Reverting to Older Settings

[Kilo]

Well, since I have listened to other people, I guess I will have to guess...D1st0rt. What a bastard!

[Dr. Snyder]

Myself, D1st0rt, Arnk Dylie, Cerium = 2 people?

 

It's not that we don't listen to suggestions, it's that most suggestions have ramifications that the suggesting player never considered. From time to time there are good suggestions that we take to heart.

 

Rest assured that neither of us truly understand the depth of ramifications that result from a massive change of settings. I do however, feel dis-heartened because the direction of the zone has led the experience far away from what attracted to me here in the first place. I understand there are reasons, and good ones for these, but I think every single player I know has been treated as if they are the same ignorant fools that suggested something dumb before. Overpowered shipsets in this game would likely favor me, but the biggest reason why I believe the less balanced settings that included private freqs were better is that it motivated players to work towards becoming better. It literally forced players to accept losing until they became winners. Now I see players who judge their abilities based on their K:D ratio while in base. I cannot shame these players into being better, and because money is not as meaningful anymore, they often don't care about winning or losing.

 

I still find Hyperspace a lot of fun, but I don't know anyone who thinks it is as fun as it was before. Most of the players that would think it is more fun, are the ones who are very young, and do nonsensical things.

 

Maybe I don't understand the first thing about hyperspace, but I still feel like the playerbase deserves a little bit more insight into the zone direction, and at least some explanations. This takes time and effort that very few people want to put in, but we play a small zone, in a dying 2d spaceship game, I think this whole place is a little small to have a gigantic wall between the players and staff.

[Deathmonger]

There are a lot of things that have improved over the years. For example, basing is fixed at long last. Every flag game today is more epic than in the old days. The evener works well, flanking is no longer a problem, priv abusers are gone.

 

Dr. Brain stated some principles awhile back that have been followed, such as:

 

1. Getting rid of anything that distracts from flagging.

2. Balance ship settings to emphasize skill instead of customizations.

 

However, like Dr. Snyder I think this has had some enjoyment consequences.

 

1. The gameplay originally focused on customizing ships to perform different roles. Customization now takes a back seat to Extreme Games-style attach-rush-spam guns flagging where every ship is mostly the same effectiveness (within a small range) and it's numbers and aggression that count.

 

2. The range of customization available for the ships has been greatly reduced. Before you could create extreme configurations for speed, accel, recharge, items, etc. Now the difference between a a regular and sig reactor isn't so significant. Sigs themselves reduce the range of enhancement available through normal items. You may say this is "balance" or "emphasizes skill instead of money" but I think the more extreme customizations were more fun.

 

3. While items became less and less effective, and bountying for income was eradicated, prices went up across several resets. This means players spend several times more hours to buy less effective items. I think this inflation is what caused a lot of vets to drop out.

 

4. Recharge in general was nerfed. This contributed to the decline in bountying and made basing tactics for both sides revolve around suiciding.

 

5. I miss the variety of gameplay from bountying to chasing bountiers to balling to turretting to break up flagging monotony.

 

6. Many of the newer items have such massive penalties that you're better off with the lower-level items (e.g. reactors). You may call this balance but it really restricts the available configurations.

 

In summary I would better enjoy today's game mechanics combined with a rethought items system designed for a greater range of configuration, at a lower price point, and reintroduction of lost gameplay features like turreting.

[Cheese]

4. Recharge in general was nerfed. This contributed to the decline in bountying and made basing tactics for both sides revolve around suiciding.

 

my spider build has +10 energy at all times.

two resets ago i took the time to grab a stopwatch, completely drain my spider of energy, and figure out how long it took to recharge.

 

it took 21 seconds.

 

last reset, it took 27 seconds.

 

this reset, i havnt played enough to finish my build.

however, i did notice that the 1600 max recharge spider is only 200 above the 1400 max recharge warbird

wouldnt you think that the big, slow, fat spider would be better than a fast and tiny warbird?

especially the dumb ones spamming repels and bursts in bases

[Enjoi?]

bounty in bases again would be nicee

[Dr. Snyder]

There are a lot of things that have improved over the years. For example, basing is fixed at long last. Every flag game today is more epic than in the old days. The evener works well, flanking is no longer a problem, priv abusers are gone.

