HELP!!!! im butthurt...Please give me a minute to think up a good excuse as to why.. Oh nope...never mind i found my car keys....(just figured i should find something to complain about.) Carry on and have a nice day.
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.
Let's talk about finances. In the instant short term, i.e., the next 3 weeks, yes this is going to cost you money. People are really pissed! However, in the short term, i.e., next few months, this is probably going to make you MORE money short term. Why?
1. Angry players will still stop coining. Your players that drop $50 to$100 once or twice a year may never coin again.
2. Mega Rich players [ie those folks who flight script to get 7 gold fleets and put them all out on auto] will go on a coin binge to do the same with ISC hulls. These are the players that spend thousands a year - your whales. These may drive short-term ISC related revenue, which then tapers off once they have gold fleets again.
I think short term, item 2 offsets item 1. But in the long run, item 1 offsets item 2.
The real question in my mind is, does that make you more money over the long term? Our alliance has already physically lost hard-coining players. As in, they dropped tag and quit after being in our alliance for a year+. I don't think the community is going to forgot this; the number of changes that drove forced obselescence are so high; not just massive speed nerfs, but also the re-massing and huge armor buffs to ISC. After running non-stop coin deals for MK upgrades, this was a total bait-n-switch. I think you will lose a lot of medium draw [$100 to 200/yr] coiner customers.
Money Making Solution
If you ever want to earn trust back and continue to harvest most of the veteran player base, I think you need to extend a speed-related olive branch. Here's an example - introduce VEGA and VSEC only thrusters, only through the BM!
1. Make thrusters with the same mass of R5, Fus3, but for VEGA and VSEC only with better stats [i.e., more forward, etc]
2. By putting in the BM only, supply is limited, and this drives a purpose for BA missions again
3. People will coin the hell out of these, and drive a continuous source of revenue for a long time
4. While people will be mad about this, as it would be viewed as nickel/diming, the reality is they would prefer this to, say, nothing
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.
So what your saying repeatedly is months.... Id wager a bet that 90% of us speaking against this change are a mix of beta and 3+ year players. We have proven to be a loyal fan base even in your flawed releases. I can apprecoate the desire to grow, adapt. And over come change.... But when you have such a large scale saying your wrong.... Then you probably are. Personally if it is the new gen that your after, why not simply start them in a single sector to learn the game, and when the hit say level 30 intro them to relocation? I dont know i have a ton of ideas or thoughts but in the end i know this is your pony show not mine.
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win
I only play on mobile and adapted well to the game either with my phone or iPad. I don't want any of these changes. If I were to play today with these new changes I know I wouldn't keep at because it's becoming so dumbed down. Additionally if I was a new player and saw how you screwed over the old base of players I would walk away from this game quickly.
Mobile needs changes to fleet control and the ability to see fleet weapon ranges more easily. It doesn't need all the cool and fun ships to be nerfed because some 8 year old is too busy to play for more than a few minutes.
Reading this does show that a cool game I like is now garbage and will be pushed to the wayside. Thanks for nothing.
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
I am appalled by the blatant admission of Mr Preece. So the major reason of the change is that you squeezed endgamers from their money, you cannot catch newcomers cause in their right mind refuse to act like suckers and pay, and you lvl the field by chocking out endgamers to create a new player base. So if the game last another 2-3 years (I highly doubt that, but anyway stuypidity is in abundance), you will rebalance the game again to get rid of the then endgamers for more suckers to be drawn.
Mr Preece is a smart guy, but a smart guy doesn't know much about the legal aspects, I strongly recommend you guys check out the legal stuff of this business ethics, you might find out that aside civil action, penal action could also apply, and if in civil actions money is the penalty, penal actions result in time spent behind bars...
Over and out. Who ever continues to play Kixeye games is a royal moron that deserves to be ripped off. A fool parts from his money real fast anyway!
Thru all this none of the other concerns me and others have raised has been answered with how the game is broken
1. Blackmarket... This is now just pointless and a pure money grab with NO real use,great idea. badly implemented,ruined even more 2. Alliance features. So many good ideas given about how to make this better,all have been ignored,not to mention the amount of frustration it brings 3. Farming vs pvp. I dont see how any of these changes will make the game more pvp orientated? Were farming like idiots out there,weve been farming like idiots now for so long and to get all that thrown back at us with,hey all those hundreds of fleets killed to make mk 5 ships,well sorry,have a torn of band aid. o wait,new ics hull mk upgrades coming....more farming 4. Fun events. Well thats not happening,makes it even less fun when difficulty goes up mid event... 5. Game balance.... Say what,isnt this whole thing about game balance,but wait,now the whole game is gona re balance with ICS hulls being the new meta,how is that game balance?
So there is 5 simple points,the game feels broken and now it just feels more generic with other hulls being the new in thing and were all left with broken fleets and broken promises.
I wouldn't be surprised if the next thing was to remove control during battle and let the ai do it as it makes it more compatible and fair for all players
"Mobile has since gone on to become the largest platform for VC."
The reason VC has gone on to become the largest platform for VC is because the mobile market is a larger market than PC. Coupled with the decline of unity support across all major web browsers. This does not however say that VC is a better gaming experience on mobile than PC, simply more people use mobile over PC.
"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"
This is through dumbing down the game in an attempt to keep the experience across all devices the same. Cleary it is harder to fly ships on a mobile device than on a PC and as a result good flying and skill has been eroded from the game and been turned into a blitz battle of 2 players just shooting against each other both taking large amounts of damage which has the knock on effect of potentially generating more revenue for you.
"To you, the long time players, the game feels good as it is. It doesn’t feel broken or badly out of shape."
Yes, it does feel broken. There are many areas that we have been asking to be fixed for months/years. I am sure LXC can provide you with a list of things we have asked to be fixed or implemented in to the game. We simply have no choice but to lump it.
"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"
I would love to see some market research that you did on this. I can't remember doing any surveys and I never heard anyone else doing one either
"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."
We do not think we are not important. We know we are not important by your responses to us, either on the forums or your customer support throwing auto response templates at us or giving us the standing joke of vega support to reboot our modems, when half the sector just dropped from the server and we just got 18 hours of repair time dropping from a battle. Or telling the guys on £2000 computers that their specifications are too low to play VC on pc
"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."
