pvp'er: hardcore pve'er, yay the need to stay competetive. check.
pvp'er: hardcore ingame investor, yay the need to stay competetive. check. (k's of bucks? anyone?)
Wrong. PvPers have always complained loudly about the need to stay competitive. They want to buy/grind one thing and have it remain the best forever. This very thread is full of PvPers complaining the game has too many things players "need" to invest time and/or money in.
Replying to the OP, my 2 cents:
Without doing too much drama, even if I'm angry about what happened to STO PvP year after year, STO is not a PvP game anymore, sadly. The mechanics involved into ships, traits, abilities, multipliers, etc... are, at the moment, beyond repair and completely out of control PvP-wise.
It used to be REALLY FUN to play in PvP, not now. Easy. Play PvP in another game and come playing PvE here.
The truth is STO would be one of the best PvP game with a careful management, but the developers have chosen another path during the years.
If you really want to do PvP on STO, limit yourself. I mean, like in the old BS Tournaments or the recent Vanilla experiments, limiting the mark and/or the quality of items, sticking to low tier ships (for example, max t4/t5) and other similar limitations, can really improve the challenge experience and the fun. Or, at least, this is what me and dozen of people have perceived in the past playing with such rules. Find a griup of players and/or friends to play with those rules and you can have fun without breaking the liver for the current meta-game exaggerations
pvp'er: hardcore pve'er, yay the need to stay competetive. check.
pvp'er: hardcore ingame investor, yay the need to stay competetive. check. (k's of bucks? anyone?)
Wrong. PvPers have always complained loudly about the need to stay competitive. They want to buy/grind one thing and have it remain the best forever. This very thread is full of PvPers complaining the game has too many things players "need" to invest time and/or money in.
lol?! exact, we complained. and yet we did keep up for years. did i imagine those k's of bucks? nope. do i know of many who invested fortunes in hope of pvp development? yep. did i imagine those overboarding pve-times due to stay competetive, in comparison to shrinking time for pvp? nope.
we kept up, we invested and we made many suggestions while we were hold on the short hand for years (improvements soon/tm)....
until all that creep and need was so overboarding and senseless that pvp died out up to totally.
because pvp should be about skill, not gear?
u know, it would be ok if there were choices (go this or that style) and some kind of balance between different styles. there aren't. at all. it's only about the fotm, exploiting it while it lasts and prepare for the nerf that comes with the next fotm...
such even isn't entertaining anymore, it's just sad. but i'm glad i learned to laugh on such lol...
Look folks for six years they have not done anything to be VP now they have two consul versions out not all been a lot of consul gamers love pvp with games like Star Wars battlefront, call of duty, battlefield, halo PVP content, etc. etc. etc. as much is you or some other people like not to face it PVP is a big thing and it actually is a huge moneymaker and is it coming to Star Trek online? Yes it's coming back why? because of PVP there a lot of people that will stay with the game they will be here for stories or winter events or summer events or any of that stupidity they are here for PVP.... now the PVP in this game as it stands is awful, they knew that .....they chose not to address it...... I blame gecko for that plain and simple ....but now with the release of the console versions most of those gamers while the game is pretty cool in the beginning and there are a lot of missions to do in the end it will come back to PVP..... and console gamers love their PVP so yes they'll have to address it will be overhaul the system the question is when? I suspect they probably won't address it until March of next year.... But I assure you it is coming... Trust me on that one.......Oh and one more thing the general consensus is that PVP is dead in this game I disagree with channels like organizedPVP (enter it just like that) and kerrat battles that happen all the time it's there.... It never went anywhere people love it and play it every day you just have to know where to go...The big problem is as I see it right now all these meatheads run around with their DPS builds how great they are but they seem to forget and I said it 500 times PvE builds do not work in PVP the meta-is totally different but hey listen they come in and gets murdered never come back nay way I digress
you don't get it.
NO. They're NOT going to address PvP. Doesn't really matter what happens with the consoles, because regardless of demand, nobody left at Cryptic even understands enough to get started at addressing PvP, dealing with the basic problems that have killed it as a viable community, and further, nobody at Cryptic is left who wants to learn how.
Their 'ace' systems guy (Borticus) doesn't comprehend what's wrong with uncounterable abilities. Seriously, listen to his interview with Timberwolf earlier this year-dude does not understand that adding a pay-only ability set that stacks and can't be countered except by another pay-only ability, both of which are for the most part isolated to a single branch of a single faction, is a bad idea in a game that is allegedly multi-faction. He also doesn't comprehend what could possibly be wrong with outright immune to damage abilities that can likewise be stacked back-to-back.
He doesn't get the idea that area-of-effect should not be stronger against single targets than higher-level single-target abilities.
basically fail on Mechanical balance.
so what about factional balance? yeah. Geko doesn't get that one. He doesn't get the idea that you don't strip abilities from a smaller portion of the playerbase to give to the larger portion and still maintain viable numbers in that smaller portion-if you're going to have factions, they need to be different. Closest he came was (quoting P1 from last year) "...we made the Romulans OP...on purpose".
Alright, so scenario balance...scenario balancing allows customization and a lot of powercreep while still providing objectively balanced matches-and balanced matches are critical to PVP viability. one-sided stomps are not fun for anyone that isn't already a douchebag, the PvP market tends to prefer fights that are...well...fights. That whole 'risk of losing' makes the win actually taste like something besides pointless grind.
tell me, have you seen any indication of a matchmaking system in STO since it was "just around the corner" in 2010?? hmmm?
nope, didn't think so. The guy who was working on that bit was fired in 2011.
with no replacement incoming.
FACT:
Geko, 2012, described his vision of a PvP player, as "...a fourteen year old min/maxer living in his mother's basement".
FACT. STO turns a profit, and has turned a profit since going F2P, solely reliant upon selling power through gambleboxes and similar promotions, no P2W game has ever had a healthy PvP community, and STO is purely Pay to Win by design-they sell power, that's their marketing strategy. It has lasted this long, because Star Trek fans will buy in just to keep the property open-which is the other half of the business plan, and why PvP will get zero development even with the Konsole Kids demanding it.
What will happen instead, is that they'll wait to publish the numbers until most of the people who want it, have left in disgust, then say they're "Servicing the majority" just as they have done on PC.
this is not a fight that can be won, it's not a fight that's worth fighting, sorry to tell ya, this is a battle that was lost in 2012, and it's not going to go any other way. Instead, what is going to happen, is that there will be a brief renaissance until they get all the goodies piled onto the console servers, then there will be another fast drop in PvP population, and even if it sets off alarms, it's not something anyone at Cryptic even has the capability, forget the willingness, to address.
its coming and by the way OP to hell with WOT armored warfare is soooo much a better game....you know it true
and why do I say its coming??? if nothing else its a revenue stream and when all the profits reach ahead and they want more ....because they will always want more someone with a ferengi face will stand up in the meeting and say one dollar is better than no dollar and right now that revenue stream is giving you no money at all so fix it and get something out of it even if its one dollar
Funny thing is. The balance is already there. What most people fail to realize is that the game is balanced. It's just balanced around three things. Here is the list of the three things the game is balanced around:
Level 40 Promotion Ships
The Skill Tree
Mk XII gear.
Any Mk XIII gear or higher. Any T5+ Ship. Any point spent in a specialization is stepping out the world of balance. While the they are in game. These are all for OP PvE. The game itself is not balanced around them.
This is why in another post I mentioned. Giving everyone a dual spec. A PvE Spec and a PvP Spec. Entering PvP should be a choice, no need to force the player. By electing to join a PvP match with this setup. You're electing to have all your PvE specializations, ships, and consoles disabled. You're electing to step in to a world where your personal skill will matter far more than your equipment.
