OK. I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I just want to throw my 2 EC in about a PvP revitalization program. The following will be 90% completely comprised of features that are either currently in the game, or will be released with Season 7. It is a PvP system that will hopefully solve a number of problems, and be a compromise between the PvP community and Cryptic's business model. I propose setting up a PvP system that is in line with the reputation system being released with S7. Some people will like it, some people will hate it, but I think we all agree that it is going to take radical changes to PvP to either save it, or finish it off once and for all. I, for one, and at the point that I would like to see an all out, last ditch effort, and either excel with it, or just watch the world burn.
Like the reputation system on Tribble, the PvP "rep" system would be set up in multiple tiers: Casual, Advanced & Elite. As you play through the various PvP matches, you will earn "experience" for lack of a better word. The system would be set up so that as you win matches, you will be rewarded. Yes, WIN matches. The reason for this is that it will weed out the weaker "I'm just here for the dilithium" farmers, and allow actually PvPers to participate in matches. I would propose to set it up as follows:
As the rep system on Tribble is currently set up, completing each section and/or tier will grant bonuses, but I wouldn't like to see "uber game changing powers" to be granted, but more over improvements to skills: Tier 1 to grant + X to Starship Targeting Systems or + X to Starship Maneuvers. Let the player set their ships up the way that they want to, improving on skills that they normally would use in their chosen setup. Now, the problem that would persist with this is players advancing beyond their means, and ending up with a person who doesn't want to learn to fight past a casual skill ending up facing off against players of a higher caliber. If you choose to advance from casual to advanced, you are given a one week "grace period", where you can choose a one time decrease in your PvP rank. A player who moved to "advanced" would be able to decrease back down to "casual" if they see, within the week, that they just aren't going to be able to cut it, but a determined player who wants to learn to be better will persevere, and fight/train to become better. If the "week probation" is too severe, then issue it as a token, but when they degrade, they loose any bonuses they might have earned while in that higher rank, and if they decide to return in the future, then they must work their way back up the ranks to regain those bonuses. The same holds true for "advanced" to "elite".
Now, for the harder choices to make to revitalize PvP:
1.) Marks are earned by WINNING: loosing nets you nothing. "But Deadpool! If you don't get anything for loosing, then there won't be any incentive to play!" You are right, to a point. There are enough passionate players who will play, either win or loose, to keep ploding along, and improving their fighting style and skill, to win, so that marks are earned. The main reason for this leads into #2.
2.) Dilithium is earned with MARKS: You win, you cash in marks, you get dilithium. You loose, you don't get any marks, and farmers are at a net loss. Remove the dailies that earn dilithium, win or loose. This is not a time in PvP to coddle the farmers to make sure that we the PvPers get the multiple matches we deserve. It is not a time for fine surgical procedures. It is a time to sever a certain limb, and either heal and become stronger for it, or introduce an infection, and let it all die.
3.) Leaderboard Points are earned for winning, and lost for loosing: Leaderboard Points, very similar to what is in place for starbases. If you win, you get X points. If you loose, you get -Y points. When the queue groups people, it will take a total number of "Personal PvP Points" and group you with people of a comparble total. "But Deadpool! That means that since my premade is too 733T, we won't get to play very often!" To a point, yes, you are correct, but it also ensures that almost every time, premades will face off against premades, and puggers will face off against puggers. It is not a time in PvP for the faint of heart. Pull up your bootstraps, fight to be better than what you are, and gain your points to group up with and against people of your own caliber. If you win earn your points and fight against a more challenging calibre, if you loose, learn from your experience, and fight to be better. What this also does is fleets with "cheese" builds guaranteed to win, will find themselves in a bracket where they do nothing but fight against other "cheese" guaranteed wins, or find out that the old saying "it's lonely at the top" holds true even here. Then they will either be forced to degrade themselves and tarnish their "never loose" reputation by entering matches where they have to loose and loose points to bring themselves down to a lower average, or to sit at the lonely top and reconsider their "cheese guaranteed win" builds.
