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Ship PvP revamp idea
bioixi
Member Posts: 764 Arc User
There are tons of ships and tons of different gear. So, how can PvP ever be balanced?
Easy, remove the variables, that being the different stats between ships and gear.
All PvE content would be disabled, that includes ship traits, captain traits and skills, duty officers, bridge officer traits, spec trees and reputation traits and abilities. All replaced by new PvP versions of the above mentioned. A new captain skill tree dedicated to PvP bound to ship with no zen respect cost, new PvP orientated gear, duty officers, bridge officers, PvP reputation and PvP spec tree.
What I mean is:
-PvP class system: All ships have a class, independently of its stats, a ship might be a cruiser, a dreadnought, a destroyer, etc. but each ship has individual stats. Get rid of individual ship stats, make all ships of the same class have the same stats during PvP. That way you don’t have to balance 350+ ships, just a handful of classes.
The classes are based on starship masteries:
-PvP gear: Same as before, there are lots of different gear with different stats and modifiers. That problem can be solved with PvP exclusive ship gear, bridge officers, PvP captain, ship and reputation traits, PvP specializations, duty officers, devices, etc. The basic stuff should be available for energy credits, the more advanced stuff could require dilithium, PvP credits, competitive points or whatever, to purchase, upgrade and modify.
-PvP ship loadouts: To add some diversity and customization this is when loadouts make their appearance, in the form of specialization abilities, bridge officer seats and console slots. Your ship’s class and tier will determine a baseline for seats and consoles, but there should be a certain degree of customization, allowing to trade in some seats and console types for others. This also includes specialization seats.
There are up to 6 specialization seats you can distribute at will, the final number will depend on your ship’s class, the specialization type and how many different specializations you want to add.
Finally, you can choose which specialization abilities your ship will have. This is based on your specialization seating choice, if you picked only intelligence seats, then your ship will have the intel abilities, if you picked intel and command seats then you get to choose which of those two ability sets you want.
As a practical example:
A T6 escort’s baseline console setup could be 4 tactical 1 engineer 1 science and 5 universal slots. The 5 console type limit still applies, that means you can have a maximum of 5 tactical consoles for example.
A T6 escort’s baseline seating setup could be 1 commander tactical and 1 lieutenant engineer with 7 free seatings you can distribute, the limit of 1 commander and 5 bridge officers still applies, for this example that means you can either have 2 lieutenant commanders and 1 ensign or 1 lieutenant commander and 2 lieutenants.
So you can make the following escort:
5 tactical 3 engineer 3 science consoles. 1 commander tactical pilot 1 lieutenent engineer intel, 1 lieutenant commander tactical, 1 lieutenant commander science, 1 ensign engineer. Pilot abilities.
Someone else might do:
4 tactical 5 engineer 2 science. 1 commander tactical, 1lieutenant engineer command, 1 lieutenant commander tactical intel, 1 lieutenant science and 1 lieutenant tactical. Intel abilities.
There are tons of possibilities.
PvP battlegrounds, casual and competitive arena.
PvP battlegrounds: Similar to PvE battlegrounds, 2 teams, objectives like capture the flag, playload escort, attack-defend, king of the hill, map domination, etc. A place to have fun, test stuff and get some PvP credits. You can swap ships from your active ship roster in your respawn area.
Arena: The current maps we have now, Deathmatch, less players than battlegrounds and no respawning or a limited number of respawns. For example, you can pick up to 3 ships to queue and once you lose 1 you respawn with another one. Casual mode is for practice and fun, competitive is ranked and awards competitive points to purchase, upgrade and modify certain gear and cosmetics.
Rewards:
Cosmetic clothing, outfit, uniform and armor pieces.
Cosmetic Shields, engines and deflector dishes with cool effects.
Ship and ground emotes.
Ship and ground cosmetic devices like flagpoles with your competitive rank, holoprojectors with cool effects, fireworks and other stuff.
Currency.
Ship parts, materials and skins.
Admiralty cards.
Ground and space pets.
Cosmetic variants of hangar pets, same stats but different models.
Cosmetic variants of ground kit modules.
Cosmetic variants of ships.
Titles.
Duty officers restricted to assignments, no active duty.
Bridge officers, with no exclusive space traits.
Monetization. The PvP lockbox:
All the previously mentioned stuff can be monetized in the form of PvP lootboxes. You earn PvP lockboxes by winning a match, the better your performance the higher quality the lockbox is. Higher quality lockboxes have a higher chance to contain better rewards. The PvP lockbox can be traded/sold like any lockbox to prevent PvP from causing powercreep and can contain exclusive ships and PvE gear. That way Cryptic can still keep its current business model and sell PvE power creep without affecting PvP.
