Picking out a few thoughts that came into my mind while revisiting this topic.....
Devs have brought this "Onslaught System" to STO. It is here. They will call it something different but rest assured, they are fully invested. Otherwise, they wouldn't have added it to the new version of the program and put it on the live server.
How are Devs going to be using this system???
My guess, very similar to how it is used in Champions. Only the "SuperVillans" are going to be something from Star Trek. To start: Alpha Quad Jem'Hadars (this is ViL/DS9, after all). I can see them expanding this list to include Borg Drones (Elachi/Tal Shiar experiments on Romulan Colonists?), Human Augment (Khan), Mutant Gorn (one of the Fed missions, I believe), "Bonnie Kin", Changling, etc...
Space "SuperVillians"...is questionable, yet. Devs have a long way to go before they can even build a ship for players that is viable and with a usable space tray. Right now, everything is locked in place as all function is removed from the player in this mode.
Plus, how are they going to beat the MONSTER SHIPS some players make for themselves? And still make it fun for the others? Frankly, I think it would be a challenge keeping up with the power creep that, they, themselves introduce.
Adding this system to enhance the current form of PvP, as I had imagined: players in separate pre-set ships, balanced to compete, battling head to head in a special PvP instance. It is possible, but it seems to be light years away from the way the system is be set up to work, right now.
Disgustingly sick thought: do the Devs see players dressed as "Supervillians" VS. other players in their "normal set ups" AS GOOD PVP!?!?!?!
If a one sided stomp is the design being brought forward by the Devs....I shudder to think what is going to happen unless there are some drastic changes to the scoring or looting or rewards.
for a healthy, casual-friendly PvP community to rise and thrive, you need to establish a reward system that does two things:
1) reward people for winning matches.
2) reward people for fighting challenging battles, while reducing the rewards for one-sided stomps.
Most likely....they will apply the first.
They can not do the second because: there really is no way to keep track of the ranking of a player. Or at least, begs that we ask: What happened to that Player Potential System??? Did they dump it?
In order for the program to figure out rewards this second way...ranking would be necessary information.
This, also, does not address the asshats that kill other players and don't care about rewards. The ones that see the kill as the reward unto itself.
the first, easiest step, is revamping the reward structure to follow the principles I've outlined. The second, much more difficult step, is to balance the mechanics of the game.
IF the Devs utilized this Player Potential System into the rewards...wouldn't this balance things by itself? Players would decide: not gonna use this (trait, console, trick) as it kills rewards.
Awww geez. This, still, does not address the asshats that just kill other players and don't care about rewards. How do they deal with that?
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
You know I just thought of something..... they could still abuse a system that rewarded close matches....
if it were agreed in advance that they would rig the score.
Say: Team Red lays down for 7 points, Team Blue lays down for 8. Total score is 15. It is a "close match" score wise....
I am sure there is more things to scoring for PvP besides kills (I hope).
You gotta have some sort of check to see if people are "AFKing" for part of the game like this.
Might be able to stop some of it by taking rewards off Private PvP. Or just have rewards on PuGs no teams?
But then that would negate the use of teams at all....which is kinda part of the fun, isn't it?
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
well, how do you prevent it without an active referee? I have an answer for that too.
No rewards for PRIVATE matches at all, link them to the public 1-2 man teamed queues, and set up your 'premade' queues as a quarterly tournament (which will have rewards) and as 'practice spaces' the rest of the time.
OK...I was kinda leaning toward private matches have no rewards. But the idea of tournaments to encourage team building....THAT is genius.
It would be like the unique reward on PvE Events...
Only it has to be something that gives an accolade or title or temporary boosts or something like that. Because we all know: gear and traits etc... only add Power Creep....which needs to be controlled in PvP.
".... someone who can manage to get howevermany strangers to cooperate in their scheme, is someone who's got to be very charismatic and will develop large networks of friends the purpose of MMO is "Multiplayer", so even there, it still fulfills the core purpose of getting player involvement and creating an investment among the players in one another, whether it's 'quickly learning to work together to win' or 'building such a large network of friends that you can pull off a cheat on this scale' is really kind of irrelevant-both will create emotional investment beyond the mere rewards, both will create large pools of people who want to play together......"
Remember when I said: "There is no honor among thieves"??
Don't get mad....but I think you are being a bit "starry eyed" and hopeful, here. With that "emotional investment" in each other, creating a "pool of players" engaging in activities together. I do not think there are that many of those types of people around.
You saw what happened with Colony Sims, right??? Someone DID manage to get strangers to cooperate. And once Cryptic removed the EC from Fleet Provisions...Sims were abandoned within a week, maybe closer to a day. OK...I give you there WERE some folks who did get emotionally invested in Colony Sims... but not enough players cared beyond profit.
Now, are you saying people who enjoy PvP are that different? That the casuals will join in just for the team aspect? Does it not matter they are just doing it for the rewards and NOT LEARNING HOW TO REALLY PVP?
(Scheme we are talking about: rigging the score by intentionally losing with the end score being closer to the middle, to trick a mechanism that rewards higher for even fights)
iow 'win-win' from the perspective of game-design, because your 'easy workaround' with that restriction requires the investment of time and effort building friendships and cooperation in a random environment.
Wait..are you saying: it takes too long to set up a network of players large enough to pull off the scheme on a regular basis. Therefore, it is OK for them to do it because, in the meantime, there will be recreation and socializing to be had?
Typically, that's going to encourage experienced grifters to mentor newbies just on the off chance that they might want to collaborate across the lines later.
They will mentor them only to the point of: here is how you get around this the fastest.
And casual players will only be there to learn this and this alone.
it still, in other words, builds your community and encourages the kind of gameplay a good PvP environment should be fostering, still builds up investment in the game itself by players, etcetera.
That isn't community either. Tournament idea is brilliant, though.
Post edited by where2r1 on
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
I mentioned quarterly tourneys. These are prestige types of gameplay for the 'achievement hunter' type players.....Mention of a winning fleet or team....special sponsorships for fleet.....or even factional-based rewards....
With PvP being part of the game from the start...but NO Leaderboard in the game for players to access. Crazy.
(I know my personal score would be zero...but that is beside the point)
Come on, there were Leader boards on pinball machines!!! Well, maybe it just listed the best score on that particular machine....but you know what I mean. That was part of the game: Is my score still up there??? Is that my score? Someone beat me, or what?
OK...the top scores were listed on the stand alone video game machines...along with player initials. Seriously, I remember my younger sister having to check her score on the Spy Hunter machine every time we went by the convenience store. To make sure no one knocked her off the top spot. LOL! I think she was 13yo at the time.
(There were no such thing as home computers back then. She was the first person to try to teach me how to play a video game. Poor kid.)
.....that are given out to members of a faction whose teams or fleets do well provides a social pressure NOT to throw matches, and encourages a certain level and amount of roleplay stimulus.
Of course, if teams and players were throwing matches, that would be effect rankings and turn that (non existent) leaderboard on its head. It would be spitting on every single person participating in PvP in its entirely.
