Nerfing the solars again? Really? =====POLL=====

[Jeb]

If you'd like toonces to please stop nerfing the solars (and, moreover, to stop f*cking builders in the axle), please respond.

[808gage]

What if it were incremental? A 1shot was 20 per shot, a 2shot was 25 per shot. (Check for balance) This would work up to a 10shot costing 65 per shot. That's a load of ore required still, but would give earths and deserts a run for their money.

[Jeb]

That's a good idea

[Toonces]

I figured it should take full 100% military to get to 120 shot, rather than 89%

[Toonces]

What if it were incremental? A 1shot was 20 per shot, a 2shot was 25 per shot. (Check for balance) This would work up to a 10shot costing 65 per shot. That's a load of ore required still, but would give earths and deserts a run for their money.

yeah i like that idea, but 650/hr would be too cheap for 10 shot i think.

[WeGotDeathStar]

I figured it should take full 100% military to get to 120 shot, rather than 89%

I figure you should leave the solars alone

This was never a problem before with planets that were too powerful




Love,

Kango

[BardockSGE]

I say screw em, way to go Toonces. Nerf the hell out of solars and make invading less of an annoying grind fest. Screw the builder carebears, get your asses back to rebangs and piss off. Kay thanks bye.

/cheer toonces

[Barefoot]

I figured it should take full 100% military to get to 120 shot, rather than 89%

This blows my mind. Play your game sometime!

[Deadwood]

I dont play anymore but i used to love this game before the solar nerf when 10/120 was a regular sight across the galaxy.

It did a number of things

1. Each colony layout required different tactics to beat.
2. It encouraged group participation to take down a solar which is what companys are all about in this game
3. Taking a colony meant something

Now its just to easy and its a thankless task being a builder. If you no one wants to build then there will be no invading.

so now building is pointless and capping is just to easy.

my humble thoughts.

[Havok]

I dont play anymore but i used to love this game before the solar nerf when 10/120 was a regular sight across the galaxy.

It did a number of things

1. Each colony layout required different tactics to beat.
2. It encouraged group participation to take down a solar which is what companys are all about in this game
3. Taking a colony meant something

Now its just to easy and its a thankless task being a builder. If you no one wants to build then there will be no invading.

so now building is pointless and capping is just to easy.

my humble thoughts.

QFT
When the people who actually PRODUCE something in this game have no incentive to work, then there quickly runs out the resources for the invaders to loot/play.
Invading was fine the way it was. Just too many no-talent crybabies who happen to also be token-whores these days.

[Jeb]

Not only is building just a chore now and with the solars nerfed again right as the new warp-LZ galaxy is starting up... Kind of makes it discouraging to start out.

But also it's just kind of a b*tch (pardon my french) to invade now. Just a matter of nuking loads and loads of lasers then a dome cap first or second try.

So if that's what you like Bardock, have fun with future sge...

As for what Kango said, I agree.

[Faint]

toonces i wouldnt nerf them...i was inavading a DD the other day and it was pretty dam easy as it is...or maybe im good idk

[avitohol]

I find it funny that everyone that comments on solars seems to moan about how they get nerfed to be easier. Tell you a little vet secret.....

....they were better when they were easier. Made the game more dynamic. Now its static and bloated. You need to lose 100 colonies in a night. Not sit there and watch someone take a week or 4 days to do it.

I'd also like to point out why your not getting so many players. They get bored of trying to take down the bloated empires. You give them something to fight over and the idea they can succeed, you'll keep them.

The counter-argument to this is that newbs will be hit since they'll lose their empires. Well take a look at the state of the community. Back when i started up, we got proper beat on, but we also got helped out. Now the games mainly filled with trash who try to fill their egos by competing in a pathetic manner against pathetic people.

I no longer see why people get any pleasure from gaming in such an atmosphere, unless its to keep up with old friends. But theres facebook for that.

[rebjorn]

Try implementing a system that makes solars slightly more powerful the less you have, but the more you have the more your solars needs to be in perfect balance all over the place for them to do the job right.

--
Example:
A newbie has 4 cols that he's building for the first time. He's spending all his time on that, disregarding all other tactics and skills required to build an empire. Maybe he doesn't even want an empire - but meanwhile there are corps out there with 3 million followers that can't be scratched.

