Since I didn't see one up until now, I thought there should be, just to dump anything that comes to your minds (and mine!).
Just post stuff that you think would fit the game well. Remember, keep it civil! No quote battles here, please.
Anyway, here we go!
-An optional story we can follow.
-More reason to explore (Upgradable database, etc)
-More reasons to explore planets. I'd love to see some small villages here and there, maybe some wild animals running around. Even if they had little polygon count, it would make the planets look less like desolate wastelands.
Perhaps some villages would have neat stories to offer, or hints on how to get to secret star systems. The villages wouldn't always be marked on the map, either. That's where the exploration part comes in! Maybe even add explorable caves into them with even more cool stuff to find out.
-Expand the use of the asteroid caves. They look great!
-Mining is a bit too easy right now. IMO, the "specialized" beams make it even easier to make tons of money without trying. So how about making it so if you mine too much, you'll suffer a negative karma from Miners, and pirates would attack you more often?
-If you use a high-speed boost to run away from enemies, make it so they can switch to a higher gear/IDS as well. Their maximum speed is always just around 1000, and that takes some of the thrill out of battles.
-Disable the option to jump into hyperspace when you're surrounded by enemies. Makes it a bit too much of a "Get-out-of-death-free-card". You'll have to put a considerable distance between yourselves, or even destroy them, in order to jump.
-Make it so the "hostile" sections of space are more profitable, yet dangerous to trade in. Basic gaming logic!
-Make the MP a little bit more chaotic-I think that whenever you kill someone, you could take some of their credits would be a pretty cool edition. Maybe a separate "level" of Player Killing could be a available. The bigger the difference between player's levels, the less money the higher-level'd player would make. So professionals wouldn't want to prey on the weak, and vice versa
Whew! just had to get it out of my head. Start posting!
I like the idea that "the cost" of dying should be noticeable. As it is now, you just re-spawn with
no loss actually.
As you mention, Jack, that the winner of the fight takes a percentage of what the victim have
in cash, would make "rich/high level" pilots a profitable target for a lot of pilots, if they dare engage.
I can see a bunch of pilots lurking behind a planet, teaming up to kill a rich prey and share the profit.
All suggestions you mentioned are pretty good.
A wider range of contracts would be nice to. As someone mentioned in another thread that
ships/cities could ask for assistance and not only get contracts from a station would be nice.
\"Nothing is impossible, it only takes a bit longer!\"
\"We are not retreating, we are advancing in another direction!\"
The planets should also have more unique content and stuff to find.
I know it was probably pretty hard to make that entire seamless landing thing, but it isn't really worth it if there isn't anything that's unique to them. Right now, they're just desolate wastelands with 1-3 stations (cities).
From post: 107923, Topic: tid=7616, author=SeeJay wrote:I would also like to see some more difficult docking procedure. Now you can basicly crash into a station
and dock without any penalty.
Something like landing on a carrier at night....
While not a real naval aviator, I play one from time to time (Jane's F/A-18 + TSH updates)...
Carrier traps are like trying to land an elephant on a mousetrap without tripping it... Under good conditions...
It's funny how so many of these requests are actually the opposite of requests that were put in a year or two ago from other users: People wanted specialized beam weapons to make mining easier, for example.
As for death penalty, I am against it. The idea that you can die and have to pay a fee to be reborn is both unrealistic and annoying. Being able to reload a saved game is just unrealistic, but the alternative is to never be able to save. You can opt not to save if you want to, and see how far you get. Count me out, though. Survival should be its own reward, not avoiding a tax.
Some of the more profitable areas to trade are hostile. Pearl starts off being hostile, for example. I think that imposing an artificial rule that states that the more profitable it is the more hostile it is is imposing an artificial game mechanic.
As far as villages, etc., on the planets, that would be fine. More scenery/eye candy is always fun. However, once you've seen a couple of villages, you'll be right back where you are now: demanding new content. It will add maybe 10 minutes of additional amusement in my estimation. It might be interesting to have more varied cities, i.e. different types of architecture/color schemes/textures depending on whether you're in Alliance or Federation space, and whether the area has a high or low economic profile.
