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Reputation should be OPTIONAL, not ESSENTIAL
sterlingwarbird
Member Posts: 186 Arc User
Reputation systems in most MMO franchises are a way to grind for unique options of those particular faction. They should be nor needed or required to play the and remain competitive in PvP.
Tholian, Romulan and Borg reputation have been one of the major swords in killing PvP as it has now become less about the options and tech on your ship and more about the stupidly overpowered abilities that are available through the reputation system.
Take the Romulan reputation for example, the Tier 4 skill "Sensor Targeting Assault" is massively OP if you happen to be flying an Escort (which about 75% of the game do because they are considered "the most powerful ships") and really adds nothing to the game. These reputation skills are beyond ridiculous and the reputation system itself should not be used to supplement the game's lack of real endgame content.
Doing Azure Nebula 30+ times in one day is just not fun. Does anyone actually think it is? I understand that there is always a grind in most MMO's but some really offer you intuitive options, like different types of instances, raid level and other PvE content.
STO offers none of that but just the same tired, dated STF's we have had since launch and a few small endgame events for the Fleet grind. The saving grace would be PvP but PvP is so hopeless broken by all the console toys that exist in the game that there is just no point even trying to remain competitive in anything that is not a Lockbox (Latter C-Store) or Fleet ship.
I have a simple fix for PvP in the game to make it fun again...
Turn all Universal Consoles into DEVICES!All "special" console abilities are now extremely limited as you could only use 2 on a Escort, 3 on a Sci Ship or 4 on a Cruiser but it would also free up slots for conventional consoles. This would force players to have to play without their overpowered toys, Tachyokinetic Converters, Plasmonic Leech and would force Cruiser to become competent again as they can hold that many device slots. A bit of a bummer if you like batteries but that would force you to make some harsh decisions.
Because at the moment, PvP is just becoming a laughable P2W-fest and it needs to stop so that serious competition and fun can commence!
Tholian, Romulan and Borg reputation have been one of the major swords in killing PvP as it has now become less about the options and tech on your ship and more about the stupidly overpowered abilities that are available through the reputation system.
Take the Romulan reputation for example, the Tier 4 skill "Sensor Targeting Assault" is massively OP if you happen to be flying an Escort (which about 75% of the game do because they are considered "the most powerful ships") and really adds nothing to the game. These reputation skills are beyond ridiculous and the reputation system itself should not be used to supplement the game's lack of real endgame content.
Doing Azure Nebula 30+ times in one day is just not fun. Does anyone actually think it is? I understand that there is always a grind in most MMO's but some really offer you intuitive options, like different types of instances, raid level and other PvE content.
STO offers none of that but just the same tired, dated STF's we have had since launch and a few small endgame events for the Fleet grind. The saving grace would be PvP but PvP is so hopeless broken by all the console toys that exist in the game that there is just no point even trying to remain competitive in anything that is not a Lockbox (Latter C-Store) or Fleet ship.
I have a simple fix for PvP in the game to make it fun again...
Turn all Universal Consoles into DEVICES!All "special" console abilities are now extremely limited as you could only use 2 on a Escort, 3 on a Sci Ship or 4 on a Cruiser but it would also free up slots for conventional consoles. This would force players to have to play without their overpowered toys, Tachyokinetic Converters, Plasmonic Leech and would force Cruiser to become competent again as they can hold that many device slots. A bit of a bummer if you like batteries but that would force you to make some harsh decisions.
Because at the moment, PvP is just becoming a laughable P2W-fest and it needs to stop so that serious competition and fun can commence!
Post edited by sterlingwarbird on
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Comments
Okay, i'm going to agree with you to a degree; Doing Azure/KASE/Mine Trap until you can do it with your eyes closed is not fun. That said, neither is doing them over and over again in the hope that the item you want will drop. The solution, however, is much simpler than radically changing the game mechanics. Instead;
Increase the variety. And increase the rewards, too, to scale with the difficulty of the mission. For example, CSE is much easier to fail than ISE. So it should award more OM's than ISE.
