Author Topic: New Spacelords Feedback (add yours here)  (Read 7594 times)

Level9Drow

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New Spacelords Feedback (add yours here)
on: August 24, 2018, 07:49:34 PM
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.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2018, 11:10:24 PM by Level9Drow »

gearedbeast

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Re: New Spacelords Feedback (add yours here)
Reply #1 on: August 24, 2018, 08:03:08 PM
Just gonna copy and past on the right thread:
"I too am trying to be positive. As usually the update came with its fair share of major hiccups but I honestly haven't played enough to get a handle on all the new features so I can't even judge that much, and a lot of what of what I have experienced I enjoyed.

With every new campaign I think the dialogue gets better,  mission variety gets better (can hold 5 aleph more often!!), and the new characters are always a fantastic surpise!

Just want to let MS know I'm enjoying the product and holding on to my faith!"

A lot of the issues that are listed don't surprise me at all. When it went free to play I knew they were going to cut gold because it's for one person now so good bye changes for 9000 gold. BP is also a obvious and terrible way to keep people playing.

I honestly don't feel like making long paragraphs or lists so I'll just leave at that. Sorry for the lack of contribution

Deridus

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Re: New Spacelords Feedback (add yours here)
Reply #2 on: August 25, 2018, 05:34:42 PM
I like the game, but I think the rewards need to be higher, especially for the antagonists, since it's much harder, that it should be easier to attain a higher mmr on to be other means to achieve it instead of just completing a much, which awards with an increase of just 1%, and that veterans should earn something more. Don't get me wrong, the skins are nice, especially Alicia's with her Tank Girl look, but some currency or one or two characters would be nice. Also, it might be better if missions would require less than ten levels to access them, since it can be a hassle, especially for casual players that enjoy the story and want to know how it continues.

The game is great and everything, with the characters and their stories the best part, but it still needs some improvement, like most things.

revmort

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Re: New Spacelords Feedback (add yours here)
Reply #3 on: August 25, 2018, 10:52:22 PM
I'm a largely new player, and while I've run into a few gameplay mechanics that bug me, I do feel this game has a lot of potential. This feels like a real labor of effort and care and I really do think it can and deserves to do well.

What concerns me is a few immediate issues I see that are likely to turn new players off, or encourage less than ideal behavior. You know, things that are likely to make the game not make money and not keep going. So here are what I feel are the the most pressing problems and some hopefully helpful suggestions, sorted in order of more or less how important I feel they are :P Or maybe I'm entirely wrong and just armchair game developing!

*Stop offering Map & Mission Specific Rewards and Incentives*
This spreads your player base incredibly thin and makes new players feel frustrated at long wait times for matchmaking. Now, new players are likely to set their eyes on one or two specific maps and only try to play those.

Instead of giving specific maps specific reward bonuses the first time you play them in a 24 hour period, give players X "Daily Boost tokens" they can choose to spend before a match begins. If they do, they guarantee a blueprint drop or gold bonus just like the current map specific bonuses do. These tokens refresh every 24 hours and can not be saved up, they're use 'em or lose 'em. Simply assign each token a bonus and let players pick which they wanna use. Thus those looking for blueprints can spend their blueprint tokens first, while those with an eye on gold or faction points can start by spending those tokens.

This method means players are more likely to search for games across all or most maps (perhaps only avoiding ones bad for the characters whose blueprints they want). Which means less wait times as more people cue for more maps, and that means more time spent playing and happier players who won't go on steam and complain about 10 minute waiting periods.

*More Clarity Regarding Blueprint Drop Mechanics & Incentives for Playing*
As a new player, Blueprints immediately become one of the big thing you want to work towards. They provide new weapons to characters you like, open up new ways to play and seem integral to keeping up with the power level of the game as a whole.

Apparently, thanks to this forum, I learned that you can get them from any mission, not just the daily guaranteed rewards. The game needs to make this fact far clearer, and provide insight into how it determines whether or not I get one.

As it stands, new players are likely to start focusing on getting Blueprints for heroes they like and have unlocked. This means they will hone in on the blueprint drop missions, and once they've done those they're likely to feel discouraged from playing more. Needless to say, this isn't good.

So the game needs make it clearer that blueprints are always a possible reward, because it's likely to keep people playing more than two or three missions a day.

*Reconsider or Remove Level Caps on Individual Heroes*
I've seen this posted elsewhere, but I find the current system where most heroes have specific level requirements very discouraging. Every player is different, and enjoy different playstyles. This means not every hero appeals to every player.

