View Full Version : The Next Step
OK, balancing isn't over, and won't be for a couple of months. But ultimatley, in the not too distant future, the Balancing Project will be over (hopefully actual balancing tweaks will continue endlessly, but the grand project will come to an end with a reasonably level playing field).
And so the question is what next. We know KK have Black Prophecy to worry about and all, but its promised that NC won't be abandoned.
A lot of talk has focused on the ideas of resureccting the old 2.2, the one with new player models and such. This idea has some valididty. Neocron looks somewhat dated, and apperance of their avatar is an important factor to many MMO players. More meaningfully, the addition of more mob models and skins that make it feel like you are actually fighting a different mob as you crawl through the levels, rather than a renamed version of the same one - this will fit into the point I later discuss. But it doesn't really make NC a game that you will want to spend any more time playing, or more people want to play.
No, what we need with our shiney new balanced game is something to do with it. A predictable demand would be "more content", but really, thats not the next step. We should be seeing a content patch every 2 months or so just to keep people intersted anyhow. It neednt be anything grand each time like the Regant's lab. Just a couple more quests, maybe an extra zone occasionally, a new vehicle once in a while, etc. To be fair, the events team seem to be getting busy at the moment - if they can keep that up, it will help people stay around.
SO what is this "something to do" then. What is it that we all want that is going to keep us playing?
Neocron "2.3" should focus on Systems Revamps
What do I mean? Well, this came to me while trawling through citycoms for some pointless mission. We need stuff like that to actually do its job! Very Had missions to genuinley be very hard. Clan missions actually ingame. A mission system that lets us actually find a goodamn mission without 10 minutes of searching. And why stop at the PvE. OP wars that actually work, without relying on the generosity and sportsmanship of the involved parties. An SL and symp system that actually means something. StockX that is comprehensible to the average player. A faction system with meaning. More robust clans with real clan wars. We overhaul these things, and together with a balanced combat and class system, then Neocron truley can be an awesome game that nothing else can match. A stand-out-from-the-crowd worldbeater, despite the bugs and glitches and dated apperance.
Examples to demonstrate just what I'm on about and "how I would do it"(tm) likley to follow and some more sensible time of day.
Work for KK. Please.
They're so stupid though, it seems like they don't listen to these kind of suggestions.
Work for KK. Please.
Ich spreche keine deutch. This is a major problem with such a suggestion. ALso, while I could probably be a competent coder within 12 months, I currently don't have any useful skills for the gaming industry besides some design vision and latent mathematical talent.
I would like to be involved on the events development/execution side, and keep players busy that way, but for various reasons that's unlikley to ever happen.
Yeah, exactly.
A lot of things need to and should be changed, one of the most crucial being the SoulLight system which I complained about lately (http://forum.neocron.com/showthread.php?t=139215), but that's a rather troublesome subject (PS, please don't all complain about SL now that it's been mentioned, do it in the thread I just linked to or create your own :p). Not knowing the "Xfire Developer Chat" was merely going to be a "Quote the FAQ Chat" aimed at newcomers I wouldn't have tried to ask similair things to this threads topic.
And in that last post you mentioned something I was about to quickly jump onto. "keep us playing", words that sadly don't seem to be a priority judging by their past and present decisions. Lately there's been an effort to get a few official events going, which is great. The upcoming Easter Egg Hunt event is excellent but it won't keep people subscribing. After this Easter Egg Hunt, I don't see the events continuing regularly, similair to last year and the years prior to that. I hope 2.3 would produce a target to change that.
There needs to be a change in the way people are 'accepted' as helpers, and respectively the priveleges and 'jobs' they're given. There should be at least a couple of people per server that are there to help get events going and boost the fun all round.
Create roleplay characters similair to Ironhead in order to roleplay an event, instead of having the terrible events we saw last year. Playing follow the leader with a non-LE'd roleplay character who gets lost and speaks Engrish, and being given the boring task of just killing a few Regants mobs isn't a particularly fun or interesting event for the majority of us.
Figuratively speaking without intending to be insulting, most of the GM's are nothing but pigeons who answer help tickets and relay messages to the higher ranking GM's who are then able to do the actual helping. They either lack the priveleges or don't have permission to perform certain actions that would be useful at the time. For example, during the 2.2 trial phase on Quan, a droner was revenging people one after the other in the Neoconstruct, and an un-named GM asked the person to stop. The GM then admitted publically he wasn't able to boot them out of the sector because he wasn't allowed to. What is the point of being such a GM?
