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What PvP needs is smarter PvE AI
moronwmachinegun
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Thoughts?
I'm thinking if the PvE AI was moderately smarter, with the Advanced and Elite levels allowing for AI/ability differences, then the jump from PvE to PvP for newcomers wouldn't be so large.
I'd leave Normal more or less as-is for casuals or those power leveling through missions. With Advanced, every NPC should get a copy of Tac Team, Hazard Emitters, and Transfer Shield Strength to rotate through. With Elite, all the NPC abilties should recharge at fully-trained BOFF equivalent speeds, and the effectiveness of all abilities should be increased to about 1/2 of a fully trained captain. Also, in Elite group content NPCs should get scaled aggro based on the health of the attacking ship - ships that are hurt and attacking should be #1 priority for an NPC - just like in PvP.
As an incentive, since we're making it harder, the rewards should be greater. I'd lean more towards increasing the expertise and EC rewards instead of changing the drop rate, since drop rates can be very difficult to see a noticeable improvement while getting 5x/20x EC is very noticeable.
The thought is that the EC rewards will encourage people to get help with their builds so they don't insta-pop, and can actually do some decent damage (no more <3K DPS!). The tac team/HE/TSS encourages players to watch buffs on enemies to time attacks, or actually use subnuke on NPCs effectively.
The perfect mission to implement these changes would be an elite version of the Fleet Alert. The variety of opponents offers great opportunities for practicing against different attack styles - orions or felkri with pets, klingons with cloaking, gorn with gravwells, feds with tractor beams, borg with sheer firepower, etc. Plus working together with your fleet to give you tips on how to defend yourself against the various attacks would be a perfect synergy. This would also leverage the potential new Ship Management System - against orions and felkri it might be best to go with more FAW/CRF to take out pets, but against gorn/feds an extra APO to break tractors/gravwells is better, etc.
I'm thinking if the PvE AI was moderately smarter, with the Advanced and Elite levels allowing for AI/ability differences, then the jump from PvE to PvP for newcomers wouldn't be so large.
I'd leave Normal more or less as-is for casuals or those power leveling through missions. With Advanced, every NPC should get a copy of Tac Team, Hazard Emitters, and Transfer Shield Strength to rotate through. With Elite, all the NPC abilties should recharge at fully-trained BOFF equivalent speeds, and the effectiveness of all abilities should be increased to about 1/2 of a fully trained captain. Also, in Elite group content NPCs should get scaled aggro based on the health of the attacking ship - ships that are hurt and attacking should be #1 priority for an NPC - just like in PvP.
As an incentive, since we're making it harder, the rewards should be greater. I'd lean more towards increasing the expertise and EC rewards instead of changing the drop rate, since drop rates can be very difficult to see a noticeable improvement while getting 5x/20x EC is very noticeable.
The thought is that the EC rewards will encourage people to get help with their builds so they don't insta-pop, and can actually do some decent damage (no more <3K DPS!). The tac team/HE/TSS encourages players to watch buffs on enemies to time attacks, or actually use subnuke on NPCs effectively.
The perfect mission to implement these changes would be an elite version of the Fleet Alert. The variety of opponents offers great opportunities for practicing against different attack styles - orions or felkri with pets, klingons with cloaking, gorn with gravwells, feds with tractor beams, borg with sheer firepower, etc. Plus working together with your fleet to give you tips on how to defend yourself against the various attacks would be a perfect synergy. This would also leverage the potential new Ship Management System - against orions and felkri it might be best to go with more FAW/CRF to take out pets, but against gorn/feds an extra APO to break tractors/gravwells is better, etc.
Post edited by moronwmachinegun on
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2) What Nina said.
3) Cryptic are making this for casual players, no chance they will stress them out with having to think.
4) Check out this thread and think what would happen if people did become much, much better.
5) Cryptic would pretty much have to redesign every PvE thing in the game as most NPCs outnumber you considerably.
Don't get me wrong, it's nice when NPCs are using abilities but they always tend to have super strong abilites which when used in conjunction could be a bit too much for one ship to counter (remember most levelling missions are solo) without constant retraining.
To put it another way, how many times have you gone up against someone 1v1 and neither of you can kill each other? It may even encourage homogenization to vaper play styles more.
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.
Not to mention many players are actually against the simple concept of PvP itself.
What PvP needs:
> A top down design decision to have a fun, robust and decently balanced PvP experience as part of the game (even if it's completely optional).
> At least one Dev to "own" PvP and speak up for it in meetings, bring new ideas to the table, fight for it in meetings when different areas are competing for development resources.
Everything else is a symptom of the above root issues that have held back and hampered PvP's health from the get-go.
When they tried this in the past that person left for some reason.....
Sure you can get some dilithium now but it is in no way as rewarding as doing something else. If PvP gave 1500 dilithium and at least 50 marks per game you would see more people doing it, even if it is only to go in and blow up a lot.
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.
They only did half of what I posted unfortunately.
Someone was given the herculean task of sorting this 4 year train wreck out, but I have the striking feeling that their hands were perpetually tied with regards to actually getting anything done.
That's the half that says this:
> A top down design decision to have a fun, robust and decently balanced PvP experience as part of the game (even if it's completely optional).
