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Suggestions? Suggestions!
captainzhei
Member Posts: 203 Arc User
Just dropping off seemingly random but carefully thought-out points of minor contention with a suggestion or two for consideration. I don't expect much of a response officially, but it does feel good to get it out of my brain before it rattles its way into something else!
1. Redesign the Excelsior!
The Excelsior Class must be the ONLY ship in the game from the canon universe that doesn't have a 25th century sexified version. Maybe a Tier 6 Excelsior variant could be in order? I'm tinkering with a few design elements myself, trying to put a sexy 2410 Excelsior together. I'll link it if I ever get it finished!
2. Scale down!
Good heavens, are the maps ever BIG. That would be really cool, if there was a lot going on in those maps. Alas, there's not - especially in the mission maps. It's a lot of deceptively empty space designed to look pretty for MILES while you're travelling from the middle of the map to the sort-of-outside-the-middle of the map.
Skyboxes can help shrink down some of the needlessly large maps. Taller trees near the edges of the map to mask the transition to skybox and you're golden.
This also applies to the starship interiors. Look at how tall the ceilings are! You could fit two decks into the hallways - which are proportionately wide. You could drive a cement truck through the halls of a Starship in this game!
While it does risk causing a few minor issues with camera distance, I think we deserve the more familiar scale to a ship's interiors.
And since I'm on the topic of hallways, has anyone else noticed during mission maps that have you beaming onto a space station (extra true in the Patrol missions), that the chambers of the stations are separated by about a mile of hallway each? Not even a ring either. The halls just wind around, with the doorways in completely illogical spots. You can see on the minimap that two rooms share a bulkhead, but the hallway connecting them together wrap around the side of one room and then the other before you reach the doorway ON THE OTHER SIDE. I won't suggest anything for this one. Way too obvious.
3. Trade-in Credit for BNPs etc?
The one key annoyance I've run into with Delta Rising's instance changes is that collecting the "Elite" mode items like Neural Processors and Ancient Power Cells, is hampered badly by the Advanced Mode being too difficult for anyone without rep gear to handle.
This effectively keeps snot-nosed noobs from messing up the Advanced mode instances (a little bit), but it also makes accessing the rep gear awkward.
I suggest an intermediate "transfer" currency, by which you can spend X amount of marks to receive 1 Neural Processor/Cybernetic Implant/Power Cell etc. (I recommend 125 Marks per item, with perhaps a 1 hour cooldown between exchanges?)
4. UI is starting to feel clunky
STO's age is beginning to show in its UI. The ? button - I don't think ANYONE has used that intentionally. They've only clicked on it by accident trying to close a tab.
The power tray, character plate (HP/Hull, Shields, XP, buffs/debuffs), and chat panel should really be uniform panels at the bottom, with the party plates on the left, quest log and minimap on the right.
Borders also a bit too heavy handed. I know that the devs are going for the authentic Star Trek feel, but I think, in this case, some artistic merit is understandable and welcomed to help streamline the exterior borders of... well, just about everything.
5. Options for Static NPC portraits?
When I open a dialogue with an NPC... well... I'll be honest. Seeing him follow a simple set of idling animations while a voiceover (sometimes) reads the text for me... doesn't do anything for my immersion. A 2D portrait would do just as well. Maybe we could have a selectable option to use 2D or 3D portraits?
6. More things to spend Expertise on?
I have 3.2 million Expertise. I just *CANNOT* get rid of it, no matter what I do. Caitian Field Training, 1 Hour Reputation projects, wanton respeccing of my bridge officers, and the amount of Expertise simply refuses to diminish. This time last year, I had 2.4 million, and the year before (when I got my current character to level 50), I finished out the year with 1.6 million. So the pace is just getting faster.
Put anything on sale for Expertise and I will buy a hundred. Or a thousand. Or 3.2 million of them. Buy 1 Spec Experience, or 1 Energy Credit for 10 Expertise. Buy 1 Mark for 1000 Expertise (for those moments where you just need like 4 and don't want to run a whole 'nother STF for them). Buy 1 random R&D material for 2500 Expertise (like gambling for engineers!). ANYTHING!
7. Can I please DISABLE the quick equip panel? It really does just get in my way when I'm messing with my ship's paperdoll.
Hope I have planted a decent thought or two into the right mind. I think 7 is a nice robust list, and I'm happy that none of them break the game XD
1. Redesign the Excelsior!
The Excelsior Class must be the ONLY ship in the game from the canon universe that doesn't have a 25th century sexified version. Maybe a Tier 6 Excelsior variant could be in order? I'm tinkering with a few design elements myself, trying to put a sexy 2410 Excelsior together. I'll link it if I ever get it finished!
