1 (edited by Lupus Aurelius 2012-05-21 02:52:27)

Topic: May 30th release - People's thoughts

Well, it has been announced in the newsletter, the PBS/industry patch is going to be released on May 30th.  As we have alot of threads concerning different aspects of the new features on the test server, I thought it would be appropriate for us to be able to discuss at the 50000 ft view of the overall readiness of these new features to go live, in a central location that the DEVs could review.

Discuss.


Edit - Please keep the responses to general overviews, specific issues related to already existing threads should be discussed there.

Edit of the Edit - Responses in this thread should address individual points of view and feedback on the May 30th deadline, and not be targeted to specific views posted here. Moderators, please edit accordingly, and remove any troll-like material.

In the gods we trust, all others bring data!

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

as usual, two weeks later...

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

May 30th is way to soon.  There still seems to have lots of bugs present, and we havn't even seen NPCs yet.  Maybe we will get a  module thats only usable on NPCs that is called the Scorpion Modules, it Throws a Harpoon at the NPC and a the text "GET OVER HERE" flashes on a screen as we hunt for Observers in the ocean and pulls the mob within 750 M of you.

Steam achievement Unlocked:  Being a Badass
http://www.perp-kill.net/kill/239407
Dev Zoom: I think its time to confess, Ville is my alt
Dev Zoom: Ville can be sometimes so sane it's scary.

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

Good luck to the devs, but as it has become a habit in the MMO industry, deadlines are set to be broken.

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

Is that all then?. I thought they were going to ask us for an organized tests with the Dev's help to pound our dps/strategy on to those structures or something. If not what's the point of the test server? Just leaving it to mere speculation and theories, well- hope it works out.

RIP PERPETUUM

6 (edited by Lupus Aurelius 2012-05-21 00:45:53)

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

Just my own thoughts at this time:

-Extent of industry changes:  Whereas we know that the DEVs have been working on this patch for a significant time, the extent of the changes, which radically change the entire production tree, from raw materials up to finished product, as well as the introduction of not just gamma island materials, but new racially specific materials, and the redistribution of currently universally available material to faction specific islands, requires more time to evaluate and give feedback on.  Two more weeks of "testing" may not be sufficient time to really evaluate long term impacts and formulate sufficient feedback for the DEVs, especially with the current population.

-Gamma Islands and PBS: Several issues still exist with PBS, terraforming, and resources. One that immediately comes to mind is the whole issue of where terraforming can be done, ranging from no restrictions to a variety of proposed controls or limitations.  Also, the functionality of PBS, and issues revolving around their resists and hitpoints, and what happens when a part of the chain gets wiped out.  Apparently there are still multiple issues, and even more questions and debate concerning these.  In addition, there is also needs to be something to drive all that time and investment.  With the distribution of raw material changes, being able to utilize all those wonderful PBS refining and manufacturing tools is going to be difficult at best, due to the enormous amounts of materials, or commodities, that will be required to sustain production,  Other than building more PBS, and Scarab MK2, there has to be something more, and that leads us to the following:

-Additional Mechs, the destroyers, and artillery:  A year ago, we were already told this was in the works.  Now consider, going back to the terraforming control around PBS issue, this could or would be moot if artillery and destroyers were in the game.  Historically, artillery has a further reach than mobile weapon platforms, and if functioning in game as it does in real life, it's trajectory is an arc, eliminating alot of LOS issues, and would be the idea counter to the "turtling in" effect that people are concerned about.  Also, it provides additional incentive to invest in PBS and gamma, instead of just PBS and Scarab MK2s, in addition we would now have also artillery and mechs, which also would require the new gamma materials. The ablity to field the highest potential firepower capable in the game is a huge incentive to be on gamma, and to maintain a gamma presence.

