Duck Drahko
DUST University
Ivy League
0
   |
Posted - 2013.07.10 00:37:00 -
[1] - Quote
I'd like to give my perspective, as a new player (about three good days or so).
TLDR:
* Prototype suits bother me much less than unbalanced matches in general.
* Academy is a much better experience, but extremely short-lived.
* I like the idea of security-based segregation, but it's hard to balance risk/rewards.
* I'd also like to see some form of ranking system to improve the odds of creating balanced matches.
* It would be nice to have more alternative things to do when being outmatched in direct combat (which are actually being rewarded).
Read on if you care about my detailed thoughts.
//TLDR
I had a lot of fun in Academy, because matches were fairly balanced most of the time and I was quickly able to reap the benefits of improving at the game. This only lasted for one day though (come on!) and the first few matches out of Academy almost put me off the game.
Frankly, I think that many here are focusing on the wrong issue. Yes, being stomped on by prototype gear is frustrating, but in some sense also interesting. It's the David vs. Goliath thing, which makes me think about how to work around the obstacles and still be a pest to the opposing team. I can live with that, because I know that eventually I'd get to play with that kind of gear if I'd choose to do so. Ultimately, being mowed down by a prototype suit isn't that much different to being sniped from afar or being blown up by an orbital strike.
What really gets to me though, is that the vast majority of matches are completely unbalanced, with one team stomping all over the other. If you are an experienced player, I assume that you won't feel this so badly. If your team is dominating, you probably know where to be to spawnrape the poor bastards from the other team, and if your team is being dominated, you probably enjoy the challenge of fighting your way out of it. But as a complete newbie, I either find myself walking around looking for stranglers (I literally once played a full skirmish match just trying to get into the action, ending the match with 0 WP and 0 deaths... unbelievably frustrating), or I barely get out of the spawn.
Of course occasionally matches are balanced and really fun, but on the whole, the quality of the experience has taken a huge hit since leaving (or rather being kicked out of!) Academy. I think that's something that needs to be addressed, and it goes much further than just prototype gear. Whenever there can be a large disparity in skill levels (true or virtual), balancing teams is of utmost importance. It's also extremely challenging to get right though.
A little part of this can be self-regulating. In the games I used to play, it was possible to switch teams, so whenever teams were imbalanced, the losing team would cry about it and some strong player of the winning team would switch over (usually I was one of the first to do that, because I always preferred the challenge of turning the tides). In DUST, while you can't switch teams, you can make a choice to not use your advanced gear when the team is already dominating, or better yet, not to start using it before your team gets into trouble. Realistically, I am not sure how much difference this would make, but at least it's something you can do if you are serious about wanting to improve the experience for everyone. I understand though, that sometimes people just want to grind, and making fair teams gets in the way of that... I guess that's a fundamental issue with a game design that encourages grinding.
Of the suggestions so far, what appeals to me most is the idea of doing something with sec status. It could be very straight-forward, allowing advanced gear in low sec and prototype gear in nullsec. The difficulty however is to balance risk/reward. You have to provide significantly higher rewards in low sec, otherwise nobody will bother with it and CCP will lose out because people will simply care less about advanced gear. But if the rewards are too high, then you just make it that much harder to progress as a new player in high sec.
Maybe one way to tackle this would be to simply spread out the rewards more in low sec. E.g. in a high sec match you are likely to get a fairly consistent amount of ISK and SP from every match, whereas in low sec you may end up with double the amount if you do well, but half (or even none) when you do badly. This would significantly increase the risk of actually losing money (or wasting time) in those battles, while providing enough incentive for actually good players to give it a try. Any such segregation would still be difficult to balance, because you have to ensure that no tier will be under-populated. Something that should get easier as the game grows.
TBC |
Duck Drahko
DUST University
Ivy League
0
|
Posted - 2013.07.10 00:38:00 -
[2] - Quote
What I'd also like to see eventually, is a true ranking system. It could work something like this:
* Everyone gets a ranking which is increased slightly when the team wins, and decreased slightly when the team loses.
* When match-making, the game tries to create teams of equal average ratings (while keeping teams mixed with players of varying skill), so in theory the winning expectation should be close to 50%.
It's simple, but over the course of many matches, it should create a rating that is approximately true to your actual skill and more balanced matches. Of course it will never work to 100%, but by and large it should dramatically increase the chances of ending up with a balanced match.
The main issue I see with a system like that, is that players could artificially keep their ratings down so they get to dominate more easily. Unless that problem is solved, a system like that would never work reliably, and I'm not sure how it can be solved. Perhaps the motivation of pride is enough (if the ranking is displayed publicly), but if it can still be manipulated to gain SP more easily then that's no good. Perhaps gaining rank could be faster than losing rank, to make it very time consuming and inefficient to artificially keep the ranking down.
Finally, I think what would also really help the issue would be to provide more alternative things to do that actually help the team, while we are outmatched. E.g. I love to fly dropships, it's a lot of fun, and I couldn't care less about prototype suits on the ground, if I can just take to the skies. But what exactly am I going to do in that dropship? Give me some incentive to do so, and give others an incentive to join me as a gunner, or whatever. It doesn't have to be big rewards, just as long as my efforts don't feel completely wasted. Squads alone are not the solution to this, because they are not available to everyone and shouldn't be required when aiming for just some quick casual fun without commitment. I think the game is on a pretty good path in this regard, but so much more could be done with it.
Personally, I'm not giving up. As you can see from my profile, I joined DUST University and I've ordered a cheap headset and keypad to see how things improve with better communication. I still am very intrigued by the potential of the game, and I'm looking forward to see how it develops. But it is also true that there is a lot of room for improvement in the new player experience, and things definitely take a turn for the worse after Academy. |