It's difficoult, even with the 500.000 sp you can play vs skilled player, sometime it's just a matter of mentality, if you stay close to your team you can survive but if you try to run solo........
I think the cap should be on an average of WP based on something like 10/20 matches.

New players will not be presented with the existing instant battle queues[...]

You may notice I have not mentioned the exact criteria for being a new player and I am very interested in hearing how many skill points, war points, battles or any other metric you would use to determine what constitutes a "newbie".

On Tuesday 14th of May we will be enabling a special instant battle queue for new players called the Instant Battle Academy. Entry to these battles will be limited by total war points earned per character and will prevent older players from joining. New players will not be presented with the existing instant battle queues however they can join a squad with veteran players and be pulled into other battles. Faction warfare and planetary conquest battles will also still be available to new players..

Less than 5,000,000 as a new player, any more as a veteran. It's a good round-about number and about the number required to:

A.) Go Proto suit in a single class specialization (frame and type at level 5)
B.) Have all Core skills (Electronics/Engineering/Armor Upgrades/Shield Upgrades) to level 5.
C.) Have two weapons' Operation and Proficiency skills at level 5.

Edit: I would also say that it's -VERY IMPORTANT- that the 'Newbie' status not be restricted to character, but to the account. Most of us already have Alt characters or intend to create them in which we are very familiar with the game and are veterans despite our alts having <5,000,000 sp.

This may be a good place maybe to lift the SP cap for these battles only.
This way the new players can grind to the 5 million SP's quick if they choose to.

Lets speed up the process to get fresh meat into the real battle fields.

XOR, OR , AND

i can't understand, one option excludes another or all 3 are required?

XOR, OR , AND

i can't understand, one option excludes another or all 3 are required?

5 mil SP? I think that'd be way too long. People would play in those Academy Battles for months.

My suggestion is that if someone caps out every week they should get out of Academy Battles in 2-6 weeks.

This should be about learning the game while not getting stomped, not to protect someone from the veteran players for several months.

Also it might be worth thinking about some sort of "High-Sec" Battles, where noone is allowed to use prototype level gear. I think this has been proposed several times.

Making FW more interesting for veteran players might also help to improve the new player experience.

Pretty much excludes the other. Each of those options takes about 5,000,000 SP.

Example: Proto Assault Suit = Dropsuit Command 1 (6,220) Frame 5 (1,865,520) and Racial Assault Suit 5 (3,109,200) = Total: 4,980,940 SP

Example: Weaponry 1 (6,220), Light Weapon Operation 1 (12,440), Assault Rifle Operation 5 (621,840), Assault Rifle Proficiency 5 (1,544,600) = Total: 2,185,100 SP

that the 'Newbie' status not be restricted to character, but to the account

I'm curious, is there anything in place to stop a new player from leading a squad and pulling older players into "Instant Battle Academy"?

Yes, only players meeting the requirement for the academy queue can join regardless of squad. If you try to join a squad into the academy queue with veteran players you get an error. It does however work the other way around with new players being able to join the standard queues.

Thanks for explaining
However i can't agree with the cap of 5 mil. it's too much for me, a good player that have understood how this game works, can really rock on the battlefield, but i agree with your previous edit.

By the way our initial thought based on advice from the CPM is to use total war points not skill points. One the of the problems with skill points is you earn them passively, so if you roll an account and leave it inactive for a while you will eventually end up out of the academy without playing any battles. We feel that war points is a better indicator of actual game experience which also happens to scale with proficiency.

brilliant idea. newb up to 3 mil. matchmaking after 3mil sp based on k/d perhaps

By the way our initial thought based on advice from the CPM is to use total war points not skill points. One the of the problems with skill points is you earn them passively, so if you roll an account and leave it inactive for a while you will eventually end up out of the academy without playing any battles. We feel that war points is a better indicator of actual game experience which also happens to scale with proficiency.

By the way our initial thought based on advice from the CPM is to use total war points not skill points. One the of the problems with skill points is you earn them passively, so if you roll an account and leave it inactive for a while you will eventually end up out of the academy without playing any battles. We feel that war points is a better indicator of actual game experience which also happens to scale with proficiency.

Hardcore vets have upwards of 9 to 13+ million sp. Other vets have between 4 to 8 million. But I wouldn't prevent the newbies from joining the "hardcore" instant battle, because some vets have (or will make) alts and would still pub-stomp so ...

EDIT: Ah, war points instead of total sp is an excellent idea.