-Too much in one bite:  There is alot going on here, I've been on the test server a week, and maybe have covered about 10% of the new material in depth.  Huge world changing revisions done globally in one fell swoop have the potential for massive issues that could bog down everyone for weeks if not longer.  A more gradual introduction of changes, along specific items like mining changes, then industry changes, etc, would be easier to evaluate and revise, or correct undetected issues from the test server.

-Revised schedule:  At this time, it may be more appropriate to break these changes up a bit, in a group of stages, than to implement this all at once.  What immediately comes to mind is the following, in a 3 month implementation plan:

***First Month - Implement gamma islands, PBS, and the gamma materials, and add in the destroyers and artillery, with those mechs and modules being dependent on gamma island materials
***Second Month - Implement redistribution of materials
***Third Month - Implement the material changes in modules and bots/mechs

I think the May 30th release may be over ambitious. We all want to see this game grow and be successful, and from past experience, trying to do too much all at one time has rarely created an enjoyable and rewarding experience, rather chaos and frustration, which in playing a game we are in theory trying to get away from. We are looking for an enjoyable game experience which relieves our stresses from RL, working with others to achieve common goals and have fun.

In the gods we trust, all others bring data!

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

short answer: to soon  to many bugs / issues with buildings. need to be a week longer imo.

long answer: soon tm

tongue

True Pros make a Podcast to influence the Devs minds, 
The rest of you guys are Hacks tongue

PS. I got my Highways & stopped playing b4 they came in & have never used them! ...... Irony much ? tongue

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

Watch out what happened to earthrise, too early and ... closed.

This new patch is good for calling new or renew people, but without strong base game, you will lost many players and ...

I think, should first listen to the players who is playing in tester server

9 (edited by Gunner 2012-05-21 01:07:27)

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

The way it is setup now, unless I missed something, people can do a min/max impassable terrain fortress of solitude.

That is going to be interesting to see and deal with.

That fact that something like that will not be moderated is going to be interesting.

I look forward to seeing how the first month goes.


- Gunner

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

The one big thing is still how easy it is to kill PBS its just not worth building atm on the live server with how it is. If the DEVs put this onto the live server no one will build it & we will have a S**t expansion. sure they would give them a buff but the damage would have been done.

AT DEVS: dont make the same bad mistakes you made with walls. killing any PBS should take larger number of mechs / Hmachs. 1-2 mechs walking past blowing your stuff up is bull S**t.

True Pros make a Podcast to influence the Devs minds, 
The rest of you guys are Hacks tongue

PS. I got my Highways & stopped playing b4 they came in & have never used them! ...... Irony much ? tongue

11 (edited by Lemon 2012-05-21 02:43:24)

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

*Don’s Top Hat and Monocle*
    Achm…. My Dearest Lupus how once again being the  genius that you are, your posts have thoroughly entertained me and I applaud you for your effort to point the game in the proper direction. However I feel there are some minute details you may have over looked, but I won’t bore everyone with covering everything i'll just cover some of the larger ones.


@First Month
A)    Destroyers – Are not supported with the current engine being unable to handle multi-tile bots the purpose of the new engine was the live rendering of the terrain and improved graphics.
B)    Artillery with the current player population would consist of rich players (Me) going to island with dedicated toon’s with saved EP singing tarara boom dey ay as I paint you and wait for the round to get to you. The population just can’t handle such a large weapon at its current state the hard core would drive the casual players out within days.

@Second month & Third Month
A)    With the announcement of the already planned changes the postponement of these changes would only hamper the already struggling market and player economy. With the spike in bot prices insurance fraud is once again possible(nearing 2 weeks now); this spike is directly related to the anticipation of the increased costs for production. Furthermore the bulk of the inflation was due in part to a new member to your corp arguably the largest Alpha market *** in game. (Now M2S)
B)    Following the above point the postponement of any industrial change only allows for longer abuse/EP saving/inflation and stockpiling with the cheaper costs.

*I’m sure establishing a gamma facility under the old system would be quite profitable.

