PvP rant

[MacThule]

Currently feeling a lot like Starmade is really not meant for PvP at all and should stop pretending it is. It's just a design game with chat under current standards.

I enjoy building, decorating, engineering and testing. Mining, crafting and trading aren't terrible chores. None of this is "play" to me though. They're means to an end. I want to eventually PvP with the things I make and it just seems completely impossible outside of pre-arranged duels, tournies and melees (which I've participated in a few of, and won two - for ships under 500mass).

On the one hand, even on servers that tout themselves as being pro-PvP, players freak out and accuse me of griefing if I once kill them. Even if I'm flying a ship 1/3 or 1/4 the mass of what they are in. Which is usually the case since I typically don't fly over 10K mass because that's about the point where I know I won't be causing lag problems for the other player I'm hunting or raiding even if their computer totally sucks.

I don't want to win a fight because my computer is better than my opponents. I want to win because my ships and tactics are better.

On the other hand, the only players who come to me looking for a fight always come in ships so big the server itself lag-spikes when they jump to my HB, and my client stutters just trying to get me around my base the entire time because of the 200, 300, 400 or 500 thousand mass pile of junk sitting outside.

There's just no middle ground. In a year of playing this I've not seen a server where people actually fight naturally, in-game - without setting rules and arranging a time/place - in ships of a size to make that smooth and viable. Never.

Once I blew up someone's fob station and claimed their very excellent mining space as my own (they had 3 other systems I had only 1 - seemed fair to me), and quickly ended up in a skirmish with a ship only twice my size, completely without any arrangements being made and they didn't even accuse me of wrongdoing, they just called me a jerk and seemed really upset. I had to fall back and repair before finally returning to drive him off. That was super fun.... that ONE TIME in the year I've been playing.

Even on supposedly PvP-friendly servers you risk admin sanctions if you PvP players without their express permission because you make enemies when you PvP and eventually several will jointly accuse you of misconduct to an admin to get revenge and BOOM! Fined or banned. Of course the only ones giving permission are flying crap so big that the game literally can barely handle it... which I could waste time matching, if I wanted to watch a slideshow while hoping that the AI-driven munitions on my ship come out on top, but I'd rather not. Mostly for the same reason you won't find a lot of vids on YouTube showing duels and melees featuring ships in the "up to 500,000 mass" category.

We've all seen ships like that "fight" each other... it's a complete and utter farce (if you haven't seen it, admin-spawn a couple titans in a private hosted game and try to fight some friends in them, or go on YouTube and watch the few people who have). So glitchy. Broken logic, turrets that don't work, graphics freeze up randomly. The game just doesn't handle it well, yet that's apparently the standard for so-called PvP it seems. That and play-date fights.

I DEEPLY wish the devs would get realistic about the mass this engine can smoothly handle on an average computer (not the 1% of people with very nice rigs or serious denial issues who vocally jump up every time and yell "*I* never have a problem with the graphics - must be something wrong with *YOU*, brah!" (yes - your pixel SO big)) and impose a sensible softcap on ship size. Or finally kaibosh docked power and relax the curve on the power soft-cap and let that naturally control ship size.

Do something so that the ships players are actually building and flying in every day aren't too damn big to also DO STUFF. Interactive stuff. Stuff other than be looked at or passively rape AI mobs with auto-swarms of heat-seekers (the weapon of choice at that size because between lag and turn speed it's the only thing they can target with). Something to allow real interaction between players on multi servers without arranging a play-date under specific rules.

It's not coincidence that for most tournies/melees the very first rule is the MASS CAP.

It's because for 99% of gamers, Starmade NEEDS a mass cap to play smoothly as anything but a dolled-up chatroom.

Thank you all for enjoying my rant. If you read the whole thing - I'm sorry (also what's wrong with you??). I hope to spew frustration over the inability to naturally PvP again soon. :D
[DOUBLEPOST=1454969237,1454968813][/DOUBLEPOST]And yes I'm aware servers can set mass caps.... OMG.

Problem is that as long as that's a server setting, most players will assume Starmade can actually smoothly handle larger masses if only the server were good enough and are just going to gravitate to multi servers without mass caps or with very liberal ones.

