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STO Needs a true reputation system
bhthephoenix
Member Posts: 127 Arc User
Besides getting cool gear, the current reputation system lacks actually gaining something of significance. Also right now every new faction is probably going to end up choosing between Fed and Klingon unless Cryptic makes two factions at once (doubtful).
My idea is that when starting the game you don't start with any faction. If your species is aligned with the federation you can join the federation at start, or you could join the Maqi. Klingons could join the KDF or starfleet. Romulans the Republic or the Empire. Basically each Faction has the option to join the "good guys" or "bad guys". Throughout the game you have the option to do missions or make choices that influence which side you are on. If you attack a klingon outpost maybe you gain reputation in the Tal Shiar but lose Reputation with the federation and KDF.
My idea is that when starting the game you don't start with any faction. If your species is aligned with the federation you can join the federation at start, or you could join the Maqi. Klingons could join the KDF or starfleet. Romulans the Republic or the Empire. Basically each Faction has the option to join the "good guys" or "bad guys". Throughout the game you have the option to do missions or make choices that influence which side you are on. If you attack a klingon outpost maybe you gain reputation in the Tal Shiar but lose Reputation with the federation and KDF.
Post edited by bhthephoenix on
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The Romulan Rep does provide us with new storyline missions and such, it should also be done for Nukara and Omega Rep as well. The reputation should provide us with marks or loot bonuses for Adventure Zones like New Romulus, Nukara Prime, or Defera, with some dilithium grinds and special zones for bosses as well. They should also add a good reward when you add more reputation to your Tier V reps, like some packages of marks, dilithium, and special random items that are unique.
The initial problem with your proposal is that it is going to take a long time for an overhaul, and it is something that Cryptic would've likely add at the START of the game, not post-LoR. It's very impractical to revamp everything to what you specify, and you won't even know that there will be major bugs. PvP, Storylines, and Queues will have to be revamped as well, to handle the new system.
BTW, the Maquis isn't active anymore, they were destroyed during the Dominion War and will not resurface due to the democratic systems of both Cardassia and the Federation.
STAR TREK ONLINE 2?!?
Plz tell me your kidding?
Why would there ever be a 2nd STO? If anything Cryptic and or PW would and should just keep expanding and building onto STO.
"This is Admiral BumBleBush!..Captain of the U.S.S. Prometheus!..I order you to lower your shields and weapons or ill be forced to fire upon you!!!"
"This is Fleet Commander BumBle!..
Vice Admiral of the U.S.S. Prometheus!..
I order you to lower your shields and weapons or ill be forced to fire upon you!!!"
I just don't see being separated into the good guys and bad guys. Star Trek is all about playing the good guys. If Cryptic made the Romulan Republic for our third faction instead of the Romulan Star Empire, then Cryptic doesn't want us to play the "bad guy". If a Cardassian faction comes around, then we won't be able to play as part of the True Way. If a Borg faction comes around, then we won't be able to play as part of the Borg Collective.
...section 31's been around since the founding of the federation. actually, scratch that, its been around since earth starfleet. so it was around in kirk/picards times, they didnt join it for a reason. For picard it would be rather obvious, picards methods are way different than section 31's, so to say he would happily join section 31 would mean that things would have happened majorly differently in his career and he likely would not have been given command of the enterprise.
I was referring to Picard and Kirk joining the opposing and honorable faction rather than joining Section 31. We have not seen any evidence of an actual secretive Starfleet organization that opposes Section 31 and preserves the ideals of the Federation so it might not have been around in Kirk's and Picard's time.
ahh, see your message wasnt clear and i thought you said you thought they would join section 31 if they knew it was around.
1) Too integrated of a system to add on post launch: This is the type of idea you would pitch BEFORE the game is even coded. The ability to chose or float your own faction is a mechanic that has to be introduced when the game is in development, not now.
2) Does not make sense within established Lore For the most part, Starfleet Captains and Klingon Warriors do not drift between ally to ally.
For Starfleet, this is your career, you life's ambition and work to be able to serve the federation on a federation ship as a federation captain. That is something you just give up and lazily drift away from. If you walk away from Starfleet, you are cut off. You are done. You are discharged from service if you leave the military. Also, the whole idea of joining a military branch implies that you have SOME idea of patriotism in you.
For the Klingons, it's worse. With their Warrior society, the mere thought of betraying the Empire would get you executed on the spot.