I don't like the idea of having karma against mining. However, I could see the that the more you mine, the more laden your ship is, and thus the more sluggish it is when you try to move it. This would go for any heavy cargo: the more mass your ship has in the hold, the stronger the effects of inertia/momentum. You would have the same top speed, but it would take longer to accelerate to it. I could also see adding a mechanic that makes you a higher-priority target if you have high-value goods in your hold to pirates...if there were any pirates. I don't know: do federation ships have letters of marque?
Having an automatic jumpdrive failure just because you're surrounded by enemies is not a good idea. Besides being an artificial game constraint that doesn't add any realism, why would I want to kill my chances of escaping death? Coupled with a death penalty, this would make the game much less enjoyable. Besides: there already is something like that in the game. You can only jump if you have max energy, which means if you are in battle and you are shooting at something, you need to let your energy level rise before you can jump. If you haven't experienced this, then I suggest you try shooting at the enemies before jumping out instead of just running away like a chicken.
Asteroid caves are what they are. I have explored several and have usually been disappointed. I wouldn't mind finding more stuff in them, such as a pirate base or something.
Landing on carriers in StarShatter was always annoying. There were so many times when I coasted in with the gear down, and slowly, inched my way into the hanger, only to have the ship explode because the game was buggy. I eventually discovered that you have to aim into the middle of the hanger space, not at the runway, so that your wheels never touch it. Buggy! Of course, making landings easier was another thing that most players wanted after playing the first Evochron game.
To this list, I would add a few smallish things:
More diverse component/cargo art. I like to browse through the different weapons, looking at them, reading their descriptions. When I look at a Phatom cannon, I want to see how it differs mechanically from Trebuchet.
I would like to see more cockpits. Each frame could have a different one.
Oddly, I like the old voice chatter from ER (I think) in which you could understand what they were saying. In EM, I mostly hear garbled, unintelligible messages. It would be even better if the voice chatter could be traced to actual ships and reflected what the ships were doing. For example, if a ship was requesting permission to dock, you would see a ship docking. Another thing you might hear a ship in distress that is being attacked, or you might hear ships warning you that you are in enemy territory, or that they want you to drop your freight etc. etc. Maybe you could send messages to AI ships to suggest that they drop their freight (or pay a bribe) before you open fire, thus avoiding needless bloodshed.
I would also like ship behaviors to be more obvious. It seems that most of the time, there are just ships wandering around randomly. The frequency of encountering them rises around stations and so on, but it almost looks like a random distribution. For example, if a ship comes in with a certain kind of cargo at regular intervals, I should be able to infer that it is picking up that cargo from a container somewhere, and so I could follow it. Likewise with mining AI ships. I want to be able to see them mine, then jump to a station laden with minerals, sell them, and then leave. Then, the station should have those minerals for sale. Right now, there seems to be a disconnect between the economy and what the ships are doing. What about cruisers? When a cruiser comes in, it should appear, then be serviced by a dozen or so small ships, ferrying cargo back and forth, before the cruiser departs. We are supposed to assume that this sort of thing is going on, but I can't see it, so it is left to the imagination.
\\To kill men with hubris is a goal rarely achieved by humility.\\ (Sorry, MM, but I couldn't resist.)
Hubris is a state of mind, an attitude. I don't see how you could kill anyone with "hubris".
I must have been very lucky playing StarShatter. I don't seem to have run into as many "bugs" as some mentioned.
Some of the things you propose, Vice could do but it would add substantialy to the file and increase the D/L time beyond acceptable liomits.
As for the voice chatter, I agree with you wholeheartedly! I never liked it the way it is in Mercenary.
\"To kill hubris with humility is a goal rarely achieved by men\"
But as things are right now, dying is not taken seriously enough.
