Not really...it was pretty reactionary. Weeks of other arguments that bled out into this one, where you probably got hit with things you didn't deserve. But like I said in my previous post, there are really two things that just irritate the Hell out of me (well, there's a third - but those two are the two I mostly come across)...
When the Elachi were first on Tribble for the LoR beta, I was excited...it was a challenge - it was fun. They got nerfed into the ground repeatedly...it ticked me off. The same happened with the Voth and Undine. Heck, even the Borg got buffed - forums flooded - Borg got nerfed.
The expectation that some folks have about what they should and shouldn't be able to do just blows my mind and irritates the Hell out of me.
I can accept that there's things I can't do - things I don't stand a chance in Hell of doing - things that maybe with some work I could do - and I can honestly sit there and look at them...and accept that. I don't have to run crying to Cryptic that something called Elite content might actually be difficult. That so many folks out there can't accept...just irritates the Hell out of me.
So yeah, when folks complained that the mobs were moving...it irritated the Hell out of me.
It makes me think of that episode of King of the Hill, where Hank's trying to take Bobby hunting - but it's not his thing. So he ends up taking him to one of those private reserve things, where they basically bait the deer with some food so they walk out and get shot. Hank and Bobby look at each other...realizing just how wrong it is...and they leave.
There are folks that are perfectly happy with that kind of PvE...there are folks that just feel it's wrong.
That being said, this has nothing to do with PvE, in fact I Pvp daily, sometimes successful dropping 30k crits on people and blowing them sky high, however there are a number of escort ships I have noticed that have performance levels that are through the roof through a series of stacked abilities that are always up that I see 5 people shooting at their ship for an excess of 30 seconds and they out heal 50k+ damage and up with relatively no trouble at all due to a combination of engi console slots, speaking of WHY does a Scimitar only have 2 engineering consoles while a JHAS has 4? JHAS also has 5 tac consoles same as the scim, the big difference is one forward gun and one science console, which is absurd in relation to the Scimitars size, and hull hp doesn't mean anything when it doesn't have the resists to back it up.
I hang out in Ker'rat often and for the most part Scims are vape food, as they are unable to orient themselves to their targets in time, with low power to the systems there are drains being used all the time from plasmodic to aceton assimilators to that one omnidirectional drain from voth ships, to randomly placed Nukara mines, and more that is scattered all over the place that acts as area denial to large ships that smaller ships can easily maneuver around. There are just too many negatives to flying a large ship with low power no less into a active combat zone. Feedback is the only thing I can use to temporarily slow getting hit with 60k+ crits x5 in a fraction of a second. With escorts going in and out of their battle cloak at will, you are a sitting duck.
If rewards was the issue, it would have come up a LONG time ago.
It has come up from time to time...even came up in this thread as a "waste of time" - eh?
Something to consider with rewards would be the following as well...mind you, I'm just looking at Space here:
Fed
x3 Arena 1440 Dil
x3 CnH 1440 Dil
x3 Arena (Daily) 1440 Dil
x3 CnH (Daily) 1440 Dil
x3 Ker'rat (Daily) 1440 Dil
KDF
x3 Arena 1440 Dil
x3 CnH 1440 Dil
x3 Arena (Daily) 1440 Dil
x3 CnH (Daily) 1440 Dil
x3 Ker'rat (Daily) 1440 Dil
Kill50 Turrets 480 Dil
Kill10 Fed Ships 480 Dil
Kill10 KDF Ships 480 Dil
Kill50 NPCs 480 Dil
Die25 480 Dil
x3 PvP 480 Dil
Sure, sometimes you'll have Kill10 Captains instead of Ships, Die25 will be Ground instead of Space, and Kill50 NPCs will be Ground instead of Space...but there's a greater reward offered to KDF to PvP than to Feds.
To what degree does that play into the larger number of players thus participating less in the smaller aspect of the game?
If Feds had more rewards...would more Feds PvP...? As more Feds were to PvP, would it not be a case of more folks that play did PvP simply because most players are Feds?
In the end, it's just about the overall growth of the game...addressing the various aspects that different groups enjoy - the potential for growing each aspect and how the game itself can grow because of that.
There's a thread in the PvP forums about such a question and I would like feedback of those who don't PvP.
I've seen the threads and yes I don't like the attitudes of PvPers and I am one!
But after all is said and done we're all Star Trek fans.
Yes PvP is not for everyone but I know of more than a few players who just don't see the current rewards as worth setting up and doing PvP.
And I feel there's attitude everywhere. That's what the ignore option is for.
I used to PvP several times daily... This was before we had all the shinies from marks and dil. I used to enjoy it, but something was nagging me.
I all too late realized, that what was bothering me was whenever someone who didn have the uberbuild, or had not yet tried PvP made mistakes, people were hammering down on the poor guy so hard that I am pretty sure he never PvP'ed again.
I occationally try PvP to see if conditions have changed, and I am sad to say that it has only become worse.
