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Competitive PvP not on the roadmap
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Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
Dear Mr. Stahl and the STO team,
Organized PvP is in awful shape right now. The community has been leaking members since before 2.0, and the two weeks of broken queues (half a subscription period) blew open the valve and spilled out nearly all of what was left. The team has put a nice new replacement valve in place - don't get me wrong, I think the new interface is great - but the water has already escaped and soaked into the soil.
This is particularly bad for PvP. A competitive PvP population behaves quite differently than single-player or even casual PvE/PvP groups. It has a very strong critical mass effect behind it - if there are not enough people to play against, then the experience not only degrades, it ceases to exist.
I believe that even the most conservative credible estimates of the organized PvP community will now show that we have passed this point. Two player-organized tournaments in the last month have been aborted due to lack of interest. Even attempts to orchestrate a casual biweekly meetup have fallen apart. Interested, challenge-seeking players have continued to lower their expectations, but the bar's sitting on the ground now, and it's still not enough. STO's non-pickup PvP scene is comatose.
I'm well aware, as I'm sure you are, that customer recovery is more difficult and resource-consuming than either retention or recruitment. I therefore see this as presenting a sharp dichotomy for the direction of STO's ongoing design. The historical resource allocation toward supporting competitive PvP (mechanics, balance, environments, incentives) is below the threshold for effectiveness. Consequently, it's almost as bad as having nothing at all. You would have to dramatically increase design (combat systems), technical (code, QA) and community (forums, marketing) resource allocations to regain critical mass and bring the community back to life.
The question is, will you do this?
Going by existing information, the outlook is not good. According to the most recent Engineering Report, there is nothing on the horizon for organized PvPers. In fact, there is nothing at all for PvP other than bug fixes to existing maps that very few people play.
On top of that, the ill-defined "Open PvP" notion that many players have been hoping for as the ultimate solution to STO's PvP woes is barely a blip on long-range scanners - 2011 at the earliest.
All indications are that the STO team's priorities are on two things right now: fixing bugs and creating weekly PvE content. That's all well and good, and the quality levels in those aspects of the game have clearly increased as a result - as I said, the team put a darn nice replacement valve on that leaky pipe. However, the value proposition to organized PvP players, who log on every day to find that there is nobody around to invite into those challenge queues, remains poor to nonexistent.
My hope is that the information I have cited is simply dated, and that Cryptic has already committed the resources necessary to scan, hypo, transfuse, or otherwise shock the PvP community back to life. Failing that, however, I hope that you will at least put this matter to rest in the straightforward professional manner that we have come to expect from you.
Please let us know what your plans are for organized, competitive PvP. Cortical stimulator, cryostasis, or a holodeck burial?
Thank you for your time.
Organized PvP is in awful shape right now. The community has been leaking members since before 2.0, and the two weeks of broken queues (half a subscription period) blew open the valve and spilled out nearly all of what was left. The team has put a nice new replacement valve in place - don't get me wrong, I think the new interface is great - but the water has already escaped and soaked into the soil.
This is particularly bad for PvP. A competitive PvP population behaves quite differently than single-player or even casual PvE/PvP groups. It has a very strong critical mass effect behind it - if there are not enough people to play against, then the experience not only degrades, it ceases to exist.
I believe that even the most conservative credible estimates of the organized PvP community will now show that we have passed this point. Two player-organized tournaments in the last month have been aborted due to lack of interest. Even attempts to orchestrate a casual biweekly meetup have fallen apart. Interested, challenge-seeking players have continued to lower their expectations, but the bar's sitting on the ground now, and it's still not enough. STO's non-pickup PvP scene is comatose.
I'm well aware, as I'm sure you are, that customer recovery is more difficult and resource-consuming than either retention or recruitment. I therefore see this as presenting a sharp dichotomy for the direction of STO's ongoing design. The historical resource allocation toward supporting competitive PvP (mechanics, balance, environments, incentives) is below the threshold for effectiveness. Consequently, it's almost as bad as having nothing at all. You would have to dramatically increase design (combat systems), technical (code, QA) and community (forums, marketing) resource allocations to regain critical mass and bring the community back to life.
The question is, will you do this?
Going by existing information, the outlook is not good. According to the most recent Engineering Report, there is nothing on the horizon for organized PvPers. In fact, there is nothing at all for PvP other than bug fixes to existing maps that very few people play.
On top of that, the ill-defined "Open PvP" notion that many players have been hoping for as the ultimate solution to STO's PvP woes is barely a blip on long-range scanners - 2011 at the earliest.
All indications are that the STO team's priorities are on two things right now: fixing bugs and creating weekly PvE content. That's all well and good, and the quality levels in those aspects of the game have clearly increased as a result - as I said, the team put a darn nice replacement valve on that leaky pipe. However, the value proposition to organized PvP players, who log on every day to find that there is nobody around to invite into those challenge queues, remains poor to nonexistent.
