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A brief(ish) analysis of the Psychology behind Darkspace players. |
Pantheon
Marshal
Palestar
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 1789
|  Posted: 2013-08-28 17:41
Quote:
On 2013-08-28 13:28, AdmiralChaos *FL* wrote:
Quote:
On 2013-08-28 00:57, Kenny_Naboo wrote:
Brief question here.
How many of you old guys from 10 years ago still actually play the game?
And not just log in to lobby camp and chat.
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Major reason why people miss the older versions is because of the people that played before you. Just feels like every major patch is some sort of huge change that not everyone can understand and enjoy.. when other things should have been done first
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Some people can't seem to grasp that for some changes to be made, fundamental changes to the underlying game have to be done.
You have to understand that 1.7 is really the first time this team as a while in its current itteration has worked as it has. Give us time.
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Feralwulf
Grand Admiral
Joined: January 24, 2004
Posts: 1729
From: sitting somewhere drinking beer
| Posted: 2013-08-28 17:41
I just want to toss my 2 cents in and for the most part respond to Coeus' and Pantheon's posts from Page one.
As someone who has been here as a player since 1.481 (I sadly missed .480) and as both player and staff since 1.482 I must say that they are both 95% correct and 5% wrong.
My FIRST experience playing Darkspace lasted 72 hours. A friend from other games emailed me a link, I checked it and thought "Ummm space game... I hate space games" 6 months later I found myself with no new games to play and a 4 day weekend coming up. What the hell, I'll Download this Darkspace crap dude sent me a link to. 72 hours later I had managed maybe 8 hours sleep (still logged in) and 1 shower, may have eaten three times. I was hooked.
I am 45 years old, I played PONG for hours, I played Atari for hours, I played sega for hours, to this day I play Playstation and Xbox for hours.
I played Darkspace for DAYS... not hours... DAYS.
1.481 had flaws, it had some inbalance, but If you could adapt you could overcome. .482 same way, hell even .483 (which I pray to God will ALWAYS be known as the Dark Age of Darkspace) you could adapt.... Adapt or Die. Such is life, such is game. Adapt or Die... That I like. Balance? yeah not so much... balance pretty much sucks in the eye of a gamer. I don't want balance, I don't lopsided stupidity! but yeah, keep your "Balance" as well. There's no "Balance" in Life! There should be none in Game. I'm a Redneck! I been watching NASCAR since childhood, about 2006 (483 dark ages) they decided to "Balance " the cars. Since 2007 I have watched maybe 4 FULL races . from 2009 -2012 I watch exactly ZERO minutes of any NASCAR race. Just like in NASCAR where they said "Lets make exactly the same car but just "Call" them Ford, Chevy, Dodge, and Toyota." Darkspace attempted to "Let's make the exact same ship, but just "call " them UGTO, ICC, and Kluth".
In MY opinion, Darkspace Developers (god love them all) have done an outstanding job over the 12 or so years, but recently they have failed (IMO) in one respect. Make every ship in game 100% equal to it's counterpart ship of the opposing faction.
Coeus is right. Mining the gates was fun, Flux waves were fun, the WAS and WERE fun list goes on and on. But The Devs are also right... it ain't fun for everyone. However , rather than "Balance", I'd rather see "Options" How can I load out a certain ship or use a certain tactic to combat a certain ship or certain Tactic?
When 1.482 came out everyone complained that you could NOT bomb a planet.... until some old fart named Feralwulf discovered that an Anti-sensor scout loaded out with ECM + a Command Dread loaded out with ECM, and a Supply ship loaded out with ECM, in a tight group? Were 100% undetectable...until ICC and Kluth discovered that 2-3 ships with ECCM, Scanners and Beacons could squash that crap. 2 weeks later UGTO figured out a way around that.... 2 weeks later ICC and kluth figured out a way around that. etc.
You gotta make the game fun, you gotta make the game a challenge, you gotta make the game playable. Balance? I challenge all the Dev team to watch Sundays NASCAR race in Atlanta and tell me "Balance" is entertaining, and fun.
Ok, nuff said for now. I try to stay out of Dev affairs....and I got a beer sitting here getting warm.
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Don't mess with old dudes...age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill!
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2013-08-28 17:47
The point with all this "balance" stuff has never been to make ships 100% equal to each other. If I wanted to do that I'd have given everbody exactly one type of weapon shared across all ships and factions, and it would be immensely boring. In fact, "balance" has more to do with making ships more precisely inequal in certain ways.
My biggest goal is to ensure that there is no ship in the game which is considered "useless," while at the same time endeavouring to prevent any one ship from being able to do everything. Each and every last ship in the game should have some situation or moment where it is the best ship possible for what you want to do, but other moments where it's not the right choice and something else is better.
