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Leither Yiltron
KILL-EM-QUICK
RISE of LEGION
549
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Posted - 2013.06.28 01:41:00 -
[1] - Quote
I haven't had the time, nor the freedom from a security perspective, to really sit down and make a thread about Planetary Conquest. Luckily, ROFL's current status in PC has freed me from both of those constraints. That status is something to lead into this post knowing- we've been hammered and most of our corporations have left PC in an official capacity. That's after fighting the most battles of any organization in Molden Heath, and I can't be more proud of what we continue to accomplish despite mechanics issue. I'm here to provide a counterpoint to discussions like this: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=89588 .
I have every motivation to embark on the a lengthy diatribe about how the current system is borked, not fun, and CCP completely screwed the pooch on the entire conceptual backbone of PC. That seems to be the way of things as of late, and it certainly shifts blame off of any poor decisions I made onto CCP.
So yeah, I won't be doing that. What mistakes were made? That would be telling. What parties have lag issues as a real excuse for pulling out of PC? Only those outside of the United States and perhaps the United Kingdom. Outside of those two regions PC matches started to look like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyCPzd6bPCQ&feature=youtu.be . Inside the US in particular, though? There are no really worthy excuses. If you're from one of those two regions and you're out, you lost. That includes Negative Feedback in particular, since their opinions in this area are most rampant across the forums.
I'd like to start out with a quote from the ever infamous Mittani with my own modifications. Let's see if you can catch them. The original is here in the first paragraph after the second picture.
Modified Mittens wrote:Hostiles should be either massacred or their battles ignored to ensure their playing experience is ruined. Relentless metagaming should take place such that the conflict is as demoralizing and unfair as possible. [...] What matters is that our foe does not want to log into the game. We have taken out superior forces by ruining their gameplay to the point that they do not bother logging on. You can kill a hostile clone by shooting it, or by ensuring it never logs in in the first place.
That starts to sound really familiar. Here's another, this time from Shadoo. The full post that introduced the idea of a "Thunderdome" in Cloud Ring is here :
Modified Shadoo wrote:Basically: every large block in Dust agrees to move to Oddelulf at the same time. Why Oddelulf? Because two of the largest blocks participating in it have districts there already -- and the 3rd can just put down some clone packs.
A bit eerie, huh? (CSM) Jester did an analysis of the post at the time if you're interested. I tend to agree with him. http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2013/03/war-never-changes.html#comment-form
Of course, this all digs back to whether or not Eve's nullsec warfare is actually a good system. That would be a long digression and completely unsuitable. What we do know about that system, though?
It has carried Eve for 10 years.
So after that enjoyable little diversion, here's the list of things that are WRONG with PC:
- Core mechanics issues that cause a worse play environment than public matches
- Server issues that lead to situations like the one depicted in the video above for those outside the US and UK
- Clones being both a battle resource and an ISK resource
- Opportunity cost of fighting battles forces owning districts to be an expected loss of profit
- The way server downtimes are handled
- A complete and intentional (https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=701566#post701566) lack of mechanics for alliances
Each of these probably merits its own discussion thread. I'm not stronk enough to provide those, though. Some of my favorite ones will probably make it to my blog.
I'll provide the (very rudimentary) opportunity cost calculation upon request.
These are the hot button issues that are missing:
- Skirmish being the only mode - The underlying issue is a lack of game modes, not PC's employment of Skirmish
- Blueballing - I well and truly believe that blueballing will never go away in any video game that attempts to emulate warfare. As a strategist, manipulating my enemies' expectations through denying fun is almost impossible to avoid.
- The number of battles required to take a district - Defenders should have an advantage in war, or else the calculus of warfare will get borked.
In particular, I'll note that those people complaining about blueballing have failed in the metagaming department. If they had played better, perhaps they would have more fights. If they wanted fights, they should have tried to encourage people to fight them rather than not.
I'll also note that complaints about Skirmish really aren't complaints about PLANETARY CONQUEST most of the time. They're merely frustrations with the current lack of mode diversity. I can totally get behind that, especially the idea that the player cap is very low. I can't get behin... |
Leither Yiltron
KILL-EM-QUICK
RISE of LEGION
570
|
Posted - 2013.06.28 16:39:00 -
[2] - Quote
Himiko Kuronaga wrote:Novawolf McDustingham The514th wrote:Ok, that's a valid point.
PC did what it said it would, in and of itself, but the game is poorly wired together in other ways as well on top of the poor core mechanics - when we use that term I'm sure someone on the dev staff throws a coffee cup, but something feels off in the way the game behaves.
How may players actually had a chance to participate in PC? Why is there no small corp variant? there's no real motivation to better yourself in this game other than the ability to run better gear in the same 4 maps.
Honestly, I think things like matchmaking and core mechanics to pull and hold new players should have been given priority with PC taking a back seat while simple corp battles and challenges filled the void.. Sure the vets would have been bored, but we expected to be bored and burnt on launch.
What we have now is an "end game" that has limited participation and public matches with no matchmaking structure. There is a small corp variant. It's called join an alliance and be a ringer for someone. Hell you can do that as an entirely solo player, if you're competent. And the payout is substantially better than pub matches -- assuming you win. The problem isn't that the small corps and solo players can't participate in PC. It's that they believe they cannot. In this particular case, ignorance and fear are the enemy. Not the game mechanics. Human nature is all there is to blame.
I tend to disagree with how easy it is to do this. Unless you join one of the larger PC alliances, the amount of infrastructure necessary to run consistent ringing will probably prove an insurmountable barrier. Most organizations by this point won't pay you a cent to ring for them, and even in the heat of warfare clone resources tend to be the more important asset than raw personnel numbers. High win percentage is somewhat valuable, but only in small doses. On top of that, corps tend to want to hire out a full high win ratio unit, rather than attempting to assemble it piecemeal.
All of the current mechanics of Planetary Conquest are directly at pointing at making it hard for large alliances to coordinate. In fact, there ARE NO alliance mechanics in Dust PC right now. Sure, the chat and mail are there, but other than that the only advantages are on the Eve side.
I'm not really sure that PC is the arena where small corporations really should get their sea legs in Dust. One hopes that what Nullarbor is getting at earlier in this thread is that CCP are looking at opening up Fac War to full 16-man teams. This would be a perfect environment for smaller corporations, as there aren't huge upstart costs.
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Leither Yiltron
KILL-EM-QUICK
RISE of LEGION
572
|
Posted - 2013.06.28 22:48:00 -
[3] - Quote
Baal Roo wrote:Noc Tempre wrote:Baal Roo wrote:Absolute and utter nonsense. Fixed it for you  Y'know, the reality is, that the people who don't have problems with PC are of course going to be the people who stick with it and keep playing. For them, it's hard to believe that it's unplayable for most other people, and they really don't want to have to admit that they aren't really as good at the game as they think they are. They don't want to admit that they own districts only because 1. Smart players see that PC has no value 2. Most good players can't or don't play the mode in the first place. They desperately want to believe that they have that little colored hexagon because they are the smartest and best players in Dust 514, and when you point out that such isn't really the case, they freak out. Of course, if I wasted a bunch of my time playing in PC, I'd probably want to defend my choice to do so as well. It's only natural.
Dude, I'm ROFL's PC coordinator.
We're also losing.
http://www.memedepot.com/uploads/1000/1148_1253230725640.jpg |
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