| Author |
Okay the best solution to overpopulation of dreads and stations is... |
Tellaris
Grand Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: April 30, 2002
Posts: 830
From: Land of Chocolate
|  Posted: 2010-10-28 20:27
Sometimes to solve a real issue you have to make an unpopular choice. The harrier frigate was such a choice, at least in its initial inception. It countered dreads and stations HARD. But everyone complained about it so it got drastically reduced. The end result is the station and dread issue still persists, even though dealing with these missile frigates was incredibly easy for any reasonably skilled pilot. And even further, any reasonably skilled fleet would not fly without a few scouts or frigates to deal with this issue. This game NEEDS something to counter these larger ships or people WILL continue to spam them. Until you get a fairly effective counter, this problem will remain. The proposed reballanceing of ships will not solve these issues unless dreads and stations are drastically weakend from their current forms, particularly against cruisers and other smaller ships.
Think of how an RTS is typically set up, ignoring the issues of hard caps. In some of the better ones, there is ALWAYS a unit that counters another, you cannot spam one and win. (Also assume both players are evenly matched). In a perfectly balanced game, everything has a counter. For example, in SCII, the Seige tank slaughters anything on ground, generally. But it has absolutely no defence against air units. In this case, the tank has a very hard counter to it, in that the tank can never hit an air unit.
Until there is a viable counter for dreads and stations, they will continue to be the main fleet composition in the game.
To be constructive, here is my solution:
Reintroduce the uber missile/harrier frigate, and give K'Luth an equivilant, but with some changes.
1. Missiles do equivilant of 4% hull damage on dreads, 2% on stations.
2. Missiles ignore armor. (Reduces issue of prestige gain - they only get 1/2 the pres per ship they blow up compared to somebody who slugs them to death)
3. Missiles travel at 40 (or 50) gu/s and have turn rate of 15 degree/sec (This is to make it nearly impossible to hit anything smaller then a dread.)
4. Missiles are difficult to detect, require ECCM.
5. Missile Frigate/Harrier/K'luth equiv get +30 sec to Jdrive charge time
6. K'Luth equiv has cloak time of +15 sec, no ECM
This should make the ship reasonably difficult for large ships to take out, make it easy for them to take out large ships, and make it simple for small ships to deal with them.
I'm sure there are a fair few balance issues with this, but I'm also certain it could be resolved reasonably.
[ This Message was edited by: Tellaris on 2010-10-28 20:40 ]
_________________
Captain of the StarCruiser
I hit planets for fun!
Spellchecker, the POWER t00l
|
ADmiraLMaXimus (Bringer of Doom)
Chief Marshal
Praetorian Wolves
Joined: March 09, 2002
Posts: 363
From: Earth
| Posted: 2010-10-28 20:49
If you want to balance game population then go to Scenario Server
The MV is not the place to restric use of ships just to keep things balanced.
The point in the MV is to have More people on your faction... to be unrestricted on how many dreads or stations you have out on the field.
If you feel that one faction has too many players then get more people on your faction in the MV.
If you cant fly bigger ships then play in scenario until you can get biggers ships and learn to use them.
A few years from now it will be the current noobs who will be flying dreads and stations all over the place and the new players of the future will be wanting the same thing......
The MV is not the place to be fair with ships population...
That is what the Scenario Server is for.
_________________
Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold..... It Is Very Cold.... In Space.....
|
deathblave
Marshal
Joined: October 10, 2007
Posts: 268
| Posted: 2010-10-28 23:21
make the risk to lose a t2 ship a loss in diffent sets of states or badges make it a risk to use a t2 ship but an advantge
_________________
|
SpaceAdmiral
Grand Admiral
Joined: May 05, 2010
Posts: 1005
| Posted: 2010-10-29 00:01
actually one way to solve this is actually reducing the rate of people leaving the game. That way we will for once have a positive population growth and a lot of lower ranked players flying smaller ships. Currently it is people ranking to FA and above, some quitting to be replaced by a few low ranked people, so the game is comprised mostly of admirals and above. Most lower ranks quit, if we find a way to keep them in the game we would have a lot more small ships solely because there are more low ranked players.
_________________
|
Azreal
Chief Marshal
Joined: March 14, 2004
Posts: 2816
From: United State of Texas, Houston
| Posted: 2010-10-29 05:21
Quote:
|
On 2010-10-28 20:49, ADmiraLMaXimus (Bringer of Doom) wrote:
If you want to balance game population then go to Scenario Server
|
|
Amen.
I'm sorry, but I fail to see how a term like "overpopulation" can be applied to ships in a war game.
But this has been a constant bitch of Ents since I can rmember. We dont play the game the way HE feels we should, so the game must be changed.
Funny.
_________________
bucket link
|
*Obsidian Shadow*
Grand Admiral
Joined: January 03, 2010
Posts: 316
| Posted: 2010-10-29 05:52
how about a core weapon scout ^_^ have a scout with a single core weapon on it and no more...perhaps maybe a laser for minimal PD but no other weapons just..
