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Cruor Abominare
Subdreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
18
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Posted - 2013.05.10 15:23:00 -
[1] - Quote
I know this sounds like blasphemy to certain circles but here me out.
Skills like sharpshooter and having dmg added via weaponry upgrades and not just a blanket 10% dmg were incredible important for new players. This is because they were pure power skills. Sure they were obvious have to skill items but they were relatively cheap skills.
They were skills that in a few short weeks you could bring to playable levels that you could directly feel your power increase. They stressed the importance of gaining skill points and gave a direct reward that could be immediately felt. Psychologically this helps gets players addicted to the sp chase.
We have the same skills in eve because it's hard to convince people right out of the box that spending months to skill into really marginal gains is hard if they haven't been sated by gradually increasing the threshold for the reward feeling.
I wouldn't have committed to a year long training into capital ships if I hadn't had the experience of feeling my frigates and cruisers gain in power in much shorter time frames, I would have just blown off the game as being too played out 7 years after launch when I started.
The same will be true in dust. Convincing a new player to bite the several month period to get prof suits and the required supports to make it functional isn't going to fly if you first don't let them get addicted by fast power skills.
If there was an overall balancing problem by the max distance of sharpshooter, address that, don't take away important power building skills that help new players feel like they are advancing their character. |
Cruor Abominare
Subdreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
19
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Posted - 2013.05.10 15:38:00 -
[2] - Quote
Dis Cord wrote:SS worked because there was a better range overlap. They have completely eliminated that with their range nerf. However, SS was the best solution to a simply broken mechanic: Hard Range. The better solution is to rework range to realistic levels, and make kick, power, and rate of fire the determinants of effective dps.
While I certainly agree with the first part, the range cap issue is actually a poor solution to placating the over lap problem because of falloff curves. It won't matter if your bullets go farther because at that point in the curve they won't actually do damage, when your hitting for 2 or 3 damage it just doesn't matter.
Dust doesnt actually incorporate bullet physics like most modern shooters, it's pure hit scan where the game runs a series of calculations to figure damage based on distances, not enter or not a round actually hits physically.
Bullet dispersion is actually just a modifier that is multiplied based on how long you're firing, they don't actually model the rounds spreading out. |
Cruor Abominare
Subdreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
19
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Posted - 2013.05.10 15:46:00 -
[3] - Quote
Delirium Inferno wrote:Attaching range to a skill is a terrible idea because it takes away from the core mechanics of seeing an enemy, identifying their weapon, and knowing their range and how to attack them. The range doesn't need to be as low as it is, but it needs to be uniform for everyone using the same weapon types.
When you have cheapish range skills this still isn't a problem. Its a power skill everyone goes into that in the end makes a blanket standard.
Example, new player enters game, shoots at red but can't hit him, red fires back and hits him. New player gets upset and looks at skill tree, sees range increasing skill, starts pumping it up and starts to notice that he can start hitting those guys, and occasionally out ranges people who didn't skill into it.
The hamster wheels start turning and he starts looking for new ways to skill up and makes longer and longer commitments towards improving his character via skills. That's how skill planning fundamentally works as a gameplay mechanic.
Sharpshooter proficiency was another level of skill point metagaming, players had the choice in delaying other improvements in order to get even more than average range that required substantial sp commitments. He may had to forgo newer sts or damage skills to get there but was rewarded with a new advantage. Rewarding and potentially punishing for bad choices is an absolute fundamental building block of the new Eden style skilling feature. |
Cruor Abominare
Subdreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
20
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Posted - 2013.05.10 16:29:00 -
[4] - Quote
I feel like a big point may have been missed. Irregardless of whether the specifics of a skill like sharpshooter was wrong or badly implemented wasn't the topic of discussion. Rather the importance of having a hand ful of skills that are cheap and expand power power in a noticeable way is important.
It's important because it blds a psychological connection with making skill commitments that lead towards a new player being willing to dedicate months towards things like prof suits and supports.
It's like building a drug addiction. Player gets good feed back from the cheap power skills to catch up. Slowly they need longer and longer skills to fulfill that euphoria of new power. That's how you get them hooked for the long haul. |
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