Feedback about current Colossus system

[Fission]

Hello Pilots,

Feel free to post your feedback, critics and opinions about the actual Colossus system

 

[007hitman007]

Problemas con colossus serian los siguentes.
1.- No se respeta el sistema solitario y terminan juntandose en grupos.
2.- Uso excesivo de gravitones, deverian estar desactivados.
3.- El horario deveria ser variable en ves de fijo.
4.- Tomando en cuenta que son solo los fin de semana las recompensas deverian ser otra cosa diferente y no crio tomando en cuenta las conquistas nuevas que saldran.
5.- Le falta zonas seguras de no ataque para poder cargar, que solo se pueda entrar a esos lugares mientras no estes en combate
6.- No tiene un sistema de castigo para los que se juntan para matar en grupos

Nota para fission a ver si lo traduce

Translation by Fission:

Problems with colossus would be the following.
1.- The Solo System is not respected and people end up joining together in "groups".
2.- Excessive use of gravitons, they should be deactivated.
3.- The schedule should be variable instead of fixed.
4.- Taking into account that it is only on weekends the rewards should be something different and not cryonite since the new conquests will already have that reward.
5.- It lacks safe zones where you can charge energy safely, in those you could only enter while you are not in combat.
6.- There is no punishment for those players that do groups to kill pilots that are playing fair.

Note to fission to see if he can translate it

 

[Poland]

Hello everyone. It's RavenPL here...

It's nice Fission that You have made the separate feedback place topic about Colossus and systems connected to it. I really appreciate it.

As far as some of people here could know, and are following my Pirates' Voice series on YouTube, I have presented there quite nice idea about the Colossus changes that some of people from Askone Server (and not only) already likes. But it is connected with some kind of more work for Developers to do, as it requires quite new code to implement, I suppose. Why is that? Please, follow the text for the answer of the question. I hope you will not be bored of reading

Colossus... How is it now?

Colossus system nowadays have some dis- and advantages. Beginning from the latest Cryonite update, it gives now quite cool rewards compensating the time used to make some PvP fun right there. Pilots can really quick gain some knowledge in PvP, as well as some cryonite, achievements and stuff. So the event itself always was, is and will be good break away from PvE routine that is served among different activities.

But as far as some people here know, I am the one that is consistently participating in this weekly event. But people don't really have to join the Colossus fight to know, what is the constant problem in such deathmatch. First of all are the valuable premium game changer items. Yes, you already can guess right, these are Gravitons. Basically, I understand the excuses of permanent Graviton users saying that "They have them, why not to use?", but everyone can say that in PvP they are incredibly broken. Considering the match-up of Graviton and non-Graviton user, the second one have basically maybe 1% chance to win any PvP unless he is a stunner player and RNG smiles to him and he may runaway from the Graviton user opponent. But when we see someone using red graviton + orbital strike on someone, in some specific cases it's just "boom" from 100% to 0% HP.

Second thing that you can see with the naked eye is the teaming issue. So two people going on without shooting each other killing different targets to farm points quickly into the top score. Points trading included, to give someone 1st or different, higher place in scoreboard for free. That kills the joy of the PvP event as well. And yes, I understand again that someone can say "But we team, so you can team as well", but is it really fun to just make other people not come to the Colossus just because of that? Yes, I know a lot of people that don't really want to come there, because of this exploit. Even with the Cryonite change patch, a lot of people are not gathering there, because of that.

Third thing is the energy usage there. People without memberships can't really enjoy the PvP feeling there, because after each 1 PvP in higher tech, they have to fill up, so they lose the points that they could gather, if they didnt have to fill up on energy spot, where they can be easily shot down without energy... That's pretty creepy I may say. Even if the membership on higher levels is quite necessary (I am flying with permanent 100% membership myself lol), then the Colossus PvP battles should be free from pay to win boosters, such as Speed Booster that was already banned even on Pirate Mode activated.

Colossus in the future... How do I see the improvements for the Deathmatch?

Now, let's jump to the things I would like personally to see in the Colossus deathmatch. Of course, first of all, I will try to connect the improvements to the statements that I have written before.

Gravitons: Here I would suggest to bring them some limitation. Of course, the best would be to ban them forever on Colossus battles. But if it's not available solution, then increasing the cooldown significally on them would be appreciated. Same formula could be used here, like for Conquest battles (as far as I know, cooldown on Gravitons on CQs will be increased :> ). That step will automatically solve this issue. Someone may use Graviton once or twice on whole PvP battle for decisive points and for me it's acceptable. But spamming is just meh...

