My vision for multiplayer PvE (6000 words, better put the kettle on, hope some will enjoy the read)

[Mengy]

+Rep for being a novelist!!!!


(I'll read it over my lunch break, but I only get half an hour so I'll go as far as I can...)

 

[Aashenfox]

I have appreciation for the effort and thought, but you have some serious blinders on if you consider this to be "barely" WoW-esque. The kind of mechanics that you speak of just don't work in a game like this, and quite frankly, you wouldn't want them to work. Those types of mechanics lead to Thrusters only to stay out of firing arcs (and maximize dps uptime), and 4 (maybe 5) ships are viable, and the rest can get out because they simply don't bring enough firepower and/or defenses.

I do want them to work like this. What would be the issue with thrusters only maneuvers to keep out of the 'fire'? That takes skill and awareness to all move as needed without bouncing off each other, we'll have to work out starting positions, it would be very deep. As for only 5 ships being viable, I could not disagree more. Every ship would bring something to such an encounter, provided the piilot was good enough (obviously no haulers or Adders, etc, although the Adder can be quite effective in the right hands. Think Viper and up, and they all have something they're good at and something they are bad at. Besides, this is end game content, it's for good pilots with good ships. Now you're going to say there's no endgame in Elite, but that doesn't negate the meaning the word 'endgame', i.e. After you have gear and skill aplenty.

Your scenario would be much more epic if there were no special abilities, but the Boss ships (yes, more than one, at least 3, maybe 4 or 5 that are Elite, and Engineered) come out of the station together (or warp in), and use group tactics to try to defeat you. These types of things work, a single Boss does not, and never will. If we are going to have Wing content, then it needs to be about the objectives, coordinated tactics, the environment, and (nearly) overwhelming odds, and never about any single, super boss. This includes "adds" as well. The "adds" are the boss, in other words, and they are a boss that you absolutely cannot use a strategy of simply staying out of firing arcs and laying on the dps.

How would fighting the same old NPCs using the same old tactics that we fight every day currently, be more epic and/or challenging than special mechanics? You say a single boss doesn't work,
but you don't say how or why, I find your scenario infinitely less thrilling. I stand by my vision of the boss fight being VERY different from facing yet another Elite NPC conda or wing thereof.

There is another challenge to this type of content as well - without being arbitrary, or gamey, how do you create scenarios where the smaller ships can be effective?

By applying your brain, imagination and a lot of mathematics.

One way would be that the Mission scales based on the ships in the Wing when it's accepted (and you can't change ships until you finish or abandon the mission). While that is both arbitrary and gamey (and problematic), it would allow those who enjoy the smaller ships the ability to enjoy the content their way, instead of being locked out because they don't like (or don't have) what the "community" has dubbed to be the only 5 viable ships.

I don't support this (scaling), it should be something with a specific set challenge, and only when the group obtains enough skill and gear combined, can they defeat it. If that means that the optimal group makeup in terms of ships, is obvious, so be it, but bear in mind in MMOs, that wherever this is obvious, there goes a group with a bizarre makeup to prove it can be done, and they have fun doing it and we have fun reading about it. In any case, in my vision, there would be many different encounters, we could easily make one that big ships couldn't do for example (like a fight in very tight spaces)

I want good Wing content in this game, but anything remotely like current MMO's just isn't the way.

You say this, but you have not provided any reasoning beyond that you don't think it would work very well.

Edit to add: Your scenario, and others like it, need to be able to be completed in roughly 20 minutes, because that's just how the current gaming crowd rolls. If there is too much "crap" in the beginning, people will start to complain about how they have to do the "crap" to get to the "fun," and unfortunately, this must always be taken into consideration when designing such things. Also, there should not be respawns - you die, you are out for the duration. Unfortunately, because of certain types of people, we can't have nice things, so Frontier would also have to build in some way that this could not be gamed, and the only way that I can think of is someone dies (or isn't engaged) = your group fails.

Sure, half an hour for a 'dungeon' type scenario, but a lot longer for the 'raid' type content, such as my initial scenario (which if it became a raid, I would make a LOT more complex). Many,
MANY people are crying out for something to sink their teeth into, and I believe many of the hardcore players that really support this game and keep it running, would enjoy this kind of content.

Riôt

I don't agree with most of this after playing Elite for 2.5 years and being a top 400 in Europe WoW guildmaster (retired during Cataclysm, not intended as a peepee measurement, just as an idea of my experience to date). Please see my comments in red...

*******

Thanks very much for the props guys, I am going to try my hand at serious writing this year, wish me luck!

 

[VR StarLightPL]

Interesting read, though you do lose some composition at the end. For example it is not entirely clear why the player owes Ana his life. Was it the ram? Also, really, important base defence mechanism element in blind spot? What is it, star wars? ;-) [even there it was engineered on purpose as put by Rogue One].

As for the idea for a "boss raid" I'm all fours in. And as for the comment on people "enjoying things their way" I am severely annoyed by Elite trying to pamper to everybody instead of growing some balls and steering the game in one way or another. Almost all "content" in Elite is optional... Ah the blight of political correctness

Anyway, you have my axe, errr... plasma accelerator, Mr. Data, err... Aashenfox!

PS: It very much reminded me of the boss raid in Warframe, and it was a fun memory!

 

[Quantis Trap]

I'm seriously going to save this to my google docs so I can read it one day! +rep

Edit: 11 pages with not font of formatting changes in the Google / Word doc! Wow!

 

[Aashenfox]

Interesting read, though you do lose some composition at the end. For example it is not entirely clear why the player owes Ana his life. Was it the ram? Also, really, important base defence mechanism element in blind spot? What is it, star wars? ;-) [even there it was engineered on purpose as put by Rogue One].

As for the idea for a "boss raid" I'm all fours in. And as for the comment on people "enjoying things their way" I am severely annoyed by Elite trying to pamper to everybody instead of growing some balls and steering the game in one way or another. Almost all "content" in Elite is optional... Ah the blight of political correctness

Anyway, you have my axe, errr... plasma accelerator, Mr. Data, err... Aashenfox!

PS: It very much reminded me of the boss raid in Warframe, and it was a fun memory!

There were no deliberate references to anything else, I'm not that confident yet, the reader was supposed to understand from the fact that she was owed a lot of drinks, they have a lot of battle history, but yeh, the latter part had less forethought than the former. Thanks for the comments.

I'm seriously going to save this to my google docs so I can read it one day! +rep

Edit: 11 pages with not font of formatting changes in the Google / Word doc! Wow!

You'll be surprised how quick you'll get through it.