I have been plying STO for almost three years now. I can honestly say that I spend most of my time doing character maintenance vs actually playing the game. This comes down to four areas. DOFF Missions, Admiralty Missions, Accolade Hunting, and reward Hunting. For the purposes of this discussion I will only discuss the DOFF Missions.
Right now DOFF Missions are broken down into categories. Each categories has its own screen.
- Current Map
- Personal
- Department Heads
- First Officer
- Diplomatic Assignments (FED)
- Marauding Assignments (KDF)
- Trade Assignments
- Engineering
- Operation
- Colony Assignments
- Development Assignments
- Science
- Science Assignments
- Exploration Assignments
- Medical
- Tactical
- Military Assignments
- Espionage Assignments
- Security
This structure does not serve a point other than making the player have to jump back and forth finding Assignments to send DOFFs. In addition the Department Heads don’t serve any real purpose other than allowing for Enabling the First Officer Recommendations.
My proposed solution is to flatten out the assignments window by having one sortable window where the player can decide the criteria for which missions are important to the player (Assignment Chains, Mission Rewards, Experience, Commendation XP, EC, or Dilithium, Time to Complete, Most likely of success)
Department Heads are still important but serve a different purpose. They act and assignments boosters
(now there is a real reason to have choose the right BOFF and dare I say it purchase additional BOFF slots from the C-Store) The best Assignments boosts would come by having a Very Rare BOFF of the correct assignment type, assigned a head to a single department.
Example of Boosts:
-2% if Common BOFF is used
-1% if Uncommon BOFF is used
+0% if Rare BOFF is used
+1% if Very Rare BOFF is used
+%0 Right Class of BOFF is used
-5% Wrong Class of BOFF is used
-1% If Single BOFF is assigned to 2 Departments as Head
-2% If Single BOFF is assigned to 3 Departments as Head
-3% If Single BOFF is assigned to 4 Departments as Head
-4% If Single BOFF is assigned to 5 Departments as Head
-6% If Single BOFF is assigned to 6 Departments as Head
-9% If Single BOFF is assigned to 7 Departments as Head
-13% If Single BOFF is assigned to 8 Departments as Head
-19% If Single BOFF is assigned to 9 Departments as Head
-28% If Single BOFF is assigned to 10 Departments as Head
-41% If Single BOFF is assigned to 11 Departments as Head
-60% If Single BOFF is assigned to 12 Departments as Head
Finally the other major gripe is not having the ability to replicate items that are required directly as part of the assignment screen. We know that most of the items can be replicated, but half the time when clicking on the replicate button, the assignment screen is lost and now the player is back to hunting for the assignment that they wanted to run after replicating enough items. Just having a pop window or something to say "hey it going to cost you x ec to replicate items to meet the requirements, are you sure?" Even it it cost twice as much it would sill be worth it.
In the off chance that someone from Crypic or Perfect World sees this, please consider making this enhancement, in an upcoming release.
Comments
As it is now, unless it's one of my days off of work, I don't do any doffing/admiralty. If I only have 30mins to 1hr to play, I'm gonna pew-pew instead of playing Star Trek Accounting Online.
I know its a long shot but I still hope to provide constructive feedback.
Quality of Life Improvements for the Mission Journal
Enhancement for the Duty Office Assignments
Enhancement for Admiralty Missions
Enhancement for Accolades and Reward
Enhancement Bridge Officers