Star Trek Online

Since the game is going to a new developer and will basically have to start from square one again I thought it might be fun to do a little brainstorming on what we'd like to see remain in the design as well as what we would like to see changed. Here are a few of my thoughts on the subject:

• Star Trek screams for a skill based system with no levels or classes. Have a huge skill pool for the player to choose from and let them build their own characters by how they play the game. Also have a system in place to limit the amount of skills any one character can have to avoid the "Jack of all trades" type character builds.
• Allow the players to choose their career path in the game itself. Have everyone start as a civilian in the faction of their choice(by race) and let them decide which path they want to follow by the decisions they make early in the game. Also allow for other career paths besides Starfleet like Free Trader, Freelance Merc, Marquis, Space Pirate along with many others. The possibilities here are almost limitless.
• Have a faction system in place similar to the original EQ. Make it so every choice you make in game will make some factions like you more and some like you less. Make it so every race/faction group has a faction rating tied to it so every action you take will have certain advantages and disadvantages. This will make certain factions(Like the marquis) harder to join then others and make the universe feel more "Alive".
• This pretty much goes along with point one above but make sure there are many ways to advance your character besides combat! Star Trek while containing a certain amount of conflict was never about combat centric viewpoints. It's about people coming together to use their heads to overcome problems and combat was just an occasional outcome of those problems.

These are just a few of my initial thoughts. The career system I proposed will also allow for people to switch jobs midstream. This would be like a Starfleet officer getting fed up and joining the Marquis or just retiring to become a free trader or explorer. Well here's my 2 cents.......what are your thoughts?

Edit: Also have every Mission giving NPC have an individual faction tied to them. This would make them remember individual players and how their past performance will impact future relations with said NPC. While I don't think this should close any game play doors for any given player it will give everyone the illusion that they are impacting the game world directly. This would be like if you totally botch a mission for a certain NPC they will remember that the next time you go to them for a mission. While they may still give you another Mission it may not be as good of a mission as one you would have gotten for a good track record with said NPC.

Bren

SIMPLE

1. Fix the graphics in the Screenie of the starship in space. We do not want retarded looking LIGHT Show. I personally will not play a MMO who looks flaky and juts fake. The bad lighting annoys me to death!

2. The quest log looked cheesy and reminded me of a free MMO more then a Paid MMO. The game needs to look more ridgid in the boxes of information and or quest logs, inventory, maps, ..ect.

3. I better be able to click a button while im sitting in space somewhere and walk around my ship. If I cant I also do not want anything to do with it.

4. I want to be able to have a captains view. not a 3rd person. Sure both but I want to option to see in front of me with my view screen and change the direction of the camera.

5. Dont I repeat DO NOT create a SMALL space area like SWG. This will utterly piss me OFF id rather have low detail and open space area. I want to bloody tell my ship to go to warp 8 and not have any particular place to go.

GOT IT

have a wonderful day

Originally posted by Brenelael

 

 

• Star Trek screams for a skill based system with no levels or classes. Have a huge skill pool for the player to choose from and let them build their own characters by how they play the game. Also have a system in place to limit the amount of skills any one character can have to avoid the "Jack of all trades" type character builds.
• Allow the players to choose their career path in the game itself. Have everyone start as a civilian in the faction of their choice(by race) and let them decide which path they want to follow by the decisions they make early in the game. Also allow for other career paths besides Starfleet like Free Trader, Freelance Merc, Marquis, Space Pirate along with many others. The possibilities here are almost limitless.

I love these 2 comments. Very good Ideas!

Id like to add that there should NOT be levels persay like WoW or SWG or Guild Wars...just NO. this is not the type of game you need levels. RANK MAYBE btu that shouldnt be the only way to tell experience and game time. I have over 300 days played in WoW and my gear proved it BUT. What good did that do me NUTTIN

I want to be able to become a friggin Admiral and then have something else to gain in. IDEAS BEING

1. Rank in Starfleet..ect other factions orginizations!

2. Skill..i.e. Engineering..ect.

3. Combat Skills! Everyone IMO should be able to have a SEPERATE combat skill tree. You shouldnt HAVE to go tactical to become good or proficient at combat. BUT if you do not go tactical you should not be as proficient. MEANING

I go engineering means Im very good at devices and ship modifications so My ship is way more outfitted then say a guy who is tactical BUT this is equaled out by the fact that I KNOW

You will be adding the ability to use a RIKER 345Beta Manuver right.....

Cause that wou7ld just make sese I dont want to just go in a circle with another guy while we both stay EXACTLY 50 meters aprt liek Starfleet command....

I want him to shoot proton torpedos at me and if Im tactical or just good to do a manuver that will minimize the dmg or entirly out flank it.

