With any luck all this negativity here will get pvp removed finally, so that they can focus better on the 99% of the playerbase - that don't pvp. But I heard someone say it's too deeply embedded into their programs, or something.
It sounds cynical, but I think it's the only option at this point.
As far as somethings mentioned in this thread. They been tossed back and forth between players, over various discussions for years.
To address the PvP gear that was mentioned. This is actually already in-game. It has been for a long time. The equipment mod for looks like [PDmg]. This was in-game prior to LoR release. It was a rare find, even back then. So if you get a piece of gear with a mod that has [P___], check it, as it should be a PvP based item.
As far as balancing, Well, all the Dev's that have worked on PvP for Cryptic on this game, have all left amicably. So don't expect Crytpic to work on, or even balance PvP for STO.
As far as what they could do to help the PvP side of thing. We've tossed all kinds of ideas around.
- A dual spec PvE and PvP setup for skills trees, traits and specializations
- Ranked and Tiered Progression. much like a reputaion
- A PvP selection on gear crafing
- Current in-game PvP gear being easier to obtain
- A PvP Gear Vendor
- Re-instituting the reward for PvP, as a daily.
- New PvP maps
- The various other thing we discussed that I'm forgetting.
So on this, it is not due to lack of player interest. I've seen this discussion popup quite a few time over the years. The problem here is on Cryptic. They don't want to bother with PvP, mainly because of Gecko. It has been this way since 2013 and the introduction of the Excelsior. It was Gecko's pride and joy, he boasted it was the strongest ship in the game. Then the day after release the KDF popped it like a zit. Ever since this event, Gecko has hated the KDF and anything that doesn't benefit the Federation.
So on this, it is not due to lack of player interest. I've seen this discussion popup quite a few time over the years. The problem here is on Cryptic. They don't want to bother with PvP, mainly because of Gecko. It has been this way since 2013 and the introduction of the Excelsior. It was Gecko's pride and joy, he boasted it was the strongest ship in the game. Then the day after release the KDF popped it like a zit. Ever since this event, Gecko has hated the KDF and anything that doesn't benefit the Federation.
Being mostly a kdf player myself I wonder who let this guy take control in the studios.. lol.
So on this, it is not due to lack of player interest. I've seen this discussion popup quite a few time over the years. The problem here is on Cryptic. They don't want to bother with PvP, mainly because of Gecko. It has been this way since 2013 and the introduction of the Excelsior. It was Gecko's pride and joy, he boasted it was the strongest ship in the game. Then the day after release the KDF popped it like a zit. Ever since this event, Gecko has hated the KDF and anything that doesn't benefit the Federation.
Being mostly a kdf player myself I wonder who let this guy take control in the studios.. lol.
He was lead dev back then. The other part of this problem is the original dev that did work on PvP. He left Cryptic and didn't leave any information on what he was working on. So the coding is there, just noone really knows how to work with it.
The business model is catering to the whale cheesers for whom "mom's credit card" is their entire claim to PvP "skill," and an even, balanced match is the absolute LAST thing such customers want. Anything that runs contrary to this agenda will be disregarded.
Snix? As in former STO game developer, responsible for one of the arguably biggest and most important across-the-board balance passes that made countless of powers finally useful, way before the F2P move?
Yep, it's me. I heard PvP might be getting a revision so I came back to check out the state of the game and the latest content.
Based on the newer PvE battlefields, the scripting and UI support (e.g. tower control state bars) has improved to the point where really solid objective based PvP maps could now be made; but the pace of play and slew of powers/passives that defeat core game mechanics (power management, shields, build limitations) is a long way from the team-focused, tall ship combat game of the original design.
Snix? As in former STO game developer, responsible for one of the arguably biggest and most important across-the-board balance passes that made countless of powers finally useful, way before the F2P move?
Yep, it's me. I heard PvP might be getting a revision so I came back to check out the state of the game and the latest content.
Cool, nice to see you back!
I used to PvP a lot actually, it was basically the only endgame content that I enjoyed and kept me playing. But eventually the imbalances became too much and I stopped PvP and actually stopped the game all together. Played MW:O for a while for some PvP flair, but that wasn't also really done all that well. (But the game is, just like STO, still going. GIant Stompy Robots just have an innate appeal). But I came back to STO for the Dyson Sphere content. IT looked like the story had moved to new places, and it did, and it kept moving, so now PvE easy mode shoot em up and space barbie keeps me engaged between story content. (I am not even interested in those DPS Charts thing...)
