You may want to go jump on Call of Duty, Halo, or Battlefield. and watch as the more seasoned players all have better guns, perks, attachments, and other little things that make them better at the game than a "NEW" player. Then come back to this forum and promote a more legitimate argument!

OK CCP what it looks like its coming down to... You need to create another game that has only some aspects of DUST 514 and make it more like all the noob tubing games of the FPS genre. I even have a name for you to use. Call it "CALLED TO THE DUSTY FIELD OF THE RING IN THE SKY". From the way it sounds you will have quite a few pre-orders on announcement day alone.

[sic]
We as gamers want the advantage of more damage and HP and this is why I expected a huge backlash. It's not something players want to easily give up.
[sic]

Reaction is not equal to response. You've been posting responses with my words quoted while not actually replying to the content.

I've already pointed out how your claims of defending an "advantage" don't apply to my context and yet you fail to address this.
You continue to use diversionary and hyperbolic phrasing and concepts the latest of which is now implying that by repeating calling upon you to address my actual points I am somehow seeking "special attention of some kind. That could only be true if you were refusing to address the substance of all posts which disagree with you.... I'll let the record show which one

As long as you persist in avoiding all the quite valid critiques of your idea which have been put forth and trying to hide that evasiveness behind inflammatory or emotionally charged rhetoric I will continue to repeat that you've failed to address my points and that your fundamental idea is fatally flawed.

But do feel free to prove me wrong by providing actual data, that is of course assuming there is any such data to be provided at all.

0.02 ISK
Cross

Do you believe that it is not our nature to want to be better or improve ourselves, including in games? I don't know many that don't like winning or being better. Having higher damage and hp improves our killing and decreases our dying. Being able to kill while not dying increases our winning. And, this puts a huge disadvantage to new players with low SP who won't likely stay, which we see from the low player count. I don't know any simpler way of explaining this. I truly don't.

Unimportantly noting but since you brought it up, a reaction and response are the same thing. You can even use them in the same sentence and keep the exact same meaning. He reacted with disdain. He responded with disdain. They are the same . Many posts have disagreed with me as was expected but their concerns are as valid as yours, however they don't seem to have the same overly high sense of self worth you give yourself. One person said my idea sucks. I see this as valid as any other. Other people say they feel they earned the SP to put into damage and hp to beat new players. Read some of the posts and you'll find that some players here do state that they enjoy the advantage of higher SP such as earning the SP to beat new players.

Let's say I'm wrong and killing and dying isn't as important as I suggest. Then, in that case, it shouldn't be a big issue to remove the damage and hp enhancements, if getting kills and not dying are as unimportant you suggest.

The concerns of players is that they don't want to lose their advantage and the fear they would lose their ability to individualize their soldier. I say they would lose the advantage in pub stomping but all players would have a better chance for more even competition. Skill and team coordination will still overcome. Players will also not lose their ability to individualize soldiers since there are a great many more skills that SP can be applied to.

No, remove damage and armor enhancement.

I am getting the idea that you are usually on the receiving end of the pub stomping? If new players are interested in the game than they will stick around, if not then they will leave. Sorry that you decided to stick around and complain about not having the best of the best... which is received by building YOUR character, leave everybody else's character alone and worry about YOU

I might as well be playing halo if that is the case. Besides, CCP has already committed to putting out damage/shield/armor enhancements as made apparent by their recent blogs and patch notes.

Remove damage, shield/armor enhancers from modules and skill points.

This will balance the game for new and experienced players by allowing everyone the same potential for kills.

This will make Dust a game that is based on individual player skill and not from equipment and SP bonuses.

The damage and HP enhancers are great but when new players are put at a huge disadvantage when competing,

they will not likely remain. This is your balance. Experienced players and teams will still have the experience to kill while

new players will not be nearly as overwhelmed by players with overly high HP and damage enhancement.

Logi suits will no longer be more powerful than assault.

Heavy suits will always be the highest HP suit.

Scouts will become more useful, even with fewer module slots and low HP.

The number of modules on any suit could even be increased while not giving an unfair advantage of OP damage or HP.

Why don't we just remove all diversity?

Matchmaking will be fixed in the next 3 weeks

I would love to see how CCP fixes it. I truly hope it works.

Do me a favor, scroll to the top of this window and look at the logo at the top of the page. Read the words ABOVE Dust 514. Most people seem to be able to realize this.


All of those games are radically different that Dust. They have massive budgets and are designed to operate like a supernova, a massive blast of revenue when it first launches, and then the players gradually move on to other titles, then they release Halo 2 several years later, rinse/repeat ad infinitum. Dust has been designed with a skeleton crew (that's why it takes so long to get things fixed), and has the business model of a snowball. Players slowly get rolled into it and over time it gets bigger and bigger each paying small amounts that accumulate into very big amounts over many years. Dust will never be able to compete with those titles, and it shouldn't try. Instead Dust is pursuing a new niche that has been ignored: an online FPS for people who like RPGs. The fact that those titles are successful is completely irrelevant, Dust is in a different market than them. The strategies they pursue (financially and in terms of game design and the direction they take) should be based around what works best for the type of players in the niche they're creating: the people who want to grow their characters, to see them become stronger (and I'm not talking about just hacking a little faster, or sprinting a little further) and invest in the character's growth over the long haul.