My hope is that the information I have cited is simply dated, and that Cryptic has already committed the resources necessary to scan, hypo, transfuse, or otherwise shock the PvP community back to life. Failing that, however, I hope that you will at least put this matter to rest in the straightforward professional manner that we have come to expect from you.
Please let us know what your plans are for organized, competitive PvP. Cortical stimulator, cryostasis, or a holodeck burial?
Thank you for your time.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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I have pretty much stopped it other than fleet organized stuff through my Klingon fleet.
The emblems aren't worth the time invested. And now that I can get 3 emblems from Deferi space, I really have no motivation to bother with PVP.
If the Covariant Cap X 3 shields were available through emblems I might bother with it again. But probably not since I can get enough emblems through non-PVP means.
The queue breaking down killed PVP for me. And I have only returned a tinsy bit.
What's the status on the tournaments and stat-tracking?
It's about team not individual. There is no YOU in a PvP there is the TEAM. You have skills to trigger, weapons to fire, maybe your team just need to heal you more or you hang back do the healing.
There's a ME in team.
However, sometimes an undertrained teammate can cause issues in PvP elsewhere. If STO had friendly fire, you'd see it a lot more.
I do agree with most. I've been asking for the ability for players to set stakes before matches. The more they stake/bet, the more they get if they win.
Is there anyone left in the PvP community? Seems like this post is a few weeks too late.
If there is lack of a PvP community about then who are these driving voices that want to nerf this and nerf that in the current game mechanics of STO?
Are they the last of the few and the last of the brave PvP community seeking to make their gameplay experience better at the cost of the PvE community who could very well be the majority rightly recognised by Cryptic as the ones who are the bread and butter of this game?
I find it an odd situation where the drive for change for the mechanics of the game seems to fall on, from forum appearances (looking at the various forum section threads), a very vocal majority (or are they just a majority on this forum to drive so many nerfs and adjustments?) who, in this thread OP, appear to be a lamented and dying breed/ turned player minority?!?
If thats the case then I can understand why and hope (confirmed or otherwise) that the drive for change is actually from the PvE community who as it stands appears to look forward to a brighter STO day, towards fixing the bugs first then moving forward with PvE content etc.
I could imagine it is nothing but sheer annoyance and a big negative to gameplay persistence/longevity for a happy PvE'er to wake up to an update to know that nerf a and nerf b (which inconveniences their gameplay for whatever respect/aspect) were down to an accumilation of threads and comments generated by an alledged minority of voices. Complaints and criticisims so numerous that it was noted by the powers that be and acted upon for the sake of an alleged minority PvP population.
If this is the case then I can understand why flame to the nuclear degree is poured upon these forums at times and not necessarily by the "percieved" minority.
Ahh a'las poor Yorrik what hast thou done to endure thee?
a moment of silence...............................................................................
The cries for nefs have little to do with it, I think. Game balance is never perfect and will always need adjustments. Despite calls for it, the game is in a state to allow competitive gameplay with a fair variety of builds and team compositions.
Game balance for whom? I recognise systems are never perfect, systems are ultimately, by their existance, flawed.
The words "game balance" have a vaiety of ramifications for different game environments and play styles hence why I question what exactly are we balancing for, is it to placate and entice?
For whom are these balances to the benefit of? If changing a game mechanic is designed to balance a PvP minority forsaking the PvE majority then why bother "balancing" something the PvE community is content with at all?
Shouldn't there be more outside the box thinking going on than lamenting progress made in the PvE environment at the cost of the PvP environment? Was the game truly that enthusiastically modelled as a PvP mmorpg to justify adjusting game play mechanics to enhance PvP purely for said "balance"?
I must have missed the small print on the box, possibly, that said all game mechanics alterations are for the vested interests of gameplay experience in the PvP environment.^^
I just wonder what the motivation is by making adjustments for whom (i.e. nerf things) so much.
Is this all about trying to have the whole cake as well as eating it all and ending up just biting too much off to chew?
Look at Sci ships and Sci abilities for example, was this the PvP community that altered the playability of the class to such an extent that it became quite an unattractive endgame ship/career class, posssibly a specialist end game class with a few who defiantly stick to trying their best to make a Sci ship build work over a Eng Cruiser or whatever?
It just seems, well, illogical and unfair on the surface for a possible vocal minority to shift the gameplay experience of the silent (possibly) majority or is it all just total nonsense that we (or I for that fact) are giving too much credit to PVPers for being the shakers and movers of gameplay adjustments for better or worse on the PvE environment? ^^
Pve is so easy so you can play it with your eyes blindfolded and hands tied behind your back, why would you ever need to balance something that is a script that require only learning how to win the mobs.
Where pvp is totaly different at highend pvp we had no reason to ask for Target shield subsystem, ramming speed nerfs. You think because 90% play something easy and quite frankly boring they need to keep the balace between you and the mobs and in pvp where ppl learn and adept all the time and come up with new builds and finnaly stuff like SnB in the first incarnation was op/ even for premade teams, so that needed changing. Fbp was also I know a really good pve ability but the sole reason for nerfing it was because it was too good against beamboats and its dmg% return was out of wack.