Why over time? Why can you not simply wait until you finish making the game before you piecemeal push incremental updates on us and force us to waste our time. By standardisng ship speeds you make it much easier to fly on mobiles, but you take so much variety and skill from the game you are not putting that back in anywhere
Now for some feedback, not relating to your Q&A
The game consists of 4 factions. Rebel, Vega, V-Sec and ISC. 3 of them were released on crafting with ISC held back. For several months you sold and advertised the V-Sec ships as the best in VC. Offering crafing packages to players. ISC ships were released with poor stats and were not very good. ISC ships have been altered to be the best in VC. Suddenly receiving ship buffs to make them the ship everyone will want. You will now try and sell us crafting packages for these ships and devalue all the ships we currently have. Clearly this is aimed at bringing in business so you have something to sell to us. Altering the goal posts considerably. Leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the VC community. You should have released 4 factions at the same time so we knew what the best was and aimed for it. We have zero trust in you guys now as we can aim for mk5 ISC ships only to find they are moved to second rate ships. First we saw it with raptures, then again with mk5 v-sec. Who is to say ISC mk 5 wont get the same treatment. What can we expect to see and how will players be compensated for this treatment?
With the change of ship speeds to be all the same within a class of ship i.e cruisers you are completely removing a part of the game many players love. You are also destroying the individuality of the ships and make many of them redundant. No one would ever want to build a destiny, and everyone will be making ISC ships. Nothing differentiates ships now other than mass and on occasion a few ship modifiers. How will you be addressing this major loss of appeal in VC?
We have seen a complete removal of "kiting" in the game, good flying in favor of energy based blitz battles with carriers. How are you planning on bringing and rewarding good flying back into VC? With the increase in fleet mass and the reworking of the repair time system. Repair times have gone up considerably. Even though you claim it not to be the case. It has. And by quite some margin. Are you planning on just pushing this update onto us and forcing us to pay more or can we expect to see a rework of the reworked system to bring the repair times down to acceptable levels
Also, from my viewpoint I would like to see ship speeds remain in vega as they are, adding skill and variety to the game. I am not thrilled about the other changes that are in this next update. The speed change is the main one that kills the game for me, and from what I have read many other people
Neil Partridge
no one important, Vega Conflict Player
The problem with this game is the power curves. Just look at the graphs I made. Said no vega conflict player ever
I don't have your data or trend reports. My only perspective is from being a long term PC gamer. I know why my friends have left over the years and its not been for the vauge explaination you have just released. The false promises, deadend content, constant reboots, stalled content, bans for kixeye made loopholes and exploits, repeitive gameplay and total disregard to the player base advice are the main reasons. After all this, those that have kept the faith and hoped you'd finally pull your act together and move the gameplay on, bring in new features and build on a core that has been and is a great game at its heart. The fact is that you race to level 35-48, researching, farming, fighting other noobs, having great fun & meeting new friends. Good job kixeye... You put that into the game from day one which was what made it so good. But then what? Everything passed this point is player driven, with little or no encouragement. This game has an amazing player community that as a life of its own. The best moments have always been player driven. Wars have been grown, organised and fought without you taking an ounce of interest. In my opinion, this free style, player driven content was destroyed the moment you brought in Mk Upgrades. We used to farm a little, fight alot. This from my perspective has vanished. I have no idea how mid level players progress now. I find it impossibly boring just farming Cores & Patterns nevermind Vega/VSec blueprints. You seem to want to constantly slow progression rather than give more to do. Is this all the game can be? Are we at the limits of the game? We were told that the switch to Unity would offer the game growth and features that Flash couldn't. None of that has been realised. Events are the same as the first, fundmentally. Base attacks in events are a novel joke. Prizes are too freqent to the point that I have hulls I have never built and weapons I have never tried. This is not the type of content we want or ask for. As you advance in most games, micro management is reduced to let you focus on new things. Auto fleets help with this in vega and if I'm not mistaken these are going to be a thing of the past with this update. All the research, testing and refitting, in the past let you use your limited time doing fun things for PC users but mobile users need them more than we do. All of this is backed by facebook discussions, advice and general fight talk, clan websites not to mention days of you tube videos, all of which are going to be worthless and out of date after the update. We will all be back to zero, just as much as if you had reset the game on us back to Lvl 1??? All of this might be nessesary and might make a better long term game. Few of us have any confidence in that. The way Kixeye have approached this shows all the mistakes you have made with the player community in the past. I understand that we will get a free refit if our ships are over weight... I have no clue how many this will effect. Every ship should be given one free refit as this update effects every aspect of every ship. How long will it take me to get back using each fleet?? Weeks, months?? I have no idea and you are doing nothing to elevate my fears. You were given tons of input on how to encourage pvp before this was announced and you ignored every single point. As with every other time the community has asked you to take action, you have repeatedly solved it by going too far or totally left field to the point that the original request is obliterated. Harrier spam being a perfect example. We asked for repair time to be added to one hull to allow gameplay to flow and you go and change the entire frigate class and kill it from the game and you've done it on an even bigger scale this time. Looking back on the games I've spent the most money on over the years, they haven't been games that kept resetting and altering the basics. They have been ones that have rewarded my progress and kept my interest and treat the player base with respect. Right now, I feel cheated, as do many other vega players, long and short term. Do the right thing and if not rethink this update then atleast have the "ripping off the band aid" be followed by a big fat lolly pop. Let us refit all our ships so we can get back to business as soon as possible and stop tinkering with stuff that works and finish stuff you started (Medals, Alliances, Black Market). But most of all make a plan and stick to it!
I don't have much to add that hasn't been said already. I will keep it simple.
ALL individual ships deserve one free instant refit due to the reset (not rebalance). Otherwise the refitting will take months and that Kix is just not fair or good business.
I find most of the changes pretty reasonable, but there are some things that I hate about the upcoming changes: 1. ISC ships are getting a unique bonus from the start (armor bonus) while all the other factions don't get any bonuses. 2. The crafting system is very messy, chaotic and irritating. Hulls get different amounts and types of buffs, some buffs apply to two different classes, there is no damage buff against frigates and destroyers etc. 3. High level armor has the same repair time per armor than low level armor. Everything but zynithium will become obsolete. 4. The speed normalization is too radical. Some ships rely on their speed advantage and are useless without it or not worth the effort to build anymore. I have the feeling that there is no point in getting VEGA or VSec hulls anymore, because their only difference to Rebel hulls is the mass. But this difference is not worth investing time into hunting blueprints or completing riots. I will just skip them and go straight for the ISC ships because getting them needs exactly the same effort. And this (similar to point 3) will destroy the diversity in ship builds instead of encouraging it.
