Wait, I thought we were supposed to carry a Pulsewave and a Sniper Rifle?
I'm carrying the MACO rifle and a Pulsewave, and I have 3 BOffs with Pulsewaves and 1 with a Lirpa (the Winter 2012 one). Would Ground become easier if I changed their weapons?
He said "one of". Pulsewaves are also good, though their range leaves something to be desired.
Sniper-pulsewave is a good combo, but I think my favorite is Full-Auto + Melee.
I have a hard time understanding ground combat.
Here I am with a sword hitting someone 20 times who isn't defending themselves and isn't dead. All they are doing is trying to shoot me.
Just doesn't work for me.
And all engineers do engineeringly is call the ship and get them to transport a automatic grenade launcher onto the floor in front of you?
In a space ship?
I figured engineers would be more like tony stark than this.
I have a hard time understanding ground combat.
Here I am with a sword hitting someone 20 times who isn't defending themselves and isn't dead. All they are doing is trying to shoot me.
Just doesn't work for me.
And all engineers do engineeringly is call the ship and get them to transport a automatic grenade launcher onto the floor in front of you?
In a space ship?
I figured engineers would be more like tony stark than this.
what can Engineers do? A lot actually. Shield recharge is a breat Boff skill.
But everybody gets most of the stuff associated with the Iron Man armor. Except flying... we can't do that.
Thank you for bringing that to attention. It is one of the biggest issues that I have with STO, alongside the new animation where people in ESD running around with rifles attached to their backs.
Regarding Mass Effect look-alike armors - at least we have the option to turn them off, thats a bright spot, unfortunely; that options does not apply when it comes to viewing folks uniforms.
I actually don't mind the rifles-on-backs thing. It happened quite a few times in the series, and Trek rifles often had slings and were hung from the shoulders, but that would be hard to animate. No, my issue with that is most of the guns are cartoonishly oversized super-soakers that are almost as large as my captains torso.
If the weapons looked better, I think that would look better.
But I agree that the Mass Effect like armors and kits should be removed. They are for the KDF, and you know what? KDF looks better because of it!
The Defiants only purpose was to fight the Borg (it was NOT build as an answer to the Dominion!), a 'species' which did not care for diplomacy or a peaceful coexistence. This means the Federation only resorts to pure warships when there is and never will be an other option than fighting. The Defiant was only used in the Dominion War because the Federation needed all its ships at the frontline, hell they even threw ships into the fight which were over a hundred years old like all those Mirandas and Excelsiors.
Yes this. It's mentioned quite a few times that the Defiant was built to fight the Borg and only the Borg. The Dominion just happened to be a greater threat that the Borg for a short while.
The Worfzooka! I would so love to have it in game, as well as Guinan's rifle. But I have issues with the Varon-T. Not only were there not very many made (I mean, there's what, six?), it's also an incredibly cruel weapon and definitely not something I would put in the hands of Star Fleet Officers.
Nah, they adapt to those. They don't adapt to stabbity death.
In the hands of a competent player, the Borg are usually dead before they adapt to pulsewave fire.
Wait, I thought we were supposed to carry a Pulsewave and a Sniper Rifle?
I'm carrying the MACO rifle and a Pulsewave, and I have 3 BOffs with Pulsewaves and 1 with a Lirpa (the Winter 2012 one). Would Ground become easier if I changed their weapons?
I myself carry a Pulsewave and a Federation Type-3 Phaser (the one from the 23rd century mission that shoots pink lasers). My Tac carries a Pulsewave/Compression Pistol.
Sniper Rifles only seem to be useful when range is absolutely key, which is usually only the case in the Shanty Town PvP map or in long hallways on pvp maps. They don't hit hard enough or fire fast enough compared to things like full auto rifles (primary fire only, secondary is garbage), split beams, and high density beam rifles.
If you like getting up close and personal with your pulsewave, I'd suggest switching your sniper to a compression pistol. I'd give your bridge officers different weapons as well, as they *never* get anywhere near close enough to maximise their damage with a pulsewave. I usually stick splitbeams and high density beam rifles on them.
I don't have much experience with the MACO rifle but from what I've seen it's pretty good in terms of damage.
Lastly, if you're in a fleet with a progressed starbase, pick up the advanced fleet weapons. The [dmg]x3 [critx] modifiers on them trump even the old MK XII [CritD]x3 weapons you'd occasionally find, I've been told. I noticed that I've been killing stuff much faster with them, at least.
Joined: January 2010
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what can Engineers do? A lot actually. Shield recharge is a breat Boff skill.
But everybody gets most of the stuff associated with the Iron Man armor. Except flying... we can't do that.
Oh i know of the shield and increased sustained DPS for a short while. I just find the other stuff kinda lame.
