Easiest solution to all the xp imbalance problems of the game

No you are wrong, any gameplay advantage obtained with $$ makes the game p2w.

If you are looking for monetization solutions just copy what the multibillion dollar companies do with success for years now: loot boxes that award cosmetics. Easy and fair.

They make tons of money from those with allot of disposable income (the "whales") that buy boxes as gambling to get the most unique legendary cosmetic skin or whatever. They also make allot of money from the rest of the players by selling bundles in fair prices. I would say 10-20$ to unlock all skins/cosmetics of a given race.


In fact if i was the owner i would pay allot of money in paid advertising to created a base of 300-1000 players per day then lock entirely the new races for 10-20$ on top of the lootboxes/skin bundles. So the people would get to play 2 races for free and would have to unlock the other 2 with real money. This would certainly increase the income for the developers and ensure constant stream of new content for the players. This is the "expansions" model where every new race would count as a big expansion for the game that would bring more income.

 

Vesuvius i finally found a c8 in game today that i managed to shoot for 101 exp per 4 damage or total of 202 exp from 8 damage with he orchis so 3 times more than vs a c6. So at this point even if there where many opportunities to farm vs c8 (there are not) you would get at best 1250xp/hour. I dont understand how did you get the "200-400 exp on half a volley" vs a c7 number.

Also 1 day has passed since my original test and now the top 10 players average 80k+ exp. They earned 30k in one day....lets say they play 10 hours per day thats about 3000exp/h or two to three times more exp than what an average new player would earn by chasing them around with a c3.

The game is designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. I would say we immediately need a rise of 5x-10x more exp on the c3 vs other ships or the original solution i suggested in this thread (huge exp gains from pve missions).

A new player should make 6k exp/hour right now (5x rise) just to keep up with the top players. If you think thats an extreme number just think that to stay somewhat competitive you need today a c7 costing 40k. Thats still 7h of grinding+5h (since the top players would still get 3k/h=30k/day) = total of 12 hours of grinding....

Oh and btw with this system you still need to cap the exp the top players earn or the semi casuals would still need to play 8h/day just to keep up with the 16h no lifers (unless you make the c3 gains even higher like 10+ times more as i suggested).

 

Please stop try to make new comers or people playing less an easy way to have the same things some people invested time to get, it is very unfair to those who invested a lot of time to have a ship advantage.
Also stop ask for easy ways to farm in t3 and skip t4 / t5 / t6 play to directly rush big ships.
If the only goal is to reach easily t10 for everyone from a t3, it would be easier and more fair for everyone to just unock all ships for 0 LP/HP so no farm needed at all

 

...it doesn't matter, ship loss is not even a problem.

Imo, poor bandaids in the end do more harm than good.

 

I like permadeath too. The problem is not losing your ship. The problem is the ridiculous grinding times it takes to buy it (for the new players that start from zero) and then to buy it again if you lose it (the old players that have to start too from zero after death).

Thats why the whole point i made from the beginning was the "xp imbalance problems of the game" not the permadeath problem. In fact that was the first argument that xeen made. That if you add a catch up mechanic for new players you still need help for old players that are losing their ships. Then some people said they were quiting after they lost their ships and you decided to focus on the secondary problem (ships loss) instead of the primary (xp inequality).

Anyway i ve made my case clear multiple times, i understand that you ignore those posts because you disagree with me . You know what is better for the game even if i or anyone else has a different opinion and you will take the final decision.

In any case i dont mind i can still play like a no lifer (because i really love the game even at this state) after the season ends and mop the floor with my opponents faces if i wanted too just like i did before the server reset.

What do you mean?

If you like the game so much with its current mechanics have fun "with your invested time" after the new season starts when i am going to kill you 10 times per day after i farm hard the first days and then snowball just like i did before the reset and just like people do right now.

 

I already made many posts to some change in XP/LP/HP distribution, the problem is not that I like 'the game so much with its current mechanics" its the solution you propose is plain bad.
If player can easily catch up players that invested time in the game :
1/ Why do you even invest time in the game? You just have to play from time to time and you will easily get the same ships than other people
2/ If people catch you easily why bother play a lot to gain advantage

Both things means that the game will be only casual game for everyone and that people have 0 incentive to play the game
If you want to attract new players and give them way to reach content and be impactful its OK, if it means hardcore players will leave because their is no reason to play a lot or people just have to play casually, this global multiplayer campaign will just be dead

 

I, personally, do not believe that the value of this game is the PVE. I believe that it is the PvP, and that the game should be balanced to provide extra value for this portion of the game, not extra value for the PVE (in comparison).

