As Nr. 2 told Dr. Evil, 'This, already, also has happened.' I think the V.S.W. Implacable (Korfez) occassionally turns on one of them insta-vape feedback pulses. Annoying, yes; but turnabout is fair play.
Well I'm pretty sure 99% of the PvEers would cry for nerfs if NPC had FPB. Do you guys remember the PvE QQ and cries for nerfs when Borg Spheres had EPtE? That was nothing compared to the ****storms coming after applying FBP to NPCs.
Balancing PvP can only be good for this game. It would heavily improve PvP and wouldn't do damage to PvE. A balance fix will never break PvE. PvE might change yes, but there will always be a way to adapt - sadly that does not apply for PvP.
Honestly? No. PvP feedback generally amounts to 'Everything that is even remotely good, and makes me unable to win, needs to be nerfed.' Perhaps even valid, from a PvP perspective. But I'm a PVE-er, and balance looks just fine to me: NPC loses, I win. I like it that way, I paid for it that way.
And it didn't work for you before? I had no problems to win against NPCs back in 2012/2013/2014 (before DR release)! :rolleyes:
Y
Playing with other people and being social should be the main goal of a MMO. (Cryptic needs to improve the idea of multi player in pretty much all aspects of STO) Saying that PvPers are masochists though is as silly as saying people that love Chess are.
Believe this or not, but for me PvP always had a very social component. My team often met with opponents on teamspeak after a match. We were talking about what was good, what was bad, what we or them did wrong. We always helped each other to improve. The atmosphere was always kind and there were really never ever any flames or insults.
That is something I never had in PvE. In PvE I even got flamed cuz my newly leveled sci toon only did 9k dps :rolleyes:
Believe this or not, but for me PvP always had a very social component. My team often met with opponents on teamspeak after a match. We were talking about what was good, what was bad, what we or them did wrong. We always helped each other to improve. The atmosphere was always kind and there were really never ever any flames or insults.
That is something I never had in PvE. In PvE I even got flamed cuz my newly leveled sci toon only did 9k dps :rolleyes:
That has been my experience as well. Sure sometimes people get a bit to much "hate" on for each other. In general though every game I have ever PvPed in I have made friends, both ones I tended to fight along side and ones, that ended up being the targets more often.
A developer that wants to foster that type of PvP play has to help it along. Tournaments, and PvP activities that promote team play and people in fact talking to each other do wonders for a game community. That Cryptic has never done much (I only remember a few shuttle events ect... that where really Dev Personal time stuffs) is part of the reason the PvP community is seen as toxic by newer players... or those not willing to be social. A few of the devs have tried... giving us a few guest blogs and such, they need to tailor the game though to make it less annoying.
By annoying... I refer to the Yo-Yo that has always been STO.
Healing goes from zero to insane.
Dmg goes from zero to insane.
Resists, control... ect ect.
There are far far to many ways to die in less then 3s in STO. This is pretty much the only game I have ever died in where I have felt the need to scroll back though the log almost all the time just to see what it was that did it me at times. With out bragging I would say I consider myself to be pretty good at video game PvP in general.... and in every other game I play/played, there are very rarely WTF moments. So if STO PvP vets have way to many WTF moments yes I can see how it would be highly frustrating for a newer PvP player, who I know in most cases don't scroll there log and try to understand how to avoid that next time, they just leave.
Anet does a pretty good job with Guild Wars PvP. They have an open PvP area where everything goes, and people running around with PvE gear is normal. They also have a more controlled PvP game where all the PvE stuff is out... its a stripped down bare bones version of the same game. People are still very free to come up with unique builds, and team tactics. The creep layers from PvE stay out and for the most part there are fewer WTF moments that drive away new players. Not saying its perfect, but a system like it could work in STO. IF the developers had the will to make it work, I know I'm not so sure about that.
Well I'm pretty sure 99% of the PvEers would cry for nerfs if NPC had FPB. Do you guys remember the PvE QQ and cries for nerfs when Borg Spheres had EPtE? That was nothing compared to the ****storms coming after applying FBP to NPCs.
Balancing PvP can only be good for this game. It would heavily improve PvP and wouldn't do damage to PvE. A balance fix will never break PvE. PvE might change yes, but there will always be a way to adapt - sadly that does not apply for PvP.
Thank you.
This makes sense. A lot of people declare that PvP players simply need to "adapt" or "change their builds", when it fact it should be the opposite. NPCs are going to be the same, always. You can adapt to what NPCs are doing, but you can't adapt to one hit kills.
If the Devs sat down and gave PvP a good overhaul by changing mechanics/abilities/balance, would you support it if it helped the PvE meta? Maybe address the ever increasing power creep? Perhaps, once a relatively stable balance has been achieved (yes yes, people will argue that you can never have true "balance"), it could encourage more people to PvP, thereby opening a whole new arena of content instead of the constant ISA/Argala/STF grind?
For example, instead of everyone running around with AP FAW Beam Boats/cookie cutter builds, there would be more variety.
Ignored abilities like Aceton Beam/Tachyon Beam/Charged Particle Burst might be buffed into usefulness, giving a real reason to run something outside of TBR/GW Sci.
You might actually see someone using Dual Cannons for the first time in the history of STO.
Now obsolete ships like the Excelsior might make a comeback.
So on and so forth.
Thoughts?
*Disclaimer: Of course, this does not preclude bug fixes. Those should come regardless of whatever else they decide to work on.