"Joe please transport down a medical healer, shield healer, and a turret right here".
"No problemo Mr Engineer"
And all engineers do engineeringly is call the ship and get them to transport a automatic grenade launcher onto the floor in front of you?
In a space ship?
Want to know whats so funny, calling an Orbital Strike from within the interior of a starship or a complex, LOL. Yet everyone survives.
Seriously, they should just re-word the thing and call it a Mega Disintegrating Fusion Landmine or something, or simply a "Bouncing Betty."
The Worfzooka! I would so love to have it in game, as well as Guinan's rifle. But I have issues with the Varon-T. Not only were there not very many made (I mean, there's what, six?), it's also an incredibly cruel weapon and definitely not something I would put in the hands of Star Fleet Officers.
The Varon-T Disruptor of course would be only fitting for KDF as many of the mercenary and slaver species do not have high moral standards anyway. I know that there were only a couple of these weapons ever produced (well, in the TNG timeframe), but I think it would not be too far off if somebody used one of the few as a template for massproducing. A ferengi would certainly see some profit in doing this.
Want to know whats so funny, calling an Orbital Strike from within the interior of a starship or a complex, LOL. Yet everyone survives.
Seriously, they should just re-word the thing and call it a Mega Disintegrating Fusion Landmine or something, or simply a "Bouncing Betty."
It was generally a very stupid idea from this game's developers to led the players fire and throw high explosives and heavy energy blasts INSIDE starbases/starships. There is a reason why we NEVER see such things on the show! Even a tiny fracture of the outer hull would suck every living being into space and yet we have engineers who call in a shot from a friggin' starship's beam array and keep beaming in mortars in tight corridors?!
I like ground combat a lot in this game. Thrue there are some glitches, sometimes you get fired upon through a wall and yes you can use a mortar inside a structure, which isn't believable at all.
But you can manage a team while single playing. I love to set up ambushes, to pull the enemy into a cross fire. Then there is the expose/exploit mechanism. You can one shot enemies. The same thing can be done with a good sniper rifle and some buff set up. The tac officer is excellent in this, but I also managed to do this with my science officer. It is so funny to see the other guy being knocked over with one bang. BTW, combat animations are good and fun imo.
Now space. I do like space and space combat. But space is not space in this game. Ground environment feels more natural. In space I cannot loop and roll, why does my ship bank as it is in an environment with gravitation. There is hardly any inertia, no vertical axis. We have a max 10 km range wich is absurd small in space. Ships have sometimes a scale I do not understand also gimmicks, what is this doing here, what is the purpose of that? Some things don't make sense to me.
But I won't be harsh. These are all game mechanics, but don't talk low about ground combat. If I could give it a number, if space combat has a 7, I would give an 8 to ground (out of 10).
Things I would like to see on ground and in space. Not so close and personal. When you engage combatants will come close to you. Why? we're not going to make love. Take cover, fire back, but don't come after me as if it is melee combat.
An advanced level where AoE damage also effects you and friendly NPC's
Since we're doing a Featured Episode rerun thing, I recently went through and went through all my BOffs again. The primary changes was dropping my Klingon melee BOff for the Photonic Tactical BOff, and changing Turret III to Support Drone I on the Engineers. This has the result of getting a lot more drones flying around, and while I end up with less turrets on the ground, my Engineers now shoot more. The Engies had the tendency to be busy replanting turrets, and the Klingon tended to stay by my side more than charge forth and be tanky.
I'm now running around in Mk XI MACO, so I use that rifle alongside the Fleet Advanced [Dam]x3 [CritX] Pulsewave. Primarily I set up turrets and mortars, then start blasting away with the MACO rifle. When targets move up close enough that they stop advancing, I push forward with the Pulsewave. I have the Cane for when a Klingon Swordmaster tries to melee me.
I'd give your bridge officers different weapons as well, as they *never* get anywhere near close enough to maximise their damage with a pulsewave.
I gave the medic a my Mk X MACO set, one of the engineers (with Exploit traits) carries a Split Beam Rifle, and the other Engie and the Tac carries Pulsewaves.
It's a nice mix of ranges, I think, and the Pulsewave using BOffs do tend to charge forward. I'll have to pay more attention to exactly how close they're moving in. Though I'm open towards outfitting the Engineer in the Jem'Hadar set though, leaving her with the Full Auto Rifle.
1. Less rewards than space (except for marks). This is probably why ground stfs are avoided so much.
2. Auto-locking. I would like my weapons to shoot wherever I point them, instead of trying to lock on to something. Auto-locking really makes the assault minigun's primary fire mode a pain to use. I would like all the weapons to fire like the assault minigun's secondary fire mode.
3. I want the option of being in FPS view. I miss the days of playing Elite Force (The Star Trek Voyager first-person shooter).
