Forums » Suggestions
Though I have not gone up against one personally, what Cam describes as a solution sound appealing. Having stages to get to the leviathan. Perhaps the Levi is inside the cluster of rocks all rolled up in a defensive formation, with the queens and overseers all around it. Once those have been eliminated as Cam suggested it wakes up and starts to use it's beam weapons and agt's if it's got them. At the same time though, there should be overwhelming bot sectors all around the sector in which the lev is sleeping. To get to it you have to jump to each sector and waid though the ion storms, and perhaps there are a few queens in each of that sector generating the ion storm and camping the exit point, or there is no exit point until they are destroyed. Once that sector is clear you have a line into the levi. BUT it only stays clear long enough for the other sector queens to adjust and set up a new ion storm field around the open point, perhaps 10 minutes, so someone could only do limited bombing runs before it would have to be cleared again, giving the levi and queens time to repair if needed.
These things should not be easy to kill and as it sounds now, they are way too easy.
These things should not be easy to kill and as it sounds now, they are way too easy.
Maybe the different segments of the Leviathan should be seperately destructable, so in order to destroy it you'd have to completely destroy every segment. And once a segment is destroyed, the smaller hive bots try to attach to the Leviathan & form a new segment to replace it. If a segment in the middle is destroyed, then the smaller hive bots try to attach to both halves, and could possibly end up forming two Leviathans.
Why not have the leviathin generate an ion storm, with the exit oiunt at the center of the 'roid circle (or preferably sphere) and have it guarded by beam mines, so that getting out of the leviathin secter is esily as dagerous as attacking the leviathin itself.
@CAM: >>It's obvious that the amount of bots in the Leviathan's sector is too overwhelming, even for a group. The only viable tactic is to jump in, unload all your ammo, and jump out.
I think the fight would be much more satisfying if you could get a group together go in fighting, and not have to retreat.<<
Earlier today, playing the group gank approach, I blew through a million credits and dozens of rocket rags to down a single leviathan. It took time, but most of that was spent outside the sector, reloading and returning (or buying anew and returning). I was thinking your suggestion was correct.
It is not, however. I logged on tonight as the only one in sedina and went after the leviathan in B4. It was still well in the green when I started, at least 90% health. 45 min or so, and 5 or 6 Cent Mk IIs later, the beast was dead and I returned in a moth to claim my samoflange.
Moral of the story: a lone pilot can avoid the bots, weave through the legs blasting the hell out of it with a single neut II, and take the critter down. Just because the predominant tactic is n00b bombing, doesn't mean the dev's creation is borked.
Imagine if we got 5 or 6 players doing what I did: zip in, get off 30 or 40 shots or more, zip out and up, and then back into the legs. It would die fast and hard, with lots of piloting skills and little money or spam.
PS, @ Devs: I know it's a test server and that this will be corrected later on, but it's mighty depressing to kill it, be thrown clear out to 3000m range, and still get no XP of any kind :'(
PPS: Also, once it starts moving around, I'm sure the above approach will be much harder. So get a valk, IBG, or Rev C for increased thrust, and use a second neut II (or some axia posis) :P
I think the fight would be much more satisfying if you could get a group together go in fighting, and not have to retreat.<<
Earlier today, playing the group gank approach, I blew through a million credits and dozens of rocket rags to down a single leviathan. It took time, but most of that was spent outside the sector, reloading and returning (or buying anew and returning). I was thinking your suggestion was correct.
It is not, however. I logged on tonight as the only one in sedina and went after the leviathan in B4. It was still well in the green when I started, at least 90% health. 45 min or so, and 5 or 6 Cent Mk IIs later, the beast was dead and I returned in a moth to claim my samoflange.
Moral of the story: a lone pilot can avoid the bots, weave through the legs blasting the hell out of it with a single neut II, and take the critter down. Just because the predominant tactic is n00b bombing, doesn't mean the dev's creation is borked.
Imagine if we got 5 or 6 players doing what I did: zip in, get off 30 or 40 shots or more, zip out and up, and then back into the legs. It would die fast and hard, with lots of piloting skills and little money or spam.
