the man leading your alliance seems to. as do most of the CPM. Uplinks may be your crutch but the same rationale failed horribly with tac ars and everyone could use those too. also, uplink spam promotes and supports zerging if anything.

Honestly if only to keep frame rate up after the enemy decides they need 30 uplinks within a 15 meter radius limiting how many can be in a certain proximity to each other should be considered

Horrible idea. Do we really want to go back to the days in the E3 build with chaos and nobody uses uplinks? Hell no they stay how they are. I would be more worried to be picked up by active scanners. Every decent squad has a logi that uses either advanced or proto scanners. Which means every 1 is highlighted up like a christmas tree. I know the power of tagging people up for a whopping 25 secs. It tells you where exactly the person is and in which direction he is looking at. Ever played COD black ops? Ever had the blackbird killstreak? Then you know how huge the advantage is to know the exact position from enemys. The active scanner affects the whole gameplay. It gives you to benefit of prefire around corners, cook grenades in time to throw them exactly where the enemy is and on Skirmish if you want to ninja hack you can check the proximity for hostiles. Oh and dont forget the +15WP for every kill a squadmate gets cause you scanned them down. Uplinks+scanners+nanohives= WP printing machines.

That's not a tactical reason, and lag can be fixed without placing limitations on the spawns.

Tell me where I said anything about limiting spawns or even limiting the total number of uplinks on a map, all I said was tweak it so you can drop dozens right next to each other and instead think a fraction of a second about your placement and not spamming

Hmm, thinking about placement, sounds tactical to me

The problem with the OP's narrow interpretation of the article (i..e, we need to nerf uplinks right now) is a lot of of other things need to be fixed before you change uplinks so dramatically. As it stands now it takes forever to get across these huge new maps. One orbital takes out your entire forward squad and you're done, nobody can get back to the front lines in time. You would need to massively buff dropships before you ever considered this: it's the only other way you could realistically move people quickly, but as they stand now its just too risky to move large groups that way. One assault forge can take out your whole squad in seconds.

I'm all for making them more specialized, there's no need for anyone but scouts or logi's to equip them and be throwing them around willy nilly, but a hard limit like 1 per person is crazy without a number of other fundamental changes. All that will do is penalize specialization and incentivize everyone to carry them. The logistics class would be crippled unless another way to gain WP is substituted. While they are definitely a crutch and can be abused, what I don't understand entirely is how they can be "unbalanced" by most definitions of the term. Can everyone not use them? (OK, other than heavies). It's not like a weapon where there are dozens of types intended for different uses and when weapon x is not only the best at it's own role, but also better than weapon y is at it's role, then you have imbalance since weapon x prevails over y in every situation. Uplinks fill a singular role in terms of player equipment, there is nothing to really balance them against. It's not quite like saying playing in an organized squad is unbalanced, but similar in that the mechanic is available to anyone without much in the way of sacrificing something else.

Anyway, a much more sensible change that could be done now is simply to make them not work within a certain distance of an installation (CRU, objective, supply depot) or eachother. That would reduce spam, reward placing them in strategic locations, and not prohibitively restrict mobility in the absence of other changes (i.e., dropships) that will clearly not be ready in 2013.

There is no way to nerf the user. The only good idea I read about uplink spam is having a certain radius that prevents uplinks from being so close to each other. Copycat uplinking, while it could be for the best intention, can be too much at times.

-- snip BS and QQ --

Who peed in your soup?

And why take it out on this game, Angry Birds has many more important issues for a Merc of your caliber.

Well, I think many of the people advocating making uplinks pretty much useless (by either limiting people to 1 active, making them take up even more cpu/pg than they do now, only being able to have 1 active link within a 100m radius... etc.) don't generally play with organized squads or teams, use uplinks themselves or even really play this game anymore (which is the case for many of the "vet" players quoted by the GNN twitter).

