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Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
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Expanding the controls medium, an active input.

Author
Jallukola
#1 - 2014-04-06 17:33:04 UTC
Forum search didn't yield proper results on the matter, and closest hits I noticed were about cinematic camera and a first person mode, neither of which my proposal is not about. Feel free to correct me on the search results if you so wish.

My suggestion is not indepth, it's not large or complex, but has been a standard in many other space games, most notably Freelancer, and now-shutdown Black Prophecy.

It'd be a moot point to even try arguing against why EVE's current control scheme suits the game so well, pretty darn well to be honest. We are after all, in technical sense, talking about full weapon systems. Stand-alone mechanisms bound to take commands instead being directly commanded.

The passive nature of the relationship of the player, ships and modules in EVE has stapled the input to a passive state. It creates sense of proper order and in my opinion is not very intimate, doesen't really tie the player into the action of the game if you will. Simply pointing and clicking, and you get to see how your iron grip of commands get to live. It also sadly means all the true skill there is gets pushed to strategical aspects: figuring out the better fit, the better fleet tactics, having a stronger sense of leadership and decision making, et cetera. But the passive input doesen't change anywhere.

I personally come from a strong First Person Shooter background, so my idea might seem biased, my apologies for that, I do however long for an active imput for this game. I am completely satisfied as it is currently as vast improvements have been made to it during the past few years, but an active control scheme would merely be a win-win, atleast in my eyes.

I'm not suggesting, at any level, the removal or partial decomissioning of the current system, but to get something different alongside it. A system where targeting, navigation and firing alike are all performed by hand(s) much like in Freelancer or shooters for example, or even mixing up these two systems to create rather wild, interesting and innovative ways to do combat, exploration, logistics and other sorties.

I do doubt it even myself though, would an active controls input place players with quicker reaction times, situational awereness and hand-eye co-ordination that carry over from excessive FPS gaming to an unfair advantage. Please let me know what you think.


Peace!
Jall

All posts and mails screencapped and time stamped, including out of EVE, you will not reverse on me.

Might come in handy!

Kaerakh
Obscure Joke Implied
#2 - 2014-04-06 18:48:40 UTC
Jallukola wrote:
Forum search didn't yield proper results on the matter, and closest hits I noticed were about cinematic camera and a first person mode, neither of which my proposal is not about. Feel free to correct me on the search results if you so wish.

My suggestion is not indepth, it's not large or complex, but has been a standard in many other space games, most notably Freelancer, and now-shutdown Black Prophecy.

It'd be a moot point to even try arguing against why EVE's current control scheme suits the game so well, pretty darn well to be honest. We are after all, in technical sense, talking about full weapon systems. Stand-alone mechanisms bound to take commands instead being directly commanded.

The passive nature of the relationship of the player, ships and modules in EVE has stapled the input to a passive state. It creates sense of proper order and in my opinion is not very intimate, doesen't really tie the player into the action of the game if you will. Simply pointing and clicking, and you get to see how your iron grip of commands get to live. It also sadly means all the true skill there is gets pushed to strategical aspects: figuring out the better fit, the better fleet tactics, having a stronger sense of leadership and decision making, et cetera. But the passive input doesen't change anywhere.

I personally come from a strong First Person Shooter background, so my idea might seem biased, my apologies for that, I do however long for an active imput for this game. I am completely satisfied as it is currently as vast improvements have been made to it during the past few years, but an active control scheme would merely be a win-win, atleast in my eyes.

I'm not suggesting, at any level, the removal or partial decomissioning of the current system, but to get something different alongside it. A system where targeting, navigation and firing alike are all performed by hand(s) much like in Freelancer or shooters for example, or even mixing up these two systems to create rather wild, interesting and innovative ways to do combat, exploration, logistics and other sorties.

I do doubt it even myself though, would an active controls input place players with quicker reaction times, situational awereness and hand-eye co-ordination that carry over from excessive FPS gaming to an unfair advantage. Please let me know what you think.


Peace!
Jall



It's assumed that you searched prior to posting. There's no need to defensive from the off set. However despite what you ahve said this is hardly the first, second, third, or so-on-and-so-forth time someone has suggested something along the lines of let me use a joystick. (Semantics aside)

Anyways, the game is "passive" because that's how the game has been coded. EVE is essentially a prettied up text based game with an informative GUI and, despite any impressions you may have, suffers from fairly high latency. As an example you could replace the main screen with the overview and it would still be fully playable with only text representing all the assets. While the game does reward a strong strategic mind, I would call it ill-informed to say that that is the only aspect EVE explores.

