Why redo PvP? Its a hostile community who keeps whining and crying like little kids and demanding nerfs all over since otherwise they cant do their usual instavape and spawnpoint camping.
Please, quit asking them to do things they aren't equipped to do. A revamp of PvP into something that is balanced and playable would require roughly as much investment as a full expansion, for null projected returns, and nobody at Cryptic even DOES pvp in the first place, so it would be a massive investment in something that will, basically, fail to produce a balanced, playable, enjoyable experience.
It's like asking a Vegan for a bacon-cheeseburger. They don't want to do it, and it won't taste good if someone forces them to.
It was a feature from the start. I especially loved the ground battles. Then the way it seems it was technically taken from us with exceeding imbalance and more rewarding PvE content. It would be quite mind-boggling to think why anyone would call others to cease lobbying for a feature that was a big part of the game before if I wouldn't know ignorance knows no boundaries. And it's totally unimportant who does or doesn't play PvP at Cryptic. So please, even if you never had the stomach to join a queue, stop asking people to stop asking for a revamping of the most neglected part of the game. Have the courtesy to move on if nothing else.
yes, PVP is a vestige of what the design team intended initially for the game-like Exploration Clusters were. But...
1. Cryptic has a hard time managing multiple faction games and settings. This can be illustrated by the neglect applied for the first three years to the Klingon faction over-all.
2. when you look at development, you're looking at a tree made of decisions-and experience or interest has a SIGNIFICANT impact on what those decisions will, or will not, be. Developers don't do well when they're developing for game-types they honestly don't understand. The market has always had poor attempts when companies would press developers who weren't interested, into work that they didn't understand. (this goes back a long time-even to before we had online computers, much less MMO's.) Developing a game is a creative endeavour. PvP is wargaming, which means it requires certain conditions to be workable and fun, that don't exist in found object or reflex gaming. The staffers on the STO branch, to a man, don't do this kind of game, so they are unfamiliar with the principles necessary to make it work...especially with a wargaming system that includes the ability to customize units and unit types.
The complexity I'm referring to, is 'balance'-that magic place where both sides have about a forty percent chance of winning with the forces they have, with the remaining twenty percent being a combination of luck, skill, and terrain/conditions.
it's half science, which can be taught, and half art, which must be learned through experience. Unfortunately, there's none of the 'experience' necessary for the instinctual side-that place where you have to give up the objective measures, but without it, all the accounting/numbers portion starts to fail to work.
incidentally, it's questionable if anyone at Cryptic really understands the numbers side either-mathematical force-balancing has been a 'thing' in wargaming forever, and comparative scenario design for a plus/minus ten percent split isn't something that is either NEW, or INNOVATIVE-but because of how the focus is set up at Cryptic Studios, it's pretty much totally disconnected.
which is the mechanical reason you get the reactions they got with Delta Rising producing uncounterable, stacking, disables with the Intel skills and gear-which is to say, PvP'ers migrating from the game in droves.
Funny part is, the basics to structure a simple mathematical mechanic have been in the engine for this game since it was first assembled back in 2010 off the bones of "City of Heroes".
it's part of why we even have stats.
The problem, and it's a fundamental problem, is that the staff that designed the engine and provided the tools, isn't here anymore and hasn't been for a span of years, this is compounded by the PvP curse-a Staffer or Dev starts treating PvP like it's something to look at seriously, they end up fired...oh, wait..."Departing for other opportunities".
In the case of the last one, right in the middle of rebalancing beam skills.
Working with, on, or even cooperating with PvP in this game, is a proven way to announce you're not long for Cryptic Studios.
aka a career-killer.
Result is, that lack of interest DOES have a significant impact. It also means asking them for a rework or revamp of the feature, is, in fact, pointless.
Even if you outlined exactly what needed to be done, in clear, simple, step-by-step terms, the corporate culture and lack of interest means it likely will not be done correctly, or done well.
and the shoddy work will inevitably also be done reluctantly.
This is because of the psychology of game development-devs don't work well on stuff they don't want to touch, it's just that simple. The Dev that did the initial work was gone by 2012 (Gozer) the CM that worked to build the community up and pursued advocacy for the activity is gone (Branflakes), the last Dev that actually bothered to learn enough to maybe handle the task was driven out mid-stream a couple years ago (AdjudicatorHawk), and his successor made sure to repudiate the entire PvP community publicly with a temper-tantrum (Borticus).
