Sunday, November 20, 2016

That doesn't go there...


But... but... It's Too Big!


By: George Argyropoulos
a/k/a Dragon_Bane   


In a recent BP on BV show, it was stated definitively that Kixeye is going to, at the least, block Conqueror hulls from hitting Forsaken Mission targets. This was coming on the heels of two months of speculation after some forum posts and a TFC show in which an Admin of The Forsaken Council hinted that this might be coming in the future. While I have not heard anything official, I am not surprised at this news, and quite honestly, think it may be needed- now, rather than later.


I am seeing a lot of angst and argument about this in the Kixeye Forums and on the various pages on Facebook. Let's see if we can run through some of this stuff because there actually is some valid logic behind this decision.

Let's review why there was a split in the first place so we have some solid context in which to have this discussion.

Back in March of 2016, we were introduced to the idea of splitting PvP and PvE. What kixeye was finding was that there was significant bleed-through in design from one to the other. In other words, hulls that they had designed to do well in PvP were doing better than they had intended in PvE which forced their hand in design. This means that our targets ended up harder than Kixeye wanted to design because of the unintentional bleed-through of the hull's effectiveness into an unintended area of the game and fueled some of the power creep we were seeing in the game.

What Kixeye finally decided was rather than make everyone's lives more difficult- Theirs with regard to coding, ours with regard to difficulty and power creep, a split was implemented. Let's face it, having one of these aspects unduly influence the other does not make for a good environment for the game. Hull longevity suffers, power creep increases and the possibility for game breaking issues cropping up increases.

I'll directly quote GD Raikan at this point as he was very succinct about this:

"In order to address these issues, after much discussion, the team concluded that the most ideal solution would be to separate out PvE hulls and PvP hulls; each having their own identity and preferred statistics. This way, we could provide more clear messaging to players as to the intended use of a hull, while also creating that distinct separation and supporting it in all aspects of the game. It’s not enough for us to simply label “PvE” or “PvP” in the stat block of a hull. I’m proud to say that the community is very creative in finding ways to challenge that expectation. We want to continue to encourage that creativity, but we also want to refocus it."

The reason for the current rumored change is rather obvious. The amount of armor on Conqueror and Defender hulls, in conjunction with the repair modifiers inherent to those classes, allows players to exploit those classes in ways that were obviously not intended. I also do NOT think this is going to end up in the extreme situation wherein only class specific hulls can hit class specific targets. I think this is just to stem a current problem that could escalate into a bigger one that this split was intended to avoid in the first place.

An apt example: During the design of the current raid meta, Kixeye developers were battling players in the test servers trying to keep 'out of the box' surface fleets from performing well in the target. The Vanquisher, in conjunction with exploiting these very game mechanics, was the reason the early iterations of the current raid targets could be broken in testing. It was giving Kixeye fits for 2 months and in the end could still be done (though not in a cost effective manner and a VERY niche build) despite all the tweaking done to the targets. One of the big reasons it worked was because of the amount of armor and the repair modifier of the hull. Something we can carry into this conversation.

All this alleged change to the FM (and likely Raid targets) would do is close a loophole that we exploited very early. Given the direction of the game there is good reason to assume that these hulls will continue to escalate in power and create a further imbalance in these targets that would be exploitable and essentially break the targets. This will be particularly exacerbated if the armor continues to increase. We all know how that ends- we've been there. I'd rather have them fix it sooner rather than later and avoid where we were a year to a year and a half ago and forcing another huge change as the split was.

As an aside: This is not a coin grab. Kixeye has shown, time and again recently, that they are willing to give us some time to adjust, or give us an avenue to adjust with (see:Tide Seeker).

Granted, Kixeye has offered up the Citadel Deal twice now- obviously for coin... but they also have given everyone THREE shots at getting the Harlock's Citadel. They also practically gave away the Tide Seeker hull in that TLC.

Given that my Tide Seeker tank build seems to be doing better that my Punisher one, this should be a good indication of what you can do with JUST a tank and an Hcit:




So, if you are trying to get into Tier 5, and this change goes through, expect both the HCit and Citadels to become available. Watch some videos or read some articles to prepare for the Dark Reign campaign should it become available again.

Watch for TLC's, token deals and prepare yourself for the Hull Raid upcoming and plan accordingly. Remember, FM is THE number one priority in this game.

If you are currently relying on Furies and Vendettas to get you to Tier 4 or Tier 5, I would humbly advise you to start preparing for this change. It only makes sense from the perspective of a developer and a player.

