Forums » Suggestions
As people have said, it IS a combat piloting license. The DMV isn't going to just give you a driver's license just because you've been driving around for a while without one. They aren't going to give you a driver's license if you're good on the Go-Kart track. They want to observe you driving, hence the driver's test. In this case, they (supposedly, via an automagical means) monitor your botting skills and give you combat piloting experience - more experience for more difficult bots.
Granted, giving just a little more xp for combat would be nice, seeing as it's not unusual for it to be completely eclipsed by light and/or heavy weapons xp.
And if you ARE botting for 5 days straight, then I think you're somewhat missing the point of the game. The universe is designed so you can do pretty much anything you set your mind to. If you want to pirate, you can. If you want to align yourself with a nation's "military," then you can. You can trade. You can mine. There are tons of things to do. There are other players to interact with. Do a group advanced mission - then you're all gaining combat experience while splitting the load.
I think that randomize is presenting a highly exaggerated statment that people are now arguing over. 12000 bots? What are you killing? Orun collectors? I have 1800 kills and I'm now combat 8. If I had botted at 2 bots a minute, that would be 900 minutes, or only 15 hours of gameplay devoted to botting. The rest of the time is spent participating in CTC, mining, trading, PvP, and attacking hive queens... That's what? 7:00 to 10:00 for 5 days - assuming that you don't die or have to dock - tack on another hour or two for dying, docking, and chatting, and you only take a week of 2.5 hours a night to get the same number of kills that I have.
Don't just thrash the current system. You have to propose new ways to improve the system. Oh, and the beginning and advanced combat missions aren't the only ways of gaining exp. There is, of course, PvP (dueling other players your level or higher always helps), the Serco and Itani Border Patrol missions, and the Espionage missions, if I remember correctly.
Granted, giving just a little more xp for combat would be nice, seeing as it's not unusual for it to be completely eclipsed by light and/or heavy weapons xp.
And if you ARE botting for 5 days straight, then I think you're somewhat missing the point of the game. The universe is designed so you can do pretty much anything you set your mind to. If you want to pirate, you can. If you want to align yourself with a nation's "military," then you can. You can trade. You can mine. There are tons of things to do. There are other players to interact with. Do a group advanced mission - then you're all gaining combat experience while splitting the load.
I think that randomize is presenting a highly exaggerated statment that people are now arguing over. 12000 bots? What are you killing? Orun collectors? I have 1800 kills and I'm now combat 8. If I had botted at 2 bots a minute, that would be 900 minutes, or only 15 hours of gameplay devoted to botting. The rest of the time is spent participating in CTC, mining, trading, PvP, and attacking hive queens... That's what? 7:00 to 10:00 for 5 days - assuming that you don't die or have to dock - tack on another hour or two for dying, docking, and chatting, and you only take a week of 2.5 hours a night to get the same number of kills that I have.
Don't just thrash the current system. You have to propose new ways to improve the system. Oh, and the beginning and advanced combat missions aren't the only ways of gaining exp. There is, of course, PvP (dueling other players your level or higher always helps), the Serco and Itani Border Patrol missions, and the Espionage missions, if I remember correctly.
Group advanced missions suck.
The whole 'gain X bots per death' sucks.
Playing UIT means no border patrols, and I got trade exp. for the espionage missions, unless memory betrays me. Not to mention the 'hazardous materials' mission is bugged.
Basically, PvP is not something I want to participate in on a constant basis.
The botting missions are pretty lame, and I don't want to HAVE to do them. Your analogy to real life testing is flawed, because in real life licensing, you have to A: prove you're fit to drive, B: prove you know the laws and right of way, and C: demonstrate you can drive well enough not to crash.
By that token, you would just need to go do an actual "test," like fighting a certain number of bots, and once you did it, you would advance. Frankly, that would be better than the system we have now.
Having extremely limited, extremely boring options simply harms the game.
If you think the game is too easy, go attack respected PvP players or something. Don't try to say that just because YOU think it's convenient and easy that it's the same for everyone else.
The whole 'gain X bots per death' sucks.
Playing UIT means no border patrols, and I got trade exp. for the espionage missions, unless memory betrays me. Not to mention the 'hazardous materials' mission is bugged.
Basically, PvP is not something I want to participate in on a constant basis.
The botting missions are pretty lame, and I don't want to HAVE to do them. Your analogy to real life testing is flawed, because in real life licensing, you have to A: prove you're fit to drive, B: prove you know the laws and right of way, and C: demonstrate you can drive well enough not to crash.
By that token, you would just need to go do an actual "test," like fighting a certain number of bots, and once you did it, you would advance. Frankly, that would be better than the system we have now.
Having extremely limited, extremely boring options simply harms the game.
If you think the game is too easy, go attack respected PvP players or something. Don't try to say that just because YOU think it's convenient and easy that it's the same for everyone else.
CrippledPidgeon, your twisted logic confuses me..O_o
why be forced to kill 4 or so bots just to get an Inaine ammount of Combat "piloting" xp.. its compleatly measily compaired to the ammount of Light or heavy you get.. Id be happy just seeing 100 gained for it against a Tycorps Just a little bit for crying out loud.. you can be observed for one bot and get points the same you can for four. the same way that people in Iuka Mississippi get thier drivers liscence, so long as they can get on the highway and off the highway without getting themselves or their observer killed, they pass.. No joke I have friends there. but Compair 300 points in combat Exp to getting 210 Light or Heavy weps 4x then a 210 bonus for both Light and Heavy wep .. thats 1050 xp for light weps if thats what you used and 210 for the other if you didnt kill with it.
