Star Trek Online: Here We Go Again!

[WindupAtheist]

In say, Star Wars, this wouldn't be as big an issue (with blasters, anyway) since those have been established to be nowhere near as damaging as a phaser or disruptor set to kill has been in Star Trek.  A Star Wars blaster will leave you with a plasma burn or something, a Star Trek phaser, whether you get hit in the chest or the little toe, you're supposed to be rendered into subatomic particles.

Phasers always seemed to do completely different things based upon what show it was and what was happening at the time. They would make a dude vanish completely, but bounce harmlessly off the metal shipping container someone was hiding behind. Or maybe they would just hit the dude and knock him over dead without much visible damage. I always figured the latter was just a different setting, a beefed-up version of stun meant to waste a guy by frying his nervous system without squandering energy pointlessly destroying his corpse.

I'd still take the blaster, though. They have things like scopes and stocks and trigger guards that real guns need for a reason, and kill everyone they hit in the torso anyway. Star Trek ground combat is basically a complete nonsensical mess, and there were plenty of battles in DS9 where Federation troops took a pounding but your average WW2 squad would have triumphed with ease.

Oh, random nerd edit: Instantly turning an entire human body into either vapor or subatomic particles would be spectacularly bad for the health of everyone in the vicinity, for different reasons in each case. Grusome steam explosions and massive bursts of radiation are bad. Whatever phasers do, they're not exactly 'vaporizing' or 'disintegrating' anyone.

[Koyasha]

Well, they never explain it and even if they did it wouldn't remain perfectly consistent, but generally speaking you've got the low power 'stun' settings on the phaser, then there's higher power that would kill, and then there's all the way to max that disintegrates your entire body.  But in general the point stands that a single phaser hit will incapacitate, kill, or disintegrate an unshielded humanoid unless there's unusual conditions at play.  Claiming that everyone has personal shields is, I suppose, a workable explanation, but meh.

Aiming and weapon wise, phaser rifles seem pretty effective.  I never got why next generation phasers were those weird little hand gizmos either, but hey, at least the Type II phaser from the Original Series was actually shaped like a gun.

And yeah, scientifically speaking there's no way you can actually disintegrate a human's mass in matter into either vapor or subatomic particles without causing some sort of environmental damage, but then Star Trek pretty much ignores the laws of physics wherever it's convenient anyway.  Although all things considered, the explosive effect of actually vaporizing a person would probably be a major advantage.  Hit one guy in the enemy group and the steam explosion will kill or severely injure everyone around him.

In the end, though, this being Star Trek, we shouldn't even be having this discussion about combat, because there shouldn't BE that much combat in general anyway, not in the time period they're setting it in.  Meh, shoulda just set it in the Original Series time period when the Captain ripping his shirt off and going mano-a-mano with some alien lizard was standard procedure.   

[Kitsune]

The fix for personal combat in a Star Trek game is simple:

SEND THE FUCKING REDSHIRTS.

Tahdah!  If you aren't beaming your entire collection of senior officers into warzone and are sending the trained marines instead, the marines taking casualties isn't a game-breaker while keeping up the high-risk feel of combat with hugely powerful weapons.

[Kageru]

From my vague memories of playing the star trek PnP game the phaser "slots in" to a pistol or rifle form if you need more power. But considering the little remote control model will disintegrate pretty much any target you don't see them often. It also described armor I'm pretty sure but it explained it was considered so bulky and unwieldy it was even more rare.

Anyway, bring on the NDA dropping so we can laugh at the wreckage. As before discussion of potential gameplay mechanics is probably wasted when cryptic are desperate just to get it to something remotely saleable.

[Ghambit]

The fix for personal combat in a Star Trek game is simple:

SEND THE FUCKING REDSHIRTS.

This is a feature of the game.

[Simond]

Oh boy, this thread will be most entertaining when the NDA falls.

Shaka, when the NDA fell.

[Sheepherder]

What you are asking for in-game is a one-shot kill system. Or a system where your character misses 95% of the time. Does either sound fun to you?

Rename "health" to "focus".  Every time a non killing shot per the conventions of DIKU is taken at you your avatar dodges, or an ensign leaps in the way.  The health/focus is a measure of your ability to continue dodging and so it is not incongruous that it would behave like the health bar in a DIKU type.

Or, the ground combat is played like a squad-based RTS with a hero unit that has to be protected from instagibbing beam weapons and funky shaped blade weapons by careful positioning of screening [troops / gadgetry] on the way to the enemy's [ship / secret moon base] [control / engineering] room for victory.  Where "gadgets" includes shit like drone weapons,  portable shield generators, and bulkhead doors that are hacked shut.  Inclusive in this system would be a constant supply of grunts beamed in to where your officer is (because the officer carries a beacon that allows beaming through shields, or some shit).

Or the RTS ground combat has no player avatar, only grunts that get instagibbed and constant beaming in of reinforcements.

