-Snip-

Are you all lying? I just finished my first match and it says my weekly max is 200k. I've got 3 boosters going that aren't gaining as much as claimed, because you guys, what, don't actually know what the cap is represented at right now?

Dear players,

I need to write this to explain the 1.9 Weekly Skill Cap implementation and its intent and design.

When we first discussed the possibility of stacking boosters and raising the skill cap, with the CPM, I honestly thought that the skill cap was a fixed number that was achieved faster by equipping boosters. Yeah, I just never did the math on the EOM screen, donGÇÿt think I ever capped out anyway, more than half of my 35 million SP is probably passive booster SP.

Therefore, the 750k active skillcap number came directly from me, from thinking GÇPWe need to triple it due to the 3 boosters, and we will even throw in an additional amount to make it an even 750k. It will be generous and cool.GÇ£

At that time, we were very aware that we should not devalue veteran SP by giving SP away too freely, but also still allow new players to catch up and catch a break. The scenario was thus, the veterans can throw in a single booster and ease into getting the 750k, not in a rush but during the whole week, instead of stressing out to cap. The new players or those that needed SP for an expensive skill could boost out to do so, but it wouldnGÇÿt be sustainable and up to the hard cap of 750k.

On top of that we added the ability to just do single purchases with instant boosters, just to make it less of a burden to buy a big chunk of booster time, instead of just GÇPwhen you need it and want itGÇ£. This allows for flexibility, but only a handful would ever do both, and so what, there is a hard cap (again, in my mind).

This is discussed with the CPM and devs and everything was awesome. The 750k number goes into the Patch Notes, and soon I see concerns from the community on the forums and feedback about some crazy 3 million per week numbers. And I thought, GÇPok, they are totally misunderstanding, its a hard capGÇ£, IGÇÿll explain it later in a sticky.

Then I am, by an off chance and just before we hit final QA, made aware by the dev team how it is really going to pan out. Players will be able to 3X stack, but as was explained to me, both the instant and active booster SP would not be counted towards the cap. After double and triple checking and running hellish spreadsheets with average potential SP scenarios and combinations of boosters, it was confirmed. It was too late to mess with the code, but there was no way I wanted, 750+2250(3xOmegas) + 2250 (3x Instant for all battles) + Passive, a total of 6M SP per week. That just wasnGÇÿt our intent at any stage of this feature.

The intent was, as it happens, much closer to to the old cap of 180k+540 (3xOmegas) + 540(3xInstant for all battles)+Passive ~ 1.8 million or so, very close to the previous weekly max SP gain times 3.

That sounded exactly what we wanted so we simply moved the skill cap back to 180k and pulled the 750k number out of the patch notes, very last minute. I was absolutely sure that this is what players truly expected, and I think most players agree that 6M SP per week is completely untenable. GÇPBut, noone is going to do that in the long termGÇ£, I hear you say, it costs too much, and will burn those extremely few that do so, out. So I didnGÇÿt worry at all about explaining this, if the need arose.

Until I had the 500 messages from the CPM, blinking furiously on Skype tonight, after football practice and just about to hit the hay.The gist of the messages was GÇPEveryone, and the CPM included, thinks players should be able to get 2.5 million active SP if they triple stack Omegas, but they probably assumed Instant Boosters would not be additive on top."

Well, it can be hard to admit mistakes, and learn from them, but I am willing to try and do both.

Therefore, I propose that to keep faith to those that thought the intent was 750k multiplied by stacked boosters, to immediately raise it to 750k during downtime tomorrow. The potential SP gain will be enormous, but we can monitor the situation for a single month, just how fast players are capping and gaining SP and whether it is a real problem.

Those that bought and stacked 3 boosters today, will not lose anything and be able to do what was communicated, even though that was absolutely not our intent. If you have already capped out today, please take a break and start again after DT tomorrow.

However, we then reserve our right to reduce the Skill Cap after 30 days if deemed necessary, with a weeks notice or so, so players will understand fully how the Skill Cap will affect their purchasing decisions.

I hope that this settles this issue, and lets you get back to playing the vastly improved DUST 514 of Uprising 1.9!

Sincerely
CCP Rattati

Dear players,

I need to write this to explain the 1.9 Weekly Skill Cap implementation and its intent and design.

When we first discussed the possibility of stacking boosters and raising the skill cap, with the CPM, I honestly thought that the skill cap was a fixed number that was achieved faster by equipping boosters. Yeah, I just never did the math on the EOM screen, donGÇÿt think I ever capped out anyway, more than half of my 35 million SP is probably passive booster SP.

Therefore, the 750k active skillcap number came directly from me, from thinking GÇPWe need to triple it due to the 3 boosters, and we will even throw in an additional amount to make it an even 750k. It will be generous and cool.GÇ£

At that time, we were very aware that we should not devalue veteran SP by giving SP away too freely, but also still allow new players to catch up and catch a break. The scenario was thus, the veterans can throw in a single booster and ease into getting the 750k, not in a rush but during the whole week, instead of stressing out to cap. The new players or those that needed SP for an expensive skill could boost out to do so, but it wouldnGÇÿt be sustainable and up to the hard cap of 750k.

On top of that we added the ability to just do single purchases with instant boosters, just to make it less of a burden to buy a big chunk of booster time, instead of just GÇPwhen you need it and want itGÇ£. This allows for flexibility, but only a handful would ever do both, and so what, there is a hard cap (again, in my mind).

This is discussed with the CPM and devs and everything was awesome. The 750k number goes into the Patch Notes, and soon I see concerns from the community on the forums and feedback about some crazy 3 million per week numbers. And I thought, GÇPok, they are totally misunderstanding, its a hard capGÇ£, IGÇÿll explain it later in a sticky.

