This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Also known as gear rating. STO becomes even more like Neverwinter in space (game mechanic-wise). Not necessarily a bad thing and, perhaps, long overdue for a F2P game that started with subscriptions: different player-base with different expectations.
In other words keep STO PVP the domain of wallet warriors just like PVP is in Neverwinter and WOW. Yeah big no to that.
In other words keep STO PVP the domain of wallet warriors just like PVP is in Neverwinter and WOW. Yeah big no to that.
I think you're comically missing the point. The intention of the potenial system (at start) is to match players based on their gear - so if you go in with lower-spec gear then, in principal, you get someone similarly geared.
It's wallet warriors - players who have "all the gear and no idea" - who actually suffer worst in that model.
Unfortunately Cryptic might not want to use resources to make this ranked vs unranked. STO has always been inferior to SWTOR and even more so to EVE.
Since you later cleared up that you meant PvP:
I can't really compare to SWTOR thanks to a lack of knowledge of the latter, but I completely disagree with the notion that STO's PvP is inferior to EVE's. That is not to say that it is better, it is just very different. With the "free for all" structure, major more or less unregulated battles you get into without actively choosing to and the possibility to actually lose loads of stuff, EVE caters to a completely different kind of player than STO does with its PvP. And it does so more successfully as of now, agreed.
But I am the kind of player who's chosen not to play EVE at all precisely because of this. Not because it is worse, but because it is certainly not my cup of tea. And given that the playerbase in STO is most probably way more casual than in many other MMOs, since much of the gameplay is way more casual as well, I doubt that I am alone in that.
So modelling STO PvP after EVE's example may offer a "better" gameplay experience - it may be more refined, it may get better reviews from critics, but many players here may just not like it at all (and if they started introducing "forced" PvP and ganking, I'm sure the game would lose the majority of its player base before the Artisinal Sound System could say "En-ga-ge").
It's like with music: some like hip hop, some metal, some jazz, some techno, some listen to the charts, some to classical music. Experts may even agree on "some music is better than others" - generally meaning within their respective genre - but you probably won't want to sit through a whole concert of music you generally don't like just because it is "good".
It's wallet warriors - players who have "all the gear and no idea" - who actually suffer worst in that model.
Actually, you can circumvent that - in theory; in practice you'd need even more players and even more time to get the system into full working mode - with multidimensional player rankings. Easiest example: you get one skill rating and one equipment rating. The equipment rating is just that and immediately changes with loadouts. The skill rating is individual. So if you perform better than you would be expected to based on gear, your skill will rise, otherwise it would fall. Players with all decked-out gear and no clue would soon be paired with players with mediocre gear and mediocre gameplay and good players on a Mark II challenge. Players who try cheat the system by changing gear after entering a PvP would perform so extraordinarily good that they would soon find themselves pitched against opponents suited to their final gear and skillset.
That's assuming of course that the system will work.
Either way, gaming the system in order to stroke your epeen will always be possible - if you're willing to get blown up intentionally often enough to drop down the rankings so then you can roflstomp new players, there's probably no way to absolutely prevent that. And one way or the other, a system like this may take months to finetune and would need a large enough playerbase to PvP in the first place. If there's not enough players of similar strength for a "fair" setup, the best system doesn't work.
But I'd like to get PvP rolling, even though I am not particularily interested in it, to broaden the playerbase, so why not give it a try.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
I'm really grateful for the new fresh of air brought to PVP. However, would you please (DEVs/MrEP) consider making this Player Potential System that in a nutshell calculates your PvP (competitive PvE) ranking in matches OPTIONAL?
