I don't understand.

-XOXO

You kind of have to read gbghg's thread to get the info first.

This is starting to sound like DCUO and Team Fortress 2 combined.

No harm of giving the idea a shot.

This is starting to sound like DCUO and Team Fortress 2 combined.

No harm of giving the idea a shot.

I've been thinking about what I'd like to call "minor tiericide," which is keeping the various levels but increasing drawbacks as you increase effectiveness. Assault rifles have more kick, HMG's overheat faster, grenades either have a tighter radius and more damage or a wider radius and less damage. So that, as you invest in higher-tier weapons, they require more actual skill to use well. This would give people the feeling that they're "upgrading," while causing them to have to adjust their play in minor ways to take advantage of the upgrade. It would also be a simple way of providing variety within a skill tree.

You could take a similar approach to dropsuits: for example, the higher tiers are slower than the lower tiers (except the scouts, where speed is the whole point--maybe they can have a higher recharge delay).

Optionally, the negative effects could be mitigated by the operations skill, so that the kick of a proto AR at level 5 is only slightly greater than the kick of the standard AR at level 1, but the standard AR at level 5 feels like butter.

Militia items should remain as an unquestionably lower-level variant of the standard items, because that's their purpose.

In any case, having tiers where everything about the higher-level item is better than the corresponding lower-level item just doesn't feel right. I would prefer trade-offs and variety.

I agree there is a problem with protosuits. THe problem is they give you ungodly amounts of HP. The model is that linear improvements in performance should require exponentially increasing cost. I think too much of the increased performance of protosuits comes by having higher HP.

Yeah cat merc did a good job of putting my idea into practice, way better than I could have done, it definitely helps you understand my general idea.

As Oso said the main issue is the huge HP advantage proto suits give you, I personally think it's a good thing that the fitting system allows you to do this, it provides variety and means that good fitting choices can throw a spanner in the works, after all who doesn't start cursing when you run into a group of heavies?

Proto suits takes it out of proportion though, we all saw the extreme of this with the whole cal logi fiasco, you had medium frame suits with more HP than heavies running around being effectively invincible. This combined with the TAC AR, a broken weapon that at the Proto level could out DPS an advanced large blaster turret. That's the other issue with proto, as their health advantage increases so must the weapons DPS to things balanced and to stop fights dragging out to ridiculous lengths, that's simple game design.

The biggest issue however is how the two combine, we saw the perfect example with the TAC AR cal logi, a medium frame suit with the highest EHP in the game and the highest infantry DPS as well. That is in effect every single proto suit to the tiers below. If the proto suits only had a EHP or a DPS advantage things would be fine, basic/militia tier players would be able to compete by using the appropriate strategy, the problem is the proto suits combine both advantages leaving basic players with only 2 choices, try to mob him and do as much damage as you can before you die or run away, it makes for crappy gameplay.

Have you not noticed how every single time we have a feedback thread from a new player or a veteran who's made an alt to try out the academy or NPE they have complained about the exact same thing in every single thread, "squads of proto players". I know what your going to say and it's true, squads are a huge force multiplier that has to be taken into account, but imagine what it must be like for a newbie, who comes out of the academy, where it is more or less a level playing field suddenly to find himself facing opponents who can take twice as much damage as them while doing twice as much damage to their opponents. It's a killer, when someone sees that they will have to endure months of being stomped on to reach a level playing field just to do the exact same thing to a new player are you surprised that retention is so low?

And in no way can the ISK cost be argued to be a limiting factor, the asset liquidation we got with uprising gave a lot of people enough to run proto forever effectively. I know of at least 2 people who claimed to have close to a billion ISK, and add on the eventual economy merge and proto suits will become peanuts for people with EVE backing.

The bottom line is something has to change, and the sooner it happens e better.

I don't think anything will happen... know why?

Aurum gear.

Its meant to be the primary monetization model in this game, I can't imagine they will ever get rid of tiers.

\o/

I came to the same conclusion before I made the original post, but I thought it better to try and fail (be ignored) than to not try at all. And I seriously didn't expect to get anywhere near as much community support as I did, I expected my thread to be invaded by hordes of proto bears decrying my idea.

I came to the same conclusion before I made the original post, but I thought it better to try and fail (be ignored) than to not try at all. And I seriously didn't expect to get anywhere near as much community support as I did, I expected my thread to be invaded by hordes of proto bears decrying my idea.

Your point being?

They already have AURUM suits at the Prototype level, and like I said in my post, you can just remove the lower tiers and use the bonuses to provide progression.

If you had to, you could knock the MAG suits back to the Frame suit that has matching bonuses.

I'd like to simplify things down to a militia suit, standard suit and proto suit. No basic vs. role based.

A militia suit would be the present basic suit but you can only use it with the prefitted gear and it is as good with modules as a proto suit would be only it is well rounded on offense/defense.

A standard suit would be a non role bonus suit but have the slots of the proto.

A proto would have the role bonus and the slots.


All suits would have 3 high/3 low slot config. You can spec it however you like.


It wouldn't cost that much to get up to proto suit. It's already a grind to get the mods and that is what really matters.


Make it about the mods and weapons and not the suits CCP!

Frankly I'm not overly fussed about my idea being implemented word for word so to speak, something like your idea which eliminates the power creep and ridiculous artificial limit between tiers would be good.

Power Creep?

Basically means that anything lower than Proto isn't worth using unless you need more ISK, and the Frame suits are useless period.