HWS 8 limits PvE & PvP [POLL]

[RexXxuS]

Hey @everyone,

after I’m back from vacation, did some hotfixes and important todo’s, the big wave of new people going slowly down a bit ; I made a picture myself yesterday here and there it is time to become more serious.

Limits on HWS

Think of real life: are there limits? Can you have hundreds of cars in your garage you can always drive or hundreds of houses around the planet you can always use? Or better to say: are all of these 200 structures free to use for you?
I’m pretty sure: no. They cost.
And since we have no Gold surface or free Gold deposit on Earth the cost to upkeep a lot of structures prevent this to happen.

What I want to say is: limits are needed. More than ever. Not only because we got hundreds of new members at HWS but also because the game Empyrion, does and will for quite some time not support so many structures on a server.
Calculating many blocks, Calculating Voxels, is something very challenging in programming and especially for such a small team at Eleon.
Officially, Eleon recommend MP servers with ~20 players. We have 170+. So it is “our fault”… we have to take this serious and grant for thousands of players a smooth experience!

To be honest I got negligently about limits. I took hater comments about “HWS = shit limits everywhere” or “limits = no creativity” too serious. Hence it got worse not better than previous seasons.
But it’s time to go back to the roots, ignoring ignorant and silly comments because we know it better.

Example PvE

On HWS EU PvE has reached a critical moment. Strayom Sector is basically dead and maybe only a wipe can help here now.

The limits for some of these playfields are these as you know

The point here is not that “there is no place elsewhere” anymore. No, not at all.
The point is: big PvP factions are parking 10+ structures there and that it doesn’t end with 1 structure in general. As soon as they get a limit of 10, all 10 are filled of course. And why has a one man faction 10 structures of some kind? Either private or faction?

But I said already, that I failed to setup good limits.

The point now is to ask YOU about your input to match it to my vision. And it is the point to ask YOU how bad the situation really is and if we can wait until the next season or not
(next season would “normally” start at 12th September)

New Limit enforcement now or later?

• “Now” => 13th July (after one month of three)
• “Later” => 12th September (after the full 3 month season)

Obviously, a clean and good cut would be the next season. But do you want to live in mass structure parking lofts for additionally 2 months with a lot of warnings?
Do you want to endure the current PvP slideshow for the next 2 month?

But… I can’t promise that the new limits will give you smooth Full HD 3D moments overnight. I can just say by experience that the less structures and the smaller they are, the better the performance is for the players. I think many have that experience as well.

New HWS Limits

First Version / Idea before the discussion

First Version / Idea before the discussion

First of all: this is up to discussion and I value your feedback on every opinion here. But I will make the start with a suggestion, resulting by data I have and experience I got.

Global Limits Before (currently)

Global Limits After

(remember: the left column 1 + the middle column 1 = 2 faction bases for a one man faction for example)

New PvE Limits

At the moment I couldn’t even do a good “before” > “after” comparison because limits are different in so many places.
To reduce the confusion and complexity my idea is as following:

• All PvE planets except the RP reward Planets can have max. 1 private structure (of each type) and 2 faction structures
• The RP reward Planets (Mars X and Earth X) can have 2 private & 2 faction structures
• All PvE Orbits can have max. 1 private and 1 faction structure
• For all limits count Class 7 as max.

New PvP Limits

First of all let’s cluster PvP sections for easier naming:

• Hotspot Orbits: Black Hole, Titan Orbit and Homeworld Sector
• Hotspot Planets: Golden Globe, Titan, Homeworld, Desertworld, Iceworld, Lavaworld and Waterworld
• Others: All the rest such as Alien Hatchery, Honore West, etc.
• Armageddon is gonna be probably changed in the next season

So the limits for them would be:

Private

• Hotspot Planets: Only 1 private SV but 0 other type of structures
• Hotspot Orbits: Max. 1 private structure of each type
• Others: Max. 2 private structures of each type

