DUST Search - Feedback: Uplink Mechanics

Breakin Stuff wrote:

hfderrtgvcd wrote:

Cross Atu wrote:

Another way to reduce spam, also being discussed in the linked thread, is to rails the CPU/PG cost of uplinks. Doing so makes them harder to fit and thus less likely to be used casually by those who are not electing to make active spawn maintenance a key part of their primary role on field.

Cross

I agree with most of your post but this is just a terrible idea. People who spam uplinks don't care about combat efficiency. They make suits designed to solely spam links. This doesn't affect them at all while it hurts people who fit a single uplink to be used strategically.

There is a saying in the Marine Corps:

It only takes one a**hole to f*ck things up for the rest of us. One in every ten is that A**hole.

I think expending the uplinks like ammunition is the best way to go. that way you throw an uplink and a blueberry pops in, uplink goes away. in order to maintain uplinks in an area you have to maintain control of the area. Make it so nanohives will not replenish uplinks but Supply depots will, and make a 2-uplink deployed at a time hard limit per suit and suddenly there is a tactical value to uplinks rather than a lazy lemming approach. Most players want the lazy lemming easy warpoints. making the uplinks expendable will make them more high-value in squads. "I need to respawn, drop me a link!"

Make certain links squad-only and suddenly you dont have to worry about some idiot blueberry expending your squadmate's respawns in the field. for more general-use, if you don't like the whole ammo links, then make it so the team can have four. one down per suit, and they exist until you drop another one or until they are destroyed. if more links are deployed they autodestruct.

there's too many damned links on the field anyway.

Of a similar bent, nanohives. make them ONE PER CUSTOMER but MUCH longer-lasting. that way you can't have some idiot park in a four rep hive cluster. he gets ONE. if he wants another, the old one will pop when he deploys the new one.

make it so hives and uplinks become tactical assets that you must place carefully rather than simple fire-and-forget warpoint batteries.