Moving on to manual firing, not only would that have severe balancing repercussions, but it would also take a disastrously gross overhaul of how the game works to implement. Ever wonder why battleship guns turn on a dime when something they're locked on to suddenly passes by within close proximity? It's an observable example of how the pretty pictures on the center of the screen is all fluff.

Assuming that isn't a problem then you also have to consider the grotesquely problematic issue of what I mentioned earlier of rebalancing the game around the usage of this feature and of the default play tying up a myriad of development hours for something that is in essence a gimmick.

In conclusion I do not think it's a worthwhile idea in the slightest.
ShahFluffers
Ice Fire Warriors
#3 - 2014-04-06 18:51:03 UTC
Jallukola wrote:
would an active controls input place players with quicker reaction times, situational awereness and hand-eye co-ordination that carry over from excessive FPS gaming to an unfair advantage. Please let me know what you think.

Actually, it would be worse.

There are two technical issues that can't be quite overcome without a significant cost to the current architecture of the game;

- there is no "line of sight" mechanic in EVE.
- the server runs at 1 second "ticks" (see: it receives, updates, extrapolates, and sends information once per second).
It would basically be like playing Freelancer at 1 frame per second.

NOTE: for reference... games like Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty have server "ticks" in the miliseconds... which is why there are hard caps on the number of people playing in any single server.


That said... I'm a "space captain." I don't like the idea of "twitch" mechanics being necessary for better accuracy (because if your idea hypothetically did turn out equal or better results then it would essentially become mandatory to use).
Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#4 - 2014-04-06 20:12:12 UTC
the fleet fights we have now make the servers cry despite the low latency design of the game. the battle of Asakai had over 4000 players in it. no twitch game will be able to match that anytime soon.

its why star citizen will be limiting players per server (or something like that). it sounds like more the game u'd enjoy. check it out.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs

Jallukola
#5 - 2014-04-06 20:13:36 UTC
Kaerakh wrote:

Moving on to manual firing, not only would that have severe balancing repercussions, but it would also take a disastrously gross overhaul of how the game works to implement. Ever wonder why battleship guns turn on a dime when something they're locked on to suddenly passes by within close proximity? It's an observable example of how the pretty pictures on the center of the screen is all fluff.

Assuming that isn't a problem then you also have to consider the grotesquely problematic issue of what I mentioned earlier of rebalancing the game around the usage of this feature and of the default play tying up a myriad of development hours for something that is in essence a gimmick.

In conclusion I do not think it's a worthwhile idea in the slightest.


You don't have to act high and mighty, status has no meaning in the internet, no offense, but yeah I'm cool as it currently is.

Just like Gentleman S here said it too, the inbalance would primarily come from customed players of faster genres. However, I do believe active input for weapons balance in this game should follow the same principles as they are now.

Take those large turrets, tracking would stay the same, your guns would still have the same limitations of range, it's simply landing the shot and accuracy falloff that would change in gameplay mechanic. Just one example.

Though like also said, the net infrastructure makes such gameplay addition and the problem of overhauling it entirely near impossible, I get that. Still, I do believe that atleast in theory, shooter mechanics would indeed spice up the gameplay drastically, it would introduce some real good outplaying.


Cheers for the input, Peace!
Jall

All posts and mails screencapped and time stamped, including out of EVE, you will not reverse on me.

Might come in handy!

Jallukola
#6 - 2014-04-06 20:21:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Jallukola
Daichi Yamato wrote:
the fleet fights we have now make the servers cry despite the low latency design of the game. the battle of Asakai had over 4000 players in it. no twitch game will be able to match that anytime soon.

its why star citizen will be limiting players per server (or something like that). it sounds like more the game u'd enjoy. check it out.

I'm aware of the Wing Commander: Give money to nonexisitng product -Edition, but a game that's concretical content is currently a hangar, couple of ships and pretty interiors, let alone shows no signs of actually existing outside of few larger official forums posts, I consider it far from "checking out".

All posts and mails screencapped and time stamped, including out of EVE, you will not reverse on me.

Might come in handy!

Daichi Yamato
Jabbersnarks and Wonderglass
#7 - 2014-04-06 20:43:31 UTC
Quote:

You don't have to act high and mighty


it sounds more ur style of play. its never going to have the big fights and player interaction eve does, but no twitch game will. That is all.

EVE FAQ "7.2 CAN I AVOID PVP COMPLETELY? No; there are no systems or locations in New Eden where PvP may be completely avoided"

Daichi Yamato's version of structure based decs

Kaerakh
Obscure Joke Implied
#8 - 2014-04-06 21:21:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Kaerakh
Jallukola wrote:
Kaerakh wrote:

Moving on to manual firing, not only would that have severe balancing repercussions, but it would also take a disastrously gross overhaul of how the game works to implement. Ever wonder why battleship guns turn on a dime when something they're locked on to suddenly passes by within close proximity? It's an observable example of how the pretty pictures on the center of the screen is all fluff.

