i agree completely

the problem is, right now, getting to 2k requires no skill. it requires a little previous knowledge, and the willingness to grind for hundreds of hours

getting to the endgame should be "difficult", but it isnt. its just time consuming, and "time consuming" is not difficult, it just acts as a boundary to new players.


if you want "Endgame" difficulty to be defined by difficulty, make 'leveling up' a challenge based system, make a "skill tree" of prerequisite skills and do away with "levels" as a function of total XP

make each skill a reward for passing a challenge based around that skill, make 'level' be calculated based on which skills a player has unlocked by passing the challenges for, so that it becomes a much more relevant measure of player ability, rather than a measure of "player ability to camp DGs with slaves"

rather than AI kills giving XP, make each "AI" part of a challenge, kill a certain amount of a predetermined AI to get a level in a predetermined skill, preventing players from "farming" a single AI in a DG to get a few hundred levels.

I think you are confusing "skill" and "strategy" with numbers. Having 20 players in ultra cheap ships swarm a single player with an expensive ship does not mean that the 20 players were smarter, and it does not promote fun and interesting gameplay. What it does mean is that you can't do anything safely as a single player, or even as a group of 3 or 4 players, especially if you are using a decent ship. The pirate swarms will just camp you and steal your stuff - using ships that are practically free they take zero risk while your personal risk with an expensive ship is much higher. Maybe through skill and having better equipment you could fight off the swarm of weaker ships but you gain nothing from your victory - if you lose you lose everything.



Worth requoting - being SMARTER or WITTIER does not win in a game like EVE or Guild Wars, having the MOST PLAYERS is the predominant factor in winning battles, with equipment and actual strategy helping to tip the scales in close fights.

In a game like Eve especially, wanting to PvP basically comes at the price of not being able to progress in the game for extended periods of time (we are talking years). You are basically forced to fly cheap ships in order to keep your cost effectiveness in check. What it comes down to is that unless you are in a super corp with access to huge resources and lots of passive income, you are stuck flying the equivalent of a volcom or a hotrod in PvP forever. Perhaps you could hop in a panther and have fun for a few days, but you are painting a target on yourself and when you lose your ship (likely before you have profited enough to pay back the investment) it is gone and you are back to volcoms and hotrods for the next month while you "farm" for another panther.

Long story short - Star Sonata PvP certainly has its flaws, but so does PvP in other games. Personally I am of the opinion that gear based PvP is much more fun than numbers based PvP because it gives you the option to improve your character to win a fight, giving you incentive to go out and play the game to get loot, etc. The alternative is just a war to see who has the most friends online at any given time.




Edit:

It is also worth noting that in a game like EVE as well, the problem of newer teams not standing a chance against big established teams is actually WORSE than it is in Star Sonata. Similar to Star Sonata there is a finite amount of buildable space, and rare resources located in that space. In EVE ALL of the buildable space worth owning is in the hands of big teams. In Star Sonata at least a lower level team has a chance at getting some Adamantium deposits, or Dark Matter, or something like that - in EVE all of the "good" profitable moons are taken and there is zero chance you are ever going to live to see one unless you are a member of a corporation that already owns one. If you do manage to build a station in EVE you will be constantly living in fear of someone bigger than you coming along and turning it into so much rubble - the only thing preventing it is that as an ant you will probably escape the notice of the lions. Good luck surviving the ant eaters though, because there are plenty of players in EVE that live purely off the thrill of crushing the hopes and dreams of noobs.

Yes you can still make a band of noobs and go pirate random people in zero security space, but you have zero access to anything resembling the end game in EVE. You will likely never build or own a carrier, a dreadnaught, a mothership, or anything along those lines unless you can get into one of the big boys clubs. Even if you do join one of those corporations you will likely be relegated to some lesser support duties while you work your way up in the corporation.

*shakes his fist at churchil for derailing the thread

I think you're conflating several issues here, centered around your ill-conceived and ill-defined notion of what end-game actually is.

It seems what you're saying is that end-game is the ability to competitively PvP anyone else in the endgame. And somehow in your mind you've connected level 2k to this... In any case, that's definitely not what endgame means to most people. (more related to being able to do the highest level of available content)

I really don't see why you want to make the game like MW3 where everyone can quickly achieve near-equality with the longstanding players and compete with them in PvP. As I mentioned in my first post, thats simply not how SS works, thats not how this genera works. Its an RPG.

