You Screwed Up

Game Discussion Miscellaneous
21

Camera problem

 

In short: Will be fixed.

 

Why did it happen?

 

We are trying to improve players’ immersion into the game and camera was one of our iterations of idea. We see that you don’t like it and will make improvements to it. In the process we will try to take into accoun all of our users’ opinions on the matter. 

 

That is not imersive, that is: annoying, annoying and annoying.

This disrupts fast paced battles and make me feel dizzy.

 

Put the old camera zoom back and problem resolved, dont make improvements to actual camera, just put the old on air again and improve the immersion adding a first person view or a cockpit view.

Man, if i want a camera close to me to make fell imersed on space i simply zoom in the camera. But we have ppl who dont like this(like me).

Dont foce us play with a camera mode we dont like!

22

Camera problem

 

In short: Will be fixed.

 

Why did it happen?

 

We are trying to improve players’ immersion into the game and camera was one of our iterations of idea. We see that you don’t like it and will make improvements to it. In the process we will try to take into accoun all of our users’ opinions on the matter. 

 

Loot changes

 

In short: It is actually more lucrative than before.

 

New system has led many users to think that now the are forced to pay more and if not, will gain less. That’s not really true. In fact, you will now have more money than before.

 

Why will I have more money?

 

Simple. We’ve increased drop rates. So, now you will get more chances to loot a purple or green grade items than before, moreover, those items, if they are broken while looting, will still give you more money than the usual trash. 

 

Repair costs

 

So why is it more expensive?

 

Connected with the previous paragraph. You will get more money, thus we decided to increase repair costs a bit. 

 

Let me be clear AntiBus; I want to like your game. I was a rabid Freelancer fan, and this game’s mechanics were the closest and most pleasant I’d found in awhile. But you are slowly destroying it by micro-transactioning it to hell.

 

You have made no promise to revert the camera back to what it was, despite the community outcry. All you have said is it will be tweaked and improved. Which pretty much means the current setup is here to stay. That is not what we asked for, and once again you are ignoring us.

 

It doesn’t matter if we get more credits in looting now, because psychologically you are suckerpunching us every time we win a match. You have gone from pleasantly surprising us with modules to dangling them in front of our faces while asking for money. And even if we pay, we still aren’t guaranteed a payout. That’s called extortion.

 

Ship repair costs for T3 and 4 were already astronomical. In case you haven’t noticed T4 PvP matches are pretty scarce; not because players don’t have the ships, but because they can’t afford to fly them. And now, you have increased the repair prices again to keep pace with the increased credit loot. Again, that is not what the community has been asking for.

 

Simply put, words are cheap. If you want us to believe you actually care about us, start fixing the things we keep bringing up. Actions; not words.

23

Loot changes

 

In short: It is actually more lucrative than before.

 

New system has led many users to think that now the are forced to pay more and if not, will gain less. That’s not really true. In fact, you will now have more money than before.

 

Why will I have more money?

 

Simple. We’ve increased drop rates. So, now you will get more chances to loot a purple or green grade items than before, moreover, those items, if they are broken while looting, will still give you more money than the usual trash. 

Not sure if any dev is reading this, but I hope you are. If people not having enough credits was an issue, the proposed solution actually made it much worse for the rest of the player base. I’m going to explain to you why. I’ll make this into a separate topic if I have to, I’m just going to keep it simple here.

I’ll be using these assumptions:

  • The success rate of obtaining loot is the same as before (the higher drop rates negate the 90%/70% failure rate, leading to similar success results prior to 0.8.1.)

  • Repair costs will remain at current levels.

  • The removal of insurance was intentional.

In your view, was create a way for people to get credits faster. Repair costs are getting high and even a solid win still feels like a “two steps forward-one step backward” situation. Players T3 and above have had this problem for a while and they voiced their concerns many times about it. In conjunction with stiff competition in the higher brackets, many of them went back into T2 just to find fights that would be profitable. In an ideal world, this would not happen (people would stick to their tiers, not worry about credits, and the universe would order itself accordingly.)

While that’s a valid concern, the solution proposed in 0.8.1 created an additional (and much worse) problem: Frustration over having “that one item” destroyed, even if actual real-world currency was in play.

