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Seperation of PvP and PvE
yreodred
Member Posts: 3,527 Arc User
I don't know if this really belongs into the "Builds, Powers, and Game Mechanics" - Forum so if a Moderator feels it doesn't please feel free to move it to a appropriate place.
I think many game mechanics in STO are too much MMOized.
Especially Star Trek ships shouldn't be just Tanks, Escorts or Science ships. In "real" Star Trek, almost every Starfleet ship is more or less a Cruiser.
But in order to maintain a certain balance a MMO containing a PvP part must "equialize" most ships.
In PvE ships could work much more like the "real" Trek ships and PvP could become perfectly balanced, without the balast of having to be semi canon or whatever that state in which STO is is called.
So my proposal is to introduce seperate PvP and PvE ships.
I think the already released ship should be left as they are, it would only cause major disconcertment to change them retrospectively.
I think Cryptic sould introduce two new lines of ships, PvP focussed ones and PvE focussed ones.
While the current ships are still allowed to do both, the new ones would be much more specialized and only restricted to to either PvP or PvE. Maybe the reputation system could be a good way to get such ships.
Just for example:
At first, Cryptic could release the "hero" ships from TNG (Galaxy Class), DS9 (Defiant) and VOY (Intrepid) for both MACO and OMEGA and make a canon version for PvE and a trinity version for PvP of them.
Since their T5 versions are all C-Store ships, they would be needed to unlock them for the reputation system.
Later, Cryptic could release additional ships for that system.
Future Lockbox and C-Store ships wouldn't be touched by this system and could still be sold as always, althrough they could be included into this system as well.
I think it is crucial for a Star Trek game NOT to follow the (un)holy trinity whenever possible, because in that system Star Trek ships are just made completely wrong and ships like like the GCS for example isn't even recognizeable anymore.
I think many game mechanics in STO are too much MMOized.
Especially Star Trek ships shouldn't be just Tanks, Escorts or Science ships. In "real" Star Trek, almost every Starfleet ship is more or less a Cruiser.
But in order to maintain a certain balance a MMO containing a PvP part must "equialize" most ships.
In PvE ships could work much more like the "real" Trek ships and PvP could become perfectly balanced, without the balast of having to be semi canon or whatever that state in which STO is is called.
So my proposal is to introduce seperate PvP and PvE ships.
I think the already released ship should be left as they are, it would only cause major disconcertment to change them retrospectively.
I think Cryptic sould introduce two new lines of ships, PvP focussed ones and PvE focussed ones.
While the current ships are still allowed to do both, the new ones would be much more specialized and only restricted to to either PvP or PvE. Maybe the reputation system could be a good way to get such ships.
Just for example:
M.A.C.O. could have PvE ships, most having universal BOFF stations or much higher firepower (crusiers) or defense (escorts) than the standard ships. These ships could be made much more true to their "originals" on TV, without having to fear to break the games balance.
This would mean that most Starfleet ships would get mostly universal BOFF slots, and other typical starfleet abilities, like a Phaser strip mechanic, different amount of power generation and so on.
O.M.E.G.A. could be the PvP counterpart. Those ships would be optimized for PvP having everything that makes them perfectly balanced (very extreme in either tanking or gunning). This is where the Stone/Paper/Scissor system kicks in.
This would mean that most Starfleet ships would get mostly universal BOFF slots, and other typical starfleet abilities, like a Phaser strip mechanic, different amount of power generation and so on.
O.M.E.G.A. could be the PvP counterpart. Those ships would be optimized for PvP having everything that makes them perfectly balanced (very extreme in either tanking or gunning). This is where the Stone/Paper/Scissor system kicks in.
At first, Cryptic could release the "hero" ships from TNG (Galaxy Class), DS9 (Defiant) and VOY (Intrepid) for both MACO and OMEGA and make a canon version for PvE and a trinity version for PvP of them.
Since their T5 versions are all C-Store ships, they would be needed to unlock them for the reputation system.
Later, Cryptic could release additional ships for that system.
Future Lockbox and C-Store ships wouldn't be touched by this system and could still be sold as always, althrough they could be included into this system as well.
I think it is crucial for a Star Trek game NOT to follow the (un)holy trinity whenever possible, because in that system Star Trek ships are just made completely wrong and ships like like the GCS for example isn't even recognizeable anymore.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
A tale of two Picards
https://youtu.be/d-f3bscZa0E?t=105(also applies to Star Trek in general)
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I put my PvE Cap on and I go, "Huh?"
