Chang: "I can see you, Kirk."
Kirk: "Chang."
Chang: "Can you see me?"
Kirk: "Why yes, yes I can. You uncloaked the moment you started talking... Fire!"
Chang: *facepalm*
Wow. Out of all the comparisons and statements in this thread, this was the funniest - AND the one that definitely gets the message across (I think anyway). ~chuckles~ I pictured the whole scene in my head, too.
But, yes, I do agree cloak should be worked on. I could care less about scans, loot, etc. But every popup disabling the cloak is really annoying. To be honest it did not get to me as much until I started testing the Romulans on Tribble. SO many needless and badly timed decloaks over there for a single message.
"Hey . . . we're hailing you, so we can see you now."
"Okay, yes, we received your hail. One moment while we decloak right in front of you and leave ourselves open to being fired on and beat on while we finish reading your message."
"Thank you."
THAT is where it really gets annoying. You are sitting there trying to actually read the story-line and dialog and some ship starts firing on you because the message knocked out your cloak.
And don't forget, if you cloak while a dialogue message is up, it closes the dialogue. Reopening the dialogue decloaks you, so there's literally no way to stay cloaked and read mission dialogue, even if it's your own bridge officer.
They had this "fixed" at one point after it started. We know it was a substantial fix, and took a very long time, and supposedly required some flag being changed on every mission map of the game... It took a long time to get the fix in, and slowly missions where it wasn't fixed got fixed.
Then all at once it came back everywhere, and that was the first time it was called "working as intended." It was an acknowledged bug before.
It's a bad intention. Players appreciated it being fixed the first time, and going back on that fix is silly and a waste of the effort it took to fix. Which, sadly, will probably have to be repeated.
Haha, now that it's going to be more of a problem not solely affecting the KDF it warrants a fix?
In all seriousness, please fix it. I think it's even gotten worse, now those little mini fly ins (the ones you said weren't supposed to decloak you?) they are decloaking me now too...
Wow. Out of all the comparisons and statements in this thread, this was the funniest - AND the one that definitely gets the message across (I think anyway). ~chuckles~ I pictured the whole scene in my head, too.
Why thank you very much I thought it painted a rather accurate picture of the current state of things.
I think it's even gotten worse, now those little mini fly ins (the ones you said weren't supposed to decloak you?) they are decloaking me now too...
I would agree with you, even the fly ins for someone getting a lockbox are uncloaking me now, and no turning off the fly ins does not stop it from happening it happens anyways. Random uncloak... wtf? ... *checks chat box* "xyz just got xyz from lockbox" ... o.0 *twitch*
Its not "working as intended" its broke plain and simple, just admit it and fix it already.
I haven't had any problems with Fly ins causing any decloaking, at least so far... I really barely bothered with cloaking on my KDF officers on live. If it's not battle cloak it jsut never seemed musch worth using. That being said, and fully admitiing it doesn't affect me much, I don't really care much for PVP and I play Mainly feds on live... the decloaking when you get any kind of contact window is really crappy. I personally wouldn't say put off the release just to fix it.. but... if the fix is something they Can do, and jsut don't becuase it would have to be done By map.. why not do it in stages. a patch here, and patch there, a few maps fixed with each one, untill all maps in all sectors are fixed?
I've been following the cloaking issue from afar since it was first reported.
What I've seen over the years since, is Cryptic change their stance on the issue several times.
These have included;
It's a bug
It's Story dependant.
Working as Intended.
It's Map dependant.
The fact that it has not been fixed for so long, raises doubts as to how much effort Cryptic has been putting into fixing it, or if indeed they're willing to fix it.
Over the years this game has seen many bugs, and a lot of the more difficult, persistent ones, have been labelled by Cryptic "working as intended" with little to no observable change by the players.
Because that would be smart and productive? That's my guess as to why not.
Hey now lets keep it constructive, won't get anything fixed if we're jerks about it.
Hey OP its your thread and all but you may want to keep in mind that the best way to keep it from getting buried and keep it on peoples minds is to occasionally respond to posters and provide some feedback yourself.
Otherwise "working as intended" may become a permanent answer to this and many other problems in game.
Hey now lets keep it constructive, won't get anything fixed if we're jerks about it.
Hey OP its your thread and all but you may want to keep in mind that the best way to keep it from getting buried and keep it on peoples minds is to occasionally respond to posters and provide some feedback yourself.
Otherwise "working as intended" may become a permanent answer to this and many other problems in game.
Just saying...
