DUST Search - Start new players at 15 million SP.

Arkena Wyrnspire wrote:

While I absolutely support more SP for newbies, I don't think lump sums alone are the way to do it.

You end up with a lot of people not really knowing what to spend their skillpoints on. Newbies already fall prey to SP wastes like higher levels of dropsuit command. 15 mil is an awful lot to give to a newbie at once, and chances are they'll spend it all very quickly not really knowing what to spend it on.
Then, after they've spent it, they won't feel like they're progressing. There'll be no feel of progression - You started off with a year's worth of SP and even if you grind all week you'll only pull <500k.

Instead of a lump sum, you need a few things in tandem.
Firstly, you need vastly better educational support for newbies in terms of spending their skillpoints.
Secondly, you need a better designed skill tree. Skills like dropsuit command 4/5 are travesties of game design and should be axed completely.

Then, thirdly, for the increase in SP, rather than just having a sudden (very large) lump sum, give a greatly increased progression rate. Still increase the base SP (from 500k to 2 mil or something) and then give scaling bonuses to take you up to the higher SP counts. For example, start off with a 5x rate of gain and gradually slow down as you increase in total SP until eventually you're at a normal rate of gain once you have much more SP.


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zzZaXxx Vengeance Unbound 504	Posted - 2014.09.12 21:02:00 - [1] - Quote Everybody wins. Experienced players get better competition and less boring stomping. New players get to actually compete instead of getting rolled and quitting (as they should). DUST's days are numbered anyways. let's make the best of the time we have. To keep it fair you could give all players a one-time SP bonus at the same time you change the SP floor to 15 mil. The more SP a player has, the smaller the bonus. Experienced players would lose nothing and gain a much more interesting game with more evenly balanced competition and a much higher rate of good fights (and they'd get their bonus). Newer players would be greatly heartened and would be more confident and perform better in battle. They would also find it easier to join a decent corp. It would also help greatly to hook people who are just trying the game out. It would increase the player base. You know I'm right!
zzZaXxx Vengeance Unbound 504	Posted - 2014.09.12 22:06:00 - [2] - Quote Maiden selena MORTIMOR wrote: +1 except the bonus ..anyone under 15 mill should be set to 15 ....congrats u just spent past few months grinding a fresh character lol But otherwise I agree starting sp is not enought Ok, hear me out. You would want a minimum SP gain for players with 15 mil SP or less. Say the minimum is 7 mil, so... Player with 3 mil SP is bumped to 15 mil SP 7 mil SP --> 15 mil 10 mil --> 17 mil 13 mil --> 20 mil 15 mil --> 22 mil Then for players with 16 mil SP and up, the bonus would gradually taper off, until it reaches the minimum for high SP players. Let's say that minimum is 500,000 SP. And lets say that is reached at 40 mil SP. So if you have 40 mil SP or more, you're getting an extra 500,000 SP. If your'e at 15 mil or below, you're getting 7 mil SP. If you're in the 16-39 mil SP range, you're getting somewhere between the two. So maybe something like this: 22 mil SP --> 26 mil SP 28 mil SP --> 30.5 mil SP 34 mil SP --> 35.5 mil SP
zzZaXxx Vengeance Unbound 504	Posted - 2014.09.13 00:09:00 - [3] - Quote Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: While I absolutely support more SP for newbies, I don't think lump sums alone are the way to do it. You end up with a lot of people not really knowing what to spend their skillpoints on. Newbies already fall prey to SP wastes like higher levels of dropsuit command. 15 mil is an awful lot to give to a newbie at once, and chances are they'll spend it all very quickly not really knowing what to spend it on. Then, after they've spent it, they won't feel like they're progressing. There'll be no feel of progression - You started off with a year's worth of SP and even if you grind all week you'll only pull <500k. Instead of a lump sum, you need a few things in tandem. Firstly, you need vastly better educational support for newbies in terms of spending their skillpoints. Secondly, you need a better designed skill tree. Skills like dropsuit command 4/5 are travesties of game design and should be axed completely. Then, thirdly, for the increase in SP, rather than just having a sudden (very large) lump sum, give a greatly increased progression rate. Still increase the base SP (from 500k to 2 mil or something) and then give scaling bonuses to take you up to the higher SP counts. For example, start off with a 5x rate of gain and gradually slow down as you increase in total SP until eventually you're at a normal rate of gain once you have much more SP. You're absolutely right about needing to protect noobs from misspending their SP. I still think adjusting it all at one time would be best because that would allow for more control and balance and would fast track noobs to being more competitive. But that fast track would need to regulated a bit so that they don't spend it all too fast on things they end up not wanting. So here's a solution: If you're over 25 mil SP, you can spend all your bonus SP immediately. You've had enough time in the game already to know what you want. If you've got 21-25 mil SP, you are