CQC: remove the power-ups

[Ranx]

Anyone who has ever played CQC, either for a long time, or just dipped their toes, will have noticed a major design flaw: the power-ups. They are problematic for at least two reasons:

1) They allow players to "loop" between PUs, leading to a constantly over-powered ship. This results in boring gameplay ("chase the PU!" & "oh no, it's that CMDR again..."), and a game completely out of balance for long periods of time.

&

2) Unless experienced players show restraint, PUs will drive new players away. Accepting getting blasted eight times in 90 seconds, round after round, takes a special kind of stamina that very few possess. Some of us stay away from PUs against weaker players, while others see it as a form of hard-core hazing on the road to git gud. The latter kills the recruitment to a game mode that is insanely exciting once you get the hang of it.


Note that the above particularly pertains to the Stealth and Wep PUs. Speed has no real impact on the game, while Shields actually has the potential for being game-enhancing, in that it can turn a duel around in a fun way. Even so, I suggest that Frontier consider removing all PUs, or at least Red and Blue, from CQC. This will make the game better for all. As a stepping-stone/test case, how about removing them from DM, while keeping them in TDM?

The main counter-argument is to instead improve the match-making. However, this will not fix 1), and of course, it requires a much larger player base than the present one. This is, in the current situation, therefore not really relevant.

Cheers,
r

 

[Ezren]

Anyone who has ever played CQC, either for a long time, or just dipped their toes, will have noticed a major design flaw: the power-ups

Well, you're wrong. I'll explain why using your argument.

1) They allow players to "loop" between PUs, leading to a constantly over-powered ship. This results in boring gameplay ("chase the PU!" & "oh no, it's that CMDR again..."), and a game completely out of balance for long periods of time.

So let's first of all define the reality you're claiming, where one ship is getting every power-up in the CQC match. So, hard nonsense as a concept.

Secondly, after rightfully discarding the idea that one ship is going to benefit from all of the power-ups, power-ups are first come, first serve. The loser of a fight is usually the one facing the wrong way; the one in front. So the first one to get to a power-up between two people is going to have the other in a likely attack position on them, and the power-up will give opportunity for a turn-around.

And third, if you know one player is going for power-ups, you're pretty reliably going to know exactly where they're headed. Which makes that a not-great strategy for that player.

2) Unless experienced players show restraint, PUs will drive new players away. Accepting getting blasted eight times in 90 seconds, round after round, takes a special kind of stamina that very few possess. Some of us stay away from PUs against weaker players, while others see it as a form of hard-core hazing on the road to git gud. The latter kills the recruitment to a game mode that is insanely exciting once you get the hang of it.

Let's get past the part where you're self-congratulating.. oh, geeze, that's pretty much the whole second part. Yikes.

Power-ups work for everyone. It doesn't imbalance the field, only experience does.

Though saying things like

Speed has no real impact on the game

Suggests your experience isn't as expansive as you're implying.

 

[Northpin]

I never played CQC, but i did play a lot of UT.
On certain maps there were players that were masters at timing the loops and they were always getting the 200% health bonus, 100% armor and shields while rolling over everyone they encountered.
If such players joined the game it would take an equally good player quite some effort to break the loop and the game shifted from killing the opponent to breaking his loop since killing was simply not possible.

If CQC is the same and noobs get matched with highly skilled vets, then i can see the OP's objection.

 

[777Driver]

I never played CQC, but i did play a lot of UT.
On certain maps there were players that were masters at timing the loops and they were always getting the 200% health bonus, 100% armor and shields while rolling over everyone they encountered.

Exactly this, you see it all the time in CQC, the guys higher up are essentially just flying these loops, then blasting the newbies. I prefer just raw dogfighting, would be good to have no power up maps.

 

[Sylow]

Hmm. I don't play CQC, so i can't tell from there. But i can confirm from old times games that i had "me vs. all my friends" matches, which i still kept winning. Mind you, even then i was kind of a slowpoke, i didn't shoot faster than my friends or was so much better in dodging fire. The key for me staying alive and keeping the slaughter on was that i had the timing of healing respawns and the amulet of invulnerability down, so nobody but me ever got his hands on that stuff.

So while i have no CQC experience, i can immediately believe it when somebody says that the power-ups can be a huge problem.

