This morning I joined into a FvF cracked planetoid and it ended up being a 2v2. It was one of if not THE best time in an arena I have ever had. Devs. if you are reading this which I hope you are, we need 2v2 and 3v3. They are fun and would be a stop gap for uneven arenas. If I am beating a dead horse I apologize.
2v2 and 3v3 are generally better arena formats, as history has shown (cf. Blizzard's experience with optimal team size for WoW pro tournaments). They also work better for small/shrinking populations like STO's for critical mass reasons. Furthermore, people have an easier time getting together 1-2 buddies than 4-5 in general.
As an added bonus, the lower attentional resource requirements of a 2v2 or 3v3 engagement also allows for more players to participate meaningfully without suffering from cognitive overload and playing badly because of it (end result: less steep learning curve).
Basically, 2v2 and 3v3 are much better ideas in general, and your experience bears that out.
This morning I joined into a FvF cracked planetoid and it ended up being a 2v2. It was one of if not THE best time in an arena I have ever had. Devs. if you are reading this which I hope you are, we need 2v2 and 3v3. They are fun and would be a stop gap for uneven arenas. If I am beating a dead horse I apologize.
RA5 LeMay
182nd
This kinda goes towards a larger request that I think a fair number of people have, and that's an organized arena system (with 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5) that comes complete with ladder and whatnot.
If/When they include Open PvP I think that would end up being the perfect time to include arena ladders and variable team sizes.
I'm trying to envision a 2 neg'vahr vs 2 sovereign fight in an arena match with no time limit. First pair that says "TRIBBLE it" and gives up loses?
I could see that lasting awhile. Today it was 2 escorts (my team) vs. escort/cruiser team. It lasted for about 30mins. but it was 30mins. of hard fighting, fun. As it being a stop gap for uneven teams if they put in 2v2 it couldn't become the all to familiar 5v2 . I agree though and think we need a time limit on arenas.
Now that I think of it. Nothing would stop teams from getting ahead by a kill and either cloaking or running until the timer ran out if we had a time limit.
I agree to with 1vs1 2vs2 3vs3 and should to pvp against fleet members of you fleet too it is all ready there but it is limit to 10 please devs do it soon
Actually unless some of the heals get a Nerf 2v2 against 2 good players using healing specced cruisers its almost impossible to kill them.
i know because i was in my raptor with a cruiser Negh'Var teammate fighting 2v2 vs 2 healing cruisers in the borg warzone.
With them both casting heals and chaining rsps the battle went for 5 mins + . Almost every time one of them got down low hull rsp got turned on and then they healed back up with engy team and HE.
We only managed to win, when they both got separated for a short time the nev was tractoring one cruiser and i focused on the other and killed him with some good crit hits.
As it stands now the idea is good but with healing specced cruisers using rsps and constantly healing each other its not that fun.
maybe when rsp gets a nerf it will be better.
Actually unless some of the heals get a Nerf 2v2 against 2 good players using healing specced cruisers its almost impossible to kill them.
i know because i was in my raptor with a cruiser Negh'Var teammate fighting 2v2 vs 2 healing cruisers in the borg warzone.
With them both casting heals and chaining rsps the battle went for 5 mins + . Almost every time one of them got down low hull rsp got turned on and then they healed back up with engy team and HE.
We only managed to win, when they both got separated for a short time the nev was tractoring one cruiser and i focused on the other and killed him with some good crit hits.
As it stands now the idea is good but with healing specced cruisers using rsps and constantly healing each other its not that fun.
maybe when rsp gets a nerf it will be better.
I'm kind of scratching my head here because you're basically saying "Long fight, and we won, but an ability the other side was using needs a nerf (even though we won)". Why is the situation improved if it's changed in a fashion that allows you to win the same scenario more quickly? Isn't the fact that you won at all enough?
Anyway, I don't want to sidetrack the point of this thread. It's just your complaint stuck me as odd.
I agree with the requests in this thread for some smaller scale PvP options, particularly 1v1 and 2v2. I honestly don't understand why Klingon players can't cruise all over Federation sector-space and hand out/receive 1v1 duel requests - "Lower your shields and prepare to surrender your vessel, Federation dog!". But, whatever.
