Patch 0.2+ - Feedback thread

Battlescape
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Its been ages since i could last fly this, so some fresh thoughts/criticisms:

Dislike current warp, old one with exit speed = warp speed and without so much inertia/drag felt better.

Not being able to fire forward when having a target locked that is off sight is a clear nogo. Ok for testing gimballs, but should not stay that way. generally, no gimballs for fighter/interceptor plz.

Camera lag/movement in 3rd person is way too strong for direct control mode - it feels like you are in target control mode. Makes it impossible to judge your distance towards ground in 3rd person, and especially if you move up/down. Also often gets your fighter in the way of your crosshair. Should be removed for direct controll mode or massively toned down.

Having killer bots attack and instant kill you when you are exploring sites is a thing. Just illustrates the age old problem that exploration and combat goals/gameplay dont mix. For the moment combat is more important, but as we will not have offline mode/exploration servers anytime soon, maybe we need a training wheel/exploration/learn to fly toggle for players that stops NPCs from attacking them and disables their weapons in return? Might also display a warning so humans dont gank em. Just an idea.

I wish i could have mouse roll back. The menues are nice, but for many important actions like warp i prefere keys. Should still be able to set cycle keys for flight modes etc.

You still get blinded by your own engines in 3rd person.

Primary and Secondary fire will be good, but right now you have to hold 2 keys to fire in fighter which is a bit awkward.

Still hard to tell on which side of a planet a factory is, you can sort of guess it from the distance but for example i assumed that the one on the ice planet was on its dayside. Which it is not.

In atmosphere, i lean towards the “cheat and have lift” - camp of thought. Cant really pull nice tight turns. At least for the interceptor, not necessarily for the fatter ones.

More to follow if i can visit more sites/try more stuff without getting botstomped.

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Looking great! And like the new updates. Just wondering about that massive lag - screen freezes - when nearing a station and/or factory (specifically when the yellow line enters the alt bar). Was that discussed before? Because it’s hugely noticeable. Other than that I’ll defer to other’s input. :japanese_goblin:

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More thoughts: Target control mode isnt my thing, it seems like a good idea with capitals, but somehow doesnt really mesh with the targeting and manouvering. Maybe you need an even more indirect mode, where you just set a heading and then free rotate camera to switch targets or some such?

Capitals move like the nice fat behemoth’s they are. Turrets are very cool. Lack of boosters makes manouvers difficult, especially if chasing other capital that is already going at full acceleration. But it is ok and you get used to it.

All turreted ships, from corvette to cruiser, really ask to be flown in 3rd person. To see where the turrets are firing, to turn for better turret coverage and also for a bit better situation awareness. But as you do not see your energy/health/shield status in 3rd person, you have to switch around a lot. Imho it is time to give those vital bits of information in 3rd person.

Currently, the destroyer does not seem to be more lethal towards fighters/bombers than the corvette - independently aiming turrets/multi targeting would probably change that, if it is still supposed to be the anti fighter screen ship / flakka dakka ship.

The turrets on the corvette are nice but do not compensate for the lack of survivability in the current version. Slow and fat = bot fighter fodder. Bomber is quite hard to stay alive in, too.

Gimbal weapon is very useful to generate hits - imho too good to have on interceptor, but on fatter slower ships like bomber it might be a good thing to keep. I guess we will have a choice of aim assist style weapons - like gimbal/flak/proximity detonation/limited manouverability missiles/projectiles.

Ship type indicators are desperately needed in larger fights. You need to know who you wanna mess with and who not. Only the cruiser can easily make out its targets - the other capships that are always clearly visible if you are anywhere near weapon range.

Stations might wanna shoot back at attackers - especially super fighter bots camping the spawns, lol.

The turrets should have a friendly fire avoidance logic and/or you need better indicators if a target is behind something. When fighting near stations, your turrets will often hit them cause fighters go behind them.

We need a more unique/clear target/target direction indicator for the target, especially if it is off screen. Some shield/health status info, too at some point.

A “target the fucker who is shooting at me” - function would be nice, especially for turreted ships. Because it is not always the closest enemy. Might not be needed with better 3rd person freelook/targeting controls though.

Did not try to attack capitals with the bomber, but given its current survivability i cant see it do much.

I always imagined bombers to fly into bubble shields and target the turrets/engines individually to cripple a cap ship. Do not think that would be possible with current manouverability vs turret lethality. But i also do not know if you aim for something like that. Imho it would be a nice style of fighting.

Separate mouse sens for flying and for menues would be nice.

Adjustable mouse sense ingame would be even nicer.