But, those types of players do not care about it. It is all about themselves. How do you stop those people??
You can see players doing this, can't you? I know you wouldn't play that way but there are plenty out there that will.
Cryptic needs to hire some Nausicaans as GMs....lock those kids out of the game permanently. Unfortunately, I think that would take out more than half of the players that are left in the entire game.
basically, people who intentionally throw matches may find themselves being 'thrown under the bus' by people who actually want the shiny that comes from being on the winning side of a tournament series.
There are not enough people who would play the game this way, these days, Patrickngo.
People would figure out how to cheat their way to all the prizes...they will bold face lie their way and use other people.
Then everyone else will say: they are being allowed to cheat / those guys won by cheating...oh well, I am outta here, they won't take a stand because they been taught to be meek. OR they think: Dudes, show me how...so I can do it, now, putting themselves ahead at a cost to the community.
They also allow 'enforced' balance mechanics, restrictions on weapons or builds, or handicapping to be employed without impacting the non-participating general populace, and can be used to add depth to the overall meta-story.
Yes, I can see tournament rules being as restrictive or open as difficulty level warrant.
Enforcing rules is a different matter. Who is checking? Is there another way besides: Honor system?
Because if a player gets away with doing anything the breaking rules during a tournament...and they don't get caught and kicked out permanently, it will only snowball. And it will be a snowball from Hell as far as community building goes.
which gives the activity a needed shot of relevance to the game and setting. particularly if the 'general' rewards are linked to one of the minority factions, such that to gain them, players have to use one of those alts as opposed to their more heavily developed Federation mains-it creates a sense of value for those lesser factions, and a sense of impact and relevance, which in turn could result in increased sales of items tied TO those lesser factions, making them more profitable, and thus, the game more diverse.
And I can see how Faction specific rewards could be a way to make minority factions more appealing. But it is only a short term shot in the arm.
Look at it this way: they keep giving Feds all this fancy stuff...plus that whole Temporal Recruit thing. But what did it do??? How many of the REAL Klingon fans and players have done more than cursory glances at Fed and Rom???
This would be the same thing.
+++
Anyhoo...this is straight out of my head....first draft.
Sorry, it sounds combative toward your ideas.
But I do not have the time this morning to smooth it out.
So, a thousand pardons from me.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
pre-set Ship/characters always frustrates me and normally make me stop playing both in PvE and PvP. A large part of the fun for me and I find a lot of other people is creating your own setups and tweaking performance. Plus the preset Ship/characters rarely fit my Playstyle.
pre-set Ship/characters always frustrates me and normally make me stop playing both in PvE and PvP. A large part of the fun for me and I find a lot of other people is creating your own setups and tweaking performance. Plus the preset Ship/characters rarely fit my Playstyle.
I can understand how you feel about that, Pottsey.
I believe, this is going to be added TO what we already have. But they have a long way to go before I think it would be viable. After playing this Renegade's Regret....and seeing how horrible it is working.
Patrickngo and I are brainstorming about PvP rewards and improvements (that will never happen)...while we wait for the big reveal.
And I am in here doing some catch up reading...because I am procrastinating. I have a huge bug report to splice together.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Yeah, feel free to correct me, since I have a tendency to drift off topic, often....
and losing myself in my train of thought. And, also, if it gets tiring responding to me going off track...I understand if you want to just stop.
But this happens to be about the most interesting convo I have ever had with you, @patrickngo Who'da thunk it? PvP?
Anyhoo...this is getting long and I need to review, if you don't mind taking a day break.
I will get back on this tomorrow...I want to get some DOFFing done this evening, and practice Klingon, which I skipped yesterday.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
I wonder how many people would engage in PvP activity if it had more structure and rules. Right now, it seems to have deteriorated into a chaotic, free-for-all arms race.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Could "structure" be more important than "balance"?
Because it looks like "structure"...rewards, tournaments, ranking, trophies...all these things are actually GOALS.
And right now, there is no healthy goals set by Cryptic. Other than: Buy THIS to get ahead. Or using bribes: do this 15 times and to get your fix, until next time.
They are not the "Game Masters" they are the profiteers and the enabler...not taking any responsibility for what is going on in the bigger picture. Totally losing control of where their game is going. You know, most people who are make money on bad habits and enable people to go down the wrong path think they are doing the right thing and not see themselves as part of the problem.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
I typically lean toward rewarding in-game currency (Not EC) and cosmetic items rather than raw power, stuff like the KHG visuals at one time indicated that the player in question knew more than Infected Space because it required beating ALL the Borg STF's (ground AND space) with optionals frequently enough to get the drop. Something similar for PvP would be, imho, necessary.
PvP queues would have to drop Dil and Mark and R&D Boxes. Basically, replacing the PvE queues (STFs) as a way to acquire in game currency for PvP players.
(Note: part of this scenario includes: no rewards on Private instances to cut down on abuse of the PvP system by enterprising players. So, it will be PUG all queues, which will move "challenges" and practices into the realm of private.)
Though I see a problem: time. Will it be quicker to run a PvE queue than a PvP one? How long do 1v1 or 2v2 matches last? Would the PvP matches have to be drastically shortened....scoring thresholds changed?
And how would that impact the feeling of what a match is? Will it still feel "social"? Can people learn from each other (and about each other) during short matches? Would they find people they want to team for quarterly tournaments with?
Something like the Dahar Master's long-coat for KDF, but only if you've fought on winning teams consistently in both ground, and space, and possibly tying it to consistent activity since generation in PvP. (aka doing it at low level, as well as high level.)
I have heard you talk about this coat before.....AND I have gone to First City to observe the NPC's wearing this coat. ALSO, I have watched my own character dressed in the long trench coat that comes with the outfit from Kelvin Timeline.
All I can tell you is: the animation on long coats are different between our characters and the way it works for NPCs. My character's legs clip through the back side of the trench coat when walking and worse when sprinting. It is not a happy thing. On NPC's the fabric drapes over the leg...it is part of the whole animation. Not overlaying another animation for the legs moving.
Anyhoo....looking for rewards the magnitude and presence to appeal to players as "Trophies".....that is going to be difficult at best. Since: I think the Devs have used many compelling ideas and put them to use making profits (or grind).
What is left in Star Trek after 8 years? Name a sun or sector block after ourselves?? Trophy cabinet or portraits of characters up in social zones?
I hear players talking about some ships that are mysteriously missing.... I wonder, now.
Are they saving the Vor'cha (and the other ones) to use as the carrot to the end of a very long tunnel to crawl through in Victory is Life? Would they tie that into "Competitive" content (PvP)?
I'm more or less suggesting that you can't prevent all exploits-but you CAN make some exploits more inconvenient.
Hmmm... I am incredulous. Everyone looks for short cuts. Even me! LOL!
Or would you consider that Colony thing: "making exploits more inconvenient"? I mean, removing the pay outs on the Fleet Provisions...isn't the same as removing the Sims.
It could, also, be seen as taking away their fun?
