(Just to be clear, I do not represent the international community (have never claimed to do so) but I am part of it and in intense contact with international CQC-players.
Just to be clear, I neither represent nor speak for a Cmdr Musketeer.)
Hello FDev, the international CQC community has ideas which are presented by dedicated, cross-platform CQC players here. Please have a look!
First of all, I would like to mention that a member of the CQC discord channel has been in touch with the community team already and has passed ideas directly onto Fdev for consideration to be made for changes to CQC.
Here some of the bullet points of the international CQC community presented by dedicated, cross-platform CQC players :
- Power-Ups
- Power-Ups offer temporary in-game buffs across all 3 game modes: weapons power, shield strength, speed, and stealth.
- Their locations are marked by white circles on the radar, and flying through them grants the benefit.
- They are always located in the same position on each map. They also always last for the same period of time.
Issues
- Power-Up locations are easily memorised, giving experienced CQC pilots a strong advantage over newer players.
- In arenas such as ‘Ice Field’, Power-Ups are placed closely together, allowing powerful combinations (see weapons and stealth below) to be picked up quickly.
- The above points encourage unfair gameplay practices:
- “Looping” – flying through Power-Ups one after another to stack them up, and repeating as soon as the cool-down allows (which is tracked in the HUD – and can be further assisted by audible timed warnings in external programs such as Voice Attack).
- “Camping” – the practice of staying by the Power-Up locations waiting to pick them up rather than engaging in the game-mode.
- Looping and Camping are not “cheating” but offer unfair advantages especially against newer and experienced players, negatively affecting the health of CQC.
- The benefits themselves are generally considered well balanced with the possible exception of the weapons damage increase (especially when paired with stealth).
Suggested Changes
- Respawn timer randomisation: changing the set time for Power-Up respawns to a range (e.g. 10 – 90 sec)
- Location randomisation: while keeping their physical locations on the map the same, randomise which Power-Up appears per-respawn at those locations.
- Remove Power-Up stacking: flying through a second Power-Up immediately causes the first to expire.
- Weapons Power-Up reduction: consider reducing the 45 seconds length of this Power-Up, or its effectiveness from a 100% damage increase to a 50% increase. Taking the weapons power-up could also be changed to slow the weapons capacitor regen rate.
- Clear & obvious weapons identifier on whoever has taken the weapons power up – glowing aura, bigger weapons graphics, red exhaust trail (similar to the player who has the flag in Capture the Flag) etc.
- Rewards
Issues
- There is little incentive for Elite Dangerous players to try out CQC. Without meaningful rewards, it is often felt as “wasted time”.
- Many disregard the Elite Rank as an unachievable goal that “doesn’t count” and which has no interaction with the main game.
- Players receive a nominal sum of credits for playing CQC. To achieve Elite in the CQC rank, players must accrue (on average) 22,000 kills. This equates to approximately ~17,000,000 total credits, averaging to fewer than 800Cr per kill.
- Suggested Changes
- Increase credit reward 100x. This would equate to an estimated 500,000Cr and 2,500,000Cr per hour for beginner to advanced players. Even a 200x credit increase, would amount to 5,000,000Cr per hour – still well below main game earnings.
- Allow CQC gameplay to contribute to the capped 400 ARX that players may earn weekly through playing.
- Upon hitting each Prestige Rank, the choice of a specialised paint job for use on the ships.
- Introduce regular CQC Community Goals, with tier based rewards based on number of kills or wins. This could include a weekly / monthly ‘double XP event’ or an exclusive double engineered module only accessible through playing CQC.
- Stronger interaction with the main game – CQC arena hubs in the main game (which could also be accessed through CQC matchmaking), where CQC wins from those areas have consequences for BGS, such as improving faction morale.
- Allow players to opt for engineering material rewards in lieu of credits (albeit at a slow rate). 1 x Grade 4 / 5 material per completed match for example.
- Allow players to customise their CQC ships, by using paint jobs, ship kits, weapons and engine colours purchased in the main game.
