I’m all for open-world. So far the only arguments I’ve seen against it is newbie(New/inexperienced, not to be confused with noo b) hand holding. This can be avoided by having two “universes”. You can have the tutorial T1 area and when you decide to leave it you’re not allowed back, but you unlock the other tiers for use in the field. I normally wouldn’t even consider that, but for some reason the developers made tier 1 ships very limited with their loadouts(no ship mods, weapon mods, weapon types and MANY active modules missing). Tier 2 can be competitive if loaded out right against Tier 3 and so on.
The tier’s have the capability to be competitive within themselves. This is one of the things that Star Conflict has that is somewhat unique.
Consider this:
In a ranked ladder system we have an opportunity to rank pilots by skill.
When we increase in Tiers of ships, a couple of things happen. we gain more base stats. and we gain access to more active and passive ‘skills’ via modules. This is important to consider for a couple of reasons.
In a traditional MMO, or really any console RPG as well, the best gear acts as a reward from some large challenge. it’s your reward for tackling some of the most difficult/time consuming content the game has to offer.
Now, once you have that gear one thing happens: the margin of error to complete additional content decreases. This is one reason some guilds look for certain gear requirements. you can, to a degree, make up for lack of skill with certain gear. as you gain more power the level of skill needed to complete content is decreased. However this is a PvE scenario only.
in PvP, the same is true, but it’s relative. IE: if you and I both have T2 ships. but I have all Mk. I gear and you have all purples…well my skill level must be considerably higher than yours if i beat you in a pure 1v1 situation.
That being said, T1 matches have the opportunity to be the most competitive and balanced. simply because with such limited gear and ability choices, skill plays the most important factor in determining who wins. but this is mechanical ability, and not really knowledge of the game and all of its mechanics. it’s more accessible to players of all experience levels as well. a very mechanically able pilot could beat a 4 or 5 year veteran. but this isn’t to say experience doesn’t’ play a role. you can improve your mechanical ability through practice and experience.
Compare this to a T4 match. there are a lot of other factors. because there are so many more permutations for possible load outs, a new variable is added. That is, you have to understand your own loadout compared to other possible load outs. this primarily comes from experience (or studying/theory crafting). so matches at this level, while also skill based, will largely be determined by how experienced a player is rather than mechanical ability. IE: If i can use my abilities better than you, and counter your abilities it’s very likely I will beat you 1v1 despite being less mechanically able as a pilot.
T2 and T3 would be a mix of the two extremes. Doing away with the tier system removes this level of complexity, which is one of the reasons I oppose the removal and moving to a more open world.
From a standpoint in which you don’t consider the current state of the game, the Eve-like universe would be far superior. But of course, there are things to consider. But even considering these, we can still find the Eve-like universe to be the best choice.
Eve-like Universe (option A)
Pros
- Ability to conquer freely. You will not be restricted to conquering a small portion of the map based on your tier.
- Leaves a zone for freelance pilots to fight in faction space, as well as the ability for there to be a small sector for brand new rank 1 players to start off.
- Immersion is increased by far. Space is not disjointed.
- Increased ship variety (see Note #1)
- Removal of tier system. (see Note #1)
Cons
- Redesign of ship tree.
- Currently lacking in modules to create much choice in each ship class.
Notably, neither con are insurmountable. New modules are likely already planned to be added to the game and redesigning the ship tree is not a difficult task (except for the people who have to redesign the ship menu).
Note #1: Before you instantly balk at the idea of tier removal and ask why this is a pro, consider for a moment that it is not what you think. Removal of the tier system does not mean you will see “T4” ships flying alongside (and dominating) “T1” ships, this means the whole ship system will be redesigned to actually allow them to fly together fairly. Doing this would lead to increased ship variety, since we can’t have every ship serve the same purpose. To use Eve again as an example of this system, ships would be changed to fit the idea of each having their role, while the you start with a ship that serves a basic, generic function (don’t misread as useless), while the later ships begin to serve more focused and specialized functions. The new addition of Ship Roles coming out is already a huge step in this direction. Imagine for a moment the fighter roles. Lets add a Combat role for argument sake (middle of the road tank and damage). This could be the basic fighter. As you unlock further into the fighter tree, you could unlock a Command fighter, which specializes in buffing allies (in return for less damage than the others), a Gunship, which specializes in doing damage (in return for less tank than the others), or a Tackler, which specializes as an anti-interceptor role (in return for less tank and damage, but gaining ability to tackle). The basic role of fighter is not useless, and neither are the more specialized roles, they just server different purposes. All could fight together. Of course though, this is only 4 out of 12 fighters per faction. This means more unique and varied roles can be added to these other ships, possibly some being middle grounds between each main role, or different varieties of each role.
Redesigns are expensive and take a lot of time. it would be easier to balance within the current tier system for two reasons.
