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Let me float an idea past you... (PvP Map-Wide Variables)
borticuscryptic
Member Posts: 2,478 Cryptic Developer
For some time now, we have been kicking around the idea of instituting map-wide variables on all PvP maps we currently have in the game, in order to apply global changes to the way that certain powers operate. While this wouldn't be considered a true "fix" for PvP overall, we feel that, if we got the numbers right, it could go a long way towards addressing some points of primary concern among both players that are both Casual and Hardcore PvP enthusiasts.
Before I go into the details of what's so far been considered, I want to make it absolutely clear that these are only IDEAS, and stating them here for feedback is absolutely NOT a guarantee that they will be implemented. And even if they are, there's a good chance they will not see the light of day, even on Tribble, until after our May Update.
With that in mind, here are a couple of the map-wide modifications we've been considering:
1) Max Hitpoints/Shields Increases
This was originally considered for Ground PvP specifically, but we later began to wonder if it might be appropriate for Space as well. For now, we're considering very large increases - as much as 200%-300% of your base hitpoint and shield amounts.
We fully realize that changing this one factor, without modifying powers, would fundamentally alter the flow of battle. It would completely change the intrinsic values and opportunity costs associated with many powers, as well as changing the perceived value of cooldowns and escape tactics.
The recent thread titled "Spike vs. Pressure" paints a picture that seems to indicate that this would end up being a bad thing for Space PvP, resulting in the very real possibility of matches where ships never died. However, we've yet to see any evidence that this would be anything other than a good thing for Ground PvP.
2) Healing -OR- Damage Output Decreases
Unlike the previous option, which would have a fairly equal impact on both Damage and Healing effectiveness, these ideas are more surgical, affecting either one or the other, at disparate levels.
Applying Healing effectiveness reduction to PvP maps would lead to extremely volatile matches unless it came hand-in-hand with limitations to Spike Damage potential. While limiting overall damage output would likely be a bad idea because it impacts "Pressure" DPS more profoundly than "Spike" -- not a great idea to exacerbate this issue. This probably means that this option is even less likely to be a good idea, than the previous notion. At least for Space PvP.
3) Reduction in Status Ability Effectiveness -OR- the Resistance Thereof
Presume that the term "Status" refers to just about anything that is not Damage. Buffs, Debuffs, Repel, Disable, Confuse, etc.
To be frank, we're fairly well satisfied with how effective most powers are in PvE in terms of their ability to inflict Status effects, and manipulate the flow of an encounter. As well as players' options to resist the effects of these abilities when they are used by NPCs. That's not to say that they are perfect, or that there isn't room for improvement, but we're OK with them as they are. Generally speaking.
In PvP however, the combination of extreme skill stacking and high resistance factors, cause us difficulty when attempting to find the correct balance point of an ability's effectiveness. We have therefore theorized that allowing us to limit one side of the equation or the other, ONLY in PvP, might allow us to tune these abilities in a more focused, controlled manner.
So, those are the main ideas we've had so far. We'd like to hear some open-minded feedback on what consequences any of the above could potentially have on the viability and flow of PvP combat, and its popularity among Veterans and non-Veterans alike. Keep in mind that we recognize the potential risk involved with making global changes of this nature, so you can bet your self-sealing stem bolts that we'd be testing any map-wide alterations extensively on Tribble before sending them into a Live environment (we've already investigated how to control this).
Before I go into the details of what's so far been considered, I want to make it absolutely clear that these are only IDEAS, and stating them here for feedback is absolutely NOT a guarantee that they will be implemented. And even if they are, there's a good chance they will not see the light of day, even on Tribble, until after our May Update.
With that in mind, here are a couple of the map-wide modifications we've been considering:
1) Max Hitpoints/Shields Increases
This was originally considered for Ground PvP specifically, but we later began to wonder if it might be appropriate for Space as well. For now, we're considering very large increases - as much as 200%-300% of your base hitpoint and shield amounts.
We fully realize that changing this one factor, without modifying powers, would fundamentally alter the flow of battle. It would completely change the intrinsic values and opportunity costs associated with many powers, as well as changing the perceived value of cooldowns and escape tactics.