I am for a balance pass in general for this entire game if it means more kinds of builds are can be made equally, competitively good.
Because right now, the scope of great performing builds is narrow. Because right now it's either all about DPS (either with weapons or exotic damage based), CC, and the occasional chump who can toss a heal or two, but doesn't need to be in a heal oriented boat.
There are entire segments of abilities in this game that are rendered obsolete, useless. If a balance pass means more things that can be made enticingly useful, I'm all for it.
I am for a balance pass in general for this entire game if it means more kinds of builds are can be made equally, competitively good.
Because right now, the scope of great performing builds is narrow. Because right now it's either all about DPS (either with weapons or exotic damage based), CC, and the occasional chump who can toss a heal or two, but doesn't need to be in a heal oriented boat.
There are entire segments of abilities in this game that are rendered obsolete, useless. If a balance pass means more things that can be made enticingly useful, I'm all for it.
For PVE as well as PVP.
Exactly this.
A lot of people view anything attached to the three dreaded letters of "PvP" as "NERF!" or "I don't PvP, so I don't care!" or "This isn't a PvP game!"
Good changes to PvP (can) mean good changes to PvE. In the examples listed here, and with general theme of this thread, is good for both.
Right now, PvP is horribly out of balance with crazy high damage and one shots. PvE is largely the same way - there's no variety in any builds. Hopefully they'll be able to move to a happy middle ground.
Here is a thought for how to make a pure and balanced PvP.
You know how you 'transfer' a toon from Holodeck to Tribble or Redshirt? What if they did something like that? Upload a toon to a separate server, one that has very specific modifications.
No mods on weapons for example (so there is no bull rush on CrtDx4 weapons) no specialization points, no doffs, no mastery, no traits, just pure basic vanilla game. That would make wins and losses purely based on skill, not the size of your bank account.
"Why all the sales"?
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
Here is a thought for how to make a pure and balanced PvP.
You know how you 'transfer' a toon from Holodeck to Tribble or Redshirt? What if they did something like that? Upload a toon to a separate server, one that has very specific modifications.
No mods on weapons for example (so there is no bull rush on CrtDx4 weapons) no specialization points, no doffs, no mastery, no traits, just pure basic vanilla game. That would make wins and losses purely based on skill, not the size of your bank account.
And that's something we'd love to see. Perhaps that's something that they meant by the "More PvP queues" option on the latest Poll.
Wasn't the whole 'Limit you to only 4 Rep traits' a balance pass for PvP? I seem to recall that upsetting quite a few people.
You may be right, but keep in mind Cryptic doesn't care about PvP so it's highly unlikely it was for PvP's benefit.
For the sake of argument, let's say the 4 rep traits were because of a PvP balance pass. How long ago was that? 2 years? Don't you think that if it was only for PvP Cryptic would have increased that limit by now?
How many players do you think left the game because of the 4 trait limit? Now how many players left the game because of DR? (I'll give you a hint: several hundred).
And that's something we'd love to see. Perhaps that's something that they meant by the "More PvP queues" option on the latest Poll.
It would be the option with the least collateral damage. PvPers would get what they want, and PvEers would get to keep what we want. Since it would be a baseline vanilla version there would also be little difference in value between ships of the same level and class, allowing players to choose more by what they want to fly and less on what is most effective.
Then again you'd still have the Fed-ball around a Nebula to ward off every KDF and Rom out there lol
"Why all the sales"?
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
You may be right, but keep in mind Cryptic doesn't care about PvP so it's highly unlikely it was for PvP's benefit.
For the sake of argument, let's say the 4 rep traits were because of a PvP balance pass. How long ago was that? 2 years? Don't you think that if it was only for PvP Cryptic would have increased that limit by now?
How many players do you think left the game because of the 4 trait limit? Now how many players left the game because of DR? (I'll give you a hint: several hundred).
Actually quite a few people left because of that change, I know that two fleets that my toons were in dropped by almost half, so that's several hundred there. I would also like to point out that change was not minor, it was actually a pretty hefty whack from the nerf bat. 4 space and 4 ground traits in place of the what, 32 people could stack before?
They also tweaked the Torp doff because of PvP specifically, namely all the people complaining about Fleet T'varo using it on the Type R Plasma Torp. If memory serves PvP is also the reason flow capacitor skill no longer effects the Phaser proc. And why you cant stack the Human trait that buffs repair rate anymore, and why your crew dies after taking two or three hits to weaken the threat cruisers pose in PvP.
There have been a number of PvP pass checks over the years.
"Why all the sales"?
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
Wasn't the whole 'Limit you to only 4 Rep traits' a balance pass for PvP? I seem to recall that upsetting quite a few people.
If that where the case do you think they would follow it up a few months later with Ship traits ?
Of course it wasn't a PvP balance... it was a PvE balance. It was right at the time when 30s ISE where a thing. They followed it up with a massive increase in NPC hit points... or was that also a PvP balance pass. lol
If that where the case do you think they would follow it up a few months later with Ship traits ?
Of course it wasn't a PvP balance... it was a PvE balance. It was right at the time when 30s ISE where a thing. They followed it up with a massive increase in NPC hit points... or was that also a PvP balance pass. lol
Simply pointing out things that I know have had an effect on PvP. Personally I avoid it like the plague as the largest issue PvP suffers from isn't balance, but the people in it.
It breeds an over competitive and narrow minded view of gaming that pushes people away from having 'fun' and to apex builds that are 'best of the best'.
