Maybe the devsbroke the timer, and also accidently unbalanced the engines, and dont want to fess up...lol - i also agree the engines are out of whack, should be upto 180 infiboost/200 slow drain (as before....) We will not know till it happens huh?...

Um, I was talking about weapons.

Seems that the combat aspect of Vendetta is moving progressively away from a skill based system with every "tweak". We have the engine/battery combo's, the in-system warp, the homers/seekers, and the ease of which these weapons are bought with relatively low levels. These issues have been introduced, then ignored, isn't it about time some of these were addressed? Otherwise it seems like alot of testing (months/years worth) has been chucked out the window...

I'm going to have to take a long break now, cos I'm too disheartened seeing the current state of PvP combat, which in my opinion was one of the major attractions of Vendetta...

I like em. The new homers, the infinite boost fc battery etc. It fits into the new universe with all the noobs and harmless traders.
Finally a chance for peaceful traders to make even more skilled pirates run away, I don't see what's wrong with that.
In the old universe, it was just "ah, there's that griefer, I'll die now", and everyone said "that's the way it goes, learn how to use a triflare valk or die a lot more". Space Quake, pretty frutrating for noobs, and many left because of that.
Now, you have to be a bit more skilled for being a good pirate, and I'm sure, there are still ways to take a homer-equiped rag down. If it's a trader, it's very hard, ok, but why not? He wants to live and he spent a lot of credits for that ship + equipment just to be safe on the route.
If it's a spammer, ask your pal to help you. 2 or 3 ppl will get him down for sure.
Game has changed a lot, gameplay just a bit.

In addition, I think the game moves a lot more to group or guild-orientated gameplay and might be less attractive to individualists. It might take two pirates now to bring a cargo trader down, not just one. That seems logical to me, because those hvy ships like rags look like small flying fortresses but were -IMHO- much too easy to kill in the past.
If you really want to play alone, look for other pirates to fight or noobs with weaker ships. Why should a pirate be able to kill everything on his own? If you see a hvy ship that smells like good cargo, ask another pirate for help or let it go.

When pirate groups form people complain and whine about being killed by groups of pirates.

Combat is dying. You can run away easily, and now you can just spam homing missles and either destroy or push away anyone who wants to attack you. All the new missles do is make combat even less likely to happen, and when it does it becomes "hide behind the asteroid or run away" as two pilots spam missles at each other. Hooray.

Eldrad and Icarus made their names by being BETTER than other people at what they did. Who is going to make a name for themselves now? MissleSpammer101? Riiight. Twitch based skill is dodging and firing tachs and rockets, not hitting 'x' and clicking away randomly.

Ah well. Either the devs will change things back or they don't. I'll still preorder to pay for the game time I've had over the past year but if PvP keeps getting axed I probably won't play as much.

I just may not get the logic behind alienb's initial post. I know there are players that love the PvP aspect of Vendetta. Personally, I love to watch two skilled players fighting each other. But, you know what? I love to trade, explore and assist others more.
I don't think it is unreasonable to expect me to defend myself with missiles or the ability to jump away.
Granted, the homers need a tweek to make them "slightly" easier to avoid but the rest of the arguements hold no water.
I'm sorry, Icarus, Phoenix, alienb... etc... If I don't want to fight you, I need the ability to not do so just as much as you need the ability to get to me.

The current system is more annoying than ever before. I attacked a Vult (in my Vult too), got an inital hit in with flares, they spam me with gems... I have no choice but to full-boost , they jump... Next, a valk actually comes and attacks me (again i'm in a Vult), I get them down into the red, they full boost away and jump... great huh... Also, I had a scrap Vult vs Vult, I had sunflares he had gems, I tried stupidly hard to avoid the seekers and get shots in, and everytime I made a run or tried to stick in the battle I got clipped by a seeker, while he just practically sat there... Skill based combat?!? I think not...

Ic: I can tell you two things about those battles... 1) If he had flares, he would have lost. 2) If you had Gems, he would have lost. :-)

Hmm. Perhaps boost should be better linked to the ships type. Give fighter ships a shorter, faster boost for dogfighting purposes, give freighter and transports slower, longer boosts for the long haul, and bombers maybe somewhere in the middle.

Reduce missle manuverability - perhaps find a way to tweak it until it's only viable a long-range weapon, so that attackees have time to detect and attempt evasive manuvers.

And if you want to prevent runners, you could try either adding more large objects to a sector, or increasing the distance you need to be from them.

