It's been a quarter...
And the State of the Game is back again. Let's find out what Kixeye wants to do for the next 3 months, and what they are doing right/wrong.
State of the Game
Kixeye has broken down the SotG into 5 parts this time, let's go over each part. Going in order from Event Arc, PvP, Mega Ships, Chores, and Communicating changes. As always, I'll be voicing my thoughts on each one too.
Make sure you read the official posting too; https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/656951
Event Arc
Kixeye is now officially going on a four month raid plan, meaning each raid story type will end with the hull raid. Kixeye will now be releasing a hull designed to be used against the targets in the upcoming raid. This Hull will be avaliable for all 4 months, along with it's specials and weapons. After the raid the targets will replace worldmap targets, such as after the next raid arc they will replace the reaver armadas.
Kixeye has also released the master plan for changes to targets within the next 4 raids. With only the Tier 5, (S set) having an additional new target added.
PvP
More Conqueror hulls are to come, also with buffs...
PvP and Conqueror hulls in one topic together, it means base hitting. The win ratio refers to the number of 100% base hits versus that of fleets dying in the base before 100%. Now, the 'Addressing' of this can lead to two things. Either stronger conqueror hulls, or weaker base weapons.
Stronger hulls is more likely to happen.
But wait! Won't having stronger and stronger hulls come be bad as it will increase the power struggle drastically? No, but only if Kixeye does it right. Like they have been doing it right so far.
How is Kixeye doing it right? Lets look at the current Conqueror hulls, the Retribution, Revenge, and Vendetta, and their basic stats; defense, evade, and deflection.
Link to View: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_xWdUkhIx1PDtdraFCwKvChl9_kVFR4phrFXSyB2wjQ/edit?usp=sharing
Green highlight means bloodthrist
Yellow means some was already there, but bloodthrist added some too
Now, compare that list of hull to the next list of hull, the best base hitters from about a year ago. from the same types of hulls, blitzer, mortar, and launcher.
(I removed the Corrosie defense/deflection, and all the deflections, as they weren't available back then.
Link to view: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E0O1YNHQznxLDthbXk2KO-hI7JCq_QV24gB9Oim1VWM/edit?usp=sharing
Now lets compare them. Starting with the old. With all around good defenses for back then, except concussive i'll talk about that later, and okay evade. With defense specials/armor and/or evade specials/armor being a necessity back then, the ships would be tougher are harder to kill for sure.
Now for the newer ships. Well, we can't change the evade on the Vendetta or the Retribution, but we can on the Revenge, that's good. Defenses? Not worthwhile to change, or impossible to change with defense handicaps. What about that Deflection? That's a killer!
Well...
With the Bloodthirst ability on all 3 of them, namely the Retribution and the Revenge, they become stronger and harder to kill. We can't protect against the bloodthrist being activated can we?
Yes we can, by either moving all the buildings away from the start of the channel of your base, or just recycling them. And without the bloodthrist, the ships become susceptible to common damage types also. Such as Radiation, and fucking Penetrating.
So, you need to figure out which ship to use on each base, and the defenders need to be able to be able to deal damage on all possible types?
Yeah, kinda like Pokemon Types. You need to find the pokemon (ship) that best works against another pokemon (base/base fleet)
How does this differ from the past? We could have just stack up on Concussive weapons and turrets.
Nah, not really. The only surface weapons that deals concussive damage back then were the Depth Charges. And those never make for good base defense weapons. Turrets? You were looking at Gargoyle Depth Charges and nothing else that we could use a year ago.
Kixeye is releasing Conqueror hulls that have only one or two weakness to slow down the power struggle, and to increase the stragety portion of this game. After complaining for years about click to win hulls we finally get the solution. Now to wait for the dry dock (sarcasm)
Oh yeah, Medals are getting a workup. Hold your laughter.
Mega Ships
More modules to come, the first of which being the hiving module. Which can be used to a great advantage. See my September WIP for details... The Megaships are still in the Beta phase also, changes will be happening to them as will new modules.
Chores
I'm gonna copy down each bullet point and go over each one separately instead of summarizing them all. K?
- With the introduction of Sector Threat, our goal was to enable players to play on their own time table and be able to acquire the resources they needed to progress in the game.
SKIP
- With the “KIXEYE time” restriction being lifted, we saw a dramatic increase in players participating in non-PvP activities. As a result, players told us they felt compelled to constantly do these activities for their entire play session
SKIP
- While we want players to have some freedom on when to do these activities, we’re looking to provide a more structured pacing so that players have some relief to enjoy other aspects of the game.
SKIP
- We’re going to be re-evaluating Sector Threat as the first step towards reducing “chore time”. We believe part of the issue stems from the constant need to maintain a specific threat level (Yellow, Orange) in order to optimize the payouts.
Wait, does this imply that Kixeye will be looking at the times for the Yellow and Orange? Good.
- We’re also investigating Rogue Crews to see where these can fit in to help improve payout rates and/or reduce “chore time”.
Changing the Irritated Cutthroats to now help with the Armada's? And creating a crew that would increase the payout of the Fragment drops for the foundry? Better.
Communication Changes
Kixeye knows there is a communication problem between the company and the players. Their solution? Testing and asking the players. Great! New targets, such as those in the FM, will be following a new format.
1. Start with a test target, available for a limited time (i.e. 1 week). This test target may have inflated point payouts or even a VXP multiplier, to incentivize trying them out during the test period.
Kixeye should have possible a time limited repair token after attacking and destroying the tester target. Will this increase the number of testers? Yeah. The time Limited feature will last for an hour or so, leading the person to choose one of two options. Repair the fleet and then hit a base, or just repair the fleet. Now, this seems chaotic with everyone hitting without repercussions. But, it makes for a good time to try out the medal system changes! Also, best time for a fleet v fleet war, ever.
2.Once the test period is over, remove the target for further iteration.
Please introduce a polling on the Kixeye forums, let the players get more feedback in rather than pure data and numbers.
3.Re-introduce the target the next month, for further “in-game testing,” or possibly make it permanent.
Always do retesting, keep it open for a week, run a poll at the same time. If good, make it permanent, if not, find out why.
4.We will always run older targets until the test targets are ready for permanent release.
Yay!!!
Overall
I like it, however the public opinion of the game is down. https://www.kixeye.com/forum/discussion/658911
Go vote what you think they deserve. Planning on a post about the reactions.
Until next time, Film at 11
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