Sadly, people do believe the Devs took away their fun, even though they can still play the Sims!
and when the newbie feels ripped off because they figure out they've been used, that's gonna get around, people talk. someone with a reputation for **** people will tend to find they're being hit with a lot of "Report to GM" tags, and it's known that getting hit with a certain number of those in a certain time frame can get you a ban, since the system is largely automated and people DO get banned for petty reasons already.
True but how many jerks are dissuade by notoriety? "There is a sucker born every minute"
One of the things STO has refused to do since release, is a leaderboard, though again, like matchmaking, it was "Right around the corner'' until sometime after Gozer was fired.
Hmmm.... Is that what Snix Day is all about?
They sounded positive and excited in their posts...Snix and StormShade. They were working on something, that is for sure. Working hard, too, from what I can tell. Someone pulled the plug and took things a different direction. Must have been devastating for them...
I wasn't joking years ago when I said that Vanilla PvP was the last, best hope for PvP in STO.
The only way you're going to make it work is with preset ships or a very limited ship-builder, where you could customize a stock ship from a menu in the lobby or something. I prefer the latter option because you could say I don't trust any dev to build a ship properly - that's something best left up to players to learn, and why even make a dev spend time on trying to research it?
I haven't followed developments since oh, 2015? And back then I thought the cheese and bloat was obscene, so I can only imagine the superlative-exceeding degree to which it's been pushed these days. Now I can't comment on the structure of how to set up a PvP system, that's best left to you guys because you're active I assume, but I can comment on how things will go.
I've been playing Dreadnought for the past couple years or so, and it's basically what I described above: 15 ships that can be customized from a selection of modules, secondary weapons, and passives. And paint too, because making my ultra heavy Dreadnought bright orange was just the best. Let's also ignore for a moment the tier system, which is a whole disaster in itself that may in time be the death of Dreadnought, because the underlying mechanics are solid. I'm going to speak based off of a purely Tier 4 match, which is the "main game," since all the modules are available and the ships are at their nominal stats.
The gameplay will be good, for a while. With everyone on an equal footing people will be sorted by skill naturally, but unless there's a large enough pool of players, that sorting can't happen and newbies get pulled in with vets, leading to stomps by the guys running the current meta, people quit... let's just go back to DN for a second.
The forums are a constant revolving door of "X is OP. It has to be nerfed." X gets nerfed: "Y is OP. It has to be nerfed." Y gets nerfed... you get it. The same deal as here, but with actual dev responses and it's slightly more sane. For the longest time it was that Corvettes (basically escorts) were OP, because people couldn't be bothered to look around their own ship. The devs adjusted something and now it's healers are OP (the healer ships shoot green beams that regenerate hull of the target ship) because three will get together, hide behind a rock, and make their team invincible. While there's merit to that argument, it frankly comes down to people not putting in the effort to up their own skill. If they nerf healers I don't know what's next but I'm betting on Artillery Cruisers - if you take away the healers' ability to keep a team's health up while hobbling the Corvettes, the only ones who can sneak around and hunt the Artillery, you will get these unholy monsters sniping everyone from max distance and that will be bad.
Back to STO.
The situation will translate over. Maybe in the beginning of such a system you'd get a big player pool (especially if you offer rewards) but it would dwindle to those who actually want to PvP, a community so badly abandoned and outright driven away that few remain. So you'd be left with a handful of top-tier players and newbies who wander into the queues, get smashed, and leave whilst complaining that X is OP. The cycle wouldn't continue any further because let's face it, PvP would not get any dev attention in any reasonable time frame. And then it would dwindle out and die. As it did in reality. Only this time maybe it wouldn't be horrifically tortured and beaten over the better part of a decade before laying to rest.
As good as STO's combat is at its core, and as much as I would love to see it work out, I do not see a place for PvP in STO. The playerbase at large isn't the crowd for it - they're, might I say it, casuals. You'd need very high rewards to get people playing PvP queues regularly.
Look, if something even remotely close to a fair battleground ever becomes available again, I'll be all over it. So please let me know if that happens. Also, I don't know if this is even on topic but the thread was active.
I wasn't joking years ago when I said that Vanilla PvP was the last, best hope for PvP in STO.
I believe most of the folks still doing PvP in STO are using some of the most hyper inflated, difficult to obtain gear/traits/consoles/DOFFs ever on their "builds". They spent a lot of resources and time building obtaining it. I think most of them would not even consider Vanilla...it would be a waste.
Patrickngo says the two sides are at a deadlock when the top builds meet up. I think the only skill left is: patience to wait and keep track of timers to find the split second when everything is off. You might get a hit in.
LOL!
Anyone else who wants to try PvP is left to deal with this monstrous gap....and until they do there is nothing competitive about any of it. The other problem is...the lines keep moving...with every new ship, lock box, fleet holding....etc etc etc. But you know this, already.
The "mechanic" they just added to the game...I had hoped it could be used for preset ships of decent caliber for fair head to head battles, but it is not flexible at all. The players are completely locked out of configurations, even for the ability trays.
I am not sure why they moved that stuff over here from Champions...but I suppose we will find out in June when the new expansion hits. Because, sorry, I don't think it was for that half fast mission, that added nothing new to the story. So, it had to be to test the mechanic.
The gameplay will be good, for a while. With everyone on an equal footing people will be sorted by skill naturally, but unless there's a large enough pool of players, that sorting can't happen and newbies get pulled in with vets, leading to stomps by the guys running the current meta, people quit... let's just go back to DN for a second.
Well, the pool of players dwindle if everything stays the same. "There is nothing new, we are outta here". That happens all the time on STO.
And then the "I will check it out" crowd...but they are not even thinking past one or two attempts and are back with the nothing new crowd.
As for the forums... it is pretty much the same everywhere, isn't it? Nerf this, OP that...from people who don't know how to communicate their actual need. Which may just be "help!"
Anyhoo...check back in mid June or maybe end of June. June is the new expansion...Victory is Life and the Gamma Quadrant and new revamped DS9.
Bunch of new stuff hitting the servers...huge upheaval of every thing that is "meta"...or whatever you kid call it. I am sure of that. Player level goes up from 60 to 65, gear goes up from Mark 14 to Mark 15 and Captains will get another ability tied to career. More ships, more lockboxes...
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Patrickngo...I tried making heads or tails of this...but it seems you are just repeating yourself here.
This is totally cuckoo and you are writing in circles. Edit ASAP...after you get some sleep, or something.
And lay off those energy drinks.
I will try to get to the other half of this tomorrow. And I think there is one more new one...
The thing you're kinda missing, is that if it's set up properly, it's not going to be 'easy or convenient' to cheat in the manner you're describing-particularly not for the sort of people that exploit the current systems. going back to my earlier reply to your previous post, one of the main reasons people were willing to do it, was that the reward curve is flat-meaning it's irrelevant whether you win or lose, and irrelevant at what proportion, you get the same reward. which was the problem from the get-go with having PvP in this game reward anything in the first place, and is also one of the main drivers for the 'organized AFK" in Mirror invasion events. The Dewy-eyed idealists would have everyone rewarded the same-and what comes out of that is obvious and demonstrated, and the main reason that PvP has very little to offer now., because the obvious move is to throw the match as quickly as possible.