Lol, I know, that was a little mean, but I know how easy it is to look at a big ol mess, get daunted, and decide... "meh... who needs a clean garage?" And walk away. The key in those instances is to attack it a little at a time a day at a time, and before you know it, you've whittled away a massive mess/problem without losing your mind in the process.
So far on my Romulan I've only cloaked once just for fun, usually I find it more efficient to simply take out the PVE enemie., I've never encountered a situation where I felt I had to run and hide against the enemy AI.
I could see from a RP perspective wanting it but does it really impact a player's ability to progress through the missions? Infinite invisibility is a pretty strong ability and I can see why they would want to keep it in check, though they definitely could do something better than have BO dialog disable cloak, that's just stupid.
The last official reason for why it was WAI was because cloaking whilst in certain dialogues broke event sequencing. Dan did mention at one point that they were planning on going through and altering one click boxes (boxes where you just confirm the dialogue without any real conversation) with flyby dialogue that didn't affect cloaks but I have no idea how this is coming along or even if they're working on it.
So far on my Romulan I've only cloaked once just for fun, usually I find it more efficient to simply take out the PVE enemie., I've never encountered a situation where I felt I had to run and hide against the enemy AI.
I could see from a RP perspective wanting it but does it really impact a player's ability to progress through the missions? Infinite invisibility is a pretty strong ability and I can see why they would want to keep it in check, though they definitely could do something better than have BO dialog disable cloak, that's just stupid.
Romulans get a massive buff when coming out of cloak, large enough that I was able to take out a cardie cruiser and a frigate with an alpha strike coming out of cloak at one point on test.
Romulans get a massive buff when coming out of cloak, large enough that I was able to take out a cardie cruiser and a frigate with an alpha strike coming out of cloak at one point on test.
Checking the numbers, my science officer gets about a 25% damage buff coming out of cloak due to traits.
Romulans get a massive buff when coming out of cloak, large enough that I was able to take out a cardie cruiser and a frigate with an alpha strike coming out of cloak at one point on test.
This is also the justification given for Romulans having lower power levels on their ships and warp cores, and generally sluggish turn rates - they have awesome cloaks.
You see as things currently stand cloaking is practically useless outside of cloaking torp boats used in pvp/pve. Sure it has the alpha strike capabilities but what good is that if your sneaking up on your target and then... *Hail, decloak, BAM, fail in fiery explosion...* Leaving most just going, "well what's the point of using that, back to the running in guns blazing."
If cloaking worked correctly then it would make the alpha strikes important, you could write missions that required you to be 'gasp' stealthy :eek: . As is instead of focusing on the cloaking which is what Romulans are supposed to be known for above all else we have, "heres your slow moving, tanking singularity machine." Which is somehow producing less power then a warp core (cause somehow a directed explosion (matter/antimatter reaction) is producing more power then harnessing a blackhole (singularity) and yeah don't EVEN get me started on that topic! )
Theirs the potential for so much more then an extra set of episodes, new race and shiny new ships, its a whole mechanic that could be used for so much and could be so much fun. Right now its good for RP, torp boats and royally aggravating the hell out of people who want to use it to any real effect. Can we please get a feature thats working correctly, instead of a bug thats "working as intended?"
I agree that cloaks should not be disabled for a bridge officer chatting, ok hailing another vessel should reduce your cloak strength but again, not disable it.
I would happily wait a few days to have a changes made to resolve this issue
I keep seeing people say "a few days" "a day or two" or "slight delay" with regards to this. I honestly think if this is a bug, if it could be fixed that quickly, it would've been fixed. If it's a feature that was deliberately interwoven into the entire game, then NO WAY could it be fixed that quickly.
I agree that this should be fixed, and I am of the opinion that that fix should be of a "whatever it fracking takes" variety, but I think you're deluding yourself if you think this is a matter of a few days.
I suppose I would agree that given the Romulan power drain levels they are stuck with, the buff coming out of cloak is going to be a lot more important than it ever was as a Klingon. That's a fair point in favor of looking at this more closely.
"We are smart." - Grebnedlog
Member of Alliance Central Command/boq botlhra'ghom
Why thank you very much I thought it painted a rather accurate picture of the current state of things.
I would agree with you, even the fly ins for someone getting a lockbox are uncloaking me now, and no turning off the fly ins does not stop it from happening it happens anyways. Random uncloak... wtf? ... *checks chat box* "xyz just got xyz from lockbox" ... o.0 *twitch*
Its not "working as intended" its broke plain and simple, just admit it and fix it already.
