the opening post on the surface sounds good with exception of the ridiculous uranium cost, and the communication with players is good, but we heard words before, its time for action
A quick action that shows kixeye do indeed understand that build / repair times have gotten out of control, would be to do a quick thing that reduces build times right away.
shipyard 2 and 3 offers reduction on foresaken tech and shipyard 3 offers reduction on draconian tech.
How about doubling the reduction on this?
even if its just temporary , it shows a much needed action that will gives players hope, all these plans are going take time and while this going on , we just left with promises and words.
Once the plans have been fully implemented , could reduce the temporary reduction back to way it currently is, although it should be permanent.
Why all the thinking and planning and evaluating ? Just change the value of a few parameters and JUST CUT BUILD & REPAIR TIMES IN HALF !
Would it not be simpler and faster and less expensive to implement ? KIxeye is OVER-THINKING THIS.
No major re-coding. No complicated new "systems".
Just turn on the 1/2 repair switch that is used during raids and leave it on.
I'm sure there is a similar parameter for the shipyard. Just change a few numbers in the code.
If Kixeye is afraid it might hurt there bottom lime too much, do it in stages. Cut build and repair times across the board by IDK 20% at first and see if it stimulates more player activity. Then cut them some more. Keep doing that until revenue and player participation improves.
This is a no brainer.
because if you halve repair time, you then need to double the difficulty of PvE.
it is PvP where repair time needs addressing.
people would cry.
This is a great point that sadly most won't understand.
Guess the question might be are we willing to see repair times cut in half knowing that 4 days in the month are going to be harder? I don't know the answer....just thinking out loud.
More questions. Will the rhino build time go up significantly as it has a high maximum weight? How do you see a quick low weight built like the mercury fairing? When comparing arbalest and blades, in theory blades will be much quicker builds than arbalest, how do justify the longer build times for a less effective weapon?
When the weight of wapeons will be changed it is important that no ships have to rebuild. My ships are constructed to max weight from wapeons and armour and adtech. I will not be the only one. If we have to refit all those fleets we won´t be happy.
Ok. Nice step in the right direction ( if a bit slow) but it's not like we haven't heard it before. I can see a lot of players no liking the VXP changes for reload but on the whole probably a better way than current system.
But if builds and repairs come down, I may actually get back into this game. Was planning on quitting for New Year resolution. Guess I'll wait and see.
All of that sounds promising but given the track record of Kixeye lately I think you'll understand if I hold by the mentality of I'll believe it when I see it. I'm of the opinion that building an entire fleet should take 30 days, not a single ship and build times should be balanced around the fact you hold a new raid and release a new hull every 30 days.
As for ship repairs I've mentioned it before but, why not have a system such as this:
When you click repair, the dock begins repairing all ships concurrently so the repair time becomes 1/5 of what it is now(for a full fleet). But the resource/time cost per ship remains the same. So it would still cost the same(or slightly less depending on your changes) in coins but would enable less heavy spenders to be more active should they choose to.
1. Kix gives us half repair during raid, so just turn on the half repair button until all this new stuff is ready and working. 2. Fight against hackers is at least a big problem as coin cost, both problems are the biggest reason to quit the game. 3. Retro upgrades on hulls, there are many hulls that we already built and are fully ranked but they need extra speed and needs extra special slot, if that is done we don't need to have them dusting of in storage!
I'm gunna have to wait and see how this actually plays out. Because ATM this whole process sounds like it is getting made out to be more convoluted then it should have been. More chores getting added to deal with the problems. Nothing in particular for examples to show what newer build times will be. As far as we all know it could still be the exact same build times. Maybe a few hours less. With the builds I've seen them show us as recommended for stuff still feel as they are detached from how players build stuff.
The whole problem with everything is its over priced! Its not worth 5 bucks for me to hit one base.then someone hits me and that 5 to ten bucks to fix my base fleet. So I just slow repair as much as I can.
