Meaningful Customization & Balance via Tradeoff Decisions

[Malorn]

This discussion is one of the key points in the thread about the 20% power difference. This discussion is not about whether a 20% power difference should exist - this is a discussion about how it manifests in the game.

Fundamentally a ~20% or more power difference is not a bad thing for a game, provided it is limited by player choice and trade-off. You can even go higher for more differentiation, as long as there is a trade-off decision.

It comes down to one core principle:


There must always be limits to the number of power gains a player has active at any one time.

This does not mean the player is limited in their total number of abilities - only in the number of those abilities that can be used at any given moment.

Here are 4 examples of this that should be familiar to most everyone.

A) Implants in Planetside 1. A player had several implants from which to choose, but he could only have at most 3 installed at any given time. This was a beautiful way of giving players extra activated abilities but balancing it by making them choose which ones they could have at any given time.

B) Tactics in Warhammer Online. A player had 'tactics' which were customizations a player could attach to their character. One might be that the player gains 10% additional healing. Another might reduce the energy cost of an ability (or in PS terms might reduce the implant stamina cost). Another was increased damage, but reduced survivability. A player could only have a certain number of these active, but they had a wide range to choose from and they could swap them out anytime out of combat. This was a beautiful system of customization but it kept the power in check. This is really what I'd like to see in PS2.

C) Gadget slots in BFBC2. Battlefield Bad Company 2 featured "Gadget" slots where a player could unlock abilities over time, but each gadget slot had a certain set of abilities which the player must choose. The difference between this and the tactic system above or the implant system is that some of those abilities were mutually exclusive. You could not, for example, have both the 25% gun damage gadget and the 25% armor damage - you had to choose one of the two. This is a good system because it allows you to limit the combinations that you see and keep potentially broken combinations of bonuses from being used together. This is a good lesson to learn.

D) EVE-Online's ship customization. It allowed a wide range of flexibility, but you had tradeoffs in the upgrades that were placed on the ship. Certain number of high slots, certain number of low slots, etc. Some things gave raw bonuses, like increased damage & rate of fire. Some things had benefits and penalty tradeoffs, like lower structure but faster speed. The point was your character may have been able to use all of those ship abilities, but you can only put a small set of those things on your ship at any one time.


One key observation with the Warhammer & EVE examples:

A tradeoff need not be sum-zero. The fact that bonuses are limited and the player must choose them is itself a tradeoff! So if you want more damage you don't need to sacrifice something else to get it. It can be calibrated for example that any given benefit adds up to about 5% net-gain. If a player has 4 benefits total at any one time, there's your 20% difference. That's noticable, but not huge.

If a player wants more than 5% that's when negatives might start coming into the picture to counteract the larger bonus. So for example we might have something like 5% damage bonus as one possible tradeoff (with no side-effects). Then we might have 10% damage bonus but 10% increase in damage taken, so the player has the option of doing more damage and taking more damage, or simply having a smaller damage bonus.


Here is how I would like to see power advancement work in Planetside 2. For the sake of clarity I'll call power bonuses "Tactics", as in the example from Warhammer Online above.


1) Players unlock Tactics via the cert system.
Some tactics are only available by deep investment in a tree and may take months to obtain. This is OK.

2) A player has a certain number of tactic slots that he or she can use.
They are sort of like Implants only instead of being activated abilities they are passive modifications (a customization if you will) of the player's base abilities.

3) Tactics have classifications or groupings, and some are mutually-exclusive with one another and can never be taken together.
This takes the Battlefield BC2 example for balancing purposes. This is just to prevent broken combinations from being used. It also allows the bonuses to be more meaningful since you don't have to worry about them interacting with each other (rate of fire bonus vs damage bonus, for example - a player shouldn't be able to get both because they interact and the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts) These groupings could be along the lines of "survivability" and "mobility" and "quality of life" and that sort of thing.

4) A player must choose which of his tactics to have active.
I may have 100 tactics unlocked, but I must choose a handful of those to be active, perhaps 5 for example to throw a number out there.

5) A player must go to an implant station or something along those lines in order to switch out the tactics
(but they can have loadouts to make it easy). The point is that if players can swap out tactics on a whim then they'll swap them out whenever they change classes and everyone will end up using similar bonuses all the time. By having them switch less frequently you get specialization. That is the person who is primarily a pilot with Pilot specializations will likely be running with those all the time, which will set that person apart from the guy who just happens to hop into a pilot class and fly around for a little bit. This is important to preserve specialization.

The "tradeoff" here is that a player must make a tradeoff decision - do they want to run with more aircraft maneuverability, or more footspeed or something else? They make that decision and they get the bonus. But they don't get all bonuses they have unlocked simultaneously, that's the key.


Squad leader abilities can work the same way - they're like tactics which get applied to the entire squad. You can differentiate squad leaders by which leadership tactics they choose to apply to the squad. You can have SPECIALIZED squad leaders who run with armor or aircraft or max bonuses, or general purpose squad leaders.

And of course outfits can have a different set of tactics that they too must choose. Some types of benefits could be reserved for squad leader or outfit bonuses to keep them appealing.

And best of all, new players can 'catch up' quickly to vets simply by joining an outfit and a squad. They'll still need to unlock some of their tactics but some will be available right from the get-go so they will have something and be competitive. THen over time they're rewarded for their specialization by having more tactical options for their chosen playstyles.


The key thing here is CHOICE and not being able to have-it-all. That is what preserves specialization and makes those customization decisions meaningful. When you just give out a bonus to everyone when they train a skill and they keep that bonus forever and ever is when you have a bad system. That's when power advancement is dumb and ridiculous. I wanted to differentiate the two so the developers reading understand that the beef most of us have with the "20%" thing is that it doesn't lead to customization unless the player must make tradeoff decision.

The power of this system is tremendous. Devs can track which tactics people are using and if a single tactic is overly prolific or being completely neglected it might need some changing. More tactics can be added over time as the game evolves and it won't throw the balance of the game out of whack.

It also allows bonuses to be meaningful, and not piddly 1%-2% here and there, but 10%'s, and 20 and 25%. Again, because a player can't have them all they can have meaningful customizations that change the way they play in significant and noticeable ways. I can choose to be a max specialist or a pilot specialist or a strange sort of hybrid based on my playstyle.

The possibilities here are endless and the bottom line is balanced, meaningful specialization that scales with additions to the game as it evolves.

[Duddy]

I've always imagined that you'd actually have say 5 "slots" per playable roles (and perhaps 5 "general" slots which effects can be used across roles). Though you could argue this defeats the idea of specialization, I would say it actually adds more customization to the game, akin to how in TF2 one persons Soldier will no be the same as another.

Also don't forget that there are tiers of "tactics" that are limited by battle rank.

Otherwise agree with pretty much everything said.

[Baron]

+1

[CutterJohn]

That is the person who is primarily a pilot with Pilot specializations will likely be running with those all the time, which will set that person apart from the guy who just happens to hop into a pilot class and fly around for a little bit. This is important to preserve specialization.

Why?



At any rate, they already said that the certs unlock upgrades(though I don't know if all certs have a corresponding upgrade), and that they are purchased with resources. Presumably you won't be able to fit all upgrades at the same time, so there will be tradeoffs. Except sights.. Those better be a straight up free upgrade. I hate iron sights.

If some do just give a straight up bonus to your character, I have zero issue with the bonus applying all the time. I do not feel that I need to have an advantage over them at the same role at any time. If we could have a game with zero leveling, that would be great, but we don't, so it is what it is. If they have the certs, I'm happy to fight them with those certs.

[EASyEightyEight]

Eh, this sounds like it's already in game to some degree. Attachments to weaponry and tools that may or may not be restricted by class. I can't bring my HA certs with me as a jump trooper for example and having to return to a station to swap out active "tactics"/certs for ones that help me as a jump trooper seems kind of counter-intuitive to what SOE is attempting with classes in the first place.

