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To CCP Rouge (An Open Letter)

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Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1559	Posted - 2014.05.04 15:16:00 - [1] - Quote Warning: This is long, so print it off and read it on the flight to Shanghai or something. Dear CCP Rouge. First, I admit that I am angry and frustrated with the announcement about Project Legion being a separate product. I feel betrayed. You have asked for feedback, and so I have written a rational analysis of Project Legion based on what has been proposed thus far. This is objective feedback, not colored by emotion. I think there has been a serious miscalibration in the analysis of DUSTGÇÖs strengths and weaknesses that went into the planning for how to design Project LegionGÇÖs progression system. Nearly all MMOs have the serious challenge of creating a progression system that is compelling for GÇ£end-gameGÇ¥ veterans. Most fall into the trap of World of WarcraftGÇÖs GÇ£gear treadmillGÇ¥ system where the cool stuff you work for becomes obsolete as a better version is released several months/years later. EVE solved this problem with itGÇÖs skill tree, and DUST inherited that solution by being derived from it. In EVE, all ships are useful: your Rifter is still fun to use even after you unlock the Wolf. There are times when a cheap ship is better than an expensive one, and youGÇÖre forced to make those decisions about when you want to risk exponentially more expensive ships for linear power advantages every time you undock. ItGÇÖs part of the GÇ£secret sauceGÇ¥ that has made EVE the only MMO to grow every year since launch. The nature of the EVE skill system is also a huge component of why EVE has done so well. You gain linear improvement for exponential SP investment. This has several advantages: you can get into the basics of a role very quickly, but it takes a lot of time to truly excel in it. This encourages deep commitment, but allows a lot of player freedom and flexibility. YouGÇÖre never GÇ£doneGÇ¥ with EVEGÇÖs progression. DUST 514 has this advantage as well. Abandoning it is a catastrophic error in judgment. DUST has so many problems and can be such a chore to play in its current state, and yet you have tens of thousands of active players regularly logging in to earn their SP (despite its flaws). If there wasnGÇÖt the depth of the SP system, I honestly doubt most of them would play nearly as often (or even at all). That should tell you something about how powerful the SP system is for motivating players and the longevity the existing SP system creates. In the GÇ£ProgressionGÇ¥ session at Fanfest CCP Z made a statement that really concerned me: CCP Z wrote: So. The reasonGÇª one of the big problems I have is because itGÇÖs so expensive, people are actually not using [prototype suits], and we have really good people, really good players, and I know some people from CPM actually are doing that, that play militia gear. What the point? I donGÇÖt want that! I donGÇÖt want anybody to play militia gear when youGÇÖre done with militia gear just because a drop suit is expensive. You should be proud of, you know, having unlocked that drop suit and playing with that drop suit. When CCP Z said that, I thought to myself: GÇ£This guy really doesnGÇÖt understand what makes DUST 514 special.GÇ¥ What makes DUST special IS that a player with 50 million SP can still have a use for a militia drop suit. That ALL of those 2,000+ suits/items you have are actually useful and donGÇÖt become obsolete once you reach the next GÇ£level.GÇ¥ High SP players can squeeze higher meta modules into that militia suit and create great ISK efficient fits with it. ItGÇÖs incredibly gratifying to kill someone wearing a very expensive suit using a cheap one. The asymmetrical nature of DUST 514 is what makes the game compelling. There is supposed to be an economic ecosystem where you run cheap suits/fits at a disadvantage or grind PvE (in theory) to build ISK so you can buy better suits that give you an advantage. DUSTGÇÖs economy is broken because of the ISK faucet PC has become, not because of this modelGÇöwhich is excellent. This is a system that has both depth and longevity. Having suits follow a linear progression suit A < suit B < suit C gets stale once youGÇÖve maxed out your suit. And no, looking at your old suits stacked up in your quarters doesnGÇÖt fix this. The inevitable result is to introduce an expansion with suit D that everyone works towards, and then getGÇÖs bored with: i.e. the gear treadmill. People get exhausted with this kind of system and eventually move on to another game. All MMOGÇÖs with this approach to progression have declined in users over time. The only one that hasnGÇÖt is EVE, and it doesnGÇÖt use this approach. It is foolish to ignore this point. The proposed system makes it difficult to change directions if youGÇÖre deeply invested in something you donGÇÖt like. Under the system proposed