test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Options
STO and Immersive Play-Styles
proteusblack
Member Posts: 40 Arc User
I was recently wondering something regarding playstyle of STO.
As I understand, there is a portion of players (regardless how small or not it is) who play STO a certain way that aims to focus as much on the spirit of the TV/Movies as possible. While this approach may be somewhat different between each of these individual players, they all have this certain experience in mind. It might include avoiding (or minimizing) battle as much possible by sticking to Foundry missions that are least combat oriented while utilizing DOFF and Admiratly missions in between, or it might include sticking to only the more traditionally familiar classes of ship that the federation is most known for. It might even include only ever using one ship throughout the majority of one's play-through (since in the show/Movies, the captains never owned 25 ships like they were collectible toy cars or something, it seemed more like the captain was loaned one ship at a time by the federation). This play style could also include playing in instances with the least amount of other people on it for the sake of avoiding breaking of immersion by unnecessarily being exposed to others' silly behavior or being only one of 75 Admirals running around doing all the missions you are at that time (for some reason). I'm rather sure there are other "rules" that take place as well, but these are just some examples.
First, I was wondering if there was a particular term for this type of player. I initially suspect the term "role player" would come to mind, but I have seen roleplaying on STO, which involves a roleplaying fleet, and that is not necessarily part of what I'm getting at here (though it can be a part of it I suppose).
If there isn't a term for this type of play-style already, what might one call it?
Second, Are you a type of player who does this during play? If you are, what kinds of "rules" do you set and/or "explanations" do you come up with to address some of the typical immersion issues that are in game?
Thanks!
As I understand, there is a portion of players (regardless how small or not it is) who play STO a certain way that aims to focus as much on the spirit of the TV/Movies as possible. While this approach may be somewhat different between each of these individual players, they all have this certain experience in mind. It might include avoiding (or minimizing) battle as much possible by sticking to Foundry missions that are least combat oriented while utilizing DOFF and Admiratly missions in between, or it might include sticking to only the more traditionally familiar classes of ship that the federation is most known for. It might even include only ever using one ship throughout the majority of one's play-through (since in the show/Movies, the captains never owned 25 ships like they were collectible toy cars or something, it seemed more like the captain was loaned one ship at a time by the federation). This play style could also include playing in instances with the least amount of other people on it for the sake of avoiding breaking of immersion by unnecessarily being exposed to others' silly behavior or being only one of 75 Admirals running around doing all the missions you are at that time (for some reason). I'm rather sure there are other "rules" that take place as well, but these are just some examples.
First, I was wondering if there was a particular term for this type of player. I initially suspect the term "role player" would come to mind, but I have seen roleplaying on STO, which involves a roleplaying fleet, and that is not necessarily part of what I'm getting at here (though it can be a part of it I suppose).
If there isn't a term for this type of play-style already, what might one call it?
Second, Are you a type of player who does this during play? If you are, what kinds of "rules" do you set and/or "explanations" do you come up with to address some of the typical immersion issues that are in game?
Thanks!
0
Comments
Picard: Mr Data, lay in a course for that distress call, maximum warp!
Data: I'm sorry captain, I am unable to comply, starfleet regulations state we have reached our red alert quota.
Picard: Very well, I shall be in my ready room feeding the fish.
Oh my... I read that in Patrick Stewart's and Brent Spiner's voices.
Build wise, you have the Star Trek Battles channel. They try to build and fly their ships so that they resemble those at the show as closely as possible. I am sure there are also a lot of other in-game groups focused on the role-play aspects of the game as well.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
I did a bit of "own "RP" with my science, Got myself a Rhode Island and got all new BOFF with similar names of those from the U.S.S. Equinox.
Tried to get the Voyager Interiors but ALAS CRYPTIC WONT LET ME.
But I am not doing any active RP in Sto, it's just for my own amusement
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Except the real Enterprise couldn't instantly teleport halfway across the quadrant, it would take time to fly to the scene, thus it would be off cooldown by the time it arrived.
That said, I would (and do currently) enjoy immensely the introduction of more non-combat related content, such as exploration, etc.
Currently in STO, I play officers differently depending on their career choices but also the types of ships I use- I actually enjoy immersion, and when it comes to the available episodes I play them as immersively as possible. It's not really that easy to do sometimes, but it's definitely easier from a "solo" perspective versus group content, IMO.
