Apart from few cancerous things, pvp is nearly balanced, it doesn't need much in terms of balance. If Cryptic are interested in improving balance, they should observe those who pvp at regular basis and maybe ask tips from them.
A friendly bit of advice dude, stuff like this doesn't win you any favors or points with anyone and only makes people want to avoid playing with you further. Two things come to mind when I read this. "everything we like is balanced, everything we don't like is cancerous" and also "no one knows what balance is except for us. we will educate you and the devs on what balance is." Statements like the one above just stink of arrogance and entitlement mentality in my book. You are not the sole deciding factor on what is balanced and what isn't. I've been creating content for older games for 15 years now, and have started to branch into some more modern games. I'm telling you from a programming standpoint, you cannot hope to have balance without a separation of the two modes as you're doing the same thing twice with the same section of code and expecting 2 different results. That is the literal definition of insanity. Not only this but a change made for pvp will effect pve and vice versa.
There is no dps issue, pvp players usually have much higher mitigation than NPCs (just to give you a hint some folks run with ~87%~ all resist values, shield hardening can also be made to a very high value) not only that but would heal from 0 to 100 in 6-7 seconds regularly if not more often, not mentioning the emergency heals, temporal HP that effectively doubles and sometimes triples the amount of hull, then comes the can't die things, the escape clicks, the immunity clicks, the can't be targeted clicks, and so on and so on.
When certain items become THE answer in all cases and for all builds, to the point it's practically mandatory, that's not balanced. When you have builds that can one shot people with super high damage before they can even react and they need a trait just to have a chance, that's not balanced at all. I've seen some of those builds you people use in pvp and not a single one of them is under 750m ec. The average player is not going to be able to afford the builds you describe. You will also never convince me that an insta-vape build, hiding behind endless immunities, or making yourself completely untargetable is skill. When things like that are possible, you have basically given someone an instant "I win" button. In no universe is that balanced. I don't think anyone expects they're going to be top tier in any game without a little work, but they shouldn't need to practically sell their immortal souls, and sacrifice a goat just to get their foot in the door. Given previous examples, I have a feeling of how you'll try to justify it.
So you can take your defeatist attitude and keep it to yourself.
These 2 statements right here are the biggest problems you have and why folks have responded the way they have in here, and why many of us cannot stand to be around the competitive pvp scene. I used to enjoy pvp but statements like this are part of why I gave it up. The first statement in the two comes off to me as "look at us, aren't we great. if you're not doing what we do and part of our crew, you're not a real pvp player." That just stinks of elitism and arrogance in my book.
The second statement comes off as "if you disagree with what I'm saying you're just being negative and aren't worthy to play with us." It assumes no one can disagree with you for any valid reason and I hate that kind of attitude. Having an opinion doesn't make it automatically correct because it's your opinion, nor does someone disagreeing make them wrong just because it's not your opinion.
As I said above, a friendly bit of advice, stop making statements like the ones I pulled out in quotation. They do you no favors and only sour people from wanting to play pvp, further compounding on negative experiences others may have already had.
You want people to try pvp again. Okay what is my incentive to try it again? What would you propose to get people like me, who have had one too many toxic experiences with pvp, to give it another try? What kind of prizes or rewards could I earn from playing pvp? What would you do to level the playing field as much as possible so that it comes down to skill and not whoever has the flavor of the month build? What would you do to incentivize people to play without trying to pigeonhole them into it or forcing them into it, perceived or otherwise?
"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
“When you have builds that can one shot people with super high damage before they can even react and they need a trait just to have a chance, that's not balanced at all. I've seen some of those builds you people use in pvp and not a single one of them is under 750m ec.””
That is not correct at all people don’t need a trait just to react and they don’t need costly builds. Its not true that not one single build is under 750mill. I think my build is something like 10million perhaps 20million? Off the top of my head.
“You want people to try pvp again. Okay what is my incentive to try it again? What would you propose to get people like me, who have had one too many toxic experiences with pvp, to give it another try? What kind of prizes or rewards could I earn from playing pvp?”
It doesn’t sound like STO’s style of PvP is for you. PvP shouldn’t really be about prizes and rewards. That’s not why a lot of people PvP. If you are going into PvP for prizes and rewards you are always going to clash with a lot of the rest of the PvP people who are not playing for rewards. Rather than giving prizes and rewards the devs should add a ranking system of some sort which follows players outside the map. Things like kill to death ratio, tanking/healing stats, match wins to lose ratio with a league board. That’s the type of thing that will attract people who are into PvP back into PvP. Trying to attract PvE people who are interested in rewards is the reason the PvP competitive content failed so badly. As the PvP people didn’t like it and the PvE people didn’t like it.
“What would you do to level the playing field as much as possible so that it comes down to skill and not whoever has the flavor of the month build? What would you do to incentivize people to play without trying to pigeonhole them into it or forcing them into it, perceived or otherwise?”
That has already been solved by the devs ages ago. PvP moved away from single play styles, pigeonhold into flavour of the month or expensive traits and one-shot people with super high damage a long time ago. There isn’t even any practically mandatory items anymore and while one shotting still happens that only happens to people with poorly designed builds who should get one shot killed. From a technical point of view the playing field is level now. The only thing stopping people now is limited expreince and lack of knowledge that is the problem. Its how to get that knowledge.
EDIT: Not the only problem as there is a problem with some PvPers being toxic in chat but thankfully those are rare. When I have asked questions in zone chat most people have been friendly and helpful. One mistake people make is joining Ker'rat and staying solo. Ask for group invite in zone chat as that can massively change PvP and how it plays.
EDIT: "insta-vape build, hiding behind endless immunities, " that died out many years ago when the Devs made some positive changes to stop it. Its been something like 5+ years since endless immunities was fixed.
To say it sounds bad if a PvPer calls a item or trait "cancerous". Its not an attack on the game, its players or even the devs.
There are traits and items in this game with very little value in PvE land. Stuff people don't go out of their way to buy with real money... yet in regards to PvP they are highly annoying to the point where New players and old players hate it.
In the last 8 or 9 years since Cryptic started diverging from the core game with universal consoles... personal traits, doffs and later ship traits. The same thing has happened over and over.... Some new player comes to PvP to check it out (even before endeavors) then end up leaving in frustration. After almost always accusing people cheating somehow. Why are you not dying your at ZERO hull ? Why can't I target you at all ? Why can I see you but not click on you ? How did you go that fast ? Why is every shot at you a miss ?
Those traits and consoles are cancer... they don't even make Cryptic a ton of money as an excuse cause almost all of the things that allow such things are basically useless in the rest of the game. Yet utterly game breaking in PvP. Most long time PvPers avoid specific combos of Items and Abilities cause its just unfun. But if I want to really really annoy a new player I can run a ship that they can't target... that even if they figure that out will have 200k in temp hull, and if they get through that they have to kill the ship twice in 120s... and if I really don't feel like dying I'll slot a screen console and click it at any time if the Zhal trait is on cool down, fly off placate and cloak and wait for the Zhal trait timer. On top of all that of course it will be zero issue for me to burst 1m+ in raw damage every 30 or 40s... so I can pull off the good old... "WTF how did you kill me that fast lag glitcher ?"
Yes there are items that are PVP cancer... and Cryptic hasn't listened to people that play PvP in a long long time. We had one Dev that did once listen to PvPers and actually played with us for awhile. As I understand it they suggested some changes and the response at the time was that will take to much time so no.
What can you say it is what it is. If you want decent you pretty much have to setup a private match and set Rules before hand as to what traits doffs and consoles are no go. Game can be fun if you can get a few people to agree to leave the game breaking junk out of the match.
That is not correct at all people don’t need a trait just to react and they don’t need costly builds. Its not true that not one single build is under 750mill. I think my build is something like 10million perhaps 20million? Off the top of my head.
I can't tell you the number of people I've seen make that claim, yet when they actually show their true build, it's insanely more expensive than they claimed it was. I'm going to save us both the trouble on this particular point and say in advance, you will not convince me otherwise on ship costs and similar.
It doesn’t sound like STO’s style of PvP is for you. PvP shouldn’t really be about prizes and rewards. That’s not why a lot of people PvP. If you are going into PvP for prizes and rewards you are always going to clash with a lot of the rest of the PvP people who are not playing for rewards. Rather than giving prizes and rewards the devs should add a ranking system of some sort which follows players outside the map. Things like kill to death ratio, tanking/healing stats, match wins to lose ratio with a league board. That’s the type of thing that will attract people who are into PvP back into PvP. Trying to attract PvE people who are interested in rewards is the reason the PvP competitive content failed so badly. As the PvP people didn’t like it and the PvE people didn’t like it.
No it's not that "STO's style of PVP isn't for you", it's a case of issues with competitive pvp overall. We can debate what it should and shouldn't be about, but that's a completely different can of worms. You all say you want people to come back to pvp or you want to attract new people to try it out, yet you offer nothing as incentive. Even games like Call of Duty that is almost exclusively online pvp knows they need to offer incentives to get people playing in different modes. If I wanted to just run around blasting folks I would roll into team deathmatch. If I wanted to bang out a ton of XP I would go into something like Search and Destroy. Otherwise for certain modes that gave me nothing, I never touched them unless I wanted to just waste some time because there was no reason to do so.
No the reason the competitive reputation failed because there was no reason to do those specific queues, and also because of the gross imbalance the exists in pvp. Like it or not, the better majority of this community is typically driven by rewards and things you get for playing the game. Whether you want to think that's for better or worse, I'll leave to you to decide. As someone who has been out of PVP for long time, again simply saying "it sounds like STO's style of pvp isn't for you" is not going to motivate me to return and strikes me in this context as being told "well if you don't like it then get out."
If you want people to participate in something, you need to give them a good reason to do so and make them feel like their time is worth it. Why should they step out of their usual gameplay types, return to a gameplay mode they're no longer interested in, or even try that new mode for the first time if it's only going to be a time waster? All I got from what you said here is that you are not interested in revamping anything to attract new people, but think more of the same is going to work. You're certainly entitled to that view, but doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
That has already been solved by the devs ages ago. PvP moved away from single play styles, pigeonhold into flavour of the month or expensive traits and one-shot people with super high damage a long time ago. There isn’t even any practically mandatory items anymore and while one shotting still happens that only happens to people with poorly designed builds who should get one shot killed. From a technical point of view the playing field is level now. The only thing stopping people now is limited expreince and lack of knowledge that is the problem. Its how to get that knowledge.
EDIT: Not the only problem as there is a problem with some PvPers being toxic in chat but thankfully those are rare. When I have asked questions in zone chat most people have been friendly and helpful. One mistake people make is joining Ker'rat and staying solo. Ask for group invite in zone chat as that can massively change PvP and how it plays.
EDIT: "insta-vape build, hiding behind endless immunities, " that died out many years ago when the Devs made some positive changes to stop it. Its been something like 5+ years since endless immunities was fixed.
