After being a long time thinking about these Ideas, I am going to explan them here, separed by categories. Most of them are adressed to improve and promote player-player interactions.
It´s a long text, I hope FDEV reads it and of course anyone who read this thread can ping me or PM and suggest.
- BGS and powerplay.
1- Make BGS and powerplay open only. My suggestion is every nav data, mission, bounty, powerplay brochures, powerplay point, commodities, whatever, made in OPEN should be the only one to be able to have any influence in BGS/ powerplay. The way I would do this is these items should be marked as "OPEN ITEMS" and in the very moment you change to SOLO/PG, these items would be marked as "NO-OPEN ITEMS" (or something similar) even if you go back to Open. This way new players that play only in SOLO/PG could be capable of gain reputation with a powerplay to obtain a weapon, or with a minor faction, earn money making missions, etc, but without having influence in the galaxy.
2- Donation missions should require donate the money and them fly to another base to end the mission, this way a ship in open could not move the BGS just sitting in a station and spending money without risk.
3- More rewards for BGS. At the moment the BGS apart from seeing % rising in your favourite faction does not give anything for the players. BGS could be more dinamic and active if players in a squadron making BGS for his faction, could get a reward based on the amount of population the faction controls at the end of a week, month, etc. It could be money, materials, extra ARX, special decals, or even engineered modules. Also the possibility of changing name bases, etc. Maybe for POWERPLAY a similar reward system could be implemented.
1) FDev have said (as recently as Beyond Q4) that they want all modes to be able to experience and interact with the same shared universe equally. You can ask for 'open only' anything all you want, unless FDev have a massive change in heart you're aren't going to get it.
2) Considering point 1, this is a relative non-issue since you could just avoid open play entirely.
3) I don't do BGS, but I don't see how it would be possible to increase the rewards involved with BGS (particularly non-credit rewards) without unfairly making BGS
the preferred method for earning materials, ARX, cosmetics, and/or engineered modules. Why should someone with playstyle X magically get more rewards than someone with playstyle Y? Same thing for goes for powerplay, although powerplay at least has the excuse that it is long overdue for a rework.
As for renaming starports, bases, outposts and/or other BGS assets, it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense in-universe. It would not be a trivial task to rename an outpost, let alone a
starport. You'd need to change the name in countless databases, change all of the "you are here" maps throughout the station, and so on. That doesn't even count the chaos created by renaming public infrastructure and all of the space truckers that would need to stop and ask for directions. Think of how much effort goes into renaming a shopping mall and how much chaos is created as a result, then multiply that several hundred or thousand times.
- Crime and Punishment, security.
1- Let´s be real. Security system in this game is a joke. This should change specially in high security systems. High security systems police should have full wings of engineered NPC´s ships, piloted by clever IA pilots who should make every criminal think two times before killing another commander for no reason, and they should come quickly, 10 seconds or something like that, not 1 and a half minute. Also a wanted pilot who enters in a high security system should be interdicted by this forces one time after another. This way also anarchy systems would be a thing in BGS level to stablish "safe" places for outlaws.
2- No wanted pilot should be able to land in a base he is wanted. I have seen several times people killing new commanders in Felicity Farseer, and them land in the base to reload shield. In the very moment you get near of a base you are wanted, the base should try to blow you in pieces, that´s all. I also have seen pilots wanted landing in orbital bases, and doing the same, that does not have any logic.
3- When a commander reach level 4 (or less, it´s a suggestion) of notoriety, reached for example killing NPC´s other players, etc, it´s forced to play in open until he reaches notoriety 1 or so again. Also notoriety should be only reducid playing and flying REALLY in open, not sitting in a station and just waiting.
4- When a commander has made a lot of crimes repeatedly (again some notoriety level), should has a "marker" that other commanders could see in the galaxy map. Some kind of marker or list of wanted commanders online in that moment and in the system. Also in, for example, in medium and high security systems. If a wanted commander is even out of supercruise, if another commander go nearer than, for example, 100 LS, it could appear a signal revealing a wanted commander is there, so bounty hunters could track him. As this signal does not appear in low and anarcky systems, again some systems could be used as safe place.
5- Remove the 2 millions limit for bountys. Ok, I know this was limited to avoid people passing credits to another player letting him to be killed, but it´s not fair if a kill a wanted commander, who has let´s suppose 100 million bounty, I only get 2 million. I could get for example 50% of the bounty, (or 60%, whatever). The typical FDL has a rebuy of about ten million, so the bounty hunter / enforcer proffesion would be much more lucrative if bounty limits are modified, and of course it would improve interaction between outlaws and lawfuls
1) Increased scaling of police response based on security status is something that many people have been asking for for a long time, usually in conjunction with more lucrative opportunities in lower security systems in order to have an element of risk vs. reward. i's definitely something I would like to see.
