Topic: I2.0 Saps

Short and simple:

Passive Sap: time frame needs to be  increased to 10 mins.

Specimen Sap:  Needs to either be eliminated or be scaled down drastically.

Active Sap:  Could use a bump in time but currently fine

Destruction Sap:  Need more Armor,

Possible creation of new saps include spawning a large elite mob squad and when they destroyed the Sap is taken.  You could also put an item you have to interact with behind all those mobs.  Nic sink Sap, costs 5-10 million to destabilize.  There's a whole host of ideas in the discussion forum.

These ideas have been suggested else were but I figured I would combine the thoughts here minus corp dialogues.

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Re: I2.0 Saps

Ville, a more sap oriented post is a good idea.

Can you elaborate on why these SAPs need to be changed as suggested, and how it will effect both offense and defense of the SAPs from the current settings.

Thanks

Re: I2.0 Saps

I think what Ville is trying to say is that the SAP's need changing so that taking them requires a projection of military force by the attackers. Meaning, SAP's shouldn't really be something you take with 2-3 light bots which are a throw-away investment, but can reduce your opponents facilities by 1 or 2.

That is what we see as "wrong" in the balance department. Otherwise Intrusion 2.0 is a GREAT patch because it actually gives players a reason to be logged in.

Re: I2.0 Saps

I understand that from the other threads, what dialog I was hoping to open up is the estimiated size and durability of the offense compared to the defensive power to counter it.

Making SAP's easier to defend is OK, but the assumption here is that the outpost owner should have a persistant and sizeable presence on beta to maintain stability.

Remember that each SAP has only a small effect on stability and losing 1 or 2 does not mean loss of control of an outpost.

The playabilty of the SAP's is different to balancing them to acheive the desired result. It may be that trying to get presence on Beta through SAP's is the complete wrong answer, in which case minor adjustments to the SAP's won't fix it.

5 (edited by Celebro 2011-12-09 02:48:56)

Re: I2.0 Saps

Agree with OP 100%, you just can't have defenders doing nothing for 1 hour looking at the sap and when u have to leave a couple of minutes for some biological reasons some comes and take it. This is not balanced.

Edit: getting tired of the (I2.0) tag, Intrusion is Intrusion and a sap is a sap, the rest is history:P

RIP PERPETUUM

6 (edited by Ville 2011-12-09 02:52:52)

Re: I2.0 Saps

The problem with passive saps is anything with a shield and any type of shield skills can survive sustainable damage for 2.5 mins.  The 62nd Ictus is a prime example.  Say group A who is composed of assaults/lights goes out to defend their passive sap.  Passive sap goes live and out of the blue a SINGLE trioar mk2 shows up.  He shows up at 1k group a moves to engage.  Let's say that group A has a demobing and engages the trioar mk2 at let's say 300m.  The Trioar MK2 has enough time at 30kph to roll to the Sap and sit there 2.5 mins and  tank the damage and complete the Sap within the hour allocated time.  10 mins gives the defender time to "counter" the attacker. 

I have seen this for two days now.   Defenders engage the main attackers kill them all, the attackers gather more people and refit to counter the defenders who have left a respectable smaller defense group on  the sap and while the main group engages the attackers a Single Trioar MK2 comes in sits on the Sap tanks 2 heavy mechs various assaults and two other trioar mk2s draining it.  Then takes the sap.

At 10 mins this gives the Fc nail bitting time to get an ictus half way across the map.  Because at 150 secs its less then 5% of the total intrusion time that leaves very low margin for the defender to screw up.

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Re: I2.0 Saps

Arga wrote:

I understand that from the other threads, what dialog I was hoping to open up is the estimiated size and durability of the offense compared to the defensive power to counter it.

Making SAP's easier to defend is OK, but the assumption here is that the outpost owner should have a persistant and sizeable presence on beta to maintain stability.

Remember that each SAP has only a small effect on stability and losing 1 or 2 does not mean loss of control of an outpost.

