This is absolutely required on ground. Tacs can deal an incredible amount of damage (I have one) while heals need some time to be applied. It's an idea i've suggested before so i can't disagree. Getting rid of one shots on can only make ground pvp more interesting. 300% seems ok to me without any testing.
This may work only if the 3rd idea is applied too, because I know i can stack impressive resistance values with my sci heals too. And scis playing in god mode isn't what ground pvp needs either.
For space... Um, why not, as long as it's different modifiers for different ship classes. We don't need more tanky tac ships TBH.
2) Healing -OR- Damage Output Decreases
Why not using the 3rd idea and limiting dps boosts to let's say 200% of the original DPS at most? I think it makes more sense than a blind and class-wide debuff.
3) Reduction in Status Ability Effectiveness -OR- the Resistance Thereof
Very interesting idea. Decreasing the max resistance values, along with the max dps boosts will make pressure damage more important, while spike damage can keep some meaning. We'll also get rid off zombie cruisers, which is good, healers will be required, and tacs won't rule matches.
It would only make sense if there is a hard DPS cap] so that any new ship you release can't break everything. I'm sure it might be extremely hard to implement but this could be really useful.
Originally Posted by borticuscryptic View Post
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.
I like the hitpoints idea from a starting point the best. As drunk said you would need to lower resistances and adjust healing with it. When people talk about healers in this game for me a lot of the "healing" is reducing damage instead and it creates an environment where an unbuffed ship is toast and a fully buffed ship is invincible for a time.
I guess I would that a system with higher hitpoints and lower a resistances would be a game style that may be more attritional in play in both healing and damage. However as a tac/escort flyer primarily I would also hope burst wasnt lost in the change.
You'd have to restructure damage buffs and how powerful weapons are also at any rate, But I like the basic idea.
2) Healing -OR- Damage Output Decreases
I think this would further harm pvp for the more casual player honestly.
3) Reduction in Status Ability Effectiveness -OR- the Resistance Thereof
Personally I like status where it is, but if it were fiddled with and rather start from the idea that counters clear an ability, rather than keep clearing it. At least reducing clearing effects length of time and then reducing certain debuffs effectiveness would allow for more windows of opportunity in play. I think this would work well with the higher hit point idea as well.
note: with the hitpoints increase I wouldn't be after longer match time but where intial ship hull and shield point play more of a role in gameplay.
(edit: Im sure some players might prefer different options but I think it's a pretty universal good feeling that pvp is getting some focus at last, ty for communication bort and cryptic!)
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] Your Ramming Speed III deals 52098 (99235) Kinetic Damage(Critical) to Remus.
I'd be interested in siginificantly increasing Hull resistances and their caps while reducing greatly Hull repair amounts. It makes more sense to me to have Shields yo-yo than Hull/Armor. If the desire is to reduce near instant kills, this would do that while still rewarding hit and run tactics that significantly damage hulls. W/o reducing the hull repair rate potential you'd basically remove hit and run tactics from PvP if you were to do option #1 or decrease damage significantly.
Regarding option #3
Imo, there are lackluster Sci abilities for both, in particular shield drain powers. I'd recommend increasing Boff Debuff effectiveness significantly. Than tweek the player resistances to a managable level where they mitigate, but don't counter a debuff while making sure counters do exist.
Also, player NPC pets have too many debuffs that aren't weak enough relative to player Boff abilities. I'd also increase native player resistances to NPCs pets, to me the pet debuffs should be a boost to a build, not the keystone it's built around. This would allow the pets to be powerful in PvE, so's not to hear nerf cries from that crowd.
Edit: Adding the injury issue to #2 option of greatly reducing hull repairs/greatly increasing resistance cap of hull resists. Have injuries occur at various hull damage levels and disable the repair function on PvP maps. You could pontentionally add pseudo injuries to TSSx 3 tactical abilities which are timed based debuffs that havea chance to cause minor injuries to a target in or out of PvP. Though this last bit is probably too specific for what you're asking for at this point.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
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.
I've asked repeatedly for some hard caps on various buffs/de-buffs, and possibly damage, so I'm all for it.
I saw a Wells tank 7 KDF in Kerrat last night. The buff icons and adaptive shielding markers stretched across half my screen. That is a bad thing.
_________________________________________________ [Kluless][Kold][Steel Heels][Snagtooth] [Louis Cipher][Outta Gum][Thysa Kymbo][Spanner][Frakk] [D'Mented][D'Licious]
Joined October 2009. READ BEFORE POSTING
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).
If you could allow players to start queues and set some of these variables "on" or "off" before the match starts, this could be incredi-good. And possibly even lead to other PvP map enhancements.
If these variables will be unchanging and not optional, I'd say there's a strong potential for incredi-bad. Without the ability to turn them off, you could make PvP intolerable while you're tuning the numbers.
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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.
i just want to say thank you. you have done so much to support pvp. you truly do care about this game. thank you for the post and i look foward to testing any ideas that come along.
To people suggesting complete disables of passives and doffs, rep powers, and other gear in PvP.
I understand the reason you would say such a thing, but realistically speaking do you honestly think a suggestion like that has any chance of surviving to see the light of day?
We can either be a part of some kind of a solution as a community, or we can make unrealistic suggestions and demands that the devs are unlikely to be able to follow through on.
I'm not trying to referee or be a party pooper or any such thing, I work with marketing teams and we have 1 hour brain storming sessions where they might as well be asking my team to create real live flying unicorns that shoot musical rainbows from their nostrils.
Unrealistic suggestions like that mean the entire 1 hour meeting is wasted, instead of being productive and focusing on things that are actually doable.
I think a better approach would be some kind of dimishing returns or stacking limit on things like passive healing and resists, you don't want to limit boff and captain active use powers here, just the stuff that is basically effortless mitigation improvements.
The hard part of the balancing act here is that STO has a typical MMO gear/power progression model, so they have to add new things for people to want to acquire - that's the game it is and has been.
I don't mean to undermine this at all I honestly a big part of the sustained damage thread is due to the reputation/elite fleet shields is apart of the problem that it seems that sustained damage is worthless it even started before that with the shield distro officers.
