I'd imagine this could change if Scatterhome got involved and started taking Cosmpiercers, but there doesn't seem to be too much of an urge to do them. I'd get involved but I'm still not happy about losses on death, coupled with the extremely poor rewards from owning them. It is the biggest turn-off from involvement.
You're certainly on to something. A 3-way split in the balance of power would decrease the number of vulnerabilities you have to happen to be awake for.
And yeah this solution means it's possible the other players snatch up your rank 7 and keep it for over a week while all you can do is take rank 1 or some other garbage back. But let's face it, nobody runs piercers for money (as long as losses are not too painful - death is fine, losing 40k worth of comms when your battleship blows up less so). They run it because it's pvp. And pvp is fun. Or at least should be, if done well.
EDIT: TL;DR version - longer cosmpiercer cooldown times plz.
This is possibly another good solution.
Both these points have in common the notion that fewer Cosmpiercers per day would lead to a greater likelihood of an actual fight, and I would tend to agree.
I'm definitely in agreement that we could use more downtime between windows, and I don't care particularly what that number is as long as we've not got 20 cosmpiercers opening a day with only one or two orgs participating. Obviously if all three had the ships and people to participate, this would be more engaging and less exhausting, but that isn't the case just now.
Another solution I wouldn't mind being implemented is just reducing the number of cosmpiercers altogether, and maybe extend their range to compensate for the cosmpiercer survey zones that won't be monitored anymore. And because a big barrier for entry right now for orgs without battleships is generators (and just having people), I think another potential fix would be to have cosmpiercer levels reset to 1 after they've been captured, and allow them to grow a certain amount either over time or through successful defenses. Obviously this might be rough because you're talking about conquering something like a level 7 and then having to nurture it up yourself (however that might be implemented), but I think it would be a more interesting mechanic. Cosmpiercers should change hands more often, ideally incurring fights in the process.
Another thing I would really like is for the generators to have standardized positions. It can be interesting to have different formations for lower rank cosmpiercers that only have 3 that don't do that much, but once you get up to 4, 5, 6 of these things that can cluster up, it can be very difficult to try to lead a fleet of people to burst down generators quickly enough to have a reasonable amount of time on the ground to do what you need to do there. They should definitely slow down attackers, but the fact that the positions are random every time means that if you get a bad arrangement, it can potentially screw your group out of an attempt, which is more costly now that attempts are limited to specific windows. Conversely, you could get a great arrangement that allows you to easily burst down each generator without worrying about people getting tagged by nearby ones, and then you're on the ground lickety-split. My problem is that I don't think this aspect should be so much left up to chance. There's definitely some planning you can try to do ahead of time to account for the variations, but I really think they should be static to provide everyone the same degree of challenge.
The accessibility aside, cosmpiercers still don't offer us anything worthwhile aside from a trickle of marks and cosmpiercer survey. There are legitimate uses for the latter, but neither incentivize me to take these, as mentioned above. They're something to do hoping that we get some kind of conflict in the game's singular org-based conflict system. Obviously we still need to nail down the mechanics so that things are fair enough for everyone to reasonably participate and get a share of whatever the pie winds up being, but I'd really like something juicier in that pie. I don't have specific suggestions right now, but even something little like a cumulative bonus to ships or mining or something space-related would be neat.
I'm done with this garbage. No matter what superficial changes are introduced, in the end it still boils down to more people = win. There is no incentive to being a better combatant, only to having a bigger zerg.
I didn't spend 2 hours watching over a piercer today instead of writing an important report only to get curbstomped just because my faction is pvp-dead. So yeah, done. Have fun steamrolling everything, Song - just like the devs wanted.
these are all steps in the right direction, but this current setup nor the solutions proposed to solve my biggest issue, which is the zerging issue. Most of the time the general sentiment around CA is we do not have enough people to even bother trying to defend.
Yeah, I'm sure "learning to work together" means I'll magically defeat 4 enemy combatants wailing down on me. But here comes the updoot brigade to show you're right and I am wrong.
BTW the only case I recall when you two fought a vastly outnumbered enemy and actually won was Soza using distribution in a room with guards to turn them against the defenders. Which by the way was a dick move and still isn't changed, unlike some other things which are now nerfed (because they were used to inconvenience Song players).