If I want to be yelled at, belittled, demeaned and harassed I'll just work a few hours overtime. I play STO to get away from that kind of attitude.
"Why all the sales"?
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
Simply pointing out things that I know have had an effect on PvP. Personally I avoid it like the plague as the largest issue PvP suffers from isn't balance, but the people in it.
It breeds an over competitive and narrow minded view of gaming that pushes people away from having 'fun' and to apex builds that are 'best of the best'.
If I want to be yelled at, belittled, demeaned and harassed I'll just work a few hours overtime. I play STO to get away from that kind of attitude.
If you want to be yelled at or belittled I would imagine you could just que up for Elite or Advanced STFs.
I love how people equate bad attitude game players with PvP.
I'm sorry man PvP doesn't have a monopoly on Jerks. It has right around the same number per capita as the rest of the game.
I think you have proved the point though... ANYTHING good or bad added to the game has an effect on PvP. Was the trait limitation good for PvP yes... was it good for PvE... guess what yes it was.
Think about the current state of the game. Cryptic had a choice to make when they made that balance pass. Do they balance the content so that people with 9 different completed reps didn't walk though content in 30s, where on the flip side a new player with no rep at all would be unable to complete the content.
Sounds sort of like what we have right now doesn't it... Cryptic decided to embrace the creep and monetize it like never before. What it has resulted in is a lot of players of lower skill / lower gear levels / or plain new players that can't manage to handle anything but the most basic of group content. As well as a situation where the best players with all the shiney gold gear can still blow through it a little faster then Cryptic would like. So they are likely going to only balance content to make it reward less and less and increase the difficulty some more.
IMO and I think in many PvP players opinions... if you properly balance the game so players are mostly balanced to the point where 5v5 of pretty much any mix of ships/captain types would be a fun and more skill based situation... they could then properly balance the PvE. It is far easier to balance the PvE around a balanced game then... constantly try and balance the content with player items (ships/consoles/boffs/doffs/ect).
They have been trying to balance the content around players that have far to much swing in there capabilities. How do you make the same PvE work for people that could be bringing anything from a standard t5 with mk 12 to T6 Lockboxes with MK 14 gold everythings and all the best doffs ect. You can't balance it... they have tried with 3 levels of ques but its simply not enough. There are people in this game that can still smash there elites far to fast... and there are still far to many people that can't manage anything past Normal which must be frustrating as heck for those players.
The result is a TON of people leaving and more Forum fires then a California summer with less then an inch of rain.
Bottom line... balance the players... then balance the content... and everyone on both sides would be happy.
At this point I could care less about the PvE its ruined beyond fixing... but break our our PvP game and balance it on its own. That sounds good to me... let the PvE boosters be the only ones setting fires on the forums.
Wasn't the whole 'Limit you to only 4 Rep traits' a balance pass for PvP? I seem to recall that upsetting quite a few people.
No, it was to reign in the power creep that was really climbing up at that time. This wasn't a PVP or PVE issue. This was a core game issue. At the time there was no real limit to traits and would have been absolutely ridiculous with more time.
Problem however was Cryptic opened up that bottle of Power Creep again themselves via other means later on.
If pvp was balanced and it cannot be in a pay to win game
The next lockbox ship would break it
The next space duty officers would break it
The next box of uber traits would break it
The next weapons set would break it
This is pay to win
You will never have decent pvp in a pay to win game.......unless your paying to win
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
If you want to be yelled at or belittled I would imagine you could just que up for Elite or Advanced STFs.
I love how people equate bad attitude game players with PvP.
I'm sorry man PvP doesn't have a monopoly on Jerks. It has right around the same number per capita as the rest of the game.
I think you have proved the point though... ANYTHING good or bad added to the game has an effect on PvP. Was the trait limitation good for PvP yes... was it good for PvE... guess what yes it was.
Think about the current state of the game. Cryptic had a choice to make when they made that balance pass. Do they balance the content so that people with 9 different completed reps didn't walk though content in 30s, where on the flip side a new player with no rep at all would be unable to complete the content.
Sounds sort of like what we have right now doesn't it... Cryptic decided to embrace the creep and monetize it like never before. What it has resulted in is a lot of players of lower skill / lower gear levels / or plain new players that can't manage to handle anything but the most basic of group content. As well as a situation where the best players with all the shiney gold gear can still blow through it a little faster then Cryptic would like. So they are likely going to only balance content to make it reward less and less and increase the difficulty some more.
IMO and I think in many PvP players opinions... if you properly balance the game so players are mostly balanced to the point where 5v5 of pretty much any mix of ships/captain types would be a fun and more skill based situation... they could then properly balance the PvE. It is far easier to balance the PvE around a balanced game then... constantly try and balance the content with player items (ships/consoles/boffs/doffs/ect).
They have been trying to balance the content around players that have far to much swing in there capabilities. How do you make the same PvE work for people that could be bringing anything from a standard t5 with mk 12 to T6 Lockboxes with MK 14 gold everythings and all the best doffs ect. You can't balance it... they have tried with 3 levels of ques but its simply not enough. There are people in this game that can still smash there elites far to fast... and there are still far to many people that can't manage anything past Normal which must be frustrating as heck for those players.
The result is a TON of people leaving and more Forum fires then a California summer with less then an inch of rain.
Bottom line... balance the players... then balance the content... and everyone on both sides would be happy.
At this point I could care less about the PvE its ruined beyond fixing... but break our our PvP game and balance it on its own. That sounds good to me... let the PvE boosters be the only ones setting fires on the forums.
