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Game improvements: a systems analysis approach
bjs1981
Member Posts: 33 Arc User
okay everyone, i'm sure this topic has been discussed a million times already, so please no 'repost' comments. this is just my two cents.
3 reasons i'm posting. 1) i've been playing since launch. 2) i'm a systems analyst. and 3) we have a tendency, as a profession, to be accused of being the epitome of the first 4 letters in the word 'analyst'. for these reasons i feel qualified to not just state my opionion on how the game mechanics could be improved for player enjoyment, but to give my advice.
first of all, let me say what i think the devs have right: secondary deflectors for science ships. great idea. thumbs up. tactical, science, and engineering class abilities are well balanced. emphasis on the word abilities. but i'll get back to that. creating training manuals for BOFFs... EXCELLENT...been waiting for that a long time. even though its a recent development, still i give kudos. better late than never. the duty officer missions system. fantastic and truely representative of what a flag officer would be doing. sitting behind a desk and sending underlings out to go do his bidding. the list could go on for ahwile yet, but it won't. i just didn't want anyone to think that this was just a gripe session.
okay, lets get to the more legitimate complaints. i recall SPECIFICALLY, when the game was created, we as players were PROMISED that the game would be SKILLS based and not level based. well, all you have to do is play for 3 minutes and you realise, it's totally level based. okay, so we called it 'rank locking' equipment. what's the difference? that needs to go. does it make sense that i can only pick up and hold this level 5000 phasor pistol if i have an admiral rank on my collar? no, that makes no sense. they need to change it to a more basic system like 'ranged weapons' and 'melee weapon' skills. adopt an approach like dungeons & dragons (yes the paper and pencil version) you can pick up, hold, and use any weapon you want to. but if you don't have enough base skill, you aren't 'proficient' with the weapon, and therefore don't get the 'proficiency bonus', which without, actually leaves you under-powered.
to facilitate this, the training manual system could be greatly expanded to let players teach each other, and offer temporary skill bonuses for the field needed to equip said item or equipment. an officer without enough MELEE skill could use a training manual as a sort of 'primer' to get up to speed enough to be proficient with the desired weapon. you could use a double tier approach, requiring enough base skill just to equip the weapon, and then additional skill to be 'proficient'.
the next thing that needs to go are officer 'classes'. science officers, engineering officers, and tactical officers, are POSITIONS that an officer may hold throughout his career, but don't define an officer unless he wants it to. an officer might love engineering, and thus never seek promotion above commander because he wants to stay in the engineering room. well TRIBBLE, that just ruins our little RANK locking system for weapons and tech, doesn't it? instead, allow officers to freely choose the skills and abilities they want in their career path. you want to have a strong tactical presence, but have engineering skills as a nice secondary? perfectly fine. what if you really want to be science focussed, but there's only one tactical skill that you REALLY want? too bad under the current system. you could also intigrate a stacking system, where the skill tree isn't always verticle, but you can dump infinite points into your favorite power or ability, instead of it getting obsoleted.
ensins commanding starships....even a miranda class light cruiser...need to go. i'm sorry but it's TRIBBLE. ranks are fine, but lets keep it in perspective. ensins get a shuttle, or a runabout, if they are lucky. or they can fly point in a peragrin fighter against a borg cube. but that's about it. lets give some purpose and dignity to achieving a promotion.
which brings us to: tiny level 1 TRIBBLE ships being able to destroy fleets of enemies, including massive negh'var cruisers. well TRIBBLE... i guess i forgot that it's commonplace to put an ensign in command of a giant cruiser, and so that giant ship you just so easily destroyed was being captained by someone just as lowly and incompetent as you. as an ensign, i'd expect maybe to see more missions like the vault mission, in a single crew craft, sneaking into places and stuff. but you'd never be able to successfully challenge a larger vessel.
