New Faction Warfare: There Is No Grind

So with the new Faction Warfare announcements, one thing has been bothered some people. In order to reach the maximum level of standings with a faction, you will need to win over 1500 matches for said faction.

Already the complaints of "another thing to grind" are beginning to come in from people. But I might have the solution to this, something to make the grind not even be an issue.


Don't tell anyone what their standings are.

Well OK, you can give people a rough idea. But do we really need to tell people the nitty gritty details? Surely all anyone needs to know is whether they're in the green or the red. Lets say someone has won 50 matches and has no team kills, that person could be told they have "fair" standings with that faction. Push it up to 100 wins with no team kills and they're told they have "good" standings. Maybe use a medal system like in EVE and keep thing ambiguous.

So long as players have enough information to know whether they need to be careful with team killing or have some winning to do, they should be fine. Giving out exact details only serves to make it feel more like a grind. Players will feel a natural sense of progression without any kind of force to keep them going beyond what they find enjoyable.

These Faction Warfare changes are still months away, so it will be interesting to see where True Grit goes with this.

Dust 514 News And What EVE Players Should Know

Edit: There was a small mistake with this post. Planetary Conquest won't involve Sov, you can go blame Lt Royal.

So over the last 48 hours, a large amount of new Dust 514 content has been announced. While no items, vehicles or game modes were mentioned, we've been given a rough roadmap of the upcoming Dust-EVE linked content. By now, most Dusters that care know about these changes, so here's the important parts that EVE players will want to know about.

New Orbitals

• Orbitals will be based on a king of the hill style system above planets. EVE pilots will have to run the timer down for their side to give Dust players the ability to call in orbitals for Faction Warfare and Planetary Conquest(?).
• Kills from orbitals will give kill mails.
• Faction Warfare pilots will gain loyal points from orbital bombardments.

Faction Warfare

• Dust players will receive loyalty points for participating in Faction Warfare. Dust players who fight more for a side will increase standings and receive more loyalty points as a result.
• Faction Warfare orbitals will be from EVE only, no more NPC strikes.
• CREST will give data on Faction Warfare districts. This will allow EVE players to see the status of the ground war on websites like Dotlan.
• It's still undecided if Dust players will ever be able to sign up to a single faction (like in EVE) and not just be mercenaries.
• Expected to be rolled out over the next 3 or so months.

Planetary Conquest 2.0

• All new PC system in the works. Will involve EVE players a lot more.
• New EVE ship being added, the 'War Barge'. Will be required to start certain kinds of Dust battles in PC 2.0. Can only be flown by EVE pilots. Will be vulnerable to EVE pilots while travelling and vulnerable to Dust mercs during ground battles.
• Will be involved with sovereignty mechanics in some way. (False info, sorry)
• EVE developers already at work on this, so could be as soon as the next summer expansion?

Other

• Dust 514 getting a new market system that will allow trading between players. Another step towards EVE and Dust trading?

You can find all this mentioned during their EVE Vegas talk (starts around 4h 15m) and on the Dust forums.  

The October 2013 Faction Warfare Event In Review

So credit where it's due, CCP have been trying new things when it comes to events. There's the standard double and triple XP events of course. There's also the grind X for items type too. The recent faction warfare event could be labelled as such, but the tie in with faction warfare is a new angle. Unlike the Caldari Prime event, the game now supports players choosing sides and there are actual benefits to the player for participating.

The Good

The event was announced weeks ahead of time, giving players some time to prepare. It's possible to get everyone in your corp/alliance to fight together on a single side, so queue-syncing is much easier to pull off. The rewards require effort to acquire and it's possible for the average player to reach the 20 match minimum.

The event also got people to really put time into faction warfare and it seems like many groups will continue to play it. Dust and EVE players are also reaching out to each other to work together. The rise of faction warfare as a much more competitive environment has allowed players to go full blast without the guilt of proto stomping. Anyone going into the warzone knows what they're in for.

The Bad

With no long term consequences, there's no reason for anyone to be loyal to any side. By itself, this wouldn't be so bad. In conjunction with the prize system however, you've got some real problems.