By the way our initial thought based on advice from the CPM is to use total war points not skill points. One the of the problems with skill points is you earn them passively, so if you roll an account and leave it inactive for a while you will eventually end up out of the academy without playing any battles. We feel that war points is a better indicator of actual game experience which also happens to scale with proficiency.

This may be a good place maybe to lift the SP cap for these battles only.
This way the new players can grind to the 5 million SP's quick if they choose to.

Lets speed up the process to get fresh meat into the real battle fields.

Filtering by warpoints does not stop someone from getting pubstomped by protos, however. A new player with a high level of skill can quickly aquire WPs, but they still will not have the proper gear to take on veteran players.

New players will not be presented with the existing instant battle queues however they can join a squad with veteran players and be pulled into other battles. Faction warfare and planetary conquest battles will also still be available to new players.

Glad to see ccp is thinking of the new people +1

I'm pretty sure new people will be a big theme of their next release. During the Dust keynote they talked about a kind of training room where you could test out equipment and gear somehow. Maybe as a kind of lead in to PvE mechanics? Then there will be a arena/battle/gladiator mode where you can fight for glory rather than loyalty or profit. They could be a kind of ranked match type of deal possibly.

What would be an interesting way to get new players a bit of extra SP and the chance to try out new equipment is if you combined these things together through some training scenarios. If you complete the scenarios you could get an extra 50k SP (or something significant) not counting toward your cap. But you would get gear you wouldn't normally.

So you could get in a Hybrid Turret HAV training scenario in week 1. If you can drive around and shoot and destroy 5 turrets (with hostile AI) and not die in under 5 minutes then you get 50k sp, and a little isk payout. Then you could try an swarm launcher scenario, a stealth/nova-knife or shotgun one, etc. I could see the training room as a nice easy way to battle test drone AI for PvE.

I think you should make a squadless option for solo players - new or old, but not mandatory. As you progress and join corps/friends, you'll migrate to the squads.

Seems easier to balance that way, but I dunno. Just a thought.

I could see a few issues here: 1 what stops a vet from rolling alts to grief the academy? 2 some players need longer to learn how to play than others. so how to you account for this? 3 is it really a good idea to segregate the new players then suddenly throw them to the bunnies?

While I agree there needs to be a much better way to teach people how to play this game, seperating them off by themselves in special battles is not an ideal way to do it.

I could see a few issues here: 1 what stops a vet from rolling alts to grief the academy? 2 some players need longer to learn how to play than others. so how to you account for this? 3 is it really a good idea to segregate the new players then suddenly throw them to the bunnies?

While I agree there needs to be a much better way to teach people how to play this game, seperating them off by themselves in special battles is not an ideal way to do it.

Thought about using WP as a criteria:

Griefers have been know to put tremendous effort into their chosen style of play. Should it be possible to keep your WP below the limit by nullifying the +50 from kills through, for example, penalties from team kills you can be sure there *will* be people doing just that.

I love the wp idea I think it ensures truly new players, which is the point after all. I think maybe 100,000 wp would be more than enough to get new players started. They don't need to understand the game, they merely need to be know they like it and want to play more. Plus if its a bit of a challenge, more people will want to play more.

I could see a few issues here: 1 what stops a vet from rolling alts to grief the academy? 2 some players need longer to learn how to play than others. so how to you account for this? 3 is it really a good idea to segregate the new players then suddenly throw them to the bunnies?

While I agree there needs to be a much better way to teach people how to play this game, seperating them off by themselves in special battles is not an ideal way to do it.

The definition of a rookie needs to be simple. If a player can survive well enough to consistently earn war points to achieve veteran status then they'll do fine.

On the subject of matchmaking, I have 2 suggestions.

Match squads against other squads: sometimes you just want to just play by yourself and relax, in those cases being matched against squads provides too much of a challenge to be fun, and too little challenge for the squad. If I'm just playing by myself, don't match me against a full squad of some elite corp.

Match players based on ALLOCATED SP: 1 million (allocated) SP or below players get thrown in one battle, 2 million SP and below players get thrown in another battle, etc. Right now I'm saving my SP before specializing so I'm still using militia starter fits, and I keep getting matched with people with prototype weapons and prototype specialized dropsuits; not a pleasant experience at all. Playing against these highly specialized players is too much of a challenge for most, and not enough of a challenge to the proto wearers.

The instant battle academy is a good start, but I really think basing it off allocated SP would be a really good way to put new players against other new players, and work as a good system for everyone else.

