16 minutes ago, Deliberator said:
<snip>
Yeah mixed tiers are still around. So the bullsh*t stingray stupidity is still a thing.
For me this is a very welcome change the tier system defiantly needs to return i have no interest in participating in pvp when partnered against new guys that are still trying to figure the game out and the buffs they receive don’t really assist them at all, The only people it assist are those that have already figured the game out yet go back to lower lvl’s to farm on new guys to increase there medal count or w/l ratio ect sad loosers imo but maybe that’s just me
However as i’m aware that the intention is to have 20 ranks in total in the future it’s seems more reasonable to initiate a system of 4 tiers with 5 ranks in each now rather the system your proposing just something to consider
4 minutes ago, TheDerpNukem said:
Yeah mixed tiers are still around. So the bullsh*t stingray stupidity is still a thing.
Confirmed. The Matchmaker is NOT working as advertised. I tried playing several PvP matches.
Here’s just one example. I won only one out of five matches despite my best efforts to support my team.
Okay, so a bit more feedback now that I’ve had a chance to jump back in and get my arse handed to me.
The core of the game remains solid. I jumped in with Rank 15 ships because I couldn’t get a game with lower ranked ones, and to be honest it was a bit overwhelming after such a long break, but it all feels pretty good. Top tier plays like top tier should - it’s a shitshow of overpowered abilities, which is great as long as everyone is overpowered.
Now here is the stuff I really think needs to be hit home:
Use tiers to simplify and stratify the player experience
There is a lot to learn about Star Conflict. You can’t just throw people in at the deep end and hope they work it out all by themselves. With the game in its current state there are an insane number of ships, weapons, passives, actives and specials, and on top of that you’ve also got the essential fundamentals. You absolutely cannot throw inexperienced players into a situation where all of this will be hammering them all at once. I think that’s what prompted the old 5-tier format to turn out the way it did.
Now having said that, the 5-tier system had a major flaw; tier 1 was _too _simplified. The ships all felt sluggish and boring, with everyone having the same guns and the same upgrades. When I started in the beta, tier 1 had a lot more stuff in it and that made it much more engaging. I have no idea what the new player experience is now, but I imagine they’re quitting the game almost as soon as they get into a real match - either because it’s utterly boring, or they’re being overwhelmed.
The five tier format allows you to have scaling complexity, with Tier 1 being the bare-bones version of the game; basic specials, three weapons per ship type (1 kinetic, 1 laser and 1 plasma for the three weight categories), maybe the same for missiles, and some simple abilities. Nice, easy to digest gameplay. Tiers 2-4 lets you add increasingly more gun types and more complicated abilities, with each tier demanding more from the player in terms of ship loadout strategy, mastery of the game, knowledge of how the game’s systems interact and, far more importantly, an ever growing focus on teamwork. Tier 5 (and up if needed) are the endgame tiers where all bets are off and all hell is let loose.
An important part of this to keep in mind; not everyone will reach Tier 5. Some people will find that Tier 5 is too fast, too complicated and/or too competitive. That’s fine. Let them tier down. Let them live in Tier 3 where everything is comfortable and familiar. Everything’s fine there. You can always do what you did in the beta - base player level on total experience, not ships unlocked. If a player is level 12 but is still flying Rank 8-9, throttle their experience unless they’re flying T4 ships. If they want to advance, they’ll move up. Otherwise, they’re clearly happy where they are.
So, in conclusion, bring back the tiers:
T1 - ranks 1-3. 3 guns per weight class, basic actives and passives. No frills, but just enough so new players understand that building your ship properly matters.
T2 - ranks 4-6. This is the tier where you start to play with more interesting guns and abilities. More focus on passives and team-orientated toys.
T3 - ranks 7-9. All the ability slots unlocked, huge array of weapons, ordnance, actives and passives. This should also have a very wide scope of ships - maximise variety in base stats here. Make sure players can try everything from slow hull tanks to glass cannon speedsters. T3 should also be where you encourage people to fly in squads.