If it takes more effort to throw the fight in a PvP or PvP tourney, than it does to parasite off a DPS'er in ISA, most of the types looking for an easy exploit will do something else. If it's less work to simply fight the match to the best of your ability than it is to arrange a thrown game, then while it may be possible to throw the match, very few people will-because it's easier to fight it out and hope for the best (or get better and focus on winning).
This isn't because they're honorable, it's because the majority of people will do the least they have to to achieve what they are after. People will, and do, sink to the level of minimal expectation. this is why reward systems are a critical part of PvP design-if your match/reward system rewards non-participation with Participation Reward structure, then that's what you get, with the side order of an easy exploit that disrupts your in-game economy. If the exploit is more difficult than actually playing the mission through (or the scenario, or the PvP match) then most people will play it through, rather than digging and clawing their way to exploit it.
on a functional level, this then requires that PvP revamps would by definition begin with determining the reward SYSTEM that makes exploitive behaviours cost more in effort, than playing through the match. the second thing is to determine and assign basic restrictions that make exploits less appealing. Things like restricting rewards to public queues rather than permitting private matches to accrue rewards, thus forcing turnover and preventing easy collaboration. (the only way to prevent ALL collaboration would be to eliminate communication, and that's not good for the game.) Third step is to select a format to balance and actually taking it seriously. This is much tougher with the game in its current state. Every potential balance method currently faces a LOT of man-hours to implement, and the development team's already shown they can't handle the most direct one (Powers Balancing) due to the business model. leaves scenario balancing (which is in STO map-restricted and there's no evidence that the PPS matchmaking system actually functions as anything but a frustrating delay), or faction (which the devs themselves abandoned in 2011..)
of the three, the most likely to use the least resources remains scenario balancing, but not with the mechanic they've tried to implement, and it's still going to take a lot more work, but it has the credit of being more flexible and adaptable to (among other things) powercreep, than powers or factional balancing efforts can, or will.
the central mechanical problem for scenario balancing is that the devs don't really understand the player-end mechanics that well, and can't assign correct values for a BV system as a result, and setting up maps with a 'flexible' starting condition may be more difficult than the devs can really handle. (Flexible in this case permitting numbers-asymmetry, aka matches where one side, with the new hotness gear may have fewer players than the other to meet an objective comparison sufficient to get that "Equal chance plus or minus 10%" necessary to have a balanced match.)
a handicapping algorithm is pretty much necessary to make this work. it has the advantage of being applicable to more than pvp, however, since a similar thing could be used in place of timegating for PvE play, allowing groups as small as 2 and as large as eight to run Advanced or Elite PvE queues, depending on how well they're geared. (this would also eliminate the 1-2 minute ISA run, bringing it back in line with the original intended 15 minute average).
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
I was trying to address the usual objections, and got carried away.
Yeah, I am really not that rigid of a brain...so...one example is usually enough.
Enough for me to expand my mind into totally different realms and levels of thoughts you never could imagine.
(Note: Works even better if you can get me into "worry too much" mode.)
He's also probably the top spokesman for what was known as the "Vanilla PvP" movement in 2014-15
Oh, lovely. Couldn't have warned me sooner, Patrickngo.
Never mind me Voporak...I am just a troubleshooter seeing an opportunity.
I look for the cause of problems and try to find a way to fix them....usually by tearing things down into the smallest pieces and hunt for what part is broken. PvP is very interesting in that aspect.
Thank you for your insight.
You guys used that gateway thing to verify people's gear. Gotcha. Use of that is long gone.
I spoke to EngineerB4 about adding a button to turn off Specializations.
He said something like: It could be done, but the Devs could not figure out why anyone would want to turn them off. So, it is deemed unworthy of their time. LOL! It was in the Bug Forum about Auto Fire.
I am assuming....between seeing the Shuk-din build in the FE and that they can't think of any reason to turn off Specializations.....they must play the game totally different. And to tell you the truth. I wonder if they even like playing the basic game.
The basic game in STO is awesome...it is all the accoutrements that fuddles everything up.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
we already see it happening. a lot of my recommendations are in direct response to the problems already extant in the game. Many of the things I'm recommending as options are rooted in USING the same urges you're worried about. again, if it takes more effort to cheat the game, than to play the game, you've eliminated 99% of the exploit behaviours, and the remainder can be dealt with by the existing GM staff. One of the fundamental problems with purple ribbon reward systems and private matches is that it is almost a mathematical certainty that the easiest way to achieve rewards is to not play through as intended. (we see this with organize AFK in Mirror, and the Dranuur colony event you mentioned previously). if it's less work to simply play the scenario/match through, even at the risk of losing, than it is to cheat by organizing thrown matches, then the bulk of your cheaters will fall in line, because people are fundamentally wired to seek the easiest route to rewards. if it's easier to get the reward by playing it 'straight', that's what most players will do, even the trolls. Trolling in the manner you describe, happens mainly when Trolling is easier to do, than playing it straight.
Wait a sec.......slow down a bit.....I lead you astray....
WE are looking at it the wrong way......
AFK Mirror was not what was happening in Colony Sims.
And it wasn't about riding the DPSer's coat tails, either.
Look at the action by the players....
The players WERE playing the Colony Sims. They were there in full force every day...from what I heard. They were talking to each other on how to gear up properly for it...and coordinating, all that jazz.
The players put in the effort...batted the NPCs to hell... and raked in the provisions. Got their reward by DOING. Not sitting there waiting for a timer to finish or letting someone else clear the playing board of Borg or turning off their shields and laying aside armor.
They were playing.
THAT means you're right, Patrickngo. LOL!
Players will "Play it straight" for their rewards, if they have no other short cuts.
In this case, the problem was the rewards were not structured nor limited....unlike Dilithium refining. Devs had a huge faucet of EC running all day, so players got more than was intended.
So, players guilty of taking advantage of a mistake made by the Devs and being self serving.....not guilty of AFKing or throwing the match.
Yeah, actually there is. Mechanical restriction. we already have maps where some gear doesn't work because the map doesn't allow it.
a second way, requires active staff involvement, but if it's a tourney, then it's something they can actually schedule so that there IS a staffer available to referee (a GM, which is a creature that is kinda like a unicorn in daily play-people claim to have seen/interacted with them, but I've never seen one.)
RE: Maps with mechanical restrictions.... There are????
You don't mean: Ground maps vs. Space maps, do you?
Because, though it would be funny to shoot you with my Hargh'Peng while you are unawares on First City, or hack at your ship with my bat'leth....I don't think that is possible.
(I better be careful, bat'leth in space, I may end up stabbing my eye out...or worse, like a..... I should go study Klingon cursing.)
RE: GMs...I hear people talking about them in the forums, like they exist...but I have never seen or heard from one.
