A debate involving several subjects, such as keeping interest and changes in the system

[Psythe]

TL;DR at the bottom of the post.

 

Alright, here's my standing on this, and I'd be happy for debate and hearing others' opinions.

 

A couple of sections here that I've thought about.

 

A ) Keeping interest in the zone and eliminating the possibility of getting "bored."

Personally, I've found it very easy to get bored of playing Hyperspace for several reasons:

• It takes a long time to maximize a ship, let alone all eight ships.
  
• It seems that whenever I am playing, there are flag games only about 25% of the time.
  
• Balling in center isn't a very effective way to keep non-flagging activities entertaining.
  

B ) As I pointed out in my this thread: http://www.subspace....to-think-about/

Keeping a dedicated player's interest should be more than just saving up for a super-item. That's a slow process, and I'll be damned if I ever make it that far before a reset occurs (though, maybe I'm just lazy or have other things to deal with in real life; not to diss the dedicated players). If there were a way to get there faster, or even, not have to get that far to get to "the top," I think that even the dedicated players would be appreciative. tl;dr:

• It takes a lot of effort to get to "the top," and I can't be the only one who doesn't feel like putting that much effort into it.
  
• As I mentioned in the other thread, challenges that can be completed to boost one's progress would not only be fun, but provide a feeling of progression towards the ultimate goal: Having a maxed out ship.
  
• Instead of resetting everyone's accounts in order to re-balance the zone, somehow promote a way for players to self-reset themselves and allow newbies to be on a playing field that isn't damn-near impossible to make progress on (This is an exaggeration of course; I realize that it's still possible to get kills with a stock warbird).
  

--------- ------ --- -

 

So, I'll provide some suggestions, though they may be radical, that could make the zone more enjoyable for regulars and casuals alike.

 

Going back to A ), there are a few things that come to mind.

• Make profit, HSD- and XP-wise, quicker and possibly easier.
  
• Perhaps there's some way to make flag games much more frequent, basically, "all day, err' day." Higher rewards? At the least, higher loss rewards? I do commend the fact that loss rewards are relatively decent and boost the Hyperspace economy quite a bit, but still, that hasn't turned out to be enough for me to buy but one decent item per flag loss, while the winners can immediately afford a multitude of items for their ships.
  
• Balling in center, right now (and I apologize for the brutally obvious), is boring. Sector 8 has been adulterated by this new balling system. I'll try to elaborate on each point after a few more summaries of what I think, so this post may end up being long -- you can stop here if you wish to contribute some ideas of your own, as the rest will be my own ideas on what we can do to make the zone even more fun.
  

And now, back to B ), involving the effort requried to reach "the top."

• What if getting a maxed out ship, or eight of them, didn't take quite as long? Personally, I'd have a blast if I could customize my ships easier -- customization is what of the most appealing factors in any game I have ever played. However, in the current state of Hyperspace, I feel like it still takes too long to get to that point.
  
• Challenges (such as mentioned in the other thread, while they may be rediculous), would be a fantastic way to keep players encouraged to keep playing. Imagine... "Oh man, I have to complete this challenge! I'm so close! I can't wait to get that boost in order to further customize my ships!" Challenges would be a whole new element of Hyperspace, and with Hyperspace being a constantly developing zone, I think such a thing would be worth implementing, at least to test the waters to see how it would work.
  
• As for self-resets, I'll just elaborate on those in a minute.
  

Effort to get to "the top."

In all honesty, I've only witnessed around three or four players who have reached the point of getting all maxed out ships before the inevitable reset occurs (I might be wrong, as I'm not a dedicated regular on the zone like I used to be). I truly appreciate the dedicated players like this, and it would kill me to get rid of the reward for being so dedicated. A way to remedy this would be to allow any player, newbie or casual or veteran or regular, what-have-you, to have to power to reach a higher power without having to put hours upon hours of effort into the game. Note that it would probably be catostrophic to have newbies become what we now have "regulars" and have "regulars" be just that: regulars. We'd need to allow the regulars the ability to surpass anyway, while avoiding super-ships. A fix to this would be garages (something that has been romanticized for quite some time). WIth ship garages, this would allow the regulars to further customize ships and and have more versatility than the casual players, without allowing them to have super-ships.

Sorry, went on a tangent there. My point was to be that it should be easier to get to the point where you have at least one or two "good" ships.

 

Promoting flag games.

The first thing that comes to mind is that, from what I've witnessed recently, the winning team will have something like eight players, and the losing team will have 2-4 players (not every time, but this does happen.) Whle providing loss rewards was a great idea, and certainly prevented ragequitting en masse, well, I'll be completely honest: I could join flag games just for the loss money all day and still only have enough cash to buy three or four items for my ship. I'm not entirely sure what could be done to fix this, as getting higher loss rewards would certainly lead to flag game winners not really feeling like "winners." However, this would certainly promote massive flag games because both parties would have fun and get a reward out of it just for having fun. It woulnd't be anything like, "That flag game sucked! I'm out, see you guys tomorrow!" However, the idea is iffy, but it's all that I can think of at the moment. That's why I'm game for hearing others' opinions on these things.

 

Again, back to the self-resetting theory.

My original idea for this still remains: When players hit a certain amount of XP, they are allowed the ability to self-reset. Upon doing this, they open space for a new garage. Perhaps one could choose which extra ship they would like... which provides two things. 1) The player starts anew, allowing them to be somewhere near the same playing field as people who don't have excellent ship setups. 2) By allowing only one ship unlock per reset, this promotes resetting multiple times in order to have accomplished a truly full garage, allowing the dedicated players an advantage that doesn't necessarliy give them super-ships that stomp on every other ship.

 

Making profit in HSD and XP easier.