I like hitting bases and playing the game and all Kixs needs to do for a short term fix is give us four hour repair for 1 coin instead of 30 minutes same with ship builds. the rest of it buildings and research prices are fine. At this price i can see me hitting a few bases
Very,very concerned that we'll see a re-balancing to a degree like we've seen before, Then lots of new features and changes that essentially keep the power creep the same if not exaggerate it even further!
This is why:- We've seen lot's of really power weapon introductions this year that have unbalanced the game!
The power creep/In-balance has been happening drastically for years, I don't have to go very far on the world map to find a profile that hasn't completed the old campaigns/raids from 2 years back because they were to much for them, I don't have to think very hard to find an example of a player who quit during the very first reaver raids, I don't have to dredge threw this forum very far to find a level 70 who can only kill level 40 mission hubs, Am I convinced kixeye can and will address this sort of extreme power creep whilst introducing new features absolutely not!
So..... Kixeye asked BV for 3 months, and it's taken them 3 months just to come up with a post outlining a bunch of stuff "coming soon" at some point next year.
The worst of it is, i've heard almost all of this before, and it just smells of more smoke and mirrors and delaying tactics to me.
I'll wait and see what these "Sweeping changes to weapons and armor" are that are meant to be coming this month but I have heard absolutely nothing in this post that convinces me this game is worth persevering with going into 2016.
I totally agree. The best we can hope for is 8% reduction a year in the shipyard. 3 years to reduce 22%. while increasing the good stuff at 50%. blllaaaaaaaaaaaah
Because of the increased fleet size, increases to costs per component, as well as an increase in the number of slots on ships, build and refit costs have become inflated. Since no one singular feature will fix this problem in the short-term, we’ve come up with a solution that we believe will reduce costs and see to it that they never get wildly out-of-control again. Here are the changes:
Weapons, armors, specials, and tacticals are assigned build time based on the weight they add to the ship (no more Negotiator Mortar problem).
Components that are often refit will be given a lower time cost and a Uranium cost.
This is intended to lower refit costs and allow for more active refits.
Includes light weapons, specific resist specials, countermeasures, armors, and role-centric specials (including sonar)
Hull build costs will be based on ship weight capacity with two exceptions:
Some older ships have higher-than-normal capacity and will be discounted
Ships with unique effects (such as the Aegis) will have the hidden value of that effect factored into its build cost
The new research system will offer multiple opportunities to lower shipyard build costs with the intention that build costs fluctuate around a current standard cost while also lowering the cost of old hulls and tech automatically.
so all i got from this is every thing going to cost Uranium to get a discount so where going have to coin or wait for ships to fix ie time to get the Uranium to speed up builds and refits so where the saving of time and money come in to it you already all but killed one of your games making every thing in game base around 1 resource looks to me like u not learned the lesson from it and u starting to try and make this game go the same way WAKE up kixeye just cut the repair and build times of fleets not hard thing to do before u KILL THIS GAME TO
Because of the increased fleet size, increases to costs per component, as well as an increase in the number of slots on ships, build and refit costs have become inflated. Since no one singular feature will fix this problem in the short-term, we’ve come up with a solution that we believe will reduce costs and see to it that they never get wildly out-of-control again. Here are the changes:
Weapons, armors, specials, and tacticals are assigned build time based on the weight they add to the ship (no more Negotiator Mortar problem).
Components that are often refit will be given a lower time cost and a Uranium cost.
This is intended to lower refit costs and allow for more active refits.
Includes light weapons, specific resist specials, countermeasures, armors, and role-centric specials (including sonar)
Hull build costs will be based on ship weight capacity with two exceptions:
Some older ships have higher-than-normal capacity and will be discounted
Ships with unique effects (such as the Aegis) will have the hidden value of that effect factored into its build cost
The new research system will offer multiple opportunities to lower shipyard build costs with the intention that build costs fluctuate around a current standard cost while also lowering the cost of old hulls and tech automatically.
