We already have HP bar, we can die and respawn, see our ship being destroyed and respawn. We have thousands of admiral running everywhere, but much less lower ranks.
I see Klingons scanning space rabbits for their new Romulan friends. I have more DOFFs than my ship have crew. I see people with dozens of injuries, some of them criticals, and they still fight, run, and talk like there is nothing wrong, instead of being crippled and scream of pain. I fight Trex with lazerz, and evolved hadrosaurus (of all the dinosaurs).
There are Scimitars with thalaron weapons orbiting Earth, Jem'hadar ships around Qo'nos, and Fed captain attacking a medical facility following the orders of an obvious infiltrated Undine. Same captain that will attack a Romulan fleet around their new homeworld, as a preventive strike for what may (or may not) happen.
I use the transporter when I'm in a turbolift. I can use a strange discoball that will make everyone dance around me. Or a strange game that will affect luck (!). But it's not compatible from some bonus I have when petting a tribble. I don't know, it's like petting a cat and suddenly feeling I can take more injuries than before, or do more damage.
I can see a lot of Shpocks, Spokz, Shepard and Enterprize, Normandy around.
Everytime I want to change sector space, I have a loading screen, and people can see me disappear on one side, and appear on the other side.
Everytime I log off, I also disappear, and reappear when logging on.
But yeah, I agree, seeing ship disappear and reappear could definitely break immersion and realism. :rolleyes:
Realism and immersion is something you can't have in a MMO. People around you will break it. You can either ignore him and play your way.
Player behavior is a well known quantity, fortunately it is much easier to keep all other things in line. This is not about life like realism, it is about MMORPG behvior, you could say. They need to behave better than people, sometimes. There will always be silly mechanics in them, but that is as they say, part of the genre. What we do know, is that there need to be some pretty compelling Star Trek material in there, or player behavior will not be the problem it should be, anymore.
Personally, I think the larger problems with this would go away if they just jettisoned sector space entirely and maybe repurposed a few sectors or sector assets like the Dyson Sphere zones.
See, this is what I was talking about before. This design decision alone does not make much of a difference, but step by step we're walking the path towards this that stoleviathan99 said here. That's what worries me.
And now we even have players suggesting and supporting this. :eek: Not adressing it personally at you leviathan, I've seen this suggestion come up many times before.
As I said before, my position on this is very clear - a Star Trek game without open space is nothing short of a complete and utter fail.
I can see a lot of Shpocks, Spokz, Shepard and Enterprize, Normandy around.
I'm not sure if this was somehow adressed at me, probably wasn't, but just wanted to make it clear anyway that my forum name is not a derivate of Spock the Vulcan, but rather the closest description of my actual IRL nickname since it's quite different where I live, we don't even use the same alphabet. So it has nothing to do with Spock, I'm not that shallow.
See, this is what I was talking about before. This design decision alone does not make much of a difference, but step by step we're walking the path towards this that stoleviathan99 said here. That's what worries me.
And now we even have players suggesting and supporting this. :eek: Not adressing it personally at you leviathan, I've seen this suggestion come up many times before.
As I said before, my position on this is very clear - a Star Trek game without open space is nothing short of a complete and utter fail.
I'm not sure if this was somehow adressed at me, probably wasn't, but just wanted to make it clear anyway that my forum name is not a derivate of Spock the Vulcan, but rather the closest description of my actual IRL nickname since it's quite different where I live, we don't even use the same alphabet. So it has nothing to do with Spock, I'm not that shallow.
I sort of agreed that they could change the "style" of the maps, but with the movement intact. Without any kind of Trekking, I would feel very disappointed. And a plain removal without any replacement is just like putting us into a lobby with random action maps. I would very much not like that. :P
If I had an EC for every Raistlin they had in Ultima Online, well... I could probably have bought you all several rounds of Romulan Ale. That would have solved all our problems for sure. Until tomorrow at least.
Is there anyone whose No. 1 request for this game is the ability to hot swap ships in sector space?
Leave it to Cryptic to once again scrape the bottom of the barrel for ways to waste development time/resources fixing things that aren't broken, have nothing to do with respecting lore and negatively impact immersion.
Am I wrong? I'm open to a rational argument to help me see the other side of this.
Anyone out there who has nothing they would rather see done before this?
Who among us has "change ships in sector space" as one of their top requests for this game.
Also, I have not played in a while. Last I knew every time you change ships you have to reassign all of your hot bar buttons.
Will this change to "swap ships in sector space" also come with a way to save the hot bar load out for each ship so that you don't have so reassign? (or has that already been fixed and I missed it).