2) This is a result of people getting themselves stuck in a system where they are wanted. I would argue that it should still be possible to dock at a station where you are wanted, but that it should become much harder (or even downright impossible) to do if you have a sufficiently high notoriety. Someone who accidentally shot a police ship should still be able to dock, but someone who went on a murderous rampage would have a very hard time docking, assuming that they are even allowed to do so.
3) Disagree about the open play bit (see point 1 of the previous section), but I would definitely be down for a system that forces (or at least encourages) players to actually fly their ship in order for notoriety to tick down.
4) One would think that the Pilot's Federation would keep track of the locations (or even approximate locations) of dangerous criminals, both for the purposes of allowing trade ships to avoid them and allowing bounty hunters to find them. This is another thing I would like to see in-game, especially if "kill the pirate lord" missions were changed to make use of this feature.
5) The bounty cap should definitely be eliminated (or at least raised significantly). When you consider how long it takes to kill a dedicated PvP ship, 2M CR is a paltry amount for the risks involved compared to
literally anything else in the game. If you're concerned about players passing credits to each other, there are
FAR easier ways to give another player credits. For example, player A could spend half an hour mining, spend another half an hour giving player B all of the painite they mined, and player B could
easily end up 50M CR richer.
- CG´s and interestellar Initiatives
1- In some way the developers should actively participate in CG´s, with a ship marked clearly as piloted by a developer (or someone contracted for that). Of course the pilot has to be a experienced pilot and the ship should be fully engineered. Interacting with these pilots could have any special reward for who do this. Also this way the developers would be much near of the community.
2- CG´s open only. In the very moment you sign in at least one or more CG´s, interestellar initiatives or whatever, you are instantly changed to open and can´t change to solo/PG until all the CG´s you are signed are ended. CG´s should make people connect and interact.
1) This would certainly be neat, although I don't really see the point unless you're trying to get more people into open. It would require FDev to get more involved in the community first though, which I would be in favour of.
2) As I mentioned in point 1 of the first section, "you can ask for 'open only' anything all you want, unless FDev have a massive change in heart you're aren't going to get it."
- Economy
1- The economy should be more dinamic, both local system and also galaxy system. We have seen in the last months miners are flooding the bubble with opals and diamonds, but the prices are the same. This have made now in the game any new commander can make billions in the first week of play. I am not telling we have to go back to the first years of game where making money was extremely difficult, but I think now is unbalanced. In a real economy system, the vast increase in offer should have made the prices of these items to drop quickly, so people should have moved to trade / mine other items to make money. A dinamic economy system should take into account the offer and demand, so the trader proffession would be much more interesting, because traders would have to invest time looking prices, demand, and also planning routes, trying to avoid low and anarchy systems for example. And probably pirate commanders for example would also study these routes to pirate the traders, increasing again player interaction.
I have not studied the in-game economy in much detail, although it does seem to be fairly unrealistic at first glance. I'm not sure if it would be possible to create a realistic economy for all of the ~55000 commodity markets in-game, although I would certainly be interested in any documentation that FDev has on the exact mechanics involved.
- Player interacting mechanics
1- Mechanics to make player be able to trade between them in stations, or for example missions created in game by players, for other players. For example scort missions, bounty hunting missions, etc. Let´s suppose I create a mission to scort me and my gold fitted type 9 to reach my favourite station. I can create the mission, offer 10 millions, and then in the very moment I create the mission the money is taken from my credits, and then my player scort get´s the money when we together reach the destiny. This kind of things would dramatically increase life in the game and player interaction. etc. An important point is the amount to be paid in this missions should have any limit to avoid people paying too much, to exploit it and passing money to another account, etc.
2- Rewards for people who only plays open. Apart from the point I explained before about BGS and POWERPLAY, every "OPEN ONLY" item sold, delivered, etc, could have 10% (or 20%, whatever) reward because in theory you are risking more. Even if you are not trying to move any BGS or something, any commander who mine some silver, gold, whatever, in open, and after a risky (and exciting) travel to the selling point, should have any extra reward if he does it in open all the time.
1) Player-created missions would definitely be neat, but they would make "gold selling" between players absolutely trivial. "Here, if you send me $20 on Paypal I'll give you 1 billion credits to escort me from this high security system to this other high security system 5ly away." Considering that this is the same developer that capped bounties at 2 million credits to prevent "gold selling", this type of feature will be a pipe dream unless FDev can somehow come up with a way to prevent "gold selling".
2) See point 1 of the first section.
- Thargoids
1- With thargoids we have passed from 100 to 0. At the beggining of this year thargoids were invading more and more systems everyday and all the people involved in Xenowar could do absolutely nothing, and then after some adjustment FDEV made, the situation changed totally from one day to another. About 6 or seven systems were cleaned everyday and now the thargoids are not a real threat
2- Systems with thargoid presence. Ok, in theory a system with thargoids around should be very dangerous. Actually if I go to a system invaded by thargoids, I am only in danger if I drop into a nonhuman signal. I would like to be in real danger in the very moment I reach a thargoid invaded system. Agressive hyperdictions, and of course thatgoids pulling me out of supercruise and attacking me in those systems.