So if I, as a new player, see a cool trailer featuring Ginebra and go "I wanna try this game and that cool hero!" and then start it up only to find myself looking at having to farm 36 levels to get to even try her, I'm unlikely to be happy and unlikely to stay. Worse still, unlocking heroes I don't want along the way will now feel annoying, not rewarding.

I think you should look into replacing the current system for one with more player choice. I've seen suggestions on this forum for unlock tokens with escalating costs, as well as just flat unlock fees for every hero. Both are solid suggestions that would solve this problem.

The important thing is, don't gate heroes behind individual level requirements. Letting players focus in on and unlock the heroes they want first means they're more likely to find a playstyle they like, and that means they're more likely to keep playing in the first place.

*Let Players Try Heroes Before Buying Them*
In conjunction with the above hero access change, make players able to try heroes before they buy them, especially if unlocking them is pricey. Partially that means some way to actually play them in a static training map or something. But it also means letting players see the card decks, weapons, and skins of heroes they haven't unlocked. Currently, the only way for me to learn more about what kinda cool things Schneider has is unlocking him or google, and this is generally a bad thing. If I can see his options, that means I'm more likely to spot a skin or ability or gun that seems or just looks awesome, and that means I'm more likely to try and unlock that hero. In other words, I'm more likely to play.

*Reconsider the Deluxe Packs on Steam*
This is a more minor thing, but the price point and nature of the Valeria and Schneider Deluxe pack on the Steam page does not "look" good. 70 euro (the price of a full retail AAA game at launch) to speed up unlocking two specific heroes in a F2P game will put people off, and hints at a terrible monetization system, even if said system isn't actually terrible.

This is less about the reality (though as mentioned above, I do think the Hero unlock system needs to change) and more about perception. It looks bad, it's bad PR and it risks putting potential players off. At the very least, if you won't reconsider the packs as a whole, consider removing them from the steam DLC page and putting them in the in-game store instead. This at the very least means the game's DLC page is not entirely occupied by two very expensive looking instant unlock "shortcuts".

*Option to fast forward through Post-game Reward Screen*
And, because no suggestion list is completely without one completely nitpicky nitpick ;) The post-game reward screen after finishing a game is a little frustrating. I love our goofy pilot as much as the next guy, but right now we have to sit through his lengthy animations and dialogue after every game, with no way to speed it up or skip it. Then we get the post-mission cutscene and then we return to the main menu, only to endure two pop-up messages with lengthy animations (that we also can't skip) that simply tell you what you got all over again. I'm legitimately curious if there's something I'm missing here, because it just seems redundant and kind of a waste of time?

*Rant Over, Time To Be Nice!*
If you're reading this, that means you sat through all that noise, so thank you for your patience and literary fortitude. I appreciate you giving me some of your time. And, if you're one of the lovely people over at Mercurysteam, the very cool and promising game you're making. You seem like cool people, and I wish you and this game well!

Primevil657

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Re: New Spacelords Feedback (add yours here)
Reply #4 on: August 01, 2019, 09:32:20 PM
Where as I agree with your list in most, The only thing I hate rn is the mmr.
  Going against high levels players with absolutely no support really sucks, the voice constantly putting me down, the ai sucks, if the players are (once again) over leveled than me, how am I supposed to deal with being hunted down and knocked out of the game by 3 punches??
  If I'm supposed to lose as antag then why not give me a bigger reward to keep me playing as antag? Why even have a score at all?
  The game style of antag feels more like a dunce cap than it does a fun style at a different play. It's more of a chore than it is a leisure.
   To make the game mode more fun and more challenging for other players, increase the melee dmg from antag for players under level 60 by at least 10% that way we have a chance at keeping up and keeping the enemy team on an even playing field. Rather than it taking us 30 hits to kill vs their 3 hits.
   One more thing I think goes unnoticed is that everything costs way too much with how little you earn from matches. I've been farming for over 3 months to buy a new char, no spending anything and still have not earned enough to get a new char yet. That's saying something. Yes I may not be one of the best antags or raiders but the whole "git gud" is more disrespectful than it is helpful when it comes to the slow process of trying to solo play due to no friends (the lfg forums dont always work out so no point in trying to post it) people dotn always have mics and people have lives to get back to so they cant enjoy other chars because of the hindrance behind such a puny reward working towards such an impossible priced possession.

  Yes I do have nice things to say about the game.

