Originally Posted by SteveHale

The KDF advantage is a self perpetuating brain fart...

Originally Posted by hurleybird

Eh, I think the huge variety of choices on the Klingon side is it's undoing. It tempts people, even premades, to create these odd builds that don't fit it at all, and the result is 0 cohesion on a team. There's a bit less of that on Fed, but in general puggers on both sides are pretty terrible.

Originally Posted by Starwrath

Gentlemen, may I remember you that the KDF has the bigger an the fastest ships of the game? Now don't tell me it's doesn't matter...

Originally Posted by rlaffargue

Varity should be a good thing. But this games undoing is that certain builds in this game are only viable making no consequences for using them. I think I have great builds which rely on self healing and decent fire power. Which would be great for any team because i require less attention and i can put out good DPS. And lately it does neither. If you want to tank. take out shields and pop hulls all you need is a science ship. U dont have to give anything up for doing that. takes less than two skills on a sci ship to do that all the while tanking and running full aux. Drop in a double shield for good measure. Escorts and cruisers are useless in PvP these days.

Originally Posted by SteveHale

The KDF advantage is a self perpetuating brain fart. A person comes along poorly prepared, gets stomped, tries to protect their ego, and ultimately decides to play the part of the victim rather than take steps to learn from their failings. Cloaking strikes are easily overcome with a little bit of situational awareness. Multiple enemies attacking can be thwarted even more easily by multiple allies working together.

Everyone knows that the Fed population is larger than the Klink population (with some obvious over lapping since some folks who love PvP will play both sides). By mere chance alone you are more likely to run into a Fed PuG full of players who don't have proper builds, don't support one another, are just emblem farming, think that tanking is their contribution to their team, or took a wrong turn at the Milky way.

"But I play as a Fed and I play as a Klink and whenever I play a Klink I have a much easier time!" So do I (for the most part)! That's not proof of anything. It's anecdotal and in no way controls for the enormous set of variables. Hell, I can fly Fed side and stomp the hell out of a Klink team only to reenter the queues and be completely decimated. Does the first match mean that Feds are over powered? Does the second mean that Klinks are?

Of course, I realize that even now with the erosion of true PvP raised Klinks, Klinks in general are better at what they do than their typical Fed counter part. As a Fed I'm surrounded by zombie cruisers, z-axis tanking beamscorts, and my personal favorite, DPS cruisers. Not to go too far off on a tangent in the middle of another tangent but, considering the power of healing, burst damage is the only real damage and the only real shot at taking out a team that knows how to support one another. That being said, a DoT cruiser tickling away at resist hardened enemies while the best bet at burst is busy respawning might look really good with 6 or 7 digit damage totals, but that big goose egg in the win column at the end suggests otherwise. As a Klink I'm not immune to those teams (especially not anymore) yet I am far more likely to receive some kind of support. But I digress.

More to the point here (if there is any discernible point to be made in all of this), the Klink advantage is psychological. Folks flying Klink seem to understand that they need to bring some damage to win (again, not just damage, real damage). Feds think they can win by outlasting their opponents. The truth is that you need a balance of both. You can have a ship tailored entirely for one purpose if another ship is tailored to covered your weak areas but this means you have to work together. Maybe it is cloaks fault. Klinks think they can kill everything so they go damage heavy, Feds are afraid that they need to survive the alpha so they go heal heavy. In the end, superior damage will beat even the current level of over power healing if its a team of self healers (i.e. no shared support). Maybe if the Feds would just realize that they can support each other they'd be able to turn the cloaking advantage around. Unfortunately, and here comes yet another tangent within a tangent, the folks who know this mostly gave up on PuGing a long time ago. Who could blame them? It's probably due to the frustration of seeing so many people fail to grasp such basic concepts. Maybe we should think about others while we play this MMO? I don't know.

People don't play FvK as much because they don't like to lose. People lose because they don't make the effort to learn. People don't make the effort because this game rewards people for just showing up (seriously, you don't even have to do anything but make sure you don't idle out every 15 minutes). People who just show up don't think about their role on a team because they don't have to. It doesn't matter. But none of this really matters. You can't base true PvP balance discussions on PuG experiences.

I think I need a drink. Or a nap. Or to drink less and a nap.

Originally Posted by SteveHale

Folks flying Klink seem to understand that they need to bring some damage to win (again, not just damage, real damage)

Originally Posted by SteveHale

I think I need a drink. Or a nap. Or to drink less and a nap.

Originally Posted by castogere

You mean I wasn't supposed to start breaking things just yet? Man my engineer is gonna be hosed.