DUST Search - Minimum Starting SP

Parson Atreides wrote:

Mithridates VI wrote:

I feel like this would set a precedent we don't want to set.

Two years down the track do we give everyone ten million SP to start with and let them max out an entire specialisation on their first day?

I hate to call slippery slope but Sp difference is always going to be an issue until the new players maxes their first specialisation.

I hesitate to say "no" to 10 million SP because A) I don't know where this game will be or what the skill tree will look like in 2 years and B) by then, people could have most of the weapons maxed and can use whatever weapon is best suited for the situation, so maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to let new players specialize in one weapon and suit right off the bat.

That being said, there's a minimum threshold where you simply won't be competitive against people with better suits and weapons because they're so far ahead of you. With 500,000 SP, your first matches (the very first impression of the game) are going to be constant deaths, which is going put a lot of people off. That's going to be the case just because they're learning the game, but if some extra SP helps to shorten that time considerably, I see no reason not to do it.

I'm not sure we'd ever really need to go above 3 million or so SP (and that would be pretty far down the line) because once you get that, you can have a proto weapon, advanced suit, and proto shield or armor modules, which makes you competitive with anyone of your same skill level, even if they're using better gear.

If I had more information about FW which is supposed to pull a lot of higher-tier players out of Instant Battles, then I might be less inclined to push for a higher starting SP, but they haven't shown me why anyone should play exclusively FW yet.

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Parson Atreides Ahrendee Mercenaries 232	Posted - 2013.04.29 00:03:00 - [1] - Quote With the release of Dust, we're going to have another influx of new players. If we want them to stay, then they need to have fun and pleasant experiences, for the most part. When some players are going to have 11+ million SP and a majority of the active player-base with 4-6+ million, newcomers are going to have a very difficult time trying to be competitive. To help alleviate this, I suggest giving every new merc 1.5 million starting SP as opposed to the paltry 500,000 they get now. This accomplishes two main tasks: 1. It lets newer players get enough gear to skill up to a decent suit, a decent weapon, and decent shields or armor modules. It gives them a fighting chance against people with those 5 million skill points. 2. It gets them more involved in their character and gives them a feeling of power right away. The sheer amount of skills and customization in this game is daunting to a new player; they'll want to have access to enough SP in the beginning to feel like they can at least start to scratch the surface. 500,000 just isn't enough to do anything, especially considering about 200,000 or so of that is already spent for you. Every merc currently under 1.5 million SP would be bumped up to that number as well.
Mithridates VI IMPSwarm Negative-Feedback 1039	Posted - 2013.04.29 00:09:00 - [2] - Quote I feel like this would set a precedent we don't want to set. Two years down the track do we give everyone ten million SP to start with and let them max out an entire specialisation on their first day? I hate to call slippery slope but Sp difference is always going to be an issue until the new players maxes their first specialisation.
Godin Thekiller Ghost Wolf Industries 43	Posted - 2013.04.29 00:18:00 - [3] - Quote This makes no sense to me, so let me ask you if I read that right, " Noobs have trouble against vets, so to nerf the vets, give the noobs a extra million SP to start out with so they can get a suit, some decent weapons, and pretty high on the core skills day 1." If so, forget it. Noobs are supposed to feel like noobs at their beginnings in New Eden. Sorry, but no. Peace, Godin
Parson Atreides Ahrendee Mercenaries 232	Posted - 2013.04.29 00:23:00 - [4] - Quote Mithridates VI wrote: I feel like this would set a precedent we don't want to set. Two years down the track do we give everyone ten million SP to start with and let them max out an entire specialisation on their first day? I hate to call slippery slope but Sp difference is always going to be an issue until the new players maxes their first specialisation. I hesitate to say "no" to 10 million SP because A) I don't know where this game will be or what the skill tree will look like in 2 years and B) by then, people could have most of the weapons maxed and can use whatever weapon is best suited for the situation, so maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to let new players specialize in one weapon and suit right off the bat. That being said, there's a minimum threshold where you simply won't be competitive against people with better suits and weapons because they're so far ahead of you. With 500,000 SP, your first matches (the very first impression of the game) are going to be constant deaths, which is going put a lot of people off. That's going to be the case just because they're learning the game, but if some extra SP helps to shorten that time considerably, I see no reason not to do it. I'm not sure we'd ever really need to go above 3 million or so SP (and that would be pretty far down the line) because once you get that, you can have a proto weapon, advanced suit, and proto shield or armor modules, which makes you competitive with anyone of your same skill level, even if they're using better gear. If I had more information about FW which is supposed to pull a lot of higher-tier players out of Instant Battles, then I might be less inclined to push for a higher starting SP, but they haven't shown me why anyone should play exclusively FW yet.
Parson Atreides Ahrendee Mercenaries 232	Posted - 2013.04.29 00:27:00 - [5] - Quote Godin Thekiller wrote: This makes no sense to me, so let me ask you if I read that right, " Noobs have trouble against vets, so to nerf the vets, give the noobs a extra million SP to start out with so they can get a suit, some decent weapons, and pretty high on the core skills day 1." If so, forget it. Noobs are supposed to feel like noobs at their beginnings in New Eden. Sorry, but no. Peace, Godin It isn't really "nerfing" the vets. You're still going to have higher shield control, field mechanics, better suits, weapons, more possibilities within each situation, etc so it isn't as if all of a sudden noobs are going to be wrecking you (unless you're bad, in which case they should be). This isn't EVE where you can avoid people just be doing other things until you skill up enough to at least be competitive. In Dust your only option is PvP and therefore it's going to frustrate and alienate a lot of new players and potential patrons.
Godin Thekiller Ghost Wolf Industries 43	Posted - 2013.04.29 00:29:00 - [6] - Quote once FW and PVE is fully released, and a incursion like gamemode is put in, I will never, EVER touch instant battles, EVER.
Parson Atreides Ahrendee Mercenaries 232	Posted - 2013.04.29 00:31:00 - [7] - Quote Godin Thekiller wrote: once FW and PVE is fully released, and a incursion like gamemode is put in, I will never, EVER touch instant battles, EVER. You're one person. Also, the game is releasing in 2 weeks and PvE isn't coming until at least the build after Uprising. A game only gets one chance at launching and that's when the biggest influx of new players will be and thus Dust's best chance to capture their interest.
Godin Thekiller Ghost Wolf Industries 43	Posted - 2013.04.29 00:37:00 - [8] - Quote My entire alliance thinks this as well. We'll be too busy doing this to bother. Only the scrubs will stay in instant battles. Peace, Godin
Charlotte O'Dell Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz Noir. Mercenary Group 176	Posted - 2013.04.29 01:39:00 - [9] - Quote +1. It's enough to get a type II and a gek which is a decent enough fit not to get 0/11 in ur avg pub.
0 Try Harder Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz Noir. Mercenary Group 279	Posted - 2013.04.29 01:59:00 - [10] - Quote I agree too. 1) We need new players 2) We need them to skill up faster So I'd even give them the 3x SP we are getting this week until they hit maybe 5 or 10mil SP for now, and possibly increase this further down the road. I guess the game is fine for pub-match-only scrubs, but the guys who do corp battles want to play against someone who can put up a fight, and not have to go pub stomping in corp battles too.

