- Status
If unlimited AX weapons is too I-win-button-y... would it be possible to make the limit a little more flexible? 4 massive stonking AX weapons or lots of little bitty AX weapons
Loving the Thargoid invasion BTW
Greetings Bruce o7
My 0.02cent for what it's worth
- I generally like the AX CZs around stations and over planetary settlements and that both, AX Combat and AX trading, use the same "instance" or "scenario". I have had multiple situations where I covered a CMDR who was docking/undocking at a station or got backup from other CMDRs while I was running cargo missions myself. That's the sort of emergent COOP gameplay Elite really needs.
- That being said: We're still shooting at the same Thargoid we've been shooting at for years now (minus the Orthus, which does not appear in CZs) and we're basically running the same cargo missions we've been running for years (only difference is that Thargoid may shoot at us while docking/undocking). So, after the first week, the "freshness" went away and it felt like the same old, same old again. Add a new Scout variant or two. They don't need new mechanics or somthing, just something that feels a little bit "new"
- Rewards, the elephant in the room. I think the Thargoid War is big enough to warrant an own and unique reward system. A few Credits and the odd single G5 mat just don't cut it. I recommend a shop system similar to the Loyality Point shop in EVE Online. Participating in Thargoid War content (AX CZs) or running AX themed missions grant Loyality Points as a currency that can be spent in a shop for things like Guardian modules (so new players can completely avoid the Guardian grind), pre-engineered modules appropriate for AX combat (e.g. G1/2/3/4/5 hull reinforcements, shield boosters), unique decals&paintjobs, large(r) amounts of engineering mats (Ships AND Legs engineering!) and maybe even AX themed ship variants. No rank grind, no unlocks. A simple "One G3 Shield Booster costs 500 Points" sort of shop
- There could be more "war logistics", either as CGs or missions. CMDR should be able to mine ore and "donate" it to the war effort (so ships, capital ships, ammo etc. can be "produced"). This could also be combined with the above shop idea.
- The Thargoid War needs ground combat. Not necessarily Thargoid themselves just yet, but at least modified Scavenger drones. Remember that marketing talk about the "combat triangle" in Odyssey? Add those Scavengers (improved stats, new colour scheme) to AX CZs at planetary settlements and you will finally have ships, SRV and on-foot CMDR fighting in the same instance
- I'm still not a fan of the weekly reset. There's currently no way for a smaller group of CMDRs to prepare an invasion system for the next week. You either hit the mark or you don't. If there's not enough progress made until Sunday evening, don't bother with the system at all. CMDRs are forced to follow the big AX communities and cannot support the war themselves.
There's one thing I didn't mention in my previous post; it's just a thank you for adding real-time Thargoid attacks at stations.
It's brilliant, and I remember the times when we only saw the aftermath of these events and went to repair them (Ida anyone?) How we longed for this ... and tt really is a step-change and welcome addition.
It's brilliant, and I remember the times when we only saw the aftermath of these events and went to repair them (Ida anyone?) How we longed for this ... and tt really is a step-change and welcome addition.
Ok....what is bad:
- glitch with interceptors: they are twitching over few hundreds meters
- one single interceptor somewhen deploys two swarms
- thargoids are somewhen invisible still able to shoot you
- instancing is buged
- thargoid portals somewhen remains on battlefield (its like trampoline)
- thargoids seeker are teleporting in one moment acrsos few kilometers
- in HIP 7338 was thargoid invasion and no conflict zone
- there should be a fine if someone in open sits on single one landing pad in the system to long
Hi Bruce, thanks for this thread.
Positives:
I love the idea of the war in general, and much of what's been done so far has been very good! I was absolutely hyped by the first week as the payoff for the months of buildup. I think that was great, really well done to the narrative team for that, and the visuals of the Stargoids and the audio of course. All of it was superb, and the arrival payoff was great.The initial pressure of the Maelstrom arriving and taking over systems, then the tension built by more and more arriving at different times - all really great. I felt very engaged and energised by the unfolding future. It felt fresh and new and promising.
For me, the gameplay idea of rescuing civilians from the warzones and delivering supplies was incredibly rewarding. Dropping into stations under active attack and sliding past the Thargoids while AX pilots (NPC) blasted Thargoids and chattered about it - extremely thrilling and engaging gameplay that I think is absolutely the highlight of the war so far.