Assuming that isn't a problem then you also have to consider the grotesquely problematic issue of what I mentioned earlier of rebalancing the game around the usage of this feature and of the default play tying up a myriad of development hours for something that is in essence a gimmick.

In conclusion I do not think it's a worthwhile idea in the slightest.


You don't have to act high and mighty, status has no meaning in the internet, no offense, but yeah I'm cool as it currently is.

...? Ok...

Jallukola wrote:

Just like Gentleman S here said it too, the inbalance would primarily come from customed players of faster genres. However, I do believe active input for weapons balance in this game should follow the same principles as they are now.

Take those large turrets, tracking would stay the same, your guns would still have the same limitations of range, it's simply landing the shot and accuracy falloff that would change in gameplay mechanic. Just one example.


I don't think you read that correctly at all or understand how weapons in EVE work from a technical standpoint. It either hits or it doesn't. Guns apply damage instantly. There is no travel time. Plus as Shah stated the game only updates assets at a rate of every second(This alone should tell you everything you need to know about your 'idea').

Jallukola wrote:

Though like also said, the net infrastructure makes such gameplay addition and the problem of overhauling it entirely near impossible, I get that. Still, I do believe that atleast in theory, shooter mechanics would indeed spice up the gameplay drastically, it would introduce some real good outplaying.


Cheers for the input, Peace!
Jall


What's the point then? If it isn't possible then it's unproductive well wishes. Still, I do believe that, at least hypotheticaly, a shooter control style or perspective would detract from the game's intellectual style incredibly, it would remove a great deal of some good matching of one's wits.
Nariya Kentaya
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#9 - 2014-04-07 03:29:07 UTC
and, assuming you even COULD get FPS style shooter mechanics to work in EVE at ANY scale.

it would be SUICIDE.

There is a reason you arent required to do anything but manage transversal to keep your damage up, thast because a player who isnt dying in a bloody fire has over 90% of his attention on everything BUT where his atrget is flying, hes staring at his modules's cycles, his cap, his overview, where other ships are located relative to his, all this requires panning the camera around and keeping much of the screen cluttered with information. In order to implement your "idea" all that information would have to be taken away while your using it, effectively making you blind to EVERYTHING BUT your target, which means you can count the seconds til your dead on two hands.

Its like the minigames, fun in theory, but in practice, anything forcing your attention away from intel mechanics makes the activity pointless, because your very likely to die to what you cant see. (though at elast the minigmes are only a window in the center of the screen)
Jallukola
#10 - 2014-04-07 07:16:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Jallukola
Kaerakh wrote:

I don't think you read that correctly at all or understand how weapons in EVE work from a technical standpoint.


I think I do, boxes, or in this case spheres, placed on 3-dimensional grid chock full of co-ordinates for each specific object and their current locations on the grid. Nothing too much different out of the standard hitscan, tracking the said co-ordinates is merely automated with bunch of really inportant variables, if XYZ conditions are met, effect/action is applied, added ontop of it.


Kaerakh wrote:

What's the point then? If it isn't possible then it's unproductive well wishes. Still, I do believe that, at least hypotheticaly, a shooter control style or perspective would detract from the game's intellectual style incredibly, it would remove a great deal of some good matching of one's wits.


Perharps, but by all means, my point is not to replace anything, though I am sure you got that already.

My thoughts could be better understood if I (we?) take a look at current small gang or 1v1 scene. The game has well established fits that have proven to be the staple and the most effective approach, minor variations excluded.

Don't get me wrong, I am not against it, and this is merely an example. But lets say couple of enemies get a surprise drop on you. At this point the enemy indeed deserves the killmail, they have outsmarted you, overwhelm you with better tactics, better fit... Truly a justified kill without a doubt, just a en example, fairly common too.

Maybe I didn't clarify it enough in my OP, but my idea would merely lessen the dependability on just strategy, tactics and fitting better, and provide an opportunity of retaliation, a final display of stand rather than just sit there webbed and scrammed. Perharps not that meaningful for larger ships, but Í think it'd benefit frigates and crusiers, destroyers especially if the target is occupied dispensing orbital bombardments for DUST players.

Don't quite understand why you specifically have to mention milliseconds on FPS games, I'm well aware how my primary games work, but I do admit I had no idea Tranquility works on that slow pace. I suppose this idea was just wishful thinking in vain, given the sluggish callbacks of the server. Then again it's just an idea I wanted to discuss about. In all fairness though, I don't think I'm even being dismissive here.