The solution for 1, 2, and 4 could be the following system for crafting: Now every class and every faction has their own unique bonuses which are all balanced pretty well I think. Every class gets exactly 3 buffs and none of them apply to two different classes at the same time. Also every faction gets their own advantage. Speed lovers can stay with VSec hulls, dreads will still be powerful despite their lowered mass and so on.
At the one hand there is progression from Rebel to ISC with the upcoming mass changes, but on the other hand players will have a reason to invest additional time and get the hulls in between that progression line because of the faction buffs.
This definitely needs testing before it can be implemented, but as a basic idea this should really be looked at!
For number 3 I had another Idea which would need more explanation than I want to give here. If you are interested you can read my thoughts on this here: https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/617167
Guys i hate to break it to you all but this is exactly and i mean exactly what happened in battle pirates they are following the same template right down to the increase in events and tech and the frequency they arrive,they are screwing Vega exactly as they did in BP the game that came prior to this.. just ask about look it up.. same rubbish and poor ethics just their next venture ..
To completely dispel the verbal manure spewed in the first post here is some data I find interesting in relation to"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".
I give you the auto-ranc farm fleet stats:-
Old stats:-
Repair Time
54m 40s
Health
3742
Shields
11771
New stats:- Repair time: 15, 513 seconds =4h 18m 33s
Guys i hate to break it to you all but this is exactly and i mean exactly what happened in battle pirates they are following the same template right down to the increase in events and tech and the frequency they arrive,they are screwing Vega exactly as they did in BP the game that came prior to this.. just ask about look it up.. same rubbish and poor ethics just their next venture ..
I dont play that game, did the same changes made the player experience better? new players? is it fun? can we expect the same in VC?
I simply can't wrap my brain around the idea that a Genesis Cruiser can possess the same base forward velocity, strafe and turning rate as a high-end ship such as the Corinthian Cruiser. These stats should at the very least increase by each federation (i.e Rebel, VEGA, VSec and ISC). Despite the community's response to this particular change, if it's still put forward, are the enemy AI fleet's stats also reduced?
The changes to hull mass is another serious topic that many are uncomfortable with accepting. Many of us have more than one hundred ships that would need to be altered to fit this new change. If Kixeye decides to change the mechanics of the game, they should at least compensate their players to make it easier for them to adapt to these changes. I suggest a free refit for every single ship owned, regardless if it's overweight after the change or not (one time use per ship). This would also make some Black Market items useless as they cannot be removed and fitted on another vessel.
Please listen to the community and alter some of the statistics listed in the official post. We're starting to lose faith as our words are being lost in the void.
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.
Now lets talk about build diversity and complexity. At the highest level, only the frigate class is currently ignored. Battleships, cruisers, cutters, and destroyers all have a considerable purpose in the game.
In the new system, before the legacy speed variation was killed, frigates were going to make a comeback due to the ISC frigate with MK upgrades and the repair scheme. So if you wanted all hulls to be in play, you didn't need to kill speed variation.
Now, I mostly pilot cruisers and cutters, so I will speak to sub-class variation here, which is now dead.
Cutters
You currently have 3 optimized cutter styles;
Pythons: Mega fast in sector, for hunting down partially dead fleets. Very strong turn speed at the cost of forward speed. Ideal for brawling, anti cutter cutter and a rundown fleet
Komodo/Ghar: Great forward speed, terrible turning. battleship killing specialist.
Taipan: Strange blend between a python and a komodo with incredible build and repair time. In-between mobility with an in-between fitting layout of 3/3/2. This was the ultimate in fast rep [5hr or less] disposable spam fleets that could still fight against end-game fleets
In the new game, you have 1 cutter fleet. The Python. And the python cannot even do what it is currently so cool for now,
Cruisers
You have so many cruiser builds, I'll try to list them all. There are at least 9 viable cruiser builds today
Gladius kiter
Glad/net kiter
AP kiter
Echo kiter
Thermal brawler
Aurora Brawler
SICO brawler
Impulse brawler
Gemini brawler
Generally, you would use pocs/raptures for kiting, and revs for brawling.
In the new game, cruisers can't kite another cruiser now. Impulse brawlers cannot be kited by gladius/net ships anymore, even though they have less range. So, the new cruiser meta will move to high DPS brawlers only, when the community figures out how cruisers really work. Thus, you will have 3 viable cruiser builds:
Impulse brawler
SICO brawler
Aurora brawler
Since we are cutting our builds by 1/3, how is this supporting more diversity? The other hull types were already "in" the game, except for the frigate, which would be making a comeback regardless of the speed normalization.
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?
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.
@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 ???
So, why couldn't you just make V-Sec hulls the most powerful instead of iron star hulls? V-Sec hulls take longer, so they should be better!
Also, 21k Health MkV heretics is ridiculous. You can fit that, plus good weapons, on 6 ships in a fleet. They would smash EVERYTHING that isnt a destroyer, and they can just run from those.
There's no point in building anything other than Rebel and Iron star hulls now, because the only thing VEGA and V-sec hulls offer is higher mass and SLIGHTLY higher base HP (and a few other useless stats)
100% agree with this. Ive been telling everybody in my alliance this and pissing them off. The only hulls in the game you need are Rebel and ISC. Theres no point whatsoever right now for VEGA and VSEC. Which is why, giving them their speed edge, but a mass/armor disadvantage to ISC is a good idea. There will be a legitimate choice then.
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 do realise with this, that you are removing almost all incentives of trying to do Events/Riots/BP Hunting??? Why would i got and waste a weekend trying to get a Lance for example, when i can do the exact same thing with a Scythe or a Trident??? Extra Mass you might say??? Mass is not everything.
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.
See, once again, you still do not get it. Why build an Apoc over a Rev that takes almost twice as long to build??? Oh more Mass again you say??? Mass is once again, not everything. Once again no incentive to build one.
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.
I seriously doubt what you are proposing will be beneficial, whatever it may be. Unless it is you rescinding the speed nerf.
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.
And what do you mean by 'make sure this happens'??? Sounds rather ominous. Will you 'force' us to have our ships fitted the way you see fit???
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.
Yet another totally useless Q&A post, and i only call it a Q&A
post out of politeness. This just goes to show that Kixeye do not care
about us the players, our opinions, our objections.
I have never seen such an arrogant and rude community treatment like this.
The whole community tries to explain you, that this rebalance will
destroy the game and you ignore this completely. You introduced a new
carrier with increased speed in comparison to most of all ... and now
all should have the same speed ... i cant understand these decisions
!!!!
