DUST Search - A discussion about shields vs. armor

Arkena Wyrnspire wrote:

So I really do find your suggestion that the only way to fight is head on, and the only way to do things is through defense and damage. Sure, in a head on fight, perhaps they are. I have a question for you, though: Why fight head on all the time? There's a massive potential for utility modules without fighting head on. It's a fun playstyle and it can be extremely effective, especially against people who believe that damage and defence are the only way.

I don't think that you can simply switch damage mods to low slots, chuck a couple of armour modules in the high slots and call it quits. What armour modules are you suggesting? Do they augment the role's strengths, or cover its weaknesses? If it's the latter, I don't think it's a good solution because it leads to homogenisation of the roles. I love the design of shields exactly because it's focused towards doing what it does best and not covering its weaknesses. There's certainly work to be done on them - basic and enhanced shields scale terribly, and team support is lacking - but I don't think it's quite as bad as most people whining on the forums about it.

It's all about role definition. What do you want to do? Neither tank should be able to do everything, nor can they.


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Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 535	Posted - 2014.02.24 07:47:00 - [1] - Quote Just want to gather thoughts on what people think should be done to better balance the shield-armor relationship. And yes it is unbalanced and their relationship doesn't make sense, if shield tankers are supposed to be the hit and run skirmishers why are damage mods in the high slot? So we armor tankers can have alot of health AND more damage? Sure why not. If shields are supposed to be fast regenerating why is it that armor seems to be unceasing when armor repairing equipment come in to play? Why is there no equipment that helps shields? Why does a complex shield extender give you less health than a basic armor plate? I'm rambling, moving on. If you're someone who realizes how disproportionate this situation is then share how you think it could be fixed, if you think everything is fine then while I don't think this post is for you I would be interested to hear your explanation of why things should stay the same. This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 537	Posted - 2014.02.24 18:00:00 - [2] - Quote Monkey MAC wrote: Damage Mods go in high slot because armour tankers are slower, so its harder to do sustained damage. When it comes to shield armour inbalance its rather simple. Add Shield low slot modules including hybrid modules and rework the reactive plates. Then add a new function to the repair tool, to overcharge shield regen, so it works on both. hybrid mods? you mean something useful to both armor and shields? This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 537	Posted - 2014.02.24 18:08:00 - [3] - Quote Auris Lionesse wrote: Shields should be passive and resemble eve by giving suits caps. Also fix the weapon damage and give suits damage resistances. they're going in the right direction with sentinels, just give them base resistances on the suits depending on race before skill application, and do the sane for the rest of the suits. Then add resistance mods, increase slots, add midslots, and buff weapon damage as needed to account for the new ehp and time to kill will go up like everyone agrees it should. Armor isn't to bad wear it is. But I think the movement penalties are a little too harsh. 15% for three complex plates is too much. Galle te is supposed to be a bit faster. The recharge penalty on extenders needs to go, its awful, and shields should go 44/66/88 in my opinion. The foundation we get from eve is too complex to be dumbed down the way it is in dust. Does EVE have mid slots? because that would make alot of sense, if you have the choice between a passive shield range amplifier and an armor plate, armor plates get chosen every time; if we changed the amount of high and low slots the suits had and then gave them mid slots to shove scanner mods and biotics in that would make things a bit more interesting. Also the movement penalty argument isn't that accurate, for those who don't know the speed reduction also has a stacking penalty, 5 complex plates don't reduce your speed by 25% it's more like 14% This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 538	Posted - 2014.02.24 18:13:00 - [4] - Quote Alternate Insano wrote: You do have a good point about how disproportionate it is. However, show me something in DUST that isn't skewed like this. Don't waste your time looking. Everything is broken in comparison to other popular fps games that keep players on even ground in regards to equipment. This game is designed to do what it is doing, and it is working perfectly. DUST's target audience doesn't want fair fights, is willing to pay to win, and since they provide the devs with a paycheck, they will get what they want. And that's fine. Nobody is forcing any of us to play. I know I got DUST for free, so when it goes **** up I will have lost nothing. Except time. They want to make changes and they listen to the community, the problem is the community is disorganized and short sighted, everyone blamed logistics for being too powerful when really it was just that there were several small problems within the game that logies could take advantage of because of all of the room they had for modules and weapons, but since everyone says "nerf the logies" they may just get screwed over which doesn't solve the problem it sweeps it under the rug. Yes there's alot of problems with this game, let's fix them. This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 538	Posted - 2014.02.24 18:20:00 - [5] - Quote Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: If the TTK wasn't so short, I think that shields would be fine. The problem at the moment with stacking armour (and indeed, both armour + shields at once) comes more from the way that it's really the only way to survive under a decent amount of fire for some time. If shields could live long enough to leverage their advantages (better speed + regen) then they'd be in a happier place. I would question what you're doing with shields presently though. They don't stand up to fire particularly well, but consider how effective dampening is right now. I'm having fantastic success with a triple complex shield extender dual damp Amarr assault presently simply because of how excellent the options that low slots offer are. There are definitely a few stupid things though. Low tier shield extenders giving barely any HP is stupid - the lower tier shield extenders should be buffed. One problem is that it's easier to fit armour than it is shields because you can efficiently stack basic plates for little cost - shields do not have that option. The lack of team support options is also silly. I've always liked the idea of a rep tool that jump starts shield regen (not an active thing, but like a spark to start it off). I feel like TTK being short is a side effect of multiple different problems, aim assist, damage mods, scanners, incredibly high powered weapons, only 2 of which are being fixed and one of those we have no info on. So if you put on a basic shield extender would that give you the same regen penalty as a complex one? Or do complex extenders affect the recharge delay even more? The dampening effect is interesting, I use gallente so there wasn't much of an option for shields for me but I can see how it would be useful to evade scanners that cover the entire map, luckily though scanners will become alot less powerful in 1.8. This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 538	Posted - 2014.02.24 18:27:00 - [6] - Quote Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: Komodo Jones wrote: Does EVE have mid slots? because that would make alot of sense, if you have the choice between a passive shield range amplifier and an armor plate, armor plates get chosen every time; if we changed the amount of high and low slots the suits had and then gave them mid slots to shove scanner mods and biotics in that would make things a bit more interesting. EVE employs more elegant solutions - for a number of reasons, it's often more desirable to go for the utility module after you've gotten some tank on, and you can't stack similar modules (like tank, or indeed utility) fully because they take up differing amounts of PG/CPU. ATM in Dust PG/CPU aren't differentiated that much. So is it something like defensive modules take up a large amount of PG (arbitrarily chosen) where offensive modules take up more CPU? Or just that stacking defense just stops becoming possible at some point because of the amount of PG and CPU we have? I've always liked the idea of giving us more modules slots just so we could have a bit more flexibility but the problem is if you throw in more mod slots people are going to stack on more defense, there's not really a limit to tanking, would make sense for a mid slot of just an exponential or prohibitive cost of stacking defensive or offensive modules. This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 539	Posted - 2014.02.24 18:29:00 - [7] - Quote Awry Barux wrote: Komodo Jones wrote: Monkey MAC wrote: Damage Mods go in high slot because armour tankers are slower, so its harder to do sustained damage. When it comes to shield armour inbalance its rather simple. Add Shield low slot modules including hybrid modules and rework the reactive plates. Then add a new function to the repair tool, to overcharge shield regen, so it works on both. hybrid mods? you mean something useful to both armor and shields? I assume he means something like reactive plates but for shields- say, a regulator/extender hybrid or a recharger/regulator hybrid. Would be interesting as long as they're better than reactive plates, there's absolutely no point to them unless you only have 1 slot and can't decide between armor and repair. This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 539	Posted - 2014.02.24 18:34:00 - [8] - Quote Monkey MAC wrote: Damage Mods go in high slot because armour tankers are slower, so its harder to do sustained damage. When it comes to shield armour inbalance its rather simple. Add Shield low slot modules including hybrid modules and rework the reactive plates. Then add a new function to the repair tool, to overcharge shield regen, so it works on both. Forgot about the other part of this, I thought it would be useful to have a piece of equipment dedicated to shields but shields spark and start recharging in too short of a window for a logi to notice, run in, and have an effect. A secondary function to the repair tool would be interesting though, is there any equipment in eve that regenerates shields? I know we had shield transporters and armor repairers for vehicles for a while and suspected there might be something similar, just curious what we could work up for infantry. This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 541	Posted - 2014.02.24 19:41:00 - [9] - Quote Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: I think complex extenders affect it more, but I'm not completely certain on that because I rarely notice the different in recharge delays. Because it's only depleted, an unencumbered assault can often get out of the way of incoming fire quickly enough to avoid complete shield depletion. By doing that, and not going charging in, you can eke out a lot more juice from your shields. It's a nice little thing you can do, though I find the idea of a recharge delay penalty dubious. As for your problems, scanners, high powered weapons, and damage mods are all being fixed. Two of which we have no info on, but damage mods are being looked at and we already know about scanners and some weapon nerfs. By the way, even if you're Gallente (this is going to sound mad) but if you want to try dampening there's no reason you can't shield tank it. I used a similar fit on a Gallente suit for some time with dual dampeners. It works much better with the assault thanks to the shield recharge bonus, which is useful for these things even if it is a stupid bonus. Just be a little more careful getting out of fire, that's all. You might find the extra speed liberating - I know I did, coming from heavily plated suits. I guess that makes sense, I'd have about the same health if I had a bunch of extenders on, it would be great not to be hunted down 24/7 I know scanners and weapons are getting fixed but I heard nothing about damage mods, no info passed "getting looked at"? I mean that's good enough for me but if they have a plan they let us in on that would be great, haven't seen a dev blog since january. This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 541	Posted - 2014.02.24 19:54:00 - [10] - Quote Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: That's partially it. Higher grade weaponry takes up more PG, stacking defensive modules will take up a lot of PG. Utility modules take up a lot of CPU. Utility modules are a lot more important in EVE. Stasis webifiers, propulsion mods, tracking computers, etc give much more variety to armour utility slots. In Dust, it's just damage mods or dual tanking, really. Myofibril stimulants are a stupid proposition and precision enhancers are only useful in some niche fits and sometimes will have very little or no effect. Damage mods are in the lows in EVE, and many view that as a justification to move them but if you do, there's essentially no viable option for high slots except to shield tank, and honestly if that's the case I'd much rather go pure shield and enjoy the huge variety of useful modules in the low slots. So let's get some armor mods in the high slots lol. You're right that the main problem is still defense or damage and that I think comes from the fact that there's just no use for other modules, and I mean that literally, there is just nothing else to do in this game but war and when you go to war you bring things that keep you alive and things that make other things go boom. We can't go mine asteroids or direct the troops or team's defenses, this is self evident from the fact that there is no current suit that has the title "non-combat". Therefore there is no such thing as fight or flight, you can temporarily run away from a hairy situation sure but the simple fact is if you want to make any progress you HAVE to fight at some point, you have to get back in the battle, can't just leave the area and the war behind. If I were going out to scavenge materials I would definitely pack scanner modules and speed mods, I'm not equipped to handle a fight at that point so I gotta bail but there's nothing to do except be a part of that fight This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.

Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 543	Posted - 2014.02.25 00:32:00 - [11] - Quote Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: So I really do find your suggestion that the only way to fight is head on, and the only way to do things is through defense and damage. Sure, in a head on fight, perhaps they are. I have a question for you, though: Why fight head on all the time? There's a massive potential for utility modules without fighting head on. It's a fun playstyle and it can be extremely effective, especially against people who believe that damage and defence are the only way. I don't think that you can simply switch damage mods to low slots, chuck a couple of armour modules in the high slots and call it quits. What armour modules are you suggesting? Do they augment the role's strengths, or cover its weaknesses? If it's the latter, I don't think it's a good solution because it leads to homogenisation of the roles. I love the design of shields exactly because it's focused towards doing what it does best and not covering its weaknesses. There's certainly work to be done on them - basic and enhanced shields scale terribly, and team support is lacking - but I don't think it's quite as bad as most people whining on the forums about it. It's all about role definition. What do you want to do? Neither tank should be able to do everything, nor can they. I can dig it, I use logi so I got plenty of room, I just feel like I'm forced to pull the same crap as everyone else, I'm packing alot of expensive equipment and I want to protect it and my peeps while I'm on the front lines with em or trying to pull them out of hot zones, I can see the advantage to knowing where they are first but I never saw the point when I could just use a scanner, cardiac regulator is definitely useful and I wouldn't mind using one and replacing