Picking your ship after you died and before you respawn would make a lot of sense.

A visual indication if you are hitting shields or the hull would be good.

Snow and Ice on Ice Moon look low quality on my PC, not sure if a setting issue or you forgot to add that one file you mentioned into the patch?

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First 0.2.2.3 feedback:

Land bases are ginormous. Crazy big. I would like to see some more man sized objects littered around … although without any itimidiarry sized objects there isn’t much point to them. I found some railings that were quite a good indicator of size, other than that it’s just the numbers on the HUD that help you guess the size of these huge structures. Main building … 1km height. Crazy.

Biggest benefit to gameplay is the of the feel corvette. I feel like it’s almost where it should be. Tracking turrets work alright on it. They still feel a little wonky on how they align. Also on the capital ships.

Tracking turrets have a very big effect on the feel of the game. They are great when liberating you from the sluggishness of a ship like the corvette. On the other side they take agency from you when you could do it yourself. Especially on the interceptor. It completely changes the interceptor. I feel much less in control. Yes, the lead indicator is great and all but as a fighter pilot or gunner I can add my predictions to that of the lead indicator by observing or knowing the tactic of my target.
By not allowing me to make these fine adjustments and aim at a point I guess the enemy will move towards you take this agency from me, which in my opinion is one of the funnest part of flying the interceptor, next to it’s extreme maneuverability. It’s that moment when you guess right, shoot at a position and 1/10 th of a second later the lead indicator moves to where you shot and another 3/10th of a second you land a hit. It’s a great experience. I don’t see how gimballed weapons add anything to flying the interceptor. They only remove one tasks. I wasn’t really overwhelmed with what I needed to do to pilot the interceptor so I don’t see how making the game more easy will improve gameplay.

Please don’t smooth lead indicator more than it is smoothed now. Do whatever you think works for turret tracking, smooth those, but not the indicator. It’s full of vital information currently and adding more smoothing to it wouldn’t really help to inform the pilot of what is going on or hit more consistently.
In order to be an effective pilot you have to be given precise information from a source that you understand.
Smoothing is good for turrets. They don’t have a gunner in them that combines the lead indicator with his experience of flight patterns. They need some more intelligence than just “shoot at the lead indicator”, may it just be “shoot at a smoothed lead indicator” or something more sophisticated.

Don’t like the new explosions. The way the blue fades out looks somehow weird. Maybe it’s some kind of explosion prejudice. :smile: I also didn’t like the design in the KS trailer, because of the same reason.

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I think the gimballed weapons on the interceptor are amazing, I can focus on flying and outmaneuvering much better now, especially since using the interceptor only makes really sense when using its full agility IMO. The turrets are amazing too!
I agree that the explosions look a little weird, but I think it is more the fact that they aren’t bright enough and that the graphics have dark parts to them that appear dark when overlayed on something brighter, but I like the blue/orange mix they have. It would be cool if the ‘explosion ball’ graphics would be scaled back a little and instead the explosions had more and intense particles.

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Speaking of capital ships, doing a quick glance at your stream yesterday evening, I noticed two things you are getting wrong ( you were flying a cruiser at this time ):

  • There’s no point firing out of range.Turrets still align to the target but until the aim-at icon changes to the lock-on icon, you’re not in range, weapons fire won’t reach - waste of energy.

  • You’re probably not going to kill enemy interceptors / small ships with the main / slow primary weapons. Use the secondary weapons ( mouse right button ) when aiming at nimble ships. The fire rite is higher, faster, and costs almost no energy - you won’t run out any time soon -. Downside: lower range; you’ll probably need the target to be around 2 Km away to be sure to hit it; at higher distances they can dodge.

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I respect your opinion. I want to ask though, wasn’t it somewhat enjoyable for it to be a challenge? Or did it feel like too much of a barrier?

We, and/or the devs, should really have a discussion of how difficult the game should be.
The most enjoyment I got from the pre-alpha up to now where the old “warp” system and the full 6DOF responsibility you get.
Both dissapeared now. It’s quite noticeable for me.
I didn’t find these two things hard, but something I could learn and get good with, with a quite noticeable reward for getting to grips with it. Both still have some aspect of this “skill reward” in them. But much less so.

