Jesus, RKKR, sometimes you sound like a spoiled brat

I'm going to put on a project manager hat for a moment and hopefully explain that statement a little better, although feel free to keep your sound bite ;)

Development of a feature takes a finite amount of time. When planning a release we are balancing what hits short term goals, what fits as part of the longer term plan, is there an order some things have to be done in and how long will it all take. Some things just physically take longer to do or cannot be done until certain other dependencies have been completed. It has nothing to do whether or not we think it might be "difficult", just a very pragmatic view on the hours available in a day to actually code and test it all.

So for planning 1.7 for example, we put all the different features up on a board and prioritized / cost estimated each thing out. Team deploy just landed on the other side of the line as to what we could fit in the time we had available without significantly affecting the other things we could deliver for that release.

Make sense? I think it's actually all pretty straight forward and boring however I don't expect players to necessarily care. I understand the frustration that good ideas aren't delivered intermediately. The teams have the same passion for getting it all done.

Great thread, and really interesting to see the results of this. I agree 100% we need to do 2 big things to give this the flexibility it deserves.

1. Team Deploy, we've always wanted it, we havn't done it yet because it's a lot of work but it needs to happen.
2. Queuing for a specific system to allow DUST to dictate where they want to fight. This makes the most sense to do in combination with team deploy.

We have spoken at length about both of these with the CPM including during the design of Uprising 1.7. They are both on the plan but simply got cut due to time constraints. I can't speak to whether they will be in 1.8 mind you, plans are afoot.

Well, how will team deploy be implemented? If there's team deploy without matchmaking against other teams, 16 organized players showing up against randoms, or even squads of 6 means the battle is lost before it started. In that sense why even bother allowing players from any other corp in FW besides the big ones? Hopefully Scotty will pit teams against each other.

I understand the idea of choosing selecting which contracts to take, but OP tends to have forgotten that contracts in its current form in gallente caldari war for example are also generated by Gallente capsuleers.

There shouldn't be an isk payout, the loyalty store already makes items cheap. If they can't spalsh out 8K isk for a proto suit, well that's their own problem.

FW could use some work, but don't just hand the games in it over to the who's who of pubstompers just because their favored race as a whole are getting their butts kicked.

Well, how will team deploy be implemented? If there's team deploy without matchmaking against other teams, 16 organized players showing up against randoms, or even squads of 6 means the battle is lost before it started. In that sense why even bother allowing players from any other corp in FW besides the big ones? Hopefully Scotty will pit teams against each other.

I understand the idea of choosing selecting which contracts to take, but OP tends to have forgotten that contracts in its current form in gallente caldari war for example are also generated by Gallente capsuleers.

There shouldn't be an isk payout, the loyalty store already makes items cheap. If they can't spalsh out 8K isk for a proto suit, well that's their own problem.

FW could use some work, but don't just hand the games in it over to the who's who of pubstompers just because their favored race as a whole are getting their butts kicked.

Glad you picked up on this Tesfa as I was going to say something on this topic too!

As much as I agree with most of the OP's comments, as well as many of the other views and ideas put forward in this thread (I would also like to see team Deploy btw), I am a little concerned with the idea of this feature with the current matchmaking.

As I understand it squads are already prioritised for FW, so I take it that if Team Deploy is activated that it would trump squads, which leads on to other issues.

Many of the large corps that have been involved with PC and their players have made a lot of isk, rightly so, they've made the effort to take districts. But there are many small corps out there that have never and would never stand a chance at PC, there is now quite a large isk gap between these large corps and the small ones in the game.

FW was a little bit of haven for a squad or two from small or medium size corps to run together, with a few other random squads on their team and couple of blueberries thrown in to fill up the team. Something a little more than standard pub matches.

As Tesfa says these teams of mixed squads would be no match for A Team Deploy team either in communication or Isk reserves, the battle would be lost before it had even started (This is of course happening now for other reasons see Gal/Min Vs Cal/Amr)

TL;DR
I can see that with PC being as broken as it is atm, that many of the corps in PC will turn to FW as an alternative, which with current matchmaking , their iso reserves and a proposed Team Deploy will lead to massive pub stomps

Agreed TechMechMeds, just wanted to get the point across that a Team Deploy mechanic better be thoroughly tested before being released into the wild, otherwise we just end up with another broken mechanic that need fixing.

Glad you picked up on this Tesfa as I was going to say something on this topic too!

As much as I agree with most of the OP's comments, as well as many of the other views and ideas put forward in this thread (I would also like to see team Deploy btw), I am a little concerned with the idea of this feature with the current matchmaking.

