Forums » Suggestions
Cooperative Non-PvP Group Missions Maintaining Galactic Peace
One of the attractive features present in certain other MMORPG's that I have found lacking so far in Vendetta® Online is non-PvP (Player vs. Player) cooperative (as opposed to competitive) high-level group missions with a strategic effect. Currently, the only group mission with a strategic effect appears to be CtC ("Catch the Cargo"), but it is strictly PvP.
For this reason, as mentioned in the recent _PC Games_ ign.com review article "Vendetta Online: In space, no one can hear you grind." ( see http://pc.ign.com/articles/579/579297p1.html ):
"The missions don't feel like you're doing anything. In modern MMOs, quests tend to feel like you're making a difference, or you at least give you a big reward for your efforts. Missions in VO simply give you an excuse to blow crap up, which you can do by going to a bot-filled sector anyway. The rewards for missions are all experience and money, but never items or weapons." ( see http://pc.ign.com/articles/579/579297p3.html ).
Not all players enjoy PvP. IMHO, there should also be alternative, non-PvP cooperative group strategic missions available.
For example, in Final Fantasy® XI Online, players fight Beastmen, who, if not kept in check, will being to occupy territory and place flags and a guard at each new outpost. Further, there are three major regions competing for area along with the Beastmen. Therefore, any outpost can have any of four different flags (three for the regions, one for the Beastmen) and an associated guard. The Beastmen are NPC's (Non-Player Characters). Although the regions are allied against the Beastmen, they also compete for territory.
It would be interesting to have a similar system, based on cooperative group missions (as opposed to PvP ones), for Vendetta® Online players who prefer cooperative, as opposed to competitive, group missions.
I propose extending Nya13's "Players vs. Bots / Border patrol/ NPC pirates..." suggestion ( see http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8925 ) as follows:
1) A new space, called "Pirate Space," should be created. It should be equal in size to the average of the Itani, UIT, and Serco spaces, with wormholes to all three spaces and to gray space.
2) Stations in Pirate Space should each be given a flag corresponding to that of the nation/power currently in control of that area.
3) NPC pirate fleets should periodically spawn in Pirate Space systems unless already there.
4) The NPC Pirate fleets should be powerful enough to defeat any low-level players who do not engage them as members of groups; further, they should not give any experience to players who are not members of groups and who are of higher level than the highest-level ship in the fleet. However, these penalties should not apply for members of groups. This system encourages cooperative group NPC Pirate-hunting, thus providing a viable cooperative alternative to competitive group PvP fighting.
5) There should be a time limit to player encounters with NPC Pirates, in the same way that there are currently similar time limits to player encounters with Queen Hives. After the time limit, the NPC Pirate fleet should automatically heal any and all incurred damage, and teleport to an untraceable sector in the same system.
6) If an NPC Pirate fleet is allowed to stay in the same Pirate Space system as a station long enough, it automatically takes over the nearest non-NPC-Pirate such station until defeated. Players already home-stationed there will be allowed to leave, but other players will be unable to enter that station without coming under attack from Station Guards. Defeating an NPC Pirate fleet automatically frees all stations taken over by that fleet.
7) Once all Pirate Space stations are taken over, neighboring non-Pirate-Space stations will begin to be taken over in the same fashion, again until defeated.
8) Capital non-Pirate-Space stations should never be taken over by NPC Pirates.
9) Similarly, at no point can all Pirate Space stations be taken over by non-NPC-Pirate groups simultaneously. Defeating the NPC Pirate fleet in the last remaining Pirate Space system automatically causes an NPC Pirate coup d'état at a random other Pirate Space station, causing the NPC Pirate takeover of that station.
10) Defeating NPC Pirate ships gives a Combat bonus for each ship destroyed, in addition to Light Weapons and Heavy Weapons experience (provided that the players are either of high enough level or are members of groups).
11) NPC Pirate ships that defeat non-NPC-Pirate ships automatically carry the weaponry of the defeated vessels as cargo. In addition, if that weaponry is superior to that of the NPC Pirate ship's, it automatically replaces the NPC Pirate ship's own weaponry in addition to being carried as cargo. Players retrieving weaponry carried as cargo from defeated NPC Pirate ships are allowed to mount the weaponry, ignoring ordinary license requirements.
