I'd say your post is spot on and sums it up well. I'm pretty sure CCP know there is an issue with the NPE, and I've always maintained that they have to work it from two angles

1) Flesh out a mature, balanced and enjoyable multiplayer experience
2) Provide an interesting, structured single-player experience


As you can see, the number 1 is well on it's way, although they have balance issues and number 2 is nowhere to be found. Until they introduce some PvE elements, there will poor player retention. This is of course, a race against time too - the game is free to play, so once you've played it and "ditched" it - you don't really come back, unless it's a year or two later just to "check it out". But of course, in a year or two, PS3 will definitely be a "last-gen" platform - technically it is already - current gen is now PS4, not a console released in 2006.

Lets just hope that urgency translates into action somewhere down the line.

I kinda feel bad because I'm one of those proto stompers. Earlier today me and alliance mates were dominating in a skirm. Dropping four orbitals just in our squad and me going 38/5. Enemy score average 1/15. Though it is alot of fun to proto stomp, I agree with you. I would prefer to have more of a challenge as a PC hardcore gamer. Rather than scare away the new guys and have no playerbase. CCP just make a noob game mode.

I agree, couldnt have said it better myself, this game is no longer fun

4) The vast majority of them don't know what PC is, and even if they did they have no desire to partake in it since they aren't hardcore gamers.

Use the squad finder. Don't play as a solo random with other solo randoms.

This game has never been intended to be a "solo random game". If you insist on playing as a solo random, then you deserve to get proto stomped by coordinated teamplayers every time.

Quit whining, quit playing as a solo random, get better.

/thread

If there was any topic worthy of a dev reply it would be this one. So, devs? HELLO?

People who graduate the academy don't even learn what hacking is in majority...

Let alone, Nanohives, Uplinks, Maps, Tactics... vehicles... AV...

This comes down to having no learning curve what so ever.... Here is the kiddie poool for a match or three and then here is the pool full of sharks with friken lasers beams attached to their head, and have a nice day.. Welcome to a F2p game CCP built to get a different gamer market into their universe...


Meh

If you make the game so they cannot even feel the slightest bit effective they simply will not play the game. As much as I openly detest them, we need them.

Non-proto gear rooms, however it can be done, need to be made available for ISK. Maybe even at a reduced rate. If the point of the game is not to have fun, but to grind the **** out of the player base, there won't be a playerbase because PSN FPS players don't usually enjoy the grind.

It's game. You're supposed to enjoy it. Doesn't mean it needs to be EZ Mode (KRR cough cough). But it means that there has to be some sense of "I have a chance!" Currently there is none for these guys.

And to the jack ass that keeps harping on "there is no such thing as a negative KDR"...you're not smarter than everybody, you're just a snarky little **** with a keyboard. STFU and GTFO.

op hasn't been watching the eve offline charts, now has he? dust has had a growing playerbase for the last two updates, and hit it's 3 month peak just recently.

in fact, with 100 more concurrent player's we'll pass our 6 month peak.

so... fail thread.

For the love of all things...

Allow me to settle this debate:

K/D is seen as W/L in sports. If you are sub .500 with your W/L you are considered as having a losing season. Thus, a negative W/L ratio. This is then applied to K/D as well....every Kill is seen as a Win, and every Death is seen as a loss. Thus a 1 to 1 ratio is seen as hitting .500, even though it is technically 1.00

This is how KDR came to be...it was based off of Sports analogies do to the competitive nature of FPS.

It has nothing to d with math and every thing to do with context. Got it? Good.

Apparently, no one understands the concept of negative ratios in this thread.

Firstly, as stated prior, kdr can never be negative. when comparing the two variables, both are always positve, therefore their quotient will always be positive.

Secondly, mathematically speaking, kills and deaths are not "opposites" of each other. Suppose you have killed 7 players. Does dying 2 times mean you killed 5 people in total? no. The opposite of killing is to revive an enemy teammate. One can only achieve a negative kdr if there were some way to revive enemy teammates. In which case, the ratio would be, for every 3 kills, you revived 4 enemies. In this case, the ratio can be negative.

Thirdly, as someone pointed out, kdr is being refered to as the "net change", as in the total resulting change. In which case, we would be looking at the difference. Kills - Death. In this case, the value can be negative, however, this is not a ratio, but rather the difference. If you wanted to refer to kills versus deaths as negative, please refer to it as a kdd - kill death difference. As a mathematician and teacher, i take great offense to the misuse of the term "ratio". Please use the appropriate terminology.

Also, lol'd

Yes, the ratios are not negative, but it is still correct you "went negative' in your kdr since kills represent a positive outcome and deaths represent the negative outcome. You are then expressing a relative relationship rather than the purely mathematical ratio.

I never want to be that guy on the killboard with 18 deaths. Feels as if a spotlight is on me.

"What were you doing wrong that brought you 18 deaths???"

"I-I-I...I was trying!"