I am going to take another run at this one....hopefully, it makes more sense after sleep and I got all that K'Gan mess out of my head.
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OK... Pug is good. Because that mixes up people for more challenge and broadens the experience level for everyone.
I mean, in PvP one does not want to be "stuck in a rut"...you want to be able to test your flexibility and break up any predictability. Expecting things: that is entirely the realm of PvE...where everything is always the same, and fear any change.
Plus, it is always good to have a larger pool of people to practice skills with. Because you never can tell where weaknesses are...until someone can show it to you. And another plus, brainstorm and test theories from different angles...it is a good thing with more heads to put together. And to do that: have to meet more people.
I finally realized (sleep helps! imagine that)....the first paragraph is about number of players.
2 against 8??? That is totally insane!!! No way.
You really think a team of 2 ("really good" team mates) can stand against 8???? OK, lets call them 8 motivated PvP newbies and some with more, some with less experience? Like a training session, right? Not a full out battle. That is what you are talking about?
Nah. Training or full on battle, doesn't matter. Impossible. The 8 are going to be talking to one another, right? How hard is it if they can coordinate? Seriously...2 vs 8??? No way. I should go make a poll out of this. Eh, doubt anyone would answer it.
OK... looks like the rest of this is different TYPES of PvPs???
I am going to have to go look that stuff up. Get back to this later.
Queue structure is pug-team based, to a set value, that allows matches with an asymmetrical range that permits a baseline of 5-5, but can vary as widely as 2-8. the queue itself would only allow 'teams' of 2 players to queue at the same time (aka blocking premade 5 parters entirely and forcing 'churn' to keep it relatively safe for casuals or newbies 'testing the waters'.)
The ideal Arena is a timed arena, give it a 15 minute maximum time limit on matches, with scoring based on kill/death ratios, and a sliding scale for rewards that awards highest payouts for closest matches, and winning team picks up the most total rewards. (this cuts back on the temptation to 'shortcut' rewards, while encouraging 'awake and aware' play). The queue would handle 10 level 'blocks' of entry-so you're looking at being able to queue forces ranging from level 40 to 50, or 51-60, with adjustments for outliers, this gives reasonable chances for larger teams of lower level players to take on smaller teams of higher level players, with individual rewards for taking out someone of higher level or gear-score in addition to the 'team' award for win/loss of the total match. (MVP scoring, in other words).
with the time limit being fixed, it's 'predictable' and with awards being scaled for challenge, victories, and individual play, there's positive motivation for players to participate rather than throw the match. With rewards set to a baseline (average match score is where your baseline is set, poor play pays less, good play pays more) equal to an Advanced STF run, and top scores being higher than Elite PvE runs, while your 'basement' pays less than a normal red alert.
substantially less.
the idea is that 'active' play should pay more, and good active play should pay most, while lumping on a log or one-sided matches should be less lucrative than just sticking to red alerts. it's not just about building interest, it's about retaining the right kind of players to form a community and provide an alternative to repeatedly grinding the same script for those that crave a challenge, while at the same time keeping things friendly for the open-minded neophytes.
for Cap&Hold, (which is already on something of a timer), points are awarded teamwide for retaining control, it doesn't wait until 'zero' but instead, it's based on duration. How long can you hold the points, how many points can you hold, for how long. Individual points awarded for kills, but not at spawn,. Spawn kills deduct victory points, and thus, cut into your rewards. IOW 'Deployment suppression" is a great strategy for losing the match-the points you might've picked up from kills, get awarded to the other team. (kind of like making 'own goals' in soccer.)
likewise for spawn-zone kills in ground, whether arena, or objective based, spawn camping loses the match for you, the matches are timed, and victory spreads determine bonus points. it's a hell of a lot more effective deterrent than what they're using, sine they've tossed on so many immunities that someone with the right gear can go into your spawn in Core Assault, and kill people at respawn during the PvP portion in spite of the automatic damage infliction.
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
I been watching this PvP Bootcamp Tournament Live stream for the last 5 hours.
It is very dizzying.
It is not so easy to coordinate several players at one time, I think. It is difficult to SEE enough to be able to tell what is going on. You almost need spotters. LOL! I don't know how anyone can tell what everyone else is up to with all the lights and effects.
SOB did a nice job with his commentary...though 5 hours on Live had to be pretty yucky. At least, I could walk away between matches. LOL! I did not understand all the terms he was using, but pretty much expected that.
The matches themselves...repetitive and very little tactics. You have to have Backstep, Invincible and that console from the Walker. Everyone was using those things to get out of trouble.
PvP in STO....NOT a good spectator experience.
I need to go do something that isn't so intense on my eyes for the rest of the night, I think. LOL!
Post edited by where2r1 on
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
OK....now, that my eyes seem to be in working order....
Lets address issues....
1.) immediately apparent and the biggest issue: people don't play with each other. Therefore, random teams (just like what was used in this tournament) failed on this alone.
Because the teams where there were "friends" or knew each other....they fared better. It did not have anything to do with they have 2 Tac/3 Sci or whatever. It was all about do they know how to communicate to each other and are used to working together? And for most, the answer was, "No."
2.) PvP has turned into a brainless game of: "Manage the Immunities". Nothing was happening when everyone was waiting on some immunity to go on or off it's cool down or get triggered.
And, well, Patrick, I think you know how I feel about immunities: No Thank You....and I am still working on leveling up new characters without any immunity or "Pen" added to them. And ask for the "None" option on Specializations so I can turn them off.
It is stupid to have immunity in this game, in the first place. Like the "Respawn" button isn't enough?
3.) Everyone uses the same tactics, same ships, same traits....etc. etc. etc. Teams are even built with no variation. There is no element of surprise when it is anticipated everyone will hit the same button.
You may as well just take your Monster DPS build and hit boss ships with 10 million hit points all day in PvE. It would be the same thing.
P.S. this is just a rough draft. I still need to refer everything back to the stuff Patrickngo has been trying to explain to me about PvP stuff. And I still need to look into the different types of PvPs inside the game.
Post edited by where2r1 on
"Spend your life doing strange things with weird people." -- UNK
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Comments
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Devs have brought this "Onslaught System" to STO. It is here. They will call it something different but rest assured, they are fully invested. Otherwise, they wouldn't have added it to the new version of the program and put it on the live server.
How are Devs going to be using this system???
My guess, very similar to how it is used in Champions. Only the "SuperVillans" are going to be something from Star Trek. To start: Alpha Quad Jem'Hadars (this is ViL/DS9, after all). I can see them expanding this list to include Borg Drones (Elachi/Tal Shiar experiments on Romulan Colonists?), Human Augment (Khan), Mutant Gorn (one of the Fed missions, I believe), "Bonnie Kin", Changling, etc...
Space "SuperVillians"...is questionable, yet. Devs have a long way to go before they can even build a ship for players that is viable and with a usable space tray. Right now, everything is locked in place as all function is removed from the player in this mode.
