You also got ethos difference. In DPS league, there is sharing of knowledge even by the top players with their builds and how they do it. In PvP, it is counter intuitive that the top PvP player gives their builds and styles to others.
I'd say it's kind of flipped over the years.
PvP folks have become less sure of themselves while PvE folks have become more sure of themselves. That confidence lends itself to discussing things more openly than a lack of confidence would.
Course, one could put that down to the PvP folks that have left vs. those that have replaced them - while the PvE folks have had that time to grow.
Had an idee'er.... Alot of non Fed, KDF, or Romulan factions ships, in game, have NOT been released.
As far as i know KDF was designed to be the PvP faction....
Well, make a new faction ( make a choice at level 10 what main faction to join ), making enemy PvE races, the playable PVP faction. Tie it into the Fleet, as a PVP holding tab. with ACCOUNT unlocks, like BUYING the Reman playable race.
Good, now we have human piloted TAC Cubes, playing human piloted FED SHIPS.
Dont get "easy" on the pricing of stuff either. Each gear piece should be something like 50k++ dilithium, and 100k++ fleet credits, be MK XII VERY RARE, making the research part of upgrading it harder.
Design new craftable only gear for the faction as well, like i dunno, "crafting" borg probes as tactical cube carrier pets or something.
Boom, there, now, everyone has a Cardassian/borg/Kazon Faction with the ships they so want, and are going to COMPLETELY give you all their monies :P. Call it the Deviant Races faction, i dunno.... :P
GIVE PVP a REWARD SYSTEM IF ANYTHING. Who cares about the diligram way of exploiting TRIBBLE, people will make the same damn amount of dilithium in otherways.
Add a new tab to the Z-store, called PVP... as PVPers are the money spenders anyway. They get overly butthurt when they lose to a new player that knows what they are doing, in turn making them break out their walletts. Give it unique gear AIMED towards PVP.
Pvp maps would be FLAGGED to only work with PVP gear on.
This avoids having to RE-WORK most of the CORE code of the game, as i have seen you guys do a lot more "complicated" things.
The hardest part would be a "draw" to end game PVP.
Give PVP Dilithium VOUCHERS for FLEET, or REP.
Make it to where a win is a VOUCHER for DILITHIUM that is account bound even, 480 Rep dil, per match or 720 fleet dil per match. This helps fleets, and NON pvp faction players contribute to their fleets, that cannot make the 180 day jump from tier 4 to tier 5 in a decent amount of time, like i dunno, 3 months instead of 180 days... ffs its only a difference of 60 day, give or take a few for the months with 31 days or Feburary lol... min turn giving PVP a VALUE to play, win or lose.
Add a PVP reputation Tab, if yer not going "new faction", and ALLOW this to happen.
The vouchers anyway, could be TIED to PVP as the reward. They MUST be account bound though, or no one will care.
No fleet would grind PVP matches 900 times day at 720 dil per match, per player, ( 720 x 5 per match would go towards the fleet. ).
The way the game is spread all over now, the issue is with FLEETS being able to do something TOGETHER, New players and old players alike, aside from shooting eachother, when you been around as long as we have, only thing we can do is help other fleets with contributions.
You need to put the ball in the hand of your FLEETS LEADERS in this game too Cryptic. If it wasn't for DECENT fleet leaders, you would NOT make anything from your games. Those FEW guild leaders that MADE it to tier 5, and remain ACTIVE are the ones, who obviously through thick and thin, SUPPORT NOT necessarily your business STYLE, but your GAMES with OUR TIME and money.
The hardest thing, i guess would be making this toons not ALLOWABLE in PVE matches.. The could only be fleet PVP toons, etc. I dunno.
Lets be honest here no mmo in history has been able to juggle pve and pvp without having one or both sides suffer from nerfs and op skills/spells.
Its not anyones fault to be honest its just the way it is,atleast in this game its not like others where if you play in a pvp server you can get ganked,camped,harrassed,insulted directed towards you or maybe even your mother when they call her a garden variety street walker.
Noticed that pvp brings out the worst in people,in pve they might call you a noob and thats about it,but in pvp things like this happen:
Thing is that pvp in mmos is and will always be like the veggies or fries you get with your burguer or steak,its just there as a side dish nothing more nothing less.
Even thou the pvp crowd are a vocal but yet a minority they really arent worth the time invested in the pvp department,just isnt in the numbers,sorry guys.
Three things killed PVP in this game. And it was not any BOFF skills. You can beat Surgical strikes, and feeback pulse, if you KNOW what your doing.... ( hey ideas for consoles, Debuff how powerful these skills, "can" be, etc... )
1. Nerfing any form of legit reward for doing it. This is due to a channel, that used to exploit PVP matches and the reward. ALl you had to do was x the channel, and watch youtube, or check yer facebook.
2. Lack of decent maps.
3. The way the company has turned over employees in the last two years i guess, and how everything goes one direction, some guy gets fired, quits, or laid off, and someone else puts their two cents into his idea, changing the direction of how the game was planned down the road.
