Meh... another qq thread

I think for every uplink someone deploys, the WP spawn bonus should be slashed
1 UL = 25 WP
2 UL = 22 WP
3 UL = 19 WP
4 UL = 16 WP
5 UL = 13 WP
6 UL = 10 WP
After 6 UL it should remain at 10 WP

Also after X amount of team uplinks deployed a message of "team quota reached" should appear

Uplinks keep the intensity of the battle up by spawning at the front.

Pull them without providing alternative transport and you will get a lot more redline matches. Dropships are the obvious replacement, but they won't be viable for months as vehicles are rebalanced.

Read this piece recently and agreed. http://dustmercs.blogspot.com/2013/10/sandbox-514-making-dust-matter.html#more

Uplinks in Dust are some of the most poorly designed items ever seen in a shooter. They are just too powerful and encourage spam rather than tactical gameplay.

I dont think they should show up unless I actually see one or its scanned, but 1) one uplink should be the max we can put down 2) they have to have a much higher CPU/PG drain. 3) preventing them from being too close to each other is a great idea. if I put one down within 50m of another the existing field should prevent it. 4) lower the amount of spawns 3 milita, 5 standard, 10 advanced and 15 proto.

hopefully they will really balance the cloak before adding it but it scares me looking how OP uplinks still are, so what else can be done to make uplinks better?

The people on here have obviously never participated in PC.

The only thing that needs to be fixed about uplinks is we need at least one variant per meta level that is squad only.

That makes a lot of sense. It could be the specialist variant with lower fitting costs. If they ever get around to giving Logis bonuses for equipment (like a reduction to fitting costs) you could always increase the costs of the others and keep the squad ones where they are now for use by assaults.

I'd like to know just what people object to when they say "Uplink spam".


What precisely is the issue that will get "fixed" by the proposed limitations?

uplinks probly the most unbalanced part of this game still in and thats saying something. corps just spam uplinks around an objective and keep spawning there instead of using any tactics.

uplinks probly the most unbalanced part of this game still in and thats saying something. corps just spam uplinks around an objective and keep spawning there instead of using any tactics.

^THIS. It has destroyed all tactics..you win now by destroying their uplinks and spamming yours.

Says the two guys in NPC corps.

says the guy riding EONs nuts. but ur known as an OP whiner.......so I guess if u arent crying about it maybe I should reconsider.

says the guy riding EONs nuts. but ur known as an OP whiner.......so I guess if u arent crying about it maybe I should reconsider.

ur alliance leader says different. Mavado Noriega has even admitted how bad uplink spam is.

if u like it because it helps u win or get most of your points from it, fine. but right now ur the guy saying uprising flaylocks are balanced.

Why are you interjecting a weapon into a discussion about uplinks?

Why are you interjecting a weapon into a discussion about uplinks?

Uplinks are fine for infantry

What about vehicle pilots? I can use a Logi DS with an inbuilt MCRU and have 20ppl spawn in it, do i get any WP? no

So how about infantry stop crying which obv works very well for them

because unbalance is unbalance whether its an item or weapon, bro. And please call me a scrub...dare you.

Scrub

What now?

ur alliance leader says different. Mavado Noriega has even admitted how bad uplink spam is.

if u like it because it helps u win or get most of your points from it, fine. but right now ur the guy saying uprising flaylocks are balanced.

pretty sure he's one of the best snipers in the game. He's saying he's not a scrub....not that he's going to come 2 ur house, idiot.

ur talking about flawed logic? please check what u wrote..any class except heavies can use uplinks too. the same way anyone could use flaylocks. logic fail trying to correct others.

How about you come up with an idea to make them more useful? "Uplinks are stoopid and I want moar SP for killing" is not a solution.

Incidentally, if whomever that was IS "one of the best snipers in the game" (or perhaps his alt is at least, tough guy, daring people to call him a scrub, how else is spkr supposed to interpret that, lol), what is his beef with uplinks? He wants people to have to run across open plains to be easy targets?

ur talking about flawed logic? please check what u wrote..any class except heavies can use uplinks too. the same way anyone could use flaylocks. logic fail trying to correct others.

nothing unless being able to spawn right on the objective on a 400m map second only to gun game when it comes to winning. It needs to be toned down so that tactics can better evolve.

like that Dust wont let people spawn on top of friendlies like BF but letting people drop 3 uplinks in target area almost just as bad.

I see that the thread has been derailed and nobody articulated precisely what problem is caused by "uplink spam" that any of these suggested limitations solve.

All I've heard is "I don't like them for some unspecified reason, so do X to them."

