Star Citizen Master Modes – Is Ship Combat Going In The Right Direction?
Welcome to some more Star Citizen Updates… there is a new 3.22 live minipatch, we take a look at some Scorpius Antares changes, there are some cool luminalia free gifts and we look at some dev responses to Avenger Ones critique of Master Modes as well as an exchange talking about NPCs & FPS Combat.
There is another new Star Citizen Alpha 3.22.0 LIVE.9003408 Patch Notes Patch that focuses on Bug Fixes.
- Fixed an issue causing large performance drops when approaching the new Inhabited Derelict Settlements
- Fixed an issue causing Missiles, Bombs, and Torpedo’s to disappear immediately after travelling a short distance from the player
- Fixed an issue causing the San’tok.yai landing gear to partially clip into the ground and cause issues when spawned
- Fixed multiple performance issues occurring while using tractor beams
- Fixed an issue causing Arena Commander Leaderboards to not function
- Fixed 5 Server Crashes & a Server Deadlock
Some people annoyed as they had cargo in transit / jobs in the refinery etc… and these patches have mini-resets (short term database resets) tied to them wiping those and consumables when the patch got deployed with “little” warning.
Yes it’s Alpha and things are going to get wiped but just a warning on the launcher or something that makes people aware a hotfix or mini-patch is “incoming” would be super useful. Obviously CIG should prioritise evolving and improving the game over most other stuff BUT this could well help as well, it’s not mutually exclusive.
Talking of hotfixes an additional one with further stability updates is incoming.
Alpha 3.22 Patch Watch – Antares Arsenal
As of the latest EPTU build, we’ve added a new feature to the Antares, which allows the co-pilot to now control the Remote Turret Camera. More importantly, the co-pilot will also now have primary control over missiles when the seat is occupied (when flying solo, these will remain with the pilot).
When entering the co-pilot seat’s remote turret, you’ll find a new option to enter Missile Operator Mode, granting you the ability to both lock on and fire missiles, even if they are outside of the pilot’s initial cone of fire. This is a significant new addition to the ship. Looking to the future, this is the same functionality that will be set up on the RSI Polaris when it becomes flight ready.
While the functionality will make it in for Alpha 3.22, not all of the dashboard art changes have been implemented. So, if you’re looking for how to enable this new mode, simply look to the left of the QD buttons.
We hope you enjoy this change and look forward to hearing your thoughts once you give it a go in-game.
The Demeco & F55 LMGs with exclusive skins are available free as Luminalia gifts along with a load of other stuff like xmas jumpers!
Big Day Tomorrow 22nd which is actual luminalia proper… might get a good gift then!
You can open them all all the way up to 8th Jan 2024.
Master Modes – Avenger One Made A Video On Master Modes in 3.22
He is a very experienced PvE / PvP SC Combat Pilot, Very Good Dogfighter, very reasonable focused constructive feedback based on his PoV.
He did say they were minor concerns (at this point)
His opinion is that we are getting master modes as the current flight model is “too difficult” for a lot of people. It needs to be more accessible but also be interesting fun and complex.
He feels currently that MMs slow down and dumb down combat.
Lowering the skill ceiling and giving too strong a skill floor.
Moving from a high skill movement based system to a more simple tank and DPS system.
And is concerned this is moving closer to p2w.
Larger multicrew ships should be important.
Fighters are too weak and should be relatively powerful or at least have a really high skill ceiling that you can attain. The slower speeds limits manoeuvres and currently overly focused on boost/afterburner. And too many shots land on target easily.
He does like the base of the flight model and some of it’s updates and features and says it does fix a load of core issues which needed to be fixed. BUT speeds need to come up.
He wants Speeds Faster a lot faster in SCM.
Boost only affecting forward momentum.
Better Power Management System allowing for meaningful choices.
He feels a lot of the depth of gameplay is bulldozed with master modes but also concedes that there is a level of depth to it but there are problems with flight and combat tuning.
There is a concern that fun and competitive combat will be killed with MMs at least with it’s current tunings. He doesn’t want it to be tuned for a “console game”.
He does believe that CIG want a deep and engaging game.
He does say that in the future that hopefully will change. And encourages players to play in the MMs tests as much as they can and give their feedback.
YogiKlatt CIG (Principal Vehicle Programmer) Responded
It’s a good video. Personally I don’t agree with all points but definitely with some of them which will be addressed early next year. That’s why we are testing with the community to find the right balance that benefits the whole player base. That’s why we are doing experimental modes. Almost nothing is finalized on MM yet.
A reminder: you can play it right now in the AC experimental modes. Give it a go and provide feedback, no matter if you are a PVP, PVE, racer, trader, etc. We need your feedback, as much as possible!
What happened to the idea of us just being the same as NPCs?
The OP here says that NPCs and Players were supposed to be the same kind of stats, health and ability to do things in the world. Why are NPCs just cannon fodder then, only taking a couple of bullets to take down. Why is it that Player HPs are higher but NPCs are not?
Zpreece CIG (Ground combat system designer) responded
A lot of those NPCs are not wearing armour meaning they go down very quickly just as you would if you were shot wearing no armour (naked multiplier)
This does not happen as much on higher difficulty bunkers as those NPCs are wearing armour.
NPCs have slightly higher damage modifiers on them as you are typically taking out large amounts of enemies in mission encounters
Damage values are still 1:1 between NPCs and players.
I want to pipe in there because that’s necessarily the full story I believe the damage modifiers on NPCs are quite a bit different from players… basically NPCs receive on average I think 30% more damage on each of their hit locations. 30% isn’t double or anything but it’s still quite a bit.
Yeah, “damage modifiers” sound like a bandaid approach. Hopefully, you’ll take a chance to reconsider.
The idea that you’d artificially nerf NPCs because it’s 1v10 seems inconsistent with the game design. We specifically don’t follow the ‘Main Character’ trope. Everything should be balanced 1v1, and if there are two of them, it’s twice as hard. As everyone is fond of saying, “We can always escort friends.” I definitely want the NPCs to follow the same rules as players.
At the risk of belabouring the point, (and also disillusioning myself) I really liked how pilot AI was described in the past. They weren’t designing how AI ships moved, they were teaching AI pilots how to fly the ships. So the ship was the same ship the players flew, it was just being flown by an AI. Once again….same rules. (I like to believe that’s true, and that is how it was presented to us. Obviously, that’s all I have to go on.)
There’s a lot that goes into behind the curtain that makes a fun vs AI experience that does not put them equal to a players footing.
From accuracy %, accuracy modifiers, to shooting tokens, how much visibility they need to fire etc
Once you factor in all of those things the NPCs having the same stats as the player or not is ultimately just a single balancing tool you have for making a fun experience
The ultimate end goal is making something engaging, fun and unique to star citizens tool set.
In the pyro playtest we had some NPCs that were wearing very heavy armour which had very heavy protection (80%), it ultimately allows us to make combat far more varied and engaging with leaving lots of design space open to bring very different experiences.
The combat in the SC with NPCs is very grounded and we’ve shown NPCs having limited ammo pools, being able to revive each other and things that are currently in like NPCs never cheating player locations.
Also we made a video the other day talking about TTK… where zpreece referenced .9 in their response about TKK he actually messaged me back explaining that:
There is a debate over TTK and is this too short / too long… I am pro (a bit of) gamification and longer TTK… others are much more sim, lower TTK… go watch my video on that, with that expanded context.