DUST Search - Sticky:[DISCUSSION]

Kevall Longstride wrote:

Maybe I'm being a little over sensitive here but I'm beginning to detect a very disturbing undercurrent of dismissing 'casual players' as not being worthy enough or too stupid to join our game. I hope I'm misreading that.

Attracting any demographic to try dust right now is an uphill struggle as it is. The retention rate is in low single figures right now. We need more players. We need them desperately. Player numbers are not going up and have plateaued for a year now. We need to look at any and all options to encourage player take up. And we can't afford to rule anything out as being above such change.

They continue to carry on as they are then Dust/Legion is never going to get beyond what it is now. CCP are prepared to stick it out for the moment but not forever. I'm just being pragmatic here, I honestly am. We've had the current system for a year and numbers haven't grown. And it's not a question of a better NPE being needed, that's a given. But dedicating all of that NPE resource to teaching a complicated skill tree, when we can simplify the tree for new starters, make it work for the educated and combine the NPE with the PvE to teach how to actually play the game, to me is just a smarter way to do this. CCP resources aren't unlimited after all.

A lot of this is going to looked at, polished and likely altered during the inevitable beta phase of Legion anyway.


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 28 post(s)
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1976	Posted - 2014.05.14 19:34:00 - [1] - Quote CCP Z wrote: I donGÇÖt necessarily agree with the EVE example, it remains a really difficult progression system to understand. Legion is not and will not be EVE, even if both games share the same universe. We have many reasons justifying that choice: we are not the same business model (subscription vs free to play), we are not talking to the same target audience (hardcore MMO players vs Online FPS Players). That isnGÇÖt to say that their progression system isnGÇÖt great and applicable to EVE GÇô only that it does not necessarily fit the game we want Project Legion to become. I think that the new system will allow both: accessibility for new users to understand, while keeping the high level complexity of mix-matching modules, weapons and Dropsuits. Quote: 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. We offer a much deeper and varied system than almost any MMO on the market, we are just trying to make it more accessible. Please feel free to add any other questions, IGÇÖll do my best to answer them all :) Z First I want to thank you for taking the time to read the Open Letter to CCP Rouge. I know it was very long, but there is a lot to cover. It takes courage to speak directly to challenging questions and for that I commend you. I think the above quotes really illustrate where we disagree. I have serious concerns about the financial viability of targeting a more casual player with Project Legion at the expense of your more hardcore fans. As much as I love New Eden and have invested in DUST 514, I have very little interest in playing the game of the nature youGÇÖre describing. I donGÇÖt think IGÇÖm alone. Now you may believe that by bringing in a flood of casual players it will more than make up for the losses from players like myself. There are some important points to consider with this strategy though. Not all players are equal. I donGÇÖt mean to sound like an elitist jackass (IGÇÖm a pretty friendly/likable guy) but from a marketing standpoint, not all players are equal. Trading one great player for ten casuals may look good on a spreadsheet, but it may actually be a terrible financial decision. By GÇ£great playerGÇ¥ I donGÇÖt mean a guy who is really talented at FPS gameplay, IGÇÖm talking about someone who is an asset to CCP. CCP often heralds the community as a huge part of itGÇÖs success. The fact that EVEGÇÖs deep skill system appeals to highly intelligent gamers is a big part of why that community is so amazing. You may have access to the demographics, but I suspect there is a hugely disproportionate percentage of people who work in the software and game design industries among your players, relative to the general gaming demographics. You have a disproportionately high number of what Malcom Gladwell refers to as GÇ£Connectors,GÇ¥ GÇ£Mavens,GÇ¥ and GÇ£SalesmenGÇ¥ in his book The Tipping Point. Complexity draws these kinds of players in, because simplicity is boring. How many players has CEOPyrex brought into the game through his YouTube channel? ThatGÇÖs a ton of free marketing which has a very real dollar figure equivalent. How many casual players would it take to replace one CEOPyrex over the course of a 10-year Project Legion career? The feedback from smart players has been invaluable in helping shape/improve EVE, and (to a more limited degree) DUST 514. When he runs events for his corpmates like racing LAVGÇÖs around the map to publish to the web, he is providing fresh content to those players, how many of them stick around and end up buying booster/AUR gear? The online FPS player (the more casual players you seem to be targeting) are more fickle than the more hardcore players. LetGÇÖs be brutally honest here. Project Legion could be really great, and might have some cool visual flair, but it