Aegis Scientiafide
Planetary Response Organisation
Test Friends Please Ignore
1
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Posted - 2013.04.01 19:49:00 -
[1] - Quote
I think it's safe to say that as the game progresses the sp inequality between new players and vets will be problematic. The good news, however, is that after a certain point a specialized role simply cannot improve further sp-wise, since there's a finite number of skills. The way I see it, the main problem right now is that it simply takes way too long for a new player to max out a certain role.
I did the math, and it'd take approximately 20 million sp to completely max out my character's effectiveness as an HMG heavy. For the new player, that'd take anywhere from 33 weeks (for someone constantly hitting the cap while using boosters) to 100 weeks (for someone who hardly plays at all). I'd say the average player would probably take a year to max out his character's effectiveness in a certain role.
This will be a problem come 1 year down the road when new players are trying out the game. I'd imagine if most new players knew they'd have to wait anywhere from 8 months to 2 years to be on the same playing field as everyone else in an fps, most of them would quit.
My solution consists of a couple parts:
1) Increase the initial amount of sp and isk with which new players start the game. I'd say 1 million in each respectively sounds about right.
2) An improved tutorial system to help ensure new players don't do anything stupid with their sp.
3) Add a new player sp bonus until a certain amount of sp is reached. This bonus would increase all active and passive sp gained by a certain amount (as well as the cap). Active and passive boosters will still be able to stack on top of this bonus.
The good thing about the current sp system is that as skills are leveled, more sp is required for further levels (meaning the advantage gained per sp is diminished as a character improves); furthermore, there are clearly certain abilities that are much more helpful than others (extra ammo, for example, while good to have is not nearly as effective as extra damage or range). With this in mind, the new player bonus cap doesn't have to be as high as 20 million.
The numbers would of course have to be looked into, but I'd say a 10 million cap for the newbie bonus sounds reasonable. At 10 million sp, I believe players who wisely spends their points wont have too much of a disadvantage compared to those who have spent the 20 million to maximize their abilities. I'd put the newbie bonus at around a 100% sp increase for both passive and active sp. This would allow newbies to reach the 10 million sp cap anywhere from 10 to 25 weeks (depending on activity and whether or not they used boosters).
This system would allow new players to be competitive in their select roles without having to wait as long as an entire year, while still giving veterans an advantage and more options. |
Aegis Scientiafide
Planetary Response Organisation
13
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Posted - 2013.05.07 00:05:00 -
[2] - Quote
Upon hearing of the new uprising build that was coming out, I figured I'd let this go until I saw how CCP handled their skill tree. Upon seeing that there are now more skills per role, with higher overall sp costs to maximize these roles, and (worst of all) a higher sp level required to successfully play certain roles (like logis), I feel this suggestion is more important than ever (although certain figures may be outdated, the overall principles I feel are still true). |