Questions about character development

[Shinshi]

Hello my name is Shinshi and I am a gamer.
The crowd murmers: Hi shinshi
I have been gaming for more than 15 years and have played most known MMO games like WoW, GW, CoH/CoV, Tabula Rasa, EVE, SWG, DDO, LOTRO. For me the most important thing of any of these games was the character creation and development. The character is in my humble opinion the most important part of the gameplay and its development makes or brakes a game for me.
I have tried to find out more about character creation and development but not much information can be found. All I know at this point is the following:
- You can change your looks and your own “race”
- You can change your bridge officers
- You can change your ship and adjust its looks.
What I still miss is the personal development. How does this work in STO? Do we get skills, if so how many? Do we get points to select skills or do we train them EVE style (click a skill and wait till it is finished)? Is it possible to retrain to a different class? Do we have classes (more specific than officer, engineer, science and medical)? What is our character (is it the bridge or is it the captain? Or even the total ship + crew)

In other words, how extensive is the character development and how much do we depand on getting that Epic Tychion Beam that gives a + 4 on space command and a +10% positive relationships with the ferengi.

I hope anyone can give me some detail on this.

Kind regards Shinshi

Ps. A disclaimer, I dont want to compair STO with any other game and I sinceraly hope the game will be a new fresh MMO in the world.

[Pyrceval]

Hello my name is Shinshi and I am a gamer.
The crowd murmers: Hi shinshi
I have been gaming for more than 15 years and have played most known MMO games like WoW, GW, CoH/CoV, Tabula Rasa, EVE, SWG, DDO, LOTRO. For me the most important thing of any of these games was the character creation and development. The character is in my humble opinion the most important part of the gameplay and its development makes or brakes a game for me.
I have tried to find out more about character creation and development but not much information can be found. All I know at this point is the following:
- You can change your looks and your own “race”
- You can change your bridge officers
- You can change your ship and adjust its looks.
What I still miss is the personal development. How does this work in STO? Do we get skills, if so how many? Do we get points to select skills or do we train them EVE style (click a skill and wait till it is finished)? Is it possible to retrain to a different class? Do we have classes (more specific than officer, engineer, science and medical)? What is our character (is it the bridge or is it the captain? Or even the total ship + crew)

In other words, how extensive is the character development and how much do we depand on getting that Epic Tychion Beam that gives a + 4 on space command and a +10% positive relationships with the ferengi.

I hope anyone can give me some detail on this.

Kind regards Shinshi

Ps. A disclaimer, I dont want to compair STO with any other game and I sinceraly hope the game will be a new fresh MMO in the world.


Okay, unsure from where you arent finding info cause theres tons of it out there...nothing listing specific skills just yet but as the game is far from release, that makes sense. Your character is your character, the Captain of your ship (which you actually start at lieutenant grade). You choose your class which gives you some base skills (Science, Engineer, or Security). You do train your skills through rasing experience levels like normal, and in addition you gain access to various 'kits' which help further define your skill set (advanced medical kit for a science officer to be a doctor, engineers that can use stasis fields, and heavy weapons for security etc etc). There will be plenty of choices within all these, further customization and blending (one thing that has been mentioned is the various types of starship command that gain you access to higher 'tier' ships.

[Peregrine_Falcon]

At the top of this forum that you've posted in is a thread entitled: Everything we know about STO (http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=14535)

You might want to read it. It will tell you everything that we currently know about STO.

[Shinshi]

I have seen the information about the "kits" but those appear to me as gear and not as a real character development. I forgot to mention that sorry. I also readed the what we know about STO thread and I could not find satisfactory information in it.

I figured the character would be the captain of the ship, but how much influence does the captain has on the crew(ship) and vice versa. I know Bridge officers can give me skills, but do I as captain have access to those skills somewere in the game without a BO (in other words can I train myself with BO skills?) If not than the BO's are a considerable part of the character.

From Pyrceval post I also see more information I could not find at first, thanks for that. It seems though that from your post and what we all know about STO that the complexity of the character creation and development will look a bit like Tabula Rasa character creation. Some choices but not a big range of freedom.

[BaakCha]

I have seen the information about the "kits" but those appear to me as gear and not as a real character development. I forgot to mention that sorry. I also readed the what we know about STO thread and I could not find satisfactory information in it.

I figured the character would be the captain of the ship, but how much influence does the captain has on the crew(ship) and vice versa. I know Bridge officers can give me skills, but do I as captain have access to those skills somewere in the game without a BO (in other words can I train myself with BO skills?) If not than the BO's are a considerable part of the character.

From Pyrceval post I also see more information I could not find at first, thanks for that. It seems though that from your post and what we all know about STO that the complexity of the character creation and development will look a bit like Tabula Rasa character creation. Some choices but not a big range of freedom.

Wait about another month and I'll bet you'll start seeing more, as that is about when closed beta will start.

[Rivaris]

we dont know much but so far we know there are kits (gear) bo's (npc pet like) with skills and your char will have a skil tree.

not 100% sure but it seems you get skill pionts for playing the game and not when you rank up.

so you will develop you char into 1 of the 3 carreers beeing tactic, engeneering and science.
also i dont think there will be a limit on the skills pionts you get so you should be able to get enough pionts when playing enough to unlock all ships and maby even all skills.

your Bo do have skills when they rank up but you can find a rare Bo's and if you dont want to rank that 1 up you can learn the rare bo's skill to 1 of your current Bo's if they have a open skill spot i render.

[Acyl]

I figured the character would be the captain of the ship, but how much influence does the captain has on the crew(ship) and vice versa. I know Bridge officers can give me skills, but do I as captain have access to those skills somewere in the game without a BO (in other words can I train myself with BO skills?) If not than the BO's are a considerable part of the character.

You got it. Bridge Officers are a considerable part of your character. Yeah, you play the captain, but if you look at the interviews and presentations the devs have given, they make it pretty clear that we're supposed to think of our Bridge Officers as extensions of our character.

Or put it this way. Kirk is the star of TOS. We know that. But he wouldn't be Kirk without Spock and McCoy. The rapport he has with his two friends and colleagues is massively important to who Kirk is.

As for skills...you kinda need to read between the lines here. Watch the PAX videos, and listen to what the devs say while talking folks through the gameplay. Note the kits do matter - a Science Officer with a Medic kit will be different from a Science Officer with a Research kit. The gear does influence what you can do. But on the ground...yeah, your captain's skills will be pretty much the same as a Bridge Officer.

That said, they've hinted that player captains might be able to learn skills from different tracks, not just your primary profession. If so, that means players are more flexible than the NPC BOs.

In space things may be different. Everything I've seen seems to imply that Captains get certain special abilities in space that Bridge Officers don't. Captains get 'Attack Pattern' and 'Maneuver' powers, for instance - which don't correspond with what the Bridge Officers do. There seems to be less 'overlap' in player/BO abilities for space combat compared to the ground game.

As to your other questions: How many skills are there? How much cross-training between professions can we do? How will progression work? We don't know yet, and it's unlikely we'll know until Open Beta. That kinda detail almost certainly won't be released at this early stage - and for an MMO, that kinda stuff is always subject to change.