No, friend; that was just the only time you were there. We regularly won 2-3v6 without guard help. Guard help was when we started losing. Celestine took an inordinate amount of time to kill me earlier today, which is why I suggested consider synergy over rage; but if you just wanna rage, have a good day.
I feel like that's a little unfair, Nykara. There was a cosmpiercer earlier today, it was me and Ren, I couldn't even get to the cosmpiercer and there's no way Ren was going to fight the people taking it alone. That sort of thing is frustrating, REALLY frustrating, it makes you want to disengage. The guards being there as a delaying tactic and wall vs invaders made it possible for people to actually make it hard for attackers.
Now, if you outnumber there's basically no way to pull it back, especially when you're lacking combatants. I can't think of a way to do it better, but it can be really unfun for the defenders. (That's not just for CA, it happening to anyone is unfun)
How many of those 6s were over level 50, I wonder. I remember when y'all were wrecking song at Danica station but that's because their defenders were lowbies like Reeloc or Flipilaria.
That was ages ago and everyone is lvl 75 now. Good luck winning 2v6 in such circumstances. But fuck, I'd even take 2v6 over what I usually experience, which is 1 vs 3 or 4.
Also, that "inordinate amount of time" was the standard TTK when you're not a pre-nerf scoundrel.
EDIT: Actually, you know what? Your advice was "git gud" and now you're flouncing that someone doesn't appreciate it - and somehow I'm the asshole here? Give me a break.
@Vaxis don't get me wrong - 1v3+ is downright impossible, 0/10 don't recommend. But once you have a partner, synergy makes the impossible quite possible. I don't think anyone's going to make the game support 1 person beating groups, that's just not balance.
That being said, claiming bias toward a faction doesn't do anything for your argument, and is just downright untrue. Give the devs more credit if you're going to try and make an argument.
That being said, claiming bias toward a faction doesn't do anything for your argument, and is just downright untrue.
Give the devs more credit if you're going to try and make an argument.
This thread is proof of that. No change to cosmpiercers was implemented unless 1. it was suggested by a song player or 2. it was updooted by song players.
Need more proof? I had bugged (as a priority bug nonetheless) faction guards being movable for MONTHS and jack shit was done about that. But cosmpiercer guards are moved to block song players from taking it once, and suddenly everyone cries on the forum and, in less than 24 hours, a dramatic change is implemented that removes guards altogether. Thus giving an advantage to the faction with the largest number of active combatants, which just happens to be Song at the moment. What a coincidence. Not to mention we get a very unprofessional, very passive aggressive post that says "cheating is not right, mkay?" Even though it wasn't cheating when it was done before, because it wasn't done against Song.
This is a pattern. No change is done in the game unless it benefits Song players. And when something cockblocks them too much, it gets changed quickly. Very quickly.
And finally, the liaison for Song is most active from all three factions. Scatter didn't even have a liaison until like a week ago. The devs are always being proactive in wanking Song's ingame philosophy ("muh faction first, no sacrifice too great, fuck the enemy" - yadda yadda, you know the spiel) so much that it leaks into OOC. Just ask some Song players in this very thread.
I'm not gonna speak on the bias thing, I haven't noticed it, but I will admit, it was weird how the Cosmpiercers got changed so fast. It might have been a pre-planned thing that just had bad timing, or it might have been a knee-jerk thing, or whatever, but it felt bad when it happened.
That being said, claiming bias toward a faction doesn't do anything for your argument, and is just downright untrue.
Give the devs more credit if you're going to try and make an argument.
This thread is proof of that. No change to cosmpiercers was implemented unless 1. it was suggested by a song player or 2. it was updooted by song players.
Need more proof? I had bugged (as a priority bug nonetheless) faction guards being movable for MONTHS and jack shit was done about that. But cosmpiercer guards are moved to block song players from taking it once, and suddenly everyone cries on the forum and, in less than 24 hours, a dramatic change is implemented that removes guards altogether. Thus giving an advantage to the faction with the largest number of active combatants, which just happens to be Song at the moment. What a coincidence. Not to mention we get a very unprofessional, very passive aggressive post that says "cheating is not right, mkay?" Even though it wasn't cheating when it was done before, because it wasn't done against Song.
