I know this could be tied into another thread, but I figured in all modesty, that this needed to be seen and commented upon. I would strongly encourage the GM's to take these suggestions to the people at SplitScreen. The people here, by and large, want to help. We want this game to be great. Anyway.....
I took a year off from this game and just recently came back. Mostly the lull was because of a move and having to go back into a multi-year long training process. But I got the itch to come back and see Draconis and get together with some close friends again.
I cannot tell you SplitScreen, how many things have changed, and changed for the worse.
However I'm a generally a pretty positive guy, so let me touch on those and comment briefly that I am one of those gamers who doesn't mind spending a few clams from my beer and naughty-pictures slush fund. In other words, I'm one of those gamers you would hope to keep coming back.
* I love the planet-side materialize. Even the E cost of that I can stand as I generally keep a few hundred K on hand so I never have to worry about running out in the middle of a mission. I dislike having to stop at killing things, so this works for me. Major Kudos for that.
* I also like the memberships. I bought one for sure. It's nice being able to get from point to point rapidly and not having to refill the dang E tank all the time. Again, I paid for that and I'm cool with it. It's a fantastic idea and it works. Kudos for that.
But now.... Now we get to the parts that you've screwed up:
* CQ's? What's the point? There is no point! They do nothing for you right now. Oh sure, you might get a gravitron and those might/might not be needed in the possibly forthcoming next system. If there is a next system. Which we don't know so can't really plan for….. Anyway, CQ's are a joke. They USED to be fun. A time for clans to get together and show team work, skill and show off their ships for a little cryo bonus. You killed that. Utterly, totally, 110% flat out destroyed the CQ's.
* Cry drop RATES: These are a now a sad joke. And I don’t mean a funny joke. I mean one of those horribly painful jokes told by someone who just isn’t funny yet you feel obligated to sit there while they prattle on and butcher the punch line you’ve heard a thousand times type of joke….
This also ties in with the cost of the ships in Drac. Why in the name of all things holy would you punish a player who’s using an in-system ship to farm a planet in that system? A 20% drop on mars using a Rared out Sol ship? WTH were you thinking???? So tell me, why would anyone bother to get a rared out ship in a system now if it HURTS them getting cry for the next system?? Surely not because the rared items are any good in the next system. The weakest bp’s are better than a previous systems rares, so honestly, why bother with them??
How about this: Knock off 20% for each system down you try to farm. Got a rared out Drac ship and wanna farm in Sol: -20% drop. Mizar: -40%. Gemini: -60%. And so on. That way the lower systems are farmed by lower players and everyone pretty much stays in their own systems or one lower.
Oh, and you want to get CQ’s pumping again? Have each planet held in the system take 5% off the above penalty index. Talk about bringing the fight back, that’d be one sure fire way to get people into them again!
But punishing someone for getting the best tech they can in a system is STUPID. Flat out window licking dumb. Period.
* Cry drop AMOUNTS: This ties in with the above. Put a percentage loss off the total for using a ship with higher tech. Likewise, if you're going to keep the ships this expensive, then okay. But make it work FOR you. If you want to keep players out of the lower systems, then increase the cry drop in their system. If ya wanna keep people in Draconis, then up the cry drop amounts. Make it worthwhile to farm as a team. “All the spots for farming are taken!” I keep hearing this. Well, if you had 5-ship squads doing the farming, it wouldn't be nearly so bad. But you'd have to make it worthwhile for people, and that means not crying for cry.
* Bounties: They're stupid. They do nothing for you. If the bounty was paid in cryo, then it'd be worth talking about. But it's not. It's just bragging rights. Congrads, you hunt in a 9-ship gaggle for solo ships. You're an amazing pilot!
Seriously.... Make the bounty payable in cryo, not some lamerz bragging rights.
After a year off, there are some good changes y'all made. Again, the membership is now worth something besides a glowing ship and you don't need to beg an engie to bail you out with the planet-side materialize. Those were good changes.
But ya gotta fix the CQ's, the Cryo drops (amt and rates) and stop punishing people for getting top system tech where farming in their own system is a waste of time. Lower systems, knock 'em down by all means so that other players can farm their way up. But stop punishing people for advancing.
Lastly: The farming planets idea.
You want a freaking gold-mine? Here's an idea for ya: Charge a gold fee for access to planets with advanced Cry drops and rates.
Say 3 times the gold cost of a cryonite refiner for an hour’s access to farm a planet with triple or quadruple the drop rates and amounts. When your time is up, have that players’ targetable mantis units "orbit" (like what happens when you bust a mission and they fly off), let the player collect their earnings and be done. No BP’s, just green. That may take some tweaking of collector rates and recharge times, Even that could become a selling point: Near-instant collection times! No more waiting for the Space Hoover wet-vac to grab your goodies…..
And to prevent the inevitable "He stole my cryo kill!” have one players units be ghosted to other players, just like story/side mission units. You can only kill what you can see, that way we don't need to hear the crying over cry.....
You wouldn't even need to add planets. Just run them on the CQ planets when the CQ's aren't active.
I would gladly drop some coin for such a thing, SO LONG AS the units killed dropped cryo, it was a worthwhile amount AND the in-system tech penalties were eliminated for those who don't have hard currency to pay. Pay for a shorter grind, or suck it up and grind it out the old fashioned (but non-penalized!) way.
This was a long post with a bit of sarcasm, but the points needed to be made and hammered home. Hopefully one or more of you GM's will get this to SS with a positive endorsement.
I like this game. All in all it's okay fun. I, by and large, like the people here. The players WANT this game to rock. They WANT to have fun here. They WANT to help make it better. Give them a chance to help make this something better than it is....
That's it. Again, not all of these are mine. In fact, most aren't. Mostly they're taken from others and put into one place and refined here and there. I think all of these ideas contain the promise of getting players back into the game and keeping them here for a long time to come.