Fighting Thargoids in AX combat around starports and ground stations, and the AX signal sources where there's a small group of NPC AX ships patrolling - all those are great, a very cool way to refresh that idea and make the threat feel more visceral. Being able to dock and repair/rearm at ports under attack was a great idea. The AX CZ... I only did a couple, they seem the same as before to me, but it was nice to see an escalation in difficulty for those. I very much enjoyed 'defending' ports from attack.
The general behaviour in system of the Thargoids (interdicting in supercruise) is also very thrilling and makes Thargoid controlled areas feel like they're actually Thargoid areas of space.
The Maelstrom itself is awesome, very imposing and mysterious, very, very cool. The visuals and audio is brilliant. I'm excited to see where that goes.
I very much enjoyed that Fdev designed it so that that there was varied and meaningful gameplay for anyone that wanted to take part, it wasn't only shooting Thargoids.
Negatives:
I strongly feel that Fdev needs to remove PVP from the game. I realise that a small number of players enjoy it, but every time I play in Open in any of the AX systems there's players specced for PVP murdering people specced for AX combat/rescue. It's just not fun, it never has been fun (for the victims). I know for a fact that I'm absolutely not alone in this feeling. PVP just needs to be totally removed from the game - OR - allow PVP in private groups, but keep Open PVE only.After the first week of excitement Fdev made the decision to hugely boost the progress bars (I believe that was done twice). The Thargoid war immediately went from a genuinely concerning (in a fun way) development where Humanity might actually lose (as were were told in the livestream), to a thing where we were flipping multiple Thargoid controlled systems every single week very very easily. It went from feeling like a genuinely exciting challenge where I was doing my part - to feeling like a very basic lever-flipping mechanic. I've seen evidence that a single (very skilled) player managed to significantly shift the bar solo in one system. I got bored very quickly after that and I've been doing other stuff ever since, every time I look we've flipped more systems.
This not only makes the threat feel...frankly laughable - it also makes the Thargoids seem pathetically weak as a species - that's a really big change from week 1.
I was hopeful that in flipping a system the resulting "rebuilding" phase might generate more content. I.e. it's relatively easy to flip the state back, but it takes a lot of work to rebuild the system, during which time it's vulnerable to being re-flipped. However... apparently systems auto-repair?!?! What?! All the potential gameplay of defending the repairs and shipping in repair teams, supplies, etc. All that is basically non-existent from what I can tell? I've no idea what led to that decision but it seems... weird.
I was extremely disappointed in the almost-total lack of Galnet articles on what was happening. There have been some, sure, but this is a gigantic, massive, tremendous thing that's happening to all of humanity. I expected a lot more discourse and politicians speeches, a lot more propaganda, a lot of stirring recruitment speeches asking independent pilots to sign up to defend systems (see below).
And that leads into: I like that Fdev left it to players to organise, but there should ALSO be in-game ways to start getting into the war at this point (weeks after the initial shock). You should be able to go to a "Thargoid War Recruiter" in faction systems near Thargoid controlled areas (as well as within) and sign up for a "tour of duty" similar to the systems used for Powerplay. There should be in-system versions where you go to a "Thargoid War coordinator" who hands out missions with text (and/or voice acting) explaining the situation and how to get involved. It's OK to put a paragraph or so in your games to explain stuff to people, it doesn't all have to be one-line descriptions - or a short bit of voice acting in the form of a recruitment speech "Commander, we need YOU to help defend humanity from the alien menace..."
The systems near Thargoid attacked areas seem... well frankly they don't seem to care at all. NPC's in nearby systems are still doing all the normal stuff. There should be vast disruptions for several systems around each Thargoid controlled system. Crashing economies, massive amounts of transport missions for people wanting to move away, cargo missions running supplies in as people prepare for expected invasions, etc. Depending on the politics of the system you'd expect different reactions, a tightly controlled dictatorship system might show no difference to usual on the surface, but the black market is thriving there and anti-regime groups are rioting, etc.etc.etc. Also NPC's in Odyssey starports should really have been given different ambient conversations to ones not near Thargoid systems! Have the NPC crowded around a news terminal listening to snippets of war reports, have an unusually large group of people sitting near Apex griping about the lack of transport to get them away from the Thargoids. etc.
