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Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4787	Posted - 2015.02.07 22:06:00 - [1] - Quote This might be a couple posts long, because you know...I try to be concise and it turns into the Great Wall of Text. Please be kind and don't post until I'm done So I've kind of been voicing in on several different threads, but I figured I might as well make my own to put it all in one spot. First of all, I love the idea of the Warbarge, I think it will prove to be an amazing tool for future systems and hope that it proves to do so in future updates. However I do have some key concerns with the implementation of some of the systems, how players interact with them, and some aspects of the monetization. I mean no disrespect in this post, as I've made it clear in the past (and still believe) that Ratatti and team do a fantastic job at the game. So please don't take my points as passive aggressive....simply concerned and hoping to help provide a more enjoyable experience for everyone. Passive vs Active Essentially every aspect of the Warbarge runs entirely off a timer. You wait to gain components. You spend the components. And then you wait for it to cool down so you do it again. I do not feel like I personally have any means to affect my Warbarge, save from the rather rare instance where components will drop from a battle. While I think limitations are good to an extent as it does prevent people from playing the game an excessive amount and thus plowing through the content too quickly...it has been taken too far in this instance. For example, our SP system as you know is a hybrid of passive SP gain and active SP gain. The passive side is nice in that it allows players to guarantee some level of benefit regardless of play, and the active side allows players to improve the rate at which benefit is gained by actually playing the game. The Active SP has a soft cap, to again prevent people from excessively grinding through the content at an unintended rate. I think that in general this hybrid system is quite good and provides a wonderful middle ground in terms of how player progression happens. However the Warbarge takes a nearly entirely passive approach, where the only active component is a randomized chance to get components through a EOM drop, and while I don't particularly have an issue with components dropping, I feel like it is not an accurate representation of my efforts as a player. In short, I don't particularly care in what amount or what metric is used, but players should gain a benefit to their warbarge (may it be component drops, faster cooldowns, ect) for actively playing the game, with the passive Component generation being a supplement on top of that. Additionally it may be nice to further reward players for actually winning matches so they're encouraged to keep trying in situations that turn unfavorable. Buying Subsystems This is part goes along with my previous point of passive vs active gain. If you choose not to spend AUR on you Warbarge, you are almost entirely restricted to a passive gain. However, with AUR you can not only purchase Components, but also completely negate cooldown times. That being said, you can actively buy your way through the entire Warbarge without ever waiting like a non-AUR user would. This strikes me as odd, as even AUR Prototype suits, require the player to actively skill into ADV suits before the AUR Proto suit can be used, which required players actually play the game. However the AUR system for the warbarge effectively allows you to buy 100% of your 'SP' to get to that level, and I think that's wrong. Do I have an issue with purchasing components? Not really. Do I have an issue with using AUR for faster cooldowns? Not really. What I do have an issue with is allowing players to do both, effectively buying their subsystems if they use enough cash to do so. In short, this ties in with my previous point. Ideally I would prefer that the Warbarge produces some components passively, players generate some components actively, and then AUR is exclusively used to speed up cooldowns so players can start working on the next level faster. This again requires players to actually play the game, while still allowing them to speed up their Warbarge upgrades through AUR while preventing them from simply buying everything they want with premium currency. Damage Bonus I've made it clear that I'm really not a fan of an in-battle benefit from the Warbarge, so I won't harp on it again, but I still don't like it. "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4787	Posted - 2015.02.07 22:06:00 - [2] - Quote reserved "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4787	Posted - 2015.02.07 22:08:00 - [3] - Quote reserved "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4794	Posted - 2015.02.07 22:23:00 - [4] - Quote Jadek Menaheim wrote: Alright Pokey, if a player can farm +19200 (~$53 in AUR) components over waiting two days alt farming, we'll need to figure out how to make actively playing on a single character more lucrative. I think dropping the passive down and making it mostly active generation is the way to go. Passive should always be supplemental and not the primary means of production. Alt farming will always exist, that's the nature of the beast in games