Shyeer Alvarin wrote:1: While I do not necessarily need a respec myself, I would be in full support of dishing out a Dropsuit Command respec to allow those that feel a certain calling to a particular suit but were limited in one way or another to a specific type, or things got changed around that their old suits aren't "working as intended." This would placate some members of the community by allowing us an opportunity to delve fully into the race of our choosing.
1a: I would -not- be in support of a -full- respec. Dropsuit command only. Weapons and Upgrades are useful on any suit and don't take nearly as long to get SP for. People that put points into broken weapons they no longer want shouldn't be allowed to put those points into the next flavor.
1b: I would not support a Vehicle Respec. If people put points into Vehicle Command to drive tanks with pretty much no AV to hamper them, it's on them when AV comes back into swing. If you're going to spec into the All-Defeating Hammer, you're going to get stuck with it when it's no longer the king of the field.
3: We all hate getting stomped. I'm sure at least SOME of you will at least feel ashamed to admit that the reason you do it NOW is because Imperfects/Internal Error/Insert-Pubstompcorp-here did it to you. A significant improvement to the Battlefinder System would be to:
3a: Impliment a "Team Deploy" in which the "team leader" can select a specific battle type and enter the names of the squadleaders that he would like to take with him in the battle. This would encourage better Team-Play, and help to create better communities through a given mechanic rather than with the infamous Simul-Q.
3b: Implement a Meta-Tracker to the -current- battlefinder which tracks the average meta-level of your most frequently used gear, (for those that deploy solo) and a tracker for the highest meta-level of your squadmates (for those that deploy in squads)
-3bi: This would prevent pubstompers from getting into matches with people that are trying to legitimately play the game with their friends and place them with people that also consistently run proto with the intention of stomping. It would encourage these groups to face one another, rather than taking out their boredom on the rest of the games population.
3c: Impliment a "difficulty level" setting to the battlefinder to allow players that aren't hardcore gamers to play with others like themselves. If they choose to play with 'harder players' and don't like the experience, they don't -have- to play with them. This would save everyone a lot of forum QQ.
On the 1st point, It is going to happen whenever we want it to or not. We all know that in EVE and New Edan we deal with the choices we make and having to face the consequences of the choices later. The only problem is that, may it be that DUST an EVE are linked, this is a FPS. In multiple FPS games played you could change your role without worry of the developers ripping you off when changes are made. Why you may ask? It was the developers choice not the player choice. For the 1.8 update coming SoonGäó with all the additional suits, modules and new equipment coming out, not to mention buffs and negative changes across the board, not giving a full blown INFANTRY re-spec would be a bad call similar to the 1st play fumble in the Super BowlGäó (Sorry Manning, NFC all the way).
Here is a good example. A buddy of mine upright said he refuses to be a LogiBro in 1.8 since all the equipment used by the Logi are in receiving negative changes next update. He also said of was to quit being a Logibro he would go Caldari Heavy. Based on your logic, he would need to wait 1-2 months not counting events and boosters before that could happen (this includes the heavy weaponry, switching to shields instead of armor, and etc.)
Another example would be a heavy just waiting for the rest if the sentinel suits to come out. Based on your logic it can happen however which sentinel suits he specs into also affects the weapons he will use along which shields/armor for the suit.
Vehicles already received their re-spec but will SoonGäó face the buffing of AV weaponry due to tank abuse from militia users. This would catch all the wannabe tankers off guard.
On your 3rd point, +1
I like how you brought that to the table as this has been an ongoing problem in the would of DUST. People worry so much about their kill to death ratio that all they do now is run prototype gear in ambush or against any untrained mercenary in battle. KD/R, Kills, deaths and War points now in the world of DUST only signify how long the mercenary played this game for. Want to challenge this logic? Look up 13ear on the leader-boards along with DJINN Kujo. Those two people I mentioned were playing the game back in close beta so all of their kills from close to open to now counts.
Also keep in mind that day in and day out, DUST only reaches about 4-5k players max so we are doomed to play the same players over and over again. 1.8 might be the saving grace of DUST if done properly and tested by people who actually play the game (Something tells me that CCP test the game but with bad players instead of decent players with common sense).