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The State of PvP

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited June 2012 in PvP Gameplay
(Warning, lots to read)

Hello all,

A few of yall know me from the old days, well before the game went F2P, and I’m still getting to know the rest of yall. Those left from those days remember the neglect and general frustration that we all had/have from the devs about PvP balance, bugs, exploits, and so on; and while I’m hopeful about seeing a dev take charge of trying to fix PvP, I’m rather reserved about it given that Gozer is the 3rd or 4th dev to try his hand at it (Heretic was adjusting powers while I was still playing a year ago, and Snix was the ‘pvp dev’ before either of them, and while I tend to recall stormshade popping in from time to time I don’t really remember so w/e).

However, when I look at the two weekly posts that have been made by Gozer (if there are more please direct me to them as I was under the impression that there were only two so far) I can’t help but think that he’s another dev that either doesn’t realize the problems with PvP, or doesn’t accept them :(.

What do I mean by that? Well when I look at the posts he’s made so far, I take away from it that he believes that the only real problem is the lack of new things and general lack of features in PvP, and that is not the problem. While a few new maps, small team queues and a ladder would be nice, they are periphery issues that only entertain for a short while without doing anything to solve the real problems of PvP and the game in general.

The real problem that is present within PvP and the game itself is a lack of purpose, not as it relates to the impact of a person pvping, that doesn’t matter, but rather purpose as it pertains to each class and the ships that are in the game.

Yes you can say that there is purpose built into the ships; cruisers/BCs can heal or dps, science ships can heal or provide utility based dps, escorts/raptors are strictly dps, carriers heal and dps through proxies, and Birds of Prey can be utility/dps/healers, all of which depends on your setup. Add onto the argument that Tactical captains provide extra damage to their ship type, Engineering captains provide extra survivability, and Science captains provide a utility edge to their ships, all that on top of everything that I mentioned in the previous sentence. So where is the lack of purpose that I’m talking about?

The problems pop up because players can do everything that their ship is capable of in a single build and become incredibly difficult to beat (impossible for all but top quality players players as elitist as that sounds); the problem is easiest to spot on Cruisers and Battlecruisers but as I mentioned it’s not limited to them. Not getting what I’m saying? Alright I’ll just cut right through it, the point that I’m trying to get at is that each and every Escort, Raptor, Cruiser, Battlecruiser, Science ship, Carrier and Bird of Prey can effectively heal and dps in the same build. A DPS cruiser can put on the best tanking abilities and top quality healing abilities and be on par dps wise or better than a good escort pilot and the same can be said about the other ship classes as well.

Every space skill tree is the same across the three classes, every ship performs the same across the three classes with no variations on skill effectiveness or actual ship performance in terms of turn rate, hit points. Everybody is the same and has the same impact with only three variations based on what I said two paragraphs above.

“So what?” You say, “EVE Online makes no difference between character races and it does great.” You are correct sir, but in EVE the purpose of a ship is made incredibly clear (it’s in the ship description if you somehow missed it) and the role is often set by the player. In EVE many of the ship pieces are either useless or entirely unusable unless you possess a specific ship that has an innate buff to utilize whatever the item is. An example of this is the Logistic ship, which is the only non-capital ship in a faction’s navy that can make effective use of group repair modules, as when they’re placed on the ship they gain bonuses to their range and effect, whereas if they were on other ship classes they would be short-ranged and drain the ship’s capacitor in no time at all. There are more examples in EVE but I don’t want to focus overly much on one game.

So maybe you don’t like how EVE does it, then turn and look at World of Warcraft or Star Wars: The Old Republic as both of them have extremely clear and set roles and purposes of their character classes. Each with different skill trees per class (and advanced class if you’re playing TOR) that each increase the effect of each skill within a given role (i.e. heals are borderline ineffective if you’re not specced into healing, same with dps or tanking).

This game possess nothing of what I just mentioned in the two above paragraphs…….

Instead in this game every ship can use at least 95% of the level one version of an ability on any ship to no detriment, ships can maintain healing and dps outputs indefinitely, and PvPers that know what they're doing are genuine one-man wrecking crews in both the PvP fields and the PvE areas.

All of that would be fine if this game was successful too; but this game has not been a runaway hit and even the devs are admitting that PvP as a whole is awful. But the fact of the matter is that if you want to fix PvP then you’ve got to do more than waste your time adding a few new features, you’ve got to fix the underlying flaw with the game’s combat system as the problem limits the game and prevents it from moving forward in any meaningful way. Otherwise all of the features that you're thinking of adding will only be worth 15 minutes of a player's time, then they'll get in and realize the problems and that while things have changed, it's all stayed the same.