Sorry to babble on a tiny bit there, but "keeping us interested" should be one of the highest priorities along with fixing, creating, or revamping the SoulLight system, and the others things Cmaster has mentioned.
Are there any plans to hire more GM helpers/event referees to replace the rather inactive ones, or to hire helpers that are there to simply liven up the servers (such as running around on the 'Ironhead' character and engaging in PvP with players while spawning random mobs, for example)?
Have you thought about allowing members of the community to create models or produce other pieces of content to help Neocron and its storyline progress a bit? It's obvious there are stability/cheating risks with this, but they can be somewhat easily checked for. When people are offering services/help for free, it seems a bit silly to dismiss them does it not?
Are there any plans to re-use any of the old content (such as models, etc)? Perhaps in a Neocron 1, or Neocron 2 theme week (or two :p) for example? All the old content is still sitting there in the packages, and it seems a shame for it to continue going to waste. :)
What are your upcoming objectives/priorities once the 2.2 balancing has reached a satisfactory level and becomes somewhat over and done with?
Great ideas. This is what I would want aswell.
You guys write so much, they'll never read this =D
(good ideas, I approve them aswell)
Quite agree with you 100% Cmaster. (After finally reading it!)
The soullight system needs adjusting, and from the sugguestions around here, it's only a minor change, but when you look at say clanwars, it could be a little more complex.
Clanwars - that is one feature that seems to serve no purpose. Maybe if the soullight changes was incorporated into the clan wars system, we would get a lot more fighting inside the cities. Ie - A SL/FS system with very litttle or none FS/SL loss for killing a enermy clan member.
Opwars - I did have an idea about op-taking and hacking. Currently you need to take 4 layers to capture the op (3 in the outside world and the switch in Hacknet) Now what if you only got the 4 layers of protection when you hold upto 7 ops? If you hold more than 7, you only get 3 layers of protection. If you hold more than 14, then you get 2 layers of protection. If you hold all 31 ops, then the attacking clan only needs to take the final layer in hacknet.
OK, balancing isn't over, and won't be for a couple of months. But ultimatley, in the not too distant future, the Balancing Project will be over (hopefully actual balancing tweaks will continue endlessly, but the grand project will come to an end with a reasonably level playing field).
Completely agree with you, Brammers : it is'nt over and it IS important to correct the remaining concept faults/errors like weapon balance, Tank-only combat vehicles, supporter problems, PvE ....etc .....etc.........and the bunch of bugs.
But agree with you completely for the NEXT STEPS, too.
And i am sure most German speaking players will do the same.
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Completely agree with you, Brammers : it is'nt over and it IS important to correct the remaining concept faults/errors like weapon balance, Tank-only combat vehicles, supporter problems, PvE ....etc .....etc.........and the bunch of bugs.
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:confused: Not quite sure why you think I think balancing project is over, it definatly isn't.
And yes, those points I agree 100% with. Before even KK thinks about planning 2.3, KK need to finish the bunch of problems that you mentioned.
OK, example 1 (note: this isn't how it has to be done, its just to show what I am getting at):
The mission system
The problem
Ok, so right now to get a mission, you go to the citycom. You hit the faction, and the difficulty and get a list of 3 missions. Normally not the ones you want, so you repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Hardly ideal. Especially as the lists are padded out with a load of delivery missions, which are busted and a waste of time and various "elimination" missions, which invariably tell you to go and kill 15 Small Lizards, which is both exceptionally difficult to do and doesn't really fit into any difficulty category except easy. In addition to this, there's the fact that the difficulty levels aren't right. I'm sure we'd all agree that killing small rats or a TL10 research job is "very easy". But lets be honest - in a world with rare weapons, PPUs and 330+ construction skill, Launcher Cyclops and TL150 construction tasks are definitely not very hard.
Equally, the rewards for these tasks are all minimal, with the possible exception of the high-level tradeskill jobs. The fact that they all give the same faction sympathy as well is to be honest, slightly deranged. Surely performing a difficult task is more of value to the faction than a really easy one?
Finally, its boring. There’s no challenge, there's no intrigue, and you end up famring the same little mission over and over. Wouldn't it be nice if missions, while not being quite the runabout that the longer runs are were a bit of an actual well, mission?
