5.3 - Hotfix 1

[Cypher]

I'll be honest; I don't know if it was fixed or not but; I usually do the Passengers route(s), which makes little sense to have Passengers blocked off because "you need to be on friendlier terms to purchase this.", and other commodities of course - I hope this'll be fixed (or has been, as I said, I'm not 100% up to date). In essence, the whole update forces us to change our routes. Alright, that's normal. But this feels a bit too excessive in my opinion. For example, neutral (or mostly neutral) factions can't really trade with said things (i.e. Passengers as said supra., which is more annoying than "novel.")

There's other things I wanted to discuss but I didn't note them down.

Thank you.

I do agree with this as passengers routes are often my main Congress character's runs since it's pretty profitable but it's annoying for the reasons you gave.

[Antonio]

Why was the Coronado connection changed? Primarily to reduce travel time across the Taus for combat ships and increase player interaction via faster response times.

How does removing a system connection (that's been in place for over a decade of IRL time, I'll add) reduce travel time, exactly?

The Barrier Pass connection wasn’t removed. The Coronado-Baffin hole got replaced with Tau-31. The same one that already existed for a few years before 5.0 dropped. Jumping instantly from Coronado to Tau-31 shortens travel time to everywhere across the Taus and beyond except Baffin itself.

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[Nodoka Hanamura]

I do agree something needs to be done about the silent power-traders.

I'm just gonna say for the record - I'm happy to not be one of those people. Yes, I play during quiet hours because I prefer my experience be easy and so I can put on something to watch in the background, but in the end I don't mind interacting with people if I see them come by. Fuck, If I was one of those silent power traders I'd had gotten my ass handed to me by Magpie's Wild Hegemon, and not end up getting some decent cash from a Sabotaged H-fuel run and some prototype materials for the trouble.

[NOVA-5]

I do agree something needs to be done about the silent power-traders.

Make a thread about it and it can be discussed what to do, then do one for the shadow logging silent-power blue killers.

[Locksmith]

Any projectile you don't make an effort to dodge is pretty much 'guaranteed damage' in this game, missiles aren't particularly unique there. You just dodge them differently. If they're guaranteed damage against you, you have to work on your movement. But this is also true if you're getting nailed by every gun fired by your opponent.

While it's easy to chalk this up to a skill issue on my part, it's not entirely true. Otherwise, we can talk about any problem in this way. I can theoretically enter a 1vs5 and win, but it's unrealistic to expect that from me.

The vast majority of missiles in a chase will hit the target because the target is forced to fly in a certain direction in order to maintain distance.

However, even if we assume that what I've said here is not true, it still doesn't address the root issue:

Missiles do not require any effort from the shooter.

And that's important. PvP combat, not only in Freelancer but in any game in general, is mutually interesting only when it is intense and makes you give it your all.

[IahimD]

The Barrier Pass connection wasn’t removed. The Coronado-Baffin hole got replaced with Tau-31. The same one that already existed for a few years before 5.0 dropped. Jumping instantly from Coronado to Tau-31 shortens travel time to everywhere across the Taus and beyond except Baffin itself.

Why then Unstable? Who loses if you make that connection also stable (and even lower the CSU for the Gallic destinations of Copper)?

[Antonio]

That call is ultimately on the econ developers. It does not only impact Gallia however. It impacts every route going through Coronado, for every HRC, including ones like Cardamine and Niobium. If the connection were stabilized, Barrier Pass would become by far the fastest way to get Cardamine into Liberty, which is not something I personally would want to encourage from both an economy and a roleplay PoV, because it is not the canon route. The fact that the quickest route (via Leeds) at least somewhat connects with the canon route is fitting. Also remember, profits for all the other commodities, including Cardamine, would go down, and anyone not using the Barrier Pass would be heavily punished. Which isn't the case at the moment, as one can take the Kusari way for Cardamine instead of Bretonia, or Newcastle instead of Leeds, and lose a small amount of profit.

Edit: Punishing all HRC traders for the sake of POB owners via something that traders primarily interact with (HRCs), instead of fixing the issue via a mechanic only POB owners interact with (POB recipes) is doing it the other way around.

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SNAC Montage Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Thruster SNAC

[The_Godslayer]

Any projectile you don't make an effort to dodge is pretty much 'guaranteed damage' in this game, missiles aren't particularly unique there. You just dodge them differently. If they're guaranteed damage against you, you have to work on your movement. But this is also true if you're getting nailed by every gun fired by your opponent.