This is a pattern. No change is done in the game unless it benefits Song players. And when something cockblocks them too much, it gets changed quickly. Very quickly.
And finally, the liaison for Song is most active from all three factions. Scatter didn't even have a liaison until like a week ago. The devs are always being proactive in wanking Song's ingame philosophy ("muh faction first, no sacrifice too great, fuck the enemy" - yadda yadda, you know the spiel) so much that it leaks into OOC. Just ask some Song players in this very thread.
Hang on, wait a minute. You priority bugged something and then proceeded to abuse it as often as you could? And you're mad that the people you used it against agreed with you and bugged it as well? You're also mad at the admin for chastising people (you) for abusing a bug?
Hang on, wait a minute. You priority bugged something and then proceeded to abuse it as often as you could? And you're mad that the people you used it against agreed with you and bugged it as well? You're also mad at the admin for chastising people (you) for abusing a bug?
:thinking:
Equip yourself with reading comprehension, then try again.
Hi. Are you a Fury in-game? This is the forums. There's no need to RAGE DEFLECT here.
Equip yourself with a modicum of civility and tone down the vitriol, then try again.
Maybe don't accuse me of abusing bugs then. Your statement that I "then proceeded to abuse it as often as I could" was pure conjecture to make me look bad, and once again, now that I'm calling people out on this passive aggressive behavior I am met with flouncing and implying I'm the asshole here.
Also vitriol fits this game much better. Most of the playerbase (including once again several posters in this thread) have actively rebuffed efforts at establishing a more fair/less punishing pvp experience and decided that since the other peeps are from an opposing faction then they must SUFFER. Which once again, is Song's IC agenda but leaking into OOC. Acting like it's all sunshine and roses and ~we just want to create a scenario that is fun for everyone~ is so disingenous it makes me want to puke.
Also vitriol fits this game much better. Most of the playerbase (including once again several posters in this thread) have actively rebuffed efforts at establishing a more fair/less punishing pvp experience and decided that since the other peeps are from an opposing faction then they must SUFFER. Which once again, is Song's IC agenda but leaking into OOC. Acting like it's all sunshine and roses and ~we just want to create a scenario that is fun for everyone~ is so disingenous it makes me want to puke.
Alright. I'm going to establish that this advice I'm about to say isn't meant to be passive-aggressive, or aggressive-aggressive, or an attack or anything like that. Just me trying to be as real as possible.
Nobody, player or admin, is going to take you seriously if you have that kind of attitude. You might want to consider adjusting your stance on "what fits the game better". Otherwise, you can count on admin ignoring you.
Feel free to insult my intelligence or integrity or whatever else you like. It really only hurts your credibility.
Also vitriol fits this game much better. Most of the playerbase (including once again several posters in this thread) have actively rebuffed efforts at establishing a more fair/less punishing pvp experience and decided that since the other peeps are from an opposing faction then they must SUFFER. Which once again, is Song's IC agenda but leaking into OOC. Acting like it's all sunshine and roses and ~we just want to create a scenario that is fun for everyone~ is so disingenous it makes me want to puke.
Alright. I'm going to establish that this advice I'm about to say isn't meant to be passive-aggressive, or aggressive-aggressive, or an attack or anything like that. Just me trying to be as real as possible.
Nobody, player or admin, is going to take you seriously if you have that kind of attitude. You might want to consider adjusting your stance on "what fits the game better". Otherwise, you can count on admin ignoring you.
Feel free to insult my intelligence or integrity or whatever else you like. It really only hurts your credibility.
loss of credibility? look he raised a valid pattern and concern and then people started shitting on him. it looks very much like his credibility is fine and other people need to act a bit more civil. Not to mention other people not in song are saying they do not like this system and are being completely ignored in favour of more of the same new system only with new tweaks that are not solving the reasons we do not like the system.