I don't see #1 being a big deal. Granted some like to pubstomp but they'll get to first sp cap and probably be booted out of the baby mercy zone and then it won't matter. Besides it won't do the vet anygood to pubstomp on an alt. What would be the benefit?

I think to discourage the Stat paddlers and bets potentially trying to pad an alter stats, maybe the academy shouldn't track anything except w/l and wp. Or alternately when one "graduates" stats are reset to 0. This would at least discourage a portion of vets.

On Tuesday 14th of May we will be enabling a special instant battle queue for new players called the Instant Battle Academy.

Here's a major problem, seeing as WP and stats STILL aren't recorded in Skirmish matches you can have Protos entering these battles.

Small player base + More game modes = Bad matchmaking.

We should limit the game modes as much as possible until we get a solid player base capable of supporting what this game needs.

Small player base + More game modes = Bad matchmaking.

You people who keep suggesting 100-200k are missing the big picture, That's still less than 1m SP and everyone knows 1m SP is junk.

This is extremely pleasing. Personally I feel that warpoints is an excellent idea. I don't have any significant reason but 300K warpoints sounds like a good number. 300 matches if you managed to hit over around 1k wp per match. More likely you'd end up playing closer to 600 matches for those who obviously need the help more. 300 matches if played over the course of a month without boosters would have you around 2mill sp in my guestimation.

Anyone think KDR should play a part in it? Can we limit it so there are no tanks?

On Tuesday 14th of May we will be enabling a special instant battle queue for new players called the Instant Battle Academy. Entry to these battles will be limited by total war points earned per character and will prevent older players from joining. New players will not be presented with the existing instant battle queues however they can join a squad with veteran players and be pulled into other battles. Faction warfare and planetary conquest battles will also still be available to new players.

This is a first step at improving the new player experience. We are also working on a vastly improved matchmaking system which is designed to better separate players based on their actual skill level instead of just isolating new players. We will hopefully be rolling that out in an expansion later this year.

You may notice I have not mentioned the exact criteria for being a new player and I am very interested in hearing how many skill points, war points, battles or any other metric you would use to determine what constitutes a "newbie". Remember the goal is to give new players enough time to understand the game not necessarily become proficient at it. So if you have any thoughts on that please reply here.

REWIND: It sounds like people are pushing for two ideas.
1. a safe area to learn dust and learn an FPS. and
2. A place to grow in Dust before hitting the Veteran meat grinders.

Should we not then introduce 2 game modes?
The first could be the Nerf Field - only kid gloves here. SP/WP limit and Gear type limit to just militia. Here you can learn the mechanics of the game without going against the vets and have time to experiment with lots of different toys before you kinda get the feel of the play.

The second could be the Academy. SP/WP limit and Allocation Limit. You are now experimenting with higher level gear, there are still no vet level characters but Vet alts are there to guide the way and act as mentors and examples to the newbies and recruit. Here people can get a proto level of one or a few things and see the advantages it has in combat and figure out their play style a little more before feeling confident enough to hit the vet scene. If they have scored a corp that wants them all the better.

THAT being said - I want a militia mode for the vets. it just sounds fun.Many good ideas here.

1. I actually like the limits of 5million allocated SP or 4 million WP. That should be enough time to understand some of the game.

2. I do not agree with the Fitting Limitations for the academy. Everyone in game needs to see what the benefits are of getting to the proto level of something to give them something to work for.

3. Limit the academy to characters not accounts so that vet alts can recruit and help out.

What do you think?

Less than 5,000,000 as a new player, any more as a veteran. It's a good round-about number and about the number required to:

A.) Go Proto suit in a single class specialization (frame and type at level 5)
B.) Have all Core skills (Electronics/Engineering/Armor Upgrades/Shield Upgrades) to level 5.
C.) Have two weapons' Operation and Proficiency skills at level 5.

Edit: I would also say that it's -VERY IMPORTANT- that the 'Newbie' status not be restricted to character, but to the account. Most of us already have Alt characters or intend to create them in which we are very familiar with the game and are veterans despite our alts having <5,000,000 sp.

Part of the problem is the limitations of current Faction Warfare options. There are rarely ever any battles available. We are lucky to get into one a day. I know the availability of battles is subject to an EVE-side mechanic but wouldn't it be possible to increase the number of battles while decreasing the effect each individual battle has on EVE side standings. I am sure many organized corps would prefer to queue-sync multiple Squads and play against other teams instead of Instant Battles. So more Faction Warfare options could potentially bleed many veteran players out of the Instant Battle pool. Also making FW battles restricted to Squads with at least 3 players would keep the battles available from being populated with single players.

