Space travel and combat are very enjoyable. They look good and with the updates you have info on planets/places in sector space, love the improvements. Episodes are great too!
Would make a suggestion though. Just something to think about, I feel that it would really add to the game now and in the long run. But I know many would be against it at first I am sure.
The suggestion is, slow it down a bit. As I said before I enjoy the combat as it is, but feel that it is a bit anti-climactic. Everything is happening so fast you can't enjoy a bit of it, you are trying to figure out who the hell you are targeting now and looking around trying to find the original target...all while trying to juggle the skills that you are firing off one after the other and keeping the weapons facing your target or repositioning to keep best face forward with shields, it's a bit overwhelming. Sorry for the run on, was intended. That is kinda how combat feels right now, right up to the point where you explode. Which feels like .5 seconds in, while trying to manage the above. Especially in a escort. Over and over.
We need slower speeds in combat and reduce damage to scale and probably a bit more. The durations should be extended on most skills and damage reduced again to scale with traveling speed. This would allow you to plan and coordinate much more effectively.
Not gonna go all out on combat as you can imagine for yourself what it could be if it was slowed down a bit so you can see what is happening and enjoy it a bit. Not to mention they could add a ton more skills for specific repairs, like to the specific damage to parts of ships that some skills do that barely have a meaning now.
Actually I will skip it if you don't want to read it all.
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Imagine: You are in decent PvP map where you have an actual objective and your group is working together to get a key vaccine to a planet but the enemy are trying to prevent it and destroy a star base. ( you can save the people in time protect the station and then battle it out or fail to save them try to save the station and then battle it out, scores accordingly)
Your group can work together to get through but it just happens that the ship that was designated carrier has had it's engines targeted. Now no one is near dead as damage has been scaled, they will be feeling the pressure as now they have to fall back and protect or help with repairs, but they still have to beam the vaccine, protect the station and fend off attackers.
The whole time damage was reduced so they can for the most part soak it up Shields would not really go all the way back up during the mission but would take a good bit to take them down, many will say that combat would be boring and people would quit. But if you look at the whole thing you are fighting the whole way to the planet and then defending the station and fight it out. By that time everyone should be getting pretty low on health and the dog fight to the death or victory wouldn't be too long.
You could take different approaches to the mission, splitting up to defend station and vaccinate planet but in the scenario I mentioned it would have been probably not good( depends upon player , skills , ect...) as the disabled ship would be more damaging to the group as it would take longer to repair.
In the end you would be the hero that cured the planet and saved the station driving back the enemy. Or you saved the planet but died a hero trying to defend the station ect...
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Sector space travel should be slowed a bit as well to make everything seem larger. Add more stuff in open sector space like asteroid belts, comets, strange nebula or the random derelict ship here and there. Each of these could take advantage of the new foundry system once in game. And worthy missions that players make( maybe foundry contests for each type of encounter) could be set as a random pop for those specific encounters.
Side note.
Could add more shuttle missions to be used in instances.
Shuttle missions should be easy to add as long as they are missions in space where you have a nebula or something you cant take the ship in ,but no one is leaving space you stay in the shuttle, explore, scan, transport someone inboard and return to your AI controlled ship.
Can be done like saucer separation only the ship is the saucer, you control the shuttle. And please scale the shuttles correctly. Haven't seen them all but the ones I saw were nearly as large as the Defiant.
Overall.
Basically lower the combat speed ships are traveling a decent amount, scale the damage back. Reduce the speed at which we travel through open sector space to make it seem much larger and add more to do...out there...
Ground combat is already so slow as to be tedious, and should be faster and more lethal in line with the shows.
For space combat this would be a good idea if and only if the number of encounters per mission were slashed significantly, which would itself make a lot more sense than at present.
The last thing sector space needs is longer travel times. Every object, but not the space itself or movement, should be shrunk to 25% of its current visual size or less. Then there would be an impression of high speed and long distances.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shaking.
The shaking becomes a warning.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
This is a discussion that has popped up many times over the life of STO. Space battles are to fast in regards to ship vs ship battles, but are to long due to your one ship taking on 5 plus ships during a normal exploration mission. Also the idea that every ship warp core breaches, or that the defeated enemy self destructs, has been commented on many times. What space combat could use is a more strategic basis, but this is not how Cryptic designed space combat to run.
Two large star ships dueling it out should be about who best manages the various aspects in the battle best. Sub-systems will fail, repairs need to be made, crew will be injured, boarding parties may need to be dealt with, and all the while both ships pummel each other with energy weapons and torpedoes. A ship to ship battle can be very involved, but to keep things simple space combat was dumbed down. Sub-systems go down for a short time, but come back on their own. Crew are injured or die, but heal fast and/or reproduce quickly (cloning tech maybe). Boarding parties are just a simple debuff if they ever make it to the target ship. Weapons just keep firing away no matter how baddly your ship is damaged, disabled, or the fact that you have one other red shirt helping you run the danged thing.