The recent thread titled "Spike vs. Pressure" paints a picture that seems to indicate that this would end up being a bad thing for Space PvP, resulting in the very real possibility of matches where ships never died. However, we've yet to see any evidence that this would be anything other than a good thing for Ground PvP.
2) Healing -OR- Damage Output Decreases
Unlike the previous option, which would have a fairly equal impact on both Damage and Healing effectiveness, these ideas are more surgical, affecting either one or the other, at disparate levels.
Applying Healing effectiveness reduction to PvP maps would lead to extremely volatile matches unless it came hand-in-hand with limitations to Spike Damage potential. While limiting overall damage output would likely be a bad idea because it impacts "Pressure" DPS more profoundly than "Spike" -- not a great idea to exacerbate this issue. This probably means that this option is even less likely to be a good idea, than the previous notion. At least for Space PvP.
3) Reduction in Status Ability Effectiveness -OR- the Resistance Thereof
Presume that the term "Status" refers to just about anything that is not Damage. Buffs, Debuffs, Repel, Disable, Confuse, etc.
To be frank, we're fairly well satisfied with how effective most powers are in PvE in terms of their ability to inflict Status effects, and manipulate the flow of an encounter. As well as players' options to resist the effects of these abilities when they are used by NPCs. That's not to say that they are perfect, or that there isn't room for improvement, but we're OK with them as they are. Generally speaking.
In PvP however, the combination of extreme skill stacking and high resistance factors, cause us difficulty when attempting to find the correct balance point of an ability's effectiveness. We have therefore theorized that allowing us to limit one side of the equation or the other, ONLY in PvP, might allow us to tune these abilities in a more focused, controlled manner.
So, those are the main ideas we've had so far. We'd like to hear some open-minded feedback on what consequences any of the above could potentially have on the viability and flow of PvP combat, and its popularity among Veterans and non-Veterans alike. Keep in mind that we recognize the potential risk involved with making global changes of this nature, so you can bet your self-sealing stem bolts that we'd be testing any map-wide alterations extensively on Tribble before sending them into a Live environment (we've already investigated how to control this).
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
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Would we, The Community be heard when these changes went to Tribble? If some of this stuff went live and had adverse affects it'll be a long winded process unpicking it.
@Aquitaine985
Lag Industries STO PvP Fleet - Executive
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I can't speak to Ground PvP... so I'll comment as far as space goes.
1) This is would be a massive cope out. This is only needed because of the lacking AI on the PvE side... where the only way to balance your "encounters" is to greatly inflate hit points.
2) I know you stated the first idea is related to ground... and I can't speak to that. Such a change in Space would be game breaking... matches would really never end. Although I wouldn't have to call time out if I needed to take a Potty break so that's good.
3) As far as reducing healing or dmg overall... I think considering how many possible builds we have you will never get this balanced in anyway at all... it will simply create new issues. IMO
4) The thought of increasing sci or decreasing sci resists... is interesting. However its unneeded. As much as some poeple wine there Sci is broken. Its really isn't. There is no issues with sci and sci resist IMO.... can you resist most of a shield strip YES and with reason. Prior to the new skill tree teams of Sci owned all for a reason. The way the system is now Sci is still the largest factor on the field, No matter what anyone says. The system works have some faith in your work.
5) IF you guys have this tech THIS is what I would do....
1 - Disable Low level Ship consoles in PvP... meaning the commander ship consoles like AMS and Aceton and Leach provide Zero Effect in PvP. The end game ship consoles can remain. Make them PvE toys.
2 - Disable the Doff System in PvP maps. As well as the Rep system.
Now I know what you are going to say about both those suggestions... or your boss will say. You don't want people to have a different build experience. Bla bla bla.
If that argument comes up if you should suggest testing something like that Bort... use your competition as a template for your argument. Use Anets game in your argument. A game where you can use your PVE gear all you want in Open PvP areas... but in Arena Style maps NONE of your PvE earned gear works.... its a template that in fact has a TON of customer support... its loved by both PvE and PvP crowds...
Do the same here in STO... leave Kerrat and I hope future Opvp zones as a wild west... but in arena and Cap and Slaps... and the new game types your working... restrict most of the Pve gear.
This is great news, really great.
You're going to get deluged with ideas and criticisms, so I just want to say that seeing there is this much consideration alone is a step in the right direction.
