This topic is like pissing against the wind… No good will come from it…
All in response to the idea of ‘squads being too OP’. Is this the right track at least? Or should it be approached from another angle?
Squads aren’t OP by themselves. Squads with TS, with the right selection of ships to cover each other teammate and focussing fire on individual players are unstoppable to random players. I learned this the hard way :01313:
I think there is a tip line somewhere on the loading screens which says: Squads are a unstoppable force" … This even encourages the pilots to fight squads back and fly in squads as well, or was it not intended? What would be the purpose of it then?
Squads aren’t OP by themselves. Squads with TS, with the right selection of ships to cover each other teammate and focussing fire on individual players are unstoppable to random players. I learned this the hard way :01313:
If I annoy your squadmate long enough by being ‘unkillable’ myself would he not talk your ear off till you did something to help? Die or not have i not taken two players off an objective to deal with me? Points or no thats how to deal with squads right now if you cant kill them.
TS is not always the bonus it might appear to be, i learned that the hard way.
EDIT: Apologies, I know that sounds glib but its true, when you have 3 target locks on you fight or flight is not the only option. Fighting v the old death squads taught me that.
I think there is a tip line somewhere on the loading screens which says: Squads are a unstoppable force" … This even encourages the pilots to fight squads back and fly in squads as well, or was it not intended? What would be the purpose of it then?
Getting into squads it’s something i always recommend. I love squads, but it’s also true that squads are to random players like kryptonite to superman. And SC can’t lose players. I play 95% of my time in SC with a 2-man squad.
If I annoy your squadmate long enough by being ‘unkillable’ myself would he not talk your ear off till you did something to help? Die or not have i not taken two players off an objective to deal with me? Points or no thats how to deal with squads right now if you cant kill them.
TS is not always the bonus it might appear to be, i learned that the hard way
Jajajaj That’s not a squadmate. That’s a burden. I’m sorry i’m not playing with kids.
Jajajaj That’s not a squadmate. That’s a burden. I’m sorry i’m not playing with kids.
And it descends into a pseudo proxy epeen. Instead of any worthwhile contribution and in complete ignorance of other issues that have been said before.
This topic is like pissing against the wind… No good will come from it…
Maybe you are right. Maybe the players dont deserve squads. Not playing with ‘kids’ OMFG.
Officially out of this now, ill never mention it again if this is how quickly an intelligent debate on the biggest topic in the game descends into nonesensical contribution, someone can give me a shake if an actual idea comes up.
My apologies if I offended you about something.
Please can you explain why weakening squads drive away with my proposal? It’s hard to understand than a progresive weakening can harm more casual squads than killsquads.
If you try to “balance in” a squad of 4 players in X players in a team.
and you try to add some “weight” to those 4 players because they are in a squad, and you state, squads are better and need to be weakened
then you basicly in other words, say “I raise the entry level for a squad” === “I give them some additional pre-determined weight”
the result is, you entice to gather better players in a squad, who can cope with your assumption, they are better.
and results in a disadvantage for players who cant live up to this base entry level.
If you want to balance the squads, especially with other squads, and you want some weight, you should not make some base assumption, the squad is better, for the total team.
Instead, you should balance the teams by players, and any weight you add to the squad should be vs. the other squad, and dynamic, and impact all other participiants.
If you want total randoms to participate vs. squads, which your second whish is, that is independent of this, then you need to always assume, all players in a team are part of a squad, even if just behind the scenes.
And do the squad thing. Or even device a plan how to find the perfect “random behind the scene squad” for your problem.
Lots of ways to get this, but again, not by assuming you know more, than 4 players are already on one side.
To sum it up:
If you assume, a squad is better, and try fixing the balance by making them weaker with some “constant amount” of whatever number system you use to balance, you do not get the long term result, that games will be more balanced, instead, that the population will increase in forming squads they can win with.
Yes they do that anyway, but because you assumed something beforehand, you will never be able to balance it out in total.
