Make every item leveless, in an environment where only quality would matter. Between rank 50 and 59 players should be teamed with equipment equivalent to MK XIII, Level 60 MK XIV. This way you'd still have a reason to improve the rarity of something, while nullyfying the paywall for entry-PvP.
Unify level 50 and level 60 Ker'rat, make everyone fight with MK XII weapons and make everyone match Vice Admiral rank.
Make Starship Traits account wide to eliminate the gap between the three factions (and the need of grinding them on other characters multiple times).
Add a 3s shared cooldown to every clickable console on use of a weapon-enhancing ability (say, CRF) or another clickable console to limit vaping clickies.
Make a basic matchmaking system that can balance the rank/profession of the participants equally.
Add R&D reward packages to public PvP matches and boost XP rewards a little to make it more appealing, on par with PvE.
I guess these six easy points should be enough to bring PvP back alive and running for a long time. Feel free to add something of course. I know, it's highly unlikely this is ever going to be considered, but dreaming's free...
yep, leveless items in pvp is what i think is the magic bullet as well.
advantages-
-ungodly levels of approachability
-pvp becomes much more casual possible
-me and probably quite a few others priced out of the game would be tempted to return
-and spend money on ships, grind, etc.
-damage itself has a stable baseline to balance off of, less extremes to factor in.
disadvantages
-blowing tones of cash on upgrades is dis-incentivized, but players that left weren't spending any money anyway.
the whole playability and balance thing still needs work, but the stinkers have been more or less fixed, and lower damage weapons would drastically reduce the space bar to win factor.
The solution is a change in mindset, from a focus on selling new items, to a focus on selling more items from a broad catalog. As long as they stay focused on selling new items in particular, its pointless
I don't mean to sound negative and the OP has more then a few good ideas about the game.
However the issue is the business model. The Cryptic model is sell items based on what they do. This is a bad model for PvP. There is no way PvP can change unless that model is changed.
Any game that is anywhere close to fun to play in terms of PvP have developers that sell cosmetics rather then functions. By that I mean they may sell 50 different colours of light saber crystals, or 20 different LOOKING helmets or backpacks or dresses. However none of them function any differently then the next. Cryptic has decided they would rather sell 30 things that all look alike, however function differently.
This means anything new they want to sell must be worth buying over the last thing. Cause it doesn't really look any different. So for it to have value it must have increased FUNCTION. So we get new ships that can use classic skins... cause its the function people want. We get new doffs that are always better then the old ones cause there isn't anything to see anyway. Ditto for traits/rep gear and everything else. Its all sold on function over fashion.
The sad thing really is... had they focused on a Cosmetic model they would have likely made A LOT more money given the nature of the trek IP.
We have told them how to make money on PvP before... make everything =ish with in reason, and sell cosmetics.
The same model would have saved the PVE game as well had they considered it long ago. At this point I'm not sure it would be possible to revisit there business model. So there it is. Unless something drastic changes... Bort is right this is just an echo chamber, and every day there are fewer bodies around to dampen the disharmony.
3 Second shared CD seems a little harsh. If you really think about it that's a really long time. Also, I have a cloaking device on my defiant, it's a console. Whenever I use subspace jump while cloaked, it auto-uncloaks me. Would that mean I would remain cloaked since the CD timer would stop me from activating subspace jump and cloak within 3 seconds of each other?
Oh and keep this CD mod in space, it would mess up ground way too much.
P.S. I don't need any of that "ground exists?" sort of stuff, I get it, people hate us.
Make every item leveless, in an environment where only quality would matter. Between rank 50 and 59 players should be teamed with equipment equivalent to MK XIII, Level 60 MK XIV. This way you'd still have a reason to improve the rarity of something, while nullyfying the paywall for entry-PvP.
Unify level 50 and level 60 Ker'rat, make everyone fight with MK XII weapons and make everyone match Vice Admiral rank.
Make Starship Traits account wide to eliminate the gap between the three factions (and the need of grinding them on other characters multiple times).
