You know I said something like this about how the grind was boring blah blah blah. Then one of my fleeties, may even have been one of the few PvPers, pointed out that without it we would all probably have left the game already.
I mean they could have added more content but when you look at how much they had done of the star base when it was released (T5 stuff wasn't even decided upon in terms of what elite weapons do etc) we would most likely have all chomped it up and left due to the trickling nature.
I don't want to admit it but without the grind I would not be here today, some might say that's a good thing, others a bad, take it for what you will.
I understand what you are getting at, and maybe that would be my case as well.
But...
If that is the case, then maybe it is an issue of looking at WHY people would be leaving, not of 'how can we keep people here'. If people would have been leaving, then maybe the issue was the actual content. After they figured that out, THEN they could look at player retention.
That period of the game I call the 'age of the alt'. It was a good thing to have alts back then. You could level a toon in a weekend if you stuck to it hard enough. And with how STFs worked, you would be able to easily get pretty well-geared for PvP within a week if you played even a decent amount.
The 'gear' requirement for PvP was quite low. Putting aside the issue of lockbox ships and such stuff, a very large amount of people could still easily get STF gear (even generic stuff like shields, engines, deflectors, etc) quite quickly and be a-ok to hop into the queues.
And having multiple toons wasn't an issue, heck, aside from my Romulans, that is the point in the game in which I MADE most of my characters I have right now.
But they put in the rep system, and the starbase system. Did it keep people here and playing? Yes. Did it raise the bar significantly to even have the stuff needed to enter PvP? Yes as well.
Doesn't necessarily make those good things though.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
You know I said something like this about how the grind was boring blah blah blah. Then one of my fleeties, may even have been one of the few PvPers, pointed out that without it we would all probably have left the game already.
That's an anecdote that only answers for you and your fleet.
How many people have left because of the grind?
How many have stayed in spite of it as opposed to thanks to it?
We can't answer these questions, but they are valid.
I mean they could have added more content but when you look at how much they had done of the star base when it was released (T5 stuff wasn't even decided upon in terms of what elite weapons do etc) we would most likely have all chomped it up and left due to the trickling nature.
This game is basically just feeding off of a generation of MMO players that have been trained to think that grind = game.
In this game, it's even more delirious than typical PvE MMOs because you grind towards ... nothing. There is no next level of challenges to face, there is only more gear and more grind fighting enemies that at best are a horizontal change as opposed to a vertical one.
For the record, I understand grind. I cut my MMO teeth on the original Evequest at launch.
I remember raid calls (literally, a phone call) from guildies at 3 am or some other hellish hour to get online and get to the raid point for a blitzkrieg 80 man raid before X, Y or Z guild showed up to claim the spawn first.
I remember having hours of XP grind "progress" wiped away by a single nightmarish train that some other player caused.
At some point many companies decided it was an easier route to profit to keep players invested and grinding than it was to simply try and design sustainably fun content (this requires a good deal of creativity...or....)
...Others realized that PvP is just that, sustainably fun endgame content that players actually play...because they want to.
You are here in the PvP forums, where many PvPers are still here, still posting, still PvPing in a game that does not grant any tangibly significant rewards for "grinding" PvP.
Imagine for a moment there were no rewards for grinding PvE.
How many of those players would still be here if the game was 100% stick and no carrot?
The fact that pretty much there is an equal ship on each side. Too many similarities, example optimum bop builds can be duplicated by different ships on the fed side without the penalties that are inherent of the bop. Or by default how fed side gets better shields all around in a game when shields are key. The ships from each side should be different enough that a build from one faction does not work as well on another factions ship.
Hey I Used to be Captain Data, well I guess I still am in game but the account link really screwed everything up :rolleyes:
It irritates me to no end that when I think to myself "ok time to break out the serious game" its always my fed sci ROMULAN.
No other toon is anywhere near as effective or versatile in team play (besides perhaps my bop, but bop is squish as hell)
High damage, highish spike, survivable, team synergy, what can go wrong? Its only possible because its a pointy ear though, no way I could get my damage as high as it is on this spec with a human or klingon or anything like that.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
The problem of PvP is the base Of PVE. Senseless NPC's/Mobs just auto activating some powers, just moving like my mom in a random direction, no brains.
The problems started there, because every kiddie that is now at end game finds PvP too hard. It requires brains lol.