Considering Odyssey is the 'flagship' element of the game (a part that I really enjoy) I'm genuinely shocked and puzzled that there's not been ANY Odyssey-based content at all. Even if 'on foot' Thargoids is something that will come later in Update 14 (oh please god I hope so) then there could at least have been different Odyssey missions relating to the Thargoid war systems. Maybe you get sent into Thargoid-attacked settlements to pull vital data from memory cores, or something, as a sort of reversal of the Salvage mission style combined with the mechanics of the thief mission styles? Maybe Fdev could have placed NPCs on the ground at some 'destroyed' ports and they could be the subject of delivery missions (Take supplies to field crews), Combat missions could be against scavengers stealing stuff from Thargoid-attacked starports, imagine fighting scavengers while Thargoid and AX ships zoom overhead! How cool would that be! etc.etc.etc.
The Orthrus... what's that? On the Livestream is was heavily touted as being something new and interesting and possibly related to... something secret and exciting?? The first week I was very intrigued by videos of people blowing them up for massive payouts - I tried to find them myself but wasn't able to find any. Many people thought that they were somehow the key to slowing the Thargoid advance or something... but...they just sort of have faded away into nothing??? Maybe the are getting blown up in vast numbers and that's why the Thargoids are stupidly weak? Who knows!?!
On top of all the above, I'm disappointed that by simply turning off the Thargoid war icons on Galmap a player can completely ignore the war entirely, it would be possible to pretend it's not even happening. While I think that should be what it feels like for the 'back half' of the bubble, the entire side facing the Thargoids should feel it - not just by seeing the icons on Galmap, but even someone running missions or delivering cargo a few systems from the front should notice small changes, the NPC chatter shold mention the Thargoids, there should be more cargo missions for medical supplies and survival gear, more passenger missions of people going to the front (reporters, military returning after injuries, etc) and away from the front (families migrating, etc.).
It just doesn't feel like "the war" is any more than a few Thargoid controlled systems that are completely contained by the relatively few players involved and it's got no other consequences or effects whatsoever. It also doesn't read like it's going to develop into something more. I assume it will, I hope it will, but I'm not seeing anything at all in Galnet or elsewhere that's building up the tension. Right now it feels like we've won. We probably would have already if the Maelstroms weren't protected by plot armour fields.
After that first week of genuine excitement it's just so lackluster and low-stakes now, and there's no signs that it's going to become anything more.
1. Number of alerts per week - I'd be a fan of the thargoids expanding more systems a week, but the effort taken to counter them being proportionally easier. This way smaller groups may enter the fray.
2. Thargoid expansion directions - It seems the battlefield will settle in the 20-30 ly area around each maelstrom. Perhaps having some random, much further alerts could shake up things more, as more of the community would find itself needing to get involved. Right now players that are 50+ ly away from a maelstrom may find themselves completely safe from the war. This, of course assumes that we aren't in for some surprises regarding maelstroms
3. Expanded in-game UI - We have functionality in the galmap, but I think there could be a full panel to the war so we can see a list of systems and their progress, not just the 3D map. Something similar to the Powers menu.
4. Mission boards wing missions - something that's always annoyed me is how we get mission boards with so many wing missions, when we aren't in a wing at all.
5. Thargoid controlled system mechanic - The initial reveal of the weekly reset was a bit controversial but I think we're past that point. Perhaps the controlled systems could be a way to explore a bar without a weekly reset. So these goals could be really huge, but the community would first work to secure alerts/invasions, and then chip away at controlled systems.
2. Thargoid expansion directions - It seems the battlefield will settle in the 20-30 ly area around each maelstrom. Perhaps having some random, much further alerts could shake up things more, as more of the community would find itself needing to get involved. Right now players that are 50+ ly away from a maelstrom may find themselves completely safe from the war. This, of course assumes that we aren't in for some surprises regarding maelstroms
3. Expanded in-game UI - We have functionality in the galmap, but I think there could be a full panel to the war so we can see a list of systems and their progress, not just the 3D map. Something similar to the Powers menu.
4. Mission boards wing missions - something that's always annoyed me is how we get mission boards with so many wing missions, when we aren't in a wing at all.
5. Thargoid controlled system mechanic - The initial reveal of the weekly reset was a bit controversial but I think we're past that point. Perhaps the controlled systems could be a way to explore a bar without a weekly reset. So these goals could be really huge, but the community would first work to secure alerts/invasions, and then chip away at controlled systems.
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Good day, Bruce.
