While the tutorials as they exist are adequate they lack certain features. They don't give instruction on how to move Away Team members manually. They don't differentiate between loadout types, (Beams, Cannons and Torpedo boats) and they most certainly don't indicate how each class is supposed to differ from each other. No matter the class the tutorial plays out exactly the same. No class specific mission objective, no tutorial popup to explain the roles and most certainly nothing the explain how and why some tactics or abilities are unique to each class.
I think this is something that needs looked at. Generic may be good in a way. But I've seen players, myself included who have played this game for years and they learn something basic to a class that should have been in the tutorial or at least explained to some extent during the Klingon War Arc which should be considered a extension of the tutorial.
I'm not sure I understand what you want to see. Captains are only different in the abilities you get at certain levels and a few traits available. You also can't ever change from tac to sci so what is the point in pointing out the differences between them? You'd only be confusing someone with useless information to them. Simply, if a player is playing a tac captain, they have zero use for any information about photonic fleet.
For weapon loadouts, again what do you want to see? This game has been designed to let people build how they want to build, and it is up to every player how they want to outfit their ship and captain, and to what goal. How can you go into any explanation when the field of possibilities is so wide?
Class specific objectives do exist in several missions, but are not that widespread. The mission outliner does tend to show them when they are there, so what more do you think is necessary?
Roles you mention, but I'm not sure what you mean because you role is what you make of it based on your loadout and playstyle.
I think you may be right about manual away team commands needing a primer, but I can't recall if there is one in the few missions that demand you to play with them.
I'm not sure I understand what you want to see. Captains are only different in the abilities you get at certain levels and a few traits available. You also can't ever change from tac to sci so what is the point in pointing out the differences between them? You'd only be confusing someone with useless information to them. Simply, if a player is playing a tac captain, they have zero use for any information about photonic fleet.
For weapon loadouts, again what do you want to see? This game has been designed to let people build how they want to build, and it is up to every player how they want to outfit their ship and captain, and to what goal. How can you go into any explanation when the field of possibilities is so wide?
Class specific objectives do exist in several missions, but are not that widespread. The mission outliner does tend to show them when they are there, so what more do you think is necessary?
Roles you mention, but I'm not sure what you mean because you role is what you make of it based on your loadout and playstyle.
I think you may be right about manual away team commands needing a primer, but I can't recall if there is one in the few missions that demand you to play with them.
Basically I want to see 3 different Tutorials, same mission but with each class getting a starter ship attuned to that class, Escort, Cruiser, Science, The Escort should be a Cannon boat, the Cruiser a Beam Boat and the Sci ship a Torp boat. Also they need to have clear differences in powers.
Make it clear that Science has far more Crowd Control abilities and healing abilities that other classes. For example, give either the Science Captain or the 1st Science Boff, Hazard Emitters 1 to begin and when you get to the part where you have to rescue the ship that is under Borg Attack, or Klingon depending on which tutorial, you have to move all power to Aux then heal that ship to get it into the fight. Tac's are great DPS and have a lot of debuffs, show that, also give either a pop up tutorial on how cannons work or a spoken bit about keeping your nose to target for best results. The Engineering Tutorial should remain mostly the same with a few additions about Engineering abilities and have again in the mission something specific that only engineers can do either on the ground map or the space map. And all 3 needs to have a tutorial on the ground map about how to move Boffs manually and the reason for that tutorial is simple. For Science the Captain has to science some tech to raise a local shield, move the boffs to defend the captain, the Engineer needs to tech tech some tech, again move the boffs to defend the captain, the Tac is going guns blazing, move the boffs to create a firing line for best tactical results.
5 minutes of thinking and I've already come up with a series of tutorials, for each class that give more information than the current tutorials do.
The problem with that is that it also limits new players into thinking that is ALL they are supposed to do, and that Tacs should ONLY fly Escorts, and so on.
I actually have an Engie who mained an Escort. And Escorts can do well with beams too.
While the Tutorial could do better with explaining some things, its not like in other MMOs where classes have rigid roles. We don't have the traditional Tank/DPS/Healer Trinity. And honestly... we can't because Threat Generation is kinda based on damage output, which means a dedicated Tank build will have a hard time pulling Aggro off a dedicaded, synergized DPS build. And unfortunately... the current meta also says "It can't hurt you if its already dead", so dedicated healers are almost non existant.
