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trollsroyce
Seraphim Initiative.
CRONOS.
615
   |
Posted - 2013.07.26 15:37:00 -
[1] - Quote
I was a whiner and a doomsayer. I want to HTFU and begin posting better now, so I'll start with my idea of a complete re-do of the PC mechanics. This is the first in posting series for some adjustments which I think would make Dust a better experience. I cornily named it after a cliche phrase to underline the very harsh and radical approach I candidate to the game design.
TLDR: majority of battles are unimportant and only a grind to open up the important battles, Joe average gets to play PC in these grind battles. Grind battles are contracted as public games by standings.
HTFU 1: Planetary Conquest to make use of player numbers and politics.
Problematics of current system:
The main issue to me is the exclusivity of the sandbox, which is the main catch of the game as a stand out FPS. A 16 vs 16 environment has, by default, no place for low SP, low skill players. Compared to EVE sandbox, Dust by design has huge issues in being an easy entry, newbie friendly sandbox because top players will always be filling the spots in PC fights. In EVE sandbox you can bring more, so everyone is welcome.
The second big issue are timezones and timers, the way they imprison players to feel forced to play during their off times. You have to be defending at a certain time, you are allowed to attack at a certain time. The timer mechanics essentially push players into timezone blocks (CRONOS vs. US) because the dominant timezone would otherwise become the main timezone of the sandbox. Let's say players are evenly distributed amongst alliances, with 75% residing in the US timezones. This could lead to most if not all timers being ultimately adjusted to the big timezone where the big player pool allows best 16 man team form ups.
What could be learned from EVE:
In EVE, before timers come into play and force fights, there are structure grinds. These are horrible, but they allow space for all skill level players to weigh in on the alliance effort. The following solution takes this thinking and mixes it with what we have in order to alleviate the importance of timers and 16vs16 elitism.
Solution: free time grind, final timer fight.
In short: most of PC conquest of a district is grinding down defenses at any time of attacker choise; timers only come in play with the final flip over battle. A district has a reinforcement timer like now, but it also has clone shields. The offender has to grind down those shields by multiple battles in order to be able to attack the final timed battle that results in either shields coming back to full or district flip.
GRIND BATTLES:
The system is two tiered. First are the "unimportant", "bulk", "numbers game" grind fights. These are done through a system equivalent to FW: the involved alliances pay an on going contract for public games to happen on the districts of their choise, and the attacking side in those public games grinds down shield points instead of MCC hitpoints. Generally, shields take 5 victorious matches to shut down.
The defender by default joins these matches in public queues as well as the attacker, on their own sides depending on alliance/corp standings. By their public nature, these matches are supposedly (but not forcedly) inorganized. This basically fixes the issue of "no-shows" in PC; if the defender no-shows, random public gamers take their place. These shield grind matches are at least 80% of the PC fights by this system, and as they are automated by long standing contracts instead of picking single fights, they fill up without management.
FINAL BATTLE:
After the shields have been ground down comes the main fight. The timer for these main fights is chosen using the timer system in place. The final battle is the current PC iteration of clone wars, but with only one fight that will go on until the bitter end of clone depletion. If defenders win, the shields come back up to 100% and the public grind starts all over. If attackers win, the district is instantly flipped with shields online.
This final battle is the one that decides stuff. This is where you bring the best 16 man team you can ever field. This is the exclusive 20% or less of the planetary conquest. Surely steamrolling the public grind games gets you there faster, but resetting the shields is the spoils of the victor.
POLITICS AND MANAGEMENT
The system, by human nature, favors the underdog. A prominent and hated alliance will get multiple contracts on their districts for public grind down by random parties who want to see giants fall. Players pick sides on the conflict: setting alliances mutual blue gets you in the bulk PC fights. The standings have to be mutual to be selected; this helps against AWOXing.
The contract based system takes a burden off the back of management in automated battle forming. This also combats no-shows due to lack of morale. As most of the battles are automated and relatively meaningless grinds (but more meaningful than random public games which they are an alternative to), Joe average gets to participate in PC. This opens the sandbox up to newbies and casual players. All you need to do is pick sides and be accepted as a volunteer through the standings. As the matches are unimportant (they only decide how fast the important matches come up), awoxing and sabotaging is much less of an issue and the trust barrier is lowered in letting people participate in the war effort.
DISCUSSION FOLLOWS
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trollsroyce
Seraphim Initiative.
CRONOS.
615
|
Posted - 2013.07.26 15:46:00 -
[2] - Quote
Placeholder |
Bendtner92
Internal Error.
Negative-Feedback
808
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Posted - 2013.07.26 15:59:00 -
[3] - Quote
In my opinion PC is mostly fine right now, with a few changes perhaps.
Lower warning - replace the current 24 hour minimum warning with a 2-4 hour one instead.
No passive ISK generation (or extremely low) - districts would only be a means to getting fights.
