PVE is already failing...

[Cavilier210]

No, there's nothing else to do. The game is completely bereft of content. Mining and ship building is it. There are no NPCs, no missions, and nothing to shoot at besides rocks. You can only build a better mining ship so many times. "Wealth" is worthless when there's nothing to spend it on. Star Citizen has more content at this point.

I find it odd that in a massively multiplayer game, nobody wants to interact with anyone else, and wants the devs to spoonfeed them content. Why are you not making missions? The Concordia alliance is at war. We're running missions daily. We're buying from other groups, setting up supply lines, putting holes in enemy ships, and brainstroming how to effectively track down the enemy in a game that has zero volumetric sensors mechanics.

Considering this games content at this point, Star Citizen will still not be released and this one will surpass it in a hurry. But this is not a PvE game. You're meant to interact with other players.

 

[William Wolfen]

I find it odd that in a massively multiplayer game, nobody wants to interact with anyone else, and wants the devs to spoonfeed them content. Why are you not making missions? The Concordia alliance is at war. We're running missions daily. We're buying from other groups, setting up supply lines, putting holes in enemy ships, and brainstroming how to effectively track down the enemy in a game that has zero volumetric sensors mechanics.

Considering this games content at this point, Star Citizen will still not be released and this one will surpass it in a hurry. But this is not a PvE game. You're meant to interact with other players.

I've had some good interactions with players so far. I've helped a couple out, gone for a ride in another's Croc, and I've been the mechanic for a couple if my friends. However, I've had more folks who's chosen interaction is to run around the origin stations and hit everyone with a pickaxe. There's more to player interaction than violent confrontations.

 

[Cavilier210]

I've had some good interactions with players so far. I've helped a couple out, gone for a ride in another's Croc, and I've been the mechanic for a couple if my friends. However, I've had more folks who's chosen interaction is to run around the origin stations and hit everyone with a pickaxe. There's more to player interaction than violent confrontations.

My point was more that you make your own content. My groups is to beat on the Collective, with all the related aspects that go into that venture. Including what you list.

 

[William Wolfen]

My point was more that you make your own content. My groups is to beat on the Collective, with all the related aspects that go into that venture. Including what you list.

The problem I mentioned earlier is that unless you're a PvPer, there's not really any content. The content you claim to create is just to bag on another group, aka PvP for the sake of it. There's really not much for your typical PvE player to do. Just mine and build. Feels kinda empty as a prominently PvE player.

 

[STEALTH]

I find it odd that in a massively multiplayer game, nobody wants to interact with anyone else, and wants the devs to spoonfeed them content. Why are you not making missions? The Concordia alliance is at war. We're running missions daily. We're buying from other groups, setting up supply lines, putting holes in enemy ships, and brainstroming how to effectively track down the enemy in a game that has zero volumetric sensors mechanics.

Considering this games content at this point, Star Citizen will still not be released and this one will surpass it in a hurry. But this is not a PvE game. You're meant to interact with other players.

The major problem which I find fascinating that such folks would even bother with this sandbox mmo. So many need a game to tell them what to do, dictate their path, guide them where to go/what to do. They're so use to that that they're faulting the game as the issue instead of realizing they're not cut out for the game. They're wanting the game to rearrange itself for them instead of them to the game. SB has made itself quite clear in what it's going to be and yet folks are complaining. I don't know, maybe I'm just lost in these demands/suggestions I'm seeing more and more lately. 1000% agree that this game will quickly surpass SC, maybe some here need that game since it offers snooze missions against AI cannon fodder.

 

[William Wolfen]

SB has made itself quite clear in what it's going to be

Interesting that you would say that. I see nothing on either of the following webpages, which are the obvious place to get info about the game before purchasing it, about this being an empty sandbox with nothing but player created "content". Nowhere does it say that it relies exclusively on player interaction and that there are no NPCs or PvE content. Most games have a mix of the two, so there's little reason for anyone to believe Starbase would be any different. It's really a big letdown for those of us not so interested in PvP.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/454120/Starbase/
https://www.starbasegame.com/

 

[Cavilier210]

The problem I mentioned earlier is that unless you're a PvPer, there's not really any content. The content you claim to create is just to bag on another group, aka PvP for the sake of it. There's really not much for your typical PvE player to do. Just mine and build. Feels kinda empty as a prominently PvE player.

