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Savet's Combat Fix

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Jan 15, 2015 smittens link
Greenwall you seem to be stuck on this point, and it's just not correct:

You all seem to want a game where people can't get away when you don't want them to.

Completely false. I want people to be unable to escape once they have been involved in an engagement long enough that they have taken SUSTAINED damage RELATIVE to their attacker

This change in no way affects people who don't want to play with me. If someone sees Nahin coming and they feel threatened, this change in no way limits their ability to get away. Even if Nahin or I (and that's very generous of you to put us in the same group) want to kill Joe Shmo Serco who was in B8, it's still up to him to give us some amount of fight (SUSTAINED), and most importantly, Joe Shmo has to be doing poorly enough in this SUSTAINED fighting that he takes a disproportionate amount of damage.

Because guess what? With this fix, if it's a close fight, he still has the ability to turn and outrun me

But if he's getting his ass kicked, and then starts getting sour about it, he is severely limited in his ability to run.

That sounds to me exactly like how PvP should work. If combat lasts long enough for an opponent to drop almost half your armor, AND you are doing poorly enough that the opponent still has a lot of armor, it is absolutely ridiculous that the loser should get the choice to run away and save their skin. Fuck that, if someone is in combat long enough in a SPACE FIGHTING MMOFPS to lose half their armor without doing significant damage, they absolutely deserve to die (or pull a heroic comeback out of their ass, which this fix very minorly handicaps). They do not deserve to have running as an emergency out.

I have to repeat it again: This fix only affects gameplay when one player achieves a significant advantage over the other. In those situations, I don't see how you can argue that the superior (or lucky) player should be robbed of a kill literally whenever the loser decides to be a bad sport.

Lecter I don't really see the merit to your argument. If this were a proposal for a wide range of damage induced affects, then you'd be spot on. But this is a way to (A) Handicap running in the cases where someone has entered, but is losing, a fight, (B) Add a bit of "damaged component" realism, and (C) Do it all in a way that barely affects Space Quake the FPS. So the argument that "VO is too FPS like as is and this would change that" seems invalid, unless you can offer some specific ways it'll hurt SpaceQuake combat that I'm blanking on

Also greenwall, I should mention that hit and run group tactics are probably my favoritest of all favorite aspects of this game. This change WOULD limit the effectiveness of those tactics if pilots get below 50%. So if anything, this fix that I am so strongly in favor of would handicap my playstyle. Furthermore, I am of the opinion that a running opponent is a defeated opponent, but I can absolutely still see how it's very frustrating for most of the playerbase (especially noobs).

So please don't just fallback to some lazy "they only want this because it benefits them" argument. That is certainly not true for most of us. And if anything, I would say that a lot of the people opposed to this idea are fairly notorious for running and seem to be here because keeping the status quo benefits them and their play styles.

(No judgement intended; in the current state of VO I don't blame anyone for running. But the two sides of this argument are pretty clearcut people-who-have-been-known-to-run vs. people-who-don't-usually-have-to-run, so please don't sit their accusing us of arguing purely out of selfish motivations... kinda looks like pot, kettle, black, etc)

& FINALLY, yes greenwall Pizzas argument is a little hindered by the unnecessary (and rather unoriginal :P) name-calling, but he is still making very valid arguments.

babbling about some need to escape fights. Here's how you escape a fight: Kill the guy fighting you. This is an open PVP game; making it too easy for people to bail out of PVP runs contrary to that. Don't want to die? Don't play.

I would add onto this, a great way to escape a fight is to not participate in it. If you're above 50%, THIS CHANGE DOES NOT CHANGE ANYTHING. If a pirate catches you and knocks you down to 50%, it's only the current status quo of the game that makes you feel entitled to escape that. If you're flying around at 50% just for fun, then you're being a fool and deserve to go slower. So to recap, with this change:

- Anyone who doesn't want an engagement can avoid it just as easily as they do now
- Anyone who does want an engagement is forced to live with that choice if things go badly

Sounds like a bea-U-tiful compromise to me
Jan 15, 2015 Dr. Lecter link
Lecter I don't really see the merit to your argument. If this were a proposal for a wide range of damage induced affects, then you'd be spot on. But this is a way to (A) Handicap running in the cases where someone has entered, but is losing, a fight, (B) Add a bit of "damaged component" realism, and (C) Do it all in a way that barely affects Space Quake the FPS. So the argument that "VO is too FPS like as is and this would change that" seems invalid, unless you can offer some specific ways it'll hurt SpaceQuake combat that I'm blanking on

It's not my argument, it's the one being touted in this thread as a reason not to make VO combat more realistic and meaningful by making running harder after X amount of damage. And while I agree that nerfing only turbo thrust/speed rather than head-to-head combat ability negates the direct impact on FPS play, the indirect impact is what I see being argued by Greenwall.

