Joining a battle is like flipping a coin to decide if I will love or hate Dust. The coin seems to be landing on the unfavorable side a lot more.

I get on, play with some standard suits and maybe some advanced guns to try to have some fun, but I'm just grouped against squads of prototype suits and duvolle ARs.
Sometimes I get on and the battle is one-sided in the favor of my team because of protostomping, and that makes the battle even worse; I often quit battles like that just from the boredom.
Sometimes I get into battles and actually do have a fun close battle where the teams are fairly evenly matched; these battles make me actually love playing the game, but they are often overshadowed by the frustration or boredom of one-sided battles.

Its very frustrating, I have prototype gear myself, but I shouldn't have to choose between being profitable and actually having fun. I just want to be able to get on, jump into a battle, and have some damn fun.

The new matchmaking was supposed to solve it, but it did not, and its been months since the new matchmaking has been implemented, so I really don't have faith in CCP's ability to fix it with matchmaking.

My solution would be to get rid of dropsuit tiers, and make dropsuits like vehicles in this manner. Vehicles have no tiers other than militia and standard, but instead they just have the specializations. How it should work:

Make militia gear equivalent to the current ADV basic frame dropsuits.

Standard basic frames should be the equivalent of the current PRO basic frames. The operation skills for basic frames need to give some kind of bonus to justify having 5 levels since specializations are unlocked at level 3; this bonus should also apply to all dropsuit specialization in that racial frame size.

Specialized suits (like assault or logistics) should be equivalent to the current PRO specialized suits. Skill bonus would be enough reason to keep people spending SP on the skill.

I proposed this idea before elsewhere, but the point of this thread is to express my frustration with this game right now. I just want to be able to jump into a battle, and consistently have fun. Whether its with my solution, or some something else (like gear restrictions, or WP scaling based on tier of items used), something needs to be done.

Normally I don't have to deal with the problems since I just normally AFK farm and wait for specific improvements/additions, but I don't have the time to make 600k SP (event) from just AFK farming, so I actually have to deal with playing the game .

Death to tiers.

How about I punch your teeth out.

Tiers aren't the cause of the pubstomping. If two full squads of good players Q-sync in a pub match, they will dominate the match regardless of gear.

A squad of good STD players v. STD Bluedots

A squad of good players in PRO v. STD Bluedots

What is more fair?

There WILL be matches that are going to be tough, but completely onesided fights are completely killing any fun from the game

Think about it.

*snipped generally good ideas*

All that need be done should thus occur is making every skill worthwhile.

The base frame skills, have the L/H/S weapon operation skills useful.

Pretty much make the skill worth training for a reason beyond "Well, I got all this SP", or "I need it to unlock this.

*snipped beatific tiericide proposal*

Agreed, tiericide it must be!

It's bull crap, especially in an FPS, that higher level gear and skills simply mean "5% better at everything". Higher level should mean more options and more flexibility instead. Any advantage should come with a drawback of some kind.

They do. They take lots more power. Which makes sense.

It's silly to claim we need to make all weapons somehow equal (which is what your argument will eventually boil down to, attempting to give drawbacks to supposedly balance out the gains)

We rather need to have battles that disallow protostomping.

We've had "the matchmaker" for a long time now.
Let's face it:

ITS A FAILURE.


We need something else.

Personally, I'd like to see explicit options for creating battles with no proto gear.
No proto suits, no proto weapons, no proto vehicles, no proto mods.

I feel you. This seems to be a common complaint, and I agree. What they actually need to do, is come up with an overall level like every other FPS, which is based on your skill levels. And then the matchmaker could more easily match up properly. (As far as public contracts go, but perhaps FW contracts could be left as is. You either get stomped or ya don't). As far as I'm concerned, the only way the matchmaker can match is by comparing all the skills a char has and then comparing levels...but then when trying to matchmake that can get quite troublesome.

One thing I have noticed too is bad tactics tend to contribute. Players need to stop dropping all their links right in the middle of the dang field of fire, serious. It's either spawn back at the MCC or where ever you are placed during spawning on Ambush missions, or spawn right in someone's line of fire. Links need to be placed strategically, maybe behind some cover at the very least, or in a place where players could spawn and flank the enemy. I don't expect players to get smart about dropping links anytime soon so I think to even things up CCP should perhaps find a way to mark combat zones on maps and you could only drop links where there isn't combat going on.

They do. They take lots more power. Which makes sense.

It's silly to claim we need to make all weapons somehow equal (which is what your argument will eventually boil down to, attempting to give drawbacks to supposedly balance out the gains)

I've been beating this drum for a while now, but "Tiercide" would solve ... nothing

Take a look at these examples someone posted earlier. Big thanks to the poster!

http://postimg.org/image/5uox4u9av/
http://postimg.org/image/gt06n0xw7/

Now do you believe for a second that limiting player gear would make any difference in a game like this? It wouldn't. What needs to be sorted is SP, which would in turn also help balance gear available to teams. If teams have similar SP levels, then both teams should be a healthy mix of blueberries and proto-squads.

Besides, Tiers are one of the core foundations of this game. Matchmaking needs improvement, but gutting the core principals of the game isn't the answer.

I'd prefer if weapons, modules, and equipment weren't tiercided. Lower tier stuff is good for reducing PG/CPU consumption.

...

Says the AFK farmer. Weird.

Oh right, the triple SP requires actual WP. That explains everything.

Tiers aren't the cause of the pubstomping. If two full squads of good players Q-sync in a pub match, they will dominate the match regardless of gear.

Tiers aren't the cause of the pubstomping. If two full squads of good players Q-sync in a pub match, they will dominate the match regardless of gear.

Bump for still a problem.
CCP, literally any acknowledgment of this issue would be nice, even if it's just one post somewhere, to say "yes, we are aware that matchmaking is making Dust not fun for the vast majority of players, and we're working on it."
If evidence is needed, let us know and a mountain of it will appear.

They actually did few hours ago

"[FEEDBACK] Playing dust sometimes is more frustrating than fun - https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=119894&find=unread
Status: Events, matchmaking and NPE are all these things that combined make players frustrated, specially new ones. We are aware of this and are working on improving things."

Can be found here https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1534407#post1534407

If you don't mind taking a little hit to your KDR, why not just go BPO and starter fit in pubs. It's incredibly profitable and has done wonders to actually improve my gun game and tactical knowledge. Plus, it undercuts the Pubstomper's bottom line as they receive less isk for the end of match due to the low value of equipment destroyed.