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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Vrain Matari ZionTCD Public Disorder. 1221	Posted - 2013.11.14 13:51:00 - [1] - Quote The attraction of a passive sp system is that it removes the OCD-like need to grind, which is an unpleasant game experience for many. Nobody wants this to feel like a second job. On top of that the step up players have to make to accommodate running merc corps in New Eden is already fairly joblike and consuming. The attraction of an active sp system is that it rewards players for personal performance in battle and for contributions to the team and the win. I think we can have both of these sp-accrual methods working together in a much more synergistic fashion. Proposed: Mercs accrue only passive sp, but at a rate modified by performance in-match. So every merc would get sp at a constant trickle, just like we do now. Warpoints would be rewarded in-match just like they are now. At the end of match these warpoints would be converted to a bump up in the rate of passive sp accrual. This bump up would not be permanent, but would last for a day or a week or whatever timeframe seems reasonable. To simplify the accounting on our devs writing the code to keep track of this, it would be nice if today's total warpoint->sp bump up would accumulate throughout a day's playing and get applied to the passive trickle rate the next day. Caps could still apply, active and passive boosters could still work, rollover could still work. My belief is that because the rewards were not an immediate sp-payoff, the pressure to grind would be somewhat ameliorated. That's really the core of my proposal. i think we could still give out lump-sum sp rewards at end of match, but these would be only for team and squad-based performance. - A team bonus for the win. - A squad bonus based on the total extra WP a squad earned from their squad bonus WP only. I support SP rollover.
Vrain Matari ZionTCD Public Disorder. 1221	Posted - 2013.11.14 14:05:00 - [2] - Quote Rasatsu wrote: There is no need for newbies to 'catch up' with vets in SP. Pretty soon they'll be vets and a new set of newbies need to catch up, what then? Do we suddenly give them 100M SP in the first month so they'll not feel bad playing against 200M SP vets? EVE reverted back to 80k starter SP just for this reason. This is right on the money. The 'never catch up' argument comes from peeps who don't understand that the sp costs rising with level is the great equalizer that allows noobs to become vets in the same time it take vets to get that last level in their skills. The system is already designed to accommodate the noob vs. vet disparity. I support SP rollover.
Vrain Matari ZionTCD Public Disorder. 1221	Posted - 2013.11.14 14:21:00 - [3] - Quote Cass Caul wrote: I have capped out every week since the switch to weekly. Hell, I never missed a daily cap either. I usually cap out on Thursday or Friday at the latest. Anyone remember the thread posted on the first Wednesday? Mr Zitro capped out in about 4 hours. Other tankers were very close (Granted, they had Surya and Sagaris tanks on Manus Peak Ambush). I've capped out on a Wednesday more than 5 but less than 10 times. You think it's a grind when SP gains end at 1000? the daily cap had each and every match after the cap give out 50 SP. (though the active cap was 27200 and passive was 28800 per day) I am in full support of a cap. No cap and SP gain of 5/sec + WP? I would honestly have every skill at 5 except those skills that don't give bonuses. I think that new players need an unlimited cap, up to 5 million SP. While increasing this minimum cap by 400,000 per month after it is implemented. I'd really like the rollover system to only last 1 week. 190400 for normal, take a week off and it is 380800, but take two weeks off and it is diminishing returns. A maximum Rollover of 500000 SP Agreed Cass. The rollover sp pool should definitly not last forever. The whole motivation for rollover sp is to accomodate various customers in their various lifestyles, NOT to guarantee every possible sp to every player. My vote would be for a two week rollover period. My proposal is that rollover sp should be radioactive: The rate of decay should be proportional to the number of rollover sp accumulated. We would set the half-life at 14 days/5 halving periods = 2.8 days, so that at 2 weeks rollover sp would have decayed to 1/16 of their starting value. Why exponential decay? Because it's cool, because plausibily potential learning would decay exponentially with time, and because it's an easy mechanic to implement and write cool active infographics for. I support SP rollover.
Vrain Matari ZionTCD Public Disorder. 1222	Posted - 2013.11.14 14:54:00 - [4] - Quote lDocHollidayl wrote: Anything to help new players. No cap till 5 million sounds reasonable. Full rollover system too. The gap is bad and new players are rare. The fact that player count is so low that vets are always fighting noobs does not help. This needs a fix before any $ is spent on marketing. CCP take heed. This is the voice of non-self-destuctive wisdom. I support SP rollover.
Vrain Matari ZionTCD Public Disorder. 1222	Posted - 2013.11.14 15:18:00 - [5] - Quote George Moros wrote: Vrain Matari wrote: Rasatsu wrote: There is no need for newbies to 'catch up' with vets in SP. Pretty soon they'll be vets and a new set of newbies need to catch up, what then? Do we suddenly give them 100M SP in the first month so they'll not feel bad playing against 200M SP vets? EVE reverted back to 80k starter SP just for this reason. This is right on the money. The 'never catch up' argument comes from peeps who don't understand that the sp costs rising with level is the great equalizer that allows noobs to become vets in the same time it take vets to get that last level in their skills. The system is already designed to accommodate the noob vs. vet disparity. This would be true if DUST was more like EVE with regard to what certain skill levels "unlock" for the player. However, in DUST you have the situation where, in some cases, the only items worth using are of the "complex" type (requiring related skill at 5). I'm talking about shield extenders, damage modifiers and such. The difference in performance across tiers is simply too large to make usage of sub-complex gear viable. This situation strongly favors high SP players, and is very noob-unfriendly. Absolutely not true and proven by many mercs in many instances. Peeps can & do perform very well in pubs running militia/standard gear. CCP has done a good job in that respect. The primary variables ar player skill and the ability to adapt your playstyle to your tactical environment. I support SP rollover.