I'm sorry but I actually laughed out loud when I read this because we're clearly not playing the same game, at least not around the same people. Every single time I've ever been in ker'rat or heard anyone talking about that system it's always been in the negative. The endless immunities thankfully went the way of the dodo for the most part, but that was in part because it effected pvp and pve both so it was high on the chopping block. Otherwise, insta vaping is still alive and well as are the infinitely untargetable builds. So no those things were not fixed. I recently had to make one of the untargetable builds to test a trait interaction, plus some of my crew I test bugs with also have some of the current vape builds on their toons for bug testing purposes when we need massive damage spikes for a test. You say these things don't happen, yet in an earlier post another user pointed out how many clickies, heals, immunities, temp hp boosts, and other powers seen in pvp, yet you seriously expect me to believe that this stuff doesn't happen and if you want to do any meaningful pvp you need to be willing to spend 750m+ at a minimum?
I also highlighted a portion of this in bold as that kind of thing is another problem I cannot stand with the pvp communities. When someone points out something like the insta-vape builds, endless immunity cheese, or something else that shouldn't exist or sucks the fun out of playing something, it's always "you're just an inexperienced noob that doesn't know what you're doing and your build is bad." It's never that something is actually cheese and bad for the game, no it's always that the player doesn't know what they're doing and are just whining. Even though there is zero means for someone to fight back and the other person basically has an "I win" button. I can point out examples of cheese and unbalanced items all day long, but certain people will never accept it because they benefit from it. The second line in bold in this context also comes off to me as "come little noob we will hold your hand and show you how to play" like some kind of mob boss. If you've had no issues like the rest of us have had, then count yourself as one of the lucky ones. I am legitimately happy you've found a mode you like and people to play it with.
To say it sounds bad if a PvPer calls a item or trait "cancerous". Its not an attack on the game, its players or even the devs.
I never claimed it to be an attack. What I said was in the context it was used in this thread, it came off as "everything I don't like is cancerous, and everything I like is balanced."
(end of response to quotations)
I stand by everything I have said here. Too many people say they want folks to get into pvp, get back into pvp, or want new people to try it, yet want to maintain the status quo and do nothing to give people a reason to pvp. Or they pull an arrogant holier than thou attitude with everyone that doesn't agree with them and condescends to them by treating them like they know nothing, yet wonder then why folks don't want to play with them. The more certain people push the issue and try to badger people into playing pvp, the more they drive folks away from it. I'm also still not convinced some people talking about wanting more folks in pvp in this game aren't just wanting new people to play pvp so they have "fresh meat" to slap around.
"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 can't tell you the number of people I've seen make that claim, yet when they actually show their true build, it's insanely more expensive than they claimed it was. I'm going to save us both the trouble on this particular point and say in advance, you will not convince me otherwise on ship costs and similar.”
Well that’s just not true. The core elements to survive in PvP are 98% relatively cheap items from the in-game stores with perhaps 2% of items, if that, made up of relatively cheap items from the exchange. I have no idea where you are getting this 750million figure from its just not true. I need to log in to double check buy my current build has 1 core item that isn’t from the in-game store. Everything else was from the fleet or reputation stores. There are some nice to have items like the Voth powercore but they are not must have items and you can run just fine without them.
“You say these things don't happen, yet in an earlier post another user pointed out how many clickies, heals, immunities, temp hp boosts, and other powers seen in pvp, yet you seriously expect me to believe that this stuff doesn't happen and if you want to do any meaningful pvp you need to be willing to spend 750m+ at a minimum?”
Its not that none of it doesn’t happen. Its that is not unbalanced, doesn’t require 750m and there are plenty of easy ways to get around the problems you are going on about. Immunity was changed years ago so it was impossible to chain immunities now. Clickie builds are not the only way to play due to my bad joints I don’t play Clickie builds in fact I don’t even take active bridge officer healing as its too much clicking for me.
The 3 core problems are lack of expreince, lack of relevant PvP knowledge and far to often players taking unsuitable PvE builds with the bare minimum of defense into PvP then wondering why they get 1 shot killed none stop. PvE builds with the bare minimum defense should get 1 shot killed. I see it time and time again a PvE person will take a PvE class cannon build into PvP get 1 shot killed and then blame everyone else and everything apart from the real problem which is there glass cannon build. They will die and blame "I win" button’s instead of looking at the real problems. PvP is not about pure DPS like PvE. You need more then DPS.
“ When someone points out something like the insta-vape builds, endless immunity cheese, or something else that shouldn't exist or sucks the fun out of playing something, it's always "you're just an inexperienced noob that doesn't know what you're doing and your build is bad." It's never that something is actually cheese and bad for the game, no it's always that the player doesn't know what they're doing and are just whining.”
That’s because its true most of the time. I would estimate something like 9 times out of 10 Instead of looking at possible flaws in the build or asking for advice what I am seeing is whining and blaming everyone else, calling it cheese when its not, blaming everyone else that is playing better instead of asking questions, asking for guides or help. There isn't a problem with insta-vape builds or cheese. I am not seeing any evidence of that. What I am seeing is people blaming insta-vape builds or cheese instead of self reflecting on flaws in there own build which stops insta-vape builds and stops the so called cheese builds. It very often does come down to the player doesn't know what they are doing and are just whining instead of it being cheese or broken.
I am not trying to motivate you into going back to PvP. I am trying to correct your misinformation so others who are interested know there are solutions to the problems you listed or that some of the problems you listed like chaining immunities have been solved years ago. There are problems with PvP but its nowhere near as bad as you make out. Not anymore. It used to be 5+ years ago but not now. Excluding the small amount of toxic players that hasn't changed much but that's an entirely different subject.
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That’s because its true most of the time. I would estimate something like 9 times out of 10 Instead of looking at possible flaws in the build or asking for advice what I am seeing is whining and blaming everyone else, calling it cheese when its not, blaming everyone else that is playing better instead of asking questions, asking for guides or help. There isn't a problem with insta-vape builds or cheese. I am not seeing any evidence of that. What I am seeing is people blaming insta-vape builds or cheese instead of self reflecting on flaws in there own build which stops insta-vape builds and stops the so called cheese builds.
Therein lies the problem. They DO exist, and many people have fallen victim to them. And most of the time they're also on cloakers so you don't see them coming until they strike, which by then is too late. In my personal experience after being a victim of that, the piece of advice I got was "listen for their buffs". Oh yea like that's really viable. They can buff outside of range, dash in, decloak and vape, then cloak and wait for respawn. NOTHING TO LISTEN FOR.
And another bad experience I had was in Core Assault, where the whole other team decided to SPAWN CAMP US in our tube. We could NOT get out because they would instantly vape us! And I was flying a decently geared Command Assault Cruiser... that melted the second they looked at me. The ONLY damage we did... was when they were focusing on me and not one of my fleetmates with a Megawell Build. But still... I got Vaped. MULTIPLE TIMES. IN A ROW. And as you can tell... I was getting rather angry at the fact I couldn't do shtako. And I think they had like 4 escorts and one cruiser, and spent quite a while just spawn camping.
And how can you learn what the "flaws in your build" are... when you get oneshot? Is the ENTIRE build bunk then? What failed? Oh I don't know... EVERYTHING? There is literally NO TIME to figure that out because they waste you so fast you don't even know what hit you. I'm running a gold plated version of the same build, with a few improvements, on my Temporal Connie now. But even with Mk XV gold everything... I have a feeling I'll get vaped again because enough firepower to vape things with massive HP pools is still gonna chew throw a player like a hot knife through butter. And I tend to do more balanced builds that can counter most things thrown at me. Decent survivability, decent firepower, jack of all trades type. Hit me with a subnuc, I can clear it. Put a DoT on me? I can clear it. Try and make me shoot off in a direction? I can clear that. Survive an alpha strike from a PvP build? ... questionable. I'd put my chances at maybe 30%, being generous if I can pop Reverse Shield Polarity and they don't overwhelm it.
I have surprised some PvPers with my resiliance in the past because I build to counter most NPC groups, but when you get the vaper builds... By the time you even know what's happening its too late.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
You are wasting your time here, these dudes don't care to listen, though there is a valid point that certain 250/300 mill ships that come with a starship trait and console improve the quality of life for pvp, that can't be denied, these are worth collecting.
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That’s because its true most of the time. I would estimate something like 9 times out of 10 Instead of looking at possible flaws in the build or asking for advice what I am seeing is whining and blaming everyone else, calling it cheese when its not, blaming everyone else that is playing better instead of asking questions, asking for guides or help. There isn't a problem with insta-vape builds or cheese. I am not seeing any evidence of that. What I am seeing is people blaming insta-vape builds or cheese instead of self reflecting on flaws in there own build which stops insta-vape builds and stops the so called cheese builds.
Therein lies the problem. They DO exist, and many people have fallen victim to them. And most of the time they're also on cloakers so you don't see them coming until they strike, which by then is too late. In my personal experience after being a victim of that, the piece of advice I got was "listen for their buffs". Oh yea like that's really viable. They can buff outside of range, dash in, decloak and vape, then cloak and wait for respawn. NOTHING TO LISTEN FOR.
And another bad experience I had was in Core Assault, where the whole other team decided to SPAWN CAMP US in our tube. We could NOT get out because they would instantly vape us! And I was flying a decently geared Command Assault Cruiser... that melted the second they looked at me. The ONLY damage we did... was when they were focusing on me and not one of my fleetmates with a Megawell Build. But still... I got Vaped. MULTIPLE TIMES. IN A ROW. And as you can tell... I was getting rather angry at the fact I couldn't do shtako. And I think they had like 4 escorts and one cruiser, and spent quite a while just spawn camping.
And how can you learn what the "flaws in your build" are... when you get oneshot? Is the ENTIRE build bunk then? What failed? Oh I don't know... EVERYTHING? There is literally NO TIME to figure that out because they waste you so fast you don't even know what hit you. I'm running a gold plated version of the same build, with a few improvements, on my Temporal Connie now. But even with Mk XV gold everything... I have a feeling I'll get vaped again because enough firepower to vape things with massive HP pools is still gonna chew throw a player like a hot knife through butter. And I tend to do more balanced builds that can counter most things thrown at me. Decent survivability, decent firepower, jack of all trades type. Hit me with a subnuc, I can clear it. Put a DoT on me? I can clear it. Try and make me shoot off in a direction? I can clear that. Survive an alpha strike from a PvP build? ... questionable. I'd put my chances at maybe 30%, being generous if I can pop Reverse Shield Polarity and they don't overwhelm it.
I have surprised some PvPers with my resiliance in the past because I build to counter most NPC groups, but when you get the vaper builds... By the time you even know what's happening its too late.
Building balanced builds used to be a decent way to do random pvp. (not up against teams) No doubt though ya at this point the difference between what people build for the PvE end of the game and what is possible to do if you think about nothing but blowing up other human players is just far too vast. (also not picking on you or anything... but PvP meta is always changing and so unlike the PvE meta you mentioned RSP might save you, nope not so much shields are mostly useless, a good vape will burst so much damage on you with shield bypass or bleed through that you'll pop anyway)
I love PvP and I would love to see more people doing it... but its just not possible without player intervention. (as in private matches where specific rules are agreed on). I would love Cryptic to add a PvP only mode where 90% of the things we take for granted now are turned off. Instead if anyone really did want to bring PvP back they would have to do it outside of Cryptic. We have tried in the past to run Low level PvP.... T5 ship PvP... ect but Cryptic is always throwing wrenches in the works with traits... reputation traits and other things that are harder to ban from a game.