you donGÇÖt unlock certain weapons until much deeper in the tree. As balancing nerfs/buffs come out (and theyGÇÖre unavoidable in a game of this nature) itGÇÖs going to make adjusting your character much more difficult. For example, when the laser rifle was changed with Uprising 1.0, it didnGÇÖt become playable until 1.4 nearly 6 months later. If you were specced into the suit with that role youGÇÖd be angry and frustrated because you feel GÇ£locked inGÇ¥ to a cookie-cutter GÇ£role-basedGÇ¥ (letGÇÖs be realGÇöits almost identical to class based) progression system. In the current system, you can quickly start a different weapon and move on, while waiting for your weapon of choice to get fixed. I think your proposed progression system will create a lot of unnecessary friction and frustration by limiting playerGÇÖs freedom for the questionable benefit of accessibility (which can be better addressed via the UI and tutorials). (Continued) Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1559	Posted - 2014.05.04 15:17:00 - [2] - Quote Incentive for power should be balanced by the pain of grinding for ISK (via cheap fits in PvP or PvE). There will always be a strong desire to run the best possible stuff. This needs to be tempered by making the best suits and gear take a lot of player time and effort to acquire (by acquire, I donGÇÖt mean unlock once and have forever, I mean each death)GÇöeach death in top-of-the-line gear should really hurt. A big part of the proto stomping issue in DUST is that proto fits are MUCH too cheap, and vehicles are ridiculously cheap. A vehicle that can mow down mercs by the dozen should have a price that represents several hours of game time to acquire the ISK to buy. This segues into the flaws of gear-based matchmaking. Having asymmetry on the battlefield is what creates depth, tactics and intrigue. If all suits are fit with relatively similar meta gear, why bother using expensive stuff? In the current system, youGÇÖre trading ISK (which is really time/effort grinding in cheap fits/PvE) for an advantage. Your deaths are very meaningful to you because it represents a lot of effort. Remove the advantage and you remove the incentive to use expensive stuff. ThereGÇÖs no reason to fly a Wolf if flying a Rifter will suffice. Large EVE corps design their fleet doctrines around affordability. Under the proposed Project Legion progression system, matchmaking is balancing on the wrong attributes: gear instead of player talent/ability. New players need an extended academy mode (up to 5 mill SP) to prevent stomping and a phenomenal story-based tutorial. But after that, the matchmaker should focus on matching players on their ability as a player, not by gear. In other words, an exceptional FPS player who is new to Legion and has ripped through his fellow academy cadets would be better placed against players with higher SP and better gear than keeping him dominating the players within his gear pool. It yields closer and better matches than basing it on gear. I tried very hard to find something CCP Shanghai is getting right in your planning of the Project LegionGÇÖs progression system. It seems youGÇÖre trading a fair bit of depth for increasing accessibility. I donGÇÖt think this is necessary. You can have depth AND accessibility if you build the right UIs and invest the resources into making an amazing, story-based gameplay tutorial. EVEGÇÖs ISIS, and Mastery systems are excellent examples of how this can be done. Explore a suit/vehicle/role-based ISIS analogue for Project Legion that has the benefits of guiding new players in their role-based choices, without tossing out one of your greatest assets (the EVE-style skill tree). The EVE team didnGÇÖt have to re-architect the skill tree to accomplish ISIS (only minor revisions), and they retain the same 5-level skill system. I could easily picture an alternate UI option for the existing skill system that uses roles to aid decision-making (like ISIS). Combine this with the test range concept described later, and you have solved the accessibility issues without opening yourselves up to the pitfalls of a linear progression and the risks of a gear treadmill. I suspect that your proposed system may very well draw in more players, at least initially, but it will suffer the same fate as other MMOGÇÖs using more traditional skill progression systems, and players will get bored and burn out. I also have grave concerns about your target audience. It seems that youGÇÖre targeting a broader audience with Project Legion at the expense of the hardcore players who love the depth of the current system. I donGÇÖt think CCP Shanghai has the resources, money, or experience to compete directly with the top game producers/studios in the world as an accessible FPS game. ItGÇÖs much wiser to cater-to and expand the more niche market for a MMOFPSRPG with infinite depth and customization. There are countless other players like myself that hate other FPS games because theyGÇÖre simplistic