2. Scale down!
Good heavens, are the maps ever BIG. That would be really cool, if there was a lot going on in those maps. Alas, there's not - especially in the mission maps. It's a lot of deceptively empty space designed to look pretty for MILES while you're travelling from the middle of the map to the sort-of-outside-the-middle of the map.
Skyboxes can help shrink down some of the needlessly large maps. Taller trees near the edges of the map to mask the transition to skybox and you're golden.
This also applies to the starship interiors. Look at how tall the ceilings are! You could fit two decks into the hallways - which are proportionately wide. You could drive a cement truck through the halls of a Starship in this game!
While it does risk causing a few minor issues with camera distance, I think we deserve the more familiar scale to a ship's interiors.
And since I'm on the topic of hallways, has anyone else noticed during mission maps that have you beaming onto a space station (extra true in the Patrol missions), that the chambers of the stations are separated by about a mile of hallway each? Not even a ring either. The halls just wind around, with the doorways in completely illogical spots. You can see on the minimap that two rooms share a bulkhead, but the hallway connecting them together wrap around the side of one room and then the other before you reach the doorway ON THE OTHER SIDE. I won't suggest anything for this one. Way too obvious.
3. Trade-in Credit for BNPs etc?
The one key annoyance I've run into with Delta Rising's instance changes is that collecting the "Elite" mode items like Neural Processors and Ancient Power Cells, is hampered badly by the Advanced Mode being too difficult for anyone without rep gear to handle.
This effectively keeps snot-nosed noobs from messing up the Advanced mode instances (a little bit), but it also makes accessing the rep gear awkward.
I suggest an intermediate "transfer" currency, by which you can spend X amount of marks to receive 1 Neural Processor/Cybernetic Implant/Power Cell etc. (I recommend 125 Marks per item, with perhaps a 1 hour cooldown between exchanges?)
4. UI is starting to feel clunky
STO's age is beginning to show in its UI. The ? button - I don't think ANYONE has used that intentionally. They've only clicked on it by accident trying to close a tab.
The power tray, character plate (HP/Hull, Shields, XP, buffs/debuffs), and chat panel should really be uniform panels at the bottom, with the party plates on the left, quest log and minimap on the right.
Borders also a bit too heavy handed. I know that the devs are going for the authentic Star Trek feel, but I think, in this case, some artistic merit is understandable and welcomed to help streamline the exterior borders of... well, just about everything.
5. Options for Static NPC portraits?
When I open a dialogue with an NPC... well... I'll be honest. Seeing him follow a simple set of idling animations while a voiceover (sometimes) reads the text for me... doesn't do anything for my immersion. A 2D portrait would do just as well. Maybe we could have a selectable option to use 2D or 3D portraits?
6. More things to spend Expertise on?
I have 3.2 million Expertise. I just *CANNOT* get rid of it, no matter what I do. Caitian Field Training, 1 Hour Reputation projects, wanton respeccing of my bridge officers, and the amount of Expertise simply refuses to diminish. This time last year, I had 2.4 million, and the year before (when I got my current character to level 50), I finished out the year with 1.6 million. So the pace is just getting faster.
Put anything on sale for Expertise and I will buy a hundred. Or a thousand. Or 3.2 million of them. Buy 1 Spec Experience, or 1 Energy Credit for 10 Expertise. Buy 1 Mark for 1000 Expertise (for those moments where you just need like 4 and don't want to run a whole 'nother STF for them). Buy 1 random R&D material for 2500 Expertise (like gambling for engineers!). ANYTHING!
7. Can I please DISABLE the quick equip panel? It really does just get in my way when I'm messing with my ship's paperdoll.
Hope I have planted a decent thought or two into the right mind. I think 7 is a nice robust list, and I'm happy that none of them break the game XD
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Captaincy, Excelsior-Class U.S.S. Bianca Beauchamp NCC-99947-F
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Captaincy, Excelsior-Class U.S.S. Bianca Beauchamp NCC-99947-F
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Post edited by captainzhei on
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Comments
Remove the pop-ups at the end of each queue mission, do we really need 2 pop-ups to annoy the TRIBBLE out of us? 1 is enough? The mark choices.
Big one, that should have happened long ago. Player gearscores for both ship and ground. Gearscore requirements needed to be met to play most of the queue maps. Hell, they're already dead. Might as well make the game make some sense. Sounds cruel to the newbs, but they're already cruel to the newbs. So let's drive that final nail in shall we?
all these ideas are the type of horrors i would expect to come from sto developers at cryptic, especially number 1, that i one i would never want to see happen in this space time continuum!
aso your thought on the subject get in line, you want to see sto change, good luck on that one, but you fail to realize why i state these are the types of things i expect cryptic to come up with, because they are always terribad.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
That is blatantly insulting and your remarks are not welcome. If you have a suggestion of your own, please feel free. But keep your insults to yourself.
Captaincy, Excelsior-Class U.S.S. Bianca Beauchamp NCC-99947-F
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]