test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Choosing traits during character creation?
i8472
Member Posts: 225 Arc User
Is it just for the Beta that we are unable to choose traits for our characters in the character creation process?
Is it going to be like that in live version?
I like the idea of having unique race specific Traits, limited to a particular Race.
During character creation, choosing what traits their character has, (out of the list of possible traits.)
Gives the player the feeling that it's their character. It's the Little things like this that give it a more personal touch.
Thank you for taking the time to read this may you, have a great Day
Is it going to be like that in live version?
I like the idea of having unique race specific Traits, limited to a particular Race.
During character creation, choosing what traits their character has, (out of the list of possible traits.)
Gives the player the feeling that it's their character. It's the Little things like this that give it a more personal touch.
Thank you for taking the time to read this may you, have a great Day
Post edited by i8472 on
0
Comments
All set races, romulans, humans, klingon, borg, get their basic set of 4 racial traits and you can pick another 5 as you level up. you can also respec the 4 once you get into the game. They also have a set racial trait that is permante and can't be removed, though it's not part of your 9 trait slots.
Aliens do get a little screwed by this because you get 4 random traits are are forced to use the respec as soon as you get in game if you don't like the ones you got.
oh well I guess, might get to try out trait respec option.
was nice to pick the traits in character creation.
Its forcing the free respec to be used up.
It's kind of a cheap tactic imo.
From the testing I've done, you actually get 8 optional traits and 1 racial trait. There is an odd quirk with Klingons copied over to Tribble that leaves their racial trait unselected, but you can re-slot it and the 9th trait slot disappears. I haven't noticed that issue with other species, but it may be present in a few others as well. I checked the passives, and the Klingon trait was not present until re-slotted. You can't respec the racial trait, but that for one is almost always worth taking. Upon respec, however, you can re-slot all 8 of the optional traits.
You did not actually answer the question that lordinsane asked, though; lordinsane made no mention of the addditional traits and respec as being detrimental, and I agree entirely that these are improvements. Do you actually think it is an improvement that you cannot choose traits at character creation?
Yeah, that, though ussultimatum answers faster than I.
Sometimes, if you want to bury the hatchet with a Klingon, it has to be in his skull. - Captain K'Tar of the USS Danu about J'mpok.
This is to make character creation easier and less overwhelming for new players (rather than asking them to choose traits without any knowledge of what they really do).
Later on (level 20, I think) you can choose all of your traits except your one race specific trait.
And of course, by level 50, you can have 9 total traits instead of the 4 on Holodeck.
All in all, it's a big improvement in every way.
I agree with everything you said except that part. It is not an improvement to remove choices; it would be an improvement if there were an "Advanced" button (such as for the Head, Body, and Uniform) that gave us access to manual selection of our Traits. There is not, therefore it is a simplification, not necessarily an improvement.
That is why there are several threads on the topic of Trait selection, be it for Aliens or in general, other than the Official Trait Revamp Feedback Thread by salamiinferno at http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=605551.
Well, that and Traits are something salamiinferno forgot to "Sticky" when they did the Tribble Test Weekend...
I can choose my traits during character creation now, I cannot with the current character creation system on Tribble. That qualifies as removed to me. That is a limitation.
I am stuck with my trait selection during character creation now, I get one free trait respec token that can be used any time after character creation as implemented on Tribble. That qualifies as an addition to me. That is an improvement.
I simply feel that an improvement in one area does not necessitate implementing a limitation elsewhere. Let's leave the simplified system for new folks, and let the rest of us choose our traits during character creation.
Let's look at it another way... if every single character you made looked identical based on species and gender, and you could only fix that by going to the Tailor in-game, would you be okay with it? If not, doesn't it bother you that under the new system every Alien born into the universe has the exact same traits based on their chosen career? Sure they can respec after the fact, but from a thematic standpoint it just bugs me... no Xindi pun intended.
You can, if you wish, use your respec token the moment you gain control of your character, before you fire a hand weapon or power an engine. For all mechanical intents, that's identical to how it was before - you just watch a cutscene before picking your initial traits.