The playabilty of the SAP's is different to balancing them to acheive the desired result. It may be that trying to get presence on Beta through SAP's is the complete wrong answer, in which case minor adjustments to the SAP's won't fix it.

I have to disagree with you Arga.

The point is that the defenders are twiddling their thumbs for an hour with no other recourse, since being on stand-by for possible incoming means just that; you can't farm or mine (refit with incoming? empty loot can with incoming?), you can't mine (drive miners back to get into support bots? log them out? empty loot can?) because the SAPs are that fragile that a 4-5 ewar group can take them.

Each SAP is equal to at least 1 upgrade to Facilities, which makes them very valuable to keep. Making a vicious circle of forcing people to play WOT/Skyrim while alt-tabbed from Perpetuum and wait for pokes/shouts if there's incoming, since there is minimal delay between enemy reaching SAP and enemy completing SAP. Especially with the Destruction SAP which is completed if you fart at it the right way.

The difficulty of the SAP's needs to be brought in line where YES, the defender has to commit their players and assets to defend like now, but the attacker should also have to commit a sizeable fleet to have a chance at completing it. Definitely not 4-5 light bots and if it goes it goes, if it doesn't who cares nothing was lost.

Re: I2.0 Saps

Also I have attacked three outposts so far with a small group and all three have been specimens sad so we waited for forty five so a ahhh man ***.

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Re: I2.0 Saps

Naismith wrote:

The point is that the defenders are twiddling their thumbs for an hour with no other recourse, since being on stand-by for possible incoming means just that; you can't farm or mine (refit with incoming? empty loot can with incoming?), you can't mine (drive miners back to get into support bots? log them out? empty loot can?) because the SAPs are that fragile that a 4-5 ewar group can take them.

You can kill these pesky E-wars if you have the right squad one or two assaults or mechs will take them out so long as your present for your SAP vulnerability.

Naismith wrote:

Making a vicious circle of forcing people to play WOT/Skyrim while alt-tabbed

this is why people loose SAP's if you have no interest in the game other than owning an out post then why play. if you are so board you cant chat with corp mates (water cooler discussions) for an hour your corp must be pretty boring. no one is forcing you to be in game, if you dont want to play then dont. Why complain that you have to play... here forward no one will own outposts if they are inactive. 

Naismith wrote:

The difficulty of the SAP's needs to be brought in line where YES, the defender has to commit their players and assets to defend like now, but the attacker should also have to commit a sizeable fleet to have a chance at completing it. Definitely not 4-5 light bots and if it goes it goes, if it doesn't who cares nothing was lost.

There is balance, the balance is that you dont have to shoot at your opponent for 1hr or until they stop bringing bots then shoot the SAP for another 1hr. 2.0 is targeted at small skirmishes not huge EPIC LOLZZOMYGOD !! battles. timers are good it makes it so attacking a active or passive is possible and not make it so the defender can take a coffee break and then bring their 10 billion mechs to stop you. if the defender is present and actively defending their outpost they will keep it (unless the attacker out shoots or out smarts them)

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Re: I2.0 Saps

I am thinking on a small corp scale.  These Saps are not set in place to support "Smaller" Corps.  These Saps are setup for the Zerg.  Who can funnel in the most bots and the most tanks during which timezones.  Tux you tanked this squad for a solid 2 mins: http://perp-kill.net/?m=view&id=11032.  This is not a "pesky" ewar, this is an inbalance issue.  That needs to be resolved, IMMEDIATELY.  I Very distinctively remember before the ERP nerf someone saying " I don't want to have to ALWAYS bring an Ictus to fight this fit."  We don't want to ALWAYs have to build our defense squad around a bot that costs less then 10 Mill to fully fit.

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Re: I2.0 Saps

Reading through the intrusion blogs again, I really don't think defenders are expected to win every intrusion.