PS, @ Devs: I know it's a test server and that this will be corrected later on, but it's mighty depressing to kill it, be thrown clear out to 3000m range, and still get no XP of any kind :'(
PPS: Also, once it starts moving around, I'm sure the above approach will be much harder. So get a valk, IBG, or Rev C for increased thrust, and use a second neut II (or some axia posis) :P
I think you are all going the wrong direction myself.. the leviathin needs to be much much HARDER to kill, it should be IMO IMPOSSIBLE to take it down with anything less than 2 or 3 full groups working together. These things are supposed to be massive raid level events after all.
I have a few more suggestions to make regarding the lev, the fortress and the bastions...
Place the fortress farther out in a sector.. instead of having it spawn at the center, place it 5-10 kilometers out in a random direction so that when you warp in you are outside of the range of the in sector defenders. (assuming the defenders are given some form of distance limit.)
Here's a more interesting suggestion, make 2 fortresses, an "inner" fortress and an "outer" fortress.
The outer fortress could have a sphere that surrounds a hidden wormhole that takes you to a system that consists of a single sector with the leviathin and fortress sphere in it. Then to get to the main, inner fortress you almost have to clear out the outer fortress to make resupply easier.
If the outer fortress is surrounded by the sub fortresses i mentioned above then it makes a nice steady progression needed to kill the leviathin. First you take out the sub fortresses, then the outer fortress, and finally you make an assult on the main, inner fortress. Since the inner fortress can only be reached from the one wormhole you cant stumble onto it accidentally.
Finally the Bastions should fight to a % of queens, not just when one queen dies.. maybe if 50% of the queens are destroyed (or 50% of the combined hitpoints of ALL queens removed) only then will the bastions retreat.
I have a few more suggestions to make regarding the lev, the fortress and the bastions...
Place the fortress farther out in a sector.. instead of having it spawn at the center, place it 5-10 kilometers out in a random direction so that when you warp in you are outside of the range of the in sector defenders. (assuming the defenders are given some form of distance limit.)
Here's a more interesting suggestion, make 2 fortresses, an "inner" fortress and an "outer" fortress.
The outer fortress could have a sphere that surrounds a hidden wormhole that takes you to a system that consists of a single sector with the leviathin and fortress sphere in it. Then to get to the main, inner fortress you almost have to clear out the outer fortress to make resupply easier.
If the outer fortress is surrounded by the sub fortresses i mentioned above then it makes a nice steady progression needed to kill the leviathin. First you take out the sub fortresses, then the outer fortress, and finally you make an assult on the main, inner fortress. Since the inner fortress can only be reached from the one wormhole you cant stumble onto it accidentally.
Finally the Bastions should fight to a % of queens, not just when one queen dies.. maybe if 50% of the queens are destroyed (or 50% of the combined hitpoints of ALL queens removed) only then will the bastions retreat.
I'm impressed lecter.
I suspected it would be doable, I just haven't had much time playing with the hive.
I still stand by my boss style battle idea, if this is going to be the BIG thing to fight in the game for the next while it shouldn't be destroyed by one centurion pilot.
The whole point of my idea was to make it impossible to do quick runs at it, jump out (or die), and come back. It should be a defined battle for the group, either the leviathan dies or the group dies, no multiple lives or anything like that.
Players could freely warp in and out to take down all the minions, and then get prepared and all warp into the sector to wake up the leviathan. but at that point nobody gets in or out
I suspected it would be doable, I just haven't had much time playing with the hive.
I still stand by my boss style battle idea, if this is going to be the BIG thing to fight in the game for the next while it shouldn't be destroyed by one centurion pilot.
The whole point of my idea was to make it impossible to do quick runs at it, jump out (or die), and come back. It should be a defined battle for the group, either the leviathan dies or the group dies, no multiple lives or anything like that.