Then I am, by an off chance and just before we hit final QA, made aware by the dev team how it is really going to pan out. Players will be able to 3X stack, but as was explained to me, both the instant and active booster SP would not be counted towards the cap. After double and triple checking and running hellish spreadsheets with average potential SP scenarios and combinations of boosters, it was confirmed. It was too late to mess with the code, but there was no way I wanted, 750+2250(3xOmegas) + 2250 (3x Instant for all battles) + Passive, a total of 6M SP per week. That just wasnGÇÿt our intent at any stage of this feature.

The intent was, as it happens, much closer to to the old cap of 180k+540 (3xOmegas) + 540(3xInstant for all battles)+Passive ~ 1.8 million or so, very close to the previous weekly max SP gain times 3.

That sounded exactly what we wanted so we simply moved the skill cap back to 180k and pulled the 750k number out of the patch notes, very last minute. I was absolutely sure that this is what players truly expected, and I think most players agree that 6M SP per week is completely untenable. GÇPBut, noone is going to do that in the long termGÇ£, I hear you say, it costs too much, and will burn those extremely few that do so, out. So I didnGÇÿt worry at all about explaining this, if the need arose.

Until I had the 500 messages from the CPM, blinking furiously on Skype tonight, after football practice and just about to hit the hay.The gist of the messages was GÇPEveryone, and the CPM included, thinks players should be able to get 2.5 million active SP if they triple stack Omegas, but they probably assumed Instant Boosters would not be additive on top."

Well, it can be hard to admit mistakes, and learn from them, but I am willing to try and do both.

Therefore, I propose that to keep faith to those that thought the intent was 750k multiplied by stacked boosters, to immediately raise it to 750k during downtime tomorrow. The potential SP gain will be enormous, but we can monitor the situation for a single month, just how fast players are capping and gaining SP and whether it is a real problem.

Those that bought and stacked 3 boosters today, will not lose anything and be able to do what was communicated, even though that was absolutely not our intent. If you have already capped out today, please take a break and start again after DT tomorrow.

However, we then reserve our right to reduce the Skill Cap after 30 days if deemed necessary, with a weeks notice or so, so players will understand fully how the Skill Cap will affect their purchasing decisions.

I hope that this settles this issue, and lets you get back to playing the vastly improved DUST 514 of Uprising 1.9!

Sincerely
CCP Rattati

Wait, does that mean tomorrow there is another downtime and it is being fixed from the 200k back to 750k? Cause right now, I got tricked out of 3 7-day omega boosters because of this silliness.

It means that you had an extra 190k SP today to enjoy (much more with your omegas) and that tomorrow after DT you'll see it "reseted" up to 750k!

I wonder if the SP per battle will be x3. I hope so or nobody will cap..

OH. OH MY GODS THANK YOU. I've been simmering in my chair under the belief that I was waiting 7 days for this to change. I thought I'd wasted those. Thank you, I shall be much happier now. I've been biting back vitriolic edits to espouse my anger and closing the browser over and over, cause I kept telling myself,"Can only blame yourself man."

keep the 750 but dont allow us to 3x Sack actives.

I usually cap out in 1 day or maybe 2. I want to be able to enjoy and spamm this game for more than 2 days of 7. I hate how easy the old cap is. There is no goal anymore when Im capped.

But I dont want this enormus amount of SP going to players. 3 mill SP a week is complete bull.
I like the idea of stacking passives especially if, for some reason I cant be on for few days I get a nice surprice when I log on again.

I am obviously easily confused by illogical things, my only weakness. Like you say, a high cap, that boosters allow you to hit faster, seems to be a better system. Just what the CPM and I discussed tonight. Grind if you want, boost if you want.

The reason to offer this for the whole month is because many players purchased 30-day boosters on the expectation that this is how the game would work. Covering the month under this method ensures those players get what they paid for.

My personal view is this will really only help newer players anyways. The difference between 40 million SP and 60 million SP is minimal, if you invested your skill points wisely for the first 40 mil.

Reimburse them/us the boosters.
Easy.

No need to break the SP scale of playerbase because of this error.

I'm sorry... are you new? Have you not been here for the past year? The SP scale of the player base can't break because it's been broken.

I've been saying that with boosters getting 900-1200k a week in active would not be insane.

But for me having a 750k cap and then adding in the potential for triple omega's!?

Yeah it just seems soooooo problematic.

Fact:
The skill tree has been designed with SP costs in mind.

Fact:
There has been a steady model to control the maximum SP gain per week (cap+active booster+passive booster)


Neither of those are perfect (a matter of opinion)
but
Increasing the weekly (active) SP gain by a factor of ten from 380k to 3000k plus spikes would definately mess with the plan on skill tree (an another matter of opinion)

For the people wondering how Rattati could've not known this: Bear in mind there are closed beta veterans who still today, do not understand this. A lot of these systems were designed before this became Rattati's job. And during the hotfixes, Rattati's focus was game balance. He just now in 1.9 sunk his teeth into the booster system. It's understandable, especially when Rattati has a hard time understanding illogical things. ;)

Things have been skewed in favor of those "no-lifers" & "try-hards" since the beginning. All the cap does is ensure that "casuals" (or rather not "no-lifers" & "try-hards") progress at a slower pace than the "no-lifers" & "try-hards".

Oh no, how dare the game allow more progress to those that play more!

The original cap was voted on and passed by people who were used to seeing 20k+ SP per match, so no-lifing was a legit concern.

No one realized CCP was gonna hack 75% of match rewards off the top.