STO gives players flexability to players, allowing them to build to fit their playstyle. Not train them to run a particular playstyle. Meta asside, any class can do anything in space. You want to build a Megawell Sci ship? Go right ahead. You don't have to be a Sci to benefit from it. Hell... Engies can boost their power levels, and Tacs may be able to boost the damage.
The only place roles are more defined, is on the ground. Tacs have a lot more damage dealing kit modules, Engies have more support modules, and Sci has more healing and crowd control modules.
But that is were the Trinity ends, because while you'd think Engie on Ground would mean Tank, its actually the Tac who has the ability to draw aggro with the Draw Fire ability. The class that is basically DPS has a Tank ability.
So you want an advanced tutorial to show off some very specific ship builds and archetypes. That's not a terrible idea, but it is woefully out of place at low levels where the starter ships only get ensign level powers, a total of 3 weapon slots. I mean the first thing coming out of the tutorial someone might think is, "Okay, I should use rapid fire cannons. Why can't I make Tovan Khev use rapid fire cannons!?! (Hint, because the ship has only got an ensign slot at that level)" Torpedo builds are also of questionable value without torpedo doffs and more turn rate than a starter ship can manage at the very minimum, to say nothing of shield penetration or drain to give torps a boost.
There's also the problem of mixing up captains and ship types, and arguably the archetype selections themselves. There is no reason to give tac captains an escort and science captains a torpedo boat. Everyone should be introduced to each ship if you want people to learn ship types with specific loadouts. I can also think of ways to illustrate tradeoffs of making certain builds and loadouts based on the ship you're in, such as how mixing beams and cannons can work better on an escort due to having more tactical BOFF powers, but not so much in a cruiser. I'd also be exceedingly wary of implying that these are builds these kinds of ships should be using, because you can do a lot with builds in this game.
Power shifting is probably a useful tutorial, to let a player realize some things are affected by power levels and others are not, and to see the differences in effects. In fact I think that it would be helpful to tag effects in tooltips with what sort of skill or power level that effect scales with for general use outside a tutorial. It has been 10 years and you still can't tell what scales with aux or not without actually playing with your power levels.
I also see value in a firing arc tutorial, in teaching someone to learn about their firing arcs and how different weapons have different arcs.
While I'm on board with BOFF command tutorial, the problem with career specific objectives is that they are entirely cosmetic. There is no tool an engineer captain has in their kit that lets them do something necessary to complete a mission objective. Healing your own shields, building a support drone, or calling in an orbital strike is never important to completing a mission objective.
And I think a tutorial won't help a player if they don't already investigate what their captain powers do as they appear on their bar. Now, a tutorial that tells them how to adjust their bars and to use the P menu is probably helpful to help them get things the way they want them.
I should add, though, that none of us needed a tutorial to learn these things. We learned by doing and experimenting. Everyone has done that, and there is always more to learn. That's important to consider, because Cryptic making these tutorials means $$ and time spent that isn't being spent elsewhere. I'm fairly sure some of this stuff is probably just as easily learned on the wiki, or Youtube.
So you want an advanced tutorial to show off some very specific ship builds and archetypes. That's not a terrible idea, but it is woefully out of place at low levels where the starter ships only get ensign level powers, a total of 3 weapon slots. I mean the first thing coming out of the tutorial someone might think is, "Okay, I should use rapid fire cannons. Why can't I make Tovan Khev use rapid fire cannons!?! (Hint, because the ship has only got an ensign slot at that level)" Torpedo builds are also of questionable value without torpedo doffs and more turn rate than a starter ship can manage at the very minimum, to say nothing of shield penetration or drain to give torps a boost.
There's also the problem of mixing up captains and ship types, and arguably the archetype selections themselves. There is no reason to give tac captains an escort and science captains a torpedo boat. Everyone should be introduced to each ship if you want people to learn ship types with specific loadouts. I can also think of ways to illustrate tradeoffs of making certain builds and loadouts based on the ship you're in, such as how mixing beams and cannons can work better on an escort due to having more tactical BOFF powers, but not so much in a cruiser. I'd also be exceedingly wary of implying that these are builds these kinds of ships should be using, because you can do a lot with builds in this game.
Power shifting is probably a useful tutorial, to let a player realize some things are affected by power levels and others are not, and to see the differences in effects. In fact I think that it would be helpful to tag effects in tooltips with what sort of skill or power level that effect scales with for general use outside a tutorial. It has been 10 years and you still can't tell what scales with aux or not without actually playing with your power levels.
