Dust 514

[Sol-Blackguy]

Been hearing from friends that there was a major hotfix on the crazy ass aim assist. I might work up the nerve to try it out tomorrow.

[Sol-Blackguy]

Aim assist has been tweaked sufficiently to actually assisting your aim instead of the CoD auto-aim BS. I'm not going to play as religiously as I had been lately but I'm going to stick around to see if CCP can turn this train wreck around by the time it releases on PS4.

[Cantih]

First off, 1.5 Patch Notes
https://forums.dust514.com/default.a...93#post1341193
Most notable is that they're finally adding in WP for support actions that have been lacking it. (COUNTER HACKS!)

Secondly, a bit of news
https://forums.dust514.com/default.a...posts&t=112962

Buying BPOs from the system is going bye bye. This is both good and bad for different reasons. The bad is largely, since they go away in a week, this is an income bid. You gotta drop dollars for BPOs, so if you want to use the chance get some before they're gone, you've got to give CCP some cash for DUST, something I'm sure many are still ambivalent about.

Do you NEED BPOs? No.
When they rebalanced prices way back when, militia BPCs are quite affordable. But if you are the kind of person to fight using minimal upgraded gear (either for cash or the challenge), BPOs, in the long run, will add up in savings. This is especially true with the vehicle BPOs. If you decide to mess with vehicles, the BPOs will save you a serious chunk of ISK.
One thing of note though are the MAG tribute Dropsuit BPOs (Raven, Sever, Valor). They are not Militia, they are STANDARD tier ROLE suits. If you get any BPOs, those are ones to consider, since it's the biggest ISK savings in the BPOs. (Also, the four militia suit BPOs, if you want to play with a different suit color scheme for free(ish), but that's all.)

[Sol-Blackguy]

At 2300 EVE time on October 2nd, I'll be bringing Hans and Kane on to my stream answer community questions. We'll be taking them from Reddit, this Dust forum thread and in Twitch chat. The Q&A will last for at least 1 hour and possibly more depending on whether they have time. If it goes well, I'll be running more of these on a regular basis.

Stream Link

Aside from my occasional run-ins with Iron Wolf Saber, these are the only two CPM members I see in game and on the forums. I'm curious to see what they can and can't tell us about what's going on with the game.

[Sol-Blackguy]

A Message from the Executive Producer

Hi everyone!

My name is Jean-Charles Gaudechon and I have the immense privilege of being the new Executive Producer of DUST 514. I'd like to briefly introduce myself and say a few words about the fantastic task at hand.

I've been making games for about twelve years, and most recently MMOs. Making deep and meaningful online experiences has become my specialty, with a recent strong emphasis on first-person shooters. That said, I enjoy many different genres, and am currently having a blast with the early build of a highly classified Space Program on Steam and protecting a bad-ass little girl from zombies on PS3. But, like many of you, I often default back to a few online games that give me exactly what I want. My favorite games seem to be built on strong fiction, supported by tight gameplay mechanics, and a player-driven economy.

With DUST 514, my mission is to give you the most intense and engaging experience possible for a free-to-play online multiplayer shooter in the EVE Universe. This requires focusing primarily on the core gameplay, but also on a deep and rewarding link to EVE Online and everything that comes with it: the incredibly immersive fiction, sandbox design, best-in-class player-driven economy, and much more. This is where DUST 514 differentiates itself completely from all other shooters and is why I love the game. Features such as player trade, valuable resources transferable and useable between DUST and EVE, and new game modes that capture the sandbox nature of our game, are all building blocks towards that vision. We will be revealing more details at EVE Vegas later this month, followed by in-depth articles, developer blogs, and more.

Another very important aspect of my mission is to keep listening to you, our players, and of course the Council of Planetary Management. CCP has an amazing track record of bonding with its community and I have every intention of keeping this true for DUST 514.

Finally, I need to give all the kudos I can to the development team in Shanghai. Every woman and man in this team pushed extremely hard to make DUST 514 a reality, and today they are even more motivated to keep our game vibrant and growing on a daily basis. It is a great honor for me to join this team and continue building on what has been done so far.

I can promise you that the team and I will take DUST 514 as far as we can and try to impress you with each and every new release. Be ready for a lot more DUST 514 action in the foreseeable future.

A pleasure to serve you!



CCP Rouge

There may be hope for Dust 514 after all. This guy sounds like he gets it.

