My letter to Perfect World.

[Mavairo]

Are you guys going to fire the Cryptic Staff? It would be greatly appreciated by what is left of the STO community. Cryptic has not given the pvp community one bone since shortly after launch, and has further and further demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of game mechanics and game balance. They are literally at this point, repeating mistakes that they made at Launch all over again.

You can ask almost anyone in the pvp base where the game's standing is and universally the answer will be "not well" and the coming changes are just going to put the end of the game on it. Most of us were and still are welcoming free to play, and are looking forward to that, if nothing else because we might finally get some new players at least for a couple of weeks, before the new players fully level, realize there is nothing to do but pvp, and the pvp that exists, is in ruins.

As it stands right now in STO, you can lock down an entire enemy team longer than it takes to kill them via scramble sensors, (and the counters literally do not work 2/3s of the time) potentially one shot an entire team with the use of One Ability, via Torpedo Spread, completely burn away shields through charged particle burst spam (which makes the torpedo spread kills all the easier), and utterly wreck havoc with fire at will.

There are changes coming down the line however that will one up this, such as the tricobalt changes which will enable you to stun someone for longer than it takes to kill them by about three fold, there will be no effective counter (even less of one than Scramble), and this stun will also be capable of One Shotting people at the same time. So whoever isn't stunned effectively permanently will be dead in the opening volley most likely.

There has also been a very strong lack of end game content in STO, while the game is pitifully easy to level up in. In under 56 hours you can have a fully max leveled toon, with gear and have nothing to do, except for doing STFs over and over or PvP. There is also a great lacking of leveling content, for the KDF to the point that no one plays KDF except for the very few remaining dedicated pvpers. 

To make matters worse, however is cryptic has done all of these exact same mistakes more or less in the past, and seem to have no desire to change this pattern, while maintaining a very contemptuous attitude towards it's player base no matter how constructive the criticism, nor thorough the feedback. For a frame of reference Torp Spread is just as strong as the formerly bugged cannon scatter volley 3 which allowed Escort pilots to one pass entire teams, and photonic shock wave used to be chain able to permanently stun an enemy team.  Cryptic also does not often change power mechanics based on feedback, even when the math of the game is explained in great detail in feedback posts and reports.

The game is also still horrifyingly bug ridden with frequent crashes, so bad you have to see it to believe it UI Lag (which also enables the use of various Exploits, such as having two shields equipped or having two or more commander stations), that they still have not addressed since the Beta of the game. Some features of the game do not even work, even half correctly such as Xbox 360 Controller Support, and Vivox.  (the latter is an in game voice communication. that literally most of the time does not work, and further more has a Set set up. You can't even change the default push to talk key)

I do feel sorry for you guys, as from what I have heard you actually care about your products, however you've acquired an incredibly poor product in STO and in Cryptic, if you do have any intention on making STO a very successful title (at least as good as some of your other ones) you are going to have to take direct control because Cryptic can not manage the game in any capacity.

I have already canceled my sub due to coming changes, and all of the above and there are a great many like me that are going to be following once the changes come live, unless direct intervention is done on your part.

[mkilczewski]

Quite the manifesto.

[Suval]

Well said.

[Naevius]

Well, I don't think the blame actually lies with Cryptic, per se. They have been pretty open about what they are doing and why. I think they'd like to do a lot of things for the game, but are under-staffed and a bit unfocussed. The only real thing you can lay at their door is the fact that they don't consider PvP when developing other features.

The first real villain here was Atari, which 1] released the game too early; 2] cut off resources early in the process; 3] Sold the studio (which tied them up for a long time with no new hires, etc).

I actually think PW will probably fix a lot of stuff, but it will take time. And PvP is always a low priority, since it concerns a minority of players (albeit a vocal minority!)

[Mavairo]

That excuse won't fly for me anymore. That's what it is, an excuse in my opinion. If they didn't have the ability to do it right they should have not done it (see upcoming changes, and existing ones like torp spread)

[Naevius]

Tricobalt Torpedo Spread is pretty lulzy.