Players could freely warp in and out to take down all the minions, and then get prepared and all warp into the sector to wake up the leviathan. but at that point nobody gets in or out
Lector, even if you did get exp for killing leviathans, it wouldn't count anyway, because events that happen on the test server don't get carried over to the production universe anyway.
@CP: and I quote... "I know it's a test server " And all the more reason for it to make me screen light up with some impossibly fun, huge number... none of it matters anyway :D
/me gives CP a hearty bitchslap for being snotty :)
@Cam: I like the idea of being able to whittle down the minions, and then having to engage the levithan sans escape.
/me gives CP a hearty bitchslap for being snotty :)
@Cam: I like the idea of being able to whittle down the minions, and then having to engage the levithan sans escape.
I agree with Spellcast,
I fought against 2 leviathins and only went threw one valk. And in fact when i finaly got killed was one of the few runs i made using rockets. If anything the lone fighter pilot does better than the bomber wing (at least as far as survivability goes). This is also evedence why the leviathin should continue to be armed with beam cannons or other effective anti fighter weaponry. The Queens and their escorts can take down the bombers, the Leviathing needs to worry about those pesky fighters.
I think the idea behind the Leviathins is that they take an nearly unpresedented level of cooperation on the part of the player base to actualy destroy.
I also kinda' like the idea of the wormehole to the leviathin's actual hideout. But i think there would need to be some sort of hive construct around the wormehole to justafy the fact that it isn't always there. And if anyone questions how the hive can create atrificial wormeholes when humans cant, the maybe the hive found some alien sorces of technology in addition to what the scavenged from humanity.
I fought against 2 leviathins and only went threw one valk. And in fact when i finaly got killed was one of the few runs i made using rockets. If anything the lone fighter pilot does better than the bomber wing (at least as far as survivability goes). This is also evedence why the leviathin should continue to be armed with beam cannons or other effective anti fighter weaponry. The Queens and their escorts can take down the bombers, the Leviathing needs to worry about those pesky fighters.
I think the idea behind the Leviathins is that they take an nearly unpresedented level of cooperation on the part of the player base to actualy destroy.
I also kinda' like the idea of the wormehole to the leviathin's actual hideout. But i think there would need to be some sort of hive construct around the wormehole to justafy the fact that it isn't always there. And if anyone questions how the hive can create atrificial wormeholes when humans cant, the maybe the hive found some alien sorces of technology in addition to what the scavenged from humanity.
the problem with cooperation and staged areas in VO is that you will die in combat against something like a levi. there is no realistic way of having anyone healing you, and as you start taking hits in a furball you have a very short time to live unless you backroll or run.
this means that tactics are simple, classical homing missile runs in a Rag or the light fighers that sweep in, zap around a little, run out.
as some of you have talked about instances and used other terms like that, let me bring up the other one we haven't talked much about -- aggro. ie, who do the bots attack? right now, aggro is dead simple, if you want aggro from a bot, shoot it. if you want to loose aggro, uhm, well, depending on the bot, you don't until you leave the sector.
all of this makes helping eachother "interesting" as you can't really heal your buddies (repair nanites should be charged beam weapons, much like mining beams) and you usually can't really distract the bots without hitting them. so, how do you help? well, you might fly up the butt of your buddies enemy and try to pop them as they track him, but that's about it. if you go into a furball with a repair beam, you can't avoid aggro, so you will get shot at, unless the range of the repair beams is 500-1000m, that's about what you can do.
so, making this all multi-tier doesn't really solve it for me, it just makes it even more repetatitve. you have to fight several backrolling spamfights in a row. you just can't fight 3-4-5 guardians backed by the same number of assaults by any other means. there's too much fire and too much spam.
of course, pulling bots (shooting one bot to make it, or its group) come out to fight you is not how the HIVE should work (they're not dumb and they do communicate), but something akin might be to something like this:
1) make any HIVE concentration have "roamers" (scout parties) go out far (10-15K) from their core. these roamers should be fast agile bots, and their strength depend on how far they roam. the outer scout parties would be 2-3 assaults, and an observer, if someone is spotted within 3K they investigate and the assaults open fire. the observer stays around to track the player as long as it can, letting "strike fleets" of bots come to clear you away.
