The problems with Planned updates and how they will kill PvP

[PeteComma 6]

To start id like to say i doubt that NQ is going to listen but the problems that will arise with planned updates can be completely avoided and I also apologize if i show some people think they didn't know.

1. Durability will kill PvP.

The point of PvP right now is to kill the other guy and take his ship. the battles my not always end in a win or loss but when somebody loses, the elements you recover are enough to cover fuel and ammo and maybe the voxel damage that happens to your ship. with elements being completely destroyed after a fight what do I get for killing my opponents ship? i'll tell you what you get, parts that can never be used again! for those who have ever fought in real PvP you know that parts a destroyed way more than 10-20 times.The already low reward of PvP will be reduced down to nothing.

 

2. The "rebalancing" of PvP can be easily bypassed with little to no effort due to the docking mechanic.

(This one is multi faceted so please read the whole thing before you rage reply, also if you haven't done any PvP this won't make sense to you but if you know you know) 

 

Currently the list of PvP rebalancing  actions will be.

Bound weapon sizes to core sizes

energy consumption

radar lock ranges unified

Hit-Miss formula changed to account for cross section instead of core size. 

 

To bypass all of these all i would need to do is follow these steps.

1. Use a L core to build a ship with the same cross section of  a Small core and use all of my energy allotment for engines only

2. Build M cores that are only Large weapons and dock them to the L core.

3. Go shoot anything that moves because i have more guns.

 

Ways to fix these problems.

Stop docked ships from firing weapons

Have better rewards for Killing enemy ships combat (quanta or skill points)

 

constructive criticism is welcomed but disrespect will be ignored.

[JohnnyTazer 302]

10 minutes ago, PeteComma said:

To start id like to say i doubt that NQ is going to listen but the problems that will arise with planned updates can be completely avoided and I also apologize if i show some people think they didn't know.

1. Durability will kill PvP.

The point of PvP right now is to kill the other guy and take his ship. the battles my not always end in a win or loss but when somebody loses, the elements you recover are enough to cover fuel and ammo and maybe the voxel damage that happens to your ship. with elements being completely destroyed after a fight what do I get for killing my opponents ship? i'll tell you what you get, parts that can never be used again! for those who have ever fought in real PvP you know that parts a destroyed way more than 10-20 times.The already low reward of PvP will be reduced down to nothing.

 

2. The "rebalancing" of PvP can be easily bypassed with little to no effort due to the docking mechanic.

(This one is multi faceted so please read the whole thing before you rage reply, also if you haven't done any PvP this won't make sense to you but if you know you know) 

 

Currently the list of PvP rebalancing  actions will be.

Bound weapon sizes to core sizes

energy consumption

radar lock ranges unified

Hit-Miss formula changed to account for cross section instead of core size. 

 

To bypass all of these all i would need to do is follow these steps.

1. Use a L core to build a ship with the same cross section of  a Small core and use all of my energy allotment for engines only

2. Build M cores that are only Large weapons and dock them to the L core.

3. Go shoot anything that moves because i have more guns.

 

Ways to fix these problems.

Stop docked ships from firing weapons

Have better rewards for Killing enemy ships combat (quanta or skill points)

 

constructive criticism is welcomed but disrespect will be ignored.

Sorry, as for someone with a decade experience pvping in eve, and pvp experience in DU, element destructions is 100% needed.  What ive also proposed tho long ago as a forum post, is a robust Salvage talent tree.  And im not talking about holding alt and clicking to take elements salvaging.  I'm talking about when elements are 100% dead, you can get some RNG and possibly get back some parts that were used to create that.  So things do die, but slavagers can still profit some.  And with durability it sounds like even if someone loses they wont have completely destroyed every element so still profit to be had.  

 

As for docking I've never done anything with it so dont know.

[blazemonger 2238]

 

OP's suggestions are based on the assumption that PVP is a central mechanic which is a goal to achieve and a means to make a living in game or "pay for itself". I'd say that assumption is actually incorrect and while it is obviously perfectly fine and absolutely acceptabel to choose the life of a pirate or bandit in game, this doe snot mean NQ must amend their plan/vision to accommodate that. For the game to "work" elements need to get destroyed and not be indefinitely repairable.

 

I'd expect a docked ship to not be able to actually engage in PVP while being docked, and so you would need to both fly it and as you refer to M code I'd expect you would need several players per ship to use it effectively. I'd say that this level of co-operation and co-ordination is pretty much what the game is about and so I do not see the problem.

