Nice solution, but there is some open questions:

1. Is this 1 week SP cap transferred to 2nd weeks cap if you don't hapen to play that much and reach 1st weeks cap, and to subsecuent week caps?

If it is then there is this thing where players would populate all 3 charachter slots to gain/farm that 'weekly SP' potential into a huge pool that they could use in latter date to speed level a char.

This also favours those players that have created their accounts/chars early, if one is of the opinion that this is a issue.

Also this favours those that have multiple PSN accounts and therefor could have multiple DUST accounts. This also leads to possible 'selling' of DUST accounts and chars that have forexample 10mil ' weekly SP pool' to burh through.


And in my opinion how one does in battle should affect how much one gets SP from that game.

The concept is simple (and has been used elsewhere).

1. CCP defines the max SP gain per week (sans AUR boosters) that they'd like to see.

2. At live launch a global counter begins which tracks total SP gains.

3. Game client checks current character SP against the global counter to determine SP cap.

This method creates a 'pool' effect allowing players to be rewarded for their efforts without constraining their play style/times, yet it still maintains proper skill progression in line with CCPs balance plans. Using a 'pool' will also solve the "Casual vs Hardcore" dilemma that CCP has stated they're trying to balance for. AUR boosters could maintain the same overall effect as CCP currently plans (+0.5x gains and cap)

The above addresses the cap on active skill gains. The anti-grind could be altered as follows.

Establish a minim SP gain per match equal to WP earned within that match.

Again a simple fix which keep play more rewarding and doesn't alter the current balance as the "minimum gain" is a mechanism within the anti grind not within the cap it will not afford anyone the ability to grind more SP, rather it will simply maintain a slightly more rewarding match by match experience when reaching the same point.


Ideas above are my first attempt at addressing the issues I've seen raised in the many skill point related threads. Feedback and constructive discussion are welcomed, trolling and/or one liners will likely be ignored.

Cheers,
Cross

I'm a fan of the idea that the gains are consistent and then go straight to zero once the cap is met as opposed to the current slow tapering down to zero.

@Deveshi and some others:
The OP didn't discuss whether or not SP Cap is needed or not, he compared different models and offered new one.
That's an another topic.


Initially it seemed that OP was just one of those forever rolling models, but after close thinking that's not the case.
It is actually an ok model.

but, OP, realize that hitting that daily absolute zero SP cap is like hitting a brick wall. Imagine for a while how it feels while playing...
Why not softer?

This is not a discussion about boosters but I'll go with it.
Are the boosters obsolete with the SP cap? Yes.. and no.
The short term boosters (1-3 days) would still come in handy for ppl who only have couple of days available to play and wanna catch up (read as: wanna use their accumulated SP pool).
The 7 days might be useful for ppl who have a hard week and only have 1-2h to play everyday.
The 30 days might be obsolete but I guess that might be just me not finding them a use YET.

so essentially its a con unless CCP explicity state the cap and its extent piror to you purchasing boosters.

Just have it similat to that example, but allow continous 7-day roll over. So that there isn't a fixed SP cap reset day.

---

Example1:

total 7-day SP cap pool= 0

Monday - 27k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 0
Tuesday - 27k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 0
Wednesday - 27k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 0
Thursday - 27k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 0
Friday - 27k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 0
Saturday - 27k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 0
Sunday 27k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 0

Monday - 27k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 0
Tuesday - 27k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 0
Wednesday - 27k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 0

---

Example 2:

total 7-day SP cap pool= 0

Monday - 10k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 17k
Tuesday - 0 -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 44k
Wednesday - 0 -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 71k
Thursday - 70k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 28k
Friday - 55k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 0
Saturday - 0 -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 27
Sunday - 0 -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 54k

Monday - 81k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 0
Tuesday - 27k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 0
Wednesday - 0 -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 27k

---

Example 3:

Monday - 0 -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 27k
Tuesday - 0 -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 54k
Wednesday - 0 -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 81k
Thursday - 0 -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 108k
Friday - 0 -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 135k
Saturday - 0 -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 162k
Sunday 0 -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 189k

Monday - 0 -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 189k
Tuesday - 0 -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 189k
Wednesday - 216k -- total 7-day SP cap pool= 0

---

This model has been suggested before in these forums.

edit:

Also one possible way that this could be enhaced would be to have AUR bought item that you could plug into your clone to have extended SP accrual pool and that item would be one time per buy use only. Once activated, item would be consumed. And by having it a in-game item would also mean that it would be buyable/sellable in secondary marcetplace for ISK.


You have 2week holiday coming IRL that you know tht you won't be able to play DUST. You would grind and hit your 7-day SP accrual cap, so that accrual pool is now 0 SP. Eccentiaaly you now can have 7days off of DUST, without 'loosing' potential SP.

• Lets say you buy 1x '7-day SP pool accrual extension licence' that costs X AUR.
• You plug it in to your clone and activate it.
• Now you have that initial 7-day pool + this bought 7-day extension pool totalling 14-days.
• After that 14-day holiday, you come back to DUST and have 14-day worth of SP to grind through.

Caveats to this:
There should be a limit on how many extensions can be used back-to-back, because without it, there would be a 'incactive' toons sitting on these extenders just to accumulate SP.

edit 2:
(Added here from my post below)
And for the argument of what about those players that come 6 moths later or 1 year later to game?

My opinion is though luck. And more to the point is this misconstruded opinion that one needs to 'catch up' in SP to the max levels to be competetive.

No they don't.

All you need is to have certain ammount of SP to level those critical skills that give +X% dmg, +XHP and weapon of choice proficiencie skill. These skills are 'core skills'.
After one has trained these up, it's all about ones versatility and adaptability to different situations in battlefield.

In other words, low SP charachters compete with spceialication. High SP charachters have versatility advantage in battle, but not advantage of superior gear. (Once one has leveled up those 'core skills')

Universal constant rolling cap > weekly rolling cap. Simple. Why CCP haven't done this already? No idea.

It's so bloody simple I can't understand why CCP haven't done it yet.

Actually semperfi, you'd never hit the cap. Because by the time you finish a game, there will be a few hundred more SPs added onto the ticker. So you play another game an more SP is added... So on and so forth. It's so bloody simple I can't understand why CCP haven't done it yet.