Few things, you know and apparently expect the seasoned veterans to quit in droves, the players whom without us got your game off the ground, without our support, without my 100 a week for years, without all of our hundreds a week month etc there would be no mobile newbs for you to milk, I play on mobile now but I don't play, I just chat and repair
Look your opinion that the mobile newbs are dumb and will continue to play while us veterans quit, do you think that we haven't spoke to the Asian newbs (Russia is part of Asia) you think for one second that we the community are going to stand for this low brow attempt at a money grab
Yes there are some weapons that needed a intense look into and fixing,
Does the shields need the Nerf no, mathematically you are set to pocket millions of dollars in refits and people who tinker that's short term long term repair times will go down cosmetic down because a fleet of my favorite ships will last about 30 seconds with the correct shields to cover them shields as they are currently are weak they work but could be stronger and the Regen shield suck balls only good in base hits, you clearly need a education in basic economic and maths cause the average gamers know when they ate getting foked,
Shields are fine don't touch them
As for the update after some things work others are excessive, the speed revamp is not required that in its own will cost you loads cause we flat out won't like it, isc hulls shouldn't have such a health boost it's going to create new greater issues especially for bases,
I don't even want to get into the rest of it, you can't sugar coat **** with smiles and rainbows and tell us you love Vega. Then claim your helping us with these updates
Yes look at all weapons, yes look at **** but don't just go ahead with put asking us, BTW the balance on Armour was needed
Why couldn't u have just lowered repair time without the rest of the crap basic economics states if u lower prices the demand goes up and total profit stays the same because in all economy people would still spend intact given a lower price people would spend more,
Mr Preece, you got balls i gotta say! Thanks for coming down and answering none of the relevant questions at all. Im so sorry for this game, i cant even explain. You seriously should sit down and rethink what u did to BP and why you had to go.
Issues you should attend to:
You want more PVP, ok get us new hulls and/or mk upgrades in a faster way. Just make the game as a whole faster in repair and build times. You turned the whole game into Farmville II with these mk upgrades, thats a fact! Nobody likes to fight once and put the stuff into garage for 14hours of repair.
Connection problems on mobile! I use both, steam works smooth, ipad doesnt? WHY???
ISC ships were useless! If you fail in implementing a new ship, because your dev team not capable of analyzing what people fly, please feel free to fire them. Thats a serious problem!
Listen to your playerbase! Do Betas with them and ask them what can work.
What will happen with this update:
People hate it already, but you knew that. But lets take it 2-4 months further: your playerbase, which contains many coiners, lost all confidence in your decisions as a company, they will leave or stay as non-coiners or coin much less. People will leave and it all comes to an end.
You want new players, thats fine, we understand that all i think. BUT, why should a new player play this game on the long run? (6 months or more)? I mean, the game is easy to master then. And i still believe in the fact that "almost" insta-venoms will rule the game. Basicly you win in causing more repairtime. The game loses diversity and the need to think about a fleet more than a day. No tactics needen from now on.
Now think once again, who is the better customer? A player paying once 50 Bucks and leaving the game cause its ridiculously lame and much more expensive than almost any other game or the guy who pays 1000 Bucks yearly?
Why dont you even read the forums? I think people are having good ideas but you dont even want to hear them. I run a company myself and if an idea of mine sounds good to me it needs not to be the best way. If one of my employees or some third party can tell me better way and bring proof of it working, i will try it! If you would have had a Beta, this whole crap would have been much easier and smoother.
And one last thing: You stated that many people left VC that just started or didnt stay long enough to get far. YES, thats the game industry, why should anyone stay here to play a game he just likes to the half or less? But did u ever analyze fluctuation in general in these online games. I dont think so, because then you would know that its normal! If you want to have people only playing your game and sticking to it you are insane. Even GTA gets lame after 3 months. Even GOW got boring, but the true customer comes back after 3 months of pause and says, yeah, i wanna play some. What you are assuming is hardcore players that are online 24/7/365/366. If you realize this fact, you get to a point where you will understand that scammin your customers is not the right way to stay on the winning side.
Did GTA change any of his given weapons ingame? Did they say to the customer who bought the game for 75 Bucks; nah sorry you need to buy it again because we thought we change the whole game into something different. Now please tell us all here that you believe your playerbase will stay, if you say yes, then you will wake up in 6 months without a job and we all will just see the screen with the letter:
Vega Conflict has been discontinued
What i understood out of that post is: The new players are incompetent and can't fly like you old players can do on a PC, so we decided, as the mobile community is now bigger and spending more money on us to make em happy.
You old tards that we "respect" so much, well, go screw yourselves as we need to milk the cash cow!
Thx Paul for being so honest and letting us know that you are a complete ****!
I am betting that not even 10% of the players who say they are quitting will actually stop playing. I have started a spread sheet and if it turns out to produce interesting results, I will post it here in a couple of months. To the best of my ability, I am going to monitor and record the actions of the "quitters". I hope they do stand there ground. For one, if they all do quit it will have a financial impact on the company and for two, the playing field becomes a lot less crowded for people like me.
Fortunately, I am an early end gamer who has not deeply financially invested myself into this game. I truly enjoy the game but I feel less betrayed because I have spent zero dollars during my time on VC. It has been a grind and sure I would have made a few different choices in the recent past had I known of these changes but to be honest, as a relatively new high level player (lvl 43 base on main acct) I am curious and slightly excited for the new changes. I have only one true complaint - as most any player new or old would infer - VSEC hulls would and should be the best in the universe. When choosing ships in the past, I would chose vsec even if I didn't know anything about it because to me it was inherently the best choice to make. It seems that the minds that matter have chosen a different path but I sure do think that VSEC ships should remain at the top. They already look the coolest, they belong to the space cops for Christ sake, and it doesn't make sense that these security forces of the universe's most rich and powerful corporation would be outclassed by ANYONE! Doesn't that at least make sense Paul?
Hopefully and mildly enthusiastic, (let the death threats commence )
H.H.
P.S., I will be looking at you guys to see how many are actually gone, good luck to those that go and for those that don't, I'll see you in space my friends.
