Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Part 2

Since having different isk incomes won't work.
Lets play it the other way round.
Have equal income. You can already anticipate that this won't work either. But lets do it step by step. If mercenaries can create isk at the same rate capsuleers can do. They also need to spend it at the same rate – if not, they would have simply too much isk causing inflation and the other way round: people funding EVE characters with Legion characters. That mercenaries can spend that much money, their dropsuits, dropships and tanks have to cost the same amount that EVE ships do. Imagine a tank worth a billion or even 100 billion (that's the titan tank). That's already ridiculous for itself but let's think it further. The cost of the tank needs to be justified in some way. EVE players buy what gives the most bang for their bucks. So this tank needs to be as tanky as a titan and do about that damage, if you want any interaction with Capsuleers besides the market. Because if this 100 bill tank can be destroyed by like 2 orbital strikes from a frigate … I can already read the ALOD headlines in the EVE news.
The problem is simply that small things can't be worth as much as big things – that doesn't mean that small things aren't good. It is like in EVE: There are a lot of players flying frigates. But if the frigates were as expensive as battleships they would loose their advantage namely being cheap. And the equipment of mercenaries is smaller. And if you don't want to break the risk/reward principle you either can't make that much money with this cheap equipment (alt – problem) or you have ultra expensive small equipment (immersion problem).
So if you want to have a common market with the EVE players by hook or by crook you need to make such weird gamedesing choices to prevent players with an EVE alt from having an advantage over the others that you break all the immersion you want to create with that.

Now that sounds pessimistic. But as I said: I like the idea of multi-genre games. So lets take a different approach. You have asymmetric genres. If you want the connection to be successful the connection needs to be asymmetric as well. And you need to create the game from the connection and not try to connect two different standalone games. You simply can't make Legion successful by mirroring EVE.

So create the game from the connection. You want interaction – so how do you get it? Ask real life. When is infantry useful? I mean if you have bigger guns you have the advantage don't you? Well if you want to capture things only infantry can do that. I can't fly into a building with a ship if I want this building to have any usage afterwards.
So if this is the strength of infantry you need to play it by specializing on it. Like you specialize on tackling in frigates. So what can mercenaries capture for EVE players? Planetary interaction bases, stations/structures, big ships. I mean who wouldn't prefer to capture a titan over destroying one? So that's the most important feature, lets work it out a little:

Part 4

In the 1. phase it will be mainly a vehicle fight. If you would walk you would get alphad by the turrets. Capsuleers can help from orbit by destroying these turrets with airstrikes. Now if the tanks and transport vehicles (with clone bays and equipment) break through the wall, they get under the guns and into built-up area with lot's of cover. 2. phase: It depends how the defender work – if they continue shooting with the large turrets they damage the infrastructure and will have to repair it if they win. And the attacker can't want to do too much damage with their tanks either, since they have to repair it too if they win. So now it is a normal infantry first person shooter. Maybe some precision airstrikes here and there – but that's basically it.
The battle is over (the automated contracts for the defender expire) if the attacker captured every datacenter (just put the hacking from the exploration feature in). So if they captured the radar (the radar shows the enemy on the minimap), the clone bays, turrets, ….
Or if no working equipment of the attacker is in the 15 km radius of the radar and no datacenter is hacked anymore.
If you have these kind of fights on the ground in stations and in ships you have a nice variation of maps. You could even sprinkle it with custom effects.
Like ice melts on an ice planet if you hit it with a thermal orbital strike. Or if you fight on a ship and the ship get's attacked that every hit causes the ship to vibrate. You could enable the infantry to disable modules of the ship they are in – maybe even the capacitor and the shields.
You can make the contracts more individual e.g. the capsuleer can restrict the availability of the contract to people with certain stats. Like only mercenaries with K/D rations > X. Or something like that.
There are lots of possibilities around this mechanic. But the important point is. The connection between EVE and Dust/Legion then would actually mean something. And hence would be a selling point.
And you can avoid the isk/h problem between capsuleers and mercenaries. If the mercenaries get most of the equipment placed at their disposal by the capsuleers they don't really need isk at all. So isk wouldn't be an advantage. Or in other words: As a mercenary you don't need an EVE alt providing isk, equipment and orbital strike because the EVE employer will do that for you in his own interest. You can even make this a story element: The mercenaries that detest the capsuleers for their greed and interest into filthy lucre while they go the way of honor.
Basically don't make Legion about isk – make it about statistics and ratios and the mercenaries won't feel disadvantaged if they don't have an EVE “isk producing alt”. Also by letting EVE player set up the contracts you give them a reason to provide orbital strikes while they have no reason doing so else and it is content for the EVE players. That also prevents Dust players with an EVE alt having an advantage.
Because mercenaries will see all the contracts for New Eden there should be a constant generation of content and there should be enough mercenaries for the EVE online employers. But if you want to be sure you can put some NPC employers and some NPC mercenaries in, to fill the gaps.
And if you don't want to connect the games too early you can just start this mechanic by replacing it entirely with NPC for the start. So that EVE players only get NPC mercenaries in the testing phase and Legion players only get NPC contracts in the testing phase.

