Forums » Role Playing
I missed last night, but, other events? wOOT!
Next time I'll fly medic as being a miner just doesn't seem to work. While others have found this fun, I've found these events to be nothing but bait for the pirates. Little to no orginization, no communication within groups or between groups, mining has been completely independent to my knowledge, money/xp is good, but not totally sure for what though.
Part of my issues with these expeditions is the lack of a concrete goal coupled by the lack of in-game support for such types of activities. Obsidian is doing a fair job but there is a lot of room for improvement.
Some suggestions:
• Designated rolls: guards, miners, transporters, scouts, medics (If your mining, stay mining, drop your stuff off at your local moth and let them bring ore back, additionally, that ore should then be given to a single person to store and sell or move to selling point. Scouts should be looking for newe roids in-sector and within a few sectors of main expedition, medics should watch the miners and transports as they leave and/or mine, and spot heal defenders as needed, transports should be of a few types, ferries, to bring ore to stations from miners, and convoys between stations for selling.
• Expedition Leader-Group Leaders-Group member Communication (perhaps a special channel for each expedition, in contrast to personal messages and group chat)
• Better controlled movement of expedition (not at random, should all jump together, and from same sector. This will make it easier for the gurards to control the bots around the expedition)
• Specified Target (last started as pentric, and ended with VanAzek???? If your going to have a large group mining have a worthwhile target)
Part of my issues with these expeditions is the lack of a concrete goal coupled by the lack of in-game support for such types of activities. Obsidian is doing a fair job but there is a lot of room for improvement.
Some suggestions:
• Designated rolls: guards, miners, transporters, scouts, medics (If your mining, stay mining, drop your stuff off at your local moth and let them bring ore back, additionally, that ore should then be given to a single person to store and sell or move to selling point. Scouts should be looking for newe roids in-sector and within a few sectors of main expedition, medics should watch the miners and transports as they leave and/or mine, and spot heal defenders as needed, transports should be of a few types, ferries, to bring ore to stations from miners, and convoys between stations for selling.
• Expedition Leader-Group Leaders-Group member Communication (perhaps a special channel for each expedition, in contrast to personal messages and group chat)
• Better controlled movement of expedition (not at random, should all jump together, and from same sector. This will make it easier for the gurards to control the bots around the expedition)
• Specified Target (last started as pentric, and ended with VanAzek???? If your going to have a large group mining have a worthwhile target)
I've played defender AND miner. The main problem is, that within a group, you can't tell where people are. Obsidian can be screaming for help, but out of the 7 white dots on my radar I'd never find her in time. Groups need to be small, 3 or at most 4 people per group. Ideally, One miner is the group leader and the defenders make up the rest of the group.
Miners really ARE defenseless sheep. Without escorts they die quickly.
For the next mission, I suggest a buddy system, one defender per miner. (Or if the ratio remains the same, 2 or 3 defenders per miner.) If the defender gets 'sploded, the miner heads to the nearest friendly defender, or warps out to an empty sector to await his/her escort. If possible, have one defender focus on bots, and another focus on PvP defense. Have one of the defenders (at least) with mining scanners, so that the miner can be in a Behemoth with deniphase or iophase mining beams.
The pirates were particularly aggressive last time. Indeed, their tactics have improved, mainly because I think more experienced and creative pirates are back in the game now.
I also suggest using some kind of voice comm between group leaders. Skype works well for me. The miners can talk amongst themselves, and direct their escorts. A distributed command system will help immensely.
I think hoping for an exact match for the type of ore is unrealistic. I think just mine whatever is valuable, get in, get out.
Groups should stick together and always warp in from a variety of sectors, don't go straight from the station to the mining area. This will confuse the pirates AND ensure a more random distribution of targets. You'll notice that the pirates were camping the entry point last time. PLUS, if this is done properly, it may take the pirates longer to find out where the mining sector actually is. (Unless they have a spy, which is entirely possible.)
That's my advice.