If we still have to reassign I would think that that was a way higher priority than changing in sector space so that the rest of us see ships traveling along magically change form because their owners are to lazy to visit one of the many hubs in game.
I will be happy to eat my words if the save hot bar feature is already in game or to praise Cryptic if it turns out this is already in development and planned to be released on/before sector swapping.
I agree with dahminus... wasn't on the top of my list... but I like the idea very much... for the exact same reasons.. different ships for PvE, PvP, and NWS.
I am more excited about being able to save loadouts, boff tray layouts, etc... I think this "hot swap" of ships may have grown out of that.
I think an awful lot of peoples' #1 request was for smarter ship configuration, as in, retention of boff and tray layouts through changes to boff order/ship order. I also think a lot of the developers who play their own game wanted that, as well, because the problems with it were obvious and annoying. And I think that a side-effect of fixing those problems (fingers crossed) allowed them to enable ship swapping anywhere.
So I think that you're looking at the fix for one thing allowing them to do another thing pretty much for free. And you're getting upset over that, why?
Yes, i think hot bar is a part of it. the whole point of this is swapping ships is a pain. not the ship swapping itself but all the problems that come with it. what this does, as far as i understand it is allow you to have multiple ships preset up so that swapping is easier and you cant get straight back into the action with minimal fuss. No need to reasign boffs, doffs and powers. you can also have different builds for a ship, so one could be pvp focused, while another could be pve focused etc.
the ability to swap in sector space is just one aspect of it to make it even easier. its not the main point of it.
it is of course totally optional and no one is forced to use it. will we see people magically change ships in sector space? maybe (i suspect it will actually happen from your bridge). but we have seen people magically appear and disappear in sector space when they change zones or instance for 4 years, so that argument kind of falls over.
i have heard a ton of people complain about swapping ships and the numerous problems that it throws up, and the desire to have multiple builds that can be swapped in and out quickly.
is it my number one desire? no, not really but its up there. however unless you poll everyone all the time, on every department of development you will never know what the number one issue is. even if you can find the highest rated desire, it does not mean the majority actually wants it either. you can win a poll but have the combined losers still out number the people who wanted it.
Well, I know that EEPH mentioned swapping in sector space recently.
Good points about switching ships if you tend to have different builds on different ships and jump between different types of content frequently.
I do hope that for the sake of immersion/lore they, if they do implement this, they will provide an animation during the switch that shows the old ship warping out and the new ship warping in -- not just ships magically changing form like I said up top.
As far as saving the hot bar I don't have any information on this. I would have thought that developing and implementing that tech smoothly would have had priority over hot swapping ships.
Personally, I never got in the habit of swapping ships for different content. I didn't think it was worth it since I knew I was going to have to reassign my buttons every time.
If/when we can save hot bars, then I can see looking into hot swapping ships (with appropriate warp animations) -- but only then.
But for now, Hot swapping ships -- officially a possibility in the near term.
Saving hot bar load outs -- nothing official that I know of. So far I am just speculating -- pure rumor starting on my part -- about saving load outs. If anyone has any real information on if/when saving load outs has been talked about maybe they can post here?
A lot of people are defending it, so they must be on the right track. Can think of a few more important things to keep my interest in this game going. Like more story, less bugs, and a way to get Romulan DOFFs that doesn't involve having to routinely ditch a bunch of Acamarians, Orions, Tellarites, and what-have-you-not sneaking aboard, while assembling a clone army of former Tal Shiar agents in order to secretly take over the world.
But that is just me. Others, they like their Starships pulled out from their own little pocket universe.
I imagine that adding the ability to swap ships is relatively easy - Pretty much just bring up the menu to change ships via a button, rather than an NPC.
I see this complaint akin to one the beginning of December(ish) that complained that Cryptic were releasing too many bug patches...
I imagine that adding the ability to swap ships is relatively easy - Pretty much just bring up the menu to change ships via a button, rather than an NPC.
I see this complaint akin to one the beginning of December(ish) that complained that Cryptic were releasing too many bug patches...
What would a MMORPG be without excessive button pressing in order to make everything happen at once. Some kind of environment, where you interacted with stuff? *Other* than buttons?
What would a MMORPG be without excessive button pressing in order to make everything happen at once. Some kind of environment, where you interacted with stuff? *Other* than buttons?
Pretty happy with this myself : dont really care/need the ability to swap them out in sector space, its more the feature of it actually remembering BO/UI and ship builds. ( as long as it works )
As it stands, i have so many ships that i love : current system is such a pain that i even have a couple of alts that exist for the sole reason of flying a specifically themed ship/crew
This way? i can swap my ship every STF if so desire, with a downtime of a click or two? great!
