1 Cryptic's inability to properly balance something (now cannons are OP btw). Do they even play brah?
Cannons are OP now??? Well, I know what I'm doing tonight.
Yes, how are cannons OP now?! CSV, at least, suffers the same accuracy penalty as FAW. Kinda forgot whether the penalty applies to CRF too. If not, I can see how they could be, erm, good (wouldn't go so far are branding them OP immediately).
Cannons are not OP, but they are stronger than beams now. Yes, both FAW and CSV get the accuracy penalty, but that's not really a big deal. However, FAW gets damage penalty, your beams do 80/85/90% of their normal dmg (depending on FAW's rank) while under CSV you can even see a buff - depending on CSV's rank, your cannons do 100/105/110% of their normal dmg.
That buff/debuff is not cat1/cat2, but rather a final multiplier, which means if it says 20% dmg loss (as in, 80% of damage), you will get that 20% loss.
That can also be seen from HSE parses, check out Rev (Proxmire) or SOB in SCM leaderboards. And current HSE speedrun had only our tank running beams, as FAW is still the most reliable for grabbing aggro.
At the end of day I don't care that much for balance changes in PvE, since most STF's are very easy once you figure them out. So If they buff cannons even more they would still not be OP in PvE.
If you want to know what is 'imbalanced' in PvP, it's very simple, just look up what the top wallet-warriors are using.
With Cryptic having no clue and no desire about good balancing at any level, at the next possible re-balancing the pvpers will eventually find something else that's good for 1-shotting, and so the fiasco keeps perpetuating.
In a game which a developer famously said, "Your fun isn't wrong," there exists a great deal of hostility toward the concept of PvP in general and towards PvP players.
You mean the same anti-PvP posters are posting. This being an internet forum, hyperbole is the norm.
There are some very acerbic pro-PvP posters too. That other protonic console thread had plenty of disdain for players and devs. This thread has a couple that appear to enjoy heaping their dislike on others.
Outside of specific posters, I'm ambivalent towards PvP. Most players don't give much thought to PvP either, so I can't imagine they feel "hostile". It just does not come up.
Plus that. This is the worst community I've ever encountered in an MMO. The only reason I post on this awful forum is to act as a voice of reason - even if it's a minor one, because I love the game, and wouldn't want to see it destroyed completely by snowflake idiots.
Oh, my sweet summer child. What do you know of toxic communities?
The STO forums are an island of sane politeness and understanding compared to the horrors of the World of Warcraft forums, the bitterness of World of Tanks, and the rage of War Thunder.
"So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again."
-Dedication plaque of the Federation Starship U.S.S. Merkava
Plus that. This is the worst community I've ever encountered in an MMO. The only reason I post on this awful forum is to act as a voice of reason - even if it's a minor one, because I love the game, and wouldn't want to see it destroyed completely by snowflake idiots.
Oh, my sweet summer child. What do you know of toxic communities?
The STO forums are an island of sane politeness and understanding compared to the horrors of the World of Warcraft forums, the bitterness of World of Tanks, and the rage of War Thunder.
I've no problem with those games - I expect them to be mayhem. The nervously disgusting sacharine politeness that pervades this forum/community is actually worse. But that's not the reason at all for what I said what I said, it is because of a general hostility towards PvP.
Furthermore I made this topic because Cryptic attempted to revive PvP, but failed miserably to do so. I'd like to point that out to them in their face, even if it's a lost cause.
Furthermore I made this topic because Cryptic attempted to revive PvP, but failed miserably to do so. I'd like to point that out to them in their face, even if it's a lost cause.
In their attempt to revive PvP they did half a job. But then the motto is "half a job done is job well done".
3 new maps introduced Competitve PvP/E
Core Assault has PvP which isn't ness as the goal isn't to kill each other but to kill the other teams Core 1st. So engaging each other is not beneficial to the objective of the match
Binary Circuit no PvP it's a race to kill NPC'S faster than the other team
Twin Tribulations no PvP again its a race to do x objective or kill x NPC's quicker than the other team.
So 2 of these 3 maps are not genuine PvP and the 1 which does have PvP just drags out the match with no benefit to killing the other Player.
I believe Kerrat is still as bugged as its ever been.
The rebalance only really addressed Plasma Exploder Consoles/Feedback Pulse and a few immunities. Yes a few other powers got slightly scaled down but not as bad as FBP or the Plasma Consoles.
