Fight tooth and nail in proto to barely win the game and go 30-5? Whoops, you just guaranteed yourself a net loss of ISK.

This is a really good point. Unless you lost those five PRO suits to STD / ADV (but that's a different story) you shouldn't lose ISK. Mercs get paid.

[edit]

Now I think about this further, there's a flip side. If those 30 kills are on STD / ADV...........proto-stomping will be rewarded with ISK. Would have to address that. Need a delta between suit vs suit fights.

*Implying there is a stable Risk/Reward system to ruin*

Fight tooth and nail in proto to barely win the game and go 30-5? Whoops, you just guaranteed yourself a net loss of ISK.

Meanwhile...

Logi on your team spends the entire game farming bluedots for spawn kills and triage (likely the reason the game was a tough win) and goes 0-5 with 2000 WP in std/adv gear? He draws a big chunk of the teams payout and has a net gain for no risk.

Sniper on the opposing, losing team goes 5-0 with 500 WP? He probably made more than most of the players on the winning team, zero risk.

Yep, great Risk/Reward aspect right there.


Dividing the game so that a high payout "null-sec" division of pubs would open up the ability to create an area where payouts are much more directly dependent on winning, kills, WP, and gear destroyed. There would still be risk/reward, but losing some expensive gear wouldn't guarantee a net loss, you would just have to make those losses count for something of greater value than the cost of the materials destroyed. Winning should also be THE MOST significant factor in your ISK payout in such a match, as winning should be the thing which you are taking the risk in order to ultimately obtain.

As much as I hate bringing in "lore based" arguments...
The NPC corps paying for those contracts would obviously want you to utilize your best resources, and they would want to compensate you for making those resources profitable. Obviously, breaking even or anything below a 2.0 K/D (or an AV/Logistics equivalent) wouldn't be acceptable in proto gear, but it also shouldn't be a flat "lose 4 proto suits and you won't make any profit" either.

You mean, turn this more into a generic lobby shooter you can find anywhere else?


The risk vs rewards needs to be improved upon - not removed. It's one of the very few things that actually make this a different FPS from every other FPS we already have.

Stop trying to dumb this game down further. Brackets or any idea of separating players through value determined by the suit your using is utter nonsense.

The newbs need to be train and given a reason to stay - not give them more generic standards of equality when equality doesn't exist. We were supposed to be a part of New Eden - not Disney Land.

I came into dust thinking it was like battlefield but when I played my first game it got better! It brought back my memories of MAG! (R.I.P.) so I continued playing and loved it until.....it took me out of the training mission. Then I was thrown in with players that have 6 months plus put into the game. At first I thought I just wasn't used to the game and the aiming so I kept my chin up and pushed on. Now I am 3 weeks in and I know the maps and my aiming is tighter but ow I'm putting a rail rifle clip into an enemy's back to only have them 3 shot me. Pretty unbalanced if you ask me. Plenty of good mmo fps have a skill system but even a new player can do some damage and have fun. Oh and the constant spawn killing is rather annoying. There should be away to play with players only in my range of sp. in general the game has good concepts and fun gameplay but how very unbalanced it is, it realy breaks the game for new players. I realy really want to love this game but I just can't find a reason too. I'm not into wasting 6 months to get enough sp to be able to have some fun. Veterans I understands why you play this game....new players you should just turn around before your ahead unless you have months to use and don't mind gettin slapped around most of your gynnan

I think i might remember that name from somewhere.... Valor or SVER maybe...

We are working on metalevel brackets of gameplay, imagine a WoW dungeon only in reverse.

Tier 1 - no fittings above 100 (sum of all equipment on the fitting) - average rewards
Tier 2 - no fittings above 200 - high rewards
Tier 3 - free for all - very high rewards

R.I.P MAG! Still nothing has been as gratifying as fixing that barricade just before 18 people could rush in to take the point lol.

I can see this happening:

Tier 1 - Logistics are locked out because the amount of modules and equipment do not allow them to enter this arena.
Tier 2 - Basic and Subpar fittings on Logistics players allowed here. Slayers steamroll over them and are rare if they enter or are even alive in this tier.
Tier 3 - Logistics players have no worries of being locked out of this mode.

Please allow Logistics players to somehow operate on a lower meta level without allowing them to become "Slayer Logis".

We are working on metalevel brackets of gameplay, imagine a WoW dungeon only in reverse.

Tier 1 - no fittings above 100 (sum of all equipment on the fitting) - average rewards
Tier 2 - no fittings above 200 - high rewards
Tier 3 - free for all - very high rewards

Meta level is single digits, with only officer weapons being metal level 10. How is this going to work?

I'm pretty sure those are just placeholders.

There's no point in criticizing the details of a concept without any actual details.

I came into dust thinking it was like battlefield but when I played my first game it got better! It brought back my memories of MAG! (R.I.P.) so I continued playing and loved it until.....it took me out of the training mission. Then I was thrown in with players that have 6 months plus put into the game. At first I thought I just wasn't used to the game and the aiming so I kept my chin up and pushed on. Now I am 3 weeks in and I know the maps and my aiming is tighter but ow I'm putting a rail rifle clip into an enemy's back to only have them 3 shot me. Pretty unbalanced if you ask me. Plenty of good mmo fps have a skill system but even a new player can do some damage and have fun. Oh and the constant spawn killing is rather annoying. There should be away to play with players only in my range of sp. in general the game has good concepts and fun gameplay but how very unbalanced it is, it realy breaks the game for new players. I realy really want to love this game but I just can't find a reason too. I'm not into wasting 6 months to get enough sp to be able to have some fun. Veterans I understands why you play this game....new players you should just turn around before your ahead unless you have months to use and don't mind gettin slapped around most of your gynnan

This sounds great but can our average online count sustain splitting matches this much?

I'm pretty sure those are just placeholders.

There's no point in criticizing the details of a concept without any actual details.

I came into dust thinking it was like battlefield but when I played my first game it got better! It brought back my memories of MAG! (R.I.P.) so I continued playing and loved it until.....it took me out of the training mission. Then I was thrown in with players that have 6 months plus put into the game. At first I thought I just wasn't used to the game and the aiming so I kept my chin up and pushed on. Now I am 3 weeks in and I know the maps and my aiming is tighter but ow I'm putting a rail rifle clip into an enemy's back to only have them 3 shot me. Pretty unbalanced if you ask me. Plenty of good mmo fps have a skill system but even a new player can do some damage and have fun. Oh and the constant spawn killing is rather annoying. There should be away to play with players only in my range of sp. in general the game has good concepts and fun gameplay but how very unbalanced it is, it realy breaks the game for new players. I realy really want to love this game but I just can't find a reason too. I'm not into wasting 6 months to get enough sp to be able to have some fun. Veterans I understands why you play this game....new players you should just turn around before your ahead unless you have months to use and don't mind gettin slapped around most of your gynnan

Thanks for the feedback. We will be sure to incorporate it, there are more than one way to skin this cat, and maybe a combination of metalevel and sp is the way to go.

And your own ability keeps you from competing - not your gear. The balance this game has now compared to a year ago is vastly improved. FOTM isn't all dominating - only bad players think so.

Mothafuckin' cray fish.

Sir, you are stuck in a non-actionable mindset (reeks like hell of free-market-ideology). What do you think a game developer can do about the personal abilities of their players? YES absolutely nothing. They have to work with how the world is. What they CAN do, is change the game to fit the players that exist better.

If your premise is correct, they could make the most punishing and horrible game in existience, it's all the players fault for not being "gud" enough and not "htfu" enough. If this game then would be shunned by the players, jeez I guess "the players are just not good enough for our game" (would be just stupid to say that). I seriously hope that they are better than that. And from the posts of Rattati I deduct that they are indeed.

So YES to anything that has the potential of giving Noobs a fair chance and to keep then in the game. Meta Lock seems like a fine first step, PVE would be too :P

And YES to keeping a place for the competetive players to butt their foreheads against each other till the end of time. They are players too and have their own wants and needs for the game.

Edit: A good metaphor for thinking about this is the process of learning to swim. You dont just jump into the water and hope for the best. You wont learn anything. You just die and never return. Instead you have to step slowly into ever deeper water and learn gradually. Thats how it works.

One last thing: Every player in this thread who is advocating for the hard core 'HTFU' game experience you see represented in these posts has posted on the quality/failings/necessity of the NPE in DUST. It's not that the NPE or player retention is unimportant, it's that that commonly accepted industry cure(i.e. making the game softer, more accessible, etc.) destroys the primary value of this game and this virtual universe.
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There's more that one way to skin this kitten ;)

We are working on metalevel brackets of gameplay, imagine a WoW dungeon only in reverse.

Tier 1 - no fittings above 100 (sum of all equipment on the fitting) - average rewards
Tier 2 - no fittings above 200 - high rewards
Tier 3 - free for all - very high rewards

I just want to confirm one thing:


You're fine with ruining the Risk vs Reward aspect of this game with brackets?....

What you say sounds eminently reasonable, but could easily presage a downhill slide to spoon-fed meaninglessness.

In a very real sense DUST, EVE, New Eden occupy a unique niche in gaming, where players are responsible for their own failure and success, where the playing field is not level and definitely not fair, where the uphill slog to viability/relevance will hurt. There are vanishingly few games like that on the market, a few in development that may or may not yield fruit.

Accessibility for all sounds like a fine ideal, but in this case it is poison disguised as medicine. In New Eden, players get left behind. Some peeps are not smart enough, tough enough, flat-out stubborn enough to survive here. If we want a game where personal decisions and abilities have meaning it is a price we have to pay. Remove that 'unfairness' and brutality from New Eden and you drive a stake through her heart, she would die literally overnight.

One last thing: Every player in this thread who is advocating for the hard core 'HTFU' game experience you see represented in these posts has posted on the quality/failings/necessity of the NPE in DUST. It's not that the NPE or player retention is unimportant, it's that that the commonly accepted industry cure(i.e. making the game softer, more accessible, etc.) destroys the primary value of this game and this virtual universe.

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As for Rattati's meta-tier proposal, i'm not sure, tbqh. I'd support a limited fixed-term trial of two months.

But i am sure of the primary price that we & New Eden will pay for meta-tiers: It breaks up the single shard, it limits the scope and meaning of our shared universe. If EVE is really a social engine that allows peeps to come together and create stories and history and collectively induct meaning into an arbitrary game ruleset, what then is DUST?

A lobby shooter where we sever the social connections and separate populations to protect players from the universe that they live in?

This no doubt sounds academic and romantic to some, but it isn't. The single shard is the primary reason it's so hard to quit DUST/EVE: it gives our actions meaning.

Would rather approach the NPE from a lore-based perspective: how would corporations run cheap everyday business contracts vs. elite bet-the-company contracts? How would this impact player gear and autonomy in suit choice? Maybe if a merc was willing to use the mass-produced company dropsuit(s)/gear they'd get them at a big discount, etc.

There's more that one way to skin this kitten ;)