As I understand it squads are already prioritised for FW, so I take it that if Team Deploy is activated that it would trump squads, which leads on to other issues.

Many of the large corps that have been involved with PC and their players have made a lot of isk, rightly so, they've made the effort to take districts. But there are many small corps out there that have never and would never stand a chance at PC, there is now quite a large isk gap between these large corps and the small ones in the game.

FW was a little bit of haven for a squad or two from small or medium size corps to run together, with a few other random squads on their team and couple of blueberries thrown in to fill up the team. Something a little more than standard pub matches.

As Tesfa says these teams of mixed squads would be no match for A Team Deploy team either in communication or Isk reserves, the battle would be lost before it had even started (This is of course happening now for other reasons see Gal/Min Vs Cal/Amr)

TL;DR
I can see that with PC being as broken as it is atm, that many of the corps in PC will turn to FW as an alternative, which with current matchmaking , their isk reserves and a proposed Team Deploy will lead to massive pub stomps.

Team Deploy will need serious testing before being released into the wild, otherwise we just end up with another broken mechanic that needs to be fixed.

Edit: Spelling/typo's

It was mentioned that teams would only be able to fight teams, not team vs randoms, im not sure if that's official but it'd best be or I'll die laughing.

I feel very strongly about the core issue about pc, the whole thing is just backwards lol, capsuleers take a back seat while we have a miniature dirt war lol.

Pc is off the rails mate Lol.

This is part of the reason why team deploy will take a bit of time to get right. We first need to be able to build the team, but then matching that team into a battle that is fun and balanced without waiting an eternity and still allowing factions to push is trickier than it sounds.

For me this is one of the reasons a formal team deploy would have to be contract based with the contracts made Eve side. A milita uses LP/ISK to set a contract for a system that can be set to private or public and then the opposing faction gets the option to respond by contracting out to a specific group or have it become a public contract if they don't feel the need to hire someone to counter the other team.

Kane i think dust players should be able to choose systems to fight on with out eve nerds. However there need to be a way for public and private contracts for eve piilots to choose a system. We should be able to see the highlighted system on the star map and if we choose to fight or defend the rewards should be greater

There needs to be choice in the system but greater rewards for WORKING WITH eve nerds

I see you've kept that lovely "term of endearment" for all of us that fly ships.

In any case, I'm all over the idea of a contract system that would allow Dust players to shop around contracts set up by EVE players and jump into a battle as a team. We're supposed to be mercenaries, right? So let us be mercenaries in as many ways and situations as possible.

Kane i think dust players should be able to choose systems to fight on with out eve nerds. However there need to be a way for public and private contracts for eve piilots to choose a system. We should be able to see the highlighted system on the star map and if we choose to fight or defend the rewards should be greater

There needs to be choice in the system but greater rewards for WORKING WITH eve nerds

Yeah, I agree that a hybrid system is generally the best way to go. I just don't want the problems of PC to come to roost in FW and have all of the logistics and the headaches that go with it, and then have no way for the logistical burden to be offloaded at least between the two player bases.

I think you right though that it all has to be reinforced via rewards. To me this biggest problem isn't scrubs fighting against a full team, but players pulling a Shad and lining up to intentionally loose matches to get the desired outcome.

We first need to be able to build the team, but then matching that team into a battle that is fun and balanced without waiting an eternity and still allowing factions to push is trickier than it sounds.

Yep, this is why the old corp contracts had to go.

I am glad you remember back that we WERE suppose to be mercs not farmers. To many crying dust bunnies in closed beta wanted to be land owners and look what it got us

Yep, this is why the old corp contracts had to go.

It's the new eden way "When you cant win, loose" For ever to be known as "pulling a shad"

Yea I am still pissed that you turned mercs into farmers nullarbor because a few kids cried to be land owners.

Still wish the system could have been iterated on rather than scrapped. I do think that in the meantime though putting ISK back in the FW system should be a good step in the right direction.

This is especially true with team deploy being something that would potentially take a lot of bandwidth and need to be done well and have all the bases covered. The same goes for a player market as well. A lot of the issues in Dust seem to come down to all the parts of a system not being in place when a feature is launched. No where is the curse of dependencies more apparent than in PC though.

We have a squad finder mechanic already right?
Why not have a Team Deploy mechanic in place for the randoms that do not want to get proto stomped in FW?

Any random can then jump into a team that has spots open.

Just a thought.

Because 90% of the randoms have no idea what they are doing or did you never wondered why they all like to hack red LAVS to drive around with (LAVs must be so exotic to them as they haven't found the right-Pad-arrow yet) and just look at that red letter 'A' doing nothing?