only able to spend half of your unallocated SP each week until you get down to 500,000, at which point you can spend it all. If you've got 16-20 mil SP, you are only able to spend 1/3 of your unallocated SP each week until you get down to 400,000. If you've got 15 mil SP, you are only able to spend 1/4 of your unallocated SP each week until you get down to 300,000. New players would only be able to spend 1/8 of their unallocated for the first two weeks after creating their character, and the tutorial would warn them to be careful with their SP and direct them to a new forum room created for them to ask questions about how to spend it. Nice folks like you and I and many others would happily assist them. GMs would quickly ban players from that chat room if they tried to mislead noobs, and perhaps refund some SP if the noob could point to the place in that forum where he/she was mislead.
zzZaXxx Vengeance Unbound 504	Posted - 2014.09.13 00:39:00 - [4] - Quote Regardless of how much you've gotten over time, newbros need help now. They don't have any option but to play with the proto-stompers (us). Until they do CCP's progression system is broken and the gap between rich and poor is not only making the game boring, but killing player retention, and poisoning the NPE. The point is to bring new players up to speed so they can compete on a playing field that, while not flat, would no longer be a steep slope that they have to climb while we're taking potshots at them from on high.
zzZaXxx Vengeance Unbound 504	Posted - 2014.09.13 02:22:00 - [5] - Quote That could work!
zzZaXxx Vengeance Unbound 505	Posted - 2014.09.13 10:51:00 - [6] - Quote Kaze Eyrou wrote: sleepwalks Mmm... 15 million SP for new characters? So that means I could create alts forever and immediately have a protosuit and weapon to test out all the time. And proto vehicles too! Then nobody complains about flavor of the month because everyone has it! Yay! Munya munya.... drifts off to sleep This is not a problem. 15 mil SP will create a decent character who is skilled up in one suit, one weapon, one sidearm. Why not? A small price to pay for enabling newer players to actually play the game.
zzZaXxx Vengeance Unbound 505	Posted - 2014.09.13 10:55:00 - [7] - Quote Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: zzZaXxx wrote: Regardless of how much you've gotten over time, newbros need help now. They don't have any option but to play with the proto-stompers (us). Until they do CCP's progression system is broken and the gap between rich and poor is not only making the game boring, but killing player retention, and poisoning the NPE. The point is to bring new players up to speed so they can compete on a playing field that, while not flat, would no longer be a steep slope that they have to climb while we're taking potshots at them from on high. Yes, newbies do need help. But what you have proposed here is at best a hastily constructed bandaid solution. The problems of the new player do not begin and end with SP. There are many, many problems, which need a much more complex solution than increasing a single number. I'm not trying to solve every problem. Just this one. The only other problem newer players have besides SP is ISK. The rest are issues we all deal with. As far as creating a whole new NPE, that's for Legion. The kind of jerry-rigging solution I'm suggesting is what's available to us.
zzZaXxx Vengeance Unbound 507	Posted - 2014.09.13 19:24:00 - [8] - Quote Me me me! How come they get that and I don't get anything?! Well, Johnny, because they need it and you don't. Because the game needs a solution for newer players, a way for them to bridge the gap so that they can stop being the 0/8 guys at the bottom of the ambush screen with the name you never heard of and then leave after a week or two, cursing this game and vowing to never play another CCP game. Face the truth people: this progression system is BROKEN. It does not work for players entering the game now or even those who started a few months ago. There is no playground for them away from us. They are stuck in the same little battlefinder with the same little community all the time. And they're the losers. They'll come even close to our SP, and they will suffer greatly from it because SP opens up so many doors and makes a huge difference in what you're able to do in battle. To those who b*tch about them getting something for nothing: first of all, look at the big picture. Something needs to be done to lift up these peasants and at least bring them into the middle class. We need more competition in matches! There are way too many pushovers! We need more player retention! How long do you think someone's gonna stick around after being constantly bullied? If the changed the matchmaking to separate them from us then maybe that would do it, but this is a lot easier for them to do. Seems like the have no clue how to fix matchmaking. They've failed to do so for months so.....let's try something more straightforward. Secondly, what does it matter to you? You still would get some SP, the game would be funner, and more people would be online. This is a win for everyone.The status quo is hastening the death of the game. We all know they'll pull the plug eventually but it'll be a lot sooner if we can't find a way to get the have-nots closer to us right from the start. We're all in the same little battle finder boat. We need to take measures to right our little ship as best we can, and newbros have to be a huge focus if we're going to do that.