DUST Search - (Request) Elimination of Starter Sniper kits for non Snipers

Cross Atu wrote:

More limits in a sandbox game = totally missing the point of a sandbox game Roll

More seriously; your theory is flawed, if a new player is starts a match, gets crushed, has his team redlined and then pulls out a starter sniper fit (as per your post) it's not the sniper fit making the game less fun, it's the redline.
And forcing someone to run a starter assault rather than a starter sniper (after they've already gotten crushed, gone neg, and had their team redlined) isn't going to make it a more competitive match. The real result of this will be more people leaving the match or spawning in the MCC and never deploying (both of which already happen in abundance and we need less of, not more).

Now granted just going sniping because things have gone poorly isn't a good tactic, but the game shouldn't be built around the concept of mechanically preventing poor tactics, that's directly converse to a player driven sandbox experience.

The real problem is that teams getting "redlined" is too common/easy and the solution isn't going to be found in tweaking gear or fits, it's a macro problem which needs a macro solution (such as terrain resculpting, redline touch ups, and enhanced matchmaking).


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BattleCry1791 Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 116	Posted - 2013.01.06 05:31:00 - [1] - Quote Request: Elimination of Starter Sniper kits for non Snipers Reason: Because it's making the game bad. And you should feel bad. Supporting theory: Newbs with access to a sniper rifle tend to lead to redlining. They get their heads kicked in in the first five mins, try to respawn and realize there are no objectives open. Next thing they do is grab a sniper rifle and go hide in the mountains. And they do it in large numbers every game. The sniper class is one of the most abused classes in every FPS game ever made. "Man, I'm way negative, better pull out this stock sniper rifle I have no attachments/mods for and see if I can't even it up." Meanwhile, his teammates are getting crushed due to lack of support and the opposing team ain't scoring anything either because there's less opposition. The biggest problem is that it makes the game LESS FUN. It's less of a battle. If you remove the sniper starter gear from guys that are Sentinels and Enforcers, I think this will go a long ways towards cutting down on newb snipers. Disclaimer: Snipers can be useful. I had the opportunity to play with three guys all Friday night and that's all they did for the most part. They were pretty good at it and more importantly, they were actually able to set objectives for me (frago for you MAG players) and we all scored more points. Also, they realized their FIRST duty was to counter snipe. On no game before have I seen where snipers are as useful than DUST. So I'm not saying eliminate the sniper class, just quit handing them out like candy to every Tom, ****, and Harriet that logs into the game.
BattleCry1791 Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 116	Posted - 2013.01.06 07:02:00 - [2] - Quote Cross Atu wrote: More limits in a sandbox game = totally missing the point of a sandbox game More seriously; your theory is flawed, if a new player is starts a match, gets crushed, has his team redlined and then pulls out a starter sniper fit (as per your post) it's not the sniper fit making the game less fun, it's the redline. And forcing someone to run a starter assault rather than a starter sniper (after they've already gotten crushed, gone neg, and had their team redlined) isn't going to make it a more competitive match. The real result of this will be more people leaving the match or spawning in the MCC and never deploying (both of which already happen in abundance and we need less of, not more). Now granted just going sniping because things have gone poorly isn't a good tactic, but the game shouldn't be built around the concept of mechanically preventing poor tactics, that's directly converse to a player driven sandbox experience. The real problem is that teams getting "redlined" is too common/easy and the solution isn't going to be found in tweaking gear or fits, it's a macro problem which needs a macro solution (such as terrain resculpting, redline touch ups, and enhanced matchmaking). Where's the limit? They can buy all the militia sniper rifles they want, just like Enforcers have to buy militia HMGs if they want to use something they haven't skilled up for. Redline sniping is a problem in every FPS game that has ever been invented that has large maps. Happened on the PS2 and every game for the PS3. According your argument, we should just move the redline back and tweak the maps. This will not solve the problem. They'll just move further back or the opposition will then actually be able to spawn camp them. Limit the range of the baseline sniper rifles? Possibility, but then doesn't that defeat the purpose of them to begin with? There is no "macro" solution. You can take every problem solving and troubleshooting class in the world and it simply will not fix the problem since the problem is the players. Go hook up with any decent clan looking field 12+ players in MAG for SABO one night and you'll see what I mean. My request is not fueled by my personal opinion. It's based on YEARS of observation and history. If newbs/noobs get their heads kicked in, they will redline snipe if given the chance. So why give them that chance for free? If they want to sit there and do nothing, make them pay for it. Literally. If they leave then they're just hurting themselves because they loose all their ISK/SP/WP made in that round and whatever they spent (rigs) is now a complete loss. There is no other way to discourage the practice. And there's one other thing to consider here. If a player chose to be a Sentinel or an Enforcer at the outset of their character creation, then they chose to be in the fray. If they want to snipe, then they need to choose to be an Arbiter, or an Activision or whichever one it is (I can't remember right at this moment). You can throw all the buzz words around that you want, it flies in the face of what actually happens in-game.
