I hadn't posted in this thread since page 2-3 but after reading through everything since, there's a few misconceptions I see that I think need to be addressed or don't seem to be comprehended.
First up, you can't force people to play something they don't want to play. All you're going to do is push people away from content. That's true whether it's at the studio level, or modder level like what I do for some older games. No matter how much I wanted to incentivize the use of certain weapons for my maps, certain strategies or so on, if folks didn't want to use those things, they weren't going to do so.
Turning existing patrols into Karrat clones is an automatic no go, as it would simply be stealing content from pve players and locking it behind a pvp wall. Thus you are essentially telling them "pvp me or never play your favorite patrols again." Opening sector space up or similar to pvp challenges is also an automatic no go as it would do little more than open the floodgates for ganking lower level toons, which would have every troll in the game salivating at the opportunity. Folks like to hype up the old "world pvp" in World of Warcraft like it was something to be proud of, when in reality more often than not it was just a bunch of griefers camping quest givers and lower level toons, denying them access to content and the ability to even player their toon. It was a bad idea in WoW and it's a bad idea here in STO. Instead of actually being able to play, all you would see is groups of griefers waiting to ambush folks the moment they entered sector space. If I wanted to subject myself to that kind of terrible experience I would go play Eve Online.
The other thing you can't do is mandatory "rewards", aka "rewards" you can't afford to pass up. WoW tried this at the start of Battle for Azeroth by offering "25% bonus xp for turning on your pvp flag." In other words it told the pve players "flag yourself or eat a 25% nerf to your xp," and punished them for not having their flag turned on. Rightfully so, Blizzard started hemorrhaging cash until they backed off on that notion from folks canceling their pre-orders and demanding refunds.
You can "incentivize" people all you want by offering rewards you think people might like, but at the end of the day you can't make folks play a game mode they don't want to play. Trying to force folks into it is just going to make them want to play it less and less. I have no desire to play pvp, and trying to nag folks like myself to play it will just make me want to do the opposite. If/when I want to play pvp I will seek out a pvp match, until then folks can kindly leave me out of it. I'm also not going to magically start liking pvp if I would "just try playing it more". My mind has been made up about pvp after too many toxic players and experiences, with one in particular taking the cake. I would 100% quit playing this game if they were to ever implement some of the stuff suggested here and never look back. If I want pvp I will seek it out or go play a pvp centric game.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,533Community Moderator
And then you have some individuals who feel entitled to owning a particular instance and demand you leave their instance. I actually ignored someone because they were demanding the RPers leave THEIR instance rather than just go to another instance themselves, acting like the RPers were an insult to the ownership of that instance of DS9 and pretty much do what they can to disrupt an RP, even if its just two characters talking to each other. It was really stupid.
I realize that they are different...but the ERPers have a nasty habit of showing up and making things...umm...uncomfortable in many of the RP sessions I have been in.
Frankly if I ever dabble in the E side... I wouldn't be doing it in Local out of respect for everyone else.
I realize that they are different...but the ERPers have a nasty habit of showing up and making things...umm...uncomfortable in many of the RP sessions I have been in.
Frankly if I ever dabble in the E side... I wouldn't be doing it in Local out of respect for everyone else.
Yes...but you are a reasonable person...can't say the same for many other people...especially the ERPers.
honestly I think the people who ERP the way you imply are really just trolls who use it make things uncomfortable rather then getting any actual enjoyment from ERP itself.
I've known people who did light ERP for itself and they generally were respectful of other people and the idea that others might not want to join their ERP sessions.
To put an incentive PvP has been something that we've tossed about here on the forums for years. It's lead to many suggestions on balancing, match making and all that.
My favorite was the structured PvP, like a reputation system, which I think was actually mine. But, it's been so long since the suggestion was made I can't rightly remember. You start out in a T1 ship with UR Mk XII gear, no c-store gear or anything else. Then, as you rank up from there, you move into T2 ships. This can be repeated all the way up to T6. Then for the pvp maps themselves, you leave the regular gankfest as it is, and put in a Tiered selection for them. The same can be done for ground. The gear here is restricted, just UR Mk XII version of the gear you find on a vendor.
As for things like traits and specializations. These can be limited to basic traits, no lockbox traits or any of that. These can be unlocked at higher tiers. This would be unlocking the ship and reputation traits, with no c-store or lockbox traits available for this. The same could be done with the skill tree. It's all locked behind a Tier rank. This could include shuttle matches as well, not just ships. This could even been set as a random Tiered PvP queue.
