During the last event, there were so many players in sector farming for points. Looking at the sector view now, looks like about ten. Same time of day too. GJ Kix!
Over the last few days, I've been collecting and collating some of your responses to the great rebalance. I promised an explanation from the person in charge of these changes, and here it is. I've rephrased the questions somewhat, but I feel it keeps the original spirit.
For those of you who don't know who he is, Paul Preece is one of the original founders of KIXEYE, and original creator of Battle Pirates.
Blue is me, Orange is Paul.
What is the point of this change?
To find the reason for the changes we have to go back in time, to when VC was first created. When KIXEYE first imagined VC it was as a space themed version of a PC game we had previously created called Battle Pirates. It’s not in our DNA to simply clone games, even one of our own, so we purpose built VC from the ground up as a true PC space game. In the process creating a bunch of new features such as combat strafing, hull classes, weapon arcs, planets, moving PvE fleets, interception, wormholes, shields, mines, asteroids and factions. As is often the case when creating new things, some of them work well, some… not so well. We’ll come back to the not-so-well bit in a minute.
At the same time as we were launching VC on PC, games were exploding onto a different device entirely: the phone. As VC was our latest and greatest game we decided to create a mobile version of it as our first proper excursion onto the mobile platform. We also decided that the mobile version of VC was not going to be a different game, dumbed down for mobile players, it was (and is) the exact same game as the PC version. Mobile players coexisting and competing with PC players in the same universe. Which is pretty cool and, as far as I’m aware, unique among realtime MMO games.
Mobile has since gone on to become the largest platform for VC. However, designing and supporting an identical game across platforms that are so different in size, power and accessibility is not without its tradeoffs. Some aspects of the original PC game work well on mobile, some not so much.
And this is where we catch up to today, or rather five months ago, when KIXEYE started to put some serious thought into addressing the areas of VC that were not working well.
To you, the long time players, the game feels good as it is. It doesn’t feel broken or badly out of shape. You like playing the game - if you didn’t you wouldn’t have continued playing it month after month. And yet here am I saying it needs fixing. Well... we’re both right. As it turns out, you guys (and gals) are pretty unique. 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.
We do not want you thinking that you are not important to us. Long time players are the lifeblood of the game. In many ways you are the game. However for VC to grow and entertain a new generation of players it must change and adapt. Ultimately we feel the result is worth the effort.
Paul Preece
Founder, KIXEYE
Who in the dev team came up with this? They should be fired/stabbed/[Insert terrible thing here]:
That would be me. As a huge fan of VC I want to see the game reach the highs I know it can. I returned to the game as Creative Director back in August, and while the current situation is definitely a low point, the features the team are currently working on are some of the most exciting I’ve seen in any of our games.
You’re removing the ships individuality/variety:
We’re putting together another post to address this in more detail and with more data.
You’re dumbing down the game, I like complexity.
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.
You’re only doing this for the money:
This specific set of changes will most likely lose us money in the short term. We know we’ve lost the confidence of players by moving the goalposts and it will take time to rebuild it. 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. To just rip the band-aid off. More disruptive in the short term but it sets us up to be more consistent in the longer term. One of our key goals for the future is to increase the longevity of ship builds across all classes. It is vital to the health of the game that ships have long, useful lives.
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.
Paul is currently asleep, (and I'll be off shortly), but please leave your comments and questions below, and either he or I will get to them when we can. We read everything, so don't just link your previous forum thread. Remember that this is my bosses bosses boss, so keep it on topic and constructive.
Kixeye says switch to Steam...ok i did & now i think ill use it to find another space game to play Games Workshop Battle Fleet Gothic looks promising. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Kixeye & thanks for pushing me to your competion.
I think all the empty sectors are speaking volumes.
It was actually funny, seeing all the low level players coming out to farm. Before we could kill them they couldnt launch their fleets in anycase. Then came this riot....HAHA,now ive never seen so little activity during a riot...ever
My old voyager corvettes are no longer insta rep and my "insta gens" are now 2 hour rep.
It's hard as hell to get anything insta rep to auto effectively, maybe if I had farmed better blueprints... maybe if I had not thought "Oh, it's ok, I have managable farming fleets that can insta rep and I can play at my own pace to unlock things and slowly make my way up the chain"... well I couldn't, and now, in my mad scramble to figure out a solid auto farm fleet, I have lost all my resources and coins on refits and repairs and only have the vaugest ideas on how to get a fleet that can autofarm 23-27 even. Nothing I have is effective against 30+ anymore due to the insane rep times that happen as a result. What's more, now that I've accidently screwed myself out of resources, I can't afford to repair my heavier fleets and my "auto" fleets at lower levels can barely sustain themselves anymore much less make a bit of profit. The entire rep time idea thus far has been a complete disaster to the point where I'm sliding backwards in my effective farming range to the point where the resources I'm bringing in barely covers the cost of repair.
