Lol, maybe when they roll out the next level cap raise, the L70 rank will be captain again because we get demoted for being too heroic.
Are you actually implying there will be another level cap increase when Cryptic has already said the whole point of specializations is to allow for post level 50-60 character development without needing to raise the level cap?
Yes.
There is always more.
It's possible that there will be a level increase when all possible T6 ships have been released and the gros of the playerbase bought them all. That's when the T6 increase came around bbecause T5 ships were at their limit and four years old.
Exactly. If the game lasts long enough there will inevitably be another level cap increase at some point, so they can resell all the iconic ships as T7's and introduce whatever new gimmicks come with them.
But of course they're not going to say that now. That would make people hesitate to buy the current ships. So, they don't plan on raising the level cap anymore...until they do.
[...]
Adding more game is more code, Soph, not altering existing code.
And yet, they do that every few months. Obviously, adding a really minor dialogue text feature (!) is a lot less complicated than implementing a new specialization, adding a new reputation, or establishing another fleet holding.
Sez you. It probably IS, BUT it's a pointless feature. And thus bottom priority.
If all that is required for that is changing the stupid decision to make a Star Trek Hero an Admiral into something better, then that is worth a lot to do it.
Stupid decision? Look at Star Trek history and all the heroes. Captain Kirk. Captain Picard. Captain Janeway. Captain Archer...
...oh. Right.
Yes, but Kirk's the only one who still did heroics after the promotion...and he got demoted for doing it.
Lol, maybe when they roll out the next level cap raise, the L70 rank will be captain again because we get demoted for being too heroic.
I've suggested before they give us a mission where we have to break the rules somehow and we get a demotion to Captain. I still think it's a good idea.
For those complaining about this being asked for, it comes up again and again because making us Admirals is a freaking stupid idea that should never have happened. It will keep coming up until it's fixed.
Making us Admiral makes as much sense as it only taking 2 years to go from graduating from Starfleet Academy to Fleet Admiral or the number of wars that have been fought and won in those 2 years.
Oh, and Bobby, in historical usage, the admiral does not command the ship he's on - Nelson did not command that ship. The admiral commands the fleet; it's up to each ship's captain to command his ship in such a fashion that the ship carries out the admiral's orders. If Admiral Lord Nelson had tried to order the helm to a given course, the helmsman would have been required to refuse to accept the order until it was given by his captain, because the Admiral is not in command of that vessel. Do you see the difference yet?
already been through this, if he is commanding the fleet he is commanding every ship in the fleet, if he is giving orders to captains in that fleet and they are following those orders he is in command of every ship in that fleet, if he is aboard any ship in a fleet or aboard a single ship that is his flag ship, if he is giving orders to the captain of that flag ship he is aboard and the captain is following those orders he is in command of that ship whether it is a single ship alone or a ship that is part of a fleet.
in sto you are aboard a single ship at any one time, if your an admiral that is your flag ship, you have other ships you also command that are part of your fleet and you command them through the admiralty feature.
you give orders to your captain on your flag ship and he follows those orders and passes them on to the crew as necessary therefore you are in command of that ship.
if you were captain and you had a first officer you might give orders to that first officer and he would pass those orders to the crew in the same way.
if your captain is not around and you gave an order to a crew member he would follow those orders.
as you are on your flag ship and you give commands to your captain or the crew if your captain is not around and they follow them you are in ultimate command of that ship, the captain is following your commands the first officer is following your commands if the captain is not around and you give the orders to him, any other crew member is following your commands if you give them orders and the captain and first officer are not around.
as admiral you control that ship, anybody aboard be they captain, first officer or crew member are following your orders.
If Admiral Lord Nelson had tried to order the helm to a given course when the captain or first officer were not around and the helmsman had refuse to accept the order I doubt the helmsman would have lived to tell the tale.
as admiral commanding his flag ship any crew member aboard be they captain or regular crew are obliged to follow the orders from a senior member of staff providing the order is reasonable, that crew member would later inform the captain if he had not been around but that would not stop him following that order, of course the admiral would not give an order directly to a crew member if the captain is present as that would be disrespectful but he would not be obliged to wait until the captain is present to give an order and have it followed, in times of combat every second counts and if the admiral had to wait until his captain was present to give an order that could make the difference between winning or loosing.
that's called chain of command the captain is just a link in the chain and if that link is missing or absent or dead you just skip over that link.
Post edited by bobbydazlers on
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Making us Admiral makes as much sense as it only taking 2 years to go from graduating from Starfleet Academy to Fleet Admiral or the number of wars that have been fought and won in those 2 years.