I'm also the sort of person who prefers the RPG versus the FPS, so playing roles is more important to me than "action", which may help to define the type of person and how they play, too. Most often times, RPG players really choose to define characters and flesh them out versus hopping into a "ready made clone" and jumping right into something- the development being more important than the result, I suppose.
I suppose the best adage to help define this would be "The journey is more important than the destination."
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
They want the ships, action and immersion to be as lore friendly as possible, but they don't necessarily want the drama/effort required of a full roleplay group.
I have one Fed character who I run as a 'pure' build. He uses a Fleet Guardian, full phasers and quantums, and a pure selection of consoles, no leech or Iconian probes etc. It allows me to keep him different from my others, great for breaking up the antiproton boredom.
I have six characters (three per faction, of each profession). All of those have a theme and they stick to it because I like it that way.
My first character was a Fed engineer (had to play fed to unlock KDF back then) and the flagship is an exploration cruiser. Aside from maybe swapping temporarily for traits or for funsies, the character never leaves that ship. It also is the flagship of my "task force" my characters are themed around. My fed Sci was originally the engs first officer but got a temporary command in that task force (like Data on te Sutherland). She follows otherwise the same rules, commanding a Nebula and never changes aside from trait farming or game mechanics experiments. Tellarite Tac is the third Fed, currently using a guardian but I'm not entirely happy here. Those three use phasers and photon/quantum torpedoes exclusively, same exceptions as with the ships apply.
KDF side, my main is a Klingon Tac with a Negh'Var, same rules as the fed chars apply. He's actually the brother of a BOFF from my fed eng, all characters and partly their boffs have some "bio" associated with each other so they somehow are either related or know each other through several events that however only exist in my personal headcanon. Second KDF is a Garidian (Rom/KDF aligned) Sci and she has more wiggle room as I try to recreate a Garidian appeal with her. They were a Romulan client state depicted in the old point and click game "A final unity" and I have, for a lack of references, created a look, armament and backstory fitting. Her flagship is a D'Deridex. Third KDF is maybe the most interesting, a Deferi Engineer with a all-Deferi (aliengen) crew. Started out with using the Samsar as I thought everything the Kobali in STO got was better fitted for the Deferi but since some time she uses Breen ships as well which have been captured and refitted to complement the Deferi fleet until their ships have been upgraded to be a match. I get a bit more creative with weapons etc. since STO Breen came with polaron but canon breen use disruptors and Deferi use phasers so I make it work somehow.
When I play the story content in STO I pretty much ignore all of it in my headcanon. I liked the Exploration clusters back then best, mixed with red alerts, dailies etc. - while the episodes serve a "tv show" experience and I play them, they are not "my show" and have little to no bearing on my character's headcanon.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Each of my characters and crew have a theme and each one has a different play style. Specially the captains as each has their own attitude. During missions when other people are not involved. I "talk" to the NPCs and my BOs. As for the other people I usually ignore them, and lots of time I don't have the chat on. Since most of the time, its all garbage talk anyways.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Which I suppose is fine. I often run set ups that make sense with my character but really aren't the "best" choices. I have just never liked the fact that some powers and items are obviously superior to others. There is no asymmetrical balance in this game. You quite literally live and die by your DPS.
While canon builds may not top the charts, they also are far from pitiful. I've seen some phaser builds on Reddit that top 70k.
In addition, do you think those who want to play the 'immersive style' are going to be seen within one light year of the DPS League and their pointless e-peen pounding?
This attitude is one of the reasons why the queues are dead, people get sick of hearing the same tired lines over and over again.
Phaser builds != canon builds, even on a Starfleet ship. Just FYI.
I don't think I could convince my Defiant, for example, to break 40k (that's probably still a high number, but it's one I'm 100% certain of) if I had my run of the best gear, traits and boff abilities in the game - and that thing is probably as close to a canon build as you can get without running with empty weapon slots.
Said Defiant is admittedly one of my best ships nowadays (battle cloak and quantum warhead module got it a long way, plus the upgraded quads are nice), but still... most would consider it 'pitiful'.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
A high dps build, as far as I understand it, isn't build on a specific weapon type though. Of course antiproton is by design "better" than any other weapons due to the crit chance and when you min/max crit you get better dps obviously, but these are differences on the higher end of the scale where it really doesn't matter any more. Most of the dps comes from min/maxed secondary effects and superflous damage count. I am fairly certain using phasers or AP does, ultimately, not make a significant difference.
