Developer Blog entry from November, 28th. Sector Conquest Update

Mercenary Center Developer Blog
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i like this idea.

 

first off, it gives the devs data about inter-tier battles over time. this is good for balancing the tiers better or coming up with ideas how to give a lower tier ship it’s place in a tier-less battle. most modern online games do not work on tiered models anymore, and especially not on models where simply every stat goes up in each tier the same. it helps this game evolve.

 

second, pvp can be more tier-based and helps people who try to play more casual.

 

third, most self proclaimed pros are actually early adopters; giving people to play against overwhelming forces will teach them better, than staying in pvp. of course the first weeks will be uber carnage and too easy for many of the more seasoned pilots, but this also gives us time for some nice duels.

 

i really cannot understand the substitute whining for people, by others, who actually would not have any problems bringing in at least T3/T4 sets into this mode. it’s just fair, people can join such a mode early on their own risk. taking care over other corp squads in the same empire becoming better might also be a positive effect. where u guys see a crisis, i see room for development. i like this change. i do hope however, too unbalanced games don’t end up too often in realistic mode only in the corp fights.

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sorry.

 

this all sounds pretty bland to me. 

 

The whole system sounds like it’s just a continuation of the current free for all PvP matchmaking (minus the tier division, plus corp participation), with eventual sector ownership (by factions) decided by statistical “who won more” methods and control by “who did more grinding” bidding. 

 

Let’s break this down to it’s elements: 

 

each 12 hours there’s some RNG that sets the map and game modes.

→ why would I want to fight for this sector and not the other one? what is my personal engagement for that?

→ why would I want to take on all comers? my corporation is a low budget t2, and we specialize in transport protection of trade vessels, why would we take on the empire front liners? 

 

players get thrown into matched grouped by an undisclosed method.

→ im gonna throw a wild assumption here and say it’s just gonna be the normal 3-4 man squads piled into a 12 men team on a first come first served basis.

→ im much more interested to see full corp teams. no mention as to this being supported, which will have been my most coveted feature.

 

corporations are given points based on battles fought(won) for a location. Location ownership determined by sum of points.

→ So if we are 10 guys and spent 4 hours and NASA did a whole weekend, they get more points by default.

→ Basically this promotes grinding for points rather than playing for fun or for victory. I can definitely see corporations mass quitting losing battles to queue up with a second batch of ships for better odds on a second launch (is that still possible or did the devs block that option?)

 

In summary: The same statistical sector control we have today, plus some extra fluff, minus tier controls. The sales pitch revolves around mechanisms for gaining rewards. Why should this be of any special interest? 

 

–

 

you know i’ve returned to this game after some hiatus. I look at what’s currently used as “sector conquest” and all I can say is “meh”. 

 

Ok, so you have these “sectors” and I can pay some credits to have my victories register towards my chosen faction’s dominion over the map. 

 

whatever. why should i care? 

 

I mean, really. It doesn’t really look like it’s part of a game. It’s not something I can play with. Just some meaningless random piece of graphics that’s updated in some way that’s not really interesting enough for me to check. 

 

Ok, this is a game for corporations. I don’t see the way my corporation is actively involved in this. Is there a special menu for the CEO? It looks like this whole graphics is automatically generated by me just pugging randomly. It’s not a feature I can really interact with, nor is it a feature that I can easily see my influence on. 

 

This game has a lot of stuff in it that’s just not interactive in any interesting way. Sector conquest definitely tops the list though, because it’s a feature that’s supposed to have good, high quality, invested end game content on it. But instead it’s just a piece of graphics overplayed on whatever algorithm the pugging system uses. 

 

(so now we’ll have a different pugging system with a different algorithm that lets the T5s have opponents. yipee)

 

 

 

let me propose an alternative. here are the major principles:

 

  1. Corp battles take place between teams composed only of uniform corp. 12 men from 1 corporation, VS 12 men from another. For instance, 12 NASA VS 12 ESB. 

→ A corp can choose to field less people, but the other corp can still field the full roster. 

