I feel I'm missing something here. (Feedback thread!)

[tha_rami]

[rrquote]The analogy with the hermit is me pointing out the extreme of your argument - having as little as possible.[/quote]
But its an incorrect analogy, as design and lifestyle are completely independent things.

You might want as little as possible, but that seems strange to me - would you prefer a keyboard with only 2 keys? (One to scroll throug the different inputs, one to select it.)

Now my analogy actually worked: it was about design. Again, I would prefer a remote that dimmed my light with two buttons over one with two-hundred, if the goal was to dim my light.

Or to use an in-game analogy, what about all the hidden planets? Would you prefer it if they weren't there, since you don't come across them that often anyway. Why have 2 methods of cloaking? 1 would be fine. Why have 2 sets of frames? 1 set worked fine in EL. Why bother with military/civilian? Why bother having anything but the talon? Why bother playing EM, tetris has *so* much less. Heck, why tetris, or even a computer for that matter? I'm sure snap would be fine. In fact, let's not play snap, that's got way too much stuff involved in it. Just sitting there is even simpler. Perhaps that's got too much in it as well? I mean, there's people around you, they might distract you. Becoming a hermit might solve that problem though, then you'd wouldn't be distracted!

Again, you're mixing lifestyle with design. Let me give a valid analogy. If I were to build a table, I could build a table. I would require four legs and a surface. Of course, I could continue there. I could add touchscreens, retractable chairs, inbuilt light, a sushi rail and a fridge - but that doesn't make it a better table. All it does is make it something else - and sure, it might be better at being that other thing - but it is not necessarily a better table. More likely, the table ends up being extremely heavy, the touchscreens make it dangerous to put liquids on their, the retractable chairs don't allow me to put it where I want, the inbuilt light requires a power cable, the sushi rail takes away my laptop when I go to the toilet and the fridge leaves little room for my legs. Supports and a surface make a good table.

My point is, less stuff =/= better.

And again, in terms of design, you're wrong.

Not that I'm advocating filling a game with lots of stuff.

Great, I feel I've taught you something valuable.

As I said, that's not the right thing to do either. Perfection is in the middle. (The problem comes in defining the middle, and between different people.)

Okay, I retract my previous statement.

Anyway, back on topic a little more:

You mean you consider the above 'off-topic'? It feels quite on-topic to me.

it's not really 'perceived worth' - it's easy enough to make tonnes of money and get a starmaster relatively quickly, which is why it's not much of a trophy.

Wait, what? What you just said is "It's not about 'perceived worth', it's about perceived worth?"

Since this is a suggestion thread, I'm going to repost my previous list-of-stuff-to-add, for anybody who cba to read the previous page

Okay. Suggestions are good. I'm going to force you and think about your suggestion a second longer than a second. If you would be so kind as to answer the questions I pose, that would clarify a lot for me .

-*loads* of new equipment, but say you could only find certain pieces in certain places, not just the general special-stuff-in-hidden-planets.

More is not better. Changing the value balance of the current items will be a better fix than adding more items with the same problem.

-Change the fairly linear nature of ship components, make certain ship components only available in certain places.

And what would that fix?

-Alliance/Fed frames only available in those territories.

Would there be a difference between the two, or would this just be skins? If the latter, why don't these differences echo to all the other available options?

-Wormholes that spit you out randomly near uncharted planets.

Isn't that annoying? Random is a hard-to-control thing & it could potentially drop you in a place from which you'll never make it back. If not random, what makes these 'uncharted' planets uncharted if there's a wormhole leading there?

-Bars you can go into to pick up info on uncharted planets.

Bars?

-Have stations other than the trade station have more effect.

More effect?

-Make items that could cost >10,000,000 credits, heck >100,000,000 or even higher.

The alternative, making credits harder to earn, is a better solution to this problem - as it solves multiple problems.

-Ultra-rare frames that are perhaps both quick but also with fairly good shields, or especially high assembly, or high allocation-points (CMs, crew etc, those points, whatever they're called)

Basically, an additional role. The current frames are created with a specific role in mind. Therefore, there is no absolute 'best' frame.

-Other alien races, some friendly or not? Choose between races???

Why would we want that?