When i joined the game back in 12' i noticed the game had a DECENT active pvp player base. I mean, you could get a match going without being able to make a loaf of bread from scratch, inbetween matches. Not anymore... i made 5 loaves once waiting for 1 match to start. :P
There are many ways to rebuild and reintroduce PVP into the game .
There are even ways to make a limited profit of it, but the current road (do tons of PVE grind to get the Specialization Traits ) is a dead end for PVP .
As many have pointed out on the PVP forum , right now you can just prepare for PVP ... , and you can do that for a long-long time .
Too long to be brutally honest .
As to the ways to rejuvenate PVP, my approach would be the "module" approach .
Use ships that have static stats & equipment (a few for each class) and sell skins for the module .
This approach is akin to what was tried in the last organised effort of the PVP community just pre-DR in the VPVP (vanilla PVP) channel , and it drew several hundred players because it offered the basis of Mk X gear only and no special consoles or ships .
Ppl wanted (and still want) to play on an equal footing, in an environment where you can't blame gear or powers (or a lack of both) for failure .
Skill should be the name of the game, not the next OP toy , and by creating prefixed modules , you'd finally detach PVP from PVE and all the hurdles that produced, while the modules could be fine tuned to offer a balanced gameplay .
And just like Never Winter, STO too could launch (or rather relaunch) PVP with making a queue that has a PVE mission followed by a PVP match .
This could be done using the same tech that placed us in a BOP in "Doomsday Machine" , except it would place us in a "modules" (ships) with prefixed powers for an encounter on equal footing .
This could also be done on ground with preset ground equipment .
In short, PVP can be a ton of fun, it can offer refreshing and different encounters but for it to become popular and successful , it has to have the chance to be one mainstream ... , which in turn means that it has to be easily accessible to the majority of the playerbase and it has to be invested in by Cryptic .
... and it saddens me to say this, but with the current spending , PVE grinding and ballance issues associated with it, I can't see it it flourish in its current state, which is quite sad as the engine itself lends itself to PVP quite well . Try space PVP as a Lieutenant or a Lieutenant Commander and you'll see ...
PvP can be fixed but in the current format its pretty bad. Exploits .. Holes .. Macros.. Scripts .. Attitudes all need be changed. Need more maps same 3 maps quite blah and cause you win every match don't give you the right to be vulgar and insulting. So your smart and you run a macro or a script .. Proud of you but ain't using them a permanent bann from the game?
How can players themselves fix exploits or render other peoples scripts inoperative? Anyone blaming PvPers for the sorry state of the the games source code is barking up the wrong tree. The PvP community are not the devs. And when PvPers ask for improvement, the devs either ignore us or tell us to not make waves.
Even when the overwhelming majority of the PvP community consists of lovely folks that play fair, as long as there are exploits around, nothing prevents a few individuals or fleets to take advantage of them. There are no bouncers or doorkeepers to keep troublemakers or exploiters out of PvP.
So, to "save" pvp, the people who play it must form a community, and cater to themselves. I often here vanilla pvp, and laughed a bit when I read the rules (to be fair: The rules are perfectly valid. I just dont think a virtual game would need rules outside of cheating and exploiting), but that is basically the way:
Make your own community
Make your own rooms
Recruit new members from forums, chats and fleets
Teach them how to play pvp (PvP Bootcamp if anyone remembers)
Thus you will create your own "hatchery" of pvp-players, who in turn recruit new players etc. and all have a similar mindset.
We have gone through all that already. Player-driven initiatives like you describe lose steam after a while. Then we always get back to square one.
So what to do about PvP? It would seem that the only logical step is to implement something akin to LotRO's model, where the servitor races of the Iconians are playable for the purpose of Ground and Space PvP against the UFP/KDF/NRR alliance.
I have more to say on this, but it will have to wait until my lunch break
When you get around to saying more on this, start by explaining what you think the problems with this game's PVP are, and how you think monster play will resolve them.
Based on this post it seems like your only concerns with PVP are from a story perspective, and I'm sure most PVPers are happy to suspend disbelief and push aside any continuity concerns they have to engage in the type of play they prefer.
It's definitely Cryptic's fault, glad we could agree on at least that much
My point in, as far as their return on investment, PvP is leaps and bounds ahead of everything else - solely due to the fact that they haven't spent a dime on it, and people spends heaps on ships/traits/gear/whatever.
.
But those heaps spend on ships/traits/gear/whatever is also what will always hold PvP back. Because it makes the scenario inherently, mechanically imbalanced in favor of the people that have spend lots of time and money to get these items. Any new player has to overcome a mountain of mechnical advantages. And since new stuff is added all the time, it often means you can't hope to overcome it, because the opposition keeps updating, too.
But that means that any improvement on PvP would first lower profits from PvP players. And that is a difficult obstacle to overcome. Big PvP improvements in any direction will likely not be possible without finding a different way to monetize it (or at least improve other critical business numbers that indirectly affect profits, market share and so on).
