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2011-08-03, 03:42 AM | [Ignore Me] #1 | ||||
Colonel
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The original eve, when there was no t2, no level 5 prereqs, was pretty nice and didn't offer vets a giant advantage over newbs. A few weeks training got you to level 4 in most things, where you were 80 or 90% as capable as a dedicated vet.
I don't see a need for my character to be different than your character, because I'll play different, and if the classes and vehicles are properly balanced, there will be a good representation of everything on the field, because everything is useful. Just like the 9 classes of TF2 are commonly used, but seldom by any one person. If you want to be a special snowflake then practice hard and get good at what you love doing. Its largely pointless though. Higdog said, not sure where the quote is, that you can spend more than a year speccing out a single class/vehicle. So. Unless you plan to be playing for 20 or 30 years, and they add nothing new in that time, it shouldn't be an issue. And if you do play for that long.. You earned it imo. Last edited by CutterJohn; 2011-08-03 at 03:47 AM. |
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2011-08-03, 10:36 AM | [Ignore Me] #2 | |||||||
Contributor PlanetSide 2
Game Designer |
If PS2 is the same way with specialized players spending a year or more to max out their tree and getting passive bonuses for doing so then its the same situation as EVE - new players can't compete on the same level of a vet without investing the same amount of time. And by the time they do the vet has moved on to other things and they have to play catch-up there too. It's a dumb system and gives advantages to people who already have the huge advantage of game experience.
Eve started with a system that looks very similar to what PS2 is describing. What did they do when the skills converged and customization melted away? They added "tech 2" for the advanced skillset to reward people for specializing and customize further. But they used the same flawed system for it. So all they can do is make the skills take longer and increase the bonuses. Poor game design. PS2 should not follow in those footsteps.
They don't need anything on top of that.
I see no compelling argument why this is good for the game. The only argument I see is "well, it's not that big of a deal...", to which I would say "if so, what's the value?" and "why do it then?". If its not that big of a deal players wont' see the value in it and will want more, leading to the "tech 2" of PS2 as they try to add more value in and further complicate the problem. I'd like to stop that now and have a design that scales and not one that will just dig a bigger hole, not provide meaningful customization and discourage new players. There is another way they can do it while not having this bad behavior, which I identify in the OP. You can have the rewards, you can have meaningful specialization by looking at the same games they are already getting inspiration from - mmos like Warhammer, mmos like EVE (their ship customization, not their skill system), and fps like Battlefield (gadget slots and unlock mechanisms). The good designs are right there. |
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2011-08-03, 12:22 PM | [Ignore Me] #3 | |||||
Colonel
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I don't want a mechanic that gimps my character after all the time I'll be putting into it to ungimp the rpg sludge out of it. If there needs to be diversity, then make it a natural diversity. Sure, keep the pure upgrades to a minimum, I don't really care about those. But I'll be annoyed if for some arbitrary reason my character cannot remember something he learned, when I certainly can. Last edited by CutterJohn; 2011-08-03 at 12:24 PM. |
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2011-08-03, 12:42 PM | [Ignore Me] #4 | ||||
Contributor PlanetSide 2
Game Designer |
3 months? Who wants to wait 3 months to get competitive? Already lost players.
You are still going on about how it's just not a big deal and you seem largely indifferent. Why are you easily contented with a mediocre design? Perhaps you think we should be discussing something else? Not important enough? You seem to be going out of your way to convince me there's no problem here but your only argument is not that it isn't a problem, its that it isn't a big problem. Why not give feedback and ideas on how to make it the best it can be instead of just being content with something you see as passable? Last edited by Malorn; 2011-08-03 at 12:43 PM. |
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2011-08-03, 01:11 PM | [Ignore Me] #6 | |||
Colonel
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Thats why I am going on. I fundamentally disagree with limiting the character in any way other than what you can physically carry/fit on your vehicle. Your ideas make the rpg aspects worse, rather than better. For me at least. Last edited by CutterJohn; 2011-08-03 at 01:14 PM. |
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2011-08-03, 05:31 PM | [Ignore Me] #7 | |||||
Contributor PlanetSide 2
Game Designer |
More importantly I'm concerned with how the game scales. Think release + 1 year and they have a content expansion. Many players have converged and have most of the same skillsets providing the same passive power bonuses. There is no longer differentiation between players. What will they do? Well they already started down the path of power over time so they'll very likely continue down that path and expand and add more power bonuses. Just like EVE started with "not that big of a difference" it becomes a big difference and discourages new players. The immediate feedback I got from my outfit mates on the skill system was the "never catch up" problem EVE has with new players. It is not a good system. Player specialization and customization decreases over time as everyone obtains the same set of bonuses, and it only widens the gap between new players and veterans. 2-3 years down the line you have new players who would need to invest an enormous amount of real-world time to just get to where the vets are, and by the time they do the game will have new certs and things exposed. It never stops, and the longer it goes on the worse it gets for new players. Now is the time to change that course and pick a system that scales with additional content without upsetting power balance. I propose one based on other games with similar systems (including PS1 and EVE - use their ship customization model instead of their skill gain model). The game can still have unlocks over time just like games like BFBC2 have and very early on expose options to new players that give them some tradeoffs. they might not be "the best" possible tradeoff option for what they want to do, but its competitive and its something and they can work towards the bonuses important to them and have them in short order. No, what I propose does not trade power for time. It trades power for power, with time unlocking additional tradeoff (power for power) options.
