Alena Ventrallis
Osmon Surveillance
Caldari State
178
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Posted - 2013.11.30 03:17:00 -
[1] - Quote
The Issues at Hand
Currently the nerf hammer hangs over logi suits, with people screeching about "Slayer Logis" and calling for them to be nerfed down. This is a horrendous Idea, because nerfing logis to stop them from being the best killers also stops people who are using them for actual logi, whether in the form of repping, resupplying, spawnpoints, scanning, or what have you. Therefore, we need to bring assaults and eventually the other size frames, up to logi suits, rather then drag logis down.
Some will argue, "Whether we bring logis down or everyone up, its still the same thing." This is a logical fallacy. Let's look at this logic in a different situation.
Robert and Howard are going to play basketball 1v1. However, Howard has a broken arm. This gives Jack an unfair advantage over Howard. This flawed logic would say to break Jack's arm so the game is fair. But now both of them are crippled, and the basketball game will still be awful and not be fun. The better solution is to fix Howard's arm, so both of them can play with healthy arms.
Back to Dust. We could nerf logis down to where everyone else is, but where does that leave us? Now everyone has a broken suit trying to play this game. What fun is that? So why not fix assault suits, scouts, heavies, so we can all play at our best and have fun, rather than gimp the only able player on the board?
I will be doing medium suit balance right now. Once we balance mediums with each other, it will be easier to retool heavies and lights around them. To have a good balance, we need a strong fulcrum, and medium suits are that fulcrum.
For this thought experiment (I'm thinking this up as I type) I am assuming the 10% weapon buff has been removed from all weapons. Not much to help TTK, but that isn't the point of this.
Medium Suits
Currently, logis can outdamage and outtank both basic and assault frames. This cannot continue, but how to rectify this? Since I am against nerfing logis, lets retool assaults so that they excel at their role of assaulting, while logis retain an advantage over them in exchange for not dealing as much damage.
First, the basic frame. This should be a blend of assault and logi qualities, meaning you can perform both roles adequately, but not as well as the other suits in their specialty. So the basic frame could deal decent damage, more so than the logi, but not as well as the assault. It can also provide equipment and tank better than an assault, but not as well as the logi. I'll take Amarr suits, as I like them. (I will be using advanced level suits for this demonstration, for a middle ground)
The Basic A/1 - Series frame would have 2 highs, 3 lows (+1 from now) 2 equipment slots (+1) and have a bonus on it. Arbitrarily, I pick 3% increase in armor rep efficiency since Amarr is about moderate amounts of armor and quick reps (relatively) but this bonus could be anything.
So now, we branch off to assault suits. The Assault A/1 - Series would have 2 highs, 2 lows, 1 equipment, a light weapon, a sidearm, and a grenade slot. It will also have two bonuses, one from Amarr Medium Dropsuits and one from Amarr Assault Dropsuits. These bonuses will also be dependent on their respective skill. Now, the current assault suit bonus is 5% increase in shield recharge, which it really can't use. So lets change that to a 2% increase in damage per level of Amarr Medium Dropsuits, as well as the 5% heat reduction of laser weapons per level of Amarr Assault Dropsuits. That's not much extra damage, but here we get a Role Bonus of 25% increase in damage mod efficiency. Now, assaults get more out of there damage mods than basic and logi frames. However, they can't tank as well as the basic frame. Because the basic frame is half logi, which means it gets survivability.
Now onto logis. Logistics A/1 - Series would get 3 highs, 4 lows, 3 equipment, a light weapon, a sidearm, and 2 bonuses. Let's keep the +1 armor rep per level of Amarr Medium Dropsuits, and the 5% increase in armor repairer efficiency of Amarr Logistics Dropsuits. Now we add a Role Bonus of 25% reduction in equipment costs. This makes logis harder to kill than the other frames, but they cannot cause as much damage as the other frames. They also do not have a grenade slot, but keep the sidearm slot, as that's what is unique about the Amarr logistics suits.
This would be balance between the two. Logis are hard to kill, but can't cause much damage, assault kill fast, but die fast, and basics are in the middle, able to perform both roles, but not exceed the ability of the specialty suits in their respective category.
I have not done any thought of how much cpu/pg they should have, I'll let someone with a mind for it do that. But I hope my point is clear; Logis have survivability at the cost of damage, assaults deal more damage at the cost of survivability, and basic frames are half-logi, half-assault, able to deal more damage than logis, but not as much as assaults, and able to tank more than assaults, but not as much as logis.
I'll add more if I think of it. Please leave suggestions in the comments. |