Having item probability calculations behind the scenes is what makes RPGs exciting to play. Tom Chatfield, an editor for the UK magazine Prospect and writer of Fun Inc, made this TED talk specifically about loot systems: http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_chatfield_7_ways_games_reward_the_brain.html (everyone should watch this anyway, not just the devs.) Currency and experience is something that you pick up as you go, but loot is something you discover. Most of the time, you’ll just keep chugging along. However, sometimes, you can get lucky and you’ll strike it great. It’s what keeps people coming back again and again. Furthermore, that this creates an actual neurological effect upon the brain that keeps people coming back, and people love this feeling.

What 0.8.1 did was destroy that feeling.

By revealing some of those calculations to the players in real-time in this way, even if they aren’t winning more often than they were in the past, you are effectively stealing that item away from them. That item that they won , that item that they earned. No-one really cares about credits, that’s something that happens just by logging on. They might not even care if the item they won was something they already have a dozen of. Getting something special is something that everyone wants , and when you get them really close and then snatching it out of their hands, you take them when they are at their best (elation and joy over victory, sometimes hard-won and by the barest of margins) and make them as irritated, frustrated and disinterested as the people who just lost. Even if they were winning items just as much as they were before, they will not feel that way. They will see that one great item, and they will see it being destroyed forever in front of them.

This is if people are winning the same amount of items as they were before. I’m convinced that people are winning much less items than they were in 0.8.1, especially in PvE missions where the guaranteed green item has the same 90%/70% chance of failure.

This is my question to the devs: What happens to a game when everyone feels like they are losing even when they are winning?

24

I think he won the internet war over this issue…^

25

Treezus - I want to have your babies. will a mangina do ?

26

I went xxxx for 5 seconds…

27

wile u are at it, fix the dam crosshairs, what is the red outline on ship for when i need to aim miles in front of it + all the feds interceptors have engine nozzels with no exoust comming out’? why not use them when boosting or just light em up for looks.

 

come on pick up your pencils, scrach your heads with it then start tapping dem keybords

for the sake of the galaxy GO!

28

Okay, I’m sorry for not being absolutely availible at all the times for discussion. There is a bit of a time gap in play.

 

So, here what I have to say once again:

 

  1. Camera is in balancing, I cannot promise you that it will go, nor can I promise you that it will stay. This is up to devs, of course they are informed (numerous times actually) that players are not that happy about the change, but for now i do not have additional info on the outcome.

 

  1. Repair costs - one thing that have been told to me is that no one actually changed anything in repair costs. YES, I know that it sounds strange and I am now contradicting even myself, but this may be a bug, we need your data and feedback on why do you think the repair costs have grown.

 

  1. Insurance removal - atm i’m trying to get more data on the problem.

 

  1. Looting system. No, I intended to say what I said. New looting system is more lucrative for the players. It is. It is not just words - we have statistics that shows us dramatic increase in ‘silver’ (standard credits) among most of the users. And once again I repeat: the drop rates have actually been increased. Actually. No kidding. 

 

And I also see that most of the problem with loot is that you see an item and then get frustrated that it was destroyed. (don’t forget you are still getting a substancially bigger sum of money for the broken item than you get from trash) And you think that you have been tricked - you won’t have this item anymore. And there goes what you are getting wrong: as these items will drop more often now, the chances of you getting it are still higher than they were before! I do realize that it may be frustrating at start, but if you just try and fight more fights you will see that the situation is not that dark and grim as you’ve pictured it here on the forums. 

29

No, Antibus, the problem with the loot is that you designed a system that not only unfair to F2P, but to P2P as well.

 

Don’t fob us off with that piss-poor “try it and see” excuse. I’ve been flying extensively all weekend to take advantage of the free licence, to the point where I’ve taken a Rank 6 ship from 0 to max synergy with ample time to polish off a few others. Despite your hollow platitudes the situation is every bit as ‘dark and grim’ as we claim.

 

Right now the bulk of the items I see are Military T3, with the exceptionally rare Experimental T2 creeping in. This is with the bonus loot attempts, meaning I am effectively doubling the loot chance I would normally get. As such, the last 2-3 days are basically a week’s worth of testing condensed.