OK, so we don't like the current mission system. Very nice. What would be better?
The Solution
First off, at the citycom things change. You now select 3 factors. Faction. Difficulty. Type. For type the initial options I envisage are 'Vermin Control', 'Resource Procurement', "Engineering", "Science", "Waste Processing", "Maintenance", "Runner Interaction". You take your choice and then you end up with a mission - your choice is reduced here, you can't pick what you are sent after, that’s down to what the faction needs. Minimal time wasted poking at a citycom. Lets look at what I mean:
Vermin Control - Well, we're all familiar with these. Kill X number of mobs. Well, sometimes that’s what you get anyhow. But there is some small changes to this: mobs lists are fixed. For v.easy-easy, all mobs are those that can be found within the city (or normal within a few zones outside) of the chosen faction in large numbers. No chasing after some rare obscure thing. For hard and very hard, again, mobs that can be found in significant numbers. Nothing daft like "kill 25 Hazard worms" and spending the next year trying to find them. Cave mobs are included for the higher levels. To compensate for the fact that you can't just pick a mob and repeatedly run the mission, kill numbers are upped - 15 at the lowest, 30 at the highest. Rank target: very easy 1-15, Easy 16-35, Normal 36-55, Hard 55-80, Very Hard 86-120. Rewards are of course, far more sensible - if you get sent to kill 15 Grim Chasers, you can expect a big payout (30k ish NC? 50k XP? - comparable to kill reward) and a significant faction sympathy boost. To add a bit of spice however, this won't be all you get. Sometimes, "vermin control" means that the faction has a specific problem at one of it's facilities, and you'll be asked to go there and sort it out. In reality of course, this means killing X number of mobs because of limitations in the script system, but these mobs will be specific to these missions only. For easy, perhaps there's rats in an office. For very hard, perhaps the high-powered assembly robots in a factory have gone out of control. How do you get to these facilities? You are given an apartment lift and a password, where you will get access at the top to said facility. Clear it out, return for reward.
Resource Procurement - Your faction needs something. Some selected item that they can't get through normal channels. So who do they turn to? Ah yes, those borderline-legal runners. They can get anything, right guys? So, you take one of these missions, you get a message (or perhaps you have to see an NPC) saying that X number of items are needed. After getting the items you deliver them to the FSM. What kind of items? Well, mob loot will be a common one. For the lower difficulties, its going to be stuff like mutant limbs, hair, etc. Sometimes it has a cash value at yo's sometimes not. For higher, you can expect to be asked for some of the more unique junk. Unreal fabric perhaps, ceres cyborg chips, useful stuff as well like Judgement Day Launchers and Chaos Queen Flameavalanches. After you have enough, you dump them all at the Faction Supply Manager's feet and collect a reward. Other times it may be something odder. A weapon that isn't available in the city the faction belongs to. Dogtags. Amphidextrine or some other mission-repeatable reward. Recyclables like Metal Chestplates or Recordable Datacubes. Trophies. With this kind of mission you never know quite what you are getting yourself in for, but if you really can lay your hands on anything, the rewards should be sizeable (better than simple kill missions). Again, items should be carefully chosen so that both their difficulty and the reward is accurate. No sending newbies chasing after 20 of a part that only drops from something obscure like a Giant Sewer Rat. if something is rare then it should need correspondingly less harvested for the higher missions than a drop from a more reliably found mob.
Engineering - Construction missions, of course. Some follow much the same path as we are used to. Turn up at faction HQ. Get given a bunch of parts and told "build this" (or more to the point, to fit with our pattern of missions taking slightly longer, build 3 of these! Perhaps sometimes even 10 or so (encourages use of op bonuses)). Hand it back, get a reward. Nice and simple. But sometimes its a bit more complex. Remember those facilities we mentioned earlier? Sometimes you have to go along to one of those, where several parts for the machinery need replacing. An NPC at the facility will give you a series of things to build until the facility is working again. Because of the extra hassle these jobs pay a touch better. To allow for the fact that visiting a factory op is harder for this task, the TLs of these will be slightly lower. TL rework for all engineering missions of course, much as with mob killing. Very Easy 0-30, Easy 40-80, Normal 90 - 120, Hard 130-190, Very hard 200-250.