2. Auto-locking. I would like my weapons to shoot wherever I point them, instead of trying to lock on to something. Auto-locking really makes the assault minigun's primary fire mode a pain to use. I would like all the weapons to fire like the assault minigun's secondary fire mode.
3. I want the option of being in FPS view. I miss the days of playing Elite Force (The Star Trek Voyager first-person shooter).
...
Dude. Press 'b'
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
The Varon-T Disruptor of course would be only fitting for KDF as many of the mercenary and slaver species do not have high moral standards anyway. I know that there were only a couple of these weapons ever produced (well, in the TNG timeframe), but I think it would not be too far off if somebody used one of the few as a template for massproducing. A ferengi would certainly see some profit in doing this.
Maybe... they certainly wouldn't be as powerful as they were shown in the show, and having them be mass produced would make sense. I could see a crappy knockoff Varon-C Disruptor line. :P
It was generally a very stupid idea from this game's developers to led the players fire and throw high explosives and heavy energy blasts INSIDE starbases/starships. There is a reason why we NEVER see such things on the show! Even a tiny fracture of the outer hull would suck every living being into space and yet we have engineers who call in a shot from a friggin' starship's beam array and keep beaming in mortars in tight corridors?!
Most of the abilities are stupid ideas in general. We never saw anything like that stuff in the shows, the closest we got was rigging items together in order to make plot magic happen.
"Joe please transport down a medical healer, shield healer, and a turret right here".
"No problemo Mr Engineer"
This is even funnier during Coliseum's outdoor section, after you'd escaped the arena and have your abilities back. So the whole point is to try and get the parts to signal your ship... while I beam down turrets from my ship. :rolleyes:
It was generally a very stupid idea from this game's developers to led the players fire and throw high explosives and heavy energy blasts INSIDE starbases/starships. There is a reason why we NEVER see such things on the show! Even a tiny fracture of the outer hull would suck every living being into space and yet we have engineers who call in a shot from a friggin' starship's beam array and keep beaming in mortars in tight corridors?!
Explosive decompression is overrated. Sure you get ridiculous wind speeds going through the hole, but farther away? Not so much...
Besides... that's what emergency forcefields are for.
Why does people hate Ground? Because it's not fun, it's frustrating.
For example, some NPCs were never properly scaled when the skill tree revamp happened for Season 5. Like how the Undine has that rapid-fire Psychic Attack thats basically a 1-shot because you can't resist it and you're lucky to get around the corner to a building to break line of sight.
Tholians for Season 7 got some majorly annoying 1-shot attacks, where Tholian Commanders drop a mine that you really don't know is there til you get blown up. Captains have a 1-shot attack that you don't see coming. And let's not forget their stasis drones that you can't get out of, and your BOFFs are usually dead because they are easily suspectable to the 1-shot attacks. So they need some improved AI so they react to these dangers, especially the medic who heals more than fires the gun than running into the thick of things.
Skill-wise, the game blurs together and really there is hardly any difference, which why players roll Tacticals, at least you can spawn an army. So Cryptic should work on this area.
And of course the repetitiveness of the NPCs we fight, there is hardly any real boss battles and hardly any challenging NPCs to fight outside of the STFs.
And weapons, pretty much blurs together. For example, melee weapons. Some weapons are completely useless like High Density Rifles, Wide-Beam, and Stun pistols.
These are the things I personally feel could be improved to increase the fun factor for Ground.
This is even funnier during Coliseum's outdoor section, after you'd escaped the arena and have your abilities back. So the whole point is to try and get the parts to signal your ship... while I beam down turrets from my ship. :rolleyes:
well yea if u assume they are beamed down but they are not.
The reason why ground combat is so universally hated is likely because it's so ****ing terrible..?
The space combat part is fairly unique in the MMO-market. The only other space MMO that isn't even worse then STO is EVE Online (which is great and blows STO out of the water without effort) but EVE is a radically different game compared to STO (both from a game mechanics and game play point of view - not to mention the philosophy behind the two games). So basically there is no direct competition for the space combat in STO.
On the ground however there are literally 50 MMOs that are vastly vastly superior to STO in every possible way. Hell... even most Korean cash shop games are a 1000 times more fun to play then STO ground combat - at least they are reactive and fast paced. If you go on to compare STO ground combat with real games like WOW then it just becomes obvious how absolutely dismal Cryptic designed their ground combat part and how much potential they wasted. I guess this frustrates many players.
A further problem in ground combat is the laughably terrible lag and generally lacking responsiveness of the engine. Half the time you can't turn a corner without "sticking" to the wall and the entire combat mechanics are just plain terrible in my opinion.
At least in space the lag is more bearable and the bad game design is easier to ignore.
