Star Conflict OBT v. 0.8.5 Discussion

Mercenary Center Patch Discussion
361

No. Let me tell you what I see on that image…

 

Funky side: T1, T2 ships (4-5 pilots with T3 ships at their hands). This tells me it’s a T2 match because I’ve never seen that many T2 ships in T3. Very rarely I see those ships in T3, to be fair, let alone T1 ships, unless the T1 pilot had T3 ships in its active hangar, which does NOT happen here.

 

Enemy side: Full T3 compliment with 2 T2 pilots (a 3rd having 2 of each T2 and T3, from what I can tell, possibly).

 

The Queuing System is BROKEN. It needs fixing. We cannot stress this any further to the devs. Excuses like that don’t help.

Yeah, many times I’ve been in games where one side is 2-3 full corp squads with an average rating of 1300 vs randum pugs with an average of 1100. It’s never pretty. 

362

Seriously Devs, just lock tiers already.

 

You can even make sure the tiers stay locked by adding a whole new matchmaking error - “Incompatible ships in roster!”

 

Here’s a potential implementation…

 

Whenever you activate a ship in your roster and you have ships from another tier (ie: I have a T2 lineup and I put a T3 ship in), a message pops up saying “You have selected a Tier 3 ship. All other tiers removed.” and all the other ships disappear from my roster. The result? It’s impossible to mix tier within your own roster.

 

Next, squads. When a squad attempts to matchmake the game checks the tiers of their ships and, if they are not the same, throws an exception that calls out whoever equipped the wrong ships.

 

A variation on this idea, for those who want Custom games to have more variation, is to allow mixed tiers in the roster and squads as it is now, but it’ll throw the exceptions when you attempt to enter Sector Conquest. This means that people can still fly unbalanced custom games if they really want to, but the general matchmaking will bar people from bringing weird or wonky setups.

363

I mean what is the point of mix tiers if every game, regardless of genre has its own separate Tiers, classes, and sections for PVP. this game is ruining itself. In a way thats fine, I rather fight good players then NEWBS

364

Seriously Devs, just lock tiers already.

 

You can even make sure the tiers stay locked by adding a whole new matchmaking error - “Incompatible ships in roster!”

 

Here’s a potential implementation…

 

Whenever you activate a ship in your roster and you have ships from another tier (ie: I have a T2 lineup and I put a T3 ship in), a message pops up saying “You have selected a Tier 3 ship. All other tiers removed.” and all the other ships disappear from my roster. The result? It’s impossible to mix tier within your own roster.

 

Next, squads. When a squad attempts to matchmake the game checks the tiers of their ships and, if they are not the same, throws an exception that calls out whoever equipped the wrong ships.

 

A variation on this idea, for those who want Custom games to have more variation, is to allow mixed tiers in the roster and squads as it is now, but it’ll throw the exceptions when you attempt to enter Sector Conquest. This means that people can still fly unbalanced custom games if they really want to, but the general matchmaking will bar people from bringing weird or wonky setups.

That idea is good, having a message saying “nope, you can’t queue with those ships, fix it.” but I think it’s time to put the DRS to a more useful end than just e-peen. Pilots of similar DSR in the SAME TIER get pitted together. This keeps the field competitive and balanced for everyone.

 

When squads are put together, it makes an average value between all participants with higher DRS members having more weight towards this final value. Ie, 1 member with 1600 and the other members below 1400 would possibly give you a final value of 1450-1500-ish because of the 1600 DRS member. This is an example, doesn’t have to be this way.

 

In the end, your queue will simply be your DRS +/- a few dozens in value. Ie, a 1400 DRS would get queued in 1350-1450 or more, if there aren’t enough pilots.

 

The current system, however, favours your ship gear. Iirc, only the highest is accounted for meaning, if you have a Rank 9 ship with Mk I gear, you get placed in a lower queue. Since that queue is an average value, you may find yourself placed upwards or lower from that value, meaning you often find yourself in T2 matches with Rank 6 pilots fitted with blues/purples when there aren’t enough pilots to fill them.

 

This is a broken system! The disparity in gear between Tiers is insane. There’s no progression between the tiers to begin with. You have T1 which grants your ships with 1 role module and a gun. T2 gives you THREE modules and weapon modifiers, ship modifiers and passives are now a constant. In T3, you get MORE role modules (extremely overpowered when compared to T2 availability). And you get nothing new in T4.

 

This is not how the game should progress. And this matchmaking system makes it even worse.