So what he said is that he does not care about the old PC players
just the new mobile users! He is says he wants lower rep and higher
damage ..... but is too stupid to realize that with the weight increases
(since that is the only difference between ships) just went up! AND
they are so high now you can but max every gun and still have room for
MAX SHIELDS AND ARMOR....Either he is just stupid or truly has not even
looked.
We ...the old players need to stop buying coins ... money
talks....or we have no one to blame but ourselves. The faster this game
becomes bankrupt the faster we will be able to get out of this
addictive game and go play something fun.
Break the trust of your
loyal players....they will not trust you and that is what you have
done. It is rare in the gaming world for the CO FOUNDER to defraud its
players and take away in game items purchased.
Not to mention what this update will do for their reviews. I mean google and apple allow us to change those are anytime.
We can live with 2.5
Repair times - Hurts new players and well I am going to have a fun time killing a lot of noobs. The The changes to mass - we can live with shields - we can live with Frigates - I am happy to see them come back and plan on building some eagles and huri Speed changes - Are upsetting and the biggest point of contention. The
massive refit bill - Still undetermined I hear rumors that our CMs are
fighting for us and its implied that we may get some form of discount so
I don't have a honest answer other then the hull max mass/unladen mass
was designed to prevent free refits.
you are right on....speed is the biggest concern with this update.... and the masses...and the fact that all ships are the same only bigger ones.
This promote NO diversity!
Why not have diversity...one is a tank... one is fast and smaller .....ect..
AND IT IS STUPID TO REDUCE **** PEOPLE PAID FOR! IF YOU HAVE TO INCREASE THINGS ONLY! (IT IS LIKE YOU WANT TO GET A CLASS ACTION FILED)
What i understood out of that post is: The new players are incompetent and can't fly like you old players can do on a PC, so we decided, as the mobile community is now bigger and spending more money on us to make em happy.
You old tards that we "respect" so much, well, go screw yourselves as we need to milk the cash cow!
Thx Paul for being so honest and letting us know that you are a complete ****!
Even if it would be that way, it would be completely out of reason. I myself was a 70% mobile/30% PC player, and I did almost all of the events from my phone. And I remark PHONE, because it wasn't from a tablet were you have a bigger viewport... I had a much smaller one (Moto G 2nd gen), and yet I was able to deal with the game without much of a problem for MOST stuff. Involving mobile players into this is like involving PC players and say "poor guys, they had to click a lot to micro-manage". It's just stupid and a lame excuse. Better this retarded in charge to find another one because nothing he said is believable, not even in the smallest part.
To improve the experience for new players, and to grow VC, we have to alter the game to make it more attractive to new players. Sometimes, after considering all other options, this includes altering the game in a way that frustrates the current player base. You’re dumbing down the game, I like complexity.
Bringing more consistency to hull speeds should return more complexity than it takes as the number of meaningful stats increases. Over time, we expect more hull classes to become useful to more players.
You’re only doing this for the money:
None of the changes are designed to make money, they are designed to improve the accessibility of the game by better defining the meta.
How can I feel safe investing time/money into the game when you can just change everything in a heartbeat?
We decided the best approach was to get all the disruptive changes out in one go.
LXC: Ok, this was Scarlett. Credit where it's due.
Based on currently available information, it appears that several fleet repair times will actually be going up (https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/617254). Is there something we’re missing?
Those ships should now downgrade their shields and armor and take more weapons. As they do their repair times will drop. We will be monitoring builds to make sure this happens.
Note, the ISC / Cruiser Armor bonus is ‘repair free’. An ISC ship with a 30% Armor bonus is not charged repair for the additional armor points.
@CM LXC: To be honest we're getting mixed signals from you guys. When the rebalance was announced, the main reason was shifting the focus to PvP. Now we can read you want to make it more attractive to new players. But when I continue reading, I see several false statements. Speed normalisation will not 'return more complexitiy' and you seem to be aware of that, since complexity doesn't attract new players. "None of the changes are designed to make money." isn't true either. In that case you would simply offer free refits for all ships. There is no other explanation for not doing that than a commercial perspective.
Kixeye decided "to get all the disruptive changes out in one go". However these changes are not even final yet, so at best testing was minimal. I don't have a single doubt that the new meta will have to be changed again afterwards, because new problems will rise. Let's face it: the game is basically brought back to a beta test phase. That choice is up to you, but please don't make it sound otherwise.
In regard to repair times Paul's point is shields and armor should be downgraded, weapons upgraded and as a result repair times will drop.. That's another overoptimistic thought in my opinion. From a farming perspective the lack of instarep autofleets and the speed changes will give us a harder time getting blueprints, crafting stuff and events done with minimal damage. So far I've not read anything about NPC fleets getting nerfed. And from a PvP perspective both players fire bigger guns at less durable ships.. That's pretty much self explanatory.
Using the Heretic and other ISC ships to underline the repair benefits isn't completely fair either. These upgrades haven't been available before today. With the ridiculously low drop rates it will take us a long time, before we can enjoy these benefits. And by that time our old ships (which we first will need to refit) become less useful. Big spenders will speed up their transition and it's no secret you'll offer them packages to do just that.
Summary: these can be called mixed signals at the very least. I won't call your bosses bosses boss a liar, but this isn't exactly the honest truth either. Instead of trying to make the rebalance look better with a trade story, how about actually implementing our feedback into your decisions? You say you care about the relative small group of longterm players, but want to attract far more new players.. Then offer that small group free reftis for all ships, so everybody is happy. Otherwise you are literally creating a Vega Conflict with your so much appreciated community.
Whats is really asinine about this change is that this isn't a game where you pay money to level up and are done. This is a game where you pay - over and over and over again
Top players who are really hard coiners will spend hundreds of $$$ per month coining from fighting their arses off. I know a number of players who have spend thousands on this game who will no longer coin. Yes, you milked them out of thousands. But here is the issue - you could have gotten thousands more out of them!
Players are pissed and will simply stop coining repairs or new hulls. In the new patch, repair times are still really high, so its a great source of profit. But the reality is, you are drying up the well of a lot of hard coining veterans.
Is recruiting 10,000 players who will spend $5 and quit really worth losing 2,000 players who spend $500 a year reliably?
