DUST Search - Discussion - Should PG and CPU be combined into one?

One Eyed King wrote:

Pokey Dravon wrote:

One Eyed King wrote:

From reading through the thread, it seems to me that some people are equating complexity with depth. I don't think that is necessarily true. Some of the best games, video and otherwise are fairly simple, yet still have depth.

My problem with complexity for complexity's sake is that the more moving parts there are, the more various interactions there are, the more room for glitches and potential abuses that can occur.

If there is a legit reason for having more complex parts, and they substantially add to the depth, fun, and strategy for the game, I am all for it. But merely having complexity for its own sake is just asking to revisit the worst parts of Dust; the brokenness, glitchiness, and imbalance that ruined an otherwise amazing game.

Except it's not complexity for the sake of complexity. Dual resources allow for a sort of game of finding ratios of the two for each module you use that give you the optimal use of each.

Think of it like Tetris. A single resource is like filling up a space that is 1 block wide and all you have are line pieces. of various legnths. Simple right? All you have to do is drop them

A dual resource resource system is like traditional tertris, where you have blocks of multiple dimensions that have to be fit together in an optimal configuration. More complicated, but which game is more fun?

But that isn't how Dust actually worked...

If you looked at the modules being used, and many of the guns being used, it was less about fitting, and more about what worked best. There was some fitting optimization, but little to none of it had to do with the PG/CPU dynamic, the caveat being that 90% of the time I used one type of suit, and considering it was a Scout M-1, I had a lot of optimizing to do.

I am by no means suggesting that the game be simplified as in your simple Tetris analogy. I simply think that creating those two fitting resources instead of having one is at this point arbitrary. I am open to well thought out reasons why the two are more than arbitrary, and how they can be used to provide depth. It is just that given my experience with Dust, there seemed less rhyme and reason as to how much an item cost, and what I could and couldn't fit given those costs. Some items seemed cheap compared to their benefits, while others cost too many resources and provided too little in return. Maybe their was some logic to it I couldn't grasp, but that is how I perceived it.

I agree with Varoth in that depth can be gained elsewhere.

Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 6 post(s)
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 8127	Posted - 2017.05.16 12:26:00 - [1] - Quote I want to first state that I donGÇÖt know everything that is being done, so I donGÇÖt have enough context to say whether it is good or bad as part of a larger plan. That being said however, balancing two resources in the fitting system was one of the things that gave fittings interest and depth. There is good and bad complexity, and I always felt that balancing CPU and Power Grid was good complexity. It made fittings into more of a mini game. When balanced right it allowed suit doctrines so that the suits that were meant to be armor oriented had more PG to fit armor and shield suits had more CPU to fit shields. But it also allowed trade-offs such as fitting a module that used CPU and generated PG so you could produce nonstandard fits. My fear is that the give and take of the two resources will be gone, and we will be left with the one dimensional fitting system where you just try to fit as much as you can until you run out. I am concerned that there will be no balancing or trade-offs. No fitting a different sidearm to give you a little more PG to fit that extra armor plate. That was the sort of thing that made creating a fit fun, rather than just a chore. I do like the fact that we will have something resembling a capacitor (operating like a mana bar in a fantasy game, for those not familiar with the capacitor in EVE.) Maybe there will be a fitting trade off over the resources it requires to fit, versus how much capacitor it will use to activate? Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 8128	Posted - 2017.05.17 19:09:00 - [2] - Quote Sylwester Dziewiecki wrote: Beside combining PG/CPU, do even more and add stacking penalty to fitting requirements, so that fitting another 'tanking' module cost more than previous one, so that running around with all slots being: shield extensions or armor plates is imposible/or very resorce consuming. I think things like Armour Plate should give a percentage increase in health rather than a fixed value. 1) Stacking penalties applied to anything with a % increase, and did not apply to Armor because it was fixed value. 2) Brick Tanked Scouts competed with Assault suits because Armor gave the same fixed armor increase to a Scout suit as it did to a Heavy suit. With a % increase, the increase would be based on the original health of the suit, so it would be harder to tank the light fast suits and easier to tank the slow heavy suits. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 8136	Posted - 2017.05.18 19:10:00 - [3] - Quote One Eyed King wrote: Pokey Dravon wrote: One Eyed King wrote: From reading through the thread, it seems to me that some people are equating complexity with depth. I don't think that is necessarily true. Some of the best games, video and otherwise are fairly simple, yet still have depth. My problem with complexity for complexity's sake is that the more moving parts there are, the more various interactions there are, the more room for glitches and potential abuses that can occur. If there is a legit reason for having more complex parts, and they substantially add to the depth, fun, and strategy for the game, I am all for it. But merely having complexity for its own sake is just asking to revisit the worst parts of Dust; the brokenness, glitchiness, and imbalance that ruined an otherwise amazing game. Except it's not complexity for the sake of complexity. Dual resources allow for a sort of game of finding ratios of the two for each module you use that give you the optimal use of each. Think of it like Tetris. A single resource is like filling up a space that is 1 block wide and all you have are line pieces. of various legnths. Simple right? All you have to do is drop them A dual resource resource system is like traditional tertris, where you have blocks of multiple dimensions that have to be fit together in an optimal configuration. More complicated, but which game is more fun? But that isn't how Dust actually worked... If you looked at the modules being used, and many of the guns being used, it was less about fitting, and more about what worked best. There was some fitting optimization, but little to none of it had to do with the PG/CPU dynamic, the caveat being that 90% of the time I used one type of suit, and considering it was a Scout M-1, I had a lot of optimizing to do. I am by no means suggesting that the game be simplified as in your simple Tetris analogy. I simply think that creating those two fitting resources instead of having one is at this point arbitrary. I am open to well thought out reasons why the two are more than arbitrary, and how they can be used to provide depth. It is just that given my experience with Dust, there seemed less rhyme and reason as to how much an item cost, and what I could and couldn't fit given those costs. Some items seemed cheap compared to their benefits, while others cost too many resources and provided too little in return. Maybe their was some logic to it I couldn't grasp, but that is how I perceived it. I agree with Varoth in that depth can be gained elsewhere. There was no rhyme or reason to a lot of things in DUST, such as weapon balancing and such. Retatti accomplished a lot by sorting out a relations such as damage vs range for weapons and realigning suit slots. But Ratatti never took the time to workout an overarching theme on how CPU and PG requirements were distributed. (There were higher priorities at the time.) The point is that the system does have benefits if done right, and it could easily be done better than in DUST by taking an overall statistical view of the big picture and mapping out how the relationships should balance. (The sort of thing Ratatti is really good at.) Which is not to saw that replacing the PG/CPU balance with other balance considerations would not work as well. I am just saying the PG/CPU balance worked, even when poorly implemented, so I am a bit supersized that they are ditching it rather than refining it. But then we don't have all the details, so there are probably benefits to the approach they are taking as well. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 8136	Posted - 2017.05.18 19:12:00 - [4] - Quote DeathwindRising wrote: I guess I need to know why we had fitting resources in the first place. Because Eve Online had them? How far can we break away from Eve Online before the game no longer feels like an Eve game? Do we trash fitting resources completely? What if we just did loadouts? Picking a class and suit would dictate what modules and weapons are available to for you to fit. You still can customize the suit, but only with whatever CCP says you can use for modules and weapons. No need to track fitting costs, because you can fit anything to the suit that CCP allows you to select. Some items may be locked to specific classes, and some may be used on all classes. Anything deemed too OP by CCP can simply be tuned by preventing certain combinations of modules weapons. Like No dual tanking because shield dropsuits wouldn't allow you to select armor plates on them (or maybe only certain plates) and then we could get rid of pg/cpu completely. --------------------------------------------------------- If I wanted the Devs to hold my hand and make fitting decisions for me I would go back to playing WOW. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 8136	Posted - 2017.05.18 19:28:00 - [5] - Quote CCP Rattati wrote: Clone D wrote: How about fitting by weight class? Every suit type has a sustainable weight limit before it begins incurring various penalties. Every piece of equipment, each weapon, and module has a weight. If you carry more of a burden than your suit is capable of handling, then it slows you down, makes aiming sluggish, etc. with shared equipment, heavy's will simply become more powerful. There is no reason to build such inequality into the foundation Not giving Heavies an equipment slot helped to prevent this. Lack of speed also works against the Heavy being good at everything. As long as the bonuses the modules give are based on a percentage increase of the suit's core stats, rather than giving a fixed increase as armor did in DUST, the suit's core states will focus each suit size on a role type and not allow one suit to be good at everything. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.