the preparations for HWS 7 have begun and as you know HWS 7 / Alpha 7 will be as awesome as we possible can make.
We all know that HWS 6 / Alpha 6 had its ups and mostly downs. Performance, bugs, Sanctuary Server, Universe, etc.
We all know this. We all learned lessons. Only mistakes can teach you how to improve.
So let’s start with one of the biggest, crucial and most fundamental question:
As you might come along the Alliance would be the merge of Trader + Guardians and the Lawless the merge of Pirate + Hunter.
Just few fast thoughts from me:
the RP system would be merged from the previous origins but slightly adjusted. For example would the Alliance gain RP for trading, warping, having AM Cores but killing each other still be punished with -10 RP + guilty
we could have 2 starter planets per origin (=6) which would be very good for the performance and gameplay
Spoiler
I want to reincarnate Origin planets: Perma PvE, common resources but taxed + limits. Like in HWS 4. With only 3 planets this would be better for the performance
it is simpler, easier, better to balance three instead of five Origins
more depth would go away with 3 instead of 5 Origins
it would be again completely community dependent if you play “your role” within the origin or not. For example being a Trader within the Alliance or a Pirate within Lawless
So yeah, it has its pros and cons, for now maybe more pros. I don’t know.
Keep in mind that you have to give cookies to poor @Jascha if we would go for 3 Origins because he needs to change a lot in the code. And also if you voted for “keep 5 Origins” make realistic suggestions to difference them. Not like fancy stuff like radar systems, Iron Man skills etc.
Interested to hear and see your feedback. Remember: this is a serious and big change in the whole HWS system. Trolls or non related discussions will be filtered out straight away without warnings!
I’d say 4 origins, by leaving hunter pirates as it is, and merging traders and guardians within the alliance.
I thought i had… are you able to restrict warp lanes to given origins?
I might be a nice perk to add to different origins to play with the universe a bit.
Pirates being the sneaky rats they are could know some shortcuts around the universe.
Guardians, bound to protect traders and newbies could have a way to go back to starter space (but not planet, if possible) to help.
Hunters could have an orbit of their own, some kind of hunter cantina, too scary for pirates to even come close.
Freelancers, being free souls could know some of the pirate shortcuts but also have a lesser extent of the hunters perk.
Traders could have some market favoritism (lesser fees? cheaper EGS services?)
This can be also applied to 3-faction:
Alliance could have some alliance restriced “official trade routes” while the lawless could use the “unmapped warpholes” to move around to give a more in deapth feeling. Freelancer could use both, but would not have some other perks… like “order sector” and “lawless cantina” (peackeeper orbits could be transformed into those, after increasin slightly the ship count allowed).
I like the train of your thoughts. Even if faction specific warp lanes are not directly possible, it can still be done, by having faction restricted playfields at ether end of a warp route or stargate/teleport.
Hmm I am not trying to be a pain but I did not expect to have to choose between 5 and 3 origins I was expecting to lose 1. But I guess that would mess up the number of starter planets etc.
Although I only used the Origin planet for a week in HWS 3or4 as a new player it was a great goal to be able to get to that planet. I then use to ninja skills on Gold planet which was pretty much owned by SWP to pay for the tax and build my account up. You must do this Rex this was a lot of fun for me.
Guys dont do this to yourself and to us. Somebody wrote in other topic that HWS is like old lady unable to keep anything alone in peace. I quite agree, dont change it too drasticaly, once ppl learned about origins dont change it again to different name, and way its played, rep gained.
To many too drastic changes looks like you are not sure what to do, also…why to change code again? So nobody will be playing one of origins and what? I dont understand why thats a problem.
It was always like that, some origins was less atractive, once it was HWS problem, once Eleon problem. I was so happy to see Lawless finaly gone, this is terrifying.
If some origin is not atractive enough make it atractive with small change, balance it. You read why biggest PvP factions are unactive, no reason is related to origins. Its game and you cannot help this part so dont try to.
It doesnt matter if thats Alliance or Guardian, it was always pain to play, not because how you did it but because game doesnt support that kind of gameplay. I spent all thousands hours as Alliance, was pirate only on start and when i switched to pirate as alliance made no sense before implementation of this basic Diplomacy we have. Search for our ancient posts to see reasons.
@Fulgrim sadly we can’t do this technically. Only with quite a workaround as @sacredglade suggested. Will think about it.
@Elfias yeah that is a dead horse to ride to “not change”, “let people learn”, “just balance it” etc. The point is however: we are also in a kind of alpha state. There is NO excuse or reason to NOT change only because people = player = tester don’t want it because they are unconformable with changes.
