oh yeah i do.... and in magic there used to be counters released just with new stuff as well, at least when i played it. common cards sometimes did beat the most rare cards and so on.
u won't find such in sto. even the counters to some abilities only barely or even are non existing at all.
one could say magic has (or had? not played it for a long time) a level ground in terms of balance. it at least provides certain borders within players can act, while in sto it's all just over the edges since ages.
indeed one may find such style in roundbased interactive games, if video or not. but in realtime action i can't barely think of any example in that style, and that's what sto pvp is. nevertheless u're kinda right and there're quite some parallels between sto and magic (deckbuild/shipbuild), though magic goes for balance. sto does not, while under the realtime aspect the impact of lacking balance even maybe is quite more heavy.
Cards in MTG are balanced at least in part based on rarity. thus the more expensive cards tend to be simply better than the cheap easy to get cards. This of course tends to make the decks that use expensive stuff "better" than the others. Sure, you might be able to make a nice build that uses cheap cards and have it be effective... but most of the time it's a build that would be better if it used expensive stuff. Why? $$$... the makers of the game want you to spend a lot of money not just a little bit.
First, I want to say that WoT is only P2W between otherwise equal opponents. I have only played free, (I even got 3500 gold from attending a player gathering, which is still in my bank,) and for a time I held 600- something place in win average and 400th in kill per game. I routinely destroyed unkillable gold tanks, and with a win rate in the high 50s and 60s for most of my career since closed beta, I have been Matchmaker's bi.tch the whole time, fighting in the lowest tier of most matches with a three or four tier spread.
In WoT, knowledge, timing, and aggression win over gold tanks and ammo.
There is a fundamental flaw in any attempts by players to even the PvP field by limiting gear and tier: Passives.
The captain who climbs the skill tree faster is in a dominant position because he not only has a greater range of active abilities from which to choose, he also has many more passive abilities which are available to him and not his less skilled opponent. Even when both captains are Level 60 and have identically equipped ships, the older toon, (game hours, not date of creation,) has an advantage.
There is already a level-matching mechanism in game so that players of different levels can share a PvE session. Abilities such as are gained via Reputation grinding and Specialization were created after this feature had been in game for years, and yet it does not reduce or otherwise affect the many passive abilities characters acquire via these systems.
Simply allowing the level-matching system already in place to work on these abilities will create a level playing field. Thus, if players choose to participate in Tier 3 matches with Level 60 captains, they will lose every ability not accessible to the Levels 20-29 crowd for those matches. Naturally, the matches will have to be tiered for this to work.
I propose the following divisions,
Lieutenant (if character is over level 29, set to level 20 for the match)
Lieutenant Commander (if over level 39, set to level 30 for the match)
Commander (if over level 49, set to 40)
Captain (if over 59, set to 50)
Commodore (Level 60, less than 1 spcialization tree worth of points)*
Admiral (Level 60, more than 1 specialization tree worth of points)*
Unlimited (any tier or rank, as it is now)
* based on experience points, not actual points assigned to any one tree. It takes something like 30 spec points to fill a spec tree, but I forget how many exp to earn a spec point.
Next, PvPers like to see their rankings compared to others. Many types of leaderboards can be implemented, and many types of tournaments can be held so that players can identify their rivals and work to rise in the ranks.
Finally, PuGs and Premades should have different queues, with a chat channel dedicated to each division, to allow coordination of teams and matches or to allow a team to quickly find a fifth when an expected player doesn't show.
This can be done. It will only work if Cryptic can monetize it, and this is where this idea, and most others fall flat. Player retention has already been rejected by Cryptic as a valid reason to invest man hours in PvP, so we need to devise a means for Cryptic to quickly realize a return on their investment.
One way to monetize it is to hold tournaments, offering both sweet prizes and swag to entice players to purchase the nominally priced Tournament Entry Token. Quarterly events timed to coincide with school breaks would offer both goals toward which a player can aspire, and income for Cryptic.
How would you pay for the time it takes Cryptic to fix PvP?
until all that creep and need was so overboarding and senseless that pvp died out up to totally.
because pvp should be about skill, not gear?
Why?
ok, once more i gonna bite:
have you ever played a game in the real world (like chess, monopoly, table-tennis, soccer, whatnot...) where the odds in the start haven't been even? like all soccerplayers having a head, a torso, 2 arms and 2 legs? or everyone starts monopoly with the same ammount of money?
same goes for pvp in video-games. the more even the odds in the start, the more it gets close to something called fairness. if i get into a pvp match in sto the odds are far from being even. ungeared newbies face overgeared vets and get roflstomped. once it was possible to close the gap in knowledge and gear, but it had become totally senseless to try to keep up, due to ridicoulus op stuff added on and on. stuff that barely impacted pve (ionic f.e.), but kinda wrecked pvp.
I've played many video games where the results are mostly determined by what gear (or other resources) you have. Even ones where the result is 100% determined by gear with maybe a little RNG thrown in for flavor. It has nothing to do with fairness, everyone's free to buy/grind the same stuff. And obviously there's always a bigger fish, always someone who has more stuff or better stuff (assuming the game hasn't gone so stale people run out of stuff to get), but that's just life.
indeed one may find such style in roundbased interactive games, if video or not. but in realtime action i can't barely think of any example in that style, and that's what sto pvp is. nevertheless u're kinda right and there're quite some parallels between sto and magic (deckbuild/shipbuild), though magic goes for balance. sto does not, while under the realtime aspect the impact of lacking balance even maybe is quite more heavy.
Except STO is not "realtime action," it's an RPG. That it favors gear and character advancement over reflex gameplay is no surprise at all.
oh yeah i do.... and in magic there used to be counters released just with new stuff as well, at least when i played it. common cards sometimes did beat the most rare cards and so on.
u won't find such in sto. even the counters to some abilities only barely or even are non existing at all.
one could say magic has (or had? not played it for a long time) a level ground in terms of balance. it at least provides certain borders within players can act, while in sto it's all just over the edges since ages.
indeed one may find such style in roundbased interactive games, if video or not. but in realtime action i can't barely think of any example in that style, and that's what sto pvp is. nevertheless u're kinda right and there're quite some parallels between sto and magic (deckbuild/shipbuild), though magic goes for balance. sto does not, while under the realtime aspect the impact of lacking balance even maybe is quite more heavy.
Cards in MTG are balanced at least in part based on rarity. thus the more expensive cards tend to be simply better than the cheap easy to get cards. This of course tends to make the decks that use expensive stuff "better" than the others. Sure, you might be able to make a nice build that uses cheap cards and have it be effective... but most of the time it's a build that would be better if it used expensive stuff. Why? $$$... the makers of the game want you to spend a lot of money not just a little bit.
dunno in particular how it progressed in the last ten years, but as i said, when i played the stuff used to get released with counters. and those not necessarily in the same rarity.
also the good stuff used to stay good. f.e. i think of combos like netling imp and royal assasin (if i recall right). nightmare and rock hydra are other creatures instantly coming to mind. though 3 of those 4 have been rare up to very rare i can't imagine they won't be useful in nowadays meta (played occassionaly some matches in the last years due to my lil brothers still playing). even a rock hydra could fell to a terror (?! no idea if the names are right, but u get the picture ;D...)
in sto top stuff gets neglected with every new release. they always drop a cherry on top, while in that image other pvp games rather drop cherries in different colours on the side of the existing cherries and so widening the base, not building up the pile.
again i gotta think of WoWs and scharnhorst and gneisenau. scharnhorst (gold) introduced a new playstyle in comparison, but it hardly is an i win button. one needs to know how to shake that thing to play her effective.
same goes for gneisenau (silver). it lacks the firepower of many competetors (just as scharnhorst), but other ups make her competetive and quite effective if played out right.
again, u won't find such in sto. if one just stacks immunities on and on u can bring whatever u want. he'll just wait for certain i win combos cd's and gonna blow u into oblivion, so better bring everything u can afford. btw, some of the combos rely on uncounterable things, so u can't counter em at all... with nothing... it's not about what u could've brought, it doesn't matter. there's no counter, back to spawn meeeh ...
until all that creep and need was so overboarding and senseless that pvp died out up to totally.
because pvp should be about skill, not gear?
Why?
ok, once more i gonna bite:
have you ever played a game in the real world (like chess, monopoly, table-tennis, soccer, whatnot...) where the odds in the start haven't been even? like all soccerplayers having a head, a torso, 2 arms and 2 legs? or everyone starts monopoly with the same ammount of money?
same goes for pvp in video-games. the more even the odds in the start, the more it gets close to something called fairness. if i get into a pvp match in sto the odds are far from being even. ungeared newbies face overgeared vets and get roflstomped. once it was possible to close the gap in knowledge and gear, but it had become totally senseless to try to keep up, due to ridicoulus op stuff added on and on. stuff that barely impacted pve (ionic f.e.), but kinda wrecked pvp.
I've played many video games where the results are mostly determined by what gear (or other resources) you have. Even ones where the result is 100% determined by gear with maybe a little RNG thrown in for flavor. It has nothing to do with fairness, everyone's free to buy/grind the same stuff. And obviously there's always a bigger fish, always someone who has more stuff or better stuff (assuming the game hasn't gone so stale people run out of stuff to get), but that's just life.
indeed one may find such style in roundbased interactive games, if video or not. but in realtime action i can't barely think of any example in that style, and that's what sto pvp is. nevertheless u're kinda right and there're quite some parallels between sto and magic (deckbuild/shipbuild), though magic goes for balance. sto does not, while under the realtime aspect the impact of lacking balance even maybe is quite more heavy.