I strongly doubt it was anyone's #1 concern; however, that doesn't mean it wasn't on anyone's radar. And a brief browse through the forums will show that there isn't any one issue that's everybody's #1; might as well pick something they can do, and that will please a number of people (including me, as it happens).
As a comparative matter, when they did the Dyson stuff, there was a survey as to which DQ foe folks wanted to see. Voth placed on the list; I don't think they were #1 on more than a few lists, but they were there on a lot of lists at a lower place. (Personally, I voted for Kazon, because I actually think the species had unexplored potential, but obviously I was in the minority.)
It wasn't the most important thing but having to go all the way to the shipyard place just to change my ship and then to have to look around my other ships and banks for the stuff I need and then to have to assign it in space? Annoying.
We have been complaining about the hotbar shifting around when you change ships.
Perhaps while testing a fix for this they made this to make it easier to debug and test than constantly landing/switching/launching.
Either that or the function was always there and they decided "hey, while we're at it let's just let them do this as well."
Also someone mentioned it may be tied to some of the new pvp stuff.
Either way it is kind of neat, and probably didn't take much to implement.
Wow, some people really will complain about everything.
Look, I get that some are worried about "immersion", and others are worried that the public zones are becoming ghost towns. But those are two separate issues, not directly related to swapping ships.
We can't have tens of thousands of Admirals whipping around blowing up the same ships in the same instances over and over and an MMO world where changes only "stick" until the next player comes along, and then start drawing the line at "believeability". That's simply not possible in this sort of game.
What this change means: I can be in the Dyson Sphere, and ask to queue up for PvE with a friend/fleetmate and not have to hold up the team for ten minutes while I transwarp and run halfway around ESD. I don't have to worry about how recently I've transwarped at all.
What this change means: I have more reason to actually fly the ships I have, hence I'm likely to buy more ship slots.
What this change means: If my team needs a Tank and I'm in an Escort for solo, it's a one-minute switch instead of a ten-minute delay.
What this change DOES NOT mean: The line of immersion is eradicated and you can no longer play the game. Sorry, that doesn't work. There are already a hundred little things in the game that should "break immersion" for you. Multiple clones of Duty Officers on your ship? Check. Respawn in 15 seconds? Check. You want a true space RPG? They call that "EVE Online".
As for the argument that "Because people get this, they'll want that, and then these, and them THAT!!"? Yeah, that's called a "slippery slope". And it's a logical fallacy. Meaning it's illogical and won't hold up to scrutiny. Really? You see someone saving five minutes' time to change ships as equivalent to free gear and ships and a "level me up" button? Then the problem lies with you.
Look, if you wanna roleplay, fine. Do it. But don't pretend like your desire to play the game in a non-standard way should prevent others from getting improvements they ask for. You don't have to eat the cake if you don't like cake. But stop calling people whiners, or complainers, or lazy, or "fake" trekkies because of this. Stop projecting your own values onto other people. It's insulting, and it's dishonest.
Me? I'm stoked. I've already tried out the quick-inventory system on Tribble, and it's fantastic. This, too, will make the game more pleasurable to play, keep people in queues more, get people playing. ESD will stop being the go-to ship-swap hub, because every player can TW to it. Meaning ESD will be a more calm place--easier to role-play in.
If you're concerned about the lack of hub-specific content, that's okay too. But instead of asking that an inconvenience remain to keep people there (against their will, no less), why not instead ask for new, creative, inventive things to do in said hubs. Someone mentioned using the lower levels of ESD for some unique missions--I think that's fantastic. Maybe add buffs or debuffs depending on if you queue for a PvE or PvP from a particular hub. Maybe add temporary unique modifications that you can only get from one Hub, that wear off over time and/or can be replaced? Say, visit DS9 to get an overboost to Polaron weapons, or visit ESD for a phaser boost, etc, etc.
Ask for improvements, don't poo-poo improvements other people want and you don't happen to like. If the hubs are barren and lifeless, then figure out a way to make them less so. Our fleet has ESD Dance Parties, and DS9 Meetups--heck, initiate a gambling ring in a Ferengi hub somewhere--the mechanics to roll a die exist in game, use them. The game is there for you to play, it's your own fault if you can't think of a reason to do so.
I, for one, really look forward to this. Is it testable in Tribble/Redshirt? Which am I supposed to be using anyway? If so, how do I activate the functionality (I can't find it)?
Comments
Player behavior is a well known quantity, fortunately it is much easier to keep all other things in line. This is not about life like realism, it is about MMORPG behvior, you could say. They need to behave better than people, sometimes. There will always be silly mechanics in them, but that is as they say, part of the genre. What we do know, is that there need to be some pretty compelling Star Trek material in there, or player behavior will not be the problem it should be, anymore.