Escorts are the only ones that can do any decent damage apart from bleedthew transphasics/Plasma torpedoes that have the hull burn.
Increasing shields/hp will change very little with regards to class vs class balance in team play. It will not solve any problems in team play, but it will not cause any either.
Increasing shields/hp will make most 1v1s tend towards stalemates, rather than clear resolutions. Tac will still remain the most powerful in 1v1, although less so than before. Physicist will be rendered obsolete in 1v1. I would consider this a negative change overall for 1v1s.
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Healing decreases will kill any hope there is left for ground pvp. Tactical officers, with the best damage output and best damage mitigation (suppressing fire) in the game, are already supreme; significantly reducing healing will make the only viable premade 4 tacs and 1 sci, with the sci's sole role being to provide debuffs to make the tacs kill each other faster.
---
Slashing damage output will have a similar outcome to increasing health and shields, but favor tacs less. It is the best option of the options listed.
---
Reduction in status ability effectiveness or reduction in resistance to status ability effectiveness is too much of a wild card to predict without further information, because different kinds of status abilities are resisted differently and have different impacts, both good and bad, on the game.
---
Suggestion for a sweeping change that would solve more problems than any of the above:
Level lock all gear at mk10 for pvp, and auto-scale any higher mk gear to its mk10 equivalent during pvp.
Adding additional buffer is probably nice for everyone, but doesn't do much to address the imbalances between hull resist and damage scaling. I think it would be interesting if that buffer wasn't constant. You got, say, a 200% increase to hull and shields, but once its worn through, you can only heal back to your normal PvE values and can only regain the buffer by respawning. That should put players in a position where, the longer you are alive, the more fragile your ship gets compared to everyone else's. Just a thought.
This one's trickier. Damage output should be normalized across weapon types, with their base DPS remaining constant in terms of percentile divergence. Healing should be balanced against that. A shorter-term solution would be to leave damage more-or-less as it stands and altering the scale of heals between tiers. Lower level heals should heal a bit less. Higher level ones should heal a bit more. That way a cruiser "Feels" tankier while escorts will "feel" squishier.
3) Reduction in Status Ability Effectiveness -OR- the Resistance Thereof
This one's got an easier solution, I think. The best answer is to simply require a sufficiently high level cleanse to fully eliminate a high level debuff. Polarize hull 1 would work great against tractor beam 1, but would offer reduced effectiveness against Tractor Beam Repulsors 1, for example, reducing the amount of push you take, but not eliminating it.
Part of the problem with the whole buff/debuff interaction is that high-level debuffs are easily countered by low level clenses. That works fine in PvE, but feels unsatisfying in PvP combat. Altering the way they interact slightly helps cruisers and science vessels feel like viable alternatives to high-dps escorts.
I don't mean to undermine this at all I honestly a big part of the sustained damage thread is due to the reputation/elite fleet shields is apart of the problem that it seems that sustained damage is worthless it even started before that with the shield distro officers.
Escorts are the only ones that can do any decent damage apart from bleedthew transphasics/Plasma torpedoes that have the hull burn.
I don't think you are undermining it.
I feel the same way as you honestly and I think a lot of us agree that the passive heals and resistances are one of the biggest issues, turning a lot of it off would be the easiest way to reboot the way PvP is played.
I just look at it and think "can cryptic viably do this without making some players really angry, and is it financially sound?"
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%.
Yes, as well some permanent damage or extended repair time for disabled/destroyed systems would be nice. not every destroyed impulse engine can brought back to 100% operation in seconds with a single heal and no parts.
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).
1) Can't honestly see this working for space or ground. In space for the reasons you have already considered. On the ground because most things are pretty much about right; there are exceptions (stacked tac buffs, pulsewaves, cryo weapon), and when you get hit with those you might wish you had more HP, but for all other purposes it would make scoring kills too difficult and really drag things out unnecessarily.
2) Not sure... I don't like it, but I can't put my finger on why. Sorry I can't be more constructive here.
3) These sound promising. Reducing resists to status effects in space PvP seems like a good move; if I'm understanding your intent correctly, it would (or at least could) improve the lot of cruisers and science ships, without nerfing escort damage. Getting the level of reduction right could be a painful process, but it seems worth trying to me.
On the ground, I'd suggest going the other way, and reducing the effectiveness of the status abilities. Generally, ground status abilities are either extremely frustrating, or just plain lethal (I'm looking at you Ambush); reducing their effectiveness would make ground PvP less likely to make people tear their hair out and stop playing.
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.
You are correct. This would be a very bad idea for space pvp unless there are major changes to healing/damage abilities at the same time.
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.
You are correct here, too. This would be a bad idea for space pvp because of its implications for spike/pressure balance.
3) Reduction in Status Ability Effectiveness -OR- the Resistance Thereof
...
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.
This is true. If you have fine enough control to dial down some the sci resists in PVP maps (can you do this for individual boxes in the skill tree or only for all at the same time?), this could help restore some of the sci powers that fell victim to the skill tree change.
BUT: Sci resists have no relevant impact in PVE, so there is no reason why one would need to address them via pvp map global variables instead of simply fixing the skill tree directly.
Your assessment of the possibilities that these things bring are correct, but from what I can see there is only the chance that this might restore some of the sci powers (your 3rd point), whereas 1 and 2 are - as you correctly observe - probably not suited for space pvp without significant other changes at the same time.
What saddens me is that none of these possible modifications have any chance of dealing with the recent power creep in terms of massive "free" resists that has led to the sorry state of affairs that you can see in the Spike vs Pressure thread. You correctly noted that 2 of your 3 options are not suited for space pvp changes, and so I hope that you don't spend too much time trying to fix things for the (comparatively) tiny ground pvp community before you move on to the big issues in space pvp.
I don't mean to undermine this at all I honestly a big part of the sustained damage thread is due to the reputation/elite fleet shields is apart of the problem that it seems that sustained damage is worthless it even started before that with the shield distro officers.
Escorts are the only ones that can do any decent damage apart from bleedthew transphasics/Plasma torpedoes that have the hull burn.
