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Border Skirmish - Feedback & Ideas
Hi, I'm going to be looking at Border Skirmish next week, and potentially planning our next phase, as we move towards larger and more involved gameplay. What I would really like from you guys is feedback on how the existing gameplay works, where it breaks down, ideas for fixing the current problems, etc.
I don't really need lots of huge ideas about expanding it, and military tracks and all that. I mean, feel free to post those elsewhere, those are useful and well-received. But here I would like to focus exclusively on fine-tuning of the existing setup. For instance:
Do you find you spend enough time in combat? We spent some time improving how bots picked new targets, and things, so they would prioritize players more often, etc. How has that worked out thus far?
Are the bots doing their jobs reasonably well? Are they fighting you, or doing anything mysterious/and/or/stupid? Like, say, all flying into the capship turret batteries and getting slaughtered, over and over again, while you have nothing to do (problem from above, which is hopefully mitigated).
Do you have a decent idea of what's going on? Whether your side is winning or losing? Do you feel lost or confused with no idea of what you're supposed to do? I'm looking for both "first impressions" as well as veteran "well I got used to it" sort of replies.. I would like to fine tune and improve the "interface" of skirmishes to help people immediately understand what they're doing. Eventually this may include actual target priorities from upper "command" levels and so on, but for the moment I'd like general feedback on how our existing stuff is working right now.
How is your computer performance during border skirmish? Is it horrendously slow? If so, how slow does it get? (/toggleframerate). What is the framerate range? (Please actually measure before you post, don't post what you "think" it is). If you post on this, please include a brief breakdown of your system type and hardware (ESPECIALLY what kind of video card you have, but also CPU/memory/OS). Have you tried enabling Texture Compression or reducing overall graphical detail? Do you have full-scene-glow enabled? Etc. Putting a bunch of high-poly capships and many fighters in a big-ass battle is always going to be a bit slow, as I've said before, but we are trying to make it as fast as we can for as many people as possible.
Are you Serco and feel snubbed because you have to come in through a wormhole, and this puts you at a disadvantage? Are you Itani and think the Serco are all whiny? Just kidding :), but I would like to know if it's still a problem. I know I've previously stated that we'll be reworking Deneb, and that may be part of the Next Phase, so to speak, but I'd like to know what you guys consider the most "broken" to help us prioritize these changes. Michael did some changes to how the ships moved around, such that the Serco were perhaps not getting quite as slaughtered upon jumping through the wormhole.. but I want to know how that's all working out.
So, in general, please comment on anything that you think makes the current situation (two sides coming together, big free-for-all space battle, one side wins) more confusing, less "fun", etc. I want to know the things that frustrate you, or confused you the first time you participated, or keep you from participating now. I also want to know what you really like about it, and the parts you'd like to see more of (without getting too deep into massive gameplay expansions and Grand Ideas; again, those are great, but post them elsewhere and link to it or some such).
Please keep your responses cool and to the point, and avoid sniping at one another if you disagree. The less flame I have to parse through in order to get useful data from this thread, the better.
I don't really need lots of huge ideas about expanding it, and military tracks and all that. I mean, feel free to post those elsewhere, those are useful and well-received. But here I would like to focus exclusively on fine-tuning of the existing setup. For instance:
Do you find you spend enough time in combat? We spent some time improving how bots picked new targets, and things, so they would prioritize players more often, etc. How has that worked out thus far?
Are the bots doing their jobs reasonably well? Are they fighting you, or doing anything mysterious/and/or/stupid? Like, say, all flying into the capship turret batteries and getting slaughtered, over and over again, while you have nothing to do (problem from above, which is hopefully mitigated).
Do you have a decent idea of what's going on? Whether your side is winning or losing? Do you feel lost or confused with no idea of what you're supposed to do? I'm looking for both "first impressions" as well as veteran "well I got used to it" sort of replies.. I would like to fine tune and improve the "interface" of skirmishes to help people immediately understand what they're doing. Eventually this may include actual target priorities from upper "command" levels and so on, but for the moment I'd like general feedback on how our existing stuff is working right now.
How is your computer performance during border skirmish? Is it horrendously slow? If so, how slow does it get? (/toggleframerate). What is the framerate range? (Please actually measure before you post, don't post what you "think" it is). If you post on this, please include a brief breakdown of your system type and hardware (ESPECIALLY what kind of video card you have, but also CPU/memory/OS). Have you tried enabling Texture Compression or reducing overall graphical detail? Do you have full-scene-glow enabled? Etc. Putting a bunch of high-poly capships and many fighters in a big-ass battle is always going to be a bit slow, as I've said before, but we are trying to make it as fast as we can for as many people as possible.
Are you Serco and feel snubbed because you have to come in through a wormhole, and this puts you at a disadvantage? Are you Itani and think the Serco are all whiny? Just kidding :), but I would like to know if it's still a problem. I know I've previously stated that we'll be reworking Deneb, and that may be part of the Next Phase, so to speak, but I'd like to know what you guys consider the most "broken" to help us prioritize these changes. Michael did some changes to how the ships moved around, such that the Serco were perhaps not getting quite as slaughtered upon jumping through the wormhole.. but I want to know how that's all working out.
So, in general, please comment on anything that you think makes the current situation (two sides coming together, big free-for-all space battle, one side wins) more confusing, less "fun", etc. I want to know the things that frustrate you, or confused you the first time you participated, or keep you from participating now. I also want to know what you really like about it, and the parts you'd like to see more of (without getting too deep into massive gameplay expansions and Grand Ideas; again, those are great, but post them elsewhere and link to it or some such).
Please keep your responses cool and to the point, and avoid sniping at one another if you disagree. The less flame I have to parse through in order to get useful data from this thread, the better.
Everything works great so far.
TD hogs need a small nerf like removing the flare and replacing it with something else like a gauss or a neut.
