships in others.
- Wepaons will now have different ranges depending on weapon type according to damge profile.
ranking from shortest most damaging to longest and least damaging
--10KM--
Dual heavy cannons
--15KM--
Dual Cannons
--25KM--
Dual beam bank's
--40KM--
Beam array's
Turrets
--50KM--
Torpedos
- Ship impulse speeds will be adjusted according to class of ship Carriers being slowest and Escourts being much faster
-Ship Shield HP will be boosted while while passive regeneration rates slightly decreased with the exception of currant regenerative shields , hopefully giving a more tactical feel to ship to ship combat rather than your standard arcade space shooter.
- Torpedos will now use consumeable projectiles that will be loaded into a seperate ammunition bay on your ship, these bays will be rather large and can be re-stocked for a modest EC cost from your factions main starbases, torpedo re-stocks are free for anyone bellow lvl 10
Feddy-
ESD
DS9
DS-K7
Starbase 39
Fed Fleet Starbase ( Industrial Fabricator and tier 1 Shipyard must be constructed )
Klingon-
Qo'nos Orbital shipyard
Ganalda Space Station
Klingon Fleet Starbase ( Industrial Fabricator and tier 1 Shipyard must be constructed )
-Torpedos no longer have a shared cooldown timer making torpedo boats a viable practice making certain nebula class pilots jump for joy
Carrier Changes
-Carrier Hangers will become a separate volume based system,
- Fighters will become consumables and not endless angry bee swarms
- New fighter AI and control system implemented, fighters can now be ordered separately and an icon will appear next to the ship that they are attacking in space and on the new overview allowing you to engage a separate target from your fighters without your fighters switching targets to yours.
- Fighter UI window will apear when fighters are launched and will indicate the fighters status including shield and hull strength of all deployed fighters.
- Fighters HP will increase by 50% across the board
- Fighters will become much harder to hit and will remain outside of the targeted ships explosion radius when attacking
Mailing system and Inventory
- Mail system UI has been completely reworked and will now be more compact and clear, mail can now also be arranged into customizable folders
- you will now be able to create your own mailing lists
- members in fleet with associated roles can now create mails that will be automatically sent out when a new member joins allowing for fleets to create introductory mail for there new members
- Fleet mails now automatically get organized into the new fleet folder in the mail system
- items sent to a handler will now be stored in an account wide "pattern buffer" rather than on individual mails that can be retrieved at any time.
Inventory Overhaul
-Inventory as you know it now ceases to exist, no longer will that herbal tea take up as much room as a ships deflector dish , all items will take up varying amounts of space in m3
-all ships will have a cargo hold relevant to the ships size/class and starbases will have UNLIMITED storage space and up to 10 separate and nameable storage sections to allow you to sort your items.
-you may also create stacks of unlimited size only limited by the volume space taken up inside your ship.
-Fleet storage space is available in all starbases including the fleet starbase ( naturally) and permissions to withdraw from the different sections can be issued individually now as well as by entire groups.
-scanned anomaly's now go into there own separate storage space being anomaly readings and samples that dont take up much space at all and will be in a separate tab in your assets window that are transferable between other players and your fleet.
- projectile weapon ordnance receives its own hold that feeds into any projectile launchers spare ordnance may be bought and kept in the cargohold and transferd into the ordnance hold when needed.
General PVE changes
- ground missions have had the enemys HP reduced so you are not spending all day shooting the same targets and should be around the same toughness as your self with the exception of some enemy's like Gorn or other somewhat tougher opponents.
- overall enemy amount has been reduced so you dont feel like future space rambo taking out entire armys by yourself.
- space enemy amount has been reduced in half but resilience enhanced to be around the same toughness of the players taking part for a more star trek and less arcade feel.
- ground and space AI has been enhanced and will now be a lot more aware of the environment and use there ability's at more appropriate times and chain with other skills for greater effect. this includes allys and of course your own bridge officers
- all episodes will now reward fleet marks ( if you are in a fleet)and will add or subtract fleet marks depending on your performance subtracting marks from re spawning and taking an excessive amount of time and adding for helping out and assisting your team mates with extra marks being given out from playing episodes in advanced and elite difficulty.
- All episodes will now also reward dillithium ore for completion
Normal - 25 Advanced - 50 Elite - 75
Other General changes
- Team size has been increased to 20 ( full PvP Match team size)
- missions will now allow up to 10 team members in
- all sector blocks have been merged into one map and instance size increased to 1000 per instance, no longer shall we live in the dark ages
- Dillithium refinement cap has been increased to 20,000 dilithium a day as we at cryptic believed we were penalizing people to much for there hard work.
