My Opinions: How to set SGE back in the right direction

[SiN]

Lets start out not with the various bugs, glitches, or recent patches, but the underlying problem with the state of the game as it is. Currently SGE is a slow paced game that IS the one and only real problem that has caused various "vets" to quit the game. Yes many of us have raged over various hugged up patches (You do no have enough fuel to warp was my last straw, mods, etc) but honestly its the current pace of play. No matter how much free time you have...each patch from the 5k fuel max on has done little more than increase the amount of time needed to complete tasks (aside from building imho).

How would we fix such a problem caused by such a myriad of issues? Lets break it down into sections.

1) Invading: first because I was first and foremost an avid invader.

Lets begin with what its lacking: art. Where are the days of pushing yourself past the limit? Crushed for time...Lets just slide in and see how few nukes we could use. People online in for the enemy...how fast can we take this with no resources near by.


After the refinery patch and a few tweaks to ore and resources every colony is a 10/120. This is great for builders but really ruined the dynamic of warring and invading. Sure everyone wanted something more challenging, but the real challenge to invading was pushing yourself past the limit on the current set ups. With new layouts, all 10/120 cols invading is just a time consuming bore and the risk/reward for trying the insane caps people used to go for isn't there. Plus, with lower solars, cols traded hands much faster and constantly. Wars continued not because everyone had 10 hours a day to play, but because caps and recaps didn't take that many hours. While people were online there was constant action, people lasering systems, people invading quickly in enemy systems, people fighting all over all the time, BBQ just went down in short bursts. Invaders didn't get the short hand of the stick just because they had to spend a couple hours fighting it out...swapping out mods...spending more money for reships...etc.

Proposed solutions:
a) Increase the cost of solars back to 50 per shot if not 55. Yes people may not like how "easy" it will be but the ease of a col was not determined by how fast a group could nuke the dome open as wide as possible. Back then the challenge was speed. This will increase the pace at which cols are invaded and reinvaded.

b) increase max fuel to be spiced to to 7.5k. More fuel = more ability to fight and invade. Now if tokens are the issue. Allow people to token 500/1k fuel past that limit as well. But seriously even 7.5k isn't that much compared to the 25k+ sprees we used to go on. Plenty of people will still need to token fuel to keep up with the skilled invaders.

c) remove some of the new time consuming layouts that are nothing but nuke eaters or time wasters. One example the super spiral. A worthless col to have and takes nothing but too much time to invade.

2) Fighting

I miss oval flying, dodging nukes in the heat of a fight, and pod nuking. Yes pod nuking.

Now with mods fighting is really just a waste of time that without alot of time spent planning or large groups you can't really secure kills against anyone with half a brain on mod servers (flight mods, afterburners scrubs...pd...). On non mod servers its pretty much an insta gib in any fight and too much time and money is spent flying to overpriced starbases to re outfit. Not that they'll take many cols unless they have 1k nukes nearby to invade all the 10/120's.

Don't get me started on the idiocy of the IGS that gets a whole section to itself.

Proposed solutions:

a) bring back the oval flying nukes. current nuke changes are headed back towards that effect but really we want that ability to dodge back.

b) oval flying may ruin the way a fight works on mod servers making fights result in even less kills to balance this what we really need are ship and weapon mod reworks. I know this would take a while to do but still. Solid reworks on energy costs and base speeds of ships or w/e should counter this

c) give the pod 8 hardware back and the ability to land on cols. I don't care what the logic was behind the removal. It ruined a fun and action packed aspect of the game for both those who just killed the guy in his system and the pod. Before you had to sol him to get back to invading safely. Now just just laugh and ignore because it takes 10 times longer to fly there and back.

3) The IGS

For whatever reason it got 16 hardware bays and kept its original stats with the new nukes... that was just wtf pwn? Then it got turned into a turtle thats pretty much worthless aside from the new nukes it could hold too many of.

Solution: Give the IGS 8 hardware bays back. SETH turning and thrust, IG top speed and replace its secondary with either a torp equivalent or the crappy surface missiles. I can't see a real problem with sm's as its secondary. It becomes useful for invading as well as fighting without making it OP in either category.

4) Dynamic pricing

This idea seemed good at the start because people in large empires had way too much free cash to spend. However the newbies and spree vid invaders like myself get shafted by the high prices when we die alot because we are trying something stupid on these 10/120's. It's a great way to get players to spend more money but it also allows for large corps to effectively shut down small ones by arbitrarily raising prices at the base closest to them making a war pointless unless it's another large corp (who btw is probably allied with them but that is a third issue).

Solutions:

a) go back to cheap static prices on everything on all servers for ships. Keep dynamic pricing for mods but lower the base prices.

b) if too much money on a server is the problem change the cost to clean cols: 1 mil now cleans 5/7% of a cols pollution or 1.5 mil cleans 10% and increase the cost of staying in a port based on a players rank in the server or just triple it.

With cheaper ships and mods people don't worry so much about dying and are willing to keep the action going.

