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Templar 514
Amarr Templars
Amarr Empire
63
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Posted - 2013.12.04 18:34:00 -
[1] - Quote
I'm going to at least try to address all of your points. I will firstly note that I will snip the text because yes, character limits are somewhat small.
vilstan wrote:*NPE concerns, Spawn camping, Orbital Strikes*
So first off, NPE is widely acknowledged as lacking. Half of this is due to the fact that the Battle Academy, where all new players start, is very short-lived. The other half is actually because DUST is currently suffering through low player counts, which causes the matchmaking to be slightly broken. Scanning mechanics are somewhat convoluted, but also not super-important; the main issue is that we don't actually have a displayed scan profile stat.
As far as spawn camping.... MCC/ground spawns at the start of a Skirmish match are indeed "safe zone" spawns. Everything else is somewhat fair game. A flaw is that Skirmish allows objective spawning, which devalues deployable and capturable spawn points. The other thing is that mostly spawn camping is at CRUs or drop uplinks; a massive improvement was made in that you could see if an enemy was highlighted on the map around a CRU/link, so that would hopefully tell you "DANGER WILL ROBINSON", and you wouldn't spawn there.
Unfortunately, lots of new DUST players seem to be terminally stupid CoD-kids.
Regarding Orbital Strikes, the main issue I see is that strikes are linked to squad warpoint totals, so squads that dominate tend to get multiple strikes and then kill all the things. For the record, most proper buildings will protect you from a strike, so long as you stay away from doorways/windows. There are stories of people riding out strikes by wedging themselves into corners, though this is rare.
vilstan wrote:*Matchmaking, Victory Conditions, and Impact of War*
As far as Matchmaking, it's widely acknowledged to be broken. The problem is several-fold:
1. We lack the player counts for matchmaking to function properly.
2a. MM seems to decide it's a brilliant idea to stack multiple squads on the same side.
2b. Either that, or tryhard dorks decide to "Que-sync" multiple squads into the same match. Same result though.
Ultimately, we either need to make public matches a no-squad mode, or change MM to put squads on the same side (even if people try to Q-sync).
With regards to your victory condition complain, what you experienced is MCC-to-MCC damage. It's a mechanic that was implemented to help stalemates end faster instead of dragging out for interminable amounts of time, relatively speaking. Unfortunately, that match seems to have been somewhat foregone in that the enemy held more null cannons for slightly longer than your team did. That said, you say it was a close match, and that's really good- it's hard to find such matches these days.
In reference to your "Impact of War" complaint, in that you find you are fighting Gallente FW one day, and then Caldari the next, try changing your faction preference for FW. I currently have my FW preferences to be only for the Amarr. I think the main issue your running into in that regard is just that by default the FW battle-finder has all factions selected. It's also worth noting that December 10th will bring the 1.7 update, and a massively overhauled FW system that gives DUST players a greater view of their impact on FW.
vilstan wrote:*Visuals, Ident, Vehicles, and Certs*
You really haven't looked much at the DUST character models, have you. Seriously, I personally think Planetside 2 looks ridiculous and cartoonish. The Vanu faction is a great example of this; a bunch of dudes in purple? Really? What is the explanation of this?
For the Amarr, the gold-plated suits are explained as the fact that the Amarr have a whole aesthetics=function gig, wherein that which looks awesome is awesome and works awesome. It's a logically explained aspect (culture can have a massive impact on how people do things).
As far as weapons, I've always felt that the DUST guns have some good impact to them. Maybe some more than others, like the various explosive/splash-damage weapons, as well as Shotguns, but I've never really had that problem. Also, there is not currently any weapon customization- it's something that is stated to be on the roadmap, which means we won't see it for a while; core mechanics have a (rightly) higher priority.
As far as AV weapons, Forge Guns have impact. Swarm launchers I would agree, don't have a lot of impact, but they are also the easiest weapon in the game to use. This somewhat leads into the next point of vehicles, but I'll touch on "ID'ing" first.
As far as being able to indentify what suits are what, that will really just come in time. Also, thinking that each Empire's dropsuits are samey is heresy. How dare you claim that my gorgeous Amarrian warplate is similar in appearance to that tetanus-fest plated set of suspenders that is the Minmatar dropsuit! /inner RP'er
In regards to vehicles being OP...... Well, right now, they really aren't. Sure, if you have militia-grade (IE, new player) AV weapons, then yeah, they're pretty unstoppable. But even the Level 3 operation skill weapons (things like "CBR7 Swarm Launcher" and "DCMA-5 Breach Forge Gun") are a potent threat to vehicles. Like anything in DUST- and EVE- skilling into something is a bit of a requirement in order to counter guys who sink lots of SP into a role.
I will also note that the Starter Anti-Vehicle fit is pretty crappy in the first place- it should really have an SMG rather than a Scrambler Pistol.
