Game "Improving" Actions?

Suggestions PvP
#1

A little “Heart-to-heart” Star Conflict… Where are you heading? What is your ambition? Do you truly want to expand and attract more players and also keeping them playing the game?

 

Metaphorically, there is a HUGE elephant in the room right now, and from reading the patch discussion thread, it’s only growing bigger. The gamers are trying to adress it, but it feels like we are getting ignored and silenced. Many are upset, worried, furious at the moment for many reasons but the main reason is that we who have been playing SC for some time are able to see the state it is in right now, and compare it to a time where it had less bugs, more quality allover regarding many aspects and therefore more enjoyable to play. 

 

This is my analysis of the situation;

 

Quality of the game has been decreasing for some time because of;

  • The many Dreadnought bugs; it’s a real turn-off prepping and fight for a sector 1,5-2h and winning it but not owning it, it went neutral, or you being kicked out in the middle of the game, the list of dreadnought bugs is long and they started to infect the game this summer and was accelerating til recently. Not fixing an issue such as this asap WILL have a negative impact on the game and it’s reputation. 

  • No competetive purpose in T5 (to keep the vets who look for an actual and just challenge happy)

  • Lack of corp-strengthening activities; Dreadnought was/is broken (few corps are playing dreads today because of the longlasting bug infection)

Special Ops were/are broken (rewards i.e. decide the level of interest to invest time/effort to grind in order to reach the ships and modules required to enhance the chance of succeeding the difficult and timeconsuming mission, and a low gaming population who actually meets the requirements for launching a t5 specops doesnt make it any better. 

Tournaments are in T3 and only 3 times a week. 

-Next to impossible to squad up in T4 and T5 without waiting for at least 5min (in EU prime time) AND most likely get a game that is highly unbalanced. BUT I remember that this very summer AND the months before that, I was able to squad up with a friend in t4 without having to wait that many minutes… what happened after that?? 

-The so called “improved” MM balance isn’t IMHO improved at all… in fact IT IS WORSE!! I’ve have NEVER as long as I can remember, had THIS BAD mm balance for pvp!! It’s outrageous! I bet it would be even better if you removed the rules for 2man squadding entirely in t5 at least!! Maybe that would draw the vets attention back to T5 again??? 

-Loot in t5 pvp is quite bad; my suggestion is to improve it by adding a chance for a monochrystal to drop every once in a while. 

-Open Space… I cannot say much about this because the only time I spend here is to do my daily mono missions - that’s it. I scan for blue every sector I pass… but I rarely find any BP or anything worth my time here at all.

-PVE… I seldom do them anymore - I got all ships maxed out, I don’t need credits, I don’t need the purple loot either…

-Vets are overall frustrated and bored (and not without a reason!) and as a consequence they create new accounts to play t1, t2 and this is a roadblock for the game to get new players. 

-Bugs, bugs, bugs in general 

 

As for solutions?

New content is always fun and welcome. But ONLY if the current gamecontent is STABLE and relatively bugfree!! 

 

Star Conflict… You need a bigger playerbase. That would solve many issues; beacuse there are so many elements in this game that gives it potential to be “huge” if you only let it. AND these elements are very stimulating, and satisfying IF they only worked smoothly - no bugs - or hindered by a lack of people.

There is PVP, PVE, Open space, Specops, Dreadnought, Tournaments… everything is brilliant ONLY if you have the population and get rid of the bugs. 

Give it advertisement! 

Give the players strong and good REASONS to explore the game, get hooked, feel satisfied playing it! Make them WANT to play more, and not by increasing the grind. 

People love rewards. People want to have fun. Don’t make it more grindy - dont make it “impossible” to complete or finish, this is not the way to go. 

With more people in the game, make it easier to squad up; especially in higher tiers that’s where it is a problem! - vets are playing t3 because that’s where you can get a game in squad without waiting so long.

 

As for the “roadblockers” aka vets disguised in t1/t2… give them a REASON to play T5 - be it competetive, or loot relative… a chance to get ship parts as loot? or monochrystals?

Also… FIX the mm balance. It is not balance at the moment. 

 

I am such a fan of this game when it is working… Plz fix it :/ 

 

//phoenix

 

 

 

#2

I’ve got a slightly different perspective, though I tend to agree with you for the most part.

 

Most of this game’s problems with player retention, that are not due to bugs, are due to progression.