I found myself self-destructing many times just to get a certain item available in a station. Not very realistic, either, huh?
And as for escaping- right now, due to the AI's constraints you can easily outrun them (They only go up to about 1000 V speed) and then run away.
I dislike specialized mining beams, since they just make it far easier to get on of the most profitable items in an unlimited quantity.
All of this just eliminates the tension, and I believe a sense of tension is important to any fun game.
Having an automatic jumpdrive failure just because you're surrounded by enemies is not a good idea. Besides being an artificial game constraint that doesn't add any realism, why would I want to kill my chances of escaping death? Coupled with a death penalty, this would make the game much less enjoyable. Besides: there already is something like that in the game. You can only jump if you have max energy, which means if you are in battle and you are shooting at something, you need to let your energy level rise before you can jump. If you haven't experienced this, then I suggest you try shooting at the enemies before jumping out instead of just running away like a chicken.
I disagree with the notion about realism, we could always state that certain groups or certain enemies jam the jumpdrive. Of course, such an item should be available to the player as well - but my short version is screw realism. However, I'm going to agree that this is a bad idea for the following reason:
Death penalty is really one of the things I would like to see implemented. The way it is now, if you die, you always and automatically reload the last save game. I would prefer the game to actually continue with respawning you without saving and requiring you to reload the save game manually through a quick load option of sorts. I would even argue that limiting save locations to stations, cities and the general vicinity of certain buildable locations would add to the game's feel, challenge and fun.
Neither of these things would limit true sandbox players. After all, they can reload the game to a state in which they haven't lost anything but time - the same way it is now. Limiting save locations would just change the pacing and risk assessment of the game but not the actual gameplay. They would greatly benefit those who want a 'game experience' from Evochron.
I would consider PvP combat/looting a bad idea in the game context. Evochrons multiplayer is constructive, not destructive.
tha_rami - The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Vlambeer - Dutch indie game studio
Twitter - Weird news, life updates & game-related news
Couldn't disagree more about a death penalty. And manual reloading would just slow the game down. For people with limited time it would just be a turn off. Also consider that there is such a steep learning curve to Evochron that any kind of death penalty would seriously affect newbie retention rates.
The only thing I would really like to see implemented is more randomness in the combat missions in terms of number of ships to fight and configuration of cap ship placement and so forth.
[Edited on 5-31-2011 by Dingo79]
Life is an illusion. Only shooting red things is real.
Couldn't disagree more about a death penalty. And manual reloading would just slow the game down. For people with limited time it would just be a turn off. Also consider that there is such a steep learning curve to Evochron that any kind of death penalty would seriously affect newbie retention rates.
But that's a different problem. The steep learning curve is a problem that needs to be addressed for mass potential anyway.
Don't forget that now, for people with game/challenge expectations, the entire gameplay is a bit of a turn off. I personally prefer inconvenience of having to reload over lack of challenge. For example, fellow independent game Mount & Blade implemented challenge really, really well & in such a way that both sandbox & challenge-gamers could enjoy the game.
tha_rami - The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Vlambeer - Dutch indie game studio
Twitter - Weird news, life updates & game-related news
Rami, I don't see how having to reload adds to challenge in any way, it simply takes a little longer. I see your point about challenge, but to me it seems as if most players I talk to are more interested in the exploring and atmosphere than the challenge per se. I think a bigger problem is that credits need to be harder to come by, or there needs to be more money sinks. Perhaps a slower progression through frames and equipment.
On another note M&B is great. Been playing since Zendar existed and it was only Swadians and Vaegers running around, and the black knights of course.
[Edited on 5-31-2011 by Dingo79]
Life is an illusion. Only shooting red things is real.
Rami, I don't see how having to reload adds to challenge in any way, it simply takes a little longer. I see your point about challenge, but to me it seems as if most players I talk to are more interested in the exploring and atmosphere than the challenge per se. I think a bigger problem is that credits need to be harder to come by, or there needs to be more money sinks. Perhaps a slower progression through frames and equipment.