 

[Zyrr]

The inherent problem is that you're playing on predominantly vanilla servers. There were a series of servers from mid-2013 to February 2015 that had exactly what you're looking for, but the rabid "big faction combat" autism eventually killed them.

The hardcore server project BDLS and Comr4de are working on will likely follow that old trend of having good, worthwhile combat.

 

[Comradecolonel]

I totally agree with you. There isn't any natural fighting or battles that are going on by themselves. I never really see factions engaged in war when just cruising through a crowded server. This isn't purely based on mass but also many other factors.

You need a big ship to win a war that's a no-brainer. Getting a big ship is quite a task though and many aren't willing to spend a lot of time building a ship that they might lose. Some people even build the entire ship in survival, a very time consuming process. The emotional attachement to your creation is something a lot of players have difficulty with. I totally get it too; you spend a lotta time on something so it's quite heartbreaking to watch it be blown to pieces.

There're also some really cheap weapon combos that make it pretty easy for a min/max type ship to abuse. Most of the time its not really tactics that make or break a battle, but the strategy that goes into the design. Fighting someone randomly on a server you could be turned to shreds by a sleeper ship. As such most people avoid fights in which they are unaware of the enemies capabilities. Those that are well versed in weapons might also avoid war because on paper they know that they will lose.

Starmade attracts a very mixed bag of players, some of which don't care about PvP. Some of the RP players even RP a huge empire, even though they lack the combat capability. I've seen players capture 6+ sectors, but simply fill up their space with blueprints off the dock. They make no effort to actually wage war, they simply want to RP the victorious empire. When first playing it can be hard to pick out the serious players from the wannabes.

With mass size, I wouldn't worry much longer. With the fleet update. It will be possible to knock out huge ships without having to form a large faction. I'm hoping that the meta that forms out of that will be more focused on tactics and combined arms.

 

[jontyfreack]

I...I have a laptop, and I just lowered a few settings and I can handle some of the largest ships built in this game...ish. I see what you mean about it being really glitch, and when a large ship is moving at speed and you try to catch up to it, it jerks all over the place and you cant catch it unless it hits a shop.

however, instead of a mass cap because that would seriously annoy the likes of me who build creative, and try to recreate tyranid bioships....so please no mass cap, because it only about 3% done and already at 1657m mass. so might I suggest that if a PVP friendly server (ATTENTION ALL PVP SERVER OWNERS, READ THIS THREAD) should place a mass cap, so that fights are generally fair-ish (basically so your computer wont explode) and because multiple ships totalling to the same mass, lags a lot less than one big ship. so that's more of a reason for player interaction on PVP, no more kill or be killed, it would be kill, team, rule galaxy until someone else teams up with someone and wrecks you when you are out mining.

im the guy who builds lots of small ships to block out the sun when attacking a single titan, either he dies of lag or we all do. so perhaps the best suggestion here would be to up the amount of mass this game can handle, so people with big ships don't have to worry about getting in a battle with another big ship that will crash the entire server. and so people going up against big ships don't have to worry about 1fps all the time and 9999ping.








again wasting space, because its what I do.





once me and a few friends got together on a server and we all teamed up, we each took separate parts of the galaxy and fought pirates most of the time...that was until we started taking territory, every 10 minutes one of the others would send a scout ship to destroy our cargo before we had a chance to use it to make a massive titan. however we ended up using wormholes to go to place to place and we eventually (after 8 hours nonstop mining) got enough to be able to produce something huge. it was at this point when we were warping back when we spotted a homebase with the workings of a massive titan already in place, we knew then that while we were getting materials, they had teamed up with the other team, so now it was 6 vs 3, they already had a titan, and we had a few frigates and destroyers. I spent an hour building onto our only destroyer we had, and using the parts we had produced to make both a ship yard and to load the blueprint of a titan, I created a sub-capital with what we hoped would be enough guns to take this titan out before they could finish it. after a few minutes we warped in to the sector outside their homebase, only to be met with the fire of at least 52 turrets, destroying one of our frigates immediately, but remarkably my shields stayed put, only going down by 2%. after my friend entered my ship and took to manning one of the larger turrets (dubbed the exterminatus cannon, because on the way I fired it at a planet destroying it in one hit) and we stormed the titan, even though it was far from complete, it still was fully operational, and covered in enough turrets to make swarmers useless. after 30 gruelling minutes we eventually pushed the titan back, it was losing massive chunks with each shot, it would soon be over. but it took us until we had destroyed it before we noticed something amiss, the other 6 had taken shelter in their homebase on the nearby planet. (I have no idea how my laptop hasn't meted by now, it was quite literally screaming) we then dropped down to the surface in a mecha and a tank (two in the mecha, I was in the gun. and one in the tank, it was ai turreted). we then engaged then in a tense firefight, almost losing the mecha to infantry fire, I was only saved when the tanks turrets got shot off and blocked an incoming rocket launcher. eventually after driving them out of their bunkers we won. but was it worth it? kinda yes and kinda no. my laptop was fried, and crashed two minutes later, but we had had one of the best PVPs of our lives in any game.

