Discovery Power Creep and MK III Ships

[sindroms]

First of all, let us get out of the way as to what is power creep.

Def:

The gradual unbalancing of a game due to successive releases of new content. The phenomenon may be caused by a number of different factors and, in extreme cases, can be damaging to the longevity of the game in which it takes place. As new expansions or updates are released, new game mechanics, units, equipment and/or effects are introduced, usually stronger than previously existing content. Game developers use this primarily to push the new content, as it gives an incentive to buy it for competitions against other players or as new challenges for the single player experience. As new content with more power is introduced, the average powerlevel within the game rises, making it increasingly difficult for older content to remain in balance without changes. This means older content becomes regressively outdated or relatively underpowered, effectively rendering it useless from a competitive or challenge-seeking viewpoint. In extreme cases whole parts of the game will be avoided by the players, as they are overshadowed by newer content.

So yes, power creep is a bad thing. If handled improperly. When it comes to Disco, where we have relatively little content to begin with, this should not be as damaging.

Basically the gist of this proposal is the fact that any sort of game, especially one with leveling or progress present thrives on progression and adding of patches. Every single game does this. Remember when the cap in WoW was 60?

This is our current situation. Discovery badly is in the need of some sort of progress, some sort of new content both new and old players can grind forward. And in my opinion, the currently least-effort-consuming solution to this would be the introduction of MkIII ships.

For those of you who weren't present, Mk II ships are literally all the snubs you fly these days. Back in 84, we had Mk I ships such as the Defender and Patriot, and they were then given a progressive MK II variant - the Guardian and the Liberator. They were there to bump up these ships to their Sabre, Eagle and Titan counterparts.

The difference between Mk I and Mk II ships were massive, obviously. In our case, it needs to be...enough. It needs to be enough that there is a reason to get the next ship, while not enough of a difference for a good snub pilot in a MK II ship to get killed by a person in a Mk III snub, for example. With caps it might be a different solution alotogether as the way they work is basically ''whoever has the biggest armor wins'' in most cases.





While introducing a tier 3 variant of current ships would be a bit of work, no kidding, it should in theory benefit the community as a whole, where we have little to nothing to do once you get the ship you desire.

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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[Lythrilux]

Any... specific examples?

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[Ramke]

I think there could be other things that people could spend their credits on besides introducing power creep. Vanity especially.

A retextured ship that has a specific, unique-ish or interesting/pretty design. See Widow's eagle reskins or the Chimmy with republic v exiles variants.
Unique, new engines (like blackmarkets are to sirian ones).
Special lights with unique effects (like the ALG Mover having fumes coming out of a light spot).
Weapons. Pretty weapons. Like codenames, but really just designed completely for maximum aesthetics.
Thruster alternatives, like the old nomad thruster effect for current ships with the same stats as a Cheetah or something.

All these things, plus whatever people can imagine. It would add variety, wouldn't break balance, and give people something to work toward.
And by work toward, I mean these things should be more expensive than a battleship or something.

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[SquireJames]

I'd say currently, combat in Discovery is determined more by who is flying said craft than the statistics of it. Unlawfuls in particular seem very good at glooping technically superior Police and Naval forces. (though to survive as an unlawful, I suppose you have to be a good pilot, else you just spend hours being unable to go anywhere due to combat blues)

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[Jack_Henderson]

Giving people a real reason to log (to upgrade their ships) is a good idea.
What Disco imo lacks is exactly this -reason- to get online and start playing.
Once this "invisible barrier" is overcome, at least my gaming experience is most often positive.

Jack

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[nOmnomnOm]

What do you do after you get your new fancy ship?

I would much rather be writing about system design tbh. It has more longevity.

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[Jack_Henderson]

What do you do after you get your new fancy ship?

I would much rather be writing about system design tbh. It has more longevity.

You start to replace all the MK2 ships on your 25 accounts, and it will cost you a few billion credits, and make you log your traders again and make you populate Sirius again. Like... a reason to log and do something because there is a goal to achieve.

System design is good, ofc, too.
These changes can go hand in hand.

[nOmnomnOm]

But like... Waiting for ships to come out shouldn't be a reason to not log in.
Plus jack you are forgetting one thing. The people that have all those ships will also have cash. The people that dont will just be trading as usual. The people that trade must to have their new snubs will only do a few runs and that is it.

Whereas system design like the nomad update we are waiting for has a lot more potential in creating places to see activity.

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[SnakThree]

Whereas system design like the nomad update we are waiting for has a lot more potential in creating places to see activity.

How can you assume that system changes brings more activity than new ships? I don't see how last system layout change brought more activity.

Every aspect of the mod is important and changes to promote activity should be welcomed. Whether it is new ship, new commodity, new system layout or new PoB device.

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[Lennox]

I agree that it would be cool to have new ships. Considering the effort though to not just copy the previous model and slap a mk3 at the end, it might prove a difficult thing to do. Regardless, anything new is good for bringing more people onto the server. Whether they stay for just exploring the new things or not is then up to them. But the opportunities would be there, so...

+1