Forums » Suggestions
As requested by Incarnate, here is a list of things that need fixing. Feel free to add your suggestions. A mod or I will move stuff that most people agree on into the main post.
FM: Feel free to edit this post.
Note: It can be more than 10 things, of course :-)
1. Remove friendly fire protection.
Easily exploitable, especially in combination with other bugs (such as the lmines bug below). When a Itani picks up some CTC cargo and decides to fly it towards Serco space, Itanis cannot stop him. It also makes it impossible to trade in convoys since some convoy participants can't help their peers when a pirate of their own nation attacks.
2. Fix wormhole hopping.
It should not be possible to escape from a fight by hopping back and forth between two systems. Spellcast suggested to make ships vulnerable when going into a WH. Maybe thats a fix. More ideas are welcome.
3. Prevent players from fighting outside 3k and warping away at low health.
Add a simple timer. The ship has to stand still or it restarts.
4. Fix faction system.
Someone who bothers Itanis all the time shouldn't be able to fly a valk. Dito for Sercos and the prom. When you kill a player of a certain nation who has good standing there, he can file a complaint (-100 faction points, i.e.). This is not the only issue with the faction system though.
5. LMines bug.
LMines damage ships of your own nation, and cannot be targeted. Worse, you can't defend against them except for using LMines, due to the friendly fire limitation.
6. NFZ bug.
You dont take a permanant faction hit for killing someone who is admired by the faction that owns the station. While it kind of falls in with a total redo of the faction system, I feel it is important enough to have its own bullet on the list, and it probably can be fixed without redoing all the faction.
7. CTC escorts stick around after transport died.
This is particularily annoying in Sedina B8. Griefers love to hide between the escort bots where its very difficult to fight them (because the bots interfer). At the same time its difficult to get rid of the bots because the griefer keeps swarming you. CTC escorts should automatically be assigned to the nearest transport when their own transport dies, or they just explode or leave.
8. XP loss for killing noobs exploit.
And here's another exploit I'd like to see fixed: low level players attacking high level players, and the high level players being unable to respond without taking an XP penalty. I know that this has been addressed to some extent with losing the XP penalty protection when a player participates in CtC or gets a few PKs, but I still see this as being a problem, especially in the BP mission and grey space (but also everywhere else). IMO the XP penalty should be removed completely. Inform new players that Vendetta Online has a strong emphasis on PvP, and while players who so desire can pursue non-PvP activities, they cannot ever count on being completely safe from other players.
9. Bounty Farming
Millions have been made by racking up a huge bounty preying on the poor trader NPC's and then "selling" one's bounty to a friend and splitting the reward (funny that some of those who left because of "exploits" are the same that made frequent use of this particular exploit).
10. Exploiting Collision Code
Use of the collision code and the reputation system to cause loss of faction standing. It is possible to suicide ram someone in a heavily damaged ship and cause them to "kill" you in the eyes of the server, thereby generating a severe faction penalty against them.
FM: Feel free to edit this post.
Note: It can be more than 10 things, of course :-)
1. Remove friendly fire protection.
Easily exploitable, especially in combination with other bugs (such as the lmines bug below). When a Itani picks up some CTC cargo and decides to fly it towards Serco space, Itanis cannot stop him. It also makes it impossible to trade in convoys since some convoy participants can't help their peers when a pirate of their own nation attacks.
2. Fix wormhole hopping.
It should not be possible to escape from a fight by hopping back and forth between two systems. Spellcast suggested to make ships vulnerable when going into a WH. Maybe thats a fix. More ideas are welcome.
3. Prevent players from fighting outside 3k and warping away at low health.
Add a simple timer. The ship has to stand still or it restarts.
4. Fix faction system.
Someone who bothers Itanis all the time shouldn't be able to fly a valk. Dito for Sercos and the prom. When you kill a player of a certain nation who has good standing there, he can file a complaint (-100 faction points, i.e.). This is not the only issue with the faction system though.
5. LMines bug.
LMines damage ships of your own nation, and cannot be targeted. Worse, you can't defend against them except for using LMines, due to the friendly fire limitation.
