ramifications of changing ships on-the-fly in PVP matches?

ursusmorologus

http://sto.perfectworld.com/blog/?p=1079141

With the Season 8.5 update, you will be able to easily switch between your starships in sector space and social zones ? we want to make it easy to quickly get to the ship you want to fly. Not only that, but each of your starships can have multiple pre-made build-outs saved, and you will be able to switch between them quickly and easily. Now you will be able to prepare separate PvE and PvP builds, or have a special anti-Voth spec for your ships waiting to quickly be swapped in. Equipping ships also gets easier with the new ?easy equip? feature coming in the update.

Currently you can already swap all of the ship parts, but you're at least stuck to using the ship you brought. With the changes on-deck it will become possible to change the ship (and its loadout) during a match.

What are the expected ramifications of this?

One thing I can see is pug matches becoming a little more team-oriented, since somebody in the group can now switch to a ~healer if nobody else brought one, or an escort can switch out to a cruiser, or whatever.

Another thing I can see is if somebody is constantly losing due to the other team's setup, they can switch to another setup instead of adapting to the current challenge. This may or may not be a good thing depending... if it keeps somebody from warping out then its probably good but if people just switch all the time its probably not good.

Thoughts?

scurry5

I don't really see the statement as being able to change ships in a PvP match. He only mentioned sector space and social zones.

That (switching ship layouts in sector space/social zones only), IMHO, is a pretty good thing, to enable us to experiment with more exotic builds while maintaining a PvE grind build. I have at least one toon with a setup in mind that would be horrible in PvE but maybe decent in PvP. So I can't use it yet until I finish the PvE grind. The new system would let me continue to grind but start testing the PvP setup as well.

ursusmorologus

scurry5 wrote: »

I don't really see the statement as being able to change ships in a PvP match. He only mentioned sector space and social zones.

Good point, I might have read too much into it.

adjudicatorhawk

You won't be able to change in a match - that's considered "System" space and thus you'd have to leave the map to change your active ship.

ursusmorologus

Thanks for the fix. Mods can lock

ussultimatum

I'm all for this.

Solid convinience/QoL feature for sure, can't wait to hear more about it.

My only concern is the past issues with bugs like voldemort.

doffingcomrade

I dunno, I think the ability to change ships when you die would make sense. After all, your ship was already blown up. It would likely help teams keep playing if they could adapt their team composition to better combat their opposition, rather than people warping out when they realize it's hopeless with a team of 5 Healers, or No Healers.

aelfwin1

So ... Doffs .
Many PVP builds are based on them .
Are they included in the 'hot swapping' feature ?
I don't think so .
Which means that you's still have to do that manually .
And if you have them on a mission , you're screwed . Which means that you'll fear to send them on missions because "OMG I might need them !!!" .
Which will lead to less Doffing .
Or not .

rudiefix1

and also tray setup and binds

bpharma

I think being able to change in system for PvP would be a good thing. I mean how many times have you faced an opposing team and you just do not have the right ship or ship mix to counter it? That's to puggers by the way not teh 1337 PvP TS teams.

I mean if you roll in with 3 escorts a science specced for control and a zombie cruiser and find 5 FAW boats...well you just don't have the stuff to deal with it. If you look at games like team fortress, battlefield (before 3) and many other team games you can change class on the fly or class composition is fixed.

l30p4rd

aelfwin1 wrote: »

So ... Doffs .
Many PVP builds are based on them .
Are they included in the 'hot swapping' feature ?
I don't think so .
Which means that you's still have to do that manually .
And if you have them on a mission , you're screwed . Which means that you'll fear to send them on missions because "OMG I might need them !!!" .
Which will lead to less Doffing .
Or not .

OR people will spend more money upping their DOFF capacity and run double copies even tripple copies of DOFF's either way its CHA CHING CHA CHING for craptic !

scurry5

bpharma wrote: »

I think being able to change in system for PvP would be a good thing. I mean how many times have you faced an opposing team and you just do not have the right ship or ship mix to counter it? That's to puggers by the way not teh 1337 PvP TS teams.

I mean if you roll in with 3 escorts a science specced for control and a zombie cruiser and find 5 FAW boats...well you just don't have the stuff to deal with it. If you look at games like team fortress, battlefield (before 3) and many other team games you can change class on the fly or class composition is fixed.

I don't know.....it could kinda go both ways, let's say 5 FAWboats face the team you suggest, then they switch out for something better, then the FAWboats switch out for something different, and so on. It'd be like an endless series of Rock-Paper-Scissors, with each team coming back with what beats the other team.

thegrimcorsair

BOff's, DOff's, and Equipment should not be changeable (let alone ships) once you enter a PvP instance. It just give even more advantage to players who've already been playing a long time and are likely to have accrued a wide selection of (often expensive) equipment, DOffs, and commissioned BOffs. Not to mention, it already exacerbates the divide between those who've been able to spend large amounts of time and money on game by empowering them with additional advantages over those who have not.

If they want their PvP to be taken seriously, and make no mistake the folks at the top don't at this time, then giving players who've been playing longer more things to stomp players who haven't (along with their experience and system mastery from actually playing) is a bad thing which will drive people away from taking the plunge into PvP.

ussultimatum

scurry5 wrote: »

I don't know.....it could kinda go both ways, let's say 5 FAWboats face the team you suggest, then they switch out for something better, then the FAWboats switch out for something different, and so on. It'd be like an endless series of Rock-Paper-Scissors, with each team coming back with what beats the other team.

Exactly.

Switching in social/sector is excellent.

It could allow for PvPers to have 2 PvP set ups (who needs a PvE setup? :P)

It will allow for players who mostly PvE to have a PvP load out.



