Salutations, Yummy. Mina's post reveals a truth: This game has take strides to give new players a "softer" first-impression of Dust combat, before they get trampled by the smarter players 2 weeks laterGǪ. instead of what the game USED TO do, which was hit new players with the brutality on their very first day of trying Dust.
I actually preferred what Dust used to do to us. I preferred facing the brutality right away, and not being cuddled or protected so much.
The "brutal" truth is that Dust supposed to be played using 80% tactics, and not tried so much using 80% weapon-upgradingGǪbut it was decided not to "force" players to learn that truth. Tactics aren't BS in this fps.
Using the cover of random objects on the map to protect me instead of wasting more ISK and SP on extra dropsuit armour.
Using the company of random fellow players near me to increase my firepower and triple my assisted-kills per match---and then sending one of those random players a mail thanking him for "helping me defend Objective B in that last match".
Deliberately removing the small turrets from my dropships, in order to encourage fellow players to get out and go do infantry stuff when I transport them to a landing zone.
Deliberately shooting at a enemy heavy with my underpowered gun ONLY because I saw fellow players nearby who can finish him off, thus helping me eliminate him from the area.
Choosing NOT to plant an uplink here and make lots of WP, because I see another player already planted one here, and deciding it isn't worth cluttering the map with overlapping spawn points, just to make money off of spawning.
Studying the red team's clone-count on the overhead map before my 9th respawn, and deciding to continue re-uplinking the Null cannon area because the red team still has enough reserves to mount a counterattack before the end of their MCC.
Choosing to abandon my squad defending the Null, and instead jump on a hilltop Railgun installation and harass a convoy of enemy HAVs that I saw forming on the far side of the map. Taking pot shots at the HAVs, with no chance of destroying one or getting any kills/wp for myself. Just delaying and confusing them so they can't near the Null cannon during the whole match.
These are all strategies and tactics I have used constantly in my gameplay, to win 8 out of every 10 of my matches (...
err, wellGǪokay, more like 7 out of 10
). And half of these tactics enable me to score kills or kill-assists far more frequently than what more ehp on my suit or upgraded weapon or perfected strafing/moonhopping could do for me.
But NONE of the above tactics/strategies is 'tutorial-ed', or even suggested, for new players to practice in Battle Academy. With "Daily Missions" and "Matchmaing" and greatly-expanded Starter Suit types, we HAVE enouugh tools that can be tailored to "teach" gameplay methods to players, but they only recently got those tools up and running.
It's unfortunate that what's deemed "Battle Academy" is actually only a WP Threshold, and not an actual tutorial or teaching menu.
It's a shame that the WP threshold is so low stillGǪ It was more than 25,000 WP when I joined Dust, and the vast reductions/re-adjustments to lower numbers was from the insistence of players who were I guess eager to unlock all the match-types.
Well-meaning CCP listens extensively to you, tries to accommodate the requests for changes you players shout for,GǪ and THAT is flawed (I'm sorry, I have to say it).
It always sounds good to listen to your audience and make their interactive input part of your production,GǪ but which parts of the input do you know to say "NO" to, when your audience is mostly uneducated about the concepts you're trying to achieve or don't even agree with those concepts? I don't know...