[Cantih]

Another bit of news, CCP put it's financials public.
(Though unless you're a big fan of the EVE side of things, it's dry reading)
http://www.ccpgames.com/media/47381/...030%202013.pdf

[Sol-Blackguy]

Have to admit, the game has gotten tons better since the 1.5 patch. No more getting hung up on terrain, the squad finder is an excellent addition and if they fix the freezing and chat bugs, I'd say it's a huge success. Looks like 1.6 is going to fine tune the rest of the core game before they add more content in 1.7 and beyond. Just hope they tone down the TTK a bit at some point. Most of the modules for burst tanking are still useless compared to stacking plates and extenders.

[Cantih]

Preliminary stats on new rifles otw (1.7, so, December I think)
https://forums.dust514.com/default.a...posts&t=117279

http://web.ccpgamescdn.com/dust/news...flestats17.jpg
http://web.ccpgamescdn.com/dust/news...leranges17.jpg

That damage and range on Rail Rifles, do want.

Also, I played a bit of 1.5 the other day. Draw distance still seems to be a bit shorter than my sniper's max range, but it does seem to be 100 yards better than it was a few months ago.
I was worried about the skill gains in the populace and armor boosts, but I'm still oneshotting motherfuckers with my 3x CLDM Charge. Thank goodness I bought a thousand of the things before the price change.

[Sol-Blackguy]

Out of curiosity, when's the last time you've been on the ground in the thick of things, Cantih? 1.4 and onward has been about nothing but brick tanking and automatic weapons. All the hot fixes CCP did from 1.0 are coming to bite them back in the ass. I can't even use my mass driver anymore since I usually die before one of my rounds even make it to their destination. I had to break down and invest SP into ARs just to keep up and all the SP invested in shield recharge/regulation and armor repair modules are pretty much useless since downtime between fights has been cut down to fractions of a second.

[Cantih]

I haven't done anything recently brawly. The last time was... it may have been the, or one after, the update that added the pyramidal structure. I made a scrambler rifle standard heavy fit, and had a good run with it, lot of trouble to drop me.

I've never really tried much with MD or Flaylock, I have standard unlocked (I have access to every weapon except knives), but that's about it.
But before the respec, I had L4 in AR and SMG stuff, and I kept it the same after the respec as well. 4 in the main for kick, and 4 in sharpshooter for accuracy. This is in addition to 5 main and 5 proficiency in snipers.
I also have 5/5 in both Shield and Armor for the HP bonus, and have since the respec. I also have 5/5 in Electronics and Engineering so I can shoehorn everything into my fits (My charge sniper is right on the line.)
So, I generally don't have too much trouble in survivability from a numbers point, just in a "not a shooter person" point.

I had enough in my pool when I came back the other day that i went to 3 in all the EW skills, and I also unlocked Caldari Assault so I can use my Raven suit now. That's the last one, the only militia BPO suit I'm still running are some heavy fits. Oh, and the skinweave logi, since it's unique.
And I still have 1m SP left, gonna save it for 1.6 and maybe 1.7, in case anything pops up.

[Sol-Blackguy]

There's a noticeable difference between then and now. All that SP you invested in anything other than a weapon and damage mods is pretty much window dressing since a proto suit dies just as fast as a starter fit.

Also, it looks like Iron Wolf Saber decided to leak something for once. (Spoiler for size)

Spoiler: show

http://www.blackpalette.com/wp-conte...lente_scv2.jpg

[Cantih]

Patch Notes. Goes live Nov 5th
https://forums.dust514.com/default.a...posts&t=118043

Major items bolded

Dropsuits
* Increased scan radius from 10 meters to 16 meters on Scout and Basic Light Frame suits.
* Increased the repair tools’ rate of repair (general values for each tier): Standard and Militia: 40 HP/s, Advanced: 60 HP/s, Prototype: 70 HP/s.
* Adjusted the heavy dropsuit hit points: (shown below)
* Increased Basic and Sentinel armor/shield hit points from 405/405 to 480/480.
* Increased Commando armor/shield hit points from 250/250 to 325/325.

Vehicles
* Added stabilization for Militia Dropships to the control scheme to make them easier to fly.

Weapons
* Reduced the Forge gun blast radius: Standard: from 2.5m to 1.5m, Advanced: from 2.75m to 1.8m, Prototype: from 3m to 2.1m.

