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Vell0cet
Dirt Nap Squad
Dirt Nap Squad.
1454
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Posted - 2014.04.28 20:46:00 -
[1] - Quote
NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS
Let me begin by explaining that the term GÇ£tiericide GÇ£is being used very differently by those advocating for it in DUST and how it was implemented in EVE. In EVE T1 ships were GÇ£tieredGÇ¥ in that you gained access to them as different levels of skill. To make this more concrete, it would be like unlocking Amarr Assault at Amarr Medium level 3 and Amarr Logistics at level 5, with the Amarr Logistics suits having better stats than the Amarr Assault. This made no sense. In EVE they GÇ£tiericidedGÇ¥ T1 ships, so all T1 Cruisers of a given race are roughly equal in their respective roles.
GǪBUT THERE ARE STILL TIERS IN EVE! To use an example, You have the Omen which is an Amarr T1 cruiser, the Navy Omen which is an all-around better version, the Zealot which is a T2 version of the Omen and thereGÇÖs the T3 Legion which can be configured to be an Omen on steroids. There is a huge power gap between an Omen and a Zealot for example. All tiericide did was make the Arbitrator, Augoror, Maller and the Omen all equivalent in power in their respective roles in the same way that a Commando and a Sentinel are roughly equivalent in their roles. Furthermore, tiers exist for modules and gear as well. There are T1 modules, T2, Faction stuff, and Deadspace/Officer modules. Using higher meta modules will give you a MASSIVE advantage over someone with lower meta fits (in EVE the fits are often much more expensive than the hull).
RISK vs. ISK
This is the mechanism that sets this game apart from every other FPS ever made and also makes it the most interesting. The premise is simple: you can buy a significant power advantage over other players by risking the loss of expensive fits and taking the chance of loosing a significant amount of ISK. This is a really interesting mechanism that puts this game above the rest. It incentivizes players to focus on survivability, avoid needless losses, fight smart and use teamwork. Fights are much more realistic because players sometimes have a lot on the line, and will go to great lengths to avoid death (just like a real soldier might). Gameplay plays out much differently in this game than in others as a result. In other games, itGÇÖs spawn, kill, die, respawn, repeat. Death has little-to-no consequence. With DUST not only is there the existence of consequences, but the player chooses the degree to how severe the consequences of death are every time they pick a suit to spawn in with. The range is from negligible consequences in free suits (just stats) to massive losses that can represent hours of playtime to recover from. It produces an emotional connection to your character, where you actually fear death, and it makes you care about survival. This is a very rich and interesting mechanic, that not only defines DUST, but distinguishes it from all other FPS games in the market. Choice, consequences, meaning: itGÇÖs the GÇ£special sauceGÇ¥ of DUST 514.
It also creates interesting incentives to use cheap gear to kill expensive suits. Not only is this an immensely satisfying way to play the game, it creates variety and produces a whole layer of ISK-efficient fittings. Despite having over 35 mill SP, I normally run STD suits with good modules; itGÇÖs fun and challenging and helps pay for those times I get angry and make poor decisions (like repeatedly loosing PRO suits trying to get revenge when IGÇÖm getting stomped).
Tiericide destroys most of the risk vs. ISK mechanic. Some variants of tiericide proposals still have some degrees of risk vs. ISK with modules still being tiered, but to a large extent, they all dramatically water-down this aspect of the game, and will fundamentally affect gameplay. People wonGÇÖt have the same adrenalin from trying to avoid death because the risk vs. ISK mechanism has been watered down.
BPOs
Tiericide would produce massive, unsolvable problems with the existing BPOs. LetGÇÖs say CCP got rid of STD and ADV gear so everyone has PRO suits (with different specializations as some advocate for). CCP now has to decide what to do with the BPOs theyGÇÖve been paid for. They could promote all BPOs to PRO level, but that would truly break the economy. As they exist nowGÇöwith no new BPOGÇÖs being sold and being restricted to MLT and STD, their impact on the economy is fairly small (decreasing over time), but if they were of the same tier that everyone else was using, then it would break the game.
