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Why don't you like Ground Combat?
sdkraust
Member Posts: 524 Arc User
It's better than Space Combat.
You would like it if you played it more.
You would like it if you played it more.
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Shooter mode seems half done and more like a compromise than anything else. The engine and latency of STO were not designed to support it and it shows. Shooter mode is OK until you need more than 3 buttons for your captain abilities and kit abilities.
Cryptic should have taken their NEVERWINTER UI combat system for STO, since this is really intuitive, fast and seems to work perfectly for an RPG like NEVERWINTER and should do so in STO too.
If we take a close look at ground combat in STO it simply has too many abilities, of which 30% are not even used most of the time. They should condense those down to 4-5 usefull ones.
"It's better than Space Combat.
You would like it if you played it more."
well, no. STO's ground combat was generally rated as THE worst aspect of the game by ALL (semi)professional reviewers I've read so far. I respect your opinion though.
I would probably like it if it was 1998...however, in 2015 and even in 2010 already it was outdated and clumsy compared to other RPG's or shooters, even from their own house and with the same engine.
If STO had a similar ground combat as NEVERWINTER, I'd agree in a heartbeat...unfortunately we are stuck with an antique RPG mode and a compromise called "shooter" mode.
Unlike space our careers strictly control what powers we have to play with. Most of the recent universal kit modules are extremely situational or are entirely worthless, so I have to use my career modules, many of which are kind of worthless themselves.
NPCs frequently remove my shields in one or two hits, they may as well not exist in many cases, and there's very little you can do to bring them back. I play Engineer and even with the few shield heal powers I do have, it often still only gives me one or two more hits. And all this is ignoring the enemies with Psionic attacks that just ignore shields entirely, giving Engineers no defensive options other than breaking line of sight.
Weapons are highly interuptive, especially those with longer firing animations. If my shields have just been dropped (see above) I may very well have half a second to try to get them back online before I go down, but if my full-auto rifle isn't done firing yet then I'm pretty much screwed. I don't use the majority of weapon types in the game for this reason, I prefer weapons that are more responsive to "I need to use a power right this instant." There's similar issues in space combat, but at least in a space PvE environment I have a hitpoint buffer that will give me longer to deal with input issues, and weapons don't prevent me from using other powers.
Ground combat is overdone. Nearly all MMORPGs out there feature ground combat, how many can claim to have space combat and do it at least decently well?
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
baudl summed it up pretty good. Ground combat just has lot's of shortcomings that lead to clunky & unresponsive gameplay. Srsly "shooter mode" is a bad joke. It's like a RPG that pretends to be an FPS and fails miserably at both.
As for the reason I don't do more ground, at the heart of the matter is that I like starships. I also like aspects of STO's space combat more than ground... Atleast originally, back when the game wasn't afraid of balance and requiring you to think somewhat (before universal consoles were able to be fitted on any ship). However, even with the dumbing down, I find STO's space combat far more enjoyable than ground.
It's a shame we don't have the old STF's, which required you to be competent at both ground and space.
I see STO's ground combat the same way I see StarCitizens upcoming FPS module. Essential for the immersion, fun to play, but not what I'm playing the game for.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Vanilla Ground PvP information
I would have to say that it is still rather sluggest, clunky and overall very restrictive in terms of a set path, but that has to do with a lot of what has been lacking in regards to the ground overall experience.
However, over the seasons that we have had, we have had some very good elements introduced that have been restricted to those seasonable content pieces, while we have see in the foundry some of those pieces introduced. Yes, Cryptic has indeed gone back and redone a lot of the ground missions/season etc but it still seems rather hollow and empty when one plays ground combat.
Areas of improvement id like to see, has to do with the overall gameplay of the ground that needs the overhaul more than addressing the ground combat itself as it is all integrated. Along with seeing a more robust system in the way of a perpetual progression on the ground, more than the current restrictive dedicated direction that is currently holds.
Iam not entirely sure what would be the best direction, as everyone has an opinion and this is no way rant as i find it to be a very constructive criticism that needs to be discussed.
Most of the graphic works could be done in '99 Quake Arena just with reasonable FPS and responsiveness which both lacks in STO. Especially NRC and the all-new ESD reminds me very much of Quake times
In fact the UI wouldn't really need to change so the abilities could stay very much as they are. It would also serve as an excuse to redo most ground animations and perhaps finally fix the disparity between PC and NPC walk speeds.