Based on the newer PvE battlefields, the scripting and UI support (e.g. tower control state bars) has improved to the point where really solid objective based PvP maps could now be made; but the pace of play and slew of powers/passives that defeat core game mechanics (power management, shields, build limitations) is a long way from the team-focused, tall ship combat game of the original design.
-snix
I feel power management was never as important as it should have been. The benefits of weapon power always outshined the benefits of every other power level. It would probably have worked out better if there were simply "weapon banks" that were depleted of energy and the weapon power was there to recover it more quickly, instead of directly boosting weapon damage. (Star Trek Nemesis is the only canon example I know of where it definitely worked like that. But it is a mechanic that I think worked great for TIE Fighter and X-Wing, decades before STO...) But that's all water under the bridge, I guess.
I think there is unfortunately no real way to get rid of the powers and passives that you mention. I was always partial to the idea to remove them from PvP, but the system behind this power creep is part of the business model - it would require making a new model for PvP, and I think that is just out of scope for a revamp.
Still, if there really is a PvP revamp going, I want to see it. But after years of nothing, I have strong doubts.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I feel power management was never as important as it should have been. The benefits of weapon power always outshined the benefits of every other power level. It would probably have worked out better if there were simply "weapon banks" that were depleted of energy and the weapon power was there to recover it more quickly, instead of directly boosting weapon damage. (Star Trek Nemesis is the only canon example I know of where it definitely worked like that. But it is a mechanic that I think worked great for TIE Fighter and X-Wing, decades before STO...) But that's all water under the bridge, I guess.
If the power system could be redone, I actually think it would have benefited balance to have the levels fixed based on the ship. All ships would also have a bank of Emergency Power that could be dumped into a chosen system on a click, which would deplete the emergency reserve and gradually fade from the overloaded system.
Instead of all of the 'Emergency Power to X' Boff madness and battery consumables for each system, there could have been one battery type and a few Boff powers that dealt with draining and restoring power to the emergency battery.
At least in this way, players would be looking for moment to boost their needed system, rather than leaving weapon power at max and boosting their other deficit systems.
I feel power management was never as important as it should have been. The benefits of weapon power always outshined the benefits of every other power level. It would probably have worked out better if there were simply "weapon banks" that were depleted of energy and the weapon power was there to recover it more quickly, instead of directly boosting weapon damage. (Star Trek Nemesis is the only canon example I know of where it definitely worked like that. But it is a mechanic that I think worked great for TIE Fighter and X-Wing, decades before STO...) But that's all water under the bridge, I guess.
If the power system could be redone, I actually think it would have benefited balance to have the levels fixed based on the ship. All ships would also have a bank of Emergency Power that could be dumped into a chosen system on a click, which would deplete the emergency reserve and gradually fade from the overloaded system.
Instead of all of the 'Emergency Power to X' Boff madness and battery consumables for each system, there could have been one battery type and a few Boff powers that dealt with draining and restoring power to the emergency battery.
At least in this way, players would be looking for moment to boost their needed system, rather than leaving weapon power at max and boosting their other deficit systems.
-snix
Also an interesting idea. I think the idea with a general "emergency battery" system was something I was considering before.
Game design can be fun, especially if you don't have to start sitting down to do the "math" and work out the balance in detail. (One of the things that really impressed me with D&D 4... Too bad that not enough people liked it to keep it alive for long. Still, I got a few years of gaming out of it, and I intend to have some more.)
Mustrum "Armchair Designer" Ridcully
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I feel power management was never as important as it should have been. The benefits of weapon power always outshined the benefits of every other power level. It would probably have worked out better if there were simply "weapon banks" that were depleted of energy and the weapon power was there to recover it more quickly, instead of directly boosting weapon damage. (Star Trek Nemesis is the only canon example I know of where it definitely worked like that. But it is a mechanic that I think worked great for TIE Fighter and X-Wing, decades before STO...) But that's all water under the bridge, I guess.
If the power system could be redone, I actually think it would have benefited balance to have the levels fixed based on the ship. All ships would also have a bank of Emergency Power that could be dumped into a chosen system on a click, which would deplete the emergency reserve and gradually fade from the overloaded system.
Instead of all of the 'Emergency Power to X' Boff madness and battery consumables for each system, there could have been one battery type and a few Boff powers that dealt with draining and restoring power to the emergency battery.
At least in this way, players would be looking for moment to boost their needed system, rather than leaving weapon power at max and boosting their other deficit systems.
-snix
Also an interesting idea. I think the idea with a general "emergency battery" system was something I was considering before.
