Where is everyone?

[Evil_Merlin]

No one is online. Again.

[ShoHashi]

Didn't we just have this discussion last month?

http://steamcommunity.com/app/266620/discussions/0/405690850602254864/#c405691491105803219

You can probably find some players on the Discord server. Instructions are here:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/266620/discussions/0/385428943464213030/

[TwoCatsYelling]

In my times playing, I've run into a number of different players/characters. So there are people checking it out. Are there tons of people in-game at all times? Nope.

Why?

I could see it being a kind of self-perpetuating thing at this point; e.g. few people are online at the same time, because few people are online at the same time, because few people are online at the same time.

The opposite is also true. When there's a lot of people around, people will tend to hang out longer. In the meantime, more people are logging in, and when they see other people, they hang out longer. So, then it becomes "more people are online at once, because more people are online at once, because more people are online at once..."

I've seen both phenomenon happen time and again in many of the MMOs I've played, and have seen a few go from one scenario to the other, as the game gained, or lost, players. A kind of momentum builds up either way.

In short: The perception that no one else is playing can be a strong anti-motivator to keep playing. And, the reverse is true as well.

In LoD's case, being a PvP-based game, other players being around is rather important, because otherwise, PvP can't happen. It's like trying to clap with one hand.

Ultimately, some people simply are only interested in hopping in and pew-pewing against other players. Testing the game holds no interest for them. They just want a game to play. And so, not seeing others around when they log in could, understandably, be unmotivating.

So, that's the "problem" (if you could call it that, in a game still in development).

Now, here's a (possible) solution...

No one who owns LoD is helpless in addressing this. We can all post here, so, perhaps it would be good to try and set up a loose schedule that's feasible to as many people as possible, to meet up for a couple hours, maybe a few nights a week or on weekends or something, and have a go at it. This is in addition to when ever people might log in on their own at other times, of course.

Work out a time-frame that works for everyone, log in, and go to town. As long as people understand that LoD *is* still in development, and are *not* expecting a flawless experience without crashes, or weird quirks, and can roll with it, I think it could be a lot of fun. *And* it would help provide valuable feedback to 3000AD for further fixing and improvements.

As Sho mentioned, a number of folks are on the Discord server, so it can be talked about on there, too. I have it open pretty much any time I'm at my PC (which is a lot lol), though I don't always have the chat opened; but I do scroll back to see what I've missed, etc.

For myself, I think that could be a very cool thing to set up; a good way to get something of a more organized community going around LoD, and provide some helpful feedback in the process.

Just my two cents.

Thoughts?

[MennoKnightz]

Another solution, but would require a change in scope in the game, and i know Derek didn't want to add it previously.

But A.I enemies. Having at least something to kill could keep someone on long enough for more to hop on and play

[TwoCatsYelling]

That's pretty much what the Androids are going to be, when activated, right? Effectively enemy NPCs (for the opposing faction anyway)?

[dsmart]

Originally posted by Wolfsong:

In LoD's case, being a PvP-based game, other players being around is rather important, because otherwise, PvP can't happen.

^this

And that's precisely why I have done the following (excerpt from my upcoming dev blog):

• moved player-controlled ground vehicles, defense systems unlocks, to a different position in the queue.
  
  This was a difficult decision because I wanted to get them out of the way after aircraft. But like aircraft, once we make that live, it could take upwards of a month or more to get all the bugs, kinks, tweaks out of the way. Made even more challenging by the fact that we have wheeled, air-cushioned, and naval vehicles as seen here http://lodmmo.com/assets/
  
  The aircraft Build 00.09.06.07 | 16-02-19 was fairly stable, but we still had to get the kinks out, in between working on other bug fixes and tweaks. The vehicle unlocks will present the same challenges - and possibly take longer to resolve.
  
  
• moved AI androids to the top of the queue. they are almost finished actually. just got some wrapping up to do.
  
  
• moved automated AI turret systems (stations, carriers, ground defense systems) up the queue and after androids.