This could be made into a reputation as well. Everyone starts at Tier one, you get some PvP marks, or something along the lines of Skirmish Badges. The thing here, is whether to make it an actual reputation, i.e. time gated. Or more along the lines of an exp gain. For example you get X amount exp and Skirmish Badges time, and the more more Badges you turn in, the faster your rank goes up.
The second part is actually figuring out a meaningful reward for PvP. My thought on this was custom outfit and armors. Each tier/rank with it's own look. Could even add in vanity shields to it as well. I know most would probably say choice mark packages as well, so there's that.
This also allows for addition of allowing the player to decide at what tier they want to PvP. This way a player who has unlocked all the tiers, can go an PvP at T1 rank, and be under the T1 lockouts. Thus, making every match balanced.
This also moves away from teh failure of the Competitive maps, and back to actual PvP.
Just so there are no issues here. If Cryptic likes any of the above and wants to use it, they're free to do so.
As an RPer myself, it's been my experience that the majority of the RP community are decent people. Especially when it comes to the ERP side of it, they try to keep this out of the public eye. Though it does have some bad apples, just like all things. Thankfully here, as far as I can tell, this isn't as bad as it use to be(looks back on the 2012 era of Quark's and Drozana and shivers) and has been mostly contained to private maps or channels. Just like the non-RPer have their sides. Those that support RPers, those that ignore it, and those that go out of their way to do everything they can to run the RPers off.
But, for the most part here, the only time I see anything ERP related in most social areas tends to be a misfire on the players part as to what channel they're in. Which for most of the RPers I know tends to illicit a "Wait... what?" response, some laughter and poking fun at the mistell, and then moving on with our day. For the most part here, from my experience, the RP community tends to be the more open and laid back side of the community.
For me the biggest off put for PvP is the time it takes to setup. As it’s so drastically different to PvE I find I have to change ships, core setup, change spec, change traits, change doffs, change bridge officers and even the skills tree is different e.c.t Loadouts help a little but its still way to time consuming.
Unless I am doing a planed few days of PvP I just don’t bother anymore as it’s a pain to re tweak between PvP and PvE.
It doesn’t help that the competitive PvP Queues are terrible designed I don’t think even those of us that like to PvP touch those things.
For me the biggest in incentive would be able to press a button and swap between a PvE and PvP setup. Not just loadouts.
As an RPer myself, it's been my experience that the majority of the RP community are decent people. Especially when it comes to the ERP side of it, they try to keep this out of the public eye. Though it does have some bad apples, just like all things. Thankfully here, as far as I can tell, this isn't as bad as it use to be(looks back on the 2012 era of Quark's and Drozana and shivers) and has been mostly contained to private maps or channels. Just like the non-RPer have their sides. Those that support RPers, those that ignore it, and those that go out of their way to do everything they can to run the RPers off.
But, for the most part here, the only time I see anything ERP related in most social areas tends to be a misfire on the players part as to what channel they're in. Which for most of the RPers I know tends to illicit a "Wait... what?" response, some laughter and poking fun at the mistell, and then moving on with our day. For the most part here, from my experience, the RP community tends to be the more open and laid back side of the community.
If it's gotten better...I'll take your word for it. I started with LoR and yeah 2012 era sounds about right of when I tried to get into RP in this game before the ERPers/Trolls made me go the hell with this. Especially as I was using a female toon...and I am quite good at RPing female characters (many of them assumed I was a girl...and when they found out otherwise, assumed I was TRIBBLE which lead to a whole other series of harassment). It also didn't help that the normal RPers of that era seemed to think how those people were acting was okay. Even when I said STOP, they kept going and nobody stood up on my side to say hey this is not cool...stop. So...yeah same issue with PvP...toxic players not being checked by the community. If I actually played this game anymore, I might try again for RPing if you say it's much better...but I don't really play this game anymore...so kinda moot now.
