Star Citizen Has A Bit of a Marketing Problem | It's Called 'Combat'

Between every global event, most advertisements, and the role of so many ships being released, combat seems to always find its way into Star Citizen despite the game being about so much more. Why is this? Let's look at the history of the project and the newest global event releasing in 3.24.

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Relevant Links:

ToC:
00:00 Star Citizen Update Trailers
01:26 Combat Marketing
02:23 Why So Much Combat?
07:57 Cargo WEN!?!

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#starcitizen #blockaderunner #2024

[SpaceTomato]

Xenothreat, Siege of Orison, Blockade Runner, Jumptown, I think we are ready for something that focuses on the other parts of Star Citizen. Not saying "no danger allowed", but there's a lot they could do with what's already there.

[broggyr]

As a 'peaceful player'... thank you for this video.

[Tillman]

The biggest laugh/eye-roll I have had in years was their recent show when they said 'we just had a big combat event, so we wanted to do a trading/cargo focused one, so here is the blockade runner event.'

So...the TRADING event has:

Assault the pirates to get to/out of a station;
Run down the pirates that stile the cargo and disable/destroy them;
Get the cargo;
Assault the pirates to get to/out of the station and unload.

So...no TRADING. Yes to cargo, but by that logic the Xenothreat one could be called the same, becuase we had to get that cargo to Jerico.

The things that have had me so excited about SC wasn't ever the combat. That's nice, I liked it in WC, Privateer and Freelancer, but I'm an explorer at heart, and some trade/combat with that is cool.

For my KS pledge I got the Freelancer, something that, at the time, was touted as being one of the most modular ships and an explorer with trade capabilities, while being able to hold its own, bur tis not a com at ship. Perfect, bargained and done. Cutlass was the more combat ship and dedicated.

Fast forward a decade and the Cutty is one fo the most versatile ships out there while the Lancer has largely been forgotten and outclassed by a half dozen other ships. Exploration is still a nothing-burger, and trade is, for me, less appealing than ever becuase I don't want to waste 20 min loading and unloading stuff when some camper can just pop me and gets no real repercussion for it.

I may be out millions and months of gameplay, the other guy gets a half hour of mining while his mates pick the bones and send him a cut. Or he did it for the lulz and goes to bed, to be free in the morning.


So yeah, I think they have focused far to much on combat, while letting everything else get cast in its shadow/tainted by it.

Watch, real exploration is going to be something like 'oh! You found a never before seen jump point! But pirates somehow!'

[Dracounguis]

Because making PVP events is easy. You set up a map, a reason to be there, no challenging NPC AIs to program, and the players make up the rest. Imagine how much harder it would be to make hours worth of PVE missions like MMOs do! Not to mention make a coherent storyline to connect them all.

[supernavy]

The top comment of the penultimate ISC about the Blockade runner event actually says it all: "We wanted to make a cargo event because most of our events are really heavy on combat. So we made an event that's also really heavy on combat."

[Dracounguis]

Just like anytime they mention salvage or mining events, it's just an excuse for PVP.

[TyrHeimdal]

As someone who's wholeheartedly focused on PVP first and PVE second - I fully think you hit the nail on the head here. There's so many games out there already focused on combat. People out there in the verse doing their thing is exactly what SC needs. With the nominal risk of someone like me pilfering all their stuff. My hope is that there is higher focus on exploration to chart space, rather than everything just being fully open and braindead out of the box. Discovering cool things, new places and analyzing them, uploading it to data storage on my ship and selling it for a profit is cool game loops which can shift the focus on doing menial tasks that are lackluster just to get money to buy yet another ship.

[rwentfordable]

Wasn't exploration the activity that over 50% of players are most looking forward when they did that questionnaire years ago?

[RN]

It's because PVE content (whether combat or peaceful) requires functional AI and servers that aren't bugged/broken/hopelessly desynched. CIG hasn't been able to deliver that so far in year 12.

[hooperj]

It annoyed me a bit as a new player that several missions that sounded at first like they should be non-combat (the one to deploy probes, and the ones to investigate wrecks, for instance), were worded so as to make it clear that they had combat elements. It just seemed so unnecessary. For a new player, flying somewhere, deploying some probes, and flying back is already a learning experience. Why add anything more? A a result, a few months later I still haven't done any of those missions.

[durtyred]

In short...

I genuinely don't recall ever seeing a chill, peaceful event. They're all the same.... Hey guys we did this event of cat and mouse... we lured the PvE players in so they could get f*cked by the PvP players. Fun times, right?? 😃

And we'll just keep rinsing and repeating this method because thats the only playstyle that should exist. The hunter and the hunted. We don't do peaceful gameplay here. It's not fair to the PvP players that you find a peaceful gaming session after work. We want you fighting tooth and nail 24/7. And if you aren't, you deserve nothing.. ☺️

[Komotz]

Yeah, SC needs something other than combat events. Elite Dangerous does this by providing two options during a 'Community Goal', one is combat and the other isn't.

[Dracounguis]

I would like to see facilities designed like working facilities and not PvP arenas. They can't keep harping upon 'realism' for so many other things but then have blatantly game-y things like that. Pick a lane! You making a simulator or a game!

[Farrister]

Some really good points. I suspect that making everything show combat is more to do with marketing psychology, and what makes people spend money, but I think the point you make about signalling what Star Citizen is going to be all about is an important one.

[bperras]

The community's feeling of anti-combat-focus is the exact reason why the Argo MPUV won ship of the year. It's the only ship that doesn't have ANY weapons and CIG completely missed the point that we want to see more ships without weapons and more non-combat play opportunities. The entire universe of Firefly/Serenity happened aboard a smuggling ship that had zero weapons and the best adventures. That's the gameplay style than many people want to experience. Currently there is little to no benefit for not having weapons because they focus so heavily on combat. They need more ships that have weapon slots that don't, by default, have weapons equipped so players can add weapons, if they want, but the ship can be marketed as non-combat.

[Zeoran]

Im actually really sick & tired of everything being focused on combat. It feels like that's the ONLY thing the devs actually care about and the only thing they test internally.
Which is why we got Master Modes before they even bothered to fix docking or the Hull-C.

[Andrew-pjkb]

I have zero interest in PVP or pyro.
Would love more industrial game play.

[aesericho]

Even in the Hull C commercial there's combat. A strickly heavy cargo ship flies through an active war zone for some reason. CIG is unable to even imagine any loop without combat in it in one form or another

[jasonp.]

Inspect and repair type low level missions around the exterior of stations and cities would be something I'd welcome. As a gentle introduction to engineering gameplay I'm imagining a power substation relay that has knocked out a section of city or station. Take the mission to find the malfunctioning node, swap it out, and have a dual payment in UEC as well as seeing that part of the city/station lights come back online with radio traffic saying thanks. Later 'heist' style gameplay could similarly knock out security cameras, power, or comms networks on the exteriors of stations where a bounty is hiding. Would also liven up the stations with little ships buzzing around with maybe some nice welding light effects associated with repair.

[Charlie_Echo]

You said a non-combat dynamic event "wouldn't be as exciting" but I'd be way more excited about that than I am about Blockade Runner. I just do not care about combat, and I'm longing for the day when non-combat careers feel like part of a real, changing world with events that affect them, rather than just the exact same loop over and over again.