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Mobius Wyvern
BetaMax.
CRONOS.
2669
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Posted - 2013.07.24 13:31:00 -
[1] - Quote
My proposal relates to the following images:
Modular SMG
Modular HMG
Now, these are from 2006, and thus very out-of-date, but then this piece of artwork was put up relating to Planetary Conquest this year:
http://web.ccpgamescdn.com/eve_com/img/timeline/mercs_molden_heath.jpg
Notice that the mercs in this pic are using weapons we haven't seen before, and the mid-size ones look like they may be based on the same frame, similar to the modular weapon concept art I showed above.
I believe that in terms of features to make Dust stand out from the mass of other shooters currently on the market and coming this fall, a change of weapons design direction toward modular weapons, and not just attachments for the current ones, would make a big difference.
As an example, instead of unlocking 4 variants for each meta-level of Assault Rifle, you just unlock one weapon, but the skill also unlocks modifications and attachments for your weapons, thus allowing you to spec your weapon the way you want.
The really neat thing about this system is that you can implement "presets" similar to Blacklight: Retribution that are effectively identical to the variants of weapons that we have right now, allowing for a player new to the game to stock up on a premade combination that works well for them, and then move into deeper customization as they progress.
Current System: "This is my rifle. There are many others like it, but this one is mine."
Proposed System: "This is my rifle. There are no others like it, and it KICKS ******* ASS." |
Mobius Wyvern
BetaMax.
CRONOS.
2670
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Posted - 2013.07.24 13:43:00 -
[2] - Quote
Malkai Inos wrote:Oh lordy yes this would be awesome. We have to remember though that this entails a complete overhaul of the whole weapon system if it includes all current weapons. A more realistic approach would be to introduce T3 weapons that can be modified just as strategic cruisers in eve. It can then be decided if it is something every gun should have. Edit for awesome
Well, the one thing I would say is this: why have non-modular weapons at all?
If you can have a customization that deep, but still have pre-assembled models available in the market for people who are either new to the game or prefer just buying something that works, you've effectively got the same setup, but with less total assets in the game, less art assets that have to be made, and less possible in-engine assets to have to render in a fight.
For example, EVE ships use skins that are 1024x1024 pixels.
Tech-III ships in EVE use subsystems that are each 512x512. This allows them to have a high level of visual fidelity without making them too much of a resource hog to render.
With Dust, if we're going to use the numbers I listed as a reference, you can make each "subsystem" the equivalent of 256x256 in order to allow weapons to look great without being too much of a resource hog. |
Mobius Wyvern
BetaMax.
CRONOS.
2674
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Posted - 2013.07.24 14:08:00 -
[3] - Quote
Malkai Inos wrote:Mobius Wyvern wrote:Malkai Inos wrote:Oh lordy yes this would be awesome. We have to remember though that this entails a complete overhaul of the whole weapon system if it includes all current weapons. A more realistic approach would be to introduce T3 weapons that can be modified just as strategic cruisers in eve. It can then be decided if it is something every gun should have. Edit for awesome Well, the one thing I would say is this: why have non-modular weapons at all? If you can have a customization that deep, but still have pre-assembled models available in the market for people who are either new to the game or prefer just buying something that works, you've effectively got the same setup, but with less total assets in the game, less art assets that have to be made, and less possible in-engine assets to have to render in a fight. For example, EVE ships use skins that are 1024x1024 pixels. Tech-III ships in EVE use subsystems that are each 512x512. This allows them to have a high level of visual fidelity without making them too much of a resource hog to render. With Dust, if we're going to use the numbers I listed as a reference, you can make each "subsystem" the equivalent of 256x256 in order to allow weapons to look great without being too much of a resource hog. All of this is true and i'd love to see this just as you do. If they can manage the overhead, both in terms of development and system performance, by all means do it CCP. The pessimistic part of me tells me though that development resources are limited and all current weapon designs and code bases would have to be scrapped or largely rewritten even when we add pre-assambled versions that look identical to our current weapons unless we want to have two systems to maintain in parallel (which is possible but again costly). I fully support this idea if CCP can handle the increased complexity without significantly delaying content releases or worsen overall balance (another aspect that gets exponentionally more intricate when adding so many variables) Another possibilty would be making only new weapons customizable at first. This would limit the amount of extra work and allow for the system to be built first and then adopted by the rest of them when all design and programming quirks are dealt with.
That's kind of the neat thing, though.
I know people roll their eyes when I go off about MechWarrior: Living Legends, but one of the key aspects of how we designed our mod was to implement variants pulled from the tabletop game manuals and balance those against each other. We never managed to get around to implementing a "mech lab" before we eventually decided to halt the project after what was effectively 6 years of self-induced slave labor, but the idea was to achieve mech and weapon balance via a set of diverse and useful assets, and then use that to allow for a balanced full-customization system.
With all the metrics that CCP has shown that they're gathering right now, they could do the same thing.
As far as the idea of Tech-III weapons is concerned, I can see that too easily making our current weapons into the equivalent of the current Basic Frames. If they were to be their own set of weapons, suddenly they become required to be competitive, and anyone that hasn't been playing as long as us Beta guys again ends up shafted. |
Mobius Wyvern
BetaMax.
CRONOS.