If you have a stable flow of content you still can think about enabling mercenaries to join EVE corporations to fight only for this corporation. But in the beginning the distribution of content is the most important thing.
Some thoughts should be put in the duration of the fights. Do you want mercenaries to stay until the battle around the structure/ship/... is over? Or do you want a system where they get payed for their time in the battle/their kills/... and can leave any time. Then a new contract would go up and some other guy can join instead? Depending on how long the fights go this could be the better methode.

You also need a procedural generation of planets (ice, lava, water, …) and the way you place the PI infrastructure needs to affect the fight.

I am still not sure how these contracts would look best. But that can be worked out. Some thoughts:
The payment has to be based on something. If it is based on time in the battle you would have people accepting the contract and then waiting out time in a secure corner of the battlefield.
If it is based on Kills – people would steal kills from each other all the time and would play too aggressively and cycle through a lot of equipment. If it is based on K/D ratios it can result in a lot of camping. And since it is a ratio, you can simple kill one guy – then you have the ratio of 100% and then hide for the rest of the battle.
And how would you solve the equipment problem? Would you just give an equipment flatrate for them included in the contract – that could mean that they waste it? Or would you let them pay for it? Leading to hiding and not fighting for you appropriately. Also would you bring a lot of equipment of every flavor – so that the mercenaries can choose or would you buy for doctrine fits?
And would you set the requirements for high K/D like a min of 50/50? Because that would stop trolls from ruining your fight. But it also can be bad for Newbies getting excluded by the ratings all the time.
Maybe there could be also something like an optional objective. Or bonus payouts if the mercenary does something exceptionally well.

So basically what does a contract need to work the way intended, without having 50 lines of fine print?

Since the contract system would be the central connection point it should be very elaborated.
So post your thoughts on it!

So … wall of text is over – hope you enjoyed reading it.

I will think about it. But I really don't know how I can summarize it without only having a statement without reason.

EDIT: If someone reads it and finds a good way summerizing it I would be delighted. But for that at least someone has to read it...

It is mainly about the connection between EVE and that "no brainer FPS" so it is in parts about EVE. So maybe you would rate it interesting if you would read it. Maybe just start?

I mean the first two posts where TL;DR that's not really helpful, is it?

the only way Dust/Legion to be able to survive off the "integration" gimmick is if it was designed to be an expansion of the EVE universe from the start, however CCP has repeatedly stated they want the game to be independent and interesting first, with a connection to eve second, meaning no meaningful connection between the 2 games will ever be

honestly, if they just made it so one EVE account could play all the games, and unsubbed accounts could only access the DUST/Valkyrie parts, it would work and theyd have an excuse for close itnegration, because they were "the same game" so people would be cool-ish with it

as it is though, they want them to be completely separate games with a couple % bars here and there that they can effect on eachother, nothing meaningful or worth an EVE players actual attention

Um, yeah.