T4 - Ranks… not sure. T4 should be a bridge between T3 and T5. Not going to lie, I do not know how best to do this.
T5 - Ranks… not sure (but up to max). The no-holds-barred tier. Tier 5 is where you have access to every weapon, slot filler and ability. Here you can put the high-skill stuff and the really obscure and weird abilities built entirely around coordinated action. Tier 5 should be balanced assuming people are flying in squads, not solo - screw the solo pilots!
Next point, and if anything killed this game it was this:
Let people play with friends!
Why Star Conflict declared war on squads I will never know. Yes, 4-man uber squads were absolutely the reason T4 / T5 was often a ghost town. Yes, squads absolutely dominated in Tier 3. But for every squad of competitive corp pilots, you had just as many made up of friends who wanted to play together for a laugh. That was important. Squads let us play alongside friends. Squads let us mentor new pilots. Squads were essential for taking casual players and making them so dedicated to the game they turned up to work half an hour late just so they could finish a tournament (yes, I really did that!). Squad play was the lifeblood of Star Conflict, and you killed it trying to chase a casual audience.
Remember when I said you didn’t understand what kind of game you were making? That right there is proof of it. The old guard fostered a “git gud” mentality, but they were also willing to invest their time and effort into making you good.
I don’t know if these restrictions are still here, but I was warned coming back that I would not get a game if I tried to squad up… so get rid of that. No restrictions on squads. Ever.
Less crafting, more shooting
Star Conflict is not Star Citizen. Star Conflict is not Eve Online. Star Conflict is not Elite: Dangerous. Star Conflict is an arcade shooter with ideas above its station - for better and for worse. People are not getting drawn into this game for the open world experience - they’re here for arena matches. Focus on that. Open Space is a nice diversion, but it should not be the main focus of any part of the game. Reward players for sinking time into PvP. Streamline your progression system so the best way to do everything in the game is through PvP. Want to get purple gear? Play PvP. Want to get the parts to craft an alien ship? Play PvP. Want to earn credits? Play PvP. Push everyone into PvP to the exclusion of all else. The rest of the game - PvE, Open Space, even the Special Ops - should be there as a nice distraction and something to do as a break between PvP sessions. Star Conflict as a PvP arcade arena shooter is an excellent experience. Star Conflict as a freeroam online MMO is mediocre at best. Play. To. Your. Strengths.
Work with your community
Star Conflict genuinely has, or had, an amazing resource - the players. It was truly amazing how dedicated the community was to this title, and it was heartbreaking to see them ignored every single time they tried to steer you in the right direction. I have not touched your game in months, and honestly I never planned to play it ever again - that’s how much faith I’d lost in you. And yet, all it took was one of my in-game friends to say “they’re getting feedback on the matchmaking” and I came back, tried the game again, and gave my input.
I don’t think you ever appreciated how much your community wants this game to succeed. But for whatever reason - likely to do with someone in a suit who knows absolutely nothing about videogames - the community has always been treated as a hostile entity to be contained, not as an ally to be worked with. Change that attitude. It’s probably far too late by now, but I don’t see this game ever making a recovery so long as you continue to ignore the issues raised by the players.
3 hours ago, xKostyan said:
As I have been repeating for years, matchmaking by battle statistic will never work with minds of players as long as you have a distinct visual tree progression, where ships visually become stronger so you have to equalize them by rank bonuses in PvP battles.
People do not get equalization, plus equalization does not work equally for all ships.
We have been dancing around tiered and tierless system matchmaking for years, and unless you consolidate your ship progression tree , making it less 'vertical" and more “horizontal” (condensing ships in same ranks, like having 3-5 ranks instead of 15) your tierless** system will never settle in the player’s mind** plus you wont be able to properly balance the ships with just ranked bonuses. Even though the unified system where all ships play together is much better than the restricted tiered system.
Consolidating the ship tree would be acceptable, the rank groupings (five ranks per tier is best in my opinion[even if you have to throw the 16+ into their own set NOW]).