Fix your post dude -
You introduced a new carrier with increased speed and reduced its speed the very next day
I too don't really buy the explanations. There are other means to make this game more transitional/mid game player friendly.
Guys i hate to break it to you all but this is exactly and i mean exactly what happened in battle pirates they are following the same template right down to the increase in events and tech and the frequency they arrive,they are screwing Vega exactly as they did in BP the game that came prior to this.. just ask about look it up.. same rubbish and poor ethics just their next venture ..
I dont play that game, did the same changes made the player experience better? new players? is it fun? can we expect the same?
nope they destroyed the game in favor of a more coin generating business model and kept adding new resources at one point , for instance uranium was added which of course was rare and hard to obtain but could be brought, next came merc crews so actual crews you could attach to a fleet time limited for stat boosts, these also require coins if you want anything decent. the list goes on and i promise you its a long one, in short they milked every bit out of the BP community they could and now it looks like the old cash cow BP has run dry they need a new one enter Vega community the battle pirates MK2 in space they have been allowing to grow under a more favorable business model and now your invested boom here it comes been here before getting dejavu
@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 ???
So, why couldn't you just make V-Sec hulls the most powerful instead of iron star hulls? V-Sec hulls take longer, so they should be better!
Also, 21k Health MkV heretics is ridiculous. You can fit that, plus good weapons, on 6 ships in a fleet. They would smash EVERYTHING that isnt a destroyer, and they can just run from those.
There's no point in building anything other than Rebel and Iron star hulls now, because the only thing VEGA and V-sec hulls offer is higher mass and SLIGHTLY higher base HP (and a few other useless stats)
Vega and Vsec also offers higher build and repair times. Just saying.
"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.
Let me paraphrase my takeaway of Mr Preece's comments:
"We at KE absolutely need to chase Mobile to ensure future revenue streams.
The previous state of VC was developed for, tested by, and PAID FOR almost eniretly by PC users
It paid us enough to allow KE to build a mobile version of the game.
However, in order to attract and retain Mobile users, we have to simplify and dumb-down the previously rich game play. It was too complex for wee little screens and KE has a chronic inability to provide decent in-game help/tutorials combined with the inability to provide the mobile environment with a useful Forum experience.
So, I wish to thank the rich PC players for the funding to sustain VC to the point where we can now cater to Mobile Players to chase THEIR revenue stream. If you don't like the Mobile-focused 'New VC', please go away now!"
YES, I AM A BIT TICKED! I am not sure about MY future playing VC (Vanilla Coinfest)
BP ID: 1038 WC ID: 1476 VC ID: 18589 Tome ID: 3698
Hes pretty much blaming the mobile players in his post explaining why the rebalance is happening saying its to make it more mobile friendly i play on mobile and i like it just fine the way it is why not take the time to make the mobile app be able to use a mouse then the mobile players will have the same control over their ships as the pc guys do. He pretty much conterdiced himself when he said the changes short term will cost them kixeye money but in the long term its set up to make them a ton of money.
What will be the point of getting/using the following ships? Mass differences are not a big enough incentive, and you'll pretty much be throwing all of these types of ships that we built out the window. Weeks, and months of time WASTED because they're being insanely nerfed by the speed normalization,and/or in mass (fury/Dread)
Destiny Cruiser
Apocrypha Cruiser
Corinthian Cruiser
Fury Battleship
Dread Battleship
Zeal Battleship
Nighthawk Frigate
Eagle Frigate
Osprey Frigate
Trident Destroyer
Nexus Destroyer
Scythe Destroyer
Lance Destroyer
Taipan Cutter
Ghirial Cutter
Komodo Cutter
Midguard Carrier
Valhalla Carrier
Ragnarok Carrier
Valkyrie Carrier
Freyja Carrier
All these ships will pretty much be classified as useless, because their mass isn't the best, and they don't benefit over the ISC versions at all....along with the fact that carriers will no longer have the ability to outrun anything, therefore rendering then completely useless.
"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." This is entirely comparable to killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The people that stuck with you are the ones who pay in coins to stay. The same ones who pay for the crafting packages, coin spam fleets during the OP sector hours against carriers with massive range and health. Let's be honest, the new blood are the ones who utilized the scripts because they were too lazy or cheap to buy the packages. They had less to risk with their accounts. People who've been playing for years though...They either paid in time or money.
We ALL want new players. It's great to get more people to fight. Don't get me wrong. But you're not going to do that. You're going to make Vega more boring. Half of this game is grinding. Grind for BPs, Hundreds of hours just to hope to finish a set. Grind for events, 22+ hours now that the event store requires you to grind for an extra 525,000 points just to get the same amount of prizes you used to get before.
But changing the speeds isn't going to do that. That's going to backfire. Massively. Let me be clear, I've agreed with or understood EVERY other aspect of this change except that one. Even the stuff I don't like, I get and have yet to complain about. And I say that as a Man who loves his Dreadnarok.
Here's a question for you. A Genuine question about the future.
Where's my incentive to do events now? You've killed any interest in new hulls other than the aesthetics. "OH BOY. A NEW CRUISER. ALL IT ADDS IS MASS AND BUILD TIME. YAAAAAAAAAAY" "OH BOY. A NEW BATTLESHIP. 3000 MORE MASS AND 16 DAY BUILD TIME. YAAAAAAY!"
You missed something completely. There's no reason to do events now, when every ship you can possibly get will be the exact same thing as what you already have, just with a different skin.
Before, Everyone envied raptures for being the fastest and most versatile cruiser. Corinthians were similarly placed and were just as cool. Now, there's 500 extra mass and 500 more hit points. Oh, and two extra days build time.
The difference between Zeal and Dread is similar. 200 more mass, a bit more health and 5 extra days for zeals.
You're not making the game simpler. You're making the game boring. When every ship in a class has the same speed sets, it becomes more about how much I like the aesthetics of the ship and how many I want to stick in a fleet. If I wanted to do say...5 Battleships in a fleet, which am I going to pick? The Zeal that would take me 75 days and have a total combined extra mass of 1,000? Or the dreads that would take 50 and be just as overall effective in the new system?
Join the War rooms on Facebook. Come SEE how angry people are. And they're angry because it feels like this
"HOW DARE THAT PERSON WHO'S PLAYED FOR TWO YEARS HAVE A SHIP THAT'S FASTER THAN MINE!!! I KNOW I ONLY GOT REVS AND DIDN'T FARM FOR APOCS BUT STILL. CATER TO ME BECAUSE I'M LAZY AND DON'T DO EVENTS! RUIN THE EVENT PRIZES PEOPLE COINED AND FARMED THEIR **** FOR SO I STAND A CHANCE WITH JUST MY REBEL TECH!"