Or, stick to the ship combat.

[UnSub]

I went back and looked at the other old threads about STO (when Cryptic first announced STO, they indicated the lifetime sub value for STO was $550 - I'm guessing that is no longer true) but finally found the post I was looking for:

At the high level, easy-to-say-devil-is-in-the-details things that STO needs, it comes down to:

1) Exploration. The universe needs to be vast (Q-webbing to simulate the end of the universe only works for so long) and 3D. Planets should provide instances for exploration and for when things need to be dealt with in-avatar.

2) Combat. Space combat needs to be tactical yet real-time. And in 3D. Ground combat can use how Tabula Rasa and Planetside as examples of the right and wrong ways to do something.

3) Diplomacy. Vanguard's mini-game is one example of how it could be handled. I also think Paradroid's droid take-over mini-game could be updated and used.

4) You need to be able to fly a spaceship by yourself, but Star Trek is a show about a team. As such, I could see the player as captain of their ship who has a number of AI shipmates, but these AI shipmates can be replaced by human players who get bonuses in performing the actions of medical, comms, security, etc. So you can solo, but if you want to play coop, you can. Yes, it makes everyone under the captain a support class, but I'm not sure how to try to compromise the soloers vs those who want the full Trek communal experience. Away teams could also be made up of human and AI 'redshirts'.

5) Set 20 years into Trek's future past Voyager. This was the only thing that PE was doing right on STO. Build ON the existing continuity, not WITHIN it.

If they can capture those things (and not screw up too many of the other details) then you're probably going towards capturing what ST is about while still being a fun game to play.

Just pasting it here for easy access in a few days.

[UnSub]

Oh boy, this thread will be most entertaining when the NDA falls.

[Koyasha]

or an ensign leaps in the way.

A combat system where your health bar consists of a supply of ensigns ready to leap into the path of weapons fire that would be hitting you sounds awesome!   

[tmp]

A combat system where your health bar consists of a supply of ensigns ready to leap into the path of weapons fire that would be hitting you sounds awesome!   

Well, it's basically going back to the roots where in a game you'd have a number of lives. So it certainly can work 

[Malakili]

Frankly, if how phasers shoot/damage/kill people is the worst we have to worry about, STO is going to be a huge success, personally, I have much bigger worries.

[01101010]

Romulans will be overpowered. There I said it. 

[Evildrider]

Romulans will be overpowered. There I said it. 

Not without a planet. 

[Sheepherder]

A combat system where your health bar consists of a supply of ensigns ready to leap into the path of weapons fire that would be hitting you sounds awesome!   

Well, it's basically going back to the roots of Star Trek.

Fixed.

[LK]

All these pre-order bonuses that are effectively a costume someone made is the future of micro-transactions. It must've taken an artist a day or two to make that but if it can be replicated for hundreds of thousands of people, that's a smashing return on investment.

More complicated stuff might take longer but you're still talking something like the WoW pet store where you can make millions on one or two artist's time because the target audience is large enough.

[Malakili]

All these pre-order bonuses that are effectively a costume someone made is the future of micro-transactions. It must've taken an artist a day or two to make that but if it can be replicated for hundreds of thousands of people, that's a smashing return on investment.

More complicated stuff might take longer but you're still talking something like the WoW pet store where you can make millions on one or two artist's time because the target audience is large enough.

Yes, its called Champions Online (C-Store) and they are already doing it.

[Khaldun]

Actually, I fucking love the idea of an STO design where every time your character *would* die because of a phaser shot, a red shirt leaps in front of you and dies instead until you run out of health points. That would be a sign of goddamn godlike brilliance on the part of a dev team.

[Gutboy Barrelhouse]

So everyone gets to feel like the POTUS and have a Secret Service agent who will take a bullet for you? Nice.

[LK]

All these pre-order bonuses that are effectively a costume someone made is the future of micro-transactions.

A number of people, including myself, have been saying RMT and costumes are the future of online money-making since like day 1 of f13. >_>

Guilty.

[Velorath]

All these pre-order bonuses that are effectively a costume someone made is the future of micro-transactions.

A number of people, including myself, have been saying RMT and costumes are the future of online money-making since like day 1 of f13. >_>

Not even the future, it's the fucking present.

[Ratman_tf]

All these pre-order bonuses that are effectively a costume someone made is the future of micro-transactions.

A number of people, including myself, have been saying RMT and costumes are the future of online money-making since like day 1 of f13. >_>

Not even the future, it's the fucking present.

Yes, but some companies are still latching on to the subscription system and most games that are made for RMT are made POORLY. The future being when a good company (Blizzard) makes a game (Diablo) and sells dungeons (from Diablo) via RMT and blows all these other jokers out of the water. Or classes, or clothing, or villages you build yourself, or whatever.

League of Legends is the first game I've seen that is high quality AND RMT.