Speaking as a logi, and not a cal logi, an actual logi, I actually do think uplink spam is a problem. But not in the way many of you suggest. By spamming I'm referring to idiots who just want free warpoints and will drop a suit's worth of links in a cluster before switching to their actual combat suits. Or when people who will mindlessly drop a link right next to an active one in a good location, rather than finding a new spot. So yes, maybe some sort of a radius in which only one link can be active would be useful to stop this sort of behaviour, but 100m is ridiculous, even 50m is way too much. I'm talking more like 10m, maybe?

In my opinion there is absolutely no need to increase the cpu and pg requirements of the links, they are already a drain on a logi's suit (as someone who plays a lot of pc, I already have to sacrifice a lot to be able to always have links on my suit to be ready to drop more as needed, as that is the role I have chosen).

I don't run around in suits with 3 or 4 sets of links equipped, I have never considered to that to be particularly useful even at the beginning of matches, even though I know some people insist on doing that. In fact, one of the improvements to uplinks could be taking a look at the proto tier, I think maybe there just are too many different types of links? Allotek Stable, Ishukone Gauged are great, they are useful specialized variants, but maybe 3 different Imperial ones (+ 1 AUR version) is too much. Also, the AUR Carthum Abyss has always bugged me, there is no isk version of it... Maybe it could be replaced by the squad only variant, with fewer spawns but comparatively lowered fitting requirements, only 1 active allowed, that assault players would probably be happy to run (as the current proto links are "so hard to fit").

A team quota for active links would be bad as well, it would absolutely encourage spamming, certain type of people would just drop as many links as they could as they first spawn, and then no one else would be able to deploy any useful ones for the rest of the match. Now that is really only a problem in pub matches, which is probably all the OP has experience of anyway... In a PC match that shouldn't be a problem, and the thing about friendly fire is that it also applies to blue equipment.

I do agree that drop uplinks could do with some changes, but nothing nearly as drastic as some here seem to want. They are a working mechanic that is a part of this game, and effectively removing them from the game would certainly change the game, but I disagree with those that think it would be for the better. I already detest having to spend at least half of any pub matches running (or even driving) around these huge maps trying to find something to do, having to make my way across half the map every time I respawn would probably be the thing that would finally make me quit this game

your problem is that the people who's opinions you are trying to disregard have played the game at the highest levels for the longest and have a history of making decisions for the games benefit.

you benefit from the current mechanics and thus are unable to be objective.

there is no substitute for movement in a shooter. the ability to get from point A to point B is the most important aspect after shooting skill. beating the opponent to a choke point and/or being able to setup a defensive position is a decided advantage as defensive war doesnt require tactics as much as reaction to the attacker.

this is true on COD sized maps, here in Dust will maps 4x the size of what we saw in MAG movement from the spawn to the critical area is even more important. the ability to respawn immediately at the chokepoint or objective is a different matter entirely. the advantage gained is incalculable. drop uplinks were poorly designed and have to be changed.

"Decisions for the game's benefit" is also a very subjective point...

we both agree with change then, good. because all of what i mentioned about uplinks being one of the more poorly designed aspects of this game is true. the wp benefits arent the problem. its the ability to instantly appear in critical areas on 800m+ maps.

You should check out this thread on Using Radiation Zones to Curtail Drop Uplink Use. I think it's a novel way to recondition but not force players to discontinue uplink spam of objectives. Plus it creates a system for highly dynamic play.

I agree there should be changes, I just don't necessarily agree with the changes you seem to want. It's a futuristic shooter, not a "realistic" one, so you should expect some of the mechanics to be different. The teleportation spawn mechanic is now part of the lore, removing it entirely would in my opinion be plain bad.

Now, saying things like limiting the numbers of links that can be carried and deployed, making you unable to deploy them near other spawn points, increasing spawn times, increasing the deployment time of the link etc. All of these are possible changes that might in some ways address what your problem with the current mechanic is.