BattleCry1791 Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 116	Posted - 2013.01.06 11:04:00 - [3] - Quote @ Cross Atu You sure love to type but you don't bother to read do you? Let's begin with your assessment that removing the sniper starter fit from the non sniper classes is limiting. Well, applying that logic to the rest of the game, why can't I have a starter gunnlogi? Or in EvE where's my militia Titan? That'd be silly right? That's not "limiting choice", that's how the game's built. Let's apply your "logic" to guns. Why am I "limited" to the amount of bullets I can carry? I can do this all day. Video games are all about limits. The only argument is why limit this or why limit that. The answer to those questions come in two forms: 1) Balance 2) Gameplay There's really no balance issue in regards to the Starter Sniper kits. So it falls to gameplay. And I can tell you right now, letting newbs have a sniper starter kits drags down the gameplay for the reasons I've listed. I've seen it happen tens of thousands of times and that's no exaggeration. I've just been playing FPS's that freakin' long. And let's get another thing straight. It's not a sandbox. It's a battlefield. If there's no battle going on, then it's just boring, and no one is making any ISK, SP, WP, or being challenged. And it's not "my way". It can only be "my way" if the sun coming up in the east every day is "the sun's way". It's a constant, a force of nature, whatever you want to call it. It might as well be a mathematical equation. (overpowering opposition) + (underwhelming teammates) = pub stomp. Pub stomp squared leads to redline sniping I'm trying to improve the general game play. You're worrying about players that will play this for maybe a month or two and then quit for various reasons. I'm trying to prevent them from messing with the dedicated players' good time for the short duration they are here and you're just being a snarky, too smart for his own good (and don't confuse that with actually being intelligent), standard Eve mousejocky. @Thranx1231 According to what you're laying down, then there should be a starter kit for every gun and combination. You have to be consistent with this kind of thing. If you want to dabble in Eve it costs you, why make it any different here? I don't think the militia gear is so cost prohibitive that players can't spend some ISK and dabble if they want to. @KalOfTheRathi Sorry but 725 ISK isn't that expensive. Predominately I'm running around in a militia scout suit with a militia AR doing nothing but hacking and I'm earning around 150-200k a round in ISK (granted this sucks for SP, but oh well). I generally go negative, but it gives me enough ISK to invest into my HMG rigs which is what my character is spec'd for and I'll whip out if the team is making it worth my time. Again, you have to be consistent. We might as well go back to how it used to be with the militia everything available and only a one time purchase needed (oh wait, that'd mess with AUR purchases, not gonna happen). No, sorry, but the militia gear is not that expensive. It still allows players to dabble, still gives them choices without having to, as you so rightly mentioned, go spec crazy. Eve has a high learning curve. It's one of the things that makes it good right? You don't get a Starter Kit for every kind of ship in EvE, why get one for every kind of class in DUST.
BattleCry1791 Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 116	Posted - 2013.01.07 02:49:00 - [4] - Quote Crm234 wrote: As a FPS player I want to see what is out there for weapons , I want to try all the weapons and see if I like them. Right now I only get to use the AR because i have SP in it. I hate that I cant see a weapons full potential without at least getting everything to Lvl 3.Taking away starter fits when there garbage anyway just says we want no new player base screw you. Problems are due to Map design and poor understanding of why FPS games funnel gameplay. Other games balance snipers buy keeping their hit points low so they fear being spotted and tons of cover in a map to cause them to have to move constantly. Im not a fan of Snipers but not to the point where they have to play for 2 weeks to get a rifle and enjoy the experience. No disrespect , but since we are all in a closed beta with very little new players . We tend to forget what it was like in the beginning. I promise you , you would be very upset tomorrow if CCP wiped your SP to test your feature. I just restarted my character, so no, it wouldn't. And yeah, it is a little messed up that there could exist a "tanked" sniper. Past that, the militia gear is there to let you dabble, as well as passive SP and two other characters. It's not a perfect solution, but it does set this game apart from others. As it is in EvE, it is in DUST
BattleCry1791 Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 116	Posted - 2013.01.07 15:23:00 - [5] - Quote Kal, Kal, Kal. Let's take a moment shall we and ponder the term "Derail a thread". Per the urban dictionary: Derailing a thread: The act of throwing a thread in a discussion forum off topic, oftentimes so much so that the original discussion is unable to continue. The reason I bring this up is because what you are talking about and what I'm talking about aren't even remotely in the same universe. What I'm talking about it removing a basic starter fit that has been proven time and time again to lead to redline sniping. My position is that redline sniping hurts the game far more than having the fit for people to try out for free. Have you priced out what the cost would be, in Militia Gear, to create a fit like Sniper starter fit? Less than 3K. I got 14K for spawning into a loss with 30 secs to go the other night. It's next to nothing. But at least the new player coming in has to build it to use it. That's all I'm saying. I'm not limiting squat. I'm not taking choice away from anyone that shouldn't have the choice taken away. Choices have consequences right? If you choose to NOT to be a sniper at character creation, I don't think it's a horrible thing to not issue them a sniper rifle. That was my whole point. One tiny, small change to try to prevent the bucketheads that play PSN FPS's from making for bad games just like they always do because they have access to a freakin' sniper rifle as soon as they hit start. Now, you Kal.....oh Kal, ole buddy ole pal have gone so far in the other direction, we'll have to take a bus to get back to the station where the train left that you derailed. 