One issue though you seem to overlook is that quite a few people enjoy flying through a mission in under 30 seconds. One of the biggest complaints I see towards PvP from PvE-ers is 'Why can't we vap the comp enemies like they can other people'
As for there being a monopoly on jerks, I never said that, I said it encourages a certain mind set. In the three years I've been playing STO I can count the number of times I've been yelled at playing PvE on one hand.
By the same token I can count the number of people I have played in PvP by simply looking at my 'ignore list' as I find its the only way to get them to leave me be aside from logging off.
I'm not trying to start anything here, just give my observations. I fly a dinky little Fleet Sovereign with the Adapted MACO set and Elite Fleet Phasers. That's it. Nothing upgraded to level 14, everything is exactly as is off the shelf, and I can get through any mission fine short of Korfez and Hive Elite. You don't need uber gear to play the game, you just have to know what you are doing.
Which is why many people have trouble with the PvE's they aren't ready or equipped for Advanced or Elite, but want to be carried to get the shiny goods since it pays the most for the least amount of time.
So long as there is a way to make more in less time you will have people flocking to it.
"Why all the sales"?
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
If pvp was balanced and it cannot be in a pay to win game
The next lockbox ship would break it
The next space duty officers would break it
The next box of uber traits would break it
The next weapons set would break it
This is pay to win
You will never have decent pvp in a pay to win game.......unless your paying to win
I think you can argue that a company like Anet has proven that in fact can be done.
Guild wars has both balanced and "inbalanced" PvP. A open zone where anything goes and a properly done PvP game that can accommodate tournaments and be considered more the games esport.
Before you say ya but Guild wars isn't a f2p... of course it is. They have no sub. At one time STO charged me 60 bucks to buy the box as well. They exist on micro transaction... and the PvE / Role play people spend $ there as you expect... and a good number of the pve players do as well. Cause as I said open PvP in that game is not as adverse to p2w options. (ok there store is also 95% cosmetics) Cryptic wants to make the same amount of $ with 1/100 the player base so we get to directly pay for power creep. lol
Actually quite a few people left because of that change, I know that two fleets that my toons were in dropped by almost half, so that's several hundred there. I would also like to point out that change was not minor, it was actually a pretty hefty whack from the nerf bat. 4 space and 4 ground traits in place of the what, 32 people could stack before?.
Excuse me if I don't believe those numbers. You had two fleets with 500 people or more that left solely because they couldn't stack all their traits? We used to have 3000 people on OPvP and that's dropped to just a couple hundred - and that's only the channel, not including people who would PvP that didn't join it. At the time of the 4 trait limits there weren't even half that many possible traits.
They also tweaked the Torp doff because of PvP specifically, namely all the people complaining about Fleet T'varo using it on the Type R Plasma Torp. If memory serves PvP is also the reason flow capacitor skill no longer effects the Phaser proc. And why you cant stack the Human trait that buffs repair rate anymore, and why your crew dies after taking two or three hits to weaken the threat cruisers pose in PvP.
The torp doff was tweaked before LoR even came out.
Flow caps never buffed the phaser proc. Even if they did, why should a drain skill affect something that automatically sets subsystems to 0?
The Leadership trait was far more noticeable in PvE than PvP due to the paltry damage NPCs deal out. It's much more likely that Cryptic simply didn't want people to be invincible in PvE.
The crew mechanic has never meant anything and, more importantly, has never been changed.
Cruisers haven't posed an intolerable threat in PvP since before LoR.
There have been a number of PvP pass checks over the years.
Compared to how many additions meant for PvE? Somewhere around...oh I dunno...over a hundred? The number of PvP-only balance passes is still in the single digits -- after 5 years.
One issue though you seem to overlook is that quite a few people enjoy flying through a mission in under 30 seconds. One of the biggest complaints I see towards PvP from PvE-ers is 'Why can't we vap the comp enemies like they can other people'
As for there being a monopoly on jerks, I never said that, I said it encourages a certain mind set. In the three years I've been playing STO I can count the number of times I've been yelled at playing PvE on one hand.
By the same token I can count the number of people I have played in PvP by simply looking at my 'ignore list' as I find its the only way to get them to leave me be aside from logging off.
I'm not trying to start anything here, just give my observations. I fly a dinky little Fleet Sovereign with the Adapted MACO set and Elite Fleet Phasers. That's it. Nothing upgraded to level 14, everything is exactly as is off the shelf, and I can get through any mission fine short of Korfez and Hive Elite. You don't need uber gear to play the game, you just have to know what you are doing.
Which is why many people have trouble with the PvE's they aren't ready or equipped for Advanced or Elite, but want to be carried to get the shiny goods since it pays the most for the least amount of time.
So long as there is a way to make more in less time you will have people flocking to it.
I think our observations of the "jerks" among us... simply differ as to where we spend the majority of our time. When I PvP even after being mostly away from the game for a good while... I run into people I know. I can come back to STO after a few months away and instantly see people I enjoy spending time with playing this game. Yes that means shooting at them and being shot at and even respawned now and then by them. lol
The game play being encouraged by PvP that you (and many like you) think is somehow evil. Is frustrating to those of us that enjoy it. I will use my chess analogy again. Any board game ever created is a PVP game. You wouldn't say a family sitting down and breaking out a board game to entertain themselves in the evening is bad would you ? It is possible to compete against other people and not have it be some sort of blood sport believe it or not. Cryptic hasn't done a great job of fostering a great PvP community here themselves no... but despite them a pretty good one has taken root. Playing OTHER MMOs I run into friends from STO all the time... if STO was such a bad PvP game that would never have happened. The truth is this is a great PvP game... that has gotten almost no support from its creators in 5 years. It is sad to most of us... cause STO will never ever ever be any more then a third rate PvE game. (I'm sorry but its just true and not many people would argue that) It COULD however be one of the truly great PvP MMOs, cause the core mechanics lend themselves to very fun 5v5 team pvp games if you strip away 5 years of grime.
