CQC Free Arena?

[Wulf]

I find myself not playing Cqc at all. This is a shame considering it can be fun in short bursts. I would want to use it to for a change from trading and especially exploration to keep things interesting. This is impossible at the moment though due to the length of time it takes to find a match. It can take over 20 mins to find a match on weekdays, with weekends not being much better.

You'd suspect this is down to lack of numbers playing arena. I'm wondering if a solution would be for frontier to give arena away for free to boost numbers playing. This could also be done in a way to boost sales of the main game. It could be done by bundling single player content simular to the training missions and a few special offers.

As things stand Cqc seems to be fading away. It needs greater numbers playing pure and simple.

 

[Kazacy]

Maybe, but in my opinion this is not the biggest problem of CQC. The biggest problem is you can't lose anything and even worse even if you lose your level is increased. This is really bad, it needs to pay the lost lost ships and if you lose the match you should lose points from your level.
At the moment even if you play the CQC, the victory is hollow and meaningless and maybe this is the problem.
Disclaimer: i tried CQC in beta, i understand the mechanics and never returned to play again.

 

[Thetele]

For couple days it would boost player numbers. Most likely week later we would be back to current state. I think arena/cqc isn't interesting enough or feature rich that it would do any better as free game. People won't play it or keep playing it if it isn't interesting.

 

[kilvenny]

I would increase the credits awarded for kills, assists and victories so that it becomes a comparable profession to the main game. At the moment its fun, but it doesn't earn enough credits to make it viable.

 

[Wulf]

Improved risk and reward would make it more interesting. Still for me the biggest problem by far is the long wait times.

 

[Leo Sagan]

Hmmm lemme see : who knows, maybe if they could give real money, some few lost souls would play it ? Just kidding.
Still, what a HUGE success despite everything all the naysayers said on this very forum when FD proudly announced the launch of this "essential" add-on. GG FD.

 

[Shockbot]

I find myself not playing Cqc at all. This is a shame considering it can be fun in short bursts. I would want to use it to for a change from trading and especially exploration to keep things interesting. This is impossible at the moment though due to the length of time it takes to find a match. It can take over 20 mins to find a match on weekdays, with weekends not being much better.

You'd suspect this is down to lack of numbers playing arena. I'm wondering if a solution would be for frontier to give arena away for free to boost numbers playing. This could also be done in a way to boost sales of the main game. It could be done by bundling single player content simular to the training missions and a few special offers.

As things stand Cqc seems to be fading away. It needs greater numbers playing pure and simple.

Arena should be in Open too! Other Players should have the possibility to watch the rounds from distance. The Ring Stations would look awesome and you have something to watch in space. Arena fights above Planetary Stations and so on - would love it =B

 

[Cmdr Okona]

I find myself playing CQC almost exclusively at the moment instead of the base game. They should definitely make it free to play to increase the number of players. It has so much potential. Right now, it suffers from the poor matchmaking system. There should be servers you can join manually, and lobbies with chats.
I haven't played CTF even once so far, but if we could get more players in, there could be more mods such as 1 on 1, missions, even instagib...
They should also consider adding missiles to the weapon range. As I said, lots of potential....

 

[who?]

I'm not sure that making losses more costly will bring people in.

I really think it needs to be better integrated into the game (as much as some would hate that!)

- You should be able to easily initiate an Arena game from within the main game. If you have a group of friends, or a number of people in an instance you should be able to "Take this to Arena". Whether that's as a way of playing with your friends, or challenging someone to a 'duel'.

- Arena should pay better. It should be a valid career in its own right. It's the only way I'm aware of that you can raise credits if your (main game) ship is destroyed and you can't pay the price or get a loan. (The idea of pilots being forced by debt into playing in dangerous Arena games just sounds right to me). If you want more risk - allow pilots to bet on themselves. The more they wager, the more they win/lose.

- The top Arena pilots should be sporting heroes. There should be big championships, where the winners get their name in Galnet's sports pages. If Galnet had sports pages..

- More game modes - very obvious. Such as - suggested elsewhere - a racing mode, including force shell weapons. More settings too - planetary arenas etc.

- Flexibility in match-making. Allow a "I don't care what I play, just give me a game quick" option.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

even worse even if you lose your level is increased.

That's how combat works in Elite: Dangerous, though - you fly 2 hours in a CZ and then get blown up, you lose the combat bonds, but keep the Elite Rating progress. Similarly in CQC, you get the rank points from your kills [1] even if you lose - but your W/L score will decrease.

If you want an activity where you have to "win" to get the rating points, and there's no benefit if you die half-way through, stick to trading and exploring. (Or play Ironman rules)

[1] Okay, you get 60 points for not combat logging even in a complete disaster of a match - but if that's the token price for making combat logging very rare and stopping half the matches falling apart due to lack of players after a few minutes, I think that's worth it. I'm not sure Elite needs yet another PvP activity for which you have to spend more time bankrolling via PvE than actually fighting in.