And yeah. PvP is a laughable at the moment. My personal solution would be to cut it from the game completely - at the very least until some sort of fix is created. As i've said before, I see absolutely no point to PvP in this game.
That said, if P2W is the problem, maybe the solution for this is also simple - Ban all non-standard ships, weapons and consoles. No more JHAS, no more Kumari. No more Plasmionic Leech, no more AM Spread. The best you can get is Fleet gear.
Then, everyone stands on what is in-game. No-one has anything the other couldn't get.
That said, i'm unsure how we went from "Rep should be optional" to "PvP is unbalanced". PvP is not the saving grace for this game. In it's present form or otherwise. The day I need to face off against other players with their multi-million EC JHAS builds just for Rep Marks is the day this game goes in the bin and I go play something else.
I'm not the best gamer, and I haven't spent a fortune on my ships' builds. But I don't come here with a pathological need not only to be better than my fellow man, but to prove it to him at every opportunity. I come here to have fun.
And PvP is not fun.
Its all symptomatic of the same problem, Reputation gives you skills and abilities that effectively break PvP, one solution would be to make all Reputation powers, PvE only so that they do not affect PvP at all.
The problem is, although nobody wants to admit it, P2W is mainly the problem. Cryptic have become so obsessed with making money that they've compromised the integrity of their own game. We all know the joke that this game has become when they started wildly adding ships that had no buisness belong to the Federation or KDF... its just so broken now.
I remember when PvP used to be fun, pre lockbox and F2P. Where the ships were nicely balanced and I could do a lot in a cruiser without getting slaughtered in a matter of seconds from a JHAS or some other non-faction ship to spill out of a lockbox. Personally I believe lockbox ships should be PvE only as well.
Its just not a fair advantage. I have a Tal Shiar Adapted Battle Cruiser that I won out of one box that I opened for fun... Its in drydock, I have never used it, that ship is far too powerful for PvP and is completely unfair to other players. Unfortunately, my rather outdated sense of honor seems to not hold with other players, especially Klingons.
Its sad really, PvP used to be something I would enjoy in this game... now its become a playground for elitist fleets that just want to make every other player feel like TRIBBLE in their JHAS or whatever non-faction ship they are flying that completely outclasses, even your Fleet vessels. I really do not want to be shoehorned into flying an Escort because I hate them.
I find it that desperate that people would use things that they KNOW are hopeless overpowered just to win a pointless PvP match, can somebody explain that to me?
Here we go again about the cheating -OP Klingons - please don't.
About the other issue - yes the power creep and passive creep is getting out of hand. PvP now almost excludes all new players and will certainly push most away as they get vapourized by the bettere geared/high rep players.
Not sure what you're implying with that last comment, but whatever.
Making all Rep Powers PvE only is a bit difficult - and it opens up the way for a PvP rep. Just remember that although you say "rep powers break PvP", I don't think Rep powers are the problem - at the end of the day, everyone gets access to the rep powers.
And i'm not convinced that lockbox ships are the problem either. In fact, for me, PvP's main problem is thus; It's boring. You pitch up, you shoot/blow each other up for a bit, then go home.
How is that any different from grinding STFs?
A pathological need to be better than everyone, no matter how unskilled they might be, and rub it in their faces?
Yes but the thing is, at least PvP is adaptive, you don't know what you may be facing but in some cases, the odds are so heavily stacked against you that you just cannot get a shot off before you are swarmed by bugships and other ridiculous weapons.
Rep powers may be accessible to everyone but there are just too many of them with silly abilities like the Romulan Sensor Assault which basically makes you invisible every time you crit something. Maybe limiting everyone to a choice out of the three and rework them to appeal to different areas would be the answer?
Give the working man a break... we don't all have time to grind thousands of marks a night and to be honest, Reputation should not be ALL there is to this game in terms of late level PvE content anyway. It should be potatoes to the actual meat and nothing more then that.
(while we are at it also all key binds all z store consoles and all MK effects)
Make everything in pvp the same mk and same quality
then we see who really is the best
Maybe provide two modes of PvP
- "Classic Mode" in which you can only use original rear admiral ships and Mark X weapons. Reputation powers are disabled and so are lockbox ships, gear or console powers.