 

I mean what is the point of mix tiers if every game, regardless of genre has its own separate Tiers, classes, and sections for PVP. this game is ruining itself. In a way thats fine, I rather fight good players then NEWBS

I kinda agree to this, which is where my idea to use the DRS comes into play. Despite the DRS just meaning how effectively you can kill other people, it plays a rather large role in matches.

 

 

 

The worst part about us complaining and trying to get the devs to fix what’s broken? The community barely has a voice. And the funders need to start listening to the community. Because, if they don’t, they might as well just stop funding because everyone will eventually leave before the game even leaves this “beta” state everyone claims it’s in…

365

All the fun is gone from flying Engineer.

 

  • You can’t fight back vs Interceptors because you are too slow.
  • Your Drones can’t fight back vs Interceptors because your drones take too long to spawn.
  • You can’t escape because Warp Gate may as well be a one-use only item.
  • You can’t tank because healing is too slow.

I am getting seriously pissed off at spawning as the only Engineer on our team and being raped by mass Recon / CovOps / ECM with no way to fight back.

Those crocodile tears…

 

(See my screens in this post taken about 15 minutes ago: http://forum.star-conflict.ru/index.php?/topic/35905-обсуждение-star-conflict-obt-v085/?p=753478)

 

Both of you have valid points here.  As the only engi or one of two on the team, engis feel seriously weak and quite frankly, not even fun.   But in the case of Luckyo’s game (which I was a part of).  The other team had ~4 engis and and a pack of guards, and were unstoppable.  Even if we had managed to bring down 1 engi from all our focus fire, there would be 4 more healing everyone.  That kind of scenario just makes the game less desirable to play.

 

Basically all this patch did was making engis a bit under powered, but has done nothing to address the power of the frigball.

 

1 engi + inties and fighters = weak

2 engi + guard  + inties and fighters = balanced

2 engi + 2 guard = OP

3 engis + 3 guards or more = OPOPOPOPOPOPOPOP

 

EDIT:  One way to balance the engis is to give back some of its healing and healing range, but nerf it’s firepower.  Maybe 2 or 3 guns instead of 4, and less missile slots.  That way engis are still strong, but too many of them will simply just gimp a team of fire power and give the other team an advantage.  Right now, an engi gets all the benefits of high survivability and great team support, with no draw backs to damage output, so spamming them is in no way detrimental.

 

Another words, no matter what situation you are in your team is always better off with one additional engineer then any other class.  I suspect a team of 100% engineers will be able to kill any team line up.  If we nerf their damage, then spamming engineers will result in too little damage to actually kill the opposition

366

No. Let me tell you what I see on that image…

 

Funky side: T1, T2 ships (4-5 pilots with T3 ships at their hands). This tells me it’s a T2 match because I’ve never seen that many T2 ships in T3. Very rarely I see those ships in T3, to be fair, let alone T1 ships, unless the T1 pilot had T3 ships in its active hangar, which does NOT happen here.

 

Enemy side: Full T3 compliment with 2 T2 pilots (a 3rd having 2 of each T2 and T3, from what I can tell, possibly).

 

The Queuing System is BROKEN. It needs fixing. We cannot stress this any further to the devs. Excuses like that don’t help.

If T1 has to fight T3 without being in a squad, then it is a bug and we need a detailed bug report on it.

367

If T1 has to fight T3 without being in a squad, then it is a bug and we need a detailed bug report on it.

Now remains to be seen whether it really is a T2 match or not. It LOOKS like a T2 match, I’ll say that much. But both sides are incredibly unbalanced. One side has mostly T2 ships and the other side is almost full T3…

368

DSR can only be a hint. DSR above 1000: good, DSR below 1000… well, not good. Everything else, doesn’t count.

DSR says really not much, and goes up over 1200 if you play in squads or better teams. So it should be only a raw value.

I frequently see people trying to farm up their DSR, and some of them, if I look at other stats, ingame performance, or how easy it is to get rid of them, really are not worth their 1400 or 1500 points at all, so DSR is really just a “well at least he can play” measure, and in the end should not be the major balancing value, but it could make an impact, yes.

 

Another thing which speaks against DSR is simply the fact, that it should be maxed out battles, instead of small little 4v4s all the time, since usually bigger fights tend to be more balanced, and that acquiring DSR is combat performance, not winning games. I expect killer-type players or achievers to have higher DSRs, the first gets it passively, the second tries actively to push it;

 

___

 

I don’t understand Tier Mixing at all. The game was designed differently. I can fully agree that this is fup. Since it is decided on the server, how games are mixed, this could have been patched ages ago; It is really also quite obvious now, that likely nobody really likes this, so it is a case of somebody being stubborn, which is never good for a game.

