Bill is getting around a lot these days, I'm guessing he gave up with domination of the mosquito world. Congrats on being stabbed by the way, jokes aside. Should get mine soon ish, but in the next group down to get stuck with Billy.
Hot Take - Consent to Risk, Ship Abilities, TTK
- Thread starter Alexander_Sepulveda
- Start date
Bill is getting around a lot these days, I'm guessing he gave up with domination of the mosquito world. Congrats on being stabbed by the way, jokes aside. Should get mine soon ish, but in the next group down to get stuck with Billy.
Oh are they getting it stuck into those in their early 20's next
Oh give me some credit mate!
I only behave like a door handle for a bit of fun...or do I?!I like hot cake.
Same I love it with a bit of custard or ice-cream on the side.
While an interesting concept, I don't think the problem and the solution really follow one another. Yes, this will make enemies more difficult to kill, but I don't think that's really the problem in the first place.
The problem is that killing enemy players is pretty much the ONLY style of interaction that doesn't require extensive investigation. You see another player, say, killing enemies and a rez, you can't just join them and have equal results, you need to chat, become friends, wing up, and share any massacre missions.
Or you can just kill them.
If you want to make credits, you can tirelessly pursue players, disable their ships, and hatchbreak them for a few hundred k of credits...or you can just do massacre missions and mining to make money, and when you see the player, you just kill them.
IMO, the best way to help with the griefer problem will involve a revamp to Piracy, likely via Rare Goods. One of the biggest problems with Piracy is that it's just not very viable. You pirate someone carrying agronomic treatment, get 50 of it, and make 500k in half an hour. What it SHOULD be is, you pirate someone and they drop 5 tons of rare goods worth 500k each.
What the game needs are small quantities of extremely high-profit goods that make piracy viable. Rare goods, in other words. Goods valuable enough to be worth stealing. At the same time, a revamp of the C&P system so players can't just sit in the same system all day killing players without real risk.
These changes are possible without dramatically reshaping the existing ships that are relatively well balanced, just in an unbalanced system.
The problem is that killing enemy players is pretty much the ONLY style of interaction that doesn't require extensive investigation. You see another player, say, killing enemies and a rez, you can't just join them and have equal results, you need to chat, become friends, wing up, and share any massacre missions.
Or you can just kill them.
If you want to make credits, you can tirelessly pursue players, disable their ships, and hatchbreak them for a few hundred k of credits...or you can just do massacre missions and mining to make money, and when you see the player, you just kill them.
IMO, the best way to help with the griefer problem will involve a revamp to Piracy, likely via Rare Goods. One of the biggest problems with Piracy is that it's just not very viable. You pirate someone carrying agronomic treatment, get 50 of it, and make 500k in half an hour. What it SHOULD be is, you pirate someone and they drop 5 tons of rare goods worth 500k each.
What the game needs are small quantities of extremely high-profit goods that make piracy viable. Rare goods, in other words. Goods valuable enough to be worth stealing. At the same time, a revamp of the C&P system so players can't just sit in the same system all day killing players without real risk.
These changes are possible without dramatically reshaping the existing ships that are relatively well balanced, just in an unbalanced system.
What, no gin?
I’d love a good gin right now.
Then don't slap the same module builds onto every ship, I certainly don't...
But then, I don't do relog-fests to collect mats either
Thought I’d pop in and congratulate the OP on a beautifully laid out table. Pleasure to see.
I don't know how long OP has been in this game, how many ships did he engineer, what he knows about builds and how many players he fought with, but it feels like perspective is a bit skewed.
Actually, I like unique ship abilities as a concept, it may definitely bring some variety into gameplay overall. Plus most of those proposals are relatively well though out, others might need some tuning, though. But the only thing, change like this would bring, is just making gameplay more varied and give some spice to each ship. It won't fix any issues with non-existent combat balance, and interactions between players-to-players or players-to-NPCs.
When people say you can build ship that is unkillable in Open are delusional. There are tools (experimentals) that allow well coordinated wing to completely shutdown and murder ANY ship in a matter of minutes, without it having any chance to escape. When people say they can build fat shield tanks and they think it will protect them against some newbie ganker - it is hilarious how twisted is the perception of these players...
Firstly, when you're in Open in non combat meta, even fully engineered ship (for defenses) - you're just a pathetic victim. Only thing you can do, is turn tail and run every time like a coward. Secondly, when you go for that "open build", that means you completely gimp effectiveness and main role of your ship to survive gank, that may never even occur. And you won't survive anything, if you come across wing that wants to kill you. Which means: in the end you trade a lot of utility for the sheer illusion of safety.
