Forums » Suggestions
Reworking CTC into a mission driven hourly/daily event
This is a bit lengthy post but I think it's worth reading.
You all know how many arguments and suggestions have been made on the subject of VO CTC in the past few years.
Once it was a great event that made a lot of players dedicate their online time to.
It encouraged cooperation, good teamwork, various strategies and tactics.
Majority of VO PvPers were in it on a daily basis, serco, itani, UIT, pirates.
You could spend an entire day online doing ctc and not get bored for a sec.
I remember in 2004-2005 we had teams of 10-20 serco/itani/pirates doing ctc all day long.
All in all it was a lot of fun for everyone involved.
Why is it not fun anymore?
Nobody knows the real answer, we can only guess about some of the reasons:
- playerbase changed, lot of seasoned PvPers play less or do not play at all
- some changes introduced to ctc, mainly ludicrous speed of transports, made some players give up.
- monetary reward, by looking at VO reality atm, is ridiculously small and not worth wasting time on.
- neut 3 as a weekly winners reward is worthless.
You can pick neut 3 from hive skirmish sectors anytime you choose, you can farm law neuts, produce widowmakers etc. and with introduction of ravens (it was a bad unbalancing move) they just became obsolete.
In my opinion CTC is an essential part of VO and it should be improved and revived. I know, someone will say "look at the big picture", corporate and faction wars and similar stuff are coming.
True, I hope a lot of new and exciting stuff will come in the long run but why make ctc obsolete because of that when it can be turned into a fun and exciting daily event now.
Why not improve it with new content and include it in regular military/mercenary missions available to all factions?
My idea is fairly simple and I will try to walk you all thru it step by step.
A. General changes to CTC, transports, escorts and cargo
a) Hive drones on a ctc hourly event are a bit redundant and they should be replaced by regular cargo/combat ships.
b) CtC transports vary in size and escort ships from the beginning of the week to end of week. First are small convoys then big ones. Multiple transports etc.
c) CtC transports vary in number of cargo crates transported starting from small ones carrying 4 crates to bigger ones carrying 20+ crates. If we are to replace hive transport drones with regular generic ships, cargo carried should be closer to ships cargo capacity.
Here are suggested replacements:
small convoy 1: atlas + 2 centurions (20cu xit)
small convoy 2: revenant + 3 centurions (30cu xit)
medium convoy1: centaur + 2 centurion, 2 vultures (40 cu xit)
medium convoy 2: behemoth + 3 centurions, 2 vultures (100 cu xit)
big convoy: trident + 4 centurions, 4 vultures (400 cu xit)
Frequency of transports: every full hour
Announcement for ctc: 15 min. prior to transport launch
Mission can be taken only at respective players faction stations.
Players that take mission get grouped up with convoy NPCs.
Players without mission active interfering in CTC do not get any rewards nor are allowed to deliver captured cargo to destination stations.
There will always be players who will want to exploit this so remedy would be to make them permanent KOS with faction whose transport they killed.
Of course, privateers and pirates can exploit this for some personal gain like they used to do before, by stealing ctc cargo and selling to the highest bidder it they don't care about their serco/itani faction standings.
Another big change is related to introduction of tridents for big convoys.
Imho players should be allowed to dock to trident and man turrets. This is actually a very good opportunity for lower level players (newbies) with modest combat skills - they get to experience some real combat and excitement from a relative safety inside trident.
B. Dividing and turning CTC into a military/mercenary missions
CTC could be divided into 2 types of military missions for serco/itani and 2 types of mercenary missions for UIT players. Something like this:
Serco/Itani military missions:
1. Guardian duty mission with objective to protect nation transport from point of origin to destination
2. Attack and retrieve mission with objective to attack/destroy and capture enemy nation transport.
NOTE: Minimal prerequisite to participate in missions is combat exp. 4, admire status with your own nation and hate/KOS status with enemy faction.
UIT mercenary mission:
- same as the above missions, UIT players act as mercenaries hired by warring factions.
NOTE: Prerequisite for UIT players to participate on either side, besides min. combat exp. 4, is determined by their faction standing. If UIT player has Itani admire and Serco neutral or hate he will be accepted to participate on Itani side and vice versa.