At this time there is an adjustment in EXP earned based on the Tier of your ship and the Tier of the ship you damage (I am not sure it if applies to the kill exp). I believe that this is the system that should be enhanced. I believe that a BIG boost should be given to this adjustment, and that it should also apply to the kill exp (if it does not already). It should also work in reverse (if it does not, I have not tested). This would mean that a new player in a T3 ship would get significant exp if they can do any damage to the superior enemy T5/6/7. It would also mean that they would get significant exp if they help a teammate take down such a ship. Lastly, it would mean that those T5/6/7 ships would get very little exp for killing those T3. This would strongly encourage those with the higher Tier ships to downscale to fight others with lower Tier ships (an action that was asked for, but not promoted by the game). It would also give new players either an even playing field, or the opportunity to make big gains in exp.

 

My solution needs 12 hours grinding in the beginning and 8 hours of playing per day to keep up with the others, not even to have an advantage. Thats not casual gaming or "easily catching up". Casual players play 0-10 hours per week.

You are concerned about hardcore players leaving the game. So about how many people? 20? I am one of them by the way and why would i leave because the grind would be reduced?

Let me ask you the opposite: why would new players and people with real lives play the game right now when they have zero chance competing? They are the 90% of the population btw.

The real difference of our approach is you want to gain edge by mindless grinding many hours with low risk and i want the edge to come from skillfully wining battles with zero grind. Thats how top player should "win the game" by killing other top players and capturing/defending sectors not by farming more hours pve and other weaker players like they did after the reset.

Oh and plz give me a link with the changes in XP/LP/HP distribution you suggested they may be better than what we proposed here.

If you read the last posts of this thread we say the same thing. Exp gains for weaker vs stronger ships should rise at least 5 times more than the current ones for new and old players to stay competitive.

 

Correct. This is why we have a huge rise of mobas for people that hate that model.

Anyway since you want to follow this path i really hope the community responds well and we reach again atleast 180+ people per day like in the steam release. The game felt so alive when most of the sectors were contested!

 

It is true that progression (of some sort) is common in most MMO's as part of their persistency. However, it is also true that game imbalances (vs player skill imbalances) caused by this progression are generally seen as unfair in PvP games, and are often mitigated in some way to provide the perception that the competition is 'fair'. It is not seen as 'fun' to enter a competition that is extremely unbalanced.

It is not that all contests have to be perfectly balanced... just that the game has to provide the appearance of being self adjusting when players come across imbalances.

 

Just look what happened after the patch...top players are now barely making 3k exp per day (the same as the other players) while before the patch they were making with the pve exploits 30k/day.

So a new player starting at the game 4-5 days after them while playing as much as them would make 10 times less experience for days. New players are now begging in the chat for the season to end because they are losing their ships with no chance to compete and the pve exploiters cry because now they "have to pvp" for 10 times less exp.

This exp imbalance that was created from the risk free 15k exp pve missions at he beginning then snowballed with the 1vs1 vs c6+ ai farming and solo sector capturing is way worse than the race imbalances we had before the reset.

 

These types of issues are why it was a bad idea to reset early then, and a bad idea to reset early now. There needs to be a period of finding and fixing issues before a good healthy cycle can occur.

 

Gen has maybe 1 C7 player.

 

Instead of putting a timer on re-entering a zone, let's put a timer on shipyard-based repairs which should be modified by any tenders the player owns and their skill ranks. These could also be tied in to recovering ships in softcore mode (reducing catastrophic repair time)

Example:

Going to a station with no tenders owned, station auto-repairs you at 4x the rate of slow self-repair of 2/minute (station will do 8/minute) that you do in the field on your own.
Having a light repair tender adds + 2/minute (would be nice if taking the engineering skill had a side benefit of adding +repairs granted to allies during combat and self when station-repairing)
Having a medium tender adds its +6/minute (same as above)

So if you have both tenders, which everyone probably would at this point, you would repair at a rate of 16 points/minute when you return to dock (assume the station will be reserving repair capacity in the event of combat or for other players, however you want to justify the low 8/minute rate).

If you have both tenders fully upgraded, maybe you reach up to 36 repair/minute (2 rank 5 officers each granting +10)

So a ship missing 100 hull, 20 engine, and a few systems will take about 8 minutes to fully repair.

The player could bring any fresh ship right back into combat.

 

Or if you are simply good and dont die in the first place. Play to win.

 

Sol C7's are worth more than some Gen C8's. Gen ships suck at later tiers bigtime.

 

Read my post about 'flagged hardcore' ships, in the courtesies thread I think.

I still hate softcore mode.

A small elite team on one faction can overcome hordes of players on the other faction due to player restrictions per map and ship losses.

Without ship losses, you are losing a great equalizer to player count/activity imbalance between factions.