I find I have the most fun when I get to 1v1 or 2v2 in the current PvP maps. Win, lose, 15 minute battle.. it doesn't matter to me because I'm having fun while I'm engaged in the smaller skirmishes. I assume the other player is also or they'd just disengage and leave. 5v5 is just.. I'm sure two organized pre-mades enjoy them a lot, but random 5v5 PuGs consist of one side rolling the other more often than not. And whether the group I'm on is on the receiving end or the dealing end of that, it's just not very entertaining to me. Good, seemingly even matched fights do happen, but they're more the exception than the rule.
I rarely get to fight Klingons because I usually choose FvF maps, and I hate that. And it's not because I think Klingons are imbalanced or anything like that, it's because I get tired of the cat and mouse stalemate where Klingons (wisely) stay hidden until someone in the Fedball screws up. I don't blame them for playing that way, it's just I don't have a lot of respect for 5v5 battles to begin with, they don't feel very Trek to me, and so the waiting doesn't justify the payoff (for me). On the flipside, I would love a 2v2 cat and mouse game with the Klingons because I find 2v2 battles so much more enjoyable. It would just feel different and more worthwhile.
2v2 STO PvP would be horribly broken for the exact same reason it's broken in WoW; one ship can't DPS through the healing of a properly equipped healer. In fact, it would be a lot worse than WoW because the healer can still do substantial damage.
Said another way, you can't build a 2v2 team to beat two properly played Cruisers unless your team is also Cruisers. Too many defenses, too much hull, too much healing. Escorts would be food in 2v2. Science would be substantially less powerful, since most of its support is AoE (Scramble, PSW, TBR, Tykens, etc) and is relatively less effective on fewer targets.
When 1v1 is as unbalanced as currently, 2v2 will be similarly broken. STO is designed from the ground up as a team game. Right now, there's nothing in the game that will beat Eng / Cru except, possibly, for Sci / Escort and a really good, well timed SNB with DPS cooldowns running.
Said another way, you can't build a 2v2 team to beat two properly played Cruisers unless your team is also Cruisers. Too many defenses, too much hull, too much healing.
I would expect Sci/Sci + Sci /Escort would beat X/cruiser +X/Cruiser.
You'd have a conciderable amout of debuffs, CC and healing options, on the science ship, and moderate debuffs and conciderable burst damage on the escort.
Load the science ship as a torpedo boat and the escort as a mobile cannon, have science strip buffs, and resistances then, the escort alpha strikes to clear shields and do as much hull damage as possible (using sci captain abilities to counter the second wave of devencive abilitys provide by the target's buddy), and the science follows through with torpedos. Now it's 2vs 1 the science ship can focus on healing the escort, and looking for targets of opertunity, while the escort focuses on out damaging the remaining cruiser.
Of coarse this is based on limited experience and has not been experamentally tested as far as I know.
I think there's an underlying assumption that permitting these modes would also legitimize them for balance-target purposes, and some amount of adjustment would follow.
Surely you guys have gotten into 2v2s in C&H. Cruiser Warz can take a while, but not all cruisers run Heal0r builds.
I have had a lot of funs with smaller battles. There's not enough focus fire to overwhelm short term defenses, but battles can end surprisingly suddenly when you discover everythings on CD.
I was in a 3 v 3 with all cruisers. The game went on for about 30 minutes then my router decided to reboot itself, when i logged back in i was on the fed team lol.
I was in a 3 v 3 with all cruisers. The game went on for about 30 minutes then my router decided to reboot itself, when i logged back in i was on the fed team lol.
So the claims that the Federation assimilates other races in a less obvious way then Borg are true.
come on cryptic, its a fun game but lately i noticed i cannot get in to pvp because not enough people are playing the map minimums..or all the feds are waiting w/ no klingons or vice versa. and we cant duel 1 on one in Andorian Park? then why have the park? i have wanted many times to test my skills and build specs on a fellow fleet member or person i just met and we cannot do one on one? we need to do one on one pvp because lately i noticed that not many people are using pvp. i think its because there is no one on one or for that matter fleet based "training exercises" in pvp map where we can spar with one another and learn new tactics lol. come on cryptic please allow pvp to be 1 on one? i mean come on, in star trek most ship to ship combat was mainly one on one anyway.