Switching within the instance would be horrendously unbalancing, we already have that stupid cat & mouse game with Res A/B fleet shields except this would be on an entirely new scale.

wolverine595959

As someone mentioned before the only issue I can see is if the coding is not airtight. Voldermort coming back better than ever or a guy switches from escort to cruiser and somehow the escort BOFF layout carries over or the stats of cruiser carry over to an escort, escorts with glitched stats like 50K pluss hull and cruiser shield modifier :eek:

Like I said the coding would have to be triple checked and tested in almost any environment especially lets say a laggy server

trueprom3theus

It's the start to something that brings more convenience. As other folks stated, we need to be able to customize some preset configs that would include everything that can influence the starship performance (doffs, boffs, power levels, key binds, power tray, ship equipment - weapons, consoles, etc).

Nice would be to have on ship status (press U) a combo box that would allow ship selection and a button, click that button and a tabbed interface should open, each tab would be a configuration for a specific ship that is currently active. Each tab should contain doffs, boffs, equipment, etc. I am curious on how cryptic will approach this.

p2wsucks

bpharma wrote: »

I think being able to change in system for PvP would be a good thing. I mean how many times have you faced an opposing team and you just do not have the right ship or ship mix to counter it? That's to puggers by the way not teh 1337 PvP TS teams.

I mean if you roll in with 3 escorts a science specced for control and a zombie cruiser and find 5 FAW boats...well you just don't have the stuff to deal with it. If you look at games like team fortress, battlefield (before 3) and many other team games you can change class on the fly or class composition is fixed.

Disagree, that would take one of the last niches of BoPs away. I used to have ~3 builds I switched between during matches at any given time. But, doffs were a bit too much swapping for my taste.

There are more than enough other ships w/uni Boff stations (too many imo), that can take a fair amount of advantage of this as well.

Back to the doffs this will be interesting to see if it's included and how it works for those who don't have 5-6 open slots on their doff roster.

havam

Personally, this change is a massive improvement. If it doens't include the return of voldemort V til MMXXIVII which will be denied, and finally addressed before the anniversary in 2022.

For all but my tac toon pve and pvp set-ups are vastly different. I like support roles, and i love sci ships. But he pve content simply isn't engaging enough that i can bare it with a full healer, or cc'er. If you think pugging arenas with an eng/healer is an exercise in fristration try pugging STFs or NWS with one! It isn't required or appreciated. Hence, i rotate my toons in an out of pvp mode. At any given time 1 but max of 2 toons are build with pvp in mind, the others are on grind duty and just don't pew.

Being able to quickly switch between pve and pvp set ups will be a great improvement. No more logging in an out because we need TRIBBLE which is my yyy toon.... this is great. If this is not half-assed and actually sees the light of some QnA.... massive improvement.

It has the potential to tripple my time in pvp, which once my computer is back up and running.... i'm looking forward to it.

wolverine595959

havam wrote: »

Personally, this change is a massive improvement. If it doens't include the return of voldemort V til MMXXIVII which will be denied, and finally addressed before the anniversary in 2022.

For all but my tac toon pve and pvp set-ups are vastly different. I like support roles, and i love sci ships. But he pve content simply isn't engaging enough that i can bare it with a full healer, or cc'er. If you think pugging arenas with an eng/healer is an exercise in fristration try pugging STFs or NWS with one! It isn't required or appreciated. Hence, i rotate my toons in an out of pvp mode. At any given time 1 but max of 2 toons are build with pvp in mind, the others are on grind duty and just don't pew.

Being able to quickly switch between pve and pvp set ups will be a great improvement. No more logging in an out because we need TRIBBLE which is my yyy toon.... this is great. If this is not half-assed and actually sees the light of some QnA.... massive improvement.

It has the potential to tripple my time in pvp, which once my computer is back up and running.... i'm looking forward to it.

It is a convenience but some think this will be a boon for PvP, when it will not because PvE heroes will see all their builds do not work in PvP. I also have little to no faith the coding will be done right and we will have Voldermort 3.0 or whatever version it is up to now and even less people will queue.

blakes7tvseries

They need to disable changing ship parts out for all PVP matches.

This would create a better environment if people are forced to used more generalized builds.

hereticknight085

blakes7tvseries wrote: »

They need to disable changing ship parts out for all PVP matches.

This would create a better environment if people are forced to used more generalized builds.

Not really. You do this, and suddenly everyone runs a general do everything build... and PvP matches start. And start. And then 3 days later are still going because nobody has a kill build. Soooo no. Specialized builds are great. General builds... not so much.

trueprom3theus

blakes7tvseries wrote: »

They need to disable changing ship parts out for all PVP matches.

This would create a better environment if people are forced to used more generalized builds.

Not to mention you can swap your shield, batteries, etc (while not in combat) and have back max shield or almost no cooldown left to batteries... I'd make possible changing boffs and doffs though, it allows some extra options. But no shields, and other ship gear.

hanover

hereticknight085 wrote: »

Not really. You do this, and suddenly everyone runs a general do everything build... and PvP matches start. And start. And then 3 days later are still going because nobody has a kill build. Soooo no. Specialized builds are great. General builds... not so much.

No, specialized builds are a crutch for people who don't want to have to think about multiple roles and can't function outside their team's tight little ball of SciSpam and FAW. Players would learn to adapt. It's just that the end result might not be a desirable one from the perspective of DPS kings.

An end to hot-swapping equipment would be a good thing, possibly making PvP more accessible to newer players by robbing the dedicated spreadsheet min-maxer approach of much of it's value.