Now back on topic, delaying something due to bugs and needing it to work properly live is one thing. Which I am sure the Dev’s will not be foolish enough to roll out an unfinished project so hastily.
If the majority of you are so concerned with these “bugs” and “issues” I invite all of you to join me on the test server these last 10 days to gather proper material to state why this should be postponed or ok’ed for release.

@Weak PBS-
    I have already given the developers a near impenetrable PBS system for gamma based on the current in game system. This is without the 1000m no terraforming rule. If somehow magically 1 or 2 players are able to walk in to your GAMMA OUTPOST a place that is YOURS and you are not home, I highly doubt you should be there.
Currently you need to view this system in the idea of 3000+ active players competing over these outposts with full time-zone coverage. Leaving your outpost open in your down times simply shows you do not have the man-power to live full functioning freely on gamma thus you will be harassed and greifed.

1-2 players I dare them to take it from me defending alone. Everyone gets griefed if no one is home.
Part of the risk.

@The Reward?
The reward? Really? You want a trophy? Be the first corporation to hold a gamma outpost publicly on radar and own your own territory that you sculpted and carved out as your own.  That is bragging rights and enough e-peen to slap anyone down in CD forum wars. Not to mention the ability to run the best production in game from your outpost and gain such buffs as the mining towers for gathering at maximum efficiency’s.
I don’t need anything because  once I have a gamma island it is mine and that is the reward attaining a new level as a pvp-corp to strike out in the uncharted areas where the only thing stopping me is other players and me staying alive and surviving is up to me and my choices.

P.S. This is a sandbox you don’t always get shinys at the end of the tunnel for putting the time in. you want trophies I think WoW lets you track your achievements now via iphone. So you will have them everywhere with you.

TL:DR you need one GTFO.... this is big boy talk.

Undefeated 2013
"Even alone you probably are one of the best" - Khader Khan
"Lemon the 1 man army .... also know as: THE TERMINATOR!" - Obi Wan
"There are people who are just better then you at doing many things at one time, some are far better then myself, far better." -Merkle

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

At risk of further flaming what appears to be a battle royale between Lemon and Lupus... I think you each have valid points in some areas. Here's my take on it currently, in appropriate order.

Destroyer mech wise your both right technically, Lupus is right in that Gamma islands need to be the source of obtaining them, as they would also likely be the head of an attack force on a heavily defended network of turrets. Lemon is obviously also correct in that the dev's obviously arn't anywhere near done with them. (As far as I know.) Same applies to artillery I'd suppose. And while rich people (Also me) would have access to them primarily at first, the same could have been said of when they added any of the heavy mechs. (They were UNGODLY expensive when they first became available.) Personally I'd strangle someone if it got destroyers in the game any faster.

Next topic, first off when you mention the alpha island market *** you don't mean me do you? (I assume not, as I haven't been playing for a while. And I don't recall ever seeing you when I last played.) Anyway, we can all agree that the upcoming changes are drastically changing the market and is causing hoarding of materials/bots. But this is rather normal, and should be alleviated shortly after the live patch. Will postponing also postpone the market issues? Of course, but I think that's a lesser evil than releasing a broken expansion. (I don't personally see the expansion as being "broken", just horribly balanced at the moment. Hell I expect it to be poorly balanced not matter what at live. It'll take time to iron it out with several additional patches.)

