New camera settings

Mercenary Center Developer Blog
1

Hello to all players of Star Conflict!

In today’s article we will try to tell you about the new game camera. The following questions frequently come up during various discussions: “Why did you do that?”, “What were you thinking?”, “What’s going to happen to the camera now?”
We will try to answer these questions, and those who want to get the gist of it should just scroll through the article to the “Summary” line — there you will find all the short answers on this topic.

In the camera’s previous incarantion, the game looked more like an RTS, rather than Action. See for yourself:

6nPZCm17.jpg

 

The ship was miles away and the sense of speed was not conducted in the best way possible. And in terms of gameplay the ships were too similar: if you sit behind the wheel of a motorcycle, and then get inside a heavy truck, controls and dynamics will be much different. This is what we would like to achieve in our game. We wanted the frigate to be perceived not as a larger version of the interceptor, but as a really big and impressive ship. New settings more clearly convey a sense of speed for ships of small tonnage and a feeling of smoothness and calmness - for the big ones, at the same time focusing on the visual differences.

In addition, the player could not clearly see those stickers that they picked for their ships, that are meant to differentiate the pilot from the other players. In fact, the ships at that time were just faceless machines that nullified any customization. Ship shape, colouring … all that we have been working on for so long - was almost invisible.

But not all the players enjoyed our innovation: frigate pilots began to notice that some of the ships were visually “cut”. In addition, the reduced camera angles made frigates much more vulnerable. Therefore, we have decided to adjust the settings. The results can be seen in the screenshots below:

Prior to May 30:
MlzleTS6.jpg

After May 30:
oN0IMNPp.jpg

A brief summary:

Why has the view changed?
Ships of different classes differ significantly from each other in size and feel of controls, but the camera as it was almost nullified the differences.

What are the aims pursued by the developers making these changes?
New settings more clearly convey a sense of speed for ships of small tonnage and a feeling of smoothness and calmness - for the big ones.

What will happen with the camera now?
We have listened carefully to members on the subject and agree that in its current state, the camera needs some work when it comes to frigates.

In conclusion: The new camera settings are implemented on Thursday, and we will continue to monitor your feedback!

2

So, the camera is going to stay in a unwanted state for the other two ship classes, even though 80% of your playerbase either dislikes it or finds it right out horrible, just so the game can “convey speed and scale better”.

 

le sigh.

 

Your players obviously care more about a functional and comfortable camera than the expression of speed or scale.

 

Is this design objective really more important than the enjoyment of the game basics ?

3

 ITs not like old camera was fixed at maximum range and you couldn'tt zoom in to feel that, so called immersion, and see your own stickers during the match.

 Another thing is that when you fly a Frig and some of your screen is blocked by your body and there is an inty in your blind spot, yes you made a target outlines to workaround this, but you do not see your projectiles, and if you are using some moderately slow weapon, its a pain because you have to lead your target and the only thing you see is lead marker, not outlined target its hard to percept yourself against that object when there are no visual references.

4

Honestly if the result will be like in the second pic " After May 30" i think the result will be amazing…

 

Being an old player i’m sure that in this way the frigs will be more tanky again…and finally…a feeling that i lost aftre the 0.6 went out…lol

 

I’m sure we’ll get great fights back… with inties perfectely viable again… :wink: If this will be the case then i’m sure that you could easily restore the 6 turrets on all frigs…So the big fight “high damege vs high mobility” will be back after long time :wink:

5

Okay, I understand it, but what’s the harm in just giving players different camera MODEs? Like in Automotive sport games, there are multiple camera angles to which to drive from. Some like the chase cam, others the bumper cam, some even go for the interior cam. ITs all about preference at this point in the game. I want to choose what I like and go for it, not be forced to play the same camera. 

 

BUT, when you factor in survivability and other measures into the game, a camera change was necessary but to the extent that the develpers have it. Personally, interceptors should be the ones that have the MOST view as they are the correct role to have it. 