Except STO is not "realtime action," it's an RPG. That it favors gear and character advancement over reflex gameplay is no surprise at all.
This is not a shooter game.
and how many of those games have been pvp games? like when u face a real enemy? like on every chessboard, tenniscourt or soccerfield?
also i talked about sto pvp.... that sto is an rpg i heard some times. just as well it is an mmo.... oh wait, ever heard of mmorpg lol?... all these terms have been used to describe sto over the years. i'm really not interested what terms leads the ladder now, but i can tell u one thing:
sto PvP(!) is realtimeaction. no matter the frame is set by something like a rpg, the action itself plays like a shooter, feels like a shooter and is set up like a shooter...
indeed playerskill and reaction used to distinct good from bad players in sto pvp when i started with. the most of a problem has been knowledge about mechanics and shipbuilding for newbies. but once set up halfway decent one could determine the outcome of a fight ONLY by skill!....
this declined more and more with every new release, gear and addon wise.
btw: afaik the term realtime action comes from strategy genre. i used it in here to distinct it from round based games, like f.e. magic. because, no matter if pve or pvp, sto kinda is realtime action...
oh yeah i do.... and in magic there used to be counters released just with new stuff as well, at least when i played it. common cards sometimes did beat the most rare cards and so on.
u won't find such in sto. even the counters to some abilities only barely or even are non existing at all.
one could say magic has (or had? not played it for a long time) a level ground in terms of balance. it at least provides certain borders within players can act, while in sto it's all just over the edges since ages.
indeed one may find such style in roundbased interactive games, if video or not. but in realtime action i can't barely think of any example in that style, and that's what sto pvp is. nevertheless u're kinda right and there're quite some parallels between sto and magic (deckbuild/shipbuild), though magic goes for balance. sto does not, while under the realtime aspect the impact of lacking balance even maybe is quite more heavy.
Cards in MTG are balanced at least in part based on rarity. thus the more expensive cards tend to be simply better than the cheap easy to get cards. This of course tends to make the decks that use expensive stuff "better" than the others. Sure, you might be able to make a nice build that uses cheap cards and have it be effective... but most of the time it's a build that would be better if it used expensive stuff. Why? $$$... the makers of the game want you to spend a lot of money not just a little bit.
dunno in particular how it progressed in the last ten years, but as i said, when i played the stuff used to get released with counters. and those not necessarily in the same rarity.
also the good stuff used to stay good. f.e. i think of combos like netling imp and royal assasin (if i recall right). nightmare and rock hydra are other creatures instantly coming to mind. though 3 of those 4 have been rare up to very rare i can't imagine they won't be useful in nowadays meta (played occassionaly some matches in the last years due to my lil brothers still playing). even a rock hydra could fell to a terror (?! no idea if the names are right, but u get the picture ;D...)
Enh... you're talking about using a creature kill card to kill creatures.... Or using AoE burn cards to incinerate small creatures.... mmm swarm of small creatures? not any more! But only red can use that. A white deck doesn't have that option. So the existence of counters doesn't guarantee that YOU will be able to use one, or example, Indestructible creatures. Only a few kinds of removal work on them.
STO does have that sort of thing. Like using Hazard emitters to remove plasma burn... etc... Or using temporary damage immunity to counter spike DPS.... Or AoE to dispose of pets... But like MTG some things aren't easy to counter directly.
-nope, there's always new stuff u won't find proper counters for. get fixed/nerfed with every new op release
(funny sidenote: from magic i switched to ST deckmaster and built up a pile of like 1,8k cards for the time i played it)
-witchhunterguard hopping on whenever a newbie seeks betterment for sto pvp ("not your game", get off our exclusive club lol... it is though :P)...
-check idea linked above (link breaks this post lol^^) before coming with "this/that" style only. nothing of that contained in there. u know, many roads to rome and so...
i'm finding it interesting that there issuddenly a slew of posts STO need to be like WOT/EVE/Moba/whatever. can't help but wonder if it's the same few
Probably. All that can be honestly said to them is that if you want to play WOT/EVE/MOBA/whatever, you're free to do so. This is STO.
lol, u guys are so off the trek (pun intended)... THE IDEA LINKED SOME POSTS ABOVE F.E. ISN'T ABOUT THAT (look it up in pvp subforum, "[...] to restructure pvp landscape[...]" or something like that), there are many more possible ways to address sto's pvp lmaorofl.... but it's ok. cause, why would u look it up? u're obviously not even slightly are interested in somewhat like a discussion. way easier to light torches than to read, think and comprehend what u don't like and/or don't (want to) understand, eh? way easier just to fight something that in the best case wouldn't even touch a bit of your known ingame environment rofl?! "hey, it doesn't bother me as i'm not interested in it, but let's fight it so others can't enjoy it. cause thiz iz aaaaall mineeeeeeeeeez!"...
getting bored again, have fun chasing ghosts...
If this is about ground vehicles, two ways to do that would be, 1) landships like in some anime shows. 2) un-armed types, like cars, construction vehicles, and monorails.
We know that motorized transports exist in ST, in the background on half of the planets in from the 80's onward, they could be a trigger for zoning from where the transporter pad is to the Random Planetary Leader's office building, or somewhere else, kind of like Star Wars Galaxies had when it still existed.
i'm finding it interesting that there issuddenly a slew of posts STO need to be like WOT/EVE/Moba/whatever. can't help but wonder if it's the same few
Probably. All that can be honestly said to them is that if you want to play WOT/EVE/MOBA/whatever, you're free to do so. This is STO.
lol, u guys are so off the trek (pun intended)... THE IDEA LINKED SOME POSTS ABOVE F.E. ISN'T ABOUT THAT (look it up in pvp subforum, "[...] to restructure pvp landscape[...]" or something like that), there are many more possible ways to address sto's pvp lmaorofl.... but it's ok. cause, why would u look it up? u're obviously not even slightly are interested in somewhat like a discussion. way easier to light torches than to read, think and comprehend what u don't like and/or don't (want to) understand, eh? way easier just to fight something that in the best case wouldn't even touch a bit of your known ingame environment rofl?! "hey, it doesn't bother me as i'm not interested in it, but let's fight it so others can't enjoy it. cause thiz iz aaaaall mineeeeeeeeeez!"...
getting bored again, have fun chasing ghosts...
maybe the problem really is too many people with ideas, but I'd wager the real problem is that none of those ideas will ever be considered by TPTB, because the current state is exactly what TPTB desire it to be.
we're all out here and trying to tell them there's a problem, but they don't consider the problem to be a problem.
IOW, PvP is in exactly the condition they want it to be in. Present, but only in a vestigal, vegetative state.
as to why? I haven't got a clue-nothing that fits a rational or even business-driven mindset, anyway.
Unimagninative, that? PvP is present so that the marketing department can tick the "PvP" -checkbox in the features list.
You consider resource-driven gameplay to be a "problem." Too bad. Others don't, and it appears the people in charge are among the latter group. This is a resource-driven game.
PvP is "in a vestigal, vegetative state" because it has insufficient rewards to drive it. Same as much of the PvE queues, really. STO's focus on numeric rewards really works against diversity here. Only one grind spot can be the best one.
j4f i'm gonna quote what i posted in the "theoretical exercise: how to restructure and revitalize the PvP landscape"-thread (note again: nothing but a mindplay 4 fun........! as one may can see on the slightly overdriven image of ground/space sb fleet pvp and implication that rommy ships wouldn't be a prob in such a system lol.... whatever), started by patrickngo (respect btw). do with that what u want lol, i'm out:
incentive:
non needed imo, as pve "endgame content" gets dull very quick and so create the incentive to look for more by itself. also it would keep cryin low from people who are feeling forced by any incentive (like gear to get/rewards or whatnot) to jump in and would keep the old known dil-farmers out of pvp.
or significantly (to reflect time and level of hardness, there never has been somthing harder ingame than pvp!!!) raise rewards in combo with a well worked out afk/anti-farmersystem (report, kick, whatever...).
old pvp community is a good example imo, as they used to play on the same 3 maps for years and only needed empty promises to stick to it. also crawled through all that overboarding pve-"content" that was needed to stay on par, even though it not has been for fun. grinded the grind that felt like one, only to be able to play beloved pvp in the need of at least somehow equal chances.
pvp itself is incentive enough for many players, as long the odds are even within certain borders.
balance:
like been said so many times, disabling of all the metash** around. no traits, starshiptraits, universal consoles, doffs, set bonusses and all that jazz! imo only "vanilla" boff-skills as well, no ss3 f.e....
all gear up to mkxiv possible, just with the trick to disable any mods on it (may xcept for the "natural" ones on weapons), so everything is treated like white/green/blue gear, no matter if epic or not.
ships.... hmm.... i think ships are not a problem in terms of balance if the other factors are provided.
maintenance/development:
if the above factors are given i don't think interests of pve and pvp will ever clash again. there simply would be no reason for anyone, because what happens in pve development would be out of pvp in the first place (op gear, etc pp.....) and the other way round.