 

Also, it would be nice, if our Squads would display the weight they have (which tier they get into), possibly even which ships they bring before the launch. Just to make sure, communication is easier, and so on. 

369

What everyone FORGETS is because of this issue, 1/4 the playerbase left.

370

What everyone FORGETS is because of this issue, 1/4 the playerbase left.

Just to clarify, which one?  (Because there are a lot of them)

371

Just to clarify, which one?  (Because there are a lot of them)

 

The first patch that allowed tier mixing, 1/4 of the player base left, then after 2 more patches, another 1/4 left. 

 

Alot of people could not handle it 

372

I acutally fear that I am close to a burnout again of this game. My first one was when 8.0 hit with all the (excuse the language) bullshit attached to it.

And now I have reached the end of T1/T2/T3(I got 4 ships for each tier that I use(Yes, I actually got 4 T1/T2 ships fitted and ready to go whenever I feel like it  :crazy: )  and have to get into T4, which honestly is a wasteland filled with insanely-high repair costs and 4 man squads you have to fight without a squad. Not to mention the insane ship prices :confused:

 

I got my first lvl 12 loyalty yesterday, and now I’m looking at a moth(Probaly 2-3) before I got the rest at lvl 12. I also got all ranks at 12(Or close enough anyway, jericho 11 but that will be up soon enough)

373

No. Let me tell you what I see on that image…

 

Funky side: T1, T2 ships (4-5 pilots with T3 ships at their hands). This tells me it’s a T2 match because I’ve never seen that many T2 ships in T3. Very rarely I see those ships in T3, to be fair, let alone T1 ships, unless the T1 pilot had T3 ships in its active hangar, which does NOT happen here.

 

Enemy side: Full T3 compliment with 2 T2 pilots (a 3rd having 2 of each T2 and T3, from what I can tell, possibly).

 

The Queuing System is BROKEN. It needs fixing. We cannot stress this any further to the devs. Excuses like that don’t help.

 

Usually when I see a T1 in a T3 match I laugh, because I’ve always thought it was indicative of a failed attempt to crash T2 matches with T3 mkIII ships.  I could be mistaken about the way that works though.

 

Agreed with all other points covering everything from balance to matchmaking to frig balls.  In a team-oriented PvP game, it really only makes sense to match players of more or less equal rating against each other as the only viable way to calculate a skill rating.  There’s just too many variables going into a 10v10 match: playstyle, random deaths to mines/pulsars, a lower-ranked player being lucky enough to get the last hit on me.  What if I’m thrown in a game where EVERY player on the enemy team has a significantly lower DSR? That guarantees a rating loss when I die, and an increase for them for any kill, despite how many times I kill them.  Either the DSR calculation or the matchmaking system needs a serious change here, else we’ll all have to keep ignoring DSR and keep complaining about matchmaking.

 

And regarding frig balls- since the only viable counter on a domination map is to basically make a better frig-ball, something’s gotta give.  Potential damage output vs T3 frigates needs to be increased, or the amount of frigates needs to be controlled somehow.  Nerf missile shield and/or Pulsar, or at least buff nukes/guided torpedos to the point where they can do SOMETHING in that kind of situation, since they’re actually a logical counter that doesn’t work in reality.  Right now, the only trade-off to having a frig-ball is the lack of mobility, and that’s countered by having more than one engineer to set up warp gates.  Otherwise they’ve got the best of everything and are immune to any and all of the high-damage weapons meant to counter them.  Buffing the torpedos actually makes sense since LRFs are so close to useless at the moment anyway.  Anyway, in any beacon mode, seeing a frig-ball is almost always a deal-breaker.  The amount of coordination and skill meant to overcome it is 2-3x what it takes to get 3-5 frigates together to camp.

 

I don’t know how you’d go about controlling the number of frigates spawned at any given time- that’s a tough one.  But lots of games include class/role limits per squad for a reason.  Think about most naval/air engagements throughout history.  Battlegroup compositions were determined by roles/necessity and overall cost.  You didn’t see a battlegroup composed of 5 battleships or 3 aircraft carriers completely alone, for a reason.  I like the idea of huge fights between dreadnought-class ships and, on a smaller scale, frigates- as long as there are viable ways to counter them besides mirroring their composition.

374

The first patch that allowed tier mixing, 1/4 of the player base left, then after 2 more patches, another 1/4 left. 

 

Alot of people could not handle it 

 

I absolutely detest tier-mixing, personally.

 

If I have to be dead honest - if another game came along which would keep tiers more separated and provide more meaningful corporation interaction/rankings, I would already be gone. This game is absolutely awesome and I support it very actively both by donating my personal time and by spending money, but those are two major weak points.

