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STO's Non-combat Gameplay. Let's brainstorm.
kirksplat
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
In MMObomb's latest interview, EP Dan Stahl has this to say about one of the most challenging aspects of making STO:
Now, we all probably have different views of the track record of Cryptic when it comes to adding exciting non-combat features to the game, although most of us would probably agree that doffs are more fun than scanning rocks. I'm also not sure if anyone out still messes with that original (season 2?) diplomacy grind.
For me, personally, New Romulus offers some of the most unimaginative types of non-combat gameplay, as far as, "let them collect and turn in tokens, while running around pressing f." The planet is beautiful, but the tasks are not very exciting.
But, let's try to brainstorm here. What type of system or game play could achieve these three things simultaneously:
1. It feels like Star Trek
2. It doesn't involve combat
3. It give the player something exciting to do, beyond reading or running around and pressing f.
Feel free to offer examples from other videos games or "traditional" mmos.
The biggest challenge is making a video game, with inherent fun combat mechanics, in a property that is beloved for oodles and oodles of dialog and close ups of faces. We?ve had to focus on the action in order to keep the game a traditional MMO. We continue to find ways to introduce non-combat gameplay to represent the diplomacy, exploration, and puzzle solving that was a subtle part of trek.
Now, we all probably have different views of the track record of Cryptic when it comes to adding exciting non-combat features to the game, although most of us would probably agree that doffs are more fun than scanning rocks. I'm also not sure if anyone out still messes with that original (season 2?) diplomacy grind.
For me, personally, New Romulus offers some of the most unimaginative types of non-combat gameplay, as far as, "let them collect and turn in tokens, while running around pressing f." The planet is beautiful, but the tasks are not very exciting.
But, let's try to brainstorm here. What type of system or game play could achieve these three things simultaneously:
1. It feels like Star Trek
2. It doesn't involve combat
3. It give the player something exciting to do, beyond reading or running around and pressing f.
Feel free to offer examples from other videos games or "traditional" mmos.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by kirksplat on
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http://www.burningwheel.org/wiki/images/e/e5/Dow_95_108.pdf
What I don't like is the particle game. It should be win or lose. Not win/lose but you still get something.
I think cryptic has alot of non combat stuff in the game. More than what I would have thought of.
To me, the only possibility would be to add a slew of new minigames. Minigames for scanning DNA to find traces of a poison. Minigames for determining the right mixture of two volatile materials to make an inoculant. Minigames for isolating frequencies in garbled or suspect transmissions. Things like that. Some could be done with the existing "align the two things" minigam we see used in a few places, another could be done with the isolinear chip slider game, others would need new systems made. You can ramp it up a tad, too, by making them very difficult to do. Then, in some dialog shortly (but not immediately) before you get to the game, drop a hint that makes the game much easier.
But you could only get away with one or two of those per mission. If these non-combat missions are supposed to be story missions running the average length of a story mission, you're still got a lot of time doing nothing but pressing F at different people. And the problem with that is, it's mind-numbingly dull.
I think the better approach is to not omit combat, but minimize it. Use it as a punctuation to a mission or the opening to a mystery. Kirkfat's own Foundry mission "Vulcan Love Slave" is a good example of combat balanced properly with dialog and in a sensible way, (the only flaw being it's just to break up the monotony and doesn't really serve to advance anything in and of itself).
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
as for KDF they had them down path kill kill till they started to copy and paste fed mission to the KDF
i will try and add more if more comes to mind later
system Lord Baal is dead
Re: thread.
I know it's very old school, but I'd like to see more story driven puzzle quests, similar in style to the old myst games.
A. You explore beautiful and alien scenery without really knowing what to do.
B. Slowly, you figure out how to pump water out of a lake after solving a mechanical puzzle.
C. New story clue at bottom of the lake
D. Etc.
Most of Cryptic's puzzles have contained either technobabble or fetch quests. It would be nice to have some engineering puzzles like Myst but not "hitting a brick wall" like in some FF games.
Maybe some sliders and grind could be implemented, like you have to soak some magic beans in water for 8 hours before you can plant them to unlock another part of the puzzle.