So each reward tier requires a certain win rate to obtain the prototype level gear. This alone would be fine, but with the game's current meta favouring certain suits/weapons/equipment, the strongest people will naturally gravitate towards the best rewards. In this case, most of the top players went Amarr. So what did everyone else with no loyalties also do? Joined Amarr.

I suppose it's my own fault for picking Minmatar, but the repair tools and mass drivers looked so nice. There were a number of groups playing Minmatar with some success, but why would the average corp pick the losing side when only winners are rewarded? CCP tout the "you're a mercenary" line when it comes to loyalty, but it's almost silly how one sided this all became. How CCP use the data from this event will be as interesting as how the playerbase interacts with faction warfare going forward.

Overall the event had some cool ideas and a good effort:reward balance, but favoured those who picked the winning side. It was interesting to watch play out, but I hope they try something different in future events.

p.s. Some more heavy rewards would be nice in the future.

Amarr Hold The Ground and Push The Sky

So in a strange twist, the past couple of days have seen the Amarr take every ground district in the warzone. What was previously a Gallente/Minmatar domination of the ground has changed completely over the last 48 hours. I also saw a post on the EVE subreddit today called "Amarr FW is in tier 2!" It seems the guys up in the stars are flipping systems and pushing back against the Minnies as well. I guess this is one of the best examples of the "One Universe One War" tag line playing out the way CCP intended.

So why the sudden change on the ground? On Tuesday, a faction warfare event started offering rewards to mercs who participated and won a certain % of their matches for a single faction. The rewards are varied by which faction you fight for, so looking at the current meta on the ground, a large amount of players are fighting for the Amarr because they offer the "best" rewards. The Minmatar rewards are nice too and I've personally been fighting for them, but the evidence suggests heavily that people want those drop uplinks more than they want the repair tools.

The bizarre thing about all this though is that while the rewards are nice, they aren't that nice. You're talking somewhere in the region of 5 million ISK on the Dust side to just buy them off the market. I've seen people throwing tanks close to that value into matches in order to keep their win ratio up. It's bizarre, but with not much else to do, I guess it makes sense that people will be going all out to get their rewards.

The event lasts until the 15th, so whether or not the Amarr will continue to hold everything past then is still unknown. It's possible we might see podsicles and bunnies start talking to each other to set something up going forward. There are a large number of mercs looking for work and with orbitals being a bit more commonplace now, the possibility of joint operations for a common cause exist. There's also methods of paying mercs across the games if you're willing, although the exchange rate heavily favours Dust right now (8:1 EVE:Dust).

Funny how a small carrot on a stick can impact so many.

EVE 514: Friends With Benefits Part 1

Disclaimer: It should be noted that while this article isn't aimed at following the "Dust is doomed" bandwagon, it is true that the game has issues and those being fixed over the next 6 months will be key to Dust's future. Most of what I have written here has been from thoughts about the game over the past few months and would have been written despite the timing. It's also purely opinionated and merely for the sake of creating discussion. The Dust 514 roadmap devblog is also coming soon, but I'd like to put my 2 cents in regardless.

Anyway.

There's been a lot of discussion about the Dust/EVE link since the game came out of NDA. As of right now, the link between the games is barely noticeable. On the Dust side, we get slightly better orbital support given the right circumstances, but that is almost negligible. On the EVE side, we get POS bonuses that rely on Dust players picking certain ground structures and an advantage in taking systems in faction warfare that is hard to control on the Dust side. It's also worth noting that the rewards for these actions on the Dust side of things simply don't exist. A faction warfare battle gives no more than your average Skirmish match and the district structures that give bonuses give less income on the ground than the structure that doesn't.

Right now, the games don't really matter all that much to each other and Dust is getting the short end of the stick. This is supposedly getting improved with a new orbital system in the future, but having that edge still doesn't do much for the average Dust mercenary. The biggest idea that is being debated right now are ISK transfers between the games. This has issues with balance and could end up with situations where a trillionaire with a taste for FPS could run around in advanced tanks until the end of time. Even if the ISK transfers were heavily taxed, the potential disasters seem to be keeping it off the table currently. If either game failed with the other relying on such a system, it could very well hurt the other game.

