I just logged in and i realised about the new cell grid on the capswarms, this is just so confusing, you pay for a membership that offers certain playgame style, to configure your weapons, to find expectations on a capital ship that takes for many players even more than year, and you just have the achievement (not my case) and you find that what you were expecting to have and do is no longer possible to do?, guys i don't know if such thing is happening to everyone but i'm feeling disappointed on this game, first the the capship cell grid that limits you on the number of capswarms on goliath, now the come with a grid power increased on capswarms that limits you to use just 1 in a goliath!, and not even that, now the Trident can use only 3 capswarms?!, what is the case to have a useless port that you are not going to use it with a useless weapon for what you are expecting to have??

are we expecting this from this game to continue happening?, what is the point to have a game that is not anymore fulfilling your expectations and/or the previous capabilities diminished in such way?, we are the only ones who can decide what we are enjoying to have, after all we are the consumers of this as a gaming service!

Vendetta Online is constantly a work in progress, and constantly evolving and in-development.

We haven't had very many major gameplay changes over the last couple of years, due to a big investment in technology development, but I'm hoping that's going to ease up soon.. and a hell of a lot of things may start to change.

In general, gameplay changes don't make everyone happy, all of the time. But that's part of the reality of change, as well.

My goal is definitely not to diminish anyone's investment of time or effort into the game, building capships and the like, or to disappoint anyone. But I've previously discussed the capship-vs-capship tradeoffs on Suggestions, which is why I nerfed the capship railgun previously. That showed up as more of a PvP issue, but as I said at the time, I had more long-term concerns about PvE capabilities with upcoming NPCs, given the Trident's level of firepower. I let the situation continue as-is for awhile, but it didn't fall off of my list.

I've also written before that I'm interested in a future where there is legitimate "heavy weaponry" for capships, but that it needs to have enough assorted means of tuning to keep it from becoming too trivially overpowered, and NPCs will have to be tuned to stand up against it. Chaining swarms and rails via plugins was not the intended solution there. When we have capship heavy weaponry, we'll do it right, but the game isn't ready for it yet in many different ways.

That being said, Capships are only likely to become more valuable over time, not less so. I'm not out to negate anyone's investment of time. But that doesn't mean that every change will make people happy.

We do discuss things with the players, and take feedback from them on places like Suggestions. I'm open to discussions of other (new?) weapon types that might augment ships in some way that serves a needed goal, without allowing the imbalance of the Trident dealing quite the level of firepower as it had with a full set of swarms.

But, in terms of your question, of whether you can expect more changes to be coming, potentially including changes to ships or content in which you have invested a great deal of time? Yes, you absolutely can expect changes to happen. Much, much more of that. Hopefully, on balance, you will like most of the changes, but that is not guaranteed.

As the saying goes "the only certainty in life is change", Vendetta Online is not a fixed point, it's nowhere near "finished" (if that were even a thing in MMOs), and I have a lot of plans that are going to require adjusting other areas of the game in some way.

But, I would also recommend.. not freaking out about it, too much? If you have a specific gameplay goal and solution (like Goliath defensive capabilities, or whatever), then we have a Suggestions forum for that, which we actually do use (many of tonight's changes came from it).

We do listen to people, we do communicate, we definitely do want feedback. But, I'm the one steering the ship, and the ultimate decisions are mine, and not everyone is going to like all of my decisions, or like my game. That's okay too. I'm constantly under attack by traders for being pro-pirate, and from pirates for being pro-trader, and so on.. but the truth is, I'm actually trying to work towards a holistic future, for all play styles, that I truly hope people will like; but I have no illusions that there won't be some challenges in getting there.

I really appreciate your response to this thread and that makes me feel this game is not going to the void with the changes, that is what we all expect, to have a solid game on constant development, as you said before, sometimes the changes won't make everybody feel happy and there always will be complains, it's imposible to satisfy everybody's needs in the game.

anyhow i hope to find a substitution or an alternative for the defensive capabilities for this new change and i'm shure it will be found, at the same time i wish to all devs to have sucess on the comming changes i can't wait to see them happening :)

I also don't like the grid change of Cap Swarms. I can agree that having 4 on a Dent may be a little over powered, buy why not just lower the damage down a bit and leave it to where we can still use 4 on a Dent. I also disagree with using bots to chain fire or fire all 4 at once. I manually fire my Cap Swarms and use them more against bots than other players.

I am willing to give up a CCST on my trident for the potential opportunities that come from the change. It would be really fun to have a universe with a properly implemented Capital vs Capital combat system at the depth of the current lighter ships.

I disagree with the update, ok dents with a nerf but this effected goliaths limiting them massivly, the standard turrets do sod all againts bots and now i cant use a limited defence of 2 swarms what do u expect it to use? Looks like ill have to either not use a goliath, just equip a TU mine at the cost of lots of money it will use or just dismantle the goli and sell its parts, it just making the investment of time into making a capship worthless.
And have u ever even considered adding more shield or hull to the npcs?

500,000cr for a reload is pocket change in the current economy, and with a capital ship your income level can more than afford it.

Incarnate essentially(and quite clearly) said that a nerf now could mean many new things in the future. The uses capitals lost now will be replaced sooner than later.

+1 keep on the good work inc!

-1

chain gun capitol turrets? What a shameful lack of skill. Cannot anyone compete without tilting the odds in their favor?

I am not a fan of this, and I anxiously await the new developments that will make this seem okay to me.

I have 2 capitol ships. Does everyone commenting here have at least 1 Capitol ship?

Galactica Actual

I get why they got nerfed but now goli should have more grid imo

So thats incarnate Plan - Nerf Everything Before giving us Capella :P

i don't see it as a nerf. There is absolutely no point in having 4 capswarms on a trident.

You don't need to have a capship to notice that the capswarms were imbalancing the game, maybe you guys need to get in a regular ship more often so as to see that.

I edited to remove personal comments. Stick to the topic, please.

I consider it highly skilled to be able to script a plugin, not owning a capital ship does not invalidate the comments of a pilot.

(Deleted unhelpful posts).

Anyone who seems to be unclear on my goals, should re-read my earlier post, in response to the OP above. I took the time to write it out as clearly as I could.

I did not make this change to serve some whining minority (or majority). I made this change because I think it's the best thing for the game, as a whole, and the goals that I am working towards.

I'm not out to de-value anyone's investment of time or energy, but I'm not shy about making changes I think are important, and a lot more of them are coming, so probably best to get used to the idea of change.

I also recommend not over-reacting to what will probably be regarded as a trivial change, in the context of what is planned.

I do welcome reasoned feedback around specific (and clearly stated) logical goal(s), on the correct forum (Suggestions). There are a zillion ways to creatively enhance and resolve various challenges, improving defense trade-offs and the like, that can meet my needs, and those of others.

But, really, I'm just repeating what I already wrote, which seems like a waste of time, so people should probably just read the original response and take it at face value.

I look forward to these changes. I like new things/to get used to.

Thanks for the work, Inc. I was skeptical about this at first,but now i'm settled down. Keep doing what you do.. this is always fun.

Two words: massless sunflares.

Oh yeah now that graphics cards don't sux can we have an option for the old particle heavy swarm trails?

It was hard enough to survive a fight in a Goliath when I could only field two capital turrets and a shield turret- even against only two players in small fighters. Now what am I supposed to do, hope they catch a cold? Please bump the grid back up so it can at least field two capital turrets. It took far too long to build something this disappointing.

The Goli just turned into a waste of 9 months of effort and $90 of subscription, and I suppose I can look forwards to more of the same if I build a Trident.

I agree with new capswarm grid the goli should be reworked to use 2