| Author |
My two cents. |
AdmiralChaos
Chief Marshal
Joined: October 08, 2008
Posts: 274
|  Posted: 2013-07-01 01:24
Let me just say, I'm posting this here since I drag out and run on about a bit of everything. So for that and wanting to hear what everyone thinks, I'm posting here instead of a feedback forum - feel free to move me if you wish.
First, let me start off by going on a little about me.. since no one (honestly) much likes to hear much from someone they don't know or even heard of. If you don't care, feel free to skip on, it won't hurt my feelings, I promise.
I started playing in beta with a group of friends that showed me the game (Agentfritz, AgentPathos, Agentstarblazer, AgentNick, Reason, Agenttart, Flipper and her brother.) I thought it was a pretty amazing game but I mostly started off just to grief Pathos/reason. (I was maybe 12-13 at the time) anyway, eventually I became seriously addicted, I ended up buying a computer for it and playing every chance I could on my awesome Aol dialup.
When the game went release, I actually paid for most of my friends subs, clan hopping, griefing, general asshatery that a kid enjoys. Anyway, let me get to the key points here, I could go into great detail about my fond memorys of this game forever.
I've done almost everything in this game, from late beta to now, i've made friends who I still talk to, to this day because of it, I've made mistakes, I've multi boxed, trashtalked, exploited and easily shell'd out enough money on this game to push into 4 digits. (I think I topped out at subbing 20 people at once) anyway.. while I am absolutely not someone respectable, I do have an opinion, and I'm being paid to tell you. (I'm at work, so indirectly, I'm great at being terrible at my job)
What i've noticed in my last two weeks or so of playing..
This game has become very group oriented, which is what they have always wanted, which is great and something thats always a ton of fun. But something this game has lacked for the longest time is that playerbase to support it.
Let me dig in a little bit more.. I'm a builder, its prolly one of the most consistant things of the game thats only majorly changed a few times (more than 3 structures, 32 slots, tiers, rotation..) So i spent a good chunk of my time building, trying to figure out on my own what the best method of building is now and such.. But as it stands, it feels a bit lacking and I don't really feel a lot of pressure so to say about it. Since now all you really have to worry about is putting a dicter, a few barracks and spacing everything else out. Defenses don't so much seem to matter, toss'm wherever, i can't really tell if defense or anti-ship is better, they all seem to do this invisible damage to everyone and pd is just less damage taken.
Now i'll note, I understand the defense changes to lessen the load on the servers, even more so i'm sure because it would be constant with the ever present AI. All I'm saying is, it just makes it feel like it doesn't really matter much what you do building wise, which is kinda a turn off for me.
Bombing, this is something I spent more time trying to do, then actually doing.. What I mean by that is, despite the station nerf, I wanted to see if I could still slip past enemy lines and steal some UGTO home planets. I jumped into my sector c, with resources and inf and made my long journey over, stopping ocassionally to build a supply plat to get my fuel back. I eventually landed in one of the back systems. Hopeful to do some long range bombing, I had missed the fact that my station doesnt have a scanner, so that was out of the question, I ended up trying to get in within structure view of the planet, when I did, I started launching fighters off at inf instead of structures since I knew the mass army of AI was on its way, I left the AI tranny alone as it was too far to PD my fighters. I ended up being too close for my fighters to properly shoot, some bombs looked to be stuck within me and I decided to attempt to capture via control instead. I started building as many platforms as I could (I read in the wiki that they contribute to control) but by the time I had two, five AI were here and hunting me down, the planet killed off my supply plats and I ended up dying before I could get out of structure range.
_________________
I'll chain you to the truth,
For the truth shall set you free,
I'll turn the screws of vengeance,
And bury you with honesty.
I'll make all your dreams come to life,
And slay them as quickly as they came.
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AdmiralChaos
Chief Marshal
Joined: October 08, 2008
Posts: 274
| Posted: 2013-07-01 01:24
I tried bombing a few times in scenario, hard to judge it in a frigate, but on my own planet, just bombing off enemy inf, I had a ton of trouble. I killed maybe two inf, with all of my bombs... Now the only reason I could think of that being so difficult would be for the fact that the planet did have 49% PD, but it was MY planet. So I guess the PD does not care if the planet is yours or not when it comes to bombing?
Anyway, I left pretty unsatisfied with the whole thing. Due to AI alone, I couldn't do much of anything on my own in terms of capturing or bombing planets.