To use the medical analogy again, this is not the time for surgery, making tiny cuts to hopefully fix the underlying problems. This is butchery: cutting out the cancerous portions that exist today in PvP, and building off of what is left. Is this a fair solution? No. Is this a perfect solution, no, but it is better than what we have in the game today, and it gives us something to fight for. Which brings me to #4:
4.) NEW PVP QUEUE: PvP Arena and PvP Cap & Hold: (This is where I see the pitch forks and fire coming in) Cross faction PvP. * Collective Gasp!* Yes, cross faction PvP. Let's face it, with this new system in place, it will be hard to find faction based matches. I don't propose getting rid of the current FvF, KvK & FvK setups. In fact, I am opposed to getting rid of them, but, for a while, in splitting up the "ranks" of PvPers, it will be hard to find matches to earn marks, points, etc., so the "band-aid" solution would be to open the faction barriers and allow for more people to group up and participate. "But Deadpool! I am a die-hard Klink/Fed, and I would rather not log in than to group with a stinky Fed/Klink!" Then this is one of those hard decisions that you are going to have to make to save PvP. The option is not being taken away from you, but rather making it your choice to either advance quickly, or to stick to your passions. Listen, this is a war, but it is not a war between Fed vs. Klinks. It is a war to save PvP as a whole, while bringing in a new generation of fighters to thicken the PvP pool, and it will allow everyone to fight in a bracket they are comfortable with. Eventually, a casual player will see that they are "better" than the group of opponents they normally face off against. Now, a bully will stay in that rank, and keep ROFL-stomping on their opponents, but it keeps them out of the higher brackets to allow for actual PvPers to enjoy the game. Yes, it does suck in the long run, but then it forces the casual player to make the decision to either get better and advance higher in the ranks, if for nothing just to get away from the bully, or to suffer the bully, and accept that it is a price to pay for their unwillingness to learn.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and these are the most dire times I have seen for PvP since the game began. It is time to build or destroy. There is no middle ground. There is no halfway point. It is time for the passionate players to fight for what they believe in, and I think you will all agree that regardless of faction, the serious PvPers are all passionate to see PvP prosper and grow. I welcome people to look at this proposed system and discuss it, to make changes to it to better PvP, but it is the solution that I have thought about for quite a while now, and I, for one, want to whatever it takes to butcher PvP to the point that we are left with nothing but the best parts, and leave the rot and decay behind. This benefits us, because it takes out a majority of the negative things holding true PvP back. It benefits Cryptic because it keeps players in the game longer, and could possibly net Z-Point sales from the more......impatient.....players who want to get dilithium quicker to advance faster. It is a final push in a war that will soon be over, regardless of which side wins: PvP life or death. The choice is up to us and Cryptic; hard choices to ensure that a floundering portion of the game could be popular and profitable. It makes most everyone happy, to a certain degree or another, and to those that this, or any hard changes, doesn't make happy, then maybe you were the cancer that needed cutting out.
Public que only or will private que's be allowed.
Can my other factions fleetmates allow me to kill them for rep ?
What if some teammates intentionally tank our team and throw matches ?
Seems there's lots of areas to exploit, reminds my of the big sumo wrestling fiasco a few years ago.
I don't think there are enough players to divide the queues even with cross faction teams. You will wait too long in the Tier 3 section and eventually players will all have to downgrade again.
Also I am against a system that prevents me from playing with friends only because they are better or worse than me and there aren't nearly enough players to simply set up private matches in such a case.
I do like the idea of a pvp reputation system but I would not include it in matchmaking. A ranking system would be nice, maybe simply gain points for wins, loose points if you loose (how many depending on the enemy). Try to make teams with about the same amount of points on each side. Something like that.
1) dosent matter if your team wins or loses.
2) change game so the person that did the most damage gets the kill.
3) award points by kill count, damage done, debuffs/buffs granted or healing done.
4) have it like the normal lvl system so the more points you have the higher your pvp lvl is.
5) if you have more damage done to your ship then heals/damage done to targets you lose points.
6) put in a vote to kick button if inactive for more then 30 sec. If kicked from more the 5 games in a day 48hr wait period. Till you can do any pvp at all
-"There is no such thing as an I win button!""Um, Sir. Whats this button that says (I win) for then?"