At least that's my theory why ground combat is so hated (and by extension also why STO as a whole has such an embarrassingly tiny amount of active players - especially considering it's free).
It may be tacked on to this space game, but its NOT ON RAILS. See what I did thar?
Ground is actually interesting before of the trinity firmly in place.
RPG or FPS, I get both in this game.
When solo, I bring a team of 5. I feel like I'm in charge!
Hate
Not enough damage. I do pitiful damage given the pitiful Mk X Omega gear I got from way before S7, and maybe a little more with the double-edged lightsaber I picked up over WW. I got out what I put in. But you can?t blame me, or any of use spacers. In resource-starved times, the ship comes before the boots on the ground. But now that I?ve fully kitted out my Akira with plasmaspam, I?ve been looking to pick up a lovely flamethrower.
STFs - Not Admiral enough. Maybe not even Captain enough. What I mean is, I am a Vice Admiral, commander of 15 boffs, 400 doffs, and an escort carrier group of 3 ships. And yet, when push comes to shove, I leap into a fight to the death with 4 other VAs... with no support whatsoever. I'd like to at least have 2 boffs with me whenever wherever, even when grouped, as that would mean a fighting force of at least 15 in any ground assault. 60 warriors in Mine Trap just screams EPIC more than a dozen pulsewaves ever could.
Adventure Zones - Not Admiral enough. Again, why the hell am I tasked to do these menial jobs?! Little wonder that I haven't done anything on Mo'Rihan beyond epoh cowboying. Give me the option to assign boffs to do crew tasks, while I handle the big stuff like strategic planning and resource management. I might dust off the sniper rifle and roll out with my hazard team if there's something we've got to get done, or dress up in full ceremonial colors to meet a dignatory. But I certainly will NOT collect water when I'm not shipwrecked!!
Not enough rewards. Give me one ground mission that rewards dil and marks, and takes less than 30min to complete. Because, during this time, I would have completed a set of space dailies. Again, efficiency of time counts more than the fun factor of the mission.
There's an invisible hole in the FLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR. Falling and falling and falling...
Transporter room, you've beamed me into a rock! And worse still /stuck just shuffles me around inside said rock.
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
It may be tacked on to this space game, but its NOT ON RAILS. See what I did thar?
Obviously not, I failed to see what you did there, unless you are making a SWKOTR reference, which is basically meant to be a Ground only game with a loose space portion. However; Compared to STO, STO is focused on both.
Ground is actually interesting before of the trinity firmly in place.
RPG or FPS, I get both in this game.
before of the trinity firmly in place? ??
RPG & FPS is a plus in STO - However; the FPS mode is lacking. As far as the RPG aspect, well I guess if you RP on your own - but the truth is there is very little Ground RPG'n in this game, if we want to compare it to traditional RPGs.
When solo, I bring a team of 5. I feel like I'm in charge!
Thats a nice option, though STO is basically a single player game in a sense. The MMO aspects of it comes from the fact that you see others flying around in their boats, with the option to team up. Sadly, STO suffers from what Guildwars did - instance and single player mode.
They need to put the MMO in STO - ala things like raid parties etc... or revamp dungeons to force team play. The current STF are ok but with the rep system, it killed the rarity of sets into oblivion. Frankly the STFs aren't enough.
There's an invisible hole in the FLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR. Falling and falling and falling...
Transporter room, you've beamed me into a rock! And worse still /stuck just shuffles me around inside said rock.
Old BUGS that still plague this game -
Overall there is a saying "Good at all but Master of none," thats soo true of STO, except that I would reword it as Good at one, bad at the other, and master of none.
If you look at space combat, there are some serious flaws, especially when it comes dow to Height, pitch, roll, etc... Z access maybe. There is some serious issues in regards to simulating space and movement.
I actually appriciate the ground combat and am glad that it exists in a game (like STO) whose main facus is space combat. I would think much less of this game if such an alternative (as ground combat) was not a part of the whole experience.
SO, SURE, its NOT PERFECT, but its more than enough for me, IMO.
Just my two cents:)
I can't believe how bad the ground STF pugs are. I have all the buffs from the Rep system & got me a omega XII ground set from the rep system too and figured the ground STFs that I always avoided would be a cake walk with my new skills/gear.
Oh man was I wrong. The pugs have no freaking clue what is going on. And its insane how tough it is when you're the only one that seems to know what is going on. And these were normal ground pugs I can't even imagine how bad elite ground pugs are.
Normal space pugs are a million times better, at least there if 1 or 2 people know what is going on they can mop up for players who are clueless. In a ground STF, if you have 1 or 2 people who are clueless you're done for.
Oh and why are the optional so easy to fail in ground STFs?