Under the old system the sight of Experimental tech was something to celebrate. It didn’t matter if it didn’t fit onto a ship I use a lot, or at all, what mattered was I had it on hand for the day I did swap to that particular vessel or playstyle. Now? Now I’m being shown gear that I would really like to own - Experimental Pulsars, or Hail Plasma Cannons - and then being told “Nope! Have less money than you would earn selling the Mk II version of that equipment!” Worst of all, I can’t even throw real money at the problem because that is no guarantee! I could pay money and be told “Thanks for the money! Have a xxxx amount of credits! Give us your real money again soon!”

 

We are not wrong. It is your system that is wrong, and the thinking that implemented it is grossly insulting to your player base.

 

 

Edit: Antibus, don’t you remember posting here earlier?

 

 

Hey there:

 

I see that there are problems with todays’s patch, but let me clear a cople of moments for you:

 

Camera problem

 

In short: Will be fixed.

 

Why did it happen?

 

We are trying to improve players’ immersion into the game and camera was one of our iterations of idea. We see that you don’t like it and will make improvements to it. In the process we will try to take into accoun all of our users’ opinions on the matter. 

 

Loot changes

 

In short: It is actually more lucrative than before.

 

New system has led many users to think that now the are forced to pay more and if not, will gain less. That’s not really true. In fact, you will now have more money than before.

 

Why will I have more money?

 

Simple. We’ve increased drop rates. So, now you will get _more _chances to loot a purple or green grade items than before, moreover, those items, if they are broken while looting, will still give you _more _money than the usual trash. 

 

Repair costs

 

So why is it more expensive?

 

Connected with the previous paragraph. You will get more money, thus we decided to increase repair costs a bit. 

 

Crashes

 

I’m crashing after the patch, help!

 

Those are already fixed and probably have already been uploaded to the servers. 

Repair costs have gone up. You said so clear as day…

30

I was misinformed of the repair costs, I’ve mentioned it before… somewhere here.

Ater checking, I was told that repair costs were not modified. So this thing needs feedback, I ask for your feedback on this matter in practically every topic there is about costs. 

31

Well you aren’t likely to get it for a while are you? I mean, I seem to be earning about 10-15% more than usual, but then again I don’t normally have a licence active so how can I be sure my rewards are as they should be? Same problem with loot - I’m earning twice as many loot items (sort of - there seem to be a lot more “no loot” counters around now), so how do we know what is normal and what is Bonus XP Weekend?

 

I’ve complained many times that the Dev team don’t tell us things - you sneak in hidden updates and your patch notes are, ironically, patchy as hell. Now you are telling us things, only to backtrack and say “actually, that update never happened.” If your patch notes were done properly in the first place this kind of issue would not arise…

32
  1. Looting system. No, I intended to say what I said. New looting system is more lucrative for the players. It is. It is not just words - we have statistics that shows us dramatic increase in ‘silver’ (standard credits) among most of the users. And once again I repeat: the drop rates have actually been increased. Actually. No kidding. 

 

And I also see that most of the problem with loot is that you see an item and then get frustrated that it was destroyed. (don’t forget you are still getting a substancially bigger sum of money for the broken item than you get from trash) And you think that you have been tricked - you won’t have this item anymore. And there goes what you are getting wrong: as these items will drop more often now, the chances of you getting it are still higher than they were before! I do realize that it may be frustrating at start, but if you just try and fight more fights you will see that the situation is not that dark and grim as you’ve pictured it here on the forums. 

I was hoping that someone over there would see the light on this issue before the weekend bonus expired. I see they did not, so now we get to see what happens. Relevant portions of your text were highlighted here, because you believe these are the strongest points in your argument. Instead, they are red herrings at best or a flagrant misunderstanding of the situation at worst.

1) Credits are not the sought-after reward. Loot is.

1b) People expect to win what they earned. They don’t want it being taken from them.