Vega, Vsec and ISC should all outshine Rebel hulls. But all you're doing is making Mediocrity acceptable and giving players a reason to be lazy. Why bother farming for Dreads, when a Fury can kill it? Why bother farming for Apocs when Revs can kill it?
Why bother playing Vega if you don't want the old players around?
I'm here to annoy people and chew bubblegum. And I'm all out of bubblegum.
Actually, we players know we're important to you. We're KIX's lifeblood. Free players play the game,giving it a player base. Whales fund KIX, but only to beat the free players. We got that part.
The question is whether KIX is important to us.
Screw us hard enough, there are other games who don't undo months of gaming and paying for the privilege of letting us pay again for what is being taken away on a whim.
There's a lot of rightful complaints about the speed changes.
But I don't think most players have realized the other huge aspect of the "update" which is the nerfing of the shields. That will result in more damage more often, meaning less fighting unless players coin even more.
I'm willing to keep playing and try out the new changes. But if they are as bad as the numbers say they are, I can't say I'll be staying either. And I'm far from alone is this view.
Dont blame us mobile players for this **** show. I like the game just fine the way it is. Did you guys wver think that people who were new just didnt have time to play the game on mobile and thats why they stoppedalso you said short term its going to cost kixeye money but in the long term its going to make you a ton of money so yeah its still about money to you. I have never seen a company so out of touch with its players its unreal. Or maybe people leave after a short time of playing because on mobile the ships are a little harder to control due to missclicks on a touch screen so instead of making it so a mouse works with the apl and makes it easier you make it so we have to put no srmor or shoelds and die faster and spend more money on a repair you make no sense kixeye
Quite a few of us understand that the system was broken. And you are right, we have abused several aspects of it to create some truly interesting work-arounds, low intensity fleets, and general bullshit. The REASON why we did not actively go after them is simple. The amount of collateral damage to the system would be overreaching as per the butterfly effect. What we have here is not a rock tossed into the pond, its a goddamn boulder.
The problem of this, is through the standardization of gameplay, the other key aspects that have been in development have not been touched. Meaning for those of us who would continue, we would find ourselves working out a solution into the new paradigm. In this case, as several people mentioned, it would be high intensity, high armor, cruisers using rear 5. Which by the grace of being that durable, would be too tough to kill even with stasis weaponry. The is also nothing to my knowledge but the possible application of destroyer fleets at mk5, the cruisers would probably still survive. That's simply at the higher levels as well. A number of these solutions stub the backbones of our previous system which directly hurt newer players the most.
The best solution would be to put this on hold, and see if some factors could be reduced before you run a full conversion on the game which few people truly want. As it's still not implemented, there is still time to do so. I at least understand your concerns, but the game itself was introduced with a lot of these problems. Events being run once a month keeps a stable time of which warfare does not exist, and the amount of riots while helping smaller players is too densely concentrated. This, when you are a player, gives the illusion that this game is straight farming. And that is only working for tech rather than mk upgrades to stay competitive, of which have been sold several times leading to more problems on your side, and ours. Then the aspect of aspects of the game which needed someone to man up and fix the issue without repeated tampering with them. After a product is released it becomes progressively harder to change, which is why you probably waited until now and decided to go the most extreme. As it stands, we actually had more pressing matters, and could simply duke it out ourselves while we waited on a continuation for our spare storyline. It's a demanding job, but both sides of the table **** up on this one.
Oh nope...never mind i found my car keys....(just figured i should find something to complain about.)
Carry on and have a nice day.
Let's talk about finances. In the instant short term, i.e., the next 3 weeks, yes this is going to cost you money. People are really pissed! However, in the short term, i.e., next few months, this is probably going to make you MORE money short term. Why?
1. Angry players will still stop coining. Your players that drop $50 to$100 once or twice a year may never coin again.
2. Mega Rich players [ie those folks who flight script to get 7 gold fleets and put them all out on auto] will go on a coin binge to do the same with ISC hulls. These are the players that spend thousands a year - your whales. These may drive short-term ISC related revenue, which then tapers off once they have gold fleets again.
I think short term, item 2 offsets item 1. But in the long run, item 1 offsets item 2.
The real question in my mind is, does that make you more money over the long term? Our alliance has already physically lost hard-coining players. As in, they dropped tag and quit after being in our alliance for a year+. I don't think the community is going to forgot this; the number of changes that drove forced obselescence are so high; not just massive speed nerfs, but also the re-massing and huge armor buffs to ISC. After running non-stop coin deals for MK upgrades, this was a total bait-n-switch. I think you will lose a lot of medium draw [$100 to 200/yr] coiner customers.
Money Making Solution
If you ever want to earn trust back and continue to harvest most of the veteran player base, I think you need to extend a speed-related olive branch. Here's an example - introduce VEGA and VSEC only thrusters, only through the BM!
1. Make thrusters with the same mass of R5, Fus3, but for VEGA and VSEC only with better stats [i.e., more forward, etc]
2. By putting in the BM only, supply is limited, and this drives a purpose for BA missions again
3. People will coin the hell out of these, and drive a continuous source of revenue for a long time
4. While people will be mad about this, as it would be viewed as nickel/diming, the reality is they would prefer this to, say, nothing
So what your saying repeatedly is months.... Id wager a bet that 90% of us speaking against this change are a mix of beta and 3+ year players. We have proven to be a loyal fan base even in your flawed releases. I can apprecoate the desire to grow, adapt. And over come change.... But when you have such a large scale saying your wrong.... Then you probably are. Personally if it is the new gen that your after, why not simply start them in a single sector to learn the game, and when the hit say level 30 intro them to relocation? I dont know i have a ton of ideas or thoughts but in the end i know this is your pony show not mine.
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win
I only play on mobile and adapted well to the game either with my phone or iPad. I don't want any of these changes. If I were to play today with these new changes I know I wouldn't keep at because it's becoming so dumbed down. Additionally if I was a new player and saw how you screwed over the old base of players I would walk away from this game quickly.
Mobile needs changes to fleet control and the ability to see fleet weapon ranges more easily. It doesn't need all the cool and fun ships to be nerfed because some 8 year old is too busy to play for more than a few minutes.
Reading this does show that a cool game I like is now garbage and will be pushed to the wayside. Thanks for nothing.