The closest thing we have had to fun fair PvP was Tyler Durden fight club... I started that what probably 7 or 8 years back already. I stopped doing that long ago, but there are PvPers that have taken it up. Hey if you are ever honestly thinking about trying PvP and not being a "pinata" Join OrganizedPvP chat channel (don't think anyone really uses the TylerDurden channel anymore... and see if some TD matches break out). The idea was we would take a group of people playing a full 10 or 8 or 7 ect... and hand make the teams. So if there was a couple new guys one goes on one team one goes on the other, make sure one side isn't all sci or all vape builds ect. It can be a lot more fun then quing randoms and hitting a PvP team on the other side or 2 PvP vets on one side that make it a no fun 15/0 game. When done right TD matches should end 15 14... having said that with the current state of the game, a 15 14 match is likely to be an hour long. The last actual real setup team vs team game I played in something like 4 or 5 years ago went on for over an hour.
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That’s because its true most of the time. I would estimate something like 9 times out of 10 Instead of looking at possible flaws in the build or asking for advice what I am seeing is whining and blaming everyone else, calling it cheese when its not, blaming everyone else that is playing better instead of asking questions, asking for guides or help. There isn't a problem with insta-vape builds or cheese. I am not seeing any evidence of that. What I am seeing is people blaming insta-vape builds or cheese instead of self reflecting on flaws in there own build which stops insta-vape builds and stops the so called cheese builds.
Therein lies the problem. They DO exist, and many people have fallen victim to them. And most of the time they're also on cloakers so you don't see them coming until they strike, which by then is too late.
I'd have to agree that part of the issue is when you or me take a PvE build into PvP expecting everything to be 100% ok and then it isn't. We spend a fair bit of time working on and trying to improve our PvE builds yet when things don't go as expected elsewhere for some reason there is no follow up or further study even though we're curious or we wouldn't be there in the first place. Instead of making a forum post asking some good questions it can be easier to just complain. Part of the issue here might be the fact that the PvP portion of the forums is buried so possibly hard to find for a lot of people.
Hit me with a subnuc, I can clear it. Put a DoT on me? I can clear it. Try and make me shoot off in a direction? I can clear that. Survive an alpha strike from a PvP build? ... questionable. I'd put my chances at maybe 30% ... I have surprised some PvPers with my resiliance in the past ... I'm running a gold plated version...
This is commendable. Providing the interest is there could this 30% be improved upon? It's quite likely.
And another bad experience I had was in Core Assault, where the whole other team decided to SPAWN CAMP US in our tube. We could NOT get out because they would instantly vape us!
I've gotten spawn camped in both ground and space while doing the related PvP endeavor. It happens. Have often wondered if map design has something to do with this. The nice thing about the Core Assault competitive queue is if you're looking for a no contact option another queue is available.
“They DO exist, and many people have fallen victim to them. And most of the time they're also on cloakers so you don't see them coming until they strike, which by then is too late”
Only because they have poor builds often due to lack of know knowledge or lack of expreince. Its not automatically to late once they strike. With a decent build and decent experienced those one strikes pretty much stop happening or at the very least they shouldn't happen very often. I have watched plenty of alpha strikes bounce of my ship using common easy to get gear. When I took a break from PvP then went back to it I spent hours blowing up but I didn't blame other players I looked at my builds tweaked and tweaked and asked for advice until I started surviving. People do fall victim to them but that doesn't mean the vipe build is broken, it means the "victim" needs to learn to fix the weakness in there build so the opponent cannot take advantage of the weakness they found.
EDIT: there are also way to see the cloakers while they are cloaked. In the past I had an anti clocker build that hit them cloaked when there shields are down.
“That happened to me even after I'd done everything I could come up with (within budget) to resolve the issue, including switching into a high-hull cruiser and stacking resistances all over the place. I was still getting one-shot-killed. And so-called "experts" “
Its hard to offer advice without knowing your setup. How many hitpoints did you have? What resistance level? How many temporary hitpoints? Did you not use the automatic passive's that keep you alive? I watch the one shot vipe bounce off me all the time using mostly cheap store based items. In your post before this which I missed you mentioned a number of areas but none of the main ones that people use to survive. What about high levels of passive hull regen which automatically passively kick in along with running 500k+ temporary hitpoints on top of hull and automatic active hull healing which should stop most alpha strikes. Did you use the colony tactical consoles combo which is what most PvPers use to survive? What was your hull modifier, dodge stats, defense stats? I find a lot of PvE players are not even aware of doge or defense let alone what the hull modifier is for there own ship.
“And how can you learn what the "flaws in your build" are... when you get oneshot? Is the ENTIRE build bunk then? What failed? Oh I don't know... EVERYTHING? There is literally NO TIME to figure that out because they waste you so fast you don't even know what hit you. “
Sometimes yes the entire build is bunk. More then once I have had to abandoned entire builds that work in PvE that don’t work in PvP. The two are not similar and required very different ways of thinking. As for how to learn about flaws in the build.
Ask in zone chat, read the PVP build guides, ask your team mates, watch the PvP guide videos, ask here. Just using the right tactic consoles and 1other console slot with the right spec choice is enough to build up a big enough buffer to survive most alpha strikes. It can be hard to gain the expreince and knowledge needed I already said that's one of the core problems. I spent hours with literally no time to figure out what to do but it is possible to get past that stage.
I find a lot of people complaining are running low hitpoint builds often at 150k or 100k or less, relatively low resistance and low temporary hitpoints. Not using things like dodge or defense and all the other methods. Then they act like they have massive HP pools when they do not and complain about getting vaped saying they have a strong tank when they do not. Surviving an alpha strike from a PvP build is not questionable its common and not that hard with enough practice and skill. There are many ways to do it. If you are finding you are constantly being killed before you know what is happening the problem often isn't the viper (*) it’s with your setup and build and/or the way you pilot. More often than not the pure viper builds are just taking advantage of people with poor builds and targets of opportunity. Viper builds often fall apart once they hit a decent defense build and once they realize you have that they avoid you and you start hunting them. Viper build are about going in hard and pulling out they often cannot sustain a fight. Once you survive that initial alpha strike you get the chance to turn the tables. Viper carefully pick weaker targets they know they can take out. Once they peg you are a weak target they will keep going after you.
* I assume we are not talking something silly like 5v1. I am thinking more 1v1 or 1v2 or 2v2.
You are wasting your time here, these dudes don't care to listen, though there is a valid point that certain 250/300 mill ships that come with a starship trait and console improve the quality of life for pvp, that can't be denied, these are worth collecting.
Fully agree the 250/300 mill ships give an advantage and some of the 1billion EC ships offer a further advantage. If youc an afford them they are well worth having.
I was just trying to get cross those are not needed/not essential. You don't need 300million just to survive. Its possible to get into PvP and play PvP with budget builds. One wouldn't expect to do as well as the super high end builds or experienced players but you should be able to get some wins in. The core of many PvP builds is built around easy to get and relatively cheap gear. Like the colony tactical console temporary hitpoint combo. Or competitive engine combos. Not that I need to tell you this, I listed those for the benefit of others who might not know. Those are game changers for novices getting into PvP who dont want to spend much.
Well that’s just not true. The core elements to survive in PvP are 98% relatively cheap items from the in-game stores with perhaps 2% of items, if that, made up of relatively cheap items from the exchange. I have no idea where you are getting this 750million figure from its just not true. I need to log in to double check buy my current build has 1 core item that isn’t from the in-game store. Everything else was from the fleet or reputation stores. There are some nice to have items like the Voth powercore but they are not must have items and you can run just fine without them.
Dude, like I said you're not going to convince me on this. I can find plenty of examples to show how wrong and disingenuous what you said actually is, but you've made clear it would do me no good. I run as a tank in this game. I run on average no less than 50% across the board resists, and can easily spike that up to 88% or more if I have to. I can buff the ever living daylights out of my shield hardness and turtle in if I have to, but even then that's often still not enough for some of these cheese vape builds out there. All of that of course assumes I had enough time to react to anything and dude isn't just using the cloak and run tactics. If I do by some miracle survive vaper's volley there's typically no point in trying as I'm at 1% health where even a fly could kill me and I would have to spend most of my cooldowns to recover while dude cloaks and waits for his stuff to come back up. That's not skill, and that's not a fight. I would say what I really think about that kind of stuff but then I would have to ban myself from the forums. I can tell you right now that you're not going to get to the kind of tank build I have on the cheap or get to the resistance levels I can get to. You can make some decent builds on the cheap, but it's not going to be this top tier build like you think it is, not by a long shot.
Its not that none of it doesn’t happen. Its that is not unbalanced, doesn’t require 750m and there are plenty of easy ways to get around the problems you are going on about. Immunity was changed years ago so it was impossible to chain immunities now. Clickie builds are not the only way to play due to my bad joints I don’t play Clickie builds in fact I don’t even take active bridge officer healing as its too much clicking for me.
The 3 core problems are lack of expreince, lack of relevant PvP knowledge and far to often players taking unsuitable PvE builds with the bare minimum of defense into PvP then wondering why they get 1 shot killed none stop. PvE builds with the bare minimum defense should get 1 shot killed. I see it time and time again a PvE person will take a PvE class cannon build into PvP get 1 shot killed and then blame everyone else and everything apart from the real problem which is there glass cannon build. They will die and blame "I win" button’s instead of looking at the real problems. PvP is not about pure DPS like PvE. You need more then DPS.
See above on the build costs thing. You're assuming one even has a chance to react. Again you're not getting the tank build I have on the cheap, and even that's not enough some times for these guys with the cheese they use.
The bit in bold is also the prime example of what I'm talking about with most pvp communities. It's never that something is unbalanced or that something is just so cheesy that it gives someone an instant "I win" button. Can there sometimes be instances like that where folks don't yet know what they're doing, sure. However when folks who do know what they're doing say something is cheese or busted, it's still the same tired excuses that basically amount to get "g3t g00d n00b". Your second point in bold proves my point that the pvp communities simply don't care. someone could have a good build and know what they're doing, but it will never be accepted by the pvp communities when there are legitimate issues cropping up. It'll always be dismissed as that person needing to "g3t g00d n00b". You may as well come out and say there is no war in Ba Sing Se.
That’s because its true most of the time. I would estimate something like 9 times out of 10 Instead of looking at possible flaws in the build or asking for advice what I am seeing is whining and blaming everyone else, calling it cheese when its not, blaming everyone else that is playing better instead of asking questions, asking for guides or help. There isn't a problem with insta-vape builds or cheese. I am not seeing any evidence of that. What I am seeing is people blaming insta-vape builds or cheese instead of self reflecting on flaws in there own build which stops insta-vape builds and stops the so called cheese builds. It very often does come down to the player doesn't know what they are doing and are just whining instead of it being cheese or broken.
I am not trying to motivate you into going back to PvP. I am trying to correct your misinformation so others who are interested know there are solutions to the problems you listed or that some of the problems you listed like chaining immunities have been solved years ago. There are problems with PvP but its nowhere near as bad as you make out. Not anymore. It used to be 5+ years ago but not now. Excluding the small amount of toxic players that hasn't changed much but that's an entirely different subject.