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
As to the ways to rejuvenate PVP, my approach would be the "module" approach...
It sounds, sir, like we're reading from the same book (reference)...
This could be done using the same tech that placed us in a BOP in "Doomsday Machine" , except it would place us in a "modules" (ships) with prefixed powers for an encounter on equal footing .
And this has been reused in a couple of places since (Obelisk carrier, Dyson SDD, Manasa assault craft), so it's not like we're talking about 'lost knowledge' here. This could also be adapted to create a series of simulations that allow players to test out (albeit in their default configurations) things like Recluses and Manasas so they have some actual hard evidence to help decide the question of should they bother with the effort of getting one.
Implementing this sort of PvP (again, compare to DCUO's Legends PvP) has another benefit: as a level playing field you can't buy a leg up in, it's perfect for actual competitive events, complete with prizes, et cetera.
PvP has one single problem: The vast gaps between characters in terms of power level. Currently, it is impossible to create a balanced experience because of that.
Solution: Rate every character in terms of power level, automatically, and have each side field X points of rating so that a given match is balanced. You don't fight a team of 5 or 10, but a force that, overall, is as strong as yours, even when you have better gear... the other side might then have more ships, for instance, possibly even a collection of T1 to 6 vessels, each to the players' liking.
This could then also be applied to certain pve queues and improve the game altogether.
While I disagree that this is the only problem with PvP, it is the major problem, a 'fresh 60' would be horribly outmatched against someone who has been playing for years, maxed reps and specializations, etc...
A rating system to keep veterans from pwn'ing newbs would be a great incentive for PvE players and casual PvPers to actually join matches.
Even something as simple as a PvP score, which would increase based on your wins/losses, logically beating people with lower scores shouldn't improve yours much, beating people with higher scores should give a noticable increase, conversely losing to players with higher scores won't cause you to lose many points, and losing to players with lower scores should drastically lower yours. Then limit players from joining matches if their scores are significantly higher or lower from the people already in the match should keep it relatively balanced...:D
Also, the rewards for completing a PvP match are peanuts compared to the same time-investment for PvE making PvP even less attractive for players. Improving the rewards per match would be an improvement, assuming the match lasts X minutes (just to prevent exploiters), and possibly increasing the daily reward or reducing the number of matches required to complete it...
A leaderboard would be an incentive for players to play PvP and reach the top of the boards, which could be implemented in 'PvP seasons' or some such long term competition, with some nice (but not game-breaking) rewards, like unique titles, pets, costumes, or even a custom paintjob on an otherwise generic weapon,etc...
Lastly, I'd like to point out the lack of scenarios making PvP boring after a few matches since they would all be the same effective mission over and over and over again.
Perhaps missions like 'destroy the NPC boss before the other team can' or 'gather X materials from asteroids before the other team can', 'retake a starbase from NPC's before the other team can'... stuff with actual objectives would make PvP interesting and not just 'kill, kill, kill'.
I don't believe that PvP inherently makes players... 'misbehave' I've personally been cursed out in PvE matches, and I have actuallly met some fairly likeable folks in PvP matches, so if the unbalanced nature of PvP were adjusted and it were made to be rewarding to the participants (win or lose, though winners should be rewarded a bit more:P), and I've mentioned in an earlier post that the game needs to be generally balanced (which I still believe), but the above would be much easier to implement and would go great lengths to reviving PvP.:)
hahahahahahah finally some pvp Hit me with your best shot!! I'll still be here fighting for the cause.
Pvpers are not all as immature as some people think. Many Pvers are just as immature.
I have found many pvpers that are just great people and enjoy a challenging fight. They like the challenge..
I also disagree with something said earlier. the reputation system has not destroyed pvp. It has made it more interesting. I have plenty of fun with it. There could be some tweaks to improve it but it is not a breaking pvp thing. Pple just have to be willing to search for new defenses or offenses.
Just as new weapons in realife force an arms race, such as bow and arrow vs muskets.
Mustkeets are great but they cant shoot curve shots can they? muskets almost better in everywaybut a group of people with arrows can shoot over a hill while the muskets can not. there are advantages and disadvantges to every weopon you just have to learn how to look for the advantages and disadvantages. then use that knowledge in battle. fun stuff. sometimes it takes longer to find weaknesses but they are there.
Retired Rear Admiral-Jay Maverick-
Known simply as -Maverick-
Klingons should Beware of Maverick.
Maverick loves a fight and tends to be victorious even as the underdog.
He has an aptitude for tactics,guerrilla warfare and security.
"United Federation of Planets"
12th Fleet - Intelligence Division "Khalija" - Alpha Group
Not on Current Assignment.-On Retirement leave at Leach Lake in Minnesota
If Cryptic took 3 seconds to realize that PvP is a never ending source of endgame content, they could make boatloads of cash.
You can spend days/weeks/months developing PvE content that people run through in the course of a week (weekend?). Or, you spend a fraction of that development time making new maps and game types for PvP which people can play over and over for months.
