1st: This is not a troll !
2nd: This is not supposed to be a "whine-thread"!
3rd: My english isn?t the best ! So plz be patient !
4th: This is just as it is...an opinion !
So, lets start with that and explain:
I`ve been playing STO since Beta ! I thought: "great system with these starships and the battlesystem" ! And i still think so. STO still is (and supposed to be) one of the best "sci-fi" games that exist (i think). And primarly because of the "starship-battle-and-skill-system"!
I personally started playing around alone (first year). Then i realized that pvp is "fun&real" ! After that i engaged different Fleets till i got to RE (Raumpatrouille Elysion) and found a place to be with my "pvp-motivation" ! But ive been playing GW2 for the last 5 months. Bebause Sto didnt do anything for pvp...and so on ! But...i am addicted to starships...so i have to check in some time ;-) !
I`ve never been cheating ! I?ve always been thinking about "skills, teamsetups, individual setups, efficiency of each skill, etc..."! That`s something like "sports" ! For me: it still is "sports" !
But now we engaged the ploblem:
1. Since Beta (release) there`s barely been made anything for pvp. I?d be ok with: "the screwed up pvp constantly over years"!
2. There have been several promises like "we`ll target pvp next season" ! But really: i forgot to count...how many times these promises "failed" !
3. Money`s been taken from pvp-players....but nothing in exchange !
4. Several People/Fleets tried to do something against this pvp-destruction ! But did there anything happen ? no...
5. It`s been one of yours, that said (not a quote): "if we deactivate PVP, there will be no loss" !
That really made me "sick" of you Cryptic Guys ! And still does !
6. What`s the point now ?: I had several months of playing other games. These games are/were better than this one....in points of functionality, balance, freedom and "time-effort-quality" ! You really managed, making sto one of the "grind-MMO?s" in general, that doesn`t want people to have either many chars nor many time. Reputation system. Fleet Starbases. Embassy`s. New Tholian things. And so on. Serious Question:
Did you Guys ever play your own game ? Did you ever grind all this **** ? Did you ever make a 20-Ppl-Fleet work ? Did you ever pay so much attention on PVE to get the marks to compete in "Starbase-Things" ? Try it ! I don`t think (i hope) that you will have time for that ! So what is your purpose ?
Will you be seriously be saying that all these "grind-****-things" are "EEAAASSSYYY" ???
Do it yourself with your team of Devs ! Really ! Do It ! And then: F*** off !
7. You didn`t pay attention on pvp related "changes" ! But in all these months (years) many changes occured, many consoles reached holodeck, many respec-tokens were necessary, many Zen`s been bought, many "f******" boxxes been opened...and so on...! You earned from us. But you didnt pay attention on your own predictions !
8. You still have a base of people playing sto just beacause of two reasons:
First reason is : Sto (until Star Citizen?s out) is the only game with this certain mechanic !
Second reason: People are faithful !
9. There are several other problems i?d like to talk about...but thats kind of "blasting" things !
So...what it should be:
1. Balancing
2. Consoles accepted or not; maybe a unique system
3. Paying attention on us PVP`ers !
4. PVP not as "PVE-Clone" ! But PVP as unique "System"!
5. What is so hard about dividing these things ? Why not have PVE and PVP related skills ? Why not regulate things in these terms ?
6. Why are you Devs not corresponding with "us" ? "Us" means: people that think about the game !
7. Not every PVP-related "change/skill" is only pvp-related ! Why is it, that most PVP-ers do well in PVE ? Nearly always ? Hmm... (i think because they care about your skills and exploits)
8. Exploits: It really is haaaard to experience your game without these ! I am no cheater ! But i if i wanted to...: pfffff......! That`s a joke ! You really have a game making exploits possible in different manners....and you don`t close/kill them ! That indeed is ridiculous ! You know about them ! But you don`t close em ! Why ??? Money first, hehh ?
9.Take alle these consoles, take all these new reputaion, take all these new doffs, take all these new bo`s, take all these new weapons, take all these new........................! It really is getting "crazy"! It really got 2,5 years ago. But you`re going in extremes ! You want PVP to grow again ?
Good luck !
Conclusion:
1. In Terms of PVP....STO is dead !
2. What PVP would need is too much to manage for Cryptic !
3. How is it (maybe) going to change ? Dont`t know !
Plz place your Opinion here !!!