The strategy then lies in knowing which ships to use and when to use them.
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If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger space battleship and try again.
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coolestguy
Fleet Admiral
Joined: April 30, 2010
Posts: 74
From: coolestguy
| Posted: 2013-08-28 18:58
Quote:
On 2013-08-28 17:47, Jim Starluck wrote:
My biggest goal is to ensure that there is no ship in the game which is considered "useless," while at the same time endeavouring to prevent any one ship from being able to do everything. Each and every last ship in the game should have some situation or moment where it is the best ship possible for what you want to do, but other moments where it's not the right choice and something else is better.
The strategy then lies in knowing which ships to use and when to use them.
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I think we can all agree with that, its a good thing to do.
But what did the population support?
If the game has no population due to the ideas/changes made (even if they are good) then whats the point?
Sure you have a good/fair game and no one playing it 
[ This Message was edited by: coolestguy on 2013-08-28 19:00 ]
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Coeus
Grand Admiral
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: March 22, 2006
Posts: 2815
From: Philly
| Posted: 2013-08-28 20:05
Oh Dem, I never thought I'd be so lucky as to garner one of your post teardowns. I still heart you... HOWEVER! If you knew what I went through to make that damn post from work while the thought was still fresh in my head from my drive in - well nevermind, you'd still tear down the grammar and punctuation fubars.
I will say this. I didn't intend this post as a rallying cry or a call for revisions. I more meant it as a reflection of the past and how some tendencies of human nature might have impacted player reaction to the changes made over the last few years. If you'll note I did ask for everyone's thoughts at the end of the original post! I'm liking the conversation, and I'm both agreeing and disagreeing with a lot of things that everyone is saying.
To Jim and Jack and any & all of the other devs, the ONLY thing that I would insist you reflect on as an outcome of this thread is this: Don't get so tunnel-visioned and stuck on what you want to see happen that you tune out all else and can't adjust your approach. Keep in mind that no plan survives first contact with the enemy - and in this case, the average DS player 
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Demorian
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: October 06, 2001
Posts: 3406
From: Charlotte, North Carolina
| Posted: 2013-08-28 21:10
Quote:
On 2013-08-28 00:57, Kenny_Naboo wrote:
Brief question here.
How many of you old guys from 10 years ago still actually play the game?
And not just log in to lobby camp and chat.
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Typical Pitch Black. 
-Dem
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Talien
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2013-08-28 21:52
I started during 1.5x so I wasn't around for all the 1.48x fun, but I've seen my share of balance changes that went too far and all but destroyed balance, and the player exodus that usually resulted.
However most of that has been addressed with 1.7, the only current balance change I really have a problem with is the monstrosity that shields have become. Turning them into the equivalent of rotatable UGTO armor was a horrible idea, made even worse that Reactive/Skirmish have different HP, energy use, recharge rates, and signature in addition to the resist/weakness. Just revert the shield changes and give Reactives a bit more HP and they'll be as close to perfect as they can possibly get.
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Adapt or die.
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Borgie
Chief Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: August 15, 2005
Posts: 2256
From: close by
| Posted: 2013-08-29 00:08
too much reading involed with this thread.
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Kenny_Naboo
Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: January 11, 2010
Posts: 3823
From: LobsterTown
| Posted: 2013-08-29 01:04
Quote:
On 2013-08-28 21:10, Demorian wrote:
Quote:
On 2013-08-28 00:57, Kenny_Naboo wrote:
Brief question here.
How many of you old guys from 10 years ago still actually play the game?
And not just log in to lobby camp and chat.
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Typical Pitch Black.
-Dem
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I know, right?
But it had to be said.
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Cold Death
Admiral
Joined: July 24, 2011
Posts: 106
From: Right behind you...
| Posted: 2013-08-29 02:18
Quote:
On 2013-08-28 17:41, Pantheon wrote:
You have to understand that 1.7 is really the first time this team as a while in its current itteration has worked as it has. Give us time.
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And you've done a marvelous job of it. Seeing all those interesting changes listed in the dev log and live on the beta server is awesome. I'm also happy to see you guys reached out to the community for the tutorial crowd sourcing.
Keep up the good work, no one here is in a hurry, and neither should you.
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2013-08-29 17:14
Quote:
On 2013-08-29 00:08, Borgie wrote:
too much reading involed with this thread.
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Pansy.
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If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger space battleship and try again.
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Demorian
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: October 06, 2001
Posts: 3406
From: Charlotte, North Carolina
| Posted: 2013-08-29 17:29
Called out.