It is more about making the game and server future ready. Have better options to scale later on. If we don’t test things now, we can’t change it later. That is the common flow of progression.
And one of the biggest reason is 1. people are lazy nowadays with all these smartphone games / casual games (so the easier the better) and 2. 3 origins are easier to maintain than 5. Also in the code.
Now origins itself. Biggest problem is there is no concrete relations between origins. Its still FFA deathmatch no matter the origin.
Trader can fight Guardian. This is problem, its only said somewhere they belong together but thats it. Game doesnt support that.
Pirate and Hunter are the same, with Hunter being even more Player Killers than Pirate. We can basicly do, kill, whoever we want. No rules who to hunt. We should hunt bounties, we never did. Pirates are meant to be those most baddas guys. Hunters was always in middle of good-bad spectrum, now they are a lot in bad direction.
Freelancers makes me happy as i was always for Lawless being renamed to Freelancers, it makes more sence in my opinion.
So you said it yourself. Origins have no real difference. 3 origins are a lot easier to handle like the purest sense of human recognition: “good”, “neutral”, “bad”.
If the name “Lawless” is a cliff hanger for you just suggest something better.
I thought very long for a name but lawless basically just fits fine I think for people playing “without rules” and fitting the “bad” side.
I dig what you saying. You know what i wrote in PM about treasure hunt. I like those 5 as it offers large base to build on.
But if its easier to maintain 3…this is what i think. Make it Law, Neutral, Chaos, you know oldest archetype. Thats possible. ANd you right that still understable. A bit as Cops vs Thievs with Freelancers around.
Alliance - Traders and Guardians, makes sense, clear to understand their purpose with PvE and PvP style of gameplay. I just have my old semantic problem here with Alliance
Freelancers - they have to be here, for noreaders and…freelancers
Pirates - yes Hunters and Pirates can be merged together for sure as i wrote above. Hunters should have that bounty system and its still hard to make working one in terms of gameplay.
If this is easier for you, well, do it. At the end it absolutly clearly offers 2 opposite sides, natural allies and natural enemies, you know…I always wanted that fight for territory, for galaxy with one side holding left of galaxy and other to rigt, fighting for territory. With factions of one side cooperating together against other side.
Well semantic is last thing to care about for sure, its long story altready with me and Lawless Yes it sounds like Lawless - we dont care about law, we do whatever we want, i always had this feeling they are simply bad liek pirates but lets leave naming its not that important.
My biggest problem with origin is that we use them only for REP gain, and nobody cares about rest. We choose them only to have it easier but we dont fight together against other origins.
There is nothing like Pirate saying in not going that deep into Guardian territory and vice versa. There is nothing like I have contact, who they are, ahh they are Hunters, thats good thay can join us in attack. There is only we are hunters, who are they? Hunters, nice lets kill them. FFA. For FFA we dont need origins at all.
This is related to Origin planets, you know i liked them, but it would work only when all hunters cooperate to hold it. Now as always ppl dont build in PvP, Hunters settles on planet. Other Hunters come in and hey, theres base, its hunters base, lets loot it. They should lost their hunters licence for this.
3 origins might help this, although without permanent unbreakable alliance between all of one kind its hard to enforce.
Ok to just not mumbling here, I see your point Rexxx and i clicked > Spoiler.
You got me, make it 3. Its easiest possible right after 1 and 2. SOme say 3 is magical number
I already foresee a future. After completing Alliance Storyline im put in front of hard decision, will i continue path of Alliance Guardian or will i choose peace to be Alliance Trader?
What about The Humans, The Kakó and The Theoí good, bad neutral. Make a race choice rather than a play style. We all look the same but we are all from different parts of the universe and yes it could happen. We were put here by aliens as an experiment so easy to understand that we are in different parts of the universe. We have all expanded at the same time, we have all destroyed our home worlds and need to spread out. We all want to Colonize the best planets. All 3 directions lead to the centre where ECC is. from their you can go to Black hole, Gold Planet, Resource system. Each race has different perks and believes. One is aggressive, another is peaceful and the 3rd is a bit of both.
Hmm i think its more like humankind suffered for a long time terrorised by Zirax Aliens. But we manged to defeat them finaly and our civilisation, represented by Traders and Guardians (former Alliance) started to spread out again, colonising planet after planet. Our planets was thriving but we had to work hard for that. We established laws and patroled our space to keep everyone safe.
But as always some didnt liked to work hard for the good of humankind.
Some was just not interested and left planets to became Freelancers (former Lawless), doing whatever they want, when they want for their own good.