I also see value in a firing arc tutorial, in teaching someone to learn about their firing arcs and how different weapons have different arcs.
While I'm on board with BOFF command tutorial, the problem with career specific objectives is that they are entirely cosmetic. There is no tool an engineer captain has in their kit that lets them do something necessary to complete a mission objective. Healing your own shields, building a support drone, or calling in an orbital strike is never important to completing a mission objective.
And I think a tutorial won't help a player if they don't already investigate what their captain powers do as they appear on their bar. Now, a tutorial that tells them how to adjust their bars and to use the P menu is probably helpful to help them get things the way they want them.
I should add, though, that none of us needed a tutorial to learn these things. We learned by doing and experimenting. Everyone has done that, and there is always more to learn. That's important to consider, because Cryptic making these tutorials means $$ and time spent that isn't being spent elsewhere. I'm fairly sure some of this stuff is probably just as easily learned on the wiki, or Youtube.
Actually my idea, and I should have stated it more clearly, I notice I did not, is that the Tutorials be on Ships the player doesn't keep. When the Tutorial is over the ship you were on is given to another commander, you being green are assigned a different ship, at which point either again via tutorial voice over or via Admiral Quinn telling the player, they can choose any ship class they desire and are encouraged to try many classes as they raise in rank in order to find their best fit. And that their skills are more limited as they have a less experienced crew than what was on their Training Ship. Remember Star Trek 2 Wrath Of Khan, cadets were on a training cruise with a experienced crew also in place. The same could be done in these cases.
So you want an advanced tutorial to show off some very specific ship builds and archetypes. That's not a terrible idea, but it is woefully out of place at low levels where the starter ships only get ensign level powers, a total of 3 weapon slots. I mean the first thing coming out of the tutorial someone might think is, "Okay, I should use rapid fire cannons. Why can't I make Tovan Khev use rapid fire cannons!?! (Hint, because the ship has only got an ensign slot at that level)" Torpedo builds are also of questionable value without torpedo doffs and more turn rate than a starter ship can manage at the very minimum, to say nothing of shield penetration or drain to give torps a boost.
There's also the problem of mixing up captains and ship types, and arguably the archetype selections themselves. There is no reason to give tac captains an escort and science captains a torpedo boat. Everyone should be introduced to each ship if you want people to learn ship types with specific loadouts. I can also think of ways to illustrate tradeoffs of making certain builds and loadouts based on the ship you're in, such as how mixing beams and cannons can work better on an escort due to having more tactical BOFF powers, but not so much in a cruiser. I'd also be exceedingly wary of implying that these are builds these kinds of ships should be using, because you can do a lot with builds in this game.
Power shifting is probably a useful tutorial, to let a player realize some things are affected by power levels and others are not, and to see the differences in effects. In fact I think that it would be helpful to tag effects in tooltips with what sort of skill or power level that effect scales with for general use outside a tutorial. It has been 10 years and you still can't tell what scales with aux or not without actually playing with your power levels.
I also see value in a firing arc tutorial, in teaching someone to learn about their firing arcs and how different weapons have different arcs.
While I'm on board with BOFF command tutorial, the problem with career specific objectives is that they are entirely cosmetic. There is no tool an engineer captain has in their kit that lets them do something necessary to complete a mission objective. Healing your own shields, building a support drone, or calling in an orbital strike is never important to completing a mission objective.
And I think a tutorial won't help a player if they don't already investigate what their captain powers do as they appear on their bar. Now, a tutorial that tells them how to adjust their bars and to use the P menu is probably helpful to help them get things the way they want them.
I should add, though, that none of us needed a tutorial to learn these things. We learned by doing and experimenting. Everyone has done that, and there is always more to learn. That's important to consider, because Cryptic making these tutorials means $$ and time spent that isn't being spent elsewhere. I'm fairly sure some of this stuff is probably just as easily learned on the wiki, or Youtube.
Actually my idea, and I should have stated it more clearly, I notice I did not, is that the Tutorials be on Ships the player doesn't keep. When the Tutorial is over the ship you were on is given to another commander, you being green are assigned a different ship, at which point either again via tutorial voice over or via Admiral Quinn telling the player, they can choose any ship class they desire and are encouraged to try many classes as they raise in rank in order to find their best fit. And that their skills are more limited as they have a less experienced crew than what was on their Training Ship. Remember Star Trek 2 Wrath Of Khan, cadets were on a training cruise with a experienced crew also in place. The same could be done in these cases.