And there it is in bold. Exactly what I was talking about. You say you want people to do pvp, yet you dismiss any concern people raise as to why they don't like pvp as just them being a bunch of whiners. Or when someone points out an issue, you simply dismiss it as "misinformation" like any modern politician that hears something they don't like. Then you have the gall to wonder why people don't want to pvp with you.
Point blank dude, get over yourself. Your statements in bold are the exact kind of toxic attitudes I'm talking about and why I am now convinced you guys just want new people so you'll have "fresh meat" to slap around. There is no "misinformation" here save in your mind. The fact that people have had such toxic experiences at all and in as great of quantities as it appears to be is telling. Those kinds of toxic experiences shouldn't be happening at all, yet they do. No you will never get rid of toxicity completely unless we change human nature or your choice of higher power gives an omniscient system to screen out the toxic people, but we can limit it. The fact that you're writing off the majority of everyone here as being an isolated incident only without even hearing what people have said is telling, and counteracts attempts to limit toxicity. The more I have heard you and others speak on these things, the more I hope pvp never comes back into this game in any form or fashion. pvp in this game is not going to come back without some sort of divine intervention miracle at this juncture.
"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
“Dude, like I said you're not going to convince me on this. I can find plenty of examples to show how wrong and disingenuous what you said actually is, but you've made clear it would do me no good”
How have I made it clear it will do no good? I am listening and trying to help by offering solutions. You’re the one being obstructive. The only person being disingenuous here is you. I can prove what I am saying but you seem to just want to ignore that and just go it will do no good despite there being facts proving otherwise. There was even a thread here a fair while back on how to build budget PvP setups that work. There are tons of guides and PvP videos that don’t require all this stuff you made up that isn’t true. As far as I can see you just want to blame everyone else and refuse to look at any possible solutions. You seem to have this attitude of no matter what the facts, no matter what the evidence you are never going to be convinced. Which is fine as I am not trying to convert you. Not everyone likes PvP and PvP is clearly not for everyone. I don't even like all forms of PvP myself. Some types I like other types I avoid. But at the same time, I don’t like your misinformation blaming PvP players for you dying all the time or that one needs 750million. As far as I can see you are making up excuses and falsely putting the blame on other people.
“ I run on average no less than 50% across the board resists,”
So your running low resistance levels which is part of your problem. It wouldn’t surprise me if you also have a low hull value. What is your effective hit point level? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something extremely low. Do you know what your effective hitpoint level is (EHP)? Did you stack dodge if you can take that which lowers incoming damage by 20% before factoring in resistance? Did you use defence to cut incoming DPS in half or more before resistance? One can cut damage in half with defence then cut the remaining damage by 20% from dodge and then what remains gets cut down again by 60% to 80% from resistance. Then you use 300k to 500k temporary hitpoitns on top of all that. Doing this you can take 1million damage and still survive. While your ship sounds like it can barely take 150k damage and dies. In PvP you need a good 500k+ EHP to survive Alpha strikes and 1+ million EHP not that hard to do and much better. What is your EHP? Can you honestly say you have an EHP over 500k? or 750k? Are you really getting instant killed in the high EHP range? If you have a low EHP it proves what I was saying before.
“ I can tell you right now that you're not going to get to the kind of tank build I have on the cheap or get to the resistance levels I can get to. “
Well I think you are wrong. It sounds like you have a low-end tank that can be made stronger very cheaply. Yet just said you have low siting resistance and then complain about people killing you before you get chance to respond. Have you made use of bonus resistance on top of normal resistance? I don’t mean this in an insulting way as many PvEers are not even aware of bonus resistance. Do you know what that is and have you stacked and used bonus resistance over normal resistance? 10% bonus resistance is massively better than 10% resistance.
If you have a typical PvE active bridge officer healing tank I bet I can match and most likely beat your tank massively using cheap easy to get items via a passive regeneration tank. Though I should point out I fly big slow ships like dreadnoughts, Carriers e.c.t When it comes to Escorts I am inexperienced. EDIT: I assume by cheap we are talking EC like we was before not Dilithium.
“It's never that something is unbalanced or that something is just so cheesy that it gives someone an instant "I win" button.”
That’s not true. Sometimes it is but in this case it doesn’t appear to bet. There have been cheesy and instant "I win" buttons in the past but the devs have removed or solved pretty much if not all of those. Now if you are being blown up instantly chances are its not because the other person is using something cheesy or “I win” its because of a flaw in your build or piloting skill. Which means you can solve it and stop the opponents so called cheesy or “I win” button. If you can stop the cheesy or “I Win” button which we can then it’s not really a cheesy or “I Win”. I am not aware of any current in game cheesy or “I win” buttons. There have been many in the past.
Just because you died over and over again it doesn’t automatically mean the other person is using an “I win” build or that they are using a cheesy method. I could just as well mean you have made a mistake in your build and from the way you speak it really sounds like that is the case. Why are you so sure the problem isn’t your build but it is the other player doing something cheesy? I have seen this time and time again where the player shouts it’s cheesy or “I win” only it turns out they have a massive flaw in the build and are falsely blaming the other players. Which is what I think you are doing.
“You say you want people to do pvp, yet you dismiss any concern people raise as to why they don't like pvp as just them being a bunch of whiners.”
I didn’t just blanket dismiss concerns, some of them I agree with others like yours I think are misinformation based on inexperience and/or lack of relevant knowledge in regards to PvP.
I tried to help and explained how to get around the problems you have and why its misinformation and then I tried to help in explaining some of the ways to cheaply solve the problems like the temporary hitpoint + automatic active healing hit point colony tactical console combination, have you tried that? But you seem to just dismissed all the solutions and did precisely what I pointed out many do, you blamed everyone else instead of looking at possible flaws in your build. You are doing the very thing you are accusing me off. You are dismissing what you don’t like and writing us off under a false toxic pretense
The problem here isn’t me. Its people like you who don’t want to accept help or guidance and only want to blame everyone else. When I died over and over, I didn’t blame everyone else, I asked for help and accepted it. learnt that its not cheesy or “I win” buttons from the other players but was due to major flaws in my build.
Personally, I find you’re the one with the toxic attitude and all your toxic comments. I thought you had got much better over the past 2 years but you seem to be slowly going back to your old toxic ways of years back. EDIT: I don't mean full on flat out toxic like the minority worse PvPers. One moment your helping and the next your in thread like this with all your negative comments and negative language.
“I am now convinced you guys just want new people so you'll have "fresh meat" to slap around.”
Which just goes to show what a toxic attitude you have. Not only have you got it completely wrong as that couldn't be further from the truth. You seem to be seeing the worst in people trying to help. I run support only and I don’t even have skill points in most weapon skills nor do I use energy builds, torpedo boats, even EPG builds or anything else remotely meta and I even run weapon power at minimum. I don’t slap people around. My builds try to help people and keep people alive. I don’t spawn camp or pick on weak players. If I see someone dying over and over I back off and offer advice. Like this thread I try to help where I can which is why I spend so many 1000's of hours testing things and uploading guides, putting in bug reports many of the guides have helped a lot of people. Only to have toxic comments from you and others calling me disingenuous for telling the truth and treat me like I am part of a mob wanting fresh meat to slap around. Well that's just not true. That's not why I PvP.
This is commendable. Providing the interest is there could this 30% be improved upon? It's quite likely.
Its possible. I haven't really done much PvP outside of a 1v1 with a fleetmate who likes to run. Main thing that's improved so far has actually been bonus stats from Endeavors. He used to be pretty tough. Now he's running from me just to live because I've slowly been improving through Endeavors, and he's pretty much stagnated because he doesn't play much anymore.
And I admit I don't min/max anything. I got mixed mods and set pieces. I'm sure I could probably squeeze a bit more DPS if I used the Bajor Defense set on a phaser build rather than the Kobali, but I honestly prefer the added heals of the Kobali set. And I used to have a full set of [Acc]x3 phaser arrays back from the old Delta Rising patrol wrappers. They may not have hit as hard, but they hit more ofted. And as a friend put it, they were a PvPer's nightmare.
My main's ship is pushing Phaser damage since there's so much support for it, on top of the DOMINO console, which is awesome.
I've gotten spawn camped in both ground and space while doing the related PvP endeavor. It happens. Have often wondered if map design has something to do with this. The nice thing about the Core Assault competitive queue is if you're looking for a no contact option another queue is available.
I know. I actually enjoy Twin Tribulations. I prefer the straight Mechanics Race to Mechanics Race + Direct PvP. Unfortunately Core Assault was the more popular of the two for some reason.
Theatrics seem to be a large part of this statement. Nicely done
*bows*
Hey... even if I get brushed aside a bit... at least I entertain a bit.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
How have I made it clear it will do no good? I am listening and trying to help by offering solutions. You’re the one being obstructive. The only person being disingenuous here is you. I can prove what I am saying but you seem to just want to ignore that and just go it will do no good despite there being facts proving otherwise. There was even a thread here a fair while back on how to build budget PvP setups that work. There are tons of guides and PvP videos that don’t require all this stuff you made up that isn’t true. As far as I can see you just want to blame everyone else and refuse to look at any possible solutions. You seem to have this attitude of no matter what the facts, no matter what the evidence you are never going to be convinced. Which is fine as I am not trying to convert you. Not everyone likes PvP and PvP is clearly not for everyone. I don't even like all forms of PvP myself. Some types I like other types I avoid. But at the same time, I don’t like your misinformation blaming PvP players for you dying all the time or that one needs 750million. As far as I can see you are making up excuses and falsely putting the blame on other people.
You not liking something I've said doesn't make it misinformation. Also thank you again for proving my point that you guys simply don't listen. You automatically jump to the conclusion of "you're just dying all the time so you're making excuses." You say you're not trying to convert me, yet you want people to play pvp. So what exactly are you trying to do if you don't want people to play it? I can just as easily demonstrate many a build with plenty of durability built in that will not survive without the high end traits. You say you want to provide solutions and have been providing solutions, yet what are these solutions? All I've seen is the same broken record "solutions" that get proposed time and again that always get shot down.
So your running low resistance levels which is part of your problem. It wouldn’t surprise me if you also have a low hull value. What is your effective hit point level? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something extremely low. Do you know what your effective hitpoint level is (EHP)? Did you stack dodge if you can take that which lowers incoming damage by 20% before factoring in resistance? Did you use defence to cut incoming DPS in half or more before resistance? One can cut damage in half with defence then cut the remaining damage by 20% from dodge and then what remains gets cut down again by 60% to 80% from resistance. Then you use 300k to 500k temporary hitpoitns on top of all that. Doing this you can take 1million damage and still survive. While your ship sounds like it can barely take 150k damage and dies. In PvP you need a good 500k+ EHP to survive Alpha strikes and 1+ million EHP not that hard to do and much better. What is your EHP? Can you honestly say you have an EHP over 500k? or 750k? Are you really getting instant killed in the high EHP range? If you have a low EHP it proves what I was saying before.
You're entitled to your views on pvp, but that statement in bold is your problem and why so many people here and elsewhere have pushed back against anything pvp. Right on queue you resort to the default excuse of "you just have a bad build and keep dying" completely dismissing any sort of criticism because it doesn't line up with your views of what pvp should be. It's never that someone has a legitimate issue, no it's always that they don't know as much as you do.