Those types of old school puzzles really felt like exploring alien worlds, discovering what was happening there or what had happened in the past.
There would probably be a lot of mmo players who have no patience for that type of exploration, and they'd go straight to stowiki. But, I would feel like a Starfleet officer, especially when trying to decipher ancient Bajoran relics and what not.
Or, figuring out some crazy Indiana Jones archaeological puzzle from Raiders or the Holy Grail.
"A Penitent Man May Pass."
I want to go to an exploration block, or even deep space to chart new solar systems and the planets they contain.
I want to assign survey teams of doffs lead by boffs to survey any habitable planets I might find.. maybe they're inhabited, maybe they aren't.
Maybe I'm trying to map a star system, but the star puts out a lot of radiation so my crew and I have to find a way to keep the shields up.
Maybe I get to visit a terraforming operation or a duckblind mission.
I think exploration is a game mechanic that can work well on its own.
See, this would be cool, and I would feel like a captain, especially if I had to make tough calls that may cost me doffs. Sort of like, "Scans indicate that this planet has rich dilithium, but it's crawling with spiders."
It would be another doff expansion, but it would be fun, especially if I had to return to the planet to pick up my officers.
I'd like to think they tried to create a sense of this in how they framed the various reasons for the fetch quest tasks on New Romulas. I actually found myself reasonably engaged at several points with the backstory dialogue of the actual quest givers moreso than the objectives. There was one guy who said (to the effect of..) his only reason coming to this colony was to try and reconcile for the opportunities lost to his now deceased family who never had the chance to live in such a place. He literally read as if he had given up on everything else since the loss of his family, but that in offering his only skills, those of a soldier, he could aid this new colony, these new ideals, and although he would himself have nobody to share them with, helping others would be in line with the wishes of his wife and children. This HAD me. My Admiral character would have literally run back to the staging area to collect his family heirlooms and cart them all the way back to him if he had asked me to do so, because it would have meant something to me. Instead, if I recall, he tasked me to kill those scorpion things (as well as the rest of that quest). =(
I agree that being told upfront to collect 10x, 50x, 100x etc is not appealing, but I appreciate the consideration made in being able to complete a quest how you want to (by only collecting rock samples for example, or only rescuing hostage settlers should you prefer). I think minigames present the most obvious form of non-combat puzzle engagement, aside from geometric puzzles as Kirkfat referred to. I think difficulty should not be wholly tied to time, but time should be a component for rewarding the player.
I was asking myself a similar question recently, about what I deemed as being 'good storyline' content in games, and I found that out of at least ten games this year which were touted as having pve->storyline elements, only one actually piqued any sense of true engagement, i.e., an emotional connection to the characters, the events, and the outcomes.
That game was Season 1 of Telltale's The Walking Dead. It is a glorified point and click puzzler, which would normally not be my cup of tea at all, but the story... the consequences of the player's actions or inactions in choosing dialogue or action options really set a level of quality that helped define, for me, what 'good storyline' content is all about in games.
Now, that is a single player title, but as I said, it could be considered a glorified "press F" game, and the dialogue options (which are tracked) could be handled using current Cryptic systems. Needless to say, I'd like to see more of this type of non-combat content. It was all about character development, and that is exactly what Star Trek was all about to me.
I'd love to have espionage worked in somehow. Be it high-level (ie, the entire map), or down on the ground (ie, you're actually running around with a character), but preferably both.
There are some natural rivalries already: Section 31 (Feds), Tal Shiar (Romulans), Obsidian Order (Cardassians), and likely room for more. Klingons (or folks working for them), you'd think Bajor would have something (even if its just an internal police), the Ferengi (information is worth latinum!), etc.
Away-team missions could be following someone, a stealth game, solving puzzles, etc. I think there's a variety of ways it can be done, and it should have multiple options. Maybe you're doing puzzles to decrypt things, or attempting to hack communications. Perhaps you're chatting someone up, ordering them drinks to loosen them up a bit, etc. Or simply listening in to conversations and reporting back, but trying to read between the lines.
