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Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 8 post(s) |
Cross Atu
Conspiratus Immortalis
1680
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Posted - 2013.09.07 08:17:00 -
[1] - Quote
CCP Eterne wrote:Hello DUSTies, DUSTettes, and those in between. The DUST 514 Community Team has been running events for several months now and we've been monitoring your feedback in threads across the forums, but now we want to collect your thoughts in one location. We want to hear what you've liked about previous events, what you've hated about them, and what you want to see in the future. Just a few ground rules to start off:
- Please try to be constructive. If you really, really hated, say, the Templar Manhunt we want to know that. But we also want to know WHY.
- Similarly, if you really liked an event, we want to know why as well.
- Shoot for the moon with your suggestions for future events, but be aware that certain things aren't feasible in the short or long term. If you really, really want an event where you get to fight against a 60-meter tall monster you can tell us, but it's probably not going to be something that comes any time soon.
- Conversely, ideas that utilize current game mechanics are the best, because we can do them without asking for extra game development. Of course, if everyone likes an idea that requires development time, it gives us a good case to ask for it.
Lore in events is great, it can drive the combat and provide context for the goals of the event.
However the catch is that the lore needs to be more than superficial or it gets dismissed, thus serving no role, or feels arbitrary which is a detraction.
The Quafe event didn't have a huge helping of lore but it matched the event, it was more simple and it worked.
The Caldari prime event had good lore content and great back up, in part because the 'lore' in question was both historical and real time. This mixture, as well as connecting action in both games, is ideal.
The Templar Manhunt was fairly solid in theme, but tech issues shortened it and there was a bit less game side sophistication than the lore seemed to call for. Another example is the current 'boot camp' event. I love SP events and in that light it is already a win but the context and story of it is totally absent within the actual game. As recently as today I've spoken with active players who hadn't even heard the event was happening much less knowing anything about it, that's something which wouldn't happen with more in client feedback, hopefully some of that being in match as well.
A FW event of some kind which happened on maps, or required the use of weapons/gear, that emphasized the theme/flavor of each empire would be a lot of fun (and a great way to kick off the use of LP in Dust, hint, hint  ).
Events such as Mordu's Challenge but with a direct ISK and/or SP, preferably "and", payout tied to each challenge accomplishment and then a 'bonus' for completing them all, would be great. Providing rewards that are useful to everyone is an important aspect, the alternative to which is providing rewards that are very clearly linked to the event theme. The later idea works, so long as the themed events are evenly rotated to offer everyone a chance at an event for their primary role. Much like the assault, logistic, etc. themed 'weeks' of the past.
The key aspect to avoid is use of events or rewards that feel arbitrary. It's fine if every player knows which hoops we are supposed to jump through to compete in the event, in fact we should know, but dress the hoops up a little so it doesn't feel like that's all we're doing. A lot of that is going to be based on in game feedback from the UI, and interaction via things like in game mail, themed map alterations, etc.
Also, whenever possible do not let server side tech issues truncate an event, that sort of thing just feels frustrating.
0.02 ISK
Cross
ps ~ this is one of those aspects I'm going to be giving quite a bit more thought so I may end up adding a second post to this thread. |
Cross Atu
Conspiratus Immortalis
1680
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Posted - 2013.09.07 09:01:00 -
[2] - Quote
CCP Eterne wrote:These are some amazing comments guys. Keep them coming. I can't comment on all of them right yet (working on some other stuff), but I did see recommendations for some stuff we've kicked around and a few ideas we haven't thought of yet which are perfectly doable.
One thing I do want to ask, there were some comments about keeping things simple and using the current event as an example of one that is too complicated.
We want to make things that are interesting and unique, so I think that's why we go with more complicated requirements. Are we overthinking this? Does making complex events fail to make them interesting and just make them... well... complex? Or are we doing complexity in them wrong?
Keep understanding and being able to play the event simple.
Make the actual event intricate and stimulating.
This ratio is been a bit backwards thus far. The challenging part of most events thus far, maybe aside from writing things down by hand to manually track your progress, has been reading the event rules to figure out how to play and what will or will not fulfill the requirements. The actual play of the event, once understood, has been pretty simple. Invert this relationship, make events easy to play difficult to master.
The trouble with the Bootcamp is a highlight of this, the hard part was figuring out how to get the most out of the event, once that was done the actual event wasn't a challenge at all. In fact the play side of it encouraged less challenging and active play.
A tweak such as using the standards of the Kal event - win X% of Y games- to determine how much matching SP you receive up to cap, this could also be a % based award since being matching it's naturally limited and scales with cap, would work much better. Seeking the win encourages team play and having a number of games required encourages logging in while the reward of more SP motivates people to participate.
A complex event, say for example if the Cal Prime event had allowed you to choose your side and fight within a series of maps that illustrated the story of a progressive engagement and held implications for the battle being conducted in the sky, would be great. That's the sort of complexity which enriches the event because the event itself is complex, but playing in it is not, in the case of this example it would require only choosing a side and deploying to battle.
