Don't forget that P2Ps can upgrade into higher hulls easily enough - looking at it, people not bothering to change from a HR+ until they hit a Pax Celestus or T12+ ship is bad balancing.


Hmm.

People will often upgrade to a HR mega, and then sometimes a fwing.

Would you mind being more specific about what makes the HR(+) broken? I have always loved the ship and its cousin, the Hotrod Mega, so I think a discussion is due before any changes (read nerfs) are put in. Perhaps part of the problem is that alternatives such as Space Blue Alpha, Tear, Anachron, Banshee, SBA Interceptor, and Rosburst are underpowered.

Edit: I see absolutely no problem with people skipping from a HR+ to a Pax Cele, just as I don't see a problem with driving a car for 6-10 years before buying a new one. It's expensive to keep upgrading all your gear, which is incidentally why no one has complained too much about the utter lack of reasonable LF alternatives between t14 and t19 (i.e. accessible to a first-time player).

the last time i saw this topic come up the answer was something like:

Jeff knows the HR+ is broken but he likes it that way.

apparently the high weight is supposed to make up for the high speed, reasonable hull, 5 augs, loads of inbuilt elec, and great inbuilt mods.

I really dont see any point in balancing it tho, as it is most of the culture of that tech level.

Apparently so was the F-Wing, at least according to HAL - T6 at one point.

I agree that this is a really good point. Probably Nexus should be streamlined to get the player into the real universe as quickly as possible so he sees other players there and how cool they are.

Hotrod may be OP if you are feeding money and gear to your low level alt. But as a player actually playing from the beginning, getting 5 decent augs to put on a hotrod isn't that easy. Hotrod is good, but you have to put the work into getting it to be good. Other ships at that level have better basic stats and built in bonuses, but less aug slots to worry about.

Also, the suggestions I'm looking for here are about the basic structure and layout of the Nexus. Not about adding videos and changing the tutorials. We may do things like that eventually, but right now, I am looking at the basic structure of the area.

My latest thought was maybe to split up the stuff that's from level 0-6ish into 3 parts, EF part, Volcom part, and Paxian part, then have 3 different branches leading into the Nexus, each branch gets 1/3 of those missions that already exist, and the Nexus itself would be maybe not that big, but the "nexus" of those 3 other training grounds. The player chooses which faction he wants to be in when he creates his character, and that determines where he starts and in what ship. The nexus would then have maybe a couple more level 6-7ish missions and also lead into an arena that only allows tech 0-2 hulls and lead out to Deep Space which connects to Sol. Sol would then have mission givers that start you on level 7+ missions and direct you to places like Paxius, etc to do all the other missions.

I think:
- Introduce greeters again, they were helpful and made the game more welcome.
- The game is complicated, make it more clear about the help-chat.
- More f2p gear content, like more tech 0 shield, tech 1 shield, etc., and same with weps and energies etc.
- Make RC 2 in Nexus (mission perhaps?), allow CSs in Nexus.

I would advise against the whole choosing a faction thing. In fact I would reword some of the existing Nexus missions that say things like "become a pirate!" or "join earthforce!" or whatever they say. When I was a brand new player I avoided a lot of the Nexus content because I didn't understand that "joining" one of these factions would have absolutely no impact on my character, and I didn't want to make a permanent choice until I'd played longer and had a better feel for the game. There was a newbie in help chat just a few days ago who was worried that players were going to hate him because he accepted a pirate mission from the Volcoms.

@Aurora - You're treading on sacred ground! Certain people have been trying to get the Hotrod line nerfed for years, and Jeff smites them all! Yeah, it's a bit overpowered, but like Jeff says, it's only op if you already know how to play the game and have lots of credits. I see it as kind of a bonus for experienced players to use so they can progress quickly when levelling a new alt. I used a HR Mega to get all the way to level 550 once, and I think I remember hearing about somebody who used one all the way to level 1,000!

Ugh, Please. I am tired of all the annoying begging for directions, then someone eventually caves and gives directions only to result in the person constantly asking for more directions to every galaxy and getting hostile if you don't tell them.

This ^^^^