I would like to address a very odd looking design decision around evacuation gameplay. You see.. we have some systems with 1 million of population, then some with 50 million, 100 million etc. But we can take entire week and keep evacuating one specific system with 1 million population in it, until it somehow results by 50 millions of evacuated people. From a system with 1 million population. That's silly.
Can FDev team do something about consistency of this game loop? Is it possible to lock missions for evacuations for a specific number of population? Let's say, system has 50 million, so that would mean players can only get 50 millions and it's limited per week. I also suggest to add some additional bonus to system defense progression once the entire population will be evacuated by this "more organic system". Let's say.. 15% of progression bar? That would make this gameplay loop not only better, but more rewarding for general effort as well.
That will force players to evacuate ALL systems around, not just one for entire week. I believe that this might've create more dynamic, and overall more consistent and believable gameplay loop.
Thank you.
I would like to address a very odd looking design decision around evacuation gameplay. You see.. we have some systems with 1 million of population, then some with 50 million, 100 million etc. But we can take entire week and keep evacuating one specific system with 1 million population in it, until it somehow results by 50 millions of evacuated people. From a system with 1 million population. That's silly.
Can FDev team do something about consistency of this game loop? Is it possible to lock missions for evacuations for a specific number of population? Let's say, system has 50 million, so that would mean players can only get 50 millions and it's limited per week. I also suggest to add some additional bonus to system defense progression once the entire population will be evacuated by this "more organic system". Let's say.. 15% of progression bar? That would make this gameplay loop not only better, but more rewarding for general effort as well.
That will force players to evacuate ALL systems around, not just one for entire week. I believe that this might've create more dynamic, and overall more consistent and believable gameplay loop.
Thank you.
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@F18 from Spanish Forum:
Some ideas:
Some ideas:
- Don't reset the progress bar if it doesn't reach 100%.
- If the progress bar reset is maintained, at least that the people who are saved/rescued, are truly saved and don't return to their homes magically.
- That the efforts in the Recovery Systems are visible (as in the GCs).
- That there is some kind of positive repercussion if you eliminate isolated Thargoid ships.
- Exobiology as a source of materials for the war (DNA apart).
Hello Bruce, happy new year to you and your team.
CZ not starting, progressing, and finishing is rather frustrating.
CZ should be timed, rather than dependent on everyone leaving for a chance at reset. Have a ~10 min break after each CZ and restart it if/when CMDRs are present.
AX kills not being recorded in the logs when other CMDRs are present (ie: private group/open) is annoying as we can't track counts in Inara using EDMC to read the logs. Oddly enough, both rank and bond amounts seem to be accounted for just fine.
The hyper/interdictions are getting old. I always boost away from those as I know they'll call for reinforcements and beat me up every time. Over 80% of my jumps into an invaded system get hyperdicted. My record is getting interdicted between arrival star and station 5 times in a row. I know they give mat rewards but I wish we had slightly less of that.
Thanks!
CZ not starting, progressing, and finishing is rather frustrating.
CZ should be timed, rather than dependent on everyone leaving for a chance at reset. Have a ~10 min break after each CZ and restart it if/when CMDRs are present.
AX kills not being recorded in the logs when other CMDRs are present (ie: private group/open) is annoying as we can't track counts in Inara using EDMC to read the logs. Oddly enough, both rank and bond amounts seem to be accounted for just fine.
The hyper/interdictions are getting old. I always boost away from those as I know they'll call for reinforcements and beat me up every time. Over 80% of my jumps into an invaded system get hyperdicted. My record is getting interdicted between arrival star and station 5 times in a row. I know they give mat rewards but I wish we had slightly less of that.
Thanks!
Overall it's a ton of fun. I actually hadn't played since the Odyssey launch, but this dragged me back. Consequential events like this are something the game has needed for a long, long time. It's great, keep it up.
Others have already covered the whole weekly reset thing, so I won't belabor the point. Same with the inability of players to determine where the action is without using 3rd party tools.
The most critical issue I can see with AX CZs is just how broken they are when multiple players are in the instance. I've been in dozens in the last few weeks, and completing the objective was impossible most of the time because of a bug of some kind (and I don't mean 'goids). Sometimes it's a wave of scouts or interceptors which don't load correctly; sometimes you don't get a prompt to join the action, or the objective never actually starts; sometimes the first wave never spawns, so you just fly around waiting for something to happen; and sometimes the progress bar just stops for no apparent reason, even as you kill wave after wave of enemies. I've only actually completed a handful of CZs because something nearly always goes wrong with the game before it is over. I've also encountered what I'm guessing was a bugged Hydra; we had probably 10 NPC AX pilots plus a half a dozen CMDRs just dumping fire into this thing, and it just sat there immobile for probably 10 minutes, soaking up all the incoming damage while casually murdering everyone one by one. I know they're supposed to be tough, but we didn't even manage to get the first heart to exert.