This is a reason why I suggested greatly increasing Hull Resists caps, greatly decreasing Hull Repair amounts, and even introducing injuries based on Hull damage taken. Pressure bleed through damage in this case would be effective since it would basically be accumulative and have the effect of reducing a ship's overall performance.
Edit: What I've been gathering from Bort for awhile now (based on passive repair/resists and tric nerfs) is the desire to reduce near insta-pops, so newer players don't feel overwhelmed. Increasing the buffer doesn't solve this b/c of the rate hulls can be repaired. You could reduce the repair rate and add hull, but I think it'd be better to increase the resists bonuses from high end Sci/Engie Boff abilities and the Hull resist cap so the "tankier" ships have a more viable means to sustain themselves in a fight w/o reducing Hit and run tactics.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
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.
For Ground PvP all these suggestions are really just a band-aid as you mention. I am sure the Hypo wars are not the desired outcome. We saw the changes from that to the new system. The current issue that appears on ground is the issue of the Power Creep. IT was discussed here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=517281
We are reaching situations where the diminishing returns on resistance is making any new armor only marginally better than before. While simultaneously decreasing the effectiveness of some abilities, thereby making some kits obsolete. On the other hand with the increase damage from new weapons and doffs we are now seeing a linear increase in DPS.
The hit point suggestion for ground would then be to shift the hit points to align them with the intended effect of what resistance should be doing. This really is a band-aid on the core issue. It would almost be best to lower the resistance and base damage of all items to reset the power creep. In effect you would attain the same result and at the same time bring obsolete kits back into play.
Looking into Status Ability Effectiveness is a tough issue. Some effects on ground are very powerful with no resistance effect, where as other Status affects are something you could ignore. This would have to be evaluated on a case by case basis and becomes part of a kit/ability balance issue. Others have suggested stack limiting with better Status effects. Or a diminishing returns of Status effects.
It appears to me that just implementing a combination of a simplified step 1, 2, 3 might stop the gushing wound but it won't stop the infection.
Borticus I wish you Good Luck in this work! Its not going to be simple.
Some words to space pvp.
First of all, STO is my first mmo and i like pvp. Space pvp is my favourite atm because
i love all kind of Star Trek space crafts. I love to fly around and blow up some stuff
or get wrecked.
I would like to see some giant epic space battles but atm even 10vs10 can be a very short
dissatysfying event.
At the momentary state space pvp is right now the typical 5vs5 arena matches are horrible
if u are new to the game.
Most of the people just play pve then they hit va and think: Mh i've done alrdy every mission
so i queue up for pvp.
The window pops up, he is pressing "engage" and after 60s there is a 5vs5 in Cracked Planet
going on.
He acts like captain kirk, so he is flying with full impuls to the center of the map leaving
his team far behind. Then he hears some sounds, a defiant/bop is decloaking: Cool, a ship
nice decloaking animation he thinks...and all he can do now is "respawn"
He will never learn what happend if all he can do is fly in and die.
I know, there is a pvp bootcamp but u cant get everybody in there.
All this guy would need are a few seconds. Give him time to observe the things that are going on
so he can analyse the situation, make a decsion and maybe if he is lucky he can save his ship form
being wrecked.
To give everybody in STO the time to learn how pvp (or teamplay) works i've got some suggestions
for all u guys in here to think about. So pleas take the time to read it, think about it and
discuss it.
Things to change:
Increasing the ammount of hull and shields is a very good idea.
The following things will happen.
Captain Kirk will get his learing curve so he can understand how pvp works and won't get instapopped
everytime he shows up in a pvp zone.
Matches with more then 5x5 or 10x10 will be possible and they will be fun for everyone.
But while u are increasing hull and shields stats the resist must be drastically lowerd.
I will return to this point later.
Energy Weapons:
I like the weapons sto provides but the way it works could need some new mechanics.
Make energy weapons work good against shields and maybe only half as effective
against hull (this will make torpedos/mines of any sort more useful)
Every energy weapon will need a capacitator.
Make the damage an energy weapons deals depending on the state of charge the capacitator has reached.
Let the player control at witch fill level energy weapons are ready to be fired off.
The weapon power level and the number of empty capacitators will determine how fast capacitators will be filled up again.
This will also determine the time between an energy weapon can be shot with preset or max power.
And of course a player should be able to fire off all energy weapons manually independent of the state of charge the capacitator
got.
This will lead to a few new possibilities
First: a player can decide wether he will do spike damage or pressure damage or both just by moving the
sliders of the energy weapon capacitators.
Second: even a healer or a sci ship flying at full aux and shields will become able to fire of some burst damage.
of course the capacitators will need very long to be refilled if your weapon power level is only at 25.
Third: Even if ur power levels are drained by siphon drones, plasmodic leech or tykens u will be able to do some burst shoots.
Fourth: you can introduce some new consoles to increase the cap of the capacitators.
Fifth: something im not thinking about atm
Kinetic Weapons (torpedos and mines):
This weapons are good against hull and weak against shields. There is no need to change this.
I would change:
No global cd to mines and launchers. It should be possible to fire off all at the same time if u want.
Make torpedos and mines much stroinger against hull.
Launchers need a stock of torpedos/mines so it cant be spammed.
This will work well with the changes to shileds i will suggest later.
Shields:
I like the idea of different shields.
Covarinat, resilient and regenerative shields are okay.
They all need much more cap and less resists.
The kinetic resists from shileds need to be inversely proportional to the shield capacity a shield facing
has left. This way torpedos and mines will work against still shielded ships. All u need is to hit a weak
shield facing.
Im sure this will lead to a big revamp and some bo abilities need changes too but the skilltree will need no change.
I really like the idea for Ground PvP, it will make things more spaceish, but just like Guriphu an Pug said this is only an band-aid for a bigger ploblem that it's power creep.
I'm going to go against the grain a bit here. I've always agreed with Cryptic's prior stance that separate PvE and PvP mechanics are a design cop out, and risk making PvP completely inaccessible and segregated from the rest of the playerbase.
I see two proper courses of action to take in regards to balance.
