Don't worry. I've been keeping my eye on this thread. =)

And you probs gonna completely ignore the feedback regardless what people say.

The one thing I see everyone here forgetting is to ask one of the simplest, yet biggest, question of all when it comes to Nova maps and PC gameplay.

What do you look for in the core design of every single map and in every gameplay of the game itself?

When it comes to maps, the core design to me is being able to see whether you are the attacker or the defender. In Dust 514 there was no clear indication if you are the attacker. Both sides had an MCC and both had an end goal. Sure, the match roster would tell me, but I never felt like I was defending or attacking an outpost.

I agree. It should be very clear who is attacking and defending.

I like to imagine that once NOVA Mercs become a big deal, larger ships will start being installed with clone bays (inactive clones) that can be onlined when boarders arrive.

I imagine such a clone bays being in various strategic locations on the ship, heavily guarded, with a more central location on the ship. I imagine a setup that gives the imagination view to rows and rows of clones in vats, and maybe a "Iron-Man" style armoring station where a clone could be spat out, armored up, and spat into the area. All very clean and fortified.

This would be in contrast to the boarders where the pods have just breached in, a look of havoc and rush that makes the boarding area look frantic, and out of order.

As to voice overs, I think the attackers should have special VO for the attackers, from a commander giving updates, orders, etc. Maybe have the map change slightly in regards to the attackers gaining objectives vs defenders reclaiming objectives.

Lights going from "standard" to "emergency" lighting (if dynamic lighting is possible), Engine sounds going off or on, or even other minor effects changing. (For example out of a window you could see guns firing, or not firing based on who controls the hardpoint)

Edit:

How dynamic do you think maps will be? Will they be able to having "moving parts" as it were?

If you have any plans for moving parts what do you think of doing in a broad sense?
[Lighting effects, Sound effects, all the way up to parts of the map actually moving]

I would like to love to work as game designer at ccp to improve game link between EVE and Nova. It must be an awesome job with a lot of possibilities to create something new.

For example mercs raiding ships in New Eden but in a way that engages Nova AND EVE players.

A small example to get a rough picture in my mind:
New Fighter/Heavy fighter type "boarding ships". If a squadron of boarding ships is "attacking" an enemy ship it opens the possibility for a match in Nova on that ship.
The defending ships has an amount of clones ready and the boarding ships have a certain amount of clones also ready.

In the case that no match starts (or it takes a bit) both parties reduces clones by time until one side has no clones left.
If a match starts the defending ship should have additional automatic defense systems because an EVE ship can be very expensive like turrets and drones.

The eve players can avoid the match (or shift it to their favor) by destroying boarding ships fast to reduce clones.

If the boarding is successful the result could be very dramatic (ship is destroyed) or more soft (ships is disabled for X seconds) or certain modules are destroyed.

Ahh my god.... I need to change panties.

COME ONE CCP! BUILD SOMETHING GREAT!!! YOU CAN DO IT! :)

Too early to tell how dynamic. But dynamic is certainly being discussed. I like the lighting suggestion too. Should help with that sense of urgency. Unreal 4 supports dynamic lighting of course, it just all depends on what it will cost in terms of performance. Being on PC does give us a lot more room than before.

What do you think about Skirmish 1.0? Is there any possibility of making that work in a ship setting where doors open or close depending on the outcome of the battle?

@LogicLoop are you designing the social spaces as well? For a F2P game Nova needs somewhere to show of your gear and I want to see the other side of the mercs quarters!

Can we get some maps with 3-4 teams fighting each other? The squad sizes might have to limited but I always thought it'd add an interesting element over whether teams collude (more sand in the sandbox!)

I liked Skirmish 1.0 but I feel it could have been much more. However, we were clearly limited by the hardware and the direction changing during the development of DUST 514 to meet those limitations.

We are currently discussing many interesting mechanics for an entertaining experience. Please realize again that it is very early in development and things can change on the fly during this stage of the process. We are getting ready to experiment with many things, and ideas are a plenty.

I asked a lot of questions before I returned to CCP and wanted to ensure I would be excited and happy with the direction of this project and CCP's other projects. I have a lot of faith in CCP_Rattati and his vision, and with the quality and experience of the development team currently involved and also with CCP as a company.

So just to be clear, Nova will be fought inside of space and spacestations? How would vehicles be used? Is it safe to say dropships are out of the game? I liked the open maps fought on the ground tbh, i thought that would kinda suck

According to the developers and multiple interviews, it's supposed to start out on ships with smaller maps and no vehicles at first. Once ccp feels comfortable with the core gameplay as far shooter mechanics/balance goes, the plan is to then make our way back onto planets and have vehicles.

More specifically in regards to planetary conquest ccp has said "it's in the roadmap" it just won't be a day 1 feature

How much is team size a factor in map creation, and to what degree would it differ the map?

Also do you plan to have any continuation of the "Socket" system from DUST? I remember when first hearing about it that it could, long term, have huge possibilities for nearly infinite map variations. On the downside, I realize that such customizability takes away from a well designed overall map experience, if you have to design each socket to be potentially independent parts of a larger map.

I liked Skirmish 1.0 but I feel it could have been much more. However, we were clearly limited by the hardware and the direction changing during the development of DUST 514 to meet those limitations.

We are currently discussing many interesting mechanics for an entertaining experience. Please realize again that it is very early in development and things can change on the fly during this stage of the process. We are getting ready to experiment with many things, and ideas are a plenty.

I asked a lot of questions before I returned to CCP and wanted to ensure I would be excited and happy with the direction of this project and CCP's other projects. I have a lot of faith in CCP_Rattati and his vision, and with the quality and experience of the development team currently involved and also with CCP as a company.

@LogicLoop are you designing the social spaces as well? For a F2P game Nova needs somewhere to show of your gear and I want to see the other side of the mercs quarters!

There is no other side... That door's an airlock straight into space!

I barely paid any attention to the variance in the sockets in every battle. Even if I did, it hardly mattered to me. I feel it was better to just save the server processing power and have us fight in static maps where the sockets don't change.

Besides, since we're likely to be fighting inside ships that have standardized internal structures within them it stands to reason that we will be fighting in very static maps. It would be very hard to implement a socket system for the interior of a ship. It's better to make static maps that represent different parts of the ship. From there you can each generate 3 separate battles across the 3 parts of that ship or perhaps have one seemless battle transitioning from the hangar to the bridge and then to the powerplant depending on the progress of the battle.

Also, since we're going into ships I now feel it is high time to get rid of the redline. Instead parts of the interior of the ship should act as physical barriers that just block the player from entering. For example: sliding doors sealed by a hack that occurred just as the attackers initially boarded, collapsed catwalks, force fields that the ship itself deployed to seal off parts of the ship that have suffered a hull breach, etc. I shouldn't be seeing a redline inside a ship. They are redundant in such an environment anyways.

PS: To answer your question about team size, it matters in the sense that having too few players in map might result in fights that are unnecessarily long or drawn out because players are not encountering each other as often as they expected. The same is true for the opposite in which too many players could result in what we saw with Domination matches.

while i agree with the whole ship battles being the same maps, based on the ship they are in, what about ground battles? Static maps for those would be a waste, unless the maps and number of people were reminiscent of how MAG was.

If CCP could make it so Nova has ground battles similar to how MAG was it would be amazing. Make it so the defender is actually defending an objective and not just 5 control points.

I'm not so sure about the planets. Again, it doesn't matter to me whether it's static or ever changing like how we saw with Dust's socket system. But if CCP can pull off the latter without compromising performance, then all the better I guess.