Assumptions in auto balancing systems are always very dangerous, because they lead to “tuning parameters”, and these parameters tend to get neglected and become constants.
Or even worse: you push the weight more and more, resulting in short term balance. Until the system implodes, because people adapt.
While you do that, you do not notice, that your own mistake screws up the behaviour of your clients.
Just like you turn up the heat while dish washing, every few minutes, coz its nice to have it warm. You go away, come back, and suddenly, its too hot.
Stuff adapts over time. A system which tries to auto adapt, needs to be built with as little pre-assumptions, as possible. Only then it can be taught to tune itself.
It’s quite similar to how we then cope to knowing, the water will be too hot, instead of limiting the possible temperature.
@TS
Anyway, TS usage for squadding is more cool, because if you play alone, you do not reflect your game the same way, as if others are there with you. Otherwise, the difference from using ingame voice or pings is quite small.
It’s totally different, if you have a full team, like a tournament or league, where TS becomes more essential, especially because of preparations, and the simple fact, you control one side of the battle entirely on your own as team.
The notion, everything depends on what mysterious talks people have in TS is mythical. The results with the same people in team with or without TS depends more on experience with them. You would not be able to tell, honestly, if i am on TS or not.
TS during a hard battle, can be quite silent, and at times, even be more demoralizing, than helping.
Of course, getting some input means you might have more information at hand for decisions, or coordinate focus fire, but often, its just heat of battle, and often works without TS quite the same, if all ppl are experienced. pings are often enough.
And most of TS upside for squads is actually inbetween the battles, even if its just blame or whatever. That’s where TS helps the squad evolve truly.
Thats even true for being in TS and soloing vs. each other.
in fact: a mindset change of seeing doing a squad as an actual service for the public is quite an idealist whish for me: if you squad, you usually ensure strategical decisions, for certain ship roles.
if both sides serve a squad who serves this principle, game is awesomeness.
mysterious doublepost - deleteme.
Thank you, you take your time to explain me that there isn’t a possible balance because squads overcome any weakening. My proposal was to lower queue times for squads. To get them against random players in balanced PVP. Because everybody wants SC balanced, …anyone destroyers?
Btw if we want squads back we need to listen devs. We can’t blame devs for not listening us if we don’t listen them.
I would start small. Allow 2 person squads to play in higher ranks of PvP, add a counter to the PvP icon displaying how many squads are in your queue range. It will save a lot of time.
2 man squads already exist, but the wait time is ridiculous.
3 man squads for T3 and up, unrestricted, would be a good first step to get people back into the swing of things.
All in response to the idea of ‘squads being too OP’. Is this the right track at least? Or should it be approached from another angle?
Just a things that came to my mind:
#1a - let standard old style vet squad game-play cost something, if not GS than maybe Credits ( a checkbox with say I will pay like 200.000 credits, that will go to winning side, higher tier higher costs, like poker, will discourage new players from entering all to often)
#1b - encourage custom battle games for that purpose
#2 - let standard old style vet squad game-play only happen in certain time slots per day, maybe
#3 - fill up standard old style vet squad game-play MM with AI ships, the better organized the vets are the better the matches are for them
just my 2cents…
You should totally change approach. Instead of making the game easier for everyone creating an huge abyss in skill between pilots, the solution should be to implement a “learning curve” more consistent. And at the same time to give back the social aspect of the game.
Do you have an idea why dreadnaught game mode (and leagues maybe) did not really function ? Why only the focus came on PvP game modus?
the result is, you entice to gather better players in a squad, who can cope with your assumption, they are better.
and results in a disadvantage for players who cant live up to this base entry level.
Thank you for that good and reasonable explanation in details. Made me think…
Could you (or s.b. else) pls. also explain the former abuse of the player informations (like in open space, in hangar, in PvP etc, that were obfuscated because of abuse by vet competition-junkies)? How did it come to that? What was the drive.motivation?
Could you (or s.b. else) try to get you hypothetically into the devs position and try to explain-like you did above-why they did with PvP-squad game play what they did, pls.? What are their most likely motives - hypothetically?
