Today 9/23/18 at about 8:50 ish AM Mountain time (AZ) I entered a mission that had a common BP with Alicia, that missions was In Medias Res. I won the BP and got Painkiller with about a 70% chance. The game confirmed this. Upon entering the "reward" screen it just sat there and said it was connecting to Mercury Steam forever. So I closed the game out to reload. Now my Painkiller is gone and your game RIPPED me off of my win.

I've told you about this before with the Makillium for Ayana Kwena and how it happened twice, but I let it slide asking you just to fix this from happening in the future. But it has not been fixed. So I have one request.

GIVE ME MY PAINKILLER!!! I EARNED IT!! Go into your data, look to see the history of my gameplay and see how I got it through the roll  put the Painkiller into my inventory. I am NOT going to go through another common BP missions with Alicia to get it again, I shouldn't have to, I already did. I expect you to do this please. I sent you guys an e-mail as well.

Thanks in advance!!!

EDIT: After writing this I don't know if I want to relog on. What's the point? I have other BP missions, but if my time is going to be thrown away on false assumptions and misplaced trust there's no point in attempting to get a BP. Also the faction you earn is low compared to pre-Spacelords patch and it costs 4800 to re-shuffle and I have thrown away about 150k faction trying to get Rare Stroma for Hive. I'm sick of doing that, the card is obviously bugged or was made purposefully to be an unobtainable carrot on a stick. If I can't get anything done with Faction or trust the system to give me BP I won, why play?

As long as forced PvP exist then so will instant surrenders, suisiding, feedin and disconnecting. Simple fact, there isn't any way around this. The quicker PvEers get get out of a antag game the quicker they can go back to making rewards again in this already trickling reward system. Antagonists are SO aggrivating and a total waste of time, there is no incentive to engage.

I'm so sorry to tell you wonderfully creative devs, this is not going to change. It just won't.

EDIT: Well no point in sulking about it. There has to be some preventative plan on my part. So I pose a question for those who are antagonists, not a mean one. What missions do you queue for the most? Or better yet, what missions favor antagonists the most? Some of us want to know what to NEVER queue for if we can help it. It would be useful information for many of us.

Edit: So here is what I got so far (DO NOT QUEUE FOR THESE MISSIONS AS A RAIDER IF YOOU WANT TO PROGRESS IN THE GAME!!):

1. Fistful of San: because of the MASSIVE failure of MSE, the antagonists DOESN'T EVEN HAVE TO ENGAGE THE RAIDER!!!! It's a free handout for antags, they just have to kill the fragile fucking old man. They need to give him about 5 times more health. We were kicking the shit out of this Shae and she ignired us and just killed the old man WITH EASE!!! (and I like this missions. Shame the antagonists dictate what missions I can choose. GREAT SYSTEM!!!)

Will update this list as feedback comes in.

Tell me why would I spend NINETY THOUSAND gold to forge a weapon that is already max forged out? What moron would find duplicates, at FULL forge price, to be a notable reward?

I reforged only one , maxed weapon, and I felt it was a huge mistake and waste of money. I regret it and will never EVER do this again. But what value does anyone with an IQ above 80 (my dumb ass) have in a Rare BP for a weapon already maxed forge? Why on earth does it cost 90K still? These doubles for me are practically none-rewards.

Can you please PLEASE consider allowing us to turn in BP for a gold or faction. Or make duplicates for max level cost less to reforge. OR BOTH, actually.
 

I just got Whip BP again for Valeria, there isn't anything I am going to do with this. It might as well not exist. I already forged it. And if I was curious to see what a different build on the weapon would be like it absolutely isn't worth 90k just for an alternate build of the SAME points I already had in the weapon. What a feeling of non victory that was.

End Rant and head empty of steam...

Please MSE, have a look at the BP system. Many people would be happy if you did.

I'm just going to leave a few constructive criticism/suggestions here not that I've had a while to experience new patch.