6. NFZ bug.
You dont take a permanant faction hit for killing someone who is admired by the faction that owns the station. While it kind of falls in with a total redo of the faction system, I feel it is important enough to have its own bullet on the list, and it probably can be fixed without redoing all the faction.
7. CTC escorts stick around after transport died.
This is particularily annoying in Sedina B8. Griefers love to hide between the escort bots where its very difficult to fight them (because the bots interfer). At the same time its difficult to get rid of the bots because the griefer keeps swarming you. CTC escorts should automatically be assigned to the nearest transport when their own transport dies, or they just explode or leave.
8. XP loss for killing noobs exploit.
And here's another exploit I'd like to see fixed: low level players attacking high level players, and the high level players being unable to respond without taking an XP penalty. I know that this has been addressed to some extent with losing the XP penalty protection when a player participates in CtC or gets a few PKs, but I still see this as being a problem, especially in the BP mission and grey space (but also everywhere else). IMO the XP penalty should be removed completely. Inform new players that Vendetta Online has a strong emphasis on PvP, and while players who so desire can pursue non-PvP activities, they cannot ever count on being completely safe from other players.
9. Bounty Farming
Millions have been made by racking up a huge bounty preying on the poor trader NPC's and then "selling" one's bounty to a friend and splitting the reward (funny that some of those who left because of "exploits" are the same that made frequent use of this particular exploit).
10. Exploiting Collision Code
Use of the collision code and the reputation system to cause loss of faction standing. It is possible to suicide ram someone in a heavily damaged ship and cause them to "kill" you in the eyes of the server, thereby generating a severe faction penalty against them.
Fix the damn no faction loss for killing inside a no fire zone, its been here longer than arolte has been back, and I know I personally reporeted it very early on.
Also if you find someone using a bug they havent reported, tell them to stop it, banning isnt an option, muting folk is, im sorry, muting arolte didnt stop him from role playing his char, it pissed him off because he couldnt tell his victim the he <3'd them. OK, maybe it was abused this time (and im sure if you check your logs, you will find my vote mute was just me! I was not aware of any abuse, and im gutted to hear that.) but you folk can if you aint happy, nothing stopping you.
(If you muted me for 24 hours, i'd be pissed, but id still play :P)
Also if you find someone using a bug they havent reported, tell them to stop it, banning isnt an option, muting folk is, im sorry, muting arolte didnt stop him from role playing his char, it pissed him off because he couldnt tell his victim the he <3'd them. OK, maybe it was abused this time (and im sure if you check your logs, you will find my vote mute was just me! I was not aware of any abuse, and im gutted to hear that.) but you folk can if you aint happy, nothing stopping you.
(If you muted me for 24 hours, i'd be pissed, but id still play :P)
actually the solution to #2 is to make it so you can be damaged when going IN to a wormhole. It's akin to the timer for #3 but without any added delays. in both cases *the timer and entering a WH* the player makes the decision to become veunerable for that amount of time by pressing the enter key.
I would add:
6. NFZ bug where you dont take a permanant faction hit for killing someone who is admired by the faction that owns the station. While it kind of falls in with a total redo of the faction system, I feel it is important enough to have its own bullet on the list, and it probably can be fixed without redoing all the faction.
I would add:
6. NFZ bug where you dont take a permanant faction hit for killing someone who is admired by the faction that owns the station. While it kind of falls in with a total redo of the faction system, I feel it is important enough to have its own bullet on the list, and it probably can be fixed without redoing all the faction.
# 3. Prevent players from fighting outside 3k and warping away at
# low health. Add a simple timer. The ship has to stand still or it
# restarts.
errr, okay, so if you trade you run to 6K and park? hmm, I'm not quite sure how to do this without making trading somewhat annoying.
# low health. Add a simple timer. The ship has to stand still or it
# restarts.
errr, okay, so if you trade you run to 6K and park? hmm, I'm not quite sure how to do this without making trading somewhat annoying.
