The War on Ignorance
Lately, there has been significant disagreement on the relative power of different abilities and the resulting balance or imbalance of PvP. While some concerns are fundamentally legitimate, other issues only appear at certain levels of player knowledge and team coordination (or lack thereof). For example, Jam Sensors and unstacked Target Shield Subsystems seem wildly out of balance at lower player skill levels simply because people have no idea what they are being hit by, and even less idea what to do about it.
Therefore, I believe that an important part of the PvP balance solution is to fight the war against ignorance. Winning this war would improve the average player skill level, increase PvP enjoyability, increase player retention rates, and allow Powers designers to focus their efforts on refining gameplay within a tighter scope of player ability.
Forum fighters (i.e. STO's flame warriors) have taken it upon themselves to offer their "assistance" in various ways, but no matter how many well-written stickies they produce, such an effort can only hope to reach a small sub-population of players, as Cryptic posters have mentioned on many occasions. Therefore, the only party capable of making a game-wide improvement is Cryptic itself.
I propose that
Cryptic should join the war on PvP ignorance, and their primary weapon should be the game's own UI. The Season 1.1 patch brought the first improvement in this department by creating a combo buff+debuff indicator on the UI (previously, it only showed buffs). This is invaluable to players who already know what to look for and only needed a convenient way to locate the information. However, the war cannot be so easily won.
Supplemental Status Notifications
Part one of the problem at large is that people don't know the mechanics of the game well enough to know what is going on. I propose that Cryptic can counteract this problem through the addition of supplemental notifications, such as via the ship's computer (voice), for key PvP situations. These notifications should be tied to system-level mechanics, not individual abilities.
For instance, subsystem power warfare is common in PvP, yet one of the most commonly asked questions on the forums is "How did he turn off my shields?" followed by "How do I stop that?" A simple way of guiding players to the right answers would be for the ship's computer to simply say,
"Power drain detected" as soon as any subsystem power drain debuff goes into effect. Flash a small indicator in the subsystem power window next to the subsystems that are being drained. Have the HUD blip out or dim momentarily - anything that would suggest that the ship's power levels are being affected and YOU SHOULD PAY ATTENTION OR BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN.
Visible Teamwork Incentives: Teamwork on Display
You'd think that winning would be the most obvious feedback mechanism for what constitutes good play versus bad... but then you'd be quite mistaken. Human psychology is generally not in favor of ascription of responsibility to oneself; instead, the blame gets passed to as many external factors as the subject can imagine.
But that is beside the point. People know they're losing, they simply don't have any idea why in many cases. Again, the war on ignorance demands a solution at the game level. Many alternative PvP scoring systems have been suggested, but most efforts have focused around fairness of points, rather than conveying necessary information. Indeed, the current system of "do damage or heal hull" is quite misleading with regard to what ACTUALLY wins games.
Therefore, I propose that the game end scoreboard should also be used as a tool for pointing people in the right direction. In addition to the changes already planned (counting shield heals), and others proposed (e.g. crediting people who perform map-specific objectives), I would suggest that a new column be added specifically to address the "teamwork quotient" that is the single greatest contributor to winning matches in STO PvP.
Teamwork quotient would be quite simple to calculate:
- Every action (firing a weapon, using an ability) is classified as "team" or "self"
- Offensive abilities are "team" if they target an enemy that at least one other player is also targeting (i.e. encourages focus fire and debuff stacking)
- Defensive abilities are "team" if used on another player, and "self" if used on oneself
- Interacting with a map objective is always a "team" action
- Teamwork quotient is the ratio of "team" actions to "self" actions taken during a fight, capping at 1.0 or 100%
- A player's effective score for reward purposes would be multiplied by their TQ at the end of the match
Note that a TQ of 100% would already achievable simply by focus firing while spamming self-heals, so it is NOT hard to achieve. The metric is simply there to guide players who have not yet mastered even the basics of team play, and the name alone is meant to guide them in the correct direction. A scoreboard tooltip that gave a general indication of TQ being "Earned by coordinating attacks and using support abilities on teammates".
Advanced players will recognize that this system is still quite imperfect, as it does not account for tactics like baiting, debuffing in anticipation of a target switch, forked damage, or "assassination" burst targeting. The system is not directed at these players, as they are not in need of guidance. Any player at this level of experience already knows that focused fire and team support abilities are vital. The low ceiling for TQ (1.0 = 50% of all actions are on teammates or focus fired targets) ensures that such players are still very unlikely to suffer any ill effects.
Summary:
- PvP balance disagreements stem in part from lack of information
- Forums do not reach enough people to win the "war on ignorance"; in-game changes are required
- Supplemental UI notifications like "Power drain detected" and a dimmed HUD could help players recognize what is happening so they know what countermeasures to take
- Adding a Teamwork Quotient to the end-of-match scoreboard will encourage team play
- Winning the "war on ignorance" will benefit everyone in the STO community by increasing retention, increasing the level of play, and allowing designers to work with a more focused set of constraints
Comments
that said, I would love for the UI to say "power drain detected" for a faster reaction time.
Good post indeed, and i'd support it 100%, but i am afraid if they were capable or at least willing to significantly improve this lacking(and seemingly outdated) interface, they would have done that by now.
Yet, when this happens repeatedly and players DON'T learn, it might be prudent to start giving tips instead of hard knocks alone. The STO player base isn't large enough for an exclusively culling-based learning curve... some cultivation is required.
the curve in any game with pvp is exceedingly sharp. Without a desire to improve then theres very little that anyone - even cryptic - can do. one of the things that most people when they start pvp'ing miss, is that its not 5 1v1s, its a 5v5; glaringly obvious but people still miss the idea that teamwork is necessary to win.
also, cryptic could make a giant rainbow blinky light that says "USE TEAMWORK IT WINS" on the loading screen and people would miss it.:rolleyes:
Well then lets just push for an improved interface for the sake of player comfort and not having to look at something that seems to be 10 years old and naively implemented, while playing this game, how about that ?