While it's easy to chalk this up to a skill issue on my part, it's not entirely true. Otherwise, we can talk about any problem in this way. I can theoretically enter a 1vs5 and win, but it's unrealistic to expect that from me.

The vast majority of missiles in a chase will hit the target because the target is forced to fly in a certain direction in order to maintain distance.

However, even if we assume that what I've said here is not true, it still doesn't address the root issue:

Missiles do not require any effort from the shooter.

And that's important. PvP combat, not only in Freelancer but in any game in general, is mutually interesting only when it is intense and makes you give it your all.

Ultimately, missiles fill a niche that Discovery PvP needs to encourage learning game mechanics, and that is "checks". It checks a few things, movement, positioning, and countermeasures. After my initial contact with them on patch day, I have been hit by missiles a grand total of 3 times because my playstyle positions me off of my enemy's screen most of the time. I have yet to learn the little wiggle that invalidates all missiles that the higher skill guys use, but there is a tech where you wiggle just right and guarantee all missiles will fly past you harmlessly. Last but not least, bind your CMs to something easy to push while flying, mine are on Q. All three of these turn missiles from an actual threat to a checkbox while flying.

Every single PvP game has a check of some sort. For your average shooters, it's going to be shotguns. "Are you in shotgun range" is a positioning question that is important for positioning shooters like CoD, Titanfall, and even Destiny 2. In Overwatch, you have attention checks because it's a teamplay objective game. Did you pay attention to the turrets? Did you pay attention to the backline? If you do pay attention, Torb and Sym are complete nothingburgers and Monkey is the most useless character in the game. If you don't pay attention, you just lose.

Missiles do not, in fact, require noticeable effort from the user. Once you have learned about missiles, however, they also do not require noticeable effort from the victims either. My HF gameplay makes me automatically immune to missiles unless the VHF is forcing jousts or spamming the most abysmal early turns, in which case I have a lot of free shots and then still have CMs and technically the wiggle at my disposal as well. Missiles require you being aware and alert that there are missiles on the field, and crossing your Ts and dotting your Is so you don't die to low effort mechanic.

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I'll do something about my superiority complex when I cease to be superior.

"Whatever happened to catchin' a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whoopin and gettin' your shoes, coat, and your hat tooken?"

[Locksmith]

Ultimately, missiles fill a niche that Discovery PvP needs to encourage learning game mechanics, and that is "checks". It checks a few things, movement, positioning, and countermeasures. After my initial contact with them on patch day, I have been hit by missiles a grand total of 3 times because my playstyle positions me off of my enemy's screen most of the time. I have yet to learn the little wiggle that invalidates all missiles that the higher skill guys use, but there is a tech where you wiggle just right and guarantee all missiles will fly past you harmlessly. Last but not least, bind your CMs to something easy to push while flying, mine are on Q. All three of these turn missiles from an actual threat to a checkbox while flying.

Every single PvP game has a check of some sort. For your average shooters, it's going to be shotguns. "Are you in shotgun range" is a positioning question that is important for positioning shooters like CoD, Titanfall, and even Destiny 2. In Overwatch, you have attention checks because it's a teamplay objective game. Did you pay attention to the turrets? Did you pay attention to the backline? If you do pay attention, Torb and Sym are complete nothingburgers and Monkey is the most useless character in the game. If you don't pay attention, you just lose.

Missiles do not, in fact, require noticeable effort from the user. Once you have learned about missiles, however, they also do not require noticeable effort from the victims either. My HF gameplay makes me automatically immune to missiles unless the VHF is forcing jousts or spamming the most abysmal early turns, in which case I have a lot of free shots and then still have CMs and technically the wiggle at my disposal as well. Missiles require you being aware and alert that there are missiles on the field, and crossing your Ts and dotting your Is so you don't die to low effort mechanic.

Thank you. I will try to implement this. We'll see how it goes.

[The_Godslayer]

I have been hit by missiles a grand total of 3 times

Make that 5 times. Chills is very good at the video game.

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I'll do something about my superiority complex when I cease to be superior.

"Whatever happened to catchin' a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whoopin and gettin' your shoes, coat, and your hat tooken?"