Drone Formation Feedback Thread

Thought I might as well make one since the test server was open today for us to try out the new drone formations but no feedback thread was made yet.


The only two formations I had an issue with were the Dome and X.

I think for what the Dome does, a regen of 0.1% is too low (I know there was a typo for 0.01 before). I think it was designed in mind with using it for a Citadel to sit on a CBS and defend it, I can't another use for a formation that causes the user to have 0 move speed. The issue is that 0.1% is fairly low, just 1,000 regen per 1,000,000 shield - whereas the Diamond grants 5,000 regen and allows the user to move freely and still shoot regular damage.
The Dome's biggest weakness is the user is a sitting duck for DD mines as soon as they put on the formation and I feel like the 0.1% regen just isn't enough to justify the risk of not being able to move. If I was a Citadel defending a base I think I would just use ring (180% shield booster) so I could use my abilities, chase after the groups, avoid mines etc all while having this massive shield to tank damage for my group.
My suggestion would be that a 1% regen would work much better, then I'm doing 10k regen per 1mil shield and would take the risk of a few mines in order to quickly get some shield back.


I'm a bit confused by the X. For starters it does 0 laser damage in PvP so is a purely PvE formation ... yet we only get 1% (one) PvE damage bonus? We also get 0 honour for killing something and only 5% more EP.
Is the 1 an error? I tested it in a galaxy gate and it did appear to be just 1% extra damage since my damage did not have any visible change from going from standard formation to X in the test client. The Bat formation gives us 8% PvE damage, 8% EP from NPC and we still get regular honour as well as regular PvP damage ... yet it costs LESS than the X does.
I would say in order for the X to be balanced out the damage boost it needs in PvE needs to be huge, it needs to be something like 35% or 40% because the Drill will gives us 20%. With that 20% I can kill NPC much quicker to make up for the lack of a 5% EP boost and again, I still get all the honour from NPC kills.

Price of the X was meant to be 300k credits as pointed out by Silvanito:
http://www.bigpoint.com/darkorbit/board/threads/drone-formation-feedback-thread.102563/#post-851689

 

I have to agree. Dome needs a higher shield Regan rate, or speed loss decreased or removed entirely. X... I have no words for x besides change it back but make it rocket launcher only perhaps, so chevron isn't completely useless? Also maybe switch the negatives for drill and veteran, as they would fit more

 

descriptions were wrong :c

 

Well, since like first 10 players can enter test server I never had a chance to join there.

 

I had a problem with the wheel formation - according to the description it increases damage by 20%, but my damage was much lower than it should be.

 

I'm a bit confused by the X. For starters it does 0 laser damage in PvP so is a purely PvE formation

thats the bit i got confused on it stats (PVP lasers do no damage ) now dose that mean you do no damage in pvp or dose it mean no dmg to use in pvp or do it mean you don't get any pvp dmg to you dam wording lol

 

Drill
I think this "nerfed" version is much better than old drill formation, with 50% damage increase. I think drone "penalties" are also decent, like decreased speed.

Dome
This formation is one of the "bad new formations". Shield regeneration is absolutely too slow (in game description said 0,01% shd per second, but i tested it, and it didnt gave any shield as it said!) Shield regeneration should be really good, because this formation penalties are really enormous.

RING
I really love this formation! It makes citadel even better than ever before. Don't change this formation stats!

Veteran
Its great that now all players have a chance to compete in rankings with this formation. If there is inactive players having colonel or higher ranking, now its easier to take those rankings away from them

Wheel
5% increased ship speed is a lot! but in my opinion it wont be so useful at fights, because its absolutely redicilous to loose 5% shield each second!

Wave
A CREDIT FORMATION ? even if it doesnt give anything else than new look, its really nice to see that bigpoint let also newbie players to enjoy this formation, if they cant get other, expensive uridium formations. Points to bigpoint

X
No damage to players and no honour, what player earns, and benefits are 8% more hp, 1% extra damage to npc and 5% more xp for aliens? If this formation makes more damage to aliens (30% - 40% dmg increase to aliens) than drill formation to everything, i will definetly buy it.

But i have one question: im only top user ranking player, and i dont hunt better rank than my currend colonel. So why we dont have also a cool 20% more xp formation, like veteran formation? then players could get some levels up even faster than before

 

Hi guys,
I just wanted to make a clarification: Seems that none of you noticed what currency is required to buy the X formation. It is credits, 300,000 Credits. The cheapest formation you can get in the game so far and it requires to have just 4 drones to use it.

This formation is thought for new players with low level which are focused on playing missions and killing aliens to get better, so that they can have a better time doing it. Not for Full Elites

About the feedback for the other formations, we still gathering all the feedback from the test server form and also from the forums to have a overview of the general feedback and then review the formations stats consequently.


EDIT:
I just checked the test server, there it cost 150,000 Uridium. That is a mistake that will be corrected before final release.