To site an example: I had to create a new account with your ARC program; so I could log in due to some sort of lag/load issue with the launching of the game and the steam login. I have first hand experience with how a veteran playing at low rank and using a r1 ship in pvp and getting multiple slayer of immortals medals in EVERY SINGLE MATCH, is definitely a bad thing for the game. Because I had to create a new account, even though I don’t really play it [fleet strength of five after 3 months] Because I’d rather use my primary account with 211 fleet strength and almost 4 thousand played hours (but have to use steam to login to it).
2 hours ago, Koromac said:
I agree.
Veteran or Elite players should not be permitted in the 1st queue, even if their ships fall into that queue category.
How to determine who’s the Veteran or Elite player?
Simple. Either by the win ratio or just by the number of (won) games. Still, I think that 100 or 200 (won) matches, is too low. I would go for 250 or 500.
Also, I would remove all passive ranked bonuses (hull, shield resistance, damage buff, etc.) and I would slightly change how the Implant system work to compensate for this removal.
So, if you unlocked all factions up to Rank 15, you would have full access to all Implants. In other words, your pilot matters, not your ship when it comes to unlocking new technologies.
This is actually motivating players to reach the end of the Tree and thus granting them all the benefits of technological Implants that can be fully applied to any ship, without restriction.
I agree. Consolidation is the solution. We don’t need really need 15 Ranks, we could just have a Three-Tier or Era System that’s based on the timeline instead of Ranks for the ships.
Regardless, the Implant system would stay the same, would still be applied to all ships, if the Pilot fully progressed or progressed far enough in this system.
2 hours ago, Comwp_ODG said:
isn’t that a good thing?
and yes, they get resistance and damage buffs. we can tweak them to work, and be legitimate. I don’t agree with having an Axe be about as tanky as ronin either.
What we have now is essentially one big group of ships in pvp that are buffed to be identical, ONLY for pvp. the changes made to matchmaking should only effect matchmaking.
in other words, Consolidation would be fine if it fixed stats for pvp… but isn’t that what we already have? I don’t want to step on every other gamemode and player progression here. we can find a fix, and I thought we had a great one last MM update.
im gonna pitch a hybrid matchmaker so don’t chew me on it: lower ships do get bonuses, but not enough to compete, not the silly 55% extra. we keep the old all-in-one format, separated by skill, whatever that ends up being.
All White r1 shouldn’t be able to easily slaughter r15 in all purple. veteran pilot or not. that buff is TOO HIGH and making it less of a have fun game. I don’t want barrels full of fish, I want a rod, reel, and ocean.
32 minutes ago, JasanQuinn said:
I don’t think you ever appreciated how much your community wants this game to succeed. But for whatever reason - likely to do with someone in a suit who knows absolutely nothing about videogames - the community has always been treated as a hostile entity to be contained, not as an ally to be worked with. Change that attitude.
Sadly, this has not changed for the most part. At least, that’s the impression that most people share about this.
15 minutes ago, Wilder090 said:
All White r1 shouldn’t be able to easily slaughter r15 in all purple. veteran pilot or not. that buff is TOO HIGH and making it less of a have fun game. I don’t want barrels full of fish, I want a rod, reel, and ocean.
Yes, do you all remember when I asked several times, now already months away since my first request to provide proper up-to-date numbers on those ranked bonuses?
Not a single official reply or feedback was given to me, and no chart to this day.
Again, I am officially requesting a proper table of all ranked bonuses from Rank 1 to Rank 17.
If you can’t provide it for whatever reason, at least reply here and tell us why.
Here’s my latest post about this:
I will ASK again for the last time, give us up-to-date information about all ranks and the proper current values for those bonuses, all of them. Thank you.
Congratulate to devs that you finally made some poll after a long time. (I hope you will take it into account now)
I think that this poll shows to all here that big majority of players here prefer multiple Tiers. Perhaps next fast poll should be how many tiers 3 or even 5.