Teaming issue: I don't really have the solution here connected with the game mechanics , as it's quite hard for me even to imagine such a system preventing teaming. Maybe you, Developers, will bring some into life, but I can't really come up with anything. I can only suggest that atleast one GM may be online during the PvP fight on Colossus on one server. But this might be as well too much for our GM Team, as for each server the GM would need to be dispatched. Players themselves may send tickets, if the teaming is not even hidden from other players, so that GMs may see, if these exact two players wasn't really going solo and just jail them for some specific time. Or just make the ability to not let them join few Colossus battles a row as a judgement.

Energy usage: Here I would suggest, like Getagripx from Askone Server and others probably did, to decrease, nullify the energy usage completely, or increase the amount of energy from orbs on Colossus planet. If the energy usage could be decreased, then all energy orbs would stay the same as they were and the drones' energy usage would be same as it is. If nullified completely - then the energy orbs would disappear from the planet. If the amount of energy was increased from orbs, then energy usage would stay the same, but I would request at least 300% of energy amount increase for every technology on Colossus (because the energy orbs value varies between the system technology used in the battle).

Additional improvements: After each death on Colossus, I would increase the amount of time player have to wait to go to hangar, or to materialize on Colossus (we can use the same solution as on CQs, to remove the ability to go to hangar so that player may use only one ship for whole deathmatch). To increase the variety of action in Colossus, I may suggest some spots on map to have specific behaviours. Like on Cetacea - the Corruption Cloud area. But don't bring the Sentries on Colossus, pleaseee

More potential for Colossus?... So the "Arena of Colossus"!

So yes, this is the time for my idea to shine. As I said on the beginning of this quite huge post on forum, this idea "it is connected with some kind of more work for Developers to do, as it requires quite new code to implement". What is the idea itself?

I was talking about it in 4th episode of Pirates' Voice series, so it was already almost an year ago. So this is the time to bring you even more close into "Arena of Colossus" that I presented you there.

"Arena of Colossus" is the idea took from other games that I have been playing a little bit, but suited well for Pirate Galaxy as well. No, it's not a copy, it's a different kind of feature that Pirate Galaxy have never seen before. Let's imagine that two people would like to try the PvP on the planet without anyone disturbing them. As we can know, if two people both turn on Pirate Mode, they are already in danger of being attacked by other players that wants to hunt them down. And the other thing, that someone wants to compete with other people but as we know, Open World PvP don't really exist in Pirate Galaxy, and most of reds nowadays don't shoot each other when doing PvE content. With both of them, "Arena of Colossus" helps:

To be continued....​

 

[Poland]

Continuation...

- It would be open in decent hours to let everyone participate in the solo fights, and to not exploit the ladder (like 16-18 Server time, like Colossus Saturday DM),
- The participants would need to pay some specific amount of Cryonite (connected to the tech used) to register for queue (optional; it could be made with no payments but limited entries to arena),
- after the system chose 2 players that will fight against each other, these two have 2 minutes to land on Colossus,
- if the player didn't land on fight, he has the ban on registering for 1 hour, if he repeats the violation - 1 day ban of registering,
- The winner would be declared by amount of kills made, HP left or damage dealt, respectively (last two optional, if we put the timer into one Arena instance),
- Killing the opponent 2 times would end the arena instance and the winner would gain all cryonite registered in the fight (or some specific value, if we choose the option to register without using cryonite),
- Gravtions would be banned there, so no Graviton could be used on "Arena of Colossus",
- The area for the fight would be limited or would decease, in meaning of that, if some player crossed the border, he would lose some amount of HP over time and the warning would be put for him; it would be perfect not to make the fight not finished in specific time,
- Some specific amount of maximum entries weekly could be implemented, not to exploit the ladder and other stuff.

So this is basically the "Arena of Colossus" idea. All the systems connected to it would take some time for Developers to make, so it's not really necessary thing for "right now" to do. But it's quite nice entertainment and promotion of PvP for people that like this kind of content in MMO games....


PvPs without ladders? Nooo way!

I would additionally make some PvP Seasons in Pirate Galaxy connected with "Arena of Colossus" and Colossus Saturday Deathmatches. Every won Arena sparing would be paid by 1 point to the ladder. Depending of amounts of entries for the Arena, the specific amount of points to PvP Hall of Fame would be added for each Saturday DM place gained.

Let's say, we have 10 entries a week for "Arena of Colossus". This way, every week, the best players can get 10 points. The Colossus DM then for first place would give same amount of points - so 10. For 2nd - 9, For 3rd - 8 etc., till the 10th place that would be paid by 1 point for the ladder. Lower places wouldn't be granted with any points, same like Cryonite isn't given to these players. Then, the ladder would evaluate every 8 weeks (example), later called as Season. Each Top 10 of current season would be granted with additional Cryonite, maybe some Gravitons or even Gold (more rewards = more contribution from players). Additionally, every Top 1 Player from Season would be granted with Skull (but not the same as for War Score, but different colour) to make people see, who is the Deathbringer of the server!