will never be able to compete directly with the major gaming studios/publishers with budgets that dwarf yours and teams with decades of experience producing shiny/polished games for the same core audience. Sure there will be bleedover from one to the next, but these gamers are attracted to novelty, not depth and commitment. Eventually Project Legion wonGÇÖt be new anymore, and many will move on to the next shiny FPS that Activision, EA, or whoever pukes out (GÇ£Ninja Turles in Space with guns! COOL! Screw Project Legion, I want to be a ninja turtle!GÇ¥). ThereGÇÖs no way to compete with that and youGÇÖll go bankrupt trying to retain fickle players. This translates into a very real monetary impact. Here is a fictional User Story of the kind of player I think would be very valuable to have as your primary target demographic: GÇ£Jim is a 35-year-old freelance software consultant. He makes $120,000 annually and spends a lot of time traveling for work. He was an avid gamer growing up but doesnGÇÖt get much time to game these days, except on his laptop when traveling and late night after his wife and kids are asleep on his high-end gaming PC. He loved FPS games and RTS games that focused on building unique worlds and managing resources. This appeals to his desire to organize complexity and to feel like a creator. Jim has plenty of disposable income for gaming, but has little time to commit. EVEGÇÖs pricing model really appeals to him because he can accrue power in his character without the grind that other MMOGÇÖs require. He spends $50/month on his 2 subscriptions and in additional PLEX he sells to avoid grinding ISK to support his PvP habit. He occasionally blogs on gaming and has even posted a few videos on YouTube.GÇ¥ (continued) Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1976	Posted - 2014.05.14 19:36:00 - [2] - Quote Here is a fictional User Story of the kind of player IGÇÖm worried youGÇÖre targeting: GÇ£Billy is a 20-year old gamer. He loves FPS games. He has played every AAA FPS since 2010. He works at a rental car company and makes $45,000 annually. Much of his disposable income goes to gaming, although he tends to move from game-to-game within a few months. He never really cared for RPG games much because they were too complicated and slow-paced. Skyrim was tolerable because the skill tree was pretty easy, and there was some decent action, but Billy quickly finished the main quest and never bothered to finish the side missions. Billy skips cutscenes and doesnGÇÖt read dialog boxes. He has over a dozen viruses on his PC.GÇ¥ As someone who does marketing as part of my job description, I can tell you right now that Jim is a much more valuable customer than Billy. I would be willing to spend a lot more marketing dollars to attract players like Jim over players like Billy. You should design Project LegionGÇÖs progression system to appeal to Jim and design itGÇÖs interface and tutorials to make the game comprehensible to Billy. You obviously want BOTH players, but if you design the game in a way that only appeals to Billy, Project Legion will have a shelf-life comparable to existing FPS games (and not the 10+ years that EVE has enjoyed). There may be more people like Billy than Jim, but donGÇÖt be fooled into thinking you can grab them away from existing AAA FPS franchises for more than a few months after launch (and thatGÇÖs assuming you have a successful launchGÇöwhich is a BIG GÇ£ifGÇ¥). I have created a crude mockup of an GÇ£ISIS AnalogGÇ¥ just to show how you could work with the existing system to create a better UI and achieve many of the usability goals while still retaining the depth that keeps your valuable hardcore players interested. IGÇÖm intending to mock up a UI for the skill tree and perhaps a diagram of a re-architected skill tree that still retains the EVE-style 5-level system. Your concern that EVE is a different financial model is a bit misguided. EVE is free-to-play as well with the PLEX system. Why canGÇÖt we reduce the amount of unboosted passive and active SP gained by some percentage (maybe 30% or so) and increase the percentage of boosters by the same amount to make them a better value and more desirable? If we can buy/sell boosters on the market like PLEX then the systems will be very similar. Players can grind ISK to gain access to boosters, and players with more real money than time can sell them boosters for ISK. If you continue down this road, I want to warn you about the consequences. Here is an excerpt from a blog post In Which I Try to Speak Honestly About History written by a man named Dan Rubenfield, a Lead Game Designer for Star Wars Galaxies during the transition to the New Game Enhancement (widely viewed as one of the most catastrophic mistakes in online gaming history). HereGÇÖs the Wayback Machine link to the full post (The original link was giving me an error). Dan Rubenfield wrote: However, we made a mistake. A BIG mistake. Somewhere during the discussions it was strongly recommended that we streamline our characters. People wanted something simpler, more direct, more accessible. We told them. GÇ£If you do this, you will lose all of our subscribers. It is that significant.GÇ¥ The response was that we would gain more due to the marketing push and relaunch. So, we pushed forward. Here's my question: "What have you learned from the failures of the SWG NGE rollout that you can avoid the same fate happening to Project Legion?" Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1982	Posted - 2014.05.14 20:48:00 - [3] - Quote Kevall Longstride wrote: Maybe I'm being a little over sensitive here but I'm beginning to detect a very disturbing undercurrent of dismissing 'casual players' as not being worthy enough or too stupid to join our game. I hope I'm misreading that. Attracting any demographic to try dust right now is an uphill struggle as it is. The retention rate is in low single figures right now. We need more players. We need them desperately. Player numbers are not going up and have plateaued for a year now. We need to look at any and all options to encourage player take up. And we can't afford to rule anything out as being above such change. They continue to carry on as they are then Dust/Legion is never going to get beyond what it is now. CCP are prepared to stick it out for the moment but not forever. I'm just being pragmatic here, I honestly am. We've had the current system for a year and numbers haven't grown. And it's not a question of a better NPE being needed, that's a given. But dedicating all of that NPE resource to teaching a complicated skill tree, when we can simplify the tree for new starters, make it work for the educated and combine the NPE with the PvE to teach how to actually play the game, to me is just a smarter way to do this. CCP resources aren't unlimited after all. A lot of this is going to looked at, polished and likely altered during the inevitable beta phase of Legion anyway. The fear is they're going to drive away their most valuable customers (like myself) in order to bring in new blood with the proposed changes. I'm honestly not trying to toot-my-own-horn here or try to make myself sound special on a video game forum, but I've spent hundreds of dollars on DUST and invested a lot of time and energy providing feedback. Until the announcement I was fully intending to continue to do so for years to come. There is a HUGE amount of value in having a customer like myself: smart, loyal, willing to spend, provides constructive feedback. I don't think players like myself are so easily replaced. Getting new players is absolutely essential to the future of a ground-based New Eden game, but doing so at the expense of your hardcore fan base would guarantee a short lifespan for Project Legion. I think the primary reason for the decline are usability issues, the fact that it was released on an already obsolete platform from day 1, the severe lack of polish, the slow pace of balancing, the abomination of a tutorial, throwing new players in with vets very early, having a game designed for at least 32 v 32 players capped out at 16 v 16.. The core of the game is actually pretty amazing, but very few people get to experience it. When you're having a good match in DUST 514, it's literally better than any other FPS game ever made, hands down. There is a depth and richness to combat that is simply unmatched anywhere else. Regarding the skill tree. Did you get a chance to see the ISIS mockup I cobbled together? The idea is new players could quickly get into a proto suit but would have to invest large amounts of SP to specialize down the road. Basic suits (I removed the racial variants for these) would focus on increasing survivability, but would lack bonuses to DPS, making them good general suits for new players. What are your thoughts? Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 1992	Posted - 2014.05.14 22:11:00 - [4] - Quote byte modal wrote: [quote=CCP Z] Perhaps I'm way off base here, that happens a lot, trust me; but it just feels off, at best, to use resources to rewrite something that could be better resolved by taking a bit of time to educate the new player. You're not off base at all. I think you're right on the money (literally and figuratively). I thought the same thing about their internal tests. Of course they're going to be confused if they haven't been educated about how the system works. Once you get the basic idea, it's actually pretty easy to grasp. An "ISIS" equivalent would do wonders here. Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 2006	Posted - 2014.05.15 03:33:00 - [5] - Quote CCP Z wrote: I donGÇÖt necessarily agree here. Money spent and team size are not the only factors. Innovation and user experience are what we are aiming for. Create a different game (sandbox Wild PVE/PVP) with a polished experience (more accessible, better UI, better immersion) will make us successful Thanks again for taking the time to reply. I know you're busy and having the respect for your players to address us directly is really awesome. If I were running a smaller gaming studio trying to compete directly with powerhouses in my industry, I would be looking to find the existing competitive advantages of my team and product and build on those. The reality is you can't beat those studios on accessibility, polish, immersion, or PvE (they have huge campaigns with tons of scripted content and story lines). You're 100% right about the sandbox though. That and the depth of your skills and fittings along with the sense of loss that forces you to play your character like their life has value are the things that make your product so incredible (your artists are pretty amazing too). I can assure you that we all want the player base to