Here’s my response in to the soundbyte. I’ll mark times, the general idea during that time, and reply to it.
[0:00] Telling the players to think about the issue in a different way - Interceptor speed example
Overall the complaints of the playerbase, and understanding that it’s ultimately the problem of the weapon damage is for the developers to figure out. Yes, the players are wrong. However, increasing the speed of interceptors was something the development team did, and thought would solve the issue. Personally I never had that issue, as a interceptor pilot main. I have a problem with this example because it was implemented. Since the devs implemented higher inty speed, it means it’s part of where they want to take the game, is it not?
However, I do agree that the playerbase is off as to the solution 80% or more of the time. They may identify the problem, but the solutions cause more problems then they fix.
[2:30] The lack of variation, especially in combat/gameplay. Due to this gameplay, the game hasn’t spread
It’s true. The game appeals to arena-based combat. It’s on par with World of Tanks, and War Thunder in terms of potential population. There are no side-quests, no mining, just dogfight combat. Personally I’m okay with it for what it is. Your larger problem is that you have never promoted friends to play, or given a small-team focus to the game. I can’t get my friends to play it because it isn’t friendly to bring in a few friends. It isn’t fun as a team. Look at League of Legends. It’s amazing for playing with 1-4 friends. This game makes it really hard to.
[5:15] The game has a major flaw, there is no traction in the community.
Advertisement doesn’t keep people playing a game. Gameplay does. Progression does. Feeling unfairly treated by the developers has hurt this game far more than the combat. I have seen so many players swear off this game because of major changes that feel like changes for the sake of change. The camera change, the tier matching change, patch 0.8.0 (and the horrors in broken ship trees that went with it), the loyalty reward change. These changes have made a lot of players swear to never come back. Much of your playerbase doesn’t trust you to properly respect their real-money purchases or the game they paid money for.
[7:00] Getting 2-shotted with have players leave
See above, you lost a lot of the playerbase with the changes from the game people used to have.
However, I do greatly agree that interceptor speed is a problem. For veteran pilots, it’s not as big of an issue. However, even fast newbie pilots in interceptors will have a great advantage over other newbie players.
[9:00] Updated aim markers, ect
Sounds great, we’ll have to see it in action to really see what you want to do with this. It’s difficult to explain, video is much better for this.
[11:00] Change everything to projectiles
I agree, everything should be projectiles.
[14:00] Weapon damage
Why not acknowledge that the interceptor speed boost was a mistake? Why not nerf interceptor manuverability? It seems like you’re applying two fixes, where you should just choose one.
[16:45] [in response to mixing tiers]
The great thing about keeping tiers fighting their same tiers is that the players understand. Starting into T3, you understand that you’ll be fighting higher tier T3, and be at a disadvantage. A player can handle that. It’s an issue of consistency. Not knowing whether they’re going into battle weak, or strong, is more of the problem. I still support fixed tiers because a player always understands. Then you can also tweak within a single tier.
[18:45] One shots (quick kills) remove skill, and reduce the ability to respond to an attack.
Okay, now I understand why you want to do this. I’m all for it. I’d like to see the ability to do a bit more. My only qualm is that with greater targeting abilities, are we just going to prolong that one-shot into a slow unavoidable drawn out death?
[20:45] Module Progression
Yes, modules should only give a slight edge. Currently they cost too much to get Mark 3 modules…
[23:15] Interceptors are all the same
Mostly similar, but they could easily use a complete overhaul.
ECM’s are problematic in design themselves, because they run into the CC lock possibilities.
I see many of the interceptor problems as being problematic due to the issues with the game. Even in T3, we have players who still don’t go for objectives. They just want to dogfight. Are people going to use a low-damage interceptor much when they have no team to rely on? Are points fairly distributed to those who go for objectives?
_ Before you mess with interceptors, find a way to encourage team play so different roles are worth taking into combat. _
[29:15] Overdrive and Gunships
Overdrive is broken. Good thing it’s hard to hit things… (I admit, I love taking my gunship to a guard frigate and killing it in 6 seconds.)
As a note though, extra crit on a long cooldown always feels bad to me. Maybe make it an extra two crits in the next 5 seconds?
[31:30] Frigates
Frigates have always been an issue. They take a lot of damage, and used to be able to do a lot of damage. They’re hard to balance.
As a pilot, I hate them because flying-wise, they have no ability to include skill into their piloting. They need a sort of mobility.
[38:00] Beacon capturing
Beacons as they stand could be tweaked. I wouldn’t mind seeing some experimentation with the number of ships near the beacon determine how fast points tick away from the enemy team’s score (in beacon hunt), and other ways to change how capping works.
Overall, thanks for the audio clip. It’s nice to see some some transparency, and some actual design philosophy and reasoning behind changes. It’s not quite enough, in my opinion, but it’s a start. I do have something to say about the game as a whole.
Star Conflict currently has problems because it doesn’t focus on team play as of right now. I’m a T3 pilot, but I’ve been playing on and off for a bit less than a year. I have about a 1.48 win ratio, mostly because I go after the objective. I play the recon interceptor mostly because for beacons I can farm points, it can assassinate, and is about the best for objectives in every single mode. (Beacons? Warp to it. EMP? Warp to it, dance around asteroids. Captain? Warpt to it, kill it.) I can do it all by myself, and I have to. Thanks to warp, I can keep up with the long transit times after dying.
The major problem that wasn’t addressed was healing. Healing and regen is a problem. Engineers make single-use shield/hull restoration modules a joke, getting lasting damage on a captain is impossible. Once damage levels are lowered, maybe avoiding damage will be more important. Right now as it it stands, you’re going to take the damage you’re taking, getting the kill before you die is what matters. Poking and getting some damage in? Never worth it. It’s the kill or nothing.
Tacklers are really lackluster right now as well. They need a low-cd on-use module for interceptors that tear 10% of their speed and manuverability away from them. Not enough to make them worthless, just enough to make their ship feel “not right” and that they’re being hunted.
I had more to say, but I’m out of time and have gotten disorganized over the course of this post.