Star Trek Online announces Federation as PvE faction, then proves it.

[Triforcer]

http://www.startrekonline.com/node/294

And in regard to cloaking, the Federation will not have free access to the technology. If we gave the Federation access to cloaking, it’s all anyone would use, and that’s not the type of gameplay we envision when we think of Star Trek. Klingons, of course, will have access to cloaking, and the Federation will have access to cloak detection. Science vessels will be very good at detecting cloaked ships, so if you’re in a PvP situation, you’re probably going to want really good science vessels on your team. You won’t feel like you’re missing out on the Federation side just because you can’t cloak.

I wish I could unpack all the layers of fuckstupid in that one paragraph about cloaking ("everyone would use it"...REALLY?  WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU ABOUT HOW POWERFUL IT WILL BE FOR KLINGONS, NUMBNUTS??).  Whoever wrote that pretty obviously had never even heard of PvP until he was told to write that.   

Bring a science vessel if you are federation and want to PvP.  I just...I have no words.  Is it 1997 again? 

[Draegan]

That's awesome.

[Ashamanchill]

http://www.startrekonline.com/node/294

so if you’re in a PvP situation, you’re probably going to want really good science vessels on your team. You won’t feel like you’re missing out on the Federation side just because you can’t cloak.

Finally, a game that caters to the true PvP crowd.  I believe busting out a science vessel to lay down a whopping what we all want from a game.

So, is it going to be like one of the four hundred episodes where Data and Geordie find some scientific solution to the problem at hand?  In this case some fuckhead uncloaking and ganking you. 

[Ingmar]

I'm trying to think of a game with group PVP that I've played where stealthers were more than just annoying on a macro level (they can often be broken on a micro 1 vs 1 level of course) and I'm having a hard time coming up with any. Point being it isn't necessarily broken, especially given we know just about zero about how their combat system will work.

If I had to guess I'd say they'll actually overcompensate for it and make the Klingon ships too weak, and they'll get rolled by the Federation for months before fixing it.  

[Triforcer]

I honestly think that PvP will just not have that big of a presence in the game.  There will be a tiny little BG-sized box of "wild space", and PvP balance won't matter because nothing in that space will need to be fought over.  It'll be like saying that a PvE WoW server has PvP because of Gurubashi Arena. 

[Malakili]

Holy shit.  I can't believe that is real.

[Simond]

Q'apla!

[Mrbloodworth]

Tank ship. DPS ship. Support ship. Healing ship. Star fleet runs around in packs it seems.

 

[Nebu]

Tank ship. DPS ship. Support ship. Healing ship. Star fleet runs around in packs it seems.

Would we expect anything else from an MMO these days?  I'm losing hope. 

[Brogarn]

[tmp]

Bring a science vessel tackler if you are federation and want to PvP.

You guys are seriously crying PvP in MMO might be primarily a group-oriented affair..?

[Aez]

I don't think they'll be stupid enough to bring the tank, healer, DPS trinity with aggro management.

Oh, who am I kidding. 

[Triforcer]

Bring a science vessel tackler if you are federation and want to PvP.

You guys are seriously crying PvP in MMO might be primarily a group-oriented affair..?

Does only one faction have to bring tacklers in Eve?  Apples and oranges.  

[kildorn]

It won't be a star trek MMO unless half your abilities don't work every time you enter a new system.

But while I agree with Ing on the stealthers only being a minor thing in general, theme wise an entire enemy fleet should be able to cloak in this game, not just the random 1v1 DPS classes. That would be a major problem.

[Yegolev]

Again, tacked-on PvP destroys a game.  One less game for me to worry about.

[tmp]

[Does only one faction have to bring tacklers in Eve?  Apples and oranges.  

For any fight all sides need to bring ships that can do something specific. So for the Federation one of such ships is going th be a science vessel.

Klingons might as well need a "has enough brains to observe space above" ship instead. Though i suspect they'll rather need these 'science vessels' of their own, simply so they can also keep track on location of enemy, no matter cloaked or not. Science vessel = covert ops, or smth.

I just don't see what the big deal is with overall concept of having to bring specialized vessels for task at hand, when it's been par for the course for PvP in Eve and doesn't seem anyone is complaining about that.

[Montague]

/nerd

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Treaty_of_Algeron

"The Treaty of Algeron was a peace treaty signed between the United Federation of Planets and the Romulan Star Empire in 2311 on the planet Algeron IV, following the events of the Tomed Incident. The Treaty of Algeron was signed approximately 160 years after the conclusion of the Earth-Romulan War. (TNG: "The Pegasus")

The treaty reinforced and redefined the Romulan Neutral Zone, and made clear that any violations of the Zone without adequate notification, by either side, would be considered an act of war. (TNG: "The Defector"; ENT: "These Are the Voyages...") The treaty also expressly prohibited the development or use of cloaking device technology by the Federation. Then-Captain Pressman attempted to circumvent this clause in 2358 with the test of an interphase cloaking device developed covertly at least in some part by Starfleet Intelligence aboard the USS Pegasus. (TNG: "The Pegasus")"

It's a lore decision, not balance. The idea of Federation ships cloaking into the neutral zone pretty much flies in the face of the lore. It would be like the Jedi's giving out quests to kill 10 civilians in SWTOR. My guess is the dev in question wanted to avoid a "LORE SAYS NO!" answer, but that's the reason.

/nerd off

[Ashamanchill]

It won't be a star trek MMO unless half your abilities don't work every time you enter a new system.

Lol.  This one actually launched apple juice out of my nose.  There would also have to be a prime dirictive rule, where the Federation can't even return fire on an alien ship unless it is at less than half health.

