DUST Search - Redlines, Blueballs, Escalation, and Tearicide

ZDub 303 wrote:

Arkena Wyrnspire wrote:

ISK is the free to play currency. That doesn't equal 'P2W' as you're not actually paying.
That may be dodging the point slightly, so I'll answer what I think you intended to say.

AUR doesn't grant any advantage that can't be gained through normal gameplay. It shortens the grind, but that's not 'Pay to win'. There's nothing you can do with aurum that you can't do with isk given slightly more time.

Additionally, how does CCP make money from removing the tier system? I'm sure plenty of people on the forums like the idea of CCP not making any money, but they have to monetise something. There isn't any incentive to pay just for a tweak on your dropsuit - the progression goes out the window with techicide.

I agree with your points totally. The current system is 90% of the way there. But I still think tiered dropsuits are pay to win, you arent paying real money but you are just buying power essentially.

I think CCP has the answer already, we need to emulate vehicles.

So... we remove dropsuit tiers.

So for example.

Caldari Logistics Dropsuit 1 unlocks the dropsuit itself. The skill then has a fairly powerful bonus attached to it for that suit... so you can specialize into the suit if you like or you can just unlock it.

I think if we rebalanced the slot and CPU/PG on all suits to some sort of standard and you leave suit bonuses.

For example:

Caldari Logistics Dropsuit:
1. Reduces CPU/PG on equipment by 5% per level
2. (insert whatever their new equipment bonus will) by x% per level
3. Increases CPU/PG by 2% per level.

So now if I go level 1 in this, I have the same suit as a guy who is level 5 in it, but that guy have some nice bonuses that justify the SP expenditure as he specialized into the suit.

If I go level 3 in it, he's now only ~10% more powerful than I am. Which follows the '10% power per tier' we see in weapons.

Then you offer 'Neo' Aurum dropsuits. They require no skill, they are unaffected by passives, and they carry the same benefits as someone who went level 5 in a dropsuit tree.

i.e.
'Neo' Logistics Dropsuit.
1. Reduces CPU/PG on equipment by 25% (NOT per level)
2. (insert whatever their new equipment bonus will) by (5*x%) (NOT per level)
3. Comes with 10% more CPU/PG.