I agree with the first assertion, that there would literally be situations where killing someone might likely be impossible.
Ground PvP I am very very new to. I'll leave this primarily to real ground pvpers but as a pvp ground bootcamp I'll put a few ideas forward that may or may not be totally accurate:
1) As a tac this would be good, because I would no longer get instant-popped as easily as I can instant-pop others.
2) As a tac I have "super buff" available to instant pop someone, but I don't think I have a consistent offense - I think it would need testing to see if there is still enough DPS there to wear down another tankier player. But really, my experience here is completely limited.
I think the biggest culprit at the moment is passive healing and passive resistances that come from gear, DOFFs, rep powers, etc.
It's hard to keep track of, it's harder to overcome, it doesn't require any effort to activate and maintain in combat and it marginalizes actual healers/buffers.
So rather than directly tone down specific BOFF powers, I think you might want to limit stacking of passives in someway - with the caveat that you make this kind of build limitation clearly visible in the UI for players to properly understand what they have and do not have.
There are also some overperformers, such as the 10s tactical debuff cleanse that TT provides. This alone would open up options for better use of APB & APD (FOMM still gets cleansed instantly unfortunately, as it cannot be reapplied again, the same goes for Sensor Scan).
I think that's a good idea, but it needs to be surgical in application vs. any one specific status effect as some of them are in decent place, some are overperforming and others are underperforming.
Thanks for starting this conversation, my one real request is that when some of these ideas eventually go to tribble - that they do in fact actually go to tribble, and the PvP community has a chance to test it and give feedback.
This really needs to be a slow, patient process.
One of the biggest sources of complaints are changes that suddenly get pushed to live and we have to deal with until we are lucky enough to have the items on the table again.
Imo tho all id like to see which would make me maybe play pvp would be the host to pick options like any other mp centred gameplay i.e what map, how many players i.e 2v2 4v4 8v8 etc. Lock to type of ship i.e all or just cruisers or just escorts, ability to select no powers so it removes captain and boff powers and you duke it out just based on ur equipment only (really like the idea of that personally).
Turn nebula on or off or other kind of map hazzards which would effect gameplay i.e hide in asteroid belts or knock shields off or binds sensors etc with nebula. Gravity i.e fight around a planet might be interesting too.
But about the changes borts saying. Maybe they could work.
Yet the three options don't address the issue of pressure v spike. Or over heal.
I always thought that all Shield and hull heals should have diminishing returns (so heals can't be stacked) preventing the yo-yo effect of 10% hull/shields to 100% in a second.
I also propose that DPS should scale inversely with hull. Ships at 10% are just as combat effective as at 100%.
While the the proposed options don't address my ideas, getting abilities tuned up in a predictable manner is a good step. Balancing PvE vs PvP is probably maddening.
This is such a radical suggestion that I am not sure what effects this may have. Though I look forward to it possibly being on Tribble for a lengthy duration, with significant testing to determine the viability.
Is there a checkpoint you could reach, in which you would know if this was tenable or not without implementing a system that might not work?
Possibly, but likely not. We'd probably get to a point where we're ready to put it to testing on Tribble, but it's entirely plausible that the results we see in Testing mean it never goes live.
To respond to a couple points of feedback that have already been given:
- This is not the thread to discuss new game modes (4v4, locked ship types, etc). Yes, we've been contemplating and brainstorming some new pvp content concepts, but that's all stuff for another day.
- These ideas are specifically non-surgical in nature. They're heavy-handed, far-reaching and potentially volatile changes. This is why we're floating the ideas to the community before even prototyping it internally. And we know they're likely to be seen by players as nothing more than a band-aid on the current state of PvP. And honestly, that's kinda what they are. We're not trying to solve individual mechanical issues with this type of change, we're just trying to make the game's PvP more enjoyable, and approachable.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Ground pvp I can agree with your assessment. Things are usually very fast paced, and dps is pretty outrages on any character. Slowing this down overall would make for some interesting matches.
Space PVP however adds it's own odd problems. As far as I can really say, it can go a number of different ways, depending on the group makeup when you enter the match. For instance, if you have a sci heavy group, debuffs and control abilities run rampant and can potentially be so overpowering that they actually win by a landslide. Escort heavy groups usually have no problem just assisting targets down and also lead to a large landslide win. The only instance where PVP is truly balanced in my opinion is an all out Cruiser brawl, but as you mentioned, no one ever dies.
