John Lang

I guess I should go for that one, John, right? We're looking for multiple entry points, like establishing multiple entry points that can come from the interior, but also from the exterior of the station, so that we just don't have one bottleneck. I mean, I guess you kind of spread the options out a bit. We can't fully eliminate the possibility of this, but at least giving players the option and giving them some sense of opportunities in and around the station to enter this contested zone will definitely help it out.

Yeah, exactly. I think whenever you have an entrance into a place like this, where PvP is possible, it naturally creates a bottleneck. You have to be able to enter the space, and there could be people camping that space waiting for you to enter. So what we can do as designers is try and offer alternate paths in, as Khan said. There are side elevators, there are ways in from the exterior of the station. So we're just trying to provide as many different opportunities to enter that space so that it's more difficult to use those bottlenecks if you are of a griefing mindset.

Yeah, what's also important is that there's like exfiltration points inside these contested zones. So if you hit a specific depth of the contested zone, you can get to a part that offers you a one way exit that brings you to the social area, so back to practical safety.

Interesting. And you're talking about things that we can do to battle or defeat the bottlenecks and stuff that the camping and stuff like this, but some aspect of that is intentional. Some aspect of that is not a bug. It's a feature. These are still intended to be PvP zones. They are intended to still have a certain level of friction. The balance in all of this is in finding the right level of friction, not eliminating all the friction altogether.

Yeah, that's a tough part of designing a map like this. Definitely.

Yeah, ultimately, it is a PvP space and griefing, unfortunately, you know, is something you try to design against. But this is a kind of a whole philosophical debate we could get into about griefing versus PvP. But griefing is just PvP, ultimately, at the end of the day, there's technically nothing wrong with someone finding a defensible position and using that as an advantage over another player. And that aspect of being on the defensive in the PvP kind of equation is you dealing with those kind of bottlenecks and those camping positions, you know, which cover do you use? How do you approach a room? Do you breach the room? You know, do you use like grenades to flush out a room before you enter it? You know, scouting opportunities. And there are things we can do as designers to kind of aid that as well with like cover placement and, you know, lighting and things like that, that can alleviate these issues. But ultimately, you can't get rid of them. And you probably shouldn't because ultimately, this is pyro and this is a PvP space as well as PvE.

So it's also part of opting in, right? It's just like, you want to do PvP. And then I mean, that can also spark like new things. Imagine like back then in the days in WoW Classic, right, when Crossroads was raided, and then suddenly you try to ally with some friends or like people and just like try to push back on things. And I think that can be really interesting.

Yeah, yeah, we obviously we obviously do want to, this is not the place to do a giant Griefing versus PvP discussion. We've actually done that on SEL a number of times. It's, but ultimately, just because I can already I can already see the chat now. Hi, Twitch chat. And I can already imagine the YouTube comments later. At the end of the day, I think a baseline here is is that there has to be an alternative, there has to be a solution available to the player who's being attacked in order to turn the tables when there's not a solution when there's not an any an option that's accessible to that player to continue to go on and have a good experience to continue to do the things that they want to do. That's when PvP turns to Griefing when you when you when you when you take away the gameplay experience, not not just make it difficult. That's PvP. But it's a fine line. And I think every you sit here, we could we could march a parade of 500 developers in front of this camera, you'd probably hear a solid 400 different answers about what that is. So for those of you for those of you who are already working up your YouTube videos and stuff saying CIG says this or CIG says that, that's not what's happened now. We're hearing a couple of people express some individual opinions on what the difference is. And again, I promise if you brought 400 people in here, you get 300 different answers. So it's at the end of the day. It's about our job here in this situation, right? And this is me where I'll put on the CIG hat and speak on behalf of CIG here. Our job in those situations is to find alternatives for the for the players who are suffering at the hands of PvP, find ways that they can counter it, provide ways that they can counter it provide alternatives that still provide the same experience other places where they can go other things like turrets and things like like factions that NPC factions that can come in and help defend to find the things that can help when when a player runs out of options. And the only thing they can do is be killed over and over and over again. That's where there's a problem. So I said some friction is intended, but it's all about finding that point.

I mean, yes, the whole concept of asteroid bases is quite expandable and it has lots of potential because it's a very small scale and doesn't need that much development time like a big flagship location. It's not for the initial release right now. So we are focusing more on the free archetypes that we are currently looking into, but there are certainly a lot of potential and stuff we would like to do going forward in the future and expanding on social spaces as well.

Yeah, one thing when we prototyped these, one aspect that we envisioned was for refueling. Like instead of needing a large station, you could have these astro bases like strategically placed around where you could, for example, refuel, rearm. So we definitely envision this as an expandable feature, but yeah, it's something we want to do.

In ISC just yesterday, you know, which was about the more social aspects, not the combat stuff, but we mentioned that, you know, the Pyro system is so much bigger than Stanton, that the distances between planets are such that having to strategically figure out where you can stop and refuel along the way just to get to the outer ends of the solar system is an important part. And that's what you just mentioned is a great kind of follow-up thing. I mean, obviously we've been adding to the Stanton system for years and years and years. We'll continue to add to the Pyro system after the release of 4.0 and that's an easy consideration. You know, well, maybe there's an asteroid-based gas station there and that'll help deal with a stress point along that travel route stuff.