Yeah, the 2012 -13 era was bad for such things. It had started to get cleaned up with the fleet holdings. It was still bad at the time though. I didn't RP much during that time because of it. As life and the Army often does, I was away from the game not long after LoR hit and didn't return until the day after the ship giveaway ended for Delta Rising. There were still someone about that carried on with it. But for the most part it had disappeared. Risa seems to be the main hangout there for them, especially during the off season. I haven't seen much of it, other than mistells, on DS9 and Drozana in a few years now. Granted, I'm not at Drozana as much any more, no more having to run there for the lobi store after all. So for Drozana I maybe a little off. But I didn't see or hear anything about it when we had to run there for phoenix box daily.
For me the biggest off put for PvP is the time it takes to setup. As it’s so drastically different to PvE I find I have to change ships, core setup, change spec, change traits, change doffs, change bridge officers and even the skills tree is different e.c.t Loadouts help a little but its still way to time consuming.
Unless I am doing a planed few days of PvP I just don’t bother anymore as it’s a pain to re tweak between PvP and PvE.
It doesn’t help that the competitive PvP Queues are terrible designed I don’t think even those of us that like to PvP touch those things.
For me the biggest in incentive would be able to press a button and swap between a PvE and PvP setup. Not just loadouts.
Right. forgot in my post there. That the loadout for PvP needs to be separate skill tree and such. You know like specializations, just a drop down to switch between PvE and PvP setups. This way it can be PvE setups are disabled in PvP maps, except the gankfest ones we have now, and PvP setups are disabled in PvE.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,533Community Moderator
Yeah, the 2012 -13 era was bad for such things. It had started to get cleaned up with the fleet holdings. It was still bad at the time though. I didn't RP much during that time because of it. As life and the Army often does, I was away from the game not long after LoR hit and didn't return until the day after the ship giveaway ended for Delta Rising. There were still someone about that carried on with it. But for the most part it had disappeared. Risa seems to be the main hangout there for them, especially during the off season. I haven't seen much of it, other than mistells, on DS9 and Drozana in a few years now. Granted, I'm not at Drozana as much any more, no more having to run there for the lobi store after all. So for Drozana I maybe a little off. But I didn't see or hear anything about it when we had to run there for phoenix box daily.
Yea... Drozana used to be the Red Light District of STO. Not so much anymore because it doesn't have those side rooms anymore, so its harder to play the part. Was easier back in the day because of those side rooms on the old map.
Main reason I avoided Drozana as well. After that it was Troll HQ for a while. Now... best I can figure its mellowed out. Still has the rep, but its pretty much neutral now.
Yeah, the 2012 -13 era was bad for such things. It had started to get cleaned up with the fleet holdings. It was still bad at the time though. I didn't RP much during that time because of it. As life and the Army often does, I was away from the game not long after LoR hit and didn't return until the day after the ship giveaway ended for Delta Rising. There were still someone about that carried on with it. But for the most part it had disappeared. Risa seems to be the main hangout there for them, especially during the off season. I haven't seen much of it, other than mistells, on DS9 and Drozana in a few years now. Granted, I'm not at Drozana as much any more, no more having to run there for the lobi store after all. So for Drozana I maybe a little off. But I didn't see or hear anything about it when we had to run there for phoenix box daily.
Yea... Drozana used to be the Red Light District of STO. Not so much anymore because it doesn't have those side rooms anymore, so its harder to play the part. Was easier back in the day because of those side rooms on the old map.
Main reason I avoided Drozana as well. After that it was Troll HQ for a while. Now... best I can figure its mellowed out. Still has the rep, but its pretty much neutral now.
Yeah, Drozna's rep for it seems to be one thing the entire RP can agree on.
To put an incentive PvP has been something that we've tossed about here on the forums for years. It's lead to many suggestions on balancing, match making and all that.
My favorite was the structured PvP, like a reputation system, which I think was actually mine. But, it's been so long since the suggestion was made I can't rightly remember. You start out in a T1 ship with UR Mk XII gear, no c-store gear or anything else. Then, as you rank up from there, you move into T2 ships. This can be repeated all the way up to T6. Then for the pvp maps themselves, you leave the regular gankfest as it is, and put in a Tiered selection for them. The same can be done for ground. The gear here is restricted, just UR Mk XII version of the gear you find on a vendor.
As for things like traits and specializations. These can be limited to basic traits, no lockbox traits or any of that. These can be unlocked at higher tiers. This would be unlocking the ship and reputation traits, with no c-store or lockbox traits available for this. The same could be done with the skill tree. It's all locked behind a Tier rank. This could include shuttle matches as well, not just ships. This could even been set as a random Tiered PvP queue.