Game design can be fun, especially if you don't have to start sitting down to do the "math" and work out the balance in detail. (One of the things that really impressed me with D&D 4... Too bad that not enough people liked it to keep it alive for long. Still, I got a few years of gaming out of it, and I intend to have some more.)
Mustrum "Armchair Designer" Ridcully
From what I have seen of Borticus, he is interested in Maths. Cryptic Spartan is interested in details. Of course I am not sure if Borticus is interested in details or if Cryptic Spartan is interested in math. Other devs also seem to be interested in at least one of the two. I mean it can be very rewarding to go down those paths. My conclusion is total game balance hasn't happened for other reasons.
Honestly, I think if I were going to introduce a PvP environment that might actually get played, I would have a format with fixed, locked builds. "Structured PvP". Canon-inspired ships with preloaded everything - more along the lines of a MOBA, where the more ships you own for regular play, the more choices you have (if you have a Narcine, you can fly the PvP fixed build Narcine in Structured PvP matches), but with the gear all set around ordinary Purple XII. Strip out space Doffs entirely, don't add a bajilllion overpowered consoles. You pretty much knock things down to a level where one on one time-to-kill (TTK) is 15-25 seconds instead of three server ticks. Times long enough to make tankish ships and support ships relevant. Let you use your own captain, with your traits and talents, so you still identify with the experiences and have some opportunity to be clever/creative build-wise, but rein the creep in ship gear/weapons way, way in.
You can even have a risk-vs.-reward system so people could fly lower tier ships. If you come in with your favorite T3, your side has effectively "bid down" so if you win your rewards are higher, and if they win their rewards are lower (unless they bid down too).
Then if a ship or piece of gear is grossly over-performing, you can change it for everyone in PvP -- without affecting your outside PvE environment at all.
PVP is dead. And it's rotting corpse is an Albatross on the enck of the game. Time to cut it loose.
If they do bring it back it needs some serious restrictions gear wise and ship wise so it is a skill battle not a wallet war. As I have said before limit ships to t-4, gear to what is basic to those ships no uncommon, no rare, no ultra rare, no epics just basic white rarity gear. This will remove the wallet warrior part from the equation and leave it to Skill tree and player ability. Oh yes and changes in gear in PVP will never affect PVE again. If anything their needs to be PVP gear only that cannot be used in PVE and visa versa.
Upon entering a pvp zone, most epic gear should perhaps be automatically reduced to very rare mk XII (like in the latter pre-dr days). No need to go further than that, as this is still combat, and not a safe-space.
Some consoles especially need to be nerfed, such as adding the "half-duration/half-damage vs. players" description we've seen here and there before. It's not hard to make such changes, but in order to know which console (sets) need nerfing, the devs will have to do pvp themselves.... and judging by all the posts so far, it sounds like a newbie who has done only 5-10 fights would have a more general idea for balance than the devs do right now. I don't mean to be condescending, but we all have yet to be proven wrong.
What has always been on my mind also is to just make the hyper escort builds a bit slower (not their turn-rate, but rather the maximum flight speed potential) and make them easier to hit. They will still hit like a monster truck, and that's fine with me, but they will at least be killable. Right now they can do dps, debuffing AND (speed) tanking at an equal, uncompromising level in the hands of 'experts' - and that is just absurd. Just cap the maximum flight speed at a certain number in pvp zones.
There are many more problems of course, and pvp is such an abysmal mess now that it's a bit hard to say what is exactly wrong. But if at least these few main problems I've outlined will be adressed, pvp might actually be playable. The whale kids would eventually get their TRIBBLE kicked, and grudgingly relinquish their moldy old thrones, and leave room for new players to learn pvp without getting insta-gibbed from nowhere.
I don't like using "escort" builds myself, and I think "hybrid" buillds should be viable again - or any other build for that matter. While dps is not everything in pvp (against good players to do dps you need to do the right debuffing first), the decline of pvp does seem to be the result of the dps-oriented direction that started to show its ugly head at the inception of Delta Rising. If 100k is the "avarage high" now, then in a year from now it probably will be 150-200k. Try doing pvp then.
So this comes down again and again to the fact that it's about keeping the parseboys happy. For the most part of this game's lifespan the devs specifically brought out new material for the sake of peak pve performance, particularly dps-wise. Whatever happens in the small pvp ghetto is irrelevant to them.
We get mockingly thrown a new map at us, but I expect zero balance coming with it.
