I LIKE PIE

Saying not much variety with nothing but the words from a few people that played a small test version and a couple of of dev interviews may be jumping the gun a bit. Just because it takes some time to skill up a role does not mean you can not skill up multiple roles. At least this way you cant refuse to use something until you have 100% maxed it out while using something else. Having little or no SP allocation to be done manually and naturally growing in the role you enjoy sounds like a great concept to me.

I am more than happy vehicles are gone. They were a blight on the game just because CCP never figured out what force multiplier means.




Yes CCP seriously boned the timelines on this whole thing. I don't understand why CCP, primarily the PR team, is just plain bad at making announcements. We all know the failures so I won't waste my time listing them out but just ask yourself, "Did CCP seem to learn any valuable lessons from the failures I have witnessed from them?"

I think that part of the issue here is somehow defining people who play infantry-only shooters and people who play combined-arms shooters as some kind of completely separate communities with conflicting tastes in games. There were plenty of people who came to Dust from infantry-only shooters and found the combined-arms aspect to enhance the gameplay. I think it quite safe to surmise that when Nova brings vehicles back into the game those same kinds of people will adapt and learn to enjoy them.

Keep in mind also that one of the biggest factors in crafting a game that lasts through the years is a wide variety of experiences. While Nova will start out being infantry-only on ship interiors, even after planets come out there will be people who still like the ship interiors, and both will still be available. That means you keep the people that want an infantry-only experience while also giving a combined-arms experience to the people who are primarily looking for that. As a bonus, the infantry-only people are likely to try out planetary fights when they start wanting a new experience.

Dust 514 was pitched to us in 2012 as eventually having Public Contracts, Faction Warfare, Planetary Conquest, some form of Arena-shooter mode with classic game types from other shooters, and various forms of PvE. Basically, it was supposed to have the same variety of experiences that has allowed EVE Online to be around for 13 years and still be going strong.

However, many of those experiences were not initially part of EVE Online. Sovereignty didn't come in until at least a year after the game released, and Faction Warfare was put in in 2008, five years after the game released. It could be argued that if the CCP of 1999-2000 with their limited team and resources had tried to make EVE Online then with all the features it has now, it probably would have been trapped in development hell for years before eventually being shut down just like Dust 514.

I was one of the people that was worried at the idea of vehicles not being in at first, but when I look at EVE Online as an example, I understand what they're doing. They want to take the slow-and-steady approach that has occasionally been lost but has most of the time been a guiding principle of EVE Online's development.

Tldr.

Also dont jump the gun. Although you are kinda late to that party.the whole passing judgement on a tech demo.

Yeah, I do take a long time, so I'll sum it up for you.

No vehicles?! Grrrr, very mad!!! Screw you CCP!

Imagine that, but just slightly better worded.

Okay, I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for being this guy, but from what I'm seeing, Nova is headed for disaster. I also foresee that I'm going to be called... whatever derogatory term groundies have for pilots, as my main grievances are, obviously, vehicles, or lack thereof.

I'll first start off with non vehicle stuff, and go straight to the suits:

1) Not much variety really: So I'll be honest, I may have just read the wording the wrong way on this one. But if I am reading this correctly, then without further ado: The way I read it, it states that people will have to constantly play the same role to receive the benefits and reap the whole rewards of constantly playing it, to a point. The problem with this is that it locks people in for that set class, giving them little variety to respond to various situations that may demand a different class.

Solution: Keep in mind I probably read this wrong, but my idea is to give the player a choice between three separate suits, modules, and weapons (sidearm and main separate). Three was honestly a random number, but continuing... if the mercenary wants to suddenly change one of his classes, he can choose to eradicate one of his classes, and start anew with his new suit. Another idea I'd like to see is extra bonuses to using suit/weapon/module friendly fits that fit the race you're going for. Example: Amarr fat boi gets bonuses to lasers, and armor plates, and the mods/weapons get minor bonuses in turn.

Okay, I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for being this guy, but from what I'm seeing, Nova is headed for disaster. I also foresee that I'm going to be called... whatever derogatory term groundies have for pilots, as my main grievances are, obviously, vehicles, or lack thereof.