Next topic... Weak PBS's. I have to side with Lupus here. From what experience I have testing turrets over the last day or so on Gamma, it seems there would be a bit too much ease in raiding a PBS. (5000 armor turrets isn't exactly "defense tough". Granted they hit with some oomph.) I still need quite a bit more testing before I can make a reliable determination on exactly where balance needs to go, but I do get the feeling that PBS's need a lot more bang for their considerable buck so to speak. Cost to effect. At least defense wise, I think the facilities so far are fine. Also Lemon I think you and I talked about this in Trade chat the other day about the 3000+ active players and building it around that. Understand that doesn't exist yet, (I really wish it did, and I know the devs feeding their families do too.) so it's wise to build this at least somewhat around what the current playerbase can handle. (They could also add 300+ more gamma islands, but no one would likely ever even see 1/10 them with the current population.) Now it could be concieveable that if an entire alliance built a single PBS and used it you'd have around the clock people, individual corps just can't do this now, not yours, not his, and not mine. As such these PBS structures need to take a very large number of people, or at the least a moderate number of people fielding some expensive toys to tackle when even lightly defended by players. Granted there will be a fine line where you should be able to take only a few guys and whittle down a PBS when the defenders arn't online, but this should not by any means be a quick thing, it should a very long time to destroy a huge investment in time and resources with little risk in assets in doing so. Again this comes down to the good old, "Risk vs reward".

Adding a line break here because honestly it needs one so your eyes don't bleed. Continuing that last paragraph, if we go your way Lemon and make it so easy to walk into a PBS base or destroy the structures, your corp (Assuming your corp makes a PBS.) will suffer this effect and much as mine or anyone elses. One night all members in someone corp will gather around their timezone and walk into your PBS when 90-100% of your corp/alliance is offline. (Quite common with current pop.) And simply undo a months worth of work if not more. Yes they wont be able to take the actual base due to invuln, but they will remove all defenses, all facilities, all mining outposts, etc. To where even if you drive them off when you get back online, your still back where you started a month ago. Now all this in based on "current" base specs on the test server, I know I personally could wipe out a ton of structures in only a 4 hour window. (Yes terraforming defenses would slow this way down.) with a few of my combat alts and tank several towers with 2 RR alts supporting them easily. now this is "just me" let alone a whole corp doing this, or even just a whole squad. But enough on this topic, I'm making a wall'o'text here.

Last topic, the reward. Now again I agree with lupus mainly. There does need to be adaquite reward for such massive risk or if you prefer... massive investment in a Gamma island and PBS. Now we do get some as you pointed out, best facilities in the game. However note that with changes to the indy system, basic facilities will matter far far less than they do now. Though the CT combination facility is definitely a another benefit. You mention the epeen of obtaining one and slapping your corp's name on it. This doesn't in itself make having something worthwhile to many people, just as I personally find achievements in games to be utterly stupid and not worth my time. (Unless they provide a actual benefit to me.) Now some will love that, I take it from what you said that this does appeal to you, and that's great, in fact that means you gain something I simply can't. But you can't expect that to be the case for everyone.

Well I guess I did list two perfectly good benefits of a Gamma island, maybe it's just me but I think it needs something more for all that effort and risk of losing so much investment. (Yes as you can guess I'm all about gaining profit, that's my endgame along with fun pvp battles.) I "personally" would like to see Gamma materials used in destroyer mechs and only able to be built on Gamma islands. Thus making them high cost and high risk as someone could destroy the factory making them. (They should still be able to be shipped and used on alpha islands, to allow future budding corp/alliances to rise up and take over gamma islands that are being poorly defended.

I think Gamma islands NEED to be defended by players to repel attacks, turrets SHOULD NOT repel determined forces, however it should take a fairly large amount of time to destroy structures and turrets without bringing some major firepower. After all those structures cost a LOT to currently make (Especially the higher tier ones.) and at live will take a fair amount of time to build. They should be worth that cost in effectiveness, and so they don't insta kill attackers, that means they should have sizable amounts of armor to make them take time to destroy. (Unless you as an attacker bring a large investment thus taking a large risk yourself to make destroying them faster and more successful.

Christ that was one long post. I'd make a TLDR, but it'd likely end up being a paragraph long. tongue Hope I covered everything, I probably missed a topic.

Oldest player still in the game. Perpetuum for life.
Original Founder of M2S, may it rest in peace. sad
"Hungarian Math" is defined by the dictionary as "Just like normal math, but where each equation ends by dividing the sum by Potato."
-Shoutout to "Stranger Danger" for the "potato" comment.