The one real change involved here is that a player gets to choose when they pick their traits. Even without spending any money, without being a gold or lifetime member, every player gets to pick their traits the exact same number of times they did before, and the first opportunity to do so has moved about ninety seconds and zero encounters. New players, though, can now gain some mastery over the game mechanics before making that call, potentially saving themselves regret or the purchase of a respec token.
It IS an improvement. Yes, in EVERY way. Experienced players get, in net, what they have now (the ability to pick their traits before their traits ever actually come into play), while new players can learn the game before making the decision.
I respectfully disagree with the "EVERY". Yes I can respec the moment I get done with character creation if I so choose, which is great; I do not disagree with that in any way. I cannot actually choose my traits during character creation, which is not so great; thus not so "EVERY". It is a net win, though... again, would you be okay with the devs removing your ability to customize your appearance, other than species and gender, so long as you got a free outfit change at the tailor?
I really do see your point, but personally I want to actually create my character during character creation; if you are okay with doing so after character creation, I am just fine with you doing so.
Put a tailor right next to the starting point and sure.
What Cryptic should consider before releasing anything.
No. The free respec is there PRECISELY to balance the lost choice at character creation.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, they're removing the choices so that new players don't feel forced to pick "at random" traits that they don't yet understand, but they get the token so they can make up their own minds when they get more experience. Veteran players can burn the free respec right away if they feel like it; they already know what they want for traits. As such, there is a benefit for new players, and no penalty for veterans.
If they continued to allow the traits to be chosen at creation, there would be no free respec token. Exactly as it is now on Holodeck.
Do know the obvious counter to that is "That's underestimating the intelligence of a new player who we all presume can read." (which I know is mixed, cause there is a lot of ignorance in this game by even people playing for over 3 years, although that might just be arrogance.) There is also nothing to stop them keeping trait selector and the free respec token.
It is essentially a piece of character customization that has been removed from the game. Wasn't that meant to be one of this game's strongpoints? It may not be essential, but it is damn irritating. And from logic, it's missing an opportunity to alert new players to the fact that traits exist in the first place. You are more likely to be aware of traits if you have to choose them in a character creator than a mindless wee popup that you can quickly ignore and forget. Bet under new system you'll find people actually remaining at 50 completely ignorant that they got trait slots available.
What Cryptic should consider before releasing anything.
The other downside that many folks tend to miss in the removal of trait selection is somewhat more subtle than that. Go on Tribble, start a KDF character, and select Gorn and Engineering. Now, if you click on the little Race Info button near the top, you can expand your pre-selected list of traits. Read through this section and then ask yourself: "Based on this information, what traits are available for my Gorn?" To clarify, I do not mean "Which traits do I have pre-selected?", but rather "Which traits will my character have access to?"
Ok, so from there you have to do a little work to get a general idea, but you're clever, you have played MMO's before, and you can figure this out. So, first you look at the Engineering path and get the pre-selects of: Gorn Toughness, Bite, Shield Harmonic Resonance, and Techie. Now, being the clever MMO player that you are, you check and see what a Science and Tactical career give access to; for Science you get: Gorn Toughness, Bite, Conservation of Energy, and Creative; for Tactical you get: Gorn Toughness, Accurate, Bite, and Situational Awareness.
Given the lists, you quickly figure out two things: Gorn Toughness is the Species Trait (they kindly put that first) and the ones you have never seen on Holodeck must be the new class traits. So, given the process of elimination, all Gorn have access to Techie, Creative, and Accurate as optional traits.
Ok, so on Holodeck you have a Gorn Tactical melee machine; after all, you are a giant reptile that Bites the heck out of anything that looks tasty, so obviously they kept Reptilian Strength too. So, maybe you'll make a Gorn Science captain this time; self healing, plus Gorn Toughness, Bite, and Reptilian Strength and you'll be able to eat Borg Drones!
So, the devs did pick some pre-selected traits for you, but no worries, just make the Gorn and respec in the game... and one fancy cutscene later you hit the Respec Traits button. Now to choose your traits: there's Bite, and Medical Vanguard looks useful, and... where's Reptilian Strength? Gorn on Holodeck have +17.5% to Physical Damage and Knockback from Reptilian Strength, so shouldn't you have access to at least the Physical Strength trait for +15%? So, you scroll through the list... up, down, up again... nada.