We really only had four wars in STO.
-The Fed-Klingon war, which started years before the game began
-The Delta Quadrant war
-The Iconian War(which was rather quick, brutal, and we would have very easily lost had we not time traveled.)
-The Temproal Cold war, which started in the future, and took place in the past, so that doesn't really count as a current war we had in the current time.
Then there is dealing with the Borg, Voth, Undine, Devidians, Undine, Mirror Universe, Tal Shiar, and Dominion. Our characters should be shriveled husks by now due to the amount of overtime they have put in.
As OP mentioned, it's a dead horse, and the devs have already said it's simply not gonna happen, no way no how*. BUT, in my imaginary perfect world (bad pun unavoidably intentional), Level and Rank would be independent. Level would be a prerequisite (along with story-line progression) to unlock the next rank, but would not be automatic or required. This way you could raise the level cap without raising the rank cap.
Also, because I'm a stickler for continuity, real-world analogues, and have an anal-retentive panache for semantics, my imaginary perfect STO, Flag Officer ranks would be unlocked by minimum level AND fleet leadership. Also, PCs would rank-cap at 3-star Vice Admiral, reserving 4 and 5-stars for top brass NPCs only.
*They said the same thing about End-game Connies for five years.
Then there is dealing with the Borg, Voth, Undine, Devidians, Undine, Mirror Universe, Tal Shiar, and Dominion. Our characters should be shriveled husks by now due to the amount of overtime they have put in.
None of those were wars though.
And we know from the Delta Recruit event that the time between the start of the game, to the end of the Breen missions, is 18 months. There are 55 missions between the tutorial and the last Breen mission, meaning each mission is about 9-10 days apart, on average. That's actually not very active at all. Even if we assume each of those missions takes 3-5 days or w/e to complete, that still means we spend 5-7 days not on missions, between each mission.
Not exactly overtime when we are spending half our time doing nothing.
This also fails to take into account that when they did Delta Recruits, and made the 18 months number, the Breen arc was after the Borg arc, and the 18 months figure was based on the assumption you had done the Borg arc already. But Cryptic has since flipped the Breen and Borg arcs, meaning it's more like 18 months to the end of the Borg arc. And even if we take into account the 5 missions in the Borg arc, that still means we are going on a mission only every 8-9 days, with at least half of them off doing non mission stuff.
War is simply a state of armed conflict between two states or nations or different organizations within a state or nation in the case of a civil war. There is absolutely nothing that states how many battles need to take place, how many people need to die, how long it takes, or how many units are needed to qualify a conflict as a war. The Borg, Devidians, Undine, and Mirror Universe were conflicts to stop them from invading the Alpha Quadrant either for conquest or new hunting grounds. The Voth was a competition between them and the Alpha Quadrant Alliance for Solanae technology and Omega Particles. The Tal Shiar was defending Romulans from being turned into Elachi and wiping out Remans. The Dominion was the continuation of a previous war.
There is a slight problem with your 9 to 10 day assumption. STO conveniently forgets about travel time, resupplying, ship repairs, healing crew, and other logistics with running a ship. Then there is how we instantly acquire a mission even though it might take weeks or months for the contact to get back to us about what we found. So some story arcs might take a week to finish while others might take months to finish. Then there is the boring ship mission content that isn't shown like taking sensor readings, transfer needed supplies to a colony, playing in the holodeck, and similar content.
It is better to just ignore that we are in 2410 especially with the Summer and Christmas Events. Considering that this is our sixth Winter Wonderland event and it can only happen once per year, then 2415 would be a more accurate representation of what year it is.
1. Formal war requires a declaration. Which only the events I listed previously had.
So having the Mirror Universe invade the Alpha Quadrant is not considered a formal war because they didn't send a communication to the Federation? By that logic, Canada could invade the US and take over a few states and it wouldn't be a war due to a piece of paper even though there will be numerous battles and everything else that war involves. Most American citizens involved in that scenario would say that they are at war with Canada not that it doesn't count due to the lack of a piece of paper.
The simple fact that the Terran Empire gathered a bunch of heavily armed ships together and sent them to the Alpha Quadrant means that they declared war against the Alpha Quadrant. After all, someone has to give the command to invade a nation or declare war against a nation even if they don't inform the planned to be invaded nation.
Declaration of Wars sent to a targetted country is merely a common courtesy and not a necessity for a war. A Declaration of War sent to the invaded country is a poor battle strategy before the last 200 years since it gives time for the targeted country to defend.
