Yes they do count as a team... as far as I'm concerned Bops are the only aception in the game and yes you can count them as sci ships or escorts if you wish. Frankly no team will have an issue with it because if you think running 2 raptors 2 bops and a cruiser is going to go well vs a proper fed premade.... well honesty it won't a team with 2 bops is going to get spanked.

On the rest of your points ya I agree is a slipperly slope... I can tell you this though. With zero restrictions. (unless gozer makes some fantastic changes) High End PvP in this game is dead. There is simply to much BS for anyone serious about PvP ( the type of people I like to play against ) to bother with STO.

However those same people will all agree very quickly that the underlying base of STO PvP is AWSOME and made for team vs team play.

You make some good points and perhaps on top of my rules about team make up and zero P2W Toys... perhaps we need to add any and all +1 ships and be done with it.... I have a Hegta and a Raptor I love... and I have a nice Fleet and Advanced builds.... lol

The Doffs stuff... heck ya I would be willing to unslot everyone of mine as well... perhaps the easiest solotion to our self balancing is just to say no.

As far as the special Dilithium Doffs... ya they where not all that special anyway... and there are efficent ones ect ect... unless cryptic does start charging for some crazy +20 all power levels doff or something I don't see the issue.

The issue I see with saying we can have civil games by just excluding X unit... is Y unit that is ok is going to be seen as not ok by someone. I think really its all or nothing... ALL no holds bard type has pretty much ended all the high end pvp around here.

well it seems we've come to some agreement. I don't think anybody minds bops, just pointing out that they are their own beast.

If the trend of the last 1.5 years continues and almost every patch breaks something that wasn't broken before, or buffs something else while another thing all of a sudden become only 50% effective without being intended to. The ball for Tourny set-ups is in cryptics hands. Obviously the ability to set up private matches with customized rules for team setups, and disabling items (we haven't even talked about consumables like team batteries, or red matter...) would go a long way. This might be a bigger fish to implement though, then I imagine it.

The advantage of 2 year vets when it comes to gear, in any form, is with us and will always put us at an advantage to returning players. In that sense the C-store is actually a fair option. While we might have exchanged Dilithium and PtEed you can drop a few bucks, and at least reliably get the shinny ships.

However, an all white Tourny set up that disables a whole bunch of stuff (no clue does Assim Borg captain have a space trait, would make it the most expansive P2W by far) might be less cumbersome. If (I know basic hope on STahl said stuff) defining a T2 ship as ones standard T2 ship, with powers etc, so i can switch to it like i can into a shuttle in S6. Our best bet is an all white pre Excelsior T5 tourny mode.

Will the Devs think this is good game design, I don't know, but until QnA deserves its name and systems catches up with balancing the current PvP experience. Everything goes, or all whites it is imv.

I don't really know how to feel about p2w...

I had a ton of characters, each with a ton of Dili, and when the F2P hit us, I traded my Dili for C-points...

I used some of those c-points to buy ships with funny consoles... but I'm afraid to use them in PvP, because... well, why?


Primary concern:
The main grief with Pay2win, was that it gave players who had a lot of RL money to get an advantage. I, however, do not have a lot of money in RL. I'm basically not spending any money in STO, and I still have these items. Without having paid anything for them.

Anyone can do this. It's a dili-grind that will make your eyes bleed for sure, but it IS available for free.

Unless the supply of c-points on the exchange run out, it doesn't matter. The only difference is those who want to use RL money gets their stuff faster.

Secondary concern:
For the argument of "but someone still bought those c-points", I say yes, Cryptic made their money. When I buy c-points on the exchange, I'm validating Cryptics money-grabbing scheme. I realize this. Unfortunately, their dirty tricks are working, and I want those consoles, even if I could only use them for PvE. I have no use of hoarding up millions of Dilithium, that I can't use for anything. I will trade it for c-points, that can give me some fun effects at least. So that part of the game is not a valid concern either. It's already lost. Even if all the PvPers in STO would boicott it, it wouldn't matter.


Conclusion:
IMO, STO is no longer P2W, it's G2W (Grind to win). You just have the opportunity to buy your way past the grind.

What IS a concern, is that some of these items are clearly OP. And because people paid RL money for them, they are wery difficult to nerf without angering the customers. This is however a balancing issue. Cryptic needs to get their system devs to start tweaink, and adding counters. I wish I could promote "Fair play" and "Don't use broken abilities", but I tried it once before, and people didn't play nice. I say use the f'ing broken crap, and scream loudly for Cryptic to balance it!

I have most of them because im a stupid impulsive shopper and i dont know any better. That being said out of all of them the only one i still use is the isometric charge (ping pong death) None of the p2w consoles seem like they have ever helped me win and in most cases have gotten me killed on more than one occasion. Nerfing my ship for products Wile E Coyote used to chase down the road runner dont seem worth it to me

What do more people play, NFL Football or backyard touch football? The NFL has all kinds of rules to balance the teams. In fact if one team's voice comms don't work, the other team has to stop using theirs. The most OP thing in STO PvP is the professional team with VOICE communication vs the backyard players. It is wrong to demand that backyard football players play to the standards of the NFL, they are different sports. To get more people to PvP in STO we need LESS rules, and BIGGER backyards. Create Tournaments with restrictions and all for the OPvP crowd, and create large areas for massive battles where supposed P2W has much less effect and everyone can play together.

Forget rewards for winning. Instead, give rewards based on individual play. X points for damage, X points for healing, X points for kills, etc. Win or lose everyone gets some reward, but the more you contribute the more you get. PvP only games do this all the time and even though new players have less skill and inferior equipment, they can still contribute and have fun as they get better.

Arenas are the worst part of STO PvP, and all our maps are basically arenas because they are so small, and force everyone together with no controls to balance it out.