2) all HIVE spots have strike fleets. these act when either a scout party gets enganged or observers see anything. these strike fleets consist of more assaults (3-5) and an overseer. these things ruthless buggers who engage anything they come across.
3) the "inner sanctum" of the HIVE infestation consists of stuff much like now, with the exception that the assaults can be busy elsewhere. but, each queen controls a defensive group of guardians to suppress anything getting into range. but, I'd like to see the queens sending out 2-4 guardians at a time per opponent they see as a threat. of course, strike fleets will be more than happy to assist these guardians, so if they aren't removed beforehand you'll get to enjoy their presence.
what does this change game-play wise? well, a group of people go in, 2+, and the light fighters start harrasing scouts, drawing out strike fleets and generally keeping the HIVE busy. individuals or small groups now get lots of smaller fights that are winnable without backrolling. you can actually wear down a HIVE infestation slowly but surely. they do respawn of course, so you'd need to keep it up to get anywhere, and one or two players might have serious problems getting it done fast enough to actually make progress.
now, with smaller thighter groups of ships in the HIVE proper, going in on your own against lots of strike fleets while scouts spot you incoming will be interesting. the hope is that one can get enough of a warning to ensure that any solo attempts at going in will be met with enough force that you can't realistically do so.
oh, and of course, people will just try to go to 40K and boost at the levi for some potshots. to counter that, make the inner guardians actually _try_ to *ram* incoming enemies turboing towards them. with some luck observers should see the path of the target and the guardians of a defense group align on that as best they can as soon as the information comes around.
this means that tactics are simple, classical homing missile runs in a Rag or the light fighers that sweep in, zap around a little, run out.
as some of you have talked about instances and used other terms like that, let me bring up the other one we haven't talked much about -- aggro. ie, who do the bots attack? right now, aggro is dead simple, if you want aggro from a bot, shoot it. if you want to loose aggro, uhm, well, depending on the bot, you don't until you leave the sector.
all of this makes helping eachother "interesting" as you can't really heal your buddies (repair nanites should be charged beam weapons, much like mining beams) and you usually can't really distract the bots without hitting them. so, how do you help? well, you might fly up the butt of your buddies enemy and try to pop them as they track him, but that's about it. if you go into a furball with a repair beam, you can't avoid aggro, so you will get shot at, unless the range of the repair beams is 500-1000m, that's about what you can do.
so, making this all multi-tier doesn't really solve it for me, it just makes it even more repetatitve. you have to fight several backrolling spamfights in a row. you just can't fight 3-4-5 guardians backed by the same number of assaults by any other means. there's too much fire and too much spam.
of course, pulling bots (shooting one bot to make it, or its group) come out to fight you is not how the HIVE should work (they're not dumb and they do communicate), but something akin might be to something like this:
1) make any HIVE concentration have "roamers" (scout parties) go out far (10-15K) from their core. these roamers should be fast agile bots, and their strength depend on how far they roam. the outer scout parties would be 2-3 assaults, and an observer, if someone is spotted within 3K they investigate and the assaults open fire. the observer stays around to track the player as long as it can, letting "strike fleets" of bots come to clear you away.
2) all HIVE spots have strike fleets. these act when either a scout party gets enganged or observers see anything. these strike fleets consist of more assaults (3-5) and an overseer. these things ruthless buggers who engage anything they come across.