for pvp development imo best bet in the first place would be to introduce fleet vs. fleet pvp on the given fleet maps (starbases). could be space, ground or both combined (how epic it would be f.e., if a fleet raids on another fleets starbase, loses in space but occupies the starbase and start shooting on the ships that just defended the base ). more gamemodes, maps, what all has been talked about a 1k times...
the list lacks the most important point (to the devs at least), and that's
monetizing:
i'm not sure on this one, as i see it that in the process of levelling there already is more than enough profit to be made from players interested in pvp. indeed many of the old ones i know dropped fortunes on this game, just as myself over like 5 years (of course not within the last 1/2 years...).
as for me i dropped all that money only on sto because of pvp! without pvp i would have left even sooner and for sure not would have dropped k's of euros on this game (each and every single one in the hope of pvp development....).
if pvp becomes worthwhile again it will attract people only interested in pvp in the long run by itself, that simple. and if it is good and balanced the ammount of money players would be willing to drop on this game would rise as well, that simple. just a simple estimation, but yeah.... seemed simple with all the old pvp'ers i used to fight with and against *sigh*...
edit: their main point of buisness wouldn't contradict to all this, cause in the end they said by theirselves "we sell ships". this major income would be maintained when ships and their characteristics would make the major distinction (stats, layout, etc.) in such a system.
so still tons of reasons to f.e. hunt for that certain overpriced lockbox ship.
in short:
extinct reasons for pve and pvp interests to clash twice a week by disabling certain features (most mods, bonusses, passives, traits, uni-cons, doffs, every "non-vanilla" boff skill and such) in pvp-play, while enabling them in pve.
note: not all mods, gear must made different to each other ofc to a certain degree.
this way one can enjoy pve or simply hop into pvp without the need of too much alteration.
keep incentive to upgrade gear up by making everything up to mk xiv possible (even though it will be without most mods, most of the gear will get upgraded in such a system to max out potential. not necessarily to epic for "pure" pvp'ers, but i bet even now not everyone goes up to epic with everything).
focus on fleet vs. fleet pvp first, as there lies the most potential to revive pvp imo (not even thinking of all the old pvp-fleets. many fleets seem to have little or bigger in-fleet pvp events, privates and so on). also maps that exist already could be used for this.
with upgraded gear and ships being the major distinctions in pvp, reasons for buying new ships and pumping ressources in upgrades would remain. without the danger of something being too op, as all the new glitter that comes with new seasons/ships (uni-cons, rep-sets, set bonusses, etc.) wouldn't matter in pvp. stats would make the difference here, so reasons to get them though would persist.
balance:
like been said so many times, disabling of all the metash** around. no traits, starshiptraits, universal consoles, doffs, set bonusses and all that jazz! imo only "vanilla" boff-skills as well, no ss3 f.e....
all gear up to mkxiv possible, just with the trick to disable any mods on it (may xcept for the "natural" ones on weapons), so everything is treated like white/green/blue gear, no matter if epic or not.
ships.... hmm.... i think ships are not a problem in terms of balance if the other factors are provided.
edit: their main point of buisness wouldn't contradict to all this, cause in the end they said by theirselves "we sell ships". this major income would be maintained when ships and their characteristics would make the major distinction (stats, layout, etc.) in such a system.
so still tons of reasons to f.e. hunt for that certain overpriced lockbox ship.
Any "proposal" that includes "you can only use some of the stuff Cryptic monetizes" is pure fanfiction.
Cryptic makes ALOT of money selling powercreep. If you create an end-game scenario where people are better off NOT buying Cryptic stuff is just flat out never going to happen, because it goes against their best interest.
If you want to brainstorm ideas to "bring back PvP", you need a realistic way to incorporate the powers/ships/traits/etc that Cryptic sells. If it can't be done, then you have nothing to offer Cryptic.
what probalby generates more income:
- current system, with high entry costs, little ammount of players, not balanced for pvp at all, gear-based
- proposed system, comparitevly low entry costs, for sure way closer to balance than current system, potential for a lot of players (more than at peak times of pvp in here i'd bet) due to directively skill-based
...i'll spare the question mark ... i know, this is the simple point they never understood. still the toons gotta be leveled, still one may want to get some goodies to quicken levelling up, njoy pve, whatnot....
10 pvp'ers to get everything or 1000 from whome not everyone gets everything with still upgrade costs and ship buys included at the least, with probaly many side-buys (most valueable items ingame: lockbox SHIPS btw...)....
so... what potentially could generate more income? (on an engine that had e-sports quality in the start and a worldwide known ip...)
edit: i don't even can imagine how boff abilities or hp-pools or such would behave in such a system. may they even would have been to adapted, but the bottom line stays the same
i'm finding it interesting that there issuddenly a slew of posts STO need to be like WOT/EVE/Moba/whatever. can't help but wonder if it's the same few
Probably. All that can be honestly said to them is that if you want to play WOT/EVE/MOBA/whatever, you're free to do so. This is STO.
lol, u guys are so off the trek (pun intended)... THE IDEA LINKED SOME POSTS ABOVE F.E. ISN'T ABOUT THAT (look it up in pvp subforum, "[...] to restructure pvp landscape[...]" or something like that), there are many more possible ways to address sto's pvp lmaorofl.... but it's ok. cause, why would u look it up? u're obviously not even slightly are interested in somewhat like a discussion. way easier to light torches than to read, think and comprehend what u don't like and/or don't (want to) understand, eh? way easier just to fight something that in the best case wouldn't even touch a bit of your known ingame environment rofl?! "hey, it doesn't bother me as i'm not interested in it, but let's fight it so others can't enjoy it. cause thiz iz aaaaall mineeeeeeeeeez!"...
getting bored again, have fun chasing ghosts...
Except that the best case CAN'T happen. It either requires an AI THAT HAS NOT BEEN DEVELOPED YET...or so much dev manhours that you all better be brining in 8 figures (and a decently high 8 figure at that) to make it worthwhile...which you don't. That leaves making PvE players who don't perscribe to you meta of the tact crybabies lives miserable. No thanks. Been there done that...left because of it...so yeah don't want that back...EVER. You all had your chance to play nice...we know better then to trust you all again. Fool me once and all that. You ain't getting a second chance.
reads like something from someone who may wants to show something on a doll lol?!.... system to adapt gear to certain values is ingame and active (would get in need to get adjusted and enwidened a bit, sure).
next i think u try to say that tac always has been the meta in pvp or "us" want it so to be? lmao.... everyone with just a slight base of knowledge did know for aeons that sci was king of pvp. had been for ages (yep, even long before particle manipulator lolz trait).... no talk about a certain engi in a charal who pounded 2 of the best tacs of my fleet and myself through the ground out to china in a c&h match while we couldn't scratch his paint, so to say lol (all of us participated on several tourneys, so no too low-bob style lol)...
what leads me to premades. if tac would've been so superior in pvp to everything else i wonder why there barely more than 2 ever have been seen in premade setups. classic setup is 2 tacs, 2 sci's and an engi. engi may be swapped for this or that, but that always was a bit of a gamble.
no matter where the bad pvp'ers once touched u. in that more than unlikely case of a revival no one will force u to participate. no one ever did. hasn't been urs? well, leave it then? as f.e. i decided to leave any other "content" in this game?
now, why i don't totally leave lol? i'm a lts, i dropped a fortune, i have many very good memories of my time in sto pvp and if only the slightest chance comes up i want to push it. on another wasted attempt. no matter that, the trek-spirit at least leads me to not let others of my kind, interested in pvp in this once great game, to be left alone with a bunch of witchhunters, behaving like there never has been worthwhile pvp in here or there wouldn't be a base to go from to may once have something like that again...
however...
i just hope for a sh**storm referring console pvp, after they release all the systems on console. in that case u guys better prepare with a lot of coffee lol...
btw: i remember not one of the thousands stf's i did ingame. nor any mirroruniverse run or whatnot pve queue or battlezone or what.... what i do remeber are some totally awesome matches, containing twists like u'll never find in pve in any way. sheer surprise, true art and skill are the words. connected with a lot of bullying from some, sure, but a lot of real memorable moments with a lot of just cool and helpful guys. that's what sto has been for me. not to be found in pve, such u only got in pvp...
Golly, not sure why people would ever get the impression the PvP subcommunity is considered toxic. Just look at some of these fine forum posts showing just how inclusive and friendly they can be.
Yeah, a healthy dose of "NO U!" combined with comparing STO forum posters with sexual assault victims (and victim blaming at that) in no way makes you come across as immature, toxic and unhinged from reality.
But as @coldnapalm pointed out already, this is just the same old song and dance. You'll continue making PvP exclusive instead of inclusive, you'll continue to blame others for personal failings, and you'll continue to have fun in your echo chamber asking why Cryptic doesn't do more for PvP when the people who PvP the most are the exact kind of personalities that turn off new player growth.
It's cool. You need the rest of us way more than we need you. You know it, I know it, everybody else knows it. If the hardcore PvPers ever want to change their attitude, maybe we'll see some meaningful work done on PvP.
Yeah, a healthy dose of "NO U!" combined with comparing STO forum posters with sexual assault victims (and victim blaming at that) in no way makes you come across as immature, toxic and unhinged from reality.
But as @coldnapalm pointed out already, this is just the same old song and dance. You'll continue making PvP exclusive instead of inclusive, you'll continue to blame others for personal failings, and you'll continue to have fun in your echo chamber asking why Cryptic doesn't do more for PvP when the people who PvP the most are the exact kind of personalities that turn off new player growth.