[Nebu]

Again, tacked-on PvP destroys a game.  One less game for me to worry about.

Sums it up well for me. 

[Soln]

Again, tacked-on PvP destroys a game.  One less game for me to worry about.

Sums it up well for me. 

I'm going to paint my ship black.  For stealth.


Yeah, they're screwed.  An other MMO to fail over.

[Arthur_Parker]

Star Trek is a silly idea for a mmo.

------TV Show-------

"Captain! I'm detecting a mild disturbance in subspace. It could be a subspatial anomaly."
"A wormhole?" asks the Captain.

-------Game--------

Cap
Shields up! *macro*
tain!

[Ingmar]

Tank ship. DPS ship. Support ship. Healing ship. Star fleet runs around in packs it seems.

 

Emphasis added. 

[HaemishM]

Point being it isn't necessarily broken, especially given we know just about zero about how their combat system will work.

Here's the thing about stealth in PVP situations. The greatest ability in any PVP game is the ability to choose your battles. Stealth does that. It isn't an "I Win" button so much as an "I Choose Not To Lose" button. If there's one thing PVPers love more than winning, it's NOT LOSING. This will likely assure that Federation population will be on the low side to begin with.

[Trouble]

Just goes to show that the videogamers of today are the starship captains of tomorrow. We're way fucking better than any Picards or Kirks.

[Ingmar]

Point being it isn't necessarily broken, especially given we know just about zero about how their combat system will work.

Here's the thing about stealth in PVP situations. The greatest ability in any PVP game is the ability to choose your battles. Stealth does that. It isn't an "I Win" button so much as an "I Choose Not To Lose" button. If there's one thing PVPers love more than winning, it's NOT LOSING. This will likely assure that Federation population will be on the low side to begin with.

For the most part in group PVP games stealth doesn't really have that effect, though. It is great for 1 vs 1 ganking style pvp; in group pvp things like knowing the terrain, intel, and speed advantages are usually much more important for getting the drop on someone (or radar hacks lawl).

Now it remains to be seen if that will hold true in this game, but I don't think a lack of stealthers will do anything other than turn away the lone wolf ganker types from playing Federation. They'll still almost certainly have a massive population advantage a la Alliance in early WoW, Albs in DAOC, or the British in PotBS, simply by virtue of being the 'default' side for people who like Star Trek.

[Hayduke]

They just need to give the Federation some long cooldown I-Win button to compensate.  So when player KlingonDeezNuts unstealths you just hit your rank 7 "Reverse the Polarities" ability.

[Sjofn]

They just need to give the Federation some long cooldown I-Win button to compensate.  So when player KlingonDeezNuts unstealths you just hit your rank 7 "Reverse the Polarities" ability.

I should not have laughed out loud at "KlingonDeezNuts" and yet I did. In fact, I giggled again when typing it. Hoo.

[Brogarn]

They just need to give the Federation some long cooldown I-Win button to compensate.  So when player KlingonDeezNuts unstealths you just hit your rank 7 "Reverse the Polarities" ability.

I should not have laughed out loud at "KlingonDeezNuts" and yet I did. In fact, I giggled again when typing it. Hoo.

I literally spit out laughing. I think I should be ashamed, but I'm still giggling.

[Tarami]

For the most part in group PVP games stealth doesn't really have that effect, though. It is great for 1 vs 1 ganking style pvp; in group pvp things like knowing the terrain, intel, and speed advantages are usually much more important for getting the drop on someone (or radar hacks lawl).

It still sucks balls to the person being ganked though. That's the fundamental problem.

[Rendakor]

Everyone who says stealth is not unbalanced in group PVP has clearly never played a game where classes (or ships or wtfever) have group stealth.

[Trippy]

It's very difficult but it is possible to balance stealth in a PvP game (see: PlanetSide). However in a Star Trek universe game balancing is going to be a nearly impossible as cloaking devices were fitted in top-of-line warships rather than just being limited to, say, Scout-class ships.

[UnSub]

With ChampO, archetypes were announced but the devs were then convinced by player responses that including archetypes was unnecessary, so removed them.

Cryptic has a better history of listening to players than a good number of other MMO studios. If it doesn't work and the players can convince them, it will likely be changed.

TL;DR version: wait for beta before crying, n00bs! 

[Triforcer]

It's very difficult but it is possible to balance stealth in a PvP game (see: PlanetSide). However in a Star Trek universe game balancing is going to be a nearly impossible as cloaking devices were fitted in top-of-line warships rather than just being limited to, say, Scout-class ships.

I agree, it is possible to balance stealth in a PvP game.  But is it possible to balance it when only one side gets it?  I just can't believe that would ever work.  But, that goes back to my original theory- PvP will be tacked on at best, and Federation is the nearly-official PvE faction.

[Nebu]

According to lore, the Federation would never get initiative in pvp, right?  That breaks any kind of pvp game immediately.  
 

[Ingmar]

It's very difficult but it is possible to balance stealth in a PvP game (see: PlanetSide). However in a Star Trek universe game balancing is going to be a nearly impossible as cloaking devices were fitted in top-of-line warships rather than just being limited to, say, Scout-class ships.

Yeah, that is the big question. There are possibilities; cloaked ships might move really slow, cloaks and shields might be mutually exclusive with some 'switch over' time so that you're also very vulnerable yourself to someone's allies as you decloak, etc. The hard part isn't thinking of ways to balance it, really, it is tweaking those variables to a point where there actually is balance. I suspect they'll have to have the biggest Klingon ships not able to cloak in order to pull it off. That's probably less of a lollore failure than giving cloaks to Starfleet.