DUST Search - Catching up: Proposals surrounding the SP cap.

Rasatsu wrote:

I think it's important to separate the topic of SP pools and 'catching up' with vets. (the latter should never be implemented if you love the game and want to be playing it in 10 years time)

When the SP pools/rollover thing was discussed months ago I recommended a logarithmically decreasing payout from an SP pool. (Comp. Sci graduate so this kind of stuff is second nature to me...)

Basically you have daily injections of (constant) SP into the player's SP pool (which is enough to go from zero to full in 3-4 weeks). When calculating the amount of SP to award the player the input value from the battle is run through a logarithmically decreasing function that makes it so that the closer you get to emptying the pool the less SP you get.

Now if you play your first battle in a month it's going to give you a lot of SP (could be reduced to not be overwhelming), ten battles in you're getting still very high rewards. Now if you stop playing for a month, during that session you might have emptied 3/4 of the SP pool.

Enter the weekend warrior; he binges on weekends... He plays 20(?) matches every weekend, and he takes his SP pool from 3/4 to 2/4 every week. The last game he plays every weekend gives him half the SP the first game gives him.

Last is the dope smoking college guy; he plays 10 matches every night (except weekends), and his SP pool is always at 1/4. He gets about half the SP of the weekend warrior per match. The reason his gameplay is rewarded is that at lower levels the SP pool regenerated a bit more per day.


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Skihids Bullet Cluster Legacy Rising 2417	Posted - 2013.11.14 06:23:00 - [1] - Quote All this talk of detail is bassackwards. Before we design a new system we should first specify what the goals are. We can then determine if any of the goals are incompatable and their relative ranking. Then we can judge the merits of each proposal by how well it accomplishes the goals. Starting with the details obscures several different goals. So what are the goals? Here's my impression: 1) Remove the pressure to grind the points or lose them 2) Remove the disincentive to continue playing 3) Allow new players to quickly attain competativeness 4) Pace SP accrual to prevent some players from gaining every skill available 5) Encourage paid SP boosting as a revenue stream Several of these seem to be incompatable, specifically 2 and 4. If you remove the cap you create the possibility that somone will no-life for however long it takes. So you have to decide which is more important to you. Expiring any of the bonus pool goes against 1. Any expiration means you still have to earn the same average point accrual, it's just that the timeframe is relaxed. 3 could be accomplished by a large base bonus pool. 5 could be accomplished by active boosters multiply a certain amount of bonus SP before running out. Making it SP based rather than time based makes it worth a constant amount and not prone to abuse. If you make the active booster add more the pool it wont' be valuable if someone has a great deal saved up already.
Skihids Bullet Cluster Legacy Rising 2422	Posted - 2013.11.15 06:09:00 - [2] - Quote Garth Mandra wrote: echo47 wrote: No skill point cap at all. Whats the point? If a player earns 2500 WPs he should get 2500 WPs. with no cap we may see player count rise. I think we would have fewr players playing just to cap out each week The thought behind the cap is that once players get every skill they're interested in to 5 interest in the game will wane and they'll stop playing. Something like that anyway. How many players are realistically in danger of doing this?
Skihids Bullet Cluster Legacy Rising 2422	Posted - 2013.11.15 17:05:00 - [3] - Quote Rasatsu wrote: I think it's important to separate the topic of SP pools and 'catching up' with vets. (the latter should never be implemented if you love the game and want to be playing it in 10 years time) When the SP pools/rollover thing was discussed months ago I recommended a logarithmically decreasing payout from an SP pool. (Comp. Sci graduate so this kind of stuff is second nature to me...) Basically you have daily injections of (constant) SP into the player's SP pool (which is enough to go from zero to full in 3-4 weeks). When calculating the amount of SP to award the player the input value from the battle is run through a logarithmically decreasing function that makes it so that the closer you get to emptying the pool the less SP you get. Now if you play your first battle in a month it's going to give you a lot of SP (could be reduced to not be overwhelming), ten battles in you're getting still very high rewards. Now if you stop playing for a month, during that session you might have emptied 3/4 of the SP pool. Enter the weekend warrior; he binges on weekends... He plays 20(?) matches every weekend, and he takes his SP pool from 3/4 to 2/4 every week. The last game he plays every weekend gives him half the SP the first game gives him. Last is the dope smoking college guy; he plays 10 matches every night (except weekends), and his SP pool is always at 1/4. He gets about half the SP of the weekend warrior per match. The reason his gameplay is rewarded is that at lower levels the SP pool regenerated a bit more per day. We had that before and it was universally hated.
Skihids Bullet Cluster Legacy Rising 2422	Posted - 2013.11.15 17:18:00 - [4] - Quote What does "Catching up to vets" mean anyway? Does it mean making one effective fitting that can kill a vet, or does it mean matching a year or three's SP in a few months? You can acomplish the former with a starter bonus pool, but attempting the latter is guaranteed to break the game. You simply can't earn SP fast enough without completely devaluing the rewards. There is no need to have everyone at the same level, just competative. But even there, does competative mean competative against proto vets, or simply competative against the players in match? A better academy system and a low level match mode could ensure competativeness without handing out 5M SP.