like this, the important part is limiting the degree by which it happens. Simply put if it you make it so active generation is worth more for the time investment than farming the alts, it's going to encourage players to simply play the game over alt farming. "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4799	Posted - 2015.02.07 22:30:00 - [5] - Quote Jadek Menaheim wrote: Kane alluded to something in the chat. Components can be the thing districts produce en-mass, however you'd need to speed command points naturally to extract them. That brings up another point I forgot to mention. if memory serves, Ratatti made noises about players being allowed to donate Components to a corp to generate CP. this means that spending AUR will allow a corp to 'buy' CP, which is going to give them a direct and blatant advantage in any system that uses CP such as PC (too many damn acronyms). Which is really REALLY bad. I hate saying it, but that's basically pay to win in that instance. "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4802	Posted - 2015.02.07 22:40:00 - [6] - Quote Jadek Menaheim wrote: Pokey Dravon wrote: Jadek Menaheim wrote: Kane alluded to something in the chat. Components can be the thing districts produce en-mass, however you'd need to speed command points naturally to extract them. That brings up another point I forgot to mention. if memory serves, Ratatti made noises about players being allowed to donate Components to a corp to generate CP. this means that spending AUR will allow a corp to 'buy' CP, which is going to give them a direct and blatant advantage in any system that uses CP such as PC (too many damn acronyms). Which is really REALLY bad. I hate saying it, but that's basically pay to win in that instance. At this point account farming is going to be a lot more sensible and cheaper than paying with AUR. Two days of waiting with two hours of work, or $50? It's a dynamic that needs to be address. Indeed, which is why passive generation of liquid assets is dangerous and has to be approached carefully. Hell you could tie significant rewards of components to Mission Rewards and even FacWar. "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4847	Posted - 2015.02.08 18:23:00 - [7] - Quote Thank you for the responses Kevall and everyone else. I think they key point I'd like to hammer in regards to "P2W" is that people truly do not mind free to play games encouraging players to spend money on the game so that the game can persist. It's generally accepted by everyone that CCP needs to make money, and that's not the problem; the problem lies in the exact metric that they use to generate such income. Typically before, AUR items required you to play the game 'normally' to reach a certain point before you could use the item (Training a suit to 3 before using the PRO AUR variant for example), or simply cosmetic/low end BPOs that offered a benefit for lower end play. The only way to 'buy' SP was through boosters, and while this offered a conceivable advantage, you really had to still play the game to make proper use of them. Nothing was ever 'bought' right out of the gate and it still took in-game effort to really get the most out of your AUR. The fact of the matter is that in a free to play game, not spending cash will always hold with it a general sense of dissatisfaction, as the game wants to encourage you to spend money in order to be more satisfied. However, this is a dangerous balancing act as it is dependent on "How dissatisfied will not paying make you" and the difference with "How much additional satisfaction will paying bring". If that ratio grows too large, you start to get people becoming bitter because they see their choice to not pay as having increasingly more relative dissatisfaction. Once that happens you start to hear things like 'pay to win' and 'cash grab'. Now of course people will complain that releasing skins and things like that are a 'cash grab' and maybe they are but it doesnt matter because they don't affect the game. The release of the Loyalty System was neat and all, and people were upset because AUR had such a large weight in determining your rank, but at the same time while it offered some benefit, loyalty rank was largely unimportant, so it didn't really matter. The issue comes back to the Warbarge. The playerbase perceives the Warbarge as the central feature of Warlords. We felt it was going to be an important, integral part of the the game...perhaps not right away, but it would become that. The issue however is that we have now deviated from the "You still have to do things in-game to take full benefit in spending AUR" and moved to a system where you can purchase your subsystems with zero wait, and zero time invested in the game. It has created a situation where you can either "Wait a REALLY long time to get anything out of your warbarge" or "Buy it all and get it instantly". Do you see how that ratio I mentioned earlier has sharply expanded? That's why people are reacting so negatively. If the Warbarge was just another fluff feature like the Loyalty Rank...it would not be an issue. But if the Warbarge is to have any substantial meaning at all, may that be manufacturing, PC benefit, ect. this sort of "Buy what you want with AUR or watch a timer tick away if you don't open your wallet" mentality is