Your .99/.99a ship & experience

[Sponge]

Actually, arcos is very weak against the wolfen. One of his problems is how different the experience is for the different ships.

I realize that. With the Wolfen, all you need to do is get as close as possible and fire off three missiles, hopefully hitting the same segment of armor all three times. I'm not sure how this could be fixed, though. I suppose you could give Arco lasers if the player is a Wolfen (Ionizers can't stand up to too much abuse from lasers) but that'd be odd, as the Centauri don't use lasers.

Honestly, having killed him about a dozen times now to see how he really affects early play, I can say it is NOT the missiles that are important to beating him - it's the targeting ROM.

I'd say it's the missiles. Three shots and he's dead. They track, so as long as you can aim and he's in visual range, there's a good chance you'll get a hit. The problem is that the Wolfen is the only one that really can't he beaten up by Arco.

Without that rom, the missiles are nearly useless because you have to get in range of his guns for them to hit (and there's a good chance you'll die). If you DO have the rom, you don't need the missiles at all because your turret laser will handily kill him at long range.

Which kind of ruins the lesson that Arco is meant to teach in the first place. It's meant to be a crash course in using items, using missiles, and adapting when an enemy has resistances. If you stay back and snipe with an omni weapon that he's almost immune to, you're not learning any of those three lessons.

Wolfen doesn't care about any of this crap. It can just duel him right from the word go.

I'd say this is the biggest problem. I'm just not sure what could happen without making Arco stronger that would make the Wolfen more vulnerable.

[Periculi]

I just don't see a problem with different ships being different levels of difficulty. Ship experiences should be different, it's a quality not a problem.

When I first played this game, the very very first time, I took the freighter out for my ship. Within moments of encountering the first Charon base there I got blown to bits.

Ok, thought I, this game wants to bite me.

Next attempt, Wolfen- soundly cleaned out Eridani and continued through a bunch of systems. Never fired a missile.

Oh, thought I, this is the ship for me!

My point here is that the ships are leveled. The wolfen is simply easier to play with- it's like choosing "Easy on me" level.

The freighter is like choosing "I want a challenge".

The Sapphire is like choosing "I want this to be psychotically difficult"

Now I seem to sense a desire in a few of these comments to level out and nerf the game. This is terrible idea. If I had to play a wolfen-balance game ever time I would be making sapphire and frieghter playerships to up the challenge.

New players get a voyage of discovery when first encountering Transcendence, and one of the discoveries to make is that the wolfen is easier to fight in, and the freighter is harder. Arco makes that glaringly apparent. Don't nerf it.. nerfing is bad.

[Sponge]

I just don't see a problem with different ships being different levels of difficulty. Ship experiences should be different, it's a quality not a problem.

It's not so much a problem that the difficult levels are different, but more that if you're in a Wolfen, he just can't kill you. He's meant to be a difficult early game "boss" for the player, and if he's entirely incapable of killing you (short of maybe sitting still on autopilot), the player doesn't learn any of the lessons that are trying to be conveyed.

My point here is that the ships are leveled. The wolfen is simply easier to play with- it's like choosing "Easy on me" level.

I really disagree. The ships are balanced to more or less be the same. I choose a ship based on how I want to play. If I want to have a more laid back game, I go with the freighter. A largo cargo hold means making money is easy, and lots of device slots are fun to play with. I can generally afford big upgrades much quicker with a freighter than a Wolfen. If I want a fast-paced game, I go with the Wolfen. By mid game, I think all of the starting ships will be pretty balanced. The Wolfen does have a definite advantage in the first few systems, though.

Don't nerf it.. nerfing is bad.

I agree. If I conveyed that I wanted a nerf, I certainly didn't intend to.

[Fatboy]

One thing that is annoying with the Wolfen is that it requires frequent fuelups with the ten MW reactor.

[Vastin]

Don't nerf it.. nerfing is bad.

I agree. If I conveyed that I wanted a nerf, I certainly didn't intend to.

Odd sentiment. Game balance is good, But nerfing is bad? What is nerfing other than an attempt to balance one game object against the rest by reducing its stats? I do it several times a week.

Would it be better if the stats of everything else went up instead? That's a lot more work and tends to introduce way more problems than it solves.

Is it only good when numbers go up? Should they never go down? Why?

I mean, if it was a long term character a player was attached to in a MMOG I could understand the sentiment, but a random mini-boss? Who cares?

Not harping on this Arcos issue in particular - George is considering that and it's his game - but the knee jerk reactions that are engendered when the word 'Nerf' is evoked, as a designer I find that fascinating, but very confusing at times.

[Sponge]

I (and I think Periculi as well) was talking about Arco. I don't see a problem with him being tougher for a freighter than, say, a Sapphire or a Wolfen, but rather that someone playing a Wolfen just can't lose. Arco doesn't need a nerf, but something that can make him tougher against a Wolfen without changing his difficulty level for the other two ship classes.

[george moromisato]

...but the knee jerk reactions that are engendered when the word 'Nerf' is evoked, as a designer I find that fascinating, but very confusing at times.

I interpret "Nerf" to mean "weaken so much that it is unbalanced (i.e., not challenging; boring)"

By that definition, everyone agrees that nerfing is bad.

But since not everyone agrees on when a game element is "balanced" not everyone agrees on when something has been "nerfed"

Ultimately, I think we're trying to balance two things:

1. Arco should be hard enough that experienced players can enjoy the experience no matter what starting ship they choose.

2. Arco should be easy enough that novice players don't quit the game in frustration, no matter what starting ship they choose.

I'm sure everyone can understand that this is not going to be easy--particularly because the different starting ships have different capabilities.

This discussion has been very useful for me (and I'm really glad Vastin brought it up). I guess I'm made a few tentative conclusions:

1. It's hard to argue in a vacuum. We need to try some things and see how players react. Ultimately (probably in version 1.1) we will have some statistics that will help us see how many players give up before completing Eridani. Until then, I don't think we'll have hard data.

2. I do think there are some things I can do to make Arco more accessible to novice players without removing the challenge. In particular, 0.99b adds some AI to Arco so that he warns the player with a few shots before going for the kill. Novice players that are slow on the missiles will at least have a chance. [But Arco goes for the kill instantly if he is ever damaged, so hopefully experienced players will not be affected.]

3. Just to add a little bit more time to the encounter, I decreased Arco's fire rate slightly. I don't know if this makes him too easy--I'm interested in feedback.

4. As Vastin points out, the targeting ROM is a big inflection point. If the freighter gets the targeting ROM then killing Arco is almost too easy. I don't know what to do about that. I might (post 0.99b) try to make Arco shoot down the missiles if he can see them coming.

5. In 0.99a the targeting ROM actually made things worse for novice players. Since Raisu gives you Arco's habitat as a target, a novice player who doesn't know how to change targets will keep firing missiles at the habitat instead of Arco. In 0.99b I've changed this so that Raisu gives you Arco as a target if you have the targeting ROM.