"Threatening Stance" : is it a good name?

calintane753 · March 2016

My two cents.

- "Threatening": not our characters are hooligans.
- "Stance": difficult to imagine the stance of a starship already in battle, full power, fire at will etc. etc..

Maybe could be wise to change the name of "Treatening Stance" from the current one to "Offensive/Defensive Mode", hence the poll.

borticuscryptic · March 2016

Changing this ability's name, this long after multiple Dev Blogs and Dev Posts have communicated the current one, is a sure-fire way to confuse and frustrate a good percentage of your players.

dragonsbrethren · March 2016

Not to mention Offensive/Defensive Mode is just boring sounding, and could actually cause confusion about its interaction with any other "mode" abilities like the Ar'kif Annihilation Mode and Tactical Mode on the DSDs.

angrytarg · March 2016

I agree, threatening stance is more appropriate for a warrior on the battlefield, not a starship. But then again, it gets the message across.

I probably would have used some term more closely associated with Star Trek jargon, like "Battle stations".

calintane753 · March 2016

Ok, nevermind: "Threatening Stance" will do.

borticuscryptic · March 2016

angrytarg wrote: »

I probably would have used some term more closely associated with Star Trek jargon, like "Battle stations".

Would you really want to fly into combat without Battle Stations active, in a Star Trek game?

nikeix · March 2016

Well, in many ways we already have the mechanic with Imposing Presence and Innocuous.

When thinking about what you'd actually have to do to get people's attention in a starship brawl I think of terms like 'clear and present danger' or maybe a 'belligerence' toggle. Seen as a tanking effect where you're putting yourself between allies and danger you get terms like 'vanguard' or 'flying cover'.

Ooo. How about an "Intercept Mode" toggle? That definitely says 'shoot me' in a mostly positive and vaguely space combat-ish way. Could even sound natural with the Strategist effects...

Logistical Support: Gain 1% Critical hit Chance when healed. Further healing refreshes this effect.
-Or- Gain 5% of Incoming Hull Healing as Temporary Hull while in Intercept Mode. This stacks up to 10 times.

Show of Force: Gain 2% Critical Hit Severity for each foe you hit with energy weapons. This stacks up to 5 times.
-Or- Increase Incoming Healing by 10% while in Intercept Mode.

Attrition Warfare: Increase shield and hull regeneration rates.
-Or- Reduce your Bridge Officer Recharge times by 1% when healed while in Intercept Mode.

"Number One? We need to intercept those cruisers or our fleet's line will crumble."

"Admiral, this is USS Stonewall, moving to intercept!"

"They're breaking through! We need someone to intercept on the left flank!"

It sounds a little more natural than a ship taking a 'stance'

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angrytarg · March 2016

borticuscryptic wrote: »

Would you really want to fly into combat without Battle Stations active, in a Star Trek game?

Absolutely I'd like that in a Star Trek game. Because there, "battle stations" and "red alert" are not interchangeable but two different orders ( http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Battlestations )

In combat the ship goes to red alert, naturally. Stations are secured, civilians and non-essentials get to a safe location, weapons and shields are powered. The same happens whent he ship takes damage etc.

Battle stations as a order however is something different and according to the users of MA who combined canon information is given on top of a red alert - exactly what will happen in this game. As seen in the shows and movies, personnel is armed (which it usually isn't) and the crew is overall in a different stance and expectations of what is to come.

In a Star Trek game which gains flavour from things like using terms from the shows I'd see "battle stations" as a command that increases the hardiness of the vessel with the aim to "stay in the fight longer" as your threatening stance is supposed to.

EDIT: "Double red alert" would also work, maybe going with a special alert sound. Using such details is what STO should absolutely do. It's not enough to let us shoot aliens we saw in one episode.

evilmark444 · March 2016

I think it's one of those things that, while the name doesn't really sound right, there really isn't a good alternative either. Draw fire comes to mind, but that's already taken as a ground skill.

mneme0 · March 2016

It just feels weird. From the perspective of an MMO player words like threat and debuff make perfect sense to describe the function of the abilities however it doesn't seem to fit correctly when you're talking about themed, in-universe text. They kind of break immersion but that's to be expected. I wouldn't mind seeing the wording change though something like aggressive posture possibly even though that also sounds rather ground based to me.

Intercept vs Defensive Bearing?

nikeix · March 2016

It doesn't need a name for when it's off

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ussintercept · March 2016

Intercept Course for the Threat Stance
Steadfast Maneuvers for Non- Threat Stance.

samt1996 · March 2016

Why do we care?

nikeix · March 2016

Because the game is full of evocative in-setting language for it's mechanics (skills and consoles in particular)and 'Threatening Stance' falls considerably short of that standard.

