caleb wrote:...It would fit better with Lore, avoid teleporters (that do open a big can of worms like you explained), and allow flying ships with lesser risk for us pilots with two left feet.
And, there you have it - "Less risk." "Less risk" of the dangers of piloting a ship, yourself, into combat, which is in a game that has ship combat as a primary game activity for the player...
See?
"Ordering" one's ships, like with a sort of RTS map mechanic is a bit different. It's understood that those ships, those "pilots" and crews, are "on their own" and the player hopes they do their best... Sometimes, the player decides that the situation is critical enough and their survival is important enough that they must take a more direct hand in things and they have to be a part of the combat. So, they fly there.
But, what about lone patrols off in the far reaches of space that the player can't easily get to in time if something "bad" happens? That's part of the risk inherent in the game, too. The player has to build and plan for those sorts of things. And, when the player's empire becomes much larger? They may be faced with more dangerous choices, like having to fly to a sector to help defending a station or leading an offensive when, suddenly, another warning comes up that a station on the opposite side of the galaxy is under attack. Choices have consequences and planning for those consequences are part of the game, too.
I'm not saying that players should actually have to die, in real life, if their character does...
I'm not saying that certain convenience mechanics shouldn't be in the game and that the player should have to walk uphill, in space, after first building that hill, in order to accomplish anything.
What I'm saying is that watering down the impact of a game's primary game-play activities and the feelings of risk and reward the real-life experiences from participating in those is A Very, Very, Bad Idea ™.
..There is no single solution that would be agreeable for everyone unfortunately
I usually take strong stands on things in order to test the validity of my own beliefs and assumptions.
However, in this instance, I'm "testing" nothing of the sort. I think that those who believe, with the information we have at hand, which is admittedly little, that any form of "teleporting" the "player-avatar" around the map, to enter/control other ships, especially in combat, is A Very, Very, Bad Idea ™ and that adherents to it are not fully thinking it through, preferring to value the notion of "convenience" rather than acknowledge the effect this will have on a player's ultimate satisfaction with the game as they experience it.
Fight in a tense, one-on-one, battle, with the risk of player-death on the line? That's good! Fight in a tense, one-on-one, battle, with the risk of losing one ship out of many and the possibility that one can just jump into another ship in order to continue or fight that battle, again? Dumb.. At least in an Xgame. (In a true, RTS, where "units" are just "units", then it's actually a bonus gettting to experience that from the unit-level point of view. In an Xgame, the unit value and risks are not so watered down.)
RAVEN.myst wrote:This (and related aspects) have always bothered me with regards to teleportation in "sci fi"...
Although, I think that Star Trek did a good job with it, refusing to abuse it too much. After all, it was originally developed due to budget constraints, since it cost too much to create "shuttle flying to and landing on a planet" sequences. They made wine out of vinegar and came up with something scientificky that fans could argue about over generations!
... yet I can't offhand remember a single time they beamed over a bomb (no doubt there MUST be at least one instance, but my memory fails me) - ST relies on the "fact" that shields block transporting, granted, but whenever the shields have been penetrated, the only suitable application is to beam over a boarding away team, never the simple solution.
In ToS they used it to steal a cloaking device and, more significantly, beam a hold full of Tribbles onto a Klingon ship...
There were a couple of weaponized uses, but I can't recall the specifics. They may have been in TNG. It's worth noting, however, that while Captain Kirk often fought deviously against his foes, he never fought "dishonorably." Transporting a photon-torpedo onto an enemy ship or in ways that result in killing people would be sort of outside of his canonical personality. Killing machines, on the other hand, wouldn't be or in dire situations where the act saves many lives and only kills "really, really, bad guys."
The point is, teleportation is such a powerful concept that it invariably ends up necessitating some (often clumsily) contrived countermeasure in order to prevent it from completely dominating the narrative - and even then, it often ends up introducing messy inconsistencies.
Exactly so. This is the "Ultimate Weapon" problem that usually presents itself in serialized stories, typically with a "finale" of a storyline. The writer writes up the drama, choosing the trope of an ever-increasingly-powerful-foe, ending up with a problem that can only ever, only be solved by inventing "Kryptonite."
OK, so now what? Now you have Kryptonite all over the place and, in future stories, the storyline has to either involve someone getting it, avoiding it or excusing it out of the way with something that nullifies it or otherwise takes it out of play, so fans can't scream "Just use/avoid the Kryptonite and the problem is solved!"
Kryptonite is dramatic. Kryptonite is powerful! Kryptonite destroys stories, settings and themes, requiring much more work than went into its creation or relative to the problem it originally solved...
caleb wrote:Instead of teleporters, I would prefer more of a remote control scheme. I'm sitting in my well defended M2, or player base, and can control my assets remotely. Heck, we can do that now! military personnel control drones from the other side of the world so I think it's a valid scheme, and would allow losing a ship without dying because you are not actually there. It would fit better with Lore, avoid teleporters (that do open a big can of worms like you explained), and allow flying ships with lesser risk for us pilots with two left feet.
And we were agreeing so well! Ack!
See the portion of my post, above. "Remote Piloting" has the same effect as "Teleportation." I don't mind the sort of "RTS-Like" mechanic of ordering assets around like we have in X3TC (I never played XR). That's an RTS element, albeit an ultimately minor one, given the player's understanding of the assets involved, that has become part of a player's game in the later stages of play. OK, that's fine - The player's avatar, what the player is most concerned with, isn't personally risked, but the assets, which have value, are. The player knows that if they participate in the battle, the odds will be increased in their favor, but the risks to their avatar will be substantially increased. That's a dilemma that the player faces. It's a choice with definite consequences.
Now, that choice is off the table. No worries, you won't have to leave the comfort of your primary ship or station! Enjoy your latte while engaging in "intense" battles that won't ever have any dire consequences other than some credits and a bit of time. Your avatar is safe! Isn't that relieving?
"
Whew, glad that I didn't actually have to fight that battle, myself! Oh well, another battle done with. I better go log into Minecraft and do some really deep mining. I hope someone comes up with a mod so I don't have to worry about getting jumped by spiders, anymore! Or, maybe so I don't have to mine anything, at all! THAT'D BE GREAT CONVENIENCE!"
...This system is about the closest I've found to an elegant implementation of an effective teleportation equivalent that doesn't bring with it a host of potential threats to the very integrity of the universe.
And, it has a large list of costs with a very large list of possible drawbacks. So, to use that system effectively, there has to be a very large investment in actually using it, by the player. I'm not familiar with it, but it seems to have a fairly "balanced" use. Also, I think we have to keep in mind that it's in a multiplayer game. That has additional demands placed on certain sorts of mechanics that allow players to participate in events with each other. In World of Warcraft, they came up with a class ability that allowed players to "teleport" other players to them. In EverQuest, they came up with abilities to allow others to use conveniently located teleporters to teleport groups of people, so they could be within somewhat convenient "running distance" of each other. (I can't remember if they ultimately allowed direct-to-person teleporting or not.)
These are the sorts of mechanics that one expects to either be in the "setting" of a multiplayer game or that are provided for in the game's "utilities" like matchmaking, lobbies, joining another player's "instances" and the like. Most importantly, this is a mechanic that acts to support the game's primary gameplay - Multiplayer. It
supports that primary activity.
What if the game, instead, acted to make that purported "primary activity" more difficult or not very rewarding? How much value would the player then place upon it?