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Wessssss
Fleet Admiral
Joined: June 29, 2006
Posts: 31
From: Midwest USA
| Posted: 2013-08-30 11:30
First off, A big thanks to everyone and anyone who contributes to the continued development and survival of this game. For a game with this low of player base, revenue, and development power to have survived this long and still be (at least from my view) a competitive title in the market is amazing. Billion dollar companies have abandoned titles with 10x as much resources DarkSpace has. (should have birthday events celebrating another year of not being dead!) I've only done basic c++ and Java programming and that stuff takes hours and hours and days I can't imagine what a game like this takes so thank you guys so much for the time and effort.
And as far the Original topic, I don't think people want directly the game to be imbalanced. As a competitive player I don't want a constant unfair advantage it's just not fun. Essentially I want to win (a reason why my time on DS isn't too high but i'll get into that later) and most people that's what they want. To kill and not get killed which is basically an imbalance so i can see why that's the conclusion. Everyone can't Kill and not be Killed, there's a winner and a loser and we all want to be the winner. So yea players find exploits and bugs to give them the edge, and yea I've loved game with exploits like shooting through a wall and such which gave an edge but it was balanced because anyone could exploit that. Exploits are really only a problem when it favors one side over another. Back to wanting it to be competitive is why i really don't play the K'luth. I feel based from playing that they have a HUGE strategic advantage in game that if the faction player counts where balanced would make them dominate the game, but moving on from that.
What inhibits me from logging hours at a time is the stalemate of the game. Because of, in my observation, the masses of AI neither faction can do anything. The most I've seen is being able to go one system in before getting pushed out mainly because high AI presence to defend the system (usually the penetration is because of lack of players on that side) okay, but eventually players log on, now you have players AND the huge AI. you just can't deal with the numbers, eventually retreat and we're all back to sitting in Kaus. There's no motivation to sit and play, except as previously mentioned you see SERVER STATUS: MEDIUM, which for me has been a flag that some good **** is going down. then i'll play till basically the player count drops and we're all just sitting shooting AI
I'm excited for 1.7, I haven't spent much time in Beta but the changes look to both balance, but also leave exploits for factions to get an advantage. Ship countering looks better, meaning some big bad ship comes in killing everything, but then the other team can change strategies (in the form of different ships) to neutralize it's advantage.
Overall the OP is on the right track. the game somewhat too balanced, to the point that we're all sitting in kaus (which honestly like the worst system in the game, barring the ones that just house jump games, like really dafraq is that lol why even have it there then) I want some goal to have besides trying to kill other players and gain prestige. I want to push to the UGTO or K'luth home systems or even get pushed. Nothing gets me sitting in game more the feeling the need to guard something important or help contribute.
Thanks for the great game guys!
PS: the whole uncappable planet thing so AI can spawn just makes me want to cap it more. I think that could solve a couple problems i have with the game. (no idea what coding or work would need to be done to do it just spit ballin) but instead of it being flagged UNCAPPABLE, flag it as AI SPAWN. so there's specific target planets in a system to take out. I'm tired of AI swarming into fights, so a strategy to neutralize that would be to focus and cap an AI SPAWN planet. Just a thought.
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2013-08-30 12:18
Quote:
On 2013-08-29 17:29, Demorian wrote:
Called out.
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Coeus seems to be advocating the concept of Perfect Imbalance but on a larger scale.
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Kenny_Naboo
Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: January 11, 2010
Posts: 3823
From: LobsterTown
| Posted: 2013-08-30 21:46
Quote:
On 2013-08-30 12:18, Fattierob wrote:
Coeus seems to be advocating the concept of Perfect Imbalance but on a larger scale.
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Interesting vid.
In a way, DS does have slight imbalances.
Kluth cloak over hoonams. ICC range and endurance over all others. UGTO outright power and durability.
3 points at the conclusion of the video.
1. No matter how skilled or great a player is they can't have an avatar (or game unit) that's great at everything.
- Seems like Jim and Wally may have gotten it right, or at least come close to this. Each of the 1.7 ships aren't great at everything.
2. How the pieces interact. What beats what?
- The classes and roles and weapons seem to have been segregrated such that big ships can't easily hit and kill small ships, and small ships are gonna take a long time to kill big ships and will need to take more risks doing so. Likewise assault vs ranged attack ships.
3. Give your players a wide pool of options so they can find an answer around whatever is thrown at them, and not be stuck to one fixed strategy.
- With fighters being buffed, the number of PDs being reduced, and the variety of weapons on the ships reduced via the tiered system, and... not to mention, the relatively large number of ships available, players do have that option.
Heh. Perhaps we should just do as suggested. The next time players scream OP, just leave it be and wait for the geniuses to find a way to overcome that purported OP-ness.
[ This Message was edited by: Kenny_Naboo on 2013-08-30 21:47 ]
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