for what it's worth i'm of a strong opinion that players should be able to experiment easily at a low level/tier/etc with their progression and fitting variety...while it could spike increasingly in difficulty/time as they specialize deeper into roles/skills.

I feel the current pace at which players can unlock basic suits/modules/weapons in dust514 is pretty close to where it should be-while reaching high end suits/modules/weapons/passives could reasonably use some tweaking (increased time/difficulty).

Posting the skill tree

Methodology Discussion

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.

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

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.

We are not trying to bring casual players in the game, we are trying to open the game to more players and not only create a niche game (as DUST is currently). If we want Legion to live, it has to provide an amazing experience but also be a financial success. Being a free to play Shooter on PC, we have to reach out to a bigger target audience than for the Console version if we want it to be successful

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.

@CCP Z

Is it ok if you can post the entire skill tree you have planned right now? And I mean all of it even though it's just an early concept and is probably subject to change by the time Legion gets the green light. I need to see it all to get the whole context of what you're trying to achieve.

I strongly suggest that EVE: Legion adopt a progression system that mirrors EVE Online. I don't see why not.

And I am strongly working doing the opposite for the reasons stated 20 times in this thread :)

Take EVE's progression system, mirror it, then streamline it. Now, create an analogue to ISIS for players to use.

Congratulations, you now have a system that is easy to understand as well as non-restrictive.

Can you find any flaws in my logic?

Well I certainly can't. I prefer the dust skill system over that of EVE simply because it helps with monetization and rewards me for actually playing, but I agree that ISIS is the key to opening the door to new players, not classes.

It will take a while before it happens. Just imagine, you are in a room with 3,000 people, you state your opinion, or explain your idea (a complex one, like all trees for all roles), and all 3,000 people start screaming at once to give feedback, opinion, comments GǪ it is just not constructive. I will be as transparent with you guys as I can, but CPM will be representing the Community for these matters and helping us design all the new systems for Legion.

And I am strongly working doing the opposite for the reasons stated 20 times in this thread :)

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

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¥optionsGǪ). 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.

And I am strongly working doing the opposite for the reasons stated 20 times in this thread :)

I kinda get the feeling that he just doesn't believe us or something.

Is this going to be a situation where the community is all going to say something and Z is just going to say screw it and do things his own way anyhow? Because that's largely the feeling I'm getting.

And something that I remember for some reason from your presentation, or maybe a panel / roundtable.

You said something to the effect of not liking that a player be stuck forever if he makes a mistake and dumps SP into something he didn't "mean" to. (Let's be honest, he meant to, but suffered from some buyer's remorse later.)

This entire mentality is contrary to what CCP has built with EVE, and what we've come to expect from New Eden, where you're setting DUST (or Legion?).

At a superficial level it goes against the HTFU mindset (that I don't agree with.) All the information is available to the player. There are in game descriptions. They can access an admittedly terrible but no-skills-required MLT version of the item they want to try (again, a strange tier system that I would ruin EVE.) They can even watch youtube videos reviewing the weapon / suit / thing they want to try. If they're so lucky to have friends, they can even ask for first hand experience. No one 'accidentally' skills something higher than they intended to. Whether they would have made that same decision in a month or however far in the future is immaterial.

At a deeper and more important level, no one is 'stuck forever.' In EVE, every skill has a purpose and reason for training to 5. That doesn't mean something else might be more worthwhile to train, but there's a reason for every 5. DUST can't say that. In EVE, if you skill into something and find you don't like it, that's tough. There are no respecs. The decision is yours to sulk and moan about your poor decision, or find a situational use for whatever you can access in the future. If you actually followed the patterns set by EVE, you could see this mindset applied to DUST. No skill is ever wasted, and no player is ever 'stuck.' (In EVE, at least, because DUST doesn't satisfactorily mirror EVE. (and Legion won't either?))

Stupid players need their hand held and he believes there is more money in stupid players than intelligent ones. He isn't wrong.

Unfortunately he is also not in a position to capitalize on them. He doesn't recognize this for whatever reason.

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 repeatedly hammered into my brain 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, have the team 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!



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.