Add a 3s shared cooldown to every clickable console on use of a weapon-enhancing ability (say, CRF) or another clickable console to limit vaping clickies.
Make a basic matchmaking system that can balance the rank/profession of the participants equally.
Add R&D reward packages to public PvP matches and boost XP rewards a little to make it more appealing, on par with PvE.
I guess these six easy points should be enough to bring PvP back alive and running for a long time. Feel free to add something of course. I know, it's highly unlikely this is ever going to be considered, but dreaming's free...
Yes this!
Right now we need to do the same thing 3 times and not knowing how long the wait, or play time will last to finish it.
Just imagine PvE content requiring you to do the same mission for 3 times just to get the reward.
It would kill it as well.
Make Starship Traits account wide to eliminate the gap between the three factions (and the need of grinding them on other characters multiple times).
The last batch of zen ships cryptic proved they can sell you the same trait three times for the three factions, so this is definitely never going to happen.
Comments
advantages-
-ungodly levels of approachability
-pvp becomes much more casual possible
-me and probably quite a few others priced out of the game would be tempted to return
-and spend money on ships, grind, etc.
-damage itself has a stable baseline to balance off of, less extremes to factor in.
disadvantages
-blowing tones of cash on upgrades is dis-incentivized, but players that left weren't spending any money anyway.
the whole playability and balance thing still needs work, but the stinkers have been more or less fixed, and lower damage weapons would drastically reduce the space bar to win factor.
I don't mean to sound negative and the OP has more then a few good ideas about the game.
However the issue is the business model. The Cryptic model is sell items based on what they do. This is a bad model for PvP. There is no way PvP can change unless that model is changed.
Any game that is anywhere close to fun to play in terms of PvP have developers that sell cosmetics rather then functions. By that I mean they may sell 50 different colours of light saber crystals, or 20 different LOOKING helmets or backpacks or dresses. However none of them function any differently then the next. Cryptic has decided they would rather sell 30 things that all look alike, however function differently.
This means anything new they want to sell must be worth buying over the last thing. Cause it doesn't really look any different. So for it to have value it must have increased FUNCTION. So we get new ships that can use classic skins... cause its the function people want. We get new doffs that are always better then the old ones cause there isn't anything to see anyway. Ditto for traits/rep gear and everything else. Its all sold on function over fashion.
The sad thing really is... had they focused on a Cosmetic model they would have likely made A LOT more money given the nature of the trek IP.
We have told them how to make money on PvP before... make everything =ish with in reason, and sell cosmetics.
The same model would have saved the PVE game as well had they considered it long ago. At this point I'm not sure it would be possible to revisit there business model. So there it is. Unless something drastic changes... Bort is right this is just an echo chamber, and every day there are fewer bodies around to dampen the disharmony.
Revert back to 1.2 and problem solved.
PaxOttomana: gawd mirror event is like fighting a tsi premade, they keep comin and comin!
ROI.
F**K that. I want a game with no console spam =/
PaxOttomana: gawd mirror event is like fighting a tsi premade, they keep comin and comin!
But they took it down before I even got the chance to try it! Danmn you Trinity for not telling me!
PaxOttomana: gawd mirror event is like fighting a tsi premade, they keep comin and comin!
I've known that since 1.2...
PaxOttomana: gawd mirror event is like fighting a tsi premade, they keep comin and comin!
It was fun while it lasted :P
You don't KNOW how much I hate you now -.-
GIVE IT BACK!
PaxOttomana: gawd mirror event is like fighting a tsi premade, they keep comin and comin!
Oh and keep this CD mod in space, it would mess up ground way too much.
P.S. I don't need any of that "ground exists?" sort of stuff, I get it, people hate us.
Yes this!
Right now we need to do the same thing 3 times and not knowing how long the wait, or play time will last to finish it.
Just imagine PvE content requiring you to do the same mission for 3 times just to get the reward.
It would kill it as well.
The last batch of zen ships cryptic proved they can sell you the same trait three times for the three factions, so this is definitely never going to happen.