 

well when you put it that way it seems fair

 

1% damage and 5% ep and NO honor seems somehow umm.. New players are hitting maybe 1000 and with that formation they will shoot 1010, they won't even notice the difference 5% extra EP is also something that a new player will not even notice.

If you really want new players to have good time then change that 1% to at least 10% There would be absolutely no harm if players could be shooting aliens faster.

Anyways, my highest hopes were that we would be getting something that would let us to shoot up uridium faster, 50% sounded awesome when drill was stated to have it but now it is just 20%. We really want a high damage PvE formation!

 

Just no, the formations that we have already are perfect for the game if they bring more formation it just will ruin the game, and like some people said don't mess with speed it is useless and ruins the game.

 

Thats seems to be really cool! But i think too, that 1% increased laser damage is absolutely nothing, because newbier players can't get good enough advantage by using it. but yea, it's 300k credits, and credit formations have never been good stuff anyway.

But how about formation, which increases all credit ammos firepower (including rockets and lasers) by 50%? this could give really good boost to newbies and older players. And 50% increased damage means that all uridium ammunitions will still be better than any credit ammos

But one question: why X- formation costs 300k credits (gives some little benefits) and wave formation costs 4,9m credits (doesn't give anything)?

 

Now that drill does 20% damage (too much imo) bp should boost bat design. I mean what is the point of bat design doing 8% to aliens when drill does 20% to all? Perhaps bat does 30% in the future? The scale is screwed. Imo 20%/30% is way too much but bat should do more damage to aliens than drill.

 

Then prome x1 would do 23,5k and with infection almost 26k. Credit rockets 6500 damage. That means 30k damage with x1 and rockets. Again bat would be useless. Any new formation should not make old formations useless.

 

Two formations that I want to be changed are:

#1 Wheel
Speed is increased by 5%; however, laser damage is reduced by 20%, and this formation drains shields by 5% per second.

This is the formations I've biggest concern about. Please don't touch speed anymore. The game is already imbalanced with Pusat having so high speed. There should be no formation that increases speed.
Here's another reason why you shouldn't touch the speed.

Spearhead base speed 588
spearhead base speed + 5% boost = 617.4

Goliath base speed 540
Goliath base speed + 5% boost = 567

A goli can have a max speed of 567 with this formations which is even less than the normal speed of Pusat/ spear. Clearly, goli doesn't have any benefit with this formation. It'll only help fast ships like pusat.
No matter what speed bonus you give, the current speed dynamics are such that fast ships will have a much greater advantage over the other ships like goli.

How do you expect to fight, if your enemy on being low hp runs away, or just run and returns back with more HP ?
When I have 2v1 with Pusat, whoever I shoot just runs away with low hp. Even in 1v1 its hard to kill them unless they a fail to escape. (I'm not talking about noobs, I'm talking about UFEs with 1 mill shields.)

Now if you add wheel boosting speed, you will just make it worse. There are already emp, cloaks, slow mines for running. Is that not enough ? What the current updates are doing is making things hard for solo players and encouraging 10v1 game play and its a major reason for "empty servers".

In simple words, it'll only imbalance the game further.

Please Don't add this!! Don't play with speed anymore.

#2 Drill
Laser damage is increased by 20%; however, shield points are reduced by 25%, shield spread by 5%, and speed by 5%.

As many people have already suggested it should be PvE only. Its good for NPC but if worked on players then this additional 20% is too much and would severely imbalance the game. For PvP the drawbacks are too weak compared to the damage bonus.

So make it only for NPC.

I'll write about other formations later, they not so important now.

 

Good luck with that. Bat is already there for pve. If anything they'll make it PvP only lol

 

Do you guys also check out the update and idea section for changes ? Not sure if I should post it here but I do it anyway since I just got spectrum from booty box and now I'm bad-ass for 1 day ^^ xD

http://www.bigpoint.com/darkorbit/board/threads/new-drone-formations.102571/

Anyway, it seems like a rather useless formation, especially if you think about the fact that players at low level will need all the honour they can get to get to the 500K (for more credits per ore). If they forget to switch (which can be likely for new players), they get nothing, which could be verry frustrating. Furtermore: 1% extra damage will add +1K dmg for 100K hitting players... new players hit about 3000, meaning that the extra dmg will be 30...

 

I disagree, for new players there is already the leonov that adds a ton of damage (x2 for single rockets, and doubles ship laser (though I thought that it was even more). I do think we should help them, but this is to much.

 

Cough. Who really uses x1 anymore >.> spin some gates and you'll never need credit ammo anymore ever ^_^

 

Sigh they released the formation which most likely means they are not going to make changes anymore.. Meh, I'll wait a couple of days and then start pointing out how stupidly this was done.

I do hope you will explain to us what the heck is the point with Dome when we have Ring that cost exactly as much and does everything 10 times better?? And the 1% in X... I sure hope that will be something else.