Some of these could be done via a randomizer, but I think it'd need to be relatively robust.
For the higher-level, it could be the whole map, showing your faction's presence, how they're doing, what they're ahead/behind in, etc. This could be done via DOFFs, collecting things (maybe the ground missions could yield required materials like data chips, rumors, etc., as commodities), etc.
Much like the DOFF system, there ought to be a variety of things that are being dealt with: trade, military, government/colonial, diplomacy, culture/development, etc. It could be a form of indirect PVP, more like a board game. There could also be projects to get more accurate intelligence, sabotage, plant false intel, etc., but the faction you're working against should be factored in for the Crit / Success / Fail / Critical Failure odds.
Unlike Cryptic's usual systems where you have your baseline then something added, I feel there ought be a baseline, but actions and such should have explicit pros and cons to them. Doing X ought have ramifications that change based on success and failure, between you and the different factions.
I would also like to see it be fleet independent. I like how Guild Wars 2 allows you to be in different guilds/clans, and in this case I think it'd be beneficial if you could be in 1-3 "circles." There ought to be levels of involvement, though, and the higher you are in one ought prevent you from being as high in another, contradictory one. Likewise, there ought be more factions and areas of influence than circles you can be in - you can't have your fingers in all the pies!
So, maybe you're doing Trade with the Bajorans, Colonial with the Romulans, and Military with the Feds. Or, perhaps you're Espionage with the other side, and you're in so deep you only do Trade with the Ferengi. Perhaps you're purely Federation in all your areas of involvement!
I think there's potential here, though making it simple and deep would be tricky
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com
As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
Also, 3d chess. It's possible it opens up as an option to be playable on a later tier on our starbases, but I can't say from personal experience.
I remember saying Poker needed bluffs and tells if they ever added it, which always caused lots of awkward responses.
Funny thing is, does anyone else remember Craig Zinc's posts when he was EP about Diplomacy?
I seem to remember talk about visiting villages and figuring out how to communicate, learning dances via mini-games, etc.
I've often said I think we didn't give Zinc a fair shake as EP. Aside from his fascination with Borg monster play, he was more about immersion than anybody. I think he basically just did the job he was assigned at launch, which is what he got jumped for, and that a lot of what Stahl gets credited with early on began under Craig Z.
I remember Zinc talking not only about social games but about preferring people to walk rather than sprint everywhere and even a bit about how, as I recall, he didn't want player jumping on tables, to a point where he wanted station security to show up and subdue people for jumping on tables.
I dunno. I'd be curious what the game would look like under him.
In many respects, I've come around to a point where I tend to think the EPs are generally on the side of the harsher forum critics (if more diplomatic) and it's soldiers on the ground at Cryptic pushing back against the EPs. And that this is what's led to the EP changes but also the "broken promises" in the game's history.
A lot of forum posters seem to interpret anything frustrating as coming "from above" at Atari or PWE but I'm almost more inclined to think it may be coming "from the middle and below" with the EPs' job often being to take the blame and act as a reverse-Brandon, acting as the team's representative to us and corporate, rather than actually serving as the guiding vision. And attempts at guiding vision cause pushback from entrenched team members.
Kirk's Protege.
I agree there is at least some truth to this observation.
Hmm... Poker (and several varieties, please), Go/Igo, Mahjong, etc. There's a world of games out there that are public domain!
My blog! Zen|Dilithium tracking on Thursdays
http://samonmaui.blogspot.com
As a lifetime member of STO, I officially became a financial liability as of April 2012 when compared to a subscriber.
The basic Idea is that you have the ability to rotate objects held in the tractor beam 360 degrees all around your ship, and move them closer or farther away.
With this, we could then have various applications of the "Drag and Drop" minigame or block puzzle.
We could have rescue and repair missions, aforementioned puzzles involving everything from ships to starbases.
And it doesn't have to be limited to big stuff either. We could have airlift missions involving shuttles and small craft.
