Re: Prometheus: The Eternal Wars
Thoughts and the like to follow, but before I begin, I'd first like to point out that I was, and still am, a devoted fan of this game and I hope to stay that way. None of what I write is intended as a personal jab at anyone whatsoever, and I hope that none of it is taken that way. As such, I do hope that something comes of some if not all of this writing, because I do believe that there are systems that are currently in place that need to be reevaluated, and that being the case, I shall outline propositions for every issue I present. In any case, I fully realize this opinion may not be shared by anyone, so do feel free to dismiss any of this as unimportant blabber if no one else feels as I do. I do not believe that any one person or group of people should have any more advantage than any other entities, thus my reasoning for what I hope to be constructive criticisms. I can honestly say that the place has changed quite a bit since my hiatus from i t some six months ago, and while I've been back for what one might think is a short amount of time, I have reached status 100 already. What I'm seeing is discomforting me at present. All of that out of the way, let us begin.
1. Defense systems. Perhaps the move to eliminate the cloak modules and simply keep them and shields under one umbrella was a tactical, sensible move. What does not make sense, is that they both draw power from each other. A cloaked ship, for instance, currently requires that the shields not be using up their units, else they cannot cloak. Going half and half is nonsensical because as soon as the seconds start ticking, the units go into the shields, which means that in order to recloak, you must recharge the shields back to whatever that half point happens to be, 2500 units in the case of a ship with 5000. Such matters can get confusing if the shields are being peppered by missiles, and that will more tha
n likely be the case at any rate given that shields are the only course of defense that can be taken against missiles anyway. This charge business brings me to my second point.
2. Shield charging. Currently, shields charge exceptionally slowly and can barely keep up with anything more than two vesels launching missiles at them. In an advanced mission containing 17 assassin ships, this means your ship is likely to be hit quite a few times, meaning that you're going to lose things, the weakest of which are gravity stabilizers, sublite drives and lbf plates, one of which, at least, is essential to your navigation. One can argue that perhaps you should not go on advanced missions without a UTF ship or perhaps a crew or an org, which brings me to the third point.
3. Imbalance. While there are a ton of things to do on Prometheus, quantity is not quality, but more importantly, there are some people who prefer their close circles of friends to hu
ge groups when playing the game. At present, the people wielding the most power are UTF officials who use it to run huge missions at times, and those who have already reached the top and are more than likely involved in some org or another. IN both cases, people with such ships don't seem to suffer as much when doing missions of any kind. I strongly believe much of this can actually be settled by dealing with the above issues.
4. Expectation. Not everyone wants to be a part of the UTF. Not everyone wants the responsibility of having to answer to a higher ranking official, or partaking in every aspect of the roleplay in events, and it should not be expected so as to gain access to higher end technology. I have seen UTF ships that are 10 times as capable as any model built by any pilot who is not a part of it, geared with sublite drives that charge in 10 seconds instead of the minimum 20 that is given to the rest of us. While I'm all
for the UTF having more power than the average pilot so as to deal with the world's protection, it is unfair to classify anyone who is not a UTF pilot as average, and not only that, but it is not only realistic that there is no one who can outsmart, outrun or in any other way outdo a UTF pilot, but also, unfair to those who have reached higher statuses and who don't want to be a part of it. It is unrealistic, because in the real world, no one organization is smarter, faster and or more efficient than everyone else in it. Every individual should, in fact, half to work for any knowledge they obtain and whatever perks come with it. It is unfair because it seems that the greatest goal on Prometheus at present is hoping that one can join the UTF, and that honor only seems to go to a select few from what I've been able to gather.
5. Point and credit details. Currently, there is no telling how these systems actually work, but there doesn't s
eem to be any logic to them, either. Roid harvesting seems to earn me the greatest balance between credits and points, while there are tons of other activities at higher statuses that seem like they should reward more. Some, like remote deliveries seem to have a fixed reward altogether. If the point system is suppose to reward by how high your status is, there should be a help file detailing what activities give the most in points and credits respectively so that players who are focused on one or the other can quickly get a feel for which would best suit them. If the system is actually not meant to work that way, then whatever logic has created it is currently beyond me and does deserve a help file explaining the matter.
6. code instability. While I am no programmer, I have seen many at work. I reiterate that quantity is not always quality, and in this case, I cannot stress it enough. As a gamer, I cannot rate a game based on how
many items the game has to offer so as to keep me occupied with, if they break and it takes awhile to get them fixed either because there is not enough hosts around with the knowledge to fix them, or because an actual solution does not exist at the time the activity is coded. Sometimes it's roundtime timers themselves that seem to be malfunctional, other times it's rescue pods not moving, and still other times mining vehicles are just plain stuck and won't start. ON one occasion not too long ago, the entire server needed to be shut down because the only host who was active could not figure out which task was causing tracebacks, which completely brought some ships to a standstill, while others were having problems simply navigating to and from sectors.