Dev Blog  wrote:

To make another example on the big picture, if you own an outpost with 100 stability, you have to lose about 7-8 intrusions in a row (7*15=105, depends on SAP types of course) to lose that outpost. This means around 3-5 days of minimum buffer time, depending on how much the gods of randomness favor you (ie. the 8-16 hour intervals).

There are (4) types of possible intrusions, and by far the speciman highly favors the outpost owner, and it provide 2x the stability of a passive SAP.

Defense without attackers is boring. It doesn't matter what game your playing, sitting around waiting to be attacked really does suck. This is why roaming become so popular in the first place.


Ville wrote:

I have seen this for two days now.   Defenders engage the main attackers kill them all, the attackers gather more people and refit to counter the defenders who have left a respectable smaller defense group on  the sap and while the main group engages the attackers a Single Trioar MK2 comes in sits on the Sap tanks 2 heavy mechs various assaults and two other trioar mk2s draining it.  Then takes the sap.

this sounds like PVP ...

When intrusions were every 3 days and people had to sign up, very little PVP happened. It was all roaming.

Outpost owners now have to actually come out to defend daily, which by all accounts have triggered a very large amount of PVP battles, which is exactly what everyone wanted. The exact opposite of boring.

There's only a 1-4 chance the SAP will be passive and vulnerable to the ninja ewars, and you lose 10%. If the attacking force is larger and ready to take any of the SAPs, or continues to attack for the whole hour, than that's PVP brough to your doorstep!

Its just my opinion, but I dont think a corp with 50 active players should hold an outpost. They CAN do it, but they'll have to play everyday, 3-4 hours a day to do it. A corp with 600 players should be able to easily stabilize an outpost, although they may lose a SAP now and then anyway.

The fact that we don't have the server population to support corps of that size, in and of it self, doesn't mean that the mechanics should change so 50 man corps can have outposts at 100%.

Not to get too far off topic, but our population is HIGHLY fractured. Player are holding onto corporate identities, which is great, but its making the game very hard to play. If alliance tools will allow 10 corps of 30 players each to have and hold an outpost, then maybe that's what's needed, not SAP changes.

except for Destruction, where doubling the armor and having it start at 1/2 is just too good of an idea to ignore, because it doesn't give the defender an automatic bonus, they have to actually go out and actively heal it up. Other suggestions like that, which makes the SAP's more interesting  and not just easier to defend, make the game better.

Re: I2.0 Saps

Ville wrote:

I am thinking on a small corp scale.  These Saps are not set in place to support "Smaller" Corps.  These Saps are setup for the Zerg.  Who can funnel in the most bots and the most tanks during which timezones.  Tux you tanked this squad for a solid 2 mins: http://perp-kill.net/?m=view&id=11032.  This is not a "pesky" ewar, this is an inbalance issue.  That needs to be resolved, IMMEDIATELY.  I Very distinctively remember before the ERP nerf someone saying " I don't want to have to ALWAYS bring an Ictus to fight this fit."  We don't want to ALWAYs have to build our defense squad around a bot that costs less then 10 Mill to fully fit.

Ville, in regards to the kill you linked I believe that

Naismith remarked in GC "We had some epic fights with 62nd this morning"
You yourself quoted the battle as 38 losses for us, 7 for you (jn the forums)
We fought for about an hour and a half
In the end, Tux died with about 30 seconds left on the Sap so you were successful in the defense
It was a blast, not a boring sitting and wait for Sap to be done

What is the problem? I don't see one here. I2.0 worked as intended and we all had fun. Win some, lose some.

I have no problem with the blob, because it means we can and will use the same tactic if the opportunity presents itself. Fighting against a blob for me it means a greater challenge which I enjoy. And I have no problem with alliances, I prefer a strong enemy as much as I enjoy fighting with 62nd.

The Saps may need tweaking. But it think its still too early to judge. In the meantime let's have more good fights, m'kay?

The sandbox "boundaries" have to reflect upon all players. The Devs are attempting to show this by having a small possible force take a Sap. At least its not inclusive to only large forces. But, somehow I do agree with the sentiment that they shouldn't be too easy. Not sure what the right balance here is. Time will tell.