This means from the top they need to set this goal, and see it through.
That means somethings will need to change, it means they will need to be more creative and that yes - PvE doesn't need a consistent stream of overpowered toys that top last season's overpowered toys to fight the same enemies from 2 years ago (or enemies who are a lateral challenge and not a horizontal increase of a challenge).
On the other hand, the effort that it would take to keep things balanced and running smoothly would largely be offset by the simple fact that "PvP content" is effectively player driven.
It doesn't require the same level of investment as the next new PvE titanic sized hamster-wheel will, and it could be self-perpetuating/sustainable.
I mentioned this once before, but the owners of this game, the producers, the devs themselves, the marketing team, etc., all need to sit up and take note:
You have customers who are still here, still PvPing in spite of the overall state of neglect and nearly 0 tangible rewards.
How many PvErs would still be here if there were no carrots at the end of the stick?
@bpharma
1. Sorry, I didn't realize it was down there. We can post something there once the idea has been discussed.
2. Elite mode is supposed to be hard (amirite?). This suggestion would change it from the current joke that it is (single-man STFs? 5 team STFs in
3. And so Normal difficulty wouldn't change. That's for casuals. Hardcore should be harder and require more thought process that just a faceroll.
4. I fail to see the point. The power creep in this game is unrelated to my discussion topic. That is symptomatic of where Cryptic has chosen to take the game, and their unfortunate choice to grant power based on a difficult-to-track reputation rather than player level. That issue should be fixed separately.
5. This is true. Implementing a separate Hardcore mode would allow them to gradually roll out the changes - perhaps they could only due this in queueable events. Make a requirement that to be able to queue you need to have earned an accolade for doing the Elite version X times. This way they can create separate mobs with updated AI for hardcore mode that are separate from current dumb AIs. So a hardcore version of Azure Nebula Rescue would be a copy of the mission but the mobs replaced with mobs-Hardcore. This would force the Fleet Alert/SB Fleet Defense/SB Blockade versions last until all the mobs-Hardcore needed were completed, which is unfortunate.
Using this mode for queueable missions only would help with the single-ship problem as well.
As far as encouraging towards vaper play styles, L O L. So what's the current bag-of-mostly-HP doing? Giving the ships better abilities they can fire more often to mitigate that DPS would push towards more diversity IMO. If you have to actually worry about crowd control, or escaping crowd control, or debuffing your target, or waiting for their RSP or FBP to finish instead of just tanking through it, that can drive more diversity and skill. Giving NPCs TT and HE would improve their survive-ability significantly (maybe they should also get some inherent resists too). Once they can survive the typical PUGs "alpha" then that PUG has to start thinking about how she's going to react to their attack - sure DPS is still probably the best answer, but I think it will drive thinking in ways the typical PUG aren't used to - ie escaping tractors/grav wells - how do I do that? The recent buff to gravwells is a classic example of that IMO. Now that they -matter- people have to deal with them.
On the 1v1: hell, even some 3v3 matches are endless due to the ease of healing. But I am not saying get NPC AI equivalent to a mid-range PvPer, or even 50% there. 10-25% would be just fine by me.
I agree PvP rewards are subpar, but the problem I suspect Cryptic wrestles with is how to prevent cheating. A crystalline entity mission can net you 60-80 marks, but the time for that is fairly fixed. A legit PvP match can range from 5 to 30 minutes, so it is more difficult for them to limit the number of marks generated per hour, so the rewards are inherently low to prevent gaming the system with 1v1 challenges against disposable free accounts. I don't think any of us want to have people come in just to blow up a lot - that would make the queues unplayable IMO. Who would want to be on that person's team? A gate here between Hardcore mode and PvP queue access would be useful to discourage this type of gaming the system by raising the bar for entry.
All good points.
Fair enough, but the point I made is that what PvP needs is PvP focus.
PvE AI is irrelevant, they will not and most likely cannot make NPCs that can play, act or function the way players do.
It would be a ton of effort directed at PvE, probably upsetting PvE only players and it wouldn't really attack the root cause of PvP problems.
An Example would be a map where AoE abilities that cause damage will inflict that damage on friendly players as well.
Another map can be a nebula with -50 perception range and random gas pockets that explode if hit. Make the goal be finding a disabled freighter, randomly placed on a map, and having progress bar with the first to fill it without interruption wins.
BTW npcs should use all kind of BS what players can use. not just 2 or 3. And not randomly spam em like zombie tanks their heals.
When I wrote that ^
I was thinking that ^ however cryptic has a habit of giving out shoddy rewards for time marked events. I mean they still believe 1 STF giving out 960 dilithium for 15 mins of play is good.
Yes, they do, Gecko says this, why do you think the new STFs take a lot longer and give out bugger all.
Currently you get 3000 for pew pewing 3 times, however we all know what this has caused. The rewards are just not high enough to justify doing that match when you can get at least 3 times more in PvE.
Problem is AFK farming though too as Antonio will say if he pops his head in.
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.
I remember when the borg RA started before all the power creep one escort fully buffed could get it down to 10% now with all the doffs/consoles/ add on weapons etc a half buffed escort can destroy a borg cube in a RA