1. MINERS!!! I think the miners can get out of hand sometimes some characters cant shoot them very well. But why can't we punch them? I feel we should be able to melee attack miners, they're very frustrating when they crawl under you and leave a mine. The mines do a lot of damage and they're not the easiest target.

Also , antag should be harmed by miner mines as well. The new missions where miners are heavy on you might as well surrender when you see an antag, they are HEAVILY in antag favor and most of the time their victory is a forgone conclusion. I surrender when I get an antag on these missions now, there really isn't any point. It's over from the start, especially in that chaotic "bullet hell" last stage on Council apocalypse. You are walking through a miasma of damage everywhere, mines, hollow ones, elites, beholder lasers, bouncing bubbles, drone bubbles, etc... you can't step two steps without walking into damage but the antagonists can just waltz thorough this solid cloud of death flying everywhere immune to everything, it's INCREDIBLY unfair. Again, I just surrender, waste of time. The missions is already damaging enough by itself.

2. I've gotten the hang of the BP system. You have to do an elaboriate strategy of lowering MMR to about 40% to 45% which is high enough to get a good score but low enough to be easy without sacrificing success due to low scores and getting new players who are horrible liabilities to BP missions. If you get a mentor warning (and yes they are warnings) anyways you always decline on BP missions. But, I am tier 1 and have never EVER seen a common BP. I got all the rares in the game already, don't need any more. But there are characters I need common non-rare BP for. Like Valeria's Earthing and one of Shae's. I think they should be a tad more common? You can't buy mercury points to get BP so the game should make BP more available.

3. Faction points. You don't get enough of it and the cost of reshuffling cards is 4800 now. In the old system you could get 5k to 10k. I understand gold being more slow. I don't like it but it's to incentivize spending mercury points to get a litle extra. But, faction points cant be gotten by purchase, so it should be a little bit more easier to come by. Remember that many MANY times you get 4800 faction it's thrown away with no value or gain when you don't get the card you want. It take many MANY shuffles to get the card you want.

4. Mentor bonus. This should be a lot more. 20% XP bonus isn't enough, I feel. More often I am willing to forgoe this and decline mission, depending on the map, instead of being enticed by the 20% bonus. It should be 20% PER HEAD of new players. This would make it a bit better and worth it. Also, maybe make it faction and gold instead? XP is practically useless after level 150.

5. Dserter/disconnect bonus whould be more than 300 points of gold or faction. i feel 500 is a good number so as not to feel too bad when you have to work without a person because they left the game.

6. Antag system. I have noticed there is a lot less antagonists now. So I don't get so bent out of shape when I get a game with one. But we suffer from the same issue as we did prior to the patch; there is no bonus to fighting an antag. It's not rewarding and you get more rewards against AI. Antag is ONLY a liability to progress, never EVER a bonus. My suggestion is the same as last time. As well as having the antagonists skill level (MMR) factored into the score you should ALSO get a flat reward for just having an antag. 500 would be good. This would make losing to an antag not to bad and also make it REWARDING to actually WIN and FIGHT against an antag. As it is now, I don't really care to fight or try hard because my score and rewards are fucked anyways and, as we've all seen, even if you win you lose against an antag because you will ALWAYS score less than a game against AI.

7. I used to play a lot ore variety of characters before. And this was fun. Now I currently am driven only to play 1 or 2 factions and that's because of BP and faction points being so rare. You have set up a system where it de-incentivizes playing different characters. Why would I play the Locals? I need no faction with them, they are all carded how i want. I need cards for this other faction, so I guess I'm stuck just playing a limited amount of characters. I'm not sure of the solution to this? Maybe have faction points be a little bit more generous in amount? Or make faction points able to be spent on any faction? Who knows.

8. I kind of made this point above, but I actively avoid the last mission on Council Apocalypse. It's so annoying, and unless I need something from that missions, I un-choose it when I queue. I love the campaign. I even love the design and the story of that mission, seeing the 5th council itself as an entity with multiple minds (hence it's name). But the mission isn't fun. TOO much going on at once. Again, as above, maybe simply being able to punch the miners might fix this? Less Miners? Less bubbles? general LESS chaos and floating hazards to wade through.