FIXES
- klingons everywhere raise a goblet of blood wine as dialog boxes from bridge crew or information boxes referring you to mission objective will no longer decloak you. you will still be decloaked if you are actually interacting with any objects in space or get hit by any AOE attacks
- buffing up while cloaked will no longer play any audio sounds for your enemy's letting everyone in the vicinity that you are about to open a can of klingon style whoop TRIBBLE on them
- shootable ordnance i.e heavy plasma torpedoes will no longer dissapear in space before they hit
- in "night of the comet" klingons will now be able to chose threaten the orion woman casidy for the part as a klingon would rather than the mighty klingon captain mixing a drink for her.
- team members will no longer revert to there original levels if they have already selected the "match squad leaders level" they will remain that level in all missions until they have chosen other wise in order to prevent poor new players getting pulverized if someone is still working on something on the other side of the map or accidentally gets reverted on there way to the mission.
the list is by no means complete but hey ^_^
The option to choose what type of mission I get (land or space) when I explore an unknown system. That's my 'realistic' dream update. Also, to actually encounter some borg when I explore the B'Tran cluster. I only met them once in there, the first time I explored that cluster.
My actual dream update is trully a dream... I never really understood why an vice-admiral is needed for missions better suited for junior crewmen. Did I just find a space station somewhere that needs fixing?! I tell my no.1 to take care of it and he sends a repair crew. Do we find some baddies there? I order my security officer to assemble a strike team and go deal with them. This is one of the reasons why I never liked the land missions. I would like to be able to select one of my officers as the playable character for land missions, depending on my preferences or mission requirements. And let my vice-admiral be just that, not a foot soldier.
...Hmm, just had another idea. Assigning bridge officers to duty officers missions. Sometime junior officers need supervision, don't they?!
This. Not only so the game would be smooth and dreamy but so I could log into the forums and watch the confusion, with nothing to complain about there would be chaos. lol
May I interest you in comprehensive ship interior customisation as a means of player housing, NPC crew / security escort uniforms, PvP/PvE boarding action area, episode mission tie-ins and mini-games that earn real rewards?
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=5766711#post5766711
taco even swings by the topic from time to time, to offer dev perspective on user suggestions and how particular features can/cannot be implemented.
And everyone loves everything we made.
Shhhhhhh. . . a taco can dream. . . .
Foundry Mission Database
Check out my Foundry missions:
Standalone - The Great Escape - The Galaxy's Fair - Purity I: Of Denial - Return to Oblivion
Untitled Series - Duritanium Man - The Improbable Bulk - Commander Rihan
I'd love for that to be true.
A taco can also be eaten...
Well we all like the art you made Star Fleet Academy it would not look as awesome as it does and same with the Bajor ground map.
Now back on topic my dream update... No more lockbox ships all ships are in the C-store or in the game then I would be in utopia playing STO otherwise I feel surrounding by Ferengi.
Oh, and better odds on Lockboxes. Right now, the odds are too low to be worth it.
Om nom nom. :P
And yes, no bugs.
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
Support the "Armored Unicorn" vehicle initiative today!
Thanks for Harajuku. Now let's get a real "Magical Girl" costume!
Non-realistic, make a check-box that turns all combat in the game to Starfleet Command.
On the other hand i would be happy if:
:P
I hope my english is understandable, since most of the time i find it difficult to find the right words in my native language.
Me after that.
Oh Taco, I love you and all the devs. My thanks means nothing, but you still have it.
I haven't the will to recreate it now. But suffice it to say, it was long-winded and very cool.
Update: I figured it out by accident. Re-posting below.
- The player acquires Sector Block slots through the C-store, for a moderately high price - say, 2500 Zen. An account can unlock up to five slots.
- The player creates the sector block, lays out systems and gives descriptions, etc. They also indicate which sector block "border" it can be accessed from.
- The player creates a number of missions within that block (up to ten). They can form a chronological story arc like an FE series, or they can be simple episodic missions to chart the region - it's up to the player.
- Players approaching a border are prompted to either enter one of the blocks they've visited before, or enter a random block.
- Fleets could even build their starbases in these blocks. The player that created the block could create a custom "enemy faction" to attack the starbase sometimes, through the Starbase Defense missions.
Just a concept right now, but I'd gladly shell out cash for this.
#2) A fleshed-out KDF faction, equal to that of the Feds. Unlocked from the beginning.
#3) A proper Romulan faction. It can still work in this post-Sela age - we're serving one of the splinter factions, the one that still has the backing of the military and the Tal Shiar. Lots of potential in there, methinks. Unlocked after completion of "Cutting the Cord" on any character.
#4) More opportunities to earn Dilithium for Fed characters. KDF has a lot, like the Pi Canis Sorties, so it's only fair that the Feds get some more as well.
#5) Foundry authors should have access to the same resources the devs have. That includes the ability to create cutscenes, place dreadnoughts, customize mobs, etc.
