In one way its not other than they allow players to get where they are or work on it as I have in the last few years. Now as my sig says its been a waste of my time. The game should have been for the most part like this form the beginning, now wait until players have spent lots of game time to get where they are only to be nerfed to death in the end.
I actually feel sorry for you. You "worked" at this, but now your build is not meta-optimal it's all a "waste of time"?
Personally, I was playing a game with no great long term expectations... something to do as relaxation after real "work". Actually, I'm quite glad that some of my left-over-from-2012 habits like always slotting APO or Polarize Hull, or running DHCs, might actually be useful again. Your nerf is my renewal - so who's right?
I see this system as either being a godsend or a convoluted mess, depending on how it will be implemented...
Seriously, I was excited to read that such a system is going to be implemented in STO, I have long believed such a system (properly implemented) would make PvP matchmaking much fairer and would help to mitigate the issue of players having to 'carry' teammembers in PvE PuGs.
I DO believe that the final 'gear score' (or whatever Cryptic is gonna call it) be visible to players, or at least the player who 'owns' the score, as it would help players guage their builds' effectiveness before taking it into the field or answer why they are getting their hulls handed to them lol.
As with any new system there will undoubtedly be some hiccups upon launch, so I'm not gonna say this is gonna be awesome right out-of-the-box, but after the bugs are worked out and it is fine-tuned, I think this will eventually be accepted as a positive balance aid for STO.
I think it will be very hard to fine tune the Power Level system without it being transparent.
Transparency is always best, and Cryptic has gone to a lot of effort to make game systems more transparent these past couple years.
Transparency is all well-and-good... most of the time. In a game, however, it may be best kept behind the curtains, as to prevent the 'bad apples' from exploiting the system to get higher numbers (or intentionally lower their numbers to pwn lower end players).
There is nothing preventing Cryptic from fine tuning it 'in house' and observing how it plays out on holodeck. It may take longer, but it is entirely possible to tune a system without exposing its inner workings to the playerbase.
I like the PvP in this game. That being said, this is 100% pointless. Let me ask this simple question: "Why do very few people PvP?" And the answer is simple. There is literally no reward. Adding a system to make PvP matches more "fair" does nothing to solve the real issue...the complete lack of motivation for people to participate in PvP.
It being in normal PvE would be a disaster, as it would make actually building your ship irrelevant, because as long as one member of your team did, you could roll in with a mk x white equipped (or whatever junk you've found) garbage scow having not spent a single Energy Credit and still be powerful. Such a system would also reduce income, as less people would use Dil (bought via Zen, because you need so much of it for upgrading) to upgrade items if they knew they would just be buffed up anyway.
Agreed. Spend huge amounts of resources and face off against equally geared players to result in a 50/50 chance of winning. OR Spend nothing and face off against equally geared players to result in a 50/50 chance of winning.
Seems pretty reasonable to think that this will drastically reduce the number of people that upgrade gear or even bothering grinding reputations or buying ships.
If the competitive PvE queue is one of the few sources of Marks and Elite Marks of the new reputation, I think there will be bit more data for the system than usual. Unless people decide they don't want the newest powerful items.
For the Lukari reputation, I just did Red Alerts and Events to get the Marks I needed (and turned some of those marks into Elite Marks), rather than suffering through the broken Tzenkethi battlezone or wait in the queues for the Tzenkethi STFs. I will likely do the same thing for the new reputation.
If the "competitive PVE" queues are literally the only way to earn Marks/Elite Marks for the new reputation, then yeah, I will forgo the new reputation entirely. Considering how past reputations have worked, more than likely the new items will be side-grades at best anyway, especially with this new reputation being based around careers. As an Engineer, they're probably gonna want to give me stuff that makes my ship and I tankier, which isn't all that helpful with the "DPS or GTFO" meta that remains even with the upcoming nerfs.
I'm sorry, but I do not like the idea of being "forced" to PVP, even under the guise of "competitive PVE", and this whole "Player Potential System" does absolutely nothing to change my feelings on that.
"There will never be enough blood to wash away my need for vengeance! A single world...I could destroy a million worlds and it would not be enough! Your existence is an insult to the memory of my people! I will continue my fight, even if I must fight alone!"
