J Lav
Lost-Legion
30
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Posted - 2013.03.06 04:25:00 -
[1] - Quote
I've already expressed that I agree with Mojoe on this topic, but I think it might help this discussion if I explained my reasons.
First, Retention problems,
Some people have said this is a non-issue. They obviously haven't checked numbers on servers for this game, or don't understand the numbers. At this moment, there are roughly 1.8 million characters created, and several of these are alternates. The servers are recording a total increase on average of about 15,000 over the old EVE population. Someone told me there have been more than 3million downloads of this beta. That would make retention sitting around 10-20% by a conservative estimate. If every day, those 15,000 were a different player, it would take 200 days for everyone to play once. There is enough of a retention problem by those numbers that suggest it is not a large enough population to pay for this project by CCP. They have to bring in more paying customers with the release. I can't say that this retention is solely a result of pub-stomping, but it is definitely a factor.
SP spending on perceived value,
In the end, this game has only one role on the field that doesn't kill people, and that is the Logi, who has recently had their WP generation restricted. Everybody else has to kill to get WP. This means you have 3 options for SP spending: Firepower, Health, or Damage.
That leaves 2 options, Vehicles, or Infantry. Either way, the only options are the same for everyone, better guns, damage modifiers and health. Now if gaining one came at the expense of another, then that would make sense. You could make yourself a glass cannon, or high armour, but slow killer. But this is not the case. In Dust you can have your cake and eat it too. You get better guns, better health, more firepower and do more damage all at the same time. There is no sacrifice. There is no variation of purpose in the field. So you can't carry a hacking module? Who cares? That's not what I call a sacrifice.
Now in balance, CCP is making this free to play, and need to sell stuff in game. So we can't eliminate benefits you pay for. There needs to be a gap, but that gap should be a little smaller than 100-200% more health, with a better gun that does 30% more damage. A new player who hasn't discovered sharpshooter does 0 damage when you can also shoot him from almost twice the distance. In other games, players notice a difference between 750 and 800 rpm on a weapon. That's less than 6% difference, and those weapons have wildly different purposes that appeal to different situations and different styles of play. I don't see a need for such a massive disparity, to the point that other skills lose appeal, and lack function on the battlefield. A 10-20% difference would be significant in comparison, and still keep people happy with the better stuff, because it is a large advantage. |