OK, been playing for an hour or so. First off, I'd like to declare that I am favourably inclined towards this game. I'm excited by the premise and the "serious" nature of the game's environment. My FPS experience is about 80% console (usual suspects!) and 20% PC (PlanetSide, Counter Strike, Day of Defeat). I like the idea of freeform character design, which reminds me of PlanetSide, and is an aspect of that game which I loved, and is missing from the FPS I have played more recently. The implementation I've seen so far for Dust is, however, in my opinion PC-centric and not inuitive or user-friendly for someone used to playing current generation console FPS.

I'm going to concentrate this feedback on my first impression of how character progression is managed. By this I mean the fitting screen and the bits of my HQ that allow me to advance my character's equipment and training.

While the unlock system looks very deep, the interface we have been given to manage it is not intuitive. By this I mean that I was drawn to the Fitting screen because I've seen the CCP vids that describe this, and I was expecting to find a central place where I could manage my character. What I found instead is that I need to work over 3 different screens to even begin to improve my loadouts. Let me explain this by describing how I have used the system so far:

First, I went to the Fitting screen to see what I have. I can see that I have an Assault Rifle, amongst other things.

So I keep dying to guys with bigger guns, and I'm thinking I want a bigger gun myself. How do I get a bigger gun? Click on the gun. I can bring up a list of Variations, but there seems to be nothing to tell me HOW or WHAT I need to do to get my hands on the assault rifle variations.

Second, because I know Dust wants to sell me these better rifles, I go to the Market. I can find guns, but I can't use them. I need to level up in some areas. I search and search in the Market, but I can't for love nor money find where I can get these higher skills. So I play some more with my basic kit. I can see I have SP and ISK and it's satisfying that they are going up (even when I lose - will this be in the final game? I like it very much!) but I'm still stuck with my basic kit.

Finally, (after anhour!) I hit on the Character Sheet, which is where the skill stuff is hidden away.

Now it comes together - but I have to go back to the Fitting screen to see what the gun was that I'm after. Then back to the Market to see what skills I need to get that bigger gun. Then to the character sheet to see how much those skills cost. I don't have enough skill points, so I play some more games. Back to the skill screen - ooh, got some more levels now, but not enough for my gun. Play some more. Back to skills screen. Now I've got the gun!

Now back to the Market to buy the gun.

Now to the fitting screen to put it on my dropsuit.

Now, trust me, my GF will tell you that I got very frustrated by this process. While I appreciate the depth of customisation the whole Skills/Equipment/Fitting will give me, the entry to the system is just too painful for words on a console. All I wanted was a better gun but it took me an hour to figure out how to get it. Obviously part of that lies on me, but I would not have the same problems with a system that was more integrated and just helped me a bit more.

The advice I would offer is that there needs to be just one place where I can see:
a) What I have
b) What I can get
c) Access the skills I need to level up and where I can go to buy those skills
d) Access the equipment I want to purchase.

(I think "the place" should be the Fitting screen because my console FPS experience took me there first!)

Without this, I think players with less intrinsic motivation to play the game will give up due to a lack of instruction. The current setup requires more mental agility than current gen console FPS and without either more explanation or an easier setup I just can't see younger players or less motivated players sticking with it.

I hope this feedback helps. I am excited to be in the Beta and look forward to giving more feedback.

Now, off to kill some more mercs!

So I keep dying to guys with bigger guns, and I'm thinking I want a bigger gun myself. How do I get a bigger gun? Click on the gun. I can bring up a list of Variations, but there seems to be nothing to tell me HOW or WHAT I need to do to get my hands on the assault rifle variations.

Second, because I know Dust wants to sell me these better rifles, I go to the Market. I can find guns, but I can't use them. I need to level up in some areas. I search and search in the Market, but I can't for love nor money find where I can get these higher skills. So I play some more with my basic kit. I can see I have SP and ISK and it's satisfying that they are going up (even when I lose - will this be in the final game? I like it very much!) but I'm still stuck with my basic kit.

Thanks guys. I'm slowly getting there!

Got a sub-machine gun now, feeling happier now I can jump over the heads of heavies and kill them (sometimes!)

Still, the whole skills/equipment/fitting thing needs to be combined so I can access all the things I need from one place. I'm spending more time looking at my certs and trying to understand what I need to do to achieve what I want than playing the game.

And while I understand that has its place, this is a console shooter, so it needs to work quicker and slicker for the console crowd, or am I missing something?

Has there been any Dev feedback on this topic, as I can see I'm not alone in this?

Thanks!

not sure about the unified assests etc and stuff here, but eve's fitting system can be just as bad, but we have tools like eft (eve fitting tool) where we can play with fits and then duplicate in game, then find a corp mate to kil... i mean "test our fittings on"

once the game goes full i strongly suggest maybe spending a few hours just looking thru the market, checking things out, look at skill progressions, etc. With eve, to be fully adept at that takes a couple of months, TONNES of skills and paths to go down. its one of the things that makes eve awesome.