The new system is great. Quick play with rewards and the adventure score with the rewards is very sweet. The new layout is very much liked and it feels way easier to access everything from one area. No more scrambling to get where I wanna be. Poof, right there in front of me 

Before I end this post, one more thing I wanna say, GIVE ANTAGS A SURRENDER OPTION! too many times have I been stuck sitting in a match as antag watching these dudes spawn kill me over and over. We need a surrender option so we can go find a game that isnt filled with over powered groupies. (By groupies I mean people who are super fckin smart and stick in groups. Curse these damn smart people) anyways. Keep up the great work guys. Love the game!

sonofoz

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Re: New Spacelords Feedback (add yours here)
Reply #5 on: August 02, 2019, 12:54:53 PM
right now i realy don't like the new version.
i'll wait to get used to it.

but with prize galores, i really had the feeling that fighting bugs were really few compared with before, mostly they were just appearing against cheating elites, so they were not bugs, since AI in voluntary cheating.

but yesterday... god... there was not a single match wich was not full of it.
i passed my 5 games raging like hell about fighthing bugs.
hell, the moment where a baby antag grabbed me while my punch was litteraly in this face still haunts me.

all my games were bugged to the core. every fucking one.
i had the feeling to be back 3 months ago when i had started the game and i was wondering how a game could be so full of bugs.

i really hope it will be momentary...

JERICHO_942

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Re: New Spacelords Feedback (add yours here)
Reply #6 on: August 02, 2019, 04:25:13 PM
This game gets worse with each goddamn update. And mind you that I'm being biased in a positive way!
First, the Aleph. It was going downhill from the moment Aleph started dropping from elites and players that were killed with gunfire. Now you can't even get the stacks you need to progress with objectives without camping the natural deposits while also making meleeing Elites pointless unless you need a quick health boost. Even the starter mechanic of Aleph being granted to the player that laid a finisher on the enemy was more fair and interesting.
Second, the weapons and Raiders. Tolchok. Shakura. Reworked Ignis. Sa-Dhu. Plague. These are but some weapons that need balancing. Does Mercury do anything about it? No. Instead, the next issue they're working on to make matters worse.
Third, the rewards. They never were great, but at least players could get 2-2,5K gold and a proper amount of XP per match after they've gotten all one-time rewards before Prizes Galore. But instead of making rewards greater, that update cut them in half. There's absolutely NO REASON WHATSOEVER to play more than 5 times per day (the first game being the pot game), as 1750 gold and 400 XP at 10,0 points aren't worth anyone's time! The pot system is garbage, as it gives you ONE chance to win for all the losses you've had previously, and considering the shitty matchmaking, you'll probably run into a Status 1 antag with a team of 2 T6s and a Huey. Before that, we could get 50K gold and about 20K XP per day on average . What the hell?!
Fourth, the MMR and difficulty. I never understood why enemies have to become bullet sponges and deal 30 damage per shot at 50% MMR or above. Shouldn't MMR be capped at about 60 then? Who are you making this game for - The Divison fans? The very same people that spend about 200 bullets to kill a single weak mob? How do you expect people with Forge Lvl 0 to deal with them? And how do you expect T5 players to deal with Status 5-1 players? Difficulty spike? You're digging your own grave with this matchmaking.
Fifth, the progression. Rewarding people with higher lvl with greater melee damage, melee resistance and shot resistance for players? Are you mad? Complete with your awful MM, this leads to newbies being oneshot by a single strike from an antag while they have to punch them 5-6 times just to down them! At this rate, the only ones playing this game will be a 1000 T1 players!
Sixth, the "co-op" part of your game. If this REALLY was a co-op game, we would be able to communicate with each other right? I have a question for you, Mercury: does your vocabulary consist of "OK", "Help" and "I need ammo"? Because that's not the case for us! Where's ANY form of proper communication? Where's text chat, voice chat? Newbies won't understand what they must do with your "command menu", ESPECIALLY if they get to be the team leader! They'll just run around the map, die a lot and get discouraged to ever launch this game again!
That's what I think about your game: you're making it less and less user-friendly and more and more punishing for everyone.
Remove the Prizes Galore. Raise the rewards. Fix the MMR. Add a text chat/voice chat function. That's all you need to do. IS IT REALLY THAT DIFFICULT? Or does your pride not permit you to make your game similar to other, more successful titles?
« Last Edit: August 02, 2019, 04:39:51 PM by MSE_Ojuel »

ScimitarSlice

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Re: New Spacelords Feedback (add yours here)
Reply #7 on: August 02, 2019, 04:57:40 PM
I still don't understand why the original aleph system was changed.  Out of the thousands and thousands of very valid complaints and suggestions MSE has received since Raiders first dropped, I bet none of them said "I wish I could just pick up the aleph some place on the map."