so all i got from this is every thing going to cost Uranium to get a discount so where going have to coin or wait for ships to fix ie time to get the Uranium to speed up builds and refits so where the saving of time and money come in to it you already all but killed one of your games making every thing in game base around 1 resource looks to me like u not learned the lesson from it and u starting to try and make this game go the same way WAKE up kixeye just cut the repair and build times of fleets not hard thing to do before u KILL THIS GAME TO
Yep have to agree with this, Let's imagine you're a level 60 somewhat behind the power curve, are you going to be able to kill level 60 amada's with what 3xr5 greta nukes in them a r5 highlander a couple of mastadons a sub and some thermal ships are you fk, if you're lucky you'll be able to kill draconian bases for 3/4k and there's even changes planned to them, great idea uranium to save time only this doesn't help the fact that thousands have quit already because the uranium economy fking blows!
ok not holding my breath most of this was were looking at this or that no real confirmed changes which is very troubling as we really need changes in this game and some things they said looks like smoke and mirrors as the are oppisetes example in the state of the game they say they want to change vxp so it is not a must have but in the wip they say their looking at new speacilist packs to reduce repair times this would make vxp a true MUST HAVE and then theirs one change that truly troubles me they say their making a SMALL change to repairs so we can repair on map without docking i see how this is ment to make kixeye money as 1 the instant repair will only be for the heavy coiners and 2 kixeye will be able to reduce the workload on the fair play team as this feature will hide many hackers from being caught since we wont be able to send in tickets on all the hack that are using glitch repair or unlimited coin hacks which we catch and turn in tickets on because they constantly launch dead fleets over and over agian
Nothing on retrofits even though it's been 3 months now we can't get any update? January cm doom? I am excited for the new features but I am hearing nothing regarding retrofits here are they gone for good or are we waiting till January to hear more about them?
You're confusing this with a WIP.
I know the difference and I have read what is in the dev's statement it mentioned repair specialists but nothing on retrofits that is why I am asking but I am sure that I will get no response like the last time I tried to ask.
Retrofits aren't really a problem in the game other than feeding the power creep. So from the 'power creep' point of view, the longer retrofits stay away, the better ( not really, but you know what I mean)
OK. First kudos for starting to address some of the annoying issues in the game. Good to see you starting to make changes. However I would like to see you guys address the power balance between bases and fleets. When I first started playing (which was ages ago. lol.) the power was in bases and you had to work to get into bases. Now however it seems most base layouts are useless as fleets are just was overpowered compared to base guns. I would love to see the power flip back to bases as I feel that is how it should be. In any situation it should be a real challenge to get into bases. That is what makes base hitting more fun. Adjust and plan to hit bases. The harder it is to hit player bases the more rewarding it feels when you make it in and kill the base. Please look into it and maybe find a way to make the power go back to bases and not fleets. Thanks.
Kixeye, simply enable the 1/2 repair time you have for the raids until you figure out this massive formula you've spilled out of your keyboard... what is it they say about a monkey and a typewriter?
It is a sincere endeavor on their part to outline what they want to do to address our issues. I am skeptical at times, but this seems genuinely sincere. We all know rapid change can be a disaster, but slow change can test player patience. So long as it is a steady roll out, that was thoroughly tested before implementation, and player feedback is ever present for commentary, then I can see no issue here. Obviously the Developers will be hard at work making these changes that could surely test their endurance. I just hope it is not in vain. BP is a complicated game to play, but in a good way. Players learn the nuances over time and eventually become wise to certain things. It is no surprise that as players, we hold Kixeye to a higher standard in quality content. We often insist upon it. The key areas of interest to me are lowered refit, build and repair times. I am happy to hear no weapons get nerfed. Base defense could use a few more weapon deterrents for players into base defense. There are many players that feel base defense is pointless. I do like the aggressive approach to fair play. I would gladly yield base observation to a Dev if they detect something not right. Make the fair play link not only accessible, but it should provide immediate results. We know Kix can not divulge an ongoing investigation, but a simple "we heard you, it is being looked at, we see what you saw, and we will work on this. The reality is bad players just open another account. I actually feel bad for the team that has to drop this player for bad behavior only to see him/her return the following week. Such things can be frustrating for Kix. It never ends. Maybe changing to tighter security and locking in the software to a format that is far more difficult to exploit would be ideas to explore?