Some better secondary variables could make space combat far more interesting. Capturing ships would be a entertaining option. Do you risk taking your shiny new toy out if the neighborhood bully might take it from you? Ships should be a valued part of your inventory. These creations take years to build, and currently we are blowing them up at a rapid pace. Your crew could be captured. This could lead to missons to rescue them from slavers, enemy factions, or unknown species. Repair damaged vessels has been previaously discussed by myself. Repairing your own ship, or finding a disabled ship that requires repair, could add more depth to the aftermath of a hard or failed battle.
Many good things could come from a more strategic based battle then the current tactical based battles. It will depend more on the players wanting slower or longer battles, or rather having fast paced gimme experiences. We can not have both saddly, and both offer different type of reward and accomplishment.
Ground combat is already so slow as to be tedious, and should be faster and more lethal in line with the shows.
For space combat this would be a good idea if and only if the number of encounters per mission were slashed significantly, which would itself make a lot more sense than at present.
The last thing sector space needs is longer travel times. Every object, but not the space itself or movement, should be shrunk to 25% of its current visual size or less. Then there would be an impression of high speed and long distances.
Not talking about ground combat in my post. Kinda feel that should have been FPS, but that is out he window, so I defer to you on that. Don't care too much for the ground combat, but the investigations and needing to use your noodle a bit is cool.
As for the encounters , yeah would have to be reduced but wouldn't be any longer of a mission by much. The battles in missions would have fewer ships and deeper engagement with the ships subsystems. Both on your ship and the enemies. Might not be popping as many ships, but the battles would have a hell of allot more meaning/challenge and be more in line with what we see in the shows and movies. Most all encounters were small 1 or 2 ships sometimes a few more but not very often.
PvP would be different too, with reduced damage, more manageable speeds and more interaction with the ship subsystems, we would have much more interesting matches. Where players that aren't too quick at, clicking , targeting , turing and trying to enjoy all of what is happening around you all at once, can have a fighting chance... Of course we know that the good players will still be good but dam...let them feel like they had a chance to win or at least time enjoy and understand what is happening so they can get better huh? LOL
Now the sector space I feel is ok too.... but it seems too small. Don't see how you get that it should be smaller. In the show even traveling at warp it took days to get anywhere at high warp. Only when they were not too far away to begin with did they hear, " Time to intercept is 10 minutes captain.". 10 minutes in the game, you can about hit every sector. By the way I picture small space you mention , Voyager, would have been over in 2 episodes.
I see sector space with having more to do in it. Therefore needing more space to keep things from being too cluttered and, at least somewhat, resemble the Star Trek we know and love. Hence my mention of adding the asteroid and comets along with derelict ships, to tag foundry missions that are worthy as random pops. And cool contests to boot.
I sometimes yearn for a pause button during space combat. My reflexes aren't as fast as they were when I was a teenager. I'm getting old.
LOL.
Slowing the game down a bit would not be bad especially considering all us elderly that grew up on trek and want to be emerged. LOL, J/K . I am feeling it too. But I can manage just fine if anyone cares to test their hull.
I just feel the game could use a good look at this to help not only make the game more easier to pick up and at the same time add allot more to it in depth and ....this is big for me, allow time to enjoy what is happening. Take it in and still be plugging along with damage , just more over longer time, managing main skills and then skills to manage the sub systems of the ship. If done right could really spice things up for Star Trek. And actually add a ton of TREK to the game.
Not really slowing the current game much once you factor in adding more to do with better more meaningful results.
This is a discussion that has popped up many times over the life of STO. Space battles are to fast in regards to ship vs ship battles, but are to long due to your one ship taking on 5 plus ships during a normal exploration mission. Also the idea that every ship warp core breaches, or that the defeated enemy self destructs, has been commented on many times. What space combat could use is a more strategic basis, but this is not how Cryptic designed space combat to run.
Two large star ships dueling it out should be about who best manages the various aspects in the battle best. Sub-systems will fail, repairs need to be made, crew will be injured, boarding parties may need to be dealt with, and all the while both ships pummel each other with energy weapons and torpedoes. A ship to ship battle can be very involved, but to keep things simple space combat was dumbed down. Sub-systems go down for a short time, but come back on their own. Crew are injured or die, but heal fast and/or reproduce quickly (cloning tech maybe). Boarding parties are just a simple debuff if they ever make it to the target ship. Weapons just keep firing away no matter how badly your ship is damaged, disabled, or the fact that you have one other red shirt helping you run the danged thing.
