Here is a link to the discussion around that topic of dropsuits as well as how progression could work out in Project Nova. Keep in mind that this is an old discussion dating back to May 2017. That’s a long time ago from where we stand.
But if you don’t want to read through 7 pages of an old discussion in the archived forums, then I recommend skipping to the main article linked below.
You might agree with it or you might disagree with it, but at least we have a general blueprint on what kind of progression Nova will have going forward. I would pay close attention to the concept behind the consumable firmwares that are associated with these dropsuits.
The problem with making dropsuits 100% consumable upon death is that it resulted in a consistent situation in which players that were strapped for cash were left with no other option but to use the basic dropsuits which were nothing compared to the Prototype-level dropsuits they were pitted against. Sure, I have argued that a really skilled player in a Militia Dropsuit can take on a skilled player in a Prototype Dropsuit but if the majority of the team is wearing Militia and the opponents are mostly Prototype, the team will lose hands down to the Prototype players no matter how good they are.
My corp, Dust University, ran an equivalent of a ship replacement program at the time where at the end of the district battle every member of the team is given 5 million ISK just for participating so they can be encouraged to use their better fits which has worked to a limited extent but we still had our asses handed to us on a regular basis because we were not a cohesive unit and, being a learning corp, we were not all that serious about world domination. But it was something at least so that we had something more than a bunch of militia dropsuits running up against a sea of prototypes.
i remember the jist of it although i will look through it to refresh my memory but right off the bat you get this.
Every class has a single dropsuit that is instead augmented/upgraded over time to unlock additional fitting options, bonuses, and upgrades. So while upgrading the suit will make it objectively better than it was before you upgraded it, it is still the same suit. In a sense, this is to give an emotional attachment to the suit as you upgrade and improve it over time, rather than throwing it away once you unlock something better.
i dont want a single dropsuit, i want multiple “hulls” with distinct roles and looks as we have in eve.
that whole issue opens up the giant can of worms we had with the assault suit role where people kept trying to turn the assault frigate/heavy assasult cruiser style suits into general unspecified multipurpose roles. except every suit would be.
next hes talking about prefitting every suit like the apex suit. my ship in eve doesnt come prefit. i can equip my ship with any modules or weapons that can be fit to that ship. if they take that out of the dropsuits it just becomes the same as predefined locked classes in every other shooter. making your ship in eve/suit in dust is one of the things that set it apart from other shooters as well as having a wallet to earn funds and pay for your mistakes by buying a new suit.
if youre suits are free and dont get destroyed and all your items are prefit theres no reason to stay isk positive. it just devolves into cod.
that link you posted just reminds me why i dislike ccp rattati, not to mention years ago back when he took over he admitted hed never played eve before (at the time then, not sure if still true) and that he didnt know how eve mechanics or the universe worked.
that entire theory workshop link fills me with absolute dread.
i never ran out of money, i ran advanced gear with prototype weapons almost 99% of the time and i cant recall a single time i dropped below 90m isk. basic suits were more than competitive against most anything in the game with the exception of anti vehicle weapons which were mostly useless against overpowered vehicle builds.
i had bad experiences with dust university tho and left almost immediately, dont recall why but i remember seeing dust university teams occasionally.
i was in neanderthal nation then merged into sver true bloods and eventually left that cause no one really talked and think i ended up in capital accquistions with some friends and occasionally teamed up with dem dirty boys.
You’re forgetting about the firmware which is consumable at the end of each battle (if I recall what Rattati said correctly) and theoretically has a cost to acquire.
I do see where you are coming from and I also has similar reservations in the past like you do now. However, what changed my mind is the fact that we are dealing with a FPS environment which operates completely differently than in Eve Online’s MMO environment. The demographics will likely be different despite having direct ties with Eve Online in terms of their communities. Don’t forget that a sizeable, if not the majority, of the Dust 514 player base consisted of console players that have never heard of or never bothered to play Eve Online. Some of them only started to play Eve as soon as I brought it up in a few of my lectures in Dust University.
Many of these players prefer a more streamlined system of progression than what Eve has. We tried that. Literally we tried Eve Online’s style of progression and concept of loss through the dropsuits and vehicles but we all saw what happened. It was a mess and the players who complained, many of which never played Eve, said they felt like they were going through a constant meat grinder just to unlock critical gear they need and by the time they finished they were burnt out and gave up the game.
That’s when I realized that Eve Online’s style just doesn’t work well in an FPS environment.
As CCP Rattati said, and please forgive me if I said it wrong as I suck at verbatim quotes: “Dust 514 is not Eve.”