As for some people enjoying Elite Level PvE content that takes 30s... sure of course. There are people that enjoy being trolls as well.. that doesn't make it right.
Like it or not those 30s ISE runs are why the Delta Expansion happened. If you think that has been good for the game then... hey sounds great. Lets power creep the game until those Elite ques are 30s jokes as well. Then Cryptic can give us Delta Expansion². lol
Excuse me if I don't believe those numbers. You had two fleets with 500 people or more that left solely because they couldn't stack all their traits? We used to have 3000 people on OPvP and that's dropped to just a couple hundred - and that's only the channel, not including people who would PvP that didn't join it. At the time of the 4 trait limits there weren't even half that many possible traits.
The torp doff was tweaked before LoR even came out.
Flow caps never buffed the phaser proc. Even if they did, why should a drain skill affect something that automatically sets subsystems to 0?
The Leadership trait was far more noticeable in PvE than PvP due to the paltry damage NPCs deal out. It's much more likely that Cryptic simply didn't want people to be invincible in PvE.
The crew mechanic has never meant anything and, more importantly, has never been changed.
Cruisers haven't posed an intolerable threat in PvP since before LoR.
Compared to how many additions meant for PvE? Somewhere around...oh I dunno...over a hundred? The number of PvP-only balance passes is still in the single digits -- after 5 years.
Take it as you will, I've given my observations. I know for a fact close to 200 people from those two fleets I mentioned left because of the Trait reduction, and ironically enough they were the PvP divisions for the most part lol. To them, anything that reduced their output by 1% was 'bad for the game'.
I really only have one thing left to say, that being the same thing I tell anyone who has little more than complaints for this game.
If its so unbearable, then why keep playing it? Why not just go and play something else?
As for me? I'm perfectly happy with things now, though I did prefer having my traits stacked and I do miss a few of the old traits, but I've adjusted and adapted.
I offered a perfectly reasonable solution to the PvP issue a few posts back, but only one person has even commented on it so far. Make it a separate server you can load your characters onto, one that isn't connected to Holodeck in any way other than allowing players to load their toons and builds from Holodeck to it. It would be the best of both worlds and give both sides what they want.
"Why all the sales"?
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
I think our observations of the "jerks" among us... simply differ as to where we spend the majority of our time. When I PvP even after being mostly away from the game for a good while... I run into people I know. I can come back to STO after a few months away and instantly see people I enjoy spending time with playing this game. Yes that means shooting at them and being shot at and even respawned now and then by them. lol
The game play being encouraged by PvP that you (and many like you) think is somehow evil. Is frustrating to those of us that enjoy it. I will use my chess analogy again. Any board game ever created is a PVP game. You wouldn't say a family sitting down and breaking out a board game to entertain themselves in the evening is bad would you ? It is possible to compete against other people and not have it be some sort of blood sport believe it or not. Cryptic hasn't done a great job of fostering a great PvP community here themselves no... but despite them a pretty good one has taken root. Playing OTHER MMOs I run into friends from STO all the time... if STO was such a bad PvP game that would never have happened. The truth is this is a great PvP game... that has gotten almost no support from its creators in 5 years. It is sad to most of us... cause STO will never ever ever be any more then a third rate PvE game. (I'm sorry but its just true and not many people would argue that) It COULD however be one of the truly great PvP MMOs, cause the core mechanics lend themselves to very fun 5v5 team pvp games if you strip away 5 years of grime.
As for some people enjoying Elite Level PvE content that takes 30s... sure of course. There are people that enjoy being trolls as well.. that doesn't make it right.
Like it or not those 30s ISE runs are why the Delta Expansion happened. If you think that has been good for the game then... hey sounds great. Lets power creep the game until those Elite ques are 30s jokes as well. Then Cryptic can give us Delta Expansion². lol
My observation of a jerk is anyone that is willing to spend more than five minutes following you around after a PvP match on zone chat talking about how bad you are, how weak your ships is, and how they cant believe anyone can actually be that bad until you put them on Ignore. On the other end of the spectrum you have people who wont stop sending you 'tips and hints' about how to 'build a proper ship' until you block them as well.
There are actually a number of people who post their PvP matches on youtube with commentary giving their view of how bad the other team is and everything that is wrong with their ships or builds.
Believe it or not, there are people out there who don't care about having the best possible build and just want to relive their favorite episodes or movies from the Star Trek universe. That's what the PvE aspects of the game gives to many people and why very few Trek fans get into PvP. The PvP group DOES have Trek fans, but it has more gamers than Trekkers. PvE is the opposite, having more Trekkers than Gamers.
The best way to please both sides is to separate them via servers. There are games out there that do this and have dedicated PvP servers. This would be a very cost effective method as well in the long run since it would need minimal staff or service compared to the main server.
"Why all the sales"?
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
What a lot of the PvE players fail to realize is that while the PvP players find the items and abilities that are over powered and call for fixes for them; the PvPers also find the items and abilities that are not performing as well as they should and call for fixes for them as well.
