Cal Predine
StarKnight Security
59
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Posted - 2014.03.15 10:34:00 -
[1] - Quote
Well, we've all known for some time that the cloaking field was on its way - it opens enormous avenues for both creative gameplay and abuse. I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to it or dreading it, but based on typical player actions...
The changes to scanners seem logical enough, and return some value to the concept of vehicle-based scanners. I hope the changes don't go too far and render the scanner worthless - Dust is already a much less cerebral game than many of us had hoped it would be. Completely removing infantry intelligence gathering from the game would really be another step in the wrong direction. I'm hoping for the best, though - scanners had become way too prevalent.
I can't help feeling all the other changes are there to thwart the terrible lag problems which some players perceive to be related to deliberate equipment spam to induce client slowdown. While I applaud any and all actions to improve game performance, I'm far from convinced that equipment spam is the main cause of this effect, and looking at things purely logically, trying to tackle client-side slowdown when everyone is locked to pretty much the same client machine isn't really going to cure any inequities in gameplay, as it should affect everyone equally.
It will be clear that the main differences between players will be their network situation, and anyone who has spent significant effort studying the lag problems will know that lag follows specific (consistently high-scoring) players around, and renders other players obsolete when they target them..
So, when are we going to see the dev blag about dealing with those problems? Because you can't balance gameplay when the engine is fundamentally broken, and all the shiny stuff in the world isn't going to keep even long-term friends of the Dust project like on-board when the gameplay is consistently painful because other players are being given an unbeatable edge by massively over-generous lag compensation.
PS3 Slim -
Hybrid hard drive with 8GB SSD -
South Coast UK -
Virgin media cable BB, 20Mbps down, 2Mbps up.
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