One of the things that Guild Wars 2 does very well in PVP, and more specifically the ranked/instanced PVP is that everyone is given the same gear, and everyone has the same stats give or take. It's all about true player vs player. Gear makes no difference, however you do have your choice of weapons and abilities. I'd love to see something similar to this in STO. Cruisers get x gear and x stats, escorts get x gear and x stats, and sci gets x gear and x stats, only available in said instances. Something like this would bring balance to the system in so many ways.
One thing I noticed a lot prior to doing the PvP Bootcamp is that so many things can have an effect on your ship. Gear, spec, type of ship, etc. The reputation system adds a whole layer of additional buffing to this that not everyone has. These things have created the imbalance in PvP because in the same matches you get people who are fresh level 50's and people who have all the best of the best. There should be some metric where more seasoned players are queued together with other appropriately geared folks. Implementing some kind of ranking system could bring this about, but you never know.
Basically the TL;DR version is this: I don't think it's damage / buffs / debuff's etc that's the real issue, but more of what gear, spec, and ship everyone is using in pvp. Along with newer players getting steamrolled by seasoned ones. Implementing a cap on stats I think would go a lot further to balance it than just blanket reductions.
I think you're right about the effect that making only this change would have on space PvP. Paired with other options it might be good, but by itself I agree that it would lead to everybody being unkillable.
Let's divide the two parts of this further. Just like we talk about Spike and Pressure damage, we've got to talk about Active and Passive healing.
Massive spike is needed because of high levels of resists which can be reached and the likelihood of yo-yo active healing on a target which is not vaped in the space of a few seconds.
Pressure damage is washed away by passive healing and also affected heavily by high levels of resists.
So if we're talking about Healing Decreases, are we going after Active or Passive healing? Also, adjusting Healing and Damage is confounded by resists, but of course that's your third point. Yeah this is the real nature of the game, IMO. Somebody described it as an on/off state of the game at the moment. Sub-nuc is still king because un-buffed ships don't stand a chance.
What's the goal? To produce longer lasting matches in which ships are harder to kill but damage is also more likely to be permanent? To change the current reality of a ship with a buff bar wider than the mini map being nearly unkillable but exploding the moment those buffs are removed? Are you trying to get from Sacrifice of Angels to Wrath of Kahn?
Let me propose something to you that you may have the tech for. Grouping can adjust a player's level and the game can check to see whether or not I'm in a shuttle. Could you create tiered PvP queues? Tier 2 PvP, you can que with a Connie, Saber, Nova, QulDun, Somraw, or K'Tanco. You are scaled the same way as the Mirror Event. This is much more Wrath of Kahn. No store or rep consoles, things like the skill tree or captain powers are negotiable. This way if you don't like twitch flying or "P2W" you have a refuge. If you're going to have a PvP rep system then give a daily for each tier. Is this kind of thing possible?
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
"There is some actual thinking being done about PvP *snif* *snif*. This moment feels so much bigger.......I wanna thank my CAAATTT"
It would be great if you could share what observations lead you to this brain storming? What would you like to achieve?
All my comments are concerning space pvp only, i have no experience on ground.
This options sounds absolutely horrible. I would love to see tall battles but this seems the completely wrong way to achieve this, here is why.
With more shields and hull points, spike would become even more precious. Battles would continue for a long time, so the kill count would have to be lowered, making the first kill even more decisive for the whole match, since more HP and SP are lacking. Escorts would become even more invincible, cruisers further obsoleted.... There are no tanks in PvP. Players choose targets! If you need evidence, just come onto the Boot camp TS and we'll show you a 5 carrier or 5x galaxy team in a match. You ll get the idea of why this will be bad very quickly. The insane spike needed to kill something 300% of its current value..... is not in-game. Many many ships would become obsolete, unless that is your goal. Constantly pulling of combination of my abilites which are on a 3min cd max, becomes silly, when the combo needs to remove 3x the hp it currently does. Their would be a great disconnect between planning an attack, and seeing its results. "do this, and statistically in 3 mins from now someone is more likely to die"
If you could tweak the injury system for PvP. So that certain high level (mostly) eng (bo and or cpt) skills actually remove pvp injuries (instead of consumables), pressure damage could receive a boost. So borg procs restore hull, but won't clear injuries, you would need a (preferrably) eng healer for that.