P.S: in terms of LOR we are all going to go through the same oddyssey of grinding things again....and it will take months to get our Warbirds to competition-level. That is STO ! Thankx to you "grinding-gods" aka "moneysink craptic"! F..........
Let me be the first to say, welcome back heinzefluenza
A few things you should be aware of:
- Dont waste time on engineers.
- Prepare for massive Epoh tagging, STF's.
- More OP consoles.
- Pandas have enough bamboo for years to come ^^
Cya soon !!
I concur about the grinding. It's simply too much that I have very little time to actually play pvp or do the things in the game that I enjoy.
The solution that I see to that is to make certain things account wide. People were asking for account wide STF loot and drops before the rep system. I miss the old system. I had a regular group of players that I would run stfs with, ground mainly, constantly with new characters to get the gear/drops we wanted. It's because of all care-bears in pve that we have this system now. No incentive to make another character. I can't honestly see myself running a Romulan with the state of the game...waaaay to much grinding. Eventually all that happens is players get burnt out and stop playing.
From a pvp perspective it's virtually impossible to compete for people from smaller fleets that don't have access to certain things. Items like elite fleet shields have turned already tough players even tougher raising the entry level for pvp players. The power creep has become a major issue. Before the rep system people could level up over a weekend and be somewhat ready with a few borg bits and pieces for pvp on the Monday. Now it's 35 days to reach max rep, effectively side-lining a toon until they can either get dilithium or more importantly the passives from the reps, not to mention romulan boffs, fleets weapons gear. I know it's not all about gearing but for newer players it does help.
My suggestion would be to have account wide rep systems for Fed and another for KDF. Sure you would have to grind one of them up on each faction and equipment could be acquired individually but it would certainly make the whole process far more painless and ultimately less boring. STFs have become mind numbing. I've done them so many times my head hurts. With the old system there was a random chance of getting a nice loot drop at the end. After a while pvp is the only thing that will offer a decent challenge but even that is seemingly broken on so many levels.
Pvp is the endgame and if they don't foster it people will leave. Many that I have known have become too bitter about the system and left or gotten sick of the grind and left. I look at all my toons and sometimes wonder which ones I should delete.
I don't know how you deal with exploits and broken systems. These things aren't designed to be that way but people abuse them. Some fleets relish using broken toys and stomping players. It's just bad for the whole community and people go back to grinding. They need to have a pug only queue. Randomize all the teams including fed and kdf.
Unlike the OP, I was F2P before I went Lifetime and over the last 6 months have gotten into pvp and it's been the pvp that has kept me keen and interested. I do hope that cryptic takes note of things like this and they don't lose players from pvp permanently like they have been. That's the end of my rant .
Inner Circle / Special Circumstances Gardiner, Suval, Thran Korvak, Raketh, Xedar, Zidow Decis, Vesok
1. my fleet, the pandas are the best group of guys ive ever gotten to play any game with.
2. pvp, what better way to test your gaming prowess, other than against others playing the same system.
3. trek, we get to fly starships man.
that being said, i feel the ebb and flow of balance issues to be my main concern, that, and the gradual power creep coupled with the piloting vs gear ratio. we are getting so close to....well: because this guy/this team has this gear...they win...and their is really nothing you can do about it.
once we reach that point....and its creeping up.... i may have to resign my commission. or at least remove myself from competitive team play, as my real life keeps me from grinding for all those special rep bonuses and gear.
Indeed: i really only want pvp to work ! I always wanted. So...everything i said, everything i?m going to say is (principally) "make pvp work" ! How ? Hmm....have 1000 ideas. And many people had. Its just about some "reaction" from "PWE-Cryptic"! And i think (my experience in 3 years) they don?t want it...!
So...some discussion is worth it and most are worthless i think.
Maybe i am toooooo pessimistic......but the Past told me to be...!
P.S.: didn?t you guys "horizon" and "MT" and "mdwgardiner1701" (i read many of your posts ;-)) also have a feeling like "pvp is dead" some time ago ? What makes you get some more optimism? Can?t share taht right now. But if someone wants to motivate me, giving pvp a next chance.....there has to be a reason ;-) !
Let me be the first to say, welcome back heinzefluenza
A few things you should be aware of:
- Dont waste time on engineers.
