Developer Blog entry from Septemver, 9th. Updated Game Development Plan.

Mercenary Center Developer Blog
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  • We have developed and introduced a system of ship roles, designed to help players understand the differences between ships and their tasks on the battlefield - this innovation helped make the game more interesting and logical.
  • Module system has also been extensively developed and updated - our ships have become more unique and different from their counterparts in different sides of the conflict.
  • A system of implants for pilots has been added, so that everyone could find the optimal parameters corresponding to their combat style

 

basically, you’ve created ships that are ‘best in class’, and most of the other will be avoided. you’ve also created situations where premiums are better than regular ships in some cases, and made some premium/DLC inferior to free ones… why even spend GS on inferior ships? how do you fix? you can’t unless you can predict which slots those people want… impossible…

 

if only you could extend the implant system to slots on ships, so that you can equip different implant ‘sets’ for each ship… otherwise, it’s only semi-useful… like runepages in LoL if you need a comparison.

 

So when do you fix the lag? Only feature that really interests me…

 

part of that is MM-related. as i already reported, it puts americans on RU and EU servers all day long… only after 9pm do we actually get a few games on US server.

 

The looting system did NOT make it better, it only made it worse. And you did it only to get more GS income…

 

And the new slot layouts don’t make a lot of sense in a lot of situations. It needs fixing as well.

 

the RNG triple-probability looting system has no right to exist in a class-based shooter, or even a RPG or MMO for that matter…

 

In addition, it’s nicer if players have more free choice of ships / play styles and are still able to play with their friends. So this has a huge thumbs up from me.

 

likewise for a implant ‘set’ system to customize ships, and reversion to the old ‘mod’ system, as this one severely limits fit choices by epic proportions.

 

I’m going to pin-point you here in a pretty unpleasant way and put you ‘on the spot’ - but please enlighten us as to what is planned surrounding squad sizes. Many players, myself included, are wondering about this - and the answer will determine whether or not this game has a place in our future gaming/leisure time.

 

the only way i see of implementing large squads would be to reduce the amount of easy-button mechanics, ie: white noise, ecm disables, etc… then we can talk… otherwise, it’ll remain at 3.

 

– Great, just dont add any more restrictions to modules.  Things are feeling a little cookie-cutterish now.  Your system on the day of the steam launch offered the most flexibility.

 

"Improved ship tree. – This isnt necessary, this would not be a good use of development time.

 

"New HUD. " – Again, this isnt necessary.  The existing HUD is simple and to the point.  Since this is an area where your game is already strong, why waste resources?

 

they are cookie-cutterish…

 

correct, unnecessary… as for the HUD,it may include crosshairs, radar/map improvements, team list display, etc… i hope anyways, those ARE important.

 

"Expanded looting system"

 

– Messing with loot?  Not sure I like this

 

no, it’s not fine… but you’re correct in that it would be impossible to refund GS items salvaged as loot… which is probably why it won’t be changed… which is sad… because it sucks…

 

however, not really since if purples were available on market for a high cost, the 200 GS you spent on them would seem like bargain i imagine :\

 

I’m not sure that solo players should be punished, but equally, neither should squads. And squads got punished for being ‘too effective’.

 

because of abusable mechanics like white noise and ecm disables. and they’re still too effective because of this. chain-ccs are never good for competitive games. that’s really your squad problem in a nutshell…

 

Or, add a feature that you can join and create a squad inside your team (once the game starts) with your randoms, like in some other team mp games, where you can group up at the start of the game.

 

no effect since no voicecomms, and still just random players… only reason BF series does this is for the spawn point mechanics… which don’t exist here.

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4 people in 1 squad has a very large impact, especially when the enemies don’t have such a squad. It was kind of an I-Win tactic.

You missed my response and the true nature of the problem. Squad size is not it - it’s the fact that a squad can be matched with a group of only randoms that is a problem.