6

lets see this is just xxxx 

 

fail.jpg

 

and this is what is perfect :) 

 

screenshot-130524-210847.jpg

7

  1. The ship was miles away and the sense of speed was not conducted in the best way possible.

  2. In addition, the player could not clearly see those stickers that they picked for their ships, that are meant to differentiate the pilot from the other players. In fact, the ships at that time were just faceless machines that nullified any customization. Ship shape, colouring … all that we have been working on for so long - was almost invisible.

 

Read this very carefully:

 

  1. The old camera was not fixed at this position. It could be zoomed to current levels if the player so desired or it could be zoomed out for better battlefield awareness. If a player wanted a sense of speed they were more than capable of zooming in to their desired level. This is not an improvement, but a limitation. Therefore, this reason is not well founded, and is therefore an excuse.

 

  1. Player stickers and other customizations are not just for our own benefit, but for others. If I kill another player, he gets to see a closeup killcam of my ship, complete with my chosen decal to show that I killed him. This was just fine. As stated above, if I wanted to bask in the glory of my chosen ship and decal, I could zoom in to my desired level. At the camera’s current level, we still can’t see other’s ships in detail unless they kill us, and that isn’t going to change without breaking the game. Also, if you are really concerned about player uniqueness, where are the custom paintschemes, uploadable stickers, and custom ship parts? This reason is also not well founded, and is an excuse.

 

These are not valid reasons, but excuses. We can see our ships just fine in the hangar, and we could zoom in just fine by ourselves without having it forced on us. Same goes with sense of speed. Stop feeding us BS and give us what we are asking for. Give us the old FOV back!

 

Seriously, you guys are better at non-sequiters and red herrings than American politicians! You aren’t listening to us, yet you are trying to convince us that you are and that you care. Acta non Verba.

8

+1 to SoldiersFortune!

9

I see your points, though I can’t say I really agree, but why not just let the players decide where they want the camera?  You get both worlds…

10

I’m baffled by the dev’s to the point of utter fustration. I read Error’s post with a hope for understanding a mechanics need or some sort of imbalance… only to discover it simply boils down to a dev thinks it’s more fun, an the player base can go bugger themselves apparently. I mean really… as was pointed out rather kindly by Soldiersfortune already, the OLD camera system allowed us to have ALL the functionaly of the CURRENT SYSTEM, with NONE of the restrictions. If I wanted a claustrophobicly close “sense of speed” I could simply ZOOM IN. When I found I didn’t like that at all because it severely limited my AWARENESS, I could easily zoom back out.

 

I guess they feel that adding a zoom out to the “free look” button was some sort of fix… well lets see… now in addition to using a hand to hit multiple keys in chaotic dogfights, I can also somehow GROW  A 6TH finger and hold down my “free look” button??? Yeah that’s a real improvement. It’s a lot like your car manufacturer saying for the sake of their brand you now lay face down with your head hanging out the bottom of your car so you can get a much better sense of speed. Who cares if you can’t see anything but your car with highly limited visibility… it’s better this way.

 

It makes zero sense to take away a system that gave complete view freedom, and already gave us a close in view if you WANTED it, on favor of giving us one that forces a view on you, with a need for yet another button to achieve the former functionality albiet with far less information. Previously if you simply zoomed out, all ship info was still displayed. Now with the current sytem, when using free look to zoom out, you get graphics only no ship information making the view USELESS in a dogfight, where it was most needed.

 

I’d love to take what they say at face value, but their answers are lacking any logic, or show a serious lack of understanding of their own game mechanics. I recently found over on the steam forums ST_TEAM trying to tell everyone that in fact full squads are open to free players, which weirdly is a blatant lie. It’s already been admitted by the dev’s that while squads are still requiring a licensed pilot, it’s a bug… HOWEVER, they have stated no ETA on fixing that, nor have they since mentioned any priority to do so. I was amazed to see this, as it’s been admitted they know of the “bug”, and yet are trying to convince the Steam forum readers of the exact opposite. Either that was a blatant oversight, members of their team are horribly uninformed, or it was a flat out lie.

