The Dank Crystal (Ta'Deth Crystal Thread)

Rhindara

This thread is for constructive critique of everything directly related to Ta'Deth crystals. If you want to discuss the cosmpiercer mechanic specifically, head here.

First of all, I want to say that I'm really into the concept of the crystals, obtaining them, researching skills with them, etc. I obviously haven't had a chance to do anything with the vast majority of it, so I'll only speak to what we've gotten a chance to look at so far to begin with: wilderness open PK events.

I love the idea of random conflicts on the ground that (almost) anyone can get to and participate in, but there are a few snags with how they work right now.

• At the moment, there's only a chance to proc a crystal drop when you're triangulating. This means that it depends on someone actually using the wilderness system outside of specifically trying to get crystal drops, which is probably going to be rare considering how light the rewards are for wilderness triangulation right now. 
• The other issue with making this event player-dependent is that they're able to choose when and where (rng aside) the caches will pop up. This means that you can deliberately only go to certain areas to triangulate, hoping to have some kind of advantage (whether it's aggro or non-aggro mobs, inability to PTP/transit there, whatever). 

Solution: Either substantially up rewards for triangulating in wildernesses so that people are more likely to participate in them (maybe do this regardless), or take agency entirely out of players' hands and just have the caches randomly show up in available wildernesses every x hours so that everyone has a relatively fair chance with no premeditated advantages.

• It's also worth mentioning that a handful of wildernesses are only accessible by going through faction capitals, which means that if someone is enemied to that faction and that faction has guards blocking their path to that wilderness, they're going to have a hard time participating. 

Solution: Make this handful of wilderness ineligible for caches, probably. I don't see any other foolproof change here as long as guards are a thing.

I know it's just the first handful of hours since this substantial change, but I'm looking forward to seeing other people weigh in on the system so that it can get to a place where it's a staple of conflict in Starmourn rather than something that sort of falls to the wayside from disuse.

RocketCat

I'm curious whether commodity credit generation has been removed, or if it just did not happen due to a bug?

I'll abstain from further comment for now until I learn more, but I support Rhindara's words, particularly regarding wildernesses behind guards.

Kestrel

Constructive suggestions:

• Nerf the mobs in wilderness areas, they're honestly way too difficult for anyone who isn't @RocketCat with a super-swanky AoE bashing system and min/maxed weapons at L75. Or at least remove the aggro from a good number of them; 1 aggro mob-type per area, for instance, instead of having areas where all mobs are aggro.
• Improve rewards, yes. I recently got 6 ultarine from one. That's ... like two squares of gas farming? Or change it so it gives refined rather than raw materials.
• I think the RNG on Wilderness areas' potential to spawn a crystal is a bit much. Wilderness areas are already such a pain to do. They should guarantee a crystal and maybe just randomise the amount, with perhaps a cooldown on how often each specific area can proc. So if a cache is found in Tabby, globally everyone must wait 24 hours before Tabby can proc another cache.

Steve

My first thought was to have triangulation yield crystals regardless of whether a cache is found. This seemed a more useful reward than a few ultarine or whatever. But the longer I thought about it, the less I liked the idea of letting PVE farming yield rewards/supplies for cosmpiercers. Commodities, on the other hand, do have a lot to do with cosmpiercer conflicts, and they already can be acquired by non-PVE content.

I've heard a number of people say that the comms returns need to be increased in order to make wilderness a more worthwhile experience, but I don't think this necessarily correct. Although it was certainly true before the CP change, now the raw yield might be sufficiently high in light of crystal caches. However, the commodity returns on wilderness triangulation are close to zero in practice because we must bring a ship over to pick up the comms using WILDERNESS DESIGNATE when the cache has been found. The cost in time compared to the benefit in comms is a losing proposition.

Here's my suggestion: we should change WILDERNESS DESIGNATE ship pickup system to allow discovered comms to accumulate, thereby deferring the ship pickup process to a more convenient time. I have two ideas for accomplishing this:

• Change ship pickup so that your commodities discovered using WILDERNESS TRIANGULATE accumulate, and SHIP PICKUP would allow a designated player to pick up all of that player's wilderness comms at that location. Or,

• Remove the ship pickup mechanic entirely by sending the discovered comms to cargo storage on that planet. Of course, the discoverer would have to fly out there any pick up the discovered comms as normal cargo.
  