Yeah, I think that's more interesting as well because, you know, we have these gigantic stations, but you know, when you travel down the motorway in the middle of nowhere, you hit a little gas station and I think there's some fun there. There's some different kind of style and aesthetic we could use, a different experience than, you know, having to go into a station and everything that comes with that.

So, the way that the contested zones is, by design, the deeper you go, the better rewards there are to find. And if, for example, you encountered a PvP situation or you yourself were killed by a PvE encounter, you know, getting back to where you were is not so straightforward. It's not just a case of a one, two minute run in if you were, you know, deep within the contested zone. Not to mention that, you know, you'd have to rearm yourself. I mean, you could run in with your, you know, your suit and a pistol, but will you be able to successfully get back to your body if you don't equip yourself well? And similarly, if, you know, in a PvP situation, if you kill someone, you know, you succeed at PvP, you take their stuff. Are they going to pop up a minute later? I doubt it. You know, within the contested zone, not only are there, you know, traps, you know, hazards, lots of PvE enemies that will be respawning. So even if you cleared out and, you know, your path behind you, they're going to be respawning in like you would see in a typical dungeon. You also have exfiltration routes available to you, as Khan said earlier. So, you know, you could decide that that person might be coming back for you again. They might turn up, you know, in five minutes and 10 minutes. They might bring friends. Now's my time to get out. I'm going to head for that exfiltration route, leave, get back to the social space and, you know, take my loot home. So I, this is something that we obviously want to see play out. We want to see how players, you know, in testing. And if any changes are required, we'll look to do that. But I think the design currently will hopefully avoid that.

You can do it solo, but we wouldn't recommend that. Like John just said earlier, these are pretty PvP, PvE centric spaces. Even if you're where there were no players in your vicinity, you'll still face quite a challenge. So our recommendation is to at least go with one friend. We are currently envisioning like a, or in our tests at least, we are going in by four, by five player groups with a recent test also involving another group. So, but yeah, we're seeing it to be able to scale up to 40 players per dungeon.

Now, you said this isn't the first time you said they can be soloed. Is anybody ever actually, are you talking about like, like technically like the way that the inside of a ship can technically catch fire if that, if the temperature outside is hot enough, you think it can technically be done or has there actually been somebody through testing that has managed to just run through the whole thing by themselves?

Did anyone? I don't think I did. Did you John?

It's difficult, but I mean initially, you know, in the earlier sections, I think it's doable. It's, if you're good enough, it's manageable, but we do scale up like the enemies, the DP you get. And the intention is that, yeah, you might need to bring some help.

There's going to be time pressures. Specific locations even have timed gates. So, during these timers, we attract players to be there. Other times, certain things will be locked, so there's no point in going there. So, yeah. There's going to be timed gates. The other added pressure is just the population that exists there, right? Like, you won't be able to fully eliminate the static AI population or the traps that just exist in this space. There's a physical pressure and then there's also the other side with timed gates.

Yeah, that kind of ties back to early discussions about PvP and camping as well. We want the PvE environment to be constantly pushing against the players as well. So, yes, you could find a loot box, loot it, and then try and stay there to see if you can loot it again later, but we would then want the environment to be pushing back on you for respawning enemies, patrolling enemies, to really not allow that.

I think they can make narrative sense in there, right? You can have domesticated Kopions, right, they bring with them. As far as I know, we have variants.

Yeah, we actually have a domesticated variant. Pet Kopion, basically.

They just look feral right now, so that will be more fitting-looking. But I don't think it's a far stretch that they can narratively be around there. But if we have more fitting creatures as well in the future, that's it. But for now, it's what we have, what we are working with, right, as human NPCs and then the Kopions. So we try to utilize what we have to create more variety and more interesting combat with the ingredients that we have.

Manuel voiced interest to have a space cow in an asteroid base.

We don't really talk about it for the rest of the season, but the domesticated Kopions are one of the new aspects that are coming online with 4.0. These are domesticated for NPCs. We're not stealthily adding pet gameplay to players just yet.

Yeah, they're attack dogs, essentially. We have them in contested zones, and the narrative idea is that they have been breeding them and training them, and they will attack you. So as you engage a group of outlaws, there could be a couple of attack Kopions that they have that are charging at you, which I think provides a really interesting gameplay dynamic. You're not just dealing with humanoids now, you also have these fast-moving, low creatures that are attacking your ankles, and it adds a whole new aspect to it.

To go back to what Manuel said, I think we can narratively explain why there are Kopions on the abandoned asteroid bases. I think it would be a shame to remove them just to lessen the encounter variety. And I definitely agree that it would be cool to get those creatures, like the mimic facehugger chest we talked about. These kind of alien creatures that you would expect to see on asteroid bases in the future would be amazing. But for now, I think they do offer something useful.