Im not sure I get what you're saying... the skill tree is designed to make future SP less and less useful per point with the increasing cost of skills, so decreasing someone's SP as they increase in lifetime SP is counter productive.

Not so, if that were the case then each additional skill would increase in sp required regardless of how much sp I have/haven't invested in it. For example it costs only 621k sp I think to max another weapon operation, the same amount as the first...as opposed to making each additional weapon you invested in scale upwards in sp to prevent you from having more and more, thus making sp less useful because all skills scale up in sp price relative to your total, or perhaps relative to your investment is related skills. Same goes with the rest of the tree, the tree doesn't exactly prevent you from making sp less useful, actually it just encourages you to make your character have tons of skills because the highest levels of a skill can cost a lot (it take 2-3 weeks to get level 5 of a racial suit, and about 1-2 weeks to get level 5 proficiency of a weapon, but most of the time you can get the highest level of a skill in a few days if you include a fresh skill cap. (466k for many of the skills) So overall I disagree, the skill point system doesn't make sp less useful. It is not necessarily counter productive to decrease the amount of sp earned to cap out for veterans who have already obtained most of the skills aforementioned that require those large sp investments, and discourages them from becoming Omni Char's with 3 racial proto suits.

You paid for those omega boosters, you should get to use them as they were intended, and if you get 800k a week then thats fine, thats what you paid for. Sure, and if I and those who use them agree to a change in them them why disagree with me?

However, changing the SP allocation to mostly passive would require rebalancing active and passive xp booster pricing. Meaning they would refund the aurum you paid for those omega boosters and then rebalance the pricing on them at which point you could purchase them again at the new price, which would still give you the same amount of SP/$.

active boosters would then be dirt cheap, im think like 2-3 bucks a month, but to some it would be worth it, as they play alot and that sp adds up over time. However everyone will want to keep passive boosters running as much as possible.

It should be around $15 a month (same as an mmo script) to keep passive boosters running, and an omega booster should then be around $25 I guess.

Then offer a subscription that gives a 30 day active + passive for $15 a month. Done.. good to go.

I think it's a solid idea +1

Don't wanna pay for boosters? no problem, you still get majority passive SP and you can play the game a lot for active sp to supplement. Which is the F2P model at its finest, people who can't afford to monetize earn that same currency through playing a lot.

Then do away with SP's and the skill tree all together and allow everyone access to all gear and skills and only play this game for ISK.

With your logic what is the point of grinding for SP?
You all preach all the time that proto gear is no different than militia and the gear don't matter its you skills, blah blah blah!

Why are you forcing us all to grind for SP then?

Oh wait yeah that's right SP boosters = $$$$.

Please!

I can't believe he went to level 5 in Amarr heavy and didn't stop at level 3 and start leveling in Sentinel. That's what I did for Amarr logi. But anyway it sounds like Cubs has almost maxed out his build (much better term). Now if he started on tanks next or maybe a medium frame suit of some sort he would be working on his next build. That is a nother thing, people say newcomers can't catch up, but after about 15 mil or so when you have one build pretty much maxed you are caught up. Everything after that is branching outward to be more versatile, you can't continuously build upwards

Then do away with SP's and the skill tree all together and allow everyone access to all gear and skills and only play this game for ISK.

With your logic what is the point of grinding for SP?
You all preach all the time that proto gear is no different than militia and the gear don't matter its you skills, blah blah blah!

Why are you forcing us all to grind for SP then?

Oh wait yeah that's right SP boosters = $$$$.

Please!

That's just not true though...he still needs to max skills related to reload speed and ammo capacity, and that would put him around 22 mill. Thats a lot of sp.

He's got 2 primary weapons both to proficiency 5 anti-infantry and anti-vehicle so that is almost like having 2 specialties. If he was an assault or maybe even logi he would be about done at this point and on to the next specialty. I'm at almost 13 million and I need to get nanocircutry, uplinks, and reppers from 3 to 5 and get all 5 levels of proficiency for my main weapon and sidearm, thus my figure was a ballpark based on what I estimate I still have to earn and spend to have my logi build "done". So I may have been low balling it a bit.

But my point still is that at some point (where ever that point is) you can only become more versatile due to SP and not anymore powerful.

You can't be serious right? Just unlock everything....no game does that, even in Halo, CoD, other generic multiplayer shooter here, you have to play the game to unlock things like new gear, weapons, custom looks etc..

If you don't like grinding for SP, then don't, you don't want to pay for boosters don't. I really love how you whine about CCP selling boosters to make money, but they aren't a non-profit charity, they need to make money, like any other business.

I'm not very happy with Dust at the moment or the promises CCP makes that it intends to fulfill 5 or 6 years down the road, but I'm not going to begrudge them trying to make some money to pay their bills and keep the devs paid, hell maybe if they sold more boosters they can get developers not based in China probably working for slave wages but can pay some Japanese or Western developers to get this game made properly.

As a skill booster (Active) will be dependent on your reward, if you reached your cap your bonus reward will be marginal (500 SP maximum bonus per battle) and as such I just cannot see why a SP cap would help us sell more boosters.

His point is that without the Active Booster you earn 190k Active SP a week.
If you want more than that you can't really get there by playing more at a mere 1k per match.

However if you buy a booster you can get 285k Active SP in that one week playing the same amount.

Thus the SP cap encourages booster usage to get around it.

