click the Link…
1 Like
So it’s confirmed now that Rust & Dust matchmaking is based on leaderboard ranking, and not PS.
At first I thought that might be a bad idea, but the more I play this mode, the
more I like it. It wouldn’t work in normal Crossout, but with the restrictions of this mode it makes sense.
High ranking players are a threat even in low PS builds, and are also more likely to be playing higher PS builds.
I’ve posted before about how Crossout’s balance problems are baked into the F2P live service business model, and that it’s pretty much impossible for them to pivot to a different model.
Rust and Dust could be seen as an experiment in how to rethink Crossout as a game you could buy once. While it’s being offered as a BP right now, buying it really doesn’t give you an advantage in this mode. I bought it only because I wanted to vote for this mode with my dollar, not because I actually wanted any of the things it offered.
They could spin this off as a buy-once game. Ideally beef it up with some PVE modes and a story mode.
There’s something much more interesting to me about competing against people who don’t have a build advantage/disadvantage based on how long they’ve been playing or how much they’ve spent. Ranking higher in this mode is almost completely based on playing and building skills.
Which gets me to thinking…at some point the game will pass from this Earth…they should consider making a stand-alone, single-player version, with the ability to connect to other players via services like Game Ranger. Many of the 80s & 90s single/multiplayer games did that once the original developers closed down their multiplayer servers. They could sell it for some set price, and fans of the game could go on for years playing it against bots or live players (without expansions or updates, of course, which would no longer be needed).
1 Like
I’m pretty sure there were no multiplayer games that ran on servers in the 80s, but otherwise I agree with your post.
When in the 90s did online gaming start? I didn’t actually do much gaming that decade, other than on Nintendo consoles that one of my roommates had.
In the 1980s there were MUDs (multi-user dungeon games) that were text-based, and mostly ran on mainframes and pcs (remember dialup?). The first MUD of its kind actually started in 1978. In the 1990s/early 2000s, titles like Start Fleet Command and Xwing Alliance (and some of its forebears) had online capabilities that allowed multiple users to fight each other. These consisted of one person’s pc acting as a “server”, and your friends would connect to it through your ip address. Star Fleet Command also had its own servers which supported multiple users playing together. Those were exciting times! 
1 Like