I used to LOVE PVP in this game but I quit PVP around the time when the Voth and Dyson Rep were new. I felt already at the time that the Power Creep was too much. Today? I shudder to think right now with all the craziness. Lord help a new player that wants to try PVP now. On top of the learning curve, the gap is so large between a new player compared to a well established player in STO.
There was also some real bad history with Cryptic and the old PVP playerbase that got nuked with the Power Creep.
If Cryptic wants to resurrect a once active and passionate part of the game that had long since withered away, they got serious work to do. But once you DO have it running, it's a hamster wheel that runs on its own. PVP isn't like PVE where story arcs etc are needed all the time. Once you got the modes, system, maps in place, PVP runs itself. It's the players that use each other for content
Edit: Another thing, PVP was also an excuse to experiment with some very crazy, creative builds. A number of abilities, gear in game aren't useful in PVE, but in PVP, can be a menace. PVP was where build variety really comes into being.
Honestly, I think if I were going to introduce a PvP environment that might actually get played, I would have a format with fixed, locked builds. "Structured PvP". Canon-inspired ships with preloaded everything...
And they have the mechanics for this - look at those parts of missions where you're given such a ship (i.e. the Obelisk or Manasas) for the duriation - and what you're proposing sounds a bit like DCUO's Legendary PvP (not a bad thing). Now imagine mating that with a 'PvP rep track'...
"How does this work?" you ask. Well, you start at T1, with access to a roster of faction-appropriate ships with the caveat noted above. You earn points by participating in matches, with more for winning, of course. Then you get access to T2, and so on and so forth. This also means that all ships in a given match will be of the same tier.
"But what about, say, Tholian ships?" Well, such 'exotic' ships could be unlocked by completing certain challenge scenarios (again, with a stock ship)... you can try them anytime, but you wouldn't be able to actually use the ship until you actually get to T5.
"Okay, let's say all this works.. what about rewards?" Those, I imagine, could be purely aesthetic - title choices, 'vanity' shields for your ships (these only fit in the shield visual slots), additional hull patterns for your PvP stock ships, etc.
Well, gee, that's the funny thing about my proposal - the ships that can have Entropy don't need to be made available initially, and even if they are the Devs will be picking the boff abilities, so if there's a power just too darn scary to allow into play they don't have to.
Pre-constructed ships counters EXACTLY that kind of player divine maximizing, and means you can actually do ship-based leaderboards because everyone in ship X has the same ability set and gear. That at least gets it down to player skill and captain trats/talents as the variables in play.
Fail compared to WHAT? What we have now? The most popular and successful PvP Games in the world are built on FAR less player control of the builds than what I'm proposing. We can keep the wild west all-your-toys-&-no-one-to-play-with formats we have now too. This format would exist alongside the shambling carcass of PvP we're all enjoying oh so much now.
The GANKTASTIC crowd is the minority. The playing on a more level, more player-skill-driven crowd is what's pouring hundreds of millions of dollars year into every game but STO...
Fail compared to WHAT? What we have now? The most popular and successful PvP Games in the world are built on FAR less player control of the builds than what I'm proposing..
That is true, but they start out like that. It's not like you play the game one day and can get all those cool, very expensive toys that make you better and better and better and better, and the next day they say: "Oops, my bad, all those toys are irrelevant." The games were designed by the ground up to be limited as they are. Players didn't spend time or money to grind up their gear first only to be said it is now no longer working for them.
More than that- those game's business also doesn't rely on people grinding or paying to upgrade their gear.
Maybe there could be some alternative approach... Say, if you play PvP, you get special rewards that scale by the quality of the gear you have, even though that quality does not affect your actual performance.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
It's certainly possible to rank players on kill/death or win/loss ratio. A bazillion games do that.
But before it's possible to divide players in the queue into separate matches based on those rankings, there needs to be enough players in the queue to actually start multiple instances. As it is, the PvP queues rarely have enough people in them to start even one.
this is truth-and why a revamp really can't happen.
To address PvP requires three things be addressed:
1. Rewards-this game has developed in such a way that extrinsic rewards and incentives actually matter to the playerbase, and to an extent far beyond where it was three years ago. Further, the community te Developers have encouraged demands lots of rewards for very little time. Honestly ask yourself the last time you ENJOYED an STF run, or wanted to do CCA because it was FUN as opposed to just quick marks? PvP is different still, because to get a good PvP community, purple-ribbon participation rewards aren't good enough because they're custom made to be exploited (as Cryptic learned back in 2012)
2. Balance. Whether it's powers balancing, faction balancing or scenario balancing, this game doesn't have a working balance setup. To make PvP viable (that is, appealing enough that people stick with it), some form of balance has to be put into place. The least impactful type is scenario balancing, but that requires a lot of work on the back end to implement, and has already been rejected by Cryptic Studios' Lead Developer Al "Geko" Rivera. Faction balancing is pretty much also abandoned, with cross-factioning of the queues and the end of the existing conflict that would justify it. (Further, if it were to be returned, a huge amount of work would have to be done with the KDF to make them competitive.)
