It bugs me how a different gamemode is considered 'dead' by the community. I have played CQC a few times, I am currently Level 25 and it's honestly not a bad gamemode but I can see why it's not for everyone. So I came up with a few ideas on how Arena can be improved and be fun for everyone in the community. Please don't consider this as a single large suggestion but rather multiple small ones. I will only be focussing on CQC/Arena and seperate gamemodes.
Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments but keep them relevant to this thread. I will be numbering them so you can reply to something specific much easier.
Suggested Arena improvements/ideas:
A: CQC
A1: Use bots to fill up the empty rooms, match bots with the average player skill level in the room so everyone has a equal chance to enjoy the match. I can see how this can be abused to grind xp/rank so reduce xp earned by those bots to 50% +-.
A2: Different type classes/sizes for the current CQC modes. I like those tiny fighters but for my feeling it's a little to fast paced. I think it would be cool to have a medium class or even large class ships available for those who want to play with them. Imagine using a Python against the FDL, Krait and Mamba in a Team Deathmatch round.
A3: A strategic CQC gamemode where the objective is to disable the opponent teams capital class ship. I am not sure if a real capital class ship should be used because these are huge huge. An Anaconda sized ship could work well for this type of game. There are 2 ways to win this game mode: Drain the opponent teams spawn tickets or disable the ship succesfully by destroying the passive heat sinks.
A4: Competittive. CQC is a well designed gamemode for esports and if there are enough people playing and a good matching system I can see this become a serious esports title.
B: More gamemodes
B1: Racing mode: I imagine racing in zero G with tight corners and holographics rings to function as checkpoints, the current fighter ships are perfect for this. People have been asking for this since the release of CQC and it's about time for FDEV to seriously consider adding this type of gamemode.
B1A: Racing modes: I have a few modes in mind already.
B1B: Racing ships should be highly customisable with speed and handling as trade off's. Perhaps heat management could be interesting for this gamemode when over heating means that your engines throttle back to a safer level.
B1C: Circuits/courses: Current CQC locations can be used for racing. The goal is to fly through all rings before hitting the finish line. Miss one ring? Go back, or teleport to your last collected ring. With rings I mean those metal hologram casting power up rings currently used in cqc but slightly larger.
B1D: Mechanics: Boosting only works if you are flying slower than 100m/s to get you up to speed more quickly. If you are flying faster than 100m/s you can choose to drain the engine distributor for more speed temporarily, like nitro in racing games.
B2: Party mode: I am currently having way to much fun just around in the SRV with a couple of friends. I imagine this game mode to be a series of a few silly mini games such as:
B2A: Jumping as a far as possible with the SRV from a mounting without blowing up.
B2B: Do as many flips as possible with the SRV without landing upside down.
B2C: Race to the top of a mountain without using the thrusters. I can go on for hours with silly things like this.
C: Arena integration with the game
C1: Current ingame ranking is pretty good but no one bothers grinding for it because CQC is such an underwhelming gamemode. It takes a long time to find a match if you are lucky. So my suggestion: Allow searching for a CQC match while playing the main game, similar to how multi crew currently works.
C2: Gather statistics for every squadron member so players can compete against each other in a squadron.
C3: The payouts need to go up a lot depending on your other ranks. There is little reason for me to play CQC as the game mode isn't worth it for the money. If I play CQC for an hour I can only make a few thousand credits when I could have made millions if I played the main game instead.
C4: Squadron leaders should be able to schedule squadron CQC events with a small payout for participating.
D: Free mode (Beta style)
D1: Imagine playing with your own ship the way you want without risking to lose anything in the main game. I can see this as a very chaotic game mode/sandbox similar to roaming around in GTA5 and getting nuked by tanks and jets without a good reason. This is where gankers and noobs meet each other and learn about PVP in a non risk environment.
D2: Free mode could be limited to a single system so you can't freelly roam around in the entire universe risk-free.
I hope I can inspire some of the Frontier Developers with this post. I am not expecting anything to make it in the game as development time could also be used for other (more useful) things. I just hope frontier won't let this game mode die by completely ignoring it for the rest of Elite Dangerous lifetime cycle.
Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments but keep them relevant to this thread. I will be numbering them so you can reply to something specific much easier.
