There are a large number of strategies to deploy when dealing with the opposition, no matter how overpowering they may seem. What' i'd like to see to help encourage gameplay without having long term players griefing new recruits would be:

• NPC Mission System based on standings that unlocks "higher level" agents with progressively higher paying missions & difficulty levels.
• Skill spikes that you can plug into your clones to give you a specific level of proficiency in a skill.
• Skill clusters that allow you to plug entire pieces of a skill into your clone so that you can pick up entire weapon proficiencies.
• Salvage drops based on your equipment (which is largely tied to your skill proficiencies).

The Mission system & salvage rewards would encourage higher geared/skilled players to avoid lower ranked missions. The skills pikes & clusters will give newer players a chance to complete on an even field with older players (by improving skills and unlocking better equipment) & longer standing players the ability to customize their skill sets even further.

Let's see...

SP is nothing but bullshit to keep you online playing just as they did for EVE because it takes you years to learn all those skills I know ive been on now for 6 years have 96 mill skill points and im maybe half way through its a good thing that i realy like EVE or i would of been gone at 2 mill. its just a gimmick by CCP and a good one at that so you stay on and they keep making money, but if you have a good enough game that they all can enjoy!!! they will stick around.

DUST IS NOT A TYPICAL FPS.

As infantry: USE COVER (I cant count the number of people i've killed because they were out in the open), STAY MOBILE (how many times will someone stand still and try to shoot me?) and FFS dont try to shoot a tank with an assault rifle unless you REALLY KNOW what you are doing! (Not that I mind the free kills ).

Learn about the equipment, play around with it, even if you do die horribly... a lot (I did, and I suck at console FPS). I can't stress this enough. Simply copying down some tools dropsuit fitting doesnt make you an expert at how that dropsuit works or "plays". You have to learn its weaknesses and strengths the hard way.

Do this and more and you will more than survive the dreaded "eve universe" learning curve.
http://themacgamer.com/wp-content/gallery/eve-online/eve_learningcurve.jpg

So I have been enjoying the beta, and I love the potential DUST has to be a great experience, but it currently has one big problem that will hold it back.

People who start playing Dust (lets say a month) after launch don't have even a small chance when going up against someone who had been playing since launch. And from my own personal experience, I am never turned off from a multiplayer game faster than when other players are destroying me solely based on their equipment. New players will feel helpless and then quickly turn away.

I am not saying a new player should be able to easily take down someone who has been playing for months, but they should have a fighting chance.

Of course, Dust being what it is, it will be really hard to make that balance.

In game development you have to manage Flow & Fiero to make sure that your players remain engaged in the game. The SP system is incredibly effective at managing this in a sandbox environment by allowing for gradual escalation of the player's power & the range of roles they can fill.

As an EVE player I'm sure you remember what it felt like to be able to fly your first "awesome" frigate. You probably remember what it felt like each time you scaled up a bit in power & saw the universe cower before you. It's going to be very similar with this. As you play, the gear you unlock doesn't make you a better player but does give you more chances for "wins" and makes you more formidable than you were before, which can be a win all by itself.

Matchmaking in a FPS MMO is bad, really bad!
It's the negation of sandbox elements altogether

Yeah bud i do remember it took me years to get in to different types of ships but I stuck around, The difference is that not all will wait, I tried to get my friends to join me in EVE but when they saw how long it takes to get into those ships none stayed! MY son lasted one year and said im done hes on xbox at least 5 to 7 hours a day with his friends and they wont put up with waiting to fit into anything thats the problem CCP is going to run into with DUST these console guys want it NOW not years from NOW.

Most of the responses that are in the forums now are from eve players, im waiting to here just from console players that have not played one day or even herd of eve to get there take, CCP maid this game to get them not us from EVE and by the way you should take a pole and see how many EVE players dont want this game to make it you may be shocked!

DUST won't have that bad a problem though.

MOST of the basic gear has a Militia version you'll be able to use immediately. You don't need to train into SMGs before the game lets you upgrade from the Pistol in the default loadouts.

Assuming you don't pour SP into things immediately, you can start out by finding yourself a niche - find something that, while your baseline stats might prevent you from being GOOD, you're doing slightly better in. Or at least something you ENJOY doing more than the other roles. By the time you've identified your best/most fun role, you SHOULD already have a few SPs to pile onto the relevant skills - and a small stockpile of ISK to pour into the next tier of gear. If you're not careful, you'll run through that new and pretty gear too fast, and have to save up for more - but that's one of the lessons of New Eden: Don't bring it if you can't afford to lose it. If this (relative) noob has read up on New Eden, or got good advice from a friend, they'll only bring their shiny new suits out to play when it's important - or at least profitable, and will stick to the Militia gear for the majority of most battles. By the time you can build up the necessary SP for the next tier of gear in your chosen profession, you'll probably also have saved up the ISK to buy it - exactly as it should be.

In the early stages of the game, upgrades will come to you quickly. It's only as you build up in a particular specialty that it becomes time-consuming. And that's how it SHOULD be, and what most shooters LACK. It's the reason most shooters only hold their fanbase for a year (if that) before everyone move on to the next big thing.

EDIT: I should also mention - console gamer for YEARS now, never played EVE, but I know a little about it.

So newcomers that come in looking for a MMO will have to play in a Matchmaking FPS (High-sec); do you really think this is fine?
This idea that the game has to babysit players into the action is so RPG and so anti FPS.
Holding players' hand in FPS is a mistake...a big one.
Separating players based on their SP is also bad in a FPS MMO; Why would anyone play a FPS MMO just to be stuck with a ranked FPS?

