I've always wanted boosters to be a catch-up thing (whether that's hit cap faster, or unlock ability to reach some global cap, ie a perpetual cap that nobody can surpass that increases each day from last reset), rather than a get-ahead thing.

With boosters working as they are, CCP is monetizing necessary items (SP), instead of focusing on creating appealing optional items.

Reading through the thread now because lots of people posted since I first looked.

Edit: I'm totally in favor of things like boosters that turn your active SP into passive gain to eliminate the grind, though.

Perhaps thats the best middle situation. What i describe is a model where everyone goes on passive with active gain allowing you to grind out the passive cap faster so you can play for soft cap to augment and earn more over time. And a subscription plan that boosts the cap amount you can earn by 50% and the soft cap amount as well.


But perhaps its simpler to keep the current system. And create a booster that turns all SP active and passive for the x days(1,3,7 28) into passive gain.

And all you can earn is soft cap through active play so long as that booster is in effect. That would probably a lot simpler. Additionally you can purchase an active booster that increase the soft cap much like it does now or perhaps include that in the cost of that previous mentioned booster and make that a added feature of that booster.

And it still gives free accounts the current model.

Of course they need to get rid of the 1s=5SP mechanic to entice player to purchase that booster or they will simply AFK that portion for free anyway.

Here it is folks the only 3 plans you need.

F2P= Current model where you have active gain and passive gain on a weekly/daily basis respectively

$10(AUR equivalent perhaps costs more if there is one?) Booster augment turns all active SP gain to passive gain for 30 days. All active play is soft capped at 1WP=2-4 SP(it has to be worthwhile, 2-3 is probably best tho)


$15 Same as above plus some of the merc pack goodies on a rotation(so different stuff every month based on sale items in the market)


$20 Same as above plus x AUR(im thinking 15K)


Simple effective creates an incentive to log on and grind but also allows ppl who just want to set and forget to do the same.



Remember one thing tho if this is a booster purchased with AUR and not a subscription then eventually these items will be available for trade on the 2* player market for ISK.

Full passive breaks down because it doesn't require the free player to get invested in the game. They don't get rewarded properly for being more active and providing content for the paying customers. Furthermore, it is entirely unrealistic to LIMIT free alts, which means a year or two from now, fresh players will have no opportunities in competitive play because ALL niches will be filled by a handful of players. At the very least they should be paying the server upkeep and development costs for such large advantages.

I thought about it and though you may be right part of the beauty of Dust is you can walk away take a break and still have earned some SP.

Not everyone is going to want to pay to be able to take a break nor should they.

What i did was offer up a simpler suggestion in the form of a booster. The reason why i think it works as a booster is then its subject to trade on the secondary market. Now if someone doesnt want to pay with real money they can do so with play money.

But to earn play money you have to play and earn therefore you overcome the hurdle of them not providing content.

yeah i find this very hard to belive

Please elaborate on how this addresses the core concerns I brought up in the OP so I can create a more meaningful response.

AFK boosters reveal a population that has faith in the game but don't want to grind

I don't see anything wrong with the current system.

If you don't have a job or are busy being a student... too bad. Life isn't fair and CCP is not a charity.

yeah i find this very hard to belive

They wouldn't AFK if they didn't believe there was future value in the SP, and they would play the game if they thought it was enjoyable (aka not a grind). What part of that statement do you have issue with?

dude that is lamest excuse i have ever heard of , stop trying to defend afkers

The man has a point there.

I also regard both Cap-increasing boosters and passive boosters mandatory for any serious players.
That's not quite the 'convenience' or 'catching up' advertised.

1. You are not buying anything as an investment. You are buying AUR, to use on whatever it can be used for right now. If it can be used for other things in the future then that is a bonus. Don't fork over money thinking CCP now owes you heaven and earth. They could decide that this whole "console" thing really was just a fad and then turn off the dust servers tomorrow. They would not owe anyone a refund.

2. All AUR lets you do is use things today that otherwise would have required you wait until tomorrow. Boosters help you get SP faster, AUR gear has lower skill requirements. Long term there is no benefit at all.

You can only utilise so many of your invested skill points at any one time. Having skills invested in AV grenades is not making your flux grenades work any better. If you have dumped 5 mill SP into tank skills but today your running around with a shotgun, you may as well be a first day player. Old accounts do not keep on progressing infinitely, newer players can easily catch up to old players in effectiveness at a certain role within a couple of months.

3. No matter how many accounts a bitter vet has been baking for however long, they can still only bring one of those characters to the battle. The other 15 slots(For PC) need to be filled by other players, old or new.

4. If you are unhappy about buying the SP boosters because you stop playing at less sp than the boosterless cap, then STOP DOING IT!!!! Don't blame CCP for your poor purchasing decisions.

Here are your options:

A - If you have loads of spare time then you can play this cool game for free as much as you want and you will get a fixed maximum of SP per week.

B - If you don't have much spare time because you, for example, have a job. You can use some of that nice money stuff that you earn at said job to buy boosters so that you can still reach at least the same amount of SP per week as the unemployed bum living in their parents basement.

C - You have spare time to play the game, but you happen to really enjoy it and want to get the most out of it. So you decide to PAY THE DEVELOPERS FOR MAKING THIS AWESOME ******* GAME! I know, it sounds crazy. CRAZY LIKE A FOX! In return for paying the developers for all their hard work, you get to use items today that otherwise would have required that you wait until tomorrow.