I know, too verbose, but you get the idea right? If you at the very least had a list of eligible traits, if not the original trait selection that shows you what you can choose from, this wouldn't be a problem... but we have neither.
(Species) Gorn Toughness
(Space) Accurate, Astrophysicist, Conservation of Energy, Techie, Warp Theorist, and Photonic Capacitor
(Ground) Acute Senses, Aggressive, Bite, Covert, Creative, Field Researcher, Lucky, Medical Vanguard, Peak Health, Soldier, Stubborn, Sturdy, and Sure Footed.
Now THAT is a fair point! Since the information is hidden from us during character creation, the only way an experienced player can decide on a race from an "planning ahead" point of view is to have another window open in the background with the traits available per species...once someone gets around to making one, of course. Until then, you just have to guess what might be available...or create a character, get far enough to check their available traits, delete, repeat.
I'm not underestimating their intelligence, it's simply that a completely new player CAN'T know the proper value of each trait for their character up front; they don't yet have the experience with the mechanics of the game yet to know how much they'll be using a given attribute...if they even understand what that attribute does.
Think for a moment like someone who's never played STO before...
"+10% Exploit damage...so...uh...what's an exploit? Do I use that a lot? Ummm...."
When I was creating my first character, I had no idea what exploit was. It wasn't until my fourth character (my main, now) that I finally had a solid setup to generate tons of exposes for me to exploit. This trait would have gone to waste on my first character, but will be a welcome bonus on my main. [Edit: characters 2 and 3 didn't get much playtime.]
"+10 base hull regeneration...okay, so that's probably your ship's hit points...and hit point regeneration is good, right?"
...little do they know that base hull repair rate is so negligible in the first place that this trait is useless (I might be misremembering this trait).
"+10 to stealth on the ground? Ooh, my science officer's supposed to be a healer, it'd be good for him to be able to stealth occasionally to hide from aggro, or provide heals from stealth!"
And since they didn't roll a tac, they will NEVER use stealth on the ground. Oops.
And so on, and so on.
I guess what I'm trying to say is "don't underestimate YOUR experience." You've learned a lot about the game, what works, what doesn't, what skills and traits will or will not benefit a given character, what mechanics a given character will make use of, etc.. You've gained a lot of experience to inform your trait decisions, and without that experience, a new player is simply guessing blindly at the value of any given skill or trait for your build.
It's a piece of customization that has been moved from character creation to post-character-creation. "Removing it from the game" as you claim would mean removing traits entirely, or locking it down so you never get any choice in your traits, ever. Again, they gave you the token so you have exactly as many opportunities to select your traits as you did before; it's just a shift of WHEN you do it.
That being said...yeah, customizing your character during creation IS one of the cool bits in creating a new character, even if for a new game you don't yet understand how everything works in. STO has no stats to "roll", it's simply a straight shot Faction -> Species -> Class -> Costume, with no tweaking of ANYTHING...til you get to the costume. And that's irksome.
Obviously, none of this is going to be changed before tomorrow, but here's one possible way to do this in a future update (although I fear this may not be compatible with their all-in-one-screen character creator):
When setting up the character, give them their racial trait and a choice of TWO traits up front; flag the currently mandatory ones as "Recommended" for their current species/class combination; all available traits for that species/class combo will be listed, with a bit of extra information available to new players (e.g. "you will receive a total of 9 trait slots over the course of your career," "+10% ground stealth NOTE: Science officers are unable to use skills that let them stealth)". When they reach a certain point in the tutorial (I'm thinking the Flotilla for Romulans, just after the arena for Klingons, haven't rolled a new Fed in a long time, so not sure), they're directed to a trait trainer who gives them more info on the various traits and the stats they represent, maybe gives some build advice, and then unlocks their next two trait slots. FINALLY, at the level 20 promotion, they're given a free trait respec token; by then, they should have a much better idea of the value of their traits and be able to rebuild more towards their tastes. The trait trainer should mention that this is coming with the level 20 promotion so that the player knows they have a respec coming. Or heck, the trainer at the end of the tutorial just gives them their respec up front and trusts people not to waste it. There's arguments for either way.
Thoughts?
Don't care.
Hey you asked :P
Its not like trait choice really exists anyway.