The Elitism and unwillingness to help people get started from that particular group of the players is quite simply unacceptable to me... Thats not why I come to a game... I come here to relax and have some fun with total strangers, but PvP'ers make PvP a life and death struggle as if the continued existence of STO depended on PvP... and it dosen't... That much is clear.
Rewards are a non-issue to me... If the content is fun, I play it... PvP is not fun... I LOVE Capture and Hold missions, but the players there are just ruining the experience.
Don't look silly... Don't call it the "Z-Store/Zen Store"...
It's what I call the "Cost of Entry into STO PVP."
Excluding player skill that a newbie PVP'er needs to learn, let's look at what's required to minimize him getting absolutely gangbanged with no chance whatsoever.
Fleet / Lobi / C-Store / Lockbox Ship
Fleet / Lobi / C-Store / Lockbox Consoles (or consoles coming from said ships)
Maxing out Reputation (Huge deal here: Unlock access to outstanding gear and reputation traits)
As with the last point, Reputation equipment
Adding onto the last point, now throw in Fleet gear (Elite Fleet Shields, Cores, Consoles, etc)
Edit to add: Forgot to add... DOFFs. Don't have this, don't have that, you will be that much more left behind.
That's it for now. Those are the more obvious ones and I'm sure I'm forgetting something. You and I know full well that people going into PVP are trying to come in with their best gear, best ships. It's competitive. That's just the way it is for PVP.
This is not 2010 STO, where we got to every tier including max level (Lv40 at the time) and you can stuff on Common, Uncommon gear, build just right, jump immediately into PVP and not be totally smoke checked because you weren't maxed on other means to bring fighting power to your build.
That is not possible in today's STO. If you don't have those things unlocked or purchased that I listed above, excluding the gap in player skill, you WILL get smoke checked. Badly. Then once skill gets thrown in against established PVPers, new ones have absolutely no chance whatsoever.
And putting PVP reputation gear will ensure that new blood for PVP will forever be minimal, if at all. Because their established PVE sets will be utterly obsolete. Because even newbie players will not have even THAT, then they're going to be fodder like a To'Duj / Peregrine Fighter.
That will be discouraging.
That will murder any hopes for growing participation into PVP, unless you like fighting with the same small number of people all the time.
Evidently. Armor, power, and damage should be in the favor of the larger ships category. But things do not work that way in the game. Smaller ships should have medium damage high evasion, low defense. NOT high damage high evasion high defense
Defense does not = armor. Defense is the over all package.
Escorts are and should be fast hard hitting glass cannons. Basically relying on speed to not die. Eggshells armed with sledgehammers.
Sorry your Scimitar should not be just a walking mountain of armor invulnerable to everything.
Bout all I got out of this statement.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
Defense does not = armor. Defense is the over all package.
Escorts are and should be fast hard hitting glass cannons. Basically relying on speed to not die. Eggshells armed with sledgehammers.
Sorry your Scimitar should not be just a walking mountain of armor invulnerable to everything.
Bout all I got out of this statement.
You are right about defense being the over all values, but you obviously chose to ignore the context I used the word in the colloquial format I placed it in had nothing to do with the over all defense, however you seem to be doing your best to make me seem like I am an unintelligent person through the gotcha statement of the literal definition of defense as opposed the one you were able to grasp instantly which was meant to be armor, despite recognizing that I meant armor in the first place, you chose to drag it out for no real specific reason other then to make fun of me.
Likewise with your invulnerable to everything statement, you seem to be not very concerned to how people view you on an intellectual level. Rather then taking the high ground and conversing with me like a normal person, why do you feel the need to exaggerate, and insult me at every turn?
Wells is a science like ship with a escort framework, and it comes down to single target drains, as gravity wells are almost entirely useless without drains, and jams, placates, disables don't last long enough to make any kind of effective impact, as they are easily countered.
I do not understand why people insist that I don't know what I am talking about given that 70%> of pvp ques are escorts, and 90% of the time the team with the lowest amount of escorts loses.
I think that would be a bad idea for multiple reasons.
1. Nobody should be forced to pvp. And pvp rep would prety much be the same.
2. Even those who pvp often have characters devoted to that. Specific build, specific gear ect. But a pvp would force even pvpers to use characters in pvp they don't want to.
3. I don't think you really want the "general population" in pvp. Unless you are getting off by ganking next to defenseless targets.
Only people that really enjoy fighting against other players should do pvp.
What should happen in an actual reward for winning.
Had a funny thought recently on that. How about kind of "investing" into the games.
You add an amount of ec, dillithium and may be even zen into a match and get rewarded out of that what everybody invested depending on win/loose. Might be a nice incentive...
You are right about defense being the over all values, but you obviously chose to ignore the context I used the word in the colloquial format I placed it in had nothing to do with the over all defense, however you seem to be doing your best to make me seem like I am an unintelligent person through the gotcha statement of the literal definition of defense as opposed the one you were able to grasp instantly which was meant to be armor, despite recognizing that I meant armor in the first place, you chose to drag it out for no real specific reason other then to make fun of me.
