Every time I think about Legion I think that BPO dropsuits are a bad idea. Because BPO dropsuits actually go against the very reason why the devs decided to make them BPOs: The emotional factor.

How can I become emotionally attached to something I can't lose anyways?

And of course: Everybody just using standard gear because they think protosuits are too expensive even though the players have the skill may not be the best way to solve this either, but it's better than just BPO dropsuits. Because when you have to buy a dropsuit you may actually think "during this mission I need to be on my best, so I will use expensive gear." but when your dropsuit is a BPO why should you ever use anything worse than your best dropsuit available?

I think the main problem here is that the devs used Dust as a orientation. But Dust is PvP only and the only source of income are Public matches for most people. And that's about 100k - 200k ISK ever match. But in Legion with the sandbox mode and the player market this will change. Because when you loot a lot and get rare lot once in a while you may actually make enough money to get killed even in full proto gear once in a while.

Making dropsuits to BPOs would only change one thing: The thing you're most attached to. This would become the next most expensive item you use. So probably your weapon.

Dropsuits would become worthless, because they actually are. And it would increase the power difference between noobs and pros. Of course you go for tiercide and all. But a proto suit is still better in some way than a standard suit. If it weren't there wouldn't be a reason for it to exist after all. And every player who is able to use a protosuit will do it then, while newbros are forced to use Std gear. There wouldn't be a case where you meet players who played for a year or so using anything else than proto dropsuits.

And I know Legion won't use the Std, Adv, Proto stuff anymore and will instead go for rarity, but let's be honest: That's basically the same thing.

I don't really like to write in caps on rage, but...

EVERY STRUCTURE AND ASSET SHOULD BE DESTRUCTIBLE, BECAUSE THIS IS NEW EDEN, AND IN NEW EDEN NOTHING IS PERMANENT! AND EVERYTHING HAVE A PRICE - EVEN DEATH!

I agree completely. But I think ccp is trying to attract a huge player base so we can have many epic ground battles simultaneously. Have easily double the number of dust mercenaries to pilots. I think since first person shooter require people who have short attention span, there needs to be something to hold them longer. They aren't the hardcore players that we are, which, well give us an edge in thoughts of stratagem and suit deployment. Hopefully our hardcore nature will give us an edge. But I see why ccp might want to do this. For their vision of what dust is, I support it but I don't agree with it.

But see, that starts getting at this misconception a lot of people seem to have that people who play shooters are somehow inferior to the people who play EVE, for example.

I think the fact that we still have this many people playing Dust even with how complicated it is and everything we've all been put through as players says otherwise.

I also agree, I mean let's look at some other games with "suit bpo's".

1) Titanfall, your character model fits into one of 4 categories, CQC | Assault | Sniper | Support
This is decided by your weapon, but you don't really care what you look like.

2) COD Black Ops 1, your character model was decided by your first perk (the blue one) not that you cared, there is literally no reward/punishment for (not) dying.

3) Battlefield, everyone looks EXACTLY the same, once again no reason to care.

Now with DUST, you have earnt your suit, skilled into got it in a black and red colour scheme, each suit is customised TO YOU, each module choice is made by you, your suit is the base of your fitting, it defines you, how people view you. Your suit is for all intents and purposes, is you.

It makes a every death sting just a little more knowing that, that suit is GONE. Your weapon is secondary, it's not you, it's YOUR weapon, but it's not YOU.

By making suits BPO's that attachment is lost, why do you care, you can just get another weapon from salvage. Don't do it CCP, please don't do it.

I also agree, I mean let's look at some other games with "suit bpo's".

1) Titanfall, your character model fits into one of 4 categories, CQC | Assault | Sniper | Support
This is decided by your weapon, but you don't really care what you look like.

2) COD Black Ops 1, your character model was decided by your first perk (the blue one) not that you cared, there is literally no reward/punishment for (not) dying.

3) Battlefield, everyone looks EXACTLY the same, once again no reason to care.

Now with DUST, you have earnt your suit, skilled into got it in a black and red colour scheme, each suit is customised TO YOU, each module choice is made by you, your suit is the base of your fitting, it defines you, how people view you. Your suit is for all intensive purposes, is you.

It makes a every death sting just a little more knowing that, that suit is GONE. Your weapon is secondary, it's not you, it's YOUR weapon, but it's not YOU.

By making suits BPO's that attachment is lost, why do you care, you can just get another weapon from salvage. Don't do it CCP, please don't do it.

From a long term Eve player perspective, I don't care if my suits are BPOs if the modules cost enough for death to sting. All they have to do is make sure that the modules are valuable enough.

"when your dropsuit is a BPO why should you ever use anything worse than your best dropsuit available?"

Because this is basically tiericide. Going up the tree isn't going to give you the huge jumps in power that going from standard to prototype does in the current Dust system. There's only the one level of each suit type. The point is to give each suit a particular role it excels at. like how Eve has cruisers that are good for brawling, kiting, sniping, repairing, drones, shields, armor, speed tanking etc. So you won't pick the "best" dropsuit, you'll pick the one that gives you the role you want to fill at that time. Suits higher up the tree will likely have more slots, making them more expensive to run for modest power increases and have higher meta levels which you have to take into account for matchmaking.

This also lets them do something else. Eliminate useless starter fits. You don't need cannon fodder suits that are no good for anything when every player starts with one role unlocked and unlimited suits for it.

