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Suggested Changes to the Injury System

rekurzionrekurzion Member Posts: 697 Arc User
I've never quite understood the injury system. On Normal when I die I respawn with perfect health. On any other difficultly when I die I respawn with some reduced stat - which can be healed immediately to get me back to perfect health. It's a wash. So what's the point? As long as I keep a stock of heals I never have to deal with them in any meaningful way. The heals themselves are pretty much free as pickups (at least when playing normal, which seems odd as well).

The other thing that has always bugged me is the closer and closer I (or an NPC) gets to death I can still operate weapons/skills/abilities as though I was completely healthy. That is, if I drop an NPC to 5% health they can still assault me with their primary alpha attack at full strength and fly at top speeds. Unless I'm missing something here - other than the visual "OMG our nacelles are on fire" there is no real effect to my ship.

I would like to see a change in the injury system where injuries take place during battle. You would still need to gather repair materials to fix the injury. One example would be if I'm hit with a strike that counts towards a certain percentage of my ships HP that would cause an injury WHILE PLAYING. Like a torpedo thats hit bare hull and does 25% damage would cause some kind of persistent injury which would need to be addressed. I don't think it's possible to receive a crit on target subsystems but you if you did add that feature then a crit hit with say target weapons would add an injury to the weapon subsystem which needed to be fixed even after the debuff wore off. You would probably need to have extremely low crit rates that couldn't be buffed that much or at all to make it feasible but it would add another element to battles.

This would be in place for NPC's as well.

In addition the repair materials would take time to work...say 10 seconds. Scale them to the level of the injury. This would mean if the injury was serious enough you would need to briefly escape battle to repair the ship. Even more, if you applied the heal during battle it would take longer to work than out of battle.

If you were to die with the injuries still applied you still have the injuries so in that way it wouldn't change.

I'm just suggesting the injuries actually have an affect during battle.
Post edited by rekurzion on

Comments

  • edited February 2015
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  • ralphgraphiteralphgraphite Member Posts: 628 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    I've always thought that the "Crew Alive" mechanic was supposed to provide kind of what you're asking for. As your crew is injured and then dies, hull repair is supposed to take longer, Boarding Party (as useful as it is) stops working, etc.

    Unfortunately, Crew Alive seems to have very little bearing on gameplay. As a side effect, consoles that would keep crew alive are considered next to useless.

    Been that way since long before I started though, so doubt they'll ever change it so that your crew has any bearing on the battle. There'd be riots if there were ever consequences to killing all your crew!

    The current injury system works to trick newer players, sometimes. I had a toon that I had accidentally left on Elite for story mode after DR. I had commpletely forgotten, and didn't realize what was going one until had been killed on the ground a few times and injuries were stacking up. Didn't have a critical regenerator, so had to finish the mission with an injury. It certainly affected my gameplay from then on in.

    Perhaps injuries should only be fixable after the encounter has completed? Would give some incentive to ensuring that you don't explode or die...
  • iconiansiconians Member Posts: 6,987 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    That's also how I thought the death penalty system was supposed to work.

    You die, a portion of your crew is permanently gone.

    You request shuttles using Energy Credits to warp into your location and replenish dead crew. Or you go to a starbase and get said crew replenished for free.

    You know you are about to die, and instead of risking the energy credit loss, you activate Self-Destruct. Death penalty avoided, the crew lives. And you get an extra-damaging explosion.

    If you allow your incapacitated crew to return to normal, you get less of a death penalty. This introduces a 'time out' period that allows you to contemplate how to tackle the enemies next. Continuing to go in guns-a-blazing with most of your crew in the orange only makes the death penalty worse when you die.
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  • rekurzionrekurzion Member Posts: 697 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    valoreah wrote: »
    Gotta be honest here, if I have to stop what I'm doing to pop up the status window to repair a critical injury mid-fight, I won't be happy.

    I agree with you. it would be nice if some of those features (like swapping pre saved ship setups) could be a button presented on the main UI. Or maybe a smaller window you pop up, click a button (or heal in this case) that isn't so disruptive to gameplay.
  • rekurzionrekurzion Member Posts: 697 Arc User
    edited February 2015
    iconians wrote: »

    You request shuttles using Energy Credits to warp into your location and replenish dead crew. Or you go to a starbase and get said crew replenished for free.

    You know you are about to die, and instead of risking the energy credit loss, you activate Self-Destruct. Death penalty avoided, the crew lives. And you get an extra-damaging explosion.

    wait...are you saying this is in the game or you adding your suggestion? I've never seen this...
  • edited February 2015
    This content has been removed.
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