-Stars that take up an actual amount of space, like several sectors in diameter.

Why would we want that?

-Special shields for 'stardiving'.

Why would we want that?

-Artifacts littered around, doing special things like teleportation, giving special equipment (once only?), blasting stuff etc.

Cool. What does that do?

-Make capitals truly powerful (i.e. several fighters needed to take one down, minimum. Even for eclipse.). This would encourage fleets, allying etc.

Great idea, what about Single Player?

-Customising ship to have two particle cannons, or 3 lasers (large frames have more options)

Could be interesting.

-Underwater cities, allow spaceships to go underwater with the right upgrade.

That is completely ridiculous in every interpretation.

-different looking ciites, some with special interior areas to dock etc.

Which would all do the same, thus fix nothing.

-Mega-stations, which you can fly around in.

Great. But, uh, what would that add to the game?

-Rare ores and minerals hidden in the giant asteroids

How about moving certain minerals that already exist there?

-More weapons, shields, missiles etc. (like more equipment, earlier)

This is directly contrary to your point that things should feel more valuable. If you have more equipment available earlier, you have less perceived reward for getting them.

-More things to do with the backstory, hidden beacons that say stuff about it, stuff in the news.

That might help the believability of the universe.

-More quests to follow

Examples?

-Player-created quests (would be especially good in mp)

What kind of interface are you proposing and how would this integrate in SP?

-Underground cities?

Refer to 'underwater cities'.

-Hollow planets? (tunnel leading into them)

For what reason?

-Stuff in the hollow planets (cities, containers, wormholes etc.)

The same stuff you find everywhere else? Why would I go there and why don't the asteroids suffice?

-Giant living creatues, maybe some kind of alien skywhale or something living in gas giants (something anyway)

Maybe add something with a prince who needs to find the giant mythical sword?

-Floating islands in gas giants - have the islands float around? (whilst staying facing outwards, of course)

So, basically, make gas giants like every other planet? Wouldn't hurt, now they're simply scenery and that's not really useful.

-tunnels and stuff in said floating islands!

You have an odd obsession with tunnels.

-New ships, able to fly capital ships??

Why new ships and what would you suppose a capital ship do?

-Diplomatic relations - have stuff in the news, which affects the universe, about e.g. tensions between different factions, war breaking out, espionage, perhaps you could become an official diplomat on one side's behalf!

Isn't that already in the game? If not, the tension could be useful. Then again, the safe zones in the game are there for a reason, so making that more dynamic might have a bad effect.

-Make money not so easy to get hold of.

Good one!

[Jack Dandy]

Ahhh.. please, no quote fights.
I freakin' hate those.

Let's keep it to objective feedback about the game only, if possible!

[TGS]

I said I would stay out of this thread and while I am posting I still stand by that previous statement.

In terms of game balance there is another Indie game that I would plug that does balance in a VERY VERY good way but it's actually a Real Time Strategy/4x type game but Evochron could learn a thing or two from it in terms of ship design. As I don't know the rules on advertising/plugging I won't mention it in this post but if any of you want the name/link to it feel free to drop me a U2U. Perhaps then you might see why I get so irritable about game balance.

And in response to the "Why would anyone want to fly capital ships" question as I feel that can be directed at me as I've brought that up many many times.

The thing with capital ships is they can be done in many different ways and yes if done accurately they aren't overly practical for "fly and shoot" but that was never the point. The point was to have a mobile "home base" ship that you could dock with THEN fly around. And more to the point it wouldn't be just fly around in. I would like to see capital ships in the form of customizable role platforms. A place where you could dock multiple ships board the capital ship then choose to leave with another ship and leave the ship in the hands of an AI. As far as not being able to use the turrets... why not? Haven't you played Freelancer and used turret mode? That would work just fine for controlling the capital ship turrets. The biggest reason for capital ships would be range extension. You know how with the biggest best drive you can jump 10 sectors? With a capital ship you could jump 50-100. It would also serve as a good money sink. They wouldn't be cheap. Also haven't you ever gone up against a capital ship in a game and thought "Yeah I would like to command that".

