CCP Rattati wrote:4)I have the drive to do better which motivates me. Dust is no different.
The difference between all those other shooters and Dust is the power-based progression.
The only learning curve in Dust 514 is:
Accepting that you will lose the vast majority of the time in a solo environment. Accepting that you will often lose when pit up against coordinated squads in Public Matchmaking.
Understanding Dust as a whole does not take that much effort. Coming to terms with the fact that you will lose for reasons beyond your control (power differences) is a whole other beast entirely. They can see you before you know they're there. They can move faster than you, they can fire more accurately than you, they can do more damage than you, they can reload faster than you, they can jump higher than you... this is what Dust is for a new player.
You could theoretically be the best FPS player in the world, but you get dropped into Dust 514 and you will get beaten senseless even if your positioning is superb and your situational awareness is spot on. Being able to glance at a guy and know that "There is no way in hell I can take him on in a 1v1 or even a 1v3 scenario" is why this game has been (and always will be) fundamentally broken.
It isn't like other shooters. Player skill is secondary to having an optimized fitting or a squad to carry you. You can only do so much as an individual, and all it takes is TWO PEOPLE being in a coordinated party to control an entire 16v16 situation.
Another part of the flaw of Dust 514 is the fact that the development team is full of sadists and masochists that get off on suffering. It took what.... years... for tiericide to happen and even now the gaps in power are more than enough to make new players miserable and to create unbelievable differences in potential based on the limitations of fittings and/or numbers difference.
I'm awful at console first person shooters, but there are people I walk all over because my innate stats dominate theirs. There is no such thing as "handicap" in Dust. It's choosing to increase your suffering for some misguided idea of respect. You don't get "better" at the game by decreasing the power of your fitting, you learn to play the game a different way. In that sense, you ARE playing a different game.
You learn to play as a vulture. Picking and choosing each and every engagement and focusing on the weak or overpowered players. Sounds great in theory, but in practice it's a test on sanity. Boring at the best of times, frustrating at the worst. You're taking advantage of the work of others to compensate for your lack of versatility and output. Who wants to wait for other people to do the work so they can steal the score? Not a lot of people with their head screwed on straight, that's for sure.