Balance issues stem for very wrong initial weapon damage values and hull/shield capacity along with resistances. Those issues are heavily reinforced by engineering, making things much worse.
Things that should not exist:
Issues that are heavily magnified by engineering:
Plainly speaking, it shouldn't be possible to have similar hull integrity on, say, Eagle, as on stock Type 9. Weapons that deal absolute damage and being able to max out it's damage, is wrong on every account. Any universal/dual type of a damage weapon should have it's initial damage proportionally reduced in relation to systems that deal sole type of a damage. I used to play MWO, and it had that idiotic meta of alphastriking, where you literally stack same, most convenient weapon, and shoot stuff in the face, outright melting it under heat cooling over and over. Instead, for combat you must be forced to have mixed loadouts of different damage types to address each protection layer accordingly. Shield must be very vulnerable to Thermal. Kinetic being useful against Hull, but weaker against shield. And Explosive being extremely harmful against hull and very weak against shield, with hullmass based damage and fixed ECM/PDT utilities, along with overhauled Chaff/SCB.
It will mean that when you gank Type 9, that has even stock shield, several countermeasures, it would take you considerable time to chew though it's hull, especially since you will have equipped some Thermals, to deal with Shield, that do pathetic damage to Hull, plus you will not be able to disable it as easy as you can now. Also, each and every ship must have thresholds for minimal and maximal hull/shield integrity, that might be tuned via engineering/extra modules, but will have no affect past certain point, to counter stacking, that blows it out of proportions like we can now. All raw engineering bonuses must be dialed back hard. All resistance bending - removed. If it does give "overcharged" effect, it must be absolutely crippling in terms of heat gen and WEP drain to compensate as a tradeoff, and you shouldn't be able to counteract this by engineering your Distie, so you forget about PIP distribution entirely. Literally every effect should be either outright removed, unless it is niche utility, or have some REAL tradeoff. I can go on forever, but you get the main idea, and, at least, where to start.
This way whole playerbase wouldn't be using single system per activity, will have varied loadouts that take a lot more skill and fun, than alphastriking with sole weapon system, that is overcharged and deals universal damage, which is good against everything, so TTK may possibly be shortened in combat-to-combat builds, but might stay the same or be even higher with combat-to-civ. craft. In fact, having some weapons, like say, magnetic mines with drag effect, or heavy torpedoes as a surprise attack against pirating vessel might finally give player, that constantly has to run now, some fighting chance at last, or force the attacker to withdraw, while not sacrificing so much of main ship purpose, as these players do now. Same way for pirate builds to actually become a thing at last.
The main issue here, is that if engineering would be a lot subtler, playerbase will spend a lot less time grinding, or might even not consider it at all, which would be great. But that will lead to conclusion that player retention isn't good enough, and game lost a lot of "content", no matter how hilarious that may sound. I'm pretty sure FDev clearly understands what mess engineering brought into this game, but backing down on this now for them is unlikely, for these reasons, as far as I can judge.
Anyway, it's only a small glimpse of ideas that might fix things. It's nothing too complex, and if tuned-tested well, will certainly have positive effect. Although, much better posts have been made over the years, with math breakdowns, and talking about values on much deeper level, but the only hope we have is that FD will start caring at some point...
Actually, I like unique ship abilities as a concept, it may definitely bring some variety into gameplay overall. Plus most of those proposals are relatively well though out, others might need some tuning, though. But the only thing, change like this would bring, is just making gameplay more varied and give some spice to each ship. It won't fix any issues with non-existent combat balance, and interactions between players-to-players or players-to-NPCs.
When people say you can build ship that is unkillable in Open are delusional. There are tools (experimentals) that allow well coordinated wing to completely shutdown and murder ANY ship in a matter of minutes, without it having any chance to escape. When people say they can build fat shield tanks and they think it will protect them against some newbie ganker - it is hilarious how twisted is the perception of these players...
Firstly, when you're in Open in non combat meta, even fully engineered ship (for defenses) - you're just a pathetic victim. Only thing you can do, is turn tail and run every time like a coward. Secondly, when you go for that "open build", that means you completely gimp effectiveness and main role of your ship to survive gank, that may never even occur. And you won't survive anything, if you come across wing that wants to kill you. Which means: in the end you trade a lot of utility for the sheer illusion of safety.
Balance issues stem for very wrong initial weapon damage values and hull/shield capacity along with resistances. Those issues are heavily reinforced by engineering, making things much worse.
Things that should not exist:
- ANY defensive module stacking.