I run on average NO LESS than 50% across the board resists, and can easily spike that up to 88% or more if I have to. I can buff the ever living daylights out of my shield hardness and turtle in if I have to, but even then that's often still not enough for some of these cheese vape builds out there.
Meaning 50% is the minimum resting I would start with in any build. I also have the ability to spike up to 88% or more along with buffs to shield hardness and so on. Yet still it's often not enough due to the cheese nature of vape builds or so on. You say that 98% of things are really cheap to obtain, but then you go into this list of how I supposedly need this health boost, that health boost, this resistance item, that defense buff, and this long list of stuff just to survive, yet very little of it if any is super cheap to pick up. So you just contradicted your last post about everything being super cheap and easy to put together. So thank you for proving my point that it's not as cheap as you say it is and does indeed take quite a bit of investment as I said it did previously. I'm sorry but needing effectively 1m hp just to survive, yeah no, that's grossly unbalanced. Stuff like this is what I mean when I say you've made clear it will do me no good.
Well I think you are wrong. It sounds like you have a low-end tank that can be made stronger very cheaply. Yet just said you have low siting resistance and then complain about people killing you before you get chance to respond. Have you made use of bonus resistance on top of normal resistance? I don’t mean this in an insulting way as many PvEers are not even aware of bonus resistance. Do you know what that is and have you stacked and used bonus resistance over normal resistance? 10% bonus resistance is massively better than 10% resistance.
If you have a typical PvE active bridge officer healing tank I bet I can match and most likely beat your tank massively using cheap easy to get items via a passive regeneration tank. Though I should point out I fly big slow ships like dreadnoughts, Carriers e.c.t When it comes to Escorts I am inexperienced. EDIT: I assume by cheap we are talking EC like we was before not Dilithium.
And there it is right on queue again. Not only do you completely dismiss what I have said, but you then go on to insult my build having never seen anything that I have, and defaulted to "it must be a cheap build." In other words "stop whining and g3t g00d n00b." In fact I would have respected you more in this instance if you had just straight up said that vs beating around the bush. As for the items I have access to and builds, there are approximately 9 ships in this game that I don't own purely because I have no desire to get them. All of my builds have been fully upgraded in terms of dilithium and rolled to proper mods that I need for the situation.
Also on queue you further double down on insulting me and my build and play the classic "i'll be I can beat it with this cheap thing because it's so bad." Then you wonder why folks want nothing to do with pvp. THAT right there is why folks push back on you so hard. You're free to think what you want about my builds even though you've never seen any of them. Otherwise I have nothing to prove to you or anyone here.
That’s not true. Sometimes it is but in this case it doesn’t appear to bet. There have been cheesy and instant "I win" buttons in the past but the devs have removed or solved pretty much if not all of those. Now if you are being blown up instantly chances are its not because the other person is using something cheesy or “I win” its because of a flaw in your build or piloting skill. Which means you can solve it and stop the opponents so called cheesy or “I win” button. If you can stop the cheesy or “I Win” button which we can then it’s not really a cheesy or “I Win”. I am not aware of any current in game cheesy or “I win” buttons. There have been many in the past.
Just because you died over and over again it doesn’t automatically mean the other person is using an “I win” build or that they are using a cheesy method. I could just as well mean you have made a mistake in your build and from the way you speak it really sounds like that is the case. Why are you so sure the problem isn’t your build but it is the other player doing something cheesy? I have seen this time and time again where the player shouts it’s cheesy or “I win” only it turns out they have a massive flaw in the build and are falsely blaming the other players. Which is what I think you are doing.
Thank you for continuing to prove my point about simply dismissing what everyone says. Everything myself and others have said to you and the 2 other pvp guys here has simply gone in one ear and out the other, yet the pvp crowd wonders why they get pushback and folks "have a defeatist mentality". The pvp crowd is the source of its own problems. I never said someone who beats me is using an "I win" button, that's what you tried to assert I said. What I have said is things like the vape builds being as prominent as they still are, is just one reason among many other reasons as to why I don't pvp any longer. Toxicity being the main reason of course. I don't find getting "vaped" by said builds fun, nor do/did I find endless immunity cheese to be fun, or ships you can never target. I shouldn't have to complete re-invent the wheel from scratch just to survive in pvp or similar. Whether you want to think the complaints are valid or not, people are telling you that's why they don't want anything to do with pvp. Whether you agree with it or not, it doesn't make people's experiences any less valid.
I've only been designing content and levels for 15 years, but what do I know as to pvp and balance. People are telling you "this is why we don't want to pvp and why we don't like it" yet instead of actually listening and trying to come up with solutions to get these people back into pvp, or even get new people into pvp, you continue to double down on the same tired excuses.
I didn’t just blanket dismiss concerns, some of them I agree with others like yours I think are misinformation based on inexperience and/or lack of relevant knowledge in regards to PvP.
I tried to help and explained how to get around the problems you have and why its misinformation and then I tried to help in explaining some of the ways to cheaply solve the problems like the temporary hitpoint + automatic active healing hit point colony tactical console combination, have you tried that? But you seem to just dismissed all the solutions and did precisely what I pointed out many do, you blamed everyone else instead of looking at possible flaws in your build. You are doing the very thing you are accusing me off. You are dismissing what you don’t like and writing us off under a false toxic pretense
The problem here isn’t me. Its people like you who don’t want to accept help or guidance and only want to blame everyone else. When I died over and over, I didn’t blame everyone else, I asked for help and accepted it. learnt that its not cheesy or “I win” buttons from the other players but was due to major flaws in my build.
Personally, I find you’re the one with the toxic attitude and all your toxic comments. I thought you had got much better over the past 2 years but you seem to be slowly going back to your old toxic ways of years back. EDIT: I don't mean full on flat out toxic like the minority worse PvPers. One moment your helping and the next your in thread like this with all your negative comments and negative language.
But that's exactly what you did and have been doing. You've been totally dismissing everything anyone has voiced the entire time. Not only have you been dismissing it but you keep doubling down and basically saying "you're wrong and just need to g3t g00d n00b." You keep mentioning how things are so cheap to obtain yet you went into this list of stuff I should do, yet very little of that stuff comes with a cheap price. If I write something off as being toxic, it's because your actions line up with previous toxic experiences myself or others have had. When you're dying in a single shot, there is no time to react to anything, and no chance to rebuild unless you have one of the uber traits. We can debate this point until the cows come home, but again you won't convince me on this.
As to my trying to help people, I will help people so long as they legitimately want the help and are willing to learn. Once that stops I'm out because I'm not going to waste my time or their time.
Which just goes to show what a toxic attitude you have. Not only have you got it completely wrong as that couldn't be further from the truth. You seem to be seeing the worst in people trying to help. I run support only and I don’t even have skill points in most weapon skills nor do I use energy builds, torpedo boats, even EPG builds or anything else remotely meta and I even run weapon power at minimum. I don’t slap people around. My builds try to help people and keep people alive. I don’t spawn camp or pick on weak players. If I see someone dying over and over I back off and offer advice. Like this thread I try to help where I can which is why I spend so many 1000's of hours testing things and uploading guides, putting in bug reports many of the guides have helped a lot of people. Only to have toxic comments from you and others calling me disingenuous for telling the truth and treat me like I am part of a mob wanting fresh meat to slap around. Well that's just not true. That's not why I PvP.
That line in bold right there is the exact blanket dismissal you said you weren't doing. Instead of listening to what people have said and trying to allay concerns, prevent toxic experiences from repeating themselves for alot of people, you doubled down and now finally have flat out said "you're just wrong." This strikes me as a slap in the face to the people you say you want to get into pvp, new and old alike. You demonstrate to people like me who used to pvp that you don't care about concerns we have raised or preventing those experiences from repeating. You demonstrate to new people that if they're going to come into pvp they better shut up and tow the line the "experienced" people put out for them. If you "back off and offer advice after seeing someone dying over and over" as you claim, then congratulations you're one of the only ones who do. As for me being cynical, yeah I'll give you that with the state this planet is in right now. Some stuff has made me more cynical and skeptical of people. I am also a realist who believes actions speak louder than words in almost all cases. You say you don't dismiss things out of hand, yet you've done exactly that with the things I have highlighted in bold all through this post. You say you don't want to be toxic, yet you've repeated some of the same mantra points that line up with many of the toxic experiences myself and others have described. You say one thing, yet your actions so far suggest something else to me.
I also never named anyone specifically when I made my statement about fresh meat. I said that I'm not convinced that isn't what some people want to do, and I stand by that statement. Also on the point of testing, if you really want to get into a "nacelle" measuring contest of who has done more and what, I have over 8500 hours in just 4 of my toons on my account. I stopped counting after that as I didn't want to cycle all 28 of them. This also doesn't count the hundreds of additional hours on tribble and otherwise. In fact when the current skill trees were coming out, I spent a total of 200 hours on just that alone. Also in regards to bug reports, you've put in 5 in going back to January that I see. I appreciate people putting in reports for bugs, however let's not pretend you've put out some novel of bug reports or similar. If you're legitimately helping people as you claim, and they're improving at what they want to do, that's great. However I still stand by what I have said here. Your actions in here and elsewhere suggest something completely different to me as do the actions of the other pvp folks.
Anyways I have said my peace at this juncture. Good day to you sir.
"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
“"temporary hitpoints" because while I did have the console suggested for that, I was being ambushed and killed too fast to activate it (or activate anything else for that matter).”
Then you are not using them correctly the temporary hitpoints should have 100% uptiome and be well before combat starts ready to take the alpha strike. The point of the 500k ish temporary hit points is to absorb the alpha strike so you have time to react. Also, the temporary hitpoints take 5 ish seconds to build up to 500k so they need to be ready before the Alpha strike hits.
“Passive hull regen does NOTHING when you are being killed in two seconds. Literally two seconds.”
If you have high passive regen that’s around 4 free automatic heals over 2 seconds and should not be killed in 2 seconds if you have high EHP so you can get a dozen free automatic heals. What is your EHP?
“Also, I did have the colony tac consoles, but they were worthless due to the fact that I could not meet the trigger condition before being killed.”
Did you combine them with the Hull Image refractors? This makes the temporary hitpoints massive and triggers the condition 30 seconds before being killed and sustains the condition for as long as your want. Meaning you have 15 to 30 seconds to respond to the Alpha strike instead of 2 seconds.
"Did you not use the automatic passive's that keep you alive? "... not sure what you are referring to here, so cannot answer.
There is a 25% chance per console for the restorative matrix to passively trigger and each Colony console is healing me something like 60k+ per console (14k+ per tick). With 3 to 5 consoles that a very high passive trigger chance. Just as one example. Which combined with passive hull regen, high resistance and high EHP I no longer die in 2 seconds.
>Okay, so challenge time. You said you can make a budget PvP build...so pick a ship and come up with a PvP viable build that is NOT a zipcort for under 200 mil EC and no more than 200k refined dil using only free traits + the one the ship comes with.
This cant be serious, given that i already have budged build in my signature that cost mostly delithium which btw is NOT an invitation to pvp, my initial intend was, to spread a build that would help people who during the pvp endevour would just give up on life and float around till its over. That being said, i hope people who hate pvp stop insist that i am inviting/forcing them to pvp.