The new player loses all his stuff in 1 night and quits..
--

Now, how about letting the new players have a few advantages. Upon reaching a certain point those advantages would disappear (An in-game description would explain how it'd work, to make it clear). The UN could perhaps lend a hand (even after UN protection is over), boosting Solar power by means of military presence (increased military effectiveness) for freshly graduated cadettes.

It'd have to be balanced enough to not be exploitable though. Wouldn't want impenetrable fortresses where they don't belong..

Just crossed my mind as I read this thread, dunno if it's anything to consider.

[BardockSGE]

I find it funny that everyone that comments on solars seems to moan about how they get nerfed to be easier. Tell you a little vet secret.....

....they were better when they were easier. Made the game more dynamic. Now its static and bloated. You need to lose 100 colonies in a night. Not sit there and watch someone take a week or 4 days to do it.

I'd also like to point out why your not getting so many players. They get bored of trying to take down the bloated empires. You give them something to fight over and the idea they can succeed, you'll keep them.

The counter-argument to this is that newbs will be hit since they'll lose their empires. Well take a look at the state of the community. Back when i started up, we got proper beat on, but we also got helped out. Now the games mainly filled with trash who try to fill their egos by competing in a pathetic manner against pathetic people.

I no longer see why people get any pleasure from gaming in such an atmosphere, unless its to keep up with old friends. But theres facebook for that.

QFT

[thelegend]

I think the solars are pretty good as they are i mean making them harder would not encourage wars

I dont think having millions of followers sitting there is fun, so i much prefer war even at a loss its more exciting to get that space fight aspect and invading, the balance is fine, making minor changes to the solar every couple of months is pointless, if you dont want people to invade you go play pax!

If you think invading is too easy! stop invading earths and oceans for gods sake!
find yourself a good DD to take or something.

If someone invades you that sure as hell means you can invade it back so whats the worry? Theres too much complaining and pointless polls in this forum there is many other ways to improve this game this is such a minor issue in comparison to the fact sge is losing its player base and dont even dare blaming this as the issue because that is bullcrap, people get bored with the same old BBQ thats the real reason, use your time better start a war, or even better come up with some actual viable ways to improve the game that will inspire toonces to reinvest more to the game.

With a community that complains 24/7 i can't put alot of blame for jumping at the chance to invest time in this game

Just my thoughts whether you guys agree or disagree i have a right to my own opinion just like everyone else here.
Johnnyc

[WeGotDeathStar]

Well Said Johhny


Ask yourself this...whats more fun. Having a small group of crybaby noobs supporting this game thru tokens...you know the ones that sit on dead servers with 5 million followers each or the way it used to be with a hundred players on one server? Having 150 million exp used to mean something in this game, now it is littered with noobs that have 500 million all day long. All because everyone that enjoyed this game and made it what it is today have taken a step back due to bad decisions and whats left are the noobs that dictate the game to all of us now. No older vet players mean nobody around to teach the proper dynamics of this game. When you have noobs teaching noobs...well then just log into most any server and you will see what i am talking about.

How much longer does anyone think this is gonna go on for? One day even the noobs will get bored having all those followers and no competition then leave the game for good. When that happens turn out the lights on Starport cause it will be finished.


This is a make it or break it time for this game, no words need to be spoken as to what has happened the last few years and the players leaving in a mass exodus. Kudos to Toonce for making this game, we all know it's hard to create and maintain a dream but he needs to accept that the decisions made have ruined this once great game.


If Toonce doesn't want to put up with our suggestions anymore then do us all a favor, sell the game to someone that wants to see it succeed and let it grow once again to what it once was. I hope i speak for everyone but I think Toonce owes us all being we have all put multiple years into this game and many many hours of our lives. Yes it was fun before and it is mildly entertaining at the moment but the time has come to put up or shut up. Don't let the game die and erase all the years of fun we have all had.


As far as the other post, the title is just to catch his eye.....If he is too lazy to read what we have to say and can't be bothered to act then why do we have a forum? Forums are made to talk about the good points and bad points of games and is a direct view into what works and what does not and if a dev does not want to embrace all the valuable information a forum provides then the writing on the wall is obvious about the game.