It's like asking 'why is the daily currency dilithium instead of just pink-bucks?' Because taking a little time to make things 'Trek' is a good use of that little bit of time.

angrytarg · March 2016

nikeix wrote: »

Because the game is full of evocative in-setting language for it's mechanics (skills and consoles in particular)and 'Threatening Stance' falls considerably short of that standard.

It's like asking 'why is the daily currency dilithium instead of just pink-bucks?' Because taking a little time to make things 'Trek' is a good use of that little bit of time.

Although "dilithium" is a bad example as we use arbitrary amounts of it as currency for equipment when it was actually used as a kind of fuel or rather catalyst (one crystal at a time) for starships. They should have converted gold pressed latinum to be used instead of dilithium and simply remove the underused latinum store or make the items in it cost EC.

nikeix · March 2016

[Sidebar: Star Trek universe and working economies]
I don't agree. In a post-replicator environment value is going to be the overlapping sets between can't be replicated and does something useful. Dilithium meets that description, Latinum does not. Latinum has value only because the Feringi treat it as having value and thus giving it value measureable in goods & materials they deal in. And the ferengi deal with a lot of non-Replicator cultures and a few that might be hiding that they have replicators. I don't see major powers like the Federation or Klingons choosing to be beholden the Ferengi economic practices and doubly so with a succession of wars happening where the ability fuel warships is just a wee bit more pressing that buying holodeck entertainment programs and designer swimwear

. Your 2410 headcanon may vary, of course

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[End sidebar]

So, new effect that lets you get shot on purpose. Still going with "Intercept sumthin'-sumthin'". Intercept Course does roll off the tongue nicely but might be a bit strange in that you can turn it on while flying away from the fight

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thibash · March 2016

To be honest, I can see a starship make a 'threatening stance'. It'd consist of a combination of irritating attacks (like when Sisko ordered the Peregrine attack wing to get the Cardassians to break line), looking formidable (maybe sending out some false sensor readings), moving or attacking in a way that draws attention to the ship (or make it less noticable) and a captain verbally shouting taunts over the comm channel hoping the enemy ship will be listening. The buffs from the strategist line represent a crew that are more skilled at such things, tricking an enemy into doing the wrong thing. The term 'stance' may be a bit weird, but it could function as a blanket term for an overall effect. What Trek-like term would you suggest that covers this? Intercept is certainly not applicable, but maybe something Klingon could work?

angrytarg · March 2016

nikeix wrote: »

[Sidebar: Star Trek universe and working economies]
I don't agree. In a post-replicator environment value is going to be the overlapping sets between can't be replicated and does something useful. Dilithium meets that description, Latinum does not. Latinum has value only because the Feringi treat it as having value and thus giving it value measureable in goods & materials they deal in. And the ferengi deal with a lot of non-Replicator cultures and a few that might be hiding that they have replicators. I don't see major powers like the Federation or Klingons choosing to be beholden the Ferengi economic practices and doubly so with a succession of wars happening where the ability fuel warships is just a wee bit more pressing that buying holodeck entertainment programs and designer swimwear . Your 2410 headcanon may vary, of course .
[End sidebar]

So, new effect that lets you get shot on purpose. Still going with "Intercept sumthin'-sumthin'". Intercept Course does roll off the tongue nicely but might be a bit strange in that you can turn it on while flying away from the fight .

Just want to comment on your sidebar: Gold-pressed Latinum is the only thing canonically said to be unreplicatable. We can assume Dilithium isn't either, but it's Latinum that fits all the criteria you yourself mentioned

tancrediiv · March 2016

Threatening stance is a poor name. If i stand in front of someone in a threatening way they are more likely to run than fight. Threat generation does the opposite. Boosting aggro is a game thing. No soldier says shoot me, but the ability should be called "Shoot Me".

nikeix · March 2016

People say "shoot me" all the time... It's called a diversion.

shantavi · March 2016

To be honest, Threatening Stance is more like an Electronic Warfare thing. The 'threatening' ship is putting out so much sensor static and lighting itself up, that it becomes the biggest target on the enemy's sensors. This works as well because the enemies can't target other friendly ships as easily (again, because of all the EW). So, I don't know if using some kind of Electronic Warfare terminology would be better than 'threatening stance', but I guess it really doesn't matter to me either way.

ensignfreekill · March 2016

I think the problem is the "stance" part.

How do you make a ship stand? I mean apart from the little cradles the models rest on.