[...]

2) Vehicles:

I'm going to be honest again, hearing that we're not getting to be in Nova at launch was quite insulting to those who devoted time and SP to vehicles and piloting them. Along with the dedicated AV players as well, because without vehicles, why are you even here?! And to be blunt, the fact that I'm sober is the one thing keeping me from saying quite unspeakable things to you.

In order to properly show you what a big mistake removing us, the necessary evil, is, I'm going to have to list all the reasons why it is a terrible idea to push us aside/save us for later:

1) Loss of playerbase: Without vehicles and AV, and no connection to EVE, we bittervet devoted pilots and demolition experts have no reason to play your game, and likely never will.

2) attracting different playerbase: Again, without capsuleers, and pilots/bloweruppers, you will attract a certain playerbase centered around ground combat, I call them COD players. And in the event that you do add us to the fold later, you will **** off not only your current playerbase with that crap, but you will **** off the vehicle/AV community even more, basically telling us that only now are we worth your time, which is even more insulting, I see this happening for two reasons:

A) You take too much time. It's no secret that you guys took way too long to make dust even remotely playable, and by then it was too late. I predict about a year long wait for vehicles to make their dramatic entry, IF we get it. And by then, we'll have forgotten about Nova, and will move on to other things, like having a life.

B) Your overly cautious approach. Ironically enough, the lessons you learned during the Rouge Wedding may actually cause Nova to fail. While I see it's hard to balance vehicles, stating this in some nerd newspaper will only solidify the opinion of your playerbase that your weak, and unable to commit.

3) Lack of originality: Without vehicles and our eternal rivals, AV, Nova will be a pretty game, and probably a good one. But it will fall right smack dab in the middle of "every lobby shooter ever". People will see this, get bored and leave, thus you're left with a tiny playerbase, who are COD fans, and will abandon you once Call of Booty, Bad Cops 4 comes out, or their mom buys them the latest console.

4) Bittervet anti-community. A lot of pilots will become immensely butthurt, to the point of playing your game, just to convince people to quit. Granted, you'll already face this, but it will become larger without us.

5) Lack of satisfaction: Any AV/vehicle pilot will tell you the best moments of dust was when they blew up a whole crapload of vehicles, or barely escaping a hellzone of enemy fire by the skin of their teeth. This type of satisfaction is hard to top in any other game, because we cost a lot of money. Blowing us up is the reason some people still play.

Now onto the solutions of this crap:

1) Take the hard road, balance vehicles and keep us in Nova. It'll be a headache, but you actually have a few hidden aces, a CPM board with more than half a brain, and quite a few butthurt vehicle/AV players who are still willing to debate and give multiple feedback threads involving the balance. These two weapons are more useful than any software you can buy. All you have to do is use your hearing aids, and LISTEN TO US!

2) Don't bother with vehicles. Don't insult us by adding us in later. If you want this to be a pure ground shooter, make it that. You're liable to **** off more people with us in the picture later, than now. If you take this road, you'd also be best prepared to link Nova up to EVE and Valkyrie, and fucking quickly, you'll lose the ADHD players fast if you don't set Nova apart.

3) If you chose option 2, then you need to provide a place where we devoted pilots can get in the EVE universe. I speak of Valkyrie! By connecting Valkyrie to Nova, and to EVE, you can, in theory, successfully merge these three games together if done right. You'd have to add in ship types, of course. My idea is to have space fighters, atmospheric fighter (support for Nova fighters in FW/PC), and hybrid fighters, able to traverse both systems with ease. Also, don't forget about tanks and ground vehicles, which should stay in Nova.

Anyway, enough of my rant, it's taking too much.

Dust 514 was pitched to us in 2012 as eventually having Public Contracts, Faction Warfare, Planetary Conquest, some form of Arena-shooter mode with classic game types from other shooters, and various forms of PvE. Basically, it was supposed to have the same variety of experiences that has allowed EVE Online to be around for 13 years and still be going strong.