What I believe that they need to do is increase the reward for pve queues. Being able to cap out dilithium and then some by just doing admiralty, contraband, and reputation on a lot of characters is beneficial for players, but then players are just focused on building that up more because we don't feel rewarded to play any of the stfs. I hope this next update allows a new chapter where more if not all missions are made more competitive so that episodes are more relaxing and a side thing while the meat to this game is missions that test players of equal skill level and rewards them greatly for winning, participating, and completing a mission. Finally, making these new missions is great, but I believe that the old stfs should follow suite where two groups that are doing the stf are competitively being scored against each other by having time crunches based on what score group they are a part of. Having a competitive system makes the game more fun to play and increases player base, but isn't beneficial to have at all if they don't increase the rewards involved because otherwise we'll still be afk grinding this game forever.
All I can say is that PvP in STO is dead now and will be even more deader with the PPS.
Why even bother with it? If this is a result of balancing space/ground it was a wrong way to approach it since it looks like those queues will be emptier that what it is now.
I expect a number of people in Miranda's with Mk1 gear flying around shortly while having a level 60 character.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
I expect a number of people in Miranda's with Mk1 gear flying around shortly while having a level 60 character.
I guess for sometime you can force the system to pair you up with other players who "used" only mirandas. However, if history is taken into account this would be another deader queue system.
The algorithm used involves chicken entrails in some form.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Funny how some people have this strange belief that they can predict how things will go with no information whatsoever.
Well, a few of us are actually good at extrapolating from the little bit of information that is there .
Personally, I'm not sure why this blog exists at all. The system's going to be internal so its not like we actually need to see what's inside the black box. Knowing more about how it calculates placement is mostly an invitation to try and manipulate it. ((shrug)) Maybe that kind of torture testing is what they want.
STO has always been inferior to SWTOR and even more so to EVE.
To be fair, TOR has the backing of a major videogame company, namely EA, so their budget is MUCH larger, hence why EVERYTHING has VO, and each class has its own unique story. STO has had to make due with a smaller budget, and is still one of the better F2P models out there.
....
And this is why SWTOR is doing better then STO I think. They have the resources to deal with bugs better then STO does and it shows in their game play. Sure STO does better in some things but when it comes to bug free game play SWTOR has a bit of an edge over STO and that is what really counts. You can have better space combat and F2P but if you constantly run in to bugs like you do in STO eventually it won't matter even if you do have better space and F2P because the bugs make it unplayable and not fun.
Funny how some people have this strange belief that they can predict how things will go with no information whatsoever.
Well, a few of us are actually good at extrapolating from the little bit of information that is there .
Personally, I'm not sure why this blog exists at all. The system's going to be internal so its not like we actually need to see what's inside the black box. Knowing more about how it calculates placement is mostly an invitation to try and manipulate it. ((shrug)) Maybe that kind of torture testing is what they want.
The blog exists because some players have long asked for such a system. They want to invite those players to try it out now they've added it.
I agree there is no reason for players to know or care about the specifics of it. It either works to even up PvP/CPvE games or it doesn't. Either way, players knowing the math behind it would serve no useful purpose.
The math behind it, like the odds for Lockboxes and R&D Promotion Packs, 'Only the eyes of a chief may see the Ee'd Plebnista' for it is the Holy of Holies.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Comments
I always thought that the top players in the PvP rankings should get a complimentary psychological exam.
Pee Pee system for short
In other words keep STO PVP the domain of wallet warriors just like PVP is in Neverwinter and WOW. Yeah big no to that.
I think you're comically missing the point. The intention of the potenial system (at start) is to match players based on their gear - so if you go in with lower-spec gear then, in principal, you get someone similarly geared.
It's wallet warriors - players who have "all the gear and no idea" - who actually suffer worst in that model.
Since you later cleared up that you meant PvP:
I can't really compare to SWTOR thanks to a lack of knowledge of the latter, but I completely disagree with the notion that STO's PvP is inferior to EVE's. That is not to say that it is better, it is just very different. With the "free for all" structure, major more or less unregulated battles you get into without actively choosing to and the possibility to actually lose loads of stuff, EVE caters to a completely different kind of player than STO does with its PvP. And it does so more successfully as of now, agreed.