6 Months later, three different players join a match and happen to all be using the same equipment. Even though each of these three players choose a different approach to their gaming time, all three players do the same damage, have the same HP, reload their at the same speed, in fact, their capabilities are identical. The only difference is that one has a sweet logibro dropsuit fit that they are not using and the third one has a REALLY sweet logibro dropsuit fit that they are not using.

OMG!! IT'S JUST SO UNFAIR!!!

Then all three of them get totally owned by some dude who only ever uses militia gear, cos that's how he rolls.

So in conclusion, you have no idea what the hell you're talking about. If it's doesn't seam to you like paying for boosters is a worthwhile use for your money, THEN DON"T BUY THEM!!

Serious players SHOULD BE PAYING FOR THE GAME!!!!

If you don't think the game is worth spending a bit of money on, then you can't really be that serious can you?

I will give you a detailed point-by-point response soon, but I have to ask why you are assuming so much about my motivations? Nowhere did I list how often I buy boosters or how much SP I personally have. It seems like you have more personal investment in this issue than I do ... food for thought until I can respond in full.

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

The current system is going to let me, who registered dozens of alt PSNs just because I could, have prototype EVERYTHING in about 1-3 years. Sure I have to switch between accounts to switch roles, but when making a battle roster that's not a realistic limitation.

Nowhere in my post did I imply anything about your personal booster habits. I was just responding to points in your post.

1. You are not buying the future of dust. Your paying for what is already there.
2. The only advantage of AUR is time.
3. After enough time that advantage disappears completely.


Though i must say your opening line:



Sure sounds like a judgement call on a value proposition to me.

Who cares? Not many people are mental enough to waste that amount of time for so little gain. If you get proto gear over three years more power to you.

Why do you absolutely have to use boosters 24/7? It won't kill you to not use them, you know.

[quote=Khamelaya]
I will just say that your CAP LOCKED statements certainly came across to me as aggressive, judgmental, and directed at myself. I have a peculiar style though, so it could merely be a miscommunication. Ultimately, right now boosters are buying you more than time. They are buying you more SP. That may not be a second by second advantage, but it is allowing you deeper access to the content if you use it for variety, instead of more power in your niche. Unfortunately, in practice, I have seen every reset people race to fill out their "role" and not since E3 has anyone truly been able to branch out without sacrificing their primary role (and that is mostly due to many skill trees being broken i.e. nonfunctional). So while anecdotes cannot prove my point, they do suggest it is not as simply as you make it out to be. 3) especially is troublesome, because in an FPS where you can switch roles instantly and there are a fixed number of people in a given match, variety IS a major advantage. A player with a prototype assault and tank is going to be selected before the player with just the tank, because they can adapt more easily to changing circumstances.

SP is time.

So by your reasoning, there will only be two teams of 16 players competing in all of PC, they will have the 32 highest amounts of SP of anyone in the game. This will provide maximum utility and flexibility. It would be absolute lunacy to invite the guy with the 33rd highest number of skill points, because you will severely handicap your team. There is no reason for any other teams to compete, because they don't have the SP and therefore flexibility so they would just loose anyway.

I know that is taking your logic to the extreme, but that's my point. There is a middle ground. You don't need to have the best gear or the most skills points to win, you only need "enough". New players can can catch up to old players in a way that their contribution will be meaningful in a relatively short amount of time. Hell, I run around in all militia gear most of the time, it doesn't stop me from capping points, reviving teammates or taking on opponents who's gear cost 100 times more than mine and still coming out on top. CCP have done a really great job of providing a system that does not provide a pay to win advantage, while still offering a free to play game that motivates enough players to buy conveniences, thus paying for development to continue.

Game design is a fine balance, but then so is bartering any trade worth making. Make no doubt that CCP is thinking very hard about just how to balance in regard to both. So far they are doing an excellent job.

I know you are going to disprove of another anecdote, but your stretch is actually quite close to the truth. I've been through and won a tourney already, and unfortunately the only reason we rotated players was because we wanted to maximize who got the rewards. Come finals, we had no variation at all. So your extreme isn't that extreme.

If you want to play your best game then you bring your best players, you take every advantage you can get. But the fact is not everyone has access to the best players. Even the ones you have access to won't be there all the time. That doesn't mean that you can't win, or even that you are at a disadvantage. Heavy dropsuits have many advantages over Scout dropsuits, more damage, more armour, more shields, yet scouts can still kill heavies.

A players own personal skill; critical thinking, communication, cooperation, reflexes, dexterity and experience all count for a lot more than how much SP their character has. When you take all that into account, a players with 10 million SP or 50 million sp, if they have each only put 4 million into their role as a recon scout, then they are both going to have equal potential. The flexibility gain is no more significant that a piece of straw on a tone of bricks.




...but what if it's the straw that broke the proverbial camels back? Well, thats the whole point of the game. If we could figure out who wins just buy adding up the skill points that are being taken advantage of by a teams deployment, we wouldn't need to have a tournament at all. Just do the math. How dull...with fewer explosions.

So expanding on that, if the player is what is important, and he has easy access to every niche through free passive SP... then you have no reason to invite more players to participate unless they are replacing said player in every role.