It's a tricky situation. Traders need to have the ability to run away, but we also need some prodding to make sure fighters stay and fight. It'll just be a constant balancing act until we find something that works OK and pisses everyone off - because a good compromise leaves EVERYONE unhappy ;D

I proposed what i feel is a good way to deal with the engine issue in this thread

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/6509

Back on topic. The seekers are too powerful now. I say leave the homing ability of them alone and reduce their agility a bit. see if that helps. They should be dangerous, WITHOUT being a "get out of combat free" card.

>Ic: I can tell you two things about those battles... 1) If he had
>flares, he would have lost. 2) If you had Gems, he would have
>lost. :-)

Wrong, he would have run away and there would have been no fight, no fun. That's the whole point, you CAN'T dodge seekers WITHOUT turbo, so people just run away. That's not fun. Fire and run away, fire and run away ... weee. They are still very easy to dodge (except in a TRADESHIP); And, I'm sure Icarus could still line up flairs on a Centaur while turboing away from gems but he wants to be able to have some fun fights as well. These are not an anti-pirate thing they are anti-skilled combat, there is a BIG difference.

>I love to watch two skilled players fighting each other. But,
>you know what? I love to trade, explore and assist others more.

There isn't going to be anything to assist others with unless somone needs help swarm spamming a bot because there will be no PvP and without that I think there will be no game. As a Viper I've defended at least 10 trade runs in J1 Azeck from direct pirate assaults and that has gained me all of 0 pirate kills. Zero, oh boy, zero pirate kills, so much fun. Why? Because I can't shoot at them while I'm turboing away from seekers.

There will be no 'skilled' players because the current state of combat doesn't alow for dog fights. Skilled will mean you have chaos swarms because you're a good botter. Explore? What is there to explore in Vendetta, that's been a pretty minor portion of this game.

Icarus won't be here, who will the traders be running from? Trading in empty space with no danger? There are games with more advanced trading if that's your thing. If the pirates go so will the pirate hunters. The advantage Vendetta has offered was twitch based combat. If trading without that is so cool, why was the universe empty for a month before the new beta opened? Plenty of combat free trading available then.

People say they need to be able to get away from PvP whenever they want, but that's silly, they don't really want that, that's no game, go play tick tack toe if you want to always win. Turn on god mode in Doom and see how long it keeps you entertained.

  _____That sounds like a good idea below, new thread maybe?
V

would improving mines/toning down seeker agility help solve the problem? it's one of those weapons that are only effective if you're running away... while you can use seekers on offensive, kinda hard to do that with mines; players out searching for easy skill-less kills will be out of luck

There needs to be an option to run away. But maybe only so for normal tradeinclined ships. Meaning the bus, the wraith, the atlas and especially the centaur.

Its far from fun to see a ship on which you worked 2 days go to waste only because 1 "ass" decides he considers it fun to shoot you down and nullify all your work.

Like I already stated, pirating should only be done when it is by mutual concent, by form of a mission. It will at the same time chase off less newbies. Especially considering pirating evolves over time into griefing"we have seen a lot of examples in our space-quake era".

This will satisfy the pirates, the pirate hunters and the cargo carriers that are out on a little bit - a lot of thrill.

And please dont start the whole discussion about having people that support you, considering I cant envision such a small ship to need support. It would have been more something for ships that are somewhere in between the capital and our present ships, if they already exist. With a lot of space for cargo and an option to be able to cover a couple of supporters and still get a nice profit out of it.

If needed you could make it into a guildoriented mission or a group oriented trademission.

But leave the individual at least alone in their own space and make them able to reach a comfortable security without the need for being online 24/24 to have fun. Considering it is the voice of the people that are on 10/24+ that you constantly hear talking, but dont forget there are a lot more people that dont have the time to play a game so intensively(3/24) and that dont want to log off pennyless since they were waylaid by pirates on every tradeline they did.

I agree that there will always be people that show themselves from their worst side, but they should NOT be given a vote and be limited as much as possible. Keep their ranks low. Since as it was before people only pirated and griefed since they were bored. And maybe consensual piratingmissions will be a first for the people that are so intersted in pirating. They can maybe play the scurvy lubber in turn. Not to mention that making some additions geared towards running in a fightership or a cargoship should be nullified and optified. Meaning on a tradeship running should be easy, which would be semi impossible on a fightership.

I'm glad I could bring this to the attention of so many people that genuinely have something to say about it.

<Like I already stated, pirating should only be done when it is by mutual concent, by form of a mission.>

-If it's concentual it's not piracy. If you want to be secure, stay in monitored space. Once you leave a protected area you give up your right to security. I'm saying this not as a pirate, but as a Viper. I have no job if traders can get away from a fight with a click of their swarms and a turbo bind. I also can't do my job if skillless pirates spam swarmers and turbo away from me every time they are threatened. And just imagine what'll happen if someone spams the tradeship I'm trying to protect instead of me. What do you believe will happen then?

