Rogatien Merc
Red Star.
EoN.
703
   |
Posted - 2013.08.15 15:08:00 -
[1] - Quote
I am le bored. /shrug... wall of text incoming:
Fall - Winter 2013: Still slogging through bug fixes and 'core' gameplay issues like aiming, framerates, and dropsuit movement speeds, CCP gets a nod with patch 1.4 of the Uprising Release. Armor is balanced to shields and continued bug fixes are appreciated. Patch 1.5 results in marginal improvements to dropship hitpoints and maneuverability, with swarm launchers doing reduced damage to shields and forge guns getting a reduced optimal range with falloff damage. Tankers are given a slight buff to powergride, an inherent resistance to anti-vehicle grenades, and are deemed 'good to go' by the majority of the community. AV-grenade and proximity mine hit detection improvements combined with LAV collision damage nerfs results in a drastic decrease in LAV usage. The infantry armor buff of 1.4, however results in unforseen (by CCP) exacerbation of omni-tanking and explosive-weapon trends. In 1.6, CCP increases powergrid requirements for armor plates while buffing heavy and armor-tanking races PG; a minor nerf to Mass Drivers results in the "Uprising" expansion being remembered down the road the "Uprising of the Heavy" due to the class's increased popularity and CCP's continued efforts to balance game mechanics going into early 2014 and peak user numbers remain flatlined in the four-to-six thousand range.
The meta slowly shifts toward heavies with logi support vs. tanks and marginilazed assaults finding themselves speccing into weaponry with greater ranges and more people spawn in with light-weapon AV at the beginning of battle. Commando suits remain marginalized due to a lack of slots, resulting in the addition of a low-slot in 1.7 and their increased usage as a long-range anti-sentinel + light AV platform. Regular bug fixes (hit detection, terrain glitches, etc.) combined with changes to radar mechanics results in a signfiicant improvement to the utility of scouts, though their survivability remains low and few realize their strengths due to a preference for solo play. The continued necessity to concentrate on core issues results in continued delays in content publication. At the behest of the economic team, Team True Grit puts a tourniquet on the Planetary Conquest ISK fountain through some sort of district clone decay and possible decoupling of clone and isk generation. CCP subsequently (temporarily but largely) abandons end-game PC content in favor of content that is more accessible to a larger audience and Team True Grit successfully iterates on team-queued Faction Warfare several times making it the place most serious corporations engage. Two new sockets and another map variation are released between 1.4 and the end of the year. The EvE link and market remains untouched, though new player experience slowly improves through introduction of a brief tutorial in late winter as CCP *again* realizes this area remains a critical gap in their functionality. The back and forth of aiming mechanics continues to be ironed out as several updates result in 'too good' performance for KB/M and are subsequently un-buffed.
2014: With fanfest on the horizon, CCP makes a major content push to fulfill promises made at last year's fanfest, and pushes the remainder of expected weapons, equipment, and dropsuits in Uprising iterations between January and April. Fanfest arrives and as promised, MTACs are hinted to arrive late 2014 in the "Steel Rain" expansion; there is a shadowy 25 second trailer, but development to date is minimal. CCP announces the delivery of increased "EvE Link" through the ability for any EvE pilot to earn ISK from mission agents in HISEC by dropping orbital bombardments into pub matches. This does not actually get implimented until August. It is exploited, removed, and re-introduced in December. The other big fanfest announcement is the long awaited (huh?)... Medium Armored Vehicle (small turret, semi-fast, holds driver + gunner + 4 passengers in an enclosed vehicle). Woohoo! No one really cares, as everyone is excited about market development. Player-to-Player trading similar to eve "trade with..." functionality is announced at fanfest, "and yes, that will include boosters for ISK" ::cue huge cheers::. Also, a port to PS4 is on the way, and PS3 and PS4 players will be able to play together seamlessly in current battle modes (just improved graphics and performance on the PS4). Finally fanfest announces a new capture the flag game mode where an object must be run from a center point and held at home point. Scouts are excited, but deployable shields and stealth modules throw incredible imbalances into the mix requiring nerf after nerf.
A marketing push (PSN front page for a week) coinciding with Fanfest 2014, the "Steel Rain" teaser, and PSN community burnout from initial PS4 releases results in a spike in peak users up to an all time high in the low 10,000s. This slowly dwindles as promised "Steel Rain" release is pushed from an August to October release date, and imbalances from early-2014 content releases require renewed balance efforts through May. Quiet bug fixes, however, have made the game much smoother and the PS4 release goes quite well; a few vocal PS2 players return to Dust and are fully on board due to quite-improved Faction Warfare mechanics.
"Steel Rain" is released, but playing conservatively with fear of imbalances, MTACs are introduced with an entirely new skill tree (neither vehicle nor dropsuit skills apply) and are prohibitively expensive. With 1x Small Turret and 1x Heavy Turret weapon slot, MTACs perform the role of "super heavy" and are extremely slow. They are dominated by tanks at close range, but the ability to dual-wield forge guns gives them great forge sniper as well as anti-infantry potential. Interestingly, the MAV becomes a an MTAC hunter due to its mobility and enclosed gunner slot. PVE is released to a limited extent, as drones play on the 'steel rain' title. |
Rogatien Merc
Red Star.
EoN.
703
|
Posted - 2013.08.15 15:09:00 -
[2] - Quote
PVE is a squad-queueable instant battle with no solo option; with no significant payout advantages, most abandon it after a few weeks.
2015: Planetary Conquest is left to a state similar to that of release until early 2015 at which time Team True Grit begins several radical changes as part of a new 'focus shift'; an aging vet community and skill point inflation has caused faction warfare to become claustrophobic but the mechanic is the seed of innovation. Fanfest's big announcement is a renewed focus on large-scale politics. Faction Warfare eve-side is expanded into Molden heath, and a second PC region in the Gallente/Caldari warspace is opened up. District control will play a large role in EvE-side FW, and new orbital bombardments (Medium/large gun EMP ammunition that will shut a null canon down for 60 seconds, etc.) are instituted to iterate on the EvE link. Fanfest announces the hint of eve-side manufacturing in a joint Dust/EvE dev-team keynote; by now a persistent market has been instituted.
Planetary Interaction provides the earliest vector for Eve-to-Dust player-to-player contracts, as pilots are able to put up public contracts to clear drone infestations from planets in order to achieve increased production from PI in Nullsec. There will be various tiers with both squad and team-queueing, and the first 48-member teams are instituted to fight against massive drone infestations (think "Incursion"-level PVE in EvE). The expanded teams signals to PS3 users that they will soon be locked out of the game. In late 2015, the contract system is expanded to include remote contracts to attack any PI facilities in system "X". New maps and sockets provide new content for dust players, and existing PVE code allows improved dynamic battlefields with the ability to call in drones to defend or attack points on the map; 'drone deployment' may require eve-side support. The sov holder of the system will be notified 24-hours in advance and is able to place a defense contract for these facilities, thus inaugurating the Nullsec era of Dust PVP. |