Avenger__1 video on ship combat as of 3.24

[Ayeteeone]

Sharing this without completely endorsing his argument. He is very, very good at the small piece of the game he engages in, and it's not until late in the video that there is an acknowledgement of other gameplay outside of that.

However, it is my opinion that he identifies the core problem in the mechanics. As someone who got hooked on flying in the game back in the 2.6 patches, it has felt to me like a steady deterioration of the fun factor in flying ships. Largely that has been due to the design goal of trying to shove 6 degrees of freedom (space flight) into 3 (WWII atmospheric flight) and the many, many iterations on this which have all failed/are failing miserably.

A1, near the end of the vid quite accurately brings up the multicrew experience with the acknowledgement that he's convinced not one of the targets he's ever pirated had fun in the process. Getting caught by fighters when in a multicrew ship is game over. Given that almost all the non-combat ships in game are specifically built as prey exaggerates this effect, and the OTHER design goal of forcing people to band together to get anywhere in game guarantees that someone in that encounter is not having fun.

What we have right now is essentially a game that enables and rewards packs of thugs. If I have a group of other players with me, say crewing a Mole for mining, the multiplayer experience is still inevitable death vs attackers. "HIRE FIGHTERS" some idiot will shout... Even if the economy system made that worthwhile (it doesn't) it means a) you need even MORE players for multicrew to be viable b) those flying the fighters are largely missing out on the adrenaline rush they play for. The pirates don't want fair fights - watch Mongrel Squad on YT, they take joy in murdering individual ROC miners. How many fighters should that guy hire, and with what money??? And how long is that (likely new) person going to continue to support the game?

I've come to believe that there are some fundamental problems with the game design that are not going to be fixed with more bandaids.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNm8RaKHLHg

 

[Montoya]

Im not watching 43min of what ever he is saying, but in gaming terms, the solution is PVE and PVP servers.

Or the mythical PVP slider.

 

[LurchLord]

Im not watching 43min of what ever he is saying, but in gaming terms, the solution is PVE and PVP servers.

Or the mythical PVP slider.

Here you go Boss, you're not the only one that has no intention to waste 43 minutes on what he said ;)

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[Ayeteeone]

Im not watching 43min of what ever he is saying, but in gaming terms, the solution is PVE and PVP servers.

Or the mythical PVP slider.

I think you are correct here Boss. I'm not a creative, so there may be other ways to manage or mitigate that are beyond my vision. But what I do well is analyze systems, and the game as-built is not going to reach the goals they claim to be aiming for.

 

[wmk]

Or GTA-like passive mode ; )
I'm fine with playing as a ghost; I remember all those frustrated PVPers trying to catch me lol ; )

 

[BUTUZ]

Im not watching 43min of what ever he is saying, but in gaming terms, the solution is PVE and PVP servers.

Or the mythical PVP slider.

Elite did this and it destroyed the game as 90% of the people just played offline and earned billions in a really sad lonely way and the 10% that was still playing this as a massive multiplayer online game wasnt enough to keep the game going. Powerplay died because 90% players dissapeared and then the game dies after that.

It's not a solution IMHO. Balance is the solution. Mythical rare balance.

 

[Ayeteeone]

Elite did this and it destroyed the game as 90% of the people just played offline and earned billions in a really sad lonely way and the 10% that was still playing this as a massive multiplayer online game wasnt enough to keep the game going. Powerplay died because 90% players dissapeared and then the game dies after that.

It's not a solution IMHO. Balance is the solution. Mythical rare balance.

I believe you, never did get into Elite even though it's in the collection. But what you are saying is that 90% of the playerbase opted out of whatever PvP looked like in that game. That's a pretty strong statement that it wasn't satisfying to a large portion of the players.