So for this you balance it around three things. Ships, with preset stats and no traits. Of course divided in to the Escort, Cruiser, and Science Ships. The level 40 promotion ships would be a good start here. There are no epic consoles from bought ships or lockboxes. There are no fleet variants one can use. All you have is the standardized MK of the appropriate level for you, ground and space. At best I'd go UR on this.
Then you have your pvp skill tree and specialization. Which, can only be leveled through PvP.
Then from here I'd make the public queues give a reward, and private queues give no reward. This way, the public queues can still be run as teams. But those same teams can't get together to farm the rewards in a private queue. This leaves the private queues for the players to spar, test, and even run tournaments.
Then as you level up your pvp, it does open up higher tier ships and equipment. Though, all of them being basic stats and no extras. None of which can be bought with cash money. It all has to be earned through PvP.
Now the thing here is R&D. People are going to want to craft PvP Gear. Which this is not a bad thing. This just means, with the balanced out ships and equipment. Then the freebie stuff is all the same stat and mod wise. crafting PvP would be where the different PvP mods would come from. Which can be done for every Mk, just put a 20 hour timer on every piece. That way a Mk II and an MK XII piece take the same amount of time to make.
So lets say to do this, you make a faction PvP lobby. Everyone that goes here can look at ships and equipment. This is also where you adjust your PvP skill tree. I make this a free adjustment tree. That way, players are free to toy around with it.
Then it just a matter of balancing it. Which for this, I'd give the players a queue selection for entering the lobby. Since level 10 is basically the starting point for the game. Set that as the minimum to enter. Then allow the players to queue for every 10 levels, i.e. 10, 20, 30, 40, etc. Then scale them to the appropriate level. This way if a level 60 player, queues for a level 10 match. The level 60 player is scaled back to a level 10 ship, skill tree, and specialization. Of course you could just scale everyone up to level 60.
This then separates PvE and PvP. Allowing the PvE to remain as unbalanced and broken as the players love it. But offering balanced PvP to the players as well. The only problem here is that Cryptic will need to ignore those that cry and complain about not being able to throw their wallets at PvP. The only thing I'd offer in the Z store for PvP is exp boosters.
I just really like the bolded bit.
I'd pay for that.
Wonder how hard it would be to get that feature programmed.
Not that it would bring back the devastated PvP community. Pretty sure its shrank about 75% since the release of DR.
It might help the Console PvP players not bleed numbers like has been seen on PC, "IF" they could get it out within a year or two.
They don't have much more time then that though, before PvP is a disaster on both PC and Console.
pvp'er: hardcore pve'er, yay the need to stay competetive. check.
pvp'er: hardcore ingame investor, yay the need to stay competetive. check. (k's of bucks? anyone?)
Wrong. PvPers have always complained loudly about the need to stay competitive. They want to buy/grind one thing and have it remain the best forever. This very thread is full of PvPers complaining the game has too many things players "need" to invest time and/or money in.
lol?! exact, we complained. and yet we did keep up for years. did i imagine those k's of bucks? nope. do i know of many who invested fortunes in hope of pvp development? yep. did i imagine those overboarding pve-times due to stay competetive, in comparison to shrinking time for pvp? nope.
we kept up, we invested and we made many suggestions while we were hold on the short hand for years (improvements soon/tm)....
until all that creep and need was so overboarding and senseless that pvp died out up to totally.
because pvp should be about skill, not gear?
u know, it would be ok if there were choices (go this or that style) and some kind of balance between different styles. there aren't. at all. it's only about the fotm, exploiting it while it lasts and prepare for the nerf that comes with the next fotm...
such even isn't entertaining anymore, it's just sad. but i'm glad i learned to laugh on such lol...
I think if console is successful, PvP will expand because console is built for PvP. If you look at WoT and WoT console, WoT console has become it own separate entity. It even has tanks that the PC doesn't get.
Balance wise, it could be done pretty easily just by tweaking the existing engine, they could figure out a way to do it over night if it became a priority for Cryptic, which it inevitably will when they go searching for new revenues.
Why on Earth would anyone want the problems from WOT to infect this game? I wasn't going to say this, but, every time someone complains about STO being pay to win, unbalanced, or having a volatile community, I laugh and think "They should try WOT if they want to see a game that REALLY has those problems". STO and WOT are vastly different games, and it should stay that way. (Unless, of course, the folks at WOT want to fix things.) If you love WOT, then with all due respect, STO may not be for you. I've played WOT, and STO is better on so many levels. From what I've seen, (although there are exceptions) PVP brings out competitiveness and the worst in people, PVE brings out cooperation and things like mutual respect and friendship. I am sorry that not everyone is getting what they want from STO, but there are many of us who do not want STO to emphasize PVP.
I actually agree that you need to separate how you work abilities for pve content, and pvp content with separate stats. You don't really play pve or pvp content the same, since a nerf or buff to make something usable in pve or pvp context can make it either overpowered/underpowered in the other area. As suh using separate stats makes you able to freely balance each area of these two types of content without fear of how it affects the other area.
Now I can definitely see where the devs could make a good system that works off a single stat system that governs how abilities work in both pve an pvp content, but in the end over the course of several rounds of buffing/nerfing sessions that system might not hold up as well in the balance deparment. Even if it would take a ton of work to rework the system into a dual stat system, which could be done where it literally has abilities check what type of map you are in (pve or pvp) for what stats they use, but in the end I think that work would fair better an cause less issues in the long run as well as allow the two sets of content to be more balanced overall. As a buff to one ability in a single stat system in pve or pvp, very well could make that same ability overpowered in the other content, and then result in a nerf that makes it underpowered/unviable later on to reduce its power.
Dual stat is NOT A POSSIBILITY...at ALL. They PHYSICALLY do not have the dev power to do it...nor do you all bring in enough money to warrant them hiring new devs to do it. At best, you can hope for options in PvP to disble thing like traits...but why would they? That would cut into their profits. The only way both PvP players AND cryptic can make out on this is if they spend just a bit of time to make PvP only ships and sell them in the c-store. But no, those of you who claim that you guys were the ones who supported this game balks at spending just a FRACTION of the money that many of us PvE people have spent into out ships to support an aspect of the game you CLAIM you love. Well obviously not. You all failed...miserably at supporting the game monetarily and continue to do so. So yeah...failures all around.
Not possible? Have you seen on the gear we have now where it says "Has X% against NPCs and HalfX% against players?" That's dual stats. Plus PvP mods are already in game. Have been since they implemented PvP. With all this being in game. It's matter of changing the hard code in to two different sets. One for PvE and one for PvP. This is mainly for maps. Just so the game knows, "This player has entered a PvP area, deactivate all PvE items/abilties and activate all PvP items/abilities."
Yes, a few items have dual stats currently. A left over from when they actually thought that PvP was a good idea and not full of players who only cared about themselves and could care less if what they suggested burned the PvE community to the ground. Dual stat doesn't mean a few items...it means EVERY SINGLE ITEM AND POWER in this game. No, they do not have the time to do that...they really don't. And think well, if they only adjust this or that, once again, you are NOT INTERESTING IN FIXING PvP if you are thinking that way. You are only interested in adjusting it to whatever your powerlevel is with whatever abilities you use.
"Who only cared about themselves" I think that's rich, considering any nerfs suggested to devs by the pvp community were loudly protested by PvE players trying to protect their DPS scores.
What could be more selfish than players who know they are using op abilities and consoles, trying to protect their personal DPS records from a board wipe ?
With all due respect, "Burned PvE to the ground" ?