If anyone really bought into S13 was a PvP revamp then you got fooled. Cryptic have no interest in developing that aspect of the game. 6 years of past neglect proves that.
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
1 Cryptic's inability to properly balance something (now cannons are OP btw). Do they even play brah?
Cannons are OP now??? Well, I know what I'm doing tonight.
Yes, how are cannons OP now?! CSV, at least, suffers the same accuracy penalty as FAW. Kinda forgot whether the penalty applies to CRF too. If not, I can see how they could be, erm, good (wouldn't go so far are branding them OP immediately).
Cannons are not OP, but they are stronger than beams now. Yes, both FAW and CSV get the accuracy penalty, but that's not really a big deal. However, FAW gets damage penalty, your beams do 80/85/90% of their normal dmg (depending on FAW's rank) while under CSV you can even see a buff - depending on CSV's rank, your cannons do 100/105/110% of their normal dmg.
That buff/debuff is not cat1/cat2, but rather a final multiplier, which means if it says 20% dmg loss (as in, 80% of damage), you will get that 20% loss.
That can also be seen from HSE parses, check out Rev (Proxmire) or SOB in SCM leaderboards. And current HSE speedrun had only our tank running beams, as FAW is still the most reliable for grabbing aggro.
I missed this thru all the posts. Thank you, once again. Had totally forgotten about the dmg penalty being part of the nerfs too.
they started with a good idea in the Competitive PvE system, but then, as if by prediction, proceeded to undermine what they began there by putting the specific-marks into Red Alerts and PvE events.
Keeping them separate would have been ideal, with a small range of items (mostly cosmetic or non-game-impacting) associated with the activity-and kept separate from the PvE rewards and items, making the "Player potential system" actually work instead of abandoning it's development (for the second time), scaling rewards to encourage close matches instead of rewarding one-sided stomps...
The competitive rep is completely normal PvE, with the exception ofthe last room of Core Assault. Why should it be "kept separate" from anything?
They've undermined ALL the reps with the choice boxes. That they waited a short time before doing it was surprising already, considering they spoiled the lukari rep on day one.
but let's imagine what it might have looked like if it hadn't been abandoned and marginalized practically before it released...
1. Structured, Scaled rewards-
Scaling rewards to award more for closer matches discourages the use of exploits among reward-driven player types such as the player type that has become the default in STO. A breakdown that gives the SMALLEST reward for a one-sided fight in arena, and the LARGEST reward for a close fight (with one to two kills) means the 'cooperative game-thrower' type that caused the gutting of Skillpoints and rewards from PvP would still have to work at it-and there's cheaper ways to exploit to victory in terms of time/reward spent.
Actually, that would mean the reward-driven players would be encouraged to cooperate even more, since the highest reward would be for taking turns killing eachother instead of doing your best to win 15-0.
The current system that rewards all outcomes equally is the best driver for participation. Or it would be, if the rewards weren't completely inadequete compared to popular PvE content. If there were significant differences in the rewards, players would take the risk of losing the reward as another reason to just do CCA instead.
Trying to prevent cooperation is a fools errand.
2.Structure Matches-get the matchmaking algorithm working correctly.
this is basically another appeal for a BV based system that accounts for objective, as opposed to subjective, criteria. you enter the queue, what you have is what you have, no changing, it groups you with others to get a given "Force strength" number, which is matched against the other team to within plus/minus 10%. it's the simplest and fairest way to do it, its not perfect, but it's closer than what we've had or what we didn't get.
The PPS seems to work decently in the comprep queues, I suppose they could turn that on for PvP, too. About the maximum development effort I could see them direct that way.
3. Relevance
Restore factional queues for KDF, and for FvK, but leave FvF off the table. it's not necessary when you have RvB queues already.
the restored factional queues should link to faction-specific cosmetic and other items,and tie into a 'side storyline' where players actually choose a side,and that side determines some additional new traits and mission drops for fighting in battles, as well as having rewards that are provided at the Fleet level or to (for the pro-alliance side) Federation toons on the account. If PvE George can unlock bonuses for his Fed by running a KDF PvP toon through PvP up to level sixty, he's probably going to do it, and by doing 1)(a) in the list above, and focusing the higher payouts at the lower end, you don't have to muck with matchmaking that much..because most of the truly broken cheeeze is level 50 or higher, and lower level PvP is by definition more balanced and more likely to result in an even match.