A fed eng/cruiser could thus help to generate kills (especially to escorts), by inflicting injuries first, and without back-up these injuries begin to wear the target down. Escort level healing abilities would resive a subtle nerf. This would bring more engs and cruisers into matches and create the effect of longer, less fidgity battles, without making the "double snb/alpha combo taking place in under two seconds" the only way of generating kills. Once 3xsci + 2xtac is no longer the most viable Pre-made options, more engs will also mean longer slower matches.
Yo-yo healing (especially that healing from randome procs) is what prevents tall battles. Not the lack of HP or healing abilities. I hope I m making my idea clear here, less proc based healing, and a different damage category similar to the injury system of elite difficulty missions, would go a long way.
A better option in my view. If you don't nerf/buff all healing dmg abilities by a flat number. Non player healing is too strong. Engs are superfluous. Spike rules all.
Simple things like giving cruisers x% damage bonus against player escorts, would be a subtle way of shifting things in the right direction. Might even be good for PvE. Cruisers to clear escorts pets, while escorts are needed to kill tac cubes.
Fix beam energy drain issues, and make their effective use dependent on eng skills. SO that tac and sci cruiser are not the only viable cruisers to have, and you get a better game imv. I guess that was the intention behind NE, to begin with, but with overall power creep (as in more power for everyone's subsystems from different sources), some adjustments seem necessary.
As i said above, if you want to nerf healing make sure to nerf proc based healing. Escorts need to be squishy, while dedicated healing abilites (ie. cmdr level Eng BO, or LtCmdr Level Sci) need to compete with Cmdr Level Tac options. Defense score is something to look at for grand adjustments.
Buffing eg. Aux2Sif3 by 300% and Aux2Sif1 by only 10%, will still tip the scale towards more spike damage. THe underlying isses remains, but *Great Maker* don't make escorts any more tanky, just because people blow up in the tac kumari, by buffing ensign level healing skills.
The same goes for unison buffs to dmg. If anything buff dmg and nerf healing. If you twitch defense scores slightly, the HP and Shield mod bonus of sci and cruisers would count for more. While escorts live more on the wild side, which is where they should be. I'll not comment on the lack of Vesta, Kumari, and Armitage type ships for the KDF. But please keep faction imbalances in mind should you continue to think about these changes.
And the oscar goes to....... all sci BO abilities. *applause*
Player Sci resists are to high when facing other players. Keeping resists at current levels against NPC sci skills, but decreasing resists against those same abilities from players would be grand. This would also be a first step into the direction of reducing pet spam problems.
So this would be a split between player skills and NPC skill. If, however, danoobs when they are a player pet in an arena, suddenly inherit player level TB, this would be bad. Since Cryptic has introduced a plethora of pets, and fed ships with hangars. This is a great idea, but not on a per map bases, but on a player activated / NPC basis.
A further reduction of cmdr level sci abilites, would be a disaster. They are borderling weak in PvE, but most of them useless in PvP. A further nerf to sci skills is the last thing we need.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
The 2nd option of healing or dmg reductions. Well im sure sci will kick off but then again other ships wouldnt hurt as much as they did before too so
3rd option. Im not really sure what this one is about.
A reduction of 100% stacking of any sort might be quite nice imo. i.e stacking heals making ships seem to survive forever seems a bit op to me. Similar for damage possibly but mainly the heals im worried about as when i ever try to do pvp which isnt alot i admit. There are just some players that do nothing but stack heals and resists which makes even the best setup futile even with a full team on 1 ship like an escort which i have seen once or twice survive a full assault from a decent team.
But thats just nitpicks. Anyhow said what i think about the 3 options or well 2 mainly.
You mentioned the ability to stack multiple resists in this game as being 1 problem. A simple solution would be to cap resists at a lower level in PvP... this would limit teams ability to do the extends circle and overhealing/resisitng. Or maybe cut effective resists by a % while in a pvp map.