Tease system: You can open the lockbox without a key, but you get less rewards and you get to see what you would have earned if you had used a key. Some of the best rewards can only be acquired with a key, like ships. The common rewards can also be bought with PvP and competitive points.
Easy, remove the variables, that being the different stats between ships and gear.
All PvE content would be disabled, that includes ship traits, captain traits and skills, duty officers, bridge officer traits, spec trees and reputation traits and abilities. All replaced by new PvP versions of the above mentioned. A new captain skill tree dedicated to PvP bound to ship with no zen respect cost, new PvP orientated gear, duty officers, bridge officers, PvP reputation and PvP spec tree.
What I mean is:
-PvP class system: All ships have a class, independently of its stats, a ship might be a cruiser, a dreadnought, a destroyer, etc. but each ship has individual stats. Get rid of individual ship stats, make all ships of the same class have the same stats during PvP. That way you don’t have to balance 350+ ships, just a handful of classes.
The classes are based on starship masteries:
- Battle Cruiser
- Cruiser
- Destroyer & Warship
- Dreadnought
- Escort & Raptor
- Escort Carrier & Flight-Deck Raptor
- Flight Deck Cruiser
- Raider
- Science Vessel
- Dreadnought Carrier
- Engineering Carrier
- Science Carrier
- Engineering Warbird
- Science Warbird
- Science Carrier Warbird
- Tactical Warbird
-PvP gear: Same as before, there are lots of different gear with different stats and modifiers. That problem can be solved with PvP exclusive ship gear, bridge officers, PvP captain, ship and reputation traits, PvP specializations, duty officers, devices, etc. The basic stuff should be available for energy credits, the more advanced stuff could require dilithium, PvP credits, competitive points or whatever, to purchase, upgrade and modify.
-PvP ship loadouts: To add some diversity and customization this is when loadouts make their appearance, in the form of specialization abilities, bridge officer seats and console slots. Your ship’s class and tier will determine a baseline for seats and consoles, but there should be a certain degree of customization, allowing to trade in some seats and console types for others. This also includes specialization seats.
There are up to 6 specialization seats you can distribute at will, the final number will depend on your ship’s class, the specialization type and how many different specializations you want to add.
Finally, you can choose which specialization abilities your ship will have. This is based on your specialization seating choice, if you picked only intelligence seats, then your ship will have the intel abilities, if you picked intel and command seats then you get to choose which of those two ability sets you want.
As a practical example:
A T6 escort’s baseline console setup could be 4 tactical 1 engineer 1 science and 5 universal slots. The 5 console type limit still applies, that means you can have a maximum of 5 tactical consoles for example.
A T6 escort’s baseline seating setup could be 1 commander tactical and 1 lieutenant engineer with 7 free seatings you can distribute, the limit of 1 commander and 5 bridge officers still applies, for this example that means you can either have 2 lieutenant commanders and 1 ensign or 1 lieutenant commander and 2 lieutenants.
So you can make the following escort:
5 tactical 3 engineer 3 science consoles. 1 commander tactical pilot 1 lieutenent engineer intel, 1 lieutenant commander tactical, 1 lieutenant commander science, 1 ensign engineer. Pilot abilities.
Someone else might do:
4 tactical 5 engineer 2 science. 1 commander tactical, 1lieutenant engineer command, 1 lieutenant commander tactical intel, 1 lieutenant science and 1 lieutenant tactical. Intel abilities.
There are tons of possibilities.
PvP battlegrounds, casual and competitive arena.
PvP battlegrounds: Similar to PvE battlegrounds, 2 teams, objectives like capture the flag, playload escort, attack-defend, king of the hill, map domination, etc. A place to have fun, test stuff and get some PvP credits. You can swap ships from your active ship roster in your respawn area.
Arena: The current maps we have now, Deathmatch, less players than battlegrounds and no respawning or a limited number of respawns. For example, you can pick up to 3 ships to queue and once you lose 1 you respawn with another one. Casual mode is for practice and fun, competitive is ranked and awards competitive points to purchase, upgrade and modify certain gear and cosmetics.
Rewards:
Cosmetic clothing, outfit, uniform and armor pieces.
Cosmetic Shields, engines and deflector dishes with cool effects.
Ship and ground emotes.
Ship and ground cosmetic devices like flagpoles with your competitive rank, holoprojectors with cool effects, fireworks and other stuff.
Currency.
Ship parts, materials and skins.
Admiralty cards.
Ground and space pets.
Cosmetic variants of hangar pets, same stats but different models.
Cosmetic variants of ground kit modules.
Cosmetic variants of ships.
Titles.
Duty officers restricted to assignments, no active duty.
Bridge officers, with no exclusive space traits.