Were you to "fix" it for one, that would still be leaving it broken for the other. In general, the way that Cryptic has "classified" the ships is a departure from Star Trek. Then again, much is...
...this seems to be little more than a request for more Universal for one, while dismissing the other - which is likely to result in replies that...meh...
I don't think that pvp and pve need to be separated, I think pve needs to prepare people more for pve. A build that one can get away with in the very easy pve missions or get away with because much more skilled players are tanking the elite stfs or whatever will instantly be recognized as the weak link on a pvp team and blown away every chance given.
Some things that could be rebalanced are the practical necessity of having tactical team where engineering team and science team are "nice to have." That or the game needs to teach you through pve the importance of having tactical team. It is bewildering to me to go into an stf and see someone taking agro and their shield facing is gone and their other shield facings are entirely full and their hull is just going down, down, down, until I throw a tac team on them to balance their shields for them. And unfortunately, you can't really rely on people in this game to cross heal. For one, in many situations, healing someone else leaves you entirely too vulnerable to dying yourself, whether it's from "ambient" damage that's not even targeted at you, or if people are going to take advantage of the fact that they know they just saw your heals get sent to your team mate in trouble.
Perhaps certain "skills" should be removed from being a bridge officer choice to being standard issue on every ship. Every ship has a crew, so every ship has tactical, engineering, and science teams, those teams could be of a level appropriate to the ship's specialization, like the advanced escort could have tac team 3, sci team 2, and eng team 1 since that's how it's consoles/bridge officer specializations are. Maybe ships only have level one of non specialized teams and level 2 of their specialized team, like an intrepid class could have sci team 2, tac team 1, and eng team 1, but if a sci captain is in the sci ship, it get's bumped up to sci team 3. Or perhaps that captain enhancing effect could happen regardless of ship so that you can have a team 3 when you match your career with your ship, or you could have two team 2's for mixing and matching.
Anyway, I'm just spitballing a bit there, there are plenty of ways in which they could make the game more true to the series, lots of ways they could make it more of a simulation and less typical mmo, lots of ways they could prepare players for pvp through pve, but I really don't think that making pvp and pve EVEN MORE DIFFERENT is the route to go... then people will be even more confused, you'll have to completely switch your way of thinking/playing when going from one to the other... yeah... no. The better solution is definitely to bring the two closer together and balance things across the board rather than widening the gap.
A complete separation of PvE and PvP with one of everything for each means I would have to acquire/purchase two of everything. And by purchase I mean spending Real Money. For example, this means my shiny new Scimitar Bundle is now price pointed at about US $100.00. I'll need to grind thru the Rep System twice now for the same piece of endgame gear. To acquire this same gear, I'll need to grind for twice the Dilithium I have to now and it will take about two times as long. Like most people who play this game, I'm not made of money. So I'll pick either PvE or PvP and not bother with the other. And if the one I pick isn't the one you wanted me to, oh well. Unless you'll help me by shelling out the extra cash. In this case, great! And Thank You very much in advance.
Separating PvE and PvP means the Dev team will now have to work twice as long on any new gear or ship or anything else they decide to add. Which means twice the opportunity for a bug or exploit to appear in the game. Inevitably, one side will go in a direction where the other cannot. So now there are two competing games called Star Trek Online. One will suffer from a lack of attention and resources and eventually will either die off or be melded back onto the more financially successful of the two. With a corresponding reduction in income for pwe/cryptic. The reason for this is a lot of the players of the one which, "got killed off", would rather not play STO at all than play a watered down version of the game they signed on for originally.
Technically, cryptic could simply make it so that everything has different stats based on if you use it for pvp or pve, so you could grind for/purchase an item once, and while there would be a bit more programming work (assuming the difference between pvp and pve use is just background numbers like dpv/dps and not drastic differences in functionality) it really shouldn't be that difficult or expensive to implement, though I still think that making the two even father apart is the wrong way to go when the differences between the two are already what makes pvp so unpopular with the vast majority of people in the game.
And to be honest most people don't do PvP at all and are not interested in it. So changing BOFF powers and other things is just annoying for them and have no use for most people playing this game.
On the other hand to rep grind MACO or OMEGA ships would keep a lot of people playing, but i don't know if thats more cost-effective than people just buying a C-Store ship.
