Building and PvP

[Honvik]

So we had a good in depth talk on our internal org discord which was heated but certainly productive around building but also PvP.

 

In the talk its how we have gone full circle on previously XS cores with L weapons (due to cross section) which then got core limited and now we have L cores as 'Nano' to reduce cross section to reduce being hit.  The result saw these builds now reduced to single seat craft gunned but basically thin boxes armed with weapons.  In DU the purpose was to build ships, good looking ships across the board and even multi-crew ships (bypassed as people use dual seater's using alts in GFN).   So yes via perhaps shortsighted game flaw the dev's went this way.  

 

From our people we talked about if cross section was removed but tied to core CCS (Core Stress) already potential limits massive ships so potential could work so any ship could be potentially built to also minimum build sizes on cores hence you build to that core size.

 

Its totally complex but it was an interesting talk how things are certainly not working right now.  I think fundamentally balancing is an impossible task but throwing half measures is harming the game more than boosting it.  Even more people are logging in less frustrated by the changes.  We need to get it back on track!

[RugesV]

Its Simple, have shield HP be based off cross section and Voxel HP. With diminishing returns when going to the extreme in either way. 

[BlindingBright]

7 hours ago, RugesV said:

Its Simple, have shield HP be based off cross section and Voxel HP. With diminishing returns when going to the extreme in either way. 

That... makes sense? Least that is the most sensible concept I've heard for re-working it. Though apart from that, a general weapon rebalance would be nice.

I do not envy NQ for trying to fix pvp issues (from performance, balance, and  exploits). Ironically New World and DU both trusting the client to do the hard work vs server side calculations... is a larger problem to solve. we'll see- even a fully funded games studio backed by daddy bezos can't get it right.. but NQ is scrappy- with a team not devoid of souls..  with devs that seemingly care? so trying to hold out faith it'll get worked out.

I  liked the weapon, shield & CCS changes, just needs some serious work still in a few areas.

[Knight-Sevy]

However, it is not complicated to balance while allowing the player to have ships with a cool design.

Hit chance of different weapons depending on the size of the core.

Stop with that cross section bullshit.

[Physics]

I had a fair few thoughts on the balancing issues. The toughest part is getting a balance right across all core sizes. Some ideas came to mind what i can post later on but the TLDR part would be to incentivising L cores being built to their old sizes again by making changes to CCS calculation and making weapons fire from cores 2 sizes down bypass shields altogether. S cores ignore L cores shields altogether and XS ignore M/L.
 

This will also mean locking weapons and shields to the respective core sizes tho. Some freedom junkies won’t like this but without some core size lock outs balancing is almost impossible so deal with it. 

[RugesV]

6 hours ago, Knight-Sevy said:

However, it is not complicated to balance while allowing the player to have ships with a cool design.

Hit chance of different weapons depending on the size of the core.

Stop with that cross section bullshit.

Core size is an arbitrary factor in determining a ships defense. This is because a small core ship can be larger and more heavily armored then a large core ship.  Cross section is the one true measure of a ships size.  Infact the only true difference in core sizes is the maximum you can build your ship and the size weapons you can put on it. 

 

Personally I would have liked to see something like Star Rulers ship size system. Where each hull (core) has its own benefits and negatives. And once you decide the layout of your ship. you then decide the size of your ship. could be .1 or it could be 1,000,000,000 size.  Would even fit quite well into something like DU. 

[Knight-Sevy]

As long as there is this cross section system, players will not be able to make their ship with the design they like.
 

Because this putting a penalty on their ship.
 

So it is unfortunately mandatory to make a cube or a rectangle as small as possible.
 

On a construction game it really hurts my heart.

Dual Universe must be a game, not a simulation ...

[RugesV]

You mean larger ships will be easier to hit then smaller ships? and smaller ships will be harder to hit then larger ships? what?

[Honvik]

4 hours ago, RugesV said:

You mean larger ships will be easier to hit then smaller ships? and smaller ships will be harder to hit then larger ships? what?

 

Exactly but sadly due to core sizes your making tiny ships on an L core to access the heavy hitting weapons but its acting like a much smaller core in reality due to cross section  its a mess.