What kind of cost are we talking about? ISK would allow the mega rich nullsec alliances to constantly give their best players respecs to keep ontop of the FOTM, which will negatively impact NPE and seriously hinder smaller, poorer alliances. AUR respecs would give dust a very strong P2W label, which, I'm sure you know, will make a lot of people stay away from legion. A percentage of total SP could work if you intend to make it a tool for new players to use to try out different roles and find out what they're comfortable with, but I doubt any hardcore players would want to lose months worth of SP for a respec.

The problem is what do you want respecs to be used for? What target audience do you see using respecs?

No, weapon types will be linked to Role and not necessarily Race. You will end up with 2 different Rail Rifle depending on the race though.

1st batch of answers:

Yes we could keep the 5 levels. From the studies and the research we made on DUST, people seems to not understand it. ThatGÇÖs why we want to remove it.

No, weapon types will be linked to Role and not necessarily Race. You will end up with 2 different Rail Rifle depending on the race though.

Respec will have a gradually increasing cost, so your choices matter

we are not talking to the same target audience (hardcore MMO players vs Online FPS Players).

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.

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

Yes we could keep the 5 levels. From the studies and the research we made on DUST, people seems to not understand it. ThatGÇÖs why we want to remove it.

TL;DR

Hybrid LoL-Blizzard FPS/Skill/Market system with New Eden Brand and EVE on it-¦s name

We will offer a Respec Option

The respec bit is the one I find most... strange. Not that a respec thing is not a bad idea or that other games don't have it or anything like that; it is just the sudden reversal of everything that CCP and CPM has said before. Things like "Pay to Win", or "your choices matter", or stuff like that. I don't necessarily have anything against respecs but I have to ask why the sudden change in design philosophy?

Can we still choose to use our cheap-fits in a high-meta match? I want to tactically deploy ISK assets to optimize my ISK efficiency (fun gambling).

The low meta matches are for new or casual players, right? Low rewards, low cost, fun matches for the masses?

Note how about you delete the post that are not asking questions you can moderate the thread.

Them companies needz moneyz to run.

From what i understood, the matchmaking will calculate your stuff power and put you with similar players.

You and your team: Powerlevel OVER 9000
Opponente team A: Powerlevel 400
Opponente team B: Powerlevel 8500
Opponente team C: Powerlevel 500

So the system calculates the Powerlevel with the modules, dropsuit and other variables, and will make matches based on it, so you would fight against team B and the teams A and C would fight each other.

(From what i understood)

When people start questioning the methodology of an internal study because its findings happen to contradict their strongly held views, you know you've hit a nerve.

When people start questioning the methodology of an internal study because its findings happen to contradict their strongly held views, you know you've hit a nerve.

Again, I have to remind everyone to please till Z has presented his completed work. I only ask because I suspect it is strongly connected to the new player market and a lot of the ISK sinks that have been put in place to prevent the current PC derived glut of ISK plaguing the game.

The progression in the game is just part of Z's job title. He's also in charge of the economy which tells me that the two are linked.