Stop punishing high levels

[Moo]

I don't think it's all right to farm for achievements. I was trying to say that if the idea of the high-level-opponent restriction was to prevent farming/pubstomping to get these achievements, making it only need a single high-level opponent would mean it would be a lot less effective at preventing that.

[Commodore Phoenix]

But there is no possibility of doing these achievements even with pubstomping. Also can I ask this what evidence is there to say that the high levels pubstomp.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Yeah, you are missing the point Moo. There was no possible way to get the achievements without arranged farming. The difficulty of taking on an entire team of 7+ players, even 4+ in some cases, is astronomical enough to make it more attractive for high levels to just form a farming community where they arrange private farming matches to get achievements. But before that they'd have to overcome the desire to just quit trying.

Contrary to popular belief, high levels, at least none I know, do not go around arranging pub stomping. That just happens. One experienced crew can turn the tide in a battle. Which is what I stated earlier. I've had newbies cry stacking and such when literally I'm flying alone and often times with new players. The team communicates because I communicate, they listen, and then the match turns into a stomping. Now put 2-3 experienced crews like that together and you have Cogs level matches which require stomping to get the achievement. That just isn't going to happen when they can just arrange to trade losses to get it done easier.

[Plasmarobo]

I generally fly with my friends, or my clan, so it's easy to gather high levels around me.
Even when I don't, I encounter a lot of level 7+, and a few level 10+.

I expect people will level up as I do though, and I think if you've hit 7+ you're pretty committed to the game.
It might be I play during peak hours or something, but I think you guys are severely exaggerating how difficult this is. The levels should loosely follow exponentials, right? I've spent a long time on level 8. These are the easy 'chieves. I really want level 9. But nobody uses harpoons. I'm not complaining, but if I see a ship 'pooning I immediately try to get a 'poon'd kill.

Jess fixed the requirements for the stuff that was actually ridiculous, but the community is still maturing. Give me some time and I'll play a level 10 against you. I do agree that a perfect victory at high levels is a bit...unlikely. Stuff like that I'm on board with relaxing.

I think Muse should take a look at the system. A hard level cap at 15 or something would not be a bad thing. I'm fine with not having infinite levels. I'm in favor of interesting challenging achievements, but I don't think they should punish people who don't fly during peak (or certain timezones) or with a clan.

I don't mind trading losses for achievements, because I still see this as a game and don't care about my statistics (I do like my rank going up tho), but that's only stuff like "harpoon people" or "ram kills" that I can do whenever and not feel bad.

[Commodore Phoenix]

Plasma we are saying that they are now relying to heavily on people playing together at peak times which is about 4 pm EST so for an English person who is on during the none peak times which will be about 3 am EST these achievements are ridiculous. They cater for the clans who can get together and set up a game and as we have said before this is splitting the community. It will make 2 classes of players (I only include players that stay) the new guys who recently got to the medium levels e.g. 7 because they could do the easy achievements but then all of a sudden they have to play more specific games against harder opponents. Now by the time anyone has got this far out of anyone new to this game they will face us.

We are the high levels. The guys they have to beat if they want to get these achievements. However by the fact that we are already at level 12 and the guys who have to fight us are level 7 we will destroy them every time. This will make it even harder as it gives higher levels better practice and that just means the next batch who are trying to do achievements will suffer the same predicament.

There is no In between achievements where you only have to face 1 high level captain. This is all we ask now because its clear you all don't understand how much of a problem these achievements are.

You say we pubstomp but now all we can do is pubstomp you are making us the bad guys when we did nothing we don't understand why these new sets of level based achievements were put in place and we certainly don't agree with them

[Clara Skyborn]

Ok, the "all enemy captains" objectives are being changed to "1 enemy captain," although the number of matches required may change depending on the achievement. Not sure when it will be live, but it's going in.

Ideally this should encourage high-level players to split up and lead opposing fleets of mixed levels, giving them a challenge and still letting lower-level players in on the fun without all being on the losing side. Maybe in the future when we have a million concurrents we'll switch it up again to group players more closely by level, but you are all right in pointing out that that's not the game we have now, and players mixing in one big pool is part of what makes this game great.