Okay, I think you've got a little false correlation/causation going on here. I can't see any possible way that the lockbox messages would decloak you. They're part of the chat system, and the decloak trigger is part of the event system. Moreover, this would render cloaks literally useless, because every system message in the game would be breaking everybody's cloak.
(mind you, I admit I'm making a few assumptions about how the game is structured.)
I wish I could recall the Dev post from a several months back about this. At one point we (generally speaking) were asked to report specific missions where the dialogue/decloak were truly problematic. I'm assuming via GM tickets. So that the internal flag could be changed at the various points. I vaguely recall this was specific to story missions. They never committed to changing all of them. I know there was never a concise list composed on our end. At least not something for a forum sticky. Is it possible that we (generally speaking) were no longer reporting the specific missions to address so they jchanged focus from early game content to new, LoR content?
Regardless, for new missions coming with LoR it really does need to be nipped in the bud now. Not after May 21st. The reasoning behind when and why a Dev chooses to trigger a de-cloak should be made more clear, too.
(/\) Exploring Star Trek Online Since July 2008 (/\)
Okay, I think you've got a little false correlation/causation going on here. I can't see any possible way that the lockbox messages would decloak you. They're part of the chat system, and the decloak trigger is part of the event system. Moreover, this would render cloaks literally useless, because every system message in the game would be breaking everybody's cloak
It shouldn't be but it is, I've tested it, I was thinking it was limited to my client but I have a couple of friends that are having the same issue to the same degree, we're thinking it may have been cause by a bad packet downloaded during one of the previous patches. And at this point system messages are the only thing not breaking cloaks on a regular basis, which already renders them literally useless.
Not as much as it should be, and that's rather the problem.
I agree. These issues are the REASON cloaks are not used as much in PvE. My typical strategy of cloaking device game-play results in almost a one-shot of the enemy. With my setup I can pretty much take down even the most powerful enemies, both PvP and PvE, in approximately 3 to 6 seconds of uncloaking. On elite mode in STFs my build can take out a Borg Cube in that 6 second time, with my only formidable foe being the Tac cubes on Elite.
I am not even in a z-store ship. I am in a little Raptor. I remember the days when everyone freaked out that the Bortasq' and Odyssey were "overpowered" and "unkillable". That raptor would take down any ody or tasq within a few seconds of uncloaking.
All of this is rendered useless in PvE storyline missions. The only strategy in storyline missions due to the dialogue boxes is to zerg the enemy and hit the fire button. Almost no strategy or food for thought has to be applied because there is only one strategy . . . wonder in, press fire, and then wait for the next dialogue box to pop up telling you your next goal.
One of the pleasures of two factions is strategy. Feds never have to worry about cloak because Feds are not a cloak based faction. Their strategy is pretty straightforward (and before you say it, YES I know about the Defiant and Dreadnought, but those two ships are NOT typical federation canon, so I exclude those).
However on the KDF side, cloaking for half their ships, and performing Rogue-like "stealth, come up from behind and back-stab your enemy" type strategy makes it interesting and different to play. And now we have the Romulans, who's ENTIRE ship line benefits from cloaking strategy regardless of what faction they choose.
Personally, in any MMO, including the Star Trek universe, I almost always love to play and think like a Rogue. I love the stealthy approach. I love to come up close to my enemy and deal a chunk of mass damage with an essential "back-stab" from behind. It's strategic thinking like this that makes MMOs fun and diverse. However in STO the only people who get to play with such strategy without interruption from dialogue boxes are the PvPers.
In the interest of such strategic diversity, I really do hope they get this fixed . . . and it should be a priority based on the Romulan release. I have tested on tribble, and nothing has changed for the Romulan missions. The Devs have also written in code that de-cloaks you in THOSE missions as well. So if it IS a "bug" that was "map based", they did not take it into consideration when writing the NEW maps for the Romulan missions.
So far on my Romulan I've only cloaked once just for fun, usually I find it more efficient to simply take out the PVE enemie., I've never encountered a situation where I felt I had to run and hide against the enemy AI.
I could see from a RP perspective wanting it but does it really impact a player's ability to progress through the missions? Infinite invisibility is a pretty strong ability and I can see why they would want to keep it in check, though they definitely could do something better than have BO dialog disable cloak, that's just stupid.
I know that I would probably end up using it rather regularly, at least at end game when one can rather easily become overwhelmed when every sphere in hive elite is after you, or so one can move in to engage a borg gate at close range for a while and duck out if it hits you too hard and your cooldowns are going.
