MMORPG Thoughts and Other things that I can't get out of My Head

As a disciple of the MMORPG system, I offer my humble thoughts in this blog.

Author: fansede

Perpetual received a lot of flack for not investing much time in regards to the starship interiors of the Star Trek ship.  Let's hope Cryptic doesn't make the same mistake.

There are a lot of ways Cryptic can approach the Starship Interiors concept, the question always comes down to, what is FUN?

Will the Starship be merely a transport vehicle for groups to travel? And players use them only to fight starship fights by themselves?

Or will Starships be a moving "base of operations" (like City of Villians Instanced base)? Drawing from previous Star Trek games like Bridge Commander, wouldn't it be fun to get an intergration of both concepts?

Let's say our Captain has been comissioned a ship from a Federation Starbase or Earth. The Ship has the basics - a bridge, engineering, sick bay and mess hall.  The Captain has been given an assignment from an NPC Admiral. The Admiral tells the captain what officers are required for the task. The Captain can assemble his team or use the City of Heroes style LFG system (Lists players lfg , their rank, their specialty). Players requesting a team get a beep on their badge and a message..

Once the team is assembled the Captain assigns them to the ship. Not everyone gets to sit on the bridge. The entire team can explore the ship and interact with it. Sit emotes, eat/ drink, sleep, etc. Bring up a map of the ship schematics, etc..

Going to do away missions are easy, because the ship is merely a transport vessel. It is when ship to ship combat occurs is the real problem.

Perpetual noted that they do not want players staring at consoles during a fight.  Understood. I can see that it lacks action pack activity that other MMOs offer.  BUT this is Star Trek. It is not Anarachy Online or Star Wars Galaxies for that matter.

I do believe Cryptic can make ship vs. ship combat exciting as a group effort.  The roles are already there in the Star Trek Universe.  Captains in this case, not only set the mission and its difficulty, they can set NPC behavior of the crew.  Maybe he could not find an Engineer for his mission. Well he "buys" one from the Starfleet manifest and sets it behavior. The Captain also receives reports from his players and the game translates it into statistics of his ship. For example the Captain wants to know his Shield status. He does not know it always. He must receive a report from his tactical officer.  A good officer updates this regularly and it shows up to the captain as a blue bar surrounding the ship. The status bar remains that way until updated again. So teamwork is essential. An AFK Tactical Officer would mean he is literally asleep at the post and may mean defeat for the team.

Captains have other roles but I will go into that some other time.

Each team member has a role on the ship during space combat. Give the Captain reports and keep the area you are in charge of in peak performance.  I would then propose to throw a wrinkle into the system..

Mini instances. What? We are in the middle of a battle and I am off doing an instance? Hear me out..

These could be mini scenarios that may turn the tide of battle or provide unique "buffs" for the team. An example , Suppose the Ship is in combat with a Romulan. The Lieutennant is stationed at the Conn and is charge of navigation. Normally he has a host of abiltites, combat manuevers to aid the ship in this fight.  The game throws a curveball to the team and it seems the Romulan ship has blasted the Lieutennants station. The team sees the player is down and the bridge is on fire. Instead of the game continuing its space fight, the mini instance has started. Save the player, save the bridge in 10 minutes or the Ship suffers. The lieutennant has to be carried to sick bay through the ship interior map. All the while the ship trembles in the heat of combat. Someone has to stop the fire and repair the console to a workable condition. A Doctor has to heal the fallen member or he is out of the fight.  The captain has the option of skipping the scenario and suffer the ship movement and combat debuff or go through the scenario and keep functioning systems...

Would that be feasible for a game?

I thought I was reading about STO not having any real progression system of sorts. While this is not a "new" idea per se, Here is how I would argue for the idea of a progression system in STO.

Star Trek has a Rank system for chain of command. Here is a site how the chain of command is listed in the Star Trek world. 

Ok these ranks are hallmark points of advancement in a players career.  How do you measure ones progression through these ranks? My suggestion would have a few twists.

First would be a players special interest - these are skills sets which could be used like any other sci fi MMO. It also helps a player customize his/her avatar. Think of the Star Trek shows. Captain Piccard loved archeology, ( Maybe as a game mechanic players who take the skill archeology receive benefits from exploration, more special unlocks from ancient cultures and perhaps able to receive unique missions that challenge an archeologist. What caused this civilization to die? Why is my ship debuffed when I visited here and my engineer has no clue?). Maybe you want to be Captain Waorf type and focus on fighting tactics. You might get bonuses for melee / weapon combat important for away missions and/ or if your ship has been boarded by the enemy... 

So I would set an experience bar for these skills and level them up to unlock new skills for the player. Adding benefits to performace and perhaps unlocking new game experiences such as quests, items, and / or enhancing ship performance.

Set that aside now, lets focus on moving our avatar from a mere Cadet to a Starfleet Captain. What would be a measuring unit of progression. I say give them Achievements and Commendations. When a player performs activities to complete a goal, it is an Achievement. Perform X amount of Achievements and you are up for a Commendation from your Captain.  Earn enough Commendations and you are eligible for a Promotion of Rank. So to lay things out:

Johnny is an Ensign on a Ship.  The game requires Johnny to perform 50 Achievements to qualify for a Commendation.  Five Commandations qualify him for a Promotion. Finish an epic type of Promotion mission and DING!  You have been promoted to Lieutennant.

What could be an interesting twist on the advancement system is that Players reward other Players. That means as a Captain you can award your officers of your group Achievement Experience towards a Commendation. Obviously safegards have to be in place to prevent abuse. Things like AFK timers, Limiting the total amount of experience given, keeping the rewards private for Captain eyes only, etc.

Here is an example:

Suppose a mission for the Captain and his team of officer players are assigned a mission. The Mission Pool has 1,000 experience points assigned to it upon completion. The Captain decides at the end who gets what Up to a maximum of 250 exp per person (say it is a 4 man team). The game also has a minimum of 50 exp as a minimum so the Captain can't deny anyone exp at all.  So, this system promotes roleplaying and gives a sense of respect to the Captain. When the experience numbers are dealt to the players, the system message may read .. You gain 250 experience! or You gain 100 experience! or You gain 50 experience!

This would not affect a players specialized skills.

Captains still get experience as well, to become an Admiral. The Captain cannot assign his own experience, but in case of a raid situation where the Captain is part of an Armada, the Admiral can assign Captains experience. In regular missions, experience goes to the Captain upon completion of the mission. Mission restarts diminish the Captain rewards.

The Cryptic Customization Touch

We all know Cryptic has revitalized customization of the avatar appearance and costumes in its CoH games. 

Instead of a variety of costumes, Cryptic can try scaling stats for avatar creation. It should be noted that personal stats should not be the emphasis of the game. We are not hoping to deck out our avatars in silly armor or clothing because we want to maximize our hit points. However, there is nothing wrong with statistics of our avatar to aid us in our skills.

So stats are simply modifiers for players in how they perform. The game should still not let stats dictate the game. The players actions do. Stats should not be requirements for improved gear or ships