My final thought on this is this: It makes sense to me. It made sense to me when I heard the rumor. If you go to my YouTube channel, you will see my progression from using Vendettas to Citadels. In fact, I just this weekend finally got my citadels fully ranked. I personally was pro-active in this because the change is logical if you want to avoid the same pitfall that the game had already once fallen into.

26 comments:

  1. What a load of hooey. Blah, blah, blah. Kixeye fixed so darn many problems by introducing ship classes... BS!! The only problem Kixeye addressed by introducing ship classes was that players weren't coining enough, so they made it that everyone must build four times as many ships to stay competitive. The FM used to be the one bone they through to cheapskates. I imagine that the "good guys" (aka the guys that want to keep the game interesting) thought up the FMs as a way to keep people engaged, so that they would coin on other things. Then the "bad guys" (aka the "hand us your wallet" bunch) said "People are enjoying the FMs too much without coining! We must make them pay!!" Looks like the bad guys won again.

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    1. Competitive to what exactly? Every coiner I know has been saying that they are coining far less now than at the same point last year.

      If you preclude PvP, there is no reason to coin outside of -maybe- raid damages. And even those are cheaper. Hell, I can't remember the last time Kix offered a raid in which if you drove well enough, your raid would be FREE.

      As far as the FM, they have made it eminently easy to achieve T5 for those that are willing to pay attention, prioritize and put in some seat time. No one said that you should expect to get to T5 in minutes. The fact that we can speaks to us not getting boned.

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    2. Exactly, they are coining less! The conqueror hulls dont cost as much to repair as a Cit fleet with H cit lead does. I am sorry George, I do like you, and your knowledge is next to none on the game, but this is ridiculous. Why not just create FM targets that are specifically for PvE and targets specifically for PvP? Instead they are just kicking us in the butt, I for one dont have cits built because I dont like the hull. I like using my vendetta's with my tideseeker tank. Now we have to tie up shipyard time to build what we dont want only because kixeye says so? Also, with the release of so many hulls in the past 6mths, I still have partial fleets that need to be finished. And for those of us that arent at the tokens yet in T5, this takes alot of time in the shipyard.

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  2. Honestly i think they just wait and fix it when the targets change in a few months instead of once again doing something that pisses off half if not more of the players. Take it in the shorts for a bit fully announce now what they plan on doing thus giving people more than sufficient time to adjust. I mean hell citadels with a H citadel perform better than dettas in the FM currently and the tideseeker better than any of the conqueror tanks so in all honesty whats it hurt to let it go for now and fix it the next go around with a huge heads up. But hey what do i know i just play everyday and talk to lots of other players :-P

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    1. Idk yet that the targets are changing, but I would like Kix to just come out and address this and give people time. Either to build what they need or to let it slide until September. The only question that becomes then is will it have a detrimental effect to design in the interim and/or will more people build some future Conq/Defen hull to do the FM in ignorance.

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    2. targets will change when we see the next garrison raid cycle so i think they be best served to hold any changes til then but yeah the one main point i agree to is they need to come out and address this. this bullshit of a kix employee telling joe then joe telling hi 5 friends and his 5 friends telling 5 friends is why we have such a trust issue with kix. if you know youre gonna do it then then tell everyone at the same time dont let the rumor mill get 3 months ahead of you before you announce it thats serves noone company or the game either one

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  3. lol everyone is being very shortsighted.you all are only looking at the now. blocking pvp hulls from pve content will not generate coins now from the fm as their are plenty of pve hulls that can do the fm.kixeye even though no one wants to give them credit is looking at a longer time scale.next raid and then the next fm cycle is coming and if they dont block pve hulls they will decimate the targets.as the next cycle is seige which is just the same as pvp combat.which our pve hulls are made to do. so for kixeye to milk coins in the future they need to fix this now.this is not to milk us right now but innstead planting the seeds for the future

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    1. do you have information and stats on the new hulls that will "decimate" the targets or is your tin foil hat just capable of picking up kixeye brain waves? lol

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    2. And honestly, this is just my take trying to look at it logically should it come to pass. Personally, on the emotional side, I was upset. Looking at it logically however, I can see reasoning to go down this road.

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    3. lol damnation i never said anything about new hulls or stats i was simply stating that current conquer hulls are designed to smash seige style targets because that is what player bases are hence alot of turrets and a few patroling gaurds so our conquer hulls may very well excell at hitting

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  4. Look and all Im asking is for shorter build times for fleets takes 3 months to build a fleet ..takes 21 days to build the harlock tideseeker. and thats just one boat..shorten the build days and let the players play the game or give the players two DOCKS to build with and refit..ok im also not as rich as other players or hackers that hack and kix lets them back in that is taking coin from me...