Ship capturing seems to be pretty refined, I spent an hour or so in a kluth transport stalking AI trannys and engineers, dropping as many inf as I know those ships have cargo for, eventually capturing. So no issues there, I didn't try capturing any players as I couldn't find any at the time.
Combat was great when i could find someone to shoot at or I was in a situation to which I felt safe enough to engage. But overall, I was just fighting AI.
At the end of the day, I was just bored.. All I felt like I could do was build in scenario or shoot at AI. The few times I caught some real action or progression in the MV it was great, you had that sense of progression.. for yourself and your faction.. but I found myself a bit bored after the initial charging in, clearing out of enemies and AI.. just sitting there waiting for control.. Knowing I could bomb, but what would be the point, same with dropping inf.
Combat, great when it happens with players, shooting AI inbetween is great for killing time and feeling like you are still gaining during the downtime.. but too much AI and not enough of the real thing is the draw back, but I can't see much that can be done about that if people just arn't around.
Building doesn't feel very important anymore since you don't need to bomb or drop inf to capture.
It feels like the MV doesn't matter as much anymore, i've lost that sense of.. for a lack of a better word, duty? To defend the line and push forward. Between not being able to see whats going on in different servers unless you switch to them, the whole three MI systems (I don't get this), the newbie servers IN the MV, planets that force revolt or just straight do not let you capture.. These things make it all seem like it doesn't matter. I very much miss feel like every planet mattered, pushing enemys back to home systems. I mean... the only thing that felt like real winning was capturing the entire MV.
The game is still great, I enjoy the combat still, I miss my big ship powerhouses but I understand trying to make other ships desirable too. It just feels like the PvE aspect has been made basically undesirable and the fact I absolutely need other people to do anything in a game that can't always offer it a big let down and left me wishing for more.
I haven't tried beta yet, but I did watch jack self destruct a bunch of new beautiful ships via his little twitch stream.. which makes me very excited to see what the game has in store for the future.
Sorry if this is a pain in the ass to read, I've been writing on and off for the past few hours while working.
_________________
I'll chain you to the truth,
For the truth shall set you free,
I'll turn the screws of vengeance,
And bury you with honesty.
I'll make all your dreams come to life,
And slay them as quickly as they came.
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Chewy Squirrel
Chief Marshal
Joined: January 27, 2003
Posts: 304
From: NYC
| Posted: 2013-07-01 01:57
Yeah dude I feel you, I really do on most of your points. I've been here since almost the beginning as well. Unfortunately most of these problems don't have any immediately obvious solutions.
Quote:
Defenses don't so much seem to matter, toss'm wherever, i can't really tell if defense or anti-ship is better, they all seem to do this invisible damage to everyone and pd is just less damage taken.
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Personally I hate the new planetary defences. On anything larger than a destroyer you can't even really see the visual effect without zooming in to maximum. And even then it just feels cheap-unavoidable damage every few seconds in regular intervals that you can't do anything about. The old defences that shot missiles and fighters actually felt real. The bases pd'd incoming troops and missiles, instead of just contributing a "PD" number that somehow vaguely protects the planet from these threats. While the new bases can be far far more dangerous than the old ones (Just look at some of the death spheres in Dres Kona that absolutely wreck any ships that comes within range) they just don't feel right.
But unfortunately the developers are adamant on this one and the old bases will never come back, and this is just something we will have to live with. Any sort of projectile based defence base is apparently too resource intensive, and I can't think of any other solution to this problem.
Quote:
Bombing, this is something I spent more time trying to do, then actually doing.. What I mean by that is, despite the station nerf, I wanted to see if I could still slip past enemy lines and steal some UGTO home planets....
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Yeah the problems you have arise from 3 separate issues:
1. It is pointless to invade home systems now. The enemy AI is so insanely strong in home systems and you lack any friendly AI. Even if you do manage to cap a planet or two you will never be able to hold them. The removal of being able to spawn at transfer gates also made things A LOT harder.
2. The capture redesign was partially aimed at preventing people from being able to easily cap planets alone. Plus they removed the ability for stations to provide capture influence to further this goal.
3. The ship redesign was aimed at super specializing ships. Which I don't completely like, but it is what it is. Basically no single ship can perform every role, so the days of the sector command base being the best solo planet capturing ship are gone. So are the days of fighters on your combat dread and repair drones on your battle station.