3) the "inner sanctum" of the HIVE infestation consists of stuff much like now, with the exception that the assaults can be busy elsewhere. but, each queen controls a defensive group of guardians to suppress anything getting into range. but, I'd like to see the queens sending out 2-4 guardians at a time per opponent they see as a threat. of course, strike fleets will be more than happy to assist these guardians, so if they aren't removed beforehand you'll get to enjoy their presence.
what does this change game-play wise? well, a group of people go in, 2+, and the light fighters start harrasing scouts, drawing out strike fleets and generally keeping the HIVE busy. individuals or small groups now get lots of smaller fights that are winnable without backrolling. you can actually wear down a HIVE infestation slowly but surely. they do respawn of course, so you'd need to keep it up to get anywhere, and one or two players might have serious problems getting it done fast enough to actually make progress.
now, with smaller thighter groups of ships in the HIVE proper, going in on your own against lots of strike fleets while scouts spot you incoming will be interesting. the hope is that one can get enough of a warning to ensure that any solo attempts at going in will be met with enough force that you can't realistically do so.
oh, and of course, people will just try to go to 40K and boost at the levi for some potshots. to counter that, make the inner guardians actually _try_ to *ram* incoming enemies turboing towards them. with some luck observers should see the path of the target and the guardians of a defense group align on that as best they can as soon as the information comes around.
I think having multiple stages to get to the Leviathan is a brilliant idea... provided it doesn't kill framrate too badly and isn't too laggy.
These "dungeons" wouldn't have to be super complex... think back to the old s10 asteroid with the hidden station inside... on a much larger scale. Or the old giant, hollowed out asteroid in s13 with several boreholes leading in and out. Or the splintered comet in S14.
This would prevent people from taking potshots at the levi since the surrounding asteroid would provide a natural shield. Of course that would mean there would be a limited number of locations in each system for a good stronghold, assuming asteroids aren't created or destroyed
These "dungeons" wouldn't have to be super complex... think back to the old s10 asteroid with the hidden station inside... on a much larger scale. Or the old giant, hollowed out asteroid in s13 with several boreholes leading in and out. Or the splintered comet in S14.
This would prevent people from taking potshots at the levi since the surrounding asteroid would provide a natural shield. Of course that would mean there would be a limited number of locations in each system for a good stronghold, assuming asteroids aren't created or destroyed
back to my original suggestions phaser, and have the leviathin create its own protective casing out of ice. Since water can be stored under high pressure in a small volume, then sprayed out into space where it will rapidly disperse and freeze, there is no reason the leviathins can't create a shell of ice in any sector.
How about just having the Leviathian (And its court) change tactics? Instead of sticking to a static strategy that eventually the players will learn to defeat, throw some randomness in there. Most of these ideas will require new AI coding, the strategy & tactics could just switch randomly.
Perhaps if the distance between the queens and the leviathian becomes larger than 3000m, they break off and head back to "mama". Or perhaps the other queens converge on their position to present a more difficult front to the players? (4 queens at once is HARD, they're much faster than you think.)
Perhaps the queens will sometimes send out only their assaults to destroy players who are in heavy ships? (Rag/Centaur/Prom) These assaults will pick a target and stay with it until that target is destroyed, then move onto the next heavy target.
Perhaps the hive will send out fast assault ships directly behind the most common "jump-in" points where they will lie in wait for the players? Heck, pirates do it, why not bots?
Can the hive send bots to grief the attackers at whichever station they are reloading/respawning at? Are they THAT smart? Imagine leaving the dock only to be faced with 3 Devus Guardians...
If the Leviathian's underbelly is it's weak spot, 2 Queens should always be stationed there to protect it, and never get more than 500m away from "mama."
If the Leviathian is about to die, have it move around a bit, perhaps try to box in players between itself and the asteroids, or rotate so that its underbelly isn't exposed.
What if (along the lines of the roleplaying, especially Lecter & BORG guild...) the Leviathian could utilize "captured" ships like Proms, Behemoths, Valks, etc. Give these ships a dark gray "borg-ized" corroded texture instead of the usual paint job. Eevry time a pilot dies while fighting a leviathian, a duplicate of that ship is made to fight in the Leviathian's defense? They story could be that it was "assimilated by the Hive." You could make it spookier by naming those ships after the dead player, like "BorbII Clone 001" or "Dr. Lecter hivemodel Mk. 06". (This might be abused, as an army of "Who? Me? Clone Mk. 08's" in govbusses would be less than fearsome. Hehe.
