I mentioned this in another thread, but I thought I would post it here as well.

Dust 514 is all about the ISKies, right?
You can pad your K/D ratio all you want, but in the end if you can't play ISK positive you have difficulties (unless you have a rich corp to back you). If you have a lot of ISK you are also likely to run proto full time.

Well, let's add your current wallet balance (as a factor) to matchmaking. This means players with high funds gets naturally matched together. I think this is better than some gear restriction which would be very tricky to pull off.

Now before you mention "what to stop every rich player to transfer their ISK to the corp wallet to game the system", I would say "let them". Unless you are a single person corp you will put your ISK at risk, and in control of somebody else. There are probably spies right now infiltrating the top corps, just waiting to clean them dry and spit them out.

This is New Eden after all

I mentioned this in another thread, but I thought I would post it here as well.

Dust 514 is all about the ISKies, right?
You can pad your K/D ratio all you want, but in the end if you can't play ISK positive you have difficulties (unless you have a rich corp to back you). If you have a lot of ISK you are also likely to run proto full time.

Well, let's add your current wallet balance (as a factor) to matchmaking. This means players with high funds gets naturally matched together. I think this is better than some gear restriction which would be very tricky to pull off.

Now before you mention "what to stop every rich player to transfer their ISK to the corp wallet to game the system", I would say "let them". Unless you are a single person corp you will put your ISK at risk, and in control of somebody else. There are probably spies right now infiltrating the top corps, just waiting to clean them dry and spit them out.

This is New Eden after all

I would just keep 99% of my wealth tied up in assets. Your system fails.

I would just keep 99% of my wealth tied up in assets. Your system fails.

Oops, forgot about that one... Good point
Will have to think about this some more.

As yall pointed out it is flawed because people like me, with their own personal banking alt corp, would just shift ISK via Grand Bazaar.

https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1309442#post1309442

This is pretty awfully worded forgive me but basically what if suits, modules, weaponry, and equipment were all assigned a security status, the lowest being officer weapons and prototype gear. Basically it would act like a filter like you propose.

Hmm... even with assets counting, it's problematic.

Would AUR items count? A person who bought 50000 standard rifles would show up as richer than a person with one STD Rifle BPO, but they're the same in practical terms. Similar story for cosmetic suits, they suggest a greater deal of "power" ISK/AUR-wise, while not actually conferring additional combat benefits. A person could have lots of unusable items, which inflate their "worth" without conferring benefits. Similiarly, a character could keep a really lean collection of suits, and be very effective.

ISK is easily transferred to an alt on a separate account. Corp assets can have the same issue, transferred to a holding account. Total corp wealth suffers comparison-wise from corp-size if you use totals, and corp and averages are easily skewed on the small end as well. For example, an elite corp of 40 people would have a much easier time getting everyone's assets/ISK managed to keep the corp proto-stomping weaker players in comparison to a monstrosity like the FW Army.

I prefer meta/tier-style gating for practical reasons (if we were to have any gating or gear-locked matches at all).

... Well, let's add your current wallet balance (as a factor) to matchmaking ...

If ISK is to be taken account into matchmaking, it should be based on ISK-efficiency. I had about 150 million refunded with 1.7 and I've been going slightly negative. Basing it solely off of your assets and liquid ISK will only lead to further imbalance.

Well the OP suggests that it would just be one of many factors, not the sole decider.
A guy with a billion ISK can run proto all day everyday, and be slowly losing money; he would have very poor ISK-efficiency, but certainly should not be made to fight the majority of players.

I ... At a grand total of around 7000 players on Dust at the most at once, combined with the average of 50k Eve players ...