DUST Search - Item Progression and the loss of the 5 Level Skill System

Fox Gaden wrote:

The most difficult balance in developing a skill system for Legion is finding the balance between making it easy for new players to figure out, while making it complex and flexible enough to keep veteran players interested.

Some of the criticism with CCP Z's plan comes from people thinking that it leans too far toward the new player, and that it will not be as fun for veteran players as a result.

While thinking about this I also thought about the certificate system in EVE, as well as what CCP did when they changed the UI for the skill system in DUST. If you know where to look, you can still open the old skill system in DUST which uses a list interface rather than a node interface. The key that I took from this was knowing where to look.

My proposal is that the skill system that is prominently displayed when you start the game would be CCP Z's Role based Item Progression system, and if you purchase your skills through that progression you will get a skill plan that works for the role you choose. The prerequisites for the skills in that interface would be set by the interface, rather than being the actual prerequisites for the skill.

Then there should be a second skill system interface designed for the veteran player which is much more free form. This second system should be buried a bit so that you have to discover it, or be told about it. This interface would include the same skills as CCP Z's interface (possible more skills), but they would be based on their actual prerequisites, rather than role based prerequisites.

So lets say you want to use the Tactical Assault Rifle:
- New Player Interface: You need to skill up through the Assault suit tree, get Assault Rifle, and then you can get the Tactical Assault Rifle skill.
- Veteran Player Interface: You simply go to the weapons tree, get the Assault Rifle skill, and then you can get the Tactical Assault Rifle skill.

Key premises:

1) You can't go wrong with the New Player Interface, but you can be more creative with the Veteran Player Interface. On the flip side, the Veteran Player Interface will give you the freedom to make mistakes, while the New Player Interface imposes restrictions that protect you from yourself.

2) The New Player Interface is the default which new players will find easily when they start the game. They will only discover the Veteran Player Interface if they are exploring the UI, or doing research. In either case they are taking actions which indicate that they are ready to discover greater complexity in the game.

Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.

