To start this suggestion I will quickly note what I have observed of conflict zones so far:
Overall CZ’s seem to give ships buffs on all fronts (not the players though). Shields are stronger and ship hulls are incredibly sturdy compared to regular opponents. I have no clue if the non-engineered weapons on NPC ships are buffed but my current observations lead me to believe they aren’t.
Low Intensity:
These conflict zones are pretty easy and can be done with a non-engineered ship. They consist primarily of small and medium ships.
Medium Intensity:
In my opinion these are the hardest. They seem to have a good amount of small ships but a populated primarily with medium ships with a large ship showing up every now and then. However they also have events which involve destroying or protecting other ships. One of the events I see most often is a ‘Spec Ops’ wing of 4 ships with heavy engineering. On top of the general CZ ship buffs they also have ridiculous shields and weapons. My general strategy is to pick them off one-by-one as engaging all 4 at once will get you killed very quickly.
High Intensity:
Slightly easier than the previous, this one is still reasonably difficult. However, I find this stems more from the fact that it lasts a lot longer than its predecessor while still having a pretty similar mix of ships and events. On rare occasions a capital ship might drop in and depending on which side you’re on you’ll either have to protect it or route it (although these don’t seem to be displayed as objectives).
Powerplay:
These play like the old Conflict Zones where you simply just keep fighting endless waves of respawning enemies, but they also have the general CZ buff which makes them a little annoying but still tolerable.
I have several suggestions which I’ll outline as well:
1.) Buff shields and reduce armour
2.) Completing objectives should reward additional combat bonds
3.) Add new CZ’s which act similarly to old CZ’s
4.) Make Powerplay CZ’s act the same as regular CZ’s
Firstly, with good shield-busters the shields on these enemies will fall pretty quickly. But because their armour is so incredibly high you have to spend the next minute or so, slowly chipping them down. So instead, they should have increased shields and decreased armour in such a way that provides a similar TTK but also doesnt force players to deplete their ammo based weapons as much.
Secondly, objectives only really add a chunk of progress to your “CZ Completion” which doesn’t really matter to most players since they’re there to make money. So rather then add completion and thus lower the number of kills before I have to re-instance, why not just give me money? I think that this should also apply to completing the CZ.
Thirdly, I think that an “Infinite War” style CZ should be re-implemented but following the same rules that FDev has laid out for these new CZ’s. This would tie in nicely with my previous suggestion and allow players to just keep completing objectives and getting payouts. This would also make massacre missions less painful.
Finally, I think that Powerplay CZ’s should also adopt the new system (and of course my suggestions). But with some minor changes; I’d like to see objectives reward merits instead of credits and on completion of a CZ also give some merits.
PS. Plz buff Capital ships, they look so cool but that feeling disappears pretty fast when my Gunship kills stuff faster
Overall CZ’s seem to give ships buffs on all fronts (not the players though). Shields are stronger and ship hulls are incredibly sturdy compared to regular opponents. I have no clue if the non-engineered weapons on NPC ships are buffed but my current observations lead me to believe they aren’t.
Low Intensity:
These conflict zones are pretty easy and can be done with a non-engineered ship. They consist primarily of small and medium ships.
Medium Intensity:
In my opinion these are the hardest. They seem to have a good amount of small ships but a populated primarily with medium ships with a large ship showing up every now and then. However they also have events which involve destroying or protecting other ships. One of the events I see most often is a ‘Spec Ops’ wing of 4 ships with heavy engineering. On top of the general CZ ship buffs they also have ridiculous shields and weapons. My general strategy is to pick them off one-by-one as engaging all 4 at once will get you killed very quickly.
High Intensity:
Slightly easier than the previous, this one is still reasonably difficult. However, I find this stems more from the fact that it lasts a lot longer than its predecessor while still having a pretty similar mix of ships and events. On rare occasions a capital ship might drop in and depending on which side you’re on you’ll either have to protect it or route it (although these don’t seem to be displayed as objectives).
Powerplay:
These play like the old Conflict Zones where you simply just keep fighting endless waves of respawning enemies, but they also have the general CZ buff which makes them a little annoying but still tolerable.
I have several suggestions which I’ll outline as well:
1.) Buff shields and reduce armour
2.) Completing objectives should reward additional combat bonds
3.) Add new CZ’s which act similarly to old CZ’s
4.) Make Powerplay CZ’s act the same as regular CZ’s
Firstly, with good shield-busters the shields on these enemies will fall pretty quickly. But because their armour is so incredibly high you have to spend the next minute or so, slowly chipping them down. So instead, they should have increased shields and decreased armour in such a way that provides a similar TTK but also doesnt force players to deplete their ammo based weapons as much.
Secondly, objectives only really add a chunk of progress to your “CZ Completion” which doesn’t really matter to most players since they’re there to make money. So rather then add completion and thus lower the number of kills before I have to re-instance, why not just give me money? I think that this should also apply to completing the CZ.
Thirdly, I think that an “Infinite War” style CZ should be re-implemented but following the same rules that FDev has laid out for these new CZ’s. This would tie in nicely with my previous suggestion and allow players to just keep completing objectives and getting payouts. This would also make massacre missions less painful.
Finally, I think that Powerplay CZ’s should also adopt the new system (and of course my suggestions). But with some minor changes; I’d like to see objectives reward merits instead of credits and on completion of a CZ also give some merits.
PS. Plz buff Capital ships, they look so cool but that feeling disappears pretty fast when my Gunship kills stuff faster