 

This is an illustration of a healthy difficulty curve:

difficulty_curve.png

 

The idea is to give your players ever increasing challenges to keep them engaged, but also rewarding them by making them feel like they have accomplished something.

 

Unfortunately, that is not what our difficulty curve looks like.

 

Ours is more like this:

SCdifficulty_zpseyjid5er.png

 

The amount of reward given to high-level players for the effort the game demands is downright abysmal. And it’s clear the reason rewards are so stingy is to make players want to pay real money to ease the grind. But that’s the problem. Even paying is hardly satisfying. Player aren’t paying to skip the miserable grind, they’re simply refusing to put up with it and playing the part of the game that feels most rewarding.

 

You wonder why there are so many vets in Tier 3? It’s because that is where the risk/reward ratio is most balanced. That’s where all the fun ships are located. That’s where the FUN is at. Tier 3.

 

Perhaps if repair costs weren’t so high in the upper tiers. Perhaps if Dreadnoughts had better rewards for the ridiculous amount of prep-work required to have a match, if you are even lucky enough to get a match. Perhaps if Secret Project Ships didn’t take half a year to gather the resources to construct, and didn’t require half-a-million credits to repair. Perhaps if PvE had a guaranteed rare loot spot for every match instead of once-per-day. Perhaps if the valuable loot of Open Space wasn’t restricted to cloaked containers…

 

Maybe it’s time to actually discuss the game’s economy, instead of giving us the usual “we don’t talk about the economy” BS. Games designed around progression rather than storylines need a healthy economy to survive. It is their ‘heart’, so to speak. I am not alone in thinking our game’s ‘heart’ is in trouble. That to me is the REAL elephant in the room.

#3

Reminded me of old graph for game i use to play :smiley:

mGVT32U.jpg

#4

I agrea , i think its time to let everyone make his own concept of perfect star conflict , post it on the forum. compare. and reroute the way where heading !!!

#5

I heavily support everything phoenix suggests.

 

There is still time to fix the mistakes that have been made before irreversible consequences happen, but you must take action now. Bugs and problems such as these cannot simply be ignored due to lazy developers or “more important things” take precedence. These items ARE the most important items and they need to be addressed ASAP if you want this game to succeed. I can’t tell you how sick I am of hearing admins/mods/devs on the forums stating that the game is “working as intended” or “it is not a bug” or “it is a connection issue on your end” when every single player is experiencing the same issues.

 

So please, enough of the laziness or w/e is happening. Fix your game.

 

Like phoenix, I greatly enjoy this game when it is working properly (which seems to be rarer and rarer these days). I would very much like to see these issues fixed in a timely manner, as if it goes too long without serious improvements to the game and fixes for these major issues, I may just quit the game all together forever, and all the money I have put in will have been wasted. 

 

Currently, I have my doubts as to whether or not the dev team actually cares about their game and about the players of their game. Now is a great opportunity to prove me (and probably others) wrong. Fix your game. Dedicate your time to making a client that actually works before you decide to add more things and ruin it further.

#6

Fix servers first

#7

MM is a LOT better, we have to admit that. My son and I get matches in T2 that are more then 2v2 now. I don’t wait 5 minutes for a match in T4.

 

I stopped playing dreads because they are at 12am, 2pm, 4pm eastern, and I have a life. So dreads bug has no affect on me. Would have been great to have one of the three times when I am not working or sleeping…

 

I started playing T5 again to finish leveling ships ‘ya me just about done’. T5 has considerably fewer skilled players than T4, and T3.

I feel untouchable in my eagle swift, even with the recent changes to attempt and nurf fast ships and give everything once again to tacklers.

Jump in a tackler in T5 with even a little skill. Forget it, you get like 5 kills for free. I pooped a drone at a beacon and had to evade an incoming guard. The drone, all alone killed an enemy recon…

Somehow no sees assault rails crit build coming…

#8

 

 

I stopped playing dreads because they are at 12am, 2pm, 4pm eastern, and I have a life. So dreads bug has no affect on me. Would have been great to have one of the three times when I am not working or sleeping…

 

Same here:  The old 10:00 - 10:30 EST was PERFECT !!!

#9

check doombots replay https://forum.star-conflict.com/index.php?/topic/28351-anti-bots-ingame/

#10

Fix servers first

I quote “There is no known issue with a servers”

And if you cannot prove that you see your afterburner trail in front of you - not a bug.

#11

I can’t help contemplating this midgame joining mechanics and how it may influence the battle “balance” as well as the outcome. 

