Giant post incoming:

The progression system described sounds pretty terrible honestly. I've seen it described perfectly as a "WoW" like skill tree. Yes this is stupid easy to understand for new people, but it lacks any sort of complexity and depth. Does EvE box you into only using a certain weapon for a certain ship? No. You can fly a Battleship with Reps and small turrets if you want. Progression should be up to the player, and they should make their own decisions on what to be, you shouldn't make it for them. You need to take many more queues from EvE, not move farther away from it.

My vision:

Suits:
Two tiers of suits per class of suit, mirroring Eves tech 1 and 2 system. Like in Eve, Tech 2 would be about 2x more expensive, and give the player advanced capabilities in some areas, while stifling the other areas. Basically turning the dial up on the strengths and weaknesses of the tech 1 suit itself. You pay for the greater strength in the area you excel, but still have to pay a whole lot more for it, and also increase the risk with the weaknesses involved. The strength of the tech 2 suit and its cost would be directly proportional to the advantage it gives the player. If a tech 2 suit beats a equally skilled player in a basic suit 5/1 times, it needs to be 5 times the cost. That's ISK balance.

Battles:
This lobby stuff is stupid. The original idea that was pitched oh so many years ago was to have very large maps. You even see how some maps are connected now. These would be giant districts that people connect to battle in and leave once they are over, or even when they aren't over. Pushing forward and back on a much larger scale inside a map, somewhat longer battle times, yet still small enough not to be too ridiculous. These would make a difference on the planet as a whole. This needs to be realized, and the continuation of a matchmaking system isn't really the way to go. Progression should be about getting cool stuff that isn't just better then the stuff a noob gets initially, it should be about flavor and choice.

Weapons + Gear:
All this stuff needs to matter and be relevant, not just HP gear. There should be no such thing as a direct upgrade, and modules need to be balanced based on effective value. Gear should have the same tech 1 and 2 system as suits, with tech 2 gear having the same ratio of advantages vs drawbacks as tech 1 gear.

NPC interaction:
This ties into the Battlefield cleanup interaction. Once a district is taken, there should be a period of time that people can go and salvage and fight NPC drones to get salvage from the previous battle. There also should be specific drone controlled planets always open for NPC interaction and player interaction.

Passive ISK Generation:
I've heard talk of industry in Dust for a long time. I don't think it really fits. If you want to build stuff, play EvE. Game item production already exists in a whole level of immense complexity there. The drone cleanup idea introduces a faucet for passive generation of ISK however. Instead of going to a planet, you should be able to buy drones and set them up to be sent to the planets of your choosing once a battle there has been completed. Your drones would be some of the drones (perhaps more powerful versions of the drones) people fight in their PVE salvaging operations. It would be a whole new dimension of PVE, considering you are still be destroying something player owned. Obviously the amount of ISK would be very small in comparison to a player who goes to the planet themselves.

Player market:
Tie in with EvE on a small scale. EvE players should be able to sell Mercs all their gear. All production of gear should be produced EvE manufacturing side, then sold to Mercs. Mercs should only have access to this gear, and should be able to also sell this on an open market to other Dust Mercs

TL;DR: Make this game more like first person EvE with guns, and not first person WoW with guns.

Lol ok, no problem.
I think that idea is very EvE like. Very Risk vs Reward oriented, with plenty of choice thrown in there.

CCP Z and other respec/remap posters...

What are your thoughts on introducing an attribute type system into Legion? The attribute mechanic is a tried and true staple of MMO, RPG, and many FPS games. This could be a nice way of increasing depth and choice into the system. The way the EVE system uses attributes to accelerate skill learning (or perhaps in our case skill specific SP) could be a useful start point.

Attributes could also be a nice way to have some passive bonuses that are agnostic of suit, role, module introduced. Example...you could build up a "strength / conditioning" type attribute that gave mild buffs to base speed, climbing, jumping, and perhaps lowered armor encumbrance penalty. This would be independent of the traditional Biotics skill branch.

You could easily extrapolate for other applicable uses such as weapon accuracy, stamina, accelerated learning of specific skills.

Thoughts on applicability to progression in Legion?

Perhaps they aren't scubs then if they figured out an optimal way. But as you and me have seen first hand in Dust, a lot of those FOTM chasers end up being detrimental to the game as they often draw the attention of the "nerf-it" crowd who then often demand unwarranted nerfs to something that might not even be overpowered.

I stopped counting over 2 years ago how many FOTMs we went through and how many times people asked for nerfs. Here is at least 5 I can remember from the top of my head.

1. Dropships Dropping (literally)
2. Dumb-Fire Swarms
3. The Rail Rifle
4. Cloaky Shottie
5. Redline Rail Tanks

If that's the case, Wouldn't the PC master race do the same?

It isn't "as broken" as it seems. That part you are correct. But it still is broken regardless. It's not just the NPE (or lack of it in this case) that's the problem. Parts of the skill tree are absolutely useless.

1. Unlocking items only at levels 1, 3, and 5 results in some skill books having wasted SP on levels 2 and 4. Take a look at Active Scanner Operation as one example. Also, Dropsuit Command levels 4 and 5 are pointless as they don't unlock anything else after level 3. Even if it did unlock more items, there is a major problem brought up by my next point.

2. Some skill books don't give bonuses at all and only exist to unlock more skill books. This is wasteful in terms of SP. Gallente Light Frame for example only unlocks Gallente Light Frames suits but these suits don't offer any bonuses and they are more expensive than their role-based counterparts (WTF?). They exist only as stepping stones which only gets in the way and doesn't really show anything to the player about the suit in terms of its benefits and intended role.

So even if you implemented a proper NPE system, it doesn't address the two issues I just brought up.

I understand what some of you said: it is against some ideas we have in new Eden. I still think that we are doing that for the greater good. Not owning anything in a game is conter-intuitive for many people. It does not change anything on the ISK sink they were, we will just have to adjust other sinks.

Having a cost makes people plan how much they-¦ll buy. Having a market /manufacturing, makes people plan how much they-¦ll buy, how they-¦-¦ll get it, who-¦s gonna supply how they-¦ll transport, how they-¦re going to secure the transport and the storage of said items.

"Major Heist at NLO-3Z IV - "Okinawa" District"

Today Capsuleer forces were surprised with a bold move that cleared the stocks of planetary equipment worth 15 Billion ISK at the staging point system "NLO-3Z", the Headquarters of [+ülliance Name] ground forces. Invading elements managed to bypass all stellar and planetary defense systems, and descend into the planet-¦s orbit with an unknown ammount of MCC-¦s in an masterfully planned operation that took 2 hours, 500 mercenary lives, and the pride of said Alliance."

It-¦s not only about the "ISK cost", otherwise there would be Titans in every corner.

It-¦about the ISK cost + Logistics + Manufactuing + Securing the Location + Time + Material Costs = Titan (2 Months + Several Billion)

This point is important to follow the reasoning.

You can sell batches of 1000 suits for 1m (making it virtually "unlimited"), i don-¦t care, but it has to have COST be it in time - money - items - work, because there-¦s a holistic system going on with different players doing different things.

Same thing for Vehicles, in a larger scale.

The meaning it-¦s not only on the equipment itself, the meaning comes from the logistical chain, the time, and the effort invested to get something.

This explains a lot.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/05/world-of-darkness-the-inside-story-mmo-ccp-white-wolf

I suppose we may have discouraged CCP Z for a long while. I haven't seen him post anything here recently.