What I don't like is the particle game. It should be win or lose. Not win/lose but you still get something.
thanks
NCERT Maths Solutions
This right here. If they look at how Cyan worked puzzles they could make the game extremely entertaining. Myself I prefered Uru over Myst or Riven. STO version of puzzle is either math, a slider, or the game tells you exactly what to do so there is no puzzle to the puzzle.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
1. Some kind of bonus for being teamed. Maybe Dilithium per minute or something, as long as you're teamed and in a mission. Or any time you take damage while teamed. I dunno, they're the game designers, what, I have to think of everything?
2. A set of "tutorial" missions for STFs, where you team with NPC's if no players are available. Rewards for these special STFs should scale according to level, meaning it will be worthwhile for more experienced players to show new players how to do it. You simply put an "STF Flag" on players that have done a normal or elite STF before, so that they can only receive the full "mentor reward" three times... just an idea. After that, they get the same reward as the new player. Normal Task Forces... "NTFs"
3. Make it so we can reverse engineer (take apart) and improve our ground weapons and other gear. Just think of all the tweaking we could do to our cars on those Gran Turismo games and how addictive that was!
4. One of the biggest problems with this game is that nothing is EXPLAINED! There needs to be more notes, help dialog, tutorials, a special envoy NPC that beams onto your ship to show you, arrows, or something, to explain to us HOW exactly we're supposed to go about getting the elite gear, faction marks, finding the popular missions, etc. Right now, it's like, "here's a starship, space is out there, somewhere. Good luck."
5. Team missions for diplomacy and trade. because... why not? Ships are for taking people and things from point A to point B. I know there's a TINY amount of that in this game, but really, 99.99999% of it is Shoot this, shoot that, oh and by the way.... SHOOT THIS!! Oh, and if you get bored, then STOP these guys over here from shooting at THAT thing over there! How original!
6. I am SOoooo sick of clicking while trying to go places... how hard would it really be to tell my Bridge Officers "Okay, we're at Nimbus now, set course for Deep Space 9, and I'll be in my ready room sipping Earl Grey tea." Then the ship simply goes there, without having to click on the "Warp" or "Not Now" things.
7. A Built in DPS meter.
8. Bacon.
9. More explosions. As long as they are not me.
If any or all of these are already in the game, then please tell me where, because, like I said, they don't exactly have an arrow or neon signs pointing them out.
Exploration Revamp
New Ship Item: Sensor Probe(s)
-Can be used in Exploration Clusters to start a Hot and Cold minigame(find the spot on a grid in X number of tries) to find special investigation sites.
-The new site are special exploration zones with special anomalies ranging from exotic energy clouds/nebulas to planetoids to derelict ships/installations.
-Sites may be infested with hostiles or scattered with environmental hazards that make scanning difficult or dangerous(and promotes teamwork).
-Different sensor probes will be better at finding different types of sites.
New Ship Item: Survey Probe(s)
-Used to scan special anomolies at sites.
-You have to remain close and 'feed' them one of a couple different frequency buffs to advance their progress bar.
-Some frequencies will help progress, some will hinder it. Each anomaly will be different and harder/more valuable ones will randomly modulate their required frequencies.
-Feeding a survey probe drains auxiliary energy. (Promotes teamwork and may lead to situations where you need make a choice between risking a quick completion and possibly getting destroyed by hostiles/corrosive radiation, or taking it slow and safe.)
-Different survey probes will be better at different anomalies(clouds, derelicts, planetoids, etc.)
Successfully finding a site or completing a survey anomaly grants exploration commendation exp and/or a new exploration reputation along with resources(crafting and/or reputation-fuel/'marks') and loot. Ranking up unlocks access to better probes(which may unlock harder, more rewarding sites).
Probes would either be reusable 'devices', or have their own ship slots. Perhaps Science Ships would be able to have/launch two survey probes at a time or be more resistant to the power drain of maintaining frequencies.
Here's what I have in mind, instead of 'exploring' 3 random planets you explore 1 new system that is procedurally generated. Once you arrive in said system its own mission arc opens up, with a few goals to achieve both with your activity and with doff assignments. As you complete objectives others are revealed. Again these missions can be randomly selected from a decent choice.