SHIPS should be rank locked, not other weapons and devices and such. TYPEs of ships should be determined by your skill sets, not your rank. when you finally make captain, you should be able to command ANY ship you want to. so you can still fly that defiant class ship if you want to, even if you put all your skills into science.
essentially, the game needs to move away from the classic 'TANK, HEALER, STRIKER' model so that players can define how they want to play and not be stuck in a predefined roll.
now, before all the babies start crying 'foul!' because of unballancing. consider this: yes a level 1 cadet could pick up and hold that level 5000 phasor pistol and aim it at the level 60 admiral. and even with the superior pistol, he'd have a bonus for sure than by using just his level 2 pea shooter. but there are many other aspects to a successful game than being able to equip a single tech. so he foolishly puts all his points into being able to use that super-cool pistol. now he has no armor and a level -12 jelly bites him on the toe and he dies. conversely, some punk, by virtue of having played the most hours, shouldn't be able to stand up on the table with hundreds of phasor beams bouncing off his polished chest plate, just because said beams are being fired by a group of trainees. as i recall a phasor pistol can disintegrate entire semi-tractor trailers, cut holes through mountainsides, and otherwise destroy a miriade of other things and promising futures. with a game that is level-based, it becomes impossible for lower level players to challenge higher ones. a galaxy class ship should be able to be destroyed by say, 10 bird of preys. but could 1 30 year old BoP ever be able to destroy the flagship of the federation? i think not. oh wait i forgot that travesty of star trek generations. seriously... they already covered the visor weakness once, and they didn't learn from their mistake?
3 reasons i'm posting. 1) i've been playing since launch. 2) i'm a systems analyst. and 3) we have a tendency, as a profession, to be accused of being the epitome of the first 4 letters in the word 'analyst'. for these reasons i feel qualified to not just state my opionion on how the game mechanics could be improved for player enjoyment, but to give my advice.
first of all, let me say what i think the devs have right: secondary deflectors for science ships. great idea. thumbs up. tactical, science, and engineering class abilities are well balanced. emphasis on the word abilities. but i'll get back to that. creating training manuals for BOFFs... EXCELLENT...been waiting for that a long time. even though its a recent development, still i give kudos. better late than never. the duty officer missions system. fantastic and truely representative of what a flag officer would be doing. sitting behind a desk and sending underlings out to go do his bidding. the list could go on for ahwile yet, but it won't. i just didn't want anyone to think that this was just a gripe session.
okay, lets get to the more legitimate complaints. i recall SPECIFICALLY, when the game was created, we as players were PROMISED that the game would be SKILLS based and not level based. well, all you have to do is play for 3 minutes and you realise, it's totally level based. okay, so we called it 'rank locking' equipment. what's the difference? that needs to go. does it make sense that i can only pick up and hold this level 5000 phasor pistol if i have an admiral rank on my collar? no, that makes no sense. they need to change it to a more basic system like 'ranged weapons' and 'melee weapon' skills. adopt an approach like dungeons & dragons (yes the paper and pencil version) you can pick up, hold, and use any weapon you want to. but if you don't have enough base skill, you aren't 'proficient' with the weapon, and therefore don't get the 'proficiency bonus', which without, actually leaves you under-powered.
to facilitate this, the training manual system could be greatly expanded to let players teach each other, and offer temporary skill bonuses for the field needed to equip said item or equipment. an officer without enough MELEE skill could use a training manual as a sort of 'primer' to get up to speed enough to be proficient with the desired weapon. you could use a double tier approach, requiring enough base skill just to equip the weapon, and then additional skill to be 'proficient'.
the next thing that needs to go are officer 'classes'. science officers, engineering officers, and tactical officers, are POSITIONS that an officer may hold throughout his career, but don't define an officer unless he wants it to. an officer might love engineering, and thus never seek promotion above commander because he wants to stay in the engineering room. well TRIBBLE, that just ruins our little RANK locking system for weapons and tech, doesn't it? instead, allow officers to freely choose the skills and abilities they want in their career path. you want to have a strong tactical presence, but have engineering skills as a nice secondary? perfectly fine. what if you really want to be science focussed, but there's only one tactical skill that you REALLY want? too bad under the current system. you could also intigrate a stacking system, where the skill tree isn't always verticle, but you can dump infinite points into your favorite power or ability, instead of it getting obsoleted.
