A lot of veterans went through what the new players are going through now*. We got repeatedly curb stomped in matches and eventually clawed our way to where we are today. Some veterans feel that this is almost a rite of passage at this point.

Honestly, a new player can do things for their team. Usually it involves sticking close to other blueberries, providing fire support, nanohives and other useful equipment. So no, they don't get to Rambo Jihad themselves at the enemy, but saying that their ONLY option is to leave battle... that is silly talk.

*: Mind you, we didn't have dropsuit slot progression flattened, a warbarge to pump out free SP/ISK every single day, and daily missions to provide free gear/ISK/SP just for playing

I tried this a long ass time ago. The vet mentality is perfectly seen here almost 3 years ago. Zero f*ks given still to this day. Now it has come to a boiling point where people do not even stay in games anymore.
...
post

Coordination and actual skill High HP & High-End Gear > SP.

:: snip ::
RANT INCOMING
:: snip ::

Actually, better tutorials, and extending the academy would fix basically everything wrong with NPE. Including TTK. Think about it, if you're in the academy until you get roughly around 5 million SP that means you can come out with proto gear assuming you're not a complete moron. At that point, kicking you into the main game would be fine because the TTK gap would be close to non-existent.

BS.

I get around 400-500k from missions these days. You get a warbarge for another 120k free ISK, and you can easily pull 200k+ from a match.

At 50k a suit, that gives you ~520k to start with, and 200k per match.

If a newbie wants to play 5 matches, that gives him 1.52 Mil ISK to blow (And this is the LOW estimate. That's enough for 30 suits.

That's 6 deaths a match in full ADV gear.

For anyone doing decent, that's more than enough.

1. Making ISK today is easier than it was back when I started. The payouts are higher, and the Warbarge didn't exist to give me free ISK every day. I was still able to consistently make money by simply farming ambush. Remember, I started when all of the vets had proto gear already, and there was massive tank stomping by NS. The secret to this is called avoidance. You can get a massive advantage with a sniper, or a scout suit.

2. Also, during this event I ran at least half of my matches in an ADV suit with two ADV flaylocks. Yes, two flaylocks. My most used suit costs under 50K I managed to make 10mil ISK during the event despite everyone kill hoarding. I consistently place in the top 5 on my team.

3. Oh, and think about how long it takes to make 5 million SP. Let's suppose that you make a little over a million a week. (That's highballing by the way, especially for new players who are likely to barely make half of that). That means you have a roughly a whole month in the academy to farm ISK running militia, and basic gear. If you haven't managed to get enough money to run ADV or Proto when you get to the real game then there really isn't any helping you.

1.) Why are you playing ambush in anything but free suits?

2.) Read 1 again

Seriously, its a horrible game mode. You will get farmed, or do the farming.

Play skirmish if you actually want to make ISK using normal suits. The 150 clones + larger maps mean that you will typically live longer and more clones in total will be killed for each side. This gives you more ISK overall, and a higher WP average if you PTFO.

Hell, I played one match as an assault with a needle. ADV needle with a defend order gives in the ballpark of 80 WP IIRC. It's 108 if you use a proto needle.

And you're forgetting once again salvage, missions, and warbarge.

There is SO much ISK you can get from various sources, even going a little bit negative from time to time in match you can still pull a net positive.

At this point all we can do is willingly die for the newbros or mentor them. It's not up to us to change the NPE. It's up to CCP.

:: snip ::

In all honesty, half the power of PRO comes from mentality.

You clearly didn't even read what Z wrote.

You deserve a golf clapand a padded helmet.

You know Ghost started a thread calling for increased starting skills for new bros right?

Of course you didn't, because like Z pointed out, you take anything that isn't complete agreement as complete disagreement.

Congrats on not being helpful at all, keep it up.

You ignore the core of the argument and cherry pick what you want to discredit.

I've seen kids in my Speech 101 class do better than this, and half of them are unprepared and terrified.

That post was entirely dedicated to showing how the data you presented as proof was skewed by in game mechanics.

Not just trying to give new bros a "Pep talk"

The moment someone disagrees with you, you blot out everything else they've ever said/done, and focus on a small part that you disagree with.

That's horrendous arguing.

I'll say it again, so people can't try to twist my words.

Proto Suits aren't the problem.
High SP isn't the problem.

Proto Suits + High SP + Skill / Game knowledege against the lower end of the spectrum is the problem.

At the end of the day, the BEST way to improve your overall performance is to learn how to play the game better. SP and Gear will easily come with time once you figure out how to stop throwing your clone away and actually DO something.

Don't put words in my mouth. The STD-PRO gap is definite, the ADV-PRO gap is small.

LOL, this thread! It's a damn trainwreck!
Everyone is arguing semantics, seemingly deliberately avoiding the topic to mince words and bicker for the sake of bickering rather than staying true to the spirit of the OP. It's mind-blowing. It's like half of you are in a freshman level Intro to PSYCH class, and you just reached the reference to logic all eager to show off your "knowledge" of this or that but all without actually getting it. It's on the same level as those kids happy to invalidate someone's post because of punctuation!

You're not an idiot, you can read between the lines, lol. Then again, the pettiness of some of these comments, perhaps I spoke too soon?

...for what it's worth.

ELO based matchmaking. Sadly, requires a higher playerbase to truly be effective. Which is why we get a mockery of it with MU.

How about we gather data on the prevalence of each suit? Or the variance in an average match in sp and gear ran? What if we tried to ascertain if there's a general consensus at which players become isk efficient...and whether that isk efficiency allows them to run proto and advanced with regularity or whether invariably they are reduced back to militia suits?

There's **** tons of ideas I'm sure could be conceived that would prove useful in drawing healthy and reasoned conclusions.

I think something to remember is that yes, vets had it rough. Lots of game breaking bugs, badly implemented features and rough characters did not make growing up in Dust easy.

But the game is dying and I don't think now is the time to hold rites of passage so dearly. Era of the newbro, while seemingly unfair to some, might be the only thing left to do with this game. Last influx of cash from new players to thrust us into #PortDust514Now....

This is the rabble people make to convince others that whatever paltry 'evidence' justifies their heavy handed solutions is enough.


* There's an insignificant power gap between ADV and PRO. Let's stop pretending there's more there and stop wasting time trying to suggest that 99% of the playerbase play in militia **** fits vs vets in officer gear.


I could go on but I tire of rebuttling "shoddy gobang's" like the one I posed above.

When there's more data to be digested or conversations more worthy than the mostly inept facade being propogated in comments like these, I'm sure I'll get pinged.

* There's a significant power gap between STD and PRO. Let's stop pretending it isn't there and stop wasting time trying to measure it. Instead, let's focus on finding ways to narrow it.

* Newbros can't afford ADV gear. Let's tweak pub pay, implement underdog bonuses, etc. It is better we pay them too much than leave them in the redline or lose them for good.

* Newbros need more initial training. Let's give them more SP upfront, extend the Academy duration and give them a respec on graduation. Why not?

* Newbros need tutorials. Let's build simple tutorials into Achievements 1.0. "Complete X task, Y times, and get Z rewards. Here's how to do X."

* Newbros need mentors. On arrival, let's systematically put them in touch with D-UNI, The Learning Coalition, etc via NPC mail or chat channel or whatever. Or perhaps even add a mentor section in squad finder and devise a simple system which rewards trainer/trainee participation.

* The power and wealth gaps which separate vets from newbros is too wide. Let's come up with creative, performance-driven means by which to narrow it. Example.

... and focus on a rock solid roadmap for our newbros.

Tier lock solves the officer gank fit problem. Was like a week long process to get people off meta, and onto tier....