increase massively from what it is now. I believe there is a viable market for a better version of what DUST was supposed to be. I know there are a lot of players like myself who find most FPS games shallow and boring. Many of us are older, with limited free time and deeper pockets. I have to believe there is a way to tap into that market somehow and make a financially successful product. It's hard to believe that building/refining/improving on the successes of DUST isn't a better direction than gutting so much of it (the progression system) and starting from scratch. Would you at least consider an ISIS-like overlay over the existing EVE-style system as an alternative? Continue work on your proposals, but simultaneously explore alternatives? I completely agree that the game needs to be accessible to as wide an audience as possible. I really don't understand why UI/UX improvements and a AAA tutorial can't bring accessibility to an improved version of the existing system. As someone who has studied UI design, one point that was constantly hammered into my brain repeatedly was how critical the first launch experience is of a piece of software. I think you should get the tutorial team together and have them play a couple hours of Portal 1 (better yet, watch someone who has never played it and take notes). That game did an absolutely amazing job of introducing players to foreign concepts, but it had personality, humor and flair that kept driving it forward. I think there's a lot you guys could take away from that game. The first Halo did an awesome job of this as well. It introduced radical concepts like the shield regeneration system but in a tutorial that got right into the action from the beginning. You go from a boring scene in a lab to having aliens board your ship with the power going out and fires everywhere. Now that's a way to grab a prospective customer and suck them in! Quote: Quote: Your concern that EVE is a different financial model is a bit misguided. EVE is free-to-play as well with the PLEX system. Why canGÇÖt we reduce the amount of unboosted passive and active SP gained by some percentage (maybe 30% or so) and increase the percentage of boosters by the same amount to make them a better value and more desirable? If we can buy/sell boosters on the market like PLEX then the systems will be very similar. Players can grind ISK to gain access to boosters, and players with more real money than time can sell them boosters for ISK. I have not presented the new Monetization system for Legion. We will be very far away from what DUST currently is (no gear/items for AURUM, players who donGÇÖt want to spend money will still have access to all GÇ£paidGÇ¥optionsGÇª). I will create a separate thread when I am ready to have this discussion Again, as I said in the presentation and in this thread: the level of customization remains the same as in DUST, we are changing the way it is presented to all players. It sounds like you guys are way below your targets financially, and I can appreciate the difficulty this puts you in. You have access to the numbers and we obviously don't, so it's really hard to give feedback here. All I can say is that the existing model got me to spend more on DUST than any video game in my life (hell I bought a PS3 just to play DUST). I bought BPOs (including the DREN set and the Collector's Edition), as well as boosters (a bunch of Omegas). I never used an AUR suit (that wasn't a BPO) and was planning to sell the ones I got from the freebies, events, and thrown in with the BPO packs on the market once that came out. One of the big problems with AUR gear is that it's a bit like having the word "douchebag" tattooed onto your suit. For some reason, paying money for boosters and selling them in the market for ISK to buy normal suits doesn't feel as sleazy as using a 'I paid real money for this suit' Proto Amarr Assault Suit. Paying money shouldn't broadcast to other players that you've paid money like the naming of AUR gear does. Hopefully that's valuable feedback. Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 2043	Posted - 2014.05.16 22:39:00 - [6] - Quote IGÇÖve created a proposal for an alternative progression system with some mockup interfaces and a mostly complete skill tree diagram. Here is the thread. I go into more detail there. IGÇÖd love to hear feedback--especially from CCP Z if you have the time to take a look. Images: Skill Tree Interface Mockup GÇ£ISISGÇ¥ Analog Mockup Skill Tree Diagram Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 2059	Posted - 2014.05.17 15:35:00 - [7] - Quote Kevall Longstride wrote: Actually Z has already posted in the positive in regard to the ISIS question. I know we've had a few disagreements in this discussion. I drafted up a progression proposal and made a thread. The goal is to retain the depth of the existing system but make it more accessible for new players. As the CEO of the most well-known and respected organizations for training new players, and as a CPM 1 candidate, I would really appreciate any feedback you might have. You would probably have some unique and useful insights. Best PvE idea ever!
Vell0cet Dirt Nap Squad Dirt Nap Squad. 2060	Posted - 2014.05.17 18:45:00 - [8] - Quote As an alternative to respecs how do you guys feel about character sales for ISK, with an AUR transaction fee paid by the buyer? Best PvE idea ever!