3- Thargoid friends. There are commanders who thinks thargoids are friends for them. Ok, then they should receive tools for that. Maybe after "aligning" as Thargoids friends, they would only be able to go into a smal bunch of systems where minor factions are alse thargoids friends (or maybe a new thargoid friend powerplay), because in any other they will be seen as enemies of mankind and attacked all the time, but at the same time Thargoids would not attack them. Once you align in game as thargoid friend you have to stay aligned for a month at least, for example. Therefore people couldn´t not change everyday to mess other players and then appear as lawfuls the day after. Also if you on purpose attack a commander who is in combat against a Thargoid, maybe he will be forced to be "thargoid friendly".
I don't really interact with the thargoids all that much (I typically steer clear of the areas they are in), so I can't really comment on anything here.
- New ships
1- we want new ships, and original please, not only variatios from existing ships. Also the imperials have the cutter, the federals have the corvette, but the alliance have not a proper big PVP ship. Maybe FDEV after a CG could develop a big ship, based on the challenger or the chieftiain, but bigger, with more shields, armor, weapons, etc, and af course slower.
2- Also, incredibly the empire does not have a medium combat ship. The only thing more or less alike is the clipper but the hardpoints are not suitable to use fixed weapons.
3- A new and really big transport ship. I don´t know if FDEV is making this or not, but I would like to have a new transport ship, so big it has to dock out of orbital station in a special platform or something. With a max cargo capacity of about 2.500 tons, etc.
1) I don't think that there are very many people who are opposed to getting new ships. Sure, there is some real-world logic to building multiple ship types based on a single design, but you can do that so much before it starts to get bland (3 ships based on the same design is the practical limit imo). Fresh ship designs will always be welcome in-game, while variations of existing designs will be less so.
As for a large-pad ship for the Alliance, they
technically already have on in the form of the Type 10. I say
technically because the Type 10 is only a stop-gap ship and is the
only faction ship that does not bear the name of the superpower that it is affiliated with (probably because the Alliance was too embarrassed to admit they were involved
). I'm still holding out for a large-pad ship that is about as capable as the Anaconda and Corvette with the Alliance name and design aesthetic of the Chieftain family.
2) This has been asked for on multiple occasions. I would certainly like to see an Imperial ship that can use medium landing pads, but the recent proliferation of medium-pad combat ships (4 of the last 6 we've been given are dedicated medium combat ships, with the other 2 being very combat-capable medium-pad multirole ships) has me hoping for anything
other than a medium-pad combat ship.
3) This has also been asked for on multiple occasions. The main concern I have with this kind of ship is how many new mechanics would need to be added in order to make the ship functional, let alone enjoyable. ED's flight controls are, in their most basic form, all about dogfighting. A ship like you suggest would be exceptionally slow and turn like a brick, being better suited for executive-control gameplay than dogfighting gameplay. Combine the fact that you would need to create a new control scheme for the new type of ship with the new docking mechanic, assets for external docking rigs, cargo shuttles, and so on, you end up with a massive investment of developer time and effort for a feature that will most likely be better executed in a game dedicated to that kind of gameplay (EVE, Fractured Space, and Dreadnought come to mind). Personally, I don't think that the amount of effort required to add such a ship is worth it.
- Rebuy insurance
1- I think the rebuy insurance should change the price based on the player experience. Now is 5% of the ship price, no matter if you are a total noob or Elite. I suggest something like 2% at the beginning of the game, and a figure about 30% when you are Elite in something (Trade, exploring or combat). This way veteran players, with a lot of money would have more risk and also things would be more balanced, specially for people who has 20 billions, for them a rebuy is nothing. With this system things would change and would be more exciting.
I do not think that FDev would be willing to face the backlash that a change like this would likely receive. Sure, newbies getting a discount on their rebuy is nice, but forcing long-term players to spend even more time grinding out credits for rebuys is
not something that would go over well. Combine that with players now facing a more significant loss of time and effort and using it as further justification to combat log and you will end up with a multiple groups with opposing viewpoints crying on the forums about the change.
- Instancing.
1- I am not a programmer of course, but everybody knows the instances start to fail when there are more than 8 (sometime less) people in the same instance. I could give a lot of examples, everybody who play in open has had issues with this.
Instancing issues are largely a result of the peer-to-peer framework of the game's netcode. Unless FDev can find the funds necessary to invest in a server-client framework (and before you ask, there are a large number of people who
will not support a subscription fee), the instancing issues will be here to stay.
- Blocking feature
1- In this moment the blocking feature blocks communication from whatever commander, but the game also tries to prevent you instancing with the commander. I thing the blocking mechanic should block communications only.
Considering that the blocking mechanic is also used to (in extreme cases) block players that are actively harassing other players, I disagree. However, I would be perfectly fine with an additional "ignore" function that only blocks comms instead of both comms and instancing.