ensins commanding starships....even a miranda class light cruiser...need to go. i'm sorry but it's TRIBBLE. ranks are fine, but lets keep it in perspective. ensins get a shuttle, or a runabout, if they are lucky. or they can fly point in a peragrin fighter against a borg cube. but that's about it. lets give some purpose and dignity to achieving a promotion.
which brings us to: tiny level 1 TRIBBLE ships being able to destroy fleets of enemies, including massive negh'var cruisers. well TRIBBLE... i guess i forgot that it's commonplace to put an ensign in command of a giant cruiser, and so that giant ship you just so easily destroyed was being captained by someone just as lowly and incompetent as you. as an ensign, i'd expect maybe to see more missions like the vault mission, in a single crew craft, sneaking into places and stuff. but you'd never be able to successfully challenge a larger vessel.
SHIPS should be rank locked, not other weapons and devices and such. TYPEs of ships should be determined by your skill sets, not your rank. when you finally make captain, you should be able to command ANY ship you want to. so you can still fly that defiant class ship if you want to, even if you put all your skills into science.
essentially, the game needs to move away from the classic 'TANK, HEALER, STRIKER' model so that players can define how they want to play and not be stuck in a predefined roll.
now, before all the babies start crying 'foul!' because of unballancing. consider this: yes a level 1 cadet could pick up and hold that level 5000 phasor pistol and aim it at the level 60 admiral. and even with the superior pistol, he'd have a bonus for sure than by using just his level 2 pea shooter. but there are many other aspects to a successful game than being able to equip a single tech. so he foolishly puts all his points into being able to use that super-cool pistol. now he has no armor and a level -12 jelly bites him on the toe and he dies. conversely, some punk, by virtue of having played the most hours, shouldn't be able to stand up on the table with hundreds of phasor beams bouncing off his polished chest plate, just because said beams are being fired by a group of trainees. as i recall a phasor pistol can disintegrate entire semi-tractor trailers, cut holes through mountainsides, and otherwise destroy a miriade of other things and promising futures. with a game that is level-based, it becomes impossible for lower level players to challenge higher ones. a galaxy class ship should be able to be destroyed by say, 10 bird of preys. but could 1 30 year old BoP ever be able to destroy the flagship of the federation? i think not. oh wait i forgot that travesty of star trek generations. seriously... they already covered the visor weakness once, and they didn't learn from their mistake?
Post edited by bjs1981 on
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combat zones... current PvE SUCKS. hundreds of meaningless 'enemy signal contacts' lurk around sector space and pose no threat at all. where is the risk? where is the adrenaline? i remember being 15 levels too low, running north out of Theramore Island in WoW and being chased down by giant hairy spiders and all other manner of grizzley things. only my trusty steed kept me out of harm's reach, and allowed me for the first time to explore Kalimdor safely, even though i was too low level to do any real fighting.
now, the purpose of factions is so that you can have "USes" and "THEMsus". this area over here is for US, and that area over there is for THEMs... if they come over here, we knock 'em with a club, and if we go over there, we expect to get knocked with a club. in close, local space, you are more likely to encounter pirates and other lowly scalywags who are only wealthy enough to provide for themselves a runabout, or perhaps a freighter modified with some heavy guns. a significant threat for someone only qualified to fly a shuttlecraft, right? as you branch out you expect to find tougher enemies further from home. and when you cross into contested zones, you then expect to find enemies of the other faction. at some point, unless you're a diplomatic envoy, you have to assume that when you cross so far into another faction's space, that you're asking for a fight. i would allow a PvP flag against a player crossing into deep enemy space. you can't attack, but you can be attacked. in 'contested' zones, you would have border skirmishes, where you essentially create an open PvP zone between factions. anybody can attack anyone.
finally, since the random encounter thing (aka signal contact) doesn't work as a model, implement a new space-control feature. if players don't run missions to halt the advance of enemy forces, then factions can actually LOSE star systems to opposing factions. (maybe only temporarily, with 20 hour cooldowns not unlike DOFF missions) these battles for control would be great hotspots for PvP as well. you then tie a motivation to space control. the faction with the largest control gets... say a %XP bonus for the duration of the advantage. this also creates interest to visit dozens or hundreds of those star systems out there that nobody ever actually travels to.
