Let's begin with an explanation of what grinding is in a video game. Grinding is essentially any repetitive task using the same strategy over and over again to advance in the game. So let's talk about why it's importa- no, it's not important. At all. It's a silly mechanic that was put in place by every MMO designer -ever- for the sake of two things.
A.) To increase the time and disparity between lower level and higher level rewards.
B.) As a brutal means of influencing players to spend money for reduced grinding.
That's the basis of it in and of it's entirety and you can beat around the bush all you want but inevitably that's what it comes down to, one or both of those aspects. Every game has some form of grinding, some are absolutely terrible with it's execution (RuneScape) and some are actually pretty creative with it (FF-XII).
So what separates a "good" grind versus a "bad" grind? Execution and implementation. If it's actually enjoyable it's hard to consider it grinding, such is the case with Final Fantasy XII (as mentioned before) in which you're given a 'chain' for killing the same mob repeatedly (maximum of 999). This 'chain' will give you better rewards as you progress and actually leaves you with a sense of "I wonder what I'll get next" for those that are patient.
On the other hand... We have Dust... Which is the epitome of grinding. Apart from the miniscule amounts of SP we obtain through passive accumulation, the only way to gain SP/ISK is through matchmaker grinding. This effectively turns the most innovative and inspired shooter to hit the Playstation 3 into the most advanced lobby shooter with -potential- to become the greatest console FPS of all time.
What we have is a system that rewards players for in-game combat in which the weak get powerful and the powerful get more powerful -in the same area-. There is no point to it. It's repetitive, dull and ultimately disruptive to the game's overall health due to damaging the general balance between new and old players. Without more innovative content to provide some sort of meaningful engagement, the game swirls in place without moving.
Some may say that PvE content (drones) will aid to this, but I severely doubt that it will as it will just add a "co-op" shooter aspect to the game that... you guessed it... is just grinding, without the human element behind the mind of the opposition. There needs to be some sort of -reason- for it all, as the game suggests in many of it's advertisements and media outlets.
The very closest means of obtaining that reason are Factional Warfare and Planetary Conquest, both of which are inherently flawed for various reasons. Planetary Conquest is reserved for the top tier players who already have enough ISK to be able to compete in Planetary Conquest as it is very difficult to get a foot hold with a Starter Pack of clones. This goes right back to grinding as, wouldn't you know it, to get to PC Capability you need to have 16 players who have spent enough time grinding to be able to field the necessary gear to be competitive.
Factional Warfare is flawed in that it allows anyone to participate - removing the disparity between the two players entirely - and it gives you no means of meaningful interaction with Eve Online other than implication. A corporation can fight for a faction and work hard as the dickens to turn a planet over entirely in their faction's favor but given as there's no way to control -WHAT- planet or district you're going to, it's far too easy to have it immediately flipped again. You're not only forced to fight in an area that the game decides, you're also at the mercy of available slots if you're in a squad or multiple squads.
Of course, this will be changed whenever CCP Implements the overhauled FW matchmaker which will allow entire 16 man teams to deploy together but the fact still remains - there's no way to control where you're going. Anything you accomplished that night can be immediately undone because of this. Beyond that, there's no way to see the impact you're even making given that there isn't enough information being provided (what faction owns the system the planet is in, how well they're doing, what impact the districts your faction possesses is making etc etc). With that in mind, you can kiss meaningful interaction goodbye.
So that leaves us with Instant Matchmaking - Hi-sec, in other words, and I don't need to give a long drawn-out explanation of all the issues surrounding this part of the game and why it's absolutely lacking.
The content that this game needs should be meaningful and have long lasting effects. Drone warfare isn't going to solve a damn thing and Planetary Conquest is just... Broken.. It has the same exact issue as Eve Online in that large alliances/power blocs control everything and if you're going to make it there you have to be able to field similar gear, similar numbers and meta-game the dogshit out of the system (that means using ALL the cheap tricks, formerly Flaylocks/Contact Grenades) to be remotely competitive. Otherwise you're going to be stuck in a perpetual state of timers.
My best suggestion is to make EVERYTHING matter. Faction Warfare shouldn't just be a match maker with some subtle if not vague impact on Eve Online that no-one really notices. It should actually mean something to the players who are participating, giving benefits for the faction who controls the most territory - as it does in Eve Online. If Faction Warfare is more beneficial than your Instant Matchmaking, there might be a migration of veteran players toward it as it's more rewarding. This doesn't mean "nyeeeh higher isk rewards" - I think there's plenty of room to work something more unique in there. We already have enough ISK generation.
Factional Warfare needs to provide Dust players the information they need to see what kind of impact their making - the percentage differential on the solar system's capture status. The solar systems in which Eve players have conquered for their particular faction, etc.
We need to think outside of the box - rather than just tacking on more "grind" content to the game we need to implement more engaging features. Things that players WANT to do and while I'm sure "shooting someone in the face" is a great answer, there are a vast amount of games that include "shooting someone in the face" in their list of features.
The answer to this needs to be innovative - something unique to Dust 514 that no other game has. We have an amazing starting point and it's been sitting there for over a decade: Eve Online. What ways can we actually make Dust 514 more interactive with Eve Online and what ways can we do it that make the interaction meaningful and engaging without the repetitious bull that every other game already provides (better in some cases)?
The answer is simple: Player Driven Content. The development team simply cannot keep up with the fluctuating masses. It's impossible, why? Because everyone has a different opinion - but that difference in opinion is an AMAZING conflict driver and where you have conflict you will inevitably have some sort of social interaction. This is something that CCP cannot influence and should make no effort in attempting because it would be unnatural.
What they SHOULD do, on the other hand, is provide the tools necessary to make those social interactions readily available and plentiful. This is exactly what Eve Online hallmarked on and is what it is known for. There's been a few MMO attempts who've tried to dive into Eve Online's niche role but inevitably failed because they didn't grasp the core concept of player driven interactions.
Here's a video (the highlight of my argument) I'd like everyone to watch to help understand what's going on with Dust 514 right now and how we can make it better for the future. Turning it from Operant Conditioning (playing for a reward we know we will get, I.E SP/ISK) to Player Immersion and Engagement (playing for the novelty and experiences we craft for ourselves):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbtAn3dic-g#at=394
Monday, August 12, 2013
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Fever Dreams, New Player Experience
Haven't updated this blog due to being sick as a dog to the extent I've been having fever dreams of a Dust 514/Firefall mixture. I think it wound up being something like the Defiance video game but with a sexier GUI.
At any rate, this edition (while I'm dosed up on Codeine) is based on the new player experience as it currently stands. Obviously this is a temporary thing according to CCP Grayscale but new players are getting sent out of the Instant Battle Academy at 400 WP, this is literally one game even for some of the worst players and considering all you have to do to amass that is get 20 kills or hack 4 objectives, it's easy to get past the limit.
So, with that in mind I probably did something really stupid and came up with thread on E-Bushido and how I personally am not going to fire on starter fits (Assault - Frontline, for example) as it's not really giving new players an opportunity if they're just getting their ass handed to them by someone with 18,000,000 SP. There was a great deal of mixed reaction but what surprised me the most is that there were players actually saying that it's teaching them bad habits.
I'm sitting here thinking to myself, "What the hell kind of bad habits could that possibly teach a new player? Are we considering actually leaving the Red Line and not AFK camping the MCC to be bad habits?" Of course, there is the fact that these players are all from PC capable corporations so honestly I feel their opinion is moot - wanting to kill new players just so they can rack up their KDR and feel like they're some kind of shooter god.