I am not against separate levels of Instant Battles...good initiative. But give Faction Warfare a little love and it might help aid the issues that are prompting it. Thanks.

On Tuesday 14th of May we will be enabling a special instant battle queue for new players called the Instant Battle Academy. Entry to these battles will be limited by total war points earned per character and will prevent older players from joining. New players will not be presented with the existing instant battle queues however they can join a squad with veteran players and be pulled into other battles. Faction warfare and planetary conquest battles will also still be available to new players.

This is a first step at improving the new player experience. We are also working on a vastly improved matchmaking system which is designed to better separate players based on their actual skill level instead of just isolating new players. We will hopefully be rolling that out in an expansion later this year.

You may notice I have not mentioned the exact criteria for being a new player and I am very interested in hearing how many skill points, war points, battles or any other metric you would use to determine what constitutes a "newbie". Remember the goal is to give new players enough time to understand the game not necessarily become proficient at it. So if you have any thoughts on that please reply here.

Why not give them the option to either do those "Academy Battles" or to jump into the real thing right from the start? Just make it perfectly obvious what they will be up against in standard Instant Battles. By doing this a veteran player who wants to use an alt won't need to join a squad first to play some "real" Instant Battles.

Yes i certainly agree with this, give them the option but make it perfectly clear what they will be up against. Personally i know id jump in a couple of non newbie games to see what the potential of stuff if, get face stomped, them go back to rginding the newbie games for a bit, thinking damn i want that proto gear that guy stomped me with.


That's a tough question. Maybe make those Academy Battles joinable until a player has like 1 - 1.5 mil SP. Again, if Academy Battles are optional instead of replacing Instant Battles finding the right criteria won't be as critical.

Part of the problem is the limitations of current Faction Warfare options. There are rarely ever any battles available. We are lucky to get into one a day. I know the availability of battles is subject to an EVE-side mechanic but wouldn't it be possible to increase the number of battles while decreasing the effect each individual battle has on EVE side standings. I am sure many organized corps would prefer to queue-sync multiple Squads and play against other teams instead of Instant Battles. So more Faction Warfare options could potentially bleed many veteran players out of the Instant Battle pool. Also making FW battles restricted to Squads with at least 3 players would keep the battles available from being populated with single players.

I am not against separate levels of Instant Battles...good initiative. But give Faction Warfare a little love and it might help aid the issues that are prompting it. Thanks.

On the subject of matchmaking, I have 2 suggestions.

Match squads against other squads: sometimes you just want to just play by yourself and relax, in those cases being matched against squads provides too much of a challenge to be fun, and too little challenge for the squad. If I'm just playing by myself, don't match me against a full squad of some elite corp.

Match players based on ALLOCATED SP: 1 million (allocated) SP or below players get thrown in one battle, 2 million SP and below players get thrown in another battle, etc. Right now I'm saving my SP before specializing so I'm still using militia starter fits, and I keep getting matched with people with prototype weapons and prototype specialized dropsuits; not a pleasant experience at all. Playing against these highly specialized players is too much of a challenge for most, and not enough of a challenge to the proto wearers.

The instant battle academy is a good start, but I really think basing it off allocated SP would be a really good way to put new players against other new players, and work as a good system for everyone else.

WPs is a really bad metric. If you really want to go that way, then perhaps 1M?

WPs is a really bad metric. If you really want to go that way, then perhaps 1M?

In case this wasn't clear, this wasn't serious. Ideally I would like to see the number be dynamic. Bottom 5%?

In case this wasn't clear, this wasn't serious. Ideally I would like to see the number be dynamic. Bottom 5%?

Noc,

You've been around a long time and are a very experienced beta vet. Why do you consider total WP earned a poor metric for gauging overall player experience?

Follow up: given your reasoning for declaring WP a 'really bad metric', why do you suggest 1,000,000 WP as the cut off for Academy matches?

It will be dynamic in that we can change the threshold very easily ourselves, we will absolutely be data mining how well this goes and adjusting accordingly.

Noc,

You've been around a long time and are a very experienced beta vet. Why do you consider total WP earned a poor metric for gauging overall player experience?

Follow up: given your reasoning for declaring WP a 'really bad metric', why do you suggest 1,000,000 WP as the cut off for Academy matches?