Should you be matched against an exceptionally skilled player, you won’t be penalized severely
Uh... ok. So you get pwned by a fellow player first, and then penalized by the system that pitched you against that player by mistake in the first place. At least the penalty is not severe. Thats good news.
Well, they aren't using the greatest terminology. The "penalty" is in fact a good thing if your intent is to win. Each time you are "penalized", your next opponent will be easier to beat.
My question is this: Will this actually be calculated based on your ship, or your shuttle?
Because almost everything in the game seems to think your shuttle is your ship. New officers always report to your shuttle. If you get a new ship and try to get your gear to go to hit from yoru old ship, it ends up going to your shuttle instead.
The game's inability to recognize your shuttle is not your ship leaves me skeptical this will be worth anything.
My question is this: Will this actually be calculated based on your ship, or your shuttle?
Because almost everything in the game seems to think your shuttle is your ship. New officers always report to your shuttle. If you get a new ship and try to get your gear to go to hit from yoru old ship, it ends up going to your shuttle instead.
The game's inability to recognize your shuttle is not your ship leaves me skeptical this will be worth anything.
Good point, not exactly confidence inspiring... and how long has this bug been around that effects just about everyone? Over a couple years +? It's always been annoying and often made me dismiss my small craft just so that bug wouldn't be an issue.
System seems good. Can't wait to see it in play along with the space abilities revamp. To the PvE people complaining. PvE is fine. Just go pair up with DPS10K channel people and you'll do fine.
How does this system seem good? Adding a ranking system to make matches more fair won't suddenly result in a 1000% increase in people playing PvP matches. And that's what's needed. I typically queue for PvP matches, do whatever I actually logged on to do, go AFK for 45 minutes, and then give up because the PvP queue still hasn't popped. This system doesn't change that because they haven't added any constructive reason to do a PvP match. To be clear, I'm not opposed to this system, but I see no actual benefits from it without a major re-envisioning of what the purpose of PvP is in this game. And IMO, a change that creates no positive benefits is not a change worth making.
I'm intrigued, but i only tried PvP for about the first year or so after I started when the game went F2P. I stopped because I figured out I'm not that great at the min-maxing thing. I got somewhat better over time, but being face-rolled in 20 seconds instead of 5 is still being face-rolled. Now I'm very comfortable in my builds, which mix trying to achieve as much DPS as possible while also having fun. I can't see myself getting back into PvP.
More or less where I'm at...change a few details about how long I kept dabbling etc. I may have gotten better, but other people have advanced so much faster that the relative gap is still the same as it was way back in the day, just with larger absolute values. That said, I have fond enough memories of PvP that I can see getting back into it enough to get a ranking and do the new rep, but not so deeply that it displaces PvE in terms of time spent.
It's like the time I spent playing SC2 with an e-sports group in college...I played enough to get into Bronze and mostly used meetings as a social opportunity.
I think it will be very hard to fine tune the Power Level system without it being transparent.
Transparency is always best, and Cryptic has gone to a lot of effort to make game systems more transparent these past couple years.
Transparency is all well-and-good... most of the time. In a game, however, it may be best kept behind the curtains, as to prevent the 'bad apples' from exploiting the system to get higher numbers (or intentionally lower their numbers to pwn lower end players).
There is nothing preventing Cryptic from fine tuning it 'in house' and observing how it plays out on holodeck. It may take longer, but it is entirely possible to tune a system without exposing its inner workings to the playerbase.
It's impossible to get any player feedback on though.
They could have hundreds of people paying close attention to it every day, or not.
There's the rub. However, since most players (at least the ones I've encountered) don't have the required perspective to offer proper feedback on balance issues. It may be better just to observe how the players use it and not really pay attention to what they have to say about it... (Apologies if that sounded offensive, I'm just being blunt.)
And it wouldn't be completely impossible to get player feedback, if Cryptic allowed players to view their 'gear score', players could offer feedback based on how their equipment/abilities/etc... affects the score without knowing any of the specifics of the formulae used to calculate the values. It isn't completely impossible, but keeping it secret would allow Cryptic to keep it safer from exploitation, but would make tuning it from player feedback more difficult. Not impossible, but more difficult.
I think it will be very hard to fine tune the Power Level system without it being transparent.
Transparency is always best, and Cryptic has gone to a lot of effort to make game systems more transparent these past couple years.