The last thing the near-empty PvP list needs is even more queues to spread out the few players even thinner. If you want to arrange factional matches, there's private queues.
why block Feds from this? simply put, Feds are the majority. the KDF was initially released AS teh PvP faction, so leverage it. Leverage the Klingon habit of internal strife, and make their strife relevant to the Alliance in some way that feds aren't permitted to interfere per General Order One (the Prime Directive). this is about creating a NEW market, on the side, not trying to skinner-box an OLD market that is already getting serviced..
Or perhaps you should try not turning everything into an anti-Fed fantasy crusade, because it doesn't help.
It's too hard to reach that upper echelon for PVP to grow. To be competitive in PVP you need to spend months preparing for battle:
Reaching endgame by playing episodes Unlocking tier 5 reputation Maxing out two specializations after lvl 60 Acquiring at least 5 synchronized starship traits Acquiring rep and fleet gear Acquiring very rare or better doffs and boffs Acquiring space trait / trait slot unlocks Upgrading gear with dilithium / tickets Learning key binds Learning how to fly a ship
This "to do" list is only clear to people that have played the game for years. A new player would burn a ton of dilithium on upgrade trial and error, a ton of zen (or lobi) on ship trial and error, and probably have to respec multiple times to find an optimal build.
Then consider that PVE queues don't pop like they used to and a person needs to keep Competetive, Omega, Nukara, Undine, Iconian, Terran, Lukari, Temporal, Delta, Romulan, and Dyson going daily for a few months to max out. Add in 1500 marks and six advanced or better queues to get any one rep weapon set. Add in 4000 marks and 20 advanced or better queues to get a rep deflector, impulse engine, shield, and warp core. If that person only wants to play weekends forget about it.
Then the new player needs some fancy fleet tactical consoles, pets, unlocks, and some boffs. That's assuming the player can find a maxed out fleet that will let him or her buy provisions without "paying dues" on fleet projects for a couple of months. It will cost a couple million fleet credits to purchase all of these things.
You're either buying time with your wallet or spending all your time on 20 toons grinding at this point. But after a year you finally make it to your end goal. You fly over to Ker'rat to smoke some Ker'rat rats, enter the system, and BOOM--ganked by five spawn campers at once. So you re spawn and fly toward cracked and BOOM-- one-shotted by some glass hull speed vapor who moves so fast you can't even hit fire.
I like the idea of a cookie cutter PVP queue as an option. Make a base build for each class with some unlockable skins. Then let people queue up on a level playing field. Keep the old PVP queues and Ker'rat for people who enjoy build science, but also give new players a way to enjoy PVP without spending a year and/or a fortune on a build that isn't viable. That would probably increase numbers while also allowing cryptic to make money on "high end" PVPers.
addressing your last point first: PvP was a hell of a lot more active before the queues went non-faction with the exception of a short bubble during 8.5 before Delta Rising released (about a 3 month period).
Isn't that about the time they removed the 1h reward wrappers? Certainly around the time the daily PvP channel died since it was no longer efficient way to grind dil.
tossing on more rewards without changing anything or giving it a relevant focus will work-for about two weeks, or about the time it takes the developers to see the in-game economy crashed into a wall.
Based on what?
There aren't a whole lot of ways to give it a focus that will actually work. Core Assault was an okay start, but takes ten players (two full teams) and can be sabotaged for the rewards thanks to the purple-ribbon approach you favour, and people who wanted the rewards without doing the activity were given the ability less than three weeks after it hit holodeck when the marks were put in the regular PvE queues for red alerts and events.
Core Assault is a PvE mission with an interesting premise that, just like Ker'rat, is ruined by a completely optional, non-rewarded PvP trolling opportunity. And unfortunately, it has caused many people to have the impression that this is representative of the comprep queues in general, even though it's really just that one. So no, it was not an okay anything.
Factionalizing makes sense here-you combine the lowest with the lowest and make a side-quest that acts as a safety valve, then give it a reward structure that makes it worth it to do the side quest.
Factionalizing doesn't make sense anywhere in the game. Pandering to the few people who care about such things is not going to change anything. And certainly not if restricted to the "unprofitable" faction.
If the point is to actually get more players in PvP, fantasizing about klingon faction exclusives that will never be is not useful. Pigs will fly before Cryptic adds anything to the game that's not available to the Feds (their majority customer base).
