So I'm going to be a pest and start a thread about the "Gunner alts" trend for the Trident Type M. All the cool kids are doing it!

Basically the idea is you get your Trident out on one account and another character on another account to load the Trident and operate the gunners etc.. etc..

Although this isn't intended as a kind of "pay-to-win" scenario, the reality is that Tridents do allow you to pay more to get an in-game advantage. That has obvious reputation draw-backs when certain people talk about it around the various water-coolers of the MMO scene, you know, those ones where Phaserlight doesn't have his magical censorship powers!

I'm certainly not starting this thread to gripe about the money/extra sub or the Trident (I have both of those things); however I am interested in hearing opinions about that.

On the contrary I'm starting it because I've got a gripe with the annoying logistics of having to try and run multiple accounts and play them at the same time just to be competitive and to keep up with other Trident pilots taking advantage of the same thing. I can't stand it, it's a terrible experience!

It is a gigantic combat advantage if you bring a Trident player with a gunner alt into a fight, especially where Firecracker missile turrets are involved. It's also a gigantic advantage with regards to trading and manufacturing for obvious reasons. You can also use your gunner alt and take advantage of the invincibility after un-docking to detonate your Tellar Ulam mine making it extremely easy to defend your trident from a massive radius and not to mention the advantages of being able to fight and then go and repair yourself in your trident parked nearby.

This is the new meta-endgame thing that is happening more and more often and encounters with these dual-account tridents is becoming routine.

It's time we had a bit of a discussion about this in plain view of developers because I know there are a lot of opinions out there, please do not hesitate to voice them here.

I've done that before to use my own turrets on moths/atlas. Certainly not a game breaker, or pay2win.

That's simply a valid workaround to be able to use a feature that must be present, but so far Guild Sw haven't implemented yet.

And I consider a Lite subs a fair price to ride a capship. Also seems quite feasible to control a capship with a phone, since you don't need "twitch", or quick moves.

Way to go!

Given the amount of resources necessary to craft a Trident, I'm personally fine if players want to pony up for an additional account to use as a dedicated gunner from another device. That's my opinion as a player; I have no idea how the devs feel about the subject. There's no way of realistically stopping this in any game, that I'm aware of (I spend plenty of time around some of those other 'water coolers' TRS mentions, *cough*mmorpg.com*cough* and from what I gather the practice of paying for multiple accounts is fairly common in another well known space sandbox that shall not be named).

I agree with Phaser as far as whether or not people should be using multiple accounts, but I see it in a somewhat different way; tridents are not as useful as they would be if they were fixed and fully implemented, so you are both making them more useful and slightly helping the devs reach the point where they may fix tridents by providing extra revenue. ;)

I think its bullshit that we have to pay to do this, get off your god damned ass and let me man my own turrets by jumping out of the pilots seat ffs

You aren't getting more money out of me for your trident scam!

Really, CS, tell us you really feel. Don't hold back.

Lol. I don't see it as a pay to win scenario, mainly because it's difficult to do both at the same time (use the gunner while piloting the ship).
And if we still need to use these alts to have the functionality of manning our own turrets and loading the ship up, then I'd consider it a workaround until the features come in.
I'm not particularly impressed that I have to do this to arm a trident, but it's useless without.
In the meantime I can tell complainers to "bugger off and rouse the devs about it", because this offers no real comparative advantage over single fighters, and especially not large attacking groups.

It's time we had a bit of a discussion about this in plain view of developers because I know there are a lot of opinions out there, please do not hesitate to voice them here.

I guess I don't expect quite the same amount of opinion diversity. There's a missing-but-planned feature the strongly degrades usage, which is annoying. Some people work around it with multiple accounts, which is both annoying to do and also annoying to some other people on a philosophical level. Yup, it's all pretty annoying.

Soo.. I guess I can comment on the following:

- Multiple accounts can yield some benefit to a player, and always have. The advantages aren't huge, and it's impossible for me to stop; just like someone buying the fastest possible computer, or moving to Wisconsin and getting the best possible internet connection. There are better things to spend my time on than issues I know I cannot control.

- But.. everyone knows the same benefit(s) will eventually be given by the game itself. This is well established. It's frustrating that it hasn't happened yet, which seems to be the actual underlying point of this thread.