Everyone is going to have as many of the following as possible and probably end up with 1 ground trait once they have them all:
Efficient Captain
Elusive
Accurate
Techie
Warp Theorist
Class Specific Space Trait 1
Class Specific Space Trait 2
Astrophysics
The only real question is are any of the single racial traits worth sacrificing any from that list? e.g Romulans can't get Efficient Captain or Techie but do get +2% crit chance and +5% crit severity. Don't know what from the list Liberated Borg Romulans can get but I suspect they can't choose Romulan Operative (although thinking about it they should be able to) but they do start with what is effectively Efficient Captain.
Honestly, I was considering creating a forum thread once the live version comes out for just that purpose. I do consider it a failing in the new character creation UI that we have lost functionality and clarity (compounded by having 3 "optional" traits pre-selected on our bahalf), but I really don't see the devs bothering to put it back. The Official Trait Revamp Feedback Thread didn't receive a "Sticky" during the Tribble Test Weekend, while the Official Legacy of Romulus Uniform Feedback Thread did... an indicator of priorities. :P
As such, if they haven't at least put a list of eligible traits in character creation, I will likely make a thread that lists them by species later on from doing a create/delete/create/etc cycle... we'll see just how patient I am
This is a long post, I apologize. For the safety of your own account, endure my anxious point of view and finish reading my post. It could save you from losing everything on your account! I love STO and it is not only in danger, SO IS YOUR ACCOUNT ITEMS This is NOT a joke! PLEASE READ
As far as I'm concerned this brakes the whole experience. "Oh he's going too far." Shut up. It's the very reason I joined, and I have the right to an opinion.
FURTHERMORE (although I feel the game is already broken; this is the REALLY big point PLEASE READ: ) my entire account = a years worth of playing and grinding, was somehow DELETED and the support team has -seemingly- purposefully ignored my pleas for help here on the support site.
I even called the customer phone number and stayed on hold OVER AND OVER AGAIN for hours. Only to be COMPLETELY ignored.
So A= The reason I joined the game is now gone (I have no idea how to use a respec either, so hopefully this extra step doesn't kill it for everyone) AND B= Everything I've ever done has been inexplicably erased. And I can't find a reason, nor get help.
I'm a few days from boycotting this game. For those hardcore fans who have such product loyalty that they aren't going to like my post: GROW A BRAIN! Do you REALLY think if this happened to YOU that you wouldn't be blindly angry at this game!?
WE ARE ALL IN DANGER OF BEING ROBBED OF WHAT WE PLAYED OR PAID FOR! The company continues to ignore me. If you would like the game to be saved, let them know they can't allow problematic problems like complete character and item erasing to go ignored and that we want the character creation interface to allow new Alien character created species to be able to choose their traits without having to research WTF it takes to respec AFTER making them, AND STAND BY YOUR FELLOW MAN FOR GOODNESS SAKE and tell them to start helping people who have been wronged before it happens to YOU!
I can hear it now "This guys just some over emotional, Star Trek hating jerk!" All I can say to those who do not support what I am saying is this:
The only thing necessary fort evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. THAT and I hope YOU lose everything you've worked or paid for next, so you can go from hater to a more understanding person. Of COURSE this bothers me! WHY SHOULDN'T IT!?!?!?
I actually am looking forward to any and ALL replies to this. I am PROTECTING Y O U by posting this you know! I want Star Trek Online to endure, and if what happened to me continues on, IT WILL NOT.
Love Star Trek Online and send a support ticket telling them to help people like me already, and to add another tab/window for choosing traits for Alien species from character creation. NOT FOR ME. FOR YOU! Before it's to late and YOU'RE posting a bunch of ignored online support tickets and spending hours on a phone line that also ignores you. DO YOU WANT TO LOSE EVERYTHING? I sure didn't. I SURE DIDN'T.
I'm doing what I can to get what I've lost back, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, I would gladly decline getting all my things back if I KNEW it meant this would NEVER happen to anyone else. Because at least this game would go on and we could enjoy it safely, without the threat of losing everything without them being prompted to give us lost items back!
Help yourselves! Help me! Send them a support ticket demanding my missing account items back, and tell them to put in a tab to choose Alien Traits again! PLEASE BEFORE ITS TOO LATE! I NEED HELP AND THEY WILL NOT RESPOND.