I totally agree with the OP. All this perfect balance crap is just really boring to me, because no one needs to take anyone seriously anymore. I'm a freelancer in a shabby Eagle and I just pissed off the pilot of a Navy Guardian? So what, I have the same chance of taking his high-tech, military grade ship out as he has of blowing my old, crappy, rusty pile of scrap to bits.
And for everyone's sake, stop giving everyone their own ship line (with caps).
It is centered around the idea of giving everybody a region in that he/she is strong and superior to someone else.
The hard point likely is:
Does every faction have such a strength?
Does every faction have equal chances to bring forward their strengths (unplayed factions, etc)
Can these strength be balanced, as not to create something game breaking?
I can easily think of strengths of some factions.
I have a hard time e.g finding some for Cryer, Synth Food, or Landwirtschaftsrechtsbewegung.
One more point is likely very hard to do:
It is still a space shooter.
Shooting is an integral/central part of it.
Whenever someone is overpowered in that aspect, people flock to this faction like mad. From then on, things go downhill fast. And I do not want to go there again (remember Taus against unnerfed Sabres).
Balancing has a point. Of course it is never perfect.
(05-22-2014, 01:38 PM)Jack_Henderson Wrote: It is still a space shooter.
Shooting is an integral/central part of it.
Whenever someone is overpowered in that aspect, people flock to this faction like mad. From then on, things go downhill fast. And I do not want to go there again (remember Taus against unnerfed Sabres).
Balancing has a point. Of course it is never perfect.
Pretty much my opinion too. People who like to pew often go for a faction with tech that is good. So the ones with the good tech will always have more people, regardless of the strengths of other factions. I mean besides IMG and maybe Kruger how many escorts do you see in other trade factions? Compared to the Liberty Navy indies? Navy factions already have people.
Also saying "But I don't feel afraid of his ship, because I know we're the same balance wise" is silly. To be honest as someone who considers himself on the better spectrum of the average at pvp I wouldn't feel intimidated by a navy officer if his ship was better any more than I do now. Because the most important thing in pvp is player skill, regardless of ship stats.
Only way to make naval factions more feared is if we fill them with good pvp whores so it actually feels you're facing someone with years of training. Otherwise any buffs would just be an extra pat on your back when you beat them.
(05-22-2014, 01:50 PM)Bloodl1ke Wrote: People who like to pew often go for a faction with tech that is good. So the ones with the good tech will always have more people, regardless of the strengths of other factions.
Also saying "But I don't feel afraid of his ship, because I know we're the same balance wise" is silly. To be honest as someone who considers himself on the better spectrum of the average at pvp I wouldn't feel intimidated by a navy officer if his ship was better any more than I do now. Because the most important thing in pvp is player skill, regardless of ship stats.
Completely disagree here with you. On your first point what you think about LWB ?
They have one of the best guns(Eliminators) and awsome Snubs so why dont people play as LWB ?the only unlawful players you will see in rheinland will be Hessians and hessians only any idea why ?This is because when majority play as hessian the new guy thinks why should I be different from them so he/she too make a hessian char copying others and never even think about other factions like LWB or Bunschuh which too have ships as good as hessians.
On your second point you are saying "Its not the Ride its the Rider " right ? but can a guy in Suzuki beat a guy in Ferrari ? Similarly suppose if the navy guy is a Newbie and freelancer guy is a pro so with a better ship and weapons don't you think navy guy has a slighty more chance of winning?
Quote:Does every faction have such a strength?
Does every faction have equal chances to bring forward their strengths (unplayed factions, etc)
Can these strength be balanced, as not to create something game breaking?
Well, I think for Official Factions, they could put in requests for specific strengths (with RP-backing, of course) and the Devs could sort through them and see that they are spread amongst factions fairly evenly (the idea being every faction does SOMETHING very well and something they are very weak at which offsets it). For the indie groups, they could also petition for specific strengths, but they should be considered AFTER the Officials (because that should be a perk for being Official, right?)
Quote:I have a hard time e.g finding some for Cryer, Synth Food, or Landwirtschaftsrechtsbewegung.