But this isn't good for the game's health by any means. New players don't have the tools they need to make conscious decisions to be able to fight back and potentially do really good - I've even heard of new players becoming frustrated because a veteran's shields recharge faster than they can apply damage due to stacked regulators and the math makes sense being as a Caldari Assault can potentially have a 1.5-2.0 second recharge delay. This essentially means that they'd be able to recover shield HP before you've even finished reloading as a new player.
The only weapon(s) in the game that even classify as something a new player can use effectively against veterans are the Mass Driver and the Plasma Cannon as they're very similar to the aptly named "noob tube" in the Call of Duty franchise but they also require just as much skill as any other weapon. Despite this, if they're dropping that much SP into a weapon such as that just to stay competitive they're probably not putting much SP into their survivability.
What it all boils down to is that new players can't apply as much damage or be able to take as much as a veteran who is going to have both of those aspects locked down around the 10,000,000 SP mark. While segregated new players from veterans is a bad thing there isn't any other way for them to have the tools they need to stay competitive until they have a lot of SP and the only way they can get it (without something like PvE) is if they ARE segregated into their own little area of the game. Otherwise, they're just going to keep getting slaughtered on a game that isn't difficult, it's just punishing.
For more information, see these videos that explain the balance of skill and power as well as explain the difference between a difficult and a punishing game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toVNkuCELpU
At any rate, this edition (while I'm dosed up on Codeine) is based on the new player experience as it currently stands. Obviously this is a temporary thing according to CCP Grayscale but new players are getting sent out of the Instant Battle Academy at 400 WP, this is literally one game even for some of the worst players and considering all you have to do to amass that is get 20 kills or hack 4 objectives, it's easy to get past the limit.
So, with that in mind I probably did something really stupid and came up with thread on E-Bushido and how I personally am not going to fire on starter fits (Assault - Frontline, for example) as it's not really giving new players an opportunity if they're just getting their ass handed to them by someone with 18,000,000 SP. There was a great deal of mixed reaction but what surprised me the most is that there were players actually saying that it's teaching them bad habits.
I'm sitting here thinking to myself, "What the hell kind of bad habits could that possibly teach a new player? Are we considering actually leaving the Red Line and not AFK camping the MCC to be bad habits?" Of course, there is the fact that these players are all from PC capable corporations so honestly I feel their opinion is moot - wanting to kill new players just so they can rack up their KDR and feel like they're some kind of shooter god.
But this isn't good for the game's health by any means. New players don't have the tools they need to make conscious decisions to be able to fight back and potentially do really good - I've even heard of new players becoming frustrated because a veteran's shields recharge faster than they can apply damage due to stacked regulators and the math makes sense being as a Caldari Assault can potentially have a 1.5-2.0 second recharge delay. This essentially means that they'd be able to recover shield HP before you've even finished reloading as a new player.
The only weapon(s) in the game that even classify as something a new player can use effectively against veterans are the Mass Driver and the Plasma Cannon as they're very similar to the aptly named "noob tube" in the Call of Duty franchise but they also require just as much skill as any other weapon. Despite this, if they're dropping that much SP into a weapon such as that just to stay competitive they're probably not putting much SP into their survivability.
What it all boils down to is that new players can't apply as much damage or be able to take as much as a veteran who is going to have both of those aspects locked down around the 10,000,000 SP mark. While segregated new players from veterans is a bad thing there isn't any other way for them to have the tools they need to stay competitive until they have a lot of SP and the only way they can get it (without something like PvE) is if they ARE segregated into their own little area of the game. Otherwise, they're just going to keep getting slaughtered on a game that isn't difficult, it's just punishing.
For more information, see these videos that explain the balance of skill and power as well as explain the difference between a difficult and a punishing game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EitZRLt2G3w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toVNkuCELpU
Monday, August 5, 2013
Perfecting the Role - Splash Damage
Copied from my article on the Dust 514, linked here:
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=99917&find=unread
I'm going to try to keep this edition of the 'Perfecting the Roles' series as brief as possible because it's honestly not as in depth as some of my previous posts.
That doesn't make it any less important however and honestly I feel that this edition is the most important article I've written to date and I'm actually very intrigued to see what CCP Wolfman and Remnant have to say about it.
This all started as a rumor I heard among my corporation that Mass Drivers did full damage no matter what range as long as it was within the splash radius. Essentially what this meant is that one meter away or five meters away, it was still going to do the full amount of damage.
Well, to that end I have some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that this myth isn't true - there is an escalation toward damage as the round lands closer and closer to the target.
The bad news, and this is very important, is that splash damage completely ignores the rules of damage application to shields and armor. That being said, the damage application peak is pretty steep. From our testing we've found that at the very edge of it's splash radius it will do very little damage but it shoots straight up to it's full damage potential at around half of it's splash radius.
So let's talk a little more about the damage application toward tanking style and why this is important.
According to the laws of Weapon Efficiency vs Shield/Armor that the game sets forth, a standard Mass Driver with no skills (I.E, me) will do 242 direct damage and 116 splash damage at it's base. Now, being as it is an explosive weapon it's supposed to do less damage to shields and more damage to armor.
This is where we run into our first problem.
- The efficiency of the weapon isn't the same as is listed on the dev blog:
https://web.ccpgamescdn.com/dust/news.control/64862/1/damageprofiles.jpg
As we can see here, the listed damage is -20% to shields and +20% to armor. It's actually something like -30% on shields and we're not sure what the efficiency is on armor because we weren't brave enough to go that far.
Now the second (and most important) problem.
- Splash damage is not affected by the reduced efficiency and will do normal damage.
We conducted the test by setting up a Nanohive as our staging point and having the target (in this case a Proto Heavy) stand 4m away. All skills considered on my end, the maximum splash radius on the Mass Driver is 4.2m. At approximately 2m, the weapon starts to dish out full splash damage. In this range we found a running average of 115.6 damage - right about what it's supposed to do without reduced efficiency.
Direct damage does have the application of reduced damage to shields, however, with direct rounds landing 170 damage consistently (reduced from 242, according to basic mathematics it's supposed to do 169.4, so this is right around what it's supposed to). Headshots are consistent as well, so the only discrepancy is the splash damage not being affected by these numbers.
That being said we tried some other weapons out to see how they were affected and whether or not this was localized just to the Mass Driver.
What we discovered is that there is definitely something odd going on with the weapons as the Forge Gun did a whopping 300 damage (splash damage for the militia is 231) and the Plasma Cannon did 323 (with my skills it was supposed to do 302 - though this is consistent with increased damage to shields). Unfortunately the testing site at this point was being harassed by other players who refused to acknowledge that we were testing for the sake of easy(ier?) kills.
So, what we do know is that there is some outside interference with Splash Damage. Something is occurring with it to increase the amount of damage beyond what is being listed on 'Show Info'. We don't know what it is yet but you can bet that we're going to be conducted further tests until we figure out exactly what it is.
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=99917&find=unread
I'm going to try to keep this edition of the 'Perfecting the Roles' series as brief as possible because it's honestly not as in depth as some of my previous posts.
That doesn't make it any less important however and honestly I feel that this edition is the most important article I've written to date and I'm actually very intrigued to see what CCP Wolfman and Remnant have to say about it.
This all started as a rumor I heard among my corporation that Mass Drivers did full damage no matter what range as long as it was within the splash radius. Essentially what this meant is that one meter away or five meters away, it was still going to do the full amount of damage.