OK. You're a systems analyst. How much work do you think that's going to take?
well, we already have lots of good content. 3 playable factions. that's more than WoW and many other MMOs. and as a programmer, from the outside, to me, it seems like most of their core functions to make it happen are already there. they would just need some modding. but since i'm not on the inside, i can't say how big their IT staff is, how efficient they are, or estimate how many man-hours it would take.
but a thumbnail sketch of a cost/benefit analysis and ROI should produce healthy numbers. i would estimate at least a 20% initial increase in player interest and then go from there. they would have to use their own trending figures to determine how many of those new subscribers would actually purchase ZEN. but i know that i personally would purchase MORE zen with these upgrades, just like the current sector space upgrade is likely to increase my fun factor enough to make me buy more ZEN.
from an analysis perspective, it's not about 'can we do it?' it's 'can we afford NOT to?'
*edit* side note.... with projects this big it takes many man hours just to figure out how many man hours it will take. so no, even if i really wanted to, i'm not going to try to give any legit figures, which would all be guesses anyway.
i'm really glad and appreciate that even though not everyone's ideas can be accepted and implemented, cryptic really does try to be responsive, and where possible, introduce the best ideas.
I've been through multiple different ideas and concepts some I've posted, others I haven't and the reality is Cryptic don't care. They'll do what they want and ignore the input from the players for the most part. They have even stated that by the time they release some information about a system or new addition the addon is already set in stone and can't change much at all.
It's an old style of game design that IMO is just asking for trouble as we head into the more open development world post-Kickstarter.
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
for example, i have a wizard/swordmage hybrid. typically a controller stands in the back because he's a squishy. but my build allows him to stand next to the cleric and protect him, as well as immolate enemies from a distance. he's not as strong a tank as a full-plate wearing paladin, sure. but neither does he pop like a baloon when a goblin looks at him.
it is STO and other games like it that are 30 years behind. they need to catch up.
to some degree you are right though. but they have to have that attitude, otherwise they wouldn't be in control, they would just be thrown back and forth by player demands and whiners like Funcom was with Anarchy Online. but in the back meeting rooms where nobody sees, i do believe that Cryptic wants to do what will satisfy the most players. why? because it's good for business. and that means that the vast majority of player feedback by nature must go unanswered, but every once in awhile something good gets pushed through.
As a systems analyst, your job is to take customer requirements, break those down into their component parts and processes, and then come up with the most feasible and efficient way to implement them within the constraints and technical limitations of each particular situation.
Your job is not to make up your own requirements, which is what you've done here. While I may like some of your ideas and agree with some of your wall of text above, in the end it is just your personal opinion.
Likewise everything you've said, including your proclamation of how long it should take to make all those changes, is based on zero knowledge of the inner workings of Cryptic, or the technical limitations of the existing code base, or the suitability of any of your ideas within that framework.
So in essence you have broken all the precepts of your profession. Not trying to be harsh, but I have to call BS on this. You can post your opinions, fine, but please don't try to use your IRL title as any kind of authoritative dictum.
/soapbox
Five years into a highly visible MMO franchise you are wasting your time posting on the forums, and it is unlikely you'll get any traction with people who, frankly however well-meaning, have day jobs where they scramble just to keep up with what they already have and yet still be able to do cool things like memorials. But they don't have time to fundamentally rethink this particular product on the basis of a few paragraphs.
This is the wrong way to get a job in the industry. Consider the approach taken by those hired in over the years: typically they were part of regular podcasts/blogs where they had time to elaborate their ideas, build a following, and be sized up before they were brought in.
Incidentally, I'd fire one of my analysts if I overheard him/her referring to their business colleagues as "babies". I just about stopped reading your post there. People raising objections to your invented requirements are the people who presumably actually know, well, the business. A good analyst knows to test assumptions when they are not the SME, but without belittling the true SMEs. gfree is absolutely correct to call you out on what frankly is an idea not fully thought out and yet to reserve the right to be both business SME and analyst.