I'm also not under the impression that we'll see straight up stat boosts, like clicking 5 times on a talent and getting 15% more damage from your fireball :rolleyes:

More like... stat boosts via attachments and equipment/vehicles upgrades that one can actually see. A highly maneuverable Reaver would look more maneuverable than your average flying brick I would assume. Course, that brick probably has hellfire rocket pods drilled into its underbelly that can coat an area in crimson flame, while the reaver running circles around it can only really hope to take out its enemy one at a time.

What I'm definitely not for however is the whole "I get this attachment and it increases X, but decreases Y." That crap will work itself out without decreasing Y. I'd rather have additional firepower or ammo in my magazine than a naturally tighter CoF at CQC. No need to make my weapon hit any softer as a result of picking the accuracy attachment.

[Malorn]

That is the person who is primarily a pilot with Pilot specializations will likely be running with those all the time, which will set that person apart from the guy who just happens to hop into a pilot class and fly around for a little bit. This is important to preserve specialization.
Why?
Because "meaningful customization" wouldn't have much meaning if everyone could switch those customizations on a dime to whatever situation they are in. Some level of commitment to a speclization is what makes it meaningful and makes a specialist interesting. That isn't to say you are stuck with it, but I'm imagining something along the lines of PS1 implants. You can change them whenever you want, but there's a bit of inconvenience that lends you to generally run with the same ones most of the time. That makes it a real tradeoff.

Presumably you won't be able to fit all upgrades at the same time, so there will be tradeoffs.
You know what they say about assumptions. I'm giving the explicit feedback that your presumption is not only important, but essential to having that system work in a way that is meaningful and balanced for the game.

Eh, this sounds like it's already in game to some degree.

Weapon attachments are one form of this, but I'm talking much more broadly than only being able to have one type of weapon sight.

If you played EVE, the way I'm seeing this is that a player's character is like a ship in EVE with different slots for augmentations. For example, you might have two "high slots" that are for damage/survivability type augmentations. You unlock them with the cert tree and put what you want there. You could have a set of "medium slots" for mobility/miscellaneous things that aren't direct damage/survivability, such as runspeed or vehicle handling, ammo carrying capacity, that sort of thing. Then you have your "low slots" for quality of life things like reducing MAX/vehicle timer, maybe lowering resource costs of specific types of upgrades, that sort of thing.

And of course then you have your resource-consuming upgrades like your weapon, MAX suit, tank, aircraft, etc that you customize.

So there's weapon/vehicle/max customizations that cost resources and then there's player character customizations that agument your play style which operate similar to implants - you pick them and can change them but only at specific places.

That's more or less the concept in a few paragraphs.

[Raymac]

Malorn, I wanted to come in here and flame you for getting deep into talking about balancing a skill advancement system we know little to nothing about. But after reading it, I realized it's just you expressing your opinion and hopes on what that system may look like.

Personally, I'm waiting to see what these skill trees look like, but there's nothing wrong with discussing and speculating, as long as we don't get to involved with actually emotionally debating balance. There's plenty of time for those arguments later.

[Malorn]

Malorn, I wanted to come in here and flame you for getting deep into talking about balancing a skill advancement system we know little to nothing about. But after reading it, I realized it's just you expressing your opinion and hopes on what that system may look like.

Personally, I'm waiting to see what these skill trees look like, but there's nothing wrong with discussing and speculating, as long as we don't get to involved with actually emotionally debating balance. There's plenty of time for those arguments later.

Thank you for refraining the flames. We actually know quite a bit about the system from what they've described. Folks are concerned about the power advancement in the system and that's where I'm elaborating a bit more.

They could be doing it exactly as I describe. Or maybe they aren't and they'r emore EVE-skill like where everyone has a constant benefit that they get. Its not too clear yet on which system they're going with so I'm doing what Higby and others asked us to do - give them feedback. The feedback is mainly that we don't like the idea of giving vets power simply becuase they played the game longer, but power itself isn't bad as long as it comes with tradeoffs. That's actually a great thing to encourage specialization and differentiate players.

For example, I might run with a bunch of augments that help with squad leading, providing tank-relevant squad bonuses, and tank driving because I specialize in being a tank platoon leader. Outside of a tank I'm not as great as soeone who specialized full-on infantry. But it gives us each our niches that we can dive into and be unique snowflakes. And of course we can also change those niches when/if we want.

[EASyEightyEight]

You seem to be conveniently forgetting the time investment to specialization. It's not like 2 months in of constant play anyone is going to have full access to the MA, HA, AV, Medical, Engineering, Reaver pilot certs. That may take up to 6 years. May take more. May take less. Or a player could dip a little into everything quickly but they wouldn't exactly be "specialized" either.

Really, you're freaking out over something we shouldn't have to worry about a long, long time from now.

And by then, no one will give a damn, because we'll all have found our preferred method of play and selection of equipment/attachments that we primarily stick with anyway, despite having access to so much else. Just think about how you fill your inventory now, and how someone else might fill theirs. I personally don't leave home with any less than 200 rounds and a REK, despite having no hacking certs.

I don't see any reason to demand players go back to a terminal to activate access to certs. Hell, with what we know thus far, and how players tend to act, I don't see any need to.

[CutterJohn]

You know what they say about assumptions.

That they can be pretty decent for day to day operations if they are made with some sense?

[Soothsayer]

Tradeoffs are going to be what makes this system work.

There is a lot of value in your post Malorn, but I disagree with the notion of a total limit on active talents, in the context of your post.

While I do believe that some limits on the number of active talents would be ok, I think that there should be some categories where they may be active but unused. To clarify, vehicle talents apply when you are in a vehicle, infantry talents apply when you aren't in a vehicle.

In PS1, the ability to transition between vehicular combat and indoors combat had few limitations, Rexo/agile being the one that first comes to mind. If you severely limit the active talents of a soldier they are either going to not get out of their vehicle or feel that they are outclassed the second they step outside.

My assumption is that there will be general infantry skills, weapon skills, armor skills, vehicle general skills, specific vehicle skills and whatever there is for aircraft. Not all of these skills will come into play at any given time because they don't apply. Why limit across the board? Let infantry talents apply when the soldier is on foot and the others as the circumstances dictate.

If you were to go as far as to limit active talents, I would feel better about having active talents available for a soldier's possible roles (Air, infantry, vehicle, universal).

I don't think that having mutually exclusive talents is a bad idea, where if you have a certain talent active, another cannot be active at the same time. Swapping them out should be at least as easy as swapping implants though, if not slightly more. The hard part was the time invested in acquiring those skillpoints, so swapping them once you have acquired them should not be a painful procedure.

[Malorn]

You seem to be conveniently forgetting the time investment to specialization.

I'm not "conveniently forgetting" anything. (I'm not sure why you seem to be so hostile to me, but I digress...). Time investment = more possibilities and options. I'm pretty clear on that. The problem without limits is that everyone converges to the same thing and specialization becomes meaningless. That's why I put "meaningful" in the thread title.

Really, you're freaking out over something we shouldn't have to worry about a long, long time from now.

Smoking won't kill you for a long time, it's OK to start now!

Punting a problem doesn't fix it. I want Planetside 2 to be the best possible game and not de-volve into some pile of crap 5-6 years from now because the fundamentals of the cert system were flawed. If anything we should be more congiscent of long-term effects of systems than a normal game because we're seeing it now in PS1. We have an opportunity to provide feedback to the PS2 devs on the designs and avert disaster now and I'm doing that. You may not see the value in that but I'm not forcing you to read my posts.


Tradeoffs are going to be what makes this system work.

There is a lot of value in your post Malorn, but I disagree with the notion of a total limit on active talents, in the context of your post.