Finally, I will echo a previous comment regarding certifications- it's taken EVE ten years to get a very useful and informative cert system. Ten. Years. DUST could use one, but there are other things higher on the list of things that it could use. The other side of that is that CCP Shanghai (the branch for DUST) is somewhat quietly acknowledged to be a tad understaffed. Fewer devs with more stuff to do means ruthlessly prioritized updates. |
Templar 514
Amarr Templars
Amarr Empire
63
|
Posted - 2013.12.04 19:00:00 -
[2] - Quote
To finish up, because lolcharacterlimits:
vilstan wrote:*Salvage, The Cost of Death, Game Modes, Map Design, Competitiveness*
Salvage in public matches are based on loot tables. Think of it like the drops/spawns from belt ratting- sometimes you get okay gear, and every so often you get officer gear.... Unfortunately it seems to like to give officer gear that you'll never use (I have more officer ARs than I know what to do with, and that I will never use, for example).
Salvage in Planetary Conquest matches is a 50% drop rate of destroyed enemy stuff, while FW will be changed to be a 25% drop rate of destroyed enemy stuff.
Insofar as the so-called "Cost of Death", this is an entirely novel thing for a competitive multiplayer shoorter. There is virtually no other game where death has an economic impact, rather than just being another ultimately meaningless stat. This is actually something that makes DUST different, and creates interest in the game.
In regards to the "blapshot dead" issue, it's actually something that's for every single piece of equipment. It's just that high-EHP suits tend to be blapped by different things- a militia medium suit will be easily blapped by a damage-modded Charge Sniper Rifle or even a low-end Shotgun, while blapping a heavy suit will require a damage-modded Forge Gun. This is somewhat a balancing mechanism, because a total newbie in a militia heavy suit with a militia Forge Gun can fight veteran players on semi-equal terms- that MLT Forge will blap the incredibly expensive protosuit of a veteran with ease.
As far as Game Mode repetition, we've really only got three modes right now. Ambush, Domination, and Skirmish. So this is a semi-legitimate complaint, but do remember that DUST hasn't got the impressive pedigree of say, Battlefield. And that Planetside 2 is just as bad in this regard- I'd even say worse, TBH.
In terms of Map Design issues, we've come a long way, and we still have a long way to go. Ultimately, the issue is that we're running 32-player battles on maps that are probably designed more for 48- or 64-player battles. The other core issue is that DUST is supposed to be pretty vehicle oriented, but at the same time vehicles are personal assets, rather than social assets like in BF or PS2.
In other words, you purchase, fit, and call in a vehicle for yourself- you're not at the mercy of a line of people who will LEEROY! a tank/chopper/jet into a pack of Engineers/mountain/the ground to get a vehicle. Nor are you limited by the resources your faction has, like in PS2. So this does impose a certain amount of limitations on what players are willing to risk, especially when ~90% of "bluedots" (IE, teammates) act in a terminally ******** fashion- which in turn feeds back into the problems with NPE.
Finally, to look at DUST's market competitiveness. I'm going to be straight here- if you can't figure out why DUST players are participating in FW, then you probably aren't a big EVE player. Or at least, you don't understand EVE-side FW. Because ultimately, EVE and DUST players will have a lot of the same reasons for participating in faction warfare. I personally think that FW is much more awesome than PS2's conflict, because PS2 is a mindless meatgrinder of endless zerging.
That's not fun. It's stupid. There's a reason a lot of early reviews called DUST a "thinking man's shooter", and that's because it is. I can make a stealthy and tanky and killy suit- and it can even be all three things at the same time. It won't be as stealthy or tanky or killy as a suit designed/fitted to that particular task, but it will get results, and function reasonably well.
But again, this does come back to the NPE, and the general clarity with which information and background is conveyed. It needs a lot of improvements, but there are a lot of other things that need improvement (or straight up implementation) first.
OTOH, looking back at your posts, you seem to be doing a lot of comparison to Planetside 2. Are you sure that you're not going into DUST thinking "this will be kind of like PS2", instead of thinking "this will be like DUST"? Because DUST is fundamentally different from every single shooter out there. |
Templar 514
Amarr Templars
Amarr Empire
63
|
Posted - 2013.12.04 19:14:00 -
[3] - Quote
vilstan wrote:My primary complaint about orbital strikes (echoed in the above quote) is that they only ever seem to get called in when one team is rofl stomping the other team, and it just helps the winning team win even more. Stuff like that may as well be removed from the game. The losing team doesn't need to get bombarded in their one remaining spawn point.
I do agree that strikes tend to be gained by the winning team and just help them win more, but this is more due to the mechanics of orbital strikes in pub matches (it's being changed in FW matches, so that's really awesome). If strikes were decoupled from WPs, and maybe tied to a capturable point (like, say, an anti-ortillery emplacement /hopeful optimism), and you had to actually be at that point to call in a strike every few minutes, it would probably end up being a bit more balanced. Maybe.
I don't know, that sounded a lot better in my head, so them's the breaks, I suppose.
vilstan wrote:As far as I can tell...you hold R1 while over the target and then release and...stuff flies all over and maybe hits the target :D Do you need to keep tracking the target in your reticule while the missiles fly over there? Or can you immediately duck back into cover?
It's fire and forget. You lock, release, and then it fires and you can run away (like a little girl if you so choose- I won't judge). That said, you can actually dump an entire Swarm clip within about 3-4 seconds, so you may want to pop in-and-out of cover three times to get all shots in the air. |
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