So that's all I have created for You today ... I hope that You like the idea presented here. Tell me what You think about it! All criticism is ok!

Greetings, RavenPL

 

[Rajaa]

Poland said most of the things that needed to be said. Colossus population every week is small not because of prizes, but because of system.
Even if people team as 2 players at least, without power of gravitons there is a way to get them. But if both use gravitons for example, it's dead end for players.
That's why we proposed a lot of times gravitons should be removed from challenge planets (CQ and Colossus), because with proper system adjustment, gravitons aren't needed in both of those.
Also, few times players said that system could be added Colossus 1-5 fights, which means depending on week, you can squad up in Colossus.
Addition to Poland's idea, there could be season ladder for Solo/Squad Colossus (in case I'd there are ladder only for Solo and for 2-man Squad, so we could have season ladder for best solo players, and best team players which need tactics).

 

[NGSpeed]

The best way to prevent boosting and make Colossus much more attractive for more players would be this way:

Colossus as random squadron only battle planet

-squadrons are getting autofilled by landing on surface
-for the rest of the match you have to stay in this squadron
-placement rewards are the same as now, but count on squads for each member
-optional: after the start players will have 5 minutes to land, an algorithm filters the autofill of squads with parameters such as different clan, alliance, friendlist and pilot level
-the fundaments for the autofill squads are done. New participants can join the battle and fill squads. For performance the player amount could be capped (e.g. 5,6,7,8,9 or 10 squads on surface)
-remove lifes
-score increase is caused by kills just like now
-optional: players are invisible in orbit and a number is only shown so you know how many people want to compete to prevent knowing which squadmember is which player. Chat is disabled and replaced with communication commands ("can someone play shipclass z?";"I will switch to shipclass z") and cooldown pings or even showing each members cooldowns for everyone. This prevents revealing the identities, provoking in global chat and no distraction by others in chat.
-if someone afks or ragequits and isn't leaving the squad for some new autofill player (basically trying to leech rewards by named reasons) he can be reported by his teammates and get restrictions for participating in Colossus (e.g. banned on Colossus for the next 2 or 3 battles, scaling restrictions if this happens more frequently)

GOALS
1) create squad action without boosting
2) more shipclasses become viable
3) funnier, more attractive gameplay

Cons
-no squadplay with your buddies
-reply for more cons guys! xD

 

[HGus]

"Arena for Colossus" promoted by Poland reminds me of an Automatic PvP Tournament. Rewards will count for a kind of weekly PvP ladder replacing the current PvE ladder, or at least creating a new skull ladder from PvP points and reducing the current one to only Achievement points.

 

[HGus]

Besides NGSpeed solution, you could make the squadrons be autofilled by clan members instead of random. Just like CQs, but limited to one 5-squad per clan.

 

[NGSpeed]

Besides NGSpeed solution, you could make the squadrons be autofilled by clan members instead of random. Just like CQs, but limited to one 5-squad per clan.

Of course I was thinking about that, but this will not help the current situation.
First it could go well, but the boosting will come back, because you can talk with your clanmates on discord or teamspeak. This means you can talk with allied clans aswell and scale the "teaming" and boosting on a squad scale, which is even worse and it would be about who has the most squads/players participating and teaming together.

If a player is autofilled and doesn't know who his teammates are, it is much more difficult to abuse communication and teaming. Maybe the autofill will create a squadron were one member of your clan is in your squad, then there are three other squadmembers which won't be able to know who they wanna team with. Since every squads goal is reaching rank 1 on the scoreboard, they will open up the fire on any enemy squad/player immediately.

The current Colossus system is relying on the trust of the community, but there is no punishment for violencing the rules or unspoken rules. Maybe the devs take these costs, because the community is already shrinking more and more, so why banning players right?
We all know how Colossus should be played, but the delicious sweet taste of boosting and claiming higher rewards is convincing to throw that trust away, which devs have for us.
My idea would create a functional, action-packed, skillbased, unabuseable Colossus-battle-planet-system instead of a trust based, unfair, rule breaking, abuseable, unenjoyable, shipclass limited, without consequences Colossus-battle-planet-system.

 

[Highway]

First changes will be roled out next week: https://forum.pirategalaxy.com/threads/game-update-june-9-2020.35591/

 

[NGSpeed]

Dropped some words about Colossus in DevShark TC3&CR, but not anything new about my idea itself, if you wanna still read it click the link:

9-tau-ceti-part-3-conquest-rework.34962/page-18