Science - Research missions of course. Again, we get some of the classics - take this, make 20 BPs, give to FSM. Sometimes though, you'll just be told that 15 BPs are needed of some item that’s purchasable or otherwise obtainable and researchable. For reasons you are best not asing, the faction needs this. Of course, to compensate for the extra hassle and likely expense, these missions reward substantially better. And then there is the other task. Oh yes, its back to the facilities again. (although it could just be done in the faction HQ). Only rather than going to the workshops and factories that the engineers are sent to, researchers are asked to attend labs. When they get there, they will be handed a series of unknown objects and asked to work out what they are (a la researching techs). To allow for the fact that visiting a lab op is harder for this task, the TLs of these will be slightly lower. Again, same TL rework as for construction.
Waste Processing - Recycling missions, naturally. Two types - recycle X, Y and Z items together, hand over results and salvage item X, return results. Again, to encourage use of mines you'll often be asked to do 15 or 20 at once. Possible to add trips to the faction facilities here as well. Same TL workings as the other tradeskill missions. Rewards a bit lower than research or construct as you can't fail recycling (although you can a salvage - perhaps give a slight excess of items to be salvaged than expected to return, so you aren't fucked if you screw up one from fifteen).
Maintenance - Repair missions of course. So yeah, either you get given an item at 0/120 and are asked to repair it back to at least 100/X. Or its back to the facilities again. Where you'll be asked to work on several of their machines (basically an NPC that does a repair skill check and takes a pile of lube from you). Or even better (but not sure how possible) some machinery you have to shoot with a remote repair tool until its fixed. Not quite sure what TL ranges to go with here: on the one hand, there's no OP bonus. On the other, you can repair stuff to a TL of twice your skill and tool. perhaps VE:10-40, E:50-90, N:100-190, H:200-290, VH:300-400.
Runner Interaction - I think you've been waiting for this one. Yup, its them long awaited PvP missions. Basically you are asked to kill a certain number of runners from a given enemy faction. To avoid abuse: all kills have to be above xx/50 (only these higher skilled runners contribute enough to the enemy faction to be worth killing). Reward is only going to be 6k a kill at most (so nobody in their right mind would be paid off for it). Each kill within a mission has to be unique. Very easy = 5 kills, 10k cash, 5k XP. Easy = 10 Kills, 30k Cash, 12.5k XP. Normal = 15 kills, 60k Cash, 22k Xp. Now, ideally for hard and very hard, you have to get the kills without dieing yourself. Back to 5 kills for hard 20k cash, 5k XP and Very Hard 10kills, 60k cash, 15k XP.
Faction sympathy rewards would also be changed (ideally in line with a bigger change of the faction symp system). Doing those tough very hard missions would see a real shift in your sympathy, while doing very easy would slightly nudge you up. Get rid of the symp reqs for missions - the factions need runners to do their bidding - but perhaps restrict very hard to faction only and hard to ally only.
What do we do to stop people just aborting and retaking missions until they get what they like? Well we start by having enough variety that its just plain time consuming. Then we add small cash and sympathy penalties for mission failure. Small, because sometimes you simply can't do what is being asked of you, but enough to stop large scale abort and restart.
Effects of these changes
OK, whinging. People are used to being able to sit there and farm the same short mission over and over and over. Its handy. Some ressers have stacks of TL150 BPs accrued. These people aren't going to be happy.
But we are also going to see: less complaining that there’s nothing to do in NC, as chasing the missions shows people more of what there is. Its also a nice way of picking what you will hunt today. We'll see more people doing missions as they are worthwhile doing and less of a grind that means being stood next to a citycom all the while. Instead, you take your mission and go off for 20 minutes - 3 hours doing it.
More cash is likely to float around with these rewards. But then seeing as 2.2 PvE means less cash is coming in, that’s not really a problem - we'll just help offset the deflation and old player-new player gap a little.
Literally, more stuff to do. Its nice to have a purpose, and these facilities (admittedly the least likely part of this proposal to go ahead) while not going to set anybody's world on fire do add that little bit extra spice.
Woah, thats a 2k word post...
And word has helped me to spot some appalling spelling
Oh, also we'd need new, higher TL CST, RES, REC and Salvage tools as Brammers pointeed out to me, I forgot to mention that.
Example 2 (Once again, just an idea of how such things could be done and what needs improving, there are countless other solutions).
