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Dark Knight, moldyman means 11000 HP all around [on each section].
Phaserlight, I mostly agree with you however, sometimes dogfights/duels/skirmishes between 2 equally unskilled (or moderately skilled) fighters drag on for MUCH longer (easily 10-15 mins) than your 2-5 minutes.
Phaserlight, I mostly agree with you however, sometimes dogfights/duels/skirmishes between 2 equally unskilled (or moderately skilled) fighters drag on for MUCH longer (easily 10-15 mins) than your 2-5 minutes.
Phaser: I remember when I was a newbie (I kind of still am, since I left the game after a short time), and I got bored very quickly at the lack of variety. Everything is “balanced” to death. There was no “edge of the seat” feeling, I would just turbo through dangerous areas and I could get away from any fight I wasn’t ready for. That’s why I support the idea of scrapping the armor all-around, BUT with the possibility of upgrades. Essentially you buy the bare bones of a ship, and you have many options to customize your vehicle. This provides a different kind of “balance” that is more interesting, since it provides for a greater variety of tactics. A good pilot in a stripped-down fast fighter has a good chance against a good pilot in a slow, heavily-armored gunboat. Fights still would sometimes last a long time if the element of surprise (more often than not a deciding factor in any battle) is lost and both pilots know what they’re doing. First to make a mistake loses.
As for learning curve, I don’t think this hurts it at all. It just raises the high end of the curve; there’s still a low end. The new economy hopefully will make it more fun and meaningful to trade within your nation, and when you can afford it, buy a bigger ship with lots of armor, and hire a couple good fighter pilots to escort you through dangerous territory if you’re not comfortable fighting. I would love to do a real escort mission (not a computer controlled mission, but actually escorting a real person, being paid by a real person). Variety means more points on the learning curve, and more things to do for newbies and vets alike.
FPS is an important (to me) aspect of this MMORPG, if you don’t like combat, go mine or trade. I have had that exact newbie surprise attack scenario, it just made me want to learn how to be better prepared (and I still suck at combat). It doesn’t matter how combat works, a mental model will only ever come with experience. I don’t know how the pvp combat rating works, but it should work like in chess, where there’s no real gain for a vet to kill a newb. This will help cut down on newb-killing.
Dark Knight’s “critical hit” suggestion is perfect, just what I was thinking. Again, variety of tactics. A hit to a section of ship whose armor is depleted would take all damage to the hull directly, which means probably death. Also, I don’t mean for luck to be an “equalizer,” just a factor. Skill would still be the most important, but there’s always that chance.
The whole point is to get away from whoever scores the most hits wins. First strike, accuracy, the way different weapons react with different armor, and yes, a bit of luck, all should be important in a fight.
As for learning curve, I don’t think this hurts it at all. It just raises the high end of the curve; there’s still a low end. The new economy hopefully will make it more fun and meaningful to trade within your nation, and when you can afford it, buy a bigger ship with lots of armor, and hire a couple good fighter pilots to escort you through dangerous territory if you’re not comfortable fighting. I would love to do a real escort mission (not a computer controlled mission, but actually escorting a real person, being paid by a real person). Variety means more points on the learning curve, and more things to do for newbies and vets alike.
FPS is an important (to me) aspect of this MMORPG, if you don’t like combat, go mine or trade. I have had that exact newbie surprise attack scenario, it just made me want to learn how to be better prepared (and I still suck at combat). It doesn’t matter how combat works, a mental model will only ever come with experience. I don’t know how the pvp combat rating works, but it should work like in chess, where there’s no real gain for a vet to kill a newb. This will help cut down on newb-killing.
Dark Knight’s “critical hit” suggestion is perfect, just what I was thinking. Again, variety of tactics. A hit to a section of ship whose armor is depleted would take all damage to the hull directly, which means probably death. Also, I don’t mean for luck to be an “equalizer,” just a factor. Skill would still be the most important, but there’s always that chance.
The whole point is to get away from whoever scores the most hits wins. First strike, accuracy, the way different weapons react with different armor, and yes, a bit of luck, all should be important in a fight.
"A good pilot in a stripped-down fast fighter has a good chance against a good pilot in a slow, heavily-armored gunboat."