In higher tiers, I think it would be wise to stop with the midgame joining. Not only because of the rubberbanding lags, but also because of this;

 

  • It increases a sense of improvised chaos, which is only enhanced by the short battletimes. Who is winning and who is losing can swiftly change now from one moment to the next, or it’s decided from the very start and is very hard to turn around when you join after over 1min yourself. 

 

Shortly put, if this is going to continue, at least consider longer battles so that maybe, the teams have a chance to grasp what is going on, which person(s) are a real problem here and needs to be dealt with, where is my team etc… right now there is next no sense of strategic gameplay in these shortlived battles.  

well that’s my opinion at least. 

#12
  • It increases a sense of improvised chaos, which is only enhanced by the short battletimes. Who is winning and who is losing can swiftly change now from one moment to the next, or it’s decided from the very start and is very hard to turn around when you join after over 1min yourself.

 

Fully agree with this, battles have a greater sense of predetermined outcome now. Join late into a game, contribute and help to turn it around. Nope you too late timer has ran out.

 

People used to whine about the ques but this is way too far in the other direction, playing pvp is just like going through the motions. It becomes easy to tell for many games how its gonna play out now, because there is 5mins left and you just spawned.

 

Said it before ill say it again i’d rather wait 2mins for a full game rather than this. 10 seconds maybe but min after games starts is too much to be adding players to the shorter game length.

#13

IMo there should be more incentive for  experienced “lone wolfs”. Because the game is boring for me now cuz i have all that stuff i need and i want fly alone or in 2 ppl team. So i cannot do dreads, i cannot do SpecOps, i can only fly T5 again and again, not getting any reward that interests me. Monos are useless to me also cuz i can only buy stupid T6 ships that i do not want.

 

I want old Seccon back, that was neat, u could fly against god players in team from 2 to 4. I also want good rewards from this Seccon like gold standards or skins that nobody else has.

 

I think Dreads very very bad idea so late, cuz my Corp didnt manage it and ended up kinda dead now.

#14

IMo there should be more incentive for  experienced “lone wolfs”. Because the game is boring for me now cuz i have all that stuff i need and i want fly alone or in 2 ppl team. So i cannot do dreads, i cannot do SpecOps, i can only fly T5 again and again, not getting any reward that interests me. Monos are useless to me also cuz i can only buy stupid T6 ships that i do not want.

 

I want old Seccon back, that was neat, u could fly against god players in team from 2 to 4. I also want good rewards from this Seccon like gold standards or skins that nobody else has.

 

I think Dreads very very bad idea so late, cuz my Corp didnt manage it and ended up kinda dead now.

Dude you can do dreads alone. You can also do specops alone. If you like to win, you need a team. Take some “lone wolfs” and do it.

I also don’t see the relation between dreads and corp activity. The corp can live without sector/dread.

I’m also missing the old SQ a bit, because the dreads doesn’t happening so often, usually it needs 30min squadding at least, and organising. Dread battles cost a lot, then you end up in a buggy and laggy game what is hard to enjoy. Also the current dread system is bad and built for abuse.

So do you like to keep your corp alive? Work for it. That will do the Trick.

#15

My Corp is already dead. And If “Lone wolfs” would fly in a team so readily they are no “Lone wolfs”.

 

Dreads were too much to handle for my Corp, it broke apart because it constantly lost/was unable to field a team at all. 

 

Old SQ was just managable for my Corp, barely. And you should be aware that my Corp, even dead now, is still one of the biggest and most active Western ones.

 

If old SQ came back, it would be neat.

#16

You can queue as a single pilot for dread battles. In 90% of time you will be put against another random team and/or bots.

#17

A little “Heart-to-heart” Star Conflict… Where are you heading? What is your ambition? Do you truly want to expand and attract more players and also keeping them playing the game?

 

Metaphorically, there is a HUGE elephant in the room right now, and from reading the patch discussion thread, it’s only growing bigger. The gamers are trying to adress it, but it feels like we are getting ignored and silenced. Many are upset, worried, furious at the moment for many reasons but the main reason is that we who have been playing SC for some time are able to see the state it is in right now, and compare it to a time where it had less bugs, more quality allover regarding many aspects and therefore more enjoyable to play. 

 

This is my analysis of the situation;

 

Quality of the game has been decreasing for some time because of;

  • The many Dreadnought bugs; it’s a real turn-off prepping and fight for a sector 1,5-2h and winning it but not owning it, it went neutral, or you being kicked out in the middle of the game, the list of dreadnought bugs is long and they started to infect the game this summer and was accelerating til recently. Not fixing an issue such as this asap WILL have a negative impact on the game and it’s reputation. 

