Kierkegaard Soren
Forsaken Immortals
Top Men.
305
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Posted - 2014.04.20 08:32:00 -
[1] - Quote
OP that is a great question to ask and I'm glad that this discussion is happening. Let me give you my own personal insight into how I started Dust and learned it's many (tight)ropes.
First off, I was an EvE player long before Dust was even in alpha stage development, and my gaming background has been mostly centered on RPG and rogue-likes, both on console and PC. I had a limited amount of FPS experience through the Battlefield franchise. So, I was placed to quickly get to grips with the nomenclature and ethos behind a Dust when I finally installed it, just after Uprising launched. I understood damage profiles, fitting concepts, and what each of the modules could do for me and how they were tiered into three different bands of effectiveness. If I did not have my EvE experience to fall back on then all of that would have been lost to me, and the tutorials would have simply confused me further. Very little is explained very clearly. Much of it seems to assume I would understand power grid limits, stacking penalties, and how bonuses effect your performance on the field. A brand new non-EvE player, even one with experience with other rpg's, would be completely dumbfounded by this cascading wave of information. And it would effect them in game, because thier fits would be poor as a result of this lack of understanding.
Secondly, it's worth mentioning that I chose to run a commando suit, and I can tell you for a cast iron fact that skill points have increased my effectiveness far more than he improvement to my gun game as I have steadily ploughed time and effort into this game. Better weapons that kick less, reload faster and shoot straighter, mounted on frames that can support armoir and shield modules thst increase my resilience AND my endurance, all earned through the expenditure of SP; each individual gain is a minimal increase in my effectiveness when considered individually, but together they give me a significant advantage of new players. I can be toting a third extra EHP and kick out nearly the same additional DPS when compared to a BPO starter suit, how can that be assailed with anything less than a near-perfect gun game? Certainly, my first three months in a dust were punishingly brutal. It's now, as I hit the the 13mil sp mark, that I feel that I can,non my day, go toe to toe with any other suit and not get stomped. Notice how I didn't say "win". Like I said, a Dust is brutal. You learn your place. I think, in conclusion,that a Dust is after a very rare and very peculiar kind of player, and the method with which we find, tutor and retain these players is woefully lacking. We have a core of dedicated mercs keeping this game trundling along, and orbiting us are an ever-shifting group of potential players who are drawn in by the uniqueness of Dust's premise and are then callously pushed away by its shocking NPE and the community's pathetic "HTFU" demeanour.
Aaaaand I'm done. Thanks for reading that, those of you that did.
Dedicated Commando.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." -Paul Atreides.
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