An Irony in ISK

First, apologies for missing so many weeks of content. lolFinals lolSchool lolLife

How do you describe Dust to a potential new player? Usually I try to play to the game's strengths, and so start rattling off features that differentiate it from other FPS games on the market. Problematically a lot of those count themselves part of the Soon(tm) crowd. One that doesn't, though, one that jumps out as an aspect that should really make Dust stand out from the crowd is ISK. What other FPS game employs a system where every time you die you have to pay for the cost of the equipment you used?

It's a pity, then, that the way ISK fits into the current design of Dust it only has mostly negative effects on the gameplay experience as opposed to positive ones. At its core, this situation arises from two factors:

1. Items don't cost enough relative to rewards or alternatively rewards are too high compared to gear costs
2. There aren't enough things to do with ISK

These aren't perfect explanations, and they're perhaps more applicable while talking about dropsuits rather than vehicles. They do, however, provide a basis for a bit of discussion. Admittedly the whole wall-o'-text to follow is based more on the macro scale than the micro, make of that what you will. Inevitably I use "prototype gear" or "proto" throughout as the quintessential example of ISK expenditure since it's the ceiling of what anybody can spend.

To rehash what point #1 means up there, it means that ISK usually isn't the limiting factor in any decisions that involve gear. Examples: 

• Do I pull out proto in this pub match? 
• Do I attack this district? 
• Do I get my team to pull out proto in this PC match? 

When these types of questions arise, the answer: "No, it takes too much ISK," is far from anyone's minds. It leads to problems. A lot of the "pub stomping" that happens these days goes on because players can honestly afford to run proto at a loss for a very long time with little to no repercussions. This problem also makes trying to boost Planetary Conquest's popularity with higher ISK gains basically useless. Since ISK wasn't holding back players from getting into PC in the first place, why would giving out more ISK allow more players to step into the ring? The ISK isn't what's getting them down, it's the personnel, coordination, and other aspects of PC mechanics.

There was a point in time where proto gear cost enough to make ISK a factor in Dust, but CCP wasn't able to hold out against a sea of complaints. After running an event that doubled ISK gains (this one's from memory since I couldn't find the link) from public matches, CCP decided to raise reward levels up about that much because "players liked it". 

Really the first point is less important and hugely exacerbated by the second. The list of things you can do with ISK that involve in-game mechanics is so short they can be listed succinctly. So let's do that: 

1. Buy gear
2. Buy clone packs for Planetary Conquest
3. Pay clone transportation fees for Planetary Conquest
4. Make backroom deals in Planetary Conquest, including buying districts, hiring mercenaries, etc.

Yup, there are only four things*. And three of them are only concerned with Planetary Conquest, a mode of gameplay which is entirely inaccessible for most of Dust's player base because of its rule set. As mentioned before, ISK is not a limiting factor in PC by any stretch of the imagination. Veteran personnel (high SP), organization, experience, and other factors besides are much more pressing concerns than ISK. That leaves backroom deals to worry over, but the secret behind buying and selling districts is that the entire endeavor is useless unless you could have taken and defended the districts you're buying anyways. If you could have taken and defended the districts you bought anyways, you wouldn't need to buy the districts. That's pretty much why the mercenary occupation in PC is completely dead. 

* Skill books are a thing, but they're not worth discussion since they don't recur as a cost.

Taken together it's possible to combine these two observations and conclude: "Sure, ISK doesn't do much for the game, but it doesn't hurt." But there's this nagging problem that, while ISK doesn't have the scope to greatly affect veteran players, it really curbs the fun for new players. That's mostly because veteran players have nothing better to do (limited options by the second factor) with their ISK than to buy proto gear (affordable by the first factor). This doesn't help the game experience at all- it just encourages people to quit playing Dust. 

It's completely fair to say that if you can't make enough to play with proto in pub matches and you can't make enough ISK in pub matches to run proto to break into PC then proto is useless. That's a problem with the amount of content in Dust, though, and that poor horse has been beaten so much that it hasn't any bones left. 

A Bad Case of the 'Locks

It's not a huge mystery that the flaylock pistol is exceptional, to put it diplomatically. Whether or not you love it, hate it, or both at the same time there's little doubt that it has provoked quite a community response. When two of the top-tier corps in the game refuse (warning: popcorn thread) to use an item in competitive matches you know you've got yourself a winner.