Other than that I don't really see many ways of improving it other than adding new capships with different roles like minelayers,
new turrets like a burst fire rail turret that shoots 5 rails in 0.3 seconds, takes 5 seconds to reloadd, has something similar to a chaos swarm trail but something about 100 meters long, flies at 400 m/s and does 1000 damage per rail.
/me really wants rail turrets with trails
TD hogs need a small nerf like removing the flare and replacing it with something else like a gauss or a neut.
Other than that I don't really see many ways of improving it other than adding new capships with different roles like minelayers,
new turrets like a burst fire rail turret that shoots 5 rails in 0.3 seconds, takes 5 seconds to reloadd, has something similar to a chaos swarm trail but something about 100 meters long, flies at 400 m/s and does 1000 damage per rail.
/me really wants rail turrets with trails
I would make the following remarks:
BS Play:
I like the feel of a kind of free-for-all hellish dogfight. On the other hand, I consistently found myself having to throw my hands into the air and laugh off getting uber-ganked by two rocket-ramming AI hogs. This is particularly infuriating when fighting another player, but a war zone is a war zone! I thought it was very obvious when one side had more PCs than another, and opposing capships fell quite quickly. Perhaps Capship AI should be a bit smarter about taking out bomber units (e.g. Ragnarok/Centaur/other heavies) before anything else. I think the proms are using the wrong weapons: ideally I'd like to see agt/flare layout rather than the neutrons on them, similarly valks might carry two neutrons and a sunflare.
BS Info:
The one thing I'd like is, aside from the numbers detailing who's winning, some sort of display of capital ship health, at least on your side, and an easy way to find and select capital ships on either side. For instance, the HUD might display "TPG Raptor *Alanis Solaris" (making this up of course) "is down to 50%, target that ship!", but one has to open up the sector list in the HUD, try to find that thing, and then attempt to click on it as ships enter the sector, are destroyed, and change their distance from you. It might also be decent if capital ships "announced" that they are under heavy fire (under 30% or 35% shield).
BS Graphics:
Can't help you. Normally I play with graphics wayyy under the max setting to avoid loss in framerate. Even at the heaviest (multiple cappy explosions) I felt no FR lag whatsoever.
BS Discussion:
I stopped doing border skirmish because I found it more infuriating than fun. I think part of the reason is that the AI places too much weight on players (after warping in, almost immediately I had 2 or 3 bots attacking me). This makes it particularly absurd when there are other players in the sector gunning for player kills, who simply outrun their (pursuing) bots and swoop in for the kill. It works both ways, but it's not a pleasant dynamic. It's a very different feel from any of the massive PVP free-for-alls I've been in, which typically favor one-on-one or two-on-one engagements, after which the winner gets a little break to find a new target. BS feels an awful lot like 3-d space-invaders, where just as soon as you've killed one bot, there's one very close by who simply turns and fires. The PC/NPC mix was certainly bearable during Border Patrol, but something funky happens to the whole feel when bots outnumber players. Ultimately, my feeling was "If I'm going to get ganked, I'd rather get ganked by players. Might as well hang around b8."
BS Play:
I like the feel of a kind of free-for-all hellish dogfight. On the other hand, I consistently found myself having to throw my hands into the air and laugh off getting uber-ganked by two rocket-ramming AI hogs. This is particularly infuriating when fighting another player, but a war zone is a war zone! I thought it was very obvious when one side had more PCs than another, and opposing capships fell quite quickly. Perhaps Capship AI should be a bit smarter about taking out bomber units (e.g. Ragnarok/Centaur/other heavies) before anything else. I think the proms are using the wrong weapons: ideally I'd like to see agt/flare layout rather than the neutrons on them, similarly valks might carry two neutrons and a sunflare.
BS Info:
The one thing I'd like is, aside from the numbers detailing who's winning, some sort of display of capital ship health, at least on your side, and an easy way to find and select capital ships on either side. For instance, the HUD might display "TPG Raptor *Alanis Solaris" (making this up of course) "is down to 50%, target that ship!", but one has to open up the sector list in the HUD, try to find that thing, and then attempt to click on it as ships enter the sector, are destroyed, and change their distance from you. It might also be decent if capital ships "announced" that they are under heavy fire (under 30% or 35% shield).
BS Graphics:
Can't help you. Normally I play with graphics wayyy under the max setting to avoid loss in framerate. Even at the heaviest (multiple cappy explosions) I felt no FR lag whatsoever.
BS Discussion:
I stopped doing border skirmish because I found it more infuriating than fun. I think part of the reason is that the AI places too much weight on players (after warping in, almost immediately I had 2 or 3 bots attacking me). This makes it particularly absurd when there are other players in the sector gunning for player kills, who simply outrun their (pursuing) bots and swoop in for the kill. It works both ways, but it's not a pleasant dynamic. It's a very different feel from any of the massive PVP free-for-alls I've been in, which typically favor one-on-one or two-on-one engagements, after which the winner gets a little break to find a new target. BS feels an awful lot like 3-d space-invaders, where just as soon as you've killed one bot, there's one very close by who simply turns and fires. The PC/NPC mix was certainly bearable during Border Patrol, but something funky happens to the whole feel when bots outnumber players. Ultimately, my feeling was "If I'm going to get ganked, I'd rather get ganked by players. Might as well hang around b8."
the only problem I've had in Border Skirmish is targeting. I'm UIT...(but the Itani love me and Serco KoS)...when I cycle through the "enemy" targets its all Itani ships. I can still dock with Itan cappies and only the Serco try to kill me...but I thought it was wierd enough to mention.
the only effect it has really is that I have to manually target the Serco.
other than that, Border Skirmish is great.
the only effect it has really is that I have to manually target the Serco.
other than that, Border Skirmish is great.
I largely agree with rhapsody , pehaps giving the hogs an iceflare would help.