Monetization. The PvP lockbox:
All the previously mentioned stuff can be monetized in the form of PvP lootboxes. You earn PvP lockboxes by winning a match, the better your performance the higher quality the lockbox is. Higher quality lockboxes have a higher chance to contain better rewards. The PvP lockbox can be traded/sold like any lockbox to prevent PvP from causing powercreep and can contain exclusive ships and PvE gear. That way Cryptic can still keep its current business model and sell PvE power creep without affecting PvP.
Tease system: You can open the lockbox without a key, but you get less rewards and you get to see what you would have earned if you had used a key. Some of the best rewards can only be acquired with a key, like ships. The common rewards can also be bought with PvP and competitive points.
Ship PvP revamp idea 27 votes
I like this idea
33%
9 votes
I don't like this idea
25%
7 votes
I prefer PvP the way it is now
0%
Other - Comment
40%
11 votes
Post edited by bioixi on
0
Comments
If something like this was to happen i would be interested.
This game may have been launched with PvP as part of the package, but it has not been touched or developed for well over 4 years and maybe longer.
Sorry i'm not wanting to spoil or remove an aspect of the game you enjoy but outside Private PvP, Public PvP is dead. You got more chance of seeing an expansion dedicated solely to the KDF with T6 Carriers and Science ships, than you have of seeing PvP get even a single additional map to play on.
It's not that I like PvP, on MMOs I prefer PvE and I consider PvP secondary. I just like writing and thinking and giving ideas. Some people like PvP and Cryptic is a bit uninterested at the moment, I though if I could get enough attention and community support they might get more interested.
Well... at least this thread has been a bit more constructive than a lot of the previous attempts. Trying to generate well thought out ideas over just arguments about balance and unhelpful lines of "just do it" without any thought into HOW to do it.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
I commend your efforts but theres not a chance of changing minds. The current Lead Dev has no love or interest for that aspect of game play.
USS Sharlin NCC79713 B (part of sheridans access code) - T6, Hestia Class Advanced Escort
USS Babylon IV - T6 Krenim Science Vessel
USS Brakiri - T6 Elachi Escort
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release a STO spinoff MOBA, problem solved, money made
Also for PvP to really be popular the rewards need to be useful outside PVP... Stuff like the limited edition event prizes might work. do a PVP daily and collect stuff to turn in for a limited edition reward.
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
That's why I insist on creating a new everything for PvP. Class system, gear, traits, skills, bridge officers, duty officers, etc. The way Blizzard does with their games, the way of Guild Wars and Tera. It's a viable solution and it works on many MMOs.
Yes, the development cost in man hours will be high, and there is almost no way to monetize it. Those are two big flaws, but if you monetize PvP it'll end up pay2win like world of tanks or warthunder with their premium ammo, premium equipment and premiun vehicles. I still haven't read any better idea. People complain about the lack of PvP a lot, there are tons of post on how Cryptic abandoned PvP on how much power creep there is on how nobody cares, etc. but people offer no solutions or just bad ideas like dual stats for every item.
The only way to have a balanced PvP on an MMO that also has PvE is by keeping both strictly separated with independent stuff for each aspect.
Good MMOs have both good PvE and good PvP, but they don't monetize PvP, PvP is there to keep the players entertained, to keep people playing while they add more PvE stuff to monetize.
Now, I couldn't care less about the future of PvP. I rarely play PvP on MMOs and this one is no exception, but at least I'm offering solutions instead of complaining or saying that PvP is dead and buried and will never come back because nobody cares.
sometimes I think hes worse than trump....yeah I said it
Probably won't happen, but I've heard of worse ideas for PvP.
It's too broken to fix, remove it and focus all effort on PvE.
My character Tsin'xing
What? People play PvP for fun and to prove they are better than everyone else since forever. Most PvP games only have cosmetic items and PvP exclusive gear. I don't play Overwatch to earn useless cosmetics, I play to have fun and kick some asses, same with TF2, Guild Wars, WoW, CS:GO, the rewards are PvP gear or cosmetics, but people keep playing PvP because it's fun.
Now I'm not saying there should be no rewards, I said PvP shouldn't affect PvP and viceversa, that means rewards can be cosmetic like uniforms and other cosmetic pieces for ground and space like ship parts for some ships, new cosmetic effects for shields engines and deflector dishes, emotes, fireworks, currency, admiralty cards, cosmetic devices like flagpoles or holodevices that show how good you are at PvP, ground and space pets, an exclusive bridge officer with cool ground traits but no space traits.
If they feel like it they can monetize that part like Valve or Blizzard does with TF2 and Overwatch. As long as it doesn't affect gear.
My character Tsin'xing
I'd love to see a pvp revamp, but I think they'd have to gut a large portion of the game from pvp, not try to rebalance everything they've added in the past 4-5 years.
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