Maybe the differencess between PvP and PvE ships wouldn't be so great as i originally wanted them.
So if those ships where more moderate (less extreme) and not restricted to be purely PvP or PvE ships and closer to the already existing ones i think it could work better.
I don't think that the devs had to split their manpower for that, PvP and PvE would still be the same, there where just more specialized ships availlable for it.
And i am against splitting BOFF powers into PvP and PvE powers, i think THAT would be a lot of work for the devs.
My proposal would basicly just add already existing ships to the reputation shops which just have some different BOFF/Console layouts.
@wrathofachilles
Just as you, i initially thought STO to be more like a Bridge Commander like game and i wish that i could at least be a bit like it regarding the authenticity of the ships.
I wish Cryptic would rework Starfleet and KDF ships to be more like their "real" counterparts on TV, similar as they did with the Romulan ships.
Btw, cool name :cool:
Which is blatantly false and a lie that's regurgitated on the forums ad nauseum...
Most changes take place because of PvE - because something is affecting Cryptic's Golden Formula for the amount of rewards a player is able to earn in a given period of time.
As casual as Cryptic attempts to make the game, to cater to as wide a playerbase as possible - they still have goals regarding how long it should take a group of players to do something in order to receive a certain level of rewards.
If one is looking for somebody to blame for the changes, then one should look to their fellow PvE players - well, their betters - the ones that are exploiting the Hell out of something because they have the ability to do so - those players that do not need a crutch to walk, but have no problem spinning those crutches around like a pair of nunchuks spitting lightning.
PvP folks can provide extensive feedback out the wahzoo about how something may appear out of balance to them - which meets a deaf ear. PvE folks notice what the PvP folks are talking about, they take that into PvEland - they rock 'n roll hardstyle...Cryptic notices something is off...tada, an adjustment is made. Yet, folks will just point the finger at the PvP folks.
It's gotten old...even the devs have gotten tired of it. They want a working game that's as balanced as can be per any executive directives on the matter - folks attempting to hide broken mechanics because it gives them an edge or because they simply can't do something without it, doesn't help them do their jobs - doesn't help the game. They've got some pride too...they're reasonable when something goofs up. The general playerbase on the other hand, lacks any pride and is oft extremely unreasonable.
And as someone who does BOTH a lot, I would hate to have to learn two entirely different playstyles to accomodate such a division.
Point is that PvE playing gets changed all the time because of PvP "balance", like the FAW changes a while back and things like that.
Anyway my initial idea was to make more canon ships possible without disrupting (;) ) the balance of PvP.
You wouldn't have to learn anything new, just because of the introduction of more PvP and PvE focussed ships.
How do you come to that conclusion?
If you haven't noticed already, PvP and PvE are already very different. Just put some PvE players to Ker'rat and watch the show, lol.
No, most changes take place because weak PvP players whine about something (the good ones just adapt and embrace the changing game), and a few months later it gets changed. And then after it gets changed it turns out that the changes made it totally useless for PvE, but it never gets fixed. That's the story of pretty much every sci ability in the game apart from the heals (well, maybe we ought to throw in Polarize Hull too).
You already do have to learn totally different playstyles. No PvEer worth their salt does attack runs, and no PvPer worth their salt does yo-yo. And that's just for escorts, cruisers have it tougher (needing high DPS for PvE and strong heals for PvP), and the useful abilities for sci ships are completely different between the two. And the reality is that many abilities are almost impossible to balance for both because the targets in them are so different (lots of healing, limited strength, and significant speed vs no healing, tons of strength, and limited speed).
But that's where the problem is, the abilities, not the ships, which is why this idea isn't a good fix.
My idea isn't about to fix BOFF powers, it is supposed to be a way to release more Trekkish ships without breaking the games balance even more.
Personally i am a PvE player and not in the least interested in PvP. But all ships in STO are influenced by the weired idea of that balance system that just ruins every ship in STO.
So seperating both PvP and PvE would uncouple ships from the restraint to be balanced that much.
I'm not saying that every ship should get a "i win button" as many want. but i would wish that ships in STO would be more Star Trek and less Online like. If you know what i mean.
And I don't mean Silithus, Eastern Plaguelands, Wintergrasp, or any other Extra Strength Arena Supreme; if that thought popped into your head than quickly remove it because that is not what I am talking about.
PvP - 12 powers + consoles, "equivalent" hull/shield strengths, 7 weapons.