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See, this is what I was talking about before. This design decision alone does not make much of a difference, but step by step we're walking the path towards this that stoleviathan99 said here. That's what worries me.
And now we even have players suggesting and supporting this. :eek: Not adressing it personally at you leviathan, I've seen this suggestion come up many times before.
As I said before, my position on this is very clear - a Star Trek game without open space is nothing short of a complete and utter fail.
I'm not sure if this was somehow adressed at me, probably wasn't, but just wanted to make it clear anyway that my forum name is not a derivate of Spock the Vulcan, but rather the closest description of my actual IRL nickname since it's quite different where I live, we don't even use the same alphabet. So it has nothing to do with Spock, I'm not that shallow.
I sort of agreed that they could change the "style" of the maps, but with the movement intact. Without any kind of Trekking, I would feel very disappointed. And a plain removal without any replacement is just like putting us into a lobby with random action maps. I would very much not like that. :P
If I had an EC for every Raistlin they had in Ultima Online, well... I could probably have bought you all several rounds of Romulan Ale. That would have solved all our problems for sure. Until tomorrow at least.
---
Leave it to Cryptic to once again scrape the bottom of the barrel for ways to waste development time/resources fixing things that aren't broken, have nothing to do with respecting lore and negatively impact immersion.
Am I wrong? I'm open to a rational argument to help me see the other side of this.
Anyone out there who has nothing they would rather see done before this?
Who among us has "change ships in sector space" as one of their top requests for this game.
Also, I have not played in a while. Last I knew every time you change ships you have to reassign all of your hot bar buttons.
Will this change to "swap ships in sector space" also come with a way to save the hot bar load out for each ship so that you don't have so reassign? (or has that already been fixed and I missed it).
If we still have to reassign I would think that that was a way higher priority than changing in sector space so that the rest of us see ships traveling along magically change form because their owners are to lazy to visit one of the many hubs in game.
I will be happy to eat my words if the save hot bar feature is already in game or to praise Cryptic if it turns out this is already in development and planned to be released on/before sector swapping.
-S2
But ya, it isn't #1 for me. Mine is to have a choice of which armor set visuals I want displayed on my ship...
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
I am more excited about being able to save loadouts, boff tray layouts, etc... I think this "hot swap" of ships may have grown out of that.
Star Trek Online, Now with out the Trek....
As for the build template save/load option, that's better.
So I think that you're looking at the fix for one thing allowing them to do another thing pretty much for free. And you're getting upset over that, why?
The favorite child of a PWE executive maybe?
the ability to swap in sector space is just one aspect of it to make it even easier. its not the main point of it.
it is of course totally optional and no one is forced to use it. will we see people magically change ships in sector space? maybe (i suspect it will actually happen from your bridge). but we have seen people magically appear and disappear in sector space when they change zones or instance for 4 years, so that argument kind of falls over.
i have heard a ton of people complain about swapping ships and the numerous problems that it throws up, and the desire to have multiple builds that can be swapped in and out quickly.
is it my number one desire? no, not really but its up there. however unless you poll everyone all the time, on every department of development you will never know what the number one issue is. even if you can find the highest rated desire, it does not mean the majority actually wants it either. you can win a poll but have the combined losers still out number the people who wanted it.
Good points about switching ships if you tend to have different builds on different ships and jump between different types of content frequently.
I do hope that for the sake of immersion/lore they, if they do implement this, they will provide an animation during the switch that shows the old ship warping out and the new ship warping in -- not just ships magically changing form like I said up top.
As far as saving the hot bar I don't have any information on this. I would have thought that developing and implementing that tech smoothly would have had priority over hot swapping ships.
Personally, I never got in the habit of swapping ships for different content. I didn't think it was worth it since I knew I was going to have to reassign my buttons every time.
If/when we can save hot bars, then I can see looking into hot swapping ships (with appropriate warp animations) -- but only then.
But for now, Hot swapping ships -- officially a possibility in the near term.
Saving hot bar load outs -- nothing official that I know of. So far I am just speculating -- pure rumor starting on my part -- about saving load outs. If anyone has any real information on if/when saving load outs has been talked about maybe they can post here?
-S2
But that is just me. Others, they like their Starships pulled out from their own little pocket universe.
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Where on earth is the rage about the APB or Biochemist nerfs? I expected GD to be flooded with them.
My character Tsin'xing
I didn't realize that we had enough on 8.5 patch notes...mind showing me a link?