Nah, players know what they're used to & dislike things they're not used to. You're not limiting exploration or atmosphere - you're adding tension and risk. You're not saying don't do it that way, you're empowering choice. At this point, there is no choice. If you get destroyed, you load a savegame and lose nothing at all. In my scenario, if you lose, you choose between loading a savegame & losing nothing but it defaults to continuing with a loss.
On another note M&B is great. Been playing since Zendar existed and it was only Swadians and Vaegers running around, and the black knights of course.
Amazing game.
tha_rami - The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Vlambeer - Dutch indie game studio
Twitter - Weird news, life updates & game-related news
Rami, I can see that working only if death isn't called death as such. Instead of dying, the player is captured or something and the penalty is the ransom. Like in M&B. Without some cosmetic explanation like that most people wouldn't swallow a penalty, or would get unduly frustrated. Especially as the greater part of learning the game requires a lot of dying, if you consider things like accidently hitting f2, learning to jump black holes, getting a handle on inertial combat with multiple IDS steps, learning effective counter-measures, smacking into roids, getting Romulaned, etc...
[Edited on 5-31-2011 by Dingo79]
Life is an illusion. Only shooting red things is real.
I found myself self-destructing many times just to get a certain item available in a station.
So, what you're saying is that you want everyone else to be constrained because you're abusing the system.
No. If you don't want to exploit the game mechanic, don't exploit it. Just don't force your preferences on me. I don't self-destruct many times just to get a certain item. I don't do it because it destroys the realism, not because I don't have the choice. Why would I force my preferences on you, though?
It's like someone who wants to outlaw fattening foods because they personally have a weight problem and want to force everyone else on a diet. It does not stem from the spirit of freedom, but the desire to make other people suffer, to constrain other people to their own choices.
In short, imposing constraints on others because of your own lack of discipline is the essence of tyranny. Why should you care how I play my game?
MM: You can kill men with hubris just as you can kill men who have any other mental condition.
From post: 107935, Topic: tid=7616, author=MMaggio wrote:Hubris is a state of mind, an attitude. I don't see how you could kill anyone with "hubris".
Whether I choose to squeeze the trigger for my guns or missiles surely depends upon my state of mind wrt the ship that I've locked onto :P
Callsign: Incoming
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
I agree with Nigel - once again we are back to the "I find it too easy, so make it much harder for everyone" suggestions for "improvements". tha_rami comes closer with default to a penalty but allow a reload, but it's still only a time penalty and Her Ladyship already imposes that. Either you have no saves at all during a session (how many votes that that tension, pulse and clammy hands increaser?) or you do have saves (obvious logic!) - if you have saves there will inevitably be a (time consuming) way to get back to where you were and without loss. All that would happen is "quick saves" would become "end of session saves" with time consuming reloads. I don't find any challenge or excitement or fun about having to redo the same old thing over and over again just because I stayed in combat long enough to go boom, rather than retreat earlier.
If money is too easy because of things you consider spoilers - then don't use them
If you think saving takes the challenge out then don't save or only save in a station
If you think that AI is too slow then limit yourself to IDS x1 or x2 and a small engine - in a StarMaster, that limits you speed to less than 500m/s - and remember that engine class only alters max speed not acceleration. You can easily fine tune your top speed to 1000m/s
If AI is too easy to beat, only carry relatively weak weapons or low class shields and don't use boosters or don't use missiles or refuse to jump out of a fight. You can already make a sandbox as challenging as you want. If you can't resist the temptation to make it too easy then that's your problem - don't dump grief on my game, thank you
When I'm exploring, happily trying to get triangulation to work I keep getting bounced by randomly appearing hostiles (friendlies never appear!) There aren't any stations or planets to dock at and save in - the whole point is that I'm looking for them!
