Buffs appear in your 'profile' - so click your avatar and see the new shiny tab
When you go into buffs, it's a neat little animated gimmick that shows all available buffs, and you can sort between Fleet, Collection or Combined.
They are five wide, you could easily fit them seven wide on the screen with those dimensions. You do the dice ones twice, once for min, and once for max, without distinguishing the two.
It might be good to show them with a min and max symbol. Even better, as they are both awarded in pairs, you only need to show the dice once for each skill. This would reduce them from 23 buffs to 17, and you could almost fit them on the screen. Unless you are adding more buffs in the future, it would be better without the scrollbar.
It would also be nice if the buffs were sortable. e.g. completed buffs at the bottom, or by skill.
They are five wide, you could easily fit them seven wide on the screen with those dimensions. You do the dice ones twice, once for min, and once for max, without distinguishing the two.
It might be good to show them with a min and max symbol. Even better, as they are both awarded in pairs, you only need to show the dice once for each skill. This would reduce them from 23 buffs to 17, and you could almost fit them on the screen. Unless you are adding more buffs in the future, it would be better without the scrollbar.
It would also be nice if the buffs were sortable. e.g. completed buffs at the bottom, or by skill.
It does look good.
6 wide would have made me happy.
Base, Min Prof, Max Prof for each skill.
They are five wide, you could easily fit them seven wide on the screen with those dimensions. You do the dice ones twice, once for min, and once for max, without distinguishing the two.
It might be good to show them with a min and max symbol. Even better, as they are both awarded in pairs, you only need to show the dice once for each skill. This would reduce them from 23 buffs to 17, and you could almost fit them on the screen. Unless you are adding more buffs in the future, it would be better without the scrollbar.
It would also be nice if the buffs were sortable. e.g. completed buffs at the bottom, or by skill.
It does look good.
Not every device comes with a 16:9 screen. Ipads for example, so it‘s always tricky for them to have it fit perfectly for all devices.
They are five wide, you could easily fit them seven wide on the screen with those dimensions. You do the dice ones twice, once for min, and once for max, without distinguishing the two.
It might be good to show them with a min and max symbol. Even better, as they are both awarded in pairs, you only need to show the dice once for each skill. This would reduce them from 23 buffs to 17, and you could almost fit them on the screen. Unless you are adding more buffs in the future, it would be better without the scrollbar.
It would also be nice if the buffs were sortable. e.g. completed buffs at the bottom, or by skill.
It does look good.
Not every device comes with a 16:9 screen. Ipads for example, so it‘s always tricky for them to have it fit perfectly for all devices.
I guess you are correct there. I was testing on Steam on my laptop, and won't get it on my Android until next week.
Auto battle? Should they concider changing the name to Idle Timelines? I will never understand the mindset that prefers to watch a game play itself rather than play it. How many CandyCrush players constantly get upset about "too much tapping." To each their own I guess.
If you don't like that part of the game, don't play it and let the people who like it have a chance at rank. Auto battle should cost a dilithium to activate.
I like the idea of being able to auto your skirmish battles but would like it even better if I did not have to turn it on every battle.
I’m not picking on you here, just using your comment as an example, but NO, absolutely NOT. The behavior requested is a half-step removed from straight-up bot-ing. Part of why it is hard to rank is because the grind gets to people. If it becomes a one button tap to get 1K vp, there is no grind. Scores will explode in the sub-leaderboard range. (The leaderboard folks will still beat everyone else because that is a function of giving up life-events in place of gaming.)
Maybe I’m over-reacting. Maybe I should wait to see what happens. For now, I am... displeased at this change.
(Happy about the other items other than skirmish changes.)
I like the idea of being able to auto your skirmish battles but would like it even better if I did not have to turn it on every battle.
I’m not picking on you here, just using your comment as an example, but NO, absolutely NOT. The behavior requested is a half-step removed from straight-up bot-ing. Part of why it is hard to rank is because the grind gets to people. If it becomes a one button tap to get 1K vp, there is no grind. Scores will explode in the sub-leaderboard range. (The leaderboard folks will still beat everyone else because that is a function of giving up life-events in place of gaming.)
Maybe I’m over-reacting. Maybe I should wait to see what happens. For now, I am... displeased at this change.