!
getting tired of you people bashing eng yeah not the greatest it could be but because YOU suck at using them that doesn't mean they are bad sorry sorry everything cant be pew pew pew
getting tired of you people bashing eng yeah not the greatest it could be but because YOU suck at using them that doesn't mean they are bad sorry sorry everything cant be pew pew pew
It's the perspective, imho. When I see certain folks saying it, I recognize that they're talking about high level premade PVP...and I let it go. Have to...they're right. Now, when other folks say it that I don't recognize; well...I kind of laugh at them. Cause if they're not talking about high level premade PvP...they're wrong.
....getting my eng up would be last i'd do in remind of "getting back" !
Sci first and then tac ! Sry for that....it's not about discriminatitng eng's ;-))) !
I hear what you're saying about only making pvp work. I don't think pve is a problem apart from the grind as I think Horizon stated. It does make the entry level harder.
If the game had been in this state when I first started to pvp I'm not sure I would've kept up with it.
I can fluctuate between pessimism and optimism. Ultimately I'm more optimistic about how things will turn out. Perhaps this is something that the community itself should deal with, like in the way the bootcamp was a great initiative. I don't think cryptic are in a position to do anything right now with LoR coming up, nor for the foreseeable future. If it were something the community could deal with perhaps the ideas of a podcast might help.
I have limited experience in team play, I almost always pug except for the occasional opvp pugmade. I simply can't wrangle enough players from my fleet to join me.
I'm not sure what motivates me really, I guess the challenge. I do 95% of matches as a pug, no fleet shields, no lock box ship, stf set stuff, get heals once in a blue moon...but it's a challenge and I like it that way I guess. I've found I've gotten a lot better over time. I did the bootcamp and that helped a lot too.
If I do manage to take a kill from someone in a premade/pugmade that I know is a good player it is much more satisfying than knowing it was just a team stomp. Whilst I'm in an escort with limited healing, I do where possible throw out my tac teams, delta and limited healing. I'm not sure if people from the established pvp fleets know what it's like to get rolled by premades all the time. I'm not sure what the point was with that, maybe that it can still be enjoyable losing, just how the game is played.
Inner Circle / Special Circumstances Gardiner, Suval, Thran Korvak, Raketh, Xedar, Zidow Decis, Vesok
If I do manage to take a kill from someone in a premade/pugmade that I know is a good player it is much more satisfying than knowing it was just a team stomp. Whilst I'm in an escort with limited healing, I do where possible throw out my tac teams, delta and limited healing. I'm not sure if people from the established pvp fleets know what it's like to get rolled by premades all the time. I'm not sure what the point was with that, maybe that it can still be enjoyable losing, just how the game is played.
Thumbs up!
"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.”
getting tired of you people bashing eng yeah not the greatest it could be but because YOU suck at using them that doesn't mean they are bad sorry sorry everything cant be pew pew pew
no one really bashes engys dude.... we tell it like it is.
in the current game, anything an engy can a tac can do 10X better and get kills doing it.
we WANT engys to be better. seriously, we do.
cryptic doesnt seem to care though.
science isnt too far behind, if science didnt have the snb youd really only see tactical captains out there.
science isnt too far behind, if science didnt have the snb youd really only see tactical captains out there.
Actually, science captains have at least 3 great abilities even without SNB. They've got Sensor Scan, which is considerably more useful than FOMM (it's AoE, reasonably sticky in PvP since it's not cleansed by TT, and provides a perception buff to the user for hunting down cloakers), and Scattering Field (ridiculously strong AoE team hull resist buff), and Sci Fleet, which has that awesome ~30% team-wide shield resist boost. Even if Sci's didn't have SNB, they'd still be pretty significant on a team.
Eng's real problem is that the entire captain ability setup is geared around improving their own defensiveness, without supporting team offense (like Sensor Scan) or team defensiveness (a la Scattering Field or Sci Fleet). The only "team" abilities that Eng has are EPS Power Transfer and Engineering Fleet; the former provides a power boost to one teammate when most people already have high power in the subsystems they care about, while the latter provides the equivalent of 1 Neutronium and is subject to significant diminishing returns.
In short, if you don't shoot at the Engineer, they can't really do much with their captain abilities -- but Scis will make their presence felt whether they're being targeted or not.