However, many of those experiences were not initially part of EVE Online. Sovereignty didn't come in until at least a year after the game released, and Faction Warfare was put in in 2008, five years after the game released. It could be argued that if the CCP of 1999-2000 with their limited team and resources had tried to make EVE Online then with all the features it has now, it probably would have been trapped in development hell for years before eventually being shut down just like Dust 514.

I was one of the people that was worried at the idea of vehicles not being in at first, but when I look at EVE Online as an example, I understand what they're doing. They want to take the slow-and-steady approach that has occasionally been lost but has most of the time been a guiding principle of EVE Online's development.

But I'm still kind of unsold on vehicles being saved for later, especially seeing as they're taking the slow approach. I, and I'm sure many other vehicle pilots/AV mercs have suffered quite a few headaches from Dust and all its issues. To tell us that we're being set aside for later is, in my opinion, rather insulting.

I like locking players into a role based on time played, i.e. proficiency. See, part of the problem is that players can just jump around in roles as a match plays out. This allows for the protostomps. A battle shouldn't end up with everything being immediately countered the minute someone brings something like a tank onto the field.

Battles will be better, more exciting when players plan ahead, play dedicated roles and are either limited by the roles they can field in one match or limited by how long and what roles they've bothered to actually focus on.

As a vehicle user you should want that. You ahould want the guy popping AV at you to have actually wanted to focus on that role rather than just passively train the AV skills just so he can pull it out to immediately counter your tank then swap back to regular ol' run and gun boring shooty shoot now that the thing they hate is off the map.

No, infantry should have to deal with my skilled up tank driver with skilled up AV both dedicated to their roles AND hopefully, limited to that role in that match if that is the role they are really wanting to play.


A better method for non AVers to have spur of the moment counters would be to have power ups, weapon caches littered around the map or limited AV at depots to have basic counters to vehicles.

Beyond that, do what I suggested before on the forums and have two role slots per match. You can then use one of those two pre-chosen fits. Therefore, planning and strategizing a team makeup beforehand would make the difference.

Having a team that fields certain elements but not others, i.e. weaknesses makes for a more interesting battle. Not every army has everything. An army is only as strong as what it brings.

That would turn the sandbox into quicksand.

"Open world is a term for video games where a player can move freely through a virtual world and is given considerable freedom in regards to how or when to approach objectives, as opposed to other computer games that have a more linear structure to its gameplay. Open world and free-roaming suggest the absence of artificial barriers, in contrast to the invisible walls and loading screens that are common in linear level designs. Generally, open world games still enforce many restrictions in the game environment, either because of absolute technical limitations or in-game limitations (such as locked areas) imposed by a game's linearity. Examples of high level of autonomy in computer games can be found in MMORPG or in other games adhering to the "open world concept". Their main appeal is they provide a simulated reality and allow players to develop their character and its behavior in the direction of their choosing. In these cases, there is often no concrete goal or end to the game. There are limitations to this autonomy through the rules of the simulation and its limitations. But the direction of gameplay may or may not rely ultimately upon the decision of the player, as in some cases this can be completely controllable by the player, the type depends on the requirements and availabilities of the game."

When the RDV used to call in a vehicle almost anywhere, I would call in a LAV in the city map with my sentinel and stand there for 5 minutes watching the RDV yoyo it, before an enemy tank finally got the balls to come out the redzone and blow it up.

Agreed. Forcing a player to "main" a role just to be able to play it right when they need it removes essential freedom from the game.

"Weel I've been fighting as a sentinel for this whole time and never touched a logi suit...but now I'll just spend all my SP on logi **** and now I can use the best equipment in the general despite literally never using it before."

"Well, that is no good, he can't get into a good college being that small. He is only the size of a peanut for Christ' s sake! How does he expect to open doors!"

I'm going to miss you OEK. I hope you somehow find a way to product nova.

I think that part of the issue here is somehow defining people who play infantry-only shooters and people who play combined-arms shooters as some kind of completely separate communities with conflicting tastes in games. There were plenty of people who came to Dust from infantry-only shooters and found the combined-arms aspect to enhance the gameplay. I think it quite safe to surmise that when Nova brings vehicles back into the game those same kinds of people will adapt and learn to enjoy them.