While this reputation system works and is valid for many other games, it is NOT appropriate for Star Trek. This floating reputation system works best for games involving mercenaries or freelancers, not signed and committed officers.
Even on screen, the KDF were ruthless, even when they were fed allied. But they were not evil.
ST try to be set apart from the good/evil thing. While starfleet are do gooder, some part of Starfleet is not. The Prime Directive tend to be ruthless (let whole civilizations die for example), and it's something that must be done. Section 31 will protect the Federation at any cost. Not to mention the Omega directive. On the other side, KDF are not supposed to be evil. They are warlike, and ruthless, but otherwise, they (usually) have a strong sense of honour, and loyalty.
Also, considering it's mostly a PVE game, I don't see why we need 2sides. Several faction inside the same alliance would be fine. Fighting a great archenemy, or several (Borg, Iconian, Undine,...). PVP would be wargames and holodeck simulation, maybe a monster faction. Basically, you'd play Romulan/fed/kdf, and be part of some MACO-like alliance.
At the risk of sounding bitter and jaded, Star Trek Online 2 in itself sounds like a more interesting idea every day.
Stahl commented on something like that in the same podcast where he gave the official excuse as to why Roms aren't a real faction. He spoke of the hypothetical possibility of them making another game and how that might go if it ever happened.
I really like the idea of a dynamic rep system. If I remeber right, GTA 2 was one of the first games to implement this. It's a pretty cool idea. Imagine you're a Fed Captain and your reputation falls so low with the feds that you are expelled from Starfeet and then have the choice of defecting or trying to clear your name, or whatever, you get the general idea.
No. Your fun makes everyone else's fun wrong by default.
Expansions and new content thanks, nothin is wrong with this game things could be a lot worse
IMO, you want an X by Y grid, so that diplomacy can move in two directions. The X axis can be the main factions--Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Independent. The Y axis can be their general alignment--whether good/evil, lawful/unlawful, peaceful/hostile, whatever. This results in combinations of things like Lawful Federation working with a Lawful Romulan against a gropu of unlawful Marauding Independents who are pirating in the Regulus sector block. Or turn it sideways and you can have things like Lawful Federation fighting a Lawful Klingon, because they are at war with each other.
For simplicity, say there are three reputation levels we'll call friendly, neutral, and hostile (you would want more than 3 but lets keep it simple). You need sub-factions for each main group that provides a point of contact for the lawful, neutral, and unlawful characters. Romulans might have sub-factions for Republic (lawful), Empire (neutral), and Tal Shiar (unlawful), Klingon could have KDF (lawful), Empire (neutral), and Marauders (unlawful), and so forth (need a Fed unlawful of some kind). Then your Klingon Marauder toon can build diplomacy with the other unlawful wings of the other factions, or can build diplomacy with other Klingon sub-factions, or both (to an extent).
Freelancer uses a similar model, and then uses it for things like granting landing rights on a station. From there you are able to buy/sell merchandise that you use for trade runs to other factions' bases, and so forth. Maybe you got some contraband and you want to sell it to the Unlawful Ferengi faction so you build some rep with them. You can even rank up diplomacy and switch faction alignment, switch to flying their ships, and so forth. Diplomacy is really tightly integrated into that game.
I dont think it could be used to the same effect here. It would be useful for things like gaining access privs to starbases (ie, Lawful Fed gets access to New Romulus Command Center), and could be useful for things like weapons and consoles and such that are only sold on specific faction bases. But then you run out of game content pretty quick. There are no commodities that you cannot replicate and the player base would be grumpy if there was, so you cant do complex trade routes. DOFFing is the only other semi-complex system in the game. There's no dynamic fights in the game, so your unlawful Klingon isnt going to get ambushed by Lawful Romulans anywhere. The PVP system cant handle anything except Red vs Blue teams. So yeah it would be a nice feature to have, and probably not that hard to implement (relative to other content), but then what?
In fact it would add the one thing that everybody hates already -- Rep Grinding. You'd need new rep systems for each sub-faction so you could tweak your alignments, so maybe your Romulan wants stuff from the Klingon Unlawful sub-faction so he has to do the rep grind to get it. And you already have rep systems like Omega and Nukara that would need to be reworked. What do you do about the passive abilities, expand them to each new grind or wipe them out? Yeah, its a rage-fest in the making.
STO needs more CONTENT, particularly endgame content. At this point my character has Tier V on Nukara/Rom/Omega. So I have no reason save ennui to do anything but Fleet Alert, Azure Nebula Rescue or The Vault.