RAID Phase 1 Upgrade

Been a while since I peeked under the hood of the RAID’s. They have been left in limbo for a while now and been only really useful to those that knew exactly how to ‘play the RAID’ and the ‘organised’ captains. Hopefully today ushers in a new era for RAIDs.

I wont go on too much as later today (after a much deserved Tea Break) I will post a Primer for the RAIDs in their Changed State. For now I will post the actual changes and proposed additions.

Primary Change – ENTRY
The new entry system is ONLY interested in what your carrying in the way of Weapons or Damage Boosters. Damage boosters would be things like Targetters, Farnsworths or Hammer Reactors.

It will then allow entry based on comparing these figures. Previously whilst it used Boosters IN combat it did not take them into account on entry. This has now been changed.

So Entry is no longer based on HP & Weapons, Just Damage and boosters.

PLEASE NOTE: The calculations take into account BOTH wep 1 and wep 2 slots. This is because we / I intend to add methods for players to Buff other players in combat playing a healing role, along with select other toys and functions. So if you don’t want to have both count, remove the weapons from the slot you won’t be firing.

COMBAT – Based on Threat
During testing it’s been called many things but the damage inside a RAID now is based on how much THREAT you produce towards the RAID. So if you produce a LOW threat the RAID will respond accordingly. If you produce a HIGH threat, it will respond accordingly.

THIS ALLOWS : For ANYONE to enter ANY RAID. Choose the Weapon for the task at hand, add as much bulk to your ship as possible and head on it. No longer will a small player with a 120 gun be blasted with 5,000 Crit Damage.

Overall Fire-power for the RAID’s has been toned down somewhat. Along with this, RAID missiles whilst still nasty are not as bad as they were.

TIME TO KILL VS SOLO KILLS
A lot of testing has been done this last week by staff (thanks Guys!) We have managed to get the RAIDS so they are non ‘Solo’ and yet with enough players easy enough to take down in groups.

We fully expect RAID’s be somewhat easier for you ‘RAID Professionals’ but the key here was to allow ANYONE entry without being slapped around like a wet fish. We will of course monitor activities and players progress and adjust should we feel its necessary.

Matrix Use
Using matrix’s in combat will no longer be penalised with an instant reply attack. Basically you can think of it as taking a step back to reload and then stepping back into the battle. The RAID will NOT see this action as a threat so won’t respond.

When I add ‘Player to Player’ Buffing the system will see some of this as a threat based mostly over HP repaired and who you repair. But that’s to come later.

CHANGE TO XP
In many other games a Boss Mob or Large RAID boss will reset it’s stats if left alone for a Period of time. Nullifying any damage it has taken previously. So we are going to follow this method. Essentially your Damage for ‘that RAID’ is counted UNTIL the RAID FULLY REGEN’s. At that point it is deemed the RAID has managed to win that round so to speak. All Damage against the RAID up to that point is removed from the records.

This means that players who attack a RAID need to be fairly sure they are going to kill it or at least return to it BEFORE it fully heals. The Larger the RAID the more time it takes to fully re-heal and as long as it doesn’t reach 100% HP your Damage will remain intact. Some of the current RAID’s on Live can take a long time indeed to fully regen whilst smaller ones will regen in short order.

I think this is far more realistic and in keeping with how we do standard combat. It allows players to grab three friends and go Kill a RAID but it doesn’t allow single lone players to Farm XP and get rewarded when OTHERS do the actual hard work.

We have added the Damage counted against the RAID by you on the Entry Screen. This will show either a Number (your total damage so far) or Zero. It may be you have not attacked this RAID yet or the RAID has Regenerated to Full Health.

REGEN ON EXIT
For now this has been completely removed. This will stop smaller players making an issue for Heavy Hitting groups. So the RAID will no longer have a chance to REGEN on you or any one else exiting. It’s done only by the Ticker Scripts. This change alone will make a big difference.

RAID STATUS PAGE
We have added a RAID Status page to your Bottom Left pull out tab in game. This opens in a new window and you can refresh it at any time. This is an initial iteration of this page and it will go through many upgrades and additions as time goes on.

LASTLY AND I’M SURE VERY IMPORTANTLY!
Prior to rolling out these changes this morning I took a snap shot of the RAID Damage Table. This was because as SOON as I rolled out the new code it Zapped ALL your combat damage stats as all the RAIDs had regenerated over night.

During the next few days I will calculate the XP and Credits you WOULD have got under the old system and add them to your account. So you will have Lost Nothing.

Have fun guys and if in doubt ask a staff member – or wait for my Primer

Coops