New ships

[BlackenedPies]

The idea of new DLC ships to help with lack of content was brought up by Logicalia. There are two new ships in Alliance mode named the Crusader and Magnate. Muse may want to keep these Alliance exclusive but Skirmish is why people play. The allure of new ships could draw new and old players into the game but I'm not optimistic about Alliance. Two questions: can the Crusader and Magnate be balanced into Skirmish, and should Muse make them available to Alliance buyers?

From my testing the Crusader and Magnate are too weak to have competitive use in skirmish. Crusader doesn't work with the hull not repairable from below. Both ships suffer heavily from poor repairs and only serve as a glass cannon with high firepower and good maneuvering. Can these ships be balanced with tweaks and stat changes to become a "hard" ship in skirmish mode?

Everyone wants new content and we have two ships built. Should these be added to skirmish whether it be free or DLC

[Richard LeMoon]

There are a lot of new AI ships in Alliance. I would like to see quite of few of them converted for player use.

[DJ Logicalia]

My idea mostly came from seeing these ships as being developed as an incentive to buy Alliance. If muse saw developing new ships for skirmish as profitable, I feel they would do it. But right now, all their eggs are in the Co-op basket with no sign of adding major new skirmish content in the near future. If they could directly make money on their work in skirmish, and we get new content, I think everyone wins. I personally have spent about 10 dollars on this game including the 4pack purchase all that time ago, and have almost 1500 hours in game alone, not to mention all the time I spent with friends I made in this game. That's 150 hours a dollar. I would love to have something worth while to  buy and support muse beyond cosmetic stuff

[Skrimskraw]

i want 1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1 where everyone individually pilots a training dummy and will have to pilot, repair and gun alone.

[Byron Cavendish]

I know Howard is against locked content (new buy to play ships). I think it's really going to be a necessity for skirmishes' survival; not only because it'll add revenue, but because skirmish NEEDS new content at some point to be alive. The problem is, there will be some people against it. Most will be new players. Cheap players, who live in a f2p world and are appalled at any product having value.

Unfortunately Muse believes it must try and make everyone happy, and that means more often than not giving into those people. At some point they have to either accept the game will die, or learn to adapt and learn to say "we don't have to try and please new players every time". This game became successful in the early days because it was a quality product that stuck to an idea, and presented it to a crowd that had the patience and understanding to trust in their work ethic. They were uncompromising in presenting that idea, and it worked.

[Hoja Lateralus]

Those ship are nightmare for engineers. Population consists mostly of engineers (2-3 per ship). Ergo - those ships probably won't be welcomed in a very warm way.

DLC ships are awful idea, because firstly, the existing ships are not really balanced so adding a new one would make the game even more mess. Secondly - it causes division of already teeny-tiny community. Unless we expect that all people that left are just zealots who are willing to buy everything. But I think that's not the case.

Funnily enough in some post on steam forum Matthew says that shop provides enough money to pay for art team. But, this is my guess, most of those artists work on Alliance and not Skirmnish. So it's not the case that Muse cannot afford artists, they just make them work on different stuff, it's their right to do so.

Edit: I agree that Skirmnish is in dire need for any kind of content if we want it to survive, but no matter how harsh that may be, I think it should be either free for all community (maps!, perhaps ships/guns, but MAPS!!!) or a paid-for cosmetics (outfits, themes).

[Schwalbe]

Yes, new maps would be great. And I mean NEW maps, not "weather-reskins" of already existing ones.

Also, paying for a sodding ship in a game where you don't even unlock guns/tools with levels? I... I beg your pardon? I haven't heard anything that retarded, since the lecturer of differential equations was bitching about some bastards claiming that differential of c'(t) = 0 is t - D, no offense...

[Squidslinger Gilder]

The game really doesn't need new ships in Skirmish. When you add another ship, you add more balancing issues. Other ships get nerfed or buffed to counter it. Usually nerfed sadly.

The better option is bringing in the upgrade system from Alliance (It isn't implemented yet). This is a PVE mechanic designed to enhance your ship. Originally it was said it would be PVE only, not PVP, but it wouldn't be a stretch to make something like it work for PVP. I've been doing a lot of Steel Ocean recently and they have something like this where you spend silver (which you don't have to pay to earn), to get upgrade parts. Some are straight upgrades where others are tradeoff upgrades where you gain 10% of something at the cost of 5% of something else.

