I thought you'd be the last person to give up before I did.
Nah, i didn't give up, i'm just taking a break from STO, but it's still pointless talking about pvp and pvp related problems, when we know 1000% devs don't care anymore ... and so people, nobody have "balls" to stick with a ruleset to play a cleaner pvp or playing at lower levels. Maybe, for someone in OPvP, the pride and the fear to lose without using their OP bs toys is bigger than to compete for the real fun But, this is a conversation for another thread...
That being said... one big thing that needs to occur to make PvP attractive to the masses... it needs to vanilla.. All Weapon/Ability stats dropped to the Common values (no rare, ultra-rare, epic bonuses, and no modifiers (dmg, prtg, acc, etc). Lockbox consoles values set to 0 in any PvP area... It needs to be about skill, not grind.
Not a bad idea... another would be implementing something akin to DCUO's Legends PvP mode (a PvP mode where everyone starts with a basic ship or two, and earns others, along with access to higher tiers, through skill). Indeed, I suspect most if not all of the key mechanics for the latter already exist in the game - just look at those missions where you're issued a ship and boff layout for a portion of it ('Revolution' and 'Doomsday Machine' come to mind).
This could also facilitate something akin to the Assassins mechanic (official article; wiki entry) over in Age of Wushu/Age of Wulin, where a group could be running a queue and find that the final boss' bodyguards are being a bit too clever to be AIs...
On another note entirely, I can see some tweaks from other games being adopted to make dirtside PvP a bit more interesting...
Spectres - enemy assets do not appear on the minimap at all unless an ally has eyes-on. However, if you take down an enemy player, there's a window of time (the respawn countdown) where you can interact with them to hack their tactical net (a channeled, interruptible process); success reveals all enemy assets on the minimap for a short time. (Ghost Recon: Phantoms; Metal Gear Online)
HVT - each kill you get in the course of a 'life' adds a bounty token; your killer not only gets the basic score, but a bonus multiplied by the number of such tokens. Note: this really only makes sense if there's a PvP 'reputation' track of sorts (the details of which I think are long enough to merit a post of their own). Option: each melee takedown clears one bounty token. (MGO)
Fulton - melee takedowns give you the option of tagging the downed opponent with a transport beacon for exfiltration. Not only is the placement a channeled process (see 'tac hack' above), but the actual exfiltration takes a few seconds to kick in, meaning that the downed opponent can be saved by a nearby, alert teammate. When combined with a ticket-based match, not only does being exfiltrated cost your team a ticket, but those tickets you cost the other team this go-round? They get them back. (MGO)
Juggernaut - 5v1 PvP scenario... thing is, the (randomly chosen) one is operating a dreadnought-class ship, with all the nasty abilities NPCs get to play with! When the dreadnought is destroyed, the round resets, with one of the other players chosen at random to take up the helm (no duplicates). Round is over when all six players have had a turn; winner is the one who scored the most kills as the dreadnought.
Comments
Nah, i didn't give up, i'm just taking a break from STO, but it's still pointless talking about pvp and pvp related problems, when we know 1000% devs don't care anymore
This could also facilitate something akin to the Assassins mechanic (official article; wiki entry) over in Age of Wushu/Age of Wulin, where a group could be running a queue and find that the final boss' bodyguards are being a bit too clever to be AIs...
On another note entirely, I can see some tweaks from other games being adopted to make dirtside PvP a bit more interesting...