- "All-in Mode" in which you can play with everything.
That would make me happy and it would be fun to dust off some of the old C-Store retrofits that have become obsolete. Like the Nebula and Galaxy-R and the Deep Space and Reconnaissance Science vessels.
PvP is adaptive to a point. Yes, you don't know what you're facing each time and you have to adapt. But that doesn't mean you'll fare any better because you know you need to adapt. It just means that by the nth time you're annihilated by an Elite-Fleet-Phaser wielding JHAS/Kumari, you'll be thinking "Damn, I knew that was coming. Not really seeing the point of this match - I die, respawn, die again. Why am I bothering with this again?"
This is where I am most of the time in PvP games. The fun, for me, has long since departed and it probably took my dignity with it.
Grinds are boring, sure. But they're not waving-your-fist-in-the-air, tossing-your-mouse-out-the-window frustrating. This is how I see PvP - not just in STO, but in pretty much all games.
So far the most enjoyable PvP i've encountered was Battlefield 3 on console. Sure, I was still getting creamed. But most of the time it was atmouspheric enough that it made up for it.
Actually, its not a case of "have not", my character has Tier 5 Borg and Romulan rep and Tholian Tier 2 but I am saying is that PvP has become a case of P2W and its about time that was addressed in the interest of creating a fun and competitive environment for ALL players.
No it is not. Zen is needed to buy keys to either use or sell for EC. Someone needed to buy Zen or no keys in the exchange. If everyone who buy Zen stopped selling Zen for Dilithium all of a sudden newer players who are F2P players would never ever be able to be competitive with older players unless they spend real money to be competitive.
Look at helmsman trait it cost 15 million EC from what I last saw just to buy 1 of them a casual player will take a very long time to get enough just for that 1 item.
PvP is totally unfriendly to casual players because of how expensive it is to be competitive and lock boxes especially now with traits added just makes it harder.
I actually did not pay anything either, I am talking about lockbox ships, consoles and other goodies which you can get for nothing, after an insanely long grind but I've yet to see anyone provide me with proof that they have done that and not put in the odd bit of money here and there to make it quicker.
However that is not the point, the fact of the matter is there are too many lockbox ships in that game that revolve around a lottery and will never be accessible to all players in the game because its based on luck. They even defy the meaning of being part of a faction in this game because they belong to factions OUTSIDE the player factions.
I believe that its becoming some much more likely that by next year, everyone will be flying a lockbox ships and Federation/KDF ships will be as rare as seeing a D'Kyr in a PvE event. Its getting to that point where it is just becoming ridiculous and Cryptic's greed is really showing.
and the point above is also correct, PvP is completely inaccessible to casual players, however that is more to do with the greed of the player base rather then the greed of Cryptic. The cost of Warp Cores when they came out showed this, those prices were astronomically high and stupid, just like the price of the lockbox ships.
You know, I've actually had 3 lockbox ships since I joined STO 3 years ago, pre-F2P. A Jem Hadar Heavy Escort, A Wells and a Tal Shiar Battlecruiser (Swapped a Destroyer for it)...
I have given them all away for free, and helped my friends in my fleet get a Recluse and Mobius. They might be happy but I refuse to be told by Cryptic which ship I should fly because its stupidly overpowered. I want to fly what I want to fly.
It is already their once they added traits to lock boxes. Traits to lock boxes is a clear sign of greed IMO.
Well, when is the point where the majority of players that are fecked off with this turn around and say "Enough is Enough Cryptic..." and actually stop buying their stuff. Because that is the ONLY way STO is ever going to change for the better.
Alot of things have added up to make PVP more and more exclusive; High "entry" requirements to be competitive. It's one thing to be fresh in PVP and be way behind in skill. But if you do not have Max Rep, certain ships, certain pieces of gear, you are fuel to the fire.
A brand new 50 going into PVP stands absolutely no chance whatsoever in today's PVP.
