Developer Blog from September 9th: Future plans and tournaments

Mercenary Center Developer Blog
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So, update 1.0 is already on the main servers and pilots can fully enjoy it. We won’t dwell on what has already been done - patchnotes and their discussion threads exist just for that. We’d rather talk about the future, near and distant. 

 

Evolution of the universe 

New maps for both the Invasion and PvP-modes are also under development. The world will keep growing, and it with the storyline that will give the pilots a lot of exciting game situations, reveal a lot of secrets, and allow beginners to meet each of the sides of conflict and make the right choice. The long-forgotten personalities of Star Conflict universe will also make an appearance.

We are sticking to our promise to add dreadnaughts to the game, work is carried out in full force. Mechanics of them will be more than interesting, and the machines themselves will be able to make a significant contribution to corporation wars.

 

Future updates 

The first thing that will be released soon is integration with social network ‘Vkontakte’. It will work almost the same as Facebook integration, each pilot will be able to share their achievements, mission results, hangar views or purchases.

 

share_SC.jpg

 

Implants system has been improved, and soon pilots will be able to choose implant presets. For example, for a slot with an engineering frigate there will be one set of implants, and for the slot with an interceptor - another. The number of such sets is limited to the maximum number of slots in the pilot’s hangar, but the opportunity to use the following set of each will require a higher rank in research branch. Just remember not to mix up your combat slots. 

We are also testing a new formula for calculating rating, which, if successful, will replace the existing one. The changes are as follows: 

increased dependence on average battle efficiency, including negative multipliers. For example, if you have ships of ranks 11-14 yet decide to join a battle on T1, the post-battle efficiency should be divided into two - this figure will be compared to your current personal rating and counted, so a large number of flights in ‘sandbox’ in the end will reduce your efficiency slightly less than by half. But don’t be afraid - having T5 unlocked and flying ships of at least 9 rank will not affect your efficiency.

 

Tournament component 

The first intercorporate championship ended this weekend. The event showed a great potential for further team aspect development and the possibility of having (besides the ‘blitz tournaments’) regular game seasons between corporation teams

Top 4: 

First place - Evil Space Bears [ESB] 

Second place - Nova Corporation [Nova] 

Third place - SIRIUS [sRS] 

Fourth place - The Wolf Pack [WPK] 

 

The winners will not only substantially supplement their accounts, but also receive valuable prizes from Tt eSPORTS. The broadcast dedicated to rewarding and summarizing will be held tomorrow, September 9th. Do not miss it! 

You can witness a tournament again, as well as evaluate the past blitzand show tournaments here. 

The 84th and 85th editions of I.N.N. contain a summary of the most interesting moments.

 

Follow the news with the official Facebook community!

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Implants system has been improved, and soon pilots will be able to choose implant presets. For example, for a slot with an engineering frigate there will be one set of implants, and for the slot with an interceptor - another. The number of such sets is limited to the maximum number of slots in the pilot’s hangar, but the opportunity to use the following set of each will require a higher rank in research branch. Just remember not to mix up your combat slots. 

 

So each ships slots will have their own implants preset ? That’s a great improvement !!

But I don’t understand the part that say it will require a higher rank in research branch.

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Evolution of the universe 

 

  1. We are sticking to our promise to add dreadnaughts to the game, work is carried out in full force. Mechanics of them will be more than interesting, and the machines themselves will be able to make a significant contribution to corporation wars.

 

Future updates 

 

  1. Implants system has been improved, and soon pilots will be able to choose implant presets. For example, for a slot with an engineering frigate there will be one set of implants, and for the slot with an interceptor - another. The number of such sets is limited to the maximum number of slots in the pilot’s hangar, but the opportunity to use the following set of each will require a higher rank in research branch. Just remember not to mix up your combat slots.

 

  1. We are also testing a new formula for calculating rating, which, if successful, will replace the existing one. The changes are as follows: 

increased dependence on average battle efficiency, including negative multipliers. For example, if you have ships of ranks 11-14 yet decide to join a battle on T1, the post-battle efficiency should be divided into two - this figure will be compared to your current personal rating and counted, so a large number of flights in ‘sandbox’ in the end will reduce your efficiency slightly less than by half. But don’t be afraid - having T5 unlocked and flying ships of at least 9 rank will not affect your efficiency.

