Wing Commander Christoper Blair
By now most of you have run mission chains that including downing an idris or two. Most of you know these are usually long drawn out battles often times requiring several torpedo bombers running multiple missions. While the grind may seem a bit much, it is all so satisfying when you grab that kill shot!
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The promise for and of the last decade has been to create a believable game play experience flying in a variety of futuristic spaceships. IN OUTER SPACE! Master Modes has turned this vision on its head.
With the release of MM, CIG is headed in an entirely different direction.
CIG has been and primarily is an engineering company. It is clear that internal forces are steering the company toward a sales and marketing slant. A clear sign that CIG is experiencing these internal forces is demonstrated with the advertising proclaiming their game “playable now”. Advertising that coincided with the release of patch 3.18. Of course, 3.18 was unplayable by most.
The introduction of PES in 3.18 fell flat on it’s face and introduced 6 months of delays in some important CIG time tables.
Chris Roberts expressed his hopes that SQ42 will become this generation’s Wing Commander. Granted, MM as a FM is head and shoulders above that found in Wing Commander. But it is a far cry from the advances in technology of the last 30 years and the FMs already found in a variety of currently available games.
When engineering companies reach a certain pinnacle they encounter forces determined to grow the company. These forces are not based on what got them there. They are based on a misguided notion that sales and marketing are the keys. In practice, those keys unlock the doors of death.
In practice, the easiest sale is for products not available, thus basing real life decisions on this erroneous sales data can have extreme derogatory consequences. When an engineering company stops being an engineering company and caters to every shred of promises of sales and riches, they shrivel and die. If sales and marketing are telling you how high to jump, then you know you have the disease.
1] With lower SCM velocities and near infinite jerk profiles, ships attain maximum velocity quickly and then lose further acceleration. This renders them as nearly stationary targets. This is the feeling of being “locked in” and makes the game feel like it is on rails while also limiting evasion.
I don’t need accurate PIPs to hit stationary targets
2] Dog fighting becomes DPS/Hull dependent because time on target generates the biggest advantage. The biggest ship with the biggest guns will win any dog fight. This is a strict FPS model that would NOT ring true in the depths of outer space.
3] Promotes intentional ship ramming by trying to limit unintended ramming.
4] Paints an inaccurate picture of space flight.
5] Rather than follow CIG’s ethos of solving a technology challenge with innovative engineering solutions, they have resorted to limiting game play.
With all the chatter about provisioning costs, Amazon may have CIG by the balls.
6] Weapon damage is RNG based.
7] Multi-crew dependencies are reduce to an almost meaningless level negating well honed strategies of the past. A big loss for the turret gunner role. And surely a damper on distinguishing various classes of ships from each other.
8] Hit and run tactics will no longer be viable rendering ships like the Ion and Inferno useless.
9] The boomerang effect. Many of the acclaimed benefits of MM have actually had the opposite effect compounded with additional unintended consequences. Certainly jousting, kiting, and increased ranges of engagements are all observed in AC.
10] Grandiose talk of lowering the skill ceiling for new players has not been realized for those new players buying starter packages. These single pilot ships don’t stand a chance in PVP engagements as experienced pilots will pair and group up.
MM will impact our solo playing citizens
11] MM eliminates all the really cool flight mechanics that a lot of us love and enjoy. That is, the absence of an arcady and a limiting flight model. The immersion of flying a futuristic spaceship amongst the stars is completely lost and with it, any realism that the verse might have for each of us.
12] It is clear that the DEVs at CIG have yet to learn the laws of unintended consequences. I tried to point this out as an evocati for the 3.0 release when they last tested reduced SCM velocities. Even if MM did solve the problems as advertised, it has created a shit storm of new issues which will indubitably consume much time and resources.
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CIG media is chock full of employee testimonials proclaiming pride in a work product that exceeds the expectations of the current AAA genre. Employees are proud to polish their work to increase the quality and efficiency of each workflow. Indeed, there are some extraordinary events unfolding as the code base from Squadron 42 finds it way into the verse.
Based on currently available MM tuning it is unmistakable that the speed caps have impacted the ability of pilots to generate sufficient rotational accelerations to enable pilots to increase or decrease the distance between each other at a rate that allows pilots to execute a number of common maneuvers.
So pilots be forwarned, Master Modes is a FM on rails.
So, this is the best you can do?
ya know, ya know, ya know, physics, ya know, ya know, ya know, mathematics, ya know, ya know, ya know, …
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The reviews of Master Modes(MM) are in. CIG is introducing a base line FM that eliminates the need for dog fighting skills similar to EVE Online. Some of Star Citizen’s newest citizens are delighted.
Frustration is directly palpable in the PVP community. As well as with those of us that take pride, having learned the basics so that we may enjoy the occasional thrill of PVP to break up reputation and other grinds. Basic piloting skills rule PVE.
The alarming consequences of MM, as is currently playable in Arena Commander is the elimination of the need for its citizens to acquire a piloting skill set. This is deliberate. When MM was introduced CIG very publicly committed to a company wide sign off. No game play was to be broken.
We are left to “draw the inference” that masters and blasters is CIG’s first attempt at establishing a non-flight combat based MMO.
The goals promised by MM have largely been unmet. Other than the new cone firing mechanic, the promise of reduced jousting and up close knife fighting and of an end to the light fighter meta are not to be found. Light fighter meta has been replace with interceptor meta. The FM has become more complicated and janky with the (re)introduction of an old concept, segmented flight modes(SCM/NAV): a net-loss. And for now, PVP has become a pure DPS battle with a terrible smell of RNG.
And we still have that nasty space drag. Seriously, space drag.
Of course we have seen game play shifts in the past. Sometimes with the goal of obtaining telemetry data. This could be a baseline non-combat patch. Despite the wrath of the PVP community, obtaining baseline telemetry should not turn into a smoke screen. We have seen that act before. Adding the flight combat back into the mix must come quickly.
This fork’s existence could be a baseline to address the console market which will need a radically different FM than found in PC realm.
Critics believe, using sound engineering protocols that with a few changes MM can be saved. Aiming for the center is a neat trick, say wrt max SCM speeds? The throttle is the most effective speed mechanic, far surpassing the afterburner and boost mechanics. Truth be told, none of the cures for the ill(s) require MM but I suspect MM does provide a means to quickly re-balance the over 200 ships per their particular archetype. Some well thought out recommendations could very well save MM from itself.
Posits that speed is not nearly the burden that accelerations are have yet to be disproved. I was sorely chastised by others when I called out Sir Richard for the wholly absurd introduction to MM that claimed speed was the problem. So the gang nerfed the hell out of ship velocities and didn’t solve a damn thing. So much for sound engineering over marketing.
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