And the ground STFs don't seem to offer better rewards, it just makes me resent ground more.
Ground STFs are not hard. They are as difficult as space ones and as easy to fail. The only one that is difficult is Infected and that's mainly because of the time pressure.
In space it may be all about having the "cookie cutter builds" but ground is a different thing. People also don't seem to realise you need to spec into ground as well and if you only spec the minimum you will only get the minimum and so they resent ground combat more.
The key here is to not min/max as much as people recommend and look at your skill tree and powers that you like to use and spec into them in the same way as you would in space.
Ground STFs optionals are easier to fail as they require a greater degree of teamwork than space. You might be able to tank a tactical cube in your Fleet Defiant, but your tac officer on the ground is a different story. In infected you NEED 3 people to open the forcefield as opposed to space. This makes it a challenge and ultimately more rewarding.
Ground STFs offer the same amount of marks, dilithium and borg neural processors as you might have got from a space mission. I don't see the complaint from that angle to be perfectly honest.
I don't its much harder than, more challenging, more rewarding ( as in play time) than space.
The only issue I know is some spacers are whining about it.
What I find very very funny is spacers spend hours learning, tweaking, and buying better gear for space.
Then they don't put the same effort or resources into the ground efforts and complain its hard.
It's the same as buying a new ship and playing the STFs with default gear.
Let's just say what you put in you get out.
In one respect I can agree with what your saying. However no matter how geared up myself and my boffs are, it still doesn't seem like ground stuff works as it should. My only real complaint and reason why I don't do grounds very much is because of the whole set up. At least in space you have more of a chance of survival when things get too heated. On grounds its a whole different ball game, not to mention some of the controls I still can't get used to. I do wish the set up was similar to that of the Space, I would definitely do much much better then. . . But in my own failure I suppose I just never got around to learning more ground strategy's, I probably should before complaining any more.
When I first started playing STO, ground missions were actually my favourite.
But once you reach endgame, and you figure out the ins-and-outs of the game, I find that space combat varies more. Yes there are cookie cutters and min/maxers, but on the whole, most people fly their ships differently, with different ships and different gear, all customised to their personal taste. On the ground however, there's very little variety.
Not only that, ground combat always feels so lengthy. You don't get that 'badass' feeling you get in space, when you pwn some mobs. I think if they removed shields from NPCs, and made all ground mobs HP-only, that could go someway to making ground more fun. Also, adding more customisation to ground gear - more slots (maybe split armour up into head/chest/legs for example).
Ground STFs optionals are easier to fail as they require a greater degree of teamwork than space. You might be able to tank a tactical cube in your Fleet Defiant, but your tac officer on the ground is a different story. In infected you NEED 3 people to open the forcefield as opposed to space. This makes it a challenge and ultimately more rewarding.
Ground STFs offer the same amount of marks, dilithium and borg neural processors as you might have got from a space mission. I don't see the complaint from that angle to be perfectly honest.
based on the time to complete listed in the pve queue, ground STFs take significantly longer to finish. But the reward is the same numerically, meaning lower over time. Add in vastly higher chance to fail and the effective reward drops lower still. Finally, tack on that ground loot is 1/10 the value of space loot.
Overall, ground combat events, (all of them not just STFs, but big dig, mine event, etc) need to have their rewards pretty significantly upped.
And I'm saying this as one who prefers ground over space.
Comments
Sniper-pulsewave is a good combo, but I think my favorite is Full-Auto + Melee.
My character Tsin'xing
Here I am with a sword hitting someone 20 times who isn't defending themselves and isn't dead. All they are doing is trying to shoot me.
Just doesn't work for me.
And all engineers do engineeringly is call the ship and get them to transport a automatic grenade launcher onto the floor in front of you?
In a space ship?
I figured engineers would be more like tony stark than this.
But everybody gets most of the stuff associated with the Iron Man armor. Except flying... we can't do that.
My character Tsin'xing
I actually don't mind the rifles-on-backs thing. It happened quite a few times in the series, and Trek rifles often had slings and were hung from the shoulders, but that would be hard to animate. No, my issue with that is most of the guns are cartoonishly oversized super-soakers that are almost as large as my captains torso.
If the weapons looked better, I think that would look better.
But I agree that the Mass Effect like armors and kits should be removed. They are for the KDF, and you know what? KDF looks better because of it!
Yes this. It's mentioned quite a few times that the Defiant was built to fight the Borg and only the Borg. The Dominion just happened to be a greater threat that the Borg for a short while.
The Worfzooka! I would so love to have it in game, as well as Guinan's rifle. But I have issues with the Varon-T. Not only were there not very many made (I mean, there's what, six?), it's also an incredibly cruel weapon and definitely not something I would put in the hands of Star Fleet Officers.
