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The forgotten technologies.
anazonda
Member Posts: 8,399 Arc User
We all know them... The systems we were so excited for, they came and were very pleasant to work with (although not always what we expected), and we had great fun with them...
Then, apparently, they lost the developers interest and they never saw another update.
We could of cause mention PvP here, but lets ignore that one for this discussion, as they are not a individual part of the game, but draws on the basic mechanics of the game, and let's be honest here: It's already being discussed more than one place... It dosen't make sense to fragment that discussion futher.
Let's take an example: The Duty officer system... it's great... it's exciting... it's.. dead.
EDIT: (Just to point out, this is an EXAMPLE... Some people don't seem to get that I am using examples, and don't consider these EXAMPLES as being the ONLY exciting things, or even that all should consider them exciting...)
In the beginning, we had the chains, the boosts and the excitement of going to the nebulas, hoping to get that one renown officer, but now, on a good day, most of us probably only use it for the sake of that extra dil here and there.
They did try to add some extra to it, with the first episode of the 2800 series, but they never really expanded on that, and I don't personally thing a UI overhaul qualifies attention.
Another system, that could have evolved over time, but did'n, are the minigames...
We have The regular scan, the radiation scan, the Omega game, mining and the Iso-linear game scan.
They are all great, but they could also have been more... They could have grown beyond the simple "up down" mechanic, or could been a more common part of missions, or filled a daily role in the game... Instead, they just remain as they are.
And there are more examples of these innovations, that could have served so much more purpose, than they do right now.
What I am thinking here is, that some of these systems might get new life as well as add new life to some of the missions or our in-game environment.
I do have some ideas of my own, but first I want to get the ball rolling... What system do you think was developed and then forgotten, that could be re-vitalized and add some spice into the current gameplay, and how do you think that particular system might be changed and upgraded to gain more energy?
Then, apparently, they lost the developers interest and they never saw another update.
We could of cause mention PvP here, but lets ignore that one for this discussion, as they are not a individual part of the game, but draws on the basic mechanics of the game, and let's be honest here: It's already being discussed more than one place... It dosen't make sense to fragment that discussion futher.
Let's take an example: The Duty officer system... it's great... it's exciting... it's.. dead.
EDIT: (Just to point out, this is an EXAMPLE... Some people don't seem to get that I am using examples, and don't consider these EXAMPLES as being the ONLY exciting things, or even that all should consider them exciting...)
In the beginning, we had the chains, the boosts and the excitement of going to the nebulas, hoping to get that one renown officer, but now, on a good day, most of us probably only use it for the sake of that extra dil here and there.
They did try to add some extra to it, with the first episode of the 2800 series, but they never really expanded on that, and I don't personally thing a UI overhaul qualifies attention.
Another system, that could have evolved over time, but did'n, are the minigames...
We have The regular scan, the radiation scan, the Omega game, mining and the Iso-linear game scan.
They are all great, but they could also have been more... They could have grown beyond the simple "up down" mechanic, or could been a more common part of missions, or filled a daily role in the game... Instead, they just remain as they are.
And there are more examples of these innovations, that could have served so much more purpose, than they do right now.
What I am thinking here is, that some of these systems might get new life as well as add new life to some of the missions or our in-game environment.
I do have some ideas of my own, but first I want to get the ball rolling... What system do you think was developed and then forgotten, that could be re-vitalized and add some spice into the current gameplay, and how do you think that particular system might be changed and upgraded to gain more energy?
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
Like Duty Officers? Support effords to gather ideaspwebranflakes wrote: »Let me put the rumors to rest: it's definitely still the C-Store (Cryptic Store) It just takes ZEN.
Post edited by anazonda on
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As for Doffs, I agree its dead. I quit doing them after the big Exp nerf back in the summer. I was using them for material, some Dil, and Exp to help me level in Delta Rising between the FEs. After the nerf I didn't get hardly any good exp from it anymore. I already have mats thank to 3 gathering along the way. I only have one R&D so all that gets funneled to them. Since I can level up faster just doing runs. To me Doff is a waste now. So I don't even bother doing it. Unless they really do some good with the new Ship Doffs, I won't be doing those either.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I did not see you adding anything that adds to the discussion? so where is it..?
I am not asking you to agree with me on what was exciting, or could be exciting, just looking for people to productively add to the discussion...
Bickering like a little girl is easy... Contributing is not.
There was another occurrence afterwards.. I don't remember what mission, but I am positive I saw it again in one of the later released FE's.
I am not asking just about the minigames... I am looking at all the systems that have unused potential.
I wasn't aware that expressing a difference of opinion was "bickering like a little girl." But if such a response is what qualifies as "productive" to you, it would seem we have a very different definition of what qualifies as "productive," as well. Given the way you've conducted yourself here in response to a simple expression of disagreement over that which seems to have formed the basis of your initial premise, it seems it was a wise choice to refrain from contributing any further.
