Personally, it would be nice to see some kind of visual/graphical representation of the new progression system (both skills and items). I know there is the fanfest presentation, but I'm talking more about how it will specifically work. It's sort of hard for me to fully grasp the intricacies of this system, which in turn makes it difficult to discuss the vision as a whole. I fully get though that this is still pretty early, so a lot of that information probably doesn't even exist yet.

I have created a crude mockup of an GÇ£ISIS AnalogGÇ¥ just to show how you could work with the existing system to create a better UI and achieve many of the usability goals while still retaining the depth that keeps your valuable hardcore players interested. IGÇÖm intending to mock up a UI for the skill tree and perhaps a diagram of a re-architected skill tree that still retains the EVE-style 5-level system.

Maybe I'm being a little over sensitive here but I'm beginning to detect a very disturbing undercurrent of dismissing 'casual players' as not being worthy enough or too stupid to join our game. I hope I'm misreading that.

Attracting any demographic to try dust right now is an uphill struggle as it is. The retention rate is in low single figures right now. We need more players. We need them desperately. Player numbers are not going up and have plateaued for a year now. We need to look at any and all options to encourage player take up. And we can't afford to rule anything out as being above such change.

They continue to carry on as they are then Dust/Legion is never going to get beyond what it is now. CCP are prepared to stick it out for the moment but not forever. I'm just being pragmatic here, I honestly am. We've had the current system for a year and numbers haven't grown. And it's not a question of a better NPE being needed, that's a given. But dedicating all of that NPE resource to teaching a complicated skill tree, when we can simplify the tree for new starters, make it work for the educated and combine the NPE with the PvE to teach how to actually play the game, to me is just a smarter way to do this. CCP resources aren't unlimited after all.

A lot of this is going to looked at, polished and likely altered during the inevitable beta phase of Legion anyway.

(A note: My apologies at quoting you Ulysses, I'm actually addressing many people at once with this post.)

Firstly, the skill tree we're using in Dust has some deep intrinsic problems in it. It makes sense to us because we've been using it for the last year, but it is hyper unintuitive to the new player.

And it's more than just Dropsuit Command doing nothing at level 5.
- Some skills unlock gear at 1/3/5.
- Others unlock gear at 1/2/3/4/5.
- Some skills give buffs to gear (confusingly called "efficacy"), in addition to unlocking gear.
- There's "core skills" that give universal buffs to suits.
- "Hacking" gives universal buffs, while ALSO unlocking gear.
- Skills exist that have no purpose other than unlocking other skills.
- "Which of these 4 shield skills is the one that gives me more health?"
- To figure out what an item is you have to leave the skill menu, enter the Market, press the secret "Show Info" button, and toggle out of the flavor text to the attributes.

Yes. Our present skill tree "works".
But by no means does it "work well".

I know it's counter-intuitive, but user-friendly and deep are not mutually exclusive things.
There is a difference between bad-complexity and good-complexity.


Secondly, many here are making the argument: "The present skill tree is EVE's skill-tree, and EVE's skill-tree is perfect so why are we changing it?"
There's two parts to this argument so let's break it down:

1: "The present skill-tree is EVE's skill-tree,..."
Actually it's not.
EVE's system relies upon Attributes, implants, neural remaps, solely Passive learning of a specific skill, subscriptions, and EVE bonuses are granted by the Ships after checking the Skill level while Dust bonuses are granted by the Skill to the Dropsuits (which sounds like the same thing, but is different and subtly causes massive issues for balancing), ...to name but a few.

Just as I've taught many FPS players how the Dust skill-tree works, I've also taught EVE players how Dust works and they've been just as confused.


2: "...EVE's skill-tree is perfect so why are we changing it?"
EVE's skill-tree was not pulled from the Ark of the Covenant. Nor is it Euler's Identity, nor a pyrite crystal.
It's a "messy" solution cobbled together by human hands in response to a very specific problem.

It has had both in the past (eg: Learning Skills) and today (eg: Drone Skills) many issues.
It is not an immaculate solution to a shared problem.


Lastly, there is another argument people are making: "Dust/Legion should be EVE, but on the planets. And thus we should be mimicking EVE's gameplay as much as possible."
This is obviously related to the above statement, but comes at it from the angle of gameplay as opposed to the skill-tree.
As such, I'll respond to it from a different angle.

Allow me to be straightforward:
EVE is an amazing sandbox,
with battles where thousands of players led by gods tear away at each other,
filled with spying, politics and altruism,
where your cunning and ambition shape your future as much as any character stats you may have.
EVE is a glorious story-engine with one teeny-tiny problem:
It is not fun to play.

Do you want Planetary Conquest 2.0 to be a 5 hour POS grind?
Do you want PvE to be so simplistic many people bot it with trivial programs?
Do you want to have to run two accounts at once to have access to basic reconnaissance?
Do you want Dust to also become the "game you play while you're doing something else"?
Should Dust be "Spreadsheets on Planets"?

If you think that sounds great then you know what? That's fine!
Only you know what you find fun. No one can tell you otherwise. :)
But here's the thing, that game already exists, it's called EVE Online.
EVE is very, very, very good at being EVE.

But if you want a sandbox/MMO/FPS, well we're going to have build that.
And since no other game has done that, we'll have to invent.
Which means iteration.
Which means occasionally tearing down the old and replacing it with the new.


Our present skill system works.
But by no means does it work well.

Let's find something that does. :)

So it sounds like you want to discourage swapping fittings, or even suits, during a match. I hope this isn't the case because the ability for me to swap suits/fittings for my next spawn adds a lot of depth in gameplay. I am also worried about MMR RNG, where your team's suit comp is vastly outmatched by the enemies suit comp without the ability to adapt.

And I see that you want progression to be harder, but is it really going to be THAT much harder to always have to focus on one suit at a time? What will be the purpose of restricting some game types to certain meta level brackets, outside of newbie battles?

If we can still swap fittings/suits in match, how are you going to stop someone capable of fitting a 350 meta level suit from queuing with a 120 suit and then swapping to their 350? One suggestion I have is you could make a list of 3-4 fittings you queue with and the MMR averages the meta level of those fittings, though that is still limiting compared to what DUST is like now.