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Some Gameplay Thoughts |
Novacat
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 30, 2001
Posts: 2337
From: Starleague Cache
|  Posted: 2013-03-20 11:38
Having come back, I managed to get some time in to play, and I find that a few of Darkspace's core concepts really do not lend themselves to good gameplay. I will list each of these concepts one by one, explain why, and then explain what could be done to fix them.
Jumpdrives.
The Problem: Jumpdrives recharge way too quick, are far too precise, and can be used almost anywhere. There is only one counter to them, the interdictor, and currently they are only limited to planets, and only have ranges of 1,000 gus. This runs into the problem in that there is no effective way to keep an enemy at long distances that would be required for effective use of long range weapons. This also substantially reduces the viability of smaller ships, as the jumpdrive is in many ways the great equalizer that allows big ships to outmanuver smaller ones.
The Solution: There are many, but with each solution comes a drawback. Jump Disruptor that allows enemies to jump out, but not in, would be one solution, however, its main drawback is that it would require people to fill in a role that likely wont be very fun or rewarding, much like the old Interdictor. Another potential solution is to enormously increase the recharge time of jumpdrives, thus making jumps a potentially risky decision. Increasing recharge time might be the solution with the least number of drawbacks.
Cloak.
The Problem: While the Kluth have a huge number of disadvantages to account for their possession of Cloak, the root of the problem is that Cloak is too perfect an escape mechanism. A UGTO or ICC ships can at least be tracked down and destroyed. A Kluth ship, once it goes invisible, is totally immune to enemy contact until it decides to decloak. The absoluteness of cloak allows the Kluth to strike exactly when and where they desire to, further marginilizing the use of long-range ships and further weighting the metagame towards close-range brawlers. This sort of tactical invulnerability gives the Kluth a massive advantage in both initiating and retreating from fights.
The Solution: The more I think about it, the more I come to realize that maybe the Kluth are ultimately impossible to work in their current form, and that their ultimate advantage, the cloak, and their disadvantages in long-range combat and armor may need a rethinking. The concept of Kluth being forced to fight at long-range should be introduced, and Cloak would need to be less absolute to make it no longer a perfect escape button.
I might edit this post as I decide on more.
[ This Message was edited by: Novacat on 2013-03-20 11:39 ]
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Danek Ma`arna C`arns
Fleet Admiral
Joined: March 26, 2004
Posts: 102
From: Atlanta
| Posted: 2013-03-20 13:22
Everyone knows jumpdrives are broken. The problem is, fixes fall into two categories...
A - requires far too much coding to fix for a mostly volunteer developing team to implement.
B - Makes simple navigation such a pain in the arse that everyone would quit the game in frustration.
Cloak is fine. Right now, the K'Luth are perfect. You might not think that when you are chain sploded all night long because you are outnumbered 6 to 1... but the issue is being outnumbered 6 to 1. In a fight of equal numbers, the K'luth die easily.
K"luth are currently the only faction that does not planet huddle all night long, until you decide to actually do something... a something that is defined as "Station huddling". The reason K'Luth are able to do this is that they do have an escape mechanism.
Players are risk adverse... if you recall, a majority of the opposing faction would log off when the other side brought out a dictor. The answer is probably make the Jump Drives recharge even faster.
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Novacat
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 30, 2001
Posts: 2337
From: Starleague Cache
| Posted: 2013-03-20 13:36
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On 2013-03-20 13:22, Dank Ma`arna C`arns wrote:
Cloak is fine. Right now, the K'Luth are perfect. You might not think that when you are chain sploded all night long because you are outnumbered 6 to 1... but the issue is being outnumbered 6 to 1. In a fight of equal numbers, the K'luth die easily.
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Its not about being chain sploded... infact, I dont remember dying to kluth in recent memory, but its the fact that Kluth has a device that nullifies both long range firepower and is a perfect escape mechanism in one. Kluth are pretty much impossible to kill if they do not want you to kill them.
It makes it fustrating watching Kluth kill a teammate, but you are completely unable to return the favor because Kluth has what is effectively an invulnerability button.
Kluth are not fun to fight at all. If they dont insta-splode you with 6:1 odds, they die easily. Either you win, and wins are always ungratifying because you rarely get to deliver a final blow, or you lose. There is no tension, it all resolves itself in the first five seconds.