and shallow: spawn, kill, die, respawn: repeat ad nauseum. If Project Legion could tap into and expand this market which has literally no competition, I think there is a much healthier LONG TERM future for Project Legion. Go head-to-head with shallow FPS games like COD, BF, PS2, Destiny etc. and I really donGÇÖt like your odds, youGÇÖre trying to punch WAY above your weight class. ItGÇÖs much wiser strategically, to cater to your strengths: drawing as much from the proven successes of EVEGÇÖs progression system as possible instead of pursuing failed models that lead to tedium. Let me go into the weaknesses of DUST that you can hopefully learn from and improve on them. A huge problem with DUST is that ISK efficiency isnGÇÖt tracked and promoted as the most important stat. This is major low-hanging fruit that you havenGÇÖt pickedGÇöIt would be trivial to code. One of the major deterrents to the EVE equivalent of GÇ£protostompingGÇ¥ is that it will destroy your ISK efficiency stats and reflects poorly on your corp. Players are discouraged from running maxed-out fits through social engineering because it looks terrible on killmails. Adding this stat is critical, and it should be emphasized over any other stat in the game (especially K/D). DUST is incomplete. I know itGÇÖs a game, like EVE thatGÇÖs never really GÇ£finished.GÇ¥ And I know you werenGÇÖt responsible for releasing DUST with so much content absent. Getting full racial parity should have been a much higher priority in DUSTGÇÖs development. I hope you plan to release the missing Amarr and Minmatar vehicles/turrets, as well as the missing heavy weapons for DUST. YouGÇÖre going to need them for Project LegionGÇÖs release on day 1, so those assets should be produced soon and released into DUST 514 to help balance them for Project Legion. You owe your players this much. No excuses. (Continued) Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1559	Posted - 2014.05.04 15:17:00 - [3] - Quote Dust is unpolished. Yes the PS3 hardware is a huge limitation. We all agree. There are bugs like hanging on terrain, having to jump over a 2GÇ¥ curb, hit detection, and vanishing plasma cannon projectiles that shouldnGÇÖt still exist in a product released 12 months ago. After watching the keynote, I fear that youGÇÖre focusing on shiny graphical effects instead of gameplay. Project Legion should launch with mediocre graphics, huge battles that run amazingly well with fantastically smooth gameplay. Increase graphics IF AND ONLY IF gameplay is flawless in a 100+ player battle. No excuses. DUST isnGÇÖt struggling because itGÇÖs not pretty enough. Do however create awesome maps and environments. You donGÇÖt need crazy lighting effects and reflections. Building compelling maps with diverse alien vegetation, deep canyons, water, caves, jungles, forests, swamps, large ranges of elevation etc. Is much more important than polygon counts and glitz. Make these elements important to gameplay. Have the map designs create GÇ£organicGÇ¥ choke points and areas with tactical depth (e.g. a deep canyon with a bridge that needs to be defended, or crossed with dropships). You can keep this stuff with lower-resolutions at first, and only scale up if the gameplay isnGÇÖt affected. Sockets from every race are essential. As for the new player experience, there isnGÇÖt much of one for DUST. YouGÇÖre right to segregate new players from the start, but they need a fully interactive, story-based tutorial. It should be exciting, with intense action. YouGÇÖre making a free-to-play game, so think of the tutorial as the most important advertisement for Project Legion you will ever create. You only get one brief opportunity to GÇ£wowGÇ¥ your prospective customer (who is already invested enough to create an account and spend hours downloading your game), so make an impact, take them through all of the cool stuff in the game. The tutorial is your chance to GÇ£close the sale.GÇ¥ Have them use vehicles, reppers, uplinks, nano hives, switch weapons, suits, etc. Teach them the difference between armor and shields, and explain how different damage types are more/less effective against them. Walk them through the game like ordering the sampler platter appetizer, giving them a taste of everything. You should keep the same skill system, and make it even deeper. This isnGÇÖt whatGÇÖs holding back new players, just improve the interface and make the tutorial more rich. You need a test mode. You should be able to deploy to a personal instance of a map with infinite SP, and access to all gear/suits/vehicles/weapons that all cost 0 ISK. There should be static NPCGÇÖs you can approach and configure their suits/vehicles and skills. You should be able to call in friends to this mode as well with friendly fire enabled. Kills, deaths etc. have no effect on stats in this mode, you gain no SP. Give it a GÇ£TronGÇ¥ like skybox of pure black with a grid of console-text-green overhead just to emphasize this area isnGÇÖt GÇ£real.GÇ¥Having