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  5. I use vendettas in the FM, but if given warning i can build a couple cits no problem. If kix does this change now, then they can start working on the next iteration of FM targets and not design them around PVP hulls, i just hope its not extreme dmg

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  6. Speaking for someone who has coined very little in the past but more lately. It seems that most if not all of what has been discussed is about high end players. No or low coiners, mid-level and low levels are not into anything about this discussion. By the time we get the hulls, weapons, and specials you are talking about now they will be just about out-of-date if not out-of-date. Kix needs more players which means more money. Thus they can reduce build and repair times. Being a level 84, I have just build my first mortar fleet to do FM's. It's a refitted rhino tank and 3 novas. Before I was able to do the 85SH by prepping then hitting. I hit tier 5 twice before the changes after that I was lucky to hit tier 3 twice a week. I actually stopped do the FM for a while. I got a fleet of tigers to get Uranium so didn't need FM to get it. And no I didn't beg for help for the higher levels, I don't think that makes you a better player. I just think Kix needs to be looking at all player not just the ones that coin the mad dogs. I also don't think hacking is as bad as it was. In July of 2015 it seemed like hackers had taken over, I personally turned in over 10 that got banned.

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  7. Lets see where to start .... It was 2:30 am sat morning an i lost my first fleet of subs to a New Harlock tide seeker fleet .. Well ain't that nice ..So guess what , i hate this raid cycle any way .. I just put them on repair an said the hell with this ..Well thats now 3 raids i walked away from.. You may be right the coiners may be spending less on repairs . but they just changed where they spend it.. By monday my alliance had counted 6 new fleets of them in our sector sinking fleets while raid was going on .. lol But most of the mid to low level coiners are NOT going to build a fleet for this an one for that ,an have to 6 or 7 fleets just to do chores an more to play.. So if kix is going in that direction an it looks like they are.. There will be a bunch more walking away from the game ..

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  8. I find this article very hypocritical considering you and Cesar were encouraging others to use conqueror hulls as tanks in the fm. Of course you arent worried about the change George because you are prepared for it, of course you want it to happen right now because you are ready. In the least you should feel bad for encouraging others to build hulls that you agree should not be used.

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    1. If I remember correctly even post they made included "we don't recommend you do this because ...." if people chose to ignore that it is their own fault. The post they were making at that time is why I built citadels even though I already had vendettas.

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    2. Actually, if you want to throw accusations around, at least be accurate. Ceasar and I got into a little friendly competition while trying to break the new targets. He went with Conqueror hulls for tanks and I went traditional with Punishers. Concurrent to that, which means we had no impact on this, Kix was allegedly already preparing the code for this change. And As stated above- we were very clear not to do the same once we heard the first whisperings of the rumor.

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  9. What kind of build is that Pun? Mine fall apart in the 109's after half way thru?? Good article let's hope kixeye doesnt do another "indian Giver"

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    1. Fleet from the video;

      https://www.dahippo.com/bp/ship/#!907800000006M6Q34062I2B2B2B2B2B2BC2C20NH00H0H1U380C44060O2557575757572A2A2A2A0ZZ0ZZ0ZZdC

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  10. Well this could be the end of me Kix stuffs up and the players are punished. Will Kixeye refund my coins for the new Tide tank I built for the FM?

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    1. Tide isn't a PvP hull, it isn't covered by the term Conqueror hulls classification.

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  11. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  12. Just another kix money grab. First they changed the base part targets. Why? Because we figured out how to get base parts for free. Now since we can do the FM for cheap they want to change that. Kix is going right back to their same old ways. This crap is no different then when they let known cheaters have their bases back. My days on this game are coming to an end. Tired of spending my money on a game thay does not give one care in the world about its players. These so called players kix says they work witb that help improve the game, whomever they are, are a joke.

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    1. Well said and I know many others feel exactly the same way. Kixeye are listening to the wrong people.

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  13. This entire argument is based on players 'exploiting' targets. By that it is obvious that Kixeye do not feel that they are getting enough coins for their already over priced game. This is not the fault of players. Despite your arguments I see this as nothing more than another coin grab from players who are exhausted with these tactics.

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    1. Coin grab my foot. I built and use Cits for the FM. I built them the slow way and with tokens. I use an HCit and one regular Cit. Wow, such a pricey fleet and it took sooo long to build - SMH. If it's a coin grab they're doing a pretty crappy job of it, especially with all the advance warning we're getting.

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