The desire is there initially; it falls away when the curve becomes too steep. It's in Cryptic's (and our) best interest if people don't lose interest in PvP, therefore smoothing the curve is a logical step to take.
Just brilliant...see my comments in orange
I don't completely agree with this. The thing is, in most games where PvP is a central aspect of gameplay (and STO must be counted as such a game since Klingons level via PvP), there is an actual objective involved that motivates players to get better. Winning and losing matches - even death - is not motivation enough in any PvP game, although consequences of death can be in some cases.
No matter how hard the playerbase tries, we will not be able to create the motivation for players to improve. Such things are the responsibility of the game studio.
So Cryptic does have a role to play in improving the quality of PvP in their game. Clearly it is a partnership between studio and community, but the studio must be involved. My biggest complaint regarding PvP with Cryptic right now is how little partnership they have with the PvP community as a whole, and it is blatently obvious when one considers how little partnership Cryptic has with Klingon players specifically.
An easy example is empowering the benefits of participating in fleets that are effective within a given community. For PvP, this means the studio develops episodes and rewards at the fleet level - activities that encourage good teamwork across a broad base of players through ingame competitions with tangible rewards. Some of the open PvP suggestions we have seen posted by various players would in fact improve teamwork a great deal in STO PvP - indrectly.
Why indirectly? Because the impact of having fleet activities and fleet rewards earned through competitions is that people find value in belonging to organized and effective fleets. If you have ever belonged to an guild/clan/fleet in any PvP game where there are rewards for groups that find success in game, you are keenly aware of the benefits to overall gameplay that comes from such an experience that extends to the whole community. The nature of competition suggests that fleets must improve to be successful when in a competition for tangible rewards, thus players no longer accept failure - rather work harder to earn those potential rewards.
I realize these are MMO business concepts that may not be appropriate to this specific discussion, but players should be aware that for at least the last decade gaming studios have intentionally, indirectly improved gameplay of things like PvP using various methods that might - without analysis - seem completely unrelated.
The phrase I used earlier "herding cats" is a term used in the MMO industry by developers at another studio I have worked for to describe how to organze PvPers to do things that would improve the overall gameplay of the community without having to tell them directly.
Nice addition. I kind of like Cocoa's view on crew. Ships with lager crews, and more alive crewmen, should have a benefit other than just hull repair rates. I support the OP's post, I think that would go a long way towards helping people.
Cocoa, you also mentioned something very important that I think many players could benefit from. Anticipate.
Being a pilot in training myself, one of the first things that was drilled in me was to anticipate. In STO, anticipation has helped me maneuver my cruiser into optimal firing angles, save teammates from destruction by sending them heals almost instantly after they receive damage, time beam overloads with torpedo hits on exposed hull, and prevent my shields from going down when focus fired or when drained by TSS.
These are only a few examples of what anticipation can help with, thrown in a little situational awareness in the mix and your skill and effectiveness goes up.
The problem with anticipating in STO is the way we are allowed to use our skills. Anticpating through maneuvers is easy, by switching power modes...no problem.
But combat is STO is too BO skill heavy. They BO skills do too much and dont last long enough with cool downs too long if you use the skill at the wrong time.
I'd be more incline to use my "Brace for Impact" if it had a short cool down or a long duration...or if I had another revolutionary option. The ability to deactivate the skill and have the option to then re-initiate it at a more opportune time without a cool down.
Instead of skills be activated and forgetten. What if Skills had usage durations that could be turned on and off. So consider a 15sec skill that has a 45 cool down, what if I could activate it for 5 secs, turn it off and still have 10 secs left of useage without a cool down. Since the cool down is 3x the use time, what if it required 3x the re-charge time for every sec used.
So if i used 5 of the 15 secs, I'd have to wait 3x the 5 secs used to result in 15 secs before I can use the skill for its full 15secs. If I used 10 secs of the skill, I'd have to wait 30s to make full use of the skill...but if i got into a bind before it fully recharges, I could still use whatever time is remaining.
This might make a descent seperate discussion.
I don't disagree. But until the gameplay changes, we need to make due.
Take EPtS and TSS for example. There is no way to anticipate when an opponent will use TSS on me, but I can anticipate that my shields will be dropping within the next 5-10 seconds. Many people try to bring their shields back up from 0, and that can be difficult because if all three versions are stacked, it can cause a serious drain.
If EPtS is used BEFORE shields go down to 0, the drain has to eat through the bonus given by EPtS. Combine switching power settings, eating a battery when your power level is low and perhaps even a EPSpT, all before your shields reach 0 in the first place, and you may just buy yourself an extra 15-20 seconds of shield power while TSS eats away at your shield power.
I know it may seem as if I am not within topic here, but having a more prevalent audio and visual warnings might allow people to notice a developing situation a few seconds earlyer. Instead of noticing TSS when theirs shields go down, they may notice it a few seconds faster.
Kind of like having a stick shaker AND a stall buzzer to let you know you are about to stall the aircraft
IN GAME VOICE.
this will help in community as well as teamwork.
you will actually TALK to others (if you want) and meet new people.
PUGs can be coordinated more quickly than spending all match trying to get them to NOT speed in on their own.
Targets can be called and assists requested....
Premades have vent or ts, but in-game voice is needed for both the sake of the community and helping people work together.
This. The only MMO I have played that successfully used in-game voice is DDO (successful being an opinion). Having people always be able to talk to one another allowed PUGs to coordinate somewhat, and eventually they began to play together much more often.
It really isn't rocket science. If you want somebody to do something, make it as easy as possible for them to do so.