See my follow up. Sorry for leading with sarcasm. But in general, any fixed number risks sending players off a cliff if they are still unable to compete. Sure they *should* have graduated, but forcing them to so suddenly may be an experience that causes them to give up.

It will be dynamic in that we can change the threshold very easily ourselves, we will absolutely be data mining how well this goes and adjusting accordingly.

Yeah this is in general why I'm not so in favor of a hard limit. A gradient of experience and skill level is really what we are after and that is what a proper match making solution should provide (it's also really difficult to do but we are working on it).

My concern is that there be enough in both the "newb" pool and the vet pool that we all get our games within the launch times we are used to.

I hope this is the most important metric.

Overall I would say that the newb pool should consist of the players that are loading in with swarm launchers and expecting to kill infantry with them.

In other words the really first time players.

I would guess that for WP the number should be 10k or so.

Yeah this is in general why I'm not so in favor of a hard limit. A gradient of experience and skill level is really what we are after and that is what a proper match making solution should provide (it's also really difficult to do but we are working on it).

My thoughts on this - hard limit obviously bad. Passing a threshold and just instantly go from one game being manageable to forever going forward being thrown in with the sharks has made me flat out quit games in the past.

Also, WP is a bad measure to base all of this on. It's essentially a "time played" indicator that if you're in the low end of the pool, you will never relatively get out of it as everyone else above you continues to progress away from you at the same rate you go toward them. WP also isn't an indicator of you having learned anything worthwhile when it comes to playing the game well enough to not get slaughtered.

Tiel,

I must respectfully disagree, I do think War Points earned is a valid metric for measuring a players' experience in DUST.

I caveat that statement with: WP may not be the BEST metric but as far as a simple SINGLE variable I think it is optimal.

To earn WP in DUST you have to successfully perform actions that the game deems contributory to success. Such as: kill red dots, heal blue dots, provide spawn or resupply assets to blue dots, hack red assets, etc.

You don't earn WP passively and while your WP total is positively boosted through squad play that is also viewed as experienced player behavior (team game you know) and should be rewarded.

I must politely disagree with another poster's suggestion that K:D reflects experienced play. If your K:D is high your WP total is high but for those players that are not front line trigger pullers ( logistics support role for example) K:D will always be low despite our experienced DUST play.

Developing a game where people fight at what level they are comfortable with, like eve's different sectors and ratings will be a hard adjustment to make. I don't feel i'm in the hardend vet level. I'm good because my team is good. Most shooters I'm at a 1.5-2 kdr. So I usually dish out a little more than i take, but when it came to dust there was a steep and long learning curve.

After 3 months I was certainly not a noob in the way that I was familliar with some of the lore, how battle worked, and the different weapons, but I still do not fight on a proto vet level. ADV gear is usually the max I'll go, rarely will i break out the proto. But that is the level I am at. And If I had to jump in with the vets at 1 or 2 mill sp there would have been no challenge for them and a hell of a lot for me. It has taken me some time to learn and deal with the tweaks to play decent. I rely on the cheap kills, kill helping, camping, surprise attack, etc. I get a hell of alot of assists too. 1v1 most people can out juke my inability to aim.

Fighting proto vets is the same. I still don't have the skill to keep up. If there was a skill balanced or KDR balance mode I would be there. I don't want to fight proto vets, and I don't want to fight noobs either.

There is truth in that you must fight against better skilled players to get any better yourself... but at some point it feels like the equipment gap supremely enhances the skill gap. And that is what new players will struggle with. The perfect fits for their playstyle.

I'm a dedicated logi, in all honesty I should probably be a scout with knives and a shotty. Quick hits, quick kills, but this role is more challenging and I like that. but it is not for everyone. So I'm glad you'll be data mining and finding new solutions.

Which bring us to the main problem is that as any fps where you can come right in and start smashing **** You can never catch up in this game.

While you guys are tweaking MM, how about a squadless option? (pre and post formed) Being able to enjoy myself solo is almost impossible as of late, as it's always one team curb stomping the other due to stacked squads of good players.

Would be nice if I could play Dust and have fun without always having to squad up. Plus when both teams don't have squads, it is SO much more even.

This isn't really true. It was proven in EVE, which is a decade old game.

Even if you had unlimited SP, there's only so much of it you can use at any given time. Once skills related to players' current fits are maxed, only player skill separates them.

Now, in Chromosome, that SP amount was roughly 10mil. It's similar in Uprising for basic suits, 15mil or so for advanced suits.