EVE was just like Dust in the beginning. And look at it, it's doing awesome and outlasting most every MMO out there (and still going strong). This approach works, and we'll see it grow even more when it's opened up to PC's, and possibly Xbox too one day.

Retaining new players is important, we both agree on that, but brining in new players that will quickly get bored anyways (at the expense of loosing people who want to be invested in the long-term growth of the game) isn't a good 10-year business model.


I think you'd be much happier with a generic FPS.

CCP advertises Dust an MMO not MMORPG. Dust514.com is where it's said and in big bold words.There is a difference. I don't know that as important but it's what CCP refers to it as which is a Massive Multiplayer Shooter. I hope that doesn't sound rude, that's just what CCP refers to Dust as on their main website.

As far as retaining, by looking at the player base as I log in, it seems that the numbers stay relatively low. We may not be able to help new players from being bored but we can help the new players from being beaten so badly on an almost constant basis from getting irritated and leaving. Older players will still have plenty of skills to spend their points on. I've said before that we have hacking, biotics, uplinks, different weapons, etc.... There is plenty for Dusters to do besides frustrating new players right out of Dust. We have to give new players a fighting chance or they aren't likely to stay.

Do you believe that it is not our nature to want to be better or improve ourselves, including in games? I don't know many that don't like winning or being better. Having higher damage and hp improves our killing and decreases our dying. Being able to kill while not dying increases our winning. And, this puts a huge disadvantage to new players with low SP who won't likely stay, which we see from the low player count. I don't know any simpler way of explaining this. I truly don't.

Unimportantly noting but since you brought it up, a reaction and response are the same thing. You can even use them in the same sentence and keep the exact same meaning. He reacted with disdain. He responded with disdain. They are the same . Many posts have disagreed with me as was expected but their concerns are as valid as yours, however they don't seem to have the same overly high sense of self worth you give yourself. One person said my idea sucks. I see this as valid as any other. Other people say they feel they earned the SP to put into damage and hp to beat new players. Read some of the posts and you'll find that some players here do state that they enjoy the advantage of higher SP such as earning the SP to beat new players.

Let's say I'm wrong and killing and dying isn't as important as I suggest. Then, in that case, it shouldn't be a big issue to remove the damage and hp enhancements, if getting kills and not dying are as unimportant you suggest.

The concerns of players is that they don't want to lose their advantage and the fear they would lose their ability to individualize their soldier. I say they would lose the advantage in pub stomping but all players would have a better chance for more even competition. Skill and team coordination will still overcome. Players will also not lose their ability to individualize soldiers since there are a great many more skills that SP can be applied to.

It's also fairly amusing they way you use designer language (as a professor of mine called it) in order to attempt to give oneself more credit or flash. I understand what you're saying, it's just amusing and it's another reason I feel you have a self inflated sense of our own worth. The rest of us use normal language in this non academic setting. I've learned that it's better to speak plainly when plain language is normally used. I've done this before as well but I don't anymore as I don't want to seem smug.

[quote=Chinduko]

Even more paragraphs focusing on attempts to make this about me or ego rather than the actual ideas in question?

I write the way I talk and I talk the way those around me throughout my upbringing and most of my life have talked. If my method of speech is somehow upsetting to you I don't know what to say aside from that it's not my intent to upset you. I do not know you nor is your emotional response, or mine, something that I consider relevant to the content of this thread.
That being said allow me to attempt a rephrase you that may find more acceptable.

Please answer my critiques directly and specifically.
Please do so with as much detail as you are able.
Please make it clear which issue you are addressing and do not overlap them.
Please do this so that other posters in this thread can evaluate both critique and reply side by side and come to their own conclusions.

I do not see how any of these requests are unreasonable.

0.02 ISK
Cross

If you can't see that Dust is marketed as an RPG FPS then I don't know how to help you. They may not say it on their website (maybe because FPSMMORPG is so f*cking long it looks ridiculous) but it's sewn into the fabric of the game.

The current server Pop seems to stay pretty constant at 5-7K people online at any given time. It's not a huge number, but it's far from dead, especially given the current state of the game with so much missing content, and bugs that need to be flushed out. It's still very early in the game's life, and we'll probably see it on the PC one day which will really boost the numbers. EVE started off slowly too, and it gradually built up over time. It's like the snowball metaphor. Many of the people who tried it initially and left will come back once the major issues have been sorted out. Also you'll probably see more EVE players signing up as the game gets further integrated into the EVE universe and it becomes valuable to them (a lot of them don't have PS3's).

Another mistake you're making is assuming all players are equally valuable to CCP and that a lot of people means it's a success. What CCP needs are people who are committed to the long term and who are willing to shell out cash over a long period to make it happen. These players are the ones who are attracted to the RPG aspect of Dust, the competitive FPS guys will be on to the next shooter by Christmas and probably won't put up much cash.