Again, I realize that all of this may only be my opinion and everyone else may be satisfied with the game as is, and if that's the case, I shall not expect anything to come of any of what I've
written above. On the other hand, it would be nice to gain a little insight as to how the community feels regarding these matters. Also, since I have presented the issues, I would like to propose some possible if not probable solutions, fully in acceptance that the end result may not be as I invision it, but also in the hopes that something is done if someone else feels that something should in fact, be done about it. I will present proposals based on the issues outlined above.
1. Defense systems. Recoding them to allow for a reason as to why the cloak would use the ship's power more quickly than any other one of its systems seems like a viable solution. To simplify, make cloaks drain a ship's battery at a 3rd or even at half of what it normally would while active, rather than the timed nonsense that is currently in place, which would not only allow for people to stay cloaked as long as the ship is charged, but would also deter anyone fr
om staying cloaked forever. One could counter that solar and wind recharging equipment wioll assist in keeping someone cloaked infinatly, but the fact is that if someone really wanted to stay cloaked infinitely at present they can still do it, so long as they keep checking their ship's cloaked status.
2. Shield recharging. This must be sped up. By how much, I do not know, but as long as it is the way it currently is, it would only take about 3 assassins to overwhelm a ship that is not equipped with a shield containing 1000 units. I don't know why the old recharging system was such a problem, honestly, but I can live with the fact that it may never resurface.
3.
3. Imbalance. While I'm all for the status system and obtaining items as one levels, there should be some sort of incentive to reach down to lower level players, weather it be taking them on missions for greater rewards, or simply gifting them with things for donate
r points, or any other number of suggestions I'm sure would be acceptable to the playerbase as a whole. Perhaps giving orgs incentives to recruit players would also be worth looking into. At any rate, these aren't the only things worth mentioning. IN the past, I was capable of soloing the first advanced mission. Today, I do not believe that can be done unless I obtain a UTF ship. If it can, I would like to see someone detail how it can be done; call me stupid if you like for that matter for missing the obvious, but the missiles come in at an alarming rate and the shields cannot keep up with them. It is almost a given that a person would want to try the higher level missions to gain more credits and points though, which makes it unfair to suggest to them that they should stick to what they can handle, particularly since, the status in this case does not truly seem to make the difference, given that, to my understanding, the highest the de
fense systems can go is 5000 units.
4. Expectation. Members of the UTF should, if they are going to be gifted greater technology than everyone else, prove themselves to everyone else, not simply to whoever is in charge. If they are our governing force and are going to dictate what goes on and what doesn't while simultaneously policing the cosmos, there should at least be a reason as to why. What makes them better than anyone else? Why do they have the privelage of wielding such power, when others are slaving away and still earning tons of pointage and credits, trying to build the best ships possible only to realize that they can never hope to match up to what in actuality is the best? Either this should be the case, or the technology should be available to anyone and everyone who works for it... That is to say, one must earn it, either by obtaining enough credits, achieving the right status, or even as a matter of a pilot/engineer's life,
by being able to build said tech into their ship with the use of refineries or what have you.
5. I've made this suggestion once and I'll make it again just in case it was forgotten, but to make it simple for everyone, why not rework the point system so that combat gives more credits, while exploration and collection gives more points? It would keep people engaged on both fronts and force them to utilize everything in the game at least once. Oh, and why not, keep certain objects like asteroid and comet harvesting unaffected just because it does take awhile before you can unlock them.
6. Development. This, I promise, is not an insult, but I do believe that everything that is currently available should be worked on before adding more content. While I'm perfectly find with typing roundtime-fix or subfix or launchfix or movefix or sandwitchfix just because my turkey is not on the bread properly, it doesn't solve everything, esp
ecially in the case of my sandwitch. My current understanding of moo coding is that wizards have far too many permissions to properly test the game as a player. My suggestion is a bit harder I suppose than anything else I've outlined above, but either closing the server for a given amount of time to everyone but a few who would beta test so as to ensure that things are running properly, or having a separate server devoted to development altogether seem reasonable if doable. There are plenty of us who are willing to break things to make them work properly, but I do believe that the other side has to be willing to watch them break a few times before introducing them as activities to ensure the greatest amount of stability. I know I know, nothing is perfect; I'll give anyone that. But that does not mean that a producer or service provider should not strive to provide the smoothest experience possible.
As I've previously stated, and I c an't stress this enough. These are simply my oppinions. Work with them if you see fit; pass them around, laugh about them if they seem ridiculous, but I fell inlove with this system late last year and hoped it would grow more to my liking. It did not, and while I can still enjoy certain parts of it, I do feel that others have been locked away. I do hope that they are not permanently so, but am willing to accept the possibility that they just, might be.
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