(Happy about the other items other than skirmish changes.)
I hear you. For me I have some carpal tunnel issues so less clicking is preferable for me on a skirmish event that requires tons of clicking. An auto battle button is best for me if I do not have to turn it on every time by clicking a button even if then TP increased the number of those pick the crew tests to stop bots. I think the thinking on TP’s part is trying to decrease tedium, increase battle numbers and increase the amount of chrons bought.
I've got multiple health issues that affect my hands and joints. Being able to click one button at the start of a Battle might be a good thing. It will definitely reduce discomfort. Especially in a Skirmish. Where you are doing five Battles over and over again. At full Bonus, Epic is 6,000 VXP per Skirmish. Just clearing the Threshold is a lot of 6,000s. After further consideration, I understand that there is a good, valid reason for it to reset to off every time.
Just clearing the Threshold is 58⅓ Skirmishes on Epic, if you don't get any post-Battle VXP Drops, and have no failed runs............
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
I feel the auto battle may be good for some, but personally I know it would add time to my Skirmishes, if I were counting such things. Last week during the Skirmish portion, I had my battles down to <7 seconds with exact timing in my button pushing. If the buttons were automatic, I am fairly sure it would go up to 9-10 seconds per battle.
With the auto play feature of ship battles, it does say that abilities will be triggered as they become available. So with a ship like the Krayton, with multiple 6 second activation crew that came online at the same time (Ardra, Killy, RPC, Garth), I have to wonder what order they'll go in.
In Arena, they go left-to-right. I assume the same will apply to skirmish. I doubt that they went in to re-invent the wheel.
I know of at least one 5* ship on which the battle actions do not become available left-to-right. On the IKS T'Ong, which I use in both Arena & Skirmishes w/ RPKirk, the initialization timers are 8s, 6s and 8s, as you look at them.
That being said, I did check a few other popular 5* ships, and the initializations do go left-to-right on the Cube, Krayton & Valdore. So the automation might start to level the playing field between humans & bots, given the correct seat assignments for crew bonus abilities & passive stats.
Excuse me, I need to go now & rework the Ships tab on that spreadsheet & start thinking about how to finally design a useful Battle Setup tab. 🖖
"In the short run, the game defines the players. But in the long run, it's us players who define the game." — Nicky Case, The Evolution of Trust
With the auto play feature of ship battles, it does say that abilities will be triggered as they become available. So with a ship like the Krayton, with multiple 6 second activation crew that came online at the same time (Ardra, Killy, RPC, Garth), I have to wonder what order they'll go in.
In Arena, they go left-to-right. I assume the same will apply to skirmish. I doubt that they went in to re-invent the wheel.
I know of at least one 5* ship on which the battle actions do not become available left-to-right. On the IKS T'Ong, which I use in both Arena & Skirmishes w/ RPKirk, the initialization timers are 8s, 6s and 8s, as you look at them.
That being said, I did check a few other popular 5* ships, and the initializations do go left-to-right on the Cube, Krayton & Valdore. So the automation might start to level the playing field between humans & bots, given the correct seat assignments for crew bonus abilities & passive stats.
Excuse me, I need to go now & rework the Ships tab on that spreadsheet & start thinking about how to finally design a useful Battle Setup tab. 🖖
I meant that in the case of two abilities initializing at the same time, they will trigger left-to-right as the "tie breaker." Meaning that you may want to put your Accuracy crew to the left of your damage crew so that your big damage shots are more likely to hit.
Examples:
If you use Mirror Spock and Locutus (both 1s), then you might want Spock to the left. If you use Ardra and Killy (both 6s), then you may want Ardra on the left. If you use Mirror Spock and Killy, then it doesn't really matter where they are in relationship to each other. Ship abilities start out to the left. In cases of a tie with crew, the ship ability will trigger first. If you use Rios, Ardra, Killy, and Rura Penthe Commandant on the Krayton (in this order with auto), then the time reduction will trigger first, then Rios, then the Krayton's 350% damage, then Ardra, then Killy, then RPC, then the Krayton's hill repair (if the battle isn't over).
