Request to swap positions/classes

[Jazzza]

I suggest a feature to request to swap/change class of another player and to swap to be captain.

Similar to that of PlanetSide 2 where you can swap positions in a vehicle and if someone is in that position, it will ask them if they would like to switch.

[Lord Dick Tim]

I'd like the option for players to switch their class after a ships death maybe, the work around for this is logging in then out.
But anything that would have to do with asking to switch roles with another person I'm completely against.  My ships are dictatorships, I'll not have ratlings pestering me with requests to change rather then manning their stations and doing as they should be.

[Jazzza]

I'd like the option for players to switch their class after a ships death maybe, the work around for this is logging in then out.

That sounds good.

But anything that would have to do with asking to switch roles with another person I'm completely against.  My ships are dictatorships, I'll not have ratlings pestering me with requests to change rather then manning their stations and doing as they should be.

It could be a setting to stop people sending requests to you.

[Lord Dick Tim]

Touché salesmen.

[Pickle]

It would be convenient to be able to do that in the pre-match lobby, to stop the hot-shoe shuffle when there's a possibility that another player may descend into the vacant slot and wreck the crew's plans.  I don't see it being that useful during an active match.

[awkm]

Match lobby shuffling is something we're looking into.  Oftentimes we'll reach a completely full match, including spectators, and we'll have no way to swap spots.  We'll see.

I'm personally against you switching roles during a match at any point.  This includes if you accidentally join a match as a pilot.  This means your captain readied with you as pilot or you switched to pilot after the ready.  If you quickmatch with pilot selected, it will only try to fill you in a captain position.  So this is entirely human error at play here.  Switching during a match offers too large of a tactical advantage and dramatically alters gameplay in the middle of a match.  I want some of the tactical and strategic decision making to be made and set in stone before a match has started.  Changing roles to me is like changing ships or weapons.  I feel it's that big of an impact.

If it becomes a seriously problem we'll look into it but as of now, it goes against a clear design goal that we had from the beginning.

[Pickle]

Awkm.. does that mean that if I end up with two or three Gunners following mid-match joiners, that means that the second/third did not arrive as a result of choosing Quick Match and therefore must have deliberately chosen to join my ship after seeing the crew roster and joining out of spite/ignorance?

Or does Quick Match only balance Pilots?

[awkm]

Awkm.. does that mean that if I end up with two or three Gunners following mid-match joiners, that means that the second/third did not arrive as a result of choosing Quick Match and therefore must have deliberately chosen to join my ship after seeing the crew roster and joining out of spite/ignorance?

Or does Quick Match only balance Pilots?

If I specifically join your match (not quick join) we don't do any filtering.  You can't see who's in your game from the match list screen anyway.  We're assuming that you know you want to join that match and know what's going on inside.

If I use Quick Join, it'll do the pilot thing and then it'll try it's best to only allow only 2 of a certain class to be on a ship.

[Pickle]

So Quick Join could result in two Engineers or two Gunners, but shouldn't result in three of the same..

[awkm]

So Quick Join could result in two Engineers or two Gunners, but shouldn't result in three of the same..

Again, the system will do it's best to make that happen.  But there may be instances where it you get 3 of the same thing.  Remember, we can only try. Otherwise you may never get into a match with Quick Join and that's not the point of quick join.

[HamsterIV]

Out of curiosity why is the default class for a new player gunner? Considering that the average captain would want a second engineer more than a second gunner this leads to a lot of new players getting cursed at when they hit quick join after starting up the game for the first time.

I am pretty sure gunner is the the default class any way. After I get my initial cursing out of the way I some times ask the powder monkey why they chose to go 2nd gunner on my ship. The most common response seems to be "Dunno, I just hit quick join."

[awkm]

Out of curiosity why is the default class for a new player gunner? Considering that the average captain would want a second engineer more than a second gunner this leads to a lot of new players getting cursed at when they hit quick join after starting up the game for the first time.

The captain may want an engineer, but the first time player has no idea what the hell an engineer needs to do.  It's that simple.

Gunner is the most approachable class because it's just a turret FPS.

[Pickle]

Out of curiosity why is the default class for a new player gunner? Considering that the average captain would want a second engineer more than a second gunner this leads to a lot of new players getting cursed at when they hit quick join after starting up the game for the first time.

The captain may want an engineer, but the first time player has no idea what the hell an engineer needs to do.  It's that simple.

Gunner is the most approachable class because it's just a turret FPS.

For someone without a clue, there's no difference between Gunner and Engineer.  Either can shoot, and if you don't know what ammunition is it doesn't make a difference.

I'd ask you to review this default, and change it to Engineer.

[Shinkurex]

Actually, I agree with Hubert... The default loadout for an engie, is ideal to quick join, and get on the spot instructions on what to do... With gunner, you may not have the proper loadout for the weapons on the ship...

[awkm]

For someone without a clue, there's no difference between Gunner and Engineer.  Either can shoot, and if you don't know what ammunition is it doesn't make a difference.

I'd ask you to review this default, and change it to Engineer.

Unfortunately, no.  We will not change this.

Giving someone a mallet and extinguisher won't make them more inclined to do engineering stuff.  They will just jump on a gun.  Why make them fail by not giving them all the Gunner perks from the get go?

The engineering game has an extremely high learning curve.  The most common repair, HP repair, has a cooldown—we know this but no one else does.  Every other game, repairing something means hitting it over and over again until HP goes up with each hit.  Because of what players have previously been trained in, our engineering game is already setting them up to fail.  Noobs will keep hitting the component and not understand why the HP isn't increasing while the cooldown takes place, or they just don't notice.  Not until the cooldown finishes can more HP be added.  In the worst case, the noob can stay whacking the component for a long time.  This is detrimental for both the noob as well as the crew.  Everyone is failing here and inevitably the noob will be blamed and yelled at for being a shitty engineer.  The only case where previous knowledge is useful is when rebuilding.  However, tools have different specs for HP and rebuild.  That's how the engineering game was designed.  It's fairly high level strategic/tactical play vs. twitch reactions of a gunner.