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

Haerr wrote:

There are a lot of good suggestions and ideas in this thread!

I would like to add a few ideas.

# "catch up" mechanic(s)
First off, I am against the implementation of any "catch up" mechanic. How ever if you insist on implementing one I think it would be a good idea to only make it benefit active players.

-¦ players under 5 million SPs gain bonus SP per WP (factor of 3)
-¦ players under 10 million SPs gain bonus SP per WP (factor of 2)
-¦ players under 15 million SPs gain bonus SP per WP (factor of 1)

This will reward active new players with out handing out free SPs to the ever increasing horde of alts and inactives.

If this is not enough you could:

-¦ players gain a respec after earning their first 15 million SPs

It will allow new players to make mistakes and to learn from them with out suffering from them. It will also allow new players to "catch up" by specialising.

If you still feel like you aren't giving new players enough of an advantage over the rest of your player base:

-¦ make the boosters give 1.75x their value to player that has less than 10 million SPs

Can't really find a way to justify this but hey it's an idea and as we all know not all ideas are good.

# rollover system

-¦ 28k sp is added daily to the cap

I would prefer to have the rollover system based of a daily addition to the cap since it would promote an active player base giving them a reason to logon every day (if they chose to do so). And having the rollover system will not punish those who chose to log on less frequently.

It might also dissuade the "no reason to log on until wednesday" and the subsequent "protostomp wednesdays". A side effect will be that no one is "rushing a head". (Not sure if that is good or bad.)

-¦ cap is limited to 500k

Having a such a high cap will allow for longer breaks and/or highs and lows in play time.

-¦ cap starts with 500k SPs in it for new players

An other way to benefit new players I guess.

This system isn't without a potential disadvantage: Players not playing in preparation of "3x SP" events. In order to make the most of "3x SP" events you would have to "save cap" in order to fully take advantage of the events.

Possible solution: "3x SP" events would have their bonus applied only to the SP added to the cap that day.

Another disadvantage would be an other form of "save and grind" including the use of short boosters to make the most out of said boosters.