Regardless, even if active input would somehow magically come working, my original worry still persist: Would it indeed make adept shooter guys maybe a bit too inbalanced and ontouchable in 1v1, or even 1v2.



Peace!
Jall

All posts and mails screencapped and time stamped, including out of EVE, you will not reverse on me.

Might come in handy!

Velicitia
XS Tech
#11 - 2014-04-07 09:05:07 UTC  |  Edited by: Velicitia
Nariya Kentaya wrote:
... you can count the seconds til your dead on two hands.



Impressed he'd survive for that long.



Jallukola wrote:
Kaerakh wrote:

I don't think you read that correctly at all or understand how weapons in EVE work from a technical standpoint.


I think I do, boxes, or in this case spheres, placed on 3-dimensional grid chock full of co-ordinates for each specific object and their current locations on the grid. Nothing too much different out of the standard hitscan, tracking the said co-ordinates is merely automated with bunch of really inportant variables, if XYZ conditions are met, effect/action is applied, added ontop of it.


At a very high level ... yes. Here's the math.

ChanceToHit = 0.5 ^ ((((Transversal speed/(Range to target * Turret Tracking))*(Turret Signature Resolution / Target Signature Radius))^2) + ((max(0, Range To Target - Turret Optimal Range))/Turret Falloff)^2)

So, assuming it doesn't change that much (tm) if you go to twitch-based, you're still gonna be SOL when you're 1 v many (or even 1v1 in the wrong ship).


Jallukola wrote:

Don't get me wrong, I am not against it, and this is merely an example. But lets say couple of enemies get a surprise drop on you. At this point the enemy indeed deserves the killmail, they have outsmarted you, overwhelm you with better tactics, better fit... Truly a justified kill without a doubt, just a en example, fairly common too.


They're not _entitled_ to anything. They still have to earn that killmail ... and I'll be damned if I let them have it without a fight.

Jallukola wrote:
Maybe I didn't clarify it enough in my OP, but my idea would merely lessen the dependability on just strategy, tactics and fitting better, and provide an opportunity of retaliation, a final display of stand rather than just sit there webbed and scrammed. Perharps not that meaningful for larger ships, but Í think it'd benefit frigates and crusiers, destroyers especially if the target is occupied dispensing orbital bombardments for DUST players.

Don't quite understand why you specifically have to mention milliseconds on FPS games, I'm well aware how my primary games work, but I do admit I had no idea Tranquility works on that slow pace. I suppose this idea was just wishful thinking in vain, given the sluggish callbacks of the server. Then again it's just an idea I wanted to discuss about. In all fairness though, I don't think I'm even being dismissive here.

Regardless, even if active input would somehow magically come working, my original worry still persist: Would it indeed make adept shooter guys maybe a bit too inbalanced and ontouchable in 1v1, or even 1v2.


Strategy, tactics and "fitting better" will still win the day, even with some god-awful joystick combat. Though after reading your posts, it kinda seems that you're playing the game wrong, and expecting some kind of honourable combat when you're flying solo.

Just remember this --> If you're in a fair fight, it means someone made a mistake.

One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia

Tragot Gomndor
Three Sword Inc
#12 - 2014-04-07 09:16:04 UTC
wait for valkyrie, there you have freelancer ^^ and it will mostly be free to play as well...

NONONONONONO TO CAPS IN HIGHSEC NO

Jallukola
#13 - 2014-04-07 09:20:06 UTC
Nariya Kentaya wrote:
and, assuming you even COULD get FPS style shooter mechanics to work in EVE at ANY scale.

it would be SUICIDE.

There is a reason you arent required to do anything but manage transversal to keep your damage up, thast because a player who isnt dying in a bloody fire has over 90% of his attention on everything BUT where his atrget is flying, hes staring at his modules's cycles, his cap, his overview, where other ships are located relative to his, all this requires panning the camera around and keeping much of the screen cluttered with information. In order to implement your "idea" all that information would have to be taken away while your using it, effectively making you blind to EVERYTHING BUT your target, which means you can count the seconds til your dead on two hands.

Its like the minigames, fun in theory, but in practice, anything forcing your attention away from intel mechanics makes the activity pointless, because your very likely to die to what you cant see. (though at elast the minigmes are only a window in the center of the screen)


All very valid points, though complex input management is not an issue for people well experienced with shooters. However the bias is much closer to map knowledge and reaction speed, could be translated to positioning and tracking upgrades in EVE terms.

Yelling in false use of capitals won't make the word any less different, but I agree the primary problem in Shooty EVE would without a question be the amount of opposition. Cheers for the input.

Peace!

All posts and mails screencapped and time stamped, including out of EVE, you will not reverse on me.

Might come in handy!