Remember that the AI androids and turrets, are controlled by the same mechanics (already in place) as Tacops terminals which control the detention hold.

Basically, when the above are done, since those pesky insurgents actually control Lyrius (all four bases, Arkangel station), all the AI controlled defense systems (on the planet, turrets on the station and carrier) by default (since that's what caused GALCOM to show up there in the first place) it means that all GALCOM forces will be engaged on sight.

The turret and android defense systems on Vanguard, Templar, Overwatch, Starguard, will remain off by default. Until someone goes to a Tacops terminal, and turns them on. And depending on who does that, the opposing faction gets to be on the receiving end of some serious firepower.

The same happens on the planet. The Tacops terminal inside the starbase serves the same function, but for the missile and turret systems on the planet.

The current .06 build gen has been purely bug fixes and tweaks, for specifically the aforementioned reasons. Notice that no new features have been added in this build.

What the above does is accelerate the pseudo-PvE aspects of the game in order to promote solo and team gameplay. The game is still PvP focused, but relying on the underlying AI opponents means that I don't abandon that design premise by trying to shoe-horn traditional PvE (missions, encounters etc) into a game that was NOT designed for that.

Make no mistake, I have no plans - or desire - to alter the design of my game. I'm not making a game for everybody. It is, and will always be, a PvP game, with hybrid PvE elements which were always designed to be an underlying mechanic, not a focus for gameplay.

[TwoCatsYelling]

In a PvP context, it makes perfect sense, too. Those androids and other defenses become a tool of the controlling side, so even if those aspects are a bit more "PvE", since you're not fighting another player, you are still trying to dismantle something they control.

It's consistent with any other PvP MMO I've played. Lineage 2, just to name one, allowed people who controlled a castle/fortress to "hire" NPC guards whom helped to fend off attackers automatically, and had to be destroyed by the people sieging it.

At any rate, those who want to shoot at something that shoots back should have their wish once those things are online, I'd expect :p.

[Rasdwatrium]

Originally posted by dsmart:

Originally posted by Wolfsong:

In LoD's case, being a PvP-based game, other players being around is rather important, because otherwise, PvP can't happen.

^this

And that's precisely why I have done the following (excerpt from my upcoming dev blog):

• moved player-controlled ground vehicles, defense systems unlocks, to a different position in the queue.
  
  This was a difficult decision because I wanted to get them out of the way after aircraft. But like aircraft, once we make that live, it could take upwards of a month or more to get all the bugs, kinks, tweaks out of the way. Made even more challenging by the fact that we have wheeled, air-cushioned, and naval vehicles as seen here http://lodmmo.com/assets/
  
  The aircraft Build 00.09.06.07 | 16-02-19 was fairly stable, but we still had to get the kinks out, in between working on other bug fixes and tweaks. The vehicle unlocks will present the same challenges - and possibly take longer to resolve.
  
  
• moved AI androids to the top of the queue. they are almost finished actually. just got some wrapping up to do.
  
  
• moved automated AI turret systems (stations, carriers, ground defense systems) up the queue and after androids.

Remember that the AI androids and turrets, are controlled by the same mechanics (already in place) as Tacops terminals which control the detention hold.

Basically, when the above are done, since those pesky insurgents actually control Lyrius (all four bases, Arkangel station), all the AI controlled defense systems (on the planet, turrets on the station and carrier) by default (since that's what caused GALCOM to show up there in the first place) it means that all GALCOM forces will be engaged on sight.

The turret and android defense systems on Vanguard, Templar, Overwatch, Starguard, will remain off by default. Until someone goes to a Tacops terminal, and turns them on. And depending on who does that, the opposing faction gets to be on the receiving end of some serious firepower.

The same happens on the planet. The Tacops terminal inside the starbase serves the same function, but for the missile and turret systems on the planet.

The current .06 build gen has been purely bug fixes and tweaks, for specifically the aforementioned reasons. Notice that no new features have been added in this build.

