1st week Impressions + suggestions

Suggestions Levelling and Economy
#1

Hello I’ve been playing Star Conflict for a week or so now and I must say I love it. For a long time I’ve been wanting a Multiplayer Online game (in which Star Conflit is since its not a true MMO since it lacks the Massive world to freely explore) Ever since Black Prophecy shut down I was thinking I’d never see a good Online space themed shooter. The hanger interface, chat,  and ship unlocking tree and module slots is remniscent of World of Tanks, which isn’t a bad thing since it helped me familiarize myself with Star Conflict faster. As stated I love the game but now tiime to get to suggestions and pointing out horrible game design and recommended fixes.

 

No TLDR, seriously giving feed back, observations of game mechanics / exploits, and suggestions to fix them.

 

Rank 12’s competing in Tier 2 and their Implants

I noticed playing against certain players, in squads who were rank 12 in Empire, Fed, Jericho main factions and had access to all implants could jump into lower tier ships and retain their higher rank implants and flat out dominate the entire match. I see this as an exploit because there is no way whatsoever a player who truly just reached Rank 3 in a tier 2 ship can EVER match a Rank 12 using the same T2 ship and R12 implants. This is very bad in several ways 1) It is unfair to new players who will keep experiencing these lop sided matches and then just leave because they will never win which will cause them to just quit, 2) which in turns hurts the entire game overall since you need the community to thrive.

 

Solutions

  1. Limit implant tiers ‘activated’ by the rank of ship you have, if I have a rank 3 ship but I am rank 9 only my implants up to rank 3 will be activated. This is the best solution for the long term to keep high rank players from dominating in lower tier ships / matches.

  2. Full reset (which should have been done before open beta, but should not be done since your more liable to loose your veteran players)

 

Match Making

So far I think the match making has been relatively fair in PvP, I don’t think there is too much difference (in stats) between T1 and T2 ships the thing that makes some of these matches unbalanced is that Implants are not limited by rank of ship. Match making in PvE though can be really skewed, sometimes T1’s can be paired up with T3 and since PvE difficulty is based on the highest tier ship a T1 might as well try to piss and spit on the bosses.

 

Looting

I like the looting system but one thing that would upset me is when I had only T1 ships I’d get T2 modules as rewards, which were useless at the time to me lol. And now that I’m T2 I sometimes get T3 modules which- again- are useless to me at the moment. If I’m a lower tier and compete in a higher tier difficulty then the loot I get should probably have a higher chance of being Experimental for my tier (not a huge jump in % chance but just a slightly higher than normal).

 

Main Faction, Sub Faction, Synergy, Money Gain

In my week long playing this game here’s how fast It seems I gained the above

  1. Synergy

  2. Main Faction

  3. Money

  4. Sub Faction

 

It felt like I would gain synergy the fastest with ships. I bought 3 new ships with 0 Synergy and flew them for about 4 hours before they were all maxed out 5/5. Main faction gain seems still relatively high, I am currently rank 8 and 50% to rank 9 but I’m saving up for Rank 9 Tier 3 ships so I’m still flying Tier 2 ships which brings me to my next thing, Money gain seems relatively slow compared to how fast you can gain Main Faction Experience and gain new tiers of ships and modules which of course are exponentially higher priced and I could never afford a higher tier ship even if I saved every credit not buying modules for my current ships as soon as they became available to me. And the most deplorable and slowest gain is the Sub Faction gain, I am currently Rank 8 I have access to Tier 3 ships but my Armada sub faction is only Rank 5 and I’ve been picking up contracts as fast as they respawn. The more I think about it the more it seems like sub factions are not worth the time investing into because I’ve out ranked the usefuless of the gear they give. if anything I think sub faction gain should be slightly faster than Main Faction gain since you can spread out sub faction gain among the 6 of them.

 

Game Modes

I like the current selection of game modes in PvP but would like to see more than Beacons, you could easilly use a resupply ship, medical ship, command ship, disabled scout ship, Strategic warp gate, or some other military target other than beacons to capture / blow up with EMP bombs. The VIP mode where you have to protect your captain is an interesting game mode but one where I find some people hate it so much they just hop into a Interceptor and become first kill for the other team. I would like to see captains who choose to suicide like this be punished more severely, or captain be transfered to another player when the ally captain dies within the first minute or so. Not really a game breaker but really does suck when it happens

 

I recomend a few more level lay outs, I’d like to fly around a very large space station with jutting spires and having to zoom in and out between them and ships docked to the station. Basically it would be the space equivelent to an Urban City layout. A pure team deathmatch mode in arcade where there’s team dreadnaughts supporting each team and you could destory the flack cannon and missile turrets to make it easier to assault the other teams ‘territory’.