1. Balance around PvP first and foremost, with little thought towards PvE. No offense, but PvE in this game is simplistic and overall terrible, and I think deep down the devs know this. You can't possibly break PvE balance because it doesn't actually exist when NPCs are nothing more than mindless HP meat-bags. Nothing you do with player equipment or skills actually matters. The only way to create a balance problem in PvE is by breaking NPCs by giving them silly one off, over the top abilies (eg. one shoting)
2. Make PvE more PvP like, which would also make the game more true to Star Trek. This means toning down the over-inflated stats that NPCs enjoy, and giving them comparable equipment and abilities to player ships. Take away the endless mobs, which feels more like a genocide simulator than anything to do with Star Trek, and focus on smaller, more inciting battles with NPCs that are as well endowed as the players fighting them.
if you could just....go ahead and fix all the lolconsoles....
thadt'd be great.....thanks milton.....
on a more serious note:
what will fix PVP:
stop giving everyone the ability to be the kirksauce. (or, what they think will be)
make them team up with diverse ship types, using their innate captain abilities in tandem to perform as a team. this system is not broken, but all of the lockbox ships and consoles so very blur the line of what makes team based PVP great.....and yes, im talking about the trinity.
each step towards blurring those lines, is one step towards continued dissatisfaction in PVP in this game.
there is absolutely no reason i should out heal any engineer cruiser in my tac scort. yet it happens daily. this is the other problem to address....
no one but PVPR's really know how to use the damn boff powers in the game to any usefullness....
wonder why?
its stupid easy. make people team up to beat PVE. make them fail. give them no rewards, send them packing..... and if you think that is happening now, you are wrong. no win scenario? yeah, its hard...but only because you cant keep up with the waves after waves of mindless enemies... STFs? lol on elite. and i'm just your average STO PVP dude....
yeah, real challenging...and fun....and rewarding....... (you can say that one in your head in your best sarcastic Morgan Freeman voice.)
fix the PVE AI.....i swear this is the only game ive ever played where i cant remember ever getting killed in PVE unless i was drinking a beer and helping my kid beat his next match of marvel v capcom 3.....stop blurring the lines of every role in the game by introducing (for example: a console released on the steamrunner that "tricks" me into thinking its a good idea to run a team shield resist on an escort)...... and for god sakes, get some better rewards for good PVP performance. the PVP rewards are downright laughable.....fleet marks was a good start tho thank you.
Well, I think this thread may have already ran its course.
Thank you all very much for your feedback, and taking the time to consider the possibilities.
It sounds like we're all fairly well agreed that the benefits of the originally-stated proposals would range from "Minimally-Good" to "Massively-Bad," and are therefore not really sound propositions as large, sweeping changes.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Well, I think this thread may have already ran its course.
Thank you all very much for your feedback, and taking the time to consider the possibilities.
It sounds like we're all fairly well agreed that the benefits of the originally-stated proposals would range from "Minimally-Good" to "Massively-Bad," and are therefore not really sound propositions as large, sweeping changes.
I think you got more of don't nerf me, bro... than anything else, tbh.
Tom's a healer - don't nerf mah healing, bro!
Rick's a Bill Nye - don't nerf mah dirty bag o' tricks, bro!
Harry does DPS - don't nerf mah spike, bro!
There was also a lot of independent feedback on each item without taking them as a whole.
It takes too long to kill as is - don't make it harder!
Everybody dies too fast as is - don't make it easier!
And er, 50/50, on the third - some saying it takes too long - some saying it happens too fast...don't make it harder...er...easier...harder...easier!
To an extent, the responses are a perfect example of how it's an On/Off switch - you've either got the right team comp and all your enemies are dead in a blink or you've got the wrong comp and can't kill anything. There's too much survivability - there's not enough survivability.
Addressing the three things (perhaps with others) - could actually change it from being that On/Off. You're not going to get those replies...
You're going to get the...
Don't nerf mah stuff, bro!
Whether it's Tom, Rick, Harry, or the guys that have found a nice comp that works well for them...
Folks want everybody else nerfed but themselves. They don't realize that it's a give and take situation if you want a better, more balanced game...
Well everyone knows it's the real issue, and while Bort steps in this forums quite often he's also responsible for some ships stats, such as the Kumari.
Detailed feedback will come a bit later after I've digested it a bit, but let me mention how much I appreciate that Cryptic is coming to the community at this stage in the design process. I see a lot of potential to make pvp a bit more forgiving to new players and less dependent on massive damage spikes & subnukes as the only way to kill people.
1) Increase hit points, while reducing T1 healing skill effectiveness, as well as damage output. Titrate that until you get "breathing space", so let's say you'd need 2-3 players to spike dps 1 player down, and even if after a solo spike said player is left with 30-50% HP which he won't be healing out of very quickly unless he's being focus-healed by another 1-2 players.
This would also bring pressure dps back in viability as while outright dying from an alpha attack is less likely, healing off any injuries acquired takes longer and allows them to 'accumulate'.
I wish for debuffs to work longer and better on players, but stop them from stacking. This reduces maximum effectiveness, but allows for improving individual sci power effectiveness. Also, make anything that outright causes a player to lose control of his ship fragile, so that it has a long duration that can be reapplied before it expires, but the moment anything damages it, the player breaks free.
Lastly, give everything a CC breakout instead of locking it away at LtC level. This can be done by APO1 & 2 being bumped down a tier, or adding that as a PVP-related special ability.
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
Personally, I do kind of like the thought of doing:
Increased Hull and Shields + Reduced Healing + Reduced defense vs Debuffs
But I do have concerns with how the third might effect PVP for the worse. I remember the days of CBP being almost a team killer.. or when GW 3 could pull whole teams into a Tric drop of doom..
Just saying..
You think that your beta test was bad?
Think about this: American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
Personally, I do kind of like the thought of doing:
Increased Hull and Shields + Reduced Healing + Reduced defense vs Debuffs
But I do have concerns with how the third might effect PVP for the worse. I remember the days of CBP being almost a team killer.. or when GW 3 could pull whole teams into a Tric drop of doom..
Just saying..
What do you think of that part being...
SNB's not a complete strip.
TT/ET/ST/HE/etc are not a complete cleanse.
...in conjunction with the first two?
