tonight I flew my guildless neutral free trader self in a hound into Serco HQ (SOL2). I found many serco who would shoot at my serco disliked UIT self. So, I was thinking...

Why not let the nation that has the least participation level faster than the others? Make it dynamic. Of the serco that attacked me, and my arm got tired, only one was in an svg. The rest were in lesser ships. Why not let them level faster since they are under represented in space?

Did you ever have any kind of touch with reality?

you have been taking:

"Oh no! Someone is suggesting that the nation we are too afraid to play cause it doesn't have Valks is getting an advantage! Ahhh!"

Hilarious, gentlemen.

Anyway, kbireta has obviously understood the problem. The Serco player retention is currently the worst. The Serco barely have active veterans who take the newbies hand and guide them through while the Itani have a solid 100 propaganda going to attract more new players while they scare away any new Serco player.
I'm not saying all Itani are selfish idiots, but there certainly is an amount who take great pleasure in making sure this stays as it is. And I seriously do not know why.

Anyway, kbireta. That suggestion needs some strict improving. While I like the basic spirit of it, it goes a bit too far.Limit the "dynamic levelling" up to level 9s or something. Beyond that, everything goes back to normal.
And I'd imagine it'd be hard to track the most underpopulated race from a technical position. Unless the devs have some sort of tool that tells them average activity of a common Serco newbie, it will be hard to implement.

Nonetheless. Keep the ideas coming; it's a very tough problem, especially since there are many that don't want to see it.

There are several reasons why this is a very bad idea but I will point out only the main one.

New "I WANT IT ALL AND I WANT IT NOW!" generations of kids will probably welcome the opportunity to skip some grinding and will be sorely disappointed when they realize that with their fancy high level ships and equipment they are still cannon fodder.

Faster leveling does not equal faster learning.

A newbie that starts with 'enhanced' levels and ability to instantly get better ships and equipment is still a newbie and he will die far more then a 'regular' newbie' and probably rage quit.
Mastering VO has a learning curve that requires time and mastering VO combat requires a lot of dedication and hard work.
All of you who have played VO for more then a few months know this.

If anything, Incarnate is level headed and has a far bigger picture in mind about the future of VO then any one of us.
Introducing the ability to 'power level' by choosing one nation in VO over others is something that Inc will never allow and it will never happen.

- 1 : The leveling process for combat is easy to blitz for anyone that does not need the practice. Everyone else needs the practice. Having good ships and weapons without the skill to fly or aim doesn't really do any good.

I would support giving a temporary advantage to underplayed nations.

underplayed serco end up with itani npc military blockades, blocking serco access to grey, making it even harder to play serco. reverse this. whomever wins ctc gets the n3, but has to deal with increasing opposition npc military presence in grey. the npc military should be positioned to cover player activity. example: when itani win ctc, serco npc military ships are posted to helios (to provide cover for players exiting serco space), and edras (to provide cover to serco attacking itani, and reduce itani/grey trade, and give itani combatants something to fight). use the npc military to help balance the disadvantaged, and give the superior force something to shoot at as a bonus.

"I would support giving a temporary advantage to underplayed nations."

The key word here is temporary Roda and it will not solve the problem in the long run.

War convoys blockades after wins in Deneb do pose a significant problem to the losing side, lately Serco are receiving short end of the stick but since they have an additional route out through Helios it's not as big problem as when I-2 as the only Itani exit gets blockaded.

Over the years there was a lot of suggestions on enhancing gameplay and I used to repeat some of them to humor Incarnate every year. Some ideas were partially implemented during time and some - never.

This is now a bit outdated but I think it's still an interesting read: Medley of old favorites to humor Incarnate :)

CTC definitely needs to be 'revamped'. It's still run by the old code and does not really enhance the gameplay or player interaction as it used to in the old days.

Nation borders need a kind of a 'border patrol' mission that can be taken at Nation stations near greyspace wormhole sectors.
A simple mission to join a group of nation military npc ships and patrol the other side of the wormhole.
In case of incoming enemy blockade reinforcements could be sent to fend off blockade.

I don't think that punishing the side which wins ctc by sending enemy npc fleets to blockade the other sides entrance to greyspace is actually a balanced idea unless some kind of 'border patrol' mission is introduced - then we could possibly have the losing side increasing their military presence in gresypace by randomly sending attack squadrons to attack/blockade the other nations borders.