 

More PvE scenarios with proper scaled difficulty for all Tiers, I mean I really thought there was only 1 level in PvE when I first started, but learned of 2 more. I like a bit more variety in PvE or else things get stale.

 

Modules

I like the current selection but needs more Saboutuer =L or some ECM being also saboteur since the definition of sabotage really does apply to what effects that some ECM modules do.

 

Mail System

Recently implemented but I see no point whatsover of this system in the game unless your using it to start a mailing system so players can trade modules with each other, than I’d say cool. But as it is currently implemented I find it much more annoying than useful.

#2

Rank 12’s competing in Tier 2 and their Implants

I noticed playing against certain players, in squads who were rank 12 in Empire, Fed, Jericho main factions and had access to all implants could jump into lower tier ships and retain their higher rank implants and flat out dominate the entire match. I see this as an exploit because there is no way whatsoever a player who truly just reached Rank 3 in a tier 2 ship can EVER match a Rank 12 using the same T2 ship and R12 implants. This is very bad in several ways 1) It is unfair to new players who will keep experiencing these lop sided matches and then just leave because they will never win which will cause them to just quit, 2) which in turns hurts the entire game overall since you need the community to thrive.

 

 

Solutions

1) Limit implant tiers ‘activated’ by the rank of ship you have, if I have a rank 3 ship but I am rank 9 only my implants up to rank 3 will be activated. This is the best solution for the long term to keep high rank players from dominating in lower tier ships / matches.

 

I didn’t read the whole thing since I should really be going to bed, but this is already implemented, implants only activate on ships the same rank or above (so rank 10 implants don’t work on rank 9- ships, but work on rank 10+)

#3

Implants : As said above its already done. No need to reinvent the wheel.

MM : Everyone is discusing this ever since the borders between tiers were open. I opose your opinion(because i dont care about PVE) the problem that gets me there is when T1 is matched vs T3, and T2 vs T4.(PvP)

Looting : I perefere getting higher tier items, than my current, because my current tier ship is most likely fitted already. My problem about looting is that it is repetetive. why do we need to press and hold mouse over some random points. Just give random loot and be done with it.

Gain : I agree with you. Subfaction is quite long, but synergy is just a joke.

Mail System : Bad! I see no point of having all sort of pop-ops of receiving mail. And after that we have to loot evey one of them. Can we got some sort of “Pop-up block” and “auto-loot”?

#4

You know every one says the Implant thing is already implemented but I still can’t shrug that it isnt.

 

Again I got into several PvP matches with Tier 12s and I was on the tail of a ceptor with my ceptor team got his shield down to 10% or so, I lauched a cruise missile it connected and got him down to like 80% hull and my guns almost over heat, and then I see his shield start regenning at like 1 ‘block’ of the bar / sec. a few seconds later guns back down in temp to shoot, got his shield down again, fired another cruise missile, connected and he was down to maybe 30% at this time on hull. he was close to planting EMP bomb and I get within 500M and suicide and well. . . he survived. If he had that barrier shield I accept that- but what got me was that he was still able to plant the bomb =L I was like how in the fuu?

 

Just some things seem really screwy is all. Not sure if that qualifies as a hack or anything but its just really really screwy sometimes and the only logical thing I could have thought of was the Implants.

#5

There could be all sort of things that could cause it. some nearby fregate might heal him, and fighters provide armor aura. As he was bomb carier, and probably had Empire T3-3 implant(if that was T3 ship) then as a bomb carier many people lock on him, and he get a lot of hull resistance. Active, passive, and specieal passive modules can make a huge impact how ship behaves.

#6

The enemy ceptor was just likely better equiped. 

 

Some of the things you’ve asked for are already implemented. 

 

Progress does need to be adjusted, the devs are still playing with it. reputation gains do need to slow considerably, or at least in comparison to silver. you can barely afford to buy and outfit one ship before you rank up with things as they are currently. 

#7

First things first, I love this game. I’ve been waiting for a game like this for years!

Match Making

I think this really needs to be looked at. There is no reason that T2s are in a T1 fight involuntarily. I would however have no problem if a person wanted to fly a T1 ship against a bunch of T2s, but I think the rewards should reflect positively on this behavior. Think Risk vs. Reward. This also could remedy the problem with ship tiers & rank outpacing loyalty gain from sub-factions. You’d actually get a chance to use those level 3 modules!