I think its more fitting to say PvE powercreep, and the DPS channels insatiable taste for higher scores, led to PvP eventually being cast to the side, ignored and burned to the ground through a non stop tsunami of powercreep.
Please explain, how PvP burned PvE to the ground when we've never seen higher DPS scores in game ?
What actually burned to the ground ?
I think you're over exaggerating. Greatly.
Which is fine, but lets be accurate at least.
This game could be so much better if it had PVP like world of tanks. I play that game and its pretty exciting. This game is not exciting at all like WOT. You just do the same PVE over and over and over SIGH.
regards
I love WOT. I can sometimes sneak up on the enemy and blast them to hell even if my tank sucks compared to them.
Just like every prior staffer who actually invested any time or effort in dealing with PvP.
(top three departures:
Gozer-Cryptic Dev 2009 to 2011, was the assigned "PvP developer", was fired.
Branflakes-Community Manager, worked with player-led "PvP Bootcamp" initiative, frequenter of Ker'rat (both fed and KDF), gone for personal reasons, replaced by Smirk, who did a savage job of cutting ties not only to PvP but the entire Playerbase as well. Smirk was followed by Trendy, who managed to restore some credibility to Cryptic staff.)
AdjudicatorHawk-Systems/mechanics guy, referenced in Brian334's post. Departed roughly 30 days after mentioning a conversation with Geko about rebalancing Tactical Beam powers. This was in the MIDDLE of the project described by Brian334's post.
the Gozerian works for Ubisoft now. I've yet to see any reason to believe he was fired. Or anything else that contradicts his farewell address where he said he'd found a "unique opportunity" that he wanted.
Bran was pretty similar in that he'd found something he considered a better job and took it.
How long has it been since hawk left? I don't remember hearing about that one...
I actually agree that you need to separate how you work abilities for pve content, and pvp content with separate stats. You don't really play pve or pvp content the same, since a nerf or buff to make something usable in pve or pvp context can make it either overpowered/underpowered in the other area. As suh using separate stats makes you able to freely balance each area of these two types of content without fear of how it affects the other area.
Now I can definitely see where the devs could make a good system that works off a single stat system that governs how abilities work in both pve an pvp content, but in the end over the course of several rounds of buffing/nerfing sessions that system might not hold up as well in the balance deparment. Even if it would take a ton of work to rework the system into a dual stat system, which could be done where it literally has abilities check what type of map you are in (pve or pvp) for what stats they use, but in the end I think that work would fair better an cause less issues in the long run as well as allow the two sets of content to be more balanced overall. As a buff to one ability in a single stat system in pve or pvp, very well could make that same ability overpowered in the other content, and then result in a nerf that makes it underpowered/unviable later on to reduce its power.
Dual stat is NOT A POSSIBILITY...at ALL. They PHYSICALLY do not have the dev power to do it...nor do you all bring in enough money to warrant them hiring new devs to do it. At best, you can hope for options in PvP to disble thing like traits...but why would they? That would cut into their profits. The only way both PvP players AND cryptic can make out on this is if they spend just a bit of time to make PvP only ships and sell them in the c-store. But no, those of you who claim that you guys were the ones who supported this game balks at spending just a FRACTION of the money that many of us PvE people have spent into out ships to support an aspect of the game you CLAIM you love. Well obviously not. You all failed...miserably at supporting the game monetarily and continue to do so. So yeah...failures all around.
Okay first off chill out on trying to label what people are, based on their suggestions. I am not just a pvper or a pver, as I do both an so I am a gamer. An yeah honesty you can call all of us failures, both the pvp an pve player as we together could not be profitable enough to keep the game from going f2p lets not forget that, which has lead to the power creep issue that is quite wide spread. Also don't try an say how much money someone else has spent on the game, as it makes you look petty or at least really moronic as you don't know how much money I have spent. Also to say myself I have actually purchased quite a lot of things from the c-store, and very well could rival many of the pver crowd for purchases i am sure. Also I have seen far more pve players scoff at the idea of having spend any money on the game, and honestly find it weird they would need to support the game at all, so lets not paint the pve crowd as some great group of players that al support this game. It is a very much smaller portion of the playerbase of either side that actually support the game with their purchases for the larger majority of players that leech off that support (pve and pvp alike).
Also I agree that it would take a lot of work an effort to create/rework the current system into a dual system, but that in the end that could very well save time as well with having less conflicts fromt nerfing an buffings later on. Also this would be the best time to try an create such a system as many console players are more leaning towards the pvp side of things than they once had been, while pc players are more of the pve an rp side of things by most accounts.
Wow...the I am a gamer tag. If you play PvP for that game, you are a PvPer for that game. So...yeah, you are a PvPer. We are ALL gamers here dumb ****...doesn't matter if we decide to PvP or not.
As for the game going F2P, I don't consider that a failure because as a sub game, I would never have played this game. Nor do I consider the rampant power creep a failure at this point. The game is aimed at getting money from casual gamers...who in this case have deep pockets being that they will generally be older as trek fans are...compared to gamers in general. People who can't even do 1k DPS in a scimmy. Power creep to get their money isn't a failure of the system because it makes them money. The moment that the DPS folks becomes toxic to the general community and affecting actual game play for these folks will there be a failure...but as much as I **** and moan about their attitude, I will say that they have not done this yet. So yes...no failure here...they are making oodles of money...and the average player is happy. You PvP folks failed...because I know for a fact that at least one person (me) was driven away by you guys. The DPS folks...even SD who I absolutely dislike ain't even remotely on close what you guys were in your haydays.
Finally, it doesn't matter what you spend...unless it's in the MILLIONS, because it is ultimately the total of EVERYONE that matters. You spent 1k...but your attitudes and constant nerfs to science made 20k players stop playing. Well...guess what, what you spent doesn't make up for players lost. They have the numbers. They know what your demands to them all did...and they obviously did not like it. You guys as a whole do not bring in enough money...doesn't matter what you personally do. And like I said, you all (as in general you PvP folks...not you personally) balks at spending just a bit to keep that part of the game feasable...so like I said, you all can rot in the hell you created...because they ain't wasting resources on what you say you will do when you don't do it afterwards (once again general PvP folks...because what you as an individual does is meaningless to them).
Well that first part lets just agree to disagree there. As I have always played more pve content (75-80% of my playtime is pve based) than pvp content (even at the height of pvp in sto I only played about 25% of my time in pvp content) that I played, and so by most accounts I am not a pvper at all an more of a pver even by other pvper standards. I might enjoy pvping an so I do want to have an enjoyable experience when I do, so i keep an interest in topics on making suggestions n changes to improve pvp just like pve topics. Also just as you know you were driven off my pvper, I know of many players that came over to sto from games I played with them, and then left from attitudes they found within the community that just ruined their own experience.
Though I will say most of my suggestions are focused towards first getting it that pvp an pve are not joined at the hip, since changes/balances to either are not going to mesh well an cause hostility, but a seperation of the systems so that a change to one side cant affect the other actually allows both sides to enjoy their game without hampering the other. To me even at the beginning when changes were being asked that should have been first an foremost asked for, as you can't expect a single system to actually function well when the two types of content are so different in their needs.
The height of PvP was when people could grind PvP for rewards.... lack of rewards means lack of interest.
Yup that is an issue with any content, once the rewards are gained, the interest wanes for all but the most devote. Though I would hope if they put in some rewards in for pvp, that they are not pvp-specific, like pvp gear that has stats that are largely useless outside of pvp, but more of universal use through out the game. Would lvoe to see them make some sub-factions that are linked to pvp areas in game, which you gain favor/rep with thru pvp done in those areas, and have rewards you can gain via those actions in a method like reps are for pve.
until all that creep and need was so overboarding and senseless that pvp died out up to totally.
because pvp should be about skill, not gear?
