test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Options
4th Faction Feasible?
flash525
Member Posts: 5,441 Arc User
And yes, this is another topic on the possibility of a 4th faction, though unlike most of those currently running, and unlike the typical ones I usually start up, I'm here this time not asking who it should be, but rather asking, should it be done.
People that post here frequently should be familiar with me, I have a distinct opinion on most things within the game (whether shared or not) and was pretty vocal about the lack of an independent Romulan Faction following the release of LoR. Since then though, I've been quite vocal about my desire for a Cardassian faction. Until today.
At the moment we've three factions (or, two factions and a fraction (for those of you that wish to be precise)). Regardless of whether Cryptic do one more faction, or whether they do another three, four, five plus; each time a further addition to the game comes to pass in the way of a faction/fraction that is taking away from current content.
The LoR release was primarily about giving players the Romulans, and that we got. The Klingons also got some reworked missions, a new tutorial, and low-level content. The Federation however got nothing. Should we get a 4th Faction (be that Cardassian or otherwise) it's likely that the only other faction/fraction to get touched in terms of content would be the Romulans.
My point here is, for every new faction that is released, older and current ones are going to suffer. The Cryptic team is only so big, and can't focus on each faction every time they get a nice big update or season underway; the more factions that exist in the game, the more diluted the playerbase will become, and the less content each faction will get per each seasonal update.
Thus I ask the question, would we rather see a 4th faction (quite possibly resulting in a lack of content for older/existing factions), or would we rather see Cryptic focus on the three factions that we have (maybe turning the third independent in the process)?
People that post here frequently should be familiar with me, I have a distinct opinion on most things within the game (whether shared or not) and was pretty vocal about the lack of an independent Romulan Faction following the release of LoR. Since then though, I've been quite vocal about my desire for a Cardassian faction. Until today.
At the moment we've three factions (or, two factions and a fraction (for those of you that wish to be precise)). Regardless of whether Cryptic do one more faction, or whether they do another three, four, five plus; each time a further addition to the game comes to pass in the way of a faction/fraction that is taking away from current content.
The LoR release was primarily about giving players the Romulans, and that we got. The Klingons also got some reworked missions, a new tutorial, and low-level content. The Federation however got nothing. Should we get a 4th Faction (be that Cardassian or otherwise) it's likely that the only other faction/fraction to get touched in terms of content would be the Romulans.
My point here is, for every new faction that is released, older and current ones are going to suffer. The Cryptic team is only so big, and can't focus on each faction every time they get a nice big update or season underway; the more factions that exist in the game, the more diluted the playerbase will become, and the less content each faction will get per each seasonal update.
Thus I ask the question, would we rather see a 4th faction (quite possibly resulting in a lack of content for older/existing factions), or would we rather see Cryptic focus on the three factions that we have (maybe turning the third independent in the process)?
Post edited by flash525 on
0
Comments
But, I think that while content may come out slower, for the existing factions, if a new one is made, it doesn't necessarily mean less. It only means less, if you decide to NOT play as a member of that new faction.
As far as "diluting" the player base, I think that point is pretty moot. We have some that like 1 faction over the others. Some like 2 factions over the others. Some like all 3. Some like only tac's.....(you get my point, lol)
Some like ground, some like sapce, some like both.
Pretty much any category of something that can be liked or disliked, and you'll often have at 3 "player-types", often more. So it's pretty well shot on the dilution point.
So, I feel that a 4th faction/sub-faction is feasible, on those points. But honestly, I'd rather see a season's worth of update time given more to, balancing old ships/equipment a bit better (especially a slight re-vamp of the pre-existing ships compared to the ones that have come out with the last year or so.) More STFs and F/A's. Rework the AI a bit. Implement more consequences for your ship exploding. Maybe implement a more immersive economy, such as having to deal with the logistics a bit, of storing x amount of ships in your personal shipyard. More & better crafting possibilities (or more accurately, I would call it manufacturing in this game, lol). Maybe make the ship classes a little different from each other (like the various classes that comprise the "Heavy Cruiser", or "Heavy Escort"), as right now, no matter what ship class you pick, it performs identical to the others, it's only an aesthetic choice currently.
butcher suspect, "What'd you hit me with?"
Temperance Brennan, "A building"
---
My character Tsin'xing
Buuut... the devs would have to not only make sure the dialog from the all-faction missions matches the context from the perspective from a member from the 4th faction, but they'd also have to provide content for the 4th faction for every faction-shared thing they do. A 4th faction's ship for featured eps with fac-specific ships. Unique equipment for fac-specific rep projects(like MACO/KHG armor). Anniversary stuff. Etc. On top of making everything within the faction like starbases, uniforms, etc.
It's not like it's improbable. In fact I think it's inevitable. But it's a HUEG undertaking. I wouldn't expect it till at least next summer.
Helpful Tools: Dictionary.com - Logical fallacies - Random generator - Word generator - Color tool - Extra Credits - List of common English language errors - New T6 Big booty tutorial
As for PvE it adds more variety in leveling up and unique endgame even though its the same basic content. I quite enjoy fed and KDF and my 2 aligned romulans as each faction has different skillsets and are stronger in one way and weaker in another. So if I get bored with one i swap to another.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
Unless they can redo the Romulans, and then make all future factions "full" instead of the current romulan "half(-[censored]ed)" style, no. Real, actual factions, or don't even insult our intelligence again.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
I would prefer strengthening the existing game for now, finish the city on New Romulus, make use of dead content in the game (patrols, DSE's, exploration clusters, crafting), add the alpha quadrant sectors for Trill, Betazed, Ferenginar, etc. Foundry is nice but without meaningful rewards and lots of demand elsewhere for marks, etc, there just isn't time for it. If there is a new faction I won't complain, but I think there are better things to do right now.
