zzZaXxx
The Exemplars Top Men.
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Posted - 2013.07.10 23:53:00 -
[1] - Quote
Beren Hurin wrote:My guess the speed with which this recent change is happening means that this is more in the timeline for PC that will be occuring for 1.3. I wouldn't be suprised if more space is opening up, given the longer distances that clones can now deploy.
This would certainly be a much greater way to get players involved back into the game.
What they need to be thinking of as a downside though...
If many more players can involve a lot more of their time with planetary conquest, they will either
a) Have to have a lot of their battles be more or less profit nuetral or b) Have to grind isk in instant battles to make up for PC losses
I assume that right now there are two kinds of burnout in the game.
There's the dopamine burnout which has to do with satisfaction, new experience, and reward. It is happening when players place a high value on novel content, and can't or don't so much care about the pride aspect of beating, dominating, winning, or stomping. After the nth time of winning public matches, or PC matches, or skilling into their best gear and mastering it, they don't feel the incentive to explore new gear or generate new content for themselves. They will go on to expect better and better experiences from the same gear and fits that they have their max skills in. This is an ignorant expectation from my POV. Elite fits will and should have their niche, while some niches will be larger and more forgiving than others. The typical dopamine player will likely gravitate toward the Fit of the Week/Month, given enough skillpoints and expect it to carry his experience regardless of changing context or demands. When contexts change, they are the first player to become disappointed with the lots they are dealt and seem to take this the most personally.
I would note that the players that can find the most creative source of dopamine output, creating content for themselves, through trying to maximize squad strategies, setting personal goals, minmaxing isk intake, getting personal gratification from training others and seeing them improve, etc, will be the ones for whom this game has longevity.
There are also the adrenaline burnouts. These are likely the players that are playing for long stretches, with a greater priority assigned to winning, dominating, epeen, KDR, etc. By their nature, there can only be a limited amount, as not everyone can win. they know their proficiency comes from both skill and SP. Mathematically, the SP curve of the game will only allow the most skilled players having less and less of an effective marginal lead over the rest of the community, as the amount of SP that you can ever use in combat plateus at something like 10m SP. Likewise with skill, the community's skill gap also closes with time. Therefore, the ability to dominate, and exploit one's proficiency should diminish as time goes on (assuming the community can learn...which is currently debatable IMO).
As new players start to climb from 1M to 10M SP their adrenaline and dopamine oriented experiences will very likely increase as long as they are learning how to employ that SP effectively. To the extent that they have no incentive to learn or explore further uses of SP, the dopamine burnout will quickly occurr, and the adrenaline burnout will happen soon after.
Wow. Kinda mad scientist but I think you're actually really accurate in your analysis. If it were up to me to implement one new feature for both of these types of players.....
"Dopamine Player": PVPVE - 2 teams of 12 (2 squads each) fight drones and each other. The main objective is to defeat the drones but slowing down the other team is a priority too. You could have different game modes, such as a kind of skirmish, "Infiltration", where drones start with the points and 2 teams compete to hold more points while the other team and drones try to take them. Each point is a server from which you can upload a virus which will "turn off" the drones when fully uploaded. More control points=faster upload and the team whose virus uploads first fulfills the contract, so it's just like skirmish basically, but with drones and extra ISK and salvage for the winner. There could also be "DED Ratings 1-5", i.e. drone difficulty levels and higher level missions give higher ISK and better salvage rewards.
Another game mode, "Elimination", could be based on just taking CRUs. Each team starts with one CRU and the drones with all the rest. You can spawn from any CRU you take. The team that has the most CRUs when the last one is taken from the drones fulfills the contract. But here's the twist. When you rehack a CRU from the other team it goes back to drone control for a period and spawns drones. This game mode would be very dynamic and would encourage a lot of strategy and tactics. For example you could ninja to an area controlled by the other team far from where they're currently located and hack 3 CRUs to cut off that whole area but then you'll have to fight off 3x the drones before being able to take the CRUs. There could also be different levels of CRUs such as bigger ones that take longer to hack and spawn stronger drones (from nearby nodes) and vice versa.
Anyways there are lots of options. I hope they bring us some fun stuff like this soon. I won't go into the "Adrenaline player" content at length but basically I think they need an "elite" PVP "Gladiator" mode that's higher risk/reward. The same game modes but a minimum SP for access to the match and minimum dropsuit and vehicle restock cost for spawning. Much higher ISK rewards and the best salvage in the game, including some weapons and mods that only drop in this mode.
Let me know what you think! |