3. Relevance. Why would a casual even attempt it? why would a player want to become involved? This is something that Cryptic refuses to address, or even consider, beyond seeking ways to make it LESS relevant. PvP is treated as 'anti-relevant', (witness: Kligat, etc.)
Those three things have more importance than merely making a new map. They are three things Cryptic has no intent or ability to address.
The cheapest place to start would be with Item 1: Reward structures. Designing a reward structure that encourages better play for PvP is something that may actually be in the technical ability of the team to handle-but not something they can handle in terms of conceptualization, since such a system would have to involve some work on the back-end, but perhaps the singular benefit is that it can be used to assist in item 2 by rewarding more balanced fights and matches at higher rates, and one-sided fights at lower rates.
Basic structure would set it up thus for Arenas:
15/14: Reward Plus 50% bonus to the winner.
15/13: Rewards plus 25% bonus to winner
15/12: Rewards Plus 15% bonus
15/11: Rewards plus 5%
15/10: Base Rewards
!5/9: Base Rewards-5%
15/8
15/7 Base rewards-10%
15/6
15/5 Base Rewards minus 20%
15/4
15/3 Base Rewards Minus 30%
15/2 Base Rewards minus 40%
15/1 Half Rewards.
Basically the more one-sided the fight, the lower the rewards are for the winner, IOW your team shows up, roflstomps some puggies, and gets half the rewards the puggies got.
OTOH, your team wins a close, tight, hard fought match? you pull down base plus fifty percent.
Gamers being gamers, people will find ways to optimize their returns. This is using rewards to create a self balancing situation-you don't have to alter anything, because the tendency of most players is to seek the behaviour that gives them the best returns.
To make it really work though, it MUST be on the public queues. It's too easy to manipulate ANY reward system in a private match, if rewards are why you're in there (as demonstrated in the past.)
of course there are still going to be the douche bags out there-the guys who go into ISA or CCA and try to kill the boss before someone else has even gotten half way from the spawn point for the first time, or the ones that will 'dominate' because they get a charge out of killing n00bz and puggies in Arena, but run like their **** is on fire and hair catching when they hit a ringer who can match them.
as for 'base rewards' it should be something desirable (this goes to relevance). Dilithium isn't-there are numerous ways to gen up Dilithium at far greater rates than all the PvP wrappers for both factions put together.
The rewards should be Relevant. Marks boxes are okay, bonuses to skill point earning is better-there's always another skill point grind around the corner, and items would be nice, but it's a sure bet nobody's going to put the effort in without a significant return.
but. starting with a scaled reward structure does begin to address the empty queue problem PC-side, while allowing customization and even sales of the newest powercreep to continue relatively untouched.
You forgot the most important two:
- Total Lack of Developer Interest
- Fact it's been on the 'kill' list for a while...
Fail compared to WHAT? What we have now? The most popular and successful PvP Games in the world are built on FAR less player control of the builds than what I'm proposing..
That is true, but they start out like that. It's not like you play the game one day and can get all those cool, very expensive toys that make you better and better and better and better, and the next day they say: "Oops, my bad, all those toys are irrelevant." The games were designed by the ground up to be limited as they are. Players didn't spend time or money to grind up their gear first only to be said it is now no longer working for them.
More than that- those game's business also doesn't rely on people grinding or paying to upgrade their gear.
Maybe there could be some alternative approach... Say, if you play PvP, you get special rewards that scale by the quality of the gear you have, even though that quality does not affect your actual performance.
The gap between established players in STO and new ones is too big. PVP in any game is already a learning curve. For STO the pace is different, the range of actions by your opponent is even larger compared to PVE. Take a new player that has maybe 1 rep mastered and lucky to have mediocre gear and still flying that freebie Lv40 ship, toss him into the fire into a sea of established players with ALL reps mastered, a huge variety of traits to build around, Gold Plated Equipment Layout, flying some OP ship, on top of longtime experience with the game in PVP... The newbie is gone for sure.