THAN what if im in a Guild..and Ive got a guildy with me in his ship but im at the helm so then we BOTH gain from the modifications he did on his ship(which he can only modify his personal ship untill a certain level is reached but even then you can only modify so much RIGHT) so Im not doing all my sweet tactical stuff while in his ship and we are raping...O no O no

We add in our command officer O YA so my other buddy is a Command Officer so we all get bonuses to our abilitys and for example to response time between my clicking and how fast the ship does what I say is now quicker. O no we rock NOW

So ya thats MY VISION.

O yes I also want to be able to use my joystick or at least the mouse-WASD controls to have manual control of my ship. Ya thats right...non of this point where you go bull crap.

ovbiously the bigger the ship the slower the response time is but when im in the Delta Flyer I better be able to pull soem serious G's

GOT IT!

I just described soem things that would make this game AMAZING for more than 80 percent of the community. Why not 100 cause theres always a little crap who whines bout every detail.

LATER

Alrighty I must add ONE MORE THING.

End game: This is tricky with a SWG type Space Game.

So this is one idea for a Dungeon like Experience!

Say a 30 man Grp. 15 have to board a space station while 15 stay outside in Ships having a space battle while the other 15 go inside to have a FPS yes I said it FPS like battle. I dont know how you could make a GOOD Star Trek game with a KOTOR combat system of not actually pulling the trigger when you want to shoot. That crap only works in WoW like games cause swinging my hammer I dotn have a Wii like contorler.

K so I need to be able to shoot and there needs to be medics who set up healing radius devices to heal us and engineers inside who do something...This needs to be Team Effort. lots of stuff going on...cant be just soem big Space Station to blow up like good old Star Wars X Wing I think it was where you were in the Snow Speeder and you just had to shoot ever part of the AT AT  ( you know what im talking about) and eventually when you had hit every part you killed it...NADA we must have soem core objectives to accomplish and a hefty Boss to fight inside and Out.

GOT IT

No FPS bullcrap ( want a FPS play UT or something else ), no big ass raids like WoW and every other mmorpg for gear and shit ( no levels + regular content additions + skills to raise = no need for an "endgame" ), no levels, and multiple skills to  choose from so everyone doesn't have to be locked into a "cookie cutter" build.

Originally posted by Zorvan

No FPS bullcrap ( want a FPS play UT or something else ), no big ass raids like WoW and every other mmorpg for gear and shit ( no levels + regular content additions + skills to raise = no need for an "endgame" ), no levels, and multiple skills to  choose from so everyone doesn't have to be locked into a "cookie cutter" build.

Bren

Originally posted by Brenelael

 

Originally posted by Zorvan

No FPS bullcrap ( want a FPS play UT or something else ), no big ass raids like WoW and every other mmorpg for gear and shit ( no levels + regular content additions + skills to raise = no need for an "endgame" ), no levels, and multiple skills to  choose from so everyone doesn't have to be locked into a "cookie cutter" build.

Well as for raids I was thinking that they should move the raid out of the end game entirely. Have the raids be "Events" where everyone who wants to can participate from the newest newb to the most experienced vet. This would be like an incursion of the Borg along the frontier where anyone can go and fight. Imagine getting a message from Starfleet that a Borg Cube has entered federation space along the Typhoon Expanse and they need every available ship, Starfleet and non-Starfleet to go and try to beat them back. This would allow anyone to go and join in the fight and take the raids out of the hands of the Raiding Guilds entirely. With skill based this would be possible because you wouldn't have to be in a group to get Experience and you wouldn't be stealing Exp from anyone else either. This could lead to some huge fleet battles and would be fun for all involved. Also allow people to beam onto the cube during the battle to hit vital areas from within. Oh and have the cubes be the extraordinarily tough ones from TNG and not the wimpy ones we saw in Voyager.

 

 

Bren

Having events like that would be acceptable. I just don't wanna see yet another raid-centric " gotta get to top level fast and grab my purple/orange/green" kind of game. And I definitely don't want "raid guilds" controlling who can and can't advance, like you said. Everyone should have the chance to get everything, whether they solo, group, or mix and match. And yes, it should be more of a challenge to do something solo than grouping, but it should still be possible. Not having a level system makes this possible also, since you can't be called gimp if you wait a bit longer to get an item/piece of gear than someone else if there's no level range to compare.

I don't think anyone wants STO to be another "Grind for gear" game Zorvan. Although I do think the game has to be gear centric to a point (The starships mainly) I don't think it should be the main focus of the game. For instance I think that upgrading an existing ship or it's components should be through engineering skills rather than finding "Phat Loot" to do it. If they are going to have things like "+1 Phasers" or something along those lines it should be player skills that enhanced it rather than killing some uber Gorn for it. Mobs should mainly just drop components and the crafting system through the skill system should make all the upgraded gear for your avatar and your ship. Any actual gear dropped by mobs should be just generic base value gear that players can enhance if they have the skills. This would make sure the game would have a healthy crafting/enhancing system, a good economy and would make socialization a lot more approachable even to the shyest of players as it will give them that conversation starter.

Bren

Set it in The Original Series.

Sorta