Moot point..... If a Player hops on an MMORPG & sees the T5 Gear & goes "Well....no point in trying to play this SH*T!!!", then they were not meant to play MMOs in the 1st place.

The idea makes sense to me. People want the rollover system because they feel that what we have now is too grindy. So we implement rollover and suddenly those people are going to have a giant pool of bonus SP that they'll never be able to use up. Now they feel that the game is more grindy than ever. Just hiding the stat isn't going to change that.

That's why you have rested SP to help speed along the process of getting back missed points. The pool would also only grow massive if they weren't playing regularly. If they play regularly, they're using up that SP, the pool barely fills. The pool is just there for your convenience, allowing you to draw from it when it's best for you.

You could even introduce boosters that don't raise your SP cap like normal boosters do, but they greatly accelerate how quickly you get them, for people who don't want to work through a huge pool of SP on an alt or something.

Maybe the unused SP would only partly carry over or would have an expiry date?


Munch

Before it was called rest EXP in world of warcraft, the bonus system was just that a bonus system, it heavily set into the notion that once this EXP bonus ran out that playing any further was greatly hampered and discourage play after two or so hours and was the most absolutely hated feature in the game.

Blizzard then aptly renamed it as Rest Exp, and changed nothing of the numbers and became a loved thing.

Before it was called rest EXP in world of warcraft, the bonus system was just that a bonus system, it heavily set into the notion that once this EXP bonus ran out that playing any further was greatly hampered and discourage play after two or so hours and was the most absolutely hated feature in the game.

Blizzard then aptly renamed it as Rest Exp, and changed nothing of the numbers and became a loved thing.

Dust 514 doesn't have this opportunity because the bonus sp and post bonus sp amounts are very far apart in terms of progression. Thus doing simple psychology trick is not going to work with roll over because soon as you eat up all of the roll over you're left with the slap on the wrist again that is dust 514's special way of saying 'you been playing too much you should stop now'.

The bigger problem to my mind is that this will give zero incentive to log on each week. Lots of players currently playing will just quit since they can always come back once the game gets better and get a full amount of SP. Also passive SP will matter less, so it will be easy enough for a payer to just start infinite alts, grind out the minimum for a spec and unlock every skill in the game over multiple accounts. In a matter of weeks.

Personally I support a daily SP cap instead of a weekly one. More flexible and still gives an incentive to play.

Dust 514 doesn't have this opportunity because the bonus sp and post bonus sp amounts are very far apart in terms of progression. Thus doing simple psychology trick is not going to work with roll over because soon as you eat up all of the roll over you're left with the slap on the wrist again that is dust 514's special way of saying 'you been playing too much you should stop now'.

Why?

Expiring the bonus pool doesn't remove the feeling of loss that the rollover system is meant to fix.

You raise a fair point but there is a counter-arguement that is just as valid: The expiring excess bonus pool removes the feeling of loss caused by the current weekly SP cap. The expiration date would be a week or two so as to give people a chance to catch up if they miss a day or two of play.

If there is full rollover with no expiry, players with little activity will sign on and have massively increased caps and feel helpless if they can only chip away at it 2,000 or 3,000 points per game.

Also, allowing a partial carryover might be a potential solution.


Munch

The bigger problem to my mind is that this will give zero incentive to log on each week. Lots of players currently playing will just quit since they can always come back once the game gets better and get a full amount of SP. Also passive SP will matter less, so it will be easy enough for a payer to just start infinite alts, grind out the minimum for a spec and unlock every skill in the game over multiple accounts. In a matter of weeks.

Personally I support a daily SP cap instead of a weekly one. More flexible and still gives an incentive to play.

The bigger problem to my mind is that this will give zero incentive to log on each week. Lots of players currently playing will just quit since they can always come back once the game gets better and get a full amount of SP. Also passive SP will matter less, so it will be easy enough for a payer to just start infinite alts, grind out the minimum for a spec and unlock every skill in the game over multiple accounts. In a matter of weeks.

Personally I support a daily SP cap instead of a weekly one. More flexible and still gives an incentive to play.

You've got that wrong, IPS. Originally, it was a penalty system. If you played over what is now known as the 'rest' period, you took a percentage loss to exp gained.

Have a look at this article.

Okay onto the bones of the subject

Rollover SP system.

I know we all want it but do we 'really' want it?

The fantasy that we could grind away that extra SP whenever we want instead of being leashed by the neck from week to week is a wonderful idea indeed.