No I understood that, it is a necessity. My point, though, was that if you do it right at the early stages, the player gets all this info they can't even use for a bit, nor would it make a real difference in the early game.
I think it is much better suited to being a late game tutorial, just based on the fact that leveling up both happens so fast, and is really easy, that a player doesn't see the actual need or value towards learning to use their ship more efficiently and effectively.
While I agree with the general idea of adding in-game tutorials on ship building, I disagree with the OP's proposed execution of making it part of the beginning tutorial and which tutorial(s) the player gets being tied to their character's career. This is because, as rattler2 has pointed out, it would limit players into thinking that it's the only way they can play that career in space. It would make more sense to have them be a group of optional endgame tutorials that all characters can access the entirety of regardless of their career.
Yeah the issue with build tutorials is that they either have to be rather general and vague or they could make it seem that only certain ways to build are the only viable ones. Maybe a a sort of a "testing chamber" would be better then a traditional tutotrial and either way these should be left to the end game as at the end of the game it would only confuse people at best.
To be honest there isn't really a build you could do properly by only using the Ensign or lt. slots. Even tactical builds need the higher end weapon boosts to be used properly, sure you can get useable build with less but not something you would like to put to a tutorial.
Maybe a a sort of a "testing chamber" would be better then a traditional tutotrial and either way these should be left to the end game as at the end of the game it would only confuse people at best.
There was talk of the Devs making a sort of wargame exercise map that would measure our DPS. Haven't heard anything about it for a while, but they did say something.
Maybe a a sort of a "testing chamber" would be better then a traditional tutotrial and either way these should be left to the end game as at the end of the game it would only confuse people at best.
There was talk of the Devs making a sort of wargame exercise map that would measure our DPS. Haven't heard anything about it for a while, but they did say something.
There's one on Tribble but last I heard of it they said there was some issues to bring it to Holodeck and I've not heard anything about it recently.
So they actually have a test build with that in place and it needs some work. Well... more than I've heard lately on the subject at least.
That was ages ago though, I've not heard much if anything and Kael changed his stream testing/showcase to Argala so I don't know in what condition the map is at the moment.
It would seem that the Malon have been shying away from Argala. I've only seen Kazon since the 'Reimagination'.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Comments
For weapon loadouts, again what do you want to see? This game has been designed to let people build how they want to build, and it is up to every player how they want to outfit their ship and captain, and to what goal. How can you go into any explanation when the field of possibilities is so wide?
Class specific objectives do exist in several missions, but are not that widespread. The mission outliner does tend to show them when they are there, so what more do you think is necessary?
Roles you mention, but I'm not sure what you mean because you role is what you make of it based on your loadout and playstyle.
I think you may be right about manual away team commands needing a primer, but I can't recall if there is one in the few missions that demand you to play with them.
Basically I want to see 3 different Tutorials, same mission but with each class getting a starter ship attuned to that class, Escort, Cruiser, Science, The Escort should be a Cannon boat, the Cruiser a Beam Boat and the Sci ship a Torp boat. Also they need to have clear differences in powers.
Make it clear that Science has far more Crowd Control abilities and healing abilities that other classes. For example, give either the Science Captain or the 1st Science Boff, Hazard Emitters 1 to begin and when you get to the part where you have to rescue the ship that is under Borg Attack, or Klingon depending on which tutorial, you have to move all power to Aux then heal that ship to get it into the fight. Tac's are great DPS and have a lot of debuffs, show that, also give either a pop up tutorial on how cannons work or a spoken bit about keeping your nose to target for best results. The Engineering Tutorial should remain mostly the same with a few additions about Engineering abilities and have again in the mission something specific that only engineers can do either on the ground map or the space map. And all 3 needs to have a tutorial on the ground map about how to move Boffs manually and the reason for that tutorial is simple. For Science the Captain has to science some tech to raise a local shield, move the boffs to defend the captain, the Engineer needs to tech tech some tech, again move the boffs to defend the captain, the Tac is going guns blazing, move the boffs to create a firing line for best tactical results.
5 minutes of thinking and I've already come up with a series of tutorials, for each class that give more information than the current tutorials do.