Again, I don't see any easy solution to this problem.
Quote:
Combat was great when i could find someone to shoot at or I was in a situation to which I felt safe enough to engage. But overall, I was just fighting AI.
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No one will disagree that the game's best moments are huge, organized, player faction vs player faction battles. But this is probably the hardest problem to solve. The game isn't low on players because it wants to be.
I think this one is self-explanatory.
Quote:
It feels like the MV doesn't matter as much anymore, i've lost that sense of.. for a lack of a better word, duty?
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Yeah I think part of that problem is the current MV design. Kaus is a terribly boring system. I haven't played enough with the new MV but it's looking good so far. Hopefully the fracturing of the central systems in the new MV isn't too bad in terms of not being able to see players in neighboring systems.
I've always liked the old suggestion of giving faction-wide bonuses for owning certain planets like a 1% reduction in transfer cost, 1% faster building, 1% faster infantry production, etc. Feels like it would give more of a purpose to push and hold.
I love this game, if I didn't I wouldn't be here 10 years down the line. It has its issues and it has lost some features and some character over they years but I don't think it is due to a lack of trying by the devs. Remember they are working off of very limited resources compared to what this game had in its early days.
[ This Message was edited by: Chewy Squirrel on 2013-07-01 01:58 ]
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Cold Death
Admiral
Joined: July 24, 2011
Posts: 106
From: Right behind you...
| Posted: 2013-07-01 08:41
Quote:
This game has become very group oriented, which is what they have always wanted, which is great and something thats always a ton of fun. But something this game has lacked for the longest time is that playerbase to support it.
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This is one of the major problems with the game right now. Not enough players = not enough funding = not enough developer time, since they'd have to work on it in their free time = less new features = less polishing of older features = less players and so the circle completes.
However, one of the things in that circle, aka less money earned from the game is a direct cause for a smaller playerbase, because you can't just ask a website to kindly display an ad for your game.
And indeed, when you can't advertise the game, then less people will be aware of it, meaning you're back into the loop. And everything else depends on there being more funding and more players.
I really have no idea how we can fix this issue, because this game is incredible for it's age, and the only reason it's lacking features is because it's lacking players who can fund the development of the game.
[ This Message was edited by: Cold Death *RO* on 2013-07-01 08:42 ]
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Talien
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2013-07-01 10:41
The low player numbers issue is the biggest one, if we had the playerbase where there were even just 10-15 people on at most times the game would be A LOT more exciting and you'd see planets being taken over daily. But yes, there's really not much free advertising available aside from a few MMO coverage sites that occasionally do a review of the game.....sadly enough most of the new players we've gotten recently have come here mistaking DS for a Dark Orbit private server that was named "Darkspace".
Quote:
On 2013-07-01 01:57, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
3. The ship redesign was aimed at super specializing ships. Which I don't completely like, but it is what it is. Basically no single ship can perform every role, so the days of the sector command base being the best solo planet capturing ship are gone. So are the days of fighters on your combat dread and repair drones on your battle station.
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Don't forget the T2 and T3 ships will have multiple roles, it's just the T1 ships that are specialized to one specific role. You will see ships with cannons/fighters/EW for example, just look at the shiplist in beta and you'll be able to see the new layouts. So far all 3 factions have up to Cruisers done and the T1 Dreadnought layouts for ICC went in last night.
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Adapt or die.
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Guyton (Angel of Death)
Marshal
Joined: January 25, 2004
Posts: 706
| Posted: 2013-07-01 11:56
Quote:
On 2013-07-01 10:41, Talien wrote:
The low player numbers issue is the biggest one, if we had the playerbase where there were even just 10-15 people on at most times the game would be A LOT more exciting and you'd see planets being taken over daily. But yes, there's really not much free advertising available aside from a few MMO coverage sites that occasionally do a review of the game.....sadly enough most of the new players we've gotten recently have come here mistaking DS for a Dark Orbit private server that was named "Darkspace".
Quote:
On 2013-07-01 01:57, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
3. The ship redesign was aimed at super specializing ships. Which I don't completely like, but it is what it is. Basically no single ship can perform every role, so the days of the sector command base being the best solo planet capturing ship are gone. So are the days of fighters on your combat dread and repair drones on your battle station.