  • No competetive purpose in T5 (to keep the vets who look for an actual and just challenge happy)

  • Lack of corp-strengthening activities; Dreadnought was/is broken (few corps are playing dreads today because of the longlasting bug infection)

Special Ops were/are broken (rewards i.e. decide the level of interest to invest time/effort to grind in order to reach the ships and modules required to enhance the chance of succeeding the difficult and timeconsuming mission, and a low gaming population who actually meets the requirements for launching a t5 specops doesnt make it any better. 

Tournaments are in T3 and only 3 times a week. 

-Next to impossible to squad up in T4 and T5 without waiting for at least 5min (in EU prime time) AND most likely get a game that is highly unbalanced. BUT I remember that this very summer AND the months before that, I was able to squad up with a friend in t4 without having to wait that many minutes… what happened after that?? 

-The so called “improved” MM balance isn’t IMHO improved at all… in fact IT IS WORSE!! I’ve have NEVER as long as I can remember, had THIS BAD mm balance for pvp!! It’s outrageous! I bet it would be even better if you removed the rules for 2man squadding entirely in t5 at least!! Maybe that would draw the vets attention back to T5 again??? 

-Loot in t5 pvp is quite bad; my suggestion is to improve it by adding a chance for a monochrystal to drop every once in a while. 

-Open Space… I cannot say much about this because the only time I spend here is to do my daily mono missions - that’s it. I scan for blue every sector I pass… but I rarely find any BP or anything worth my time here at all.

-PVE… I seldom do them anymore - I got all ships maxed out, I don’t need credits, I don’t need the purple loot either…

-Vets are overall frustrated and bored (and not without a reason!) and as a consequence they create new accounts to play t1, t2 and this is a roadblock for the game to get new players. 

-Bugs, bugs, bugs in general 

 

As for solutions?

New content is always fun and welcome. But ONLY if the current gamecontent is STABLE and relatively bugfree!! 

 

Star Conflict… You need a bigger playerbase. That would solve many issues; beacuse there are so many elements in this game that gives it potential to be “huge” if you only let it. AND these elements are very stimulating, and satisfying IF they only worked smoothly - no bugs - or hindered by a lack of people.

There is PVP, PVE, Open space, Specops, Dreadnought, Tournaments… everything is brilliant ONLY if you have the population and get rid of the bugs. 

Give it advertisement! 

Give the players strong and good REASONS to explore the game, get hooked, feel satisfied playing it! Make them WANT to play more, and not by increasing the grind. 

People love rewards. People want to have fun. Don’t make it more grindy - dont make it “impossible” to complete or finish, this is not the way to go. 

With more people in the game, make it easier to squad up; especially in higher tiers that’s where it is a problem! - vets are playing t3 because that’s where you can get a game in squad without waiting so long.

 

As for the “roadblockers” aka vets disguised in t1/t2… give them a REASON to play T5 - be it competetive, or loot relative… a chance to get ship parts as loot? or monochrystals?

Also… FIX the mm balance. It is not balance at the moment. 

 

I am such a fan of this game when it is working… Plz fix it :/ 

 

//phoenix

Hello, thank you for your reasonable opinion.

Some of dreads issues have been already solved, if you still experience problems in Sector Conquest, please write bug reports or write me a pm.

About MM, as you probably know now we are on the way to a rank-only system (without tiers) which will be completely different from the current one. Therefore, all MM-system will be significantly reworked.

About reason to play T5, right now we are doing a couple of things to make this tier more prestigious and interesting, some of them will be implemented soon enough.

#18

About MM, as you probably know now we are on the way to a rank-only system (without tiers) 

Holly Molly Guacamole!!

 

That will be a great idea! I hope you will also fix the premium ships MM and make squads enjoyable again.

#19

Hello, thank you for your reasonable opinion.

Some of dreads issues have been already solved, if you still experience problems in Sector Conquest, please write bug reports or write me a pm.

About MM, as you probably know now we are on the way to a rank-only system (without tiers) which will be completely different from the current one. Therefore, all MM-system will be significantly reworked.

About reason to play T5, right now we are doing a couple of things to make this tier more prestigious and interesting, some of them will be implemented soon enough.

ok will be interesting to see. Thanks for answering