Vrain Matari ZionTCD Public Disorder. 1224	Posted - 2013.11.14 19:52:00 - [6] - Quote George Moros wrote: Vrain Matari wrote: Absolutely not true and proven by many mercs in many instances. Peeps can & do perform very well in pubs running militia/standard gear. CCP has done a good job in that respect. The primary variables are player skill and the ability to adapt your playstyle to your tactical environment. You're talking about an completely unrelated thing here. A player like 13ear will probably perform excellently even with a 1M SP character and running militia/standard gear. However, this is due to the fact that he is an extremely skilled player and has absolutely nothing to do with amount of SP and gear he's running. In a similar fashion, if you took a complete noob to DUST (or FPS games in general), gave him a 30M SP character and a billion ISK, he would probably still suck at DUST. All of this, however, doesn't change the fact that CCP has done a lousy job (at least, a good portion of it) in balancing gear across tiers. I thought the topic here was helping new players close the SP gap towards vets. Not that vets perform well running cheap fits. You made the claim that non-proto gear was not viable and used that as a springboard for revisions to the sp system. I refuted it with what is a familiar experience for vets(not just the elite player you mention): that many players on this forum can get reasonable results with lesser gear, primarily by playing more carefully and choosing their engagements. The implication is that new players are disadvantaged primarily by their lack of knowledge, not by their sp or gear. I believe the answer to that is education, namely the NPE CCP provides for recent immigrants to New Eden. There may well be issues with gear balance, but that should not motivate revisions to the sp system. There may well be issues with matchmaking, but that should not motivate revisions to the sp system. I thought the topic here was discussion of a potential sp rollover system. I support SP rollover.
Vrain Matari ZionTCD Public Disorder. 1232	Posted - 2013.11.15 14:04:00 - [7] - 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. If this is what motivates players the game has failed. I'm not saying the MMO grind/progression cycle is a bad thing, but that the game has to be entertaining and engaging enough that the primary motivation is playing, not grinding. I support SP rollover.
Vrain Matari ZionTCD Public Disorder. 1233	Posted - 2013.11.15 16:23:00 - [8] - Quote Laurent Cazaderon wrote: ..valuable stuff... This thread has grown into a much more complicated discussion than the merits of a rollover mechanic. It did last time around too. We are now discussing the entire sp system and game design. Probably unavoidable since these things are connected and bear directly on player experiences for noobs and vets alike. Laurent, i have a lot of respect for the opinions you present on the forums. They are typically well thought out and you have the best interests of the game as the central focus of your posts. ITT, i like what your post brings to the conversation. I agree with your design goals, perhaps with the caveat that at some point skill points lost is an ok thing. But that's a minor quibble and i'm willing to be neutral on that point. What i vehemently disagree with is your endorsement of the in-match passive skillpoint rewards(5sp/s) originally introduced by CCP(and without consulting the playerbase). The motivations are noble: to provide a helping hand to struggling players, to limit the magnitude of the skillpoint gap between casuals and grinders and to support various playstyles. However, best intentions notwithstanding, the passive in-match sp mechanic is ultimately destructive and i'm sure we can find many constructive alternatives that contribute much more to DUST and the player experience. Why the hatred for the passive match sp mechanic? Because it is the diametric opposite of a meritocratic reward system. Because it sends a message that engaging the enemy(or supporting your team) is neither honoured or required by the game mechanics. The fundamental criticism would be that it rewards passivity as a valid approach to the game. In a very real sense it devalues player effort, and an argument could be made that it is a patronizing, rather than an enabling, approach to struggling players. More could be said, but this is the essence of it. I believe that once a player becomes aware of this mechanic, there is a sense of psychological d+¬nouement: in a universe with a reputation as harsh and as legendary as New Eden's to discover that the developer is putting all players on a mandatory meritocratic welfare program is disheartening and disillusioning, imo. I believe that the game will pay a price for this in terms of credibility and romantic appeal. I realize this sounds a bit histrionic, but people are very sensitive in situations where the walk doesn't match the talk. The ultimate victim here is New Eden. Ok, so long story short, alternatives to a passive dole? It must be a mechanism that rewards only actions. My personal favourite is an asymmetrical WP to SP conversion factor based on how well a player did or didn't do in a given match. There are no doubt other, better mechanisms than mine. The point is that they must reward action and not reward passivity/disengagement. I support SP rollover.
Vrain Matari ZionTCD Public Disorder. 1234	Posted - 2013.11.15 17:21:00 - [9] - 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. I heavily endorsed Rasatsu's logarithmically damped reward system when he first proposed it, and still do. In a very real mathematical sense all staged or tiered reward systems are an approximation to the logarithmic system. There are a lot of advantages to this system, but perhaps the biggest are that once you get a little bit of experience with it, it becomes very easy to estimate how much grinding time you need to reach your goals, and that there is no hard cap on your efforts(plus daily top-ups), and especially that if you only have a few hours a week to play you are well-rewarded for your time. It provides good results for casuals and prevents runaway grinding with one elegant equation. I support SP rollover.
Vrain Matari ZionTCD Public Disorder. 1234	Posted - 2013.11.15 19:09:00 - [10] - Quote Kilo Shells wrote: Some of these ideas are very good. But, I know it's an odd point but I could see new players getting SP faster than they grow in wisdom. In my eyes this would lead too new players spending millions of SP on "useless" skills and then suddenly being tapped out. This is a good point. Someone mentioned a free respec for new players, maybe after a certain sp level was reached or maybe better a certain WP level. I support SP rollover.