This truly is the death of the auto fleet and the death of player progression at a reasonable pace in this game. My only hope is that the speed buffs of lower level ships will make things more bearable when they finally come into effect. Until then, I'm going to probably be inactive for a while, maybe flail around a little with crappy refit ships in some vain attempt to make a decent auto fleet.
Then came this riot....HAHA,now ive never seen so little activity during a riot...ever
I said that when first part of rebalance was released. Everyone who have brain saw it coming. I have 2 accounts and i still can do the riot but i really dont see any point.
Kixeye. It will be only your problem if you loose this game. We can find new one with easy. And only you can lost your money, players ans business. Go on! Let's this idiots become bankrupts...
the cms and cs guys don't have anything to say because they know we are right and their boss made them all look like morons last night....he seriously has no idea what he is doing...
A quick scan across the sectors it appears hardly anyone is out there playing the game or doing the Riot. I am experiencing server connections time outs every hour, internet is just fine :15Mbs.
From Pauls interview with Earth it appears Kix is nerfing our ships and bases so they can offer us more content in future events for us to farm/coin and upgrade. We are killing everything already with our Mk5 fleets taking no repairs and thats obviously is no good to Kix and they hardly want all the players to have mk5 fleets so they nerf the farm fleets drop rate too...
So we either coin mk5 upgrades or farm forever...
They can decided to undo our hard work just like that... and force us to fly paper fleets that will die fast and repair even faster...
Well after posting about this rebalance lol a few times i have finally come to the conclusion its not as bad as it seems for the following reasons
1 i will have every weekend free
2 the introduction to steam has opened up a lot of games i as a novice gamer would never of heard of
3 the post about the third part of the rebalance came just as i put £100 into my steam wallet to buy a upgrade pack when kixeye released one
4 that said £100 is now in the hands of a couple of the above mentioned new games and not in kixeye coins
so thanks kixeye for the ride i enjoyed it right up until this point but now is time to let the new guys have a shot at feeling as stupid as i did for investing in a game with both time and money only to have it snatched away to this shambles
Well done Kixeye, in the almost 4 years I have been playing this game I have NEVER seen the sectors so empty during an event. You have claimed you were focusing on new players coming in (whilst pretending to care about veterans). At time of this post there are;
55,065 Players Online
This used to be 100k players then 90k, then 80k do you see a pattern emerging in your spreadsheets ?
You have systematically ruined the game for new players whilst thinking you are ruining it for the veterans !! Whilst doing this you have forgotten who TEACHES the new players how to play, get's them involved socially and KEEPS them in game. Every player in the game know's you are doing it all wrong, only pig headed stupidity is stopping common sense from working.
Well done Kixeye, in the almost 4 years I have been playing this game I have NEVER seen the sectors so empty during an event. You have claimed you were focusing on new players coming in (whilst pretending to care about veterans). At time of this post there are;
55,065 Players Online
This used to be 100k players then 90k, then 80k do you see a pattern emerging in your spreadsheets ?
You have systematically ruined the game for new players whilst thinking you are ruining it for the veterans !! Whilst doing this you have forgotten who TEACHES the new players how to play, get's them involved socially and KEEPS them in game. Every player in the game know's you are doing it all wrong, only pig headed stupidity is stopping common sense from working.
It's a sad time for vega........
#thepurge
The only GOOD thing about them doing this 2 phased, inconsistent rollout [where they didn't even disclose what features would be in what update] is everybody has pretty much stopped playing - across ALL LEVELS. it is sending a great message.
I only log in to build and chat with friends. I haven't fight a single fight in 36 hours and don't plan to until this is all settled
after watching the show this Paul talks crap it is now quicker to build a new instant gen than
to repair it never trust any one who can not look at the camera and
those are the ships new players start with inst ranc fleet instead of 13
to 20 mins repair per vega 35 is now 1hr 13 mins kix really know how
to be greedy they did the same to battle pirates and war commander vega
conflict was one of the best games out there but not no more kixeyes
greed and bad management has now killed this game as well
Wtf man. What is wrong with taking zero damage in battle if we have skill and ships?
He is completely out of touch of the game.
It was actually funny, seeing all the low level players coming out to farm.
Before we could kill them they couldnt launch their fleets in anycase.
Then came this riot....HAHA,now ive never seen so little activity during a riot...ever
My old voyager corvettes are no longer insta rep and my "insta gens" are now 2 hour rep.
It's hard as hell to get anything insta rep to auto effectively, maybe if I had farmed better blueprints... maybe if I had not thought "Oh, it's ok, I have managable farming fleets that can insta rep and I can play at my own pace to unlock things and slowly make my way up the chain"... well I couldn't, and now, in my mad scramble to figure out a solid auto farm fleet, I have lost all my resources and coins on refits and repairs and only have the vaugest ideas on how to get a fleet that can autofarm 23-27 even. Nothing I have is effective against 30+ anymore due to the insane rep times that happen as a result. What's more, now that I've accidently screwed myself out of resources, I can't afford to repair my heavier fleets and my "auto" fleets at lower levels can barely sustain themselves anymore much less make a bit of profit. The entire rep time idea thus far has been a complete disaster to the point where I'm sliding backwards in my effective farming range to the point where the resources I'm bringing in barely covers the cost of repair.