PvE - 2-3 powers + console, "massive" hull/shields, 2-3? extremely heavy weapons.
A random thought occurred to me this weekend - doesn't 2/3rds of the PvP community keep 90% of their skills on keybinds and auto-activation?
If so, why can't NPCs be built the same way? Cut them down to "a hair better than PC" hulls/shields, but give them 2xEPtS, 2xTT, 2xHE, etc. etc. and "keybind" them all (aka have them activate as soon as cooldown ends) so that fighting the NPCs is the same deal as fighting other PCs?
I can barely remember the times, in PvE, that I have to worry about AP-B or AP-D "debuffing" me and making me attempt to avoid combat or to accelerate heal patterns.
On a second note, the "trinity" system can be alive-and-well in STO, but remember all the PCs are "Dovahkin" in that we possess access to all 3 "portions" of the trinity - weapons / magic / armor. As long as that is accounted for, balance can be maintained in a trinity system as well...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
NPC's really are never challenging or require special tactics, they are just fodder to be killed with maximum possible DPS.
Know if they actually had access to the full array of powers as players have, they would not be so easy to take down.
Cryptic master Save File PvP
Cryptic master Save file PvE
now you can altler one file to suit its needs and not mess up the other one , Which is what cryptic does right now on a regular basis
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
They farm the cubes. Then complain when they get nova'd by a passing BoP/Raptor/anything NOT Borg.
OR you can make things back to the way they were in "hell week" (you know, the week before S7 came out). I remember something got altered in the programming of the NPCs and they were INSANE. They used their abilities like CRAZY and they actually fought intelligently. I still remember the QQ on the forums about Donatra being unkillable and Gateways one shotting people... to say nothing of the Spheres and Tac Cubes.
As of right now the only real "challenge" that NPCs provide is Donatra's instathalaron and the Tac Cubes occasionally being cruel with BFAW3 followed by 3 or 4 overpowered torps in quick succession. Oh, and the Master Yi imitation that Spheres in ISE do. Short of that, they are a joke. At best.
I propose we leave NPCs at their current hull and shields, but give them the ability to fight like players. Then NPCs can be a REAL challenge. Players would be a welcome relief after that, dontcha think?
EDIT: Minus one shooting Players and rediculus high hitpoints NPCs have, i think that would be something to think about.
But what does that help for releasing ships "as they should be"?
Meaning a Intrepid or Galaxy more like the ships in the show, which would mean pretty unbalanced BOFF layouts for PvP?
Making NPC stronger/more intelligent would only lead to a general more PVP like playing in PvE.
Which would require more extreme BOFF/Console builds, than more balanced/versatile builds.
EDIT:
I am the only one annyoed by way too strong NPC torpedoes that rip your shields apart and destroy half of your ships hull with one salvo?
(as seen at the starbase 234 mission, for example)
People playing PvE on "normal" mode will generally find PvP to be broken in some way.
PvP should just be considered as another mode of play (Normal, Advanced, Elite, PvP), one of unpredictable difficulty.
Maybe it would help if the "normal" was renamed "children's".
Funny, because when I read the PvP forums, the people I see making the most impassioned arguments about something being out of balance are often the players who are recognized as being at the top of the game. And BTW, it's generally agreed that Sci got nerfed too hard when the issue was really how much Tac captain abilities buffed the damage.
The meta for STO like with every other game is a living system that constantly changes. New things are introduced, new strategies are devised, and counters need to be developed. The problem comes when the opportunity/skill cost of something is out of whack with the opportunity/skill cost of the counter. If you have to give up a bunch of equipment/console slots to get a set power and spec into a particular sci skill to make it effective, but it gets countered by one tap of an ensign Boff power, that ability is UP. Conversely, if all you have to do is slot a universal console and click its icon, but the counter involves having the right resistances, skill spec, Boff powers, and quick reflexes... that's out of whack too and that console is OP.
PvP players are always going to be the first to pick up on this stuff. The Borg don't come to the forum and rage about how a full team was spamming some universal console on them, so if you only play PvE you may not notice how out of balance it is. You just blow up the Borg in some record time then skip away with your Omega Marks and a big grin. But, that's not doing you any favors in the long run either. Why play the game if you're not going to be challenged? Why turn it into even more of a tedious grind fest than it already is? Why make new players and free players feel like they can't keep up without having to buy a bunch of stuff?