1) This is what you typed "I switched to Mil Logi immediately and at 725 ISK it was expensive until I figured some of the tactics out. Which isn't very difficult, just daunting initially." Ok, right there, that part....that's where you said 725 ISK was expensive. Now, maybe you meant something else (and judging by your massive 20 car trainwreck you did) and that's fine. But please, let's not be stupid here. You typed it, it happened, it's what you said. 2) I think your definition of "dabbling" is just simply...well...I don't think that means what you think it means. Take a look at the attributes for the militia logi and the 50K SP Type I Logi's as you've cited that as an example. Nary a freaking functionality difference. Sure there's PG and CPU differences, but those can be overcome by spending less than 7K on a few little skills you're going to want to max out eventually anyways. But from a "what does it do" standpoint they're very much identical. This is "dabbling". Trying out the role for cheap using the militia gear to see if you like it. Not throwing 50K SP into what is virtually the SAME gear. 3) You want to talk expensive? Try spec'ing for heavy, which is what I'm doing. And you don't hear me bitching about it. It's pretty obvious that CCP is trying to make the ARs the focal point of the game (ZOMG...they're LIMITING US BY CHARGING MOAR FOR TEH HEAVIES!!!!! Paging Cross Atu to the thread!!!!!). Considering that a level 3 AR costs a tenth of it's HMG counterpart. And don't get me started on the 787K price tag for the skillbook for the dropsuit. 4) You seem like a nice guy that legitimately thinks the SP price of things is prohibitive to keeping a player base. And thinking about it, you may be on to something. However, create your own damn thread. Because what you are talking about and what I'm talking about is like apples to meteorites. Doesn't mean your point isn't valid, just do it somewhere else. 5) I'm no fan of EvE either, played it, didn't like it. 6) You can't possibly disagree with my position since you weren't paying enough attention to the thread to see what it actually was. Now, choo choo, little train, back on the tracks.
BattleCry1791 Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz RISE of LEGION 116	Posted - 2013.01.08 08:25:00 - [6] - Quote Never in my life have I come across an online community so completely oblivious, obtuse, thick headed, and bassackwards. @ Cross, congrats, you finally got it. You can disagree with it, but at least you finally got it after all the shifting the paradigm macro resolutioning you had to work through, you finally got it. @ the rest of you: You all need to understand one thing, and this will make this issue very clear. People, for the most part, act like idiots. People play video games Most people that play video games act like idiots. The vast majority of FPS players have never logged onto a message board for that game. They don't use mics. They don't look at walk throughs on the internet, and if they do it's long after they started playing. Most gamers do not do research. They buy things because they think it's cool and it'll be a fun waste of time. If you really want to understand your basic PSN FPS player you need to look no further than the best selling games like BF3 and the CoD series...which are designed for and cater to the lowest common denominator....ie mouth breathing knuckle heads. This kind of gamer is not you who are reading this thread. And for most of you, you can't imagine what it's like to be that player. You're too smart, too savvy, and too dedicated to your gaming to do it. You literally cannot dumb yourselves down enough to understand their motivations and where they come from. "Well if the fit only costs 3K then they'll just make the fits and it won't really change anything". Wrong. Because this kind of player...it won't even dawn on them to try it. They're just that dumb. And they make up about 70% or more of every player base that has ever existed in an FPS. I'm sure you're sitting there going "What an elitist ******". Am I really? Think; think long and hard about your own online experiences. How many times in your gaming life have you've said something to the effect of "WTF BLUE DOT? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" How many times have you said it this week? How many times have you personally died online due ot the sheer incompetence of your own teammates (everyone makes mistakes, but repeated patterns of stupidity leads to...well...people are stupid). This is a free to d/l game. If there is no tiering in matchmaking or even balancing of rosters in matchmaking, this is the kind of player you're going to teamed with. And his shelf life is maybe 3 months before he moves on. With the learning curve on this game, it's probably shorter. So do you really want that player messing with your development? Am I saying screw that guy? You bet. Because he's already screwing you before he even logs on. Summation: I again testify with my 20 plus years of gaming (I am that old...got BBS?) that all of the above is true and that if you take away the basic starter sniper fir out of the game, you will see less redline sniping. Will it eliminate it? No. Will it mitigate it a great deal? Yes. Why is this even an issue? Because redlining is no fun. Redlining means no ISK, SP, or WP is being made. This will be less of an issue if roster balancing and tiering happens. That would be the number one cure. But it still doesn't change the fact that if you take away the sniper starter fit, we'll see less of it right now* I'm done with this thread. I believe I have made my point. For any posts beyond this one, I would give a ****, but I already gave it to your mother last night.