Kristoff Atruin
Subdreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
2265
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Posted - 2015.04.10 13:10:00 -
[1] - Quote
I wrote about this problem very shortly after PC was released to us. There is no geography in Dust. Or, in other words, we don't actually exist in New Eden. If we did there would be some kind of limitation on how far we could travel in a given amount of time. Instead we instantly teleport everywhere. This is not unlike the situation in Eve up to the Phoebe expansion where smaller groups basically never fielded their capital ships because Pandemic Legion would teleport themselves across the galaxy in minutes and drop a dozen titans on them. The Phoebe expansion fixed this by dramatically reducing the distance capital ships could travel in a short period of time. Dust has infinite travel distance. This creates two force projection problems:
1) A player can fight everywhere at all times, which creates the situation of the top players totally controlling the PC area
2) There is no higher level strategy to district ownership, since you can basically attack anywhere on the map at any time. Even with restrictions on clone pack purchases all you have to do is set up a dummy corporation and transfer isk to it.
I think the only way to truly fix the problem is to firmly tie a Dust character to a location in space. Today my character is at such and such a planet in system X. He can queue up for battles launched from districts on that planet. If I want to join battles launched from another planet I have to select it as my new location and then wait a certain amount of time until he arrives there. The further away the longer the wait. In the meantime I can play instant matches.
This also fixes the problem with the missing strategic level play in PC and makes distance based attrition actually matter. It gives a commander a choice - do we fully secure the planet we're on or use diplomacy to attempt to make sure we're safe? It would allow players to attempt to create safe zones through controlling choke points. For example - http://evemaps.dotlan.net/map/Molden_Heath/Oddelulf#temperate
If you fully control this planet then the 5 planets in the systems behind Istodard are much more easily defended because the attackers have to take a significant attrition penalty from trying to attack from Bosena or Gelfiven. This makes locations have meaning to the players. These planets are ours and through hard work / diplomacy we've created a choke point that makes our home easier to defend. Through careful consideration of SI bonuses, we've created a network of cargo hubs and research labs that let us keep the front line resupplied, with production facilities safely in the rear. That also creates interesting choices for the attackers. The cargo hubs are pretty nasty to try and take, but if they can disrupt the research labs in the logistics chain then they won't be at full strength. Or they can go straight for the factories and try to shut them down despite the attrition disadvantage. Or they could convince a corporation to betray you, and convert one of their factories to a cargo hub to make it more difficult for you to end the disruption.
The first problem is pretty bad, but I think the second one I described is the thing that is really killing Dust as an FPS where the battles are meaningful. If I can join a battle to control a district and not always face 16 top scoring players in the entire game...well that's good. But I still don't care about PC because it doesn't matter which district I own, because with the game design as it is every district is every other district's neighbor. There is no reason to own a particular district.
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