Hey! Thanks :)

1.8 is going well...it will definitely be out before Fanfest. Working on a release date right now but I'm strongly inclined to believe that it will land in March. We're beginning to collate the list of changes in to what you humans call..."Patch Notes".

The Gallente assault is a bit too restrictive, in my opinion. Hybrid Blaster? The only one that exists is the AR. Maybe the Ion Pistol if they're released at the same time.

Nothing in dust has been introduced right. why not just throw it out there anyways.

He only obviously wants the MD to be effective for his class, the logi. The MD still needs to have a general increase per clip and ammo capacity, it is a better alternative to messing with splash damage or splash radius which are notoriously hated about this weapon rather than how many shells it can fire out.

I believe in 1.8 they said weapons will do damage mostly to what it inherently is good at hurting I.E explosives doing less damage to shields as it should be. This becomes a obvious problem for the MD in 1.8, overcoming that is to increase the clip size and the ammo size rather than the damage. I saw that a increased clip size works well instead of damage first hand back in the closed beta when it was increased from 4 to 6, giving that available to all classes allows some flexibility with it. I understand putting that damage increase on the Minmatar commando because of how specialized the suit is but the Minmatar assault does not need to back into solely running the weapon to have that effectiveness with it, I would rather see a ROF or Radius increase relegated to the Minmatar Assault or something else.

This is something CCP ABSOLUTELY HAS TO GET RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. Imagine 1000s of support tickets for items vanishing and not being properly credited to the buyer/seller. Imagine what would happen to the economy if bugs created billions of ISK accidentally for some players. Getting this wrong could break the game. Getting the EVE-DUST market wrong could break BOTH GAMES.

The market also has to be resilliant to RMT gold sellers, internal fraud, etc. This is a major undertaking, and I'm glad CCP is recognizing it as a major priority as well as not rushing something out quickly that could break the game on a level never seen before.

+1 to rate of fire increase on the Min Assault. but no to radius increase! The radius is good as is, and we don't need another you don't need to aim the MD discussion!

I don't want the MD to work just on logis. My concern is more towards the MD being a spam weapon again. Which would be bad!
With the bigger clip size, it will still be difficult to take down rifle users 1-1, since the Minmatar has low health and can't win sustained fights. So what will he do, obviously go back to the rooftops or other cover and spam the thing blindly towards the enemy! Is that what you guys want?
I don't.
Rate of fire would help, because it would give the Minmatar assault a possibility to have higher alpha damage with his prefferred (Racial weapon) I would still leave the Combat rifle bonus with clip size, since that's the biggest downside of the CR.

Edit: I think an increase of DIRECT Md damage for the min assault would go in the right direction, since it would reward skilled players instead of the spamming crowd!

Cheers
Mad

What RMT gold sellers? CCP endorses it, which killed them. PLEX is bought from CCP with real money, you can then use it to extend your account by 30 days, or simply sell it on the market and pocket the isk.

A increase in MD damage is only being done with minmatar commando. I do not want a splash/dam. increase but I agree that something like ROF for the flaylock/MD would be better for the Minmatar assault. Frankly though the MD needs to have general increase in ammo capacity/clip size applied to base Mass Driver rather than limiting it to one class. The damage it will output in 1.8 will be stunted due to the reduction in it's proficiency skill (or so I am told) meaning that it will have a harder time killing people than it already is going to be. Any idea that the Mass Driver is going to a spam weapon of death for a increased clip size and is aware of how underutilized the Mass Driver is currently and what it is capable of is overblowing it.

If you really want to look at what could be a problem you need only look at the Minmatar commando with it's increase to explosive damage and reload reduction time on light weapons. With that in mind limiting the feasibility to single classes to make up for weaknesses (as someone above me pointed out) is not a good idea you may also have this with the Laser Rifle except the Laser Rifle is most likely being rebalanced in 1.8 and the MD is not.

I'm obviously not referring to CCPs official PLEX mechanism. I'm talking about Russians running bots and selling ISK for dollars against the TOS. The market can be used as a tool for these guys to "launder ISK." Any P2P market system needs backend tools in place for CCP to monitor/prevent this activity. PLEX hasn't completely killed them off (although it has made a massive improvment). With DUST being F2P and the economies of both games being linked, this is a serious concern.

My point is CCP needs to get the market right when they release it. There are many major problems that could result if they rush it out half-baked.

So, it'll be the only thing they've gotten right in dust, ever?

The Commando is not a problem, due to the lack of high slots and the resulting lack of damage mods!

I do not want a increase in SPLASH damage but a increase in DIRECT damage for the Assault Suit. This would reward the skilled non spam player without another noob toob discussion. Since the MD would be fine in the right hands. This DIRECT damage buff could be 3% per lv considering that it is relatively difficult to direct hit with a MD (compared to a rifle).

Increasing the clip size isn't helping the already weak alpha of the MD it just helps the spamming crowd!

OKAY OKAY! Since you asked so nicely...this is what we're thinking.

Assault [5% reduction to PG/CPU cost of light/sidearm weapons]
- Caldari Assault: +5% to reload speed of hybrid railgun light/sidearm weapons per level.
- Gallente Assault: 5% reduction to hybrid - blaster light/sidearm hip-fire dispersion and kick per level.
- Minmatar Assault: +5% to projectile light/sidearm and +1 to Minmatar explosive weaponry clip size per level.
- Amarr Assault: 5% reduction to laser weaponry heat build-up per level.