In the last example, you can see that the Krayton's 350% damage does not have any big attack boost. This is where humans will have an edge over auto play. Humans can tap Killy or RPC before the Krayton's bomb to make it bigger and potentially end the battle sooner.
Devs could also play around with a cloak at 3s to mess with auto play. There some balance tricks that could keep this interesting. That's why I'm in the "wait and see" camp for skirmishes.
Auto battle? Should they concider changing the name to Idle Timelines? I will never understand the mindset that prefers to watch a game play itself rather than play it. How many CandyCrush players constantly get upset about "too much tapping." To each their own I guess.
If you don't like that part of the game, don't play it and let the people who like it have a chance at rank. Auto battle should cost a dilithium to activate.
It's not about watching instead of playing, it's about reducing low quality game time.
Grinding is about as low quality as you get, there's no real nuance, no real strategy - it's clickity, clickity, click. Which I personally find tedious, but others may find meditative.
With the Arena, I don't currently even watch, I trigger a battle, and watch telly or close my eyes. Rinse and repeat until I get my 5 done. I have no interest in it beyond the tickbox exercise of moving along the campaign trail.
And with skirmishes, I want to at least do thresholds and out, but it's the same conveyor process - wait until the shield disrupter is active, trigger that, trigger my various 2-400% instadamages, click get reward. Rinse and repeat.
99/100 I have no trouble, other than with the Reliant (~1/10) and N'Var and T'Ong (~1/20)
It's why there are bots - it's repetitive. Grind mechanics are open to abuse by bots and macros simply because they're predictable and repeatable.
Higher quality game time isn't as open to abuse, because the player is doing more than whack-a-mole on their screen, but that's also expensive in time and development, but it's also more fun for the player.
Auto-ing is a trade off, between recognising grinding eventually alienates the player base and not having the resources to continually provide engaging content.
Dang, no update for IOS yet which is frustrating. I could use this update now.
What for? Besides the showing boosts in ur profile, nothing else will be live until the forced upgrade. So this Skirmishes nobody can take advantage of the new „speed up“ and „autoplay“ features.
There's one minor niggle that I hope TP can fix ... and it is quite easy to do so ...
- allow me to DESELECT a crew I've seated in a voyage spot ... you know, just make it empty again and not with a chosen crew ... I thought about it because of today's skirmish, you can deselect crew in a seat using the "O with a line through it" button.
anyway, I like fiddling around with voyage line-ups sometimes and I like trying different crew out in different seats.
... there's probably a better thread for this request ... but hey, consider it made.
Since they downgraded the steam version to 7.4.2 i would like to ask when do we expect the update on steam to be active fully available with all its features?
There's one minor niggle that I hope TP can fix ... and it is quite easy to do so ...
- allow me to DESELECT a crew I've seated in a voyage spot ... you know, just make it empty again and not with a chosen crew ... I thought about it because of today's skirmish, you can deselect crew in a seat using the "O with a line through it" button.
anyway, I like fiddling around with voyage line-ups sometimes and I like trying different crew out in different seats.
... there's probably a better thread for this request ... but hey, consider it made.
Since they downgraded the steam version to 7.4.2 i would like to ask when do we expect the update on steam to be active fully available with all its features?
When all versions go live? So no one can have an unfair advantage in a Space Battle based Event?
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
When battles are sped up, what happens with crew whose ship battle is to increase attack speed? Do they give a more significant advantage now? Or are they rendered superfluous because at a certain point, it happens quickly enough without them?
When battles are sped up, what happens with crew whose ship battle is to increase attack speed? Do they give a more significant advantage now? Or are they rendered superfluous because at a certain point, it happens quickly enough without them?
I think that the speed-up will be for animations, not abilities. Guess we’ll find out & quibble about it when it goes live. 🖖
EDIT: “Speed Up: to increase the velocity of the battle”. Vagueness has always been one of their strong suits.
"In the short run, the game defines the players. But in the long run, it's us players who define the game." — Nicky Case, The Evolution of Trust
Speeding up I'm sure means fast forwarding the clock. Shaving 5 seconds off a battle. Which would likely result in two things.
If you want it done faster so you can get back to work, done. If you want to threshold and out in 3/4 of the time, done. If you enjoy spending four days spending an amount of chrons I personally can't imagine, but wanted some way to spend more of them, done.