The downside to resist caps is that hurts people who enjoy and invest in certain builds... but has the advantage of making the game more about player skill.
just my thoughts, I look forward to seeing what other folks here can share, there are some really knowledgable folks in this community, I hope Cryptic values their insight on this topic.
First, let me say that I believe any game that is going to include PvP should be PvP focused (no matter how small that PvP aspect is)...to which some will go WTF? What I mean by saying that is: design around Player vs. Player interaction when designing the Player vs. Environment interaction. If you look at player damage, player health, player abilities, player etc as as player against a player - that will give you your baseline. From there, you can design PvE encounters - easier/casual, normal, more difficult, OMFG-I guess I need friends and to L2P. I haven't seen anybody do that...so inevitably it always comes down to separate gear, various stat modifiers, etc, etc, etc.
That last bit being said, I have to say I appreciate the idea of looking at map modifiers instead of other avenues/paths others have taken. Course, I fully expect that to be the case with the potential PvP Reputation...and have to wonder how that's going to play out with PvP gear in PvE, blah, blah, blah... but that's neither here nor there at the moment... just something to keep in mind how it all plays out together.
So...these three things. Just from a Space point of view, mind you - I haven't done Ground in over a year.
Increase hull/shields - without increasing resistances. Bare buffer.
Reduce magic wand yo-yo healing.
Limit cleanse/debuff to a certain number. No full cleanse/no full strip.
But it's along the lines of an all-or-nothing sort of thing:
Doing one without the others could throw things all over the place - resulting in all sorts of issues. However, doing them together...well...might just give it more of a Star Trek feel.
You can increase the value of pressure damage without reducing the need for spike damage. If anything, the changes would offer a chance for that synergy between pressure and spike to show again...rather having pressure sitting over in the corner while spike shakes his booty with both girls at the dance.
With so much designed around the magic wand healing in the game - toning that down without also trying to balance that with increased bare buffer would result in headshot boom games. You'd have a Space FPS.
Many abilities fall into that yo-yo (extreme) scenario...making those less extreme...
I guess that's the gist of it. Less extreme. Upper and lower bounds, definitely - definitely - but not this case of the light switch being On or Off... STO needs some mood lighting - STO needs a Dimmer switch, not just On/Off. There's that area in the middle that's missing.
Right now, it's a dance of Yo-Yo's...it's like watching Soccer or Hockey. It's like watching two guys with sword and board where somebody from each side is throwing banana peels and somebody's trying to work a broom. It's not Fencing, not Boxing, not Basketball, not even Baseball... it's kind of boring. It lacks Epic.
And if you don't bring the same-same...you'll get slaughtered, because that's what it is.
It's not about making everything viable - but with those three changes, you could definitely introduce variety. Because it wouldn't just be Yo-Yo Online.
We as Pandas have been in past matches with another fleet that have lasted 3+ hours - So, increasing the hit point / shields in space PVP would just likely result in a never ending story.
2. Healing / Damage output - In my opinion, Best it has ever been
As Ultimatum said earlier, its the passive heals and resistances that are the culprits - Remove this in PVP and i'm sure it will have a very positive effect.
As an example, splitting the borg set up with regards to the shield and hull heal proc was possibly the best thing to happen to PVP. This in turn enabled all the other sets to become really viable.
These are the types of moves you should be looking at.
Also, there is enough variety of various tac / Sci / Eng abilities available to make the arena interesting. However due to various issues / limitations, only a limited number of abilities are used in PVP. (I can do a googledoc on each and every single ability with regards to pvp to outline the pros and cons of each ability if requested)
If this was addressed at grass roots level, there would be significantly more variability to PVP.
Why is this important you may ask. Basically, if a premade of 5 players is set up in a certain manner, they are prepared for the majority of strategies the opposing team may bring significantly reducing the chance of being killed. Increase the variability, this scenario starts to deteriorate drastically resulting in more strategies being developed in turn increasing variability and enjoyment.
This in itself has a very high probability of breathing life back into PVP for the old timers and potentially attract new people to it as well.
3. Reduction in Status Ability Effectiveness -OR- the Resistance Thereof
This can potentially become unnecessary if you address the above. Although its an idea that has merit in itself as well.
If micro managed in a very, very controlled manner, this has the potential to transform the game in a good way. However, if it is managed like it has been historically, it can pretty much destroy the PVP element.