You don't have to keep visiting the containers - just visit once
You don't have to use a trade route that rewards gun running
You might enjoy running out of £££ (or $$$ or whatever) - I don't
Docking is something done so very often that if it is too hard then it is an irritation. Is docking in a carrier more fun than docking in a station just because it is directional? In a hostile system where even when doing a "jump in dock" you can be targeted before you can enter the city it would be a lottery as to whether you could dock before you went boom. A balancing change to harder docking (in Elite the station rotated like in 2001!) would be a docking computr (another piece of equipment to buy (£££ sink) and balance in the already limited equipment slots - but it would still equate to easy docking. Or perhaps have a docking fee everywhere unless you buy a licence. Or wear really dark glasses everytime to dock
I'll make my usual plea - for me an improvement is one that doesn't unavoidably negatively impact on other players' enjoyment - if it is going to have negatives, then make it optional - it might even improve the game for me!
but then again life isn't always that simple - there will be changes that have a negative impact that are genuine improvements but only (repeat only) because they sort out an imbalance that reduces the fun in a game for everyone. (Excalibur packs that reloaded instantly and hence gave you non-stop, free 8 missile volleys was one that I could agree unbalanced a major part of the game and so had to go (before I could afford them - rats))
We can run out of fuel - would the game be more fun if we also had to monitor water, food and oxygen? I suspect not.
Callsign: Incoming
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
Let me offer an alternative, then- make the "tougher" systems actually tougher, with more complex AI, but with higher rewards as well. Right now, you can make about the same amount of credits anywhere in the game. I simply saw many people I recommended this game to discarding it due to the general lack of things to do in it.
If you are saying that I will have the option to visit "harder" systems which have better equipment and rewards and more challenging contracts and tasks then I'm with you all the way! Exactly what I think of as an improvement - optional, a challenge for those who find the wimpy world too easy. - as long as you don't reduce the rewards in the "easy" parts of the universe or make docking harder or the AI more like terminator. I still want to be able to get hold of decent ships and decent weapons without having to become superman first.
Several threads have suggested as a starter that Vonari capital ships in war zones are beefed up for example.
It might also encourage people to write quests that could take place in harder systems and be a real challenge. Other quests could be more akin to treasure hunt puzzles - find the new tech/mythical idol/historical artifact using cerebration rather than techno-muscle. SeeJay suggested that it would be possible to publish a quest that didn't need to follow on from the IMG quest - you basically just miss out on the IMG quest if you want to jump straight into his. Now we're rocking! :P:P
Edit: how many is "many"? There are other game sthat do the various things the "harder" brigade want - Eochron has its own niche (which not to say it should be set in stone - but it needs to stay in its niche - sandbox & freeform
[Edited on 31-5-2011 by DaveK]
Callsign: Incoming
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
It's probably impossible that "all" features will satisfy everyone.
Anyway, one key improvement should be variety. Killing penalties could come randomly. Sometimes the player dies, sometimes he does not, and he just finds himself docked at the nearest station, or still drifting damaged.
Maybe in general a more complex customizing/modding kit could help in developing many ideas, giving the player the possibility to put it into the game or not.
To be honest, I find exploring very boring. I would like exploring, but I really can't find satisfaction in finding a lonely planet with nothing on it after hours of deep space.
The famous hint/rumor system and "more things to find on the planet" could really help a lot.
And in general, more descriptions. There are many stations and cities in every system. What is their story? What are their peculiarities? Having 10 stations in a system is pointless, if they're all the same. The only variety I noticed is the graphics: there are some different kinds of stations, but nothing more.
Another "variety" I would like to see is in contracts: they are the same almost everywhere. Certain systems could offer something particular. Hidden systems could offer very challenging contracts.
Also in this case a developer/modder kit could be of great help. The players could develop their own contracts and then Vice could implement the best ones.
A thought that I have, is that this game is too much sandbox. Maybe it should become a toybox. Toys are usually more interesting than sand (I hope the concept is clear: more variety and more things to do )
Probably the easiest thing to mod. Time consuming, but easy.
