This is a very interesting and exciting idea though a few questions come to mind...
For one, will this equal level of skills also include the same HP level for all avatars? I mean will it truly be 100% equal with zero advantages of any gear or skills?
And another questions is how much personal skill (reflexes and strategies) will come into play. No offense to entropia but the gameplay and FPS element is not exactly as responsive or skill based as other FPS's. I mean, the game wasn't designed with the same FPS controls and tact as a game like Overwatch for example.
For starters you're dealing with random damage ranges as opposed to a set damage guaranteed with each shot dependent primarily where the hit lands. In EU your damage might be 20 - 40 randomly regardless where you hit the person with additional "misses/evades" calculated and output by the system even when you've shot directly at (and "hit") something... In most every other FPS the damage done is the same for each shot weighed by where the person is hit IE more damage when hitting the head VS the foot. And when a hit connects it CONNECTS, the only way to miss or had the shot evaded is if you don't actually shoot the person or they move out of the way. It doesn't come up and say... yeah well you did technically hit this thing buuuuuut we're gonna just say you missed or it evaded cause ya know, EU is dynamic. Completely ruins the elements of a persons "reflexes and skills" when the system throws in random misses when your shot actually connected.
Hit boxes are another question mark. As of now the hit boxes in EU are kinda messed up. Some things have boxes that are too big and some that are too small. And there's very few cases in the game where a persons reflexes in jumping out of the way of some type of shot or fireball even come into play even then that mechanic is hardly polished to the level of other FPS games.
You've also got things like select next target, auto aiming and auto use that come into play as well which need to be considered. Still not sure if this is going to be something more PVP focused or like some sort of competitive time trial based instances.
But either way, it begs the question as to with us all using the same gear and skills will it only ever boil down to 98% of the result simply being the luck of getting high rolls on your damage and/or crits to kill things faster? With the remaining 2% being your personal skill and reflexes to maybe shave 1/2 a second off rounding a corner a little tighter or finding a way to glitch through a wall to save some time getting from A to B or trying to line up all mobs into a chain for back to back killing with little time in between going from one mob to the next?
What comes to mind are the game speedrunners surfacing that use any possible exploit/glitch to shave even 1 or 2 frames of an animation to save a second off of a run. lol
In any case, it's a very interesting idea that I HOPE is executed properly. And I hope that this is a baby step towards solving a lot of the issues in EU and making it more sustainable game.
Cause you know, new stuff is great but don't forget to finish all the other "little" side projects you started many years ago:
- Taming / Pets (the buff system is severely under developed)
- Stables
- Space (additional vehicles, mining, trade routes, mobs, missions...etc)
- Improved item information (show actual decay...etc)
- Paypal withdrawals
- Countless incomplete mission chains
- Gardening
- Land plots / buildings
- Voting/political system
- Hangers
- Marketing (time to get some real marketing in place rather than crappy "mature MMO" banner ads via retargeting.)
- Affiliate program (if you're not going to market the game at least reward the community for doing the job for you)
- Improved support staff (I've still got a support ticket going on a month with no response even with weekly requests for a followup)
- Creature control system (yet another thing that's seriously under developed)
- Harvesting profession (and another massively under developed idea)
- The bazillions of reports bugs, issues and improvements put forth by the community
I love Entropia as many others and we need to see some REAL prioritization and movement on the countless things that have been promised and barely started.
Loves and kisses XOXOX
- Entropia player for over 10 years.
who knows. If the simulator includes capture the flag or king of the hill kind of games It could be awesome