Plus, how are they going to beat the MONSTER SHIPS some players make for themselves? And still make it fun for the others? Frankly, I think it would be a challenge keeping up with the power creep that, they, themselves introduce.
Adding this system to enhance the current form of PvP, as I had imagined: players in separate pre-set ships, balanced to compete, battling head to head in a special PvP instance. It is possible, but it seems to be light years away from the way the system is be set up to work, right now.
Disgustingly sick thought: do the Devs see players dressed as "Supervillians" VS. other players in their "normal set ups" AS GOOD PVP!?!?!?!
If a one sided stomp is the design being brought forward by the Devs....I shudder to think what is going to happen unless there are some drastic changes to the scoring or looting or rewards.
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Most likely....they will apply the first.
They can not do the second because: there really is no way to keep track of the ranking of a player. Or at least, begs that we ask: What happened to that Player Potential System??? Did they dump it?
In order for the program to figure out rewards this second way...ranking would be necessary information.
This, also, does not address the asshats that kill other players and don't care about rewards. The ones that see the kill as the reward unto itself.
IF the Devs utilized this Player Potential System into the rewards...wouldn't this balance things by itself? Players would decide: not gonna use this (trait, console, trick) as it kills rewards.
Awww geez. This, still, does not address the asshats that just kill other players and don't care about rewards. How do they deal with that?
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
if it were agreed in advance that they would rig the score.
Say: Team Red lays down for 7 points, Team Blue lays down for 8. Total score is 15. It is a "close match" score wise....
I am sure there is more things to scoring for PvP besides kills (I hope).
You gotta have some sort of check to see if people are "AFKing" for part of the game like this.
Might be able to stop some of it by taking rewards off Private PvP. Or just have rewards on PuGs no teams?
But then that would negate the use of teams at all....which is kinda part of the fun, isn't it?
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
OK...I was kinda leaning toward private matches have no rewards. But the idea of tournaments to encourage team building....THAT is genius.
It would be like the unique reward on PvE Events...
Only it has to be something that gives an accolade or title or temporary boosts or something like that. Because we all know: gear and traits etc... only add Power Creep....which needs to be controlled in PvP.
Remember when I said: "There is no honor among thieves"??
Don't get mad....but I think you are being a bit "starry eyed" and hopeful, here. With that "emotional investment" in each other, creating a "pool of players" engaging in activities together. I do not think there are that many of those types of people around.
You saw what happened with Colony Sims, right??? Someone DID manage to get strangers to cooperate. And once Cryptic removed the EC from Fleet Provisions...Sims were abandoned within a week, maybe closer to a day. OK...I give you there WERE some folks who did get emotionally invested in Colony Sims... but not enough players cared beyond profit.
Now, are you saying people who enjoy PvP are that different? That the casuals will join in just for the team aspect? Does it not matter they are just doing it for the rewards and NOT LEARNING HOW TO REALLY PVP?
(Scheme we are talking about: rigging the score by intentionally losing with the end score being closer to the middle, to trick a mechanism that rewards higher for even fights)
Wait..are you saying: it takes too long to set up a network of players large enough to pull off the scheme on a regular basis. Therefore, it is OK for them to do it because, in the meantime, there will be recreation and socializing to be had?
They will mentor them only to the point of: here is how you get around this the fastest.
And casual players will only be there to learn this and this alone.
That isn't community either. Tournament idea is brilliant, though.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
With PvP being part of the game from the start...but NO Leaderboard in the game for players to access. Crazy.
(I know my personal score would be zero...but that is beside the point)
Come on, there were Leader boards on pinball machines!!! Well, maybe it just listed the best score on that particular machine....but you know what I mean. That was part of the game: Is my score still up there??? Is that my score? Someone beat me, or what?
OK...the top scores were listed on the stand alone video game machines...along with player initials. Seriously, I remember my younger sister having to check her score on the Spy Hunter machine every time we went by the convenience store. To make sure no one knocked her off the top spot. LOL! I think she was 13yo at the time.
(There were no such thing as home computers back then. She was the first person to try to teach me how to play a video game. Poor kid.)
Of course, if teams and players were throwing matches, that would be effect rankings and turn that (non existent) leaderboard on its head. It would be spitting on every single person participating in PvP in its entirely.
But, those types of players do not care about it. It is all about themselves. How do you stop those people??
You can see players doing this, can't you? I know you wouldn't play that way but there are plenty out there that will.
Cryptic needs to hire some Nausicaans as GMs....lock those kids out of the game permanently. Unfortunately, I think that would take out more than half of the players that are left in the entire game.
There are not enough people who would play the game this way, these days, Patrickngo.
People would figure out how to cheat their way to all the prizes...they will bold face lie their way and use other people.
Then everyone else will say: they are being allowed to cheat / those guys won by cheating...oh well, I am outta here, they won't take a stand because they been taught to be meek. OR they think: Dudes, show me how...so I can do it, now, putting themselves ahead at a cost to the community.
How are you not seeing this happening?
Yes, I can see tournament rules being as restrictive or open as difficulty level warrant.
Enforcing rules is a different matter. Who is checking? Is there another way besides: Honor system?
Because if a player gets away with doing anything the breaking rules during a tournament...and they don't get caught and kicked out permanently, it will only snowball. And it will be a snowball from Hell as far as community building goes.
And I can see how Faction specific rewards could be a way to make minority factions more appealing. But it is only a short term shot in the arm.
Look at it this way: they keep giving Feds all this fancy stuff...plus that whole Temporal Recruit thing. But what did it do??? How many of the REAL Klingon fans and players have done more than cursory glances at Fed and Rom???
This would be the same thing.
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Anyhoo...this is straight out of my head....first draft.
Sorry, it sounds combative toward your ideas.
But I do not have the time this morning to smooth it out.
So, a thousand pardons from me.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
I can understand how you feel about that, Pottsey.
I believe, this is going to be added TO what we already have. But they have a long way to go before I think it would be viable. After playing this Renegade's Regret....and seeing how horrible it is working.
Patrickngo and I are brainstorming about PvP rewards and improvements (that will never happen)...while we wait for the big reveal.
And I am in here doing some catch up reading...because I am procrastinating. I have a huge bug report to splice together.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
and losing myself in my train of thought. And, also, if it gets tiring responding to me going off track...I understand if you want to just stop.
But this happens to be about the most interesting convo I have ever had with you, @patrickngo Who'da thunk it? PvP?
Anyhoo...this is getting long and I need to review, if you don't mind taking a day break.
I will get back on this tomorrow...I want to get some DOFFing done this evening, and practice Klingon, which I skipped yesterday.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Because it looks like "structure"...rewards, tournaments, ranking, trophies...all these things are actually GOALS.
And right now, there is no healthy goals set by Cryptic. Other than: Buy THIS to get ahead. Or using bribes: do this 15 times and to get your fix, until next time.