Keep in mind also that one of the biggest factors in crafting a game that lasts through the years is a wide variety of experiences. While Nova will start out being infantry-only on ship interiors, even after planets come out there will be people who still like the ship interiors, and both will still be available. That means you keep the people that want an infantry-only experience while also giving a combined-arms experience to the people who are primarily looking for that. As a bonus, the infantry-only people are likely to try out planetary fights when they start wanting a new experience.

Dust 514 was pitched to us in 2012 as eventually having Public Contracts, Faction Warfare, Planetary Conquest, some form of Arena-shooter mode with classic game types from other shooters, and various forms of PvE. Basically, it was supposed to have the same variety of experiences that has allowed EVE Online to be around for 13 years and still be going strong.

However, many of those experiences were not initially part of EVE Online. Sovereignty didn't come in until at least a year after the game released, and Faction Warfare was put in in 2008, five years after the game released. It could be argued that if the CCP of 1999-2000 with their limited team and resources had tried to make EVE Online then with all the features it has now, it probably would have been trapped in development hell for years before eventually being shut down just like Dust 514.

I was one of the people that was worried at the idea of vehicles not being in at first, but when I look at EVE Online as an example, I understand what they're doing. They want to take the slow-and-steady approach that has occasionally been lost but has most of the time been a guiding principle of EVE Online's development.

I'll miss you too, and many other members of the community.

Maybe they will let me at least sneak onto the forums...

Working on maybe putting myself in position to make something PC gaming worthy, but that is a few steps down the line at the moment.

"Combined arms" is fine and really pretty good if done right but no way should first person shooting become a secondary role to vehicles and surely vehicles should not set the tone for the entire game.

How can you call it combined arms when a person can skill into one thing and ultimately end up owning the battle field until they force a varying number of people (based on the current balance) to stop playing a FPS and start fighting vehicles while hoping to not get killed by the people still playing a FPS?

Dust was pitched as a lot of things that mostly did not come true. Eve became what it did because it was not attempting to be slammed into some role and they just developed it out to be a better game as ideas came along. I believe they need to take that same stance with Nova and completely forget about any type of integration with Eve ever.

Okay, I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for being this guy, but from what I'm seeing, Nova is headed for disaster. I also foresee that I'm going to be called... whatever derogatory term groundies have for pilots, as my main grievances are, obviously, vehicles, or lack thereof.

I'll first start off with non vehicle stuff, and go straight to the suits:

1) Not much variety really: So I'll be honest, I may have just read the wording the wrong way on this one. But if I am reading this correctly, then without further ado: The way I read it, it states that people will have to constantly play the same role to receive the benefits and reap the whole rewards of constantly playing it, to a point.

[...]

From what I understood, there will still be freedom of choice with weapons. Just imagine how Splatoon for the WiiU deals with progression for its clothing items and picture that being applied towards weapons as well. I know it's oversimplifying it but that's the best comparison I can come up with and so far the setup still allows for freedom. It doesn't lock you into a certain role. You're just expanding it based on how often you use it. That's how I understand it. I could be wrong though.

2) Vehicles:

I'm going to be honest again, hearing that we're not getting to be in Nova at launch was quite insulting to those who devoted time and SP to vehicles and piloting them.

[...]

I have read a handful of recent articles covering project nova which is detailed in the link below.

https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=227484&find=unread

So far, NOWHERE did it state that the game will not come with vehicles at launch. You, like some others I have seen, are overreacting based on a tech demo that everyone should already know by now based on the articles that the game is not finished yet. Hell, it hasn't even been green lit yet let alone gone into alpha testing. So please stop jumping to conclusions. You're just making up facts that don't exist.

Just because CCP has not mentioned vehicles yet it doesn't mean they will definitely not include them at launch. So unless you can prove to everyone here right now that CCP explicitly states that vehicles will not be included at launch I suggest you stop parroting that rumor mill.


Now onto the solutions of this crap:

[...]

Based on how you overreacted over vehicles, I can't take your solutions seriously.