We have that; check out a RevC or IBG against an armored Ragnarok (MkIII I think).
"First to make a mistake loses."
What we have now is the first to make a really bad mistake or the first to make a third mistake (3 strikes and you're out!) loses.
"FPS is an important (to me) aspect of this MMORPG, if you don’t like combat, go mine or trade"
That drives off potential customers, and it is a generally poor attitude besides. Also, as you mentioned, this game's combat is ALREADY like a FPS; making it a quicker/faster paced FPS (like CS in particular) is not necessarily a good thing, and many people here would prefer that not be the case.
"get away from whoever scores the most hits wins"
Try fighting against Adv. Rails; you can score several hits and will still die from the second hit you take.
We have that; check out a RevC or IBG against an armored Ragnarok (MkIII I think).
"First to make a mistake loses."
What we have now is the first to make a really bad mistake or the first to make a third mistake (3 strikes and you're out!) loses.
"FPS is an important (to me) aspect of this MMORPG, if you don’t like combat, go mine or trade"
That drives off potential customers, and it is a generally poor attitude besides. Also, as you mentioned, this game's combat is ALREADY like a FPS; making it a quicker/faster paced FPS (like CS in particular) is not necessarily a good thing, and many people here would prefer that not be the case.
"get away from whoever scores the most hits wins"
Try fighting against Adv. Rails; you can score several hits and will still die from the second hit you take.
Like I said, I stopped playing a year and a half ago, maybe things aren't quite as I remember them anymore. I was responding to Phaserlight's comments about newbies to say that what drove me away from the game (other than I have no money, and my new apartment has a firewall that blocks practically everything including online games) is that I got bored. I came for the combat, hoping that I could pirate and trade illegal goods (the kind of stuff I did in Escape Velocity), but combat was boring. Also, I suck at combat (I have only 1 player kill, 46 deaths), but that's not why I got bored. My style of hit-and-run tactics don't work well because they depend on getting lucky and catching someone typing and not piloting their ship. I decided it wasn't worthwhile until there was more variety. I am glad some people have multiple paid accounts to support the devs, I would have one still if I could afford it, but I am pinching pennies right now.
Critical hits wouldn't happen every time, so most battles would take the same number of hits as they do now with the suggestion of customizeable armor, split hit-points, and multiple types of damage. Having multiple types of armor and many more kinds of weapons just makes things more interesting since there can be more strategies. I don't think this (or faster-paced combat) will drive off customers. On the contrary, it should attract people like me. To support the lower end of the learning curve, there just needs to be comprehensive tutorials, emphasis on mentoring (I think there already is) and maybe a couple sectors in nation space with artificial obstacles where newbies and others are encouraged to duel, and maybe even have tournaments. This would only work, however, if there was incentive to participate, maybe they're hosted by a guild or government who offers prizes for tournaments, maybe cash or specialized weapons/equipment or a ship that the player normally wouldn't have access to.
And with that, this topic just took a serious tangent......
More variety of stuff will not only provide a more natural "balance," but is what will draw in players and keep them (players like me).
Critical hits wouldn't happen every time, so most battles would take the same number of hits as they do now with the suggestion of customizeable armor, split hit-points, and multiple types of damage. Having multiple types of armor and many more kinds of weapons just makes things more interesting since there can be more strategies. I don't think this (or faster-paced combat) will drive off customers. On the contrary, it should attract people like me. To support the lower end of the learning curve, there just needs to be comprehensive tutorials, emphasis on mentoring (I think there already is) and maybe a couple sectors in nation space with artificial obstacles where newbies and others are encouraged to duel, and maybe even have tournaments. This would only work, however, if there was incentive to participate, maybe they're hosted by a guild or government who offers prizes for tournaments, maybe cash or specialized weapons/equipment or a ship that the player normally wouldn't have access to.
And with that, this topic just took a serious tangent......
More variety of stuff will not only provide a more natural "balance," but is what will draw in players and keep them (players like me).
LostCommander:
Actually, the first to make about 3 BAD mistakes loses.
Given small mistakes, it takes about 10.
and when people make their 5-6th mistake, they tend to slow down the fight a lot by avoiding confrontations.
I have approximately 5000 player kills total at this point, and that seems to be the typical fight.