Mr Preece is a smart guy, but a smart guy doesn't know much about the legal aspects, I strongly recommend you guys check out the legal stuff of this business ethics, you might find out that aside civil action, penal action could also apply, and if in civil actions money is the penalty, penal actions result in time spent behind bars...
Over and out. Who ever continues to play Kixeye games is a royal moron that deserves to be ripped off. A fool parts from his money real fast anyway!
1. Blackmarket... This is now just pointless and a pure money grab with NO real use,great idea. badly implemented,ruined even more
2. Alliance features. So many good ideas given about how to make this better,all have been ignored,not to mention the amount of frustration it brings
3. Farming vs pvp. I dont see how any of these changes will make the game more pvp orientated? Were farming like idiots out there,weve been farming like idiots now for so long and to get all that thrown back at us with,hey all those hundreds of fleets killed to make mk 5 ships,well sorry,have a torn of band aid. o wait,new ics hull mk upgrades coming....more farming
4. Fun events. Well thats not happening,makes it even less fun when difficulty goes up mid event...
5. Game balance.... Say what,isnt this whole thing about game balance,but wait,now the whole game is gona re balance with ICS hulls being the new meta,how is that game balance?
So there is 5 simple points,the game feels broken and now it just feels more generic with other hulls being the new in thing and were all left with broken fleets and broken promises.
I wouldn't be surprised if the next thing was to remove control during battle and let the ai do it as it makes it more compatible and fair for all players
The reason VC has gone on to become the largest platform for VC is because the mobile market is a larger market than PC. Coupled with the decline of unity support across all major web browsers. This does not however say that VC is a better gaming experience on mobile than PC, simply more people use mobile over PC.
"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"
This is through dumbing down the game in an attempt to keep the experience across all devices the same. Cleary it is harder to fly ships on a mobile device than on a PC and as a result good flying and skill has been eroded from the game and been turned into a blitz battle of 2 players just shooting against each other both taking large amounts of damage which has the knock on effect of potentially generating more revenue for you.
"To you, the long time players, the game feels good as it is. It doesn’t feel broken or badly out of shape."
Yes, it does feel broken. There are many areas that we have been asking to be fixed for months/years. I am sure LXC can provide you with a list of things we have asked to be fixed or implemented in to the game. We simply have no choice but to lump it.
"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"
I would love to see some market research that you did on this. I can't remember doing any surveys and I never heard anyone else doing one either
"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."
We do not think we are not important. We know we are not important by your responses to us, either on the forums or your customer support throwing auto response templates at us or giving us the standing joke of vega support to reboot our modems, when half the sector just dropped from the server and we just got 18 hours of repair time dropping from a battle. Or telling the guys on £2000 computers that their specifications are too low to play VC on pc
"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."
Why over time? Why can you not simply wait until you finish making the game before you piecemeal push incremental updates on us and force us to waste our time. By standardisng ship speeds you make it much easier to fly on mobiles, but you take so much variety and skill from the game you are not putting that back in anywhere
Now for some feedback, not relating to your Q&A
The game consists of 4 factions. Rebel, Vega, V-Sec and ISC. 3 of them were released on crafting with ISC held back. For several months you sold and advertised the V-Sec ships as the best in VC. Offering crafing packages to players. ISC ships were released with poor stats and were not very good. ISC ships have been altered to be the best in VC. Suddenly receiving ship buffs to make them the ship everyone will want. You will now try and sell us crafting packages for these ships and devalue all the ships we currently have. Clearly this is aimed at bringing in business so you have something to sell to us. Altering the goal posts considerably. Leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the VC community. You should have released 4 factions at the same time so we knew what the best was and aimed for it. We have zero trust in you guys now as we can aim for mk5 ISC ships only to find they are moved to second rate ships. First we saw it with raptures, then again with mk5 v-sec. Who is to say ISC mk 5 wont get the same treatment. What can we expect to see and how will players be compensated for this treatment?
With the change of ship speeds to be all the same within a class of ship i.e cruisers you are completely removing a part of the game many players love. You are also destroying the individuality of the ships and make many of them redundant. No one would ever want to build a destiny, and everyone will be making ISC ships. Nothing differentiates ships now other than mass and on occasion a few ship modifiers. How will you be addressing this major loss of appeal in VC?
We have seen a complete removal of "kiting" in the game, good flying in favor of energy based blitz battles with carriers. How are you planning on bringing and rewarding good flying back into VC? With the increase in fleet mass and the reworking of the repair time system. Repair times have gone up considerably. Even though you claim it not to be the case. It has. And by quite some margin. Are you planning on just pushing this update onto us and forcing us to pay more or can we expect to see a rework of the reworked system to bring the repair times down to acceptable levels
Also, from my viewpoint I would like to see ship speeds remain in vega as they are, adding skill and variety to the game. I am not thrilled about the other changes that are in this next update. The speed change is the main one that kills the game for me, and from what I have read many other people
Neil Partridge
no one important, Vega Conflict Player
Is this all the game can be? Are we at the limits of the game? We were told that the switch to Unity would offer the game growth and features that Flash couldn't. None of that has been realised. Events are the same as the first, fundmentally. Base attacks in events are a novel joke. Prizes are too freqent to the point that I have hulls I have never built and weapons I have never tried. This is not the type of content we want or ask for.
As you advance in most games, micro management is reduced to let you focus on new things. Auto fleets help with this in vega and if I'm not mistaken these are going to be a thing of the past with this update. All the research, testing and refitting, in the past let you use your limited time doing fun things for PC users but mobile users need them more than we do.
All of this is backed by facebook discussions, advice and general fight talk, clan websites not to mention days of you tube videos, all of which are going to be worthless and out of date after the update. We will all be back to zero, just as much as if you had reset the game on us back to Lvl 1???
All of this might be nessesary and might make a better long term game. Few of us have any confidence in that. The way Kixeye have approached this shows all the mistakes you have made with the player community in the past. I understand that we will get a free refit if our ships are over weight... I have no clue how many this will effect. Every ship should be given one free refit as this update effects every aspect of every ship. How long will it take me to get back using each fleet?? Weeks, months?? I have no idea and you are doing nothing to elevate my fears.
You were given tons of input on how to encourage pvp before this was announced and you ignored every single point. As with every other time the community has asked you to take action, you have repeatedly solved it by going too far or totally left field to the point that the original request is obliterated. Harrier spam being a perfect example. We asked for repair time to be added to one hull to allow gameplay to flow and you go and change the entire frigate class and kill it from the game and you've done it on an even bigger scale this time.