 

Also, have you seen an L core  and how do you see a design which would have a S core cross section on an L core ship? Also as above, you can't benefit from having M core ships docked so you'd be a sitting duck if the L core is not weaponized and operated by a group of players.

 

Lastly, while energy management was mentioned, I did not hear anything about that coming in with the December patch, it is something planned to come March 2021 at the earliest. We also have no information at all on how that will actually work so any assumptions like you make are at best speculative.

 

It all sounds like what you see as an issue is not actually there as there is way to much unknown to even make the assumptions you do.

 

 

[le_souriceau 459]

No, destruction of elements are critical, to balance not only pvp, but economy. I honestly suprised how people can be against even obviously positive changes with some arcane justifications.

 

PvP must be expensive, so people need to actualy care about industrial/social base to support it and use force in line of particular objectives, not just fire at everything.

 

 

[Anopheles 211]

9 hours ago, blazemonger said:

 I'd say that assumption is actually incorrect and while it is obviously perfectly fine and absolutely acceptabel to choose the life of a pirate or bandit in game, this doe snot mean NQ must amend their plan/vision to accomdate that.

 

 

Although I agree with everything you say I was distracted by my ironimeter exploding.

[Zamiel7 32]

You might have a point that the goal of PvP right now is to take the other person's ship wholesale, but there's no way that can or should be the case going forward. Sure, you should be able to get something from taking down someone else's ship, and I actually quite like Johnny's idea of having salvage skills to glean parts and such from a wrecked ship. Maybe you have the chance of recovering damaged/destroyed elements, or being able to loot damaged/destroyed containers for their contents, but being able to walk away with an entire ship is ridiculous.

 

Also, let's not forget that the reward of PvP is not always material in nature. I imagine quite a lot of PvP will happen over being able to secure valuable resources/territory or simply because two organizations are attempting to undermine each other's efforts to expand/conduct operations. And this is to say nothing of the intrinsic rewards of PvP because even in it's current state, I do think it's still pretty fun and engaging, and it's hopefully only going to get better.

[GraXXoR 622]

I think element destruction beyond repair should be a thing...

Two ideas I had were:

1) There could be a salvage skill.. When you pick up a damaged item, instead of it being destroyed, a certain percentage of the value in elements/materials is recovered just like the recycler above.

2) IMO this more nuanced version would be better.  XS and S sized T1 components can be recycled in the Nanopack as above, but with dynamic attributes now being a thing, there should be no reason why we shouldn't be able to pick up damaged and broken elements and take them back for salvage. Obviously, unless completely 100% broken (Dull red in repair view and not smoking), they won't stack in the container slots but we should still be able to pick them up at least.

These could then be transported to the currently under-used recyclers which could turn them into a collection of elements or pure/product materials for reuse.

In any case, as someone mentioned above there is definitely room for a decently detailed salvage skill tree, but it is contingent on NQ introducing a "damaged components cannot be repaired to 100%" or "destroyed components are actually destroyed" type rules.

This would make salvaging a valid and tenable career path in game.  Personally, this is something I would love to do, since the Reclaimer is my favourite ship in Star Citizen.

[JohnnyTazer 302]

2 hours ago, GraXXoR said:

I think element destruction beyond repair should be a thing...

Two ideas I had were:

1) There could be a salvage skill.. When you pick up a damaged item, instead of it being destroyed, a certain percentage of the value in elements/materials is recovered just like the recycler above.

 

100% agree, but i think it should something very indepth. Not just one skill. Like it needs a tool in your nanopack to quip, a physical item.  a skill for higher % RNG to get parts back.  And possibly a skill tree that you need a certain level to even salvage some parts.  Like a M agg you cant salvage unless you have lvl 5 or something.  It would create many career paths.  And even after battles, people could call in buddies/orgs/friends to salvage and get a %.  if its a very robust skill tree then it leads to specialization, which then leads to monetization. 

[BaconofWar 18]

No, no salvage skill.. it makes players keep in mind how much damage they are doing vice how much it will cost to fix a victim's ship and definitely cuts down the speed of which a single player can decimate people not borg cubing and ya know, playing everything else in the game on one account.

 

With the borg cube being the PvP "thing" I don't think the OP has the right focus of what's wrong with PvP which is min-maxing with no drawbacks. The current info I got from skimming the information on the borg cube is essentially it is a dual box set up with an L gunner seat with L guns and all of it's components squished into a cube of the most durable voxels in-game all running on an XS core.  

 

Toss in the "it's ok to multi-box" mentality so that the borg cubers can just alt account, camp the atmo zone border, and script radar pings while their main mines, etc while waiting for some poor slob to get scanned and PvP is really really broke.

