I think Dust might be better served by a suit/role/skill bonus somewhat more similar to EVE, and this is relevant to the current suit bonus discussion. This also ties in with making the basic suits useful, and I think KAGEHOSHI's thread about adjusting the stats on those suits is also quite relevant there.

Basically, the idea is removing the passive bonuses from the suit skills and adding them to the items themselves (suit types/classes). This allows for an easier introduction of special suits, pirate suits, and more flexible use of bonuses. This is the same as it works with standard vs. tier-2 ships in EVE. In short, you have a basic ship (i.e. - racial frigate in EVE, basic racial medium in Dust) and your basic ship has some sort of bonus that is modified by that skill. You also have specialist ships (i.e. - assault frigate in EVE, assault suit in Dust) and that ship has bonuses that are modified by both the basic and specialist skills.

This is also discussed directly in KAGEHOSHI's threadnought as well, but I figured it bore repeating as we go into feedback on suits-mode. Also, I wanted to emphasize the distinction of merely having a skill bonus on the basic suit skill (status quo), vs. bonuses on the suit that are modified.

So, examples... take these skills:
Amarr Medium
Amarr Logistics
Amarr Assault

Rather than a bonus on the skill, the skills modify the suit bonus. Basic suits receive no "role" bonuses, but have medium bonuses. Role-specific suits receive both the basic bonus and role bonus, but not necessarily the same bonuses per skill level. The only part that's iffy in my opinion as that there's some vacillation in terms of build for the races dev-side (e.g. - Amarr being "dual-tanked" apparently vs. armor tanking... vs. armor repping?). Examples (with bonuses just made up):

Amarr Basic Suits:
3% bonus to laser weapon cooldown and 3% bonus to armor plate hp per rank of Amarr Medium

Amarr Assault Suits:
5% bonus to laser weapon cooldown and 5% bonus to armor plate hp per rank of Amarr Medium
&
1% bonus to light weapon damage and 5% bonus to stamina per rank of Amarr Assault

Amarr Logistics Suits:
3% bonus to armor repper efficacy and 3% bonus to armor plate hp per rank of Amarr Medium
&
5% bonus to PG/CPU fitting of equipment and -10% bonus to spawn time of Drop Uplinks per rank of Amarr Logistics

Taken in tandem with the suit adjustments that Kagehoshi suggests, we have basic skills and suits that are actually useful.

With skill bonuses on suits, we could transition easily to having special suits as tournament rewards, pirate suits, etc:

Amarr Tournament Champion Suit:
7% bonus to laser weapon cooldown and 5% bonus to armor plate hp per rank of Amarr Medium
&
3% bonus to shield resistance vs. blaster and 3% bonus to armor resistance vs. projectile per rank of Amarr LogisticsorAssault.

and/or

Sansha Assault suit (requires Caldari AND Amarr skills):
6% bonus to laser weapon cooldown and 2% bonus to laser weapon damage per rank of Amarr Assault
&
5% bonus to shield extender efficacy and 2% shield resistance per rank of Caldari Assault

Neither special suit requires making new skills, and the items scale off and provide variety in bonuses off existing skills. This makes for much more interesting special suit options because rather than the excitement of "slightly more shields or fitting... woo" (the Master Recruiter suit is an example of this) on some putative event reward, you can have something with a meaningful effect that's interesting... but wouldn't imbalance the game if handed out at a rate of 3-5 suits for a set of tournament winners.

No putting them on the suits allow both tiericide as well as suit variety.

The point is the suit provides a bonus based on your relevant skills. Not you have to get a new skill for every new goddamned dropsuit that comes out.

No.
It will encourage players to play proto even more.

This is the interests of "Passive skillls"

So... if they don't release any different suits, and just move the current (or 1.8 bonuses) to the suits instead of skills... then it's functionally identical to our current system? The numbers are just in a different place?

i agree that skills and how their applied to a certain suit should be more like eve, although the exact way to do it its debatable

Agree. This also allows for different versions of same tied suits within a role such as dedicated medics and dedicated supply runners or av assaults as well as AP assaults etc

Also the cross skilling to give suits a different purpose to their intended role is nice. Scout/ logo would create a blockade runner. Heavy/logi would create the heavy logistics suit for running with heavies.

I'm going to bed now, hopefully there will be a reply when I wake up.

One of the nice things is that it works with or without tiericide.

As an additional bonus, it solves a problem the pilot suits seemed to have:

The largest problem with pilot suits as they were presented before is that they were like most of our dropsuits: the passive bonus from the suit skill applies in full regardless of the suit.