→ large teams please, none of this 4v4 b.s.

 

  1. each location is unique. It has it’s own map and game mode, and owned by the corporation that won the 1 battle for control over it. Ownership is not determined by statistics or bidding.

→ Resource production is determined by the amount of time that the location is held with players online (open to being contested).

→ The map is big and has a lot of location on it, such that every corporation can find a nice place to try and hold.

→ connections between locations change their activity status based on corporation log-in status (yes, you can’t challenge if they go offline). 

 

  1. to gain a location you directly challenge the corporation that holds the location. If they fail to defend (lose or not accept the challenge) you gain ownership. 

→ there’s a limitation on when you can issue a challenge based on the owner corporation’s log-in times.

→ yes you have to wait 10 minutes for the guys from the other corp to finish their t3 let’s park with the captain game. 

→ it costs you a lot less to challenge a location that is connected to your controlled sectors, or that is overall controlled by your faction. 

→ yes you can go and smack the tier2 guys intentionally with your tier5s - life is not fair. but since they control a poor, out of the way sector, it’s gonna cost you to both attack and defend it.  

 

  1. You can field whatever ships you want. But fielding ships cost you a lot of credits (this is end game fun and is to some extent a resource sink), based on tier of ship and distance of sector from places you already own. 

→ ofc some of the locations generate credits, so holding them makes up for the battle upkeep. 

→ fielding tier 5 megazords costs you a lot more than fielding tier 1 trainers. This is to discourage constantly using the high tier to bully the other corps. There’s going to be a sweet spot tier that’s “cost balanced” whereas higher tiers cost you to use.

 

5, each corporation has a specific territory which has been gained by it and can be directly taken by other corporations. Each corporation has to compete for it’s territory and expand it over time. This does not require grinding. It does require you to defend your stuff and consistently win battles. 

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Some small offtopic to mixed Tiers:
Which 2 ships would you mix:

post-12279-0-22909500-1385672756.jpg

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  1. Corp battles take place between teams composed only of uniform corp. 12 men from 1 corporation, VS 12 men from another. For instance, 12 NASA VS 12 ESB. 

→ A corp can choose to field less people, but the other corp can still field the full roster. 

→ large teams please, none of this 4v4 b.s.

To be honest, Corp vs Corp is one aspect I’m concerned with. It’s great in theory, but in practice it’s going to take a fair bit of planning, meaning the only really effective way to do it is… the current Arcade Mode.

 

I mean, just consider the following scenario: EuroCorp is online at 19:00 GMT. They want to attack a territory belonging to AmeriCorp (GMT - 06:00). The problem is that AmeriCorp are still at Work / School / Wherever because for them it’s 13:00 hours - lunchtime. So EuroCorp never get to fight them and go do something else.

 

Then AmeriCorp finally rock up at 20:00 hours and want to fight EuroCorp. Problem is it is now 02:00 where EuroCorp are so they are all in bed!

 

I can come up with some solutions as to how to fix this, but none that easily allow for Corp A and Corp B to fight without anyone else being involved.

 

 

Some small offtopic to mixed Tiers:

Which 2 ships would you mix:

![attachicon.gif](< base_url >/public/style_images/master/attachicon.gif)[Tiers.jpg](< base_url >/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=7084)

The two that are the same Tier.

 

Mixing tiers isn’t just about raw stats - it’s the fact that higher tier ships also have more powerful versions of weapons and modules, weapons and modules lower tiers do not have access to (and, thus, potentially cannot counter) and the additional implants.

 

In a Fixed Tier environment, you can work around that. You can make sure that every ship in the Tier is built to handle every other ship, and you know every possible combination of implants and what they can and cannot do. When you start having to water down Rank 7 ships because they are supposed to fight T2 ships and the higher T3 ships, you get something nobody is happy with - it’s too weak to compete in T3, but T2 pilots resent facing ships with T3 gear on them.

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To be honest, Corp vs Corp is one aspect I’m concerned with. It’s great in theory, but in practice it’s going to take a fair bit of planning, meaning the only really effective way to do it is… the current Arcade Mode.