Anyway, rethink your approach to getting your ideas out there. I agree with much of the principle.
it starts by asking really, some simple questions, but then expanding from there. does the game that we have reflect the 'real' world. what IS a starship, for example? what elements work together to create a starship? well, it has a hull, it has an engine, deflector, and so forth. most of these things they have gotten correct. as i stated at the begining, cryptic got a lot of things right. but one thing that could use a tweak for example, would be the consoles. consoles are a good idea, i imagine them being stations that might modify or enhance my BOFFs abilities. but how do you fit an armor plate into a bridge console?
this is where an analysis of what actually IS, needs to intersect with what we want. for this example, instead of putting armor plates into consoles, you simply create a new data field where armor plates, stealth modules, sensor modules and other 'HULL' related upgrades are likely to be installed. on the database side this is actually quite easy to do. migrating which 'console upgrades' that need to be assigned to the new appropriate field is a little bit more tricky, since they are all already linked with the primary key and in use. but i'm sure their teams know what they are doing. this makes sense to do this, because larger vessels are able to hold more defensive armors and other buffing upgrades than smaller vessels. they are physically larger, therefore there is physically more room to do this. reality dictates how we design the game.
another annoyance is how torpedos work. there's a flat 3 sec global cooldown, plus different rates of fire arbitrarily set by different types of torpedos. how does this make sense? what does a torpedo launcher care what type of torpedo is being launched? it doesn't. also, logic dictates that a ship cannot carry an infinite number of torpedoes or people. when people are killed or torpedoes fired, they need to be replaced. larger ships can carry more people and more torpedoes than smaller ships. why have a torpedo cooldown that is arbitrarily set? why not reflect reality, that is if you want to fire all your torpedoes at once, you can do that. but then you're out of torpedoes. this creates a new, important looting element. you can loot enemy torpedoes and adapt them for your own use. each faction could have it's own primary torpedo and an exotic. Federation for example would be photon and quantum. Klingon could be photon and plasma. Romulan could be plasma and something else...maybe tricobalt or something. the point is, when you return to starbase, you can restock your primary torpedoes for free, or pay a small dilithium fee to get exotic torpedoes. or, you could loot exotic torpedoes from enemy faction corpses.
you are absolutely right, up to that spot. however, several assumptions have to be made about cryptic before we move on; i assume that cryptic wants to make money selling their product. i assume that they intend to do this by satisfying customer demand. and i also assume that they are in touch with what their customers want, or at least try to be.
the first goal of the systems analyst is to understand the mission of the orgamization. if you can't answer 'why are we doing this? or why are we doing it this way?' then, maybe we shouldn't be doing it. the answer ultimately comes back to 'we are doing it this way either: because it's what the our customers want, OR it's not exactly what our customers want, but it's close enough to satisfy their demand, or we can't feasibly do it another way, but something must be done to address this issue' if the answer is 'we are doing this because it's what WE want, and it is OUR vision, then that doesn't really match up with cryptic's mission, does it?
as a longtime paying customer, i refuse to accept that cryptic's only answer to any of these issues is that 'well, we just can't feasible do anything about it' or that it's 'entirely our vision'. history has shown that they do release updates in response to customer feedback. my desires to see a game model that more accurately reflects what it might seem like to manage starship design (as acurately as one might imagine against star trek cannon) is actually completely justified.
you misunderstand the meaning of my approach. i don't use the techniques of systems analysis to condemn cryptic for what i perceive to be a failure. i'm the customer and i can make any gripe i want to. the customer is always right, as they say. i use the techniques of systems analysis to CRITICIZE MYSELF.... to measure what i think the game should be against an objective analysis. then i make my recommendations, as cryptic's customer, to them. i am not pretending to be a paid analyst working for them. so in that sense, i see you pointing out a conflict of interest, but it's unjustified.
What you're proposing is near enough identical to the system currently in use, apart from in yours you could use a Mk out of your rank, but would be very bad with it, and so you wouldn't use it anyway. Pointless change.
Not a terrible idea. They sort-of do it with space skills and doff mission rewards atm though.