(even that some stubborn ones think different - these wake-up memories on Grumpy Gus - please devs listen to the majority in this poll )
Now, this poll also is pointing to some other big problems of this nice game like;
people are not happy how R1 can so easy kill R17 in skilled hands of course, so next big issue is to remove all buffs for low-rank ships.
So start poll immediately for buffs for low-rank ships. Now you have a response here, players are here ask them next question until they are not gone.
Some further topics for polls that are urgent;
-
how do you players like grinding in OS for new modules
-
squads in PvP ( YES or NO )
-
do you players like grinding in PvE called The Hunt for Cache ( do we like to get always same loot in those Caches? )
-
do you players like grinding for new materials each time that we release new ship?
This are some topics that are urgent for this game if you ask me. Other players will probably add some more.
Forcing people to grind and use loot boxes is a big part of why the game is failing. EA and the Battlefront fiasco is a clear message that people don’t want to gamble for progression.
I think the biggest problem is actually that the rank buffing should be a tier buffing, and shouldn’t take active module count as a handicap, simply as the reason for early gamers to progress. Tiers are balanced enough within each set, with a few outliers.
If we actually shrank the tiers and started treating, for example, a ‘Zealot’ as a ‘a ship’ and then ‘Neuron’ and ‘AE’ as optional refits/upgrades that we could reasonably skip with a big enough Zealot synergy pool, then balanced these ‘basic’ ship versions against enabled ranks in-game, but let the refits keep their extra buffs, you get a nice mix of equality whilst still having a better ship when you spend your creds and jump in-game only to see the back of the same model with a different color. You can also group up free synergy for each ship class and allow it to be spent on other variants with creds or something to allow variants to be skilled up using other variants. This keeps people playing PvP with actually viable ships, rather than 8 low synergy, white module up and coming players vs the purple max synergy parade.
Then the cost of the same ship skin in a different color with different statistics feels more like an achievement than the current way, where you are visually telling your users that the Neuron Zealot is just another interruption toward the real next ship; the Templar, for this example. The Templar itself, being an LRF, then needs some synergy to be a Templar AE guard, but you could grind it further and spend the synergy on ‘buying’ the Tormentor unlock instead.
At this point you’ve just significantly flattened the ship list because all variants are buried under their base ship in the UI… whilst still keeping reference ranks for player progress (just not forcing completely linear progress - you could skip the variants from base Zealot to go straight to Templar) and not really changing the game balance or ship ordering in actual fact… keeping it as consistent as it already was in respect to things like the mobile game and wiki.
Key here is UI. Things like stating that ‘Prometheus X is a direct upgrade of the Promethus Command fighter outfitted with advanced mounting to support the experimental Thermal Energy Burner weapon’ in ship descriptions will make this head and shoulders a better solution.
tl;dr The community and Gaijin/Star Gem has already shown that it cares little about rank, and the game itself only uses rank as a marker of personal progress and unlocked ships. Make Tiers dominant and use rank as ‘refinements/diversification of a tier’ with proper descriptions of each ships role advantages… then take all the base models in each tier and match them only in muti-tier battles like you used to. You’ll quickly see what’s OP. People would take the game so much more seriously and you would get a lot of fan videos out of it. It also makes ship progress match item progress (colors) with very small advantages between ships in the same tier, and variants with differing skills .
{TL;DR}
Matchmaking by Shiprank
Cons:
* splitting up playerbase
* increase in queuetimes
* little way for new players to engage experienced players
*
Pros:
* experienced players may match with other experienced players
* shipbalancing may increase
*
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Iam quite new to this game and i enjoy playing it as it was a week ago. Now by
splitting up the playerbase you would make it hard for people to play with their
higher tiered friends unless they down-grade/rank their Hangar roster.
Also it would lead to an increas in queuetimes and pretty much no way for me to
pratice against skilled opponents until i reach shiplevel - what, 16?
On the other hand it might be nice for the Veterans around to be matched with their
equals, however, i would assume that the queuetimes for games like that would be
even higher. Especially at a low playercount (during week, night, etc.) it might be
tough.