Suggested Arena improvements/ideas:
A: CQC
A1: Use bots to fill up the empty rooms, match bots with the average player skill level in the room so everyone has a equal chance to enjoy the match. I can see how this can be abused to grind xp/rank so reduce xp earned by those bots to 50% +-.
A2: Different type classes/sizes for the current CQC modes. I like those tiny fighters but for my feeling it's a little to fast paced. I think it would be cool to have a medium class or even large class ships available for those who want to play with them. Imagine using a Python against the FDL, Krait and Mamba in a Team Deathmatch round.
A3: A strategic CQC gamemode where the objective is to disable the opponent teams capital class ship. I am not sure if a real capital class ship should be used because these are huge huge. An Anaconda sized ship could work well for this type of game. There are 2 ways to win this game mode: Drain the opponent teams spawn tickets or disable the ship succesfully by destroying the passive heat sinks.
A4: Competittive. CQC is a well designed gamemode for esports and if there are enough people playing and a good matching system I can see this become a serious esports title.
B: More gamemodes
B1: Racing mode: I imagine racing in zero G with tight corners and holographics rings to function as checkpoints, the current fighter ships are perfect for this. People have been asking for this since the release of CQC and it's about time for FDEV to seriously consider adding this type of gamemode.
B1A: Racing modes: I have a few modes in mind already.
- Time trial: Race against the time, see if you can beat records of your squadron or beat the galactic record. Time trial should always be available as this is a single player mode but you should be able to race against ghosts/holograms of the current best players.
- Versus: Race against a group of people live and compete for the best position. Win this race by finishing in the top 3.
- Deathrace: You can probably tell where this is going but imagine Versus but with guns and weapons. You need to choose between speed or firepower in a split second, as these weapon rings a placed slightly off the course. Choose for a shortcut with the risk of losing time, I currently see this as a tight passage full off unstable explosives that can remove the shortcut once detonated.
- Ratrace: Start in the bubble and race to beagle point without a frame shift drive.
B1B: Racing ships should be highly customisable with speed and handling as trade off's. Perhaps heat management could be interesting for this gamemode when over heating means that your engines throttle back to a safer level.
B1C: Circuits/courses: Current CQC locations can be used for racing. The goal is to fly through all rings before hitting the finish line. Miss one ring? Go back, or teleport to your last collected ring. With rings I mean those metal hologram casting power up rings currently used in cqc but slightly larger.
B1D: Mechanics: Boosting only works if you are flying slower than 100m/s to get you up to speed more quickly. If you are flying faster than 100m/s you can choose to drain the engine distributor for more speed temporarily, like nitro in racing games.
B2: Party mode: I am currently having way to much fun just around in the SRV with a couple of friends. I imagine this game mode to be a series of a few silly mini games such as:
B2A: Jumping as a far as possible with the SRV from a mounting without blowing up.
B2B: Do as many flips as possible with the SRV without landing upside down.
B2C: Race to the top of a mountain without using the thrusters. I can go on for hours with silly things like this.
C: Arena integration with the game
C1: Current ingame ranking is pretty good but no one bothers grinding for it because CQC is such an underwhelming gamemode. It takes a long time to find a match if you are lucky. So my suggestion: Allow searching for a CQC match while playing the main game, similar to how multi crew currently works.
C2: Gather statistics for every squadron member so players can compete against each other in a squadron.
C3: The payouts need to go up a lot depending on your other ranks. There is little reason for me to play CQC as the game mode isn't worth it for the money. If I play CQC for an hour I can only make a few thousand credits when I could have made millions if I played the main game instead.
C4: Squadron leaders should be able to schedule squadron CQC events with a small payout for participating.
D: Free mode (Beta style)
D1: Imagine playing with your own ship the way you want without risking to lose anything in the main game. I can see this as a very chaotic game mode/sandbox similar to roaming around in GTA5 and getting nuked by tanks and jets without a good reason. This is where gankers and noobs meet each other and learn about PVP in a non risk environment.
D2: Free mode could be limited to a single system so you can't freelly roam around in the entire universe risk-free.
I hope I can inspire some of the Frontier Developers with this post. I am not expecting anything to make it in the game as development time could also be used for other (more useful) things. I just hope frontier won't let this game mode die by completely ignoring it for the rest of Elite Dangerous lifetime cycle.