Well, to that end I have some good news and some bad news.
The good news is that this myth isn't true - there is an escalation toward damage as the round lands closer and closer to the target.
The bad news, and this is very important, is that splash damage completely ignores the rules of damage application to shields and armor. That being said, the damage application peak is pretty steep. From our testing we've found that at the very edge of it's splash radius it will do very little damage but it shoots straight up to it's full damage potential at around half of it's splash radius.
So let's talk a little more about the damage application toward tanking style and why this is important.
According to the laws of Weapon Efficiency vs Shield/Armor that the game sets forth, a standard Mass Driver with no skills (I.E, me) will do 242 direct damage and 116 splash damage at it's base. Now, being as it is an explosive weapon it's supposed to do less damage to shields and more damage to armor.
This is where we run into our first problem.
- The efficiency of the weapon isn't the same as is listed on the dev blog:
https://web.ccpgamescdn.com/dust/news.control/64862/1/damageprofiles.jpg
As we can see here, the listed damage is -20% to shields and +20% to armor. It's actually something like -30% on shields and we're not sure what the efficiency is on armor because we weren't brave enough to go that far.
Now the second (and most important) problem.
- Splash damage is not affected by the reduced efficiency and will do normal damage.
We conducted the test by setting up a Nanohive as our staging point and having the target (in this case a Proto Heavy) stand 4m away. All skills considered on my end, the maximum splash radius on the Mass Driver is 4.2m. At approximately 2m, the weapon starts to dish out full splash damage. In this range we found a running average of 115.6 damage - right about what it's supposed to do without reduced efficiency.
Direct damage does have the application of reduced damage to shields, however, with direct rounds landing 170 damage consistently (reduced from 242, according to basic mathematics it's supposed to do 169.4, so this is right around what it's supposed to). Headshots are consistent as well, so the only discrepancy is the splash damage not being affected by these numbers.
That being said we tried some other weapons out to see how they were affected and whether or not this was localized just to the Mass Driver.
What we discovered is that there is definitely something odd going on with the weapons as the Forge Gun did a whopping 300 damage (splash damage for the militia is 231) and the Plasma Cannon did 323 (with my skills it was supposed to do 302 - though this is consistent with increased damage to shields). Unfortunately the testing site at this point was being harassed by other players who refused to acknowledge that we were testing for the sake of easy(ier?) kills.
So, what we do know is that there is some outside interference with Splash Damage. Something is occurring with it to increase the amount of damage beyond what is being listed on 'Show Info'. We don't know what it is yet but you can bet that we're going to be conducted further tests until we figure out exactly what it is.
Friday, August 2, 2013
Perfecting The Roles - Active Scanners
Copy and pasted from my thread on the forums for ease of reading and consolidation purposes.
Original thread: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1132728
I'm going to throw this out there in underlined text so for emphasis as it's highly important.
These tests were performed because we're trying to fix a problem before it's a problem. It should be taken at face value but also considered for potential imbalance. The only reason it hasn't been brought to light yet is due to their gross lack of use at the moment for a variety of reasons.
Active Scanner Tests on first suit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qtsvpnfa9w&feature=youtu.be
'Passive' Scanning Tests on second suit): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2nu8C7dIQg&feature=youtu.be
Active Scanner visibility duration bug: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrdVoeFUYhQ&feature=youtu.be
(first suit) Minmatar Scout Suit Profile: 45 db
- With his skills: 33.07 db
(second suit with two basic profile dampeners (-30% profile))
- 23.15 db
(Standard) Active Scanner Precision: 46 db
‘Eclipse’ Active Scanner Precision: 36 db
‘Acoylth’ Active Scanner Precision: 28 db
The first suit we had some issues with the ‘Eclipse’ Scanner which was sort of hit or miss. One instance it would scan him down, the next instance it wouldn’t. The ‘Acolyth’ picked him up instantly as you can see in the video.
The second suit on the other hand was able to defeat all of them and as I’ve explained in other threads, even with all skills level five he wouldn’t have been able to get past the ‘Acolyth’ scanner without applying Profile Dampener modules which would inevitably gimp his suit due to only having two low slots. This applies to all Scouts as even with all skills at level 5 the profile just doesn't go low enough to beat 28 db precision (the value for -ALL- prototype active scanners) without the aid of Profile Dampening modules.
To give our readers a fond understanding of how the scanning system works, the precision of the person doing the scanning (be it active or passive) has to be LESS THAN the profile of the target in question. Being as my Logistics Suit’s base precision is 50 db with a scan radius of 10 meters, there is absolutely no reason I should be able to see him appear on TacNet (the location of enemies/installations on the map) but as we can see from the second video, this is not the case.
As seen in the third video there seems to be a visibility duration bug with the active scanners. The scanner in question for that video is the ‘Acolyth’ which has a visibility duration of 5.0 seconds, but as you can clearly see the actual value on that is closer to 30. There’s even a ‘refresh’ half way through that puts him back on TacNet when he was just starting to fade out. This may be a bug in the way the scanner itself works or it may be an outlying variable.
Now, to elaborate on just how powerful these tools are I'm going to provide the community with the formula for finding their effective area. Simply go to 'Show Info' tab on the scanner in question and look for two things: Scan Distance and Scan Angle.
With this you can use the formula: Area = 1/2 A*B*sin(X)
Scan distance will be used as the values for 'a' and 'b' while Scan Angle will be the value of 'x'
With this in mind we can see that the 'Acoylth' Active Scanner has an effective scan area of 4,330 meters. So, as we can see, with a precision of 28 db this is a very powerful tool to have. There is some good news to all of this as there is a notification if someone has tried to scan you and your profile bested it, saying "scan prevented". On the other hand, it does NOT tell you if you have successfully been scanned. I'm mixed on this because whether it does or does not each has it's own pros and cons which I won't get into as it's largely my opinion, not fact.
So, considering that Precision vs Profile doesn’t apply if they are within your FoV (Field of View) of 90 degrees, even when not aiming directly at the target, and the visibility duration on scanners seems to be slightly bugged, we may be witnessing the beginning of something that could truly be a deal breaker for the scanning system in it’s entirety. If the scanning system is broken than there’s no reason to rely on it and it’s best to always assume that you’re on TacNet no matter what.
Let me put emphasis on this:
A Scout with all skills at five CANNOT get beneath Prototype Active Scanners without the aid of Profile Dampening modules.
The ONLY fit in the game that can get past a Prototype Focused Active Scanner is a Gallente Gk.0 with all skills level 5, two complex profile dampeners and one basic (or better) profile dampeners. This is because the Prototype Gallente Scout is the only suit in the game with enough low slots to fit those modules.
Now, I don't think it should be impossible for active scanners to work on scouts but I do think it should be a strong toss up. This is slightly the case but given that ALL Prototype Active Scanners have a precision of 28 db, there's no reason to use any other than the Flux variant with it's massive 20,000 meter effective scan area.
Passive Scanning is, in theory, using your suit's base Precision and Scan Range values to find targets without the use of an Active Scanner. There are a number of things wrong with this and I'll explain them in depth.
- First of all, it's broken in and of it's entirety. As outlined in the third video precision vs profile isn't even in the equation if they are within your field of view and neither does your scan radius. If you can see them on your screen they are on the map, simple as that. I have, on several occasions, stated that the system needs to be that your precision has to beat their profile even when looking at them - otherwise the system can be defeated no matter what the person is fielding.
