On 2011-09-16 12:06, Pantheon wrote:
Nowhere does it state that using ECM is the soul purpose of how the defencive faction operates. This is your personal opinion, and I side with the others here when I state that no lone ship should be able to mask itself from a planet or those with more ECCM.

Not to mention the fact that very few things should be done solo when it comes to planets. If you want to be hidden, you go in as a group, like everyone else.

On 2011-09-17 14:22, xTc *XO2* wrote:
I tried to order the dictor elite, but couldnt. Maybe a higher rank than FA is required to order elites.


Defiance and luth dreads:

I agree that we luth fly dreads to much. Our cruisers are actually very beast, ESPECIALLY in packs, while using fast paced hit and run tactics. A scale and parasite working together can bring an icc dread to its knees quickly. UGTO dreads are a different story, it seems we have to field dreads to counter them. A scale and parasite combo is also very effective against small ships. A parasite is a small ships worst enemy. It is also a great counter to beacon scouts. It is a little weak, but some modding can fix that.

It seems like I am the only luth who apprieciates curisers

Luth small ships are underrated. no one likes to fly them, because they suck on their own. But, in this game, you arent supposed to fly alone....

On 2011-09-18 00:43, Gesellschaft wrote:
I think that the changes are good in their own way, but fall short on another level.

Balance and numberswise, the changes sound solid so far. OK, ICC damage was sorta good against K'Luth the way it was before, so our AD got its torp power back and Borders got some of their railgun power back.

ECM ships were seriously annoying and could win fights solo by simply being impossible to hit. You should have a reasonable chance to hit someone and not require 2 on 1 just to be able to see the enemy. Or at least, in human combat. K'Luth obviously do require 2 on 1 to see them or have a chance of seeing them, but that's a different story altogether.

This shoves them back, albeit a bit hardhandedly, in the "you require a team to do this".

As far as the idealogy of making ICC and UGTO team-based factions go, the developers have taken steps closer to that.

As for K'Luth cloaks, it doesn't seem too gamebreaking to me. K'Luth has always been the faction which has no reason to ever downgrade from Dreadnoughts. Their entire design philosophy embraces this. The new change solidly enforces the idea that they are meant to uncloak, burst your face and then get out - they're the perfect faction to play still for those who want to score points with the least danger of losing them.

There is, of course, a counter to cloak. The Interdictor and Scout. Neither is a very solid defence against K'Luth as they are both completely useless in terms of actually contributing damage to destroying ships, but they inhibit K'Luth movements.

Since now and previous versions, nothing has changed about K'Luth in a meaningful way, except that the Krill is no longer the mid-range gunboat K'Luth have always championed as "it's pretty bad". Now it is agreed to be "not amazing". K'Luth have been, and will likely remain to be, the faction that is easiest to play so long as you remember that cloaking is not always the best answer, and that you will die if your enemies react fast enough and focus fire unless you have the luxury of jumping out.

Before K'Luth have a cow and yell about how much skill they have: no, that's what we call "proper coordination". K'Luth are the faction that can employ stratagems because they have the luxury to choose the time of engagement, which no other faction is given; this inherently permits you to use more crafty strategies than ICC or UGTO can afford. That's no skill, that's simply choosing a faction that enables something you happen to like partaking in.


Now then. The flipside to these changes is that they limit what a single player can do and further promote teamwork. I have not seen the metaverse room exceed 30 players whenever I log in, which I admit has become less and less these days.

The chief problem with these changes is that they promote teamwork. Stay with me here.

When you make it so lone players can accomplish less and less, it promotes lone players to undertake less until there are more people. There are three options for lone people:
A) Idle until people log in.
B) Substitute others for AI. (but then, why play an online game?)
C) Log off, check back later.

You'll agree A) is not very exciting, and with the constant threat of K'Luth looming to destroy you (or just an errant AI), it's usually not an option if you want to busy yourself with doing something fun.
For B, I note that 'Why play an online game?'. Playing with AI isn't the same kind of gratifying as playing together, and myself, I play online games to play with others and have various ways to deal with problems. The moment that is reduced to "order AIs around", I become a bit disinterested.
And C) presents a problem in itself in that if every player did that, the only way to gain a group effort is that everyone logs in around the same time so they see eachother before opting for C).

So that underlines the chief problem DarkSpace is facing. It's a teamgame that punishes solo play while its playerbase is disappearing. It struggles with a design idealogy that works for a succesful MMO with a sizable playerbase; and in that aspect it's competently balanced.