I actually have an Engie who mained an Escort. And Escorts can do well with beams too.
While the Tutorial could do better with explaining some things, its not like in other MMOs where classes have rigid roles. We don't have the traditional Tank/DPS/Healer Trinity. And honestly... we can't because Threat Generation is kinda based on damage output, which means a dedicated Tank build will have a hard time pulling Aggro off a dedicaded, synergized DPS build. And unfortunately... the current meta also says "It can't hurt you if its already dead", so dedicated healers are almost non existant.
STO gives players flexability to players, allowing them to build to fit their playstyle. Not train them to run a particular playstyle. Meta asside, any class can do anything in space. You want to build a Megawell Sci ship? Go right ahead. You don't have to be a Sci to benefit from it. Hell... Engies can boost their power levels, and Tacs may be able to boost the damage.
The only place roles are more defined, is on the ground. Tacs have a lot more damage dealing kit modules, Engies have more support modules, and Sci has more healing and crowd control modules.
But that is were the Trinity ends, because while you'd think Engie on Ground would mean Tank, its actually the Tac who has the ability to draw aggro with the Draw Fire ability. The class that is basically DPS has a Tank ability.
There's also the problem of mixing up captains and ship types, and arguably the archetype selections themselves. There is no reason to give tac captains an escort and science captains a torpedo boat. Everyone should be introduced to each ship if you want people to learn ship types with specific loadouts. I can also think of ways to illustrate tradeoffs of making certain builds and loadouts based on the ship you're in, such as how mixing beams and cannons can work better on an escort due to having more tactical BOFF powers, but not so much in a cruiser. I'd also be exceedingly wary of implying that these are builds these kinds of ships should be using, because you can do a lot with builds in this game.
Power shifting is probably a useful tutorial, to let a player realize some things are affected by power levels and others are not, and to see the differences in effects. In fact I think that it would be helpful to tag effects in tooltips with what sort of skill or power level that effect scales with for general use outside a tutorial. It has been 10 years and you still can't tell what scales with aux or not without actually playing with your power levels.
I also see value in a firing arc tutorial, in teaching someone to learn about their firing arcs and how different weapons have different arcs.
While I'm on board with BOFF command tutorial, the problem with career specific objectives is that they are entirely cosmetic. There is no tool an engineer captain has in their kit that lets them do something necessary to complete a mission objective. Healing your own shields, building a support drone, or calling in an orbital strike is never important to completing a mission objective.
And I think a tutorial won't help a player if they don't already investigate what their captain powers do as they appear on their bar. Now, a tutorial that tells them how to adjust their bars and to use the P menu is probably helpful to help them get things the way they want them.
I should add, though, that none of us needed a tutorial to learn these things. We learned by doing and experimenting. Everyone has done that, and there is always more to learn. That's important to consider, because Cryptic making these tutorials means $$ and time spent that isn't being spent elsewhere. I'm fairly sure some of this stuff is probably just as easily learned on the wiki, or Youtube.
Actually my idea, and I should have stated it more clearly, I notice I did not, is that the Tutorials be on Ships the player doesn't keep. When the Tutorial is over the ship you were on is given to another commander, you being green are assigned a different ship, at which point either again via tutorial voice over or via Admiral Quinn telling the player, they can choose any ship class they desire and are encouraged to try many classes as they raise in rank in order to find their best fit. And that their skills are more limited as they have a less experienced crew than what was on their Training Ship. Remember Star Trek 2 Wrath Of Khan, cadets were on a training cruise with a experienced crew also in place. The same could be done in these cases.
No I understood that, it is a necessity. My point, though, was that if you do it right at the early stages, the player gets all this info they can't even use for a bit, nor would it make a real difference in the early game.
I think it is much better suited to being a late game tutorial, just based on the fact that leveling up both happens so fast, and is really easy, that a player doesn't see the actual need or value towards learning to use their ship more efficiently and effectively.
There was talk of the Devs making a sort of wargame exercise map that would measure our DPS. Haven't heard anything about it for a while, but they did say something.
There's one on Tribble but last I heard of it they said there was some issues to bring it to Holodeck and I've not heard anything about it recently.
That was ages ago though, I've not heard much if anything and Kael changed his stream testing/showcase to Argala so I don't know in what condition the map is at the moment.
Argala is a random choice of enemy.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Argala USED to pick from Kazon, Hirogen, and Malon. Now... just Kazon.