- I understand the frustration and all that, but if the goal is to influence development direction, then that's usually better served by reviving or re-making a Suggestion thread that deals specifically with the topic ("make trident pilots able to control turrets!", among other things). As opposed to kind of a vague "let's discuss the many wide and varied opinions of how using tridents is currently a big pain in the ass", or whatever other festivus-style Airing of Grievances.

After all, I read Suggestions almost as much as General, and a majority of the recent game-impacting changes have stemmed directly from discussions on there. It's also a lot easier to decode what's actually needed when it isn't couched in some kind of passive-aggressive irritated debate format.

But, anyway, feel free to continue the discussion. For my part, I will see what I can do to maybe improve trident usability in the near-ish future (a "hopefully this month" kind of timeframe). But I'm going out of town to a memorial service this weekend (a favorite cousin of mine was killed last week, very sucky), and then next week I'm immediately off to LA for E3, the world's most chaotically overstimulating media event.

If someone wants to revive/renew a Suggestions on thread on key Trident points, that'd help me. Thanks.

It's not difficult at all to use the gunner while piloting the ship. It's quite simple to automate it and I've seen at least 1 plugin to do this floating around. It wouldn't be difficult to setup 3-4 gunner alts to auto-fire.

The advantages aren't huge, and it's impossible for me to stop; just like someone buying the fastest possible computer, or moving to Wisconsin and getting the best possible internet connection.

Of course as a practical matter you can't stop people from subbing multiple times, but you could remove the advantage they get over players who don't sub multiple times and if you want to make up the revenue you could easily release ways to pay for things that don't convey direct combat advantages.

It's also a lot easier to decode what's actually needed when it isn't couched in some kind of passive-aggressive irritated debate format.

Then let me bottom-line it for you. Feature development priorities need to focus on end-game content. Not modifications to the PCC or graphics or changes to existing systems. That's what we are lacking the most. I'm down for having some cool mission content and fixes here and there, but they aren't reasons for people to renew subscriptions and that is surely a common goal that both developers and committed players have.

Also, respectfully, please don't point the 'passive-aggressive gripe' finger at me and then end your post with subtle reminders about how busy your life is as though to suggest I should stop being an unreasonable burden on your time. I am sorry that your cousin died but I'm not suggesting you go and cancel your conference or your next weekend plans and start working on fixing pay-to-win in VO.

This is an emerging thing that's happening, there hasn't been a thread about it, I thought there should be one and it's as simple as that. If it has some influence on shifting the development priorities away from other things to address these issues then I think it's worthwhile.

Of course as a practical matter you can't stop people from subbing multiple times, but you could remove the advantage they get over players who don't sub multiple times and if you want to make up the revenue you could easily release ways to pay for things that don't convey direct combat advantages.

I don't care about any "added revenue" of people subbing to control tridents. I'm honored that people would sub multiple accounts for the gameplay, but it isn't a part of our business model. It's something people created as a workaround, and any impact it has on the "revenue stream" has absolutely nothing to do with why it hasn't been improved.

It's purely a development-time thing. And yes, we will remove the advantage, but I thought that had already been made clear..

Then let me bottom-line it for you. Feature development priorities need to focus on end-game content. Not modifications to the PCC or graphics or changes to existing systems. That's what we are lacking the most. I'm down for having some cool mission content and fixes here and there, but they aren't reasons for people to renew subscriptions and that is surely a common goal that both developers and committed players have.

Really? You're sure of this because you know the percentage of our subscribers who are endgame vs, say, midgame, or early? Or how many drop off at what point? What percentage is churn? The most vocal people are not always the most numerous, a fact that is particularly true in MMO development. You're making an argument about subscriber retention without having any actual facts to back it up.

None of this detracts in any way from my desire to add endgame content, or support high-level players. But I allocate development time to tasks that I think will yield the most return for the investment, for everyone, with my available resources. The only thing I can always guarantee about my choices, is that SOMEONE will be unhappy about them. Level 12 of game developer hell.

I welcome your input and opinion on how gameplay should change, in the proper location (Suggestions); but it is foolish arrogance to believe that you personally speak for my userbase, or that you're in a position to make "bottom line" statements about anything other than what you personally happen to want. You and every single person on this forum could all agree, and you'd still be a minority of the player base (strange as that may seem). I have to try and act on behalf of everyone.

