DUST Search - Imagine a DUST

Lynn Beck wrote:

Garrett Blacknova wrote:

Armored Core V's online died in about 3 or 4 months for everyone outside of Japan, because of a multitude of reasons.

A major one was the lack of playerbase, a problem DUST shares, but to a greater extreme. In Japan, the Armored Core franchise is hugely popular, and even there, ACV online had mostly died out about 7 or 8 months after release, and has since had its servers shut down across all regions. If they copy/pasted the mechanics from Armored Core into DUST, the even smaller playerbase would cause the system to flop even faster than it did in the original game.

Another part of the problem is that there was a limit of 20 players, which is a problem DUST doesn't share.

The biggest problem, however, is that if enemies can freely attack you at any time, players will attack and wear down your corp's defenses while you're online, and people will AVOID attacking when you're online, so you won't be able to defend as you need in order to repair your territory.

There's a reason Armored Core: Verdict Day didn't continue with the same mechanics they used in the previous game, and that reason is quite simply that THEY DON'T WORK.

I remember joining in after about 7 months of being active.

We had 80 player peak, but we had a pretty darned hardcore playerbase.

Also, DUST has 5k average.

ANYBODY could run a raid, but only elite would be able to successfully raid a well thought out base.

Also, selecting Defense makes any attack in that area select them.(this is one i want to question, is the randomization of the attacks)
Though it DOES solve many problems of PC's.