Which means it takes a brand-spankin' new player roughly half a year to be on equal footing with "vets" in terms of SP they can effectively bring into battle with them.

Having a "noob area" helps them get their initial skilling up under their belt like HP and damage increases before they're tossed in the mix.

My point is not so much the ability to catch up as it is the fact that it is being called a new release which it is not. It is a carry over from beta. So you think that as BF4 comes out new MW4 etc come out that ppl are going to stick around and play this title when they are already looking at 6months to catch up on a game that hasnt even been officially released?

I dont think so. I mean i respect your opinion and i didnt know there was a cap on the total amount of sp taht can be spent. However when this game is being promoted as a beta a week ago and i started playing and is now bout to be released and is being called new with ppl already at 10mil+ sp I take offense to the fact that it was suggested to be new.

I think this is a good point. New players joining the game are literally millions of SP and ISK behind, because CCP took the unusual move of letting players keep their progress from open beta. I don't recall any other game doing that, at least in the MMO space. It's actually kind of silly, if you think about it, but it was probably the only way to appease players who put up with a seemingly endless beta. You could argue that new players could have gotten on the train months ago, but it's not like CCP has made a lot of noise about Dust. I could see new players being rightly miffed about the disparity.

The problem is we have people that feel as if progression is directly related to the longevity of the game. PC is what should drive the longevity of this game. We all know CCP has to make money, but increasing the cost of core skills and adding useless "specialized" drop suits was just a ridiculous.

Having specialized suits does not equate to specialization. Specialization are the skills that the player invested into to maximize their desired play style. When players reach the 10m SP threshold they Plateau. Rather than growing taller players being to grow wider. They begin to focus on optimizing their drop suit, and making it perform in such a way that they are able to maximize the success at their desired play style.

The changes in the skill tree have destroyed dropsuit optimization, and have once again forced people back into the rat race to grind endlessly for SP.

I'll make it clear for all the neckbeards and EVE nerds grinding for SP doesn't help the longevity of the game. The faster more people have prototype gear the better this game will be. When I started playing this game over a year ago I wasn't looking to grind endlessly in order to ensure that I remain above or even keep up with the SP curve, but I was looking for battles that actually mattered. All the senseless grinding is actually a turn off, and in someways provides a barrier of entry for competitive FPS players looking to have good fights.

The longevity of this game should be found in having meaningful battles in PC. Not in grinding out SP.

I mean i respect your opinion and i didnt know there was a cap on the total amount of sp taht can be spent.

The longevity of this game should be found in having meaningful battles in PC. Not in grinding out SP.

On a similar note: Will there be a limit as to how many of a certain dropsuit is on the battlefield? I'm not complaining but it can be frustrating for any level of player when they engage multiple heavies at a time. 3-4 is tolerable if you RUN, but seeing 8 of them on the field is just insane. Consider a limit of 6 per team in instant battles but no limit in faction or corporation battles. Just a suggestion to help new players or those with less than a month's experience.

One might become concerned if it is like Skirmish. As WP are not currently tracked once one gets to near the limit of New vs Vet simply switch to Skirmish and never get another WP, except in the odd Clone Depletion round.

SP will continue to build and this will allow greater weapons and gear. The lambs will be saved from the lions but will be bedding down with wolves in sheep's WP.

On the subject of matchmaking, I have 2 suggestions.

Match squads against other squads: sometimes you just want to just play by yourself and relax, in those cases being matched against squads provides too much of a challenge to be fun, and too little challenge for the squad. If I'm just playing by myself, don't match me against a full squad of some elite corp.

Match players based on ALLOCATED SP: 1 million (allocated) SP or below players get thrown in one battle, 2 million SP and below players get thrown in another battle, etc. Right now I'm saving my SP before specializing so I'm still using militia starter fits, and I keep getting matched with people with prototype weapons and prototype specialized dropsuits; not a pleasant experience at all. Playing against these highly specialized players is too much of a challenge for most, and not enough of a challenge to the proto wearers.

The instant battle academy is a good start, but I really think basing it off allocated SP would be a really good way to put new players against other new players, and work as a good system for everyone else.

I don't like this idea. I am a low SP player, gotcha, but locking out based on an arbitrary SP amount seems silly to me. It reinforces that SP is broken in this game. the gap between a 4m SP and 8m SP player is absolutely massive regardless of their actual skill.