That's a pretty decent suggestion. Might I suggest you to share that over here?

I ll try to get some more info about where we stand on the rolling cap. Hopefully CCP Frame can provide some more info about that.

With that much playing time I bet youll max out the skill tree before the Cubs win a pennant

It doesn't matter what system is in place, there will always be a large gap between the new and the old.

The only way to change that is to have all the items static like COD... which takes all the RPG and strategy out of the game.

The best way to fix the overall problem is to make it fun for players at all levels of gameplay. This is where PvE will come in, or loyalty points rewards. Each player needs to feel like they are making a positive impact on the game/match or its not fun.

.....

my vote would be to take active SP out all together... like eve everyone will progress at the same speed depending on implants and such.

I know that if I was not in the closed beta and did not have 10 million SP I would not be playing this game.
Flame all you want but 90% of the vets would not play this game if they had to start from scratch.

And STFU to anyone that will get on here and say that you would play even if you didn't have your 10+ Million SP's

...That does not make sense.



The aim of the skill cap is to ensure players progress through the skill tree at a steady pace, to dis-incentivize 24/7 grinding and to maintain a manageable gap between casual and hardcore players.

I think I can see where the disconnect is between what the GM is saying and what the community says.

The GM (and I'm not speaking for him - correct me if I'm wrong) is saying that the active booster tacks on +50% to whatever you would normally gain, but this in no way affects your SP cap. With or without the booster, you cap at 190k a week. If you go over your cap, at most, you'll only gain one extra SP per two WP's you get in a fight, capping at 1k, totalling 1.5k per fight, which isn't really pushing boosters since it's such a meager amount.

The community (again, not speaking for everyone - correct me if I'm wrong) is saying that with the booster, your effective SP cap becomes 270k SP (provided you manage to cap that week). If you want to train up faster, boosters are pretty much a requirement, otherwise you put yourself behind the guys that do decide to spend money, meaning that if you pay, you get more SP than the guy that doesn't.

Both sides make valid points, but I'm going to side with the community, but not go as far as saying this game is strictly pay-to-win. While everyone's cap is indeed 190k SP per week, with a booster that cap effectively becomes 270k a week (even though we know the SP cap is 190k), catapulting you past those that don't pay (for whatever reason).

Boosters do not raise the SP cap. They do, however, allow you to gain much more SP per week over the guy that doesn't use a booster. They may not give you more SP per week, but the bonus SP they allow you to collect does give you an advantage over those without the boost.

I will also add that I have never seen SP in the killfeed, so there's that to.

...That does not make sense.



The aim of the skill cap is to ensure players progress through the skill tree at a steady pace, to dis-incentivize 24/7 grinding and to maintain a manageable gap between casual and hardcore players.

There is no purpose. It's the most ******** feature in Dust 514 currently and it is CCP's way of saying they're incapable of realizing the stupidity of their own actions. If two players started playing Dust 514 a month apart the one who started earlier will ALWAYS have more SP if they both reach the cap every week UNLESS the newer player buys boosters and the earlier player doesn't. So really it's just CCP money-grabbing by creating a demand for something(the boosters) which negatively impacts the game itself. Without the cap the player who started later could, potentially, get more SP than the player who started earlier. It's all based on how much you play. I've talked to a few people who have stated that they would have played Dust 514 far more if the cap was gone and I agree with these sentiments. The gameplay of Dust 514 isn't exciting enough to play by itself, it's the shallow rpg mechanics that gives it the extra push. With the cap CCP is hampering even this from being used to get players to play once the caps been reached. I mean this game doesn't even reward a player for doing good save a measly 1000 more SP or 100,000 more ISK, both of which are pretty much pointless in the long run, and now with the SP cap they're punishing players who like playing the game. If Dust 514 is going to die, the cap won't necessarily be what kills it but it will make sure that what does has an easier time in do so.

90% why not 99.9%. If your going to use a made up number, at least do it properly.

100% of your posts so far in this thread are 99.9% bollox.

I can't believe he went to level 5 in Amarr heavy and didn't stop at level 3 and start leveling in Sentinel. That's what I did for Amarr logi. But anyway it sounds like Cubs has almost maxed out his build (much better term). Now if he started on tanks next or maybe a medium frame suit of some sort he would be working on his next build. That is a nother thing, people say newcomers can't catch up, but after about 15 mil or so when you have one build pretty much maxed you are caught up. Everything after that is branching outward to be more versatile, you can't continuously build upwards

On the SP cap CCP is trying to have the system set so that to fully max out all character skills should take 5 to 6 years as it currently does in Eve.

New players not being able to catch up to vets... Really? Maximum skill level on any skill is 5. Saying that new players can't catch up to vets is like saying that if I start walking a set distance of 100 feet before you do, then you will never be able to catch up to me though I have to stop at the end of that 100 feet. An inability to "catch up" would only apply in a situation where skill level progression is infinite. The newer players will eventually catch up if they stick with it. Really, they will.

Pay to Win. This is a difficult one. Some things in dust appear to be pay to win true. But the advantage is relatively small in the few cases where it does exist. I have experienced actual pay to win and it's not pleasant for someone like me who isn't able to throw money at a game to get gold armor, gold ammo, gold guns, gold vehicles, even double or triple XP boosters, that don't have equivalents for the non-paying player. See Pirate Galaxy or Dark Orbit for a good examples of true pay to win games.