What's to prevent entire squads (or teams when team deploy arrives) from awoxing matches? They could avoid any TK or damage monitoring systems by just loitering in the middle of nowhere and still cause their faction to lose (and still get standing to boot ).

Just want to say......it is features like these that will distinguish dust from other fps for a long time. The only issue is actually putting all of these promised features in the game so players can actually play them.

First, let me say that I really appreciate the transparency and the approach CCP has implemented by bringing this to the community for feedback so early. I think it will help find and fix flaws before they go live and save a lot of development resources. This should be the model for how changes are implemented. Awesome job on the interaction with the community!

Second, I'll just say that the proposal is fantastic overall. There may need to be a few refinements here and there, but I'm really excited about the direction you're moving in.

Teamkilling is obviously the biggest concern. It needs to be in, but in a balanced way and it seems clear that CCP gets how important this is. One way I haven't heard mentioned is to have a criminal flagging system. So if I damage a teammate (maybe beyond a 25% of total HP threshold) then I get flagged as a criminal and go "purple." I appear purple to all teammates (minimap and chevron) for 30 seconds and can be killed by other teammates without them taking a penalty.

OBs need to be handled correctly as well. Due to the AoE, it's inevitable that OBs are going to unintentionally kill teammates, but they represent a huge opportunity to grief your team. These need to be handled delicately. Perhaps if you kill more enemies than teammates, you won't be penalized, but if you kill more teammates than enemies, you get an especially nasty penalty.

I really like the idea of EVE-only OBs, but it's critical that EVE pilots get really great rewards for their efforts (make the rewards too good at first and scale back as necessary), as well as the ability to quickly find and participate in ground fights. We need a large supply of eager EVE pilots willing to risk their ships. Being able to reliably earn very enticing rewards is the key to making that happen. If rewards are paid out as lootable tokens, this will incentivize piracy which would further increase the conflict around this mechanic. This might further spice things up in EVE, giving them more reason to care about DUST.

As far as the no ISK payout for mercs in FW goes, I like that there is an ISK sink, and an incentive to participate to get exclusive gear. If you do decide to add in a reduced ISK payout mechanism, base it on a percent of the ISK value of enemy equipment destroyed only. This will ensure that FW is an ISK sink, but may reduce some of the bellyaching until the player market is in place.

Overall, I'm very happy with the proposal, and the way CCP is tapping the community to iron out details before coding them.

A simple solution to this problem is to implement an IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) system to the Flux Grenades.
Say Shields are modulating on a certain frequency range or phase for friendly troops and the flux grenades are programmed to identify these frequencies and not affect them, but affect all the enemy frequencies.

The problem to a bounty or a flagging system is that it is highly situational( more so with a bounty system) unlike in eve where you aren't forced in a team or a lobby, and a person that is flagged you can just fly to them and kill them in the same server whereas in Dust its a little more random. If anyone gets flagged on your team and dies do your team lose a clone or what(probably not , but it still might happen) ? Because if so you are doing exactly what the griefer wants , and another issue is that players intentionally or unintentionally will get in your way and you will get flagged. Might not happen very often , but certain groups of players ( like tankers , mass driver, forge gun , or plasma launcher users ) will be very restricted in their play styles more often or not .

So if I damage a teammate (maybe beyond a 25% of total HP threshold) then I get flagged as a criminal and go "purple." I appear purple to all teammates (minimap and chevron) for 30 seconds and can be killed by other teammates without them taking a penalty.

Sounds like fun. Can't wait. Only one minor issue I have is the "replace ISK with LP" statement... with friendly fire on, and it not really sounding like you get to pick all 16 players, like in PC matches, the cost of spending on some of those suits can get pretty steep. So this match system, in essence, is a way to throw away money...unless you have a perfect game.. and lets be honest, how many people have those all that often? I like the cost of LP for "special" items, but I don't want to play a game that already cuts into my meager gains. The suit I run, how its fitted out is already 163k .. if don't do well, or die twice no matter how much the match is worth I am already losing money. But to start a match...that at its core will be with MUCH more experienced players then the average PUB match, the likelihood of me losing more then 1 suit is going to be good. I don't want to enter a match that is guaranteed to not pay out, then run the HIGH risk of losing a butt-load of ISK doing it. Sure LP is good... but if I aint makin any ISK to support it for the 'special' items, what good is it really?
All I am saying, is maybe reconsider the 'no ISK' part. Even a lil' is better than none...
Thanks
Cant wait to get into it!!