...talking to players is like being a mall Santa. Everyone immediately wants to tell you all of the things they want, and you are absolutely powerless to deliver 99% of them.
Dead God YES PLEASE!! It makes cloaking incredibly frustrating as you're closing in to jump some NPC ships and then something pops up and you're uncloaked ruining your ambush. Fix this!!
Like the Romulan Alliance System? Of course you do, it sounds fine to you because you aren't Romulans, you're FED or KDF who are going to make a Romulan alt, it makes a HUGE difference in perspective.
Comments
Wow. Out of all the comparisons and statements in this thread, this was the funniest - AND the one that definitely gets the message across (I think anyway). ~chuckles~ I pictured the whole scene in my head, too.
But, yes, I do agree cloak should be worked on. I could care less about scans, loot, etc. But every popup disabling the cloak is really annoying. To be honest it did not get to me as much until I started testing the Romulans on Tribble. SO many needless and badly timed decloaks over there for a single message.
"Hey . . . we're hailing you, so we can see you now."
"Okay, yes, we received your hail. One moment while we decloak right in front of you and leave ourselves open to being fired on and beat on while we finish reading your message."
"Thank you."
THAT is where it really gets annoying. You are sitting there trying to actually read the story-line and dialog and some ship starts firing on you because the message knocked out your cloak.
Then all at once it came back everywhere, and that was the first time it was called "working as intended." It was an acknowledged bug before.
It's a bad intention. Players appreciated it being fixed the first time, and going back on that fix is silly and a waste of the effort it took to fix. Which, sadly, will probably have to be repeated.
In all seriousness, please fix it. I think it's even gotten worse, now those little mini fly ins (the ones you said weren't supposed to decloak you?) they are decloaking me now too...
Why thank you very much I thought it painted a rather accurate picture of the current state of things.
I would agree with you, even the fly ins for someone getting a lockbox are uncloaking me now, and no turning off the fly ins does not stop it from happening it happens anyways. Random uncloak... wtf? ... *checks chat box* "xyz just got xyz from lockbox" ... o.0 *twitch*
Its not "working as intended" its broke plain and simple, just admit it and fix it already.
What I've seen over the years since, is Cryptic change their stance on the issue several times.
These have included;
The fact that it has not been fixed for so long, raises doubts as to how much effort Cryptic has been putting into fixing it, or if indeed they're willing to fix it.
Over the years this game has seen many bugs, and a lot of the more difficult, persistent ones, have been labelled by Cryptic "working as intended" with little to no observable change by the players.
Commander, Starfleet Corps of Engineers • 7th Fleet
Commanding Officer, U.S.S. HEART OF OAK • NX-1759-B • Odyssey class Star Cruiser ( Lexington Tactical Configuration))
(Steam - feel free to follow/friend me : )
Because that would be smart and productive? That's my guess as to why not.
Hey now lets keep it constructive, won't get anything fixed if we're jerks about it.
Hey OP its your thread and all but you may want to keep in mind that the best way to keep it from getting buried and keep it on peoples minds is to occasionally respond to posters and provide some feedback yourself.
Otherwise "working as intended" may become a permanent answer to this and many other problems in game.
Just saying...
Lol, I know, that was a little mean, but I know how easy it is to look at a big ol mess, get daunted, and decide... "meh... who needs a clean garage?" And walk away. The key in those instances is to attack it a little at a time a day at a time, and before you know it, you've whittled away a massive mess/problem without losing your mind in the process.
So far on my Romulan I've only cloaked once just for fun, usually I find it more efficient to simply take out the PVE enemie., I've never encountered a situation where I felt I had to run and hide against the enemy AI.
I could see from a RP perspective wanting it but does it really impact a player's ability to progress through the missions? Infinite invisibility is a pretty strong ability and I can see why they would want to keep it in check, though they definitely could do something better than have BO dialog disable cloak, that's just stupid.
Captain Ariel Trueheart Department of Temporal Investigations
U.S.S. Valkyrie - NCC 991701
=/\= ================================= =/\=
Romulans get a massive buff when coming out of cloak, large enough that I was able to take out a cardie cruiser and a frigate with an alpha strike coming out of cloak at one point on test.
Checking the numbers, my science officer gets about a 25% damage buff coming out of cloak due to traits.
This is also the justification given for Romulans having lower power levels on their ships and warp cores, and generally sluggish turn rates - they have awesome cloaks.
