I just watched it, and frankly it raises more questions than answers them.

There are several things he said that make very little sense.

First of all, CCP Z mentions that skills will be organized into "roles", to help new players find their way through the character development complexities. OK. Then he says that all items (weapons, modules...) will be made exclusive to a specific role. This means (as I understood it) that if you want to use nova knives, you'll have to start skilling up the scout role skill tree in order to unlock them. He also says that, once unlocked, you'll be able to use them on other dropsuits, not just scouts. The problem here is that there are certain types of items that are useful no matter what role you play. Armor plates for instance. If they are exclusive to a single role (sentinels seem like a good guess), this means that if you want to play an assault and fit armor plates, you'll have to skill up the heavy/sentinel tree just to be able to use them. This is not only tiresome, since it forces the player to skill for roles he possibly doesn't want to play, but also plain confusing! How is that helping NPE?

Also, he mentions that all dropsuits will be made as BPOs, meaning once you unlock them you'll have an infinite supply of them. He justifies this by claiming that dropsuits are essential as "emotional attachments" for a player. He goes so far as to say that (quote) "you're a mercenary, you don't exist as a person" (end quote), therefore your dropsuit(s) define who you are, so losing them is in some way "bad for immersion". This is IMHO a complete non-sequitur. Mercenaries are persons, just like accountants, dentists or lumberjacks. We do not play mindless drones. We play imaginary people (persons) who have the ability to transfer their consciousness into another clone (body). Dropsuits are, just like weapons, or even clones, only tools we use to get the job done. I've never looked at my DUST character as "not a person, but a mercenary", nor did I ever imagined that the dropsuits my character uses define him in any meaningful way. To further illustrate my point, I played EVE for 5 years, and I've never looked at my character as "a ship" or not even as "a capsule", but as a person who, due to some sci-fi gadgetry, has the ability to transfer consciousness and form mind-links with spaceships.

I wrote extensively about this subject in an open letter to CCP Rouge. I agree completely that this new system makes no sense. CCP Z got nearly everything wrong. If he pushes forward with this idea, Project Legion will suffer the same fate as Star Wars Galaxies after they nuked the progression system to make it "accessible." We need a much better UI, and the trees do need some re-architecting, but they need to keep the EVE style skill system.

I'm also going to try to get him in front of a camera over the next few weeks where he can talk about some of his thoughts and do a Q &A :)

I'm still in Iceland though so will need a week or two to get back to Shanghai and set this up!

I wrote extensively about this subject in an open letter to CCP Rouge. I agree completely that this new system makes no sense. CCP Z got nearly everything wrong. If he pushes forward with this idea, Project Legion will suffer the same fate as Star Wars Galaxies after they nuked the progression system to make it "accessible." We need a much better UI, and the trees do need some re-architecting, but they need to keep the EVE style skill system.

I wrote extensively about this subject in an open letter to CCP Rouge. I agree completely that this new system makes no sense. CCP Z got nearly everything wrong. If he pushes forward with this idea, Project Legion will suffer the same fate as Star Wars Galaxies after they nuked the progression system to make it "accessible." We need a much better UI, and the trees do need some re-architecting, but they need to keep the EVE style skill system.

This ^

This ^ I'd say just go and copy-paste EVE skill tree. This game lasts for 11 years, and don't confuse new players. Also it will speed up Legion development if you don't need to invent new stuff (and let's be honest - we want it in our HDD as fast as possible)

Omg are you guys for real like really you that dense you could follow what he is doing. Jesus Dust514 is living example of why devs should do their own thing.

Anyone who thinks they didnt pay attention to feedback was paying attention to the wider communty.

I support Zs idea we get to keep same level of customisation in our fittings while making it a lot more newb friendly

Omg are you guys for real like really you that dense you could follow what he is doing. Jesus Dust514 is living example of why devs should do their own thing.

Anyone who thinks they didnt pay attention to feedback was paying attention to the wider communty.

I support Zs idea we get to keep same level of customisation in our fittings while making it a lot more newb friendly

THIS^
Also, I just watched the roundtable where Z says we'll be able to queue up our skills like they do in EVE and get notifications as we gain SP when a skill in our queue has been unlocked. That's pretty awesome.