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Don't forget the T2 and T3 ships will have multiple roles, it's just the T1 ships that are specialized to one specific role. You will see ships with cannons/fighters/EW for example, just look at the shiplist in beta and you'll be able to see the new layouts. So far all 3 factions have up to Cruisers done and the T1 Dreadnought layouts for ICC went in last night.
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Agreed. In 2004 there were very large fleets to bombard planets. With the population withdrawing during the past few versions where gameplay has suffered it willl take time for those players to turn. 1.7 looks very promising . I'm hopeful a few ideas like those I've been hearing from the staff will be included after a good debate on certain details. Capturing planets should be difficult. I understand things have been adjusted to compensate for lack of players but planets are very valuable or at one point they were. Before we had cloud bombing than again planets shot missiles and launched fighters. It's still more easier now to drop some infantry and sit in orbit.
[ This Message was edited by: Guyton (Angel of Death) on 2013-07-01 12:11 ]
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Pantheon
Marshal
Palestar
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 1789
| Posted: 2013-07-01 16:14
Unfortunately, catering to a smaller playerbase sometimes has the side effect of ruining it when more players come on. Right now planets can be capped solo, but it's intended to be a very slow affair (at a later date we will have zone-wide bonuses for certain planet ownership).
We can always increase the defence base damage, and we know the damage effect is lack lustre - Faustus had originally intended to write some client-side code so that it had some fancy en-mass missiles that always hit you, etc, instead of the puny gauss hit effect).
I know you all loved the previous planetary defence system, but there's no way in which for us to retain that and retain an acceptable level of performance. The hardware just doesn't exist at the moment for us to be able to do things like this.
Those who played the game in the past will remember the horrendous server lag we used to get when a small battle broke out. This was entirely the fault of the planetary defence system, and before people start stating we should have optimised it - it was already as optimised as it could be, further optimisations would have simply nerfed it to uselessness. The current system was intended to give planets defences and allow us to work on the rest of the game, as we were being severely hampered by planetary defence simulation.
To give you an idea, we divide the map up into sections. Each section is its own map run on a single process mapped to a single core. Currently we have an 8 core machine, Sag is pretty much the only server under what I'd deem 'load'. Currently Sag idles at 40-50% depending on what's going on (light battles, etc), and all other zones idle at 10% or below that.
With the old system, Sag used to idle at 80%+, and the other zones idled at 30-40%. So you see how hamstrung we were by the old model. A lot of other optimisations have been made since, but it doesn't come close to allowing us to add this back. We could not keep adding to the game without making the change, and I can tell you without any doubt in my mind that all the additions we've made since then far outweight the system.
Please don't make suggestions, I can promise you we considered all options. We selected the one we have because it had the biggest payoff with the least compromise. It was sad to see it go, but sometimes you have to make changes like this in order to progress in other areas.
In regards to building : this is on the todo list. Only myself and Faustus work on the code-side of DarkSpace, which makes for very slow progress.
[ This Message was edited by: Pantheon on 2013-07-02 00:21 ]
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Xydes
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 07, 2009
Posts: 276
From: England
| Posted: 2013-07-01 16:47
Quote:
On 2013-07-01 01:24, AdmiralChaos [Steady] wrote:
What i've noticed in my last two weeks or so of playing..
This game has become very group oriented, which is what they have always wanted, which is great and something thats always a ton of fun. But something this game has lacked for the longest time is that playerbase to support it.
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Aye. I myself have come back after a very long leave from Darkspace (Under the name Dark Valkaryie (Yes the pain in the ass child from way back when)) to see what is new. That I am glad off, it seems there have been a myriad of changes and a good few changes to come in the future which I, personally, am looking forward to.
It's sad to see such a small amount of players on at one time. I remember when you would have massive faction battles with 40+ people on at one time and a blanket of red diamonds across the screen (of course the lag and for me the Frame Rate were horrendous) but it was extremely enjoyable.
I myself intend to stick around and see what comes up. As always you can't really hope the playerbase will increase dramatically when there is literally no advertising budget. But, as players, we can do our part in helping by telling people about the game, writing about it on forums and making youtube videos.
I do feel a little bored at times with the gameplay as I am either 1) fighting the same people all the time or 2) fighting AI. But to be truthfully honest, I am glad the AI are there as Darkspace would be incredibly boring without them. So I am happy the AI are staying.
That is just my thought on it.
