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Your Choice Factions (just the two of them)
flash525
Member Posts: 5,441 Arc User
Not a desire by any means - it's far too late for that now anyway, but if you were in the drivers seat back in 2009, 2010, or maybe even before that, and it was down to you to choose the two factions that were going to represent Star Trek Online, what do you imagine you would have done with that decision? What choice would you have made?
Would you have echoed the choice made by Cryptic and had Federation vs Klingon? Would you have switched out for a Federation vs Romulan or Federation vs Borg setup? Would you have put a spin on the game and had Klingon vs Romulan?
Maybe you'd go epic and have the Federation Alliance (Starfleet, Klingon & Romulan) vs the Dominion Alliance (Jem Hadar, Vorta, Cardassian & Breen) or The Prime Alliance (Starfleet & Romulans) vs the Anti Terran Alliance (Klingon & Cardassian) from the Mirror Universe?
Maybe you'd do something entirely different; your own alliances perhaps? Maybe something mimicking the factions from the Typhoon Pact novels? Or just a combination of factions uniting against another combination of factions? Perhaps you've always wanted to unify the Ferengi with the Son'a and Gorn, or you've always thought the Suliban and Orion would make a force to be reckoned with. You have the sandbox, now to get creative.
What would you do?
For the sake of Trek, no Jedi, Cylons, Minbari or Jaffa Cakes etc here - lets stick to Trek!
Would you have echoed the choice made by Cryptic and had Federation vs Klingon? Would you have switched out for a Federation vs Romulan or Federation vs Borg setup? Would you have put a spin on the game and had Klingon vs Romulan?
Maybe you'd go epic and have the Federation Alliance (Starfleet, Klingon & Romulan) vs the Dominion Alliance (Jem Hadar, Vorta, Cardassian & Breen) or The Prime Alliance (Starfleet & Romulans) vs the Anti Terran Alliance (Klingon & Cardassian) from the Mirror Universe?
Maybe you'd do something entirely different; your own alliances perhaps? Maybe something mimicking the factions from the Typhoon Pact novels? Or just a combination of factions uniting against another combination of factions? Perhaps you've always wanted to unify the Ferengi with the Son'a and Gorn, or you've always thought the Suliban and Orion would make a force to be reckoned with. You have the sandbox, now to get creative.
What would you do?
For the sake of Trek, no Jedi, Cylons, Minbari or Jaffa Cakes etc here - lets stick to Trek!
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With one caveat - when the Feddies "expand", it's just "introduce race" and/or go TOS, while when the Coalition expands their expansions are of the Romulan Republic (full-on actual sub-faction) style - and the Coalition keeps getting sub-factions till the playerbase has their "mains" split 50/50 - thusly encouraging more "factional gameplay / combat / contests" than currently exists...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
I'd have made it a true, full 3 Faction game: Federation, Klingon, and Romulan. The Federation would be the most homogenous yet have the most racial diversity, as it does now, and have a more Engineering focus. Klingons would just be Klingons, but use the Klingon House feudal system to distinguish themselves from each other, enabling inter-House competition, and would have a more Tactical bent. Romulans would be, as now, Romulans and Remans and have a proclivity towards Science, however, Romulan players would have the option to start out in the Republic or in the Empire with different starting stories, but ultimately Romulans would reunify in time to marry up with the main storyline.
I do like the ally mechanic used with our current Romulans, so I'd have also done a sub-Faction of Mercenaries, Merchants, and Marauders that would utilize races like the Ferengi, Orions, Nausicaans, Suliban, etc. that could chose to ally with the Federation, Klingons, or Romulans. They'd have been done similarly to the TOS Faction with a separate "tutorial" starting storyline that would marry up with the main storyline around level 10 once they chose an alliance.
I'd also have done a couple of endgame "half" Factions utilizing the Dominion and a Delta Quadrant Faction for when those areas open up for the game. They'd have been done using a truncated "tutorial" introductory storyline that starts them at endgame level (50) and marries up with the main storyline around level 60.
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But, considering that this is CBS liscence and what they say goes, I would not hold my breath too long for anything new to come out to get KDF's an edge.
The storytelling, IMO, is pretty well done in STO as it is and the factions can be seen as origin stories. But the gameplay never catches up and the ongoing faction segregation results in unfortunate consequences with the minority factions "unprofitable." It would avoid many a complication if there was just one Alliance superfaction that everyone is in once the unique part of the origin story is over.
There's too much variety between our enemies so just Federation vs Borg or Federation vs enemies / Alliance vs enemies wouldn't make much sense.
So just a single Alliance faction. At lower levels there would be a clear distinction between ships you can fly, but once you reach level 50 or 60 and have built a reputation within the alliance, you get access to all the other species' ships.