UIT players with serco & itani admire or POS will be rejected as unreliable.
C. Rewards per mission taken
Serco/itani participants:
a) Guardian duty mission:
1. transport survives to destination and delivers cargo: monetary + faction standing reward
2. transport destroyed but guardians rescued cargo and delivered themselves: monetary for cargo delivered + faction standing reward
3. enemy attackers destroyed: combat xp, monetary + faction standing reward
4. player died during guardian duty: gets a replacement ship and weapons from his government for free, delay for retaking mission set to 5 min.
b) Attack and retrieve mission:
1. transport destroyed: monetary + faction standing reward
2. cargo captured and delivered: monetary for cargo delivered + faction standing reward
3. enemy defenders destroyed: combat xp, monetary + faction standing reward
4. player died during attack: gets a replacement ship and weapons from his government for free, delay for retaking mission set to 5 min.
UIT participants:
- same as the above with a bigger monetary reward and with exception in the case of dying.
Since UIT are mercenaries they do not get paid or get a replacement ship. In case of dying, their mercenary contract is cancelled. They can renew contract with delay set to 5 min.
D. Weekly rewards for winning side
- each winning side participant gets a weekly monetary bonus for services rendered and gets from 2 to 30 advanced prototype military grade blasters.
Monetary rewards and number of free blasters is determined by each participants involvement during the week i.e. number of enemy players killed during mission, number of transports and escorts destroyed during mission and number of cargo delivered.
First 3 highest ranking players get a special bonus: advanced prototype military ship (criteria: highest count xit cu delivered, transports destroyed, enemy killed).
There are no weekly rewards for UIT mercenaries.
E. Rewards specifics (per section C.)
AD-a)
1. 20.000 cr +1 faction
2. 2000 cr per cu delivered + 1 faction
3. +1000 combat, 30.000 cr + 5 faction
4. replacement ship and equipment
AD-b)
1. 20.000 cr +1 faction
2. 2000 cr per cu delivered + 1 faction
3. +1000 combat, 30.000 cr + 5 faction
4. replacement ship and equipment
AD-c)
1. 20.000 cr +1 faction
2. 4000 cr per cu delivered + 1 faction
3. +1000 combat, 30.000 cr + 5 faction
4. nothing
F. Weekly rewards specifics (per section D.)
Serco/Itani monetary bonus per participant: 1.000000 cr
2 to 30 advanced prototype military grade blasters (distributed according to ranking list, minimal participation 2 blasters, highest participation 30 blasters)
Special reward for first 3 highest ranking
Serco: special SVG variant
Itani: special valkyrie variant
(we can discuss specifics of this non-monetary rewards at a later stage)
CONCLUSION:
Main goal for proposed changes to CTC is:
- better immersion in existing RP universe
- creation of a military/mercenary missions subcategory
- creation of a smaller scale gray-space variant of a "border skirmish on the move"
- forcing targeted playerbase (PvPers, nationalists, mercenaries) into large scale teamwork
- creating valuable VO content
- fun and excitement for all
Feel free to comment.
You all know how many arguments and suggestions have been made on the subject of VO CTC in the past few years.
Once it was a great event that made a lot of players dedicate their online time to.
It encouraged cooperation, good teamwork, various strategies and tactics.
Majority of VO PvPers were in it on a daily basis, serco, itani, UIT, pirates.
You could spend an entire day online doing ctc and not get bored for a sec.
I remember in 2004-2005 we had teams of 10-20 serco/itani/pirates doing ctc all day long.
All in all it was a lot of fun for everyone involved.
Why is it not fun anymore?
Nobody knows the real answer, we can only guess about some of the reasons:
- playerbase changed, lot of seasoned PvPers play less or do not play at all
- some changes introduced to ctc, mainly ludicrous speed of transports, made some players give up.
- monetary reward, by looking at VO reality atm, is ridiculously small and not worth wasting time on.
- neut 3 as a weekly winners reward is worthless.
You can pick neut 3 from hive skirmish sectors anytime you choose, you can farm law neuts, produce widowmakers etc. and with introduction of ravens (it was a bad unbalancing move) they just became obsolete.
