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Vespasian Andendare
Subsonic Synthesis
RISE of LEGION
669
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Posted - 2014.03.17 16:55:00 -
[1] - Quote
With the launch of 1.8 on March 25, CCP is changing the medium suit bonuses to reflect more racial preference. Assault and Logi dropsuit command changes will make racial suits work more effectively with their weapon type or particular flavor of logistics, but the bonuses didn't go far enough, and CCP greatly missed both the mark with them and the opportunity to add in real balance to the game.
The bonuses coming to the Assault suits in particular allow rail rifles to reload quicker, assault rifles perform better hip firing, combat rifles fit more ammo in the clip, and laser weapons overheat less. But the real missed opportunity here is in damage output.
Specifically, there's been a huge influx of people outfitting heavy suits with light weapons, most likely because a heavy suit is the only way to meaningfully survive with the TTK in the game currently. But given that heavy suits can build for tank and still have the tremendous damage output and projection of a light weapon, where is the trade off? Where is the incentive to use a medium assault suit, when the heavy suit performs as or more effectively than a medium assault suit?
The incentive should have come about in the form of damage bonuses. Assault suits could either have been given a 5% per level damage bonus to light weapons or a flat role bonus of 25%. Obviously, light weapons would have to be nerfed by 25% in order to give the same relative damage output as currently. However, it would create a viable reason, an incentive, for people to use assault suits over heavy suits, with the main trade off being more damage over survivability.
This game should not have arbitrary limits. Natural limits in the form of fitting optimization, tanking effectiveness, stacking penalties, etc., all fit within the idea that only your imagination is the limit to what you can and how you can fit out your suit. But that doesn't mean there shouldn't be incentives to how you should fit. With a change suggested above, heavy suits are still free to fit their suits how they please. They would, however, be trading the damage output of an assault suit for the survivability offered by a heavy one. You know, balance.
TL;DR CCP should add a damage bonus to light weapons in Assault suits but nerf light weapons overall to compensate. This creates interesting choices between damage output and survivability when making the choice what suit to use for what role.
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Vespasian Andendare
Subsonic Synthesis
RISE of LEGION
670
|
Posted - 2014.03.17 18:44:00 -
[2] - Quote
BL4CKST4R wrote:The Minmatar and Amarr bonus, and somewhat the Calgary bonus increase damage done by reducing off time.
The Gallente bonus can either increase or reduce the damage you do depending on how good you are hip firing or if you even hip fire at all. So it's controversial really.
The main problem with the 1.8 bonuses is that they only provide trivial increases in effectiveness, most likely to keep the assault suits' performance with the weapons somewhat on parity with the other suits. This likely will have little to no effect reducing the reliance on heavies running with light weapons or slayer logi suits. Only by making those suits more effective at their roles--which naturally happens by the ability to fit Heavy weapons and multiple equipment slots, and reducing their effectiveness at Assault's role--will we see true curbing of heavy light weapon suits and slayer logi.
If anything, the problem could compound in 1.8 with the drastic increase in survivability of heavy suits (due to their resistance gains). And Logi suits' ability to fit two, three or even four equipment (which, for a logi slayer is easily REs, Hives and Uplinks), combined with the better suited slot configurations (better tank overall) make a logi slayer a competitive, and as many players have found, superior choice for slayer applications. Add in the fact that logistic suits will now have an innate hacking bonus, and the equation will be even more skewed toward logi slayers.
The only real solution is to make it so logi and heavy suits under-perform when not ideally fit. Heavy suits should fit heavy weapons to be maximally effective. Logi suits should do support and logistics and be better than an assault suit for that role, which is being done in 1.8.
The choice to fit a heavy suit with a weapon and use for slaying will still be present, even given a flat nerf to light weapons that'd be made up for in an assault suit bonus. Similarly, logi suits would be best at performing support but worse at kill operations, falling behind an assault or scout suit by a large margin, and somewhat behind heavy light weapon suits due to that suit's superior tank.
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Vespasian Andendare
Subsonic Synthesis
RISE of LEGION
670
|
Posted - 2014.03.17 19:57:00 -
[3] - Quote
lAssassinl Zer0 wrote:People don't stop searching a defined role for Assault while they are supposed to be versatile.... Versatility comes from specialization. Assault suits are about killing. Period. There's no "variety" in killing. You shoot your opponent until their health reaches 0. If you want versatility, specialize in another role. In fact, that's the way the game's designed.
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