Higher rewards for winning - incentive for fighting, and winning means something (a lot). Although the rewards could maybe be okay already, if we could just get a way to trade/sell our loot.
I don't see PC as something the entire (or most of) playerbase to be involved in. I have no problem with it just being something for the top 1%, 5% or whatever the number is. PC in my mind is something for the most competitive part of your corporation/alliance, while FW with the implementation of team- and multisquad deployment is the place for the rest. |
trollsroyce
Seraphim Initiative.
CRONOS.
615
|
Posted - 2013.07.26 16:01:00 -
[4] - Quote
The way I see it opening up the PC war effort for FW contracts would only open up the sandbox and make it more interactive, capable of pulling in more players to Dust.
The district flip battles would be ultra competitive, as they would basically be sudden death mode PC. |
trollsroyce
Ametat Security
Amarr Empire
616
|
Posted - 2013.07.29 14:40:00 -
[5] - Quote
Bump. |
Friendly Woodsman
Subdreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
74
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Posted - 2013.07.29 16:13:00 -
[6] - Quote
I like the idea of shields on the planets. They could be used to protect the main complex of each district and have similar mechanics to Eve POS shields.
Anyone could deploy to any district, but you can't do anything except maybe shoot some installations until the shields that protect the main buildings are taken down. Give the Dust dudes a special piece of equipment that allows them to target paint the shields for a co-ordinated bombardment by both Eve ships and Dust tanks/hacked installations. When the shields get to a certain point, the Strontium reinforcement timer kicks in and the shields get 99.9% resists across the board. The Stront holding facility can only keep that up for so long before running out, making the shields vulnerable to a final attack. When the shields go down, the null cannons come online and the MCCs get deployed per usual.
Done correctly, a shield system could generate content 23.5hrs/day. Maybe there are shield generators placed throughout the district that give a boost to the base HP of the facility's shields, or change the resist profile of the shields. If you wander the district and find these generators, you could hack the lock on the generator and blow it up from the inside while your Wookie does a victory dance because you just saved your fleet a boat load of time on taking out these shields. Of course, the defenders get notifications every time you start messing with their stuff, and can deploy to defend ("oh you've got a dude with a target painter lighting up my shields? Cool story, bro. I has snipers.").
The current mechanics seem too artificial to me. The arbitrary 24hr timer system completely breaks the immersion that should happen in a game that takes place in New Eden. If there is a timer, why? A timer based on a shield that is running through a given amount of fuel makes sense. A timer just to have a timer means that we are a long ways away from a sandbox. |
trollsroyce
Ametat Security
Amarr Empire
617
|
Posted - 2013.07.29 16:25:00 -
[7] - Quote
Thanks for the input! The timer kill is my second priority with this idea. Making it public is the first priority; PC needs accessibility because it is the story generator that makes or breaks dust.
Allowing everyone the chance of breaking shields either through public pvp or through future pve should give everyone a chance to matter. |
Oso Peresoso
RisingSuns
382
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Posted - 2013.07.29 17:34:00 -
[8] - Quote
Bendtner92 wrote:
Lower warning - replace the current 24 hour minimum warning with a 2-4 hour one instead.
Wouldn't this be just a huge pain in the ass to everyone involved? People have lives. In particular, Dust being on the PS3 instead of PC presents some additional barriers to smooth communication and organization regarding Corp Battles and timers.
Quote:I don't see PC as something the entire (or most of) playerbase to be involved in. I have no problem with it just being something for the top 1%, 5% or whatever the number is. PC in my mind is something for the most competitive part of your corporation/alliance, while FW with the implementation of team- and multisquad deployment is the place for the rest.
I sort of agree with this, with the exception that currently FW fails super-hard at providing interesting content to the rest of the players. Specifically, its not very distinct from instant battles. On the other hand, once the number of concurrent players in a battle rises to 64 and above, and when multiple corp battles are being fought in a day, and sometimes concurrently, PC will (and probably should) lose some of its elite feel. Not that people won't still bring their best stuff to fight, they certainly will, but success in PC should be based on more than just how your best 16 stack vs the opposition's best 16. Timers, corp depth, organization, overall skill should play into it. |
trollsroyce
Ametat Security
Amarr Empire
625
|
Posted - 2013.07.29 17:50:00 -
[9] - Quote
PC should have both the competitive side (final battles which mean everything) and strategic side (public battles which make final battles happen more often through politics, numbers etc).
If the prominent part of the sandbox is not open for the large public like it is in EVE (nullsec, everyone can go there and contribute) it won't generate the content needed to keep the game alive. The more players PC affects, the more stories come from it. The more stories about dust, the more players you get in the long run. |
trollsroyce
Ametat Security
Amarr Empire
638
|
Posted - 2013.07.31 13:09:00 -
[10] - Quote
bump |
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