Draco Cerberus Hellstorm Inc League of Infamy 30	Posted - 2013.04.29 02:10:00 - [11] - Quote I agree the 500,000 sp seems small but I propose rather than give them more sp to start with, give a new merc a Noob Booster that earns them 2x SP for every battle fought and lasts for 2 weeks. This would allow them to gain SP quickly and also allow them to familiarize themselves with the skill tree before blowing their first 1.5mil SP on random stuff before they know what it does. If you were to throw a new merc who has never played this game before into a match against other new mercs then they would be fairly competitive against each other. It would be like sending two equal stature competitors in an arena to see who is the better one. This is not a game where everyone is at the same SP level, nor should it be. Those who have put in the time and effort deserve the advantages they have earned.
Godin Thekiller Ghost Wolf Industries 45	Posted - 2013.04.29 02:42:00 - [12] - Quote Draco Cerberus wrote: I agree the 500,000 sp seems small but I propose rather than give them more sp to start with, give a new merc a Noob Booster that earns them 2x SP for every battle fought and lasts for 2 weeks. This would allow them to gain SP quickly and also allow them to familiarize themselves with the skill tree before blowing their first 1.5mil SP on random stuff before they know what it does. If you were to throw a new merc who has never played this game before into a match against other new mercs then they would be fairly competitive against each other. It would be like sending two equal stature competitors in an arena to see who is the better one. This is not a game where everyone is at the same SP level, nor should it be. Those who have put in the time and effort deserve the advantages they have earned. People would just make alts and sell/trade them.
0 Try Harder Pink Fluffy Bounty Hunterz Noir. Mercenary Group 279	Posted - 2013.04.29 03:05:00 - [13] - Quote Godin Thekiller wrote: People would just make alts and sell/trade them. I don't think he was serious :3 Just some other guy who doesn't like the idea. He feels that vets need some advantage over new players, and should have that advantage for the entire life of the game just because he played since the start, and that is something I disagree with. People seem to have trouble understanding that in FPS games a big difference between starting players and vets is in-game knowledge. None of this forum bullshit. Old players will know maps, spawns, patterns, enemies, and so on far better than any starting player. And these things take months of playing to learn. This plus a huge SP disadvantage is ******* new players over twice, and giving them almost no leeway in getting better SP. It's a F2P game. If they rely on old players only, this game will crash and burn. It needs to keep the old players happy, while keeping a stream of new players starting. There's no reason for a monstrous SP gap between the two. There really isn't going to be that big of a difference from when the new guys started and from when you, a vet, started. Back then you started @ the current lvl when everyone else had 3mil SP. The new set of guys is going to start where you did, except go against guys who have 10mil SP. That is stupid. Why would anyone play a game like that? I started at the beginning of the game, so I am one of the guys with over 10mil SP. There are not too many players with the same amount of SP, and the players who have that much and are decent at the game is even less. I'm not going to continue if the few guys who can play quit, and eventually someone will quit. Pub stomping is not fun now. If corp battles just end up like pub stomping, then what would be the point to continue playing? I think this comes down to what people want from the game. Some guys want only the MMO aspect, some guys want a hybrid, and some guys focus on the FPS aspect. I want a good and fun FPS game to play, and for it to be fun I need to play against good people. I have no idea what the devs will end up doing. Fortunately, this is more of a thing for marketing, so my feedback and others matters little. Marketing can decide how many new players it wants, how many of the old players they think will quit, and how much of a SP gap can be between the two. It seems pretty simple to me. If CCP wants more of the new guys like me to play, and keep me playing, they'll have to make sure that the SP gap is never that big to keep it competitive. I have no clue about all of the MMO players, but from what I have seen here and heard about EVE, if the devs want the pure MMO players, they can go with the same system that EVE has, because they have done pretty well in that. Of course I believe they will do a mix between the two, so that both groups are happy, but plenty of people play MMOs that aren't like EVE, and none of them have impossible SP gaps to breach.
