How can we define progress in the game Dust 514? Is it more kills? More war points? More butthurt? More hatemail?
But is it really progress to gain 3 kills, lose one less suit and spend 4 times the ISK? I dont think so.

After some consideration I think "To be a more effective player while at the same time minimizing the cost of your loadout" would be the best way to define progress. Just because my Viziam laser does a bit more damage than my Elm-7 doesn't always justify the price jump from the Elm to the Viziam. Instead of paying 50k for the Viziam, it would be much more progressive for me to simply slap on a damage mod and skill into proficiency, ammo capacity and rapid reload. Then I'll only pay 50k for the entire fit. I might lower my K/D for the match by a hair or two, but with a little effort I can achieve the same results for much less ISK.

The cavemen who figure out how to kill two mammoths instead of one have made real progress. But the cavemen who drive a herd of mammoths off a cliff and partake in a feast haven't made any progress at all. In fact they've eviscerated the mammoth population, eaten very well for a few days and are now left with a bunch of spoiled meat and no more mammoths to hunt.

I've noticed a very concerning mindset amongst some Dust players, they want to drive the herd off the cliff and eat well for a day.
But at the end of the match they've lost more ISK from dying in just 1 suit than they've gained. That's not progress. That's fiscal irresponsibility. 15/1 in an ambush is great. But if you lost 600k isk from that one death and only made 200k from the battle you haven't progressed at all. Instead you could've gone 15/5 (still an excellent K/D in any battle) only lost 150k and made 200k by running a well-tuned basic or advanced fit, investing a little sp into prof, ammo cap, and rapid reload, and trying a little harder.

I'm not saying you should never run proto. Everyone loves a good proto suit. I'm simply saying that instead of being on the edge of your seat to finally get LVL5 Rail Rifle Skill because you can then buy a Kaalakiota. You should be on the edge of your seat for the 25% recoil reduction on your advanced Rail.

Just some food for thought, hope some of you are hungry and none of you are starving. Have fun out there and don't go broke doing it. o/

How can we define progress in the game Dust 514? Is it more kills? More war points? More butthurt? More hatemail?
But is it really progress to gain 3 kills, lose one less suit and spend 4 times the ISK? I dont think so.

After some consideration I think "To be a more effective player while at the same time minimizing the cost of your loadout" would be the best way to define progress. Just because my Viziam laser does a bit more damage than my Elm-7 doesn't always justify the price jump from the Elm to the Viziam. Instead of paying 50k for the Viziam, it would be much more progressive for me to simply slap on a damage mod and skill into proficiency, ammo capacity and rapid reload. Then I'll only pay 50k for the entire fit. I might lower my K/D for the match by a hair or two, but with a little effort I can achieve the same results for much less ISK.

The cavemen who figure out how to kill two mammoths instead of one have made real progress. But the cavemen who drive a herd of mammoths off a cliff and partake in a feast haven't made any progress at all. In fact they've eviscerated the mammoth population, eaten very well for a few days and are now left with a bunch of spoiled meat and no more mammoths to hunt.

I've noticed a very concerning mindset amongst some Dust players, they want to drive the herd off the cliff and eat well for a day.
But at the end of the match they've lost more ISK from dying in just 1 suit than they've gained. That's not progress. That's fiscal irresponsibility. 15/1 in an ambush is great. But if you lost 600k isk from that one death and only made 200k from the battle you haven't progressed at all. Instead you could've gone 15/5 (still an excellent K/D in any battle) only lost 150k and made 200k by running a well-tuned basic or advanced fit, investing a little sp into prof, ammo cap, and rapid reload, and trying a little harder.

I'm not saying you should never run proto. Everyone loves a good proto suit. I'm simply saying that instead of being on the edge of your seat to finally get LVL5 Rail Rifle Skill because you can then buy a Kaalakiota. You should be on the edge of your seat for the 25% recoil reduction on your advanced Rail.

Just some food for thought, hope some of you are hungry and none of you are starving. Have fun out there and don't go broke doing it. o/

Woah a 600k suit? How'd you fit that? At the start of the game I'd agree but now people are realizing dust won't be porting so they blow through everything they have..even if there is a port the isk won't come with us..no worries I'll hold onto my 700m and all the officer gear till CCP takes it away from me for a port

There has been a long list of people whom I have seen on these forums advocating ISK efficiency as the go to stat for Dust rather than K/D, WP etc etc. There have even been a couple of interesting game modes suggested that are based entirely on the idea of not losing money rather than getting kills.

Little has been heard of them recently though. Personally I like the idea of ISK being as important a factor and SP etc as to what it is possible and feasible to run in a game. Unfortunately the economy is so out of whack with far too high a percentage of people sitting on basically infinite ISK that any 'balancing' around it is virtually impossible.

For me, in an ideal world, the risk of pulling out proto in pubs would be balanced around the ISK cost. If, in a match, it was just you who pulled out the proto suits against standard gear, and you lost, boom, prohibitively ISK negative. You gambled and you lost the gamble. If however someone on the opposition pulls out proto too, and then someone else on your team decides to throw down as well, and so on and so forth there should be a point at which the battle payout becomes more than profitable as the majority of the players start to repeatedly run proto/officer whatever.

One or two guys running around in a proto suit however should not be doing well on the ISK efficiency scale if they're just farming Std/Militia gear.

Like I say though I don't think this'll ever really happen, but some form of ISK stat would still be nice, and obviously I say this all as a filthy casual without a proto suit of my own to use and abuse as I see fit.

Proto suit with an officer weapon is easily 600k.

A good guide to skills. Don't skill suits or weapons to level 5 until you've skilled into your upgrades, as the isk cost isn't worth it to run.

Nubs. Sorry for the insult but true good players run around in basic and militia gear with a positive Kill to death ratio. 7 of 10 matches that I run are in BPOs and adv gear because prototype gear is like turning on easy mode and stomping the new or low skilled players. The players that scare me are the ones that get over 15 kills in a militia suit with an adv. gun with 2k WP.

Thing is, I can drop 50kills in an apex suit... But why would I run apex when I have 1billion isk?

Commandos love standard weapons

U can't be serious, proto is not easy mode, yes it makes killing specific suits easier but it also makes you there prime target as everyone wants to break your streak or just wants u dead.

Now I'm not saying going 20+ in a basic suit is bad but your seriously scared of the 12-18 kills basic guy rather than the 40-50+ proto guy

Because they don't have enough fitting space to fit anything else, especially the Amarr Commando from what I've heard.

Thing is, I can drop 50kills in an apex suit... But why would I run apex when I have 1billion isk?

Thing is, I can drop 50kills in an apex suit... But why would I run apex when I have 1billion isk?