12) NPC Pirate ships carry their own specialized powerful default weaponry, which they occasionally (but not usually) drop as cargo when defeated. In addition, NPC Pirate ships occasionally drop non-weaponry special items, such as pirate batteries, pirate mineral sensors, pirate mining beams, pirate repair modules, and certain types of items not sold anywhere outside of Pirate Space (for example, pirate HUD's, pirate slot adapters, homing versions of flares, auto-aim versions of Neutron Blaster III's and Mega Positron Blasters, etc.).
13) Players earn both Pirate Hunter medals and special items for participating in groups that hunt NPC Pirates. These medals and special items are only available to players who have participated in groups hunting NPC Pirates. The awards could be assigned as follows (the items would be mountable regardless of license levels):
- 10 NPC Pirate Fleets: Bronze Medal | Neutron Blaster III
- 25 NPC Pirate Fleets: Silver Medal | Ultra Battery
- 100 NPC Pirate Fleets: Gold Medal | Ultra Mineral Scanner/Mining Beam combination
- 250 NPC Pirate Fleets: Platinum Medal | Mega Capital Ship (about ten times larger in area than a regular Capital Ship, with ten times more armor, ten times more mass, identical maximum speed, identical turbo maximum speed, identical maneuverability, infiniboost, equipped with two Goliath Cannon (referenced in Section X of _The Chronicles of Exile,_ the backstory to Vendetta® Online) ( see http://www.vendetta-online.com/h/storyline_section10.html ))
- 500 NPC Pirate Fleets: Diamond Medal | Personalized Space Station (comes with two NPC Station Guards/does not attack (however, the Station Guards can be set to attack anything the owner desires within a 3000 m radius of the station)/cannot be destroyed/sells all items free to the owner, but at prices set by the owner to others/stock can be customized by the owner to include any non-NPC-Pirate items currently owned by the owner)
Implementing the above changes would help address some of the main problems criticized by the aforementioned _PC Games_ ign.com review article, and give players more of a sense that they were making a difference in the Vendetta® Online universe.
-- DekuDekuplex Ornitier
For this reason, as mentioned in the recent _PC Games_ ign.com review article "Vendetta Online: In space, no one can hear you grind." ( see http://pc.ign.com/articles/579/579297p1.html ):
"The missions don't feel like you're doing anything. In modern MMOs, quests tend to feel like you're making a difference, or you at least give you a big reward for your efforts. Missions in VO simply give you an excuse to blow crap up, which you can do by going to a bot-filled sector anyway. The rewards for missions are all experience and money, but never items or weapons." ( see http://pc.ign.com/articles/579/579297p3.html ).
Not all players enjoy PvP. IMHO, there should also be alternative, non-PvP cooperative group strategic missions available.
For example, in Final Fantasy® XI Online, players fight Beastmen, who, if not kept in check, will being to occupy territory and place flags and a guard at each new outpost. Further, there are three major regions competing for area along with the Beastmen. Therefore, any outpost can have any of four different flags (three for the regions, one for the Beastmen) and an associated guard. The Beastmen are NPC's (Non-Player Characters). Although the regions are allied against the Beastmen, they also compete for territory.
It would be interesting to have a similar system, based on cooperative group missions (as opposed to PvP ones), for Vendetta® Online players who prefer cooperative, as opposed to competitive, group missions.
I propose extending Nya13's "Players vs. Bots / Border patrol/ NPC pirates..." suggestion ( see http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8925 ) as follows:
1) A new space, called "Pirate Space," should be created. It should be equal in size to the average of the Itani, UIT, and Serco spaces, with wormholes to all three spaces and to gray space.
2) Stations in Pirate Space should each be given a flag corresponding to that of the nation/power currently in control of that area.
3) NPC pirate fleets should periodically spawn in Pirate Space systems unless already there.
4) The NPC Pirate fleets should be powerful enough to defeat any low-level players who do not engage them as members of groups; further, they should not give any experience to players who are not members of groups and who are of higher level than the highest-level ship in the fleet. However, these penalties should not apply for members of groups. This system encourages cooperative group NPC Pirate-hunting, thus providing a viable cooperative alternative to competitive group PvP fighting.
5) There should be a time limit to player encounters with NPC Pirates, in the same way that there are currently similar time limits to player encounters with Queen Hives. After the time limit, the NPC Pirate fleet should automatically heal any and all incurred damage, and teleport to an untraceable sector in the same system.
6) If an NPC Pirate fleet is allowed to stay in the same Pirate Space system as a station long enough, it automatically takes over the nearest non-NPC-Pirate such station until defeated. Players already home-stationed there will be allowed to leave, but other players will be unable to enter that station without coming under attack from Station Guards. Defeating an NPC Pirate fleet automatically frees all stations taken over by that fleet.
