DISCLAIMER: This post is merely an opinion piece pointing out the pros and cons of Player versus Environment gameplay in DUST 514 and Project Legion. This is not a “PvE Confirmed for DUST 514 in X Update” or “PvE is Coming to Project Legion CCP Confirms” post. Everything in this is opinion, so please do not take it as fact. o7
For the longest time, DUST 514 players have been asking for some sort of Player-Versus-Environment gamemode, which included destroying drones and hacking installations. I personally would like to see a sort of PvE (even if it was in the form a training room where I could test suit setups against drones). With my thoughts of PvE in mind, I polled the forums in both General Discussions and Features and Ideas Discussions. The DUST community was very helpful, as it tends to be, and was very sarcastic and butt hurt sounding (big thanks to Godin Thekiller for “modeling the evening ware from the ‘Bitter Vet’ line”, as Cross Atu stated). Both players and forum warriors gave their two ISK about the pros and cons that they saw in PvE.
Godin Thekiller, of Negative-Feedback., pointed out a con saying, “the fact that it’s not coming at all on PS3 (most likely anyways).” This is due to the PS3’s lack of memory that is needed to run any kind of PvE. Now, should Project Legion come to the PC or Playstation 4, memory should not be much of an issue, especially on PC.
Cross Atu, of OSG Planetary Operations, was quick to point out that PvE would deepen the sandbox of the game and furthermore, implementing PvPvE would bring the game to a level deeper than what just PvE could do. He went on to say, “A lot of what it could do or be is down to the mechanics or tools in the box for deploying PvE, but it has a lot of a potential and has been a sought after feature among a contingent of players since back in the beta days.”
A couple of other players threw in their two ISK to make their opinions heard. Nelo Kazuma, from THE LAST H0PE., said that he thought that the “lower amount of SP and ISK to not promote abuse and it would allow hopefully [CCP] to see which weapons are obviously being abused.” He also took at shot at the DUST development team saying, “cant honestly say ive seen someone from [CCP] on the field otherwise I would literally skill into a broken weapon to show them what’s being abused atm.”
Squagga, from Fatal Absolution, gave a pro saying, “[H]opefully it will give new players something to do, other than being proto stomped, and we’ll be able to keep, and hopefully, grow a larger player base.” Yes! I wholeheartedly agree with the latter half of his comment. Everybody knows that DUST’s new player numbers are not what CCP would like them to be. Maybe PvE is the vehicle that will help bring new players in who may not necessarily like PvP. Consider this Reddit thread that was posted to /r/DestinyTheGame. The OP, /u/IPlayzVidyaGamz, says that he “purchased Destiny for the PVE aspect of the game. I am not a fan of the PVP and knew that going into it when I purchased the game.” Because there are so many gamers with the same mindset as IPlayzVidyaGamz, adding PvE content to DUST 514, Project Legion, or even both, would certainly draw more people into the game. Hell, even adding PvPvE would draw more people into the game, in my opinion.
Ripley Riley, of Incorruptibles, listed several pros. “Adds variety to Dust 514’s limited scope, which at this moment consists of PvP, Could be iterated on to improve PC and FW mechanics, Opens up player-friendly venues for CCP to monetize DUST.”
Ripley also laid out a very, very interesting idea. He started off by saying (and I love this thought on the matter),”Dust’s primary gamemodes will always be PvP…The goal of PvE is to compliment PvP, not replace it.” “The New Eden universe depends on player driven conflict and mayhem to survive; however, PvE can add depth to Dust as well as providing interesting things to do between matches. To that end, PvP should be a prerequisite for PvE.” He went on to layout the basis for what he called “Salvage Contracts”.
A Salvage Contract comes in three “flavors”. Low yield, medium yield, and high yield. The best part about the whole thing is that it incorporates lore! Three cheers for lore! DUST has been lacking in that department, and this is a wonderful proposal that would incorporate one of the things that DUST 514 is missing. Ripley says, “From a lore perspective this would represent different size wrecks: low yield would be for frigates, destroyers, and maybe some cruisers. The size and quality of Eve ship would increase as you escalated all the way to high yield. These yields correlate with difficulty and rewards.”