It would also be nice if there were more individual missions available. Usually there are only one or two, and most are team missions to kill some absurd number of hydras or whatever. I typically just grab a few "kill a bunch of scouts" missions just because I know I'll complete them eventually, but the payout is incredibly bad. You can kill a single cyclops and make more money than a mission to kill 50 scouts, even including the combat payout for actually killing them. Missions to kill cyclopses are very rare, despite them being the most common type of interceptor.
I would also like the ability to self-destruct all deployed fighters in order to perform an emergency landing. A lot of the fighting is happening near surface settlements, and deploying fighters makes it impossible to land unless you wait for them to die, wait for them to dock, jump to supercruise and then come back to land, or revoke crew fighter permission, recall the fighters under ai control, and then kill them. That seems... clunky. I get that the landing gear interferes with the fighter bay, but you could just make it so fighters cannot dock or deploy while the gear are down. Or if that won't work for some reason, make it so deploying your landing gear kills all deployed fighters, possibly with a warning or confirmation. Or just give us a "remote self destruct all fighters" button somewhere.
The rest of my feedback is stuff I know you've heard a million times, so I won't spend too much time beating this dead horse. Multicrew is still pretty buggy (although it's better than it used to be, so thanks for that). The VR implementation of on-foot gameplay is pretty crap (athough I'm not an on-foot guy, so I don't really care).
Most importantly, Odyssey still performs awfully compared to Legacy Horizons, and looks much worse in VR or at lower resolutions. Lego-brick aliasing, flickering shadows, planetary surfaces which seem to swim from a distance, distant weapons fire that is nearly invisible, and poor framerates even with everything turned to potato mode. I was able to run Horizons in VR with an ancient i7-930 and a GTX 1060; now I'm struggling to keep playable framerates with an I3-12100 and am RTX 2060, and the game looks significantly worse while I'm doing it. I still pop into Legacy periodically just to remember how pretty this game can be with the settings all cranked through the roof. I get that my hardware is not top tier, but it feels like the hardware requirements have increased significantly for graphics which are at best a sidegrade.
Anyway, dead horse beaten. I love your game, I've loved it for years, and I would love it if it loved me back.
Others have already covered the whole weekly reset thing, so I won't belabor the point. Same with the inability of players to determine where the action is without using 3rd party tools.
The most critical issue I can see with AX CZs is just how broken they are when multiple players are in the instance. I've been in dozens in the last few weeks, and completing the objective was impossible most of the time because of a bug of some kind (and I don't mean 'goids). Sometimes it's a wave of scouts or interceptors which don't load correctly; sometimes you don't get a prompt to join the action, or the objective never actually starts; sometimes the first wave never spawns, so you just fly around waiting for something to happen; and sometimes the progress bar just stops for no apparent reason, even as you kill wave after wave of enemies. I've only actually completed a handful of CZs because something nearly always goes wrong with the game before it is over. I've also encountered what I'm guessing was a bugged Hydra; we had probably 10 NPC AX pilots plus a half a dozen CMDRs just dumping fire into this thing, and it just sat there immobile for probably 10 minutes, soaking up all the incoming damage while casually murdering everyone one by one. I know they're supposed to be tough, but we didn't even manage to get the first heart to exert.
It would also be nice if there were more individual missions available. Usually there are only one or two, and most are team missions to kill some absurd number of hydras or whatever. I typically just grab a few "kill a bunch of scouts" missions just because I know I'll complete them eventually, but the payout is incredibly bad. You can kill a single cyclops and make more money than a mission to kill 50 scouts, even including the combat payout for actually killing them. Missions to kill cyclopses are very rare, despite them being the most common type of interceptor.