The OP is right in that DR brought the end of what was already in life support for PvP.
The OP is wrong in describing noobs as spending resources and grinding for ultimate shinies/gearing to make them competitive for PvP.
Gearing is important but teamwork and skills is more critical in a PvP. Unlike PvE that you just click and perhaps could run a macro to win vs a nonthinking NPC, PvP requires one to actually work in a much different way vs a player that does "think". Fighting vs a human cannot be matched with fighting an NPC.
Before DR brought PvP to its knees, there were already a bunch of issues related to exploits and an incredible number of bugs plaguing PvP.
PWE never addressed those inherent issues but at the very least if they "incentivize" PvP with extra marks or Dilithium bonus you will see more peeps doing PvPs....even just for those goodies. This is an easy solution if they want to get more people playing PvP. However, I don't think there is a desire to revive it since most of those hardcore PvPers have already moved on to other MMOs and why even bother with it.
In 1v1 gear is critical, in teamwork a bit less, but only by a bit.
Certain more expensive gear, ships, traits, abilities and doffs are far superior than others in PvP, and can make quite the difference. Especially if you know which combination is the more 'broken/OP' - which is why this game is almost entirely devoid of a thing called "balance". Skill, of course is the other half of the work... if you bothered reading my other posts.
The grind/p2w/power creep aspect killed most of pvp, all other factors were secondary.
And judging by @patrickngo's posts, PvP is actually more 'canon' than dps-ing ISA all day (which this game is sadly mostly built on).
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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.'
1 Cryptic's inability to properly balance something (now cannons are OP btw). Do they even play brah?
Cannons are OP now??? Well, I know what I'm doing tonight.
Yes, how are cannons OP now?! CSV, at least, suffers the same accuracy penalty as FAW. Kinda forgot whether the penalty applies to CRF too. If not, I can see how they could be, erm, good (wouldn't go so far are branding them OP immediately).
Cannons are not OP, but they are stronger than beams now. Yes, both FAW and CSV get the accuracy penalty, but that's not really a big deal. However, FAW gets damage penalty, your beams do 80/85/90% of their normal dmg (depending on FAW's rank) while under CSV you can even see a buff - depending on CSV's rank, your cannons do 100/105/110% of their normal dmg.
That buff/debuff is not cat1/cat2, but rather a final multiplier, which means if it says 20% dmg loss (as in, 80% of damage), you will get that 20% loss.
That can also be seen from HSE parses, check out Rev (Proxmire) or SOB in SCM leaderboards. And current HSE speedrun had only our tank running beams, as FAW is still the most reliable for grabbing aggro.
Cannons do have a requirement that offsets that. Beams have 270 degree sweep,
That would be 250 degrees, unless they drastically changed something.
1 Cryptic's inability to properly balance something (now cannons are OP btw). Do they even play brah?
Cannons are OP now??? Well, I know what I'm doing tonight.
Yes, how are cannons OP now?! CSV, at least, suffers the same accuracy penalty as FAW. Kinda forgot whether the penalty applies to CRF too. If not, I can see how they could be, erm, good (wouldn't go so far are branding them OP immediately).
Cannons are not OP, but they are stronger than beams now. Yes, both FAW and CSV get the accuracy penalty, but that's not really a big deal. However, FAW gets damage penalty, your beams do 80/85/90% of their normal dmg (depending on FAW's rank) while under CSV you can even see a buff - depending on CSV's rank, your cannons do 100/105/110% of their normal dmg.
That buff/debuff is not cat1/cat2, but rather a final multiplier, which means if it says 20% dmg loss (as in, 80% of damage), you will get that 20% loss.
That can also be seen from HSE parses, check out Rev (Proxmire) or SOB in SCM leaderboards. And current HSE speedrun had only our tank running beams, as FAW is still the most reliable for grabbing aggro.
Cannons do have a requirement that offsets that. Beams have 270 degree sweep, meaning that your fore beams can cover most of your rear quarter. Cannons are narrow arc-even CSV requires your facing to be nose-on, while BFAW works even on things you can't see behind you. Individual damage potential might be higher with cannons, but your engagement arc is narrower and you can't orbit-and-fire..