LXC: Ok, this was Scarlett. Credit where it's due.
Based on currently available information, it appears that several fleet repair times will actually be going up (https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/617254). Is there something we’re missing?
The hull repair change will significantly shift the meta of ship design towards lower armor, high damage ships. As it does ship repair times will fall. We are planning on providing some assistance to players to help them adjust their equipment to the new meta.
In the examples linked to above many of the ships have traded weaponry for armor and shields, which is the current meta. Those ships should now downgrade their shields and armor and take more weapons. As they do their repair times will drop. We will be monitoring builds to make sure this happens.
Note, the ISC / Cruiser Armor bonus is ‘repair free’. An ISC ship with a 30% Armor bonus is not charged repair for the additional armor points.
lets take a look at this point as a gamer .... u will force us to bild max dps, low armor/shild ship builds for lower rep times and more fun....
but player who dont care about money and coin like hell will simply do this....
build a cutter fleet maxed out in dps and because there is even at MK1 enough space maxed out at armor.
at MK5 this fleet gets 12k (12000) more health points for free!!!
thanks to speed "balance" this is the fastest ship in vega, u cant run from this fleet
and thanks to your assistance to adjust our equipment to the new meta, this fleet will kill our glas fleets several time bevor it dies.
Imagin a top coiner with 7 of that fleet spaming the sector fighting in AI mode... that fleet hunts everything
At the end of the day, the guy with that fleet had a lot of fun and satisfaction winning all the battles and killing all the people following your "new meta"
And tomorrow every player will build that fleet and this will be the new meta....... and the fun is over....
Ok this fleet gets an reptime reduction from 1d 20h to 20h .... but in which case is 20h per fleet a reptime reduction for an average player?
Now i can know you are totally dumb. Vc need rebalancing? Ok but not in this direction. You guys really want erase the unique character of ship. For example low level fleets, destiny cruiser now become totally garbage. Its strog point is agility but you erase. And for higher level fleets like zeal and dread, you make their identity lost. If you want real rebalance you must make zeal faster and dread slower, not make them same.
OMG talk about a bunch of complainers. That's pretty much all I see. Fact of the matter is, if this game isn't profitable it will be gone. Reference: Firefly. Doesn't matter how great it is in its current form. If it's not making money, if it doesn't have a bigger customer base it can't continue. In fact your complaint is one of thousands of insignificant whiny voices that although are important to Kixeye (because your worth money) can be replaced by two new voices under a better (different) system. Be grateful that they give half of a crap about it. That being said. The new "meta" where glass cannons are key gives a significant advantage to coiners. They can build the large repair time ships and beat the glass cannons, then just coin them. It is about money, change, for more player base for...money. Which you should accept and be fine with, it's a business. Where do you get off acting like it's for YOU? As long as it's not pay to win, I'll keep playing. That's what I'll be watching out for...we'll see.
@Destroyer of Worlds@Soulhunters_Unk@GDIAX@mason.dixen I will let the smartes ppl on forum do the talk in behalf of us the player
I only got 1 serious question @CM LXC WHAI FORUM BANN SO MANY PLAYERS AT OANCE ?????Just fore saying what thei think ???
I've banned three players in the year I've been CM. And none of these have been when I was asleep.
OMG talk about a bunch of complainers. That's pretty much all I see. Fact of the matter is, if this game isn't profitable it will be gone. Reference: Firefly. Doesn't matter how great it is in its current form. If it's not making money, if it doesn't have a bigger customer base it can't continue. In fact your complaint is one of thousands of insignificant whiny voices that although are important to Kixeye (because your worth money) can be replaced by two new voices under a better (different) system. Be grateful that they give half of a crap about it. That being said. The new "meta" where glass cannons are key gives a significant advantage to coiners. They can build the large repair time ships and beat the glass cannons, then just coin them. It is about money, change, for more player base for...money. Which you should accept and be fine with, it's a business. Where do you get off acting like it's for YOU? As long as it's not pay to win, I'll keep playing. That's what I'll be watching out for...we'll see.
The game is getting more simple with regards to ship speeds, that is true. However there are different kinds of complexity. Speed is a very important stat. So important that it can override nearly all other stats except for Range. When that happens the game actually loses a ton of complexity, as the number of meaningful combat stats drops from many to few. Bringing more consistency to hull speeds should return more complexity than it takes as the number of meaningful stats increases. Over time, we expect more hull classes to become useful to more players.
I am not sure how someone can think this and believe themselves to be reasonable or logical. You state in this comment that speed is everything, more important than range. How does normalizing speed increase the number of meaningful stats? All you have left is range. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around that statement. Maybe further developing this answer or providing examples would be best.
Actually I can take that one.
Currently, speed is pretty much the most important stat. In fact it's nearly the sole defining victory condition in a majority of battles. What Paul means is by removing this as the sole defining factor, the other stats come into play more.
To be fair, Paul Preece will be appearing on BV Talk thursday night. Should be interesting. I will say this; He has some level of care if he is willing to appear before us. I hope he is treated fairly, and the issues are addressed and taken into consideration. At the end of the day, we all have one thing in mind, the future of this game. We all still want to play a game we enjoy and we want VC to be a profitable title. Currently at the moment we are a broken home with very different points of view.
"Forged in the flames of the original 8k wars" "Participant in the Jova Crusades; the winning side" "I hate cargo fleets. What else do you want me to say" "I attacked you because you stole my piece of cheesecake with cherry toppings." "The government has ordered me to harvest this farm. Please be patient as your base is harvested." IGN: MasonD ~Condolences to all who share a similar name - there can only be one.
The game is getting more simple with regards to ship speeds, that is true. However there are different kinds of complexity. Speed is a very important stat. So important that it can override nearly all other stats except for Range. When that happens the game actually loses a ton of complexity, as the number of meaningful combat stats drops from many to few. Bringing more consistency to hull speeds should return more complexity than it takes as the number of meaningful stats increases. Over time, we expect more hull classes to become useful to more players.
