Suggestion - 0.9.1 patch notes/DevBlog "Progression Redux"

Suggestions Levelling and Economy
1

Taking inspiration from Sabre01’s style of post, I thought I’d do one myself! This is what I would like to see announced this coming Thursday…

 

0.9.1: Progression Redux

 

Ship Tree

 

  • Ship tree has been redesigned. Each tier now contains three interceptors, three fighters and three frigates. Each class now contains two of the faction’s primary type per tier, and one of the secondary type per tier.
  • Premium ships are now integrated into the ship tree, allowing players to advance through purchasing them.

 

Synergy

  • Synergy requirements to advance between ships has been reduced. Ships now require approximately 40-60% total synergy to allow advancement.
  • “Elite Synergy” now transferable for credits to ships of the same tier and faction, or can be converted into Free synergy for Gold Standards. Cost of transfer and conversion scale based on tier.
  • Premium ships no-longer come with full synergy. Players who currently own Premium ships will not lose any existing synergy, but future purchases will be set to 0 synergy.
  • Because of changes to the ship tree, Synergy has been removed and must be manually reapplied to all ships. No synergy has been lost as a result of this change.

Ships

  • Rank 4 and 5 ships have had their module slots changed to those of Rank 6 ships.
  • Rank 7 and 8 ships have had their module slots changed to those of Rank 9 ships.
  • Rank 10 and 11 ships have had their module slots changed to those of Rank 12 ships.
  • Rank 12 and 13 ships have had their module slots changed to those of Rank 15 ships. 

In addition, the following specific changes have been made:

 

EMPIRE

  • “Dvergr 2” changed from Recon to ECM.

  • “Dvergr Knight” moved to rank 3.

  • “Dwarf 2” moved to rank 4.

  • “Diamond Dwarf” moved to rank 6.

  • “Swarm” moved to rank 7.

  • “Black Swarm” moved to rank 8.

  • “Magnetar” moved to rank 9, class changed from ECM to Recon.

  • “Nibelung” moved to rank 10.

  • “Hercules Arrow” moved to rank 3.

  • “Phobos” moved to rank 5, class changed from Gunship to Command.

  • “Prometheus” moved to rank 7, class changed from Command to Gunship.

  • “Prometheus X” moved to rank 8.

  • “Prometheus Fire” moved to rank 9.

  • “Castor” moved to rank 10.

  • “Iron Harpy” moved to rank 3.

  • “Steel Harpy” moved to rank 3, class changed from Long Range to Engineer.

  • “Hydra” moved to rank 4.

  • “Hydra 2” moved to rank 5.

  • “Acid Hydra” moved to rank 6.

  • “Cerberus” moved to rank 7.

  • “Styx” moved to rank 8.

  • “Garm” moved to rank 9, class changed from Engineer to Long Range.

  • “Centaur” moved to rank 10.

FEDERATION

  • “Swift-M” moved to rank 3.
  • “Swift Mk II” moved to rank 3, class changed from Covert Ops to Recon.
  • “Hawk” moved to rank 4, class changed from Recon to Covert Ops.
  • “Hawk Mk II” moved to rank 5.
  • “Hawk-M” moved to rank 6.
  • “Kite” moved to rank 7.
  • “Black Bomber” moved to rank 8.
  • “Kite-M” moved to rank 9.
  • “Eagle” moved to rank 10.

 

  • “Lynx Mk II” moved to rank 3.

  • “Silent Fox” moved to rank 5, class changed from Tackler to Gunship.

  • “Wolf” moved to rank 7, class changed from Gunship to Tackler.

  • “Wolf-M” moved to rank 8.

  • “Wolf Mk II” moved to rank 9.

  • Tiger moved to rank 10.

  • “Raptor Mk II” moved to rank 3, class changed from Engineer to Guard.

  • “Alligator-M” moved to rank 4.

  • “Alligator Mk II” moved to rank 6.

  • “Anaconda” moved to rank 7.

  • “Anaconda-M” moved to rank 8.

  • “Anaconda Mk II” moved to rank 9, class changed from Guard to Engineer.

  • “Grizzly” moved to Rank 10.