Basically, the claim goes like this: VO's players aren't content with death being of little in-game meaning, they want to be able to flee from combat of any kind at any point, regardless of whether they were willing participants in the encounter at some point...because pride/fun? Taking that option away would make VO's combat less fun, because then they couldn't run away if they were losing, and death is apparently very unfun so we shouldn't make it any easier to kill other players who don't want to stay and fight to the death. I don't see it as a good argument myself, but I'm fully able to believe that VO is financially dependent on the kind of whiny pussy for whom it would be a great argument. And I don't care enough to argue for making the game better anymore, I just pop in here occasionally when I'm bored at work.
Jan 15, 2015 biretak link
problem is, it makes pirating too easy. Once you get the atlas x down to 49% it cant run with it's cargo anymore (or moth or maud). This makes hauling cargo in these ships, especially the atlas x if it's something light like helio, pointless with savets suggestion. With the OP's suggestion, even dropping the cargo is pointless.

I can also pirates sitting on one sided of the nationalist wh shooting traders down to 49% as the jump, for an easier negotiation or kill on the grey side.

Why make running from a pirate so hard even if they didn't choose to engage but chose not to pay? Getting UIT ships down to 49% isn't all the hard especially for the ships the new players have access too.
Jan 15, 2015 greenwall link
I'm gonna have to get a new pair of dancing shoes pretty soon here.

Smittens: Fair enough about your personal motivations for supporting this idea. However you completely ignored my point about how this change would affect non-consensual PvP and PvE situations.

You all seem to want a game where people can't get away when you don't want them to.

Completely false. I want people to be unable to escape once they have been involved in an engagement long enough that they have taken SUSTAINED damage RELATIVE to their attacker


These ^ two statements sound the same to me. You are devolving into semantical differences and not realizing you actually agree with me.

...it is absolutely ridiculous that the loser should get the choice to run away and save their skin.

I disagree that is ridiculous, and here lies is the crux of our disagreement.

This fix only affects gameplay when one player achieves a significant advantage over the other.

False, it affects more than that and you know it. You simply don't care about the other things it affects. I've said it like 100 times on here, and given many examples to show you.

But the two sides of this argument are pretty clearcut people-who-have-been-known-to-run vs. people-who-don't-usually-have-to-run

I don't think that's a fair generalization.

I would add onto this, a great way to escape a fight is to not participate in it. If you're above 50%, THIS CHANGE DOES NOT CHANGE ANYTHING. If a pirate catches you and knocks you down to 50%, it's only the current status quo of the game that makes you feel entitled to escape that.

Again, people who would choose not to participate in a fight would still find themselves negatively affected by this i.e. in non consensual situations. */me drills this concept into smittens brain* People should be able to feel entitled to escape by the current status quo, since it works very well for many people (again, the crux of our disagreement).

So to recap, with this change:

- Anyone who doesn't want an engagement can avoid it just as easily as they do now
- Anyone who does want an engagement is forced to live with that choice if things go badly


False on the first point, as I've outlined 1.234X10^5 times now.
And the second point would be true, but not good for the game.
Jan 15, 2015 Pizzasgood link
I forgot the OP was the version with a sharp cut-off at 50%. I strongly prefer the version tarenty proposed where the turbo only begins to be nerfed at 50% and gradually suffers more as your damage increases, capping at 50% nerfed at 30% armor.
Jan 15, 2015 smittens link
Lecter: Thank you for the clarification, that makes your own posts as well as some others a bit more clear. Although here's a counter argument I hadn't thought of, that makes it less "whiney pussy" and more legitimately "preserve the FPS feel" ::

Good FPS games with sustained fighting include a way to momentarily escape the heat of combat. Halo being the best example; if an engagement starts going poorly, the 'loser' can usually run behind some cover and recover their shield or otherwise turn the tables on the 'winner' if the winner isn't careful

This is a part of traditional FPS gameplay that would be strongly negatively affected by the proposed change. I'm not sure this entirely holds up, since in most FPS games it's a temporary respite whereas in VO it generally signifies the end of the encounter... but it is somewhat valid and worth considering.

Greenwall: It doesn't feel like you are understanding what I'm saying. For instance;

These ^ two statements sound the same to me. You are devolving into semantical differences and not realizing you actually agree with me.

They are the same... except for all of the "semantical differences," or more accurately, specific qualifiers I use.