I like the first suggestion better because it allows other players to get involved (meaning teamwork opportunity), but WILDERNESS DESIGNATE would have to be rewritten.

Cubey

I really like this change. The system looks good and very promising. The powers are strong but I feel like they should be - a real incentive for players to engage with the system. The only possibly OP power I see is the one that turns off kith in the room, because it murders specific classes while ignoring the others. I know Nanos are really strong right now but that's not the way to balance them.

Now, my experience:

I just cleared a cache solo because I was online at the time when almost no one else was. It was decently fun and satisfying even without any PvP - the mobs are strong and aggressive which makes it not mindless. I think mobs being strong is a good thing, it means you can deal with caches faster if you bring more people, and any system that encourages cooperation and teaming up in the context of a whole faction is good.

HOWEVER.

I went to Locorin (the lizards there are adorable by the way) because Tosmar and Tabby were on cooldown for me. If I went to Tosmar, Tabby, or any other wilderness with easy or non-aggro mobs, farming crystals there would be trivial. It'd just be a freebie - get in instance, grab 50 free crystals. Pragmatically speaking, there's no incentive to pick any other wilderness over these two if you want to grab crystals, and I don't think that's the intended player experience here.

So I second Rhindara's idea: take the agency to decide which wilderness the cache appears in out of the players' hands. My suggestion is that we have some kind of semi-random timer (between 4 and 8 hours, the exact number may need changing) and when it clocks down, a cache instance shows up at a random wilderness. We could fluff it as only Y'saari having the tech to detect large caches, so they send us messages: "you can expect another crystal cache to be located in X days". We should know how much longer until the next cache shows up in advance (just like cosmpiercers), because that way people can prepare and PvP should allow for preparation.

I also think normal wilderness triangulation should yield crystals, even if it's just 1 per wilderness. This creates a real incentive to run wilderness instances on their own, because currently there isn't any - the resources are just too puny to bother, especially compared to pirate refinery yields. On the other hand 1 crystal per wilderness means players can feel like they really contribute to their faction just by doing pve instances (possibly teaming up with others to make it safer and faster - more cooperation, even better!), they can get vouchers even if they don't participate in pvp, and they can help their faction maintain a small cosmpiercer or two even if the faction is unlocky or doesn't have manpower for running caches. At the same time the number is small enough that larger cosmpiercers still require cache runs, and factions with active pvper bases can focus on that instead of feeling compelled to run all wilderness missions daily just so they won't miss out on crystals.

But most importantly, letting triangulations yield crystals is a great way to ease newbies into the system. Currently you have to throw them into deep water of caches and cosmpiercers but with this, they can run wilderness on their leisure and still feel like they contribute to their faction, while they also get more familiar with other, more endgame trappings overtime. Mechanical solutions that get folks involved in their faction are great for the game's overall activity levels - so, while Steve decided he doesn't like his first thought, I actually think it's a very good idea.

BTW can Fury have Outburst work on mobs again? It was nerfed because it was used to move guards, but faction and cosmpiercer (when they existed) guards are already immune to move powers, so all it does is make Fury suck when there's more than 1 hostile mob in a room.

Ilyos

Thank you all for the feedback. We'll be making adjustments throughout the week to the system. Keep it coming

RocketCat

More thoughts, after a fun crystal fight in Saksar:

- This is really awesome

- Like when WILDERNESS TRIANGULATE was first released, HARVEST CRYSTAL works while flying or invis. Needs to be squished.

- Cooldown appears to be exactly 3 hours. Consider a fluctuating hidden cooldown of 2hrs 50 minutes - 3hrs 20minutes, to make it less easy to proc the cache exactly when/where you want it.

- This is really awesome.

Rhindara

Another quick issue with harvesting is that you can harvest the same crystal as someone else. Obviously the person who fired it off first gets it, but if you walk into a room and someone happens to be hidden/fata'd and harvesting, you won't know that your crystal is being harvested by someone else until they get it, assuming they don't attack you right away. You could also potentially have multiple people harvesting the same things so that if someone walks in to engage one of your people, someone has a good chance to make off with a crystal. It might be really situational, but I think it should just be made so that if you try to harvest the same crystal as someone else, it won't let you and it tells you 'someone else is already harvesting here.' Bonus points if that message says who, but I won't push my luck.

Relatedly, you don't seem able to harvest by number. This is probably fine to incentivize slower harvesting which = more potential fight time, but I figured I'd point it out in case someone smarter sees an issue with it.