Transparency is all well-and-good... most of the time. In a game, however, it may be best kept behind the curtains, as to prevent the 'bad apples' from exploiting the system to get higher numbers (or intentionally lower their numbers to pwn lower end players).
There is nothing preventing Cryptic from fine tuning it 'in house' and observing how it plays out on holodeck. It may take longer, but it is entirely possible to tune a system without exposing its inner workings to the playerbase.
System seems good. Can't wait to see it in play along with the space abilities revamp. To the PvE people complaining. PvE is fine. Just go pair up with DPS10K channel people and you'll do fine.
How does this system seem good? Adding a ranking system to make matches more fair won't suddenly result in a 1000% increase in people playing PvP matches. And that's what's needed. I typically queue for PvP matches, do whatever I actually logged on to do, go AFK for 45 minutes, and then give up because the PvP queue still hasn't popped. This system doesn't change that because they haven't added any constructive reason to do a PvP match. To be clear, I'm not opposed to this system, but I see no actual benefits from it without a major re-envisioning of what the purpose of PvP is in this game. And IMO, a change that creates no positive benefits is not a change worth making.
this creates an environment where those things might be able to happen.
you have to remember (or learn): Cryptic's been burned on rewards wrt PvP in the past-one of the reason rewards are so miniscule now, is that without a balancing mechanism, people were basically exploiting the hell out of private matches for rewards-enough that it hit the metrics, enough that they actually had to do something about it.
THIS, if it works, will allow them to filter substantive rewards in. (or at leeast, removes the usual excuses for why they were axed and never filtered back in the first place.)
TBH, I really don't know what exploiting you're talking about. I'm assuming you're referring to something pre-F2P. Wouldn't the easy solution be to remove the private match system? Furthermore, I don't see how the private match system is even remotely compatible with this new system. There's very little reason to have both. Now, if this is just the first step in a complete revamp and step2 is new (relevant) rewards, I'll change my tune completely. But, in the absence of that change, this one is completely pointless.
I like the PvP in this game. That being said, this is 100% pointless. Let me ask this simple question: "Why do very few people PvP?" And the answer is simple. There is literally no reward. Adding a system to make PvP matches more "fair" does nothing to solve the real issue...the complete lack of motivation for people to participate in PvP.
I believe most people don't PvP because they don't enjoy it, not because of perceived lack of reward. Speaking for myself, the concept of PvP is very "non-Trek" and have always wondered what it is doing in the game at all. It's what Star Wars is all about, but not Star Trek, in my opinion.
I hope the system works well for those that enjoy that sort of thing.
So, if I queue up in a Miranda, I'll most likely face other Mirandas?
Depending on your level and the level of your gear that is likely.
Overall the system completely depends on how the value of various items is calculated.
Another thing is if the system makes a difference between various roles (attacker, healer, tank) since the value of equipment will be highly dependent on that.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
If the competitive PvE queue is one of the few sources of Marks and Elite Marks of the new reputation, I think there will be bit more data for the system than usual. Unless people decide they don't want the newest powerful items.
It may be one of the few sources of marks, but I'm thinking it won't be the only source.
Choice of Marks missions may provide the marks necessary to do the reputation without ever having to go into a cPvE or PvP queue.
At least, I hope it works that way, because if the marks are only available through the activities I dislike, then my interest in that reputation will drop faster then a tungsten carbide spheroid tossed into a gravity singularity chamber.
As for the gear switch trick, with loudouts, you'd don't need to have the gear on your personal inventory at all, it could be on some other ship, press the incredible amazing loadout change option and your low level gear is suddenly replaced with your pro gear.
Maybe they'll have to implement a gear locking system, as in, what you enter the match with, you can't swap out until the match is over and you leave the map.
I am only speaking from personal experience, but typically, the majority of PvP players I encountered have been antisocial and aggressive, which has the consequence of pushing players away from PvP.
Since that won't ever change, my opinion is that no matter how hard Cryptic tries, nothing they implement will get a player who is resentful of PvP to participate in it.
Another concern is this might lead towards more pronounced cases of Egotitis.
As in, someone works hard to get a high score and then keeps bragging about it, then taunting everyone with a low score, saying they're unworthy.
I've never played the game with Gearscore, but I've heard enough stories to know bringing in a similar system is just asking for trouble.