It would be nice to gain combat piloting exp for each kill just like the weaps. and maybe even to see XP for using both light and heavy on the target .. even if it gets split 50/50, if i use both id like to gain both..
why be forced to kill 4 or so bots just to get an Inaine ammount of Combat "piloting" xp.. its compleatly measily compaired to the ammount of Light or heavy you get.. Id be happy just seeing 100 gained for it against a Tycorps Just a little bit for crying out loud.. you can be observed for one bot and get points the same you can for four. the same way that people in Iuka Mississippi get thier drivers liscence, so long as they can get on the highway and off the highway without getting themselves or their observer killed, they pass.. No joke I have friends there. but Compair 300 points in combat Exp to getting 210 Light or Heavy weps 4x then a 210 bonus for both Light and Heavy wep .. thats 1050 xp for light weps if thats what you used and 210 for the other if you didnt kill with it.
It would be nice to gain combat piloting exp for each kill just like the weaps. and maybe even to see XP for using both light and heavy on the target .. even if it gets split 50/50, if i use both id like to gain both..
Re: Combat Piloting XP: As I stated above.
Re: Cargo XP- in nation cargo missions only affect in nation standing, what about in nation corporate factions? Cargo missions are more compelling when they increase company standings, as your nation standing increases through combat. Company missions in your nation should give standing and access to different items, just like if you're trading out in neutral space.
Re: the mission system in general- It has its flaws. Botting can be easy sometimes, and hard sometimes, especially if you're new and don't know what exactly you can and can't take on easily. It needs work but isn't all bad.
Re: Cargo XP- in nation cargo missions only affect in nation standing, what about in nation corporate factions? Cargo missions are more compelling when they increase company standings, as your nation standing increases through combat. Company missions in your nation should give standing and access to different items, just like if you're trading out in neutral space.
Re: the mission system in general- It has its flaws. Botting can be easy sometimes, and hard sometimes, especially if you're new and don't know what exactly you can and can't take on easily. It needs work but isn't all bad.
the problem is that if you kill a 'bloody sarco scum cargo' you will not gain combat XP. The game is multiplayer and offer you illimited allignement an comportement choice but the ONLY way to get combat XP is to kill bloody IA bot. and any other kill (wherever they may need higher skill) wil give you nothing !
@henrie
BEEEP. Wrong.
you get it, but you don't get anything much if you kill players that are lower than yourself in levels.
BEEEP. Wrong.
you get it, but you don't get anything much if you kill players that are lower than yourself in levels.
@henrie "illimited"?
I just remembered something that might appease the players who don't like botting (I personally don't mind it).
In the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games, they had an obstacle/race course (to determine rank, IIRC) that you had to fly through basically as quickly as you could, while shooting at fixed turrets. X-Wing's course was a long winding string of platforms on which there were three gates with varying heights and horizontal positions on the platform that the player had to fly through. TIE Fighter's course was a long winding tube with dividers and pipes and just stuff to get in your way. The course was very very long, and was divided into smaller sections. There was a base time to complete section one (2 minutes IIRC), and time bonuses (of several seconds) for shooting targets until they exploded (usually one laser blast, but occasionally more for larger targets). Once you completed section one, you were given time bonuses based on a set completion bonus, plus how fast you flew through, how many targets you shot, how many gates you went through (X-Wing only), and you then started section 2 with that time. The better you flew, and the more you shot, the easier it was to complete the next section. If you died, the test ended.
We could adjust this to fit Vendetta. Set up a very long, winding tube race course with all sorts of things in the way, dividers, pipes, and rotating dealies, as well as floating turrets, mounted turrets, stationary concussion mines, etc. All obstacles are destructable if you can put enough ordnance into it - thin pipes and thin slowly rotating fan blades are easier to destroy than a large rotating divider with a small hole in it (in TIE Fighter, if you shot out the center of the rotating object, it would stop rotating - counting both for a time bonus as well as making it easier to fly through).
There are maybe 20 sections to this course, each the same length, just with more obstacles in the way. There is a base time of 2 minutes, but even if you were in the fastest ship flying a perfect run ignoring all targets, you cannot complete it. You HAVE to fly to shoot at the targets. For every 5 sections, you gain experience equivalent to one combat license level (section1 is 125, section 2 is 250, section 3 is 375, section 4 is 500, section 5 is 750 = 2000xp) plus weapons experience for the targets you shot (they're worth at most 10 xp so botters gain weapons experience faster than racers who gain combat exp faster). It'd be tough for a straight up newbie to complete the first fifteen sections (getting to Combat 3), but a more experienced player wanting to jet past the first few licenses (or just gain a bunch of experience) can test their skill. You do not get experience for a section that you have already passed, and you have the option of starting anywhere where you have already been (so if you've done the first 10 sections, you can start on section 11, but no further).
Top 10 times (less is better) and target scores are recorded for each section, as well as the top 100 highest number of sections passed, total time (less is better), and total target scores, are recorded on a scoreboard for all to see. If a player bests their score, unless it's in the top 10, the previous score is erased and replaced.
Maybe to make things even more interesting, have two-player ships for a pilot and a forward arc gunner. The pilot gets combat xp, and the gunner gets light or heavy weapon xp based on what type of gun they want to use (on top of that, the gunner gets a little combat piloting xp - maybe 10% that of the pilot, and the pilot gets a little weapon xp - again 10% that of the gunner). Both players draw power from a single high capacity battery, so they have to cooperate on their boosting and their shooting. Cooperative scores are recorded on a separate scoreboard from the individual scoreboard.
I don't know how feasible the cooperative race would be, but I just wanted to throw that out.
