The Eve axiom is well known, "Don't fly what you can't afford to lose."

And as Zdub pointed out in another thread, when you think about tiers are very much a P2W system, by forking out more ISK you are gaining a large advantage over other players, our entire gear system right now is a P2W system.

Tiericide was always a misnomer for what most people are after. Techicide is more accurate - This is very similar to getting rid of faction and T2 kit in EVE for just T1.

Not the entire system, only dropsuits.

Dropsuits are unique in that they provide a MASSIVE power advantage only at the cost of isk. So people who have hundreds of millions of isk can literally pay a meaningless currency for a huge power differential over new players.

We don't need tiericide for everything, we just need tiericide for those things that are not balanced by a fitting cost (CPU/PG).

This means tank hulls and dropsuits.

1) Please define 'massive' in your terms. In terms of PRO vs. STD gear I see at best a doubling, maybe tripling of eHP. And with DPS, PRO gear gets at best 50% -75% more dps after max skills.

2) Like was mentioned before, there are many things in Eve, for which you can just pay a LOT more and get significantly better gear at the same level. Faction and Officer Webs/scrams are one of those things. That doesn't mean it needs to be rebalanced. So in that sense Officer gear is P2W.

I get that what you want are more roles for people to use to counter other people's domination. I believe this will naturally come with 1) more people having more SP and 2) all racial weapons and suits being filled out.

Some, like the IRC lurker, Beers, that removing skills altogether and letting everyone have access to everything could be the answer to limiting Protostompling.

That's not the only thing he suggested, but it is a suggestion that tries to deal with the 'SP economy' as it has evolved. Where people have currently put their SP limits the ways that they can fight and adapt in battle, as does some frustrating game mechanics making the longer range anti shield weapons less than stellar right now. I think fixing the core game mechanics will go a long way toward letting us feel out the currently existing roles and the cheaply accessed 'hard counters' to a lot of the proto-stomping that is going on. Whatever your abstract concepts of tiericide are, they are just too premature, both from the game design end, and the community maturity end. Other fundamental things need to be dealt with, such as new player experience, skill progression systems, adaptive squad management and communication, and player retention, that will all end up making the community's public match experience much more positive than it currently is.

In dust we're effectively throwing both groups into the same arena and tell them to fight each other, it's very poor design. The standard MMO setup just doesn't work in an FPS, FPS's rely on players being on a level playing field, where aiming, accuracy, cover, and weapon choice are the defining factor, right now we see too much emphasis on one side and not enough on the other.

And your right, we can't just eliminate tiers without replacing them, myself and several others (who have made much better proposals than me) have offered systems where tiers are replaced by a system more focused on role bonus's than on simply having a suit being better in every respect. They're not perfect, nothing ever is, but they make much more sense than our current system.

And as Zdub pointed out in another thread, when you think about tiers are very much a P2W system, by forking out more ISK you are gaining a large advantage over other players, our entire gear system right now is a P2W system.

3x EHP is a massive advantage in a tracker shooter. Can you honestly disagree with that?

ISK is the free to play currency. That doesn't equal 'P2W' as you're not actually paying.
That may be dodging the point slightly, so I'll answer what I think you intended to say.

AUR doesn't grant any advantage that can't be gained through normal gameplay. It shortens the grind, but that's not 'Pay to win'. There's nothing you can do with aurum that you can't do with isk given slightly more time.

Additionally, how does CCP make money from removing the tier system? I'm sure plenty of people on the forums like the idea of CCP not making any money, but they have to monetise something. There isn't any incentive to pay just for a tweak on your dropsuit - the progression goes out the window with techicide.

1) Please define 'massive' in your terms. In terms of PRO vs. STD gear I see at best a doubling, maybe tripling of eHP. And with DPS, PRO gear gets at best 50% -75% more dps after max skills.

3x the EHP at 7-8x the cost. I can agree that that is a pretty big advantage. But there are ways to combat those squads. They aren't trump cards.

People are also making the argument, "the rich get richer".

My counter argument is one rooted in math...