 

having 2 squads of 3 people = 6 vs a team with no squads is the same thing… MM still does this on a regular basis, hence no different from before…

 

All seems good to me but my main concern is the lag, kind of weird that during the day and early evening there is no lag even though there are more pilots in qoue to start mission, but around 9pm I get lag when there are less people on and it last about 2 hours…

 

yup, MM has a habit of putting players on servers not in their own region. 54.5% of my games are on RU server, 21.5% on EU, 24% on US… but i’m in canada… and 3/4 of my games are full of lag…

 

Except those solo non squad players make up the dominant amount of players, also known as paying customers.  The corps can’t sustain the game’s profits unless every corp member had to pay large dues to keep playing in a corp.  It’s still a business.

 

i’ve been told that setting up a 100 man corp costs 75$… if that is the case, then it’s a major failure… i know of only one game that did this, and they backed out on it because it was killing the community…

 

Interface development:

  • Combat interface is a major object of attention of the development team. We are carefully considering the responses and suggestions of players. We are confident that the planned improvements to the combat interface will lease most players.

 

excellent, since you’ve leased us, when will you completely own us? would you like my buyout terms?

 

and to add a note of my own:   pigeonholing people into roles by allowing only 1 set of implants, reducing mod choices, creating best-in-class ships with cookie-cutter fit options… BAD… BAD DOG…

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if only you could extend the implant system to slots on ships, so that you can equip different implant ‘sets’ for each ship…

 

 

This is actually a great idea and one of the very first change i d make in next patches.

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It is a terrible idea and how it never gets done.

Right now you have to choose your implants, and make real decisions. With that system every ship would have the best implant set for that exact ship. It would make implants utterly useless.

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It is a terrible idea and how it never gets done.

Right now you have to choose your implants, and make real decisions. With that system every ship would have the best implant set for that exact ship. It would make implants utterly useless.

 

nah, all it means is that there is a set of ‘general purpose’ implants that work well with most mods.

 

and if you want to specialize implants to suit ships, you are pigeonholed into flying only certain classes that match your set.

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And infact every ship should be played at its best and you should be able to run multiple ship kind without having un hangar some “underpowered” ships just becouse u had to sacrifice projectiles speed on your singularity fighter to get more crit damage on your interceptors.

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Yes you should!

It is called making a decision! Want a better singularity fighter? Then take that implant, want to have more crit on your inty? that the other implant.

 

Don’t dumb down this game more than it already is >.> 

There is nothing wrong with the current implant ssytem exept the synergy/credit boost in R15 implant, which should come at R1.

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i am absolutely agree with Funky here, making implants per ship is not a great idea, you can remove implants all together in that case. While implants are very basic and simple mechanics, there is no reason to make it even simpler.

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yup, that’s why LoL has rune pages,

 

FPS have full loadout/skills customization per class,

 

RPGs can remap skills/attribs/gear on the fly.

 

it certainly is never done… in fact… this would be a first… /sarcasm.

 

all this would do is allow people to fly multiple ship classes/roles.

 

without having to pigeonhole themselves into just energy, or just hull tank, or just recon, etc…

 

anyways, the logic behind this argument is so fundamental that this shouldn’t even be a topic of contention.

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you are right, how could I possibly think you could come up with an actual argument…

You can already fly multiple classes without a problem.

 

You can choose between a few options:

Multi-role implants

Specific-role implants

no implants

just selecting some randoms implants

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Maybe the answer lies in completely reworking Implants to be useful across all classes and roles… but only applying to certain ships.

 

For example, Rank 2 Implant might always give a +50% boost to weapon range and sensors… but the Empire version only works on Empire ships, the Fed version on Fed, and so on.

 

Reworking the implants in this way encourages people to stick with a faction, rather than a class of ship. It would also open up the possibility of having race-specific implant trees, allowing me to build my Empire implants around being the tankiest of tanky, whilst my Fed can be all about speed and my Jericho… can get forgotten about, as all Jericho ships should be.  :lol:

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Can we for the love of god not remind the devs of their plan of making faction vs faction…

And the current implants are useful across all classes and roles, maybe some are more useful for some roles, but they are all useful.