I would also like the ability to self-destruct all deployed fighters in order to perform an emergency landing. A lot of the fighting is happening near surface settlements, and deploying fighters makes it impossible to land unless you wait for them to die, wait for them to dock, jump to supercruise and then come back to land, or revoke crew fighter permission, recall the fighters under ai control, and then kill them. That seems... clunky. I get that the landing gear interferes with the fighter bay, but you could just make it so fighters cannot dock or deploy while the gear are down. Or if that won't work for some reason, make it so deploying your landing gear kills all deployed fighters, possibly with a warning or confirmation. Or just give us a "remote self destruct all fighters" button somewhere.
The rest of my feedback is stuff I know you've heard a million times, so I won't spend too much time beating this dead horse. Multicrew is still pretty buggy (although it's better than it used to be, so thanks for that). The VR implementation of on-foot gameplay is pretty crap (athough I'm not an on-foot guy, so I don't really care).
Most importantly, Odyssey still performs awfully compared to Legacy Horizons, and looks much worse in VR or at lower resolutions. Lego-brick aliasing, flickering shadows, planetary surfaces which seem to swim from a distance, distant weapons fire that is nearly invisible, and poor framerates even with everything turned to potato mode. I was able to run Horizons in VR with an ancient i7-930 and a GTX 1060; now I'm struggling to keep playable framerates with an I3-12100 and am RTX 2060, and the game looks significantly worse while I'm doing it. I still pop into Legacy periodically just to remember how pretty this game can be with the settings all cranked through the roof. I get that my hardware is not top tier, but it feels like the hardware requirements have increased significantly for graphics which are at best a sidegrade.
Anyway, dead horse beaten. I love your game, I've loved it for years, and I would love it if it loved me back.
I think the risk there is that a certain sense of urgency and teams focusing on systems could be lost. If there isn't a clock ticking down, people would spread out to work a little bit here and there as there's no urgency. Personally, I'm having a blast participating with tons of CMDRs in the effort.
How about this: don't reset it if it reaches 90% of goal? Or the equivalent of the last two chevrons in the scale. Something like that.
Most of these Posts are TL;DR:
Loving the war, need less than a total reset each week even if 99% achieved - losing interest after hard work in one system is then totally reset.
Loving the war, need less than a total reset each week even if 99% achieved - losing interest after hard work in one system is then totally reset.
Perhaps the most important part for me is to reiterate the weekly progress reset and its negative impact on Commander agency, where this is driven by a deep wish for Commander time to be respected rather than neglected. I have been quite well-engaged with trying to ensure that Commanders seeking targets are supplied with systems to support which have a realistic prospect of finishing, and if a non-finishing system shows strong signs of effort then I honour that form of "vote" by recommending it immediately as a preferred target next cycle, but everything would be a league better if surplus Invasion effort did something.
One approach could be to soften the required effort next cycle, or a more simple approach could be to allow a four-week Invasion to run for a continuous four weeks. I am quite sure that an intersection of ideas with agreeable design and acceptable scope would reveal a few things.
To expand upon the notion of respecting Commander time, I suggest considering also that the quirks inherent to the various system states are causing Commanders to exhibit equally quirky reactions. For example, if an Invasion system is defended in its first week then it has no damaged ports and enters a one-week Recovery rather than a four-week Recovery, but this is being interpreted as bad. Commanders want the four-week Recovery, just so that said system cannot be the target of another Alert for a while.
I pointed out that each system completed still resists the advance by one count either way, but the value Commanders place on populated systems is higher, such that four-week Recovery is still preferred—even if the Recovery state does not block Alerts, it still helps to push them into unpopulated systems. Since then, it also occurred to me that a system in its second Invasion week gains improved evacuation prospects from the port damaged by the first week of Invasion.
Either way, a simple activity comparison of Invasion and Alert should suggest that Commanders would prefer Invasion based on the available activities, and this very much has been the case. That may be intended, though it seems bizarre for the intended response to Alert systems is for Commanders to ignore them.
To expand also upon the notion of organising collective efforts, a very welcome addition would be Journal reports regarding the War system states. Perhaps initially, if jumping to a system could report its War state with all the same information as shown for it on the Galaxy map, that alone would confer a massive functionality benefit.
Overall, thank you! Anti-xeno was one of the comparatively neglected activities prior to update 14, and this definitely highlights it a "bit".
One approach could be to soften the required effort next cycle, or a more simple approach could be to allow a four-week Invasion to run for a continuous four weeks. I am quite sure that an intersection of ideas with agreeable design and acceptable scope would reveal a few things.