I myself carry a Pulsewave and a Federation Type-3 Phaser (the one from the 23rd century mission that shoots pink lasers). My Tac carries a Pulsewave/Compression Pistol.
Sniper Rifles only seem to be useful when range is absolutely key, which is usually only the case in the Shanty Town PvP map or in long hallways on pvp maps. They don't hit hard enough or fire fast enough compared to things like full auto rifles (primary fire only, secondary is garbage), split beams, and high density beam rifles.
If you like getting up close and personal with your pulsewave, I'd suggest switching your sniper to a compression pistol. I'd give your bridge officers different weapons as well, as they *never* get anywhere near close enough to maximise their damage with a pulsewave. I usually stick splitbeams and high density beam rifles on them.
I don't have much experience with the MACO rifle but from what I've seen it's pretty good in terms of damage.
Lastly, if you're in a fleet with a progressed starbase, pick up the advanced fleet weapons. The [dmg]x3 [critx] modifiers on them trump even the old MK XII [CritD]x3 weapons you'd occasionally find, I've been told. I noticed that I've been killing stuff much faster with them, at least.
Fanfiction! ZOMG! Read it now!
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Oh i know of the shield and increased sustained DPS for a short while. I just find the other stuff kinda lame.
"Joe please transport down a medical healer, shield healer, and a turret right here".
"No problemo Mr Engineer"
Want to know whats so funny, calling an Orbital Strike from within the interior of a starship or a complex, LOL. Yet everyone survives.
Seriously, they should just re-word the thing and call it a Mega Disintegrating Fusion Landmine or something, or simply a "Bouncing Betty."
The Varon-T Disruptor of course would be only fitting for KDF as many of the mercenary and slaver species do not have high moral standards anyway. I know that there were only a couple of these weapons ever produced (well, in the TNG timeframe), but I think it would not be too far off if somebody used one of the few as a template for massproducing. A ferengi would certainly see some profit in doing this.
It was generally a very stupid idea from this game's developers to led the players fire and throw high explosives and heavy energy blasts INSIDE starbases/starships. There is a reason why we NEVER see such things on the show! Even a tiny fracture of the outer hull would suck every living being into space and yet we have engineers who call in a shot from a friggin' starship's beam array and keep beaming in mortars in tight corridors?!
But you can manage a team while single playing. I love to set up ambushes, to pull the enemy into a cross fire. Then there is the expose/exploit mechanism. You can one shot enemies. The same thing can be done with a good sniper rifle and some buff set up. The tac officer is excellent in this, but I also managed to do this with my science officer. It is so funny to see the other guy being knocked over with one bang. BTW, combat animations are good and fun imo.
Now space. I do like space and space combat. But space is not space in this game. Ground environment feels more natural. In space I cannot loop and roll, why does my ship bank as it is in an environment with gravitation. There is hardly any inertia, no vertical axis. We have a max 10 km range wich is absurd small in space. Ships have sometimes a scale I do not understand also gimmicks, what is this doing here, what is the purpose of that? Some things don't make sense to me.
But I won't be harsh. These are all game mechanics, but don't talk low about ground combat. If I could give it a number, if space combat has a 7, I would give an 8 to ground (out of 10).
Things I would like to see on ground and in space. Not so close and personal. When you engage combatants will come close to you. Why? we're not going to make love. Take cover, fire back, but don't come after me as if it is melee combat.
An advanced level where AoE damage also effects you and friendly NPC's
I'm now running around in Mk XI MACO, so I use that rifle alongside the Fleet Advanced [Dam]x3 [CritX] Pulsewave. Primarily I set up turrets and mortars, then start blasting away with the MACO rifle. When targets move up close enough that they stop advancing, I push forward with the Pulsewave. I have the Cane for when a Klingon Swordmaster tries to melee me.
I gave the medic a my Mk X MACO set, one of the engineers (with Exploit traits) carries a Split Beam Rifle, and the other Engie and the Tac carries Pulsewaves.
It's a nice mix of ranges, I think, and the Pulsewave using BOffs do tend to charge forward. I'll have to pay more attention to exactly how close they're moving in. Though I'm open towards outfitting the Engineer in the Jem'Hadar set though, leaving her with the Full Auto Rifle.
2. Auto-locking. I would like my weapons to shoot wherever I point them, instead of trying to lock on to something. Auto-locking really makes the assault minigun's primary fire mode a pain to use. I would like all the weapons to fire like the assault minigun's secondary fire mode.
3. I want the option of being in FPS view. I miss the days of playing Elite Force (The Star Trek Voyager first-person shooter).
...
Dude. Press 'b'
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Shooter mode is really a faux FPS. It's really just a more precise manner of auto locking, but it's still auto locking.