Quests and high-level items
The Problem
Currently, although a few are epic enough to put some off, any item thats availble by questing, anybody can have pretty shortly. The worst take most of a day to do, but very few really tax that much and despite this, everybody still has xbows and AKs. Combat can be difficult, but people aren't really having any trouble getting the Regant's PA. So the only difficult to aquire items involve farming, and farming, and farming. YAWN.
So, farming is too dull and quests are ultimatley, too easy, at least to be a valid high-level item aquisition route. Those are our problems, agreed?
The Solution
A few minor changes to the scripting system, and an understanding among players that there will be the high-level quests that we have at the moment, and more like that will be introduced. And then there are the, lets call them "ultimate" runs. Runs that there are very few of, take a long time and are very, very difficult.
So how do we make these very, very difficult challenges hmm? First off, we need some changes to the scripting system (as mentioned, I am basing this theory on the assumption of SOME recoding work, much as they fixed weapon systems for 2.2, they go back and fix some of the interface/game behaviour factors for this project. Nothing drastic, but farily serious). First off, we need fail criteria for missions. Then we want to be able to dictate when certain criteria apply to missions (IE it only matters if an NPC dies between certain steps. At the moment reaching mission objectives at any point, even out of the order you are meant to is possible). These fail criteria will end up being things like allowing an NPC to die, allowing a zone to reset because your team dies, saying the wrong thing to an NPC and closing off your chances to complete the mission, etc etc. Then the rest of it is pretty much in design. Hard combat (including the spawning of mobs that are DAFTLY difficult, more so than any (non-bugged) naturally spawning mob, mobs that can be expected to flatline a PPU if they focus on them. Tasks that without being overly repeteive are going to take you a while (EG killing 20 or so tough creatues.). Thinking a bit more (or maybe coding) so that for example, you can only get into a building/cave while on the mission (doors that are sensitive (may need a touch of extra coding) or simply NPCs that block the way and die when you bring an explosive/complete the task, letting you through as their corpse fades but respawning shortly later), or prevent you from advancing to the next room until you have killed all the mobs. Stuff that makes you go chasing after a CSTer to construct some complex item to let you do the next bit. Break them up like say the epics into 5 or so stages, but each stage should take a couple of hours, so if you fail somehow it does really hurt you and set you back. Get the mission timers working properly and based on time you spend logged in only, so that certain stages can be against the clock. You getting the picture? I dare say others can think of more ways to make things hard, too. Ideally also design the environments so that the ultra-hard bosses can't just be zerged - if only taking 5 or so people is practical, then there's no getting around with numbers - those 5 just have to get it right.
Again, make running these things expensive. Again, failing a step will screw you up and it pushes up the price of the rewards you get at the end. Also, these should be epic status missions so they aren't repeated and farmed, keeping item numbers down again. Possible exception if WoC disks are added to this form of aqusition (as I would like). Some form of MC5 replacement after this style would be nice too... (but epic status there isn't entirley unreasonable - will explain more if asked).
The Results
If we make these hard enough, then everybody who is truly determined and actually good at the game can eventually get their items, but its hard. People will fail these missions, and I dare say get angry. Well tough. It screws over farming droners, and those who have more patience than actual ability at the game. Again, good. But we have to make these things genuinley hard and probably non-repeatable, as well as expensive in cash and possibly items to run to avoid our supposed top end "ultimate" items swamping the server.
Example 3 (usual disclaimers apply)
Outpost Wars
OOh lookey! PvP!
The problem
OP was currently heavily favour the attacker. Attackers always have the advantage of the initaive. They can choose when and where to attack. But on top of this, they get to be in the zone first. They get to be within the fortified walls of the outpost. They get to cover the exact areas defenders will be approaching from. In short, they currently get the bonus of both the initative and the advantage of being in an entrenched position. With the current state of the UG system, its only by the generoisty of the attackers not barreling that allows op wars to happen at all. If you have reasonable numbers, really there's nothing to stop you taking the whole map this way.
Also, they're too fast. An organised group of attackers will have layer 2 down by the time the defenders have all logged to op-war characters, got out of whatever cave etc they are in or back to a GR. So the defenders have those few moments to stop layer 3 and save their op. Which forces use of the direct-rep and out the UG really. If you own an immediatley neighbouring op you can just about get there. Just about. But if you only own the one or a couple of slightly seperated ones, coming from elsewhere isn't practical.