Let me try to give an example, I refer to the Federation but it can work for any faction:
1. The ship arrives at a system. New doff assignments are made available to check out the local area, scanning/samples etc. As well as this the ship themselves can approach and scan the more interesting features, perhaps with the particle/radiation scan minigame.
2. Doff results are in, a critical success on a scanning assignment reveals a warp capable species exist on the largest planet along with some interesting materials and the like. Also some success with the ship scanning reveals some salvage or new 'thing' which can be studied.
3. You make the call and beam down. More doff assignments are revealed, only this time planet specific. They begin with taking samples and all the simple stuff and depending on no.4 could result in building a Starfleet research station or outpost. Like space the captain is free to explore the more notable features, new wildlife or natural phenomenon.
4. The captain him/herself engages in talks with the locals, learning about their history and perhaps volunteering to fix some problems (primary directive juggling!) in an effort to improve relations.
5. Once the station is built and all you can do is done, you hand over command to the research team who's since arrived. You say your goodbyes and leave.
I don't think this example does my idea justice, but the basics are there - prolonged study of a system in a mission arc format with both doff and captain objectives.
Perhaps to make it even more diverse new species and locations could be built by a player within the Foundry, and released into the collection of assets the generation system refers to when building these missions. An option could appear before you decide to explore a new system, giving you the choice to draw from foundry assets or not.
Once you leave the system will have to cease to exist unfortunately, since I doubt the servers could handle hundreds of new generated systems for each player - its probably a stretch thinking it can handle this kind of thing at all.
But hey, its an idea.
I don't want to be a party booper, but you've necroed this thread from like... a year ago?
I call it, the Stoutes paradox.
Blimey, I never noticed. I did wonder why my hands smelled funny.
and as for puzzles and/or word puzzle missions....I would be in the camp that just opens STOwiki to blast through it as well.
....just like what happens with the Path to 2409 questions at the academy...and the combination consoles in 'rewired relic' in the colleseum mission....
would be fun once perhaps..
my opinion for a good non-combat option would be rescue missions or assists....( sort of on the vein of trying to rescue the ships in 'generations' that were stuck in the nexus beam at the beginning of the movie )....put that tractor beam to use
but yeah...necro thread is necro thread.
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
A nebula that works in a similar way to the gas giants in "Klingon academy". So, Still using the same anomaly scanning mini game, the nebula would have common crafting material / loot on the out skirts and increasingly rarer crafting materials/ loot the further in it you go. This comes at a price- the further in to the nebula you go, the more hazardous it is. Different nebulas have different effects; Shield and then hull damage, crew damage, subsystem damage etc.
Another variation would be to rescue crew (Doffs?) from stranded ships caught in these nebulas - similar to ST: Generations.
To me, this would feel very trek.
And I am surprised that there has not been the old faithful "planet about to be annihilated by giant asteroid" mission where you have to choose to evacuate the planet or destroy the asteroid.
And finally, covert info gathering of pre warp civilizations where you disguise as natives or wear cloaking suits such as in Insurrection.
Take your pick!
I've been playing TSW, which has a REAL NICE system of puzzle missions, where you have to check google or books to get to the solution and proceed with mission..
the issues - new missions take TIME. And most gamers use the tutorials to skip these.
We do not want to waste the DEV time on such things.
STO already HAS a system which simulates this all - the foundry. Perhaps it would be neat if they would add a tree structure to the foundry, or a reputation system where you would have to decide between 2 factions, aka your toon would gain some powers but would loose the opportunity to have the other set..
As proposed in another post, i would welcome more foundry functions. Creating PVP maps, creating social maps for fleet use, roleplaying use, for 50+ people at a time,
or some consistent PVP environment, which would add 1% to crit for the faction currently winning the battlefield..
My character Tsin'xing
The thread is still valid though because NONE of the ideas have been used and there are some good ideas in the necro and the new. making a new thread when the old is still completely valid is a waste of database memory lol.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
I call it, the Stoutes paradox.