There is never a reason to team up. I would think that this is presumably an important feature to have in an MMO game. Because my friends and I have stopped playing quite a while back hoping that this new update would have the needed game play updates.
I would like to see things like quest sharing. Or quests meant for multi player. You know more/harder enemies. Variation on quests such as defend an outpost. Escort a ship. Give us a reason for me to play as wing man for my friends tourist ship. Reward players for finding other people in the game that share their goals. Such a pirate group. Or traders sticking together because of saftly in numbers.
Tools to help players stick together. Such as formation flying. Jump as a team. A way to get to my friend quickly so that it does not take 2 hours to get to him when I only have an hour to play that night.
Weapons or utilities to encourage different roles within a team. Repair limpet drones. A beam to help speed up friendly shield recharge. A button to lock onto an enemy firing on a specific friendly. Sharing prospector limpet drone data so one can scout while the others running mining ships. Highlight an asteroid so friendlies can easily find the rewarding deposited. Sharing money so I can pay my friend for hes time.
This game is a slightly above average single player sandbox that claims to be an MMO. With no reasons to ever play with other players. You can play in single player mode and never really feel that you are missing anything.
I really hope this will change soon.
Cheers
I have decided to add to this. To better illustrate my point I think I would need to give examples on how I would change the game. How focusing on fun and team play would make this game more MMO like. All the while avoiding the game turning into an arcady shooter.
I will focus on trade for this example. How fleshing out the trade mechanics and giving benefits to trading in groups.
Jump drive
Firstly I would change the jump mechanics. I would reduce the 10 second jump worm whole animation to 1 second. Pointlessly waiting is pointless. When playing by yourself all other jump mechanics will stay unchanged. How ever once there is someone in your team and you all jump as a wing formation you will get an extended jump range. There could be some contrived story reason for this. More jump generators in the same worm whole something something. A stand in formula to give an idea of what I am thinking to calculating jump range might go something like this.
The AVErage jump range of the Total Ships(TS) plus 25% of the AVErage jump range per ship in formation. Put simply.
Ave + ((Ave * .25) * TS) = New jump range.
So if you have 2 players in a team with an average jump range of 10LY then the new jump range will be 15LY. 4 players with an average of 10LY the new jump range will be 20LY.
This single change to the game will immediately make it more beneficial to play as a team. This singe thing by itself will give most players a reason to leave the single player mode. But this example is meant to focus on traders.
Pirates.
There should always be a down side of jumping in formation. For the potential pirates running around in a system your team and you should be like a flare going off. So many jump engines in formation will make you easier to find, easier to scan and easier to interdict.
When interdiction happens every player in formation will need to fight the tide together. If so much as one player decides to AFK the rest of the team will stand no chance in avoiding being pulled out of jump.
Pirate countermeasures.
A new utility mount for the potential trader is the distress beacon. This single use drone can be launched alerting anyone in the system who cares to listen of the troubles you and your team are facing. If you are in a system with a good deal of police. It wont take long for someone to come to your aid. If you are in a system where there are alot of pirates those who show up might not be there to help you. After all. It alerts anyone who cares to listen.
Alternately this could make a good game mechanic for the aspiring bounty hunter. Launch one of these in a pirate area and let the bounties find you.
Trade and taxes
Since there is now more profit to be made by those who team up thanx to less travel time. To counter this a Tax mechanic should be added to the game.
The average trader cares little for the political goings on in the galaxy. All they care about is the money per hour they can make. Find a lucrative trade route on a website. That is half the game play done. What if the average trader needed to consider tax or port fees?
In total the most you could be taxed will be 30% of anything you sell. So if you can only make 29% profit per item sold you will me making a loss.
The power that the port belongs to that you want to trade with will determine 15% of the tax you will pay. By behaving yourself in their systems you will be able to increase your trade rank with them even if you dont belong to that faction. You will reduce the tax by 10% once maxed out. If you want to reduce that even more you will need to join that faction and get in good standing with them. Maxing both if these things will result in that 15% being reduced to zero.
The other 15% will be docking and handling fees. This will be a per station effect that has nothing to do with faction. By being a good trader you can increase your rank with them. They like you they will give you discounts. Maybe knock of 5% over time. With goods that the station desperately needs the fees will always be waved.
These two mechanics added should mean the average trader will need to know alot more about what is going on out there in space to really turn a profit. Also there is profit in making and keeping friends.
Trade route trail blazer.
If you are the first person to make a particularly profitable trade you will be given the option to sell the data. The same like planet data. This data can then be bought by any other player. When doing so the original seller will make 50% of the money from the sale of the data. The data price will be equal to trading 100 units of the items that would be sold on the route.
The repurchased data will show the profit per unit. The distance between the two stations. The factions related to the trade. Also the age of the find. Typical a good trade route will change after 48 hours. So buying trade data that is 1 day old will not be worth much. Once bought the rest of the data will be handed over.
This should open a new type of game play. An alternative way to make money from trading.
Profit sharing.
If you have a friend that you want to bring along for defense or just because he has an awesome jump drive. You should be able to agree on a payment. After all why should he go without? If the agreement is struck. So long as he is in your wing he will make a percentage of any profit from anything you sell. After taxes of course.