one of my plates but currently, I'll admit, I can have like 1000 health and a damage mod with like 12 points of armor repair....ya know what nevermind I feel like I actually get more done with an advanced logi and I think it's because of the speed, I might try out a c-reg. But my point remains that for people who are only concerned with taking alot of damage why would anyone wanna change that fit? It would be interesting to play around with in 1.8 when I'm expecting infantry is just getting a makeover. This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 543	Posted - 2014.02.25 00:36:00 - [12] - Quote Roy Ventus wrote: How about for low modules that raises the effectiveness of a weapon, rather than the effectiveness of the damage. What I'm referring to is, Counter-Resistance Modules. With Resistance coming up soon, it might be nice to have modules that will raise your weapon's efficiency by a small yet viable percent. And if not Counter-Resistance Modules in the low slots, what about actual Resistance modules(aka Hardeners)? I think Arkena mentioned it and I totally forgot about it lol, I did hear about them wanting to make modules more effective vs certain types of health, like for the combat rifle you could choose to counter the damage reduction that it gets to shields or make it more powerful vs armor and say screw it to shields. I like it, interesting attempt at solving the problem. This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 543	Posted - 2014.02.25 00:42:00 - [13] - Quote Scheneighnay McBob wrote: The main problem that I see is that while armor mods compliment damage mods and other armor mods, shield mods work against each-other. I think there should be 2 kinds of shield extender: 1 that doesn't penalize recharge delay, and 1 that gives more eHP, but with the current penalties. I'd agree with you but do we really need weaker shield extenders? because of the stacking penalty to the speed reduction, the more plates you have the less it penalizes you, so ferroscales are borderline useless. Buff shield extenders and then we'll talk lol This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 543	Posted - 2014.02.25 01:05:00 - [14] - Quote RINON114 wrote: This post sums the whole thread up nicely I feel. As a shield tanker you need to pick your fights and be smart about cover, as an armour tanker you need to have a teammate with you at all times, pick your fights and be smart about cover if you want to get back into the fight. The disparity between hitpoints is down to your regen. Shield based suits get 20hp/s regen, my armour suit gets 6.25hp/s or maybe 12.50hp/s with two complex reps. Not entirely true, I can use my shields as a buffer before I take armor damage and with damage mods and proficiencies you could easily take someone out before you take significant armor damage, and armor repair is sufficient enough to repair while your shields take most of the damage, shield-ers are sprinters and armor-ers are endurance runners, but I don't feel like anything slows me down, I don't really have to stay out of the fight very long for shields OR armor to come back even when I'm on my own. Whereas being a shield tanker I'd only be able to rely on my shields with alot less health. This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 543	Posted - 2014.02.25 01:21:00 - [15] - Quote Auris Lionesse wrote: Yes eve uses highslots for cap warfare and a few other mods and weapons. Shields go mid with speed mods, some e warfare, among other things. I've never used more than 3 enhanced because it slows me down so much i cant jump over a 6 inch curb on the side of the road.. Armor repairs are completely useless. And I'm pretty sure the ferroscale equivalent in eve gives hp percentage, not a small set number. You even armor tank bro? Kidding lol, I find armor repairers very useful, even before armor plates had their buff in 1.4 I never went without at least 10HP/second and it works great, mainly because you can get armor and shields back at a reasonable rate, armor coming back constantly while shields stop any damage from being taken. This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 543	Posted - 2014.02.25 01:41:00 - [16] - Quote And I just found out how to word the main point I'm trying to put forward, I've used armor tanking in a way that kinda mimics shield tanking, ain't good that this is possible. I get alot of health and I get at least 11 or 12 armor back every second, when I'm not getting shot I get around 30 hp back per second in shields and armor, AND on top of that I can deal craploads of damage, this fits pretty well with my idea of what shield tankers do which is get the job done and get out as quickly as possible, but right now I feel like I can get the job done better as an armor tanker which makes no sense. Not only can I out sprint the sprinters but I can also survive and outgun heavies, or at least I used to be able to I haven't tested it out much since the HMG got that ninja buff. This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 562	Posted - 2014.03.04 06:05:00 - [17] - Quote Been busy, haven't had a chance to look at these, lets see what peoples has to say This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.
Komodo Jones Chaotik Serenity 562	Posted - 2014.03.04 07:30:00 - [18] - Quote Yeah I gotta disagree with giving infantry active modules, the combat is too quick in dust to manage modules, all I would suggest for that is having a 1 button module, something that would replace grenades This is a signature. You're now reading it. You may now reply to my post.