DUST Search - Why Dust is fundamentally bad and a catastrophic commercial failure

Ryme Intrinseca wrote:

All the marketing suggests it is an FPS, with 'intense infantry combat'. In reality, the game is set up to make getting into infantry combat as hard as possible at every turn, through such 'features' as:

1. Ridiculously OP dropships (in beta and since 1.7)
2. Ridiculously OP tanks (in beta and between 1.7 and a few of months ago)
3. LAVs - small rail driveby, hit and run, and hop out HMG (at its worst with LLAVs but has always been ridiculous)
4. OHKing redline and tower snipers (since forever)

And of course, many of the maps are ridiculously open so all of the above is unavoidable.

Ask yourself, what do these roles bring to the game? In every case, they are basically there to farm infantry. This is obvious in the case of LAVs and snipers, but even dropships and tanks kill far more infantry than they do vehicles. These roles are essentially parasitic, benefiting immensely from the presence of infantry, as that's where they get the vast majority of their kills, but offering infantry nothing in return except the constant threat of an arbitrary and infuriating OHK.

No other FPS goes so far out of its way to make it so hard to actually get into a firefight. Every one of the above 'features' would be considered a grotesque imbalance and instantly nerfed into oblivion in any FPS that was serious about the infantry experience, i.e., ALL OF THEM except Dust. Why? Because 90%+ of people looking to play these games want to play as 'regular' infantry, i.e. they want to shoot at people who can shoot back. Every other developer knows that their game stands or falls with the gunplay. They know that a game that will frequently instakill you in any number of ways before you even get within 100m of enemy infantry will crash hard. As, indeed, it has.

How did things get this far? My theory is that CCP is fundamentally not interested in infantry. They really wanted this game to be the planetary version of EVE, with great machines of metal pounding away at each other. Unfortunately, outside of World of Tanks, there isn't really a market for such a thing, so the business people told them to make it an FPS instead. But CCP made the game they wanted to anyway, just with FPS marketing and infantry thrown in as cannon fodder.

TL;DR Lots of QQ.

PS - I know I can avoid this stuff in ambush, but I prefer objective-based gameplay.

inb4 no gungame scrubs and the canihazISK underclass.


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JudgeIsABadPilot Circle of Huskarl Minmatar Republic 25	Posted - 2014.09.09 16:12:00 - [1] - Quote Ryme Intrinseca wrote: All the marketing suggests it is an FPS, with 'intense infantry combat'. In reality, the game is set up to make getting into infantry combat as hard as possible at every turn, through such 'features' as: 1. Ridiculously OP dropships (in beta and since 1.7) 2. Ridiculously OP tanks (in beta and between 1.7 and a few of months ago) 3. LAVs - small rail driveby, hit and run, and hop out HMG (at its worst with LLAVs but has always been ridiculous) 4. OHKing redline and tower snipers (since forever) And of course, many of the maps are ridiculously open so all of the above is unavoidable. Ask yourself, what do these roles bring to the game? In every case, they are basically there to farm infantry. This is obvious in the case of LAVs and snipers, but even dropships and tanks kill far more infantry than they do vehicles. These roles are essentially parasitic, benefiting immensely from the presence of infantry, as that's where they get the vast majority of their kills, but offering infantry nothing in return except the constant threat of an arbitrary and infuriating OHK. No other FPS goes so far out of its way to make it so hard to actually get into a firefight. Every one of the above 'features' would be considered a grotesque imbalance and instantly nerfed into oblivion in any FPS that was serious about the infantry experience, i.e., ALL OF THEM except Dust. Why? Because 90%+ of people looking to play these games want to play as 'regular' infantry, i.e. they want to shoot at people who can shoot back. Every other developer knows that their game stands or falls with the gunplay. They know that a game that will frequently instakill you in any number of ways before you even get within 100m of enemy infantry will crash hard. As, indeed, it has. How did things get this far? My theory is that CCP is fundamentally not interested in infantry. They really wanted this game to be the planetary version of EVE, with great machines of metal pounding away at each other. Unfortunately, outside of World of Tanks, there isn't really a market for such a thing, so the business people told them to make it an FPS instead. But CCP made the game they wanted to anyway, just with FPS marketing and infantry thrown in as cannon fodder. TL;DR Lots of QQ. PS - I know I can avoid this stuff in ambush, but I prefer objective-based gameplay. inb4 no gungame scrubs and the canihazISK underclass. Yeah, because "FPS" means "no vehicles allowed."