I like your thoughts on this subject, Vell0cet. But I'm still kind of iffy about the bonus only affecting the militia cloak. It seems like it would give the equipment too much of an advantage. Everything else is great though.

The first thing I wanted to say here was that the provision of AUR suits to new players was primarily motivated by an intention to give them some more powerful suits that they could use right out of the gate. This means AUR gear for the lower requirements. I want to highlight that to my knowledge, that decision was not intentionally related to trying to sell gear. I like the idea of giving them that option, since we want to convey the notion that you can have more powerful fits available.

That being said, I totally see your concern. Messaging needs to be clear that gear can be bought for both ISK and AUR. I am not averse to introducing people to AUR early, so they know it's an option, but any notion you have to buy the higher quality suits with AUR only would be a very bad message to convey. I'll bounce that topic around with folks.

I am a bit hesitant to heavily unleash vehicles on Academy players, but the idea of preproviding some militia vehicles is not a bad idea.

On the militia cloak topic, I am extremely hesitant to suggest something like that, unless it was done like a Cov Ops cloak in EVE, where there's a suit bonus on that particular suit offering like 99% reduction of CPU use of cloak modules, so that the respective cloak fitting is hilariously high, and hence only works on that suit.

I am worried about the notion of the Academy option you suggest for thinning out the queues further. Not a bad idea, but more queues equals less people in each, which can make matchmaking harder. I see merits though.

The Rookie Help channel thing is something we've definitely talked about before. I want to see it happen. There might be some sort of issue with the capacity of such a channel an absolutely murdering the chat system. I think there is a reason we're split amongst many stations across New Eden. I also, of course, support a DUST ISD.

I think not. In like 99% of cases, if it requires any sort of visible UI... like a checkbox... it's probably a patch thing.



Most people seem to agree I am bad at fitting things. So I try to leave those details to players better at it. :D

Great points all.

On the point of a chat channel for rookies Soraya is correct that it would melt the voice chat server, hence the splitting up of dust players over several systems so even local can function. It is something that CCP want to do however.

The AUR fits were added to give early access to more powerful suits, not as way to entice players into spending real money asap. That said, they have highlighted that there is something called AUR costing real money to buy, which believe it or a lot of new players had no awareness of before.

I don't think anyone is going to begrudge CCP making money on the game as it has a direct correlation with how likely a 1.9 will happen.

There is nothing wrong with the suits and the ideas you've presented in regard to introducing players to the complexities offered to them in the game. My concern however is that too many suit options may potentially baffle new players and may even put them off.

Fitting is a subtle art and the nuanced differences in gameplay that each of your exampled fits would provide are something that only a veteran player might notice.

New players I feel, benefit more from a smaller number of fits, with much clearer differences between them. The more 'in between' fittings for lack of a better term, are something a better in-game NPE could point out. And the game could also remind them that they have three slots per account, so creating a different race character in one of them would provide access to the different weapons each race uses.

We're still collecting data from the changes that Delta provided and a lot of that data is likely to impact on further tweaks to the NPE. Some will be hotfix-able, others will require a 1.9 but the points you've raised are something we should uptake on board when discussing those tweaks with CCP.

There's such a thing as too many options. You can't throw too many things at a newbie at one time. Having too many starter fits may cause stress.

I say change the sniper into a light frame, and anti-armor into a heavy. This way, you have the all three available frames, and not too many options available. However, included in your assets are 10 of each other militia weapon, so when a player gets told to create a new fit, they may create a heavy with a HMG, instead of the default FG, or a light frame with a shotgun instead of a sniper.

Also, new players have to be be given information. I don't see any stats that say a Scrambler Rifle is semi-auto, +20/-20, long range rifle. It just gives me the damage, and ammo capacity, along with the seize time and all that. Sure, you can press info, but the mechanics are mixed in with "boring, useless lore" according to the new player.

Also, when creating a new character, it should tell you the combat philosophies of each race.

The Gallente pride themselves in regeneration technology, the Caldari have the most high-tech shielding systems, the Amarr are walking armor fortresses, and what the Minmatar lack in armor, more than make up for in intuition and speed. Something like that.

I couldn't really read much because my eyes are tired, but I'll certainly give it another go to provide better feedback o7

Must say that I love 98% or so of this, but I do have a small problem that is 'will these fits change once full racial parity is introduced should it be introduced?'
+1
Vell0cet, you have the most wonderful ideas!