This post isn't about fixing flaylocks, or discussing the weapons themselves. I daresay CCP have the nerf hammer properly poised above the poor thing's head. The more interesting question at hand is a bit of a classic, but one that deserves to be brought up time and again...

Pay to win?

I'd like to argue here that flaylocks have pushed themselves into this territory rather handily despite quite vigorous attempts to avoid this kind of thing. There are a few reasons, but they all tie back to the same root: If an item is good enough that you must have it to remain competitive, the "you can get the skillpoints naturally" argument that applies to early-unlock aurum variants falls rather flat. Sure you can get the skill points faster than somebody who doesn't play the game as much, but what's important is that when a piece of gear's good enough, every match you play without it can be a liability. You might be leveling for the ISK variant, but in the mean time the AUR one will do. So basically what I'm saying is that while being able to "do more, faster" isn't pay to win in the long term, in the shorter view the waters get a bit murkier.

The other natural question can only really be answered through speculation. You wonder whether CCP delays balancing sweeps through items with these qualities. Certainly they have a monetary incentive to do so. The potential answer is even more worrying, of course. Whatever it is, the only way to keep everyone in the equation honest is to keep asking it.

Risk, Reward, and Risking the Reward: The Eve-Dust Connection

CCP have gone through some iterations of what they "want" from the Eve-Dust link.

First it was that Dust players are mercenaries selling their services to the highest bidder. Eve players will want to hire Dust players in order to procure various benefits which we'll be introducing. Dust players will want to coordinate with Eve players in order to pay for their various FPS pursuits.

I'm pretty convinced this was one of the most masterfully executed pieces of PR that CCP have ever pursued. There was more than a hint of implication that only Eve players would have any real control over what battles were fought, and that any metagaming implications were mostly to be concentrated on the space side of affairs. It was just enough to placate any of the very natural fear of change as Dust got underway.

To this day CCP still call Dust players mercenaries, but that's completely incorrect. At best it's a continuing marketing ploy. Most Dust players are soldiers.  We're as much "mercenaries" as anybody in nullsec is an "employee" of their corporation.

So yeah, pretty much everyone involved knows that the previous vision of Eve-Dust integration is as outdated as breach assault rifles and hurricane fits. Where CCP seem to be going with it now is arguably worse. Today's typical rhetoric gets pointed towards the Eve-Dust link being "mutually beneficial" to both parties. But wait, there's more! An older Dust maxim mandates that Dust and Eve players be able to operate independently of each other and still remain competitive in their respective fields.

You see "mutually beneficial" and "competitive without each other" start to sound a lot like "consensual" to me when taken together. CCP have been driving towards an "opt-in" mentality for the Eve-Dust link using these themes. Let me pose this question though: Why should I bother investing time and resources in cooperating between games when I'm still competitive without that cooperation? There's no incentive unless I want to opt-in to that coordination for whatever other motive.

The driving idea behind this seems to say that denying a positive is always equivalent to a negative where it comes to human interactions. Taking away a production bonus is equivalent to losing a ship. Taking away an orbital strike in a game is equivalent to blowing up a clone with a grenade.

But that's completely contrary to all the other tenants upon which New Eden is founded. A link constructed of only mutual benefits is one where all parties are completely bereft of cross-game retaliation. All any threat contains is a chance at returning you to the typical status quo.

These design directions have seeped into CCP's monstrosity of an integrated link between Dust and Eve in Planetary Conquest. In case you don't know what the "benefits" are (http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/team-true-grit-brings-some-changes-this-may/):

Eve

• 10% manufacturing time reduction per Alliance/Corporation district with a Cargo Hub on the planet at which a POS is anchored up to a max of 40% 
• 5% POS fuel consumption decrease per district owned with a Research Lab to a maximum of 4 districts or 20%

As BENEFITS these are laughable in the first place. Who manufactures shit in low sec? Oh, and 20% less POS fuel consumption. Guess I'll have to make one less fuel run out to Molden Heath every month or so.

Dust

• The ability to receive Eve-based orbital strikes from pilots in your corp/alliance

This is also hardly a benefit. CCP's adherence to making sure that you can be "independently competitive" without Eve support means that there's an NPC variant of strikes that you can call that's basically the same as pilot orbitals. 

You'll see that the best you can do cross-game is threaten another alliance's bonuses. Dust -> Eve: I don't like you, so I'll make it so that your POS's consume fuel at the regular rate. Eve->Dust: I don't like you, so I'll make you use barely less effective orbital strikes by killing your pilots. 