To be honest I found the previous version with guards always better because it provided a natural resistance. That natural resistance was a combination of mark losses, time consumed and defensive dangers. Rate of cosmpiercers changing hands was less then the current version as well. In my opinion that was quite balanced. Lack of Scatterhome participation of course will always make things appear imbalanced to a degree.
And I must say cosmpiercers might take a bit of time to cover their expenses but CA held a good portion for a long while and I would say it covered the expenses and more over the time. Right now we have systems in place to cover any cost so I would say at least from the side of marks it does not have much cost for those who would like to contribute. It is just willingness to do it. Possibly if factions had their cut on player credit purchases (retroactively valid perhaps), that could alleviate some of the perceived financial burden too. But after a level it is really immensely easier to gain marks to throw around.
While timers might make things fair over time with the participation of Scatterhome, I find the lack of PvE and reduction of hacking terminals counter-productive. If people were not interested in PvP it was a group PvE activity after all. And when the defenders appeared they could use guards to their advantage provided the attackers did not place a naval blockade. More strategy was involved then a hacking rush.
Right now we see people employ naval blockades still. It was possible to do so back then too and prevent most of the guard related hazards. So what changed? Nothing. Difference is that numbers are more important then ever though. Some people even argued that sitting outside with a ship is not fun, but people do it anyways while capturing things in the cosmpiercer far easier without resistance.
Furthermore losing high rank cosmpiercers that you spent hours to capture back then can be taken in 20-30 minutes due to your absence right now makes it a bit disappointing.
Nobody, player or admin, is going to take you seriously if you have that kind of attitude. You might want to consider adjusting your stance on "what fits the game better". Otherwise, you can count on admin ignoring you.
It's true though. The game currently not only allows but encourages griefing and bullying tactics. Attacking when the other faction is at its weakest, when it can't defend its cosmpiercers, or if someone does - making them pay for it as much as possible, losing INRs, ship supplies, etc. All of that is advantageous to you and, if you really want your faction to win, should be done as much as possible.
So, we have players who do just that. Especially in song because once again, song encourages the "everything for faction, everything for victory" mindset so much that it seeps into OOC. I tried to minimize unnecessary pvp losses by returning INRs, letting players evacuate from cosmpiercers they obviously lost, letting them pick ship supplies, etc. But a significant number of players, including many who are posting in this thread and are pretending to be friendly and trying to encourage a healthy community, never reciprocated - because everything for victory and being an asshole is simply more beneficial. Sidenote, I'm 100% certain I could easily disassemble them in a 1 on 1 fight, but like all bullies they seek refuge in numbers. And there's no winning that no matter how strong you are.
So yeah. I don't care if admins ignore me or not because I'm done with this game - it's unfun and encourages toxic behavior masked under a thin layer of cordiality. My character may have been kind and understanding but that's just roleplaying, I'm not them. I play games to have a good time, and Starmourn is the opposite of that.
I couldn't delete my character (bought no brainer lesson packages) so I did a second best thing and changed my password to random gibberish. You won't be seeing me ingame again.
Any design we could brainstorm and think off will have their own flaws. That is a fact that is proven by the lengthy existence of this very thread and the number of overhauls made on the system during that time. And no matter what we think off, numbers will always be an issue. This game simply doesn't have enough players with different active time for all factions to have dedicated fighters each single hour of the day. There are some options that might take this into consideration but as I said, any design have it's flaws:
1. We could make it so that cosmpiercers will disable their 'temporary lockdown'(referred to from this point onward as TL) each time there's atleast a set number of players online within the owner faction of those piercers whom are of minimum level or whatever condition/threshold we can agree on (ex. 3 players of atleast MIL50, or atleast 2 players of MIL75...). This way, there's always atleast that set number of players who may be able to defend their piercers. Quite simple. Downside, is that this doesn't necessarily determine if those number of online players are quite willing to participate if their CPs are attacked. So it might not matter at all.
2. Disable ALL the CPs TL at a fixed time of the day, probably around the time when there are more players,(Sometime a few hours after sync?) for a fixed length of time (2 to 4 hours?). This way, there's no more planning necessary. ALL CPs will be open at a fixed amount of time and after this, you can do whatever you want. No more pressure to stay logged in for the sake of guarding the piercers. Except doing this, means we deny other players who are awake at different times of the day who might want the thrilling experience of a group PVP.
