[JestersShade]

Hi.

I played the game last year for 2 months when it was re-branded as "Spacelords"
I've stopped playing it for frustration reasons.
I've re-launched the game recently (so, after a 6 months break) to see how it has evolved.
After 2 weeks, here's my feedback.

1- Antagonist mode: still forced ... and still broken
- High antags on mentor matches are still a thing (a really fun one for MSE, I would assume)
- Even when winning a mission with an antag, the rewards are far too low for the lost time and highest difficulty
- I'm still for a complete switch so players can choose if they want it or not.
(And I haven't changed about NOT spending any more money on this game until this switch is added)
- By default, it should be turned off for mentor matches.
- Forcing players to play a game mode they don't like is a bad design
(and yes, here it is a game mode, since you can play solo or PvE)
And I can see that the future is darkening on this end with the mission score "forcing" you to play both sides on each mission for better reward ...
As a reminder, Fortnite and Warframe, for examples, have both PvE and PvP but they are separate game modes and you can "choose" to play 1 or both but are NEVER forced to do so ...

2- Mentor matches
Only change I see is that MSE removed the text telling me it's going to be a mentor match so now, I only know it once it's too late and I can't refuse it.
(again, really fun when wanting a high score for a daily reward with 3 new players)
- I would also like a switch to turn them off while I do my dailies, at least, since the grind is high and I (still) need a high score to progress.

3- Forge: still frustrating.
I (still) don't want to spend 30 to 80k gold to build a weapon just to try it out: I may not like it and I would have wasted a lot for it...
I'm (still) hoping for being able to choose at which level I build my weapons: if I'm forge lvl 10, I should be able to build from lvl 1 to 10.
So I would first build a new weapon at forge lvl 1 or 2, for instance, to test it and if I like it, I may upgrade it to a higher lvl (8 or 10 depending on the gold)

4- Solo mode still badly designed
- Needing to win a mission 5 times to play it solo is dumb.
- I would like to play solo from time to time just to play at my pace, while earning the same rewards as in public
I'm NOT talking about the quantity, but the type: I should be able to win small in solo, more in public PvE, and even more in public 4v1

On the "added features" side of things:

- 1 character has been added: Aneska
She seems very nice (don't have her) but I trust MSE on the character and weapon design, which overall are great in this game

- Spaceguilds: kind of "meh".
I've joined one to see, but it doesn't bring anything I did not have on Xbox live (friends list, chat, ...)
I can even see how it's a bad idea: with how the game currently works, if you're in a guild with non trolling players who never play as antagonists (;p) your bonus XP will decrease so, at one point, I think I will leave my guild when the bonus XP is lower than the current tier I'm in.

- Duplicate blueprints giving gold
That took time but at least MSE did it, so very nice!

So, overall, my feelings haven't changed in 6 months:
- Frustrations points are still the same ones (mainly antag mode and mentor matches)
- The friends I played the game with, stopped playing the game around the same time I did, so I'm only playing in public matches
- Matchmaking can take a looonnnnggggg time
- The grind still "feels" a bit too much seeing the content hasn't changed in 6 months
(Every game is repetitive but since the maps are not procedurally generated and none has been added ...)
(In the same time frame, Warframe added a huge open zone, as well as new characters, weapons, game modes, ...)

So I'm still very sad for this game because I would like to play it more but I'm sure I'm going to quit it again at some point in some weeks, maybe months because nothing important has changed in 6 months, so I don't think it will.

Hoping I will be proven wrong be MSE ...

[Power Penguin]

Yeah progress on the game has really slowed down after 5th council dropped.

[LordDraco3]

As someone who has played thousands of hours of both games, the pvp in this game is actually fun, Warframe's awful pvp cannot be compared. No one plays it, and it's a ghost town, because
1. it's totally detached from the rest of the game
2. it's totally balanced different from the rest of the game, requiring new builds and mods

We know Warframe has a way larger playerbase, and yet all of their pvp modes have almost no players, because they suck. Can't speak for Fortnight as i've never played it, but saying other games have "separate modes" is to ignore all nuance involved in what a 4v1 pvevp means, which is how this game was always marketed from the very beginning.

Lots of things need to change, but just gotta throw that out there. Without pvp, this game would be pointless and boring to play after getting everything, just like every other looter shooter out there. Because Spacelords is not supposed to be a looter shooter, this is a player misconception that rewards are the ultimate end game, instead of the actual gameplay. Not to say things can't improve on the looting side of things, because the totally need to, and some of your points are valid, but I see these comparisons a lot and they need to stop.

[JestersShade]

I understand your point but I don't get why your way of seeing the game would be "the true way" and mine would be the "wrong one" ?
Why playing it as a PvE looter shooter would be wrong, if I want to play it this way ?

If what you say was true, you wouldn't be able to launch a mission without an antagonist, but you can.
In full PvP games, like 5v5, you can't play unless both teams are set. Here you can.

So, for me, the intent of MSE was PvP as well as PvE.
What I (and a lot of others) are asking is to make this choice explicit, and not random.

Only playing for the gameplay, as you say, is obviously also always true, but spending more than 30 minutes on a game because of the antagonist, beginners and other stuff, don't make the "gameplay" fun enough to stay ...

[Power Penguin]

Giving more players more ways of playing is never a bad thing. Giving people options leads to a healthier player experience. The antagonist system itself is extremely flawed and unrewarding it makes sense for people to want and try to avoid it until it gets fixed.

[Viner]

I'm only here to agree with JestersShade.
All suggestions are obvious to many players.