The Lead Dev (Geko) views both PvP'ers and KDF players with scorn when he's in a good mood, and enmity the rest of the time-and has expressed such publicly. Note he's been Lead Dev since at least 2011, and held a management position as lead developer under a string of Executive Producers, announcing his admiration for the guy who gave us the unbalanced and uncounterable TRIBBLE of Delta Rising.
The current CM doesn't PvP, and no developer on staff that has answered the question has expressed interest in the activity, even outside of STO.
this is further compounded by the size of the staff working on the game-resources to fix issues with PvP (or KDF for that matter) draw off of other commitments to a degree unacceptable to the show-runners at Cryptic Studios, or their bosses at Perfect World.
the staff is TINY. this is why KDF players get a broken skin on the Kar'fi now, and why the Brotl'h skin doesn't work on the various B'rel models...ever. not even the new one, in spite of it being advertised.
this goes to the Manpower issue, it really does. Because a balancing mechanic, requires manpower in the form of Coders and designers-neither of which are available to work on it with the present production schedule, and it requires someone in the lead-seat who comprehends the game's mechanics, as well as the necessary concept of force-balance.
Which Geko does not-part of the reskill probably had a lot to do with needing to dumb it down so he doesn't embarrass the staff publicly again by revealing his ignorance of how the skills work (he did this, on a P1 Podcast, last year, demonstrating he did NOT know what Flow Caps do, or Insulators, Or EPS. These were basic skills and part of the root 'character sheet' every player has...) and he holds special contempt for PvP players, as evidenced by his comments over several years, including the infamous "PvP'ers are a bunch of 14 year old min/maxers living in their mother's basement".. This reflects a fundamental attitude-when he said it, it was 2012 and the pvp community did not even resemble that in any form...here. I won't say what it looks like on some other games, but here is where it would have mattered.
without an understanding of what makes PvP work as a game mode, and without understanding the root mechanics, and without understanding base concepts of game balance in a competitive, OR cooperative environment (check out the people getting AFK'd for insufficient DPS in PUG runs), it is simply not possible, even iwth an injection of financial capital to hire the bodies to code it, for Cryptic to handle a PvP revamp.
The fundamental understandings necessary to structure out the work-package, assign developers and coders, quality-check the material for balance and playability aren't there-they don't have the manpower, they don't have the intellectual capital, they don't have the finances to get either, and they don't have the structure to apply it if all of the above were suddenly to magically appear.
next issues preventing it are 'time' and 'cbs approval'.
Time, because there are only 24 hours in a day, and only eight in a typical workday, and the schedule is packed already (presumably) with other commitments.
CBS Approval applies because the suits at CBS have oversight over priorities at Cryptic Studios where STO is concerned. The odds that CBS' people believe in or understand the value of a vibrant,if small, PvP community are pretty close to NIL. Being as CBS has not yanked the license, STO is paying it's bill just fine to them, and that's all the suits at CBS really concern themselves with beyond setting specific "Do not touch" rules regarding things like Connies.
The final issue, is Metrics. "How will this make Cryptic money?" the last three years have shown that you can make whales with simplified, dumbed-down, mass-mob PvE scenarios and player-churn. Making the business case, against a hostile development staff, requires being able to show that either they are missing out on a significant market and losing money, or that their current (Last four years) strategy of only focusing on the Majority with a lazer-like devotion, is a loser.
good luck with that. Even with Legacy of Romulus now the second-highest moneymaker for the game (the highest was "Delta Rising", relative to investment), it only drew 11% of the game population on a game where 18% (the pre-LoR KDF population) was considered unworthy of attention.
PvP'ers at the HEIGHT of the community, were less than 10% (and that was when you had to PvP to level your Klingon!)
so...the money argument's also a loser-made moreso by internal diagnostics that announce the "Trek populatino doesn't like PvP".
which is a fancy way of saying that PvP players aren't just the bottom of the priority list, we're not even ON the priority list (confirmed by D'Angelo in 2014).
There's no interest, no business case, no metrics. we're not wanted here, what is here, is a vestige of developers of days past, and the only reason it's even STILL here, is that it's more trouble to remove than it is to neglect.
Neither interest, nor capability are present. therefore, it's pointless to lobby for it.
