Just to throw it out there one last time for CCP, to keep it simple

You can't balance the gal dampening with the cal precision without the waves of opportunity provided by the cloak for the use of the other two scouts. The cloak dampening effect was thy only thing that allowed cal scouts to have their current racial. I'll tell you right now, its not possible to balance this without nullifying one or more variants of the scout.



By changing the cal racial to a non precision bonus, these will happen

1) Two scouts automatically become more viable, no longer needing to dampen so hard (since alpha is taking away their defense). Since they are not auto detected they can focus on their specialization (mins hacking, amars fitting)

2) The gal scouts utility drops since auto detection is not so prevalent, why have a high damp when the only thing that can possible catch you is a gal logi? It still has the range bonus, that can be debated if you want, but the result is that the gallente falls down with the other 2 scouts.

3) Last but not least, the cal scout utility is free to still make it relevant and on par with the scouts, also its changing one sinlge variable rather than another roll of the dice with a lot of changes in racial bonuses. What the cal scout racial could be is probably what my last response to this thread will be. After that point, its up to the powers that be to make a smart decision.



I will also say that the removal/reduction of dampening on cloaks gives you guys more work, but if this is happening then the cal precision has to go, and I don't say this with joy either, its just what is required for balancing given this direction and limited resources.

Really good post. I only have one point of difference. Removing the need to the Gal to fit any dampening by reducing the effectiveness of the Cal leads to more plate stacking. So the Gal remains the prime scout, purely because it's bonuses are better than the Amarr, while both have the best slot layout in the current meta. That said, still seems like the best option I've seen so far.

Others have made the point better than me, but a large part of the precision-vs-damps problem is spillover onto AK and MK due to ultra damped gal scouts vs ultra-scan cal scouts, leaving them as second-class citizens.

Eliminating the range bonus on gal/cal scouts reduces the range at which the other two scouts get caught in the crossfire, or at the least forcing them to devote yet more slots to get the current functionality.

I think between my post that would rebalance e-war and starfire's post about scout roles being reworked in addition to squad vision being scrapped we can fix the void left by the passive complex damp.

But absolutely cloaks giving a passive complex dampener is dumb. Rebalance so the cloak is an equipment only.

As long as being undetected is the realm of just the Gallente Scout, it is what the meta is going to push towards. Being electronically unseen is the greatest personal tactical advantage.

If there is some Gal Logi with scanner or Cal Scout with low dB precision and they are next to someone they enhance the people around them by giving them a tactical advantage.

If there is with a dampened suit with someone next to them that is un-dampened, they lose that tactical advantage because now the other team is putting its attention to where you are.


It's a repeat of what happened before. As people accumulate SP and comprehension of the game they become aware of the target number in which they need to get below in order to play the game. nearly all the medium suits started gearing towards 2 complex profile dampeners because that was what you needed to stop the scan-spam. Nothing has changed except the need for Gallente Scout because it's now the only viable option to dampen with.

Wallhacks are the norm. Fighting to remove Cloak Field dampening bonus and fighting to keep Active Scanners and Caldari Scouts' Scanning prowess is fine and all, but realize that you are taking away one of few actual tactical aspects of the game.
Information on where the enemy is being taken as a right that all players should get to know.

These suggestions only push the game into becoming HP/DPS focus because it is a given that you are always detected. It only pushes it further in further towards Scouts and Sentinels, which is already the theme (of a good team).

Completely reworking the scout bonuses would likely incur a respec. Not something I think we need right now (not to mention would ruin the metrics they are likely trying to run with balance). Without respec you step on the toes of all the people who put SP into a role they wanted to play.

If cloak provides no damp bonus most scouts who run them won't use them (lets be real honest, cloaks are only fitted for their damp bonus or to abuse the delay problems)....making the role bonus for scouts useless.

I can see SOME merit to removing shared passive scans, but that won't change anything in the long run. It will only force those in the cal scout position to better communicate.

5 seconds does not a wallhack make. And if you want to get under the end all be all of scanning (which the ACTIVE scanner gal logi focused should be, NOT cal scout + 4 precision) then spec amarr or gal and sacrifice to do it.

Do you even remember 1.7? You had 2-3 people running the modules whenever you saw known scouts in play,

4 complex precision dampeners wasn't a drastic sacrifice, it was impossible to achieve. Weapons were 9-15% stronger with even more damage coming from damage mods.

That was never viable to even bother trying to overcome and as soon as it was know someone was using a focused scouts were abandoned.

You're just going to reintroduce the scanner spam if there is still one way to overcome dampening.

Speaking of scanners. They should set a turn cap because I still see people 360 scanning. I see that k2dert or whatever his name is doing these insanely fast 360 spins when he scans. Kind of ridiculous.

If you're going to change HP modules to % based, it should only be to plate armor. Have done the maths previously. % based for everything will destroy medium suits.

https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2169782#post2169782

Changing plate to % reduces their usefulness to scouts, and leaving fero/reactive as a straight number makes them viable.

We want to stick to the dampening removal on cloaks.

How, and you only have one stat to change, do we do that while not making Gallente scout the only viable (PC) meta?

Go!

Your math is full of assumptions and shortcuts. Explain why 20%? Explain why no stacking penalties? Would the non-stacking penalized modules multiply in a compounding way or be lumped together?

Every other module in Dust suffers from decreasing return on investment, why should HP mods be any bit different? Even the speed penalties for the armor plates are percentage based!!

The way it is now, the plates add a dispropotionatly large amount of HP (as a percentage gain) to smaller suits, allowing them to have all of the advatanges of the light suit but to circumvent the drawbacks (wet paper towels for HP). This flies in the face of any balancing attempts, and it also makes the base HP stat much less important (part of the reason why medium suits are so entirely compromised right now).