We can't begin to discuss the merits of any of these proposed changes if we don't know the issue it's supposed to fix, much less if we agree that the issue is really a problem.


Uplink placement IS a tactic. As a Logi I shape the battle by strategic placement of my uplinks. I decide where the front line is by where I put them, and that is often a decisive factor in the tide of battle. That takes much more time, risk, and thought than throwing a few in a pile and should be rewarded.

might suggest you look at our recent retweets from our twitter account. we polled relevant players from the game that are veterans and have been major players in PC among other things. https://twitter.com/NewEdenGNN

not one suggested uplink spam was not a problem, NOT ONE. moreso many of the suggestions were the same Prius made in the OP.

Nothing frustrates me more than going against a team with uplinks in places where only dropships can get to.

Horrible, horrible article, I disagree entirely.

Yeah, let's make it "Call of the Battlefield"...

DUST needs changes but none of them will keep me playing this game.

might suggest you look at our recent retweets from our twitter account. we polled relevant players from the game that are veterans and have been major players in PC among other things. https://twitter.com/NewEdenGNN

not one suggested uplink spam was not a problem, NOT ONE. moreso many of the suggestions were the same Prius made in the OP.

Because as I mentioned before, they're in NPC corps, and cannot understand having many spawns to choose from, instead of the point itself and CRU, along with a few scattered uplinks. The problem I run into in PC is having to quickly move my left stick to get to the MCC to call in another tank instead of spawning somewhere forward.

They just don't understand it.

the man leading your alliance seems to. as do most of the CPM. Uplinks may be your crutch but the same rationale failed horribly with tac ars and everyone could use those too. also, uplink spam promotes and supports zerging if anything.

Honestly if only to keep frame rate up after the enemy decides they need 30 uplinks within a 15 meter radius limiting how many can be in a certain proximity to each other should be considered

Horrible idea. Do we really want to go back to the days in the E3 build with chaos and nobody uses uplinks? Hell no they stay how they are. I would be more worried to be picked up by active scanners. Every decent squad has a logi that uses either advanced or proto scanners. Which means every 1 is highlighted up like a christmas tree. I know the power of tagging people up for a whopping 25 secs. It tells you where exactly the person is and in which direction he is looking at. Ever played COD black ops? Ever had the blackbird killstreak? Then you know how huge the advantage is to know the exact position from enemys. The active scanner affects the whole gameplay. It gives you to benefit of prefire around corners, cook grenades in time to throw them exactly where the enemy is and on Skirmish if you want to ninja hack you can check the proximity for hostiles. Oh and dont forget the +15WP for every kill a squadmate gets cause you scanned them down. Uplinks+scanners+nanohives= WP printing machines.

That's not a tactical reason, and lag can be fixed without placing limitations on the spawns.

Tell me where I said anything about limiting spawns or even limiting the total number of uplinks on a map, all I said was tweak it so you can drop dozens right next to each other and instead think a fraction of a second about your placement and not spamming

Hmm, thinking about placement, sounds tactical to me

The problem with the OP's narrow interpretation of the article (i..e, we need to nerf uplinks right now) is a lot of of other things need to be fixed before you change uplinks so dramatically. As it stands now it takes forever to get across these huge new maps. One orbital takes out your entire forward squad and you're done, nobody can get back to the front lines in time. You would need to massively buff dropships before you ever considered this: it's the only other way you could realistically move people quickly, but as they stand now its just too risky to move large groups that way. One assault forge can take out your whole squad in seconds.

I'm all for making them more specialized, there's no need for anyone but scouts or logi's to equip them and be throwing them around willy nilly, but a hard limit like 1 per person is crazy without a number of other fundamental changes. All that will do is penalize specialization and incentivize everyone to carry them. The logistics class would be crippled unless another way to gain WP is substituted. While they are definitely a crutch and can be abused, what I don't understand entirely is how they can be "unbalanced" by most definitions of the term. Can everyone not use them? (OK, other than heavies). It's not like a weapon where there are dozens of types intended for different uses and when weapon x is not only the best at it's own role, but also better than weapon y is at it's role, then you have imbalance since weapon x prevails over y in every situation. Uplinks fill a singular role in terms of player equipment, there is nothing to really balance them against. It's not quite like saying playing in an organized squad is unbalanced, but similar in that the mechanic is available to anyone without much in the way of sacrificing something else.

Anyway, a much more sensible change that could be done now is simply to make them not work within a certain distance of an installation (CRU, objective, supply depot) or eachother. That would reduce spam, reward placing them in strategic locations, and not prohibitively restrict mobility in the absence of other changes (i.e., dropships) that will clearly not be ready in 2013.