[Cazic-Thule]

There's just a VERY small but stupidly vocal group of dedicated players who will defend the antag system to the death because they personally think it's fun. They'll completely ignore that almost everybody who quits the game quits because of how bad of a system it is and that so many potential players quitting is also the main factor in matchmaking taking forever and barely working. The forced antag system has factually crippled this game, but they have fun fucking over other peoples play experience so they'll still try to say stuff like "there'd be no point in playing without it" or "it adds such a unique and interesting element to the game" instead of just saying what they really mean: "I'm a total asshole who just wants to have fun at not only other peoples expense but eventually the expense of the entire game once it dies from lack of a playerbase." The big issue is that MSE keeps chosing to listen to these handful of players ruining the game rather than listening to the super majority of people begging for them to make PvP optional.

[Power Penguin]

It's funny because there is only a handful of players left.

[Whitebleidd]

I understand your point but I don't get why your way of seeing the game would be "the true way" and mine would be the "wrong one" ?
Why playing it as a PvE looter shooter would be wrong, if I want to play it this way ?

Nothing wrong at all playing it as a PVE game since it works great, antags are always coming up with the same crap, “it was marketed as 1v4”, “it’s a core part of the game”… anyone that has invested any significant amount of time in the game would know how empty that statement is, since the game works great as a coop shooter.

Then you have the even more ridiculous and frequently used “Without PVP, this game would be pointless and boring to play after getting everything” which is entirely subjective, yet is thrown in this thread and many others by antags as facts, however here I am sitting on hundreds of hours of gameplay, having attained everything and still I keep coming back in spite of the trash forced PVP, because the game itself, the cooperative PVE experience is just so good.

Point is antags are full of it, they are making excuses just to keep other players hostage, nothing more, why do they want to fight PVE players?... I will never know, I’ve never been a tryhard PVP’er or a griefer, so I can’t quite follow their logic.

We know Warframe has a way larger playerbase, and yet all of their pvp modes have almost no players, because they suck.

Hmmm sounds an awful lot like Raiders PVP if you ask me, or are you saying there’s a huge active antag population? Just because the discord is full of them doesn’t mean much, the discord is only a small part of the playerbase.

[Jaguar0185]

antagonist on mentor match ..that is a waste of time!!

[Level9Drow]

As someone who has played thousands of hours of both games, the pvp in this game is actually fun, Warframe's awful pvp cannot be compared. No one plays it, and it's a ghost town, because
1. it's totally detached from the rest of the game
2. it's totally balanced different from the rest of the game, requiring new builds and mods

We know Warframe has a way larger playerbase, and yet all of their pvp modes have almost no players, because they suck. Can't speak for Fortnight as i've never played it, but saying other games have "separate modes" is to ignore all nuance involved in what a 4v1 pvevp means, which is how this game was always marketed from the very beginning.

Lots of things need to change, but just gotta throw that out there. Without pvp, this game would be pointless and boring to play after getting everything, just like every other looter shooter out there. Because Spacelords is not supposed to be a looter shooter, this is a player misconception that rewards are the ultimate end game, instead of the actual gameplay. Not to say things can't improve on the looting side of things, because the totally need to, and some of your points are valid, but I see these comparisons a lot and they need to stop.

Sounds to me like this is just enforces the argument that PvP and PvE should be separated. If Warframe is doing this great with a PvE playerbase and Spacelords is dwindling because Antag sucks for Raiders, then I think the choice is clear for MSE. And let's not pretend PvP here is any better. Between OP character builds, mentor matches, and GARBAGE Raider rewards upon losing against antag, let alone winning, or just the general unpopularity of getting invaded by an antag, I'd say PvP here is shit and most people hate it. We have a vocal minority who swears by it though. We can find most of them in that Trolls Den they call Discord.

No offense to you Draco, you've given some solid suggestions before. And I wouldn't count you among the ranks of certain types of people there, but you have to admit the growing irritation this subject is bringing.

You also say these posts need to stop, but many of them are coming from new players. And this post is relevant because it's a returning player after a year and gives a good perspective.

[MSE_Karen]

Hello everyone,

We have answered in another thread since there are similar topics: https://www.spacelordsthegame.com/community/index.php?topic=26542.msg39479;topicseen#msg39479

Thank you!

[JestersShade]

Hello everyone,

We have answered in another thread since there are similar topics: https://www.spacelordsthegame.com/community/index.php?topic=26542.msg39479;topicseen#msg39479

Thank you!

Hi.

Thanks for answering at least but you've only talked about your 4v1 vision, not my other points.

And about the 4v1: "As we have explained before, separating both modes would result in higher waiting times, impacting negatively on the experience."
This is not completely true: It would ... for antags.
When I manage to get a full team grouped before searching for a mission, currently we still wait some time for the game to try and find an antag: if we could turn it off, we would play right away, so less waste of time.
So, the negative impact would not be for every player and is ALREADY ingame ...

"as our data reveals, there are also plenty of people that enjoy Antagonizing"
Again, we can understand your vision and don't ask to remove that mode. I'm happy for players who enjoy it but forcing everyone, including new players into a badly design + reward system feels dumb.

And if you really want to be transparent, could you please post the data of new players and what percentage of them quit on first game ? if those games had an antag or not ? which MMR / mission difficulty ?
How many players in general quit / disconnect / surrender when the match has an antag ?

I'm honestly asking and wouldn't mind to be proven wrong and it would stop both sides from argumenting on feelings only.

Currently, I really hope for you that your antagonist players are enough to sustain the game financially because "raiders only" players may not ...