 

[Thalstan]

If 90 percent didn’t like the PvP game, then sorry, sacrifice that 10 percent. It’s entirely economics.
i don’t advocate an offline mode, but a PvP server and and separate PvE only server might be the better way to do things.
players can still pirate non-players. They can steal from NPCs. They can work reputations, sell mats, components, whatever. .the only thing they can’t do is target or steal from other players.
no full loot from players, but you can drag their corpse(with permission) back to the front of the mission spot So they can loot It.
Of course, you can abandon stuff. Have a timer where if the olayer Moves more than 300,000 km away, a timer starts for them to get back and claim it. bodies are never abandoned.

PvP server gets more in the way of resources generated, etc. In other words, those that play on the PvP server have the potential to advance faster.

no switching between PvP and PvE servers. You can assign your pledged ships to one or another or all ships are available initially in both servers, but upgrades, progression, etc is tracked on each server..

OR, just kill the PvP aspect period and have no PvP and no PvP servers at all.

note, you can still have competition between players, getting you Hull E stuffed full of critical supplies to a base 10 minutes before someone else means you might have a jackpot while they get crumbs,

PvP can still exist in AC, which becomes an in-game system that allows players to dual and be “armchair pilots and grunts” on the sims, where the best players compete for glory, UEC, and maybe even invites to e-sport tournaments where they can compete for real cash prizes.

 

[Montoya]

Elite did this and it destroyed the game as 90% of the people just played offline

If 90% of your player base prefers to play offline, then thats what they should have focused on.

Star Citizen is going to have its own struggles in finding some balance. It is way too easy for 2-3 small fighters with skilled pilots to take on ANY target of any size. As it stands, there is very little they can do to narrow the gap in skill level between casual players and hardcore PVP without making people like AV1 cry and rage quit forever.

 

[Montoya]

I think you are correct here Boss. I'm not a creative, so there may be other ways to manage or mitigate that are beyond my vision. But what I do well is analyze systems, and the game as-built is not going to reach the goals they claim to be aiming for.

A lot of people will be disappointed with the final product. What they pitched and what we get will be very different.

People still cry about hex codes to customize your own ship skins.

 

[Mudhawk]

Not so sure that PVP is such a problem once we got a couple of additional systems to choose from.
Stanton as is isn't a safe system. It's a bit of a frontier system with rather lax law enforcement.
If we get systems where crimes are actively punished and perpetrators get hunted down by an ever increasing policeforce plus some invested Bounty Hunters then I expect the usual Piracy and PVP crowd to look for less troublesome pastures.
Like Pyro or such...
Sure, if you wanna strike it rich as a miner you might be forced to head for possibly unsafe waters too.
But no risk, no quantanium...
Come to think of it, if Pirates don't ruin your day, who says the Vanduul won't?
If you want it safe, stick to Terra or such.
If you want adventure... well... stuff will happen.
ONCE we get more systems that is.
As things are right now it's just a couple of bored people "creating content" and generally being a bother that force their playstile on others that are obviously not interested.

People still cry about hex codes to customize your own ship skins.

WHAT? You say we won't get them chameleon codes?
Noooo!!!

 

[Cugino83]

Personally I strongly disagree with the idea of a slider or a PvE only mode.
While I cans ee right now this seam to be a valid solution I think this impression is a result of the current PU state: we have only a single system, with a limited player count and without a working NPC population.
Let CIG solve this problem and also finally introduce a valid and working economy system and I think most of the problem will be solved: sure it won't prevent the random murder-hobo to roaming around killing ROC miner, but I'll expect a more swift NPC response in addition to other players or ORG action to protect their asset.

Concerning A1 video I mostly agree with his conclusion.
I'm of course far to be a top PvP player, but I''ve notice the constant inability by CIG to tune their system to solve problems, just look back at the past...

Component doesn't feel right and and CIG decide to re-spec all of them, but instead of planning a good list of spec, put into players hand and then tune them a little bit, they decide to completely flat the components and then slowly tune them.
This is the result:

several years later and we still have crap components stats that basically kills all the game play of customizing and tuning ships.

Ballistic weapons are way to powerful and used widely, so instead of tuning the specs they decide to chop ammo count to a point of rendering the ballistic weapons completely not an option.
They claim is due to the "balance" looking forward to the armour system and they will re-balance again when the system will be implemented.
Consideration aside on how stupid I think is to do double work, today we still don't have the armour system in play.