so if anything, up the capabilities of what the game can handle, such as not rendering unneeded blocks, and not spassing big ships all over the place.







more wasted space




+1

 

[NoPantsMcDance]

Op I've been saying the same thing about pvp for years. I've had so many ideas for pvp servers that just aren't possible because people want to play ship building simulator 2016. Then the people that want to pvp go to try and get shit on so hard they never come back again. Plus the other people that just want everything handed to them. In the end ot turns into a tiny playerbase of 5 guys that eventually all leave because it's simply not fun. I keep coming back and checking on starmade because it had huge potential to have insantly fun pvp battles but the community just isn't right for it. Then as you said without mass limits it turns into a giant fuckfest of lag inducing rage. I so much want pvp to be fun and enticing and I want to create a server for that. So far there has been 0 luck in doing so because of broken game mechanics and unfun pvp.

 

[Jerry_Brinefield]

Starmade will definitely have some intense PVP in the future, but right now, with all the changes to ships and everything new going around, PVP is on the backorder for things to be worked on. As the game is furthered we are gonna see the devs address and alter PVP to make it more beneficial/entertaining, but I think for now we just have to stick to ship-building simulator 2016 until all that is implemented.

 

[StormWing0]

The main thing that needs to happen for PvP to work out nicely is to have an easier way to repair ships and especially stations. Just make it easier and more reasonable to fix things and that should solve half the problem right there. Next reason would be having a reason to come off dock from HQ. >_>

 

[nightrune]

I'm mostly a ship builder but occasionally want to get my hands wet with some pvp action. The thing for me is there isn't any middle ground. I can't protect territory by myself, and I can't really go out and battle. I really think fleets are going to change this game massively.

 

[Sgtwisky]

I agree that PVP is currently not the best in starmade. I however beg to differ on the method for correcting it. I think that before considering a mass limit (Which btw can be changed in server configs so servers CAN do this now) we need a few other things in place to see how they affect the situation.

First, I think fleet control could radically change the ship dynamics. Maybe not the first pass at it (Dev's said may be multiple updates for the system) but when its finished. For one, it (assumptions coming) allow you to send ships out to attack locations or patrol them. Remember, you only need around 1/3 to 1/4 the total mass of a large ship in small ships, in order to win. The small ships that can beat titans are MUCH more cost effective to use then the titans. So this could have a huge impact on strategy.

Second, With the plans for "Empire Building" (too lazy to find link) which it was pointed out by bench had mentioned that there were in fact plans to make claiming more then one system important, and the possibility of encouraging factions to have multiple stations. This could be pretty huge. You wouldn't just have one man factions where everything is docked to an invincible home base. You would be able to attack the factions other stations/ships to ware them down.

Third and possibly the most important, better economy balancing. This isn't something we will see any time soon. Imagine a starmade where building a titan, would take a faction a month of grinding, in order to field it. Now.... when you could beat it with 1/3 of the overall cost in smaller AI fleets (Hell even 1/2 is really good!) it discourages building titans you can't simply replace. Or at the very least having escort ships with it.

It is my belief that with those three things in place, PVP would actually be pretty engaging. IF after all that, PVP is still bad, and players just try to build server crashing ships or just don't fight without a "Play Date" then I would be open to a default mass limitation, or softcap on mass.

Though if using the mass setting in the server configs (also a block limit) and maybe adding an additional "Max Docked" setting, you could put a band-aid on the current PVP until those three things are in. But I would not be able to support those things being on by default.