I like the idea of the dropsuit having the same effect as core skills. Affecting everything. Thats what I took away. Our selves in game is our SP, would be cool if the skill tree was our dropsuit.
I like that dropsuits would be the thing growing and evolving, making your roles into how you play them.

There is more on this topic that happen in the round table. I am working on the audio now and will have it to you guys soon

I'm also going to try to get him in front of a camera over the next few weeks where he can talk about some of his thoughts and do a Q &A :)

I'm still in Iceland though so will need a week or two to get back to Shanghai and set this up!

It would be a terrible idea to not have active SP though. To me the passive only EVE SP is bad for Eve, I'd actually play Eve more if there was active SP.

I want dudes to shoot, not dudes logging in to update their queue in preparation for the day they decide to undock, errrr I mean join a battle.

The Eve skill system is pretty awesome. The changes they continue to make to the UI is great.

Seems like a no brainer to use the Eve model

THIS^
Also, I just watched the roundtable where Z says we'll be able to queue up our skills like they do in EVE and get notifications as we gain SP when a skill in our queue has been unlocked. That's pretty awesome.

(...)
We need a much better UI, and the trees do need some re-architecting, but they need to keep the EVE style skill system.

Omg are you guys for real like really you that dense you could follow what he is doing. Jesus Dust514 is living example of why devs should do their own thing.

Anyone who thinks they didnt pay attention to feedback was paying attention to the wider communty.

I support Zs idea we get to keep same level of customisation in our fittings while making it a lot more newb friendly

While I like the options in EVE I hated EVE's completely passive progression. I like that in DUST SP is rewarded for what you've earned vs. a commitment to simply logon and switch skill trees.

Again, we would still have active sp. You're just able to queue up the skills you want to train and as you gain enough sp for each one it automatically unlocks the skill for you and notifies you of your progress.

I'm guessing CCP want to define or at least recommend how people play the game so that casuals can simply pick a role, play it and train it.

People who want to mix and match will then have to 'crosstrain' to find their perfect fit. Looks like CCP want to deter people finding optimum fits so they use squad tactics more. A bit like eve where you have good fits but they can easily be destroyed by brute force/attrition (bigger ships or more ships) which is capable with Legions FPS Sandbox.

I'll just make a small argument about the whole dusters not being persons thing from a lore perspective, I do agree that CCP Z's wording on the matter was a little exacerbated though. But consider the fact that for most dusters, a human body is a superfluous thing, a replaceable pile of flesh and bone. You die over and over again, sometimes more in a day than an average capsuleer dies within months. Since you can switch consciousnesses between bodies at pretty much any moment, the body itself becomes less important, what matters is the information its brain carries.

We are persons, yes. We have a personality, we like and dislike certain things and we have our quirks. But we don't really have a body to identify ourselves with, only our voice. Heck, I've yet to see any footage of a duster outside of his dropsuit aside a single trailer and one concept art with the helmet opened up. I would go as far as to say that we aren't 100% human because of it.

For many, selecting your favorite fitting was a matter of dropsuit aesthetics, not for the actual frequent usage of the dropsuit, as a way of distinguishing yourself from the others in a Warbarge. More often than not these favorite fittings were special edition suits, BPOs, aurum or any dropsuit with a special coloring on it. For me, and I am fairly certain for many others too, the type of dropsuit you selected to your favorite fitting became a part of your identity, a way to show your status and sometimes your views on different matters and alignment to factions and empires, much like clothing. The clothes you wear are as much part of your identity as is your face and your voice.

Then there's the fact that all clones that use dropsuits are mass-produced biomass, with no personal characteristics to speak of. And since I never leave my dropsuit, it may as well be my body, that's why I have a special kind of dropsuit for my favorite fitting so I distinguish myself from the others, instead of just being a faceless grunt. Instead of a body to identify myself, I have a dropsuit with a neat color scheme.

That's my 2 ISK on the subject.

I didn't understand it either. But if CCP really does go ahead with this idea of making dropsuits BPOs and quite possibly do a tieracide on them but leave the weapons untouched then it only makes sense to compensate for this radical change by making sure the weapons and modules fitted on those suits are expensive enough to account for the old value of the suits.