The alternatives all amount to fundamentally altering the value of what players paid for when they bough BPOs. Keeping them STD while all other suits get promoted to PRO would make them worthless, refunding them would be a slap-in-the-face, and isnGÇÖt really even possible with things like the Templar set. This would also create a huge financial burden on CCP. Even if they refunded AUR and kept our cash, many of us wouldnGÇÖt need to buy more AUR for a very long timeGÇöand would probably feel so betrayed, you might see many BPO owning vets leave. They could implement some form of crafting and have BPOGÇÖs play a role in that, but it would require a huge amount of development resources to implement that would be much better spent on gameplay, and youGÇÖd still be left with the issue of CCP fundamentally altering your purchase into something very different that what you paid money for. Lastly they could be converted into some cosmetic mechanism and remove the free suit aspect, which again would enrage a lot of their biggest financial supporters.
There is no good solution to the BPO dilemma that tiericide would create.
(continued)
Best PvE idea ever!
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Vell0cet
Dirt Nap Squad
Dirt Nap Squad.
1454
|
Posted - 2014.04.28 20:46:00 -
[2] - Quote
AUR GEAR
Tiericide would ruin the AUR market. AUR gear promises to give early access to gear before you have the skills to use it. This goes away when everyone has access to everything with minimal SP requirements. I donGÇÖt know what percentage of DUST 514GÇÖs revenue is produced by AUR gear sales vs. Boosters, but I suspect this would hurt CCPGÇÖs bottom line. The game canGÇÖt afford to take hits to its income stream. DUST needs a much bigger development team to get to where we all want it to be. This requires money (the real life kind) and tiericide would cut-into revenue (which I suspect is not where CCP wants it to be).
POWER DIVIDE
As I understand it, the primary reason some of the tiericide advocates are promoting it is to reduce the power gap. This game is built on the idea of a power gap. ItGÇÖs the primary motivation for investing time and effort into improving your character. ItGÇÖs arguably the reason EVE as grown every year since launch. If you make the power gap too small, this incentive to invest time, ISK, and real money evaporates, along with the player base and CCPGÇÖs budget. This is an MMORPG, there are plenty of GÇ£fairGÇ¥ shooters where everyone is equal and only gun game matters. The fact that SP, fits, teamwork, gun game, and intelligence all factor into your ability to do well is what makes this the most deep, rich, and interesting FPS ever made. Remove (or reduce too much) the RPG aspects of the game and youGÇÖll loose a lot of what makes this game special. YouGÇÖre essentially trading a short-term gain in accessibility of DUST for the long-term sustainability of a game that rewards commitment and effort by vets (think about how many would biomass if you removed all SP).
Either the power gap is sufficient to incentivize players to commit for the long haul, and put in the time and effort, or itGÇÖs not. Tiericide greatly reduces this incentive. Furthermore, youGÇÖre still going to have SP power gaps (which are much more dramatic than the gear). So itGÇÖs a poor solution for achieving a questionable goal. IGÇÖve heard it suggested that getting lvl 1 in a skill would unlock access to all tiers as one option. This would still have the problem of greatly reducing demand for AUR gear, but otherwise this is a much more reasonable approach to reducing the power gap of gear (while still preserving the risk vs. ISK mechanism that makes this game so great).
NPE
Advocates of tiericide seem to think this is the solution to the new player experience issues, specifically new players being stomped and quitting DUST. I can assure you that new players will continue to be stomped even if all gear was STD and there was no SP. Teamwork, knowledge of the maps/game mechanics, and experience are huge advantages in this game. DonGÇÖt agree with me? Try it out. Get 6 friends together, make a squad of brand-new alts and stomp in the academy. Tiericide is a poor solution to this problem. The problem isnGÇÖt PRO vs. new players in STD, itGÇÖs new players in the same matches with vets.
TIERS ARENGÇÖT THE PROBLEM
Tiericide wonGÇÖt fix the problems with this game, and will generate many new problems of their own (see above). IGÇÖll elaborate on the issues and solutions that are better than tiericide.
NPE SUCKS
The biggest problem with the NPE is the lack of a solid gameplay tutorial. It needs to be story-based and walk the player through the gameplay mechanics in a fun and compelling way. It should have a story, have Portal-like dark humor and Halo-like tutorial action/intensity in a heavily scripted mission that GÇ£sells the gameGÇ¥ on itGÇÖs features highlighting all of the awesome things you can do in DUST. There should be a militia version of everything, there should be more starter suits, and there should be a test range where you can play around with suits/weapons/vehicles/fits to see what youGÇÖre interested in investing SP into. IGÇÖd like to see CCP introduce a test game mode where you can deploy to a test map solo, or with friends (teamkilling is on). In this mode you would have infinite SP and everything costs 0ISK. You wouldnGÇÖt earn ISK or SP, and it wouldnGÇÖt effect your stats in any way. There would be static NPCGÇÖs you can shoot to test fittings. Ideally you could configure NPC skills and SP as well (i.e. walk up to them, press a button and you can access their SP tree and fit their suit/vehicle). You would basically have a consequence-free sandbox to goof around, test mechanics, make Judge-like YouTube videos, etc.