I forgot to announce another problem with it only being 18 months, the development of the Dyson Science Destroyer. Our character found the Solanae Dyson Sphere in 2409 (Sphere of Influence) and the DSD was designed and built in 2409 (A Step Between Stars) since the only mention that the current year is 2410 is in Surface Tension. The DSD is a ship that is based off of Solanae technology. So in just a few months, the Alpha Quadrant Alliance was able to study the Dyson Sphere, design a ship based on those studies, and mass produce the ship. A couple of years might be possible to design and build a prototype ship, but not a few months especially with untested alien technology.
Without getting further into the 'our characters should be Captains' debate, since that seems unlikely to happen I do wish that they would at least let us promote our First Officer BOFF to the rank of Captain.
No, please let us not add layers upon layers of decisions that could act as excuses not to correct the error.
You are assuming that said "error" is something that The Powers That Be" feel requires correcting. [...]
No, I am assuming that the powers that be will change their mind one day. That is reasonable to assume.
Same difference; they won't. They created a whole gameplay 'system' (admirality) around our character rank.
Yeah really, the section of the playerbase that wants it changed has always been a small but vocal minority. And yeah, Admiralty pretty much means you are guaranteed to not ever officially become a captain at L60.
[...]Yeah really, the section of the playerbase that wants it changed has always been a small but vocal minority. [...]
That sure seems so. The vast majority of players does not care at all about the game in any way, much less about if it is immersive enough.
Hence my question: How much money would the devs want for that feature?
You'd have to hire a lot more Devs to make it highly immersive. so, if you go by a full years pay of on average for say minimum, which would be in this market something like 25k - 75k yearly salary, multiplied by however many people you hire, it would equal...? either a lot of personnel, or else several years to add the missing content. It would likely cost several million in any case to REALLY add depth to what is already here.
Without getting further into the 'our characters should be Captains' debate, since that seems unlikely to happen I do wish that they would at least let us promote our First Officer BOFF to the rank of Captain.
No, please let us not add layers upon layers of decisions that could act as excuses not to correct the error.
You are assuming that said "error" is something that The Powers That Be" feel requires correcting. [...]
No, I am assuming that the powers that be will change their mind one day. That is reasonable to assume.
Same difference; they won't.
They grew more savvy on the subject of the endgame Constitution. Why wouldn't they become more savvy on the subject of the way the player is addressed by the NPC's?
They didn't "grow more savvy," they just got permission from CBS to do it.
They created a whole gameplay 'system' (admirality) around our character rank.
That's is bad enough, but a player can a lot more easily ignore that tab than ignore being addressed improperly by NPC's all the time.
That's your opinion. I'd expect most players pay much more attention to a highly rewarding game mechanic than a word in a skippable textbox, that isn't even spoken by the voiceovers.
While I do support all customization options on principle, the ability to choose how NPCs address me isn't that important.
Well, that sums it up: Rewards. That's what it is about, after all: A promotion is a reward, and a promotion to a higher rank is an even better reward. WHich is why we will be heads of our respective factions with the next level increase. Because rewards.
De gustibus non est disputandem. But there is no way people could still recognize it as a Star Trek game then.
Being President of the Federation would work as a Star Trek game, but not as a MMO and it would be pretty boring due to all the meetings and diplomacy. Being Chancellor of the Klingon Empire would be far more exciting than President of the Federation.
[...]Yeah really, the section of the playerbase that wants it changed has always been a small but vocal minority. [...]
That sure seems so. The vast majority of players does not care at all about the game in any way, much less about if it is immersive enough.
Hence my question: How much money would the devs want for that feature?
You'd have to hire a lot more Devs to make it highly immersive.
We are talking about one minor feature here that would help many people a lot. And I was asking the dev team (as in, their leadership).
Think there is a miscommunication here. "Highly Immersive" would mean story depth, and includes background interaction, story interactivity, general occurrences 'off-screen', visuals, animations, and a gawd-aweful lot of other FX and writing issues I can't even list here due to the shear AMOUNT! We're talking two completely separate industries that have to merge to produce a viable product.
By this definition, STO would be considered very shallow waters a toddler could wade through. It lacks any real depth. It's not very 'Immersive' as you only touch on what Star Trek is through the filter of STO.
I don't know any other way to explain this simply. Here's a visual aid: Immersive in the film world would be the difference between the original Lost in Space verses either the latest movie version or something like Avatar (blue guys, not the arrowhead).