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Players are risk adverse... if you recall, a majority of the opposing faction would log off when the other side brought out a dictor. The answer is probably make the Jump Drives recharge even faster.
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Dictors have been around since the beginning of Darkspace, yet the whole risk aversion factor only came about recently. Dictors alone will not cause players to be risk averse.
[ This Message was edited by: Novacat on 2013-03-20 13:39 ]
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Sy.=y
Admiral
Joined: September 03, 2007
Posts: 3
| Posted: 2013-03-20 13:43
did anyone ever noticed how super efficient jump drives are ?
using anti-mater and tachyon properties to push ships at FTL speeds yet our weapons are so very inefficient (relative to JDs)...
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Sheraton*XO*
Chief Marshal
Faster than Light
Joined: January 18, 2013
Posts: 482
From: Keel Mountains
| Posted: 2013-03-20 14:22
A brief point. The k'luuth are not invulnerable while they are cloaked. They are invisible but not invulnerable to damage. Using ctrl+click to manual fire your weapons as a method of tracking the explosions may sound time consuming or hit and miss but it does lend itself to a decent method of hitting the k'luuth.
While this method is more akin to the classic childrens game battleship it does offer at least some hope of tracking and killing the k'luuth.
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Danek Ma`arna C`arns
Fleet Admiral
Joined: March 26, 2004
Posts: 102
From: Atlanta
| Posted: 2013-03-20 14:25
They have been risk adverse since I started playing. It's not recent.
That's why factions planet hug.
UGTO will not even log in unless they can form the clusterball configuration.
Throw a dictor on a planet and people stay 1300gu out.
Throw a dictor on a ship and everyone logs out.
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Novacat
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 30, 2001
Posts: 2337
From: Starleague Cache
| Posted: 2013-03-20 15:10
Quote:
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On 2013-03-20 14:22, Sheraton wrote:
A brief point. The k'luuth are not invulnerable while they are cloaked. They are invisible but not invulnerable to damage. Using ctrl+click to manual fire your weapons as a method of tracking the explosions may sound time consuming or hit and miss but it does lend itself to a decent method of hitting the k'luuth.
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This method only works if the Kluth is at 10-15% hull when he cloaks, and you only need a few salvos to finish the job.
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They have been risk adverse since I started playing. It's not recent.
UGTO will not even log in unless they can form the clusterball configuration.
Throw a dictor on a planet and people stay 1300gu out.
Throw a dictor on a ship and everyone logs out.
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If this was true at all, then fighting would have not happened in Darkspace as a dictor was usually around most of the time in the early days, back when there were enough players to have a well-rounded fleet.
But that has not happened. Despite how common dictors were, there was still a ton of fighting. The only time I ever seen people log out is when there was massive number differences.
[ This Message was edited by: Novacat on 2013-03-20 15:11 ]
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Sheraton*XO*
Chief Marshal
Faster than Light
Joined: January 18, 2013
Posts: 482
From: Keel Mountains
| Posted: 2013-03-20 15:32
Hardly true. the explosions I am referring to are when the railguns hit the target while invisible or when the missiles do. Those explosions still manifest and allow you to track the ship regardless of what the hull % of the ship.
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Novacat
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 30, 2001
Posts: 2337
From: Starleague Cache
| Posted: 2013-03-20 15:40
Quote:
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On 2013-03-20 15:32, Sheraton wrote:
Hardly true. the explosions I am referring to are when the railguns hit the target while invisible or when the missiles do. Those explosions still manifest and allow you to track the ship regardless of what the hull % of the ship.
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How exactly are you going to consistantly track an invisible ship moving at 15+ gu/sec to hit the roughly 20-30 salvos you will need to destroy it? Note that you are not given any indication as to the ship's direction or how fast it is moving, and if the Kluth had any brains at all he would be changing direction as many times as possible. He could also move at variable speeds to throw off trackers and thus, the odds are extremely heavily in the kluth's favor.
[ This Message was edited by: Novacat on 2013-03-20 15:40 ]
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Koda
Marshal
Fatal Squadron
Joined: August 29, 2002
Posts: 1384
| Posted: 2013-03-20 18:01
Having seen many incarnations of DS and keeping in mind our very limited solution tree.