 

[kingreol]

I admit i use docked reactors, internal ones at that.. and with the idea of balance of power, and bigger is better mentality(or more power gen = better) it has come to a point where i know, if my rails get hit. everyone. on the server will feel it.. its good that we test it out still. and build big ships as the developers can better see where the limits of the game is. and balance accordingly. or optimize.

 

[Neon_42]

This isn't really a rant but a well thought out criticism. This has been said for the past two years Starmade has been in development, but they keep adding features to make it more creative rather than competitive.

The only thing I'd add to this list is that there is a large imbalance between weapon types, which in itself could be the subject of another rant/criticism.

 

[timethatswasted]

Currently feeling a lot like Starmade is really not meant for PvP at all and should stop pretending it is. It's just a design game with chat under current standards.

I enjoy building, decorating, engineering and testing. Mining, crafting and trading aren't terrible chores. None of this is "play" to me though. They're means to an end. I want to eventually PvP with the things I make and it just seems completely impossible outside of pre-arranged duels, tournies and melees (which I've participated in a few of, and won two - for ships under 500mass).

On the one hand, even on servers that tout themselves as being pro-PvP, players freak out and accuse me of griefing if I once kill them. Even if I'm flying a ship 1/3 or 1/4 the mass of what they are in. Which is usually the case since I typically don't fly over 10K mass because that's about the point where I know I won't be causing lag problems for the other player I'm hunting or raiding even if their computer totally sucks.

I don't want to win a fight because my computer is better than my opponents. I want to win because my ships and tactics are better.

On the other hand, the only players who come to me looking for a fight always come in ships so big the server itself lag-spikes when they jump to my HB, and my client stutters just trying to get me around my base the entire time because of the 200, 300, 400 or 500 thousand mass pile of junk sitting outside.

There's just no middle ground. In a year of playing this I've not seen a server where people actually fight naturally, in-game - without setting rules and arranging a time/place - in ships of a size to make that smooth and viable. Never.

Once I blew up someone's fob station and claimed their very excellent mining space as my own (they had 3 other systems I had only 1 - seemed fair to me), and quickly ended up in a skirmish with a ship only twice my size, completely without any arrangements being made and they didn't even accuse me of wrongdoing, they just called me a jerk and seemed really upset. I had to fall back and repair before finally returning to drive him off. That was super fun.... that ONE TIME in the year I've been playing.

Even on supposedly PvP-friendly servers you risk admin sanctions if you PvP players without their express permission because you make enemies when you PvP and eventually several will jointly accuse you of misconduct to an admin to get revenge and BOOM! Fined or banned. Of course the only ones giving permission are flying crap so big that the game literally can barely handle it... which I could waste time matching, if I wanted to watch a slideshow while hoping that the AI-driven munitions on my ship come out on top, but I'd rather not. Mostly for the same reason you won't find a lot of vids on YouTube showing duels and melees featuring ships in the "up to 500,000 mass" category.

We've all seen ships like that "fight" each other... it's a complete and utter farce (if you haven't seen it, admin-spawn a couple titans in a private hosted game and try to fight some friends in them, or go on YouTube and watch the few people who have). So glitchy. Broken logic, turrets that don't work, graphics freeze up randomly. The game just doesn't handle it well, yet that's apparently the standard for so-called PvP it seems. That and play-date fights.

I DEEPLY wish the devs would get realistic about the mass this engine can smoothly handle on an average computer (not the 1% of people with very nice rigs or serious denial issues who vocally jump up every time and yell "*I* never have a problem with the graphics - must be something wrong with *YOU*, brah!" (yes - your pixel SO big)) and impose a sensible softcap on ship size. Or finally kaibosh docked power and relax the curve on the power soft-cap and let that naturally control ship size.

Do something so that the ships players are actually building and flying in every day aren't too damn big to also DO STUFF. Interactive stuff. Stuff other than be looked at or passively rape AI mobs with auto-swarms of heat-seekers (the weapon of choice at that size because between lag and turn speed it's the only thing they can target with). Something to allow real interaction between players on multi servers without arranging a play-date under specific rules.

It's not coincidence that for most tournies/melees the very first rule is the MASS CAP.

It's because for 99% of gamers, Starmade NEEDS a mass cap to play smoothly as anything but a dolled-up chatroom.