But for a small game? The design caters to a playerbase that doesn't exist: and this is why you feel it is unbalanced or bad. There'd be nothing wrong if you consistently had six people to fly ECM coverage for you. There'd be nothing wrong if you could count on pings and scouts to light up K'Luth for you.

You simply don't have those people.

On 2011-09-18 00:43, Gesellschaft wrote:
I think that the changes are good in their own way, but fall short on another level.

Balance and numberswise, the changes sound solid so far. OK, ICC damage was sorta good against K'Luth the way it was before, so our AD got its torp power back and Borders got some of their railgun power back.

But for a small game? The design caters to a playerbase that doesn't exist: and this is why you feel it is unbalanced or bad. There'd be nothing wrong if you consistently had six people to fly ECM coverage for you. There'd be nothing wrong if you could count on pings and scouts to light up K'Luth for you.

You simply don't have those people.

On 2011-09-18 00:43, Gesellschaft wrote:
I think that the changes are good in their own way, but fall short on another level.

Balance and numberswise, the changes sound solid so far. OK, ICC damage was sorta good against K'Luth the way it was before, so our AD got its torp power back and Borders got some of their railgun power back.

ECM ships were seriously annoying and could win fights solo by simply being impossible to hit. You should have a reasonable chance to hit someone and not require 2 on 1 just to be able to see the enemy. Or at least, in human combat. K'Luth obviously do require 2 on 1 to see them or have a chance of seeing them, but that's a different story altogether.

This shoves them back, albeit a bit hardhandedly, in the "you require a team to do this".

As far as the idealogy of making ICC and UGTO team-based factions go, the developers have taken steps closer to that.

As for K'Luth cloaks, it doesn't seem too gamebreaking to me. K'Luth has always been the faction which has no reason to ever downgrade from Dreadnoughts. Their entire design philosophy embraces this. The new change solidly enforces the idea that they are meant to uncloak, burst your face and then get out - they're the perfect faction to play still for those who want to score points with the least danger of losing them.

There is, of course, a counter to cloak. The Interdictor and Scout. Neither is a very solid defence against K'Luth as they are both completely useless in terms of actually contributing damage to destroying ships, but they inhibit K'Luth movements.

Since now and previous versions, nothing has changed about K'Luth in a meaningful way, except that the Krill is no longer the mid-range gunboat K'Luth have always championed as "it's pretty bad". Now it is agreed to be "not amazing". K'Luth have been, and will likely remain to be, the faction that is easiest to play so long as you remember that cloaking is not always the best answer, and that you will die if your enemies react fast enough and focus fire unless you have the luxury of jumping out.

Before K'Luth have a cow and yell about how much skill they have: no, that's what we call "proper coordination". K'Luth are the faction that can employ stratagems because they have the luxury to choose the time of engagement, which no other faction is given; this inherently permits you to use more crafty strategies than ICC or UGTO can afford. That's no skill, that's simply choosing a faction that enables something you happen to like partaking in.


Now then. The flipside to these changes is that they limit what a single player can do and further promote teamwork. I have not seen the metaverse room exceed 30 players whenever I log in, which I admit has become less and less these days.

The chief problem with these changes is that they promote teamwork. Stay with me here.

When you make it so lone players can accomplish less and less, it promotes lone players to undertake less until there are more people. There are three options for lone people:
A) Idle until people log in.
B) Substitute others for AI. (but then, why play an online game?)
C) Log off, check back later.

You'll agree A) is not very exciting, and with the constant threat of K'Luth looming to destroy you (or just an errant AI), it's usually not an option if you want to busy yourself with doing something fun.
For B, I note that 'Why play an online game?'. Playing with AI isn't the same kind of gratifying as playing together, and myself, I play online games to play with others and have various ways to deal with problems. The moment that is reduced to "order AIs around", I become a bit disinterested.
And C) presents a problem in itself in that if every player did that, the only way to gain a group effort is that everyone logs in around the same time so they see eachother before opting for C).

So that underlines the chief problem DarkSpace is facing. It's a teamgame that punishes solo play while its playerbase is disappearing. It struggles with a design idealogy that works for a succesful MMO with a sizable playerbase; and in that aspect it's competently balanced.

But for a small game? The design caters to a playerbase that doesn't exist: and this is why you feel it is unbalanced or bad. There'd be nothing wrong if you consistently had six people to fly ECM coverage for you. There'd be nothing wrong if you could count on pings and scouts to light up K'Luth for you.

You simply don't have those people.