Maybe you have to spend X amount of time below X speed? So like.. you don't have to sit in place, but you can't go over 60? I dunno, that'd be hard for newbies to adjust to (or to graphically display). Not moving at all would be easier to do and understand, but more irritating on a regular basis.
1,5,6 and 7 are simple bugs that need code fixes.
2,3 and 4 are more complicated.
For two and three:
When you hit the warp button, you get the old capture the flag effect to indicate you are charging your in system jump drive, and your turbo is disabled for... 3 seconds? 5 seconds? for an in system warp. 7 seconds for a WH warp. To add something to the eye candy of the game, have the effect get stronger as the timer counts down, maybe even have some of the storm effect blue balls come off and fade away.
Now you can't just boost to the 3k mark and warp. I find the 3k abuse complaints amusing, because it's among the top advice given to newbs who are botting - "Stay at 3k so you can just disappear if things go bad!" :/
4 is ridiculously complicated and will never ever ever be fixed. However, it is very broken right now. I'd put this at the bottom of the list of thing to be fixed, because the other things would tangibly affect gameplay in the short term. Faction system changes tend to be long term things for the casual player who doesn't have the time to bot or trade his standing this way and that.
2,3 and 4 are more complicated.
For two and three:
When you hit the warp button, you get the old capture the flag effect to indicate you are charging your in system jump drive, and your turbo is disabled for... 3 seconds? 5 seconds? for an in system warp. 7 seconds for a WH warp. To add something to the eye candy of the game, have the effect get stronger as the timer counts down, maybe even have some of the storm effect blue balls come off and fade away.
Now you can't just boost to the 3k mark and warp. I find the 3k abuse complaints amusing, because it's among the top advice given to newbs who are botting - "Stay at 3k so you can just disappear if things go bad!" :/
4 is ridiculously complicated and will never ever ever be fixed. However, it is very broken right now. I'd put this at the bottom of the list of thing to be fixed, because the other things would tangibly affect gameplay in the short term. Faction system changes tend to be long term things for the casual player who doesn't have the time to bot or trade his standing this way and that.
make the conditions the same as /logoff. no control inputs for 3 seconds or the jump aborts. you continue to drift in the direction you were headed at the speed you were traveling.
Alternatively change the jump graphic so it works like the wormhole. have the 3 seconds show the ship orienting itself from a 3rd person view with some form of graphical motion, then the ship jumps away at high speed.
Then it can be the same as the Wormhole where you can take damage during the outbound jump animation.
Alternatively change the jump graphic so it works like the wormhole. have the 3 seconds show the ship orienting itself from a 3rd person view with some form of graphical motion, then the ship jumps away at high speed.
Then it can be the same as the Wormhole where you can take damage during the outbound jump animation.
I still say let the user have some control, otherwise it would be ridiculously easy to kill people who are trying to jump. 3 seconds is a long time...
The key is to not let them turbo for long enough for the chaser to catch up and get a few shots at them, or at least be able to follow them with the nifty but never used destination notification message.
The key is to not let them turbo for long enough for the chaser to catch up and get a few shots at them, or at least be able to follow them with the nifty but never used destination notification message.
To fix Wormhole Hopping:
Fuel. (Arolte's long been an opponent of fuel in any form, but I'm proposing it anyhow).
WTF?
Not in the flight-sim manner, where it's constantly draining, but in the model of EV Nova. Each in-system jump uses up a unit of fuel, each wormhole jump uses three. A bus for instance can carry 6 units, or 3 in-system jumps and a wormhole hop. Certain Atlases can carry up to 25.
Moths by contrast carry 9, making them perfect for hauling large amounts of cargo, but not very far or very fast.
What would it cost?
Not much. 10c/unit, and it autorefills when you dock. It's also free (New Pilot Scholarship) until you hit level 1 Combat.
OMGWTF! I'm out of Gas!
No, you're not. You're dumb for underestimating your fuel needs for the trip, but you're not permanently stranded. Fuel regenerates at a rate of 1 unit every 10 minutes. Wow. You're stuck in a sector full of Valent Assaults? Lock that turbo key, because you're gonna be running for a while.
