Inb4 "welcome to new Eden".

The best advice that we can give you is find an active corp that runs plenty of squads in your time zone. The secret to Dust is teamwork; even militia fits can hold their own against stronger fits if they work together; the equipment slots are the key to teamwork based success. Find friends, make squads, co-ordinate. Use that map, plan routes to objectives, get the squad leader to use the orders wheel and start racking up those points. The first orbital strike your team pulls off is always the sweetest, honest :)

Solo play is doable, but it is hard and it is limiting, although you will learn the limits of your suits very quickly by doing so, which is good. Don't be afraid to call in vehicles and then lose them. You are immortal. Everything is disposable. Use it, trash it, move on.

The Fun can be found in dust, even amongst the protostomp. Good luck.

unfortunately CCP screwed you new players on the 1200 WP thing. its basically CCP's way of saying HTFU, im pretty sure a lot of new players have complained to CCP about that problem but nothing has been changed so i guess QQ more to get their attention

but still it sucks for new players since they get thrown into the wild where us wolves will eat you alive. so the best and only solution is to get into a decent corp and try to get those SP numbers up to be able to survive in the dust world.

Not to mention us vets have tried to complain for you, for what, almost a year now.. Contrary to popular belief, not all us vets like to protostomp, its just the way CCP likes to keep the playerbase low I guess....

Let me start by saying I've had DUST for a total of approx. 2 weeks. I'm not a newcomer to shooters, and my background stems mostly from FPS in several systems. Delta Force: BHD/TS, HALO, Original COD(Not the recent trash), BF2/BF2142, ARMA Series, etc. I consider myself to be a fairly average and on good days above average FPS gamer. When I originally heard of DUST over a year ago I was damn excited because I'd always loved the concept of EVE but couldn't get into it at the time. Now that I've got myself a PS3 I rushed to grab up DUST.

My first reaction was this, okay not much in the way of a tutorial, but just takes some light reading and you've got the jist of it. Unforunately I was an IDIOT and spread my SP all over the place which lead to needing to make a new character. Second reaction was, okay woo I'm in Battle Academy and we're good to go. Get some kills, take some objectives, doing pretty darn well. Then, all of a sudden after 2 matches in Academy, those kills are nonexistent and every time I try to take an objective I'm getting sniped by a rail rifle toting heavy from halfway across the map behind a corner. Rinse, repeat, respawn.

After running into this stonewall that is proto/aurum weapon toting enemies, I'm starting to lose that initial excitement. I originally read that Academy was supposed to last until 10k WP or 1 mil SP, but come to find out it's only 1200 wp now. Anyone that plays half decent will have it in 1-3 matches of IBA. My question is, where is there, if any, incentive for a new player to continue on? Getting steam rolled by people who have been playing, or paying, more than you are really isn't my idea of fun. There's literally a 3/10 shot for me to successfully cap an objective now, and I am emptying almost a full clip into people only to have their shields shrug off the damage and drop me in 3 seconds, if that.

I realize most players who have been here a while will respond with HTFU, but I really don't care about those opinions. Majority of people I have seen yelling HTFU are people who are already 10 mil+ SP & Proto geared, spouting this garble at new players. My question is whether there's going to be any sort of easier transition for the newbie player who might need just a few more inches of help before they step off the MCC into a warzone where you're equipped with the equivalent of a BB gun against a howitzer.

Thank for all the replies guys, certainly do appreciate the sympathy and the advice. I've been trying to apply my SP more into the focused areas like core as was suggested. We'll see how it goes, but I'm also in the market for CORPs. Have a few in mind that seem very teamwork oriented and squad regularly so here's hoping for the best. Does anyone have any suggestion as far as types of dropsuits? I'd thought of basically just starting to spec and running a MLT Heavy with various weapons so I can last just a bit longer in a firefight and hopefully kill SOMETHING before I inevitably start camping the dirt.

Thank for all the replies guys, certainly do appreciate the sympathy and the advice. I've been trying to apply my SP more into the focused areas like core as was suggested. We'll see how it goes, but I'm also in the market for CORPs. Have a few in mind that seem very teamwork oriented and squad regularly so here's hoping for the best. Does anyone have any suggestion as far as types of dropsuits? I'd thought of basically just starting to spec and running a MLT Heavy with various weapons so I can last just a bit longer in a firefight and hopefully kill SOMETHING before I inevitably start camping the dirt.

Thank for all the replies guys, certainly do appreciate the sympathy and the advice. I've been trying to apply my SP more into the focused areas like core as was suggested. We'll see how it goes, but I'm also in the market for CORPs. Have a few in mind that seem very teamwork oriented and squad regularly so here's hoping for the best. Does anyone have any suggestion as far as types of dropsuits? I'd thought of basically just starting to spec and running a MLT Heavy with various weapons so I can last just a bit longer in a firefight and hopefully kill SOMETHING before I inevitably start camping the dirt.

I feel your pain, the new player experience is very poor, and there is no excuse. Matchmaking is one of the key issues as well, it even fails on a basic functional level (had a 3 v 9 battle yesterday, and frequently seen battles with full team and 0 enemies; no one new could join the battle, yet matchmaking adds players to other battles right as they're ending).The fact that dropsuits have tiers instead of just further specialization makes the problem even worse. This is how I would alleviate the problem a bit.