I am not sure how someone can think this and believe themselves to be reasonable or logical. You state in this comment that speed is everything, more important than range. How does normalizing speed increase the number of meaningful stats? All you have left is range. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around that statement. Maybe further developing this answer or providing examples would be best.
Actually I can take that one.
Currently, speed is pretty much the most important stat. In fact it's nearly the sole defining victory condition in a majority of battles. What Paul means is by removing this as the sole defining factor, the other stats come into play more.
Can you give us an idea of how this impacts the current meta? Can we still kite Vega with dread rag fleets?
You've said the rebalancing is about making the playing field for PVP more even. So I hope you don't mind letting us know about this for PVE.
I'm one of the coveted mobile players by the way. If it's not top-tier farming or supply runs then I want to be able to auto any farming I have to do that's because manual and mobile just doesn't work very well for precise movements.
Sure it stinks when you're manual flying in mobile and you lose against another player but it's pretty crappy when you lose in farming because you've made the game in a lot of ways about farming.
Unless you add rewards for PVP and up rewards given for PVE I don't see this attracting mobile players.
@CM LXC Thank you for your replies, you have an unenviable job in dealing with a multitude of sometimes semi-literate, angry players, and you do an excellent job in dealing with us. I appreciate your diligence in going to the top to get answers for us.
However, based on what is currently a 90% thumbs-down ratio for your first post, I don't think I'm alone when I say that Mr. Preece's comments pegged my bull-****-o-meter. Mr. Preece, I hope you have a contingency plan for when this change drives off your existing, paying players and does NOT improve player retention over its current low level, because the feedback you've been getting so far suggests that that is exactly what will happen. I realize that, if worst comes to worst, shutting the game down is an option, but I hope there are other fallback cases before it comes to that.
I am a software engineer who is not a game coder, and a veteran player and sometimes subscriber of Eve Online, World of Warcraft, Starcraft 1 and 2, and many other games, and I am a potential customer. I started playing vega conflict in december. I found that the instant-repair genesis cruiser and rancor battleship fleets were critical to my ability to level up, and without them my new player experience would probably have resulted in me quitting the game. These fleets are no longer instant repair and this suggests to me that your "great grand rebalance" will be harmful to your new player retention. Further, you've alienated the majority of your community.
I wish you the best of luck. I intend to continue playing next month while the players adjust to the new game, and I anticipate a second wave of "great grand rebalancing" changes in the next three to six months that are very nearly as extreme and disruptive as this set while you sort things out.
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")v(" ) signature to help him gain world domination
The game is getting more simple with regards to ship speeds, that is true. However there are different kinds of complexity. Speed is a very important stat. So important that it can override nearly all other stats except for Range. When that happens the game actually loses a ton of complexity, as the number of meaningful combat stats drops from many to few. Bringing more consistency to hull speeds should return more complexity than it takes as the number of meaningful stats increases. Over time, we expect more hull classes to become useful to more players.
I am not sure how someone can think this and believe themselves to be reasonable or logical. You state in this comment that speed is everything, more important than range. How does normalizing speed increase the number of meaningful stats? All you have left is range. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around that statement. Maybe further developing this answer or providing examples would be best.
Actually I can take that one.
Currently, speed is pretty much the most important stat. In fact it's nearly the sole defining victory condition in a majority of battles. What Paul means is by removing this as the sole defining factor, the other stats come into play more.
So what happens when I take my god awful slow revs, fight a bunch of cutters and demolish them?
What about when I take my rear-4, 6.5 hour rep taipans [lvl 47] with a speed of 500, fight a level 52 komodo fleet and win?
Yes - speed matters for some fights, but it did not need to be harmonized across the ships in a class. the bigger determinant of wins isn't just speed its....
Rock paper scissors with MK level and hull bonus damage
OMG talk about a bunch of complainers. That's pretty much all I see. Fact of the matter is, if this game isn't profitable it will be gone. Reference: Firefly. Doesn't matter how great it is in its current form. If it's not making money, if it doesn't have a bigger customer base it can't continue. In fact your complaint is one of thousands of insignificant whiny voices that although are important to Kixeye (because your worth money) can be replaced by two new voices under a better (different) system. Be grateful that they give half of a crap about it. That being said. The new "meta" where glass cannons are key gives a significant advantage to coiners. They can build the large repair time ships and beat the glass cannons, then just coin them. It is about money, change, for more player base for...money. Which you should accept and be fine with, it's a business. Where do you get off acting like it's for YOU? As long as it's not pay to win, I'll keep playing. That's what I'll be watching out for...we'll see.
I since Eric coins and feel entitled to victory because he coins. Eric, no one will be building glass cannons. Many of us see the mistake. Instead the good alliance out the will put off refits in favor of the Doctors of Destruction go to work playing with fleet builds. Google and Apple playstore gift cards find there way over to this doctors and once the build is perfected, the alliance reproduces the fleets in mass. Just like the old meta, the new meta will require skill. Coin is largely only a factor when two equal players square off against each other. Sad fact of reality, if you see people upset and complaining, chances are they spent money and are comfortable with the system. You seem to have this idealistic world built where you run around killing everything because we all just don't like repair times. But don't worry, I do have a couple of level 35 glass cannons you can come kill. They are instant repair and run many long range weapons to deal direct damage. I will love to kill you useless coin spam with armies of insects line up in sector as you spend this game into profitability.
Oh wait, the coiners cried about Harriers killing end game fleets. So will you.
"Forged in the flames of the original 8k wars" "Participant in the Jova Crusades; the winning side" "I hate cargo fleets. What else do you want me to say" "I attacked you because you stole my piece of cheesecake with cherry toppings." "The government has ordered me to harvest this farm. Please be patient as your base is harvested." IGN: MasonD ~Condolences to all who share a similar name - there can only be one.
Ok this problem is bigger than I expected base on this letter.
Refitting should be enabled free for 1 week long after this update goes live else forums are going to blow up in rage.
Don't say I did not warn you.
Were you not on these forums since Friday? They already blew up in a rage. honestly, unless kix says they are going to delete everybody's ships, I am not sure how they can blow up in much more of a rage
I no longer care about free-refits. That is nothing compared to the garbage of the "all ships of a class move the same" now. Sure, at the start of part 1, I was really pissed and wanted free refits. Now, that is trivial in comparison.