PvP is based on competition. That sells C-Store/lockbox/Lobi ships/traits/gear, etc. It also heavily encourages grinding out Rep. Seriously - hop into an Arena or Cap & Hold and take a look at what ships you see there. I'll guarantee you at least 90% of them are C-Store or Lockbox ships.
You know what can be completed for free, using free gear? All of PvE.
But, instead, we have people like Geko who tell us that we're "idiots" if we get Vaped by their absolutely ridiculous levels of Power Creep (you all know just how high you can stack CrtD... and BO has a 100% CrtH) and telling us that anyone who has a min/max build for PvP (because we know no one does that for PvE, right?) is a "14 year old."
PvP is based on getting an advantage over other players.
"That sells C-Store/lockbox/Lobi ships/traits/gear, etc. It also heavily encourages grinding out Rep. Seriously - hop into an Arena or Cap & Hold and take a look at what ships you see there. I'll guarantee you at least 90% of them are C-Store or Lockbox ships."
You know what can be completed for free, using free gear? All of PvP.
Its not like player ships have millions of HP, that you need to be doing 30k+ DPS to win against them but it has become all about getting the best gear, with the right mods to get an advantage over each other.
Like when certain players started experimenting with console swapping to bypass the cooldowns
Cryptic certainly dropped the ball in pvp development but pvp'rs are apparently still spending money by the bucket for Lobi/Lockbox ships to obtain that advantage over their fellow players who don't have those items, like 3 of the same lockbox/lobi console to swap out. The 30 sec cd on console swap was a good idea but still gained the player who did it a 1:30 cd reduction by swapping.
The problem is that PWE has just left PvP and its community out in the cold with no food or water, and something needs to be done about it that does not include removing PvP or lining up those who PvP and shooting them, as others in this thread have suggested be done.
Okay, that's the problem.
Old PvP is dying because of the direction PWE has moved this game. If there is to be a PvP revival, it needs to be something new and relevant to the rest of the game. Not from just a story standpoint, but form the standpoint of overall consistency.
And that's also the problem.
Now, I agree with the first issue, not so certain about the second.
As to how monster play would resolve the issue, it's simple. It would allow players access to the "bad guys'" stuff and allow them to play a "bad guy" while not abandoning "everyone is on the same team" mentality that Cryptic has adopted. They can go on writing their PvE from a single alliance perspective. And the PvP could use locations and resources introduced in PvE for the basis of a new PvP approach that takes into account the New Threat facing the "good guys".
And this is the explanation for how the problem will be helped. From where I sit you're not entirely wrong, revitalizing interest in PVP play will have to be a major part of any PVP revival. That revitalization will require developer time and attention, if they won't put in the effort to make it work, then, well, it simply won't.
However, I don't think monster play is an efficient means of pursuing this for a number of different reasons.
For one, it's very very unlikely that Heralds will be a popular or well received alternative to being able to PVP with your own character against the characters of others. Not only does your own character already have a ship that, hopefully, you like. Your own character directly represents the work you've put into this game and is only fairly competitive with the characters of others. On the other hand, you have the Heralds, a Cryptic created species destined to lose that the character has no emotional connection too. Their only virtue could be skipping a large section of development to be competitive earlier. Either way, we're looking at likely population imbalances, skill imbalanced, or both. LoTRO got around this by having their monster play be the only access to a dark faction so if you wanted to play a bad guy, you had to play a monster. In STO though we've had the KDF since day one.
Will the Heralds have an equivalent number of play options when compared to normal characters? Using LoTRO as a model, it's very unlikely that they well, now with a reduction of play options it becomes a possibility with every development and update that the Heralds will simply not be able to use the next flavor of month build. So we're looking at a sub par faction limited to PVP and not necessarily able to compete.
I don't think this will keep players coming back or staying.
For another, it requires the development of entirely new resources. The Herald ships you are suggesting are not already in game, at some point Cryptic will introduce NPC versions of the Herald Ships, but NPC ships are not what player character's fly. Even if the graphics are inter compatible between NPC and player versions of the same ship, you still need to work out the rest of the mechanical differences between NPC monsters and player characters. The ground NPC models are less of an issue but there is sure to be some development necessary for that side of things as well.
Now, those resources, whether they are an efficient way to develop PVP resources or not, they are overall a less efficient way to develop ship or player resources. If you produce a new ship for the Romulan Republic, then any Romulan Republic player can purchase that ship for PVE use, PVP use or both. However, producing a new Herald ship will only ever be purchased and used by a PVP player and then exclusively for PVP use. PVP, even in an MMO with a healthy PVP environment, is generally a minority of the player base, so you're talking about a very small customer base for any Herald development.
Finally, even if we assume this will inspire new faces in the PVP side of the game, this does nothing to address the game's PVP balance issues, the lack of any map updates or innovative new ways to play the PVP side of the game, or any of the other complaints that have people just not bothering to play PVP under the current system.