11

The squad bug should be fixed since a few patches now.

I tried it myself with my accounts and there was no issues.

If there is still some issue left, please report it in detail so we can fix it.

12

If it has indeed been fixed my apologies, working to confirm this now. Amazed how that fix slipped by us, as many, including myself, were under the impression it was still broken. Was that fix in a patch note somewhere?

13

lets see this is just xxxx 

 

fail.jpg

 

and this is what is perfect :) 

 

screenshot-130524-210847.jpg

First pic is not good at all but second one is even worse…

 

Leaving the camera zoom in that way you and everyone else define perfect, is simply ridicolous…That is the reason the game turned into Frigates Conflicts…Frigs are big ships and they got to be tanky…In the second pic zoom u posted, firgs have same fighting abilities as interceptors with no blind spot at all but with massive survivability…this disblances the whole game fighting system…and the change is needed…I prefer frigs to be tanky but with 6 turrets again…Thrust me if they do this well u’ll get a great fight system again :wink:

14

TL;DR    I am indeed baffled by devs decisions to alienate their player base again and again.

 

Long version:

 

Dear devs, the only way you become a hugely successful game is by having the vast majority of players recommend the game to their friends, both IRL and online.

Those friends recommend it to their friends, and so on. And as long as the game is fun and new players keep recommending, the whole thing will snowball into insane player numbers. Many games have shown this, I’ll just mention World of Tanks here because at its basics its somewhat similiar to Star Conflict.

 

And the very core of Star Conflict is indeed a very promising start - core gameplay is very fun, and graphics look good enough and are very fast even on older computers.

Even better, the game is also available via steam, ensuring  a steady stream of new players trying the game out.

 

And yet, Devs seem determined to work hard against all that possible success:

 

  • loyalty nerf: loyalty now only by contracts and not by winning games any more. Players moan over the grind. Some minor adjustments have been made, but still 0 loyalty via games, contract system is forced on us.Guess it was too hard to swallow that pride and go back to the old system we liked better.

 

  • mixed tiers battles: before seperate tiers stayed seperate, majority of players wanted it to stay that way, you changed it. results horrible, major adjustments being made. now little is left of mixed tiers, but its still unfun eating a nuke from a T3 ship in a T2 battle of fighting T2s with a T1 ship. Did the game really gain from it ? Guess it was too hard to swallow that pride and go back to the old system we liked better again

 

  • considerable ship prices increase, ships now come with crappy Mk I modules few players enjoy. We ask for either old system or at least option to buy ships without Mk I stuff. nothing happens. Guess it was too hard to swallow that pride again.

 

  • reimplantation ninja (not in patchnotes) price explosion. from 5K to 950K. wtf ? We think thats way too much of an increase and ask for a reasonable one. nothing changes. Devs dont care.

  • storage space price increase. not as bad as reimplantation, only about 10x as much as before. Of course ninjaed on us again, guess patchnotes are only for the PR stuff. Not that many complaints, but devs dont care anyway.

 

  • new players used to get 7 days free license. then suddenly only 1 day. not sure they still get anything these days. devs dont care.

 

  • players need license for more than 2 man team suddenly. players complain, devs call it a “bug” thats is “hard to find” and take more than 4 weeks to “fix” it. greed must be a wonderful thing.

 

  • loot system. in old loot system, suddenly stealth nerf (yea guess what ? it once more wasnt in the patch notes) of grey loot going down so much. then new loot system with gambling RL cash: If I decide to spend RL money (on loot! wtf?) I have a 70% chance of not receiving anything for my RL cash. wtf ? pay-for-loot and gambling ? premium ship prices increase ? greed becomes ever more visible. devs dont mind, they think raising prices and making comunity angry will net more money than having happy and  supportive community who is glad to support the game with money.