Why?
ok, once more i gonna bite:
have you ever played a game in the real world (like chess, monopoly, table-tennis, soccer, whatnot...) where the odds in the start haven't been even? like all soccerplayers having a head, a torso, 2 arms and 2 legs? or everyone starts monopoly with the same ammount of money?
same goes for pvp in video-games. the more even the odds in the start, the more it gets close to something called fairness. if i get into a pvp match in sto the odds are far from being even. ungeared newbies face overgeared vets and get roflstomped. once it was possible to close the gap in knowledge and gear, but it had become totally senseless to try to keep up, due to ridicoulus op stuff added on and on. stuff that barely impacted pve (ionic f.e.), but kinda wrecked pvp.
reffering on topic, i play WoWs now for like a year. it's WG stuff as well and from what i took in this year, i would wish cryptic would go their way, and if only the slightest. over there i can take a silvership and just can be competetive as in a gold ship (scharnhorst/gneisenau as prefect example imo).
indeed their model is just one way pvp may could see a revival. preset ships, disabled meta-stuff via pve/pvp gearfilters (like doffs, mods on gear, set bonusses, box-boff-abilities, box-traits, epic becomes green but stays mk xiv, whatnot), wg model, total different server, filtered zones on one server, leaderboard based matchmaking, whatnot....
it all has been discussed more than a k times btw, one can look it all up in the "echo-chamber" (quote from, i guess, bort?!) called pvp subforum.
The height of PvP was when people could grind PvP for rewards.... lack of rewards means lack of interest.
Yup that is an issue with any content, once the rewards are gained, the interest wanes for all but the most devote. Though I would hope if they put in some rewards in for pvp, that they are not pvp-specific, like pvp gear that has stats that are largely useless outside of pvp, but more of universal use through out the game. Would lvoe to see them make some sub-factions that are linked to pvp areas in game, which you gain favor/rep with thru pvp done in those areas, and have rewards you can gain via those actions in a method like reps are for pve.
Actually, it was dil that was the reward back when I actually bothered with it.
The height of PvP was when people could grind PvP for rewards.... lack of rewards means lack of interest.
Yup that is an issue with any content, once the rewards are gained, the interest wanes for all but the most devote. Though I would hope if they put in some rewards in for pvp, that they are not pvp-specific, like pvp gear that has stats that are largely useless outside of pvp, but more of universal use through out the game. Would lvoe to see them make some sub-factions that are linked to pvp areas in game, which you gain favor/rep with thru pvp done in those areas, and have rewards you can gain via those actions in a method like reps are for pve.
The PvP rewards were rightly nerfed because of how they were structured and what that structure let abusive types do.
Here's how it worked...
PvP used to have more wrappers that offered Fleetmarks. Now to put this into perspective, at the time, 50 FM was significant. They also had a short cooldown for this, you could back-to-back them pretty easily and the daily rewarded MORE.
At the time, FM were a new thing, we didn't have Reputations. That's how long ago this was.
So...here's what people were doing.
Five guys set up a Private. Four of them would unequip their shields and engines and park on the Arena map. Guy Five would then blow them up until 15 kills were achieved. The Ground version had everyone taking off their personal shields and armor, stand in a group, while an engineer would then drop turrets and orbital bombardment or a Tac would grenade them until they got 30 kills. Rinse/repeat three times, wait 5 minutes for the cooldown, repeat the process except on the dailies.
This was being done via in-game chat channels to arrange it, or with fleet chat channels-it didn't work in the PuGs queues.
It was the very definition of an exploit, and people were exploiting it mercilessly-racking up the same dilithium awards you would at the time have had to play an ELITE STF to build up too-only the STF's were averaging fifteen minutes, and this cycle people were using, took about five to reach completion (that is, three private matches back to back done the way I described.)
Cryptic first removed ALL rewards, then filtered them back to roughly what we have today.
Why did this happen?
Because the reward was the exact same whether you won or lost, so throwing the match was a viable strategy to get the reward.
Throwing hte match is STILL a viable method now, just that the rewards aren't worth the hassle of setting up the private matches.
at the time this happened, there was, believe it or not, a mild shitstorm on the forums over it, because the "Minimum Effort/maximum reward" crowd got their ox gored-and had to go back to AFK'ing the STFs for fifteen minutes a pop in the Pug queues to rack up their dilithium-which in turn led to the present AFK penalties.
see how it all works?
Okay, now...the PVP community actually had several proposals and suggestions before Cryptic dropped the hammer to stem this while not removing any incentive for people to try it.
Leading Suggestions:
1. Win/loss scaling. This was popular with the PvP crowd, esp. among hte hardcores, but had weak to no support among the Casual PvPers that at the time, made up the bulk of who you met in the Pug Queue and/or in Ker'rat.
2. Link rewards to Pugging-that is, block all rewards from Private matches. This was what a few of us "Casual" type PvP players often recommended, along with the dedicated Puggers. Simply put, the exploit I just described got a lot harder to do, if you couldn't reliably put together a bunch who'd throw the match three times reliably.
3. Hybrids. Lots of people suggested some hybrid arrangement based on 1 and 2, everything from "Win/loss scaling linked only public matches" to "Scaling rewards based on how CLOSE the match is, and blocking private matches from rewards" (My personal favorite, I read the OP on it and took it up as a personal crusade for about six months...then delta rising hit.)
Cryptic's answer was to keep the structure pretty much the same abusable mess it was when they recognized the problem, but nerf the rewards to the point of worthlessness.
possibly it was too much work, possibly nobody at Cryptic had a grasp on how to do it, likely some combination of both.
point being, while Cryptic designed a reward structure that begged to be abused, it was the fact of players recognizing this and abusing the **** out of it as to why PvP now offers...
damn near nothing for rewards. Honestly, and the wrappers were put on a long cooldown, so even the miniscule ones offered take days to become available.
Oh yeah I remember those, and honestly seen it in so many other games I have played. An that is true of any system if it is exploitable, or the easiest/fastest to gain something it will be done. Hell look at the case of pve ques most of the actual difficult ones are just not played as the easier ones pay the same amount of rewards for less effort/time, and since there is no unique stf-specific rewards people flock to the path of least effort. Hell look at the supposed exploit with Argala that was happening at the start of the Delta expansion. They have a record of doing that nerfing anything that both pays out more than they feel is warranted, and is being abused, and proceeding to nerf it into the ground before buffing it up to where they feel is warranted.
I hate the idea of having only one type of reward we get for content, and I think that is more of the issue. I mean when all you are going to get from a pvp or pve content is marks ang/or dil you need to keep those amounts gained high for players to feel it is worth their time, while if you have other rewards that are not just dil/marks you can keep the amount gained of the dil/marks lower an still appeal to players. Hence the idea of actually having many sub-factions you work with, and work like pve reps would, think like the Maquis against the cardassians.
I actually agree that a system of both scaling the rewards gained on win/loss, maybe even by how close the match was would be nice, and the idea of not blocking rewards for private matches but merely make the rewards less than pugging. Though I prefer style of matches that are based on capture points, zone control, and other such styles that would give you more variables to judge the reward payout for a match by.
until all that creep and need was so overboarding and senseless that pvp died out up to totally.
because pvp should be about skill, not gear?