We’re continuing to identify and solve cheats and exploits within Battle Pirates. While some of these cases are design related (such as the use of multiple rockets to kill an outpost), many are due to the nature of BP’s code base and may take longer to solve. Creating a fair playing field is critical as it allows us to better tune the experience for all players. We’re committed to identifying and making fixes as efficiently as possible.
Most recently, this includes a remedy to prevent players from using illegitimate ships and illegitimately overpowered ships.
The easiest fix that can be done would be to cut the cost of gold buy no less than 40% . You would save thousand of dollars on smoke and Mirrors and make more money.
I'm very pleased at the direction this OP takes us. The game has begun to feel stale and this shakes it up and moves it forward. Of course the devil is in the implementation... but full marks for the thinking and the transparency. 2016 promises to be an interesting year in BP.
Another thing if you want to be transparent about build times add the unit build time to the blueprint. Let people see how long it takes to build a hull, a weapon, armor or a special.
I have one question, Why can't kixeye make battle pirate build times and repair times more like there other games? I feel that would solve a lot of problems. Why can't they add another shipyard to a players base so you could refit while making new ships?
I know the comments so far is a very low percentage of the actual player base , but any comment I seen on the uranium cost or plans have generally been negative for the most part.
for the most part its been very negative feedback I seen on forum threads or facebook groups regarding uranium cost, but seems kixeye will not listen and scrap that plan.
the opening post on the surface sounds good with exception of the ridiculous uranium cost, and the communication with players is good, but we heard words before, its time for action
A quick action that shows kixeye do indeed understand that build / repair times have gotten out of control, would be to do a quick thing that reduces build times right away.
shipyard 2 and 3 offers reduction on foresaken tech and shipyard 3 offers reduction on draconian tech.
How about doubling the reduction on this?
even if its just temporary , it shows a much needed action that will gives players hope, all these plans are going take time and while this going on , we just left with promises and words.
Once the plans have been fully implemented , could reduce the temporary reduction back to way it currently is, although it should be permanent.
This is a great point that sadly most won't understand.
Guess the question might be are we willing to see repair times cut in half knowing that 4 days in the month are going to be harder? I don't know the answer....just thinking out loud.
More questions. Will the rhino build time go up significantly as it has a high maximum weight? How do you see a quick low weight built like the mercury fairing? When comparing arbalest and blades, in theory blades will be much quicker builds than arbalest, how do justify the longer build times for a less effective weapon?
I can see a lot of players no liking the VXP changes for reload but on the whole probably a better way than current system.
But if builds and repairs come down, I may actually get back into this game. Was planning on quitting for New Year resolution. Guess I'll wait and see.
As for ship repairs I've mentioned it before but, why not have a system such as this:
When you click repair, the dock begins repairing all ships concurrently so the repair time becomes 1/5 of what it is now(for a full fleet). But the resource/time cost per ship remains the same. So it would still cost the same(or slightly less depending on your changes) in coins but would enable less heavy spenders to be more active should they choose to.
2. Fight against hackers is at least a big problem as coin cost, both problems are the biggest reason to quit the game.
3. Retro upgrades on hulls, there are many hulls that we already built and are fully ranked but they need extra speed and needs extra special slot, if that is done we don't need to have them dusting of in storage!
I'm gunna have to wait and see how this actually plays out. Because ATM this whole process sounds like it is getting made out to be more convoluted then it should have been. More chores getting added to deal with the problems. Nothing in particular for examples to show what newer build times will be. As far as we all know it could still be the exact same build times. Maybe a few hours less. With the builds I've seen them show us as recommended for stuff still feel as they are detached from how players build stuff.
The whole problem with everything is its over priced! Its not worth 5 bucks for me to hit one base.then someone hits me and that 5 to ten bucks to fix my base fleet. So I just slow repair as much as I can.
I like hitting bases and playing the game and all Kixs needs to do for a short term fix is give us four hour repair for 1 coin instead of 30 minutes same with ship builds. the rest of it buildings and research prices are fine. At this price i can see me hitting a few bases
Let the paying Pirates Play! Make them happy
----------------------------------------------------------------
This is why:- We've seen lot's of really power weapon introductions this year that have unbalanced the game!