I agree that they should put in more effort to accommodating the PVP side of the game, and they should lead off with a big dramatic thing to bring people back in. I don't quite think this is it though.
I'd say just remove it... it's dead weight in the game and gives a bad impression for anyone who likes PVP. This isn't a PVP game and it would be easier for the devs to release powers and abilities if they didn't have to consider how those new powers/abilities would impact PVP.
I'm skeptical that any serious player who enjoys fighting other players would spend much time with STOs PVP in game... especially when the forums provide a more satisfying PVP experience anyway. :P
This is what pvp is and represents,have a nice day
Ha! I remember this. I really like the way the video was edited by whoever created it. You see the posse coming and it's balls to the wall pedal to the metal look dafookoutcauseherewecomemofos!
Then all solemn and quiet at the gathering.
Then whatdafuukk!
Ka Pow!
Damn well played. Completely unexpected. I'd say they won the game that day and just maybe...just maybe...for all time.
STO PvP suffers many challenges from broken, unbalanced items/ability's, lack of reward, lack of support from the Devs for years, bad blood between pvpers and devs, pay and or time walls just to name a few in general.
This been said, I believe STO PvP can stilll be saved and become a enjoyable fun part of the game for a majority. For this to be true it needs to be fun and accessible.
One could even introduce regulated open world PvP similar to how it was done in SWG. Where players needed to flag one self for opvp to participate, so all players could still be on the same server/maps but the one who wont participat had the freedom to do so.
As an exaple in a secret/underground war scenario one could introduce small sneaky sub faction like the true way, an incarnation of the Maqui,the Orion Syndicat, Section 31 you name it... and this faction can fight for key points or territory's on the Map to gain some sort of benefits. The dynamic map of the secret war can only be seen by players who choose to be part of one of the sub factions and as already stated players need to flag one self overt for opvp in order to participated in the opvp.
I'm not saying this is the way to go but just a way to go.
I'd say they're F'in douchebags-just because you have the ability to do a thing, doesn't make doing it a requirement.
It's one thing if it's just a character-death, being worked 'in story' by roleplayers. This was a bunch of people unable to meet together in real life holding a memorial for a friend/guildmate who was real-world-dead.
and THAT is what makes it douchey.
Wut? World of War Craft is a king of the hill pvp game. Not a place to hold RL funeral services.
The ability to do a thing? are you on drugs? WoW is a GAME about KILLING Other PLAYERS.
[QUOTE=plasmanugget;23357241This is what pvp is and represents,have a nice day [/QUOTE]
That, sir, is a representation of people with cranial-rectal inversions; kindly do not confuse them with the environment they happen to be infesting.
It's one thing if it's just a character-death, being worked 'in story' by roleplayers. This was a bunch of people unable to meet together in real life holding a memorial for a friend/guildmate who was real-world-dead.
and THAT is what makes it douchey.
Well said, sir. I imagine the blighters involved found themselves on lots of other players' hit lists for their dishonorable conduct.
Please stay on tangent. Off-tangent is derailing which is spamming.
Please do not post in ways designed to upset others. This is the very definition of trolling and spamming and it's not allowed.
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Comments
I'd say it's kind of flipped over the years.
PvP folks have become less sure of themselves while PvE folks have become more sure of themselves. That confidence lends itself to discussing things more openly than a lack of confidence would.
Course, one could put that down to the PvP folks that have left vs. those that have replaced them - while the PvE folks have had that time to grow.
As far as i know KDF was designed to be the PvP faction....
Well, make a new faction ( make a choice at level 10 what main faction to join ), making enemy PvE races, the playable PVP faction. Tie it into the Fleet, as a PVP holding tab. with ACCOUNT unlocks, like BUYING the Reman playable race.
Good, now we have human piloted TAC Cubes, playing human piloted FED SHIPS.
Dont get "easy" on the pricing of stuff either. Each gear piece should be something like 50k++ dilithium, and 100k++ fleet credits, be MK XII VERY RARE, making the research part of upgrading it harder.
Design new craftable only gear for the faction as well, like i dunno, "crafting" borg probes as tactical cube carrier pets or something.
Boom, there, now, everyone has a Cardassian/borg/Kazon Faction with the ships they so want, and are going to COMPLETELY give you all their monies :P. Call it the Deviant Races faction, i dunno.... :P
GIVE PVP a REWARD SYSTEM IF ANYTHING. Who cares about the diligram way of exploiting TRIBBLE, people will make the same damn amount of dilithium in otherways.
Add a new tab to the Z-store, called PVP... as PVPers are the money spenders anyway. They get overly butthurt when they lose to a new player that knows what they are doing, in turn making them break out their walletts. Give it unique gear AIMED towards PVP.
Pvp maps would be FLAGGED to only work with PVP gear on.
This avoids having to RE-WORK most of the CORE code of the game, as i have seen you guys do a lot more "complicated" things.
The hardest part would be a "draw" to end game PVP.
Give PVP Dilithium VOUCHERS for FLEET, or REP.