So, our problems really are this: attackers have the advantage: we need to turn this to the defenders, and that the term "war" seems a bit false for something that lasts 10 minutes tops (unless there are lots of incompetents involved). In addition, many players feel that hacknet is poorly implemented and spoils the action of op-wars.
The Solution
Well, first off: outposts are to a greater or lesser effect fortified structures. Mines are barley foritified, factories slightly more so, labs heavier still, uplinks even tougher sand fortress really are. So we want to actually have the defenders taking advantage of these defences, rather than the attacker being inside. People tend to talk about doors as being the solution here. But there are various ways around doors, and if it means having every op team dropped in by carrier, then every op team will be dropped in by carrier. Instead, going to take a hint from planetside here (this is inevitable if you've played the game - its effectively 24/7 opwarring). Force fields (http://planetside.station.sony.com/game_updates/development.vm?category=Concept&id=60275). Basically, a shield (needn't be a neat dome a la planetside) prevents people from entering the actual op area, ideally in line with the GR rules. It still allows weaponsfire through though (Not sure how possible it really is, again obviously coding needed). OK great, but now how do the attackers get inside? Well, a side effect of this shiney new forcefield technology thats been instaled on all the ops is that the field has to be generated from outside. Hence, the generators are rather vulnerable. So these have to be disabled in some way. Turning to the old classic of hacking is probably the best soution here. However, the shields don't drop as soon as the controls are hacked - instead, hacking puts them into overload. Once hacking is completed, the defending clan recieves their first warning - that the outpost shields will overload in 3 minutes. Now the defending clan has a chance to take positions and defend. And for the first 2 minutes, they can prevent the overload. The final minute however has acheived unavoidable overload. (this time is intended to allow a touch of recovery time for the two sides, so we get something more like 2 rounds of combat than one. All times are of course, tweakable). Once the shields are down, they can't recover for let say 15 minutes (to prevent a sneaky reset spoiling the fight).
So now we have moved onto the fight proper - the attackers trying to break through the op's walls. We can expect to see AoE and such of choke points used here of course. The way to break through these may well to be to use vehicles to blast through and get inside. Now, we could let everything procede as it does now from here, but its fun to suggest some other changes. Rather than the old 3 layers at the hackterm lets tweak it a bit. Somewhere in the op is the security control matrix - this is the first target after the shield is down (its invulnerable while shield is up) and it has to be destroyed. Next target is to hack the operations control. This can either be hacked at the old fashioned hackterm, or as an alternative can be tagged in hacknet. However, a large-collision box hacknet NPC sits on top of the hack tag that has to be destroyed first. AFter this second layer of security is deactivated, the underground becomes open to all. The attackers have to get into the underground and hack this. Concern here: defenders barreling the zonedown on the UG. Possible solution: offer an alternative somehow. Perhaps another hacknet alternative, or a second way of entering the UG. Either that or have the final hack location be upstairs again, I just like the progressive nature of moving from outisde, to inside, to underground.
About 3,700 words now, and I haven't even written "the effects" bit for these op changes yet... :eek:
hehe, time to dig out old threads:
http://forum.neocron.com/showthread.php?t=102061
Thats a 2,5 Year old post. Guess it is still a valid topic.
Regards
Xaru
As we did it with Evolution 2.2 we will ask the community about what they like to see with Evolution 2.3. This means that we will offer several suggestions taken from the community discussions and then decide on what will be included with Evolution 2.3 on base of your feedback.
Effects
Well, balance is now firmly on the side of the defender. The risk of this is that the big clans will never actually lose any ops. The more likley relality is attackers can choose a time when there is a suitable number of enemies on for them to defeat. Does nothing to prevent ninja, but I don't think there is any suitable solution to that.
As we did it with Evolution 2.2 we will ask the community about what they like to see with Evolution 2.3. This means that we will offer several suggestions taken from the community discussions and then decide on what will be included with Evolution 2.3 on base of your feedback.
Sounds like an answer that is going to get repeated a few times there. Anyway erm, good I guess.
Dribble Joy
11-04-07, 18:11
I'm not sure how to put this without sounding like an utter cunt, and probably a decidedly hypocritical one at that.
This thread seemed to be going in the direction of a discussion and a poke to KK to start thinking about 2.3, which is what I would support.