Looting

Maybe I don’t really understand this, but it seems that you just randomly pick and it’s all luck on what you get. I would really like it if we could have something similar to Eve Onlines “probing” for loot. That’s just my two credits.

Main Faction, Sub Faction, Synergy, Money Gain

The OP hit the nail right on the head here:

  1. Synergy

  2. Main Faction

  3. Money

  4. Sub Faction

They really need to make sub faction in line with main faction. There is nothing worse then moving up to a T2 ship, yet you don’t even have enough loyalty to afford a T1 module, let alone T2. Personally synergy needs to be harder to come by.

Also as far as buying ships, I do not want to buy a fully equipped ship when I just want it so I can get to the next level & tier of ship. There should be the option to just pay for the hull portion.

As far as realistic combat mode goes, I think the devs have some work to do.

Other than that I’m really enjoying this game.

#8

I have little to add beyond what others have said, but I will say this:

 

PvP:

 

I don’t even bother with “Realistic” because it only has one game mode at the moment, so I agree with you that more modes would be nice. Aside from that, though, there are plenty of ship wrecks and asteroids to fly around/between to keep things interesting, or are you talking about the classic “Deathstar” style map where battles could take place within the bowels of a giant starship?

 

Mail:

 

This will read a bit aggressively, but it’s because it sums up a number of people I’ve encountered that play this game. In game they were moaning endlessly and repeatedly asking about where their loot had gone after each match, and I’m guessing that the current system was implemented to combat this. Now, people are moaning about having to click twice to get their stuff after a match. For me, this is just not a deal big enough to worry about. Honestly, are the 2 extra clicks really that much of an issue?

#9

I have little to add beyond what others have said, but I will say this:

 

PvP:

 

I don’t even bother with “Realistic” because it only has one game mode at the moment, so I agree with you that more modes would be nice. Aside from that, though, there are plenty of ship wrecks and asteroids to fly around/between to keep things interesting, or are you talking about the classic “Deathstar” style map where battles could take place within the bowels of a giant starship?

 

Mail:

 

This will read a bit aggressively, but it’s because it sums up a number of people I’ve encountered that play this game. In game they were moaning endlessly and repeatedly asking about where their loot had gone after each match, and I’m guessing that the current system was implemented to combat this. Now, people are moaning about having to click twice to get their stuff after a match. For me, this is just not a deal big enough to worry about. Honestly, are the 2 extra clicks really that much of an issue?

 

PvP I meant game modes and more level designs, for example I just got into Tier 3 and there are MANY more stages that I liked compared to T2, mainly because T2 became a snore of the same maps over and over. Many levels are designed where the opposing squads meet in the ‘middle’ for a fur ball even though a sneaky EMP carrier can skirt the outer edges of some levels and get within 2000 meters of a beacon before being detected. Which on the note of Detonation I’d like to see ‘scattered’ EMP bomb respawns and the bomb resetting if the same team holds it for more than a few minutes without advancing on the enemy beacons. Overall I say more maps for all tiers that are unique.

 

Mail - its a useless system to me it serves no function outside of telling you a 2nd time of what rewards you got in battle when they could EASILLY have decided to add it as a few more lines of text on the notifications you ALREADY get right when you get back into the hangar. The only way I can find this mail system even worth the time they put into it is that they’re testing the mail delivery system to expand upon to include delivering mail to friends, trading via mail system. If it was a system developed so devs/GMs can deliver prizes after a tournament then I can see it being necessary.

#10

I have little to add beyond what others have said, but I will say this:

 

PvP:

 

I don’t even bother with “Realistic” because it only has one game mode at the moment, so I agree with you that more modes would be nice. Aside from that, though, there are plenty of ship wrecks and asteroids to fly around/between to keep things interesting, or are you talking about the classic “Deathstar” style map where battles could take place within the bowels of a giant starship?

 

Mail:

 

This will read a bit aggressively, but it’s because it sums up a number of people I’ve encountered that play this game. In game they were moaning endlessly and repeatedly asking about where their loot had gone after each match, and I’m guessing that the current system was implemented to combat this. Now, people are moaning about having to click twice to get their stuff after a match. For me, this is just not a deal big enough to worry about. Honestly, are the 2 extra clicks really that much of an issue?

But that’s another 2 clicks off the life of my mouse! Then mummy will have to buy me a new one!