There's no way in hell I'm going to read that wall of text. Post a tl;dr.

If you can't make a summarized version of your idea then you obviously don't understand what your idea is. -1

1. put TL;DR into the original first post.
2. I did read the whole thing and it does make sense, although I think that separating the games is an issue.
What I mean here is -
- attacker drops a consciousness transfer beacon thing, and I would want to jump(as a capsuleer) into it as a FPS soldier.
- Fighting for titans/caps sounds cool, I think that if a titan needed to have 20 players in it, fighting to keep it from the enemy forces, it could be a much more powerful ship than it is right now (let it have point defences, aoe damage, etc...)
- Fighting for PI - bleh - these things are cheap.
3. If you had an option of relying on FPS to "unlock" certain parts of the game it would be great. Like - getting info out of the sleeper wrecks, stuff like that.

To play this game all you need is a sub. If you want to play FPS and pilot a titan - you need an alt. Same mechanics ad in eve, capsuleers are the people fighting, not some clone soldier thingies.

MIght work, might be a very bad idea, but I would play it:P

Yeah, that's what I got out of it.

Quality posting from yet another misinformed EVE Uni pilot.

First, thanks for the help. But I think you got me wrong in some cases - so a modified version:

Part1:
- Eve is strategy game, Dust is a FPS.
- Dust/project legion should not be standalone because the connection is a selling point, making it unique
- What connections are possible/ planned
- Planned for now is only the common market - since interaction in fights don't work without a reward for the time capsuleers spend on it.
- Common markets create the income problem.
- Solution 1: Dust players have less income -> problem: EVE alts are an advantage
- Solution 2: Buff dust income. -> problem: higher income needs higher expenses

Part2:
- Possible Solution to the higher expenses needed:
--- Put expensive things in dust market (to balance their buffed income)
--- Expensive things need to be worth their money -> ridicously strong ground units compared to eve ships would be needed (if they are not strong they wouldn't be worth their money)
-> Conclusion: Neither Solution 1 nor Solution 2 is really good.
-> Only connecting the market is a bad idea
-> Completly different approach
- Mercenaries work for capsuleers - capture things (PI infrastructure, POS, capital ships, ...) Since that is something infantry can do and ships can't

Part3:
- contract system as matchmaking for the Dust players. As order for the capsuleers.
- How it could look like - an example

Part4:
- Infantry will be used because capturing something undamaged can be worth the higher effort.
- Make legion about killboard stats, not isk. Since making the game about isk would lead to the income problem.



That's exactly the problem with this two genre thing.
If they had equal income, it would - well make them equal. But then you have the problem that their equipment has to cost the same amount as the equipment of eve players does because with the higher income they need also higher expenses too to balance it out. So the items need to cost the same as EVE ships do and they need to be in the same price area as in EVE. The same price area means that the most expensive things in Dust have to cost roughly the same that the most expensive things in EVE do.
But if you have so expensive equipment, this equipment needs to be worth the extra cost. And now you have the problem - how can you make a multi billion tank worth the money?
So if you still want the orbital strike connection to the EVE players - this ultra-expensive tank can precicly not be destroyed by one or two strikes. Because if it would, it would simply be not worth the isk.
So the orbital strikes from a frigate can't really scratch this expensive equipment without making it not worth the money.
But now you have a realism problem. Since an orbital strike should cause a lot of damage.

Do you understand what I mean?

EDIT: It is the same like in a fleet:
Tackle frigates are important but since they are cheap they are also expendable.
Now you have to get across that they are important although you rate them as expendable.

You have the same thing with Dust. Infantry is cheaper. So if you don't want them to have this inferiority complex you need to put the focus on something else than isk.
EVE is about isk, Dust needs to be about something else than isk if it should work. The games need to be asymmetric.