3. But here's my real suggestion. Don't change it. Don't even touch it. Whatever problems this or any system has, the real culprit here is not the system or it's flaws. But simply the lack of active players in this game. CA have felt overwhelmed by the number of SD players participating so they decided to use an underhanded tactic against SD. And well, started all this cycle of many overhauls. Let's stop here for now, and perhaps let the devs focus on things that could encourage players to join/rejoin the game. Like the fuckin' BEAST class really need some good tweaking, a lot of us are already waiting for the next classleads too, and there are still some changes needed to be made with starships and incursions, -like, really please remove that Devourer incursion already. The economy is almost fixed now. I'd rather they rev up their marketing campaign too if they could afford it. Really, anything that might increase the player base will be a good solution, in my opinion.
PS: Please pardon my grammar for this is not my primary language.
if nothing gets done then you will not see me participating in cosmpiercers any more. I was not a fan of being on them before and i have only become less of a fan over time.
The real problem is the community. Starmourn doesn't have many players so you'd think we'd all work together to fix that. Wrong! Even in such a small game, tribalism runs rampant - the most oft-encountered player stance is that if you're not a member of my faction, I should grind you to dust and abuse you as much as the game rules let me get away with. This is not just in-character stances either, it leaks into OOC and colors everything players do.
During my time playing this game I tried to foster a sense of fairness and treat others well instead of crapping up their game experience just because they were from another faction. With very rare exceptions what this resulted in is my goodwill being abused as others took advantage of it and then did their usual shit anyway. And I'm not talking about only Song players here - multiple times I had to endure abuse from assholes who considered my character a faction traitor just because I didn't want to fuck other factions over. And most praise I got? That was when I was leading CA to a series of easy cosmpiercer victories that were neither fun nor a fair challenge, but provided benefit for the faction at the expense of others, ergo they're automatically good.
Pure tribalism. Only silver lining here is the worst griefers and bullies dropped the game months ago, but what remains is still far from perfect.
And to reiterate, I know we're acting like we're trying to create a good community here on the forums, by writing polite posts where you politely suggest solutions that will push the system into something where your faction can dominate easier. But that's just pretense. Actions ingame talk louder than forum posts, and I don't have patience to deal with those actions anymore.
I'm done with this community and with this game. It was a stressful and overwhelmingly negative experience.
I'm honestly at a loss for words. I'm sorry your experience didn't work out. Your work IC was always greatly appreciated. Best of luck with whatever you choose to do next.
Perhaps ICly at times I have to act as a pragmatical old Jin but even within that mindset and out of it, your contributions were greatly appreciated and you can be assured that was not limited to easy cosmpiercer captures. It is never pleasant to see a player depart but good luck on finding the enjoyment you desire.
Rhindara please, give me a break. Why are you agreeing with posts above when you're one of the biggest griefers still left in the game and a major reason why I dropped it?
Also I bet you and Yayeh had a lot of fun double teaming to fuck up my battleship, knowing well that: 1. while I can take any of you solo, I couldn't honestly win a 2v1 fight, not after Yayeh upgraded his missiles to actually effective cannons, 2. I wasn't even trying to fight, only leave the area after an obviously failed cosmpiercer defense and 3. that I carried 10+ bucks' worth of supplies that could be yours to vulture up.
Even so I almost made it back to the neutral zone, but then I doubt reaching it would make a difference - why let something as trivial as the game's pvp rules stop you when there's dignity of other players to trample and their hard-earned money to steal, all in the name of Song of course. After all it's not that I'm an asshole, I just put my faction first and it tells me to screw others over as much as possible. So trying to act with basic human decency would be out of character for me.
I agreed with the above posts because I'm genuinely going to miss Ren the character. Ren was always very kind and helpful, and I enjoyed basically every interaction I had with them.
Forgive me if I won't miss the torrent of paranoia and finger-pointing every time people try to make honest suggestions for improving the game and they're addressed.
If you really are leaving the game, I hope you find something that you don't feel wastes your time. If you're staying, then I look forward to getting wrecked! You've proven you're quite capable of it, and you can probably train other willing CA people just the same. I don't remember ever declaring war on you as a person, and I don't intend to start now.