#6) Some sector blocks are designated as "siege zones". Details:
- Fed and KDF players can besiege each other's systems. These systems can be captured and liberated by either faction.
- No forced PvP, but any resources in that system are unavailable during a siege battle, and outside of the siege, can only be accessed by the faction that controls the system. So there's incentive to join the fighting to protect such resources.
- Fed vs. KDF siege zone: Eta Eridani Sector Block.
- Fed vs. Romulan siege zone: Alpha Centauri Sector Block.
- KDF vs. Romulan siege zone: Pi Canis Sector Block.
- A few systems in Omega Leonis are open to KDF vs. KDF sieges.
- Most, but not all systems can be attacked.
This could be really epic, if pulled off right.
#7) More Fed battleship skins. Bad enough that the Typhoon is ugly, but the worst part is that it's the only Fed Battleship of its type. Cryptic added the Armitage and MVAM Prometheus in Season 6, but they're still rare spawns. So more possible skins for the standard Federation battleship - perhaps the Star Cruisers or Assault Cruisers - would be great.
"Critics who say that the optimistic utopia Star Trek depicted is now outmoded forget the cultural context that gave birth to it: Star Trek was not a manifestation of optimism when optimism was easy. Star Trek declared a hope for a future that nobody stuck in the present could believe in. For all our struggles today, we haven’t outgrown the need for stories like Star Trek. We need tales of optimism, of heroes, of courage and goodness now as much as we’ve ever needed them."
-Thomas Marrone
KDF starting level is now 1.
KDF Tutorial mission
5 KDF mission Gorn seperatist story arc
3 KDF mission to continue after The House Always Wins to complete the Klingon: House Wars story arc.
8 KDF missions added continuing the Federation War story arc.
4 KDF missions continuing the Hunted Hunters story arc beginning with Alpha.
2 new Sorties, Charlie and Delta, along with a 3 missions to complete with you get all 6 ground optional objections.
3 new KDF Tier 1 +1 ships added to the C-Store
3 new KDF Tier 2 +1 ships added to the C-Store
3 new KDF Small craft added to the C-Store
21 new ingame ship costumes added
5 new KDF Captain costumes added to the C-Store
3 new KDF Female only costumes added to the C-Store
Assault On Starbase 24 KDF Fleet action
Starbase 24 PvP Map
Registered: Oct/2009 , LTS : Feb/2011
Fleets: Warriors of the Phoenix, Kirian Industries[/SIGPIC]
Three years and still no Captain Klaa hair...
I would like to second flintl0ck33, tetonica, and grtiggy. These are absolutely wonderful ideas.
I've harped on and on about the need to differentiate the way that characters from different disciplines operate from a mechanical point of view and I would continue to say that that would be my number one wish for the game. A truly defining choice in whether to play Tactical, Engineering, or Science. One that profoundly affects the options you'll have available to you in the game and the strategies you can possibly employ. To use an example from Everquest, my wizard is never ever ever going to be able to play the game effectively by running up to every baddie and trying to kill it with a staff or a dagger and that's a choice that I made and am happy to have made. Choosing a career path in STO needs to mean something. It needs to limit what you can do in terms of how you interact with enemies and what options you have available to defeat them. But it also needs to limit you in terms of what you can get out of your BOFFs. As it stands right now, every click-skill in the game is available for every player in the game. Granted, you get to use more of the skills from your discipline than you get to use of the other ones. But the fact that you can set it up so that you've got every available skill by having enough BOFFs defines the mechanics of gameplay as every player getting to be kind of good at everything but not truly a standout at anything.
I'd go even further down this route and say to keep the general career tracks for the early levels but then to diversify it as you get farther into the game. Specifically what I mean is this (and this would rework the levels in its approach):
Levels 0-4: Ensign
You choose your career path, just like now, when you create your character and go through a crash course at the Academy. There is a new tutorial that takes place ENTIRELY at the Academy and gets you through the basics of game control. Then you start learning general things from different Academy contacts, including a couple of basic things that are from other careers. But there's a heavy emphasis on learning the things that set your career apart from the others. The entirety of being an Ensign would take place at the Academy and exists to lay the foundation of learning strategy. You do not command anyone or anything.
Levels 5-12: Lieutenant (Junior Grade)
You get promoted and assigned to a ship. You are not given the ship to command but you are put in charge of a small team, made up initially of you plus one member for each career path. The ship you're assigned to will have specific mission in a single part of space and dealing with a single enemy and it will be your job to go on away missions to explore, rescue, protect, and so forth. There would be several available missions (really as many as there are enemy factions) and they would not all be available to you. However, you would get to request the assignment that you want to have. So, whichever path you choose is up to you and you would not have the ability to do any of the other ones or switch paths once you've chosen. This story path would continue and develop through the full Lieutenant rank as well. (Side note to PWE: This would create more of a desire on the part of the players to have more characters, thus increasing sales of character slots.) The point of this section of the game would be to teach basic controls and strategies for operating with a team. But there would also be an emphasis on growing further class-specific skills and know-how. This area would also introduce you to the class branching that would happen in the next tier. The Reputation system would open up at level 10 for basic accumulation of resources but not for actual input and advancement. That would happen when you're promoted to Captain.