Militia (MLT) and standard (STD) should be the only dropsuit tiers. There should be no advanced (ADV) or prototype (PRO) tiers. Too many tiers create imbalance, makes pub-stomping way too easy, which ultimately hurt player retention. Stop waiting for matchmaking to fix everything.

Make militia dropsuits equivalent to the current ADV basic frame dropsuits. They should retain the same ISK cost as MLT suits.

Standard basic frames should be the equivalent of the current PRO basic frames. Should cost the same as the current STD suits.

The operation skills for basic frames need to give some kind of bonus to justify having 5 levels since specializations are unlocked at level 3. This bonus should also apply to all dropsuit specialization in that racial frame size.

Some of you may be thinking "without tiers, why would I spend SP on dropsuits?", the answer is to unlock specializations, and skill bonuses. Specializations should be a bit more expensive than the basic frame counterparts, but not by much since they aren't meant to be better, just more specialized at one particular area. Tiercided specialized suits (like assault or logistics) should be equivalent to the current PRO specialized suits.

What I would recommend is joining a corporation that takes care of its new players, like DUST University or something.

Again, appreciate the feedback and advice. Chibi Andy, unfortunately I'm U.S. EST, but I'll add your chat channel because I'm always up for squadding with people that enjoy working together. If that's alright with you. XD

As far as the suits, I do tend to do more assault just for the versatility and damage vs mobility, but honestly I enjoy just about everything. It's a bit of a crutch. I like sniping, tanking, LAVing to harrass the enemy, AV with the Forge because I feel like swarms are pointless atm. I can play to fit just about any role, just gets hard picking one to focus on. >.<

This is true. I'm definitely a big fan of squad-play, and wish more pubbers in the matches joined into squads rather than just lone-wolfing it 80-90% of the time. Sad to see so many nearly empty/no squads on the listing.

NOPE, I tried to throw out an idea and got plenty of suport from the community but CPM Iron Wolf Saber is so far up his own ass that he doesn't realize his bias towards EVE and trying to make this game so damn harsh is whats killing new player retention. So unfortunately the player base for this game I love will become stagnant and slowly dwindle away.

Let me start by saying I've had DUST for a total of approx. 2 weeks. I'm not a newcomer to shooters, and my background stems mostly from FPS in several systems. Delta Force: BHD/TS, HALO, Original COD(Not the recent trash), BF2/BF2142, ARMA Series, etc. I consider myself to be a fairly average and on good days above average FPS gamer. When I originally heard of DUST over a year ago I was damn excited because I'd always loved the concept of EVE but couldn't get into it at the time. Now that I've got myself a PS3 I rushed to grab up DUST.

My first reaction was this, okay not much in the way of a tutorial, but just takes some light reading and you've got the jist of it. Unforunately I was an IDIOT and spread my SP all over the place which lead to needing to make a new character. Second reaction was, okay woo I'm in Battle Academy and we're good to go. Get some kills, take some objectives, doing pretty darn well. Then, all of a sudden after 2 matches in Academy, those kills are nonexistent and every time I try to take an objective I'm getting sniped by a rail rifle toting heavy from halfway across the map behind a corner. Rinse, repeat, respawn.

After running into this stonewall that is proto/aurum weapon toting enemies, I'm starting to lose that initial excitement. I originally read that Academy was supposed to last until 10k WP or 1 mil SP, but come to find out it's only 1200 wp now. Anyone that plays half decent will have it in 1-3 matches of IBA. My question is, where is there, if any, incentive for a new player to continue on? Getting steam rolled by people who have been playing, or paying, more than you are really isn't my idea of fun. There's literally a 3/10 shot for me to successfully cap an objective now, and I am emptying almost a full clip into people only to have their shields shrug off the damage and drop me in 3 seconds, if that.

I realize most players who have been here a while will respond with HTFU, but I really don't care about those opinions. Majority of people I have seen yelling HTFU are people who are already 10 mil+ SP & Proto geared, spouting this garble at new players. My question is whether there's going to be any sort of easier transition for the newbie player who might need just a few more inches of help before they step off the MCC into a warzone where you're equipped with the equivalent of a BB gun against a howitzer.

I would like to see Geto Pub matches added. Have any item above Meta 2 be invalid fit in these matches, but have them award less Skill Points and Less ISK than a standard Pub match.

For lore purposes, these matches could be a result of a gentlemanGÇÖs agreement between Corps for settling minor disputes. Then the normal PUB matches would be when the Corps are really pissed at each other and donGÇÖt want to stick to any gentlemanGÇÖs agreement.

Metal level restricted battles could also be system security related. Much like how gameplay is organized in EVE. I feel like the "Welcome to New Eden" line kind of fails since EVE is actually much less harsh for new players than in Dust. A new player in EVE starts in high security space where there is no PvP.

It would be interesting if Dust gameplay was organized by system security ratings like EVE, but sadly the player base is too low to make that work right now.

Something like this would be interesting:
1.0: PvE only
0.9-0.8: Militia gear only (max 5mil SP)
0.7-0.5: up to Advanced Gear
0.4-0.0: No restrictions