You don't NEED all this cheese to win at PvE. All you need is a decent Boff setup that makes sense with your ship and gear that compliments it. That's all. You get a bunch of blue XI stuff off the exchange, and as long as you made good choices you can WRECK ESTFs. I help my fleet mates with their builds all the time. They are floored at how a few simple changes can make a huge difference in how they perform and how much fun they have. And none of it depends on gimmicks.
Don't complain in the forums about how you bought some console because it was the latest cheese, and Cryptic understandably whacks it with the nerf bat after hearing community feedback and seeing its effect on PvE completion times. Whatever your new toy is should be fundamentally no more effective than a similar quality item that could otherwise be in its place. That's balance, and it's good for everybody.
So first off, my only universal consoles are the ones from Omega and Rom Rep plus the Plasmonic Leech and Isometric Charge on my lone Fed toon (my fleet's KDF side needed help, so that's where my Rom is, and I haven't bought any other slots). So that attack kind of missed.
As someone whose big goal when starting this game was to play an Intrepid, and who still insists on playing their main as a Sci/Sci, I care most about the sci abilities. I also feel some particular sympathy for the cruiser captains, since they tend to wind up in the same boat as scis as far as being ineffective and unwanted, although A2B, OWA, Marion, and the Experimental BA seem to be changing that for those who can afford it all. Cruisers don't owe so much of their ineffectiveness to nerfs, their big problem is that tanking has been rendered near impossible by the massive single hits NPCs are capable of, and their weak turn rate and the poor power efficiency of beams have always made them poor DPSers, as intended.
Scis, however, suffer from the fact that the stats on all their abilities have been reduced to extremely low levels, and resistances and counters to them have been made very strong. The end result of all that is that scis really end up struggling to be good contributors to an ESTF team. Because the bar for terrible is set extremely low by some really incompetent players, sci ships can at least rise above that, but the basic ones really can't get good, and that's a problem. Part of the reason really is that some abilities, like Viral Matrix, are borderline overpowered in PvP while being borderline worthless in PvE due to the differences in the way battle goes. Others, though, seem to have been nerfed because they did their jobs. And really, just read this to see that I placed the blame properly: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=839211 Hopefully no action will be taken on that one, but that is how things happen.
Not an attack, just a statement of fact driven by my confusion and frustration that people complain so hard when these things get nerfed because they can't seem to complete an ESTF without them. I won't knock anybody for using those consoles you mentioned, they're pretty well balanced for what a single console should be able to do. My Fed has in the past run Romulan, Tachyokinetic, and Leech at the same time. Romulan and Tachyokinetic are straightforward passive buffs, appropriate to a console. Leech requires speccing into Flow Caps to be really effective, so it has a cost that balances it (though its easy availability on the Fed side may be causing it to be overused, part of why I'm not using it right now). Again, none of it's necessary though. My alts when they were new had none of that stuff and still outperformed a typical ESTF PUG.
I just can't understand when you have something like the Valdore or Elachi consoles going way beyond what they should be doing, but people scream when the mean ol' PvP players want to have it fixed. Really people? Freakin, really? You can't make it through the game's almost embarrassingly easy endgame content without a malfunctioning console? That's what really drives me nuts. Instead of learning how to build and pilot your ship better within the game's normal mechanics, we want some game breaking exploit console to fix it for us. Granted, the game does a poor job of showing you what a decent build actually looks like, but there's numerous resources and people out there willing to help. Heck, there's a thread full of amazing sample builds stickied in the PvP forums, that's where I usually start.
I feel you on the science powers. What gets me is that it's like there's completely different sets of sci powers that work in PvE vs. PvP. Grav Well is a great hold against NPCs, but players will just laugh it off. You need to spec into it and launch it at high Aux for them to even notice they were caught in it, and they don't even need to spec into Dampeners. Meanwhile, Viral Matrix can ruin somebody's day in PvP, but doesn't seem to affect the Borg much if at all. I've heard they aren't actually affected by power drain either, so a Polaron/Leech drain build is kind of pointless. Can we get some consistency, and at least have the NPCs playing by the same rules as the players?
They would've avoided a ton of drama if they did this, because they could've nerfed a power in PvP and not upset the PvErs, and vice versa. But it's too late.
It is absolutely necessary for them to separate pvp and pve though, until they can code an AI to be as effective as a human or limit us to be as narrow minded as an AI. Otherwise you can't have powers that are completely affective and balanced in PvP without making them SOP (Super OP) in pve.