Entry requirements for PvP (Serious level of competitiveness)
1. Have a High Level Escort, Lockbox Ship or Vesta (No other ships are acceptable)
2. Have Elite Fleet Weapons paid for by your Fleet and extensive dil (20,000 per weapon)
3. Have a selection of consoles from the reputation system (Tier V)
4. Have two reputations at Tier V
PvP is NOT about SKILL anymore
I don't know when we would see that if ever because their will always be people who spend money to try to maximize their ability to win.
I have done a little bit of PvP and have had some fun but also times that it was a nightmare with the other side have multiple Jem'Hadar Attack ships with great gear.
I would like to PvP more but I just don't see that happening until things change that makes it more friendly for all. With this expansion things have gotten worse for PvP with traits added to lock boxes.
While I also agree that "p2w" has gotten a bit out of hand, due largely to Cryptic/PWE's business model, I don't think that consoles are the biggest issue when it comes to PvP. Rather, PvP is and has been suffering from fundamental design flaws and a development neglect that has been longstanding. For instance, we're still PvPing on the same exact maps we've been PvPing on for years.
The most significant problems with PvP, in my mind, include:
1. Lack of purpose--there are no game systems that support or reward PvP. The game doesn't provide an incentive for players to want to participate in PvP, beyond the subjective interest individual players have in PvP. There are no rewards, there is nothing to gain. The repeatable/daily PvP missions can be completed rather easily, win or lose, but even they do not provide any kind of exclusive incentive--some dilithium ore, a few pennies worth of EC, and a handful of fleet marks simply isn't enough.
By contrast, PvE has exclusive rewards that cannot be attained through PvP--rewards that are cohesive with other systems and elements of the game, i.e. Omega marks, Nukara marks, Romulan marks, loot. PvP has no exclusive reward such as this.
2. Barrier to entry--PvP doesn't necessarily require anything of the player. Anyone can jump into PvP whenever they wish, but will their experience be enjoyable? That's another matter. Generally speaking, players do not find running face-first into brick walls over and over enjoyable, and this is what awaits new players, new PvPers, and other players who haven't suffered through the mind-numbing grinds, or forked out the cash, required to acquire top-end rewards that directly affect a players ability to compete. As such, PvP requires more from the player while rewarding less, as mentioned in point 1.
3. Imbalance--between classes, ships, powers, factions, and gear. The imbalances tend to grow, and Cryptic's go-to answer thus far has been the homogenization bandaid, which is neither imaginative nor all that effective, and also tends to lead to further issues, such as power escalation.
I believe these are much more significant problems to PvP than merely 'consoles'. Removing, nerfing, or otherwise limiting consoles isn't going to fix these issues, nor will it fix PvP.
Well explain to me what else there is to do rather then grind reputation or do PvP, from where I'm standing not alot. Unless you want to spend 5 minutes assigning doffs and just wait for them to come back?
This is absolutely my point, this is really the extent of Cryptic's endgame content? I people play it... WHY!?
What Traits are Lock Box openable?
Noah Bartholomew Jothan,
Member of the "Christian Fleet Alliance"
Proclaimers of The Way, The Truth, and The Life
John 14:6
I strongly disagree.
I have been a player for almost 2 years. I attempted to be competitive with PvP on three occasions. In each case I was decimated within seconds, followed by the mirthful texting of the overlords who kicked my behind soundly.
I'm not bitter. I asked questions. I learned.
I have spent time rebuilding various toons. I have learned how to squeeze every last possible dps out of each design. I have learned it's not the build, but the pilot that matters.
Two pilots using the same ship can have radically different outcomes. Why? Knowing when and how to use skills, PLUS the random actions of your opponent can change everything in a split second.
I have never found PvP to be enjoyable. The costs for acquiring the 'must haves' of [ACC]x3 and VR everything else is not realistic for the vast majority of players. And keep in mind this was well before the advent of reputations.
While there has been a good faith effort by some to help out with PvP Boot Camp, the reality is PvP is still very much the realm of the elite player with deep pockets - or no personal life to achieve the necessary tech.