This could be made into a reputation as well. Everyone starts at Tier one, you get some PvP marks, or something along the lines of Skirmish Badges. The thing here, is whether to make it an actual reputation, i.e. time gated. Or more along the lines of an exp gain. For example you get X amount exp and Skirmish Badges time, and the more more Badges you turn in, the faster your rank goes up.
The second part is actually figuring out a meaningful reward for PvP. My thought on this was custom outfit and armors. Each tier/rank with it's own look. Could even add in vanity shields to it as well. I know most would probably say choice mark packages as well, so there's that.
This also allows for addition of allowing the player to decide at what tier they want to PvP. This way a player who has unlocked all the tiers, can go an PvP at T1 rank, and be under the T1 lockouts. Thus, making every match balanced.
This also moves away from teh failure of the Competitive maps, and back to actual PvP.
Just so there are no issues here. If Cryptic likes any of the above and wants to use it, they're free to do so.
This is an interesting idea, but instead of unlocking the normal traits and specializations as you rank up the PvP rep, I suggest new, balanced, pvp-only traits and specializations. This would give a way to ensure balance without disrupting the DPS blasters in PVE.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,533Community Moderator
So... a total divorce of PvE and PvP stats? Think that was one of the more popular ideas that has come up over the years.
So...remember what I said about rewards so good, it might as well be? The forum has spoken on what they think of that idea. Look, I actually would not mind such a think...but wanna see the forum burn? Have a dev put a 20 day PvP event into the game. We'd be like, remember the nice quite days of the forum...like after the release of DR?
And how large of a reward are you thinking? I was thinking of something more like 50 lobi.
And that will be a return of nobody does it...so your idea fails to work.
I don't think PvP will ever be good in this game or worth the time without a major overhaul of the game itself as well as switching from a loot box best system to one that incentivizes playing and playing good. If you want good PvP over all and not just in close friends, find a new game really. This one will never have it especially since they can barely keep PvE going as it is.
I don't think PvP will ever be good in this game or worth the time without a major overhaul of the game itself as well as switching from a loot box best system to one that incentivizes playing and playing good. If you want good PvP over all and not just in close friends, find a new game really. This one will never have it especially since they can barely keep PvE going as it is.
They don't have trouble keeping PvE going, just look at the instance numbers in various areas to get an idea of how many people play the game. What sometimes gives the illusion that PvE is not going so well is the way the TFO system works and the way good gear and other rewards are spread out across missions and in fleet holdings rather than TFOs directly (sure, they give marks but getting things with them takes time so people don't repeat them a lot in a day), so on a normal day any particular TFO might have a long wait to populate (and the more unpopular ones may not fill out at all).
I don't think PvP will ever be good in this game or worth the time without a major overhaul of the game itself as well as switching from a loot box best system to one that incentivizes playing and playing good. If you want good PvP over all and not just in close friends, find a new game really. This one will never have it especially since they can barely keep PvE going as it is.
They don't have trouble keeping PvE going, just look at the instance numbers in various areas to get an idea of how many people play the game. What sometimes gives the illusion that PvE is not going so well is the way the TFO system works and the way good gear and other rewards are spread out across missions and in fleet holdings rather than TFOs directly (sure, they give marks but getting things with them takes time so people don't repeat them a lot in a day), so on a normal day any particular TFO might have a long wait to populate (and the more unpopular ones may not fill out at all).
There has been a trend of more and more casual gamers joining MMOs while the oldschool hardcore gamers who preferred PvP have not increased by that much, so STO is not unique in its fading support for PvP. The interests of the playerbase are shifting towards cooperative gaming pretty much across the board and it makes the most sense for the games to adapt to that changing environment.
So... a total divorce of PvE and PvP stats? Think that was one of the more popular ideas that has come up over the years.
Yes...that has been suggested...repeatedly over the years. The trouble? Too much dev time. Separate PvP only gear would be easier to do.
Notice I didn't say PvP gear. We used to have that when Gozer was around. It use to be the drops with like [PDmg] mods that have been phased out.
I said vendor gear. Go to any space requisition or ground requisition NPC and look at that list. That's the gear I mean. Just the UR Mk XII version of it. Of course with new mods to go with somethings they have introduced, like [CrtRes], or crit resistance from Miracle Worker.