The hull repair change will significantly shift the meta of ship design towards lower armor, high damage ships. As it does ship repair times will fall. We are planning on providing some assistance to players to help them adjust their equipment to the new meta.
In the examples linked to above many of the ships have traded weaponry for armor and shields, which is the current meta. Those ships should now downgrade their shields and armor and take more weapons. As they do their repair times will drop. We will be monitoring builds to make sure this happens.
Note, the ISC / Cruiser Armor bonus is ‘repair free’. An ISC ship with a 30% Armor bonus is not charged repair for the additional armor points.
Dear Founder,
Would you explain why players will use less armor now? Hence lower repairs time?
Ship 1 1000 health, 2000 shields Ship 2 4000 health, 2000 shields Both ships are hit by 1800 DSP and incur in 180 health damage Ship 1 repair time is 540 seconds... Ship 2 repair time is 270 seconds...
...Out of the millions of people who have played VC, it really connected with a small, select subgroup of those people (you) who really enjoyed playing VC day after day, month after month. The majority of people didn’t find what they were looking for in VC and simply stopped playing. For those people, VC failed. It failed to be fun. It failed to be engaging day after day.
And there lies the catch-22. Some of the aspects of the game that appeal to the current player base are the exact same aspects that frustrate or overload new players. To improve the experience for new players, and to grow VC, we have to alter the game to make it more attractive to new players. Sometimes, after considering all other options, this includes altering the game in a way that frustrates the current player base.
Firstly thank you @CM LXC for putting the questions together and posting the responses - even if we dislike or disagree with those.
The catch-22 is wanting to change the game so that it either attracts more new players, or keeps those new players playing, at the risk of alienating the existing established regular players. But for all the changes discussed in the rebalance threads, I don't see anything there that will attract more players, or keep new players playing. If you want to do that you need to look at what stops them playing.
It failed to be fun. It failed to be engaging day after day.
In the early stages of the game there is lots to do, and it can be done quickly. Ship builds take minutes and repairs almost instant. Research and base upgrades are simple and achievable in a short time frame. As you progress so do the build, research and upgrade times, but at some point in mid-game you realise just how long it is going to take to build those top level fleets you see others with.
14 days for a Ragnarok, 12 days for a Dread, and plenty of other top tier ship builds that take 10+ days. 1 ship alone is no use, you need a fleet near the weight limit and are then easily looking at 50+ days or 7+ weeks to build a fleet.
How is that engaging day after day? you login, see your ship is 1 day closer to completion, but still more than a week away. Your new complete fleet more than a month away - that is when you look for another game to play to avoid getting bored - if that is fun and engaging like early VC they forget about this and don't come back.
This rebalance triggers a similar reality check for existing players. There are plenty of more experienced players than me with more ships - I have 200+ ships most at max mk upgrades. Potentially how many weeks of refits am I looking at now to reconfigure to the new meta and really be no further forward than now? Is that what you consider to be engaging day after day?
Many mobile players that you hope to attract and keep are used to such Freemium models, but when faced with such a massive time obstacle are more likely to wander off and find another game that will engage them. Why come back to Vega when I can do just a few clicks in a day or week and not really have any progress to show for it?
When I finally have that high level fleet, then repair times really kick in. How frustrating is it to launch a L50+ fleet, misclick in combat and have multiple ships destroyed? Dock the fleet for repairs, and that is it done for the day. 5 minutes of combat - 1 fight with another player or vega, then overnight repairs. Login the next morning to do no more than start repairs on a second fleet. Not really fun or engaging.
While the rebalance wants to focus more on PvP, and change the focus of builds, I don't see how it addresses the issues above or how it will be more likely to attract and retain players when the huge time hurdles remain as they are.
Ok this problem is bigger than I expected base on this letter.
Refitting should be enabled free for 1 week long after this update goes live else forums are going to blow up in rage.
Don't say I did not warn you.
Threats are counterproductive. The forums are already blowing up in nerd rage. If you want change, open a dialogue rather than issuing an ultimatum, or you may be ignored.
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your (")v(" ) signature to help him gain world domination
@cm lxc , so because you guys won't answer my emails, where do I send the subpoena? Australian office or US? Because in US, my lawyer tells me this is an "Easy bait and switch lawsuit". You sold us **** knowing you were going to kill them once the sales were done. Your boss even said so in the answers.
Our legal team is in the US. I am curious as to where you were sending your emails though.
LXC , what Paul is saying about complexity makes no sense! If you were going for diversity wouldn't you give every ship it's own speed? Just my thought...
Diversity != complexity, which is what Paul is trying to say. By eliminating the difference between the base speed of hulls, things like the fitout and mark become more important. With more stats meaningfully contributing to the outcome of the battle, instead of just speed, you get greater control over the battle.
The game is getting more simple with regards to ship speeds, that is true. However there are different kinds of complexity. Speed is a very important stat. So important that it can override nearly all other stats except for Range. When that happens the game actually loses a ton of complexity, as the number of meaningful combat stats drops from many to few. Bringing more consistency to hull speeds should return more complexity than it takes as the number of meaningful stats increases. Over time, we expect more hull classes to become useful to more players.
I am not sure how someone can think this and believe themselves to be reasonable or logical. You state in this comment that speed is everything, more important than range. How does normalizing speed increase the number of meaningful stats? All you have left is range. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around that statement. Maybe further developing this answer or providing examples would be best.
Actually I can take that one.
Currently, speed is pretty much the most important stat. In fact it's nearly the sole defining victory condition in a majority of battles. What Paul means is by removing this as the sole defining factor, the other stats come into play more.
And gives virtually no incentive to build other hulls apart from Rebel hulls since they all run the same speed and take longer to build. Apart from a little bit more mass. Mass is not the incentive i am looking for.
LXC, once again cherry-picking the useless/easy questions and ignoring all of the RELEVANT issues at hand.
Your care-factor is at Zero LXC, same as the rest of Kixeye.
Hope you guys are prepared for the "Grand Exodus of the Void". Because that is all that you will be left with, a Void where once this game was.
