The last day of the year tends to be left for reflections and thoughts, guesses about the future and contemplation about the last.
No thanks. I'm bad at that.
Instead, I was out, moving my freighter.
"Sugar! Sugar! Come out and play!"
I can't! I can't! I must instead stay!
I have cynos to light.
I have blueprints to gather.
I must get this done for there are capitals to glue together!
That may not be a completely accurate reflection of the day. I'm a homebody. In game and in real life. I like sitting and puttering with things. Building and sorting. I'll spend time organizing my hangar if I've been busy and it gets messy.
I like doing the non-exciting fiddly stuff in the game. That is important because someone has to. But, it is the non-fun busy work that makes me wonder.
One of the main culprits is cynos. I need cynos. I need a lot of cynos. I have alts with stacks of ships, cynos, and liquid ozone in various systems just waiting for me to need them. Cynos are important. Cynos also suck. For ten minutes the account is sitting there.
There is a difference between the every day logistic cyno and the combat cyno. There is enough of a difference that I wonder if we can do something with this type of gameplay. I don't suggest removing cynos. But, well, they are boring. They are important but I don't want to ask someone to light them for me.
Hey! Do you mind sitting out of whatever you might want to do for ten minutes so that I can move my freighter? It's fun! Really. Good stuff. Yeah, see you just fill a rookie ship with ozone and then light it and boom! Ten minutes of sitting there stuck. Good? Yeah? Thanks! No! No! I don't need cynos every ten minutes. I know its excessively exciting and my blood to starts pumping with the absolute thrill of it but hopefully you can hold that addiction in! I'll need another tomorrow. Kisses!
I like teamwork concepts in a game. It would be nice to have teamwork concepts that made you want to team-up vs being an army of one. This is not to be confused with replacing individual gameplay. It is when something is meant for people to accomplish together, it is worth accomplishing together.
Normally, this particular rant goes into mission rebalancing and how the reward system encourages solo play. Today it is about those lonely social duties like cynos.
Let me go light another.
I know! A minigame that determines how close the ship lands to the cyno and how long the cyno lighter is paralyzed! And at the end loot can spew out in containers that will be more efficient to grab with friends and you'll need data analyzers in order to.....
ReplyDeleteOh wait.... I think they tried this....
I'm not good at this design stuff. I'll leave it to the professionals :/
I think the boring aspect of cynos is a symptom of a mechanic that should be altered. What is the point of a cyno for moving freight right now? Who gets their friends to jump on, all fired up, to light it for them? Probably no one.
ReplyDeleteHere's an idea: remove cynos for freight movement. They don't add anything to the game (except alt accounts maybe?) and removing them takes nothing away. Cyno to a bookmark instead, or maybe a special type of bookmark that needs to be made a certain way (consume items/needed skill?). And maybe introduce some risk mechanic if it is felt that is what jumping needs. Have the cyno signature be a destroyable signature to retain that risk. But the ship/account being there serves nothing at all.
As for cyno use in combat fleets, something should be done to make that job interesting, exciting, and worthwhile. There should be people lining up to be the cyno in fleet because of the excitement of it, kind of like my corp and logi (yeah we're probably weirdos though).
-Vala Ancalagon
Huh... Cynos (which I could simply NOT ever care less about TBH) bring nothing to the game hmmm? I assume you do know that active cynos show up on the mar, right? and that ANYONE can warp directly to any cyno they are insystem with right? And that this idea came about because Freighters and Fleets use them, right? and mebbe players might wanna gank that Freighter or scout that Fleet... right? But no... that brings nothing to the game...
DeleteIt is not about the cyno toon getting excited, or the 10 minutes he has to sit there being bored (and really, does an alt, used ONLY for cyno's, a throw away single purpose clean clone toon who if/when killed an/or podded loses nothing cause 'noob ship+fuel+cyno' is ALL that is risked)... No, it is about the 10 minutes other players have to react to the cyno... it is about the 10 minutes the cyno pilot is braodcasting his location, (and the potential location a Freighter or a fleet will arrive at inside of 10 minutes)... to everyone... IE creating the potential for ‘player interaction’… Look at it that way then see if you can come up with something that does not reduce player interaction, does not make hauling shit loads of expensive stuff 'safer'... like a Freighter jumping to a BM would...
In the spirit of if yer gonna bash it at least have an idea…. try this...
(1) 3 different cynos... one type for Freighters and one for Capitols and one for BlackOps. Then, instead of having all Cynos burn for 10 minutes, have the cyno for Caps run maybe 5 Min, the one for Freighters for 3 min, and for Blops mebbe 2, or even just 1 min...
Or, (2) change them so Cyno's ‘can’ be shut down... same as all other mods, at the completion of the current cycle... but only until it is locked by the jump capable ship... then you can't shut it down, but you can still MOVE.... but if you do, or conversely, if you are bumped... the farther you get from where the jump was locked creates ‘landing error’... any ship jumping to that cyno will land in an increasingly larger and larger radius from the cyno...
Move or get bumped up to 2k from where the jump was initiated, the jumping ship lands randomly within say 5k of the cyno... move or get bumped 3 to 5k and the radius is now 10k... the further the cyno ship move or is bumped from the initial point, the greater the 'landing error'...
And a fleet? Ho boy!!! a fleet is disbursed randomly in a larger and larger area in proportion to how many ships are in it... So NOW being a cyno and what happens to a cyno becomes quite interesting gameplay hmmmm? Can we say do you TRUST your Cyno alt? And Cynobumping.com would be just a matter of time…. =]
And, please correct me if I am wrong Sugar, but making the game 'safer' is not the direction CCP wants to go overall is it? Less boring, yes... safer, I don't think so.
If you read what I wrote I suggested the cyno could still have a signature, be destroyable, etc. I was implying current the cyno mechanic could simply eliminate the 2nd player since it's a useless function. There's no reason a cyno signature couldn't exist without a character/ship there. No need to get hostile, I think you misunderstood my post.
Delete-Vala
Wow... I was not hostile, I was simply discussing the issue... maybe I just need to shut up. I did read your comment, that was why I responded. And I was making a suggestion that instead of having a cyno be an object, why not change the gameplay to make it more interesting... may I ask what you though of the idea of adding 'landing error' to the cyno equation?
DeleteNo there is not reason a cyno could not exist w/o a char running it... but is that good gameplay? why not make the 2nd char have an effect on things and hence make it interesting gameplay? IE add to the game, not detract...
And I was by no means hostile... and may I apologize if I came off as condescending... I did not mean to, I was simply trying to make a point.
No worries, I just didn't want you to think I was suggesting any type of "ez-mode" gameplay. Cynos bring something to the game, definitely. I just don't find the 2nd character interaction interesting if it involves you having to multi-box to do it. THAT doesn't bring anything, and that 2nd character doesn't have to exist to have the same mechanics a different way.
DeleteJump error could be interesting, I'm not sure if bumping on the starting side would make a lot of sense unless there was some warning that person was going to jump. I think everyone would just jump starting from a safe at that point.
-Vala
Yay! I'm not the only one who likes organizing :)
ReplyDeleteSelf destruct, only 2 minutes
ReplyDelete