I came into dust thinking it was like battlefield but when I played my first game it got better! It brought back my memories of MAG! (R.I.P.) so I continued playing and loved it until.....it took me out of the training mission. Then I was thrown in with players that have 6 months plus put into the game. At first I thought I just wasn't used to the game and the aiming so I kept my chin up and pushed on. Now I am 3 weeks in and I know the maps and my aiming is tighter but ow I'm putting a rail rifle clip into an enemy's back to only have them 3 shot me. Pretty unbalanced if you ask me. Plenty of good mmo fps have a skill system but even a new player can do some damage and have fun. Oh and the constant spawn killing is rather annoying. There should be away to play with players only in my range of sp. in general the game has good concepts and fun gameplay but how very unbalanced it is, it realy breaks the game for new players. I realy really want to love this game but I just can't find a reason too. I'm not into wasting 6 months to get enough sp to be able to have some fun. Veterans I understands why you play this game....new players you should just turn around before your ahead unless you have months to use and don't mind gettin slapped around most of your gynnan

And your own ability keeps you from competing - not your gear. The balance this game has now compared to a year ago is vastly improved. FOTM isn't all dominating - only bad players think so.

What you say sounds eminently reasonable, but could easily presage a downhill slide to spoon-fed meaninglessness.

In a very real sense DUST, EVE, New Eden occupy a unique niche in gaming, where players are responsible for their own failure and success, where the playing field is not level and definitely not fair, where the uphill slog to viability/relevance will hurt. There are vanishingly few games like that on the market, a few in development that may or may not yield fruit.

Accessibility for all sounds like a fine ideal, but in this case it is poison disguised as medicine. In New Eden, players get left behind. Some peeps are not smart enough, tough enough, flat-out stubborn enough to survive here. If we want a game where personal decisions and abilities have meaning it is a price we have to pay. Remove that 'unfairness' and brutality from New Eden and you drive a stake through her heart, she would die literally overnight.

One last thing: Every player in this thread who is advocating for the hard core 'HTFU' game experience you see represented in these posts has posted on the quality/failings/necessity of the NPE in DUST. It's not that the NPE or player retention is unimportant, it's that that the commonly accepted industry cure(i.e. making the game softer, more accessible, etc.) destroys the primary value of this game and this virtual universe.

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As for Rattati's meta-tier proposal, i'm not sure, tbqh. I'd support a limited fixed-term trial of two months.

But i am sure of the primary price that we & New Eden will pay for meta-tiers: It breaks up the single shard, it limits the scope and meaning of our shared universe. If EVE is really a social engine that allows peeps to come together and create stories and history and collectively induct meaning into an arbitrary game ruleset, what then is DUST?

A lobby shooter where we sever the social connections and separate populations to protect players from the universe that they live in?

This no doubt sounds academic and romantic to some, but it isn't. The single shard is the primary reason it's so hard to quit DUST/EVE: it gives our actions meaning.

Would rather approach the NPE from a lore-based perspective: how would corporations run cheap everyday business contracts vs. elite bet-the-company contracts? How would this impact player gear and autonomy in suit choice? Maybe if a merc was willing to use the mass-produced company dropsuit(s)/gear they'd get them at a big discount, etc.

There's more that one way to skin this kitten ;)