Levels 13-24: Lieutenant
Once you get through the previous tour of duty, and are promoted to a full Lieutenant, you must choose a branch of your career to end up in. You also up your team count by one member of your career and one member of your choice from one of the other career paths. You are also assigned a shuttle craft (probably a runabout). These are the specialization choices:
- Tactical
- Tactical Officer: In the world of what would happen with your BOFFs, this would be the officer serving at your tactical station. In the world of what it means to your character, this would be putting you on a standard path to commanding your own ship and it would focus the missions between now and then on a healthy mix of ground and space missions. Your character would be assigned to away missions in both areas with a focus on gaining Tactical expertise and little focus on other areas of the Tactical career path and no focus on the other career paths. To be clear, "tactical" missions are more focused on offensive missions that play into the wider war storylines. Tactical officers would get bonuses to defensive and offensive skills in both space and ground arenas and in both active (click) powers and passive powers. These bonuses would ultimately allow you to do more damage and take more damage. They'd get the (extremely rare) chance to one-shot an enemy. Note that this ability would not be usable in PvP. SKILLS: (Ground) Battle Strategies, Suppressing Fire, Target Optics, Overwatch, Fire on My Mark, Tactical Initiative, Motion Accelerator, all grenades; (Space) Beam: Fire at Will, Beam: Overload, Torpedo: High Yield, Torpedo: Spread, Target Subsystems (all), Cannon: Rapid Fire, Cannon: Scatter Volley, Dispersal Pattern Alpha, Dispersal Pattern Beta, Fire on My Mark, Tactical Initiative.
- Security Officer: For your BOFFs, this would be the security officer. For you, this would be putting you on the slow track to commanding your own ship and it would focus on mostly ground missions. You would be assigned to missions more focused on defense, with a slight focus on some other Tactical career missions. The big perk of choosing the Security path would be that you would go on a bunch of diplomatic missions, allowing for a fast track on gaining diplomacy CXP. You would also be able to gain higher quality rewards from those missions and future missions on the diplomacy track. Security characters would also have a new active ability called "Capture Enemy Vessel" that would provide a relatively small and upward-scaling chance of capturing an enemy ship in combat. This would require using the "Boarding Party" skill and would have extremely small success rates. If the enemy vessel is successfully captured, it powers up it's engines and makes an escape. Note that this ability would not be usable in PvP. SKILLS: (Ground) Draw Fire, Sweeping Strikes, Lunge, Stealth Module, Ambush, Suppressing Fire, Overwatch, Security Escort, Fire on My Mark, all grenades; (Space) Boarding Party, Tactical Team.
- Conn Officer: This is your BOFF pilot. In this specialization, you would become a shuttle pilot, putting you on the fast track to command, and focusing you on primarily space missions. These would be pretty equally focused on offensive and defensive combat missions, plus things more along the lines of transport missions that could gain you some diplomacy CXP. The big things that Conn Officers would have that other Tactical specialists would not have is the ability to still develop one skillset outside the Tactical path to tier one (for instance, you could learn some medical skills like Tom Paris or some engineering skills like Travis Mayweather) and the new active ability called "Escape Vector", which would allow you to possibly warp out of a battle. The chance of success would scale up from 50% to 95% with level and would depend on the amount of damage you've taken and available power. SKILLS: (Ground) all grenades, +chosen skills from non-tactical path; (Space) Attack Patterns (all existing plus some new ones), Evasive Patterns (new - separate from "Evasive Maneuvers", gives speed buffs and defensive buffs) +chosen skills from non-tactical path.
- Engineering
- Systems Engineer: The backbone of Starfleet operations. These guys are the engineers aboard ship and lead your BOFFs to the Chief Engineer post. For you, it means the slow track to command. It would mean a good mix of ground and space engineering assignments. These would be geared toward puzzles and putting different training methods to use and would involve relatively little combat, with some focus on other Engineering specializations only. These missions would gain you a jump on CXP and would open up a (hopefully) overhauled crafting system that would allow you the most far-reaching and excellent opportunities at creating pre-designed items and ultimately creating custom items from a list of possibilities as well as upgrading your existing items with new techs as they become available. Systems Engineers would gain a small chance of crafting a new ship, the chance of which and the quality of which would scale up with leveling. SKILLS: (Ground) Quick Fix, Shield Recharge, Weapons Malfunction, Reroute Power to Shields, Equipment Diagnostics, Fuse Armor, Orbital Strike, Engineering Proficiency; (Space) Engineering Team, Reverse Shield Polarity, Eject Warp Plasma, Hazard Emitters, Polarize Hull, Miracle Worker.
