Raiding is, like everything else, over-powered

[Wayleran]

Recently I raided a couple factions and destroyed some stations and went from a few million credits to literally BILLIONS!

 

Combat is way too easy, insane is trivial...

 

Shields are obviously OP still, combat is trivial...

 

Turret factories are OP, making combat meaningless and trivial...

 

Now the economy and trading which I loved is now totally trivialized by simply attacking 1 or 2 factions (pirate or otherwise) and selling goods at ridiculous prices.

 

I honestly LOVE this game and am so impressed by all the efforts taken to make it so good. AND I realize it's early-access/beta, but please drastically change balance or at least make "normal" difficulty be 100% damage and higher levels 200%, 500%, 1000%...that would still not be enough but will give some challenge while we wait for release and hopefully more balance. "Insane" difficulty should feel "insane" and punishing not trivial after you get a little naonite shields going.

 

It's just getting very discouraging because I really believe in this game and it's potential, but as it is now, it's beginning to just be boring.

 

...and P.S. to the "it's a sandbox game" and "they shouldn't ruin it for everyone" and "that'll just make it more 'grindy'" crowd.... That's why I'm asking for it only to be a DIFFICULTY scaling issue. If you want it easy and relaxed with no real challenge, put it on easy/normal, otherwise all of us who want to have to work to survive can use hard/insane.

 

Thanks so much.

[Uthael]

Good point! I'd welcome grinding on Insane. For some, that's what makes time valuable.

 

I would also like for the game to be challenging enough so I don't have to resort to PvP for breaking a sweat. ... Because PvP ain't really skill-based either.

 

Increasing the damage enemies deal won't do too much good. AI needs some changes, too. Especially the more agile craft. For example, running away if they know they're going to die, trying to stay on player's tail, try to hide behind another ship so they can regenerate shields, etc. I expected something like this from The Four (The Brotherhood).

 

Factions that get exterminated without a chance of retaliation in half an hour shouldn't even exist in the first place. How'd they survive until now, anyway?

 

Another reason combat is easy is that we're able to stack a whole lot of weapons just by killing some bosses a few times (for artefacts).

The devs have stated that there will only be one +5 weapon slot artefact. And I hope they make artefacts unique per-player. So that's fine.

 

I think turret factories are OP only because +% damage stat is bugged. In higher numbers, LOWERING the amount of damage components INCREASES the damage. This is the best one I could find. Imagine a bunch of fighters equipped with this:

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/911282400431944748/D83BEEA2BC706FAA97523A48134FC0AE8EACDCA9/

 

This one is at the same factory. Also, ridiculous damages if you minimize damage components. But I got this result after some fiddling with "+"s and "-"s:

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/911282400431944317/F2D3AD2837C0A01961EB3200194C8374F50314FC/

 

 

In Payday 2, the community asked for a challenge. Persistently. People liked the game, but found it too easy, even on Deathwish difficulty. They did some tweaks and added some... Sounds. And sometimes this one procs after a specific enemy incapacitets a player:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eiZMWZF8kA

 

And nobody complains about that :P

So, yeah... Difficulty increase, please? Preferably starting the same and scaling harder with proximity to the center.

 

P.S.: Not to be just ranting... Great work! I love the game. Being on the forums is a part of my gameplay. I'm happy that feedback is listened to and that's one of the reasons I'm sticking to and recommending this game. Also, browsing the Steam Workshop. I'll start building for it, too.

[Kamo]

I guess the balance is worse while approaching the core. At the Titanium belt, it is actually more or less balanced (ok, I'm able to change a equal-against-equal faction war into a reckless ***kicking with only a light cruiser and a retrofitted-into-flak-corvette cargo hauler, and the hauler is almost superfluous).

 

I have to fire at a station for a good 15 minutes before destroying it so at least it's reasonably grindy, although destroying stations should be more complicated... with more complicated station designs.

(Whoops, captured a second too late)

The faction I'm raiding has resource depots which have load-bearing generators (as in, generators that are part of the innermost structure and bear 90% of the station). Those blocks are easily uncovered but are almost unkillable, as they are maintained by more-or-less the rest of the station's blocks, so I cannot destroy them to alleviate the grind by causing total power failure on the station.

If the entire station was armored, a crafty player could use more tactical ways or destroying a station after uncovering the blocks behind while NPC stations would not need an HP multiplier anymore.

Another pet peeve would be that, like units in Starcraft 2 or Warcraft III, NPC war parties attack everything that isn't a station before stations, they lose almost all their time being distracted by cargo-less salesmen, pirates, xsotan, etc., instead of focusing their efforts on wrecking infrastructure, interrupting themselves only to defend against approaching defenders. So I lose a lot of time killing distractions to allow my ally to wreck house with two lances's worth of corvettes and a bunch of fighters. (And a lot of resources running into the distractions - recently even lost my cruiser  ::).)

 

I've been commando-raiding that faction for more or less thirty hours and gained ~12 millions worth of cargo, and ~250000 Iron and Titanium (cause I mostly use salvaging lasers on my main ship, and eating stations' hearts is awesomely nutritious :P).

 

I guess raiding will balance itself over time as procedural ship design, AI tactics and aggressiveness ("the enemy is at our gates, boost to intercept! ram if it's necessary to save the stations!") and game mechanics (coaxial weapons and torpedoes may add a lot to damage and may usher an age of specialized "siege cruisers") will improve.

[Hellatze]

raiding are less OP compared the power of trading post station. just build them, and wait few minutes. if you lucky you will get expensive item to take from your own trading post. like war robots.

 

i have 1 billion because of them.

[Burnthalo]

have the ship you want to attack the station escort you to the station. inside of 3 or 4 km set it to guard the location and it will focus the station ignoring everything else unless it gets in the guard range. I found this when I ran into the same problem. turned several  hours worth of battle into an hour or so to mop up an entire faction owned sector.

[Shrooblord]

That's a great suggestion, Burnthalo! I'll try that some time.

 

I've also found that Fighters are very effective because you can literally tell them exactly which unit to attack. Sure, it's a little micro-ey, but nothing too bad for an avid RTS player like myself.

 

I have to fire at a station for a good 15 minutes before destroying it (...)

I've been commando-raiding that faction for more or less thirty hours

I guess that's why the Sector is called "Endless Fight Gamma", huh? :P

[Burnthalo]

That's a great suggestion, Burnthalo! I'll try that some time.

 

I've also found that Fighters are very effective because you can literally tell them exactly which unit to attack. Sure, it's a little micro-ey, but nothing too bad for an avid RTS player like myself.

 

I have to fire at a station for a good 15 minutes before destroying it (...)

I've been commando-raiding that faction for more or less thirty hours

I guess that's why the Sector is called "Endless Fight Gamma", huh? :P

 

speaking of RTS.. you can also designate the station there and it works the same way. am sure you've already figured that out but this will help others that haven't. I shoulda added thatto the previous post but didn't think of it

 

edit.. sometimes the stations will drift out of the 'guard' area (a lot of high impact weapons like cannons etc..). just reposition the ship. if you use a carrier to 'guard' then you get the fighters without the "microy" :D