Why?
ok, once more i gonna bite:
have you ever played a game in the real world (like chess, monopoly, table-tennis, soccer, whatnot...) where the odds in the start haven't been even? like all soccerplayers having a head, a torso, 2 arms and 2 legs? or everyone starts monopoly with the same ammount of money?
same goes for pvp in video-games. the more even the odds in the start, the more it gets close to something called fairness. if i get into a pvp match in sto the odds are far from being even. ungeared newbies face overgeared vets and get roflstomped. once it was possible to close the gap in knowledge and gear, but it had become totally senseless to try to keep up, due to ridicoulus op stuff added on and on. stuff that barely impacted pve (ionic f.e.), but kinda wrecked pvp.
reffering on topic, i play WoWs now for like a year. it's WG stuff as well and from what i took in this year, i would wish cryptic would go their way, and if only the slightest. over there i can take a silvership and just can be competetive as in a gold ship (scharnhorst/gneisenau as prefect example imo).
indeed their model is just one way pvp may could see a revival. preset ships, disabled meta-stuff via pve/pvp gearfilters (like doffs, mods on gear, set bonusses, box-boff-abilities, box-traits, epic becomes green but stays mk xiv, whatnot), wg model, total different server, filtered zones on one server, leaderboard based matchmaking, whatnot....
it all has been discussed more than a k times btw, one can look it all up in the "echo-chamber" (quote from, i guess, bort?!) called pvp subforum.
Ever play TCGs? Magic the Gathering for example? You're playing human opponents so it's PvP right?
There is no way that MTG will ever have a level playing field. Why? because the decks used are created by the players. And to paraphrase Sun-Tzu, pre-combat prep is what determines whether you win or lose a fight. Taking the prep out of PvP would probably HURT more than help.
I actually agree that a system of both scaling the rewards gained on win/loss, maybe even by how close the match was would be nice, and the idea of not blocking rewards for private matches but merely make the rewards less than pugging. Though I prefer style of matches that are based on capture points, zone control, and other such styles that would give you more variables to judge the reward payout for a match by.
Nah.... if you want newbies to throw down against vets you need a system where the newbies get a substantial reward even if they get curbstomped.
until all that creep and need was so overboarding and senseless that pvp died out up to totally.
because pvp should be about skill, not gear?
Why?
ok, once more i gonna bite:
have you ever played a game in the real world (like chess, monopoly, table-tennis, soccer, whatnot...) where the odds in the start haven't been even? like all soccerplayers having a head, a torso, 2 arms and 2 legs? or everyone starts monopoly with the same ammount of money?
same goes for pvp in video-games. the more even the odds in the start, the more it gets close to something called fairness. if i get into a pvp match in sto the odds are far from being even. ungeared newbies face overgeared vets and get roflstomped. once it was possible to close the gap in knowledge and gear, but it had become totally senseless to try to keep up, due to ridicoulus op stuff added on and on. stuff that barely impacted pve (ionic f.e.), but kinda wrecked pvp.
reffering on topic, i play WoWs now for like a year. it's WG stuff as well and from what i took in this year, i would wish cryptic would go their way, and if only the slightest. over there i can take a silvership and just can be competetive as in a gold ship (scharnhorst/gneisenau as prefect example imo).
indeed their model is just one way pvp may could see a revival. preset ships, disabled meta-stuff via pve/pvp gearfilters (like doffs, mods on gear, set bonusses, box-boff-abilities, box-traits, epic becomes green but stays mk xiv, whatnot), wg model, total different server, filtered zones on one server, leaderboard based matchmaking, whatnot....
it all has been discussed more than a k times btw, one can look it all up in the "echo-chamber" (quote from, i guess, bort?!) called pvp subforum.
Ever play TCGs? Magic the Gathering for example? You're playing human opponents so it's PvP right?
There is no way that MTG will ever have a level playing field. Why? because the decks used are created by the players. And to paraphrase Sun-Tzu, pre-combat prep is what determines whether you win or lose a fight. Taking the prep out of PvP would probably HURT more than help.
oh yeah i do.... and in magic there used to be counters released just with new stuff as well, at least when i played it. common cards sometimes did beat the most rare cards and so on.
u won't find such in sto. even the counters to some abilities only barely or even are non existing at all.
one could say magic has (or had? not played it for a long time) a level ground in terms of balance. it at least provides certain borders within players can act, while in sto it's all just over the edges since ages.
(sidenote: even in nowadays fps's u can choose between different gear. but mostly those are slight choices, not gamebreaking ones like in sto)
indeed one may find such style in roundbased interactive games, if video or not. but in realtime action i can't barely think of any example in that style, and that's what sto pvp is. nevertheless u're kinda right and there're quite some parallels between sto and magic (deckbuild/shipbuild), though magic goes for balance. sto does not, while under the realtime aspect the impact of lacking balance even maybe is quite more heavy.
one of the many ideas regarding sto pvp i dropped here. it would adress what u call prep, as well as the stream of revenue, as well as a shift back to balance:
note: it's just a quick thought and not the holy grail to me or such. it's an idea, nothing more nothing less. so anyone may not make more out of it, than it is to me lol :rolleyes:...
oh yeah i do.... and in magic there used to be counters released just with new stuff as well, at least when i played it. common cards sometimes did beat the most rare cards and so on.
u won't find such in sto. even the counters to some abilities only barely or even are non existing at all.
one could say magic has (or had? not played it for a long time) a level ground in terms of balance. it at least provides certain borders within players can act, while in sto it's all just over the edges since ages.
indeed one may find such style in roundbased interactive games, if video or not. but in realtime action i can't barely think of any example in that style, and that's what sto pvp is. nevertheless u're kinda right and there're quite some parallels between sto and magic (deckbuild/shipbuild), though magic goes for balance. sto does not, while under the realtime aspect the impact of lacking balance even maybe is quite more heavy.
Cards in MTG are balanced at least in part based on rarity. thus the more expensive cards tend to be simply better than the cheap easy to get cards. This of course tends to make the decks that use expensive stuff "better" than the others. Sure, you might be able to make a nice build that uses cheap cards and have it be effective... but most of the time it's a build that would be better if it used expensive stuff. Why? $$$... the makers of the game want you to spend a lot of money not just a little bit.
First, I want to say that WoT is only P2W between otherwise equal opponents. I have only played free, (I even got 3500 gold from attending a player gathering, which is still in my bank,) and for a time I held 600- something place in win average and 400th in kill per game. I routinely destroyed unkillable gold tanks, and with a win rate in the high 50s and 60s for most of my career since closed beta, I have been Matchmaker's bi.tch the whole time, fighting in the lowest tier of most matches with a three or four tier spread.
In WoT, knowledge, timing, and aggression win over gold tanks and ammo.
There is a fundamental flaw in any attempts by players to even the PvP field by limiting gear and tier: Passives.
The captain who climbs the skill tree faster is in a dominant position because he not only has a greater range of active abilities from which to choose, he also has many more passive abilities which are available to him and not his less skilled opponent. Even when both captains are Level 60 and have identically equipped ships, the older toon, (game hours, not date of creation,) has an advantage.
There is already a level-matching mechanism in game so that players of different levels can share a PvE session. Abilities such as are gained via Reputation grinding and Specialization were created after this feature had been in game for years, and yet it does not reduce or otherwise affect the many passive abilities characters acquire via these systems.
Simply allowing the level-matching system already in place to work on these abilities will create a level playing field. Thus, if players choose to participate in Tier 3 matches with Level 60 captains, they will lose every ability not accessible to the Levels 20-29 crowd for those matches. Naturally, the matches will have to be tiered for this to work.