"I'm not big on telepaths myself. I'm not big on guns either. But if everyone else has them, I want to make sure I can get my hands on the biggest one I can."
Comments
and what has that to do with xbox?
Someone's never been treated to the neighbor's XBox Live matches at 3am...
Well I'm pretty sure 99% of the PvEers would cry for nerfs if NPC had FPB. Do you guys remember the PvE QQ and cries for nerfs when Borg Spheres had EPtE? That was nothing compared to the ****storms coming after applying FBP to NPCs.
Balancing PvP can only be good for this game. It would heavily improve PvP and wouldn't do damage to PvE. A balance fix will never break PvE. PvE might change yes, but there will always be a way to adapt - sadly that does not apply for PvP.
The PVP is so out of sync with PVE I dont think there will never be a common middle ground.
To try and balance PVP will nerf PVE beyond any reasonable level.
What I would support is a seperate PVP shard where balance can be made for the pvpers but leaves PVE goodness intact.
Just like tribble you can copy your ships over so everyone can get the best of both styles of gameplay.
And it didn't work for you before? I had no problems to win against NPCs back in 2012/2013/2014 (before DR release)! :rolleyes:
Believe this or not, but for me PvP always had a very social component. My team often met with opponents on teamspeak after a match. We were talking about what was good, what was bad, what we or them did wrong. We always helped each other to improve. The atmosphere was always kind and there were really never ever any flames or insults.
That is something I never had in PvE. In PvE I even got flamed cuz my newly leveled sci toon only did 9k dps :rolleyes:
That has been my experience as well. Sure sometimes people get a bit to much "hate" on for each other. In general though every game I have ever PvPed in I have made friends, both ones I tended to fight along side and ones, that ended up being the targets more often.
A developer that wants to foster that type of PvP play has to help it along. Tournaments, and PvP activities that promote team play and people in fact talking to each other do wonders for a game community. That Cryptic has never done much (I only remember a few shuttle events ect... that where really Dev Personal time stuffs) is part of the reason the PvP community is seen as toxic by newer players... or those not willing to be social. A few of the devs have tried... giving us a few guest blogs and such, they need to tailor the game though to make it less annoying.
By annoying... I refer to the Yo-Yo that has always been STO.
Healing goes from zero to insane.
Dmg goes from zero to insane.
Resists, control... ect ect.
There are far far to many ways to die in less then 3s in STO. This is pretty much the only game I have ever died in where I have felt the need to scroll back though the log almost all the time just to see what it was that did it me at times. With out bragging I would say I consider myself to be pretty good at video game PvP in general.... and in every other game I play/played, there are very rarely WTF moments. So if STO PvP vets have way to many WTF moments yes I can see how it would be highly frustrating for a newer PvP player, who I know in most cases don't scroll there log and try to understand how to avoid that next time, they just leave.
Anet does a pretty good job with Guild Wars PvP. They have an open PvP area where everything goes, and people running around with PvE gear is normal. They also have a more controlled PvP game where all the PvE stuff is out... its a stripped down bare bones version of the same game. People are still very free to come up with unique builds, and team tactics. The creep layers from PvE stay out and for the most part there are fewer WTF moments that drive away new players. Not saying its perfect, but a system like it could work in STO. IF the developers had the will to make it work, I know I'm not so sure about that.
Thank you.
This makes sense. A lot of people declare that PvP players simply need to "adapt" or "change their builds", when it fact it should be the opposite. NPCs are going to be the same, always. You can adapt to what NPCs are doing, but you can't adapt to one hit kills.
I am for a balance pass in general for this entire game if it means more kinds of builds are can be made equally, competitively good.
Because right now, the scope of great performing builds is narrow. Because right now it's either all about DPS (either with weapons or exotic damage based), CC, and the occasional chump who can toss a heal or two, but doesn't need to be in a heal oriented boat.
There are entire segments of abilities in this game that are rendered obsolete, useless. If a balance pass means more things that can be made enticingly useful, I'm all for it.
For PVE as well as PVP.
Exactly this.
A lot of people view anything attached to the three dreaded letters of "PvP" as "NERF!" or "I don't PvP, so I don't care!" or "This isn't a PvP game!"
Good changes to PvP (can) mean good changes to PvE. In the examples listed here, and with general theme of this thread, is good for both.
Right now, PvP is horribly out of balance with crazy high damage and one shots. PvE is largely the same way - there's no variety in any builds. Hopefully they'll be able to move to a happy middle ground.
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
You know how you 'transfer' a toon from Holodeck to Tribble or Redshirt? What if they did something like that? Upload a toon to a separate server, one that has very specific modifications.
No mods on weapons for example (so there is no bull rush on CrtDx4 weapons) no specialization points, no doffs, no mastery, no traits, just pure basic vanilla game. That would make wins and losses purely based on skill, not the size of your bank account.
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
And that's something we'd love to see. Perhaps that's something that they meant by the "More PvP queues" option on the latest Poll.
You may be right, but keep in mind Cryptic doesn't care about PvP so it's highly unlikely it was for PvP's benefit.
For the sake of argument, let's say the 4 rep traits were because of a PvP balance pass. How long ago was that? 2 years? Don't you think that if it was only for PvP Cryptic would have increased that limit by now?
How many players do you think left the game because of the 4 trait limit? Now how many players left the game because of DR? (I'll give you a hint: several hundred).
