[xerout]

I gotta chime back in on this too based on responses. I'm in no way advocating any kind of "win" button at all. I do think we need to make becoming a "decent" PvPer a bit easier in the name of player retention. The gap that has existed between "fair" PvPers and "good" PvPers has always been much too large. Narrowing that gap doesn't mean a win button but it may mean that instead of the 20 or so guys I flew with in the early days leaving after hitting 26 maybe we could retain 8-10 of them. I love the fact that a kill in Jumpgate means so much but I'd love seeing a couple of thousand peeps in game instead of 300-400 even more. I'm just concerned when I see guys I know who are pretty good PvPers in every other game I've played trying Jumpgate out and leaving shortly after 26 because they're little more than targets in every battle they are in....even after practicing. On a side note....being a skilled fluxer doesn't translate into PvP skill at all....there's almost no connection. As far as PvP "street cred" goes....I was a member of a charity group in unreg that collected donations for starving Oct children....some of you may remember it...it was called The Gang.

Xerout

[Wild_Bill]

Tritian, you have almost grasped my point. The point is a "more accurate targetting computer" will NOT increase a person's PvP ability because mere accuracy is such a small factor in PvP. Getting the sights on the target is a much greater skill than pulling the trigger when the sight is on the target. Combat awareness, tactics, ship handling skill, etc are all more important than how accurate your sights are.

Xerout, the fact someone can hit flux shows that they are able to hit what they are shooting at. It does not mean that flux are equal targets to other pilots.

Even the mythical "Aim Bot" would not make a lot of us even a "good" PvPer much less an elite one. If it could make someone like me a "decent" PvPer it would have a couple of different effects, mostly positive. If I was capable of being a "decent" PvPer I would gladly engage in more PvP which would open up many RP avenues for me as well as for many, many others. If I was able to win 1 out of 4 fights I'd be a heck of a lot more likely to engage in PvP. Hell, I'd hunt it out! You think I enjoy be called a Carebear? The lack is not desire, but skill. A 4/299 kill ratio doesn't encourage seeking out combat.

If Xerouts 20 recruits were able to be "decent" PvPers based on increased accuracy, retaining 8-10 would be much LESS of a problem. Increasing the number of "decent" PvPers would drop the number of "unwilling victims" and increase the number of folks looking to engage in PvP, not avoid it. From what Scorch and others have indicated in interviewss, that may well be the way they are heading. I don't think it will hurt the current PvP population at all.

[dahalb]

I honestly don't believe it would hurt either. I know we will disagree on that point Trit & Seph but i will hold my opinion on that. I have been flying again recently and though the timezones sometimes get in the way, i have yet to see the combat of old that you guy refer to. I have not seen squads engaged in PvP i see 1v1, 2v1, and 2v2. Even then i'm usually the one involved

I have spent countless hours in the sim and space having my butt handed to me. After both of my breaks i had to do the same thing again to even be considered competent. Spending days in the sim out of need after taking a break is not something the vast majority of players will put up with. You and I do because we enjoy this game so much but other won't, don't and haven't put up with such a drastic need for practice.

I wish i could show you a game that has something like what i am talking about - unfortunately afaik, one doesnt exist. Any that are similar are all-the-way-WINBUTTONs with full on auto-aim and are single player.

Anyway I've had my say of this suggestion and it looks like about a 60-40 split against. With something this contentious it was always gonna be close but the last point i would make is again - player retention. Making things too hard does not endear a game to most people.

[Lordopic]

So in conclusion then tags or no tags ?

[Tritian]

If you guys can find another way of making pilots get better at PvP then i'd consider it with an open mind. However, this idea just will not do. This idea would dilute the 'aiming' skill and make it near worthless, since all competant pilots would have essentially equal aiming skill.

As I stated before, if every ship had a profile like the Dragon, everyone would have no problem hitting them. Thankfully, most profiles are much smaller, which allows for the aiming skill. By implementing your 'aim assister', you'd essentially be making the ship profiles effectively bigger.

IMO, it's not too difficult to hit our current ships. It just requires practice. Some people have it naturally, and others need to work on it. And that's how it should be. You cant balance the game based on people who suck, or have inferior gear. If you do, you risk making it skill-less, like how Neocron turned out.

[netburnr]

BTW, bad AIM is not the #1 killer of people just getting into fights, lack of situational awareness and not understanding how they should be flying would be the killer, especially for Octs as the hitbox on the nix was huge.

No matter how good your aim is, if someone gets you slowed down and starts to circle you, you are in a loosing situation.

[Algore]

Originally Posted by Jump

Well, not everyone is so mean spirited. Most people like to help others. And a lot of people, for many reasons, won't ask for help. So I think my idea is a good one and gives people another way to make a living in Jumpgate.

I'm a realist. Since the highjack to an aiming topic all I see from a realist POV are people that haven't currently got what it takes wanting a fast way to get there.
I've always been upfront with people that I train. I can train them to be very good at piloting their ship, but I can never train them to have good aim. I can make it easier for them to have a better chance of hitting the target by showing them how to fly their ship in a particualr way, in a variety of situations. If you are looking in the right direction a higher percentage of the time there is a higher percentage chance of hitting the target.
The suggestion being made is for an artifical aid to make aiming easier. Basically an aimbot, doesn't matter what way you dress it up. Completely the opposite of what makes Jumpgate,well, Jumpgate.

Regards
Al

[Tim]

Wait.. i'm confused. Is aim important or not? Clearly, trit and seph are vehiment that aim is vital to the game, and auto-aim would ruin it

Originally Posted by Tritian

...
IMO, any form of 'auto-aim' would be horrible for Jumpgate.

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

...
If auto-aim is put into this game you will lose a lot of the PvP crowd who play this game BECAUSE there is no lame ass auto aim or anything similar.

But then we have this

Originally Posted by netburnrol

BTW, bad AIM is not the #1 killer of people just getting into fights, lack of situational awareness and not understanding how they should be flying would be the killer, especially for Octs as the hitbox on the nix was huge.

So not only would some sort of aim-assist mechanism ruin the game, it also wouldn't matter.

Man, i love this stuff.

[Sephiroth]

If I'm understanding net correctly he's saying people are discourage from PvP in Jumpgate not because they have bad aim but because they lack situational awareness and flight ability. He isn't saying that aim isn't important. Of course I could be misreading him entirely, in which case, net you're wrong, aim is very important!

[netburnr]

Nope Seph is right. AIM is extremely important for a pilot. For killing flux, for fighting other pilots, hell for getting into the gate without hitting a pedal.

But my personal opinion is that bad aim is not as big of a killer as bad situational awareness and knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of EVERY ship.

Example, you have 100% aim, you hit every time. Your in a Nix, and you go up against a tense. If you don't know what your doing, you can hit the tense every time, and still loose. Why you ask, because the tense pilot will know that they can outrun the Nix, they can wear them down slowely, and use that advantage to /win

Same goes the other way, a tense with 100% aim goes up against a Nix, has no clue he can use the running game to his advantage and tries to just go no hold bar against the nix, the nix will win because of its slight shield advantage.

Skill is more than just aim.

And I've already said that I beleive even having the duelist is too much. For example the phoon is (was) so ****ty that a lot of quant pilots had to take extra time in the sim to learn to aim without any help so that they could have that 1 extra FF to keep page with the tense...

[ELPIRATA]

"its slight shield advantage."

Hummmm, Nix... Haven/Defier (size 2).... Tensy.... (alpaa/cascade) (size 3)

Slight advantage......

Not really sure, but keep going.

ELP