You're playing on semantics more than I am; if you mean "when you don't want them to" to mean the detailed scenarios enabled by this fix that I am suggesting, then you're of course correct by way of a nice truism. I want this change, ergo I want people to be unable to escape in the very specific situations affected by this change. Obviously?? If that's what you meant, I'm sorry I misread it as:

"Smittens, you want to be able to spot a target and be able to catch/kill them at whim* and that is why you or anyone supports this," then you are categorically wrong. I'm not sure if we're even discussing the same thing anymore, but if that is in fact what you're suggesting then please reread my "semantically different" statement and focus on those very specific semantics.

Again, people who would choose not to participate in a fight would still find themselves negatively affected by this i.e. in non consensual situations

I've reread this thread twice now and I don't see how that could ever be the case. If someone doesn't want to participate in a fight, they are at 100%!??? Thus, they are not affected by this fix. Again, there are three situations in which someone is below 50% and this comes into play:

(1) They engage in a fight, and take damage from their attacker (see below why they should not be able to escape)
(2) They are caught & shot by an attacker, which is near impossible unless one person is in an especially slow (ie trading) ship and the other is in a fast one OR there is a significant skill/luck difference. Both should be a big part of a Space Simulator
(3) They are flying around with under <= 50% just for fun. This is an irrelevant case, as we both agree

I know you think you've clearly countered this, but I just don't see it. Please bear with me and reiterate a few of the 1.234x10^5 counterpoints

I said: Anyone who does want an engagement is forced to live with that choice if things go badly
You said: And [that] point would be true, but not good for the game.

Which, I'm sorry, really hurts your credibility :P Forcing players to live with their choices is basically game design 101. There is an entire genre built on on this rule, and FTL owes 95% of its success to this principle. A choice without consequence is meaningless.

Pizza: Right on, there are some specifics that should still be hammered out that aren't in the OP; the curve of the decrease function, the min & max levels of handicap, whether it affects thrust and/or top speed (and each to what extent).... It makes this whole discussion a bit fuzzier and probably rules out any Dev Interest but oh well, first things first!

*(which I suppose is also true in a Socratic-Ideal sort of way, similarly irrelevant because I know that would be bad gameplay for all the poor saps in the 'verse!)
Jan 15, 2015 Death Fluffy link
" Forcing players to live with their choices is basically game design 101."

I honestly cannot believe someone associated that concept with VO. AND THEY WERE SERIOUS!

omg. OMFG. I haven't laughed this hard in ages.

Someone please lock the thread. It just died. Oh wait! My bad. I must have intentionally misunderstood that to mean the whole game and not just for the folk who want to pvp.

By all means carry on. I'll just be over in the corner dying of laughter.

Consequences in VO! What universe are you guys playing in?
Jan 15, 2015 smittens link
I miss when we had clever trolls :/
Jan 15, 2015 greenwall link
"if you mean "when you don't want them to" to mean the detailed scenarios enabled by this fix that I am suggesting, then you're of course correct by way of a nice truism. I want this change, ergo I want people to be unable to escape in the very specific situations affected by this change."

Yes. Except we seem to disagree (and for what reason I cannot understand) on whether or not this change affects very specific situations or very broad situations.

(three situations)...

(2) They are caught & shot by an attacker, which is near impossible unless one person is in an especially slow (ie trading) ship and the other is in a fast one OR there is a significant skill/luck difference. Both should be a big part of a Space Simulator


This is the situation that I'm talking about. The attacker could be a player or it could be an NPC -- and honestly it would more likely be an NPC given the ratio of PvE to PvP situations that I'm guessing occur at any given moment. People hauling goods will suffer, as you admit. People with crappier skills will suffer, as you admit.. The balance for all of these situations as they CURRENTLY STAND is GOOD. This change makes it WORSE for those people, and BETTER for the attackers.

Which, I'm sorry, really hurts your credibility :P Forcing players to live with their choices is basically game design 101.