(Not to mention the irony of a discussion where you say you don't want new PCC stuff, but the upcoming NPC editor is specifically designed to create mid and endgame content).

Also, respectfully, please don't point the 'passive-aggressive gripe' finger at me and then end your post with subtle reminders about how busy your life is as though to suggest I should stop being an unreasonable burden on your time. I am sorry that your cousin died but I'm not suggesting you go and cancel your conference or your next weekend plans and start working on fixing pay-to-win in VO.

I didn't. If I wanted to say that you were an unreasonable burden on my time, I would say that, point blank.

I made the statement about my upcoming travels because it will likely cause me to stop posting on the forums for an entire week, starting tonight. I feel if I need to comment on a thread where I say "I'll try and see what we can do" and then vanish from any discussion for a week, that can (and has been, historically) be mis-interpreted as my being uninterested or some other thing.

This is an emerging thing that's happening, there hasn't been a thread about it, I thought there should be one and it's as simple as that. If it has some influence on shifting the development priorities away from other things to address these issues then I think it's worthwhile.

I don't have a problem with discussion, I have a problem with relative context and negativity.

We have had a string of threads lately, that in better and worse ways have amounted to "I am pissed about X, who else is pissed about X?". My point is that it's a craptastic way to try and get developer attention. It mostly polarizes things and pushes us away from interacting.

I get that there are lots of things that need improvement in the game. I'm embarrassed by that, and I value people prodding me, giving me input and caring about the game's progress. But we do have a particular way to go about that, which is clearly outlined with its own forum. Taking it to General, and framing it in this way, is not likely to result in a better outcome.

Really? You're sure of this because you know the percentage of our subscribers who are endgame vs, say, midgame, or early? Or how many drop off at what point? What percentage is churn?

That's all very nice, but none of it addresses the fact that what should be most important is giving people who elect to play the game over the long term something good to do. If you'd like to argue that attracting and briefly retaining churn players is worth more $$$ and is therefore more important than the obvious ideal I just stated, then by all means say so.

"Really? You're sure of this because you know the percentage of our subscribers who are endgame vs, say, midgame, or early?"

I am absolutely certain that most of your player-base is early or mid-game players because that's where the content focuses and that is the problem that i'm attempting to highlight.

Yes I am speaking for myself and yes I am making an argument about subscriber retention without stats because of course I don't have any stats to back it up. Would you be willing to release statistics about subscriber retention? Probably not and I don't hold the expectation that you should have to either.

The committed long-term player-base is what generates immeasurable amounts of content and game-play. The guilds, the characters, the conflicts, the fansites, the videos, the missions, plugins, mentoring, events etc.. etc.. etc.. But if we don't have a reason for regular players to stick around long enough to want to contribute these things they don't even appear in the first place and all you really get is new players coming into the game and asking "Hello is anybody out there I need some help".

I don't think I need a statistic to prove that the value of keeping your existing player-base engaged far exceeds that of building game-play for entry or mid-tier players. That's common sense to me.

Anyway, for what it's worth I apologize for the implicit negativity in the OP, but I still think the underlying point is solid regardless of how it is framed.

Incarnate, sorry for your loss. As an avid cyclist myself it is always very saddening to hear of a fellow rider passing from such a horrible accident. I don't really have anything to add to this thread asides from the fact that I hope the Illinois transportation board adopts the groupon suggestion of adding a protected bike lane to that road.

(thanks Peytros)

I don't think I need a statistic to prove that the value of keeping your existing player-base engaged far exceeds that of building game-play for entry or mid-tier players. That's common sense to me.

But you'll concede that to some extent, pragmatically speaking, it's a numbers game, right? I mean if (and these aren't real numbers) we had 20% subscription revenue from top-tier veteran players, and 80% from churning lower-level players who didn't reach the endgame, then focusing solely on the endgame would be kind of myopic?

Now, Lecter's related point is totally solid, that we have an obligation of "giving people who elect to play the game over the long term something good to do.", and I totally agree with that. But not to the exclusion of all else. That's why I find the notion of focusing solely on endgame content (for an unlimited length of time), to be flawed. Endgame stuff is by far the most complex, difficult content to develop (going on experience), it impacts the fewest number of players, and it usually does very little for our ability to market the game or gain any influx of players (all of which ends up also being important to veteran players).