Thank you all for enjoying my rant. If you read the whole thing - I'm sorry (also what's wrong with you??). I hope to spew frustration over the inability to naturally PvP again soon. :D
[DOUBLEPOST=1454969237,1454968813][/DOUBLEPOST]And yes I'm aware servers can set mass caps.... OMG.

Problem is that as long as that's a server setting, most players will assume Starmade can actually smoothly handle larger masses if only the server were good enough and are just going to gravitate to multi servers without mass caps or with very liberal ones.

Word.

The inherent problem is that you're playing on predominantly vanilla servers. There were a series of servers from mid-2013 to February 2015 that had exactly what you're looking for, but the rabid "big faction combat" autism eventually killed them.

The hardcore server project BDLS and Comr4de are working on will likely follow that old trend of having good, worthwhile combat.

Can't wait =D

 

[Ithirahad]

This isn't really a rant but a well thought out criticism. This has been said for the past two years Starmade has been in development, but they keep adding features to make it more creative rather than competitive.

The only thing I'd add to this list is that there is a large imbalance between weapon types, which in itself could be the subject of another rant/criticism.

The stuff added to the game falls basically into two categories: Features that need to be added for later integration into competitive gameplay, and creative things that were either necessary (copy/paste/save/load templates) or could just be thrown in with minimal Schema time involved (Decorative blocks), or, like slabs, things that paved the way for larger features (in the case of my example, cargo) or had another use.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

This isn't really a rant but a well thought out criticism. This has been said for the past two years Starmade has been in development, but they keep adding features to make it more creative rather than competitive.

The only thing I'd add to this list is that there is a large imbalance between weapon types, which in itself could be the subject of another rant/criticism.

Part of this is due to the fact that balancing an unfinished game properly is a bit of a waste of time, since every update can risk changing everything up. Actually polishing the game as a PVP experience is likely not happening until beta, along with bug fixing, I would imagine.

The other biggest issue is that it's really hard to find the balance between being PVP friendly, and making the game not be alienating to people who are either new or may not have the time to invest. It's the reason why we have the invincible homebase's etc. Possibly the upcoming NPC and universe overhaul might help there, for example smaller factions or single players might throw in with the NPCs etc while the bigger factions do their own thing. Good diplomacy mechanics could work here as well. Likewise having AI fleets etc will make controlling territory actually viable (though we still need a reason for it really).

I'd still expect proper PVP incentives to be a bit of ways off though. Likely after the upcoming universe expansions.

 

[Oronoscus]

Completely disagree, check odium battle report

 

[MacThule]

Completely disagree, check odium battle report

Done. I found a lot of warhammer stuff. One video of a huge ship slowly flying... not fighting. One video compilation of SMALL ships engaged in fights in what seemed to be a pre-arranged event of some sort.

None of that contradicts my initial rant, so what exactly are you disagreeing with? Maybe you can post a link if there's something I'm missing?

 

[Oronoscus]

Done. I found a lot of warhammer stuff. One video of a huge ship slowly flying... not fighting. One video compilation of SMALL ships engaged in fights in what seemed to be a pre-arranged event of some sort.

None of that contradicts my initial rant, so what exactly are you disagreeing with? Maybe you can post a link if there's something I'm missing?

Did you see the battle report on the Odium or Vaygr Thread? We didn't post any videos yet.

 

[MacThule]

Did you see the battle report on the Odium or Vaygr Thread? We didn't post any videos yet.

Nope. I don't go out of my way read people's subjective accounts of battles. Personal accounts tend to be unreliable - although often entertaining.

I'd love to see the video.

 

[Lecic]

Completely disagree, check odium battle report

Wasn't that battle pre-arranged? One of MacThule's points was that PvP doesn't happen NATURALLY.

 

[Bogdan]

Wasn't that battle pre-arranged? One of MacThule's points was that PvP doesn't happen NATURALLY.

There's always someone like joelbrisco across any server who goes and attacks people significantly weaker than them. That's 'natural' and also really one-sided pvp. Noobs or builders or just peaceful factions fight a battle which frankly they've lost before it even began.
Also when two big factions keen on war fight there are skirmishes here and there all the time. Nevertheless, once fleets are introduced, things will get very interesting.