Like if you don't have a high score, you're not allowed to join an STF team, to choose an example of how it might backfire.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
This move is long over due, let s hope it will materialise and be supported afterwards once the kinks begin to show. A gear-score system is the first step towards a more playable pvp, but it won't be enough.
I m curious about one thing above all: Being on a winning team, vs. scoring kills?
Do kills factor into the score calculation?
As a healer I might not score a single kill, but constantly be on a winning team.
Similarly, will my score suffer more from being the one guy that xploded 15 times in an Arena match, vs the rest of the loosing team.
Subsequently, does captain class register at all in the formula?
Lastly, is individual contribution to the team tracked or is being on the team enough to modify my score post match?
As long as it stays out of Normal PvE and Private PvP, I couldn't care less about this, as I don't care about Comp PvE or Pub PvP.
It being in normal PvE would be a disaster, as it would make actually building your ship irrelevant, because as long as one member of your team did, you could roll in with a mk x white equipped (or whatever junk you've found) garbage scow having not spent a single Energy Credit and still be powerful. Such a system would also reduce income, as less people would use Dil (bought via Zen, because you need so much of it for upgrading) to upgrade items if they knew they would just be buffed up anyway.
Also seems to be very bad for 1v1 private PvP matches (which I very occasionally do with a friend), as those are primarily for seeing whose ship is better, not who has been buffed up the most.
Seems like a very niche update. At least there is a new FE (that's short for Featured Episode, not Featured Event (which drag way too long, and pretty much stop any other content coming for a month)) with it (can we keep them coming monthly from now on?) to keep us going.
I think you're misunderstanding it. This isn't a buff. It's a Combat Rating. If I understand it correctly, each weapon, ship, system, etc in the game is worth x number of points. You'll have a Ground and a Space Rating, calculated using Ground and Space gear. Then you'll have a modifier added to or subtracted from that number. Win matches and your Combat Rating goes up. Lose them and it goes down. When you queue up for a PvP mission, your combat rating is used to determine who your opponents are. If you're such a good player that you can win using Mark X White gear, your CR will reflect that and you'll face off against opponents using much higher rated gear to your own. If you're lousy at PVP and constantly lose, you'll be put lower and lower on the PVP totem pole until finally you're facing foes you can win against.
As long as it stays out of Normal PvE and Private PvP, I couldn't care less about this, as I don't care about Comp PvE or Pub PvP.
It being in normal PvE would be a disaster, as it would make actually building your ship irrelevant, because as long as one member of your team did, you could roll in with a mk x white equipped (or whatever junk you've found) garbage scow having not spent a single Energy Credit and still be powerful. Such a system would also reduce income, as less people would use Dil (bought via Zen, because you need so much of it for upgrading) to upgrade items if they knew they would just be buffed up anyway.
Also seems to be very bad for 1v1 private PvP matches (which I very occasionally do with a friend), as those are primarily for seeing whose ship is better, not who has been buffed up the most.
Seems like a very niche update. At least there is a new FE (that's short for Featured Episode, not Featured Event (which drag way too long, and pretty much stop any other content coming for a month)) with it (can we keep them coming monthly from now on?) to keep us going.
I think you're misunderstanding it. This isn't a buff. It's a Combat Rating. If I understand it correctly, each weapon, ship, system, etc in the game is worth x number of points. You'll have a Ground and a Space Rating, calculated using Ground and Space gear. Then you'll have a modifier added to or subtracted from that number. Win matches and your Combat Rating goes up. Lose them and it goes down. When you queue up for a PvP mission, your combat rating is used to determine who your opponents are. If you're such a good player that you can win using Mark X White gear, your CR will reflect that and you'll face off against opponents using much higher rated gear to your own. If you're lousy at PVP and constantly lose, you'll be put lower and lower on the PVP totem pole until finally you're facing foes you can win against.
At least that's how I understand it.
Yeah, I think that's just about right. I think it'd also try to balance the teams (if it was forced to match up people with vastly different CRs) so that the team's overall CR was more or less the same as that of the other team.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Comments
I actually feel sorry for you. You "worked" at this, but now your build is not meta-optimal it's all a "waste of time"?
Personally, I was playing a game with no great long term expectations... something to do as relaxation after real "work". Actually, I'm quite glad that some of my left-over-from-2012 habits like always slotting APO or Polarize Hull, or running DHCs, might actually be useful again. Your nerf is my renewal - so who's right?
