You're not supposed to operate all weaponry at a gain. Prototype weaponry is supposed to make you operate at a loss. Advanced gear is the middle ground.

your not suppose to be able to run around with proto weapons in pubs all day long. the last thing we need to do is make the assault combat rifle cheaper to proto stomp new players all day.

You yourself said that it's the dropsuits that really make the difference. More module slots means more EHP to stack on and more EHP to stack on means much better performance. It's rather frequent that 200 HP can mean life or death.

Proto suits have much more EHP than standard. The odds of winning are much higher for the proto suit than for the standard suit. Though the pricing makes it so that someone with little ISK can't afford proto to even out the odds while someone with hundreds of millions of ISK can constantly throw their ISK to gain an advantage.

I agree with Sir Dukey that a price reduction should be imposed on suits, but only on suits. The power increase from standard to proto suits is too great to have proto suits cost so much. Weapons and modules are fine because they only provide marginal increases with much greater costs.

Currently proto suits are mostly for those that have the ISK to spend away, while the majority can't afford proto. I believe that proto suits should be made more accessible to everyone by making them cheaper to afford. It would be much easier to fight off proto stomps if proto suits are more accessible, and proto stomps won't even be a problem then. "Fight fire with fire."

Lost all credibility and any chance of me backing this post.

It's kinetic Catalyzer. If you must shorten it it's KinCat.

Ugh

For me, advanced is where I can break even.

I have fitted a proto Amarr assault which gives me 200 EHP more, but I can't afford the 100k price tag per suit. It's rather frequent that I would've survived to kill my opponent if I had 200 more hp. I tell myself that if I consistently finish battles with no more than two deaths running advanced, I can switch to proto. But I can only break even, which means that I sometimes die 10 times, other times once or not at all.

This is an excellent case where the rich can use their ISK to pay for an advantage while the poor can't afford proto to even out the odds.

I think that you should just quit now. What usually happens in cases like yours is that you start to look for cheats that will help you.
Unless your playing ambush then this game is best played with a team. proto v proto means nothing if you dont have a good team with you. Then its proto you vs proto 6 of them.
Ambush for 2 days in starter gear to make your isk... works for me.

if your any good in your proto suit then you could play in PC and merc yourself out and make all the isk you need to support your proto habit in pubs. so its not the price of proto gear that is the problem its the way your going about playing the game.

No.

If you can't afford it, don't use it.
Or buy it.

You really wouldn't have to worry about any of this if you had a SP refund or just and infantry one , then you can go full racial and or really customize your @$$ off ... I know you said you had extra SP's and all ... but you could actually make you SP's help make ISK's for you by prioritizing and actually getting the most production for your SP's because it's the SP's that make isk's then you would mind the cost so much because you would have SP's in place where YOU feel they are the most effective and not trapped in some void that you have to find a use for .

SP's locked into useless items and materials for roles that aren't useful because of changes to performance bonuses , hence role value to the individual ... that's really loosing money for the mercenary .

You can't afford to have things in skilled on your person if they have no useful value to the person .

The cost issue is relatively minor. As I said, I can maintain 5KDR in advanced (and that was mostly playing solo). 95%+ of players cannot. And a lot of the best players (better than me) run standard/advanced most the time in pubs and still beast.

I used to think SP was a major if not the main differentiator, but we now have players with 30mil+ SP, enough for two maxed roles, complaining about getting repeatedly stomped, even if they're in squads with other high SP players. So I don't think that's a massive consideration either. In fact a corpmate ran a lot of games recently on a 500k SP alt with a standard scout, no cloak, and twin SMGs, think he was around a 3.5KDR doing that.

So now I think that Player Skill=Organization>SP>Gear. Take gear out of the equation and pubstomping would be virtually the same.

Like I said ... I must be speaking for myself .


What are you complaining for then , you have what you want and can't get the outcome that your looking for ???

Maybe you should pick and choose more carefully which match that you care to run proto in then , that way your making a wise business decision .. given the fact that you might not care to do this because you figure that you shouldn't have to ... and your keeping money on top of making money .

Your not taking such a risk and increasing your own value ... your changes would help those who you feel have a advantage , to have a greater advantage as well so the best thing that you can do is just become wiser in your choices .

Edit : Hell at least your at a place where price is the only thing that's making this adventure uncomfortable .
At least you have all of this going for you and have a SP surplus .
Also not be burdened by useless SP sinks .

I'm the one that's really broke , SP's and ISK's .