[Avenger]

Nope, I have absolutely no interest is driving a capital ship, nor have I ever played Freelancer since the noobish controls where enough for me to pass on that game.
So far the only game I have seen with impressive capital ships is the Freespace series, yet even after seeing that incredible firepower it still doesn't appeal to me to drive one, come to think of it I don't even like to fly a bomber and lob torpedoes.
The biggest thing I like to fly is a heavy fighter, as goes for EM, the Avenger and the Mammoth are my 2 favorate ships.

As for a home, I just build a space station + upgrades in every system and use them as a home.

[Maarschalk]

My relative 2 cents or 30 shekkels as one said, is that every game no matter what it is, people are going to look for things they liked in other games and there is not one game that is going to please every one.....This is a free Form Space Simulation, and is constantly developping with inputs from players. I have not seen any game that does a better job of Free Form Space Simulation, with such a dedicated one man developper, then Renegades, Legends and Mercenary....These are the only 3 I have and played from the Starwraith series....I'm not saying it is perfect but it is very close to it and it is the best you get for the money out there hands down and good suggestions are always taken in consideration.....

[Marvin]

I say, "Make the trade stations mobile." You want a capital ship, there ya go. It's space. Shape is irrelevant.

[Nigel_Strange]

I've been on this board for a while, not as long as some, but a while, and one thing that I have noticed is that, although Vice does read a lot of our suggestions and tries to fit some of them in, there are priorities.

I think (I can't really speak for Vice, but I can imagine this might be his reasoning) that adding new features takes a lot of resource (his time), so before he adds something like that, he needs to make sure that it is going to be well-received. For instance, if he did something that made one or two people happy, but turned five or six people away (people who might not be as active on the boards) then he has lost. As you can see: people can't even agree on these ideas on the board, so if you can't even get unanimous approval for the initial concept, it is not going to go far into the game.

That said, he probably does play around with some ideas, both ours and his own, in his spare time.

So, considering the relative expense of adding a new feature, and the likelihood that the idea will not add significantly to the enjoyment of most players, there is little reason to add many of these features in.

Go back through the posts, though, and see if you can pick out one or two ideas that look like they're universally well-received.

Very likely, I would be against them (this is what happened with the Excalibers).

I think any game can be improved upon. However, it is very easy to mess up something that is already successful.

At this point, the only thing that I think could be improved would be the trading system. However, that adds a whole new level of complexity, and one could easily argue that it would not significantly add to the game's appeal.

I also wanted to remove the speed limit, but eventually got voted down (in this case, probably for good reason). There are games that feature more "pure" Newtonian physics models, and the combat experience suffers. In short: there needs to be a balance between realism and fun in order for people to want to play.

[Jack Dandy]

Another small thing that could really help the trading aspect is the simple ability to read System descriptions even when not inside the systems, so you you can actually PLOT your trading routes.
(If they did it 26 years ago, I'm pretty sure you can pull it off today )

Or, even better- make it exploration based! We can have a little database that fills up with system information, but only if we've visited the system. In the beginning, you'll only have a few basic system type information available, but as you explore, your trading knowledge can grow.

And to encourage landing on planets, you can make it so the system's produce will be somewhat cheaper there than on the stations orbiting them. Even more so for Nebula stations.

Even simple stuff like that can encourage exploration!

(But please, do something about selling planets their own oxygen... that stuff's just silly.)


[Edited on 5-16-2011 by Jack Dandy]

[SeeJay]

If you visit my site and use the "old" map. Zoom in on the main systems and up to your right there
is a link to System Description.

Or visit this link: http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmerce ... iverse.htm

[Jack Dandy]

It's nice!
but in the end of the day, that kind of database should be in the game itself, not a fansite.

[Avenger]

(But please, do something about selling planets their own oxygen... that stuff's just silly.)

We sell our own oxygen as well to those who need it, for recreational, medical and industrial use just to name some examples.

[Jack Dandy]

make it be worth 1 credits per oxygen tank, then

EDIT: Also, is it just me or besides the infinite containers, the diamond/platinum mining beams also contribute to the game's trading to become very boring?
I think they should be far harder to obtain. Or at least, sell for less. The trading aspect really needs a serious thinkover.