You did'n contribute at all... Hence the " bickering" part.
i know
i had taken a break when the omega game/grind was online; my best moment spent in game.
grind/gambling/timers are the only way used for creating these mini games. personally i'm tired by all these "features" which are just added to these mini games to annoy the players.
but, i'm no against the mini games, if i can avoid them.
There are maybe two missions or so that utilize it. It should be used more, and Cryptic should probably put additional special consoles in every interior so that there is at least a semblance of content aboard your ship, even if they can't make fully fledged mission with guest NPCs or the otherwise obligatory "aliens took my starship" episodes.
I am by no means in disagreement with you, that certain aspects would probably be end up as grind solutions, but TBH, grind dosen't have to be disagreeable... As long as you can swap between alot of different grinds.
IE: Tribbles, used to breed them for different reasons and now they're fodder for more dil. Duty officer system, they promised to revamp it.... did i miss something? Also on the note of duty officer missions, what excited me about them was chain assignments... but the last we saw of those were special items like the tal shiar command codes which didnt have the same feel as instead of Finding the missions you had to use a consumable item for them. Also, what happened to ships coming with universal consoles? now everything is part of a ship set and nothing shipwise seems to be universal or interesting anymore, atleast to me. I also greatly miss having usefull ground devices that you can get from a mission or some such, I still use the ophidian cane and the shard of possibilities... but they are way far growing outdated and we havent seen anything like them in quite some time so far as I've notticed. As far as the ships themselves go, the focus is and always has been on Feds, we dont care, we're used to it so moving on to the point in that is that the ships arent as interesting anymore. Tal Shiar Adapted destroyer and Battlecruiser totally rocked my world, I loved being able to play with something based off of the borg, but now the borg that were such a HUGE thing in the game a while back, are almost meaningless and dont seem all that involved outside of STF runs. Yes, I'm a borg addict and I'm quite likely part of a smallish portion of STO, but I'm also a fan of the older style of it all, not a fan of some of the new STFs though... but I loved how it all used to be honestly, not to forget though there are things I like in the game that they have added.
mini games with acceptable and varied grind, without gambling, without excessive timers; well in this case these mini games could be interesting and even funny. because for now, STO is not really a funny game for me. i spend more time to be disappointed than being happy.
Actually, heres one of the technologies I was talking about: The adventure zones.
It seems Cryptic thinks that a single zone, made once is enough... Once done... NEXT.
Instead, I'd like to see them expand on already existing zones. That way they won't have to make new environments.
Yes. They would have to figure out new ways of entertaining yourself in the existing zone, create new ways of solving problems, but why not build upon success.
Precisely the direction I was going with that... Tholians, Romulus, and even Dyson sphere had ground adventure zones of different sorts.. granted I feel that Dyson sphere was a little... farmed heavily... but they were good ideas. Instead of building on what they have that works well, they keep trying new things constantly without paying much love to the older stuff that we enjoyed.
Yup...
I'll start on the last point and say simply that I agree... I don't think a UI overhaul required attention either.
We got one anyway, along with...
Doffing might be getting some attention soon... indirectly. The Admiralty System, from what little we know, is going to be doffing with ships (or "ship cards"), and could end up being a superior analogue to doffing depending on how rewarding it is, how much attention is paid to flavor text, assignment chains, etc. We'll have to wait and see.
Most of the minigames are decent enough, but the Omega one... ugh. For some reason every time the Event is going I get just enough lag that catching the particles becomes more difficult than it should be, and since the game is pure reflex rather than having a puzzle component... a bit of lag ruins it. Any minigame mechanic that requires brain-off, twitch-reflex mechanics is subject to the lag problem, though thus far only I've only encountered this with the Omega minigame. New or expanded minigame designs would need to take this into account; maybe allowing for individual or low population instances of the minigames (rather than placing them in high-capacity social zones) would help, maybe basing them more on puzzle than twitch/timer, but something...
Otherwise, the minigames aren't that inspiring. The Isolinear Chips at least require some problem solving, but the rest don't require any particular degree of thought. Still, if it's a choice between getting well thought out minigames and well thought out actual gameplay, I'd rather they focus on the actual gameplay. It'd be nice if we could get both, but I'm willing to acknowledge that it's a matter of time, creative energy, and resources.
Maybe the KDF and RRF shipyards? Things don't sell when you don't sell them, right?
Otherwise... you pretty much covered the main stuff.
Actual Crafting of specific items, or modification of existing items, would be nice. I'd expect such a system to require learning each individual [Mod] or proc through reverse engineering of items possessing that [Mod] or proc, along with inputs only obtainable by deconstructing items with a given [Mod] or proc, and sadly there will be almost certainly be some form of RNG involved (whether in obtaining the materials from deconstruction, successfully applying the modification, or *shudder* both)... but it could be interesting.