Likewise with your invulnerable to everything statement, you seem to be not very concerned to how people view you on an intellectual level. Rather then taking the high ground and conversing with me like a normal person, why do you feel the need to exaggerate, and insult me at every turn?
Intellect? You're going to try to throw INTELLECT at me after stating you think it should be just as easy a battle ship going 10 knots as a frigate going over 40 knots. I mean not quite the same analogy but it gets the point across.
No it isn't and no it shouldn't. Sorry don't try an illogical argument then try to claim intellect buddy. You fail on multiple areas of attack.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
It has a base turn of 7. You were the one that brought up the issue of maintaining an arc.
How is potentially playing to the strengths and weaknesses of a particular ship being lazy? How is it a cheap substitute for skill and tactics?
It goes back to the acceptance thing - seeing what you can do - adapting - rather than asking Cryptic to change everything to suit your desires...
Extrapolating from this comment, I assume you think the status quo of pvp is acceptable? Got it. Not having to point a ship in ones general targeting range is less skill then having to, and yet you say it is selfish to ask for something that is harder to do to be improved over the easier thing to do? Insane huh?
Intellect? You're going to try to throw INTELLECT at me after stating you think it should be just as easy a battle ship going 10 knots as a frigate going over 40 knots. I mean not quite the same analogy but it gets the point across.
No it isn't and no it shouldn't. Sorry don't try an illogical argument then try to claim intellect buddy. You fail on multiple areas of attack.
Making up random examples of things nothing to do with the primary subject I see. I guess you enjoy wasting our time.
Let's face it. Most people don't PvP because they don't want to learn. In my opinion, PvP needs a reputation system. With Federation and KDF not at war anymore and a fearsome threat like Undine and Iconians, it makes sense for Lore for something like "Advanced Starfleet/KDF/Romulan Combat Training" to improve their captains' skills. Ran by either Starfleet or Klingon Academy which will provide new equipment, weapons and consoles exclusively obtainable by playing PvP-related content; a new holding for your fleet as central command.
A "holodeck" randomly teamed persistent battlezone with points to capture; each one awarding marks and dilithium.
Won PvP matches will reward a medal (you know, VR Elite items like BNPs, Implants) to use in MK XII projects.
Space and ground will help each other, like capturing a space point will help ground to advance in their goal.
It should work like any other reputation, you fight in PvP (and being afk will get you temporarily banned from queues) and get PvP marks, which you can use for both obtaining gear, running projects or turn them for dilithium.
Reputation will be account wide for progression (you're a PvPer, alts won't make you any different). Anyway, you will still need to buy the gear you want per character.
After all, STO PvP is team-based. Kirking it alone is the best way to get killed. It would be something different than the usual NPCs and PvE queues. Combating real people is far more rewarding for you, my 2 cents.
i use to PVP but to many cry babies in it to make it fun
getting a lucky/last shot on some1 with TRIBBLE gear{like mine} and the cring never stops
Making up random examples of things nothing to do with the primary subject I see. I guess you enjoy wasting our time.
Want me to re quote you. But to paraphrase YOU said "It should be as easy to hit a fast moving escort as it is a scimitar."
Sorry you made an illogical argument and then tried to toss around big words like you knew something.
Frankly some of your ideas far as this game go are down right frightening.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
Not having to point a ship in ones general targeting range is less skill then having to, and yet you say it is selfish to ask for something that is harder to do to be improved over the easier thing to do? Insane huh?
Picture the following, eh?
There's somebody at Point A. They want to get to Point B. Between Point A and Point B there is a road and a river. At Point A (Road) there is a car and a boat. At Point A (River) there is also a car and a boat.
The normal person is going to take the car to travel along the road or the boat to travel along the river - whichever is their preference.
On the other hand, the person that asks them to flood the road so they can take the boat or to pave the river so they can take the car...
Want me to re quote you. But to paraphrase YOU said "It should be as easy to hit a fast moving escort as it is a scimitar."
Sorry you made an illogical argument and then tried to toss around big words like you knew something.
Frankly some of your ideas far as this game go are down right frightening.
Paraphrase? You mean make something up. I never said the Scimitar should outmaneuver an escort, ever. I find that they should be out maneuvered, as for big words, I suggest getting a dictionary or trying a word of the day calendar.
Why on Earth would you attempt to extrapolate from what I said to assume what you did...?
I don't get that.
I made a simple comment that one should attempt to build to the strengths and weaknesses of a particular ship in looking to make a viable build...
Status quo of PvP acceptable? WTF are you talking about?
I got that sense because you referred as my request for the change to game play as being something of a cardinal sin, even though I personally think it would improve diverse play styles and not just allow tiny gun ships to rule the battlefield.
[QUOTE=virusdancer;17049321
Picture the following, eh?
There's somebody at Point A. They want to get to Point B. Between Point A and Point B there is a road and a river. At Point A (Road) there is a car and a boat. At Point A (River) there is also a car and a boat.
The normal person is going to take the car to travel along the road or the boat to travel along the river - whichever is their preference.