Next, we need to address the real problem with new players being stomped, and that is new players being put in matches with vets. We need an optional 2nd tier academy mode for players under some SP threshold. The threshold should be high enough that you can GÇ£graduateGÇ¥ from this academy and field a reasonably competitive fit (e.g. one solid ADV fit with some decent core skills), but not so high that those about to graduate are stomping the newest players in the pool. I think 5mill SP is probably around that magic number. This mode would be the only game mode checked by default when you graduate from the initial academy (to be replaced by the story-based tutorial whenever thatGÇÖs done). You could still participate in regular pubs, FW, even PC (unlikely anyone would want you, but not prohibited by the game). Having a second tier academy is a thousand-times better solution than tiericide to the new players being stomped issue.
(continued)
Best PvE idea ever!
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Vell0cet
Dirt Nap Squad
Dirt Nap Squad.
1454
|
Posted - 2014.04.28 20:47:00 -
[3] - Quote
Additionally, teamwork is a major part of why organized squads (even if they were all wearing STD) are so lethal in this game. New players need to be GÇ£socializedGÇ¥ as quickly as possible. Not only does forming friendships create a strong incentive to stick around, it helps alleviate shortcomings in the tutorials, and is the only reasonable way to counter organized squads of good players. To address this, we need a new menu for new player corp recruitment. Essentially it would be a list of corps who have registered with CCP (possibly for a monthly ISK fee) to be listed as specifically wanting brand-new players. CCP has final approval of all corps in the list. The list will show the corp name, number of players, number of active players, tax rate, a 200 word-or-less description the CEO writes and submits to CCP for approval. Accessing this menu should be part of the tutorial, and joining a corp should grant a reward. I could see this as a useful recruiting tool for corps like DUST University. I think it would dramatically increase new player retention.
THE ECONOMY SUCKS
Part of the problem with PRO gear is that the economy is broken. With DNS taking over PC there is way too much ISK being generated without the right ISK sinks to destroy it. People are pub stomping as a result, and this is bad for the game. The solution isnGÇÖt tiericide. The solution is to fix the economy. For one thing, PRO suits are way too cheap and STD are too expensive. There should be a much steeper cost curve so you get linear improvement in performance for an exponential increase in cost. It works this way in EVE and it works well. People should be very nervous to run their PRO fits (like they are with their Thales). They should be for PC and special occasions (like revenge). Furthermore, there needs to be big ISK sinks at the corporate level that give PC corps something to invest their ISK in instead of handing out ISK to the members for them to burn on pub matches. Having to buy War barges and MCCGÇÖs in PC 2.0 might be the kind of thing that will suck more ISK out of PC corps.
ISK efficiency isnGÇÖt a stat in DUST. It should be THE stat in DUST. It should be posted in the EOM screen for all to see, and it should be the first stat listed in the leaderboards. The easiest way to reduce proto stomping is to publish to the community everyoneGÇÖs average ISK value of enemy assets destroyed - ISK value of your assets lost per match. The social pressure to have a good ISK efficiency will greatly disincentives running very expensive fits and will make high K/D numbers look stupid if paired with terrible efficiency. This would be trivial to program and would make a huge impact on player behavior.
Collectively these address the problems tiericide is attempting to address in a much better way and doesnGÇÖt sacrifice the GÇ£special sauceGÇ¥ of risk vs. ISK that makes DUST so awesome.
TL;DR: tiericide is f*cking stupid.
Best PvE idea ever!
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Vell0cet
Dirt Nap Squad
Dirt Nap Squad.
1491
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Posted - 2014.04.29 03:05:00 -
[4] - Quote
Iron Wolf Saber wrote:Still waiting on an answer to my previous conundrum though.
An ISK efficiency stat would be one reason. The same player with infinite ISK that enjoys padding his K/D with nonstop PRO gear would likely have some very ugly ISK efficiency numbers. Players in EVE with billions of ISK don't run golems fitted like the killmail you linked for the very same reason: it's embarrassing as hell.
Best PvE idea ever!