The problems have caused a lot of frustration which causes people to leave, add onto that the general feeling of neglect that PvPers have about the devs and you get more people leaving, then add onto that the influx of console powers that have only served to compound the frustration over game issues and you get PvP being where it is.

The state of the PvP in this game is very weak at best, and just awful at worst. I'm sorry to say it and this wasn't meant to call people out or be a real pain to people, it was trying to highlight the problem that people don't tend to talk about.

Thanks for reading and please post your thoughts :)

(If you made it this far by reading the whole thing then awesome! If not then go back and read it! :p)
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    Has anyone noticed that Gozer hasn't done his weekly PVP update this or last week?

    You know when you meet somebody nice and have a great meal and they DONT call you back? Gozer, why?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    Has anyone noticed that Gozer hasn't done his weekly PVP update this or last week?

    You know when you meet somebody nice and have a great meal and they DONT call you back? Gozer, why?

    Last week was the man's Birthday (I think I read that somewhere), and this week ... It's not even Friday yet. his posts come on Friday. Currently it's late Thursday Night.
    Patience.

    Still digesting the original post. good points. i'll probably comment later.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    I have to agree Sivar and I might also add I think one of the biggest and longest running problems
    with PvP is that (and this is as far as I know) no Dev's actually play PvP.

    I mean how can you attempt to fix something if you dont actually participate in it and know how
    things work or dont work when paired together.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    HippieJohn wrote: »
    Last week was the man's Birthday (I think I read that somewhere), and this week ... It's not even Friday yet. his posts come on Friday. Currently it's late Thursday Night.
    Patience.

    Still digesting the original post. good points. i'll probably comment later.

    Ah thats a very good point, sadly i'd spent most of the day convinced it was Friday, and the next day (today for me) being Saterday! Bloody confusing >.<
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    Dank65 wrote:
    I have to agree Sivar and I might also add I think one of the biggest and longest running problems
    with PvP is that (and this is as far as I know) no Dev's actually play PvP.

    I mean how can you attempt to fix something if you dont actually participate in it and know how
    things work or dont work when paired together.

    While I don't think he's an actual dev (I may be mistaken), branflakes is a regular pvp'er, and is well above average at it. When the obvious misbalance of tractor pets first came out, he did his best to get it across to the devs that it was out of balance.

    gozer does understand that some of the game mechanics are currently out of balance. PvP isnt going to turn around overnight. Im as frustrated as the next guy, and I do hope that gozer is going to make every attempt to stay in communication with us as to whats being done. That alone I think will go a very long ways
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    It does not suprise me that your post is perfectly on point Sivar. Now if only Gozer will actually read your post, my post, and a few other post offering genuine suggestions from pvp'ers ABOUT pvp. And it is very important that whoever is going to fix pvp should be required to actually play this game's damn pvp. How could you possibly hope to fix something THE RIGHT WAY when you have no passion for how it works? How can you put your best foot forward when you are ignorant to the intricacies responsible for balance between classes? Between weapons types? Between spec's? I dont care for one more damn pet, c-store ship, map, or fleet starbase. You have alot to fix Gozer. And you have alot to fix Cryptic.

    You better wake up. STOked is turning into a radio cast. New games are coming out. You've had unrelenting support from the community for the past two years. But your support is like a bright light growing dimmer with each patch. Cryptic, what will you do when the bright light goes out, the room grows pitch black, and there is no one left but you and your lock box?

    -Captain Tripwire-
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    Dank65 wrote:
    I have to agree Sivar and I might also add I think one of the biggest and longest running problems
    with PvP is that (and this is as far as I know) no Dev's actually play PvP.

    I mean how can you attempt to fix something if you dont actually participate in it and know how
    things work or dont work when paired together.

    Maybe some of them pvp but do that with their "own" characters and don't want to be a known dev?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    Zorena wrote:
    Maybe some of them pvp but do that with their "own" characters and don't want to be a known dev?

    So, since when are you working for Cryptic, Zorena, or should I call you CaptainGeko?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    So, since when are you working for Cryptic, Zorena, or should I call you CaptainGeko?