<Its far from fun to see a ship on which you worked 2 days go to waste only because 1 "ass" decides he considers it fun to shoot you down and nullify all your work.>
-Failure is part of any game. Remember games like Contra back in the day? You could play for an hour, get to the last level, but once you died, you start from scratch. It's called "a challenge."

The balance is a bit like a pendelum. In the past, traders were always at the mercy of pirates because the agile ships simply dominated everything else. Now, in an effort to fix that, PvP combat has gone out the window altogether. It's not just with tradeships, fighter combat is boring as hell too. I'd wager the only ones who actually have fun fighting are the vets who stubbornly stick to fighting with non-seekers for the entertainment of it.

pirating is not an action but a way of life. Pirating means getting someone elses cargo by either killing them or coercing them to jettison it. Pirating is not boom boom boom, hahahaha your dead man, hahaha thanks for the cargo sucker.

That is baiting and sometimes even griefing.

The Vipers are nothing more then a group created to have fun as a piratehunter. If you want to be a piratehunter, then you could just as well do that through a mission.

Anyway I will only condone that if the tradeship is able to either hire escorts or to fend for itself. And even a centaur will not let you make enough to adequately pay an escort for. Reason why I stated that they should be able to let you flee from a fightership. I did never say that if the pirate was in a tradingship that he would not be able to keep up with him. Or just make it impossible for the oponent to jump as a quick fix.

Example:

vulture against wraith, both can jump.
vulture against vulture : none can jump or need to be 4-5k away from nearest big object with the other vulture being looked upon as a big object "as long as not in your group/guild/nation".

At least we would see some interesting fights again with centaur vs centaur pirates. Or atlas versus wraith..., in stead of the chanceless vulture/valk - centaur ones...

Or you could even change it to the ships 1 or 2 steps above and below you.

<It's called "a challenge>

Its called a waste of time and money.

And yes I agree non guided weapons should be brought back to their previous reincarnation... Although maybe a little boxroll should not keep you from getting hit...

What is a pirate hunting mission suposed to be and how is it not suposed to suck? Server spawns a pirate bot in an empty sector and I go kill it? Wait for someone to take the 'consensual PvP trade mission' at the exact same time someone takes the 'pirate trader mission' and I take the 'hunt pirate mission' ... uh I don't think so.

While we're at it lets make trading a mission only activity as well. No non-consenual trading it unfairly lowers profits or something.

What does this have to do with how good seekers are anyway? Well this i guess: Too acurate and ALL PvP goes away right? This thread isn't sposed to be about if you like pirates, it's about whether you think skill based PvP has a place in Vendetta and how you think missile acuracy affects this.

If your a no skilled trader you should have less chance against a pirate than a skilled trader right? It doesn't work that way now.

<The Vipers are nothing more then a group created to have fun as a piratehunter. If you want to be a piratehunter, then you could just as well do that through a mission.>
-Ever group in the game is created to have fun doing [X]. That's why it's a game. A mission and a career are different things. I don't want to have to protect a trader only while I'm on a mission. If I'm cruising around in my maud and see someone attacking a centaur am I supposed to go back to the nearest station and take up a mission? The missions are there for leveling purposes. Completing mission after mission shouldn't be the sole object of the game.

This isn't just about pirate ships versus tradeships. This is about PvP combat being utterly gone from the game. Even fighters can't kill each other because it's just too easy to run away when things start to look bad. What I want is consequences. If you commit yourself to a fight you can't win, you should die. You should not be able to get away at your leisure whenever things get hard. This has always been the problem with the game, and now, instead of being restricted only to the valk, it's an option open to all ships.

<At least we would see some interesting fights again with centaur vs centaur pirates. Or atlas versus wraith..., in stead of the chanceless vulture/valk - centaur ones...>
-This could be better fixed by allowing tradeships to better defend themselves instead of furthering the "run away because things are too tough" mentality. The new swarms are fine on centaurs and atlases. But definitely not so when a person can waltz into a dangerous, pirate infested area and expect to ge out without a scratch whether they have any skill or not.
If you wan't to make money safely, stay in protected space. It's not that hard. You'll still have at least 60% of the universe open to you.

Perhaps this issue could be partially solved by *ahem* re-instating the warp timer...

AND, creating a "gizmo" that fit into an S-port (or Spellcast's proposed engine mod port) that granted the ability to warp instantly. With the gizmo installed, the ship would not be able to fire its weapons.

That way, players would have to choose between being able to fire weapons or being able to jump instantly. Therefore those who are not inclined toward combat could just equip the "insta-warp" gizmo on their ship, but players who want to fight or duel wouldn't be able to escape by warping out of the sector just before they die.