(04-09-2020, 10:28 PM)Lord Rhemalak Wrote: We just had a new player go through the steps. Mostly skorak leading the way for him. He said it was really fun... I think its just you.
Quote:Other than that I'm sure most people who've been playing for a long time they're sitting on stacks of cash and don't notice how boring catch-up grinds can be
Catch up grinds with whom? Not everyone has a whole plethora of CAUVIII Cap Ships.
If you want a BS/Dread with CAUVIII in a couple of days, then yes it can be a hell of a grind.
If you want some fighters, 1 ore run crossing about 6 sectors (possibly 15-20 minute run) will easily net you somewhere in the region of 30-50 million. Enough to buy yourself at least 3-5 Fighters.
Another ore run will get you close to having a GB.
Once you have got your Trader, trading can be done at a leisurely pace and you can easily build up your repertoire of Ships.
It isn't hard making money even just doing 1 trade run per day, even with normal commodities.
It all depends on what pressure you put yourself under.
Trading, I find is relaxing, especially if you have someone to talk to whilst you are doing it. You don't even need to be on the same route.
'I would like to be half as clever as some people like to believe they are' Life is full of disappointments, it is how we handle them that helps to define us, as a person
This game desperately needs PvE that isn't a series of compromises that we've all gotten used to and just shrug our shoulders at.
I'm not sure how we're going to be able to make it happen, but it's honestly one of my personal priorities to have at least some kind of interesting PvE that's both progressive and doesn't boil down to "lol bring a fleet of battleships and grind out missions with ubertorpedoes for six hours".
Quote:Other than that I'm sure most people who've been playing for a long time they're sitting on stacks of cash and don't notice how boring catch-up grinds can be
Catch up grinds with whom? Not everyone has a whole plethora of CAUVIII Cap Ships.
If you want a BS/Dread with CAUVIII in a couple of days, then yes it can be a hell of a grind.
If you want some fighters, 1 ore run crossing about 6 sectors (possibly 15-20 minute run) will easily net you somewhere in the region of 30-50 million. Enough to buy yourself at least 3-5 Fighters.
Another ore run will get you close to having a GB.
Once you have got your Trader, trading can be done at a leisurely pace and you can easily build up your repertoire of Ships.
It isn't hard making money even just doing 1 trade run per day, even with normal commodities.
It all depends on what pressure you put yourself under.
Trading, I find is relaxing, especially if you have someone to talk to whilst you are doing it. You don't even need to be on the same route.
It's all well and good when you've got the experience. But the amount of players who spend hours trying to get past the helium run phase. It can be really taxing. And when your first introduction to disco is tedium. It can also be a little off putting.
At least from experience of watching friends I've tried to get into the game.
(04-09-2020, 11:11 PM)Kazinsal Wrote: This game desperately needs PvE that isn't a series of compromises that we've all gotten used to and just shrug our shoulders at.
I'm not sure how we're going to be able to make it happen, but it's honestly one of my personal priorities to have at least some kind of interesting PvE that's both progressive and doesn't boil down to "lol bring a fleet of battleships and grind out missions with ubertorpedoes for six hours".
I liked what crossfire did with rare NPC encounters that were kind of tough but didn't feel like a bullet sponge. They dropped some loot that just a solo player could use as well. Like codies
88Flak also had a good random loot system and asteroid system.. and well almost every system except the movement.... Destructible solars like stations would make conflict more interesting. They don't have to be perm just a hour or half a hour
(04-09-2020, 11:11 PM)Kazinsal Wrote: "lol bring a fleet of battleships and grind out missions with ubertorpedoes for six hours".
But that was fun and as far as activity generation was concerned it worked. When it was 'nerfed', many factions were then put into a position where their PvE activity just wasn't worthwhile anymore. And who are one of the factions that still emerged from the rubble relatively unscathed? Corsairs and their missions in Xi.
(04-09-2020, 11:11 PM)Kazinsal Wrote: This game desperately needs PvE that isn't a series of compromises that we've all gotten used to and just shrug our shoulders at.
I'm not sure how we're going to be able to make it happen, but it's honestly one of my personal priorities to have at least some kind of interesting PvE that's both progressive and doesn't boil down to "lol bring a fleet of battleships and grind out missions with ubertorpedoes for six hours".
An NPC type that is easier to kill with snubs (not only survive) than it is to kill with a cap, which drops something that is required to build something that is in continuously high demand (not only cloaks, but also sciadata/codename guns, armor upgrades, or whatever) would solve more than 1 problem at once. Especially if its easy enough and more exciting enough for noob pilots to kill than the average ore asteroid, but doesnt require superasnubskill either.
It would motivate vets to recruit, organize, and train noobs for something more exciting than mining, raise the amount of snub proficiency noobs have (and thereby make them fly snubs more, and easier to collaborate with in snubs more).
I have the feeling such an NPC adversary isnt that easy to design, and would probably require AI changes?
If it existed, missions with that kind of NPC could be created for what ever faction currently needs to have more members for better server gameplay and balance (do NOT hand this stuff out as favors or "perks" to "exemplary players" who "deserve it")
Progression to me was ranking up and becoming a relevant character and player in a faction. DIfferent factions have different ways of letting you progress, mostly restricted to the sort of faction you are playing. Mining and trading factions, naturally, have the way most people would consider "boring", trading and mining. But if the leaders of such factions would actually sit down and contemplate how they could make their every normal day more interesting, even if it's just a little bit, they'd come a long way, at least I think that.