I indulged myself, though this is usually my TL;DR body of work. Not this time as I am genuinely interested in the matter. Though I appreciate the elaboration of your post, I find most of the reasons as simple excuses for Cryptic. I know you aren't here to protect them, but I simply can't accept the reasons like they weed out PvP designers and such. Star Trek is a huge franchise which attracts millions and they are making huge money off of it. I know, cause I know that there are worse frenzy-spenders out there than me. So all we need as a community is to stand firm on the PvP, not to let any excuse bring our hopes down, as a workable system is damn well doable. Even if a closed system. If we give into the excuses they hint at not touching the PvP at all we are wasting our only chance to ever have a revamped system as the production path is not cast in stone.
I hope the PvPers from STO currently and the ones that left a few years ago migrate to star citizen when it's out. It'll be fun to duel them again in a balanced game.
I hope the PvPers from STO currently and the ones that left a few years ago migrate to star citizen when it's out. It'll be fun to duel them again in a balanced game.
Already there and enjoying the heck out of the PvP.
Please, quit asking them to do things they aren't equipped to do. A revamp of PvP into something that is balanced and playable would require roughly as much...
and so on and so forth.
Patrickngo and others who might do similar, we don't need long articles on why PvP is bad or why Cryptic hasn't worked on it.
I, as well as many others, would like to see it back again. I'd think of PvP as something that could be on the same level (but not similar to) PvE, reputation maps, Doffs, and other items in the game that add more to do but aren't required. Although no one at Cryptic might even do something like this, they can spend the entire year (or the Risian summer event) redoing PvP instead of FE. I, at least, would like to see change in PvP, whether or not that is changing around or adding current/new maps (which isn't so hard to do. They already make new maps for FE), or redoing PvP completely (which is less possible, but with hard work, they can do it!) Also, I joined STO at the release of Legacy of Romulus. Since then, they redid/added Doffs, RnD, an entirely new map, reputation, skills and specilizations, officers, many, many missions and maps, and a ton more content since 2012-2013.
The game has changed SIGNIFICANTLY since then, and just with the items I listed above, I think Cryptic can make a better PvP
I wish I had as much time as you to write all those walls of text.
Get a job working nights, and don't drink, and you'll find you have lots of time between 'getting off work' and 'finally cooled-off enough to sleep'. (lol)
come to think of it, this may be part of the reason my experience and thinking is significantly different from yours-I've been on line in the game 'off peak' for the most part, so marginal impacts are strikingly obvious to me, where they might not be for you.
the 'same hours' in 2012, it took less than 15 minutes to get a PuG match on the PvP queue, that's FvK, at midnight on a weekday pacific time.
The last weekend (in 2016) I played, (Weekends are seriously prime-time) it took all damn day to get into a single match-but then the string finished with the same ten or so people (three matches for the wrapper mission).
and then, the rest of the night, it was as dead empty as midnight on a Wednesday. (this was...oh, march of this year I believe...) It was 3 AM before the germans started showing up in Ker'rat.
Contrast: four years ago, Ker'rat was busy, sometimes with as many as five instances at level 50 or higher going at once because it was so darn busy, and that was when the map was all screwed up with rubberbanding borg and the 'red-fed' bug.
at midnight, on a weekday.
visiting over-sixty at Ker'rat on a weekend and it's deadsville by comparison.
I first came fof this game for 2 reasons
1-scifi space themed
2-the absolute lack of pvp
I really don't care if a game have pvp or not, as long I'm not on it. The bad thing of pvp is, players don't want pvp, they want to force others into it.
Man someone had a bad EvE experience. Dude this isn't Eve I have never heard any PvP players in STO ever say they wanted to force PvP on PvE players. If you don't want to PvP in STO you can simply choose to not Que for PvP... and stay out of PvP zones (which haven't gotten any dev attention in 5 years now)
I wish I would have known that Cryptic wasn't concerned with making PvP better. If I had known, I wouldn't have spent all that money with them on the best gear. It's the challenge of building a ship that performs well in combat that attracts me to the game. No fixes to PvP, no need to spend anymore money with them.
Patrickngo, we don't need long essays for you to prove your point. Please try to simplify your arguments (people don't like reading long articles and they take up more room )
I know that PvP is not on Cryptic's priority list, but neither was exploration clusters when they were in the game, and neither are the patrol missions for many of the planets in the Alpha-Beta quadrants. A large part of this is because PvP is one of the most outdated parts of the game still in-game (if KDF FED missions came before PvP, then those would be oldest, otherwise PvP is most outdated.) Because it is outdated, people have been playing around with new features as they come, like the new skill thing or a bonus weekend. Some PvEs are going down the same path as PvP, yet PvE gets new maps and some special events every year. If Cryptic makes a major update to PvP, then the player community might be interested and Cryptic might work on PvP similar to PvE.