I’m pro choice and would vouch for as much configuration in the server config files as possible.
But for the default gamemode I would really appreciate for skill and training to be a major part of the game. At least for the nimble ships.
Something like (Predominant Skills):
Interceptor/Fighter = Movement and Aiming
Bomber = Movement and Timing
Corvette = Tactic
Capitals = Tactic and Strategy

This way a range of players with different skillsets can play what they find fun. I oppose homogenization,

Yeah thanks for pointing it out. I probably would have noticed eventually. I noticed the addition of the Secondary weapon to the cruiser only 45 Minutes in. :sweat_smile:

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I felt that aiming without the gimbals was less skill based and more just a thing you have to do (at least with mouse). With gimbals I find flying and dodging much more enjoyable with the interceptor. I agree that it should be a choice, weapons with gimbals or fixed with better damage stats etc… For the bomber I would not have gimballed weapons, to me the bomber is much more akin to a sniper role, stay at distance and deliver powerful precise shots.

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This doesn’t really make much sense to me. Aiming at the general direction is even less engaging.

I can maybe understand that you never felt like you were any better at predicting the targets path than the lead indicator. In that case, yes it is a chore to just aim at the cross and press LMB and not even being guaranteed a hit. That’s not the skill I’m talking about. Like I described in above post, it’s the advanced prediction the player does and him executing it that is fun and trainable in my opinion. I agree that aiming at the X and pressing LMB itself isn’t contributing much more than your general FPS.

Maybe. But Elite Dangerous totally failed at that. The gimbal on their weapons is much too high. Time on target is extremely much more favorably on gimballed weapons in that game. So a word of caution there …
(Edit: Apperently in PvP non gimballed weapons are preferd. So maybe there’s a good balance. Ships in E:D turn quite slow compared to the I:B interceptor. That may also have a big influence into why I felt it not being balanced.)

Auto aiming feels like a theft of agency to me on the interceptor. If it was a choice that was reasonably balanced I may be able to accept it.

Lets play with this and see where it leads. These few hours I had weren’t enough …

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This is why I think there should be a choice between gimballed and fixed, with fixed beeing more powerfull. That way people can play and focus on that skill and others can make up for it by playing it differently. I am against forcing overly difficult gameplay just because reasons, there should be pros and cons, but I like gimballed much better for the interceptor.

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For me, the gimbals on the interceptor took any challenge out of aiming. Without them, i always felt like i need to time my salvoes right to use the moments where my trust in the targeting prediction marker was high, the distance was low enough and i had enough energy for a good effect on target salvo.

With the gimbals, as long as you are in range, roughly on target and have energy - fire until depletion, watch target explode.

No challenge, however in the current bot-rich environment you care less about duelling, as you would against a single real human player, but about quickly exploding that NPC fighter before 3 of his friends show up. So i can see the appeal, because it removes a lot of stress from the situation. Still, would not want it in human on human engagements, particularly in small groups/1on1 situations where you wanna outfly/outdodge/outaim the opponent.

In principle, it could be a weapon choice. Autoaim assist vs. better damage etc. But this is hard to balance, the larger and more hectic fights, the more the value of auto assists grows. IMHO the interceptor should stick to the “aim with your whole ship” - model. With the exception of maybe a very small number of expendable missiles carried.

to me the bomber is much more akin to a sniper role, stay at distance and deliver powerful precise shots.

I always envisioned the opposite - fly in hot and close and ram some close range high damage torpedos / plasma gatling hellstorm up someone’s rear end. :smiley: Maybe loadouts will allow both who knows, the Kickstarter role layout matches your view not mine. But i find sniper play mostly boring in all games. Shotgun to the face yo!

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I think for the alpha week-end ( emphasis on short term - once we have weapon layouts customizations it’ll be a very diffferent thing ) I’m going to try the following changes:

  • Interceptor: will be given back the fixed weapons. No gimbal here.

  • Bomber: will be given a new weapon with higher speed and range and a little bit of gimbal.

  • Corvette: will probably remain around where it currently is.

  • Destroyer: will be given more light “AA” turrets; I think there’s only 1 or 2 at the moment and they’re both on top of the ship, coverage isn’t good.

  • Cruiser: need more feedback on it, especially with the alternative light turrets fire. Overall I think the capship’s light turrets might benefit from faster projectile speeds and a maybe slightly higher attack range.

  • Carrier: honnestly, this thing is a bit out of scope for the alpha WE. Atm it plays like a super-cruiser, but it really shouldn’t be that way :slight_smile: I wonder if I can put in some simply respawn mechanics “around” it ( no internal hangars yet ) before this WE.

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I flew the cruiser for a bit. Imho its cap-killing role was working well, however once you ran out of capship targets you felt useless. I tried to shoot a few small craft but to little effect. Could have tried to warp to a different fight but did not.

One thing i noticed is that once you get in between a handful of hostile cruisers/capships you die super fast before you get any chance to run away. As the situational awareness is currently really not good, you can find yourself being “snuck up” by hostile capships really damned fast.