13 (edited by Blackomen 2012-05-21 06:17:58)

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

Ok I reevaluated base structure hp's, and I see I'm still "partially" correct.

Basically all structures short of the terminal have WAY too low hp still. However they are also way too cheap/easy to build. My solution is vastly increase the costs, and vastly increase the armor of these structures.

However... at the current cost/efficiency ratio, they are actually rather on-par. I just think it's weird these massive buildings would cost as much as assaults/mechs and have a little more hp than them, but do dps like a heavy mech on steroids.

Balanced atm, but horribly useless in their current form is my opinion. I clearly need to do a lot more testing.

Oldest player still in the game. Perpetuum for life.
Original Founder of M2S, may it rest in peace. sad
"Hungarian Math" is defined by the dictionary as "Just like normal math, but where each equation ends by dividing the sum by Potato."
-Shoutout to "Stranger Danger" for the "potato" comment.

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

Blackomen wrote:

Valid Argument

Oh joy, someone to actually get in to a proper discussion with big_smile
(With 10 days yes i am on these forums like a hawk)

@Destroyers - I am not against destroyers being gamma built or using gamma resources. Just saying they arn't ready

@Artillery - I do believe there is a small slight difference in HM's to artillery but again this is off track and something we can cover in feature discussion and i am sure we can double the walls of texts alone on this concept. (Food for thought though the estimated leaked cost of 1 round equates to firing a kain at your enemy)


@ Alpha Market - *** may have been the wrong term but Lucian is who i was referring to as with the absence of lupus he has not had much competition to my knowledge for quite awhile running the alpha markets. It has less to do with the market issues and more along the lines of extended prepping and the downfall it could have. We look back to M2S at release and the precision used to execute there launch at live, i am sure you can understand the threat of such knowledge given extended time frames. (i.e. Stock piling ores that will be across the world for months prior to your gamma move) Thus being able to fully function on a say Yellow Gamma and never need to take any focus off your island to stray for those now hard to attain minerals. On top the already what was it 1000 sequer's used to insurance fraud and knowing the increase in cost i am sure the near same volume of mechs is being made by many corps to offset the increase in cost. I am not trying to bash M2S just they have the best examples.

@Weak PBS - I do believe the (Human Element) is quite large when balancing or viewing this balance as a Gamma outpost under the current mechanics supplemented with proper terrain and a small force (less than 10 bots) could easily fend off 30 maybe even 50. a certain level of (for sake of argument) "Skill" is required in the designing of a proper system with the current values. *increasing this to reflect destroyers sieging should be done with destroyers)* You speak of making it easy to walk up to a PBS, this is only relative to the skill of the designer.

a "Proper" PBS that will survive on Gamma needs 3 key elements to succeed Terrain/Defense structures/Players. With out 1 it can easily crumble as you said you your self could penetrate your turret system. I would argue that i can guarantee you that your bot army would be unable to surpass my base simply supplemented by me alone defending it. Now this is no bash to you but rather shows my confidence in my design. I would argue changing the values on buildings/turrets and anything else for that matter should scale with larger bots and increased population. I will tell you right now the number of bases that burn, will be many but as soon as people catch on as to how to do it correctly that number will go down. (if i start listing examples we can go on for days posting in text counter for counter for counter of counters) but as a example a full tuning T4+ Gauss Vangaurd mesmer could not out dps a repair node on a unboosted structure. One would retort with the delay in the activation of the node by saying you could alpha it down before it activated. Should a force be allowed to hold a gamma if they let a fleet circle up to alpha a structure down?

I think Gamma islands NEED to be defended by players to repel attacks, turrets SHOULD NOT repel determined forces

I want to look just at this line you said as this is the exact same way i view it.

We can safely assume that only a handful of the current players are able to "think" the next FOTM up, these exact same players will/should have the ability to see the current system and understand how to design a system to do what you just said.