This isn't like some FPS game where a Scrub with a basic weapon with no accessories can still kill an Expert player with all his fancy doo-dads. STO is built around Power Creep. That newbie flying that Lv40 freebie ship with a few Mk IX and XI weapons? How long is he going to be grease for our gears before he stands a chance? He already has a learning curve to get over, but now reputation, gear, fancy ships, etc, that's a lot to ask for and too long.
Stroll on over to Guild Wars 2 if you'd like to see "Structured" PvP thrive in an "MMORPG" environment with PvP conflict completely ignoring your out in the world PvE gear.
Then have a trip to Lord of the Rings Online where the monster characters of PvMP have an extremely limited library of tools to pick from and no PvE progress to speak of. And on the player side you can use your out in the world gear, but a separate set of gear earned and only worn in PvP is highly advised... then stroll on to Star Wars and even WoW which both allow open world gear but don't even remotely allow it to match up against in-PvP earned equipment.
The idea that players will ever and always cling to their PvE gear or not play is FLATLY WRONG.
Basically every single MMOs PVP function is determined by gear above almost everything else. From WoW to Guild Wars 2, gear is what matters, because MMOs are, by their nature, games based on gear.
The only games based on equal player skill are FPS games like Overwatch, or other games like MOBAs, which are different genres entirely, and trying to compare them would be a false equivalence fallacy defined.
This may come as a shock to you but gaming genre boundaries are extremely fluid. PvP and competitive gameplay in general extends far beyond MMOs and encompasses them, not excludes them. Sticking your head outside your cave to see hat other designers are doing is a basic survival skill . Saying STO can't learn from people whose ENTIRE BUSINESS is PvP because you don't like peanut butter on your chocolate is absurd
Comments
It sounds cynical, but I think it's the only option at this point.
To address the PvP gear that was mentioned. This is actually already in-game. It has been for a long time. The equipment mod for looks like [PDmg]. This was in-game prior to LoR release. It was a rare find, even back then. So if you get a piece of gear with a mod that has [P___], check it, as it should be a PvP based item.
As far as balancing, Well, all the Dev's that have worked on PvP for Cryptic on this game, have all left amicably. So don't expect Crytpic to work on, or even balance PvP for STO.
As far as what they could do to help the PvP side of thing. We've tossed all kinds of ideas around.
- A dual spec PvE and PvP setup for skills trees, traits and specializations
- Ranked and Tiered Progression. much like a reputaion
- A PvP selection on gear crafing
- Current in-game PvP gear being easier to obtain
- A PvP Gear Vendor
- Re-instituting the reward for PvP, as a daily.
- New PvP maps
- The various other thing we discussed that I'm forgetting.
So on this, it is not due to lack of player interest. I've seen this discussion popup quite a few time over the years. The problem here is on Cryptic. They don't want to bother with PvP, mainly because of Gecko. It has been this way since 2013 and the introduction of the Excelsior. It was Gecko's pride and joy, he boasted it was the strongest ship in the game. Then the day after release the KDF popped it like a zit. Ever since this event, Gecko has hated the KDF and anything that doesn't benefit the Federation.
Being mostly a kdf player myself I wonder who let this guy take control in the studios.. lol.
I never understood why they couldn't do something similar with PVP for balance purposes.
You know, Tone down some abilities and such.
Then bring you back once you leave the arena.
He was lead dev back then. The other part of this problem is the original dev that did work on PvP. He left Cryptic and didn't leave any information on what he was working on. So the coding is there, just noone really knows how to work with it.
Yep, it's me. I heard PvP might be getting a revision so I came back to check out the state of the game and the latest content.
Based on the newer PvE battlefields, the scripting and UI support (e.g. tower control state bars) has improved to the point where really solid objective based PvP maps could now be made; but the pace of play and slew of powers/passives that defeat core game mechanics (power management, shields, build limitations) is a long way from the team-focused, tall ship combat game of the original design.
-snix
I used to PvP a lot actually, it was basically the only endgame content that I enjoyed and kept me playing. But eventually the imbalances became too much and I stopped PvP and actually stopped the game all together. Played MW:O for a while for some PvP flair, but that wasn't also really done all that well. (But the game is, just like STO, still going. GIant Stompy Robots just have an innate appeal). But I came back to STO for the Dyson Sphere content. IT looked like the story had moved to new places, and it did, and it kept moving, so now PvE easy mode shoot em up and space barbie keeps me engaged between story content. (I am not even interested in those DPS Charts thing...)