Looking back on the games I've spent the most money on over the years, they haven't been games that kept resetting and altering the basics. They have been ones that have rewarded my progress and kept my interest and treat the player base with respect. Right now, I feel cheated, as do many other vega players, long and short term. Do the right thing and if not rethink this update then atleast have the "ripping off the band aid" be followed by a big fat lolly pop. Let us refit all our ships so we can get back to business as soon as possible and stop tinkering with stuff that works and finish stuff you started (Medals, Alliances, Black Market). But most of all make a plan and stick to it!
I don't have much to add that hasn't been said already. I will keep it simple.
ALL individual ships deserve one free instant refit due to the reset (not rebalance). Otherwise the refitting will take months and that Kix is just not fair or good business.
1.
ISC ships are getting a unique bonus from the start (armor bonus) while all the other factions don't get any bonuses.
2.
The crafting system is very messy, chaotic and irritating. Hulls get different amounts and types of buffs, some buffs apply to two different classes, there is no damage buff against frigates and destroyers etc.
3.
High level armor has the same repair time per armor than low level armor. Everything but zynithium will become obsolete.
4.
The speed normalization is too radical. Some ships rely on their speed advantage and are useless without it or not worth the effort to build anymore. I have the feeling that there is no point in getting VEGA or VSec hulls anymore, because their only difference to Rebel hulls is the mass. But this difference is not worth investing time into hunting blueprints or completing riots. I will just skip them and go straight for the ISC ships because getting them needs exactly the same effort. And this (similar to point 3) will destroy the diversity in ship builds instead of encouraging it.
The solution for 1, 2, and 4 could be the following system for crafting:
Now every class and every faction has their own unique bonuses which are all balanced pretty well I think. Every class gets exactly 3 buffs and none of them apply to two different classes at the same time. Also every faction gets their own advantage. Speed lovers can stay with VSec hulls, dreads will still be powerful despite their lowered mass and so on.
At the one hand there is progression from Rebel to ISC with the upcoming mass changes, but on the other hand players will have a reason to invest additional time and get the hulls in between that progression line because of the faction buffs.
This definitely needs testing before it can be implemented, but as a basic idea this should really be looked at!
For number 3 I had another Idea which would need more explanation than I want to give here. If you are interested you can read my thoughts on this here: https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/617167
I give you the auto-ranc farm fleet stats:-
Old stats:-
New stats:-
Repair time: 15, 513 seconds = 4h 18m 33s
https://www.facebook.com/groups/VEGAConflictAllSectors/
The changes to hull mass is another serious topic that many are uncomfortable with accepting. Many of us have more than one hundred ships that would need to be altered to fit this new change. If Kixeye decides to change the mechanics of the game, they should at least compensate their players to make it easier for them to adapt to these changes. I suggest a free refit for every single ship owned, regardless if it's overweight after the change or not (one time use per ship). This would also make some Black Market items useless as they cannot be removed and fitted on another vessel.
Please listen to the community and alter some of the statistics listed in the official post. We're starting to lose faith as our words are being lost in the void.
Now lets talk about build diversity and complexity. At the highest level, only the frigate class is currently ignored. Battleships, cruisers, cutters, and destroyers all have a considerable purpose in the game.
In the new system, before the legacy speed variation was killed, frigates were going to make a comeback due to the ISC frigate with MK upgrades and the repair scheme. So if you wanted all hulls to be in play, you didn't need to kill speed variation.
Now, I mostly pilot cruisers and cutters, so I will speak to sub-class variation here, which is now dead.
Cutters
You currently have 3 optimized cutter styles;
In the new game, you have 1 cutter fleet. The Python. And the python cannot even do what it is currently so cool for now,
Cruisers
You have so many cruiser builds, I'll try to list them all. There are at least 9 viable cruiser builds today
Generally, you would use pocs/raptures for kiting, and revs for brawling.
In the new game, cruisers can't kite another cruiser now. Impulse brawlers cannot be kited by gladius/net ships anymore, even though they have less range. So, the new cruiser meta will move to high DPS brawlers only, when the community figures out how cruisers really work. Thus, you will have 3 viable cruiser builds:
Since we are cutting our builds by 1/3, how is this supporting more diversity? The other hull types were already "in" the game, except for the frigate, which would be making a comeback regardless of the speed normalization.
much better than typing full paragraphs.
Yet another totally useless Q&A post, and i only call it a Q&A post out of politeness. This just goes to show that Kixeye do not care about us the players, our opinions, our objections.
Fix your post dude -
You introduced a new carrier with increased speed and reduced its speed the very next day
I too don't really buy the explanations. There are other means to make this game more transitional/mid game player friendly.
Kixeye: the games has to be refreshed to survive and grow.
Us: great then give us some help so we can refresh to survive and grow in the game we've invested ourselves in.
It would go a long way to just that refits in April are free. One of many thoughts I'm sure you're hearing LXC and Paul.
Communication with your end users is key. it's a little late for Paul to throw in comments on the eve of the first update for rebalancing.
"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.
"We at KE absolutely need to chase Mobile to ensure future revenue streams.
The previous state of VC was developed for, tested by, and PAID FOR almost eniretly by PC users
It paid us enough to allow KE to build a mobile version of the game.
However, in order to attract and retain Mobile users, we have to simplify and dumb-down the previously rich game play. It was too complex for wee little screens and KE has a chronic inability to provide decent in-game help/tutorials combined with the inability to provide the mobile environment with a useful Forum experience.
So, I wish to thank the rich PC players for the funding to sustain VC to the point where we can now cater to Mobile Players to chase THEIR revenue stream. If you don't like the Mobile-focused 'New VC', please go away now!"
YES, I AM A BIT TICKED!
I am not sure about MY future playing VC (Vanilla Coinfest)
BP ID: 1038 WC ID: 1476 VC ID: 18589 Tome ID: 3698
Hes pretty much blaming the mobile players in his post explaining why the rebalance is happening saying its to make it more mobile friendly i play on mobile and i like it just fine the way it is why not take the time to make the mobile app be able to use a mouse then the mobile players will have the same control over their ships as the pc guys do. He pretty much conterdiced himself when he said the changes short term will cost them kixeye money but in the long term its set up to make them a ton of money.
This doesn't explain away or fix anything.
Speed changes will kill EVERYTHING.