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Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1270	Posted - 2013.08.28 20:08:00 - [1] - Quote I hear too many complaints now that when red-dots drop proto gear, the game ends, therefore we need tiericide....to remove tiers. Plainly, no. You can't just say tiericide is the removal of something. It has to be replaced by something else. You can't just get rid of tiers. In Eve, they more clearly defined roles with the tiericide overhaul. however, I would argue that most people aren't exploring roles that already exist in Dust. Within traditional DPS roles they divided up attack and combat roles, but also still had 'hull tiers'. If you wanted to do more DPS you'd upgrade the size of your ship so that you could do better missions. This doesn't guarantee accuracy and damage application though. 1) There are no hulls in Dust The difference between Dust and Eve is that, in Eve, each hull size changes what 'weight class' you can hit against. As a result, there was room for role definition within that hull size for each race. And since DPS basically directly translated into isk/hr in PvE something that would best accomodate PvP dynamics and PvE had to be done. Higher DPS in Dust DOES NOT translate into higher ISK/hr. Higher tier suits DO NOT translate into higher isk/hr. Finding the best niche role for your specific situation will get you the best isk/hour. You are like a rapidly evolving organism that must find the most perfect place in the ecosystem you are in in order to flourish. *2) There is currently* no PvE in Dust Since PvE is not THE isk faucet in DUST, players are left up mainly to battlefied efficiency to determine profit rates. Increased profit rates comes from a) reduced costs, b)increased WP gain (note: not necessarily damage increase), c) superior squad tactics, and d) what the enemy and you risk. I have arranged those things in order of what you can control the most to the least. To the extent that you can control them, you can learn to farm isk. 3) Dust already has roles. Suit levels aren't tiers, they are investment risks. They are more like hulls in the way they are risked but not used.** In Eve, there is the idea of escalation. There is always a strategic objective (significant, insignificant, material or immaterial) that people may fight over. This could be something as simple as access through a jump-gate, or it could be as complex as an entire null-sec region. Regardless, people fight only with the assets that THEY believe are worthwhile investments WORTHY of losing to keep that objective. The problem with DUST is that TOO MANY people confuse the ideas of BEST and MOST PROFITABLE. The statistically better suit, may be very sub-optimal in terms of risk management. When escalating, knowing your objective you want to accomplish is key. Dust players will basically want to do one of three things. 1) Win 2) Improve/maintain stat score, or 3) make isk. Unless you are the VERY BEST, you cannot possibly believe that accomplishing all three of these objectives is possible. You have to come to grips with sacrificing one or two of these objectives to accomplish the third. The Eve axiom is well known, "Don't fly what you can't afford to lose." You have complained that 'Proto gear is like titans'. But this holds only if titans were a single order of magnitude better than frigates. However, they are many times more powerful than frigates. The "STD:PRO" scale comparison is closest to cruisers and battleships, IMO. Players don't understand proper escalation right now. Tiers aren't the problem. People think bigger equals better and when the red-dots have proto, it's a trump card. You can easily deny the enemy proto-team isk if the most active squad in a match is using only mainly MLT gear. This is a form of blue-balling that eventually pays off. Knowing when a tactical withdrawal and recalculation is better than mindless high-risk engagement. So stop crying, and figure out how to be a real mercenary and get down to business adapting for the situation. Also, please share your tips and tricks to blue-ball the enemy protobears and tryhards so we can all end this needless talk of tearicide when we already have plenty of roles to play with, already.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1270	Posted - 2013.08.28 20:09:00 - [2] - Quote Reserved...
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1276	Posted - 2013.08.28 21:20:00 - [3] - Quote ZDub 303 wrote: gbghg wrote: And as Zdub pointed out in another thread, when you think about tiers are very much a P2W system, by forking out more ISK you are gaining a large advantage over other players, our entire gear system right now is a P2W system. Not the entire system, only dropsuits. Dropsuits are unique in that they provide a MASSIVE power advantage only at the cost of isk. So people who have hundreds of millions of isk can literally pay a meaningless currency for a huge power differential over new players. We don't need tiericide for everything, we just need tiericide for those things that are not balanced by a fitting cost (CPU/PG). This means tank hulls and dropsuits. 1) Please define 'massive' in your terms. In terms of PRO vs. STD gear I see at best a doubling, maybe tripling of eHP. And with DPS, PRO gear gets at best 50% -75% more dps after max skills. 2) Like was mentioned before, there are many things in Eve, for which you can just pay a LOT more and get significantly better gear at the same level. Faction and Officer Webs/scrams are one of those things. That doesn't mean it needs to be rebalanced. So in that sense Officer gear is P2W. I get that what you want are more roles for people to use to counter other people's domination. I believe this will naturally come with 1) more people having more SP and 2) all racial weapons and suits being filled out. Some, like the IRC lurker, Beers, that removing skills altogether and letting everyone have access to everything could be the answer to limiting Protostompling. That's not the only thing he suggested, but it is a suggestion that tries to deal with the 'SP economy' as it has evolved. Where people have currently put their SP limits the ways that they can fight and adapt in battle, as does some frustrating game mechanics making the longer range anti shield weapons less than stellar right now. I think fixing the core game mechanics will go a long way toward letting us feel out the currently existing roles and the cheaply accessed 'hard counters' to a lot of the proto-stomping that is going on. Whatever your abstract concepts of tiericide are, they are just too premature, both from the game design end, and the community maturity end. Other fundamental things need to be dealt with, such as new player experience, skill progression systems, adaptive squad management and communication, and player retention, that will all end up making the community's public match experience much more positive than it currently is.