 

A higher priority would be revisiting how radar (why the two types of radar?) and radar sizes works (to reduce the core min-maxing boon), how PvP points work (tie the max points to the core), and revisit armor (maybe make the best armor too heavy to be useful in a cube and make the use of voxel armor more of an art than a jar of paint).  Have a stupid armor scheme, win stupid prizes.

[Zamiel7 32]

29 minutes ago, BaconofWar said:

No, no salvage skill.. it makes players keep in mind how much damage they are doing vice how much it will cost to fix a victim's ship and definitely cuts down the speed of which a single player can decimate people not borg cubing and ya know, playing everything else in the game on one account.

I think you're missing the point of what a salvage skill means. The 100% necessary change being suggested is that element destruction needs to be a thing in some form or another for the sake of balancing; it's not realistic or sustainable for the victor in PvP to be able to walk away with someone else's entire ship, the only cost being using scrap to repair it. That is a ridiculous amount of profit for successfully winning a PvP encounter. A proposed salvage skill means that players will have the ability to profit from the wreck of a destroyed ship, but not get an entire new ship out of it. It also means they won't have to necessarily haul the entire wreck back to their base; they could just salvage parts of it on the spot. I'm not sure how any of this "cuts down the speed" of combat; it's not like the targeting is technical enough that you can target specific elements of the ship to more "gently" disable a ship for the purposes of making repairing/salvaging it easier. Fights ought to result in destruction; all the salvaging skill would amount to is being able to glean something from that destruction.

 

41 minutes ago, BaconofWar said:

With the borg cube being the PvP "thing" I don't think the OP has the right focus of what's wrong with PvP which is min-maxing with no drawbacks. The current info I got from skimming the information on the borg cube is essentially it is a dual box set up with an L gunner seat with L guns and all of it's components squished into a cube of the most durable voxels in-game all running on an XS core.  

 

Toss in the "it's ok to multi-box" mentality so that the borg cubers can just alt account, camp the atmo zone border, and script radar pings while their main mines, etc while waiting for some poor slob to get scanned and PvP is really really broke.

If a player has two computers and is willing to buy two accounts, I can't see any way that NQ would be able or incentivized to punish this. Personally, I don't see any issue with multi-boxing, but as a long-time player of EVE, that was the standard for many players, so I'm used to it. That being said, the issue with the Cube meta has nothing to do with multi-boxing and everything to do with the way core sizes interact with radar and how that makes large railguns oppressively strong. An XS core using large rails can lock and fire upon S, M, and L cores without those cores being able to even lock onto the XS. Doesn't matter if it's one-person multi-boxing or 2+ people working in tandem, that is the broken aspect. But, that brings us to the planned fixes:

51 minutes ago, BaconofWar said:

A higher priority would be revisiting how radar (why the two types of radar?) and radar sizes works (to reduce the core min-maxing boon), how PvP points work (tie the max points to the core), and revisit armor (maybe make the best armor too heavy to be useful in a cube and make the use of voxel armor more of an art than a jar of paint).  Have a stupid armor scheme, win stupid prizes.

NQ-Entropy stated in an interview that they plan to make it so that core size is no longer tied to radar lock distance. This means that an XS core can be locked at the same distance as every other size with a large radar. This alone heavily nerfs the effectiveness of only using XS cores with large railguns because they lose their biggest advantage mentioned above. Entropy also mentioned they are looking into perhaps limiting weapon size to core size, which doesn't merely nerf the current meta, it completely destroys it. I personally don't think locking weapon sizes to core sizes is necessary, but I'm also banking on a more in-depth energy management system to balance issues related to that. Armor should also probably be reworked if only because despite the fact there are tons of different honeycomb, only a handful are actually useful and distinct.

[XKentX 189]

Element destruction is needed, I think every time the element hits red it should 50/50 if it's repairable. Wanna make sure you survive a small crash ? Bring extra in your containers or slap an extra element so you can replace it. That's how almost all full loot PVP games work why reinvent the wheel ?

We can add an exception that crashes have only like 5% of destroying it or something.

 

The durability thing is a VERY bad idea, Let's assume it's 0-10 imagine you will have 10 slots of the same item with different durability, every time you buy an element do you use it until 6 ? or 5? Do you take 4 into PVP ? Just a mess.

There will be tons of tons of sub maximal durability elements that just lying around useless. Let alone how many glitches it may create as in order to create a ship from blueprint you first need to take your "landing gear M", smash it 4 and repair it 4 times or it's not accepted...