Listen Paul,
Few things, you know and apparently expect the seasoned veterans to quit in droves, the players whom without us got your game off the ground, without our support, without my 100 a week for years, without all of our hundreds a week month etc there would be no mobile newbs for you to milk, I play on mobile now but I don't play, I just chat and repair
Look your opinion that the mobile newbs are dumb and will continue to play while us veterans quit, do you think that we haven't spoke to the Asian newbs (Russia is part of Asia) you think for one second that we the community are going to stand for this low brow attempt at a money grab
Yes there are some weapons that needed a intense look into and fixing,
Does the shields need the Nerf no, mathematically you are set to pocket millions of dollars in refits and people who tinker that's short term long term repair times will go down cosmetic down because a fleet of my favorite ships will last about 30 seconds with the correct shields to cover them shields as they are currently are weak they work but could be stronger and the Regen shield suck balls only good in base hits, you clearly need a education in basic economic and maths cause the average gamers know when they ate getting foked,
Shields are fine don't touch them
As for the update after some things work others are excessive, the speed revamp is not required that in its own will cost you loads cause we flat out won't like it, isc hulls shouldn't have such a health boost it's going to create new greater issues especially for bases,
I don't even want to get into the rest of it, you can't sugar coat **** with smiles and rainbows and tell us you love Vega. Then claim your helping us with these updates
Yes look at all weapons, yes look at **** but don't just go ahead with put asking us, BTW the balance on Armour was needed
Why couldn't u have just lowered repair time without the rest of the crap basic economics states if u lower prices the demand goes up and total profit stays the same because in all economy people would still spend intact given a lower price people would spend more,
GangstaSquirrel-SPQR
SPQR- Leader, General
Father of the republic of Squirrels
Game released 1st of June 2013
I started 3rd of June 2013
Mr Preece, you got balls i gotta say! Thanks for coming down and answering none of the relevant questions at all. Im so sorry for this game, i cant even explain. You seriously should sit down and rethink what u did to BP and why you had to go.
Issues you should attend to:
You want more PVP, ok get us new hulls and/or mk upgrades in a faster way. Just make the game as a whole faster in repair and build times. You turned the whole game into Farmville II with these mk upgrades, thats a fact! Nobody likes to fight once and put the stuff into garage for 14hours of repair.
Connection problems on mobile! I use both, steam works smooth, ipad doesnt? WHY???
ISC ships were useless! If you fail in implementing a new ship, because your dev team not capable of analyzing what people fly, please feel free to fire them. Thats a serious problem!
Listen to your playerbase! Do Betas with them and ask them what can work.
What will happen with this update:
People hate it already, but you knew that. But lets take it 2-4 months further: your playerbase, which contains many coiners, lost all confidence in your decisions as a company, they will leave or stay as non-coiners or coin much less. People will leave and it all comes to an end.
You want new players, thats fine, we understand that all i think. BUT, why should a new player play this game on the long run? (6 months or more)? I mean, the game is easy to master then. And i still believe in the fact that "almost" insta-venoms will rule the game. Basicly you win in causing more repairtime. The game loses diversity and the need to think about a fleet more than a day. No tactics needen from now on.
Now think once again, who is the better customer? A player paying once 50 Bucks and leaving the game cause its ridiculously lame and much more expensive than almost any other game or the guy who pays 1000 Bucks yearly?
Why dont you even read the forums? I think people are having good ideas but you dont even want to hear them. I run a company myself and if an idea of mine sounds good to me it needs not to be the best way. If one of my employees or some third party can tell me better way and bring proof of it working, i will try it! If you would have had a Beta, this whole crap would have been much easier and smoother.
And one last thing: You stated that many people left VC that just started or didnt stay long enough to get far. YES, thats the game industry, why should anyone stay here to play a game he just likes to the half or less? But did u ever analyze fluctuation in general in these online games. I dont think so, because then you would know that its normal! If you want to have people only playing your game and sticking to it you are insane. Even GTA gets lame after 3 months. Even GOW got boring, but the true customer comes back after 3 months of pause and says, yeah, i wanna play some. What you are assuming is hardcore players that are online 24/7/365/366. If you realize this fact, you get to a point where you will understand that scammin your customers is not the right way to stay on the winning side.
Did GTA change any of his given weapons ingame? Did they say to the customer who bought the game for 75 Bucks; nah sorry you need to buy it again because we thought we change the whole game into something different. Now please tell us all here that you believe your playerbase will stay, if you say yes, then you will wake up in 6 months without a job and we all will just see the screen with the letter:
Vega Conflict has been discontinued
You old tards that we "respect" so much, well, go screw yourselves as we need to milk the cash cow!
Thx Paul for being so honest and letting us know that you are a complete ****!
I am betting that not even 10% of the players who say they are quitting will actually stop playing. I have started a spread sheet and if it turns out to produce interesting results, I will post it here in a couple of months. To the best of my ability, I am going to monitor and record the actions of the "quitters". I hope they do stand there ground. For one, if they all do quit it will have a financial impact on the company and for two, the playing field becomes a lot less crowded for people like me.
Fortunately, I am an early end gamer who has not deeply financially invested myself into this game. I truly enjoy the game but I feel less betrayed because I have spent zero dollars during my time on VC. It has been a grind and sure I would have made a few different choices in the recent past had I known of these changes but to be honest, as a relatively new high level player (lvl 43 base on main acct) I am curious and slightly excited for the new changes. I have only one true complaint - as most any player new or old would infer - VSEC hulls would and should be the best in the universe. When choosing ships in the past, I would chose vsec even if I didn't know anything about it because to me it was inherently the best choice to make. It seems that the minds that matter have chosen a different path but I sure do think that VSEC ships should remain at the top. They already look the coolest, they belong to the space cops for Christ sake, and it doesn't make sense that these security forces of the universe's most rich and powerful corporation would be outclassed by ANYONE! Doesn't that at least make sense Paul?
Hopefully and mildly enthusiastic, (let the death threats commence )
H.H.
P.S., I will be looking at you guys to see how many are actually gone, good luck to those that go and for those that don't, I'll see you in space my friends.
This promote NO diversity!