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1276	Posted - 2013.08.28 21:24:00 - [4] - Quote Blueball tactic: So I started the thread, partially for people to share tips at taking down proto squads. One tip: Destroy the supply depots when you see enemy protogear. As much as this pisses me off, preventing the enemy from being able to switch OUT of protogear is one of the main ways to keep them from feeling like they can comfortably leverage it.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1276	Posted - 2013.08.28 21:34:00 - [5] - Quote ZDub 303 wrote: 3x EHP is a massive advantage in a tracker shooter. Can you honestly disagree with that? 3x the EHP at 7-8x the cost. I can agree that that is a pretty big advantage. But there are ways to combat those squads. They aren't trump cards. People are also making the argument, "the rich get richer". My counter argument is one rooted in math... When they bring proto gear, and you can compete at even 50% of the effectiveness of them, or 25% even, YOU WILL VERY LIKELY BE GETTING RICHER FASTER THAN THEM, if you don't stupidly waste your stuff. Their richness should be irrelevant to you. The fact that they are bringing more expensive stuff means that that match is actually possibly going to net you more than a battle where everyone was walking around in 15k isk suits. 10 kills against a PRO team running 150k isk suits is worth 100 kills against a team running 15k isk suits... What you are asking for is the ability to use your ingenuity to always be able to more appropriately pull out a counter to what is being played so that in the majority of circumstances, suit cost is less relevant than a suit fitting it's appropriate role. I'm humbly suggesting that we don't have the roles yet, or the complete ability to adapt thanks to limited suit/weapons and game mechanics. Spending the resources to overhaul this would, again, be premature. back to more blueball tactics plz.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1277	Posted - 2013.08.28 21:46:00 - [6] - Quote Shion Typhon wrote: Beren Hurin wrote: 1) Please define 'massive' in your terms. In terms of PRO vs. STD gear I see at best a doubling, maybe tripling of eHP. And with DPS, PRO gear gets at best 50% -75% more dps after max skills. Seriously?? I mean really? You can't see how having 3x the HP and +75% DPS on the other guy is beyond insane from an FPS design perspective? This isn't some gradual curve either with proto sets being "pay-walled" behind a large number of L5 skills. Dude those numbers only matter if you believe that all engagements are 1v1 clean showdowns. PRO AR squads, can only hit up to 55m effectively. They can be bombarded at that range by mass drivers. If they then divide up their squad to cover all their weapon/range bases then they lower the effectiveness at those closer ranges. Grenade damage is still an equalizer for most suits. Surprise attacks can mitigate a lot of eHP/dps advantage for both PRO/STD users. I simply have not heard what you want besides having everything be roughly equal the same isk, but 3-4x the complexity when it comes to battlefield roles. in order for the community to even make sense of that kind of complexity they would need 3-4x the amount of SP they have right now. The problem YOU need to deal with right now are the people who say, "I'm a caldari proto AR user, and I have the best possible combination. I'm bored and have nothing left to skill into" That's an ignorant attitude, and is more responsible for destroying the chemistry of battlefield 'fairness' than the ability of people to pull out proto.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1278	Posted - 2013.08.28 21:51:00 - [7] - Quote ZDub 303 wrote: Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: ISK is the free to play currency. That doesn't equal 'P2W' as you're not actually paying. That may be dodging the point slightly, so I'll answer what I think you intended to say. AUR doesn't grant any advantage that can't be gained through normal gameplay. It shortens the grind, but that's not 'Pay to win'. There's nothing you can do with aurum that you can't do with isk given slightly more time. Additionally, how does CCP make money from removing the tier system? I'm sure plenty of people on the forums like the idea of CCP not making any money, but they have to monetise something. There isn't any incentive to pay just for a tweak on your dropsuit - the progression goes out the window with techicide. I agree with your points totally. The current system is 90% of the way there. But I still think tiered dropsuits are pay to win, you arent paying real money but you are just buying power essentially. I think CCP has the answer already, we need to emulate vehicles. So... we remove dropsuit tiers. So for example. Caldari Logistics Dropsuit 1 unlocks the dropsuit itself. The skill then has a fairly powerful bonus attached to it for that suit... so you can specialize into the suit if you like or you can just unlock it. I think if we rebalanced the slot and CPU/PG on all suits to some sort of standard and you leave suit bonuses. For example: Caldari Logistics Dropsuit: 1. Reduces CPU/PG on equipment by 5% per level 2. (insert whatever their new equipment bonus will) by x% per level 3. Increases CPU/PG by 2% per level. So now if I go level 1 in this, I have the same suit as a guy who is level 5 in it, but that guy have some nice bonuses that justify the SP expenditure as he specialized into the suit. If I go level 3 in it, he's now only ~10% more powerful than I am. Which follows the '10% power per tier' we see in weapons. Then you offer 'Neo' Aurum dropsuits. They require no skill, they are unaffected by passives, and they carry the same benefits as someone who went level 5 in a dropsuit tree. i.e. 'Neo' Logistics Dropsuit. 1. Reduces CPU/PG on equipment by 25% (NOT per level) 2. (insert whatever their new equipment bonus will) by (5*x%) (NOT per level) 3. Comes with 10% more CPU/PG. I think your math is off here somewhat. And maybe this is where I'm misunderstanding you or something, but right now, it isn't the SP invested into proto suits alone that makes the suit that powerful. It is PRO suits + PRO weapons + PRO fitting skills, right?
