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Vell0cet
Fraternity of St. Venefice Amarr Empire
2129
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Posted - 2014.08.14 20:42:00 -
[1] - Quote
Now that we have significant changes to the Assault suits. I think it's a good opportunity to revamp the starter fits. I'd like to see the starter suits more closely match their assault counterparts.
I'd also like for new players to start with maybe a dozen-or-so 0 SP militia fits with around 10 copies of each. The new player can jump in and try out a wide variety of various racial suits/weapons/roles right off the bat. I'd like to see a Gallente scanner fit, Minmatar remote rep fit, Caldari nanohive fit, Amarr uplink fit, heavy fit with HMG, and a forge fit, a light fit or two, a militia equivalent of every other race's starter fit, a mass driver fit, a LR fit and a Plasma Cannon fit. Are there other militia roles that would be cool to have for new players to see right when they first start?
Post some fits/roles suggestions. Maybe we can crowdourcing this to give some good suggestions for CCP.
Best PvE idea ever!
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Vell0cet
Fraternity of St. Venefice Amarr Empire
2129
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Posted - 2014.08.14 21:32:00 -
[2] - Quote
Guiltless D667 wrote:Fits corresponding to their race would be a starting point assault fit logi fit scout fit heavy infantry/ AV fit commando light av fit
Keep it basic,keep it simple but diverse,you dont want to overwhelm them with options at the gate. One problem with this is that new players are forced to choose a race before they understand the implications of that decision. By giving them access to militia fits of other races (that they can build themselves but likely don't realize), you expose them to the racial flavors of the game early on, giving them the opportunity to make a different character before they become too invested in their first one.
I can appreciate that you don't want to overwhelm new players, but having a broader selection of suits to play around with shouldn't be too overwhelming, especially if they're well-labeled. I suspect most new players will want to try out each one, and get a "tour" of DUST's diversity as a result. It's not a good substitute for a real gameplay tutorial, but it seems like it should be easy to implement given the hotfix restrictions and would be a large improvement from what we have now.
I also have concerns about making militia versions of specialty suits. It makes more sense to stick to militia basic frames, since that's what's immediately available to them.
Best PvE idea ever!
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Vell0cet
Fraternity of St. Venefice Amarr Empire
2133
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Posted - 2014.08.15 02:20:00 -
[3] - Quote
Bump.
Best PvE idea ever!
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Vell0cet
Fraternity of St. Venefice Amarr Empire
2138
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Posted - 2014.08.15 17:15:00 -
[4] - Quote
RYN0CER0S wrote:250,000 ISK
50x MLT variants of everything.
Empty BPO Frontline Frames for each class/role of a character's chosen race. *A MLT Dropsuit BPO Assault, Logi, Scout, Heavy, & Commando, No Weapons, No Modules.
Fittings suggestions and stats in an easier to use format with improved fonts. (Better U.I.)
If no PvE, then in-game Pop-Ups explaining HUD, TacNet, Vehicle & Warbarge Strike Deployment, Objective Descriptions, etc.
New Players are restricted to Academy until they reach 50,000 WP, after which they have the option to choose at any time to go to pubs or remain in Academy Battles until they are removed at 200,000 WP.
That's about as good as we can do without.... stuff. There are a few problems with this approach. One is that it is dependent on a revamped tutorial which may require a client patch. The other is that there are a lot of lazy gamers who can't be bothered to read basic info or follow instructions. I've watched several videos where players are still using the stock starter fits after they've left the academy. One where the guy couldn't figure out how to make a fit from the tutorial step 2, gave up and declared DUST was stupid: "2 out of 10." The guy had a decent match, but used the scrambler rifle the whole time. Did he realize there were a ton of other militia weapons available to him?
I think it should be easy/obvious for the new player. You could have something like the following:
Starter Fit Frontline (this would be equivalent to what currently exists, with slots changed-Amarr don't shield tank) Starter Fit Reviver Starter Fit Anti-Armor Starter Fit Sniper
The above would be infinite and would be unique for each race
x10 Support: Militia Resupplier (a Caldari Nanohive fit medium militia suit weapon?) x10 Support: Militia Spawnpoint deployer (an Amarr Uplink fit medium militia suit LR) x10 Support: Militia Scanner (a Gallente scanner fit medium militia suit Plasma Cannon) x10 Support: Militia Armor Repairer (a Minmatar RR fit medium militia suit mass driver). x10 Heavy: Militia Point Defense (a Gallente HMG fit heavy militia suit) x10 Heavy: Militia Anti-Armor (a Caldari Forge fit heavy militia suit). x10 Light: Militia Assasin (a Gallente Shotgun fit light militia suit NKs)
Below would be the three races other than the player:
x10 Caldari: Militia Frontline x10 Gallente: Militia Frontline x10 Minmatarr: Militia Frontline
I really don't think that is too overwhelming/confusing and would really help showcase the diversity of gameplay/roles.