Indeed, the focus of my concern is not casual or extrinsically motivated PvPers (e.g. players who are just "doing it for the daily"), as these populations do not typically form - or need - the same sort of focused community that organized PVP does. You can bribe a rewards-motivated player indefinitely as long as you keep the gear carrot half a step in front of him. You can't keep an organized PvPer coming back if there are no challenging opponents to play against.
While extrinsic rewards doubtless contribute to the motivation of an organized PvP population, the most central problem here is that the population has "bled out" to the point where it simply doesn't have enough people left in it to function. Resuscitating it is a nontrivial task. Breaking a "death spiral" never is, because the natural momentum of the system is self-sustainingly downward until the upward push breaks the reflex point where critical mass is reached and growth is restored, and the system can survive without life support again.
In STO terms, that's going to mean creating a gameplay environment that's attractive to competitive players, and then somehow getting enough of them back into it that they can actually play against each other. It's neither easy nor simple to do so - and I'd really like to know how and whether Cryptic will be attempting it.
Me and my Fleet try to keep it up, but its just one more aspect of STO cryptic have destroyed.
No loot for the winners, no League table, no PvP rank system.
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=156640&highlight=quit+threads
Yes, please refrain from turning this into an "I quit" thread. I actually removed the part of my post that talked about a related topic in order to make it clear that I'm looking for an indication or a dialog, and not just venting.
Observing the realism at work is not the same as "I quit" but I do see how they might be related when directed at a player whose interest is primarily pvp like me. The devs are who let this thread run right off the front page without an answer to a well crafted and serious question. All the signs are there - the mmo pvp community simply isn't a gaming community that Cryptic feels is in their best interest to spend resources on right now.
Not surprising, but admittedly disappointing after playing all this time believing that better horizons were ahead.
(Sniff) Great warriors all........
Either way, it's off-topic for this thread. Edgecase is not talking about game balance issues.
as am i as am i
I can understand where your batting from there however it seems to be the case that game balance is intrinsic to the greater question that lies at the heart of the OP.
Its no good spending resources on a system that puts people off playing it in the first place (wheel reinvention maybe required here ^^) and they (Cryptic) are the ones to decide who is a majority and who is a minority here after all they truly have the numbers to see for themselves what sells this game to whom and for how long. It seems that by their actions/announcements the writing is already on the wall on where in the pecking line these balances are to occur.
Thats why I have questioned if the nerf bat brigade really did have such an impact after all and could this again be symptomatic of what the OP is suggesting of a bleeding PVP community. If the community was that large and that influential in being behind such an impact to the game play balances then maybe they are due the credit to contributing to the state of play as it stands for good or ill to all concerned?
I think so far the responses here have alrready begun to answer the questions of the OP as some have already begun to digest the angles.
I think its totally on topic indeed. There is a bigger picture here and hence why I'm curious about the clarity of the situation.
For a call and a response from them to take action with the limited resources available to them to provide justice in doing a great job on this aspect of gameplay so soon with, it seems, still alot of plumbing to do elsewhere at a higher priority to them: well I would not be surprised if a "Soon" showed up. ^^
Again, I won't claim that this answers your question, but if you believe b) doesn't have consequences (e.g. cookie-cutter builds) and c) can't happen, you might want to read up on "City of Heroes" and "Enhancement Diversification"...
THIS ISNT ABOUT YOUR RANDOM PUGS OR RANDOM CRACKED PLANET/CAPTURE AND HOLD GAMES, its about PPL WHO PLAY PVP TO WIN not to earn medals or someother useless ingame materials.
8. things that make pvp-premade level better in the long run.
1). Put a "setting" on challenge system that allow ramming speed at all hull levels.
2). Make a cryptic run tournament on a weeked with some specific rewards, maybe even something for attending.
3). Put a 5v5 arena "random" (where you can only que up yourself) into the game. This would actually be something that benefited alot of ppl not just premades/organized ppl because then you would play more spend more time ingame and maybe you would "learn" new names and organizedpvp might become more active with ppl who wanna fight other "better ppl from the random games".
4). Make it so you need to win to earn credit, forcing ppl who play pvp to improve and not just sit idle at random location, this would inspire more ppl to try to team up with their fleet and try to get better I think.
5). OPEN PVP is all premade pvpers dream because if you could get outnumbered alot you have more fun like 5-8.
6). More Arena maps, we been playing cracked planet, briar patch and solar wind for 6 months. Alltho this isn't really something that would change this by much.
7). Personaly I hate this idea but general pvp ppl want their stats kept record of like kills deaths ktd ratio and all that stuff personally I dont care one bit for this.
8). Faster Balance changes or just tweeks that would update the current game, more offen would be really great.
or discourage them from entering PVP at all.