Test Server Feedback

Hi,

This feedback thread is for the hacking and archaeology sites by Team Prototype Rocks - keep feedback on the scattering mechanic, site layout, hacking minigame please :)

We have taken your feedback on board and made some changes to the pace of the feature and the loot amounts within the scattering. It would be great to get your feedback on the updated version on SISI - both from the mass test today and from playing the sites yourselves.

Please keep the feedback constructive and give specific examples/suggestions to help us fully understand any concerns you may have.

I hate to say it but I feel like the null sites are way too good, From the sites I ran it comes down to at least a 50% chance of getting the good drop from any giving spew container, which seems like a reasonable rate to me with how good the drops are in general. My biggest concern as of right now is the actual icons for the cans that are ejected, they are quite small and there have been several occasions where I could of swore I clicked on it and then realize that it was a missclicked several seconds later which reduced my overall ability to scoop 50% of the cans.

When it comes to layout and graphics I am having the biggest issues with Central [Faction] Sparking Transmitter. The structure is so bright and the position of where the cans get jettison make it very difficult to scoop the cans on this one becaue it is very difficult to see the icons.

I really hope there are no plans to remove the ability to cargo scan the spew containers. It is wonderful how much using a cargo scanner will increase completion time due to skipping low value spew containers.

First issue I've noticed is that collision detection and distance measurement seems to be off for hacking containers - I can orbit a container at 1km and still be inside the spinning rings of the structure. At 500m, I collide with the structure as I orbit.

Will update post as I find more. xD

I don't think so. I am opening the systems as I enter. Also, when you warp out the sites explode.

Share some of this too-goodness with the low sec sites please.

I'll try to write up a proper feedback post tomorrow, but for now I'd like to propose a change to virus supressors.

Currently they reduce your hacking strength by 20 (as far as I can tell.) This means that in a bonused ship such as an Imicus, your virus strength is cut from 40 to 20, somewhat annoying, but not too bad.

Tonight, I was hacking in a Vexor, an unbonused ship, meaning I only had 30 virus strength, and a single virus supressor cut it to 10, which is crippling.

In one hacking attempt, I was able to progress 2 nodes (no other way to go), before running into a virus supressor, the only option was to repeatedly attack it until it was dead, and due to only having 10 virus strength, I was reduced to I believe 5 (or maybe 15) virus coherance by the time it was gone, and I'd only progressed 3 nodes into the system, meaning the hack attempt was doomed from the start.

What I'd like to suggest is changing them from being a static 20 virus strength cut, to a 50% cut.

In the case of the bonused ship, a single supressor would still cut your virus strength from 40 to 20, but in an unbonused ship, it would cut your virus strength to 15 instead of 10, which at least somewhat less crippling.

Test went well but when i went in to the fight all of the drones lagged me out really bad ended up dying cause of lag. couldnt do much at all even lost my pod.

I've done some hacking yesterday and on today's test.

1) Yesterday I haven't found a single radar/mag site in Heimatar near Rens. And I've sweeped about 10-15 systems with sec<0.9. Then I jumped to sansha space (Derelik? The region where the Jark solar system is) and got several systems with mini sites in a row. Please check site spawns in Heimatar.

2) The sites in sansha space were much much simplier than on today's test. I've ran across a sansha mainframe yesterday, and it was a walk in a park. Angel mainframes today were much more challenging. I believe the reason is the virus supressor thingie or something like that - the one which lowers your attack when encountered. Sansha sites were high on antiviruses, but I had 30 attack and was oneshotting them without taking any damage back. Basically they were just another pass-through nodes and were not contributing to the site difficulty in any meaningful way.

3) I must confess the hacking mechanics are uncompetitive and boring. Basically if you success or not relies on your ship and random distribution of defensive nodes. The "winning" strategies (that is, ways to minimize the node loss to uncovered defences) are figured out in 2 games, and there's nothing you can do with attack/defence balance but pray you don't step on th suppressor. TL;DR there isn't much player skill involved in the minigame. I suggest considering shifting the focus to some kind of a race against time and easier noticeable but active defences (inb4 pacman).

4) On loot. Yesterday I've done 4 or 5 mags (relics?) in hisec and was getting like 10K worth of loot on each site. Not much improvement. Radars were a bit better - similar loot to curent TQ, but more time spent on doing sites. Someone told in the fleet today that the profession site changes were aimed on making them woth doing, because now hey are worthless. Well, not entirely so. While hisec mags are indeed crap (and nullsec radars are crap compared to everything else nullsec), hisec radars on TQ are a decent way for a character with low SP (esp. with bad attack skills but decent astrometrics - I've got exactly that kind of an alt) to earn some good money. A good radar site can net you up to 30 mil, and you usually can get about 100mil in a couple of hours with a non-combat character. I would not call that worthless. On the contrary, they are going that way now. ISK/Hour seems worse on new radars, and you need to do them in an exploration frig, while on TQ you can combine doing radars with doing combat plexes on the same ship (I use gila. BTW it beats T3s on 3/10s and 4/10s hands down. The only advantage they have is the scan strength bonus, and you don't need high probe strength to find highsec sites. And they get banned from hisec sites, and gila still can enter them. Oh, and if you ban faction cruisers, then Ishtar is next on line... And then there were none. That's quite a slippery slope right there).

5) On can scattering. Manageable in explofrigs (I bet heavier ships ragequit on trying to go around structures). The only problem I have is they go all chameleon on me and I can't for the love of God understand what that means. I mean they seem to change colours all together, and that does not seem to affect the ability to loot them. Is that a TTL indicator?

Awesome, it's a graphical bug that we'll squash before release. :)

Noted and will pass on to the team in the morning.