Concidering that only equal-ish ranked ship do battle against each other - that may
be an opportunity to finetune shipbalancing again.
All in all, i don’t like to see this in particular to change - but i’ll give it a whirl.
~ ish
I have never seen a more persistent yet simple problem with an easier solution in my life.
hmm, Matchmaking. What a very touchy subject. No ones ever been happy with it and it changes all the time.
I have never liked the Tiered System since day one. If I slot a Rank 3 ship and queue up, I want to go up against other Rank 3 ships. But not everyone shares my beliefs.
Since the MM has always been a contention among the players and we are always presented with one form of iteration of the MM which no one really seems to like and I guess you are looking for some form of idea or path to take for a MM that everyone would be happy with, as a RL Developer of Applications, here is what I do with applications when my clients can not all agree what is the best method moving forward for a future version. I Optionalize. I create settings and options that the users can access and set. The application then examines the settings and uses them in logic. So for the sake of this discussion thread here is what I would do with Matchmaker.
Create a new Game Options Panel called Matchmaker Settings.
Use BOTs, Yes or No.
One option could say USE RANKING TIERS 5 or 3…meaning use every 5 ranks as a tier or every 3 ranks as a Tier. If the setting is zero, RANKS is used.
I would set to zero and I get matched with only ships of ranks I slot. If a user likes every 3 Ranks as a Tier, they enter 3 and slot ships and placed into battles with ships of that those Tiers. 3-Tier would be R1-3, R4-6, R7-9, R10-12, R13-15, R16-17. The setting of 5 would be the five rank tiers, R1-5, R6-10. R11-15, R16-17. I personally have never liked the overlapping tiers either but those could be incorporated since the Ranks are an uneven value to produce Tiers of an equal value.
What such a MM modification would be doing is removing the one way methods of Matchmaking that no one really seems to every agree on out of the hands of the developers trying to please everyone, and pleasing no one in the process…and place that method of matchmaking into the hands of the user. If you like tiers, fine, configure for tiers. If you want to battle only in ranks, fine, config only for ranks. If the tiers are to small, every 3 ranks, fine, configure for the five rank method.
Now to actually match make being that a configuration screen is there, the MM looks at the config setting and marries up ONLY with players that have the same settings. This would not intermix my Rank flying with 3 or 5 flyers and 3s dont mix with 5s…ect ect ect.
Since we have the BOTs being included into battles now for our teams, Queue Wait Times were reduced. If I sit in queue for 90 seconds or more, because MM can not locate a live player with the same settings as me, queue me with three BOTS. I dont care. Its doing that now at times and in my mind its better then one on one battles with some player in a ship multiple levels above mine. As it is now one must only pvp in the high ranks because if you take in a low rank ship, even the boosts dont help much. If I slotted a R3 I expect to battle ships of equal value, not high rank ships that use weapons and modules that dont exist at my slotted rank and I have no counter measure for.
But if thats what other players are into, then let them do the Tier configuration and overpower players that bring in lower ships against higher ones. If they want to mask their piloting skills that way, fine. The game to me has always been about battling aliens, not each other but if thats what makes some players feel better online, bullying others with OP ships or higher ranked ones. Let them do their thing to each other and at the same time give players that are not into that a means of playing against ships of equal rank or a few ranks above or below what they have slotted and use and hone piloting skills.
Even as Im typing this post Im thinking that the MM configuration panel could even be done to allow users to select the available ranks they want to include in their own Tier setup, such as a drop down box and checkboxes that are selected of Ranks to included in that Tier. So if a user wants R1-17 as a Tier…fine…select ALL the ranks and check them. Go into battle and go thinking youre a super pilot because your R17 can kill anothers R1. Doesnt mean you actually are, since youre relying on ship modules instead of piloting skill.