5) Hardware/ships buying and selling in ports

Just get rid of it...save perhaps the IGS if token sales are the issue.

6) Contracts/alliances

Currently there can be too many contractors. You start a war with someone head into a fight and half the enemy is blue to one person or another and people can't figure out who they're shooting.

Solution:
a) cut contractors to 3 max per corp that last
b) allow current number of contracts but make them 24 hours or less before they have to be renewed

Again I'd like to reiterate my point, the real problem is the pace of play. Recent patches have SUBSTANTIALLY slowed it down giving builders what they want and on one level allowing for "more challenging" invading but on another completely removing the ability for constant warring because people get bored with the current way invading and fighting works. The proposed solutions are my opinions only and may not be shared by the community. Also...i realize i got shorter with problems and solutions as I went on. Its late and I started to lose my train of thought. All I can say is, Toonces should any combination of these be implemented I feel that more people would come back to the game.

Regards

Awen

EDIT: 7) Blitz

The new blitz is fun...not disputing that...however I still feel like we should have something similar to the old blitz but more sandbox style. Give us 100 mil and allow nukes to be bought by anyone at sol.

[D-Tox1]

Sin .. if i may reply - -
hope you dont mind because everybody knows how gutted and annoyed i am that what used to be a great " confidence building " and " Strategic " game has been turned upside down and into a complete joke .

Theres some great thoughts in what youve written - but also some incorrect assumptions i think.
Firstly i dont believe for a second that " Vets " quit Starport because of its " slow Pace " .. in fact they didnt and havent .
Long Term Players quit Starport because either they had better things to do - or there was too many " unrealistic" changes to the game .. what used to be " balanced" fairly well - turned into a complete and uber " invade fest " , basically as youve mentioned - killing all genuine " art " to Invading .. therefore by seeing the way the game had changed decided it wasnt good enough to waste time playing.

I think many Players ( some that even read forums ) still dont understand the fundamental problem that is the pure and ONLY reason thats killing / killed Starport.
Its not nuke issues, warp fuel issues or any other issue apart from one ...Effort.
Starport consists of 3 Player basics ..
Invaders
Fighters
and Builders

90% of changes made toward the game over recent years has ALWAYS favoured or been as a benefit to an Invader type , its a case of " how easy can we make it for them ".
Many can say " yeah but what about increased Solar Power / shots " etc etc ..thats all for Builders .
LOL - yeah ok , whats the point in having increased Solar shots and power when you can now jump into a port and re-neg and reshield and continue to invade ?
Thats not how it used to be .. thats what made the game so great - If you wanted to wipe a Corperation of its cols - you had to WORK to do so ..not like how it is now - 3 hrs and youve wiped 300k followers from someone .

Argue all you want, accuse me of being wrong .. but the worst things Toonces ever did was create Port Negs.
To some its great ( if youre an Invader ) but tell me this - whats good is it to a Builder knowing theres a near endless supply of negs in the System he or she is Building ?
The " kick " of playing Starport died when this was introduced .. it simply tipped the scales completely over to Invading - sadly this is a major mistake by Toonces because Starport isnt and never was only Invading players on here .. 50% at least were Builders - so thats where your Player base has gone .
No Builders = no Starport.

So do you think he will pay any attention ?
me neither.

[SiN]

Can't argue with port negs....then again how often did we tell him not to put SM's as a mod either? It never felt like I had to work to do anything. As i said it was just my opinions personally. I still believe a combination of some of those proposed solutions would bring back people. But the constant 10/120's made my entire group of some close to 15 people who I played with for 4 years pretty much quit. Not the fact that 10/120's wer OH SO HARD...nope it was just that the time and effort a solo player had to put into the game increased 10fold with little to no reward. Invading the same way over and over all the cols were the same, with port negs who needs a wf on cols...not being able to push yourself because again time increased and also cost increases.

I feel that while it seemed the scaled tipped toward the Invader initially with ease. He increased the time required to cap something past a point where people really bothered to do much but build. I built very few cols over the course of my years on port; my friends, also built very very few cols. We invaded and fought because that was where the excitement was. Now with mods, nukes, etc...fighting and invading require more time.

Again this is just how I feel.

Take the time span you used to accomplish something in a war regardless of how much work you had to put into it and then cut that accomplishment in half or down to 1/3rd and you have what a group would have now after the same time period.

[BardockSGE]

Yeah not a big fan on port negs. Back in the day if you REALLY wanted to attack someone in the heart of their empire, you hired someone to barge nukes in and get down and dirty that way. Or you simply went rogue, you grabbed 8 nukes from pb, searched for a ring/something to slide, slid, nuked dome open, capped and bam you had weapons and were ready to kickass. The rogue days of starport are over!