This truly is the death of the auto fleet and the death of player progression at a reasonable pace in this game. My only hope is that the speed buffs of lower level ships will make things more bearable when they finally come into effect. Until then, I'm going to probably be inactive for a while, maybe flail around a little with crappy refit ships in some vain attempt to make a decent auto fleet.
I said that when first part of rebalance was released. Everyone who have brain saw it coming. I have 2 accounts and i still can do the riot but i really dont see any point.
10th to 14th of March
Screw the players.
17th to 21st of March
Ignore player complaints.
24th to 28th of March
Screw the players some more.
Stop all servers of the game.
This is a song just for you Paul.
Come on everybody... sing along...
Shut your **** face, uncle ****
You´re a ****, ****-liking, uncle ****
You´re an uncle ****, yes it´s true
Shut your **** face, uncle ****
You´re the one that **** your uncle uncle ****
You don´t even sleep or mow the lawn
You **** your uncle all day long
(what´s going on in here?)
Shut you´re **** face, uncle ****
You´re a **** bitting bastard, uncle ****
You´re an uncle ****, i must say
You **** your uncle yesterday!
Uncle ****, that´s u-n-c-l-e, **** you!
Uncle ****!
Suck my balls!
#26 - SMITH & WESSON BICYCLES,
#25 - COSMOPOLITIAN YOGURT,
#24 - MICROSOFT WEB TV
#23 - LIFESAVERS SODA,
#22 - CAROL'S TOUCH OF YOGURT SHAMPOO
#21 - COOR'S ROCKY MOUNTAIN SPRING WATER
#20 - COCAINE ENERGY DRINK
#19 - EARRING MAGIC KEN
#18 - COLGATE KITCHEN ENTREES,
#17 - APPLE NEWTON,
#16 - DELOREAN CAR,
#15 - KELLOGG'S BREAKFAST MATES,
#14 - CRYSTAL PEPSI AND PEPSI A.M.,
#13 - FRITO-LAY LEMON AIDE
#12 - BOTTLED WATER FOR PETS
#11 - BIC UNDERWEAR
#10 - CORFAM FAKE LEATHER
#9 - HARLEY DAVIDSON PERFUME
#8 - BEN-GAY ASPRIN
#7 - MAXWELL HOUSE READY TO DRINK COFFEE
#6 - RJ REYNOLDS SMOKELESS CIGARETTES
#5 - MCDONALDS ARCH DELUX
#4 - SONY BETAMAX
#3 - FORD EDSEL
#2 - NEW COKE
#1 -
the great grand rebalance of Vega Conflict
I am experiencing server connections time outs every hour, internet is just fine :15Mbs.
From Pauls interview with Earth it appears Kix is nerfing our ships and bases so they can offer us more content in future events for us to farm/coin and upgrade. We are killing everything already with our Mk5 fleets taking no repairs and thats obviously is no good to Kix and they hardly want all the players to have mk5 fleets so they nerf the farm fleets drop rate too...
So we either coin mk5 upgrades or farm forever...
They can decided to undo our hard work just like that... and force us to fly paper fleets that will die fast and repair even faster...
Well after posting about this rebalance lol a few times i have finally come to the conclusion its not as bad as it seems for the following reasons
1 i will have every weekend free
2 the introduction to steam has opened up a lot of games i as a novice gamer would never of heard of
3 the post about the third part of the rebalance came just as i put £100 into my steam wallet to buy a upgrade pack when kixeye released one
4 that said £100 is now in the hands of a couple of the above mentioned new games and not in kixeye coins
so thanks kixeye for the ride i enjoyed it right up until this point but now is time to let the new guys have a shot at feeling as stupid as i did for investing in a game with both time and money only to have it snatched away to this shambles
55,065 Players Online
This used to be 100k players then 90k, then 80k do you see a pattern emerging in your spreadsheets ?
You have systematically ruined the game for new players whilst thinking you are ruining it for the veterans !! Whilst doing this you have forgotten who TEACHES the new players how to play, get's them involved socially and KEEPS them in game. Every player in the game know's you are doing it all wrong, only pig headed stupidity is stopping common sense from working.
It's a sad time for vega........
#thepurge
The only GOOD thing about them doing this 2 phased, inconsistent rollout [where they didn't even disclose what features would be in what update] is everybody has pretty much stopped playing - across ALL LEVELS. it is sending a great message.
I only log in to build and chat with friends. I haven't fight a single fight in 36 hours and don't plan to until this is all settled