It's a buff to both buffs/debuffs in its own way. It would no longer be the "Haha, your buffs are gone!" nor "Haha, your debuffs are gone!" - it would allow for more of a middleground. Debuffs would stay longer and help offset buffs while buffs would stay longer and help offset debuffs. A sort of balancing act...
Okay, having read the thread in it's entirety, I think most of my main points have already been made, particularly about passive heals having a very strong effect; there are dozens of little things that have a cumulative effect of making kills extremely difficult when all the heals & resists are stacked up. What this thread gets me thinking is that the root problem lies in a number of pvp variables being out of whack, and achieving the proper balance between them would solve many of the problems.
1. Spike vs. Sustained DPS, relative to enemy resists & passive healing. Sustained DPS can be largely ignored and overridden by passive regen.
2. Buffer vs. Spike DPS. As it is, if I unleash a full alpha strike against a completely un-buffed target that is receiving no heals, it will be dead in under five seconds, probably under three. When people are on their own, or don't have a good bridge officer layout for tanking, they are rather helpless, and no one has fun with that.
3. Healing. As it is, healing is strong enough to keep an ally up literally forever in team situations in the absence of buff strips, assuming that healers are on the ball.
Get the balance between these five things right, and figure out some way for people to be challenged in PvE and learn team-play, and pvp will be in a much better state.
Comments
This is absolutely required on ground. Tacs can deal an incredible amount of damage (I have one) while heals need some time to be applied. It's an idea i've suggested before so i can't disagree. Getting rid of one shots on can only make ground pvp more interesting. 300% seems ok to me without any testing.
This may work only if the 3rd idea is applied too, because I know i can stack impressive resistance values with my sci heals too. And scis playing in god mode isn't what ground pvp needs either.
For space... Um, why not, as long as it's different modifiers for different ship classes. We don't need more tanky tac ships TBH.
Why not using the 3rd idea and limiting dps boosts to let's say 200% of the original DPS at most? I think it makes more sense than a blind and class-wide debuff.
Very interesting idea. Decreasing the max resistance values, along with the max dps boosts will make pressure damage more important, while spike damage can keep some meaning. We'll also get rid off zombie cruisers, which is good, healers will be required, and tacs won't rule matches.
It would only make sense if there is a hard DPS cap] so that any new ship you release can't break everything. I'm sure it might be extremely hard to implement but this could be really useful.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
I like the hitpoints idea from a starting point the best. As drunk said you would need to lower resistances and adjust healing with it. When people talk about healers in this game for me a lot of the "healing" is reducing damage instead and it creates an environment where an unbuffed ship is toast and a fully buffed ship is invincible for a time.
I guess I would that a system with higher hitpoints and lower a resistances would be a game style that may be more attritional in play in both healing and damage. However as a tac/escort flyer primarily I would also hope burst wasnt lost in the change.
You'd have to restructure damage buffs and how powerful weapons are also at any rate, But I like the basic idea.
I think this would further harm pvp for the more casual player honestly.
Personally I like status where it is, but if it were fiddled with and rather start from the idea that counters clear an ability, rather than keep clearing it. At least reducing clearing effects length of time and then reducing certain debuffs effectiveness would allow for more windows of opportunity in play. I think this would work well with the higher hit point idea as well.
note: with the hitpoints increase I wouldn't be after longer match time but where intial ship hull and shield point play more of a role in gameplay.
(edit: Im sure some players might prefer different options but I think it's a pretty universal good feeling that pvp is getting some focus at last, ty for communication bort and cryptic!)
Your Ramming Speed III deals 52098 (99235) Kinetic Damage(Critical) to Remus.
I'd be interested in siginificantly increasing Hull resistances and their caps while reducing greatly Hull repair amounts. It makes more sense to me to have Shields yo-yo than Hull/Armor. If the desire is to reduce near instant kills, this would do that while still rewarding hit and run tactics that significantly damage hulls. W/o reducing the hull repair rate potential you'd basically remove hit and run tactics from PvP if you were to do option #1 or decrease damage significantly.
Regarding option #3
Imo, there are lackluster Sci abilities for both, in particular shield drain powers. I'd recommend increasing Boff Debuff effectiveness significantly. Than tweek the player resistances to a managable level where they mitigate, but don't counter a debuff while making sure counters do exist.
Also, player NPC pets have too many debuffs that aren't weak enough relative to player Boff abilities. I'd also increase native player resistances to NPCs pets, to me the pet debuffs should be a boost to a build, not the keystone it's built around. This would allow the pets to be powerful in PvE, so's not to hear nerf cries from that crowd.
Edit: Adding the injury issue to #2 option of greatly reducing hull repairs/greatly increasing resistance cap of hull resists. Have injuries occur at various hull damage levels and disable the repair function on PvP maps. You could pontentionally add pseudo injuries to TSSx 3 tactical abilities which are timed based debuffs that havea chance to cause minor injuries to a target in or out of PvP. Though this last bit is probably too specific for what you're asking for at this point.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
I've asked repeatedly for some hard caps on various buffs/de-buffs, and possibly damage, so I'm all for it.
I saw a Wells tank 7 KDF in Kerrat last night. The buff icons and adaptive shielding markers stretched across half my screen. That is a bad thing.
[Kluless][Kold][Steel Heels][Snagtooth]
[Louis Cipher][Outta Gum][Thysa Kymbo][Spanner][Frakk]
[D'Mented][D'Licious]
Joined October 2009. READ BEFORE POSTING
If you could allow players to start queues and set some of these variables "on" or "off" before the match starts, this could be incredi-good. And possibly even lead to other PvP map enhancements.
If these variables will be unchanging and not optional, I'd say there's a strong potential for incredi-bad. Without the ability to turn them off, you could make PvP intolerable while you're tuning the numbers.
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i just want to say thank you. you have done so much to support pvp. you truly do care about this game. thank you for the post and i look foward to testing any ideas that come along.
I understand the reason you would say such a thing, but realistically speaking do you honestly think a suggestion like that has any chance of surviving to see the light of day?
We can either be a part of some kind of a solution as a community, or we can make unrealistic suggestions and demands that the devs are unlikely to be able to follow through on.