I propose the following divisions,
Lieutenant (if character is over level 29, set to level 20 for the match)
Lieutenant Commander (if over level 39, set to level 30 for the match)
Commander (if over level 49, set to 40)
Captain (if over 59, set to 50)
Commodore (Level 60, less than 1 spcialization tree worth of points)*
Admiral (Level 60, more than 1 specialization tree worth of points)*
Unlimited (any tier or rank, as it is now)
* based on experience points, not actual points assigned to any one tree. It takes something like 30 spec points to fill a spec tree, but I forget how many exp to earn a spec point.
Next, PvPers like to see their rankings compared to others. Many types of leaderboards can be implemented, and many types of tournaments can be held so that players can identify their rivals and work to rise in the ranks.
Finally, PuGs and Premades should have different queues, with a chat channel dedicated to each division, to allow coordination of teams and matches or to allow a team to quickly find a fifth when an expected player doesn't show.
This can be done. It will only work if Cryptic can monetize it, and this is where this idea, and most others fall flat. Player retention has already been rejected by Cryptic as a valid reason to invest man hours in PvP, so we need to devise a means for Cryptic to quickly realize a return on their investment.
One way to monetize it is to hold tournaments, offering both sweet prizes and swag to entice players to purchase the nominally priced Tournament Entry Token. Quarterly events timed to coincide with school breaks would offer both goals toward which a player can aspire, and income for Cryptic.
How would you pay for the time it takes Cryptic to fix PvP?
until all that creep and need was so overboarding and senseless that pvp died out up to totally.
because pvp should be about skill, not gear?
Why?
ok, once more i gonna bite:
have you ever played a game in the real world (like chess, monopoly, table-tennis, soccer, whatnot...) where the odds in the start haven't been even? like all soccerplayers having a head, a torso, 2 arms and 2 legs? or everyone starts monopoly with the same ammount of money?
same goes for pvp in video-games. the more even the odds in the start, the more it gets close to something called fairness. if i get into a pvp match in sto the odds are far from being even. ungeared newbies face overgeared vets and get roflstomped. once it was possible to close the gap in knowledge and gear, but it had become totally senseless to try to keep up, due to ridicoulus op stuff added on and on. stuff that barely impacted pve (ionic f.e.), but kinda wrecked pvp.
I've played many video games where the results are mostly determined by what gear (or other resources) you have. Even ones where the result is 100% determined by gear with maybe a little RNG thrown in for flavor. It has nothing to do with fairness, everyone's free to buy/grind the same stuff. And obviously there's always a bigger fish, always someone who has more stuff or better stuff (assuming the game hasn't gone so stale people run out of stuff to get), but that's just life.
indeed one may find such style in roundbased interactive games, if video or not. but in realtime action i can't barely think of any example in that style, and that's what sto pvp is. nevertheless u're kinda right and there're quite some parallels between sto and magic (deckbuild/shipbuild), though magic goes for balance. sto does not, while under the realtime aspect the impact of lacking balance even maybe is quite more heavy.
Except STO is not "realtime action," it's an RPG. That it favors gear and character advancement over reflex gameplay is no surprise at all.
oh yeah i do.... and in magic there used to be counters released just with new stuff as well, at least when i played it. common cards sometimes did beat the most rare cards and so on.
u won't find such in sto. even the counters to some abilities only barely or even are non existing at all.
one could say magic has (or had? not played it for a long time) a level ground in terms of balance. it at least provides certain borders within players can act, while in sto it's all just over the edges since ages.
indeed one may find such style in roundbased interactive games, if video or not. but in realtime action i can't barely think of any example in that style, and that's what sto pvp is. nevertheless u're kinda right and there're quite some parallels between sto and magic (deckbuild/shipbuild), though magic goes for balance. sto does not, while under the realtime aspect the impact of lacking balance even maybe is quite more heavy.
Cards in MTG are balanced at least in part based on rarity. thus the more expensive cards tend to be simply better than the cheap easy to get cards. This of course tends to make the decks that use expensive stuff "better" than the others. Sure, you might be able to make a nice build that uses cheap cards and have it be effective... but most of the time it's a build that would be better if it used expensive stuff. Why? $$$... the makers of the game want you to spend a lot of money not just a little bit.
dunno in particular how it progressed in the last ten years, but as i said, when i played the stuff used to get released with counters. and those not necessarily in the same rarity.
also the good stuff used to stay good. f.e. i think of combos like netling imp and royal assasin (if i recall right). nightmare and rock hydra are other creatures instantly coming to mind. though 3 of those 4 have been rare up to very rare i can't imagine they won't be useful in nowadays meta (played occassionaly some matches in the last years due to my lil brothers still playing). even a rock hydra could fell to a terror (?! no idea if the names are right, but u get the picture ;D...)
in sto top stuff gets neglected with every new release. they always drop a cherry on top, while in that image other pvp games rather drop cherries in different colours on the side of the existing cherries and so widening the base, not building up the pile.
again i gotta think of WoWs and scharnhorst and gneisenau. scharnhorst (gold) introduced a new playstyle in comparison, but it hardly is an i win button. one needs to know how to shake that thing to play her effective.
same goes for gneisenau (silver). it lacks the firepower of many competetors (just as scharnhorst), but other ups make her competetive and quite effective if played out right.
again, u won't find such in sto. if one just stacks immunities on and on u can bring whatever u want. he'll just wait for certain i win combos cd's and gonna blow u into oblivion, so better bring everything u can afford. btw, some of the combos rely on uncounterable things, so u can't counter em at all... with nothing... it's not about what u could've brought, it doesn't matter. there's no counter, back to spawn meeeh ...
until all that creep and need was so overboarding and senseless that pvp died out up to totally.
because pvp should be about skill, not gear?
Why?
ok, once more i gonna bite:
have you ever played a game in the real world (like chess, monopoly, table-tennis, soccer, whatnot...) where the odds in the start haven't been even? like all soccerplayers having a head, a torso, 2 arms and 2 legs? or everyone starts monopoly with the same ammount of money?
same goes for pvp in video-games. the more even the odds in the start, the more it gets close to something called fairness. if i get into a pvp match in sto the odds are far from being even. ungeared newbies face overgeared vets and get roflstomped. once it was possible to close the gap in knowledge and gear, but it had become totally senseless to try to keep up, due to ridicoulus op stuff added on and on. stuff that barely impacted pve (ionic f.e.), but kinda wrecked pvp.
I've played many video games where the results are mostly determined by what gear (or other resources) you have. Even ones where the result is 100% determined by gear with maybe a little RNG thrown in for flavor. It has nothing to do with fairness, everyone's free to buy/grind the same stuff. And obviously there's always a bigger fish, always someone who has more stuff or better stuff (assuming the game hasn't gone so stale people run out of stuff to get), but that's just life.
indeed one may find such style in roundbased interactive games, if video or not. but in realtime action i can't barely think of any example in that style, and that's what sto pvp is. nevertheless u're kinda right and there're quite some parallels between sto and magic (deckbuild/shipbuild), though magic goes for balance. sto does not, while under the realtime aspect the impact of lacking balance even maybe is quite more heavy.
Except STO is not "realtime action," it's an RPG. That it favors gear and character advancement over reflex gameplay is no surprise at all.
This is not a shooter game.
and how many of those games have been pvp games? like when u face a real enemy? like on every chessboard, tenniscourt or soccerfield?
also i talked about sto pvp.... that sto is an rpg i heard some times. just as well it is an mmo.... oh wait, ever heard of mmorpg lol?... all these terms have been used to describe sto over the years. i'm really not interested what terms leads the ladder now, but i can tell u one thing:
sto PvP(!) is realtimeaction. no matter the frame is set by something like a rpg, the action itself plays like a shooter, feels like a shooter and is set up like a shooter...
indeed playerskill and reaction used to distinct good from bad players in sto pvp when i started with. the most of a problem has been knowledge about mechanics and shipbuilding for newbies. but once set up halfway decent one could determine the outcome of a fight ONLY by skill!....
this declined more and more with every new release, gear and addon wise.
btw: afaik the term realtime action comes from strategy genre. i used it in here to distinct it from round based games, like f.e. magic. because, no matter if pve or pvp, sto kinda is realtime action...