It's cool. You need the rest of us way more than we need you. You know it, I know it, everybody else knows it. If the hardcore PvPers ever want to change their attitude, maybe we'll see some meaningful work done on PvP.
To be fair, there are still decent PvPer players out there who are very decent people. Sadly the toxic players are now drowning out the good, fair players who will have a serious discussion on how to include everyone into PvP.
I remember it was like that years ago. Ker'rat would be constantly active for ages. There was trash talking of course, but it was all in good fun and never went too far. Klingons would out number feds, then feds would out number klingons. You could literally spend hours dueling it out between one another. Before you knew it, 4 hours was gone.
Golly, not sure why people would ever get the impression the PvP subcommunity is considered toxic. Just look at some of these fine forum posts showing just how inclusive and friendly they can be.
And this is them behaving themselves. You ain't even seen their true nature yet.
geez, maybe Wast33 is right and you really DID have the kind of experience with a "PvP' person that gets featured on "Law and Order: SVU".
'cause even the douchiest bags I've run into in this game in Ker'rat, the real TROLL types who don't even pretend they are anything else-don't compare to the invective and screaming from your typical failed ISA run from PvE players, and the level of snobbish bitchiness encountered in the PvP forum doesn't hold a stinky candle to the thread "Your Worst STF Ever" in the PvE/events tab here, and I don't think I've EVER seen the kind of toxic ****-waving in PvP that erupted in these forums with the Dilithium Riots or the Tau Dewa Nerf Riots...
I mean, come on, YOUR lot threatened to KILL someone...like, for real, death threats on their twitter pages and Doxxing them because of an admittedly less-than-wise design choice for PvE content.
And now I bring out your real face. Seriously, you think you and wast33 is helping? You ain't. They should make PvP only ships and gear and make it new player friendly where they just need some dil and a bit of zen to buy the ship so casuals can get into PvP. Why? Because it will finally drive people like you and wast away for good...and that would be a good thing for this game...not just PvP.
The PvE andPvP versions of ships I actually mentioned. To make this casual friendly and starting out. Just do the rank promotion ships in a PvP version. Then they could be bought with dil, while the player works toward the higher end PvP ships.
lmaorofl.... this all is so hilarously entertaining, hardly can stand it ....
who came in here first being toxic? who even runs over to like every single console thread (note: not pc) to sing sameoldsameold? who brings no arguments, nor points and just is ranting like a child who sees his lollipop in danger to get taken away from him, even though there is no danger?!
who obviously not bothered to give even the slightest input on topic or anything constructive on the matter at all, like f.e. commenting on my proposal, which would come with lowest possible dev-time, would extinct reasons for any further pve/pvp quarrel and wouldn't touch the game overall in it's progression? btw, seperated would be ok for me as well, but for sure much more effort than my proposal lol...
really, check ya perceptions rofl....
pvp community always was soooo toxic?! xDDDD... yeah, that's why several fleets connected together, even though some of them normally wouldn't exchange one single nice word? and, while drama went with it ofc, they made to set up a pvp-bootcamp to lighten up the challenge pvp is for newbies and ran it for several seasons, while cryptic just kept on adding op stuff, so it became even harder with time?
and yeah, we're sooo exclusive xDDDDD... that's one of the best jokes in here, really.... u don't get it goes the other way round, do ya?!
only ones to exclude anyone from something in here, sorry to disrupt an obviously damaged perception, are pve'ers who don't want any pvp or pvp'ers in "their" game (this always is the most funny part imo lol). again, reread thread and may u get it. but for some i just fear, they won't. ever!
when engaging people like to be found in here i just sometimes wish i would be a bit more like edna and just would throw it at ya heads. cause... he's so right xDDD..... read through here, ideally without hindering your own perception by the tons of prejudices and if ya lucky u'll progress for yourself. but i can't see such, as ANY good effort to explain or discuss anything with such people leads to nothing cause... reasons xD (read above)....
thx 4 entertainment and a look on the heights of <fillinwhateversideuron:p8)>..... stol... the game that got the company and players it derserves. sadly the ip itself would deserve a lot of better................... oh wait a sec rofl, they had a subcommunity that fitted the ip for so many reasons (while in comparison only for little one could say "not fitting", welcomez to the interntet?!...)... and that was the old pvp-guard: never, in any videogame, i encountered such a helpful and active and constructive community like in sto pvp. and the with the given odds, respect to all those! foul apples always everywhere to be found, but they didn't toxicicated the community spirit on whole, like f.e. happened in pve long ago...
looking for elitists?! join a stf and bring below 10k dps, u'll see what i mean lmao....
btzw: my degree of possible toxicity comes from adaption to such people, as i learned for long the won't get it. reread and u may get what's it about......
have a whatever one and plz keep on, and if only for my entertainment lol...
Golly, not sure why people would ever get the impression the PvP subcommunity is considered toxic. Just look at some of these fine forum posts showing just how inclusive and friendly they can be.
And this is them behaving themselves. You ain't even seen their true nature yet.
geez, maybe Wast33 is right and you really DID have the kind of experience with a "PvP' person that gets featured on "Law and Order: SVU".
'cause even the douchiest bags I've run into in this game in Ker'rat, the real TROLL types who don't even pretend they are anything else-don't compare to the invective and screaming from your typical failed ISA run from PvE players, and the level of snobbish bitchiness encountered in the PvP forum doesn't hold a stinky candle to the thread "Your Worst STF Ever" in the PvE/events tab here, and I don't think I've EVER seen the kind of toxic ****-waving in PvP that erupted in these forums with the Dilithium Riots or the Tau Dewa Nerf Riots...
I mean, come on, YOUR lot threatened to KILL someone...like, for real, death threats on their twitter pages and Doxxing them because of an admittedly less-than-wise design choice for PvE content.
And now I bring out your real face. Seriously, you think you and wast33 is helping? You ain't. They should make PvP only ships and gear and make it new player friendly where they just need some dil and a bit of zen to buy the ship so casuals can get into PvP. Why? Because it will finally drive people like you and wast away for good...and that would be a good thing for this game...not just PvP.
Coldnapalm (may I call you ColdNapalm?) there is no helping PvP, the good community that it used to have is gone, and it's not going to come back. The easy access for casual players to try it out without being burned is gone, and also never going to come back. It is broken beyond the ability for reasonable repair, and there are no 'allies' to be had even if it weren't.
Those are the conditions as they actually exist. It is not "TOXIC" to point out and explain the actual situation, nor is it "Toxic" to tell people exactly how we got to this point, nor is it toxic to explain that things are not going to magically get better just because the game went to console.
bouncing the fantasies about how it could have been NOT broken, is just a fun exercise in speculation-because no matter what, nothing about it is going to get better.
encouraging false hopes is toxic. fostering a false impression that things will change is toxic-because these inevitably lead to disappointment and temper tantrums when (predictably) things do not change for the better because fundamentally, the staff simply can't.
simple fact demonstrated over the time this game has been on-line, is that if you pulled every developer off of PvP that is on it, and put them on PvE-you would have a net change of ZERO. (for that matter, a Gross change of zero as well), yet, in spite of that, People (ignorant people) still insist on blaming PvP for Nerfs, still insist that PvP is using too many resources, still pretend that their special powers got a rebalance because of PvP'ers when PvP has never had any significant impact on development or balance decisions in this game.
The statement on developers is true-every staffer that has worked with the PvP community in this game was gone within six months of starting-their reasons always sound different and it's always "Amicably" gone, but the fact is, working on or with PvP at Cryptic is a career-suicide move.
The game is six years old and profitable without catering to a PvP crowd-that's not going to change either. When selling power creep to finish the same mission for the millionth time a few seconds faster starts hitting diminishing returns at the cash shop, there will not be a reconsideration, because the business model is set in stone and organizations have their own inertia-by the time a problem with the model is detected, it's too late to change direction...and we're already at too late right now-the weight of code is already too heavy, the amount of work to make it viable is already too large, and Cryptic doesn't have the budget or manpower to do the work.
therefore, any talk of a "Revamp" or making it viable? that's just talk, it can't happen, Cryptic can't do it. It isn't toxic to admit that Cryptic can't do it.
It's toxic to pretend that they could, but won't.
Could HAVE-in the past, perhaps...but not now.
I guess I could back off and let people have their illusions-but I have this irritating tendency to want to explain to someone why their idea doesn't work, even though, perhaps, with a newer game that has less accumulation of emergency patchwork, with a decent budget and the right devs, it might have been able to.
The crisis point where a change might have worked, was three years ago minimum, before Legacy of Romulus. we're past that point and then some. each year, issues like balance, accessibility, playability and community become more and more work to salvage, repair, or restore. Point of no return was Delta Rising. After that point, there was no longer a positive, active and accepting community for PvP, and as a direct result, all the positive people in that activity left over the ensuing months.
This is merely facts, Coldnapalm. I don't remember if you were around and if you were, if you were around and not part of the "Best Expansion Ever and the Players Love it" meme-campaign being run by PvE players, (compleat with death threats on dev twitters and doxxing of staffers by your comrades), but none of that was originating or being promoted by the PvP groups.
Likewise, it wasn't the PvP people who were throwing a tantrum when STF rewards were being cut back in 2013, to the point that (again) people were calling for dev staffers to be fired. PvP had nothing to do with that one either.