- Operations Officer: For your BOFFs, you're looking at Data or Harry Kim, people who coordinate the way the ship runs. For you, we're talking about a fast track to command and mostly space assignments. Again, in the Engineering career path, we're talking mostly about using skills, solving problems, and putting together the pieces of puzzles, rather than a heavy emphasis on space combat. You would be able to gain a little bit more knowledge and experience outside your specialization in the Engineering path. Additionally, you'd be afforded the opportunity to develop one secondary specialization to one tier level below your current tier. For instance, you could be Ops Tier 3 and Conn Tier 2, with all of the skills available to both those specializations as well as all the captain abilities. The trade-off would be that your primary specialization skills would take a 20% loss in effectiveness and your secondary skill would operate at half value. Ops characters would also get scaling bonuses to things like cool down times and power transfer rates that would increase the overall efficiency of your character. SKILLS: (Ground) Quick Fix, Shield Recharge, +chosen skills from secondary specialization; (Space) Emergency Power to (all), Auxiliary to (all), Directed Energy Modulation, Extend Shields, Aceton Beam, EPS Power Transfer, Rotate Shield Frequency, +chosen skills from secondary specialization.
- Quartermaster: This is not a really explored piece of Canon, but it's something that is very much a part of naval history and has very much become a part of the game. For your BOFFs, this is essentially your chief supply person. In terms of your character, we're talking about a standard length path to command with an emphasis on ground supply missions. These missions would be the most combat-centric of the Engineering missions with equal parts space and ground assignments and would not go outside the career path. These officers would gain abilities in buying low and selling high when it comes to interacting with vendors (and your replicator), they would have greater access to different types of equipment and higher quality equipment earlier and more frequently, and they'd receive a modifier causing drops from enemies to be more frequent and to leave higher quality items. They'd also get a bonus to DOFF assignment rewards that would increase the chance of more items being rewarded. Quartermasters can trade with opposing factions and use items from the opposing faction with no penalty. Note that if you're using an enemy-faction DOFF and roll a failure, you've got a chance of having that DOFF abandon you altogether. If you roll a disaster, there's a chance that the DOFF will kill or injure any other DOFFs on the mission with him. DOFFs from the opposing faction(s) will not take on assignments like "Sabotage Supply Depot". SKILLS: (Ground) Chroniton Mine Barrier, Generator Fabrications (all), Cover Shield, Combat Supply, Quick Fix, Fuse Armor, Orbital Strike; (Space) Engineering Team, Battle Supply (new - provides batteries).
- Science
- Astrophysicist: This BOFF is your average Mr. Spock, responsible for pretty much all the science chatter on the bridge. In terms of your toon, you're looking at a standard path to command and a group of missions with an equal emphasis on space and ground assignments. These assignments are part of an overall overhaul to the exploration system that makes it more fluid and dynamic. These missions are really about "exploring new worlds" and, while in principle sound like the average scan five anomalies or collect five decalithium samples that currently exist, in practice they'd be much much more nuanced and complicated. The perks of being an Astrophysicist would come in the form of CXP bonuses, a greater frequency of data sample drops, and the ability to dream up new technology to improve your equipment. (This ability to create new technology would open up a window that would allow you to name the thing, choose the traits, and assign the values based on a pool of points. Once you've created the tech, it is reusable by your Engineers and you can sell it or trade it to other players of any faction.) They'd also get a small bonus from using a skill (say Gravity Well) that could cause additional and unrelated side effects (say a power drain). SKILLS: (Ground) Electro-Gravitic Field, Tachyon Harmonic, Sonic Pulse, Stasis Field, Tricorder Scan, Dampening Field; (Space) Science Team, Tachyon Beam, Transfer Shield Strength, Charged Particle Burst, Energy Siphon, Feedback Pulse, Tractor Beam Repulsors, Tyken's Rift, Gravity Well, Photonic Shockwave, Science Aptitude, Photonic Fleet, Dampening Field, Subnucleonic Field, Sensor Scan.
- Medical Officer: Your doctor BOFF. This one is pretty self-explanatory in terms of what you'd be doing. You'd be going on mostly ground missions to provide care for the injured and the sick. Some of this would probably have to involve combat, though other parts of it would be more about diplomatic missions in that you'd go to an alien world to help cure a disease. These missions could be as straight forward as survive the war zone and heal all the targets or they could be as complicated as testing different substances through procedures and puzzles and then combining them to create a vaccine. You'd have very little access to any missions outside the medical field, all of which would be limited to other science tasks and you would be on the slow path to command. Medical Officers would gain obvious bonuses to healing abilities, some CXP bonuses, and a new "Behind Enemy Lines" active ability that would allow you to pass through hostiles (either in space or ground maps) for some amount of time without them firing at you (as long as you don't fire at them). This amount of time would start at five minutes and scale up as you level up and build your character abilities. SKILLS: (Ground) Hyposprays (all), Medical Tricorder, Vascular Regenerator, Hyperonic Radiation, Neural Neutralizer, Anesthizine Gas, Nanite Health Monitor, Nanoprobe Infestion; (Space) Hospital Ship (new - AoE crew heal for yourself and allies).