Even if Cryptic makes a "PvP bonus weekend" event like PvE events, the player community probably would be interested. The thing is, PvP is outdated, and because of this, players aren't as interested. Cryptic could improve PvP, but will PvP go the same path as exploration clusters did (exclude the doff stuff they have now)? I'm sure PvP is somewhere on Cryptic's to-do list, and they haven't entirely ignored it.
actually, Andy, per their own developers and at least one Executive Producer, PvP is not on the 'to-do-list'. I'm not making this up, previous executive producer D'angelo said so in public in early 2015, and recently, Salami mentioned that it's outside the scope of what they have planned (about four months ago).
Further evidence could be found in the archives here, where several Devs and staff have mentioned that "The Star Trek Audience doesn't PvP." (the easiest one would be to look around in august of 2015 and a convo with Tacofangs on the subject of proposed "monsterplay" ideas.)
It's not on the list, Andy. Minus some bigtime external pressure from CBS or PWE, it's not going to be on the list, and even in the presence of bigtime pressure from the money-men at PWE or pressure from CBS (good luck with that)
It's doubtful there's anyone on-staff that has the faintest idea how to update it, even if they were under serious pressure to do so, everyone who had a clue how to begin the task? Is gone. Why the hell do you think it is, that every new PvE mission is just a retread of the last one with some new shiny, new cutscenes, and artwork, hmm? The DPS obsession is there, because that's all the people they've got left can actually manage-and that extends to why the perennial requests for improved NPC AI go un-answered and 'challenge' means bumping NPC hitpoints up a little more.
The mental flexibility and the understanding of competitive balance are absent from the cryptic staff-all that are left, are the artists.
Ok, I was wrong in that, but Cryptic should do something about PvP, instead of letting a bunch of OP/hacking people wreck noobs for ec and dil (whatever you earn in PvP).
And as a start, they could turn current maps (mission, PvE, and more) into PvP ques without any trouble I don't think.
And besides, if PvP is so dead, why is there still a PvP section on the forum? Why would PvP still be in the game? Cryptic should do something about PvP, and I am recommending to improve it, but it is up to Cryptic on what happens to it.
I think you, Patrickngo, already looked at this thread, but is a nice example of how PvP is still active, specifically in the form of private ques. I haven't joined the channel or anything yet, but I intend to see what they do and if they want an update in PvP.
Hello! This is a friendly petition for a completely new PvP system in a future update!
If you would like to see a new PvP system in possibly an upcoming season, please comment below. Feel free to comment anything you would like to see in PvP, such as player balancing and new maps.
[/b]
Coming from somebody that's 98% PvE, yes I'd love to see a new PvP system in a future update.
A long time ago it was fun, and against fleet mates ground or space it still provides a thrill like no other. You actually have to think unlike a lot of the somewhat mindless PvE content. I really dislike things being removed from the game or neglected... the more options for game play the better.
No PvP feedback has ever resulted in any of my builds being nerfed (and for some reason a lot of my builds still retain some PvP related leanings just because). Many of you take the time to explain game mechanics in the PvE forums. You remain some of the most talented and knowledgable players in-game. Respect.
Hope this small vote helps and the part of the game you enjoy gets the attention it needs.
@augment a re-balance of abilities and gear would make a vast improvement. At the moment people are dishing out over 100k (not just with FBP) when only a handful of ships actually have that much health. Shields are made of paper (not that they matter with pen mods), immunities let anyone make a build to focus solely on attack with no repercussions and the abilities that counter others aren't built to take this level of powercreep on.
Why redo PvP? Its a hostile community who keeps whining and crying like little kids and demanding nerfs all over since otherwise they cant do their usual instavape and spawnpoint camping.
Comments
I indulged myself, though this is usually my TL;DR body of work. Not this time as I am genuinely interested in the matter. Though I appreciate the elaboration of your post, I find most of the reasons as simple excuses for Cryptic. I know you aren't here to protect them, but I simply can't accept the reasons like they weed out PvP designers and such. Star Trek is a huge franchise which attracts millions and they are making huge money off of it. I know, cause I know that there are worse frenzy-spenders out there than me.
Already there and enjoying the heck out of the PvP.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Patrickngo and others who might do similar, we don't need long articles on why PvP is bad or why Cryptic hasn't worked on it.