this available would be incredibly helpful (and should be added in addition to a SiSi test server). Players could use it for testing game mechanics, learning how to control vehicles, goofing around, training, developing tactics, deciding where to invest SP, etc. This needs to exist on day 1. No excuses. The economy is broken. ISK sinks and faucets are not balanced. DonGÇÖt make dropsuits into BPOs with linear progression. Almost every idea mentioned by CCP Z in the Progression session was terrible. Please reconsider. MCCGÇÖs and Warbarges should be major ISK sinks. Players in corps should be pumping ISK in to acquire these, not sitting back collecting weekly ISK payouts. PC sucks. Try to incorporate RTS elements with a battle commander(s) who deploys expensive corp assets to the field. This was in the original vision from long ago. It is a solid vision. It will create deep, tactical fights that will be a lot of fun to participate in. You should be able to fortify your assets and design your defense to protect your GÇ£sandcastleGÇ¥ (i.e. more ISK sinks). We donGÇÖt want it to work like PS2 though where you spend all day capping objectives only to go to sleep, wake up and have all of your work undone. There should be some sort of timer system (like in EVE) with strontium and shields or something to that effect, so fights happen on a big scale instead of perpetual ninja-hacking that makes fights feel pointless and that your efforts have no lasting or meaningful impact. DUST needs EWAR. Vehicles and suits NEED CAPACITORS!!! This is an additional stat that you can use to refine balance without directly affecting TTK/survivability. It would allow for vehicles to be very expensive, powerful assets with high survivability, that always risk being tackled and crippled (just like in EVE) to be slowly worn down and destroyed. ThatGÇÖs the proper way to balance vehicles vs. infantry. One thing I think you do have right is the sandbox concepts. I have a post from back in November that details a really cool way to implement PvE and link it to EVE exploration in a way that promotes cooperative gameplay between the two games. This would be incredibly fun and allow for betrayal. Please give it a read. There is a lot of positive community feedback on it and I think it would be a fantastic way to link Project Legion and EVE Online. (Continued) Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1559	Posted - 2014.05.04 15:18:00 - [4] - Quote IGÇÖm very concerned that youGÇÖre taking the wrong lessons away from DUST and that Project Legion will fail as a result. As angry as I am about how this went down, I do want to see a deep, EVE-based MMOFPSRPG set in New Eden with true integration with EVE that persists for decades to come. The original vision for DUST is great, donGÇÖt loose sight of it. DonGÇÖt water it down, donGÇÖt make it shiny and shallow. Keep it deep and focus on improving rich, tactical gameplay. Learn from the failure of the Star Wars Galaxies relaunch that wanted to make the game more GÇ£accessibleGÇ¥ with the New Game Enhancement additions that killed the game. Sit down, and have a serious re-think of whether dumbing down the rich and successful systems in DUST is really the best thing for Project Legion. Signed, A concerned merc Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1605	Posted - 2014.05.04 20:36:00 - [5] - Quote knight of 6 wrote: CCP hire this man! everything but his opinion of capacitors is spot on. Knight's genaric rant about capacitors wrote: no. vehicle combat is too fast for a capacitor to be a viable balancing tool, cool thingy/what have you. honestly I question how much time everyone who suggests this has spent in a vehicle(you aren't the first and undoubtedly wont be the last). being completely honest the module wheel is a sub optimal solution to having a larger number of mods than buttons. anyone who has spent any time in a vehicle has turned off mods accidentally or selected the wrong mod and this typically results in death or best case a severe disadvantage. it also obstructs the screen and inhibits combat. pulsing a rep is a common practice with a capacitor, for those unaware repairs/shield boosters take up a massive amount of cap per cycle so capsuleers switch them on and off regularly depending on how the fight is going and what other modules need to be on. can you imagine trying to pulse a rep while flying a dropship? or while in the middle of a tank battle? cap management in combat would be a nightmare. in eve with a couple of mouse clicks you lock onto and fire on a ship automatically you don't need to aim or fire and there is no cover. flying is largely taken out of the pilots hands as well, this frees up time and concentration to focus on cap management. not to mention the TTK in eve is very long so if you make a mistake it's not the end of the world. the module activation system is very simple and fast to use unlike dust's and doesn't interrupt damage output or flight. TL;DR no. I don't want to derail the discussion and turn it into a vehicle capacitor debate, but I do think if they're starting from scratch, vehicles could be made to be very powerful assets with long TTKs (similar to a frig v. frig fight) that are vulnerable to Ewar. Much of the UI concerns won't apply on the PC, and this would allow vehicles to be really expensive and powerful assets. I can imagine a LAV with a tracking disruptor turret "orbiting" a tank tackled with web drones while another player slowly wears down his shields and armor. That would be the kind of deep and interesting team-based approach to vehicles in Project Legion. Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1621	Posted - 2014.05.04 23:07:00 - [6] - Quote Anyone at CCP read this? Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1672	Posted - 2014.05.06 03:01:00 - [7] - Quote Sirpidey Adtur wrote: Shion Typhon wrote: I'm afraid that you have written a massive and detailed post which is completely and utterly wrong. You don't even understand how Dust progression is fundamentally different to EVE's much better system. If you get your wish and it appears many legion fans support you, then you are dooming Dust to the same imbalanced graveyard that killed Dust. You think Dust is "asymmetrical" but it isn't, it's just unbalanced. Go look at EVE's SP system and how it relates to ships and equipment. If you can come back here and explain how they are different to Dust then you will rewrite your own post without me having to tell you why. Yes, EVE and Dust's skill trees are significantly different, for one, Nothing in dust has multiple pre-requisites. If anything, this is a sign that we should move even FURTHER away from the proposed Legion's skill tree, into something closer to EVE's, that's more inter-woven. [quote=Kincate] Overall I like the post however a quick counterpoint to this is the fact that if I take a wolf out for a spin and come across a rifter, skills of the pilots being equal, the wolf will win./quote] While yes, a wolf will almost always beat a rifter, all other things being equal, the wolf has other disadvantages over the rifter, that don't deal with price. IIRC, the rifter is faster and more agile, as well as has a significantly better cap recharge time. I'm worried about the dumbing down of the skill-tree. Here's a scene in my head. Sir A: Hey, sirB, that's a cool weapon, how can I get to use one? Sir B: Well, this is an assault rail rifle, just look under weapons, then light weapons, then rank rail rifle to four. Sir A: Thank you for your help. Compare with Sir A: Hey, sirB, that's a cool weapon, how can I get to use one? Sir B: Well, this is a type 93-variant advanced assault rail carbine rifle meant for scout suits. You'll want to unlock the light suits, then go all the way right on the tree, then go ahead and unlock the entire main portion of the scout suit tree, once that's done, go into caldari scouts, look for the weapon tree on the bottom, then go ahead and go to the lower left part of that branch and you'll see the weapon section. It'll be the third after the "Caldari Scout Advanced Rail Weaponary skill" Sir A: .... screw that. I guess I wasted ALL of my current SP since I spent it all in assault suits, and it won't help me one bit getting that cool weapon. Also, I'm worried about CCP Z's flagrant disregard for the creation and destruction cycle of New Eden. It should be a legitimate gameplay worry for "Well, we could throw more money at this fight and maybe win it, but will it be worth the cost?" Great response +1. Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1747	Posted - 2014.05.06 18:50:00 - [8] - Quote @Fox Gaden Let me begin by thanking you for taking the time to write your detailed response. Fox Gaden wrote: Free Suits: - Making the suit free was more of an identity decision, than a change to the Risk/Reward system. - Weapons still cost ISK. Modules still cost ISK. Equipment still costs ISK. - Even with free suits, people will still use Militia modules and possibly weapons to save ISK. - The match making system is based on total meta counts. You may still want to use a Militia suit to reduce your meta count. The only real change is that instead of running Proto Modules on a Standard suit, I will be running Militia Modules on at Proto suit, when I am grinding ISK. HereGÇÖs the problem: what happens once youGÇÖve unlocked a proto suit (or whatever the Project Legion equivalent is) or three and have been playing for a long time (If SP truly do carry over, then I expect many of us will be able to do so from day 1)? The game starts to feel stale: same suits all the time. Your identity becomes stagnate. Eventually CCP will have no choice but to release GÇ£super proto suitsGÇ¥ or whatever, just to add variety. The following year ItGÇÖll be GÇ£super-duper proto suits.GÇ¥ Once this happens, weGÇÖve taken our first steps onto the gear treadmill, and it will end just like every other game that has followed this model. EVE doesnGÇÖt have