 

Dr. Brain stated some principles awhile back that have been followed, such as:

 

1. Getting rid of anything that distracts from flagging.

2. Balance ship settings to emphasize skill instead of customizations.

 

I firmly disagree that more skill is required now. I believe that rushing, especially power rushing, that it is impossible in any moderate sized game to make a difference as a single player. I try very hard to maximize my lanc rush effectiveness, but there is only so much I can do, especially without energy infusion.

 

Maybe if we can continue to de-emphasize money and exp, but bring back item diversity, which requires skillful timing. I would love to see an energy infusion item that took no spots but severely cripple energy amount. Maybe like -5 or -7 or more if need be, but something that allowed energy infusion to be powerful, but only in the right hands.

[Samapico]

If energy infusion takes away more than half your energy, it just can't be worth it, however you look at it

[Deathmonger]

I might have mentioned that when energy infusion was made ineffective, it exacerbated the nerfing of recharge issue. That has driven EG-style suiciding gameplay.

 

I firmly disagree that more skill is required now.

 

I concur, I was just setting up the opposite argument that "less variation equalizes player ships, so you can't buy skill anymore". You can't *use* skill anymore either.

 

The most fun was when pub fought against small but powerful priv teams. It kept both newbies and vets interested in the game. There ought to be a way to adapt the current gameplay back into that model. For example, develop a balancer that manages two assymmetric freqs that are determined by the net worth of current players. The "pro" freq would have the top 25% of the current pop based on worth, with everyone else in the other freq. The balancer would automatically switch players between freqs to maintain balance as players log in and out.

[Dr. Snyder]

If energy infusion takes away more than half your energy, it just can't be worth it, however you look at it

My Lanc has 3640 nrg, and at -10 nrg I cannot be certain but that would like bring the total to around 2400 nrg. I agree that it might be too burdensome at -10 nrg, but at -5 or -7 the penalty would be a better tradeoff. I just want options for players that are willing to make their ships more difficult to use, but also have a bigger upside if used properly. I think energy infusion with an nrg penalty would be a great way to do this.

 

Of course this may not be a good idea, I just want a more complex gameplay, I want the chance to challenge myself just a little bit.

 

Oh and also forcing good players to play on freqs with arrogant kids that TK uncontrollably, or refuse to by basing ships because they don't really care, is just cruel. I have to hide how much I want to win to avoid being trolled, and heaven forbid I make a suggestion, because I will get called out as been arrogant or all e-tough about my e-talent. Don't get me wrong, I love winning more than I should, and I shouldn't expect to win in basing 95% of the time, but I also seem to frequently end up on freqs where people are all smalls and camping wzls/levis. There is usually one lanc who will RQ when he/she gets cleared and no one else will lanc because it just isn't fun to lanc for a terrible freq. So I lanc, and maybe I do well, but even if I do, these newbies just get all self righteous and act like they had anything to do with it. Now I just want the chance to kill things, but I can't because these newbies don't understand what teamwork is. They think that having a lanc is some kind of right. They complain when I die or don't pay attention, but neither of those are a big deal, I just want to play with people who do their part. It sucks watching a 12 year old kid have more influence over the direction of a flag game than you, if only because you are the only one who will anchor. But by forcing me to freq with these newbies, they are given free rides, and they don't ever get the punishment that most zones afford newbies. They still win a lot of FGs, and many of them have become expert hoppers.

 

Terrible rant and I understand that I would have felt differently when I started this zone, but I would do anything for a meritocracy, because I think that good players should not have to compensate for bad players, but rather good players should be reward by forcing them to compete against larger numbers of newbies. If the newbies are not given some degree of shaming (not always in the form of losing, but requiring more help to win), then they will strive to get better. I don't need elite weapons to be good at basing, I need elite teammates who want to win, and who are intelligent enough to seek out maximum teamwork.

 

I would love to see private freqs capped at 6 max, but also cap them at 40% of the largest pub team. Also when a FG is won the privs are disbanded. It is so complex to come up with a comprehensive scheme, but it could happen.

 

Also I would love to see hosted draft games in pub, where it is announced at a certain time. I can't figure out how to deal with people quitting and people coming, but again someone can think of something.