It's the holy triumvirate thing, I kind of agree tbh. What would probably happen, given the state of the game and certain skills is what you kind of see now: people put the "best" 4 rep traits. People go tac officer. People go rom. It'd just be worse, with everyone having exactly the same captain powers as each other. The game would go even more beige than you think it is now.
Meh. Doesn't really matter what they call the rank you start at. Doesn't affect gameplay. Pointless change.
The game would become very dull very quickly if you flew a shuttle for the first 20 levels, I think. People want to fly big ships.
You.... You can fly whatever you want. I don't understand, tbh. And they are rank locked.
Don't agree, don't disagree: I'd just ask; why? I've never seen a good reasoned argument for this other than "because I'd prefer that", tbh.
It all sounds like a lot of work to basically end up with a weapons system that would pretty much replicate what we have now, and everyone flying/walking around with the same set of skills.
And no ensign players.
Woop.
in a skill based game, yes, you can pick up a rare, high powered weapon and use it. but that doesn't necessarily make you the better player. you have to use your GAMING SKILLS to out-move and out gun the opposition. 'skill points' are an abstract reward system meant to compensate you for the effort of playing well. but instead of being used that way, they are being used as an allocation system for your 'level' based character. instead of being used to amplify and boost the style of play that you have found to be successful and enjoyable, they are mearly a means to support the next rank. this is clearly indicated by a process in the skill tree itself. cryptic is explicitly stating that the skill point system is nothing but a support for the 'leveling' system when it says 'you have not spent enough skill points to support your rank' in the skill tree. you can't spend skill points wherever you want to. you must spend them where they let you spend them.
and i think you're wrong fundamentally when you say 'everyone wants to fly the big ships' and that flying a shuttle or fighter for 20 levels would get boring. fighter pilots were the unsung heros in the battle to retake DS9. a fighter is the fastest, most maneuverable and most difficult to hit. as you put more skills into flying you get better at it. as you increase in rank, you could even command other fighters as pets. flying around and targeting a huge cruisers weak points to assist my team sounds like fun to me. there's lots of successful flight sim games out there.
Fighters and Miranda class are the redshirts of the fleet
I sit in my comfy hero ship and send wave after wave of men at stuff that's what fighters are to me.
So many things not thought through, for example,
So you want them to rework the whole beginning game so people can't have a ship?
You do realize Captain is an Honorific and a rank. Anyone in command of a ship is at Captain even if they haven't reached that rank.
This is just a mess that will create an overly complicated system. You do realize that the Star Trek universe even goes with the division system not only on types of positions, but ships. There are science vessels and assualt vessels and standard command vessels. And people follow those career paths. Sorry but anyone jumping around like that wouldn't very likely advance in Star Fleet. Just because someone is an engineer doesn't mean they can't command. Geordi could get a ship to command easily with his career, as could have Spock as the ships science officer. Command isn't limited by career, but what you make of it.
And in game developement things change. I really doubt this is going to change any time soon, since it is such a fundamental part of the the early game.
Because sector space is where people are suppose to have a choice in what they do. This game isn't Elite Dangerous, and doubt it is going to become anything like it any time soon.
LoL. Waayy off. Again lets reword this. You basically want them to redisgn the whole game. How long does it take to design most games?
Sorry but not realistic at all.
Within limits, those being the current game systems.
Weapon Proficiency - Yay. Something else to grind. It'll be in the game by next week. There's a reason WoW got rid of this one long ago, it's no fun and just leads to players beating on level 10 mobs with level 0 weapons to gain XP with them. Also, all this really does is require my character to read a manual to gain a skill to know what buttons to push to make the phaser fire. I rather hope I learned that at the academy.
Classes - Agreed 100%. Always thought the differentiation between them was silly at best, and when you start looking at their skills you begin to see they're horribly unbalanced (not sure why you thought they are balanced).
Skill Trees - We have this already, our skill trees allow us to distribute points in any manner of our choosing to increase the effectiveness of any of their related skills, regardless as to class. Only three restrictions apply - First, you must put a certain number of points into a tier to unlock the next tier. This is to prevent forgoing entire tiers in favor of higher ranked "more powerful" skills. Second, you get less return the more you specialize in a given skill. This encourages diversity and careful consideration, rather than simply filling everything "good". Last, there is a limit to how much you can put in a specific skill - mainly to prevent gaining game breaking amounts of a given ability at the cost of all else. Overall, I don't much care for the skill tree as it currently exists. It's rather clunky, has a steep learning curve, prevents easy swapping from ship type to ship type, and to be honest somewhat unnecessary.