Alliance

• Hotspot Planets: max. 5 Alliance Bases | max. 5 Alliance CVs | max. 25 Alliance HVs
• Hotspot Orbits: max. 2 Alliance Bases | max. 5 Alliance CVs | max. 25 Alliance HVs
• Others: max. 10 Alliance Bases | max. 10 Alliance CVs | max. 25 Alliance HVs
  (the Alliance base limit got positive feedback so far. We extended it for CVs and HVs. Please give feedback)

Faction

• Hotspot Planets: max. 2 Faction Bases | max. 2 Faction CVs | max. 3 Faction HVs | 10 Faction SVs
• Hotspot Orbits: max. 1 Faction Bases | max. 2 Faction CVs | max. 3 Faction HVs | 10 Faction SVs
• Others: max. 5 Faction Bases | max. 2 Faction CVs | max. 3 Faction HVs | 15 Faction SVs

Class Size

• Hotspot Planets: max. Class 1 of any type of structure
• Hotspot Orbits: max. Class 1 of any type of structure
• Others: max. Class 7 of any type of structure

ATTENTION: while this looks like rocket science it simplifies a lot and focus on performance

13th July limits

HWS 8 limits PvE & PvP [POLL] - #160 by RexXxuS

Also please keep in mind: I am honest here to say: we might address a different player group with this change for HWS than before!

That means that some players who love to build a lot and big, don’t feel comfortable on HWS anymore.
We started HWS that way, drifted away but will come to this spirit again. Sorry if you leave us because of that but I go back to our root concept: rather grant a smooth and fun experience for everyone instead of cater only a specific group or ruin the gameplay of everyone by letting some people play “Minecraft” on HWS with mass and big buildings.

---

This is a first draft, maybe not 100% thought out but it’s important to me that the spirit I want to achieve with the next limit patch is a different than before. Good or bad, we have to see.
But after I checked for some hours PvE and PvP yesterday I was shocked how bad Empyrion handles mass and big structures still.

Please let me know your constructive Feedback and suggestions.
And as always: stay on this topic, don’t refer on your probably toxic history PvP and let’s try to take the fate of a good Empyrion server in our hands.

Thank you!

Your HWS Team

P.S.: this here focus on limits first. The dedicated patch about balancing the new HV block, SV damage, HV damage, etc. is coming afterwards. Depending on the Poll result and overall feedback.

[Ranzeth]

Due to how “laggy” playfields can get, I would rather there be a better balance of faction HVs. We will need HVs in order to attack enemy bases, and in some cases a playfield just gets too laggy and we fly SVs properly.

That is my only piece of feedback, otherwise I am game for your suggested changes. Who knows, maybe with less lag SVs will be more viable in hotspots.

[Bronco40]

@RexXxuS What about private Faction Planets ?

[Toeol]

I’d like to see the private PVE Limits for SV,CV and HV set to 2, base can be 1 as i dont see the reason for more than 1 per playfield

The reason I say 2 CV’s, 2 SV’s and 2 HV’s is i can see myself using that amount, even if i didn’t PVP.

2 CV’s - Miner and Mobile base
2 SV’s - Attack SV and Travel SV
2 HV’s - Harvester and Base Assault HV

Sure if I create a solo faction then these limits are fine, but then that forces people to move devolve into smaller factions OR faction all their stuff. and sure there are ways around these limits if i want to split my items between planet and orbit.

With 8.2 being so far away i think its a shame to have such low limits on class 5 planets, because they are so big but can only support so few players / factions.

If a restart was possible, i’d honestly look more at the Neutral POI’s, riding around Ori and Zion and finding multiples of the same POI just seems a waste if we are clamoring for space

[RexXxuS]

Unchanged. Untouched.

(the only cut for Donator Planets the next season will be: max. Class 2. Class 3 was a test and it was a big shock to see how much RAM bigger planets consume!)

So: restricted donator planets = Class 2.
unrestricted = Class 3.

But it will be announced on another place @Bronco40

[Dreadstar]

This all looks good to me.

Donare planets can honestly be set to class 1 if they really hog resources.

Hotspot planets class 2
Other planets class 1
Donare planets class 1

Speaking of limits.

Can we restrict the use of the filler tool?

Can we limit the use of lights,flares, ect?