On the other hand, the person that asks them to flood the road so they can take the boat or to pave the river so they can take the car...[/QUOTE]
Your approach to a fictional gaming universe is to accept the rules placed in front of you no matter how broken or lacking immersion, I could do that too, and in certain circumstances I have employed such rules, but in the finality of my build, I want it to be my own, not a cookie cutter carbon copy of a min/maxers boring dreams. The best kind of game allows for a certain amount of versatility whilst fudging the numbers on the min/max table so it is not blindingly obvious that gamers who play with calculators in their pockets are the victors.
These 2 statements tell me more about how you are NOT in the Queues at all.
If FAW if not used properly in PvP it is a waste of a boff slot.
Normally the team with FEWER escorts will win the match. Try a 5 man escort team and it will get rolled by competent Sci ships and healers. All that's needed is 1 damage dealer to finish them off.
70% of the Qs are not escorts. My Sci Palisade laughs when 2 escorts are attacking me. Now add 1 or 2 Sci ships and I'm in trouble even with team support.
"If not used properly in Pvp it is a waste of a boff slot" So are heals, and every other skill, stop with the hyperbole please.
First you bring up a team - which is a completely different dynamic then a 1v1 scenario, then you talk about a team of Science ships which is rare, very rare. This sounds like a pre-made team elitist feigning optimal game play through a statistically low chance grouping. On top of that, you bring up your drain boat Palisade with invincible shield facings as something standard to the science ship community. Absurd.
I got that sense because you referred as my request for the change to game play as being something of a cardinal sin, even though I personally think it would improve diverse play styles and not just allow tiny gun ships to rule the battlefield.
I suspect you got that sense because you see things purely in terms of your assumptions and observations, which you feel are so self evidently true that anyone who feigns disagreement is either trolling you, or is simply wrong. Many of us don't agree with either of those, though, and I think you'll find much of what you believe to be Truth is really just 'truth' for you.
For starters, I simply don't see escorts categorically outperforming other ships. I do, in PvP, see escorts generally providing the spike damage to kill off a target, but I also see other ships providing heals, team buffs, debuffs, and support damage to allow that kill to happen. The thing is, honestly, at this point "Damage" is something almost any ship CAN bring to the party, at least to some extent. In a very real sense I feel like escorts are the LEAST important ship class to a solid PvP team. Generally speaking, it seems easier to overcome a lack of spike damage than it does to overcome a lack of team heals and buff/debuffs, for example.
Even in PvE, where many feel pure damage is the ONLY thing that matters, I still don't see escorts universally outperforming FAW cruiser builds, and I still feel like the Grav-well slinging Sci ship has a lot to contribute, both in terms of raw damage, and in terms of controlling mobs.
Moreover, when I objectively count the ships I see, in both PvP AND PvE, I don't come anywhere near the numbers you are reporting in terms of escort dominance.
Thus, I don't agree that escorts are "dominating" the game to begin with. This forces me to evaluate why we have such different worldviews, which is, of course, a dangerous proposition. Dangerous because it's something of a blind leap, right? I mean, I'm pretty confident in my own intelligence, ability, and observations, but presumably you are as well. We thus seem to be at an impasse.
The best I can come up with is that you are coming to the game with a set of assumptions about how the ships "should" behave relative to each other that I don't share, and don't think is good for the game. Put simply, I think you fall into the general camp that feels that larger ships "should" be more powerful than smaller ships, and that thus cruisers, battleships, dreadnoughts, etc "should" be the focus of any combat, while smaller ships like science vessels and escorts should be relegated to a support role. This is a debate that goes all the way back to closed beta, btw. There was a very vocal school of thought who felt the game should always have been balanced around cruisers as the ultimate combat ships, while 'escorts' should... well, be simply escorts - there to screen the big guns but not participate much themselves.
I've never felt this made much sense, for three reasons. First, it seems to fly directly against the canon we see in the show - the Defiant is a purpose built, explicit warship, while the Galaxy class Enterprise was more of a generalist, and an explorer. Compare how the two ships are shown in their respective shows - the Enterprise almost never solves a problem through firepower, while the Defiant happily pew-pews its way through enemies. Narratively, the show was presenting us with a clear contrast - the large, stately Galaxy class that was the proper vessel for diplomacy, science, and exploration, with a captain who was more akin to a philosopher king than a military commander, while the smaller "hot-rod" Defiant was a warship through and through, exactly the thing for a more morally ambiguous and action-oriented captain. The shows, then, didn't seem to have any problems with tiny gunships "dominating" the battlefield, so I don't see why we should.
Two, I think the very assumption that "larger = more powerful" is based on a number of rather specious assumptions about how the technology of Star Trek "really" works, as well as a number of flat out incorrect assumptions about how modern and historical naval design works (or worked, as the case may be). Put simply, there is no inherent reason why size is the key (or even primary) determinant of how powerful a combatant a ship might be - there are any number of ways to rationalize what we see on screen with head-canon of our own, so at best this is always going to come down to opinion.