It would be the option with the least collateral damage. PvPers would get what they want, and PvEers would get to keep what we want. Since it would be a baseline vanilla version there would also be little difference in value between ships of the same level and class, allowing players to choose more by what they want to fly and less on what is most effective.
Then again you'd still have the Fed-ball around a Nebula to ward off every KDF and Rom out there lol
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
Actually quite a few people left because of that change, I know that two fleets that my toons were in dropped by almost half, so that's several hundred there. I would also like to point out that change was not minor, it was actually a pretty hefty whack from the nerf bat. 4 space and 4 ground traits in place of the what, 32 people could stack before?
They also tweaked the Torp doff because of PvP specifically, namely all the people complaining about Fleet T'varo using it on the Type R Plasma Torp. If memory serves PvP is also the reason flow capacitor skill no longer effects the Phaser proc. And why you cant stack the Human trait that buffs repair rate anymore, and why your crew dies after taking two or three hits to weaken the threat cruisers pose in PvP.
There have been a number of PvP pass checks over the years.
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
If that where the case do you think they would follow it up a few months later with Ship traits ?
Of course it wasn't a PvP balance... it was a PvE balance. It was right at the time when 30s ISE where a thing. They followed it up with a massive increase in NPC hit points... or was that also a PvP balance pass. lol
Simply pointing out things that I know have had an effect on PvP. Personally I avoid it like the plague as the largest issue PvP suffers from isn't balance, but the people in it.
It breeds an over competitive and narrow minded view of gaming that pushes people away from having 'fun' and to apex builds that are 'best of the best'.
If I want to be yelled at, belittled, demeaned and harassed I'll just work a few hours overtime. I play STO to get away from that kind of attitude.
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
If you want to be yelled at or belittled I would imagine you could just que up for Elite or Advanced STFs.
I love how people equate bad attitude game players with PvP.
I'm sorry man PvP doesn't have a monopoly on Jerks. It has right around the same number per capita as the rest of the game.
I think you have proved the point though... ANYTHING good or bad added to the game has an effect on PvP. Was the trait limitation good for PvP yes... was it good for PvE... guess what yes it was.
Think about the current state of the game. Cryptic had a choice to make when they made that balance pass. Do they balance the content so that people with 9 different completed reps didn't walk though content in 30s, where on the flip side a new player with no rep at all would be unable to complete the content.
Sounds sort of like what we have right now doesn't it... Cryptic decided to embrace the creep and monetize it like never before. What it has resulted in is a lot of players of lower skill / lower gear levels / or plain new players that can't manage to handle anything but the most basic of group content. As well as a situation where the best players with all the shiney gold gear can still blow through it a little faster then Cryptic would like. So they are likely going to only balance content to make it reward less and less and increase the difficulty some more.
IMO and I think in many PvP players opinions... if you properly balance the game so players are mostly balanced to the point where 5v5 of pretty much any mix of ships/captain types would be a fun and more skill based situation... they could then properly balance the PvE. It is far easier to balance the PvE around a balanced game then... constantly try and balance the content with player items (ships/consoles/boffs/doffs/ect).
They have been trying to balance the content around players that have far to much swing in there capabilities. How do you make the same PvE work for people that could be bringing anything from a standard t5 with mk 12 to T6 Lockboxes with MK 14 gold everythings and all the best doffs ect. You can't balance it... they have tried with 3 levels of ques but its simply not enough. There are people in this game that can still smash there elites far to fast... and there are still far to many people that can't manage anything past Normal which must be frustrating as heck for those players.
The result is a TON of people leaving and more Forum fires then a California summer with less then an inch of rain.
Bottom line... balance the players... then balance the content... and everyone on both sides would be happy.
At this point I could care less about the PvE its ruined beyond fixing... but break our our PvP game and balance it on its own. That sounds good to me... let the PvE boosters be the only ones setting fires on the forums.
No, it was to reign in the power creep that was really climbing up at that time. This wasn't a PVP or PVE issue. This was a core game issue. At the time there was no real limit to traits and would have been absolutely ridiculous with more time.
Problem however was Cryptic opened up that bottle of Power Creep again themselves via other means later on.
I prefer development time in STO not be spent on PVP.
In games where both PVE and PVP were supported, I felt PVE took a performance and development hit because of it.
I feel there are plenty of PVP alternatives around.
Just my one little opinion out there in the vast universe...
The next lockbox ship would break it
The next space duty officers would break it
The next box of uber traits would break it
The next weapons set would break it
This is pay to win
You will never have decent pvp in a pay to win game.......unless your paying to win
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
One issue though you seem to overlook is that quite a few people enjoy flying through a mission in under 30 seconds. One of the biggest complaints I see towards PvP from PvE-ers is 'Why can't we vap the comp enemies like they can other people'
As for there being a monopoly on jerks, I never said that, I said it encourages a certain mind set. In the three years I've been playing STO I can count the number of times I've been yelled at playing PvE on one hand.
By the same token I can count the number of people I have played in PvP by simply looking at my 'ignore list' as I find its the only way to get them to leave me be aside from logging off.
I'm not trying to start anything here, just give my observations. I fly a dinky little Fleet Sovereign with the Adapted MACO set and Elite Fleet Phasers. That's it. Nothing upgraded to level 14, everything is exactly as is off the shelf, and I can get through any mission fine short of Korfez and Hive Elite. You don't need uber gear to play the game, you just have to know what you are doing.
Which is why many people have trouble with the PvE's they aren't ready or equipped for Advanced or Elite, but want to be carried to get the shiny goods since it pays the most for the least amount of time.