To expand upon the notion of respecting Commander time, I suggest considering also that the quirks inherent to the various system states are causing Commanders to exhibit equally quirky reactions. For example, if an Invasion system is defended in its first week then it has no damaged ports and enters a one-week Recovery rather than a four-week Recovery, but this is being interpreted as bad. Commanders want the four-week Recovery, just so that said system cannot be the target of another Alert for a while.
I pointed out that each system completed still resists the advance by one count either way, but the value Commanders place on populated systems is higher, such that four-week Recovery is still preferred—even if the Recovery state does not block Alerts, it still helps to push them into unpopulated systems. Since then, it also occurred to me that a system in its second Invasion week gains improved evacuation prospects from the port damaged by the first week of Invasion.
Either way, a simple activity comparison of Invasion and Alert should suggest that Commanders would prefer Invasion based on the available activities, and this very much has been the case. That may be intended, though it seems bizarre for the intended response to Alert systems is for Commanders to ignore them.
To expand also upon the notion of organising collective efforts, a very welcome addition would be Journal reports regarding the War system states. Perhaps initially, if jumping to a system could report its War state with all the same information as shown for it on the Galaxy map, that alone would confer a massive functionality benefit.
Overall, thank you! Anti-xeno was one of the comparatively neglected activities prior to update 14, and this definitely highlights it a "bit".
Given that there are now experimental versions of some experimental weapons... how about changing baseline human AX weapons into unlimited?
Happy New Year to you too @Bruce G
The Thargoid War II is brilliant fun...
... but...
Getting the Mbooni permit is dreadful: I already had it on this Account (being a helpful sort of criminal) and did mission after mission on another account to get the permit - it was not much fun at all. I have another account I'd like to get into the war effort with effective (Guardian based) weapons, but gave up after a couple of sessions of minimal progress with missions that account would be capable of.
Getting the blueprints from Guardian sites is easy and enjoyable, as is collecting the needed mats. No problem there - my 2nd account has almost no engineers unlocked, but had loads of blueprints for modules and weapons, so have been fighting in a Guardian based (PP, Distro, reinforcements & weapons) ship with good results.
More / better weapons would be nice - a viable alternative to the Alliance ships (or Krait II) would be much appreciated - and yes, do something with the scanner, please!
The Thargoid War II is brilliant fun...
... but...
Getting the Mbooni permit is dreadful: I already had it on this Account (being a helpful sort of criminal) and did mission after mission on another account to get the permit - it was not much fun at all. I have another account I'd like to get into the war effort with effective (Guardian based) weapons, but gave up after a couple of sessions of minimal progress with missions that account would be capable of.
Getting the blueprints from Guardian sites is easy and enjoyable, as is collecting the needed mats. No problem there - my 2nd account has almost no engineers unlocked, but had loads of blueprints for modules and weapons, so have been fighting in a Guardian based (PP, Distro, reinforcements & weapons) ship with good results.
More / better weapons would be nice - a viable alternative to the Alliance ships (or Krait II) would be much appreciated - and yes, do something with the scanner, please!
well, was waiting for this war for ages, playing AX since it appeared at 2017. The idea is good and it looks like it was well prepared. But there are many issues that cause people burning out and leave this war or even unistalling the game.
1. The entire war progress. It's too slow for the Burning Bubble and too high to prevent it or counter-attack. So, killing millions of goids and delivering millions of evacuated personal every week doesn't change anything. It's just playing for playing and the current dynamics show that resistance becomes weaker.
2. FDEV PLEASE YOU'VE DONE GREAT TRAILERS IN THE PAST, DON'T MAKE AGAIN SOMETHING LIKE WE'VE SEEN LAST 2 TIMES. Commander chronicles, 3.x teasers and even Gamescom 2016 teasers were great, why current trailers look like it was done by some student. The idea is cool, but it looks like bruh.
2. Bugs. A lot of them. Invisible thargoids, bugged progress bars in conflict zones, planetary CZs progress bar is just disappearing while its finished, we even don't know if it counts, jumps into the same system you were jumping from when you are in a wing, and much more.
3. Broken counting of killed thargoids in journal files when there's someone else in your instance. Without this it's not easy to count progress and how much kills is needed to defend the system.
4. Alert systems need a lot of work to prevent an invasion and it seems it will be 0 defended alerts this week. Trying to recapture is unreal, it needs tens of thousands kills and entire AX community can't reach this lvl even with focusing one system and ignoring everything else, progress numbers need to be fixed. Also will be cool to increase spawn of NHSS with Orthrus thargs, sometimes you need to wait for 10-20 mins to get a single one.