BUT There is 1 element that makes this true or not based on the current system... that is the speed at which you can mass terraform. As long as a group of players would be unable to terraform my terraformed defence away in my downtime (if i have any, i shouldn't) then i would never lose my PBS, until it came under proper siege by a full force which with my current corps size would require 50+ with to my knowledge only 1 or 2 people who i think could lead them to do it.

P.S. tough argument to fight since if i go "Here look this is what i mean *link to plan*" i just gave you my play book.

Undefeated 2013
"Even alone you probably are one of the best" - Khader Khan
"Lemon the 1 man army .... also know as: THE TERMINATOR!" - Obi Wan
"There are people who are just better then you at doing many things at one time, some are far better then myself, far better." -Merkle

15 (edited by Blackomen 2012-05-21 09:00:17)

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

I'll try and be brief about this as it's 2:30 in the morning and I need sleep.

@destroyers
We seem to be in agreement here.

@artillary
Cost of a kain? I must be out of the loop on that one.

@Alpha market
Yeah I was there on launch, and I can say I do not miss mining for 18 hours a day in an argano. As to the rest, I agree all those elements will be used before any major patch where we get knowledge of the changes in advance. After launch it will take a while, but eventually stockpiles will run out. And I take no offense at using us as an example. We've always been a underhanded bunch. tongue

@weak pbs
Ratio seems about right, what I was aiming at was when someone attacks a undefended base due to offtimes. The base needs to hold back attackers (Not kill them unless they are idiots.) for a given amount of time per turret/defense. This allows the defenders to log back in before everything short of the terminal is obliterated.

Now as to your mention of a impenetrable pbs. I have seen some clever designs and tried my hand a few myself, and with a HUGE amount of effort you could make some crazy ones with valleys for moats and a single bridge onto the PBS area, still these are not going to be impenetrable. You mention being able to single handedly defend the base, was this in mention of being against just me and alts attacking? If so perhaps, as I lack enough combat accounts to single volley towers, if I did, I'm confident I could overwhelm you alone defending no matter your base design. (Well unless you brought an equal number of combat accounts as me, but then the matter isn't really about the base at all.) Your moats/terrain would slow me way down, the towers would be quickly vaporized by single volleys but still take a while in numbers, the issue lies in a single player (Yes granted with multiple accounts.) being able to undo a great amount of work in "relatively" short time.

Now it's possible you found some sort of secret exploit/bug/or just some sort of clever trick noone else has (Hey I've done it myself.) that grants your base some sort of massive defense advantage, in which case yes it may well be invulnerable, but it'll likely be fixed/removed at some point to prevent invuln bases. My issue is I just want bases to "feel" like bases, and not a some sort of sandbag emplacement with a few machineguns around it. And the way they currently have bases set up for defense I find... horrible. It's the armor values and low costs that are really getting to me. It makes no sense that this massive structure with a deathray on it should cost less than a mech, and be made of tissue paper, it's like placing a real functioning rocket launcher on top of a kid's cardboard box made into a playhouse. Yeah it can do damage, but if it rains...

Anyway, love to debate this more tomorrow. But it's already way too late.

Oldest player still in the game. Perpetuum for life.
Original Founder of M2S, may it rest in peace. sad
"Hungarian Math" is defined by the dictionary as "Just like normal math, but where each equation ends by dividing the sum by Potato."
-Shoutout to "Stranger Danger" for the "potato" comment.

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

Blackomen u back \0/

on topic:
PBS system is a very complicated and complex set of tools, what will work only in a server with a big population, whats obvious when you look at the buildings, especially turrets, parameters like HP, cost and damage. Else: is a details.

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

/agree with most of what has been posted.

Would like to see exactly what the devs are planning on pushing as a final product. To my knowledge there are still quite a few missing animations for mods and buildings. If they are all done then I says tweak the buildings DPS and start requesting PVB assault runs on the test server to see for yourselves. After that tweak them again and see what it looks like. The final product shouldn't require a knee jerk after release, a subtle finger flick or eyelid blink should be all thats needed to push things back to balance.