Is new player retention important? Absolutely, with matchmaking and an excellent tutorial/introduction that gets people into the game and helps them figure out what the hell is going on without having to read pages of text on their screen. Also making Proto suits much more expensive (like 10x) will greatly discourage people from wasting them in pub matches. I can assure you that turning Dust into a s*itty version of Halo isn't going to be doing any favors for it's long-term-viability.

I don't see how you cannot understand that a player with higher SP and thus having more damage and hp output through skills does not have a huge advantage over new players that do not have this advantage.

It seems very clear to me and I cannot be more concise that the newer player who is at this disadvantage is not likely to enjoy their lack of competitive capability. I cannot understand how you don't understand that those new players are less likely to stay with Dust being at this disadvantage. I see you don't understand how human behavior is important but it is. In general, humans avoid discomfort or pain, be it emotional or physical. Some may actually "tough it out" with they have fewer options and some people may simply have masochist personalities but people don't like discomfort. This disadvantage is much more likely to be discomforting than comforting.
I cannot be more clear. If you don't understand, or willfully disagree, there is nothing more I can do to help you understand.

quote]

I'll rephrase my prior regarding human behavior.
You have yet to show how the advantage/disadvantage is directly linked to the mods in question or how those mods are more linked to it than all the mods you're not proposing be removed. You've not explained why removal would be a better option than altering those mods or adding others. You've not explained why changing mods or fittings is a better solution than possible alternatives like matchmaking, a more robust new player experience, better documentation, etc.

So while yes it's obvious that humans do seem to avoid discomfort on average that does not directly support the suggestions of your OP and despite my prior attempts to draw your attention to this you've still yet to show why your suggested change is the best solution for your stated problem.

All of that aside any change has pros and cons and you've not address, or for the most part really acknowledged, the cons to balance them against the gains your suggestion is meant to offer. Just because a change has some positives doesn't mean it's on balance a gain.

While I do not agree with removing Damage mods and shield/armor enhancers all together I believe they need to be looked at. most notably Damage enhancers and shield extenders. Both of these items double their bonuses when going from enhanced to prototype. This kinda of bonuses to older player I believe does hurt the newer player experience. However older player should get better bonuses compared to the newer players thats just the mmo side of dust coming out. However on certain items its just to much.

here an example let say we have a newer player thats just now finished his enhanced dropsuit load out. looks something like this.
Merc 1
highs 3 : enhanced damage mod,enhanced shield extender,enhanced shield extender
low 2: doesn't matter at this moment
weapon : Gek-38

and lets compare him first to an older player in the same dropsuit with prototype modules.
Merc 2
highs 3 : complex damage mod, complex shield extender, complex shield extender
low 2 :
weapon :Gek-38

betwenn merc1 and merc2 there is a difference of 5% damage and 66 hit points (not taking into effect passive skils and low slots ) in merc2 favor.

now lets look at merc3

merc3
highs 6 : 2x enhanced damage mod, 4x extended shield extenders
low 2:
weapon Gek-38

merc 1 and merc 3 stack up just like merc1 and 2 5% percent damage and 66 hitpoints. (actually slightly less then 5% damage due to staking penatly)

So with out passive bonuses or stronger guns we are asking merc1 to basically fight someone with twice as many high slots this doesn't seem right. And this is just the tip of it. lets see merc 4 join the battle

merc4 proto dropsuit
high 4 : 2x complex damage mods, 2x shield extenders, OR 1 complex damage mod, 3x shield extender
low
weapon duvolle assualt rifle

So far Merc 4 version 1 beats merc 1 by 15% damage and 66 hitpoints, version 2 beats merc 1 by 5% damage and 122 hitpoints. Lets not forget Merc 4 also has a proto gun which mean he doing more base damage as well as getting
more from his percentage increase.

now this didn't even take into affect the bonuses from the low slots,Which for the most part are setup better as proto is usally getting a 5% bonus over extended. We also did take into passive skills most notably the weapon prof. skill giving 3% bonus to weapon damage. Lets say in 1 week merc 1 and merc 4 fight again. after merc4 puts 2 level into the prof skill.

merc4 version 1 beats merc 1 by 21% damage and 66 hitpoints, version 2 wins by 11% damage and 122 hitpoints.

proposal would be not to change the prototype gear. instead lets do this

milita shield ext. 22 hitpoints
standard shield ext. 33 hitpoints
enhanced shield ext. 44 hitpoints
prototype 66 hitpoints

milita dmg 3%
standard dmg 5%
enhanced dmg 7%
prototype dmg 10%

I believe these 2 changes could go a long way in helping out new player experience. If this isn't enough then maybe looking at opening the weapon prof skill up at weapon 4 instead of 5 letting the newer players spend points into it before upgrading to the proto weapon they can't fit or afford to use.

tell me what you think.

Oh and if you feel you've already addressed any of this in a prior post which I may have missed feel free to link me that post and I'll respond directly, just please label which aspects the post is intended to address.