Re: I2.0 Saps

Zoom posted that they will be tweaking the SAP timers a little. I hope they make the destruction change too.

Re: I2.0 Saps

Ville - your neuting guys HAVE to work on "Convergent Electrostatics" (as seen in tournament) a bit more...


about the topic - everyday, every hour constant pvp will wear out many player, im sure. Hopefully not as fast as other patches... 

We will see what will be down first - robot/equipment stock, or playercount wink

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15 (edited by Mara Kaid Pirate of Nia 2011-12-09 18:35:14)

Re: I2.0 Saps

small groups can take saps.

The specimen is a pain in the ***, and is hard for them.
The destructive, active and passive we've taken straight under a groups back.

I think the destructive was too easy.

Tux's main point is right, the game now is becoming about being active and involved. If you're not active, or bored, or playing something else, then so be it and you loose control. These control points have given many people goals to do, and it's great! We're having a great time.

16 (edited by Arga 2011-12-09 19:05:21)

Re: I2.0 Saps

Annihilator wrote:

Ville - your neuting guys HAVE to work on "Convergent Electrostatics" (as seen in tournament) a bit more...


about the topic - everyday, every hour constant pvp will wear out many player, im sure. Hopefully not as fast as other patches... 

We will see what will be down first - robot/equipment stock, or playercount wink

That works for both attackers and defenders. There are fairly large stocks of equipment now, but outpost oweners are going to neeed to use those auras and level 4 facilities to keep their stocks up. But that is what those bonuses are for, to maintain stock, not to get 1000 units in reserve. Your a target with an outpost, so you'll need that bonus to counter being attacked.

but yeah, manpower and burnout will be an issue, which is why I don't think corps with less than 100 players (30+ active at any time) will be able to sustain ownership of an outpost. And that has to include miners and producers as much as combat troops.

Pirate corps don't need a lot of bots to ninja saps, but then again the defenders aren't going to lose a lot of bots to that type of threat.

Syndic and the other beta leaders know what it was like those first few months after launch, the constant harrasment preventing alliances from using beta to get resources, continually having corps sign up for your intrusions.

It's going to be a struggle, especially for corps with small number of active players.

Edit: Can the only two choices be Burn-out or Bordom?

17 (edited by Tux 2011-12-10 13:16:15)

Re: I2.0 Saps

Ville wrote:

I am thinking on a small corp scale.  These Saps are not set in place to support "Smaller" Corps.  These Saps are setup for the Zerg.  Who can funnel in the most bots and the most tanks during which timezones.  Tux you tanked this squad for a solid 2 mins: http://perp-kill.net/?m=view&id=11032.  This is not a "pesky" ewar, this is an inbalance issue.  That needs to be resolved, IMMEDIATELY.  I Very distinctively remember before the ERP nerf someone saying " I don't want to have to ALWAYS bring an Ictus to fight this fit."  We don't want to ALWAYs have to build our defense squad around a bot that costs less then 10 Mill to fully fit.

LOLWTFZOMYGOD !!! you think the MK2 needs ANOTHER nerf ??? if the two guys you had in the troiars neuting me were actually skilled players then i may have gone down before i made it 3/4 of the way to the exit TP where the rest of your blob intercepted and killed me. The game does not need to be dumb ed down the the lowest common denominator people just need to learn how to play. needing 15 guys it kill 1 isnt a show of power its a display of "Im going to throw everything I have at you until something works" 1 skilled player could have taken me down if they brought the right fit, but because you are lacking you brought everything in the sector to come kill me .. .  but you know what it was fun as hell taking that &*(% right in front of you ....



oh and it was well over 2 minutes lol

Tux ~ Kill the messenger, he was part of it all along.
Euripides ~ Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
Bertrand Russell ~ War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

Re: I2.0 Saps

Are we getting into the debate "why as a skilled player I can't have fun?"

Go back to the lemons nerf with all that erp/repairs, no more armor tanks!