MeleeMaster

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Re: New Spacelords Feedback (add yours here)
Reply #8 on: August 02, 2019, 07:19:03 PM
Fourth, the MMR and difficulty. I never understood why enemies have to become bullet sponges and deal 30 damage per shot at 50% MMR or above. Shouldn't MMR be capped at about 60 then? Who are you making this game for - The Divison fans? The very same people that spend about 200 bullets to kill a single weak mob? How do you expect people with Forge Lvl 0 to deal with them? And how do you expect T5 players to deal with Status 5-1 players? Difficulty spike? You're digging your own grave with this matchmaking.
I think the difficulty spikes are one of the worst offenses. Sometimes Raiders and Antagonists have a diffenrence of 1%, but the difficulty scales to 20% for more or less. How does that even work?

sonofoz

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Re: New Spacelords Feedback (add yours here)
Reply #9 on: August 02, 2019, 11:01:23 PM
Fourth, the MMR and difficulty. I never understood why enemies have to become bullet sponges and deal 30 damage per shot at 50% MMR or above. Shouldn't MMR be capped at about 60 then? Who are you making this game for - The Divison fans? The very same people that spend about 200 bullets to kill a single weak mob? How do you expect people with Forge Lvl 0 to deal with them? And how do you expect T5 players to deal with Status 5-1 players? Difficulty spike? You're digging your own grave with this matchmaking.
I think the difficulty spikes are one of the worst offenses. Sometimes Raiders and Antagonists have a diffenrence of 1%, but the difficulty scales to 20% for more or less. How does that even work?

absolutly.
difficulty spikes are one of the worst plague of the game, for both raiders and antags.
and if i had understand how mmr works, in pvp when it's not a bug, the first responsibles are "cheaters" who lower their mmr.

Level9Drow

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Re: New Spacelords Feedback (add yours here)
Reply #10 on: August 03, 2019, 07:45:36 AM
Fourth, the MMR and difficulty. I never understood why enemies have to become bullet sponges and deal 30 damage per shot at 50% MMR or above. Shouldn't MMR be capped at about 60 then? Who are you making this game for - The Divison fans? The very same people that spend about 200 bullets to kill a single weak mob? How do you expect people with Forge Lvl 0 to deal with them? And how do you expect T5 players to deal with Status 5-1 players? Difficulty spike? You're digging your own grave with this matchmaking.
I think the difficulty spikes are one of the worst offenses. Sometimes Raiders and Antagonists have a diffenrence of 1%, but the difficulty scales to 20% for more or less. How does that even work?

Yea, I had the WORST day playing Spacelords because of them. All 5 games were consistently horrid and we were in the 30s for MMR. They need to fix this quick. Can't see playing a game I have no fun playing. Damn I wish they wouldn't have made these changes. I was wondering what all the anger was on Discord when I was at work. Then I get off and play the game and they were right, this is terrible. Unless you are antag, then the game is better than it's ever been. But MSE need to decide if they really want to make this game worse for 4/5ths of the players.

Tekato

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Re: New Spacelords Feedback (add yours here)
Reply #11 on: August 03, 2019, 01:34:37 PM
Fourth, the MMR and difficulty. I never understood why enemies have to become bullet sponges and deal 30 damage per shot at 50% MMR or above. Shouldn't MMR be capped at about 60 then? Who are you making this game for - The Divison fans? The very same people that spend about 200 bullets to kill a single weak mob? How do you expect people with Forge Lvl 0 to deal with them? And how do you expect T5 players to deal with Status 5-1 players? Difficulty spike? You're digging your own grave with this matchmaking.
I think the difficulty spikes are one of the worst offenses. Sometimes Raiders and Antagonists have a diffenrence of 1%, but the difficulty scales to 20% for more or less. How does that even work?

Yea, I had the WORST day playing Spacelords because of them. All 5 games were consistently horrid and we were in the 30s for MMR. They need to fix this quick. Can't see playing a game I have no fun playing. Damn I wish they wouldn't have made these changes. I was wondering what all the anger was on Discord when I was at work. Then I get off and play the game and they were right, this is terrible. Unless you are antag, then the game is better than it's ever been. But MSE need to decide if they really want to make this game worse for 4/5ths of the players.
Isn't that what those assholes in the discord wanted. They got no right to be complaining. Let them have their amazing antag system.

SergeyKosinskiy

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Re: New Spacelords Feedback (add yours here)
Reply #12 on: August 03, 2019, 01:52:27 PM
Love you to tekato.😃