But what do I know, highest dps I get is around 20k with my partgen Nebula and the others are between 10 and 20 and I never ran into any problems.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Well, I do believe mixing single beams, dual/quad cannons, and torpedoes is not considered conducive towards making high-DPS builds on a tac-heavy ship such as the Defiant. Partly because you can't cycle CRF, FAW, TS or whatever it is that is appropriate for a given weapon/build, partly because of scattered firing arcs, and partly because it's not '100% energy'.
Then there's also the fact that the build's emphasis on canon prohibits popular choices such as neutronic or quantum phase torpedoes (though I do occasionally swap out the fore torpedo and array for the QP set, primarily in PvP against powerful opponents), or non-standard phaser types. Or the fact that I don't have two sets of kemocite, or tons of fleet consoles (I prefer having a lot of universals, in case the battle cloak reference didn't clue you in
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
On the contrary, I believe that I had kept it on topic. The OP was asking about Immersive or RP builds and players. I stated my opinion that the DPS favoring slant of this game has made it difficult for those players. You are forced between doing "well" (yes, "well" is a relative term) and doing what you want your RP/Immersive/Canon build to be able to do.
I've seen plenty of very specific canon builds do well, most following the typical beam-boat build with the same re-used Boff seats and abilities. We have many abilities that are never used in this game because to do so would be to sacrifice DPS and sacrificing DPS means doing worse in queues and holding your team back.
Don't get me wrong. I could care less. My DPS is horrendous because I run a RP build that makes sense for my captain and his ship. However, I've had people tell me my build is awful and that I can never hope to compete with people who are even half trying to min/max.
This isn't so much an issue with players, but an issue inherent with the game. We used to have three clear(ish) classes that were somewhat balanced. Cruisers were the big imposing ships of the line, Escorts the nimble glass cannons and Science ships were the support. Now I see escorts that tank better than ships 9 times their size, cruisers being run like escorts and science ships all but forgotten.
In a game where choice was supposed to be everything, the only clear choice became DPS and subsequent missions and queues
were built around that idea. Which makes sense, it's a game. Players are always going to want to find the fastest and best way to kill things, but I think along the way we lost our identity. We went from a game where you could feasibly run almost every build and do well, to a game where only specific builds do well.
Ultimately it matters not, run what you have fun playing. I know I do. But as I tried to make clear in my first post, because this game favors so heavily DPS you can't expect to find many people running truly immersive/RP builds.
Each of my ships either fits into Star Trek lore, or STO lore as I interpret it. I use at least a fore torpedo on everything., and my energy type is determined by faction or STO Lore, thus the only ships I own who use Antiproton at present are my Wells and Mobius should I ever play them.(acknowledging that the don't exactly capitalize on AP the way any of my Warbirds would) I also play these ships with the full compliment of temporal gimmickry, including the lackluster DBB.
I cant compete with the number crunchers if I care to compare myself to them but I am fully capable of playing any content at any level. In fact I can play all night and the only people who will 'score more dps' (lol) then me are almost always using FAW/Antiproton.
Dont let anyone tell you how to play, as long as you understand the game and the mechanics you can use thematic, canon builds and have success.
The CAVEAT of all of this is the unfortunate reality that FIRE AT WILL is completely SUPERIOR to everything else. A good case in point is a ship of mine, the T6 Garumba. It has the capacity to be either a 2xCRF2 or 2xFAW3 ship. While meaningful contributions to mission objectives (ie no 'fake' dps) are often better facilitated by the canon setup, in an environment like a battlezone I will get AT LEAST 400% more loot drops (such as they are in STO). It isnt a lot of EC but it is something, and the FAW Garumba cashes in a million ec worth of trash a hell of a lot faster then a cannon Garumba.
The most unfortunate disparity comes between the defensive values and offensive opportunity that the FAW has superior to the non FAW. FAW allows me to fly at 100% speed 100% of the time, capitalizing on several passives and defensive bonuses. Cannon ships have to constantly re-adjust their positions if they hope to maintain reasonable defensive values, lowering their offensive output, or risk their defenses to allow more offensive opportunity. While this adds an element of challenge and participation to the game that faw doesent require it is nonetheless inequitable.