The AI is clever , but I think the terradon behaviour needs a tweek , surely their priority should be opposing connies or HACs rather than frigates.
I still find some issues with latency, and some strange issues with the sound of an event ( particularly explosions ) either not happening at all or happening 5 secs or so after they should.
Anyway lets all keep playing BS, hopefully the bugs will get ironed out more quicky that way .
The AI is clever , but I think the terradon behaviour needs a tweek , surely their priority should be opposing connies or HACs rather than frigates.
I still find some issues with latency, and some strange issues with the sound of an event ( particularly explosions ) either not happening at all or happening 5 secs or so after they should.
Anyway lets all keep playing BS, hopefully the bugs will get ironed out more quicky that way .
Bring in the Goliath Cannons!
As you may have heard, my framerate is abysmal. It is in the 7-13 fps range, and even at lowest possible settings, it goes up to only about 15 fps. The Serco (whom which side I have chosen) rarely win a fight, but this could be due to lack of player involvement. Furthermore, the score counter is pushed off of the screen when the group fills up. This is quite a problem, as I have to ask who is winning, to know. Another problem is that, despite the targeting rehash, the players just don't see fighters and bombers as valuable enough targets. This is the only area that is unplayable for me in VO.
Mac Mini G4, 1.33GhZ
32 MB ATI Radeon 9200
10.4.11 Mac OS X
Mac Mini G4, 1.33GhZ
32 MB ATI Radeon 9200
10.4.11 Mac OS X
Goliath cannons anyone?
Yay!
AD4119
AD4119
NPC Bombers
The NPC bombers really aren't that great at aiming their screamers, especially against tridents where upwards of 75% of their fired rockets miss. By the time they reach a range where they might hit the target they've already depleted so much energy that keeping up their neutron fire prevents them from firing off any more screamers. The Constellations on the other hand end up taking significantly greater damage from the bombers simply because they are so large, and hard to miss. Increasing the bomber effectiveness could probably be done by swapping in their rockets in favor of a guided missile. Also, since the bombers do currently mount some guided missiles, they could perhaps be further improved by opening fire from a much greater distance to reflect the accuracy of guided missiles from afar.
Capital Gauss
It's weak... the re fire rate should really be upped to add more benefit to manning those turrets since as they are the damage output is so low that its much more worth while to simply use the ship you flew in on. The current capital gauss stats are something like 4000 damage every 1.5 seconds, increasing the rate to 1 second would go a long way towards making the Teradon less godlike since even a Constellation broadside could freeze the shield recharge rate, making it much more vulnerable while it engages another ship. Currently the Teradon is only truly vulnerable to deshielding while it engages another Teradon. If an allied Teradon fails to knock out the enemy Teradon's shields before dying then it will essentially be able to run around with impunity until a either a new enemy Teradon is spawned or it engages the HAC from the side (if the Teradon attacks the HAC from the front or rear, the HAC is pretty much toast).
I understand the Teradon being powerful, but I don't think it should be so powerful that it can destroy every single enemy capital ship while retaining shields. A capital ship's best defense is an active shield and and the Teradon should be seen as a threat not because it can destroy EVERYTHING, but because it can at least knock out the the shields of any enemy ship before dying (Attacking a HAC should be a suicide run for the Teradon).
Also the Turret AI could use an adjustment, the concussion gauss on the Tridents currently targets ships up to 2000m away while the capital gauss on the Constellations and HACs only target about 500m away, the weapons are capable of firing just as far as the Concussion gauss yet the AI does not take this into account. Making all gauss turrets attack stuff within 2000m might be a bit extreme as it would send the number of warp-in kills through the roof.
Perhaps the AI could be adjusted to only make use of its full range against enemy capital ships (but leave the tridents as they are) ? It is after all kinda odd to see only 3 turrets from a HAC's broadside engaging a Teradon simply because the HAC is so long that only those three turrets are within 500m despite the fact another 3-8 have a line of sight.
Capital Ship Movement and Battle Layout
Making most of the capital ships hold position during the fight was great, since it makes docking much easier, but the wrong ships are holding position and the ones that do move don't do it very well.
The battle field could possibly be improved by adjusting its current layout, HACs at opposite ends, tridents in the middleish, Constellations back rolling to infinity and beyond because they lack the firepower to take each others shields out yet chase each other anyways...
The battle field could be adjusted to something like this.
The HACs would still be at opposite ends and be immobile, though they should reposition themselves if engaged by a Teradon. If they come under attack by a Teradon the HAC should do its best to present as many guns to it as possible by rolling to present either a broadside or its top.
The Constellations would be placed in the middle of the field somewhere between the 2 HACs and be non moving. Also their turret AI could be upgraded to allow them to have a long range gauss duel with the enemy connie. The Constellations movement AI should also be changed from the current backroll to infinity and beyond to something more along the lines of present broadside to nearest enemy capital ship. Broadside in this case would be rolling such that at least turret locations have a line of sight on the target. Doing that would probably require a cap on movement since a constantly rolling Constellation is probably a lot harder to dock with than a Constellation moving backwards as fast as it can.
The Tridents could be mobile and orbit enemy ships like Connie or HAC and attack it from the very edge of their weapons envelope, ~2000m. The way the tridents currently act doesn't really make much sense, they, the lightest of all the capital ships sit perfectly still and patiently await slaughter by the enemy Teradon, which usually does its job in less than a minute per trident.
The Teradon's targeting priority should ignore the enemy tridents, and instead focus on the enemy Teradon, Connie and HAC.
Another note, I find it odd that the Serco HAC is placed near the Itani jump in point from Deneb O 3, it seems like the Serco HAC should be closer to but not top of the wormhole (hitting activate and jumping instead of docking is annoying), since thats where the Serco have to come from anyways.