It has to due with ground breaking writing (which is more than a dull script read), acting, the actors themselves, lighting, ambience, FX, animation, cinematic, sound, music, and more.
now if you're calling something immersive, and only mean one thing? I think you might have to redefine what you're talking about, as you're probably way off base. Highly Immersive is everything and that little something extra you can't put your finger one, but only comes about once everything is done by the right team. I think Lucas probably explained what makes something good in one of his SW interviews dealing with is early works. It's more than the sum total and there are things that are critical, that without them being done to the best they can be, the whole work will fail and fall short.
I'm not saying this about STO. I'm only saying STO is shallow when it comes to Immersion. Halo is more immersive as are many other games, for examples.
and if that didn't makes sense... then don't even try to understand it as I'd just be talking to the wall.
another way to put it might be to ask 'how personally involved is the player IN the game?'. It makes a big difference if you have your life on the line verses whether you're just pushing pieces around from afar.
Comments
Exactly. If the game lasts long enough there will inevitably be another level cap increase at some point, so they can resell all the iconic ships as T7's and introduce whatever new gimmicks come with them.
But of course they're not going to say that now. That would make people hesitate to buy the current ships. So, they don't plan on raising the level cap anymore...until they do.
My character Tsin'xing
Making us Admiral makes as much sense as it only taking 2 years to go from graduating from Starfleet Academy to Fleet Admiral or the number of wars that have been fought and won in those 2 years.
already been through this, if he is commanding the fleet he is commanding every ship in the fleet, if he is giving orders to captains in that fleet and they are following those orders he is in command of every ship in that fleet, if he is aboard any ship in a fleet or aboard a single ship that is his flag ship, if he is giving orders to the captain of that flag ship he is aboard and the captain is following those orders he is in command of that ship whether it is a single ship alone or a ship that is part of a fleet.
in sto you are aboard a single ship at any one time, if your an admiral that is your flag ship, you have other ships you also command that are part of your fleet and you command them through the admiralty feature.
you give orders to your captain on your flag ship and he follows those orders and passes them on to the crew as necessary therefore you are in command of that ship.
if you were captain and you had a first officer you might give orders to that first officer and he would pass those orders to the crew in the same way.
if your captain is not around and you gave an order to a crew member he would follow those orders.
as you are on your flag ship and you give commands to your captain or the crew if your captain is not around and they follow them you are in ultimate command of that ship, the captain is following your commands the first officer is following your commands if the captain is not around and you give the orders to him, any other crew member is following your commands if you give them orders and the captain and first officer are not around.
as admiral you control that ship, anybody aboard be they captain, first officer or crew member are following your orders.
If Admiral Lord Nelson had tried to order the helm to a given course when the captain or first officer were not around and the helmsman had refuse to accept the order I doubt the helmsman would have lived to tell the tale.
as admiral commanding his flag ship any crew member aboard be they captain or regular crew are obliged to follow the orders from a senior member of staff providing the order is reasonable, that crew member would later inform the captain if he had not been around but that would not stop him following that order, of course the admiral would not give an order directly to a crew member if the captain is present as that would be disrespectful but he would not be obliged to wait until the captain is present to give an order and have it followed, in times of combat every second counts and if the admiral had to wait until his captain was present to give an order that could make the difference between winning or loosing.
that's called chain of command the captain is just a link in the chain and if that link is missing or absent or dead you just skip over that link.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Then there is dealing with the Borg, Voth, Undine, Devidians, Undine, Mirror Universe, Tal Shiar, and Dominion. Our characters should be shriveled husks by now due to the amount of overtime they have put in.
Also, because I'm a stickler for continuity, real-world analogues, and have an anal-retentive panache for semantics, my imaginary perfect STO, Flag Officer ranks would be unlocked by minimum level AND fleet leadership. Also, PCs would rank-cap at 3-star Vice Admiral, reserving 4 and 5-stars for top brass NPCs only.
*They said the same thing about End-game Connies for five years.
War is simply a state of armed conflict between two states or nations or different organizations within a state or nation in the case of a civil war. There is absolutely nothing that states how many battles need to take place, how many people need to die, how long it takes, or how many units are needed to qualify a conflict as a war. The Borg, Devidians, Undine, and Mirror Universe were conflicts to stop them from invading the Alpha Quadrant either for conquest or new hunting grounds. The Voth was a competition between them and the Alpha Quadrant Alliance for Solanae technology and Omega Particles. The Tal Shiar was defending Romulans from being turned into Elachi and wiping out Remans. The Dominion was the continuation of a previous war.
