Ask Cryptic: February 2013

pwebranflakes · February 2013

In this brand-new edition of Ask Cryptic, Executive Producer Daniel Stahl delivers answers to player submitted questions.

These questions were asked last Thursday and Friday (2/7 and 2/8) in this thread, as well as in our French and German forums.

Link to the Ask Cryptic.

knuhteb5 · February 2013

Very vague answers, but season 8 does look hopeful. No idea what he means by structural changes to the character creators. It sounds like they're just shifting the code around, but nothing new will happen with it.

starfish1701 · February 2013

Fantastic. Thanks. I really enjoy reading these.

Even though it's not always possible to fully answer all the questions, I like reading the answers given, and applaud you for attempting to answer them anyway.

neoakiraii · February 2013

SO a ship with more than 4 forward and 4 back slots??? Interesting

tsurutafan01 · February 2013

The sad part is the thing that excited me the most was the suggestion we might actually get a beagle pet. I'm so easy.

The trait reset/redesign suggestion for May is interesting. I suspect they'll be adding quite a few, and maybe doing something where each race has something like 3 space and 3 ground traits. But that's complete speculation of course. Would add quite a bit of flavor to characters, I think (and it is wrong that so many races have no possibility of a space bonus).

altechachan · February 2013

Q: (nometa) Will we be able to get a Romulan Warbird or a D?deridex class now that we?re helping the Romulans on New Romulus?

Dstahl: We discussed this opportunity when we were developing Season 7, however we decided that player interest in a Romulan faction is so high that we need to reserve these ships for a future update when we can implement a playable Romulan faction. So until then, these ships will be off limits to the Romulan Reputation System!

Well, that's a big hint as any.

Q: (blubsplash) Have you ever thought about implementing a socketing system for gear?

Dstahl: Yes we have and, in fact, we will be implementing a new type of gear for the May update that will use a socketing feature.

Could this be the "warp core design" addition mentioned a week or so ago?

Q: (psycoticvulcan) Would it be possible to redo the KDF tutorial mission where you have to run around Qo?noS?

Dstahl: Yes. We have someone working on changing the KDF tutorial right now. It is scheduled to be released in a future update.

I'm sure this will perk the ears of some of the KDF players. "Fascinating" is all I can say for now.

brigadooom · February 2013

Ugh, socketing... crafting will probably become mandatory for those wanting the best socketables.

nynik · February 2013

Yes. We have someone working on changing the KDF tutorial right now.

1. Is this a "working in their spare time" statement, laudable as that is?

If and when we release a Romulan faction, you can expect that it would set the stage for how a Cardassian, Borg, or any other faction would be introduced into the game.

... and perhaps a 're-introduction' for a renewed Klingon faction.

2. Will socketed gear be derived from the crafting system?

I don't understand how lockbox ships are seen by the developers as being "proportionally rare" when you can often find yourself in a PUG team with 4 out of five non-faction ships.

I don't think I'll ever understand the developer's obsession with expanding the Mirror Universe. I understand it has its fans, but, surely, its the prime universe which should be the content priority. I worry that if a MU centric FE series was ever created it would send the wrong signal to the devs on how many people played it. I feel we'd all play it because we like any content over no content - and not because we prefer the game to delve into the Mirror Universe instead of primary canon meat and potatoes.

... and yay for IDIC hopefully in May.

brigadooom · February 2013

altechachan wrote: »

Could this be the "warp core design" addition mentioned a week or so ago?

A warp core slot for ships and a tricorder slot for ground?

If this were the case I would like to see exclusive bind on equip variants obtainable via crafting, rep grind, and STF drop

something for everyone that way.

thay8472 · February 2013

Q: (johnathan180) Is there any way that we could see the Terran Empire as a playable faction or get more ships?