“Salvaging contracts can be found in EoM [End of Match] salvage (about as rare as a key), strongboxes (about as rare as a BPO), mission rewards, or purchased with AUR. I see these contracts being around the cost of a 1-day booster. If someone wants to do nothing but run PvE all the time then they can, but it will cost them aurum. The goal of PvE is to compliment PvP, not replace it.”
“Once you have a contract you can then purchase clones. You may buy up to 20 clones per contract. Clones that are not used during the contract are refunded with a 5% fee. This is important: the clones purchased are not shared by the squad. Only you get to use the clones you buy. The clones we use in public contracts are being paid for by NPC corporations. When we do these freelance contracts we are purchasing clones ourselves and that should not be a cheap task.When you run out of clones you are effectively out of the contract and DO NOT receive a single reward. Your portion of the contract payout is then split among the remaining squad members.” Ripley also suggested turning friendly fire on, just like it is in Factional Warfare with all the same rules for it (punish option, boot after X amount of damage, etc).
Those a few of the pros and cons (as well as a quite brilliant idea) of PvE in DUST 514/Project Legion as seen through the eyes of the community. If you have any comments, questions, or cries of outrage, feel free to send it all to me on Twitter, in-game (direct mail to Aiwha Bait), the forums (just make a topic in GD), or right below in the comments!
1: Goddammit Bait, I’m not that bad of a bitter vet 😛
2: I’d rather not have gameplay tied behind a paywall. That seems a bit much, as bad as companies who ties non-paid expansion content behind pay walls such as D&DO’s premium dungeons. or how many moos ties full classes behind paywalls. I believe that’s just not fair, especially when those things gives a great advantage.
Yeah. His idea sucks if you only play games for PvE. As somebody who enjoys PvP, i dont mind it.
What is behind a paywall? Someone can optionally buy Salvage Contracts with aurum, but they also intended to drop from EoM salvage, strong boxes, and what not.
I forgot to mention that I would also be 100% comfortable with a warbarge subsystem that produces X Salvage Contracts per day.
The rarity of the contracts would make them rediculous to actually get, making them effectively locking the thing behind a paywall. That in of itself is just a bad idea.
On top of that, what if someone just doesn’t want to do PVP? In Destiny, PVE is much more fun than PVP, because it’s much less frustrating. It’s less of a problem if such exists in DUST (arguably of course), but if I wanted to just sit and play PVE in a session (as I do a lot in EVE, because verity of gameplay makes the game fun, and not become boring), I should be able to. You yourself might not want to, you might not want to just play PVP, which is fair. However, gameplay shouldn’t be tied down, and that simply being ignored because, “I play PVP, not PVE, so I don’t care.” imo.
Between Salvage Contracts produced every day from the warbarge subsystem, EoM salvage, strongbox drops, and daily missions rewards a player can spend hours in PvE for free. Paywalls, “effective” or not, do not exist using this model. The only time someone would have to spend aurum is if they want to do PvE matches for days without ever playing a single public contract. Sorry, that’s not acceptable. It’s borderline risk aversion.
1: EoM salvage and SB drops are rare as fuck, so non existent
2: Depending on how long the contracts are (I’m assuming not more than 15-30 mins a piece, maybe even less for better players), and how many are produced, I doubt it would be enough to solely play them.
3: missions are RNG, and will probably be mostly tied to PVP stuff like it is now, so irrevelant.
It’s basically the same reason as why I think FW is broken; it can’t be solely played. Same for PC. I should be able to play a single gaamemode and only that gamemode. Otherwise, it’s jsut a gimmick. This so far looks like a gimick, and one trying to make a fast one off of people.
+1
Great article Bait, synthesizing ideas and a little flavor of the forum culture as well. Ripley’s idea for contracts as a reward from PvP matches is particularly interesting. Selling contracts could certainly be lucrative.
I particularly enjoyed that this was more of a summary of forum perspectives than just a straight-up editorial.
I quite like Ripley’s idea, as somebody who enjoys PvP thoroughly. However, from the persepctive of somebody (like the Reddit user), who only plays for PvE, it would suck. It would be forcing them to play something they dont like, just to be able to play what they do.
In my mind, it’s the same as making somebody play the entire Call of Duty campaign all the way through just to unlock multiplayer (nobody plays COD for the story. :P)
Drone skins for Players would bring PVE now to dust514,much like Locust vs Humans in Gears of War.This Player drone skins would be the ultimate AI vs Dust Mercs