I'm also not sure of the best way to implement the race. I was unfortunately taking a break from Vendetta when the racetracks were last implemented. Theoretically, with a base time of 2 minutes, and it takes a bit longer to run a perfect course, you could run players every 5 minutes, but if there were a queue, it would be a bit long for the player number 100 on the list. Multiple tracks would speed this up quite a bit. Maybe each section would have to be separate from the next - both X-Wing and TIE Fighter's were a single long track because there was only one player running through it, and a long track saves loading times. Maybe have one sector for each 5 levels of tracks (so there are maybe 8 tracks of section 1, 7 of section 2, all the way to section 5 in one sector, the next sector has 6-10, etc.) You can't enter a track until you target and hail its entrance and tell your mission computer to send an automated access code that your receive after finishing each track. The server remembers how much time you're supposed to have for each section so if you don't have enough time to complete a section no matter how hard you try (like having a starting time of 10 seconds), you can practice on the previous section to increase your time limit for no combat xp. Maybe you receive a time bonus if you don't repair yourself between sections - there's really not much you can do to prevent someone from going back to a station and repairing, but there's incentive to not stop flying. Each sector is a no-fire zone and there are stationary beam turrets in place that will fire on and destroy any player who attacks another player (this'll be more effective when the bumping bug is resolved).
Hopefully this made sense.
I just remembered something that might appease the players who don't like botting (I personally don't mind it).
In the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games, they had an obstacle/race course (to determine rank, IIRC) that you had to fly through basically as quickly as you could, while shooting at fixed turrets. X-Wing's course was a long winding string of platforms on which there were three gates with varying heights and horizontal positions on the platform that the player had to fly through. TIE Fighter's course was a long winding tube with dividers and pipes and just stuff to get in your way. The course was very very long, and was divided into smaller sections. There was a base time to complete section one (2 minutes IIRC), and time bonuses (of several seconds) for shooting targets until they exploded (usually one laser blast, but occasionally more for larger targets). Once you completed section one, you were given time bonuses based on a set completion bonus, plus how fast you flew through, how many targets you shot, how many gates you went through (X-Wing only), and you then started section 2 with that time. The better you flew, and the more you shot, the easier it was to complete the next section. If you died, the test ended.
We could adjust this to fit Vendetta. Set up a very long, winding tube race course with all sorts of things in the way, dividers, pipes, and rotating dealies, as well as floating turrets, mounted turrets, stationary concussion mines, etc. All obstacles are destructable if you can put enough ordnance into it - thin pipes and thin slowly rotating fan blades are easier to destroy than a large rotating divider with a small hole in it (in TIE Fighter, if you shot out the center of the rotating object, it would stop rotating - counting both for a time bonus as well as making it easier to fly through).
There are maybe 20 sections to this course, each the same length, just with more obstacles in the way. There is a base time of 2 minutes, but even if you were in the fastest ship flying a perfect run ignoring all targets, you cannot complete it. You HAVE to fly to shoot at the targets. For every 5 sections, you gain experience equivalent to one combat license level (section1 is 125, section 2 is 250, section 3 is 375, section 4 is 500, section 5 is 750 = 2000xp) plus weapons experience for the targets you shot (they're worth at most 10 xp so botters gain weapons experience faster than racers who gain combat exp faster). It'd be tough for a straight up newbie to complete the first fifteen sections (getting to Combat 3), but a more experienced player wanting to jet past the first few licenses (or just gain a bunch of experience) can test their skill. You do not get experience for a section that you have already passed, and you have the option of starting anywhere where you have already been (so if you've done the first 10 sections, you can start on section 11, but no further).
Top 10 times (less is better) and target scores are recorded for each section, as well as the top 100 highest number of sections passed, total time (less is better), and total target scores, are recorded on a scoreboard for all to see. If a player bests their score, unless it's in the top 10, the previous score is erased and replaced.
Maybe to make things even more interesting, have two-player ships for a pilot and a forward arc gunner. The pilot gets combat xp, and the gunner gets light or heavy weapon xp based on what type of gun they want to use (on top of that, the gunner gets a little combat piloting xp - maybe 10% that of the pilot, and the pilot gets a little weapon xp - again 10% that of the gunner). Both players draw power from a single high capacity battery, so they have to cooperate on their boosting and their shooting. Cooperative scores are recorded on a separate scoreboard from the individual scoreboard.
I don't know how feasible the cooperative race would be, but I just wanted to throw that out.
I'm also not sure of the best way to implement the race. I was unfortunately taking a break from Vendetta when the racetracks were last implemented. Theoretically, with a base time of 2 minutes, and it takes a bit longer to run a perfect course, you could run players every 5 minutes, but if there were a queue, it would be a bit long for the player number 100 on the list. Multiple tracks would speed this up quite a bit. Maybe each section would have to be separate from the next - both X-Wing and TIE Fighter's were a single long track because there was only one player running through it, and a long track saves loading times. Maybe have one sector for each 5 levels of tracks (so there are maybe 8 tracks of section 1, 7 of section 2, all the way to section 5 in one sector, the next sector has 6-10, etc.) You can't enter a track until you target and hail its entrance and tell your mission computer to send an automated access code that your receive after finishing each track. The server remembers how much time you're supposed to have for each section so if you don't have enough time to complete a section no matter how hard you try (like having a starting time of 10 seconds), you can practice on the previous section to increase your time limit for no combat xp. Maybe you receive a time bonus if you don't repair yourself between sections - there's really not much you can do to prevent someone from going back to a station and repairing, but there's incentive to not stop flying. Each sector is a no-fire zone and there are stationary beam turrets in place that will fire on and destroy any player who attacks another player (this'll be more effective when the bumping bug is resolved).