I'm not trying to referee or be a party pooper or any such thing, I work with marketing teams and we have 1 hour brain storming sessions where they might as well be asking my team to create real live flying unicorns that shoot musical rainbows from their nostrils.
Unrealistic suggestions like that mean the entire 1 hour meeting is wasted, instead of being productive and focusing on things that are actually doable.
I think a better approach would be some kind of dimishing returns or stacking limit on things like passive healing and resists, you don't want to limit boff and captain active use powers here, just the stuff that is basically effortless mitigation improvements.
The hard part of the balancing act here is that STO has a typical MMO gear/power progression model, so they have to add new things for people to want to acquire - that's the game it is and has been.
How do we work within that framework?
Escorts are the only ones that can do any decent damage apart from bleedthew transphasics/Plasma torpedoes that have the hull burn.
Increasing shields/hp will change very little with regards to class vs class balance in team play. It will not solve any problems in team play, but it will not cause any either.
Increasing shields/hp will make most 1v1s tend towards stalemates, rather than clear resolutions. Tac will still remain the most powerful in 1v1, although less so than before. Physicist will be rendered obsolete in 1v1. I would consider this a negative change overall for 1v1s.
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Healing decreases will kill any hope there is left for ground pvp. Tactical officers, with the best damage output and best damage mitigation (suppressing fire) in the game, are already supreme; significantly reducing healing will make the only viable premade 4 tacs and 1 sci, with the sci's sole role being to provide debuffs to make the tacs kill each other faster.
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Slashing damage output will have a similar outcome to increasing health and shields, but favor tacs less. It is the best option of the options listed.
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Reduction in status ability effectiveness or reduction in resistance to status ability effectiveness is too much of a wild card to predict without further information, because different kinds of status abilities are resisted differently and have different impacts, both good and bad, on the game.
---
Suggestion for a sweeping change that would solve more problems than any of the above:
Level lock all gear at mk10 for pvp, and auto-scale any higher mk gear to its mk10 equivalent during pvp.
Adding additional buffer is probably nice for everyone, but doesn't do much to address the imbalances between hull resist and damage scaling. I think it would be interesting if that buffer wasn't constant. You got, say, a 200% increase to hull and shields, but once its worn through, you can only heal back to your normal PvE values and can only regain the buffer by respawning. That should put players in a position where, the longer you are alive, the more fragile your ship gets compared to everyone else's. Just a thought.
This one's trickier. Damage output should be normalized across weapon types, with their base DPS remaining constant in terms of percentile divergence. Healing should be balanced against that. A shorter-term solution would be to leave damage more-or-less as it stands and altering the scale of heals between tiers. Lower level heals should heal a bit less. Higher level ones should heal a bit more. That way a cruiser "Feels" tankier while escorts will "feel" squishier.
This one's got an easier solution, I think. The best answer is to simply require a sufficiently high level cleanse to fully eliminate a high level debuff. Polarize hull 1 would work great against tractor beam 1, but would offer reduced effectiveness against Tractor Beam Repulsors 1, for example, reducing the amount of push you take, but not eliminating it.
Part of the problem with the whole buff/debuff interaction is that high-level debuffs are easily countered by low level clenses. That works fine in PvE, but feels unsatisfying in PvP combat. Altering the way they interact slightly helps cruisers and science vessels feel like viable alternatives to high-dps escorts.
I don't think you are undermining it.
I feel the same way as you honestly and I think a lot of us agree that the passive heals and resistances are one of the biggest issues, turning a lot of it off would be the easiest way to reboot the way PvP is played.
I just look at it and think "can cryptic viably do this without making some players really angry, and is it financially sound?"
Yes, or at least limit ability stacking
Yes, as well some permanent damage or extended repair time for disabled/destroyed systems would be nice. not every destroyed impulse engine can brought back to 100% operation in seconds with a single heal and no parts.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
1) Can't honestly see this working for space or ground. In space for the reasons you have already considered. On the ground because most things are pretty much about right; there are exceptions (stacked tac buffs, pulsewaves, cryo weapon), and when you get hit with those you might wish you had more HP, but for all other purposes it would make scoring kills too difficult and really drag things out unnecessarily.
2) Not sure... I don't like it, but I can't put my finger on why. Sorry I can't be more constructive here.
3) These sound promising. Reducing resists to status effects in space PvP seems like a good move; if I'm understanding your intent correctly, it would (or at least could) improve the lot of cruisers and science ships, without nerfing escort damage. Getting the level of reduction right could be a painful process, but it seems worth trying to me.
On the ground, I'd suggest going the other way, and reducing the effectiveness of the status abilities. Generally, ground status abilities are either extremely frustrating, or just plain lethal (I'm looking at you Ambush); reducing their effectiveness would make ground PvP less likely to make people tear their hair out and stop playing.
You are correct here, too. This would be a bad idea for space pvp because of its implications for spike/pressure balance.
This is true. If you have fine enough control to dial down some the sci resists in PVP maps (can you do this for individual boxes in the skill tree or only for all at the same time?), this could help restore some of the sci powers that fell victim to the skill tree change.
BUT: Sci resists have no relevant impact in PVE, so there is no reason why one would need to address them via pvp map global variables instead of simply fixing the skill tree directly.
Your assessment of the possibilities that these things bring are correct, but from what I can see there is only the chance that this might restore some of the sci powers (your 3rd point), whereas 1 and 2 are - as you correctly observe - probably not suited for space pvp without significant other changes at the same time.
What saddens me is that none of these possible modifications have any chance of dealing with the recent power creep in terms of massive "free" resists that has led to the sorry state of affairs that you can see in the Spike vs Pressure thread. You correctly noted that 2 of your 3 options are not suited for space pvp changes, and so I hope that you don't spend too much time trying to fix things for the (comparatively) tiny ground pvp community before you move on to the big issues in space pvp.
This is a reason why I suggested greatly increasing Hull Resists caps, greatly decreasing Hull Repair amounts, and even introducing injuries based on Hull damage taken. Pressure bleed through damage in this case would be effective since it would basically be accumulative and have the effect of reducing a ship's overall performance.