Some better secondary variables could make space combat far more interesting. Capturing ships would be a entertaining option. Do you risk taking your shiny new toy out if the neighborhood bully might take it from you? Ships should be a valued part of your inventory. These creations take years to build, and currently we are blowing them up at a rapid pace. Your crew could be captured. This could lead to missions to rescue them from slavers, enemy factions, or unknown species. Repair damaged vessels has been previously discussed by myself. Repairing your own ship, or finding a disabled ship that requires repair, could add more depth to the aftermath of a hard or failed battle.
Many good things could come from a more strategic based battle then the current tactical based battles. It will depend more on the players wanting slower or longer battles, or rather having fast paced gimme experiences. We can not have both sadly, and both offer different type of reward and accomplishment.
Thank you. I am surprised it is not more of a concern for all players. Anyone that cares for trek at all should want the game to be more trek. Period. Especially when it is something that is not an out of reach pipe dream, that the impossible code wrangler would prevent.
The second paragraph touches on allot. But they don't even have to redesign boarding parties and all that, for now hopefully later they will, but now they just quick fix it.
Add more to it. Now when the buff fires, the player receiving would hear , " Captain, we have a boarding party in engineering.", to which you reply by firring off the new tactical team skill and hear, " Tactical officers to engineering.". See how that firring of the skill responded with where you were being attacked. It's the simple things. Now the attack skills should have the ability to board in specific areas, once the shields are down, and slow repairs or damage systems that are unharmed. So this would allow the other skills that we have, like TSS whatever, or that can be added to be of more use when combined with skills like this to allow players to take someone out if they are coordinated. BUT since you now have time to think and see what the hell is happening , it could be countered to buy at least some time. This can be applied to other skills and systems too in other ways...if we think creative.
So much more interesting and engaging than some would think from the initial sound of it. Much more than we have currently.
Sorry for posting all back to back here but this alone could be suggested for the way PvP battles should be engineered, either way you feel about this topic.
Hadn't heard mention on that.
__repasted if you haven't read it already_____________________
Imagine: You are in decent PvP map where you have an actual objective and your group is working together to get a key vaccine to a planet but the enemy are trying to prevent it and destroy a star base. ( you can save the people in time protect the station and then battle it out or fail to save them try to save the station and then battle it out, scores accordingly)
Your group can work together to get through but it just happens that the ship that was designated carrier has had it's engines targeted. Now no one is near dead as damage has been scaled, they will be feeling the pressure as now they have to fall back and protect or help with repairs, but they still have to beam the vaccine, protect the station and fend off attackers.
The whole time damage was reduced so they can for the most part soak it up Shields would not really go all the way back up during the mission but would take a good bit to take them down, many will say that combat would be boring and people would quit. But if you look at the whole thing you are fighting the whole way to the planet and then defending the station and fight it out. By that time everyone should be getting pretty low on health and the dog fight to the death or victory wouldn't be too long.
You could take different approaches to the mission, splitting up to defend station and vaccinate planet but in the scenario I mentioned it would have been probably not good( depends upon player , skills , ect...) as the disabled ship would be more damaging to the group as it would take longer to repair.
In the end you would be the hero that cured the planet and saved the station driving back the enemy. Or you saved the planet but died a hero trying to defend the station ect...
Comments
Ground combat is already so slow as to be tedious, and should be faster and more lethal in line with the shows.
For space combat this would be a good idea if and only if the number of encounters per mission were slashed significantly, which would itself make a lot more sense than at present.
The last thing sector space needs is longer travel times. Every object, but not the space itself or movement, should be shrunk to 25% of its current visual size or less. Then there would be an impression of high speed and long distances.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shaking.
The shaking becomes a warning.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
Two large star ships dueling it out should be about who best manages the various aspects in the battle best. Sub-systems will fail, repairs need to be made, crew will be injured, boarding parties may need to be dealt with, and all the while both ships pummel each other with energy weapons and torpedoes. A ship to ship battle can be very involved, but to keep things simple space combat was dumbed down. Sub-systems go down for a short time, but come back on their own. Crew are injured or die, but heal fast and/or reproduce quickly (cloning tech maybe). Boarding parties are just a simple debuff if they ever make it to the target ship. Weapons just keep firing away no matter how baddly your ship is damaged, disabled, or the fact that you have one other red shirt helping you run the danged thing.
Some better secondary variables could make space combat far more interesting. Capturing ships would be a entertaining option. Do you risk taking your shiny new toy out if the neighborhood bully might take it from you? Ships should be a valued part of your inventory. These creations take years to build, and currently we are blowing them up at a rapid pace. Your crew could be captured. This could lead to missons to rescue them from slavers, enemy factions, or unknown species. Repair damaged vessels has been previaously discussed by myself. Repairing your own ship, or finding a disabled ship that requires repair, could add more depth to the aftermath of a hard or failed battle.