Adding both those changes I think will also greatly help the lag.

This will probably be hated but I would be fine with Class 4 or 5 CVs.

Also what about max 2 or 3 factions per Alliance. Lets break up these two mega alliances which cause so much lag next season.

[anon76082228]

On top of restricting limits it would be probably worth considering reducing the sizes of ships. Especially when it comes to CV’s.
And please don’t create large pvp planets, they are just horrible.

[Riptose]

Sure lets do it! after all this game is alpha and we are suppose to be testing the limits of the game. People get too butt hurt when change happens but that is life and must deal with it. class size 1 on bases might be a bit small cause of the how many turrets you HAVE to put on to defend it. But lets try it see where it goes and if nothing else we can always up it too a 2 if its not big enough.

I would like to add that letting the alliances build closer together. If your allied then get ride of the anti grief zone or would this lead to other issues i don’t see?

[TheRaven]

This sounds like a good start. The biggest problem in pvp hotspots is that terrain no logger resets around bases this needs to change NOW i have never seen this amount of lag on planets. Did the community not request class 2 and 3 in the 8.x pool ? Why did we even get class 5 planets they are horrendous.

Thanks for trying to fix this broken game.

i remember on gg we had 24h to evac in season 7

[Paxxo1985]

I really like lowering the limits on pvp planets and also on pve.
I like small size planets either for pvp and for pve also. Planets like GG or smaller are perfect in my opinion. Big planets are boring. I really liked before to explore 7km planets and see all the structures created by other players but also making some scouting on pvp planets serching for player bases to raid. Now with those gigantic planets i never go explore because i feel bored after 10 minutes.
I suggest to blow all pvp stuff and make smaller PVP planets NOW. Make one week warning maybe.

btw i dont find the button to vote…

[Jeeves]

as a one man Freelancer, PVE primary but I flirt with the fringes of PVP.
I currently use on NA server:
2 BA (+1 on EU)
2 SV
1 HV
1 CV (i have 2 CV but only really use one, I have no problem deconstructing it)

I actively use 2 separate SV for different roles, and dont think 1 SV would suffice my active needs.

GG is a good size as it is now.

What I imagine would happen with some of the vehicle hoarders, they would simply move their “b” stock to EU and just park them. or Vice Versa, EU using NA for additional vehicle Parking.

I nominate Taco Island as a meter maid.

[Dawg]

@Dreadstar

Also what about max 2 or 3 factions per Alliance. Lets break up these two mega alliances which cause so much lag next season.

I never thought we would agree on something. These massive faction/alliances is why more and more small groups and solo people will stay out of PVP.

Rexxus another thought and approach would be to separate PVE and PVP by a supergate. If it is possible this SG cost Rp/credit. This could discourage people from running back and forth. It is one thing to have a back up base in PVE so you do not have to start from nothing again. It is another that people go into PVP attack and then hide in PVE.

Also something that could really help with building limits is rotation of all PVE planets to PVP to provide some cleanup. One day out of the week all pve planets are rotated to PVP. On that day lock down the SG so that PVPers can not come and Overpower PVE people. Then the PVE players get a taste of PVP. Also make this day completely random once a week so that no one can plan to be there. This would further help with the PVPers not taking advantage and wipeing out less experienced PVE players.

Finally am I the only one that notices that over 100 players means very very poor performance? I know HWS wants to be the biggest and the best but with all these restriction then a player count of almost 200 the restriction could seem foolish to some.

[sacredglade]

I’m with the idea of donator planets being small Class planets. No need for anything large at all.

I also agree that the PvP planets do not need to be large, currently it is hard to find players to battle with larger planets.

Smaller block limits for Vessels, have been introduced and reduced a couple of times now and every time, we figure out how to live with the smaller vessels and structures - perhaps the block limits should be extended beyond the PVP hotspots.

A thought on the CV front - can the config file stop the 15mm/30mm weapons from working in space at all? They do very little damage and as really planetary weapons - if they are not firing - will this increase performance (or does the game calculate even if they are not firing?). Other space based weapons could have damage and range increased to compensate.