Make it to where a win is a VOUCHER for DILITHIUM that is account bound even, 480 Rep dil, per match or 720 fleet dil per match. This helps fleets, and NON pvp faction players contribute to their fleets, that cannot make the 180 day jump from tier 4 to tier 5 in a decent amount of time, like i dunno, 3 months instead of 180 days... ffs its only a difference of 60 day, give or take a few for the months with 31 days or Feburary lol... min turn giving PVP a VALUE to play, win or lose.
Add a PVP reputation Tab, if yer not going "new faction", and ALLOW this to happen.
The vouchers anyway, could be TIED to PVP as the reward. They MUST be account bound though, or no one will care.
No fleet would grind PVP matches 900 times day at 720 dil per match, per player, ( 720 x 5 per match would go towards the fleet. ).
The way the game is spread all over now, the issue is with FLEETS being able to do something TOGETHER, New players and old players alike, aside from shooting eachother, when you been around as long as we have, only thing we can do is help other fleets with contributions.
You need to put the ball in the hand of your FLEETS LEADERS in this game too Cryptic. If it wasn't for DECENT fleet leaders, you would NOT make anything from your games. Those FEW guild leaders that MADE it to tier 5, and remain ACTIVE are the ones, who obviously through thick and thin, SUPPORT NOT necessarily your business STYLE, but your GAMES with OUR TIME and money.
The hardest thing, i guess would be making this toons not ALLOWABLE in PVE matches.. The could only be fleet PVP toons, etc. I dunno.
Hope yah all got me rant, its 4am here
Three things killed PVP in this game. And it was not any BOFF skills. You can beat Surgical strikes, and feeback pulse, if you KNOW what your doing.... ( hey ideas for consoles, Debuff how powerful these skills, "can" be, etc... )
1. Nerfing any form of legit reward for doing it. This is due to a channel, that used to exploit PVP matches and the reward. ALl you had to do was x the channel, and watch youtube, or check yer facebook.
2. Lack of decent maps.
3. The way the company has turned over employees in the last two years i guess, and how everything goes one direction, some guy gets fired, quits, or laid off, and someone else puts their two cents into his idea, changing the direction of how the game was planned down the road.
When i joined the game back in 12' i noticed the game had a DECENT active pvp player base. I mean, you could get a match going without being able to make a loaf of bread from scratch, inbetween matches. Not anymore... i made 5 loaves once waiting for 1 match to start. :P
There are even ways to make a limited profit of it, but the current road (do tons of PVE grind to get the Specialization Traits ) is a dead end for PVP .
As many have pointed out on the PVP forum , right now you can just prepare for PVP ... , and you can do that for a long-long time .
Too long to be brutally honest .
As to the ways to rejuvenate PVP, my approach would be the "module" approach .
Use ships that have static stats & equipment (a few for each class) and sell skins for the module .
This approach is akin to what was tried in the last organised effort of the PVP community just pre-DR in the VPVP (vanilla PVP) channel , and it drew several hundred players because it offered the basis of Mk X gear only and no special consoles or ships .
Ppl wanted (and still want) to play on an equal footing, in an environment where you can't blame gear or powers (or a lack of both) for failure .
Skill should be the name of the game, not the next OP toy , and by creating prefixed modules , you'd finally detach PVP from PVE and all the hurdles that produced, while the modules could be fine tuned to offer a balanced gameplay .
And just like Never Winter, STO too could launch (or rather relaunch) PVP with making a queue that has a PVE mission followed by a PVP match .
This could be done using the same tech that placed us in a BOP in "Doomsday Machine" , except it would place us in a "modules" (ships) with prefixed powers for an encounter on equal footing .
This could also be done on ground with preset ground equipment .
In short, PVP can be a ton of fun, it can offer refreshing and different encounters but for it to become popular and successful , it has to have the chance to be one mainstream ... , which in turn means that it has to be easily accessible to the majority of the playerbase and it has to be invested in by Cryptic .
... and it saddens me to say this, but with the current spending , PVE grinding and ballance issues associated with it, I can't see it it flourish in its current state, which is quite sad as the engine itself lends itself to PVP quite well . Try space PVP as a Lieutenant or a Lieutenant Commander and you'll see ...
Even when the overwhelming majority of the PvP community consists of lovely folks that play fair, as long as there are exploits around, nothing prevents a few individuals or fleets to take advantage of them. There are no bouncers or doorkeepers to keep troublemakers or exploiters out of PvP.
We have gone through all that already. Player-driven initiatives like you describe lose steam after a while. Then we always get back to square one.
When you get around to saying more on this, start by explaining what you think the problems with this game's PVP are, and how you think monster play will resolve them.
Based on this post it seems like your only concerns with PVP are from a story perspective, and I'm sure most PVPers are happy to suspend disbelief and push aside any continuity concerns they have to engage in the type of play they prefer.