The other thing that may happen, and the reason I am unlikely to use this, is killing your battery faster. Fastforwarding battles (and activating the approved bot) will likely put a higher demand on processing. Phone and tablet batteries will likely take a beating. The device I use is quite old and it overheats during battles, chat, and a lot of warping missions all at once for some reason. As a result it shuts down if I don't let it rest.
I feel the devs would have gotten more mileage from introducing an option to dial down the graphics to speed up load times. But halving battle times may sell a few more chron packs.
When battles are sped up, what happens with crew whose ship battle is to increase attack speed? Do they give a more significant advantage now? Or are they rendered superfluous because at a certain point, it happens quickly enough without them?
It's going to accelerate the clock. So every attack rate increase or time reduction still scale the same way
When battles are sped up, what happens with crew whose ship battle is to increase attack speed? Do they give a more significant advantage now? Or are they rendered superfluous because at a certain point, it happens quickly enough without them?
It's going to accelerate the clock. So every attack rate increase or time reduction still scale the same way
It's going to accelerate the clock. So every attack rate increase or time reduction still scale the same way
I didn't read it as "battles won't last 180 seconds any more" but as "everything will happen faster" because, as @~peregrine~ points out, the notes say:
EDIT: “Speed Up: to increase the velocity of the battle”. Vagueness has always been one of their strong suits.
Does that scaling of time increases reach a point where it's negligible because the human thumbs can only tap so fast? Will it be worth it to use someone who increases attack speed by 20% if you can instead use someone who charges in the same amount of time who deals more instant damage?
Comments
When you go into buffs, it's a neat little animated gimmick that shows all available buffs, and you can sort between Fleet, Collection or Combined.
They are five wide, you could easily fit them seven wide on the screen with those dimensions. You do the dice ones twice, once for min, and once for max, without distinguishing the two.
It might be good to show them with a min and max symbol. Even better, as they are both awarded in pairs, you only need to show the dice once for each skill. This would reduce them from 23 buffs to 17, and you could almost fit them on the screen. Unless you are adding more buffs in the future, it would be better without the scrollbar.
It would also be nice if the buffs were sortable. e.g. completed buffs at the bottom, or by skill.
It does look good.
6 wide would have made me happy.
Base, Min Prof, Max Prof for each skill.
Not every device comes with a 16:9 screen. Ipads for example, so it‘s always tricky for them to have it fit perfectly for all devices.
I guess you are correct there. I was testing on Steam on my laptop, and won't get it on my Android until next week.
If you don't like that part of the game, don't play it and let the people who like it have a chance at rank. Auto battle should cost a dilithium to activate.
Maybe I’m over-reacting. Maybe I should wait to see what happens. For now, I am... displeased at this change.
(Happy about the other items other than skirmish changes.)
I hear you. For me I have some carpal tunnel issues so less clicking is preferable for me on a skirmish event that requires tons of clicking. An auto battle button is best for me if I do not have to turn it on every time by clicking a button even if then TP increased the number of those pick the crew tests to stop bots. I think the thinking on TP’s part is trying to decrease tedium, increase battle numbers and increase the amount of chrons bought.
Just clearing the Threshold is 58⅓ Skirmishes on Epic, if you don't get any post-Battle VXP Drops, and have no failed runs............
Totally agree but it’s still an upgrade. Instead of 6 clicks (with the Krayton) I’ll only have 2.
I know of at least one 5* ship on which the battle actions do not become available left-to-right. On the IKS T'Ong, which I use in both Arena & Skirmishes w/ RPKirk, the initialization timers are 8s, 6s and 8s, as you look at them.
That being said, I did check a few other popular 5* ships, and the initializations do go left-to-right on the Cube, Krayton & Valdore. So the automation might start to level the playing field between humans & bots, given the correct seat assignments for crew bonus abilities & passive stats.
Excuse me, I need to go now & rework the Ships tab on that spreadsheet & start thinking about how to finally design a useful Battle Setup tab. 🖖
I meant that in the case of two abilities initializing at the same time, they will trigger left-to-right as the "tie breaker." Meaning that you may want to put your Accuracy crew to the left of your damage crew so that your big damage shots are more likely to hit.