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Cross Atu OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 3099	Posted - 2014.10.04 17:43:00 - [1] - Quote First +1 OP for creative thinking and attempting to constructively solve a problem that you see. Second, I hate to rain on your parade but many of the aspects of what you are proposing would require fundamental game system rebuilds because of the mechanics they'd be changing (mCRUs, Uplinks, CRU placement <-- All actually separate systems in the code AFAIK and that makes forcing them to interact require the creation of an entire new system). Third, you know the most notorious instances of spam? Those around objectives and supply depots, they could still exist under the proposed system. Now, grated, the depot spam would be easier to deactivate but that would still leave a swarm of inert items deployed which could A) be reactivated and B) would actually increase server load because now the system is checking the status of all of those items constantly to see if they are "on" or "off" not simply marking them as "present", thus unless total links used were cut by more than half it is entirely possible this would be a net loss for performance. Outright stopping spam is hard/unlikely, discouraging it so that it is reduced/no longer worthwhile is more attainable and that is what the CPM proposal aims to do. Reducing the number of spawns per link (spawn time remains the same btw) and increasing the number of links carried, but keeping max active at the current ~2 means links are used up and removed from the field rapidly and thus spam is less persistent even if someone decides to spam. Another way to reduce spam, also being discussed in the linked thread, is to rails the CPU/PG cost of uplinks. Doing so makes them harder to fit and thus less likely to be used casually by those who are not electing to make active spawn maintenance a key part of their primary role on field. Combining reduced spawns per link, with increased CPU/PG to fit links reduces the potential rewards for spam (because the links burn out faster) the ease of spam (because the links require more to fit) and the duration of spam (again because the links burn out faster). Will this stop the depot swap spam entirely? No. Will it stop rooftop nets via Dropship entirely? No. But it will require those to be actively maintained if they are to exist on field, those clusters will still be easy to clear. These changes also give the Amarr Logi a more defined and meaningful role on the field by shifting uplink placement into uplink maintenance. The player stays in the suit to actively re-deploy expended links, those links have faster spawn times due to the Amarr racial skill and overall the Amarr racial starts to become meaningful rather than mostly novel. 0.02 ISK Cross See a cool idea thread? Mail me the title and I'll take a look =)
Cross Atu OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 3100	Posted - 2014.10.04 19:14:00 - [2] - Quote Apothecary Za'ki wrote: Breakin Stuff wrote: Apothecary Za'ki wrote: TL;DR up-links are necessary to keep the battles moving or else its a case of 2 things.. being CRU camped or being pushed all the way back to redline with no chance to get back into the game.. while with uplinks you can place them stragically to stay in the game and get some good fights in a concentrated area/point.. WITHOUT UPLINKS THE GAME GOES STALE! you should actually read a post sometime. With uplink spam the game lags out and turns into a rubber band slog that performs poorly, has sht framerate and oh yeah, becomes a lemming rush, which is about as interesting as chewing on glass shard donuts. People actually aren't asking to remove links, but to change them so they aren't simply WP farming tools. it dosnt as CCP have yet to find out the real reason why the game lags and they have been unable to recreate the lag due to uplinks and other equipment being spam deployed around depo's Correct. I have stress tested this myself many times with multiple proto logis spamming a full load of everything* and had zero lag during combat within under 40m of the spammed area. Meanwhile some of the most pronounced lag I have ever encountered (outside of PC) has been in matches where the deployable count was just slightly above zero prior to and at the time of lag. See a cool idea thread? Mail me the title and I'll take a look =)
Cross Atu OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 3100	Posted - 2014.10.04 19:18:00 - [3] - Quote Breakin Stuff wrote: hfderrtgvcd wrote: Cross Atu wrote: Another way to reduce spam, also being discussed in the linked thread, is to rails the CPU/PG cost of uplinks. Doing so makes them harder to fit and thus less likely to be used casually by those who are not electing to make active spawn maintenance a key part of their primary role on field. Cross I agree with most of your post but this is just a terrible idea. People who spam uplinks don't care about combat efficiency. They make suits designed to solely spam links. This doesn't affect them at all while it hurts people who fit a single uplink to be used strategically. There is a saying in the Marine Corps: It only takes one a*hole to fck things up for the rest of us. One in every ten is that A**hole. I think expending the uplinks like ammunition is the best way to go. that way you throw an uplink and a blueberry pops in, uplink goes away. in order to maintain uplinks in an area you have to maintain control of the area. Make it so nanohives will not replenish uplinks but Supply depots will, and make a 2-uplink deployed at a time hard limit per suit and suddenly there is a tactical value to uplinks rather than a lazy lemming approach. Most players want the lazy lemming easy warpoints. making the uplinks expendable will make them more high-value in squads. "I need to respawn, drop me a link!" Make certain links squad-only and suddenly you dont have to worry about some idiot blueberry expending your squadmate's respawns in the field. for more general-use, if you don't like the whole ammo links, then make it so the team can have four. one down per suit, and they exist until you drop another one or until they are destroyed. if more links are deployed they autodestruct. there's too many damned links on the field anyway. Of a similar bent, nanohives. make them ONE PER CUSTOMER but MUCH longer-lasting. that way you can't have some idiot park in a four rep hive cluster. he gets ONE. if he wants another, the old one will pop when he deploys the new one. make it so hives and uplinks become tactical assets that you must place carefully rather than simple fire-and-forget warpoint batteries. Making deployed assets burn out faster, and thus require active rather than passive use (remove the fire and forget aspect) is exactly what the proposed method does. The 'ammo' idea is mechanically similar to this proposal with the exception that it allows for more than one spawn per link due to the way spawns are handled in the interface (have spoken to CCP about that mechanic, I started out with the idea that 1 per link would be best). Granted some of the proposal aspects are more 'work-around' if compared directly to your suggestion but in many ways they are functionally the same, and the discrepancies are largely a matter of honing for best performance within the engine. 0.02 ISK Cross See a cool idea thread? Mail me the title and I'll take a look =)
