Wrong, losers should get a reduction in wp and isk. Winners should get an increase in isk for the win. Make AFKing not profitable. Public matches and faction warfare matches are strictly for skillpoints, and KDR under the current mechanics.


Winning or loosing a match should matter right now it doesn't. So of course AFK away. Started playing Dust looking for the harshness and challenge of EVE and found happy, happy good time everyone wins.

A long time ago in an Internet Spaceship game you're all familiar with, pilots were unable to directly warp onto gates. Instead they could only warp 15km distance from them. The reasoning behind this decision was that CCP wanted to make travel hazardous, provide opportunity for those that wished to fight and kill, make the galaxy seem larger, and gates were that natural chokepoint that would allow this.

People, however, have an inherent tendency for risk aversion and to seek any and all advantages to survival and time, and so some enterprising pilot soon came up with the idea of bookmarks that would allow him to warp directly onto gates. The mechanics of how bookmarks worked are not as important as the effect on the game. Bookmarks sucked up server/database resources, and as more and more pilots learnt of the advantages of bookmarks the number of them in game grew exponentially until the load on the server became catastrophic.

The devs of course tried various workarounds to prevent the use of these bookmarks, but without success. Just as soon as a stopgap solution had been implemented the players found a way around it, until eventually CCP learnt an important lesson about player behaviour and allowed warping directly onto gates and removed the bookmarks. Overnight the lag reduced and EVE is a much better, faster game for it.

Dust has a similar problem in AFKing.

AFKing exists because mercs are able to draw an advantage from it, increase their rewards while minimizing their risks, making use of their limited time for competing tasks. Currently, the problem with AFKing is mostly limited to the irritation it causes the other players on the AFKers team. However, any merc in game is using server resources, and as the total number of Dust mercs (hopefully) grows, the amount of load that these inactives put on the server will also grow.

CCP will of course attempt to fix the problem in various ways, as they tried with bookmarks in EVE. First they will remove skillpoint gain for mercs in the MCC. So players will simply AFK on the ground beneath the MCC. Then to counter that CCP will remove skillpoint gain for those in the redline. So players will simply AFK one step outside the redline, behind a rock. After that, there's nowhere else to go really, other than to remove skillpoint gain for time spent in game. This, of course, would increase the perception of Dust's grind. So you might increase warpoints to counter that, but this would increase the skillpoint gap between active good and organised players and casuals.

My point is, as with bookmarks in EVE there is no way to keep time linked skillpoint gain in Dust without players finding a simple workaround, whilst removing it altogether and increasing the rewards for activity just increases the gap between the better and older mercs versus newbies. Newbies, of course, are the lifeblood of any game and if they stop coming the game dies a slow but certain death. So, rather than jump through the million hoops that CCP did with bookmarks in EVE before capitulating to the logical thing, CCP ought to do it with Dust early on in its history. And just what is that logical thing?

Remove in-game time based skillpoint gain and add that 'lost' weekly 190k to passive skillpoint gain. No more AFKers. Reduced load on server. Reduced teammate irritation. No greater increase in the gap between better and older mercs versus newbies than exists currently. Players log on because they WANT to, not because they feel they HAVE to in order to stay competitive, which reduces the perception of grind and thereby burnout

If active SP goes away there will be ZERO quality FPS players in Dust.

Passive SP only gives ZERO incentive to play. The only incentive to play Eve is that you are either paying for it or must earn enough ISK to buy Plex.

If the Eve nerds in Dust can't see that then they aren't half the geniuses they think they are.

This is a absurd idea. CCP makes money from the cash shop. They want people to play to make money. No money means no servers. Furthermore, you don't even need to keep gaining so to stay competitive. First and foremost damage from a proto gun will do proto damage. Always. An older player may have more sp but the gun can only get so strong and his defense so high. Squads can run trains over proto stompers. What's the catch? Well we don't expect you to crush a protostomper straight out of the academy, but just like eve, dust is intense on COOPERATION and without it, just like in eve, you are going to have a hardtime.

Iv been calling for passive only gain since day 1 they will never do it though

A long time ago in an Internet Spaceship game you're all familiar with, pilots were unable to directly warp onto gates. Instead they could only warp 15km distance from them. The reasoning behind this decision was that CCP wanted to make travel hazardous, provide opportunity for those that wished to fight and kill, make the galaxy seem larger, and gates were that natural chokepoint that would allow this.

People, however, have an inherent tendency for risk aversion and to seek any and all advantages to survival and time, and so some enterprising pilot soon came up with the idea of bookmarks that would allow him to warp directly onto gates. The mechanics of how bookmarks worked are not as important as the effect on the game. Bookmarks sucked up server/database resources, and as more and more pilots learnt of the advantages of bookmarks the number of them in game grew exponentially until the load on the server became catastrophic.

The devs of course tried various workarounds to prevent the use of these bookmarks, but without success. Just as soon as a stopgap solution had been implemented the players found a way around it, until eventually CCP learnt an important lesson about player behaviour and allowed warping directly onto gates and removed the bookmarks. Overnight the lag reduced and EVE is a much better, faster game for it.

Dust has a similar problem in AFKing.

AFKing exists because mercs are able to draw an advantage from it, increase their rewards while minimizing their risks, making use of their limited time for competing tasks. Currently, the problem with AFKing is mostly limited to the irritation it causes the other players on the AFKers team. However, any merc in game is using server resources, and as the total number of Dust mercs (hopefully) grows, the amount of load that these inactives put on the server will also grow.