Did I mention it's also boring to drop strikes and boring to kill people doing strikes? 

Community furor suggests that ISK transfer is the one thing which can truly link Dust and Eve. I think that's not quite true. Until CCP change gears and make the Eve-Dust status quo about both mutual threat and mutual benefit, there will be no real integration. 

There's a difference between risk-reward and risking just the reward. 

But hey, until then: 

ONE UNIVERSE // TWO WARS

Fac War: The Missing Niche

This one I'll keep short. Hell, who am I kidding? Buckle up it's going to be a substantial ride.

Dust 514 obviously has a whole suite issues, but one of the most pressing for its core audience is the lack of a gameplay niche with these primary characteristics.

1. Arbitrarily large grouping 
2. A queue system that pits these arbitrarily large groups against each other

Simply put, there's no analog to Eve's roaming gangs in Dust right now. You have two options as an organized group: 

• High security matches where you are limited to pitifully small 6 player groups. At the very least there is a queue which allows players to get into battles without fuss, and the consistency of ISK rewards allows players without the highest level of gear to compete.
• Low security Planetary Conquest battles. In these you can field the largest team size currently available in Dust matches (16), but they are scheduled affairs that happen once daily. Given the gravitas of PC matches any gear below prototype (maximum) level is a liability.

In Eve terms: You can either mine in high sec with 5 friends, or you can go fight sov. 

CCP had implied that with the Uprising Fac War would be assuming a role in Dust at least somewhat similar to its Eve counterpart. It would behave as a midway point between the anti-social but laid back high sec and the highly social and unpredictable PC. 

Thing is, the crucial element is missing. While 6 man squads can choose which battle and side they join, the best a group larger than 6 can hope to do is to synchronize joining the same match on the same side. It's a laborious process, and often gets screwed by smaller parties taking up one or two spots on the intended team.

The Eve-Dust integration side of things is similarly borked.

Suffice to say that coordinating with the militias right now is nothing short of a labor of love. The best a group of Dust-side soldiers can do is attempt to queue sync into matches on a particular faction's side, but that's inconsistent, painstakingly slow, and despite the star map's rework doesn't really have any discernible impact in Dust. Add onto that an inability for mercs to select which systems they actually fight in and the disconnect becomes even more readily apparent. In Dust, the Fac War mechanics are centered around what team you fight for. The "geography" of space is completely de-emphasized. Eve's mechanics are much more tactically directed, with single systems playing pivotal roles in the motion of the war.

Opening up FW to full 16-man-teams fills the missing niche and elevates them out of the realm of glorified high sec matches. Without that niche there's really not much of a social experience making Dust's heart tick for any player who doesn't have the 8 million SP necessary to lump it in PC, and capsuleers in FW will never really care about Dust side activity. 

Dev Blog Dissection: Uprising 1.2 and Patch Notes

First off, as many of you will have guessed it was my intent to have a post about fixing Fac War go up this week to keep with the theme of retaining Dust's core playerbase. It's written, I swear! The dev blogs and patch notes this week are just too hot off the press to miss the opportunity to talk about them, so I've pushed the FW back to next week.

For those of you who haven't checked out CCP's recent releases, here's the material we'll use today:

Dev blog - Uprising 1.2 and Beyond - http://dust514.com/news/blog/2013/06/uprising-1.2-and-beyond/

Uprising 1.2 Patch Notes - https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=71944&find=unread




These two pieces pretty much demand to be served together. A quick glance at the dev blog shows that there's only one piece of info that the patch notes don't cover, and that's "rapid fire updates".

Funny enough, it might be more important than the entirety of the patch notes. Here's a snip:

We listen to your feedback, as well as to feedback from the media. As a result, we have decided to move into a faster, more iterative update cycle. We will be pushing out point releases (Update 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc.) on a near-monthly basis.

As per the usual in these sorts of dire situations, if CCP do it right this change is just what the doctor ordered. The 6-month update cycle is suitable for content development, but what Dust sorely needs right now is core fixes, not content. In most cases, those fixes can be deployed month-by-month and can actually be tested relatively quickly. Of course, the question begged is whether or not CCP will properly prioritize in this new monthly environment. If they don't, we could easily end up with a lot of fodder for events like Amarr week and little else. Focus focus focus- this has to be CCP's mantra.



Now let's look at the patch notes.