Miners really ARE defenseless sheep. Without escorts they die quickly.
For the next mission, I suggest a buddy system, one defender per miner. (Or if the ratio remains the same, 2 or 3 defenders per miner.) If the defender gets 'sploded, the miner heads to the nearest friendly defender, or warps out to an empty sector to await his/her escort. If possible, have one defender focus on bots, and another focus on PvP defense. Have one of the defenders (at least) with mining scanners, so that the miner can be in a Behemoth with deniphase or iophase mining beams.
The pirates were particularly aggressive last time. Indeed, their tactics have improved, mainly because I think more experienced and creative pirates are back in the game now.
I also suggest using some kind of voice comm between group leaders. Skype works well for me. The miners can talk amongst themselves, and direct their escorts. A distributed command system will help immensely.
I think hoping for an exact match for the type of ore is unrealistic. I think just mine whatever is valuable, get in, get out.
Groups should stick together and always warp in from a variety of sectors, don't go straight from the station to the mining area. This will confuse the pirates AND ensure a more random distribution of targets. You'll notice that the pirates were camping the entry point last time. PLUS, if this is done properly, it may take the pirates longer to find out where the mining sector actually is. (Unless they have a spy, which is entirely possible.)
That's my advice.
You both make good points. I try to reflect on my objectives after each event as I write the debriefing for the devs.
My primary objective is provide an activity that is fun, advances you towards the next license and shows the real point of VO. I developed this event because I personally thought it was fun to try to mine while orbiting an asteroid while avoiding bot fire. I do find mining tedious when done in a station sector and I found it much more rewarding (in terms of enjoyment) in bot infested sectors.
The secondary objective is to get players to work together, because in my opinion, playing against and with other humans is much more fun than the AI.
The tertiary objective is to mine ores. I use the premise of finding ore as a way to generate income so I can pay pilots for their participation. I have observed the player base is very critical about getting rewarded for participation. I agree, I feel that we should level almost subconsciously, that we are constantly earning XP in small amount until one day you look at your stats and say “wow when did I get level 8 heavy weapons?” I have stopped actively leveling and I still level, albeit slower than other players, and I enjoy myself. I was able to petition the devs for the power to grant some XP but was warned about giving out “large amounts”. I have a rubric I use to determine how much XP a player is awarded in each skill for each event.
I’m not going to demand a miner only take a named ore because a moth filled with twice with van azek is worth more to me than searching for 10 minutes and finding 20 crates of lanthanic ore. I’ll try to let miner know what type of rare ore have been spotted in the sectors however I cannot guarantee the density of the ore. When miners ask me what type of ore should they mine my honest answer is “whatever you find that you think is good.” I am also asking the mining to take the responsibility for mining, This means I ask them if they feel the asteroids are too hot, if they feel unsafe in the sector, if they feel it is time to move on. This is a mining event and I will ask the miners for status reports to decide if we should move on. The defenders/scouts/medics may bring in few credits however it is the miners who bring in ores that my guild (TGFT) buys from me at the max value. I have set an arbitrary minimum pay for each class of participants and I ask that everyone pre-register so I can give out the appropriate rewards. I know some miners have mentioned that working on their own they could make much more, however remember you have to also pay 2-3 defenders per miner, which can really drive down the profits.
I too am struggling with the discipline of the participants. I know that the more we play together the better we get. I’ve seen this in my own guild in our group activities. However with this open event we are always going to get new players and not every seasoned player will be available at each event. We’ve tried channels but there is concern that it is unsecured and can be discovered my pirates or their spies (and I suspect there have been a few spies in the missions). It was suggested that group chat, guild chat and /msg were the preferred means of communication because they are more secure. My original intent was to have a TGFT guild member lead each group so I could send out messages via guild chat and they could then relay to the individual groups. With the high turn out last week I was left without enough guild members to assist. I’m working on possible solutions.