this model, and itGÇÖs why the game has the longevity it does. Quote: Progression tree: While you raise a point that CCP should consider, I suspect that any try that contained the Laser Rifle would also include the other infantry rifles. As long as there are options that fit that role easily accessible within the tree you are skilling into, you can adapt to balance changes. If you decide to switch from a Laser Rifle to a Shotgun, that is a complete change of role, so I donGÇÖt see a problem with it requiring more of a skill point investment. But, yes, the ability to adapt to balance changes is something CCP should consider when designing the progression. Also, Militia items should be available for all weapons, models, and equipment, so you can try stuff out before skilling deep into a tree. GÇª Skill Tree: - From what I saw the skill tree is just as deep as it was before. It is just organized in a different manner. The big problem is that weGÇÖre moving away from the way things work in EVE and more towards a much more traditional and linear class based progression. Here is an article about Star Wars Galaxies that I think is incredibly relevant: from Article wrote: The New Game Enhancements update turned the gameGÇÖs original character progression into a class-based systemGÇªBut what happened with Star Wars Galaxies should serve as a pretty clear lesson to the rest of the online gaming industry. I worry that CCP hasnGÇÖt paid enough attention to history here. A lot can be achieved with better UI without nuking the EVE style 5-level skill system that is much deeper than whatGÇÖs proposed by flattening it out. IGÇÖm planning on maybe drafting up a UI mockup for how an EVE-style skill tree can be maintained with a more intuitive interface. WeGÇÖre in agreement that Militia for everything is necessary. Quote: Cost of Gear: Maybe stuff seems inexpensive from your perspective as a member of Dirt Nap Squad, but even with a positive KDR I loose ISK when running even Advanced Dropsuits or Militia tanks. In DUST if you are not a PC grade player, you canGÇÖt afford to run anything above a standard suit, so I donGÇÖt think your argument is valid. If prices were raised enough for them to hurt you, I would be stuck in Starter Fits. I think itGÇÖs important to clarify a couple points here. I have never received a singe ISK from my corp. This isnGÇÖt about me trying to gain some financial advantage in a dying game. All ISK that I have (which is fairly modest: less than 80M) was earned the hard way through running ISK-efficient setups. Running a maxed-out suit should feel a lot more like running one in EVE: youGÇÖre a badass, but youGÇÖre also a huge target for everyone who wants to pad their ISK-Efficiency stats. You should be excited and a bit scared (with that nervous tingle in your balls) like you have running something truly valuable like a Thales. Based on the current economy, I think a proto suit should take a couple of matches to recoup the cost of a single loss. That would really discourage their use except for when you need every advantage you can get, or if you become pissed and want revenge. If we ever get proto vehicles (and I think we should), a maxed out tank should set you back a week-or-so of grinding. You should only want to bring those out for the most critical battles. STD should be cheap and you should be able to make significant ISK running them. ADV should be the GÇ£break evenGÇ¥ suit. You should be able to loose a few and still come out about even. A system like this has infinite longevity. All suits and modules are useful for different purposes. (continued) Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1747	Posted - 2014.05.06 18:51:00 - [9] - Quote Quote: Meta based Match Making depth: Meta based Match Making means that if you want to get matched in the mid range you can have: - Proto suit with Militia Modules, Standard equipment, Standard weapon. - Militia suit, with Proto weapon, and Standard modules. - Standard suit, Proto modules, Proto equipment, Standard weapon. - Advanced suit, Advanced modules, Advanced equipment, Standard weapon There would be plenty of diversity in the mid range. At the bottom end everything would be Militia, but that is what you want for the new guys. At the top end it would be all Proto, but that would be the point of the top end now wouldnGÇÖt it? Meta based Match Making, why bother using expensive stuff? - Currently you get more ISK at the end of the battle if you kill Proto suits than if you kill Militia suits. Presumably this would be the same in Legion. Hopefully CCP takes it a step farther and makes the rewards higher for higher meta level matches. Then if you can avoid dying, you can make more ISK running all Proto. - As the Meta Level goes up the Risk increases, so the rewards should be higher as the Meta goes up too. Match making on Gear vs Ability: - With Gear parity you are fighting on an even playing field and it comes down to player skill. It is a lot less frustrating