What say the players?
*edited for typos
I took a year off from this game and just recently came back. Mostly the lull was because of a move and having to go back into a multi-year long training process. But I got the itch to come back and see Draconis and get together with some close friends again.
I cannot tell you SplitScreen, how many things have changed, and changed for the worse.
However I'm a generally a pretty positive guy, so let me touch on those and comment briefly that I am one of those gamers who doesn't mind spending a few clams from my beer and naughty-pictures slush fund. In other words, I'm one of those gamers you would hope to keep coming back.
* I love the planet-side materialize. Even the E cost of that I can stand as I generally keep a few hundred K on hand so I never have to worry about running out in the middle of a mission. I dislike having to stop at killing things, so this works for me. Major Kudos for that.
* I also like the memberships. I bought one for sure. It's nice being able to get from point to point rapidly and not having to refill the dang E tank all the time. Again, I paid for that and I'm cool with it. It's a fantastic idea and it works. Kudos for that.
But now.... Now we get to the parts that you've screwed up:
* CQ's? What's the point? There is no point! They do nothing for you right now. Oh sure, you might get a gravitron and those might/might not be needed in the possibly forthcoming next system. If there is a next system. Which we don't know so can't really plan for….. Anyway, CQ's are a joke. They USED to be fun. A time for clans to get together and show team work, skill and show off their ships for a little cryo bonus. You killed that. Utterly, totally, 110% flat out destroyed the CQ's.
* Cry drop RATES: These are a now a sad joke. And I don’t mean a funny joke. I mean one of those horribly painful jokes told by someone who just isn’t funny yet you feel obligated to sit there while they prattle on and butcher the punch line you’ve heard a thousand times type of joke….
This also ties in with the cost of the ships in Drac. Why in the name of all things holy would you punish a player who’s using an in-system ship to farm a planet in that system? A 20% drop on mars using a Rared out Sol ship? WTH were you thinking???? So tell me, why would anyone bother to get a rared out ship in a system now if it HURTS them getting cry for the next system?? Surely not because the rared items are any good in the next system. The weakest bp’s are better than a previous systems rares, so honestly, why bother with them??
How about this: Knock off 20% for each system down you try to farm. Got a rared out Drac ship and wanna farm in Sol: -20% drop. Mizar: -40%. Gemini: -60%. And so on. That way the lower systems are farmed by lower players and everyone pretty much stays in their own systems or one lower.
Oh, and you want to get CQ’s pumping again? Have each planet held in the system take 5% off the above penalty index. Talk about bringing the fight back, that’d be one sure fire way to get people into them again!
But punishing someone for getting the best tech they can in a system is STUPID. Flat out window licking dumb. Period.
* Cry drop AMOUNTS: This ties in with the above. Put a percentage loss off the total for using a ship with higher tech. Likewise, if you're going to keep the ships this expensive, then okay. But make it work FOR you. If you want to keep players out of the lower systems, then increase the cry drop in their system. If ya wanna keep people in Draconis, then up the cry drop amounts. Make it worthwhile to farm as a team. “All the spots for farming are taken!” I keep hearing this. Well, if you had 5-ship squads doing the farming, it wouldn't be nearly so bad. But you'd have to make it worthwhile for people, and that means not crying for cry.
* Bounties: They're stupid. They do nothing for you. If the bounty was paid in cryo, then it'd be worth talking about. But it's not. It's just bragging rights. Congrads, you hunt in a 9-ship gaggle for solo ships. You're an amazing pilot!
Seriously.... Make the bounty payable in cryo, not some lamerz bragging rights.After a year off, there are some good changes y'all made. Again, the membership is now worth something besides a glowing ship and you don't need to beg an engie to bail you out with the planet-side materialize. Those were good changes.
But ya gotta fix the CQ's, the Cryo drops (amt and rates) and stop punishing people for getting top system tech where farming in their own system is a waste of time. Lower systems, knock 'em down by all means so that other players can farm their way up. But stop punishing people for advancing.
Lastly: The farming planets idea.
You want a freaking gold-mine? Here's an idea for ya: Charge a gold fee for access to planets with advanced Cry drops and rates.
Say 3 times the gold cost of a cryonite refiner for an hour’s access to farm a planet with triple or quadruple the drop rates and amounts. When your time is up, have that players’ targetable mantis units "orbit" (like what happens when you bust a mission and they fly off), let the player collect their earnings and be done. No BP’s, just green. That may take some tweaking of collector rates and recharge times, Even that could become a selling point: Near-instant collection times! No more waiting for the Space Hoover wet-vac to grab your goodies…..
And to prevent the inevitable "He stole my cryo kill!” have one players units be ghosted to other players, just like story/side mission units. You can only kill what you can see, that way we don't need to hear the crying over cry.....
You wouldn't even need to add planets. Just run them on the CQ planets when the CQ's aren't active.
I would gladly drop some coin for such a thing, SO LONG AS the units killed dropped cryo, it was a worthwhile amount AND the in-system tech penalties were eliminated for those who don't have hard currency to pay. Pay for a shorter grind, or suck it up and grind it out the old fashioned (but non-penalized!) way.
This was a long post with a bit of sarcasm, but the points needed to be made and hammered home. Hopefully one or more of you GM's will get this to SS with a positive endorsement.
I like this game. All in all it's okay fun. I, by and large, like the people here. The players WANT this game to rock. They WANT to have fun here. They WANT to help make it better. Give them a chance to help make this something better than it is....
That's it. Again, not all of these are mine. In fact, most aren't. Mostly they're taken from others and put into one place and refined here and there. I think all of these ideas contain the promise of getting players back into the game and keeping them here for a long time to come.
What say the players?
*edited for typos