What will be the point of getting/using the following ships? Mass differences are not a big enough incentive, and you'll pretty much be throwing all of these types of ships that we built out the window. Weeks, and months of time WASTED because they're being insanely nerfed by the speed normalization,and/or in mass (fury/Dread)
Destiny Cruiser
Apocrypha Cruiser
Corinthian Cruiser
Fury Battleship
Dread Battleship
Zeal Battleship
Nighthawk Frigate
Eagle Frigate
Osprey Frigate
Trident Destroyer
Nexus Destroyer
Scythe Destroyer
Lance Destroyer
Taipan Cutter
Ghirial Cutter
Komodo Cutter
Midguard Carrier
Valhalla Carrier
Ragnarok Carrier
Valkyrie Carrier
Freyja Carrier
All these ships will pretty much be classified as useless, because their mass isn't the best, and they don't benefit over the ISC versions at all....along with the fact that carriers will no longer have the ability to outrun anything, therefore rendering then completely useless.
"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."
This is entirely comparable to killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The people that stuck with you are the ones who pay in coins to stay. The same ones who pay for the crafting packages, coin spam fleets during the OP sector hours against carriers with massive range and health. Let's be honest, the new blood are the ones who utilized the scripts because they were too lazy or cheap to buy the packages. They had less to risk with their accounts. People who've been playing for years though...They either paid in time or money.
We ALL want new players. It's great to get more people to fight. Don't get me wrong. But you're not going to do that. You're going to make Vega more boring. Half of this game is grinding. Grind for BPs, Hundreds of hours just to hope to finish a set. Grind for events, 22+ hours now that the event store requires you to grind for an extra 525,000 points just to get the same amount of prizes you used to get before.
But changing the speeds isn't going to do that. That's going to backfire. Massively. Let me be clear, I've agreed with or understood EVERY other aspect of this change except that one. Even the stuff I don't like, I get and have yet to complain about. And I say that as a Man who loves his Dreadnarok.
Here's a question for you. A Genuine question about the future.
Where's my incentive to do events now? You've killed any interest in new hulls other than the aesthetics.
"OH BOY. A NEW CRUISER. ALL IT ADDS IS MASS AND BUILD TIME. YAAAAAAAAAAY"
"OH BOY. A NEW BATTLESHIP. 3000 MORE MASS AND 16 DAY BUILD TIME. YAAAAAAY!"
You missed something completely. There's no reason to do events now, when every ship you can possibly get will be the exact same thing as what you already have, just with a different skin.
Before, Everyone envied raptures for being the fastest and most versatile cruiser. Corinthians were similarly placed and were just as cool. Now, there's 500 extra mass and 500 more hit points. Oh, and two extra days build time.
The difference between Zeal and Dread is similar. 200 more mass, a bit more health and 5 extra days for zeals.
You're not making the game simpler. You're making the game boring. When every ship in a class has the same speed sets, it becomes more about how much I like the aesthetics of the ship and how many I want to stick in a fleet. If I wanted to do say...5 Battleships in a fleet, which am I going to pick? The Zeal that would take me 75 days and have a total combined extra mass of 1,000? Or the dreads that would take 50 and be just as overall effective in the new system?
Join the War rooms on Facebook. Come SEE how angry people are. And they're angry because it feels like this
"HOW DARE THAT PERSON WHO'S PLAYED FOR TWO YEARS HAVE A SHIP THAT'S FASTER THAN MINE!!! I KNOW I ONLY GOT REVS AND DIDN'T FARM FOR APOCS BUT STILL. CATER TO ME BECAUSE I'M LAZY AND DON'T DO EVENTS! RUIN THE EVENT PRIZES PEOPLE COINED AND FARMED THEIR **** FOR SO I STAND A CHANCE WITH JUST MY REBEL TECH!"
Vega, Vsec and ISC should all outshine Rebel hulls. But all you're doing is making Mediocrity acceptable and giving players a reason to be lazy. Why bother farming for Dreads, when a Fury can kill it? Why bother farming for Apocs when Revs can kill it?
Why bother playing Vega if you don't want the old players around?
I'm here to annoy people and chew bubblegum. And I'm all out of bubblegum.
The question is whether KIX is important to us.
Screw us hard enough, there are other games who don't undo months of gaming and paying for the privilege of letting us pay again for what is being taken away on a whim.
There's a lot of rightful complaints about the speed changes.
But I don't think most players have realized the other huge aspect of the "update" which is the nerfing of the shields. That will result in more damage more often, meaning less fighting unless players coin even more.
I'm willing to keep playing and try out the new changes. But if they are as bad as the numbers say they are, I can't say I'll be staying either. And I'm far from alone is this view.
We will see.
Dont blame us mobile players for this **** show. I like the game just fine the way it is. Did you guys wver think that people who were new just didnt have time to play the game on mobile and thats why they stoppedalso you said short term its going to cost kixeye money but in the long term its going to make you a ton of money so yeah its still about money to you. I have never seen a company so out of touch with its players its unreal. Or maybe people leave after a short time of playing because on mobile the ships are a little harder to control due to missclicks on a touch screen so instead of making it so a mouse works with the apl and makes it easier you make it so we have to put no srmor or shoelds and die faster and spend more money on a repair you make no sense kixeye
The problem of this, is through the standardization of gameplay, the other key aspects that have been in development have not been touched. Meaning for those of us who would continue, we would find ourselves working out a solution into the new paradigm. In this case, as several people mentioned, it would be high intensity, high armor, cruisers using rear 5. Which by the grace of being that durable, would be too tough to kill even with stasis weaponry. The is also nothing to my knowledge but the possible application of destroyer fleets at mk5, the cruisers would probably still survive. That's simply at the higher levels as well. A number of these solutions stub the backbones of our previous system which directly hurt newer players the most.
The best solution would be to put this on hold, and see if some factors could be reduced before you run a full conversion on the game which few people truly want. As it's still not implemented, there is still time to do so. I at least understand your concerns, but the game itself was introduced with a lot of these problems. Events being run once a month keeps a stable time of which warfare does not exist, and the amount of riots while helping smaller players is too densely concentrated. This, when you are a player, gives the illusion that this game is straight farming. And that is only working for tech rather than mk upgrades to stay competitive, of which have been sold several times leading to more problems on your side, and ours. Then the aspect of aspects of the game which needed someone to man up and fix the issue without repeated tampering with them. After a product is released it becomes progressively harder to change, which is why you probably waited until now and decided to go the most extreme. As it stands, we actually had more pressing matters, and could simply duke it out ourselves while we waited on a continuation for our spare storyline. It's a demanding job, but both sides of the table **** up on this one.