Also 200k delithium cant be serious, you maybe need 200-300k just to fill the slots on your ship with meaningful items, and another 500-800k for pheonix boxes so you could get everything upgraded to gold during an upgrade weekend, then you need some delithium for re engineer and other expenses, so we are talking anything from 900k to 1500k total. EC could be lower, depending on the deals you could get from exchange or what you already have, maybe something like 20m-100m.
There is already a budged build shared and available but you would still ask for one ...
Comments
A friendly bit of advice dude, stuff like this doesn't win you any favors or points with anyone and only makes people want to avoid playing with you further. Two things come to mind when I read this. "everything we like is balanced, everything we don't like is cancerous" and also "no one knows what balance is except for us. we will educate you and the devs on what balance is." Statements like the one above just stink of arrogance and entitlement mentality in my book. You are not the sole deciding factor on what is balanced and what isn't. I've been creating content for older games for 15 years now, and have started to branch into some more modern games. I'm telling you from a programming standpoint, you cannot hope to have balance without a separation of the two modes as you're doing the same thing twice with the same section of code and expecting 2 different results. That is the literal definition of insanity. Not only this but a change made for pvp will effect pve and vice versa.
When certain items become THE answer in all cases and for all builds, to the point it's practically mandatory, that's not balanced. When you have builds that can one shot people with super high damage before they can even react and they need a trait just to have a chance, that's not balanced at all. I've seen some of those builds you people use in pvp and not a single one of them is under 750m ec. The average player is not going to be able to afford the builds you describe. You will also never convince me that an insta-vape build, hiding behind endless immunities, or making yourself completely untargetable is skill. When things like that are possible, you have basically given someone an instant "I win" button. In no universe is that balanced. I don't think anyone expects they're going to be top tier in any game without a little work, but they shouldn't need to practically sell their immortal souls, and sacrifice a goat just to get their foot in the door. Given previous examples, I have a feeling of how you'll try to justify it.
These 2 statements right here are the biggest problems you have and why folks have responded the way they have in here, and why many of us cannot stand to be around the competitive pvp scene. I used to enjoy pvp but statements like this are part of why I gave it up. The first statement in the two comes off to me as "look at us, aren't we great. if you're not doing what we do and part of our crew, you're not a real pvp player." That just stinks of elitism and arrogance in my book.
The second statement comes off as "if you disagree with what I'm saying you're just being negative and aren't worthy to play with us." It assumes no one can disagree with you for any valid reason and I hate that kind of attitude. Having an opinion doesn't make it automatically correct because it's your opinion, nor does someone disagreeing make them wrong just because it's not your opinion.
As I said above, a friendly bit of advice, stop making statements like the ones I pulled out in quotation. They do you no favors and only sour people from wanting to play pvp, further compounding on negative experiences others may have already had.
You want people to try pvp again. Okay what is my incentive to try it again? What would you propose to get people like me, who have had one too many toxic experiences with pvp, to give it another try? What kind of prizes or rewards could I earn from playing pvp? What would you do to level the playing field as much as possible so that it comes down to skill and not whoever has the flavor of the month build? What would you do to incentivize people to play without trying to pigeonhole them into it or forcing them into it, perceived or otherwise?
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
It doesn’t sound like STO’s style of PvP is for you. PvP shouldn’t really be about prizes and rewards. That’s not why a lot of people PvP. If you are going into PvP for prizes and rewards you are always going to clash with a lot of the rest of the PvP people who are not playing for rewards. Rather than giving prizes and rewards the devs should add a ranking system of some sort which follows players outside the map. Things like kill to death ratio, tanking/healing stats, match wins to lose ratio with a league board. That’s the type of thing that will attract people who are into PvP back into PvP. Trying to attract PvE people who are interested in rewards is the reason the PvP competitive content failed so badly. As the PvP people didn’t like it and the PvE people didn’t like it.
That has already been solved by the devs ages ago. PvP moved away from single play styles, pigeonhold into flavour of the month or expensive traits and one-shot people with super high damage a long time ago. There isn’t even any practically mandatory items anymore and while one shotting still happens that only happens to people with poorly designed builds who should get one shot killed. From a technical point of view the playing field is level now. The only thing stopping people now is limited expreince and lack of knowledge that is the problem. Its how to get that knowledge.
EDIT: Not the only problem as there is a problem with some PvPers being toxic in chat but thankfully those are rare. When I have asked questions in zone chat most people have been friendly and helpful. One mistake people make is joining Ker'rat and staying solo. Ask for group invite in zone chat as that can massively change PvP and how it plays.
EDIT: "insta-vape build, hiding behind endless immunities, " that died out many years ago when the Devs made some positive changes to stop it. Its been something like 5+ years since endless immunities was fixed.
There are traits and items in this game with very little value in PvE land. Stuff people don't go out of their way to buy with real money... yet in regards to PvP they are highly annoying to the point where New players and old players hate it.
In the last 8 or 9 years since Cryptic started diverging from the core game with universal consoles... personal traits, doffs and later ship traits. The same thing has happened over and over.... Some new player comes to PvP to check it out (even before endeavors) then end up leaving in frustration. After almost always accusing people cheating somehow. Why are you not dying your at ZERO hull ? Why can't I target you at all ? Why can I see you but not click on you ? How did you go that fast ? Why is every shot at you a miss ?
Those traits and consoles are cancer... they don't even make Cryptic a ton of money as an excuse cause almost all of the things that allow such things are basically useless in the rest of the game. Yet utterly game breaking in PvP. Most long time PvPers avoid specific combos of Items and Abilities cause its just unfun. But if I want to really really annoy a new player I can run a ship that they can't target... that even if they figure that out will have 200k in temp hull, and if they get through that they have to kill the ship twice in 120s... and if I really don't feel like dying I'll slot a screen console and click it at any time if the Zhal trait is on cool down, fly off placate and cloak and wait for the Zhal trait timer. On top of all that of course it will be zero issue for me to burst 1m+ in raw damage every 30 or 40s... so I can pull off the good old... "WTF how did you kill me that fast lag glitcher ?"
Yes there are items that are PVP cancer... and Cryptic hasn't listened to people that play PvP in a long long time. We had one Dev that did once listen to PvPers and actually played with us for awhile. As I understand it they suggested some changes and the response at the time was that will take to much time so no.
What can you say it is what it is. If you want decent you pretty much have to setup a private match and set Rules before hand as to what traits doffs and consoles are no go. Game can be fun if you can get a few people to agree to leave the game breaking junk out of the match.
No it's not that "STO's style of PVP isn't for you", it's a case of issues with competitive pvp overall. We can debate what it should and shouldn't be about, but that's a completely different can of worms. You all say you want people to come back to pvp or you want to attract new people to try it out, yet you offer nothing as incentive. Even games like Call of Duty that is almost exclusively online pvp knows they need to offer incentives to get people playing in different modes. If I wanted to just run around blasting folks I would roll into team deathmatch. If I wanted to bang out a ton of XP I would go into something like Search and Destroy. Otherwise for certain modes that gave me nothing, I never touched them unless I wanted to just waste some time because there was no reason to do so.
No the reason the competitive reputation failed because there was no reason to do those specific queues, and also because of the gross imbalance the exists in pvp. Like it or not, the better majority of this community is typically driven by rewards and things you get for playing the game. Whether you want to think that's for better or worse, I'll leave to you to decide. As someone who has been out of PVP for long time, again simply saying "it sounds like STO's style of pvp isn't for you" is not going to motivate me to return and strikes me in this context as being told "well if you don't like it then get out."
If you want people to participate in something, you need to give them a good reason to do so and make them feel like their time is worth it. Why should they step out of their usual gameplay types, return to a gameplay mode they're no longer interested in, or even try that new mode for the first time if it's only going to be a time waster? All I got from what you said here is that you are not interested in revamping anything to attract new people, but think more of the same is going to work. You're certainly entitled to that view, but doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
I'm sorry but I actually laughed out loud when I read this because we're clearly not playing the same game, at least not around the same people. Every single time I've ever been in ker'rat or heard anyone talking about that system it's always been in the negative. The endless immunities thankfully went the way of the dodo for the most part, but that was in part because it effected pvp and pve both so it was high on the chopping block. Otherwise, insta vaping is still alive and well as are the infinitely untargetable builds. So no those things were not fixed. I recently had to make one of the untargetable builds to test a trait interaction, plus some of my crew I test bugs with also have some of the current vape builds on their toons for bug testing purposes when we need massive damage spikes for a test. You say these things don't happen, yet in an earlier post another user pointed out how many clickies, heals, immunities, temp hp boosts, and other powers seen in pvp, yet you seriously expect me to believe that this stuff doesn't happen and if you want to do any meaningful pvp you need to be willing to spend 750m+ at a minimum?
I also highlighted a portion of this in bold as that kind of thing is another problem I cannot stand with the pvp communities. When someone points out something like the insta-vape builds, endless immunity cheese, or something else that shouldn't exist or sucks the fun out of playing something, it's always "you're just an inexperienced noob that doesn't know what you're doing and your build is bad." It's never that something is actually cheese and bad for the game, no it's always that the player doesn't know what they're doing and are just whining. Even though there is zero means for someone to fight back and the other person basically has an "I win" button. I can point out examples of cheese and unbalanced items all day long, but certain people will never accept it because they benefit from it. The second line in bold in this context also comes off to me as "come little noob we will hold your hand and show you how to play" like some kind of mob boss. If you've had no issues like the rest of us have had, then count yourself as one of the lucky ones. I am legitimately happy you've found a mode you like and people to play it with.
I never claimed it to be an attack. What I said was in the context it was used in this thread, it came off as "everything I don't like is cancerous, and everything I like is balanced."
(end of response to quotations)
I stand by everything I have said here. Too many people say they want folks to get into pvp, get back into pvp, or want new people to try it, yet want to maintain the status quo and do nothing to give people a reason to pvp. Or they pull an arrogant holier than thou attitude with everyone that doesn't agree with them and condescends to them by treating them like they know nothing, yet wonder then why folks don't want to play with them. The more certain people push the issue and try to badger people into playing pvp, the more they drive folks away from it. I'm also still not convinced some people talking about wanting more folks in pvp in this game aren't just wanting new people to play pvp so they have "fresh meat" to slap around.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Its not that none of it doesn’t happen. Its that is not unbalanced, doesn’t require 750m and there are plenty of easy ways to get around the problems you are going on about. Immunity was changed years ago so it was impossible to chain immunities now. Clickie builds are not the only way to play due to my bad joints I don’t play Clickie builds in fact I don’t even take active bridge officer healing as its too much clicking for me.
The 3 core problems are lack of expreince, lack of relevant PvP knowledge and far to often players taking unsuitable PvE builds with the bare minimum of defense into PvP then wondering why they get 1 shot killed none stop. PvE builds with the bare minimum defense should get 1 shot killed. I see it time and time again a PvE person will take a PvE class cannon build into PvP get 1 shot killed and then blame everyone else and everything apart from the real problem which is there glass cannon build. They will die and blame "I win" button’s instead of looking at the real problems. PvP is not about pure DPS like PvE. You need more then DPS.