I love this part... Well... the Taking things apart-part... I'd love that.
Would also add a certain depth to the RnD system...
I personally do not care about minigames or DOFFing at all. Moving a cursor up and down or starting timers for some rewards has in my opinion no bearing on the actual game. I said it elsewhere before: The missions your "doffs" perform, i.e. making diplomatic contact, raiding/defending transports, building colonies, investigating intelligence reports, escorting/freeing prisoners etc. - all that should be actually playable as non-story-driven, open-ended gameplay. Starting timers and moving sliders is in no way statisfactory to me.
Now, mechanics we actually had and weren't pipe dreams or wishful thinking that need an overhaul in my opinion are:
The crew mechanic: I made a topic about that some time ago, I don't want to repeat all of it. But basically, make the crew system something worthwhile instead of just ripping it out once again because it's too much work. It could be so simple if the devs would draw inspiration from other games - having a certain crew complement should reduce cooldowns of abilities (after all it's the crew performing those things, not the officers), increase resilence against boarding parties, increase repair rates, make own boarding parties more dangerous. Add the ability to (temporarily) board and control enemy ships or let NPCs control player ships for short periods or even let them be assimilated like on ground missions, all tight to a revamped crew mechanic. They could add hospital ships (and/or "medical" specialization) (Olympic et al) to introduce crew healing and protection team abilities, making large ships useful for their surplus of crew and the abilities that go with it.
Exploration system: Has also been discussed a lot. Has also been ripped out and never looked at again. This however is the key to quasi unlimited longevity of this game, not expensive voice actors and scripted storylines. Let us make our own adventures and stories and explore truly unknown worlds. And no, because the old Exploration was lacking is not an argument to never do or try that again, I am so tired of "Yeah, scan five things, wooho" but in the same time pretend getting high dps numbers on a single map in a not even supported third-party tool is an exciting way to spent time and money in this game.
Customizable fleet support / Admirality: May count as a pipe dream, but we are getting the Admirality system in S11. And it's just doffing, the exact same system - huge swing and miss, and no I don't need to wait for it to see it - clicking on "go" and wait for timers to expand isntead of having interactive gameplay is not exciting. Instead, promote BOFFs to captain, let one or more (need to be balanced of course) of your ships form your personal task force with you as the Commodore and allow the generic fleet support to be replaced with one of your ships to perform support in situations you need a science ship or an escort. We could have "open-ended" missions as I pointed out above, for example found and protect a colony. Interactively. Your large ship can help transport and build the colony, you send your escorts to patrol the area, your science ships to defend certain things from random raiders or help with random events like asteroids or natural desasters on your ongoing interactive "Sim Colony" map with a space and a ground portion. Your BOFF captains help you out, being qualified for different tasks. Something interactive.
Ship interiors: Also, old story. Yes, too much effort for too little gain - what Cryptic seems to miss is that for a lot of players it's not new shinies that are exciting but the little things, the feel of playing a STar Trek game and not a generic space shooter. Customizable interiors, actually useful ship fcillities, laboroatories for R&D, computer libraries to be used in missions, BOFFs with personalities and maybe own stories.
Homeworlds / improved faction identidy: Again, this is a Star Trek game. Embracing the vast fluff should be a priority for a game calling itself "Star Trek Online". Where are the homeworlds we could visit, why is the KDF a red federation instead of a loose band of vastly different cultures with their own homeworlds and ships, why can't we explore what we never saw in the shows?
Stuff like this.
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The Scan Game, it's okay for gathering resources but it's just plain boring when Dilithium Mining. Not sure how to improve it unless you add more function.
"True Exploration" as in "Send officers to explore planet" *click* " Wait 20h or Finish now! 25.000 dil". I'm going to wet myself over my excitement
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Yeah, this, all over the place. Neverwinter's Gateway was and is very functional. STO's? Which thematically would fit really well with a PADD interface to deal with logistics/inventory and departmental DOFFing and maybe even the Admiralty system? Nada. All that potential, just nothing but an 'offline' static database.
People were talking about it opening up stealth gameplay on the ground. Alternate routes or different ways to complete objectives. I think some got the idea that the mountaineering equipment would be actual items you can use at will - though I'd accept this one being far fetched.
And a look at the crew system in space, it seems to be a long forgotten mechanic with allot of potential that never seemed to work properly.
"If this will be our end, then I will have them make SUCH an end as to be worthy of rememberance! Out of torpedos you say?! Find me the ferengi!".
That's what we all assumed at first because of the way the promo material was worded.
But in hindsight, it's the same issue as the floaters. They only work correctly if the map is designed for them. Since grappling guns are only ever going to be situational, I'm just as happy to have a piece of 'gear' that -doesn't- take up an inventory slot. They'll reuse the mechanic again sometime down the road.