Well, we have a long list of actual reasons for attacking the Collective. Its not PvP for the sake of it.

 

[Venombrew]

@Cavilier210 what flag you fly?

 

[Captain Garp]

The problem I mentioned earlier is that unless you're a PvPer, there's not really any content. The content you claim to create is just to bag on another group, aka PvP for the sake of it. There's really not much for your typical PvE player to do. Just mine and build. Feels kinda empty as a prominently PvE player.

You're not a PvE player you're just some one who refuses to interact with the whole of a game.

 

[Cavilier210]

@Cavilier210 what flag you fly?

I'm the leader of the Federation (Concordian Federation ingame. Someone stole my faction name from alpha and the CM's are swamped) and we're part of the Concordia Alliance, with the Republic, Tactical, Nomads, and a good number of other groups.

 

[William Wolfen]

You're not a PvE player you're just some one who refuses to interact with the whole of a game.

Well, autocorrect buggered that sentence. It was supposed to say predominantly PvE. Apparently Google doesn't approve of a good vocabulary.

However, your assumptions are amusing. Just because I don't jump into the proverbial deep end of PvP doesn't mean I avoid it entirely. I just prefer to have other options.

Folks like you are the ones I prefer not to interact with when I don't have to. When I'm spending my free time on a game I don't have to spend it the easy you see fit. I get to make that decision. So stop trying to shove your interpretation of things down our throats.

 

[blazemonger]

Just because I don't jump into the proverbial deep end of PvP doesn't mean I avoid it entirely. I just prefer to have other options.

Amen to that. It's just funny how for some, that POV implies you are not accepting their option to do exactly that, even when they are the ones with the rigid and one sided ideas about "what a game should be like and devs should focus on". I just see a lot of poeple here talk to mirrors instead of each other.

An MMO, by definition, is what you make of it. It does not require you to engage in any specific game mode/style. As with any of those options, none is the center of the game's focus, they need to co-exist for the game to work. And Starbase is just getting off the ground, it's pretty much in the incubator and has some time to go before it gets out. And that is fine..

 

[Captain Garp]

Folks like you are the ones I prefer not to interact with when I don't have to. When I'm spending my free time on a game I don't have to spend it the easy you see fit. I get to make that decision. So stop trying to shove your interpretation of things down our throats.

You're not a PvE player, just some one who doesn't want to interact with the whole of a game.

 

[Venombrew]

An MMO, by definition, is what you make of it.

Definition of an MMO, "an online video game which can be played by a very large number of people simultaneously."
Definition of a Sandbox game, "The "sandbox" term derives from the nature of a sandbox that lets children create nearly anything they want within it."

Starbase is trying to cradle both genres, not much different than Archeage, Ark Survival, Rust, Etc.
Archeage's original design did not incorporate classic mmo features, it took some time in its beta stages to even add dungeons to help bring the mmo feel to their sandbox game, even then objectives and real questing still hadn't taken off, until that point it was mostly craft and pvp.

 

[Womble]

All that to say, you're right in that there is no driver for conflict. Station sieges and MCAPS are coming, but the only motivation people will have to fight is to watch explosions. There isn't an underlying economic motivation for control of an area because, hey, SZ mining is still the most profitable OR rare ore mining has become king and it's literally uniformly distributed.

Exactly, resources are relatively well distributed making confrontation pointless.

I think these points are both valid, but I get the impression that the construction of Cap Ships is going to need alloys, and some of those are going to require being in specific places. Control of those places is going to be a driver for conflict. But it's certainly true that we're not there yet. I think the devs are working on things a bit more basic than "high politics" and "grand economics" at the moment, but there does seem to be evidence that they've at least got some sort of a plan to induce* such things in the fullness of times.

* I say "induce", because, in the end, economics and politics are driven by the players (politics is obvious, but economics I see as being driven by what the players want to do), so all the devs can do is introduce factors that will encourage players to do politics and economics.

 

[Vanidar]

I think these points are both valid, but I get the impression that the construction of Cap Ships is going to need alloys, and some of those are going to require being in specific places. Control of those places is going to be a driver for conflict. But it's certainly true that we're not there yet. I think the devs are working on things a bit more basic than "high politics" and "grand economics" at the moment, but there does seem to be evidence that they've at least got some sort of a plan to induce* such things in the fullness of times.