But what if there was another way to link the games? If they need to work independently of each other, do they even need to be linked in such a direct manner?

Picture a faction warfare war-zone. The current mechanics on the EVE-side reward those that destroy enemies, work towards taking/defending systems and run PvE missions for their faction's militia. These rewards are increased by the amount of space you hold and upgrading the space you're in.

While this system isn't perfect, but Dust could also benefit from being a part of this. Right now planets affect faction warfare by altering the speed systems are taken. This is a nice benefit to EVE players, but provides nothing for Dust players that a simple public match doesn't (other than a sense of racial pride). Dust players could easily fit into the current system and even help fix one of it's flaws, but I'll get to that.

The first step is rewarding winners with loyalty points with a set amount. The base amount for a normal person winning a match will be named 'Tier 1' for now. For the sake of having a workable number, we'll put the reward at 50 LP for a victory.

The second step is giving mercs a choice if they want to sign up for a specific militia or stay as a strict third party. The benefits from joining up would be getting earlier access to faction warfare matches and victory rewards based on your chosen faction's tier. Higher tiers would mean potentially gaining 100/175/250/325 LP per victory. All of a sudden you now care about how well your faction is doing and your contribution to the war effort pays you back in kind. Third party mercs can still take part and will have the freedom to fight for who they want.

The third step is to allow mercs in a faction to donate LP to their faction's infrastructure hubs (thus increasing your faction's tier). There's an issue in faction warfare where those who benefit the most from the payout system are the ones who don't donate to iHubs. This could be alleviated somewhat by allowing mercs to also help donate. It isn't a perfect solution to the issue, but perhaps the increase in participants would allow for a more serious effort to maintain a higher tier. It also gives EVE and Dust players more incentive to work together.

The fourth step is adding more active battles. In EVE, there are always complexes (king of the hill hills) available all across the warzone. This allows space for those wanting to farm in remote corners while organized groups fight in the more important ones. With a way to show where the active systems are, organized groups could push those while rag tag groups fight over the less important systems.

The fifth step is to add faction rewards. The great things about these are that they can be used to experiment with variations of standard gear in a real environment. Maybe that sprint bonus from equipped armour plates wouldn't be great on a standard dropsuit, but if it's too good or too weak, you can tweak it without messing with the more commonly used standard gear.

Anyway, just some thoughts as I've spent the past week back in faction warfare on EVE. Faction warfare has some huge potential in Dust and is the perfect starting point to try new mechanics before putting them in the rest of the sandbox. If people are interested, I'll do a part 2 on some thoughts on linking the games outside of faction warfare.

A Week Back In Galmil

So with a lot of people burnt out from Dust right now, I've picked up EVE again as my primary game of choice. I came to love EVE PvP last year after spending about 6 months in the Gallente militia. So with Dust on the back burner and EVE side orbital support being pretty much worthless, I moved my main back to Galmil.

I started by going to cash out the LP I had when I left to join GIANT, which went poorly after flying a regular Megathron into a high sec gate camp. It really hit home how overconfident I was compared to when I had left. This probably came from leaving when Gallente owned every system and the Caldari had dropped players like flies. Since then, the warzone is much more eqaul. Drunk and Disorderly are now pirates, the Caldari have grown in numbers and some of Villore Accords have split off.

But no matter, I bought a couple of Brutix instead and with my new found ISK, went to go get some more ISK. At first, this was easy, Gallente are sitting at tier 2 and I have time in the morning to play. The burst-like gameplay of PvP plexing makes for a good way to get writing and some other work done between fights.

At first it went OK, but my cap stable AB Incursus ran into problems quickly. I wasn't able to get on top of anyone and began to get kited by Condors repeatedly. This resulted in calling for help on multiple occasions. The first time this happened, the Condor had me pointed for 20 minutes while we both waited for friends to arrive. I messaged those passing by for help but only finding a ship-less friendly who promised to send word for help. Minutes passed as myself and the Condor continued to fly from the plex warp in. At what must have been around 500km, a hostile finally showed up, but more pirates and Gallente did too. As wrecks started to appear on d-scan, the hostile left the Condor and I to our strange tug of war.

Eventually a pirate Slasher appeared and started to burn towards us. As I awaited my slow death however, a Maulus also appeared. I hadn't played too much after Retribution, so was unfamiliar with what a Maulus was capable of. As the Maulus burned after the Slasher at over 6km/s however, I soon realized I was saved. As the Maulus caught the Slasher, slowly devouring it with drones, the Condor pulled off and I was free. My friend had also arrived but to no matter, I was safe for now and more plexing awaited.

This respite was to be short lived though. As another Condor caught me on an acceleration gate, a repeat of the last half hour dawned on me. Luckily my friend was still nearby and we actually got a chance to catch him. Sadly my friend burned out his web and we let him escape, but it was a good fight while it lasted and my taste for PvP left me wanting. A few more plexes and another Brutix sale later, I decided to step up my game and fly a Harpy instead.

Now this is where my time playing Dust had come in handy. A long break from EVE meant I wasn't logging in much, so I had decided to queue long skills such as Assault Frigate V. A small amount of playing in EVE fitting tool later and I had a Harpy build I was happy with. For those interested in the exact build, here's the loss mail. The Harpy was good for plexing. It could take on most other gun based destroyers and frigates while also being able to kill missile frigates. It's main issue was ships being able to escape with webs, but as I was able to stay on the plex while my enemies fled, it didn't matter too much.

I think I made around 400 million ISK from this Harpy while actively PvP'ing. The issue was having to run from other missile based platforms, but it did it's job well while it was alive. I decided to switch things up with it's successor however. The rocket launcher wasn't doing as much as I'd hoped, so I switched in a small neutraliser. This allowed me to do well in cap wars against the wave of repairing ships I was encountering. Like it's predecessor, it earned me a large chunk of change and I only lost it through attacking into an obvious trap. I'll likely fly more Harpies in the future, it's a great ship and I've got more ideas for how I want to fly it.

After all this, I'd plexed my account and had a big chunk of money left over to play with. Feeling the need to have a frigate that used a web, I did what anyone with more money than sense would do: I spent a quarter of a billion ISK on a Daredevil. The thing was a really beauty; multiple A-type modules, a faction web, a tight fit with a logical purpose and around 300 damage per second. I went to sleep last night happy with my purchase and after some early more Dust, decided to take it for a spin.

After a quick novice plex done, I moved on to the next system to do another. With 3 minutes left on the timer, I noticed a Merlin and a Tristan on short scan. I decided to stand and fight, not knowing whether I would win or lose against such a force. I felt confident in my chances though and it wasn't completely unfounded. The Tristan landed first and fearing ECM drones, I quickly jumped on top of it and overheated my guns to bring him down quickly. He was tougher than expected, but I was basically touching him, so my little Ion Blasters powered through and brought him down.

I rejoiced for about half a second before realizing I had been heavily by the Merlin and was in half armour. In my tunnel visioned blood-lust, I had forgotten to target the Merlin. With barely any capacitor left, I tried to drain some cap and started repairing again. I panicked and wasn't sure what to do. At first I fought back, but realized I should have run. I could have escaped him if I had wanted to, but I was too used to standing my ground. I died with barely any capacitor left, desperately trying to repair when I should have been webbing him. I flew my pod to the sun and with a "gf" in local, left to go find a new (cheaper) ship to start earning my way back up again.

Fare thee well Daredevil.

At the end of the day though, I'm having a blast. Solo PvP is insanely enjoyable and I'll be sure to fly more expensive ships to their doom. I have no idea what the future holds for my Dust corp and I may well get dragged into fighting for another militia. What I will say is I missed you Galmil and I hope we get to spend more time together.