Kevall Longstride
DUST University
Ivy League
646
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Posted - 2013.11.12 15:52:00 -
[1] - Quote
CCP Blowout wrote:Wow, this is all good stuff. I might have to take more than 10 questions.
Keep firing, mercs!
Did you honestly think we'd only have 10 questions between us? 
1. Are the Arena SI still on the roadmap?
2. When will ALL statistical increases in Dropsuit/Vehicle attributes from skill increases be shown on a fitting screen?
3. What timeframe are the full racial Dropsuits being here based on? Gregorian or geological?
4. New vehicle classes. Guesstimation?
5. Can we have a published and updated Roadmap, similar to that which Planetside 2 has?
6. When are we leaving Molden Heath?
7. When are permanent vanity items gong to be here? Golden skinned guns, suit lighting, different coloured laser beams, etc etc?
8. Corp Hangers and fittings on the way?
9. Will player trading be one to one or will it marketplace based with a price histories, units sold etc?
10. Will Armour and Shield damage type resist modules make it to suits?
11. Will the vehicle rebalancing require a partial re spec for vehicle skills?
12. Will CEO's have the ability to have a corp livery for suits and vehicles? (I'd pay good money for that)
13. Can the Damage modifiers be switched from increasing DPS to switching damage output type? Thermal, EM, Explosive and Kinetic, giving much more tactical choices...
14. Are corp firing ranges/ practice matches still on the roadmap?
15. When are Dust mercs going to get full admin powers over chat channels they created?
16. When is corp UI going to fixed as to prevent EVE pilots able to steal Dust corps using shares?
17. When is PvE coming and will it have a role in the NPE much like the starter profession missions in Eve?
18. Will a certificate/training plan option be implemented to help new players from mis-spending SP at the beginning of their career?
19. What role will the BPO's already in the game play in the future? Are they sellable, planned to be used in industry, refunded as Aurum to spend on permanent vanity items?
20. When will the different planet types come in? Snow, Forest, Desert etc...
21. When can a merc's employment history, title and bio be seen in Dust?
22. When will medals be grantable for corps to permanently reward their members which will go with them throughout their careers?
23. Will Corp MCC's and Warbarges, both inside and out, reflect the crop livery?
24. Is modifiable tech 3 weapons still an aspiration or has work been done on them?
25. How much further has work on the NPE progressed?
26. With the small player base meaning that Scotty the AI cant prevent high skilled players getting into matches with new players are there plans to artificially keep them separate till Scotty can? Scotty can't work well with too few players, protostomping is putting new players off. Vicious circle..
27. Will sighting systems be inter changeable on weapons?
28. Full racial line up of all handheld weapons? An ETA plese
29. Will a way to pay multiple mercs for a battle rather than individually be forthcoming?
30. Can corps have a automatic sliding scale of payment to its mercs based on war points earned or a fixed payment system.
These are just the ones I can think of my head. I'll put some more thought into them later. Thanks for the chance to get answers anyway. o7
Mercenary Clone of Dennie Fleetfoot
CEO of DUST University
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Kevall Longstride
DUST University
Ivy League
655
|
Posted - 2013.11.13 13:03:00 -
[2] - Quote
Ok having slept on it and spoken to a couple of peeps I'm going to streamline the list of 30 questions I posted earlier here and break them down to the three main ones I would want answering and my reasoning for why they need to be addressed.
Having a list of 'When, how and why' questions is likely to have them grouped in with all the others and ignored to be honest.
So my first question is as follows.
We've been told that Scotty the AI (the matchmaking algorithm for those of you unfamiliar with him) needs more players joining the game for him to be more accurate and ensure that higher skilled players are kept away from those that are just starting. Anyone playing pub matches can tell you that this is simply not happening. The easy assumption to make is that the player pool needs to grow. However, the biggest turnoff for new players in this game is the way that they get thrown in with the better players and get stomped.
So 'How are you going to promote the growth of this games new player base using new game design?' is my question.
Simply saying, 'this is New Eden and HTFU' is moronically shortsighted and harming the long term growth of the game. If new players don't feel they're progressing or getting better noticeably in a couple of days, they leave and go back to COD, the player pool stays as is and Scotty may as well be an insurance actuarial program for all the good he does in matchmaking.
So I believe its time for some deliberate filtering of newer players from the vets. The academy is a good start, though handicapped by vets starting new toons just to go newb mashing but you can't legislate for people being a***holes. I don't think that it would be too difficult to do with the simple addition of a couple of game modes that won't allow fittings with advanced or complex suits and mods to be spawned. That way new players can stay in a less harsh environment till they feel capable and confident of being able to go toe to toe with the big boys. However to prevent skilled players using these filters to their own advantage I would make it so once a player hits say as an example, 5 million career SP, these filtered game modes are no longer available to them. Any competent FPS player should hold their own after that milestone.
Filters like that would also be handy for later when corps and teams want to have arranged matches and have it so the skills of the players are the deciding factor, not what gear they use. Similar to the Frigate Free For All's that happen in Eve.
Second question.
We've heard a lot about PvE and how it may be implemented. But we've seen or heard very little about it progressing beyond the drawing board stage. PvE is not only a great way to add an extra mode to the game, its also an excellent teaching method as to the complexities of the game and the world in which it takes place.
Using a similar structure as the SOE arc in Eve, players can learn and be given skill books for the basics such as Dropsuit Upgrades and Weaponry while learning in a safer environment. It can also teach players to the need to co-operate as a team by making them squad up and take on a tougher mission boss. PvE can also add the chance for resources to be harvested by players that can be used or sold to Dust corps and eventually Eve players when the link becomes established.
'So will PvE be integrated into the NPE and how tight will that design process make its eventual arrival be tied into the Eve/Dust link both economically and gameplay wise?'
And finally my third question.
Having gained a reputation as being the largest cheerleader for increased corp UI in the game, it would be somewhat remiss of me not to bang the drum for it again.
it took nearly a year before we got corp mail and notifications. 6 months after that, we finally got limited (but for now adequate) roles and with 1.7 we finally get the 'Mark All Read' & 'Delete All' options that really should've arrived at the same time as the corp mail with Uprising 1.0.
There are still FAR too many things that are missing from Corp UI and management in Dust and nearly every Dust CEO or director of the longer established corps HAVE to use the Eve client to accomplish what they need to do on a near daily basis. Six months after the official launch and we still need the Eve client to:
Check a Merc's employment history
See when a Merc last logged on
See how old a merc is
Give a title (which by the way can't be seen in Dust but is an important organisational tool)
Perform chat channel admin (blocking, kicking and baring)
Use to kick en masse inactive players. (because you can't properly determine who is inactive in Dust)
The list could go on..
And now with the recent stealing of a corp from a Dust CEO by an Eve player, it would seem at the moment that not one single dev at CCP, not one, thought that it might be a good idea to somehow make sure that the shares are linked and automatically gifted to the Dust player that actually created the corp, rather than leave in them in the corp wallet of a game client that is inaccessible to Dust players unless they play Eve as well. A fundamental and catastrophic design flaw was completely overlooked by every Dev.
This to me demonstrates, a total lack of forward planning as to how corps in Dust are meant to arrange their own affairs. How are we to gain leverage and credence within the Eve community once the link is fully established when even the most basic tools are denied to us? We've had to cajole, pester and fight for every single corp tool we've got so far, when in all honesty, everyone single of them plus more, should have been in place from day one of the beta.
So. 'How are CCP planning to bolster and strengthen the corp UI and will it now be much higher on its list of priorities?'
Mercenary Clone of Dennie Fleetfoot
CEO of DUST University
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