7) Once all Pirate Space stations are taken over, neighboring non-Pirate-Space stations will begin to be taken over in the same fashion, again until defeated.
8) Capital non-Pirate-Space stations should never be taken over by NPC Pirates.
9) Similarly, at no point can all Pirate Space stations be taken over by non-NPC-Pirate groups simultaneously. Defeating the NPC Pirate fleet in the last remaining Pirate Space system automatically causes an NPC Pirate coup d'état at a random other Pirate Space station, causing the NPC Pirate takeover of that station.
10) Defeating NPC Pirate ships gives a Combat bonus for each ship destroyed, in addition to Light Weapons and Heavy Weapons experience (provided that the players are either of high enough level or are members of groups).
11) NPC Pirate ships that defeat non-NPC-Pirate ships automatically carry the weaponry of the defeated vessels as cargo. In addition, if that weaponry is superior to that of the NPC Pirate ship's, it automatically replaces the NPC Pirate ship's own weaponry in addition to being carried as cargo. Players retrieving weaponry carried as cargo from defeated NPC Pirate ships are allowed to mount the weaponry, ignoring ordinary license requirements.
12) NPC Pirate ships carry their own specialized powerful default weaponry, which they occasionally (but not usually) drop as cargo when defeated. In addition, NPC Pirate ships occasionally drop non-weaponry special items, such as pirate batteries, pirate mineral sensors, pirate mining beams, pirate repair modules, and certain types of items not sold anywhere outside of Pirate Space (for example, pirate HUD's, pirate slot adapters, homing versions of flares, auto-aim versions of Neutron Blaster III's and Mega Positron Blasters, etc.).
13) Players earn both Pirate Hunter medals and special items for participating in groups that hunt NPC Pirates. These medals and special items are only available to players who have participated in groups hunting NPC Pirates. The awards could be assigned as follows (the items would be mountable regardless of license levels):
- 10 NPC Pirate Fleets: Bronze Medal | Neutron Blaster III
- 25 NPC Pirate Fleets: Silver Medal | Ultra Battery
- 100 NPC Pirate Fleets: Gold Medal | Ultra Mineral Scanner/Mining Beam combination
- 250 NPC Pirate Fleets: Platinum Medal | Mega Capital Ship (about ten times larger in area than a regular Capital Ship, with ten times more armor, ten times more mass, identical maximum speed, identical turbo maximum speed, identical maneuverability, infiniboost, equipped with two Goliath Cannon (referenced in Section X of _The Chronicles of Exile,_ the backstory to Vendetta® Online) ( see http://www.vendetta-online.com/h/storyline_section10.html ))
- 500 NPC Pirate Fleets: Diamond Medal | Personalized Space Station (comes with two NPC Station Guards/does not attack (however, the Station Guards can be set to attack anything the owner desires within a 3000 m radius of the station)/cannot be destroyed/sells all items free to the owner, but at prices set by the owner to others/stock can be customized by the owner to include any non-NPC-Pirate items currently owned by the owner)
Implementing the above changes would help address some of the main problems criticized by the aforementioned _PC Games_ ign.com review article, and give players more of a sense that they were making a difference in the Vendetta® Online universe.
-- DekuDekuplex Ornitier
Heck, I'd be happy if the NPCs actually shot at bots in ion storms or went after traders from the other side when they show up..
I just saw a swarm of itani traders flying around in serco space like they owned the place. Isn't there a war going on here?
<I know, they'll get to it>
I just saw a swarm of itani traders flying around in serco space like they owned the place. Isn't there a war going on here?
<I know, they'll get to it>
I hope that I'm not the only one to say this, but, this is perfect, well thought out and exactly what I've personally been looking for in VO since I started playing. Thank you for thinking of this and sharing it with the dev's. I can only hope that they will use some if not all of your suggestion.
^What he said. I would love to see some of this in-game.
What's to stop me from grouping with some random noob and going out and killing 500 NPC pirate fleets?
Edit: Not trying to be negative here, I just think that needs addressing.
-:sigma.SB
Edit: Not trying to be negative here, I just think that needs addressing.