The only divorce between the two I'm mentioning are skills, traits and specializations. Then is just a mirrored copy of them, one for PvE and one for PvP. The lockout part we know they can do, it's evident with leveling ships an the ship mastery being locked out until level 50. The only thing the tiered maps don't allow are C-store ship, lobi, and lockbox ships and traits.
The only thing I mentioned gear wise on this was outfits and vanity shields. Armors would still be basic UR Mk XII, you know like you just crafted some armor or bought it from a vendor, with it's own appearance. They could add new PvP mods as they go. But this would have to be in the a time-gated reputation like all the others.
And with it being a Skirmish, it doesn't fall in the faction vs faction area. It's just a training exercise.
So...remember what I said about rewards so good, it might as well be? The forum has spoken on what they think of that idea. Look, I actually would not mind such a think...but wanna see the forum burn? Have a dev put a 20 day PvP event into the game. We'd be like, remember the nice quite days of the forum...like after the release of DR?
And how large of a reward are you thinking? I was thinking of something more like 50 lobi.
And that will be a return of nobody does it...so your idea fails to work.
does this mean you think the reward is too small?
I think either way, your idea won't work. If the reward is good enough to make people PvP, it becomes defacto forced PvP as it will cause people who really don't wanna to do it. If it is too small, nobody...or not enough people will do it for it to work. There maybe a perfect balance...but that margin is gonna be RAZOR thin and the chances you get that right in one try...yeah...not very likely.
Much like how people were "forced" to do Sompek to get the unique ground shield..... Sure a lot of people complained and some may actually have not participated. It was still a reasonably popular event.
Much like how people were "forced" to do Sompek to get the unique ground shield..... Sure a lot of people complained and some may actually have not participated. It was still a reasonably popular event.
The difference is that Sompek is a pve event. Folks were being asked to do a pve event to get a largely pve item. If they were to add a new beam array that gave you 50% crit chance just for having it on the ship, and stuck it behind a pvp event, then you have in essence forced pvp on folks as no one would pass that up. Sompek is popular because you don't always know what kind of mobs you're going to get as there is variety to it. Folks can also see how many waves they can survive as well which is something no other queue really gives folks. Personally I don't count Kobyashi Maru runs in that category as the Suicide Maru should not be allowed to move like it does, or generate as much threat as it does.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
I think that most of us just don't want to make the effort to play PVP period.
STO is a very casual game where Space Barbie is the real endgame for many (most?) of us. Many people don't come here for deep tactical gameplay, they come here to fly the ships from their favorite shows and be Captain Awesome while they pew pew pew the incompetent bad guys.
People complain about learning any TFO mechanics beyond spacebar. Those people don't want to learn how to counter debuffs and inflict debuffs on an intelligent human player. That would require effort, and STO isn't a Dark Souls game.
Much like how people were "forced" to do Sompek to get the unique ground shield..... Sure a lot of people complained and some may actually have not participated. It was still a reasonably popular event.
The difference is that Sompek is a pve event. Folks were being asked to do a pve event to get a largely pve item. If they were to add a new beam array that gave you 50% crit chance just for having it on the ship, and stuck it behind a pvp event, then you have in essence forced pvp on folks as no one would pass that up. Sompek is popular because you don't always know what kind of mobs you're going to get as there is variety to it. Folks can also see how many waves they can survive as well which is something no other queue really gives folks. Personally I don't count Kobyashi Maru runs in that category as the Suicide Maru should not be allowed to move like it does, or generate as much threat as it does.
Enh... If you had to WIN sure... but if you get progress just for losing? In that situation you can simply show up and get rekt, much like the "5 and die" people in Sompek. Which is how the current PvP endeavor works: "complete a PvP match"... not "win", "complete".
Comments
First up, you can't force people to play something they don't want to play. All you're going to do is push people away from content. That's true whether it's at the studio level, or modder level like what I do for some older games. No matter how much I wanted to incentivize the use of certain weapons for my maps, certain strategies or so on, if folks didn't want to use those things, they weren't going to do so.
