The game modes are not hard to understand. It's standard cookie cutter capture control with lolMCC timers.

You need to be teaching players how to fit their suits. What skills to upgrade. Most people coming into this game are not going to know the difference between the shield recharger and shield regulator. The very first time I played this game, I explored the market and skill lists for probably about an hour or so before I actually began playing. That's way too long for a lot of people. And i'm sure it's even worse with the introduction of new modules, suits, and weapons.

Give back to the academy the rotation of ambush and skimish variants. It will look more presentable than what you have now. Work on better tutorials for upgrading skills (videos, not walls of text) and simplify the market place.

Would your currents tools allow you to have a lower/upper limit for the BA, as per my suggestion?

The game modes are not hard to understand. It's standard cookie cutter capture control with lolMCC timers.

You need to be teaching players how to fit their suits. What skills to upgrade. Most people coming into this game are not going to know the difference between the shield recharger and shield regulator. The very first time I played this game, I explored the market and skill lists for probably about an hour or so before I actually began playing. That's way too long for a lot of people. And i'm sure it's even worse with the introduction of new modules, suits, and weapons.

Give back to the academy the rotation of ambush and skimish variants. It will look more presentable than what you have now. Work on better tutorials for upgrading skills (videos, not walls of text) and simplify the market place.

I highly disagree. I don't think its CCP job to do that. Hear me out before you spit out your drink. When I first played this game, I was a little overwhelmed. I didn't know exactly what I was looking at or how I wanted to build. I knew I wanted an assault guy but I didn't know how to exactly create that mercenary with the SP system.

So you know what my first thoughts were? Go to the forums and youtube. I did my homework. I read for hours and watched various videos. Also, my corporation extended a hand in helping me get adjusted to NE. I feel the hand holding by CCP is unnecessary. This is New Eden. You either learn how to survive and be swallowed up by it. That's why there are guides out there to help new mercs. It's on the merc to find that acquire that information.

Sorry, you can't both advocate the learning cliff and then tell us that you used 3rd party resources to help you climb it.

I certainly see a role for 3rd party guides in helping players with the decision on the WHAT (how to play better or improve their skill/equipment choices) but not for how to understand the core concepts of HOW. HOW should definitely be handled by the in game client, through tutorials, better UI, etc.

God, this type of mentality is getting old.

Congratulations, you are part of the 1%. People need to stop treating this game as it's own grand universe when this game hasn't even begun to stand up on it's own. Nobody gives a **** if this is New Eden. Sorry to put it bluntly, but look at the player counts for yourself. Nobody cares.

Treat this game as is. It's poorly designed, and if you don't go out of your way and look for second hand information, then you need to HTFU and GTFO of New Eden and find a new game to play (BF4/PS2).

Like I said. Bad game design.

All this experimentation is in service of building a better understanding of how new players actually behave, which we can then lean on in future to build a better overall new player experience. We're very aware of the need to review all aspects of the way we introduce DUST to new players; what we're doing here is just trying to learn what we can with the tools already in place.

If your gonna do a change like this, give new player 1 million sp to start a character. Or perhaps triple SP, (without any cap) until 6 million sp. Make sure to explain to new players that that 3x sp won't be forever, and that 6 million is a good spot to be in. but of course your gonna need more.

Players are averaging 100 WP a game against people in equivalent gear?

Players are averaging 100 WP a game against people in equivalent gear? Ignoring the part where this is so low I can almost guarantee you're wrong (despite whatever your metrics say), what are they supposed to do when they get to the regular queues and everyone has better gear? 25 WP per game? They get one assist and that's it? I don't understand your logic.

Until you get a much better matchmaking system this is all irrelevant anyway.

You should also completely remove the SP cap until players hit like 5 million SP.

You are changing multiple variables at once but basing your decision to reduce graduation requirements on the older setup. I would have changed the academy mode and then checked the WP average for that.

I also vote for opening the opportunity to move out of the academy battles but leaving the option there for some time.

I also suggest giving faster SP accrual during some initial period.