But those heaps spend on ships/traits/gear/whatever is also what will always hold PvP back. Because it makes the scenario inherently, mechanically imbalanced in favor of the people that have spend lots of time and money to get these items. Any new player has to overcome a mountain of mechnical advantages. And since new stuff is added all the time, it often means you can't hope to overcome it, because the opposition keeps updating, too.
But that means that any improvement on PvP would first lower profits from PvP players. And that is a difficult obstacle to overcome. Big PvP improvements in any direction will likely not be possible without finding a different way to monetize it (or at least improve other critical business numbers that indirectly affect profits, market share and so on).
And this has been reused in a couple of places since (Obelisk carrier, Dyson SDD, Manasa assault craft), so it's not like we're talking about 'lost knowledge' here. This could also be adapted to create a series of simulations that allow players to test out (albeit in their default configurations) things like Recluses and Manasas so they have some actual hard evidence to help decide the question of should they bother with the effort of getting one.
Implementing this sort of PvP (again, compare to DCUO's Legends PvP) has another benefit: as a level playing field you can't buy a leg up in, it's perfect for actual competitive events, complete with prizes, et cetera.
While I disagree that this is the only problem with PvP, it is the major problem, a 'fresh 60' would be horribly outmatched against someone who has been playing for years, maxed reps and specializations, etc...
A rating system to keep veterans from pwn'ing newbs would be a great incentive for PvE players and casual PvPers to actually join matches.
Even something as simple as a PvP score, which would increase based on your wins/losses, logically beating people with lower scores shouldn't improve yours much, beating people with higher scores should give a noticable increase, conversely losing to players with higher scores won't cause you to lose many points, and losing to players with lower scores should drastically lower yours. Then limit players from joining matches if their scores are significantly higher or lower from the people already in the match should keep it relatively balanced...:D
Also, the rewards for completing a PvP match are peanuts compared to the same time-investment for PvE making PvP even less attractive for players. Improving the rewards per match would be an improvement, assuming the match lasts X minutes (just to prevent exploiters), and possibly increasing the daily reward or reducing the number of matches required to complete it...
A leaderboard would be an incentive for players to play PvP and reach the top of the boards, which could be implemented in 'PvP seasons' or some such long term competition, with some nice (but not game-breaking) rewards, like unique titles, pets, costumes, or even a custom paintjob on an otherwise generic weapon,etc...
Lastly, I'd like to point out the lack of scenarios making PvP boring after a few matches since they would all be the same effective mission over and over and over again.
Perhaps missions like 'destroy the NPC boss before the other team can' or 'gather X materials from asteroids before the other team can', 'retake a starbase from NPC's before the other team can'... stuff with actual objectives would make PvP interesting and not just 'kill, kill, kill'.
I don't believe that PvP inherently makes players... 'misbehave' I've personally been cursed out in PvE matches, and I have actuallly met some fairly likeable folks in PvP matches, so if the unbalanced nature of PvP were adjusted and it were made to be rewarding to the participants (win or lose, though winners should be rewarded a bit more:P), and I've mentioned in an earlier post that the game needs to be generally balanced (which I still believe), but the above would be much easier to implement and would go great lengths to reviving PvP.:)
PvP lvl 20-30 ... your thoughts?
hahahahahahah
Pvpers are not all as immature as some people think. Many Pvers are just as immature.
I have found many pvpers that are just great people and enjoy a challenging fight. They like the challenge..
I also disagree with something said earlier. the reputation system has not destroyed pvp. It has made it more interesting. I have plenty of fun with it. There could be some tweaks to improve it but it is not a breaking pvp thing. Pple just have to be willing to search for new defenses or offenses.
Just as new weapons in realife force an arms race, such as bow and arrow vs muskets.
Mustkeets are great but they cant shoot curve shots can they? muskets almost better in everywaybut a group of people with arrows can shoot over a hill while the muskets can not. there are advantages and disadvantges to every weopon you just have to learn how to look for the advantages and disadvantages. then use that knowledge in battle. fun stuff. sometimes it takes longer to find weaknesses but they are there.
Known simply as -Maverick-
Klingons should Beware of Maverick.
Maverick loves a fight and tends to be victorious even as the underdog.
He has an aptitude for tactics,guerrilla warfare and security.
"United Federation of Planets"
12th Fleet - Intelligence Division "Khalija" - Alpha Group
Not on Current Assignment.-On Retirement leave at Leach Lake in Minnesota
PvP is based on getting an advantage over other players.
"That sells C-Store/lockbox/Lobi ships/traits/gear, etc. It also heavily encourages grinding out Rep. Seriously - hop into an Arena or Cap & Hold and take a look at what ships you see there. I'll guarantee you at least 90% of them are C-Store or Lockbox ships."
You know what can be completed for free, using free gear? All of PvP.
Its not like player ships have millions of HP, that you need to be doing 30k+ DPS to win against them but it has become all about getting the best gear, with the right mods to get an advantage over each other.