-Xydes
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Taelon
Marshal
Joined: December 26, 2011
Posts: 255
| Posted: 2013-07-01 18:26
Quote:
On 2013-07-01 16:14, Pantheon wrote:
I know you all loved the previous planetary defence system, but there's no way in which the laws of physics allow for us to retain that and retain an acceptable level of performance.
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Sorry i just have to throw in, that logic doesn't apply in Darkspace. So that means laws of physics wouldn't either right?
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Pantheon
Marshal
Palestar
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 1789
| Posted: 2013-07-01 19:09
Quote:
On 2013-07-01 18:26, Taelon*KEF* wrote:
Quote:
On 2013-07-01 16:14, Pantheon wrote:
I know you all loved the previous planetary defence system, but there's no way in which the laws of physics allow for us to retain that and retain an acceptable level of performance.
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Sorry i just have to throw in, that logic doesn't apply in Darkspace. So that means laws of physics wouldn't either right?
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I should probably fix that. The technology for us to be able to do what we want to do doesn't exist yet.
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*FTL*Soulless
Marshal
Joined: June 25, 2010
Posts: 787
From: Dres-Kona
| Posted: 2013-07-01 19:44
Dark: you also forget those few times where we managed to crash the game due to the amount of things we had flying around XD.
Currently i am looking (trying) to find ways to advertise either free or cheaply (i would gladly cover this) to try and increase the player base to what it was.
But one thing that could help (this is directed namely to jack) would be to email all registered players and tell them about the new release and give a small incentive to check it out (5k free creds? a free week as a sub? just ideas) to try and get those numbers back again.
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We are Back from the shadows.
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AdmiralChaos
Chief Marshal
Joined: October 08, 2008
Posts: 274
| Posted: 2013-07-01 23:27
They usually do something of the sorts and it works pretty well. I'll be taking an initiative of my own tonight and start trying to bring some new blood in.
_________________
I'll chain you to the truth,
For the truth shall set you free,
I'll turn the screws of vengeance,
And bury you with honesty.
I'll make all your dreams come to life,
And slay them as quickly as they came.
|
Xydes
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 07, 2009
Posts: 276
From: England
| Posted: 2013-07-02 11:05
Quote:
On 2013-07-01 19:44, Soulless *CO* wrote:
Dark: you also forget those few times where we managed to crash the game due to the amount of things we had flying around XD.
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Oh the good ol' days. 
But lets not start reminicising on the past otherwise we'll be here for a while..
1.7 Looks amazing, anyone with their head screwed on tight would download Darkspace and play it once that patch goes live.
I do miss Goththug's weird conversations though. >.<
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*Flash*
Chief Marshal
Joined: April 19, 2009
Posts: 291
From: Semi retired after 1.67 !
| Posted: 2013-07-02 11:57
Quote:
On 2013-07-01 16:47, Dark Xydes wrote:
Quote:
On 2013-07-01 01:24, AdmiralChaos [Steady] wrote:
What i've noticed in my last two weeks or so of playing..
This game has become very group oriented, which is what they have always wanted, which is great and something thats always a ton of fun. But something this game has lacked for the longest time is that playerbase to support it.
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Aye. I myself have come back after a very long leave from Darkspace (Under the name Dark Valkaryie (Yes the pain in the ass child from way back when)) to see what is new. That I am glad off, it seems there have been a myriad of changes and a good few changes to come in the future which I, personally, am looking forward to.
It's sad to see such a small amount of players on at one time. I remember when you would have massive faction battles with 40+ people on at one time and a blanket of red diamonds across the screen (of course the lag and for me the Frame Rate were horrendous) but it was extremely enjoyable.
I myself intend to stick around and see what comes up. As always you can't really hope the playerbase will increase dramatically when there is literally no advertising budget. But, as players, we can do our part in helping by telling people about the game, writing about it on forums and making youtube videos.
I do feel a little bored at times with the gameplay as I am either 1) fighting the same people all the time or 2) fighting AI. But to be truthfully honest, I am glad the AI are there as Darkspace would be incredibly boring without them. So I am happy the AI are staying.
That is just my thought on it.
-Xydes
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Most of the ppl left after the map got changed same as i and ridiculous Ai numbers!
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woodburner
Chief Marshal
Joined: November 02, 2010
Posts: 34
| Posted: 2013-07-02 13:55
I cant agree more on the AI, there are just far too much of them for the game to be fun when playing by your self, when there are no real people on.
As for MI planet busting this should be stopped
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