Unless they manage to not know how to dodge at all (Which is VERY few people these days), and let me hold a stream on them for 3-4 seconds.
RE: Advanced rails
They're not bad, but good luck trying to chase/ambush someone with them. The energy usage and weight make this impossible. Especially since, EVEN WITH their incredible speed, their effective range is under 400m
Actually, the first to make about 3 BAD mistakes loses.
Given small mistakes, it takes about 10.
and when people make their 5-6th mistake, they tend to slow down the fight a lot by avoiding confrontations.
I have approximately 5000 player kills total at this point, and that seems to be the typical fight.
Unless they manage to not know how to dodge at all (Which is VERY few people these days), and let me hold a stream on them for 3-4 seconds.
RE: Advanced rails
They're not bad, but good luck trying to chase/ambush someone with them. The energy usage and weight make this impossible. Especially since, EVEN WITH their incredible speed, their effective range is under 400m
A truly effective long-range weapon would have to be a guided missile or a beam.
One more against: how new players will be able to practise on combats? They will be left with ganking and lucky shots.
Newbies will not be left with ganking and lucky shots. They will have plenty of opportunity to practise, and practise will be more interesting with more possible strategies to master. See a couple posts above where I suggest tournaments and tutuorial/training missions, and emphasis on mentoring. If you want, you can make it your goal to train newbies by challenging them to duels and demonstrating tactics to them. Not only would this help them learn how to hold their own in combat, but would be a social opportunity for them to get to know veterans and feel welcomed into the community, which is very important for player retention.
Shape spoke regarding advanced rails:
> They're not bad, but good luck trying to chase/ambush someone
> with them. The energy usage and weight make this impossible.
> Especially since, EVEN WITH their incredible speed, their
> effective range is under 400m
in a furball, hitting anything that you're more than one degree of combat away from (ie, someone focused on anything but you) is almost impossible with rails at any range. when someone is basing his moves of a third party, your ability to predict his behaviour in a furball is almost non-existant. you need to know both him and his current target quite well for that to happen. yeah, I've done it, but only against players who were either sloppy, asleep or both.
with half of todays armor though, a Corv Maud would get oneshotted by a dual adv rail layout, which can fit on quite annoyingly hard to hit targets. or for that matter, a quad MkII rail Hornet would become quite an interesting layout, you'd one-shot a lot of ships, you'd have quite a fair bit of ammo, and you'd lose a *lot* of mass relative to todays one-shot monster.
aaaand, a quad adv rail hornet would one-shot anything you'd see in a normal fight, except the SCP who'd only lose approximatly 90% of its hull on a hit.
such a change would, as it seems to me, make spray and pray a lot more annoying (AGTs would get interesting damn fast) and warrant a more defensive attitude from a lot of players. also, homers would be so annoying as they'd hurt twice as much.
I dunno, I think Shape is correct in his assesment that fights are too long. in a furball as I remember them they take forever to get anywhere. usually the numbers don't really change much as you can last more than long enough for backup (ie, your old dead buddies) to come around (again). this leads to a furball being quite fun, but quite useless as anything tactical. it'd be great to see someone go in with a plan, execute it and kill gain control over an area in a minute or two against a fleet of 5-6 players. how to achieve this though? I don't know offhand.
"I meet hundreds of people who say the same to me every week, you must win this fight. None of them ever say how."
sorry for doing just the same. ;-)
> They're not bad, but good luck trying to chase/ambush someone
> with them. The energy usage and weight make this impossible.
> Especially since, EVEN WITH their incredible speed, their
> effective range is under 400m
in a furball, hitting anything that you're more than one degree of combat away from (ie, someone focused on anything but you) is almost impossible with rails at any range. when someone is basing his moves of a third party, your ability to predict his behaviour in a furball is almost non-existant. you need to know both him and his current target quite well for that to happen. yeah, I've done it, but only against players who were either sloppy, asleep or both.
with half of todays armor though, a Corv Maud would get oneshotted by a dual adv rail layout, which can fit on quite annoyingly hard to hit targets. or for that matter, a quad MkII rail Hornet would become quite an interesting layout, you'd one-shot a lot of ships, you'd have quite a fair bit of ammo, and you'd lose a *lot* of mass relative to todays one-shot monster.
aaaand, a quad adv rail hornet would one-shot anything you'd see in a normal fight, except the SCP who'd only lose approximatly 90% of its hull on a hit.
such a change would, as it seems to me, make spray and pray a lot more annoying (AGTs would get interesting damn fast) and warrant a more defensive attitude from a lot of players. also, homers would be so annoying as they'd hurt twice as much.