In my opinion CTC is an essential part of VO and it should be improved and revived. I know, someone will say "look at the big picture", corporate and faction wars and similar stuff are coming.
True, I hope a lot of new and exciting stuff will come in the long run but why make ctc obsolete because of that when it can be turned into a fun and exciting daily event now.
Why not improve it with new content and include it in regular military/mercenary missions available to all factions?
My idea is fairly simple and I will try to walk you all thru it step by step.
A. General changes to CTC, transports, escorts and cargo
a) Hive drones on a ctc hourly event are a bit redundant and they should be replaced by regular cargo/combat ships.
b) CtC transports vary in size and escort ships from the beginning of the week to end of week. First are small convoys then big ones. Multiple transports etc.
c) CtC transports vary in number of cargo crates transported starting from small ones carrying 4 crates to bigger ones carrying 20+ crates. If we are to replace hive transport drones with regular generic ships, cargo carried should be closer to ships cargo capacity.
Here are suggested replacements:
small convoy 1: atlas + 2 centurions (20cu xit)
small convoy 2: revenant + 3 centurions (30cu xit)
medium convoy1: centaur + 2 centurion, 2 vultures (40 cu xit)
medium convoy 2: behemoth + 3 centurions, 2 vultures (100 cu xit)
big convoy: trident + 4 centurions, 4 vultures (400 cu xit)
Frequency of transports: every full hour
Announcement for ctc: 15 min. prior to transport launch
Mission can be taken only at respective players faction stations.
Players that take mission get grouped up with convoy NPCs.
Players without mission active interfering in CTC do not get any rewards nor are allowed to deliver captured cargo to destination stations.
There will always be players who will want to exploit this so remedy would be to make them permanent KOS with faction whose transport they killed.
Of course, privateers and pirates can exploit this for some personal gain like they used to do before, by stealing ctc cargo and selling to the highest bidder it they don't care about their serco/itani faction standings.
Another big change is related to introduction of tridents for big convoys.
Imho players should be allowed to dock to trident and man turrets. This is actually a very good opportunity for lower level players (newbies) with modest combat skills - they get to experience some real combat and excitement from a relative safety inside trident.
B. Dividing and turning CTC into a military/mercenary missions
CTC could be divided into 2 types of military missions for serco/itani and 2 types of mercenary missions for UIT players. Something like this:
Serco/Itani military missions:
1. Guardian duty mission with objective to protect nation transport from point of origin to destination
2. Attack and retrieve mission with objective to attack/destroy and capture enemy nation transport.
NOTE: Minimal prerequisite to participate in missions is combat exp. 4, admire status with your own nation and hate/KOS status with enemy faction.
UIT mercenary mission:
- same as the above missions, UIT players act as mercenaries hired by warring factions.
NOTE: Prerequisite for UIT players to participate on either side, besides min. combat exp. 4, is determined by their faction standing. If UIT player has Itani admire and Serco neutral or hate he will be accepted to participate on Itani side and vice versa.
UIT players with serco & itani admire or POS will be rejected as unreliable.
C. Rewards per mission taken
Serco/itani participants:
a) Guardian duty mission:
1. transport survives to destination and delivers cargo: monetary + faction standing reward
2. transport destroyed but guardians rescued cargo and delivered themselves: monetary for cargo delivered + faction standing reward
3. enemy attackers destroyed: combat xp, monetary + faction standing reward
4. player died during guardian duty: gets a replacement ship and weapons from his government for free, delay for retaking mission set to 5 min.
b) Attack and retrieve mission:
1. transport destroyed: monetary + faction standing reward
2. cargo captured and delivered: monetary for cargo delivered + faction standing reward
3. enemy defenders destroyed: combat xp, monetary + faction standing reward
4. player died during attack: gets a replacement ship and weapons from his government for free, delay for retaking mission set to 5 min.
UIT participants:
- same as the above with a bigger monetary reward and with exception in the case of dying.
Since UIT are mercenaries they do not get paid or get a replacement ship. In case of dying, their mercenary contract is cancelled. They can renew contract with delay set to 5 min.
