Agreed that better tutorials + extending academy duration would help. But these will not narrow the TTK gap between high-end and low-end loadouts.

@ Ghost

Am I understanding correctly that your position is largely "everything NPE is fine" and that the only thing holding newbros back is a lack of training / FPS experience? If that's correct, we'll have to agree to disagree. I believe that the state of NPE can and should be improved upon.

Besides, if TTK is no big deal, then vets won't mind if/when theirs is tuned to more closely match that of newbros (or vice versa). Right?

PS: The answer to your question is that mobility plays a part in survivability.

That example though

Even when I left the academy on my alts/spy accounts I had no issues...That's why Dwater and Jenova and so many others of FA's a-team were able to still stand up to AE successfully despite having 3 mill...5 mill...7 mill sp. Running into PC matches vs the best in the game with advanced suits..

Agreed that better tutorials + extending academy duration would help. But these will not narrow the TTK gap which separates high-end loadouts from their low-end equivalents.

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.

Early career players can't afford to consistently run Advanced Gear. Do you expect they'd be able to afford Proto?

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.

You think the average pub pay is 400-500k, Ghost?

You think the average pub pay is 400-500k, Ghost? I typically make 200-250k when placing 1st in Ambush and 125-175k when placing in the top half. Is it more likely that a given noob will place in the top or bottom half of the leaderboard? What do you think the bottom half makes?

80 clone Ambush, 12-16 players/team, ~6 deaths per player per match on average.

At 40k-50k per advanced loadout, the average payout would need exceed 240-300k for the average merc to turn a profit. Pay rates halfway down the ambush leaderboard are no where near that.

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.

I almost responded to the one guy talking ish about how vets on new characters suck...lolol.

You put a vet in the academy when everyone is on 'equal footing' sp and gear wise and you will see persuasive demonstrations of the influence game knowledge and FPS skill has on your aptitude at dust.

Even when I left the academy on my alts/spy accounts I had no issues...That's why Dwater and Jenova and so many others of FA's a-team were able to still stand up to AE successfully despite having 3 mill...5 mill...7 mill sp. Running into PC matches vs the best in the game with advanced suits..

NPE will be influenced best IMO by adding avenues of integration for players in the community and intuitive improvements that allow players to grasp the larger concepts while baiting them to dig deeper in a way that isn't isn't cumbersome or overwhelming.

Give the kittens milk not meat, but make sure they know where the smokehouse is out back if they decide they want more.

Early career players can't afford to consistently run Advanced Gear. Do you expect they'd be able to afford Proto?

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.

A few months back, Rattati gave us some Efficiency Data to chew on. This data gives us everything we need to put a number on the "performance gap" between STD and PRO Gear:

Assault KDR
Average STD: 1.0175
Average PRO: 3.295
Difference: 323.83%

Logi KDR
Average STD: 0.8275
Average PRO: 2.115
Difference: 255.59%

Scout KDR
Average STD: 0.78
Average PRO: 2.09
Difference: 267.95%

Commando KDR
Average STD: 1.06
Average PRO: 3.65
Difference: 345.73%

Sentinel KDR
Average STD: 1.225
Average PRO: 2.515
Difference: 205.31%

I believe this to be a fair challenge to those who'd claim that there's no big difference between STD and PRO loadouts. Is the gap between ADV and PRO less substantial? Absolutely. But can early career mercs truly afford to routinely field ADV gear? I (for one) don't believe so.

Data by itself is nowhere near enough. You seem to be forgetting how Dust works.

No matter what you do, so long as higher tier gear is more expensive, lower KD/R's will ALWAYS gravitate towards the lower end of the spectrum, simply because of the fact that they die so much.

They can't afford to die 20+ times in Proto gear. They would soon be forced out of it due to costs. Same with advanced gear, all the way down to STD.

What about the high end? Players who are really good at the game will naturally gravitate towards the higher end of the spectrum. They can afford to run the higher tier gear due to how little they die, and people who are REALLY good can run it 24/7. There is no "ceiling" for these players. The ones that are good enough to crush 90% of the opposition they meet will almost always run proto gear, simply because they can.

Not only that, but most people LIKE the proto gear. It makes you feel powerful, it looks kick ass, and you feel like you can take on the world with it (Only to realize that a dren shotgun on a BPO suit can ruin your day for the lovely cost of two complex damps). Everyone remembers getting their first proto suit. You WANTED to take your toy out to play. The ones who can afford to run it 24/7 almost always do so, inflating the proto K/DR even higher.

Combining these two causes the phenomenon you see here. The bad players stick to STD because they can't afford to die over and over in higher tier gear, and the better players stick to ADV or higher because they can afford to run it.

Its the nature of EVE and this game. There will always be sharks and fish. Some people simply aren't good enough at FPS games to be sharks. EVE and Dust tackle this by giving you SUPPORT roles, such as the Scout and Logistics. With enough game knowledge, you don't have to slay people constantly to be a benefit. Running around as a scout, hacking points and killing uplinks and going 2/5, is FAR more beneficial than a guy going 6/20 trying to meat grind.

KDR isn't the answer to everything. You get ISK based off of WARPOINTS, not kills. You get more for WINNING, not losing.

P-T-F-O

And that's exactly why EVE introduced tiericide.

Dust will follow suit or its port will. I guarantee its not going to stay like this. It literally doesn't make sense in its current model.

You brought up great points about how vets like their proto and will run it simply because they can. But that doesn't mean the TTK gap should stay be so egregious, times will change eventually. But as for now I guess we just have to deal with it!

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