[Edited on 5-16-2011 by Jack Dandy]

[xingbing1]

Ok, I'm answering rami here - everyone else feel free to skip this post

//lots of stuff about hermits and tables and stuff//

Ok, we might have to agree to disagree. You might think the less, the better. I think that having the least amount of something is the wrong way to go.

Anyway, back on topic a little more:

You mean you consider the above 'off-topic'? It feels quite on-topic to me.

well, not really. We kind of got side-tracked into how much stuff there should be in anything at all

it's not really 'perceived worth' - it's easy enough to make tonnes of money and get a starmaster relatively quickly, which is why it's not much of a trophy.

Wait, what? What you just said is "It's not about 'perceived worth', it's about perceived worth?"

no, I said 'it's not about perceived worth, it's about actual worth', but whatever.

Since this is a suggestion thread, I'm going to repost my previous list-of-stuff-to-add, for anybody who cba to read the previous page

Okay. Suggestions are good. I'm going to force you and think about your suggestion a second longer than a second. If you would be so kind as to answer the questions I pose, that would clarify a lot for me .

okey dokey, answering questions go go go!

-*loads* of new equipment, but say you could only find certain pieces in certain places, not just the general special-stuff-in-hidden-planets.

More is not better. Changing the value balance of the current items will be a better fix than adding more items with the same problem.

once again, agree to disagree on the first sentence. Making the current stuff better would also be very good, but I reckon new stuff could still be useful!

-Change the fairly linear nature of ship components, make certain ship components only available in certain places.

And what would that fix?

Well, atm, take wings. The higher up you go, the more expensive they are,the more assembly points they take up and the more they give you manoeuvrability. Changing this (e.g. making higher-up ones perhaps take up less resources for the same or greater manoeuvrability) would simply make things more interesting, less straightforward and change the dynamic of ship-building a bit - bigger might not always be better, it might depend on your ship for instance. It certainly wouldn't be bad. (Take this as an example, again using wings/manoeuvrability: atm, you use higher-level wings to offset the brick-like-ness of higher-end ships. The bigger the ship, the better the wings you need. End of, nothing to see here. If, perhaps, there was a high-end wing, perhaps not available in all systems, and quite expensive as well, then it might allow a sufficiently well-off mercenary to take a striker, slap on something the equivelant of nighthawk (which it couldn't normally fit) and make something more manoeuvrable than a Evoch-C.)

-Alliance/Fed frames only available in those territories.

Would there be a difference between the two, or would this just be skins? If the latter, why don't these differences echo to all the other available options?

Of course there would be differences... there already *are* differences, it's just that you can get both sets of frames everywhere (assuming sufficient tech level, obviously) o.O

-Wormholes that spit you out randomly near uncharted planets.

Isn't that annoying? Random is a hard-to-control thing & it could potentially drop you in a place from which you'll never make it back. If not random, what makes these 'uncharted' planets uncharted if there's a wormhole leading there?

I'm just suggesting that some wormholes don't have a set destination - each time you go through them you could find something new and exciting, or you might be dumped back at sapphire, or even deep space or the inside of a sun! (obviously they won't just generate the coords randomly, you'd end up in deep space all the time otherwise! ) Combined with the death-penalty some are suggesting, this would make it a lot more interesting.

-Bars you can go into to pick up info on uncharted planets.

Bars?

y'know, places where you can can go and have a beer (or an evobeer as the case may be!) It could add a new dynamic to the game.

-Have stations other than the trade station have more effect.

More effect?

atm, ore processers and research stations etc. do little except effect nearby station's inventories. Make, for instance, ore processers able to convert ore into components (the difference to constructors could be say, you could build some kind of 'ore miner', and link the two, supplying a continuous stream of components you can use. Maybe tech stations could allow you to upgrade components with nifty add-ons or something.) At the very least, they should do something more interesting than just sit there, look pretty and tell trade stations to sell something marginally different.

-Make items that could cost >10,000,000 credits, heck >100,000,000 or even higher.

The alternative, making credits harder to earn, is a better solution to this problem - as it solves multiple problems.

Why not do both? Create some major money sinks that you really have to work hard to get to would make the game a lot more enjoyable, to have some long-term goals.