Being surrounded by hostile small ships also makes you nervous but you have lots of health and shield recharging really helps. But as all projectiles look and sound the same, and you have no health/shield indicator in 3rd person, the difference between lethal and harmless incoming fire can be hard to tell until you suddenly start to explode.

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Lots of high skill players here for sure. Please don’t forget the low skilled players like myself. I will only ever use the xbox/type controllers and or HOTAS/Dual sticks. And struggle with lots of complex controls. Some times I’ll just want to pick up the xbox controller whether it be the new default xbox or the elite, or some xbox type controller with re-mappable paddles etc and have a quick game. As and when I do manage to get a gaming rig it will be for sofa/couch casual gaming.

I’ll never compete with you experienced I:B players. But do represent the lower skilled player base, the causal player base. If I can learn to play I:B then anyone will.

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I haven’t tested this yet, but these sound like good changes.

From what experienced in the previous build, I found aiming with the interceptor only frustrating because the bots were constantly firing back. Half my attention was taken up with evading the infinite stream of incoming fire! So if interceptors are going to have gimbal, it should only be tiny.

Small turrets having faster projectiles does make sense, as they’re for targeting smaller, faster ships. Just as long as it’s not impossible to evade.

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I hope that “learning Battlescape” means “learning interception”, “learning bombing”, “learning fleet leadership”, “learning logistical support”, “learning carrier operations” and so forth. Each one of those activities should involve essentially a miniature game within Battlescape (with lots of overlap, of course), and each one should make unique demands on the players.

So it’s okay if you cannot do interception particularly well because you don’t do well with complex control systems. Those systems are part of what makes interception so much fun for other players. What you CAN do is dive into other systems that are composed in ways that play to your strengths. You can still go for interception, but you just won’t be very good at it. And that’s okay.

For the record, I probably won’t be very good at interception either because I just don’t have the twitch skills anymore. But there are other things that I can do, and if INS builds the game the way I hope, then there will be overlap between my skills and the skills demanded of players for various tasks.

I’ve seen this structure in EVE Online and in ARMA, and it’s a lot of fun. When combat games have a spectrum of roles that reach right into non-combatant roles that are central to the overall game, then I think that’s a very good sign that the gameplay is moving in the right direction.

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I have no idea to be honest, its been nearly two years since I last gamed. I’m a casual sofa/couch based gamer, and don’t generally try games with complex control systems requiring keyboards. I gave up on keyboard and mouse games sitting at a desk nearly a decade ago now due to arthritis in hands/fingers and legs and feet. And just excepted the skill hit one takes when using just game pad and or HOTAS as compared to M&K users. In battlefield I was well known in the clan I was in (FIST) for not being able to hit a barn door if it fell on me. So a I:B supporting role would suit me.

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Only had about 10mins so far, but I actually like a bit of gimbal. However, I totally agree the interceptor is too forgiving right now. I found it incredibly difficult to land hits before, this is too far the other way (only 1 degree gimbal!)

I think either stop gimbal on the interceptor but increase energy (to allow for more missed shots), or keep gimbal but reduce its effective arc to like 0.5 degrees or something. That way you still have to be kinda precise with your aiming, but it just makes it slightly more forgiving… If you’re on target…

Edit: I should point out this was with the virtual joystick control style. If it was only direct input (more like twitch fps) I would definitely eliminate gimbal altogether. But I think the virtual joystick controls need a tiny bit of help. Emphasis on tiny!

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The interceptor is the first ship a new player will experience and will therefore shape his/hers first impression of the game.
In many twitch based games you start with a weak spray and pray weapon that fires many shots but is not very powerful, this allows new players to have an immediate rewarding experience without having to aquire skills first.
I think aiming with the interceptor should be as easy as possible for this reason, just weaken the weapon to balance it.

Suggestion: Create two fire modes for the interceptor weapon. One that fires many weak shots with a lot of gimbal, and one that is more powerful with less shots and less gimbal that is more suited for advanced players.

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I think demanding skills from a player is great for some games, but it alienates a big portion of casual gamers who either don’t want to waste energy on learning a game or don’t have the skills and patience for it. There needs to be a big incentive for players to get skilled, I think the best way for that to happen is an immediate rewarding fun experience.

Heres my experience playing Arma 3:

  1. Buy and install
  2. Open game, try to join multiplayer
  3. Finally entered a game
  4. Shitty connection/networking, controls suck
  5. Get shot without even seeing an enemy
  6. Uninstall and refund
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