I agree, Cryptic really does need to make the queues 1v1, 2v2, 3v3.
For one, with the Pre-RA5 population, the queues are so small that it can literally take hours for enough people to fill to start a match.
Second, it gives inexperienced players a better chance in PvP without necessarily running into PvP Fleets that curbstomp people and chase them off PvP.
Also, 1v1s give players the chance to really shine in their PvP abilities.
I also support 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 PvP, been saying it for a long time.
Too much TRIBBLE going on in 5v5 PvP.
This would also kill the Fedball allowing a better fight than being engulfed by the "Fedamoeba" in FvF.
Not to be confused with the "Klingopine" where BoPs suddenly decloak all around your backside in FvK, but it would limit this as well and that's a good thing.
I have had similar 2v2 experiences that were very enjoyable but if a third suddenly joins in the balance is lost and so is the fun.
I would like to see the ability to create matches with a selectable number of combatants such as 1v1 on up to 20v20. This would allow pre-made groups of any size including fleets to challenge each other. Some matches would end up long or unbalanced, do to the builds in some pick up groups, but that isn't any different then the 5v5 now is it? If your not having fun in the 2v2 try a 3fer or don't, the thing is there would be a choice and choice is good... and if it breaks the game and dogs stop chasing cats... take it back out.
I think that the idea of a tiered system with rankings for individuals and groups would be a great improvement to the game. It would allow people to stroke their egos, encourage people to improve their game, give new pvpers a chance to learn with other new players, and perhaps there could be a system for scaling the unofficial score so that players in different experience brackets could compare their relative effectiveness in a match.
I have noticed a considerable decline in the number of people in the queues since the last patch and I often give up on waiting. This isn't so bad when playing my fed characters because they have more pve missions, but with my klinks it can get boring.
(As an aside I wonder why with all the nerfing and "balancing" pvp seems to be thinning out, though there doesnt seem to be much real change in the gameplay?)
For me PvP is the only reason to play online games... (win or lose its dynamic and more exciting) you don't need other people to play against computer generated foes, you can do that on your xbox.
PvP is thining as Cryptic works out the bugs resulting in "IWIN" buttons.
As Cryptic continues to balace PvP, the type of person who's just there for the grief will migrate back to Eve.
Look at the currently thinning PvP as a good thing. Once people realize that they will not be instaganked all the time they will return and the game will be better off without the Eve players.
I also submit that for these maps, a 'random' map should form similar to the way DSEs form, but with more cool stuff to hide behind in them.
1v1 Challenges would be good for Klingon PvP level-up missions.
You know something like; 'Proving Your Mettle; best 5 Klingon warriors in *single* combat'
and 'Honorable Warrior; best 5 Federation opponents in *single* combat'
1v1 KvF challenges would be workable too since both can enter the neutral zone area.
Its a far far cry from open PvP, but being able to send and accept 1v1 or even 2v2 and 3v3 FvK challenges in the contested zone would add to immersion.
I also like the idea of the neutral zone as an open PvP zone or at the very least as a zone where Feds and Klings can voluntarily do battle. Let me invite someone of the opposing faction to a duel etc, these duels don't have to give any rewards but they sure would help a lot with testing out specs, not to mention players could hold their own tournaments etc.
If the minimum was just dropped to 3v3 or 4v4 queues would have been moving so much more quickly last night. I suppose if 1v1 was available all the uber "you wouldn't have killed me without your back up" epeen strokers would stay there and the rest could enjoy some decent team play.
Comments
As an added bonus, the lower attentional resource requirements of a 2v2 or 3v3 engagement also allows for more players to participate meaningfully without suffering from cognitive overload and playing badly because of it (end result: less steep learning curve).
Basically, 2v2 and 3v3 are much better ideas in general, and your experience bears that out.
This kinda goes towards a larger request that I think a fair number of people have, and that's an organized arena system (with 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5) that comes complete with ladder and whatnot.