1) dosent matter if your team wins or loses. 2) change game so the person that did the most damage gets the kill.3) award points by kill count, damage done, debuffs/buffs granted or healing done.
4) have it like the normal lvl system so the more points you have the higher your pvp lvl is.
5) if you have more damage done to your ship then heals/damage done to targets you lose points.
6) put in a vote to kick button if inactive for more then 30 sec. If kicked from more the 5 games in a day 48hr wait period. Till you can do any pvp at all
That doesn't really work. You could have one guy spewing out damage that gets healed rather handily. Over and over and over and over. Then someone else comes along and does the damage all at once and actually kills them. Who really gets the kill there? Currently it is shared. Same with healing numbers. Just in reverse. You can only rack up huge healing numbers when you suck slightly less than your attacker. And buffs etc. Who's to know what good THEY did.
"if you have more damage done to your ship then heals/damage done to targets you lose points."
Ok. You should see why this doesn't work. The faster and more efficeintly you kill your opponents the less damage you do, ultimatley to the point where you do EXACTLY the amount of damage as they have health points. So the better you get, the less damage it takes you to kill an enemy, and the longer you live, so the more damage you take that you don't necessarily need to use an active heal on. So your numbers are going to look crappy by your measure.
1) dosent matter if your team wins or loses.
2) change game so the person that did the most damage gets the kill.
3) award points by kill count, damage done, debuffs/buffs granted or healing done.
4) have it like the normal lvl system so the more points you have the higher your pvp lvl is.
5) if you have more damage done to your ship then heals/damage done to targets you lose points.
6) put in a vote to kick button if inactive for more then 30 sec. If kicked from more the 5 games in a day 48hr wait period. Till you can do any pvp at all
1. What's the point if you aren't counting who the victor is?
2. So TRIBBLE non dps Sci's and Engineers?
3. How do you measure debuffs/buffs when Cryptic doesn't have an accouting system for these currently?
4. This w/one will lead to people chasing board stats instead of actually trying to win.
5. Screws Sci's again.
6. Vote kick's are abused more than not in my experience.
To the OP I wouldn't mind something like you suggest for an official anual (semi anual)tourney. Have 1 set of queues Premades other Blind PuGs etc.
But, I think the goal of MMO games should be to have MMO scaled PvP meaning Opec Sector w/resources to fight over. You'll know who's good at it by who's got the stuff. Player Diplomacy and Alliances would matter etc.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
1) dosent matter if your team wins or loses.
2) change game so the person that did the most damage gets the kill.
3) award points by kill count, damage done, debuffs/buffs granted or healing done.
4) have it like the normal lvl system so the more points you have the higher your pvp lvl is.
5) if you have more damage done to your ship then heals/damage done to targets you lose points.
6) put in a vote to kick button if inactive for more then 30 sec. If kicked from more the 5 games in a day 48hr wait period. Till you can do any pvp at all
The main reason I was trying to set this up using mostly existing game mechanics rather than trying to develop new ones was to take away from the tired excuse of "we are working on Season 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, our rose gardens, house training our pets, teaching our fish to mambo, taking grandma to see the wolf, etc." This way, the basic coding is already there, and minimal work would be needed to put the system in place. The reason for win/reward - loose/nothing was to get rid of the farmers by not giving them a reason to be in the match in the first place.
The alternative would be a vote-to-kick button, and yes, it can be abused, but again, it is choosing the lesser of two evils to achieve an overall positive goal. (I meant to touch on the vote-to-kick in the original post, but forgot.) Overall, I tried to show a minimal work effort for a maximum gain to put the ball in Cryptic's court to see if it would be an "Oh, that's a good idea! We will get right on it!" or another "we are working on Season 20: Wrath of Khan't Fix PvP!"
The only reason I don't like the only the winner gets the points idea is what if your a great pvper but none of your team is online. (Me for example. The team I play with we live in 4 different time zones it's only about 2 times a week we are all on at the same time. So what happens if the really good play has to pug or go in a 2 man team. He might have 13 kills had the best burst dps best heals and did more work then everyone else in the game but his teammates all suck and ended up being food. Is that fair for him? I like the pvp rep system but how about on an individual basis. Dosent matter how good your team is if you did good you get rewarded if you sucked you get penalized. It would work out better for everyone also I would like to see an assist score in the game instea of everyone who did any damage getting the kill have it so the kill blow get the kill and everyone else gets the assist if you helped.