Or go back to the change with ECCM, 2 fitted on a heavy mechs gets my ECM pilot skills back to day 1!

They are not balancing the game for skilled pilots, so don't cry wink

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Re: I2.0 Saps

Norrdec wrote:

They are not balancing the game for skilled pilots, so don't cry wink

They aren't balancing the game for skilled pilots, and they aren't balancing the game for corps interested in keeping assets in beta. So who has any suggestion as to what the dev agenda is?

Re: I2.0 Saps

Atticus wrote:

Ville, in regards to the kill you linked I believe that

Naismith remarked in GC "We had some epic fights with 62nd this morning"
You yourself quoted the battle as 38 losses for us, 7 for you (jn the forums)
We fought for about an hour and a half
In the end, Tux died with about 30 seconds left on the Sap so you were successful in the defense
It was a blast, not a boring sitting and wait for Sap to be done

What is the problem? I don't see one here. I2.0 worked as intended and we all had fun. Win some, lose some.

I think we can agree that this system would be a LOT more fun if there was 600-700 players online in Perpetuum instead of 70-180.

I think it's a great patch, but unfortunately because of the microscopic population we are ending up with waiting for 1 hour where otherwise we'd be having fights more frequently. Sure, the SAP's could do a bit of tweaking, but then again every patch needs a bit of balance-tweaking before it hits the sweet spot.

Perpetuum is a lot better, more fluent and more involving because of Intrusion 2.0.

Re: I2.0 Saps

http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/post/55506/#p55506

to be back on topic... changes are going to be made... i just wonder when?

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Re: I2.0 Saps

Naismith wrote:

I think we can agree that this system would be a LOT more fun if there was 600-700 players online in Perpetuum instead of 70-180.

I think it's a great patch, but unfortunately because of the microscopic population we are ending up with waiting for 1 hour where otherwise we'd be having fights more frequently. Sure, the SAP's could do a bit of tweaking, but then again every patch needs a bit of balance-tweaking before it hits the sweet spot.

Perpetuum is a lot better, more fluent and more involving because of Intrusion 2.0.

If you weren't blue and had NAPs/sap agreements with 60-140 of those active pvp'ers maybe you wouldn't be starving for pvp or maybe this patch would be as fun for you as it is for us. Oh wait your not starving? you just like to fight (blob) small non-conformist corps. Face it you need people like 62nd or the game would be boring to you. With out us there would be no you.

Now post something relevant to the topic.

Saps make them have a 30 min timer where you must defend after 30 mins of defending you can take the sap yourself for your corp..... This means your Alliance will still suffer the 1 hour wait if you have multi-Timezone alliances.

Passive sap is alittle to easy and should be 300 points to take
Active is about right as an ECM would ruin your day
Destructive tripple its current HP allow us to double that by repping it.
Speciman ..... This isn't a I2.0 friendly sap change it to Energy sap as stated or make it ammo dump point like it wants 5000 rounds of x ammo not the random crap it wants now make it something that normal PVP roamers might carry.

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23 (edited by Cool Britainya 2011-12-12 03:42:28)

Re: I2.0 Saps

problem is ppl are bypassing the need for sap scans... all u need is an scout bot just in range of a active sap.. u'll see the defenders group up bored to tears on the sap... given that they're forced to group on the sap bored *** for an hr... the scout relays intel on numbers... then waits for blob to hit...
result insane boredom for defenders... couple mins of WTFOHSHIT... and LOLS for the attackers
Piss poor pvp for defenders and if honest.. for the attackers as well...
No wonder ppl are leaving game since I2.0...

And leaving in droves.. for a patch it wasn't bad.. yet the results of the patch were and are catastrophic...

Re: I2.0 Saps

For a patch that was meant to revolutionise pvp... it has... its killed it...
30% of the beta population has gone.
And thats only within a month.

Re: I2.0 Saps

Which personally I don't  understand tbh.  How hard is it to roam in some assaults popping saps all day?  I been having a blast!

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