Logistics [5% reduction to PG/CPU cost of equipment]
- Caldari Logistics: +10% to nanohive max. nanites and +5% to supply rate and repair amount per level.
- Gallente Logistics: +10% to active scanner visibility duration and +5% to active scanner precision per level.
- Minmatar Logistics: +10% to repair tool range and 5% to repair amount per level.
- Amarr Logistics: 10% reduction to drop uplink spawn time and +2 to max. spawn count per level.

Will copy + paste this in to the Feedback thread too.

OKAY OKAY! Since you asked so nicely...this is what we're thinking.

Assault [5% reduction to PG/CPU cost of light/sidearm weapons]
- Caldari Assault: +5% to reload speed of hybrid railgun light/sidearm weapons per level.
- Gallente Assault: 5% reduction to hybrid - blaster light/sidearm hip-fire dispersion and kick per level.
- Minmatar Assault: +5% to projectile light/sidearm and +1 to Minmatar explosive weaponry clip size per level.
- Amarr Assault: 5% reduction to laser weaponry heat build-up per level.

Logistics [5% reduction to PG/CPU cost of equipment]
- Caldari Logistics: +10% to nanohive max. nanites and +5% to supply rate and repair amount per level.
- Gallente Logistics: +10% to active scanner visibility duration and +5% to active scanner precision per level.
- Minmatar Logistics: +10% to repair tool range and 5% to repair amount per level.
- Amarr Logistics: 10% reduction to drop uplink spawn time and +2 to max. spawn count per level.

Will copy + paste this in to the Feedback thread too.

Hey! Thanks :)

1.8 is going well...it will definitely be out before Fanfest. Working on a release date right now but I'm strongly inclined to believe that it will land in March. We're beginning to collate the list of changes in to what you humans call..."Patch Notes".

OKAY OKAY! Since you asked so nicely...this is what we're thinking.

Assault [5% reduction to PG/CPU cost of light/sidearm weapons]
- Caldari Assault: +5% to reload speed of hybrid railgun light/sidearm weapons per level.
- Gallente Assault: 5% reduction to hybrid - blaster light/sidearm hip-fire dispersion and kick per level.
- Minmatar Assault: +5% to projectile light/sidearm and +1 to Minmatar explosive weaponry clip size per level.
- Amarr Assault: 5% reduction to laser weaponry heat build-up per level.

Logistics [5% reduction to PG/CPU cost of equipment]
- Caldari Logistics: +10% to nanohive max. nanites and +5% to supply rate and repair amount per level.
- Gallente Logistics: +10% to active scanner visibility duration and +5% to active scanner precision per level.
- Minmatar Logistics: +10% to repair tool range and 5% to repair amount per level.
- Amarr Logistics: 10% reduction to drop uplink spawn time and +2 to max. spawn count per level.

Will copy + paste this in to the Feedback thread too.

Both of these have been repeatedly mentioned as things we want to do. Particularly in the case of the Secondary Market we want to make sure that we get it right. While I can't give you an ETA, please know that it's something that is definitely a priority.

This is something CCP ABSOLUTELY HAS TO GET RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.

I have a different proposal:
Make faction-specific weapon bonuses weapon-agnostic.
No, I'm not talking about eroding faction identity. I'm talking about, for example, Caldari giving every weapon a bonus to ranged combat properties, while Gallente assaults get a bonus to the close combat capabilities of any weapon. I you had unlimited dev time, I'd propose reliability upgrades for weapons equipped by Minmatar (Stuff like removing overheating at the cost of rate of fire) and making Amarr equipped weapons more unwieldy (Higher damage on an AR while causing faster heat build up, a higer RoF CR that jams when you pull the trigger in the wrong rhythm too many times, etc.).
The reason is simple: Customization
While I like the basic idea of having bonuses racially aligned, I have come to realize that this is not how a merc would work. If I'm using an explosive weapon, I'll want to use a scrambler pistol as a sidearm, for example. I would not want to use another gun with armor damage.
But that's what the current bonuses would do - pigeonhold all the assault suits.

On the one hand, it's nice to know that Gallente assaults will erode your shield tank, while Minmatar assaults will struggle against you. It really works wonders against my dislike of the fact that we have both tanking profiles as well as damage profiles, which is imo a combination that has no tactical value whatsoever and just stupidly randomizes encounters.
On the other hand, why wouldn't a Minmatar merc (As in: Immortal sociopathic mercenary) get a sidearm specifically for the purpose of removing an enemy's shields? I mean, I guess that an Amarr dude would not use an explosive sidearm due to the whole religious dogma and hatred of Minmatar thing (Then again, it might be internally justified for the merc as the killing blow somehow being worth less than the destruction of the enemy's shield or something - The typical kind of excuse people use to justify hypocrisy), but generally mercs really don't care enough to limit themselves like that.

WHO DARES WINS

Since we're answering questions.

Can we get an answer if we're getting a respect or something like that or not?

It's pretty boring to play this game, knowing that it's going to change. So do we have to sit on our unspend SP or not? The only fun thing to do now is to test some stupid stuff out, which is possible if there is a respect, if there is none, well... let the shitstorm come now instead of before the patch.

WHO DARES WINS

Caldari Assault bonus is a joke surely!
For a long range suit dispersion, kick, zoom, scan range or movement speed are relavent not reload speed. Think again please.

DPS should be more tied to suit type than it currently is, I'd be in support of all light weapons having their dps dropped by 25% with an assault bonus being 5% additional damage to light weapons per level.

These are not the droids I was looking for.