Personally, I liked grouping all the miners because once a miner finds a good asteroid you can click on their name and home in on their location even if they are >3000m away. I’m willing to try breaking up the miners into individual buddy groups. Each miner will be asked to make a group and told the name of a defender to invite. Even here there will be some issues but if everyone is patient it will work out.
I will do some further thinking on how the roles are defined and what the base pay will be for each one.
As for pirates, if we didn’t advertise the event we wouldn’t get pirates but we wouldn’t get players either. Also, I do not know a way to set up a selective force field that would allow participants to enter a sector while blocking out other players. VO is a PvP and I just accept them as part of the event. Some pilots told me that they came just to defend the miners from rogue pirates.
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Plan for the next event
Friday July 8, 9pm CST (2:00 GMT) DAU G-2 (different location)
Register for roles:
1) Miner-mine ores (may team up with a hauler if desired), the ores you collect will be used to pay everyone in the mission. The more you mine the bigger the reward.
2) Defender- you will be responsible for defending 1 miner from Hive bots and rogue pirates. If the assigned miner is killed you will have credits deducted from your pay.
3) Scout- look for good asteroids/ warn of pirate presence, and check for ion storms
4) Medic- keep ships in the mining sector healthy the defenders will be especially grateful if you help keep their assigned miners alive.
Groups of 2 miners will be set up and assigned defenders from the pool of registered players. I will consider requests for working with specific players. A veteran player will be paired with a newer player wherever possible so they can be shown the ropes.
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My primary objective is provide an activity that is fun, advances you towards the next license and shows the real point of VO. I developed this event because I personally thought it was fun to try to mine while orbiting an asteroid while avoiding bot fire. I do find mining tedious when done in a station sector and I found it much more rewarding (in terms of enjoyment) in bot infested sectors.
The secondary objective is to get players to work together, because in my opinion, playing against and with other humans is much more fun than the AI.
The tertiary objective is to mine ores. I use the premise of finding ore as a way to generate income so I can pay pilots for their participation. I have observed the player base is very critical about getting rewarded for participation. I agree, I feel that we should level almost subconsciously, that we are constantly earning XP in small amount until one day you look at your stats and say “wow when did I get level 8 heavy weapons?” I have stopped actively leveling and I still level, albeit slower than other players, and I enjoy myself. I was able to petition the devs for the power to grant some XP but was warned about giving out “large amounts”. I have a rubric I use to determine how much XP a player is awarded in each skill for each event.
I’m not going to demand a miner only take a named ore because a moth filled with twice with van azek is worth more to me than searching for 10 minutes and finding 20 crates of lanthanic ore. I’ll try to let miner know what type of rare ore have been spotted in the sectors however I cannot guarantee the density of the ore. When miners ask me what type of ore should they mine my honest answer is “whatever you find that you think is good.” I am also asking the mining to take the responsibility for mining, This means I ask them if they feel the asteroids are too hot, if they feel unsafe in the sector, if they feel it is time to move on. This is a mining event and I will ask the miners for status reports to decide if we should move on. The defenders/scouts/medics may bring in few credits however it is the miners who bring in ores that my guild (TGFT) buys from me at the max value. I have set an arbitrary minimum pay for each class of participants and I ask that everyone pre-register so I can give out the appropriate rewards. I know some miners have mentioned that working on their own they could make much more, however remember you have to also pay 2-3 defenders per miner, which can really drive down the profits.
I too am struggling with the discipline of the participants. I know that the more we play together the better we get. I’ve seen this in my own guild in our group activities. However with this open event we are always going to get new players and not every seasoned player will be available at each event. We’ve tried channels but there is concern that it is unsecured and can be discovered my pirates or their spies (and I suspect there have been a few spies in the missions). It was suggested that group chat, guild chat and /msg were the preferred means of communication because they are more secure. My original intent was to have a TGFT guild member lead each group so I could send out messages via guild chat and they could then relay to the individual groups. With the high turn out last week I was left without enough guild members to assist. I’m working on possible solutions.