What the above does is accelerate the pseudo-PvE aspects of the game in order to promote solo and team gameplay. The game is still PvP focused, but relying on the underlying AI opponents means that I don't abandon that design premise by trying to shoe-horn traditional PvE (missions, encounters etc) into a game that was NOT designed for that.

Make no mistake, I have no plans - or desire - to alter the design of my game. I'm not making a game for everybody. It is, and will always be, a PvP game, with hybrid PvE elements which were always designed to be an underlying mechanic, not a focus for gameplay.

Uhm, just that I get it right, shortly summarized:

Ground vehicles are delayed indefinetly, the next thing up is AI so you can fight something (since there is a lack of players to fight in a PvP game) and also soon, together with the AI, the local defense systems on planets and bigger ships are active as well.

This leads me to the question: What about the starting points? Right now, both factions start and fight on the Starguard iirc. And it takes basically one button to push to activate the systems on the Starguard for one team. In your videos and streams I saw so far you always empathized how amazing those defensive measures will be and it painted a picture of a single android holding back a dozen of players with ease.

How will this be considered when balacing ..anything? I mean, one possible (and a very likely) scenario is that the opposing team takes over the control of the carrier, activates the defense systems and turns me into dust the second I leave the spawning room.

At least that's the picture in my mind after all I saw and heard about it from you so far. Or am I wrong, somewhere?

[TwoCatsYelling]

Derek would obviously answer this far better than I, but if I was to guess, I'd think each side would spawn in faction-friendly, or at least faction-neutral areas (if such zones exist). Or, maybe a player has a temporary "invincibility" shield on them for the first 5 seconds or so upon entering a contested area, where they can't be injured, but also can not injure others. This way people can't be gate-camped, and have time to go get weapons/ammo, etc.

Again, I dunno, this is just me putting some thoughts out there, based on how I've seen it done in some other games I've played.

[dsmart]

Originally posted by Rasdwatrium:

Ground vehicles are delayed indefinetly,

No, I never said that. Read what I wrote again.

the next thing up is AI so you can fight something (since there is a lack of players to fight in a PvP game) and also soon, together with the AI, the local defense systems on planets and bigger ships are active as well.

Yes and no....

It has nothing to do with "so you can fight something else". AI controlled androids, ground defense systems, orbital defense systems, station/carrier turret systems - were all part of the design since 2009. Which is why they appear in the assets dB on the website.

Basically....

Instead of doing this:

air/space craft
ground/naval vehicles
androids
station/carrier defense systems
orbital defense systems
planetary defense systems

I am now doing this:

air/space craft
station/carrier defense systems
orbital defense systems
planetary defense systems
androids
ground/naval vehicles

And ALL of the above were already part of the IP going back several of my games. The exception being that NPC androids in LOD, take the place of NPC humans (all of which were player controlled via a robust orders system in those games). If you have played All Aspect Warfare, and led your NPC team into battle, then you already have an idea of how the LOD androids are going to work.

The change is designed to bring the AI controlled entities to the head of the queue because vehicles (like aircraft) - though done almost two years ago[lodmmo.com] - while would have been nice to unlock for testing, doesn't solve the short-term issue of engagement. And since they are still going to be doing the same thing in the baseline PvP world, it doesn't add/remove anything. It's just a sensible schedule shift.

This leads me to the question: What about the starting points? Right now, both factions start and fight on the Starguard iirc. And it takes basically one button to push to activate the systems on the Starguard for one team. In your videos and streams I saw so far you always empathized how amazing those defensive measures will be and it painted a picture of a single android holding back a dozen of players with ease.

How will this be considered when balacing ..anything? I mean, one possible (and a very likely) scenario is that the opposing team takes over the control of the carrier, activates the defense systems and turns me into dust the second I leave the spawning room.

At least that's the picture in my mind after all I saw and heard about it from you so far. Or am I wrong, somewhere?