Turning existing patrols into Karrat clones is an automatic no go, as it would simply be stealing content from pve players and locking it behind a pvp wall. Thus you are essentially telling them "pvp me or never play your favorite patrols again." Opening sector space up or similar to pvp challenges is also an automatic no go as it would do little more than open the floodgates for ganking lower level toons, which would have every troll in the game salivating at the opportunity. Folks like to hype up the old "world pvp" in World of Warcraft like it was something to be proud of, when in reality more often than not it was just a bunch of griefers camping quest givers and lower level toons, denying them access to content and the ability to even player their toon. It was a bad idea in WoW and it's a bad idea here in STO. Instead of actually being able to play, all you would see is groups of griefers waiting to ambush folks the moment they entered sector space. If I wanted to subject myself to that kind of terrible experience I would go play Eve Online.
The other thing you can't do is mandatory "rewards", aka "rewards" you can't afford to pass up. WoW tried this at the start of Battle for Azeroth by offering "25% bonus xp for turning on your pvp flag." In other words it told the pve players "flag yourself or eat a 25% nerf to your xp," and punished them for not having their flag turned on. Rightfully so, Blizzard started hemorrhaging cash until they backed off on that notion from folks canceling their pre-orders and demanding refunds.
You can "incentivize" people all you want by offering rewards you think people might like, but at the end of the day you can't make folks play a game mode they don't want to play. Trying to force folks into it is just going to make them want to play it less and less. I have no desire to play pvp, and trying to nag folks like myself to play it will just make me want to do the opposite. If/when I want to play pvp I will seek out a pvp match, until then folks can kindly leave me out of it. I'm also not going to magically start liking pvp if I would "just try playing it more". My mind has been made up about pvp after too many toxic players and experiences, with one in particular taking the cake. I would 100% quit playing this game if they were to ever implement some of the stuff suggested here and never look back. If I want pvp I will seek it out or go play a pvp centric game.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Frankly if I ever dabble in the E side... I wouldn't be doing it in Local out of respect for everyone else.
I've known people who did light ERP for itself and they generally were respectful of other people and the idea that others might not want to join their ERP sessions.
My favorite was the structured PvP, like a reputation system, which I think was actually mine. But, it's been so long since the suggestion was made I can't rightly remember. You start out in a T1 ship with UR Mk XII gear, no c-store gear or anything else. Then, as you rank up from there, you move into T2 ships. This can be repeated all the way up to T6. Then for the pvp maps themselves, you leave the regular gankfest as it is, and put in a Tiered selection for them. The same can be done for ground. The gear here is restricted, just UR Mk XII version of the gear you find on a vendor.
As for things like traits and specializations. These can be limited to basic traits, no lockbox traits or any of that. These can be unlocked at higher tiers. This would be unlocking the ship and reputation traits, with no c-store or lockbox traits available for this. The same could be done with the skill tree. It's all locked behind a Tier rank. This could include shuttle matches as well, not just ships. This could even been set as a random Tiered PvP queue.
This could be made into a reputation as well. Everyone starts at Tier one, you get some PvP marks, or something along the lines of Skirmish Badges. The thing here, is whether to make it an actual reputation, i.e. time gated. Or more along the lines of an exp gain. For example you get X amount exp and Skirmish Badges time, and the more more Badges you turn in, the faster your rank goes up.
The second part is actually figuring out a meaningful reward for PvP. My thought on this was custom outfit and armors. Each tier/rank with it's own look. Could even add in vanity shields to it as well. I know most would probably say choice mark packages as well, so there's that.
This also allows for addition of allowing the player to decide at what tier they want to PvP. This way a player who has unlocked all the tiers, can go an PvP at T1 rank, and be under the T1 lockouts. Thus, making every match balanced.
This also moves away from teh failure of the Competitive maps, and back to actual PvP.
Just so there are no issues here. If Cryptic likes any of the above and wants to use it, they're free to do so.
As an RPer myself, it's been my experience that the majority of the RP community are decent people. Especially when it comes to the ERP side of it, they try to keep this out of the public eye. Though it does have some bad apples, just like all things. Thankfully here, as far as I can tell, this isn't as bad as it use to be(looks back on the 2012 era of Quark's and Drozana and shivers) and has been mostly contained to private maps or channels. Just like the non-RPer have their sides. Those that support RPers, those that ignore it, and those that go out of their way to do everything they can to run the RPers off.
But, for the most part here, the only time I see anything ERP related in most social areas tends to be a misfire on the players part as to what channel they're in. Which for most of the RPers I know tends to illicit a "Wait... what?" response, some laughter and poking fun at the mistell, and then moving on with our day. For the most part here, from my experience, the RP community tends to be the more open and laid back side of the community.