How would this work for GOIO? So lets take for example the Nerfmidion. Say we give it, 3 upgrade slots. Each slot you either unlock by playing (level requirement) or matches drop in game coin that can be used to upgrade them. Then you have your upgrades, could be obtainable either way as well. Taking Steel Ocean for example, lets say the three upgrades used are: Armor - 10% HP for 5% speed reduction, Improved engines - 10% acceleration buff, Better rotors - 10% turning improvement. Suddenly Nerfmidion is not so crappy anymore.

Now those are just examples. The possibilities of other upgrades are many. Could tailor some to pilot tools or even to damage types. Say you are facing a munker and would like some passive form of protection against impact damage. It wouldn't be much help but there could be an impact damper that reduces the impact effect. Heck if fire is a problem, could do a upgrade that slowly puts out fire stacks. Maybe 1 stack per minute or something. This upgrade system could also possibly be done on a character level.

How this system would fail, is if it was just given away and everyone could use it from the start. This is Blizznomics and their "content for everyone" approach that has afflicted many MMOs since Burning Crusade. When you give away items or dumb down content and don't give something to strive for, you might as well shut your game down. People need something to strive for, something to make them want to put in the time and effort unlocking. There needs to be a sense of accomplishment. Provide that, even if players bitch and moan, you've got a winner.

Sure this would mean upgraded ships would potentially be outclassing regular. But so what. As long as it's not by a large amount, its fine. Give people reason to want to level up and play. So they can be the upgraded vessel. In Steel Ocean the upgrades are so marginal that you really can't tell who has or doesn't have them. I put a turning upgrade on one of my subs and I could notice the change, but it still wasn't enough to make me super OP. There are upgrades that enhance part durability. These are virtually impossible to tell who has them unless you fire directly at the part and even then, it'll break eventually anyways. This could be done as well for GOIO. Shatter resistance could be added. Just make it low enough where it would provide a visible benefit but not invincibility. Or make it for individual parts like SO does. Say engine resistance. Squid pilots would rejoice as their engines are so weak and easy to break that even 10% better would be welcome.

[Hoja Lateralus]

Devs are holding on to the idea that all men (and ships) are equal. Also, giving vets even more advantage than they already have (because THINKING and COOPERATION are suprisingly op as fuck) could burn the community to the ground.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

So what. If noobs want to get powerful they can do the time and get there. This game isn't CoD. You can't just pick it up and be awesome. Which is the mindset of just about every noob who hits endgame in an MMO, that they should be able to do it because they are max level. That they are entitled to it. So the devs cater content towards them, game turns into faceroll fights with welfare gear that completely destroys the community that cares the most about the game.

I'm all for giving people the means to get better and putting in a fair system where they can feel like they are getting better, but giving them free goodies, hell no. See if you tell a noob that it takes experience to beat a vet, their attention span immediately switches off. That is your CoD generation. If they have to do work, they don't want to do it. But if in anyway they think that there are actual reasons for them to suck that are not skill based, then you've got them willing to put some effort in. So simply trick them. The proposed upgrade system would not make vets that much more OP than they already are. We'll still be 5-0ing people left and right no matter what. But ya know, if we have a perceived that isn't just skill advantage, they'll want that advantage. It's the same mentality in MMOs. It's why a hunter walking around with a Thunderfury in Iron Forge generates pure hatred and loathing from every melee fighter on a server. They want the gear, they want the item that makes them better. So, fuel that desire.

5%, 10%...those types of upgrades are very minimal and very viable. Even if you are able to use multiple. Its not even better than using Stamina. Think about that, then consider it. 5%/10% does not mean the world is falling, does not mean Vets are going to rip noobs like tissue paper more than they already are, and it definitely does not mean we'll see any less playerbase than we already are.

[Helios.]

i wouldnt mind having hardpoints on ships that you could modify like you do with the guns, bt the other parts in addition to the guns: a few different balloons, hulls engines etc. to further customize your ship. they could look slightly different, or not, it wouldnt matter,
for example:
heavy balloon: more health, more weight-> less acceleration
light balloon less health less weight -> more acceleration
trick engines: increase effect of tools but dont function as well normally
armored engines: increase health, but increase weight as well, making the ship heavier and accelerate slower
these could be like the guns, all perfectly available for everyone, but allow for more variability in your ships