 

 

  1. So dreadnoughts are going to be restricted to Sector Conquest in some fashion… interesting.

 

  1. I also would like to know what you mean by “higher rank in research branch”. I’ve got a bad feeling from your statement of “not mixing up [our] combat slots” that these new implant ‘presets’ are going to be specific to the combat slot and not the specific ship. Which means if you swap out your fourth ship slot’s Tier 4 Guard for a Tier 4 Recon, you’ll have to re-implant the entire selection for that combat slot. Which means wasting lots and lots of credits on re-implantation if you swap ships around regularly.

 

  1. If flying Tier 1 ships/matches is going to hurt our efficiency ranking, why are we bothering with the mentoring system? We can only mentor players who haven’t reached Rank 4, yet if we have to join them in a Tier 1 battle in a squad to fly with them that will hurt our rankings? What kind of logic is this?

 

And why does Tier 3 count against veteran pilots now? I might be able to understand if flying Tier 2 hurt veteran pilot rankings, but most of the unique DLC ships are still in Tier 3, and they aren’t all Rank 9. I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again; punishing players in order to make them progress will only make players angry and resentful.

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So we can chalk Skill Rating up as yet another aspect of the game made worthless.

 

“Oh, he’s only got a skill rating of 800! He must suck!”

“Nope, he’s actually got SR of 1600 but has been grinding in Invasion.”

“Well what about the guy with 900 over there?”

“He flies T3 Premiums, which only count as Rank 8. He’s actually a 1800 SR pilot.”

 

Can’t wait to see this terrible system in action.

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  1. So dreadnoughts are going to be restricted to Sector Conquest in some fashion… interesting.

 

  1. I also would like to know what you mean by “higher rank in research branch”. I’ve got a bad feeling from your statement of “not mixing up [our] combat slots” that these new implant ‘presets’ are going to be specific to the combat slot and not the specific ship. Which means if you swap out your fourth ship slot’s Tier 4 Guard for a Tier 4 Recon, you’ll have to re-implant the entire selection for that combat slot. Which means wasting lots and lots of credits on re-implantation if you swap ships around regularly.

 

  1. If flying Tier 1 ships/matches is going to hurt our efficiency ranking, why are we bothering with the mentoring system? We can only mentor players who haven’t reached Rank 4, yet if we have to join them in a Tier 1 battle in a squad to fly with them that will hurt our rankings? What kind of logic is this?

 

And why does Tier 3 count against veteran pilots now? I might be able to understand if flying Tier 2 hurt veteran pilot rankings, but most of the unique DLC ships are still in Tier 3, and they aren’t all Rank 9. I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again; punishing players in order to make them progress will only make players angry and resentful.

 

Your point 2 IS true. It’s wrote clearly that the implants are dependent of the combat slot. If you don’t want to pay for a small optimization, then just do like right now : Set them to fit with most of your ships. And don’t lie, there’s only 2/3 implants that may change between ships. Most of them won’t move.

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Your point 2 IS true. It’s wrote clearly that the implants are dependent of the combat slot. If you don’t want to pay for a small optimization, then just do like right now : Set them to fit with most of your ships. And don’t lie, there’s only 2/3 implants that may change between ships. Most of them won’t move.

 

R1 implant may change (either Armadillo or J1), possibly R5 (strafe vs. rotation), R6 (Ox for crit builds), the awkward J7 for commands… and that’s just up to T3. 

 

Granted, most of my builds were modified to synergize with the same set of implants, so I won’t need to switch around that much.

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And don’t lie, there’s only 2/3 implants that may change between ships. Most of them won’t move.

 

And what if we can’t simply change one implant at a time anymore? They are called ‘presets’ after all. What’s to say that in order to change a combat slot’s implants, we won’t be required to re-implant the entire tree?

 

Perhaps it won’t be that dire, but given the current trend of each recent update making things more expensive for no apparent reason, I honestly cannot rule out that possibility.

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T4 pvp is still not existant and you want to punish those players who want synergy their ship in fight with players even more. GG.

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And what if we can’t simply change one implant at a time anymore? They are called ‘presets’ after all. What’s to say that in order to change a combat slot’s implants, we won’t be required to re-implant the entire tree?

 

Perhaps it won’t be that dire, but given the current trend of each recent update making things more expensive for no apparent reason, I honestly cannot rule out that possibility.

Well, what I think about that update is a pre-release of allowing different ships layout like have been requested so many times.

 

I don’t think that they’ll increase the cost for no reasons (Or that’ll make me definitely stop defending them). 

If the cost isn’t increased, then you guys shouldn’t complain about this improvement.

Many times I had to choose the implant that most ships want over one witch is good only with a specific build.

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So we can chalk Skill Rating up as yet another aspect of the game made worthless.