People play RPGs because they enjoy achieving things, building up their characters. The climb to 2k can be achieved more swiftly by pure grind, but most people consume at least some of the content along the way because its fun. They do not share your idea that the only desirable thing in this game is endgame PvP. Again, the people who want what you want play MW3; you should join them.

Can i just simply point out that you make it sound like everything except endgame-ers PvPing eachother is a waste of time?

endgame-ers PvPing each other is the only aspect of SS content which doesnt get immeasurably fucking boring after the first few weeks, and it happens to be the best part of SS.

dont get me wrong, SS is addictive in its early stages, its just that in 90% of people, the "good feeling" you get upgrading your ship and gear, tends to lose its appeal around level 200

hence why so few players who sign up and go P2P, end up reaching t20 content

you havent seen the statistics, so you have no way of confirming or denying what im saying, which kinda invalidates your opinion, but the admins DO have access to that stuff, what i am doing is trying to explain a trend in the data

im not trying to prove what the data already says, im trying to explain WHY that trend in the data exists.

if you dont like my explanation, thats fine, you're entitled to your opinion on that.

but you're not entitled to disagree with the statistics. go look at them (jey posted them in a thread)

and as you can probably tell, its fucking frustrating when you're trying to prove a point and some wanker keeps trying to say the statistics arent real.

its like global warming denial. the data exists, the data is solid.


large amounts of people are quitting midway through the game and they are quitting for a reason.

i am explaining that reason. if you dont like my explanation, give your own alternate explanation. just dont waste everyone's time by denying the statistics, because it makes you look fucking retarded.

You're completely misrepresenting the numbers. Nothing in what he posted shows anything to the effect of "people quitting once they hit midgame"

Also funny that you say I haven't seen the data... when you're referring to the data Jey posted...

The current phenomena that I've seen is that many of our "endgame" players have quit because its just not the same SS as it was 3-8 years ago when they started, and the new influx of players (because SS2 is WAY more successful at drawing and keeping new players, thats what the statistics suggest [second graph]) have not yet reached the endgame. As a result, the endgame population is temporarily less than it was at C2 release.

Also hilarious that you base your arguments on the statistics ex post facto, and then accuse ME of failing to cite them or consider them.

Edit: small correction: Now that I think about it, the changes in the F2P system probably account for the increase in accounts that still play, but those are all in midgame content who are sticking around and not in endgame. herpty derp.

far more people join, and go to the effort of downloading and installing the game, than end up anywhere near the endgame.

bullshit it however you want, but fact is more than 3/4 of the players who try SS dont stick around. and i'd be willing to bet that the majority who quit, do so because things promised to them arent delivered (I.E. PvP, bases, other stuff). i mean, they obviously went to the effort to try the game, so something must have put them off.

those "promised" things arent delivered because players have to grind through a thousand levels of bullshit to get to the good bits. not only that, but they KNOW they'll have to grind through a thousand levels of bullshit, because by level 150 you're forced to grind to get ahead, and the classes are completely imbalanced at those levels. choosing the wrong class screws you over.

when you get screwed over because the system is screwed and requires extensive prior knowledge to properly work out, YOU TEND TO WANT TO QUIT.

"DERP, GO PLAY MW3" doesnt work here

because they WILL go play MW3, and jeff wont see a damn cent of their money.

disagreeing with my suggestion to fix the problem is fine. failing to recognise that the problem exists just makes you PART OF THE PROBLEM.

and the problem is, extremely poor player retention. and it is a fixable problem. you denying that the problem exists doesnt help anyone. (except me, in my quest to help you make an idiot of yourself)

Now you're just getting into wild speculation. The irony is that SS promises nothing, really.


Again, you're denying that the midgame content is of any value, which I truly believe is false. (unless the only type of game you like is MW3) Also, if you'd bothered to visit my critique of leveling a few weeks back perhaps you would know already that I'm fully aware of the issues with leveling and have several suggestions on the subject

mid level content has a value until you fly into sol and see a bunch of oly ships while your stuck in a t13. then you start to feel like complete shit.

Thats some godamn logic there.

I like this idea, but its going to be much more abstract and well thought out. The idea is great, but comeback with a few pages on how you intend to fill in the gaps of tiny problems that will unfold.

As annoying and fanatical DB is, he does make a number of valid points.

1. Classes unbalanced.
Not all the classes are fully capable of solo and team play, and some are promised ideas that either cannot be coded atm, or the devs dont want to code it atm.