I feel power management was never as important as it should have been. The benefits of weapon power always outshined the benefits of every other power level. It would probably have worked out better if there were simply "weapon banks" that were depleted of energy and the weapon power was there to recover it more quickly, instead of directly boosting weapon damage. (Star Trek Nemesis is the only canon example I know of where it definitely worked like that. But it is a mechanic that I think worked great for TIE Fighter and X-Wing, decades before STO...) But that's all water under the bridge, I guess.
I think there is unfortunately no real way to get rid of the powers and passives that you mention. I was always partial to the idea to remove them from PvP, but the system behind this power creep is part of the business model - it would require making a new model for PvP, and I think that is just out of scope for a revamp.
Still, if there really is a PvP revamp going, I want to see it. But after years of nothing, I have strong doubts.
If the power system could be redone, I actually think it would have benefited balance to have the levels fixed based on the ship. All ships would also have a bank of Emergency Power that could be dumped into a chosen system on a click, which would deplete the emergency reserve and gradually fade from the overloaded system.
Instead of all of the 'Emergency Power to X' Boff madness and battery consumables for each system, there could have been one battery type and a few Boff powers that dealt with draining and restoring power to the emergency battery.
At least in this way, players would be looking for moment to boost their needed system, rather than leaving weapon power at max and boosting their other deficit systems.
-snix
Also an interesting idea. I think the idea with a general "emergency battery" system was something I was considering before.
Game design can be fun, especially if you don't have to start sitting down to do the "math" and work out the balance in detail. (One of the things that really impressed me with D&D 4... Too bad that not enough people liked it to keep it alive for long. Still, I got a few years of gaming out of it, and I intend to have some more.)
Mustrum "Armchair Designer" Ridcully
From what I have seen of Borticus, he is interested in Maths. Cryptic Spartan is interested in details. Of course I am not sure if Borticus is interested in details or if Cryptic Spartan is interested in math. Other devs also seem to be interested in at least one of the two. I mean it can be very rewarding to go down those paths. My conclusion is total game balance hasn't happened for other reasons.
You can even have a risk-vs.-reward system so people could fly lower tier ships. If you come in with your favorite T3, your side has effectively "bid down" so if you win your rewards are higher, and if they win their rewards are lower (unless they bid down too).
Then if a ship or piece of gear is grossly over-performing, you can change it for everyone in PvP -- without affecting your outside PvE environment at all.
If they do bring it back it needs some serious restrictions gear wise and ship wise so it is a skill battle not a wallet war. As I have said before limit ships to t-4, gear to what is basic to those ships no uncommon, no rare, no ultra rare, no epics just basic white rarity gear. This will remove the wallet warrior part from the equation and leave it to Skill tree and player ability. Oh yes and changes in gear in PVP will never affect PVE again. If anything their needs to be PVP gear only that cannot be used in PVE and visa versa.
Some consoles especially need to be nerfed, such as adding the "half-duration/half-damage vs. players" description we've seen here and there before. It's not hard to make such changes, but in order to know which console (sets) need nerfing, the devs will have to do pvp themselves.... and judging by all the posts so far, it sounds like a newbie who has done only 5-10 fights would have a more general idea for balance than the devs do right now. I don't mean to be condescending, but we all have yet to be proven wrong.
What has always been on my mind also is to just make the hyper escort builds a bit slower (not their turn-rate, but rather the maximum flight speed potential) and make them easier to hit. They will still hit like a monster truck, and that's fine with me, but they will at least be killable. Right now they can do dps, debuffing AND (speed) tanking at an equal, uncompromising level in the hands of 'experts' - and that is just absurd. Just cap the maximum flight speed at a certain number in pvp zones.
There are many more problems of course, and pvp is such an abysmal mess now that it's a bit hard to say what is exactly wrong. But if at least these few main problems I've outlined will be adressed, pvp might actually be playable. The whale kids would eventually get their TRIBBLE kicked, and grudgingly relinquish their moldy old thrones, and leave room for new players to learn pvp without getting insta-gibbed from nowhere.
I don't like using "escort" builds myself, and I think "hybrid" buillds should be viable again - or any other build for that matter. While dps is not everything in pvp (against good players to do dps you need to do the right debuffing first), the decline of pvp does seem to be the result of the dps-oriented direction that started to show its ugly head at the inception of Delta Rising. If 100k is the "avarage high" now, then in a year from now it probably will be 150-200k. Try doing pvp then.
So this comes down again and again to the fact that it's about keeping the parseboys happy. For the most part of this game's lifespan the devs specifically brought out new material for the sake of peak pve performance, particularly dps-wise. Whatever happens in the small pvp ghetto is irrelevant to them.
