Laurent Cazaderon
Villore Sec Ops
Gallente Federation
1163
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Posted - 2013.03.04 08:39:00 -
[1] - Quote
Moejoe Omnipotent wrote:
Tweak down all health and damage bonuses granted by skillbooks and modules. Here are some suggestions:
-Complex shield mods should grant no more than 30 health max. The progression could go something like this: 10 HP for standard, 20 HP for advanced, 30 HP for prototype.
-Same deal with armor mods. Standard could grant 30 HP, advanced 40 HP, prototype 50 HP.
-Damage mod bonuses should be halved and the stacking penalty fixed.
-Damage bonuses on weapon proficiency skills should be removed and replaced with accuracy bonuses or just the ability to use more weapons.
-Shield control skill should grant 2% extra shields per level, not 5%.
-Weaponry skill should grant 1% extra damage per level, not 2%.
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hmmm.. Are you aware that this is the whole point of this game ?
The real thing you should have thought about is, how long must a player wait to be able to use something that is far from being very weak compared to an older player ?
Let's see with the example of an assault player focused on DPS :
- Type 2 suit : about 150-200K SP.
- enhanced shield : about 130-150K Sp
- GEK 38 : About 130-150K
- Weaponry V : 170K Sp
- Circuitry and Engineering 3 : 160K
So, less than 1Mil SP for the whole package. And that dude already has compensate more than half the difference with a guy with way more SP. (10% damage through weaponry, access to enhanced shield, GEK38 being the most common AR, enough CPU\PG capacity to fit a T.II properly.
And then, within a week, the guy can already be running around with a type-A and complex shield.
Now, you're talking about how FPS NEVER do that. And you're wrong. Take MAG for example.
A guy that would stay at level 70 would CRUSH a lvl 1 guy (especially if he just arrived) with its NO RECOIL, +25% health, bigger guns, extend knife range, enhanced movement speed, bigger armor etc....
So yeah, the speed at which you were catching up was faster. But that's also one of the flaws in MAG that just had a glorified veteran mode.
Now, i can still agree with you that New Player Experience is crucial in how a game can retain attention from new players ! And i agree that even though you can easily reach quickly a very acceptable fitting in any specialty that will allow you to fight on an acceptable ground against a Type B 4 Mil dude, it will ultimately become harder and harder to start a new char.
BUT, instead of killing the whole purpose of the game with the changes you suggest.
Who would go far a damager that sucks 65 CPU for a 5% damage ? Who would use a +30 Shield extender at 54 CPU instead of a +20 for nearly half the CPU. What good would it be vs guns that inflict more than that per bullet ? Who would invest 135K for level 3 shield control for +2% (= 4.5 HP on Shield assault suit) ? Or that would mean Re-Scaling the entire game.
You're missing a major point with all this. Equipment, modules, skills NEED to have a noticeable impact on the game to enhance all the team play and player interactions in more evolved game modes that will be fought between corporation. The more you offer players a way to make their character focused on one role, the more you develop teamplay.
You're talking about damage mods or HP modules like they are what everyone uses. But in corp game, i have a bunch of corpmate that wont focus on that, far from that, cause their roles dont require them to.
No... What needs to be done is to scale the starting SP pool according to the average SP amount the player base has reached. Or just calculate it from the base passive SP available since open beta started. That way, the first game gap can be reduced. That and proper matchmaking as well as game modes that will attract veterans elsewhere than pub games so it kinda becomes a kinder-garden.
Finally, this gap between new and older players is also the impact of the free-to-play economic system of Dust. If the playing field was always even, what would push anyone to even buy the slightest AUR item ? Absolutely nothing.. Thus, game goes broke...... Literally this time. |