Trading needs to be harder | Ideas

[Freon22]

Edge please re-read my post. I did not say anything about getting what I want. This has nothing to do with me its about SMR also I am a little too old to cry to mommy. lol I said in a few months I will see if SMR is still a game that I would like to play. So say want you want Edge maybe they can make a game for you too. I_am_a_great_hunter.smr.com

Cya

[the570z]

This is just talk, perhaps you should wait to rage quit until anything actually IS changed....

[Kard]

This is just talk, perhaps you should wait to rage quit until anything actually IS changed....

2nd

That is the exact attitude, that has stoped SMR from reaching its fullest potential. SM was never a finished game, hence we need to kep improving it and flesshing it out. But then people come along and say "change anything and I leave". This thread is just about discussion. None of these ideas are close to going into coding or testing, good or bad. So lets not flip out already. People get angry at even discussing improvements to this game. God forbid, we all make this game even more enjoyable and more people play it.

One thing I want to propose, and I'll make a thread about it when i am not so busy, is having two types of rounds that run paralell. One round is normal SMR, and the other round is a round for experimenting, puting in new ideas, seeing how they affect the game on more then just a theoretical level, making changes mid round, and taking stuff out mid round, and just overall a fun dynamic round, with some of the features we have all been asking for since 10 years ago. If they work out really well, and stay for 2 or 3 rounds, put it in the main, steady, SMR round.

[silverx2]

apparently trading is hard. once the next game starts here's whats going to happen.

I am going to play
I am not going to join any alliances outside of password maps
I am going to trade to spooky without being in an alliance and without receiving any assistance of any kind.

early predictions:
1.)Its going to be easy
2.)I will have zero deaths(PSF ftw)
3.)i will get numerous messages asking me to join their alliance.

[JettJackson]

apparently trading is hard. once the next game starts here's whats going to happen.

I am going to play
I am not going to join any alliances outside of password maps
I am going to trade to spooky without being in an alliance and without receiving any assistance of any kind.

early predictions:
1.)Its going to be easy
2.)I will have zero deaths(PSF ftw)
3.)i will get numerous messages asking me to join their alliance.

winning point /thread

[Page]

2.)I will have zero deaths(PSF ftw)

I see your biggest issue being with this point early on, as you'll be later than most to get into a PSF whilst there are already a fair few hunters then you have a window for death right there. Survive until you get a PSF and then yes, I'd expect you to be fine.

Oh and the fact you'll probably get so bored out of your mind of nothing ever happening that you end up giving up with this idea..

[silverx2]

2.)I will have zero deaths(PSF ftw)

I see your biggest issue being with this point early on, as you'll be later than most to get into a PSF whilst there are already a fair few hunters then you have a window for death right there. Survive until you get a PSF and then yes, I'd expect you to be fine.

Oh and the fact you'll probably get so bored out of your mind of nothing ever happening that you end up giving up with this idea..

Boredom actually is the biggest threat.

[Pickles]

apparently trading is hard. once the next game starts here's whats going to happen.

I am going to play
I am not going to join any alliances outside of password maps
I am going to trade to spooky without being in an alliance and without receiving any assistance of any kind.

Please also forgot every lesson you have learnt about trading over the past decade as well or your experiment is invalid.

I have no problem with making vet traders more vulnerable but none of the suggestions made so far target that group. Instead people are suggesting mechanisms which make all traders more vulnerable leading to newbies being nothing more than stat fodder.

So here's a slightly more serious suggestions than my last lot. Outside a special game I don't think this should be implemented (and it needs a lot more work) but it targets the actual problems I see: high level traders need to be vulnerable and so do high level hunters; everyone needs to do some trading before they can hunt so there are always targets; low level traders are offered some protection from being pod fodder.

I'd probably want average xp for the active players to hover right around 15k (lvl 15). Higher than that and trading would get a lot harder, lower than that and hunting would get a lot harder with hunter/hunter combat made as likely to result in a pod as hunter/trader.

Ships are classified either trader, hunter or capital. Anything that falls between the cracks gets stripped off the ship list or amended appropriately.
Weapon accuracy is removed, all weapons hit all the time (keep reading, it'll make more sense).
Instead of weapons being listed as x shield damage y armour damage they are listed as their power rating and the percentage of each kind of damage they do (CDs will need some extra work here). e.g. An HHG is lvl 5 and does 100% shield damage (unmodified that would be 300 shield damage).
The damage done by the weapon gets modified based on which ship types are involved and the level of the players along with a random component.
So, for example and remember lvl 15 is our baseline here and these are just hand wavy nice numbers to work with. I'll make a more thought through spreadsheet if anyone is interested.

