Dear Frozenbyte Developers / Community Managers,
I am very grateful for the opportunity you have given me to participate in the alpha so that I may help to shape the game and make sure it becomes as awesome as it can be. The combat events are a tool that you use to gather data on the game, but I don't know that all my fellow alpha testers think of it in the same way. During this past event, I got to really meet some of the other players and learn how they behaved. Some of that behavior was not what I was expecting from this community. I'd like to share my thoughts on player behavior and the events as a whole.
I expected these events to be straight forward. Each team would spawn ships, get in those ships, and fight for control over the two towers. This was not the case. I understand that getting a bunch of people organized is difficult. I didn't mind the waiting for the battles to begin so much because people were overall trying to get ready. However, once the shooting began things got hectic. Each battle would begin well, both teams in their ships approached each other and tried their best to defeat the other team's ships. Even the base attack wasn't so bad besides ship weapons being next to useless against infantry but not the other way around. It was between or near the end of battles that things got weird.
Even after you said that the battles were over, people would keep shooting. This was particularly problematic at the end of the last battle of the second event. While one of the blue ships was at spawn trying to get its crew in line, a red ship from the previous battle was flying around and still shooting stuff, including the waiting blue ship. I don't know if there were blue players who started shooting at the red ship first from our spawn or from out and about to make them think the battle was still on, but in any case both ships began shooting at each other because neither wanted to be the one to get destroyed. I myself began shooting after it was clear that if I didn't, I would just be sitting there getting blown up and at the time I thought that red had started that.
Later on there were one, maybe two players around the blue base (after the last battle) that were shooting parked ships, wrecks that people wanted to salvage and repair, and players alike. Why? I don't know. Also, after the last event I was helping another player fix up his little get-around ship. He and I had been on opposite teams so I couldn't see his name. After cabling and bolting it back to life, he killed me with a pickaxe and flew off. That kind of thing worries me the most.
To really summarize my thoughts on the matter. I feel like players want to win more than they want to test the game and shoot people rather than politely letting people gather themselves and their ships. When winning means protecting your tower and not dying, players will hide in their station spawn and not bother with ships because protecting the tower and staying alive are more important. Winning should be collecting good data, not killing more endos over nothing.
I hope that you learned something from these events. I expect that you would have learned more about competitive combat games rather than the gunship gameplay. I'm frustrated at how people acted, I'm not alone. There were other players just as, if not more, disgruntled at the misbehavior of some players.
To the future of Starbase,
XenoCow
P.S. I think that people should be allowed to mess around and just shoot stuff, just on their own time. I want as many players as possible to be able to find something they can enjoy in Starbase.
I am very grateful for the opportunity you have given me to participate in the alpha so that I may help to shape the game and make sure it becomes as awesome as it can be. The combat events are a tool that you use to gather data on the game, but I don't know that all my fellow alpha testers think of it in the same way. During this past event, I got to really meet some of the other players and learn how they behaved. Some of that behavior was not what I was expecting from this community. I'd like to share my thoughts on player behavior and the events as a whole.
I expected these events to be straight forward. Each team would spawn ships, get in those ships, and fight for control over the two towers. This was not the case. I understand that getting a bunch of people organized is difficult. I didn't mind the waiting for the battles to begin so much because people were overall trying to get ready. However, once the shooting began things got hectic. Each battle would begin well, both teams in their ships approached each other and tried their best to defeat the other team's ships. Even the base attack wasn't so bad besides ship weapons being next to useless against infantry but not the other way around. It was between or near the end of battles that things got weird.
Even after you said that the battles were over, people would keep shooting. This was particularly problematic at the end of the last battle of the second event. While one of the blue ships was at spawn trying to get its crew in line, a red ship from the previous battle was flying around and still shooting stuff, including the waiting blue ship. I don't know if there were blue players who started shooting at the red ship first from our spawn or from out and about to make them think the battle was still on, but in any case both ships began shooting at each other because neither wanted to be the one to get destroyed. I myself began shooting after it was clear that if I didn't, I would just be sitting there getting blown up and at the time I thought that red had started that.
Later on there were one, maybe two players around the blue base (after the last battle) that were shooting parked ships, wrecks that people wanted to salvage and repair, and players alike. Why? I don't know. Also, after the last event I was helping another player fix up his little get-around ship. He and I had been on opposite teams so I couldn't see his name. After cabling and bolting it back to life, he killed me with a pickaxe and flew off. That kind of thing worries me the most.
To really summarize my thoughts on the matter. I feel like players want to win more than they want to test the game and shoot people rather than politely letting people gather themselves and their ships. When winning means protecting your tower and not dying, players will hide in their station spawn and not bother with ships because protecting the tower and staying alive are more important. Winning should be collecting good data, not killing more endos over nothing.
I hope that you learned something from these events. I expect that you would have learned more about competitive combat games rather than the gunship gameplay. I'm frustrated at how people acted, I'm not alone. There were other players just as, if not more, disgruntled at the misbehavior of some players.
To the future of Starbase,
XenoCow
P.S. I think that people should be allowed to mess around and just shoot stuff, just on their own time. I want as many players as possible to be able to find something they can enjoy in Starbase.