 

I mean, just consider the following scenario: EuroCorp is online at 19:00 GMT. They want to attack a territory belonging to AmeriCorp (GMT - 06:00). The problem is that AmeriCorp are still at Work / School / Wherever because for them it’s 13:00 hours - lunchtime. So EuroCorp never get to fight them and go do something else.

 

Then AmeriCorp finally rock up at 20:00 hours and want to fight EuroCorp. Problem is it is now 02:00 where EuroCorp are so they are all in bed!

 

I can come up with some solutions as to how to fix this, but none that easily allow for Corp A and Corp B to fight without anyone else being involved.

 

 

There’s a lot of solutions. To be honest with you outputting an initial “bullet points” design that solves all the small problems by explaining how every little thing works isn’t that big of a problem. 

 

but in practice - 

 

you take the same maps we have today

and the same game modes we have today (the ones that go with the specific sector)

and then you put 1 team with 12 guys from 1 corp in it

and a second team with 12 guys from the other corp in it

and if it’s a recon game they can choose who’s the commander.

and that’s it as far as your “organizing the game” is concerned. 

 

just a point to remember. We’re talking about end game content for the people who want to play this game at the highest possible level. Does random pugging really belong to that level?

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There’s a lot of solutions. To be honest with you outputting an initial “bullet points” design that solves all the small problems by explaining how every little thing works isn’t that big of a problem. 

 

just a point to remember. We’re talking about end game content for the people who want to play this game at the highest possible level. Does random pugging really belong to that level?

Depends. But by the same token, should farming lower tiers be considered part of endgame content? I certainly wouldn’t say so.

 

In more than one way, this has me thinking about Puzzle Pirates. The endgame content of that is Blockading, where Crews can fight over control of islands, and these islands have player owned stuff on them. This part of the game is dominated by the Big Flags (alliances of Crews) to the point where, on some Servers, the Flags actually paid smaller Flags to attack and capture their islands so there would be more blockades!

 

The issue with this mode was, as hinted above, you had to have permission from the Big Flags to take part. I was part of a Crew who deliberately staked out a remote island with virtually no industry and was owned by an inactive Crew. We dropped the war chest, initated the blockade, and got slaughtered because one of the Big Flags rocked up to protect their inactive friends. The island’s owners never even showed.

 

This is example #1 of how not to do endgame content. If ESB, NASA and NOVA could carve up Sector Conquest between them and deny all other Corps from taking part, it’s a badly designed system. There needs to be checks and balances to ensure that Corps of all shapes and sizes can play a part, even if that part doesn’t mean they get full access to all content.

 

The second reason I bring up Puzzle Pirates is that few Crews, or even Flags, could run Blockades solo. Here is a basic rundown of how it works:

 

Flag A drops a War Chest on an island. This is a box of funds used to pay everyone who takes part. The crews involved set their pay rates and hire other players to man their ships for them. Flag B does likewise, dropping their own War Chest with which to fund the defense of the island.

 

Both Flags now fight it out. Typically, Flag Officers bring the ships and pilot them, with the crews being mostly “Jobbers” - ordinary players who are just in it for the loot.

 

To this end, there is potentially a place for “mercenary” pilots in Sector Conquest.

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Some small offtopic to mixed Tiers:

Which 2 ships would you mix:

![attachicon.gif](< base_url >/public/style_images/master/attachicon.gif)[Tiers.jpg](< base_url >/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=7084)

I feel like it’s guess the ship and all I can tell is they’re Jericho fighters fitted with singularity.  Ship three’s more maneuverable so I’m guessing it’s a tackler, and the other two are commands…

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Some small offtopic to mixed Tiers:

Which 2 ships would you mix:

![attachicon.gif](< base_url >/public/style_images/master/attachicon.gif)[Tiers.jpg](< base_url >/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=7084)

 

They’re all Jericho Commands

 

The first one must be a Katana S because of the speed and shield regen, also decent pool values (3 capacitor slots). It’s using Singularity with blue ammo. It’s also using an Infrared Scanner.