If we actually had any kind of ID-based bonuses for commodities, this could be easily implemented in ways such as:
Cryer - bonuses for buying/selling Med-Stasis Bands, Pharms, Synthetic Marijuana
Synth - bonuses for buying/selling Synth Gel, Synth Paste, Luxury Food
LWB/Farmers - bonuses for buying/selling Rice, Wheat/Corn/Cereal Grains (new commodity, maybe?)
Etc...
Quote:People who like to pew often go for a faction with tech that is good. So the ones with the good tech will always have more people, regardless of the strengths of other factions.
True...but in a system like the one the OP suggested, even the factions with supposed good "tech" will still have a weakness or hindrance of some sort that brings a manner of balance. Here are some examples I can think of: Gaians - give them EXCELLENT energy efficient weapons and very fast ships, but not necessarily a good refire rate, or not the highest damage, or range, etc. BHG - give them EXCELLENT weapon damage and strong hulls, but ships have very slow turn rates. Maybe make one House navy have better range of guns but a lower number of bots/batts, etc. Make another house have AMAZING Shield buster weapons, but not as strong Hull buster weapons.
Make shield diversification matter more - maybe it's just me, but it seems like it no longer matters much which shield you use anymore (Graviton, Photon, Molecular, etc.) because all weapons seem to just affect them the same way. Make this matter MORE.
And you also have a good point that good PvPers will still be good no matter what they are flying...but this helps create a new, more interesting playing field where no-one is guaranteed a win. Or, will at least force players to develop new tactics/strategies (help relieve any boredom some of you old pros have, maybe?)
(05-22-2014, 03:10 PM)Daniel.Blake Wrote: On your second point you are saying "Its not the Ride its the Rider " right ? but can a guy in Suzuki beat a guy in Ferrari ? Similarly suppose if the navy guy is a Newbie and freelancer guy is a pro so with a better ship and weapons don't you think navy guy has a slighty more chance of winning?
Let me put it this way, when I joined LR- I was forced to fly a Greyhound without armor upgrade so I used my time during said trial without armor upgrade to pvp instead of pirate. And I was efficient enough to kill the average navy pilots with their fully outfitted ship. So that's beating people while having 2.5 times less hull and 1 less gun. So while it is true when people are nearly matched the better ship would win, but given Disco has huge skill gaps between different members any bonus won't really help the newbies versus the pvp whores.
Quote:Take looks at the friendly(?) yellow named Devs. Even those who 'do' have a say in the Nomads can't make a decision like that. It's against balance.
That is the damn point, the balance on Disco is so perfect that it is boring. Plain old balance works for WoW or Star Conflict. Asymetric balance (where everyone is strong in something and weak in something else), that is the way for an RP server to go.
Quote:Jack_Henderson wrote:
In response to Jack: Some factions would be hard to find asymetric balance in them. But it can be done. Trade factions can have: Better CDs and CMs, so they would have a better chance at protecting a convoy. ONLY trade factions would have 5k transports, others would have smaller ones (like IMG does).
As for PvP: That is the point. 1 IMG fighter would not be equal to 1 Outcast fighter. But, 1 BHG hunter would be better than 1 outcast. So, IMG would not be able to protect themselves fully, they would have to employ other factions to do that for them. Yes, we have bounties even now, but they do not really work. This way, there would be a lot more motivation to do RP with other factions. Factions that mine will be great at that, but they cannot have the top military in the sector. Factions that pirate would be great at pirating and so on. I think I have explained it enough.
Quote:Because the most important thing in pvp is player skill, regardless of ship stats.
Ofcourse, skill is a lot. But try fighting a Bastet in a Starflier... and you will see that skill alone is not enough. I am not saying that a good PvPer would have no chance to beat someone with a superior equipment, not at all. As in real life, a great marksman with a pistol can kill an idiot with a machine gun. It is just that the guy with the machine gun has better tools and equipment, as he should have, because he is a member of the military (no offence to any military guys out there, I just needed to support a point, you are probably not idiots).
Quote:If something can be abused, it will be abused. And equality is one of the few things, which can't be.
Asymetric balance could not be abused aswell... It would just need some activity on the server and people actualy logging. That can happen, this comunity is not that small. I have seen this system working on servers with games far smaller than Disco is.