The NPC bombers really aren't that great at aiming their screamers, especially against tridents where upwards of 75% of their fired rockets miss. By the time they reach a range where they might hit the target they've already depleted so much energy that keeping up their neutron fire prevents them from firing off any more screamers. The Constellations on the other hand end up taking significantly greater damage from the bombers simply because they are so large, and hard to miss. Increasing the bomber effectiveness could probably be done by swapping in their rockets in favor of a guided missile. Also, since the bombers do currently mount some guided missiles, they could perhaps be further improved by opening fire from a much greater distance to reflect the accuracy of guided missiles from afar.
Capital Gauss
It's weak... the re fire rate should really be upped to add more benefit to manning those turrets since as they are the damage output is so low that its much more worth while to simply use the ship you flew in on. The current capital gauss stats are something like 4000 damage every 1.5 seconds, increasing the rate to 1 second would go a long way towards making the Teradon less godlike since even a Constellation broadside could freeze the shield recharge rate, making it much more vulnerable while it engages another ship. Currently the Teradon is only truly vulnerable to deshielding while it engages another Teradon. If an allied Teradon fails to knock out the enemy Teradon's shields before dying then it will essentially be able to run around with impunity until a either a new enemy Teradon is spawned or it engages the HAC from the side (if the Teradon attacks the HAC from the front or rear, the HAC is pretty much toast).
I understand the Teradon being powerful, but I don't think it should be so powerful that it can destroy every single enemy capital ship while retaining shields. A capital ship's best defense is an active shield and and the Teradon should be seen as a threat not because it can destroy EVERYTHING, but because it can at least knock out the the shields of any enemy ship before dying (Attacking a HAC should be a suicide run for the Teradon).
Also the Turret AI could use an adjustment, the concussion gauss on the Tridents currently targets ships up to 2000m away while the capital gauss on the Constellations and HACs only target about 500m away, the weapons are capable of firing just as far as the Concussion gauss yet the AI does not take this into account. Making all gauss turrets attack stuff within 2000m might be a bit extreme as it would send the number of warp-in kills through the roof.
Perhaps the AI could be adjusted to only make use of its full range against enemy capital ships (but leave the tridents as they are) ? It is after all kinda odd to see only 3 turrets from a HAC's broadside engaging a Teradon simply because the HAC is so long that only those three turrets are within 500m despite the fact another 3-8 have a line of sight.
Capital Ship Movement and Battle Layout
Making most of the capital ships hold position during the fight was great, since it makes docking much easier, but the wrong ships are holding position and the ones that do move don't do it very well.
The battle field could possibly be improved by adjusting its current layout, HACs at opposite ends, tridents in the middleish, Constellations back rolling to infinity and beyond because they lack the firepower to take each others shields out yet chase each other anyways...
The battle field could be adjusted to something like this.
The HACs would still be at opposite ends and be immobile, though they should reposition themselves if engaged by a Teradon. If they come under attack by a Teradon the HAC should do its best to present as many guns to it as possible by rolling to present either a broadside or its top.
The Constellations would be placed in the middle of the field somewhere between the 2 HACs and be non moving. Also their turret AI could be upgraded to allow them to have a long range gauss duel with the enemy connie. The Constellations movement AI should also be changed from the current backroll to infinity and beyond to something more along the lines of present broadside to nearest enemy capital ship. Broadside in this case would be rolling such that at least turret locations have a line of sight on the target. Doing that would probably require a cap on movement since a constantly rolling Constellation is probably a lot harder to dock with than a Constellation moving backwards as fast as it can.
The Tridents could be mobile and orbit enemy ships like Connie or HAC and attack it from the very edge of their weapons envelope, ~2000m. The way the tridents currently act doesn't really make much sense, they, the lightest of all the capital ships sit perfectly still and patiently await slaughter by the enemy Teradon, which usually does its job in less than a minute per trident.
The Teradon's targeting priority should ignore the enemy tridents, and instead focus on the enemy Teradon, Connie and HAC.
Another note, I find it odd that the Serco HAC is placed near the Itani jump in point from Deneb O 3, it seems like the Serco HAC should be closer to but not top of the wormhole (hitting activate and jumping instead of docking is annoying), since thats where the Serco have to come from anyways.
Goliath cannons anyone?
This would be awesome to have and already mentioned in my other thread heh.
I personally find that in the limited experience i had after the targeting change to the fighter AI it was getting really mobby and frustrating with 5 fighters chasing you down in w/e you were flying be it a swarmrag or covering fighter.
I was wondering if it was possible to change the AI so they would prioritise bombers and fighters but do it in such a way that you dont have 5-10 chasing one player.This would allow people a chance to bomb even under fire but also turn and fight if they overshot or were under too much fire.
This would be awesome to have and already mentioned in my other thread heh.
I personally find that in the limited experience i had after the targeting change to the fighter AI it was getting really mobby and frustrating with 5 fighters chasing you down in w/e you were flying be it a swarmrag or covering fighter.
I was wondering if it was possible to change the AI so they would prioritise bombers and fighters but do it in such a way that you dont have 5-10 chasing one player.This would allow people a chance to bomb even under fire but also turn and fight if they overshot or were under too much fire.
I think the capships should have more visually intising weapions. Gauss is pretty nifty, but in the long run it is kinda vanilla compaired to what you guys can do. Some giant popcorn guns, rockets that explode w/damaging flechette, ect.
Combat is pretty epic, with "This important capital ship needs defending' and that stuff; what would really take the cake would be if you could actually defend that capital ship. Right now the most you could do is to grab a rag and target the offending hostile; but that isn't really as effective as, say, if you could dock with the capital ship and order it to move back out of harms way (I'd suggest that anyone with X amount of faction can do it; it'd basicly just change the AI behavior the bot is using. From agressive to 'scardy cat' to stay still, for starters. You could say that a person who has extremely high faction can 'suggest' the movement to a pilot)
About the wormhole...I think the deneb map should be redone now sooner then later. Or at least, clear a couple of paths from the itani station to the BS sector, so they don't have to worry about storms like the serco do. (having 2 storms around the wormhole is annoying as heck.)