Within this faction I would also introduce separate origin stories for the sub factions that could eventually be made a part of this single faction (so an origin story for the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians and possibly others like the Undine, Borg Cooperative, Voth and all others that are popular enough.
I am pretty happy with things the way they are.
I get to do my KDF stuff. My friends want to play with me? I got my stray Ferengi. Or they got their Alt Klingon.
Other people can do whatever they want.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the way it is, now.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
So for example I would have set it so that you can choose a race, then move on to background where you build out the characters origin and starting skills/traits. Following that you choose your affiliation( ie Civilian, Merc, Navy) and begin play. Then as you advance you have episodes that tie into your choices and weave you into the meta plot.
Since thats kinda convoluted lets roll an example...
So first we'll make an Andorian, trained in Sciences(background), learned a few ways to get more power out of his ship's systems(an example trait), did a tour in the imperial guard(background step 2), picked up a knack for sensor locks(trait 2 giving say acc buff), before deciding to try life as a mercenary(background step 3), where he learned that life doesnt always give you the time you need(trait step 3 giving a passive cooldown bonus on skills). This leads him to go try the safer life offered by Starfleet, where he received command training.(background final step, choosing Affiliation, in this case navy)
Now as our ando progresses through his career he will encounter missions common to Andorians, Starfleet, and even a pool of side quests that tie into his imperial guard days or merc days, and interwoven into these youll slowly get introduced more and more to the universal meta-plot so that by the time he's half way to "endgame" all he is doing is meta-plot with the odd optional side quest that pull from his backgrounds.
Ships wouldn't be tiered as STO does them, and would be upgradeable to a certain extent. Im sorry but I dont care what ya do to a Miranda, its not going to go toe to toe with a Defiant class and win, on the other hand it will do much better than that Defiant if you need a Science Lab or Engineering Bay. Ships would be broken down like STO does now in the Science/Damage/Tank focus, and hull availability would be soft level locked and you spend some kind of pseudo currency on them, the currency would operate much like expertise in that its mostly gained by play and "levelling" but allow for other means than pure combat. So if someone does X or Y they might have the influence to get a ship a level or two early. Couple that with the ability to upgrade them so that the "tiers" get blurred a bit. So say a starter ship could be upgraded over the career using that same influence "currency" and perform as well as a ship two "tiers" higher. Every hull has its limits tho and a vessel cant really be upgraded and tweaked eternally so they cant be upgraded more than two "tiers" worth before you just need a new ship.
Later at endgame give a player powered "Retrofit" mechanic that allows a great deal of crafting material, dilithium, timed projects and probably at least a little "cash currency" so that they can overhaul anything into an endgame ship. (similar conceptually to fleet projects but designed so its feasible for one player)
3 factions makes sense for PvP, but since that aspect was never well developed in a way that's not pay2win (or grind to catch up perpetually) and then Delta Rising happened, factionless would have at least made your choices stand out, unlike now where feds get everything, Romulans get spun into some republican nonsense, and then alongside KDF get less stuff and woven into unified storylines that does not justify the extra double spending on them.
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> One faction, because Cryptic doesn't have the resources to handle more than one faction, and really didn't have those resources when they made the mistake of creating two, the game wouldn't have a PvP option because (again) insufficiently resourced to handle the job of balancing a game with customizable units AND PvP.
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> Basically cutting the options down to what Cryptic Studios can actually maintain and support with an eye on the long-term game, so certain races/ships would be premium items that unlock specific elements of the main story, but they wouldn't have to pretend a Fed-focused and oriented storyline was "Universal".
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> they wouldn't have to, because there wouldn't be other factions to ignore.
Pretty sure Cryptic was told they *had* to have "Red vs Blue" PvP, and it *had* to be out by a certain date. So when you suggest that 2 factions was a mistake, how would you suggest they handle that demand? Ignore it and lose the licence?
PvE would be it's own thing; pretty much as it is now where you can interact with other players, join in on raids and assist with missions etc, there'd just be no PvP content, and you'd only be a Starfleet Officer. I suppose (if you've purchased/played) additional PvP factions you could unlock said species/ship for PvE use, but you'd still be under the UFP banner.
If could go back in time and choose anything, to be honest the two factions I'd choose would be the Khitomer Accord Signatories vs the Typhon Pact
Game based around those factions from the books I think would have been more interesting and diverse.
I replied to the post...I didn't read it all...sorry I was up all night keeping my basement from flooding and needed something to pass the time
You can say that about a lot of things...who would of thought the Klingon Empire would become a member of the Federation one day? Who would of thought the Borg would have allied with Voyager instead of just ordering a bunch of Cubes to assimilate it and steal the idea needed to beat the Undine?
Things happen that are unexpected and if written well it can work despite how much some people may not like it.