Based on the above statement, this strategy comes with very high risks associated with it personally making me go back to the statement I made for point 2.
This would have a much better chance of succeeding if it was implemented in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary manner AFTER point 2 is addressed.
At the end of the day, reading your post in conjunction with all the other recent activities has given me personally a real warm feeling that we, the pvp community are finally getting the attention we deserve and PVP is actually being considered as truly viable end game content. That in itself is enough for me at this point in time.
Thanks for your time and help so far.
Naz
PS, Have you considered aspects of League of Legends, Mechwarriors Online or any other PVP orientated MMO you may be able to gain inspiration form *cough* steal with pride *cough*?
- instagib
- low gravity
- dude with most kills gets a huge head
and things like that
they could be switched on/off before any map
They do the same thing now in Halo these days with "Skulls"... but you have to find those first in the single player maps.
imho PVP could get a huge boost in options if a bunch of Mutators like that could at least be used in custom matches and the players could decide what mutators to use.
Not just for balance concerns but also for fun stuff...
Fireworks instead of explosions in space.... with 2x as brutal Warp Core explosions...
simple easy stuff like that just for the lolz
balance stuff can be in there too of course
(for example, when we do the Shuttle PvP Event in Jupiter Force... we forbid any C-Store Consoles that are OP in a shuttle vs. shuttle setting, this way we could make sure that nobody *forgets* a console by mistake...)
However, I love the idea of the PVE injury system ported to PvP. It would mean that even 5 "toothless" ships could wear down target simply by enough attrition and lower the effectivity of damaged ship. Injury healing could also give engineers in space valuable room in teams. Subsystem targeting could be reworked to cause injuries and cripple ships, while engineering team could repair them.
I generally do not like the idea of disabling certain elements of gamplay (doff) although i really hate some of them. But less choices is never good.
But Imho, first you should look on the current problems and solve them, instead changing the system and then have twice as many problems. I don't know about others but T3-T4 PvP had the best pace of battle for me.
people spend a lot of time building these up removing them would give no reason for pvp'ers to even bother.
tier 4 romulan for example as a pvp'er if that little shield heal does not apply in pvp then many people are not even going to bother trying to get that passive at all.
i think theres 2 or 3 paths you could go down to fix the growing problem with spike and pressure in game. with varying levels of overhawl needed for each method. a large increase in hitpoints is 1 of those ways.
currently, its pretty common for a ship to take less then half the damage shot at it, at the same time the heals restore hitpoints without any sort of impact based on your resistance. so less hitpoints and more resistance makes heal effectiveness that much better.
if you were to blow up hitponts 100%, and cap resistance at 25% instead of 75%, ships would be able to take more damage, but would not be able to undo the damage nearly as efficiently. these are starships, they should not be able to undo damage like they can currently anyway. spike would just get soaked, and would not be SO much better then pressure damage in that situation. how well healing works would have to be balanced on the fly after the hitpoint and resistance change.
the damage and healing currently are balanced for spike damage and how dangerous it can be. the heals and TT and everything are built to counter it. but at the same time that makes non spike damage useless. a combination of heal cycling and distribution out pace incoming pressure, and even if i can shoot someone enough to expose hull, i would have had to shoot through their entire 4 facing worth of shield hitpoints. all it would take is a ST3, or an ES to undo minutes of damage to someone instently.
spike damage can just make an instant hole and damage hull the first cycle by comparison, and EPtS with manual distribution cant keep up with DHC spike, resulting in direct hull damage wile 75% of your shields are intact. this is also the only time you can use torpedoes, with spike like that. your never going to be able to pare torpedoes with pressure damage. unless your going for the torp's secondary effect, dot penetration, slow, etc...
so how do we adress this? well, if the game is balanced for spike, why have pressure? heres my other idea for rebalanceing. make the other weapons fire more powerful shots, but less of them, you proboly would not have to even adjust DPS.
beam arrays- make them fire 2 shots per cycle. maybe even 1 shot per cycle, on fed cruisers and sci ships in the forward arc only, those long forward arrays should be dealing much more damage then a tiny array, this would look a lot closer to cannon for how beam arrays should fire too. kdf cruisers can use effectively full blown DHCs, the fed cruiser should not be so helpless by comparison.
