Soul Houdson
L.O.T.I.S.
RISE of LEGION
0
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Posted - 2013.07.25 08:33:00 -
[1] - Quote
As a noob (I have been playing Dust since 2 months) with not a lot of time to spend playing, I agree with the need to do something to help the new players.
When I started playing Dust it was mainly for its idea and, even if I am playing only pub matches I must say that I like it. I normally peacefully pass over all the technical issues as I understand how much difficult it is for CCP to take care of everything, therefore I try to believe in them and to be positive thinking they will fix all the issues sooner or later.
For this reason I also understand the need to keep people playing and paying (ISK or Aur) and I do not think it would be good for the game and for us all to change that.
Now to come to the real issue of new players vs vet(proto) players here is what I have noticed (I am using militia stuff and it is the first online game for me so I am probably not that good at it  ):
I think the problem is not on the suits or their mods rather on the ISK and SP reward we get for every match.
I do not know how the ISK reward is calculated but I see it varies quite a lot and generally seems to reflect my playing during the match and the difficulties I encounter during it (If I meet a lot of adv or proto players, even if I die a lot and my WP are low, I generally can still get a generous amount of ISK  ). Nothing to say or change on this.
Now for the SP... as I understood we get 24'000 SP/day by passive boost and we can get maximun about 190'000 SP/week by playing. This make 8'760'000 SP/year for doing nothing and maximum about 9'880'000 SP/year by reaching the cap every week... (impossible for me...  ).
This division itself can be good but it is the way the SP reward per single match is calculated that has to be changed in my opinion:
As fas as I know right now we get 5 SP/sec of played match and 1 SP/WP. This brings me to get from 3000 to 6000 SP/match depending much more on how much time the match last rather than on how much I helped or achieved during it...This means that if the blue and reds are balanced and the match is won by either of the two (it really does not matter for the reward) I will get more SP (even with 0 WP and a lot of deaths) than in a match were one of the teams is really stronger than the other resulting in a quicker win or loss (even with 850 WP and a decent K/D).
I think the SP reward should take into account also the difficulty encountered during the match and or the damage done... In this way, a new player being repeatedly killed by an adv or proto, but anyway able to hit his enemy as hard as he can, will still be helping his team as he can and being rewarded for his sacrifice (the reward might be only in SP without changing the WP given).
We could also think of lowering the gain of SP/sec during the match so that it will be more important how may WP and damage you do rather than just how much time you "play".
In my opinion this would descourage AFK players and redliners as they won't get anymore so much SP just for sitting in the match, (if we erase also the WP bonus for destroying neutral installations we could also avoid players from destroying them in the first few secs of the game without any possible reason if not just to get some WP...) and at the same time we would encourage new and/or weaker players to keep playing as much as they can and to get better even though they are killed over and over by adv, proto or more skilled players. (At least I would be really encouraged by something like this...)
This could unfortunately bring another issue as the gain of SP would raise too much with getting better gear and being able to hit, kill or wathever much more than a new/basic player. For this the ideal thing would be to have modifiers of the SP reward based on the gear we are using or better (but I think it would be quite difficult technically) based on the gear of our opponents, so that a basic player hitting a proto would get more points than shooting another basic while a proto shooting a basic would get much less points than fighing another proto.
This would make the game much more RPG like and, even though generally in RPG's you do not get less points by growing but it is just that you need more points to reach higher levels, as in Dust there are much fewer options and skills to raise, I think it would be a better solution.
Now, just to conclude, I would like to write a little on my actual situation with the game because I believe it might be quite common for other players:
As I am a new player with not much time to play, and being the SP reward like they actually are, right now I am not carying to much wether if I can play or not, as I know that I am still farming a good amount of SP/day just by doing nothing (I hardly have time to play enough to get 24000 SP/day by playing)... and... as I ethically do not like redlining, AFKing or CCM sniping, I just prefer not to play if I do not have time to do it properly or if I am not in the mood for being killed so many times in the 90% of matches...
Sorry for the long post  but I hope you'll like it anyway  |
Soul Houdson
L.O.T.I.S.
RISE of LEGION
0
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Posted - 2013.07.25 11:08:00 -
[2] - Quote
Thanks gbghg!
Of course basing the "dynamic" rewards solely on gear would have its pros and cons like every idea.
The choice to use STD or proto stuff would be affected by what the player wants to do, like if he is in a "SP farming  " or in a "I want to kill or destroy anything I see  " mood .
But at the end (with a lot of playing), after having raised all the skills to the max, anyone will end up just using proto's everytime (as ISK do not seem to be this huge problem even for new players ).
I think the key point would be in the journey to reach this point, as I think people will reach it by playing a lot more than farming, like it seems to be now...
There is also another thing coming to my mind which is more important for Corps, I believe. As there is no more Arena mode to train their recruits, Corps are forced to train people in pub matches, which is not very comfortable for many reasons, one of which, as we are discussing, is the chance, almost sureness, to find one or more protos stomping the recruits and making their playing experience hell.
Now, having dynamic rewards and hopefully more STD stuff players at least in pub matches, this would mean to have more leveled and skill based pub matches that would be a more effective training ground for Corp's recrutis. |