So basically you are going to have to choose between Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, Dominion, or "Other". The fact is, the two most popular factions, therefore the two most likely to be a success, are Federation and Klingon. So I really wouldn't have done too much different. Even with hindsight.
My character Tsin'xing
I am inclined to agree that the premise of those novels is absurd; the idea that the Romulan Star Empire, Tzenkethi Coalition, Breen Confederacy, Gorn Hegemony and Tholian Assembly would unite is just daft; it's as though the author of the book just wanted to involve/include as many species as possible, so threw a bunch of them together. That said, it's no more absurd than some of the other stories or ideas I've read over the years - heck, there's a Mirror Universe where, conveniently, all our characters, regardless of era, just so happen to be in or around the same area of space, disregarding of all history that could have resulted in said character not even being born.
The Tholian would likely never work with anyone; they're too xenomorphic, and an alliance between the Romulan and Breen? It's been hinted at on Trek that there's mistrust there, especially from the Romulan perspective.
Haha, it's okay dude!
There's a lot of history, collaboration and accords between the Federation and Klingon Empire that (ultimately) lead to their alliance, and such history spans centuries. The same can not quite be said for the other Typhoon Pact Factions. Also, if I'm not mistaken, the Borg couldn't merely assimilate Voyager; wasn't it the Doctor who created the virus? It's quite likely - it might have even been mentioned, that if the Borg didn't play ball and attempted to assimilate Voyager, then the EMH and all relevant data would be erased.
The problem (or one of the) with the current setup is there's ultimately no difference in play style; Battlecruisers and Raiders should have remained specific to the KDF, whilst Carriers should have remained specific to the FED. There's a whole variety of game elements that should have, or could have been done by limiting one aspect to one faction over another, as already stated. IIRC, a good number of FED players cried that the KDF have Battlecruisers when they did not, and so to quiet the herd, Cryptic caved and FED's got the Avenger.
My character Tsin'xing
Which is why I made the caveat that there were assumptions that needed to be made in some faction. The fact is, if we are assuming everything is as it was at the beginning, I would do one of two things. either a) ditch the second faction idea all together and just do the Federation, or b) scrap the whole idea entirely and not make the game in the first place. People tend to either not remember or forget the time/resource crunch Cryptic was on when the took on the game. No matter how you try to spin it, they didn't have the time they should have to develop the game before launch and were contractually obligated to stick to a release date forced on them.
But that isn't even the point of this thread. The thread asks a question in a way that assumes you have the freedom Cryptic did not. So I made assumptions that I have the money and resources to make the game cryptic could not. At which point, from a Faction perspective, I would not have changed anything. Federation and Klingon Empire are the two most popular factions in Star Trek. Everything else comes after that. So from a pure business perspective, it makes sense to use the two most popular.
Yup...only Science ship the KDF had was a c-store one and it was worse than the worst free Fed Science ship. (Shouldn't take a rocket scientist to see why it didn't sell well)
Lots of people have discussed the idea of "Branch" stories. While I would love to see certain events referenced in other factions (why is there no mention on the Klingon side of B'vat suddenly "disappearing"), if I understand what you are saying, true branching storylines are rather tricky even with "unlimited" resources. The problem is because of the linear nature of the game, there is only so much you can change and still get to point B. Which you have to do, to get to point C, etc.
The fact is, branching storylines that actually matter really aren't possible in game, In the end it ends up being more flavor text more then anything (not that a little more of that in STO would be a bad thing). In the end, your decisions really don't matter because ultimately, you still get to Point B.
Otherwise, I agree that it would have been great if Cryptic could have fleshed out the Klingons more. What we eventually ended up with was done well, but it wasn't nearly as developed and fleshed out as the Federation side was. I don't know that I would go full on "Civil War" with the Klingon side. For one thing, that is kind of what we are trying to avoid in the beginning story, but two I just don't think it would make sense to have the Empire actively fighting against itself when you have the Undine running around. Though, we know the Great Houses never really do get along, so I little "politics" would be neat to explore.
My character Tsin'xing
Well, yes and no. While yes, there is speculation in the thread, it is kind of a "if you could do it all again what would you do". So while it is fine to "dream big", I likewise don't see a problem with pointing out when an idea is impractical, even in most hypothetical situations.
Which is why I am not a fan of Branch storylines, it just isn't practical. The closest game I have ever played that came to it was SWTOR. Which well does have some storyline changes to it based on your decisions, those changes are all superficial. Even then, no real meaningful difference occurs when you make one decision over another. It just isn't practical in an MMO, which by nature needs a continuous story.
> As much as I love to play my RRF and KDF characters: One.
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> Just one faction, with builtin options for various origin stories. Storytelling gets so much easier with just one faction.
In hind sight so much this, but to expand on it, I'd have one faction with subfactions, but again hind sight is 20/20.
What we have isn't bad.