Presumably a "pilot" wants to be a dedicated vehicle jockey, right? What does it matter what the suit stats are then? Once you hit rank 5 and get the full skill bonus, you have no reason to ever step into a proto-model suit, as you can get the same bonuses to your vehicle by wearing the standard suit. Your vehicle is your shield, so the suit models become largely superfluous. Seems a bit backwards.

With bonuses on the suits themselves, they could make the pilot suit an "exception" to the normal passive skill rule by scaling the bonus amounts on the suit tiers. That way, you have to run the proto suit to get the maximum bonus to your vehicle. It seems appropriate for that one scenario because pilots present a unique problem with their vehicle bonuses otherwise.

Actually the problem with the Pilot Suit is that it is redundant. You already skill into vehicles the same way that you skill into Dropsuits, effectively making the vehicle itself a Dropsuit. Adding a Pilot Suit on top of that just doesn't make any sense.

Add to that the difficulty that CCP has already faced when trying to balance vehicles, giving them something else that adds more bonuses above and beyond anything that dropsuits can get is just going flood the forums with more "Nerf Vehicle" threads.

I think Dust might be better served by a suit/role/skill bonus somewhat more similar to EVE, ...

Dust514 was supposed to be a FPS. If your only players are EVE players then you might have a good idea there. However, I suspect that most of the players are in fact - Not - EVE players. And only EVE players will care about your solution.

Additionally your solution reeks of complexity and CCP/Shanghai has been steering a course towards simplification of everything.

I actually really like this idea. I gives the devs more options for balancing and diversifying the suits (which may also lead to Basic suits having a use for vets), gives a purpose to the basic suit skills other than just the lvl 3 unlock, and offers an interesting high-level skill sink (I'm of the opinion that roles should be easy to get into, but hard to master).

I share the concern though (which others have pointed out) that this will increase the power disparity between veteran players and new players.
Honestly though, I feel this is likely an intractable problem anyway, and is better resolved through other means: better matchmaking, new low SP and/or low meta-lvl gear only matches, better newbie squading tools, more UI changes to direct new players into corps (so they are more likely to be rolling with Proto-Bears instead of just being rolled by them), and gameplay options other than PvP (PvE, Exploration, Mining/Building/Manufacturing, really anything from the MMO side of things).

https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1878734#post1878734 made it to the bi-weekly thing

The ideas have a lot of merit and I can't say whether or not they are good or detrimental...just to be careful. Proto-stomping is a problem right now, but we also don't want players who invest the isk and sp (and thus the time to get there) to feel like their efforts are meaningless.

Some points to consider...

CCP WILL have Aurum gear at all levels - when you directly increase stats of gear, so too do you increase AURUM stats rendering sp less valuable. Players who invest sp should get more out of their suits than someone who swipes the credit card. Vice Versa, Aurum users should feel their cash investment is performing at the same base level as whatever they bought.

EX: Prototype Caldari Medium Frame vs. Aurum Prototype Caldari Medium Frame
-Both should have the exact same statsbefore skills.
-If a player who has skilled into the frame runs into a player who has also skilled into the frame, but is running the aurum version, the match should be even by virtue of sp. If the player who skilled into a frame runs into a player who has not skilled the frame but is running its aurum version, the player with skills should have the advantage by virtue of skill bonuses.

Power Creep is dangerous and while proto suits and their aurum equivalents should be strong, CCP has done well to ensure that militia gear (the bottom of the scale) does have some chance, however slim, of succeeding. This is the fine line both DUST and EvE walk in skill vs. gear - the goal is for players with skill to be able to triumph over players with gear and no skill, and vice versa, a player with gear has the chance to triumph over a player with skill IF they are in inferior or strategically inferior gear (ex. an aum proto HMG vs a rail rifle at range - or an aur proto rail rifle vs. std nova knives).

Simply be sure to keep this in mind as you propose stat changes. I do imagine CCP is trying to eventually get all skillbooks to have meaning (not be sp sinks).

Zeylon Rho, I think you should edit the OP and explain it better. Feel free to use the example I used in post #23. The OP is still a bit confusing.

I don't think you understand the idea.
The skill will act as a multiplier.
If you have level 0 of a dropsuit skill, and the dropsuit bonus is +5% armor, then you will receive no bonus (0 x 5% = 0). Aurum or no Aurum, it makes no difference.

I'll give it a reread - as someone just said though, do clarify. Again - I'm not against it just providing insights to be cognizant of.

Right now my main concern is proto gear (keep in mind skills right now are % base, so gear can exponentially become powerful hence me comment on power creep). You could run the risk of stretching the scale so far that advanced equipment is annihlated by virtue that proto equipment requires lvl 5, and thus full bonuses.