Doesn't change the fact that damage penalty on FAW is affecting beam users in a very negative way, compared to cannon users. And that cannons *are* more effective in any elite content in game. You just can't see it from ISA parses, cause on advanced map (meaning ridiculously fast runs and enemy kills) they just tend to equalize out.
And yes, beams have 250' arc like meimeitoo pointed out.
My problem with PvP post Delta Rising is that the learning/equipment curve is less a curve and more of a brick wall. Unless you're PvPing the whole time you're leveling a character up in Ker'rat (which, given how dead it's been every time my Reman enters in her Koro't'inga, no-one is doing) then you're just thrown into the deep end in a random queue and usually vaped before you even know the enemy is near you.
The Devs have mentioned some kind of system to counter this by tracking and accounting for player skill and gear, but given how power creep has kept on creeping since the last time I got thoroughly pounded before I could even react over a year ago, I'm too scared to find out if that's actually a thing or not.
Also, I'm personally not helped in PvP or even PvE for that matter by the fact that ships I enjoy flying have a nasty habit of not being very good. I love flying my Gorkon, just has that big powerful build and look that says "DEATH TO THE ENEMIES OF THE EMPIRE!" Then I switch over to my Vo'Quv and find that I'm doing better than that shiny T6 in an old neglected T5 freebie that doesn't even have fully MkXII purple gear.
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Cannons are way better at vaping a single target (player), than the poor excuse of a FAW we have now. That's the point - not what is better in PvE, as this isn't about PvE at all.
The NPC's in PVE are r'tarded and most people who do STF's just want to do them quickly and get it over with in order to get their rewards. Balance is far less important in PvE, and therefore Cryptic needs to look at PvP and PvE balance as entirely two seperate things.
Cannons are way better at vaping a single target (player), than the poor excuse of a FAW we have now. That's the point - not what is better in PvE, as this isn't about PvE at all.
The NPC's in PVE are r'tarded and most people who do STF's just want to do them quickly and get it over with in order to get their rewards. Balance is far less important in PvE, and therefore Cryptic needs to look at PvP and PvE balance as entirely two seperate things.
If you want to single target vape, beams are better than cannons by a LONG shot. BO does one big hit and than gives +50% critD and +50% damage. CRF gives +50% damage and more shots in a volley. IF they had stuff proc on per shot instead of per volley, the added effect for CRF might have been worth something. As it is now, it is worthless. Also without throttle control, you won't get the full 10 seconds of CRF on target with all your weapons...so once again, unless you are a decent gamers, beams wins. And by decent gamer, I mean the top 1% of this playerbase. For everyone else, beams are better.
Have you been doing PvP recently? If not, then you are talking about PvE, like most of you do who don't PvP around here.
I'm sure we can have a discussion on the wonders and numbers of PvE, but the fact remains that PvP is an entirely different ballpark. The community doesn't grasp it, and much worse, the devs do not at all, and probably never will.
Comments
Whether I am good or not PvP is irrelevant, the problem at hand is that the queues are dead.
Cannons are not OP, but they are stronger than beams now. Yes, both FAW and CSV get the accuracy penalty, but that's not really a big deal. However, FAW gets damage penalty, your beams do 80/85/90% of their normal dmg (depending on FAW's rank) while under CSV you can even see a buff - depending on CSV's rank, your cannons do 100/105/110% of their normal dmg.
That buff/debuff is not cat1/cat2, but rather a final multiplier, which means if it says 20% dmg loss (as in, 80% of damage), you will get that 20% loss.
That can also be seen from HSE parses, check out Rev (Proxmire) or SOB in SCM leaderboards. And current HSE speedrun had only our tank running beams, as FAW is still the most reliable for grabbing aggro.
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If you want to know what is 'imbalanced' in PvP, it's very simple, just look up what the top wallet-warriors are using.
With Cryptic having no clue and no desire about good balancing at any level, at the next possible re-balancing the pvpers will eventually find something else that's good for 1-shotting, and so the fiasco keeps perpetuating.
There are some very acerbic pro-PvP posters too. That other protonic console thread had plenty of disdain for players and devs. This thread has a couple that appear to enjoy heaping their dislike on others.
Outside of specific posters, I'm ambivalent towards PvP. Most players don't give much thought to PvP either, so I can't imagine they feel "hostile". It just does not come up.
Oh, my sweet summer child. What do you know of toxic communities?