Best PvE idea ever!
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Vell0cet
Fraternity of St. Venefice Amarr Empire
2142
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Posted - 2014.08.15 21:16:00 -
[5] - Quote
Hakyou Brutor wrote:Would you rather I put it on protofits.com or just list it out here?
Edit: Also, do you want all militia or standard gear is cool too? Sorry I didn't respond to this earlier. You can post links or post in the thread, whatever makes you happy. Fits should be restricted to militia only and require 0 skills to fit so they can come preloaded. If some fits require fitting mods, it might be worth discussing changes to the CPU/PG of the militia suits/mods/weapons to make decent early fits more viable.
Best PvE idea ever!
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Vell0cet
Fraternity of St. Venefice Amarr Empire
2142
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Posted - 2014.08.15 22:18:00 -
[6] - Quote
501st Headstrong wrote:Suits still get people killed while in the Academy. A person who picked the Amarrian Race may like the characters look, but not know Amarr are Armor tankers. They may like Gallente suits, but not be exposed to that.
In the Race picking screen, there needs to be words saying
Caldari: Stack Shields, allowing for regen. Better for Solo players Amarr: Stack armor, making them extremely powerful, but slow and reliant on a repair tool Gallente: Use armor repair modules. Have a healthy mixture of regen of health, but can stack armor to get close to the amarr Minmatar: Use Shields and speed modules to maneuver.
The new players need to have more tips and guides at their disposal first coming in. All the suits in the world won't help you if you don't know anything. A weapon should have the bonus percentages on it (Mass Drivers- 20% to shields, +20% to armor)
Getting back to the original post however, I'd love it if all Frontline starter suits had their militia side-arms as well. Only once the sidearm buff occurs however, not before Yep I agree that it would make sense to have better descriptions in the select screen although I don't know if it's possible to hotfix in.
Amarr: Prefer lots of armor, and use lasers which are bonused against shields and penalized against armor. Caldari: Prefer lots of shields and use rail weapons which are bonused against armor and penalized against armor. Gallente: Prefer armor regeneration and use plasma weapons which are balanced with a slight bonus against shields and slight penalty to armor. Minmatar: Highly mobile with a preference to shield skirmishing. They use projectile weapons which are balanced damage with a slight bonus against armor. They also use explosive weapons which are bonused against armor and penalized against shields.
The thing is, even if CCP could make these changes to the character creation screen via hotfix and they did implement it, a lot of new players won't bother to read the info. At this point in the NPE process they don't even really know what the game is, and all they care about is: "What is the gameplay like?" It may not be worth their energy to bother reading a bunch of stuff if they hate the gameplay. Ideally they would pick their race AFTER the academy, but that's simply not possible.
That's why I think it's critical to get a nice assortment of different fits available to them (including some copies of pre-made militia frontline fit equivalents of the other races). You don't want to overwhelm them with options, but having a decent selection of well-made fits highlighting the depth of the game and the variety of weapons available would be an easy way to enhance the new player experience.
Best PvE idea ever!
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Vell0cet
Fraternity of St. Venefice Amarr Empire
2152
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Posted - 2014.08.16 18:52:00 -
[7] - Quote
Soraya Xel wrote:There's definitely some great notes in here. I definitely think starter fits need a revisit, and I like the idea of providing limited numbers of other roles for people to try out. I have noted this thread in appropriate places. ;) Thanks for taking a look.
Best PvE idea ever!
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Vell0cet
Fraternity of St. Venefice Amarr Empire
2153
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Posted - 2014.08.16 21:34:00 -
[8] - Quote
TYCHUS MAXWELL wrote:As for fits, I say 0 starting isk (You can quickly make enough isk to start skilling in like one hour of gameplay and this ends the cancer that is isk farming multiple accounts) with race specific starter fits. Earning isk for Sp has never been an issue. The only people who have trouble earning isk are the ones who don't know how to budget their isk consumption through losing suits. I agree with a few of your points. I'd like to see the starting ISK dropped to something low like 20,000 ISK. Then I'd like to see the skillbooks re-priced to help "guide" new players into good roles. Dropsuit Command, Dropsuit Upgrades, and Weapons should be free, and the Skillbooks for things that would benefit new players (Shields, Armor, Light Weapons, Electronics, Engineering, etc.) should be very cheap (like 1000ISK or something). This would help encourage new players to work on skills that are more beneficial to them early on, and also completely disincentivize players making ISK farming alts.
