Delonius from Khanid
Pangalactic Punks n' Playboys
HUN Reloaded
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Posted - 2013.06.10 07:39:00 -
[1] - Quote
IS DUST DIEING?
Before I go into more details about my brainfart, I have to concur with the fact that the game is not there yet where we are all expecting it to be and it have major core gameplay issues but we can all agree that the game is still in a really early state and far from it's full potential. Many people bury the game already because of it, but we who came from Eve, knows when CCP have a clear plan about something it's just a matter of time to get there.
People can call us blind fanboys but the company definitely earned our loyalty. It's not a coincidence that Eve is maybe the only subscription based MMO which still be able to constantly increase the subscribers' numbers after all these years. (any other example I don't know about? :D)
Many people asks how Dust want to compete with upcoming titles such as the playstation version of Planetside 2 or Bungie's Destiny (if it will be truly an openworld mmofps). Here is my list where I think Dust is (or will be) better:
- The destruction of things and the industry behind it (market, logistics, manufacturing, resource harvesting etc when it will be finally merged with Eve's economy and tied together more).
- Meaning behind the wars (paired with the metagaming) generated by the players itself unlike in the other games where the warmachine fueled by written lore and scripted events. When Dust will get there, you will be passionate about the wars and the outcome even if you are not a roleplayer. Believe me! :P
- The feeling of being able to have an impact on a sandbox universe with our actions. (hopefully)
- The character progression is also a positive thing on the long run. It works in Eve. Even after playing the game for years, the characters won't feel like they are finished. There will always be ways to progress further.
- costumization
One of the most important things where Dust is far behind from other upcoming titles is the scale of the battles.
SOV WARFARE, METAGAMING AND CONNECTION
The possibility of huge battles aren't important only to keep up with the competing games. It should be also important when the nullsec sov warfare will be tied together with Dust. If CCP want to make Dust an important part of the universe where the Eve players feels the impact of the dust players' actions and vice versa, and where the metagaming covers both games equally, Dust players should have a bigger impact on the outcome of different events. The factional warfare's level is just not enough. Dust players' activity can make easier or harder for the Eve players to achieve their goals, but it's not an important deciding factor so they don't really care about the Dust mercs' activity. FW matches also feels like instant matches for the dust players and nothing more.
But if the dust players activity would be a real deciding factor in the outcome of sov wars, it would be odd that 16vs16 matches (with only a few million ISK being destroyed) could make real differences when huge coalitions with thousands of players are clashing. Dust should have huge battles (100vs100 at least) on large maps with hundreds of millions of ISK being destroyed on the field to make an important and meaningful part of nullsec wars.
Eve players could argue that the controll for success would get out of their hands but that's not entirely true. With deciding the size of the budget for merc supplies, making deals with the better merc groups, handling the logistics and fighting for air superiority (to influence the fight with orbital strikes) would highly influence the outcome of the fights but the chance for success would be also in the hands of the dust players.
How to make it happen? Soveregnity structures in Eve should have and additional reinforcement timer (or replacing an already existing timer) with a Dust match.
The Dust match would decide either
A: if the structure could go into the next reinforcement mode or the structure becomes invulnerable again (more drastic outcome)
B: or the alliance who hired the winning Dust mercs could decide the final timer on the structure (less drastic but still significant deciding factor in sov warfare)
PS3 AND LIMITATIONS
Dust should really get to the point where huge battles will be possible but there is a huge barrier to drastically increase the number of participans in a single match and it's the limitations of the already outdated playstation 3. I'm pretty sure CCP will port the game to ps4 (and maybe PC some day) where the implementation of huge battles won't be too challenging but if they want all content equally accessable from both platforms, the ps4 client would be limited as much as the ps3 client (not counting the graphical improvements).
"Exclusive ps4 content!? Give me my money back!!!"
Of course ps3 players could feel ripped off for not being able to access a significant part of the game, but that's not entirely the case. There are different reinforcement timers with different importance in Eve.
-Less important timers are like the timers on player owned structures (POS), territorial claim units (TCU) and soveregnity blockade units (SBU), player owned costumes offices (POCO) etc
-Really important timers are final timers on outposts and ihubs for example.
The size of the dust fights could scale depending on the importance of the timer. This way small battles could be also important in massive coalition wars and ps3 owners will be able to enjoy hopefully the most exciting upcoming part of the game and they won't feel being left out of it. They just won't be able to join to the bigger fights. |