Hopefully this made sense.
*sigh* i dont think putting a big tube cource in space some where would be practical.. not to mention a bit boaring after a while.. while having something a bit simpler to start off with, like a cource compairable to that of Independance War 1 or 2 would be much easyer to code in while still providing a challenge..
It wouldnt be all that bad but being forced to run the cource over and over to get Combat exp back up to speed would become preaty boaring..and wouldnt solve the issue all together..
Of cource the complexity would be altered on the fly.. Either by adding rings and changing thier pitch, or making them spin in various directions.. I would assume some sector reboot would be required to change the conditions.. unless the game has an on the fly change platform then its not a good route to go.. Now maybe flying it with more mass or a certain mass of cargo to make the ship more slugish would serve to increase the complexity of the cource at higher skill levels.. which could probrobly be introduced without the need for restarting a sector rather easy....
BUT.. that does not change the fact that you get Jack in Combat Exp for accualy doing combat.. and the current reward for botting is just to low.. the cource would be nice for new pilots to gain a feal and understanding for how thier ship responds under a number of circumstances, yet wouldnt be something people would want to do to gain "Combat Exp" simply because its just not "Combat" ..
Seeing this cource added to the starting station of all new players for them to practice in would be a wonderful addition. And i would like to see that as well as the previous call for combat exp becoming just that, something for every ship destroyed, a base minimum for destroying weaker players and more for more skill. as well as the destuction of each bot, per bot if your on a Combat mission, plus the bonus to boot.. which is the logical solution to the problem..
It wouldnt be all that bad but being forced to run the cource over and over to get Combat exp back up to speed would become preaty boaring..and wouldnt solve the issue all together..
Of cource the complexity would be altered on the fly.. Either by adding rings and changing thier pitch, or making them spin in various directions.. I would assume some sector reboot would be required to change the conditions.. unless the game has an on the fly change platform then its not a good route to go.. Now maybe flying it with more mass or a certain mass of cargo to make the ship more slugish would serve to increase the complexity of the cource at higher skill levels.. which could probrobly be introduced without the need for restarting a sector rather easy....
BUT.. that does not change the fact that you get Jack in Combat Exp for accualy doing combat.. and the current reward for botting is just to low.. the cource would be nice for new pilots to gain a feal and understanding for how thier ship responds under a number of circumstances, yet wouldnt be something people would want to do to gain "Combat Exp" simply because its just not "Combat" ..
Seeing this cource added to the starting station of all new players for them to practice in would be a wonderful addition. And i would like to see that as well as the previous call for combat exp becoming just that, something for every ship destroyed, a base minimum for destroying weaker players and more for more skill. as well as the destuction of each bot, per bot if your on a Combat mission, plus the bonus to boot.. which is the logical solution to the problem..
TS-Midnight - I found some of your post hard to follow, but I agree with the last bit, that when you engage in combat, you should get combat exp. Not 'only combat with other players' or 'combat with bots but only a tiny amount per X kills'.
If the current scheme is kept, they should rename "Combat Experience" to "Treadmill Experience" and be done with it.
If the current scheme is kept, they should rename "Combat Experience" to "Treadmill Experience" and be done with it.
the system as it is at the moment forces you you use different ship setups at each bot level if you want to level fastest. I started by levelling till i got the vulture (dentechs, artemis's), then levelled heavy till i got the hog (apu5's, tycorps), then levlled heavy till i got the swarms, then used a rag with x2 swarms to insta-kill any bots (mainly tycorps). Finally i changed the rag back to the Hog with fc, neut2 and a chaos swarm (valent assaults).
IMHO levelling trade or standings is much harder than combat...
IMHO levelling trade or standings is much harder than combat...
in the end the discussion comes down to whether you find botting 'fun' or not. If you dont, then you consider it a chore. PvP can be done with almost any ship, and almost any setup. Not every PvP'er is using a valk/prom...lots use vultures with twin neuts(mk1,2 or 3)...that needs pitifully low licences and is easily reachable in a day (or 2 days casual) with a new character.
So if you dont want the ship for PvP, what do you want it for? To show off in? The only other use i can think of is botting. Which is a chore. If you do want the ship for PvP, you have to put the 'work' in for it. I know you're saying the 'work' should be 'fun', but that is always a singular view...what is fun for one person is boring for another. I'm completely in favour of adding more ways to get combat xp, but i dont think it should be any quicker.
So if you dont want the ship for PvP, what do you want it for? To show off in? The only other use i can think of is botting. Which is a chore. If you do want the ship for PvP, you have to put the 'work' in for it. I know you're saying the 'work' should be 'fun', but that is always a singular view...what is fun for one person is boring for another. I'm completely in favour of adding more ways to get combat xp, but i dont think it should be any quicker.
Combat XP is MUCH too easy to gain. Actually, all XP is much too easy to gain. Level 4 combat takes approximately 4 hours for experienced players to get to, I'll be generous and say that it would take 3 times as long for an absoulute newbie to get there. Ok thats 12 hours.
At level 4 you have access to better than 50% of the ships and weapons. How long does it take to get access to 50% of the stuff in star wars galaxies, Everquest, Ultima online, <insert favorite MMORPG here>?
I will agree, the botting missions are boring. The devs know this, WE know this. They are working on it. But the XP you gain from them is hardly insulting or rediculously low.
At level 4 you have access to better than 50% of the ships and weapons. How long does it take to get access to 50% of the stuff in star wars galaxies, Everquest, Ultima online, <insert favorite MMORPG here>?