Do you have an idea why dreadnaught game mode (and leagues maybe) did not really function ? Why only the focus came on PvP game modus?
Here some facts.
Like: dread battle are not well designed, the whole sistem encourage to brake the rules in order to mainteins sectors. The rewards for holding a sector are embarassing low.
The only sector whorth the efforts are the gold standards ones and are overcrowded or protected by fake attacks.
Also gaining a sector not really depends on your efforts, other corp need to join to take down a sector.
When you need to take togheter at least an 8 wing all day, telling them that at the end of the battle there is no reward you start to think about getting a real job instead of this unsatisfying one.
Leagues are repetitive since there is only one game mode, only 5vs5 with 3 possible tactic at all and not going on all day but just at a given hours.
Also they keep changing rules and reward for the final tournament stage, making people mad about it.
The rule to make a squad are restrictive and weird.
The only people playing it are vets who are ultratrained. A kind of population that is on the laps since all new players are just bad.
Why they are bad? Even who have a minimum “talent”, have no occasion to become really good. Since pvp, that was the real training facility in this game is just random no sense pew pew.
Thank you for that good and reasonable explanation in details. Made me think…
Could you pls. also explain the former abuse of the player informations (like in open space, in hangar, in PvP etc, that were obfuscated because of abuse by vet competition-junkies)? How did it come to that? What was the drive.motivation?
Could you try to get you hypothetically into the devs position and try to explain-like you did above-why they did with PvP-squad game play what they did, pls.? What are their most likely motives - hypothetically?
I’ll give you some hints. They choosed to follow the " random friendly" path. Pretty much everything needed some skill and train to be used in a succesfully way (included squads): are being slowly tuned down.
So this way they thought the population wuold improve in numbers and money making. Is it working? Hard to say considering how low is the player retentions in this days…
dread battle are not well designed, the whole sistem encourage to brake the rules in order to mainteins sectors. The rewards for holding a sector are embarassing low.
The only sector whorth the efforts are the gold standards ones and are overcrowded or protected by fake attacks.
Also gaining a sector not really depends on your efforts, other corp need to join to take down a sector.
When you need to take togheter at least an 8 wing all day, telling them that at the end of the battle there is no reward you start to think about getting a real job instead of this unsatisfying one.
RE: Dreadnaught battles (Sector Conquest) - can it be fixed? (Q: is there a possible connection to PvP and the case for squads?)
Leagues are repetitive since there is only one game mode, only 5vs5 with 3 possible tactic at all and not going on all day but just at a given hours.
Also they keep changing rules and reward for the final tournament stage, making people mad about it.
The rule to make a squad are restrictive and weird.
RE: League battles: Is it ultimate dead or is there still a potential? (Q: is there a possible connection to PvP and the case for squads?)
I’ll give you some hints. They choosed to follow the " random friendly" path. Pretty much everything needed some skill and train to be used in a succesfully way (included squads): are being slowly tuned down.
So this way they thought the population wuold improve in numbers and money making. Is it working? Hard to say considering how low is the player retentions in this days…
O.k. you seem to say (as I understand it), the Star Conflict (SC) developers, designers and stakeholders have the need to hold and enlarge the games’ user base, also to hold and enlarge the SC games’ return on investment in terms of real money (for income, servers, etc.)
How to meet the two needs: How to achieve the need from developers/designers side and have squads back unrestricted (and info where players are [hangar, battle, league, dread etc…]) according to the needs of the loyal experienced players? Any ideas? Any suggestions?
2 man squads already exist, but the wait time is ridiculous.
3 man squads for T3 and up, unrestricted, would be a good first step to get people back into the swing of things.
I would add: maybe there should be a reward for teaching in SC academies !
Like: one can only level up to tier9+ hence level up to PvP squad play the old style, if he/she has been an instructor to new players in an sector/faction academy or some thing like it, or special ships are only for SC academy instructors?