At least Engineers are useful for causing hilarious rage when you bring a bunch of Eng/healboats against some poor pug team. :P
Indeed: i really only want pvp to work ! I always wanted. So...everything i said, everything i?m going to say is (principally) "make pvp work" ! How ? Hmm....have 1000 ideas. And many people had. Its just about some "reaction" from "PWE-Cryptic"! And i think (my experience in 3 years) they don?t want it...!
So...some discussion is worth it and most are worthless i think.
Maybe i am toooooo pessimistic......but the Past told me to be...!
P.S.: didn?t you guys "horizon" and "MT" and "mdwgardiner1701" (i read many of your posts ;-)) also have a feeling like "pvp is dead" some time ago ? What makes you get some more optimism? Can?t share taht right now. But if someone wants to motivate me, giving pvp a next chance.....there has to be a reason ;-) !
Heh I'm always up for helping ppl!
But you will need to build up motivation yourself though, and I think with the upcoming romulans (Despite they might bring UP or OP stuff) is going to be a gamechanger for PvP itself. But with motivation i primarily mean you will have to grind up Omega/romulan/nukara marks and get ur stuff up to tier 5 to be maximum competitive.
But again, with the new rommies coming out tons of players (PvPers) will level up and grind up the new repu system on there so ppl that come back will have the same chances once again
The only motivation for me is teamplay, and i hope with the rommies alot of old fleets come back and get nice teams rolling.
Another real factor that keeps me going personally is dropping the 'Overpowered' 'Underpowered' and complaining about everythin that is broken. Once you played for a while again you will soon learn what is considered too overpowered or underpowered, and you try making a build based on stuff that is widely accepted as genuine gameplay, focus more on yourself and your build, personal skill, rather then focussing yourself on the new fancy stuff. If you see someone or a team using/abusing something that is rather skill less and very OP, and you even die from it, keep the honor to yourself instead and move along.
Take whatever is in front of you and what is available to you and work towards that, Repu system is a pain to grind, but its available to anyone who is motivated for it. Sure most of us either want it gone and/or better balanced out passives, severely reduce the time investement to grind and decrease the gap between new players and oldies, but we know its not going to happen so complaining is not going to achieve anything.
Try making a competitive group again as well, because teamplay is the most fun there is. I know RE has it in them to get competitive again. A group/team will keep you motivated more then when you keep yourself puggin. Not saying puggin isnt fun, because i like it on occasion.
I never really thought pvp was dead, just being killed off through gimmick ships and console powers.
One thing I've always thought would help pvp is if unique consoles that come from certain ships were only usable on those ships. I guess the rep ones and lobi ones could still be universal, but the fact that you can theta radiation or ams someone from any ship I find kind of weird.
Also the tremendous healing out there. Hell I regularly out heal engineers in my escort, which leads me to my other point.... The piloting skill gap, and how some players fill that gap with those consoles. Most of them really don't help out a team at all, and in some cases really hurt team play. That in turn makes a lot of matches downright frustrating for a lot of people. Especially new players who see this stuff happening and think that it's the only way they can win. Be a Kirk, and use every trick in the book with a 1 ship mentality.
It's our amazing community that will keep us going though. I really have never met a nicer group of gamers than the ones who pvp in this game. And despite all the imbalance of the holy trifecta of team based mmo game play provided by cryptic, and the laggy servers, and the same 3 maps for 3 years.... Well... We just keep chugging along. Although we have lost way too many along the way.
But it's trek man. We get to fly starships. And shoot laysors at each other.
Eng is replaced with Sci, the ultimate force multiplier.
I think you are letting the current metagame get the best of you bud.
Scattering field is a better Eng Fleet than Eng Fleet.
Sci Fleet is still amazing, and is easily the best "Fleet" power.
Sensor Scan is, as Ren pointed out, AoE and stickier than FOMM. Can anyone actually argue that FOMM isn't extremely marginalized by TT?
The only dud in the Sci captain arsenal is Photonic Fleet, but even this power in LoR will become even more spammable due to the new trait.
It's fun to say "If Sci didn't have SNB you'd only see Tactical captains out there." to make a dramatic point.
We can equally say "If Tac didn't have APA, you'd have zero reason to ever bring one".
GDF? Soon to be locked to 50% hull or less. Still on 4 min CD.
FOMM? See above.