However, there are down sides to such system while a hard core cap week to week player may not notice this a semi casual might feel as if he's been further burdened that he may never catch up? End of match screen pops up and declares he has 2 million bonus SP to claim that he can only seemingly claim 2k at a time? The notion of grind sets in and in the end becomes a disheartening thing. A wall, a contributor to the http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3088/2335016192_44938cf481_o.jpg syndrome and something that may just drive casual players away.

With this in mind would still want the roll over system?
How would you address the potential backfire?
Can we reasonably introduce the system safely?

Discuss.

Side Note: The 'design' of the roll over system in question is left ambiguous on purpose, so feel free to introduce your solutions or a design of it for the discussion.

Okay onto the bones of the subject

Rollover SP system.

I know we all want it but do we 'really' want it?

The fantasy that we could grind away that extra SP whenever we want instead of being leashed by the neck from week to week is a wonderful idea indeed.

However, there are down sides to such system while a hard core cap week to week player may not notice this a semi casual might feel as if he's been further burdened that he may never catch up? End of match screen pops up and declares he has 2 million bonus SP to claim that he can only seemingly claim 2k at a time? The notion of grind sets in and in the end becomes a disheartening thing. A wall, a contributor to the http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3088/2335016192_44938cf481_o.jpg syndrome and something that may just drive casual players away.

With this in mind would still want the roll over system?
How would you address the potential backfire?
Can we reasonably introduce the system safely?

Discuss.

Side Note: The 'design' of the roll over system in question is left ambiguous on purpose, so feel free to introduce your solutions or a design of it for the discussion.

...First I agree with new players having 0 cap until some level is established (somewhere around 2-5 million SP).

Next I would like to see a decay mechanism implemented for the SP rollover. You have your weekly SP pool that can benefit from boosters as well as a bank that (a. either canGÇÖt be boosted, or b. can be boosted with a different booster that has a reduced maybe 1.3x active SP). Every week the unused weekly SP is dumped into the bank and all SP in the bank is reduced by some percent (say -20%). Your weekly pool will be drained first, and only until you cap out will you start to burn through your banked SP. Events would only affect the weekly SP and not any banked SP.

This system has the benefit of rewarding/incentivizing regular gameplay, but giving people who have taken a break an increased incentive to return and play to help catch up. The following is an example of someone who takes a 8 week vacation from DUST with a 20% decay rate:

Week 1: 190,000 Weekly SP not used
Week 2: 190,000 Weekly SP not used 190,000 banked, 0 SP destroyed
Week 3: 190,000 Weekly SP not used 342,000 banked, 38,000 SP destroyed
Week 4: 190,000 Weekly SP not used 463,600 banked, 68,400 SP destroyed
Week 5: 190,000 Weekly SP not used 560,880 banked, 92,720 SP destroyed
Week 6: 190,000 Weekly SP not used 638,704 banked, 112,176 SP destroyed
Week 7: 190,000 Weekly SP not used 700,963 banked, 127,741 SP destroyed
Week 8: 190,000 Weekly SP not used 750,771 banked, 146,193 SP destroyed
Week 9: 190,000 Weekly SP IS USED, 790,616 in bank, 150,154 SP will be destroyed if bank isnGÇÖt depleted

LetGÇÖs assume the player takes a week off work and grinds up her weekly SP plus her full banked SP. She will have 980,616 SP from the weekly SP + the banked SP. If she had capped out every week she would have 1,710,000 SP over those same 9 weeks (excluding boosters). I think this is a reasonable gap that is enough to incentivize play without punishing people who miss a week or two very harshly, but still allow for players to catch up a significant amount of SP when they come back. If the player ran a "Banked SP Booster" (assuming a boost rate of 1.3X), she could have closed that gap, receiving 1,217,801 SP on week 9. The key to the new booster is that it must never be advantageous (i.e. cheaper) to bank up SP over keeping up with the regular Cap, but could provide additional revenue for CCP that would otherwise not be there.

I have to agree with IWS. I've been playing since launched and capped every week and every event. Not because I wanted to grind or felt I had to, but because I liked playing.

Then the 3x SP event from a few weeks back occurred. I'm not a top player, so I couldn't manage to play enough pubstomp matches to reach the cap. I didn't need the SP, but it was a bit disheartening. Since then I haven't hit cap once and my playtime has steadily declined.

I can't even attribute not making the 3x cap for playing less; however, there was so much grind I guess I lost some of the enjoyment I used to feel.