Dstahl: We have considered the Terran Empire, and more generally the entire Mirror Universe, as a possibility for expanding the game in the future. Before we decide, we would create a Mirror Universe feature episode series and then gauge interest on whether a full expansion into the Mirror Universe would be viable or not. In any event, we will continue to add more Mirror Universe ships and ship designs to the game as time goes on.

Hell yeah!

Easy way around this is...

Mirror Series (let us play our counter part.. aka you throw mirror markings on our ships.. which at a alter date i'll spam with z-store requests)

Mirror Reputation (let X player decide whether they want to "defect" to the evil side upon hitting t5 while technically still part of the fed/kdf (we'd be those admirals selling our stuff to the mirror universe :P)

jexsamx · February 2013

Stahl, thank you for sticking to your guns on the Romulan ships and faction. Credit where credit is due, even during this FM debacle - this, at least, is a good decision.

tpolebreaker · February 2013

I like the part where his answer about small fleet starbases was basically a cut and paste from his long post on the Fleet Mark debacle (not to mention a bit of a history rewrite)....

f8explorer · February 2013

Q: (startrek44) Small fleets are still struggling to keep up with all the projects. Will you change the system in some way to make it easier for them?
Dstahl: We continue to review fleet sizes and fleet holding progress and it is true that small Fleets are having a harder time at completing projects. A primary reason is that the Fleet sizes in STO range from 1 member up to 500 members. We considered two options when we created the Fleet Projects. Option A was that fleet size would determine the maximum tier for Fleet Holdings. The larger the Fleet, the higher the Fleet Holding Tiers could achieve. This is how other MMOs have developed Guilds, but we felt that it is artificially limiting to active small fleets. Option B was to allow Fleets of any size to achieve all tiers of Fleet Holdings. The drawback is that because fleet size range so much, we had to find a balance so that large fleets had some challenge, while still allowing small fleets to achieve all tiers, albeit at a much slower pace. So from our perspective we choose the sensible Option B, with the goal of ensuring that our active large Fleets didn?t have a cake-walk. The end result is that smaller Fleets can achieve maximum Starbase sizes, but it is a bit harder. We can empathize with the challenge as the Dev team has a small fleet and has only achieved a Tier 3 Starbase so far. We are entertaining other options that may be useful for smaller fleets in the future (merging fleets, reducing costs based on fleet size, etc.), but for now this is our current design.

Do the devs have a KDF fleet and if so how is it doing?

The KDF queues are horrid and take sometimes past an hour to kick off.

sparhawk · February 2013

Mostly vague answers again. The ship and socket gear responses raised my eyebrows though.

lordhavelock · February 2013

May, May, May. So everything's set for May (which means really June or July, the way Cryptic always falls behind, right?).

Does this mean no new content (missions, things to do) for three months?

I'm getting burned out running STFs.

Sigh.

Perhaps it's time for another hiatus.

:rolleyes:

havam · February 2013

genhauk wrote: »

Do the devs have a KDF fleet and if so how is it doing?

The KDF queues are horrid and take sometimes past an hour to kick off.

I highly doubt it.

This andorian esscort that i have been waiting for since it was first mentioned (S4?) sounds worse by the minute.

Why have another fed escort, one to rule them. how about 10 weapons slots 18 tac consoles and ...... kdf escorts???anyone????

khrisstian1986 · February 2013

When will this game stop being stripped of all that is good?

Foundry Duty officer reports now not offering Fleet Marks? It was the only good way of gaining a small chunk of these in any time - hardly worth playing the PvE when you either get shoved into a team that has either never played or cares for following the order of the event... Half hours work for 27FMs

Romulan Distress Call: Mogai & D'deridex changed to 60 seconds but still with a 15 minute cool-down?

To be honest, I have stopped complaining about Dilithium, appears to fall on deaf ears! But at least stop taking away the other benefits. As it stand, I spend a lot of REAL money on this game a month as I like it, but sorely losing interest with the changes being made without player consideration.

