For a while now, we have heard complaint after complaint that Rumble 3 and Rumble Mumble are far too hard. These complaints are justified, but little had be done to rectify the problem. Hopefully, a useful solution has been found though, and I will detail it in this post.

Rumble 3 and Rumble Mumble have been beefed considerably from their original states, mainly to stop twinking (the process of 'ubering' a low level char). So, they have been beefed time and time again, band-aids for the twinking problem. Here is how we fix this.

First, all the Rumble Galaxies get a ship level limit (similar to the Zebucart Arena which has a level limit of 0). Rumble will be limited to ships level 10 and under, Rumble 2 will be limited to ships level 14 and under, Rumble 3 will be limited to ships level 17 and under, and Rumble Mumble will be limited to ships level 19 and under. This means you can no longer call your high level friends with a level 20 ship in to do the job for you (you can however call your high level friend in if he has the proper ship tech).

Once we have eliminated the fact that someone with a much higher level ship can simply walk in and solo the entire place for lower level players, we can finally work on proper balance for the galaxies. Each Rumble will be tuned to 3-5 players (including a healer). This number is open to some debate, but we feel that tuning the difficulty to that many people is best. This means that it will be much easier for a newer player to get their piloting levels up, no more waiting in line for a higher level player to do it for you.

Level locks are staying on the gates even with this change, as it helps pace the game and combats even worse twinking.

Caelestis

I think this is a step in the right direction

Yeah, good idea.

However, I would change one more thing. Change the system of commodities to a system of Pilot Credits. Pilot Credits would not need picking up and would be awarded to either a single player or to a squad. If your in a squad, everyone's Pilot Credits are put into one pot and are used up once someone goes to get piloting. It makes coordinating things a lot easier and saves time as people don't have to sift through all the debris.

Other than that, sounds great.

remember that time when zwi00 soloed RM in his izer and got me p20 (as I scooped commodsd in my SD wing4)?

well, for doing that, JeffL beefed MF AI cuz he thought RM was to easy that way

ceal, this is a perfect soultion to RM, but can you un-beef MF AI now?

If you re balance the Rumbles properly, it should be nice. It seems a bit silly that you "need" people in tech 20s to do Mumble.

I think there is a better way. Rather than limiting the level of the ships limit the Piloting level of the players trying to enter the various Rumbles.

Players with Pilot 12 or greater would be locked out of Rumble, etc. This would prevent a P-20 / DM-20 from going into Rumble in a Bulk II for example. For example it would also allow a player with P-11 to use a tech level 11 ship to gain P-12.

The Rumbles must always be a dead end galaxy.

Move any secondary skills training to different galaxies. Ex., Crazy Glue in Rumble.

The thing is..How is a p20 dm-20 in a bulk2 better then a p19 dm-20 in a bulk2? he isnt.. The ONLY thing is tech 20 ship So lock the tech 20's out.

You responded too quickly... I was making my point in an update

How they are now it is impossible to do Mumble without a tech 20 ship, they would have to be nerfed considerably to make it so tech 19 ships can do it.

the rumbles will need to be made easier then, since there are no tech19 shm ships powerfull enough to heal plp... and a porp+ ShM definately cant heal a guy beeing attacked by a swarm of MF picks

you guys are just repeating what he already said will happen...

Oh and I love this idea, ive always thought it should be this way

oh and it may effect the ability to get some items only gotten in teh rumbles like slave research and berserker mode

Ahem...

Thummmper is teh l33t haxxors imo now.

With respect, I hate the idea. Limiting the tech-lvl of ships that can enter rumble is horrible. Instead of making it easier, it only makes it much MUCH harder. Last uni Thummper and I tried to do r3, i was in a basil, he was in a shrimp. We are bolth dms. We bolth had good sheilds. Thummper got WTFPWNED asoon has he jumped in, and roughly 30 tricks of his died. I didnt even go in to try and clear it, because if he got pwned (and he had a better sheild then me), what chance would I have? Somehow, thummper and I can clear out a gal with rosies, BG's, you name it. We even took down a pick. But we coulden't even dent r3. Now when 2 DMs who bolth have DM 20 and decent sheilds can take out a pick but not a few MF slumbers and SawX's, you know you have a problem. Somehow I think that the AI in rumbles are harder then their regular AI counterparts. If you want to nerf the rumble 3 and mumble, then make it so that not only you get like, 5 secs of grace before you get pwned when you jump in, but lower the AI damage abit. Now, mumble is hardly solo able. I remember when I got p20 (this uni actually). Their were 2 ShMs, 2 MF's, like 2 or 3 snipers and a speed demon (I think). Not to mention qu4tum joined in and helped us with 4 gremming slaves that do considerable damage. And ppl STILL ended up dieing. With 9 combat ships it still took like 1-2h. DONT put in a restriction on the tech of ship, unless your ready to nerf it to the point where about 3 players can do it, all of which DONT have p20. So either leave-as-is or nerf it, but dont affect what players can do it because that would, more or less, make it the same difficultly for ppl as it is now. My suggestion, nerf the damage, increase the drop rate of the commods and make the spawn rate slighly longer so your not constantly under fire with only 2-3 second intervels between waves of AI.

This sounds like a good idea to me. The new tech 19 Iq ships with their crazy resists will make RM too easy though.