Very likely scenario that can happen if there is no 'border patrol':

Itani win Deneb - blockade goes to Ukari, Itani lose ctc on purpose - an additional blockade goes to serco borders, including Helios/Ukari wh. Now... that would kinda suck.

if you make the serco nation color green or orange that'll probably help more for getting players than this suggestion cause everyone knows Red == evil that's why all Serco players are total jerks by default.

Yellow = coward
Blue == Good

And for those about to go "but Kanada!" or "''Murica!"

if this wasn't the case then all space games radar since time started wouldn't use blue for good and red for evil!

@bojansplash:

If you kill hive bots, more hive bots spawn.

If you kill players, they do not always come back to fight some more.

The nation vs nation conflicts needs some bots on the losing side, to help the losing side, and give the winning side something more to do, besides just ambush every player of the losing side.

I am only speaking to ctc, and grey space, since I have little to no personal experience with deneb. You may wish to expand on this concept to include deneb.

Winning a conflict, should produce a reward, other than an avalanche of wins to further related conflicts.

What do you do when the Leviathan is dead? You wait.
What do you do when all the Serco are dead and they don't came back? You wait.

Are you tired of waiting yet?

And a lot of this problem is not a problem with the game, but rather, a problem with the players.
I try to fill in for the underdogs, here and there. But I am just one player, and too many of our best players will not play the underdog. You are sitting around on Itani characters, crying that there are no Serco to kill. There are Serco to kill! You! Get on a Serco character, pussy.

I'm not even sure what this thread is about anymore... but it seems to have evolved into the general and never-ending "what's wrong with VO" conversation.

I like Roda's suggestions, but only for selfish reasons. They really only would have an impact on the bored vets. Is that worth a major revamp of the game? Doubtful.

The reasons for poor player retention go way deeper than anything discussed here.

It seems fairly obvious that Serco should level Combat and Heavy Weapons faster than Itani or UIT, while Itani should level Light Weapons faster than Serco or UIT, and UIT should level Trade and Mining faster than Serco or Itani.

That would make more sense than the OP, serve to force new players to think a bit about what they wanted to do with their character when creating it, and gifting Serco with faster leveling in Combat and a weapons class (base it on their training and the Itani's less war-like nature) should incline people more towards it as the OP intends.

pvp is very different than the STUPID grinding of the STUPID bots. I never said eliminate it, but I remember when I was new, it was a pain(time wise, not bot killing wise). I wonder if retention would go up if the less committed/addicted didn't have to grind so much as the levels increased. If the process was shortened, I might even bother to make a serco alt. If someone grinds to the 5 or more without pvp, they still have everything to learn about pvp even if there were no grinding at all.

pvp is very different than the STUPID bots, except for the aiming part, and the dodging part, and many of the other parts that require muscle memory and familiarity with the equipment, the game and it's controls. pvp against a good player is way harder than bots, but if you can't even kill the bots, what are your chances against a good player?

I can level to 3/3/2/1/1 in under an hour, without any outside assistance, and I believe I heard tinbot claim he could level to a valk in 4 hours (although I do not know if that includes assistance).

Trade, mining and standing are a pain to level, because it doesn't matter how well you dodge or aim.

How fast you level will only impact noobs. It does not take much game play before you have more levels than you need. Vet Serco quit playing Serco, because they are outnumbered. If Serco are dying in Helios, there should be Serco npc military to help restore balance. Same for Itani in Edras. Neither side should ever reach a point where they can continuously blockade grey space access for days on end with minimal player presence.

Then again, the very structure of the game is strongly tilted towards the itani. deneb has itani stations, the itani have the best fighter in the game, itani is the largest nation with the most systems. It may be by design that the game is unbalanced, and the itani are intentionally designed to be the refuge for the faint of heart. intentionally or not, that is what we have. and perhaps we should leave it that way. When I want a challenge, I can just log onto a serco character. when skv wants an unfair fight, they can just log onto itani characters. an unbalanced game does offer greater diversity of play style.

Deneb may be unbalanced but it's not unbalanced by much. After months of not going there and after a considerable amount of whining some months ago, I spent one week on a middle-level serco character and that week the serco won deneb. I did get some help from two noobs but no vets showed while I was on, even though I asked repeatedly on channel 11. All I got from vets was 'deneb is broken wah wah'. If one mediocre player can tip the balance it can't be all that horrible. It's a good place to bring noobs for some training and excitement.

If you see me on the itani side and are working with noobs I'll give the noobs some space if you ask for it.