  1. Even if loot rates have been increased, expectation of loot is continuously shattered by seeing loot get destroyed.

Those first two points were what made me worry the most about the future of this game. The RPG experience hasn’t solely been about pulling GP out of a wolf’s belly so you can buy items in shops since Chrono Trigger. Now you occasionally get items from that wolf’s belly too. I’m not going to repeat myself, the points in my earlier post still stand. People are going to get fed up by a game where the loot they could have won is destroyed. Now that the weekend is over, drop rates will go to the actual average.

But now I need to stress this next point, which I did not before:

3) Even if your points are true, this could have been done without weaving in a pay-to-loot system, unless that was the point.

People not making enough credits? Increase the scalability of sell-cost of grey loot and victory credits. People not getting enough items? Increase drop rates of green and purple loot. On your side, it’s just variables on a screen. That’s what confused me for the longest time: it would have been easier just to do that, so why go to the trouble of programming this mini-game show right after a win?

There’s no other reason for it: it was done not to increase loot or credit rates, but specifically to bring real-world money into the looting system.

I can understand real-world money being used as a shortcut to better ships, better equipment, cosmetics and things of that nature. After all, for a lot of us, we don’t have the time to grind up all of these loyalties or reputations, so we carefully plan our grinding routes, buy the items with money we make in our private lives, or both. F2P games almost always head in that direction and it’s something we expect. Sometimes an F2P game goes the wrong way and makes it so paying players get advantages that cannot be overcome by non-paying players, which generally leads to the extinction of that game. But making this entire elaborate system just to entice people to pay real-world money for the chance to win loot?

Take a look at this list: http://www.swtor.com/free/features. SWTOR had financial straits after losing almost all of their entire player-base (down to roughly 500,000 subscribers today) so they switched to an F2P system so as to not directly compete with titans like WoW for subscriber market share. In the end, it worked out pretty well for them! Despite everything on that list, where you have to pay to literally put on a hat, they did great. While SC does not do even a tenth of the things on this list, even they did not what to do what SC has already done in 0.8.1. Furthermore, before people start comparing the two further, SWTOR has two things SC does not: being linked to and part of the Star Wars universe (and the millions upon millions of fans that has), and being a finished game that has continual updates. The current pay-to-loot system would make EA blush.

In this case, regular players are not just as disadvantaged as people who want to spend their real-world money, but they are placed in a minor state of psychological anguish for refusing to spend their money on the chance to win something. There have already been many posts by people stating their displeasure, especially after they’ve spent real-world money and not won, so hopefully people are aware of this.

If you want to continue with this plan, it’s not like we can stop you. This won’t destroy the game (although for those players that do spend their standards for the chance to win loot: a _____ and his ____ are soon _____.) You’re only making it less fun, and that’s the rubric that people use to judge what game they want to play.

To Antibus specifically: it’s dangerous to go alone, take this: http://www.creatingcustomerevangelists.com/resources/columnsarticles/fight_the_fear.asp

33

hmm So 

 

  1. Looting system. No, I intended to say what I said. New looting system is more lucrative for the players. It is. It is not just words - we have statistics that shows us dramatic increase in ‘silver’ (standard credits) among most of the users. And once again I repeat: the drop rates have actually been increased. Actually. No kidding. 

 

The dramatic increase in silver (Standard Credits) I think has more to do with the 3 day free license… than the actual loot changes… Did you remember to factor that in?

34

There is no justification to dipping targeted ships in pepto bismo.  The pink bubble around them is an Epic failure and I wont place another dime into this game until removed. 

 

35

I don’t agree with your statement Antibus that looting makes you win as much silver than before.

 

In 0.8.0, I farmed PvE with my T3 ships a lot to get enough silver to buy several ships. My typical loot was : 1 green item + 3 grey. The 3 grey gave me around 10 000 silver ; for the green, I always ended with some T4 active module and after a while, I nearly sold it cause I already had a similar one in wharehouse (in fact I could sold them eveytime as I have no T4 ship at this moment but I decided to keep one of each for later use) => 50 000 silver. So my total loot was around 60 000 silver

 

Now if I play PvE with the same ships, here is the loot I get : 2 or 3 greens, extraction fails so I gain around 15 000 silver for each and 1 or 2 greys (5 000 each) => total gained from loot is now between 40 000 & 50 000 silver.

