So being able to obliterate a person of a lower tier simply because they haven't played as long as you, regardless of skill is interesting?

Other possible potential teiricide model.

Unlock Basic Advanced and Prototype

at lvl 1.

So being able to obliterate a person of a lower tier simply because they haven't played as long as you, regardless of skill is interesting?

Still I rather get rid of the suit and vehicle tiers (which are gone already) instead and shift the costs to the modules on risk vs rewards. Basic modules and weapons get cheaper prototypes get more expensive the suit overall gets cheaper (or potentially bpo even?) if the modules are the consumer of the major portions of the isk instead?

Tiers are what make DUST interesting and differentiate it from other FPS games in the market. Risk vs. ISK is what makes DUST more interesting than any other FPS ever made.

The NPE can be solved by making an optional 2nd tier academy mode so players with less than 5mill SP can fight each other and avoid being stomped until they have enough SP to build a decent fit.

The point is that the skill should unlock an asset that everyone gets, no tiers that make someone insurmountably better.

The bonuses increase per skill level to enhance the suit, and tiers remain for all modules, equipment, and weapons such that decisions must still be made about what capabilities you want versus what your suit is able to fit.

Hell, in EVE the skills to increase PG and CPU are x1 skills because training the skill for a ship gives you that ship and no matter what else, everyone has that same ship.

In this game they have to be x5 because if you train them to level 5 and use PRO gear you become indestructible to anyone who doesn't have the same SP, and that sucks.

Removing suit tiers would also allow a different bonus system.

As an example:
2 bonuses for the Basic Frame skill on those suits.
2 bonuses for the Basic Frame skill and 2 bonuses for the Specialization skill on Specialist suits, plus a static role bonus to help define them.
It would still only take level 3 in the Basic Frame skill to get a Specialist suit, but now someone who went the extra mile with the Frame skill would gain a bit of an edge.

Fly an Omen against a Zealot in 1v1 and tell me all ships are the same. Proto suits are like T2 ships in a lot of ways.

You're exaggerating how hard it is to kill a proto suit with STD. And hunting expensive suits with cheap ones is among the most fun kills you can get.

I agree that the NPE is terrible...I went through it. I understand that tiericide would level the playing field for new players and probably make the game more fun.

That said, tiericide makes me nervous. Can't really explain why, but I've played for months and I can't imagine Dust without tiers. I enjoy the RPG elements and depth of this game...tiericide would make it feel shallow for me.

Having tiers is terrible for this game, it forces new players to get stomped constantly, it creates barriers from what you can do within the game, and it makes it extremely difficult to balance things for yourself CCP.

When it comes to tiers it should be a basic general tier, then a tier that does what the basic variant does just differently not necessarily better.

Firstly you should remove all MLT-ADV items. For suits the proto frame should becomes the basic general frame, unlocked at level 1 of its respective tree. The medium frame, heavy frame, and light frame skill tree (the one you get to level 3 as an SP sink) should have a general bonus that applies to the race.

Amarr -> 5% armor plate efficacy
Caldari -> 4% shield extender efficacy
Gallente -> 7.5% armor repairer efficacy
Minmatar-> Kincat or shield regulator/recharger/energizer bonuses

The role variants should keep their current bonuses but again the proto frame (i.e the only frame) should be unlocked at level 1 with level 1-5 increase how good the frame is and/or unlocking variants of the suit, for example a Assault frame who sacrifices its grenade for a EQ slot. At level 5, in the future, a TECH-II frame should be unlocked.

For modules the same applies, where each skill gives a relative bonus to the item, with possible some variants unlocked as the level progresses.

Again for weapons it is the same deal, the difference is that only the chromosome weapons have their variants released. But ever weapon should have variants, none better than the other just performing the same task differently.

A visualization would be like so.

Dropsuit command LV1 -> Gallente medium LV1 (7.5% armor repair bonus) Gallente medium frame gk.0 unlocked -> Gallente medium lvl 3 (22.5% armor repair bonus)-> Gallente Assault LV1 (insert 1.8 bonus here) Assault gk.0 unlocked

When it comes to balancing instead of having to balance how good the weak MLT-ADV weapons should be against say a prototype suit, you can balance by saying how good is X vs Y, how can Y react to X, how can Z help Y affect X. Instead you add 3 extra dimensions to that field which makes balancing up tiers and down tiers extremely difficult, and pratically impossible without making one extremely UP and one extremely OP.

There is also the inevitability of some suits becoming better than other suits for example a proto scouts HP vs a basic or ADV assault suit. A proto logistics HP vs a basic commando and sentinel. It allows things to play outside of their role since the basic suit is and cannot be balanced against a prototype suit of another class.