/me pushes tongue back inside Smittens mouth. Players currently have an appropriate balance of force applied to making them live with their choices. I in no way implied that there should be no consequence to attempting to escape, nor did I imply there should be no consequence to choosing to engage in a fight. You just don't like the current set of consequences.
Jan 15, 2015 VikingRanger link
Well, the rats are still rats. Running from a fight is completely acceptable if I have no regard for the way my enemy perceives my morality. If I am flying a large and ungainly trade vessel and some random passerby let's loose a bunch of swarms at me, where is the dishonor in saving my ship and cargo by making for a jump point at full turbo? Also, have any of you even played on a tablet? Try it, try even taking on an arklan guardian, let alone a sneak attack from YT-1300 in a hound when your flying a fully loaded moth. I was in that fight that was mentioned long ago at the top of this thread. I agree, it was very enjoyable and we should have more such fights, however nerfing an essential part of game play (yes essential) to satisfy a few players is rediculous. As much as you maintain that this proposed change is not to benefit your chosen mode of play, it undoubtedly would. Try flying a moth full of ion blasters under normal thrust, then imagine if that were decreased. No, I am afraid this is a battle you cannot win. Accept the fact that those who run will inevitably run, no matter whether you restrict their turbo after x damage or not. And imposing such changes across the board would so destroy early gameplay that there would no longer be any new players. I know all this has already been said and I'm probably beating a dead horse, but there it is clear as I can make it.

On a similarly practical topic, the camo hound should be pink leopard print only.
Jan 15, 2015 greenwall link
helps that I'm not the only one saying it, ranger!
Jan 15, 2015 Death Fluffy link
Sarcasm maybe. Trolling not so much.

I have been advocating for consequences and scarcity in this game for quite a while. I stand by my original argument as nothing has persuaded me otherwise. The op changes the dynamics and incentives of more than just pvp. The underlying assumption is that players that refuse to fight to the death will be forced to stay and fight until there is a clear victor.

I am doubtful. I would not expect players who refuse to allow themselves to die to an opponent for whatever reason to change their behavior because of this. What I would expect to see, would be for this type of player to adapt to the new mechanics in ways that continue to facilitate their poor sportsmanship. Meanwhile other aspects of the game remain imo negatively affected for what I expect would be a minimal value to only a few players.

I would rather see something meaningful being fought over other than the conq stations provided as an incentive to stay and fight. If a skilled player leaves to repair, they would be handicapping their team giving the other side more leverage to conquering the 'hill'. I'd also like to see some sort of limitation on players ability to return to the battle in those situations, while allowing rapid return in other areas as discussed elsewhere in order to facilitate both desired types of group combat.

Imo there should be a better solution.
Jan 15, 2015 Savet link
First, I agree with tarenty and rin that tarenty's incremental approach was better. My initial suggestion was just to open the discussion.

Second, I acknowledge that this will impact all combat, but I want to point out a few scenarios that the people saying this in favor of pirates clearly haven't considered:

1. Station assault.

Since the change would only impact ship thrust, and a bomber is generally traveling at a high speed by the time a player or turret can intercept them, the actual change in thrust matters less because an object in motion will stay in motion as long as the turbo is kept on. Thrust only comes into play when the player drops out of turbo and begins fighting. Also, basing combat on how often someone can kill someone else defending a station is a losing proposition because the kills are already there to be had, and PKs beyond a point simply don't matter.

2. Trade

More traders should spend some time being pirates, because you see a LOT of sneaky behavior. I'm going to throw these out there where a turbo thrust change would actually benefit a trader more than a pirate:

A) Trader has lightning mines equipped. Pirate demands payment, trader pretends to pay and while the pirate is close, trader drops one or two mines. A single mine can drop you to below 50%, and the safest way to get to safety is to turbo out and then keep your distance from the trader while you try to kill them. Not only does this increase the lethality of lightning mines in a self-defense scenario, but now the pirate is less able to pursue the trader if they try to run.

B) Trader has proximity mines equipped. Pirate is chasing the trader, and the player drops a proximity mine. The pirate hits it, and his armor is dropped significantly. He is thrown off course, and has to correct. Once he reaches a threshold that affects turbo thrust, he is less able to pursue the trader.

C) Trader sees his friend fighting a pirate, and swoops in with a swarm hound. Trader hits the pirate with part of a volley which drops his armor to 40%. This is a very realistic scenario, especially lately. Now the pirate is less able to escape from the pair of traders and is more likely to be hit with subsequent swarm volleys.

D) Trader pretends to be paying, but swarms the pirate. Swarms hit, and drop the pirate below the threshold for turbo thrust reduction. The normal tactic of preserving armor when fighting swarms (turbo around the swarm user until they are out of ammo) is now less effective, which forces the pirate to either stay more engaged in the fight to prevent the trader from running, or to limp away in defeat as the trader continues on their way.

There are an endless number of variations of the above, and ways to increase the odds of damaging the pirate, but those are a few very high level examples of where this change is clearly not good for pirates.

I remember a fight I had recently where I ate a lot of flares because I forgot to reload mine, and knew I could beat the person with energy only. They got me to 5% health while they were at 65%. I won the fight but the trader could have easily run once they got my health low, and a turbo thrust reduction would have prevented me from running when I got to 5%.

