PVP Overhaul #4

[Highway]

PVP Overhaul

Fellow Space Pirates,

This time we want to focus on something that at first glance appears to be the bread and butter of Pirate Galaxy, after all it is the top most pirate-y feature in the game: We are talking about the Pirate Mode of course (and PVP in general)! Based on past experience and a survey we did some months ago we can see that satisfaction with and thus interest in the PVP activities and experience available right now is rather low. Nevertheless we would like to improve upon a few things that affect PVP in order to provide us with an overall better foundation for future updates—both PVP and PVE. Since new PVE content is still some time off, we hope that working PVP modes might even find some new friends among those who are looking for ways to make the waiting more enjoyable.

We worked through your feedback and analysed the current mechanics to identify what aspects can be changed to make the Pirate Mode/PVP more appealing for you. These are the design goals we want to tackle:

Design Goals

• Make PVP more entertaining for players with different ship and item levels.
• Avoid giving premium items an unfair advantage in PVP.
• Balance the risk & reward mechanic for participating in PVP.

Planned Changes

• Even out the steep strength increase between different levels of equipment in PVP, so that players can use skill to overcome better equipped players.
• Add protection timer when landing on a planet to avoid getting killed while not yet in control of the ship.
• Ensure that “premium only” items do not affect PVP activities.
• Make Colossus (PVP Battle Planet) available more often.
• Add Conquest planet to Sirius System that allows Sirius tech to be used.

Planned changes are themselves subject to change during the course of the development phase. Along with the planned changes we will also address other issues related to the PVP elements of the game. We aim at releasing the changes and fixes as quickly as possible through smaller updates instead of compiling one big patch.

The dev team is now focusing on Pirate Galaxy at full strength, since the recent update for Dino Storm has been finished, complete with some post-balancing work.

Please let us know what you think of the proposed design goals—we would like to gain a better understanding for why you do or do not enjoy PVP in its current state. Looking forward to any thoughts you would want to share on this!

P.S.: As we had promised in our last Dev Shack, here is a small glimpse on one of the upcoming Tau Ceti ships



French translation.
Spanish translation.
Portuguese translation.
German translation

 

[Gladiator]

Some ship Systems are not doing equal things in Relation to each other if you have a look at strong, agile and normal bps.
Best example is the thermoblast. They are all doing nearly the Same damage, but the Cooldown of the strong one is 3x higher.

 

[Etoile_de_Cristal]

@Gladiator : try to use the long thermoblast in PvP... The strong version is much better, especially in systems with low life like Sirius / Gemini. So you should use the strong one in PvP and the long in PvE. I don't think the cooldown is really an issue in PvP because you're almost dead before you can use twice your thermoblast, no matter the cooldown..

Really good news by the way. I love the TC items desing (the blasts are amazing ), and It's a good thing that premium items will not affect the PvP anymore (I hope you were talking about the damned speed boost )

It will be a good idea to make improvements about the bounty system, which is sooo much useless right now and only lead to tensions between players.. For exemple you could add a leaderbord based on bounty, which can give some reward for the first (or maybe the 5 first) player(s) of each week.

Thanks for focusing on our game now

 

[Exup]

It will be a good idea to make improvements about the bounty system, which is sooo much useless right now and only lead to tensions between players.. For exemple you could add a leaderbord based on bounty, which can give some reward for the first (or maybe the 5 first) player(s) of each week.

I like this idea, so 2 separate leader boards, one based on PvE one based on PvP

 

[HGus]

I like this idea, so 2 separate leader boards, one based on PvE one based on PvP

And splitting the current ladder system, with a separate ranking based on achievements...

About the bounty, I think that a better system could be ELO-based of something else that take account of ships and tech used. It is unfair that someone with high tech comes to steal the bounty of a lower tech player, even if they both are of same level. And what if the difference in levels between them is large? Let's say, 10 lvls? Maybe add additional points to players besides the current bounty system. So players defeating others with same level ship and tech will get average points, and defeating lower equipped opponents will grant fewer points, up to a reasonable limit (no score defeating ships from lower systems or with tech lower than 5 ranks, per example), and maybe getting a bonus for defeating higher equipped foes. Of course, players podded in PVP will lose points according to the same rules. Then the points will count for a permanent ladder (not resetted at mondays as current bounty system), in a similar way to a chess ranking.

About conquest planets for sirius tech, will you take the unused sol planets? (Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune)

 

[conan]

About the PVP system: I think that it should be impossible to kill for example a vega ship with an antares ship or higher. Some real heros think it is courageous to kill a vega ship with a punisher . NO! it´s right the other way! kill a punisher with a vega ship, that´s couragous!
My opinion: PVP only with the same system ships! The lvl of the pilot has no influence on this. Then everyone has a chance to get the bounty.
Sorry for the worse english, but i think everyone understands what i mean.

 

[bruser999]

I have one idea, when you die if you don´t have protection of cryo you drop 1954 of cryo and of these you only recover 977 and the other 977 are lost, then is one good idea that these 977 of cryo can be collect by the pilot that kill you.

 

[the thriller]

It could be a good idea if when you are kill by a player, you don't loose cryo but if it's a mob, you lose cryo.