Combat is pretty epic, with "This important capital ship needs defending' and that stuff; what would really take the cake would be if you could actually defend that capital ship. Right now the most you could do is to grab a rag and target the offending hostile; but that isn't really as effective as, say, if you could dock with the capital ship and order it to move back out of harms way (I'd suggest that anyone with X amount of faction can do it; it'd basicly just change the AI behavior the bot is using. From agressive to 'scardy cat' to stay still, for starters. You could say that a person who has extremely high faction can 'suggest' the movement to a pilot)
About the wormhole...I think the deneb map should be redone now sooner then later. Or at least, clear a couple of paths from the itani station to the BS sector, so they don't have to worry about storms like the serco do. (having 2 storms around the wormhole is annoying as heck.)
The Serco have to go through the WH; the Itani sometimes have to dodge storms. Sounds balanced to me, at least until Deneb itself can be occupied by Serco forces.
Dogfighting with other players would be great if the frame rate were better. Its terrible on my powermac g4 dual 800 running 10.3.9. When there are more live players there should be many less bots to increase the pvp interaction.
One possible way to increase pvp interaction would be to force all live pilots to enter the theater in the same location 5000 m from the cap ships. Perhaps there would be a way to limit the interactions of pilots in pvp far away from cap ships to increase frame rate. A new map could accomplish this. Place a serco station and an itani station in the same system. Put the border skirmish on the other side of a WH. This way both itani and serco pilots would need to transit thru the same WH. There could be great Player-only battles at that WH. Folks with slow computers like me could hang out and fight there. Other pilots with hot computers could continue on thru the WH and engage the cap ships.
Since there are not many players involved online now, we need ways to bring more of those who are online together. I think that there should be a new WH in sedina that connects to deneb. This way players who hang out in B8 could readily join the boarder skirmish. After all, a half hour wasted to transit to deneb and back just sucks!
One possible way to increase pvp interaction would be to force all live pilots to enter the theater in the same location 5000 m from the cap ships. Perhaps there would be a way to limit the interactions of pilots in pvp far away from cap ships to increase frame rate. A new map could accomplish this. Place a serco station and an itani station in the same system. Put the border skirmish on the other side of a WH. This way both itani and serco pilots would need to transit thru the same WH. There could be great Player-only battles at that WH. Folks with slow computers like me could hang out and fight there. Other pilots with hot computers could continue on thru the WH and engage the cap ships.
Since there are not many players involved online now, we need ways to bring more of those who are online together. I think that there should be a new WH in sedina that connects to deneb. This way players who hang out in B8 could readily join the boarder skirmish. After all, a half hour wasted to transit to deneb and back just sucks!
I agree that the NPC Warthogs need to lose their flares.
I think the HAC as a ship of it's description is horribly underpowered. She's a strong Anti-Fighter ship, but she really doesn't have much when running against other capital-classes. I'd say give her some more powerful guns, or she needs to be stripped of her "Heavy Assault" designator and left as a Cruiser which in a terrestrial Navy is usually a Anti-Fighter ship.
I'd also say that the Teradon for her class is a little overpowered. I love her, but the only thing that can take down a Teradon is another Teradon (in terms of Capital-on-Capital fight). I'd say that she either needs to be weakened a little, or else really ramp up that HAC to make her as dangerous as she should be to the Teradon.
Otherwise I'd say everything looks and works fine for me.
[EDIT]: This might be considered a "big change" but it's worth mentioning. The most prevalent weapon on Capitals that I've seen seems to be performing a very contradictory role. Firing a single, large orb of energy is appealing when it's fired at another capital-class, but it's too large and slow to make sense against fighters. The problem though is that these guns are too weak to engage other capital-classes. This means were faced with a problem of trying to perform surgery with a sledgehammer and then turn around and take down a house with a scalpel.
I think the HAC as a ship of it's description is horribly underpowered. She's a strong Anti-Fighter ship, but she really doesn't have much when running against other capital-classes. I'd say give her some more powerful guns, or she needs to be stripped of her "Heavy Assault" designator and left as a Cruiser which in a terrestrial Navy is usually a Anti-Fighter ship.
I'd also say that the Teradon for her class is a little overpowered. I love her, but the only thing that can take down a Teradon is another Teradon (in terms of Capital-on-Capital fight). I'd say that she either needs to be weakened a little, or else really ramp up that HAC to make her as dangerous as she should be to the Teradon.
Otherwise I'd say everything looks and works fine for me.
[EDIT]: This might be considered a "big change" but it's worth mentioning. The most prevalent weapon on Capitals that I've seen seems to be performing a very contradictory role. Firing a single, large orb of energy is appealing when it's fired at another capital-class, but it's too large and slow to make sense against fighters. The problem though is that these guns are too weak to engage other capital-classes. This means were faced with a problem of trying to perform surgery with a sledgehammer and then turn around and take down a house with a scalpel.
The insta-kill beam turrets... they used to fire on any target within a 180 degree half-sphere. What if we stuck one right on the nose of the HAC, beefed up that turret's armor, and then made it so it could only fire straight ahead (or, realistically, within a very tight cone). It would make a fearsome anti-cap weapon, and would not be terribly dangerous to fighters (unless you're dumb or unluckly enough to get in front of it).
Reimbursement. You can drop a lot of dough out there.
There is a issue with the Terridons, not all of out hits register at times and which makes them very very hard to take down, even with multiple (4-5) people it sometimes only drops a few % on the shields.
There is a issue with the Terridons, not all of out hits register at times and which makes them very very hard to take down, even with multiple (4-5) people it sometimes only drops a few % on the shields.