If/When they include Open PvP I think that would end up being the perfect time to include arena ladders and variable team sizes.
I could see that lasting awhile. Today it was 2 escorts (my team) vs. escort/cruiser team. It lasted for about 30mins. but it was 30mins. of hard fighting, fun. As it being a stop gap for uneven teams if they put in 2v2 it couldn't become the all to familiar 5v2
Now that I think of it. Nothing would stop teams from getting ahead by a kill and either cloaking or running until the timer ran out if we had a time limit.
i know because i was in my raptor with a cruiser Negh'Var teammate fighting 2v2 vs 2 healing cruisers in the borg warzone.
With them both casting heals and chaining rsps the battle went for 5 mins + . Almost every time one of them got down low hull rsp got turned on and then they healed back up with engy team and HE.
We only managed to win, when they both got separated for a short time the nev was tractoring one cruiser and i focused on the other and killed him with some good crit hits.
As it stands now the idea is good but with healing specced cruisers using rsps and constantly healing each other its not that fun.
maybe when rsp gets a nerf it will be better.
I'm kind of scratching my head here because you're basically saying "Long fight, and we won, but an ability the other side was using needs a nerf (even though we won)". Why is the situation improved if it's changed in a fashion that allows you to win the same scenario more quickly? Isn't the fact that you won at all enough?
Anyway, I don't want to sidetrack the point of this thread. It's just your complaint stuck me as odd.
I agree with the requests in this thread for some smaller scale PvP options, particularly 1v1 and 2v2. I honestly don't understand why Klingon players can't cruise all over Federation sector-space and hand out/receive 1v1 duel requests - "Lower your shields and prepare to surrender your vessel, Federation dog!". But, whatever.
I find I have the most fun when I get to 1v1 or 2v2 in the current PvP maps. Win, lose, 15 minute battle.. it doesn't matter to me because I'm having fun while I'm engaged in the smaller skirmishes. I assume the other player is also or they'd just disengage and leave. 5v5 is just.. I'm sure two organized pre-mades enjoy them a lot, but random 5v5 PuGs consist of one side rolling the other more often than not. And whether the group I'm on is on the receiving end or the dealing end of that, it's just not very entertaining to me. Good, seemingly even matched fights do happen, but they're more the exception than the rule.
I rarely get to fight Klingons because I usually choose FvF maps, and I hate that. And it's not because I think Klingons are imbalanced or anything like that, it's because I get tired of the cat and mouse stalemate where Klingons (wisely) stay hidden until someone in the Fedball screws up. I don't blame them for playing that way, it's just I don't have a lot of respect for 5v5 battles to begin with, they don't feel very Trek to me, and so the waiting doesn't justify the payoff (for me). On the flipside, I would love a 2v2 cat and mouse game with the Klingons because I find 2v2 battles so much more enjoyable. It would just feel different and more worthwhile.
TLDR version: Add 1v1 & 2v2 options, please.
/signed on this too
If nothing else, when queues are relatively empty, we can keep pvping. Waiting for that fifth person to queue up sometimes takes forever.
Said another way, you can't build a 2v2 team to beat two properly played Cruisers unless your team is also Cruisers. Too many defenses, too much hull, too much healing. Escorts would be food in 2v2. Science would be substantially less powerful, since most of its support is AoE (Scramble, PSW, TBR, Tykens, etc) and is relatively less effective on fewer targets.
When 1v1 is as unbalanced as currently, 2v2 will be similarly broken. STO is designed from the ground up as a team game. Right now, there's nothing in the game that will beat Eng / Cru except, possibly, for Sci / Escort and a really good, well timed SNB with DPS cooldowns running.
I would expect Sci/Sci + Sci /Escort would beat X/cruiser +X/Cruiser.
You'd have a conciderable amout of debuffs, CC and healing options, on the science ship, and moderate debuffs and conciderable burst damage on the escort.
Load the science ship as a torpedo boat and the escort as a mobile cannon, have science strip buffs, and resistances then, the escort alpha strikes to clear shields and do as much hull damage as possible (using sci captain abilities to counter the second wave of devencive abilitys provide by the target's buddy), and the science follows through with torpedos. Now it's 2vs 1 the science ship can focus on healing the escort, and looking for targets of opertunity, while the escort focuses on out damaging the remaining cruiser.