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Vell0cet
Dirt Nap Squad
Dirt Nap Squad.
1491
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Posted - 2014.04.29 03:44:00 -
[5] - Quote
@Leither Yiltron Thanks for the detailed and articulate response.
Leither Yiltron wrote:Saying that what people are asking for is wrong because they want something different is bonkers.
IGÇÖm not sure where you think I made this argument, because I agree that is a bad line of reasoning. The purpose of this section was to preempt the argument IGÇÖve heard made: tiericide worked well in EVE and was loved by all, ergo it will be equally as fantastic in DUST. This is equally as bonkers since the concept of tiericide are very different (as we both seem to agree).
I agree that the power curve and the ISK cost for that power curve should change. As far as ways to reduce the power gap, one option is to simply give all suits 1 extra slot (at all tiers) and a bit more CPU/PG to fill it. This would asymmetrically buff the lower tiers as theyGÇÖre getting a larger relative increase in their power, while still maintaining some reasonable improvements per tier. Going from 3 slots to 4 is a much bigger buff (+33% more slot space) than going from 5 slots to 6 (+20% slot space). Also, I mentioned IGÇÖd like to see the cost of PRO suits increase significantly, while STD decrease. So I donGÇÖt have a problem with tweaking the utility/cost curves as you put it.
Furthermore I acknowledged the idea of unlocking all suit tiers at level 1 in the skill. This creates the AUR problem mentioned, but would still allow for players to reduce the gap to some extent, while maintaining the integrity of the risk vs. ISK mechanism.
Leither Yiltron wrote:AUR gear is useless when your game doesn't retain players for long enough to convert them into paying customersGǪ
I completely agree. ThatGÇÖs why we need a solid NPE. I wrote a lot about how this should change. Tiericide doesnGÇÖt fix the NPE, and even if AUR gear is only 20% of CCPGÇÖs revenue stream, do you really think it would be healthy for CCP to have to shrink their development team by 20%? I think they need every nickel they can scrape together right now.
Leither Yiltron wrote:Saying that improving the tutorial alone will solve issues with the NPE in the face of the current UC ratio for suit tiers
I never said this. Improving the tutorial is an important component of the solution, but I also went into detail about several other ways to improve the NPE. Of particular relevance is the 2nd tier academy concept I outlined. I think this is a CRITICAL component to a successful NPE and will do much more for player retention than tiericide could. The fact that other games have better retention canGÇÖt be laid on tiered gear. There are many reasons for the bad NPE which is why I wrote quite a bit about the things that all need to change. I firmly believe that once a player has invested the time and effort to cap out of the extended academy they will be much more likely to stick around. As this happens, we will have a larger player base and matchmaking will become increasingly more effective.
Leither Yiltron wrote:This is in something like the top 3 on the list of ways to communicate ineffectively.
I was being cheeky.
Best PvE idea ever!
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Vell0cet
Dirt Nap Squad
Dirt Nap Squad.
1495
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Posted - 2014.04.29 04:42:00 -
[6] - Quote
Autoaim Bot514 wrote:Vrain Matari wrote:Iron Wolf Saber wrote:Vell0cet wrote:Iron Wolf Saber wrote:Still waiting on an answer to my previous conundrum though. An ISK efficiency stat would be one reason. The same player with infinite ISK that enjoys padding his K/D with nonstop PRO gear would likely have some very ugly ISK efficiency numbers. Players in EVE with billions of ISK don't run golems fitted like the killmail you linked for the very same reason: it's embarrassing as hell. Eve corp is making the infinite isk happen. This is very true, insanely wealthy EVE sugar dadies. But presumably, the EVE corp wants something that they are using us to get and we, ofc, are fighting to make ISK. So a full campaign in proto gear is going to cost our employers a pretty penny, and will push back by a considerable amount the date by which their ROI is positive. Corps that can produce results without wall-to-wall protospam will be in very high demand. And as far as players running exclusively proto in you infinite everything scenario, yes there will be proto Assaults, Proto Logis, Proto Sentinels, Proto Commandos, Proto Scouts. With an incredible variety of fittings adapted to an incredible variety of roles. I can make 50 million in eve in a few minutes. Losing 150 proto suits is nothing to an eve corp.
There is certainly an exchange rate to factor in, remember. I believe the player-run exchanges were operating around 10:1 ratio. Making 500 mill in EVE would require a significant amount of time.
Best PvE idea ever!
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