-
we already have data to support any changes
-
each individual tier has a range of possible power. IE: you have a maximum and minimum DPS for each ship in a given Tier.
That being said, There are several advantages to removing the tier system. As you’ve pointed out, it can help alleviate the long MMing queue times. and to me, this is the only thing it can accomplish that tweaks to the Tier system can’t.
However, this is only a problem due to a low population of pilots. So to me the choice is
- do we mitigate the issues of bad game design (bad meaning you can’t retain players or attract new ones) by complete and total redesign/overhauls. starting over from square 1?
or
2)do we fix the core problems with/refine the existing system and therefore improve attraction and retention to gain new players?
#2 is almost always the fastest and will require the least amount of resources (man power, capitol, etc). from a business standpoint, this is what you want to do. So this is why I always try to propose changes with this in mind.
However, that being said, one of the games i’m currently testing (FFXIV) has done option 1. sweeping overhauls have happened, a completely new engine was developed. But this took 2 years of work, and they had two advantages: they had a workable game to hold the playerbase over and deep pockets so they could take a major hit in revenue while this happened. of course, anyone following the industry knows the position square enix is in, and why they would do something so drastic.
Also keep in mind, this game will compete in the same segment as Star Citizen. if it has any hope, it has to attract players now and build a population that will grow, or it will never be able to compete. a lot of people are playing this as a stepping stone to Star Citizen anyway. but if the game is good enough, they may play both, rather than dropping Star Conflict completely. so speed is of the essence.
BlackProphecy-like Universe (option B)
Pros
- Supports current game state.
Cons
- Fractures the player community (in a corp of 150 players, only 30 players can be in each tier at one time, and the chances of more than 15 being on-line per tier at one time are low.
- Ruins the idea of conquering space.
And either:
- New players will still get rolled over by experienced ones because if they want to control T1 space they will still fight in T1 ships.
or
- Once you reach max tier, you will be limited to fighting over only 20-25% of the entire universe (less if you exclude faction territory).
Aside from the benefit that the current game state would support this system, in the end it will simply fracture that community. Partitioning the community by tier will completely break corporations. If you are stuck in your tier, you cannot play with corp members of other tiers. As with the math in the bullet above, this also means that getting a full corp group at a certain tier to go out conquering territory will be extremely difficult. Also, this makes conquest only worth anything at max tier. Eventually any player will outgrow the lower tiers, and losing access to them, why conquer them in the first place? What is the point? There isn’t one. So no one cares about conquering 75% of space, while where it counts, only a fourth of the universe is conquerable. This is far from ideal.
I’m not sure I understand your arguments. they seem nonsensical to me. however I am not a part of a corporation and not 100% sure how anything there works.
-
why would corporations be restricted by number of people in a given tier? why would players be assigned and restricted to a given tier and be unable to switch between them on the fly like unaligned pilots? IE: why can a corp only have 30 pilots in a given tier, and why can’t the pilots within that tier switch to another tier below them to fill any gaps? Keep in mind, corps will also have access to capital ships/dreadnoughts.
-
Proper matchmaking along with a larger player base will alleviate the problem of highly experienced players rolling inexperienced players. you can’t tie this to the option. However you can say that a small player base will aggravate the system further by increasing queue times. (which is likely true, your statement isn’t) so what you really need to say is: if the game stays at a small population this system isn’t sustainable.
-
i don’t understand how this ruins the idea of conquering space either. conquering space is one of the reasons restricting by tier is a good thing. it enforces people playing in all sectors, and not just the ones that offer the best rewards/are the only ones you have access to.
-
Restricting sectors by tier also does something else: it populates the lowest tier of the queue with more players. In most games, there is a gradual shift to ‘end game’ or the highest tier. over time, you get little to no people playing lower tiers. 1) fewer people are trying the game, because they already have, or the market is saturated and you’re just not attracting any more people. This happens, it’s not strange or new or bad. and 2) there’s no incentive for higher tier players to ‘play down.’
Freelancer-like Universe (A proposed option C)
No pros/cons because this is essentially BlackProphecy-like Universe, but without locking you out of lower tiers. While this solves some of the problems, a few remain in this system. Namely, this system assumes Tiers are still in place. While this system is beautiful for PvE style of gameplay (which Freelancer mostly was), it does not benefit a PvP game, especially when it comes to conquest of territory. If, as a corporation, we want to own low tier territory, we will. Whether or not this forces us into lower tier ships is up for debate, but either way you will have experienced players rolling the new players in this system because it does not stop you from entering these lower tiered areas. Many people will still do this because ownership of territory is worth it, even at the expense of less rewards for doing so (or they will do it simply to grief new players, that is another concern).
I never played black prophecy. but if it locks you out of lower tiers after you pass them, than I would agree. you don’t want to lock people out of lower tiers. but it wouldn’t make any sense to do that, because it changes the current system for the worse. this is really more an implementation scheme for option 2.