But still, all I would like to see is a tieracide of the suits for Legion but leave alone the tiered structure of the weapons and modules while at the same time make all suits, weapons, and modules cost resources in some form. Very much like how Eve Online has it right now with Tieracided ships, Tiered weapons and modules, and all costing resources to make. It worked for Eve Online and thus it should work this time for Legion.

The customization and depth is why I can't seem to leave Dust. I play other FPS and always think, "that's it?"

I'm also going to try to get him in front of a camera over the next few weeks where he can talk about some of his thoughts and do a Q &A :)

I'm still in Iceland though so will need a week or two to get back to Shanghai and set this up!

I'm also going to try to get him in front of a camera over the next few weeks where he can talk about some of his thoughts and do a Q &A :)

I'm still in Iceland though so will need a week or two to get back to Shanghai and set this up!

I'm also going to try to get him in front of a camera over the next few weeks where he can talk about some of his thoughts and do a Q &A :)

I'm still in Iceland though so will need a week or two to get back to Shanghai and set this up!

I watched the whole EVE: Legion progression presentation. It was well thought out and gives us everything we've been asking for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxhrGVv0NuQ

For those of you who don't get it, I recommend you watch it again. CCP Z explains the reasoning behind everything. There is no excuse for pretending the planed progression system doesn't make sense when every part of it is explained to you.

I think I only have a problem with the dropsuits being bpo's. Maybe only the basic frames should be bpo's, or a starting fit meant for the high sec sandbox area.

I kind of like The idea of dropsuits being BPO (I do not dislike the rest either, just need to know more for my final judgement).

The reason I like it is because I bought several AUR suites for their looks, not their stats. I liked the Caldari state protectorate C-1 in particular, and I used it a a "favorite" suite to show off in the warbarge. The problem was I felt I could never actually use it in FW, since it was just the basic version.

I wrote extensively about this subject in an open letter to CCP Rouge. I agree completely that this new system makes no sense. CCP Z got nearly everything wrong. If he pushes forward with this idea, Project Legion will suffer the same fate as Star Wars Galaxies after they nuked the progression system to make it "accessible." We need a much better UI, and the trees do need some re-architecting, but they need to keep the EVE style skill system.

I watched the whole EVE: Legion progression presentation. It was well thought out and gives us everything we've been asking for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxhrGVv0NuQ

For those of you who don't get it, I recommend you watch it again. CCP Z explains the reasoning behind everything. There is no excuse for pretending the planed progression system doesn't make sense when every part of it is explained to you.

I'd say just go and copy-paste EVE skill tree. This game lasts for 11 years, and don't confuse new players. Also it will speed up Legion development if you don't need to invent new stuff (and let's be honest - we want it in our HDD as fast as possible)

EVE ... don't confuse new players.

Every time I start thinking I'm beyond being shocked at the things people say, someone goes and reminds me that sometimes, you just can't anticipate what will come out of another person's mouth (or their keyboard).


You might want to take a look here and here.

Totally friendly to new people...

EVE's skill system for sure isn't the most noob friendly the world has ever witnessed. However, there are a few things you need to be aware of. First, the "inaccessibility" of EVE to noobs isn't just because of the complex skill system. I'd say that skill system isn't even on top of the list in that regard. Second, you simply cannot create a skill system that will be instantly graspable even to some halfwit, and still be able to last for a decade.

This leads to a simple question: What is the "target audience" for EVE: Legion? Does CCP really want to compete with titles like COD and BF, or do they want to attract a somewhat different audience? One that can withstand the pain of reading a couple of wiki pages occasionally, in order to make an informed choice in a game they want to play.

I watched the whole EVE: Legion progression presentation. It was well thought out and gives us everything we've been asking for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxhrGVv0NuQ

For those of you who don't get it, I recommend you watch it again. CCP Z explains the reasoning behind everything. There is no excuse for pretending the planed progression system doesn't make sense when every part of it is explained to you.

I watched the whole EVE: Legion progression presentation. It was well thought out and gives us everything we've been asking for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxhrGVv0NuQ

For those of you who don't get it, I recommend you watch it again. CCP Z explains the reasoning behind everything. There is no excuse for pretending the planed progression system doesn't make sense when every part of it is explained to you.