 

[Drelthar]

They are the best part of it...

 

[Morbad]

Power ups are a huge part of CQC and that's entirely by design. The objectives and maps are simplistic enough that there wouldn't be much of a game without them.

It's perfectly possible for a more experienced CQC player to grab the bulk of relevant powerups and knowing where the power ups are is often the difference between just a good pilot in general and a good CQC player.

Exactly this, you see it all the time in CQC, the guys higher up are essentially just flying these loops, then blasting the newbies. I prefer just raw dogfighting, would be good to have no power up maps.

There are a few maps with only one power up.

 

[gorankar]

And yet, I don't play CQC primarily because of the PUs. I am not for changing it if most other actual players like the mechanic. The game is the game that it is after all. Just saying I have no interest in playing CQC, in part, because of the PU mechanic.

 

[Phisto Sobanii]

Learn the maps and get the power ups first like in Halo.

Man cannon to Spartan Laser on Valhalla, amirite?

 

[MUSKETEER]

PUs are part of the CQC Arena.. they are there for everybody.
Experience is the best CQC weapon.

 

[[VR] Goooost]

PUs encourage encounters, bringing the players out of the woodwork and into an exposed area where fighting can commence. There is a risk/reward trade-off for being the most exposed player and going after the perk.

 

[gorankar]

Yeah, this is pretty much why powerups are a good game design thing for arenas: if not camping lets you become an unstoppable engine of death for a while, people aren't going to camp (the main issue, which honestly CQC doesn't have, is that then people could camp powerups - the solution is managing cooldowns et cetera). The fact that powerup spam is happening indicates a huge skill gap, and while Open is Open, an arena-type game with matchmaking should try and have its matchmaking balance at least somewhat.

Matchmaking is hard when there are not really enough people playing. It's not dead like some claim, but it is not what I would call healthy either when it comes to player count. At least not when I am on in the evenings on Central Time in North America.

 

[Curtis R. Prophett]

I have a little bit of experience with CQC, and I have thought about the power up situation some over my time with the game.

First, PUs are a major part of what makes CQC what it is. Losing them altogether would significantly alter the game, and not for the better in my opinion. With high level play, a significant part of the tactical strategy is PU control, and in terms of raw fun, few things can beat evasively flying your tail off under fire, just to grab that shield boost at 2% hull and escape death. Or flying through the speed boost power-up, and immediately kicking your ship into reverse to have your pursuers fly by you and into your gun sights before they even know what's happened. So many amazing game play moments in CQC happen as part of the power up game.

That said, PUs, in their existing implementation, are definitely problematic. The primary problem, as you've called out, is PU looping. All PUs have fixed timers that can be memorized, and the WEP power up is especially problematic because its timer is directly synced to a visual UI element in the ship of the pilot with WEPs. In other words, the pilot with WEPs will always know exactly when it will re-spawn again, which gives an unfair advantage, and makes breaking a WEP loop incredibly difficult.

Yes, other players can memorized loop spawn times and develop an intuitive sense for when they'll re-spawn, but let's be honest, that's pretty extra, and not necessarily fun to have to do for many people.

The simplest fix for this on Frontier's end would be to update the PU re-spawn code so that it becomes 'base re-spawn time" + "a random interval between 10s and 60s." This would allow PUs to continue to be a major part of CQC game play and strategy, but in one step, would remove the advantages of PU timer memorization, as well as the WEP UI issue, both of which as the primary components of PU looping.

 

[[VR] M4st0d0n]

Having a mutator to set them on or off could add variety.

That and bots and more maps and actual development.

 

[MUSKETEER]

The simplest fix for this on Frontier's end would be to update the PU re-spawn code so that it becomes 'base re-spawn time" + "a random interval between 10s and 60s." This would allow PUs to continue to be a major part of CQC game play and strategy, but in one step, would remove the advantages of PU timer memorization, as well as the WEP UI issue, both of which as the primary components of PU looping.

It's pretty much what it is now. PUs are bugged since 3.0 patch I think. They often randomly respawn or don't work at all. Only today I witnessed them to respawn 4 times in like one minute.

 

[space voyager]

I like power-ups. I hate my own map ignorance. I'd need single player for getting to know maps, then play.