Revitalizing the game?

[zakhennahr]

It seems that CC isn't as alive anymore as it used to be. A few scattered thoughts on what I think could make it more fun, and both noob- and pro-friendly:


1) Making 3 wraiths seems to make the skill cap much harder to balance between teams, in terms of wraith pilots, and creates a large aversion to playing with too many noobs in case one loses a wraith or two. Perhaps we should move back to one or two slightly-scarier wraiths that miners can't solo.


2) No one likes it when new players go on a ship and destroy it. I suggest we create an additional two banks for ships that feature only free respawning 'scout' ships, 30-second or 60-second timers. These scout ships *would not* attack or really do anything, and they really would be paper-thin to reduce the chance of ram-killing with them (50 hp, +5 upgrades).

New players can use these and get acquainted with the system and feel useful in the meanwhile by scouting enemy miners and minable fields (maybe give them side thrusters like the wraith *and* turbo boost like the miner, so new players learn to use both of their skills in a very cost-safe environment). In the downtime while the ship respawns, new players can learn things like buying repair stations through something like an automated tutorial ("It seems your ship won't respawn for another X seconds. Would you like to learn about other ways to help your team, like preparing repair stations?").


3) The first time a team is down to 1 miner, they get one (one!) free miner respawn after 30 seconds so that they are not as crippled by a good wraith pilot or two in the first 10 minutes. Or maybe it's a feature of time, where every time you are down to 1 miner, it takes an additional 30 seconds to respawn the second free miner. As it stands, it's very very easy for one team to cripple the other and be 90% sure of victory 1/4 of the game in.


4) Doubling back to the wraith, side thrusters disabling forward thrust sort of defeats the purpose of the wraith being a chaser given enough energy. I would suggest doing something like if both forward thrust and side thrust is detected, lower the final velocity by 10% to make side thrusting less dominating than it was but still useful. As it stands, I see no need for side thrusters in most cases as you can just buy the countermeasure item. The only time I have used thrusters is when circling around the enemy BC with an AI miner, but only because it's AI is confused about where I am going.



Please keep in mind that these are pipe dreams.

[Red-Rocket]

1) no, losing 1 even 2 wraiths/corvettes is ok, back when we had just 1 wraith it was rage rage rage, i like this better with 3 and 1 corvettes where new players wont get so much flak because the ships where so essential (alot of pros have ben wanting to mine lately, what gives?)

2) eh...no, unusual and not really fun if you cant do anything *abilities* with those ships besides *weeeeeee* flying around

3) Now im starting to warm up to your ideas =D

4) agreed, while old thrusters where crazy (you used side thrusters to go faster then normal speed) i hate the new thrusters and we should get old ones back (with 10% reduced velocity like you suggested)

[zakhennahr]

Still, 2) They would be scouting. "You try to find fields for our miners to mine." Not useless. "You try to distract enemy wraiths from our real miners." Hell, maybe they could even ping as miners when the wraith does its radar. This would be a very easy thing for teams of mixed skill levels to give to those that still need to learn the basic mechanics while making their deaths be costless to the team, encouraging more new players to learn.

Edit: My reasoning for including something like #3 is because if a game is decided 15 minutes in but it still takes 45 more to actually end it, it's a bit oppressive to the players on the losing team, realizing they don't have much hope ("What, we only have 1 miner and they have 3?" over the course of 30-45 minutes is a mixture of frustrating and boring, not two things I want associated with CC).

Edit #2: for 2), it's basically the "Vote to AI" option. If the new player or two were going to be given miners, well now the AI takes miners and the new players learn how to play and contribute somehow.

[Red-Rocket]

Or make wraiths and miners cheaper even more so veterans cringe less at having to deal with that cost they are going to need to deal with when a new player looses that ship, we need a gateway into CC somewhere, miners and wraiths are the best start IMO.

[Dreadnought]

Or make the Tractor beam stronger against BCs so that they have a harder time to run, maybe even a weapon that disables boost for a short period of time

[bbot]

On the note of 3) I thought it would be interesting if the battlecruiser itself could be a miner. For example, the science console could fire a long range mining laser (2x the range of the regular miner). It would encourage the battlecruiser to move around a little more, and would give a position on the ship to a complete noob, or a captain who isn't doing anything at the moment.

[Caladbolg]

you mean it would allow 2 veterans to stay on the BC right?

Because I would never allow a newb to mess around the BC, too many things he could either fuck up (power, drones, upgrades) or just be too slow at and make it useless (upgrades, power in critical situations, mining)

I'm all for a Meta that would require two person on the BC but do not give a reason to newbs to stay on the BC. They can and will fuck it up.

Is BC-mining the right idea for dual man on BC? no idea, probably not.

[Red-Rocket]

you mean it would allow 2 veterans to stay on the BC right?

Because I would never allow a newb to mess around the BC, too many things he could either fuck up (power, drones, upgrades) or just be too slow at and make it useless (upgrades, power in critical situations, mining)

I'm all for a Meta that would require two person on the BC but do not give a reason to newbs to stay on the BC. They can and will fuck it up.

Is BC-mining the right idea for dual man on BC? no idea, probably not.

it worked in wc3, but then again mining was much harder to do, and the fact that we now have chompers as well

[Caladbolg]

chompers can mine? I thought their sole purpose was energy...

[Siretu]

A natural no-upgrade-required BC mining ability would be very interesting. It means that spending energy to move the BC before the final fight can be relevant and lead to an increase in mining.