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How to F**K up a game

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May 22, 2006 Shannow link
Ok admin how in gods name did you manage to turn an enjoyable game into a complete disaster in one update.

Fair enough the bots were to easy now they are damn near impossible.

BP Mission not even worth the effort.

Happily I can mine and trade....ahhh PvP is going to die.

Time to tweak things down a bit guys or my next 26 bucks wont be comming your way.

Take some advice from a long time online game player just because the vets have the game down pat or can make billions is not a reason to make things impossible for the new blood. VO had a lovely balance where you could in a month or so challenge the veterans on their lvl and make enough money to keep pvping.

Its a good system I read on the forums of death not meaning much and ships being to cheap. This is the wrong way to go PvP survives on death being not a pain and losing millions.Dont fall into the trap of making death hurt then subscribers whinge more about losing stuff and press for pvp to be reduced...then your game dies.

By all means make it a little harder to lvl stuff cost a little more....add more depth to non lethal equipment....Do not for gods sake turn vo into another grind game where it takes years to lvl and gain skills.

Keep the game dynamic a universe of happy pvp players is much better than a universe of 1 month players who get tired and move on.
May 22, 2006 incarnate link
If you read the thread "VO 1.6.1", you'll note that the bot changes were not intentional (Andy fixed a bug that greatly changed things.. I didn't know), and that I've posted twice about changing them.

As for your other comments.. if we were going to make a skill-grinding game with no focus on PvP, we would have made something else. Not this game. PvP is here to stay. If you re-read my original Suggestions thread on the whole pricing thing, you would see it only impacted the top percent of ships. So only like the IBG Cent and Skycommand Prom and other super-duper ships would be increased. This doesn't kill PvP, it makes using the absolute best ships more expensive. The lesser variants suddenly have some point.

Finally, we already *had* the game like this once before (the best ships cost "a lot", relatively to the economy at the time), in alpha, and it worked very well. So no, I'm not worried that it will kill PvP. There's a lot of parts of the game that need work, so this hasn't been a priority, and repricing ships probably won't happen until after the rest of the economy changes.
May 22, 2006 jexkerome link
I really love whiners like this guy who are told the exact same things ingame and in the forums, and yet don't listen and find it in their whiny little hearts to write up a rant, as if everything was done to annoy them specifically. Genka would be proud!
May 22, 2006 moldyman link
They're not too hard at all, you just have to adapt now. I learned quickl that constant forward momentum (or FA on for us lazy bums) is the key, along with dodges and strafes, maybe a dash of rolling.
May 23, 2006 Cunjo link
adaptation took a bit, but once you got them down... yeah, they're pretty easy. You need to have either a fast ship or fast energy weapons if you want to hit them with energy, but rockets, rails and missiles work like a charm. You just need to close up the distance to the point where they can't dodge.
May 23, 2006 Nya13 link
Yeah but it's true that could be a lit too difficult for some players.

when you shoot at the npc, he back-roll but he should not back-roll too far.
IF a1k0n could fix it, everyone will be happy! (125-150m max).
May 23, 2006 incarnate link
a1k0n already did fix it.. it was broken before :). The bots becoming harder was a side-effect. But I'm going to adjust the bots to make them better using the now-fixed system.
May 23, 2006 aderuwe link
Even better? ;)

Seriously, I like the bots the way they are now. I'm actually learning how to play the game now, and feeling more confident to try PVP soon! Before I just backrolled away from bots while firing energy weapons like mad. I think most players will agree that's not the One True Way to play the game. :)
Then the fix came and the bots totally killed me, resulting in me no longer backrolling, but actually finding a way to beat them.
And I did. I can handle two of the medium difficulty ones without a problem now. :)

-- Alexander (aka Lagrange Remor)
May 23, 2006 bojansplash link
New bot behaviour might be a problem for new players.
Switching from beginner combat to advanced combat missions will prolly have a negative impact on newbies trying to gain levels and lot of them might just give up and quit playing out of frustration.
Unaligned bots in grey imho are also a bit of a problem with the new AI.
In the past month expirienced pvpers learned to coexist with them. Lately, with introduction of new bot AI, even B8 is empty most of the time. Pvpers just dont want unbots spoiling their fights and duels anymore.
Traders and nonpvpers gave up on greyspace entirely.
I agree, grayspace should be dangerous but not desolated as it is now because 90% of players are scared to even enter sedina-odia-bractus systems.
New players are coming into VO every day and some tweaks and fixes regarding bots AI should be implemented asap if we want them to stay and become a part of this great community.
May 23, 2006 Borb II link
Just as a note, BP is not really made for new players, it's made for vets. The collector bots are made for the new players.
May 23, 2006 Soulless1 link
why is the adv combat mission even available before level 3? :S
May 23, 2006 bojansplash link
I deliberately left BP out of this.
Borb is right, but.....imho combat xp should be a bit more rewarding.
May 23, 2006 Sun Tzu link
The Devs said they were tweaking the bots and making them easier. So instead of repeating them what they should, we should rather tell them what they should keep :D

Let's take an example: the warthog TD bots now -use- rockets; they've ceased the random spamming and actually fire in your direction. This is a huge improvement, which allows new players to get used to dodge rockets.

Re grey space: sometimes the number of bots at a wormhole is plain non-sense, but the 90% scared players could ask for help. There are guilds who would do some escorting even for free.
May 23, 2006 Phaserlight link
Whinge away, shannow, whinge away... I've been at this game for three years now. The devs know what they are doing. I just wish people would realize that they don't have to swear or threaten to quit in order to make themselves heard.

Challenge yourself to come up with a well thought out, non-reactionary argument. That's the point of a forum.
May 23, 2006 Person link
I was saying the exact same thing in another thread
1) make guardians less manueverable so they can't really dodge and become the weapon platforms they're supposed to be.
2) make assaults use the jousting, smart AI and gang up on you
3) keep collectors as easy as they are.
4) double or even triple the rewards for combat missions, (and bots in general) so leveling becomes learning the combat model and strategies rather than skill-grinding.

The bots are hard and get harder as you face better ones. This is good, but we need to adjust the experience accordingly.

-Calder
May 23, 2006 bojansplash link
I agree Sun Tzu. /Btw, you are my old buddy Sun Tzu?/
Devs are moving VO in a good direction.
I usually do not complain about VO updates and tweaks.
I posted my opinion here in order to point out possible problem regarding new bot AI and how it will relate to new or newbish VO players.
May 23, 2006 Nya13 link
Bojan,
lot of pvpers left for Deneb that's why Sedina B-8 look empty.
May 23, 2006 Sun Tzu link
<off-topic> Bojan: yes I am :o) </off-topic>
May 23, 2006 bojansplash link
Not many pvpers moved to Deneb Ayn. General emptyness of greyspace moved them elsewhere, mainly to Latos/Azek wh.

<off-topic> You sneaky bastid Sun ;)
Get in touch ingame. </off-topic>
May 23, 2006 Ghost link
Ayn, one of the reasons a lot of pvpers left for deneb was because they were getting frusturated being attacked by unbots every 5 minutes while trying to duel.