- Add an unlockable main game CQC decal similar to the ones on offer for the other Elite ranks, matching the rank icon below.
- Ships
Issues
- CQC players have a small pool of ships to choose from: the Condor, Sidewinder, Eagle, and GU-97 (which was added by Frontier in a later patch after the original 3). The Sidewinder in particular is not a combat focussed ship, and is barely used.
- Suggested Changes
- Add the Taipan and/or a Guardian Fighter with additional unlockable loadouts, increasing the total number of loadouts to 15 or 18 respectively.
- Make fixes to some of the already existing ships such as the Sidewinder (increase the agility slightly and fix the Frag Cannon, which is less damaging than the stock laser).
- Rebalance some of the existing ship module unlocks – amour booster and shield booster modules are too weak to be useful.
- Changes to ships weaponry – possibility of regen beams to allow for further depth to team play.
- Fix the ‘target subsystems’ options, as this would add extra depth to combat.
As I wrote above, these are
some of the bullet points and have been developed exclusively from the experiences of the CQC-players and are considered to be in urgent need of improvement.
FDev, please, show us of the international CQC-community that you are watching and listening. We know that you have a lot of projects on your to-do list but please comment as to when we can look forward to CQC improvements.
The real reason people don't play CQC is because it's bad and shallow game. I played a lot to see what it was about. And it was about offering a F2P entree point to ED on a time Dev's were trying something new. As many features, Devs soon abandoned it.
Compared to any other Arena Shooter / Space battle Arena, it's just a really poor game.
So balancing is not the main issue.
-Ship builds are absurdly limited compared to the main game, and others.
-Non existing ranking system/ matchmaking, resulting in new players and veterans playing on the same matches.
-Rank not meaning skill, but time played. So an Elite player can be bad at the game but playing alot, offering no ''merit'' system.
-No progression system besides unlocking the necessary ship variations to play the game.
-Limited game modes. Not offering enough variety to the gameplay.
-Few maps with very few variations on gameplay impact
-No relevant tie-ins to the main game
-No exclusive features compared to the main game, besides it being THE ONLY PVP SYSTEM IN THE GAME.
-Missing features from the ships in the main game like nightvision and module control and sub-targeting.
-Missing features compared to other Space Battle games, like squadron calls, or markers.
I would love for it to be a good game, but it is not.
None of the discord suggestions contribute to the main issues.
The game is Close Quarters Combat - ARENA
These changes suggested are some of the wierdest I've ever read...
-All of the Power-up related changes deal away with the most basic gameplay loop of arena shooters, controlling the map. Or else this would be just a Death Match based on ship to ship Rock/Paper/Scizors and space pew pew
-The balancing of rewards is extremely unbalanced compared to players who grinded though the game to achieve that in regular PVE. A new player could just do CQC until they have everything for the other game.
-The ships balancing suggestions are problems that exist in the main ED game, but are fixable with engineering, something that does not exist in CQC.
The real solution to CQC as I pointed in another Thread is reworking it completely to become the ED-PVP system. Transform it Into a Match Making for the main game.
A version that still allows entree level players to find easy acessible small ship combat to play and test. But allows the main game ships to be usable in a specific bracket/game modes. Be rewarded ranks and credits in line with the main game.
-Filter though Pre-made, non-engineered, engineered ranks 1/2/3 ships for the game mode.
-Matchmake with people of similar CQC rank, a rank that both rises or falls based on skill and results of matches.
-Be rewarded CQC only rewards, like end season results in Main ED rewards as bubble-heads for the panels or exclusive skins.
-A game with exclusive experience. You could see squadrons of 3 Small ships and a Large one play objectives. Or other variations, giving niech builds a space in the game.
So much can be done here. But balancing CQC is not the way. It's about completely reworking it's fundamental aspects.
The base CQC experience people are used to would still be there, but It's so shallow that it would be just 1 segment of a larger game system.
And It would benefit from any improvements made to the rest of the system.