Certain classes are harder than others to level up before the good gear comes into play. Namely seer, but SD, Sniper, and Gunner are also included.

At least one class (Gunner) is strictly tied down to bases. Somewhere, somehow, there is a base in determining the outcome of any Gunner's gameplay on whether it'd be a total fail or if it can clear DG's. All gunners need missiles. Minus missions, a gunner requires a base to produce 75% of his dps. No missiles, not dps. No other class is limited like this.


- Speed Demon: Can be a bit difficult to level due to not able to get enough DPS out of a setup, and that its ships are not often clear in how to obtain. Team play starts out pretty strong as SD is a spawn clearing class. But it starts faltering as sniper starts cranking out mass CC damage that can easily sweep spawn off the map and as the AI's start to get tankier and tankier (mini ubers in the boss room). Alternative setups as such using a Capital Ship isn't as supported because of speed and aug problems.

SD Heavy Fighter(or Hybrid setups) fails largely because of the lack of firepower from the 4th aug at higher levels.

Momentum should be included with SD. Tractors pull harder the faster the player goes for tackling targets and pinn them down.



- Seer: Relies heavily on slaves up to 500 if the player doesn't come from a supportive team or is an experienced ex-player because of the lack of firepower, defense, and or ability to keep AI pinned down. The seer weapons help a lot after level 300, but pre-300 is brutal, and after 300, choices stay limited. In squads, seer is int he same boat as SD, but they get some nifty squad ships and can actually use a dread effectively.

Seer, because of mysticism, can have other setup designs if supported by the admins. Magical orbs (like the concepts from Gemcraft for lighting the dark) would offer a major change in strategies and setups, while keeping the original intend of a stealthy class.

Parasites with nasty debuff effects and more weapons that provide debuffs would help in group fights when the spawn dies down a bit.



- Gunner: As said, no bases, no crates, no missiles, loss of most of your DPS. Gunners lack capital ship variation too, which would probably be part of the reason why theres Heavy Fighter and Light Fighter Gunners. Who wants to be in a Green Dildo for 95%(until it becomes a red dildo) of your ss career?

Gunner derives most of its remaining dps from being in a capital ship. Which are slow and cumbersome. The Mulligan's Zebucart is a good idea. What about the lower techs? It plays like a Heavy Fighter. Could be the reason why...

All Gunner should be able to flaunt a large armory of debuffing equipment, since it's the analog class in SS to debuff classes in WoW and DDO. Gravity Wells and Anti-Teleport equipment sound fun, no? Field Factories for creating missiles (not crates) on the fly to lower downtimes searching for crates. PvP Roams are gonna be fun.



- Fleet Commander: Gets fucking boring because of how easy it is to play. The limitation of FC is also a worry. It gets a big bonus to rad weapons, which is fine on slaves, but what about the main ship? Radiation was weakened with the rad nerf to hurt slaves, but it trashed nearly any attempt at a non-slave FC too.

Along with the rad nerf, there has been no development of the radx side of FC too. Spawn [Eggs] for AI's to be capped would be awesome (yugi's idea), and give new life into a class that is mostly used for leveling with few true endgame FC Mains.



- Berserker: Even more brutal than Seer for solo leveling. You play as a low range, low damage sniper (or low speed SD) because theres issues without support. Resists help, but theres no way to help dodge or decrease downtime outside of nerfing your dps potential for survival setups. That turns people off and makes them much more likely to switch to sniper, which doesn't have these problems.

Items for Microjump+AoE effect, and Submerger-like things would really help for avoiding and mitigating incoming dps. Gameplay based on moving around should also be encouraged. Like gaining additional scaling hostility the more active you are, such as directional based hostility (Attacking Zeus' Rear pisses him off more than hitting the front).

Berserker should also have limited support ability when in his main ship. Upgraded versions of commonly used weapons for reducing agility or speed, etc. For making it easier to get into position for the anal rape.



- Sniper: No real changes needed for a conventional sniper, but a sniper that chooses to sit in a capital ship to lose the aug slot for squad support ability should get a similar amount of hull as HF Snipers get, but preferably sniper-locked capital ships (to avoid gunners from using them, or a missile launcher with one missile slot) to provide 'some' DPS so the player in it won't feel completely useless. Alternatively, the aura could also affect self if inbuilt mods are no go.

A couple specialized sniper ships that deploy 'sniper tree stands' for the inability to really move out of way of shots would be cool.