Garryn

RocketCat said:

- Cooldown appears to be exactly 3 hours. Consider a fluctuating hidden cooldown of 2hrs 50 minutes - 3hrs 20minutes, to make it less easy to proc the cache exactly when/where you want it.

It already works as suggested here, with a larger fluctuation.

RocketCat

Garryn said:

RocketCat said:

- Cooldown appears to be exactly 3 hours. Consider a fluctuating hidden cooldown of 2hrs 50 minutes - 3hrs 20minutes, to make it less easy to proc the cache exactly when/where you want it.

It already works as suggested here, with a larger fluctuation.

Oh fun!

Rhindara

While we're nerfing doing things while flying, you can still pick up corpses of players while flying.

Steve

All right, I mistakenly remembered how wilderness triangulation comms worked: I, for whatever reason, thought we got refined comms instead of raw ones. Considering I'm probably one of the very few people to have done more than one triangulate before this update, I don't know how I forgot that detail, but I'd like to add to my previous comments in light of this realization and the update that addresses many of the concerns expressed above. (Good update btw!)

Receiving refined comms plus deferral of pickup is what I'd like to see. The increase in comms yield is not going to do the trick if the comms are raw and if we still have to pick up on the spot because, not only do we have to pick them up, but also we've got to haul them to a refinery at that moment. That's a lot of time. If the comms yield looked like 20 refined gas, I'd say that's 100% worth every pickup, and if it's something like 10 refined, it still may be worth pickup: just get one person to pick up for a bunch of people, and bam, you're fueling a faction war machine. Or even just take a ship there yourself and increase the time between wildernesses. But, even with the increased yield, it is still far more time efficient to just go space farm the comms, meaning we still will likely see, in practice, nearly zero return on these wilderness comm discoveries. Deferral resolves the matter of whether it's worthwhile, and would mean a lower amount of refined comms would be acceptable.

I'd be willing to promote this change to refined resources that are pickup-able even though it bypasses refineries because the scoop and tether system, as implemented, is not going to work with multiple types of raw resources picked up at once.

Rhindara

Leaving and entering a cache needs to require and take balance, and you also shouldn't be able to leave while in combat (the same way you can't enter while in combat). @RocketCat knows why.

Also, now that I see that they don't, crystals should drop on death. To the victor goes the spoils.

Kestrel

@Garryn: So the latest batch of updates saw resource gains from wilderness exploration bumped up a bit, but it's still not really enough. A recent excursion for example provided 24 raw units vandium, but that's still just 1 asteroid worth. In other words it's exactly the same as just going out into space and picking up an asteroid to drag back to a refinery, except here you would be dragging it from a specific location, which is in all likelihood not even in the correct economy to be refined for maximum profitability. So it's a waste of time.

Please consider changing it from something like 24 raw units of vandium to just 24 refined units of vandium, that you can pick up as cargo without needing to drag to a refinery. This would make it worthwhile.

Azlyn

Hot take: I like the changes, and the system is already in a pretty good place. I've had a lot of fun with the initial skirmishes. I agree with a lot of the suggestions already posted, but to add some other or contradictory thoughts:

- I don't think that wilderness mobs need to be changed. I don't have a hard time bashing them myself, but you also have the option of going as a group. I do, however, think that the windup mechanic needs to be changed, desperately.  The absolute worst is when you go through a room with two windup mobs of the same name, and you're just hosed. Please consider the suggested changes/QoLs already submitted by others for this.

- Actually wrote this one ^^^ pre-mob change, but it's still relevant. I liked how they were previously, maybe with a little less? But I think the mobs are probably too few now. It's a little too easy to just run around and snatch a majority of crystals up.

- It pains me to say it as a fellow fury, but if you let outburst work on mobs you can still set up death stacks of aggros which is not fun. I think that wilderness mobs are a fair environmental obstacle as it is.

- There has to be some delay on leaving the wilderness area; make this a channeled action, and/or prevent it from happening while in combat. I'd really like if people could actively interrupt leaving. As it stands, there's nothing to stop fleeing combat. The eq/balance idea is okay, but doesn't do enough IMO.

- I think you should be allowed to enter the cache if you're in combat. First, it's just annoying when there are aggressive mobs outside, and you have to bash them out and then wait for combat to end... just for another to walk in. But second, someone pretty savvy can prevent a whole group of people from going in just by using room attacks/crowd control on the outside.