That's all I got for now. I really wish I would get a common BP mission, because I have gold to spend and really want Earthing to spend it on. I have plenty of other BP that have not been used for upgrades, but let's be honest, they'd be a waste of gold. Mostly default weapons of characters and others that are outclassed by ones that I've already forged. I'll get to those eventually for completions sake, but while there is content I am still interested and there is never EVER an opportunity to get that content i have nothing to spend gold on. Aside from throwing away time on shuffling, there is no carrot on the end of the stick currently.

There is some significant changes that are both fantastic and not so fantastic. I'd like to list my thoughts on them, the pros and cons. It would also be nice if you guys could leave what you like and dislike with the new version of the game, even if they're different or in disagreement with me.

PROS (what I like):
    -Valeria is amazing, her addition to the lore is great and I think her ability has a lot of potantisl. We finally got another 5th Council.
     -Individual rewards based on performance. This is fantastic as well. I love getting BOTH Faction and Gold, and in VERY rare cases a BP. All three in one match is great. And my score not being tied so tightly to others is also good.
     -F2P: I don't mind the fact that I payed originally for this game and all the campaigns, even the special edition with the 4 rare skins. They are a group of artists who needed funding, and as far as I'm concerned I am paying for art. Now that us veterans helped them they went F2P. That's good, it will bring in new players (which this has it's own subset of pros and cons).

First the PROS, the good things I like about new Spacelords....
     -Council Apocalypse: Epic bosses, really cool aesthetic level design. The robot centipedes and cyborg brains were really cool, Nimrod. The 5th Council her/himself was very bizarre and creepy. The reference to 2001 Space Odyssey made me laugh.
     -Mentor 20%: Most of the time this is relieving to have. By itself it is perfect. Although there may be other circumstances that mar this, I'll get into that later.
     -Disconnect Bonus: I don't know if many of you have seen this, but the game compensates you with a % bonus to rewards when other players disconnect and don't come back. I've done a few levels completely on my own and was rewarded nicely. It also downscales the level accordingly, so it was possible.
     -Cinematic Viewer: This is a lot of fun. I was able to show my wife the stoyline without having to play the game, which she would have never payed attention to or stuck around for.
     -XP Bonus as a reward: This was an unexpected and welcome bonus. This translates to getting your 2k for level gain more often. So we're clearly making more faction and gold in this patch compared to previous iterations.
     -Cheaper Skins: Um, YES? Thank you MSE. I will be taking advantage of this for sure.
     -Tolchock and R&R NERF!!: Many of you may disagree, but this is great! I'm SO glad this happened, and at a point where new players are coming in. They didn't need to see that mess.
     -There's probably more I'm missing in the PROS section, but I'm at work and am typing one and off. I want to make this balanced anyways, and not hog all the points.

CONS!!!!! I say this constructively and with love:
     -One BP per 12 hours?: EDIT: I just found out by watching Hihasuke's video, you get BP on all maps and there is always a chance, it's just increased for the "BP Map" once every 12 hours. I deleted this as a cons. This new system is actually great and so consider it a PRO. I just left it here so you all know I made the mistake.
    -Mandatory PvP: I'm not a fan of this, especially now more than before since that one BP mission is so fricken important. AND we have SO many new players at low levels you are guaranteed to lose if there is an antag and you are mentoring. While it is VERY true that there is hardly any antags now because new players can't antag until level 10 and that the flood of new players creates a "herd" protection from antagonists, it was felt when I lost my chance at BP because of an antag.
     -Mines, MINES GALORE: Less mines please. Unless you are Loaht, I feel the number of mines is just a tad too many. I can't seem to walk anywhere. And certain characters it's terrible for, like Harec or any other precision shooters. This isn't the BIGGEST deal? And I may even be wrong to complain about it so early. i remember complaining about Worlds End and then I got the hang of it, so the problem may just be me.

