CC Various Gameplay Suggestions

[WhyteDragon]

Basically, suggestions intended to improve or amplify particular aspects of the game -- some of them have been sitting on my mind for quite a while. Thoughts and opinions would be appreciated as I may be off base in some of these suggestions. Understandably, some of these also may be a pain to implement as well.



Minor Alterations

Broadsides - Slight reduction in the spacing between each broadside shot and the overall arc of the shot.

-Reasoning-: Show

When directly next to a battlecruiser, it's nearly impossible to hit a full broad upon an intended target. This can be offset by the rotation of the battlecruiser, but the overall arc of the cone is generally too large by comparison -- moreover, the effect is not condusive to mobile combat, which ultimately I feel is something we should currently be pushing for. When given optimal conditions, a weapon should be able to perform at relatively maximum efficiency... hence, by reducing the spacing between each shot, and by narrowing the cone it fires in, it should offer a weapon that feels like it can achieve its full performance.

Shield Bleedthrough - Increase of the shield bleedthrough starting value from 300 to 500.

-Reasoning-: Show

Currently the existing bleedthrough threshold is actually relatively low, all things considered. In order to reach even 50% of your damage to be redirected to hull, you have to reach the low point of 150 shields. In part, this is one of the many reasons that Kinetics has become mostly obsolete. Moreover, by expanding the range of the bleedthrough value, you allow the transition from shield into hull damage to be a little more fluid -- damage will not transition as spontaneously as it does from shield into hull damage. Furthermore, it also means that damage to shields and hull will likely be split a little more evenly than before, rather than shields being an absolute blockade. ... also 500 is more neatly translated into a percentage.

Miner Packet Density - Make miner packets move 20% slower, but grants them an additional 50 health.

-Reasoning-: Show

This may also ultimately just be another personal gripe, but a part of me feels like unless you know the precise path of a mineral packet in advance, it is superbly easy to miss when hunting it as a wraith; the main reason being the speed of the packet. A miner truly far from a battlecruiser should not only be exposing its own life to danger, but also the precious minerals that it's mining; this alteration would be a means to that end by allowing packets to be intercepted a little more easily, and in exchange giving them a little thicker skin to survive stray fire.

Larger Suggestions

Kermiculite Distribution - Reduces flying kermiculite initial speed by 10%, the yielded resources by 50%, and introduce a new flying kermiculite asteroid of this type every minute for the first twenty minutes of the game.

-Reasoning-: Show

Kermiculite, in essence, is supposed to be a true and blue (or green in this case?) end game resource -- I feel as if it's somewhat strange for all of the renegade asteroids to be immediately introduced into the play field, as there are many cases where over 150 kerm is mined by a single team within the first several minutes of the game. By distributing these prime resources a little more evenly, it allows a slightly more steady and reliably for the players, and creates the potential for a more secondary means for a team to catch up if they completely miss the kermiculite spawn -- at least they now know that there's still a few flying asteroids left to look out for!

Throttle Acceleration - Altering throttle as quickly as possible causes it to change more rapidly.

-Reasoning-: Show

Fairly obvious reasoning. It's frustrating to have to hold down the throttle up button for several seconds, limiting your ability to chat, input other commands, and such. It would be nice to readily have a way to throttle up more quickly. The same principle could even be applied to throttling down, such that the need for Cut Throttle (X) could be eliminated entirely if so desired.

Small Ship Camera Focus - Rather than being centered directly upon the small ship, the camera focuses on a point in front at a distance based on the velocity of the ship.

-Reasoning-: Show

Perhaps this is more of a personal point, but not being able to see as far as your ships view distance given certain angles has always seemed a bit bizarre to me. This is an even larger issue when dealing with very fast ships -- for those who have tried piloting an Ionic Infiltrator, I think you understand what I mean. Besides, being able to direct your camera gives a player a stronger sense of control -- I think this is always a nice point.

[Degra]

I can agree with all suggestions but Kermiculite Distribution and Throttle Acceleration.

Thoughts on Kerm distribution:
Rather than having the randomly flying kerm asteroids, I would rather see the Asteroid Shower(?) mode get implemented into the Default, but with some alterations.
My point is that the current random kerm asteroids are too much RNG.

1) Have the random kerm asteroids spawn as of now and when the moving kerm asteroids fall below a certain threshold, have 1 kerm asteroid spawn between both BCs, on a pure Y-axis trajectory, with the additional trait of having its X-velocity (from ramming) cancelled out over time.
2) Do away with the random kerm asteroids altogether and implement the Asteroid Shower fully into the game, but with repleneshing asteroids and X-axis velocity cancellation.
Number 2 rewards aggressive miners in the beginning way too much though, which is why I would go for #1.

Thoughts on Throttle Acceleration:
EMP vs Acceleration balancing, basically. If it wasn't for that point I'd be all for it. Thing is that currently when you hold your W button and you get EMP'd, you'll lose about half the speed you would normally lose without holding W. With more acceleration, good miners would notice barely any effect.
Therefore if you want to add that suggestion, also have EMPs disable raising acceleration for about 1.5 seconds.

[slapshot]

I agree on the broadsides


shield bleed through is based off of a % shields, not a fixed number (300) - this number would change based off of each fusion core upgrade - not sure changing this would actually matter all that much, so I am indifferent

I disagree on the mineral packets - you can extrapolate where they will go based off of miner pings and where their BC is, which encourages actively scouting for those positions, and then EMP them down - having them be slower makes scouting less vital (which it already rarely matters anymore)


I like the current kerm asteroids (speed/resource wise), however I would like less (actual asteroids) at the beginning and have them gradually be introduced over time (so that end-game there are still flying kerm asteroids) - the big kerm spawn can be removed (might be a good game mode) - also, please fix them creating ghost images on the mini-map, it's really quite annoying

I also agree that there should be a "max acceleration" button, but it shouldn't make accelerating any faster than it currently is

not sure about the camera focus, but I think it could work as long as its a relatively minor change

[Dreadnought]

Shield Bleed-through ~~ more like raise the overwhelming point of shields from 30% to 50% (gotta remember core adds 250 shields). Cool, makes math easier.