 

The corporation side of things is a matter of time as the devs have expressed plenty of interest in making that more meaningful. The tier-mixing is a huge debate. Quite frankly on a purely personal opinion level as a player, this is one of the most short-sighted development decisions within Star Conflict. It’s appeasing a tiny vocal minority of the player base whilst alienating a huge silent majority. Due to this being a free game, a lot of people rather than giving feedback/speaking their mind will simply leave if they are not satisfied. Only those with invested interest in the game will come to the forums and speak up, which can give a skewed and biased view of the true opinion of the audience as a whole rather than just the existing player base.

 

In this specific case everyone is screaming murder, whilst a tiny segment wants tier-mixing so they don’t feel lonely in their tier 4 ships. Do us all a favour and just implement a patch which prevents tier-mixing. Try it. Give us all a chance to see it in effect. The vast majority of people here will send you hugs, kisses and sweet rolls.

 

And wouldn’t it be nice to see a patch where the vast majority of replies is positive/supportive?

 

:yes_yes:

375

And wouldn’t it be nice to see a patch where the vast majority of replies is positive/supportive?

you stop right there! That may never happen! If that happens this game is truely dieing! 

and we all know a patch note discussion might start positive, bu it will degrade after hitting page 5.

376

you stop right there! That may never happen! If that happens this game is truely dieing! 

and we all know a patch note discussion might start positive, bu it will degrade after hitting page 5.

That’s because after 5 pages comes the moment when servers come online and people start playing. :crazy:

377

I absolutely detest tier-mixing, personally.

 

If I have to be dead honest - if another game came along which would keep tiers more separated and provide more meaningful corporation interaction/rankings, I would already be gone. This game is absolutely awesome and I support it very actively both by donating my personal time and by spending money, but those are two major weak points.

 

The corporation side of things is a matter of time as the devs have expressed plenty of interest in making that more meaningful. The tier-mixing is a huge debate. Quite frankly on a purely personal opinion level as a player, this is one of the most short-sighted development decisions within Star Conflict. It’s appeasing a tiny vocal minority of the player base whilst alienating a huge silent majority. Due to this being a free game, a lot of people rather than giving feedback/speaking their mind will simply leave if they are not satisfied. Only those with invested interest in the game will come to the forums and speak up, which can give a skewed and biased view of the true opinion of the audience as a whole rather than just the existing player base.

 

In this specific case everyone is screaming murder, whilst a tiny segment wants tier-mixing so they don’t feel lonely in their tier 4 ships. Do us all a favour and just implement a patch which prevents tier-mixing. Try it. Give us all a chance to see it in effect. The vast majority of people here will send you hugs, kisses and sweet rolls.

 

And wouldn’t it be nice to see a patch where the vast majority of replies is positive/supportive?

 

:yes_yes:

 

Tier mixing should only happen if (a) the difference between tiers isn’t SO great and/or (b) both teams have an equal ship/tier/skill composition.  

378

That’s because after 5 pages comes the moment when servers come online and people start playing. :crazy:

I upvoted this because it is true.

 

Count yourself Luckyo.

 

Yes that was an incredibly bad pun.

Deal_with_it_mib.gif

379

Time line of events (As I recall them) 

 

 - Pre-steam release - 

(approx 600 players)

 

 Mix Tiering was not allowed, or was at a bare minimum. No body complained. Though we did eagerly await the steam release as T2 and T3 games took about 2-7 minutes wait time. we needed more players.

 

  • Steam release -

 

(2000 players joined and were active for about 2 weeks)

 

everyone was happy and they liked the game, no a single person complained about MM when it was single teir.

 

-Some time passed - 

 

Some wanna be T4 players started making havoc in the russian forums. this lead to a lot of changes. 

 

-Grinding for loyalty was severely nerfed. (You used to gain 1-3k loyalty no matter what per match

-Mix tiering was introduced.

 

1500 players left the game. Once they saw it took about 4 months to grind, lets say rank 1 to rank 15 in any specific faction, they ran away. 

 

-The ship roles patch- 

 

This patch actually brought some players in but they quickly left after the balance was far too off. 

 

  • Currently - 

 

There is a real issue with some ships, MM, and questions on DSR. Corps are struggling to keep active, as with the community being astonished how EVO and DYN collapsed right under their noses. 

380
  • Steam release -

 

(2000 players joined and were active for about 2 weeks)

 

everyone was happy and they liked the game, no a single person complained about MM when it was single teir.

I remember seeing 4k peaks. Especially after TB’s video. I know cause I was one of them.