I started playing Planetside 2 recently, and it seems like they're basically taking that game's approach to skills and increasing the complexity by about 10 times. Ie: rather than a handful of roles that you max out, each role leads to another one. The system described also has far more distinct suits built into it: 3 basic frames (light, medium, heavy), 4 basic roles, 4 racial variants of each role and then two specializations off of each of those. People talk about the proposed system as if it's going to be simple...well from what we've seen that's a kneejerk reaction without actually looking at what was shown. There's more complexity in it while being more accessible than what we have now. It's just that the complexity comes into picking the right suit for the job, rather than picking the right skills to make your suit super powerful.

So, benefits of the system shown to us:
1) More roles, no massive power advantage through simply having more SP (not as massive as now, anyway)
2) If you've invested in a suit you can always use it, even if you've been knocked down to using militia gear
3) Every player is fulfilling a legitimate role on the battlefield, no more useless noobs in frontline suits.
4) Clearly defined roles without power differentials built in means things are easier to balance, especially with weapons being locked to certain suits
5) Due to number 4 and the meta levels system, better matchmaking

Benefits of the current system:
1) Complex. Well, it's hard to understand why you should train one thing or another. Not really an advantage. I'd argue that having a larger number of suits balanced against each other makes the system more complex and interesting from a gameplay perspective. At least it LOOKS complex. It's also not very eve-like. If Eve had Dust's progression I wouldn't pick a ship to fill a certain role, I'd pick the ship that is the "best".
2) The super rich can use their wealth to stomp all over the poors, since they don't care if they lose a proto suit. The suit being inherently more powerful before modules are brought into play means the noob doesn't even have a chance. Not much of a benefit.

The suit will cost something, the modules, equipment and weapons. Tiericide is pretty relevant to the question I was responding to. "Why not always use your best suit?". Because there will be no "best suit". Once you've established that, then all you have to do is take the value of a dropsuit and push that into the value of modules. The only truly free suit will probably be the basic light / medium / heavy frames. The others will have modules etc to pay for.

Because the player in Eve can exist without a ship...

[...]

And the biggest difference, dropsuits are lost dozens of times in a night. Nobody loses more than a few ships in a weekend unless they're really trying to. Most ships are owned for a very long period of time which is where the emotional connection to the ship comes in. You don't really get that with something you have to replace dozens of times in a night. This is something that was talked about at Eve Vegas.

All Dropsuits should have BPOs.

EVERYTHING available should have BPOs.

All BPOs should have a Bill of Materials

Industry needs to be a part of Legion as much as it is a part of Eve.

I agree with the title of the thread in the belief that you are referring to BPOs as they are in Dust (which I always thought was a stupid, exploitable idea anyway).

That's what we pretty much meant.

Well, faction, deadspace, and other things like that shouldn't have one.

Because the player in Eve can exist without a ship, and because ships are part of a deep resource cycle. They have a cost because players make them from their own time. Some guy mines veldspar for a few hours and sells the results of that work for what he considers fair, then buyer takes that and combines it with other minerals to make a ship. The floor cost of the ship is the purchase price of the minerals. You can also build your own ships if you can't find them on the market / have the isk for them. That's not the case with dropsuits.

And the biggest difference, dropsuits are lost dozens of times in a night. Nobody loses more than a few ships in a weekend unless they're really trying to. Most ships are owned for a very long period of time which is where the emotional connection to the ship comes in. You don't really get that with something you have to replace dozens of times in a night. This is something that was talked about at Eve Vegas.

I can see your point, but keep in mind you're assuming Legion won't eventually have some kind of free-roam system in place where players can travel from point A to point B without needing to get into a battle-ready suit much like how Capsuleers in Eve don't need a ship if they can get from one station to another in a pod.

But if you're right and if dropsuits are to ever become BPOs, then vehicles should remain as consumables... period. Vehicles, especially in the hands of not-so-stupid pilots, don't die as often as a dropsuit and just like Eve ships they would likely have a deep resource cycle.

Yeah, I remember when I lost my first ship, an Arbitrator (Amarr cruiser, big deal for a noob) that I had spent days mining for, I was devastated - by means of contrast, when I lost my first dropsuit I respawned and promptly lost about ten more.

I do sometimes get attached to particular fits though. Fits that I hit certain milestones in (first MVP, first 2000wp match etc), fits that are totally rubbish but still fun, fits that I just can't get rid of.

That, I believe, is the reasoning behind the BPO dropsuit thing.

And ultimately, despite not making a ton of sense lore wise, if the module costs are balanced right, it shouldn't make that much difference to the economy, or to the risk / reward ratio of using the more advanced suits.

EDIT: This is assuming I understood the progression presentation correctly and all suits are effectively becoming standard suits, with a relatively flat overall power curve as you get more specialised.

BPO's MUST STAY !!! We paid for them with lots of real money !!! IF they are not there than a hole lota people will also NOT BE !!!

If that's the case, the only thing that would be a BPO is a dropsuit. Nothing more.

Everything else such as weapons, modules, equipment, including vehicles like dropships, LAVs, MAVs, HAVs, fighters, MCCs, Warbarges, plus installations like CRUs, supply depots, and automated turrets need to cost materials to produce. This part is non-negotiable.