- I'd like if there were 3p room messages while someone is channeling the crystal harvest, so you know if/who to interrupt.

- Reiterating, crystals should probably drop on death, and if that's the case, similarly you probably shouldn't be able to use the warpbag to send crystals to safety. Conversely, I'm actually not sure I'd like the "take crystals home" part to be contested either, because station transfers are a bottleneck and would probably become a cheap trap for crystal ganking. Maybe only drop them if you're still in the cache?

- I agree with the previous suggestions; either change the wilderness triangulation loot to one crystal or some other reward, or give refined commodities.

- Please add a conflict message for when a new cache can be discovered.

- Please enable the map in caches. I can't say strongly enough how cumbersome and frustrating it is to fight without a map.

- It'd be cool if there was a special faction log to note who stored crystals, took a CP, energy gain, whatever that's relevant to this system.

Azlyn

Also separate post for a maybe controversial topic, but I'm an advocate for disabling xp loss in factional PK events. We already have a small population, and I think it would be nice to remove that penalty for participation. I suggest removing xp loss from caches and CPs (both in space and ground). (Also as we talked about in the monthly discussion, please remove the ship supply loss when blowing up, or consider mitigating that penalty.)

Edit: Rhindara made a good point, that the marks loss from death is probably a worse deterrent. That should probably go, too. Also might need to add some restrictions around retrieving your own INR from PK zones, so you can't just die and actually gain XP out of it.

Kestrel

Azlyn said:

- Reiterating, crystals should probably drop on death, and if that's the case, similarly you probably shouldn't be able to use the warpbag to send crystals to safety. Conversely, I'm actually not sure I'd like the "take crystals home" part to be contested either, because station transfers are a bottleneck and would probably become a cheap trap for crystal ganking. Maybe only drop them if you're still in the cache?

Please no. Conflict doesn't have to be a winner takes all situation. I much prefer a system where if the sides are unevenly matched, you can at least get 2 crystals even if you can't stick around to grab more. What you're proposing would basically mean whoever brings the biggest ganksquad gets everything. Being brave against formidable odds should be rewarding, otherwise there's no incentive to even try to surmount them.

Azlyn

I feel like, if you're proactive in spawning the cache, you have plenty of time to grab and get out before the "ganksquad" arrives, especially if you do it in a wilderness that you have to fly to access. I mean, realistically, if you're going in against "formidable odds", you're not going to be able to get crystals anyway because of the long harvest channel. I also think that, because all three factions can participate, there really shouldn't be a "ganksquad" phenomenon.

I get your point, and maybe there are other ways to work the mechanic so you can have some incremental win. But I have to disagree that being brave of itself merits a reward. I'm all for encouraging people to try, but you should have to earn what you keep, or I think it cheapens the experience.

Cubey

Don't drop crystals on death. This doesn't improve the gaming experience of the winners (they are already winners and happy about it) but it will make the gaming experience of the losers worse. Overall a net loss of fun.

I agree that reducing xp and mark loss for deaths in cosmpiercers and caches would be a good change though. Death penalties are annoying but don't provide any actual benefit. Removing (or reducing, to the same level as dying in friendly territory - no INR, 10% mark penalty) the penalties only improves overall fun for everyone involved.

Azlyn said:

- It pains me to say it as a fellow fury, but if you let outburst work on mobs you can still set up death stacks of aggros which is not fun. I think that wilderness mobs are a fair environmental obstacle as it is.

Nah. Death stacks worked on guards because they're not hostile but wilderness mobs clearly are, which means if you get hit while channeling outburst then it gets cancelled. And while getting hit by 2-3 mobs is survivable, if you have a bigger group and want to move it but your timing is off (which can happen VERY easily)? You're dead.

It's much more practical to outburst players into groups of mobs instead.

RocketCat

My thoughts on proposed changes:

- Crystal drops on death: Disagree. I'm on cache and I want to fight, harvest, or die trying. Worrying about bringing them back piece-meal, as Kestrel points out, favors superior numbers.

- Enter cache in combat: Neutral, but note @Azlyn that fighting outside the cache is against PK rules, so nothing can prevent entering unless you're dealing with lawless/bounty hunters.

- Explore cache/leave wilderness rate limiting: Disagree(?)... I never minded SHIP DISEMBARK|SHIP BOARD, EXPLORE CACHE|LEAVE WILDERNESS is no different. For the outnumbered team, not having any way to scout the cache wilderness is a sure way to just get wrecked. What is so broken about it?