-:sigma.SB
Me likes that
PS solra, noob get killed, more bots come forward. Or you could add some sort of up and downwards limits of participants to the creater of the group. Example a 4/x/x/x/x only can take along people between 3/x/x/x/x - 5/x/x/x/x at the moment of initiating the quest. And everybody has to be busy hunting in the same sector(with a certain amount of time available after death of participants), meaning no noob waiting in station to get easy points.
cheers
PS solra, noob get killed, more bots come forward. Or you could add some sort of up and downwards limits of participants to the creater of the group. Example a 4/x/x/x/x only can take along people between 3/x/x/x/x - 5/x/x/x/x at the moment of initiating the quest. And everybody has to be busy hunting in the same sector(with a certain amount of time available after death of participants), meaning no noob waiting in station to get easy points.
cheers
just out of curiosity, what's wrong with a noob sitting in a station getting easy points?
they way the game is currently set up, license levels are just a measure of how much time a given individual was willing to spend performing repetitive tasks. any number of people have stated in the past that while they may have high license levels, they were all gained through botting, and so they lack PvP chops.
more to the point, the only incentive for a player to earn levels is so as not to be marginalized; if one doesn't have access to the commonly used weapons in the game (N2/N3, GT, gausses, swarms, some rockets afaict) and the appropriate ships to carry them. it's not that there's a benefit to leveling per se; it's that if you don't level up to a certain point, you can't really participate meaningfully unless you are exceptionally skilled.
i'm not sure exactly what the fix to this problem is. since VO seems to be an almost entirely end-game game, the leveling period becomes a disagreeable chore to be bypassed as soon as possible (does anyone here actually enjoy leveling up?) however, i do have one significant observation:
needing to gain levels, in the game as it currently stands, discourages players from interacting.
as far as i can tell, the only reasonably effective way for two or more players to work together to level up is if the lower-level player kills the higher-level player. please correct me if i'm wrong, folks (and i'm not talking about how the game should work, i'm talking about how the game works right now). i get the sense that grouping for missions is not significantly beneficial to make it worth the extra effort.
so why do i bring this up? because more and more, recently, i've been thinking that money and faction standing should be the only factors controlling access to equipment. yes, i know some players are super-rich and could buy whatever they want. so what? as i listen to other players discussing strategy and comparing ships and whatnot, one of the things i notice is that people tend to assume that everyone has access to any ships and equipment they want.
grinding for levels is unrealistic, and given the small range of equipment available in this game, doesn't serve any particular purpose except to give those who have participated in it a sense of entitlement. :)
they way the game is currently set up, license levels are just a measure of how much time a given individual was willing to spend performing repetitive tasks. any number of people have stated in the past that while they may have high license levels, they were all gained through botting, and so they lack PvP chops.
more to the point, the only incentive for a player to earn levels is so as not to be marginalized; if one doesn't have access to the commonly used weapons in the game (N2/N3, GT, gausses, swarms, some rockets afaict) and the appropriate ships to carry them. it's not that there's a benefit to leveling per se; it's that if you don't level up to a certain point, you can't really participate meaningfully unless you are exceptionally skilled.
i'm not sure exactly what the fix to this problem is. since VO seems to be an almost entirely end-game game, the leveling period becomes a disagreeable chore to be bypassed as soon as possible (does anyone here actually enjoy leveling up?) however, i do have one significant observation:
needing to gain levels, in the game as it currently stands, discourages players from interacting.
as far as i can tell, the only reasonably effective way for two or more players to work together to level up is if the lower-level player kills the higher-level player. please correct me if i'm wrong, folks (and i'm not talking about how the game should work, i'm talking about how the game works right now). i get the sense that grouping for missions is not significantly beneficial to make it worth the extra effort.
so why do i bring this up? because more and more, recently, i've been thinking that money and faction standing should be the only factors controlling access to equipment. yes, i know some players are super-rich and could buy whatever they want. so what? as i listen to other players discussing strategy and comparing ships and whatnot, one of the things i notice is that people tend to assume that everyone has access to any ships and equipment they want.
grinding for levels is unrealistic, and given the small range of equipment available in this game, doesn't serve any particular purpose except to give those who have participated in it a sense of entitlement. :)
Hakamadre, I totally agree, with all your points.
instead of creating an entire new group of the universe, why dont you use the hive bots that already exist? they can take over stations and do everything you are talking about.
the bots should do similar things but I like the idea of having pirates that take over the stations, and I'd love to see a fleet of pirate frigates and other caps ships as well. The Hive Queens are getting kind of old. More content is always better.
Great ideas, Deku. Very well thought out. I hope we get to see this or something like it implemented! Goodness knows we need more fun group missions to bring people together.
@Ananzi, like this?:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/7196
@Ananzi, like this?:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/7196