 

  • ship roles changes: this one must have actually been a lot of development work, so I understand simmply rolling it back was not an option,  also not everything with it is bad. still some roles are vastly more useful than others, fitting restrictions are terribly tight and ship tree with branches has become a line of grind&greed. Especially funny: some players who bought both a premium ship and modules for it with RL cash found the role has changed and now their modules cant be equipped anymore by the ship they bought them for. way to screw your paying customers. devs dont care, of course.

 

  • camera view: old system was loved, dont remember players complaining about it. new one induces rage. of course, swallowing that pride and doing a simple rollback is out of the question yet again, instead it just needs some “balancing and testing”. translation: it will be forced on us anyway with some changes. players loved old system. devs dont care.

 

 

So dear devs, you cant be surprised that so many players have already left, and so many players I know currently DO NOT recommend the game to their friends or at least recommend for them to wait until the devs have regained their trust by showing they actually listen to the community. Camera change was a chance to show just that. Guess it was not to be.

 

So no snowballing player numbers. No huge success. Still struggling to keep same player numbers despite constant influx of new players from steam.

 

Let me ask this bluntly: do the devs WANT to work against the success of their own game ? Is this maybe just some psychological experiment that tests how much a community can take ?

15

The new free-view is pretty cool, except i think it would be better to keep the red and blue boxes around the ships because currently, it is hard to see other ships

16

So I should be feeling smooth and calm while hordes of buffed interceptors enjoy the new and rather large blind spots created… having hold yet another key so I can see whats going on around me conveys feelings of anger and fustration. In nearly every profession that requires piloting skills…requiring more sources of information to keep the pilot aware is a BAD thing. Hence, every military on the planet has tried to INCREASE information and situation awareness while REDUCING the amount of complexity. Any reason you’d try an go the OTHER direction from that sort of thinking while trying to simulate space combat in any form?

 

What you had, solved all the issues a pilot faced, including your attempts to convey “feelings” of speed, calm, and smooth. What you have now does not. Requiring more buttons, to give us what we already had, simply adds complexity to what was already user friendly, simple, and allowed a full range of freedom of choice.

 

I will say thanks in small part, as the screen shot of the upcoming view seems somewhat improved. However unless the “free look” camera zoom is changed to give us HUD info, the sacrifice of information so a frig can feel bigger, or whatever, seems a poor trade. I personally need information. I’m happy to leave the staring at pretty pretties on my ship for the hanger. Though maybe if pilots ARE actually staring at their stickers while in the midst of a game, that would go a long way toward explaining just WTF they’re doing instead of helping their team. :slight_smile:

17

Things are looking a lot better for Frigates, which is a welcome and much-needed change; I’m getting a little bored of being able to sit entirely motionless on a Frigate’s six o’clock position and not have to move because he can’t hit me.

 

I’m aware others may disagree, but I find this new camera just fine when I’m piloting an Interceptor. I do, however, think it is a little too close in with certain Fighters. Tried a Phobos Aura today and thought it was passable if you zoomed out as far as it could go, but the Jericho Fighter I use (Machete Type S) still feels too big.

 

I think part of the problem is that the ship models themselves were clearly not designed with this camera in mind; big, sweeping V-shaped ships look nice, but take up far more screen space than they need to.

18

Well i think the best looking option would hav been to base the camera off speed, like in other games the faster u go the more u pull away from the camera, so camera distance increases with speed.

 

this would work well because if ur sat still in any ship u would hav a blind spot but if u were to race around u would gain the extra view range u need to react in time at that speed

19

The new free-view is pretty cool, except i think it would be better to keep the red and blue boxes around the ships because currently, it is hard to see other ships

20

Yet again no direct reply to anything from devs whatsoever, all we get is the squad thing is fixed. These devs just do as they please, you have lost a player yet again.