If you hit any other achievements you feel are unfair or impossible, let me know and as always, I'll take a look. Of course, I know I don't have to tell you that!

Stay cool, everybody.

[Plasmarobo]

That's awesome Jess.

Sorry Phoenix, I wasn't trying to accuse you guys of anything.
I'm lucky that I happen to play during the on-hours.

And honestly, getting pubstomped made me want to get really good at the game, so I wouldn't just assume it's always a bad thing!
But in general, yeah, you don't want to do it. I understand how matches turn into pubstomps though. Happens to all of us.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Yeah they already said they'll go to a 1 captain setup. Check back, the argument isn't needed anymore.

Btw...rank 13 pilot is called High Commander. But there is 14 achievements to get till 14...ugg.

[Commodore Phoenix]

Damn it Gilder why did you have to spoil it for me!

[Byron Cavendish]

I'm not too upset about these level restrictions, but they are dam near impossible for me to pull off. I don't actually see the point. I probably won't get them off of my high level opponents, it's too situational. I don't and wouldn't pub stomp for achievements, because I've been doing it regardless.

[Captain Smollett]

Sorry to revive this old and not super positive thread but I just wanted to put in a thought.

Due to the recent changes in the mercury and maps and the direction that GOI is taking I think the kill 100 enemies at 2km should be changed to something else. It's technically possible but not realistic or fun to farm the newbies for it.

Perhaps something a bit more interesting like:  Weapons master (with so many ways to kill, why choose?) - kill 3 enemies with 3 different methods in the same match 50 times, or Brinksman (the greatest victories happen at the doorstep of defeat) kill 50 enemies while your armor is broken.

[Wundsalz]

Ok, the "all enemy captains" objectives are being changed to "1 enemy captain," although the number of matches required may change depending on the achievement. Not sure when it will be live, but it's going in.

Ideally this should encourage high-level players to split up and lead opposing fleets of mixed levels, giving them a challenge and still letting lower-level players in on the fun without all being on the losing side.

Dominating matches against a high lvl pilot with a powder monkey partner flying off to la-la-land isn't an achievement, imo. I prefer the previous requirements as they're more meaningful and not impossible to achieve afterall. Especially with the recently introduced party and prelobby system it's easy to just grab the core players of your team if your matches run well and to look for a challenge with those guys (eg by joining a clan training session). I'd rather like to see the repeat count of those achievements to be reduced than the number of pilots. Another promising alteration of those achievements might be to use the average player level of the opposing team instead of the pilots level.

Perhaps something a bit more interesting like:  Weapons master (with so many ways to kill, why choose?) - kill 3 enemies with 3 different methods in the same match 50 times, or Brinksman (the greatest victories happen at the doorstep of defeat) kill 50 enemies while your armor is broken.

Good suggestions! I'd love to see more interesting achievements which support unconventional playstyles rather than dull buff x parts objectives. Just make sure that you keep the repetition count for those achievements low - I regarded my 5 harpoon kills are a refreshing deversion. 20 would have been a nuisance.

[Byron Cavendish]

I'm kind of wondering what muse defines as a reasonable amount of time to finish an achievement. Being a player that is on everyday, for many hours, I have yet to actually finish the achievements that were changed two months ago. Two months to find level +4 pilots, and not for a lack of trying. It is just too situational. Also, the hierarchy of the achievements is so weird. I would assumed they would get progressively more difficult, but that is not always the case. They seem to be random difficulties, which is frustrating and confusing. For example, under pilot achievement: mastery 5/11 it says "win 50 matches against all level 4+ pilots with no deaths". Now I have not been able to get more than 4 in 2 months. The next achievement in that line 6/11 "as captain, spot 50 ships while unspotted (crew)". I could finish that achievement in a day. Why is the difficulty not progressive?

[Grukan Slater]

The whole system is flawed. Hopefully it'll even out as the game becomes more and more popular though.

[Pickle]

I'm kind of wondering what muse defines as a reasonable amount of time to finish an achievement.

At the moment, I imagine they regard a reasonable time as long enough that they don't have to chase after the high achievers every week and increase the level cap as often as they have done in the past.

The problem is that a definite cap hasn't been set.  Perhaps L15 should be the absolute cap with no more levels above it.  Ever.