 

For everythin else, Treezus perfectly summarized my thoughts save for one point, as there’s a change that I really hate but I see noone talking about it :

 

WHY DID YOU REMOVE THE HUD IN FREE CAMERA MODE ?

 

 

Before the patch, when I played my engi frig, I could use the free camera mode to look around me and see quickly if my mates needed some healing (or keep a neye on the tackler running after my inty). Now I have to turn my frig in their direction to do that and with the new camera, it’s just so messy to do that I end up only keeping an eye on mates that are in front of me.

36

There is no justification to dipping targeted ships in pepto bismo.  The pink bubble around them is an Epic failure and I wont place another dime into this game until removed. 

 

You can turn it off in settings.

37

Okay, I’m sorry for not being absolutely availible at all the times for discussion. There is a bit of a time gap in play.

 

So, here what I have to say once again:

 

  1. Camera is in balancing, I cannot promise you that it will go, nor can I promise you that it will stay. This is up to devs, of course they are informed (numerous times actually) that players are not that happy about the change, but for now i do not have additional info on the outcome.

 

  1. Repair costs - one thing that have been told to me is that no one actually changed anything in repair costs. YES, I know that it sounds strange and I am now contradicting even myself, but this may be a bug, we need your data and feedback on why do you think the repair costs have grown.

 

  1. Insurance removal - atm i’m trying to get more data on the problem.

 

  1. Looting system. No, I intended to say what I said. New looting system is more lucrative for the players. It is. It is not just words - we have statistics that shows us dramatic increase in ‘silver’ (standard credits) among most of the users. And once again I repeat: the drop rates have actually been increased. Actually. No kidding. 

 

And I also see that most of the problem with loot is that you see an item and then get frustrated that it was destroyed. (don’t forget you are still getting a substancially bigger sum of money for the broken item than you get from trash) And you think that you have been tricked - you won’t have this item anymore. And there goes what you are getting wrong: as these items will drop more often now, the chances of you getting it are still higher than they were before! I do realize that it may be frustrating at start, but if you just try and fight more fights you will see that the situation is not that dark and grim as you’ve pictured it here on the forums. 

 

Antibus, I love this game. I really, really do. Most of the things in it are spectacular and I would love to see developed, but here’s the thing:

 

PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, LISTEN TO YOUR FANBASE!

 

Or your game will crash and burn. It is as simple. As. That.

 

  1. No. Please, just no. Don’t balance it. Just roll it back. Please. I am on my knees typing this.

 

  1. What? Ok, I don’t know if you know this, but the looting system is actually _ ILLEGAL _. For one, the game incorporates gambling, and so should be rated 18+ AND have a gambling license. Gambling is illegal unto itself in some countries. Secondly, law states if we were to spend GS (which is bought by money, and so is - by extension - money itself) and failed an extraction, we should be immediately refunded. Are we? NO. This needs a complete revamp.

 

I don’t mean to be disrespectful here. I am just expressing my 100% honest opinion.

38

Hi peeps,

 

i would like to ask Gaijin whats the matter with the latest updates, and with the game or what they really expect or want from the playerbase and themselves. Really i meen, the game started out fun and promising, you could have good battles in all tiers, play casual, go hardcore and be King Kong beating cheast on the chats and forums about how big your banana was and how mighty skyscrappers fell to the swung of it, now the game feels like its beeing steered by the interests of… God knows what or who.

 

I am asking this to all in general simply because with every update the game seems to be going straight to trash. No you say? Lets see…

 

Races, you have 3 wonderfull races full of love and joy for one another, in the beginning there was hate and all was good, each race had its ships with its own abilities and properties but then came the mighty Kong and said… and let all be as one.

 

Not cool, the uniqueness of each faction was lost and so was the cool ideia that was having ship classes with a bit more restriction, except you made some classes worthless, others even more worthless and others overpowered like hell… there’s the odd ship that you can say its ok but then again who plays an ok ship when you can play what everyone else is playing?! Figures right? No, not for you Gaijin and not for the Clans.

 

People  said healers were OP, they were and they were bugged as hell also.

 

People said Cov ops or the hell it was was OP in bombing run, so instead of fixing the ship you fixed the gamemode for good , and it was fun to a certain point, oh wait you gave us another mode, we’ll get into it.