PS: speaking of getting into it, I have heard there will be AI matches.. like against Sleeper Drones or the Forerunners (not sure their real name) ... When will THOSE be coming? :)

You, sir, are correct. HOWEVER, 95-99% of the time (probably more), it's douchebag, idiotic tankers. This does not count when, let's describe a situation...
4 letter map; 2 letters inside compound and 2 outside. Our team has the 2 letters inside and the red dots have the 2 outside letters. The red dots have all but given up taking the letters inside the compound. So, our squad decides it's time to go secure a letter outside. We get there and find everything blown up (CRU, Blaster Installations, AND SUPPLY DEPOT). <-- DON'T PUT YOUR TANK AT RISK BY GOING AROUND WITHOUT PROPER SUPPORT, THUS LEADING YOU TO "HAVE TO" BLOW UP THE SUPPLY DEPOT! That's the **** I'm talking about. If, we're red-lined and you wanna put your tank out there to get blown up by the blood-thirsty red dots and blow up their Supply Depot, good on ya and good luck. As you see my point here, there is almost never a reason to blow up a supply depot. Red-line is about the only way I see it in my head right now as justifiable but you're going to get your tank blown up anyway so I guess now looking at it, you blow up a supply depot, your tank is going to be incinerated; me or red dots.
Also, if a map has multiple Supply Depots (NOT THE ONES THAT ARE AT OUR SPAWN POINT), enjoy your 50pts and blow up ONE. ONE! ... maybe.
5-pt Bridge map, we have 3 outside letters, enemy has 2 inside letters (which won't usually happen cuz blu-dots think that 2 letters are better than 3 and send 15 guys in after the compound). We have Supply Depots on the outside points. Go ahead. Blow up that Supply Depot inside. But I gotta tell ya, and I'm being honest here, if it was anyone besides you [Numbzz] in the tank blowing up the compound-Supply Depot, that tank would be gone. I would put this in the category of tankers that put themselves in harms way without reason other than greed (50pts). LOL.

Translate this as 95-99% (probably more) of the time that a tank blows up a Supply Depot in a game I'm in and that ***** is going down!

You [Numbzz] are the man and I accept whatever justification you have in your mind to blow up a Supply Depot. You've earned it and I would never question it. But blue-dot tankers... NO! They have no thought process other than "Holy ****! That Supply Depots not blown up yet. **** YEAH! I'm getting 50 **** ing pts"

-- snip unbelievably naive assumptions --

CCP you need to make it so we can deploy 16 into battle this will make it fun 16 friends,corp mates what ever

Your math skills are sadly lacking. Someone that has a 100M ISK doesn't care. Nor will they.

As for the Super Secret Multi-Million ISK ploy with other PSN accounts - it is not worth the time. I can make more ISK than that just playing matches. Now, if you cannot play the game and make ISK it is a boon to all the useless clones out there. And considering the level of Blue Belles I found today, they are legion.

Don't forget, once the player's market open and they call sell all the useless salvage they will have enough ISK to run Proto for years.

Sweet Dreams.

I would also like to ask another question.

Whom gets the orbital when an eve player earns it? What mechanic are you using to ensure it goes to the "proper" individuals.

Not at this time, once the secondary market is in and you can sell your LP items for ISK then yes.

You said it.

Why are you making it impossible for players to support themselves through FW?
I don't understand why you'd do this, especially if the intended goal is to enhance the visibility of the Dust/EVE link in FW, because these changes actively force people to play less FW than they could be playing right now.

For context, we're an RP Amarrian loyalist corp (since 2003) and you're now proposing that in order for our Templars to sustainably support themselves beyond free starter gear they absolutely *must* to take randomly generated contracts and start fighting for Sansha, the Blood Raiders or (worse) Quafe?

Yep, that's pretty crazy stuff alright.

The only way this might work is if the secondary market is up and running by the same patch as these changes. Not soon(TM) after, it needs to be up and running by that same patch at the latest. Even then, it'll only work if the LP items are saleable in the long term (ie after the initial rush for "new shiny").

I like many of the other changes however these ones in particular will completely break FW (and thus Dust itself) for dedicated FW groups like us on all sides.