Ensigns in Command - Always felt silly, but as they went with a more traditional MMO setup where we have levels.. the only other real option was to simply start us off as a captain and just call us a level 1 captain to a level 60 captain. They decided to make it a bit more interesting than that and incorporate other ranks into it to give it more of a progressive and "immersive" feel. The new federation tutorial somewhat interestingly explains it, and it does make sense to an extent. We're recent graduates from the academy, trained for command, during a time of war (with everyone and their grandmother, so it seems). We're given a small, rickety ship that was old when said grandmother was young - and sent on our way to wreak havoc on the galaxy.
Ships - Ships are rank locked. I think what you mean is that they shouldn't be level locked, and rank is determined by level. Again, it matters little in the end as we quickly gain access to everything - but really, I'm not sure any other way of doing it would be better. Older ships tend to be lower tier, and thus weaker. This makes sense, and lower "ranked" officers are given these older and less powerful ships.
Ships/Class - You can fly anything you want. I'm tactical. Like most, I fly cruisers. They're just better. Occasionally I fly escorts, and I've experimented with science. Nothing about a science captain really makes a science ship any better, nor does an engineer really make a cruiser better. A tactical of course makes anything better. That's just how we roll.
Role System - I assume you mean role and not roll. The game does use a roll system to determine many outcomes, like most RPG games. You don't seem to be arguing against that though. STO doesn't have a role system. The idea that it does is an illusion, and a mistake on the part of many players. That's just us taking what we're used to in other games and trying to apply it here. There's a reason the queue system in STO doesn't ask you whether you want to be a tank, healer, or dps... while they do in many other games. In almost all content (I may be able to come up with an exception or two in the whole of the game), a dedicated tank or healer is a terrible idea. Generally, specializing in one of those two "roles" leads to a terribly gimped ship. What's more, a player specializing in dps is generally perfectly capable of keeping themselves alive - even when under heavy fire from everything in sight. This is because most all ships have a minimal level of defense (which is more than enough in PvE), and a player specializing in offense generally has more than enough spots earmarked for "defensive" abilities that they are plenty durable. On the flip side however, many ships lack offense almost entirely.. and most allow the player to make choices that will effectively reduce their offense to almost nothing. A player specializing in a "non offensive" role tends to make choices that increase their defense (or healing) at the cost of offense. As those two things are far less important or effective in PvE, these "roles" are far less effective overall.
PvE sucks - Agreed. Totally. Completely. Good god. There is no exploration, no random encounters. This is because the design of the game basically makes "sector space" (and even system maps) little more than chat rooms we can move around in. They're lobbies for the "actual" game, which are the instanced "combat maps" seen in the foundry, queues, and missions. Until recently, in the entirety of the game, there were no enemies present on any "social" maps. This is extremely unusual for an MMO. It's also somewhat understandable, I'm not sure how they'd make social and combat maps more "integrated" with one another like they are in every other game out there. Still, even though it's understandable.. I don't like it and wish they'd thought of another way. Likely they've begun to think the same, as they've moved to do just this with the Dyson and Kobali zones - which are essentially combat zones that run nonstop and have been used as social areas.
Factions - We have areas for only "us" and areas for only "them". We can grant access to these areas to opposing faction members after reaching a certain rank as a diplomat.
Random encounters - They'd be nice, but they'd have to overhaul the entire system to do it. The sector map would have to go entirely and the social/combat system maps would have to be completely thrown out too in favor of vastly enlarged versions we actually have a reason to move around in to get places (more like zones in "other" MMO's).