JERICHO

  • “Dagger” moved to rank 2.

  • “Dagger AE” moved to rank 3.

  • “Dagger type V” moved to rank 3.

  • “Stiletto” moved to rank 4.

  • “Ricasso” moved to rank 5.

  • “Stiletto AE” moved to rank 6.

  • “Kris” moved to Rank 7.

  • “Kris type S” moved to rank 8.

  • “Nodachi” moved to rank 10.

  • “Axe-X Type S” moved to tank 3, class changed from Command to Tackler.

  • “Machete AE” moved to rank 4.

  • “Machete” moved to rank 5.

  • “Lance” changed from Tackler to Command.

  • “Zealot AE” moved to rank 3, class changed from Guard to Long Range.

  • “Neuron Zealot” moved to rank 3.

  • “Templar” moved to rank 4, class changed from Long Range to Guard.

  • “Templar AE” moved to rank 5.

  • “Templar type S” moved to rank 6.

  • “Crusader” moved to rank 7.

  • “Ira Deus” moved to rank 8.

Matchmaking

  • PvP games are now matched by tier. When entering a PvP match, the tier a player is matched into is determined by their highest ranking ship.
  • Players cannot enter a PvP match as a group unless the highest ranked ship of all players in the group are of the same tier.
  • PvE matchmaking is unaffected.

Contracts

  • Players with an active Licence can now have up to nine Contracts active at once.
  • Contracts now give bonus Loyalty if completed in a ship belonging to that faction.

 

Developer’s Blog: “Progression Redux”:

This week’s patch is the result of extensive feedback from the players, and these changes are intended to reflect your desires and wishes whilst still maintaining a balanced game experience.

 

The ship tree has been redesigned to provide a more even, streamlined progression. All factions and all tiers (except for tier 1) now share a similar progression to that used in the Tier 5 release. Tier 1 has a slightly different progression to reflect its status as the “beginner” tier.

 

To demonstrate, the new Empire Tier 2 progression is shown below:

post-240349-0-81044000-1375619661.png

 

Players will notice that some ships that were formally tier 3 have now been moved to tier 2. This was done because we wanted every tier to have nine ships: three of each type, with each type having two primary and one secondary class.

 

Any player whose ship has been moved down in ranks will be compensated - the difference between its old and new price will be paid to you in credits.

 

We understand that some of you may be frustrated at having your ships change roles and we apologise for this. However, it was necessarily to ensure that the ship tree was restructured fairly and uniformly. To compensate you, we have given all players a 1-day licence for each ship they own that has changed class. This licence will appear in your mailbox and is active from the day it is claimed. We hope this boost in synergy and earnings will help you adjust to your new ship, or help you work toward a replacement.

 

Following player feedback, we have also changed the amount of “grind” required to progress in Star Conflict. Players need fewer ranks to advance and the ship tree makes it easier for players to focus on the ships they want. Furthermore, if you still can’t find a progression you like, the new Elite Synergy system allows you to max out a single ship and then fly it to amass elite synergy, which can be put on another ship of the same tier for credits! This works on Premium ships too. In fact, Premium ships are even better at this - they generate more Synergy than other Elite ships!

 

We have also improved the lower-ranked ships within each tier to make them closer to their top-tier counterparts. Many players complained that flying Rank 4 or Rank 7 ships was not enjoyable because they felt under-powered compared to other ships in that tier, so we have increased module slots across the board. Players are still encouraged to work towards the end-tier ships due to their superior number of implants, but they should find themselves more than able to compete no matter what ship they fly.

 

This rebalancing has also allowed us to bring back another long-demanded aspect of the matchmaking - fixed tiers! Yes, you wanted it and so we’ve given it to you!

We originally removed the fixed tier matchmaking in favour of the current “+/-2 ranks” model to reduce waiting times in matchmaking. However, your response was not as positive as expected, especially in lower tiers. Tier 1 pilots did not like facing Tier 2 opponents; Tier 2 did not like facing Tier 3, and Tier 3 did not like facing Tier 4.