-Ultra-rare frames that are perhaps both quick but also with fairly good shields, or especially high assembly, or high allocation-points (CMs, crew etc, those points, whatever they're called)

Basically, an additional role. The current frames are created with a specific role in mind. Therefore, there is no absolute 'best' frame.

I'm just suggesting that say, you could only get some special frame that has something special (maybe it can have maxed out allocation points, or carry more than the usual number of missiles, or have very good shields, whatever), but you could only get say, Special Frame A from *those* specific hidden planets, Special Frame B from *those other* specific hidden planets etc. I'm suggesting adding some new frames that make the game more interesting. So you won't like this, 'cos 'less is better'

-Other alien races, some friendly or not? Choose between races???

Why would we want that?

Why wouldn't we want that? New alien races could be cool, perhaps they give some sort of special something-or-another. It might be interesting to play as a member of some minor race that comes from a semi-unknown backwater planet. Perhaps it could affect how bars work for you.

-Stars that take up an actual amount of space, like several sectors in diameter.

Why would we want that?

Because having some vaguely realistic stars might go well with all the other more-complex-than-necessary stuff this game has. Plus, it would make direct-jumping from one place to another a little bit harder, and really, the stars are *so* much smaller than planets atm. That's just plain weird.

-Special shields for 'stardiving'.

Why would we want that?

...you like that phrase don't you? Because it's INTERESTING. y'know, not boring just flying around. Perhaps there's some stations hidden inside these stars protected by many many shields, perhaps selling some of those unique items I've mentioned. This would go very well with the stars-actually-taking-up-space thing I've mentioned.

-Artifacts littered around, doing special things like teleportation, giving special equipment (once only?), blasting stuff etc.

Cool. What does that do?

Are you asking me to describe some of the stuff that the artifacts do, or what having them there would add to the universe? If the former, well, I've named a few, perhaps they could also do things as simple as acting as a gravity sink for you to be able to orbit round, perhaps they could provide wormholes to a secret place, perhaps they could allow you to activate an in-built weapon system when you're nearby. If the latter, then it's the same as many other things I've said. It's making the game more interesting by adding more features to it. If it didn't have any features all we'd have is a physics model with a rudimentary economic one tacked on the side, and that really would be boring.

-Make capitals truly powerful (i.e. several fighters needed to take one down, minimum. Even for eclipse.). This would encourage fleets, allying etc.

Great idea, what about Single Player?

What about single player? You can build up fleets for a reason y'know. If nothing else, you can't say that having a massive capital ship be able to be taken down by one pilot in a fighter, no matter how skilled, makes sense. That's like saying someone in a microlight weilding an AK47 ought to be able to take down an Apache gunship.

-Customising ship to have two particle cannons, or 3 lasers (large frames have more options)

Could be interesting.

Yup, which is why I've suggested just about everything here - *because* it's interesting.

-Underwater cities, allow spaceships to go underwater with the right upgrade.

That is completely ridiculous in every interpretation.

A bit like the fighter-taking-down-capital-ship, or flying-through-gas-giants, or having fulcrum drives (that bend space) available for general use? There's plenty of wacky things that could be good (not all of them, obviously. Planet-size stars for example.), and underwater cities in and of themselves aren't that wacky. Perhaps flying spaceships down to them might be, but it's only an idea.

-different looking ciites, some with special interior areas to dock etc.

Which would all do the same, thus fix nothing.

Except make the game more interesting... ? Which is what we're trying to achieve here anyway, is it not?

-Mega-stations, which you can fly around in.

Great. But, uh, what would that add to the game?

See above.

-Rare ores and minerals hidden in the giant asteroids

How about moving certain minerals that already exist there?

Well, whatever. Maybe make diamonds not available in every asteroid, make the richest deposits in the mega-'roids, maybe add or change some resources, but make the mega-'roids more interesting to go mining in.

-More weapons, shields, missiles etc. (like more equipment, earlier)

This is directly contrary to your point that things should feel more valuable. If you have more equipment available earlier, you have less perceived reward for getting them.

No no no, when I said earlier, I meant 'see the section on more equipment, earlier in my post' But again, I know you won't be interested in this bit.

-More things to do with the backstory, hidden beacons that say stuff about it, stuff in the news.

That might help the believability of the universe.