Examples:
If you use Mirror Spock and Locutus (both 1s), then you might want Spock to the left. If you use Ardra and Killy (both 6s), then you may want Ardra on the left. If you use Mirror Spock and Killy, then it doesn't really matter where they are in relationship to each other. Ship abilities start out to the left. In cases of a tie with crew, the ship ability will trigger first. If you use Rios, Ardra, Killy, and Rura Penthe Commandant on the Krayton (in this order with auto), then the time reduction will trigger first, then Rios, then the Krayton's 350% damage, then Ardra, then Killy, then RPC, then the Krayton's hill repair (if the battle isn't over).
In the last example, you can see that the Krayton's 350% damage does not have any big attack boost. This is where humans will have an edge over auto play. Humans can tap Killy or RPC before the Krayton's bomb to make it bigger and potentially end the battle sooner.
Devs could also play around with a cloak at 3s to mess with auto play. There some balance tricks that could keep this interesting. That's why I'm in the "wait and see" camp for skirmishes.
It's not about watching instead of playing, it's about reducing low quality game time.
Grinding is about as low quality as you get, there's no real nuance, no real strategy - it's clickity, clickity, click. Which I personally find tedious, but others may find meditative.
With the Arena, I don't currently even watch, I trigger a battle, and watch telly or close my eyes. Rinse and repeat until I get my 5 done. I have no interest in it beyond the tickbox exercise of moving along the campaign trail.
And with skirmishes, I want to at least do thresholds and out, but it's the same conveyor process - wait until the shield disrupter is active, trigger that, trigger my various 2-400% instadamages, click get reward. Rinse and repeat.
99/100 I have no trouble, other than with the Reliant (~1/10) and N'Var and T'Ong (~1/20)
It's why there are bots - it's repetitive. Grind mechanics are open to abuse by bots and macros simply because they're predictable and repeatable.
Higher quality game time isn't as open to abuse, because the player is doing more than whack-a-mole on their screen, but that's also expensive in time and development, but it's also more fun for the player.
Auto-ing is a trade off, between recognising grinding eventually alienates the player base and not having the resources to continually provide engaging content.
What for? Besides the showing boosts in ur profile, nothing else will be live until the forced upgrade. So this Skirmishes nobody can take advantage of the new „speed up“ and „autoplay“ features.
- allow me to DESELECT a crew I've seated in a voyage spot ... you know, just make it empty again and not with a chosen crew ... I thought about it because of today's skirmish, you can deselect crew in a seat using the "O with a line through it" button.
anyway, I like fiddling around with voyage line-ups sometimes and I like trying different crew out in different seats.
... there's probably a better thread for this request ... but hey, consider it made.
I second!!
When all versions go live? So no one can have an unfair advantage in a Space Battle based Event?
I think that the speed-up will be for animations, not abilities. Guess we’ll find out & quibble about it when it goes live. 🖖
EDIT: “Speed Up: to increase the velocity of the battle”. Vagueness has always been one of their strong suits.
If you want it done faster so you can get back to work, done. If you want to threshold and out in 3/4 of the time, done. If you enjoy spending four days spending an amount of chrons I personally can't imagine, but wanted some way to spend more of them, done.
The other thing that may happen, and the reason I am unlikely to use this, is killing your battery faster. Fastforwarding battles (and activating the approved bot) will likely put a higher demand on processing. Phone and tablet batteries will likely take a beating. The device I use is quite old and it overheats during battles, chat, and a lot of warping missions all at once for some reason. As a result it shuts down if I don't let it rest.
I feel the devs would have gotten more mileage from introducing an option to dial down the graphics to speed up load times. But halving battle times may sell a few more chron packs.
It's going to accelerate the clock. So every attack rate increase or time reduction still scale the same way
That was my assumption as well.
I didn't read it as "battles won't last 180 seconds any more" but as "everything will happen faster" because, as @~peregrine~ points out, the notes say:
Does that scaling of time increases reach a point where it's negligible because the human thumbs can only tap so fast? Will it be worth it to use someone who increases attack speed by 20% if you can instead use someone who charges in the same amount of time who deals more instant damage?