The second one must be a Machete S because of the shield regen and average pool values (2 capacitor slots). It’s using Singularity with blue ammo.

The third one must be a Katana because of the shield regen and horrible pool values (only 1 capacitor slot). It’s using Singularity with green ammo.

 

All the ships have R2 Empire implant.

 

What I don’t get is why they have such a high Hull (5197/4484/3410). With the R1 Empire implant they could reach such high hulls, but they have also high resists, so they’re using for sure R1 Jericho implant.

 

 

I would mix the Machete S with the Katana if extremely necessary, but never the Machete with the Katana S.

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Depends. But by the same token, should farming lower tiers be considered part of endgame content? I certainly wouldn’t say so.

 

 

Here is what I think the design goal of sector conquest should be. 

 

I think it should be a way for established, committed players to enjoy the game in an organized way, and become involved in the game universe through the usage of corporations.

 

so i think -

  1. full premade teams are a core of what i expect from sector conquest. mercenaries are fine though as an “add-on”.

  2. corporations directly influence the map in a way that is tangible and directly obvious

  3. sense of advancement of the group by being able to directly and readily attain in game real estate.  

 

how do I prevent ESB from farming t2 corps? simply - i make them pay for fielding their t5s and limit their payoffs to below their fleet deployment costs. If then come at “PauperCorp” with a flock of swifts and dverges, i don’t mind one bit. 

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Thinking on it, I’m confused as to what those stat blocks were meant to prove. I mean, they’re posted utterly devoid of context - we don’t know what class they are, what modules, what weapons, what Synergy level, etc. I’m hoping Error will shed a little light on it when he resurfaces.

 

 

Here is what I think the design goal of sector conquest should be. 

 

A I think it should be a way for established, committed players to enjoy the game in an organized way, and become involved in the game universe through the usage of corporations.

 

so i think -

  1. full premade teams are a core of what i expect from sector conquest. mercenaries are fine though as an “add-on”.

  2. corporations directly influence the map in a way that is tangible and directly obvious

  3. sense of advancement of the group by being able to directly and readily attain in game real estate.  

 

B how do I prevent ESB from farming t2 corps? simply - i make them pay for fielding their t5s and limit their payoffs to below their fleet deployment costs. If then come at “PauperCorp” with a flock of swifts and dverges, i don’t mind one bit. 

A) I agree, and on a surface level I feel that is what the current system does. The issue is the ease of abuse (spam T2 pilots = win Sectors) and the lack of tangible reward.

 

  1. I think the only thing everyone agrees on with this proposal is the idea of Squads not being interfered with. If the Wolfpack decide to rock up three 4-man squads into Sector Conquest, we should be allowed to do so. However, I would personally argue that, if we did this, Sector Conquest’s matchmaking should attempt to find us a comparable opponent - it should match us vs 3 4-man squads of the same tier, or 4 3-man squads… it should be us vs 12 randoms.

That said, solo pilots should also be able to take part - just because they are not in a squad doesn’t mean they aren’t part of a Corp!

 

  1. Agreed.

 

  1. Here I would add a little caveatish note: the “top” Corps should not be allowed to sweep the map and wipe everyone else out, but nor should little corps be able to run the show either. Ideally, every Corp should have a chance (a realistic chance, not one of these ‘possible in theory, impossible in practicality’ style of chances) of holding a territory in Sector Conquest, but to hold more than one, or to hold the really important ones, takes dedication, skill and deployment of top-tier assets.

Basically, think of T3 corps as being given a taster of what Sector Conquest is like; they get to fight over the map, they get to take smaller territories and they get to have a little income boost, but they don’t get the full show. To experience the entirety of Sector Conquest, you need to move up the Tiers.

 

B) I suspect the top end Corps would start throwing their toys out of the pram if they were ‘punished’ for using T4 and T5 ships.

Sector Conquest should not be aimed at T2 / T3 corps with T4 / T5 tacked on as an optional thing. There should be real and tangible benefits to using higher tier ships, but those benefits should not be “you get to farm the n00bs!”