Other factions that are more centered around pvp do it through an official or unofficial set of requirements you have to fulfill in order to rank up. The motivation comes mostly from your head. You have to like being restricted in some aspects and working your way up by proving to be a valuable asset. At best you greatly develop your character by doing so and interact with many people that give you a new perspective on how to RP your char.
I managed to live like this for more than a year and I was in the Red Hessian Army. Only. if that doesn't mean something )
So yeah, TL;DR I think progression in Disco is and should be mostly player made, that puts it in front of the challenge of being a boring grind for some people or not to be done at all, while others, like me, really enjoy doing that.
If with progression you mean money-making only then well, there's bounty hunting, mining and trading as well as the missions. The game simply cannot offer more than that. It is on the players in power of such areas of progression to create rooms around them that make them look interesting.
New guy here (at least in actual playing - I've been lurking for years before finally deciding to take a stab at this).
While I agree that Discovery as it currently stands has a bit of a grind to it, it's much less compared to e.g. free to play games. Grinding for stuff there can take years, and the only minus is there's no shortcuts in Discovery - well, unless you make some very generous friends.
Trading as it currently stands can be extremely fun or extremely boring, depending on your stance on player encounters / piracy. I don't agree it's hard to make money - I've played actively for a few weeks - about 2 hours per day on average and managed to stack around 600mil credits, which I consider a generous rate of earning cash, compared to vanilla Freelancer). All that without joining any factions and the only bonus I got was snagging an offer from a POB that was buying codename guns for 50 mil. And no powertrading either, most of the time in a freighter / medium transport.
Solo mining on the other hand is utterly boring. I can see it being fun doing in groups (I managed to join a convoy for an organized mining expedition in those few weeks and that was actually interesting)
I haven't tried piracy yet but I don't see that as a viable way of making cash. Way too easy to avoid being pirated or stall until help arrives (I was only pirated once, and blown up once by some random Kusari trolls).
Missions - at least low level ones are repetitive and take way too much time to earn decent amounts. Even considering pod hunting and bonus payments (e.g. 45000 for Xenos or Rogues in Harrisburg) it's still a hassle. I hear later ones actually make better cash and are more fun with capital ships.
Smuggling on the other hand is kinda fun but not really worth the effort compared to common trading.
Bounty hunting seems like a decent way to make lots of money in a short time but you need to have the skills and hang out on the forums a lot.
So my suggestions for how to improve the experience are actually similar to yours:
- allow players to affect the server content more. There are already POBs but what if players could also create wrecks on death that would be randomly placed in the system where a player died. I believe this can be done by implementing a few more console commands and some FLHook black magic + maybe a separate program that runs every night and converts logged deaths to wreck ini files.
- make an ingame (or even just forum) mission board where players can post requests for supplies of their POBs. Right now you need to manually dock on each POB and check out what they are buying or selling or check each POB's separate thread
- overhaul mining so it's more exciting. I would suggest a tiered system. Common stuff is easy and boring to mine and you can do it fast. The good and expensive stuff is hidden in borderworld systems filled with hostiles and environmental dangers (think Omega-11 in vanilla, or Omicron Gamma and Artifact nebulas)
- overhaul smuggling so it's more geared towards smaller vessels, more dangerous but much more rewarding. A tiered system could also help here. And it could also be made to be more of a team effort similar to mining and trading, just for the unlawful side. I will elaborate in a separate thread if somebody is interested
I also believe part of the feeling of "lack of progression" is because in Discovery everything is almost mirror-balanced. The only way to actually "progress" in equipment is to buy a bigger class of ship or upgrade to codename guns. Now this is probably very hard to solve but more asymmetric balance would be interesting. For example ships that are significantly faster than others that could be used as smugglers or blockade runners or even interceptors for them. Heavily armored craft that protect against environment radiation but can't mount lots of guns. Something like that.
And after all that you need to remember, Discovery is RP focused. It's mostly up to the players to make it fun and interesting for others. This can be seen in various official and player organized events that seem to attract many people out of hibernation. And that's what makes it unique among hundreds of others games with scripted or programmed goals and scenarios.
P.S. Sorry for wall of text. It's something that has been on my mind for months already.
I believe there are definitely a variety of ways to add some in game activities without any need to touch the engine. We've seen things done that if used right could be set up to carry out some player progression, and make some new jobs!
For instance, we could stand to assign some value to planets and moons so people actually have to care about them, they'd have some use, and there would be a constant purpose to actively maintaining territory.
We could use a few new player built objects. A player built weapons platform would do wonders to allowing players to fight in new ways. Or a more disposable POB for a similar use would be about as good. On the other hand, we could use a Player Buildable Docking Ring/Mooring fixture so anyone could build a base 'onto' a planet or moon. In theory laying a base on a dead moon would be like building an underground POB into it. Otherwise it would be a generic surface base, able to be RP'd for any purpose (and real purpose could be added, like they could gather ore over time automatically). I would then make it so that would either reinforce or challenge a house/faction's claim to that planet/moon. This would also shift some of the activity around player development to in-game rather than require unique work each time. Players could then, on their own, set up shop at planets, split planets, etc, build WP's to claim/defend them, all on their own.
I'm glad you brought this topic up, since there is much talk of possible change on the horizon, here's a few ideas I've posted over the years that I think might do well to be reconsidered.
Personally I'd like to see at least a system so factions could challenge for bases. It would be cool to see a shipyard set to a ludicrously high HP, which could be repaired, either like POB or by repair ship, and maintained by defenders. That would create a really long siege, and players would be able to use POB's to reinforce, or have supply go to the base to create a supply chain during the siege. We have all of the things in the game we need to set up some really immersive situations, its just a matter of sorting it all out in advance.