This has the feel more of "Active Scanning" verses "Passive Detection" for radar and sonar.

In active mode you are pinging the target with outgoing radiation or sound. This allows you to track better and distance the target actively, but the cost is that its generating an easily tractable signature. The target can have threat detectors that would sense this type of tracking.

The "canon" version would be more of the "Target Locks" IE. the classic..

Lock phasers on their shields emitters, hold fire.

Or "Captain they have a target lock on us"

You would naturally consider those broadcasting a target lock on you the biggest threats, where as those hiding their intent without announcing where the next shot is going are going to be the harder to engage and less immediate priorities.

So I would suggest something like:

"Active Targeting" vs "Passive Targeting"

Or

"Active Target Engagement" vs "Suppressed Targeting Signatures"

Or

"Lock Targeting Sensors" vs "Floating Target Acquisition".

But the stance name? UGH.

ensignfreekill · March 2016

borticuscryptic wrote: »

Would you really want to fly into combat without Battle Stations active, in a Star Trek game?

Yes. Given that I'm in flight deck carrier I would probably have Flight quarters sounded instead of general quarters, but carriers get no love.

But seriously... Adding a couple of more modes of this would be helpful. Carriers either want to take the agro from their pets, or dump it on to them.

Right now the threat system doesn't really explain how the threat applies to the carrier pets.

I'm going to guess that threating applies to all dammage generated and if the dammage is generated by the pets then they get the agro increase, or decrease applied. What would be most helpful would be two additional modes of operation

1. To shift threat from my ship to my launches
2. To shift threat from my launches to my ship

That way if I want to fly a carrier with a feedback pulse, I don't at the same time get my pets slaughtered and lose the FBP effects of them taking the hits, or if I want them to run interfierance sacrificing themselves to prevent the carrier from exploding they can pull more agro away.

This could either be based on their orders. Ie "Intercept" and "escort" modes get + threat and attack or standard modes get negative threat.. or You could add a couple more to the "stance" mechanic for carriers: "Reflective Carrier Targeting" for shifting threat to the carrier and "Active launch Interference" for shifting agro to the launches.

Anyhow, would be really useful to know how threating stance applies to pet damage, if it does at all. Any hints borticuscryptic?

samt1996 · March 2016

Of all the things you could pick to whine about with this update...

nikeix · March 2016

Would you rather projectiles be called "star shots" instead of "photon torpedoes"?

Naming mechanics is a critical part of immersion. "Threatening Stance" may not be outright terrible, but it's not good. We/they can do better.

samt1996 · March 2016

Well then, please enlighten us with your superior wordsmanship.

samt1996 · March 2016

I will say this: "posture" is a better adjective then "stance" because you can't actually stand in space. After studying the definitions for both I think it's a superior choice but it isn't that big of a deal.

snoggymack22 · March 2016

borticuscryptic wrote: »

angrytarg wrote: »

I probably would have used some term more closely associated with Star Trek jargon, like "Battle stations".

Would you really want to fly into combat without Battle Stations active, in a Star Trek game?

Yes. I'm a diplomat. My shields are up, but hailing frequencies are open!

nikeix · March 2016

Sampt1196 wrote:

Well then, please enlighten us with your superior wordsmanship.

I'm partial to ussintercept's suggestion of "Intercept Course". Which would be why I brought it up hours ago in the Strategist Specialization thread

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autumnturning · March 2016

Starship Signature: Enhanced / Stealthy

If you wanted to shorthand that even further, it could simply Signature: Enhanced or Signature: Stealthy. I can imagine the acronym being reduced to SigE vs SigS ... or even SE vs SS.

But it conveys the purpose of the toggle in a way that doesn't rely on anthropomorphizing the ship into being a "person" as a result of the naming.

nebfab · March 2016

autumnturning wrote: »

Starship Signature: Enhanced / Stealthy

If you wanted to shorthand that even further, it could simply Signature: Enhanced or Signature: Stealthy. I can imagine the acronym being reduced to SigE vs SigS ... or even SE vs SS.

But it conveys the purpose of the toggle in a way that doesn't rely on anthropomorphizing the ship into being a "person" as a result of the naming.

Stealth is an actual and distinct thing in the game mechanic... I like your "signature" idea though, besides it's already used in Romulan consoles, so it's consistent.

I voted for "leave as is," since rename is unlikely anyway and not a big deal, but if I was the Naming Czar, I'd go with "Enhanced threat signature" and "Suppressed threat signature" ETS/STS aren't bad abbreviations either.

"Threatening Stance" : is it a good name?

"Threatening Stance" : is it a good name? 44 votes

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