Third, and finally, I think that even if it were objectively true that in Star Trek "reality" larger ships "should" be the most powerful, I don't think that works well for the game. You feel like Cruisers are marginalized because Escorts can do more damage etc. The thing is, your proposed solution doesn't really solve that perceived imbalance, it merely seems to shift it so that the ship YOU prefer is the one getting all the advantages. Why would anyone want to play an escort in a world where the one thing they were ostensibly designed to do well (deliver damage) is still better performed by another ship?
You will disagree, of course, and argue that you aren't trying to make escorts obsolete, but rather simply trying to make cruisers "viable" again. Unfortunately, your focus on what you feel big ships should be able to do doesn't seem to give much thought to what escorts would be left with. If cruiser are both the best, most powerful tanks (since you feel escorts are too durable now), AND deliver the heaviest damage, what is left for escorts to do? You talk about them being more maneuverable, but that maneuverability is largely moot when the escorts don't have enough firepower to crack a cruiser, nor the defenses to withstand the cruiser's firepower. Hit and run attacks won't work, due to the instantaneous nature of healing in this game, and fixing THAT problem would require even more rebalancing than you're already proposing. Even in PvE, the maneuverability of escorts wouldn't mean much since the enemies are generally slow, closely packed together, and/or come to you.
Long and short of it - the game that's in your head might be totally fun for YOU, but it's not THIS game, nor will it ever be, nor SHOULD it be. Your comment below was pretty telling, I think:
Your approach to a fictional gaming universe is to accept the rules placed in front of you no matter how broken or lacking immersion, I could do that too, and in certain circumstances I have employed such rules, but in the finality of my build, I want it to be my own, not a cookie cutter carbon copy of a min/maxers boring dreams. The best kind of game allows for a certain amount of versatility whilst fudging the numbers on the min/max table so it is not blindingly obvious that gamers who play with calculators in their pockets are the victors.
Your railing against the rules of the game in the interest of developing your own, idiosyncratic builds, and your dismissal the "gamers who play with calculators" strikes me as being akin to someone railing against the rules of Chess, because he/she wants the freedom to develop new strategies so that the old grandmasters don't have their "unearned advantage" of years of practice and experience. It might make sense to YOU, but certainly you can see why the people who put in the time and effort to understand the game as it is might look askance as someone who proposed to throw all that away based on his/her own personal preferences for how the game should be.
Note that previous sentence was NOT a question - not even a rhetorical one. I am certain you can see why your argument could be construed as an attempt to devalue the hard work of others, and why that might elicit a negative response. What you choose to do with that knowledge is up to you. Right now I'm betting you will double down on that position, and then respond with "righteous" indignation when people respond. Hopefully you will surprise me.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
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.
Comments
That being said, this has nothing to do with PvE, in fact I Pvp daily, sometimes successful dropping 30k crits on people and blowing them sky high, however there are a number of escort ships I have noticed that have performance levels that are through the roof through a series of stacked abilities that are always up that I see 5 people shooting at their ship for an excess of 30 seconds and they out heal 50k+ damage and up with relatively no trouble at all due to a combination of engi console slots, speaking of WHY does a Scimitar only have 2 engineering consoles while a JHAS has 4? JHAS also has 5 tac consoles same as the scim, the big difference is one forward gun and one science console, which is absurd in relation to the Scimitars size, and hull hp doesn't mean anything when it doesn't have the resists to back it up.
I hang out in Ker'rat often and for the most part Scims are vape food, as they are unable to orient themselves to their targets in time, with low power to the systems there are drains being used all the time from plasmodic to aceton assimilators to that one omnidirectional drain from voth ships, to randomly placed Nukara mines, and more that is scattered all over the place that acts as area denial to large ships that smaller ships can easily maneuver around. There are just too many negatives to flying a large ship with low power no less into a active combat zone. Feedback is the only thing I can use to temporarily slow getting hit with 60k+ crits x5 in a fraction of a second. With escorts going in and out of their battle cloak at will, you are a sitting duck.
It has come up from time to time...even came up in this thread as a "waste of time" - eh?
Something to consider with rewards would be the following as well...mind you, I'm just looking at Space here:
Fed
x3 Arena 1440 Dil
x3 CnH 1440 Dil
x3 Arena (Daily) 1440 Dil
x3 CnH (Daily) 1440 Dil
x3 Ker'rat (Daily) 1440 Dil
KDF
x3 Arena 1440 Dil
x3 CnH 1440 Dil
x3 Arena (Daily) 1440 Dil
x3 CnH (Daily) 1440 Dil
x3 Ker'rat (Daily) 1440 Dil
Kill50 Turrets 480 Dil
Kill10 Fed Ships 480 Dil
Kill10 KDF Ships 480 Dil
Kill50 NPCs 480 Dil
Die25 480 Dil
x3 PvP 480 Dil
Sure, sometimes you'll have Kill10 Captains instead of Ships, Die25 will be Ground instead of Space, and Kill50 NPCs will be Ground instead of Space...but there's a greater reward offered to KDF to PvP than to Feds.