I will agree, the botting missions are boring. The devs know this, WE know this. They are working on it. But the XP you gain from them is hardly insulting or rediculously low.
Spellcast, you miss the point here.
How many times do I have to reiterate this?
VO is not a leveling treadmill.
It is NOT Everquest, Ultima online, <insert favorite MMORPG here> in space. It is very much unlike any of these things. Comparing it to these things is insulting, since most of those are not designed to be GOOD, just to be engrossing enough that people will play hour after hour after hour to get that +5 Sword of Uberness or whatever. They're designed to be timesinks, since playing customers are paying customers. This game needs to earn money, yes, to keep going. Starving devs don't code well, and servers need electricity to run. However, the people making this game want it to be GOOD. They want people to play it BECAUSE it is good. Not because they worked out a good carrot they can dangle in front of players so they can level and level and level for days at a time.
I don't think everyone should be able get everything all at once.
I LIKE the idea of licences They are a way to mark achievement, they let you EARN your way, instead of having things handed to you.
However, I would personally like to see licences be a matter of SKILL. Not how long I can fight sleep while strafe/rolling away from bots. Personally, I'd not mind it if the devs hired skilled players and PAID them to be "licence testers" whom you had to defeat in combat to advance. Hell, I would LOVE that. It's not practical, since the devs can't afford it, but it would be really cool.
How many times do I have to reiterate this?
VO is not a leveling treadmill.
It is NOT Everquest, Ultima online, <insert favorite MMORPG here> in space. It is very much unlike any of these things. Comparing it to these things is insulting, since most of those are not designed to be GOOD, just to be engrossing enough that people will play hour after hour after hour to get that +5 Sword of Uberness or whatever. They're designed to be timesinks, since playing customers are paying customers. This game needs to earn money, yes, to keep going. Starving devs don't code well, and servers need electricity to run. However, the people making this game want it to be GOOD. They want people to play it BECAUSE it is good. Not because they worked out a good carrot they can dangle in front of players so they can level and level and level for days at a time.
I don't think everyone should be able get everything all at once.
I LIKE the idea of licences They are a way to mark achievement, they let you EARN your way, instead of having things handed to you.
However, I would personally like to see licences be a matter of SKILL. Not how long I can fight sleep while strafe/rolling away from bots. Personally, I'd not mind it if the devs hired skilled players and PAID them to be "licence testers" whom you had to defeat in combat to advance. Hell, I would LOVE that. It's not practical, since the devs can't afford it, but it would be really cool.
no soltis, i'm not missing the point. You are however missing mine.
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"""Too easy" you say.
Bulls*t.
You may have the endless hours to play, but some of us have better or more important things to do.
Killing 4 tough bots(REALLY tough if you have lag) for a measly 500 combat exp. is insulting.""
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Thats a direct quote of you BTW.
i hardly call 12 hours "enless hours to play"
and since the leveling progression to a good amount of equipment is fast, going up to the top levels (7/8/9) should take some effort and work.
And please dont try to tell me what vendetta is or isnt. I've been involved with it for far longer than you've even known it existed.
No its not supposed to be a leveling treadmill, since its not neccesary to progress past level 5 to have access to most of the equipment in the game. hardly a "treadmill". At level 4 you can start to take place in some of the PvP aspects of the game, and thats also suficiently high to try the other missions. the espionage missions give combat xp (except for 1), and while they dont work perfectly, they can be done if you do something other than race in madly and shoot at everything that moves.
There definitely need to be more missions, but that falls under the "in progress" list. The devs are working on it, please be patient.
If you want more to do solo, maybe you shouldnt be playing a MMO. There is lots going on PvP wise, pirates to hunt, the convoys to be raided, etc. Form a group and practice escorting a mining ship in to mine the middle of a bot infested sector. (i forsee that as being a useful skill in the future)
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"""Too easy" you say.
Bulls*t.
You may have the endless hours to play, but some of us have better or more important things to do.
Killing 4 tough bots(REALLY tough if you have lag) for a measly 500 combat exp. is insulting.""
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Thats a direct quote of you BTW.
i hardly call 12 hours "enless hours to play"
and since the leveling progression to a good amount of equipment is fast, going up to the top levels (7/8/9) should take some effort and work.
And please dont try to tell me what vendetta is or isnt. I've been involved with it for far longer than you've even known it existed.
No its not supposed to be a leveling treadmill, since its not neccesary to progress past level 5 to have access to most of the equipment in the game. hardly a "treadmill". At level 4 you can start to take place in some of the PvP aspects of the game, and thats also suficiently high to try the other missions. the espionage missions give combat xp (except for 1), and while they dont work perfectly, they can be done if you do something other than race in madly and shoot at everything that moves.
There definitely need to be more missions, but that falls under the "in progress" list. The devs are working on it, please be patient.
If you want more to do solo, maybe you shouldnt be playing a MMO. There is lots going on PvP wise, pirates to hunt, the convoys to be raided, etc. Form a group and practice escorting a mining ship in to mine the middle of a bot infested sector. (i forsee that as being a useful skill in the future)
I Have a few Issues , Combat xp is a Joke , The bot killing missions are BS , Bots are to Hard , Ammo stacks are too small cant read the Font , they Forget Most of us play after dark and not in a Fully Lit Office , some Dummy Put Astroids around stations , so when you Exit warp you crash and Die ! they hide the docking pods ! , I Think my bigest is the Bots need Nerfed !