Of coarse this is based on limited experience and has not been experamentally tested as far as I know.
I think there's an underlying assumption that permitting these modes would also legitimize them for balance-target purposes, and some amount of adjustment would follow.
I have had a lot of funs with smaller battles. There's not enough focus fire to overwhelm short term defenses, but battles can end surprisingly suddenly when you discover everythings on CD.
Resistance is futile. You will drink Rootbeer.
come on cryptic, its a fun game but lately i noticed i cannot get in to pvp because not enough people are playing the map minimums..or all the feds are waiting w/ no klingons or vice versa. and we cant duel 1 on one in Andorian Park? then why have the park? i have wanted many times to test my skills and build specs on a fellow fleet member or person i just met and we cannot do one on one? we need to do one on one pvp because lately i noticed that not many people are using pvp. i think its because there is no one on one or for that matter fleet based "training exercises" in pvp map where we can spar with one another and learn new tactics lol. come on cryptic please allow pvp to be 1 on one? i mean come on, in star trek most ship to ship combat was mainly one on one anyway.
For one, with the Pre-RA5 population, the queues are so small that it can literally take hours for enough people to fill to start a match.
Second, it gives inexperienced players a better chance in PvP without necessarily running into PvP Fleets that curbstomp people and chase them off PvP.
Also, 1v1s give players the chance to really shine in their PvP abilities.
Too much TRIBBLE going on in 5v5 PvP.
This would also kill the Fedball allowing a better fight than being engulfed by the "Fedamoeba" in FvF.
Not to be confused with the "Klingopine" where BoPs suddenly decloak all around your backside in FvK, but it would limit this as well and that's a good thing.
I would like to see the ability to create matches with a selectable number of combatants such as 1v1 on up to 20v20. This would allow pre-made groups of any size including fleets to challenge each other. Some matches would end up long or unbalanced, do to the builds in some pick up groups, but that isn't any different then the 5v5 now is it? If your not having fun in the 2v2 try a 3fer or don't, the thing is there would be a choice and choice is good... and if it breaks the game and dogs stop chasing cats... take it back out.
I think that the idea of a tiered system with rankings for individuals and groups would be a great improvement to the game. It would allow people to stroke their egos, encourage people to improve their game, give new pvpers a chance to learn with other new players, and perhaps there could be a system for scaling the unofficial score so that players in different experience brackets could compare their relative effectiveness in a match.
I have noticed a considerable decline in the number of people in the queues since the last patch and I often give up on waiting. This isn't so bad when playing my fed characters because they have more pve missions, but with my klinks it can get boring.
(As an aside I wonder why with all the nerfing and "balancing" pvp seems to be thinning out, though there doesnt seem to be much real change in the gameplay?)
For me PvP is the only reason to play online games... (win or lose its dynamic and more exciting) you don't need other people to play against computer generated foes, you can do that on your xbox.
As Cryptic continues to balace PvP, the type of person who's just there for the grief will migrate back to Eve.
Look at the currently thinning PvP as a good thing. Once people realize that they will not be instaganked all the time they will return and the game will be better off without the Eve players.
I also submit that for these maps, a 'random' map should form similar to the way DSEs form, but with more cool stuff to hide behind in them.
1v1 Challenges would be good for Klingon PvP level-up missions.
You know something like; 'Proving Your Mettle; best 5 Klingon warriors in *single* combat'
and 'Honorable Warrior; best 5 Federation opponents in *single* combat'
1v1 KvF challenges would be workable too since both can enter the neutral zone area.
Its a far far cry from open PvP, but being able to send and accept 1v1 or even 2v2 and 3v3 FvK challenges in the contested zone would add to immersion.
I also like the idea of the neutral zone as an open PvP zone or at the very least as a zone where Feds and Klings can voluntarily do battle. Let me invite someone of the opposing faction to a duel etc, these duels don't have to give any rewards but they sure would help a lot with testing out specs, not to mention players could hold their own tournaments etc.