Scottie MaCallan
Krusual Covert Operators
Minmatar Republic
39
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Posted - 2013.08.09 23:30:00 -
[1] - Quote
just wanted to post to say I absolutely love this thread.
Also, as for the OP,
MODIFIED EVE
- definitely my favorite alternative to the current dropsuit tree, the prereqs aren't too bad, and I'm assuming it would require you to reach level 5 in a frame suit to be able to train the specialty skills. I would say that this would mean we should have higher multipliers for the frame suits to balance the SP and make it so you can't just burn through dropsuit skills and pick all of them up, but I like it way more than the current tree. There's no useless frame skils (IE any frame above 3 right now is wasted SP), it allows for crosstraining your role much easier, as in EVE, which gives people dedicated to a role more flexibility (like a scout that can go for minmatar CQC or gallente recon without blowing months of SP that just feel like a sink).
TECH LINES
- this makes way more sense than the current weapon tree, and would alleviate the boredom of specialization currently in DUST (why specialize if it means I have to grind through hours with the same guns and mods? that's boring. nobody wants to do that in a FPS, and it means that in pub matches, some games you will just underperform with no alternative. This is a huge difference between EVE and DUST right now. For starters, in EVE you can specialize into a career but still do different things with your ships and skills, and secondly, in EVE it's a lot less time intensive to get in a bunch of different hulls and fits. Not like DUST right now, specialization combined with power creep makes you feel pressured to go into a single role, single weapon, single fit build until you have like 10m SP. My one comment would be we should maybe keep sidearms and light/heavy (primary) weapons separate still
one comment would be, some of your proposed weapon upgrade skills are useless and/or OP. Like optimal range or falloff bonus, that's an imbalanced skill and could disrupt the way the game flows. After all this time CCP has spent modifying those values I think it's clear that they work very differently in a FPS than in EVE. Also they would make the current power creep problem in the STD to PROTO progression we currently have even worse. I mean, we could have alternatives, or more specialized skills that do similar things without altering optimal/falloff ranges, but only to certain classes of weapons. Tracking upgrades also seems silly for guns as CCP Wolfman is toying with removing suit based turn speed. Also turning speed is suit based, not weapon based at the moment. For vehicles, sure, but infantry doesn't work the same
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Scottie MaCallan
Krusual Covert Operators
Minmatar Republic
40
|
Posted - 2013.08.10 17:31:00 -
[2] - Quote
J-Lewis wrote:
The point stands though:
Players should be encouraged by game design to diversify, but encouraged by players to specialize. Which really just means that the game should offer all these tempting options for players, all of which seem great and distracting from what you're trying to accomplish. Like a kid in a candy store, going in for toffee and coming out with sugar canes.
Let players handle the meta and what constitutes specialization. Specialization was always and still is but player advice in EVE; the skill tree does quite the opposite. You get diminishing returns when your specialize, so diversifying just seems more and more tempting the further you specialize.
I cannot state enough how critically DUST currently fails at that particular point. I'd rather see many players able to field everything than every player only fielding one thing. Being able to field anything is a valid goal.
I want to kill a shotgun scout and see him come back with a fit that counters what he thinks I'm using, not the same shotgun scout again and again. I want him to kill me so I can come back with a different fit to counter what I think he is using. It progresses the meta, and really ups the competitive nature of DUST.
I think that's what's killing the game more than anything else. More than aiming mechanics or gun-play. Without diversity, things get stale and people leave.
So much yes here. I mean, the quickest way to get someone to quit a FPS is to pidgeonhole them into a single role. That's why I don't play CoD anymore, higher level play degenerates instantly into a single class, everyone runs the same perks, same guns, same everything. Even if CCP manages to balance all the classes properly, making no single fit the winner in every situation, we will still see this single fit problem in any new players looking to do well and get into the game, the current skill tree penalizes you for wanting to use more than one fit. AND it takes months to get that single fit, I mean, I've been playing since february (not religiously, I will admit, but on a regular basis), and my main has 5.2m SP, in other words, still several million away from my perfect shotgun scout fit. That's a single suit, single weapon, single sidearm fit. I'd need to invest even more to get a scout with several truly different fits. That's a turn off, that encourages people to quit for 6 months and come back later, play until I'm bored of my role, quit for six months, and come back later.
In comparison, we have games like TF2 or BF3. In BF3, I can be combat effective in 4 basic roles within a week or two of playing. Then, I have to dedicate significant chunks of time to specialize that role. But the important thing is, I can go run a support/shotgun class, or go marksman sniper, or go long range sniper, or go AV, or frontline assault, and not perform completely miserably within the first month of playing. It takes many more months to get that perfect, final tier sniper with all the perfect attachments & equipment, but that just makes me specialized, it's not a flat out power creep like DUST's std. To proto level gear power creep. In DUST, a proto shotgun scout is just a standard shotgun scout on steroids.
In TF2, I can be generally combat effective in each of the classes, but I have to dedicate time to specialize in a class. So now I have, say, 5 potential pyro classes, 3 spy classes, 3 demoman classes, and maybe only 1 medic class. So I'm rewarded with more specialized roles of my favorite roles, but can swap roles when one is ineffective, or I get bored of playing. This is what DUST doesn't let you do until you grind up 10m or more SP, which is bull. The fastest way to get someone to quit a FPS is to get them bored, and the fastest way to do that is to force a single role with the amount of SP sinks DUST has right now.
But yea, I think the two trees I liked do a pretty good job of alleviating this problem in DUST, although they are only half the problem (the other half being power creep, and the need to make proto specialized, and slightly more powerful in certain areas, but not the exponential power jump it can be when all proto suits/weapons/mods in a single fit get stacked together). The EVE style suit tree makes frames useful again, and rewards dedication to a role with specialization, not power creep, while your tech tree weapon skill variation encourages the use of more weapons without too dramatically reducing the SP investment, adding variety that can keep players interested and engaged. |