There is no way to nerf the user. The only good idea I read about uplink spam is having a certain radius that prevents uplinks from being so close to each other. Copycat uplinking, while it could be for the best intention, can be too much at times.

-- snip BS and QQ --

Who peed in your soup?

And why take it out on this game, Angry Birds has many more important issues for a Merc of your caliber.

Well, I think many of the people advocating making uplinks pretty much useless (by either limiting people to 1 active, making them take up even more cpu/pg than they do now, only being able to have 1 active link within a 100m radius... etc.) don't generally play with organized squads or teams, use uplinks themselves or even really play this game anymore (which is the case for many of the "vet" players quoted by the GNN twitter).

Speaking as a logi, and not a cal logi, an actual logi, I actually do think uplink spam is a problem. But not in the way many of you suggest. By spamming I'm referring to idiots who just want free warpoints and will drop a suit's worth of links in a cluster before switching to their actual combat suits. Or when people who will mindlessly drop a link right next to an active one in a good location, rather than finding a new spot. So yes, maybe some sort of a radius in which only one link can be active would be useful to stop this sort of behaviour, but 100m is ridiculous, even 50m is way too much. I'm talking more like 10m, maybe?

In my opinion there is absolutely no need to increase the cpu and pg requirements of the links, they are already a drain on a logi's suit (as someone who plays a lot of pc, I already have to sacrifice a lot to be able to always have links on my suit to be ready to drop more as needed, as that is the role I have chosen).

I don't run around in suits with 3 or 4 sets of links equipped, I have never considered to that to be particularly useful even at the beginning of matches, even though I know some people insist on doing that. In fact, one of the improvements to uplinks could be taking a look at the proto tier, I think maybe there just are too many different types of links? Allotek Stable, Ishukone Gauged are great, they are useful specialized variants, but maybe 3 different Imperial ones (+ 1 AUR version) is too much. Also, the AUR Carthum Abyss has always bugged me, there is no isk version of it... Maybe it could be replaced by the squad only variant, with fewer spawns but comparatively lowered fitting requirements, only 1 active allowed, that assault players would probably be happy to run (as the current proto links are "so hard to fit").

A team quota for active links would be bad as well, it would absolutely encourage spamming, certain type of people would just drop as many links as they could as they first spawn, and then no one else would be able to deploy any useful ones for the rest of the match. Now that is really only a problem in pub matches, which is probably all the OP has experience of anyway... In a PC match that shouldn't be a problem, and the thing about friendly fire is that it also applies to blue equipment.

I do agree that drop uplinks could do with some changes, but nothing nearly as drastic as some here seem to want. They are a working mechanic that is a part of this game, and effectively removing them from the game would certainly change the game, but I disagree with those that think it would be for the better. I already detest having to spend at least half of any pub matches running (or even driving) around these huge maps trying to find something to do, having to make my way across half the map every time I respawn would probably be the thing that would finally make me quit this game

your problem is that the people who's opinions you are trying to disregard have played the game at the highest levels for the longest and have a history of making decisions for the games benefit.

you benefit from the current mechanics and thus are unable to be objective.

there is no substitute for movement in a shooter. the ability to get from point A to point B is the most important aspect after shooting skill. beating the opponent to a choke point and/or being able to setup a defensive position is a decided advantage as defensive war doesnt require tactics as much as reaction to the attacker.

this is true on COD sized maps, here in Dust will maps 4x the size of what we saw in MAG movement from the spawn to the critical area is even more important. the ability to respawn immediately at the chokepoint or objective is a different matter entirely. the advantage gained is incalculable. drop uplinks were poorly designed and have to be changed.

"Decisions for the game's benefit" is also a very subjective point...

we both agree with change then, good. because all of what i mentioned about uplinks being one of the more poorly designed aspects of this game is true. the wp benefits arent the problem. its the ability to instantly appear in critical areas on 800m+ maps.

You should check out this thread on Using Radiation Zones to Curtail Drop Uplink Use. I think it's a novel way to recondition but not force players to discontinue uplink spam of objectives. Plus it creates a system for highly dynamic play.

I agree there should be changes, I just don't necessarily agree with the changes you seem to want. It's a futuristic shooter, not a "realistic" one, so you should expect some of the mechanics to be different. The teleportation spawn mechanic is now part of the lore, removing it entirely would in my opinion be plain bad.

Now, saying things like limiting the numbers of links that can be carried and deployed, making you unable to deploy them near other spawn points, increasing spawn times, increasing the deployment time of the link etc. All of these are possible changes that might in some ways address what your problem with the current mechanic is.

Objective spawning needs to be removed and actual clones put in the CRUs to be fought over.