Llan Heindell One-Armed Bandits Atrocitas 16	Posted - 2013.04.29 04:08:00 - [14] - Quote Parson Atreides wrote: Mithridates VI wrote: I feel like this would set a precedent we don't want to set. Two years down the track do we give everyone ten million SP to start with and let them max out an entire specialisation on their first day? I hate to call slippery slope but Sp difference is always going to be an issue until the new players maxes their first specialisation. I hesitate to say "no" to 10 million SP because A) I don't know where this game will be or what the skill tree will look like in 2 years and B) by then, people could have most of the weapons maxed and can use whatever weapon is best suited for the situation, so maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to let new players specialize in one weapon and suit right off the bat. That being said, there's a minimum threshold where you simply won't be competitive against people with better suits and weapons because they're so far ahead of you. With 500,000 SP, your first matches (the very first impression of the game) are going to be constant deaths, which is going put a lot of people off. That's going to be the case just because they're learning the game, but if some extra SP helps to shorten that time considerably, I see no reason not to do it. I'm not sure we'd ever really need to go above 3 million or so SP (and that would be pretty far down the line) because once you get that, you can have a proto weapon, advanced suit, and proto shield or armor modules, which makes you competitive with anyone of your same skill level, even if they're using better gear. If I had more information about FW which is supposed to pull a lot of higher-tier players out of Instant Battles, then I might be less inclined to push for a higher starting SP, but they haven't shown me why anyone should play exclusively FW yet. -1 There are other ways to solve this problems, free SP for newbies is not one of them. Newbies need playerskill to survive with good gear, or else they'll find themselves out of ISK pretty quickly. Powerful gear is expensive, don't forget about that. Hopefully the arena modes and the PVE modes will bring some light for noob blueberries. Also, you guys that think this game might die, just check out EvE and rethink your theories. lol Llan Heindell.
InsidiousN KILL-EM-QUICK RISE of LEGION 14	Posted - 2013.04.29 04:09:00 - [15] - Quote Dust 514 has been open and free for anyone to play for 3 months now. Do new EVE players get extra XP when they start? Hell no! If you come to the party late, don't complain about there not being any shrimp left.
KalOfTheRathi Talon Strike Force LTD Orion Empire 372	Posted - 2013.04.29 05:25:00 - [16] - Quote I had created a started character for testing and this is part of what I learned. Down load DUST and start it up. Create a new character and enable passive SP. If you want buy some AUR or a Pack of some type and purchase a Passive SP Booster. Log off for a few weeks while "Remember Me" is released or what other game floats your boat. Come back and you will have nearly 1M SP to start with. My test character had nearly that without a booster. I played for a little bit and now the total is over 2M. 1M SP is more than adequate to get a character started. If you want to get your feet wet faster, start the first character in your primary PSN account and create a second PSN account for the getting your feet wet character. Learn what you need and apply it to your primary when ready.
Maken Tosch Planetary Response Organization 2138	Posted - 2013.04.29 05:31:00 - [17] - Quote I'm against this idea by virtue of the fact that there will always be new players coming into Dust for the first time 10 years from now. Eve Online still has new players coming in for the first time even after 10 years and they are already having to compete with other players who have at least 50 million to 200 million SP yet the new players only start with a simple set of 900,000 SP. As previously mentioned, this will then raise a concern 10 years down the line on whether new players would be given more starter SP which can potentially make new players vets on the first day. It will just break the game by undermining the core principle of New Eden which is basically to start from scratch and work your way up the ladder from there. There is hardly any hand holding in New Eden.
Shiro hoshi The Vanguardians Orion Empire 4	Posted - 2013.04.29 05:33:00 - [18] - Quote My toon only has 1.3 mill and she can hold her own against some really good players. I had to learn what works and what doesn't on my own and how my skill points will help me in the long run. There is no need to give new players anymore than 500,000 skill points to start off. Even at 500,000 I was still doing okay.
Maken Tosch Planetary Response Organization 2138	Posted - 2013.04.29 05:41:00 - [19] - Quote Please keep in mind that CCP originally mentioned that training every level of every skill book in the game would take about 7 (seven) years to complete. Maybe a year or two less if you are trying to no-life the game. That is a long time and that is assuming CCP won't introduce new skill books during the first 5 years of iterations. Of course, as we have seen from the Fanfest Keynotes, CCP will certainly add a ton of new skill books during the first 5 years alone. That means no one will be able to max out all skills. Not even 10 years from now. Hell, take a look at the Eve players who have 200+ million SP. They are still training skills to this day and somehow still able to find something new to do along the way including (but not limited to) attacking an economic hub of the cluster, scamming players, ganking miners, cornering markets, building/crushing empires and monopolies, etc. If Dust follows the same route, that means you and I will still have something new to do 10 years from now because you and I will still be training new skills even if we have 200+ million SP.
The dark cloud Seituoda Taskforce Command Caldari State 1285	Posted - 2013.04.29 06:22:00 - [20] - Quote Just make alt PSN's, assign passive SP and then when they hit around 5~6 million SP you can sell the char to whoever bids the most.