They are not the "Game Masters" they are the profiteers and the enabler...not taking any responsibility for what is going on in the bigger picture. Totally losing control of where their game is going. You know, most people who are make money on bad habits and enable people to go down the wrong path think they are doing the right thing and not see themselves as part of the problem.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
PvP queues would have to drop Dil and Mark and R&D Boxes. Basically, replacing the PvE queues (STFs) as a way to acquire in game currency for PvP players.
(Note: part of this scenario includes: no rewards on Private instances to cut down on abuse of the PvP system by enterprising players. So, it will be PUG all queues, which will move "challenges" and practices into the realm of private.)
Though I see a problem: time. Will it be quicker to run a PvE queue than a PvP one? How long do 1v1 or 2v2 matches last? Would the PvP matches have to be drastically shortened....scoring thresholds changed?
And how would that impact the feeling of what a match is? Will it still feel "social"? Can people learn from each other (and about each other) during short matches? Would they find people they want to team for quarterly tournaments with?
I have heard you talk about this coat before.....AND I have gone to First City to observe the NPC's wearing this coat. ALSO, I have watched my own character dressed in the long trench coat that comes with the outfit from Kelvin Timeline.
All I can tell you is: the animation on long coats are different between our characters and the way it works for NPCs. My character's legs clip through the back side of the trench coat when walking and worse when sprinting. It is not a happy thing. On NPC's the fabric drapes over the leg...it is part of the whole animation. Not overlaying another animation for the legs moving.
Anyhoo....looking for rewards the magnitude and presence to appeal to players as "Trophies".....that is going to be difficult at best. Since: I think the Devs have used many compelling ideas and put them to use making profits (or grind).
What is left in Star Trek after 8 years? Name a sun or sector block after ourselves?? Trophy cabinet or portraits of characters up in social zones?
Are they saving the Vor'cha (and the other ones) to use as the carrot to the end of a very long tunnel to crawl through in Victory is Life? Would they tie that into "Competitive" content (PvP)?
THIS IS CONJECTURE. NOT REAL BY A LONG SHOT.
Hmmm... I am incredulous. Everyone looks for short cuts. Even me! LOL!
Or would you consider that Colony thing: "making exploits more inconvenient"? I mean, removing the pay outs on the Fleet Provisions...isn't the same as removing the Sims.
It could, also, be seen as taking away their fun?
Sadly, people do believe the Devs took away their fun, even though they can still play the Sims!
True but how many jerks are dissuade by notoriety? "There is a sucker born every minute"
Hmmm.... Is that what Snix Day is all about?
They sounded positive and excited in their posts...Snix and StormShade. They were working on something, that is for sure. Working hard, too, from what I can tell. Someone pulled the plug and took things a different direction. Must have been devastating for them...
Oh, it is do-able. But it is Hell on Earth for folks doing it....you couldn't get volunteers to do it for long.
"Satellites never sleep."
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Oh dear...this next part is huge...so I think I will start a new post to cover it.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
The only way you're going to make it work is with preset ships or a very limited ship-builder, where you could customize a stock ship from a menu in the lobby or something. I prefer the latter option because you could say I don't trust any dev to build a ship properly - that's something best left up to players to learn, and why even make a dev spend time on trying to research it?
I haven't followed developments since oh, 2015? And back then I thought the cheese and bloat was obscene, so I can only imagine the superlative-exceeding degree to which it's been pushed these days. Now I can't comment on the structure of how to set up a PvP system, that's best left to you guys because you're active I assume, but I can comment on how things will go.
I've been playing Dreadnought for the past couple years or so, and it's basically what I described above: 15 ships that can be customized from a selection of modules, secondary weapons, and passives. And paint too, because making my ultra heavy Dreadnought bright orange was just the best. Let's also ignore for a moment the tier system, which is a whole disaster in itself that may in time be the death of Dreadnought, because the underlying mechanics are solid. I'm going to speak based off of a purely Tier 4 match, which is the "main game," since all the modules are available and the ships are at their nominal stats.
The gameplay will be good, for a while. With everyone on an equal footing people will be sorted by skill naturally, but unless there's a large enough pool of players, that sorting can't happen and newbies get pulled in with vets, leading to stomps by the guys running the current meta, people quit... let's just go back to DN for a second.
The forums are a constant revolving door of "X is OP. It has to be nerfed." X gets nerfed: "Y is OP. It has to be nerfed." Y gets nerfed... you get it. The same deal as here, but with actual dev responses and it's slightly more sane. For the longest time it was that Corvettes (basically escorts) were OP, because people couldn't be bothered to look around their own ship. The devs adjusted something and now it's healers are OP (the healer ships shoot green beams that regenerate hull of the target ship) because three will get together, hide behind a rock, and make their team invincible. While there's merit to that argument, it frankly comes down to people not putting in the effort to up their own skill. If they nerf healers I don't know what's next but I'm betting on Artillery Cruisers - if you take away the healers' ability to keep a team's health up while hobbling the Corvettes, the only ones who can sneak around and hunt the Artillery, you will get these unholy monsters sniping everyone from max distance and that will be bad.
Back to STO.
The situation will translate over. Maybe in the beginning of such a system you'd get a big player pool (especially if you offer rewards) but it would dwindle to those who actually want to PvP, a community so badly abandoned and outright driven away that few remain. So you'd be left with a handful of top-tier players and newbies who wander into the queues, get smashed, and leave whilst complaining that X is OP. The cycle wouldn't continue any further because let's face it, PvP would not get any dev attention in any reasonable time frame. And then it would dwindle out and die. As it did in reality. Only this time maybe it wouldn't be horrifically tortured and beaten over the better part of a decade before laying to rest.
As good as STO's combat is at its core, and as much as I would love to see it work out, I do not see a place for PvP in STO. The playerbase at large isn't the crowd for it - they're, might I say it, casuals. You'd need very high rewards to get people playing PvP queues regularly.
Look, if something even remotely close to a fair battleground ever becomes available again, I'll be all over it. So please let me know if that happens. Also, I don't know if this is even on topic but the thread was active.
I believe most of the folks still doing PvP in STO are using some of the most hyper inflated, difficult to obtain gear/traits/consoles/DOFFs ever on their "builds". They spent a lot of resources and time building obtaining it. I think most of them would not even consider Vanilla...it would be a waste.
Patrickngo says the two sides are at a deadlock when the top builds meet up. I think the only skill left is: patience to wait and keep track of timers to find the split second when everything is off. You might get a hit in.
LOL!
Anyone else who wants to try PvP is left to deal with this monstrous gap....and until they do there is nothing competitive about any of it. The other problem is...the lines keep moving...with every new ship, lock box, fleet holding....etc etc etc. But you know this, already.
The "mechanic" they just added to the game...I had hoped it could be used for preset ships of decent caliber for fair head to head battles, but it is not flexible at all. The players are completely locked out of configurations, even for the ability trays.
I am not sure why they moved that stuff over here from Champions...but I suppose we will find out in June when the new expansion hits. Because, sorry, I don't think it was for that half fast mission, that added nothing new to the story. So, it had to be to test the mechanic.
Well, the pool of players dwindle if everything stays the same. "There is nothing new, we are outta here". That happens all the time on STO.