Question, You have meta levels on equipment, why don't you limit the metal level of a suit instead? Make the max meta level of a suit less than 7-8, for newbies, and when fitting, add up the meta of the components of that fit. Make that number known to the player, so we can build low-level fits to play in those matches. Good players would even see it as a challenge to dumb down their kit and still be able to win based on skill.

CCP didn't say SP; they said WP. Read the OP. It's only players that have been suggesting SP and the dev already said why they chose WP instead of SP (because people get SP passively and haven't necessarily been playing the game much to earn SP).

so im going with LOL... CCP has no clue what they are doing, still.

What about averaging the Meta Level of the equipment that the player is using?

That way, even if you're using a proto suit, you might only be using low level weapons or equipment and your average will still be very low.

Also, separate idea. When you get put into the Academy Battles, you automatically get put into a squad and spawned with that squad in the same location together, thereby teaching new players that playing as a team will get you far better results.

Sound like a great idea but make it optional for players. Never force a player into anything you don't absolutely have to. Part of the point of playing games is freedom and I think nothing will irritate most gamers more than having a choice made for them.

The more variations the better but I think warpoints would be a bad metric at this point because there are matches where newbs are facing pros and sometimes you just have off matches. Skillpoints would probably be good with multiple tiers in the million point range. About a months worth of play with no skill boosters and maxing each week.

Gear tiered matches would also be fun I think maybe with reduced gains. Sometimes you just want to get on an fool around or test something out and that's hard do with a bunch of protos or tank/ dropships on the map.

Please though include anything as an option, I cant stress this point enough.

You could just put the gear restriction on the suits themselves. A standard level suit doesn't have much room to play with, which would probably be enough to keep people from abusing high level gear to farm newbies. You could try putting that balac's on a standard level suit, but you'll die the moment something sneezes at you. It's simple enough to explain that they could have Dust's version of Aura on the barge actually explaining that this battle only allows militia and standard level suits, or whatever.

That's all you've got to say? No better suggestions then? Helpful.

If you made it just a gear based mechanic, vets could still make use of the masses of passive skill buffs they get. WP is the best way of ensuring that the characters genuinely are new.

The game isn't as much about SP as you think.... top end players not only have a year of experience under their belt, but are able to dominate any random pub match in just militia gear.

I'd say talen is 25% Skill Points, 75% actual skill in Dust 514.

you are deluding yourself if you think sp and gear makes no difference lol, put one you in all militia gear and another you in all proto, you know whats going to happen?

the you in proto is going to push your **** back in lol. the massive disparity in sp and gear is the reason very few new players stick with this game

if folks cant see the reason for the abysmal player count is because of the massive disparity in sp and gear then you are silly.

if you dont want a seperate play list where anyone can join but are restricted to the same level of gear as everybody else,
you are not as good as you think you are and are just trying to protect your i win button.

if you cant see that a seperate playlist would be good for the game longterm by making every suit, weapon and vehicle relavent
to the new player vastly increasing the different ways to play without sinking millions of sp into just one suit or weapon, then again you are silly.

if you think throwing new players to the wolves after hitting so many wp, sp or some other made up number is a good idea, enjoy the same garbage player numbers we have today.

just sayin

The game isn't as much about SP as you think.... top end players not only have a year of experience under their belt, but are able to dominate any random pub match in just militia gear.

I'd say talen is 25% Skill Points, 75% actual skill in Dust 514.

if folks cant see the reason for the abysmal player count is because of the massive disparity in sp and gear then you are silly.

if you dont want a seperate play list where anyone can join but are restricted to the same level of gear as everybody else,
you are not as good as you think you are and are just trying to protect your i win button.

if you cant see that a seperate playlist would be good for the game longterm by making every suit, weapon and vehicle relavent
to the new player vastly increasing the different ways to play without sinking millions of sp into just one suit or weapon, then again you are silly.

if you think throwing new players to the wolves after hitting so many wp, sp or some other made up number is a good idea, enjoy the same garbage player numbers we have today.

just sayin

I like this idea as long as the cap kicks it at 5,000,000.

By the way our initial thought based on advice from the CPM is to use total war points not skill points. One the of the problems with skill points is you earn them passively, so if you roll an account and leave it inactive for a while you will eventually end up out of the academy without playing any battles. We feel that war points is a better indicator of actual game experience which also happens to scale with proficiency.