But, to be honest, right now people are frustrated not from a lack of endgame content changes, but just a lack of changes period. We usually don't exclude the endgame entirely in favor of the early or middle (there are periods of this with specific projects, but amortized over the long haul.. we don't).

I also take flak sometimes for non-"content" based changes like graphics, but these are simply realities of resource availability and allocation. Having an inexperienced artist who wants to contribute meaningfully, and not having the time for someone to tutor him in engine-specifics every day for a few weeks.. I had him work on background planets. Something we can use, that enhances the game, that allows us to market the game and gain business and exposure from partners (GPU companies love new graphics, and they introduce us to others, which leads to, well, Verizon TV commercials and things like that).

So, anyway, yes, I agree that we have an obligation to make cool stuff to make our supportive veteran players happy. Which really comes in at priority #2 for me overall, only playing second fiddle to "keeping the company in business, period". But that all said, from where I sit it's a lot less black and white. Little would make me happier than having enough hardcore veteran subscribers that we could just sit around making endgame stuff all the time.. that's what we want to do (at least me personally, from a design standpoint). But, as things are what they are, it requires a bit more nuanced balancing game. Obviously I don't claim to always pull it off, a lot of running a company like this is making educated guesses about the future and projects and costs and development time and relationships.. juggling and gambling all at the same time. But it is what it is.

And we'll make the tridents better as soon as I can.

Anyway, for what it's worth I apologize for the implicit negativity in the OP, but I still think the underlying point is solid regardless of how it is framed.

Thanks, I appreciate that. And I do understand the point, and I get that you guys care. Even when Lecter or Spence want to bash me with some kind of angry-stick, I get that it's because the game means something to them and they really want it to blossom into the thing we've all discussed.

But positive framing does help :). Especially of late, I've been a little ragged.

Take care guys, I'll see you on the flipside.

But not to the exclusion of all else. That's why I find the notion of focusing solely on endgame content (for an unlimited length of time), to be flawed. Endgame stuff is by far the most complex, difficult content to develop (going on experience), it impacts the fewest number of players, and it usually does very little for our ability to market the game or gain any influx of players (all of which ends up also being important to veteran players).

I'm going to stop beating the horse after this, but the problem with this so reasonable sounding balancing plea is that there's been a decade or so of nearly complete and total inattention to developing endgame content and its closely related RPG side of VO. At this point putting the pendulum somewhere near the middle cannot even begin to address the problem.

I'm going to stop beating the horse after this, but the problem with this so reasonable sounding balancing plea is that there's been a decade or so of nearly complete and total inattention to developing endgame content and its closely related RPG side of VO. At this point putting the pendulum somewhere near the middle cannot even begin to address the problem.

Yeah, I've seen that claim before, and I understand where it comes from. But it is not accurate at all.

The truth is the great majority of our time has been spent on architecting systems to sustain the endgame content that I want. The sort of things I barely started to discuss in the Kickstarter videos. Even counting all our mobile platform development, that's a "mere" three years? We spent longer than that on Kourier alone. A system like Kourier is hardly needed to build simple early/middle-game content. Who cares if things are fully dynamic, if the player isn't even around long enough to tell? That's why no one else does it. But we wanted to build a universe that could really evolve and breathe on its own..

What would be an accurate claim is to say that the content we intended to deliver on these systems has not yet been fully realized. So, from the player perspective, I get why people think the endgame hasn't moved very far. Ours is a giant, mighty engine, sitting in a ship with an incomplete hull. It would have been much easier to build a smaller boat, and gone to smaller places, but that's not what I wanted.

One may justifiably call into question my choice to aim so high. But the vast amount of time we've put in to support such grand endgame goals has been very real.

But you'll concede that to some extent, pragmatically speaking, it's a numbers game, right? I mean if (and these aren't real numbers) we had 20% subscription revenue from top-tier veteran players, and 80% from churning lower-level players who didn't reach the endgame, then focusing solely on the endgame would be kind of myopic?