And that's all I can think of at the moment. Please add to this list of Pros and Cons. I think if there is a single thread for this it might make it easier for the devs?

EDIT: I want top point out to many of you who are new. The devs have a history of being incredibly responsive to feedback and a lot of the new features that are implemented today are a result of our feedback. They read feedback, but they're an indie dev team so it takes time for them to implement change. Please take this into consideration when giving criticism. I don't want to seem like the never ending mob that is completely inconsolable. That even when you fix issues they see it as weakness and yell even louder. Let's try to have a mature and balanced approach to this.

I was thinking about several different games (here in my cubical going over YouTube gaming channels and Steam). What came up was the idea of PvP and progression, among many other types of game, and why PvP and progression generally, in my opinion, don't mix well.

Progression Games: Take a game like World of Warcraft, Monster Hunter World, Warframe, etc... all "progression" based games. These games are based around a player progressing through some sort of item, equipment, leveling and ability gaining. These types of players generally are entertained with an "investment" type game play. They (we) love grinding for items, resources, currency, and experience to make our character more stronger and get more "things".

Player verses Player (or competitive games): Fighting games like the Street Fighter series, racing games like Mario Kart series, Grand Turismo, Halo, Starcraft, etc... These are games that appeal to players who are concerned with competing and improving their skills as a means success.

I would like to state that neither of these gamer types are bad and that there is a lot more types of gamers/games than this. But for the sake of this argument we will be focusing on these two gamer/game types and why they don't mix as well. Again, no one is wrong in this post.

I was thinking about Street fighter today. Why don't I mind playing Street Fighter against another person but I mind it if I'm playing Spacelords? Simple, there are stakes on the line. As a progression type player that I am I don't mind losing against other people in traditional PvP games, like Mario Kart, Halo, Street Fighter, etc... because I don't lose anything. The winner hasn't taken anything from me. I can throw myself against that player as many times as I want, and win or lose I haven't gained or lost anything. I've only learned to get better. But this is a fixed rate regardless of how well I do, so I don't feel bad. I just laugh when I lose and it's fun. No REAL loss.

Why do I feel bad when I lose in progression/PvP games? Well, because games that are made to have progression appeal and require grinding to get more out of the game are time investments for players like me. When another player has the ability to take away my progress, or slow it down it infuriates me, and many players like me. As a gamer I have a lot of gamer friends. Many of them progression based players like me (naturally since I've been long time friends with them in other games that are progression style) , also I see other post from gamers who favor progression style games and were (heavy emphasis on the word "were") drawn to the game because of progression mechanics. I can tell you that what turns them off is the same thing, another player taking away their progress. This wouldn't be an issue if there was no progression in the first place OR if the progression rewards were the same regardless.

This is hard for PvP/Competative players to understand, because their high risk players who, generally, find progression games boring. They like risk, and get thrilled from hard situations and PvP. This is absolutely fine, there's nothing wrong with this, at ALL. But PvE, progression players are more conservative and like steady rewards and low risk, so when another player hinders progression we feel like we are wronged, we feel angry, resentful. We "feel" like it's unfair. We feel like we've wasted out time, we LOST time, we LOST progress. We can't get that time back, it's gone and, most of all, it was out of our control. We NEED control. You essentially have the Tortoise and the Hair here.

The problem, I feel, with Spacelords is, as I've said before, that it caters to both types of players. This is nothing new, other games do this as well. But other games give the option for the two types of players to choose. World of Warcraft, The Souls series, etc... and it works. Both gamer types can coexist and continue playing the game at the same time.

It's philosophically confusing when you draw in both and force both to PvP. So one can't simply say, "Well this game wasn't made for you." when the game has progression pasted all over it, despite PvP elements. What occurs when both players are forced to interact is you get one type pissed and leaving the game with bad reviews. And the reviews aren't entirely dishonest since they were drawn in by the TRAP of progression. The PvPers scratch their heads, but this was an inevitable demographic disaster that was going to happen.

