I feel exactly the same right now. I just dropped out of the academy yesterday. Until that time those battles were fun, extremely well balanced and constantly waving back and forth. I really liked it.

But this changed immediatly after dropping out of the academy and jumping into any of the public matches. Protos, Protos, Protos. One slaughter party after another. Six matches and not one single kill! Even though I really had taken care of choosing the right skills in order to get better equipment, by the time I joined the public matches DUST just wasn't fun any longer.

If my friends asked me if DUST was worth being played I had to say: Absolutely no! This has nothing to do with the game itself but with the fact that it's completely overrun by all the veterans who are now hunting the random goups.

The only way to avoid that: AFKing! Seriously. With the current state of the game there is literally no other chance to compete against all those Protos than hiding or AFKing. Right now there is absolutely no point in fighting or even investing in anything else than Militia or Proto gear. Everything else in between is a complete waste of ISK.

There are already three of my friends who guit after they were constantly being farmed for two days by the veterans. CCP tried to transfer the idea of personal skill being more important than equipment and skills from EVE to DUST but this just doesn't seem to work at all for a FPS shooter.

Never the less, until a matchmaking system is implemented and working this game will lose a lot of new and potential players due to being one of the worst new player experiences out there so far. And until that hiding & AFKing will be king for new players.

To be clear:
I don't have anything against the veterans and their proto gear in person. They also can't choose their opponents. They are also restricted by the actual game mechanics. I'm against the current status quo of the game and the fact that these problems even exist after the game was launched. But unfortunately this game is very very far from being finished.

I feel exactly the same right now. I just dropped out of the academy yesterday. Until that time those battles were fun, extremely well balanced and constantly waving back and forth. I really liked it.

But this changed immediatly after dropping out of the academy and jumping into any of the public matches. Protos, Protos, Protos. One slaughter party after another. Six matches and not one single kill! Even though I really had taken care of choosing the right skills in order to get better equipment, by the time I joined the public matches DUST just wasn't fun any longer.

If my friends asked me if DUST was worth being played I had to say: Absolutely no! This has nothing to do with the game itself but with the fact that it's completely overrun by all the veterans who are now hunting the random goups.

The only way to avoid that: AFKing! Seriously. With the current state of the game there is literally no other chance to compete against all those Protos than hiding or AFKing. Right now there is absolutely no point in fighting or even investing in anything else than Militia or Proto gear. Everything else in between is a complete waste of ISK.

There are already three of my friends who guit after they were constantly being farmed for two days by the veterans. CCP tried to transfer the idea of personal skill being more important than equipment and skills from EVE to DUST but this just doesn't seem to work at all for a FPS shooter.

Never the less, until a matchmaking system is implemented and working this game will lose a lot of new and potential players due to being one of the worst new player experiences out there so far. And until that hiding & AFKing will be king for new players.

To be clear:
I don't have anything against the veterans and their proto gear in person. They also can't choose their opponents. They are also restricted by the actual game mechanics. I'm against the current status quo of the game and the fact that these problems even exist after the game was launched. But unfortunately this game is very very far from being finished.

That's how CCP plans to keep their small playerbase in Dust. Play our game, grind through it all, keep buying our boosters and you'll get a ton of SP. Then spam proto in pubs against already bad players and stomp them out of oblivion so you can feel like you're good, rinse and repeat, grind more SP.

I've said it since day 1, the SP system in this game doesn't belong in shooters. Terrible mechanic and it will always be pushing new players out the door.

That's how CCP plans to keep their small playerbase in Dust. Play our game, grind through it all, keep buying our boosters and you'll get a ton of SP. Then spam proto in pubs against already bad players and stomp them out of oblivion so you can feel like you're good, rinse and repeat, grind more SP.

I've said it since day 1, the SP system in this game doesn't belong in shooters. Terrible mechanic and it will always be pushing new players out the door.

I feel exactly the same right now. I just dropped out of the academy yesterday. Until that time those battles were fun, extremely well balanced and constantly waving back and forth. I really liked it.

But this changed immediatly after dropping out of the academy and jumping into any of the public matches. Protos, Protos, Protos. One slaughter party after another. Six matches and not one single kill! Even though I really had taken care of choosing the right skills in order to get better equipment, by the time I joined the public matches DUST just wasn't fun any longer.

If my friends asked me if DUST was worth being played I had to say: Absolutely no! This has nothing to do with the game itself but with the fact that it's completely overrun by all the veterans who are now hunting the random goups.

The only way to avoid that: AFKing! Seriously. With the current state of the game there is literally no other chance to compete against all those Protos than hiding or AFKing. Right now there is absolutely no point in fighting or even investing in anything else than Militia or Proto gear. Everything else in between is a complete waste of ISK.

There are already three of my friends who guit after they were constantly being farmed for two days by the veterans. CCP tried to transfer the idea of personal skill being more important than equipment and skills from EVE to DUST but this just doesn't seem to work at all for a FPS shooter.

Never the less, until a matchmaking system is implemented and working this game will lose a lot of new and potential players due to being one of the worst new player experiences out there so far. And until that hiding & AFKing will be king for new players.

To be clear:
I don't have anything against the veterans and their proto gear in person. They also can't choose their opponents. They are also restricted by the actual game mechanics. I'm against the current status quo of the game and the fact that these problems even exist after the game was launched. But unfortunately this game is very very far from being finished.