How about a more difficult bot for the adv. combat list? Something that would give 1000xp for 6 kills or something like that. It would be very useful for getting through that stretch from combat 8 to 9. Ive been botting prosus for a while now and the 500xp for 6 kills seems to be moving slow at this point. Just a suggestion.
Just to throw in my 2 cents worth without carefully reading this thread, why not just offer up more missions for level 1/1 combat pilots? I mean I don't want to be doing the same mission after I achieve the goal of buying my new Centurion and equipping the best plasma cannon money can buy and go back to killing the same bots. The experience gain doesn't need a tweak, the challenge of the game needs a tweak or maybe the progression. I've killed almost 200 bots now and I'm already close to level 2/2 as a combat pilot. The experience gain is fine, we just need some missions with more meat and potatoes. I could be wrong, though, and I am new and I've yet to see what's in store after level 2/2.
well, after level 2 the xp needed for the next licence increases at a greater rate:
Level 1 - 2000
Level 2 - 5000
Level 3 - 9500
Level 4 - 16520
Level 5 - 26375
Level 6 - 41563
Level 7 - 64345
Level 8 - 98518
Level 9 - 149773
Level 10 - 226660
Level 11 - 341990
(from elite guild website)
so getting the first few levels is quite quick, then it takes a lot longer even fighting the hardest bots. Also, once you hit combat 8 you have to kill 6 bots for XP.
Regarding bot difficulty, if bots are too hard then you need to have a serious look at your setup, and what bots you are fighting. I think its generally accepted that the assaults are easier to kill than guardians, and give more xp. Bots certaintly do not need to be nerfed.
For the record, over 600 prosus assaults need to be killed to go from combat 8 -> 9...
Level 1 - 2000
Level 2 - 5000
Level 3 - 9500
Level 4 - 16520
Level 5 - 26375
Level 6 - 41563
Level 7 - 64345
Level 8 - 98518
Level 9 - 149773
Level 10 - 226660
Level 11 - 341990
(from elite guild website)
so getting the first few levels is quite quick, then it takes a lot longer even fighting the hardest bots. Also, once you hit combat 8 you have to kill 6 bots for XP.
Regarding bot difficulty, if bots are too hard then you need to have a serious look at your setup, and what bots you are fighting. I think its generally accepted that the assaults are easier to kill than guardians, and give more xp. Bots certaintly do not need to be nerfed.
For the record, over 600 prosus assaults need to be killed to go from combat 8 -> 9...
Actually its more.
Amount of bots is based on your highest level, and with the new auto-levelling and the unbalanced (pfah!) state of the game, whipping some bots is most likely to skyrocket your light weapons stats.
Then consider that at Light Weapons 11, you are still likely to be at combat 7 or 8.
This gives you 7 bots / round, rather than 6 ( weapons 10 give you 6 bots / round ) and just furthers the gap between your weapons and your combat levels.
so for the gap of 8->9 I had 7 bots for every 450 points, putting me up at around 800 bots.
Not that much IMO, but I still miss the harder bots, and the group missions of old that actually mattered.
Amount of bots is based on your highest level, and with the new auto-levelling and the unbalanced (pfah!) state of the game, whipping some bots is most likely to skyrocket your light weapons stats.
Then consider that at Light Weapons 11, you are still likely to be at combat 7 or 8.
This gives you 7 bots / round, rather than 6 ( weapons 10 give you 6 bots / round ) and just furthers the gap between your weapons and your combat levels.
so for the gap of 8->9 I had 7 bots for every 450 points, putting me up at around 800 bots.
Not that much IMO, but I still miss the harder bots, and the group missions of old that actually mattered.
Spellcast, I see what you are trying to say perfectly.
The problem is that you still fall into the trap of assuming that time played is a good way to measure effort. It's not.
Once you know the roll/strafe/reverse trick, you can kill _ANY BOT IN THE GAME_ without so much as getting hit. I've taken out hive queens, a dozen assault bots at once, guardians, and everything else the game has to throw at me without(when I don't lag) getting hit at all. Basically I only get hit when I either try something new or I lag. Once in a great while some enterprising bot sneaks up on me and gets a lucky shot in, but it's not a common occurance.
As you have so helpfully pointed out, I am not a super-vet. I'm good with sim games, but this one is pretty different from the ones I've played in the past. What you have helped establish is that botting is _NOT_ a measure of skill.
Now that we've established that, let's examine your definition of "work." You are, thus far, counting the execution of missions as a way to measure work. This operates on the assumption that there is a relevant relationship between said "work" and what you are getting - in other words, that the execution of said work would logically result in reward, or payment, in the form of gaining licences.
Now, part of what you have stipulated is correct. It is true that by following these rules, we have a system where "X work gains Y rewards." This has the advantage that it establishes a value for the licence, in the form of time consumed. Time is a valuable commodity, which by extension means the licence is valuable.
There are, however, some problems.
First, this time-value system is mostly derived from dice-roll games, where what one is doing, by "leveling," is basically increasing the statistical chance that one's attacks will both succeed/do damage and that one's defense will consistantly suffice to protect one's wellbeing. Such a system is not skill-based, it is time and statistics based. Being skilled is not as important as having high stats. Since stats are earned by spending time leveling to get them, and one's effectiveness as a player is determined by one's stats, one's effectiveness ingame can more simply be defined as a function of how long one has been playing that specific character.
