So.. I'm going to SOE Next week. Top Issues?

[GuyFawkes]

Bringing sanctuaries back. Footholds are a failed experiment in my eyes. Cause more problems than they were intended to solve. At least if someone goes afk in sanctuary it dosen't affect continent population. If you are in sanctuary or a warpgate you earn no resources or points. No resources are needed in sanctuary to access vehicles or equipment, but a timer is still present at all times wherever you are.

Removal of Auraxium as a resource, instead make it an accumulative player based commodity directly related to points earned in game. Make killing, support, capping points, and strategy all have equal weighting for points.

Removal of kill:death as a default statistic, and replace it with points. keep the kills but remove the death part, its a negative stat that discourages effort. You can still have it in there, but make it an option rather than default exhibit.

Make BR count, its quite useless right now. I think giving people a points and cert bonus for levelling , as well as what they have now is the way to go. Unlock vehicles at set battle ranks, atv by default , lightning at br2, vanguard at br8, and so on. You unlock something and have a nice bonus of certs to spend on your new toys. As it is you get access to everything at br1 , and the rest of 'progress' is meh from then on. No limit to BR.

I'd like to bring back armor color changes as you level, berets and backpacks. I know theres the cash shop, but having small nonsensical rewards have that kudos pat on the back type of encouragement to keep playing.

Resources. Where to start with this one? They should be a finite entity shared among the empire according to that population, not everyone gets x amount every tick for being online. Thats also why I want auraxium removed as a resource. Reward people for playing, jumping ship with 4th empire should have a negative effect not be encouraged by the game. You join the 40% empire but you all have to share the same bag of M&M's. Less enemy to fight = less points to earn=less auraxium.

Resources shouldnt be given just for being on a continent. These resources need to be logistically moved from base to base with an additional pipeline lattice, which can be defended, broken and countered. It also allows movement of resources between continents via warpgate connection. This is where they can add the old ps1 logistics and meta game in, without changing the hex or anything. It would be a simple tactical map overlay representing the lattice. It also gives a way for a empire trying to enter another continent a means of gaining resources without using the global 'per tick' nonsense. People taking down a resource link earn resources for themselves, and likewise defenders get a bonus for resecuring.

If you take a base or defend it, give them a resource, cert and xp bonus for doing so, according to the size and length of the fight and the amount of points you earn while there.

Allow people to use certs so they can reduce the resource cost for their chosen specialisation. Also allow them to turn excess of whatever they rarely use into the resource they want, same again, certed. For example,you rarely use catalysts so turn them into polymers, not 1:1, maybe 1 polymer from 3 catalysts. Limit this to per character, not per class.

Classes. I'd like to see them tweak this. You can choose to play all the classes as is now, and put certs into general ones that affect all of them, but once you cert into a particular class, that locks your certs to that class until you get to some magical point where you can then unlock a 2nd class, and so on. Link classes to relevant vehicle types. This is all to reduce the amount of magrider type spam that exists in the game. Plus you need a Battle Rank to gain access to them. For instance, you would need to be BR8, and have certs in engineering or heavy assault to use a magrider. You would need to be BR6 , engineer or light assault to use esf. Or BR2 ,medic or infiltrator to use an ams.
You can still play all the other classes as is now, but need to commit to certain ones to unlock vehicle relevant to your class via certs.
Bring in a 24 hour reset timer also.

Edit: a nod to Eliminatorr :bring back the wishlist :P

[julfo]

Originally Posted by GuyFawkes

Bringing sanctuaries back...

Removal of Auraxium as a resource, instead make it an accumulative player based commodity directly related to points earned in game. Make killing, support, capping points, and strategy all have equal weighting for points.

Removal of kill:death as a default statistic, and replace it with points. keep the kills but remove the death part, its a negative stat that discourages effort. You can still have it in there, but make it an option rather than default exhibit.

These 3 things are, in my opinion, crucial. They really need to get this right, and I have complete faith in them to do so. And pretty much the rest of what GuyFawkes said as well, there's no point me rehashing it and adding my superlatives; he said it how it is.

[bullet]

Originally Posted by GuyFawkes

Bringing sanctuaries back. Footholds are a failed experiment in my eyes. Cause more problems than they were intended to solve. At least if someone goes afk in sanctuary it dosen't affect continent population. If you are in sanctuary or a warpgate you earn no resources or points. No resources are needed in sanctuary to access vehicles or equipment, but a timer is still present at all times wherever you are.

Removal of Auraxium as a resource, instead make it an accumulative player based commodity directly related to points earned in game. Make killing, support, capping points, and strategy all have equal weighting for points.

Resources. Where to start with this one? They should be a finite entity shared among the empire according to that population, not everyone gets x amount every tick for being online. Thats also why I want auraxium removed as a resource. Reward people for playing, jumping ship with 4th empire should have a negative effect not be encouraged by the game. You join the 40% empire but you all have to share the same bag of M&M's. Less enemy to fight = less points to earn=less auraxium.

Resources shouldnt be given just for being on a continent. These resources need to be logistically moved from base to base with an additional pipeline lattice, which can be defended, broken and countered. It also allows movement of resources between continents via warpgate connection. This is where they can add the old ps1 logistics and meta game in, without changing the hex or anything. It would be a simple tactical map overlay representing the lattice. It also gives a way for a empire trying to enter another continent a means of gaining resources without using the global 'per tick' nonsense. People taking down a resource link earn resources for themselves, and likewise defenders get a bonus for resecuring.

If you take a base or defend it, give them a resource, cert and xp bonus for doing so, according to the size and length of the fight and the amount of points you earn while there.

These issues but mainly the concepts of Footholds/Sancs/Cont Locking/Continental conquest. How do they plan on adding Continental conquest in if they don't have sanctuaries? I feel sancs were the key element to continental conquest. You had to kick the opposing factions from the continent and send them back to their sancs.

Auraxium is another huge concern of mine. Auraxium basically = Money. People actions are controlled far too much by the passive auraxium gain. Malorn made a great post on the official forums about different ways of doing auraxium gains but I think the general idea is to tie the gains to player actions. I'd like to know how they plan to fix the masses who jump ship for free auraxium, or the auraxium whores who camp warpgates for hours on end.

[ringring]

Sanctuaries - but as others have said they go together with a bunch of other issues, ie more continents with a conquest and a global strategic met-game.

@malorn .... (congratulations btw) ... I see the point about getting people (especially new people) into the action quicker but I'd argue that there are other issues to consider and are more important.

Is loading up in sanc and pressing esc+I quicker that loading up in a foothold and pressing esc+I? No I don't know that it is.

Or, as happens now, you load up and you speak to your outfit and your first question is -- this always happens now -- "which continent are we on?"

And for new people .... the first thing you do when you initially log in is to orientate yourself ...... many games have a 'bootcamp' type thing which introduces you to the basic controls and concepts; and wouldn't be good to have a VR? This type of stuff is best done in a safe zone.

There again there are many things in the game that are non-friendly - only one example if which is trying to navigate your way around facilities, how do I know which building are which?



Anyways.
The main issue right now is Auraxium gain (I'm sure Marlorn has ideas).
Ask about the status of the fourth continent. Is it Searhus and has conceptual work started.
Ask about the heavy infantry weapons, ie Lasher, Jackhammer and MCG ..... also ask what will be the effect on TTK? These weapons are supposed to have a quicker TTK than the other weapons, how how will they fit in game and are we going to see an even quicker ttk's overall?