There are more things I would like to add but you get the idea. Thanx for your time.
I would like to see things like quest sharing. Or quests meant for multi player. You know more/harder enemies. Variation on quests such as defend an outpost. Escort a ship. Give us a reason for me to play as wing man for my friends tourist ship. Reward players for finding other people in the game that share their goals. Such a pirate group. Or traders sticking together because of saftly in numbers.
Tools to help players stick together. Such as formation flying. Jump as a team. A way to get to my friend quickly so that it does not take 2 hours to get to him when I only have an hour to play that night.
Weapons or utilities to encourage different roles within a team. Repair limpet drones. A beam to help speed up friendly shield recharge. A button to lock onto an enemy firing on a specific friendly. Sharing prospector limpet drone data so one can scout while the others running mining ships. Highlight an asteroid so friendlies can easily find the rewarding deposited. Sharing money so I can pay my friend for hes time.
This game is a slightly above average single player sandbox that claims to be an MMO. With no reasons to ever play with other players. You can play in single player mode and never really feel that you are missing anything.
I really hope this will change soon.
Cheers
I have decided to add to this. To better illustrate my point I think I would need to give examples on how I would change the game. How focusing on fun and team play would make this game more MMO like. All the while avoiding the game turning into an arcady shooter.
I will focus on trade for this example. How fleshing out the trade mechanics and giving benefits to trading in groups.
Jump drive
Firstly I would change the jump mechanics. I would reduce the 10 second jump worm whole animation to 1 second. Pointlessly waiting is pointless. When playing by yourself all other jump mechanics will stay unchanged. How ever once there is someone in your team and you all jump as a wing formation you will get an extended jump range. There could be some contrived story reason for this. More jump generators in the same worm whole something something. A stand in formula to give an idea of what I am thinking to calculating jump range might go something like this.
The AVErage jump range of the Total Ships(TS) plus 25% of the AVErage jump range per ship in formation. Put simply.
Ave + ((Ave * .25) * TS) = New jump range.
So if you have 2 players in a team with an average jump range of 10LY then the new jump range will be 15LY. 4 players with an average of 10LY the new jump range will be 20LY.
This single change to the game will immediately make it more beneficial to play as a team. This singe thing by itself will give most players a reason to leave the single player mode. But this example is meant to focus on traders.
Pirates.
There should always be a down side of jumping in formation. For the potential pirates running around in a system your team and you should be like a flare going off. So many jump engines in formation will make you easier to find, easier to scan and easier to interdict.
When interdiction happens every player in formation will need to fight the tide together. If so much as one player decides to AFK the rest of the team will stand no chance in avoiding being pulled out of jump.
Pirate countermeasures.
A new utility mount for the potential trader is the distress beacon. This single use drone can be launched alerting anyone in the system who cares to listen of the troubles you and your team are facing. If you are in a system with a good deal of police. It wont take long for someone to come to your aid. If you are in a system where there are alot of pirates those who show up might not be there to help you. After all. It alerts anyone who cares to listen.
Alternately this could make a good game mechanic for the aspiring bounty hunter. Launch one of these in a pirate area and let the bounties find you.
Trade and taxes
Since there is now more profit to be made by those who team up thanx to less travel time. To counter this a Tax mechanic should be added to the game.
The average trader cares little for the political goings on in the galaxy. All they care about is the money per hour they can make. Find a lucrative trade route on a website. That is half the game play done. What if the average trader needed to consider tax or port fees?
In total the most you could be taxed will be 30% of anything you sell. So if you can only make 29% profit per item sold you will me making a loss.
The power that the port belongs to that you want to trade with will determine 15% of the tax you will pay. By behaving yourself in their systems you will be able to increase your trade rank with them even if you dont belong to that faction. You will reduce the tax by 10% once maxed out. If you want to reduce that even more you will need to join that faction and get in good standing with them. Maxing both if these things will result in that 15% being reduced to zero.
The other 15% will be docking and handling fees. This will be a per station effect that has nothing to do with faction. By being a good trader you can increase your rank with them. They like you they will give you discounts. Maybe knock of 5% over time. With goods that the station desperately needs the fees will always be waved.
These two mechanics added should mean the average trader will need to know alot more about what is going on out there in space to really turn a profit. Also there is profit in making and keeping friends.
Trade route trail blazer.
If you are the first person to make a particularly profitable trade you will be given the option to sell the data. The same like planet data. This data can then be bought by any other player. When doing so the original seller will make 50% of the money from the sale of the data. The data price will be equal to trading 100 units of the items that would be sold on the route.
The repurchased data will show the profit per unit. The distance between the two stations. The factions related to the trade. Also the age of the find. Typical a good trade route will change after 48 hours. So buying trade data that is 1 day old will not be worth much. Once bought the rest of the data will be handed over.
This should open a new type of game play. An alternative way to make money from trading.
Profit sharing.
If you have a friend that you want to bring along for defense or just because he has an awesome jump drive. You should be able to agree on a payment. After all why should he go without? If the agreement is struck. So long as he is in your wing he will make a percentage of any profit from anything you sell. After taxes of course.
There are more things I would like to add but you get the idea. Thanx for your time.
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