-"There is no such thing as an I win button!""Um, Sir. Whats this button that says (I win) for then?"
The only reason I don't like the only the winner gets the points idea is what if your a great pvper but none of your team is online. (Me for example. The team I play with we live in 4 different time zones it's only about 2 times a week we are all on at the same time. So what happens if the really good play has to pug or go in a 2 man team. He might have 13 kills had the best burst dps best heals and did more work then everyone else in the game but his teammates all suck and ended up being food. Is that fair for him? I like the pvp rep system but how about on an individual basis. Dosent matter how good your team is if you did good you get rewarded if you sucked you get penalized. It would work out better for everyone also I would like to see an assist score in the game instea of everyone who did any damage getting the kill have it so the kill blow get the kill and everyone else gets the assist if you helped.
Sounds like normal PuG PvP experience to me. Obviously PuGs would have to be separated from Premades. I'm all for marks only for winners, but I'm also for equality of chances. Not everyone has bunch of friends around always online.
The problem I see, STO hardly has enough players to support separate queues...
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
We could have a match making system that works off of average marks per game or per minute. Also if they tracked how you got the marks healing or damage they could try to mix teams so you had healers and dps and sci.
The above numbers would more than likely to give large amounts of marks. This is good because once you get to tier 5 in the new rep system you can turn marks into dil.
So in away a system like this could make getting dil from pvp the fastest way. Which I think it should be, because facing off against another person is the hard game play you can get.
I would rather see a Season 7 rep like system for PvP with something like marks from Star Wars: Old Republic pvp for participation with extra marks for winning matches.
Dmg done
Healing done
Kills
Dmg absorbed
whatever
These marks you would get of PvP matches + Ker'rat (while I still think it should get omega marks as well).
Reward being pvp weapons with extra accuracy, maybe some special consoles or sets and some passives.
Now I understand PvE crowd would moan that they need to PvP for that gear...but PvPers also need to do STFs...
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
Other stuff I would like to see is "duels" in borders/ neutral zones / contested territory. Something like Starlfeet Command when you faced 1v1. Well players could attack each other on the Galaxy map and duel, no running, no quiting, winner takes marks.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
I hope there are new game types when we get the pvp rep system.
I guess what I was getting at is to make a bad game of pvp give rewards on par with the other systems, make a ok game give X1.5 or X2 the rewards and have a great game give 2 to 3 time the rewards. Pvp is the hardest fight to be great at.
People will start to pvp for the rewards and over the time of lvling the system will get better at pvp. It would help people start and stay in pvp.
The part I said about games being matched off of a leaderboard wouldn?t come into play if there was only 10 people waiting. Only when more than one game can be started then it would.
Comments
Can my other factions fleetmates allow me to kill them for rep ?
What if some teammates intentionally tank our team and throw matches ?
Seems there's lots of areas to exploit, reminds my of the big sumo wrestling fiasco a few years ago.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Also I am against a system that prevents me from playing with friends only because they are better or worse than me and there aren't nearly enough players to simply set up private matches in such a case.
I do like the idea of a pvp reputation system but I would not include it in matchmaking. A ranking system would be nice, maybe simply gain points for wins, loose points if you loose (how many depending on the enemy). Try to make teams with about the same amount of points on each side. Something like that.
My stomach is clear and my mind is full of bacon!
1) dosent matter if your team wins or loses.
2) change game so the person that did the most damage gets the kill.
3) award points by kill count, damage done, debuffs/buffs granted or healing done.
4) have it like the normal lvl system so the more points you have the higher your pvp lvl is.
5) if you have more damage done to your ship then heals/damage done to targets you lose points.
6) put in a vote to kick button if inactive for more then 30 sec. If kicked from more the 5 games in a day 48hr wait period. Till you can do any pvp at all
That doesn't really work. You could have one guy spewing out damage that gets healed rather handily. Over and over and over and over. Then someone else comes along and does the damage all at once and actually kills them. Who really gets the kill there? Currently it is shared. Same with healing numbers. Just in reverse. You can only rack up huge healing numbers when you suck slightly less than your attacker. And buffs etc. Who's to know what good THEY did.