While Nomad could kill a lot, an Order would have a good chance at killing him. So, if a nomad would "abuse" his power by killing everything in sight, you would just have to call The Order to bring the little f.... down. Or you would have to get more people on him.
Quote:If I had my way with Nomads, they would lose their snubcrafts but get OP capitals. When one pops up out of nowhere, everyon should crap their pants, run away or unite to shoot one down.
That is interesting, but no. They should still keep the snubs. They have permanent cloak now, if they get buffed in the way of their shields taking reduced damage from all non-order sources, they would be strong enough to be feared again.
Quote:Highland Laddie wrote:
I see this guy gets the idea and he sees the posibility in asymetric balance even between similar factions (Gallic Royal Navy and Liberty Navy, for example). Please, read his comment aswell, as it is a great explanation of the idea.
To sum up a little: This system would require a more... mature user. But I belive we have a lot of people like this on the server. And that it can work. The asymetric balance would be harder to achieve than this. But it can be.
Also: another idea. There is a lot of RP going around. And I belive that some RP should be rewarded by Mods/Admins/Devs more than it is. For example: If Order does a great work on some Nomad Artefacts RP and they write a lot of stuff about how they can make a ship out of it, they can get a ship (just one ship, not a ship type, not a ship line...) that would be better than other ships in that ship class. Because they have built it. With their RP.
Or, a Bounty Hunter does a great number of great RP scenes, events and so on... he is famous all around Sirius... and some great patron of Liberty wants to give him an award for his glorious work: Better guns. Better than you can buy, custom made...
Yes, not everyone would be equal then. But that is how it is. We have admins that would control this (a player could not give the guns to any other player, the ship could be flown only by the specified faction) and if someone would abuse the system, ban, santion, take the special ship away, take the guns and burn them...
I am not saying all of this must be made. These are just my ideas (not entirely mine, as I have said, they came from a discussion with a friend) and I think they can be done. If you like just one of my ideas, please, say so while bashing the others to hell. I like all of them and if any of them make it to the game, I would be glad.
(05-22-2014, 07:07 AM)Zayne Carrick Wrote: If something can be exploited, it will be exploited. And exploitation is not neccesarily a bad thing.
There, fixed that for ya.
As I have always said about balance: While I agree that things shouldn't be op, if your enemy merely has an advantage over you, then there are several ways to counter that advantage in methods such as skill, organization or strength in numbers. Balancing everything completely just means that the elitist pvpwhores with their perfect reaction times and 0.001ping and mad skills would always win, and that is no fun for the average skilled or the unskilled, who might want to have a chance too. Besides, surely the good pvpers would want a challenge as well and beating the good ship with a bad ship is a challenge. If pvpers moved around more to help underpowered factions who need the advantage.
Remember, a perfectly balanced fight (which requires us all to be identical clones or something, which we aren't) produces no winners, and having no winners is not fun for anybody.
Also, for the people flocking to faction with the "best gear" thing, its simple: Faction distribution. Have alternatives for every faction. Don't force, but give more incentives for people to join a different faction other than "this gun has 200 more dps". As for what incentives, I'm sure you could come up with some if you tried.
(05-22-2014, 07:13 AM)Snak3 Wrote: If I had my way with Nomads, they would lose their snubcrafts but get OP capitals. When one pops up out of nowhere, everyon should crap their pants, run away or unite to shoot one down.
One more idea, more of a solution on how to get this asymetric balance then an idea...
Restricted equipment everywhere.
There are some special IDs out there (Order Primary Fleer ID, Phoenix ID...) and I think that every official faction should get their own ID and their OWN SPECIFIC EQUIPMENT based on the background of the faction and the RP of the faction in general.
Indies would have a different ID, for example, IMG ID for an indie, IMG Elite Mining Group for the official IMG|. While the IMG| would have acces to: The battlecruiser, the battletransport, better mining lasers, CAU VIII and so on, the indies would only get: Civilian transports or smaller IMG line transports, worse armour, worse lasers...
This system would require for each official faction to be reasonable with their recruitment. As was K'hara in the past (maybe even now, I have no idea) as is Order|. You would have to proove that you are good enough player to get into a faction and get the better equipment. Simple as that, you cannot get trolls with the best equipment flying indie everywhere.