Seriously, I was excited to read that such a system is going to be implemented in STO, I have long believed such a system (properly implemented) would make PvP matchmaking much fairer and would help to mitigate the issue of players having to 'carry' teammembers in PvE PuGs.
I DO believe that the final 'gear score' (or whatever Cryptic is gonna call it) be visible to players, or at least the player who 'owns' the score, as it would help players guage their builds' effectiveness before taking it into the field or answer why they are getting their hulls handed to them lol.
As with any new system there will undoubtedly be some hiccups upon launch, so I'm not gonna say this is gonna be awesome right out-of-the-box, but after the bugs are worked out and it is fine-tuned, I think this will eventually be accepted as a positive balance aid for STO.
Transparency is all well-and-good... most of the time. In a game, however, it may be best kept behind the curtains, as to prevent the 'bad apples' from exploiting the system to get higher numbers (or intentionally lower their numbers to pwn lower end players).
There is nothing preventing Cryptic from fine tuning it 'in house' and observing how it plays out on holodeck. It may take longer, but it is entirely possible to tune a system without exposing its inner workings to the playerbase.
I like the PvP in this game. That being said, this is 100% pointless. Let me ask this simple question: "Why do very few people PvP?" And the answer is simple. There is literally no reward. Adding a system to make PvP matches more "fair" does nothing to solve the real issue...the complete lack of motivation for people to participate in PvP.
Agreed. Spend huge amounts of resources and face off against equally geared players to result in a 50/50 chance of winning. OR Spend nothing and face off against equally geared players to result in a 50/50 chance of winning.
Seems pretty reasonable to think that this will drastically reduce the number of people that upgrade gear or even bothering grinding reputations or buying ships.
For the Lukari reputation, I just did Red Alerts and Events to get the Marks I needed (and turned some of those marks into Elite Marks), rather than suffering through the broken Tzenkethi battlezone or wait in the queues for the Tzenkethi STFs. I will likely do the same thing for the new reputation.
If the "competitive PVE" queues are literally the only way to earn Marks/Elite Marks for the new reputation, then yeah, I will forgo the new reputation entirely. Considering how past reputations have worked, more than likely the new items will be side-grades at best anyway, especially with this new reputation being based around careers. As an Engineer, they're probably gonna want to give me stuff that makes my ship and I tankier, which isn't all that helpful with the "DPS or GTFO" meta that remains even with the upcoming nerfs.
I'm sorry, but I do not like the idea of being "forced" to PVP, even under the guise of "competitive PVE", and this whole "Player Potential System" does absolutely nothing to change my feelings on that.
Well, they aren't using the greatest terminology. The "penalty" is in fact a good thing if your intent is to win. Each time you are "penalized", your next opponent will be easier to beat.
Because almost everything in the game seems to think your shuttle is your ship. New officers always report to your shuttle. If you get a new ship and try to get your gear to go to hit from yoru old ship, it ends up going to your shuttle instead.
The game's inability to recognize your shuttle is not your ship leaves me skeptical this will be worth anything.
Good point, not exactly confidence inspiring... and how long has this bug been around that effects just about everyone? Over a couple years +? It's always been annoying and often made me dismiss my small craft just so that bug wouldn't be an issue.
How does this system seem good? Adding a ranking system to make matches more fair won't suddenly result in a 1000% increase in people playing PvP matches. And that's what's needed. I typically queue for PvP matches, do whatever I actually logged on to do, go AFK for 45 minutes, and then give up because the PvP queue still hasn't popped. This system doesn't change that because they haven't added any constructive reason to do a PvP match. To be clear, I'm not opposed to this system, but I see no actual benefits from it without a major re-envisioning of what the purpose of PvP is in this game. And IMO, a change that creates no positive benefits is not a change worth making.
More or less where I'm at...change a few details about how long I kept dabbling etc. I may have gotten better, but other people have advanced so much faster that the relative gap is still the same as it was way back in the day, just with larger absolute values. That said, I have fond enough memories of PvP that I can see getting back into it enough to get a ranking and do the new rep, but not so deeply that it displaces PvE in terms of time spent.
It's like the time I spent playing SC2 with an e-sports group in college...I played enough to get into Bronze and mostly used meetings as a social opportunity.