TI? Extremely build specific, only asymmetrical spike builds or oddball builds can get regular use out of this.
Tac Fleet? Decent, but no one is really fielding Tacs on premades specifically because they have this.
I totally agree here, while SNB is king of all Captain abilities, Sensor scan has much more advantages then FOMM, and better at it. Sci fleet very nice addition and can be a gamechanger. Free EPTS3 for all for 30 sec! Rotate it wisely or use it at the right time can be game changer!
Holoships are not that bad even, it requires your enemies to use
[Console - Science - Lag Inducer Mk XII]
Increases Frames Per Second by +10
Not to mention the phaser proc spam!
To OP: I think you could get motivated by the fact that, although PvP isnt exactly getting balanced any time soon (Also I think there is no static and 100% balance, its party the players decision to make your own build/team as balanced as possible) with all the new content we get and especially with the new ships and stuff for rommies coming out there are getting more and more ways to make a specific build to work great.
So much new dynamics to work with, that has been one of the things that always intrigued me and kept me motivated to play. New builds, working on them for weeks, see if it works nicely.
Comments
A few things you should be aware of:
- Dont waste time on engineers.
- Prepare for massive Epoh tagging, STF's.
- More OP consoles.
- Pandas have enough bamboo for years to come ^^
Cya soon !!
The solution that I see to that is to make certain things account wide. People were asking for account wide STF loot and drops before the rep system. I miss the old system. I had a regular group of players that I would run stfs with, ground mainly, constantly with new characters to get the gear/drops we wanted. It's because of all care-bears in pve that we have this system now. No incentive to make another character. I can't honestly see myself running a Romulan with the state of the game...waaaay to much grinding. Eventually all that happens is players get burnt out and stop playing.
From a pvp perspective it's virtually impossible to compete for people from smaller fleets that don't have access to certain things. Items like elite fleet shields have turned already tough players even tougher raising the entry level for pvp players. The power creep has become a major issue. Before the rep system people could level up over a weekend and be somewhat ready with a few borg bits and pieces for pvp on the Monday. Now it's 35 days to reach max rep, effectively side-lining a toon until they can either get dilithium or more importantly the passives from the reps, not to mention romulan boffs, fleets weapons gear. I know it's not all about gearing but for newer players it does help.
My suggestion would be to have account wide rep systems for Fed and another for KDF. Sure you would have to grind one of them up on each faction and equipment could be acquired individually but it would certainly make the whole process far more painless and ultimately less boring. STFs have become mind numbing. I've done them so many times my head hurts. With the old system there was a random chance of getting a nice loot drop at the end. After a while pvp is the only thing that will offer a decent challenge but even that is seemingly broken on so many levels.
Pvp is the endgame and if they don't foster it people will leave. Many that I have known have become too bitter about the system and left or gotten sick of the grind and left. I look at all my toons and sometimes wonder which ones I should delete.
I don't know how you deal with exploits and broken systems. These things aren't designed to be that way but people abuse them. Some fleets relish using broken toys and stomping players. It's just bad for the whole community and people go back to grinding. They need to have a pug only queue. Randomize all the teams including fed and kdf.
Unlike the OP, I was F2P before I went Lifetime and over the last 6 months have gotten into pvp and it's been the pvp that has kept me keen and interested. I do hope that cryptic takes note of things like this and they don't lose players from pvp permanently like they have been. That's the end of my rant
Gardiner, Suval, Thran
Korvak, Raketh, Xedar, Zidow
Decis, Vesok
1. my fleet, the pandas are the best group of guys ive ever gotten to play any game with.
2. pvp, what better way to test your gaming prowess, other than against others playing the same system.
3. trek, we get to fly starships man.
that being said, i feel the ebb and flow of balance issues to be my main concern, that, and the gradual power creep coupled with the piloting vs gear ratio. we are getting so close to....well: because this guy/this team has this gear...they win...and their is really nothing you can do about it.
once we reach that point....and its creeping up.... i may have to resign my commission. or at least remove myself from competitive team play, as my real life keeps me from grinding for all those special rep bonuses and gear.
have fun kill bad guys
-thrusters on full-
(and....sereously: plz give me a helpin`hand comin`back in here.....because sto really is afrustrating playground right now...!)