Comments
Another solution I wouldn't mind being implemented is just reducing the number of cosmpiercers altogether, and maybe extend their range to compensate for the cosmpiercer survey zones that won't be monitored anymore. And because a big barrier for entry right now for orgs without battleships is generators (and just having people), I think another potential fix would be to have cosmpiercer levels reset to 1 after they've been captured, and allow them to grow a certain amount either over time or through successful defenses. Obviously this might be rough because you're talking about conquering something like a level 7 and then having to nurture it up yourself (however that might be implemented), but I think it would be a more interesting mechanic. Cosmpiercers should change hands more often, ideally incurring fights in the process.
Another thing I would really like is for the generators to have standardized positions. It can be interesting to have different formations for lower rank cosmpiercers that only have 3 that don't do that much, but once you get up to 4, 5, 6 of these things that can cluster up, it can be very difficult to try to lead a fleet of people to burst down generators quickly enough to have a reasonable amount of time on the ground to do what you need to do there. They should definitely slow down attackers, but the fact that the positions are random every time means that if you get a bad arrangement, it can potentially screw your group out of an attempt, which is more costly now that attempts are limited to specific windows. Conversely, you could get a great arrangement that allows you to easily burst down each generator without worrying about people getting tagged by nearby ones, and then you're on the ground lickety-split. My problem is that I don't think this aspect should be so much left up to chance. There's definitely some planning you can try to do ahead of time to account for the variations, but I really think they should be static to provide everyone the same degree of challenge.
The accessibility aside, cosmpiercers still don't offer us anything worthwhile aside from a trickle of marks and cosmpiercer survey. There are legitimate uses for the latter, but neither incentivize me to take these, as mentioned above. They're something to do hoping that we get some kind of conflict in the game's singular org-based conflict system. Obviously we still need to nail down the mechanics so that things are fair enough for everyone to reasonably participate and get a share of whatever the pie winds up being, but I'd really like something juicier in that pie. I don't have specific suggestions right now, but even something little like a cumulative bonus to ships or mining or something space-related would be neat.
Now, if you outnumber there's basically no way to pull it back, especially when you're lacking combatants. I can't think of a way to do it better, but it can be really unfun for the defenders. (That's not just for CA, it happening to anyone is unfun)
That being said, claiming bias toward a faction doesn't do anything for your argument, and is just downright untrue.
Give the devs more credit if you're going to try and make an argument.
And I must say cosmpiercers might take a bit of time to cover their expenses but CA held a good portion for a long while and I would say it covered the expenses and more over the time. Right now we have systems in place to cover any cost so I would say at least from the side of marks it does not have much cost for those who would like to contribute. It is just willingness to do it. Possibly if factions had their cut on player credit purchases (retroactively valid perhaps), that could alleviate some of the perceived financial burden too. But after a level it is really immensely easier to gain marks to throw around.
While timers might make things fair over time with the participation of Scatterhome, I find the lack of PvE and reduction of hacking terminals counter-productive. If people were not interested in PvP it was a group PvE activity after all. And when the defenders appeared they could use guards to their advantage provided the attackers did not place a naval blockade. More strategy was involved then a hacking rush.
Right now we see people employ naval blockades still. It was possible to do so back then too and prevent most of the guard related hazards. So what changed? Nothing. Difference is that numbers are more important then ever though. Some people even argued that sitting outside with a ship is not fun, but people do it anyways while capturing things in the cosmpiercer far easier without resistance.
Furthermore losing high rank cosmpiercers that you spent hours to capture back then can be taken in 20-30 minutes due to your absence right now makes it a bit disappointing.
I was curious to know what other players thought...
Forgive me if I won't miss the torrent of paranoia and finger-pointing every time people try to make honest suggestions for improving the game and they're addressed.
If you really are leaving the game, I hope you find something that you don't feel wastes your time. If you're staying, then I look forward to getting wrecked! You've proven you're quite capable of it, and you can probably train other willing CA people just the same. I don't remember ever declaring war on you as a person, and I don't intend to start now.
Either way, good luck.