As for fighting, it's starting to get better on no mod servers. Nukes received a nerf, and it's pretty noticeable. However they still don't oval like they used to. I think the main reason we all whine for curving/ovaling/whatever type nukes was because, IT REQUIRED FUCKEN SKILL. Plain and simple. It did. And it wasn't unbeatable. If you KNEW how to fire nukes and you KNEW how to team fight, you could take down anybody 'ovaling.'

I have to somewhat disagree with d-tox, the slower pace of the game more than likely did push some vets away. Taking 30 minutes a piece on colonies sucks dick. Nuking out nuke waster 10/120, after nuking out another nuke waster 10/120 = Boring. Which is the shitty thing about these new layouts. A lot of them make great, DEADLY, nuke wasters. A lot of old layouts are better left as rings, which gave the game some speed to it.

[D-Tox1]

yeah i guess some went because of this Bardy , but like yourself i know plenty of guys that left because of poor patches and silly additions that they truthfully felt were tipping the scales in the game.
Didnt need 10 shot 120 bpm cols a few years back - because 6/7 shot ones were hard enough ( without port negs ) etc .. so yeah i hear ya.
Alls id like to do is try and get Toonces to have a " liberated " approach too ALL Players - meaning ok - if some like Port Negs then fine have them - but also have Servers WITHOUT them so it accommodates all .

Tox

[BardockSGE]

yeah i guess some went because of this Bardy , but like yourself i know plenty of guys that left because of poor patches and silly additions that they truthfully felt were tipping the scales in the game.
Didnt need 10 shot 120 bpm cols a few years back - because 6/7 shot ones were hard enough ( without port negs ) etc .. so yeah i hear ya.
Alls id like to do is try and get Toonces to have a " liberated " approach too ALL Players - meaning ok - if some like Port Negs then fine have them - but also have Servers WITHOUT them so it accommodates all .

Tox

Exactly

[LordSturm]

refinery sliders patch was the begining of the end.

a reason we have so many 10 shot 120s right now is because 2 years ago. bio3 colonies were not used in permas alot except on rocklike planets. with the increase of research to environment it has made bio3s a very viable strategy. and with the implementation of modules a necesity to have huge and fast solars.

at this moment tho i would advise against changing how colonies balance out and how environment research is affected, your going to piss alot of people off if they have to rebalance everything.


a very easy fix to peoples complaints about certain layouts being unfair are usually the ones where when you land the dome is literally 2 to 4 squares from the landing zone and just below it. so that when you land its already firing. if the solars always faced away from the landing zone when you first land this makes some of the incredibly slow and cheap layouts invadable.

if the dome is above the warphole it points up. and if the dome is below the warp it points down.

a very fair change i think.


in the end howerver we are eventually going to have to adress the lack of skill required problem since the inception of modules. many of the strategies talked about by bardock are dead like sliding rings etc. because everything is firing at max speed, and high bursts numbers, the new layouts were mostly designed to be nuke eaters AND be very hard to take. even the ringish layouts have excelent solar coverage and are usually too deadly to slide. new layouts i think did more damage then good. they are very tedious to invade solo, and not every player likes team invading.
Untill the new layouts i ALWAYS solo invaded. now everything is one big chore and its just boring to take most cols so i just skip them as of late. its not fun flying past a biodome 3 times in a tiny tunnel getting pummeled by a solar, and to me using shield emmanators and plates (while it solves the problem of a 120 solar owning you) is not fun. id take surgical invasion to being a huge tank any day.


in the end i think. modules need to go, missile production should stick to colonies, and somehow bio3ing everything should have more of a penatly associated with it. something/ anything to stop everything from being 10 120. that way builders have the security of it actually taking effort to take their planets as no weapons are sold from ports, invaders who are skilled can use old mostly dead invasion skills to invade planets. and the game is more fun.

these changes however should probably be applied only to new servers going forward and not a blanket change to the game.


starport used to have a balance to it, that allowed each type of player to exist. and i think it has lost that balance as of late.

[D-Tox1]

Toonces should put out a survey that players can fill out of there opinions. If the Majority of players want changes ingame than he could bring those changes.

The fourms do not include everyone that plays, so I don't think anything from the forums should be implemented.

Surely the Forums is exactly where he should get most of his ideas from Cloud ?

Would be interesting to know what percentage of In Game Players actually use the Forums .. to be honest i think it wouldnt hurt for a banner on Startup mentioning Forums, because as youve implied - i doubt the majority actually use it.

How else would Toonces get his feedback from Players unless they voice it on Forums, I was under the impression that was exactly what Forums were for .

[JuliusCaesar]

I'd just like to chime in that all these years ago in the "golden age" of sge, i was an absolute nub. Ive returned and (at least i like to think) have become a decent player on the mod servers (dont have the time, connections, tokens for GA) and have become familiar with all the stuff people are complaining about.

Although I have never fully experienced this "golden age", from what i have been hearing, it sounds 50 times more fun and would gladly leave my main servers to start up on a 100% legit old settings server as is being described. Fun no new layouts, weaker solars, no mods, old nukes, AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP THE TOKEN WHORES!

just my two denarii