We get mockingly thrown a new map at us, but I expect zero balance coming with it.
There was also some real bad history with Cryptic and the old PVP playerbase that got nuked with the Power Creep.
If Cryptic wants to resurrect a once active and passionate part of the game that had long since withered away, they got serious work to do. But once you DO have it running, it's a hamster wheel that runs on its own. PVP isn't like PVE where story arcs etc are needed all the time. Once you got the modes, system, maps in place, PVP runs itself. It's the players that use each other for content
Edit: Another thing, PVP was also an excuse to experiment with some very crazy, creative builds. A number of abilities, gear in game aren't useful in PVE, but in PVP, can be a menace. PVP was where build variety really comes into being.
Starships are equipped with weapons.
These are used to battle against an opponent just FYI for the current crop of wizards out there.
Disable ALL magic powers in PvP and let the best Captain win. (Without using magic as a crutch)
That way people don't need a PHD in STO space magic to compeat.
Cryptic has another game for magic users called Neverwinter Nights. Magic should only be in that game not Star Trek.
That is All.
"How does this work?" you ask. Well, you start at T1, with access to a roster of faction-appropriate ships with the caveat noted above. You earn points by participating in matches, with more for winning, of course. Then you get access to T2, and so on and so forth. This also means that all ships in a given match will be of the same tier.
"But what about, say, Tholian ships?" Well, such 'exotic' ships could be unlocked by completing certain challenge scenarios (again, with a stock ship)... you can try them anytime, but you wouldn't be able to actually use the ship until you actually get to T5.
"Okay, let's say all this works.. what about rewards?" Those, I imagine, could be purely aesthetic - title choices, 'vanity' shields for your ships (these only fit in the shield visual slots), additional hull patterns for your PvP stock ships, etc.
Well, gee, that's the funny thing about my proposal - the ships that can have Entropy don't need to be made available initially, and even if they are the Devs will be picking the boff abilities, so if there's a power just too darn scary to allow into play they don't have to.
Pre-constructed ships counters EXACTLY that kind of player divine maximizing, and means you can actually do ship-based leaderboards because everyone in ship X has the same ability set and gear. That at least gets it down to player skill and captain trats/talents as the variables in play.
The GANKTASTIC crowd is the minority. The playing on a more level, more player-skill-driven crowd is what's pouring hundreds of millions of dollars year into every game but STO...
More than that- those game's business also doesn't rely on people grinding or paying to upgrade their gear.
Maybe there could be some alternative approach... Say, if you play PvP, you get special rewards that scale by the quality of the gear you have, even though that quality does not affect your actual performance.
You forgot the most important two:
- Total Lack of Developer Interest
- Fact it's been on the 'kill' list for a while...
The gap between established players in STO and new ones is too big. PVP in any game is already a learning curve. For STO the pace is different, the range of actions by your opponent is even larger compared to PVE. Take a new player that has maybe 1 rep mastered and lucky to have mediocre gear and still flying that freebie Lv40 ship, toss him into the fire into a sea of established players with ALL reps mastered, a huge variety of traits to build around, Gold Plated Equipment Layout, flying some OP ship, on top of longtime experience with the game in PVP... The newbie is gone for sure.
This isn't like some FPS game where a Scrub with a basic weapon with no accessories can still kill an Expert player with all his fancy doo-dads. STO is built around Power Creep. That newbie flying that Lv40 freebie ship with a few Mk IX and XI weapons? How long is he going to be grease for our gears before he stands a chance? He already has a learning curve to get over, but now reputation, gear, fancy ships, etc, that's a lot to ask for and too long.
Stroll on over to Guild Wars 2 if you'd like to see "Structured" PvP thrive in an "MMORPG" environment with PvP conflict completely ignoring your out in the world PvE gear.
Then have a trip to Lord of the Rings Online where the monster characters of PvMP have an extremely limited library of tools to pick from and no PvE progress to speak of. And on the player side you can use your out in the world gear, but a separate set of gear earned and only worn in PvP is highly advised... then stroll on to Star Wars and even WoW which both allow open world gear but don't even remotely allow it to match up against in-PvP earned equipment.
The idea that players will ever and always cling to their PvE gear or not play is FLATLY WRONG.
This may come as a shock to you but gaming genre boundaries are extremely fluid. PvP and competitive gameplay in general extends far beyond MMOs and encompasses them, not excludes them. Sticking your head outside your cave to see hat other designers are doing is a basic survival skill