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Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 3146	Posted - 2014.05.08 14:38:00 - [1] - Quote I have sent the following message to all of the current CPM members in hopes that they will pass it on to CCP Z. I thought I would post it here so that the CPM 1 candidates can see it as well. (See Next Post) Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 3146	Posted - 2014.05.08 14:39:00 - [2] - Quote Greetings CPM members: I am the CEO of the second largest training Corporation in DUST 514, a cofounder of the Learning Coalition, and a sponsor of the Spanish Rookie help channel (Novatos Espa+¦ol). I see CCP ZGÇÖs proposed Item Progression Tree as a vastly superior way to unlock items, but I believe that completely abandoning the 5 level skill system, specifically the 5 level skills that provide bonuses, is a huge mistake! I have spent hours talking players who were completely new to the New Eden universe through how skills and fittings interact to allow them to build a suit that works for what they want to do. I completely agree with Dennie Fleetfoot that CCP ZGÇÖs proposed system will make getting started a lot easier for new players. But I have also talked to those same players two or three weeks later and had them tell me that DUST 514 is so much better than CoD, Battlefield, or any other FPS they have played because of the depth and complexity of the character/fit customization. The fitting optimisation skills are a mini game within the game. I remember how satisfied I felt when I realized that I could make my fit work for less than half the skill point cost by training Heavy Weapon Optimization to 4 rather than training Electronics to 5. I had solved the puzzle! That is depth through complexity. That is fun! Other item optimization skills are important as well. It is one thing to have access to a weapon or a piece of equipment, but it is another thing to put the skill points into specialising in it. Skills that reduce PG or CPU usage; reduce sway, kick, or dispersion; or otherwise make the item easier to fit or more effective, help to make you feel like a specialist. They arenGÇÖt mandatary, but they give you a slight advantage with that item over someone who does not specialise. If we are going to use the Item Progression tree to unlock items, it should also unlock 5 level bonus skills associated with each of those items. If Item Progression is the tree, the Item Optimization skills should be the leaves on that tree. Personal Enhancement skills are important too: I want my character to be more than the sum of his modules! I want to be Tonny Stark, not one of those dam suits! I want to train skills that make my character better regardless of what fit he wares. I want to train Electronics and Engineering so I can make unconventional fits that no one else has considered. That is sand in the sandbox. DonGÇÖt take my sand away! When no one in the squad has hacking mods equipped, I want to be the guy who can hack a little faster because I put skill points into a skill that others considered merely a quality of life skill. Or I might want to be the Logi who can see other medium frame suits on my radar closing in on me when I am hacking, because I put some points into Scan Precession. These are skills that give the character individuality beyond what suit he wares. This helps with immersion, and with forming an emotional tie to your character. He is not a robot! Under the armour he is flesh and blood. If Item Progression is the tree, then Personal Enhancement skills would be the roots that make the entire tree stronger. The 5 Level Skill system is what has allowed EVE Online to work for 11 years. The 5 Level Skill system is one of the best things that DUST 514 has going for it. It is a large part of why DUST 514 is better than Call of Duty or Battlefield. It is a diminishing returns system which allows new players to get more than half of the potential benefit by skilling to level 3, for a very reasonable expenditure of skill points, while also letting veteran players go back and gain small advantages over their opponents by spending large amounts of skill points to nudge a skill up to level 5. Abandoning this fundamental aspect of the game just because skills donGÇÖt work well for unlocking equipment is like throwing the baby out with the bath water. The Item Progression tree is a good replacement for skills such as Dropsuit Command which served only to unlock items, but getting rid of the bonus skills at the same time is like an American remake of a French movie, it completely misses the point! Fox Gaden / Crash Gaden / Renier Gaden Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
Hynox Xitio 0uter.Heaven 938	Posted - 2014.05.08 15:34:00 - [3] - Quote Looks good. Loadout customization is one of the strongest features in Dust. I think everyone agrees that equipment and weapons should work and be unlocked independently of dropsuits. Restricting loadouts into a series of classes, as shown by CCP Z, would strip away the free form loadout system we know and love. It seems like their taking a lot of cues from Battlefield, a game where you have to unlock an AR by progressing down it's individual tree, unlocking a dozen ARs you'll never use in the process. Unleash the Fogwoggler. ( -íº -£-û -íº) /)
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 3148	Posted - 2014.05.08 15:45:00 - [4] - Quote I would also like to get some clarification on general use items such as Armor Plate, or Shield Extenders which are fundamental for several different roles. For instance, would they be in the Gallente Assault tree, the Gallente Logi tree, or the Gellente Sentinel tree? Or do they include the Item unlock for Armor Plate in all the Gellente and Amarr suit trees? That seems cluttered.. Or are general use items in their own tree? Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
ANON Cerberus Tiny Toons 584	Posted - 2014.05.08 17:33:00 - [5] - Quote I would love to hear more on this subject from CCP. I like the way they are taking Legion all except this one point. I don't want a dumbed down system. I dont want some crappy BF4 system clone. Of course make things more intuitive but keep the skills and complexities. This is the New Eden universe, do not dumb it down. Markdown:
Kevall Longstride DUST University Ivy League 1261	Posted - 2014.05.08 18:25:00 - [6] - Quote Saberwing is hoping to get CCP Z on a video soon once the team is all back in Shanghai explaining it a bit more. He explained it in a lot more detail in The English Pub but the Tequilas that CCP Praetorian was forcing me to drink (I know, a hardship) kind of made it a little bit fuzzy. So I'd like to remember too when the video goes out. CPM1 Candidate CEO of DUST University