That’s because its true most of the time. I would estimate something like 9 times out of 10 Instead of looking at possible flaws in the build or asking for advice what I am seeing is whining and blaming everyone else, calling it cheese when its not, blaming everyone else that is playing better instead of asking questions, asking for guides or help. There isn't a problem with insta-vape builds or cheese. I am not seeing any evidence of that. What I am seeing is people blaming insta-vape builds or cheese instead of self reflecting on flaws in there own build which stops insta-vape builds and stops the so called cheese builds. It very often does come down to the player doesn't know what they are doing and are just whining instead of it being cheese or broken.
I am not trying to motivate you into going back to PvP. I am trying to correct your misinformation so others who are interested know there are solutions to the problems you listed or that some of the problems you listed like chaining immunities have been solved years ago. There are problems with PvP but its nowhere near as bad as you make out. Not anymore. It used to be 5+ years ago but not now. Excluding the small amount of toxic players that hasn't changed much
Therein lies the problem. They DO exist, and many people have fallen victim to them. And most of the time they're also on cloakers so you don't see them coming until they strike, which by then is too late. In my personal experience after being a victim of that, the piece of advice I got was "listen for their buffs". Oh yea like that's really viable. They can buff outside of range, dash in, decloak and vape, then cloak and wait for respawn. NOTHING TO LISTEN FOR.
And another bad experience I had was in Core Assault, where the whole other team decided to SPAWN CAMP US in our tube. We could NOT get out because they would instantly vape us! And I was flying a decently geared Command Assault Cruiser... that melted the second they looked at me. The ONLY damage we did... was when they were focusing on me and not one of my fleetmates with a Megawell Build. But still... I got Vaped. MULTIPLE TIMES. IN A ROW. And as you can tell... I was getting rather angry at the fact I couldn't do shtako. And I think they had like 4 escorts and one cruiser, and spent quite a while just spawn camping.
And how can you learn what the "flaws in your build" are... when you get oneshot? Is the ENTIRE build bunk then? What failed? Oh I don't know... EVERYTHING? There is literally NO TIME to figure that out because they waste you so fast you don't even know what hit you. I'm running a gold plated version of the same build, with a few improvements, on my Temporal Connie now. But even with Mk XV gold everything... I have a feeling I'll get vaped again because enough firepower to vape things with massive HP pools is still gonna chew throw a player like a hot knife through butter. And I tend to do more balanced builds that can counter most things thrown at me. Decent survivability, decent firepower, jack of all trades type. Hit me with a subnuc, I can clear it. Put a DoT on me? I can clear it. Try and make me shoot off in a direction? I can clear that. Survive an alpha strike from a PvP build? ... questionable. I'd put my chances at maybe 30%, being generous if I can pop Reverse Shield Polarity and they don't overwhelm it.
I have surprised some PvPers with my resiliance in the past because I build to counter most NPC groups, but when you get the vaper builds... By the time you even know what's happening its too late.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
You are wasting your time here, these dudes don't care to listen, though there is a valid point that certain 250/300 mill ships that come with a starship trait and console improve the quality of life for pvp, that can't be denied, these are worth collecting.
Building balanced builds used to be a decent way to do random pvp. (not up against teams) No doubt though ya at this point the difference between what people build for the PvE end of the game and what is possible to do if you think about nothing but blowing up other human players is just far too vast. (also not picking on you or anything... but PvP meta is always changing and so unlike the PvE meta you mentioned RSP might save you, nope not so much shields are mostly useless, a good vape will burst so much damage on you with shield bypass or bleed through that you'll pop anyway)
I love PvP and I would love to see more people doing it... but its just not possible without player intervention. (as in private matches where specific rules are agreed on). I would love Cryptic to add a PvP only mode where 90% of the things we take for granted now are turned off. Instead if anyone really did want to bring PvP back they would have to do it outside of Cryptic. We have tried in the past to run Low level PvP.... T5 ship PvP... ect but Cryptic is always throwing wrenches in the works with traits... reputation traits and other things that are harder to ban from a game.
The closest thing we have had to fun fair PvP was Tyler Durden fight club... I started that what probably 7 or 8 years back already. I stopped doing that long ago, but there are PvPers that have taken it up. Hey if you are ever honestly thinking about trying PvP and not being a "pinata" Join OrganizedPvP chat channel (don't think anyone really uses the TylerDurden channel anymore... and see if some TD matches break out). The idea was we would take a group of people playing a full 10 or 8 or 7 ect... and hand make the teams. So if there was a couple new guys one goes on one team one goes on the other, make sure one side isn't all sci or all vape builds ect. It can be a lot more fun then quing randoms and hitting a PvP team on the other side or 2 PvP vets on one side that make it a no fun 15/0 game. When done right TD matches should end 15 14... having said that with the current state of the game, a 15 14 match is likely to be an hour long. The last actual real setup team vs team game I played in something like 4 or 5 years ago went on for over an hour.
This is commendable. Providing the interest is there could this 30% be improved upon? It's quite likely.
I've gotten spawn camped in both ground and space while doing the related PvP endeavor. It happens. Have often wondered if map design has something to do with this. The nice thing about the Core Assault competitive queue is if you're looking for a no contact option another queue is available.
Flaming/trolling redacted. — WingedHussar
EDIT: there are also way to see the cloakers while they are cloaked. In the past I had an anti clocker build that hit them cloaked when there shields are down.
Its hard to offer advice without knowing your setup. How many hitpoints did you have? What resistance level? How many temporary hitpoints? Did you not use the automatic passive's that keep you alive? I watch the one shot vipe bounce off me all the time using mostly cheap store based items. In your post before this which I missed you mentioned a number of areas but none of the main ones that people use to survive. What about high levels of passive hull regen which automatically passively kick in along with running 500k+ temporary hitpoints on top of hull and automatic active hull healing which should stop most alpha strikes. Did you use the colony tactical consoles combo which is what most PvPers use to survive? What was your hull modifier, dodge stats, defense stats? I find a lot of PvE players are not even aware of doge or defense let alone what the hull modifier is for there own ship.
Sometimes yes the entire build is bunk. More then once I have had to abandoned entire builds that work in PvE that don’t work in PvP. The two are not similar and required very different ways of thinking. As for how to learn about flaws in the build.
Ask in zone chat, read the PVP build guides, ask your team mates, watch the PvP guide videos, ask here. Just using the right tactic consoles and 1other console slot with the right spec choice is enough to build up a big enough buffer to survive most alpha strikes. It can be hard to gain the expreince and knowledge needed I already said that's one of the core problems. I spent hours with literally no time to figure out what to do but it is possible to get past that stage.
I find a lot of people complaining are running low hitpoint builds often at 150k or 100k or less, relatively low resistance and low temporary hitpoints. Not using things like dodge or defense and all the other methods. Then they act like they have massive HP pools when they do not and complain about getting vaped saying they have a strong tank when they do not. Surviving an alpha strike from a PvP build is not questionable its common and not that hard with enough practice and skill. There are many ways to do it. If you are finding you are constantly being killed before you know what is happening the problem often isn't the viper (*) it’s with your setup and build and/or the way you pilot. More often than not the pure viper builds are just taking advantage of people with poor builds and targets of opportunity. Viper builds often fall apart once they hit a decent defense build and once they realize you have that they avoid you and you start hunting them. Viper build are about going in hard and pulling out they often cannot sustain a fight. Once you survive that initial alpha strike you get the chance to turn the tables. Viper carefully pick weaker targets they know they can take out. Once they peg you are a weak target they will keep going after you.
* I assume we are not talking something silly like 5v1. I am thinking more 1v1 or 1v2 or 2v2.
I was just trying to get cross those are not needed/not essential. You don't need 300million just to survive. Its possible to get into PvP and play PvP with budget builds. One wouldn't expect to do as well as the super high end builds or experienced players but you should be able to get some wins in. The core of many PvP builds is built around easy to get and relatively cheap gear. Like the colony tactical console temporary hitpoint combo. Or competitive engine combos. Not that I need to tell you this, I listed those for the benefit of others who might not know. Those are game changers for novices getting into PvP who dont want to spend much.
See above on the build costs thing. You're assuming one even has a chance to react. Again you're not getting the tank build I have on the cheap, and even that's not enough some times for these guys with the cheese they use.
The bit in bold is also the prime example of what I'm talking about with most pvp communities. It's never that something is unbalanced or that something is just so cheesy that it gives someone an instant "I win" button. Can there sometimes be instances like that where folks don't yet know what they're doing, sure. However when folks who do know what they're doing say something is cheese or busted, it's still the same tired excuses that basically amount to get "g3t g00d n00b". Your second point in bold proves my point that the pvp communities simply don't care. someone could have a good build and know what they're doing, but it will never be accepted by the pvp communities when there are legitimate issues cropping up. It'll always be dismissed as that person needing to "g3t g00d n00b". You may as well come out and say there is no war in Ba Sing Se.
And there it is in bold. Exactly what I was talking about. You say you want people to do pvp, yet you dismiss any concern people raise as to why they don't like pvp as just them being a bunch of whiners. Or when someone points out an issue, you simply dismiss it as "misinformation" like any modern politician that hears something they don't like. Then you have the gall to wonder why people don't want to pvp with you.
Point blank dude, get over yourself. Your statements in bold are the exact kind of toxic attitudes I'm talking about and why I am now convinced you guys just want new people so you'll have "fresh meat" to slap around. There is no "misinformation" here save in your mind. The fact that people have had such toxic experiences at all and in as great of quantities as it appears to be is telling. Those kinds of toxic experiences shouldn't be happening at all, yet they do. No you will never get rid of toxicity completely unless we change human nature or your choice of higher power gives an omniscient system to screen out the toxic people, but we can limit it. The fact that you're writing off the majority of everyone here as being an isolated incident only without even hearing what people have said is telling, and counteracts attempts to limit toxicity. The more I have heard you and others speak on these things, the more I hope pvp never comes back into this game in any form or fashion. pvp in this game is not going to come back without some sort of divine intervention miracle at this juncture.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
So your running low resistance levels which is part of your problem. It wouldn’t surprise me if you also have a low hull value. What is your effective hit point level? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something extremely low. Do you know what your effective hitpoint level is (EHP)? Did you stack dodge if you can take that which lowers incoming damage by 20% before factoring in resistance? Did you use defence to cut incoming DPS in half or more before resistance? One can cut damage in half with defence then cut the remaining damage by 20% from dodge and then what remains gets cut down again by 60% to 80% from resistance. Then you use 300k to 500k temporary hitpoitns on top of all that. Doing this you can take 1million damage and still survive. While your ship sounds like it can barely take 150k damage and dies. In PvP you need a good 500k+ EHP to survive Alpha strikes and 1+ million EHP not that hard to do and much better. What is your EHP? Can you honestly say you have an EHP over 500k? or 750k? Are you really getting instant killed in the high EHP range? If you have a low EHP it proves what I was saying before.
Well I think you are wrong. It sounds like you have a low-end tank that can be made stronger very cheaply. Yet just said you have low siting resistance and then complain about people killing you before you get chance to respond. Have you made use of bonus resistance on top of normal resistance? I don’t mean this in an insulting way as many PvEers are not even aware of bonus resistance. Do you know what that is and have you stacked and used bonus resistance over normal resistance? 10% bonus resistance is massively better than 10% resistance.