Not only is this a good idea because it stops rampant hopping, but because it introduces the concept of range, and an (albeit tiny) drain on one's pocketbook. Furthermore, this would fix the problem of the Centurion being an ubership. It's like a TIE fighter. Short range. Give it 5 units (1 wormhole jump, 1 jump on each side of the hole).
Fuel. (Arolte's long been an opponent of fuel in any form, but I'm proposing it anyhow).
WTF?
Not in the flight-sim manner, where it's constantly draining, but in the model of EV Nova. Each in-system jump uses up a unit of fuel, each wormhole jump uses three. A bus for instance can carry 6 units, or 3 in-system jumps and a wormhole hop. Certain Atlases can carry up to 25.
Moths by contrast carry 9, making them perfect for hauling large amounts of cargo, but not very far or very fast.
What would it cost?
Not much. 10c/unit, and it autorefills when you dock. It's also free (New Pilot Scholarship) until you hit level 1 Combat.
OMGWTF! I'm out of Gas!
No, you're not. You're dumb for underestimating your fuel needs for the trip, but you're not permanently stranded. Fuel regenerates at a rate of 1 unit every 10 minutes. Wow. You're stuck in a sector full of Valent Assaults? Lock that turbo key, because you're gonna be running for a while.
Not only is this a good idea because it stops rampant hopping, but because it introduces the concept of range, and an (albeit tiny) drain on one's pocketbook. Furthermore, this would fix the problem of the Centurion being an ubership. It's like a TIE fighter. Short range. Give it 5 units (1 wormhole jump, 1 jump on each side of the hole).
Right now I like the idea of lengthening the jump-out effect time. I need to redo this effect anyhow, and we could simply make it a longer effect, like the warp-out, and make you vulnerable while jumping. So, slowly moving for 3 seconds to jump out? Some such.
1. I entierly agree with
2. I don't see this as a problem. To me it's just one evasoive tactic that players can use.
3. I understand why this could be anoying, but i would rather see a better system for persuing your oponent than a jump delay. Perhaps variables could be created to allow players to create "persuit coars" binds that would make following people less dificult.
4. something needs to be done about the faction system but i'm not sure what the most elegant solution is.
5, 6, 7. I've never actualy seen these in game so... no comment
2. I don't see this as a problem. To me it's just one evasoive tactic that players can use.
3. I understand why this could be anoying, but i would rather see a better system for persuing your oponent than a jump delay. Perhaps variables could be created to allow players to create "persuit coars" binds that would make following people less dificult.
4. something needs to be done about the faction system but i'm not sure what the most elegant solution is.
5, 6, 7. I've never actualy seen these in game so... no comment
I don't get why the Strike Force bots have the memory capacity of a goldfish. Players can re-enter a sector and they'd pretend nothing ever happened when you previously violated the no-fire zone. So I think maybe a better solution to that would be to place a time penalty instead. Maybe somewhere along the lines of 10 or 15 minutes. And if the player attempts to sneak through during that time and manages to kill another player, a faction standing penalty can be applied (if the victim is neutral and above). I think that provides a fair warning for everyone, but at the same time not be too harsh.
Friendly fire - Makes sense
I am Canadian, if i shot another Canadian they die! The bullet doesn't hit them and they continue on their merry way unharmed.
It allows for the policing of people in your own nation
It allows you to fully protect against pirates
It also allows you to completely become a pirate if you wish
It introduces a new hurdle in group combat, no more rockets all over the place without a care in the world or you may kill an ally!
Thin out the herd, allow friendly fire
I am Canadian, if i shot another Canadian they die! The bullet doesn't hit them and they continue on their merry way unharmed.
It allows for the policing of people in your own nation
It allows you to fully protect against pirates
It also allows you to completely become a pirate if you wish
It introduces a new hurdle in group combat, no more rockets all over the place without a care in the world or you may kill an ally!
Thin out the herd, allow friendly fire
as for #4 being impossible, no not impossible just very difficult.