There's the rub. However, since most players (at least the ones I've encountered) don't have the required perspective to offer proper feedback on balance issues. It may be better just to observe how the players use it and not really pay attention to what they have to say about it... (Apologies if that sounded offensive, I'm just being blunt.)
And it wouldn't be completely impossible to get player feedback, if Cryptic allowed players to view their 'gear score', players could offer feedback based on how their equipment/abilities/etc... affects the score without knowing any of the specifics of the formulae used to calculate the values. It isn't completely impossible, but keeping it secret would allow Cryptic to keep it safer from exploitation, but would make tuning it from player feedback more difficult. Not impossible, but more difficult.
Six of one...
Ahem...
TBH, I really don't know what exploiting you're talking about. I'm assuming you're referring to something pre-F2P. Wouldn't the easy solution be to remove the private match system? Furthermore, I don't see how the private match system is even remotely compatible with this new system. There's very little reason to have both. Now, if this is just the first step in a complete revamp and step2 is new (relevant) rewards, I'll change my tune completely. But, in the absence of that change, this one is completely pointless.
I believe most people don't PvP because they don't enjoy it, not because of perceived lack of reward. Speaking for myself, the concept of PvP is very "non-Trek" and have always wondered what it is doing in the game at all. It's what Star Wars is all about, but not Star Trek, in my opinion.
I hope the system works well for those that enjoy that sort of thing.
Depending on your level and the level of your gear that is likely.
Overall the system completely depends on how the value of various items is calculated.
Another thing is if the system makes a difference between various roles (attacker, healer, tank) since the value of equipment will be highly dependent on that.
It may be one of the few sources of marks, but I'm thinking it won't be the only source.
Choice of Marks missions may provide the marks necessary to do the reputation without ever having to go into a cPvE or PvP queue.
At least, I hope it works that way, because if the marks are only available through the activities I dislike, then my interest in that reputation will drop faster then a tungsten carbide spheroid tossed into a gravity singularity chamber.
As for the gear switch trick, with loudouts, you'd don't need to have the gear on your personal inventory at all, it could be on some other ship, press the incredible amazing loadout change option and your low level gear is suddenly replaced with your pro gear.
Maybe they'll have to implement a gear locking system, as in, what you enter the match with, you can't swap out until the match is over and you leave the map.
I am only speaking from personal experience, but typically, the majority of PvP players I encountered have been antisocial and aggressive, which has the consequence of pushing players away from PvP.
Since that won't ever change, my opinion is that no matter how hard Cryptic tries, nothing they implement will get a player who is resentful of PvP to participate in it.
Another concern is this might lead towards more pronounced cases of Egotitis.
As in, someone works hard to get a high score and then keeps bragging about it, then taunting everyone with a low score, saying they're unworthy.
I've never played the game with Gearscore, but I've heard enough stories to know bringing in a similar system is just asking for trouble.
Like if you don't have a high score, you're not allowed to join an STF team, to choose an example of how it might backfire.
Bees like honey, they don't like vinegar.
Everytime someone makes a character that is an copy of an existing superhuman, Creativity is sad
I m curious about one thing above all: Being on a winning team, vs. scoring kills?
Do kills factor into the score calculation?
As a healer I might not score a single kill, but constantly be on a winning team.
Similarly, will my score suffer more from being the one guy that xploded 15 times in an Arena match, vs the rest of the loosing team.
Subsequently, does captain class register at all in the formula?
Lastly, is individual contribution to the team tracked or is being on the team enough to modify my score post match?
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
I think you're misunderstanding it. This isn't a buff. It's a Combat Rating. If I understand it correctly, each weapon, ship, system, etc in the game is worth x number of points. You'll have a Ground and a Space Rating, calculated using Ground and Space gear. Then you'll have a modifier added to or subtracted from that number. Win matches and your Combat Rating goes up. Lose them and it goes down. When you queue up for a PvP mission, your combat rating is used to determine who your opponents are. If you're such a good player that you can win using Mark X White gear, your CR will reflect that and you'll face off against opponents using much higher rated gear to your own. If you're lousy at PVP and constantly lose, you'll be put lower and lower on the PVP totem pole until finally you're facing foes you can win against.
At least that's how I understand it.
Yeah, I think that's just about right. I think it'd also try to balance the teams (if it was forced to match up people with vastly different CRs) so that the team's overall CR was more or less the same as that of the other team.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.