5 million and under, cause that's just the beginnings of a good kit. With 4m, you're still gonna get slaughtered by proto-dudes

Instead of SP or WP caps, can we just use avg Meta level of the gear your using. Militia gear tends to be either meta level 0 or 1. Beginner matches set avg meta level <= 1. Even if higher SP players come into the matches, they will be using the same level of equipment as everyone else, with only a slight advantage.

On Tuesday 14th of May we will be enabling a special instant battle queue for new players called the Instant Battle Academy. Entry to these battles will be limited by total war points earned per character and will prevent older players from joining. New players will not be presented with the existing instant battle queues however they can join a squad with veteran players and be pulled into other battles. Faction warfare and planetary conquest battles will also still be available to new players.

This is a first step at improving the new player experience. We are also working on a vastly improved matchmaking system which is designed to better separate players based on their actual skill level instead of just isolating new players. We will hopefully be rolling that out in an expansion later this year.

You may notice I have not mentioned the exact criteria for being a new player and I am very interested in hearing how many skill points, war points, battles or any other metric you would use to determine what constitutes a "newbie". Remember the goal is to give new players enough time to understand the game not necessarily become proficient at it. So if you have any thoughts on that please reply here.

That could work, only with one pitfall, though.

Alot of people, including myself only play skirmish, and as such have very low WP, as it is hardly ever recorded unless you win / lose via clone depletion.

So would I, with my piddling 1000 WP, but 7 million SP, full proto gear and officer gear be put in with the new guys?

If so, it could end up being a bunch of high SP skirmishers stomping new players.

I am going to follow this up, I saw a fix go in this week for what looked like that problem but I'm not sure when it will be deployed. Suffice to say yes the war points will need to be updated correctly for the Academy queue to work.

CCP Nullarbor said the following here in relation to your concerns:

On Tuesday 14th of May we will be enabling a special instant battle queue for new players called the Instant Battle Academy. Entry to these battles will be limited by total war points earned per character and will prevent older players from joining. New players will not be presented with the existing instant battle queues however they can join a squad with veteran players and be pulled into other battles. Faction warfare and planetary conquest battles will also still be available to new players.

This is a first step at improving the new player experience. We are also working on a vastly improved matchmaking system which is designed to better separate players based on their actual skill level instead of just isolating new players. We will hopefully be rolling that out in an expansion later this year.

You may notice I have not mentioned the exact criteria for being a new player and I am very interested in hearing how many skill points, war points, battles or any other metric you would use to determine what constitutes a "newbie". Remember the goal is to give new players enough time to understand the game not necessarily become proficient at it. So if you have any thoughts on that please reply here.

War points is a good starting point, but I think allocated SP will need to be used as well. The reasoning behind this is that a veteran could easily let an avatar sit for some time just to accrue SP, then go Proto, while technically having acquired no WP. They would still deeply unbalance the new player experience.

Good news ! Especially the part regarding working on a more strict matchmaking based on SP.

Until then, a tighten playerbase for new players doesnt sound like a bad idea. Just be very informative about it in game ! Maybe add a new screen tutorial when first launching the battle finder. And an auto in game email when a player is over the WP limit for playing this Instant Battle Academy.

Oh and another question,may have been asked already though : A new player can join a squad of vets and go into regular instant battles. Does it work the other way around ? Can a 100% noob create a squad, invite 5 proto and take them into Academy fights ? IF yes, then this is not going to work.... Worse it could end up with even worse stomping than we have now.

Good news ! Especially the part regarding working on a more strict matchmaking based on SP.

Until then, a tighten playerbase for new players doesnt sound like a bad idea. Just be very informative about it in game ! Maybe add a new screen tutorial when first launching the battle finder. And an auto in game email when a player is over the WP limit for playing this Instant Battle Academy.

Oh and another question,may have been asked already though : A new player can join a squad of vets and go into regular instant battles. Does it work the other way around ? Can a 100% noob create a squad, invite 5 proto and take them into Academy fights ? IF yes, then this is not going to work.... Worse it could end up with even worse stomping than we have now.

New players can play with veterans in the normal queues using squads but it does not work the other way around. Veterans players will not be able to join the academy queue battles at all.

After reading soooo many posts I am more for a dual qualifier as some have suggested. Meaning that Gear is limited to basic in one setting and Advanced in another setting.

While the skill gaps will still be there. At least so will the gear limit. Skills add a buff so perhaps a gear and SP level.

Basic/5mil
ADV/10mil

and just a Basic gear for fun.

I like these ideas, I think some very great posts are here with a lot of information to comb through. Good luck CCP, I hope you find a solution to address so many points.