Cross Atu OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 3100	Posted - 2014.10.04 19:30:00 - [4] - Quote Kensai Dragon wrote: [quote=hfderrtgvcd] Maybe instead limit the number of uplinks allowed per side at a given time? Maybe 10 uplinks per side? I'll agree that spamming is ridiculous, but don't discourage the 1 or 2 on a team trying to actually be productive. I am amendment opposed to limiting uplinks or any asset in this manner due to the potential for trolling and loss of ability to access ones skilled role. With team wide link limits a single board blueberry can spam the max number of links somewhere such as deep in the redline thus locking out all uplink use for that side. In Pubs there would be nothing anyone could do about it, and even in FW it would force people into raising their 'team kill tally' (which is based on damage done to friendly assets) to clear those links which could then simply be reapplied by the griefer thus preventing the problem from ever being solved (the griefer would be doing no damage to friendly assets and as such could continue this behavior indefinitely). Changes like this would also require a rework of the fundamental system AFAIK (as opposed to changes which alter only the numbers plugged into the current uplinks) and so would require updates beyond the current scope of development. 0.02 ISK Cross See a cool idea thread? Mail me the title and I'll take a look =)
Cross Atu OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 3100	Posted - 2014.10.04 21:08:00 - [5] - Quote hfderrtgvcd wrote: Cross Atu wrote: Another way to reduce spam, also being discussed in the linked thread, is to rails the CPU/PG cost of uplinks. Doing so makes them harder to fit and thus less likely to be used casually by those who are not electing to make active spawn maintenance a key part of their primary role on field. Cross I agree with most of your post but this is just a terrible idea. People who spam uplinks don't care about combat efficiency. They make suits designed to solely spam links. This doesn't affect them at all while it hurts people who fit a single uplink to be used strategically. That is a matter of degree and what you mean by "spam". People who do the "swap and drop" at a depot will not be effected by that aspect of the idea it is true. Which is part of why it is not the only aspect purposed. Also people who fit more than one link to a suit are not guaranteed to be "spamming" or behaving in a non-tactical manner, nor are those who fit a single link guaranteed to be acting in a tactical manner. So the question really becomes what is "spam" because if "spam" is poorly placed uplinks then no proposal can prevent that, that is player behavior. If "spam" is sheer volume of persistent deployed uplinks than that can be moderated within the current game mechanics by A)making them less persistent and B) making them less deployed (by making them harder to fit). How much harder to fit, or if to change it at all, is up for debate which is why I mentioned it though I do think it relevant to ask questions such as "would making a fit run ADV rather than PRO remove strategic use?" because if the answer is "no" then there isn't a problem and if the answer is "yes" then there is a problem regardless of whether we dismiss the proposal or not but proto is a small premium selection of the gear available, it is not - or should not be - the only useful option to use. If running anything less than proto is not worth doing, then the stats of the line need to be looked at so that more than that select premium is worthwhile. 0.02 ISK Cross PS ~ Glad you like the rest of the idea, I am all for feedback either in support or objection to a notion and don't take my above as a refusal to consider other options. I simply supply the reasons for the presentation so that it can be discussed in it's proper/actual context. The whole point, for me, is for the ideas to be discussed. o7 See a cool idea thread? Mail me the title and I'll take a look =)
Cross Atu OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 3100	Posted - 2014.10.04 21:44:00 - [6] - Quote Simple guideline for server side changes This is not comprehensive, but as a general trend if an idea only alters numeric values within preexisting functions, it is likely something that can be done. If an idea introduces an entire new mechanic or method of object behavior, it is quite possible that is a client side change. Just presenting this so that everyone can focus their ideas and creative suggestions in on stuff that is more likely to be an actionable option rather than a "maybe for Legion" option. Cheers, Cross EDIT: Examples in this context Changing the number of spawns on an uplink - Server Side Changing the number of uplinks in an area or altering how uplink spawns work - client side Creating a infantry mCRU - likely a mix, server side for the mechanics, client side for the art assets and UI See a cool idea thread? Mail me the title and I'll take a look =)
Cross Atu OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 3100	Posted - 2014.10.04 21:54:00 - [7] - Quote hfderrtgvcd wrote: Cross Atu wrote: Simple guideline for server side changes This is not comprehensive, but as a general trend if an idea only alters numeric values within preexisting functions, it is likely something that can be done. If an idea introduces an entire new mechanic or method of object behavior, it is quite possible that is a client side change. Just presenting this so that everyone can focus their ideas and creative suggestions in on stuff that is more likely to be an actionable option rather than a "maybe for Legion" option. Cheers, Cross what would you say the chances are of us getting a client side patch? They are in direct relation to the revenue generated by Dust. CCP does not share their financial records with the CPM, but as a player/individual it is my impression that we are in the ballpark of sustainability but not heavy profit. If Dust begins to make a substantial profit once again then client patches become possible because more staff can be hired/allocated for the project thus providing all the proper skill sets required to do a client patch. There is a lot of material currently on hold unless/until a client patch can happen again. That being the case it is anyones guess which items would make it during a patch (or even within the first few patches should ongoing patching become a reality). In essence what this means is that any changes we want to see sooner rather than "soonTM" should focus on server side solutions rather than client side reworks. (Hence the nature of most of my proposals and feedback threads, because I focus hotfix compatible items so we can have them in game in the near term rather than waiting until some unknown future date). Cheers, Cross See a cool idea thread? Mail me the title and I'll take a look =)
Cross Atu OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 3101	Posted - 2014.10.04 22:08:00 - [8] - Quote hfderrtgvcd wrote: Thanks for the detailed response o7 Sure thing More/better communication creates a better experience for all IMO and I try to take an active role in that whenever I'm able. See a cool idea thread? Mail me the title and I'll take a look =)