- Second of all, the values aren't very good. While the suits have different profile and precision values based on classification (Assault is 50/55 while Logistics is 50/50) they all have the same scan range. This makes a Scout suit less 'scouty' as they all have the same values as far as range with the exception of the Gallente Scout Suit which receives a 10% bonus to scan range per level. So the obvious problem there is that a Scout has to get in just as close as any other suit in order to perform that role.
- Third, there is no way to gauge how effective you actually are at being stealthy or finding players who are attempting to be stealthy. The information is provided in 'Show Info' but not on the fitting screen, making it difficult to see the actual numbers unless you do the math yourself at which point - how do we honestly know what the real values are? For instance, applying Two Complex Range Amplifiers to a Gallente scout suit with all skills level 5 will give me two different numbers depending on the calculation.
Applying the module bonus to the suit range (all skills at 5) will give us a range of 42.75 meters.
Applying the module bonus to the RESULT of the previous module will give us a range of 47.31 meters.
There are no outside variables besides shared vision between players (soon to be removed) to impacting your profile. A Heavy with a Heavy Machine Gun won't appear on your map if he's behind you and outside your scan range. Incidentally, until the TacNet changes mentioned by CCP Wolfman occur, he -will- show up if a friendly spots him. This is sort of an oddity as it relies less on the actual scanning system and more on 'visual confirmation' which I feel needs to be relayed via voice.
Weapon fire does not increase your profile and for now it sort of makes sense without any way to customize weapons. Suppressors could be a good counter to this and I have seen some mention of having Shields impact profile to make players easier to spot but again this falls down to the issue of whether or not they're in your scan radius - which, if they are, it means you're in theirs as well and probably have already spotted them anyway.
Shields increasing profile sounds good in theory as counter logic to armor decreases movement speed, but that change would only matter when being used against Active Scanners. There is also another side-effect to this in that it would completely gimp scout suits because they need both speed and low profile to be effective - of course, when the trade off is having armor which reduces movement speed and shields which increase profile... You're out of options as far as physical defense.
What it boils down to is the current scanning mechanics need a definite overhaul as is and I feel that while we are making some good steps, it could use more than just tweaking. It's a yes or no situation more times than not with very little middle ground - you're either spotted or you're not and there are more ways to be spotted than there are not to be spotted with the current iteration. While this mostly relates to Scouts (I know, I've been on that topic as of late) it applies to everyone; location of the enemy on the battlefield is the deciding factor.
Original thread: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1132728
I'm going to throw this out there in underlined text so for emphasis as it's highly important.
These tests were performed because we're trying to fix a problem before it's a problem. It should be taken at face value but also considered for potential imbalance. The only reason it hasn't been brought to light yet is due to their gross lack of use at the moment for a variety of reasons.
Videos of Testing
Active Scanner Tests on first suit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qtsvpnfa9w&feature=youtu.be
'Passive' Scanning Tests on second suit): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2nu8C7dIQg&feature=youtu.be
Active Scanner visibility duration bug: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrdVoeFUYhQ&feature=youtu.be
Tests and Results
The tests occurred on an Oceania Domination match as I’ve recently decided it’s the best testing environment due to low population and it gives us a wide, open map to be left alone (mostly). The test conducted in the first video was with a Prototype Minmatar Scout suit against three Active Scanner variants to test for different effects.(first suit) Minmatar Scout Suit Profile: 45 db
- With his skills: 33.07 db
(second suit with two basic profile dampeners (-30% profile))
- 23.15 db
(Standard) Active Scanner Precision: 46 db
‘Eclipse’ Active Scanner Precision: 36 db
‘Acoylth’ Active Scanner Precision: 28 db
The first suit we had some issues with the ‘Eclipse’ Scanner which was sort of hit or miss. One instance it would scan him down, the next instance it wouldn’t. The ‘Acolyth’ picked him up instantly as you can see in the video.
The second suit on the other hand was able to defeat all of them and as I’ve explained in other threads, even with all skills level five he wouldn’t have been able to get past the ‘Acolyth’ scanner without applying Profile Dampener modules which would inevitably gimp his suit due to only having two low slots. This applies to all Scouts as even with all skills at level 5 the profile just doesn't go low enough to beat 28 db precision (the value for -ALL- prototype active scanners) without the aid of Profile Dampening modules.
How The Scanning System Works
Notable Issues with Active Scanning
As seen in the third video there seems to be a visibility duration bug with the active scanners. The scanner in question for that video is the ‘Acolyth’ which has a visibility duration of 5.0 seconds, but as you can clearly see the actual value on that is closer to 30. There’s even a ‘refresh’ half way through that puts him back on TacNet when he was just starting to fade out. This may be a bug in the way the scanner itself works or it may be an outlying variable.
Now, to elaborate on just how powerful these tools are I'm going to provide the community with the formula for finding their effective area. Simply go to 'Show Info' tab on the scanner in question and look for two things: Scan Distance and Scan Angle.
With this you can use the formula: Area = 1/2 A*B*sin(X)
Scan distance will be used as the values for 'a' and 'b' while Scan Angle will be the value of 'x'
With this in mind we can see that the 'Acoylth' Active Scanner has an effective scan area of 4,330 meters. So, as we can see, with a precision of 28 db this is a very powerful tool to have. There is some good news to all of this as there is a notification if someone has tried to scan you and your profile bested it, saying "scan prevented". On the other hand, it does NOT tell you if you have successfully been scanned. I'm mixed on this because whether it does or does not each has it's own pros and cons which I won't get into as it's largely my opinion, not fact.
So, considering that Precision vs Profile doesn’t apply if they are within your FoV (Field of View) of 90 degrees, even when not aiming directly at the target, and the visibility duration on scanners seems to be slightly bugged, we may be witnessing the beginning of something that could truly be a deal breaker for the scanning system in it’s entirety. If the scanning system is broken than there’s no reason to rely on it and it’s best to always assume that you’re on TacNet no matter what.
Let me put emphasis on this:
A Scout with all skills at five CANNOT get beneath Prototype Active Scanners without the aid of Profile Dampening modules.
The ONLY fit in the game that can get past a Prototype Focused Active Scanner is a Gallente Gk.0 with all skills level 5, two complex profile dampeners and one basic (or better) profile dampeners. This is because the Prototype Gallente Scout is the only suit in the game with enough low slots to fit those modules.
Now, I don't think it should be impossible for active scanners to work on scouts but I do think it should be a strong toss up. This is slightly the case but given that ALL Prototype Active Scanners have a precision of 28 db, there's no reason to use any other than the Flux variant with it's massive 20,000 meter effective scan area.
'Passive Scanning'
Passive Scanning is, in theory, using your suit's base Precision and Scan Range values to find targets without the use of an Active Scanner. There are a number of things wrong with this and I'll explain them in depth.
- First of all, it's broken in and of it's entirety. As outlined in the third video precision vs profile isn't even in the equation if they are within your field of view and neither does your scan radius. If you can see them on your screen they are on the map, simple as that. I have, on several occasions, stated that the system needs to be that your precision has to beat their profile even when looking at them - otherwise the system can be defeated no matter what the person is fielding.
- Second of all, the values aren't very good. While the suits have different profile and precision values based on classification (Assault is 50/55 while Logistics is 50/50) they all have the same scan range. This makes a Scout suit less 'scouty' as they all have the same values as far as range with the exception of the Gallente Scout Suit which receives a 10% bonus to scan range per level. So the obvious problem there is that a Scout has to get in just as close as any other suit in order to perform that role.