If cloaking worked correctly then it would make the alpha strikes important, you could write missions that required you to be 'gasp' stealthy :eek: . As is instead of focusing on the cloaking which is what Romulans are supposed to be known for above all else we have, "heres your slow moving, tanking singularity machine." Which is somehow producing less power then a warp core (cause somehow a directed explosion (matter/antimatter reaction) is producing more power then harnessing a blackhole (singularity) and yeah don't EVEN get me started on that topic! )
Theirs the potential for so much more then an extra set of episodes, new race and shiny new ships, its a whole mechanic that could be used for so much and could be so much fun. Right now its good for RP, torp boats and royally aggravating the hell out of people who want to use it to any real effect. Can we please get a feature thats working correctly, instead of a bug thats "working as intended?"
I keep seeing people say "a few days" "a day or two" or "slight delay" with regards to this. I honestly think if this is a bug, if it could be fixed that quickly, it would've been fixed. If it's a feature that was deliberately interwoven into the entire game, then NO WAY could it be fixed that quickly.
I agree that this should be fixed, and I am of the opinion that that fix should be of a "whatever it fracking takes" variety, but I think you're deluding yourself if you think this is a matter of a few days.
"We are smart." - Grebnedlog
Member of Alliance Central Command/boq botlhra'ghom
Not as much as it should be, and that's rather the problem.
Okay, I think you've got a little false correlation/causation going on here. I can't see any possible way that the lockbox messages would decloak you. They're part of the chat system, and the decloak trigger is part of the event system. Moreover, this would render cloaks literally useless, because every system message in the game would be breaking everybody's cloak.
(mind you, I admit I'm making a few assumptions about how the game is structured.)
Regardless, for new missions coming with LoR it really does need to be nipped in the bud now. Not after May 21st. The reasoning behind when and why a Dev chooses to trigger a de-cloak should be made more clear, too.
^^^^This 100% took the words out of my mouth lol.^^^^
It shouldn't be but it is, I've tested it, I was thinking it was limited to my client but I have a couple of friends that are having the same issue to the same degree, we're thinking it may have been cause by a bad packet downloaded during one of the previous patches. And at this point system messages are the only thing not breaking cloaks on a regular basis, which already renders them literally useless.
I agree. These issues are the REASON cloaks are not used as much in PvE. My typical strategy of cloaking device game-play results in almost a one-shot of the enemy. With my setup I can pretty much take down even the most powerful enemies, both PvP and PvE, in approximately 3 to 6 seconds of uncloaking. On elite mode in STFs my build can take out a Borg Cube in that 6 second time, with my only formidable foe being the Tac cubes on Elite.
I am not even in a z-store ship. I am in a little Raptor. I remember the days when everyone freaked out that the Bortasq' and Odyssey were "overpowered" and "unkillable". That raptor would take down any ody or tasq within a few seconds of uncloaking.
All of this is rendered useless in PvE storyline missions. The only strategy in storyline missions due to the dialogue boxes is to zerg the enemy and hit the fire button. Almost no strategy or food for thought has to be applied because there is only one strategy . . . wonder in, press fire, and then wait for the next dialogue box to pop up telling you your next goal.
One of the pleasures of two factions is strategy. Feds never have to worry about cloak because Feds are not a cloak based faction. Their strategy is pretty straightforward (and before you say it, YES I know about the Defiant and Dreadnought, but those two ships are NOT typical federation canon, so I exclude those).
However on the KDF side, cloaking for half their ships, and performing Rogue-like "stealth, come up from behind and back-stab your enemy" type strategy makes it interesting and different to play. And now we have the Romulans, who's ENTIRE ship line benefits from cloaking strategy regardless of what faction they choose.
Personally, in any MMO, including the Star Trek universe, I almost always love to play and think like a Rogue. I love the stealthy approach. I love to come up close to my enemy and deal a chunk of mass damage with an essential "back-stab" from behind. It's strategic thinking like this that makes MMOs fun and diverse. However in STO the only people who get to play with such strategy without interruption from dialogue boxes are the PvPers.
In the interest of such strategic diversity, I really do hope they get this fixed . . . and it should be a priority based on the Romulan release. I have tested on tribble, and nothing has changed for the Romulan missions. The Devs have also written in code that de-cloaks you in THOSE missions as well. So if it IS a "bug" that was "map based", they did not take it into consideration when writing the NEW maps for the Romulan missions.
I know that I would probably end up using it rather regularly, at least at end game when one can rather easily become overwhelmed when every sphere in hive elite is after you, or so one can move in to engage a borg gate at close range for a while and duck out if it hits you too hard and your cooldowns are going.