Kain, how would you feel about pushing for the removal/replacement of districts with whole planets being a single district/combat area? It would allow CCP to spread DUST to more regions without rampantly increasing the district count.

I don't think the total number of districts should rise much, but given how much EVE participation is relevant to where EVE groups live, I think it'd be ideal to get DUST in as many regions as possible. Reducing or removing the district pile would allow region proliferation without district proliferation.

Chance, when people are talking about a hotfix it means only server side changes are made not client side, and if you put in some kind of timer you would have to communicate that to the player in-game and thus it would require client side changes and likely UI elements. Also, I'm sorry but your ideas of putting completely artificial timers and barriers on how much PC players participate in is just plain bad and completely counter to the sandbox. Vet players will just resort to using their numerous 10 to 15m SP alts to bypass an arbitrary system like that. Simply, you would be adding an annoying logistical layer with no real benefit.

The solution here is not by creating some kind of corral but by adjusting the incentives. Eliminate auto sale and make fighting of much higher value than sitting on a district collecting clones and watch the sparks fly.

Dust is a lobby shooter and that isn't changing, so yes if someone has better players they will beat you. Long term one of the issues that needs to be resolved is the fact that every PC fight is for the ownership of the district. SInce it is such high stakes there is an expectation that you field your best or hire someone that can actually compete against your enemies.

FYI -

Hotfixing = changing numbers

Hotfixing =/= adding anything new whatsoever

The curent timer alows a small part of the players to excile the majority of players. Opening new systems means giving the small elite more districts. All you need is a good A team. Reducing the timer a corporation will need more then 1 A team.
Thats how it works in eve POS (main ISK producers) can be attacked any time. The 24hour timer for the ownership of the system starts after the POS are destroyed.
Thats why in Eve small elite corps are working like pirates with random raids and not like large system owners. If you want to hold a system you need alot of members. That should be the same in dust.

Now we have a 80% of players with protofittings playing in pubs against new players.
Find a way to get protofitting players in to PC.

Given what you said about hot fixes being server side I'm going to make a very valid assumption you know nothing about software releases. Hot fixes are NOT limited to server side unless CCP are complete idiots. This is why you see the client syncing, it's updating your client. How much they can update client side is debatable, but horfixes in all proper use of the term mean changing the code.

He doesn't want to hear that, but It's honestly a nobrainer for CCP to implement this because it opens up PC to so many more players.

If you were able to set a window of downtime for a district (let's say 8 hours) this would give a corporation the ability to cover a timeframe that they aren't likely to have people on for battles. Outside of that window, it's game time. You either have people on or you don't.

But like I said, they don't want this. It would require them to recruit and maintain more players. God forbid they have to add a player with a KDR under 4.

Eh, not really. We actually had a case where I was sick and wasn't able to distribute the fight card, so folks weren't ready or expecting matches. I logged in and two of those matches were right on top of each other and we only had minutes to prep. We assembled two teams and dealt with both with one actually being a district attack, which resulted in us flipping the district.

I'm sure attack windows could be handled just fine by DNS, but honestly this ends up turning the game into a job. You MUST be on every day to defend districts over these X hours is just not a good way to do it. Dust 514 is still a lobby shooter and that is best experience when you have two full teams facing off against each other.

Now I could see it where you combine a timer and a window with the window fight allowing the attackers to make money and if they press the attack it triggers the timer and then it becomes a fight for the district.

Again, I'm not sure I like the attack windows idea, but I'll try to poke around and see how much that could be implemented in a hot fix.

Of course you have to touch code to make any changes. It's a matter if that code is being handled by the server or the client. Example: changing a clone pack from 120 to 150 doesn't require any code changes on the client running on the PS3 and thus you don't have to download a patch for it. I'm by no means a programming wizard, but I do understand how CCP is able to handle updates and hotfixes.

The system still needs to be balanced and adding mechanics that will add long term problems isn't the best course. I don't think the mechanics should go out of their way to punish players for being good.

I put out some pokes about the window issue and I'm also in the process of getting a meeting set with CCP so these issues can be discussed. When I hear something back about how much the timers can be manipulated I'll let you know. We just need to be careful we don't swing the pendulum so far one direction that it becomes the blob always wins or Planetary Conquest becomes something you MUST do every day to keep your district.