I will also add that most FPS games have some sort of effect of being shot. When you get hit with bullets, your mobility is generally temporarily affected. Unlike those games, VO damage is persistent and your player is not magically healed after a short period of time not being shot, but creating an impairment as a result of damage is a very established practice in such games.
Jan 15, 2015 greenwall link
Savet:

1) On rare occasion that someone warps into a conquerable station sector for bombing (and avoids the 20% chance of having their armor immediately reduced by turret fire, quite possibly below 50%) and flies in a straight line until exiting the sector, yes your example applies. Most people, however, will adjust their course mid-flight, and then your example does not apply and mine does. Particularly when attempting to exit the station sector while being pursued pilots find direction corrections necessary to avoid being hit by flares and energy fire. If a turret or enemy pilot got an assaulting bomber below 50% before they were able to exit the sector, the assulting bomber would be all but dead, since they couldn't escape nor fight back due to expended munitions. Thus a much larger amount of bombing runs into a properly defended conquerable station sectors become nearly inevitable suicide missions.

2) ABCD -- yes there are certainly a plethora examples of how inexperienced pirates could succumb to travesty in light of the proposed changes. But nobody fears inexperiened pirates. And it wouldn't take long before most pilots would figure out how gameplay is affected and they would adjust accordingly, as Fluffy points out.
Jan 15, 2015 Savet link
Greenwall,

1) 90% of my bombing runs are without taking damage, even with people trying to pursue me. Inexperienced bombers are going to die a lot in a station battle and this doesn't change that. For people that know how to bomb, we're talking about such an edge case that it's a non-issue. If turrets had not been nerfed, I'd agree with you, but when one bombing knocks a turret to 13% we're talking about 15 runs on a station which is 5 runs per person if you have 3 party members. This just isn't as big of a deal as you're making it.

2) Experienced pirates get caught by such tactics. I eat swarms. I hit mines. I give people too much "benefit of the doubt" at times. Your rebuttal re: inexperienced pirates does not negate the clear advantage this gives traders in situations where they are adequately equipped. If they're not adequately equipped, they're probably going to die anyway, making your rebuttal even further not applicable.
Jan 16, 2015 joylessjoker link
Having a first hand experience at how overpowered mines are and how often I die to them despite knowing this, it's astounding to me that very few people bother to equip them on their behemoths/centaurs/atlases. It's very, very easy to badly damage or kill someone chasing you.

If you're flying an empty XC with the full 160ms turbo, you're already at a huge disadvantage. Any noob flying a hound with a megaposis equipped can kill you within seconds without batting an eyelash. You'd die anyway, without the change. Again, the argument is moot here.

The argument that traders would be at a disadvantage with this change does not make sense at all. Apparently you don't play your pirate alt character often enough to know this.
Jan 16, 2015 biretak link
joylessjoker, savet was suggesting traders would have an advantage with this change.

I find it odd that joylessjoker and savet run into mines, yet most everyone I've run into seems to be perfectly able to mostly avoid them. Don't fly directly behind a ship with large ports. They have only worked by slowing down new or over aggressive pirates.

If the pirate hits a mine and adjusts his trajectory to avoid more mines, you now have two ships with 50% turbo, so there is no advantage to the trader, savet. X1s have plenty of armor to take on a few mines. Without this change, they both would have had 100%. Knowing that the turbo may give out during the trip will just discourage trading some routes.
Jan 16, 2015 joylessjoker link
Maybe that's why you rarely use mines, because you overestimate everyone's ability to avoid them. Use them more often, and you'll be pleasantly surprised. Mark my word. Their whole point is to keep people off your ass, which is just the thing for pirates. Maybe you have never chased people to witness the potent of mines for yourself?

I still don't understand how you'd be already at 50% when you encounter a pirate in sector. If you use any kind of awareness plugin like targetless, you'd be instantly notified of his presence, usually 1500-2000m away, or 5000ms away if you're warping into a wormhole sector. That's more than enough warning. Even the cheap, lowly concussion mines are more than enough to keep him off your ass without getting damaged while you head the other direction and warp to safety.

Play as a pirate, and you'll learn all sorts of tricks from the best traders on how to give pirates a hard time. Try it sometime!
Jan 16, 2015 greenwall link
Joyless:

You lost me at "first hand experience at how overpowered mines are".
Jan 16, 2015 joylessjoker link
Greenwall: It's no secret that you don't like me and would skin me alive if you could, but you can be better than that worthless, uninformative reply. You preach about honor and respect, so practice those and elaborate what you mean.