- Shield Monkey: AS you know, the Support Focus mission in Lyceum specifically says Or maybe you would like to take a darker course, and steal shields from your enemies.

So, it'd make sense if what they promised as part of the game? Wrong. Shield Vampires don't exist. If Transference Pulses could be coded into the game, you could have positive Trans Damage from really weak weapons (unkillable AI's given update to adum blocker) that do negative self damage to heal oneself. The actual damage of the weapon as stated in previous sentence, would do maybe 100 DPH from an Amped Jupiter Olympios Vampire, but have a self damage tag of 700% before augs (which would be dps+regen [like a PtE] augs to begin with).

Or the vampire could just be a red/dark grey 'Yin and Yang' colored beam.

A shield monkey thats augged for dps would also be a fun concept. Call it a Paladin (like from any Fantasy Media you can find). But it'd have to do enough dps to be worth it....



- Engineer: Static Engineer is fine. No real need to change that part. But drone loss, for whatever reason needs to be fixed. Can't expect a problem the player cannot predict (like a server crash) or a random Drop team jumping onto the player unexpectedly to be fixed if his drones are killed. Since drones are the number one dps source, losing a large amount of expensive drones is a real turn off for the class, experienced or newb.

Being told that you're the only one that has this potential loss, and told how big the loss can get makes people change to monkey or FC unless they have money to burn or are stupid.

Explosive Engineers (Mines, Bombs, Grenades, Rock Launchers) is also a possibility. Less reliance on drones themselves, and puts the engineer into a different pvp perspective, all the while making it more mobile is good for a game that doesn't have much variation in gameplay to begin with! Such players would deploy up to 6 (weaker) mines, launch special AoE missiles, and lob concussion-filled explosives towards your (hopefully more static) enemies.

Mobile Engineers is a concept already within the game, but mobile drones suffer from lack of availability (which is getting resolved SoonTM), lack the defenses (obvious) and lack specific gear support (Like a Mobile Drone Apt/Prow/Mastery aug) and stats that can affect warp wake and orbit speed.

No thanks, tractoring is one of the few truly excellent mechanics in SS, and it's perfectly fine the way it is. No need to mess it up with something like this that completely defies intuition for how objects move in the game.

It's not for Non-SD. It's for the SD's that want to risk dying to charge an enemy and tractor it, using the momentum of his speed and weight to multiply with a bonus to drag the target back a bit.

Obviously a pwi would negate the tactic, but it would also eliminate a large portion of the target's elect as it charges back up.


For a PvE sense, it could be useful to try and hold back an AI that starts out of range (UrQa UZ had this concept as a key part of one boss fight(the spawn part)).

And give SD more spawn control/CControl effect to encourage the weaker teams to bring them on "Uber" Uber runs.

you have your own suggestion to fix an extremely similar problem, and yet you deny that the problem even exists?

what the fuck are you smoking? and can i have some? it must be some pretty powerful shit dude.



well, its suggested in the form of changes that work independently

reducing the tech levels from "1-21" down to "1-6" would be good because it would require the ships for each of the "new levels" to be brought into line with each other, and have genuine advantages over the ships in lower tech levels.

it would also make the endgame seem much more attainable to new players (as it should be), somewhat recreating the early game atmosphere which (to my knowledge) still existed back in 2008 when i first started, when "endgame" was attainable within a reasonable amount of time because as soon as you hit level 500, the entry T20 ships were good enough to keep pace with the UZ ships. you could outfit a decent t20 setup and defend yourself for less than 5b. nowadays to get the same level of protection you need an olympus ship with 100b worth of gear.

things are so screwed up at the moment partly because of the section of the playerbase raking in 100b per uni from colonies, running multiple accounts.

and its not their fault, the problem is that the game is balanced to deal with those players making new alts, and that raises the bar far beyond what new players are capable of, while "hiding" the problems that are discouraging new players (such as picking a class like beserker at level 100 and realising "oh shit, im screwed, i need to start over" which for a new player, pretty much translates to "fuck this, time for MW3")


the "money sink" items in the game need to be things that confer a small advantage that stacks with what players already have, like bar skills and imp skills, not an entirely new level of ships and gear that render obsolete the "attainable" old ships because they're overpriced by a factor of 10, and so much stronger than the affordable t20 ships that every new player has to get at some point.

a "price rebalance" and a change from a "leveling" system to a challenge based skill system which calculates level as a function of the skills the player has, would go a long way towards solving the problem