I beleive the future of ground pvp should aim towards open zoned territory control. Much more elaborate war zones and more of them where each faction has a base camp full of missions(pvp and pve). Casual players would be more intrested in a scenerio like that. They could count on the community to have their back against the opposing faction while they do a mix of pve and pvp opposed to being thrown into the blender(arenas and the highly mis-used assault matches) against blood thirsty pre-made teams.
In an open world scenario multiple instances would be available as with any zone but there would have to be a max capacity of each faction instead of a totall of players to ensure a full map is made of 2 evenly sized forces if the map where to fill.
The map should be as large as possible with tons of content crammed in. It could have interior areas like the Tholian planet as well. It would be a turning point in STO.
Here is an example of the lay out. It should be self explanitory.
http://i1338.photobucket.com/albums/o691/akurie369/WARZONE_zps3f630dab.png
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In all seriousness, though, a fluid, open-world 'zone' seems to work nicely for PvP in general, as long as it's properly managed. Ker'rat is a good example. . .while flawed in implementation and maintenance (lots of little problems that conspire to make the Ker'rat experience a little less optimal), the concept itself is rather good.
overt/covert
PvP / PvE
Player made and controled citys
Wild wilderness full of creatures
It was fantastic
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I just don't see it coming here unfortunately... but if it did..
Pre-mades will always have the top advantage due to their coordinated attacks and defense. I am finding it strange how coordination is a bad thing. It is a bad thing for the lone wolf that hasn't found its wolf pack yet.
I am all for open war zone territory control. But be assured that this will bring more pre-mades to the fight. Not the other way around. If there is a group objective then there will be pre-made groups that form to achieve those objectives.
If the map where large enough whith enough player capacity a single premade would not be able to control much space. If a fleet where to dominate a map for their faction then that is fine too.
Check my thread about new gear sets
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=578651
4v4 over a massive map, that's... interesting </sarcasm>
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kate-wintersbite.deviantart.com/art/0x01-Treachery-293641403
Otha is a large map and a single premade has controlled Otha against a large group. All you will invite is multiple Pre-mades working together. What if a fleet fields 2 pre-made groups? OR even more? What about alliances? It won't take long for an alliance to form and then the complaint would not be about pre-mades but alliances. The scale of the map will just adjust the organization level.
I have played other games where there is a mirror of the PvE world for PvP but all the PvP occurred in 1% of the map. Once you place down objective points of value, those points become the area around which the battle occurs. With Large number of objective points spread out far, you will effectively be playing capture the flag with yourself. PvE anyone? Maps have to be scaled to the number of people that are participating. The smaller the map area per number of players the bigger the bloodfest. The larger the area per player the more weird stuff happens. Either people agree to fight in one area or areas of interest becomes the fighting points.
On Otha this tends to be the spawn points. Eventually the fights end up at one of the spawn points.
You will still not out wit the pre-made group as a lone wolf. Solo Hero's are a myth of fantasy. What is strange is the number of lone wolves in STO. Start looking at the issues and complaints on the forum and try to figure out how many of those are because of lone wolf style of game play? You will be amazed at the lack of synergy among players.
On the other hand I am all for a big PvP play style. Developing alliances and fleets to dominate those zones would be extremely exciting and could be part of invigorating PvP.
Yeah, that's why I said the concept is what's good. The zone has a lot of problems that have turned it into a running joke for a good number of veteran PvPers.
Spawnpoints need changing, need to get rid of the side-switching glitch, fix the Borg NPCs and the environment, etc.
The side switching glitch looks very much intentional. It very much appears as if some extra code had to be written to allow for the switching of sides. It would have been a lot easier just to check your base faction and keep you on that side of the battle. To make it possible for you to switch sides must have taken some extra coding.
There are fewer players playing KDF side. Is it fair that they would always be out numbered? The switching sides is a necessity. Even in a new play style of a New Romulus map how will you balance the sides? Will it be KDF vs FED? If so you can expect a large number of complaints about the uneven numbers. If you allow mixed factions then you should have no issue with side switching in the Open war zones.
The issue with the spawn points on Otha and Kerrat is a different issue than switching sides. A lot of games have auto balancing but if you expect to have territory control then you cannot use an auto balance method. Because you will just find players boycotting your fight when they are forced to switch sides. You can alter the benefits received so that the team with the smaller number receive an increased benefit compared to the ones with the larger number.
One technique to solve spawn point issues is to reward the players with extra damage modifier and extra passive heals while they are close to their spawn point. BUT the objective of the map may not be near the spawn point either. Or the spawn point is a safe zone where players have immunity. This tends to cause another issue where the perimeter is camped. If you have territory control, expect spawn camping in one form or another. All that can be done is to minimize it. Such as allowing players to select between a few spawn points.
