First of all, the game looks, feels and plays great. For a beta
I have played MANY, MANY Betas and online games already released and I believe I have some deep knowledge about what players like and dislike in their games.
I have spent much time reading the forums and gathered some information i deem important and I would like to share my oppinion to both the devs and the players in the beta and to those still waiting for their key
-The most important thing I would like to see in this game is a persistent world. And by persistent I mean, instead of a lobby where people join a room and hit START GAME when everyone is ready, having an open world, populated by players, where we could actually travel to the different sectors making your ship go faster than 299,792,458 m/s ( the speed of light ^^ ), and during their travels they could encounter a battle and join it by just going there and start PWNING some enemy ships Also, and this one is important, letting people travel in lightspeed from anywhere, or using āStar Gatesā is still one thing I havenāt yet thought about and still havenāt come to a conclusion.
-Regarding the economy system, I donāt think I can comment on it before talking about the looting system. When a player kills another, there should be a small chance we could win an item, be it a weapon or a module for the shield, but something usefull rather than what we recieve in other games where the loot is essentially junk to sell. As this game is going to focus on PvP, I believe the looting system needs to be very well done, or else, it will be useless and will mean only work for the player and not fun at all. If the weapon you get from a kill is useless to you (lower level or you just donāt like it), there should be a broker as in MMORPGs where people could buy items others donāt need. This will not only benefit the player, but will also make the game much more deep as many players focus a lot more on trading than fighting others. Also, in the open world I refered previously, I would like to have an option for direct trading, making trading much more easy when you just need to hand over an item to a friend for free.
-I have heard about tournaments in the forums and the devs reacted the way they should. End-game gameplay is just as important as a tutorial for newbies. It will maintain the high level gamers playing and having fun, while making the newbies wanting to play more to level up and join the high ranks and climb up the ladders. Although this is a hard thing to do. This game is supposed to be played with a team, not 1 vs 1. Then how do we know if one player is better than the other? This is where I want to give my oppinion. There SHOULD NOT be tournaments to see the best player, but to evaluate a clan as a team. Rankings should be clan-based, not player-based. And that way, all the players in that clan will be rewarded according to how well they performed within the alliance, but that must be the leader to do. The rewards would be deposited in the clanās warehouse and then distributed how they would see best.
-Now that I mentioned clans, I believe the game should focus A LOT about this part of the game. Personally, I like to lead. Itās just my personality and I believe people like my leadership because I donāt take it to extreme levels and still achieve the clanās goals. ( I DO NOT HAVE A CLAN YET ) With a persistent world, the possibilities are as infinite as the universe itself. Clans could have their own Space Station and customize it as they see fit, be it adding a cargo bay to increase clanās warehouse slots, adding turret defences or building a shuttle bay to increase the member limit. Of course, all these things would require teamwork at its best, as it would require A LOT of resources gained from conquered āsectorsā with specific buildings such as mining or research facilities.
I would also like to see different resources rather than having just one resource called " Resources" as we see in many games. Capital Ships, such as the dreadnought, have been announced and personally I am really curious as to how the devs are gonna pull this one off. In a persistent world, Capital Ships would need about 5 minutes to get to max speed, and that means it would take some time to get somewhere. That said I donāt believe Capital Ships should be manned by players. Instead, the leader would send coordinates to a specific sector and the CS (Capital Ship) would travel there. Be it through a āStar Gateā or not. And players from the clan would be able to use the turrets instead. That would make destroying Capital Ships much harder and also add teamwork withing the clan to operate the CS efficiently.
Onto the topic of Capital Ship destruction. I have seen in the forums, that all the spaceships will not have weak spots and all of them would take the same damage be it in the engine or the cockpit. I agree with this to a certain point. Having Weak Spots on Interceptors would make no sense and be VERY hard to achieve and cause system instability and increase lag. I believe only Capital Ships should have weak spots, such as the life support, shields generators and so on, to increase the teamwork requirements to take a CS down.
When a sector is captured, clans should be able to build an Outpost, similar to their Space Station but without the modules that increase member limit and so on. Outposts should be all about defence and resource output. I would LOVE to have cargo ships, driven by NPCās, carrying the resources to the Space Station but I know that would be A LOT TO ASK xD. Clans should have a well defined hierarchy, and making the leaders define that hierarchy would be the best thing to do. Let the leaders define the ranks and the respective permissions within the clan. Defining āWingsā would also be a great idea because that would make the game SO MUCH more interesting, making the leader give orders to the wing leaders and the wing leaders give those orders to the respective Wings. This would prove very useful in combat situations.
-Crafting would be a great addition to this amazing game as well. And I believe it should be performed by Clans only. This would make people take interest in joining a clan, as I believe people donāt join clans because they see no benefit in doing so. Personally I like socializing with my members and laughing and all that but some people have no interest in that sort of thing. I donāt mean we should FORCE them to join clans but at least they would get a chance to socialize and get to know their team mates. Crafting āingredientsā should be gained from both outposts from the clan or from loot in PvP. Crafting would enable the economy to grow into something much more complex and fun. But please, DO NOT MAKE THIS THE BORING PART OF THE GAME! Games like Aion take crafting and gathering to extreme boredom and people are forced to cheat to bypass that boring part of the game. This would also reduce hackers.
-About the ship differences and uniqueness, this is something we all want and will not be accomplished, no matter how many attempts the devs make. We all want different ships, with different colors and shapes, weapon slots, sizes and other things like turrets and cool looks. Imagine 10 000 people are playing the game and every single one of them want a unique ship. Star Trek fans want a round ship with 2 tubes coming from the rear end while Star Wars fans want a Millenium Falcon for example. Can you imagine how many GBs and time would take to create all of those ships? Even if the devs created ship parts and you created your ship, it would take too much time and as we all know, time is money, especially in F2P games such as this one. I am all up for ship differences, letting players paint them how they want, but more than that is just too much to ask. Even all that I already mentioned above in this Topic is too much xD
-I believe there should be more than just 3 types of weapons. Plasma, Chain and Laser is not enough, even with the modules to modify them. Why donāt you get some inspiration from sci fi movies and games, such as Star Wars, Mass Effect, Battlestar Galactica, etcā¦? Iām sure you would enrich the game a lot more doing that. I do not mean stealing their ideas, I mean getting new ideas from the ideas of well successful ideas. I said āideasā too many times didnāt I? xD
Well, I canāt really recall any other things to adress other than the subscription system. I know this game will be F2P. But will it be Pay 2 Win? If this game were to take a turn to that dark path, it would be a BIG letdownā¦ I know the point of making a game is to get profit from it. There are salaries to pay and so many things to make use of it but do not go to extreme situations where the best ship in the game costs real money and that would be the only way to obtain it. I know many great games that went down that path and arenāt making it as well as it should.
Overall, with what I have seen and read, this is gonna be the best space combat MMO in the market. The game is still in development and it will always be, so please, do NOT screw it up on itās early stage
I have spent 1:30 hours writing this down, and Iām sick, so this is how much I care for this game ^^
I have already posted on the normal forums under suggestions but no Dev has commented yet so iāll post it here as well