[Drifter101]

10 shot solars are boring as you cant really dodge between them, you just have to walk right through the wall of fire coming at you. It just becomes about credits, or having enough players pile into the colony. Maximum solar should be triple-shot, this would be tricky enough to dodge but do-able. Also increase the damage.

other ideas (some of these will help compensate for less solar shots);

-Multiple solar cannons; triple shot each, but more than 1 cannon cant target the same player, so if mulitple players landed then each one would have a triple shot cannon to dodge. This would stop multi player invasions being too easy.

-Get rid of limit to solar cannon range. This would greatly help defence on draggy planets, and would also eliminate the cheaty /warp exploit people use to escape planets when low on shields. (Okay I do it too, but it is lame)

-Most galaxies should not have ports in every system, more like 1 in every 3 systems as standard, as ports everywhre makes invasion too easy, (and running from fights)

-Make primary weapons better so you can invade with them. If this is done sufficiently then the final step would be make missile invading do less damage so that primary weapons become the main way of invading. That would be my dream, a more skill based game, more fun!

[omlow]

10 shot solars are boring as you cant really dodge between them, you just have to walk right through the wall of fire coming at you. It just becomes about credits, or having enough players pile into the colony. Maximum solar should be triple-shot, this would be tricky enough to dodge but do-able. Also increase the damage.

other ideas (some of these will help compensate for less solar shots);

-Multiple solar cannons; triple shot each, but more than 1 cannon cant target the same player, so if mulitple players landed then each one would have a triple shot cannon to dodge. This would stop multi player invasions being too easy.

-Get rid of limit to solar cannon range. This would greatly help defence on draggy planets, and would also eliminate the cheaty /warp exploit people use to escape planets when low on shields. (Okay I do it too, but it is lame)

-Most galaxies should not have ports in every system, more like 1 in every 3 systems as standard, as ports everywhre makes invasion too easy, (and running from fights)

-Make primary weapons better so you can invade with them. If this is done sufficiently then the final step would be make missile invading do less damage so that primary weapons become the main way of invading. That would be my dream, a more skill based game, more fun!

/like

[The Hood]

10 shot solars are boring as you cant really dodge between them, you just have to walk right through the wall of fire coming at you. It just becomes about credits, or having enough players pile into the colony. Maximum solar should be triple-shot, this would be tricky enough to dodge but do-able. Also increase the damage.

other ideas (some of these will help compensate for less solar shots);

-Multiple solar cannons; triple shot each, but more than 1 cannon cant target the same player, so if mulitple players landed then each one would have a triple shot cannon to dodge. This would stop multi player invasions being too easy.

-Get rid of limit to solar cannon range. This would greatly help defence on draggy planets, and would also eliminate the cheaty /warp exploit people use to escape planets when low on shields. (Okay I do it too, but it is lame)

-Most galaxies should not have ports in every system, more like 1 in every 3 systems as standard, as ports everywhre makes invasion too easy, (and running from fights)

-Make primary weapons better so you can invade with them. If this is done sufficiently then the final step would be make missile invading do less damage so that primary weapons become the main way of invading. That would be my dream, a more skill based game, more fun!

I agree.

[Mr Cow]

omlow how dare you want maximus 3 shot solars D:! let's take a moment to LOL. if you dont like solars just go pax it's that simple...

[duece]

If the problem is that it's now less rewarding to build, why not make it easier to build? Like, just cut down on the resource/colonist hauling it takes to get a colony started. Maybe cut the resources it takes to complete a building.. but that's not a big deal on mod servers because of bulkheads. Maybe boost reproduction rates during UN protection? The important thing is to cut down the time it takes to build an empire from scratch, and that will let more corps make a base for themselves to fight a wars off of.

It seems to me that the red tape between corps fighting war should be minimized. So cheaper shield prices is a good thing, weaker solar cannons help, but on the other side of the equation there also has to be more colonies to invade. So that's as big of a problem in starport as anything else. It should take less time to build colonies.

Starport was at it's peak in activity around when p4 banged, which was one month before the resource consumption patch. On the first day of that server there were 70 people on, because new permas were such a big attraction. That tapered off, but there was consistently 30+ people on in the afternoon for the first month. Back then colonies had 5k colonists and 1 shot solars, any col could make 2.4m credits a day (rockies made 2.8m), any col could make 37.5 nukes on prison military and volcanics could make 75 nukes a day. People built up empires rapidly, and invaded each other on a hair trigger. There was huge incentive to fight war, because you could feasibly wipe a corp out and end up with all of their colonies. I'm not saying to go back to the old rules, but starport should have a fast pace like it used to. Just cut the time down between a person deciding to do something and then actually doing it, and I think it will make things a lot more fun.