Skip this if you don't want my opinions in detail.

1. Terraforming: Seems cool is slow @ test server must be painfull on live server.
2. PBS and buildings: All seem a little week perhaps raise the HP and add some more points to resists or allow us to put up resist towers.
3. Turrets: All turrets are also weak in armor. Would like to see some other turret designs as well. (sniper turrets high range high alpha but very slow cycle Hint hint....)
4. New Mods. Haven't tested them in about a week but last test showed the Zenith becoming a beast with the Vaga lacking in some areas. Suggested get rid of suppressor tunings addition range de-buff and give ECM tuning a cycle time %-.
5. Research of PBS seems to be inline with all other research.
6. New scanning. Worked after the patch seems to be fine.
7. Distrobution of Minerals/Plants was needed for a long time and may if nothing else cause players to have a 2nd set of bots on a different color island.

Things that IMO should be included in this Expansion that aren't
1. Focused research. The abality to select a item or even a tree of items to focus your research on even if it costs you more kernals is needed.
2. Spark Teleport. At a cost and cool down you spark is teleported to a station that you must visit and set as your teleport station.

TL:DR
All is good if animations and finishing touches are being done to expansion let it rip. However please don't release it to early if more balance and fine tuning are needed. Lots of interesting threads in this section to read on whats "OP" or "Broke" or "IMBA" please devs read them and test them also before plunging ahead with the new chapter.

Participate, Congratulate cause everything else will be seen as HATE.
Max yellow max all skills lvl 10 min max for the win

18 (edited by Crepitus 2012-05-21 13:40:01)

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

Alexadar wrote:

Blackomen u back \0/

on topic:
PBS system is a very complicated and complex set of tools, what will work only in a server with a big population, whats obvious when you look at the buildings, especially turrets, parameters like HP, cost and damage. Else: is a details.

That's something I really don't get there.  The focus in game seems to have been towards making mechanics based around thousands of players that don't exist for some time now.  I remember listening to Gremrod's podcast with a bunch of CEOs before I left game like 10 months ago and it was entirely dedicated to extra corp management features that would only have benefited the megacorps at the time and they had the DEV's ear.

Fast forward to now and most of the corps who were there talking are gone or massively different than they were at the time with less than a quarter of the population in game.

This is a good discussion though and was a good read through.  It seems pretty clear, this patch is nowhere near ready, and that makes me fear for the future since the only thing that will give this game a sustained pop boost is a.) more content b.) specifically more good pve content and that's not even in the idea stages afiak.

Population graphs

<GM Synapse> please don't abuse our fresh players before blowing them up. And for god sakes, don't do that after it!

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

I have a suggestion for everyone, STOP TYPING A *** NOVEL.  About the third sentence I go this *** boring.

Steam achievement Unlocked:  Being a Badass
http://www.perp-kill.net/kill/239407
Dev Zoom: I think its time to confess, Ville is my alt
Dev Zoom: Ville can be sometimes so sane it's scary.

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

Ville wrote:

I have a suggestion for everyone, STOP TYPING A *** NOVEL.  About the third sentence I go this *** boring.


Ville you count periods? Wait what?

Participate, Congratulate cause everything else will be seen as HATE.
Max yellow max all skills lvl 10 min max for the win

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

Not to ignore some of the valid points above, but I am all for an aggressive implementation timeline, with time after implementation allocated to make tweaks and fix things as needed. 

Otherwise -  the devs continue to allocate development time to this rollout, instead of implementing the "next" set of new features. 

Keep the new content coming folks, and I'll be here forever, in exchange for new content faster, I promise to have patience when things aren't 100% balanced on day 1 of rollout.

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

Deathmonkey wrote:

Keep the new content coming folks, and I'll be here forever, in exchange for new content faster, I promise to have patience when things aren't 100% balanced on day 1 of rollout.