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Ideas here…

If a t5 squad goes in SQ, they should face bigger teams if the opposite team have lesser tier ships. It could be something like 4 T5 vs 6 T4 or a mix of 8 T3-4, etc. In fact, make it so total team power is almost equal, even if it require a 6 T4-5 vs 12 T2-3-4 for example.

Also, that would require some various point calculation according to rank difference, like in WoW, killing a player a few levels under our was giving no reward in pvp. It should on the opposite gives more points if you, let’s say, group up a few T3 to kill 1 T5. Those points calculated would influence how much credits and synergy you get in bonus for the battle. That way, even if you don’t win, if your 12 T3-4 including 2 squads vs 6 T4-5 with a full squad gets good kills they would get good rewards.

In fact, a T5 ship should get low reward for killing T3 and nothing for killing T2.

Points should be calculated by the rank, so a rank 13 could still have a bonus by killing ranks 14-15.

The point value could be the ship rank. You kill a ship with a rank lower, get your rank -2 in points. That way a rank 15 would get no point by killing rank 7 ships and lower a rank 13 no points against rank 6 and lower, etc.

That way, it would still be frustrating to get killed a lot by kill squads, but the outnumbering could balance a bit and kill and assists could reward a lot more lower ranks vs higher, while top ranks would benefit much more by killing almost equal ranks ships.

Someone’s idea about making evident the rank difference could be useful here, but not too evident. Maybe just a few color codes, like gray names for no point value, yellow-orangy for lower than you, red for equal or higher.

So, again, just ideas. I like the idea of massive free for all battles, but the rewards should go accordingly to the difficulty you encounter.

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I can see a “point” system working, but it’d require a pretty major overhaul of how the game’s combat mechanics work, and I don’t see that happening.

 

But something like… I don’t know…

 

R5 = 1pt.

R6 = 2pts.

R7 = 4pts.

R8 = 5pts.

R9 = 6pts.

R10 = 9pts.

R11 = 10pts.

R12 = 11pts.

R13 = 13pts

R14 = 14pts.

R15 = 15pts.

 

Players can then line up for a match, with HUGE battles (24+ a side), but their ships have to be bought out of a collective points pool. When you spawn, those points are deducted from your team’s pool. If your team’s pool reaches 0 (or less) your side loses.

 

That allows for some interesting match dynamics. Rock up to a big brawl and you can spam T5 ships with some lighter stuff for support, but roll 20 R15s into a small match and you might forfiet the match due to overspawning!

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we will monitor the situation with T2 after installation of this update. Should there be need to change anything with ranks, that can enter the battle it will be changed.

 

In other words, they are lab rats :smiley:

 

 

Here’s a serious question about the whole thing though. You say you allow t2 to enter SQ to show them there’s a reason to get t5 ships … uhh… okay, good.

 

How exactly will people level up their t4/t5 ships when most of the t4/t5 population (which is already small, and will be small for a long time) is in SQ?

Think about it, people will get to higher tiers, try to level up their ships but will wait half an hour to get 3v3 or 4v4 mostly to get curbstomped or curbstomp the enemy team. Fair and fun matches are rather rare now

 

PVE grinding? After a few matches its mind-numbingly boring and will always be unless there was a way to make the bots ‘think and operate’ as opposed to following what’s pre-written

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A) I agree, and on a surface level I feel that is what the current system does. The issue is the ease of abuse (spam T2 pilots = win Sectors) and the lack of tangible reward.

 

 

The issue with the current system and it’s presented upgrade is that it does not engage the player in any meaningful way. A player’s participation in sector conquest starts and stops at choosing sides. Everything else is automatically and statistically generated. 

 

The amount of content his system actually provides is 1 button to be pressed once a month. And I’m not talking figuratively here, it’s literally 1 decision I get to make. Everything else isn’t even part of the game.

