Personally, I'm kind of torn on the subject. There are a lot of advantages in each design.

On my phone so will try to be quick. You bring up a great point: NPE. More specifically, the efficiency of educating new players---highlighting connections between this or that. I'd go a step farther to point out how awkward the graphic user interface was. Fonts were small. PG and CPU meters were unclear as to wtf they were and how they either affected loadouts or WERE AFFECTED BY loadouts and skill points. I think a combination of lack of education and generally poor interface design is where the weak link rests.

Fix those two elements, and I wonder if the understanding of PG/CPU becomes easier... as would many things, I imagine.

Is the idea of capacitor still floating around?

One way to balance is to reduce Cap when you fit Passive Equipment, less to use in battle for your Actives

From reading through the thread, it seems to me that some people are equating complexity with depth. I don't think that is necessarily true. Some of the best games, video and otherwise are fairly simple, yet still have depth.

My problem with complexity for complexity's sake is that the more moving parts there are, the more various interactions there are, the more room for glitches and potential abuses that can occur.

If there is a legit reason for having more complex parts, and they substantially add to the depth, fun, and strategy for the game, I am all for it. But merely having complexity for its own sake is just asking to revisit the worst parts of Dust; the brokenness, glitchiness, and imbalance that ruined an otherwise amazing game.

I prefer to think of myself as more of a super sticky yet strangely delicious cluster-web of frosting.

Tomato tomato though.

On to the thread at large, please don't tell me I just read class progression :/ How would that work with SP, or are you guys looking to drastically change / do away with SP?

I know I'm an ******* most of the time but even though I don't know any of you guys here personally, I'm really grateful for you all. Especially pillars like Pokey standing through our darkest hour, I come down hard and unreasonably sometimes but I'm glad you're around. I didn't spend much time there but my time with OSG was the best I've ever had in a group setting in a game before. Awesome group of people.

Damn I miss those days.

The thing is the concept of PG/CPU is well known. Both in Dust and in EVE. So I don't really know if it's that much of a time saver.
From my point of view it's more like starting from step x towards y vs starting from a scratch towards point y.

In both cases you need to balance all kinds of stuff. Going from 2 to 1 doesn't really mean cutting the work in half.

Autistic screeching, thank you kindly

Also are we back to any opinion that opposes CCPs logic is screeching? Good to see some things never change

Rat man doesnt like me much lol but I cant blame him. I welcome the hate if it draws him out of his hole for a few verses.

At the end of the day I just want the game to be good. Past experiences tell me I cant trust CCP to do it alone so if I have to yell at a wall to voice my opinion then you can just find me over at the GalLag facility hugging an MCC missile while i scream obscenities at it waiting for it to take off.

Pokey won me over. It does make sense that CPU/PG be made into 1 unit as there will no longer be 4 faction variants per class. With only 1 Scout, 1 Logi, 1 Assault, and 1 Sentinel in Nova, there is no need for such a division any longer.
That being said...