- Communications Officer: This is your average Hoshi Sato BOFF, responsible for receiving and issuing communications, but also for blocking communications from and to your enemies and stealthiness in general. As a communications officer, you would be on the fast track to command, with your missions focused mainly on space assignments. In order to make this a truly interesting area of gameplay to explore, there would have to be languages introduced as a skillset as there are in most other MMOs. Communications officers would have a better understanding of language and would have more diplomatic options open to them with newly encountered species and with those species who you do not have a very high reputation with. The missions in this area would be focused primarily on puzzles and mysteries and diplomacy, with little emphasis on other Science career development and no emphasis on other careers. The big draws to Communications would be a boost to your abilities in the Reputation system (effectively adding a permanent range of additional Faction Marks to any of those missions as well as the potential for getting some Faction Marks out of a regular story mission having to do with the particular faction), opening up your random recruitment rewards from leveling up to BOFFs and DOFFs from enemy factions, and the new active ability, "Stealth Destabilizer", which sends a pulse out from the main deflector that destabilizes any active stealth technology on all enemies within firing range and simultaneously locks an extracting beam on the enemy that pulls them out of their stealth state. The "Stealth Destabilizer" is on a medium countdown timer that scales downward with increased ability. It automatically resets the countdown timer on the enemy stealth technology and increases it by a small percentage that scales upward. There's a small chance for the ability to damage the enemy tech, which triples the countdown timer on it. This scales upward with level. SKILLS: (Ground) Tricorder Scan, Dampening Field; (Space) Jam Sensors, Mask Energy Signature, Photonic Officer, Scramble Sensors, Viral Matrix, Dampening Field, Sensor Scan.
All players get the following skills: Evasive Maneuvers (LV 13), Tractor Beam (LV 13), Brace for Impact (LV 25), Abandon Ship (LV 41), Ramming Speed (LV 51), Self Destruct (new - does what it says with large damage to surrounding ships; LV 61), Battle Stations (increases all stats for a period of time scaling up with level; LV 71), Go Down Fighting (LV 76), Fleet Support 1 (new - summons two ships; LV 81), Fleet Support 2 (new - summons three ships; LV 86), Fleet Support 3 (new - summons five ships, LV 91)
**Command Officer Training**
There are three different types of advancement opportunity. The fast track means that Command Officer Training opens up to you at level 20. The standard track means that COT opens up to you at level 25. The slow track means that COT opens up to you at level 30. This makes a difference at the Lieutenant Commander level. Each track also has a window of opportunity insofar as COT is concerned. Fast track officers cannot advance to Commander without taking COT, standard track officers cannot advance to Captain without taking COT, and slow track officers cannot advance to Rear Admiral without taking COT. The COT can be taken on at any point during this window. Only one command course mission is required for anyone who is promoted to Lieutenant Commander. It is the Kobayashi Maru and can be done on any holodeck available. It is necessary to complete this course in order to be promoted and receive your first command. Command Officer Training opens up Command Officer Specializations. These specializations do not replace the existing one(s) and determine the kind of story missions the player receives going forward. Command Officer Specialization can be changed when the player reaches level 80. If the player chooses to change Specializations, they cannot take on any missions from the previous Command Officer path, lose all the progress in expertise allocation, and must build the skills associated with the new path from zero. Here are the Command Officer Specializations:
- Flag Officer: This is primarily focused on diplomacy. These missions are generally one-ship missions that are meant to "seek out new life and new civilizations" and all that but can involve more than one ship. There's a neat mix of combat missions, exploration missions, and aide missions in here. One of these missions should include a new mission into the far reaches of the galaxy ala Voyager. In this mission proposal, when the player chooses to take on the mission, he or she disconnects entirely from the ability to do anything else until they get home. There's a chance as the mission ages that a Pathfinder type communications project will open up to allow communications. Flag Officers gain the following skills: (Ground) Peace Offering - This skill allows for the player to throw the white flag up to either prevent or halt combat with an enemy. The success is influenced by the player's reputation. (Space) Open Hailing Frequency - This skill allows for the player to hail an enemy during a battle and resolve the conflict through conversation. There's a chance that the conversation will not work that increases or decreases based on the reputation the player has with the enemy.
