CCP Rattati wrote:We want to introduce the fun scifi weapons earlier into new players hands. The Gallente Assault Rifle doesn't really strike you as epic scifi, more like the trusty Garand than anything.
1)
We want to create militia variants of the following weapons for now:
Scrambler Rifle
Rail Rifle
Combat Rifle
Laser Rifle
Mass Driver
Plasma Cannon
Heavy Machine Gun
2)
The second part of the roll-out would be to actually racially theme the starter fits so each race has it's proper choice of weapon. Please comment on this, and whether it should maybe be the Assault variant of the racial rifles.
3)
The third part would be to allow all races to have access to the Frontline Suit of the other races, maybe a limited number or unlimited. Please comment on that as well, from lore perspective etc. I feel it is important to show new players they are not limited in weapon selection by their race of choice.
Remember, that the militia variants are to test a weapon, and should not be used after skilling into it, so these will have both some limitations to clip-size, heat buildup and increased PG/CPU requirements.
Discuss.
1.) +1
2&3) After thinking it through a bit because we currently do NOT have racial parity amongst all roles (sniper medic ect ect.)
We have to think about roles we really want to introduce early and quickly to new players and how to make them most effective. Until the fullest racial parity is met there is no need to 'racial' these roles
Roles that are essential should and must be BPOs. if it was possible to make these starter fits terrible and lock the fittings by having them pre fitted with 0/0 weapons and modules (academy prefix) then their bpo caused issues should subside significantly.
Roles I feel that fall in this category are
Sniper
Infiltration (dropuplink, shotgun, and remote explosive, hack fit)
Medic (repair tool and needle)
AV (Should be Forge Gunner)
Frontline (racial picked)
Support (racial picked)
Now these can be up for review in changes on race and the types (like should medic turn into amarr? sniper to minmatar? to mix things up and try to find the best militia suit that can fill that role's most basest function.
Now we have supplemental roles; these roles are designed to help players explore further and understand how different fits work to different degrees.
Namely
Storm Troopers (Antiinfantry Heavy, Currently will be the Min Heavy)
Non Picked Racial Support/Shock (non-medic support with the off rifle weapons such as the PLC, Mass Driver Laser Rifle and Swarm Launcher)
Non Picked Racial Frontline (standard infantry)
While there is room for more roles such as pilot and tactician these roles are not as essential and are more for demo purposes that there is more to various suits even the same suits can do entirely different things (as obvious with support and frontline) These roles can be easily added without having the need to always keep racial parity as well.
We can issue these out in limited numbers (I believe 40 each is enough to get the nuances of the class) but also make them restockable as well.