Why not have diversity...one is a tank... one is fast and smaller .....ect..
AND IT IS STUPID TO REDUCE **** PEOPLE PAID FOR! IF YOU HAVE TO INCREASE THINGS ONLY! (IT IS LIKE YOU WANT TO GET A CLASS ACTION FILED)
@CM LXC: To be honest we're getting mixed signals from you guys. When the rebalance was announced, the main reason was shifting the focus to PvP. Now we can read you want to make it more attractive to new players. But when I continue reading, I see several false statements. Speed normalisation will not 'return more complexitiy' and you seem to be aware of that, since complexity doesn't attract new players. "None of the changes are designed to make money." isn't true either. In that case you would simply offer free refits for all ships. There is no other explanation for not doing that than a commercial perspective.
Kixeye decided "to get all the disruptive changes out in one go". However these changes are not even final yet, so at best testing was minimal. I don't have a single doubt that the new meta will have to be changed again afterwards, because new problems will rise. Let's face it: the game is basically brought back to a beta test phase. That choice is up to you, but please don't make it sound otherwise.
In regard to repair times Paul's point is shields and armor should be downgraded, weapons upgraded and as a result repair times will drop.. That's another overoptimistic thought in my opinion. From a farming perspective the lack of instarep autofleets and the speed changes will give us a harder time getting blueprints, crafting stuff and events done with minimal damage. So far I've not read anything about NPC fleets getting nerfed. And from a PvP perspective both players fire bigger guns at less durable ships.. That's pretty much self explanatory.
Using the Heretic and other ISC ships to underline the repair benefits isn't completely fair either. These upgrades haven't been available before today. With the ridiculously low drop rates it will take us a long time, before we can enjoy these benefits. And by that time our old ships (which we first will need to refit) become less useful. Big spenders will speed up their transition and it's no secret you'll offer them packages to do just that.
Summary: these can be called mixed signals at the very least. I won't call your bosses bosses boss a liar, but this isn't exactly the honest truth either. Instead of trying to make the rebalance look better with a trade story, how about actually implementing our feedback into your decisions? You say you care about the relative small group of longterm players, but want to attract far more new players.. Then offer that small group free reftis for all ships, so everybody is happy. Otherwise you are literally creating a Vega Conflict with your so much appreciated community.
Whats is really asinine about this change is that this isn't a game where you pay money to level up and are done. This is a game where you pay - over and over and over again
Top players who are really hard coiners will spend hundreds of $$$ per month coining from fighting their arses off. I know a number of players who have spend thousands on this game who will no longer coin. Yes, you milked them out of thousands. But here is the issue - you could have gotten thousands more out of them!
Players are pissed and will simply stop coining repairs or new hulls. In the new patch, repair times are still really high, so its a great source of profit. But the reality is, you are drying up the well of a lot of hard coining veterans.
Is recruiting 10,000 players who will spend $5 and quit really worth losing 2,000 players who spend $500 a year reliably?
lets take a look at this point as a gamer .... u will force us to bild max dps, low armor/shild ship builds for lower rep times and more fun....
but player who dont care about money and coin like hell will simply do this....
build a cutter fleet maxed out in dps and because there is even at MK1 enough space maxed out at armor.
at MK5 this fleet gets 12k (12000) more health points for free!!!
thanks to speed "balance" this is the fastest ship in vega, u cant run from this fleet
and thanks to your assistance to adjust our equipment to the new meta, this fleet will kill our glas fleets several time bevor it dies.
Imagin a top coiner with 7 of that fleet spaming the sector fighting in AI mode... that fleet hunts everything
At the end of the day, the guy with that fleet had a lot of fun and satisfaction winning all the battles and killing all the people following your "new meta"
And tomorrow every player will build that fleet and this will be the new meta....... and the fun is over....
Ok this fleet gets an reptime reduction from 1d 20h to 20h .... but in which case is 20h per fleet a reptime reduction for an average player?
Now i can know you are totally dumb. Vc need rebalancing? Ok but not in this direction. You guys really want erase the unique character of ship. For example low level fleets, destiny cruiser now become totally garbage. Its strog point is agility but you erase. And for higher level fleets like zeal and dread, you make their identity lost. If you want real rebalance you must make zeal faster and dread slower, not make them same.
Dumb game manager make players left.
Currently, speed is pretty much the most important stat. In fact it's nearly the sole defining victory condition in a majority of battles. What Paul means is by removing this as the sole defining factor, the other stats come into play more.
"Participant in the Jova Crusades; the winning side"
"I hate cargo fleets. What else do you want me to say"
"I attacked you because you stole my piece of cheesecake with cherry toppings."
"The government has ordered me to harvest this farm. Please be patient as your base is harvested."
IGN: MasonD
~Condolences to all who share a similar name - there can only be one.
Can you give us an idea of how this impacts the current meta? Can we still kite Vega with dread rag fleets?
You've said the rebalancing is about making the playing field for PVP more even. So I hope you don't mind letting us know about this for PVE.
I'm one of the coveted mobile players by the way. If it's not top-tier farming or supply runs then I want to be able to auto any farming I have to do that's because manual and mobile just doesn't work very well for precise movements.
Sure it stinks when you're manual flying in mobile and you lose against another player but it's pretty crappy when you lose in farming because you've made the game in a lot of ways about farming.
Unless you add rewards for PVP and up rewards given for PVE I don't see this attracting mobile players.
Thank you for your replies, you have an unenviable job in dealing with a multitude of sometimes semi-literate, angry players, and you do an excellent job in dealing with us. I appreciate your diligence in going to the top to get answers for us.
However, based on what is currently a 90% thumbs-down ratio for your first post, I don't think I'm alone when I say that Mr. Preece's comments pegged my bull-****-o-meter. Mr. Preece, I hope you have a contingency plan for when this change drives off your existing, paying players and does NOT improve player retention over its current low level, because the feedback you've been getting so far suggests that that is exactly what will happen. I realize that, if worst comes to worst, shutting the game down is an option, but I hope there are other fallback cases before it comes to that.