* I say "induce", because, in the end, economics and politics are driven by the players (politics is obvious, but economics I see as being driven by what the players want to do), so all the devs can do is introduce factors that will encourage players to do politics and economics.

Sure, if alloys are valuable to a large percentage of the playerbase and there is roughly the same amount being removed from the economy than being created and they are only attainable in concentrated areas, then I'd say that's a fantastic step towards encouraging players to interact. That interaction can be diplomatic or aggressive, but either way, it's player-driven and dynamic. Cool, we all win.

My unsolicited opinion with my understanding of CCAPs being 100% invulnerable 100% of the time is that those alloys will be popular for a month or two while people build them up, then demand obviously tapers off and we're back to the same issue. The exact time frame in which the contested ore for these alloys is desirable or marketable is debatable, but CCAPs offer advantages over MCAPs across the board aside from sieges with how they are currently proposed, and if they can never be destroyed, you can't have steady demand over time.

Now I 100% agree with you that there is a juggling of plates the devs need to do and prioritize which areas are more on fire than others. It does seem like the devs have some plans to drive conflict, but in my eyes looking at the roadmap and commentary, that's both far down the line as well as being behind some pretty complicated and ambitious features. I see a set of (reasonably assumable) much more simple changes that creates more interaction much earlier on for less development cost. Most of that I've already discussed regarding more small scale pvp accessibility and motivations. A game has to have a critical mass of players to be successful, and while I don't think we're quite at the extreme lower limit of that critical mass, there's a fair argument to be made to consider playerbase momentum and what small, efficient uses of development time could do to sustain it a bit better.

 

[blazemonger]

If you get stuck with towing due to a crash, a support ticket will see that refunded generally. SO no need fo the first

Login bonuses on a B2P game make no sense to begine with.. It's a marketing tool to stimulate subscriptions

Free ships why? if you are unable to design your own, join a company that will provide, many do. The whole idea of the game is for the devs to not interfere in this way. Eventually add a tutorial to weaponize the starter ship, sure.. but from there you are on your own.

Most players who do not leave SZ wil not do so anyway. You can't force that, no matter how "attractive" you make it.


It would be interesting to know what FB's motivation was to not go the subscription route. To me it makes no sense for a large scale MMO sandbox like SB. While I'd agree a sunbscriptiopn model woudl hav ebeen better, that ship has sailed though and FB made their choice in that regard. I wonder how they will support scaling their infrastructure as the game grows unless they will just drop more and more load onto the clients through P2P networking.

It also is a question how they will pay for the continued support and expansion of the game as DLCs in an open world MMO sandbox like this will very quickly become P2W labelled as you can't deny existing players access to new stuff, at best you can limit their access to using those only when supplied to them. FB has said the cosmetics shop will be low priced pure cosmetic items only. Not sure how a few euros here and there will pay for continued development. FB has a fairly steady revenue stream of about 7-8 Million USD per year.. That may sound like a lot but when you compare it to say CCP who has a revenue stream from EVE of roughly 5 million USD per MONTH.. you get the idea..

Now, I'm not saying anything is wrong here, not at all and I'd expect FB did their homework and modelled their expected revenue against their long term development goals. It would however be interesting to have a bit more information on how FB plans to secure continued development of the game over time.

 

[Frankiebgg123]

I think the main PvE goal will always be to build a spaceship that you want, or one which serves some sort of function that you need.
However, right now building spaceships basically takes place in creative mode (Spaceship Designer), so there are no functions that anyone actually needs.

Once they have a crafting system, stations, factories, manufacturing of parts, etc. I expect the spaceship designer will phase out and the PvE content will have much more meaning as we build and design things to solve the problem of manufacturing spaceships.

 

[Klaes]

> Plays Sandbox MMO with an obvious focus on player interaction.

> Does not want to interact with other players.

> ???

 

[Dromi]

> Plays Sandbox MMO with an obvious focus on player interaction.

> Does not want to interact with other players.

> ???

You do realize that there are a lot of ways to interact with other players besides trying to kill and grief them, right? And you also realize that PVE does not mean 'solo', right?
There are numerous open world survival craft, sandbox, and physics builder games that are completely cooperative. PVP is really just a small part of it.