If such a system was designed, most of the whiners of Matchmaking is broken would be eliminated. Also eliminated would be patch after patch of MM one way, then MM another way, then MM yet another way and each way pleases only one small subset of players at the time. Take the time to change MM from a single means that never pleases anyone when put in place and design one that is flexible to the user, based on a configuration panel. Now if its not working its based on their settings, not some single method. Dont like that method? Reconfigure. Dont like BOTs on your pvp team? Set to BOTS = N…but then dont come to chat and the forums posting of long queue wait times because anyone with simple understanding of whats happening would know it would take MM longer to find and locate 7 players with the same settings, 3 others for you and 4 for the other team. Your wait time whining would be your own fault.
As a Designer and Developer, users never really understand that when there is more then one using an application and the application is not flexible to address all the needs of the user base, that there will always be a few that will use it but will whine its not meeting their wants and needs. What I say to those users, “If it didnt meet your wants and needs, why did you select to use it in the first place?” My applications are designed to meet the needs of the many that agree, not the few that whine. If some need or want a feature or function, but others have no need for it, then its an option and some turn it on and others turn if off. An example of this is in Accounting, some corporations use First In First Out FIFO inventory and others use LIFO, Last In First Out inventory. If I coded for only one method, I would create whines of the other method or lose them completely to another vendors application that supported what they want or need. So instead, its an Option they can set and based on Accounting Rules, an option that can be changed only once per year after Year End and before Next Year opens. But the can change it if their accounting practices change. Its just an Option.
The issue of a good Matchmaker will always be a discussion point unless its changed to address the needs of the Player base. Some want tiers, others do not. Some like team bots, others dont. Some want to be OP Bullies others prefer honed piloting skills. So stop giving us one or the other in patches and give us one we can configure as a player and if it places us into a battle we understand. If it doesnt, then there is no one to blame but ourselves for configuring it incorrectly before we clicked Launch. We can configure settings for other game options. Give us some for Matchmaker so that both Users and Developers stop raging and whining in chat and forum post and logic is changed based on the current whine and no one is really happy.
.Vu.
8 hours ago, Koromac said:
I agree.
Veteran or Elite players should not be permitted in the 1st queue, even if their ships fall into that queue category.
How to determine who’s the Veteran or Elite player?
Simple. Either by the win ratio or just by the number of (won) games. Still, I think that 100 or 200 (won) matches, is too low. I would go for 250 or 500.
Also, I would remove all passive ranked bonuses (hull, shield resistance, damage buff, etc.) and I would slightly change how the Implant system work to compensate for this removal.
So, if you unlocked all factions up to Rank 15, you would have full access to all Implants. In other words, your pilot matters, not your ship when it comes to unlocking new technologies.
This is actually motivating players to reach the end of the Tree and thus granting them all the benefits of technological Implants that can be fully applied to any ship, without restriction.
I agree. Consolidation is the solution. We don’t need really need 15 Ranks, we could just have a Three-Tier or Era System that’s based on the timeline instead of Ranks for the ships.
Regardless, the Implant system would stay the same, would still be applied to all ships, if the Pilot fully progressed or progressed far enough in this system.
I disagree. As a corporation member, I take new recruits out for training and lessons. This means I have to slot ships they have. So by forcing me into a tier they can not do battle in splits us up and Im in one battle while my Trainee is forces elsewhere. Im down in the low ranks with my low rank ships for a reason, to train and mentor and protect my new recruite. Dont force me out and split us or force him to do battle in a tier he can not survive in.
8 hours ago, Koromac said:
I agree.
Veteran or Elite players should not be permitted in the 1st queue, even if their ships fall into that queue category.
How to determine who’s the Veteran or Elite player?
Simple. Either by the win ratio or just by the number of (won) games. Still, I think that 100 or 200 (won) matches, is too low. I would go for 250 or 500.
Also, I would remove all passive ranked bonuses (hull, shield resistance, damage buff, etc.) and I would slightly change how the Implant system work to compensate for this removal.
So, if you unlocked all factions up to Rank 15, you would have full access to all Implants. In other words, your pilot matters, not your ship when it comes to unlocking new technologies.
This is actually motivating players to reach the end of the Tree and thus granting them all the benefits of technological Implants that can be fully applied to any ship, without restriction.