- Third, there is no way to gauge how effective you actually are at being stealthy or finding players who are attempting to be stealthy. The information is provided in 'Show Info' but not on the fitting screen, making it difficult to see the actual numbers unless you do the math yourself at which point - how do we honestly know what the real values are? For instance, applying Two Complex Range Amplifiers to a Gallente scout suit with all skills level 5 will give me two different numbers depending on the calculation.
Applying the module bonus to the suit range (all skills at 5) will give us a range of 42.75 meters.
Applying the module bonus to the RESULT of the previous module will give us a range of 47.31 meters.
There Are No Outside Variables
There are no outside variables besides shared vision between players (soon to be removed) to impacting your profile. A Heavy with a Heavy Machine Gun won't appear on your map if he's behind you and outside your scan range. Incidentally, until the TacNet changes mentioned by CCP Wolfman occur, he -will- show up if a friendly spots him. This is sort of an oddity as it relies less on the actual scanning system and more on 'visual confirmation' which I feel needs to be relayed via voice.
Weapon fire does not increase your profile and for now it sort of makes sense without any way to customize weapons. Suppressors could be a good counter to this and I have seen some mention of having Shields impact profile to make players easier to spot but again this falls down to the issue of whether or not they're in your scan radius - which, if they are, it means you're in theirs as well and probably have already spotted them anyway.
Shields increasing profile sounds good in theory as counter logic to armor decreases movement speed, but that change would only matter when being used against Active Scanners. There is also another side-effect to this in that it would completely gimp scout suits because they need both speed and low profile to be effective - of course, when the trade off is having armor which reduces movement speed and shields which increase profile... You're out of options as far as physical defense.
In Conclusion
What it boils down to is the current scanning mechanics need a definite overhaul as is and I feel that while we are making some good steps, it could use more than just tweaking. It's a yes or no situation more times than not with very little middle ground - you're either spotted or you're not and there are more ways to be spotted than there are not to be spotted with the current iteration. While this mostly relates to Scouts (I know, I've been on that topic as of late) it applies to everyone; location of the enemy on the battlefield is the deciding factor.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Perfecting the Roles - Equipment Items
Copied from my post on the forums located here:
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1127961#post1127961
This is the second die-hard (props to Bruce Willis) post in which I'll be going over every detail that I possibly can to lay out the major issues with certain aspects of the game.
This particular bit of the series is concerning Equipment as a whole but mostly relating to their use in PC - also known as "spam the **** out of the drop uplinks and nanohives".
Edit: Forgot to add this.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AijMolZU5dtXdEFzUDNYLXNhMEhYNGtmbDRMOUdmaUE#gid=0
Nanohives
Considering their spammed use in PC there's obviously something going on here and it has nothing to do with the ammunition restoration that the Nanohives hallmark on. In fact, it's that used in tandem with Nanohives that repair players. Now, this isn't a big issue considering that - theoretically - a repair tool is much better but this is not the case. The reason for this is that Nanohives (particularly the Wiyrkomi Triage Nanohive) are just too damned effective at what they do.
I know this is sacrilegious, especially coming from someone who is a dedicated armor tanker, but it's the honest to god truth. In PC the general rule is that Repair Tools and Nanite Injectors are for all intents and purposes frowned upon because both of them have two things in common.
1.) They both put the user in danger, replacing their weapon.
2.) They're both less efficient than the nanohive itself.
Looking at it from a mathematical standpoint, two Triage Nanohives overlapped can repair 140 HP/s over a combined area of 121.64 meters for multiple players. The very best repair tool (Core Focused Repair Tool) can only provide 105 HP/s in repairs over a fixed range of 10.5 meters and can only repair a single person at a time. This just isn't feasible in the heat of combat and is the sole reason that Nanohives (R) are the predominant choice in PC battles.
The downside, of course, is that the nanohives have a limited amount of clusters. This isn't as large of an issue as it may seem however as they can be 'refreshed' upon the death of the person who deployed them or restocked at a Supply Depot. Despite this, many nanohives offer 'reserve' nanohives for when they do burn out.
While on the topic of nanohives burning out, there is a large issue in which nanohives will be deployed an burn out due to the game mechanics deciding that the placement was a failure. This has occurred a great deal of time in bumpy terrain but it does sometimes occur on flat terrain as well. They also have a remarkable tendency to slide around a lot - even when pointing directly at the ground for their placement they will slide 5+ meters (discovered this when doing hit box testing on Scouts, greatly interfering with our 'track').
Another interesting aspect is that Nanohives (R) give Triage points in tandem with Resupply points. This makes them incredibly effective at war point accumulation as a few players throwing grenades and taking a bit of damage will make short work of acquiring enough war points for rewarding an orbital to the squad.
I can find no legitimate reason that Nanohives should be better at repairing armor than the equipment that was designed, slated and even titled for that purpose. Is this to say that they should be nerfed? No, but it is to say that in order for Repair Tools to be effective, Nanohives first have to be checked and balanced. More on this later.
Drop Uplinks
The undisputedly most used equipment item in Planetary Conquest and for good reason. As stated above, it's more efficient just to die and respawn than to put another player on the line to bring you back, potentially losing two clones instead of the one as well as prevent that player from dishing damage out on the enemy. This is however the exact reason that it's spammed to hell and back.
This isn't to say that it's not a bad tactic or that it isn't useful but I am almost -positive- that the animation from the Drop Uplinks in tandem with Nanohives is a good reason for FPS drops in Planetary Conquest and that much is obvious from opening the map to spawn somewhere and seeing it drop. I assume that this is from the animation but this is a game mechanic issue, not a balance issue.
They are way too visible, however, being able to spot them from 25 meters away on the mini-map without actually physically seeing them in game. You can identify and locate them from behind walls and even entire structures. The worst part about this, however, is that they give away the position of the person who dropped them. There's been a few times in which I've actually spotted a team of enemies who were trying to flank only because they dropped an uplink - which came up on the minimap despite none of them appearing on it.
They're also remarkable for fast deployment, with the absolute best reducing spawn times to three seconds. Considering that they can be deployed en masse there's no reason to use objectives/CRUs as a spawn point unless there are no drop uplinks nearby.
Speaking with members of the CPM and bouncing ideas around there was talk considering a cap toward how many uplinks can be fielded for a team but I'm against this as I feel that while it will benefit organized teams it will hurt players in Pub Matches and Faction Warfare. There would be no greater frustration than not being able to field drop uplinks because Johnny Nobody put too many down in the Redline.
On the other hand, I do feel that equipment should be regulated by type. This was an idea mostly proposed by Kane Spero and I feel that it could work (within reason). If you're carrying drop-uplinks in all of your slots it's possible to field six at a time as there can be two active per type, rather than per equipment item. So imposing a limitation on all equipment would definitely reduce the spam and make for more thought behind the placement.
Continued on next post
This can only happen, however, in the event that Drop Uplinks have their map visibility reduced as the only viable option for them is to be spammed to ensure that there is grounds for spawning as they're just too damned easy to find.
[center]Repair Tools - A.K.A The Reason You Died[/center]
The concept is great but the implementation is a little weak with Nanohives usurping them as much as they do. Getting Triage and Guardian points is also a plus but inevitably there's far too much risk for too little reward as you're sacrificing your weapon in order to support your team.