"Eventually this may include actual target priorities from upper "command" levels and so on, but for the moment I'd like general feedback on how our existing stuff is working right now."
“existing stuff”
Item One: Lost in the battle zone.
One of the biggest problems right now that I have seen, is that players have a hard time being battle aware, knowing what is going on in the fight, or how to contribute effectively.
The fights seem to center around attack and defense of the capital ships, as the natural attrition of fighters seems to balance on both sides, regardless of player intervention. That and getting 800 kills for a single ship (HAC), greatly turns the tide of the fight. That said there is very little useable information given about what the capital ships are actually doing. A player has to watch, and try to predict the correct time to assist the Teradon on its attack of another ship, or rally to the defense of a specific friendly capital ship that’s shields are being pushed to their limits. The messages now are being triggered to late for players to make a difference.
I would therefore like to see more chatter on the group channel from the capital ships. Messages like "Teradon VDR-234 attacking HAC Itan-nobody", or "Teradon VDR-234 under fire from HAC Itan-nobody". Send these when the decision is made, the first shot lands on the shields by a capital ship, or as early as possible, so that appropriate player action can take place. (Escort, Defend, Assist in De-Shielding, etc.)
Right now it takes quite a bit to have an affect on the tide of the battle, this would help in making it easier to decide where you can have an affect.
Item Two: Battle mechanics
Consider the slippery slope, and perpetual comeback mechanics, and how they are working.
Right now for the most part its a even fight grind. Ships blow up, they get replaced.
There is the slippery slope of one of your critical capital ships getting de-shielded and therefore eventually taken out, leading to less firepower on the field and more enemy fighters focusing on less ships. This is really painful if it’s the Teradon that goes, without de-shielding the opposing Teradon. That means your opponents most effective Anti-Capital ship gets to buzz around with near immunity, blowing up several capital ships in succession, and causing a massive slippery slope from which there is little chance to recover.
Perpetual comeback mechanics could include additional enemy bots dedicated to player harassment, on the side with the fewest PC's, so as to offset some of the effect of more PC's = team will win.
Another perpetual comeback mechanic could be the addition of turret repair or ship replacement to ships that manage to re-shield. Its hard enough to keep a ship alive without shields, however an advantage the opposing side can maintain with a weak re-shielded ship, is that it is never replaced by a fully repaired and capable ship. Ships without turrets can be left as virtual floating hulks in space, allowing them to be ignored, and without having to worry about a replacement that can fight. Either have ships that re-shield warp out, and have a new one warp in, or allow it to repair turrets over time.
Item Three: Bombers
Bombers are nice in theory, but I have yet to see a pack de-shield a ship, this leaves the job mostly to the Teradon, a HAC in correct position, or players coordinating bombing runs. They need to be set up in groups of 3 or more, with the same spawn in time, and same target in order to be effective at all. What would be even better, would be if they spawned in, group messaged their arrival, and then waited for up to 60 seconds before starting the attack run, so players could assist the group by trying to keep them alive, or joining with their own bombs/missiles.
Item Four: Its expensive to make a difference.
It is trivial to hang out near a capital ship and hunt the mindless bots that swarm it, picking off those that don’t get taken out right away. This has little effect on the end result however, because in 90% of the cases they were going to get taken out by the cap ship anyway, with little or no effect.
Making a difference means loading up a missile Rag at around 23K cost, and stack charging a capital ship that is already under fire enough that your contribution will result in a de-shielding. In many cases you can’t get away from the run, and loose your ship, or your timing is off, and the results are largely ineffective. This can start to mount costs considerably.
Now personally I don’t care about money. The over million credits I blew yesterday on the two I participated in mean very little to me, however it does make it prohibitively expensive for those player who don’t have the time to make the millions. We do need money sinks, however this cost to participate does prevent newer and players with less time to make money, from actually contributing to the outcome of the battle.
One solution is that for the duration of the battle, players get their ship replaced at zero cost when they pop into the home station. They are only allowed to replace the ship lost, not select another ship from their list, and the items need to be in stock and available to work. This would allow players of all levels to spend government money in a government war. How many troops pay for their own guns, and such? Zero.
Alternatively, you could pay much higher rewards to players who participate more in the battle if they win. Track lost ships costs, repair money spent, kills, casualties, and the like, and give a much larger amount out to the winning team. At the moment there is very little incentive to risk all that capital for simply winning a battle. Until the territory becomes more disputed and valuable, some type of reward is in order.
Don’t mess with the individual kills awards though, that will just be incentive for people to hang out near their capital ship and bot.
Long term comments.
“as we move towards larger and more involved gameplay"
I realize you wanted these comments to be about the “now” functionality, but if you want to move towards larger and more involved gameplay, then what is needed is functionality that allows players to become more involved and important in battles. Goes with the definition of involved and seems simple enough.
Right now players seem to be filler in an epic battle that they have only minimal control of the outcome, and are not the primary focus of these large scale battles. AI controlled cap ships seem to rule the day. We have a backdrop that is more important than the main characters in the show.
A very simple way for players to be more involved could be to give us the ability to FORCE npcs in our group to do one of four things.
Attack a specific target.
Defend a specific target.
Follow a specific target.
Hold Position.
Once the target is no longer available (dies, warps out, docs, etc), fall back to standard behavior. Complex priority lists are not necessary, nor are “if this then that” scenario solutions. Simple direct orders from player to dictate the actions of all NPC’s in the battle field.
Do this through direct hails to the NPC's.
E.G. /msg “*Tatch Drosta” Follow:”Psyra”
Keep it simple, don't require levels, or rank, or anything else. Don’t wait until you can build some fancy shmancy homeworld like interface. Existing communications, and the ability to relay information between players is enough to start with.
Let the players sort the details out for themselves about who should be giving orders. It will build team cohesion, and the best organized team would have the best organized bots as well.