D. Weekly rewards for winning side
- each winning side participant gets a weekly monetary bonus for services rendered and gets from 2 to 30 advanced prototype military grade blasters.
Monetary rewards and number of free blasters is determined by each participants involvement during the week i.e. number of enemy players killed during mission, number of transports and escorts destroyed during mission and number of cargo delivered.
First 3 highest ranking players get a special bonus: advanced prototype military ship (criteria: highest count xit cu delivered, transports destroyed, enemy killed).
There are no weekly rewards for UIT mercenaries.
E. Rewards specifics (per section C.)
AD-a)
1. 20.000 cr +1 faction
2. 2000 cr per cu delivered + 1 faction
3. +1000 combat, 30.000 cr + 5 faction
4. replacement ship and equipment
AD-b)
1. 20.000 cr +1 faction
2. 2000 cr per cu delivered + 1 faction
3. +1000 combat, 30.000 cr + 5 faction
4. replacement ship and equipment
AD-c)
1. 20.000 cr +1 faction
2. 4000 cr per cu delivered + 1 faction
3. +1000 combat, 30.000 cr + 5 faction
4. nothing
F. Weekly rewards specifics (per section D.)
Serco/Itani monetary bonus per participant: 1.000000 cr
2 to 30 advanced prototype military grade blasters (distributed according to ranking list, minimal participation 2 blasters, highest participation 30 blasters)
Special reward for first 3 highest ranking
Serco: special SVG variant
Itani: special valkyrie variant
(we can discuss specifics of this non-monetary rewards at a later stage)
CONCLUSION:
Main goal for proposed changes to CTC is:
- better immersion in existing RP universe
- creation of a military/mercenary missions subcategory
- creation of a smaller scale gray-space variant of a "border skirmish on the move"
- forcing targeted playerbase (PvPers, nationalists, mercenaries) into large scale teamwork
- creating valuable VO content
- fun and excitement for all
Feel free to comment.
That would be sweet.
Although the permanent KOS for destroying the convoy sounds a bit harsh. Make it a hard faction loss instead or even an insta-KOS. Nothing faction related should be permanent imho.
That aside it would be awesome
Although the permanent KOS for destroying the convoy sounds a bit harsh. Make it a hard faction loss instead or even an insta-KOS. Nothing faction related should be permanent imho.
That aside it would be awesome
A few quick thoughts encapsulated in questions about feasibility based on a UIT-focused mashup of CtC and BS I've been pondering.
- Is it possible to only have a mission launch when a certain number of people have chosen it? This would allow a CtC (or similar type of) mission to be launched only when there are enough people interested in participating.
- Any way to scale the size of convoys with NPCs dynamically similar to the way the forces are balanced for Border Skirmish? (I'm not even sure if this is what happens during Border Skirmishes since I mostly do them alone but that is my understanding of what happens.) My idea was that the convoy launched would have differing complements of transports/escorts depending on the number of attackers/defenders who take the mission. This would scale dynamically up to including a Trident or two if the numbers of participants justified it. Everyone loves cap ship battles.
- Is there a way to notify all interested players when a certain type of mission is being organized? Chat is nice but easy to miss and lose. I was thinking of a notice that would leave a trail; perhaps in the Mission Advancement log or somewhere similar.
- Can rewards be made dynamic depending on the final outcome of each mission? For instance, if the goal is to deliver X amount of Y than the more Y that is delivered the greater the reward. Also, rewards should be mission-based with all participants on each side getting the same reward to encourage cooperative combat rather than everyone just trying to up their kill ratios or maximize their XP gain. In a true group effort, the guy manning the repair gun should get the same rewards as everyone else in the group.
General comments:
Maybe tie the delivery of critical resources to the manufacturing capacity of each nation rather than for specific items. This makes it a concern for all players of all experience levels of all nations. Mostly waiting to see how the dynamic economy is structured before making any specific suggestions though.
CtC could be expanded to encourage more UIT participation by making Purified Xith (or whatever) a resource that the UIT and its associated corporations need as well. Not sure how that will work with the upcoming Faction system changes though; waiting to see how that shapes up here as well.
