CELESTA AUNGM
Kang Lo Directorate
Gallente Federation
384
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Posted - 2015.01.01 20:15:00 -
[1] - Quote
Indy Strizer wrote:Is prototype gear meant to be sustainable?
Should prototype gear be sustainable in battles with prototype gear in it? Such as matches locked with prototype metalevels?
If prototype gear isn't meant to be sustainable... Then are prototype level matches not meant to be sustainable?
Would prototype meta level players farm ISK in militia battles? Will militia players accept that? Will prototype players accept that?
If they were... then wouldn't they rather just stay in militia-level matches?
If you and everybody else is using prototype gear, then your investment in prototype is no longer runs the risk of being "risky" because it automatically becomes necessary... Does this mean that prototype metalevel battles are counter conducive to the "risk vs reward" dynamic?
Thoughts?
Happy New Year, Indy! And these are good, deep questions, ones I don't think everyone who plays (and complains too sometimes) in Dust, takes the time to perceive.
The only part of the game that was (still is) intended to be sustainable is your character and her/his neural SP investement. (As I understand it, even your NEURAL load can be lost through careless risk in Eve-Online...Dust 514 at least lets you keep the SP skills you've loaded into your brain safe from loss in combat).
Prototype gear is different from the "Proto-top-tier" weapons we're used to graduating into with other fps games. Other games sustain your place in battle, once you've unlocked the golden-guns.
In Dust (..and players still argue and resist this idea ), the only thing that sustains proto-gear success against "militia-loaded" players, is militia-gear users not successfully and consistently gang-attacking or co-op engaging proto-gear users...
It is NOT an easy habit to perfect and coordinate with fellow blues (especially since this is not something we've been forced to develop in our PS3 shooter games),... but it IS the efficient way for weaker weaponry/gear to stomp elite weaponry/gear, and it is THE way the devs have designed Dust to work.
It's the reason why the devs keep arguing that this game is NOT "pay to win"---you team-up, gang-up, group-up, to win against opponents who are carrying ANY greater weaponry.
But, AGAIN, I have to stress that group-up, gang-up (as in 3 mil-gear players vs 1 proto-gear player) is not easy to consistently pull off---and takes more practice for mil-gear players to master, than it takes for the proto-gear player to unlock and master his gun.
I suspect CCP is aware of this pitifully slow learning curve in us, so they have already given us help to keep "protos" from farming "militia" battles----but only in Battle Academy (CCP won't shield us from our own co-op shortcomings forever--that WOULD be counter to the risk-v-reward dynamic).
I think the only tier-locked or meta-level based matching should be in Battle Academy (if in the game at all).
I think the game should continue to be a "nothing is sustainable--not even pricy proto use" environment.
But I do think CCP should insert a strong in-game (or out-of-game website with in-game link) advisory-trainer that stresses to players that the counter to proto warfare in this game is grouped-warfare using multiple players.
...Not enough of us non-proto collectors have learned how to perfect that skill, nor the skill of spotting the proto-carriers and going around them.
Universe of good wishes for the 49, especially CCP Eterne...
No story can have life without writers and publishers.
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