I agree. Consolidation is the solution. We don’t need really need 15 Ranks, we could just have a Three-Tier or Era System that’s based on the timeline instead of Ranks for the ships.
Regardless, the Implant system would stay the same, would still be applied to all ships, if the Pilot fully progressed or progressed far enough in this system.
Timeline Consolidation wont work either. If a player joined 5 years ago and reached rank 5 then stopped playing for some RL reason, (jail comes to mind) and now returns to play Timeline would be placing him into battles where he has no skillset because MM would see he is a “long time” player. That would not be fair. He hasnt been here ingame for years, just the account was. Pilot-wise, hes the same as he left or even at a loss of skillset since he didnt play and hone skills.
Even if you used Time In Game value instead of First Log In, it would not work. A player that plays OS or PvE values would corrupt the true value of the PvP times. A mostly PvE player would get married into a mostly PvP player just based on timeframes. The two game modes are totally different and require different skillsets and means to play. So no, Timelines Consolidated or even held as separate counters between Modes would not be a fair match. Consolidated corrupts and Separate values are skewed if there are long periods of time between log ins.
Timelines should not be a factor at all in matchmaking.
6 hours ago, JasanQuinn said:
Less crafting, more shooting
Star Conflict is not Star Citizen. Star Conflict is not Eve Online. Star Conflict is not Elite: Dangerous. Star Conflict is an arcade shooter with ideas above its station - for better and for worse. People are not getting drawn into this game for the open world experience - they’re here for arena matches. Focus on that. Open Space is a nice diversion, but it should not be the main focus of any part of the game. Reward players for sinking time into PvP. Streamline your progression system so the best way to do everything in the game is through PvP. Want to get purple gear? Play PvP. Want to get the parts to craft an alien ship? Play PvP. Want to earn credits? Play PvP. Push everyone into PvP to the exclusion of all else. The rest of the game - PvE, Open Space, even the Special Ops - should be there as a nice distraction and something to do as a break between PvP sessions. Star Conflict as a PvP arcade arena shooter is an excellent experience. Star Conflict as a freeroam online MMO is mediocre at best. Play. To. Your. Strengths.
That post surely does NOT reflect my view. My favorite mode is Open Space. My least favorite mode is PvP. The ONLY reason I am ever in a PvP match is because I have a Broker Task or some other mission task that REQUIRES that I do that mode. Kill 20 with Thermal for example. Has to be done PvP. Not only is the task descriptions vague (although they are being worded better lately) in order for me to progress at times, I must do things in a mode that is my least favorite to play in. But I do it just to get it done then I go do what I enjoy to do in the game.
Again this goes back to what I said in an earlier post an application needs to support the entire user base not favor one type over another. If everything is focused towards PvP, then the player base that are here for all the other modes will die off. We are not here for the same exact reasons you are so do not include us in your push into your own personal preference of a game mode. In fact, even when I am in PvP, Im not doing the Mission Objective per say. Im doing whatever task I have to complete that forced me to that mode. Which is a major flaw of the Team concept of the PvP missions to begin with. Sure, I can cap a beacon in Beacon Hunt while also killing 20 with Thermals at the same time, but only if the Mission Objective opportunity presents itself to do so, while still inline with my Task Objective (20 Thermal kills). If it doesnt I dont care if the PvP is a win or loss. Im not there to actually support you in a Beacon Hunt, and thats a flaw. You may be there strictly for PvP and Beacon Hunt and when your team fails in your mind and lose out come the chat and PM posts at times by some, about how youre married up with a bunch of nobbs and newbees . Thats not the case. Were just not there for the same reasons you are so dont force your preferred mode on us and dont rage or dis others for a loss in battle because you have no clue. Most pilots do know what they are doing. They just arnt doing what you expect or target your ping for your pvp win.
Also keep in mind im speaking generic and not targeting you explicitly, with the exception of your assumption of others in the belief that we all prefer PvP over any other mode. Matchmaking may have pitted us against or teamed together and its just wrong to assume that in doing so we are there for the Exact Same Reasons.