going to be nothing but toxic to the community, and it's just going to drive people away. The thing is....all of this is actually pretty readily fixable, and really would not require a ton of programming to pull off. Players should generate components while playing the game so they feel like they can do something beside watch a timer Players should have a reward for winning, this could be tied to the above point Either remove the ability to purchase Components with AUR, or remove the ability to speed up cooldown with AUR. I would highly suggest the former over the latter. This will instantly create a situation where players feel like playing for free still has an added benefit, and lessens the benefit from spending AUR, thus shrinking that "Free to Play" ratio I mentioned. It still offers clear benefit for using AUR, while letting players be engaged and feel like even if they don't spend AUR that they can still DO something in regards to the warbarge...not just wait around for things to upgrade. As I said before, there is a reason the Hybrid Active/Passive skill system feels pretty good in Dust....the Warbarge should follow its lead and do the same. "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4847	Posted - 2015.02.08 18:32:00 - [8] - Quote Kevall Longstride wrote: Thanks again to Pokey for his continued feedback. The CPM and CCP are already having detailed discussion as to how the system can be iterated upon to address the legitimate concerns that some have expressed. We will hopefully be able to speak more as to those discussions once an agreed course of action is in place. Good to hear. Maintain transparency and people will be far nicer to you guys and CCP "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4855	Posted - 2015.02.09 00:51:00 - [9] - Quote MINA Longstrike wrote: Pokey Dravon wrote: Kevall Longstride wrote: Thanks again to Pokey for his continued feedback. The CPM and CCP are already having detailed discussion as to how the system can be iterated upon to address the legitimate concerns that some have expressed. We will hopefully be able to speak more as to those discussions once an agreed course of action is in place. Good to hear. Maintain transparency and people will be far nicer to you guys and CCP EDIT: Also note that while I am aware that you can get components to drop randomly...that's too reliant on RNG. There needs to be a way to consistently generate a slow but steady flow of components from playing the game. If you want to keep the large chunk of components as a random drop, that's fine by me. I had a conversation with a friend about this last night, and one of his initial reactions was based upon the premise of generating one warbarge component per minute of gameplay. I don't really care exactly what metric is used, what I care about is twofold. 1. It's not AFK farmable, that would make the gesture completely pointless. 2. It's actually an amount that correlates well to the performance and amount of effort put forth And like Jaysyn said, it's difficult for me to maintain the level of excitement that I initially had about Dust given some of the recent choices in monetization. I've always been a proponent of monetization as it allows the game to continue on, and I was fine with this because I never felt like I NEEDED to spend money even if I chose to anyways. It's a matter of perception. However, CCP claims that they 'don't want people just burning through all of the levels of the Warbarge in the first week' and I completely agree with that. However, with enough AUR, you can do exactly that. I mean just look at Kane's thread where he dumped a ton of cash onto the game just to show exactly what money can buy (which is basically everything in the Warbarge). "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4876	Posted - 2015.02.09 15:42:00 - [10] - Quote ZDub 303 wrote: However, in this instance I think some small tweaks could have saved everyone a lot of heartache. First, a WC booster which increases component generation by 50% would be step one. The booster mechanics in dust where spot as far as im concerned, they gave you a boost but limited that boost over time so it doesn't feel like pay to win. Honestly that might be a very solid idea. Remove Ability to buy Components with AUR Add Components as EoM rewards (Frequently drops in salvage) Sell Component Production Booster for AUR to increase passive production +1 "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net

Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4876	Posted - 2015.02.09 16:20:00 - [11] - Quote Zaria Min Deir wrote: Pokey Dravon wrote: ZDub 303 wrote: However, in this instance I think some small tweaks could have saved everyone a lot of heartache. First, a WC booster which increases component generation by 50% would be step one. The booster mechanics in dust where spot as far as im concerned, they gave you a boost but limited that boost over time so it doesn't feel like pay to win. Honestly that might be a very solid idea. Remove Ability to buy Components with AUR Add Components as EoM rewards (Frequently drops in salvage) Sell Component Production Booster for AUR to increase passive production +1 Agreed, as long as "frequently drops in salvage" is pretty much 100% drop chance for at least the winning team, quantities can be