Main > General Discussion
Ship Scrambling and Other Upcoming Features
Cl ick to Ca p t ain:
If scramble makes it through it should be a "vote to scramble" option.
Dev Bubbles:
Hi everyone, keep the thoughts coming!
It's good to hear arguments on either side. One thing that I'm also thinking about is that, if a match is scrambled based on the current ruleset that we're proposing, would the match become less fun? Or would the reorganization of team composition still be fun while giving teams the ability to meet and play with new people? I guess it might be circumstance dependent, but interesting to me to think about. But if you guys have more thoughts on why or why not, that would be great for me to know. But the ideas and suggestions so far are great. And I think it'll be interesting for us to see how this tests in Dev App, for better or worse. We can see how people play with it, and if and what changes we need to make.
@Dragonmere, no worries! Let me try to touch on some of the points you made, and you can see what I say is reasonable or not. About balance, while there isn't a state of perfection that we can ever get to, tinkering and refining balance in the game is something that we think we should continually look at, so that not only do we address obvious imbalances to the game, adjust for various things in the ripples of new items or mechanics being introduced, it's also a way to keep the gameplay fresher, so that people don't stay stagnant or entrenched with some way(s) of playing the game.
With helping new players learn the game, and thereby reducing the barrier to entry and helping retention, this is something I think we should be continually examining and improving. The idea is not to cater to those who don't want to learn, the idea is to cater to people who would want to learn, who otherwise would enjoy the game, but do not have the media or vehicle to do so. I think the work we did with tutorial, manual, practice, and even novice matches speak to that. Like you said, the game is different, and introducing tools for players to get acclimated to the game is really part of providing better service. With these tools, we have been trying to be careful to design them to avoid major immersion breakage or too much hand-holding. If we feel like we have room to improve, we'll try to improve.
If I'm to guess at the reasoning behind your arguments, it may be that, with something like scramble, it is done at the expense of veteran/clan/"stacked" teams in favor of new players to the point of punishing the "stacked" teams. This is just a guess on my part, so take it with a grain of salt. With the spirit of something like scramble, it's more of trying to find a balance, and a way for people to mingle, and for people to hopefully have more fun and not less. The idea is more about that people on either side of a match don't necessarily find it fun when it becomes too imbalanced or one-sided. And that, with crew consistency, switching up sides by ships (which is a far less intrusive way than the type of crew scramble that a lot of other games implement) can offer something different and fresh in a match.
Overall, the idea for us is to examine how to make the game more fun in general, and to build upon an assumption that a drastically imbalanced match is not fun not just for the losing side, but for the winning side as well. As we implement and test the feature, we will of course be studying how people use it, and it's effectiveness, and if there are adjustments we think needed to be made, we'll definitely not hesitate to make them.
With better integration of competitive scene, events, and clans into the game, this is something that a lot of people have been requesting actually. We started with the site, which is a pretty nice step up from zero. But we're looking at how best to bring all that into the game as well. It does take some time to design it though, so it won't happen right this minute.
Hope this makes some sense, but regardless, keep the feedback coming!
Thanks everyone! Howard
Dev Bubbles:
We actually thought through the logic and logistics of where best and how best to implement scramble, and ended up preferring scramble at match creation over voting for a few different reasons. One, because of the good number of ways players can join the match, a voting system is more convoluted and logistically awkward. Also, if any animosity exists in a heavily imbalance situation, voting could reinforce the tension and not diffuse it. It's also harder to set the expectation clearly. With scramble, we want to help players set that expectation that scramble would occur as early as possible. Hope this makes sense!
Thanks, Howard
dragonmere:
You are introducing systems to deter organized teams, rather than to promote them. This is against what I believed was the nature of the game. Organized teams, not just individual ships, should be the goal. Rather, it appears to me that MUSE is treating it as a situation that needs to be resolved. I do not agree with this at all.
I want the challenge of this game to come from the enemy team's skill, not any imposed limitations. It seems like most of the changes I have witnessed are geared more towards making it difficult for higher level more organized players. A better response, in my opinion, would be to make it easier for new players to reach a higher organizational level. It seemed like you were working towards that with the clan system, crew formation, and party system. However, in their current state, most of those features are nearly useless or totally ignoreable. I wish those systems could be further developed and integrated, rather than this new trend of catering the game to less organized play.
Qwerty Kun:
I have to agree with a few of Dragonmeres points here.
Bubbles you ask if the system implemented as it is would make it less fun? Yes, pure and simple yes. IF I am playing with my team, I will make the choice to balance out the teams if I want another challenge. However if I am looking to practice with my co-captain (which you CAN NOT do in private lobbies without a LOT of players) I do not want to be creating a new lobby ever 5 games.
You say "and for people to hopefully have more fun, not less". You implement this system and I know a LOT of people that will be having less fun (myself included) due to the frustration of the scramble system.
As to Dragonmeres point about this game being about 2 ships instead of 1. I agree 100%, all Muse run tournament, and the vast majority of community run events are all 2 ship teams fighting each other. You do not play as 1 ship, and you CAN NOT play in those tournaments and expect to do well if you have no practice time your co-captain and their crew. While Dragonmere may have seemed at tad aggressive in his posts I believe he is correct when he says you are punishing organised play.
I further agree that you seem to have changed direction really. You were working on and discussing all these brilliant clan and party mechanics, most of which are fairly basic or not implemented yet despite a lot of requests and discussion. Instead you have now spent time on a mechanic that (IMO) is detrimental to the game and to organised play. From promoting to condemning it is a knee-jerk reaction based on the vocal majority of the forum user base, which is not necessarily indicative of the communities opinion as a whole.
Additionally I can forsee a further issue from more a game code/server side. IF you force this system onto organised teams (and it will be forcing I'm sorry, textbook definition, I do not want to swap, you are making me) they will leave and form new lobbies. This will result in even more half filled, never starting, lobbies that spam all chat with 'Join this lobbie for cake'. This COULD (not 100% sure) create more pressure on the servers, cause lag etc etc to the detriment EVERYONES experience if it does.
As a quick sidetone making it a option for private lobbies does not fix this issue as "You can hand out your password" as you suggested on the Fireside. You allready have 20 other lobbies spamming to 'jon ths gme'.
What bothers me is that the solution to this is So Damn Simple. Just make it an option at lobby creation for all games. We don't need competitive lobbies any segregation of lobbies even if there are no restrictions on joining, will be detrimental. Just give the lobby creator the option. I know a lot of the experienced captains will do this from time to time and ALL the new players will. Hell, make it the default option and we have to swap to 'Stacked' mode or something, that way all the new blood will make the Scrambled lobbies by default.
Howard, as per our little skype convo a few minutes ago. I see 2 distinct mentalities when playing this game. Playing for fun and Playing to Practice. Now the two or not necessarily mutually exclusive HOWEVER if I am playing to practice it is with my co-captain by my side. Even when pub stomping I will get more out of flying with Sasqautch then I will with an all harpoon junker. You need to practice so much more than just shot timing and rebuild routes on ships. Co-ordination, communication, timing, approaches. If I want to train I do not want to be scrambled, If I DID (and I can see that happening to strengthen MY personal crew) I would start a scrambled lobby or join another.
Just my opinion on the matter. You want to test this? test it as near to every who has posted on this topic has suggested, as a lobby option.
cheers,
Qwerty
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