When they bring proto gear, and you can compete at even 50% of the effectiveness of them, or 25% even, YOU WILL VERY LIKELY BE GETTING RICHER FASTER THAN THEM, if you don't stupidly waste your stuff.

Their richness should be irrelevant to you. The fact that they are bringing more expensive stuff means that that match is actually possibly going to net you more than a battle where everyone was walking around in 15k isk suits.

10 kills against a PRO team running 150k isk suits is worth 100 kills against a team running 15k isk suits...

What you are asking for is the ability to use your ingenuity to always be able to more appropriately pull out a counter to what is being played so that in the majority of circumstances, suit cost is less relevant than a suit fitting it's appropriate role.

I'm humbly suggesting that we don't have the roles yet, or the complete ability to adapt thanks to limited suit/weapons and game mechanics. Spending the resources to overhaul this would, again, be premature.

back to more blueball tactics plz.

Seriously?? I mean really?

You can't see how having 3x the HP and +75% DPS on the other guy is beyond insane from an FPS design perspective?

This isn't some gradual curve either with proto sets being "pay-walled" behind a large number of L5 skills.

faction and T II stuff is still in EVE, so wtf are you talking about? Tiercide ftw.


Peace, Godin

I agree with your points totally. The current system is 90% of the way there. But I still think tiered dropsuits are pay to win, you arent paying real money but you are just buying power essentially.

I think CCP has the answer already, we need to emulate vehicles.

So... we remove dropsuit tiers.

So for example.

Caldari Logistics Dropsuit 1 unlocks the dropsuit itself. The skill then has a fairly powerful bonus attached to it for that suit... so you can specialize into the suit if you like or you can just unlock it.

I think if we rebalanced the slot and CPU/PG on all suits to some sort of standard and you leave suit bonuses.

For example:

Caldari Logistics Dropsuit:
1. Reduces CPU/PG on equipment by 5% per level
2. (insert whatever their new equipment bonus will) by x% per level
3. Increases CPU/PG by 2% per level.

So now if I go level 1 in this, I have the same suit as a guy who is level 5 in it, but that guy have some nice bonuses that justify the SP expenditure as he specialized into the suit.

If I go level 3 in it, he's now only ~10% more powerful than I am. Which follows the '10% power per tier' we see in weapons.

Then you offer 'Neo' Aurum dropsuits. They require no skill, they are unaffected by passives, and they carry the same benefits as someone who went level 5 in a dropsuit tree.

i.e.
'Neo' Logistics Dropsuit.
1. Reduces CPU/PG on equipment by 25% (NOT per level)
2. (insert whatever their new equipment bonus will) by (5*x%) (NOT per level)
3. Comes with 10% more CPU/PG.

I think your math is off here somewhat. And maybe this is where I'm misunderstanding you or something, but right now, it isn't the SP invested into proto suits alone that makes the suit that powerful. It is PRO suits + PRO weapons + PRO fitting skills, right?

Dude those numbers only matter if you believe that all engagements are 1v1 clean showdowns.

PRO AR squads, can only hit up to 55m effectively. They can be bombarded at that range by mass drivers. If they then divide up their squad to cover all their weapon/range bases then they lower the effectiveness at those closer ranges. Grenade damage is still an equalizer for most suits. Surprise attacks can mitigate a lot of eHP/dps advantage for both PRO/STD users.

I simply have not heard what you want besides having everything be roughly equal the same isk, but 3-4x the complexity when it comes to battlefield roles. in order for the community to even make sense of that kind of complexity they would need 3-4x the amount of SP they have right now.

The problem YOU need to deal with right now are the people who say, "I'm a caldari proto AR user, and I have the best possible combination. I'm bored and have nothing left to skill into" That's an ignorant attitude, and is more responsible for destroying the chemistry of battlefield 'fairness' than the ability of people to pull out proto.

I agree with your points totally. The current system is 90% of the way there. But I still think tiered dropsuits are pay to win, you arent paying real money but you are just buying power essentially.

I think CCP has the answer already, we need to emulate vehicles.

So... we remove dropsuit tiers.

So for example.

Caldari Logistics Dropsuit 1 unlocks the dropsuit itself. The skill then has a fairly powerful bonus attached to it for that suit... so you can specialize into the suit if you like or you can just unlock it.