All of that aside (including the maths, I can just throw more figures at you as well.) Is something that you have overlooked. Every other module in the entire game.

Due to the percentage based modules, no other suit is really going to be even close to a scout in the scouts roles (scan radius, profile, precision, speed, stamina, stamina regen, shield recharge, and hitbox size). Sure a medium suit might be able to come close to the scout in ONE area, but not the other 7. The scout can become compettive with medium suits by fitting HP mods, while retaining ALL of those advantages above.

This is the problem we must address. Scouts are already kings of 7 different base stats in a game largely dictated by percentile gains. The only base stat that it is truely lacking is easily made up for by module in which the scout (relatively) gains the most from.

No, as long as the rest of the modules in the game only allow suits to be competitive (stat wise) with suits from their same class, HP should absolutely be no different.

1) Reduce the Gallente dampening bonus
2) Change the Gallente dampening bonus to a duration bonus

This would be very detrimental to gamepley. The viability of the gallente scout doesnt come from the ability to remain unseen; it's the tanking ability that makes it meta worthy. The only scout that can counter a caldari is gallente and vice versa but; with the proposed change to cloaks, this will no longer be the case. The minny and amarr , with the right modules, will be able to pick up the gallente scout once the cloak bonus is done away with.

The problem with gallente and most other scouts is the equipment slots. They have two equipment slots in which they choose cloak and something else which is, IMHO, not right. All scouts should only have 1 equipment slot and choose if they want to use RE or cloaks....

Summary

The problem with gallente scout is bricktanking and having the cloak on. It has nothing to do with the bonus which will be very necessary once the you eliminate the cloaks dampening effect. This will make it so that no scout is safe from caldari scouts no matter their skill level. Rethink this...

Bricktanking is the problem not the dampening bonus.

Speaking of scanners. They should set a turn cap because I still see people 360 scanning. I see that k2dert or whatever his name is doing these insanely fast 360 spins when he scans. Kind of ridiculous.

Welcome to PC. Why risk playing on a suit when you know the enemy will have a cal scout anyway.

You can anticipate and adapt, or find yourself being mowed down by heavies stacking kin kats rushing you, seemingly aware of your every move.

This isn't a hypothetical. This is current PC meta.

Each side brings cal scouts just to keep the enemy team honest and gal scouts do everything.

The next logical meta evolution is the same evolution that happened when logi's started stacking damps. it's beginning to be where scouts are simply used to achieve the logi's job in all things BUT repping.

Yeah, sure, that's the current meta.

But how has the meta developed?
It's because those Calscouts that can scan everything exist. The Gallente scout is the only counter to that. As a result, the Galscout is the most prevalent non-scanning scout simply because it's the only one that can survive those conditions.

If you remove the dampening bonus from the Galscout, what becomes the dominant scout meta in PC?

Correct, the maths is full of assumptions and shortcuts. The original example was put together as a hypothetical only and was intended to be indicitive, to answer a comment in the Barbershop about making all HP modules % based.
The 20% was arbritary and used to model in a way that mimics the current end total HP of a Gal heavy, and HP were applied without stacking penalty and against base HP only to simplify the calculations. I am in no way suggesting that this is the correct % or implementation.

The intent of my post (as opposed to the execution), was to demonstrate that while % based increase would stop scouts from being able to brick tank, it also removes the ability for scouts to tank in any reasonable way. Assault scouts are a valid playstyle, and removing a valid playstyle due to issues with the current implementation of modules is a poor choice at best.

Making all HP modules % based would make them unusable for light suits, particularly for ferro and reactive plates. If we were to go down the path of % HP modules, it would be a better choice to make a % based module for high base HP suits, with static modules to alow scouts limited, but useful, HP gain. This would have the additional benefit of pushing scouts towards using ferro/reactive plate, thus increasing fitting options while maintaining the playstyle option.

Coupled with this, the current medium base HP totals would mean that they would be similarly affected by the change, nerfing an already underperforming class.

Your argument that all other modules are % based is invalid, as it's based on the falicy that all modules should work by the same mechanism. There's no reasoning behind that, just an assumption. Weapons aren't % based, and HP modules should be balanced around incoming damage and not other modules.

Your suggestion is only workable if every suit and every HP module is re-worked, which is unlikely in the current environment.

A scanned scout is a dead scout. If every scout can be scanned there is no point in running scout because it has no role.

True, Amarr scout is a joke but not Min cout. I'm not sure if you ever run Min or Amarr scout. Min need 2 damp to stay under pro to Active scan but still see by Cal, with their 2(3 at pro to) low slots limit them to chose to be low profile or a speed hack. I think the idea that you have to choose wisely how to fit is a basic balance.
Try to give an proper explanation not to limit down Gal and Cal scout please.

First off, the number of people that lack the knowledge of game mechanics should stop suggesting advice. Not understanding how mods work, what their overall effect is to balance and overall terrible discussion is terrible.

To get back on topic of removing the damp bonus of cloaks.

Its a terrible idea, and its been said why its a terrible idea multiple times in this thread, so I am not going to rehash it, mostly because it breaks the only DECENT balance we have in this game. Without the cloak bonus I wouldn't even fit a cloak. Its the only way to remain hidden from cal scouts if you are not a gal scout.

The first thing that could be changed is the gal scouts range bonus. Why do they have it? It really doesn't correlate to the role of damping. If CCP could translate this damp bonus to your squad mates in the radius it would have a purpose, but I don't think thats something CCP can implement. This would provide a pretty good counter to the caldari.

well if matari ewar bonus is hacking, then maybe the amar can set up a "firewall" by "hacking an already hacked objective" Thus increasing the amount of time needed to hack for all other roles, except for the matari, which would be normal hacking speed?


Encrypting 5% per lvl :p

And that is how it should be.