 

“Oh, he’s only got a skill rating of 800! He must suck!”

“Nope, he’s actually got SR of 1600 but has been grinding in Invasion.”

“Well what about the guy with 900 over there?”

“He flies T3 Premiums, which only count as Rank 8. He’s actually a 1800 SR pilot.”

 

Can’t wait to see this terrible system in action.

Nah, I have not read the same thing as you.

They won’t cut in half the player’s DSR. They’ll cut in half his reward and double his malus.

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Even if it is limited to combat slots it’s an improvement over the current system, but I’d like it to go by ship class. After all, in T3 my lineup is usually Guard-Engi-Recon-LRF, but in SQ it’s Gunship-Engi-Command-Engi. It’d be nice to have a little more variation in implant sets.

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As far as I know, premium ships (including DLCs) count as the highest rank in their tiers. For example, a rank 7 premium ship will always be counted as a rank 9 ship and gain all buff from implants (R1~R9) accordingly. 

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Premium are treated as one rank lower for matchmaking, or at least they have been traditionally. So a Desert Eagle is a R8 ship for queue selection, which may cause issues.

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As far as I know, premium ships (including DLCs) count as the highest rank in their tiers. For example, a rank 7 premium ship will always be counted as a rank 9 ship and gain all buff from implants (R1~R9) accordingly. 

 

Just a little clarification: Conerning the implants, all premium ships count as the highest rank in their tier. But for the matchmaking, the premium ships ‘lose’ one rank.

Example: A rank 9 premium ship, like the Desert Eagle, is considered by the MM to be a rank 8 ship.

 

edit: Jasan was faster :wink:

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So I think that the Mauler (R13 Premium) is R12 for queue, Reaper (R8 Premium) is R7 queue, etc.

The ‘Premium’ at the bottom of the ship tree are confusing because their position in the ship tree isn’t the same as their position in the queue, so while the Valor is in the R8 column it’s actually R9.

Confusing, huh?

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not bothered about skill rating, pls add in a reset skill rating button =)

 

for troll purposes

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not bothered about skill rating, pls add in a reset skill rating button =)

 

for troll purposes

 

Do a couple sc battles right after reset, skill rating will go up by the hundreds o.O

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I think some work needs to be done with the Skill Rating system.

 

not bothered about skill rating, pls add in a reset skill rating button =)

 

for troll purposes

 

While this would be a cool addition, I don’t think it addresses the major issues with skill rating. The term “skill rating” implies it gives you a rating based on your skill as a player. However, it only rates you based on your kill/death ratio. While getting a large number of kills and few, if any, deaths takes some skill, the rating leaves out other components from the game. I understand that skill rating is also based on the skill ratings of those you kill and those you are killed by, but skill ratings should also take into account assists and captures. Part of being a skillful player is knowing how to work in a team, which is a critical part of the game. Capturing beacons and scoring assists, whether they are buff, rebuff, or damage is part of working in a team. One player can’t play the game for the team and expect to win. Skill rating should encompass both individual skill (KD ratio) and team skill (buff/debuff assists and captures).

 

If the SR system should be unchanged (which is fine), there should be fixes to other aspects related to SR. The game supposedly balances games and puts players of a variety of skill ratings on both teams, but I can’t tell you how many times I get into a game where my team has 3 or 4 players with 1400+ skill ratings and the other team has, if they are lucky, 1 (or visa-versa). If the skill rating system should remain the same, the balancing of games should be fixed, because when one team has significantly more players with higher skill ratings than the other, it is safe to say that 95% of the time, the team with more high-SR players will win.

 

In my personal opinion, I think something should be changed about the SR system. There is nothing more annoying than getting into a game and going “Crap, I have to face the ESB kill squad of pilots with 1600+ skill ratings…” (typically they have the highest SR’s I’ve seen, but they are well-earned.) I think that one of the best fixes if the SR system isn’t going to be changed is that if pilots get above a certain SR, they should be placed in either a separate queue for pilots with a minimum SR of say 1500 (just for instance). In most cases, players with skill ratings below 1300 will stand little chance against players with more than 1400-1500. I know that the player base isn’t large enough to sustain multiple queues for one tier, but if/when the time comes where the player base is large enough, that change should be made.

 

Sorry for the long rant, but I feel like someone had to say it.

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The main fear I have, is that Ships lacking of Killing/Objective ability will have less SR than other ships with this patch.

 

Maybe they are also planning to improve the efficiency gain but I’m a bit sceptical.

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No patch today? Could it be they’re actually doing what we always dreamed and gathering our initial assessments before launch?