[The Hood]

If the problem is that it's now less rewarding to build, why not make it easier to build? Like, just cut down on the resource/colonist hauling it takes to get a colony started. Maybe cut the resources it takes to complete a building.. but that's not a big deal on mod servers because of bulkheads. Maybe boost reproduction rates during UN protection? The important thing is to cut down the time it takes to build an empire from scratch, and that will let more corps make a base for themselves to fight a wars off of.

It seems to me that the red tape between corps fighting war should be minimized. So cheaper shield prices is a good thing, weaker solar cannons help, but on the other side of the equation there also has to be more colonies to invade. So that's as big of a problem in starport as anything else. It should take less time to build colonies.

Starport was at it's peak in activity around when p4 banged, which was one month before the resource consumption patch. On the first day of that server there were 70 people on, because new permas were such a big attraction. That tapered off, but there was consistently 30+ people on in the afternoon for the first month. Back then colonies had 5k colonists and 1 shot solars, any col could make 2.4m credits a day (rockies made 2.8m), any col could make 37.5 nukes on prison military and volcanics could make 75 nukes a day. People built up empires rapidly, and invaded each other on a hair trigger. There was huge incentive to fight war, because you could feasibly wipe a corp out and end up with all of their colonies. I'm not saying to go back to the old rules, but starport should have a fast pace like it used to. Just cut the time down between a person deciding to do something and then actually doing it, and I think it will make things a lot more fun.

This

[Mua'Dib]

Starport was at it's peak in activity around when p4 banged, which was one month before the resource consumption patch. On the first day of that server there were 70 people on, because new permas were such a big attraction. That tapered off, but there was consistently 30+ people on in the afternoon for the first month.

Frontier Wars consistently had over 100 players active when it was the newest perma. Sometimes it had over 150.

The months I spent on FW were ridiculously enjoyable. It's been 6 years now, but I still have many fond memories from that time period.

But it was a totally different game back then. As the game was progressively made worse, most of the enjoyable people to play with/against were gradually driven away.

[WeGotDeathStar]

Starport was at it's peak in activity around when p4 banged, which was one month before the resource consumption patch. On the first day of that server there were 70 people on, because new permas were such a big attraction. That tapered off, but there was consistently 30+ people on in the afternoon for the first month.

Frontier Wars consistently had over 100 players active when it was the newest perma. Sometimes it had over 150.

The months I spent on FW were ridiculously enjoyable. It's been 6 years now, but I still have many fond memories from that time period.

But it was a totally different game back then. As the game was progressively made worse, most of the enjoyable people to play with/against were gradually driven away.

This



Also Classics had over 100 people logged in for about a month before it started to slow down.

New servers are lucky to have 15 people logged in from the start.......I really do miss the old days

[avitohol]

Starport was at it's peak in activity around when p4 banged, which was one month before the resource consumption patch. On the first day of that server there were 70 people on, because new permas were such a big attraction. That tapered off, but there was consistently 30+ people on in the afternoon for the first month.

Frontier Wars consistently had over 100 players active when it was the newest perma. Sometimes it had over 150.

The months I spent on FW were ridiculously enjoyable. It's been 6 years now, but I still have many fond memories from that time period.

But it was a totally different game back then. As the game was progressively made worse, most of the enjoyable people to play with/against were gradually driven away.

This



Also Classics had over 100 people logged in for about a month before it started to slow down.

New servers are lucky to have 15 people logged in from the start.......I really do miss the old days

Good to see Mua'Dib about. But Deathstar dude Old Frontier Wars was probably the best server when it banged. The only two servers i can think of that were on par were maybe P3 for its first 2-3 months for pre-10 shot/colonial changes and P5 for after. The reason why FW was epic is due to the fact that it along with maybe P5 to some extent, but in a grander scale was a big corp size server where neither of them gained advantage over one another. I mean there were varying corporate followers. But it was a true cold war status that lasted months. Now you'd think this was not newb friendly. But a combination of competition and game dynamics brought to the SGE some of its biggest names, the question is why?