I suppose this is along the lines of "instanced mission" but I tried to think of ways to use existing game mechanics (CtC and BS) to do so. Anyway, I completely agree that a reworking of CtC would be a benefit for all.
EDIT: Resources affecting manufacturing capacity can be modeled by dynamic prices rather quantity (to ensure that needed items are always available). i.e., the more the critical resources a nation receives the greater the manufacturing capacity which increases supply which decreases prices.
- Is it possible to only have a mission launch when a certain number of people have chosen it? This would allow a CtC (or similar type of) mission to be launched only when there are enough people interested in participating.
- Any way to scale the size of convoys with NPCs dynamically similar to the way the forces are balanced for Border Skirmish? (I'm not even sure if this is what happens during Border Skirmishes since I mostly do them alone but that is my understanding of what happens.) My idea was that the convoy launched would have differing complements of transports/escorts depending on the number of attackers/defenders who take the mission. This would scale dynamically up to including a Trident or two if the numbers of participants justified it. Everyone loves cap ship battles.
- Is there a way to notify all interested players when a certain type of mission is being organized? Chat is nice but easy to miss and lose. I was thinking of a notice that would leave a trail; perhaps in the Mission Advancement log or somewhere similar.
- Can rewards be made dynamic depending on the final outcome of each mission? For instance, if the goal is to deliver X amount of Y than the more Y that is delivered the greater the reward. Also, rewards should be mission-based with all participants on each side getting the same reward to encourage cooperative combat rather than everyone just trying to up their kill ratios or maximize their XP gain. In a true group effort, the guy manning the repair gun should get the same rewards as everyone else in the group.
General comments:
Maybe tie the delivery of critical resources to the manufacturing capacity of each nation rather than for specific items. This makes it a concern for all players of all experience levels of all nations. Mostly waiting to see how the dynamic economy is structured before making any specific suggestions though.
CtC could be expanded to encourage more UIT participation by making Purified Xith (or whatever) a resource that the UIT and its associated corporations need as well. Not sure how that will work with the upcoming Faction system changes though; waiting to see how that shapes up here as well.
I suppose this is along the lines of "instanced mission" but I tried to think of ways to use existing game mechanics (CtC and BS) to do so. Anyway, I completely agree that a reworking of CtC would be a benefit for all.
EDIT: Resources affecting manufacturing capacity can be modeled by dynamic prices rather quantity (to ensure that needed items are always available). i.e., the more the critical resources a nation receives the greater the manufacturing capacity which increases supply which decreases prices.
I agree with azumi about the KOS part, that would be a bit harsh...
I think this Idea needs serious consideration, however you have my full-on support in this matter
[STAMP OF APPROVAL]
I think this Idea needs serious consideration, however you have my full-on support in this matter
[STAMP OF APPROVAL]
I agree with the mission parts of your thinking. As far as the transports being to fast, they are not. The fastest Transport the Arena is about a 200m/s transport same as a couple of the ships you suggest. Their armor is 17000. But they are all doable quickly. With a small team effort or even as a persistent individual the fast 4 transport convoys, rarely make it past 2 systems for either side. I think doing away with the surplus will change the game to be more interesting even for the part time CtC person. Currently you lose faction if you kill the bots. You also gain faction for returning the Xith and are rewarded a small sum. The idea of a mission involving CtC is a very good one.
@ Da Gu
For experienced ctcer speed is not a big issue but it limits you to use only very fast infiniturbo ships like Warthog mk2 and Atlas x but... it gets boring for a few reasons.
1. faction exploits: seasoned ctcer kills transport at station using starting factions POS
2. escort bots are too slow to react and shoot attacker
3. Escort bot AI is broken so if an enemy player is in a starting sector usually they stay behind and do not follow transport
4. escort bots are too slow so they cant follow transport at its own speed and hence cannot defend it
5. another faction exploit also makes it boring: for instance serco player with Itani pos can jump in itani territory, kill transport because there is no SF after him and escort bots wont shoot him, then log his neutral UIT character who can be homed at destination station, pick cargo and get away.
This makes fair players just give up on ctc .