 

So, with the presented upgrade, we’re talking about 1 decision per 12 hours. This may seem like a major improvement (yes, this is 60 times better) but the decision is still without meaning. I just click 2 buttons every time i queue and I get to play in a different queue. 

 

and the big question I am asking myself is this:

 

why should I care? 

 

this may seem like it’s content, but it’s really not. It’s random buttons that don’t really make any kind of difference to the way I play the game and I press them from time to time because it’s part of the mechanism of getting to actually playing. It’s no more a piece of content than the game launch icon that sits on my desktop. 

 

sector conquest should be like a mini game inside star conflict. Right now it doesn’t even look like it’s supposed to be a game. It just looks like some quest system much like the contracts thingy. Only that quests and PvP don’t add up so it ends up just being a stupid button. 

 

P.S. here this link is a new piece of content for this forum to use that is at least twice as engaging as current sector conquest:

http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=9644

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In other words, they are lab rats :smiley:

 

 

Here’s a serious question about the whole thing though. You say you allow t2 to enter SQ to show them there’s a reason to get t5 ships … uhh… okay, good.

 

How exactly will people level up their t4/t5 ships when most of the t4/t5 population (which is already small, and will be small for a long time) is in SQ?

Think about it, people will get to higher tiers, try to level up their ships but will wait half an hour to get 3v3 or 4v4 mostly to get curbstomped or curbstomp the enemy team. Fair and fun matches are rather rare now

 

PVE grinding? After a few matches its mind-numbingly boring and will always be unless there was a way to make the bots ‘think and operate’ as opposed to following what’s pre-written

My guess is the matchmaking will just put them in T3 matches… which will then cause ever greater resentment as +4/-4, then +5/-5 ranks becomes the norm for standard matchmaking.

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How exactly will people level up their t4/t5 ships when most of the t4/t5 population (which is already small, and will be small for a long time) is in SQ SC?

 

 

My guess is, they will go and play sector conquest, and there since the queue is mixed with the t2/3 crowd, they’ll actually get full games and have a decent chance to have fun with their shiny ships.

 

OR the t2/3 crowd will just avoid “who has the smurf” matchmaking (meaning sector conquest) due to t5 squads (see posts about ESB below) and we’ll just be back in square 1. 

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Hmm looks cool, I think I need to join a faction :slight_smile:

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Do we get normal credit/synergy income from Sector Conquest-Battles?

Can we Squad up like normal?

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Guys keep in mind couple things:

a) It is extremely easy to reach T4/T5 in multiple branches if you put your mind to it

b) it is extremely easy to farm credits to equip those multiple ships in green gear (and green is not that terrible vs purples)

c) all those top corp can field only that much in any time of the day, the general population that already has an access to t4/t5 is huge it is not exclusive to top corps. On top of that, take as an example Empire and ESB/NASA, even if they can field 2-3 squads in any given time, most likely force will be spread on 2 borders, and there are plenty of other corps in Empire that are not T5 so queues will not be dominated by those tops, there is a chance to face them but it is exactly the same story for every faction. Even so called Zerg corps have plenty of T4/T5 farmed up already.

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I don’t think having matches that have both T4/5 and T2/3 is the big catastrophe some people make it out to be. Of-course I may be wrong. 

 

From what I can read on the forums it’s really hard to find T4/5 matches with people in them and that’s a real issue that should be addressed. Mixing the tiers a bit in sector conquest is definitely a solution. 

 

Of course if t2-t3 people end up feeling like lambs who are invited to a wolf’s dinner party, than we will without a doubt end up with t2/3 players boycotting sector conquest and t4/5 players not playing t4/5 anymore due to lack of players in the tier. I know if I start queuing up with my t2/3 and end up feeling like the match’s whipping boy every match i’ll just jump ship. 

 

unless of-course sector conquest has some features that make it engaging on it’s own accord. 

 

a) It is extremely easy to reach T4/T5 in multiple branches if you put your mind to it

 

 

you must be joking it takes an absurd amount of play time to level up even 1 T2 ship let alone progress up a whole tree.

 

And besides that is there even relevant incentives for me to do that?