Different variants perform different functions with one variant (the Axis) working better on vehicles. This is something I frown upon however as we no longer get Triage points for repairing vehicles because of one particular corporation (I won't name them) abused this function by doing it in the Redline and dropped orbitals without the risk of being killed. I feel that this was a hatchet fix for something that needed a scalpel. It's easy enough to impose a cap on how many triage points one can attain within a certain amount of time and they do this already with infantry repair - even then it'd be a much easier fix to prevent the accrual of triage points for this purpose inside the Redline.
Another issue with repairing vehicles besides not having any reward for doing so is that you can't repair enough damage to make up for the damage being put out by AV. The vehicle driver utilizing a Vehicle specific repair module/booster is a better option anyway as it was designed for the large amounts of damage needing to be recovered. There should be a rewarding sensation for helping vehicles this way and I feel it would a long way into balancing vehicles as a whole by implementing more team-work options.
Aside from vehicles they're not that great for infantry either. Some variants will extend the range quite a bit but the issue remains that the player using them is 9/10 a Logistics, which is very slow compared to other suits. You can't repair while sprinting so if the player runs out of range you're not benefiting them. Combine this with the fact that breaking line of sight will cancel the function and it's just not worth it when you have Repair hives that heal for more HP anyway.
While I know I'm going to crucified for outing the information - I also feel that you should not get Guardian points for repairing someone while they call in an orbital. Don't hurt me though [:ugh:]
[center]Nanite Injectors[/center]
The (second) most underutilized but most respected piece of equipment in the game just happens to be the one that puts the user at the most risk. There are some players that like the adrenaline rush of running through gunfire to revive a friendly player but I don't think it's worth the risk involved. Much like the Repair Tool, the Nanite Injector forces the user to abandon his weapon but with the added expense of having to run out (more times than not) in the open to revive the person.
This presents a number of problems as they themselves could die or what is more likely to occur is that the person they are reviving dies again. They also have no option to opt out of the revive and there has been some isolated cases of the injector being used for boosting (won't name names!). Fact is, whether you like it or not you're going to be revived and you're potentially going to die again as you scramble for cover. The person who revived you is also going to be scrambling for cover but in the same instance they're trying to pull their repair tool to finish off what little bit of armor did not come back when they revived you.
Now, I'm not sure if this ever got fixed but I'm fairly certain it didn't, there's another issue imposed by their use. As you use better injectors they repair more armor on revival, which is good for the safety of the person being revived but you don't get more points for that. This means that it's better for the person doing the reviving to use the standard/militia injector and repair the rest of the armor damage to attain more points, which as you know goes toward the squad's next orbital.
One last thing I'd like to mention is that, as you will see in the provided spreadsheet, there is ABSOLUTELY NO BENEFIT to using the Prototype Aurum Injector over the Advanced Aurum Injector as they both repair the same amount of armor but the Prototype costs more CPU/PG and Aurum.
[center]Active Scanners - Wait, we have Active Scanners?[/center]
These finicky little things are amazing at what they do but the lack of war points for them means that they're the most under utilized equipment item in the game. Hardly anyone uses them and if they do they're doing it solely for the sake of using it. With TacNet providing information on enemy locations that gets shared between players (this is being changed mind you) their use is somewhat lackluster.
The reason for this is that all you have to do to provide your team with the location of the enemy is to aim down the sight of your weapon at the target in question and their chevron (the red arrow above their player model) lights up and they appear on the map. As stated earlier, this is being changed but in the mean time it severely hampers the use of the Active Scanner as there is more valuable equipment to be used instead.
Some of the prototype ones are very useful though - even TOO useful in my opinion as I've outlined in another thread:
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1127559#post1127559
Essentially, a Duvolle Focused Active Scanner will pick up -ANYTHING- in the game besides a Prototype Gallente Scout Gk.0 with all skills level 5, two Complex and one Basic Profile Dampener. This is just insane, especially given that it has a scan range of 100 meters at a 60 degree angle.
So let's do the math on this in our next post.
Using the formula: [u]area=1/2 a*b*sin(x)[/u] we can find that the area of this scan is 4,330 meters.
On a map that is 400*400 = 160,000 meters, this equates to 2.7% of the map being scanned at a time. This doesn't sound like much but when you consider the location of where objectives are in the map and the redline locations, it starts to dawn on you just how powerful this tool is. This is all under the assumption that we have no idea where the enemy is, which is not likely the case.
Again, this is the most powerful Active Scanner when used for defeating low profile signatures. The most powerful in terms of range is the CreoDron Flux Active Scanner which with 28 db scan precision can pick any Scout that does not have all skills at level five over an area of.......... [u][b]Brace yourself[/b][/u].....
[u][b]20,000 meters. [/b][/u]
This may be a bit TOO powerful considering that you have to be running a Scout with all skills at level five to dip beneath it considering it's massive scan area. We won't really know until the TacNet changes have been implemented and more players start relying on - let alone specializing into - Active Scanners. For now we can only wait and see.
[center]Remote/Proximity Explosives - The Step Child of Splash Damage[/center]
These are an oddity to me. In general they're bad because you can have more active than you can carry which means that, unless you're rolling Logistics, you're going to be making a lot of trips to the Supply Depot. Beyond that there's no real payout for having higher tiers unless you plan on mixing them (standard/advanced to have more out at the same time) which as I've stated earlier probably shouldn't be happening in the game in the first place. This isn't to say that you shouldn't be able to deploy a lot of proximity mines though, but we'll get to that in a bit.
There's no increase in damage, no increase in splash radius and their resource costs go up exponentially like everything else. So you're dropping hundreds of thousands of skill points to use more of them but again this falls on the fact that you can have more active than you can carry so it's a cyclical issue of having to build a suit around them (Logistics with explosives + nanohives) or run back and forth constantly in order to get more.
Proximity Mines by themselves don't hardly do that much damage and they don't cover that wide of an area. Combined damage works wonders but considering that they only have a five meter range you're going to have to choose between covering more ground and doing less damage or going for the kill by placing them in a single location. To top it off they're absolutely ineffective against anything besides HAVs - Dropships for obvious reasons and LAVs because they explode AFTER the LAV has driven over them if they're moving at high speeds, often only killing the gunner (if any) but leaving the vehicle itself unscathed. Either way the damage of Proximity Mines needs to increase or the amount active/carried needs to increase, one of the two.
Remote Explosives are actually pretty well balanced (all bugs aside) as they're mostly used for a defense role and can be killed by practically anything. A single shot from any weapon will set them off and grenades work wonders at clearing them out. Despite this, not having an increase in splash radius keeps them in check and you're having to put some thought into their placement to avoid them being detonated by the enemy, rather than you.
Beyond this they act like other pieces of equipment in that they don't go away after you die, making them useful regardless of death as you can just respawn and detonate the remote explosives anyway. Unfortunately, Proximity Mines do disappear - making them less useful than they already are.
[center] Proposal: 'The Repair Dart'[/center]
I've discussed this with some of my corp-mates (Logistics players) and they seemed pretty excited at the proposal so I figured I'd share it with the rest of you and see some feedback. This idea was mostly inspired as a hybrid between the Brink revive system and the healing method used in Killing Floor.
Considering the limitations in efficiency of the Repair Tool and the Nanite Injector in terms of Planetary Conquest I toyed with the idea of mixing the two into a Repair Dart. Essentially it retains the lock-on capability that the Repair Tool has but instead of having to keep the lock and hold the trigger down to repair the player, you simply lock-on and fire a dart that does the job for you, repairing the player over a certain period of time.