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1278	Posted - 2013.08.28 22:07:00 - [8] - Quote ZDub 303 wrote: Beren Hurin wrote: I think your math is off here somewhat. And maybe this is where I'm misunderstanding you or something, but right now, it isn't the SP invested into proto suits alone that makes the suit that powerful. It is PRO suits + PRO weapons + PRO fitting skills, right? Yeah sure totally. Its a drastically compounding effect that makes PRO so much more powerful than STD/ADV suits. By removing dropsuit tiers, its now fitting vs. fitting and not my 650 EHP proto logi vs your 250 EHP MLT assault. We need to remove the slot advantage that higher tier dropsuits have, by normalizing it across the board. Proto modules now become more about slot efficiency at the cost of fitting, and we can make unique dropsuits that have reduction on fitting costs for certain modules so they pay less of a penalty for slot efficiency, thus defining a very loose 'role' for each suit. All I have read from you guys is FIRST remove tiers, THEN "add alternatives". What would result is a VERY boring rock paper scissors game, IMO. What escalation of tiers allows is a horizontal and a vertical RPS game rather than just a horizontal one. I would propose that your design would have a much lower sense of progression. Also, what 'alternatives' within these 'Tech I' options would you want? Would you be talking about a 'combat' assault and an 'attack' assault for each races assault class? The idea of specialization in Eve is significantly different than dust for so many reasons, EWAR, signature and tracking dynamics, damage profiles, time to kill rates, weapon overheating, propulsion jamming, and gang links to name a few. To suggest that you could really find many interesting and distinct lore based alternatives within each racial 'assault' or 'logi' class right now, just wouldn't be possible with what is out there. We'd need EWAR first. What we don't even know is, maybe CCP plans on partially doing what I think you are suggesting. I've wondered why the advanced tier suits are labeled "X/1 series" the naming conventions seem to imply that there could be more than one suit within those levels that are possible. However, they have said that the initial design of applying suit bonuses based on skill and not suit type has been a design flaw, especially when it comes to how logis have been used. If they could easily and cheaply change this, then i think they will be on their way to making a more dynamic role system that undermines the OP'ness of the 'endgame' feel of the current 'dropsuit economy/ecosytem'.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1280	Posted - 2013.08.28 22:28:00 - [9] - Quote Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: Shion Typhon wrote: Beren Hurin wrote: 1) Please define 'massive' in your terms. In terms of PRO vs. STD gear I see at best a doubling, maybe tripling of eHP. And with DPS, PRO gear gets at best 50% -75% more dps after max skills. Seriously?? I mean really? You can't see how having 3x the HP and +75% DPS on the other guy is beyond insane from an FPS design perspective? This isn't some gradual curve either with proto sets being "pay-walled" behind a large number of L5 skills. 75% isn't a realistic number. It's nowhere near realistic - with 5 complex damage mods and proficiency 5, you'll get a little over half that, and if you do that you certainly won't have the HP advantage. The main problem is the HP bricking. And my points above, indirectly albeit, is that HP bricking works now because hit detection is off, and most fights are at close range. HP bricking (especially if shields started having a regen penalty) is that bricking comes at the expense of regen. Which means you can ONLY be effective so often. So while some player may be able to tank like a beast, that tactical advantage will only be there for a very short amount of time. Fix aiming, fill out weapon damage types for different ranges, and bricking becomes less relevant, and other meta strategies (regen, hackgriefing, scorched earthin (mines everywhere), logistics teams, etc) begin to matter more. Roles will fix themselves when mechanics fix themselves.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1282	Posted - 2013.08.29 01:28:00 - [10] - Quote Rage Racer wrote: Beren Hurin wrote: I hear too many complaints now that when red-dots drop proto gear, the game ends, therefore we need tiericide....to remove tiers. [...] So stop crying, and figure out how to be a real mercenary and get down to business adapting for the situation. Also, please share your tips and tricks to blue-ball the enemy protobears and tryhards so we can all end this needless talk of tearicide when we already have plenty of roles to play with, already. First of all, this is not EVE. ISK/hour means **** in Dust. AFKing is more efficient in generating ISK than actually playing the game. But there is fun/hour. And a new player getting stomped by people who just use their protogear in pubmatches to increase their damn KDR sure does not have a lot fun. And just because your damn protogear costs a lot of ISK and you probably will not make a profit when you die once or twice in a pubmatch - which you won't anyway if you at least have the slightest clue what you are doing - is not a good enough reason to feel entitled to roflstomp new players 23/7. You are not a part of the team, you are a part of the problem. I'm sick and tired of listening to the same reasoning over and over again. And it all comes from people who are too afraid to admit that they'd suck balls if they did not use their protogear all the time. Do away with the tiers! Having plain better versions of suits is ridiculous. Give them different roles instead of plain more slots and CPU/PG. This will make the game more interesting and more newb friendly at the same time. Not sure what you are reading here, but I'm not the one whining about the isk/hour problem of protogear. i'm not the type that takes it into pub matches, because of the very reason that, as a logi, it is rarely profitable.