The power creep/In-balance has been happening drastically for years, I don't have to go very far on the world map to find a profile that hasn't completed the old campaigns/raids from 2 years back because they were to much for them, I don't have to think very hard to find an example of a player who quit during the very first reaver raids, I don't have to dredge threw this forum very far to find a level 70 who can only kill level 40 mission hubs, Am I convinced kixeye can and will address this sort of extreme power creep whilst introducing new features absolutely not!
Overpriced Builds and Refits
Because of the increased fleet size, increases to costs per component, as well as an increase in the number of slots on ships, build and refit costs have become inflated. Since no one singular feature will fix this problem in the short-term, we’ve come up with a solution that we believe will reduce costs and see to it that they never get wildly out-of-control again. Here are the changes:
Weapons, armors, specials, and tacticals are assigned build time based on the weight they add to the ship (no more Negotiator Mortar problem).
Components that are often refit will be given a lower time cost and a Uranium cost.
This is intended to lower refit costs and allow for more active refits.
Includes light weapons, specific resist specials, countermeasures, armors, and role-centric specials (including sonar)
Hull build costs will be based on ship weight capacity with two exceptions:
Some older ships have higher-than-normal capacity and will be discounted
Ships with unique effects (such as the Aegis) will have the hidden value of that effect factored into its build cost
The new research system will offer multiple opportunities to lower shipyard build costs with the intention that build costs fluctuate around a current standard cost while also lowering the cost of old hulls and tech automatically.
so all i got from this is every thing going to cost Uranium to get a discount so where going have to coin or wait for ships to fix ie time to get the Uranium to speed up builds and refits so where the saving of time and money come in to it you already all but killed one of your games making every thing in game base around 1 resource looks to me like u not learned the lesson from it and u starting to try and make this game go the same way WAKE up kixeye just cut the repair and build times of fleets not hard thing to do before u KILL THIS GAME TO
We all know rapid change can be a disaster, but slow change can test player patience. So long as it is a steady roll out, that was thoroughly tested before implementation, and player feedback is ever present for commentary, then I can see no issue here.
Obviously the Developers will be hard at work making these changes that could surely test their endurance. I just hope it is not in vain.
BP is a complicated game to play, but in a good way. Players learn the nuances over time and eventually become wise to certain things. It is no surprise that as players, we hold Kixeye to a higher standard in quality content. We often insist upon it.
The key areas of interest to me are lowered refit, build and repair times. I am happy to hear no weapons get nerfed. Base defense could use a few more weapon deterrents for players into base defense. There are many players that feel base defense is pointless.
I do like the aggressive approach to fair play. I would gladly yield base observation to a Dev if they detect something not right. Make the fair play link not only accessible, but it should provide immediate results. We know Kix can not divulge an ongoing investigation, but a simple "we heard you, it is being looked at, we see what you saw, and we will work on this.
The reality is bad players just open another account. I actually feel bad for the team that has to drop this player for bad behavior only to see him/her return the following week. Such things can be frustrating for Kix. It never ends. Maybe changing to tighter security and locking in the software to a format that is far more difficult to exploit would be ideas to explore?
No more gimmicks please ....we had enough already this year.
Cheaters and Exploits
We’re continuing to identify and solve cheats and exploits within Battle Pirates. While some of these cases are design related (such as the use of multiple rockets to kill an outpost), many are due to the nature of BP’s code base and may take longer to solve. Creating a fair playing field is critical as it allows us to better tune the experience for all players. We’re committed to identifying and making fixes as efficiently as possible.
Most recently, this includes a remedy to prevent players from using illegitimate ships and illegitimately overpowered ships.
Why can't kixeye make battle pirate build times and repair times more like there other games? I feel that would solve a lot of problems. Why can't they add another shipyard to a players base so you could refit while making new ships?
for the most part its been very negative feedback I seen on forum threads or facebook groups regarding uranium cost, but seems kixeye will not listen and scrap that plan.