Executive summery - Make complex events. Do not make complex event requirements.
0.02 ISK
Cross |
Cross Atu
Conspiratus Immortalis
1680
|
Posted - 2013.09.07 09:19:00 -
[3] - Quote
Oh, and new rewards.
Give AUR discount coupons.
Players win because they get access to AUR stuff at a lower price.
CCP wins because more people play the event and more people buy AUR stuff because they have a discount.
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Cross Atu
Conspiratus Immortalis
1688
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Posted - 2013.09.08 17:16:00 -
[4] - Quote
Cross Atu wrote:
A complex event, say for example if the Cal Prime event had allowed you to choose your side and fight within a series of maps that illustrated the story of a progressive engagement and held implications for the battle being conducted in the sky, would be great. That's the sort of complexity which enriches the event because the event itself is complex, but playing in it is not, in the case of this example it would require only choosing a side and deploying to battle.
A bit more on this, as an event request.
Skirmish 1.0 was removed, as I recall, due to balance issues. Balancing the game is important and despite how well liked the mode was I understand this move, but not all fights have to be balanced 
Using the Cal Prime event as a template/example again, consider the following.
There is a battle going on EVE side, this battle extends over a span of time (i.e. is not a single engagement on a single day).
Meanwhile the battle also rages on the ground. Both of these fights are effected by the actions of players within New Eden and the news/lore releases over those few days express the results as they transpire. Further the way things are going in either the ground or sky battles can have some measurable impact on the status of the other battles taking place (neither EVE nor Dust should make the battles of the other a lost cause but the impacts of each should certainly be felt).
EVE side already has a great deal in place which will support progressive engagements so I'm not going to elaborate on that here.
Dust side we could use Skirmish 1.0 style mechanics to highlight progressive battles, battles where at times one side or the other has some actual advantage upon deploy. The key to this is to list the status in the battlefinder - make it clear with something like a sliding scale, I'm thinking the incursion bar from EVE, that is visually simple and to the point.
That way when you deploy into a battle you know how close your chosen side is to winning or losing that area, and thus which map/stage you will be deploying into.
Not only does this provide verity, and a changing event as differing maps/sockets can be used for different levels of control, but stronger teams can choose to deploy into more challenging situations while newer players can participate electing to fight from a stronger starting position. (Of course the reverse may happen as well, but this is a sandbox and not all military decisions are equally sound  ).
Giving the event not only an aesthetically different aspect but actually a mechanically different play experiences such as Skirmish 1.0 makes it more rewarding and compelling, essentially more fun, without even looking at the payout to drive participation.
Now this is a more complex event with a heavier resource load to create, so I wouldn't say every event should be this involved but bringing together things that players have clearly enjoyed, Cal Prime, Skirmish 1.0, coordinated deployment, EVE/Dust link, etc. is going to be a win.
The other thing a progressive event does is pull attention away from PC, and thereby increase the immersion within New Eden. It is not "I'll just pub stomp this event requirement in between my PC matches" it's more "I have to make a choice where to deploy because both aspects are time sensitive". Sure there are corps who will stick with PC, and there are corps who aren't even in PC that will focus on events like this, but in both cases it still adds more of a sense of place which is something that, even now, Dust 514 could benefit from having more of.
Cheers,
Cross
PS ~ If the new "shorter events" scrip you're testing works out you could use it to good effect within the context of something like the above event by making the event have a minimum time it lasts but ending it based on player actions in both EVE and Dust rather than on an arbitrary time line.
Fellow Mercs, and Pilots if any of you are here , please help me flesh out this idea. |
Cross Atu
Conspiratus Immortalis
Covert Intervention
1698
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Posted - 2013.09.17 00:24:00 -
[5] - Quote
CCP Cmdr Wang wrote:Aeon Amadi wrote:CCP Cmdr Wang wrote:Gorra Snell wrote:Before becoming a Dust addict, I was a Mass Effect 3 co-op multi-player addict for a few months. They had weekly (well, 'weekend') events that I completed (or tried to) almost every week. Some of them were fairly simple 'perform x revives', but the ones I think have the most potential here are those that encouraged you to give up your high-level gear for a few matches and run with what was that game's equivalent of militia gear. I should clarify you to had to use a specific weapon for each event...for example, militia shotguns...and I think that's a lot of fun. If you were to, say, add a militia HMG (wink wink, nudge nudge), then that week's event should be 'get x kills or assists using the militia HMG'. I think this type of event has great tie-in potential with the recent occasions when a few copies of new AUR gear have been given to everyone. I think one was the "Mauler" suit? Say you're about to release an AUR CreoDron scout suit manufactured by CreoDron. The backstory of the event is that CreoDron needs field data for the suit before putting it into full production, and is asking us mercs to beta test it. We're all given 5 copies of the suit, and the following rewards are available:
- Deploy in the new suit 5 times - get 100k isk
- Get 10 kill assists wearing the new suit - get 20 copies of the CreoDron AUR shotgun (that's a thing that exists, right?)