Some would strongly disagree with this, and honestly, I'm willing to listen to proof that this could end up being a bad idea, because, in all honesty, I can't think of a way this could end badly. By allowing players to "level up" faster, this keeps players interested and, as I said before, allows them to customize their ship more and more -- the element of Hyperspace that is most appealing to me. On the other hand, this also lets players be less careful about their purchases and sells, and could backfire into a cycle of getting money and going poor again. ... now to think of it, if challenges required that a certain weapon be used in a certain way, one would likely keep that weapon in order to further boost their progress. Just a thought.

 

Challenges.

With challenges, well, it's quite obvious what would happen if challenges were present in Hyperspace: People would be even more addicted to the zone. They'd probably crave to complete all of the challenges they can. Perhaps there could even be weekly challenges to keep players on their toes. I don't mean to treat the player base as animals who think, "Ooh, shiny! Must have!" but I'm just trying to think of ways to keep the most interest in the zone. See the other thread for some lame ideas of potential challenges one could complete.

 

Balls

I forgot to mention an idea about balling in hyperspace. The first thing that comes to mind is that that the one holding the ball gets leveled up weapons, but I guess there could be a lot of possibilities (though, I don't know everything about ASSS and its limits). First of all, the current method of scoring the ball is, for lack of a better term, stupid. The small balling arena that has been shoved into sector 8 is a mess and I didn't like it the second I saw it. To be honest, I can't think of a way to make balling fun aside from somehow making it a strategic part of gameplay or possibly integrating it into challenges. But, first and foremost, I really wish that the "balling arena" would be fixed up, pronto.

 

 

Another thought:

XP more important than money

What if money were easier to get, but XP just the same as it is now? Here's what I believe would happen:

• Generous players would donate to those in need more often than they do nowadays
  
• Having more money will allow one to customize a ship, but regardless, they must still earn XP to earn more customizability.
  
• If the super-expensive items are kept around, perhaps more players would be able to afford them because they'd have saved their cash rather than being forced to spend it immediately in order to keep up with the regulars.
  

TL;DR:

• Does it take too long to reach "the top" when it comes to maximizing ships?
  
• Should challenges be implemented to keep players interested, not to mention a whole new element of HS?
  
• Balling is mediocre at this point, in my opinion.
  
• Flag games should be more frequent, be it higher rewards for both the winning and losing party (and an easy way to boost the HS "economy."
  
• Ship garages to promote self-resets and keep the playing field a little more leveled out.
  

I'd be happy to hear any argument or debate or suggestions involving these subjects. In all honesty, I'm not too sure of them myself. The general public's voice is a great source of knowledge.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Psythe

[spidernl]

I'd get bored pretty quickly if I could max out all my ships faster, seeing as I enjoy the "way there" but once I'm there, there's not a whole lot left to do.

[Cheese]

temporary solutions

• add time to the 'lol u spec'd for not flagging' to one player after each goal they score, so flag team can score goals
  
• increase max xp gain per kill to 25
  
• increase max fg loss xp to 50
  
• factor in bounty to kill reward in bases, to give losing team something to do (maybe not as much as old formula)
  
• add 1-2 more powerballs, so one retard cant ruin it for ballers
  
• add +10 explodepixels to siege mount, have corey randomly insert thor eaters into walls
  
• make selling an item to buy another less of a wallet-rape, (im tired of losing 100k just to sell nova just to buy cluster)
  
• make more parasite style items, to give people short term goals
  
• finish your item set, slowpoke
  
• get dr to put in the crash fix
  

[Psythe]

@ Spidernl: Fair enough, I agree. All I can say is that resetting in order to gain more ship garages would be a great solution. Of ourse, I'm neglecting the fact that such things require development. Trust me, if I could, I'd get right on that to help out. Right now, I'm stuck with making bases and fantastizing about a hyperspace utopia.

 

@Cheese: I haven't thought about how badly selling items can eat your wallet, and I think that's a huge problem when it comes to customizability. Perhaps there should be a consistent buy/sell percentage among items; why should the epensive items be not worth as much as face value, anyway?

[Psythe]

I've come across a few more thoughts.

 

Self-resetting is a tough decision for anyone, given that they have to get everything once again. There would have to be some kind of compensation, such as starting off with substantial money and XP, or something else that would make it worth earning that secondary warbird.

 

As a novelty thing, I thought that maybe we should separate the stores like in the old days, with a guns shop and a utilities shop, etc. It just seems a little more fun that way, I can't explain why, but it's just... interesting, I guess.

 

Making various versions of parasites could be a great way to provide goals for players to complete. Maybe not as harsh as the current ones, like nerfing your ship until you finally get it over with, but such a system (I would imagine) could be easy to modify.

 

I mised the part where cheese mentioned that bounty should be implemented in basing to some extent. Bomblines made for bounty-whoring are a definite no-no. But, in all honesty, if a team's players survive more than they die, this could give them the upper hand. However, it could slow down flag games a lot (would that be a good or a bad thing?). Anyone got an idea on how to make bountying become a part of the zone like it used to be?

 

I miss turretting, a lot. It was a blast hunting down turrets and being on the turret, but then again, it was also a blast being on the defense in the classic base 3, lol.

[Cheese]

• increase public freq limit to 4
  

[Yin Yang]

• I think Hyperspace should get a bunch of new events and host them often
  
• Bring back private frequences
  
• Have hourly jackpot boosts
  
• Make loser money higher
  
• Make new items (like dili)
  

Thats what i suggest

[Psythe]

At the least, I think private freqs should be allowed to mess around in center, but not in bases. The privs were originally eliminated because they would ruin flag games, I think.

 

As for new events, trust me, I would be working on that if I could.