• Implemented logging out character from NeoCom - First the Star Map and now this? Eve players will be green with envy before all's said and done
• Added Commando dropsuit role - This was preempted by the trailer released at E3 this year (make sure you bring ham to go with the cheese when watching). All I can say is that I can only hope that this is the last of the new dropsuit additions for awhile. It's great and all, but there are a thousand bigger fish to fry. 
• Armor modules added - The cynic in me is very insistent that these aren't going to end up helping armor tanking all that much. Maybe we'll see Amarr suits get a boost, but the going rumor is that Reactive plates still have a movement penalty, albeit a reduced one. Unless CCP have properly balanced the things CPU/PG wise, either they'll necessarily have too little of a kick in terms of stats to shift the overwhelming disadvantages armor tanking faces, or they'll end up replacing armor reppers in shield tankers' fits. You'd be surprised the crazy things you can do with advanced to proto PG and CPU extenders. Still, it's a step in the right direction.
• Manus Peak - fixed the issue where MCC shield would let bullets through - Thank fucking goodness. Maybe I can queue for Domination again. 
• Audio improvements - Team Earwig are heroes. Dust's soundscape is one of my favorite elements of the entire game. 
• Visual improvements - Seeing is believing here, since I'm nowhere near an expert in graphics and don't really know how much of a change SSAO will make. 
• Improved content streaming stability, Improved server to client performance of projectile based weaponry - These two are very important but seeing is believing with these types of things. 
• Everything from Team True Grit - Also heroic. If every month we can expect 5-10 small quality of life changes in the metagaming arena like these, that's precisely the amount of resources that should be invested in that direction and it's perfect for keeping the wheels turning. 

Overall most of the changes listed are practical and most seem to suggest that CCP has gotten the message that the core experience of Dust is the single most important thing that they can work on right now. The one thing we're still lacking are official dev forum topics on gear balancing so that the community can get more involved with that process before changes become set in stone. 

Also conspicuously absent is any mention of "murder taxis" as light-attack-vehicles are so fondly known by the community these days. I've got my fingers crossed that a server side fix has a place in the pipe even closer than July 2nd, but that's daydreaming at best. 

That's it for this week. Return in 7 days for the more traditional wall-o-text!

Is Dust on track?

For the moment, the short answer to the question, in the exact words and tone, is: no. It's probably not for most of the reasons that come to the tip of your tongue, though.

Last week, we established that CCP wants Dust to have longevity and be a partner, rather than a subsidiary, of Eve Online in the New Eden universe.

Exactly what should CCP be doing in order to make these goals a reality, though? There's not much more to the equation of making Dust an equal-stakes partner in New Eden than integrating the two games more completely across the board. The more subtle problem CCP faces is guaranteeing D514's longevity. On that vector the two most important objectives have to be:

1. Keep the Dust project financially viable in the short-term
2. Maintain their core player base

With these two things accomplished CCP gain the time they need time to continue improving Dust which- make no mistake- is deep in the trenches of development. If CCP maintain their core without hemorrhaging ISKies, they will have a living, breathing community that new players can step into from day one. Meanwhile they can keep searching for the place where a more casual audience will give Dust a chance.  "More casual" is misleading here- Dust 514 is the most hardcore shooter on the market.

Without that core of players New Eden's main draw completely vanishes. In the absence of a massive universe of people to influence and experience, Dust will always play third or fourth fiddle to mainstream FPS's.


The product of these goals has given us what Dust is today: A very rudimentary FPS with the deepest MMO experience in the FPSMMO genre. Call it cheerleading as you will, but up through Chromosome CCP were making the right calls for keeping up with their long term goals. Yes, it took several months without much core content to get Dust onto Tranquility, but without that connection the game would have practically zero factors keeping its core base even moderately interested. Two three-month-long update cycles wouldn't have been enough to salvage the mechanics into a realm beyond mediocre, but that time was just enough to make the final push transforming Dust's MMO experience into the best on PS3.

The most recent Uprising is where CCP lost focus. In particular, they lost sight of what it would take to maintain their core player base. After months and months of deepening the MMO experience of Dust, CCP had a virtual guarantee that the core wouldn't flock somewhere else for lack of social tools. It was finally time to nip and tuck the sub-par shooting as top priority. Sure, simultaneously releasing a small stream of content like PC, gear, maps, and game modes just makes sense to keep the AUR wheels rolling, but not so much as to tear resources away from mechanics improvements.