Hostile players can still camp the spawn points. Androids don't do that. They only engage when hostiles are detected and they will break off the engagement if they lose track of you if you activate the cloaking device, use a t-shaft/djp to leave their immediate vicinity etc. Androids are sentries; not hunters.

btw, only Starter Kits are forced to start on the Starguard. And if you do start off there, while the defense systems are hostile toward your faction, well that's the fun part. Fight your way off the carrier and pat yourself on the back if you didn't get killed. And if you're dumb enough to leave in a fighter - when you have a DJP that can take you to the planet below or another station (not to mention the many t-shafts which you can use to play hide-and-seek with hostile players and androids) - knowing that the turrets are going to cut you to shreds the minute they detect you launching from the docking bay, then you're as dumb as you think you are. A smart player doesn't do that. And this game was designed or developed for run-and-gun players. None of my games are.

Anyway, valid questions, but I think you're putting the cart before the horse. I pride myself in being an experienced designer; and know what I'm doing. So wait for it to be unlocked for testing, before jumping to conclusions. And if there are issues with how it's implemented, well that's what testing/tweaking is for - which, as you have seen, we do constantly.

[Rasdwatrium]

Originally posted by Wolfsong:

Derek would obviously answer this far better than I, but if I was to guess, I'd think each side would spawn in faction-friendly, or at least faction-neutral areas (if such zones exist). Or, maybe a player has a temporary "invincibility" shield on them for the first 5 seconds or so upon entering a contested area, where they can't be injured, but also can not injure others. This way people can't be gate-camped, and have time to go get weapons/ammo, etc.

Again, I dunno, this is just me putting some thoughts out there, based on how I've seen it done in some other games I've played.

Have you even played the game so far? 5 seconds to get weapons?

[dsmart]

Originally posted by Rasdwatrium:

Originally posted by Wolfsong:

Derek would obviously answer this far better than I, but if I was to guess, I'd think each side would spawn in faction-friendly, or at least faction-neutral areas (if such zones exist). Or, maybe a player has a temporary "invincibility" shield on them for the first 5 seconds or so upon entering a contested area, where they can't be injured, but also can not injure others. This way people can't be gate-camped, and have time to go get weapons/ammo, etc.

Again, I dunno, this is just me putting some thoughts out there, based on how I've seen it done in some other games I've played.

Have you even played the game so far? 5 seconds to get weapons?

You start off with weapons. And PWP are close by. What was your point? It's not very clear to me.

[Rasdwatrium]

Originally posted by dsmart:

Aside from that, hostile players can still camp the spawn points. Androids don't do that. They only engage when hostiles are detected and they will break off the engagement if they lose track of you if you activate the cloaking device, use a t-shaft/djp to leave their immediate vicinity etc. Androids are sentries; not hunters.

btw, only Starter Kits are forced to start on the Starguard. And if you do start off there, while the defense systems are hostile toward your faction, well that's the fun part. Fight your way off the carrier and pat yourself on the back if you didn't get killed. And if you're dumb enough to leave in a fighter - when you have a DJP that can take you to the planet below or another station (not to mention the many t-shafts which you can use to play hide-and-seek with hostile players and androids) - knowing that the turrets are going to cut you to shreds the minute they detect you launching from the docking bay, then you're as dumb as you think you are. A smart player doesn't do that. And this game was designed or developed for run-and-gun players. None of my games are.

Anyway, valid questions, but I think you're putting the cart before the horse. I pride myself in being an experienced designer; and know what I'm doing. So wait for it to be unlocked for testing, before jumping to conclusions. And if there are issues with how it's implemented, well that's what testing/tweaking is for - which, as you have seen, we do constantly.

I can only tell things from what I have played so far. And that expierence was having androids not directly in the spawnroom or hallway,but in the one connected to it. There were like 2 or 3 guarding the DJP and the hallways behind that. I don't know how exactly you designed the androids to kick ass (knowing this would be very helpful for the understanding!), but it sounded to me that even the idea of peeking around the corner results in a headshot.

Originally posted by dsmart:

You start off with weapons. And PWP are close by. What was your point? It's not very clear to me.

A somewhat fully automated gun with an RoF of what feels like 2 which takes two magazines to the body to kill a player and two shots to the head. How is it planned to work on Androids, how many shots where can take them out?