I, as well as many others, would like to see it back again. I'd think of PvP as something that could be on the same level (but not similar to) PvE, reputation maps, Doffs, and other items in the game that add more to do but aren't required. Although no one at Cryptic might even do something like this, they can spend the entire year (or the Risian summer event) redoing PvP instead of FE. I, at least, would like to see change in PvP, whether or not that is changing around or adding current/new maps (which isn't so hard to do. They already make new maps for FE), or redoing PvP completely (which is less possible, but with hard work, they can do it!) Also, I joined STO at the release of Legacy of Romulus. Since then, they redid/added Doffs, RnD, an entirely new map, reputation, skills and specilizations, officers, many, many missions and maps, and a ton more content since 2012-2013.
The game has changed SIGNIFICANTLY since then, and just with the items I listed above, I think Cryptic can make a better PvP
-Q
(hint: click the image to go to my youtube channel)
http://twitch.tv/profile/quantum_quantonium
http://plus.google.com/+quantumquantonium
http://quantumquantonium.blogspot.com
http://quantonium.tk
EPIC SCREENSHOTS
Hahaha
Man someone had a bad EvE experience. Dude this isn't Eve I have never heard any PvP players in STO ever say they wanted to force PvP on PvE players. If you don't want to PvP in STO you can simply choose to not Que for PvP... and stay out of PvP zones (which haven't gotten any dev attention in 5 years now)
I know that PvP is not on Cryptic's priority list, but neither was exploration clusters when they were in the game, and neither are the patrol missions for many of the planets in the Alpha-Beta quadrants. A large part of this is because PvP is one of the most outdated parts of the game still in-game (if KDF FED missions came before PvP, then those would be oldest, otherwise PvP is most outdated.) Because it is outdated, people have been playing around with new features as they come, like the new skill thing or a bonus weekend. Some PvEs are going down the same path as PvP, yet PvE gets new maps and some special events every year. If Cryptic makes a major update to PvP, then the player community might be interested and Cryptic might work on PvP similar to PvE.
Even if Cryptic makes a "PvP bonus weekend" event like PvE events, the player community probably would be interested. The thing is, PvP is outdated, and because of this, players aren't as interested. Cryptic could improve PvP, but will PvP go the same path as exploration clusters did (exclude the doff stuff they have now)? I'm sure PvP is somewhere on Cryptic's to-do list, and they haven't entirely ignored it.
-Q
(hint: click the image to go to my youtube channel)
http://twitch.tv/profile/quantum_quantonium
http://plus.google.com/+quantumquantonium
http://quantumquantonium.blogspot.com
http://quantonium.tk
EPIC SCREENSHOTS
Ok, I was wrong in that, but Cryptic should do something about PvP, instead of letting a bunch of OP/hacking people wreck noobs for ec and dil (whatever you earn in PvP).
And as a start, they could turn current maps (mission, PvE, and more) into PvP ques without any trouble I don't think.
And besides, if PvP is so dead, why is there still a PvP section on the forum? Why would PvP still be in the game? Cryptic should do something about PvP, and I am recommending to improve it, but it is up to Cryptic on what happens to it.
-Q
(hint: click the image to go to my youtube channel)
http://twitch.tv/profile/quantum_quantonium
http://plus.google.com/+quantumquantonium
http://quantumquantonium.blogspot.com
http://quantonium.tk
EPIC SCREENSHOTS
I think you, Patrickngo, already looked at this thread, but is a nice example of how PvP is still active, specifically in the form of private ques. I haven't joined the channel or anything yet, but I intend to see what they do and if they want an update in PvP.
-Q
(hint: click the image to go to my youtube channel)
http://twitch.tv/profile/quantum_quantonium
http://plus.google.com/+quantumquantonium
http://quantumquantonium.blogspot.com
http://quantonium.tk
EPIC SCREENSHOTS
Coming from somebody that's 98% PvE, yes I'd love to see a new PvP system in a future update.
A long time ago it was fun, and against fleet mates ground or space it still provides a thrill like no other. You actually have to think unlike a lot of the somewhat mindless PvE content. I really dislike things being removed from the game or neglected... the more options for game play the better.
No PvP feedback has ever resulted in any of my builds being nerfed (and for some reason a lot of my builds still retain some PvP related leanings just because). Many of you take the time to explain game mechanics in the PvE forums. You remain some of the most talented and knowledgable players in-game. Respect.
Hope this small vote helps and the part of the game you enjoy gets the attention it needs.
Yes he is.. lol.
David
*** Aktiv since 03.06.10 ***