Thanks for the feedback Fish. I've been spending time in the Market and looking at skills and will spend more time - there's a lot of depth to the skill trees, I can see that, and I like what I see.

My concern is not depth - it's accessibility.

My latest trauma was deciding to try and get a heavy machine gun, since I kept dying to those feckers!

It took like 10 mins of plowtering about in the menus to put together the skills and equipment. Then I still couldn't Fit a heavy machine gun. Why? Because I hadn't bought a heavy drop suit (that was another 5-10 mins). Duh, I know, but I've played many games and I'm just not used to character progression being so opaque!

I'm just saying that with this (poor) level of accessibility I can't see the less patient among the PS3 user base being encouraged to stick with this game. Things that other games have done to make life easier need to be applied here. I'm not going to start listing specific features, because I've seen where that leads to, but hopefully I can find some feedback somewhere that this issue has either:

a) been taken on board
or
b) has been stated to be a non-issue because only players willing to work through the pain (and therefore committed!) are required for this game to succeed.

Now, I will have a definitive test of this when my son comes to visit! I'm looking forward to what he says!

OK, been playing for an hour or so. First off, I'd like to declare that I am favourably inclined towards this game. I'm excited by the premise and the "serious" nature of the game's environment. My FPS experience is about 80% console (usual suspects!) and 20% PC (PlanetSide, Counter Strike, Day of Defeat). I like the idea of freeform character design, which reminds me of PlanetSide, and is an aspect of that game which I loved, and is missing from the FPS I have played more recently. The implementation I've seen so far for Dust is, however, in my opinion PC-centric and not inuitive or user-friendly for someone used to playing current generation console FPS.

I'm going to concentrate this feedback on my first impression of how character progression is managed. By this I mean the fitting screen and the bits of my HQ that allow me to advance my character's equipment and training.

While the unlock system looks very deep, the interface we have been given to manage it is not intuitive. By this I mean that I was drawn to the Fitting screen because I've seen the CCP vids that describe this, and I was expecting to find a central place where I could manage my character. What I found instead is that I need to work over 3 different screens to even begin to improve my loadouts. Let me explain this by describing how I have used the system so far:

First, I went to the Fitting screen to see what I have. I can see that I have an Assault Rifle, amongst other things.

So I keep dying to guys with bigger guns, and I'm thinking I want a bigger gun myself. How do I get a bigger gun? Click on the gun. I can bring up a list of Variations, but there seems to be nothing to tell me HOW or WHAT I need to do to get my hands on the assault rifle variations.

Second, because I know Dust wants to sell me these better rifles, I go to the Market. I can find guns, but I can't use them. I need to level up in some areas. I search and search in the Market, but I can't for love nor money find where I can get these higher skills. So I play some more with my basic kit. I can see I have SP and ISK and it's satisfying that they are going up (even when I lose - will this be in the final game? I like it very much!) but I'm still stuck with my basic kit.

Finally, (after anhour!) I hit on the Character Sheet, which is where the skill stuff is hidden away.

Now it comes together - but I have to go back to the Fitting screen to see what the gun was that I'm after. Then back to the Market to see what skills I need to get that bigger gun. Then to the character sheet to see how much those skills cost. I don't have enough skill points, so I play some more games. Back to the skill screen - ooh, got some more levels now, but not enough for my gun. Play some more. Back to skills screen. Now I've got the gun!

Now back to the Market to buy the gun.

Now to the fitting screen to put it on my dropsuit.

Now, trust me, my GF will tell you that I got very frustrated by this process. While I appreciate the depth of customisation the whole Skills/Equipment/Fitting will give me, the entry to the system is just too painful for words on a console. All I wanted was a better gun but it took me an hour to figure out how to get it. Obviously part of that lies on me, but I would not have the same problems with a system that was more integrated and just helped me a bit more.

The advice I would offer is that there needs to be just one place where I can see:
a) What I have
b) What I can get
c) Access the skills I need to level up and where I can go to buy those skills
d) Access the equipment I want to purchase.

(I think "the place" should be the Fitting screen because my console FPS experience took me there first!)

Without this, I think players with less intrinsic motivation to play the game will give up due to a lack of instruction. The current setup requires more mental agility than current gen console FPS and without either more explanation or an easier setup I just can't see younger players or less motivated players sticking with it.

I hope this feedback helps. I am excited to be in the Beta and look forward to giving more feedback.

Now, off to kill some more mercs!

Agreed. I wouldn't mind this if there was just a button in the marketplace that when looking at the prerequisites, just allowed me to purchase it straight from there. Easy, without needing to manage 3 screens, and memorize everything.

Now it comes together - but I have to go back to the Fitting screen to see what the gun was that I'm after. Then back to the Market to see what skills I need to get that bigger gun. Then to the character sheet to see how much those skills cost. I don't have enough skill points, so I play some more games. Back to the skill screen - ooh, got some more levels now, but not enough for my gun. Play some more. Back to skills screen. Now I've got the gun!

Now back to the Market to buy the gun.

Now to the fitting screen to put it on my dropsuit.