That's an anecdote that only answers for you and your fleet.
How many people have left because of the grind?
How many have stayed in spite of it as opposed to thanks to it?
We can't answer these questions, but they are valid.
This game is basically just feeding off of a generation of MMO players that have been trained to think that grind = game.
In this game, it's even more delirious than typical PvE MMOs because you grind towards ... nothing. There is no next level of challenges to face, there is only more gear and more grind fighting enemies that at best are a horizontal change as opposed to a vertical one.
For the record, I understand grind. I cut my MMO teeth on the original Evequest at launch.
I remember raid calls (literally, a phone call) from guildies at 3 am or some other hellish hour to get online and get to the raid point for a blitzkrieg 80 man raid before X, Y or Z guild showed up to claim the spawn first.
I remember having hours of XP grind "progress" wiped away by a single nightmarish train that some other player caused.
At some point many companies decided it was an easier route to profit to keep players invested and grinding than it was to simply try and design sustainably fun content (this requires a good deal of creativity...or....)
...Others realized that PvP is just that, sustainably fun endgame content that players actually play...because they want to.
You are here in the PvP forums, where many PvPers are still here, still posting, still PvPing in a game that does not grant any tangibly significant rewards for "grinding" PvP.
Imagine for a moment there were no rewards for grinding PvE.
How many of those players would still be here if the game was 100% stick and no carrot?
I was sharing something a fleetie said which made me change my mind on the whole star base and rep thing. All valid points which Mimey has raised. I also remember those days where you could outfit a new toon in a week and be able to handle everything in game.
In fact that is the time I was PvPing and with Klingons as well as Feds. It was quite good for PvP back then even if the game was getting very stale at the end game, you could PvP more or less within a week as pretty much everyone had the same easy to get gear and yes, for the most part it was fun.
If you look back at my reply to the topic, the one I went with was the lack of rewards being added to PvP while all of the rewards were added to PvE. That is what I believe has most adversely affected PvP as you get rewards and resources doing everything but PvP.
Their development decision to focus on PvE as opposed to PvP content which actually is an endgame.
Nearly everything else stems from that, all of the other complaints can be encompassed under this umbrella because Cryptic as a company doesn't pursue PvP either not recognizing or simply ignoring how viable and valuable a sustainable PvP environment is for a game.
Very few of the other issues would fester as long as they have here, because they'd be focused on maintaining their PvP environment and those issues would need to be squashed continually to do that.
This is the absolute truth.
__________________________________
STO Forum member since before February 2010. STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
I was sharing something a fleetie said which made me change my mind on the whole star base and rep thing. All valid points which Mimey has raised. I also remember those days where you could outfit a new toon in a week and be able to handle everything in game.
The fact is really, you can still outfit an alt in a week and handle anything this game has to throw at you because nothing has changed in terms of difficulty. When they oopsied and gave the voth 80% shield resistance in the battlezone , they were challenging and you got to see all the little attacks they do because they could live long enough to do them. After they changed it to the intended 20% they became another rotflstomp NPC with the awesome looking mechs all dead before they even manage to land.
I would like to see all current reputation passives and gear disabled in pvp and a pvp rep tier added with its own gear and rep passives that only applied to pvp. Heck they could even make separate branches for ground and space with their own stores. If they really felt inclined they could sort the queue games based on how far in the rep you are. Unlike the current reps though, you would never stop earning expertise for it and the expertise you earned at the end of a match would depend on the rep and expertise level of the opponents. So a higher ranked player would get few points for killing a low rep/exp player. That could go on forever adding stores at 200k reputation experience and 300k and so on selling titles, costumes, ship customization and occasional expansions to pvp gear.
I don't know how anyone would feel about another currency but if pvp was all you wanted then it wouldn't matter how many rep tiers they add. This kind of change would give pvpers something without affecting the pve majority in any way.
Comments
I understand what you are getting at, and maybe that would be my case as well.
But...
If that is the case, then maybe it is an issue of looking at WHY people would be leaving, not of 'how can we keep people here'. If people would have been leaving, then maybe the issue was the actual content. After they figured that out, THEN they could look at player retention.
That period of the game I call the 'age of the alt'. It was a good thing to have alts back then. You could level a toon in a weekend if you stuck to it hard enough. And with how STFs worked, you would be able to easily get pretty well-geared for PvP within a week if you played even a decent amount.