@mdwgardiner1701:
I really understand what u say ! But:
Indeed: i really only want pvp to work ! I always wanted. So...everything i said, everything i?m going to say is (principally) "make pvp work" ! How ? Hmm....have 1000 ideas. And many people had. Its just about some "reaction" from "PWE-Cryptic"! And i think (my experience in 3 years) they don?t want it...!
So...some discussion is worth it and most are worthless i think.
Maybe i am toooooo pessimistic......but the Past told me to be...!
P.S.: didn?t you guys "horizon" and "MT" and "mdwgardiner1701" (i read many of your posts ;-)) also have a feeling like "pvp is dead" some time ago ? What makes you get some more optimism? Can?t share taht right now. But if someone wants to motivate me, giving pvp a next chance.....there has to be a reason ;-) !
getting tired of you people bashing eng yeah not the greatest it could be but because YOU suck at using them that doesn't mean they are bad sorry sorry everything cant be pew pew pew
So tell us about theeeese OP-Captain-Skills plz :-) !^^
P.S.: Eng is ok....but underpowered ...i think
It's the perspective, imho. When I see certain folks saying it, I recognize that they're talking about high level premade PVP...and I let it go. Have to...they're right. Now, when other folks say it that I don't recognize; well...I kind of laugh at them. Cause if they're not talking about high level premade PvP...they're wrong.
Sci first and then tac ! Sry for that....it's not about discriminatitng eng's ;-))) !
But...again: why eng in pvp ? ;-)
If a person is not looking to do high level premade action...why wouldn't somebody Eng in PvP?
If the game had been in this state when I first started to pvp I'm not sure I would've kept up with it.
I can fluctuate between pessimism and optimism. Ultimately I'm more optimistic about how things will turn out. Perhaps this is something that the community itself should deal with, like in the way the bootcamp was a great initiative. I don't think cryptic are in a position to do anything right now with LoR coming up, nor for the foreseeable future. If it were something the community could deal with perhaps the ideas of a podcast might help.
I have limited experience in team play, I almost always pug except for the occasional opvp pugmade. I simply can't wrangle enough players from my fleet to join me.
I'm not sure what motivates me really, I guess the challenge. I do 95% of matches as a pug, no fleet shields, no lock box ship, stf set stuff, get heals once in a blue moon...but it's a challenge and I like it that way I guess. I've found I've gotten a lot better over time. I did the bootcamp and that helped a lot too.
If I do manage to take a kill from someone in a premade/pugmade that I know is a good player it is much more satisfying than knowing it was just a team stomp. Whilst I'm in an escort with limited healing, I do where possible throw out my tac teams, delta and limited healing. I'm not sure if people from the established pvp fleets know what it's like to get rolled by premades all the time. I'm not sure what the point was with that, maybe that it can still be enjoyable losing, just how the game is played.
Gardiner, Suval, Thran
Korvak, Raketh, Xedar, Zidow
Decis, Vesok
Thumbs up!
no one really bashes engys dude.... we tell it like it is.
in the current game, anything an engy can a tac can do 10X better and get kills doing it.
we WANT engys to be better. seriously, we do.
cryptic doesnt seem to care though.
science isnt too far behind, if science didnt have the snb youd really only see tactical captains out there.
its sad
Do you even Science Bro?
Actually, science captains have at least 3 great abilities even without SNB. They've got Sensor Scan, which is considerably more useful than FOMM (it's AoE, reasonably sticky in PvP since it's not cleansed by TT, and provides a perception buff to the user for hunting down cloakers), and Scattering Field (ridiculously strong AoE team hull resist buff), and Sci Fleet, which has that awesome ~30% team-wide shield resist boost. Even if Sci's didn't have SNB, they'd still be pretty significant on a team.
Eng's real problem is that the entire captain ability setup is geared around improving their own defensiveness, without supporting team offense (like Sensor Scan) or team defensiveness (a la Scattering Field or Sci Fleet). The only "team" abilities that Eng has are EPS Power Transfer and Engineering Fleet; the former provides a power boost to one teammate when most people already have high power in the subsystems they care about, while the latter provides the equivalent of 1 Neutronium and is subject to significant diminishing returns.
In short, if you don't shoot at the Engineer, they can't really do much with their captain abilities -- but Scis will make their presence felt whether they're being targeted or not.