I would be all for a totally Open Space environment and one goes into and out of PvP sectors if one wants that form of battle. But again, that would be me pushing my preferred game play onto you. How do you like it? The game modes are there to support all the wants of the different players. There should never be a forced means into a mode and this also includes TASKS. If a task is to kill 20 enemy with thermals, then the enemy should be so in any mode not just in PvP and forced into a broken mode where the Matchmaker cant actually marry up a proper enemy to even kill.
i have been playing this game for many years now and i have seen a few different match making systems come and go. the recent one where ship characteristics are raised to to rank 15 level in order to make the matches fairer is a close fit i feel but it presents a better option where ship characteristics are untied from the ranking system altogether. it would require the ship characteristics being overhauled. the upside is that players would know exactly what there ship characteristics were before entering battle regardless of the ships their opponents were using as opposed to being told that their ship has been raised to rank 15 level and then being left to wonder what that does for their ship. some might feel that this would reduce the incentive for new players to develop their ship trees but i do not think so as the more ships you have the more reward you get out of a match but perhaps that could be enhanced a little to increase the incentive a little more.
My understand of why the boosts were added to MM in the first place was because of all the whiners posting of the Queue Wait Times. They would slot ships of mixed ranks and out of tier ranks and force the MM logic to spin and thrash as it attempted to locate players to marry up with with similar slottings. Again, this was not a MM flaw but a User one. I personally have never had long wait times. But then again Ive always understood the Tiers vs Ranks and I dont crisscross. I can queue really fast now because of the boosts but such changes only confuse other members.
Kormac for example posts he wants some hard list of the boost values, forgetting such things are not actually possible given the real time dynamics of the battles. What that means is some teammate is also boosting or nerfing your base ships values in real time during a battle and some values even without a teammate are based on dynamic things in battle such as number of enemy targeting or fireing upon you. Crystal Plates is an example of that. The more enemy, the more resistance up to a capped values, done dynamicly and in real time during battle. Such a chart of boosted values can not be done and posted. The only thing Ive ever seen on the subject is that the MM will boost basic values up to three ranks higher…meaning weapons and shield base values are boosted, not every module or value. This Ive tested on a Rank 3 Palom. It did fine in battle as it should up to Rank 6, the three rank boost, but after that the Palom dies easy against higher ranked ships since it was capped at R6 boost. If it did survive in the higher levels it was because of my pilot skills and of taking advantage of something at that time during battle, such as a Engineer nearby healing or pulsing a wounded ship. But those were not MM Boosts. They were battlefield dynamics.
Ive never been a fan of the MM Boosts and dont care if they are there in the MM or not. I dont rely on them as Im slotting ships or even think of them. It really made no sense to me because I already knew how to slot on the pads to reduce wait times. But when you have players that dont read the forum post to understand how things work and how to properly slot on the pads, and they whine over and over every day about being in queue for extended periods of time and have their SERVERs set to something other then the ANY setting…we end up with logic changes of boosted ships to reduce wait times. Which by the way puts me into battles even faster. I cant even recall a queue rolling past 2 mins now yet I still read chats and forum posts of how long they are waiting at times. Its just Game Options and how you slot on the pads and the understanding of the Ranks and Tiers…but then again I payed attention in school and didnt burn out my braincells huddled up in some corner of the campus so I can not only read and grasp concepts in my mind, I comprehend and understand them also
So 3 tiers. About time. Hopefully this will bring PvP back.
6 hours ago, ORCA1911 said:
I have never seen a more persistent yet simple problem with an easier solution in my life.
And what would be that easier solution?
26 minutes ago, Seraphym1 said:
So 3 tiers. About time. Hopefully this will bring PvP back.
This is why we tried to move out from tiered system so many times, this is my 4th game after not playing for 3? months, at least before it would be less of new players on both sides and all low ranked ships would be much harder to take down, now T3 is a piss easy to farm 20 kills, with absolutely any good build while having a cup of tea