Now on Old Frontier Wars for a corp to survive they needed two things. Firstly it was tokens, which were like diamonds on starport during this period. Not everyone had them and the only way to gain them was by actually buying them. Secondly only players of a certain calibre survived there. By this i mean people who were willing to accept the fact that they would be wiped on a daily basis, the hardcore gamers. These gamers would seek out similar gamers or promote a similar mentality. This is fun. The way i see starport now is like Halo 2 and Halo Reach. Halo 2 was more fun, yet more basic because it had a harsh ranking system, this allowed pvp player to compete with each other without mercy. Halo Reach on the other hand catered for the casual gamer, it promoted the idea that everyone gains even in defeat. Now with a game like starport that as Duece says "is a skill based game". makes it a niche market. The reason it was so successful is that its allowed the hardcore mentality of a gamer to flourish by challenging him. I this game currently as a Halo Reach based system, which promotes an "every one wins mentality". Before if you attacked a server you had two alternatives, either be destroyed completely or take over it over. Not a situation where the wolves of mibu have held onto 60-80 rockies on New Golden Age for close to year after warring some of the top corp, because they can't be arsed to invade them.

To draw a conclusion. For you to have a thriving enviroment in a niche skill based game you need to promote competition. I think this formula was found and mastered around the time of Old Frontier Wars. I can trace the general exodus of players to the original source, which was the patch that changed shield prices in ports from a static nature to that of supply and demand. Now there have been a lot of changes since then. But i believe a closer look needs to be taken at that era of the game, and a general consensus needs to be taken with the community and developers in regards to the future of this game. I believe Toonces should be the person to start a thread entitled, Where do we go now guys?

Avi

P.S Blame Mua for this triple qouted wall of text, been a long time since i've seen something like this

[WeGotDeathStar]

All the thing you said are all very True Avit.....

At one point in time when we had a good amount of players then indeed there were proper wars on servers that planets went back and forth. But that is because of the quality of players and the amount of them that were playing at the time. Now fill me in on the timelines if you would. I started playing August 21, 2007...I found the game randomly on a MMORPG game list, I don't remember which one but starport was in the Top 50 at the time. When I started playing P3 and Battle Royale were the most popular servers. At this time BR was constant war as was P#...from what I saw on BR the corp The Crazy pretty much ran the entire server, they had cols everywhere...entire systems. Einz and crew were active as Podmaniacs. Now with this dominance of BR it seemed more like P1 and Broken Monkey's reign. I wasn't there for that but have heard stories of that.

As far as P3 I played that server more as a lone wolf at the time and there was always a conflict going on 24/7 on that server, a lot of great people played that server. Now i played that server and i know the dynamic of planets going back and forth and corps being wiped all the time. But what is the definition of "Wipe", if a couple of noobs have 10 colonies and they all get invaded in one nite..especially if they were in 2 systems right next to each other then thats not really a hard thing to do. If a good size corp had 100-200 planets spread out on the map then it's is doubtful they are gonna get "wiped". Give it a few months of looking and that corp not being active and yes they can be wiped but the constant planets going back and forth that isn't gonna happen. I know this because me by lonesome never did get wiped and i didn't have anything like the other top corps.

Now it seems that your group of players started a lot of these servers, built em up then moved on to all the other new ones that banged....that doesn't mean that the second generation of players that took over the servers don't deserve any merit. A lot of history went down when you guys were on the other servers so you can't discredit anyone else that played. Basically just because your group played it and moved on does not mean the server was dead. P3 and BR went on long after you guys left and were plenty active.


Now as far as FW goes I'm sure that was a fun time, If it was before P3 then it was before my time, I can't comment on anything about it. But we had 10x the amount of players we have now for reasons we have all beat to death. When Classics banged it was on the premise of it was going to be like the old game, no pollution...1 shot solars and what ever you all complained about at the time. It had a solid 100 players logged in for quite some time before players realized it was not really a Classic server. Starport was plenty fun with 10 shot solars and the pollution..yeah even thou we all no it sucked it trimmed down empires. I would think it was introduced because the same problems existed with giant, bloated empires back then as we have now.


What I would like to know is this, what percentage of players left after the first round of changes...the pollution patch..solar patch. Then what was the percentage after the mod patch. I know the game died tremendously after the mod patch, did the same thing happen after the pollution/solar patch?