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You miss the point. 

 

It’s not like i fly a ship with the wrong build… i don’t have projectile speed couse i need crit damage for my inties? Well i don’t run a singularity fighter at all.

 

Plus how many impnats are mandatory for a certain kind of ships? Two? Three? All the rest is a matter of preferences

 

Basically having multiple build doesn’t make the game more standardized it makes it more various and intresting couse people can keep different kind of ships in hangar and chose what to fly in match . whithout running underpwered ships

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You don’t need specific implants for your ships, AT ALL. If you use specific ones, all the more power to your preferred ship. If you don’t, all your ships will benefit most likely.

Different implants don’t make ships UP.

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Different implants don’t make ships UP.

 

Ended up writing an essay.

 

Short version - cross faction / role hangars will suffer noticeably. It does make ships UP. I spend hundreds of thousands a week switching them around.

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I have 1 set of implants I use for all my ships, any other implant set would make some ships better, but my current set works for every ship I use. And that is what the current system allows us to do. Choose between either specific ships, or a all-round implant set.

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I have 1 set of implants I use for all my ships

Right now you have to choose your implants, and make real decisions.

 

lol… :smiley: everyone is probably using the same set as you, for most of the same reasons… it’s not choice nor variety…

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It is… I could get a lot better stats in several of my ships if I wanted, but I rather have an all-round setup.

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lol… :smiley: everyone is probably using the same set as you, for most of the same reasons… it’s not choice nor variety…

 

i often ask around for the implant sets, and people do use quite different layouts in their implants, and therefore also different fits. And I mean players which do know how to fit.  Of course we do not know the stats, but I think, implants get monitored aswell.

 

Per ship implant is ludicrous. Truly. It defeats the whole purpose of implants being ship-unspecific, actually forcing you to consider which ships you equip as a deck. I have to fit all Empire crafts differently, while I can enjoy much of Jericho and almost all Federation ships very much; This of course influences which roles I play/take in which faction. Some implants clearly are more role specific, while others are more general, however it also depends on which classes you fly more often, what you take and which race you prefer, or which side of the two health bars you want to use stronger.

 

Implants are in your head. You cannot just quickly go to surgery eat a sweet roll and come back to the fight in seconds.

 

Otherwise we just end up cookie cutting the perfect implant/item fit on every ship. I can tell you now, that would make the game only more disbalanced, because some will know the right fit, others don’t. Sometimes a limitation does create more variety, and an obstacle to overcome triggers creativity.

 

It is a complete different discussion, how to balance the implants, because some of them do offer little choice. And of course, implants should not be the only things making a ship work. Also, I already suggested, that Implants should be active depending on the Tier of the battle, not the tier or rank of the ship.

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It defeats the whole purpose of implants being ship-unspecific, actually forcing you to consider which ships you equip as a deck.

 

Implants are in your head. You cannot just quickly go to surgery eat a sweet roll and come back to the fight in seconds.

 

Otherwise we just end up cookie cutting the perfect implant/item fit on every ship.

 

I can tell you now, that would make the game only more disbalanced, because some will know the right fit, others don’t.

 

exactly… it pigeonholes you into only flying a set of ships for best effect. so we are in agreement. except for some people, being forced into playing a limited amount of ships is good, because hey… they have no intention of playing other ships to begin with…

 

you put 10 implants into a bank of sockets (like ram slots), and use the entire unit (enclosed in some form factor) as a ‘set’… then you just swap out sets.

 

you can already do that, but you’re limited to flying just those ships, so the same still applies in corps. they can specialize roles across players (although they’ll bore their players)…

 

what are you afraid of? that people will actually use the most effective implants on their builds? because it will expose yet more broken game mechanics? as already stated in the sentence above, this is already being done by many people…