 

[-BoH-]

WOW Devs. The Tau Ceti ship you made is awesome. Thank you so much for showing it to us.

 

[-BoH-]

By the way i'm guessing that's the storm in the picture.
Looks a lot like the scorpion hybrid.

 

[LivlyGhost]

What use wil it be to obtain any special item including ships if all is made "equal" in pvp ?
The goal to get something (witch most are driven to whlie waiting for so long) wil be bypassed. This game wil be so borring to new players they will frown and leave. I would...
I for one will not standby and let my efforts of past and bought items be diminished as it feels now.

This game is getting more and more a lookalike then a inovitive game. Shame as PG was the front end once where other game makers looked up to...

I lived this game as it was given to me, asking the community seems to give us what we got now:
- Broken Tau Ceti
- Useless Sirius
- Useless RSI prone hangar
- Soon useless special items in PVP
- People red in missions are easy targets, no mention to protect them ^^
- No mention in returning to Pirate mode as was in past, turn off by a switch in a period not red ^^

For now I think PvP is broken due to the lifetime of pirate mode. Is to much hassle to get red and dead on a inconviniant moment, so people dont go red.

I realy hope you dont make Tau Ceti PvP only... That would be a back braker I am sure ^^

I aplaude the efforts to fix the game thas is clearly broken.

Continue and let us experience the difirence and you know if it works or not !
Now we let to speculate and that cant be good thing when something is broken.
Patient: "Doctor my back hurts when I bend over"; doctor: "Stop bending over"...

Maybe all will make sence when the hole picture is given. For now I am playing PG less and less.
When I log in I see a more and more empty buddy list. I hope its not empty because they miss me

With respect as always, greating from the netherlands !

LG

 

[Darkos]

Hello people , i have some ideas for pvp overhaul ( these ideas are some of the player who answered the dev shack post ) :

Here : http://forum.pirategalaxy.com/viewtopic.php?f=253&p=184935#p184935

 

[Saalek]

Hi

I agree with some idea posted by players.
1- PVP only Works if the 2 pilot has the same system ships. You can use the ship lv to actívate or deactivate it.
2- The half of crio you lose if you are killed, for the pilot that kill you.

Otherwise, you must consdere to return back the old conquest system.
You modified it to get gravitons for the first Sirius system. Do you remember, to recharge mothership shields. But nowdays, gravitons are useless (In my opinmion, you must quit them from the game).

So, we changed fron a crionite payed conquest and a crio bonus reward to a file payed and graviton rewards.
I think it could be more interesting, if we can win a crio bonus in the system for a fleet, or just other fleet bonus (5% fire bonus, 5% defense bonus, ...) until next conquest.

And please, ban the use of gravitons in PVP. PVP were funny without gravitons. Nowdays, if you are killing someone, it uses 4 gravitons and wins you. A pvp must be to demostrate the ability of players, not to demostrate how much gravitons you can buy/use.

Regards

 

[Fra_592]

Hi,

What use wil it be to obtain any special item including ships if all is made "equal" in pvp ?
[...]
- Soon useless special items in PVP

I mostly agree with your post except on that point: the way i understood the first post, Highway was speaking about "premium items", not "ancient items", and to me premium items are mainly boosters (especially speed booster, or "how to dodge orbital strikes for lazy guys").
But i still think some ancient items are OP and need rebalancing, at least to make oneshot impossible. ^^

Agree with gravitons and conquests too, but it could be great to keep gravitons for PvE or at least to find them a new usage, I would be sorry to lose all thoses we have in clanfund.

I also agree with the_thriller about the cryonite, and with conan's post

 

[GOTIL0N]

Something that I think is great is recommended here bruser999 pilot in a forum thread English, can be good to use to give you a reward system that currently there

http://forum.pirategalaxy.com/viewtopic.php?f=253&p=184941#p184941

 

[Fra_592]

By the way i'm guessing that's the storm in the picture.
Looks a lot like the scorpion hybrid.

Looks like something we could call RC-Z Clawpion ^^

 

[-BoH-]

Seriously though the developers have showed us exactly what we wanted a tau ceti ship. The ship looks really cool especially the blasters and rockets they're awesome. Keep it up you are all on the right track if you have planned any new planet in tau ceti you could maybe show us a glimpse in the next Dev shack. In honesty though that tau ceti storm looks really cool and you've earned my respect because you've all decided to do a new style such as iron, fusion, AM, methonoid and ancient. You've done a completely new style and I can tell by the look of it. I'm supporting you all keep going

 

[jlinares]

Hello
Thanks for this dev shack so expected !
It looks good !

I have one new idea for the new PvP system :
REDUCE the ship armor and the ship equipment to the technology of the system where the player is,
BUT :
- ONLY in PvP (not in PvE)
- ONLY if the technology of the ship is highter than the technology of the system. (no power increase)

 

[filaplon]

You just put a vault free cryonite dice that descends on colossus.
It should also know beforehand when colossus will be open to organize.

 

[Jessica2k9]

The ability to turn on and off Pirate mode like we used to would be nice to be use-able again