Ares Ion is a owepowerd ship that instead of being a capital ship killer is used (suprise!!!) to one-shot small fighter.
So instead of doing a simple re-balance of the weapon making more inline with its intend use by reducing RoF and projectile speed (big target are slow to move) and increasing Alpha damage leaving small ship to leverage they natural ability to doge, CIG opted for an unnecessary and over complicated random spread system that make the ship completely worthless and even now is a ship with a S7 "anti-capital ship" weapons that can't even single-shot and Aurora...

And finally MM, a "solution" to a non problem that instead of being "resolved" by leveraging the potential of the triangle system or the general power distribution idea, introduce another overcomplicated structure that force the player to manage several "flight mode", with different limitation and that integrate poorly with every system considering that thinks like tractor beam, mining components and, I suppose, salvaging one are considered weapons forcing a player to constantly switch form one mode to another, not to consider all the issue A1 state in his video.
A "solution" to an obsession of "knife combat" that make ship-fight a boring mess, a "solution" that kill every ship characteristic flattening them down to a few m/s difference in mobility that, in a practical environment doesn't matter.

From my personal point of view CIG has proven more and more to be unable to tune their system with the "tuning touch" be in a range that goes form a wreaking ball to a a sledge hammer.
Now I wonder how many years CIG need to solve the later crap and leave all the players with the latest half-baked system that doesn't solve anything but make anyone displeased... assuming they ever do it.

 

[Montoya]

Concerning A1 video I mostly agree with his conclusion.
I'm of course far to be a top PvP player, but I''ve notice the constant inability by CIG to tune their system to solve problems, just look back at the past...

The age old PVP vs PVE dilemma.

At the end it will come down to what will generate more revenue from the community.

PVP players put in the hours, but they are not the majority. CIG will never find the perfect balance, its always going to swing back and forth between pissing off one side or the other.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

I don’t think we’re going to have a problem. Avenger is very, very good at what he does, but he has tunnel vision and seldom understands anything other than what he sees. Worse still, he is so committed to weilding this huge difference between skilled and unskilled pilots, as Montoya says; he’s always ready to rage quit when we get changes he doesn’t like.

I’ll note a change he won’t like. When testing is done and CIG needs to reel back the pirates, it will loose automated security driven by unfailing AI, and those robot pilots will be better than Avenger. Piloting is not hard to code, and robots do not have to miss.

All the central core systems will be heavily guarded by security forces and the pirates won’t be able to stand up to them. They will be forced back into outlaw space, just as CIG has said since day one.

The question is really, do you think it’s possible for CIG to program pilot AI smart enough to beat guys like Avenger?, and the answer is—they don’t need to. AI will code the AI to kill guys like Avenger and there’s nothing he can do about it but cry and rage quit.

Right now we don’t see ace pilot AI because that would stop the rigorous testing. Don’t think for a moment that ace AI is not possible. It’s just not seen because this would interrupt guys like Avenger testing the system.

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[Uncle Gary]

Sharing this without completely endorsing his argument. He is very, very good at the small piece of the game he engages in, and it's not until late in the video that there is an acknowledgement of other gameplay outside of that.

However, it is my opinion that he identifies the core problem in the mechanics. As someone who got hooked on flying in the game back in the 2.6 patches, it has felt to me like a steady deterioration of the fun factor in flying ships. Largely that has been due to the design goal of trying to shove 6 degrees of freedom (space flight) into 3 (WWII atmospheric flight) and the many, many iterations on this which have all failed/are failing miserably.

A1, near the end of the vid quite accurately brings up the multicrew experience with the acknowledgement that he's convinced not one of the targets he's ever pirated had fun in the process. Getting caught by fighters when in a multicrew ship is game over. Given that almost all the non-combat ships in game are specifically built as prey exaggerates this effect, and the OTHER design goal of forcing people to band together to get anywhere in game guarantees that someone in that encounter is not having fun.