Unless I am doing a planed few days of PvP I just don’t bother anymore as it’s a pain to re tweak between PvP and PvE.
It doesn’t help that the competitive PvP Queues are terrible designed I don’t think even those of us that like to PvP touch those things.
For me the biggest in incentive would be able to press a button and swap between a PvE and PvP setup. Not just loadouts.
Yeah, the 2012 -13 era was bad for such things. It had started to get cleaned up with the fleet holdings. It was still bad at the time though. I didn't RP much during that time because of it. As life and the Army often does, I was away from the game not long after LoR hit and didn't return until the day after the ship giveaway ended for Delta Rising. There were still someone about that carried on with it. But for the most part it had disappeared. Risa seems to be the main hangout there for them, especially during the off season. I haven't seen much of it, other than mistells, on DS9 and Drozana in a few years now. Granted, I'm not at Drozana as much any more, no more having to run there for the lobi store after all. So for Drozana I maybe a little off. But I didn't see or hear anything about it when we had to run there for phoenix box daily.
Right. forgot in my post there. That the loadout for PvP needs to be separate skill tree and such. You know like specializations, just a drop down to switch between PvE and PvP setups. This way it can be PvE setups are disabled in PvP maps, except the gankfest ones we have now, and PvP setups are disabled in PvE.
Yea... Drozana used to be the Red Light District of STO. Not so much anymore because it doesn't have those side rooms anymore, so its harder to play the part. Was easier back in the day because of those side rooms on the old map.
Main reason I avoided Drozana as well. After that it was Troll HQ for a while. Now... best I can figure its mellowed out. Still has the rep, but its pretty much neutral now.
Yeah, Drozna's rep for it seems to be one thing the entire RP can agree on.
This is an interesting idea, but instead of unlocking the normal traits and specializations as you rank up the PvP rep, I suggest new, balanced, pvp-only traits and specializations. This would give a way to ensure balance without disrupting the DPS blasters in PVE.
My character Tsin'xing
They don't have trouble keeping PvE going, just look at the instance numbers in various areas to get an idea of how many people play the game. What sometimes gives the illusion that PvE is not going so well is the way the TFO system works and the way good gear and other rewards are spread out across missions and in fleet holdings rather than TFOs directly (sure, they give marks but getting things with them takes time so people don't repeat them a lot in a day), so on a normal day any particular TFO might have a long wait to populate (and the more unpopular ones may not fill out at all).
They don't have trouble keeping PvE going, just look at the instance numbers in various areas to get an idea of how many people play the game. What sometimes gives the illusion that PvE is not going so well is the way the TFO system works and the way good gear and other rewards are spread out across missions and in fleet holdings rather than TFOs directly (sure, they give marks but getting things with them takes time so people don't repeat them a lot in a day), so on a normal day any particular TFO might have a long wait to populate (and the more unpopular ones may not fill out at all).
There has been a trend of more and more casual gamers joining MMOs while the oldschool hardcore gamers who preferred PvP have not increased by that much, so STO is not unique in its fading support for PvP. The interests of the playerbase are shifting towards cooperative gaming pretty much across the board and it makes the most sense for the games to adapt to that changing environment.
Notice I didn't say PvP gear. We used to have that when Gozer was around. It use to be the drops with like [PDmg] mods that have been phased out.
I said vendor gear. Go to any space requisition or ground requisition NPC and look at that list. That's the gear I mean. Just the UR Mk XII version of it. Of course with new mods to go with somethings they have introduced, like [CrtRes], or crit resistance from Miracle Worker.
The only divorce between the two I'm mentioning are skills, traits and specializations. Then is just a mirrored copy of them, one for PvE and one for PvP. The lockout part we know they can do, it's evident with leveling ships an the ship mastery being locked out until level 50. The only thing the tiered maps don't allow are C-store ship, lobi, and lockbox ships and traits.
The only thing I mentioned gear wise on this was outfits and vanity shields. Armors would still be basic UR Mk XII, you know like you just crafted some armor or bought it from a vendor, with it's own appearance. They could add new PvP mods as they go. But this would have to be in the a time-gated reputation like all the others.
And with it being a Skirmish, it doesn't fall in the faction vs faction area. It's just a training exercise.
My character Tsin'xing
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Word. PVP =/= STO =/.= PEW =D
My character Tsin'xing