It's not however. There is an easy solution to get PvP active again. One that is rather inexpensibe for cryptic to do and one that can even make them some money. Have PvP only ships and ground kits with the boffs/abilities that is set that you get from the zen store. For say...15-20 bucks a pop. These would take almost no dev time to code...but would require some forthought for balance. Have PvP only gear that you get for some dil off the dil store to equip yourself with. Make it bind on equip so the exchange can get it's play of it if that is what people want...and to let more newer players in by having some help from the older ones who can get the gear for them. Disable traits in PvP. Bam...balanced. Selfcontained so you don't interfer with the pure PvE people. It doesn't cost them oddles of dev time. They get money. Easy for new players to join in. Hell, we can even have a starter ship and kit to make it even MORE new player friendly. Once that actually starts to show there are players willing to do this, we can expand to things like leaderboard and matchmaking issues. But there is a solution. The problem is, the current die hard PvP people are rejecting it...so the ONLY viable solution can't go forward because of the old guard PvP...that means for the good of PvP and this game overall...you all need to go.
PvP players have suggested that as a possible solution for years.
I think the two factions (PvE & PvP) have more in common then some would care to admit.
Also, I've met a lot of nice people on both sides of the aisle...
Of course mixed within each is a few D-Bags. But from what I've seen, that's a small minority.
Golly, not sure why people would ever get the impression the PvP subcommunity is considered toxic. Just look at some of these fine forum posts showing just how inclusive and friendly they can be.
And this is them behaving themselves. You ain't even seen their true nature yet.
geez, maybe Wast33 is right and you really DID have the kind of experience with a "PvP' person that gets featured on "Law and Order: SVU".
'cause even the douchiest bags I've run into in this game in Ker'rat, the real TROLL types who don't even pretend they are anything else-don't compare to the invective and screaming from your typical failed ISA run from PvE players, and the level of snobbish bitchiness encountered in the PvP forum doesn't hold a stinky candle to the thread "Your Worst STF Ever" in the PvE/events tab here, and I don't think I've EVER seen the kind of toxic ****-waving in PvP that erupted in these forums with the Dilithium Riots or the Tau Dewa Nerf Riots...
I mean, come on, YOUR lot threatened to KILL someone...like, for real, death threats on their twitter pages and Doxxing them because of an admittedly less-than-wise design choice for PvE content.
And now I bring out your real face. Seriously, you think you and wast33 is helping? You ain't. They should make PvP only ships and gear and make it new player friendly where they just need some dil and a bit of zen to buy the ship so casuals can get into PvP. Why? Because it will finally drive people like you and wast away for good...and that would be a good thing for this game...not just PvP.
Coldnapalm (may I call you ColdNapalm?) there is no helping PvP, the good community that it used to have is gone, and it's not going to come back. The easy access for casual players to try it out without being burned is gone, and also never going to come back. It is broken beyond the ability for reasonable repair, and there are no 'allies' to be had even if it weren't.
Those are the conditions as they actually exist. It is not "TOXIC" to point out and explain the actual situation, nor is it "Toxic" to tell people exactly how we got to this point, nor is it toxic to explain that things are not going to magically get better just because the game went to console.
bouncing the fantasies about how it could have been NOT broken, is just a fun exercise in speculation-because no matter what, nothing about it is going to get better.
encouraging false hopes is toxic. fostering a false impression that things will change is toxic-because these inevitably lead to disappointment and temper tantrums when (predictably) things do not change for the better because fundamentally, the staff simply can't.
simple fact demonstrated over the time this game has been on-line, is that if you pulled every developer off of PvP that is on it, and put them on PvE-you would have a net change of ZERO. (for that matter, a Gross change of zero as well), yet, in spite of that, People (ignorant people) still insist on blaming PvP for Nerfs, still insist that PvP is using too many resources, still pretend that their special powers got a rebalance because of PvP'ers when PvP has never had any significant impact on development or balance decisions in this game.
The statement on developers is true-every staffer that has worked with the PvP community in this game was gone within six months of starting-their reasons always sound different and it's always "Amicably" gone, but the fact is, working on or with PvP at Cryptic is a career-suicide move.
The game is six years old and profitable without catering to a PvP crowd-that's not going to change either. When selling power creep to finish the same mission for the millionth time a few seconds faster starts hitting diminishing returns at the cash shop, there will not be a reconsideration, because the business model is set in stone and organizations have their own inertia-by the time a problem with the model is detected, it's too late to change direction...and we're already at too late right now-the weight of code is already too heavy, the amount of work to make it viable is already too large, and Cryptic doesn't have the budget or manpower to do the work.
therefore, any talk of a "Revamp" or making it viable? that's just talk, it can't happen, Cryptic can't do it. It isn't toxic to admit that Cryptic can't do it.
It's toxic to pretend that they could, but won't.
Could HAVE-in the past, perhaps...but not now.
I guess I could back off and let people have their illusions-but I have this irritating tendency to want to explain to someone why their idea doesn't work, even though, perhaps, with a newer game that has less accumulation of emergency patchwork, with a decent budget and the right devs, it might have been able to.
The crisis point where a change might have worked, was three years ago minimum, before Legacy of Romulus. we're past that point and then some. each year, issues like balance, accessibility, playability and community become more and more work to salvage, repair, or restore. Point of no return was Delta Rising. After that point, there was no longer a positive, active and accepting community for PvP, and as a direct result, all the positive people in that activity left over the ensuing months.
This is merely facts, Coldnapalm. I don't remember if you were around and if you were, if you were around and not part of the "Best Expansion Ever and the Players Love it" meme-campaign being run by PvE players, (compleat with death threats on dev twitters and doxxing of staffers by your comrades), but none of that was originating or being promoted by the PvP groups.
Likewise, it wasn't the PvP people who were throwing a tantrum when STF rewards were being cut back in 2013, to the point that (again) people were calling for dev staffers to be fired. PvP had nothing to do with that one either.
It's not however. There is an easy solution to get PvP active again. One that is rather inexpensibe for cryptic to do and one that can even make them some money. Have PvP only ships and ground kits with the boffs/abilities that is set that you get from the zen store. For say...15-20 bucks a pop. These would take almost no dev time to code...but would require some forthought for balance. Have PvP only gear that you get for some dil off the dil store to equip yourself with. Make it bind on equip so the exchange can get it's play of it if that is what people want...and to let more newer players in by having some help from the older ones who can get the gear for them. Disable traits in PvP. Bam...balanced. Selfcontained so you don't interfer with the pure PvE people. It doesn't cost them oddles of dev time. They get money. Easy for new players to join in. Hell, we can even have a starter ship and kit to make it even MORE new player friendly. Once that actually starts to show there are players willing to do this, we can expand to things like leaderboard and matchmaking issues. But there is a solution. The problem is, the current die hard PvP people are rejecting it...so the ONLY viable solution can't go forward because of the old guard PvP...that means for the good of PvP and this game overall...you all need to go.
PvP players have suggested that as a possible solution for years.
I think the two factions (PvE & PvP) have more in common then some would care to admit.
Also, I've met a lot of nice people on both sides of the aisle...
Of course mixed within each is a few D-Bags. But from what I've seen, that's a small minority.
When you have a PvP subcommunity as small as the one in STO, the sampling size ends up being a lot larger since so few people dedicate themselves to PvP. This means the toxic people end up representing the average PvPer more often than not.
Every group is going to have a number of jerks in it, but when your group is already considerably disproportionate to the rest (and on the whole, fairly insignifigant), it's pretty important to take measures and steps to be more inclusive and building bridges with everyone else instead of burning them and blaming others for driving you to burn them in the first place.
Nobody wants to play with griefer trolls who knowingly exploit broken mechanics and take pleasure in annoying others over the safety of the internet. The biggest flaws in STO PvP are the players themselves.
Nobody wants to play with griefer trolls who knowingly exploit broken mechanics and take pleasure in annoying others over the safety of the internet. The biggest flaws in STO PvP are the players themselves.
No, not many would.
And anyone who has done a little PvP lately knows its completely out of control these days.
There are many who are flying exploit builds.
(Which is part of the reason I fly a FBP/Kinetic FB build to PvP -- Too punish those who would abuse exploits)
Thing is many of the PvP instigated nerfs were actually healthy for the game. They helped keep things balanced to a small degree.
Not always admittedly (The first Great Science Nerf put science into the gutter for years) but in a lot of cases its kept Powercreep from ballooning out of control.
Or that was the side effect.
And now that Devs will probably never again listen to the PvP community in terms of nerfs (because they've gone all-in on selling powercreep and know PvP is no longer profitable and there are very few players left to appease),
it's like the game has become a free for all on DPS.
And they keep adding new powers/abilities that can be easily exploited in PvP.
Or be used in PvE to keep upping the top end of the DPS scale. I mean, in the last 6 months it's gone from crazy to ludicrous.
And then people want to complain about things being too easy in PvE.
(which is okay - but we shouldn't be surprised as to how and why this is now the case)
There is very little resistance/objections to new powers now, partly because PvP'ers will never be listened to again and most of them have already left.
Sure, "some" of the DPS community is pretty good at reporting these types of things...but they aren't nearly as active as the once large PvP community was at calling out broken items and equipment.
Because they aren't on the receiving end of these powers.
And their targets have such large HP pools that they don't see the effects as drastically.
