I see this a bit diffrent.. a lot of Guys got Fun in these 2 Days. I wrote with some of them.. and no they are PvE Player normely. Anyway.. sometimes you meet nice Guys.. sometimes not.. same in PvE. Thats life.. lol.. .
Well I would agree our community does knee cap itself more then it should. Pug stomping has always been boring for most of us.
You know a few years ago when Cryptic gave us shuttle pvp. There where devs that where really looking into fixing PvP. I remember a conversation in PvP where one of the devs basically stated flat out... "I can if you guys think its a good idea adjust ship hull / shield mod numbers on PvP maps" He was shot down by a bunch of my fellow pvping snots. The answer should have been HELL yes and while your at it consider turning off 3/4 of the pve TRIBBLE while your at it.
My only point is the devs have the tech and at times they have even had the will to move toward a more balanced PvP system. They have been met with push back by the special snow flakes that wanna keep their hard ground PvE junk for PvP. The devs believe (I'm sure rightly) that most of the PvP players left in the game would be annoyed if they got their toys taken away and had to fight on a more equal footing with new and non-pvping players.
The first year of this game was the golden age... when you could load your ship with green weapons and gear and jump into pvp and be 95% as well geared as the best most dedicated gear obsessed player. Where their pug stomps... of course... where their players and teams that laid waste of course. However the fault was never the lack of X or Y skill trait doff boff rep or lack of Golden shines. It was teamwork and skill... ok perhaps the odd bug exploiting, but mostly skill.
I still believe the only way for PvP to ever be a serious not just for the giggles kerrat sat afternoon fun builds, it needs to be stripped down to its core and setup so pretty much any new player that just hit 60 can jump in and spend their time LEARNING to PLAYand not being informed of the laundry list of PvE Ques they need to run for marks, and total amount of Dil and zen they need to amass to get good.
In a lot of other MMOs and online games PvP is tuned apart from PvE. I used to be the first person to say balance it for PvE and PvP will also be balanced... I know now that after 8 years of creep that is impossible. GW2 is an example of how I believe the STO devs should go with PvP... a very balanced Arena/Cap and hold/Core Assault ect system where [PvP] gear on your PvP ship doll is all that works. And a lawless Use all the PvE junk you want open world zone (hopefully a rebuilt kerrat) would be where people can go be free with their ground out PvE gear.
Cryptic has the tech... it wouldn't take a ton of their time... it could possibly attract a bunch of NEW players to this game, not to mention bring a lot back. Of course we would have to NOT bark at them here and in game the min they suggest that your years of grinding now = nothing for PvP. They shouldn't I would love to see great Video game players from other games come to this game and be top tier within weeks/months. Worthy competition instead of the (damn no offense guys) handful of sad players mostly left would be great. (really I'm joking there just aren't that many actual good players left)
2- Map placement, Piloting, and Spawncamping - Mainly on Ground PvP, its very easy to be spawncamped, after you team starts losing in the beginning, its a snowball process, the team that starts winning, will probably end the match soon due to spawnkilling, i sugest the implementation of a new Respawn system, where you will always be respawned 40km on space and 50m on ground far from the nearest enemy or ally ( only includes players ). This will give time for pugs to use gambling device, change gear or doffs, in order to adapt to that same match.
Sadly, as has been noted elsewhere, there seems to be little if any interest on the part of the dev team in fixing this... and it's not like the solutions would have to be cut from whole cloth. For example, Battlefield maps have multiple possible spawn points, and the ability to spawn in on a teammate not in combat (which latter is Completely Justified here, due to transporters). Many other games make newly-spawned character completely invulnerable for a short time or until they attack, allowing for time to get out of spawn traps.
Just like when we play Battletech we don't allow custom builds; they can get very cheezy! They can do 2x the damage and cost half the points of an Official design.
If STO wants to even out the playing field to get non-pvpers to show up now and again, each ship should have 2-3 builds you choose from and you play that. They could also have a Open Arena where people's custom builds go to fight.
And most of the building blocks for that seem to already exist; consider those missions (or portions thereof) where you're given a ship with a fixed loadout for the duration. As I've said elsewhere, this can synergize nicely with what is now the Competitive Wargames rep track. To sum up...