5. Enhanced weps are cool idea, what's about removing 4x experimental weapons and also pre-engineered gauss (Azimuth one) is too useless, it needs a buff to be compareable with shard and plasma charger. Also, what's about L size gauss, some more guardian modules or even ships or at least armour and allowing to engineer guardian modules?
6. Where are Federal, Imperial and Alliance forces and cap ships we've seen before that can at least do some damage to thargoids?
7. At the "Fall of the Oracle" trailer you showed that goids EMP disables the station. But now we can see 2-3 interceptors shoot EMP wave and even docked ship ignores it. Station services rebooting should be cool.
8. AX combat bonds CGs?
Summary: the invasion is cool, but it needs a lot to be fixed and the community needs more motivation to fight goids, you can see numbers of players participating it by yourself.
1. The entire war progress. It's too slow for the Burning Bubble and too high to prevent it or counter-attack. So, killing millions of goids and delivering millions of evacuated personal every week doesn't change anything. It's just playing for playing and the current dynamics show that resistance becomes weaker.
2. FDEV PLEASE YOU'VE DONE GREAT TRAILERS IN THE PAST, DON'T MAKE AGAIN SOMETHING LIKE WE'VE SEEN LAST 2 TIMES. Commander chronicles, 3.x teasers and even Gamescom 2016 teasers were great, why current trailers look like it was done by some student. The idea is cool, but it looks like bruh.
2. Bugs. A lot of them. Invisible thargoids, bugged progress bars in conflict zones, planetary CZs progress bar is just disappearing while its finished, we even don't know if it counts, jumps into the same system you were jumping from when you are in a wing, and much more.
3. Broken counting of killed thargoids in journal files when there's someone else in your instance. Without this it's not easy to count progress and how much kills is needed to defend the system.
4. Alert systems need a lot of work to prevent an invasion and it seems it will be 0 defended alerts this week. Trying to recapture is unreal, it needs tens of thousands kills and entire AX community can't reach this lvl even with focusing one system and ignoring everything else, progress numbers need to be fixed. Also will be cool to increase spawn of NHSS with Orthrus thargs, sometimes you need to wait for 10-20 mins to get a single one.
5. Enhanced weps are cool idea, what's about removing 4x experimental weapons and also pre-engineered gauss (Azimuth one) is too useless, it needs a buff to be compareable with shard and plasma charger. Also, what's about L size gauss, some more guardian modules or even ships or at least armour and allowing to engineer guardian modules?
6. Where are Federal, Imperial and Alliance forces and cap ships we've seen before that can at least do some damage to thargoids?
7. At the "Fall of the Oracle" trailer you showed that goids EMP disables the station. But now we can see 2-3 interceptors shoot EMP wave and even docked ship ignores it. Station services rebooting should be cool.
8. AX combat bonds CGs?
Summary: the invasion is cool, but it needs a lot to be fixed and the community needs more motivation to fight goids, you can see numbers of players participating it by yourself.
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First of all I have to say that you well conducted game mechanics into a believable thargoid war scenario (besides the weekly reset! – had to say it).
I was never very interested in pew-pew gameplay. But even I enjoyed taking part in the AX activities – shredded quite some scouts took part in killing few interceptors, rescued people, tried to find out about the maelstrom. It was really fun! But after 2–3 weeks it began to feel like "rinse and repeat" for me.
Conclusion: How long does the scenario make players happy before you have to throw some new toy into the sandbox?
For me it was too long and I left it again.
I was never very interested in pew-pew gameplay. But even I enjoyed taking part in the AX activities – shredded quite some scouts took part in killing few interceptors, rescued people, tried to find out about the maelstrom. It was really fun! But after 2–3 weeks it began to feel like "rinse and repeat" for me.
Conclusion: How long does the scenario make players happy before you have to throw some new toy into the sandbox?
For me it was too long and I left it again.
Happy New Year Bruce
Apart from the ideas you already know about - can the rescue ships move closer to the action as we win back systems please, had a case today where I had to to a 20 jump round trip to drop off passengers (flying a python with approx 30Ly range).
Apart from the ideas you already know about - can the rescue ships move closer to the action as we win back systems please, had a case today where I had to to a 20 jump round trip to drop off passengers (flying a python with approx 30Ly range).
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