Miner Packet Density ~~ Just get economy tier 1, that triples the health packet.

Throttle Acceleration ~~ mmm...nah.

Small Ship Camera Focus ~~ Disagree, you cant just go barreling in in cruiser command, its a distinct disadvantage if you just mindlessly go after the enemy, rather going at it from the side or something.
What i would like to see fixed is that the camera isn't positioned in the center of the ship, and its easier to attack up then down.

Not sure what to do about kermiculite...I guess we could do smaller kermiculite fields that are more near each battlecruiser, but that feels like your just gifting green at that point.

[WhyteDragon]

In response to Degra...

In regards to the asteroid shower concept, I think it's an interesting idea. Since it's essentially spread along the Y axis too, it gives a wide range to mine from. However, I think it would be nice to see a slightly wider X axis for the initial spawn as well compared to the original meteor shower mode if we did go along with that, rather than it all immediately being clumped together -- and perhaps at varying speeds as well.

However, regarding the throttle, even with a faster throttle people would still be limited by a ship's acceleration, wouldn't they? Would it be a huge deal?

In response to Slap...

I wasn't actually aware the value was variable based upon % shields. In that case, I would suggest an increase from 30% to 50%. I feel like it could make a difference over time -- but maybe not. Perhaps its still in a relatively mundane range. I still think its a step in the right direction though.

In regards to the mineral packet, it doesn't sound 'less vital' necessarily -- it just makes it a bit easier. To me, its just a means of making miners exceedingly far from the battlecruiser have a slightly larger 'con' to it. Speed is also a means of influencing travel time, which means slower to come resources -- this also means potentially promoting the movement of the battlecruiser more readily along with miners...
... I still think there are a lot of good metagame reasons to push for it.

I also never suggested making acceleration faster than it is. I only suggested throttle be accelerated through the method.

In regards to Dreadnaught...
... you didn't even read through any of the spoiler tags, did you..?

[Dreadnought]

Degra and Slapshot already said things that was along my train of thought, i just simply added to it.

[Siretu]

In regards to Dreadnaught...
... you didn't even read through any of the spoiler tags, did you..?

I feel like his points were almost all valid, except "mmm...nah" which can be seen as agreeing with Degra. Agreeing without adding anything new to the conversation is fine by me because it gives me an idea of how many people are for/against something.

I guess he misunderstood that the mineral packet idea was more about making it easier to catch with wraiths and that the health was just a compensation for it.

My thoughts:

Broadsides. I'd like to lower it a little bit, because right now I think hitting all five even when rotating is impossible. I don't know. I always try to do it continuously but fail to hit five consistently. I want you to have to rotate for it, but at least make it more possible.

Shield bleed-through seems reasonable.

Miner packet density... Maybe. Not sold on it. Mostly for reasons slapshot said.

Kermiculite distribution is... maybe a good idea. Not sold yet.

Throttle Acceleration is something I'm against. Seems annoying to implement for me and as Degra said it invalidates EMP kind of.

Small Ship Camera Focus seems weird. Hard to see how it would end up. I might just increase camera distance by default instead.

[Degra]

However, regarding the throttle, even with a faster throttle people would still be limited by a ship's acceleration, wouldn't they? Would it be a huge deal?

When you get EMP'd, your velocity doesn't get reduced, your throttle does.
Your velocity ticks in a few steps towards the throttle.
Meanwhile when you're doing the smart thing you're raising the throttle back up to 100%, until the throttle surpasses the velocity again at about 60% and you stop decelerating at that point.

So yes, small ships are mainly limited by acceleration.
Faster raising of throttle would mean less deceleration in case of EMP though, meaning you also need to accelerate less to get back to 100%.
Therefore my suggestion of adding a 1.5 sec raising throttle disabler to EMP.

[WhyteDragon]

Thoughts on Kerm distribution:
Rather than having the randomly flying kerm asteroids, I would rather see the Asteroid Shower(?) mode get implemented into the Default, but with some alterations.
My point is that the current random kerm asteroids are too much RNG.

Looking at this again, a sort of thought occurred to me.

An alternative possibility, rather than simply having a more spread out field or altering the flying asteroids, could be to simply implement a larger number of smaller fields spawned at the selected interval. By example;

Imagine if when Kermiculite was announced to have spawned, there were instead three points on the map (of a reasonable distance from one another) of which you could go to mine Kermiculite. By creating multiple objectives upon the map, you're making a situation in which you do not have to simply see both sides go 'full all in' on a single point. However, by having an uneven number of spawns, you can still create a situation where one side has the potential to get ahead by attempting to claim the larger number of spawns for themselves. However, doing so might results in certain difficulties since the battlecruiser is a potential threat to small ships.

Perhaps this could also be a solution?

[slapshot]

a larger number of smaller fields spawned at the selected interval

I like this (would encourage more small ship fights over kerm), but the total kerm amount would need to be less than what currently exist, i.e. 1-2 asteroids per location for 3 kerm locations - or have each location contain a random amount of kerm, such as 1 asteroid, 2 asteroids, and 3 asteroids, and have small ships need to scout them out to find out which contains the most kerm

it would also make chompers less useful at kerm