[quote=Kain Spero][quote=Ares 514]

I just don't want you to limit what you think they can achieve on a hotfix. I know a lot about software development and from what I have seen they have a fairly robust hotfix system. Obviously configuring server numbers SHOULD be easiest but small changes to the client side should be relatively easy to.

If we can push them to tweak a few items PC 1.0 could be much improved even if it still really needs a complete new version to make it what it should have been.

Agreed. The most important thing for these suggestions that they be low bandwidth.

120 Clones it utter crap and a waste of ISK. It has to get changed.

Have multiple clone packs that offer different amounts of clones for a different price. That way a small number of clones could be bought to just add to the count for just a small amount of ISK. A corp may have limited funds but think they could win with 50 more clones.

I also think dropping the time down to around 18 hours may help also.

I think folks are underestimating the value of effective clone packs. I'm also curious now if a raiding mechanic can be implemented. What if instead of auto sale on the reinforce timer it spawns a match that you have to go into and win to get the ISK from your auto sale. The match spawns in other contracts for the attacker side where anyone can join. Attackers win they get ISK from the clone sale instead. Each side gets 40 clones.

The effect would be a way for corps without land to siphon ISK from the big boys and potentially use that ISK to fund effective clone packs rather the relying on just taxes and donations. (My concern is this idea would require too much bandwidth)

I'm fine with entertaining the idea of smaller clone packs I just think you won't solve PC 1.0 self attacking with clone packs unless the packs exceed the ISK you get from killing it combined with the passive ISK. Although with the above idea or turning off passive clone sales that problem would be largely eliminated.

Completely wrong. Even CCP is not this bad.

When have CCP ever added something new in a hotfix? They fiddle with numbers and fix bugs but anything even remotely new they leave for the big updates, even a lot of the bug fixes!

Changing numbers of clone packs or removing passive isk I can see as doable in one of these hotfixes without too much bother but do you really believe that they'll be able to manage anything grander than that with PC1.0 without a proper update and before PC2.0 comes out? Do you really think they'll bother to monkey with the mechanics when they're going to tear it all down and replace it in a few months anyway?

Personally I think it's silly that the same 16 people can instantly teleport all over MH and defend as many districts that they want at literally the same time.

While this game should not be about zerging. 3 or 4 A-Teams should not be able to defend an entire region. More importantly it should not cost billions of isk to just try to overwhelm 30 people.

The system still needs to be balanced and adding mechanics that will add long term problems isn't the best course. I don't think the mechanics should go out of their way to punish players for being good.

I put out some pokes about the window issue and I'm also in the process of getting a meeting set with CCP so these issues can be discussed. When I hear something back about how much the timers can be manipulated I'll let you know. We just need to be careful we don't swing the pendulum so far one direction that it becomes the blob always wins or Planetary Conquest becomes something you MUST do every day to keep your district.

The system still needs to be balanced and adding mechanics that will add long term problems isn't the best course. I don't think the mechanics should go out of their way to punish players for being good.

I put out some pokes about the window issue and I'm also in the process of getting a meeting set with CCP so these issues can be discussed. When I hear something back about how much the timers can be manipulated I'll let you know. We just need to be careful we don't swing the pendulum so far one direction that it becomes the blob always wins or Planetary Conquest becomes something you MUST do every day to keep your district.

I think folks are underestimating the value of effective clone packs. I'm also curious now if a raiding mechanic can be implemented. What if instead of auto sale on the reinforce timer it spawns a match that you have to go into and win to get the ISK from your auto sale. The match spawns in other contracts for the attacker side where anyone can join. Attackers win they get ISK from the clone sale instead. Each side gets 40 clones.

The effect would be a way for corps without land to siphon ISK from the big boys and potentially use that ISK to fund effective clone packs rather the relying on just taxes and donations. (My concern is this idea would require too much bandwidth)

I'm fine with entertaining the idea of smaller clone packs I just think you won't solve PC 1.0 self attacking with clone packs unless the packs exceed the ISK you get from killing it combined with the passive ISK. Although with the above idea or turning off passive clone sales that problem would be largely eliminated.