varied, but the droprate should be consistent. Yep, I talked about this a bit on Biomassed last night. Playing the game should feel rewarding, and watching a timer tick away does not feel rewarding. Ideally, players should be getting components in nearly all if not every match they play. "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4877	Posted - 2015.02.09 16:41:00 - [12] - Quote Ripley Riley wrote: Pokey Dravon wrote: Playing the game should feel rewarding, and watching a timer tick away does not feel rewarding. Ideally, players should be getting components in nearly all if not every match they play. Winners get warbarge components? Would reduce the incentive to AFK a bit. That would be my ideal situation, though I think that's a bit more work than a hotfix. Upping the droprate is totally hotfixable so that should be done ASAP, with perhaps a move to a higher/lower reward for win/loss later down the line. "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4883	Posted - 2015.02.09 19:14:00 - [13] - Quote Gyn Wallace wrote: Eve Online's plex system, which allows some players to play for free, some to pay a subscription, and some to use real money to gain isk by subsidizing the free players; is pretty much PERFECTION. Eve's market, economy and industrial system; the best in any game I've ever played. Failing to capitalize upon CCP's strengths, like the plex system, and imitating more "normal" games is a decision I don't understand. Yes. Totally nailed it Gyn. +1 obviously Dust does not have a subscription, so a direct translation isn't possible, but the concepts in a general sense still remain very valid. Player Trading/Economy negates any "Pay to Win" from AUR Dropsuits/Weapons/Gear/Items as they instantly become available for ISK, through other players. In a way Your Boosters are PLEX in a certain sense, and if tradable removes that Pay to Win argument as well. The purchase of premium items for cash and then allowing players to sell them to other players for ISK, has existed in EVE and has been very successful for a very long time. Player Trading is on the roadmap, and will greatly reduce this "P2W" mentality because players will no longer be forced to pay AUR to get premium items...they'll just pay ISK for other players to fork out the AUR. CCP still gets paid, AUR buyer gets ISK, and ISK user gets AUR items. It's an awesome system so I look forward to that. The obvious ugly duckling here is the Warbarge, but I wont be a broken record and repeat what I've said several times already. I think players in general agree on what needs to happen to make the Warbarge more enjoyable, both in terms of monetization and playability. It's in CCP's hands now to make it happen. "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4889	Posted - 2015.02.09 20:29:00 - [14] - Quote You know if you think about it, the current Mobile Factory and Warbarge remind me a lot of the old EVE Learing skills, the skills that would increase passive SP generation rate? You pretty much would sign up for EVE, set the skill queue up to train those skills, and then come back a month+ later at level 5, because training anything before optimizing your SP/day rate was basically a waste of time. There is a reason they removed those skills "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4892	Posted - 2015.02.09 21:11:00 - [15] - Quote This is why passive component generation should be the lesser of total generation, with the majority being active. If most of my components come from active gameplay, I have far fewer issues with leveling up the passive factory, because its production rate is not a massive portion (if not all) of my production. I fear that CCP may be trying to cater a bit too much to those who can't play often. I get that people have lives, myself included, and cant play as much as they would like. I think some passive benefit and a cap on active benefit are great for people who can't play as much...but staking 100% of it into passive completely devalues the effort of those who can play often. This is why Hybrid systems work best. "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 4892	Posted - 2015.02.09 21:20:00 - [16] - Quote Thor Odinson42 wrote: Pokey Dravon wrote: This is why passive component generation should be the lesser of total generation, with the majority being active. If most of my components come from active gameplay, I have far fewer issues with leveling up the passive factory, because its production rate is not a massive portion (if not all) of my production. I fear that CCP may be trying to cater a bit too much to those who can't play often. I get that people have lives, myself included, and cant play as much as they would like. I think some passive benefit and a cap on active benefit are great for people who can't play as much...but staking 100% of it into passive completely devalues the effort of those who can play often. This is why Hybrid systems work best. If they gave you 50 WBCs for a win it would be the best thing that ever happened to pubs. Hell it might even be worth looking at the Passive vs Active ratios for the SP system and building WBC production roughly off of that. "That little s**t Pokey..." --CCP Rattati, Biomassed Episode 032 Dust514 // Podcast www.biomassed.net

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