Vrain Matari Mikramurka Shock Troop Minmatar Republic 2087	Posted - 2014.05.12 15:07:00 - [7] - Quote Posted a compromise idea in the same thread Kevall is referencing, Fox. It's relevant to your discussion here so cross-posting: Was thinking that there is a viable way to synthesize the two positions we're seeing expressed here: Training Templates. A new merc, after appropriate quality NPE time, is given a choice from a selection of training templates, which are simple overlays of the raw skilltree that highlights the skills that form CCP Z's 'Role Trees'. The Training templates could be hard, soft or merely informational: Hard Templates would constrain what you could train and in what order, effectively 'greying out' other skills. Soft Templates would give a "You are choosing a skill outside or you training template, do you wish to proceed?" warning to the merc but still leave them with full volition. Informational templates would do nothing at all but colour-highlight skills in the template. That's it, really. We could add some quality-of-life features and conditionals, e.g a user-selection for template 'hardness(Hard, Soft, Infomational, None)', and also that new mercs would have to complete one 'Hard Template' before unlocking the ability to set a hardness of their choice. Iterating further, we could give players the ability to write their own templates and export them, so for example a new recruit could be given the 'Corp Bootcamp' template, etc., or we could download 'Fox Gaden's first 2 million SP' template ;) PSN: RationalSpark
Fox Gaden Immortal Guides 3213	Posted - 2014.05.12 18:21:00 - [8] - Quote This is an idea I came up with today while listening to the Biomassed PodCast. Vrain, I think we are both following the same line of reasoning with this. Fox Gaden wrote: The most difficult balance in developing a skill system for Legion is finding the balance between making it easy for new players to figure out, while making it complex and flexible enough to keep veteran players interested. Some of the criticism with CCP Z's plan comes from people thinking that it leans too far toward the new player, and that it will not be as fun for veteran players as a result. While thinking about this I also thought about the certificate system in EVE, as well as what CCP did when they changed the UI for the skill system in DUST. If you know where to look, you can still open the old skill system in DUST which uses a list interface rather than a node interface. The key that I took from this was knowing where to look. My proposal is that the skill system that is prominently displayed when you start the game would be CCP Z's Role based Item Progression system, and if you purchase your skills through that progression you will get a skill plan that works for the role you choose. The prerequisites for the skills in that interface would be set by the interface, rather than being the actual prerequisites for the skill. Then there should be a second skill system interface designed for the veteran player which is much more free form. This second system should be buried a bit so that you have to discover it, or be told about it. This interface would include the same skills as CCP Z's interface (possible more skills), but they would be based on their actual prerequisites, rather than role based prerequisites. So lets say you want to use the Tactical Assault Rifle: - New Player Interface: You need to skill up through the Assault suit tree, get Assault Rifle, and then you can get the Tactical Assault Rifle skill. - Veteran Player Interface: You simply go to the weapons tree, get the Assault Rifle skill, and then you can get the Tactical Assault Rifle skill. Key premises: 1) You can't go wrong with the New Player Interface, but you can be more creative with the Veteran Player Interface. On the flip side, the Veteran Player Interface will give you the freedom to make mistakes, while the New Player Interface imposes restrictions that protect you from yourself. 2) The New Player Interface is the default which new players will find easily when they start the game. They will only discover the Veteran Player Interface if they are exploring the UI, or doing research. In either case they are taking actions which indicate that they are ready to discover greater complexity in the game. Hand/Eye coordination cannot be taught. For everything else there is the Learning Coalition.
I-Shayz-I I-----I 3375	Posted - 2014.05.13 07:32:00 - [9] - Quote Absolutelly LOVE this. including it in my Index during the next update. Personally, I think that they were talking about the 5 level nodes not unlocking things, at least, it was their intention to change it mainly for that reason. For example, instead of having basic unlocked at 1, advanced at 3, and proto at 5, you have the single weapon or dropsuit unlocked at 1, and then the 4 levels afterward just give you passive bonuses. This would be my idea of the best solution. 7162 wp with a Repair Tool! List of Legion Feedback Threads!
Pokey Dravon OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 2032	Posted - 2014.05.14 18:47:00 - [10] - Quote I-Shayz-I wrote: Absolutelly LOVE this. including it in my Index during the next update. Personally, I think that they were talking about the 5 level nodes not unlocking things, at least, it was their intention to change it mainly for that reason. For example, instead of having basic unlocked at 1, advanced at 3, and proto at 5, you have the single weapon or dropsuit unlocked at 1, and then the 4 levels afterward just give you passive bonuses. This would be my idea of the best solution. If you want to follow the EVE model, typically levels 1,2, and 3 unlock the three variants for that ship, then levels 4 and 5 offer additional bonuses, and typically level 5 unlocks the Tech II version of that ship. Bear in mind that the level 3 ship is not neccesarily better than the level 1 or 2, it's just different. CCP's initial plans for assets is a Common, Uncommon, Rare system, I would likely equate these to levels 1, 2, and 3 respectfully. I'll write up a more in depth response to your post on my lunch break, but good discussion! Like my ideas? Pokey Dravon for CPM1

ANON Cerberus Tiny Toons 719	Posted - 2014.05.19 11:27:00 - [11] - Quote I like you post and I think it carries with it the thoughts of most people I have spoke to on this subject as well. Its literally like the only 1 thing that has me a little worried about Legion. We want change for the better I just hope they dont 'nerf' that sort of experience for some more generic system.


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