Many good things could come from a more strategic based battle then the current tactical based battles. It will depend more on the players wanting slower or longer battles, or rather having fast paced gimme experiences. We can not have both saddly, and both offer different type of reward and accomplishment.
Not talking about ground combat in my post. Kinda feel that should have been FPS, but that is out he window, so I defer to you on that. Don't care too much for the ground combat, but the investigations and needing to use your noodle a bit is cool.
As for the encounters , yeah would have to be reduced but wouldn't be any longer of a mission by much. The battles in missions would have fewer ships and deeper engagement with the ships subsystems. Both on your ship and the enemies. Might not be popping as many ships, but the battles would have a hell of allot more meaning/challenge and be more in line with what we see in the shows and movies. Most all encounters were small 1 or 2 ships sometimes a few more but not very often.
PvP would be different too, with reduced damage, more manageable speeds and more interaction with the ship subsystems, we would have much more interesting matches. Where players that aren't too quick at, clicking , targeting , turing and trying to enjoy all of what is happening around you all at once, can have a fighting chance... Of course we know that the good players will still be good but dam...let them feel like they had a chance to win or at least time enjoy and understand what is happening so they can get better huh? LOL
Now the sector space I feel is ok too.... but it seems too small. Don't see how you get that it should be smaller. In the show even traveling at warp it took days to get anywhere at high warp. Only when they were not too far away to begin with did they hear, " Time to intercept is 10 minutes captain.". 10 minutes in the game, you can about hit every sector. By the way I picture small space you mention , Voyager, would have been over in 2 episodes.
I see sector space with having more to do in it. Therefore needing more space to keep things from being too cluttered and, at least somewhat, resemble the Star Trek we know and love. Hence my mention of adding the asteroid and comets along with derelict ships, to tag foundry missions that are worthy as random pops. And cool contests to boot.
LOL.
Slowing the game down a bit would not be bad especially considering all us elderly that grew up on trek and want to be emerged. LOL, J/K . I am feeling it too. But I can manage just fine if anyone cares to test their hull.
I just feel the game could use a good look at this to help not only make the game more easier to pick up and at the same time add allot more to it in depth and ....this is big for me, allow time to enjoy what is happening. Take it in and still be plugging along with damage , just more over longer time, managing main skills and then skills to manage the sub systems of the ship. If done right could really spice things up for Star Trek. And actually add a ton of TREK to the game.
Not really slowing the current game much once you factor in adding more to do with better more meaningful results.
Thank you. I am surprised it is not more of a concern for all players. Anyone that cares for trek at all should want the game to be more trek. Period. Especially when it is something that is not an out of reach pipe dream, that the impossible code wrangler would prevent.
The second paragraph touches on allot. But they don't even have to redesign boarding parties and all that, for now hopefully later they will, but now they just quick fix it.
Add more to it. Now when the buff fires, the player receiving would hear , " Captain, we have a boarding party in engineering.", to which you reply by firring off the new tactical team skill and hear, " Tactical officers to engineering.". See how that firring of the skill responded with where you were being attacked. It's the simple things. Now the attack skills should have the ability to board in specific areas, once the shields are down, and slow repairs or damage systems that are unharmed. So this would allow the other skills that we have, like TSS whatever, or that can be added to be of more use when combined with skills like this to allow players to take someone out if they are coordinated. BUT since you now have time to think and see what the hell is happening , it could be countered to buy at least some time. This can be applied to other skills and systems too in other ways...if we think creative.
So much more interesting and engaging than some would think from the initial sound of it. Much more than we have currently.
Hadn't heard mention on that.
__repasted if you haven't read it already_____________________
Imagine: You are in decent PvP map where you have an actual objective and your group is working together to get a key vaccine to a planet but the enemy are trying to prevent it and destroy a star base. ( you can save the people in time protect the station and then battle it out or fail to save them try to save the station and then battle it out, scores accordingly)
Your group can work together to get through but it just happens that the ship that was designated carrier has had it's engines targeted. Now no one is near dead as damage has been scaled, they will be feeling the pressure as now they have to fall back and protect or help with repairs, but they still have to beam the vaccine, protect the station and fend off attackers.
The whole time damage was reduced so they can for the most part soak it up Shields would not really go all the way back up during the mission but would take a good bit to take them down, many will say that combat would be boring and people would quit. But if you look at the whole thing you are fighting the whole way to the planet and then defending the station and fight it out. By that time everyone should be getting pretty low on health and the dog fight to the death or victory wouldn't be too long.
You could take different approaches to the mission, splitting up to defend station and vaccinate planet but in the scenario I mentioned it would have been probably not good( depends upon player , skills , ect...) as the disabled ship would be more damaging to the group as it would take longer to repair.
In the end you would be the hero that cured the planet and saved the station driving back the enemy. Or you saved the planet but died a hero trying to defend the station ect...
Stuff like that atleast.