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

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?


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 6 post(s)
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17144	Posted - 2017.05.15 19:44:00 - [1] - Quote I think it will simplify balance and risk/reward considerations. Kincats were hella expensive PG wise for what they brought, while armor was relatively cheap. Side arms, while taking small amounts of cpu, seemingly did not take small amounts of PG. At least that is what it felt like to me and what I remember of trying to make fits. Granted I was also fitting low level suits, which had limited slots and resources. Overall, I just think it will create a more level playing field, it will reduce the number of variables to have to balance around, and it will give players more flexibility to experiment with suits, while making sure there is still sacrifices and choices to be made between eq, weapons, and mods. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17145	Posted - 2017.05.16 00:03:00 - [2] - Quote Pokey Dravon wrote: In regards to complexity... One resource pool is very common in games with any sort of loadout system so people will probably grasp that pretty easily. Two fitting resources is really not that much more complicated but it can be confusing if not explained properly, which is why people struggled with it in Dust. So my question is, was the system itself flawed? Or was the way it was taught to you flawed? I'm kinda feeling it was the second. So is it worth dropping a lot of fitting depth for the sake of a easier to digest NPE? I don't think so. I'd rather they keep the two resource system and just properly explain it this time. Perhaps I don't know enough about the system myself. Why do we need a CPU/PG system? Is it also possible that the system was not innately flawed, but that it was simply poorly executed? I don't think that I could be confident in any points I make if there is something fundamental I am missing. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17146	Posted - 2017.05.16 15:31:00 - [3] - Quote 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. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17149	Posted - 2017.05.16 23:03:00 - [4] - Quote 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. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17149	Posted - 2017.05.16 23:07:00 - [5] - Quote DUST Fiend wrote: Sigh They're finally considering capacitors...and it's for dropsuits Wtf. 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. They want to add real time resource management to ground based run and gun gameplay, so this argument sort of falls flat on its face lol. PG/CPU was not a real time resource management portion of Dust... Fitting was not a real time strategy game... I was merely staying within the scope of discussion. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17154	Posted - 2017.05.17 22:49:00 - [6] - Quote Fox Gaden wrote: 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. I always thought this should be the case as well. It also eliminated Assaults having the HP of Heavies etc. Same should go for other mods I think. It would work well for whatever EWAR, Speed, and Bandwidth corollaries there are. That way you could differentiate suits/races/roles will still allowing some flexibility. It also reduces roles bleeding over one another as happened so many times in Dust. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17154	Posted - 2017.05.17 22:58:00 - [7] - Quote Alena Asakura wrote: One Eyed King wrote: Pokey Dravon wrote: In regards to complexity... One resource pool is very common in games with any sort of loadout system so people will probably grasp that pretty easily. Two fitting resources is really not that much more complicated but it can be confusing if not explained properly, which is why people struggled with it in Dust. So my question is, was the system itself flawed? Or was the way it was taught to you flawed? I'm kinda feeling it was the second. So is it worth dropping a lot of fitting depth for the sake of a easier to digest NPE? I don't think so. I'd rather they keep the two resource system and just properly explain it this time. Perhaps I don't know enough about the system myself. Why do we need a CPU/PG system? Is it also possible that the system was not innately flawed, but that it was simply poorly executed? I don't think that I could be confident in any points I make if there is something fundamental I am missing. Why do we need CPU/PG/Cap? Because different racial fittings and weapons need different mixes of them. The only reason you would want to go with a single resource is if you wanted to go to a single faction for all suits, weapons and modules, which is exactly what I feel is the point here and which I'm definitely against. I think for the sake of this discussion, we have been treating CPU/PG separately from Cap, given Pokey's insistence that Capacitors are a separate topic, and Rattati's statement that suggested they are being used, in addition to the single resource that replaces CPU/PG. I don't think the conclusion that all suits will be one faction automatically follows CPU/PG becoming one resource. If, hypothetically speaking, having just one resource instead of two somehow DID mean that there was only a single faction for all suits, I would categorically oppose the change. I don't think anyone wants a shallow game. I just think that those of us who are OK with the change believe that there are other means of differentiation than CPU/PG. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17158	Posted - 2017.05.18 19:24:00 - [8] - Quote I think he was being sarcastic and making the same point. But I don't get people going to extremes. Nova is and FPS and must fundamentally be different than EVE. Just because they share the same universe as ships doesn't mean that they must follow the same lines. For example, just because some submarines run on nuclear power doesn't mean soldiers do simply because they are in the same universe. Nova should absolutely have depth, meaningful fittings, having to make sacrifices etc. but I don't think that Nova needs to be some sort of mirror image to do so. It needs to function at a fundamental level most importantly. Besides, they wouldn't have moved Rattati back to Iceland if they didn't want Nova to have an EVE feel to it. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17158	Posted - 2017.05.18 20:52:00 - [9] - Quote DUST Fiend wrote: One Eyed King wrote: Besides, they wouldn't have moved Rattati back to Iceland if they didn't want Nova to have an EVE feel to it. Given this lack of vehicles we can assume smaller maps so will Planetary Conquest even be a thing or will we be fighting over some random station? Since we will be on mostly small and interior maps (it seems) will there be any purpose for a more refined orbital system. Also woth thr removal of vehicles and thus AVcan we expect even turret installations to go away? People say the team moving back home means the game will more EVE connected but all (what little) evidence seems to point in the other direction. Speculation is bad for my health :/ Warning: Following post may fall outside orignal posting's scope You brought up two good points. First and most important is that we are speculating on little evidence. We honestly could be way off base because we are considering one small sliver of a larger game that is pretty much unknown to us. We have a demo and a few details to go off of, and none if that is even set in stone. I could very easily see getting a look at Alpha and coming to the conclusion that combining energy sources did indeed take some of the depth and strategy out of Nova. At the same time, it is also possible those in favor of two may find out that a single energy resource did not hurt game play or fitting depth/strategy at all. It is just too soon to tell. Second, is the points about PC and small maps. What you seemingly aren't taking into account is that so far all we have seen are maps in space, with TDM game modes. That doesn't necessarily exclude future iterations of Nova being planet side with larger maps and vehicles. Just because I was 2 feet tall as a toddler did not mean that was all the taller I would get as I developed. In contrast, look at Star Citizen, which is trying to do everything at once. Nova can't go that route. First, you would have to be willing to give up lots of money to a game that hasn't come out and has no guarantee to do so. With CCP developing would you invest? I wouldn't. Because of this, resources are lacking. Not to mention it was announced 5 years ago, with an initial release of 3 years ago. And it still hasn't released. There is no way Nova can survive doing that. I know it sucks having to wait longer on vehicles than what the rest of us will see, but I hope that results in having an actual game, that is enjoyable for all rather than as just a bunch of Dust memories and what-could-have-beens. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17158	Posted - 2017.05.18 21:55:00 - [10] - Quote 07 Don't worry. I brought up SC myself. And I think the way CCP operated in the past lent itself to people buying in to their big ideas that maybe even the devs at the time didn't realize were unrealistic and unreasonable for them to be selling. I know how upset I would be if knives were removed (or if they end up being done wrong in Nova). At least you can be honest with yourself about things. Which is far better than the "Turn Dust Servers Back On" crowd can say. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.

One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17166	Posted - 2017.05.20 15:20:00 - [11] - Quote Derpty Derp wrote: Mejt0 wrote: Joseph Ridgeson wrote: It possibly removes a lot less natural imbalance. Shield mods were an absolute monster for CPU which was mostly offset by the fact that Caldari suits were big bags of CPU. However, it means that Shield mods become incredibly difficult to use for other types of racial suits. But isn't this the point tho :) As Caldari prefers shields their suits have a better foundation to fit them. If you wanted to build shields you would go for Caldari and/or Minmatar. Having not only high/low slots but both PG/CPU allows to help these suits maintain their purpose. But you can easily emulate this by giving Caldari suits a boost to shield mod effectiveness, which is a lot easier than trying to balance the PG-CPU of every suit and mods to make sure no one else can fit enough shield mods without screwing up the other mods they can fit. I agree. I think that people who think that having just one resource minimizes the choices aren't looking at the bigger picture. There is more than one way to create balance and depth, and doing so more directly will result in fewer complications. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17167	Posted - 2017.05.20 19:11:00 - [12] - Quote DUST Fiend wrote: If you're simplifying something in order to then make it more complex, why not just build upon what's already there? All processes need streamlined. There is never a point in doing something in 10 steps when you can do the same thing in 5. Taking the 10 steps just gives twice as many chances of something going wrong, and twice as many things to work around when adding new things. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17173	Posted - 2017.05.21 15:54:00 - [13] - Quote Mejt0 wrote: DeathwindRising wrote: You dont remeber the cal scouts that could see you through walls from 45m and still back 400+ shield hp, while outrunning everything under the sun? They also had some pretty suspect hit detection that made things worse Again, this has nothing to do with PG/CPU but with how the mods and suits worked Hit detection was a myth as people had no problems shooting down my cal scout and I was in the meta day one It wasn't about their ease of fitting shields but how much they gained duing so + at the time you didn't need any ewar mods and bonuses were recompensating that. Later after the changes Cal scout was useless. The fact that it didn't have to do directly with CPU/PG is exactly why I don't buy that the two resources are needed for creating balance. Looking at Min and Gal Scouts, it was easier for the Gal Scouts to take advantage of their Dampening bonuses without much fitting sacrifice, while Kin Cats were so expensive that taking advantage of Minja speed was much more of a sacrifice (and Gal Scouts could still get within .1 or .01 m/s of top Minja speed). All of this is to say that CPU/PG's existence was as much a hindrance to balance and fitting optimization as it was a strategic consideration. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17174	Posted - 2017.05.21 16:36:00 - [14] - Quote Mejt0 wrote: One Eyed King wrote: The fact that it didn't have to do directly with CPU/PG is exactly why I don't buy that the two resources are needed for creating balance. Looking at Min and Gal Scouts, it was easier for the Gal Scouts to take advantage of their Dampening bonuses without much fitting sacrifice, while Kin Cats were so expensive that taking advantage of Minja speed was much more of a sacrifice (and Gal Scouts could still get within .1 or .01 m/s of top Minja speed). All of this is to say that CPU/PG's existence was as much a hindrance to balance and fitting optimization as it was a strategic consideration. It was equal. Having maxed skills you could go full proto with any suit by the end. It was fairly easy for minja to go with reds while haivng other top tier mods/guns/eq. And minja's advantage was mainly knives, speed was just an addon. On the other hand if you were to eqiup reds on caldari you could say goodbye eHP. Take a look at all 4 factions while talking about it. I took a look at all 4 factions for years, including spreadsheets that were discussed. The fact is, depending on your suits, bonuses, and slot layout, certain suits made more sacrifices than others. And balance should be considered at ALL levels, not merely Proto. CPU/PG was often a constraining factor in these balance considerations, and some suits had more constraints than others. Which is why I believe reducing the resources will make balancing easier within roles, between factions, and among tiers. Hopefully when we see Nova, we won't see a game where fittings and experience level create boundaries that can't be overcome even when a lesser equipped/SP player has significantly greater ability. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17183	Posted - 2017.05.24 00:11:00 - [15] - Quote Many excellent points Matari, and Mejt. I would just say that RE the Cubs scenario, I am thinking that firstly, if the end game in Nova is sufficient (which should be a goal), there should be less incentive to see groups like that come into pubs looking kill time stomping. Secondly, I think it is probably good, since newer players can play their better stuff without worried about, to use poker terms, having a short stack trying to play against a large stack. Insurance is a good way for those financial imbalances like Mejt was talking about to be moot points, unlike they were in Dust, particularly in Pub matches where the ISK poor were mostly relegated to. The biggest problem will arise if the end game is not compelling enough to want to play that instead of Pubs. Dust of course had the middle ground of FW, which for a long time (pre LP), was my fav mode. It was an intermediary level between PC and Pubs. Dust ran into problems when PC became boring/unplayable, and FW was non existant. Thus Pubs became nearly the sole source of game play. If the ONLY game modes that ended up being played in Nova were the 100% insurance game modes, then I can see where the scenario Matari discussed becomes a real concern. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.
One Eyed King Nos Nothi 17198	Posted - 2017.05.29 03:39:00 - [16] - Quote DUST Fiend wrote: You could still keep tiers and ISK costs/ payouts AND eliminate noob stomping (or curb it, cant balance for skill and teamwork) by simply fixing PC and putting tier restrictions on pubs so you couldnt use proto gear in them, or at least in its own game mode. All this remaking the wheel business just leaves me scratching my head. It was a really sh*tty wheel. It couldn't be saved. Former CEO of the Land of the BIind. Any double entendre is unintended I assure you.