- Such extreme difference between most weapon damage values and ammo capacity depending on hardpoint size.
- Underpronounced damage-to-resistance relation.
- Certain systems: weapons, optionals and utilities having extremely niche application, bordering to uselessness, while some are universally good.
- Modules being way too flimsly, easy to snipe, and getting-back-online mechanisms not working as well as it could have.
- High Waking not causing mass lock, and having weak/wrong mass lock values in general between different ships.
- Interdiction mechanic being extremely one sided.
Issues that are heavily magnified by engineering:
- Powercreep going up to absolute extremes of raw damage, along with hull/shield capacity (it doesn't make any sense at all).
- Resistance/Damage type bending, naturally leading to very strict meta, and eliminating any possibilities for play-counterplay mechanics.
- Experimental effects that are too powerful/harmful/useful all out of proportion.
- Again, certain upgrades being complete "meta" while the rest is useless.
Plainly speaking, it shouldn't be possible to have similar hull integrity on, say, Eagle, as on stock Type 9. Weapons that deal absolute damage and being able to max out it's damage, is wrong on every account. Any universal/dual type of a damage weapon should have it's initial damage proportionally reduced in relation to systems that deal sole type of a damage. I used to play MWO, and it had that idiotic meta of alphastriking, where you literally stack same, most convenient weapon, and shoot stuff in the face, outright melting it under heat cooling over and over. Instead, for combat you must be forced to have mixed loadouts of different damage types to address each protection layer accordingly. Shield must be very vulnerable to Thermal. Kinetic being useful against Hull, but weaker against shield. And Explosive being extremely harmful against hull and very weak against shield, with hullmass based damage and fixed ECM/PDT utilities, along with overhauled Chaff/SCB.
It will mean that when you gank Type 9, that has even stock shield, several countermeasures, it would take you considerable time to chew though it's hull, especially since you will have equipped some Thermals, to deal with Shield, that do pathetic damage to Hull, plus you will not be able to disable it as easy as you can now. Also, each and every ship must have thresholds for minimal and maximal hull/shield integrity, that might be tuned via engineering/extra modules, but will have no affect past certain point, to counter stacking, that blows it out of proportions like we can now. All raw engineering bonuses must be dialed back hard. All resistance bending - removed. If it does give "overcharged" effect, it must be absolutely crippling in terms of heat gen and WEP drain to compensate as a tradeoff, and you shouldn't be able to counteract this by engineering your Distie, so you forget about PIP distribution entirely. Literally every effect should be either outright removed, unless it is niche utility, or have some REAL tradeoff. I can go on forever, but you get the main idea, and, at least, where to start.
This way whole playerbase wouldn't be using single system per activity, will have varied loadouts that take a lot more skill and fun, than alphastriking with sole weapon system, that is overcharged and deals universal damage, which is good against everything, so TTK may possibly be shortened in combat-to-combat builds, but might stay the same or be even higher with combat-to-civ. craft. In fact, having some weapons, like say, magnetic mines with drag effect, or heavy torpedoes as a surprise attack against pirating vessel might finally give player, that constantly has to run now, some fighting chance at last, or force the attacker to withdraw, while not sacrificing so much of main ship purpose, as these players do now. Same way for pirate builds to actually become a thing at last.
The main issue here, is that if engineering would be a lot subtler, playerbase will spend a lot less time grinding, or might even not consider it at all, which would be great. But that will lead to conclusion that player retention isn't good enough, and game lost a lot of "content", no matter how hilarious that may sound. I'm pretty sure FDev clearly understands what mess engineering brought into this game, but backing down on this now for them is unlikely, for these reasons, as far as I can judge.
Anyway, it's only a small glimpse of ideas that might fix things. It's nothing too complex, and if tuned-tested well, will certainly have positive effect. Although, much better posts have been made over the years, with math breakdowns, and talking about values on much deeper level, but the only hope we have is that FD will start caring at some point...
As long as Fdev does not nerf any current hit pools, or buff any weapons, most interdictions by a solo commander are survivable for the amount of time it takes to high wake if one has built their ship properly reasonably and one does not panic when it starts. Obviously, they might get a really good RNG in where they come out, and have a bit more of a chance but usually, they just don't have the time. We don't really need any additional buffs. We can always just change mode if we don't want to be interfered with or annoyed by other players. We can even block people that bother us for any reason we want. Not sure we need more.
That looks a helluva lot better than the consensus of this thread.Got all excited about learning what a hot cake is and what a letdown. It's just pancakes
View attachment 211719
There is no consensus...
(but with that hotcake a spoon would be nice...)