Feedback from our community showed that our system was being poorly received by new players, who felt that the game was unfair, and by players who were at the top of their tier, who felt their hard work was being undermined due to being matched against “overpowered” ships of higher tiers. This change should fix both of these issues.

 

The rebalancing of ships within each tier should also help with an additional problem; we have listened to the community and it seems a small, but vocal number of you felt unable to advance to Tiers 4 and 5 for fear of being farmed by Corporations who used high synergy ships with Mk III modules. Now, an entry level ship should be able to hold up against its higher ranking counterparts, and whilst this will not make up for module quality, synergy totals or top-notch teamwork, we hope it will make players that are new to the upper tiers, or indeed any tier, feel they have a fighting chance against more experienced pilots.

 

 

Next week, we hope to see some further changes to the weapon system, as well as a significant overhaul to the ECM class. Expect a development diary post about these changes in the days to come!

2

This is genius.

 

EDIT: Mind if I chip in on this? I’ll gladly help you out on 0.9.2!

 

Error may merge the threads though, just a friendly warning!

3

Those are some very nice suggestions, hopefully the devs read this before their next match

4

I feel a little bruised not many of the ideas I suggested for 0.8.6 were implemented… I thought it might have improved the balance by quite a bit.

5
  • Rank 12 and 13 ships have had their module slots changed to those of Rank 15 ships. 

13 and 14.

Overall pretty good, but while it will make in-tier progression smoother, it’ll make the gap between tiers wider, so that match-making single tier limitation would absolutely have to go in.

I do like your ship tree re-organization in principle but as long as we still have “Limiting choice of ships in battle to a single race” on the development plan I’d rather see a reorganization that gives every type of ship to every nation - I sure don’t want to fly Jericho without heals. :stuck_out_tongue: And drastic ship tree changes should not be done all too often, so make it an all-in-one change.

6

They seriously are still considering that?

7

They seriously are still considering that?

who knows, but they didn’t remove it from http://star-conflict.com/en/game/gamedevelopmentplan/ so until further notice I’ll assume it still stands - after all they pointed to that plan in view of the 0.9.0 changes as well.

8

…

…

…

…

…

…Are they mental?!

9

I mostly agree with everything, thoguh there is 1 part that I don’t agree with:

  • Players with an active Licence can now have up to nine Contracts active at once.

 

  • Contracts now give bonus Loyalty if completed in a ship belonging to that faction.

9 contracts vs 3 contracts is too much, make it 5 contracts and I will agree(Same as looting).

And I don’t think loyalty should increase if you use their ship, it should just get a buff to it’s current numbers, that is all.

 

 

The ship position changes…Most/all seem fine, especially if they all have the same slots amounts in the same tier it should make it more fair. And ofcourse I agree with the matchmaker changes. 

 

Though I have a few suggestions of my own:

Remove ability to capture while using Adaptive Camo.

Remove ability to capture while using Metastable energy field generator

Reduce Singularity cannon damage by 10%. 

Remove ability of Singularity cannon to go through beacons and barriers. 

10

Only in our wildest dreams.  :sad:

11

Though I have a few suggestions of my own:

Remove ability to capture while using Adaptive Camo.

Remove ability to capture while using Metastable energy field generator

Thought that was fixed in 0.9.0. Have definitely seen bombs get dropped on use of the field gen, and know that all other forms of camo drop the bomb, but have not flown cov ops in a while so not sure about adaptive.

edit: That’s right you said capture, not bomb. Yep, needs fixing.

 

Remove ability of Singularity cannon to go through beacons and barriers. 

Doesn’t go through beacons (and through barriers at least not from the inside) but has an AOE radius that’s larger than the bubble so can hit ships behind the beacon if you shoot right next to the beacon.

12

I mostly agree with everything, thoguh there is 1 part that I don’t agree with:

  • Players with an active Licence can now have up to nine Contracts active at once.

 

  • Contracts now give bonus Loyalty if completed in a ship belonging to that faction.

9 contracts vs 3 contracts is too much, make it 5 contracts and I will agree(Same as looting).

And I don’t think loyalty should increase if you use their ship, it should just get a buff to it’s current numbers, that is all.