It won't be long before someone writes some funky LUA plugin to help manage the battle zone through these commands. Imagine if you will a player with an LUA plugin that identifies all the NPC bombers (by ship type) in the group, and issues an order to follow that player. Once close enough together, the player orders them to attack a specific capital ship, and the entire formation begins a run against a single target.
A great deal of work you would be required to do regarding how to have the bots best behave will be taken up by players manipulating the fight themselves and therefore creating a more involved gameplay by definition. A great deal of the comments above are things like.
"Making most of the capital ships hold position during the fight was great, since it makes docking much easier, but the wrong ships are holding position and the ones that do move don't do it very well."
"The HACs would still be at opposite ends and be immobile, though they should reposition themselves if engaged by a Teradon."
Why should the devs want, need or spend valuable time tweaking behavior like; “When should a cap ship move?” “What if its shields are down?” “How about if it should stay and guard a weaker damaged ship?”
Let the players issue attack/defend/follow/hold orders to the NPC's, and let them decide how this works out. It may lead to having to deal with Itan players parking every Capital ship on the Worm Hole, or some other nasty strategy. Solutions to obviously broken tactics can be dealt with. Simply moving the fight to a different sector would cover the worm hole thing for example
This change would open up the BS to a much larger meta game, that even the developers might be surprised at how it turns out. Players would be developing tactics and strategy, then counter tactics and strategy. Teams would need to work together, and agree amongst themselves how to best approach each and every battle.
Come on, give it a try. If it turns out to not work, well we all learned something, probably had fun, and you can always take the toys away later if we keep hurting ourselves with them.
“existing stuff”
Item One: Lost in the battle zone.
One of the biggest problems right now that I have seen, is that players have a hard time being battle aware, knowing what is going on in the fight, or how to contribute effectively.
The fights seem to center around attack and defense of the capital ships, as the natural attrition of fighters seems to balance on both sides, regardless of player intervention. That and getting 800 kills for a single ship (HAC), greatly turns the tide of the fight. That said there is very little useable information given about what the capital ships are actually doing. A player has to watch, and try to predict the correct time to assist the Teradon on its attack of another ship, or rally to the defense of a specific friendly capital ship that’s shields are being pushed to their limits. The messages now are being triggered to late for players to make a difference.
I would therefore like to see more chatter on the group channel from the capital ships. Messages like "Teradon VDR-234 attacking HAC Itan-nobody", or "Teradon VDR-234 under fire from HAC Itan-nobody". Send these when the decision is made, the first shot lands on the shields by a capital ship, or as early as possible, so that appropriate player action can take place. (Escort, Defend, Assist in De-Shielding, etc.)
Right now it takes quite a bit to have an affect on the tide of the battle, this would help in making it easier to decide where you can have an affect.
Item Two: Battle mechanics
Consider the slippery slope, and perpetual comeback mechanics, and how they are working.
Right now for the most part its a even fight grind. Ships blow up, they get replaced.
There is the slippery slope of one of your critical capital ships getting de-shielded and therefore eventually taken out, leading to less firepower on the field and more enemy fighters focusing on less ships. This is really painful if it’s the Teradon that goes, without de-shielding the opposing Teradon. That means your opponents most effective Anti-Capital ship gets to buzz around with near immunity, blowing up several capital ships in succession, and causing a massive slippery slope from which there is little chance to recover.
Perpetual comeback mechanics could include additional enemy bots dedicated to player harassment, on the side with the fewest PC's, so as to offset some of the effect of more PC's = team will win.
Another perpetual comeback mechanic could be the addition of turret repair or ship replacement to ships that manage to re-shield. Its hard enough to keep a ship alive without shields, however an advantage the opposing side can maintain with a weak re-shielded ship, is that it is never replaced by a fully repaired and capable ship. Ships without turrets can be left as virtual floating hulks in space, allowing them to be ignored, and without having to worry about a replacement that can fight. Either have ships that re-shield warp out, and have a new one warp in, or allow it to repair turrets over time.
Item Three: Bombers
Bombers are nice in theory, but I have yet to see a pack de-shield a ship, this leaves the job mostly to the Teradon, a HAC in correct position, or players coordinating bombing runs. They need to be set up in groups of 3 or more, with the same spawn in time, and same target in order to be effective at all. What would be even better, would be if they spawned in, group messaged their arrival, and then waited for up to 60 seconds before starting the attack run, so players could assist the group by trying to keep them alive, or joining with their own bombs/missiles.
Item Four: Its expensive to make a difference.
It is trivial to hang out near a capital ship and hunt the mindless bots that swarm it, picking off those that don’t get taken out right away. This has little effect on the end result however, because in 90% of the cases they were going to get taken out by the cap ship anyway, with little or no effect.
Making a difference means loading up a missile Rag at around 23K cost, and stack charging a capital ship that is already under fire enough that your contribution will result in a de-shielding. In many cases you can’t get away from the run, and loose your ship, or your timing is off, and the results are largely ineffective. This can start to mount costs considerably.
Now personally I don’t care about money. The over million credits I blew yesterday on the two I participated in mean very little to me, however it does make it prohibitively expensive for those player who don’t have the time to make the millions. We do need money sinks, however this cost to participate does prevent newer and players with less time to make money, from actually contributing to the outcome of the battle.
One solution is that for the duration of the battle, players get their ship replaced at zero cost when they pop into the home station. They are only allowed to replace the ship lost, not select another ship from their list, and the items need to be in stock and available to work. This would allow players of all levels to spend government money in a government war. How many troops pay for their own guns, and such? Zero.
Alternatively, you could pay much higher rewards to players who participate more in the battle if they win. Track lost ships costs, repair money spent, kills, casualties, and the like, and give a much larger amount out to the winning team. At the moment there is very little incentive to risk all that capital for simply winning a battle. Until the territory becomes more disputed and valuable, some type of reward is in order.