Associated with the CW rep are a set of PvP queues which work like a fighting game: each player picks from a roster of premade faction-appropriate ships and goes at it. These ships, of course, are separated into tiers, and which tiers you have access to is defined as 'your rep level + 1' - so when the rep track opens up at 50, it's just the T1 ships; completing rep tier 1 opens up the T2 ships; et cetera - and all ships in a match would be of the same tier. Just getting into a match nets a small amount of marks, with the big payout coming from winning; this can be cherried with another set of endeavors (i.e. kill X science vessels; heal Y hull damage total on allies; et cetera). Ideally, there'd also be CoD/Battlefield-type scoring for kills, assists, playing the objective, et cetera, but that's a bit more complex to implement properly. You could also have special bonus mark events, such as 2x marks for all fighter/shuttle queues...
Because these are stock ships only usable in these queues, this means that all faction-appropriate ships of a given tier would be available for selection, regardless of source or whether the player owns that particular ship. Most non-faction ships could be unlocked via performance in the 'last stand' queues which would also be part of this system, which asks the player to take a T5 ship and see how long they can hold out... example, clearing 10 waves of Tholians unlocks the Widow and Mesh Weaver; 20 for the Orb Weaver; 30 for the Recluse; 40 for the Tarantula.
Now ground might be a bit harder to make builds for; the idea I'd have is... You'd have to remove all your gear, grab approved gear from the 'PvP armory' from some tab on the Dil Store (for 0 cost), then queue up. Any equipped non-approved gear would be non-functional in the match.
Actually, I believe there is precedent in other games for your desired end result (level playing field, gear-wise): that would be gear normalization in PvP spaces (for example, here's how it's explained in The Division). Short form: everything has a second set of stats that are only applicable in PvP spaces (for which there is 'precedent' in that certain existing gear effects are noted as applying differently to players).
Now, in either case, I understand that doffs and traits pose a complication; a solution here would be to give players loadout slots for doffs and traits... and one of these is a dedicated PvP slot, for which almost everything is available... with the exception of the traits from non-faction ships; those are unlocked with their corresponding vessels as noted above.
A possible 'problem' with these mechanics is that they pretty much banish 'wallet warriors' from the PvP space, meaning they would 'fail' the 'how can we monetize this?' test. On the other hand, it can serve as a bit of advertisement/testing ground for Z-store ships - someone unlocks, for instance, the intel cruiser and decides they like it enough that they want to pick it up for use in the rest of the game...
fanbase that will buy used toilet paper if it's got the official star trek seal on it.
Without Star Trek, this game, as it's been run, would have died seven years ago and it would have gone unmourned.
Did Shatner or Stewart use the toilet paper? May garner some high bids at the auction!
I give up on Cryptic. Think I am going to write CBS to find a publisher who can make a Star Trek PvP game. Let Cryptic keep their PvE paradise, and let another publisher/developer who actually cares, create the PvP that Cryptic never could (not would). Cryptic intentionally chooses to ignore a large portion of fan base who like space battles with other players. Imagine what STO would be like today if they gave a rat's TRIBBLE about PvP.. they could be collecting much more money.
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
Comments
David
*** Aktiv since 03.06.10 ***
You know a few years ago when Cryptic gave us shuttle pvp. There where devs that where really looking into fixing PvP. I remember a conversation in PvP where one of the devs basically stated flat out... "I can if you guys think its a good idea adjust ship hull / shield mod numbers on PvP maps" He was shot down by a bunch of my fellow pvping snots. The answer should have been HELL yes and while your at it consider turning off 3/4 of the pve TRIBBLE while your at it.
My only point is the devs have the tech and at times they have even had the will to move toward a more balanced PvP system. They have been met with push back by the special snow flakes that wanna keep their hard ground PvE junk for PvP. The devs believe (I'm sure rightly) that most of the PvP players left in the game would be annoyed if they got their toys taken away and had to fight on a more equal footing with new and non-pvping players.
The first year of this game was the golden age... when you could load your ship with green weapons and gear and jump into pvp and be 95% as well geared as the best most dedicated gear obsessed player. Where their pug stomps... of course... where their players and teams that laid waste of course. However the fault was never the lack of X or Y skill trait doff boff rep or lack of Golden shines. It was teamwork and skill... ok perhaps the odd bug exploiting, but mostly skill.