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 1 post(s)
Tebu Gan Dem Durrty Boyz 202	Posted - 2013.11.14 13:31:00 - [1] - Quote Nova Knife wrote: Personally, I'm a strong supporter of the rollover system, but if given the choice I would much prefer no cap at all. While this may encourage some heavy farming by some, for the most part we shouldn't need to fear exploiting too much with the new system CCP Greyscale has tossed out that limits WP/time, which was the largest concern with having no cap. I feel that any cap (However large it may be) sends the message "After X point you should stop playing our game and do something else." which I feel is a pretty silly message to send to your loyal customers. As a gamer, I have absolutely hated the "You cannot pass GO until Z timer expires" prevalent in many F2P games. Further, limited progression implies that progression itself is the entire goal of the game (Which until we get some actual content, it kind of is) and I think that is incredibly wrong. SP shouldn't be the primary focus of the game. SP and progression should be something secondary that happens naturally as someone is enjoying the other content, in my opinion. While we enjoy a (sort of) soft cap rather than an abrupt stop to progression, that is almost worse in my opinion. With the soft cap players are still rewarded for grinding, but trying to eke out progression one match at a time can be nothing short of painful after one hits their cap. Even if players do not approve of removing the cap entirely, I think it is very important that however this system is revamped, a day 1 player should be able to catch up to someone who has been playing for months, if that new player wants to grind like a madman while the "vet" is only playing an hour or so a day. Agreed, on weeks I actually hit the cap, I stop. Why play if I can't improve my character anymore. No doubt it was a "grind" to cap in the first place. But why is it a grind? We should enjoy playing, and stop referring to it as grinding. But after doing some of the same things for months now, with hardly a change of pace, it becomes a grind. Going to work every day is a grind, I don't always enjoy it, but I have to do it if I want to get any better. Look, I don't want to come home to do more "work". I want to drink my beer, sit in my chair, and play a fing video game. I want to relax, not stress about remaining competitive, or grinding to become competitive. I want to play a few games, and I want to do decent in them. Interesting enough, I was just thinking about this last night. I have recently started a brand new character. Checked out the tutorial btw (not impressed). Anyways, going into heavy suits with this char, probably a forge gun I think. So I've spent my points split between the skills for the suits and weapon. Need more points so I was like hey, I'll play some matches. Que for ambush, milita suit is setup with a repper for points, and proto stomped. 2nd place on my side in WP, 2000 sp. An hour later, I've accrued 12,000 SP. Every single match was a proto stomp, minus 2 I can think of. I had nightmares about duvolles and exile assault rifles last night. Point is though, this never happens on my main. At this rate, it's going to be a long while until I get my suits, or weapons for that matter. Then I need my armor and shield skills on top of that. I feel bad for newberries, how are they going to accrue those WP needed for that SP. Me, with my experience, was able to rack up a few, half the norm of my main. New guys though, and I know I had some on my team, averaged 50, and lots of 0 or 5. One game I did pretty poorly and got 1500 sp at the end. That number familiar at all?? So for a 18,000 point skill, you would need to play roughly 18 games, 9 if you average 2000. Mind you this is ambush, and games tend to go much faster, that's still a lot of ass whoopins. And I can get stomped only so many times before I bore of playing. The wall between new players and vets, must be destroyed. New players need an edge. - Accelerated training, a MUST. - No cap up to 2.5 or 3mil. Need to look at how much sp it takes to get into an advanced suit with decent skills. Also something that could help the new people -Milita only game mode!! Meta level 0 items only, make milita versions of all weapons!! A mode where nobody has an edge equipment wise. It's all about skill! Ugh, gotta go grind out some work now. Nuff Said
Tebu Gan Dem Durrty Boyz 203	Posted - 2013.11.14 20:48:00 - [2] - Quote Nova Knife wrote: For the people commenting on a rollover decay/expiry : Some of you compare to Eve subs, and referencing no progression for those not playing. Again, this is a different genre, and a different marketing style. In a F2P game, the point is to make it ALWAYS attractive to come back and play it, even if you took a break to play other games for a while. For example, all the people who stopped playing Dust to play GTAV. It's not going to be long before most of them get bored and look for something else to play. If they could come back and powergame through all the SP from these past few weeks, a lot of them probably would. That's where the difference lies, IMO. Saying "We're going to let you catch up what you missed... (but only a bit of it/only for a little while) is kind of a slap in the face, and pretty much does exactly what people complain about with the weekly cap (Forces a segregation between those who have time to play and those who do not) just in a slightly more gentle way. But consider this : If a dude who is working and can only play 1h/day and can't cap anyways, how is this delayed/limited rollover going to help him, if he doesn't have time off very often? The system introduces yet more grind for him to go through to use up all that limited pool before it expires, doing exactly what this latest 3x SP event did. (Force a painful grind that people will do even if they hate it, and hate themselves afterwards for doing it) This is kind of rambly, but I just woke up and about to head to work. Will reply more coherently later. Was reading through the various posts here, and noticed a few mention the SP rollover, with the time limit. I was sorta pissed, because it IS just that, a grind. It's the same as our current system. So the SP rolls over to next week that you didn't use. Which means you didn't hit your cap. Take me for example, it rolls over to next week, but at the end of the week all this SP is gone. I still didn't reach my cap on the second week. I'm a casual gamer. Dust though is pretty much my only game. 2 hours a night, maybe. And when I run solo, always take a break between each game. So 2 hours and maybe 4 or 5 games. Nearly always hit above 1000 WP, so each match gives me a good chunk of SP. Been playing since Uprising, just recently reached 10 mil SP. Noticed someone else said the same but were at 23 mil. I'm WAY behind. So a roll over with no limit would certainly do me a lot of good for times when I DO actually have time to play. I can see it now though, the people that use multiple accounts, gathering passive SP, and gathering active SP.... SO there does need to be a limit on this kind of system, though not through Decay/Expiry. A cap, on the pool itself would be needed. Addressing the divide between new players and vets: I remember being a new player. I started a char in beta but never played him. I had 4.5 million sp when uprising came out. I knew a little about this game and knew that I had to choose carefully. But I'm a working man, and had little time to study up on all the various aspects. And besides, I wanted to PLAY. I wanted to shoot something. Like any new player. First match though, had me thinkin. I did so incredibly poorly, Spending that sp might be a good idea. So I get an advanced