- Intelligence Officer: These missions are primarily related to covert actions such as the Section 31 missions to the past and the Mirror Universe incursions, but also including new missions meant to gain intelligence on enemy factions in a variety of ways. They are strictly solo ship missions. Intelligence missions do involve combat but are more likely to give higher rewards for completing missions without making contact with the enemy. They may also involve excursions like the ones attempting to improve relations with the Remans without seeming openly hostile to the Romulans. Intelligence Officers gain the following skills: (Ground) Personal Holo-Emitter - This alters the player's appearance to any available pattern until the Emitter runs out of power. Different appearances become available and can be researched based on missions and skill level. Once you have the ability to use a given appearance, you maintain the ability to use it. The simpler the pattern, the less power it takes to operate, meaning the appearance lasts longer. Damage to the player decreases power in the best case and in the worst disrupts the Emitter altogether. Power usage and resistance to damage scales up with level. (Space) External Holo-Emitters - This alters the player's ship appearance in the same way that the personal device works.
- Fleet Officer: Missions on this path involve the primary machinations of fleet operations. In other words, here there be war. There is rarely a single-ship mission in this line, instead, you are almost always operating in a larger task force. They will mostly revolve around combat but will occasionally go into support and supply missions. This is where the primary war storylines would be advanced. Fleet Officers gain the following skills: (Ground) Assault Squad - This skill beams in a team of Assault Squad Officers who remain with you until one of two things happens: 1) the mission is completed, or 2) they die. These officers are heavily armed and equipped with the best armor and shields. They have a large number of HP and are generally comparable to BOFFs. The primary difference is that they don't have skills like BOFFs do. You can set them to rally points and set their attack profile. You can buff them and heal them. But once they're gone, they're gone. If one or more of your Assault Squad Officers dies in a mission, you must purchase replacements with a modest amount of ECs. You begin with the ability to beam in two officers and scale up to five at max level. This skill is not usable in PvP. (Space) Coordinated Attack - This skill essentially commandeers smaller ships that are nearby to fly as your wingmen for a period of time. It starts out putting two smaller ships into your formation and scales up to five by max level. The time period is for two minutes and scales up to three and a half minutes by max level. The cooldown is half the activity period minus 10% for each level of skill. These ships help deflect damage from your ship, make efforts to heal and buff your ship, and fly in a tight (chooseable) formation around you. They allow you control over their weapons fire but not over their Captain/BOFF skills. Obviously, this skill is not usable in PvP.
A note about Command Specializations: The intent is not for these missions to replace or commandeer any of the existing story missions. It is for the existing story missions to be supplemented by new missions, all of which are playable or not at anyone's discretion.
A note about BOFFs inside these systems: In the way that you already level up your BOFFs at one rank underneath your own, you would continue to do that. Further, at each of the levels where you have to make a choice about your career, you'll have to make an equivalent choice in your BOFFs' careers when they reach that level. Obviously, they will not be assigned to their own commands or go on missions that you don't take them on. However, when it's time for your BOFF to go to COT, you lose the ability to slot that BOFF or take them on an away mission until the COT is completed. What I mean is this: You can promote the BOFF as normal and then when you're ready for them to go to COT, you push a button that grays that BOFF out for 12 hours the way that DOFFs go on assignment. This costs a moderate amount of expertise and some ECs. BOFFs must complete the COT to serve as First Officer unless they are on one of the fast track specializations. In this case, they are only able to serve as First Officer until a true First Officer can be trained. Additionally, the same rule applies for BOFFs as for the player: they cannot be promoted past Lieutenant (Junior Grade) without choosing a specialization. However, the only BOFF who ever must go through COT is the one you choose as your First Officer. When you gain the ability to promote BOFFs to Captain, you must send them again to COT. This time, they become unavailable for 2 days and costs quite a bit of expertise and a hefty amount of ECs.
Further Levels
- Levels 25-40: Lieutenant Commander - After passing the Kobayashi Maru, you are assigned your own vessel and sent out into the field. You also gain access to the DOFF system and Fleets and PvP and STFs.
- Levels 41-55: Commander - Get a Tier 2 ship.
- Levels 56-80: Captain - Get a Tier 3 ship. Full access to the Reputation system.
- Levels 81-99: Rear Admiral - Get a Tier 4 ship and the ability to promote your BOFFs to Captain and assign them a vessel that you already own. If you have these things set up, these are the ships that will be summoned with the "Fleet Support" skills. The number of BOFF Captains you can have increases at the same rate as the "Fleet Support" skill to a maximum of five.
- Level 100: Vice Admiral - Get a Tier 5 ship.
Klingons
These same principles would be put in place for the Empire with equivalent ranks and rewards. It would open up the possibility of starting as KDF instead of having to unlock it without having to change any of the current KDF content or worry about linking it to the tutorial and initial leveling process. It could also been subsequently applied to any future Factions like the Romulans or Cardassians or whoever else.