As an example, we'll say 45 HP/s for 10 seconds for a total of 450 HP repaired. This isn't so far out of the realm of proper balancing as it's what the repair tools do anyway but it allows the Logistics to switch back to their weapon and continue fighting. Obviously there would be a cool-down in effect to limit the usage of it, which I feel would be well balanced to coincide with the time at which the dart is repairing, so 10 seconds. This would allow the common Repair Tool to still be useful as it allows for Guardian points and some variants are better for vehicles, have longer ranges and more targets.
This could also be beneficial in utilization for reviving as you could lock-on to a fallen ally and fire the dart, which would bring them back to life and slowly repair armor over time. This way the Nanite Injector is still a viable alternative, repairing the armor damage instantly as opposed to time lapsed.
Combining the two into one piece of equipment would make it more enticing to use in tandem with other options like Nanohives, primarily keep a gun in the Logistic's hands and allow him to help his team-mates in more ways than just putting down Drop Uplinks and repairing with Nanohives. It also gives them the option to choose a more specialized method like the Repair Tool and the Nanite Injector which would perform better but with less versatility.
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1127961#post1127961
This is the second die-hard (props to Bruce Willis) post in which I'll be going over every detail that I possibly can to lay out the major issues with certain aspects of the game.
This particular bit of the series is concerning Equipment as a whole but mostly relating to their use in PC - also known as "spam the **** out of the drop uplinks and nanohives".
Edit: Forgot to add this.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AijMolZU5dtXdEFzUDNYLXNhMEhYNGtmbDRMOUdmaUE#gid=0
Nanohives
Considering their spammed use in PC there's obviously something going on here and it has nothing to do with the ammunition restoration that the Nanohives hallmark on. In fact, it's that used in tandem with Nanohives that repair players. Now, this isn't a big issue considering that - theoretically - a repair tool is much better but this is not the case. The reason for this is that Nanohives (particularly the Wiyrkomi Triage Nanohive) are just too damned effective at what they do.
I know this is sacrilegious, especially coming from someone who is a dedicated armor tanker, but it's the honest to god truth. In PC the general rule is that Repair Tools and Nanite Injectors are for all intents and purposes frowned upon because both of them have two things in common.
1.) They both put the user in danger, replacing their weapon.
2.) They're both less efficient than the nanohive itself.
Looking at it from a mathematical standpoint, two Triage Nanohives overlapped can repair 140 HP/s over a combined area of 121.64 meters for multiple players. The very best repair tool (Core Focused Repair Tool) can only provide 105 HP/s in repairs over a fixed range of 10.5 meters and can only repair a single person at a time. This just isn't feasible in the heat of combat and is the sole reason that Nanohives (R) are the predominant choice in PC battles.
The downside, of course, is that the nanohives have a limited amount of clusters. This isn't as large of an issue as it may seem however as they can be 'refreshed' upon the death of the person who deployed them or restocked at a Supply Depot. Despite this, many nanohives offer 'reserve' nanohives for when they do burn out.
While on the topic of nanohives burning out, there is a large issue in which nanohives will be deployed an burn out due to the game mechanics deciding that the placement was a failure. This has occurred a great deal of time in bumpy terrain but it does sometimes occur on flat terrain as well. They also have a remarkable tendency to slide around a lot - even when pointing directly at the ground for their placement they will slide 5+ meters (discovered this when doing hit box testing on Scouts, greatly interfering with our 'track').
Another interesting aspect is that Nanohives (R) give Triage points in tandem with Resupply points. This makes them incredibly effective at war point accumulation as a few players throwing grenades and taking a bit of damage will make short work of acquiring enough war points for rewarding an orbital to the squad.
I can find no legitimate reason that Nanohives should be better at repairing armor than the equipment that was designed, slated and even titled for that purpose. Is this to say that they should be nerfed? No, but it is to say that in order for Repair Tools to be effective, Nanohives first have to be checked and balanced. More on this later.
Drop Uplinks
The undisputedly most used equipment item in Planetary Conquest and for good reason. As stated above, it's more efficient just to die and respawn than to put another player on the line to bring you back, potentially losing two clones instead of the one as well as prevent that player from dishing damage out on the enemy. This is however the exact reason that it's spammed to hell and back.
This isn't to say that it's not a bad tactic or that it isn't useful but I am almost -positive- that the animation from the Drop Uplinks in tandem with Nanohives is a good reason for FPS drops in Planetary Conquest and that much is obvious from opening the map to spawn somewhere and seeing it drop. I assume that this is from the animation but this is a game mechanic issue, not a balance issue.
They are way too visible, however, being able to spot them from 25 meters away on the mini-map without actually physically seeing them in game. You can identify and locate them from behind walls and even entire structures. The worst part about this, however, is that they give away the position of the person who dropped them. There's been a few times in which I've actually spotted a team of enemies who were trying to flank only because they dropped an uplink - which came up on the minimap despite none of them appearing on it.
They're also remarkable for fast deployment, with the absolute best reducing spawn times to three seconds. Considering that they can be deployed en masse there's no reason to use objectives/CRUs as a spawn point unless there are no drop uplinks nearby.
Speaking with members of the CPM and bouncing ideas around there was talk considering a cap toward how many uplinks can be fielded for a team but I'm against this as I feel that while it will benefit organized teams it will hurt players in Pub Matches and Faction Warfare. There would be no greater frustration than not being able to field drop uplinks because Johnny Nobody put too many down in the Redline.
On the other hand, I do feel that equipment should be regulated by type. This was an idea mostly proposed by Kane Spero and I feel that it could work (within reason). If you're carrying drop-uplinks in all of your slots it's possible to field six at a time as there can be two active per type, rather than per equipment item. So imposing a limitation on all equipment would definitely reduce the spam and make for more thought behind the placement.
Continued on next post
This can only happen, however, in the event that Drop Uplinks have their map visibility reduced as the only viable option for them is to be spammed to ensure that there is grounds for spawning as they're just too damned easy to find.
[center]Repair Tools - A.K.A The Reason You Died[/center]
The concept is great but the implementation is a little weak with Nanohives usurping them as much as they do. Getting Triage and Guardian points is also a plus but inevitably there's far too much risk for too little reward as you're sacrificing your weapon in order to support your team.
Different variants perform different functions with one variant (the Axis) working better on vehicles. This is something I frown upon however as we no longer get Triage points for repairing vehicles because of one particular corporation (I won't name them) abused this function by doing it in the Redline and dropped orbitals without the risk of being killed. I feel that this was a hatchet fix for something that needed a scalpel. It's easy enough to impose a cap on how many triage points one can attain within a certain amount of time and they do this already with infantry repair - even then it'd be a much easier fix to prevent the accrual of triage points for this purpose inside the Redline.
Another issue with repairing vehicles besides not having any reward for doing so is that you can't repair enough damage to make up for the damage being put out by AV. The vehicle driver utilizing a Vehicle specific repair module/booster is a better option anyway as it was designed for the large amounts of damage needing to be recovered. There should be a rewarding sensation for helping vehicles this way and I feel it would a long way into balancing vehicles as a whole by implementing more team-work options.
Aside from vehicles they're not that great for infantry either. Some variants will extend the range quite a bit but the issue remains that the player using them is 9/10 a Logistics, which is very slow compared to other suits. You can't repair while sprinting so if the player runs out of range you're not benefiting them. Combine this with the fact that breaking line of sight will cancel the function and it's just not worth it when you have Repair hives that heal for more HP anyway.