single cannons- tac cubes have heavy plasma cannons, thats what they are called in the damage log anyway. they are single barrel DHCs by the looks of it, make single cannons the players use a 180 deg fireing arc version of this weapon.
dual beam bank- like beam arrays, 2 shots per cycle.
dual cannons- give these the fireing cycle of DHCs
dual heavy cannons- that new andorian wing gun fireing cycle? have that be what a DHC is. it can hit harder then the DC, make the cycle take longer to compleat, but keep the DPS on both the same.
turrets- proboly fine as is
honestly, this would probably be a lot easier to implement then a whole hitpoint and resistance rebalance. if the game cant be balanced with both spike and pressure anymore thanks to all the passives and incredibly better then stock shields you can get, do away with pressure as it is now.
the only big problem i have with status right now is that ET does not clear the effect of the original VM doff. it really should prevent that from happening. an escort is reducing their builds effectiveness quite a bit by taking ET to guard against VM at all, and when it doesn't pay off because of that doff, it makes VM not actually counter able.
anyway, i think ether of those changes should be game wide, not different as soon as you enter a pvp match. especially the second suggestion, with changing the weapon cycles, should be able to be applied across pve without to much disruption.
The First one, increasing shields and Hull, while it might seem like a good Idea, you already pointed out why it would also be bad.. It would make Spike damage even MORE necessary. Engineers would go from being near impossible to kill, to becoming down right god like. The game already has a feel of Tactical and science being the most important classes to bring into PVP, I don't think we need to emphasis this.
The Second one, reducing of healing and resists, while it almost sounds like something to explore, I'm not sure how good it would be to just make everyone want to jump into an Escort instead of a Cruiser, Science ship, or Carrier, since they would have an even lower chance to survive a multi team spike.
The Third one how ever....
On the one hand.. the Third one would be a boon to the Science abilities as a whole. Gravity Wells would actually start to pull, Tyken's Rifts would actually Drain again, Targeting Subsystems would become deadly once more..
On the other hand... could it also exasperate some of the already effective powers currently being used? How would this effect Viral Matrix, Siphon Drones, Jam or Scramble sensors for example? Or what about the Console abilities? How would that effect Gravimetric Charge, AMS, or AA's?
This is something that might merit some more investigation for sure as to being a possible viable change to PVP. Though it might also mean that some of the math going into skills that effects some powers might need to be tweeked further so that they don't become must have skills in PVP.
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
but is for use on npc's only worth grinding the rep system?
1. Yes, but only for klingons, i mean really how else do we counter the fed only ships you keep building far superior to our bops. luckily overall klinks are more skilled atm. if you boost everyone 2 to 3 times, how does that change anything? a bop is still paper compared to a fedscort who just got buffed along with u...lulz
2.No, just no. currently the only viable way to counter fed bias is massive spike before they start theyre "human regen experience" have you pvped lately?
3. im not a sci, but if u did this everyone and theyre mother would stack resists to sci abilities rendering them useless. now you have only one career viable for pvp tac and tac
if you didnt want extreme skill stacking, why did you allow it? 5 human doffs giving nearly 300% hull regen fedside only? cmon now how did you "miss" that?
(Regarding ground)
In some instances such a boost would still be 'not enough'
I remeber an instance where me (a semi buffed sci ground tank in full maco, using borg analzyer so sci heals with buffs and Doctor Duty officers) reciveing a 2500 ambush attack, my max hp is about 700 (without doctors), shields 400 for a max of about 1100, double my shields/hp and the outcome would be the same.
With ground you have the probem of some kits work TOO well, were others are pushed to the side.
examples of too well (pvp) SCI Medic/borg analyzer, TACT Operative/fireteam ENG enemy neut
But then the problem is, nerf them and make the kit 'useless' or to leave them and maybe tamper with chain resistance/buffs reaching a pinnicle point, preventing 'super crtiz' (especially with the cryo pulsewave)
(just my thoughts :P)
A full human crew is 150% regen bonus outside combat btw. Not 300% incombat like you would like to present it. If you want play smart, at least accuse with right numbers. :P And beside, there seem to be diminished returns on high values, because on 350% its 3% per second, same as it os on 500%. if anything, the subsystem repair part is somewhat OP, because it makes VM last 1-2s.