And one final note: most of newer players does not even know CTC exists.
There are no missions related to CTC there are no info anywhere. They can learn about it only from guilds or other players that have some involvement in it.
For experienced ctcer speed is not a big issue but it limits you to use only very fast infiniturbo ships like Warthog mk2 and Atlas x but... it gets boring for a few reasons.
1. faction exploits: seasoned ctcer kills transport at station using starting factions POS
2. escort bots are too slow to react and shoot attacker
3. Escort bot AI is broken so if an enemy player is in a starting sector usually they stay behind and do not follow transport
4. escort bots are too slow so they cant follow transport at its own speed and hence cannot defend it
5. another faction exploit also makes it boring: for instance serco player with Itani pos can jump in itani territory, kill transport because there is no SF after him and escort bots wont shoot him, then log his neutral UIT character who can be homed at destination station, pick cargo and get away.
This makes fair players just give up on ctc .
And one final note: most of newer players does not even know CTC exists.
There are no missions related to CTC there are no info anywhere. They can learn about it only from guilds or other players that have some involvement in it.
I disagree with Da Gu that the transports aren't too fast. They aren't if you're right there waiting for them, but catching up to them can be impossible at times, especially if there are no ion storms in their path.
Generally, this sounds like fun... :D
Maybe in the short term xith delivery payment could be raised substantially.
Maybe in the short term xith delivery payment could be raised substantially.
i like it. an immediate and easy change will be to make the timer 15 min.
Sounds good, let's do it!
I really like the idea of having CTC reward not just for entire faction, but specifically reward those who participate.
Might also consider tying CTC into the Corvus faction recover missions.
Might also consider tying CTC into the Corvus faction recover missions.
Bump.
Serious thread necromancy but I think it deserves another shot.
Serious thread necromancy but I think it deserves another shot.
I disagree with the perma-KOS nonsense.
I'm also not sure I agree with not recognizing and rewarding people who don't happen to take the mission. I generally find VO to be a lot more fun when you're just flying around and dynamically interacting with things. People who do take the missions could have better organization and receive better rewards, but people who don't should at least be recognized and given minor rewards for killing members of the enemy's convoy. I would like them to also be rewarded for retrieving and delivering the ore, but that would make it more complex to keep the people who are in the mission up to date on where the ore is and whether it's actually held by an ally. I'm thinking that delivering it without a mission would get a small reward, but you'd also be considered a free kill by anybody who is actually on the mission so that they can forcibly take custody of the goods (since they're actually operating in an official capacity).
I'm also not sure I agree with not recognizing and rewarding people who don't happen to take the mission. I generally find VO to be a lot more fun when you're just flying around and dynamically interacting with things. People who do take the missions could have better organization and receive better rewards, but people who don't should at least be recognized and given minor rewards for killing members of the enemy's convoy. I would like them to also be rewarded for retrieving and delivering the ore, but that would make it more complex to keep the people who are in the mission up to date on where the ore is and whether it's actually held by an ally. I'm thinking that delivering it without a mission would get a small reward, but you'd also be considered a free kill by anybody who is actually on the mission so that they can forcibly take custody of the goods (since they're actually operating in an official capacity).
Bump.
Serious thread necromancy but I think it deserves another shot.
Nah
Serious thread necromancy but I think it deserves another shot.
Nah
I think one of the best things going for CtC is that it's not mission-bound. The hourly announcements prompt players to organize and attack/defend on their own.
If we're looking for things to improve, how about porting the whole system over to Kourier so the convoys don't magically duplicate if you kill them during jumps. Or maybe increasing the payout for Xithricite deliveries. Or fix the escort bots so they don't abandon their convoy after 1 jump just because one player pulls aggro. Or fix the cargo not dropping when a NPC kills the transports. Or... you get the picture.
If we're looking for things to improve, how about porting the whole system over to Kourier so the convoys don't magically duplicate if you kill them during jumps. Or maybe increasing the payout for Xithricite deliveries. Or fix the escort bots so they don't abandon their convoy after 1 jump just because one player pulls aggro. Or fix the cargo not dropping when a NPC kills the transports. Or... you get the picture.