Edit: What I've been gathering from Bort for awhile now (based on passive repair/resists and tric nerfs) is the desire to reduce near insta-pops, so newer players don't feel overwhelmed. Increasing the buffer doesn't solve this b/c of the rate hulls can be repaired. You could reduce the repair rate and add hull, but I think it'd be better to increase the resists bonuses from high end Sci/Engie Boff abilities and the Hull resist cap so the "tankier" ships have a more viable means to sustain themselves in a fight w/o reducing Hit and run tactics.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
For Ground PvP all these suggestions are really just a band-aid as you mention. I am sure the Hypo wars are not the desired outcome. We saw the changes from that to the new system. The current issue that appears on ground is the issue of the Power Creep. IT was discussed here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=517281
We are reaching situations where the diminishing returns on resistance is making any new armor only marginally better than before. While simultaneously decreasing the effectiveness of some abilities, thereby making some kits obsolete. On the other hand with the increase damage from new weapons and doffs we are now seeing a linear increase in DPS.
The hit point suggestion for ground would then be to shift the hit points to align them with the intended effect of what resistance should be doing. This really is a band-aid on the core issue. It would almost be best to lower the resistance and base damage of all items to reset the power creep. In effect you would attain the same result and at the same time bring obsolete kits back into play.
Looking into Status Ability Effectiveness is a tough issue. Some effects on ground are very powerful with no resistance effect, where as other Status affects are something you could ignore. This would have to be evaluated on a case by case basis and becomes part of a kit/ability balance issue. Others have suggested stack limiting with better Status effects. Or a diminishing returns of Status effects.
It appears to me that just implementing a combination of a simplified step 1, 2, 3 might stop the gushing wound but it won't stop the infection.
Borticus I wish you Good Luck in this work! Its not going to be simple.
Pug01
Hi Borticus, i've got just a few ideas for you:
Some words to space pvp.
First of all, STO is my first mmo and i like pvp. Space pvp is my favourite atm because
i love all kind of Star Trek space crafts. I love to fly around and blow up some stuff
or get wrecked.
I would like to see some giant epic space battles but atm even 10vs10 can be a very short
dissatysfying event.
At the momentary state space pvp is right now the typical 5vs5 arena matches are horrible
if u are new to the game.
Most of the people just play pve then they hit va and think: Mh i've done alrdy every mission
so i queue up for pvp.
The window pops up, he is pressing "engage" and after 60s there is a 5vs5 in Cracked Planet
going on.
He acts like captain kirk, so he is flying with full impuls to the center of the map leaving
his team far behind. Then he hears some sounds, a defiant/bop is decloaking: Cool, a ship
nice decloaking animation he thinks...and all he can do now is "respawn"
He will never learn what happend if all he can do is fly in and die.
I know, there is a pvp bootcamp but u cant get everybody in there.
All this guy would need are a few seconds. Give him time to observe the things that are going on
so he can analyse the situation, make a decsion and maybe if he is lucky he can save his ship form
being wrecked.
To give everybody in STO the time to learn how pvp (or teamplay) works i've got some suggestions
for all u guys in here to think about. So pleas take the time to read it, think about it and
discuss it.
Things to change:
Increasing the ammount of hull and shields is a very good idea.
The following things will happen.
Captain Kirk will get his learing curve so he can understand how pvp works and won't get instapopped
everytime he shows up in a pvp zone.
Matches with more then 5x5 or 10x10 will be possible and they will be fun for everyone.
But while u are increasing hull and shields stats the resist must be drastically lowerd.
I will return to this point later.
Energy Weapons:
I like the weapons sto provides but the way it works could need some new mechanics.
Make energy weapons work good against shields and maybe only half as effective
against hull (this will make torpedos/mines of any sort more useful)
Every energy weapon will need a capacitator.
Make the damage an energy weapons deals depending on the state of charge the capacitator has reached.
Let the player control at witch fill level energy weapons are ready to be fired off.
The weapon power level and the number of empty capacitators will determine how fast capacitators will be filled up again.
This will also determine the time between an energy weapon can be shot with preset or max power.
And of course a player should be able to fire off all energy weapons manually independent of the state of charge the capacitator
got.
This will lead to a few new possibilities
First: a player can decide wether he will do spike damage or pressure damage or both just by moving the
sliders of the energy weapon capacitators.
Second: even a healer or a sci ship flying at full aux and shields will become able to fire of some burst damage.
of course the capacitators will need very long to be refilled if your weapon power level is only at 25.
Third: Even if ur power levels are drained by siphon drones, plasmodic leech or tykens u will be able to do some burst shoots.
Fourth: you can introduce some new consoles to increase the cap of the capacitators.
Fifth: something im not thinking about atm
Kinetic Weapons (torpedos and mines):
This weapons are good against hull and weak against shields. There is no need to change this.
I would change:
No global cd to mines and launchers. It should be possible to fire off all at the same time if u want.
Make torpedos and mines much stroinger against hull.
Launchers need a stock of torpedos/mines so it cant be spammed.
This will work well with the changes to shileds i will suggest later.
Shields:
I like the idea of different shields.
Covarinat, resilient and regenerative shields are okay.
They all need much more cap and less resists.
The kinetic resists from shileds need to be inversely proportional to the shield capacity a shield facing
has left. This way torpedos and mines will work against still shielded ships. All u need is to hit a weak
shield facing.
Im sure this will lead to a big revamp and some bo abilities need changes too but the skilltree will need no change.
Im sorry for my bad english.
It's late and i will continue tomorrow.
But overall, i like it.
Keep up the good work Borticus!
www.divisionhispana.com
I see two proper courses of action to take in regards to balance.