Holy TRIBBLE someone is angry that I share a different opinion than them.
No wonder people say these boards are trash. You can't say anything positive without being attacked by this guy.
Holy TRIBBLE someone is angry that I share a different opinion than them.
No wonder people say these boards are trash. You can't say anything positive without being attacked by this guy.[/quote]
yeah but you base your opinion on how good ground combat is exclusively on your own "feelings"...that may be fine for you, but it is nonsense as a recommandation for others.
Skollulfr atleast bases his opinion on objectively observable characteristics of the combat system ...as most people who write previews on games etc. do.
His "opinion" is informative to a degree, yours simply isn't, since the only variable you speak of is your "feeling" and what you personaly find cool.
Whatever you write is absolutely right...but only* for you. (*probably there are some people who share your feelings)
objectively, STO's ground combat is atleast 15 years behind from a gameplay point of view. Doesn't mean it can't be fun though.
Considering that NEVERWINTER runs on the same engine and has a combat system that was highly praised when it came out it is even more difficult to understand why STO lacks so much behind in that regard.
"And everyone in here continues to think that Ground combat is supposed to be some quasi FPS, when that has never been the case. I'm going to put a lot of that blame on people obsession with running Tacs and thinking DPS = how fast you can shoot your gun."
when a sentence begins with "everyone" it usually means that you just made that up...
As Skollulfr stated, STO's ground combat has nothing to it that would make it stand out from pushing fire, fire, fire over and over again until everything is dead ... unfortunately.
A nuanced game would offer already a balanced choice of weapons, STO basically punishes you for choosing a blast assault or stun gun by making even simple packs "hard".
It shouldn't really matter what gun and powers I use, yet it does on a fundamental level.
It is not really about rushing through missions with mega DPS, but more about some combinations not even being viable.
These are only the bad balancing and gameplay designs and ontop of that you have to add the technical issues and bugs.
To me it seems that cryptic delivered a horrible product of a ground combat when the game was released, they got the feedback, tuned it a little bit, popped a "quasi FPS" on it to get a little higher rating for it and never looked back at it since. They treated the symptoms (slow pase, clunky interface) but ignored the fact that it is very old at it's core.
Personally I'd wish they'd take a close look at NEVERWINTER (it would make sense since it is the same engine and in the same building) and rework ground combat based on that.
It just doesn't like me.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
And you would like Nickelback if you listened to their music for 20 hours straight.
This line of thinking always gets me wondering: what is it that makes people think "I like it so everybody else I never met must like it too".
My actual opinion (*) notwithstanding: if I like something in this game and everybody else likes it: fine, I'm having fun and they are, too. If I like something in this game and nobody else likes it: fine, I'm having fun and they are, too.
So I do or do not like ground combat. That doesn't need a reason, it's just the way it is. I just don't need anybody telling me whether I should like it or not. And I like enough things to keep me occupied, so I am not desperately looking for something to try out more to have something to do.
(*) actual opinion: I would love to like ground combat more. I spent a lot of time designing my boffs, some of them have kind of backstories. But to me it feels like it's just pressing 111112111112111112111112. Occasionally I use an ability which usually seems to help less than continue my rote. I am sure there is more to it but I don't have a feel for it. I don't dislike it but I very much prefer space. If I want to relax I do nothing and let my away team handle everything and, if necessary, revive me when they're done. They're good, they usually manage to do this.
Why? Well it directly conflicts with what you posted.... actually most of what you posted is fluff.
summarized version:
paragraph 1: I don't like STO's ground combat. (it had some allusion to another game that was not explained at all.)
paragraph 2: this was rambling about how you dislike the way strategy works, but not explaining what you dislike.
paragraph 3: the first part of this is demonstrably false. Eng Turret spam is VERY different than Tac Melee ninja. the second part is a very specific example.... of something I see in VERY few games... and you act like it's mandatory to have good combat....
And encumbrance? the last game I played that actually wasted time with that was Diablo 2. And it SUCKED in Diablo 2. All it really did was make you run slower and run out of stamina faster.... also it was an invisible stat.
My character Tsin'xing
Without the pronoun:
you act like armor penetration stats are mandatory to have good combat....
Which... yeah.. every game I've played that had them... all they did was make combat annoying.
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing