Words

^ This is the driving dynamic of our lobby-based FPS.

This is also the reason raids need to have tactical value in terms of softening up the target in later fights: the non-elites become valuable because they can potentially put the A-team in a better position for the big fight.

Textbook badposting

I am fine with adding variety to the game by adding 8v8 and 12v12 battles to the proposed raiding system, but raids should also increase Dust's overall capacity for full 16v16 matches. Raids aren't just an opportunity for non-PC qualified people to be involved in team matches, they also present the opportunity for A-teams to get more reps in between their standard PC battles.

Correct, and that same equation works in the inverse as well, 16v 6 isn't interesting gameplay either, nor does it have any value since it very much is one side risking comparatively nothing relative to the incredible potential of the other.


Truth is, all raiders will be looking for the most poorly defended districts first, because if that many people were actually looking for actually challenging PC matches there'd be a hell of a lot more active PC players . Which is, IMO, fine. I just consider, as a fair "risk" the raiders take, the idea of a raiding party to possibly enter a district where they are not just matched but outnumbered to be a worthwhile possible balancing element.

Simply winning a defense raid should cost the other side a uncomfortable ammount of isk. That negates the need to have messy counter attack system. The raid attackers should be going by the seat of their paints losing a raid badly should = a week or two of regrinding the CP or isk needed to attack again.

Making it land only compley defeats the point of raiding been entry level PC and will have the effect of making it pointless to join new corps as they won't be able to get a look in anyway nor have the means to train up a PC team.

Maybe a week was harsh. My point was it can't be risk free. Then again getting spanked and losing gear is still a loss.

And if the big boys are worried about raids it means it's working as intented. Fair points tbh

Ok, but again this same logic then justifies that if there aren't enough defenders the raid can not be initiated, since 6v2 or 8v0 is "lopsided". I realize, based off my tags, what I suggest is easily construed as being intended to protect district owners however what I'm trying to protect is the game's overall balance. Essentially low to risk-free attack modes being made available at whim that glean potentially huge rewards isn't balanced. Every suggestion I've made, also, is a suggestion I realize I will have to live with too since I am also looking forward to raiding on some m*therf+ùckers .

That raiding can't be risk-free is really the point, and as proposed it largely is.
Losing your gear and w/e noteriety there may be for getting "spanked" really isn't any risk at all. Why would I say that, you ask? Because losing gear and getting spanked is the penalty for losing in PUBS which are the lowest entry, lowest risk/reward mode we have.

If Raiding is to be any sort of step up away from pubs then it can NOT have the identical risk/reward scheme to it. If it does it'll be cool for about 15 minutes and then everybody involved will sit back and go, "wtf? This is just an auto-pub. "

No ISK payouts on full-proto losses can be staggering and is exactly the sort of thing that distinguishes PC from a pub. Clone losses in PC also cannot be ignored since they need to be replaced, either through waiting the regeneration period OR importing them from another locale and then ensuring that locale has enough. Again, this is part of that pub vs pc distinction.

If theres a clone-generation element to raiding that equates to clone self-supply which if depleted inhibits an individual from raiding for a period I'd be (depending on the numbers) ok with that. That, like that, is exactly what I was proposing with the whole WarBarge Incapacitation/Strategem destruction idea. idc how it materializes, just that there some sort of mechanism to whoop a raiders' ass enough that they can't raid for a while. Just like a fat hole in the side of a classical pirate's ship OR lengthy prison time for a contemporary Somali Pirate who's been caught.

While an individual raid's effect may be temporary the cumulative effect will be effectively permanent. Constant raiding will mean the districts never replenish, which will lead to no one holding districts and everyone just raiding, which will lead to no districts being worth raiding, which will lead to everyone coming back in here to QQ moar about PC sucking.


I haven't suggested anything that would permanently stop a raider, just common-sense types of penalties for failed raids. Accurate target acquisition failures included.

Which would still happen, raiders win the reprisal they keep what they took-district loses it, raiders lose the reprisal they don't keep what they took BUT even after the recovery district still loses 20% of what was taken, is "unrecoverable".

Completely valid point. A 50-50 split doesn't seem right tho, you pickpocket me and run and I chase you, catch you and take my wallet back I don't split half the contents with you.

Risk, not loss.
Raiding risk should be equally mitigated somewhere with Defenders' risk somehow.

If Raiders want to mitigate their losses, as your logic goes, then they need to not just raid but get away with it too. Win both the Raid and the Reprisal. Which works very well, IMO, very true-to-life. Not only must the "crime" be performed but also the getaway . How many episodes of COPS show a guy successful at robbing the liquor store but failing hard at the getaway?

Don't let my downplaying of what "Raiding" is insofar as its place in the wider spectrum of crime as some misunderstanding on my part on the concept.

Every historical raiding group you named and every contemporary raiding group (Somali pirates, for ex.) comes from somewhere, and goes back to somewhere. Thats part of whats missing in this "raiding" equation, as proposed. ALSO, when caught NONE of those groups is just re-released to continue raiding wihout penalty. This is another part of what's missing from this OP.

I'm all for suprise raiding. I (and many others) feel that RAIDING is a great idea BUT under no circumstances should it be, by its srructural mechanics, an essentially risk-free auto-queue Ambush match paid out of district assets.

No, I'm focused on it not being a risk-free auto-pub paid from my high-risk efforts.

The bolded area is primarily why I suggested raiding parties be limited in participant numbers with defenders having a number advantage. Small groups currently rarely stand successfully against the larger corps and while it may seem self-serving to suggest 6v12 matches, the real beneficiaries are those smaller groups.

Landholding in MH is more than just "taking" a district, there are constant and continuous changes politically and territorially which can be very difficult to track let alone predict, kind of like the behaviour in PC of random players and the effect their actions have on the final outcome. This is part of our EVE heritage and is evidently working as intended.

Bugs and exploits are part and parcel for all gaming, online and otherwise (ever cheat at poker?), however if we can see obvious imbalance or poor game design on the drafting table then we can and are best served by addressing those issues immediately instead of going full production and release with an intent to "fix it" later.

If raiding is done poorly it will not inspire any more interest in PC than currently exists but will most definitely inspire more negative criticism of PC, DUST514 and CCP than currently exists. Remember, most consumers will contact a company to complain about a product that functions poorly but will almost never contact a company about a product working well.

Correct. It is weighted towards the defenders, partially to address what Travis accurately descibed as "top-tier players" who are "key to success" and the effect raids from those players on small corps' districts will I have. (I predict large scale small-corp ownership contraction)




Just me, but that raiders will be able to pick exactly when and whom to attack, therefore able to select land whose owners may be away (memberbase not online) or distracted (memberbase occupied in pubs, PC or defending a different raid) I think definitely qualifies as a "sh*t-hot tactical advantage". Any raiding group that isn't leveraging that ability towards their own success really doesn't have being successful as a priority.

Will older corporations have more of a head start on the level of their corporate command or will we have to work our way up just like newer corporations?

Now, now Mr. BS. My suggestions will assist any new corp in being able to hold districts longer, which when it comes to PC is the point.

I'm absolutley open and looking for compromise, if anything it's your continued insistence that raiding be little to no risk that is uncompromising. I want raids to be impactful, I want cumulative raiding effects and rewards to be significant. I just don't want raiding to be the negligible-risk auto-pub the OP describes. And there's nothing "not contributing anything useful" about saying so, especially since I'm also proposing (and endorsing others') ideas to improve it.

"Same risk" between raiders (who can choose the when and where of a conflict) and defenders (who will pay losses from their districts assets that they've worked to develop) implicitly states that raiders must possess some "thing" ( not their MCC clones) that they have to work to aquire and upon losing raids will lose and be encumbered with redeveloping before raiding again.

ez

And for the billionth time, I'm not against raiding (I'm extremely pro almost any game expansion) but I am against ezmode auto-pub-queues being dressed up as PC training. We have those, they're called Faction WarFare.

The possibility having corporations specialized in raiding intrigues me.

Nope. I'm assuming basic use of the starmap and reasonable interpretative ability of the data it currently provides, for the noobs. And basic use of the starmap, reasonable interpretive ability of the data it provides and insider knowledge of that data, for the vets. Nothing supernatural about it.

This is a good time, imo, to point out that despite the qqing to the contrary there is not and has never been an occupant of MH who got there by magic. Some fought, some bought and some schemed. But noone had it "just happen" by magic.

Passing off yet another pubqueue as "raiding" and a PC "overhaul" is a fantastic scheme, btw.

Point me please to the corp of 20 who has "indefinitely" held 10 districts? NyainSan, iirc, is MH oldest landholder and they've historically been a large group AND have had their territory counts fluctuate relative to the workings of MH. As I said previously Fighting, Buying or Scheming is what fuels the gears of MH. Enough of that applied by anyone towards anyone will generate results.

Dude, if there's anything the PC crowd wants it's people to fight. The more, the merrier. What I don't see any of them clamoring for is more of the LCD playerbase often seen ragequitting or redline vacationing in pubs/FW. If you aren't fighting, fighting for your victories AND your losses in those you're not going to get very far in PC.

Its kind of like homework. If your highschool homework load and the discipline needed to complete it is too much for you to handle then odds are a college workload will bury you. Quickly.

Keep trying then, I guess.

Nothing wrong with blunt, so long as it's honest. Otherwise it's just *******.

And Amen to anonymity bringing out the worst in people. Thats a big part of my personal aversion to alts.

LOL




**** yo' couch!!