[quote=Roach;4227960]They changed the system. F2P get no respec tokens unless they buy them for 120,000 dil at current dil exchange rates.

Any game's PvP will require adaptation and learning on the part of new players; Most games try to encourage such process: as you play and get beaten by more experienced players, you start to figure out what they are doing better than you.

STO fails spectacularly at this. A new player gets in, gets blown into dust in 2 seconds flat, rinse and repeat. No way of figuring out what happened since the variables at play are too many; On top of that, said new player will be a big issue for his/her team in an arena match, since a single "squishy" ship will make a team lose the game. It is only NORMAL that most people will try once or twice and decide "none of that". It isn't a matter of "egos being crushed" as some "pros" love to say, it's jsut that most people can't be bothered with such a gargantuan research task when it comes to a game - remember, something you are supposed to do for your recreation, perhaps in those 2 hours you have before going to bed.

In the end, the whole reason for it is in the absurd difference between the "fully buffed" and "vanilla" statuses. Flimsy, useless shields become nearly impenetrable walls; Tickling lightworks become deathrays all depending on having power X, Y, Z, T, K, L, G and possibly H all up together.

It is not by chanche that "low tier" PvP is almost universally considered to be much better than VA level; There isn't as much buffing/debuffing at say Commander level as there is at VA. The damage is lower, the healing is lower, the battle pace is much slower (no 2-seconds kills). A player that hasn't mastered his/her buffing yet can still play for a bit and not be completely rolled over, even if he/she will undoubtedly end up losing to the more experienced player. This will give the newbie an opportunity to analyze what happened and the "that was good!" feeling to keep him/her coming back for more and ultimately learn the craft.

Then One is going to pay for those respecs regardless of playing at the low ranks or the endgame.
Seems it would be better to learn the ropes early to help save on having to buy them later.

Excuse me... I don't recall where I said "Give me a reward or I won't play PvP".

The only reward I want is 'fun'. I'll even take 'challenge'. But my early experiences with STO's version of PvP left a bad taste in my mouth.

If they don't fix spawn camping and a wildly uneven playing field for noobs, it's no fun. Why shouldn't we noobs cut our teeth on other noobs instead of getting curb-stomped for twenty minutes by veteran players with maxed-out builds?

There is also another thing to "ego being crushes" and "a lot of research" - You don't want to drag the team down. If you feel that it's you that the team is losing, you feel bad. And we know that it is not that uncommon to find players that berate others for poor performance - PvP and (Elite) STFs share this element.

And I can tell you - having actually dragged down a team in Elite STF made me feel really really bad. Luckily it's easy to get educated about the few bits I was still missing to understand the missions. i didn't need to know that much about my build (though I still wonder if there is a way to survive those sudden invisible hits that seem to deal a gazillion damage to me - I will freely admit it's not entire one-shot scenario typically - my hull may be at 50 % and my shields mostly intact - but it's pretty bad.), but I needed to know some of the mission mechanics. I believed to have figured them out, but I didn't.

Anyway, the average PvE player starts with much less knowledge and experience probably. Even if he starts doing is research, it will take a long time to get good enough, and in the mean time, you're a liability. That is not fun and can put on a lot of stress. Sure, once you get to the point where you can say "I think I know enough to be a contributor" and start giving tips to newbies, it feels really good.

Not everything of this can be fixed. But stuff like match-making and making PvP more interesting at low levels can greatly improve the experience for players. If you play against others more on your experience level, improving is not that hard anymore. MAybe some will always play "at the bottom" - but they'll still have more positive experiences then if they get put in against some of the best players immediately.

[quote]The first scenario is the fault of those players whom act the *** and berate the newbie for not performing as well as themselves. Everyone is a Newbie at one time or another.
The Newbie can be held slightly to blaim for not saying, " I am new at this." The rest of the players are to blaim for not giving the Newbie an assingment to help them help themselves. ( Kill probes, Heal me and others, etc, etc)
It sucks to be the weak link but thats not a thong the Devs can program the game to compensate for or teach the player.
It is something that we players though can overcome and help others with in PvP.

The the question remains, How do you subdivide the Playerbase into new/moderate/skilled?

[quote=Roach;4228257]Two ways seem viable, one easy to implement (yet likely unpopular at the forums), and the other more difficult and robust but likely popular all around.

The first easy route would simply be to make teams full on random, no premades, period.
This way you are not left with "team of randoms vs team of decent players working together". You have two teams of ideally noobs+decent players fighting eachother.
The main benefits of this path would be ease of making it work, it could likely be rolled out within a week with minor testing if any. Further it would establish a better learning ground for newer players as they play side by side with experienced players instead of only seeing experienced players lighting them up and popping them in seconds.
To not fully doom and gloom it up, you could simply have a que, for random/non-grouped people. Simply when you go to this que you accept that you can't run a premade, while leaving the other ques as is.