    Don't give people ideas.. Im just a clueless player. Im just saying im sure someone is pvping but dont want to have their work connected to their pvp character and people being upset because a dev is better then them at pvp and ego/drama etc.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    fallout23 wrote: »
    While I don't think he's an actual dev (I may be mistaken), branflakes is a regular pvp'er, and is well above average at it. When the obvious misbalance of tractor pets first came out, he did his best to get it across to the devs that it was out of balance.

    gozer does understand that some of the game mechanics are currently out of balance. PvP isnt going to turn around overnight. Im as frustrated as the next guy, and I do hope that gozer is going to make every attempt to stay in communication with us as to whats being done. That alone I think will go a very long ways

    alas! Gozer is skipping another week! I guess two weeks out of four for a weekly update isn't too worrying....right?

    Details are on this thread: http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=272487
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    Heretic wrote:
    Don't give people ideas.. Im just a clueless player. Im just saying im sure someone is pvping but dont want to have their work connected to their pvp character and people being upset because a dev is better then them at pvp and ego/drama etc.
    Everyone would call hax if that were to happen.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    Rumor has it jorf is a dev in disguise ;-)

    But seriously, who would ever guess that. If it turns out being true, remember you heard it here first...lol
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    Borticus wrote:
    Rumor has it jorf is a dev in disguise ;-)

    But seriously, who would ever guess that. If it turns out being true, remember you heard it here first...lol
    You can't fool me.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    It does not suprise me that your post is perfectly on point Sivar. Now if only Gozer will actually read your post, my post, and a few other post offering genuine suggestions from pvp'ers ABOUT pvp. And it is very important that whoever is going to fix pvp should be required to actually play this game's damn pvp. How could you possibly hope to fix something THE RIGHT WAY when you have no passion for how it works? How can you put your best foot forward when you are ignorant to the intricacies responsible for balance between classes? Between weapons types? Between spec's? I dont care for one more damn pet, c-store ship, map, or fleet starbase. You have alot to fix Gozer. And you have alot to fix Cryptic.

    You better wake up. STOked is turning into a radio cast. New games are coming out. You've had unrelenting support from the community for the past two years. But your support is like a bright light growing dimmer with each patch. Cryptic, what will you do when the bright light goes out, the room grows pitch black, and there is no one left but you and your lock box?

    -Captain Tripwire-

    Yeah I hear ya man, I just hope that the devs are reading these forums still as well. Everything in the game right now just feels like it was thrown in for the hell of it with very little thought for direction or moving forward beyond the first few years like other games do. :(
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    I am not sure your examples are the best, really. A DPS Cruiser still cannot really compete DPS and spike-wise with an Escort. I see the problem more that many people really want to build that DPS Cruiser but the system doesn'T support is well, since the DPS focused abilities for Cruisers (E.g. Engineering BO powers) are not that great and unpopular. I agree though that a problem is that certain powers don't really work well and lack a strong focus.

    I would like to see Cruiser builds that put in EPtW, EWP, Aceton Beam and DEM instead of EPtS (maybe), RSP, Extend Shields, Engineering Team and so on and get a DPS-focused build.

    I'd also like to Escorts having an option to pick Mine Patterns, Attack Pattern Delta, Beam Target Subsystem and maybe Scatter Volley and Beam Fire At Will and become a "Crowd Control Escort". So we have more than just a few tiny variations of DPS Escorts, but also an entirely different build option.

    The problem here certainly is that Cryptic never really thought of the powers in the sense of "what is the role of this ability", or didn'T do it often enough, and not with the bigger picture in mind. How would a DPS, a Control or a Heal build look like with the powers available?

    Beam Fire At will and Beam Overload for example - both powers are primarily damage boosts for beams. So if you want DPS, you pick either the one or the other - and ultimately which one you picks simply is based on which is better. That doesn'T make much sense, why have 2 powers for basically the same purpose? Beam Fire At Will has the area effect or multi-target component. So why not make it a crowd control power - not focusing on the damage output increases, but debuffing enemies instead? If BFAW would clearly be a CC power to clear spam and debuff enemies, it wouldn't have to compete with Beam Overload (and vice versa) in a DPS build. It would not appear in a DPS build, but it would appear in a crowd control build. And it is still distinguished from Beam Target Subsystems - since it is clearly AoE focused, and the effects could be very different. It's harder to argue whether, say an accuracy AoE debuff is better then a single target engine or shield power debuff.

    Mustrum "Will not rest until I can play a Crowd Control Escort" Ridcully
    That more to your liking, Sivar?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited June 2012
    I've always wondered how a Cruiser, which is supposed to have a massive warp core affording it significant power levels, only has 5 more bonus power than any other ship class out there. I understanding using things like the Commander Bridge Officer slot, Console slots, Shield and Hull capacity, etc to make ships more distinct but I don't think they've gone far enough to accommodate and expanding line.