Some wanted to get stuff for free without any work (former Communists) and they left to the edge of known universe to establish hideouts there and started to raid humankind planets and take whatever they wanted by any means necessary.
I would stick to this scenario as it fits Empyrion story a bit.
From my experience in the game so far i don’t see any reason for origins we players just play by alliances. So we ally with whoever we want. Origins don’t equal into the equation because it doesn’t matter. And of-course Freelancer is the best origin ever! xD
What might work is a system of alliances. Kind of like factions. What might help is having an origin specific pure pvp planet with specific benefits to them.
For example a pure pvp planet titled Freelancer etc that has a giant Mega indestructible base. This giant headquarter can be used as a safe heaven and a place to defend their origin planet and start off attacks. That sounds like fun to me.
Of course any origin can go in and set up bases so theres a natural incentive for the defending origin to extend their rule and protection over their origin planet by building their own destructible bases. And maybe counter attack the attacking origins planet so as to divert attention from their planet. Theres so much room for fun here!
So if theres a pure pvp planet for each origin, origins then mean something big and drastic.
This is how i think the origins should be set up: Freelancers should be merged with traders. I think this is natural free-market? Guardians should be an empire like the federation. Pirates and hunters should be merged into a dark empire.
Your idea is very nice kogami. It would allow the faction shortcut thing to work by restricting Origin orbits, i would however add a few more thing so the shortcuts are complete.
-Direct from Origin planet to CSWirect connection
-Remove the bottom one way warp (whats its point?)
-Make a connection from Alliance origin to topmost PvE planet
-Make connection from Freelancer origin to bottommost PvE planet
-One way warp from leftmost PvE planet to ECC.
-One way warp from black hole to Lawless Origin or ECC
@Rexxus in general Kogami’s right, if faction restricted warps are not possible, then lets use the come back of origin planets to restrict their orbits, and use them as a warp hub for the given origin, allowing for the shortcuts system.
I’d also vote for the origin Planets to have a PvE/PvP roration like the old armageddon had (PvP betwin 17 and 22 restarts, rest PvE). Could allow for some nice playing/holding of the planet by factions.
That is possible but Universe ideas are way more complicated than changing Origins, believe me. Especially because a brand new feature is coming for 7 regarding this.
Thanks for the map though @Kogami you have a good logic there!
We had this and it didn’t work. Especially combined with the thing above what is the point if it turns to PvP and only Alliances can go to the planet then.
Spoiler Day
Armageddon will also come back in 7.0 but slightly better
Now when we are getting to pictures…
Before somebody will say i dont want to Universe to be line…imagine Mercedes logo for 3 or pentagon (not that building) for 5
This scheme would work for me.
You choose your Origin and starts away from any danger on starter, even behind PvE planets.
From there you move to PvE, grow up a bit while safe.
Then you go to Origin Planet, its gateway to PvP, Origins made area behind it PvE, their presence behind this planet is so strong its considered safe thus PvE. Ideal would be Pirates cannot enter and vice versa.
Origin planet is conquerable by other origin, its what origins should try to achive.
HARDCORE version is that once Origin planet is conquered PvE part switches to PvP so rest of enemy origin can be fully wiped, pushed to fresh start to live on starter, thats nasty to live on starter.
Behind Origin planet in PvP direction theres universe full of riches both (or more) sides fights for.
Point is how far your origin will be able to push? While you cant be anihilated and can always re-conquer your Origin planet and move to push back and have your revenge.
And this is for 5 origins layout to make it clear picture above is just diagram
Point is…its arena, with “safehouse” on all sides. I thought we are on PvP server so all should be about PvP, all you do is you try to hold your own “half” and “erase” enemy origin from theirs, establishing presence on their Origin planet.
After that you use chat to write: “I see you are reall carebears, having only PvE planets, living there” thats considered temporary victory.
There is nothing like big faction is too big, we cant fight them. Its all about origins fighting together. All Players of one origin are friendly to each other, trying to humiliate other origin as much as posible, together.
I prefer - no changes
Server lose a lot of people, too many changes in class calculations, number of planets and galaxies, taxation and etc. Normal players and newcomers - are 66% cant follow all these changes, too many details and specifics. And new changes require changes in HWS Guide also, people making mistakes because of blank places.
People come to play, they want to choose already detailed and tailored by our experience, however you are trying to push them again in no-answer period of time. Any new reforms, what I see, didnt completed, some things not implemented, new features are removed or destroyed by Admins.
Lets enjoy game, lets spent more efforts for tailoring and customizing already added things, and balancing them.
)
with Alliance
but lets leave naming its not that important.