Maybe... they certainly wouldn't be as powerful as they were shown in the show, and having them be mass produced would make sense. I could see a crappy knockoff Varon-C Disruptor line. :P
Most of the abilities are stupid ideas in general. We never saw anything like that stuff in the shows, the closest we got was rigging items together in order to make plot magic happen.
This is even funnier during Coliseum's outdoor section, after you'd escaped the arena and have your abilities back. So the whole point is to try and get the parts to signal your ship... while I beam down turrets from my ship. :rolleyes:
Besides... that's what emergency forcefields are for.
My character Tsin'xing
For example, some NPCs were never properly scaled when the skill tree revamp happened for Season 5. Like how the Undine has that rapid-fire Psychic Attack thats basically a 1-shot because you can't resist it and you're lucky to get around the corner to a building to break line of sight.
Tholians for Season 7 got some majorly annoying 1-shot attacks, where Tholian Commanders drop a mine that you really don't know is there til you get blown up. Captains have a 1-shot attack that you don't see coming. And let's not forget their stasis drones that you can't get out of, and your BOFFs are usually dead because they are easily suspectable to the 1-shot attacks. So they need some improved AI so they react to these dangers, especially the medic who heals more than fires the gun than running into the thick of things.
Skill-wise, the game blurs together and really there is hardly any difference, which why players roll Tacticals, at least you can spawn an army. So Cryptic should work on this area.
And of course the repetitiveness of the NPCs we fight, there is hardly any real boss battles and hardly any challenging NPCs to fight outside of the STFs.
And weapons, pretty much blurs together. For example, melee weapons. Some weapons are completely useless like High Density Rifles, Wide-Beam, and Stun pistols.
These are the things I personally feel could be improved to increase the fun factor for Ground.
My word, this has to be up there as well. Clicking heals and either it fires as you die or fires and nothing happens.
well yea if u assume they are beamed down but they are not.
Then we are Magicians, pull a Turret out of my hat, PRESTO - Instant Kill Zone.
Wait, we don't have hats in STO, so lets go a step deeper.
Pull a Turret out of my @ss - :P
The space combat part is fairly unique in the MMO-market. The only other space MMO that isn't even worse then STO is EVE Online (which is great and blows STO out of the water without effort) but EVE is a radically different game compared to STO (both from a game mechanics and game play point of view - not to mention the philosophy behind the two games). So basically there is no direct competition for the space combat in STO.
On the ground however there are literally 50 MMOs that are vastly vastly superior to STO in every possible way. Hell... even most Korean cash shop games are a 1000 times more fun to play then STO ground combat - at least they are reactive and fast paced. If you go on to compare STO ground combat with real games like WOW then it just becomes obvious how absolutely dismal Cryptic designed their ground combat part and how much potential they wasted. I guess this frustrates many players.
A further problem in ground combat is the laughably terrible lag and generally lacking responsiveness of the engine. Half the time you can't turn a corner without "sticking" to the wall and the entire combat mechanics are just plain terrible in my opinion.
At least in space the lag is more bearable and the bad game design is easier to ignore.
At least that's my theory why ground combat is so hated (and by extension also why STO as a whole has such an embarrassingly tiny amount of active players - especially considering it's free).
Love
It may be tacked on to this space game, but its NOT ON RAILS. See what I did thar?
Ground is actually interesting before of the trinity firmly in place.
RPG or FPS, I get both in this game.
When solo, I bring a team of 5. I feel like I'm in charge!
Hate
Not enough damage. I do pitiful damage given the pitiful Mk X Omega gear I got from way before S7, and maybe a little more with the double-edged lightsaber I picked up over WW. I got out what I put in. But you can?t blame me, or any of use spacers. In resource-starved times, the ship comes before the boots on the ground. But now that I?ve fully kitted out my Akira with plasmaspam, I?ve been looking to pick up a lovely flamethrower.
STFs - Not Admiral enough. Maybe not even Captain enough. What I mean is, I am a Vice Admiral, commander of 15 boffs, 400 doffs, and an escort carrier group of 3 ships. And yet, when push comes to shove, I leap into a fight to the death with 4 other VAs... with no support whatsoever. I'd like to at least have 2 boffs with me whenever wherever, even when grouped, as that would mean a fighting force of at least 15 in any ground assault. 60 warriors in Mine Trap just screams EPIC more than a dozen pulsewaves ever could.
Adventure Zones - Not Admiral enough. Again, why the hell am I tasked to do these menial jobs?! Little wonder that I haven't done anything on Mo'Rihan beyond epoh cowboying. Give me the option to assign boffs to do crew tasks, while I handle the big stuff like strategic planning and resource management. I might dust off the sniper rifle and roll out with my hazard team if there's something we've got to get done, or dress up in full ceremonial colors to meet a dignatory. But I certainly will NOT collect water when I'm not shipwrecked!!