Another concept to consider is that once you are alive for a specific time frame, after respawning, you should no longer be considered "spawn camped". Just because you are in the vicinity of the spawn point but have been alive for several minutes doesn't give you "spawn camped" status when you get shot. Spawn camp is the respawning and dying within seconds within very close proximity of your spawn point. Additionally, firing first after your respawn negates your "spawn camp" status. Many games handle this with an invincibility shield that counts down while your weapon is also locked up. Other games give you a position where you have a shield you can shoot out of, but once you move beyond the shield you give up the protection. Many methods work in reducing the spawn camp effect.
Keep in mind though, territory control will result in some form of spawn camping. Reducing your enemy's effective area and maintaining that condition is the objective of territory control. Doing it fast and efficient is the sign of a well oiled team.
I think part of the issue is that your vision of an open war zone is not well defined. How would you adjust New Romulus to an open war zone? What would the objectives be? What would balance be and how would you strive to such a balance? Assume alliances and pre-mades.
Otha and Karrat are zones we can learn from. You shouldn't discard what can be learned from them.
Just because you are screaming bug doesn't make it a bug. Do you really believe there are enough KDF players to fight the FED side on a regular basis. Or when Otha and Karrat were introduced that there was a balanced number of players to play both sides? Do you want it to be KDF vs FED?
The developers that originally worked on Otha and Karrat don't work for Cryptic anymore. It has been suggested many times that the documentation on PvP is sparse.
So your pre-made issue will still exist then. But then again we cannot fault players for wanting to work together.
Otha could use a little updating, but the develops said they will first do something for space before they do anything for ground. Its going to be a long while before Otha will get a second look.
Broken Ground PvP issues are recorded in this thread: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=545261
If anything else is broken about Otha, you should list it since it might affect different aspects of the game.
I agree the number of players that get to run the mission without any real resistance makes it silly.
now first problem.. the fed faction has all the numbers... so we're going to need to eliminate the Fed vs KDF numbers issue... so lets say... its a choice between fighting for... the Mirror Universe.. which is cooler and wins because I said so... or the prime universe (feds,kdf,roms etc).. bla bla bla.. teams are fine now....
second problem.. spawn camping... well... we dump the U/ISS Sutherland at both spawn points... make it invincible ... set its weapon power to over 9000!!! and boom.. space sorted.. ground... meh.. we'll use turrets....
Third problem.. Vulcans... how can we make them go extinct?
Fourth problem.. we'll need stuff to do on the surface other than "kill x players" ....
Maybe we need to go into a warzone and either... fix,build,find, or destroy stuff
Fifth Problem... Enterprise Maco outfits... cryptic.. fix nowah!
sixth problem... another reputation will sneakly pop in for us to grind :mad:
seventh problem.. see third problem...
We should eliminate the FvF and KvKfrom the list of pvp missions with rewards to encourage the factions to fight. It's shamefull to have 2 opposing factions who won't compete with each other.
If the new zone where built correctly and enough player incentives added the KDF would come. They would have no choice.
Red vs Blue Vs Green soon :O
If indeed that is tru, then the current pvp grouping system will break and have to be rebuilt because we cant have 9 variations of each match to accomodate 3 factions. The Q would have to become a mixed grouping system, but the zone I proposed could have 3 faction bases where the factions could compete for superiority with no problems.
only problem would be the federation would still outnumber the other two.
Which is why I proposed that the maps player capacity be divided between the factions so that when the map is a max capacity they 3 teams will be even. If the faction can not get enough players to make that happen it is their own fault.
If the zones pve and pvp missions rewarded appropriat amounts of dilithium instead of some kind of mark it would have no problem staying full. Hell, the conflict could be around a dilithium mine or something. Even more, what if the area had the same enviornmental conditions of the mining astroid. You would have to pvp in a EV suite and low G. That would put an intresting spin on things.
The bottom line is this, pvp in this game is decaying. We have no diversity. The pvp players in this game have little understanding of sportsman like conduct and we are not rewarded with things like pvp gear. If something dosn't change soon many of us will likely move on.
Even i'll pay!
www.divisionhispana.com
For those who haven't played it, Battlefront is a bit like STO's Cap and Hold games; but on the ground, and with NPCs fighting alongside you.
When a player dies in that game, they are presented with a map of the battlefield, which shows the status of the various capture points. If I remember correctly, it also shows troop movements for both sides. The player may choose to respawn at any capture point controlled by their faction; so they can see where the enemy are, and just respawn somewhere else (or alternatively, see where their allies are and respawn some place they can easily regroup with them).
It might also make it a little harder for a single team to dominate; since no matter how good they are, it would always be possible to duck around them and threaten their territory just by respawning somewhere it would take a while for them to reach.
+1 for a pvp type game in eviro suits and low grav.. but they would need to remov the invisible walls... add some hazardz to it.. you fall off into space.. you die.