I have managed to keep it at 17

You come across as very hostile, btw. This doesn't lend much to your argument. It actually just makes you look so very butthurt. Don't get me wrong, seeing other people cry about video games brings me great joy, but I just thought you should know

Although I will admit that newberries must be quitting Dust in hordes because of the new Tanks514 gameplay

Use the squad finder. Don't play as a solo random with other solo randoms.

This game has never been intended to be a "solo random game". If you insist on playing as a solo random, then you deserve to get proto stomped by coordinated teamplayers every time.

Quit whining, quit playing as a solo random, get better.

/thread

op hasn't been watching the eve offline charts, now has he? dust has had a growing playerbase for the last two updates, and hit it's 3 month peak just recently.

in fact, with 100 more concurrent player's we'll pass our 6 month peak.

so... fail thread.

I have started to realize that there's an amount of rudimentary use gestures amongst players.
Because there's no usable text chat and because plenty people don't have mics (why the hell would I buy a mic for a single game?), they resort to using punching and shooting as means of communications.
Stuff like "Look there. You can reach that sniper. Go there, for ****'s sake." or "go out of my way".

If CCP doesn't want text chat (and, judging from the attitude on this forum, so do many of the players for some really weird reason), maybe they will be more open to animations that can be used to convey information?
I would love to be able to make a "pay attention to me" gesture to someone and then point at the sniper who's sitting on the same hill as he is. Or a "hop in" for LAV drivers. Or a way for dropship pilots/passengers to actually communicate while sitting in the same vehicle.

Refer to SIG link. MAG had an excellent comms system that inclued gestures.

Ya know CCP, I've been telling you this since the beta, but you just don't ******* get it do you?

If you let 6 proto gods, two of whom are in tanks, join into a pub room with nothing but soloing randoms on the other side it's going to be a redline fest every damned time.

There's a couple of things that have to be taken as fact regarding most PSN FPS players:
1) They are completely inept. No...really. A sorrier lot of worthless douchebags cannot be found under a collective banner. Think of the dumbest blue dot you've ever seen and then figure that there are others even dumber than that.
2) They don't have mics
3) They don't go to message boards
4) The vast majority of them don't know what PC is, and even if they did they have no desire to partake in it since they aren't hardcore gamers.
5) The only EvE they are familiar with is "Summer's"
6) The ones that are from EvE are some of the worst blue dots out there.
7) They can't find even the most simple of objectives. I know this because I've spent all day waiting for them to come along with me to an objective only to watch them meander off in the opposite direction at the point of no return and get slaughtered by guys in ADV gear after they've torn me apart on the button.

Today was just horrible...I saw whole teams (not in tanks) go negative 5 or 6 times. And not kind of negative. I mean 1/17.

This is not just a result of the lackluster play of the blue dots. It's the fact that on the kill feed I see the same 4 or 6 guys committing wholesale blue dot genocide and every feed starts with "Boundless", or "Kaalikota", or Ishkune etc. The guys running around 4 to 6 deep running proto gear are sending the blue dots (and myself) screaming to the redline. I can't even get out in a fully tanked 7-8K HP without getting ganked by three other tanks/assault Dropships.

And again, this isn't a few games, this was over the course of five hours.

How long do you think someone that has zero investment in this game is going to keep sticking it out once they figure out that their skill means next to nothing compared to the gear they don't have and won't acquire for months? They're dumb, but they aren't THAT dumb.

And it's fully likely that before they have that epiphany that they've completely borked their toon's skill tree.

DUST is a massive uphill battle in a lot of ways. The "War Academy" is a nice gesture but at the end of the day is a damned joke. Throwing guys still primarily in Militia gear against PC players that are earning 100 million a week and can actually afford to go isk negative in pub rooms and not care about it one lick...maybe the game should be renamed to Dickmove514; because that's all it really is.

There is no "HTFU", or "Adapt or Die"...there is no adaptation to be had, just scores of players going negative and they quit playing the game. It's not a matter of skill, or "grinding", it's the fact that they can't even be competitive. I like the new lower TTK, but when you're playing with a max EHP under 400 and going against guys that can press the trigger twice and reduce you to a faint memory...eventually players aren't going to care about leveling or proficiency...they just want to be able to compete and know they aren't set up to fail.

Where are the numbers CCP? You're keeping them. What does the "average" dust player look like hours wise? Have they been released? If they're good or in your favor, why not? I figure since the numbers aren't posted, they support the claims being made that this game can't retain a player base.

And why is that? Massive built in imbalance. Newbs being throw in against proto stomping PC quality players makes this game ZERO fun. At some point the model for Dust starts feeling more and more like a facebook game than a groundbreaking RPG FPS.

Get your act together and separate the newbs from the vets or for the love of all that's holy have an ADV or lower game mode or just be prepared to become a "coulda been" failure on the scale of MAG and Brink.

I liked this post so much I had to unlike it so I could like it again.. This guy has a serious point!!!! I am a very concerned veteran that has a lot of money invested in this game and it has to find a way to allow for newbie growth before being protostomped!!!! THINK FUTURE NOT PAST!!!!!!!!!

Teams mean nothing most of the time it's who can spam more or have better gear..