SphereJargon#4521 posted (#post-28418)

It seems fine to me. Would of hit 25 in 2 or 3 days if it wasn't for the broken solo matchmaking. currently 24 and 1 game away from 25. Games like this have a unlock tree its standard.

If you look at other games similar which are F2P, war thunder, WoT etc they make you play the ship class to gain xp in that class to unlock the next ship. If this was implemented in this game it would be 4x the grind which to be honest seems to be the industry standard.

TL : DR - Ship unlocks seem fine to me

Well that's a good point too, we indeed don't want a dull copy of another game. But we are more discussing the overall progression, not the way it is done. Here it's : You have 5 ships - grind - ? - 5 ships - grind - ? - 5 ships. A tree system is maybe mainstream, still better.

However, you made me think of something : instead of gaining ex for the unlocks, why not some kind of achievement ? Like to unlock à tactical cruiser, you have to :
- Heal fellows teammates for a X amount
- Gain the ribbon "Best monkey" 2 times in the same game
- kill a Vette while performing a double looping and switching the radio station

But this is the how, let's first think about the what.

Another problem with the current system is how do you add new ships and upgrades to the game. Do keep moving the finish line so that a year or so down the road you have 100 plus levels to grind through, or do you add upgrades to the current 50 levels and run the risk of players who are max level getting bored?

I would rather see some sort of token system where every level you get to chose what upgrades you want, this way new players don't have a mountain to climb and old players always have something to work toward.
Like i said earlier in the thread we should have access to every ship day one in the form of a trader ship or maybe do you Mech warrior online/ league of legends system and rotate out trader ships every so often.

Could maybe toss a few more hulls into the mix. From 2 to 15 is a massive amount of time. Yes, Modules and Officers unlock, but most people like the shapes they are attached to. A little bit of speed and armor slider changes don't mean a whole lot in the long term.

I think there's a lot of erroneous thinking on this thread. I'm just gonna address the common points people are making.
1) New ships. There are currently 15 ships; 5 Classes with 3 variations each. Heavy, Medium, Light. This is a very basic system for stratifying ships. Where in this stratification do you see room for more ships right away? I realize we probably will get new ships at one point. But based on experience from other games, I would expect it will take many months. All you get is 15 for now.
2) Non-Linear progression. People mentioning how unlocking ships should be broken down into a Tree Format or 5 different linear formats for each class. This won't work well for this game. There are only 3 variations of each class, so it'll be a darn short progress tree with no real reward at the end (because the upper level ships are lackluster). In addition you'd have hard time fitting Officer Briefings into a Tree Progression Format.
3) The higher level ships are better -- thus we are being forced to grind like crazy or pay for them. No they're not better, I played them. Quite the opposite, the level 25 ships are, in my opinion, mostly dung (except AC and Tac Cruiser).

I do agree that the reward system doesn't take into account performance, but that's a difficult task for these kind of games and I expect they're working on it. It also has little to do with this thread.

As SphereJargon above me, and many others have pointed out. It is so easy to get to level 25. It only takes a few days of playing (Half a week at most). This is, in my opinion, way too generous of the company. It doesn't encourage the player to stay with the game for a long time.
I played MechWarrior Online for years and still go back every few months. You will put approximately 50 to 60 hours of gameplay into raising the funds to buy a single mech (unless you buy a money booster). Then you gotta raise 1/2 the cost just to make it usable. It's fustrating but incredibly rewarding. You'll notice its a popular game that people drop A TON of money on, including myself.
It's my suggestion this game work like that. I think in the long-run it'll be more rewarding and better for the company. It'll also give them time to come out with new ships to maintain customer interest.

Hibiscus_J#1345 posted (#post-28202)

I like it where its at right now. The progression is nice, and for better or worse since the game is going to be F2P there is probably going to be a subscription/cash shop model that makes progression quicker.

Exactly.
For example my favourity ship is the Monarch,Heavy Dreadnought,i barely had the chance to try it in alpha.I dont mind though to w8 till i get it,its something as a reward,you still can play whole 2 other subclasses of each class.I will have to agree that i like this progression system,and lvl 25 isnt that far.

I think the requirements are good for when the game actually comes out. This however is the closed beta and they should make them accessible for everybody. i don't see a reason making ships so cheap but not having them unlocked at the same time. for how it is now, it will be hard for a lot of people to actually test the ships.

Diogenes#7851 posted (#post-28474)

I think there's a lot of erroneous thinking on this thread. I'm just gonna address the common points people are making.[...]
It's my suggestion this game work like that. I think in the long-run it'll be more rewarding and better for the company. It'll also give them time to come out with new ships to maintain customer interest.

1) Thats what i said, there are no more criterion to build new ship category. We still can have new "duplicates" with different weaps, as it seems that the primary weapon is fixed. By duplicates I mean another light AC, but instead of rapid fire, a charge and release shot? What is cool with this game is the fact you can customize your ship. So with "duplicates", you can still choose a different hull in a type that suits you.

2) Add more ships, so the tree will grow more branches. For the modules, why not? There are modules that are juste variations of the other : dive or turn amps for AC could be "mobility modules", the catapult ones still for AC are alike.

3) Yes, that is the point. We don't want better ships, as I said higher, but different.

For your last point, some will QQ because its too long, others will because its too short. On the amount of time you have to work is subject to personal opinion and subject to the cursor laziness <-> patience. But I would like to be able to play every types of every class early game, while working for new ships to unlock. Of course the current amount of ships makes it that you cannot think of another way to progress. I hope this will change when content will develop.

Harbinger47#8975 posted (#post-28478)

I think the requirements are good for when the game actually comes out. This however is the closed beta and they should make them accessible for everybody. i don't see a reason making ships so cheap but not having them unlocked at the same time. for how it is now, it will be hard for a lot of people to actually test the ships.

As said above it is still quite easy to level up, the beta wont disappear tomorrow I guess. If you subscribe to a beta but don't give the time needed to test the game (because you role is also to find bugs, which can take some time), that's a problem. However I understand your point, but see it as the progression system also needs to be tested; else this topic would never be discussed in the first place

Harbinger47#8975 posted (#post-28478)

I think the requirements are good for when the game actually comes out. This however is the closed beta and they should make them accessible for everybody. i don't see a reason making ships so cheap but not having them unlocked at the same time. for how it is now, it will be hard for a lot of people to actually test the ships.

While i was thinking the same thing when cbt hit the doors,i recall in alpha devs wanted to first us test the progression ladder,so my best belief is that they still are doing the same thing,probably will have somekind of changes in the future(or not if most people are happy with it),we still gonna face many changes till official launch.

Nuclearmoose#1670 posted (#post-28274)

Also just some food for thought if you really want to stretch the meaning of Pay to Win you could argue that Hero ships are P2W considering they give new players more options for ships then a F2P user.

-p-

I just wanted to comment on the above, that the only reason I bought the 40$ pack, was because I knew the Kochei would be locked behind a level wall, and by buying this, I could have access to a kochei at level 1.

I'm of the opinion that the invictus doesnt count as a ship, Its more of a floating lead weight team anchor holding the team back from winning.