Like when certain players started experimenting with console swapping to bypass the cooldowns
Cryptic certainly dropped the ball in pvp development but pvp'rs are apparently still spending money by the bucket for Lobi/Lockbox ships to obtain that advantage over their fellow players who don't have those items, like 3 of the same lockbox/lobi console to swap out. The 30 sec cd on console swap was a good idea but still gained the player who did it a 1:30 cd reduction by swapping.
Okay, that's the problem.
And that's also the problem.
Now, I agree with the first issue, not so certain about the second.
And this is the explanation for how the problem will be helped. From where I sit you're not entirely wrong, revitalizing interest in PVP play will have to be a major part of any PVP revival. That revitalization will require developer time and attention, if they won't put in the effort to make it work, then, well, it simply won't.
However, I don't think monster play is an efficient means of pursuing this for a number of different reasons.
For one, it's very very unlikely that Heralds will be a popular or well received alternative to being able to PVP with your own character against the characters of others. Not only does your own character already have a ship that, hopefully, you like. Your own character directly represents the work you've put into this game and is only fairly competitive with the characters of others. On the other hand, you have the Heralds, a Cryptic created species destined to lose that the character has no emotional connection too. Their only virtue could be skipping a large section of development to be competitive earlier. Either way, we're looking at likely population imbalances, skill imbalanced, or both. LoTRO got around this by having their monster play be the only access to a dark faction so if you wanted to play a bad guy, you had to play a monster. In STO though we've had the KDF since day one.
Will the Heralds have an equivalent number of play options when compared to normal characters? Using LoTRO as a model, it's very unlikely that they well, now with a reduction of play options it becomes a possibility with every development and update that the Heralds will simply not be able to use the next flavor of month build. So we're looking at a sub par faction limited to PVP and not necessarily able to compete.
I don't think this will keep players coming back or staying.
For another, it requires the development of entirely new resources. The Herald ships you are suggesting are not already in game, at some point Cryptic will introduce NPC versions of the Herald Ships, but NPC ships are not what player character's fly. Even if the graphics are inter compatible between NPC and player versions of the same ship, you still need to work out the rest of the mechanical differences between NPC monsters and player characters. The ground NPC models are less of an issue but there is sure to be some development necessary for that side of things as well.
Now, those resources, whether they are an efficient way to develop PVP resources or not, they are overall a less efficient way to develop ship or player resources. If you produce a new ship for the Romulan Republic, then any Romulan Republic player can purchase that ship for PVE use, PVP use or both. However, producing a new Herald ship will only ever be purchased and used by a PVP player and then exclusively for PVP use. PVP, even in an MMO with a healthy PVP environment, is generally a minority of the player base, so you're talking about a very small customer base for any Herald development.
Finally, even if we assume this will inspire new faces in the PVP side of the game, this does nothing to address the game's PVP balance issues, the lack of any map updates or innovative new ways to play the PVP side of the game, or any of the other complaints that have people just not bothering to play PVP under the current system.
I agree that they should put in more effort to accommodating the PVP side of the game, and they should lead off with a big dramatic thing to bring people back in. I don't quite think this is it though.
I'm skeptical that any serious player who enjoys fighting other players would spend much time with STOs PVP in game... especially when the forums provide a more satisfying PVP experience anyway. :P
Captain Ariel Trueheart Department of Temporal Investigations
U.S.S. Valkyrie - NCC 991701
=/\= ================================= =/\=
I love your quote. Can I use it in my sig?
Ha! I remember this. I really like the way the video was edited by whoever created it. You see the posse coming and it's balls to the wall pedal to the metal look dafookoutcauseherewecomemofos!
Then all solemn and quiet at the gathering.
Then whatdafuukk!
Ka Pow!
Damn well played. Completely unexpected. I'd say they won the game that day and just maybe...just maybe...for all time.
This been said, I believe STO PvP can stilll be saved and become a enjoyable fun part of the game for a majority. For this to be true it needs to be fun and accessible.
One could even introduce regulated open world PvP similar to how it was done in SWG. Where players needed to flag one self for opvp to participate, so all players could still be on the same server/maps but the one who wont participat had the freedom to do so.
As an exaple in a secret/underground war scenario one could introduce small sneaky sub faction like the true way, an incarnation of the Maqui,the Orion Syndicat, Section 31 you name it... and this faction can fight for key points or territory's on the Map to gain some sort of benefits. The dynamic map of the secret war can only be seen by players who choose to be part of one of the sub factions and as already stated players need to flag one self overt for opvp in order to participated in the opvp.
I'm not saying this is the way to go but just a way to go.
Wut? World of War Craft is a king of the hill pvp game. Not a place to hold RL funeral services.
The ability to do a thing? are you on drugs? WoW is a GAME about KILLING Other PLAYERS.
That, sir, is a representation of people with cranial-rectal inversions; kindly do not confuse them with the environment they happen to be infesting.
Well said, sir. I imagine the blighters involved found themselves on lots of other players' hit lists for their dishonorable conduct.
Please stay on tangent. Off-tangent is derailing which is spamming.
Please do not post in ways designed to upset others. This is the very definition of trolling and spamming and it's not allowed.
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