There is a slight problem with your 9 to 10 day assumption. STO conveniently forgets about travel time, resupplying, ship repairs, healing crew, and other logistics with running a ship. Then there is how we instantly acquire a mission even though it might take weeks or months for the contact to get back to us about what we found. So some story arcs might take a week to finish while others might take months to finish. Then there is the boring ship mission content that isn't shown like taking sensor readings, transfer needed supplies to a colony, playing in the holodeck, and similar content.
It is better to just ignore that we are in 2410 especially with the Summer and Christmas Events. Considering that this is our sixth Winter Wonderland event and it can only happen once per year, then 2415 would be a more accurate representation of what year it is.
So having the Mirror Universe invade the Alpha Quadrant is not considered a formal war because they didn't send a communication to the Federation? By that logic, Canada could invade the US and take over a few states and it wouldn't be a war due to a piece of paper even though there will be numerous battles and everything else that war involves. Most American citizens involved in that scenario would say that they are at war with Canada not that it doesn't count due to the lack of a piece of paper.
The simple fact that the Terran Empire gathered a bunch of heavily armed ships together and sent them to the Alpha Quadrant means that they declared war against the Alpha Quadrant. After all, someone has to give the command to invade a nation or declare war against a nation even if they don't inform the planned to be invaded nation.
Declaration of Wars sent to a targetted country is merely a common courtesy and not a necessity for a war. A Declaration of War sent to the invaded country is a poor battle strategy before the last 200 years since it gives time for the targeted country to defend.
I forgot to announce another problem with it only being 18 months, the development of the Dyson Science Destroyer. Our character found the Solanae Dyson Sphere in 2409 (Sphere of Influence) and the DSD was designed and built in 2409 (A Step Between Stars) since the only mention that the current year is 2410 is in Surface Tension. The DSD is a ship that is based off of Solanae technology. So in just a few months, the Alpha Quadrant Alliance was able to study the Dyson Sphere, design a ship based on those studies, and mass produce the ship. A couple of years might be possible to design and build a prototype ship, but not a few months especially with untested alien technology.
My character Tsin'xing
there should be a standard Demotion system, for when you mess up.
And I believe Emperor of All-Existence ist the highest one could hope to rise, yet fail to ever achieve - as a mortal.
You'd have to hire a lot more Devs to make it highly immersive. so, if you go by a full years pay of on average for say minimum, which would be in this market something like 25k - 75k yearly salary, multiplied by however many people you hire, it would equal...? either a lot of personnel, or else several years to add the missing content. It would likely cost several million in any case to REALLY add depth to what is already here.
Or maybe the vast majority of players just disagree on what actually counts as "immersive."
They didn't "grow more savvy," they just got permission from CBS to do it.
That's your opinion. I'd expect most players pay much more attention to a highly rewarding game mechanic than a word in a skippable textbox, that isn't even spoken by the voiceovers.
While I do support all customization options on principle, the ability to choose how NPCs address me isn't that important.
Being President of the Federation would work as a Star Trek game, but not as a MMO and it would be pretty boring due to all the meetings and diplomacy. Being Chancellor of the Klingon Empire would be far more exciting than President of the Federation.
Think there is a miscommunication here. "Highly Immersive" would mean story depth, and includes background interaction, story interactivity, general occurrences 'off-screen', visuals, animations, and a gawd-aweful lot of other FX and writing issues I can't even list here due to the shear AMOUNT! We're talking two completely separate industries that have to merge to produce a viable product.
By this definition, STO would be considered very shallow waters a toddler could wade through. It lacks any real depth. It's not very 'Immersive' as you only touch on what Star Trek is through the filter of STO.
I don't know any other way to explain this simply. Here's a visual aid: Immersive in the film world would be the difference between the original Lost in Space verses either the latest movie version or something like Avatar (blue guys, not the arrowhead).
It has to due with ground breaking writing (which is more than a dull script read), acting, the actors themselves, lighting, ambience, FX, animation, cinematic, sound, music, and more.
now if you're calling something immersive, and only mean one thing? I think you might have to redefine what you're talking about, as you're probably way off base. Highly Immersive is everything and that little something extra you can't put your finger one, but only comes about once everything is done by the right team. I think Lucas probably explained what makes something good in one of his SW interviews dealing with is early works. It's more than the sum total and there are things that are critical, that without them being done to the best they can be, the whole work will fail and fall short.
I'm not saying this about STO. I'm only saying STO is shallow when it comes to Immersion. Halo is more immersive as are many other games, for examples.
and if that didn't makes sense... then don't even try to understand it as I'd just be talking to the wall.
another way to put it might be to ask 'how personally involved is the player IN the game?'. It makes a big difference if you have your life on the line verses whether you're just pushing pieces around from afar.
My character Tsin'xing