assault suit, advanced weapon. I put points into turrets thinking that would make me better in another tanks turrets, or the grounds turrets. I didn't like the suit, or the gun. My aim was terrible anyways. So I went into another suit, and more weapons, some shield skills and armor skills. Before I knew it, I had a lot of stuff, but I was still doing terrible. A month later I realize I could have had a proto weapon and suit even by then. This game has a huge learning curve. So much I didn't know. It took me 3 months to really say hey, I got all this figured out. I didn't look a whole lot up, I simply learned through experience. I did know something about the EvE universe, and how your choices matter. So I knew to take some reserve in spending. But lets take someone totally new to EvE and Dust 514. They know nothing. I can be hard to imagine it from a newberries perspective. Us more veteran players know the ins and outs. It all just comes naturally at this point. But a noob is in the dark and all alone. They don't know anything about corporations, or why they should be in one. It took me a month or more to even consider joining one when I started. I really did not see a point, I just wanted to shoot things. They don't know about SP, or why they need to spend it. Or how to spend it wisely. They just want to play a game. And shoot things. And they are going to make plenty of mistakes along the way. There is a huge divide between new players and vets, and that problem isn't just about SP but knowledge. But in my opinion, the single best way to learn, is to play. No extended tutorials, just get out there and figure it out. But to maintain retention you need to give them a cookie. Bonus SP on matches played for noobs A higher SP cap And they definitely need a lot more information, suggestions for suit combinations, difference between shield armor. Little things. Nuff Said
Tebu Gan Dem Durrty Boyz 203	Posted - 2013.11.14 21:59:00 - [3] - Quote Haerr wrote: There are a lot of good suggestions and ideas in this thread! I would like to add a few ideas. # "catch up" mechanic(s) First off, I am against the implementation of any "catch up" mechanic. How ever if you insist on implementing one I think it would be a good idea to only make it benefit active players. -¦ players under 5 million SPs gain bonus SP per WP (factor of 3) -¦ players under 10 million SPs gain bonus SP per WP (factor of 2) -¦ players under 15 million SPs gain bonus SP per WP (factor of 1) This will reward active new players with out handing out free SPs to the ever increasing horde of alts and inactives. If this is not enough you could: -¦ players gain a respec after earning their first 15 million SPs It will allow new players to make mistakes and to learn from them with out suffering from them. It will also allow new players to "catch up" by specialising. If you still feel like you aren't giving new players enough of an advantage over the rest of your player base: -¦ make the boosters give 1.75x their value to player that has less than 10 million SPs Can't really find a way to justify this but hey it's an idea and as we all know not all ideas are good. # rollover system -¦ 28k sp is added daily to the cap I would prefer to have the rollover system based of a daily addition to the cap since it would promote an active player base giving them a reason to logon every day (if they chose to do so). And having the rollover system will not punish those who chose to log on less frequently. It might also dissuade the "no reason to log on until wednesday" and the subsequent "protostomp wednesdays". A side effect will be that no one is "rushing a head". (Not sure if that is good or bad.) -¦ cap is limited to 500k Having a such a high cap will allow for longer breaks and/or highs and lows in play time. -¦ cap starts with 500k SPs in it for new players An other way to benefit new players I guess. This system isn't without a potential disadvantage: Players not playing in preparation of "3x SP" events. In order to make the most of "3x SP" events you would have to "save cap" in order to fully take advantage of the events. Possible solution: "3x SP" events would have their bonus applied only to the SP added to the cap that day. Another disadvantage would be an other form of "save and grind" including the use of short boosters to make the most out of said boosters. -More SP from WP, based on how many total SP you have. Love this idea -Respecs, are a good idea for newberries. Give them an option at 5 mil SP to respec, or less. Give them a chance, after they have learned a thing or two, to fix those mistakes and get on the trek to likin the game. -A DAILY CAP, would be awesome. But considering it resets at downtime as is, that may not be a possibility in your setup there for your servers. Overall, I like SP rollover, but with a cap on the total amount possible. What would also be a nice change is if we got more SP out of our WP then currently. It is a slow slow grind even with a booster! Nuff Said
Tebu Gan Dem Durrty Boyz 206	Posted - 2013.11.15 15:09:00 - [4] - Quote Mia Romani 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 A cap protects players from themselves. This triple SP weekend just proved to us all that we'll sit here and grind endlessly if CCP lets us. Players burning out and quitting within months is a far bigger problem than not attracting new players in the first place: This game will go nowhere if we develop a high turn over rate and can't retain players. No, the whole idea of a cap is what forces players to grind endlessly. Knowing that this is all you will get for the week, forces you to grind it out to completion, or else you feel that you wasted it. By your reasoning, the only reason players play, is to grind. Like an MMO, the point for me wasn't leveling, it was about the end game. The part after you do the horrible grind that is fun. New factional is a good start, improvements to PC would help. Another game mode, maybe even some PVE. These are things that pertain to player retention. I know some players may enjoy the "grind" but I certainly don't play simply to grind. It's all about that end game. Nuff Said
Tebu Gan Dem Durrty Boyz 206	Posted - 2013.11.15 15:13:00 - [5] - 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. The cap is there to prevent players from doing just that yes, but not because their interest will wane. CCP wants players to continue buying their products, booster and the such. But if you max out your skills, why buy anything from the aur store. I will say though, maybe for the moment this kinda holds true. The End game is a bit lacking atm. Need us some PvE Nuff Said
Tebu Gan Dem Durrty Boyz 207	Posted - 2013.11.15 21:53:00 - [6] - Quote Laurent Cazaderon wrote: Skihids wrote: 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. Many things i d like to comment in the last posts but i have to be somewhere so will do that later. Still on the catching up to vets part, it s neither for me. It s more of having a way for new players to slowly compensate the gap they have with older players without it being an easy or too fast track to get what those older players have. Sp bank or "retro active" rollover on that matter can make that possible in some scenarios. And it s not only for new players. Would also be nice for people who would decide to start yet another character. But again it all depends on the general sp suystem scenario My idea behind it is that a newberry needs to get to a certain point SP wise to be halfway effective. A faster progression, which could be a higher return on WP than average, would help close the gap between vets, but still leave them way ahead. Just enough to at the very least let them get a ADV suit and weapon, shield and armor skills lvl 1. Nuff Said