Don’t mess with the individual kills awards though, that will just be incentive for people to hang out near their capital ship and bot.
Long term comments.
“as we move towards larger and more involved gameplay"
I realize you wanted these comments to be about the “now” functionality, but if you want to move towards larger and more involved gameplay, then what is needed is functionality that allows players to become more involved and important in battles. Goes with the definition of involved and seems simple enough.
Right now players seem to be filler in an epic battle that they have only minimal control of the outcome, and are not the primary focus of these large scale battles. AI controlled cap ships seem to rule the day. We have a backdrop that is more important than the main characters in the show.
A very simple way for players to be more involved could be to give us the ability to FORCE npcs in our group to do one of four things.
Attack a specific target.
Defend a specific target.
Follow a specific target.
Hold Position.
Once the target is no longer available (dies, warps out, docs, etc), fall back to standard behavior. Complex priority lists are not necessary, nor are “if this then that” scenario solutions. Simple direct orders from player to dictate the actions of all NPC’s in the battle field.
Do this through direct hails to the NPC's.
E.G. /msg “*Tatch Drosta” Follow:”Psyra”
Keep it simple, don't require levels, or rank, or anything else. Don’t wait until you can build some fancy shmancy homeworld like interface. Existing communications, and the ability to relay information between players is enough to start with.
Let the players sort the details out for themselves about who should be giving orders. It will build team cohesion, and the best organized team would have the best organized bots as well.
It won't be long before someone writes some funky LUA plugin to help manage the battle zone through these commands. Imagine if you will a player with an LUA plugin that identifies all the NPC bombers (by ship type) in the group, and issues an order to follow that player. Once close enough together, the player orders them to attack a specific capital ship, and the entire formation begins a run against a single target.
A great deal of work you would be required to do regarding how to have the bots best behave will be taken up by players manipulating the fight themselves and therefore creating a more involved gameplay by definition. A great deal of the comments above are things like.
"Making most of the capital ships hold position during the fight was great, since it makes docking much easier, but the wrong ships are holding position and the ones that do move don't do it very well."
"The HACs would still be at opposite ends and be immobile, though they should reposition themselves if engaged by a Teradon."
Why should the devs want, need or spend valuable time tweaking behavior like; “When should a cap ship move?” “What if its shields are down?” “How about if it should stay and guard a weaker damaged ship?”
Let the players issue attack/defend/follow/hold orders to the NPC's, and let them decide how this works out. It may lead to having to deal with Itan players parking every Capital ship on the Worm Hole, or some other nasty strategy. Solutions to obviously broken tactics can be dealt with. Simply moving the fight to a different sector would cover the worm hole thing for example
This change would open up the BS to a much larger meta game, that even the developers might be surprised at how it turns out. Players would be developing tactics and strategy, then counter tactics and strategy. Teams would need to work together, and agree amongst themselves how to best approach each and every battle.
Come on, give it a try. If it turns out to not work, well we all learned something, probably had fun, and you can always take the toys away later if we keep hurting ourselves with them.
Formation flying.
I'd like to see a wing of bombers warp in, stay in formation as they approach the target, drop their missile loads or their mine loads or whatever, and then bank as one to go back to reload.
Lose the Flare Hogs
And yeah, getting multi-flared by the warthogs makes death a frequent occurrence. Maybe give them something weak like fireflies.
Flak-like weapons.
I'd like to see a flak weapon that would be fired by the capships toward an incoming bomber or fighter formation, and then explodes
in a ball of flak which gives you "some" damage, but not enough to explode you. Maybe like 200 damage for a direct hit, or 100 damage for a proximity hit.
I want a bombing run to be as much like WW II dive-bombing an aircraft carrier as possible. Fight flak & fighters on the way in, line up your target, and then fight your way back out.
In-Capship Commands
When in a capship, I want the NPC commander to issue commands to the gunners, like "Concentrate fire on the *IDF Gallant!" or "Bombers inbound on starboard side! All hands to starboard turrets!" Stuff like that. Since there's no homeworld2-like interface that gives you an overview.
Burning Hulks
I want the dead capital ships to stick around - at least the HACs and the Teradons. I know this would probably be graphically problematic, but I'd really like destructible hulls to be floating around that would give it that "battlezone" feel. So when the victor surveys the field after a hard-fought battle, he/she sees the burning husks of the enemy and has that happy warm feeling knowing that your foe is either cooking inside their tin cans or floating in the cold vacuum.
I'd like to see a wing of bombers warp in, stay in formation as they approach the target, drop their missile loads or their mine loads or whatever, and then bank as one to go back to reload.
Lose the Flare Hogs
And yeah, getting multi-flared by the warthogs makes death a frequent occurrence. Maybe give them something weak like fireflies.
Flak-like weapons.
I'd like to see a flak weapon that would be fired by the capships toward an incoming bomber or fighter formation, and then explodes
in a ball of flak which gives you "some" damage, but not enough to explode you. Maybe like 200 damage for a direct hit, or 100 damage for a proximity hit.
I want a bombing run to be as much like WW II dive-bombing an aircraft carrier as possible. Fight flak & fighters on the way in, line up your target, and then fight your way back out.
In-Capship Commands
When in a capship, I want the NPC commander to issue commands to the gunners, like "Concentrate fire on the *IDF Gallant!" or "Bombers inbound on starboard side! All hands to starboard turrets!" Stuff like that. Since there's no homeworld2-like interface that gives you an overview.
Burning Hulks
I want the dead capital ships to stick around - at least the HACs and the Teradons. I know this would probably be graphically problematic, but I'd really like destructible hulls to be floating around that would give it that "battlezone" feel. So when the victor surveys the field after a hard-fought battle, he/she sees the burning husks of the enemy and has that happy warm feeling knowing that your foe is either cooking inside their tin cans or floating in the cold vacuum.