I posted this link in a few other posts today but i'll slap it up again. these are some older thoughts i had on the reputation/faction system and how to modify it, particularly parts 2 and 3 from the link are relavant to #4 above
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/10089
I posted this link in a few other posts today but i'll slap it up again. these are some older thoughts i had on the reputation/faction system and how to modify it, particularly parts 2 and 3 from the link are relavant to #4 above
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/10089
I agree that friendly fire should be turned on in all cases. And I also agree on maybe lengthening the system warp animation. Perhaps during the animation the camera will orbit around your ship while it makes a powering up noise and then it'll stop at a certain point of the orbit (maybe the back side of the ship) and it'll show the ship warping off into the distance. And throughout all this time the ship will be vulnerable to attack. Now THAT would be fun to watch.
The reason for friendly fire was simply to protect newbies. I wanted new users to start out in a "relatively" safe environment, before they graduated to the rest of the game. And being haphazardly killed before you even understand how to fly is not conducive to a solid learning curve.
So basically, if we want to nix friendly fire, which I am fine with, we need to concoct some way to protect newbies. There are simple options like "you can't hurt/be hurt by people over level 2 if you aren't level 2" or complex options like "newbie sectors are protected by insane strikeforces who disallow PVP combat, blah blah". Any set of solutions like this can make exploitation possible, which is why I stuck with FF, which is probably exploitable in even *worse* ways. Ah well, live and learn. So anyway, suggestions on that are appreciated as well.
So basically, if we want to nix friendly fire, which I am fine with, we need to concoct some way to protect newbies. There are simple options like "you can't hurt/be hurt by people over level 2 if you aren't level 2" or complex options like "newbie sectors are protected by insane strikeforces who disallow PVP combat, blah blah". Any set of solutions like this can make exploitation possible, which is why I stuck with FF, which is probably exploitable in even *worse* ways. Ah well, live and learn. So anyway, suggestions on that are appreciated as well.
Actually incarnate i dont really think friendly fire is any help at all in protecting the newbies at the moment. the NFZ bug preventing permanant faction loss means that i can take a UIT character into itan, home at an itani station(or a serco one for that matter), and kill new players all day as long as i get them dead before they leave the NFZ. then i simply run away and return at which point the strike forces forget about me. (or I can just die and the strike force decides i left and returned, which has the same effect. i'm in the station with full reputation again)
Fixing the reputation/faction problems will solve that far more effectively than friendly fire will. If you cant dock anywhere to repair then killing new players when they start is not going to be an option for very long, no matter WHAT your home nation is and what nation the newbie is.
The strike forces dont even have to be very much more powerful. the reputation loopholes just need to be fixed.
Fixing the reputation/faction problems will solve that far more effectively than friendly fire will. If you cant dock anywhere to repair then killing new players when they start is not going to be an option for very long, no matter WHAT your home nation is and what nation the newbie is.
The strike forces dont even have to be very much more powerful. the reputation loopholes just need to be fixed.
Well Incarnate, right now even with friendly fire off newbies of other nations aren't protected. That's one of the problems that still exists today. Some type of penalty system is needed. The -1000 XP reduction is alright, but considering you can't lose XP it really doesn't help either. But I actually like the alternative solution you listed.
I do like the idea of having a two-way friendly fire off for certain low levels. And maybe low level players can kill each other, but nobody else. For example a level 1 combat newbie versus a level 1 combat newbie. Because at least that'll offer them some basic training with PvP combat. So... I don't think I can think of any better ideas. That actually sounded pretty good.
I do like the idea of having a two-way friendly fire off for certain low levels. And maybe low level players can kill each other, but nobody else. For example a level 1 combat newbie versus a level 1 combat newbie. Because at least that'll offer them some basic training with PvP combat. So... I don't think I can think of any better ideas. That actually sounded pretty good.
How about we turn friendly fire off in grey?
That won't fix it Kix. Sercos keep homing in Edras and then go after the CTC transport. Thats just pointless. Turn it off everywhere. A noob is a total noob for the first few hours. During that FF might help. For the remaining years of gameplay, its just annoying and should go. If you absolutely insist on player-fire protection for combat XP < X, it should go both ways (can't hurt other players, can't get hurt by them).