I dunno, I think Shape is correct in his assesment that fights are too long. in a furball as I remember them they take forever to get anywhere. usually the numbers don't really change much as you can last more than long enough for backup (ie, your old dead buddies) to come around (again). this leads to a furball being quite fun, but quite useless as anything tactical. it'd be great to see someone go in with a plan, execute it and kill gain control over an area in a minute or two against a fleet of 5-6 players. how to achieve this though? I don't know offhand.
"I meet hundreds of people who say the same to me every week, you must win this fight. None of them ever say how."
sorry for doing just the same. ;-)
I agree that fights are too damn long.
But changing weapon/armor stats alone probably won't help the situation. You need to change the game mechanics.
Here is why :
If you make things easier to kill, then people just adapt and become even more defensive. Fights will become even more boring, with no reduction in amount of time involved.
So to make that really work (either reduce armor, increase lethality of weapons etc...), you have to make it harder to stay defensive (either by making it harder to run from a committed engagement or some other ideas)....else you'll just get even more boring fights as people stay 300m from each other and hope for that lucky shot.
I have a suggestion : make weapons damage proportional to the distance *AND* forward thrust. I.e. if you hit somebody close and you are *chasing*, you do more damage. This rewards aggression, and punish backrollers/strafers. (In fact this is such a good idea I'm going to post it somewhere).
But changing weapon/armor stats alone probably won't help the situation. You need to change the game mechanics.
Here is why :
If you make things easier to kill, then people just adapt and become even more defensive. Fights will become even more boring, with no reduction in amount of time involved.
So to make that really work (either reduce armor, increase lethality of weapons etc...), you have to make it harder to stay defensive (either by making it harder to run from a committed engagement or some other ideas)....else you'll just get even more boring fights as people stay 300m from each other and hope for that lucky shot.
I have a suggestion : make weapons damage proportional to the distance *AND* forward thrust. I.e. if you hit somebody close and you are *chasing*, you do more damage. This rewards aggression, and punish backrollers/strafers. (In fact this is such a good idea I'm going to post it somewhere).
Didn't you complain a while back about ven being like an fps with 5 min respawn time? Wouldn't reducing the armor make it even more so?
I'd rather up survivability of ships. So that longer missins are possible without having to repair every minute or going boom after a few hits...
I'd rather up survivability of ships. So that longer missins are possible without having to repair every minute or going boom after a few hits...
My idea here isn't just to cripple all ships to be one-hit kills, but to introduce many more options in equpment/tactics/etc. If a player considers him/herself a good pilot and prefers hit-and-run tactics, they can buy a stripped-down ship with no armor beyond its regular hull, for very reduced weight for increased speed/thrust. Or, if you're not comfortable with your dodging abilities, you can bolt layers of armor on your ship. You'll be a lot slower, but able to take a lot more punishment.
mr_spuck: Like terjekv said, the reason it's like that is that in a big fight with a half dozen players, it takes so long enough to make a kill that when you die you might have time to make it back to the same fight before it ends. Theoretically, depending on where the battle is relative to home stations, a battle with many well matched players could maintain itself indefinately. With quicker kills, the battle would be long over by the time you make it back.
Softy2: Making defenses harder isn't the answer, it would just bring us back where we were in the first place. Again, the answer is variety. Many types of weapons, many types of armor, different types of hit-points, some regenerative in-flight, some not.
I like your idea of certain weapons being more effective at higher speeds. This would only apply to purely kinetic energy weapons, and the damage would be determined by relative velocity. So if both ships are going the same speed in the same direction and the weapon is fired at 500m/s, then it hits at a relative velocity of 500m/s. But if Player A is moving 250m/s east, and Player B is moving 250m/s west, and Player A fires a weapon at a relative velocity of 500m/s, then it hits Player B at a relative velocity of 1000m/s (250+250+500), or twice as hard. If they're speeding away from each other at those speeds, the projectile will never hit.