PvP has been the cause of much issue in the PvE camp. Powers, abilities, consoles and the like have been muted or castrated to appease the vocal PvP crowd. They are for the most part STO's version of the NRA. Not bad people in the slightest, but the first to vocally complain if anything interacts with their fiefdom.
Reputation isn't bad, nor is it essential. But if it's causing PvPers to sweat a little - I'm very fine with that.
There is a solution. We all know what it is.
For PvP to work - that is to base a players skill vs another's skill - it should be treated the same as any other 'sport'. Equal footing. Access to COMMON level gear only, on a WIDELY AVAILABLE space frame.
But that won't happen.
My Two Bits
Admiral Thrax
Make a sandwich. Write a play. Cure cancer. Learn karate. It's a big world full if wonders that don't involve attaching yourself to a game you've used up.
Their needs to be ones that allow anything to be used.
Another that does not allow lock box stuff and disables them this includes Lobi stuff.
Another that only allows free ships you get from leveling and allows no lock box stuff and disables them this includes Lobi stuff.
Then their should be ones for those things that allows reputation passives and another that does not allow reputation passives.
If they did stuff like that I would PvP more because I want more balanced PvP and not end up on the side that is facing multiple Jem'Hadar attack ships.
It's true it's an Item Acquisition based MMORPG, so the current situation is inevitable. It should come as no surprise to the players, and certainly not to the designers because they should know their MMORPG history.
This issue has been there since the dawn of MMORPGs, it happened the same time around Luclin in EverQuest 1 when they introduced the Alternate Advancement system, and the item quality became even better than previously available widening the divide between the have and have nots. The Reputation system in STO is the equivalent of an AA system.
Yet since EverQuest there has been almost countless newer MMORPGs and "game designers" whom thought they could make A) A interesting PvP system and
The "best" PvP systems, are the ones which pits players against each other in an environment that is not openly biased one way or the other, and comes down to "skill", planning and teamwork in the end. These games almost universally have very little item acquisition involved, they however can still have skill trees, and character customization, builds and more traditional RPG elements, but they do not have Sword Cannon of Doom +5 bazillion DPS more. The thrill and achievement is derived from knowing you beat someone on even ground, not because you grinded X Y Z until your eyes bleed. I know there are exceptions to that in every community, but they aren't the foundation of a healthy system.
Yes. They make 'Genetic Modifications' and a trait RESPECT token available.
I don't know the full list, but bonuses to turn rate, crit, weapon skill are all available.
I do not have any Tholian rep. I finished Romulan rep yesterday. I do not have level V Omega rep.
I'm using unremarkable mk XI guns and XI blue consoles.
Despite what the OP maintains is an impossible and un-winnable situation, I am still competent in PvP.
Maybe you should stop saying it's the gear/reputation/the sun was in your eyes, and accept responsibility for your own ineptitude. I am being quite serious: if you'd like to stop being terrible at anything the first step is to acknowledge that you're bad at it.
Until you do that, it won't matter when you do get all the rep, gear and ships you maintain are the only route to victory: you'll still die horribly to an Excelsior flown by someone competent.
So to sum up your post Learn to Play.
This happens so much in posts when someone points out a problem with something in the game and does nothing to help.
This game has lots of problems and PvP is one of them. Their is many things that makes it imbalanced but add on to that things in the game that makes it hard for casual players to be competitive. This is why PvP is not that popular.
I know how to play I have done PvP and have done well in it except when the other side has a clear advantage with multiple Jem'Hadar attack ships with good gear.
This Learn to Play so many people post does not help all it does is cause problems. This game has problems.
That is part of the reason but also because it takes a lot to be competitive for your average player. Fix that and it will be more popular.
Stop insulting people with learn to play when you don't know how well someone is in the game.
If the only thing that makes you competitive in PVP is reputation events that have nothing at all to do with PVP, then the question really should be :
Why does doing a bunch of PVE grinding make you competitive in PVP?
In every other game I know of, grinding PVE TRIBBLE does very little to promote your PVP power level.