 

You gave us sector conquest, cool ideia, again like the ship roles poorly implemented, there’s a reason why Planet Side 2 is a piece of “carp”, and theres another reason why the Sector Conquest mode is currently meaningless… oh wait you are working on it, right, may i ask, the same way you are working to fix the numerous game bugs?!

 

Like the Mac people with crashes? The other regular rigs with crashes? The Camera issues?! The aimbotters?! The clans that rule every fight ad nauseum exploiting bugs, swarming people in some gamemodes and making the game *coff* carp **coff** to play?!

 

I know, heck any sane and balanced person will see that the clans want to win, some people want to win at all costs? But exploiting  stuff? Swarming people and coming to the forums saying, " Nooo the game is good, the ship X is not OP , ( off course not … thats why you all come out in one to fight ), the gun Y is weak also don’t you see? ( Thats why your whole clan comes out shooting the same stuff, while its weak of course, beating people up with a weak stick makes you feel stronger and better :yes_yes:  )

 

Off course Gaijin this  isn’t just the clans fault, in fact people want to win same if in a game or at some athletics competition… , but you have the meens to work this out you  guys came out with meaningless updates, and with posts on the forums full with double meanings… for example, the camera issues.

 

So the camera bug is at work,  its being fixed, and you are posting stuff on the main site how cool the thing is, that some people wanted it and how it gives a feeling of speed because this is an action game and not an RTS… i say B freaking S.

 

You had the speed feeling it was always there, even for the frigates, the inertial feeling was there, but instead of saying… oh this went a bit wrong ( like seeing the rear end of a frigate and nothing else , or , loosing the spacial awareness of your surroundings when flying an Interceptor and bumping into asteroids … ) , no you just post on the forums the following,

 

  1. Its being looked into.

  2. Its holiday / weekend the devs deserve some off time also

  3. Its being fixed

  4. Its fixed… while staying the same.

 

Its not about what individuals  wish like some Dev said and thats true, BUT, when more then one person says that THEY and not HE HAVE and not HAS a problem, then its more then 1 person, in fact way more then one person complaining about the same, while having you Gaijin saying, yeh… some people said…

 

See where i’m getting at? 

 

 Many, alot >>> some people.

 

Honestly the ideias you guys had were good but badly implemented and people until the last update could live with this but as the time goes by one gets the perception that this game is all about spending money ( don’t even know what for because in its current state this is more like throwing money away ), that some individuals are whispering crap into the Devs ears ( and they are ) and worst, the Devs are going for it.

 

PVP is meaningless,  what do you get for it? Nothing. Being in a Corp? What for? Ace rollstomping? Sectors?`What for? Oh cool we will… eventually… in the future… become a Dreadnought… oh… wow… cool… :facepalm:  ( not ).

 

And the the dwindling player population, we came from some meagre 2000 players upto 1500 players and at weekdays were you had the said 1400 players ( that are now more or less peak numbers ) you have 1000… 900… see the picture? Go into the Steam forums or other external forums and read the long roll of complains… just sift trough the usual QQ and get into the players that really are posting stuff worth of reading.

 

And you removed the gold reward after 5 days? Really? Lol… slick move.

 

 

Gaijin Devs, mods, whatever or whoever runs this get your “act” together and start listening to people that really want the game to succeed and not some poor minded people that are more interested in pursuing their own goals while slowly burning this game.

 

 

 

39

Really what might work best, is… If the dev’s put up a legitimate poll after every patch asking what we as the games population want to see worked on next. Give us 10 options, and then start to work on them from highest to lowest, anything thats left over, put in the next poll while giving us new options to replace the stuff that is done.

40

Really what might work best, is… If the dev’s put up a legitimate poll after every patch asking what we as the games population want to see worked on next. Give us 10 options, and then start to work on them from highest to lowest, anything thats left over, put in the next poll while giving us new options to replace the stuff that is done.

 

Like the last ones were it was asked about the ship’s tiers and we ended up seeing t1 t2 and t3 mixed in the pot? Or the one were they asked what was more important, if creds or loyalty… and all we got was expensive ships in return and less loyalty gains?

 

Better leave that ideia on the side mate.