PvP'ers notice this stuff more because of their inherently smaller HP's.
So in a way, ignoring PvP, is not really healthy for the overall game. And I believe intensifies/expedites the issues that unfettered powercreep can bring.
on topic (not relating to wot, as i don't play that, but to wows):
that tier style could work with current system and ships maybe, if certain setups would take places of modules (note to those unfamiliar with: have to be researched and bought with ingame currency) from wows. here one could distinct between gear- and boffsetups/modules, so each ships would have 2 levels of possible alternatives.
another question would be if to release exclusive ships for that style or flagged pvp ships, or to add like a pvp filter to existing ships (as another tab maybe?), where u then could setup the ships u have for pvp. techtree could be included in personal tab and/or shipyard as well.
but then, with the setups the problem starts: which to take, in what combinations and with what contained for what ships? what levels of meta-stuff to involve in what quality. doffs, traits, boxstuff yay or nay, etc..... (imo: non of all that!) also which standard mk (xii btw imo lol), and so on. nothing one not could overcome, but not done on the doorstep as well, so to say (note: better only take non-boxstuff imo!).
careers, in comparison to wows, would be tied to their shiptypes. so tacs in escorts, scis in sci-ships and engies in cruisers. destroyers could maybe set with hybridsetups or even hybrid-captnpower-combos (xcept for subnuc and alpha!!!! ) for less boff abilities? quite some possibilities to ensure or kill balance here overall.
i think that alerady could make it, but i also think there are much better ways to get something worthwhile back again. the fundamental setup seems too different for a 1to1 adaption, so to get it in exactly such shape like wows, it would come down to code a whole new game.
nevertheless, one thing's 4 sure: i'd play it!
It's not salvageable, because even if the mechanical problems were solved, and even if Cryptic put some effort into making it interesting and relevant, they spent six years chasing off the people that would make it a decent community by catering to exactly the sort of asshats that exploit broken mechanics knowingly against new players to stroke their shriveled egoes while patting themselves on the back for how 'Elite' they are for being able to grind 40 hours a week on the latest new shiny powers that don't have counters.
The problem is deep enough, and extensive enough, that Cryptic can't fix it and without the mechanical fixes, (or even with them) there simply aren't enough of the 'good' players (reasonably skilled players with a positive, helping attitude and some ability to organize) to form the core of a replacement for the community that has died in the game.
the long-term hands all know; we tried. We tried to keep things going, we tried to present player-initiatives to bring people in and help them get their boots under themselves-and guess what?
it didn't work. No backup, you know? drowned out or silenced by the bystanders who always show up in PvP related threads to say "STO isn't a PvP Game" and "PvP is full of douchebags!!" and, of course... "PvP Nurfed mY stuffz!! HATE THEM FOREVER!!!"
eventually it's just not worth the effort anymore, because you get to where you understand that it's a lost cause.
So you have given up in disgust, and now rationalize it as having been doomed from the start? I've read a lot of suggestions that were made in the past and many of them are utterly ridiculous in terms of how much work it'd be for the devs. Such suggestions ARE doomed because the devs have no reason to WANT to look at them closely.
Realistically, I have only ever seen one method of "leveling the playing field" that actually works in games where the core of game play is collecting stuff to make yourself awesome.... Player rankings. These may or may not get reset periodically, but they're based on your win-loss records in PvP. using that to match people in queues would be useful.
Gear scores are hopeless. They ignore player skill. Skill is a more powerful weapon than a disruptor autocannon...
Realistically, I have only ever seen one method of "leveling the playing field" that actually works in games where the core of game play is collecting stuff to make yourself awesome.... Player rankings. These may or may not get reset periodically, but they're based on your win-loss records in PvP. using that to match people in queues would be useful.
It would be useful...if there were enough people in the queue to actually divide into ranks and still have enough players to start a game.
But you do make an important point there. The core of MMORPG gameplay is collecting stuff that makes you awesome. People who dismiss that as "pointless grinding" are missing the point of not only this game but the entire genre.
The problem of PvP in STO is then not that all the stuff you can collect makes it "unfair," but that PvP tends to attract the kind of people who don't like to collect stuff. And that's because it doesn't give the kind of reward that would attract people who do like to collect stuff.
Some good points made over the last couple threads. Also some bad input. To put it simply players want to talk PvP cause they like PvP. It doesn't threaten PvE. It may be hopeless. At least try to group up with your party on this thread instead of blaming the entirety of either group for the problems/attitude. It's the Devs (Geko mostly it seems, the tact of a small child) who fostered this community and built this horrible attitude on both sides of the fence with several oddball decisions over the years. Insulting each other (Disregarding anyone who likes either etc) means that YOU are the worst, not whatever fictional PvP/PvE player you're thinking of. Truth is, players are players. The players who come to post here probably have some sort of emotional attachment to the game. That's good. You don't want to chase off anyone, for any reason outside of sheer abuse/exploits/insults, or you end up with a ever dwindling, ever more cynical playerbase... And using the "broken" abilities are not exploits. It's a result of the Dev's laziness/lack of forethought/lack of care. They simply shouldn't be. That doesn't mean burn down the PvE planet. It just means Immunity can only occur once X minutes for PvP or some other bs no matter how many you stack. Simple Problems. Simple Solutions. They are about 800 simple solutions too late on PC and I'm sure that Geko yelled at every "14 year old min/maxer" working under him when they ever suggested a thing.
As it stands on console PvP is going well cause powercreep hasn't blown our heads off yet. BUT several several console players are looking up PvP. We love to "PvP" on console, why? Almost every single game we play is multiplayer. Almost every single thing we touch is in party chat. We came for an MMO. Not just a RPG. Because of this attitude/BS on the forums and the grim outlook on the future of PvP/PvE several players have already quit the game in the 1st month, after buying several T6s etc because they have heard that all of their time is going to be wasted. They will never have anything to works towards. They will never have any fun. They will never get Dev Support. They will never be apart of the community and there certainly isn't any hope of them fitting in here cause they are just too hopeful to hang out in these 6 year old forums wishing for content of either type. If they even dare to show up here with hope (How dare they on a Brand New Game to them) they are ruthlessly educated.
Combine all the console players who want to play multiplayer (Multiple Players, with and against. Not shooting static reskinned mobs) with the console players who want PvE content that isn't a TRIBBLE clusterfuck of incompetence and you can easily see why the population has taken a massive hit already. Several "active" 300+ member fleets with only 20 people on at anytime already. It's awful.
To clarify on the PvE content since someone will ask or say launch was a success. Last weeks maintenance broke the game entirely, completely unplayable for days. Several players still experiencing bugs this week (Can't assign skills at 50+, Can't accept Questchains, Can't get their free T2, T3 ships etc etc etc. The list of gamebreaking is insanely long) Those are just the best highlights. Game has had a laundry list of gamebreaking bugs since day 1 and it only got WORSE. Crazy. Crazy.
The only person who is happy here is Geko. He can put anything decent for PvP behind the PvE content and point to that when he grabs numbers. Of course PvP hasn't made money. It was never intended to, never given a chance, and certainly this game isn't a home for many Star Trek fans. Good job being angry guys. It's only alienated every single new player with money who has shown up here.
They've reset the game. They have 1 chance to do things differently. To release content slowly and surely. Well tested, well thought out, and well played. However, the Forum says "No, TRIBBLE you don't play then".. We don't care about your PC TRIBBLE. We want a good game on console. It wouldn't look remotely the same. We couldn't even get our own (Sub)forums. We certainly won't be given a second thought. I would love for us all to be wrong on this.
Realistically, I have only ever seen one method of "leveling the playing field" that actually works in games where the core of game play is collecting stuff to make yourself awesome.... Player rankings. These may or may not get reset periodically, but they're based on your win-loss records in PvP. using that to match people in queues would be useful.
It would be useful...if there were enough people in the queue to actually divide into ranks and still have enough players to start a game.
But you do make an important point there. The core of MMORPG gameplay is collecting stuff that makes you awesome. People who dismiss that as "pointless grinding" are missing the point of not only this game but the entire genre.
The problem of PvP in STO is then not that all the stuff you can collect makes it "unfair," but that PvP tends to attract the kind of people who don't like to collect stuff. And that's because it doesn't give the kind of reward that would attract people who do like to collect stuff.
Yeah, for people to have enough interest to try there has to be some sort of reward, and dil might not be the best option. Maybe random boxes like those things Q gives you?
Comments
My character Tsin'xing
In WoT, knowledge, timing, and aggression win over gold tanks and ammo.
There is a fundamental flaw in any attempts by players to even the PvP field by limiting gear and tier: Passives.
The captain who climbs the skill tree faster is in a dominant position because he not only has a greater range of active abilities from which to choose, he also has many more passive abilities which are available to him and not his less skilled opponent. Even when both captains are Level 60 and have identically equipped ships, the older toon, (game hours, not date of creation,) has an advantage.
There is already a level-matching mechanism in game so that players of different levels can share a PvE session. Abilities such as are gained via Reputation grinding and Specialization were created after this feature had been in game for years, and yet it does not reduce or otherwise affect the many passive abilities characters acquire via these systems.
Simply allowing the level-matching system already in place to work on these abilities will create a level playing field. Thus, if players choose to participate in Tier 3 matches with Level 60 captains, they will lose every ability not accessible to the Levels 20-29 crowd for those matches. Naturally, the matches will have to be tiered for this to work.