While I know I'm going to crucified for outing the information - I also feel that you should not get Guardian points for repairing someone while they call in an orbital. Don't hurt me though [:ugh:]
[center]Nanite Injectors[/center]
The (second) most underutilized but most respected piece of equipment in the game just happens to be the one that puts the user at the most risk. There are some players that like the adrenaline rush of running through gunfire to revive a friendly player but I don't think it's worth the risk involved. Much like the Repair Tool, the Nanite Injector forces the user to abandon his weapon but with the added expense of having to run out (more times than not) in the open to revive the person.
This presents a number of problems as they themselves could die or what is more likely to occur is that the person they are reviving dies again. They also have no option to opt out of the revive and there has been some isolated cases of the injector being used for boosting (won't name names!). Fact is, whether you like it or not you're going to be revived and you're potentially going to die again as you scramble for cover. The person who revived you is also going to be scrambling for cover but in the same instance they're trying to pull their repair tool to finish off what little bit of armor did not come back when they revived you.
Now, I'm not sure if this ever got fixed but I'm fairly certain it didn't, there's another issue imposed by their use. As you use better injectors they repair more armor on revival, which is good for the safety of the person being revived but you don't get more points for that. This means that it's better for the person doing the reviving to use the standard/militia injector and repair the rest of the armor damage to attain more points, which as you know goes toward the squad's next orbital.
One last thing I'd like to mention is that, as you will see in the provided spreadsheet, there is ABSOLUTELY NO BENEFIT to using the Prototype Aurum Injector over the Advanced Aurum Injector as they both repair the same amount of armor but the Prototype costs more CPU/PG and Aurum.
[center]Active Scanners - Wait, we have Active Scanners?[/center]
These finicky little things are amazing at what they do but the lack of war points for them means that they're the most under utilized equipment item in the game. Hardly anyone uses them and if they do they're doing it solely for the sake of using it. With TacNet providing information on enemy locations that gets shared between players (this is being changed mind you) their use is somewhat lackluster.
The reason for this is that all you have to do to provide your team with the location of the enemy is to aim down the sight of your weapon at the target in question and their chevron (the red arrow above their player model) lights up and they appear on the map. As stated earlier, this is being changed but in the mean time it severely hampers the use of the Active Scanner as there is more valuable equipment to be used instead.
Some of the prototype ones are very useful though - even TOO useful in my opinion as I've outlined in another thread:
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1127559#post1127559
Essentially, a Duvolle Focused Active Scanner will pick up -ANYTHING- in the game besides a Prototype Gallente Scout Gk.0 with all skills level 5, two Complex and one Basic Profile Dampener. This is just insane, especially given that it has a scan range of 100 meters at a 60 degree angle.
So let's do the math on this in our next post.
Using the formula: [u]area=1/2 a*b*sin(x)[/u] we can find that the area of this scan is 4,330 meters.
On a map that is 400*400 = 160,000 meters, this equates to 2.7% of the map being scanned at a time. This doesn't sound like much but when you consider the location of where objectives are in the map and the redline locations, it starts to dawn on you just how powerful this tool is. This is all under the assumption that we have no idea where the enemy is, which is not likely the case.
Again, this is the most powerful Active Scanner when used for defeating low profile signatures. The most powerful in terms of range is the CreoDron Flux Active Scanner which with 28 db scan precision can pick any Scout that does not have all skills at level five over an area of.......... [u][b]Brace yourself[/b][/u].....
[u][b]20,000 meters. [/b][/u]
This may be a bit TOO powerful considering that you have to be running a Scout with all skills at level five to dip beneath it considering it's massive scan area. We won't really know until the TacNet changes have been implemented and more players start relying on - let alone specializing into - Active Scanners. For now we can only wait and see.
[center]Remote/Proximity Explosives - The Step Child of Splash Damage[/center]
These are an oddity to me. In general they're bad because you can have more active than you can carry which means that, unless you're rolling Logistics, you're going to be making a lot of trips to the Supply Depot. Beyond that there's no real payout for having higher tiers unless you plan on mixing them (standard/advanced to have more out at the same time) which as I've stated earlier probably shouldn't be happening in the game in the first place. This isn't to say that you shouldn't be able to deploy a lot of proximity mines though, but we'll get to that in a bit.
There's no increase in damage, no increase in splash radius and their resource costs go up exponentially like everything else. So you're dropping hundreds of thousands of skill points to use more of them but again this falls on the fact that you can have more active than you can carry so it's a cyclical issue of having to build a suit around them (Logistics with explosives + nanohives) or run back and forth constantly in order to get more.
Proximity Mines by themselves don't hardly do that much damage and they don't cover that wide of an area. Combined damage works wonders but considering that they only have a five meter range you're going to have to choose between covering more ground and doing less damage or going for the kill by placing them in a single location. To top it off they're absolutely ineffective against anything besides HAVs - Dropships for obvious reasons and LAVs because they explode AFTER the LAV has driven over them if they're moving at high speeds, often only killing the gunner (if any) but leaving the vehicle itself unscathed. Either way the damage of Proximity Mines needs to increase or the amount active/carried needs to increase, one of the two.
Remote Explosives are actually pretty well balanced (all bugs aside) as they're mostly used for a defense role and can be killed by practically anything. A single shot from any weapon will set them off and grenades work wonders at clearing them out. Despite this, not having an increase in splash radius keeps them in check and you're having to put some thought into their placement to avoid them being detonated by the enemy, rather than you.
Beyond this they act like other pieces of equipment in that they don't go away after you die, making them useful regardless of death as you can just respawn and detonate the remote explosives anyway. Unfortunately, Proximity Mines do disappear - making them less useful than they already are.
[center] Proposal: 'The Repair Dart'[/center]
I've discussed this with some of my corp-mates (Logistics players) and they seemed pretty excited at the proposal so I figured I'd share it with the rest of you and see some feedback. This idea was mostly inspired as a hybrid between the Brink revive system and the healing method used in Killing Floor.
Considering the limitations in efficiency of the Repair Tool and the Nanite Injector in terms of Planetary Conquest I toyed with the idea of mixing the two into a Repair Dart. Essentially it retains the lock-on capability that the Repair Tool has but instead of having to keep the lock and hold the trigger down to repair the player, you simply lock-on and fire a dart that does the job for you, repairing the player over a certain period of time.
As an example, we'll say 45 HP/s for 10 seconds for a total of 450 HP repaired. This isn't so far out of the realm of proper balancing as it's what the repair tools do anyway but it allows the Logistics to switch back to their weapon and continue fighting. Obviously there would be a cool-down in effect to limit the usage of it, which I feel would be well balanced to coincide with the time at which the dart is repairing, so 10 seconds. This would allow the common Repair Tool to still be useful as it allows for Guardian points and some variants are better for vehicles, have longer ranges and more targets.
This could also be beneficial in utilization for reviving as you could lock-on to a fallen ally and fire the dart, which would bring them back to life and slowly repair armor over time. This way the Nanite Injector is still a viable alternative, repairing the armor damage instantly as opposed to time lapsed.
Combining the two into one piece of equipment would make it more enticing to use in tandem with other options like Nanohives, primarily keep a gun in the Logistic's hands and allow him to help his team-mates in more ways than just putting down Drop Uplinks and repairing with Nanohives. It also gives them the option to choose a more specialized method like the Repair Tool and the Nanite Injector which would perform better but with less versatility.
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