Uprising hit the spot dead on except that way too much emphasis was put on the content: suits, gear, and vehicles. Meanwhile the mechanics department actually took a step backwards! Combine that with even more mechanics issues running rampant in Planetary Conquest battles along with the inevitable snags of trying to introduce a system as complex as PC and you've got the recipe for disaster that has hit the core community as of late.

People seem to be referencing this graph a lot lately (props to Chribba):

It's definitely an interesting read. The real concern is that some of the players leaving in that downward trend used to be diehard Dust fanatics. More important is something like this:

I know it's a taboo thing to reference MAG, but oh shit I've already done it. MAG was a game that had almost the exact opposite feature set that Dust currently sports while still being an FPSMMO. It had crisp battle mechanics, but basic at best MMO features. Yet MAG kept an active core player base for two years with mere trickles of content and a $30-$60 price tag up front to boot.


To summarize all those pieces and parts, here's the conclusion to take away: FPS players have shown that they prefer a game where their bullets hit what they shoot from the 10 guns they have, rather than a game with 100 glitchy pieces of future tech...and CCP started going for the second one with Uprising. Fuck new suits, fuck new weapons, and fuck new vehicles if making those takes away from making the day-to-day environment playable.



Now there's a bit of a hot-button issue that I just danced around here that ties in quite nicely with that train of thought. Admittedly "hot-button" might be a bit off, considering. (shameless self-reference)

What does CCP want for Dust?

So E3 just blew through like a quick thunderstorm. It's hard to believe, but this marks the second year since Hilmar announced that Dust 514 had found its one and only home on the PlayStation 3. Maybe I shouldn't indulge in the cliche, but I'll swear it hasn't been two years.


Hilmar threw something of a curve ball when he went up on Sony's E3 stage in 2011. CCP certainly aren't known for their experience with any platform except PC, and prototypes of Dust shown off at Fanfests previous weren't running off of anything exotic. It takes some history, a riot in Jita, a game about dark, edgy vampires, and a pinch of speculation even to dream of figuring out exactly what CCP want out of Dust 514. They're apparently not telling.

(inb4: to make money)


There are two things that CCP seem to want from Dust: longevity and equal stature with Eve Online.

Why longevity?

The long arm of financial necessity has been a major player for quite a long time. After Eve's disastrous Incarna expansion CCP laid off quite a lot of its staff...mainly at CCP Atlanta, who were working on World of Darkness. Couple that with the info Jester wrote this blog way back in 2011 showing that CCP have spent quite a chunk of capital investing into Dust's development. Then layer on the fact that CCP evidently got capital from Sony when Dust became a PS3 exclusive. From a business perspective, Dust must succeed to keep the boat sailing in Iceland.

There's also the actual release of Dust on May 14th to consider. Really it's the most telling move coming out of Shanghai for awhile, all said and told. Every single person involved with Dust knew that a release in May would lead reviewers to rip Dust a new one based on the state of the game. I took a personal detour months ago to figure out whether or not Sony had pressure on the devs to get their product out the door, and the unified answer from every angle was a resounding no. That leaves only one reason that CCP could have decided to release Dust on 5/14: they didn't give a damn about the reviews. The only perspective from which that makes any sense is a very long-term one.

The feature prioritization from June 2012 to January 2013 also points to a long-term focus. During that time frame updates to Dust seemed to have little else other than back end adjustments to the game, particularly on its MMO framework. From a short-term view only crazy people would almost completely abandon core content updates in order to barely plug an FPS game into Eve Online.


Why equal stature?

Two words: FanFest and PS3. Yes, I cheated.

Here's all that has to be said about FanFest:

As far as the PS3's concerned, it's a bit debatable as to whether CCP found themselves forced to find new capital to keep the Dust project running. I'm sure that they had other options on that front, though. Shifting Dust to a PS3 exclusive game guaranteed that the community that developed would become an entity of its own, and not just some red-headed stepchild of Eve- a virtually inevitable outcome if it had released on PC. The decision maintains its share of controversy even years after its announcement, but not a single fuck has been given from the Vikings. 

There's more that could be said on the topic, but really that's the crux of it. Dust 514 as a game was given every honor that Eve Online got at FanFest 2013, down to its own keynote. CCP have made it clear that they have a deep desire to make Dust a game in its own right and not just an add-on to Eve Online.






So here's the question that's begged: Are CCP making the right moves to achieve their two goals? If the current community outlook has anything to say, the answer's a flat no. The real answer though? At the very least it's definitely a bit more subtle than that. Either way, yes or no, it'll have to wait until next week.