Comments
Wrong. PvPers have always complained loudly about the need to stay competitive. They want to buy/grind one thing and have it remain the best forever. This very thread is full of PvPers complaining the game has too many things players "need" to invest time and/or money in.
Without doing too much drama, even if I'm angry about what happened to STO PvP year after year, STO is not a PvP game anymore, sadly. The mechanics involved into ships, traits, abilities, multipliers, etc... are, at the moment, beyond repair and completely out of control PvP-wise.
It used to be REALLY FUN to play in PvP, not now. Easy. Play PvP in another game and come playing PvE here.
The truth is STO would be one of the best PvP game with a careful management, but the developers have chosen another path during the years.
If you really want to do PvP on STO, limit yourself. I mean, like in the old BS Tournaments or the recent Vanilla experiments, limiting the mark and/or the quality of items, sticking to low tier ships (for example, max t4/t5) and other similar limitations, can really improve the challenge experience and the fun. Or, at least, this is what me and dozen of people have perceived in the past playing with such rules. Find a griup of players and/or friends to play with those rules and you can have fun without breaking the liver for the current meta-game exaggerations
lol?! exact, we complained. and yet we did keep up for years. did i imagine those k's of bucks? nope. do i know of many who invested fortunes in hope of pvp development? yep. did i imagine those overboarding pve-times due to stay competetive, in comparison to shrinking time for pvp? nope.
we kept up, we invested and we made many suggestions while we were hold on the short hand for years (improvements soon/tm)....
until all that creep and need was so overboarding and senseless that pvp died out up to totally.
because pvp should be about skill, not gear?
u know, it would be ok if there were choices (go this or that style) and some kind of balance between different styles. there aren't. at all. it's only about the fotm, exploiting it while it lasts and prepare for the nerf that comes with the next fotm...
such even isn't entertaining anymore, it's just sad. but i'm glad i learned to laugh on such lol...
I just really like the bolded bit.
I'd pay for that.
Wonder how hard it would be to get that feature programmed.
Not that it would bring back the devastated PvP community. Pretty sure its shrank about 75% since the release of DR.
It might help the Console PvP players not bleed numbers like has been seen on PC, "IF" they could get it out within a year or two.
They don't have much more time then that though, before PvP is a disaster on both PC and Console.
Never forget.
Balance wise, it could be done pretty easily just by tweaking the existing engine, they could figure out a way to do it over night if it became a priority for Cryptic, which it inevitably will when they go searching for new revenues.
"Who only cared about themselves" I think that's rich, considering any nerfs suggested to devs by the pvp community were loudly protested by PvE players trying to protect their DPS scores.
What could be more selfish than players who know they are using op abilities and consoles, trying to protect their personal DPS records from a board wipe ?
With all due respect, "Burned PvE to the ground" ?
I think its more fitting to say PvE powercreep, and the DPS channels insatiable taste for higher scores, led to PvP eventually being cast to the side, ignored and burned to the ground through a non stop tsunami of powercreep.
Please explain, how PvP burned PvE to the ground when we've never seen higher DPS scores in game ?
What actually burned to the ground ?
I think you're over exaggerating. Greatly.
Which is fine, but lets be accurate at least.
I love WOT. I can sometimes sneak up on the enemy and blast them to hell even if my tank sucks compared to them.
Bran was pretty similar in that he'd found something he considered a better job and took it.
How long has it been since hawk left? I don't remember hearing about that one...
My character Tsin'xing
Well that first part lets just agree to disagree there. As I have always played more pve content (75-80% of my playtime is pve based) than pvp content (even at the height of pvp in sto I only played about 25% of my time in pvp content) that I played, and so by most accounts I am not a pvper at all an more of a pver even by other pvper standards. I might enjoy pvping an so I do want to have an enjoyable experience when I do, so i keep an interest in topics on making suggestions n changes to improve pvp just like pve topics. Also just as you know you were driven off my pvper, I know of many players that came over to sto from games I played with them, and then left from attitudes they found within the community that just ruined their own experience.
Though I will say most of my suggestions are focused towards first getting it that pvp an pve are not joined at the hip, since changes/balances to either are not going to mesh well an cause hostility, but a seperation of the systems so that a change to one side cant affect the other actually allows both sides to enjoy their game without hampering the other. To me even at the beginning when changes were being asked that should have been first an foremost asked for, as you can't expect a single system to actually function well when the two types of content are so different in their needs.
My character Tsin'xing
Yup that is an issue with any content, once the rewards are gained, the interest wanes for all but the most devote. Though I would hope if they put in some rewards in for pvp, that they are not pvp-specific, like pvp gear that has stats that are largely useless outside of pvp, but more of universal use through out the game. Would lvoe to see them make some sub-factions that are linked to pvp areas in game, which you gain favor/rep with thru pvp done in those areas, and have rewards you can gain via those actions in a method like reps are for pve.
ok, once more i gonna bite:
have you ever played a game in the real world (like chess, monopoly, table-tennis, soccer, whatnot...) where the odds in the start haven't been even? like all soccerplayers having a head, a torso, 2 arms and 2 legs? or everyone starts monopoly with the same ammount of money?
same goes for pvp in video-games. the more even the odds in the start, the more it gets close to something called fairness. if i get into a pvp match in sto the odds are far from being even. ungeared newbies face overgeared vets and get roflstomped. once it was possible to close the gap in knowledge and gear, but it had become totally senseless to try to keep up, due to ridicoulus op stuff added on and on. stuff that barely impacted pve (ionic f.e.), but kinda wrecked pvp.
reffering on topic, i play WoWs now for like a year. it's WG stuff as well and from what i took in this year, i would wish cryptic would go their way, and if only the slightest. over there i can take a silvership and just can be competetive as in a gold ship (scharnhorst/gneisenau as prefect example imo).
indeed their model is just one way pvp may could see a revival. preset ships, disabled meta-stuff via pve/pvp gearfilters (like doffs, mods on gear, set bonusses, box-boff-abilities, box-traits, epic becomes green but stays mk xiv, whatnot), wg model, total different server, filtered zones on one server, leaderboard based matchmaking, whatnot....
it all has been discussed more than a k times btw, one can look it all up in the "echo-chamber" (quote from, i guess, bort?!) called pvp subforum.
My character Tsin'xing
Oh yeah I remember those, and honestly seen it in so many other games I have played. An that is true of any system if it is exploitable, or the easiest/fastest to gain something it will be done. Hell look at the case of pve ques most of the actual difficult ones are just not played as the easier ones pay the same amount of rewards for less effort/time, and since there is no unique stf-specific rewards people flock to the path of least effort. Hell look at the supposed exploit with Argala that was happening at the start of the Delta expansion. They have a record of doing that nerfing anything that both pays out more than they feel is warranted, and is being abused, and proceeding to nerf it into the ground before buffing it up to where they feel is warranted.
I hate the idea of having only one type of reward we get for content, and I think that is more of the issue. I mean when all you are going to get from a pvp or pve content is marks ang/or dil you need to keep those amounts gained high for players to feel it is worth their time, while if you have other rewards that are not just dil/marks you can keep the amount gained of the dil/marks lower an still appeal to players. Hence the idea of actually having many sub-factions you work with, and work like pve reps would, think like the Maquis against the cardassians.