2674
|
Posted - 2013.07.24 14:18:00 -
[4] - Quote
Cat Merc wrote:CCP said something about T3 level customization for all weapons coming Later(TM).
At this rate it's more like Never(EVER(ever(TM)))
Well, at least it's a statement in a good direction.
Hey, Hilmar said they'll be unveiling Walking in Stations next year, and that's been in the works since 2006 as well. Honestly, probably even before then.
They seem to have a greater interest in trying to fight the SOON stereotype lately. Only thing that sucks is I think that might have pushed them to release when they did, which obviously wasn't the best move.
Woflman's posts about 1.4 and 1.5 have me looking forward to the next few months, though, so hopefully we may see this change sooner rather than later. |
Mobius Wyvern
BetaMax.
CRONOS.
2677
|
Posted - 2013.07.24 17:57:00 -
[5] - Quote
Korvin Lomont wrote:Weapon customization would be sweet and is a popular request...
Taking that one step further and allowing people to tweak the most basic stats of their guns would be even more popular. |
Mobius Wyvern
BetaMax.
CRONOS.
2677
|
Posted - 2013.07.24 19:05:00 -
[6] - Quote
Alena Ventrallis wrote:I would like to see weapon customization, but I think they need to add in the base weapons and vehicles before worrying about customization. How can we know what we want our weapon to do if we don't even have all the options to play with yet?
That's exactly my point. With a full set in place, they can use the balance data they collect to work out a base for the modular weapons to work off of.
This is obviously more of a long-term thing than something immediate. |
Mobius Wyvern
BetaMax.
CRONOS.
2681
|
Posted - 2013.07.25 01:44:00 -
[7] - Quote
Aizen Intiki wrote:Interesting how the thing called search works. Type whatever you want in, and you get whatever you want. It seems as though nobodyuses it. Oh well..... but just to let you know, it's called rigging.
As far as I know, we still don't have an official name for this. Also, rigging would sound more akin to the percentage bonuses you can add to your ship in exchange for penalties in EVE.
I'm talking about buy a basic "frame" of a gun, and then building it to have exactly the traits you want.
Magpie Raven wrote:I absolutely love this idea! It just would be tottally awesome. I imagine this is what they mean when they talk about tech 3 equipment. Giving players the ability to actually effect the stats of thier weapons would be really cool. Let them tweak the range, power, ammo count, dispersion and other stuff by useing different pieces. As well as putting attachments on.
Honestly if they did this it would be a bit of a relief to me. Making everyone wait until they reach that far up the skill tree would **** people off. Players love customizing. Let people unlock and buy attachments for their weapons right from the get go. Save the fancy modular weapons for when they get to tech 3 stuff.
The idea here is actually to change all our current weapons to work like this. Basically, you only have one weapon per meta level, instead of up to 4 variants, but at each skill level you unlock components you can use to build the gun you want.
That way, even at, say, Combat Rifle I or II, you would have access to components that would let you customize even a gun of that level, providing newer players with a means to be competetive faster once they set up a build that suits their playstyle. |
Mobius Wyvern
BetaMax.
CRONOS.
2683
|
Posted - 2013.07.25 04:35:00 -
[8] - Quote
Malkai Inos wrote:Mobius Wyvern wrote:That's kind of the neat thing, though.
I know people roll their eyes when I go off about MechWarrior: Living Legends, but one of the key aspects of how we designed our mod was to implement variants pulled from the tabletop game manuals and balance those against each other. We never managed to get around to implementing a "mech lab" before we eventually decided to halt the project after what was effectively 6 years of self-induced slave labor, but the idea was to achieve mech and weapon balance via a set of diverse and useful assets, and then use that to allow for a balanced full-customization system.
With all the metrics that CCP has shown that they're gathering right now, they could do the same thing.
As far as the idea of Tech-III weapons is concerned, I can see that too easily making our current weapons into the equivalent of the current Basic Frames. If they were to be their own set of weapons, suddenly they become required to be competitive, and anyone that hasn't been playing as long as us Beta guys again ends up shafted. I'm not sure if i can properly follow your first point here so let and try paraphrase that. You are saying that the large amount of customization, while not making every possible combination equally strong, will still leave all or most guns with some combinations that are at least viable thus create an effectively self balancing system where single sub-modules can then be tweaked around without having to fear breaking anything as most unintended effects will be mitigated by players simply adapting through the wide range of options available to them? That's an interesting thought. If this works (and if i understand you correctly) it could solve or lessen some of the balance issues on top of dripping with awesome. It seems to me though that it would require quite a substantial amount of options that are at least within a reasonable range of general balance. And there's still the issue that potential outliers are harder to pin down by virtue of the options alone. The system could defeat it's own purpose if it turns out that every weapon has only one or two usable combinations after all. The second part is true but not impossible to manage. T3 in EVE is somewhat nicely balanced by generally not being as strong in any role as the respective T2 specialized vessel. This is a tradeoff for being that versatile (and oh god the SP penalty  ). I'm split on this issue as i would love having full customization on all weapons preferably by last week but i'm trying to maintain a level of realism that allows me to figure out an efficient and feasible way to pull this off for CCP.
As to your first points, yes, that's effectively what I'm saying.
In any case, the idea is to offer a very deep weapon customization system, but still keep a selection of presets that you can buy if you just want a gun and don't want to do a bunch of complex stuff. |
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