In closing Starport has died off from many unwanted patches, players grow up and move on or lose interest and also the entire MMORPG world has slowed down quite a bit, back in the early 2000's MMORPG's were still new and were the big thing, now 12 years later only the games that are produced from big name publishers are thriving. Niche games like Starport are all dying off. Look at Star Wars Online, 2 years and now it's free to play cause people aren't buying it anymore. They do the free to play to try to resurrect the game and make it profitable. Toonce has tried to do this as well but without new players joining the game will never recover to it's former glory. Also that stunt with the reviews/tokens thing blew up in his face losing CNets exposure booting him off the list.

[WeGotDeathStar]

On more point I'd like to make...I remember distinctly a comeback attempted by JohhnyC and his group on P3. They were supposed to be the best of the best at the time and we stomped them off the server in a day. These were the days of tactics, when 20 hops from the Pirate Base were all ports mined, systems lasered. If you got caught in any of these systems you were screwed......10 hops of lasers and mines and it was a free trip to sol...that's when the game was skill based. Not what it's like now. Back then mining all the exits of the Black Holes kept people from getting to your areas....also the smart people knew how to mine the piss out of the Black Hole entrance...preventing players from escaping that system in a fight.


Fighting used to be so much more fun back then, you went to a server to gang-bang all the time for laughs, I know cause we did this all the time. Classics was a great example of this...on at least two occasions we took down all the exp whores. One time it was waiting a few hops from sol in pods of nukes/negs and having one guy spam land cols...ya that was the Real Pod Squad . When they warped in it was instant rape. Another time we went with 5 guys and took on 15 of the servers best, all sending them to sol. Starport was indeed fun long after FW was popular, maybe not as fun for some but the dynamics for fun were there. Now like Avit said it's geared towards everyone wins...you die you lose a tiny fraction of exp. To me and many that made fighting stupid. We just got fighting/ 1v1's back from the mod debacle on the no-mod servers only to have it sterilized with the exp loss patch.


And as for the new GA..well it's the same people that have taken over servers many times before, thats why you have so many large empires there....it has gotten boring taking over servers. you can only do it so many times then it's not fun anymore...this is why it is so important to get a influx og new players to replace the older vets. We used to teach them then they became enemies we could fight with then we passed the torch so to say, now new people play for a week then move on somewhere else leaving the same old players that have been around forever with a game that has been detuned a bit every patch.

[avitohol]

An enjoyable double post, Madace would have deleted it in a split second

The initial pollution patch was before my time. But i can tell you about the shield prices. Now it wasn't so much a mass exodus patch, as a phasing out of most of the people i called vets. Mua'Dib being one of them. When they quit they gave me a warning i never really took note of until i started to play after a long absence from the game. And that was the nature of the fluidity of the game.

To answer the solar and colonial patch. Well the solar patch was something that was initially loved, and its very nature at the start was a challenge. However this was before the refinery changes. 10/120's were very very rare. So it offered something of a challenge, but also enough to still keep the game fluid. The refinery patch was also pretty welcome. But here lies the danger, the short gain in comparison to the long term. The game lost an element of its fluidity.

The colonial patch actually made a lot of builders quit, and a lot of players to stop building. Before you would fill your refinery with the necessary resources and leave it to build in UN. With commodities and the addition to UN tax (which had 2-3 very long threads, dwarfing the quitting thread over the rockies) made building a lot more time consuming, that is why it take a hell of a lot longer to build up a new server.

As for space fighting, thats something that can't be resolved around having two game types on one engine. I've said this before, for the balances to happen there needs to be a choice or a division of engines/ servers or whatever. There needs to be a no-mod and mod specific rules. You shouldn't be able to dodge nukes with just afterburners, or get annihilated by an enemy team who have too many cargo's because nukes and negs are too hard to dodge.This idea that lasers need time to generate health in space after being deployed only stops people from engaging and defending their cols. Why would i go into a lasered system where i am outnumbers and find myself in a situation where i can't destroy their laserwall and replace it with my own, that was a massive dynamic in space fighting.

Not to make this post too long. But i would enjoy this discussion if it continues. And some feedback from the developers would be awesome. Just a general check list on some of the ideas on the thread with a yes and no every so often. It make their lives easier with expanding the game, and would keep the community away from the dark concerning general ideas.