Diminishing returns on custom Alliance maps

[RearAdmiralZill]

What really needs fixing (although I do like the idea of giving more effort for maps that just take longer by design) before you try messing with effort gains from these missions is the fact Chaladon has roughly half the membership of the other factions (even worse for Anglea) and the effort they require to do map objectives is just low. I only deliver the cheese (retrieve missions) because 1. They are honestly pretty fun and hectic and 2. It's really the only way we can not just lose territory all the time. The effort amounts should be based on active faction membership, not total. The map clearly reflects this with Chaladon having the lowest member base yet the world map is rather green. Poor Angela man....

Now if I'm mistaken on how effort is calculated (im sure other factors are at play that I just don't know yet) then by all means someone tell me in a pm.

TLDR: Fix the issues with effort calculations for defense/attack before even considering lowering effort numbers. I wouldn't mind the other missions getting effort buffs to compensate for the time they take in comparison to delivering cheese all day.

[Richard LeMoon]

My thought on the numbers problem is to remove new players from the faction pool. Remove the strong encouragement to join a faction, and create a new 'faction' called Wastelanders or something from outside of the empires.

It makes sense from a lore point of view as well. The (Skirmish) ships you fly are not like the AI ones. They seem older, and somewhat worse for the wear as if they are secondhand ships. You fly any ship from any faction, with the same being said for guns. You don't fly in major battles, and seem quite expendable. You are not in the in-crowd for any alliance. You can fight for other factions, and even against your own faction at times.

There is only one type of ship/crew that fits all of these. You are a foreign privateer trying to gain favor and maybe citizenship in one of the factions. You are a Wastelander.


Anyways, this would curtail some of the the number buff/debuffs, as people would have a bit more time to think about and choose a faction.

[GurasOguras]

The effort amounts should be based on active faction membership, not total. The map clearly reflects this with Chaladon having the lowest member base yet the world map is rather green. Poor Angela man....

Finally, someone else also brought this up. As far as I know we've reported that at the dev fireside chat during the first alpha week. Muse didn't seem to fix that yet.

Now everyone, take a look at this:



I played 2 matches today. One Assault and one Retrieve. Both matches with 3 AI Squid on normal. I spent 20 minutes on the assault getting around 700 war effort and 2 minutes on retrieve getting little less than twice of that. The assault run was not perfect, but more resembling the regular match. I did prioritize the objectives, though. I think I could've done it in about 10 minutes with a little bit more strategy and luring the boss further away from the base. It is not as easy, however, to rush it as with retrieve.

Retrieve is 5 times faster than assault, and it is getting me almost twice the points. GJ Muse, there's definitely not a single design issue here. How to fix this? Remove the Retrieve. It might have been good on paper, but the idea just doesn't work. All Muse did try to fix that is increased the time required to rush from 30 seconds to 1 minute and 30 seconds. With Stormbreaker maybe even less. The introduction of class skills only makes it worse - the retrieve match was played as a gunner with kerosene and skill for doubling the damage of the guns.
And in before someone will hate on me: I have to say that retrieve is my favorite game mode and it's giving me the most fun out of this overall pretty repetitive and boring PvE. I like it, but for the greater good it has to be gone.

[Naoura]

Rather than remove Retrieve mode, why not just change it? I've sent in my theory on changing the weights of the different modes, but I don't think Retrieve mode is what it should be. You're not really retrieving anything. It's modified, speed based defense.

I would say they need to modify Retrieve period. Make it similar to Infiltration, but a little more advanced. Instead of catching the enemy and killing them for cargo... why not have cargo spawn in from a position at the end of the map? Sneak through the enemy lines, or else brute-force your way through, in order to get to that cargo, then drag it back out before the time limit. It'd still be a fast-paced game, and probably even more so, but I think it would fit the idea of a retrieval better, as well as making the mode more difficult.

[GurasOguras]

How do you change retrieve? Move the refinery further from the starting point? As for now, that didn't fix anything. The proposed ideas won't change the major design issue - take the cargo from point A to point B and  congrats you won. Muse has a weird habit of introducing game modes heavily oriented around Squids.

Deathmatch or KoTH: "They are beginning on the south. We'll take the High Passage and fight from within The Pocket. We have to play it smart. I will engage first and disable their galleon. Then you attack it while we'll switch fire to the other one and keep it pinned."

Skyball & Retrieve: "LOL more speed LOL must go fast LOL"

That's how I see it.

[Unarmed Civilian]

How do you change retrieve? Move the refinery further from the starting point? As for now, that didn't fix anything. The proposed ideas won't change the major design issue - take the cargo from point A to point B and  congrats you won. Muse has a weird habit of introducing game modes heavily oriented around Squids.

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From a big feedback post I made not very long ago...

Here's a collection of my current thoughts on Alliance. No pictures, no TL;DRs, just a lot of text. You have been warned.

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Ideas for modes:

Interception:
Reversal of assault, a defensive mission, a variant of retrieve. Here, there is a troop of attacking ships that are out to destroy friendly refineries. Their commanding ships are leading the charge, and need to be stopped. You start behind them, and they already have a head start.

After destroying the commanding ships, a set number of their remaining ships needs to be destroyed. After that set number, the capital ship that the devs love throwing into every mode spawns and tries to finish the job themselves. The mission ends in victory if the capital ship is destroyed, and defeat if all bases are lost. Rewards are based mostly on number of surviving bases.

Tug of War:
Retrieve with more focus on retrieval of cargo. Kind of like Skyball with AI Pyramidions. The AI has just finished a successful raid on a friendly base, and are running off with their spoils. Your job is to get those spoils back before the enemy gets away.

The enemies have a head start. You need to retrieve the cargo before the enemy gets away. You start out at the friendly base, and your goal is to return that cargo to the friendly base. The first convoy carriers must be destroyed for them to release the cargo. After that, ANYONE who is rammed is forced to drop the cargo. This turns it into a game of tug of war, where outmaneuvering the enemy ships becomes more important than getting kills, and where you aren't forced to wait around and kill to reobtain the cargo if it was stolen. There should be no boss, as why on earth would they risk losing a capital ship on something so trivial? Especially since speed and maneuverability is far more important than applying pressure.

If needed, you could make a wall at the end that only ships with the cargo will damage, and have the lose condition be the destruction of that wall.


The keen may have noticed that these two are heavily based on Retrieve. This is because I believe that while Retrieve can be fun, it is messy and doesn't really make sense story-wise. I believe that PvE content is about making a story and having the players experience that story.

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[votekick pls]

Retrieve needs an overhaul. And Defense. Assault maybe. Mostly Retrieve. These were two ideas for overhauls that could recycle the same maps (the most compelling reason to keep a mode like it, as they are not free to make).

Both of my suggested variants would take longer (admittedly the second one only about twice as long if done optimally), while keeping the theme of speed.

As a side note: I personally think Assault takes too long for how monotonous it can be. It needs more variety than it currently has. Infiltration is a far more interesting take on that mode.