After that reducing core limits is the last change. I would be in favour of a gradual increase in restriction in the current season and a more significant restriction ether a few weeks later or wait until next season. Just to help the player base manage down to the new limits. Probably accompanied by a limited time special offer at the HWS recycle facility for very low cost or free processing.

Performance has to be the priority and as a player base we have shown many times that actually we cope with restrictions surprisingly well.

[Dawg]

Bigger PVP planets give the smaller groups a fighting chance. Right now with alliances that are over 20 strong a 2 man crew has no chance if one person in that 20 group finds them on a class 3 or under. On a class 5 it is a little harder to call in backup as they will struggle to find that location even if for a few minutes. Though planets like the ones in BH that are hotspots may need to be smaller for the fighting others like HW should be for those that would like to build a base to defend. Not everyone wants just CV to CV battles some might like some action with Bases. Right now seems things are worked toward crippling bases but they are the ones that can not repair fully in minutes with no manual work. All ships can be repair with the repair device. The main planet vessels can be restored to new in what 20min tops?

[Dawg]

As I keep saying small planets make it easier to wipe out the little groups and this is very unbalanced. If you do not wish to hunt for a base on a class 5 simply go elsewhere. If it was not for Empyrion being the only game with PVP in it where all structures are marked and visible up to 500m out then you would not need this. If you go to smaller planets you can go into high atmospher circle the planet in less than 5 min and know everything down there with the exact number of ship support. This is a major unbalance for PVP and it is not the game engine to blame it is the game itself setup this way. Other games on this engine are not set up like that. Seems unfair that I have a hangar full of support craft and you can see every single one of them and exactly what they are.

[TheRaven]

That’s a silly statement because it might take longer to find but once found GG.

And class 5 starter ?

[Zafaron]

I think probably 2 of each structure per playfield would be better than 1, with the exception of bases. Only really need one base. For the global limits anyhow.

Is it possible to limit global structures a person can have across all playfields? That might be an idea too, especially to cut down on max possible structures by small groups and solo players.

Also, I really wish that the CV size limit for those PvP hotspot planets was a little bit larger. I have a warp sled that I use to haul my miner to golden globe, and with 100 blocks, I can’t even have armor on all 6 sides of it Maybe like 200 blocks instead of 100, still prevents those blocking CV’s, but at least lets you cover the critical components.

Maybe possibly have the deletion date for non-visited structures reduced from 15 days down to 7, or 5?

Maybe have structures in PvE areas auto-stealth while their owners are offline, or after they have been offline for some amount of time. (Free cost stealth, since the only reason for the stealth would be server performance and not hiding)

I only ask that whatever change you decide to go with, we have a few days warning in order to recycle/move our structures to comply with the new limits.

[Jeeves]

@Zafaron

and with 100 blocks, I can’t even have armor on all 6 sides of it

ooooooh giving up juicy state secrets.

[Darkshadow]

@RexXxuS I am not sure you have looked at this issue as you have not said anything about it and if you have great. So here goes. Most of us PVPers have ships that are way beyond class 1 ships and we would still need to be able to move around the universe with them in the areas they are allowed. So Donator East and West would need a way to get back from ECC and another places as well. Right now we have to go through Homeworld space to get back into Donator space. I feel the travel system will need to be reworked in order for free movement.

[Kittiez]

I don’t normally repair SV but in the few cases I have it’s anywhere from 20-30 minute repairs.
CV vary greatly depending on how damaged they are, I have a CV sitting in my orbit with a 10 hour 30 minute repair time, the server usually resets before it’s complete and I have to start over. What I’m normally looking at is a 45min-3 hour repair time with CVs.
As it stands now, there’s no reason going to a class 5 planet to pvp. If you’re concerned about “hiding” that’s what pve is for, get off of the pvp planets. It’s my understanding that the class 5 planets were a test to see how they are. If they’re hogging resources so much I am 100% for reducing their size as there isn’t much happening there right now anyways.
The size of the planet doesn’t affect calling in support. We have ways of tracking each other and know exactly where one another is at any given time.