CCP will of course attempt to fix the problem in various ways, as they tried with bookmarks in EVE. First they will remove skillpoint gain for mercs in the MCC. So players will simply AFK on the ground beneath the MCC. Then to counter that CCP will remove skillpoint gain for those in the redline. So players will simply AFK one step outside the redline, behind a rock. After that, there's nowhere else to go really, other than to remove skillpoint gain for time spent in game. This, of course, would increase the perception of Dust's grind. So you might increase warpoints to counter that, but this would increase the skillpoint gap between active good and organised players and casuals.

My point is, as with bookmarks in EVE there is no way to keep time linked skillpoint gain in Dust without players finding a simple workaround, whilst removing it altogether and increasing the rewards for activity just increases the gap between the better and older mercs versus newbies. Newbies, of course, are the lifeblood of any game and if they stop coming the game dies a slow but certain death. So, rather than jump through the million hoops that CCP did with bookmarks in EVE before capitulating to the logical thing, CCP ought to do it with Dust early on in its history. And just what is that logical thing?

Remove in-game time based skillpoint gain and add that 'lost' weekly 190k to passive skillpoint gain. No more AFKers. Reduced load on server. Reduced teammate irritation. No greater increase in the gap between better and older mercs versus newbies than exists currently. Players log on because they WANT to, not because they feel they HAVE to in order to stay competitive, which reduces the perception of grind and thereby burnout

If they removed passive in match sp gain, and introduced sp rollover system, theat would go a long way in this game.

You would also try harder to gain wps, thus playing harder for more rewards... But if you don't do sp rollover at the same time, it'll make the grind even worse... As some will have no chance of capping each week.

Sp rollover + 5 SP/WP + 0 SP/s = awesome sauce.

they are all AFK for good reason.. maybe 1 went into labor, maybe 1 is putting out a neighborhood fire, another is saving a baby that fell down a village well, and you disrespect these said mentioned ppl/civic heroes in this thread of yours.. have some dam empathy/sympathy ffs.. they don't AFK for the SP they AFK to save the real world so you can go on playing AT KEYBOARD as these heroes fix the real world from caving in on you? wtf kinda gratitude is that do you even have any?

Like many others, i always felt a passive only SP growth was the best solution.
But, some will say active SP is what makes people play and that otherwise they wouldnt care about playing the game.

If Dust would want to go full passive, it would need something to replace the SP grind. Another kind of grind, totally futile. Like Trophies for blowing up 1500 CRUs or hacking 2000 objectives etc... This combined to more "daily rewards" such as "hacked 5 objectives in one game = 50K ISK bonus" or "Killed X guys in one game = 75K isk". Hell, those rewards could be scaled as well. Like green, blue, red ribbon for killing say 15/30/45 dudes in one game. Or medicing 5/10/15 etc..

You could also scale medals and give BPO items as a reward. Doesnt have to be uber-powerfull items. Could be BPO advanced suit with pretty colors. Something that makes you stand out in the crowd.

so to make it simple : a Ribbon and Medal System.

And those ribbon (one game scale) and medal (career scale) would be available from the merc career sheet to be seen by everyone. That sheet (empty for now) would show time spent on the game, previous corps, standing if they're ever added, tks, ribbons, total WP, average WP per game, kills etc...

It would make much more easier to assess a guy when recruiting him as well. And would act as a motivation to play on a daily basis to make your merc career more and more solid.

I'm not inventing anything, it's an effective system already well known from FPS players. Also, it acts as a landmark for newcomers "oh hey, that game has ribbon and medal, me likey"

This would be much more interesting than hunting SP whether by afking in the MCC or feeling obligated to play.


Only problem with full passive is that latecomers can never hope to catch up on the vets. The long awaited "roll over SP cap with extended cap for newcomers based on x metrics" allows for it. And may kill the "job feeling" as well if it allows to catch up on missed SP for say 2-3 weeks. But tbh, my gut would go full passive.

Why not simply create some line of code that analyzes whether your character is actively moving in the game or performed X amount of actions within a match? If you don't, you're kicked. You could even introduce a system that allows players to kick others for AFK - like WoW was forced to do with BGs. If the player didn't respond to a warning, they were kicked out. Allowing players to police themselves is a fairly worthwhile tactic and removing active SP will hinder a lot of the reward that is gained which allows the game to be playable. I enjoy grinding for SPs myself and I usually dislike FPS games. This keeps me entertained, much like an MMO does.

i can work around that active motion thing by rubber banding my stick and facing a wall..

trust me even when afkers were able to be killed by a blue grenade we still found ways to afk where they couldn't get us, or more simply we tanked our suits where the madblue only killed himself

until CCP decides to fix the incentive to AFK it will continue to find a way

Quite the relevant thread today, aren't we cupcake?

It's a good idea and I'd be all for it, the worry that pops up for me though is the sheer number of people that would just create tons and tons of accounts (since they are free) and farm farm farm SP. Then sometime later when you CCP starts to allow the sale of characters these people will make ISK like crazy selling all their still - unallocated mercs.

One thing that in a way, gimps, the sale of a character in EVE is the fact that the SP is already allocated so while it may be good for what a buyer want to do with it - it might not be perfect, a small downside. In DUST they could from day one (sorta) create a merc that 100% fits their exact needs.

This will essentially be P2W (skill wise at least) except the seller is a player and not CCP themselves. Sure this can be farmed today, but at a slower rate really.

But it's a very good idea and I like it for myself as well since I feel obligated to grind because I want that SP, so in a way DUST feels like a work rather than pure entertainment.

/c

yeah basically. I wish I got skillpoints for the hours I spent in Dust outside of battle in meetings/discussions, fitting suits, doing recruitment, and other corporation admin stuff.


making active SP based entirely or even half on WP would result in a massive shift in the metagame, and not for the better.