    For example, remove the bonus power from all but the Cruiser class. Give Cruisers 20-30 bonus power across all systems with bonus skill points in the skill tree that provide an innate boost to hull, EPS, and Warp Core Potential. You could include bonus skill points for Warp Core Efficiency or Warp Core Performance depending on the roll of that particular Cruiser (Assault might have innately higher Weapons and Engines, Exploration might be more balanced distribution, while Healing might have higher Shields and Auxiliary). Or maybe a Tactical Cruiser would trade off some of their bonus points from the Engineering section for points in Energy Weapons.

    An Escort would do away with it's 15 to Weapons but it's quicker and more evasive. It's a smaller ship with a smaller core but it would make up for it with some innate skill point bonuses to general Weapon Training, Attack Patterns, and the more specific weapon types. I'm not sure how best to make the different versions more distinct but maybe a Fleet Escort would have higher hull, the Advanced would have higher shields, and Tactical would get a better bonus to the severity skills? Maybe a Fleet Escort would give up some Tactical bonus points in exchange for something from the Engineering tree like EPS flow, Efficiency or Potential.

    Science Ships would trade their 15 to Auxiliary for innate bonuses to portions of their Science skill tree. They'd have higher Shield Capacity but also small general bonuses across all science skills or higher bonuses across fewer more specific skills depending on the role of that ship class. These could trade off some Science bonus points for a boost to something from the Tactical or Engineering tree depending on their intended role. A tactical Science ship might have bonuses to Torpedo skills.

    But perhaps most importantly, these ships would come with tangible downsides when attempting to fill a role that they are not necessarily intended for. Everything this game does is about having a positive effect but what if there was a trade off? Sure, they have that with Bridge Officer Stations but let's face it, the lines are being blurred more and more with each new hybrid and +1 ship being released.

    I'm saying an Escort might take a negative modifier for Science Powers like Hazard Emitters and Engineering powers that require (in theory) intensive crew. It may not repair itself as efficiently, has a lower magnitude on heals shared. A Cruiser has the bonus to their DPS from their innately higher power levels but in general they won't have the severity potential and their Science heals would be stronger than an Escort but still significantly reduced compared to a Science Ship. Science ships would obviously shine with their science based healing and controls but Tactical skills would be innately lower as would their power levels and Engineering based heals.

    This is all very broad of course. I know this is bound to create more balance concerns but we need strong class diversity and any look at a significant change to PvP should certainly consider this. As in Sivar's original example, an Escort has a HE1 as strong as that of a Science ship. This leads to some rather vanilla builds. The proposed changes would make science based healing useful on any ship but much more effective it's intended ship.

    I love the idea of each choice having obvious positive and negative consequences. I think consoles should have innate yin and yang effects. Maybe an Ablative Armor resistance Engineering console would increase mass effectively changing speed, evasion, and inertia values. Energy Weapon specific Tactical Consoles might apply a small negative effect to shield power (it has to come from somewhere, right?) while that could be offset by a Shield Emitter Engineering console to boost that shield power and so on. Other smarter more creative people around here could come up with some truly great cost/benefit ideas here!

    On a semi related note, I'd love to see hull values adjusted so that Cruisers, for example, have significantly more hull capacity than the other classes. Obviously anything like that would be horribly overpowered given the current state of the game but it would be interesting to see if there is ever a fix for yo-yo healing and the ability to heal oneself to 100%. Old fighting games have some kind of healing system that allows them to regenerate only a portion of their lost health in combat. I don't play them enough to know much about it but it seems like it could be a relatively simple system.

    On the topic of healing in general, I feel like any real healing should be limited largely to shields since that's pretty much just an energy issue. Hull being healed through the Structural Integrity Field makes sense to an extent but if all the Auxiliary power is going to holding the ship together then maybe Aux should start to drop a bit when your ship takes too much damage. Straight hull breaches should be longer lasting more permanent damage that put a strain on remaining systems. And then there is the issue of Torpedoes being useless if Shield Heals are too effective but Torpedoes are already incredibly difficult in current conditions anyway.

    Sure, burst damage would be pretty hard to recover from but sustained DoT would be a more significant threat with everyone flying around using drastically different HE1's, for example. Combine that with the limitations on being able to repair only so much damage in combat and you could work out some decent balance between the classes. Science Ships do make this more complicated than the Damage Class and the Healing Class but again, smarter more creative people could come up with a good way to balance the Science Ship's control abilities with their weaker DPS and lower hulls.

    Anyway, let me shut up. Maybe I need another drink or maybe I should have stopped drinking earlier. Either way, rambling is fun. Sorry to soil your thread Sivar:o!
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