The STO forums are an island of sane politeness and understanding compared to the horrors of the World of Warcraft forums, the bitterness of World of Tanks, and the rage of War Thunder.
-Dedication plaque of the Federation Starship U.S.S. Merkava
I've no problem with those games - I expect them to be mayhem. The nervously disgusting sacharine politeness that pervades this forum/community is actually worse. But that's not the reason at all for what I said what I said, it is because of a general hostility towards PvP.
Furthermore I made this topic because Cryptic attempted to revive PvP, but failed miserably to do so. I'd like to point that out to them in their face, even if it's a lost cause.
In their attempt to revive PvP they did half a job. But then the motto is "half a job done is job well done".
3 new maps introduced Competitve PvP/E
Core Assault has PvP which isn't ness as the goal isn't to kill each other but to kill the other teams Core 1st. So engaging each other is not beneficial to the objective of the match
Binary Circuit no PvP it's a race to kill NPC'S faster than the other team
Twin Tribulations no PvP again its a race to do x objective or kill x NPC's quicker than the other team.
So 2 of these 3 maps are not genuine PvP and the 1 which does have PvP just drags out the match with no benefit to killing the other Player.
I believe Kerrat is still as bugged as its ever been.
The rebalance only really addressed Plasma Exploder Consoles/Feedback Pulse and a few immunities. Yes a few other powers got slightly scaled down but not as bad as FBP or the Plasma Consoles.
If anyone really bought into S13 was a PvP revamp then you got fooled. Cryptic have no interest in developing that aspect of the game. 6 years of past neglect proves that.
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
I missed this thru all the posts.
They've undermined ALL the reps with the choice boxes. That they waited a short time before doing it was surprising already, considering they spoiled the lukari rep on day one.
Actually, that would mean the reward-driven players would be encouraged to cooperate even more, since the highest reward would be for taking turns killing eachother instead of doing your best to win 15-0.
The current system that rewards all outcomes equally is the best driver for participation. Or it would be, if the rewards weren't completely inadequete compared to popular PvE content. If there were significant differences in the rewards, players would take the risk of losing the reward as another reason to just do CCA instead.
Trying to prevent cooperation is a fools errand.
The PPS seems to work decently in the comprep queues, I suppose they could turn that on for PvP, too. About the maximum development effort I could see them direct that way.
The last thing the near-empty PvP list needs is even more queues to spread out the few players even thinner. If you want to arrange factional matches, there's private queues.
Or perhaps you should try not turning everything into an anti-Fed fantasy crusade, because it doesn't help.
Reaching endgame by playing episodes
Unlocking tier 5 reputation
Maxing out two specializations after lvl 60
Acquiring at least 5 synchronized starship traits
Acquiring rep and fleet gear
Acquiring very rare or better doffs and boffs
Acquiring space trait / trait slot unlocks
Upgrading gear with dilithium / tickets
Learning key binds
Learning how to fly a ship
This "to do" list is only clear to people that have played the game for years. A new player would burn a ton of dilithium on upgrade trial and error, a ton of zen (or lobi) on ship trial and error, and probably have to respec multiple times to find an optimal build.
Then consider that PVE queues don't pop like they used to and a person needs to keep Competetive, Omega, Nukara, Undine, Iconian, Terran, Lukari, Temporal, Delta, Romulan, and Dyson going daily for a few months to max out. Add in 1500 marks and six advanced or better queues to get any one rep weapon set. Add in 4000 marks and 20 advanced or better queues to get a rep deflector, impulse engine, shield, and warp core. If that person only wants to play weekends forget about it.
Then the new player needs some fancy fleet tactical consoles, pets, unlocks, and some boffs. That's assuming the player can find a maxed out fleet that will let him or her buy provisions without "paying dues" on fleet projects for a couple of months. It will cost a couple million fleet credits to purchase all of these things.
You're either buying time with your wallet or spending all your time on 20 toons grinding at this point. But after a year you finally make it to your end goal. You fly over to Ker'rat to smoke some Ker'rat rats, enter the system, and BOOM--ganked by five spawn campers at once. So you re spawn and fly toward cracked and BOOM-- one-shotted by some glass hull speed vapor who moves so fast you can't even hit fire.
I like the idea of a cookie cutter PVP queue as an option. Make a base build for each class with some unlockable skins. Then let people queue up on a level playing field. Keep the old PVP queues and Ker'rat for people who enjoy build science, but also give new players a way to enjoy PVP without spending a year and/or a fortune on a build that isn't viable. That would probably increase numbers while also allowing cryptic to make money on "high end" PVPers.
