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Kincate
DUST University
Ivy League
58
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Posted - 2014.06.06 23:30:00 -
[1] - Quote
One of the most exciting things about MMOFPS games (and Legion we hope will fit this category) is the unpredictability which accompanies any given battle. A lobby shooter match will consist of x number of players versus x number of players. An MMOFPS game however will have x number of players versus y number of players, I will throw in some math to x Gëá y. This can be exciting, frustrating, fun, and infuriating all rolled into one. Dust lacks this, and CCP you have taken a big step in admitting Dust did not work out the way you wanted it to. Legion is your second chance so understand this, move away from lobby matches, period. You are working on the open world PvE, fantastic this is not about that. This is about the other half of the game, the act of players shooting other players in the face, then in the corpse so they cannot be revived.
Now Legion is still not like other games and this can be made into an advantage. PS2 has THE map, as large as this is it cannot be compared to all of the potential space Legion can inhabit. Let us be realistic this cannot all be persistent. This gives Legion the ability to have some Lobby like qualities but still retain the unpredictable qualities of the mmo side. That is of course if it is done well. My suggestion is to build the system of battles around a set of factors. Location of the battle, scale of the battle, objectives of the battle, and transportation means of the mercs.
Location, location, location, what this translates into in Legion should be sec status. We should all know by now the three basic sec status Hi, Low, and Null. These should translate a little differently in Legion. Primarily location should determine who is initiating fights. Hi sec, the great starter space, of course this area is primarily controlled by NPC corporations. These Corporations should be the ones attacking and defending one another over specific facilities. Low sec is where it should start to get a little more complicated. FW is of course wars between two NPC corps but here it would make much more sense for players to be able to initiate fights in districts, and of course the opening salvos of Planetary Conquest systems. Null Sec is the Great War, completely initiated by players over specific things for their own agendas the dream that was Dust 514 and we hope is to be Legion. The sec status should form the core of what the battle is, what it is about. It is the foundation which the other factors rely upon.
Before discussing scale though I will caveat that life is not fair, we tell our children this, and no matter how badass we are six guys in an alley can jump us. Fights, even high sec fights, should not be subject to numbers caps, or if they are for technical reasons move away from symmetrical matches. I know the first reaction is that this is impractical because if you set a cap of 100 people and I have 70 friends I can insta dominate any map. True and I will discuss this later on. Scale of course forms the optimum number of people which should be participating in a battle. For some areas such as null sec this is irrelevant, the scale is the number of people each Alliance can shove into dropsuits and drop onto the damn planet. But for smaller scale conflicts such as between two NPC corps the scale will be much smaller. Currently this is set up through a symmetrical system. What it should be is more of a soft cap such as in incursions. Example, two high sec corps initiate a fight over a district. This is essentially an auto created match, as close to lobby shooting as you should get. However each side places a bounty on the battle, this is a pool of money which will be used to pay the mercs who fight. So if the battle is to one sided individually each person will receive less reward. This lends itself well to a technical cap, as well as a meta level range as the company can put forth a meta level range similar to a company not hiring someone because they are either under or over qualified. A final note on scale is that even if the section of ground is not overly large the battle should take time for reasons I will go into later.
Objectives, much can be said on the nature of objectives. I will be brief here and simply say that ambush is not a serious objective, I know there are ambush fans out there but it really has no place in an MMOFPS. When someone pays for a contact it should be for a specific purpose other than attempting to kill people who cannot be killed. Look back to Skirmish 1.0, that is the beginnings of what you should be basing these battles off of. An attacker and a Defender, and game play should be different between the two. I realize there were some balance issues between the two sides in those early iterations however this can be offset in different ways such as adjusting the soft cap or even allocating resources in premade games. Once you get into player driven fights it then becomes the planners responsibility to bring what he needs.
1st Legionhaire
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Kincate
DUST University
Ivy League
58
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Posted - 2014.06.06 23:30:00 -
[2] - Quote
Finally Transportation, right now we zip from one end of high sec to the other in an instant with all of our material everywhere we go. This needs to change, I know Dust is built around the idea of instant gratification but this is not something which goes hand in hand with MMOFPS games. A battle takes time to stage for, transport material to etc. Legion should not be a game for the impatient material should move through the cluster (Not necessarily physically at first) at least time wise. Players should have to plan for a battle if I do not bring enough suits, tanks, weapons etc I should either be out of luck, or at least relegated to equipment provided by the sponsor corporation (something on the lower end of the meta level, which you pay for as you use them). Aside from the meta level you should be limited by the mass of the equipment you bring, the tanks, suits, weapons even any extra clones (Which opens up the idea of enhanced clones) you may bring have volume and mass which are a limited resource in your form of transport to the battle. For player driven battles your warbarge will ultimately be the vehicle which brings your material to war Cargo space should be limited which of course leads to better warbarge versions etc. Transport time would also create a sphere of influence where you base yourself. Further encouraging you to establish some forward operating positions to increase the number of battles you have access to. It also creates a need for corporations to stage equipment in advance and would require committing resources prior to the battle even in NPC conflicts
TL;DR
The Security Status should determine who the conflict is initiated by.
The Battles should be scaled by location but not guaranteed to be symmetrical, there should be soft caps in place to encourage balance but that should not rule out being overrun.
Objectives should be based more off of Attacker/Defender relationships, and get rid of Ambush
Transportation to the battlefield should play a role as a soft cap and limiting factor in matches, by limiting players to a certain mass or volume and requiring time to transport equipment to a battle. players should come prepared or face consequences if they cannot make their own preparations . Also establishes bases which you operate out of.
1st Legionhaire
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Kincate
DUST University
Ivy League
74
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Posted - 2014.06.26 11:30:00 -
[3] - Quote
Aighun wrote:Roger Cordill wrote:
That would be the optimal thing to have for the structured side of the game imo. HAve npc events light up a lot, and occasional tourneys, but allow players to have them as well, as well as make custom maps for said tourneys.
I'd make it a point to make it a structure in space as well, possibly part of a station, or even better, it's just a room, and VR is used (however, BPC's are still somehow taken if you die, and a portion of them goes to the killer).
The Empires, in a desperate attempt to remain relevant, have wholeheartedly embraced the cloned mercenary bloodsport. You could basically just port Dust 514 straight to PC, do a little tidying up, and call it the high and low sec version of the structured FPS as sport side of legion. But I like the idea of giving players the ability to deploy gaming arenas in space. As long as they obeyed the new rules of New Eden. Every structure in game can be destroyed by players. So. what do you want to do in the world of New Eden blood sports? Do you want to operate as a fixer, get a team to take a fall for a cut of the gambling money? Or would you rather just roll into a system and obliterate an entire station and everything in it, including the Zero G battle stadium? Just for a laugh? Or are you going to run the cleanest game in town, and make a name for yourself as the Chribba of the arenas?
I have no problem with blood sport but I think it should be player organized, give the players the tools. With the exception of maybe some big annual events like the alliance Tournaments
1st Legionhare
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