- Earn 1000 WP while wearing the new suit - get 10 copies of the new suit
For more immersion (but probably a little dev work), put the new suit in the marketplace so everyone can see it, but keep it locked for the first week (during the 'beta test') until you've deployed all the ones you were gifted. That's not a very substantial barrier in reality...if you want to buy them, of course you're going to use the ones you were gifted...but the idea of 'unlocking' things is just fun. The specific rewards aren't that important, but I think what is important is that this sort of event compels you to change your play style. I realize that's exactly what some prior posts in this thread have spoken out against, but as long as it doesn't take long to complete the event, and the rewards aren't so substantial that you feel you have to participate or you're missing out (as is the nature of SP events), this encourages us to explore new playstyles that we might like if we gave them a try. As an added bonus, it would shake up the FOTM a little bit during the events, and I think that's desirable. Unless it's a sniper rifle event - never run one of those This is something we can do in the near future. We can now track kills by weapon type on the DB, so expect to see events based on this. Our next event will be fairly simple, you get double SP for the WP earned in your first win of the day. Starting in October, we will be extending that to the first 3 wins of the day for most of the month. We will also try to roll out an event based on kills made by weapon type in a new "Challenge" event, and yes, no sniper rifles, (though now that I've said that, I'm sure the sniper fans will be raging). We are finalizing the event details for September and October, and should be ready to make them available to the public by early next week. So, lemme get your thoughts on this. I threw out the idea a while back of having events split into two separate functions. One being mundane, which would be like "get 100 kills this week" or something, with the second part being the Double/Triple SP week. Now, the reward is what makes this interesting. If you get 100 kills in the first week (or whatever the goal is) you get a 7-Day Active SP Boost for the following multiplied SP week. I'd imagine marketing would hate you to death for it but considering that non-paying players would love you and even paying players can still benefit from it, there's less of a "I got a bunch of dropsuits and weapons I don't use" sort of thing. We can appreciate players wanting SP boosters as prizes and there are some cases where rewarding these would be apporpriate such as winning tournaments or perhaps hitting all the requirements of a month long Human Endurance event. However, from a business model perspective this will hurt us if we started to give out a lot of skill boosters. We do have a long term development goal to get a system implemented where players can chose their own rewards, it wont be ready anytime soon, but it is on the list of things we want for DUST. What we are considering in the meantime is to set up special contracts at random times (akin to Sansha Invasion) where a new loot table will be available, i.e. officer loot. Whether this will happen will largely depend on the feedback given here.
Three things here;
1. Yes to Sansha Invasion style loot.
2. Pirate Dropsuits Use an event to introduce them and roll them out (SOONtm) in the same style as EVE pirate faction ships, double racial skill requirements with all the bells and whistles attendant to that.
3. What about earning discounts on AUR items like boosters? Users would still need to buy the AUR so it could be scaled to properly support your business model but would still provide extra incentive for players.
Alternately group/game wide goals could be interesting, something like if X number of players reaches Y goal(s) then Omega Boosters will be back on the market for Z days. This could also be rotated to offer repeated, but still highly limited, access to certain market items be they AUR or ISK.
Cheers,
Cross
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Cross Atu
Conspiratus Immortalis
Covert Intervention
1698
|
Posted - 2013.09.17 00:27:00 -
[6] - Quote
SHANN da MAN wrote:I have an idea ...
How about tying events to the release of new weapons/suits/items/vehicles ?
When you are at the 'in house testing' phase of new item development, run an event with a reward of a quantity of the new 'yet to be released' item.
This will allow you, the developers, to gather 'real world' data on the new item balance, playability, and glitches/problems, or unexpected uses/interactions - and it will allow you time to make any adjustments to the item before general release.
It will also incentivize players to participate in the events, to get the new pre-release items and check them out.
You could also run a feedback/suggestion thread on the Forums along with the Event for Player input on the new items before general release.
The players will feel much more involved in the development process and they would be able to catch far more unexpected item interactions than your in house testing would. Players would also leave far fewer hostile threads related to CCP/Player communication and CCP not listening to players.
So much +1 for this idea  |
Cross Atu
Conspiratus Immortalis
Covert Intervention
1698
|
Posted - 2013.09.17 00:32:00 -
[7] - Quote
ADAM-OF-EVE wrote:give everyone on event weeks a new character for the duration of the event which is :
for racial events : advanced racial bpo suit and weapon with skills maxed in that choice only with access to all fitting bpo's.
for double sp events : access to all militia bpo's with ZERO sp in the pool
with these characters you do not spend isk or have any sp to spend. instead all isk and sp earned is pooled and sent to the character of your choice at the end of the event. what this does is puts everyone on an equal footing for the event
What about players who are using all three of their character slots already?
All three of mine are full and have at minimum over 2 million SP as well as BPO items, closed beta items, several million in ISK etc. How would this method be implimented such that players like myself who use all character slots are not simply locked out of the event, aka punished for playing the game with all its current features?
0.02 ISK
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