Die hard PVP teams rule en overpower, so only those few will mostly do PVP.
Other players who try it out first time and PUG will mostly not feel happy to try again after being slaughtered.
Based on what?
Core Assault is a PvE mission with an interesting premise that, just like Ker'rat, is ruined by a completely optional, non-rewarded PvP trolling opportunity. And unfortunately, it has caused many people to have the impression that this is representative of the comprep queues in general, even though it's really just that one. So no, it was not an okay anything.
Factionalizing doesn't make sense anywhere in the game. Pandering to the few people who care about such things is not going to change anything. And certainly not if restricted to the "unprofitable" faction.
If the point is to actually get more players in PvP, fantasizing about klingon faction exclusives that will never be is not useful. Pigs will fly before Cryptic adds anything to the game that's not available to the Feds (their majority customer base).
Yet Dinosaurs shooting laser from their heads and flying the Enterprise J makes sense? This stopped being non canon a long time ago
Original STO beta tester.
The OP is wrong in describing noobs as spending resources and grinding for ultimate shinies/gearing to make them competitive for PvP.
Gearing is important but teamwork and skills is more critical in a PvP. Unlike PvE that you just click and perhaps could run a macro to win vs a nonthinking NPC, PvP requires one to actually work in a much different way vs a player that does "think". Fighting vs a human cannot be matched with fighting an NPC.
Before DR brought PvP to its knees, there were already a bunch of issues related to exploits and an incredible number of bugs plaguing PvP.
PWE never addressed those inherent issues but at the very least if they "incentivize" PvP with extra marks or Dilithium bonus you will see more peeps doing PvPs....even just for those goodies. This is an easy solution if they want to get more people playing PvP. However, I don't think there is a desire to revive it since most of those hardcore PvPers have already moved on to other MMOs and why even bother with it.
Original STO beta tester.
Certain more expensive gear, ships, traits, abilities and doffs are far superior than others in PvP, and can make quite the difference. Especially if you know which combination is the more 'broken/OP' - which is why this game is almost entirely devoid of a thing called "balance". Skill, of course is the other half of the work... if you bothered reading my other posts.
The grind/p2w/power creep aspect killed most of pvp, all other factors were secondary.
And judging by @patrickngo's posts, PvP is actually more 'canon' than dps-ing ISA all day (which this game is sadly mostly built on).
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.'
That would be 250 degrees, unless they drastically changed something.
Doesn't change the fact that damage penalty on FAW is affecting beam users in a very negative way, compared to cannon users. And that cannons *are* more effective in any elite content in game. You just can't see it from ISA parses, cause on advanced map (meaning ridiculously fast runs and enemy kills) they just tend to equalize out.
And yes, beams have 250' arc like meimeitoo pointed out.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
The Devs have mentioned some kind of system to counter this by tracking and accounting for player skill and gear, but given how power creep has kept on creeping since the last time I got thoroughly pounded before I could even react over a year ago, I'm too scared to find out if that's actually a thing or not.
Also, I'm personally not helped in PvP or even PvE for that matter by the fact that ships I enjoy flying have a nasty habit of not being very good. I love flying my Gorkon, just has that big powerful build and look that says "DEATH TO THE ENEMIES OF THE EMPIRE!" Then I switch over to my Vo'Quv and find that I'm doing better than that shiny T6 in an old neglected T5 freebie that doesn't even have fully MkXII purple gear.
Admiral Dananra Lekall - R.R.W. Teverresh, Deihu-class Warbird
General J'Kar son of K'tsulan - I.K.S. Dlahath, Vo'devwl-class Carrier
The NPC's in PVE are r'tarded and most people who do STF's just want to do them quickly and get it over with in order to get their rewards. Balance is far less important in PvE, and therefore Cryptic needs to look at PvP and PvE balance as entirely two seperate things.
Have you been doing PvP recently? If not, then you are talking about PvE, like most of you do who don't PvP around here.
I'm sure we can have a discussion on the wonders and numbers of PvE, but the fact remains that PvP is an entirely different ballpark. The community doesn't grasp it, and much worse, the devs do not at all, and probably never will.
@baddmoonrizin I've seen enough, lock this.