If the strategy of the hive remains unchanging, killing the Leviathian will quickly become boring. It's just a matter of throwing X amount of missiles at it. Randomness is necessary both to keep players on their toes AND to make the hive appear like the fearsome enemy that it is.
I say that also, every so often, a trusted guide or a dev should be able to jump into a queen and control her and her entourage like a more intelligent machine. THAT would be much more fun. Imagine a rampaging dev-controlled Queen terrorizing Sedina B8!
Perhaps if the distance between the queens and the leviathian becomes larger than 3000m, they break off and head back to "mama". Or perhaps the other queens converge on their position to present a more difficult front to the players? (4 queens at once is HARD, they're much faster than you think.)
Perhaps the queens will sometimes send out only their assaults to destroy players who are in heavy ships? (Rag/Centaur/Prom) These assaults will pick a target and stay with it until that target is destroyed, then move onto the next heavy target.
Perhaps the hive will send out fast assault ships directly behind the most common "jump-in" points where they will lie in wait for the players? Heck, pirates do it, why not bots?
Can the hive send bots to grief the attackers at whichever station they are reloading/respawning at? Are they THAT smart? Imagine leaving the dock only to be faced with 3 Devus Guardians...
If the Leviathian's underbelly is it's weak spot, 2 Queens should always be stationed there to protect it, and never get more than 500m away from "mama."
If the Leviathian is about to die, have it move around a bit, perhaps try to box in players between itself and the asteroids, or rotate so that its underbelly isn't exposed.
What if (along the lines of the roleplaying, especially Lecter & BORG guild...) the Leviathian could utilize "captured" ships like Proms, Behemoths, Valks, etc. Give these ships a dark gray "borg-ized" corroded texture instead of the usual paint job. Eevry time a pilot dies while fighting a leviathian, a duplicate of that ship is made to fight in the Leviathian's defense? They story could be that it was "assimilated by the Hive." You could make it spookier by naming those ships after the dead player, like "BorbII Clone 001" or "Dr. Lecter hivemodel Mk. 06". (This might be abused, as an army of "Who? Me? Clone Mk. 08's" in govbusses would be less than fearsome. Hehe.
If the strategy of the hive remains unchanging, killing the Leviathian will quickly become boring. It's just a matter of throwing X amount of missiles at it. Randomness is necessary both to keep players on their toes AND to make the hive appear like the fearsome enemy that it is.
I say that also, every so often, a trusted guide or a dev should be able to jump into a queen and control her and her entourage like a more intelligent machine. THAT would be much more fun. Imagine a rampaging dev-controlled Queen terrorizing Sedina B8!
yes.
I like your suggestions leber, but what I most like is the last bit about the guides/devs controling them. I agree that it can't be all the time, but I think that either the devs or a guide, or a rotating shedule be made that ones a week/month that there is a "controlled" attack on border stations/systems by the hive. GM Events, these are ALWAYS more fun then anything that the devs could program into an AI, and something that other MMO's use to keep player intrest during developement. "Horizons" is a perfect example, they always had cities falling prey to the bad guys and if players didn't save it, it was lost. So, having a Levi once and a while attack a wh sector or a station in a strategic spot would be much fun.
Just imagine, a distress call comes out over #100 asking for any and all help cause of a Levi popping out of a WH or FTL jump. Players mass to battle it, but swarms of assault and guardian bots just keep jumping in in waves. Then the Zelor/Protaris/Sola show up piloted by guides, and maned by players, plus defenders flying around. Would be a glorious day in VO!!! Maybe even more then one Levi shows up if the battle is going purely for the hive??
Perhaps day one of update to public server?? =)
Just imagine, a distress call comes out over #100 asking for any and all help cause of a Levi popping out of a WH or FTL jump. Players mass to battle it, but swarms of assault and guardian bots just keep jumping in in waves. Then the Zelor/Protaris/Sola show up piloted by guides, and maned by players, plus defenders flying around. Would be a glorious day in VO!!! Maybe even more then one Levi shows up if the battle is going purely for the hive??
Perhaps day one of update to public server?? =)