1. Balance around PvP first and foremost, with little thought towards PvE. No offense, but PvE in this game is simplistic and overall terrible, and I think deep down the devs know this. You can't possibly break PvE balance because it doesn't actually exist when NPCs are nothing more than mindless HP meat-bags. Nothing you do with player equipment or skills actually matters. The only way to create a balance problem in PvE is by breaking NPCs by giving them silly one off, over the top abilies (eg. one shoting)
2. Make PvE more PvP like, which would also make the game more true to Star Trek. This means toning down the over-inflated stats that NPCs enjoy, and giving them comparable equipment and abilities to player ships. Take away the endless mobs, which feels more like a genocide simulator than anything to do with Star Trek, and focus on smaller, more inciting battles with NPCs that are as well endowed as the players fighting them.
um, yeah.
if you could just....go ahead and fix all the lolconsoles....
thadt'd be great.....thanks milton.....
on a more serious note:
what will fix PVP:
stop giving everyone the ability to be the kirksauce. (or, what they think will be)
make them team up with diverse ship types, using their innate captain abilities in tandem to perform as a team. this system is not broken, but all of the lockbox ships and consoles so very blur the line of what makes team based PVP great.....and yes, im talking about the trinity.
each step towards blurring those lines, is one step towards continued dissatisfaction in PVP in this game.
there is absolutely no reason i should out heal any engineer cruiser in my tac scort. yet it happens daily. this is the other problem to address....
no one but PVPR's really know how to use the damn boff powers in the game to any usefullness....
wonder why?
its stupid easy. make people team up to beat PVE. make them fail. give them no rewards, send them packing..... and if you think that is happening now, you are wrong. no win scenario? yeah, its hard...but only because you cant keep up with the waves after waves of mindless enemies... STFs? lol on elite. and i'm just your average STO PVP dude....
yeah, real challenging...and fun....and rewarding....... (you can say that one in your head in your best sarcastic Morgan Freeman voice.)
fix the PVE AI.....i swear this is the only game ive ever played where i cant remember ever getting killed in PVE unless i was drinking a beer and helping my kid beat his next match of marvel v capcom 3.....stop blurring the lines of every role in the game by introducing (for example: a console released on the steamrunner that "tricks" me into thinking its a good idea to run a team shield resist on an escort)...... and for god sakes, get some better rewards for good PVP performance. the PVP rewards are downright laughable.....fleet marks was a good start tho thank you.
have fun kill bad guys
-thrusters on full-
Thank you all very much for your feedback, and taking the time to consider the possibilities.
It sounds like we're all fairly well agreed that the benefits of the originally-stated proposals would range from "Minimally-Good" to "Massively-Bad," and are therefore not really sound propositions as large, sweeping changes.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
honestly,
ive read some of your statements on the forums man...
I KNOW you know what you are doing dude.
we're looking to you for the solution man....
I think you got more of don't nerf me, bro... than anything else, tbh.
Tom's a healer - don't nerf mah healing, bro!
Rick's a Bill Nye - don't nerf mah dirty bag o' tricks, bro!
Harry does DPS - don't nerf mah spike, bro!
There was also a lot of independent feedback on each item without taking them as a whole.
It takes too long to kill as is - don't make it harder!
Everybody dies too fast as is - don't make it easier!
And er, 50/50, on the third - some saying it takes too long - some saying it happens too fast...don't make it harder...er...easier...harder...easier!
To an extent, the responses are a perfect example of how it's an On/Off switch - you've either got the right team comp and all your enemies are dead in a blink or you've got the wrong comp and can't kill anything. There's too much survivability - there's not enough survivability.
Addressing the three things (perhaps with others) - could actually change it from being that On/Off. You're not going to get those replies...
You're going to get the...
Don't nerf mah stuff, bro!
Whether it's Tom, Rick, Harry, or the guys that have found a nice comp that works well for them...
Folks want everybody else nerfed but themselves. They don't realize that it's a give and take situation if you want a better, more balanced game...
edit: And oh yeah, what's up with the coffee?
Well everyone knows it's the real issue, and while Bort steps in this forums quite often he's also responsible for some ships stats, such as the Kumari.
So, um, well... What's the point?
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
1) Increase hit points, while reducing T1 healing skill effectiveness, as well as damage output. Titrate that until you get "breathing space", so let's say you'd need 2-3 players to spike dps 1 player down, and even if after a solo spike said player is left with 30-50% HP which he won't be healing out of very quickly unless he's being focus-healed by another 1-2 players.
This would also bring pressure dps back in viability as while outright dying from an alpha attack is less likely, healing off any injuries acquired takes longer and allows them to 'accumulate'.
I wish for debuffs to work longer and better on players, but stop them from stacking. This reduces maximum effectiveness, but allows for improving individual sci power effectiveness. Also, make anything that outright causes a player to lose control of his ship fragile, so that it has a long duration that can be reapplied before it expires, but the moment anything damages it, the player breaks free.
Lastly, give everything a CC breakout instead of locking it away at LtC level. This can be done by APO1 & 2 being bumped down a tier, or adding that as a PVP-related special ability.
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
Support the "Armored Unicorn" vehicle initiative today!
Thanks for Harajuku. Now let's get a real "Magical Girl" costume!
Increased Hull and Shields + Reduced Healing + Reduced defense vs Debuffs
But I do have concerns with how the third might effect PVP for the worse. I remember the days of CBP being almost a team killer.. or when GW 3 could pull whole teams into a Tric drop of doom..
Just saying..
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
What do you think of that part being...
SNB's not a complete strip.
TT/ET/ST/HE/etc are not a complete cleanse.
...in conjunction with the first two?
It's a buff to both buffs/debuffs in its own way. It would no longer be the "Haha, your buffs are gone!" nor "Haha, your debuffs are gone!" - it would allow for more of a middleground. Debuffs would stay longer and help offset buffs while buffs would stay longer and help offset debuffs. A sort of balancing act...
1. Spike vs. Sustained DPS, relative to enemy resists & passive healing. Sustained DPS can be largely ignored and overridden by passive regen.
2. Buffer vs. Spike DPS. As it is, if I unleash a full alpha strike against a completely un-buffed target that is receiving no heals, it will be dead in under five seconds, probably under three. When people are on their own, or don't have a good bridge officer layout for tanking, they are rather helpless, and no one has fun with that.
3. Healing. As it is, healing is strong enough to keep an ally up literally forever in team situations in the absence of buff strips, assuming that healers are on the ball.
Get the balance between these five things right, and figure out some way for people to be challenged in PvE and learn team-play, and pvp will be in a much better state.