Core Weapon
laser
engines
devices
_________________
|
Enterprise
Chief Marshal
Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2010-10-29 09:41
Quote:
|
On 2010-10-29 05:21, Azreal wrote:
Quote:
|
On 2010-10-28 20:49, ADmiraLMaXimus (Bringer of Doom) wrote:
If you want to balance game population then go to Scenario Server
|
|
Amen.
I'm sorry, but I fail to see how a term like "overpopulation" can be applied to ships in a war game.
But this has been a constant bitch of Ents since I can rmember. We dont play the game the way HE feels we should, so the game must be changed.
Funny.
|
|
Yeah, I guess lets just keep the game easy. Yeah I know. Lets just have repeat battles every day because somehow thats fun. Well Counter-Strike sure succeeded off of it.
I mean damn, whats wrong with how it is? Yeah man, fleets should totally consist of nothing but huge ships and hitting spacebar until you die. Man thats such a fun game, its bringing in droves of people to play. The servers can barely handle the massive horde of new players that can't wait to fight off and on for two weeks and have the best ships in the game.
I state my opinions, but if the only point of the game is to fly huge ships and fight the same battles around the same planets (because who really cares about building and supplying? The game is about combat@), then why don't we make the game more like that?
I mean, its not like paying to play really matters anymore, you're not paying to gain rank, just a small advantage. Why bother having ranks at all? Why bother having badge requirements? Why not just make everything free to take at will?
I mean that makes sense too when you really think about it. There's nothing really to hook a player into a game at lower levels to make the game interesting so we just make it easy and fast to get to the top. Why not just let anyone decide from the start? OH wait we don't because that would completely undermine the game.
So you want those small ships to matter, and you want to make those big ships matter, so that those people who play the game have fun no matter what way they play. Darkspace is not a combat game, it is a multi-faceted war game that includes many RTS elements. There are different solutions to what many people see as a problem, so they give suggestions. Thats what it is for me.
Its funny though; when I don't add constructive criticsm to a post, it gets removed, but apparently everyone else gets to be insulting.
-Ent
_________________
|
Azreal
Chief Marshal
Joined: March 14, 2004
Posts: 2816
From: United State of Texas, Houston
| Posted: 2010-10-29 11:45
There is no insult in my post.
Want constructive criticism?
Go play Eve, since what everyone else flies and dies in bothers you so much.
Just trying to help. To be, ya know, constructive.
_________________
bucket link
|
Talien
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2010-10-29 11:56
Quote:
|
On 2010-10-28 20:27, Tellaris wrote:
Sometimes to solve a real issue you have to make an unpopular choice. The harrier frigate was such a choice, at least in its initial inception. It countered dreads and stations HARD. But everyone complained about it so it got drastically reduced. The end result is the station and dread issue still persists, even though dealing with these missile frigates was incredibly easy for any reasonably skilled pilot. And even further, any reasonably skilled fleet would not fly without a few scouts or frigates to deal with this issue. This game NEEDS something to counter these larger ships or people WILL continue to spam them. Until you get a fairly effective counter, this problem will remain. The proposed reballanceing of ships will not solve these issues unless dreads and stations are drastically weakend from their current forms, particularly against cruisers and other smaller ships.
Think of how an RTS is typically set up, ignoring the issues of hard caps. In some of the better ones, there is ALWAYS a unit that counters another, you cannot spam one and win. (Also assume both players are evenly matched). In a perfectly balanced game, everything has a counter. For example, in SCII, the Seige tank slaughters anything on ground, generally. But it has absolutely no defence against air units. In this case, the tank has a very hard counter to it, in that the tank can never hit an air unit.
Until there is a viable counter for dreads and stations, they will continue to be the main fleet composition in the game.
To be constructive, here is my solution:
Reintroduce the uber missile/harrier frigate, and give K'Luth an equivilant, but with some changes.
1. Missiles do equivilant of 4% hull damage on dreads, 2% on stations.
2. Missiles ignore armor. (Reduces issue of prestige gain - they only get 1/2 the pres per ship they blow up compared to somebody who slugs them to death)
3. Missiles travel at 40 (or 50) gu/s and have turn rate of 15 degree/sec (This is to make it nearly impossible to hit anything smaller then a dread.)
4. Missiles are difficult to detect, require ECCM.
5. Missile Frigate/Harrier/K'luth equiv get +30 sec to Jdrive charge time
6. K'Luth equiv has cloak time of +15 sec, no ECM
This should make the ship reasonably difficult for large ships to take out, make it easy for them to take out large ships, and make it simple for small ships to deal with them.
I'm sure there are a fair few balance issues with this, but I'm also certain it could be resolved reasonably. |
|
I applaud the idea, but.....