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
My character Tsin'xing
I see this complaint akin to one the beginning of December(ish) that complained that Cryptic were releasing too many bug patches...
What would a MMORPG be without excessive button pressing in order to make everything happen at once. Some kind of environment, where you interacted with stuff? *Other* than buttons?
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My character Tsin'xing
Will have to save them up for a longcoat then. Thanks. :P
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free jkname
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
As it stands, i have so many ships that i love : current system is such a pain that i even have a couple of alts that exist for the sole reason of flying a specifically themed ship/crew
This way? i can swap my ship every STF if so desire, with a downtime of a click or two? great!
As a comparative matter, when they did the Dyson stuff, there was a survey as to which DQ foe folks wanted to see. Voth placed on the list; I don't think they were #1 on more than a few lists, but they were there on a lot of lists at a lower place. (Personally, I voted for Kazon, because I actually think the species had unexplored potential, but obviously I was in the minority.)
Granted, I never read or heard anyone in game who specifically asked for this, but it is still a welcome feature imo.
We have been complaining about the hotbar shifting around when you change ships.
Perhaps while testing a fix for this they made this to make it easier to debug and test than constantly landing/switching/launching.
Either that or the function was always there and they decided "hey, while we're at it let's just let them do this as well."
Also someone mentioned it may be tied to some of the new pvp stuff.
Either way it is kind of neat, and probably didn't take much to implement.
Look, I get that some are worried about "immersion", and others are worried that the public zones are becoming ghost towns. But those are two separate issues, not directly related to swapping ships.
We can't have tens of thousands of Admirals whipping around blowing up the same ships in the same instances over and over and an MMO world where changes only "stick" until the next player comes along, and then start drawing the line at "believeability". That's simply not possible in this sort of game.
What this change means: I can be in the Dyson Sphere, and ask to queue up for PvE with a friend/fleetmate and not have to hold up the team for ten minutes while I transwarp and run halfway around ESD. I don't have to worry about how recently I've transwarped at all.
What this change means: I have more reason to actually fly the ships I have, hence I'm likely to buy more ship slots.
What this change means: If my team needs a Tank and I'm in an Escort for solo, it's a one-minute switch instead of a ten-minute delay.
What this change DOES NOT mean: The line of immersion is eradicated and you can no longer play the game. Sorry, that doesn't work. There are already a hundred little things in the game that should "break immersion" for you. Multiple clones of Duty Officers on your ship? Check. Respawn in 15 seconds? Check. You want a true space RPG? They call that "EVE Online".
As for the argument that "Because people get this, they'll want that, and then these, and them THAT!!"? Yeah, that's called a "slippery slope". And it's a logical fallacy. Meaning it's illogical and won't hold up to scrutiny. Really? You see someone saving five minutes' time to change ships as equivalent to free gear and ships and a "level me up" button? Then the problem lies with you.
Look, if you wanna roleplay, fine. Do it. But don't pretend like your desire to play the game in a non-standard way should prevent others from getting improvements they ask for. You don't have to eat the cake if you don't like cake. But stop calling people whiners, or complainers, or lazy, or "fake" trekkies because of this. Stop projecting your own values onto other people. It's insulting, and it's dishonest.
Me? I'm stoked. I've already tried out the quick-inventory system on Tribble, and it's fantastic. This, too, will make the game more pleasurable to play, keep people in queues more, get people playing. ESD will stop being the go-to ship-swap hub, because every player can TW to it. Meaning ESD will be a more calm place--easier to role-play in.
If you're concerned about the lack of hub-specific content, that's okay too. But instead of asking that an inconvenience remain to keep people there (against their will, no less), why not instead ask for new, creative, inventive things to do in said hubs. Someone mentioned using the lower levels of ESD for some unique missions--I think that's fantastic. Maybe add buffs or debuffs depending on if you queue for a PvE or PvP from a particular hub. Maybe add temporary unique modifications that you can only get from one Hub, that wear off over time and/or can be replaced? Say, visit DS9 to get an overboost to Polaron weapons, or visit ESD for a phaser boost, etc, etc.
Ask for improvements, don't poo-poo improvements other people want and you don't happen to like. If the hubs are barren and lifeless, then figure out a way to make them less so. Our fleet has ESD Dance Parties, and DS9 Meetups--heck, initiate a gambling ring in a Ferengi hub somewhere--the mechanics to roll a die exist in game, use them. The game is there for you to play, it's your own fault if you can't think of a reason to do so.
I, for one, really look forward to this. Is it testable in Tribble/Redshirt? Which am I supposed to be using anyway? If so, how do I activate the functionality (I can't find it)?
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