Guess you didn't sell off your epi reserves to fuel your wall spam then have walls nerfed and told you won't get refunded. I'd much rather see a 97% balanced product with some minor tweaking then the 50-100% knee jerks we have been getting prior to the test server. Small list of knee jerks

Assault bots X2

Proxy detect mine X1 (complete rework including refund)

Walls X2

Quite a few other bots were knee jerked while the game was still in its opening months FOTM nerfs.

Participate, Congratulate cause everything else will be seen as HATE.
Max yellow max all skills lvl 10 min max for the win

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

True, but how many changes were implemented and didn't need a change or major nerf?   

If they're batting 75% - IMO - that's a good number.

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

50k ft view -

This expansion needs to launch, it needs to launch sooner than later. Giving a hard launch date is the best thing they could have done.

Will it be ready for launch in 2 weeks? Yes, most likely; given the proper definition of 'ready'.

Looking at the elements of the launch in relation to preparedness.

Bugs - No, this launch does not have to be completely bug free. Issues that make the ENTIRE game unplayable must be dealt with. At this time, the only known one seems to be the video card issue; as example. But also, any new bugs introduced into the existing alpha and beta mechanics, and any new mechanics associated with that play, like factory and mining.

PVP combat Balance changes - the only real change is the introduction of the new Ewar/neut modules. When have any new modules been 100% balanced at release? As long as the devs keep a close eye on this they can tweak them as needed, with only a slight impact on the overall PVP play. (And they've already got some good feedback in the ew thread).

Industrial Changes - These are tricker, since they are sweeping changes. But again, the balance doesn't have to be perfect. There's enough 'wiggle' in industry that if they get the material and time production values off (even by as much as 20%) it won't be the end of the world.

Gathering Changes - There's a difference between making changes players don't like and making changes that are bad. Mining is one of those, that again has gotten a lot of input already, and if players simply hate the new random ore mechanic, their input after it goes live can still make a difference. As long as the ore isn't actually bugged, it won't break the production cycle; as long as miners can get the ore the balance can be adjusted, even if they don't like doing it.

Gamma/Coloney system - Realistically, what percentage of the player "current" base is going to be able to fully utilize and build on gamma? Not many. And the 'draw' of this capabilty for new players is large, but unless they get recruited into existing corps, they too aren't going to be participating in gamma any time soon after release.

Will there need to be balance changes, absolutely. Could they possibly think of and make those changes without going live? Unlikely. Even with another 2 months of server testing.

As for costs and rewards - Just like in any sandbox game, the Mantra

"Don't risk what you can't afford to lose"

MUST be applied to gamma too. We've been given the opportunity to see how well base defenses work, if a corporation or alliance chooses to ignore the PTS opportunity and go in blind, then that's an Unecessary additional risk. If they have, then they'll know before hand how many players they'll need to supplement their defenses. If they don't have enough, then they should consider not trying to build a Coloney.

50k ft view again - It's up to the players to create with the tools we're given. As long as they work correctly, we're going to have to put them into action to see how they do. Near launch, someone undocked in a Prototype mech and got blown up. Should the devs have put a mechanic into the game that prevented them from doing so, simply because it was a terrible waste of resources? No.

Players are very excited about gamma, and rightfully so, and they want to jump in there and explore and use the new system. But we all know going in, that there will be losses, that automatted defenses can't fully protect a colony, and that some tweaks will be made after release. Don't build what you can't afford to lose.

Just because something new is added to the game, doesn't mean that it should be scaled to allow players to use it immediately.

tl;dr - As long as the Colony expansion is VERY functionally stable, and the major balance issues such as 1000m TF are caught, it should go live. Base defense has too many elements to fully test balance issues on PTS and is highly dependant on corp/alliance size. Players simply need to exercise the same judgement with gamma as they would with undocking any bot.

Re: May 30th release - People's thoughts

+1 Arga - great post.