If you have a typical PvE active bridge officer healing tank I bet I can match and most likely beat your tank massively using cheap easy to get items via a passive regeneration tank. Though I should point out I fly big slow ships like dreadnoughts, Carriers e.c.t When it comes to Escorts I am inexperienced. EDIT: I assume by cheap we are talking EC like we was before not Dilithium.
That’s not true. Sometimes it is but in this case it doesn’t appear to bet. There have been cheesy and instant "I win" buttons in the past but the devs have removed or solved pretty much if not all of those. Now if you are being blown up instantly chances are its not because the other person is using something cheesy or “I win” its because of a flaw in your build or piloting skill. Which means you can solve it and stop the opponents so called cheesy or “I win” button. If you can stop the cheesy or “I Win” button which we can then it’s not really a cheesy or “I Win”. I am not aware of any current in game cheesy or “I win” buttons. There have been many in the past.
Just because you died over and over again it doesn’t automatically mean the other person is using an “I win” build or that they are using a cheesy method. I could just as well mean you have made a mistake in your build and from the way you speak it really sounds like that is the case. Why are you so sure the problem isn’t your build but it is the other player doing something cheesy? I have seen this time and time again where the player shouts it’s cheesy or “I win” only it turns out they have a massive flaw in the build and are falsely blaming the other players. Which is what I think you are doing.
I didn’t just blanket dismiss concerns, some of them I agree with others like yours I think are misinformation based on inexperience and/or lack of relevant knowledge in regards to PvP.
I tried to help and explained how to get around the problems you have and why its misinformation and then I tried to help in explaining some of the ways to cheaply solve the problems like the temporary hitpoint + automatic active healing hit point colony tactical console combination, have you tried that? But you seem to just dismissed all the solutions and did precisely what I pointed out many do, you blamed everyone else instead of looking at possible flaws in your build. You are doing the very thing you are accusing me off. You are dismissing what you don’t like and writing us off under a false toxic pretense
The problem here isn’t me. Its people like you who don’t want to accept help or guidance and only want to blame everyone else. When I died over and over, I didn’t blame everyone else, I asked for help and accepted it. learnt that its not cheesy or “I win” buttons from the other players but was due to major flaws in my build.
Personally, I find you’re the one with the toxic attitude and all your toxic comments. I thought you had got much better over the past 2 years but you seem to be slowly going back to your old toxic ways of years back. EDIT: I don't mean full on flat out toxic like the minority worse PvPers. One moment your helping and the next your in thread like this with all your negative comments and negative language.
Which just goes to show what a toxic attitude you have. Not only have you got it completely wrong as that couldn't be further from the truth. You seem to be seeing the worst in people trying to help. I run support only and I don’t even have skill points in most weapon skills nor do I use energy builds, torpedo boats, even EPG builds or anything else remotely meta and I even run weapon power at minimum. I don’t slap people around. My builds try to help people and keep people alive. I don’t spawn camp or pick on weak players. If I see someone dying over and over I back off and offer advice. Like this thread I try to help where I can which is why I spend so many 1000's of hours testing things and uploading guides, putting in bug reports many of the guides have helped a lot of people. Only to have toxic comments from you and others calling me disingenuous for telling the truth and treat me like I am part of a mob wanting fresh meat to slap around. Well that's just not true. That's not why I PvP.
And I admit I don't min/max anything. I got mixed mods and set pieces. I'm sure I could probably squeeze a bit more DPS if I used the Bajor Defense set on a phaser build rather than the Kobali, but I honestly prefer the added heals of the Kobali set. And I used to have a full set of [Acc]x3 phaser arrays back from the old Delta Rising patrol wrappers. They may not have hit as hard, but they hit more ofted. And as a friend put it, they were a PvPer's nightmare.
My main's ship is pushing Phaser damage since there's so much support for it, on top of the DOMINO console, which is awesome.
I know. I actually enjoy Twin Tribulations. I prefer the straight Mechanics Race to Mechanics Race + Direct PvP. Unfortunately Core Assault was the more popular of the two for some reason.
*bows*
Hey... even if I get brushed aside a bit... at least I entertain a bit.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
You're entitled to your views on pvp, but that statement in bold is your problem and why so many people here and elsewhere have pushed back against anything pvp. Right on queue you resort to the default excuse of "you just have a bad build and keep dying" completely dismissing any sort of criticism because it doesn't line up with your views of what pvp should be. It's never that someone has a legitimate issue, no it's always that they don't know as much as you do.
Note what I actually said about my build: Meaning 50% is the minimum resting I would start with in any build. I also have the ability to spike up to 88% or more along with buffs to shield hardness and so on. Yet still it's often not enough due to the cheese nature of vape builds or so on. You say that 98% of things are really cheap to obtain, but then you go into this list of how I supposedly need this health boost, that health boost, this resistance item, that defense buff, and this long list of stuff just to survive, yet very little of it if any is super cheap to pick up. So you just contradicted your last post about everything being super cheap and easy to put together. So thank you for proving my point that it's not as cheap as you say it is and does indeed take quite a bit of investment as I said it did previously. I'm sorry but needing effectively 1m hp just to survive, yeah no, that's grossly unbalanced. Stuff like this is what I mean when I say you've made clear it will do me no good.
And there it is right on queue again. Not only do you completely dismiss what I have said, but you then go on to insult my build having never seen anything that I have, and defaulted to "it must be a cheap build." In other words "stop whining and g3t g00d n00b." In fact I would have respected you more in this instance if you had just straight up said that vs beating around the bush. As for the items I have access to and builds, there are approximately 9 ships in this game that I don't own purely because I have no desire to get them. All of my builds have been fully upgraded in terms of dilithium and rolled to proper mods that I need for the situation.
Also on queue you further double down on insulting me and my build and play the classic "i'll be I can beat it with this cheap thing because it's so bad." Then you wonder why folks want nothing to do with pvp. THAT right there is why folks push back on you so hard. You're free to think what you want about my builds even though you've never seen any of them. Otherwise I have nothing to prove to you or anyone here.
Thank you for continuing to prove my point about simply dismissing what everyone says. Everything myself and others have said to you and the 2 other pvp guys here has simply gone in one ear and out the other, yet the pvp crowd wonders why they get pushback and folks "have a defeatist mentality". The pvp crowd is the source of its own problems. I never said someone who beats me is using an "I win" button, that's what you tried to assert I said. What I have said is things like the vape builds being as prominent as they still are, is just one reason among many other reasons as to why I don't pvp any longer. Toxicity being the main reason of course. I don't find getting "vaped" by said builds fun, nor do/did I find endless immunity cheese to be fun, or ships you can never target. I shouldn't have to complete re-invent the wheel from scratch just to survive in pvp or similar. Whether you want to think the complaints are valid or not, people are telling you that's why they don't want anything to do with pvp. Whether you agree with it or not, it doesn't make people's experiences any less valid.
I've only been designing content and levels for 15 years, but what do I know as to pvp and balance. People are telling you "this is why we don't want to pvp and why we don't like it" yet instead of actually listening and trying to come up with solutions to get these people back into pvp, or even get new people into pvp, you continue to double down on the same tired excuses.
But that's exactly what you did and have been doing. You've been totally dismissing everything anyone has voiced the entire time. Not only have you been dismissing it but you keep doubling down and basically saying "you're wrong and just need to g3t g00d n00b." You keep mentioning how things are so cheap to obtain yet you went into this list of stuff I should do, yet very little of that stuff comes with a cheap price. If I write something off as being toxic, it's because your actions line up with previous toxic experiences myself or others have had. When you're dying in a single shot, there is no time to react to anything, and no chance to rebuild unless you have one of the uber traits. We can debate this point until the cows come home, but again you won't convince me on this.
As to my trying to help people, I will help people so long as they legitimately want the help and are willing to learn. Once that stops I'm out because I'm not going to waste my time or their time.
That line in bold right there is the exact blanket dismissal you said you weren't doing. Instead of listening to what people have said and trying to allay concerns, prevent toxic experiences from repeating themselves for alot of people, you doubled down and now finally have flat out said "you're just wrong." This strikes me as a slap in the face to the people you say you want to get into pvp, new and old alike. You demonstrate to people like me who used to pvp that you don't care about concerns we have raised or preventing those experiences from repeating. You demonstrate to new people that if they're going to come into pvp they better shut up and tow the line the "experienced" people put out for them. If you "back off and offer advice after seeing someone dying over and over" as you claim, then congratulations you're one of the only ones who do. As for me being cynical, yeah I'll give you that with the state this planet is in right now. Some stuff has made me more cynical and skeptical of people. I am also a realist who believes actions speak louder than words in almost all cases. You say you don't dismiss things out of hand, yet you've done exactly that with the things I have highlighted in bold all through this post. You say you don't want to be toxic, yet you've repeated some of the same mantra points that line up with many of the toxic experiences myself and others have described. You say one thing, yet your actions so far suggest something else to me.
I also never named anyone specifically when I made my statement about fresh meat. I said that I'm not convinced that isn't what some people want to do, and I stand by that statement. Also on the point of testing, if you really want to get into a "nacelle" measuring contest of who has done more and what, I have over 8500 hours in just 4 of my toons on my account. I stopped counting after that as I didn't want to cycle all 28 of them. This also doesn't count the hundreds of additional hours on tribble and otherwise. In fact when the current skill trees were coming out, I spent a total of 200 hours on just that alone. Also in regards to bug reports, you've put in 5 in going back to January that I see. I appreciate people putting in reports for bugs, however let's not pretend you've put out some novel of bug reports or similar. If you're legitimately helping people as you claim, and they're improving at what they want to do, that's great. However I still stand by what I have said here. Your actions in here and elsewhere suggest something completely different to me as do the actions of the other pvp folks.
Anyways I have said my peace at this juncture. Good day to you sir.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
If you have high passive regen that’s around 4 free automatic heals over 2 seconds and should not be killed in 2 seconds if you have high EHP so you can get a dozen free automatic heals. What is your EHP?
Did you combine them with the Hull Image refractors? This makes the temporary hitpoints massive and triggers the condition 30 seconds before being killed and sustains the condition for as long as your want. Meaning you have 15 to 30 seconds to respond to the Alpha strike instead of 2 seconds.
There is a 25% chance per console for the restorative matrix to passively trigger and each Colony console is healing me something like 60k+ per console (14k+ per tick). With 3 to 5 consoles that a very high passive trigger chance. Just as one example. Which combined with passive hull regen, high resistance and high EHP I no longer die in 2 seconds.
This cant be serious, given that i already have budged build in my signature that cost mostly delithium which btw is NOT an invitation to pvp, my initial intend was, to spread a build that would help people who during the pvp endevour would just give up on life and float around till its over. That being said, i hope people who hate pvp stop insist that i am inviting/forcing them to pvp.
Also 200k delithium cant be serious, you maybe need 200-300k just to fill the slots on your ship with meaningful items, and another 500-800k for pheonix boxes so you could get everything upgraded to gold during an upgrade weekend, then you need some delithium for re engineer and other expenses, so we are talking anything from 900k to 1500k total. EC could be lower, depending on the deals you could get from exchange or what you already have, maybe something like 20m-100m.
There is already a budged build shared and available but you would still ask for one ...