to get stomped because the other player is more skilled than you, than it is to get stomped because the other player has better gear than you (uneven playing field). - Ability is much more difficult to measure, so match making based on ability is much less reliable. I think this is an area where we really disagree. First, having a game mode with all proto is really no different than having a game mode with all militia. Think about that for a second. ItGÇÖs the fact that some suits are objectively more powerful than others that makes killing them more fun. You loose that feeling of risking painful exponential losses for linear improvement, and a lot of the asymmetry that makes combat really dynamic and interesting. With the game moving to the PC the potential is there for huge battles. This will allow swarms of players in cheap fits to overwhelm squads of players in expensive fits. It levels the playing field dramatically. If youGÇÖre getting stomped by mediocre players in excellent gear, or stomped by excellent players in crappy gear, the outcome either way is the same: youGÇÖre being stomped and it sucks. Matchmaking based on player ability is much better because itGÇÖs more fluid and adapts as players get better skills/gear and become more proficient at the game. There are plenty of metrics that can be used to develop a talent quotient (TQ) for each player such as ISK-Efficiency, total SP, average rank at the end of match, a GÇ£weightedGÇ¥ KD (where you get more credit for killing players with high TQ, and penalized more by being killed by someone with a low TQ). All of these variables can be factored together to yield a final TQ number that represents how GÇ£goodGÇ¥ of a player you are. In an ideal system most players will fall into the middle of the pack most of the time. If youGÇÖre consistently at the top, your TQ will increase and youGÇÖll face harder opponents, and if youGÇÖre consistently under-performing, youGÇÖll face easier opponents. As you skill up and get better gear, you will naturally do better and so youGÇÖll face steeper competition. This process is dynamic and fluid as opposed to rigid and artificial that will still allow for people to STD-stomp. Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1869	Posted - 2014.05.07 16:09:00 - [10] - Quote Luk Manag wrote: Maybe you shouldn't have specifically asked for CCP Rouge, but anyone at CCP willing to look at our feedback. I think this is something CCP Rouge should read. Best PvE idea ever!

Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1943	Posted - 2014.05.09 17:11:00 - [11] - Quote ANON Cerberus wrote: @ the op - I love this thread but I especially love the 3rd post down in the thread and wholeheartedly agree! I would love more commander / RTS elements in the game especially for the more 'endgame' type stuff. I would also love to see an end to passive incomes and instead make corps more reliant on their members for income (Taxation). CCP has the plans or at least used to have plans to allow us to drop in turret installations and stuff, expand on this! That is a major area that could reap rewards! I agree. The way I picture PC is that you have a huge map with a massive shield overhead. This shield prevents anyone without corp/alliance privileges from entering. The CEO, or other leaders with the appropriate privileges can upgrade the structure. They can buy and place turrets, buy and place auxiliary structures (small/medium sockets) and upgrade them with ISK. Your structure has a fixed amount of CPU/PG, which can be upgraded. This will increase maintanence costs exponentially. Your auxiliary structures convey advantages like improving the scan precision of all friendly units, dampening friendly units, reducing enemy scan range, or precision, even things like an orbital cannon or a hanger of fighter drones you can deploy to space to attack an enemy ship. There are dozens of possible bonuses. Turrets can be weapons or Ewar such as neutralizer cannons. An attacking corp can do so at any time they choose. They approach the shield and begin shooting it (probably with tanks, MCCs and OB's). Once the shield it at 1% it goes into reinforced mode. At this point it becomes invulnerable and begins to burn strontium (Leadership has to buy this and keep the strontium bay full). Once the strontium is depleted, the shield will drop and the entire structure is now accessible to attack. Strontium acts like a timer. Attackers and defenders can bring as many resources to the field as they care to loose. It might make sense to take out auxiliary objectives to nullify the bonuses they provide, or simply to push into the main structure and take it over. Taking over the main structure should require some coordinated effort. Perhaps it requires 5 separate players to hack 5 different terminals in different locations around the structure simultaneously. There is no time limit, it's all very dynamic. Best PvE idea ever!

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