PTR Changelog 2018-09-12: unboost

[artch]

@orlet said in PTR Changelog 2018-09-12: unboost:

Once you have all skills for specific ship to 5, there is absolutely no matter how much SP you have invested in other ships, and two players, say a 2y/o vs 10 y/o would be perfectly equal and down to players actual skill rather than how much sp they have.

A GCL10 player (~1 y/o) in Screeps can successfully compete with a GCL30 (~3 y/o) player for particular rooms/territory. There are many examples when such players outperformed more developed players both economically and military. Higher GCL helps to control larger territory, but it doesn't give an advantage in direct PvP starting from some point.

Fitting, for one, matters. I've taken down T2 faction fit frigates with a T1 one with T2 fit.

Fitting also requires skills.

[Knightshade]

I never take this argument about "old / new players" as valid. It's a MMO after all. It means players have constant persistent progress, and the game mechanics should make it possible to have progress for years.

Personally I think in this case @Shibdib is reaching here- it reminds me of jokingly arguing that energy should be removed because it gives older players a greater advantage. Let's be honest though- letting people recover some of their boosts is going to benefit pretty much anyone using boosts relatively equally, and boosts are already a major stepping stone for newbies.

That being said, @artch your previous actions don't really agree with the sentiment you express here. In the power creeps PTR you provided a shield against downward abuse by requiring that powers explicitly be enabled in a room by touching the controller before they can be used.

@artch @Shibdib It's important to differentiate between types of advantages- Boosts are, I think, one of the easier advantages to equalize- code is the problem, access to war material not so much.

I want to stress the difference between advantages- Veterans have an advantage in raw war materials, income, cpu management, etc. that yes, they've earned. These can also be overcome, but don't extend this to a blanket statement that it's OK to shaft new players to preserve old ones.

A player should be able to overcome issues with enough skill- veteran players have more skill (and code, which I'd argue is an extension of skill).

I still remember when this was on the website:

I guess we've come a long way since then.

EDIT:

In the interests of olive branching and not going full @tedivm on this, I do like the idea of unboosting. I'm not so certain that killing lab time is really the solution. I feel like some sort of middle ground would be useful- eat some lab time, but not just shutting down the lab entirely.

[Shibdib]

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