The other option would be start doing some sort of persistent stat tracking, ideally damage, healing, kills, deaths, that sorta thing. Give a players a rating 0-10 based on there stats.
Use these ratings to try to find equivalent matchups, ideally you would get good premades facing eachother (like most of them would be rated 8 or higher) where random groups are balanced more experience wise (ideally).
Though its not all sunshine and happiness in the land of stat tracking bliss. This setup would require a larger player base than PVP currently has to be effective. Further in most cases it would make que times longer, even with a more robust player base.


Either of these changes or setups would help bring new players to play WITH not AGAINST experienced players without having to go join some "cubs", "nubs", or whatever fleet.

Personally I'd rather just have more built in functionality to the game. A way to mark/call targets within the UI. A good example is WoW they allow people in parties to mark monsters with symbols this is very handy for showing which of the two near identical monsters should be CC'd. This sort of addition would improve the game as a whole, not just pvp, not just pve, but everything dealing with space combat.
Something like this is a braindead easy way to help coordinate a group of random people towards a common objective.

Right now pvp, is go research all the game mechanics, keybinds, and figure out what the appropriate build is for you/your ship/etc. Once you have this go actually obtain the gear, enjoy your STF grinding for abit. Now that this is complete pvp some and hope to find a good group to get with so you can stop getting slaughtered with other randoms.
I've put in less work to get and keep ACTUAL JOBS before.

People need to be able to say "ok I want to pvp some" que up, and go rock and roll some. By that I don't mean getting slaughtered 15-0 to premades almost every time. Sure if the guy has a garbage build, and still runs a miranda, shame on him but if the guy runs good skills, decent gear, a solid ship, and isn't brain dead, he/she should be able to enjoy pvp once in awhile without having to go suck off some pvp people to get into a premade, or be able to right a thesis to rival any PHD holders about the game mechanics involved in using distrubute shields, EPTS, and how you minimize your wasted over healing for better use with Tac Team.

[quote=Roach;4228257]I consider being berated by others for poor performance a sufficient condition, but not a necessary one, for feeling as liability. I think it's also basic empathy that can be at work here. Here are people that are working their asses off to save yours and try to have a good fight, but you are ruining it all.

There are people that willingly grief. There are people with Elitist attitude. But there is a middle ground, and some of these people feel enough empathy with others so that they feel responsible for the failure even if no one is accusing them of anything.

110% agree with this. I hate having to stop my PvP play in order to go and get the newest equipment (i.e. grinding which is why I don't build new characters at all and only have 2), just so I can compete with everyone else. Cryptic makes the game more about the equipment you have rather than the personal skills, tactics, etc... While you can still compete with older equipment due to your skills and tactics being more advanced than your opponent's, you are at a disadvantage when your opponent reaches/meets your level of tactics and skills, then their newer equipment will be the advantage... uggh.. nothing I hate more in this game than having to go get the newest tweaked power, console, or whatever. The STF sets have literally ****ed me off due to all of the grinding necessary.. I'd rather buy them in the cstore than spend one more moment doing an STF. Cryptic's new motto should be "we code for quantity" due to the thousands of STF grinds I have completed and I am 1 piece away from having both complete sets!... then.. oh yeah.. on to the other toon. My god, Cryptic!!!!!!

I would do it in the lower ranked queues. I would prompt the players to go into PvP as a 'training mission' upon receipt of a new starship, where the mission requires they participate in 3 PvP matches under the guidance of a coach, who is a level 50 in a ship of the appropriate tier.

The coach would receive a mail notification saying, "noobie Lt.Cmdr X has been assigned to your training squadron," and noobie would receive a message saying, "Report to Leet Gamer for Battle Readiness Training." The two could then communicate with one another about the important aspects of combat then enter three queues to complete Noobie's quest. Leet Gamer would have to train 4 noobies this way to receive his mission completion reward, whether he plays with them simultaneously or one at a time.

This way, at each level of advancement, a player has access to someone who can help him understand complex issues involved in PvP but can learn these concepts one at a time and practice the skills between ranks, instead of having to learn them all at once and become proficient within hours of reaching level 50.

The rewards for trainers could be EC, Dil, Salvage, etc. My preferred reward would be special BOffs which could only be achieved this way with skills and passives appropriate to PvP. So, a Ground PvP trainer may get a unique BOff with a unique Ground Passive, and a Space PvP trainer would get a Space Passive BOff. This would encourage everyone to drop down as trainers, but would prevent 'farming' the mission.

And if every player trains four players, the math goes wild really fast. At some point, high level players will begin to compete to be able to train a noob because there will be more trainers than noobs, and more noobs entering level 50 PvP prepared to learn from the masters.