Note before we begin: I understand that it may seem like I am stating "New players just don't have skill so they get stomped on" but I am not, or at least trying not to say such a thing. By skill, I just mean being familiar to the game, the skills, the fittings, knowing things like "don't shoot an Assault Rifle at the tank" and "don't charge straight at the guy with the machine gun that has a Ghostbuster behind him." There is nothing wrong with being unfamiliar with a game; we are all unfamiliar about a great many of things. I will be using skill in that manner rather than a "you suck n00bz!"

It is very popular to say that DUST has a terrible "New Player Experience" (NPE). The game is brutally difficult to get into, much like EVE. Many people lament tales of themselves or their friends doing the Academy for a couple of games, doing decently, and then being murdered repeatedly by Boundless weapons and tanks they they can't even seem to hurt. This causes them to fall away from the game which limits growth.

I have been thinking on this one a couple of days: how much of it is not being able to use Prototype gear, not having better modules, and not having the passive skills that help your radar, HP, speed, stamina, etc (SP) and how much is just not being familiar with the game's maps, movements, playstyles, weapon ranges, and even the concept of fittings (Skill)?

If there was an avid EVE player that was quite familiar with FPS, understood the notion of fittings/vehicle/SP investment, and read extensive online guides about 'how to play', would they have a better experience than someone who has never played EVE, didn't do any research, but was given a character with 200,000,000 SP? I haven't started a new character other than one as a drunken joke (haven't played him other than that) and started playing only about two or three weeks after Open Beta (after the final reset). This means that I wasn't seeing mountains of Prototype stuff from the beginning; it was mostly Militia, Standard, and the odd Advanced. I was quite familiar with the game before the Protobear was awoken so I honestly do not know the extent of how difficult it would be to compete with people that have 20, 30, 50 times the SP as you.

EVE is brutal too and many fights come down to "who has the most ISK in the fight and who has the most SP in the relevant skill?" but you can play 1,000 hours without ever having to actually fight others. Even then, the tutorial teaches you tackle, mining, shooting people, and the art of GETTING THE HELL OUT OF DODGE when the poopoo hits the fan. It is a slower paced game and lets people get familiar with everything before "there is a a Hurricane fleet locking you and you are going to die." You do have the High Security suicide ganks but the odds are low assuming they are not flying something worth lots and lots of cash.

With the NPE in DUST being "as bad as it is", is it just a case of people not being familiar with the game at all (Skill) or just 10-40 million SP being too great of a barrier to overcome (SP)?

Cheers.