I still believe the only way for PvP to ever be a serious not just for the giggles kerrat sat afternoon fun builds, it needs to be stripped down to its core and setup so pretty much any new player that just hit 60 can jump in and spend their time LEARNING to PLAYand not being informed of the laundry list of PvE Ques they need to run for marks, and total amount of Dil and zen they need to amass to get good.
In a lot of other MMOs and online games PvP is tuned apart from PvE. I used to be the first person to say balance it for PvE and PvP will also be balanced... I know now that after 8 years of creep that is impossible. GW2 is an example of how I believe the STO devs should go with PvP... a very balanced Arena/Cap and hold/Core Assault ect system where [PvP] gear on your PvP ship doll is all that works. And a lawless Use all the PvE junk you want open world zone (hopefully a rebuilt kerrat) would be where people can go be free with their ground out PvE gear.
Cryptic has the tech... it wouldn't take a ton of their time... it could possibly attract a bunch of NEW players to this game, not to mention bring a lot back. Of course we would have to NOT bark at them here and in game the min they suggest that your years of grinding now = nothing for PvP. They shouldn't I would love to see great Video game players from other games come to this game and be top tier within weeks/months. Worthy competition instead of the (damn no offense guys) handful of sad players mostly left would be great. (really I'm joking there just aren't that many actual good players left)
And most of the building blocks for that seem to already exist; consider those missions (or portions thereof) where you're given a ship with a fixed loadout for the duration. As I've said elsewhere, this can synergize nicely with what is now the Competitive Wargames rep track. To sum up...
Associated with the CW rep are a set of PvP queues which work like a fighting game: each player picks from a roster of premade faction-appropriate ships and goes at it. These ships, of course, are separated into tiers, and which tiers you have access to is defined as 'your rep level + 1' - so when the rep track opens up at 50, it's just the T1 ships; completing rep tier 1 opens up the T2 ships; et cetera - and all ships in a match would be of the same tier. Just getting into a match nets a small amount of marks, with the big payout coming from winning; this can be cherried with another set of endeavors (i.e. kill X science vessels; heal Y hull damage total on allies; et cetera). Ideally, there'd also be CoD/Battlefield-type scoring for kills, assists, playing the objective, et cetera, but that's a bit more complex to implement properly. You could also have special bonus mark events, such as 2x marks for all fighter/shuttle queues...
Because these are stock ships only usable in these queues, this means that all faction-appropriate ships of a given tier would be available for selection, regardless of source or whether the player owns that particular ship. Most non-faction ships could be unlocked via performance in the 'last stand' queues which would also be part of this system, which asks the player to take a T5 ship and see how long they can hold out... example, clearing 10 waves of Tholians unlocks the Widow and Mesh Weaver; 20 for the Orb Weaver; 30 for the Recluse; 40 for the Tarantula.
Actually, I believe there is precedent in other games for your desired end result (level playing field, gear-wise): that would be gear normalization in PvP spaces (for example, here's how it's explained in The Division). Short form: everything has a second set of stats that are only applicable in PvP spaces (for which there is 'precedent' in that certain existing gear effects are noted as applying differently to players).
Now, in either case, I understand that doffs and traits pose a complication; a solution here would be to give players loadout slots for doffs and traits... and one of these is a dedicated PvP slot, for which almost everything is available... with the exception of the traits from non-faction ships; those are unlocked with their corresponding vessels as noted above.
A possible 'problem' with these mechanics is that they pretty much banish 'wallet warriors' from the PvP space, meaning they would 'fail' the 'how can we monetize this?' test. On the other hand, it can serve as a bit of advertisement/testing ground for Z-store ships - someone unlocks, for instance, the intel cruiser and decides they like it enough that they want to pick it up for use in the rest of the game...
Did Shatner or Stewart use the toilet paper? May garner some high bids at the auction!
I give up on Cryptic. Think I am going to write CBS to find a publisher who can make a Star Trek PvP game. Let Cryptic keep their PvE paradise, and let another publisher/developer who actually cares, create the PvP that Cryptic never could (not would). Cryptic intentionally chooses to ignore a large portion of fan base who like space battles with other players. Imagine what STO would be like today if they gave a rat's TRIBBLE about PvP.. they could be collecting much more money.
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010