High quality games will usually do well whether they're sub or RMT or free or whateverthefuck.

[Numtini]

Microtransactions, done right, are not RMT.

[Rendakor]

Yes, but some companies are still latching on to the subscription system and most games that are made for RMT are made POORLY. The future being when a good company (Blizzard) makes a game (Diablo) and sells dungeons (from Diablo) via RMT and blows all these other jokers out of the water. Or classes, or clothing, or villages you build yourself, or whatever.

League of Legends is the first game I've seen that is high quality AND RMT.

It'll be Starcraft II first, selling custom maps.

Edit: how do i quoted post

[Typhon]

Microtransactions, done right, are not RMT.

I"m not getting what you're trying to say.  A microtransaction is a Real Money Transaction in which the amount of money is well within the "impulse purchase" range.  Are you thinking of something like a microtransaction that doesn't involve real money?

[LK]

It'll be Starcraft II first, selling custom maps.

The minute they do that, the shit will hit the fan. Individual maps, that is. Map Packs are a different story.

[Malakili]

Microtransactions, done right, are not RMT.

I"m not getting what you're trying to say.  A microtransaction is a Real Money Transaction in which the amount of money is well within the "impulse purchase" range.  Are you thinking of something like a microtransaction that doesn't involve real money?

I think he is distinguishing between something like selling things via a store, and RMT like Second Life, where the game currency has an actual conversion rate to real money.

[Numtini]

I'm drawing the distinction between using micropayments as a method of gating content that effectively charges a subscription based on achievement rather than linear time in game and simply selling crap in games which is what RMT implies to me.

Just to me, there's a very very clear difference between buying levels for $1 each and charging $1 for a Hero License that raises your level cap by one level. One is charging for the level and allowing you to just buy your way to the top, the other is just using a gating mechanism to effectively create a subscription based on how far you achieve rather than how many months you have an active sub.

There may be some exceptions, but for the most part, the stuff you buy in an item shop is not the same stuff you'd buy from an in game gold seller.

Oh and I'm a she

[Vodos]

It'll be Starcraft II first, selling custom maps.

The minute they do that, the shit will hit the fan. Individual maps, that is. Map Packs are a different story.

They already announced it at the last Blizzcon. It's a little more complicated than that, though. They're doing a Live Marketplace-like system where the map authors can sell their maps and Blizzard gets a percentage.

[Malakili]

It'll be Starcraft II first, selling custom maps.

The minute they do that, the shit will hit the fan. Individual maps, that is. Map Packs are a different story.

They already announced it at the last Blizzcon. It's a little more complicated than that, though. They're doing a Live Marketplace-like system where the map authors can sell their maps and Blizzard gets a percentage.

I can't wait to pay for xxBig Game Hunters - High Resource 23xx

[Ghambit]

RMT will always involve "paid progression."  There's no way around this unless you're lucky enough to find some uber left-wing communal koombaya type studio who knows no greed.  Fact is, the main draw for RMT is ease of play... not fancypants and miniskirts.  Sure they'll sell you a leopard-skin couch to put in your hovel, but they sure as heck will also sell you that +10% xp ring.

Of course, this is all assuming there's no subscription model.  STO isnt sure what it wants to do yet, but all indications are it's going to be subscription-based with RMT only involving social aspects such as bridge decorations and skins; which is fine by me.  If Cryptic had half a brain they'd know what they've got is essentially a built-in collectibility with their license that they can sell easily as long as it's integrated properly and the game itself doesnt suck ass.   Only other license I see coming close is SW and LotR. (in the non-kiddie genres)

Wielding Kayles' bat'leth or sitting in Kirk's chair holds much more appeal then wielding [insert generic fantasy hero crap].  It's a goldmine for this game that will most likely be unrealized given the signs so far.  Schild is right in that the social customization is where it's at in this type of game, but in other more original IPs not so much.  Problem is everyone wants that social, sandbox customization for STO, but we aint gonna get it.  Hell, I'd rather have that then a game at all really.  "Second Trek Life" perhaps.   

[Draegan]

I'd pay Blizzard cash for a full set of heirloom items.

[Valmorian]

I'd pay Blizzard an extra $5 a month if I could get a "Wardrobe mode" where I could apply the look of any item I already own to another.  I want to have the same damned armor I had when my character was 60th level but without having to sacrifice all my stats. 

Better yet, go the EQ2 route and make purchasable costumes.  That's the ONE thing I love about EQ2.

[Rendakor]

Can we please not have the 'WoW needs appearance slots!1!!shiftone' arguement again?

[Riggswolfe]

I wish the NDA was down but I suppose I'll know the answer to this tomorrow.

I was reading a preview article and the author talked about some kind of space battle that you could just wander across and be dynamically grouped up to fight in. To me it sounded alot like WAR's public quests which doesn't bring back fond memories.