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Garrett Blacknova Codex Troopers 5107	Posted - 2014.04.15 07:41:00 - [1] - Quote Armored Core V's online died in about 3 or 4 months for everyone outside of Japan, because of a multitude of reasons. A major one was the lack of playerbase, a problem DUST shares, but to a greater extreme. In Japan, the Armored Core franchise is hugely popular, and even there, ACV online had mostly died out about 7 or 8 months after release, and has since had its servers shut down across all regions. If they copy/pasted the mechanics from Armored Core into DUST, the even smaller playerbase would cause the system to flop even faster than it did in the original game. Another part of the problem is that there was a limit of 20 players, which is a problem DUST doesn't share. The biggest problem, however, is that if enemies can freely attack you at any time, players will attack and wear down your corp's defenses while you're online, and people will AVOID attacking when you're online, so you won't be able to defend as you need in order to repair your territory. There's a reason Armored Core: Verdict Day didn't continue with the same mechanics they used in the previous game, and that reason is quite simply that THEY DON'T WORK.
Garrett Blacknova Codex Troopers 5109	Posted - 2014.04.15 17:28:00 - [2] - Quote Lynn Beck wrote: Garrett Blacknova wrote: Armored Core V's online died in about 3 or 4 months for everyone outside of Japan, because of a multitude of reasons. A major one was the lack of playerbase, a problem DUST shares, but to a greater extreme. In Japan, the Armored Core franchise is hugely popular, and even there, ACV online had mostly died out about 7 or 8 months after release, and has since had its servers shut down across all regions. If they copy/pasted the mechanics from Armored Core into DUST, the even smaller playerbase would cause the system to flop even faster than it did in the original game. Another part of the problem is that there was a limit of 20 players, which is a problem DUST doesn't share. The biggest problem, however, is that if enemies can freely attack you at any time, players will attack and wear down your corp's defenses while you're online, and people will AVOID attacking when you're online, so you won't be able to defend as you need in order to repair your territory. There's a reason Armored Core: Verdict Day didn't continue with the same mechanics they used in the previous game, and that reason is quite simply that THEY DON'T WORK. I remember joining in after about 7 months of being active. We had 80 player peak, but we had a pretty darned hardcore playerbase. Also, DUST has 5k average. ANYBODY could run a raid, but only elite would be able to successfully raid a well thought out base. Also, selecting Defense makes any attack in that area select them.(this is one i want to question, is the randomization of the attacks) Though it DOES solve many problems of PC's. At the point you joined ACV, the game had died out, and been resurrected into a state where it was only viable because of a system of etiquette and honour rules being maintained by the players who controlled most of the territory in the game. That's not exactly a viable scenario for DUST. It was only viable in ACV because the game was already in the process of dying out and it was only the hardcore fanbase still keeping it ticking and FORCING it to operate with some semblance of functionality. Without player-created rules to work around the broken rules the game uses, the system in place in ACV was not viable. It didn't work when the community was active because it was far too easily exploitable. Also, the fact that you controlled individual territories within a region, but players could only attack the region and not a specific territory they wanted to try and capture was one of the major flaws in the game. You could spend 2 hours on "burn runs" attacking undefended locations and even if you brought them down to 0 AP, you wouldn't be able to capture anything until a fixed amount of time has passed to give the owners a chance to try and defend the territory and restore some AP. If your team had to leave after cleanly opening up a territory, then another team came along and beat the owners when they're defending, that team who did NONE of the work wearing down the defenses would take all the reward. If no other team came along, the defending team would be forced to watch while they lose their territory because someone burned it down to 0 then refused to fight and let them defend, and if the enemy team waited for the territory to open up, they would be able to attack and take control by fighting easy AI enemies and claim a "victory" without ever having to fight the players trying to legitimately hold their territory. Another problem - equally hard to prove or counter - was that when a territory was damaged by attackers, a defending team could use a "proxy" team to attack and deliberately lose so they could gain AP with a successful defense. Cheap exploits were easily found and taken advantage of on a regular basis across all regions, and only the Japanese version of the game had any form of moderation, with many players who ran alt teams getting caught and having not only their alts, but also the main accounts and their teams banned from play. The other cheap tactics, while players frowned upon them, were legitimate flaws in the mechanics and not abuses of PSN's allowance for multiple accounts.
Garrett Blacknova Codex Troopers 5114	Posted - 2014.04.16 05:24:00 - [3] - Quote Lynn Beck wrote: Garrett Blacknova wrote: -snip- Hmm. Well i don't remember that. Although it would be reasonably flawed, if what you said was true, it's still a better place to start than the current PC mechanics. I was involved with Armored Core V as a regular player from its release day right up to the release of the sequel, Verdict Day, which I'm still playing regularly alongisde friends (one of whom wrote a good FAQ about the game). I know what I'm talking about here, and that IS how it worked. Quote: We NEED a way to take a district with Asian timers on it, that does not involve directly engaging them. WHY? What reason is there for you to NEED a way to take control of a district without needing to directly fight its owners before claiming it? Quote: It should take several days of constant attack to whittle down a district to 0, and, if the enemy doesn't re-up with their infinite ISK, lose it. My numbers were merely arbitrary, but you should be able to attack 4x a day, at any time. Place a Raid order, and in 30 minutes, the attack is initiated. This gives time for the defenders to form an emergency response team. Attacking 4x a day, you would outdestroy production facilities. At 20 clones a day net loss, you would be able to drop a 450 clone district in 22 days, so my math is probably WAY off. Now THIS sounds more plausible. You SHOULD be able to weaken a district, wear it down, prevent production and various other things outside of the reinforcement timer period where you can capture it. It would be great to be able to queue "raid" missions which can happen immediately, or "invasion" missions which work on the reinforcement timer. If your team repeatedly raids the enemy district, you can interfere with clone production and possibly damage/corrupt/destroy some of the stored clones when you win, weakening the district and limiting its production capabilities for the day. It's perfectly reasonable to prevent capture of a district outside of a specific window set by the owners though. If a district remains at 0 production capabilities for a certain period without being repaired after getting beaten down, it should become "abandoned". If you own a district, you'll have to work on damage control when you've been attacked outside of your reinforcement timer window, adding an extra ISK cost to holding onto those districts, which would help to somewhat balance out the profit involved. Quote: Behind all that flawedness in Acv, wasn't placing your turrets fun? Wasn't reading the plethora of battle reports fun? It was fun. And placing those turrets and creating your impenetrable defense network in Verdict Day is fun too - they kept that part, even though they massively reworked most of the other mechanics that work around it. Having customisable districts is a great idea. SOME of your proposal is really good, I'm not going to deny that, but ripping the core of ACV's territory system and trying to wedge it into DUST wouldn't work because that core system is not merely flawed, but broken.