Author: johnk

Beating the Dead Horse of Rank in STO

Beating a Dead Horse -- Office Space (1999)Players have argued against the current STO rank system since beta, and you can still find several active threads on the topic in the forums on any given day. The problem is that rank is a finite list, but level keeps increasing as the game matures and raises the level cap.  It’s come up outside the STO forums most recently in my fleet’s forums and a blog post by Blue Kae.

Fixing the problem requires decoupling this hard relationship between rank and level, something I’ve proposed many times [Devs – this whole ‘Rank’ situation is getting absurd…, Posts 53 and 55].  Here’s an updated version of what I last posted to the forums.

Re-characterize level as Officer Efficiency Rating. It’s a number and unbounded; that eliminates all the “exhaust the names list” problems that most proposals just delay, not solve. It’s lore friendly; e.g., the TNG bridge crew is often either doing or dodging crew evaluations. It also ties nicely to item level requirements (i.e., “You must be XXX to use this item”) since you’d only give the best/most dangerous equipment to the most capable officers–which is not necessarily highest-ranking.

Players unlock rank titles at OER’s 1, 2, 10, 20, 30, and 40 for ENS, LTJG, LT, LCDR, CDR, and CAPT. Rank title is like the current achievement title but separate. Players can choose to set their current rank to whatever titles they have unlocked, giving RPers in particular a level of control they often ask for. Players would have an option to allow auto-assigning new ranks on level-up for those who don’t want to be bothered; I’d probably default that to “on” so new behavior matches current behavior as closely as possible. Rank title would have a separate toggle like achievement title for overhead display.

Bridge Officers would use the same system, but their rank title unlocks would be at 1, 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 instead. I originally didn’t have BOFFs as Captains, but if you check out the command leadership section of USS Enterprise (CVN 65),  both Captain and XO hold the rank of Captain.

Membership in a fleet also unlocks rank titles at different fleet levels. The default rank progression would be Fleet Commander (or Acting Fleet Captain for fleets using rank 1 as a probationary positon), Fleet Captain, Commodore (or Rear Admiral LH), Rear Admiral (or Rear Admiral UH), Vice Admiral, Admiral, Fleet Admiral. Personally, I like Commodore and hate the LH/UH designations, but others feel strongly against Commodore; this approach can satisfy both camps.

So why has Cryptic ignored this issue? Dstahl’s position is that it’s too much work because of the number of dialog and item text changes required [You won’t get away with this, Rear Admiral, Lower Half!, Post 51]. I think this is just a worse-case scenario meant to dissuade further unrest, and I’ve suggested ways to minimize and spread out the effort [Devs – this whole ‘Rank’ situation is getting absurd…, Post 51]. Given Cryptic’s similar rationalization and lack of action on a game-wide bug they introduced in the Romulan featured episode [Serious Cloaking Bug, Post 159], I doubt we’ll see any change in their position, and that attitude is partly why I’m on indefinite STO hiatus.

Orion’s Champion Proposal: Transparency Turbine-Style

The STO community lavishes praise on Cryptic for their transparency, but I think Turbine deserves at least as much credit–and perhaps more for not over-sharing. A case in point is Orion’s latest dev diary post about the upcoming changes to the Champion.

Orion’s Page – Blog Archive – Champion Proposal: Final Stages

Elf ChampionMy first LOTRO character was a champion based on a character from a LOTR-based NWN persistent world. Gameplay with that champion (rolled two years ago this month) felt a little lethargic and uninteresting compared to my eventual love, the runekeeper. I’ve dabbled with champions since then and liked what I’ve seen in changes to the class and overall combat engine.

From Orion’s latest post, this update to the champion class will be significant.  I’m not a big enough champion nerd to appreciate subtle changes in how skills and stances relate, but a few things stand out:  no more shields, no fervor penalty for two-handing, and far fewer on-defeat skills. That last one is big for me as a solo; I don’t get to use on-defeat skills as much wandering around alone.

My sense is this champion tune-up is on par with or bigger than what the runekeeper got a few months ago. Some of those runekeeper changes didn’t stand out in the dev diaries but ended up being fantastic; i.e., Master of Writs. Pairing solid posts like Orion’s with Turbine’s usually-well-delivered updates has me eager to roll a new champion and see how it feels when the time comes.

I’m not so eager for STO Season 4 and the Duty Roster System: Cryptic’s having problems in the discussion and delivery departments lately, and they’d do well to take a few pages from Turbine’s book. Turbine’s communications with the LOTRO community are more measured and better timed. It may help that the LOTRO community seems better behaved but no less passionate: their forums suffer less from heat/noise–except for those trash-talking PvMP forums, of course.

It also helps that forums.lotro.com supports RSS feeds to get around the heat, noise, and overload that trying to stay on top of STO’s forums inflicts on me.  Hint, hint.

Another STO Hiatus

I’m on another hiatus from Star Trek Online. Once again I find myself waiting to play the game STO could be (with the Season 4 update in July) rather than the game it is now. But it’s more than that this time. I’ve had a string of annoyances and disappointments with the game, customer support, the Foundry, and active participation in the forums. Perhaps my love for STO has finally died the death of a thousand cuts.

I’ve played STO enough to scratch off the veneer of Star Trek and see too much of the generic MMO RPG beneath. LOTRO and STO got my attention and my cash because of the intellectual property, not because I like MMOs.  Although the massively-multiplayer aspects can be fun sometimes, they’ve also been immersion-breaking, road-blocking, distracting, and even discouraging.  It feels like these games have all the limits of a computer-based game with none of the advantages of a real multi-player (tabletop) RPG.

It’s not clear what Atari divesting itself of Cryptic Studios means for the developer of STO.  Word in the forums is “business as usual” of course.  For me, I have to wonder if the game will last long enough to reach the break-even point for my lifetime subscription–especially given months of hiatus I’ve taken since launch. It seemed like an easy bet with such a big IP back then. Oh well.

I may pop into STO and LOTRO for a few hours here and there, but I’ll probably devote most of my game time to single-player games: a heavily modded The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Portals 1 & 2, and either Mass Effect or Dragon Age to psych me up for the  MMORPG that might be more RPG than MMO: Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Here’s hoping!