While I do believe that some limits on the number of active talents would be ok, I think that there should be some categories where they may be active but unused. To clarify, vehicle talents apply when you are in a vehicle, infantry talents apply when you aren't in a vehicle.

My OP was more to move the discussion forward from "zomg 20% bonus!" to more of a how to make 20% work in a balanced way to keep specialization meaningful and not be a detriment to new players.

There are certainly ways to keep the core principle in ways other than I stated. For example, having a category of "vehicle talents" as you describe could work very well, providing there's a large number of vehicle talents and sufficient differentiation between them. Its just different levels of commitment and whether they want to allow someone to go balls-deep into a specific thing and that's all they do, or whether they want to enforce a spread.

As long as the player must make choices and those choices are limited and meaningful I think that's a good system.

My assumption is that there will be general infantry skills, weapon skills, armor skills, vehicle general skills, specific vehicle skills and whatever there is for aircraft. Not all of these skills will come into play at any given time because they don't apply. Why limit across the board? Let infantry talents apply when the soldier is on foot and the others as the circumstances dictate.

The scope of the limitations is not something I feel strongly about, only the fact that those limitations exist and we must make meaningful choices.

I chose the description that I did because by putting them all together its a larger commitment opportunity to the player. if you have 5 cohices for example, and you put all 5 into a pilot and nothing else, then you are fully committed to being a pilot. If someone else wanted to be a more jack-of-all-trades, they would sacrifice some of that pilot commitment, making the full-on pilot more specialized. If you split it up among different categories that cover different styles of play then the specialization is less meaningful IMO. I don't fundamentally disagree with what you say, its just I like the idea of someone being able to do a deep specilization and have it mean something.

I also see your point on being able to have more use of the full cert tree that player shave unlocked and not bits and pieces of it. That's fair too, so I'm sure there's some middle ground. If you have more ideas please share. I claim to be no authority here, just someone who is a zealot for good design principles. The design details can vary so long as the goals remain.


If you were to go as far as to limit active talents, I would feel better about having active talents available for a soldier's possible roles (Air, infantry, vehicle, universal).
As above, I don't disagree. It is one way to do it and I'm sure it can be done in a way that works out well.

[Soothsayer]

Well, coming at this again, I think that a specialization should be borne out by the amount of training you've put into it... I was just running with your idea.

I think that limiting active talents should be done only to very general ones that anybody can unlock at certain battleranks.

So you get a few basic universal talent skill lines (not as much as a tree) that you can train up. Basic and useful stuff, that only a certain number of which can be active at any given time (this would be where 5 would be reasonable). Everybody can get them assuming they are the required BR. Everybody can train them, it is up to the person to decide which ones they want to have active at any given moment.

You can train other stuff, specialized or not and your hours, weeks, months, years of training isn't hampered by an artificial limitation on how much of your accumulated skillpoints can come into play at any given moment.

Doesn't seem fair to have a limit on which skills you've trained are available to you (aside from ones that do not apply to any given piece of equipment... cycler skills won't count towards your RoF when you're holding an MCG).

So my own way of letting players utilize their whole body of trained skills (which they have put a lot of time into) is to have common pool skills at certain BR which are geared to different playstyles. These common pool skills would have a low skillpoint threshold. A person could only have a small number of them activated at a time. These would act as a "session" specialization, as in, if you are planning on playing one night with a specialized playstyle, you could suit up with the ones relevant to that playstyle. They could be swapped out when you needed to switch to a different playstyle.

My own belief (and summary) is that you need to be able to use the skillpoints you've invested when they relate to the action/activity you are trying to engage in.

[Raymac]

The feedback is mainly that we don't like the idea of giving vets power simply becuase they played the game longer, but power itself isn't bad as long as it comes with tradeoffs. That's actually a great thing to encourage specialization and differentiate players.

For example, I might run with a bunch of augments that help with squad leading, providing tank-relevant squad bonuses, and tank driving because I specialize in being a tank platoon leader. Outside of a tank I'm not as great as soeone who specialized full-on infantry. But it gives us each our niches that we can dive into and be unique snowflakes. And of course we can also change those niches when/if we want.

Very well said. This ^ is how I really hope it is in the game.

To carry on your example of the tank squad leader, I wouldn't want the trade off to be gimping the tanks, but rather gimping a different aspect of the game (like infantry as you stated). Meaning you should be able to upgrade your tanks rate of fire, but it shouldn't come at the expense of decreasing your tank armor. Rather the cost should be in not putting those upgrade points into something like infantry.

Using a PS1 example from my personal experience might help me explain it better. I fly a Reaver and want to be the best pilot I can, so I cert in Engineering so I can repair my plane in the field, however that meant I didn't have enough certs to get HA. So while I was more effective flying my Reaver, I was at a disadvantage indoors because I didn't have HA. Thats the sort of trade off I want, instead of "well you can increase speed, but it will cost you in accuracy" type of trade off.

[CutterJohn]

Punting a problem doesn't fix it. I want Planetside 2 to be the best possible game and not de-volve into some pile of crap 5-6 years from now because the fundamentals of the cert system were flawed. If anything we should be more congiscent of long-term effects of systems than a normal game because we're seeing it now in PS1. We have an opportunity to provide feedback to the PS2 devs on the designs and avert disaster now and I'm doing that. You may not see the value in that but I'm not forcing you to read my posts.

Not everyone agrees there is a disaster that is impending. Your interpretation is not the only one. If, years down the line, everyone has access to everything, my opinion will be Great! Finally!

The fun things about fps games are that people have their own personal tastes. People will do what they love doing a lot more than things they dislike. Just like they don't need RPG aspects to increase your power(since you do that naturally), you also don't need RPG to limit what you do, since that happens naturally as well. Even if I'd had a free cert for air cav in PS i would have rarely used it. Didn't care for it much. Wasn't big on leading squads. Barely ever took out a lightning, deli, ams, flails. Could have had certs for all those things and I'd still rarely do them because I just didn't enjoy it. Buggies sucked, but I loved them, so I took those out.

[Malorn]

Not everyone agrees there is a disaster that is impending. Your interpretation is not the only one. If, years down the line, everyone has access to everything, my opinion will be Great! Finally!

We've already seen what happens years down the line, both with the time-based power progression and with when "everyone has everything."

EVE Online shows how time-based power progression turns out - with many alts and a lot of missed opportunities from players who wanted to feel competitive but know they can't possibly catch up to vets with many years of skill points. They're effectivley operating at a handicap which they can never overcome. This is bad.

When everyone has everything we get the behavior we are seeing in PS now where cert points become meaningless. There is no specialization, there is only the universal soldier. Even with classes you will still see a lack of specialization as every player has access to the same things at hte same time as every other player. Therefore your "customization" only goes as far as what class you choose to play. I do not believe that is what they are going for when they want a rich customization model.


You say my interpretation is not the only one, yet you have not provided counter-examples and reasons where my logic is flawed. Please provide these.


I also don't need to wait to see what will happen. Like the mathematical concept of limits, I don't need to actually count to infinity to see what value it is approaching.

For low values of t differentiation is possible with a pure time-based power progression, but as t -> infinity, all players will have the same set of skills. Thus purely skill-based differentiation fails because as time goes on differentiation and specialization decreases. The trend with a time based system is that player skill trees converge. This convergence is bad. You actually want the opposite with divergence so the possibilities and specializations available among the playerbase increase over time, not converge.

If options increase with t but total active options stays constant, then you have the opposite effect. Differentiation increases over time and specialization becomes more refined and meaningful.

What I understand of the current system is the former. What I am proposing is the latter. I dont' need to wait 6 years to see that the first system fails to achieve customization.


And I agree on personal taste in FPS games. I like that. I want that. I want a world where specialization is meaningful and valuable thoughout the lifetime of PS. Thus, this thread.

[Maverick]

For the most part I concur with Malorn.

Any power gain traits should be designed with express purpose of giving a player a way to build a character to fit a role that aligns with their favored play style with respect still for general balance of gameplay.

I am confident that the devs are aware of the importance of the game balance and will strive ensure it while providing an in depth experience, whatever your flavor.

[Raymac]

Dude, if it's too early to freak out about what these type of balance issues will look like at launch, then it is waaaayyyy too early to worry about what it will look like in 5-6 years.

[exLupo]

EVE Online shows how time-based power progression turns out - with many alts and a lot of missed opportunities from players who wanted to feel competitive but know they can't possibly catch up to vets with many years of skill points. They're effectivley operating at a handicap which they can never overcome. This is bad.

While not being able to ever "catch up" is bad, this is an example of a very common misconception of EVE's skill system. It's not hard at all for a new player to catch up in one particular area. If your goal is T1 Battleships with T2 guns and 4s and 5s in support skills, you can get there. Don't deviate and dabble, just stick to your plan. Can your vet buddy also fly a covert ops boat, produce T2 missiles and run a 1000 man corporation? Sure. Does any of this matter when you're smashing your ships together? Not at all.

Age in EVE equates very early on to power but that plateaus quickly. Eventually all age really means is role versatility. An old PS2 player could be able to grunt and pilot and infiltrate and drive a tank and... None of that matters when it's him versus a relatively new player in a stand up rexo/ha/med/engi* brawl. Will role versatility matter in the overall scheme of things? Of course. Does it matter when that relative, aggregate 20% is nullified? Again, not at all.

As an EVE player without any alts, the only place I feel like I'm missing out -is- alts and only then because I can't perform two independent actions at once. I don't like the game enough to pay for it 2x per month or grid enough cash to pay for it in game. I've never felt like my combat skills lagging behind my peers except when I choose to put points into Mining Drone Frigate 5 or max out my Astrometrics. I'm choosing versatility before power and even then I still catch up with them when they get their 4s and 5s and move on to logistics boats or command skills that I don't need.

I have no doubt that PS2 will forever suffer from the same fundamental "I'll never be able to play now that the game has been out for X." misunderstanding. Hopefully, like EVE, this won't be the reality.

*Skill stacking example for PS2 relative to EVE's T2 gunned T1 boat with viable support skills (armor, hull, shield, nav, cap, etc.)

[CutterJohn]

EVE Online shows how time-based power progression turns out - with many alts and a lot of missed opportunities from players who wanted to feel competitive but know they can't possibly catch up to vets with many years of skill points. They're effectivley operating at a handicap which they can never overcome. This is bad.

EVEs skills provide a considerable advantage, both in direct bonuses, and in upgraded equipment you can use. Its not 20% more effective, total. Its 25% more hitpoints, more shields, more repairs, 25% more damage(Plus another 10% and another 10%), 25% faster RoF, etc, etc, etc, etc. Every single facet of your ship has 25% + bonuses associated with it, plus having those skills qualifies you to use tech2/tech3 gear that is wildly superior, and offers roles and capabilities completely unavailable to newbs in their t1 ships.

The original eve, when there was no t2, no level 5 prereqs, was pretty nice and didn't offer vets a giant advantage over newbs. A few weeks training got you to level 4 in most things, where you were 80 or 90% as capable as a dedicated vet.

When everyone has everything we get the behavior we are seeing in PS now where cert points become meaningless. There is no specialization, there is only the universal soldier. Even with classes you will still see a lack of specialization as every player has access to the same things at hte same time as every other player. Therefore your "customization" only goes as far as what class you choose to play. I do not believe that is what they are going for when they want a rich customization model.

The players themselves will specialize, because you don't just get good at everything as soon as you unlock it. Nor do you enjoy doing everything. It fails in PS1 because a few certs are must haves and clearly superior to other things in the most common situations. Infantry can easily fit all those important tools in their loadout and fill a variety of roles. Outdoors, reavers and tanks, backed up by AA, are the workhorses, and theres not a whole lot of reason to pick anything else, because those perform multiple roles admirably, without compromise.

I don't see a need for my character to be different than your character, because I'll play different, and if the classes and vehicles are properly balanced, there will be a good representation of everything on the field, because everything is useful. Just like the 9 classes of TF2 are commonly used, but seldom by any one person. If you want to be a special snowflake then practice hard and get good at what you love doing.



Its largely pointless though. Higdog said, not sure where the quote is, that you can spend more than a year speccing out a single class/vehicle. So. Unless you plan to be playing for 20 or 30 years, and they add nothing new in that time, it shouldn't be an issue. And if you do play for that long.. You earned it imo.

[Malorn]

While not being able to ever "catch up" is bad, this is an example of a very common misconception of EVE's skill system.
If it's a "very common misconception" then its already failed. Regardless of whether I am correct (which I am), if the perception to new players is that they can't catch up then they won't sit around in forums debating it - they just won't play the game. Damage is done. Its a "misconception" that PS2 cannot afford to have.

It's not hard at all for a new player to catch up in one particular area. If your goal is T1 Battleships with T2 guns and 4s and 5s in support skills, you can get there. Don't deviate and dabble, just stick to your plan. Can your vet buddy also fly a covert ops boat, produce T2 missiles and run a 1000 man corporation? Sure. Does any of this matter when you're smashing your ships together? Not at all.

But it still takes years to do all of those things as well as a vet. Flying a ship well takes weeks. Flying a T2 ship months. Competing with a veteran who has those things - years. You already have the game knowledge and experience working against you as a new player. Add in the fact that the vets you're fighting have better skills and its not a very enticing prospect. It costs them new players.

If PS2 is the same way with specialized players spending a year or more to max out their tree and getting passive bonuses for doing so then its the same situation as EVE - new players can't compete on the same level of a vet without investing the same amount of time. And by the time they do the vet has moved on to other things and they have to play catch-up there too. It's a dumb system and gives advantages to people who already have the huge advantage of game experience.

The original eve, when there was no t2, no level 5 prereqs, was pretty nice and didn't offer vets a giant advantage over newbs. A few weeks training got you to level 4 in most things, where you were 80 or 90% as capable as a dedicated vet.

Therein lies the peril of the EVE system. Look what they started with, and look what they ended up with. If PS2 does it from the start, it might not be a huge bonus to begin with, but it will become one as they increase training timers and increase bonuses as an effort to once again have specialization. The methodology is flawed and the reason they would even have to do that is because time-based power progression with a finite number of skills always converges. The only way to keep that system going is to expand the number of skills and slow down the training.

Eve started with a system that looks very similar to what PS2 is describing. What did they do when the skills converged and customization melted away? They added "tech 2" for the advanced skillset to reward people for specializing and customize further. But they used the same flawed system for it. So all they can do is make the skills take longer and increase the bonuses. Poor game design. PS2 should not follow in those footsteps.

I don't see a need for my character to be different than your character, because I'll play different, and if the classes and vehicles are properly balanced, there will be a good representation of everything on the field, because everything is useful. Just like the 9 classes of TF2 are commonly used, but seldom by any one person. If you want to be a special snowflake then practice hard and get good at what you love doing.

Great point - and another reason why "rewarding" players for investing in a skill tree with more power is unnecessary. They are getting better at it by using it. They are becoming "the best" simply by knowing the ins and outs of it in every way possible and putting in hundreds and thousands of hours of playtime in that area.

They don't need anything on top of that.



Its largely pointless though. Higdog said, not sure where the quote is, that you can spend more than a year speccing out a single class/vehicle. So. Unless you plan to be playing for 20 or 30 years, and they add nothing new in that time, it shouldn't be an issue. And if you do play for that long.. You earned it imo.

That quote of Higby's only makes me more worried that they are borrowing too much from EVE and following in their folly. If it takes a year to master something then it will take a year for a new player to catch up to the 1 year vet and be on an even playing field. It introduces a completely unnecessary new player handicap. Just as you said above in the previous quote I just responded to - players will specialize themselves and it is unnecessary. So why do it? Why bring these negative consequences into the game?

I see no compelling argument why this is good for the game. The only argument I see is "well, it's not that big of a deal...", to which I would say "if so, what's the value?" and "why do it then?". If its not that big of a deal players wont' see the value in it and will want more, leading to the "tech 2" of PS2 as they try to add more value in and further complicate the problem. I'd like to stop that now and have a design that scales and not one that will just dig a bigger hole, not provide meaningful customization and discourage new players.

There is another way they can do it while not having this bad behavior, which I identify in the OP. You can have the rewards, you can have meaningful specialization by looking at the same games they are already getting inspiration from - mmos like Warhammer, mmos like EVE (their ship customization, not their skill system), and fps like Battlefield (gadget slots and unlock mechanisms). The good designs are right there.

[CutterJohn]

That quote of Higby's only makes me more worried that they are borrowing too much from EVE and following in their folly. If it takes a year to master something then it will take a year for a new player to catch up to the 1 year vet and be on an even playing field.

But 3 months to get within 5 percent. Each level of a skill takes 5 times longer to train than the level before. 5% = is pretty much nothing. Its there for powergamers.

I see no compelling argument why this is good for the game. The only argument I see is "well, it's not that big of a deal...", to which I would say "if so, what's the value?" and "why do it then?".

The reason they do it is the reason they do it in all games. Its not to make gameplay better. Its to get little addictive hooks in your brain so you play longer and pay more money. RPG has no place in a skill based fps. Never has.

There is another way they can do it while not having this bad behavior, which I identify in the OP. You can have the rewards, you can have meaningful specialization by looking at the same games they are already getting inspiration from - mmos like Warhammer, mmos like EVE (their ship customization, not their skill system), and fps like Battlefield (gadget slots and unlock mechanisms). The good designs are right there.

You actually didn't identify any bad behavior in the OP. You highlighted an issue specific to PS, that not all consider a really big issue, or at least do not think is an issue in the same way you do. I had no issues with the number of certs in PS. I wanted more. I don't care if people get good at everything and switch roles constantly. Good for them. Its a game. Have fun. Play as you will. So long as the vehicles and weapons are balanced such that everything has positives and negatives, and there aren't weapons that are clearly the best for a majority of the situations, all is good.

I don't want a mechanic that gimps my character after all the time I'll be putting into it to ungimp the rpg sludge out of it. If there needs to be diversity, then make it a natural diversity. Sure, keep the pure upgrades to a minimum, I don't really care about those. But I'll be annoyed if for some arbitrary reason my character cannot remember something he learned, when I certainly can.

[Malorn]

But 3 months to get within 5 percent.
3 months? Who wants to wait 3 months to get competitive? Already lost players.

The reason they do it is the reason they do it in all games. Its not to make gameplay better. Its to get little addictive hooks in your brain so you play longer and pay more money. RPG has no place in a skill based fps. Never has.
Also a flimsy reason. There are different and better hooks that won't cost them new players (see my OP). They're trading a perceived hook for new players. Not a good tradeoff.

You actually didn't identify any bad behavior in the OP.
You are correct. I described how they could have thier hooks and meaningful customization in a way that scales with the game and isn't detrimental to new players. I didn't want to go into why it is bad, that was already highlighted in other threads (see the 20% thread). I also stated that in the beginning.

You are still going on about how it's just not a big deal and you seem largely indifferent. Why are you easily contented with a mediocre design? Perhaps you think we should be discussing something else? Not important enough? You seem to be going out of your way to convince me there's no problem here but your only argument is not that it isn't a problem, its that it isn't a big problem. Why not give feedback and ideas on how to make it the best it can be instead of just being content with something you see as passable?

[Raymac]

3 months? Who wants to wait 3 months to get competitive? Already lost players.

How many times do the devs need to say "a brand new player will be able to stand toe to toe with a long time veteran" before I stop seeing this arguement?

[CutterJohn]

You are still going on about how it's just not a big deal and you seem largely indifferent. Why are you easily contented with a mediocre design? Perhaps you think we should be discussing something else? Not important enough? You seem to be going out of your way to convince me there's no problem here but your only argument is not that it isn't a problem, its that it isn't a big problem. Why not give feedback and ideas on how to make it the best it can be instead of just being content with something you see as passable?

All of your hooks trade power for time too. Every single one. What they do different is make you choose where you will be gimped. Force you to shoehorn yourself into a particular playstyle. I disapprove of this. If I must spend time unlocking things, and I will be since theres no way they won't add progression, I do not want to be denied access to the things I unlocked. If I cert a tank, and want to switch to infantry, I expect to go to the appropriate terminal for the gear and get it. Not make a side trip to a third terminal so I can change up what certs I'm accessing at the moment.

Thats why I am going on. I fundamentally disagree with limiting the character in any way other than what you can physically carry/fit on your vehicle. Your ideas make the rpg aspects worse, rather than better. For me at least.

[Rbstr]

As an EVE player without any alts, the only place I feel like I'm missing out -is- alts and only then because I can't perform two independent actions at once.
That's my assessment of it too. The only reason I've wanted an alt is so I can do two things at once...training the main character to pick up new skills would have taken less time and cash than building an alt.


it's a "very common misconception" then its already failed. Regardless of whether I am correct (which I am), if the perception to new players is that they can't catch up then they won't sit around in forums debating it - they just won't play the game. Damage is done. Its a "misconception" that PS2 cannot afford to have.

Except you ARE wrong. You do catch up in all but role diversity. And even that diminishes over time.
As a very old EVE character now, I fly and shoot just about anything I'd ever want, I completely outclass even similar aged players in combat skills (as I have no inustry desire)...yet I get blown up by 3 month noobs and similarly aged, yet highly industrial, players regularly. That's because they play more and have the money to buy the really nice equipment.

EVE combat has certain time barriers to entry, but once you're qualified for a ship, the things that really matter are how much you can spend on it and how good you are at flying it. People are nearly always able to fly a ship FAR before they can afford it. The economy is EVE's power meter, not the number of skill points.
You can deny that all you want, but that's the truth.

EVE's skill system, and in fact the entire game, is designed for long term play. If a new player sees the skill system as a turn off, they won't like the game w/o the skill system either, the entire game universe would have to be changed to fit that whim because achieving things is as much about long term planing and politics as it is simply blowing crap up.

YOU don't like that long term strategy that the long skill system requires. Many do. That's not a failing of the game. It's an interest mismatch.

Obviously PS2 need not be designed for such scales. There is no reason that PS2's skills cannot be significantly shorter or cap at much lower levels than EVE's.

I mostly agree with you for the trade-off aspects for PS2, because I think it fits the scale of the game.
However, you are simply wrong about EVE - If EVE had taken the short term equality route it would simply not have had the same kind of player base longevity it has.

[Malorn]

How many times do the devs need to say "a brand new player will be able to stand toe to toe with a long time veteran" before I stop seeing this arguement?

For low values of t (time) I'm sure their design and their statements are consistent. It is not true as t increases. So the argument will go away when their design is consistent with their statement.

More importantly I'm concerned with how the game scales. Think release + 1 year and they have a content expansion. Many players have converged and have most of the same skillsets providing the same passive power bonuses. There is no longer differentiation between players. What will they do? Well they already started down the path of power over time so they'll very likely continue down that path and expand and add more power bonuses. Just like EVE started with "not that big of a difference" it becomes a big difference and discourages new players.

The immediate feedback I got from my outfit mates on the skill system was the "never catch up" problem EVE has with new players. It is not a good system. Player specialization and customization decreases over time as everyone obtains the same set of bonuses, and it only widens the gap between new players and veterans. 2-3 years down the line you have new players who would need to invest an enormous amount of real-world time to just get to where the vets are, and by the time they do the game will have new certs and things exposed. It never stops, and the longer it goes on the worse it gets for new players. Now is the time to change that course and pick a system that scales with additional content without upsetting power balance. I propose one based on other games with similar systems (including PS1 and EVE - use their ship customization model instead of their skill gain model).

The game can still have unlocks over time just like games like BFBC2 have and very early on expose options to new players that give them some tradeoffs. they might not be "the best" possible tradeoff option for what they want to do, but its competitive and its something and they can work towards the bonuses important to them and have them in short order.

All of your hooks trade power for time too. Every single one.
No, what I propose does not trade power for time. It trades power for power, with time unlocking additional tradeoff (power for power) options.

What they do different is make you choose where you will be gimped. Force you to shoehorn yourself into a particular playstyle. I disapprove of this. If I must spend time unlocking things, and I will be since theres no way they won't add progression, I do not want to be denied access to the things I unlocked.
OK I understand now. I think there's a misunderstanding. Nothing that I proposed is permanent. In my vision I expect anyone to change their specializations as easily as they could change implants in PS1.

There's also different types of unlocks. Vehicle and weapon upgrades cost resources and are on a different system, but bonuses that apply to your character's abilities and skills effectively work like implants. So you work up the cert tree and for simplicity lets say it only has 10 unlocks. You might have to make an implant-like decision and choose 3 of those 10 to run at any given time. If you want to change your style, go to a special terminal and change them.

It can be a lot more complex than that with mutliple categories and different types of agumentations. As I described in an earlier post on this thread I think it could even end up looking like the sort of rich customization you have with an EVE Ship. You have some constraints, but you have complete freedom to tailor the character within those constraints with whatever augmentations you have unlocked. The expectation is that those augmentations are different but ultimately lead to about the same "power", just with different scopes and maginitudes and some may have tradeoffs built into them just like EVE ship modules do.

The key observation is that instead of having small meaningless augmentations that everyone and anyone can have at all times you pick and choose much more meaningful augmentations that cater to your preferred playstyle. You can change them whenever you want, but there is some small inconvenience in doing so (going to a special terminal). The inconvienience exists only to make the specialization a quasi-stable decision just like implants are a quasi-stable decision.


If I cert a tank, and want to switch to infantry, I expect to go to the appropriate terminal for the gear and get it. Not make a side trip to a third terminal so I can change up what certs I'm accessing at the moment.
Definitely some mistunderstanding here - I'm not suggesting any change to the class system. If you are in the "tank driver role then you can drive a tank.

I'm suggesting another layer where you choose the power bonuses. Those power bonuses are significant and meaningful and because of the limited number and the decisions you must make, that will differentiate you from other players who will make different decisions.

Example, suppose you like assault rifles and choose to have an assault rifle damage bonus as one of your power augments. Whether you are a tank driver or a light assault infantry you get that bonus. If you occasional hop into a max suit or infiltrator then it won't be that useful to you, but if you do that with any regularity then you might have some differnet bonuses for those roles.

Its no different than if you were swapping implants. Some implants are more or less useful in certain roles. "Surge" for example is not a very useful implant for a MAX, but if you don't spend a lot of time in a max or while you are flying aircraft, but you may feel it is a worthwhile implant for the times you don't. Same deal.

Basically customization would have multiple levels.


Tier 1: Cert tree - unlocks OPTIONS
Class options, vehicle & equipment options, implant options, upgrade options, augment options

Tier 2: Implants - set of activatable abilities
Limited number, player chooses which activatable abilities they want. Darklight, audio amp, surge, etc

Tier 3: Augments - passive player bonuses (this is what I am proposing)
Limite dnumbe,r player chooses which augments they want. wide range of possibilities here to customize core character aspects. Rate of fire, movement speed, vehicle handling, etc. These can be significant bonuses.

Tier 4: Class - controls the set of equipment and vehicles to which a player has access

Tier 5: Equipment/vehicle upgrades - augments player equipment
Consumes resources to augment vehicles and equipment. Add gun sights, expanded magazine, more tank armor, etc.


As you move up the tiers you have increased levels of flexibility. Cert tree choices are the most permanent choices. Once you make them you can't go back and re-make them. Implants and Augments can be changed at certain places. Class can be changed very frequently, and equipment presumably moreso.

The only thing the player gains over time is the cert tree, which is options. There is no direct power, and all such power gains are player decisions - which implant to use, which class to play, which augments to run, and which equipment/vehicle upgrades to buy.


The main difference between what I have above and what we know of the game thus far is Tiers 1 and 3. Tier 3 doesn't exist to my knowledge at all and instead those agumentt bonuses are tied to cert tree decisions and are also very small, so small in fact that they aren't overly significant. I would like them to be not tied direclty to the cert tree and increased in magnitude, however to go along with that they would be limited in number so things stay competitive and to make those augment decisions meaningful, like implant decisions.


Edit: Rbstr, I'm intentionally not responding to your EVE comments because it's semantics at this point and the EVE system is way off topic for this. The point is that there is a perception issue and a set of time before a new player is competitive. The former is bad for the game, the latter terrible for the game.

[Raymac]

For low values of t (time) I'm sure their design and their statements are consistent. It is not true as t increases. So the argument will go away when their design is consistent with their statement.

More importantly I'm concerned with how the game scales. Think release + 1 year and they have a content expansion. Many players have converged and have most of the same skillsets providing the same passive power bonuses. There is no longer differentiation between players. What will they do? Well they already started down the path of power over time so they'll very likely continue down that path and expand and add more power bonuses. Just like EVE started with "not that big of a difference" it becomes a big difference and discourages new players.

The immediate feedback I got from my outfit mates on the skill system was the "never catch up" problem EVE has with new players. It is not a good system. Player specialization and customization decreases over time as everyone obtains the same set of bonuses, and it only widens the gap between new players and veterans. 2-3 years down the line you have new players who would need to invest an enormous amount of real-world time to just get to where the vets are, and by the time they do the game will have new certs and things exposed. It never stops, and the longer it goes on the worse it gets for new players. Now is the time to change that course and pick a system that scales with additional content without upsetting power balance. I propose one based on other games with similar systems (including PS1 and EVE - use their ship customization model instead of their skill gain model).

So, when the devs say that PS2 will still be a skill based shooter and that a brand new player can compete with a long time player, you just think they are either full of shit, or don't know what they are talking about. If your posts weren't so well written, I'd say that point of view is just being a troll.

I'm giving the devs the benefit of doubt that they actually want to achieve their stated goals, and they arn't just blowing sunshine up my ass. Frankly, I think your argument of "I totally know how this is going to play out" is premature. The conclusions you are making are leaps in logic based on the assumption that the devs are either lying or incompetent.

Alot of what you've been saying has been based on your experience with EVE, and I've never played the game, so I concede that my knowledge of its mechanics are extremely limited. However, I'm sure that the combat between EVE and PS2 are completely different, so making an apples to apples comparison of balance is going to be inherantly flawed and therefore not worth as much stock as you seem to be putting into it. Basically, lets see what it will look like for PS2 before we start advocating for throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Then, to extrapolate that out several years and say, "well it might be good for year 1, but by year 5 the game will be forever broken" you have to ignore the fact that the game will be supported (much better than PS1 it seems) and problems can be addressed and fixed. I'm not going to redesign the automobile because I know the radiator will leak someday. I'll fix the radiator if and when it becomes a problem.

Look, you are obviously a very intelligent guy, and make well thought out points. I just think it's early to be concerned about issues 5 years from now that the devs are already aware of.

[Malorn]

So, when the devs say that PS2 will still be a skill based shooter and that a brand new player can compete with a long time player, you just think they are either full of shit, or don't know what they are talking about. If your posts weren't so well written, I'd say that point of view is just being a troll.
That isn't my point of view.

There are several things to consider.

1) The information we have is incomplete. So the picture of what they see in the game design and the picture we see from their information they have provided will not line up in many places. This can lead to false impressions, so yeah I've got a bit of grain of salt. However, that's just a limitation we have to deal with and it shouldn't stop the analysis and giving of feedback.

2) I'm sure they are doing what they believe to be right to make their game successful.

3) Developers are still human. They get things wrong. Sometimes group think, inaccurate information, or a variety of other psychological phenomena is involved. Sometimes they didn't look at things from all the angles. Most common problems occur because things just dont' work out the way you expect them to.

Every game has notable screwups and poor designs. How many might have been averted if they had the right questions asked and the right ideas presented early in development? The PS2 devs seem to understand this quite well, which is why they have the 3-year plan. They're putting forth what they want to do so they have plenty of time to get our feedback on that so they can avoid problems like BFRs or taking the game in the wrong direction.

I hear what they say. I read what they type. I see the design they lay out for us. I don't think they're lying to us. I don't think they're being deceptive. I trust that they are competent individuals. However, I see gaps, inconsistencies, potential problems, and pitfalls in a small portion of what they have presented. Those same developers ASKED US for feedback. Higby reads these forums to see what people think. I'm giving them that feedback because...maybe they overlooked something. Maybe something won't pan out the way they expect it to. Maybe its not quite right. That's why we're here providing feedback, and that's why they're reading these forums.

I work on world-class software for a living - I know full well that sometimes developers get it wrong. And many times had the right question been asked or the right scenario discussed those things could have been averted.

I also know that sometimes its too late in a product cycle to fix a problem so the earlier you find it the better. Sometimes you have to deal with a flaw and once you ship that flaw you have to deal with it for a very long time. I am giving my feedback early and often on this so they have plenty of time to address it and PS2 is the best game it can be.


Look, you are obviously a very intelligent guy, and make well thought out points. I just think it's early to be concerned about issues 5 years from now that the devs are already aware of.

Thank you, and as I stated above, we do have incomplete information. Maybe i'm wrong. But maybe I'm not. Software development is a sensitive thing. There does come a point where something that is core to a game system becomes too etched to change, and if they got that design wrong beta may be too late to change it in the right way and instead we end up with a hack (like the lattice system from PS1). Maybe that hack will work out OK, but maybe it won't. The best option is to provide feedback on what we know, poke, prod, ask questions, challenge the assumptions. If the design is solid they'll have answers. But so far for this particular subject I haven't seen responses that make me feel more confident in their design. More information would help a lot, but from what we know, I'm worried about this problem.

And please don't get me wrong. I absolutely love the direction the game is going and I'm shocked, surprised, and very happy with most of what I've seen. I think they got their heads on straight for most everything. However, if I see something that seems flimsy and not as sound will speak up about it. I want the game to be successful as much as they do. I've been waiting the better part of a decade for planetside-done-right, and I don't want to miss opportunities to help make it the best it can be and be successful for the next 10 years. And that is precisely what I'm doing. I love this game, that's why I'm so passionate about having a lively debate about what we know of the game systems. Its healthy for the game. It keeps us entertained. And it gives the developers another angle on their ideas.

[Raymac]

Thanks for taking the time to clarify your point of view to me. I don't think there is anything in what you just wrote that I would disagree with. I'm sorry for mistaking your kinda long posts for panic instead of just thorough explanations which is what they are. It's our job to provide feedback like you've been doing, and it's the devs' job to digest that feedback and weigh it accordingly. I'm with you in that I hope PS2 turns out to be the amazing game we've been waiting for.

[CutterJohn]

If I cert a tank, and want to switch to infantry, I expect to go to the appropriate terminal for the gear and get it. Not make a side trip to a third terminal so I can change up what certs I'm accessing at the moment.


Definitely some mistunderstanding here - I'm not suggesting any change to the class system. If you are in the "tank driver role then you can drive a tank.

I'm suggesting another layer where you choose the power bonuses. Those power bonuses are significant and meaningful and because of the limited number and the decisions you must make, that will differentiate you from other players who will make different decisions.

Example, suppose you like assault rifles and choose to have an assault rifle damage bonus as one of your power augments. Whether you are a tank driver or a light assault infantry you get that bonus. If you occasional hop into a max suit or infiltrator then it won't be that useful to you, but if you do that with any regularity then you might have some differnet bonuses for those roles.

Its no different than if you were swapping implants. Some implants are more or less useful in certain roles. "Surge" for example is not a very useful implant for a MAX, but if you don't spend a lot of time in a max or while you are flying aircraft, but you may feel it is a worthwhile implant for the times you don't. Same deal.


Not seeing a misunderstanding.

Me: If I cert damage for an infantry weapon, I want to be able to put that on the weapon when I pull that weapon.

You: That damage bonus for an infantry weapon would be an implant like thing you must make a side trip for to change out


More importantly I'm concerned with how the game scales. Think release + 1 year and they have a content expansion. Many players have converged and have most of the same skillsets providing the same passive power bonuses. There is no longer differentiation between players. What will they do? Well they already started down the path of power over time so they'll very likely continue down that path and expand and add more power bonuses. Just like EVE started with "not that big of a difference" it becomes a big difference and discourages new players.

Just because eve did it does not mean PS will as well. People who stick around in a game for a couple years do not do so because of the leveling mechanics, but because they like the gameplay.


I propose one based on other games with similar systems (including PS1 and EVE - use their ship customization model instead of their skill gain model).

We don't even know if there will be a +5% damage cert or whatever. It could be a barrel attachment, that you fit in place of another barrel attachment that gives better accuracy or something. This is in fact what I'm assuming will happen. You cert upgrades, that you can purchase, and install on your armor/weapons. And if you install them, you can't install other things.

[Malorn]

Not seeing a misunderstanding.

Me: If I cert damage for an infantry weapon, I want to be able to put that on the weapon when I pull that weapon.

You: That damage bonus for an infantry weapon would be an implant like thing you must make a side trip for to change out

You only need to make a side trip if you didn't already have it slotted.

This is no different from how BFBC2 does gadget slots. You can choose to have damage, or you can choose to have armor. But you cannot have both. You can choose to have an a run sped bonus, or you can choose to carry more grenades. But you cannot have both.

Thus, tradeoff and meaningful specialization. Its meaningful because it is significant and you the player had to make a choice as to which strengths you want your character have based on your playstyle. Its also meaningful because not every player will have the same benefits you do. If you choose a bunch of infantry bonuses, you will be more suited for infantry than players who chose vehicle oriented bonuses or different types.

If you got the bonus all the time, it means
1) the bonus will be small and insignificant
2) many other people will have the bonus, making it meaningless except against nubs that haven't trained it yet.

Do you not want your bonuses on your character to actually convey an advantage in a field of your choosing?


Just because eve did it does not mean PS will as well. People who stick around in a game for a couple years do not do so because of the leveling mechanics, but because they like the gameplay.

We are in agreement - gameplay makes people stay, not power "progression" and other meaningless carrots. Putting these things in is unnecessary and as I state, potentially dangerous, so it should not go in, even if it's "no big deal" right now.

[CutterJohn]

You only need to make a side trip if you didn't already have it slotted.

This is no different from how BFBC2 does gadget slots.

BF2 gives them to you at the spawn screen. You don't have to take a ten minute trip to another base to change up.

If you got the bonus all the time, it means
1) the bonus will be small and insignificant
2) many other people will have the bonus, making it meaningless except against nubs that haven't trained it yet.

or

3)The bonus will be significant, but because there are 5 significant upgrades occupying the same slot on the weapon, you have to pick and choose, and since everyone values different things, different upgrades will be used. i.e. Some would want the high accuracy barrel with reduced cof bloom, some would want the high damage barrel with secondary acceleration coils for more damage, and some would want the underbarrel grenade launcher attachment.

[Malorn]

BF2 gives them to you at the spawn screen. You don't have to take a ten minute trip to another base to change up.

Once per-spawn could work here too with loadouts. As long as you can't change it mid-fight and you make a decision at spawn time what your bonuses are going to be I don't see an issue with it.

3)The bonus will be significant, but because there are 5 significant upgrades occupying the same slot on the weapon, you have to pick and choose, and since everyone values different things, different upgrades will be used. i.e. Some would want the high accuracy barrel with reduced cof bloom, some would want the high damage barrel with secondary acceleration coils for more damage, and some would want the underbarrel grenade launcher attachment.

I think you're still not quite understanding what I'm getting at. Weapon upgrades and such that you use resources to acquire are not what I'm discussing. Weapon attachments and augmentations are not the topic of this discussion.

To provide the eve example, I'm talking about the passive upgrades one gets via skills (or certs), not the modules and rigs that can be applied to augment a specific ship. The former is always-on applied to your character. The latter is a one-time purchase that is applied to the current equipment being used.

So I'm talking about how to handle passive power upgrades that might be unlocked via the cert tree. They have described their system like EVE, only with far lower power progression amounts (~20% combined).



EDIT:
Looking back on your posts it seems as though you're just hung up on the proposition of changing these bonuses at a terminal, not with the core idea of limiting active bonuses itself. The frequency at which the bonuses get changed is not the important part of the idea being proposed. The important part is the part in the OP that I bolded, increased font size, and colored yellow. That's the core idea, everything else is a more minor design detail that is certainly subject to being changed. Love to discuss that more if that's what your objection is with.

[CutterJohn]

If its just about permanent upgrades that are not tied to any piece of equipment, and are just a few %, then I see no issue leaving them always on. A few percent in an fps only has meaning on paper.

I would not like stronger bonuses that you must pick between, because I don't like character differentiation like that. You should get good at a role because you play it a lot and are good at it, not pick a role to be good at so you can play it.

[Malorn]

I did a quick edit of my previous post while you were posting this (its labeled at the end).

If its just about permanent upgrades that are not tied to any piece of equipment, and are just a few %, then I see no issue leaving them always on. A few percent in an fps only has meaning on paper.
But then why have them at all? If they're small and insignificant they have no value. And as people train them up they become meaningless as the veterans have the same bonuses.

I would not like stronger bonuses that you must pick between, because I don't like character differentiation like that. You should get good at a role because you play it a lot and are good at it, not pick a role to be good at so you can play it.

I don't disagree with this statement. If the devs are hellbent on having power progression as part of cert training I'd rather see it done this way rather than being flat applied across the board for reasons stated above.

I don't think power progression is necessary. I also dont' think it's bad for the game unless it is applied across-the-board through time-based unlocks, rather than by explicit customization decisions a player makes and has tradeoffs with. That's the context of the thread.

[Malorn]

One thing occurred to me that this entire thing I'm rambling about could boil down to an enhancement of the Implant system.

Instead of 3 slots for activated abilities you could have something like...

3 slots for activated abilities

4 slots for passive combat augments

3 slots passive non-combat augments (quality of life stuff)

It ends up being similar to the WoW Glyph model or an EVE ship. High slots, medium slots, low slots, etc. The cert tree could unlock all the different options but you get to augment your base soldier with a ton of different options.

And since you have to make choices the bonuses are meaningful and don't converge over time.

I suppose that's a simpler way to look at it.

[FriendlyFire]

I would prefer a system that has very little or no convergence. I think PS2 could benefit from a system that promotes "roles" and not "Super Soldiers." Specialized Soldiers or Load outs, similar to what Malorn mentioned above is a good system. LoL uses a system similar to this as well, very high customization and easily switched depending on play style or load out.

[MasterChief096]

Here was my proposed system:

What people are not understanding is that you can have just as much specialization if not more specialization by having trade-offs instead of just raw power upgrades (no matter how small they might be).

I'll explain it again for the people who don't want to read all 12 pages of this thread.

If there are trade-offs, you could do things like:

1. Take your Guass Rifle and increase its damage by 20%. You could then decide what stats you want to minus 20% from. This could be -20% from one stat, or allocated amongst the stats you choose. For example you could take 10% from clip size, 10% from RoF. Or you could take 5% from clip size, 7% from RoF, and 8% from CoF. This would make your gun very unique to your character, as the different stat allocations you choose to put into it once you've unlocked the ability to do so would be extremely varied.

2. Same goes with vehicles. I'll use my Reaver example again. Lets say you want a Reaver with a primary purpose of swooping in and firing shit loads of missiles and then getting the hell out as fast as possible. To do this you would need speed, maneuverability, and a shit load of missiles. You could customize your Reaver to lose 25% damage in its rockets and 25% from its armor. You could then take that 50% and spread it out amongst speed, maneuverability, and possibly the amount of afterburner you have. You could increase your rocket-firing speed by 15%, your speed by 15%, your maneuverability by 15%, and the amount of afterburner you have by 5% (or however else you wish to configure it). Once again, your Reaver would be unique to you based on how you allocate your stats. It would be really awesome if there was an appearance change as well, such as your Reaver having smaller missiles and/or less armor.

I'm willing to make a compromise on things like attachments (such as scopes, fixed grenade launchers, flashlights etc). To me, those are like certs. Imagine if you could spend 1-2 cert points in PlanetSide to attach a grenade launcher to your Cycler for instance. Things like grenade launchers, scopes, flashlights, etc are the equivalent to versatility for a veteran, at least to me. So I don't mind if there are zero trade-offs for attaching a different scope/grenade launcher/flashlight to your gun, other than the fact that if you have a flashlight you won't be able to have a grenade launcher.

If you used a trade-off system you could do what one player in this thread mentioned earlier. He said he liked fast, hard hitting machine guns that have a crazy CoF bloom after the first 4-5 shots. Essentially you could add damage and RoF to your Cycler and sacrifice CoF bloom to get it.

IMO this system works better because you can create the weapons/vehicles YOU WANT and the changes are SIGNIFICANT, yet balanced. Instead of a 20% advantage at end-game that is so spread out you hardly notice it, you actually have weapons/vehicles that are vastly different from the weapons/vehicles of others. Your stat changes would actually have a large, noticeable difference on what you are using, but the trade-offs would make it so that its not super OP and can't be beaten.

Oh but a sense of character advancement is not there you say? How about actually gaining BR and unlocking the ability to customize your weapons in such extreme ways as character advancement? I'm sure new players would be like, "damn I wish I could have a super accurate MA rifle because that's my playstyle." With a trade-off system they could have that rifle, it would just wouldn't perform as well in extreme CQC. In an FPS character advancement relies less on the power of your character increasing and more on the options your character has (feel like we're beating a dead horse here), as it was in PlanetSide. Besides, a BR20 is going to have a 20% advantage over a BR1 based solely on the options he has anyways.

I still have yet to see someone argue the point that without power gains there would be zero sense of character advancement... To me that's just plain wrong. When I first started PlanetSide, every BR I felt like I was getting somewhere. I would just ITCH with anticipation when I knew that my next BR was going to give me enough cert points to get something that I had been wanting. Players in PlanetSide 2 would have the same anticipation, without power gains.

But alas, the system Higby described would be 'acceptable', as it doesn't effect the gameplay much, but I would much rather see a system as I have described above because it would:

1) not offer veterans a % power gain other than the 'natural' % power gain from being a higher BR/vet regardless.

2) Allow for customization that actually makes a difference in terms of how your weapon performs and what situations its good for.

3) Keep the anticipation for wanting to advance your character to achieve more customization options