Developers have to understand their demographics and who they're marketing the game to. They have to be careful of the player types they draw in and how they interact with the game and other players types. PvP/progression players in the same sand box as PvP/competitive players is SUCH a toxic cocktail. One is oil the other is water.

There is a lot of single player high quality experiences out there, and a lot of coop multi player games coming out, the BIG one that just dropped is Monster Hunter World. This is a virtual super magnet for PvE progression players.

The uneducated answer to this by some PvPers would be, "fine let them leave, this game was all about the hardcore PvP anyways." But it isn't that simple. You see they marketed the game for both players and so they have drawn in a LOT of both. So the smart thing to do, considering the current climate of games and this game's hybrid demographics, would be to make PvP optional. I want to see this game succeed, but in the current library of games I feel they should make the move to optional PvP in order to maintain their demographics if they want to continue the trend of having a more healthy player-base.

On the 23rd this game goes free to play, so it will draw a LOT of people in. And it should, it is polished, unique and fun. But in order to maintain half of these numbers it will draw in it should make PvP optional... Why? Monster hunter World. It's $60 though, so free to play will draw more in. Having both F2P and optional PvP will be the more stable and safer way to go forward, in my opinion.

For PvPers who don't agree with me, i ask you to look at this from the point of view of a developer and marketing demographics. Consider the mix of player that exist in the game currently and consider the competing games right now. We both want this game to live on don't we? We both want to see more players. MMW offers pure PvE, Fortnight offers pure PvP. Spacelords should offer BOTH, but also be able to maintain both without sacrificing the other.

That's all I got. I will see you on the Broken Planet.

TL;DR: In the current game environment Spacelords has to make PvP optional in order to keep both of it's player types in order to survive.

I carded Breath after I got the Patient Boy. Now I'm a bodygaurd.

I follow my ally and when enemies approach I fire mines on my ally and then ghost ahead of him. I heal him and explode the mined on enemies and then reappear and get stragglers. It's fun playing Healdren.

It's TOTALLY out of character, Doldren would NEVER heal others, but it's fun anyways.

There is a growing trend in weapon releases I've noticed recently. A lot of the newer weapons, like Shy, Barrier, Tolchock, Patient Boy, and of course the infamous Rock and Roll, are all so incredibly useful, many of them even giving the character an additional special ability, that all the other weapons are quite obsolete.

I don't point this out because I want awesome weapons not to come out anymore (except in the case of Rock and Roll), but because I'm questioning the game philosophy for the second and even third tier weapons. I realize the beginner weapons should be fairly simple and straight forward having the least amount of utility and complexity. But why make second and third tier weapons if the 4th tier weapons and on are going to be so radically different and useful as to render the 2nd and 3rd obsolete? If it was a progression thing where you had to be higher levels and pay more money for each progressive tier I could understand. But it's not, somehow the game, through cost and drop rate, wants me to believe O.Shtorm is equal to Tolchock, or that Popcorns is equal to Cookie (hell Bubblegum isn't even good as all three of it's common counterparts and it's a rare and costs more), Granny as good as Barrier.

When I get these 4th tier weapons I don't have any reason to build the 2nd or 3rd tiers I have. I just got Shy, why the hell would I ever build Raceme? I gor Rock and Roll, why would I ever build ANY other of her weapons?

I guess what I'm saying is that these 2nd and 3rd tier should cost less and some shouldn't even be considered rare, as they are quite useless, like Bubblegum for example. 1st tier should be cheap, 2nd should be normal cost, 3rd should be a little bit more and 4th tier should cost the most. Then there would be incentive to build lower tiers. And rare weapon costs often do't reflect the effectiveness of the weapons and so there are some rares that collect dust because there's nothing great about them to merit the rare cost. Prices and categories should change.