However looking down the road with matchmaking changes and introduction of improved NPE this could be a step in the direction of better training and understanding of the game.

and Ultimately, all of your opinions are nearly invalid for one reason, you're all veterans of Dust 514, it is consistently amazing how skewed one's vision of how a new player experience can be once they are veterans, I have done this in real world dozens of times in the military and every time we grab an entirely clueless guy to run something he constantly runs into something that the guys who been running that shop for the last year the rookie missed because it wasn't mentioned and that knowledge was not passed down.

So to that end, those of you handholding though BA I highly recommend sticking with the basics, controls, UI, Tacnet (which is massively changing by the way better get prepared for that) Communications and weapon systems. Those of you not handholding would need to scrounge up testimony of real players of what they think of the modified BA. Because as it stands now I am filing most of your current complaints under greif stompers as I see no real valid reason as to why its a detrimental on new player learning outside the hack thing which is a small fraction of the entire game to be possibly learning.

"Whenever a mechanics change is proposed on behalf of 'new players', that change is always to the overwhelming advantage of richer, older players."

Yeah seems fine to me too. It's super focused, so this should really help to get used to the basics of the game. The only problem is, that the shock when leaving Academy is going to be even bigger now. Suddenly everything is thrown onto you.

troll, given he has given nothing to back up his statement, just trying to be an internet cool kid.

dust is a complicated game, they need time to understand what the hell is going on in a controlled setting, if they want full fights they can apparently join FW so most arguments iv seen are disarmed by that little fact alone

Allow me to give you some context as to why IWS has little regard for your opinions on the BA. it's something an eve player came up with, it's been named after him, it's called Malcanis's law.

The law states


What this means is that any time a change is made for "new players" it's the older players who will benefit the most. It's a concern that has to be taken into account when making decisions.

http://themittani.com/features/5-years-lex-malcanis
http://outofcake.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/malcanis-law/

Read those, the second one in particular to get a good understanding of it.

Turning the Battle Academy into an 8 vs 8 Ambush only game on the same tiny, tiny map is probably the dumbest move CCP has yet made with Dust 514.