Bug fixes and polish
* Battle finder now shows a correct clone reserve count for corporation battles.
* Fixed missing hints on create button in Squad Finder.
* Applied fixes to vehicle turrets.
* Several graphical fixes regarding SSAO and Shadows.
* Fixed an issue where players would hang at the Show Info window if closed rapidly.
* Fixed an issue where players were not able to see server name and player count during server VIP mode.
* Further improvements to overall hit detection.
* Specific improvements made to shotgun hit detection.
* Specific improvements made to Nova Knife hit detection.
* Fixed a bug where players were getting stuck on the front of the HAV.
* Fixed a bug that caused strange behavior with third person mesh when killed in a turret.
* Fixed a bug that caused the third person mesh to sometimes 'freeze' if killed whilst crouching.
* Fixed a bug that caused equipment to slide on the base of the null cannon.
* Fixed a bug with visual corruption on wreck materials.

I did a little bit of AR fighting yesterday in a skirmish hotspot, it didn't feel very different from how it has through the length of the game (except when they occasionally buggered hit detection to make 30 second fights).
I lasted long enough in spite of my low player-skill level that it seems fine.

[Sol-Blackguy]

It used to be much, much worse at the start of 1.4 with auto aim. There's been another hotfix since the last time I posted, so it looks like they're slowly getting things back in order. Noticed my GEK starting to dance around earlier in the clip than before. Duvolle AR's are still bullshit though.

The new patch looks pretty solid for a series of minor fixes. Hope the scanning range buff isn't that long awaited love they said scouts were going to get because that would really suck. Heavy and repper buff seems interesting. It looks like they want that heavy/logi synergy back, but more HP and reps isn't going to save the heavy. They need to fix the HMG, I can stand just outside their optimal and kill them with a Toxin SMG, that's not right.

[Sol-Blackguy]

Aaaand they fucked it up again. I think I'm going to go play CoD. You die a lot slower in that game and don't have to pay for your gear.

Edit: Looks like CeoPyrex finally decided to say what's on his mind about the CPM. I can't 100% agree with him on this, but when half the people that are meant to represent your community don't even play anymore, that's a problem.

I say just make this the first and last CPM. Give the power to the people and let CCP sort it out. It's they're game, we're all just playing it.

[Cantih]

I've got the reverse opinion, I played a bit after the patch, and it seems OK.
My sniping was a bit more on target, and I got upclose later with my frontline heavy.
I went down at what felt like a proper speed for a heavy, when I was caught in a group of reds.

[Sol-Blackguy]

Hope you don't think I'm complaining about getting killed, it's actually the other way around. I was wiping out suits on my Amarr assault character with partial charged shots on a standard scrambler rifle. Killing proto suits with 2-4 shots from a standard weapon just doesn't seem right. Hell, I didn't even have to drop a nanohive because I wasn't running out of ammo, let alone missing. I couldn't help but think that this couldn't be fun for anyone on the receiving end.

[Sol-Blackguy]

Oh yeah, I think this game was balanced around bad hit detection. CCP has their work cut out for them. Going to retire my Amarr assault so I don't get the Imperial nerfed.

[Sol-Blackguy]

Someone finally got some video evidence of how exploitable the assault rifle is. I don't know if I'm more disgusted by the fact that it doesn't even start to kick after half the clip, the turbo controller exploit, or that the devs are trying to say this is by design to save face.

[Cantih]

Well the good news is the devs took notice fairly quickly.

Anyways, here's the big 1.7 vehicle rebalance.
http://dust514.com/news/blog/2013/11...prising-1.7-1/

so, we’ve added lock timers to newly deployed vehicles. As it stands today, no-one other than the vehicle owner can get into a vehicle for 5 seconds after delivery and no-one other than the vehicle owner and his squad can get into a vehicle for 15 seconds after delivery.
...
To coincide with the finite turret ammo, we’ve have also added the ability to manually reload turrets in much the same way you reload light weapons. And when you run out of ammo you can head to your nearest supply depot to resupply.
...
Next on the list are view distances, and the issues vehicles have been having with them. We have identified the cause of what we believe to be the major problem in this area and have made improvements to it.
...
Finally, one of the larger updates we’ve made is to the ground vehicle physics. The racial profile we’re using is that Gallente ground vehicles have slower acceleration and higher straight-line speed, while Caldari vehicles are quicker off the mark with slower top speed.
...
Overall, HAVs are now a little more nimble, can get to critical battlefield locations quicker, don’t take damage from every little bump, and, hopefully, more fun to drive.

I do hope that draw distance fix will also apply to my sniping.

[Sol-Blackguy]

Hope draw distance and rendering in general gets fixed. They put way to much emphasis in aesthetics over functionality.
Also, I'm getting a creeping suspicion that the whole reasoning behind the Black Eagle event was to quickly collect data on how horribly underpowered scouts are.