Quote:If you give new players too many frontlines, you will probably delay their interest in making their own suits. The issue with the NPE has always been the fact that they get kicked out of the battle academy and into the 500k-70+ million sp match making system. It doesn't matter to start how many militia fits there are although they could be given some non-frontline suggestion fits at around 10-20 each. Like militia forge av heavy and militia shotgun light suit, but soon enough they will be exposed to the plethora of options anyways via death statistics. Trial and error and/or research are the only ways for players to learn how to fit suits the way they want and you can't force them to, or convince them to like the game if they don't like customization. This isn't COD, they can't just run the default assault with a noob tube and expect to win in all situations. The way I look at it is that many new players download the game and have no idea what it is. I've been watching a lot of new player videos on YouTube and some of them don't even realize it's an FPS until they deploy: "Oh! it's like battlefield." I think you have a valid concern that too many fits may delay interest in making their own fits, but I look at the situation differently. I suspect that most players do not realize the diversity available to them. All of the fits I want to see added are available to a new player right now (well maybe with a few tweaks to the stats and slots). It's not about giving them stuff they don't have, but about "selling the game" and exposing them to rich diversity available. I suspect a lot of players try it, never are exposed to a weapon/role they may really enjoy and end up leaving as a result, despite it being available to them.
Before you can get new players to invest the energy in research, or trial/error you have to get them to the point where they like the game first. I think a lot of new players who may actually enjoy the fitting/customization aspect of the game, never really even reach that point because they think the whole game just has those 4 fits and it's stupid.
I would like to see changes to the academy and matchmaking as well. Those are also critical. If it were up to me (and sadly it's not), I would have 2 academies. The first would be as it is now (short) and the 2nd tier academy would be just another gamemode restricted to players under some SP threshold (like 2-5mill SP)- (It would be the only one checked by default). You want 2 academies because you don't want players with (assuming the cap was 5 mill) 4.9 mill SP stomping players trying to learn the controls. But the 2nd tier should be a "refuge" for low SP players to play with each other until they can build a decent advanced fit and learn the maps. They can still participate in regular pubs, Faction Warfare (and even PC in theory--not likely), but if they get tired of being stomped, they always have a place to go. It's not a substitute for improved matchmaking, which I agree needs a lot more work, but it would bypass some of the worst issues with the current system and would likely really improve new player retention. I have no idea if this can be added in a hotfix though.
Quote:This "How do we teach them how to fit suits?" and/or "How do we give them better tutorials?" is just a red herring to the desire to ignore the matchmaking issue that the power grind is very real and discouraging to new players.
Hell other than what has been said since the start that they should invest in core skills and try everything out to see what they want to skill into, there's not much else to say. What is good and what is bad meta wise changes with every patch/hotfix and new players who aren't turned off by their immediate waste of sp due to not having a crystal ball and quit will have to learn to live with the fact that versatility is the most practical sp investment for those who haven't been playing since beta (And by consequence have pretty much all the skills to chase any FOTM.)
For better or worse, that's the game we are stuck with in spite of how unpopular this system is with gamers. Good luck Legion, if it keeps these same stigmas.
I don't think it's a red herring at all. I think all of these issues (including the ones you bring up) are critical to improving the NPE. It's not a zero-sum-game, where you can only do one thing. We should be addressing all of these issues.
And you're right the meta is constantly changing, but as the game gets more balanced (and it is becoming more balanced), the most important goal should exposing the new player to a role that fits their play style that they enjoy. Even if it's not the absolute best meta from a min/max standpoint, if they're doing ok at it and they enjoy it, that's the most important thing.
Best PvE idea ever!
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Vell0cet
Fraternity of St. Venefice Amarr Empire
2157
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Posted - 2014.08.17 15:41:00 -
[9] - Quote
Kevall Longstride wrote:Sorry about only just getting to this thread Vellocet. Been kind of manic with CPM stuff and RL.
Racially slanted starter fits is something that we've already discussed amongst ourselves and we've brought the matter to the attention to the people we need to.
Delta is going to be looking at the rebalancing of sidearms and that will dovetail nicely with a chance to reevaluate to starter fits.
Thanks for taking the time to take a look. That makes sense that you'd want the sidearms re-balanced before doing the starter fits. Every sidearm should be viable, and that's not really the case right now so I guess that wouldn't make much sense to put a new player through the misery of using a broken sidearm.
Any thoughts on the overall concept of giving a broader selection of pre-designed militia fits to expose the new player to a cross section of the game's weapons/roles including other races' gear?
Best PvE idea ever!
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