And then the "I will check it out" crowd...but they are not even thinking past one or two attempts and are back with the nothing new crowd.
As for the forums... it is pretty much the same everywhere, isn't it? Nerf this, OP that...from people who don't know how to communicate their actual need. Which may just be "help!"
Anyhoo...check back in mid June or maybe end of June. June is the new expansion...Victory is Life and the Gamma Quadrant and new revamped DS9.
Bunch of new stuff hitting the servers...huge upheaval of every thing that is "meta"...or whatever you kid call it. I am sure of that. Player level goes up from 60 to 65, gear goes up from Mark 14 to Mark 15 and Captains will get another ability tied to career. More ships, more lockboxes...
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
This is totally cuckoo and you are writing in circles. Edit ASAP...after you get some sleep, or something.
And lay off those energy drinks.
I will try to get to the other half of this tomorrow. And I think there is one more new one...
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Yeah, I am really not that rigid of a brain...so...one example is usually enough.
Enough for me to expand my mind into totally different realms and levels of thoughts you never could imagine.
(Note: Works even better if you can get me into "worry too much" mode.)
Oh, lovely. Couldn't have warned me sooner, Patrickngo.
Never mind me Voporak...I am just a troubleshooter seeing an opportunity.
I look for the cause of problems and try to find a way to fix them....usually by tearing things down into the smallest pieces and hunt for what part is broken. PvP is very interesting in that aspect.
Thank you for your insight.
You guys used that gateway thing to verify people's gear. Gotcha. Use of that is long gone.
I spoke to EngineerB4 about adding a button to turn off Specializations.
He said something like: It could be done, but the Devs could not figure out why anyone would want to turn them off. So, it is deemed unworthy of their time. LOL! It was in the Bug Forum about Auto Fire.
I am assuming....between seeing the Shuk-din build in the FE and that they can't think of any reason to turn off Specializations.....they must play the game totally different. And to tell you the truth. I wonder if they even like playing the basic game.
The basic game in STO is awesome...it is all the accoutrements that fuddles everything up.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Wait a sec.......slow down a bit.....I lead you astray....
WE are looking at it the wrong way......
AFK Mirror was not what was happening in Colony Sims.
And it wasn't about riding the DPSer's coat tails, either.
Look at the action by the players....
The players WERE playing the Colony Sims. They were there in full force every day...from what I heard. They were talking to each other on how to gear up properly for it...and coordinating, all that jazz.
The players put in the effort...batted the NPCs to hell... and raked in the provisions. Got their reward by DOING. Not sitting there waiting for a timer to finish or letting someone else clear the playing board of Borg or turning off their shields and laying aside armor.
They were playing.
THAT means you're right, Patrickngo. LOL!
Players will "Play it straight" for their rewards, if they have no other short cuts.
In this case, the problem was the rewards were not structured nor limited....unlike Dilithium refining. Devs had a huge faucet of EC running all day, so players got more than was intended.
So, players guilty of taking advantage of a mistake made by the Devs and being self serving.....not guilty of AFKing or throwing the match.
RE: Maps with mechanical restrictions.... There are????
You don't mean: Ground maps vs. Space maps, do you?
Because, though it would be funny to shoot you with my Hargh'Peng while you are unawares on First City, or hack at your ship with my bat'leth....I don't think that is possible.
(I better be careful, bat'leth in space, I may end up stabbing my eye out...or worse, like a..... I should go study Klingon cursing.)
RE: GMs...I hear people talking about them in the forums, like they exist...but I have never seen or heard from one.
WHAT? You think they have hearts in the KDF side?!? Indecisive. Wishy washy. Opportunistic. That doesn't even sound Klingon??
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
But I see now THAT is what Voporak was responding to.
So, that is cool.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
++++++++++++++++++
OK... Pug is good. Because that mixes up people for more challenge and broadens the experience level for everyone.
I mean, in PvP one does not want to be "stuck in a rut"...you want to be able to test your flexibility and break up any predictability. Expecting things: that is entirely the realm of PvE...where everything is always the same, and fear any change.
Plus, it is always good to have a larger pool of people to practice skills with. Because you never can tell where weaknesses are...until someone can show it to you. And another plus, brainstorm and test theories from different angles...it is a good thing with more heads to put together. And to do that: have to meet more people.
I finally realized (sleep helps! imagine that)....the first paragraph is about number of players.
2 against 8??? That is totally insane!!! No way.
You really think a team of 2 ("really good" team mates) can stand against 8???? OK, lets call them 8 motivated PvP newbies and some with more, some with less experience? Like a training session, right? Not a full out battle. That is what you are talking about?
Nah. Training or full on battle, doesn't matter. Impossible. The 8 are going to be talking to one another, right? How hard is it if they can coordinate? Seriously...2 vs 8??? No way. I should go make a poll out of this. Eh, doubt anyone would answer it.
OK... looks like the rest of this is different TYPES of PvPs???
I am going to have to go look that stuff up. Get back to this later.
I gotta get breakfast going, anyways
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
It is very dizzying.
It is not so easy to coordinate several players at one time, I think. It is difficult to SEE enough to be able to tell what is going on. You almost need spotters. LOL! I don't know how anyone can tell what everyone else is up to with all the lights and effects.
SOB did a nice job with his commentary...though 5 hours on Live had to be pretty yucky. At least, I could walk away between matches. LOL! I did not understand all the terms he was using, but pretty much expected that.
The matches themselves...repetitive and very little tactics. You have to have Backstep, Invincible and that console from the Walker. Everyone was using those things to get out of trouble.
PvP in STO....NOT a good spectator experience.
I need to go do something that isn't so intense on my eyes for the rest of the night, I think. LOL!
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Lets address issues....
1.) immediately apparent and the biggest issue: people don't play with each other. Therefore, random teams (just like what was used in this tournament) failed on this alone.
Because the teams where there were "friends" or knew each other....they fared better. It did not have anything to do with they have 2 Tac/3 Sci or whatever. It was all about do they know how to communicate to each other and are used to working together? And for most, the answer was, "No."
2.) PvP has turned into a brainless game of: "Manage the Immunities". Nothing was happening when everyone was waiting on some immunity to go on or off it's cool down or get triggered.
And, well, Patrick, I think you know how I feel about immunities: No Thank You....and I am still working on leveling up new characters without any immunity or "Pen" added to them. And ask for the "None" option on Specializations so I can turn them off.
It is stupid to have immunity in this game, in the first place. Like the "Respawn" button isn't enough?
3.) Everyone uses the same tactics, same ships, same traits....etc. etc. etc. Teams are even built with no variation. There is no element of surprise when it is anticipated everyone will hit the same button.
You may as well just take your Monster DPS build and hit boss ships with 10 million hit points all day in PvE. It would be the same thing.
P.S. this is just a rough draft. I still need to refer everything back to the stuff Patrickngo has been trying to explain to me about PvP stuff. And I still need to look into the different types of PvPs inside the game.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin