Dust 514

[Cantih]

The AMA is generally over, here are the good bits.

Uprising

Q: Will Uprising bring any changes to our contact list? In particular, show when people are online, offline, and/or in a match? Also any chance that loading times of large contact lists will improve?
A: We won't have online / offline / in battle for uprising but its on the feature list and gets regularly prodded at (its a little tricky to solve at scale). The contact loading times should be much quicker in Uprising.

Q: Are you implementing a way to show who the medics are on your team? It's annoying when you're down and there's 6 guys around you. It says that there's a medic nearby, but you can't even tell who it is. Also, people have no idea I'm a medic, so they will run away when I try to heal them.
Q: What steps in the future will be used to eliminate MCC and redline sniping?
A: You'll be able to see nearby medics much better in Uprising. We've reworked the spawn/death sequence, which includes more situational awareness for things like nearby medics.
A: With Uprising, we've greatly improved the spawn/death sequence in general, including situational awareness around spawning. We are working on additional countermeasures with gear and map setups as well.

Q: Will Uprising give us access to the invisible mail sent to our characters from EVE?
A: We are adding both alliance and corporation mail to DUST. That should cover all those invisible mails.
Also adding notifications to DUST. :D

Q: Will the weirdness of shooting missile turrets lateral to vehicle movement direction be fixed?
A: Major improvements to this in Uprising

Q: Will RDV's ever be able to pick up vehicles and take them away? If I hack and enemy vehicle can I have an RDV come pick it up so I can sell it later, or return my own vehicle because I feel like I would rather use something else?
A: Vehicle recall coming in Uprising

Sometime After

Q: When will we get the option to turn off the HUD? At the moment it's hard to be creative with propaganda or fan videos because we are forced to see everything from a players perspective.
A: Doing stuff like that is part of what we call the "Gladiator" (eSports) suite of features, which would come along with having a proper Spectator mode.
and from a later answer
A: A: Absolutely, per my answer to another question (above), it is part of a suite of features we call "Gladiator" (eSports). This is both in-game a "sport" in the EVE Universe from a fiction standpoint (and very much a literal application of "Gladiator" in the Roman sense), and in the real world, eSports. We are working through the particulars, this is a very important feature for us. It is a way to facilitate custom matches and game modes like solo deathmatch and CTF, which don't make sense in the context of "Battles for War", Gladiator is what we contextualize as "Battles for Sport".

Q: Are there currently any plans to add a heavy weapon that does splash damage? The forge guns' blast radius is pitiful and the HMG doesn't do enough damage to scare groups of enemies.
A: I know this is a bit of a cop-out, but, please watch the DUST keynote at FanFest

Q: How about a dropsuit with 2 grenade slots?
Q: Combo that with a jump-pack.
A: We are looking at both these things

Q: Any plans to make the Merc Quarters more useful? I always thought it would make sense to have access to eve/dust info on one of the screens in there (lore, items database, star maps, New Eden news, etc.). Oh, and some kind of spectator mode to watch matches while relaxing on my nice Caldari sofa, for when I'm too drunk to melt faces.
A: We intend to work on features like this for Quarters, just not top priority atm.

Q: what are the concepts for other aircraft beside dropships? anything along the lines of a one man helicopter or jet?
A: Yep, Fighters. Please watch FanFest

Q: And Tron style bikes ... one time use, gets you there fast, maybe one click range.
A: This is what we are calling Speeders ... not necessarily "Tron-like" though!

Q: Closed beta-testers had the chance for a while to enjoy skirmish 1.0 and most of them thought it was a way more interesting game mode than skirmish 2.0. Especially with Planetary Conquest being added in Uprising.
Could we have an update on when you guys are planning to bring that game mode back ? And what about Conquest mode ? We were hearing about it a year back and still no hard news about it.
New Domination game mode mentionned in Merc Cast ep2 is all good and nice but it's just another variation of a quite boring game mode.
A: "Skirmish 1.0" is being worked on as code name "Infiltration". "Conquest" is also in the works, but is comes along with a much more sweeping set of features which I can't talk about at the moment.

Q: Will we see Modular weapons in the next build or in future builds?
A: Tech 3 is on the roadmap

Q: Will we be getting kill logs?
A: Not any time soon, it is not on any road map or schedule I know of.

Q: Will a pilot dropsuit be introduced? What benefits would a pilot suit offer?
A: We going to make things very nice for people who want to specialize in being a Pilot. Please watch FanFest next week.

Q: In a top 10 list of things you have prioritized for the next build, about where is player item trading placed? In my opinion, if we are going off the assumption that the salvage/loot you make will make FW or PC profitable, then not being able to trade means thtat this is a flawed assumption. Loot will only be valuable if it can be used or monetized.
A: Trading is on the roadmap to come soon, not Uprising, but, it is high priority.

EDIT: Also, a post went up with the exact livestream schedule, I've edited it into the older post above.

[Cantih]

Heads up
https://forums.dust514.com/default.a...847#post709847

Dear players,

From Wednesday April 24th through Thursday May 2nd we will be holding an event in celebration of Fanfest 2013. The name of the event is called the Mercenary Holocon and during the event period you will be eligible to receive 3X Skill Points for every battle you fight in game!

In conjunction with the Mercenary Holocon event, we are also having a 40% off discount on 7-day Active Boosters, so don’t miss out on this great opportunity to play DUST 514 and earn extra Skill Points.

EDIT: The weekly soft caps are being raised for the event as well.
If you haven't made a character yet, if you do so through here https://dust514.com/recruit/qssjbN/ you'll get a free 7 day skill booster, perfect for the event.

Keep in mind that this overlaps the final week of the human endurance event, which rewards pricey vehicle hulls. Having them is a good way to bank a lot of ISK in the long run when you can eventually sell them (or sooner if any of them are going to be refunded during the May 6th update's gear buyback.)

EDIT EDIT: There's also a DUST 514 Dev Stream today at 9am PDT/Noon EDT here https://forums.dust514.com/default.a...main=twitch.tv .

[Sol-Blackguy]

Soft cap confirmed to not be 3x for the Holocon event. You think they give you an inch, but they take a mile. Now I'm capped until next week. Thanks CCP

[Cantih]

I still have 300k left to go. Now you can spend all day watching the fanfest stream, best powerpoints ever!

The new starmap is sexy, and the new kill screen/victory screen are nice surprises (STAT PORN, no seriously, stat porn is always awesome). I worry a bit that it shows your killer's KDR, they are going to be gunning for me once half the team knows I'm 7/0 in a match.
Spawn cloak is welcome, that Amarr medium suit is going to stand out on the field, and if that Minmatar scout suit isn't the fastest thing ever, I'll be disappoint. That skill/gear devblog cant come soon enough.

And lol UVT, it really was the silliest thing on the market. One month was fifty cents worth of AUR. $6 a year from a minority of the playerbase probably wasn't even worth the effort.

[Brill Weave]

I'M DOWNLOADING THE BETA SOMEONE GIVE ME MONIES!

[Cantih]

Can't transfer ISK/stuff player to player yet.

But if you haven't already, create your character/account using my link FIRST, it won't work if you've already done it through the game, (you can ctrl-F "recruit" to find it) to get a few bits of extra stuff. Including a 7 day SP booster you should use RIGHT NOW. This week is a 3x SP for matches and the booster stacks with it. And it runs into next "week" (weekly SP caps are reset Wednesday after downtime [noon GMT]) up through Thursday as well. Once you only get a maximum of 1.5k each match you'll know you're capped.

Best I can do.
Also, I'm watching streams so I won't be on today, but open up the chat channel bluegartr so you can run into me and Sol (and Tekki plus the EVE crew)

[Brill Weave]

Ok, I played a bit this weekend but I have many questions. Proceed with answering them.

1. There are only three game modes so far? Are they making more?
2. How do you get a vehicle in the middle of a match?
3. How do I get blueprints for stuff?
4. Why do fuckers with sniper rifles camp injured people
5. Are you able to customize weaponry at all(add a scope to assault rifle etc?)

That's all I can think of for now.

[Cantih]

Ok, I played a bit this weekend but I have many questions. Proceed with answering them.

1. Yes, and Yes, though it's a bit away. They're adding Domination on the 14th, but it's really just a modified 1 point Skirmish. (I consider OMS just a variation on Ambush, not a separate mode.) On the roadmap is an update themed around e-sports, and that is likele to at least include free for all deathmatch and capture the flag modes. PVE against rogue drones will be added soonish (don't expect it in a couple months though, not that soon), I believe they want to add something called Conquest (different from planetary conquest) that's kind of a sandboxish fight. And at fanfest a mode called Penetration was mentioned, wich is boarding ships/infiltrating compounds.

2. Press Select when you're in first person, you'll get a menu that lets you call in vehicles (and orbital strikes if you have the points and are a squad leader). You'll only have a free BPO LAV to call in, you'll have to make vehicle fits if you want more/different stuff (and vehicles ain't cheap).

3. Some BPOs are given out for special events. Closed beta testers could earn a full set of militia suit BPOs and a standard AR (the exile). All the other BPOs cost money. There are some in the $20 Merc Pack (which is also the smartest way to get the standard tier suit BPOs named after the MAG factions), there are some in the $10 starter pack, though icr what, the rest are all militia suits and modules. Getting a full set isn't cheap, I believe it's north of $100 for all the infantry and vehicle modules. They only give you an ISK advantage though, militia tier gear is slightly (but not very) worse than standard. There is a SP refund/respec and a gear buyback/refund on the 6th that we don't quite know the scope of, and with it may come price changes. Anything you get now could be refunded at current market prices, so don't worry overmuch. (Personally, I'd wait a week before buying anything.)

4. Predictable targets, if you mean nanite injectors. You come up in the same position you went down, and have a slight movement delay, so we don't even need to move our sights. They are jerks though, those who do it. I prefer to take out the logibro who comes for you rather than just popping you again, though if I can't, you are the next priority target.

5. No. That would be what we're calling Tech III gear, and it's on the roadmap but far away. I'm not even 100% sure if we have official Tech II gear yet, the Type 2 suits and 2nd tier vehicles may not count.

Also, who are you exacly? We had two new people pop into the BG channel this weekend.

[Brill Weave]

I'm under Brillcs I believe.

[remdynex]

.

Haven't played Dust since the first stage of Beta but that video makes me want to jump back in.

So many updates....

[Cantih]

If you want to see a similar fight with the update we're getting next week, but not a staged dev fight (though without the nice cuts and acting), have a look here http://www.twitch.tv/ccp/c/2213367
The match starts about 13 minutes in.

[Sol-Blackguy]

Meanwhile on the Dust 514 forums:

[takeDat]

Was assault rifle ranged nerfed or something? Haven't had time to log into dust for the past couple of days.

[Cantih]

Not yet, but it's going to be "kind-of" nerfed by what everyone is expecting.
The Sidearm/Light/Heavy Capacity/Reload/Sharpshooter/Upgrade skills are being trashed in favor of specific weapon upgrades. So instead of all light weapons, you'll have to specifically upgrade LR, AR, Shotgun, etc. From crystal balling from Singularity server database scrapes* it would appear that the range increasing sharpshooter skill is not going to be in the game anymore. Crystal balling isn't always 100% accurate though, but odds are high that this is the case.

Though people making the argument in Sol's picture are fucking retarded. With 10/10 upgrades that give you a 40% range boost, the longest range AR (which is the semi-auto Tac) has a max range of 154m. Without ANY upgrades, the maximum range of any sniper rifle is 599m. The only "snipers" AR users are killing are bozos attempting to no-scope/quick-scope (which doesn't work in DUST), or snipers that are running around in the hot zone without the sense to switch to their sidearm. (Though, Logi snipers don't get a sidearm, but they shouldn't not be sniping, or should change their damn fit before running in. Line Harvest is the only map where that could be forgiven, since the depot positioning disfavors it.)

* Like FFXI, EVE Online has a test server, Singularity (or SiSi (The live game server is Tranquility, the China server is Serenity)). And while DUST doesn't run directly on EVE, they both use the same database that's the heart of the game. So when the DUST devs need to test/upload patches for new builds, they need to put them on Singularity, and unlike FFXI, all EVE players have access to Singularity whenever it's up (which is quite frequently). While the EVE client can't currently see stats on equipment, just names and descriptions, the skill system has all the useful info in the skillbook item descriptions. But since it's a test server, things get changed, and not everything get's uploaded all at once. And CCP listens to player feedback WAY more thane Square does, that can also change things before or after release.

Also, Sol is doing some champion trolling on the DUST forums.

[Brill Weave]

Also, Sol is doing some champion trolling on the DUST forums.

Now I'm going to have to register to go and see!

[takeDat]

Oh, just from speculation...going to need people to man up and aim harder.

[Sol-Blackguy]

Sharpshooter isn't exactly being taken out of the game, but it's going to do different things for different weapons instead of adding range. All we know right now is that it's going to reduce the kick on ARs. I was wondering why a Gallente hybrid blaster would have the potential to have such a long ass range to begin with. Hell, with all the "This weapon is OP!" topics popping up, all of them had ungodly range because of sharpshooter. Pretty game breaking if you ask me.

[remdynex]

So having played some matches, i still suck pretty bad but it is a lot more enjoyable, gonna try and tough it out as a sniper class, reaction time could use some work though lol.

Picked Arbiter, do classes really matter or is it just for eqp/perks?

[Sol-Blackguy]

So having played some matches, i still suck pretty bad but it is a lot more enjoyable, gonna try and tough it out as a sniper class, reaction time could use some work though lol.

Picked Arbiter, do classes really matter or is it just for eqp/perks?

Not really, it just gives you a different starting skill set and a 5th free militia fitting to use based on the class you picked. I started as an enforcer and wound up liking Logistics in the end. I hope they add a vehicle class for uprising later though for people that are going to stick with piloting/driving.

[Cantih]

In the long run they don't matter, in the first week or two though the starting skills set can make it easier to reach certain play styles quickly.
(Arbiter for example starts with Shield Boost 3, and with your starting SP you can hit 4 and unlock/skill Shield Control for an across the board boost to your shield HP, day 1. Sentinel is the only other one of note, which starts with Weaponry 3, so quicker to get into complex damage mods, HMGs, and Forge Guns)
They also determine one of the BPO starter fits you get that's different for each class. It doesn't matter overmuch, but if you want a scout/logi/heavy militia BPO for free to mess with, it might be something. Lastly, each gets a set of 50 bits of gear, but all together they only amount to a match or two of ISK worth of free stuff.

There aren't any kind of eternal perks though.