CELESTA AUNGM
Kang Lo Directorate
Gallente Federation
44
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Posted - 2013.11.29 14:53:00 -
[1] - Quote
Well said, Jadd! Well said.
Django, for many of us, your pain is very much shared, and we agree with your frustration. But...
I think MOST (cannot confirm it) of the players who are feeling stomped or outnumbered by "platoon-minded" players are not yet realizing the realistically-merciless difference between Dust 514 and the other FPS games they may have been top-notch masters in: Dust REALLY is biased toward coop. It's not just "offering" team and coop opportunities to players--it's reinforcing team behavior by making co-op practically the best chance (ouch, sometimes the only chance) of lasting through a match without feeling like everyone's using you as a test-target.
When the devs said this is team-based, they MEANT it. If some of the players have learned how to take "squading up" to the level of "PLATOONING up", while others of us are being slaughtered by them because we haven't embraced even the easy tactics of "hooking up with someone on the fly, and sticking close to neighboring mercs"... then the game IS working as intended. Those who have advanced in team-mindedness are getting rewarded, and (regretfully) those who are still lacking or resisting team interaction/MIC-comm/etc are being ruthlessly chewed up.
Jadd's point of view is likely correct: this aspect of suffering in the Public Contracts is exactly what's supposed to happen.
I WOULD cheer for any suggestions to LENGTHEN the 'battle academy phase' of PC matches (maybe raise the WP threshold), and prevent the maturing players from practicing what they've learned on the unprepared Newberrys:
--This still lets the "platoon-minded" players earn their ISK/SP in Public Matches when they want, but only against players who've been exposed to battle academy LONGER, and have no excuses for not being combat-wise graduates.
--This makes the Battle Academy available for a longer period of time, so that casual recreation players who don't want to get into the REAL-DEAL Dust campaigning, can just have 'fun in the front-lobby' of the game without the burden of a whole lot of team-learning stuff.
--And a longer Battle Academy phase allows Newberrys (some of whom are dedicated players, but just don't have enough time each night to practice, so will need more repetitions to get good) the time they need to LEARN what they're doing wrong.
Hey, "TEAM-mindedness" in an FPS is no easy thing to just pick up---especially since most PS3 FPS's allow you to excel as a loner (for most game titles that phrase "team-based" turned out to be just a bogus selling gimmick).
Even when we get slapped aside 10 dozen times by enemy working in "groups", we naturally still assume we got slapped aside by the enemy "proto-binky"... it takes a LOT of effort and mind-changing to learn communication and movement with other fellow players.
With a battle academy graduation threshold of (what is it now, 1200 WP?), you barely have enough time to learn what you need to be doing right before they consider you "graduated"...
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