Needing in-game skills & unlocks to compete appropriately is something that won't be appealing to someone that has played FPS for decades.
Would you ask a Tekken veteran to unlock moves for his favourite character or he can't compete appropriately?

Some games like FPS & Fighting Games are based on player's skills and if you "limit" what a skilled player can do you inevitably negate their true essence.
What works for RPG doesn't work for FPS!
What works for EVE doesn't work for Dust 514.

Also are maps in Low/Null-sec perpetual battlefields?

DUST 514 has uber potential! BUT its definitely NOT a console game. There is already mass dis-interest in the game coming from console players. The writing is already on the wall so to speak. Thousands of beta keys have been GIVEN AWAY, yet there are only a small percentage (300-500 players at peak hours; from what i've witnessed) actually playing the game. I've put in a good amount of hours in the beta thus far, n i really can see the greatness that DUST 514 can achieve, but i'm afraid to say that it solely the console is the wrong place for it.

You are able to start in any suit, with almost any gun with loads of upgrades. The stuff you pay isk for isn't much better. It's the passive bonuses.
@ five times infinity.
You know that 6 million SP yeah? And you have crap shields and crap hp.

The gear isn't important due to cost and resources. They will become null sec only, like super caps.
I'm happy to see matchmaking, but it never works. Wait and see there.

I've been over the stats for SP in too many posts but essentially, 8-10 mil sp is over 100% more effective compared to someone with 300-1mil SP. 25%shield25%regen30%damage25%accuracy. 100% more effective in THE SAME SUIT. There are more skills which would help I cba to post here.

I AM NOT SAYING REMOVE THEM.
Just reduce the bonus. It's epic.
I'm asking this from the point of view of someone who got bored of gettin ezkills. And received hate mail because I'm OP lol.

@nukem
Yeah because the planet side 2 ALPHA doesn't look 10000 times better than the Dust Beta. Dust is fail on PC. The reason the console guys don't bother Playin is because it's pretty crappy at the moment. You can see potential. Others can see potential for epic fail. Just look around the forums. LoLDust on PC. LoL indeed.

Yeah bud i do remember it took me years to get in to different types of ships but I stuck around, The difference is that not all will wait, I tried to get my friends to join me in EVE but when they saw how long it takes to get into those ships none stayed! MY son lasted one year and said im done hes on xbox at least 5 to 7 hours a day with his friends and they wont put up with waiting to fit into anything thats the problem CCP is going to run into with DUST these console guys want it NOW not years from NOW.

Most of the responses that are in the forums now are from eve players, im waiting to here just from console players that have not played one day or even herd of eve to get there take, CCP maid this game to get them not us from EVE and by the way you should take a pole and see how many EVE players dont want this game to make it you may be shocked!

So newcomers that come in looking for a MMO will have to play in a Matchmaking FPS (High-sec); do you really think this is fine?
This idea that the game has to babysit players into the action is so RPG and so anti FPS.
Holding players' hand in FPS is a mistake...a big one.
Separating players based on their SP is also bad in a FPS MMO; Why would anyone play a FPS MMO just to be stuck with a ranked FPS?

Needing in-game skills & unlocks to compete appropriately is something that won't be appealing to someone that has played FPS for decades.
Would you ask a Tekken veteran to unlock moves for his favourite character or he can't compete appropriately?

Some games like FPS & Fighting Games are based on player's skills and if you "limit" what a skilled player can do you inevitably negate their true essence.
What works for RPG doesn't work for FPS!
What works for EVE doesn't work for Dust 514.

Also are maps in Low/Null-sec perpetual battlefields?

This "instant gratification" you speak of is the bane of every society. Teaching our children patience and working toward a long term goal can help alleviate this undesirable behaviour. There might be quite a few EVE players that don't want this game. There are also quite a few who do. Regardless, I doubt CCP is going to scrap the game. So you might as well accept reality and live with it.

I disagree totally with people saying this is not a console game. The writing is NOT "on the wall"! The game hasn't even gone live yet. SERIOUSLY?!? While I agree that the game could benifit from the added functionality that a true computer brings to the table, the PS3 is quite capable of handling what this game requires. Yes there have been thousands of keys handed out. And if you truly think about timezones and daily allowable play time in peoples schedules you would see that actually the total number of players has skyrocketed in the last 2 months (give or take). When I started beta you were lucky to see 100 people on any given server at any given time of day... Now you can regularly find 300-500 on some servers at any given time of the day.

It is true that there will be a certiain amount of "player" attrition that this game will go through. Every game does. And quite frankly (no offense to them) those people who drop out for one reason or another; all the more power to them. Those that stay will find themselves a part of the first game of its genre and one that every game developer will be trying to copy. (Look up other upcoming games and see how many are copying CCP's ideas on MMOFPS or cross-game/platrform interlinks. World of Tanks/Planes and Battleships anyone?) Good ol fashioned FPS are cool and all, but they grow stale quickly with the same gameplay over and over. And they are a dime a dozen... How many CoD's are there now? How many Medal of Honor's? Personally I'm willing to give CCP the benifit of the doubt and see where this game is going before I condemn it.

Those of you who really think this game is going nowhere, I wish you luck in your search for a better game.

P.S. No I'm not a "fanboy"... I'm just far less pessimistic than the rest of you.