A system of skill-based play works on an entirely different basis. While the time-effectiveness link is still present, it is no longer a direct one; there is an intermediate link, skill. Skill, being more important than 'stats,' supercedes them. The link can now be described as a curve wherein the more time one spends, the more skill one will generally have. Not "skills," as in the character-attached statistics, but actual player-derived skill, wherein the player's competence is what makes the character in question effective. However, since the skill-time link is variable, the amount of time required to reach X skill will vary from player to player. In the skill-based system, two players of equal skill are, ideally, equally matched. Now this in and of itself is an interesting system. Quake deathmatch, TFC, Unreal, CS, and a plethora of other games attest to that. Since in such a system as present in the aforementioned games all players have equal choice in their selection of stats(in the form of weapons/armor/abilities), what becomes important is how good each player is. What makes the well balanced of these games interesting is that it often is less relevant what the players' stats actually are, as long as those players are equally skilled in the stat set they choose. In other words, using TFC as an example, a player with X skill as a soldier will be equally matched against a player of X skill as a pyro. Or a sniper might be an equal match to a medic. Or a medic to a HWguy. Etc. There are very few players of specific classes in TFC, or stat-sets, which cannot beat another, arbitrary player of equal skill in another class, except when the formerly mentioned class is specialized so far in one direction it loses general effectivess in other areas. Even then, it may be possible to use that class's specialization effectively enough to beat the other class. The main concern is not to get the "best stats," but to find a stat set that suits your preference as a player, and which compliments your natural talents and weaknesses.
The formula present in Vendetta is a skill-based one, but with elements of more traditional stat-based RPGs making an appearance. Since Vendetta is persistant, and meant to progress as an entity as time goes by, the 'everyone has everything all the time' phenomenon of traditional skill-based games would be ill-placed here, since character development would be limited, and subsequently the dynamicism of the game as a character-developing entity. In VO, what is present are actually two 'stat sets.' One is one's faction regard with different factions; the other is one's licence levels. Right now, faction is a very limited system, which I am sure will change, which is why I describe it as a full stat set. The other stat set, licences, is what controls almost all of one's "progression" in the game of VO. As they exist now, licences are earned by exp. This is not entirely a rational system, for reasons I'll go into later, but for now we'll concentrate on the good aspects of it. What is good about it is that it has a certain amount of fidelity to real-world certifications, or recognitions. To use a related example, the qualification of Ace. Being an Ace pilot means that one has had 5 or more victories in arial combat. The act of winning those 5 battles was generally indicative of some manner of skill, since winning an arial battle by luck was generally not something that happened. What is similar between the Ace qualification and the licences of VO is that each is a milestone, used to mark a certain degree of achievement. What differs, however, is that while making 5 kills as a pilot requires great skill and aptitude, making X,000 experience in VO only requires that one have the patience to sit and corkscrew backwards for hours on end.
The problem here is that since the equivilancy of achievement in VO does not work in the same manner as it does in the real world, simply "killing X baddies" doesn't measure achievement except as an expression of time consumed, and is in no way indicative of native skill. To make a game that is skill-based progress on the basis of gathering a sufficiently large agrigate of "exp," which is gained by killing any manner of bot enough times, is illogical.
There are, of course, other factors. Most licences do require that you have been doing whatever you're being licenced for for a certain amount of time, but this again is dependent on the assumption that time spent doing something is a way to guarantee a certain degree of skill, which as established earlier, breaks down in VO. With that in mind, there are a number of considerations to be had.
One could, to preserve the logic of licences in VO, say that it's not so much skill that one's gov't measures, but rather that one is proving one's worth to that gov't. The problem here is that we already have a system in place to measure what various interest groups think of your character, which is the faction standing system. This actually is an interesting possibility; namely, that one's standing in various factions/subfactions(like, say, one's rank in the military, if ever quest sets are implimented that allow one to "join up and serve"), could be used as a secondary method to determine progression. In other words, if one has a high enough rank in one's nation's military, one might be able to go to stations controlled by that military and pull rank to get equiment one did not have the licence for. This would make getting high faction standing a very rewarding thing, but this would probably also mean that one's stance as a player would be firmly cemented, since, for example, being a part of the Serco military would almost certainly make one disliked by the Itani(more), and maybe disliked by corporations in the UIT who did not want to be seen taking sides.
Alternately, one could try to in some manner work out a means to recreate the connection between skill and achievement in botting or other means of combat in VO. There are a number of ways to do this. One could make it so that one gets bonus combat exp. for PvP kills while participating in CtC runs. One could give combat exp.(small amounts, of course) to people who captured convoy cargo. One could give a substantial bonus to anyone who successfully defended a convoy. One could also make bots harder, or tweak the way missions worked, give more specific(and challenging) directives in missions, with higher rewards, etc.
There are many options open here, some more feasible than others. The basic idea, though, is to alter the current system so that the means of progressing which exist ingame are logical.
The problem is that you still fall into the trap of assuming that time played is a good way to measure effort. It's not.
Once you know the roll/strafe/reverse trick, you can kill _ANY BOT IN THE GAME_ without so much as getting hit. I've taken out hive queens, a dozen assault bots at once, guardians, and everything else the game has to throw at me without(when I don't lag) getting hit at all. Basically I only get hit when I either try something new or I lag. Once in a great while some enterprising bot sneaks up on me and gets a lucky shot in, but it's not a common occurance.
As you have so helpfully pointed out, I am not a super-vet. I'm good with sim games, but this one is pretty different from the ones I've played in the past. What you have helped establish is that botting is _NOT_ a measure of skill.
Now that we've established that, let's examine your definition of "work." You are, thus far, counting the execution of missions as a way to measure work. This operates on the assumption that there is a relevant relationship between said "work" and what you are getting - in other words, that the execution of said work would logically result in reward, or payment, in the form of gaining licences.