A Word About Missions and Leveling Up
Obviously, in my fantasy world system of gameplay, there are 50 more levels than there currently are. The missions that currently exist would be scaled to start at the Lieutenant Commander level, which could certainly get you to Captain, if not farther. I'm also proposing a lot of new missions (which, again obviously, the Devs have repeatedly talked about being very difficult to do for many reasons). But humor me here for a moment and consider this fact. Human beings are inherently story driven. We understand the three act structure of beginning, middle, end in our blood and guts. The most successful MMOs seem to be the ones with TONS of story-driven content. And, as anyone who has read a couple of posts on this forum can attest, people tend to get all complainy when faced with nothing but the grind of endgame content.
I've outlined some basic ideas for the kinds of missions that could move each specialization forward. The important thing, I think, is that these missions don't come to you in a constant stream the way that the current episode series happen. They should come from exploring map areas and finding new contacts to give you new missions. Sometimes it may be an admiral sitting on a starbase somewhere and sometimes it may be a random guy sitting on Vulcan or Bajor. It should also be considered that you should have to revisit areas you've already explored fully to get new missions from contacts who wouldn't talk to you at a lower level. This would keep the sense of exploration alive. And it would also drive people through the grind without feeling like a grind. I'll also say outright that not every mission needs to be something that's going to take two hours and has sixteen moving parts. Some of them could be one or two part missions that take five minutes.
I'd also suggest at this point a bit of a change to the existing Fleet grind that could diversify the process. I think the Fleet Starbase should be converted to a Fleet System - meaning starbase, all the holdings, and a planet where people can develop homes and stuff. That would open up the opportunity for some of the missions in the leveling process to become about building an outpost, not through contributing resources like the Fleet Starbases, but through completing the objectives of the mission. You would keep revisiting the construction of the outpost (which would be in any number of places based on how you choose to proceed), and eventually end up controlling it personally when you reach the rank of Rear Admiral. Again, you're not committing any resources to this process other than your real world time. I'm sure that the Devs could come up with some swanky upgrades available for purchase in the C-Store. The ultimate point of all this is to have someplace to park all of your ships and assign your Captains to missions that could contribute to your resources or your reputation.
Further, I think the new Reputation system has so much possibility to be the most interesting and important advancement in the game thus far. What I mean by this, and how it relates to my outline above, is that it has the potential to drive the overall story of STO in a way that is kind of lacking right now. Specifically, I think that ultimately the coolest thing in the world would be for entirely new aliens to be introduced in the far reaches of the galaxy. Different aliens for different parts of the galaxy and only available to the faction that is nearest to it. What would happen at that point is that (in the vein of Birth of the Federation) there would be a scale of total player-base Reputation with the new aliens that would get manipulated en masse by the entire player base. So we start at 0 and can go to from -100 to +100, with each single point taking millions and millions of Faction Marks accumulated to move. The entire player base contributes to the growing (or declining) reputation with the new aliens by embarking on regular missions that involve them--aiding if you're the Federation, attacking if you're the Klingons. After millions and millions of accrued points, things start to shift and the aliens either get more friendly or less. From this action and at certain levels, diplomatic deals are able to be struck, trade is negotiated, military pacts put together, etc. The options would be voted on by the players in regular intervals, with the majority action being taken. As we get closer to bringing the new aliens into our Faction, certain things would open up for players to use in their travels such as special unique DOFFS, Bridge Officers, ships, technology, more common DOFFs, and so on. Once the new aliens were folded into the parent Faction, either through conquest or diplomacy, the new aliens become available as player characters and their homeworld opens up to us as a new social map, their starbases become our starbases, and we're able to go out and find the next alien species to deal with. The timetable here would be at least two years of gameplay to fully realize, assuming that people play with it on an average basis and that you move in only one direction, rather than having set backs along the way. It would be a slow process, but one driven by the story of the new aliens, which is a really exciting thing. It would also be one that would be passive in that it would require no actual input of stuff or currency--the point would be that running normal missions to do your personal Reputation advancements or build up your Fleet, the action of which would increase or decrease the whole player-base's Reputation with the aliens. It would also be active in that it would present new and dynamic endgame content that would evolve over time to present rewards to the players who continue to stick with STO for years to come.
Obviously these are not small changes and have pretty much no chance of happening. But wishes are horses on this thread, right! A special note to the Devs: I do really love the game and everything you guys are adding keeps getting more and more exciting. But the nature of MMOs is the evolving game. Please don't take my comments here as an indictment against you because I think you're awesome.
Also, sorry to everyone for making you all read so much stuff. And for so much confusion.
Hey, a guy's allowed to dream, right?
Host of the Borg Boombox, 0300 GMT on Fridays on Subspace Radio
^^This, this, and THIS.
Here's a map to show how much they've screwed up the game map.