I have no problem with people voicing ideas or opinions, stating them as fact or that they are the only ones worth considering I'm not overly partial to.
So rather than having 'The problem is: blah blah blah..' (and problems are also subject to a person's viewpoint) and 'This is the solution: blah blah..', I'd like a little more notice of the fact people may not agree in the entirety with something and may get agrivated when some opinion is associated with them without their consent (and note the use of 'I'd like', rather than 'there must be'). Even if they do agree with it in it's entirety they'd rather put their name to it afterwards, rather than be included from the beginning.
As said, this appeared as a thread for discussion of what may occur, by the community, for KK to read and potentially implement, but now has become one about ideas from one person, but appearing as the result of some other discussion elsewhere. Expressing ideas is fine, provided you make that clear at the start, or throughout; 'I would do this..', 'I think this is a problem..', etc..
Sorry if that sounded a little blunt, rude, obscure, irrelevant and/or utterly pointless.
There's some good ideas here, but I'm not going to agree with all of them.
I'm not sure how to put this without sounding like an utter cunt, and probably a decidedly hypocritical one at that.
This thread seemed to be going in the direction of a discussion and a poke to KK to start thinking about 2.3, which is what I would support.
I have no problem with people voicing ideas or opinions, stating them as fact or that they are the only ones worth considering I'm not overly partial to.
So rather than having 'The problem is: blah blah blah..' (and problems are also subject to a person's viewpoint) and 'This is the solution: blah blah..', I'd like a little more notice of the fact people may not agree in the entirety with something and may get agrivated when some opinion is associated with them without their consent (and note the use of 'I'd like', rather than 'there must be'). Even if they do agree with it in it's entirety they'd rather put their name to it afterwards, rather than be included from the beginning.
As said, this appeared as a thread for discussion of what may occur, by the community, for KK to read and potentially implement, but now has become one about ideas from one person, but appearing as the result of some other discussion elsewhere. Expressing ideas is fine, provided you make that clear at the start, or throughout; 'I would do this..', 'I think this is a problem..', etc..
Sorry if that sounded a little blunt, rude, obscure, irrelevant and/or utterly pointless.
There's some good ideas here, but I'm not going to agree with all of them.
(note: this isn't how it has to be done, its just to show what I am getting at):
Not read this bit? And I'm INVITING opinions and disagreement. So, go ahead and disagree damnit, and post your own feelings. But this thread wasn't created with the intention of discussing all the things that 2.3 could be. That would be better suited elsewhere. Its a discussion of wheter systems overhaul is the right thing to be targeted next, and if so which systems, and what problems do we need to attack.
THE_TICK!!!!
12-04-07, 22:19
i LIKE allot of the idea's you have put up C, and they could be tweaked and added on to for many days to come, wich i hope people will take the time to read them and pick them apart, and add there own as well, I for one will come back to this post read it again, and see if i can add my 2 cents without sounding like a total ignoramous :) yea yea i spelled it wrong..see what i mean, ill be back and ill add some things. Thanks for taking the time to sit down and put this into words C. dribble..quit being a hopeless cunt :P lol J/K
Theres some good ideas up, and i agree a systems revamp would be a good direction. Just point i think there is a solution to the ninja problem with your op system. Bacically if the defending clan has no members online at the time the force field generator would become invunrable, ofcourse we can leave a leway of 5 minutes after the last member has logged off so the defenders dont all log off to stop the attack. Again there are some flaws with the above idea and some things will need to be tweaked (I.E rather then no members below a certain percentage of the avg active members in past week etc.) Like Cmasters said some work would have to be put into theses ideas and I hope we can get some kinda of changes simmilar to this.
I like a lot of the suggestions on this thread CMaster and quite like the fact you have put a lot of thought into this. A System revamp is whats needed and I would like to see a change in the op fighting system due to the fact that yes they are not really 'wars' more like 10 min skirmishes which clans can use their advantages to catch other clans unawares (when they are all down a doy tunnel for example) and the forcefield idea would be great, also if the 4th layer was kept then the field should extend to hacknet till the third layer is down.
EDIT: didn't realise this was an old thread, sorry for bumping this >.<
Example 3 (usual disclaimers apply)
Outpost Wars
OOh lookey! PvP!