Yay, we're agreeing! Not to mention the fact that yes, it will make the game more interesting.

-More quests to follow

Examples?

Well, perhaps you could have a couple that take you to riftspace via different routes, showing you different cool things. Perhaps you could follow one that shows you some wormholes to cool places. Perhaps you have to work out where the Lost Rucker gate is so you can drop an item off there, whatever. Just some more storylines to follow that will show off more of the universe, hopefully going via several hidden planets en route.

-Player-created quests (would be especially good in mp)

What kind of interface are you proposing and how would this integrate in SP?

Interface: From the build constructor, you can build beacons as well. When you build one, a little screen pops up asking for some text that will appear when you fly near it. Have another couple of boxes showing the requirements for the text to appear (e.g. rank admiral, 25 ore in cargo bay, stealth field active, etc.) Then a button saying 'place'.
Integration: same as stations atm, so you could place them in SP (perhaps you could get you friends to try them if you give them the right file), but also in MP, with the two not crossing over.

-Underground cities?

Refer to 'underwater cities'.

yup, done, see what I said there too!

-Hollow planets? (tunnel leading into them)

For what reason?

Because that would be interesting... and flying around inside what is effectively a massive cave would be very cool and fun.

-Stuff in the hollow planets (cities, containers, wormholes etc.)

The same stuff you find everywhere else? Why would I go there and why don't the asteroids suffice?

I was just pointing out these don't have to be big, boring, empty caverns, much like most mega-'roids are atm.

-Giant living creatues, maybe some kind of alien skywhale or something living in gas giants (something anyway)

Maybe add something with a prince who needs to find the giant mythical sword?

Ok, so you don't like this idea. Sorry, whatever. I shall continue to dream about seeing giant whales swimming through gas giants :L

-Floating islands in gas giants - have the islands float around? (whilst staying facing outwards, of course)

So, basically, make gas giants like every other planet? Wouldn't hurt, now they're simply scenery and that's not really useful.

Not quite like every other planet, because you can fly completely around in gas giants. You could have multiple different layers of islands, orbit around inside the gas giant. This really would be interesting actually, you could fly from floating island to floating island etc.

-tunnels and stuff in said floating islands!

You have an odd obsession with tunnels.

Yup, 'cos they can be interesting! And concealing a wormhole at the end of a tunnel in a floating island in a gas giant *would* be interesting, and certainly make exploration more fun.

-New ships, able to fly capital ships??

Why new ships and what would you suppose a capital ship do?

New ships, see all the other 'new stuff' from earlier which you don't like
Capital ships, well a mobile base is certainly one nice idea as others have said, perhaps you could control it, fly it into a warzone and then take control of one of its turrets, ai takes the rest, and you start shooting down those pesky fighters that dont bother you much because hopefully by now a capital-ship-buff has been implemented. And then you could come across another capital ship and start blowing each other to bits!

-Diplomatic relations - have stuff in the news, which affects the universe, about e.g. tensions between different factions, war breaking out, espionage, perhaps you could become an official diplomat on one side's behalf!

Isn't that already in the game? If not, the tension could be useful. Then again, the safe zones in the game are there for a reason, so making that more dynamic might have a bad effect.

It's not really already in the game, I'm talking about say, federation-alliance relations, not navy-miners relations. This could start a war sometimes, perhaps a proxy war instead (actually, proxy wars are a nice idea considering you're a mercenary), perhaps the value of certain components is heightened, etc. etc. Like, a little more than just how many ships decide to take potshots at you.
You could still have safezones. Maybe make certain systems belong to neutral parties, perhaps make some systems fairly worthless so although they belong to one side, they're still safe, maybe have some not-so-hidden hidden-planets that would be safe, etc. etc. I don't think safe zones are that big a deal, you can always just hide in a station

-Make money not so easy to get hold of.

Good one!

Yay, we now agree on... two things!

[DaveK]

I'm not sure how many penneth worth this is but it's my offering and I do like reading other people's ideas and suggestions!

There are several ways "improvements" can go;

There are genuinely optional additions that mean that people who like the game as it is can continue to play it withoutany detrimental impact if they choose not follow the latest fad.

