Tuesday 24 September 2013

SyNergy Gaming pulls out of Molden Heath

If you've spoken with Mavado over the past couple months, you'll have seen this coming. With Dust not living up to the expectations of it's veteran players, there's been a steady decrease in activity since Uprising launched. Throw in new AAA titles coming out (GTAV) and new consoles just months away, you'll start seeing a lot more of the veteran playerbase moving on.

It's worth noting that EoN still has a presence in Dust/EVE and will likely continue to even after the next gen hits. We still hold over 100 districts (40% of Molden Heath) between the remaining corps. For now though, some of EoN are moving on to do other things and there's no knowing if or when they'll be back.
Won dust. Nothing else to prove. Everyone except imps lost in a war vs us. Nothing left but stay and get frustrated farming as you watch your activity dwindle.
-Mavado, alliance leader of EoN.

Sunday 22 September 2013

Boots On The Ground S01E16

With the move finished, we're back to a weekly schedule again. This means a shorter format with more meaningful discussion can take place. With the lack of a particularly long PC or tournament discussion, I decided to leave it as a single part with the news first.



Audio link on the sidebar.

Wednesday 18 September 2013

Moving Is Finished, Time To Work

Moving is done for the moment. Might need to take a couple days to sort things now and again, but I've likely got the rest of the year to work on current projects with little interruption. I've spent this morning clearing out my secondary hard-drive and getting my computer to a happier state. Before the end of today, I'll be able to record, edit, upload and stream anything I want to. So here's an overview of what I'll be doing the next couple of months.

Blogging

Most recently I've been doing a lot of meta blogging and haven't produced as much actual content as I would like. I'll be writing more now and it will contain content that I'll have spent more time on. This will also include more EVE Online content, as I will be playing more EVE. I'll be looking into doing more high quality Dust posts over the coming months too, likely including guides and some more opinion pieces. There's some cool stuff in store for when the orbital changes come too (hopefully in 1.5).

Boots On The Ground

I'll be recording weekly again and with my new upload speeds, should result in quicker delivery and overall higher quality. Interest in the show has dropped a bit, but I'm still committed to making it. If anyone wishes to be a guest on the show, details are in the blog on the sidebar.

CPM Live

With the success of the CPM Ask Me Anything that took place over a month ago, I've been wanting to push to do a live weekly show with the CPM members that are interested. According to Hans' latest blog, the development schedule requires a level of compressed feedback that the show should help facilitate. Format will likely be an hour long and involve answering questions posted in the Youtube comments system. I will play a pure moderator role and mostly just filter questions coming in. Time and day is still to be set, a blog will be posted when they are.

General Youtube

I've mostly just been putting low effort videos onto Youtube recently and it shows. The best videos I've made recently can't be shown to the public yet and I haven't had time for better content. After some feedback from various places, raw gameplay videos will probably stop after the Logi Bro games are up. I will be taking more time to actually edit and produce more enjoyable content. I will also be streaming EVE and Dust on the channel too, so those will be archived and used for videos.

In the end, I'll probably monetize streaming, guides and talk shows, with tournament stuff later on. This means my other videos will have no restrictions on things like music, so I can make some videos for the sake of making cool stuff.

The 4 Minute Update

This project came to a grinding halt when we realized it's problems early on. It's been in limbo until new artwork and a real intro can be made. The older interviews will likely need redone or require a rework. This is frustrating since people took the time to talk to us back in July, but hopefully we can work things out. Artwork is almost done now, so it'll be back shortly after that has been finalized.

Other Projects

In about 2 weeks, I'll disappear for a couple days to do some personal stuff and work on something with a couple real life friends. This is something outside of gaming, so I'll only mention it in the future when it impacts other stuff I'm working on.

Anyway, time to go get some of this done.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

Boots On The Ground S01E15

Starting next week, we'll be back to a normal, weekly schedule again. For now, enjoy an exhausted Gimble try to host the show.







Audio link is on the sidebar.

Friday 6 September 2013

Initial Thoughts On Uprising 1.4

So 1.4 is finally here and now that the bugs are slowly being cleared away, we can start to see the intended direction CCP want the game to move in. While 1.3 fixed the flaylock pistol, the meta simply shifted to the 3 weapons that shared it's biggest strengths: mass drivers, forge guns and locus grenades. Shortly before 1.4 hit, it seemed like mass drivers were falling in usage in PC matches due to the strength of grenades and forge guns. This patch seems more likely to really shake things a bit, so here's some of my initial impressions.