If all you're doing is switching the bonus to the suit and the skill has no meaning except as a modifer like you describe...this seems more like an argument on just looking at it differently with the same result. That's developer resources spent on accomplishing nothing...no offence, please tell me if I'm reading wrong. But, what I'm seeing is you're providing a solution to a problem not there. Again, don't get prickly - help me understand.

The current skill system is built around the model they know (EvE) where skills modify the stats of the items directly as well as unlock the equipment. The equipment itself in no way is changed without the corresponding skills. Assault suits don't need to have a built in bonus, the skill itself does this - if you wear X suit this skill provides Y bonus to modules on it based on Z level of skill. Personally I think it makes perfect sense and changing it isn't warranted.

Now your points on basic frames are great and they do need some improvement. As I said before, I imagine the stats on the basic suits are fine - the problem is that the 'standard' skill (such as Caldari Medium) does nothing for those suits. Just keep in mind that if you have this apply up the line, like in EvE, the benefit is not even. It's exponential. The medium frame and its advanced parts (the logi and assault) do both get this bonus...which means they are still aligned per normal, but you then add ANOTHER bonus to the assault and logi pushing them much further out...creating a potential (not a guaranteed but possible) imbalance...and screwing the basic suits back to where they are now. Wasted development.

I totally agree basic suits should be more utilitarian - my personal opinion is that their stats are fine but their cost is not. I think basic suits should be our 'new' militia suits after we're established as a player and function as utilitarian economy suits for when the battle is so far gone or we're expecting significant clone loss to secure an objective (like bunker busting) where TTK far outweighs the benefit of the better gear and its cost due to combat conditions.

I don't understand why a basic costs MORE than an assault variant - you're penalizing a lower sp player economically, which doesn't make sense as that slows growth. A lower sp player should want to use basics to help pad their wallet (and sp) as they work towards the assault. The assault will cost more in this model, but with it comes the gains of better performance and thus better pay - covering its cost and then some. i.e. progression in sp should lead to progression in gear should lead to progression in isk gain to cover it all.

EX: You've got to bust a bunker. You WILL die. A lot. Your TTK with the basic is 4 seconds. Your TTK with the proto is 5. TYhis is not at all unusual and you see it often. Is that extra second worth the 50k+ isk you're about to blow? Probably not - in comes the utility of having basic suits on standby. This is a tactical reason for basics - keeping them relevant to veterans as well as new players.

Food for thought.

Not my thread, but OP has updated it to be more clear. Yes for the current suits and bonuses it will be functionally the same, but it opens the possibility of different suits with different bonuses being modified by the same type; this means for example you could have 3 Amarr assault variants all using the same skill, but all ysing the same skill. The variety it could bring completely justifies the developmental resources to accomplish this in my opinion.

Bad Grammar is Bad...had to figure what you meant, but I get it. This is indeed a great idea, my apologies for misunderstanding. Balance is always a concern of mine, but what is proposed is laying the groundwork now for future variations by altering the skill system.

OK that makes sense and is very reasonable. Let me do an example make sure I've got this right...tell me if I don't!

Amarr Assault - Reaper
-Bonus to Dmg
(More force reduction potential)

Amarr Assault - Defender
-Bonus to armor
(Longevity through survival bonuses)

Amarr Assault - Adaptable
-Bonus to fitting requirements
(Utility through ability to equip more varied modules or even additional equipment)

(Excuse the names - just doing bare bones concept). Each suit has its own bonuses, as listed, modified by the same skill. Variants within variants is what you mean for future suit expansion. The skill itself either becomes a modifier and nothing more or could still provide a simple bonus that benefits all the suits while also improving that suit at its specific role...in this case: DMG, Longevity, or Utility.

Personally I'd prefer skills to still provide a bonus, not just be a modifier - but that's really just preference and nothing more. Probably the pod pilot in me talking.

Bad Grammar is Bad...had to figure what you meant

skills like Armor Upgrades or Shield Upgrades will still provide you with global passives not directly tied to specific suits. You lose little here really, since the skills were already so specific as to only apply to very very specific suits.

In a game so full of passive skills, I have grown to despise spending sp on 'unlock' only skills. Probably because the gear stats can be tweaked by developers rendering said items useless.

i've been on about this for ages. having the skills work as they do it EVE. some skills work that way like rifles and suits ect where htey boost teh item but rep tool, nano circuitry ect dont when they should.

things liek
repair tool operation - 5% repair range
nanocircuitry - 2% increase nanites to hives and helath given on pickup
active scanner op - 5% scan range

and so on so forth. this way the racial boosts further enhance the items in question and it gives you a purpose to train the skill because you get an additional benefit to it.

Bump!