 

 

The ship position changes…Most/all seem fine, especially if they all have the same slots amounts in the same tier it should make it more fair. And ofcourse I agree with the matchmaker changes. 

 

Though I have a few suggestions of my own:

Remove ability to capture while using Adaptive Camo.

Remove ability to capture while using Metastable energy field generator

Reduce Singularity cannon damage by 10%. 

Remove ability of Singularity cannon to go through beacons and barriers. 

He did say weapons system tweaks still in the works.

13

Thought that was fixed in 0.9.0. Have definitely seen bombs get dropped on use of the field gen, and know that all other forms of camo drop the bomb, but have not flown cov ops in a while so not sure about adaptive.

Doesn’t go through beacons (and through barriers at least not from the inside) but has an AOE radius that’s larger than the bubble so will hit ships behind the beacon while flying past.

Lolnope.

 

Singularity goes through the barriers and beacons. Standing behind it, even 1km, won’t help you.

 

And I was talking about beacon capture. Bomb capture works as wanted.

14

That’s right, not sure why I was thinking bomb, sorry. Will have to dust off my singularity then and give it a try. But the aoe damage radius being larger than the bubble is true, too.

15

By the way, the ship tree picture is not 100% correct, the phobos should be a command.

 

edit: yeah yeah i know, this was not that important :stuck_out_tongue:

16

Contracts

  • Players with an active Licence can now have up to nine Contracts active at once.

  • Contracts now give bonus Loyalty if completed in a ship belonging to that faction.

 

I might have to start subscribing to SCon monthly if this took place~!

 

 

I feel a little bruised not many of the ideas I suggested for 0.8.6 were implemented… I thought it might have improved the balance by quite a bit.

 

Mind posting them here or link perhaps?

 

13 and 14.

Overall pretty good, but while it will make in-tier progression smoother, it’ll make the gap between tiers wider, so that match-making single tier limitation would absolutely have to go in.

I do like your ship tree re-organization in principle but as long as we still have “Limiting choice of ships in battle to a single race” on the development plan I’d rather see a reorganization that gives every type of ship to every nation - I sure don’t want to fly Jericho without heals. :stuck_out_tongue: And drastic ship tree changes should not be done all too often, so make it an all-in-one change.

 

And this is perhaps the most under-rated / uncredited change by the Devs to date. When I first started playing, T2 queues were way over 3 minutes. Now it’s seconds. Population were about the same. Downside to that is you have mixed tiers now.

 

Back when Uhmari was spouting open universe in every thread he could slip it in, he atleast was in favour of a tierless ship tree which I supported.

 

So we have this correlation between wait times and tier balance. I still don’t mind the MM system we have provided 2 things happen:

 

  1. +/- 1

  2. Smaller max potential survivability / max DPS between the ranks

 

You can achieve this (somewhat) in Jasan’s module segregation formula IF all ships of the same class / role share about almost equal Hulls and Shields across all 5 tiers. ie they get better with more module slots.

 

I don’y see this as game breaking and wonder why the option for it seems to be off the table.

 

anyways,

 

+1

17

You can achieve this (somewhat) in Jasan’s module segregation formula IF all ships of the same class / role share about almost equal Hulls and Shields across all 5 tiers. ie they get better with more module slots.

 

I don’y see this as game breaking and wonder why the option for it seems to be off the table.

The more you flatten progression the more even progression minded players will wonder why they should bother progressing and the less licenses get sold.

We only really have the progression issues because we have three progression systems at the same time: Rank, Synergy and Gear (Loyalty/Luck) - in particular the gear based progression creates huge performance gaps between Mk.I and Mk.III or even experimental fits and is the reason why you feel your performance dropping so much as you advance into the next tier. If they would normalize that a bit things would be much smoother.

18

@Kine yea, yeah, sure.

[http://forum.star-conflict.com/index.php?/topic/20443-suggestion-patch-notes-085/?p=208532](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/20443-suggestion-patch-notes-085/?p=208532)

19

Suggestion:

 

In purchasing a ship, you would be able to select what it should be equipped with (with the appropriate price increase) or leave it barebones (aka stock/factory weapons and all of that jazz)- for a reduced price.

20

Awesome thread!