To what degree does that play into the larger number of players thus participating less in the smaller aspect of the game?
If Feds had more rewards...would more Feds PvP...? As more Feds were to PvP, would it not be a case of more folks that play did PvP simply because most players are Feds?
In the end, it's just about the overall growth of the game...addressing the various aspects that different groups enjoy - the potential for growing each aspect and how the game itself can grow because of that.
I used to PvP several times daily... This was before we had all the shinies from marks and dil. I used to enjoy it, but something was nagging me.
I all too late realized, that what was bothering me was whenever someone who didn have the uberbuild, or had not yet tried PvP made mistakes, people were hammering down on the poor guy so hard that I am pretty sure he never PvP'ed again.
I occationally try PvP to see if conditions have changed, and I am sad to say that it has only become worse.
The Elitism and unwillingness to help people get started from that particular group of the players is quite simply unacceptable to me... Thats not why I come to a game... I come here to relax and have some fun with total strangers, but PvP'ers make PvP a life and death struggle as if the continued existence of STO depended on PvP... and it dosen't... That much is clear.
Rewards are a non-issue to me... If the content is fun, I play it... PvP is not fun... I LOVE Capture and Hold missions, but the players there are just ruining the experience.
It's what I call the "Cost of Entry into STO PVP."
Excluding player skill that a newbie PVP'er needs to learn, let's look at what's required to minimize him getting absolutely gangbanged with no chance whatsoever.
Fleet / Lobi / C-Store / Lockbox Ship
Fleet / Lobi / C-Store / Lockbox Consoles (or consoles coming from said ships)
Maxing out Reputation (Huge deal here: Unlock access to outstanding gear and reputation traits)
As with the last point, Reputation equipment
Adding onto the last point, now throw in Fleet gear (Elite Fleet Shields, Cores, Consoles, etc)
Edit to add: Forgot to add... DOFFs. Don't have this, don't have that, you will be that much more left behind.
That's it for now. Those are the more obvious ones and I'm sure I'm forgetting something. You and I know full well that people going into PVP are trying to come in with their best gear, best ships. It's competitive. That's just the way it is for PVP.
This is not 2010 STO, where we got to every tier including max level (Lv40 at the time) and you can stuff on Common, Uncommon gear, build just right, jump immediately into PVP and not be totally smoke checked because you weren't maxed on other means to bring fighting power to your build.
That is not possible in today's STO. If you don't have those things unlocked or purchased that I listed above, excluding the gap in player skill, you WILL get smoke checked. Badly. Then once skill gets thrown in against established PVPers, new ones have absolutely no chance whatsoever.
And putting PVP reputation gear will ensure that new blood for PVP will forever be minimal, if at all. Because their established PVE sets will be utterly obsolete. Because even newbie players will not have even THAT, then they're going to be fodder like a To'Duj / Peregrine Fighter.
That will be discouraging.
That will murder any hopes for growing participation into PVP, unless you like fighting with the same small number of people all the time.
Speaking personally, it's nothing to do withe rewards.
For me, it's the meaninglessness of it all.
Give me persistent stats, so I can have a solid metric to chart my progress and ill be in like a shot.
An earlier post I made included the briefest of references to the attitude of some Pvpers.
Operative word there is 'some', and that's a minority.
The worst offense, Imo, is when experienced teams roflstomp pugs, particularly on ground.
The trash talking is par for the course. And all the noisiest do is designate themselves primary targets.
Defense does not = armor. Defense is the over all package.
Escorts are and should be fast hard hitting glass cannons. Basically relying on speed to not die. Eggshells armed with sledgehammers.
Sorry your Scimitar should not be just a walking mountain of armor invulnerable to everything.
Bout all I got out of this statement.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
You are right about defense being the over all values, but you obviously chose to ignore the context I used the word in the colloquial format I placed it in had nothing to do with the over all defense, however you seem to be doing your best to make me seem like I am an unintelligent person through the gotcha statement of the literal definition of defense as opposed the one you were able to grasp instantly which was meant to be armor, despite recognizing that I meant armor in the first place, you chose to drag it out for no real specific reason other then to make fun of me.
Likewise with your invulnerable to everything statement, you seem to be not very concerned to how people view you on an intellectual level. Rather then taking the high ground and conversing with me like a normal person, why do you feel the need to exaggerate, and insult me at every turn?
2012...a Sci could be a bad day.
2013...two Sci could be a bad day.
2014...where's that third Sci?
Wells is a science like ship with a escort framework, and it comes down to single target drains, as gravity wells are almost entirely useless without drains, and jams, placates, disables don't last long enough to make any kind of effective impact, as they are easily countered.
I do not understand why people insist that I don't know what I am talking about given that 70%> of pvp ques are escorts, and 90% of the time the team with the lowest amount of escorts loses.
I do NOT want to get lazy using FAW. It's a cheap substitute for skill and tactics.
1. Nobody should be forced to pvp. And pvp rep would prety much be the same.
2. Even those who pvp often have characters devoted to that. Specific build, specific gear ect. But a pvp would force even pvpers to use characters in pvp they don't want to.