The problem
OP was currently heavily favour the attacker. Attackers always have the advantage of the initaive. They can choose when and where to attack. But on top of this, they get to be in the zone first. They get to be within the fortified walls of the outpost. They get to cover the exact areas defenders will be approaching from. In short, they currently get the bonus of both the initative and the advantage of being in an entrenched position. With the current state of the UG system, its only by the generoisty of the attackers not barreling that allows op wars to happen at all. If you have reasonable numbers, really there's nothing to stop you taking the whole map this way.
Also, they're too fast. An organised group of attackers will have layer 2 down by the time the defenders have all logged to op-war characters, got out of whatever cave etc they are in or back to a GR. So the defenders have those few moments to stop layer 3 and save their op. Which forces use of the direct-rep and out the UG really. If you own an immediatley neighbouring op you can just about get there. Just about. But if you only own the one or a couple of slightly seperated ones, coming from elsewhere isn't practical.
So, our problems really are this: attackers have the advantage: we need to turn this to the defenders, and that the term "war" seems a bit false for something that lasts 10 minutes tops (unless there are lots of incompetents involved). In addition, many players feel that hacknet is poorly implemented and spoils the action of op-wars.
The Solution
Well, first off: outposts are to a greater or lesser effect fortified structures. Mines are barley foritified, factories slightly more so, labs heavier still, uplinks even tougher sand fortress really are. So we want to actually have the defenders taking advantage of these defences, rather than the attacker being inside. People tend to talk about doors as being the solution here. But there are various ways around doors, and if it means having every op team dropped in by carrier, then every op team will be dropped in by carrier. Instead, going to take a hint from planetside here (this is inevitable if you've played the game - its effectively 24/7 opwarring). Force fields (http://planetside.station.sony.com/game_updates/development.vm?category=Concept&id=60275). Basically, a shield (needn't be a neat dome a la planetside) prevents people from entering the actual op area, ideally in line with the GR rules. It still allows weaponsfire through though (Not sure how possible it really is, again obviously coding needed). OK great, but now how do the attackers get inside? Well, a side effect of this shiney new forcefield technology thats been instaled on all the ops is that the field has to be generated from outside. Hence, the generators are rather vulnerable. So these have to be disabled in some way. Turning to the old classic of hacking is probably the best soution here. However, the shields don't drop as soon as the controls are hacked - instead, hacking puts them into overload. Once hacking is completed, the defending clan recieves their first warning - that the outpost shields will overload in 3 minutes. Now the defending clan has a chance to take positions and defend. And for the first 2 minutes, they can prevent the overload. The final minute however has acheived unavoidable overload. (this time is intended to allow a touch of recovery time for the two sides, so we get something more like 2 rounds of combat than one. All times are of course, tweakable). Once the shields are down, they can't recover for let say 15 minutes (to prevent a sneaky reset spoiling the fight).
So now we have moved onto the fight proper - the attackers trying to break through the op's walls. We can expect to see AoE and such of choke points used here of course. The way to break through these may well to be to use vehicles to blast through and get inside. Now, we could let everything procede as it does now from here, but its fun to suggest some other changes. Rather than the old 3 layers at the hackterm lets tweak it a bit. Somewhere in the op is the security control matrix - this is the first target after the shield is down (its invulnerable while shield is up) and it has to be destroyed. Next target is to hack the operations control. This can either be hacked at the old fashioned hackterm, or as an alternative can be tagged in hacknet. However, a large-collision box hacknet NPC sits on top of the hack tag that has to be destroyed first. AFter this second layer of security is deactivated, the underground becomes open to all. The attackers have to get into the underground and hack this. Concern here: defenders barreling the zonedown on the UG. Possible solution: offer an alternative somehow. Perhaps another hacknet alternative, or a second way of entering the UG. Either that or have the final hack location be upstairs again, I just like the progressive nature of moving from outisde, to inside, to underground.
About 3,700 words now, and I haven't even written "the effects" bit for these op changes yet... :eek:
Canny, canny, just using the same principle but tweaked. Though, I'm not sure what would trigger the OP shield to go up again. What if the attacking force disables the shield and gets nuked inside the OP so they actually don't end up taking it fully? Something to think about though...
Outpost Wars
The Problem:
UG
The Solution:
Remove UG
The shit was excellent until they put the UG's in, then it all went to hell.
Please use this thread (http://forum.neocron.com/showthread.php?t=141298) to gather your ideas and suggestions. It is easier for us to get notice of your feedback if we have it in one central thread.
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