There are the "lets make it harder because I'm bored" suggestions. These include the "make money much harder to get so that you have to continue getting it throughout the lifetime of the game play" - and the "start again from scratch if you get killed because you can't save in real life" and "make life in the game a bit harsher to get on in, because real life is like that". Which bit of "game" and "escapism" don't we understand?

There are the "make it ever more complicated so that we can have pages of missile types and hundreds of things to trade" - sort of for the people who went train spotting and love lists (I love lists, though I was never a train spotter, but this is supposed to be an immersive game not a library activity). ANy additions and changes should earn their code by bringing a definable positive impact on the sandbox aspect of the game play.

Then there are the improvements that actually come down to "make it possible for me to build a very powerful ship that makes me nearly invulnerable" by having lots of "alien" technology floating around in random hard to find places. Great if you want it, but what about the rest of us when you come back with your super ship and want to take over the universe?

One aspect of suggestions that stands out to me is the difference between those people who like to play games that allow them to create their own stories (in their imaginations) as they play and those people who like to have stories created for them that they can be involved in. The latter like lots and lots of new goodies because their fun is in finding, playing with for a while and then discarding the goodies (be it equipment, ways of making money, new different places, new different ships, new different things to do. A faint echo of "I'm sooooo bored . . . what's the next new experience I can try for a bit" drifts across the Universe

I am not - repeat not- saying that any one desire/wish is better then any other. But they are very different and give rise to very different game "feels".

As I said in another post, if you want to fly a Capitol ship play BattleCruiser 3000AD, if you want a bigger ship with permanent crew, play Independence War, if you want a story to be part of, play FreeLancer.

The problem with major step changes, as opposed to incremental developments is that the change in the feel of the game impacts on everyone, SP and MP,whether they were bored with the older version or not. At the moment I enjoy pottering through space exploring - if I have to keep going back to habitation simply to make money then some of my enjoyment would be turned into frustration and boredom. I, for one, have a limited amount of free "play time".

Quite a few changes are actually eye candy changes - cities that look very different - floating islands - hollow planets - bigger stations - planets that rotate and orbit - stations that aren't in geostationary orbits etc. As long as the extras don't crash lower spec PC's capabilities then there is no harm. Making the "grind" at the start, when making 10000 credit profit was cause for a celebration, just to make it less easy to gain enough money to be able to actually start to play in the sandbox does impact on other players and not necessarily in a positive way.

Changes to Excalibur reload times and to Mil frame specs, made life a little different and harder for me, but I am happy that they do improve the game for the majority and I can fairly easily get round them (basically run away from mil ships and run away from everything whilst my Excal pack is reloading!)

Having to start again from scratch if I get killed (as one example amongst many in the suggestions in this thread) seems to not add a "frisson of excitement" to trying to survive, but more a dread of having to fly the same old missions, or do that same old series of jumps yet again. If you want to "feel the risk", tack up rock climbing, if you really want to "feel the risk", take up "free" rock climbing without the safety gear!

I agree with the contribution that says there are changes that could be made that would improve (rather than change) the game. If it can manage that then I'm all for it. If it's a change because someone liked it in some other game then I'm wary. Freelancer needed a really good story line, because the actual activities - fly to X - fight like mad - fly back - receive reward and repeat . . . - would have been boring without it - I enjoyed playing it as well. But I love the freedom Vice has given me to actually create my own story inside my head in my own version of Evochron, yet still be able to join in MP without disadvantaging anyone who is willing to fly with me or to myself

[DaveK]

Well, atm, take wings. The higher up you go, the more expensive they are,the more assembly points they take up and the more they give you manoeuvrability. Changing this (e.g. making higher-up ones perhaps take up less resources for the same or greater manoeuvrability) would simply make things more interesting, less straightforward and change the dynamic of ship-building a bit - bigger might not always be better, it might depend on your ship for instance. It certainly wouldn't be bad. (Take this as an example, again using wings/manoeuvrability: atm, you use higher-level wings to offset the brick-like-ness of higher-end ships. The bigger the ship, the better the wings you need. End of, nothing to see here. If, perhaps, there was a high-end wing, perhaps not available in all systems, and quite expensive as well, then it might allow a sufficiently well-off mercenary to take a striker, slap on something the equivelant of nighthawk (which it couldn't normally fit) and make something more manoeuvrable than a Evoch-C.)