If a train leaves St. Louis at 2pm going 60 mph, and a bus leaves Seattle at 3pm going 55 mph, then this is a good suggestion and the devs should implement it tomorrow.
mr_spuck: Like terjekv said, the reason it's like that is that in a big fight with a half dozen players, it takes so long enough to make a kill that when you die you might have time to make it back to the same fight before it ends. Theoretically, depending on where the battle is relative to home stations, a battle with many well matched players could maintain itself indefinately. With quicker kills, the battle would be long over by the time you make it back.
Softy2: Making defenses harder isn't the answer, it would just bring us back where we were in the first place. Again, the answer is variety. Many types of weapons, many types of armor, different types of hit-points, some regenerative in-flight, some not.
I like your idea of certain weapons being more effective at higher speeds. This would only apply to purely kinetic energy weapons, and the damage would be determined by relative velocity. So if both ships are going the same speed in the same direction and the weapon is fired at 500m/s, then it hits at a relative velocity of 500m/s. But if Player A is moving 250m/s east, and Player B is moving 250m/s west, and Player A fires a weapon at a relative velocity of 500m/s, then it hits Player B at a relative velocity of 1000m/s (250+250+500), or twice as hard. If they're speeding away from each other at those speeds, the projectile will never hit.
If a train leaves St. Louis at 2pm going 60 mph, and a bus leaves Seattle at 3pm going 55 mph, then this is a good suggestion and the devs should implement it tomorrow.
No they wouldn't they'd just come back more often
There's no avoiding that without some serious penalty for death, or permadeath which is of course not feasible in a game like this. That's why I think there should be a bit sharper curve in ship prices, so that if you have a supercool ship, it's expensive, and you wouldn't want to die a dozen times in a fight unless there was a huge payoff for winning it.
Also, it depends on why players are fighting. If players are fighting 6v6 over, say, a piece of super-important cargo, then if the fight is over quickly, the last survivor claims the prize, and leaves. Then there's no reason to start the fight again, so it's over. If it takes forever, then people actually have time to come back before the prize is claimed. However, if the whole point is to fight for fighting's sake, then nothing will stop the players from returning again and again to the carnage, and they should be free to do so anyway.
Also, it depends on why players are fighting. If players are fighting 6v6 over, say, a piece of super-important cargo, then if the fight is over quickly, the last survivor claims the prize, and leaves. Then there's no reason to start the fight again, so it's over. If it takes forever, then people actually have time to come back before the prize is claimed. However, if the whole point is to fight for fighting's sake, then nothing will stop the players from returning again and again to the carnage, and they should be free to do so anyway.
Professor Chaos, no offense, but...
You didn't start this thread or it's topic, Shape did and the initial topic was about drastically reducing base armor and making current armor levels, while possible, less manueverable. We all know there should be and will be a bit more variety in combat choices. We also know that ships should be and will be significantly more expensive.
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11768
Also, although it would be interesting, having rail guns (currently the only kinetic weapons) deal damage based on relative velocity seems rather impractical - I'm not sure how the physics engine would handle it.
You didn't start this thread or it's topic, Shape did and the initial topic was about drastically reducing base armor and making current armor levels, while possible, less manueverable. We all know there should be and will be a bit more variety in combat choices. We also know that ships should be and will be significantly more expensive.
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11768
Also, although it would be interesting, having rail guns (currently the only kinetic weapons) deal damage based on relative velocity seems rather impractical - I'm not sure how the physics engine would handle it.
No offense taken, I'm enjoying these debates. I know I've expanded the scope of the original post, but I think it's still on topic. I didn't bring up the weapons, but they're a logical consequence of talking about armor. They're interrelated.
Also, thank you for directing to my attention to that thread, that's exactly the idea I was talking about (mentioned indirectly).
Also, thank you for directing to my attention to that thread, that's exactly the idea I was talking about (mentioned indirectly).
Mkay, I'm having fun with them too. It is just that some of the off-topic stuff has drifted off into useless/obvious land (space?). Oh, and you're welcome for the link - I've gone to bookmarking threads I care about for whyever since the search function, um, yeah...