Show of hands, who buys the SP boosters and then stops at less sp than the boosterless cap?

Right now AUR boosters just give you an edge over free players, they don't actually reduce the grind. That is very counter-intuitive and unsatisfying. Furthermore, fully boosted is an incredible $28/month, which is ridiculously high (that's a new CoD every 2 months, or CoD plus a year of dlc 3x a year) for the the sparse content we have. Now I understand we are doing it as an investment for that magic day DUST 514 becomes "good", so it's not a perfect analogy; just bear with me please.

AFK boosters reveal a population that has faith in the game but don't want to grind. So they just sit there while doing things they actually enjoy. Instead of monetizing these players, they are eating server cost and making the match less enjoyable for those who do show up to play. This is a mistake. On the flip-side, you have to play a significant amount of time to "cap out" every week, whether you are boosted or not. While you don't HAVE to cap every week, leaving "SP on the table" is a discouraging experience that makes your efforts seem less meaningful compared to the proverbial "no lifers". EVEN THOUGH SP DOESN'T MAKE YOU MORE POWERFUL (after a certain, low threshold of level 5 in about 5-10 skills) IT IS STILL MORE FUN TO HAVE "ALL" (as in your personal maximum potential) SP by virtue of variety. Finally you have the alt situation. People have PSNs cooking with characters they never plan to play for at least a year, relying solely on passive SP. This creates a strong *unearned* veteran advantage.

So now that I've addressed my issues, let's proceed to an important discussion point - should paying give you MORE SP, FASTER SP, EASIER SP, or a combination of the above (it can't give you no advantage, you are spending money after all)? Right now the active and passive booster only gives you more SP. It is neither easier nor faster, with the caveat that "getting more" allows you to get the original amount faster, which is a type of easier. I feel promoting that logic is a poor customer experience as I described in the previous paragraph.

Ultimately, my purpose for starting this discussion is clearly going to have an agenda, so here is my response:

Firstly, it is important to realize the F2P model uses non paying accounts for 2 purposes. (1) is the potential customer. It would be a poor business that didn't try to deliver something that people would like to purchase and a F2P model lets the try large portions of the game on an indefinite timeline, freeing them from the burden of urgency in the transaction - a very customer friendly approach. (2) is content for the paying customer. Every additional human player creates a new variable that changes constantly, giving a very organic experience. It is for this reason that I think active SP should stay for the free player. SP is an ideal reward for logging on in a way that cannot be taken away (like ISK, assets, metagame). Tying that to upholding both free roles is acceptable.

I would go even further and say they should not get passive SP. This would neatly remove the issue of free alts progressing on the merit of join date. Eventually, those alts will "mature" and allow one player to take on a dozen roles with all level 5 in the necessary attributes. This removes opportunities for new players to contribute, which is a very real problem for a game that aspires to last a decade. This is not EVE where every new player can do something, it is DUST where every player in the match is taking up a finite number of slots. Vets being able to cover every role is not something they should be granted for free; I see it as the greatest danger to the long term health of the game.

Personally, I believe it would be fairest (which in my opinion is the best way to entice potential customers into actual customers, especially when they are expected to transition between the two fluidly) if money never granted you MORE SP. I think the game will survive with any decision, but I believe boosters have more value, not less, when the difference is time or effort. Adding the wrinkle of more sniffs of pay-to-win, although with the nature of DUST skill progression, it does not cross that threshold, merely flirts with it. The reasons why I would remove passive SP from free accounts apply to this point as well, but for different reasons. It makes a "free" player less competitive for that finite slot by merit of being someone who has not paid cash yet. Because DUST deals with persistence over a large geography and time-span, I petition CCP to reconsider. It is not game-breaking like passive SP, but it does hurt the new player experience, which hurts the whole community by discouraging new members.

Well I covered what I would remove, but have nearly run out of space. I will continue with what I would modify and in a second post.

Yeah, thats kinda it isnt it? It will make them more versatile, but you cannot make use of all your sp in every role. So I dont understand why people think we will have vets running around and wielding a forge gun and a sniper rifle and driving a tank and flying all at the same time, ridiculous.

Please read my second post. I think the proposed system would actually be more fair to you without being unfair to those who can't afford to pay.

Perhaps I was unclear? The "Delta Wave" augmentation would give you all your SP without playing at all.

I'm sorry you have both no money and no time. I don't think there is a way for you to be fully competitive by any metric. Did you see the suggested additional augmentations? I envision low grade augmentations could be cheap and easy to aquire, which helps you out if you are regularly active but limited. Also note, a full 25% of the SP is given away for the first 7 matches per week. That is a very low bar to get over, and if you can't perhaps you shouldn't expect to be progressing with any noticeable speed, especially for free?

People could just not use boosters, but I guess some ppl just need an edge, so there will always be a market for it. I dont need to use them but probably will occasionally.

Oh please enough with the strawmen.

The price is not the problem, the value is. I explicitly said I don't have the knowledge to set them, I was just eyeballing based on major competitors ($10-$15/month for a "full" sub).

You know, it actually saddens me that we used to get along pretty well back in the day. I think we all channeled our disappointment in DUST 514 development in different ways. If only there was a way to roll it all back...

Yes, but both Nothin and the EP are gone, with no replacements yet. Also that was several months ago and not a single thing has changed. So while it was good to know at least certain devs understood the problem, there is little evidence any lasting action has been taken yet.