At least Engineers are useful for causing hilarious rage when you bring a bunch of Eng/healboats against some poor pug team. :P
Heh I'm always up for helping ppl!
But you will need to build up motivation yourself though, and I think with the upcoming romulans (Despite they might bring UP or OP stuff) is going to be a gamechanger for PvP itself. But with motivation i primarily mean you will have to grind up Omega/romulan/nukara marks and get ur stuff up to tier 5 to be maximum competitive.
But again, with the new rommies coming out tons of players (PvPers) will level up and grind up the new repu system on there so ppl that come back will have the same chances once again
The only motivation for me is teamplay, and i hope with the rommies alot of old fleets come back and get nice teams rolling.
Another real factor that keeps me going personally is dropping the 'Overpowered' 'Underpowered' and complaining about everythin that is broken. Once you played for a while again you will soon learn what is considered too overpowered or underpowered, and you try making a build based on stuff that is widely accepted as genuine gameplay, focus more on yourself and your build, personal skill, rather then focussing yourself on the new fancy stuff. If you see someone or a team using/abusing something that is rather skill less and very OP, and you even die from it, keep the honor to yourself instead and move along.
Take whatever is in front of you and what is available to you and work towards that, Repu system is a pain to grind, but its available to anyone who is motivated for it. Sure most of us either want it gone and/or better balanced out passives, severely reduce the time investement to grind and decrease the gap between new players and oldies, but we know its not going to happen so complaining is not going to achieve anything.
Try making a competitive group again as well, because teamplay is the most fun there is. I know RE has it in them to get competitive again. A group/team will keep you motivated more then when you keep yourself puggin. Not saying puggin isnt fun, because i like it on occasion.
One thing I've always thought would help pvp is if unique consoles that come from certain ships were only usable on those ships. I guess the rep ones and lobi ones could still be universal, but the fact that you can theta radiation or ams someone from any ship I find kind of weird.
Also the tremendous healing out there. Hell I regularly out heal engineers in my escort, which leads me to my other point.... The piloting skill gap, and how some players fill that gap with those consoles. Most of them really don't help out a team at all, and in some cases really hurt team play. That in turn makes a lot of matches downright frustrating for a lot of people. Especially new players who see this stuff happening and think that it's the only way they can win. Be a Kirk, and use every trick in the book with a 1 ship mentality.
It's our amazing community that will keep us going though. I really have never met a nicer group of gamers than the ones who pvp in this game. And despite all the imbalance of the holy trifecta of team based mmo game play provided by cryptic, and the laggy servers, and the same 3 maps for 3 years.... Well... We just keep chugging along. Although we have lost way too many along the way.
But it's trek man. We get to fly starships. And shoot laysors at each other.
Have fun kill bad guys
-thrusters on full-
You mean Sci.
Eng is replaced with Sci, the ultimate force multiplier.
I think you are letting the current metagame get the best of you bud.
Scattering field is a better Eng Fleet than Eng Fleet.
Sci Fleet is still amazing, and is easily the best "Fleet" power.
Sensor Scan is, as Ren pointed out, AoE and stickier than FOMM. Can anyone actually argue that FOMM isn't extremely marginalized by TT?
The only dud in the Sci captain arsenal is Photonic Fleet, but even this power in LoR will become even more spammable due to the new trait.
It's fun to say "If Sci didn't have SNB you'd only see Tactical captains out there." to make a dramatic point.
We can equally say "If Tac didn't have APA, you'd have zero reason to ever bring one".
I totally agree here, while SNB is king of all Captain abilities, Sensor scan has much more advantages then FOMM, and better at it. Sci fleet very nice addition and can be a gamechanger. Free EPTS3 for all for 30 sec! Rotate it wisely or use it at the right time can be game changer!
Holoships are not that bad even, it requires your enemies to use
[Console - Science - Lag Inducer Mk XII]
Increases Frames Per Second by +10
Not to mention the phaser proc spam!
To OP: I think you could get motivated by the fact that, although PvP isnt exactly getting balanced any time soon (Also I think there is no static and 100% balance, its party the players decision to make your own build/team as balanced as possible) with all the new content we get and especially with the new ships and stuff for rommies coming out there are getting more and more ways to make a specific build to work great.
So much new dynamics to work with, that has been one of the things that always intrigued me and kept me motivated to play. New builds, working on them for weeks, see if it works nicely.