Here's the thing. When you dumb the game down to go mainstream, then you blend in with every other game on the market and you become a FAD.

I don't want a fad game. I want a game that I can get lost in, that I can play for years on end. I want to be transported into another world and learn the particulars of how to survive there. I want nuances, a steep learning curve, and lore-based justifications for why game elements exist in their deliberately designed form.

I want to enter a deep and persistent alternate reality.

There is a niche here that you tapped into with Dust 514; one that has room to grow. Please don't abandon it, even if the intent behind Nova doesn't match anything I just said. At some point, with another future game, pick up where you left off.

Take us back into the heart of EVE. Let us dive into the sci fi FPS that we all wanted, where EVE pilots and valkyrie ships provide support to troops on the ground; where the feeling of being an EVE mercenary is unique, earned and memorable.

lol "SC". This game, no sorry, this pre-Alpha Alpha Alpha Alpha who will be ready in 2025 (maybe), is overrated af.

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.

Seeing this makes me happy as it might show that Nova isn't, how should I say this, Legionized?

So pros and cons.

Pros
* As Rattati said, a lot more straightforward. Not having to balance two separate things means it is easier for players and developers.
* 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.
* It removes frustration that occurs from having to totally downgrade specific modules and upgrade other ones just because of "I am missing one goddamn CPU but have 34 PG! So because of 1 CPU, I lose 70 HP?!"


Cons:
* While frustration is removed, the joy of gaming the system is missed. Whenever I managed to get a stable PG and CPU rating for my tanks and get the exact kind of power I wanted, I felt over the moon. I conquered the system and the brainpower I spent on figuring out the best load outs gave me results. (This is kind of like the 'ownership' that I think was central to DUST; this wasn't just a Caldari Assault suit or a Madrugar. It was MY Caldari Assault)
* It might be a slippery-slope of removing options. "Well, if no one is using the Caldari Assault and the only Logistics used is the Minmatar one, why not just make one class?"
* Equipping suits may very well become more of a 'problem' rather than a 'choice.' It becomes so much easier to say "this is simply better than that" rather than "well, the option is between a big apple or a small orange."
* Any suit that has more 'fitting' than the other will overshadow the others in that same role.


My thoughts:
EVE is a complex game and that level of complexity should in no way shape or form be in any game that is trying to be more casual. This is one of the reasons why I loved DUST's principals. CCP is only known for one game and that game is, for lack of a better term, a gigantic megabitch of complexity. DUST, being a far faster game and being more about moment to moment stuff, was better off not having megabitch problems. However, the complexity that existed did make for a unique game. I think that scaling things back to be more approachable is a good idea. However, I am wary to think of just going that streamlined.

The fitting system is probably the greatest success of DUST. Forget about the first of "we are a console game 'tied' to an MMO computer game!" that got all pomp. The notion of being able to greatly change suits was really cool. I remember making Sentinel suits with dampeners because I saw that I was able to reduce my profile to within medium for medium suits and close range for other sentinels. I was able to actually flank people and catch them off guard, even if the suit was impressively weaker. It was funny to have that. It needed the proper High and Low slots; just saying "okay, these are defensive and these offensive" removes that coolness.

Overall, I think it might be a better idea to stick this idea with vehicles rather than suits assuming they are in the game. Vehicles should have very specific roles that make them useful in their role. Dropsuits, being most of the game, should still allow for some of that greater complexity. But, oddly, I am in less favor of "Defensive and Offensive" module slots rather than combining fitting into a single simple number. The fitting system is THE thing that made DUST unique, the ability to truly make the suit you are walking around in YOUR suit. Limiting that, I feel, is a bad idea. I can see the reasoning behind making CPU/PG into "Power" but High and low Slots that have multiple functionalities and choices into "Defensive is dampening, HP, or run faster" and "Offensive is damage and precision/range mods for radar" seems like a very poor decision to me.

Still, it is an interesting thought. And if nothing else, I am truly happy that Nova is being looked at as "how can we make this more approachable?" rather than "so how do we get the megabitch in here?"

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.

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.

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.

The thing is the concept of PG/CPU is well known. Both in Dust and in EVE. So I don't really know if it's that much of a time saver.
From my point of view it's more like starting from step x towards y vs starting from a scratch towards point y.

In both cases you need to balance all kinds of stuff. Going from 2 to 1 doesn't really mean cutting the work in half.

The thing is the concept of PG/CPU is well known. Both in Dust and in EVE. So I don't really know if it's that much of a time saver.
From my point of view it's more like starting from step x towards y vs starting from a scratch towards point y.

In both cases you need to balance all kinds of stuff. Going from 2 to 1 doesn't really mean cutting the work in half.

PG And CPU are indeed known well by EVE and Dust players...but also bear in mind that the target audience is not simply current CCP fans

It actually does cut a lot of work. Instead of trying to balance pg/cpu for individual modules to be used on different suits with different pg/cpu capacities, you can just focus on the suits. This assumes that the modules provide a percentage based bonus instead static numerical bonuses. 25% hp increase instead of 66 hp means the bonus is equally applied and its value undeminished.

A big issue in dust was hp mods had flat bonuses. 66 hp on a scout with only 100 hp is a 66% increase in health. 66 hp increase on a heavy dropsuit with 300 hp is only a 22% increase. So you can see that the module itself was imbalanced from the start, then complicate things further with fitting costs.

Decreasing pg on a scout suit to prevent an additional hp mod from being used might fix and balance the hp for the scout, but might also prevent the scout from using pg heavy speed mods which share the same fitting resource. It was a frustrating mess to balance. A single additional item added to the game would break the balance and the secs would have to start all over again with balancing.

I don't recall it being a big issue. Scouts who stacked hp were cannon food for every assault out there.
And this has nothing to do with PG/CPU as it's a mod's problem.

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.

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.

I have to agree on the latter part. Player with greater SP pool shouldn't just be mathematically stronger. The more SP the more roles you can fill, the more diverse you can be. Instead of making it strictly "you gain power" I'm more keen towards "you get more possibilites". That's for infantry, if we ever see vehicles I wouldn't want to see noobs behind the wheel .

I was talking about proto because proto was/is end game. If we speak about any game let's speak about end game becasue that's where the playerbase is.
For me PG/CPU system is a way to allow you to eqiup anything you want but you have to count on said sacrifices.
I'm looking forward to what they think out of the fitting system. The idea of capacitor sounds promising.

Its kinda sad seeing people even be against the SP system which didnt let you gain as much of a mathematical advantage over time as it just gave you the flexibility of multiple fits across multiple suits.

Sp could only fill any one role so much and a dedicated player didnt have to take too long to flesh out a single role. We are definitely pulling further from the persistent existence in EVE and much closer to a traditional lobby shooter with nothing that really defines it.

I mean...class unlocks? Really? :/

Its kinda sad seeing people even be against the SP system which didnt let you gain as much of a mathematical advantage over time as it just gave you the flexibility of multiple fits across multiple suits.

Sp could only fill any one role so much and a dedicated player didnt have to take too long to flesh out a single role. We are definitely pulling further from the persistent existence in EVE and much closer to a traditional lobby shooter with nothing that really defines it.

I mean...class unlocks? Really? :/

I'd like to ask, other than being able to feel superior simply because you got there first, what up-sides does the sp system have?