I actually agree that a system of both scaling the rewards gained on win/loss, maybe even by how close the match was would be nice, and the idea of not blocking rewards for private matches but merely make the rewards less than pugging. Though I prefer style of matches that are based on capture points, zone control, and other such styles that would give you more variables to judge the reward payout for a match by.
There is no way that MTG will ever have a level playing field. Why? because the decks used are created by the players. And to paraphrase Sun-Tzu, pre-combat prep is what determines whether you win or lose a fight. Taking the prep out of PvP would probably HURT more than help.
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
oh yeah i do.... and in magic there used to be counters released just with new stuff as well, at least when i played it. common cards sometimes did beat the most rare cards and so on.
u won't find such in sto. even the counters to some abilities only barely or even are non existing at all.
one could say magic has (or had? not played it for a long time) a level ground in terms of balance. it at least provides certain borders within players can act, while in sto it's all just over the edges since ages.
(sidenote: even in nowadays fps's u can choose between different gear. but mostly those are slight choices, not gamebreaking ones like in sto)
indeed one may find such style in roundbased interactive games, if video or not. but in realtime action i can't barely think of any example in that style, and that's what sto pvp is. nevertheless u're kinda right and there're quite some parallels between sto and magic (deckbuild/shipbuild), though magic goes for balance. sto does not, while under the realtime aspect the impact of lacking balance even maybe is quite more heavy.
one of the many ideas regarding sto pvp i dropped here. it would adress what u call prep, as well as the stream of revenue, as well as a shift back to balance:
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1218917/theoretical-exercise-how-to-restructure-and-revitalize-the-pvp-landscape?sso=eyJ1bmlxdWVpZCI6IjkxODg0NTU0IiwibmFtZSI6Indhc3QzMyIsImVtYWlsIjoiZS5zdWVkbWV5ZXJAeWFob28uZGUiLCJwaG90b3VybCI6Imh0dHA6XC9cL2ltYWdlcy1jZG4ucGVyZmVjdHdvcmxkLmNvbVwvYXJjXC9mZlwvMDdcL2ZmMDcwMmU2OTk1MDM4MzZkMTE1NGJiNDRkOGFlMTcyMTQ0OTc0NzE5OS5qcGciLCJyb2xlcyI6Ik1lbWJlciIsImNsaWVudF9pZCI6IjE0NDM5Njg5ODEifQ==+f317044074b76c60513e9edeef88abafbd13d831+1476133061+hmacsha1
note: it's just a quick thought and not the holy grail to me or such. it's an idea, nothing more nothing less. so anyone may not make more out of it, than it is to me lol :rolleyes:...
My character Tsin'xing
In WoT, knowledge, timing, and aggression win over gold tanks and ammo.
There is a fundamental flaw in any attempts by players to even the PvP field by limiting gear and tier: Passives.
The captain who climbs the skill tree faster is in a dominant position because he not only has a greater range of active abilities from which to choose, he also has many more passive abilities which are available to him and not his less skilled opponent. Even when both captains are Level 60 and have identically equipped ships, the older toon, (game hours, not date of creation,) has an advantage.
There is already a level-matching mechanism in game so that players of different levels can share a PvE session. Abilities such as are gained via Reputation grinding and Specialization were created after this feature had been in game for years, and yet it does not reduce or otherwise affect the many passive abilities characters acquire via these systems.
Simply allowing the level-matching system already in place to work on these abilities will create a level playing field. Thus, if players choose to participate in Tier 3 matches with Level 60 captains, they will lose every ability not accessible to the Levels 20-29 crowd for those matches. Naturally, the matches will have to be tiered for this to work.
I propose the following divisions,
Lieutenant (if character is over level 29, set to level 20 for the match)
Lieutenant Commander (if over level 39, set to level 30 for the match)
Commander (if over level 49, set to 40)
Captain (if over 59, set to 50)
Commodore (Level 60, less than 1 spcialization tree worth of points)*
Admiral (Level 60, more than 1 specialization tree worth of points)*
Unlimited (any tier or rank, as it is now)
* based on experience points, not actual points assigned to any one tree. It takes something like 30 spec points to fill a spec tree, but I forget how many exp to earn a spec point.
Next, PvPers like to see their rankings compared to others. Many types of leaderboards can be implemented, and many types of tournaments can be held so that players can identify their rivals and work to rise in the ranks.
Finally, PuGs and Premades should have different queues, with a chat channel dedicated to each division, to allow coordination of teams and matches or to allow a team to quickly find a fifth when an expected player doesn't show.
This can be done. It will only work if Cryptic can monetize it, and this is where this idea, and most others fall flat. Player retention has already been rejected by Cryptic as a valid reason to invest man hours in PvP, so we need to devise a means for Cryptic to quickly realize a return on their investment.
One way to monetize it is to hold tournaments, offering both sweet prizes and swag to entice players to purchase the nominally priced Tournament Entry Token. Quarterly events timed to coincide with school breaks would offer both goals toward which a player can aspire, and income for Cryptic.
How would you pay for the time it takes Cryptic to fix PvP?
And yeah, TCGs.
Except STO is not "realtime action," it's an RPG. That it favors gear and character advancement over reflex gameplay is no surprise at all.
This is not a shooter game.
dunno in particular how it progressed in the last ten years, but as i said, when i played the stuff used to get released with counters. and those not necessarily in the same rarity.
also the good stuff used to stay good. f.e. i think of combos like netling imp and royal assasin (if i recall right). nightmare and rock hydra are other creatures instantly coming to mind. though 3 of those 4 have been rare up to very rare i can't imagine they won't be useful in nowadays meta (played occassionaly some matches in the last years due to my lil brothers still playing). even a rock hydra could fell to a terror (?! no idea if the names are right, but u get the picture ;D...)
in sto top stuff gets neglected with every new release. they always drop a cherry on top, while in that image other pvp games rather drop cherries in different colours on the side of the existing cherries and so widening the base, not building up the pile.
again i gotta think of WoWs and scharnhorst and gneisenau. scharnhorst (gold) introduced a new playstyle in comparison, but it hardly is an i win button. one needs to know how to shake that thing to play her effective.
same goes for gneisenau (silver). it lacks the firepower of many competetors (just as scharnhorst), but other ups make her competetive and quite effective if played out right.
again, u won't find such in sto. if one just stacks immunities on and on u can bring whatever u want. he'll just wait for certain i win combos cd's and gonna blow u into oblivion, so better bring everything u can afford. btw, some of the combos rely on uncounterable things, so u can't counter em at all... with nothing... it's not about what u could've brought, it doesn't matter. there's no counter, back to spawn meeeh
and how many of those games have been pvp games? like when u face a real enemy? like on every chessboard, tenniscourt or soccerfield?
also i talked about sto pvp.... that sto is an rpg i heard some times. just as well it is an mmo.... oh wait, ever heard of mmorpg lol?... all these terms have been used to describe sto over the years. i'm really not interested what terms leads the ladder now, but i can tell u one thing:
sto PvP(!) is realtimeaction. no matter the frame is set by something like a rpg, the action itself plays like a shooter, feels like a shooter and is set up like a shooter...
indeed playerskill and reaction used to distinct good from bad players in sto pvp when i started with. the most of a problem has been knowledge about mechanics and shipbuilding for newbies. but once set up halfway decent one could determine the outcome of a fight ONLY by skill!....
this declined more and more with every new release, gear and addon wise.
btw: afaik the term realtime action comes from strategy genre. i used it in here to distinct it from round based games, like f.e. magic. because, no matter if pve or pvp, sto kinda is realtime action...