Parson Atreides Ahrendee Mercenaries 245	Posted - 2013.04.29 06:52:00 - [21] - Quote Response to: "They can do PvE" and "There will always be an SP gap so we shouldn't even bother" FIrst, it's important everyone realize that the game will not be launching with PvE. This means responses like "They can always do PvE until they spec up" or "EVE doesn't give new players more SP" (although it's my understanding they give new players boosted experience until 2 or 3 million SP) don't work because this game forces you to play against other players right away. You can't mine or fight pirates or run escort missions, or whatever you do in EVE in the beginning. Imagine if you jumped into PvP in EVE on Day 1--it would be horrible. Ironically, the concerns about PvE answer the concerns about a "slippery slope" and the fact that there will always be that SP gap. Once the game does get PvE, then there's no need to ever raise the starting SP beyond 1.5 million (or whatever we can compromise on) because there's no forced PvP battles that pit you against people with a massive SP gap. Response to: "You can passively skill up now and then have enough in a month" Do you all really think people are going to download an 11gb game (or whatever it will be) to spend 5 minutes making a character, then not try the game at all for an entire month? You think they're going to bother (or even remember) re-downloading it a month later when they've never played it to begin with? When I ask for this increase, I'm not talking about for myself. I have multiple characters well beyond this point, all accruing passive SP. This is for new people who are going to be really excited for the game, play once or twice, and then leave because they're getting completely smoked. Maybe everyone should skim this post (screenshots at the bottom) just to understand how bad this initial disparity can potentially be.
Whizawk Omega Risk Control Services 6	Posted - 2013.04.29 20:02:00 - [22] - Quote This would reduce the number of one-sided battles if they still haven't solved the initial balancing.
Parson Atreides Ahrendee Mercenaries 282	Posted - 2013.05.07 02:44:00 - [23] - Quote I'm bumping this because with the new amount of SP you need to start to even say you're one specialty or another is becoming absurd, let alone the weapons, mods and equipment you need to be effective. The only true counter-point to this is the fact that new players may blow their SP too soon on stuff they don't need. There should be some mandatory tutorial or some huge disclaimer the first time you open the Skill Tree that says in no uncertain terms that you should read up on all of the skills first to see what they do before you go frivolously spending SP because you aren't getting any of it back. Also, I change my first suggestion of 1.5 million to 2 million. Or if the 3x skill booster is more appealing to potentially alleviate the "spend it all now" attitude if they started with 2 million, then it can shut off at 2 million instead of 1.5.


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