Matchmaking

This is the probably the biggest change Dust will ever see and it's amazing how many people didn't realize how big a deal this would be. In an ideal world, this should have been in the game from open beta or even before then. For too long were new players getting completely wrecked by squads of proto bears in public matches. I can still remember what the #Dust514 feed was like on twitter during the months of seeing What The French drop 2-4 tanks in every ambush match and just rolling over the new players.

After the rough first day, matchmaking is now grouping players together by some unknown algorithm. This seems to be working as intended so far from what I can tell, with matches being far more even than before. I have no idea what this experience is like on the new player's end of the spectrum, but for a veteran it's exactly what I wanted. I have no desire for some hollow victory over those who can barely fight back, so even the losses I'm getting feel good.

The best part about this change is the complete role reversal for the older proto bears. Seeing those who used gear as a crutch come up against players around their own level and get crushed because they have no idea how to fight competent at the game is hilarious. I'm seeing people put this solely on the new auto aim system, when in reality it's mostly just because the playing field is actually level now. With improvements to hit detection and armour, the game plays very differently.

New Controls

Going to be upfront here, I barely use the pad to play. So when speaking about the new auto aim, I can only do so from the perspective of someone who plays against it. From what I've seen so far, it's barely been noticeable. I'm constantly fighting against people who I'd consider my betters, so I don't mind having to sharpen up if I want to win. The best player I squad with uses a DS3 (without aim assist) and you can see for yourself how well he does.



What I do want to mention is the issues with mouse controls. For some reason the turning rate when moving normally and when aiming is the opposite of what it should be. I'm currently restricted to hip firing most of the time and turrets turn crazy fast for me. Hopefully they can switch them around because aiming is pretty much broken until they do.

Outside that, I still have my polling rate set at 125hz as maxed settings on 1khz still doesn't reach the turn speed I currently have.

New Maps

4 maps were added to the pool with the 1.4 patch. Overall I like them over the previous maps, but they have their issues. In general the maps seem huge and feel as though they were designed for 24v24 or 32v32 sized teams. Border Gulch is a great example of this, as the bridge alone makes for an amazing 16v16 experience. I've heard rumblings about the Research Facility having problems in PC, but need more time to play on them myself.

Based purely on their layout, they clearly want people to start using more vehicles in matches for Skirmish on these. Having an LAV running around to help initiate assaults on points will be key on maps such as Border Gulch and Fracture Road.

What these maps do make me truly excited for is the possibility of new game modes. Fracture Road looks like a perfect map for Skirmish 1.0 and the bridge section on Border Gulch would be great for 6v6 domination.

Only thing left to say is it's frustrating to play on the old maps now. Ambush on Border Gulch is just so much more fun than any other map with the same game type.

New Meta and Other Changes

The changes to scanning have had a good impact on the way equipment slots are used. It's worth using up to 2 equipment slots in a squad to bring those scanners instead of more uplinks. The squad view changes combined with this now give those who used speed and shields to tank, an alternative in the form of profile signature reduction to sneak around.

The armour changes seem like they could make plates and repair tools dominate the meta. Armour tanks are now incredibly beefy and are doing well despite the increased accuracy that auto aim brought in. They're still vulnerable to things like grenades and direct mass driver hits, but they benefit from high damage output and third party repairs.

Speaking of repair tools, armour also has the advantage of generating more war points than shields due to gains from triage and guardian. This means another equipment slot is being taken away from uplinks in favour of more varied equipment. The final benefit to all this is armoured vehicles are more survivable in combat. Repair tools are pretty good when used on vehicles (especially the flux), so those armour tankers will need to work more with their logistics.

Mass drivers don't seem quite as good as before as they didn't receive a damage buff, weren't missing many shots before and are now hitting people who have more health. Forge guns have a slower projectile from what I've been told (and the new PC map has more cover against the high ground sniping spots). HMGs and scrambler rifles are much improved over their previous iterations.

I guess that just leaves grenades to be nerfed.