- Leaving wilderness in combat: I'm pretty sure you're already not able to leave in combat, as -I believe- this happened to me. I could be wrong though.

- '3p room messages while someone is channeling the crystal harvest': These already exist, but take time to tick.

- Agree that 1 crystal for a successful TRIANGULATION would be nice. Considering that, in a state where all Cosmpiercers are claimed, we would need 264 crystals, whereas approximately 400 are available from caches every day, I don't think a few extra from strictly pve would undercut the pvp content. Could add a gate on it though, such as 'max 5 crystals per player per sync obtained this way'.

Pink_Candyfloss

After finally finding time to get to a contested cache wilderness, I have to agree with a few points raised here.

Marks loss and xp loss for participating in PvP objectives do not make these particularly attractive at all. I know I'll be a punching bag at these events because I can't code, I haven't learned to fight properly at all and I'm playing Scoundrel (buffs plz). I still want to get involved, but I won't bother if this remains the case.

I agree that crystals should not drop on death, but I feel like the current iteration of having one crystal spawn per room, with however many are spawning currently, only encourages people to split up and not really contest the ones getting harvested when you could ignore a fight and find another crystal a short distance away. I think fewer spawns but more crystals per spawn point would encourage more skirmishes. Perhaps even a mix of single spawns and larger clusters means there's something for everyone.

I'm glad that the wilderness mobs have been thinned out, since it should really be about PvP in those zones, but I do find it unfair how Nanos can still ignore aggressive mobs in rooms while they scout out an area.

RocketCat

Pink_Candyfloss said:

Perhaps even a mix of single spawns and larger clusters means there's something for everyone.

but I do find it unfair how Nanos can still ignore aggressive mobs in rooms while they scout out an area.

1) It actually already works like this. I saw a room with 6 crystals, for instance.

2) This is also possible by flying.

Pink_Candyfloss

Flying which requires constantly buying jetpacks, yet another cost on Scoundrel, I should've guessed.

Cubey

Aren't jetpacks like a couple hundred marks each? In endgame that's small change.

Pink_Candyfloss

Well sure, lets make all abilities cost marks to use. This is a game based on future capitalism, isn't it? 

Azlyn

RocketCat said:

Pink_Candyfloss said:

Perhaps even a mix of single spawns and larger clusters means there's something for everyone.

but I do find it unfair how Nanos can still ignore aggressive mobs in rooms while they scout out an area.

1) It actually already works like this. I saw a room with 6 crystals, for instance.

2) This is also possible by flying.

I think the disparity is more that, from a combat perspective, nanos don’t draw mob aggro, which is a huge advantage. You’re also more free to chase/run around the area. It’s really strong, in utility and in combat.

Cubey

Don't they already? Weapons lose durability as you use them, and have to be repaired. Armor loses durability as you come under attack. Not only that, subsequent repairs get more expensive in time, and your equipment eventually dusts and needs to be replaced.

The game constantly drains your marks in various ways - you need clothes if you don't want to walk around naked, you need food if you don't want to be gaunt or emaciated. Voidgate transport costs money. Batteries and repairkits aren't free either. It's all a part of the system.

But here's the thing - these drains are all very small. You won't be losing money unless you're doing something very wrong. Compared to what you earn by various pve activities, your expenditures are for the most part (there are exceptions such as high end ship combat) negligible. Playing a scoundrel is no exception: while you have to spend more money than other classes because you need jetpacks and junk to build bombs, that expenditure is still overall very low. If you're hunting, your marks gain over time should be so similar to other classes that the difference is unnoticable - any major disparity isn't because of cost of bombs or jetpacks, but because top meta classes (nanoseer) are just ridiculous right now, with very fast TTK which means they can hunt so much easier.

Rhindara

Could we please have a way to store multiple crystals at once? 

The new map for caches is amazing, by the way!

Steve

In light of a recent cache conflict that was lopsided, I think keeping crystals on death combined with the long gather time seems fair.

Rhindara

This is a small nitpick, but you can use CLT while harvesting a crystal, but you can't CLAN <clan> TELL for whatever reason, which makes it inconvenient to use aliased clans. If clans were never meant to work, that's fine too.

RocketCat

Props seem to generate in one room and one room only in caches. Could we get props for the whole area?