Personally, I liked grouping all the miners because once a miner finds a good asteroid you can click on their name and home in on their location even if they are >3000m away. I’m willing to try breaking up the miners into individual buddy groups. Each miner will be asked to make a group and told the name of a defender to invite. Even here there will be some issues but if everyone is patient it will work out.
I will do some further thinking on how the roles are defined and what the base pay will be for each one.
As for pirates, if we didn’t advertise the event we wouldn’t get pirates but we wouldn’t get players either. Also, I do not know a way to set up a selective force field that would allow participants to enter a sector while blocking out other players. VO is a PvP and I just accept them as part of the event. Some pilots told me that they came just to defend the miners from rogue pirates.
*************************************************
*************************************************
Plan for the next event
Friday July 8, 9pm CST (2:00 GMT) DAU G-2 (different location)
Register for roles:
1) Miner-mine ores (may team up with a hauler if desired), the ores you collect will be used to pay everyone in the mission. The more you mine the bigger the reward.
2) Defender- you will be responsible for defending 1 miner from Hive bots and rogue pirates. If the assigned miner is killed you will have credits deducted from your pay.
3) Scout- look for good asteroids/ warn of pirate presence, and check for ion storms
4) Medic- keep ships in the mining sector healthy the defenders will be especially grateful if you help keep their assigned miners alive.
Groups of 2 miners will be set up and assigned defenders from the pool of registered players. I will consider requests for working with specific players. A veteran player will be paired with a newer player wherever possible so they can be shown the ropes.
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Of course we make an attractive target for Pirate when we've got so many miners floating about with so much ore, but while the pirates are getting more clever and better at what they do, we can also think of better ways to keep the pirates from causing too much trouble. I've suggested this before but we can keep the mining sector secret. As long as we all be sure to jump through at least one empty sector before gettin gto the mining sector we could potentially lose the pirates.
We'd still have to deal with them around the station but we could even get around that by chosing a different station to return ore to and end at than we start at, always jumping through an empty sector any time you see a pirate.
We can also chose the sectors we will mine in advance so if we're mining away and a pirate does find us and causes too much trouble we can broadcast "Head to mining sector 2" and we all secretly make our way to the new location.
I'm just saying there are ways to use stealth and cunning to beat pirates. It doesn't all have to be about blasting them out of the sector.
We'd still have to deal with them around the station but we could even get around that by chosing a different station to return ore to and end at than we start at, always jumping through an empty sector any time you see a pirate.
We can also chose the sectors we will mine in advance so if we're mining away and a pirate does find us and causes too much trouble we can broadcast "Head to mining sector 2" and we all secretly make our way to the new location.
I'm just saying there are ways to use stealth and cunning to beat pirates. It doesn't all have to be about blasting them out of the sector.
does anyone have like a teamspeak server? that would really be helpful
problem with teamspeak is that there is no counterpart for mac users to use. There needs to be an easy and efficent way for all players to communicate there actions to each other in groups that large. Perhaps cycliing channels every 20 minutes would solve the problem of your channel getting hacked. Or simply keeping group leaders up to date with messages and the leaders relaying to group. Guild should not be used for these situations because I personally was in a group of 3 TGFT and some others and no one but me ever said anything and I was constantly away from my group because of it. Either my group leader sucked or just didn't give a shit, either way, it's things like that that will keep people from coming back.
true, but cycling through different channels can be constantly annoying
perhaps theres is another way we can find a program that mac and pc users can use
perhaps theres is another way we can find a program that mac and pc users can use
I have been a group leader on several of these missions. The main problem is trying to dodge bots and type at the same time. Until you've tried to lead a group, I'd lay off suggesting that the leader "sucked". While I think Johnhawl has some excellent suggestions (such as dividing the mining and transporting functions), the more complicated the communication arrangements, the less communication there will be. I favor group chat for each group because at least you can see the dots on the radar even if you are out of normal range. Smaller groups (miner, transporter, defender) might help. Having one person in a moth stationed at the drop point to collect the ore as it is brought in would also shorten the wait for payment after the event.