3. I don't think you really want the "general population" in pvp. Unless you are getting off by ganking next to defenseless targets.
Only people that really enjoy fighting against other players should do pvp.
What should happen in an actual reward for winning.
Had a funny thought recently on that. How about kind of "investing" into the games.
You add an amount of ec, dillithium and may be even zen into a match and get rewarded out of that what everybody invested depending on win/loose. Might be a nice incentive...
It has a base turn of 7. You were the one that brought up the issue of maintaining an arc.
How is potentially playing to the strengths and weaknesses of a particular ship being lazy? How is it a cheap substitute for skill and tactics?
It goes back to the acceptance thing - seeing what you can do - adapting - rather than asking Cryptic to change everything to suit your desires...
Intellect? You're going to try to throw INTELLECT at me after stating you think it should be just as easy a battle ship going 10 knots as a frigate going over 40 knots. I mean not quite the same analogy but it gets the point across.
No it isn't and no it shouldn't. Sorry don't try an illogical argument then try to claim intellect buddy. You fail on multiple areas of attack.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Extrapolating from this comment, I assume you think the status quo of pvp is acceptable? Got it. Not having to point a ship in ones general targeting range is less skill then having to, and yet you say it is selfish to ask for something that is harder to do to be improved over the easier thing to do? Insane huh?
Making up random examples of things nothing to do with the primary subject I see. I guess you enjoy wasting our time.
i use to PVP but to many cry babies in it to make it fun
getting a lucky/last shot on some1 with TRIBBLE gear{like mine} and the cring never stops
Assault Cruiser Refit U.S.S Crown Royal
Multi-Vector Adv. Escort U.S.S Crown Royal-B
Heavy Escort Carrier U.S.S. Crown Royal-C
Oddy Tac. Cruiser U.S.S. Beam Boat
Want me to re quote you. But to paraphrase YOU said "It should be as easy to hit a fast moving escort as it is a scimitar."
Sorry you made an illogical argument and then tried to toss around big words like you knew something.
Frankly some of your ideas far as this game go are down right frightening.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Why on Earth would you attempt to extrapolate from what I said to assume what you did...?
I don't get that.
I made a simple comment that one should attempt to build to the strengths and weaknesses of a particular ship in looking to make a viable build...
Status quo of PvP acceptable? WTF are you talking about?
Picture the following, eh?
There's somebody at Point A. They want to get to Point B. Between Point A and Point B there is a road and a river. At Point A (Road) there is a car and a boat. At Point A (River) there is also a car and a boat.
The normal person is going to take the car to travel along the road or the boat to travel along the river - whichever is their preference.
On the other hand, the person that asks them to flood the road so they can take the boat or to pave the river so they can take the car...
Paraphrase? You mean make something up. I never said the Scimitar should outmaneuver an escort, ever. I find that they should be out maneuvered, as for big words, I suggest getting a dictionary or trying a word of the day calendar.
I got that sense because you referred as my request for the change to game play as being something of a cardinal sin, even though I personally think it would improve diverse play styles and not just allow tiny gun ships to rule the battlefield.
[QUOTE=virusdancer;17049321
Picture the following, eh?
There's somebody at Point A. They want to get to Point B. Between Point A and Point B there is a road and a river. At Point A (Road) there is a car and a boat. At Point A (River) there is also a car and a boat.
The normal person is going to take the car to travel along the road or the boat to travel along the river - whichever is their preference.
On the other hand, the person that asks them to flood the road so they can take the boat or to pave the river so they can take the car...[/QUOTE]
Your approach to a fictional gaming universe is to accept the rules placed in front of you no matter how broken or lacking immersion, I could do that too, and in certain circumstances I have employed such rules, but in the finality of my build, I want it to be my own, not a cookie cutter carbon copy of a min/maxers boring dreams. The best kind of game allows for a certain amount of versatility whilst fudging the numbers on the min/max table so it is not blindingly obvious that gamers who play with calculators in their pockets are the victors.
"If not used properly in Pvp it is a waste of a boff slot" So are heals, and every other skill, stop with the hyperbole please.
First you bring up a team - which is a completely different dynamic then a 1v1 scenario, then you talk about a team of Science ships which is rare, very rare. This sounds like a pre-made team elitist feigning optimal game play through a statistically low chance grouping. On top of that, you bring up your drain boat Palisade with invincible shield facings as something standard to the science ship community. Absurd.
I suspect you got that sense because you see things purely in terms of your assumptions and observations, which you feel are so self evidently true that anyone who feigns disagreement is either trolling you, or is simply wrong. Many of us don't agree with either of those, though, and I think you'll find much of what you believe to be Truth is really just 'truth' for you.
For starters, I simply don't see escorts categorically outperforming other ships. I do, in PvP, see escorts generally providing the spike damage to kill off a target, but I also see other ships providing heals, team buffs, debuffs, and support damage to allow that kill to happen. The thing is, honestly, at this point "Damage" is something almost any ship CAN bring to the party, at least to some extent. In a very real sense I feel like escorts are the LEAST important ship class to a solid PvP team. Generally speaking, it seems easier to overcome a lack of spike damage than it does to overcome a lack of team heals and buff/debuffs, for example.
