#MakeVIPGreat(Again?) -- READ THIS & COMMENT

[Cavalcante]

Fair Disclaimer: "Someone Else" came up with the solution, but I am stealing credit for making the forum post. 

We put our best drunken lobbies together to theory craft this one, and, fifteen chain-smoking monkeys shackled to their typewriters later, here seems to be some consensus:

1. VIP Matches can cause insufferably long, annoying games;
2. VIP Matches are broken;
3. VIP Matches can be salvaged to be enjoyable.

Currently, a team can kamikaze bomb the VIP ships with impunity.  Killing escorts has no consequence, as they can respawn anywhere on the map quite quickly, making for some absurd tactics.  For those of you who are bad at this game-mode, in its present form, I will explain to you how to win using the Land of the Rising Sun stratagem:

-  Keep your VIP out of the fight;
-  Send in escorts on attack missions to 'weaken' target VIP & escorts, but not killing;
-  Purposefully destroy your ships to get fresh, 100% shiny new ships at no cost to your team;
-  Swarm targets with VIP once enemy fleet has been sufficiently pulverized from kamikaze attacks.

This is boring and gamey, and VIP Matches are dull and drawn-out as a result.  Classic Death Matches are still the best in the game (as they should be), but both King of the Hill and Crazy King involve some manner of points for killing enemy ships (even though they are timer-based).  VIP Matches have no timers, only kills on VIP targets count, and games can last insufferably long -- especially since lobbies are presently top-heavy with VIP Match modes.

How, Cavalcante, can we fix this horrible situation to restore fun to our aeronautical exploits?

Think of it like Steampunk Quidditch (because all the hip young kids love their Harry Potter, see?):

-  Killing an Escort grants 1 point.
-  Killing a VIP grants 5 points.
-  A VIP killing another VIP grants 10 points.

Or somesuch combination of the above toward a total of X amount of points.  I don't think anyone really cares about the exact math, but whatever calculation makes for fun games.  You would therefore be able to keep the clock-less aspect of VIP, VIP targets would remain the main target, matches would not last 45 minutes to one-hour or more (seriously, this is de rigeur), and killing enemy escorts would be useful --- because, at present, I am burning them only to leave them alone so they don't instantly spawn a brand new 100% ship right on top of my horribad Galleon ally in 15 seconds.

What do you think, aeroship enthusiasts?  Do you guys care sufficiently about changing this or am I part of a small minority who thinks that VIP Matches, as they presently stand, are broken and tedious?  The above solution seems simple enough to implement.

Comment. Debate. Fire-bomb me with disapproval, and throw me in a shame cage if you disagree.

[Daft Loon]

I had a (very) short version of this in my most recent feedback email along with a mention of how assigning kills based on the very last hit can be dodgy in some situations.

However its implemented repeatedly massacring their allies should be a viable way to deal with VIPs who refuse to engage.

I would tend to favor keeping escort on escort kills scoreless (for the first VIP balance patch at least) and only adding a score for VIP on escort kills.

[Red-Xiii]

I believe its all based on the type of matches we've each experienced.  Most fun I've had in VIP is with both high level VIP's attempting to go at each other because we both had low level attack ships on our side.   They are slightly drawn out but that is part of the fun trying to figure out how to get an edge on your opponent. 

I've also been on the flip side of that where I am a Galleon VIP with a high level squid opponent VIP and it lasted hour and a half or more in which case we almost surrendered to just be done with the folly. 

Just depends on the lobby imo.

[Richard LeMoon]

It took fifteen chain smoking drunk monkeys to figure this out?

May 5th, sent to feedback@musesgames.com:

The Bad:

Then we switched to an escort ship. This was a completely different animal. The crew (same gunner) said it was much more relaxing. You could fly pretty casually, sometimes ignoring incoming fire as long as you took some chips off the enemy VIP before you died. I see this as a negative in this game mode. Escorts should feel and be much more important in the overall picture, and share in the stress of trying not to die.

Possible solutions:

1. Easy (maybe?) Change the scoring system. Change the point limit to 100 points. Make a VIP worth 20 points (40 for VIP kill), and 5 for escorts. In theory, you could grind just escorts to win, but it would take 20 kills. I am not sure how I feel about that. Maybe if there was a winning condition of the last kill must be a VIP death.

2. Harder. Give the ship that kills an escort a temporary 'alliance escape pod' buff. Make them accumulative as well, so you could stack buffs if you killed escorts fast enough. This would encourage pilots to not lose their ships in silly maneuvers just to knock a few points off the enemy VIP in suicide runs. Stamina recharge rates could be increased as part of the buff. "Your crew rallies!" etc. I am not sure how long the buffs should last.