I think if we rebalanced the slot and CPU/PG on all suits to some sort of standard and you leave suit bonuses.

For example:

Caldari Logistics Dropsuit:
1. Reduces CPU/PG on equipment by 5% per level
2. (insert whatever their new equipment bonus will) by x% per level
3. Increases CPU/PG by 2% per level.

So now if I go level 1 in this, I have the same suit as a guy who is level 5 in it, but that guy have some nice bonuses that justify the SP expenditure as he specialized into the suit.

If I go level 3 in it, he's now only ~10% more powerful than I am. Which follows the '10% power per tier' we see in weapons.

Then you offer 'Neo' Aurum dropsuits. They require no skill, they are unaffected by passives, and they carry the same benefits as someone who went level 5 in a dropsuit tree.

i.e.
'Neo' Logistics Dropsuit.
1. Reduces CPU/PG on equipment by 25% (NOT per level)
2. (insert whatever their new equipment bonus will) by (5*x%) (NOT per level)
3. Comes with 10% more CPU/PG.

Yeah sure totally. Its a drastically compounding effect that makes PRO so much more powerful than STD/ADV suits.

By removing dropsuit tiers, its now fitting vs. fitting and not my 650 EHP proto logi vs your 250 EHP MLT assault.

We need to remove the slot advantage that higher tier dropsuits have, by normalizing it across the board. Proto modules now become more about slot efficiency at the cost of fitting, and we can make unique dropsuits that have reduction on fitting costs for certain modules so they pay less of a penalty for slot efficiency, thus defining a very loose 'role' for each suit.

Seriously?? I mean really?

You can't see how having 3x the HP and +75% DPS on the other guy is beyond insane from an FPS design perspective?

This isn't some gradual curve either with proto sets being "pay-walled" behind a large number of L5 skills.

75% isn't a realistic number. It's nowhere near realistic - with 5 complex damage mods and proficiency 5, you'll get a little over half that, and if you do that you certainly won't have the HP advantage. The main problem is the HP bricking.

All I have read from you guys is FIRST remove tiers, THEN "add alternatives". What would result is a VERY boring rock paper scissors game, IMO. What escalation of tiers allows is a horizontal and a vertical RPS game rather than just a horizontal one. I would propose that your design would have a much lower sense of progression'.

I do like your ideas, and there is some merit in them. What I'd much rather see though is a proper matchmaking to separate the tech levels and then have various specialisations on each tech level. You'd still have advantages from speccing into higher tiers when playing on the lower tiers, but only minor ones, much like your idea. One key thing is that it has a more advanced progression than just tweaking your fit slightly.


What would you think of the following?

- Proper matchmaking, separated by tech level (except in PC or FW matches).
- Proper risk for using protosuits - essentially, a fixed economy so it's not normally viable to protostomp 23/7.
- An improved SP system so it's not as ludicrously grindy.
- Specialisations on each tech level, much like you suggested but for each tech level.

And my points above, indirectly albeit, is that HP bricking works now because hit detection is off, and most fights are at close range. HP bricking (especially if shields started having a regen penalty) comes at the expense of regen. Which means you can ONLY be effective so often. So while some player may be able to tank like a beast, that tactical advantage will only be there for a very short amount of time. Fix aiming, fill out weapon damage types for different ranges, and bricking becomes less relevant, and other meta strategies (regen, hackgriefing, scorched earthin (mines everywhere), logistics teams, etc) begin to matter more. Roles will fix themselves when mechanics fix themselves.

I am fine with every aspect of the SP system except for drop suits. Mostly because i can't ever imagine a situation where I would not run a proto dropsuit, so i cannot even use another dropsuit until ive gone level 5 in it. The cost of 2.5 million SP required to change suits is whats turning me off.

Matchmaking is somewhat unrelated imo, yes it's necessary but it doesn't address the power disparity, all it does is force you to use your best gear always as you will always be facing people in their best gear.

I'm not sure how to implement a fixed economy, i don't know if that will help or hurt the proto situation.

I'm not sure what you mean about specializations on each tech level either? You might have to go into that a little more.