What we have right now is essentially a game that enables and rewards packs of thugs. If I have a group of other players with me, say crewing a Mole for mining, the multiplayer experience is still inevitable death vs attackers. "HIRE FIGHTERS" some idiot will shout... Even if the economy system made that worthwhile (it doesn't) it means a) you need even MORE players for multicrew to be viable b) those flying the fighters are largely missing out on the adrenaline rush they play for. The pirates don't want fair fights - watch Mongrel Squad on YT, they take joy in murdering individual ROC miners. How many fighters should that guy hire, and with what money??? And how long is that (likely new) person going to continue to support the game?

I've come to believe that there are some fundamental problems with the game design that are not going to be fixed with more bandaids.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNm8RaKHLHg

Here is a link to a Spectrum Forum started by Shark that includes a link to a survey on the subject

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[NomadicHavoc]

I would assume that if CIG can make the galaxy even 1/2 the size that they marketed, that alone will help to decrease the frequency of getting trounced by pirates.

 

[Montoya]

I’ll note a change he won’t like. When testing is done and CIG needs to reel back the pirates, it will loose automated security driven by unfailing AI, and those robot pilots will be better than Avenger.

I keep telling everybody to just be prepared for this.

All polls done in the past show that majority of the players want cargo, exploration and other PVE activities as their main role.

PVP exists, but it is not the core focus of this game and should not be the core focus if you look at what the majority wants.

While PVPers are the loudest and angriest in any comment section, majority of the players do not even post or respond to most threads or polls.

 

[KuruptU4Fun]

Im not watching 43min of what ever he is saying, but in gaming terms, the solution is PVE and PVP servers.

Or the mythical PVP slider.

Which obviously is not something CIG wants to do, their solution is to flood the verse with more NPC's than players so the majority of combat will be with NPC's, IMO this is a better solution. After all if people want to go after competitive PvP then doing it in AC is the way to go. Highly proficient pilots who jump into the PU are going to wreck those solo players in seconds anyways. Not everyone want to be at the skill level that group is at, with videos like his he's only widening that gap.

What issues I have with A-1 is that he is a spokesperson for the competitive PvP community but believes he's speaking for the whole community, which is complete BS. His points of view are so far removed from the reality of the game from the PvE side that he will never understand that the people who choose to play solo or with groups of friends want to do in the game. I've used his tutorials to improve my skills with BH contracts, but I do not want to go up against PvP'ers directly. If they happen to cross my path my skills will never match theirs, so my goal is not to win that fight but survive it.

 

[KuruptU4Fun]

From my personal point of view CIG has proven more and more to be unable to tune their system with the "tuning touch" be in a range that goes form a wreaking ball to a a sledge hammer.

Tuning and balancing takes time as I'm sure you're aware, it also takes all of the components of MM to be in the game, to date quantum boost isn't in. So how are you going to balance an incomplete product?

You don't HAVE to use SCM and NAV mode while in combat. I use afterburner and the power triangle and the ability to look at the list of NPC attackers and what ship they're using. NTM that you should always attack the primary target first then work your way down using the ship the other attackers are flying and assess which is the most (to least) dangerous. As such a Cutty Black takes priority over a Reclaimer.

If my damage screen indicates I'm taking high amounts of damage I can either AB out until my shields are back up prioritizing shield generation once I'm "safer" than before. Then jump right back into the mix, if my ship has taken too much physical damage then I QT out after I AB to a safe distance. The mission has been completed and I don't have to stay in the soup to mop up the remainder.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Yes, CIG has a huge interest in protecting PvE. Note too, piracy is pretty easily tamed by sheer numbers of even moderately competent security, and turning an interesting if trivial combat into a lethal one is simple. Don’t have 2 security Avengers. Have 8. There are many simple fixes.

It’s not just that we need to preserve PvE, but for wild space far out and away from the core to have an unique appeal, it needs very different conditions. Providing a proper place for pirates makes it so.