Not enough rewards. Give me one ground mission that rewards dil and marks, and takes less than 30min to complete. Because, during this time, I would have completed a set of space dailies. Again, efficiency of time counts more than the fun factor of the mission.
There's an invisible hole in the FLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR. Falling and falling and falling...
Transporter room, you've beamed me into a rock! And worse still /stuck just shuffles me around inside said rock.
"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!
Obviously not, I failed to see what you did there, unless you are making a SWKOTR reference, which is basically meant to be a Ground only game with a loose space portion. However; Compared to STO, STO is focused on both.
before of the trinity firmly in place? ??
RPG & FPS is a plus in STO - However; the FPS mode is lacking. As far as the RPG aspect, well I guess if you RP on your own - but the truth is there is very little Ground RPG'n in this game, if we want to compare it to traditional RPGs.
There is however; A Great RP Community in STO.
Thats a nice option, though STO is basically a single player game in a sense. The MMO aspects of it comes from the fact that you see others flying around in their boats, with the option to team up. Sadly, STO suffers from what Guildwars did - instance and single player mode.
They need to put the MMO in STO - ala things like raid parties etc... or revamp dungeons to force team play. The current STF are ok but with the rep system, it killed the rarity of sets into oblivion. Frankly the STFs aren't enough.
Old BUGS that still plague this game -
Overall there is a saying "Good at all but Master of none," thats soo true of STO, except that I would reword it as Good at one, bad at the other, and master of none.
If you look at space combat, there are some serious flaws, especially when it comes dow to Height, pitch, roll, etc... Z access maybe. There is some serious issues in regards to simulating space and movement.
SO, SURE, its NOT PERFECT, but its more than enough for me, IMO.
Just my two cents:)
Other than that, ground combat is fine IMO.
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Oh man was I wrong. The pugs have no freaking clue what is going on. And its insane how tough it is when you're the only one that seems to know what is going on. And these were normal ground pugs I can't even imagine how bad elite ground pugs are.
Normal space pugs are a million times better, at least there if 1 or 2 people know what is going on they can mop up for players who are clueless. In a ground STF, if you have 1 or 2 people who are clueless you're done for.
Oh and why are the optional so easy to fail in ground STFs?
And the ground STFs don't seem to offer better rewards, it just makes me resent ground more.
In space it may be all about having the "cookie cutter builds" but ground is a different thing. People also don't seem to realise you need to spec into ground as well and if you only spec the minimum you will only get the minimum and so they resent ground combat more.
The key here is to not min/max as much as people recommend and look at your skill tree and powers that you like to use and spec into them in the same way as you would in space.
Ground STFs optionals are easier to fail as they require a greater degree of teamwork than space. You might be able to tank a tactical cube in your Fleet Defiant, but your tac officer on the ground is a different story. In infected you NEED 3 people to open the forcefield as opposed to space. This makes it a challenge and ultimately more rewarding.
Ground STFs offer the same amount of marks, dilithium and borg neural processors as you might have got from a space mission. I don't see the complaint from that angle to be perfectly honest.
Generally, goals are easier to get to, visualize, and guess at in Space than on Ground.
Maps are easier to negotiate in space.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
In one respect I can agree with what your saying. However no matter how geared up myself and my boffs are, it still doesn't seem like ground stuff works as it should. My only real complaint and reason why I don't do grounds very much is because of the whole set up. At least in space you have more of a chance of survival when things get too heated. On grounds its a whole different ball game, not to mention some of the controls I still can't get used to. I do wish the set up was similar to that of the Space, I would definitely do much much better then. . . But in my own failure I suppose I just never got around to learning more ground strategy's, I probably should before complaining any more.
But once you reach endgame, and you figure out the ins-and-outs of the game, I find that space combat varies more. Yes there are cookie cutters and min/maxers, but on the whole, most people fly their ships differently, with different ships and different gear, all customised to their personal taste. On the ground however, there's very little variety.
Not only that, ground combat always feels so lengthy. You don't get that 'badass' feeling you get in space, when you pwn some mobs. I think if they removed shields from NPCs, and made all ground mobs HP-only, that could go someway to making ground more fun. Also, adding more customisation to ground gear - more slots (maybe split armour up into head/chest/legs for example).
based on the time to complete listed in the pve queue, ground STFs take significantly longer to finish. But the reward is the same numerically, meaning lower over time. Add in vastly higher chance to fail and the effective reward drops lower still. Finally, tack on that ground loot is 1/10 the value of space loot.
Overall, ground combat events, (all of them not just STFs, but big dig, mine event, etc) need to have their rewards pretty significantly upped.
And I'm saying this as one who prefers ground over space.