[TwoCatsYelling]

Originally posted by Rasdwatrium:

Originally posted by Wolfsong:

Derek would obviously answer this far better than I, but if I was to guess, I'd think each side would spawn in faction-friendly, or at least faction-neutral areas (if such zones exist). Or, maybe a player has a temporary "invincibility" shield on them for the first 5 seconds or so upon entering a contested area, where they can't be injured, but also can not injure others. This way people can't be gate-camped, and have time to go get weapons/ammo, etc.

Again, I dunno, this is just me putting some thoughts out there, based on how I've seen it done in some other games I've played.

Have you even played the game so far? 5 seconds to get weapons?

I was giving a loose, hypothetical example... not a literal description.

[Getijsem]

Originally posted by Wolfsong:

Now, here's a (possible) solution...

No one who owns LoD is helpless in addressing this. We can all post here, so, perhaps it would be good to try and set up a loose schedule that's feasible to as many people as possible, to meet up for a couple hours, maybe a few nights a week or on weekends or something, and have a go at it. This is in addition to when ever people might log in on their own at other times, of course.

Work out a time-frame that works for everyone, log in, and go to town. As long as people understand that LoD *is* still in development, and are *not* expecting a flawless experience without crashes, or weird quirks, and can roll with it, I think it could be a lot of fun. *And* it would help provide valuable feedback to 3000AD for further fixing and improvements.

As Sho mentioned, a number of folks are on the Discord server, so it can be talked about on there, too. I have it open pretty much any time I'm at my PC (which is a lot lol), though I don't always have the chat opened; but I do scroll back to see what I've missed, etc.

For myself, I think that could be a very cool thing to set up; a good way to get something of a more organized community going around LoD, and provide some helpful feedback in the process.

Just my two cents.

Thoughts?

You mean like this, this or this?

Come and join the upcoming event 2nd of April

[dsmart]

Originally posted by Rasdwatrium:

I can only tell things from what I have played so far. And that expierence was having androids not directly in the spawnroom or hallway,but in the one connected to it. There were like 2 or 3 guarding the DJP and the hallways behind that.

Yep. Which is why I said above that they are sentries/guards. They guard key installations on the planet, and key objects/areas in the station/carrier.

They are only programmed to engage targets within range. And they're not invincible.

e.g. the one guarding the DJP will return to that location if he wanders off and the target goes out of range (e.g. you go to a different deck, use a t-shaft, djp etc). So it's not like they're always going to be there.

And using the behavioral AI we built on top of Havok AI, they will walk a patrol pattern as well. Just like the ATS shuttles. So even if a hostile haplessly steps through a DJP, there may not be an android there. And if there is, well, you're farked. :)

I don't know how exactly you designed the androids to kick ass (knowing this would be very helpful for the understanding!), but it sounded to me that even the idea of peeking around the corner results in a headshot.

Their guns and rockets (no missiles) are not 100% accurate. So no, they're not going to be doing any head shots. An android with a machine gun arm isn't going to hit you 100% of the time if you are moving. They all fire in sprays; just like your machine gun.

And the only way that "peeking around the corner" is going to get you killed, is if you are within range.

ALL the androids have limited radar detection ranges as their weakness.

A somewhat fully automated gun with an RoF of what feels like 2 which takes two magazines to the body to kill a player and two shots to the head. How is it planned to work on Androids, how many shots where can take them out?

Head shots are insta-kill. It doesn't take 2 shots.

Player body armor can absorb a lot of hits. The reason it "appears" to take more shots, is because of the spray (not all shots will hit - especially if you are not using ADS).

The android and weapon stats are all on the website assets dB[lodmmo.com].

e.g. the AC420 has 4000 armor and 4000 shield. An A9MAG machine gun fires DUC04 shots (11-14 damage). This means that it will take between 285 - 330 shots to just pierce the shield. Bring a bag of plasma grenades or mines.

If you come across a ZN-219, you should probably run.

Anyway, most of this will be tweaked once we unlock for testing. So don't panic yet. Save that for later. :)