Hunter firing, Trader receiving

Code: Select all

H Lvl   Mod     T Lvl   Mod     Total
10      -25%    10      -25%    -50%   Both need to trade more
10      -25%    15      0%      -25%   Hunter needs to trade more
15+     0%      15      0%      0%     All square
15+     0%      20      25%     25%    Trader needs to quit trading or accept it's gonna get real hard
The hunter lvl never adds a positive modifer to the total

Trader firing, Hunter receiving

Code: Select all

T Lvl   H Lvl   Mod
N/A     5       50%   Hunter should not be hunting
N/A     10      25%   Still shouldn't be hunting
N/A     15      0%    All square
N/A     20      -25%  Hunter's advantage
N/A     25+     -50%  Max advantage for hunter
Trader level never affects the mod

Hunter A firing at Hunter R

Code: Select all

Hunter A firing at Hunter R
A Lvl   Mod     R Lvl   Mod     Total
10      N/A     10      N/A     0%     All square anytime levels are even
10      -25%    15      0%      -25%   Hunting at too low a level
20      -25%    15      0%      -25%   Higher level hunter made more vulnerable.
15      0%      20      25%     25%    Higher level hunter made more vulnerable
20      -25%    25      50%     25%    As above
15      0%      25      50%     50%    As above

This would be extended for trader/capital hunter/capital etc.

One worked example. Hunter (lvl 15) fires HHG at trader (lvl 20). Mod is 125% of baseline damage. HHG fires for a maximum of 375 damage (with some random element so it isn't always maximum).

Person who fires the killing shot gets maybe 10% of the lost xp of the person who got the pod (perhaps even less to prevent game-wide xp inflation).

This system generates trader/hunter churn. The more high level a trader you are the more vulnerable you are to hunters. Likewise the more high level a hunter you are the more vulnerable you become to getting jumped by other hunters and the harder it gets to keep killing traders. I'd be expecting almost everyone in the game to continuously cycle through hunter/trader with lots of pods for all involved. If anyone can last the pace as a high level trader or hunter then they have damn well earned it.

[the570z]

a very long awesome well thought out idea...

^Shortened slightly^

DO ITS!!!!!11

[Incognito]

So here's a slightly more serious suggestions than my last lot. Outside a special game I don't think this should be implemented (and it needs a lot more work) but it targets the actual problems I see: high level traders need to be vulnerable and so do high level hunters; everyone needs to do some trading before they can hunt so there are always targets; low level traders are offered some protection from being pod fodder.

I'd probably want average xp for the active players to hover right around 15k (lvl 15). Higher than that and trading would get a lot harder, lower than that and hunting would get a lot harder with hunter/hunter combat made as likely to result in a pod as hunter/trader.

Ships are classified either trader, hunter or capital. Anything that falls between the cracks gets stripped off the ship list or amended appropriately.
Weapon accuracy is removed, all weapons hit all the time (keep reading, it'll make more sense).
Instead of weapons being listed as x shield damage y armour damage they are listed as their power rating and the percentage of each kind of damage they do (CDs will need some extra work here). e.g. An HHG is lvl 5 and does 100% shield damage (unmodified that would be 300 shield damage).
The damage done by the weapon gets modified based on which ship types are involved and the level of the players along with a random component.
So, for example and remember lvl 15 is our baseline here and these are just hand wavy nice numbers to work with. I'll make a more thought through spreadsheet if anyone is interested.

Hunter firing, Trader receiving

Code: Select all

H Lvl   Mod     T Lvl   Mod     Total
10      -25%    10      -25%    -50%   Both need to trade more
10      -25%    15      0%      -25%   Hunter needs to trade more
15+     0%      15      0%      0%     All square
15+     0%      20      25%     25%    Trader needs to quit trading or accept it's gonna get real hard
The hunter lvl never adds a positive modifer to the total

Trader firing, Hunter receiving

Code: Select all

T Lvl   H Lvl   Mod
N/A     5       50%   Hunter should not be hunting
N/A     10      25%   Still shouldn't be hunting
N/A     15      0%    All square
N/A     20      -25%  Hunter's advantage
N/A     25+     -50%  Max advantage for hunter
Trader level never affects the mod

Hunter A firing at Hunter R

Code: Select all

Hunter A firing at Hunter R
A Lvl   Mod     R Lvl   Mod     Total
10      N/A     10      N/A     0%     All square anytime levels are even
10      -25%    15      0%      -25%   Hunting at too low a level
20      -25%    15      0%      -25%   Higher level hunter made more vulnerable.
15      0%      20      25%     25%    Higher level hunter made more vulnerable
20      -25%    25      50%     25%    As above
15      0%      25      50%     50%    As above

This would be extended for trader/capital hunter/capital etc.

One worked example. Hunter (lvl 15) fires HHG at trader (lvl 20). Mod is 125% of baseline damage. HHG fires for a maximum of 375 damage (with some random element so it isn't always maximum).

Person who fires the killing shot gets maybe 10% of the lost xp of the person who got the pod (perhaps even less to prevent game-wide xp inflation).

This system generates trader/hunter churn. The more high level a trader you are the more vulnerable you are to hunters. Likewise the more high level a hunter you are the more vulnerable you become to getting jumped by other hunters and the harder it gets to keep killing traders. I'd be expecting almost everyone in the game to continuously cycle through hunter/trader with lots of pods for all involved. If anyone can last the pace as a high level trader or hunter then they have damn well earned it.

I would be willing to help test this in beta.