Now, part of what you have stipulated is correct. It is true that by following these rules, we have a system where "X work gains Y rewards." This has the advantage that it establishes a value for the licence, in the form of time consumed. Time is a valuable commodity, which by extension means the licence is valuable.
There are, however, some problems.
First, this time-value system is mostly derived from dice-roll games, where what one is doing, by "leveling," is basically increasing the statistical chance that one's attacks will both succeed/do damage and that one's defense will consistantly suffice to protect one's wellbeing. Such a system is not skill-based, it is time and statistics based. Being skilled is not as important as having high stats. Since stats are earned by spending time leveling to get them, and one's effectiveness as a player is determined by one's stats, one's effectiveness ingame can more simply be defined as a function of how long one has been playing that specific character.
A system of skill-based play works on an entirely different basis. While the time-effectiveness link is still present, it is no longer a direct one; there is an intermediate link, skill. Skill, being more important than 'stats,' supercedes them. The link can now be described as a curve wherein the more time one spends, the more skill one will generally have. Not "skills," as in the character-attached statistics, but actual player-derived skill, wherein the player's competence is what makes the character in question effective. However, since the skill-time link is variable, the amount of time required to reach X skill will vary from player to player. In the skill-based system, two players of equal skill are, ideally, equally matched. Now this in and of itself is an interesting system. Quake deathmatch, TFC, Unreal, CS, and a plethora of other games attest to that. Since in such a system as present in the aforementioned games all players have equal choice in their selection of stats(in the form of weapons/armor/abilities), what becomes important is how good each player is. What makes the well balanced of these games interesting is that it often is less relevant what the players' stats actually are, as long as those players are equally skilled in the stat set they choose. In other words, using TFC as an example, a player with X skill as a soldier will be equally matched against a player of X skill as a pyro. Or a sniper might be an equal match to a medic. Or a medic to a HWguy. Etc. There are very few players of specific classes in TFC, or stat-sets, which cannot beat another, arbitrary player of equal skill in another class, except when the formerly mentioned class is specialized so far in one direction it loses general effectivess in other areas. Even then, it may be possible to use that class's specialization effectively enough to beat the other class. The main concern is not to get the "best stats," but to find a stat set that suits your preference as a player, and which compliments your natural talents and weaknesses.
The formula present in Vendetta is a skill-based one, but with elements of more traditional stat-based RPGs making an appearance. Since Vendetta is persistant, and meant to progress as an entity as time goes by, the 'everyone has everything all the time' phenomenon of traditional skill-based games would be ill-placed here, since character development would be limited, and subsequently the dynamicism of the game as a character-developing entity. In VO, what is present are actually two 'stat sets.' One is one's faction regard with different factions; the other is one's licence levels. Right now, faction is a very limited system, which I am sure will change, which is why I describe it as a full stat set. The other stat set, licences, is what controls almost all of one's "progression" in the game of VO. As they exist now, licences are earned by exp. This is not entirely a rational system, for reasons I'll go into later, but for now we'll concentrate on the good aspects of it. What is good about it is that it has a certain amount of fidelity to real-world certifications, or recognitions. To use a related example, the qualification of Ace. Being an Ace pilot means that one has had 5 or more victories in arial combat. The act of winning those 5 battles was generally indicative of some manner of skill, since winning an arial battle by luck was generally not something that happened. What is similar between the Ace qualification and the licences of VO is that each is a milestone, used to mark a certain degree of achievement. What differs, however, is that while making 5 kills as a pilot requires great skill and aptitude, making X,000 experience in VO only requires that one have the patience to sit and corkscrew backwards for hours on end.
The problem here is that since the equivilancy of achievement in VO does not work in the same manner as it does in the real world, simply "killing X baddies" doesn't measure achievement except as an expression of time consumed, and is in no way indicative of native skill. To make a game that is skill-based progress on the basis of gathering a sufficiently large agrigate of "exp," which is gained by killing any manner of bot enough times, is illogical.
There are, of course, other factors. Most licences do require that you have been doing whatever you're being licenced for for a certain amount of time, but this again is dependent on the assumption that time spent doing something is a way to guarantee a certain degree of skill, which as established earlier, breaks down in VO. With that in mind, there are a number of considerations to be had.
One could, to preserve the logic of licences in VO, say that it's not so much skill that one's gov't measures, but rather that one is proving one's worth to that gov't. The problem here is that we already have a system in place to measure what various interest groups think of your character, which is the faction standing system. This actually is an interesting possibility; namely, that one's standing in various factions/subfactions(like, say, one's rank in the military, if ever quest sets are implimented that allow one to "join up and serve"), could be used as a secondary method to determine progression. In other words, if one has a high enough rank in one's nation's military, one might be able to go to stations controlled by that military and pull rank to get equiment one did not have the licence for. This would make getting high faction standing a very rewarding thing, but this would probably also mean that one's stance as a player would be firmly cemented, since, for example, being a part of the Serco military would almost certainly make one disliked by the Itani(more), and maybe disliked by corporations in the UIT who did not want to be seen taking sides.
Alternately, one could try to in some manner work out a means to recreate the connection between skill and achievement in botting or other means of combat in VO. There are a number of ways to do this. One could make it so that one gets bonus combat exp. for PvP kills while participating in CtC runs. One could give combat exp.(small amounts, of course) to people who captured convoy cargo. One could give a substantial bonus to anyone who successfully defended a convoy. One could also make bots harder, or tweak the way missions worked, give more specific(and challenging) directives in missions, with higher rewards, etc.
There are many options open here, some more feasible than others. The basic idea, though, is to alter the current system so that the means of progressing which exist ingame are logical.