Wings are already non-linear in performance - see the behaviour graph on SeeJay's site - there is a decrease in the rate of increase the higher the wing class - moving from one class to the next has a smaller effect the higher up the class scale you go and the decrease in effect is greater for the bigger ships. So that makes things more interesting, then. Or I suppose we could get Vice to reverse the graph so that we could have big big ships that are as manouverable as really small, low armour, low capacity ships (of the sort that noobie's have to fly 'til they earn a reasonable amount of credit) - would that be interesting or are we moving into the creation of invulnerable super ships?
:P

[Jack Dandy]

A worthy challenge is an important aspect of many games, though.

And this game, which is supposedly focused on "survival" and being a "lone-wolf mercenary" only makes sense it should be challenging.

[Marvin]

Hey, DaveK ... you don't need to make up a story in your head. You can add it to the game, via a modded quest.

[soulsacrifice]

Uh, don't you have to make it up in your head first to do that?

[Marvin]

I've been accused of doing otherwise.

[xingbing1]

Even so, not that big of a change. I'm talking about maybe some high-class wings don't give as much of a performance boost as some smaller ones, but take up substantially less space. Perhaps some of the 'special' wings could take up little space and be good. Perhaps you could get some that are substantially cheaper but provide equal manoeuvrability to some lower class ones, that kind of thing. Something different to a scale that just goes up in increments as you go along its. Just because the increments change a bit doesn't really effect much.

[Jack Dandy]

Oh! And another thing!

The asteroid cave systems are HORRIBLY under-utilized. They have the perfect setup for tense ambushes and fights, or discoveries. The lightning system is perfect for it.
Yet, currently the only thing in them is a capture the flag game hardly anyone plays.

I think it would be cool to not be able to see enemy highlights while inside caves like those. (Call it radar interference or something). You'll have to use you eyesight, and flashlight to spot them.
If you'll add a little alternative movement system inside the caves, (Since they're so enclosed, a control system in the style of the Descent games), it could make for some great, no, AMAZING fire fights.


[Edited on 5-16-2011 by Jack Dandy]

[xingbing1]

And add some larger caverns inside them, perhaps in some mega-mega-'roids, allowing for some moving around whilst getting shot at

[Jack Dandy]

With all sorts of ledges and rocks to hide behind and make strafing runs... man, it could be amazing! That lightning engine Vice made for them looks REALLY good, too.

So it's a waste not to use it to it's fullest!

[Ophiuchus]

Hey Jack,
Of the five asteroid caves that I know of, there's ALL kinds of items available as containers/crates, if you would look. Rebel/Alliance constructs, not-so-secret Rebel stations, a plethora of items. CTF power cores/receivers are just the window dressing, and a game component no one apparently is interested in pursuing. Each asteroid cave's items vary in the location of the systems they're in. Not so under-utilized as possibly over-looked ? I have "over-used" (by definition then) the one in Saphire, mostly as a launch platform to move me further in game-play. In Legends, one of the 'roid caves had a worm hole inside of it that was a challenge to get to. Haven't seen that one in EM yet. And, a few of the 'roid caves mine out platinum, w/o the platinum mining beam as a required equipment item. Try the PvP slap-and-tickle inside of a 'roid cave if you're looking for an additional challenge. Movement inside of a 'roid cave is already fraught with the unexpected and the challenging. "Movement contol" has always been up to the individual pilot's skills and abilities, within the "environment" so flown. Wouldn't be Evochron Mercenary without that, least-wise.

[Jack Dandy]

That's nice- but I'd rather not use the infinite crate supplies at all. As I said before, they just break the game's economy/trading challenge, and I don't want that.

I can manage with the current maneuvering system, that's really not a priority. I love it, actually. I was just throwing an idea.

What I REALLY want to see is (like all other activities) to flesh the asteroid caves out, SP-wise.
Combat, pieces of information, ancient murals even, it's all good.

I'm not going to search for scary asteroid caves so I can play freakin' TAG in them! Sorry for sounding harsh, but it's true.


[Edited on 5-16-2011 by Jack Dandy]