All things considered, I'm more apt to vote for (that is if I had a vote) haivng FTL's with no "recharge". Maybe try a increas fuel consumption? Heck, maybe offer both types? Standard with a highly efficent JD economy (Prius), and a FTL with no recharge time (Bat Mobile) and poor fuel economy. it would be interesting..
As for the Luthys..
I'm guessing this is as good as it gets. This is as balanced as I've ever seen. (save for the addition of ecm missles, and Auto Krill where and when ever you may roam.)
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Kenny_Naboo
Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: January 11, 2010
Posts: 3823
From: LobsterTown
| Posted: 2013-03-20 22:31
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On 2013-03-20 15:40, Novacat wrote:
How exactly are you going to consistantly track an invisible ship moving at 15+ gu/sec to hit the roughly 20-30 salvos you will need to destroy it? Note that you are not given any indication as to the ship's direction or how fast it is moving, and if the Kluth had any brains at all he would be changing direction as many times as possible. He could also move at variable speeds to throw off trackers and thus, the odds are extremely heavily in the kluth's favor.
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Isn't that the point of a cloaking device in the first place?
At least the Kluth cannot fire whilst cloaked. And that means, while it is cloaked and you are firing at it, hitting it randomly and forcing it to run, you are not in immediate danger of being hit by him. In fact you're the one on the offensive.
And once he doesn't have his cloak on, his armor is much weaker than yours, which still puts you at an advantage.
Do you want the kitchen sink too?
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Brutality
Marshal
Joined: May 25, 2009
Posts: 659
From: Alaska, USA
| Posted: 2013-03-21 00:23
Also keep in mind I believe that kluth dreads have the largest hit boxes of all the dreads in the game so it is hard to dodge all that incoming fire. Just something to keep in mind. 
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2013-03-21 06:15
K'luth dreads shouldn't be able to cloak if they're in combat
haha just kidding
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Novacat
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 30, 2001
Posts: 2337
From: Starleague Cache
| Posted: 2013-03-21 12:30
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On 2013-03-20 22:31, Kenny_Naboo wrote:
At least the Kluth cannot fire whilst cloaked. And that means, while it is cloaked and you are firing at it, hitting it randomly and forcing it to run, you are not in immediate danger of being hit by him. In fact you're the one on the offensive.
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I never said it was not balanced, if anything I feel the game is a lot more balanced now than it was before. My point is that it is difficult to pursue and kill a wounded Kluth warship and deliver the final blow. On top of this it allows the Kluth to approach and dispatch long range ships with no difficulty whatsoever. The game is balanced, but the current metagame being promoted is not exactly a good one. Making a bad decision as ICC/UGTO can very well mean the loss of your ship, wheras Kluth has a free 'Get out of Jail' card in the form of the Cloak. On top of this, Kluth has an immunity to long-range ships through their Cloak that further discourages use of missile/fighter ships and encourages use of close combat beam and torpedo ships.
I would have no problems with buffing up the Kluth armor, giving the Kluth some real PD, and giving the Kluth some more variety in missile ships if it means adding some possiblity of being able to track down and kill a wounded Kluth ship, or engage a Kluth fleet before it can get within beam distance of the missile/fighter ships.
[ This Message was edited by: Novacat on 2013-03-21 12:31 ]
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Rain of Fire [O-XII]
Grand Admiral
Joined: May 18, 2011
Posts: 71
From: South of Klaus, 14,000 gu from Insanity and 3,000 from Desperation.
| Posted: 2013-03-21 13:41
I have an idea for K'luth hunting: Make beacons work like actual beacons.
Keep the current 10-15 second operation time, or even make it shorter if it's too overpowered. But, have the beacon render a cloaked ship targettable for that time period. It doesn't have to be a solid target, but at least have it pulse every second or so. Then I can find that dread at 10-15% hull and smash him to hell for killing my buddy.
Advantages:
1. K'luth lose their get out of jail free card.
2. Only recon model scouts have beacons, thus it requires at least two people to fully take advantage of, much like the old dico boat.
3. No more "uncloak, murder, recloak and escape," that luthie is going to be dead real fast that way.
4. Requires people to use something other than a dread, and the ship in question still can earn pres on it's own.
Disadvantages:
1. Very easily over powered.
2. A good player could render cloak powerless without some changes to the beacon's burn time and reload.
3. K'luth loses their "One murder of your choosing free" card.
[ This Message was edited by: Oceans of Steel, Rain of Fire on 2013-03-21 13:42 ]
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