Yes of course focusing purely on end-game is not the way to proceed, but if hypothetically you did have 20/80 old/new player balance in subscription revenue i'd be working to flip those numbers around. Once you have the pathways for newer players to make their way from early game to end-game (and Vendetta is completely sufficient in this regard), I think it's way more important to retain long term players so the new players have sufficient inspiration and in some cases social envy to motivate them to go there too.

This doesn't happen nearly as often as it should because of the lack of end-game, there are roles that at times are severely under-represented and people looking for in-game role models so to speak are just not bothering because they have nobody to show them a good time.

And yeah, basically Lecter is right on the mark, it feels like there's been a massive deficiency in crafting an end-game where there really should be an emphasis. Veteran players can, do and will pick up the slack from any deficiency in the early game so I can't emphasize enough how important I think it is that you prioritize end-game content development.

And just finally on the framing thing. Though on these forums I may be at times an extremely harsh critic, elsewhere I am a staunch advocate. I think it's a very important to be able to criticize and endorse something at the same time, because nothing is perfect but that doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile.

One may justifiably call into question my choice to aim so high. But the vast amount of time we've put in to support such grand endgame goals has been very real.

Which is admirable from a grand design perspective, but of course until you realize and display the full potential it might as well not exist.

In this particular case, the trident being half-implemented is actually worse than it not being implemented at all because it creates end-game for one group of players, but destroys end-game for others. The multiple accounts thing is a key part of that, because it's becoming a mainstream end-game thing to dual pilot accounts with your Trident, that is becoming the aspirational goal of players and it's problematic because of the way it helps some gameplay styles and erodes others (like piracy or other combat related roles)

EDIT: And if we want to get into like actual specific ways to solve this problem, I think the suggestion of severely buffing avalons and adding guidance so that players can better destroy cappies is one of the most important simple value tweak updates you can do.

but if hypothetically you did have 20/80 old/new player balance in subscription revenue i'd be working to flip those numbers around.

I'm sure you would. Or rather, you wish you would. But actually you'd just be trying to pay people on time, and wouldn't have any time or breathing room to "flip around" anything.

Once you have the pathways for newer players to make their way from early game to end-game (and Vendetta is completely sufficient in this regard)

Again, not trying to pick on you, but "completely sufficient" is an interesting choice of words. I would not describe it in those terms. I'm sure it's sufficient for you ;).

And just finally on the framing thing. Though on these forums I may be at times an extremely harsh critic, elsewhere I am a staunch advocate.

I get that, and I do appreciate the positivity elsewhere and all; but my point was that.. it doesn't matter. If the desired goal is change and positive forward motion, then negative framing is counterproductive. There are those who do that more to troll than anything, and there are those who do it more out of frustration, and then there are some in between. But in no case is it the method most likely to yield an improved game. It's most likely to make me stop reading the forums for awhile.

Note: it's not the negativity of the points that I object to. I'm fine with someone posting to Suggestions that "X sucks, but would be better if it was Y". I have trouble with "Hey, X sucks! Who else thinks X sucks?" as a general forum thread.

Which is admirable from a grand design perspective, but of course until you realize and display the full potential it might as well not exist.

Yes, we know. Some of us have invested over 15 years into something that has not actually been revealed. That does not fill one with a great sense of accomplishment.

But, the reality is that a huge part of what we do is invisible to you. Everyone who rants about how much faster we should be able to get stuff done, doesn't see Ray answering a gazillion Support Tickets per day. Or me doing all the sysadmin stuff. I mean, one of our biggest projects right now is re-working our entire newsletter system so it's more friendly to the ephemeral and mercurial tastes of Gmail and Live.com mail admins. Otherwise our newsletters will go to spam, and take months to be un-spammed. And no, we can't afford an outside mail service at the 150k+ list-subscriber level. My point being, there's a lot of shit going on, a lot of maintenance and activity that really has nothing even to do with the game, and we do it all.

In this particular case, the trident being half-implemented is actually worse than it not being implemented at all

I did roll out half-implemented capships at explicit player request. Yes, everyone expected them to be improved more quickly, including me. But I warned everyone that they were not ready for prime time, and people adamantly said "do it anyway!@".

Anyway, I have to get up in a couple of hours and drive to Chicago, and I'm not even packed yet, so.. take care.

"people adamantly said "do it anyway!@"."

You must ignore these evil, evil people!

Have a safe trip o/