There's also different types of unlocks. Vehicle and weapon upgrades cost resources and are on a different system, but bonuses that apply to your character's abilities and skills effectively work like implants. So you work up the cert tree and for simplicity lets say it only has 10 unlocks. You might have to make an implant-like decision and choose 3 of those 10 to run at any given time. If you want to change your style, go to a special terminal and change them. It can be a lot more complex than that with mutliple categories and different types of agumentations. As I described in an earlier post on this thread I think it could even end up looking like the sort of rich customization you have with an EVE Ship. You have some constraints, but you have complete freedom to tailor the character within those constraints with whatever augmentations you have unlocked. The expectation is that those augmentations are different but ultimately lead to about the same "power", just with different scopes and maginitudes and some may have tradeoffs built into them just like EVE ship modules do. The key observation is that instead of having small meaningless augmentations that everyone and anyone can have at all times you pick and choose much more meaningful augmentations that cater to your preferred playstyle. You can change them whenever you want, but there is some small inconvenience in doing so (going to a special terminal). The inconvienience exists only to make the specialization a quasi-stable decision just like implants are a quasi-stable decision.
I'm suggesting another layer where you choose the power bonuses. Those power bonuses are significant and meaningful and because of the limited number and the decisions you must make, that will differentiate you from other players who will make different decisions. Example, suppose you like assault rifles and choose to have an assault rifle damage bonus as one of your power augments. Whether you are a tank driver or a light assault infantry you get that bonus. If you occasional hop into a max suit or infiltrator then it won't be that useful to you, but if you do that with any regularity then you might have some differnet bonuses for those roles. Its no different than if you were swapping implants. Some implants are more or less useful in certain roles. "Surge" for example is not a very useful implant for a MAX, but if you don't spend a lot of time in a max or while you are flying aircraft, but you may feel it is a worthwhile implant for the times you don't. Same deal. Basically customization would have multiple levels. Tier 1: Cert tree - unlocks OPTIONS Class options, vehicle & equipment options, implant options, upgrade options, augment options Tier 2: Implants - set of activatable abilities Limited number, player chooses which activatable abilities they want. Darklight, audio amp, surge, etc Tier 3: Augments - passive player bonuses (this is what I am proposing) Limite dnumbe,r player chooses which augments they want. wide range of possibilities here to customize core character aspects. Rate of fire, movement speed, vehicle handling, etc. These can be significant bonuses. Tier 4: Class - controls the set of equipment and vehicles to which a player has access Tier 5: Equipment/vehicle upgrades - augments player equipment Consumes resources to augment vehicles and equipment. Add gun sights, expanded magazine, more tank armor, etc. As you move up the tiers you have increased levels of flexibility. Cert tree choices are the most permanent choices. Once you make them you can't go back and re-make them. Implants and Augments can be changed at certain places. Class can be changed very frequently, and equipment presumably moreso. The only thing the player gains over time is the cert tree, which is options. There is no direct power, and all such power gains are player decisions - which implant to use, which class to play, which augments to run, and which equipment/vehicle upgrades to buy. The main difference between what I have above and what we know of the game thus far is Tiers 1 and 3. Tier 3 doesn't exist to my knowledge at all and instead those agumentt bonuses are tied to cert tree decisions and are also very small, so small in fact that they aren't overly significant. I would like them to be not tied direclty to the cert tree and increased in magnitude, however to go along with that they would be limited in number so things stay competitive and to make those augment decisions meaningful, like implant decisions. Edit: Rbstr, I'm intentionally not responding to your EVE comments because it's semantics at this point and the EVE system is way off topic for this. The point is that there is a perception issue and a set of time before a new player is competitive. The former is bad for the game, the latter terrible for the game. Last edited by Malorn; 2011-08-03 at 05:34 PM. |
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2011-08-03, 06:08 PM | [Ignore Me] #8 | |||
Brigadier General
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I'm giving the devs the benefit of doubt that they actually want to achieve their stated goals, and they arn't just blowing sunshine up my ass. Frankly, I think your argument of "I totally know how this is going to play out" is premature. The conclusions you are making are leaps in logic based on the assumption that the devs are either lying or incompetent. Alot of what you've been saying has been based on your experience with EVE, and I've never played the game, so I concede that my knowledge of its mechanics are extremely limited. However, I'm sure that the combat between EVE and PS2 are completely different, so making an apples to apples comparison of balance is going to be inherantly flawed and therefore not worth as much stock as you seem to be putting into it. Basically, lets see what it will look like for PS2 before we start advocating for throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Then, to extrapolate that out several years and say, "well it might be good for year 1, but by year 5 the game will be forever broken" you have to ignore the fact that the game will be supported (much better than PS1 it seems) and problems can be addressed and fixed. I'm not going to redesign the automobile because I know the radiator will leak someday. I'll fix the radiator if and when it becomes a problem. Look, you are obviously a very intelligent guy, and make well thought out points. I just think it's early to be concerned about issues 5 years from now that the devs are already aware of. |
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2011-08-04, 09:58 AM | [Ignore Me] #9 | ||||||
Colonel
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Not seeing a misunderstanding. Me: If I cert damage for an infantry weapon, I want to be able to put that on the weapon when I pull that weapon. You: That damage bonus for an infantry weapon would be an implant like thing you must make a side trip for to change out
Last edited by CutterJohn; 2011-08-04 at 10:05 AM. |
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