Even in PvE, where many feel pure damage is the ONLY thing that matters, I still don't see escorts universally outperforming FAW cruiser builds, and I still feel like the Grav-well slinging Sci ship has a lot to contribute, both in terms of raw damage, and in terms of controlling mobs.
Moreover, when I objectively count the ships I see, in both PvP AND PvE, I don't come anywhere near the numbers you are reporting in terms of escort dominance.
Thus, I don't agree that escorts are "dominating" the game to begin with. This forces me to evaluate why we have such different worldviews, which is, of course, a dangerous proposition. Dangerous because it's something of a blind leap, right? I mean, I'm pretty confident in my own intelligence, ability, and observations, but presumably you are as well. We thus seem to be at an impasse.
The best I can come up with is that you are coming to the game with a set of assumptions about how the ships "should" behave relative to each other that I don't share, and don't think is good for the game. Put simply, I think you fall into the general camp that feels that larger ships "should" be more powerful than smaller ships, and that thus cruisers, battleships, dreadnoughts, etc "should" be the focus of any combat, while smaller ships like science vessels and escorts should be relegated to a support role. This is a debate that goes all the way back to closed beta, btw. There was a very vocal school of thought who felt the game should always have been balanced around cruisers as the ultimate combat ships, while 'escorts' should... well, be simply escorts - there to screen the big guns but not participate much themselves.
I've never felt this made much sense, for three reasons. First, it seems to fly directly against the canon we see in the show - the Defiant is a purpose built, explicit warship, while the Galaxy class Enterprise was more of a generalist, and an explorer. Compare how the two ships are shown in their respective shows - the Enterprise almost never solves a problem through firepower, while the Defiant happily pew-pews its way through enemies. Narratively, the show was presenting us with a clear contrast - the large, stately Galaxy class that was the proper vessel for diplomacy, science, and exploration, with a captain who was more akin to a philosopher king than a military commander, while the smaller "hot-rod" Defiant was a warship through and through, exactly the thing for a more morally ambiguous and action-oriented captain. The shows, then, didn't seem to have any problems with tiny gunships "dominating" the battlefield, so I don't see why we should.
Two, I think the very assumption that "larger = more powerful" is based on a number of rather specious assumptions about how the technology of Star Trek "really" works, as well as a number of flat out incorrect assumptions about how modern and historical naval design works (or worked, as the case may be). Put simply, there is no inherent reason why size is the key (or even primary) determinant of how powerful a combatant a ship might be - there are any number of ways to rationalize what we see on screen with head-canon of our own, so at best this is always going to come down to opinion.
Third, and finally, I think that even if it were objectively true that in Star Trek "reality" larger ships "should" be the most powerful, I don't think that works well for the game. You feel like Cruisers are marginalized because Escorts can do more damage etc. The thing is, your proposed solution doesn't really solve that perceived imbalance, it merely seems to shift it so that the ship YOU prefer is the one getting all the advantages. Why would anyone want to play an escort in a world where the one thing they were ostensibly designed to do well (deliver damage) is still better performed by another ship?
You will disagree, of course, and argue that you aren't trying to make escorts obsolete, but rather simply trying to make cruisers "viable" again. Unfortunately, your focus on what you feel big ships should be able to do doesn't seem to give much thought to what escorts would be left with. If cruiser are both the best, most powerful tanks (since you feel escorts are too durable now), AND deliver the heaviest damage, what is left for escorts to do? You talk about them being more maneuverable, but that maneuverability is largely moot when the escorts don't have enough firepower to crack a cruiser, nor the defenses to withstand the cruiser's firepower. Hit and run attacks won't work, due to the instantaneous nature of healing in this game, and fixing THAT problem would require even more rebalancing than you're already proposing. Even in PvE, the maneuverability of escorts wouldn't mean much since the enemies are generally slow, closely packed together, and/or come to you.
Long and short of it - the game that's in your head might be totally fun for YOU, but it's not THIS game, nor will it ever be, nor SHOULD it be. Your comment below was pretty telling, I think:
Your railing against the rules of the game in the interest of developing your own, idiosyncratic builds, and your dismissal the "gamers who play with calculators" strikes me as being akin to someone railing against the rules of Chess, because he/she wants the freedom to develop new strategies so that the old grandmasters don't have their "unearned advantage" of years of practice and experience. It might make sense to YOU, but certainly you can see why the people who put in the time and effort to understand the game as it is might look askance as someone who proposed to throw all that away based on his/her own personal preferences for how the game should be.
Note that previous sentence was NOT a question - not even a rhetorical one. I am certain you can see why your argument could be construed as an attempt to devalue the hard work of others, and why that might elicit a negative response. What you choose to do with that knowledge is up to you. Right now I'm betting you will double down on that position, and then respond with "righteous" indignation when people respond. Hopefully you will surprise me.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1