Harpyja
DUST University
Ivy League
57
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Posted - 2013.05.25 02:56:00 -
[1] - Quote
Be prepared to read a short story. If not, scatter! Or you can skip down to my conclusion...
This last week, I was honestly bored from being a HAV specialist. The changes to vehicles (and HAVs in particular) that came with and after Uprising actually made vehicle gameplay less interesting (at least for me in HAVs). I had much less opportunities to vary my fits because now I relied on having two local powergrid expansion modules (+15% PG) on my Gunnlogi, then followed by the necessity of a heavy azeotropic shield extender and a heavy clarity ward shield booster. My remaining three slots were filled with resists. There is definitely no room for variety; I can only have PG extender modules, while in Chromosome I could have two power diagnostic systems (to give me even more shield), or have a PG extender with a damage modifier. This stuff, however, can all go into another thread. I'm here to talk about my experience as a new player.
I had an alt character months before Uprising, so he had 500k SP and 1.8 million ISK (a lot more than a what a true beginner has now, I'd assume). I knew I wanted to go Amarr (go Amarr!). I found it ironic how my Amarr character rolls around in Caldari HAVs and operates a Minmatar 'Skinweave' suit while my Caldari character (my alt) will be running around the battlefield in an Amarr dropsuit (good thing the Amarr and Caldari get along, right?).
My 500k SP and 1.8 million ISK are just barely enough for a Scrambler Rifle, a basic Amarr medium dropsuit, a repair nanohive, some basic armor plating, and some basic shield regeneration modules, in addition to a minute amount of core skills. I finalize my fitting and I'm happy with my 200 shield and 265 armor, which is roughly three times what my Minmatar 'Skinweave' suit has.
I quickly get the hang of the SR and I quickly adopt the strategy of trying to place a charged shot on someone before I finish them off with a few more shots in quick succession. Many times the charged shot was enough by itself. I find running around as infantry a lot more interesting than rolling around in a 700k ISK HAV which makes me sweat each time I face a wall of AV.
I couldn't have ever gotten more fun than coming face to face with an enemy soldier and my charged shot drops him immediately. Or the many times where my 'large' HP buffer lets me casually take out someone, then another, maybe even a third one without dying while they are all trying to drop me.
As I play my final battle at the Academy, I end with a K/D of almost 3.5 and I always got between 1500 and 2300 WP by myself in Skirmish matches. I even went 19-0 in my last game, a feat which I've never accomplished running infantry only in DUST. I am having the most amount of fun in DUST than I ever had, and this is coming from a tanker who can only get so many WP with his HAV.
When I graduate and I play my first battle outside of the Academy, I get my a** handed to me. I barely manage a few hundred WP. Perhaps my greatest cause of death was being downed by a Tac AR in a couple of seconds, which was many times faster than any other time that I had died in the Academy.
Nevertheless, I keep my chin up and head into the next battle. This time, I do slightly better but I have to work much harder than I ever did in the Academy. A few games in, I get put onto a good team and I pick a good squad and I go 18-9.
Conclusion
Coming out of the Academy, I got ripped apart on my first game. I find that I get downed much faster by Tac ARs (many threads on this, I won't go into this topic) than I ever had experienced during the Academy. I always have to fight an uphill battle against people that have much better gear than me.
During the Academy, the gameplay felt very casual, but when I came out, it felt like I switched the game to hardcore mode. I don't see how new players are supposed to keep their chin up when they have to face people with much better gear. Hell, I'm wondering now how many new players I have ripped apart like this with my HAVs.
What I'd like to suggest is that CCP introduce a new gamemode. It can be called 'Casual' and will retain the game types as found in instant battle. No squads will be allowed to join the game, but once inside players may freely squad up with each other (I might create a new post suggesting this). I think one of the problems new players experience is having to go up against experience groups of players that run proto gear and have ma |