I am a software engineer who is not a game coder, and a veteran player and sometimes subscriber of Eve Online, World of Warcraft, Starcraft 1 and 2, and many other games, and I am a potential customer. I started playing vega conflict in december. I found that the instant-repair genesis cruiser and rancor battleship fleets were critical to my ability to level up, and without them my new player experience would probably have resulted in me quitting the game. These fleets are no longer instant repair and this suggests to me that your "great grand rebalance" will be harmful to your new player retention. Further, you've alienated the majority of your community.
I wish you the best of luck. I intend to continue playing next month while the players adjust to the new game, and I anticipate a second wave of "great grand rebalancing" changes in the next three to six months that are very nearly as extreme and disruptive as this set while you sort things out.
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So what happens when I take my god awful slow revs, fight a bunch of cutters and demolish them?
What about when I take my rear-4, 6.5 hour rep taipans [lvl 47] with a speed of 500, fight a level 52 komodo fleet and win?
Yes - speed matters for some fights, but it did not need to be harmonized across the ships in a class. the bigger determinant of wins isn't just speed its....
Sad fact of reality, if you see people upset and complaining, chances are they spent money and are comfortable with the system. You seem to have this idealistic world built where you run around killing everything because we all just don't like repair times. But don't worry, I do have a couple of level 35 glass cannons you can come kill. They are instant repair and run many long range weapons to deal direct damage. I will love to kill you useless coin spam with armies of insects line up in sector as you spend this game into profitability.
Oh wait, the coiners cried about Harriers killing end game fleets. So will you.
"Participant in the Jova Crusades; the winning side"
"I hate cargo fleets. What else do you want me to say"
"I attacked you because you stole my piece of cheesecake with cherry toppings."
"The government has ordered me to harvest this farm. Please be patient as your base is harvested."
IGN: MasonD
~Condolences to all who share a similar name - there can only be one.
Refitting should be enabled free for 1 week long after this update goes live else forums are going to blow up in rage.
Don't say I did not warn you.
Were you not on these forums since Friday? They already blew up in a rage. honestly, unless kix says they are going to delete everybody's ships, I am not sure how they can blow up in much more of a rage
I no longer care about free-refits. That is nothing compared to the garbage of the "all ships of a class move the same" now. Sure, at the start of part 1, I was really pissed and wanted free refits. Now, that is trivial in comparison.
The hull repair change will significantly shift the meta of ship design towards lower armor, high damage ships. As it does ship repair times will fall. We are planning on providing some assistance to players to help them adjust their equipment to the new meta.
In the examples linked to above many of the ships have traded weaponry for armor and shields, which is the current meta. Those ships should now downgrade their shields and armor and take more weapons. As they do their repair times will drop. We will be monitoring builds to make sure this happens.
Note, the ISC / Cruiser Armor bonus is ‘repair free’. An ISC ship with a 30% Armor bonus is not charged repair for the additional armor points.
Dear Founder,
Would you explain why players will use less armor now? Hence lower repairs time?
Ship 1 1000 health, 2000 shields
Ship 2 4000 health, 2000 shields
Both ships are hit by 1800 DSP and incur in 180 health damage
Ship 1 repair time is 540 seconds...
Ship 2 repair time is 270 seconds...
I comment no further!
Firstly thank you @CM LXC for putting the questions together and posting the responses - even if we dislike or disagree with those.
The catch-22 is wanting to change the game so that it either attracts more new players, or keeps those new players playing, at the risk of alienating the existing established regular players. But for all the changes discussed in the rebalance threads, I don't see anything there that will attract more players, or keep new players playing. If you want to do that you need to look at what stops them playing.
It failed to be fun. It failed to be engaging day after day.
In the early stages of the game there is lots to do, and it can be done quickly. Ship builds take minutes and repairs almost instant. Research and base upgrades are simple and achievable in a short time frame. As you progress so do the build, research and upgrade times, but at some point in mid-game you realise just how long it is going to take to build those top level fleets you see others with.
14 days for a Ragnarok, 12 days for a Dread, and plenty of other top tier ship builds that take 10+ days. 1 ship alone is no use, you need a fleet near the weight limit and are then easily looking at 50+ days or 7+ weeks to build a fleet.
How is that engaging day after day? you login, see your ship is 1 day closer to completion, but still more than a week away. Your new complete fleet more than a month away - that is when you look for another game to play to avoid getting bored - if that is fun and engaging like early VC they forget about this and don't come back.
This rebalance triggers a similar reality check for existing players. There are plenty of more experienced players than me with more ships - I have 200+ ships most at max mk upgrades. Potentially how many weeks of refits am I looking at now to reconfigure to the new meta and really be no further forward than now? Is that what you consider to be engaging day after day?
Many mobile players that you hope to attract and keep are used to such Freemium models, but when faced with such a massive time obstacle are more likely to wander off and find another game that will engage them. Why come back to Vega when I can do just a few clicks in a day or week and not really have any progress to show for it?
When I finally have that high level fleet, then repair times really kick in. How frustrating is it to launch a L50+ fleet, misclick in combat and have multiple ships destroyed? Dock the fleet for repairs, and that is it done for the day. 5 minutes of combat - 1 fight with another player or vega, then overnight repairs. Login the next morning to do no more than start repairs on a second fleet. Not really fun or engaging.
While the rebalance wants to focus more on PvP, and change the focus of builds, I don't see how it addresses the issues above or how it will be more likely to attract and retain players when the huge time hurdles remain as they are.
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If you have a concern I didn't address make it here. I can only promise you an answer, I cannot promise you'll like it.
Diversity != complexity, which is what Paul is trying to say. By eliminating the difference between the base speed of hulls, things like the fitout and mark become more important. With more stats meaningfully contributing to the outcome of the battle, instead of just speed, you get greater control over the battle.
And gives virtually no incentive to build other hulls apart from Rebel hulls since they all run the same speed and take longer to build. Apart from a little bit more mass. Mass is not the incentive i am looking for.
LXC, once again cherry-picking the useless/easy questions and ignoring all of the RELEVANT issues at hand.
Your care-factor is at Zero LXC, same as the rest of Kixeye.
Hope you guys are prepared for the "Grand Exodus of the Void". Because that is all that you will be left with, a Void where once this game was.