Oh man, now those are some names I haven’t heard in a loooooooooong time. I still remember that many of the players came over from that other FPS game that shut down long ago. I forgot the name but it involved over 100 players in a single match.
and thats where i differ from rattati.
dust 514’s name was eve online: dust 514.
dust was eve. dust takes place in eve. i had this exact discussion with him back on the dust forums and he said he never played eve online either when he took over.
he actually banned me for trolling when i told him he was unqualified to lead the game with 0 eve experience when i meant it with sincerity.
well to be fair i dont know with 100% accuracy that he was the one who banned me but we were replying to each other directly when it happened so i doubt it was a random mod who did it.
the issue dust never got off the ground really was it launched as an alpha. half the vehicles, guns, modules, suits were missing, there were balance issues, and it was buggy and prone to exploits like how nyansan used to spam equipment underneath the gallente research facility.
the general base of the game was fine they just never went far enough with it or gave an adequate npe to get the blueberries acquainted with the game where they could be competitive.
hence the meat grinder mentality and our nickname for them blueberries. part of it was our own fault to be honest but every now and then id go solo and try to go on comms publically to help people. alot of them didnt have mics too which in any shooter makes it very hard.
and the game youre thinking of was MAG, i never played that game or had any affiliation with the original players. from what i understood and was told was a core of players had left sver to do their own thing, the uh… A team i guess. ntn was brought in as some fresh players but we didnt like their attitude ultimately because they were always so quiet and hard to play with. they werent bad people its just. we liked to joked and talk and have lively comms and alot of the people in sver i encountered were very quiet and didnt talk so it was hard to mix our two groups together and even though we were under the same corp name we usually stayed in our respective cliques.
yeah its old names. i eventually left dust in like 2014 before the fanfest where they completely threw dust under the bus and everyone diehard who stayed around started dropping out.
Yeah, like I said, it was a mess. By the way, it launched after beta (not alpha) but same difference I guess. The running joke was that Dust was in perpetual beta.
As for the ban, Rattati is not likely to be that person to do it to you unless he comes out right now and confesses, but you were probably banned by another CCP Dev who was known to lurk around the forums. I forgot who it was but it was likely a Community Dev.
Now, I will give you the benefit of the doubt that perhaps we might have a stronger Eve Online demographic present in Project Nova given that the new game will be on PC, but I still have my nightmares of how it all went down trying to apply an MMO concept of progression and personal loss to an FPS setting but I do hope I’m wrong about it and that it just needs the right setup.
lol yeah i know but im taking it a step further and saying alpha.
as in “beta? this is still alpha”
usually a beta will have most of the stuff finished. you cant beta test the amarr tank or caldari heavy suit if they arent in the game for people to try. so to me it was an alpha lol.
no clue on the second, ive brought it up before in the past in offhand comments but i just realized i never had any proof besides the coincidental timing. i never spoke to him again after that because i always associated him with it and despite disagreeing with him prior to it, afterward i flatout disliked him.
as for the last but maybe, but i think the most defining feature dust has is the mmo progression, skills, and the value on your suits. when i play cod or battlefield i dont care if i die really beyond stats. theres a concrete value to each death in dust, i got better so id be able to make money and buy better gear the same way i save up to by stuff in eve or any other mmo.
streamlining it might open it up to more casual players rather than trying to take casual players and turn them into adept players like you uh would expect to be the case in eve where the people who stick around get into it more. but as youve heard others say already thats where im concerned the game loses its identity and becomes just another lobby shooter in a scifi setting rather than an fps thats part of eve online when you take away all the indepth customized builds and leveling up.
Why i was love dust? Because i can lost all, i can use all and it was great. It was one game, where one man can change everythink and make a win or lost. I have to thinking in battle, i have to switch between proto and adv item or suits. I earn isk and buy iterest weapon and suits. We have a lot of games where we only unlock items and use and cant Lost. It is boring.
I wait for Project nova, p4f or pay per month is doesnt matter. I want to earn isk, talk with friends and fight with them. So, cya on battlefield or drednoth corridors…
That reminds me. A lot of players in Dust told me, at least while I was holding lectures or just ■■■■ talking with friends, that one of Dust 514’s constant lure that reeled them in was the social aspect of the game. I think a few of them said that had it not been for the social aspect of Dust 514 (which is apparent through Eve-style corporations) they would have uninstalled the game much sooner.
Having so many people to talk to even helped some of the players who were suffering from illnesses or disorders like anxiety or PTSD. Sometimes it even provided a venue for current and former military veterans to come together (though veterans are common in COD too) and have a good time knowing they are playing with people who they can relate especially since Dust 514 offered players a gateway to Eve Online’s supportive network of players who also include veterans.
I think it’s important that Project Nova retains that social aspect that Dust 514 brought in to the FPS world.
Something along the lines of boring as duck dull click fest with ■■■■ interfaces run by bots with dull grind no good fights blobs.
That is what the gaming community thinks of eve. Add on top the high sec griefs abuse of newcomers that sums it up