But I am the kind of player who's chosen not to play EVE at all precisely because of this. Not because it is worse, but because it is certainly not my cup of tea. And given that the playerbase in STO is most probably way more casual than in many other MMOs, since much of the gameplay is way more casual as well, I doubt that I am alone in that.
So modelling STO PvP after EVE's example may offer a "better" gameplay experience - it may be more refined, it may get better reviews from critics, but many players here may just not like it at all (and if they started introducing "forced" PvP and ganking, I'm sure the game would lose the majority of its player base before the Artisinal Sound System could say "En-ga-ge").
It's like with music: some like hip hop, some metal, some jazz, some techno, some listen to the charts, some to classical music. Experts may even agree on "some music is better than others" - generally meaning within their respective genre - but you probably won't want to sit through a whole concert of music you generally don't like just because it is "good".
Actually, you can circumvent that - in theory; in practice you'd need even more players and even more time to get the system into full working mode - with multidimensional player rankings. Easiest example: you get one skill rating and one equipment rating. The equipment rating is just that and immediately changes with loadouts. The skill rating is individual. So if you perform better than you would be expected to based on gear, your skill will rise, otherwise it would fall. Players with all decked-out gear and no clue would soon be paired with players with mediocre gear and mediocre gameplay and good players on a Mark II challenge. Players who try cheat the system by changing gear after entering a PvP would perform so extraordinarily good that they would soon find themselves pitched against opponents suited to their final gear and skillset.
That's assuming of course that the system will work.
Either way, gaming the system in order to stroke your epeen will always be possible - if you're willing to get blown up intentionally often enough to drop down the rankings so then you can roflstomp new players, there's probably no way to absolutely prevent that. And one way or the other, a system like this may take months to finetune and would need a large enough playerbase to PvP in the first place. If there's not enough players of similar strength for a "fair" setup, the best system doesn't work.
But I'd like to get PvP rolling, even though I am not particularily interested in it, to broaden the playerbase, so why not give it a try.
What I believe that they need to do is increase the reward for pve queues. Being able to cap out dilithium and then some by just doing admiralty, contraband, and reputation on a lot of characters is beneficial for players, but then players are just focused on building that up more because we don't feel rewarded to play any of the stfs. I hope this next update allows a new chapter where more if not all missions are made more competitive so that episodes are more relaxing and a side thing while the meat to this game is missions that test players of equal skill level and rewards them greatly for winning, participating, and completing a mission. Finally, making these new missions is great, but I believe that the old stfs should follow suite where two groups that are doing the stf are competitively being scored against each other by having time crunches based on what score group they are a part of. Having a competitive system makes the game more fun to play and increases player base, but isn't beneficial to have at all if they don't increase the rewards involved because otherwise we'll still be afk grinding this game forever.
Why even bother with it? If this is a result of balancing space/ground it was a wrong way to approach it since it looks like those queues will be emptier that what it is now.
Original STO beta tester.
Challenge accepted
I expect a number of people in Miranda's with Mk1 gear flying around shortly while having a level 60 character.
I guess for sometime you can force the system to pair you up with other players who "used" only mirandas. However, if history is taken into account this would be another deader queue system.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Well, a few of us are actually good at extrapolating from the little bit of information that is there
Personally, I'm not sure why this blog exists at all. The system's going to be internal so its not like we actually need to see what's inside the black box. Knowing more about how it calculates placement is mostly an invitation to try and manipulate it. ((shrug)) Maybe that kind of torture testing is what they want.
And this is why SWTOR is doing better then STO I think. They have the resources to deal with bugs better then STO does and it shows in their game play. Sure STO does better in some things but when it comes to bug free game play SWTOR has a bit of an edge over STO and that is what really counts. You can have better space combat and F2P but if you constantly run in to bugs like you do in STO eventually it won't matter even if you do have better space and F2P because the bugs make it unplayable and not fun.
I agree there is no reason for players to know or care about the specifics of it. It either works to even up PvP/CPvE games or it doesn't. Either way, players knowing the math behind it would serve no useful purpose.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'