So long as there is a way to make more in less time you will have people flocking to it.
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
I think you can argue that a company like Anet has proven that in fact can be done.
Guild wars has both balanced and "inbalanced" PvP. A open zone where anything goes and a properly done PvP game that can accommodate tournaments and be considered more the games esport.
Before you say ya but Guild wars isn't a f2p... of course it is. They have no sub. At one time STO charged me 60 bucks to buy the box as well. They exist on micro transaction... and the PvE / Role play people spend $ there as you expect... and a good number of the pve players do as well. Cause as I said open PvP in that game is not as adverse to p2w options. (ok there store is also 95% cosmetics) Cryptic wants to make the same amount of $ with 1/100 the player base so we get to directly pay for power creep. lol
Excuse me if I don't believe those numbers. You had two fleets with 500 people or more that left solely because they couldn't stack all their traits? We used to have 3000 people on OPvP and that's dropped to just a couple hundred - and that's only the channel, not including people who would PvP that didn't join it. At the time of the 4 trait limits there weren't even half that many possible traits.
The torp doff was tweaked before LoR even came out.
Flow caps never buffed the phaser proc. Even if they did, why should a drain skill affect something that automatically sets subsystems to 0?
The Leadership trait was far more noticeable in PvE than PvP due to the paltry damage NPCs deal out. It's much more likely that Cryptic simply didn't want people to be invincible in PvE.
The crew mechanic has never meant anything and, more importantly, has never been changed.
Cruisers haven't posed an intolerable threat in PvP since before LoR.
Compared to how many additions meant for PvE? Somewhere around...oh I dunno...over a hundred? The number of PvP-only balance passes is still in the single digits -- after 5 years.
I think our observations of the "jerks" among us... simply differ as to where we spend the majority of our time. When I PvP even after being mostly away from the game for a good while... I run into people I know. I can come back to STO after a few months away and instantly see people I enjoy spending time with playing this game. Yes that means shooting at them and being shot at and even respawned now and then by them. lol
The game play being encouraged by PvP that you (and many like you) think is somehow evil. Is frustrating to those of us that enjoy it. I will use my chess analogy again. Any board game ever created is a PVP game. You wouldn't say a family sitting down and breaking out a board game to entertain themselves in the evening is bad would you ? It is possible to compete against other people and not have it be some sort of blood sport believe it or not. Cryptic hasn't done a great job of fostering a great PvP community here themselves no... but despite them a pretty good one has taken root. Playing OTHER MMOs I run into friends from STO all the time... if STO was such a bad PvP game that would never have happened. The truth is this is a great PvP game... that has gotten almost no support from its creators in 5 years. It is sad to most of us... cause STO will never ever ever be any more then a third rate PvE game. (I'm sorry but its just true and not many people would argue that) It COULD however be one of the truly great PvP MMOs, cause the core mechanics lend themselves to very fun 5v5 team pvp games if you strip away 5 years of grime.
As for some people enjoying Elite Level PvE content that takes 30s... sure of course. There are people that enjoy being trolls as well.. that doesn't make it right.
Like it or not those 30s ISE runs are why the Delta Expansion happened. If you think that has been good for the game then... hey sounds great. Lets power creep the game until those Elite ques are 30s jokes as well. Then Cryptic can give us Delta Expansion².
Take it as you will, I've given my observations. I know for a fact close to 200 people from those two fleets I mentioned left because of the Trait reduction, and ironically enough they were the PvP divisions for the most part lol. To them, anything that reduced their output by 1% was 'bad for the game'.
I really only have one thing left to say, that being the same thing I tell anyone who has little more than complaints for this game.
If its so unbearable, then why keep playing it? Why not just go and play something else?
As for me? I'm perfectly happy with things now, though I did prefer having my traits stacked and I do miss a few of the old traits, but I've adjusted and adapted.
I offered a perfectly reasonable solution to the PvP issue a few posts back, but only one person has even commented on it so far. Make it a separate server you can load your characters onto, one that isn't connected to Holodeck in any way other than allowing players to load their toons and builds from Holodeck to it. It would be the best of both worlds and give both sides what they want.
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'
This.
New content should be balanced against both PvP and PvE before it hits the live server. But this is Cryptic.... :rolleyes:
I am in favor of a PvP balance pass of everything currently in the game.
More HP for both players and NPCs isn't a good solution.
My observation of a jerk is anyone that is willing to spend more than five minutes following you around after a PvP match on zone chat talking about how bad you are, how weak your ships is, and how they cant believe anyone can actually be that bad until you put them on Ignore. On the other end of the spectrum you have people who wont stop sending you 'tips and hints' about how to 'build a proper ship' until you block them as well.
There are actually a number of people who post their PvP matches on youtube with commentary giving their view of how bad the other team is and everything that is wrong with their ships or builds.
Believe it or not, there are people out there who don't care about having the best possible build and just want to relive their favorite episodes or movies from the Star Trek universe. That's what the PvE aspects of the game gives to many people and why very few Trek fans get into PvP. The PvP group DOES have Trek fans, but it has more gamers than Trekkers. PvE is the opposite, having more Trekkers than Gamers.
The best way to please both sides is to separate them via servers. There are games out there that do this and have dedicated PvP servers. This would be a very cost effective method as well in the long run since it would need minimal staff or service compared to the main server.
And a merry freaking Christmas to you too, Ebenezer.
-jonsills, 'Cryptic Why the sales..instead of Fixing XP leveling and this game?'