Open PvP - Again, it'd require a completely new game darn near to make it happen. Also, not many PvP in any MMO.. it's generally a small minority. That's especially true in this one. Myself.. there are very, very few MMO's I enjoy PvP'ing in. Often, even if I'm good at it I don't much care for it. I generally play to race against myself and push my own limits, and I also enjoy the coordination of a team working together to accomplish an otherwise impossible goal (like killing a raid boss, something not present in this game). In this game PvP is a joke, mainly because things are so unbalanced. If I join a practice match with the rest of my fleet, they generally have to count me as five players.. because otherwise it's a complete slaughter. I've gone against five all by myself and it was a complete slaughter, I had to come to a full stop.. shut off my weapons, and stop using boff powers before I finally went down. Most of them just pop a moment after I click them, and quicker if I'm actually trying.
Sector Control - I've seen this feature in other MMO's. Guild Wars Factions for example, or Elder Scrolls Online (thought that one limits it to specific world PvP maps). WoW also implemented it in certain areas (like Halaa). It's generally a bother, as a single player (or even an entire guild) can't really do much to affect the overall balance when it comes to controlling something determined by wins on PvP maps or battlegrounds. They just don't count for much against an entire server, so you never feel like you make any difference. WoW's version was better (it almost always does everything better) in that you fight over a particular region AT that region, so a single player could walk in and literally take over if nobody stopped them. That tends to escalate leading to intermittent, unpredictable, and generally unrestricted combat, which can be fun. Provided you're on the winning side and/or faction. That faction bit would be a big problem here - the federation outnumbers everyone else by such a landslide klingons would cease to exist within a week. After playing Horde on an utterly (as in, vast.. vast majority) Alliance dominated server for several years.. I know how that goes.
All in all - most of this wouldn't really improve the game, and what would requires such a vast overhaul it'd never be done. They'd be better off making Star Trek Online 2, as it'd likely be far easier.
the main problem i see with the game that limits my enjoyment is better understood if i just explain to you my experience. take the new crystaline event. i'm an engineer captain in a T5 sovereign. now granted, i've been playing awhile and have gotten some decent loot. but i don't have the best gear, i don't even own a single MK14 piece. but i can literally, fly up withing range, park, and just blast the TRIBBLE until it's dead. i can take the feedback blast like a champ and use my miracle worker ability to instantly heal myself, and trounce everyone for first place every time and get all the phat gear. no skill. no challenge.
what i would like to see happen is a more skill based game. not necesarily FPS based, although i do enjoy that they added that feature on the ground. for instace, having a very small defiant style ship, yes, would be weaker with less hull. but as i recall in an episode of DS9 they were able to fly very close to a klingon cruiser and attack it's weak points. its small size gave it much greater evasiveness, a clear advantage in many cases.
having targetable locations, like the nacells, or other key points, or limited resources, like torpedos and crew, makes the game, in my opinion, more tactical. that's what i mean when i say skill based. creating a little bit more realism in the game that puts you on the edge of your seat a bit and makes you focus on playing, not watching power cooldowns and clicking ability buttons.
that is the spirit behind the suggestions i've made. an effort to make the game more tactics based, and not just sitting there watching my ability tray the entire time.
what i would like to see is a greater variety of player. i should have just as much success potential in a defiant or intrepid or galaxy class. but as you put it, 'everyone is a tactical captain and flies cruisers because they are just better'.
i have a lot of great ideas on how to fix some of the balancing issues but unfortunately i think they would fall on deaf ears. one example being the defiant again. in a world where nacells can be targeted, a small craft with 'cowled' engines would have an innate immunity to that attack. a clear advantage. that helps to make up for the significant drop in hull points or science abilities.
each system and subsystem should have it's own slot with some having modifier slots.
Hull Plating
Shields
Engines - Impulse, Thrusters
Warp Nacelles
Warp Core
EPS System
Weapons - Turret mounts, array mounts, torp bays
Deflector Array - secondary
Computer Systems
The whole equipment screen would require a refit... and some items would require modifier slots, to be linked into other systems, or even both.
You could do more special ship ideas... like a cruiser that can mount DHCs on augmented turret mounts. THAT would be a fun ship.
Or a sci ship that has it's secondary deflector designed to create a photonic duplicate of your ship.
An escort that has a super reinforced structure with whatever the strongest material is shaped into an icebreaker prow so we can ram through ships.