I propose the following divisions,
Lieutenant (if character is over level 29, set to level 20 for the match)
Lieutenant Commander (if over level 39, set to level 30 for the match)
Commander (if over level 49, set to 40)
Captain (if over 59, set to 50)
Commodore (Level 60, less than 1 spcialization tree worth of points)*
Admiral (Level 60, more than 1 specialization tree worth of points)*
Unlimited (any tier or rank, as it is now)
* based on experience points, not actual points assigned to any one tree. It takes something like 30 spec points to fill a spec tree, but I forget how many exp to earn a spec point.
Next, PvPers like to see their rankings compared to others. Many types of leaderboards can be implemented, and many types of tournaments can be held so that players can identify their rivals and work to rise in the ranks.
Finally, PuGs and Premades should have different queues, with a chat channel dedicated to each division, to allow coordination of teams and matches or to allow a team to quickly find a fifth when an expected player doesn't show.
This can be done. It will only work if Cryptic can monetize it, and this is where this idea, and most others fall flat. Player retention has already been rejected by Cryptic as a valid reason to invest man hours in PvP, so we need to devise a means for Cryptic to quickly realize a return on their investment.
One way to monetize it is to hold tournaments, offering both sweet prizes and swag to entice players to purchase the nominally priced Tournament Entry Token. Quarterly events timed to coincide with school breaks would offer both goals toward which a player can aspire, and income for Cryptic.
How would you pay for the time it takes Cryptic to fix PvP?
And yeah, TCGs.
Except STO is not "realtime action," it's an RPG. That it favors gear and character advancement over reflex gameplay is no surprise at all.
This is not a shooter game.
dunno in particular how it progressed in the last ten years, but as i said, when i played the stuff used to get released with counters. and those not necessarily in the same rarity.
also the good stuff used to stay good. f.e. i think of combos like netling imp and royal assasin (if i recall right). nightmare and rock hydra are other creatures instantly coming to mind. though 3 of those 4 have been rare up to very rare i can't imagine they won't be useful in nowadays meta (played occassionaly some matches in the last years due to my lil brothers still playing). even a rock hydra could fell to a terror (?! no idea if the names are right, but u get the picture ;D...)
in sto top stuff gets neglected with every new release. they always drop a cherry on top, while in that image other pvp games rather drop cherries in different colours on the side of the existing cherries and so widening the base, not building up the pile.
again i gotta think of WoWs and scharnhorst and gneisenau. scharnhorst (gold) introduced a new playstyle in comparison, but it hardly is an i win button. one needs to know how to shake that thing to play her effective.
same goes for gneisenau (silver). it lacks the firepower of many competetors (just as scharnhorst), but other ups make her competetive and quite effective if played out right.
again, u won't find such in sto. if one just stacks immunities on and on u can bring whatever u want. he'll just wait for certain i win combos cd's and gonna blow u into oblivion, so better bring everything u can afford. btw, some of the combos rely on uncounterable things, so u can't counter em at all... with nothing... it's not about what u could've brought, it doesn't matter. there's no counter, back to spawn meeeh
and how many of those games have been pvp games? like when u face a real enemy? like on every chessboard, tenniscourt or soccerfield?
also i talked about sto pvp.... that sto is an rpg i heard some times. just as well it is an mmo.... oh wait, ever heard of mmorpg lol?... all these terms have been used to describe sto over the years. i'm really not interested what terms leads the ladder now, but i can tell u one thing:
sto PvP(!) is realtimeaction. no matter the frame is set by something like a rpg, the action itself plays like a shooter, feels like a shooter and is set up like a shooter...
indeed playerskill and reaction used to distinct good from bad players in sto pvp when i started with. the most of a problem has been knowledge about mechanics and shipbuilding for newbies. but once set up halfway decent one could determine the outcome of a fight ONLY by skill!....
this declined more and more with every new release, gear and addon wise.
btw: afaik the term realtime action comes from strategy genre. i used it in here to distinct it from round based games, like f.e. magic. because, no matter if pve or pvp, sto kinda is realtime action...
STO does have that sort of thing. Like using Hazard emitters to remove plasma burn... etc... Or using temporary damage immunity to counter spike DPS.... Or AoE to dispose of pets... But like MTG some things aren't easy to counter directly.
My character Tsin'xing
shortened short version:
-nope, there's always new stuff u won't find proper counters for. get fixed/nerfed with every new op release
(funny sidenote: from magic i switched to ST deckmaster and built up a pile of like 1,8k cards for the time i played it)
-witchhunterguard hopping on whenever a newbie seeks betterment for sto pvp ("not your game", get off our exclusive club lol... it is though :P)...
-check idea linked above (link breaks this post lol^^) before coming with "this/that" style only. nothing of that contained in there. u know, many roads to rome and so...
Probably. All that can be honestly said to them is that if you want to play WOT/EVE/MOBA/whatever, you're free to do so. This is STO.
lol, u guys are so off the trek (pun intended)... THE IDEA LINKED SOME POSTS ABOVE F.E. ISN'T ABOUT THAT (look it up in pvp subforum, "[...] to restructure pvp landscape[...]" or something like that), there are many more possible ways to address sto's pvp lmaorofl.... but it's ok. cause, why would u look it up? u're obviously not even slightly are interested in somewhat like a discussion. way easier to light torches than to read, think and comprehend what u don't like and/or don't (want to) understand, eh? way easier just to fight something that in the best case wouldn't even touch a bit of your known ingame environment rofl?! "hey, it doesn't bother me as i'm not interested in it, but let's fight it so others can't enjoy it. cause thiz iz aaaaall mineeeeeeeeeez!"...
getting bored again, have fun chasing ghosts...
We know that motorized transports exist in ST, in the background on half of the planets in from the 80's onward, they could be a trigger for zoning from where the transporter pad is to the Random Planetary Leader's office building, or somewhere else, kind of like Star Wars Galaxies had when it still existed.
You consider resource-driven gameplay to be a "problem." Too bad. Others don't, and it appears the people in charge are among the latter group. This is a resource-driven game.
PvP is "in a vestigal, vegetative state" because it has insufficient rewards to drive it. Same as much of the PvE queues, really. STO's focus on numeric rewards really works against diversity here. Only one grind spot can be the best one.
reads like something from someone who may wants to show something on a doll lol?!.... system to adapt gear to certain values is ingame and active (would get in need to get adjusted and enwidened a bit, sure).
next i think u try to say that tac always has been the meta in pvp or "us" want it so to be? lmao.... everyone with just a slight base of knowledge did know for aeons that sci was king of pvp. had been for ages (yep, even long before particle manipulator lolz trait).... no talk about a certain engi in a charal who pounded 2 of the best tacs of my fleet and myself through the ground out to china in a c&h match while we couldn't scratch his paint, so to say lol (all of us participated on several tourneys, so no too low-bob style lol)...
what leads me to premades. if tac would've been so superior in pvp to everything else i wonder why there barely more than 2 ever have been seen in premade setups. classic setup is 2 tacs, 2 sci's and an engi. engi may be swapped for this or that, but that always was a bit of a gamble.
no matter where the bad pvp'ers once touched u. in that more than unlikely case of a revival no one will force u to participate. no one ever did. hasn't been urs? well, leave it then? as f.e. i decided to leave any other "content" in this game?
now, why i don't totally leave lol? i'm a lts, i dropped a fortune, i have many very good memories of my time in sto pvp and if only the slightest chance comes up i want to push it. on another wasted attempt. no matter that, the trek-spirit at least leads me to not let others of my kind, interested in pvp in this once great game, to be left alone with a bunch of witchhunters, behaving like there never has been worthwhile pvp in here or there wouldn't be a base to go from to may once have something like that again...
however...
i just hope for a sh**storm referring console pvp, after they release all the systems on console. in that case u guys better prepare with a lot of coffee lol...
btw: i remember not one of the thousands stf's i did ingame. nor any mirroruniverse run or whatnot pve queue or battlezone or what.... what i do remeber are some totally awesome matches, containing twists like u'll never find in pve in any way. sheer surprise, true art and skill are the words. connected with a lot of bullying from some, sure, but a lot of real memorable moments with a lot of just cool and helpful guys. that's what sto has been for me. not to be found in pve, such u only got in pvp...
oh, and hi edna
hey Wast3 ,pinkarons are still op
But as @coldnapalm pointed out already, this is just the same old song and dance. You'll continue making PvP exclusive instead of inclusive, you'll continue to blame others for personal failings, and you'll continue to have fun in your echo chamber asking why Cryptic doesn't do more for PvP when the people who PvP the most are the exact kind of personalities that turn off new player growth.
It's cool. You need the rest of us way more than we need you. You know it, I know it, everybody else knows it. If the hardcore PvPers ever want to change their attitude, maybe we'll see some meaningful work done on PvP.
To be fair, there are still decent PvPer players out there who are very decent people. Sadly the toxic players are now drowning out the good, fair players who will have a serious discussion on how to include everyone into PvP.
I remember it was like that years ago. Ker'rat would be constantly active for ages. There was trash talking of course, but it was all in good fun and never went too far. Klingons would out number feds, then feds would out number klingons. You could literally spend hours dueling it out between one another. Before you knew it, 4 hours was gone.
"Sigh" Those were the days.