Even if the changes to Sparrow/Peregrine missiles were reversed they wouldn't be as good as they were initially because of the PD changes, instead of it being "5 MFs can harrass a DN/Station fleet into ragelogging because the players are too thick-headed to get in smaller ships to counter them" it'd be "5 MFs can barely damage a single ship in a fleet due to PD", though they'd still be murder for isolated targets. Not that the PD changes are bad at all, it made no sense how it was before where a ship full of lasers would only target 1 or 2 missiles/fighters in a volley.
Needing ECCM/Scanner to detect them would be nice, but since EW slots were removed from Escort/Picket Destroyers it'd make their job harder. Then again, needing a dedicated EW ship for proper missile/fighter defense wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.
However, that said, it did bring up the issue of the newer missiles being rendered useless by the much needed PD changes. How often do you see Missile/Harrier Frigates or Missile Destroyers now? Aside from new players who want to try them out to see what they're like, nobody uses them. Missile Destroyers especially, the reload time and energy cost for the T2 missiles are horrid considering you'll be drained of energy before running out of ammo even if you're sitting still while firing. MD is still useful because of the massive amount of missiles it spits out per volley, so you still see them being used.
Kenny's idea to remove weapon leveling looks good at first, but would get even more complaints from entrenched "I worked for my rank to fly my DN/Station and there shouldn't be any easy counter for it" players when a couple Scouts could take out a DN in 2 minutes rather than 10. It would also make smaller ships ridiculously easy to kill for other smaller ships, you'd see Scouts and Frigates taking eachother out in just a couple volleys instead of having actual small ship dogfights like you see now. Those are fun, and I would not like to see them go away.
[ This Message was edited by: Grumpy Old Man on 2010-10-29 11:59 ]
_________________
Adapt or die.
|
The Fridge
Chief Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: December 13, 2008
Posts: 559
From: In Your Fridge, Eating your Foods.
| Posted: 2010-10-29 15:55
increased pres gain for smaller ships =S
Just throwing a idea out there that's been mentioned before.
might need reworking when you get ranks at lower prestige's.
_________________
|
Borgie
Chief Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: August 15, 2005
Posts: 2256
From: close by
| Posted: 2010-10-29 17:05
part of the reason most players would rather fly a dread over a smaller ship is dreds will earn you more pres faster then say a cruiser. also with dreds and stations costing next to no pres to lose em theres no draw back to dying. personally i think if pres loss was upped on deaths and friendly fire people would think twice before dragging out there station and jumping it in to a fleet of waiting enemy ships. but thats just 2 cents.
_________________
|
SpaceAdmiral
Grand Admiral
Joined: May 05, 2010
Posts: 1005
| Posted: 2010-10-29 17:30
There are 4 types of players here.
Newbs who will quit in a day or 2.
Some Newbs/middle ranks gonna rank up to GA and either stay or quit.
High rank newer players choosing to stay.
Vets.
As you can see there is a lot of quiting going on, so we need to make the game more interesting.
Such as:
-Somehow make bombing, tranny, engi, suppy exciting and not a chore. Maybe a combat repair ship or a combat engi with cargo for res and plats.
-Have a tutorial in game, so they can't miss it
-increase interest in early and late ranks
_________________
|
Leonide
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: October 01, 2005
Posts: 1553
From: Newport News, Virginia
| Posted: 2010-10-29 22:20
i'm just gonna stick to my Assault Cruiser. better that way.
_________________
captain of the ICC Assault Cruiser C.S.S. Sledgehammer
|
ADmiraLMaXimus (Bringer of Doom)
Chief Marshal
Praetorian Wolves
Joined: March 09, 2002
Posts: 363
From: Earth
| Posted: 2010-10-30 00:54
I will have to repeat my self....
If you want balanced ship count by number of players go to scenario
While you are (any player) there you can learn to play all the ships and practice building.....
DS is based on combat and war.
Once you have the rank to fly bigger ships and can hold your own against other dreads and stations go back to MV if you want to.
Remeber the current vets of today spent most of their time long ago in the scenarion servers of the past.
Why should the MV be made to play the same way as the scenario.
If you put limits like the ones you are suggesting you may lose players who have supported the game for many years or are still supporting the game that many noobs and others play for free.
Or to be fair maybe they could bring back the regular payment system and add the feature that if you wish to be exempt from said limitations be a subscribed paying player like before and limits are removed 
just adding my thoughts
_________________
Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cold..... It Is Very Cold.... In Space.....
|
Tommas [ USF HunnyBunny ]
Chief Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: February 04, 2006
Posts: 581
From: Norway
| Posted: 2010-10-30 04:52
I think Borgie hit the nail there.
Yesterday i saw ppl in station jumping around alone and attacked ppl.
I remember before no one even dared to pull out an station before they had a big fleet. Now days its so good and the pres loss is so little that its no risk.
I think people will think twice before rushing out like a mad man in stations and dreads etc if you doubled or tripled the death penalty.
Before you lost over 1k prestige by losing a station.
_________________
|
English
Deutsch
Nederlands
)