"if you have more damage done to your ship then heals/damage done to targets you lose points."
Ok. You should see why this doesn't work. The faster and more efficeintly you kill your opponents the less damage you do, ultimatley to the point where you do EXACTLY the amount of damage as they have health points. So the better you get, the less damage it takes you to kill an enemy, and the longer you live, so the more damage you take that you don't necessarily need to use an active heal on. So your numbers are going to look crappy by your measure.
I'm thinking just winning or losing sounds good.
1. What's the point if you aren't counting who the victor is?
2. So TRIBBLE non dps Sci's and Engineers?
3. How do you measure debuffs/buffs when Cryptic doesn't have an accouting system for these currently?
4. This w/one will lead to people chasing board stats instead of actually trying to win.
5. Screws Sci's again.
6. Vote kick's are abused more than not in my experience.
To the OP I wouldn't mind something like you suggest for an official anual (semi anual)tourney. Have 1 set of queues Premades other Blind PuGs etc.
But, I think the goal of MMO games should be to have MMO scaled PvP meaning Opec Sector w/resources to fight over. You'll know who's good at it by who's got the stuff. Player Diplomacy and Alliances would matter etc.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
The main reason I was trying to set this up using mostly existing game mechanics rather than trying to develop new ones was to take away from the tired excuse of "we are working on Season 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, our rose gardens, house training our pets, teaching our fish to mambo, taking grandma to see the wolf, etc." This way, the basic coding is already there, and minimal work would be needed to put the system in place. The reason for win/reward - loose/nothing was to get rid of the farmers by not giving them a reason to be in the match in the first place.
The alternative would be a vote-to-kick button, and yes, it can be abused, but again, it is choosing the lesser of two evils to achieve an overall positive goal. (I meant to touch on the vote-to-kick in the original post, but forgot.) Overall, I tried to show a minimal work effort for a maximum gain to put the ball in Cryptic's court to see if it would be an "Oh, that's a good idea! We will get right on it!" or another "we are working on Season 20: Wrath of Khan't Fix PvP!"
Sounds like normal PuG PvP experience to me. Obviously PuGs would have to be separated from Premades. I'm all for marks only for winners, but I'm also for equality of chances. Not everyone has bunch of friends around always online.
The problem I see, STO hardly has enough players to support separate queues...
But you could give bonuses for what you do in a match. Here are some examples (space arena values)
5 marks for a kill
1 mark per 50,000 damage done to an opponent
1 mark per 50,000 self-heal
2 marks per 50,000 team heal
2 marks per 50,000 damage taken.
1 mark for each second you ?hold? or ?disable? an opponent
-5 marks for a death (can?t go below 10 marks)
1 mark per 30 seconds of ?red alert? status
The winner gets the different in score (final score is 0-15 winners get 15 marks, or final score is 14-15 winners get 1 mark)
We could have a match making system that works off of average marks per game or per minute. Also if they tracked how you got the marks healing or damage they could try to mix teams so you had healers and dps and sci.
The above numbers would more than likely to give large amounts of marks. This is good because once you get to tier 5 in the new rep system you can turn marks into dil.
So in away a system like this could make getting dil from pvp the fastest way. Which I think it should be, because facing off against another person is the hard game play you can get.
Dmg done
Healing done
Kills
Dmg absorbed
whatever
These marks you would get of PvP matches + Ker'rat (while I still think it should get omega marks as well).
Reward being pvp weapons with extra accuracy, maybe some special consoles or sets and some passives.
Now I understand PvE crowd would moan that they need to PvP for that gear...but PvPers also need to do STFs...
I guess what I was getting at is to make a bad game of pvp give rewards on par with the other systems, make a ok game give X1.5 or X2 the rewards and have a great game give 2 to 3 time the rewards. Pvp is the hardest fight to be great at.
People will start to pvp for the rewards and over the time of lvling the system will get better at pvp. It would help people start and stay in pvp.
The part I said about games being matched off of a leaderboard wouldn?t come into play if there was only 10 people waiting. Only when more than one game can be started then it would.