The PvE andPvP versions of ships I actually mentioned. To make this casual friendly and starting out. Just do the rank promotion ships in a PvP version. Then they could be bought with dil, while the player works toward the higher end PvP ships.
who came in here first being toxic? who even runs over to like every single console thread (note: not pc) to sing sameoldsameold? who brings no arguments, nor points and just is ranting like a child who sees his lollipop in danger to get taken away from him, even though there is no danger?!
who obviously not bothered to give even the slightest input on topic or anything constructive on the matter at all, like f.e. commenting on my proposal, which would come with lowest possible dev-time, would extinct reasons for any further pve/pvp quarrel and wouldn't touch the game overall in it's progression? btw, seperated would be ok for me as well, but for sure much more effort than my proposal lol...
really, check ya perceptions rofl....
pvp community always was soooo toxic?! xDDDD... yeah, that's why several fleets connected together, even though some of them normally wouldn't exchange one single nice word? and, while drama went with it ofc, they made to set up a pvp-bootcamp to lighten up the challenge pvp is for newbies and ran it for several seasons, while cryptic just kept on adding op stuff, so it became even harder with time?
and yeah, we're sooo exclusive xDDDDD... that's one of the best jokes in here, really.... u don't get it goes the other way round, do ya?!
only ones to exclude anyone from something in here, sorry to disrupt an obviously damaged perception, are pve'ers who don't want any pvp or pvp'ers in "their" game (this always is the most funny part imo lol). again, reread thread and may u get it. but for some i just fear, they won't. ever!
when engaging people like to be found in here i just sometimes wish i would be a bit more like edna and just would throw it at ya heads. cause... he's so right xDDD..... read through here, ideally without hindering your own perception by the tons of prejudices and if ya lucky u'll progress for yourself. but i can't see such, as ANY good effort to explain or discuss anything with such people leads to nothing cause... reasons xD (read above)....
thx 4 entertainment and a look on the heights of <fillinwhateversideuron:p8)>..... stol... the game that got the company and players it derserves. sadly the ip itself would deserve a lot of better................... oh wait a sec rofl, they had a subcommunity that fitted the ip for so many reasons (while in comparison only for little one could say "not fitting", welcomez to the interntet?!...)... and that was the old pvp-guard: never, in any videogame, i encountered such a helpful and active and constructive community like in sto pvp. and the with the given odds, respect to all those! foul apples always everywhere to be found, but they didn't toxicicated the community spirit on whole, like f.e. happened in pve long ago...
looking for elitists?! join a stf and bring below 10k dps, u'll see what i mean lmao....
btzw: my degree of possible toxicity comes from adaption to such people, as i learned for long the won't get it. reread and u may get what's it about......
have a whatever one and plz keep on, and if only for my entertainment lol...
PvP players have suggested that as a possible solution for years.
I think the two factions (PvE & PvP) have more in common then some would care to admit.
Also, I've met a lot of nice people on both sides of the aisle...
Of course mixed within each is a few D-Bags. But from what I've seen, that's a small minority.
When you have a PvP subcommunity as small as the one in STO, the sampling size ends up being a lot larger since so few people dedicate themselves to PvP. This means the toxic people end up representing the average PvPer more often than not.
Every group is going to have a number of jerks in it, but when your group is already considerably disproportionate to the rest (and on the whole, fairly insignifigant), it's pretty important to take measures and steps to be more inclusive and building bridges with everyone else instead of burning them and blaming others for driving you to burn them in the first place.
No, not many would.
And anyone who has done a little PvP lately knows its completely out of control these days.
There are many who are flying exploit builds.
(Which is part of the reason I fly a FBP/Kinetic FB build to PvP -- Too punish those who would abuse exploits)
Thing is many of the PvP instigated nerfs were actually healthy for the game. They helped keep things balanced to a small degree.
Not always admittedly (The first Great Science Nerf put science into the gutter for years) but in a lot of cases its kept Powercreep from ballooning out of control.
Or that was the side effect.
And now that Devs will probably never again listen to the PvP community in terms of nerfs (because they've gone all-in on selling powercreep and know PvP is no longer profitable and there are very few players left to appease),
it's like the game has become a free for all on DPS.
And they keep adding new powers/abilities that can be easily exploited in PvP.
Or be used in PvE to keep upping the top end of the DPS scale. I mean, in the last 6 months it's gone from crazy to ludicrous.
And then people want to complain about things being too easy in PvE.
(which is okay - but we shouldn't be surprised as to how and why this is now the case)
There is very little resistance/objections to new powers now, partly because PvP'ers will never be listened to again and most of them have already left.
Sure, "some" of the DPS community is pretty good at reporting these types of things...but they aren't nearly as active as the once large PvP community was at calling out broken items and equipment.
Because they aren't on the receiving end of these powers.
And their targets have such large HP pools that they don't see the effects as drastically.
PvP'ers notice this stuff more because of their inherently smaller HP's.
So in a way, ignoring PvP, is not really healthy for the overall game. And I believe intensifies/expedites the issues that unfettered powercreep can bring.
that tier style could work with current system and ships maybe, if certain setups would take places of modules (note to those unfamiliar with: have to be researched and bought with ingame currency) from wows. here one could distinct between gear- and boffsetups/modules, so each ships would have 2 levels of possible alternatives.
another question would be if to release exclusive ships for that style or flagged pvp ships, or to add like a pvp filter to existing ships (as another tab maybe?), where u then could setup the ships u have for pvp. techtree could be included in personal tab and/or shipyard as well.
but then, with the setups the problem starts: which to take, in what combinations and with what contained for what ships? what levels of meta-stuff to involve in what quality. doffs, traits, boxstuff yay or nay, etc..... (imo: non of all that!) also which standard mk (xii btw imo lol), and so on. nothing one not could overcome, but not done on the doorstep as well, so to say (note: better only take non-boxstuff imo!).
careers, in comparison to wows, would be tied to their shiptypes. so tacs in escorts, scis in sci-ships and engies in cruisers. destroyers could maybe set with hybridsetups or even hybrid-captnpower-combos (xcept for subnuc and alpha!!!!
i think that alerady could make it, but i also think there are much better ways to get something worthwhile back again. the fundamental setup seems too different for a 1to1 adaption, so to get it in exactly such shape like wows, it would come down to code a whole new game.
nevertheless, one thing's 4 sure: i'd play it!
Realistically, I have only ever seen one method of "leveling the playing field" that actually works in games where the core of game play is collecting stuff to make yourself awesome.... Player rankings. These may or may not get reset periodically, but they're based on your win-loss records in PvP. using that to match people in queues would be useful.
Gear scores are hopeless. They ignore player skill. Skill is a more powerful weapon than a disruptor autocannon...
My character Tsin'xing
It would be useful...if there were enough people in the queue to actually divide into ranks and still have enough players to start a game.
But you do make an important point there. The core of MMORPG gameplay is collecting stuff that makes you awesome. People who dismiss that as "pointless grinding" are missing the point of not only this game but the entire genre.
The problem of PvP in STO is then not that all the stuff you can collect makes it "unfair," but that PvP tends to attract the kind of people who don't like to collect stuff. And that's because it doesn't give the kind of reward that would attract people who do like to collect stuff.
As it stands on console PvP is going well cause powercreep hasn't blown our heads off yet. BUT several several console players are looking up PvP. We love to "PvP" on console, why? Almost every single game we play is multiplayer. Almost every single thing we touch is in party chat. We came for an MMO. Not just a RPG. Because of this attitude/BS on the forums and the grim outlook on the future of PvP/PvE several players have already quit the game in the 1st month, after buying several T6s etc because they have heard that all of their time is going to be wasted. They will never have anything to works towards. They will never have any fun. They will never get Dev Support. They will never be apart of the community and there certainly isn't any hope of them fitting in here cause they are just too hopeful to hang out in these 6 year old forums wishing for content of either type. If they even dare to show up here with hope (How dare they on a Brand New Game to them) they are ruthlessly educated.
Combine all the console players who want to play multiplayer (Multiple Players, with and against. Not shooting static reskinned mobs) with the console players who want PvE content that isn't a TRIBBLE clusterfuck of incompetence and you can easily see why the population has taken a massive hit already. Several "active" 300+ member fleets with only 20 people on at anytime already. It's awful.
To clarify on the PvE content since someone will ask or say launch was a success. Last weeks maintenance broke the game entirely, completely unplayable for days. Several players still experiencing bugs this week (Can't assign skills at 50+, Can't accept Questchains, Can't get their free T2, T3 ships etc etc etc. The list of gamebreaking is insanely long) Those are just the best highlights. Game has had a laundry list of gamebreaking bugs since day 1 and it only got WORSE. Crazy. Crazy.
The only person who is happy here is Geko. He can put anything decent for PvP behind the PvE content and point to that when he grabs numbers. Of course PvP hasn't made money. It was never intended to, never given a chance, and certainly this game isn't a home for many Star Trek fans. Good job being angry guys. It's only alienated every single new player with money who has shown up here.
They've reset the game. They have 1 chance to do things differently. To release content slowly and surely. Well tested, well thought out, and well played. However, the Forum says "No, TRIBBLE you don't play then".. We don't care about your PC TRIBBLE. We want a good game on console. It wouldn't look remotely the same. We couldn't even get our own (Sub)forums. We certainly won't be given a second thought. I would love for us all to be wrong on this.
My character Tsin'xing