The 'gear' requirement for PvP was quite low. Putting aside the issue of lockbox ships and such stuff, a very large amount of people could still easily get STF gear (even generic stuff like shields, engines, deflectors, etc) quite quickly and be a-ok to hop into the queues.
And having multiple toons wasn't an issue, heck, aside from my Romulans, that is the point in the game in which I MADE most of my characters I have right now.
But they put in the rep system, and the starbase system. Did it keep people here and playing? Yes. Did it raise the bar significantly to even have the stuff needed to enter PvP? Yes as well.
Doesn't necessarily make those good things though.
That's an anecdote that only answers for you and your fleet.
How many people have left because of the grind?
How many have stayed in spite of it as opposed to thanks to it?
We can't answer these questions, but they are valid.
This game is basically just feeding off of a generation of MMO players that have been trained to think that grind = game.
In this game, it's even more delirious than typical PvE MMOs because you grind towards ... nothing. There is no next level of challenges to face, there is only more gear and more grind fighting enemies that at best are a horizontal change as opposed to a vertical one.
For the record, I understand grind. I cut my MMO teeth on the original Evequest at launch.
I remember raid calls (literally, a phone call) from guildies at 3 am or some other hellish hour to get online and get to the raid point for a blitzkrieg 80 man raid before X, Y or Z guild showed up to claim the spawn first.
I remember having hours of XP grind "progress" wiped away by a single nightmarish train that some other player caused.
At some point many companies decided it was an easier route to profit to keep players invested and grinding than it was to simply try and design sustainably fun content (this requires a good deal of creativity...or....)
...Others realized that PvP is just that, sustainably fun endgame content that players actually play...because they want to.
You are here in the PvP forums, where many PvPers are still here, still posting, still PvPing in a game that does not grant any tangibly significant rewards for "grinding" PvP.
Imagine for a moment there were no rewards for grinding PvE.
How many of those players would still be here if the game was 100% stick and no carrot?
No other toon is anywhere near as effective or versatile in team play (besides perhaps my bop, but bop is squish as hell)
High damage, highish spike, survivable, team synergy, what can go wrong? Its only possible because its a pointy ear though, no way I could get my damage as high as it is on this spec with a human or klingon or anything like that.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
The problems started there, because every kiddie that is now at end game finds PvP too hard. It requires brains lol.
Lol yeah that would depict a typical pvp match!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I was sharing something a fleetie said which made me change my mind on the whole star base and rep thing. All valid points which Mimey has raised. I also remember those days where you could outfit a new toon in a week and be able to handle everything in game.
In fact that is the time I was PvPing and with Klingons as well as Feds. It was quite good for PvP back then even if the game was getting very stale at the end game, you could PvP more or less within a week as pretty much everyone had the same easy to get gear and yes, for the most part it was fun.
If you look back at my reply to the topic, the one I went with was the lack of rewards being added to PvP while all of the rewards were added to PvE. That is what I believe has most adversely affected PvP as you get rewards and resources doing everything but PvP.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
This is the absolute truth.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
I'll second the second of that one.
Very true the main issue with PvP is the way it is seen by someone in charge at Cryptic... as an add on instead of an end game.
The fact is really, you can still outfit an alt in a week and handle anything this game has to throw at you because nothing has changed in terms of difficulty. When they oopsied and gave the voth 80% shield resistance in the battlezone , they were challenging and you got to see all the little attacks they do because they could live long enough to do them. After they changed it to the intended 20% they became another rotflstomp NPC with the awesome looking mechs all dead before they even manage to land.
I would like to see all current reputation passives and gear disabled in pvp and a pvp rep tier added with its own gear and rep passives that only applied to pvp. Heck they could even make separate branches for ground and space with their own stores. If they really felt inclined they could sort the queue games based on how far in the rep you are. Unlike the current reps though, you would never stop earning expertise for it and the expertise you earned at the end of a match would depend on the rep and expertise level of the opponents. So a higher ranked player would get few points for killing a low rep/exp player. That could go on forever adding stores at 200k reputation experience and 300k and so on selling titles, costumes, ship customization and occasional expansions to pvp gear.
I don't know how anyone would feel about another currency but if pvp was all you wanted then it wouldn't matter how many rep tiers they add. This kind of change would give pvpers something without affecting the pve majority in any way.
Vanilla Ground PvP information