3, Irritating. Increase spawn time for every death. Sure, this would work, but it would be a hated feature in a game that makes you wait all the time. I advise against it except as a last resort. Maybe if you die X times in Z minutes, it would be OK, as that person is obviously making death runs.

Of course, I had the benefit of testing in Devapp. But who can argue with drunk smoking monkeys? People that want poo flung at them, that's who.

Anyways, when this was sent the response was to collect data before making a decision, which is a good idea. I think maybe there might be enough data soon to see what changes are needed.

[Solidusbucket]

I liked the idea of forcing the escorts to spawn furthest from their vip. Looks like they changed the respawn locations to only one side per team.

I also suggested the idea of reducing vip's engine speed and turning rate for every escort that is currently dead. Start it at 25% per escort dead.

I think this would solve a lot of problems. But, that is just my opinion

[Hoja Lateralus]

1. Remove 2v2 VIP
2. Include 30 minute timer

I don't fully trust Muse on gathering data. Cough, balance changes, cough ;]

[Arturo Sanchez]

1. Remove 2v2 VIP
2. Include 30 minute timer

I don't fully trust Muse on gathering data. Cough, balance changes, cough ;]

You don't trust Eric you mean.

[Hoja Lateralus]

1. Remove 2v2 VIP
2. Include 30 minute timer

I don't fully trust Muse on gathering data. Cough, balance changes, cough ;]

You don't trust Eric you mean.

Of course I don't
#makespiregreatagain
#makehwachagreatagain
#makemobulagreatagain
#nerfthesquid

[Atruejedi]

#ThanksMuse... for introducing increasingly poor performance into your game and taking much too long to address easily-fixed bugs.
#AdoptTheSwap... to give the community back the ability to balance matches on their own.
#FixTheFrames... because there has been an across-the-board performance hit since the last patch and you refuse to acknowledge it, let alone address it.
#MakeEmMandatory... because players who do not play the tutorials waste everybody's time.
#AdaptTheMaps... because you made 4 vs. 4 VIP maps but haven't done it for death match.

[MightyKeb]

#ThanksMuse... for introducing increasingly poor performance into your game and taking much too long to address easily-fixed bugs.
#AdoptTheSwap... to give the community back the ability to balance matches on their own.
#FixTheFrames... because there has been an across-the-board performance hit since the last patch and you refuse to acknowledge it, let alone address it.
#MakeEmMandatory... because players who do not play the tutorials waste everybody's time.
#AdaptTheMaps... because you made 4 vs. 4 VIP maps but haven't done it for death match.

I'm ashamed Jedi. How could you forget the last, but certainly not the very least one?

#FixTheVoiceIcons

I've personally had some opportunity to briefly converse with some muse members and it appears the problem with the specific bug I suggested (voice icons dissapearing) is difficult to reproduce hence difficult to fix. And I assume muse are either a) experiencing the same problem with the other issues and b) Are just too lazy.

The best solution imo would be to revert back to the hud we had one or two patches ago, the one where Captain/Crew icons were changed for the first time, and just leave the current hud in dev app until they find a way to fix the darn thing.

[Atruejedi]

#ThanksMuse... for introducing increasingly poor performance into your game and taking much too long to address easily-fixed bugs.
#AdoptTheSwap... to give the community back the ability to balance matches on their own.
#FixTheFrames... because there has been an across-the-board performance hit since the last patch and you refuse to acknowledge it, let alone address it.
#MakeEmMandatory... because players who do not play the tutorials waste everybody's time.
#AdaptTheMaps... because you made 4 vs. 4 VIP maps but haven't done it for death match.

I'm ashamed Jedi. How could you forget the last, but certainly not the very least one?

#FixTheVoiceIcons

I've personally had some opportunity to briefly converse with some muse members and it appears the problem with the specific bug I suggested (voice icons dissapearing) is difficult to reproduce hence difficult to fix.

Stop right there. What? Hard to reproduce? It's happening FOR LITERALLY EVERY PLAYER.

[Dementio]

Tell them to use voice chat in combination with pressing Tab or opening the Map, you know, things normal players press, but Muse may not have thought of actually using these things.

[Solidusbucket]

is that what causes it?

[Clockeye]

Voice chat cant be activated with Tab, since Captain using stamina(shift) Would get
switched on his steam window when talking to the crew (Shift + Tab)

[Solidusbucket]

he means using voice chat (pressing x or c) while simultaneously pressing M (or whatever you have it bound to) to see the map. Or pressing X while also pressing tab because you forgot everyone's name on your crew and you need to tell them what their roles are.