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
The Dominion/jem hadar/vorta/founders
These Voth characters...........................
liberated borg like hugh....cubes no more liike hughs ship as class leader scimitar size
The Ferengi
All of these races already have ships in the game and would be easy to Add just like the Romulans were added
They just need home sectors about 4 sectors away from everyone else so there are contested zone to explore and colonize
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
- Judge Aaron Satie
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10052253
Why are you not rejoicing?
Launch them with a single featured episode that explains why the race in question joined the respective faction. Add a collection of free race specific ships to the shipyards and that is all you need.
Perhaps doing it like this would also prompt the dev team to update the older Fed and featured episodic content, that stuff is really starting to show its age now.
Meaning, not aligned with the Fed/KDF.
And then, probably might not happen at all if Rommies don't become their own.
Then there is the matter of including unique content for each faction,
not to mention the reworking of PVE/PVP queues...
So, in retrospect, it probably won't happen any time soon. That is if it did happen at all.
I'll have to say though that it would be interesting to see it happen.
Ew no. :mad:
To release another faction you need at the very least:
* New character models and costumes
* A new tutorial
* new voice overs
* possibly a few unique missions including a faction select mission (in rommie fashion)
* 2 or 3 ships for every tier plus a selection of store ships of different types - these are problematic in trying to also find unique console powers and effects
Add on a short faction specific storyline to catchup with the others and you have a lot of manpower needed to do anything. As time goes on the catchup ship requirements increase and lockbox releases make it less likely a faction will appear at all.
Still should they include a trade alliance faction with the Ferengi D'kora in it I am all there in a flash.
Still waiting to be able to use forum titles
There are a plethora of long standing bugs and problems that have gone untouched in this game that need to be fixed and every single damn time they add something new they somehow break a bunch of other things, no, we do not need another aborted faction.
We need errors fixed, graphical and otherwise, exploration enhanced, crafting reworked, pvp redesigned, and the KDF and Romulan brought up to parity with the Federation for content long before we should even think about a 4th faction.
I prefer that to "good" Cardassians or Ferengi that abandoned the way of profit like they did with the Romulans just so nobody has to play an "evil" character. I don't care what they do with their own designs but I really don't want any more Star Trek people that are literally NOTHING like, well, the Star Trek people.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Even if they're purchase-only, I would love to get some interior options for the Orion, Vulcan and Gorn ships. Likewise, I'd be more interested in seeing some new Vulcan and Ferasan ships instead of a dozen new Cardassian/whichever ships.
I'm not saying I never want to see another new 'faction', just not next year(would rather have an 'expansion' centered around a brand new exploration system). I think it's a bit too soon.
This is honestly how I would do it. I know why people want a Cardassian faction, I do, but even the game background/lore says that the Cardies are fairly close to joining the Federation. Release an episode about it happening, and let it unlock the race. You could have something in the episode be about a rogue group splitting off to the Klingons, too, or the Klingons could get their own race, like... Jem'hadar, or Hirogen.
This. You can't make a 4th faction until you have a 3rd faction, which we don't. No more fractions passed off as factions, thank you very much.
Bottom line: No, a 4th faction isn't feasible. Hell, a 3rd one wasn't and they did it anyway, which just proves why they shouldn't even try a 4th.
so the roms had to choose who to make an alliance with big deal, what difference did that make to the actual game content.
so after you worked through the content of the main story line all the missions were the same as some that had been done by the fed characters.
if this is your measure for half a faction or a fraction as you call it then surly isn't the Klingon faction also a fraction as many of the story missions that were played as a Klingon were also repeats of federation missions.
and at the end of the day once you hit level 50 and your just doing reps the faction that you belong to becomes somewhat irrelevant, the only minor difference being that you cannot form a team with players from the opposition, but then when you do a pve mission like for example stf`s with a random group you quite often find feds and roms and Klingons all fighting on the same side anyway.
personally I welcome another fraction (most likely cardies) as we will get loads of new story missions as we did with legacy and hopefully lots of new content for feds kdf and roms to play through as happened with nimbus 3 as that was a part of the legacy update and hopefully some new reps to go with it, and I would quite like to have him make an alliance with the Klingons as my rom made an alliance with the feds.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
For a very long time STO was almost exclusively Federation oriented with KDF given paltry attention. No one was even considering Romulans other than getting access to their ships. It took years to get the Klingon faction to the level it is today and there is still a hell of a lot that could be done and the Romulan fraction with it's nonsensical alliance system that pits Romulan against Romulan is just ridiculous. We've done nothing to explore the member races of the Federation, the Klingons and it's member races could use a lot more work and we aren't even touching the surface of what could or should be done with the Romulans.
There have only been 3 major empires in the franchise, Federation, Klingon and Romulan all the rest have only ever been side stories by side characters. The Dominion could count as a fourth but the fact of its remoteness makes it an unlikely contender with the other three that border on each other.
We can ask the developers to concentrate on refining and improving what already exists, or ask them to spread themselves thin providing a bunch of buggy new material so we can have another incomplete excuse for a faction. I would much prefer they do the former than the later.