Please consider better Fleet Mark Events with as SET Minimum Earn - Say, 50FMs Per PvE/30mins cool down

lter · February 2013

STO, now Brazilian Portuguese and not into Spanish. Again you hating us so much? Why Cryptic, why?

dontdrunkimshoot · February 2013

so, the andorian escorts, with 5 forward weapons. an escort of all things, with a 5th forward slot? 5 DHCs? ARE YOU INSANE?

sparhawk · February 2013

dontdrunkimshoot wrote: »

so, the andorian escorts, with 5 forward weapons. an escort of all things, with a 5th forward slot? 5 DHCs? ARE YOU INSANE?

We'll find out next week.

Unknown · February 2013

This content has been removed.

psymantis · February 2013

Why do I get the feeling the questions are picked to match already written answers?

sparhawk · February 2013

f2pdrakron wrote: »

I dont think he said 5th forward slot.

I suspect this is the mystical broadside Andorian cruiser, no idea what it means but considering the Odyssey pack I hope you like a Escort with SA ....

The Friday picture thread say this isn't the broadside ship. So if that is true the conclusion is more forward weapon slots. It is speculation until they reveal the ship stats next week though.

knuhteb5 · February 2013

psymantis wrote: »

Why do I get the feeling the questions are picked to match already written answers?

We have instincts for a reason. They aren't always right, but most of the time they are.

cidstorm · February 2013

Hearing about the Rom ships getting reserved for a faction is highly pleasing.

This escort though . . .
I seem to remember a BOP thread where players asked for 5 forward weapons and got shot down because the game coding couldn't allow it. Maybe i'm thinking of the warp core thread though. But most importantly, why is the andorian ship colored like the Atrox?

psycoticvulcan · February 2013

Limited time ships, such as those in the lock boxes, are intended to be proportionally rare and difficult to obtain versus Fed and KDF ships which are the default and easiest ships to obtain.

The trouble with that is that a good chunk of the playerbase has at least one lockbox ship by now, even if they're all different ones. So while no one specific lockbox ship outnumbers proper Starfleet/KDF ships, lockbox ships in general are really common.

Anyway, thanks for answering my question.

dirlettia · February 2013

So the update in May is basically an import of the Neverwinter character creation process into STO and an extension of the romulan reputation system to allow a romulan character to be created on the appropriate faction if you go high enough?

Edit: Oh and a Kumari with 5 or 6 forward facing guns.

tehjonel · February 2013

wow, that was the worst 'ask cryptic' yet. the only real solid information i got from that is: "there will be a ship introduced that could possibly have 5 fore or 5 aft slots."

virusdancer · February 2013

sparhawk wrote: »

The Friday picture thread say this isn't the broadside ship. So if that is true the conclusion is more forward weapon slots. It is speculation until they reveal the ship stats next week though.

Somebody in the picture said thread that Geko had stated that. However, they did not state either a source or a timeframe on when that was said...

...we'll definitely have to wait until they do the stats.

Because even in regard to the Ask Cryptic, it's not necessarily the Kumari that Stahl was talking about...

...but we like to speculate, right?

felderburg · February 2013

Q: (carcharodon1975) ?Beneath the Raptor?s Wings? has set people?s hope high on getting a playable Romulan faction in May. My question is? are we getting a playable Romulan faction in May?

Dstahl: We are not ready to begin discussing the details of what is in our May update, however the reference definitely suggests that it is related to Romulans in some way. We will share more news about the update and give a clearer response to your question as we get closer to May.

DStahl's face: http://www.reactionface.info/sites/default/files/images/1287666826226.png

born2bwild1 · February 2013

dontdrunkimshoot wrote: »

so, the andorian escorts, with 5 forward weapons. an escort of all things, with a 5th forward slot? 5 DHCs? ARE YOU INSANE?

and it will have 6 tac consoles - 11 in total as the new T6 class

Ask Cryptic: February 2013

Comments