DUST Search - Hotfix Charlie: Logistics Discussion

Pokey Dravon wrote:

John Demonsbane wrote:

Looks like I fell way behind on this discussion. RL strikes again.

My quick 2 cents:

1) We have to strictly avoid any offensive bonuses for logi suits. A sidearm, in and of itself, is a sufficient "bonus" to make an Amarr logi suit more combat-oriented than the others, all else being equal. Survivability bonuses are maybe a little different, but as we saw with the old cal logi bonus or the global inherent armor reps, supposedly "defensive" bonuses will often be highly desirable to slayers.

2) Any thoughts on my proposal of a small global logi bonus? I totally agree with zdub that pokey's proposal really makes the non-minmatar logi's even more obsolete, but if you made the additional bonuses small, what you really accomplish is making all the logi suits more desirable for support-oriented players than scout suits currently are.

1. I think the Amarr always kind of slightly fall off the edge of the role and blur the line with another, the Amarr Logi with sidearm is a good example of this as it has a sidearm like an assault but (albeit limited) gear like a Logi. I don't think its is necessarily a bad thing, as it appeals to those who may want a little of both worlds and are ok with less of a focus.

Keep in mind that the defensive bonuses I've outlined are also being given to Assaults who DO have offensive bonuses, meaning that while a Logi can put up similar defenses, the Assault will still "Out-Slay" them, meaning it will always be the superior slayer to the logi.

2. The problem really boils down to...how small? The bonus needs to be small enough so that each logi still feels unique, but strong enough so that people actually care. Like +1% to repair tool rate per level is a small bonus, but someone who wants to run as a Pocket-Logi Scout isn't going to really be turned off by that lack of 1%/Lvl bonus. So how much is enough? 2%? 3%? At that point it's pushing that Flatlined-Logi levels and we find ourselves at the previous problem.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18i0Z93RGQbZD-_OMwXmYDJk4ORDBml5Xq_2k_4sF8UY/edit?usp=sharing

So we have the two options, the Flatline with a weak bonus across all equipment but threatens to make Logis feel too similar, and then the Specialist which gets two specialties, the primary being the full bonus and the secondary being either a full or reduced bonus.

We just covered the issues with the Flatline, so looking at the Specialist; Is it the concept of the dual bonus that you don't like? Or just the particular pairs that I whipped up? Also assume Amarr Logi gets to keep the sidearm.


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 2 post(s)
John Demonsbane Unorganized Ninja Infantry Tactics League of Infamy 3659	Posted - 2014.07.10 00:54:00 - [1] - Quote It pains me to disagree with CCL, it really does, but I dont see this as a positive, with the obvious exception of finally being rewarded for running wyrkomi injectors. Being even slower than some sentinels is bad enough, but losing my sidearm is a total deal breaker. There are so many better ways to bring medium suits in line with each other. It's the some old "thing a sucks, so let's nerf thing b" CCP logic that has failed us time and time again over the past 2 years. (The godfather of tactical logistics)
John Demonsbane Unorganized Ninja Infantry Tactics League of Infamy 3680	Posted - 2014.07.10 05:59:00 - [2] - Quote Pokey Dravon wrote: Equipment Bonuses I think that forcing players to only have bonuses to a single equipment but giving them 3-4 slots is kinda silly. Racial bonuses are sweet, but so are role bonuses. Logi's should be the best at using equipment, period, and even better at using their own racial equipment. I have two suggestions for reworked bonuses for equipment 1. Logi's get full bonus for their racial equipment, as well as full bonus for another race's equipment, such that each has a unique pair. For example Amarr: Bonus to Uplinks & Nanohives Caldari: Bonus to Nanohives & Scanners Gallente: Bonus to Scanners & Repair Tools Minmatar: Bonus to Repair Tool & Uplinks 2. Logi's get full bonus for their racial equipment, as well as a partial bonus for all other race's equipment. I personally like 1 a bit more, but I imagine most will prefer 2. I'd be content with either option. On a side note, I'd actually like all Logi's to get some form of bonus to remote explosives and proximity mines. I feel it really suits their Control and Indirect Combat themes, and would certainly bring and interesting dynamic to those equipment. Conclusion (Keep in mind I think more changes need to be made to all medium frames in general to properly balance them against Light and Heavy, however balancing Assault vs Logi is an important step as well) Logi's need similar survivability to Assaults. General defenses should be part of the frame suit, not the role. Variations will exist, but overall they should be similar Boost Equipment fitting bonus significantly (50%-75% reduction at level 5 instead of current 25%) Give Logi's similar slots and PG/CPU to assaults, but make their effective PG/CPU much higher, but only if equipment is used to take advantage of the larger reduction bonus. Expand bonuses for racial equipment to make it less restrictive. I've proposed choice 2 in other threads so naturally that's what I vote for. It should be the existing racial bonus, plus 1/4 of whatever the other 3 bonuses are, so at level 5 you get your own bonus at level 5 plus the other ones at the equivalent of almost level 2. Your point about slayer logis only existing because assaults were not good needs to be repeated 1000 times and drilled into certain cement headed coughiwscough peoples heads. Pre 1.7 logis were the rage because assaults were no good, now scouts and heavies are the rage for the same reason. They do the same job as assaults, but better, and with the additional advantages of the other class. Strangely, by CCP logic, the answer to both scenarios is to nerf logis. Crucial fact: NOBODY who loves Amarr weaponry uses the Amarr logi as a slayer suit. They all use the assault. Why? Because it actually has a good bonus! (Shocking, I know.) (The godfather of tactical logistics)
John Demonsbane Unorganized Ninja Infantry Tactics League of Infamy 3699	Posted - 2014.07.10 16:25:00 - [3] - Quote Jaysyn Larrisen wrote: Guys...i might be looking for a couple hard core Logi Bro / Sis folks for the Biomassed show this weekend. I'm looking for long time varsity level nominees to help represent the community... who do you folks want me to try and get on the show? Ps... sounds like the Devs dig the show as well. I'm not exactly "varsity level", but I've been around the block a few times in my Amarr logi (major topic of the day, obviously) and I'd volunteer if I weren't working this weekend. So, I'd nominate Mortedeamor since she rocks the Amarr logi as well as anyone. (The other usual suspects would be CCL, Shayz, maybe RedBleach?) (The godfather of tactical logistics)
John Demonsbane Unorganized Ninja Infantry Tactics League of Infamy 3715	Posted - 2014.07.11 04:42:00 - [4] - Quote Jaysyn Larrisen wrote: John Demonsbane wrote: Jaysyn Larrisen wrote: Guys...i might be looking for a couple hard core Logi Bro / Sis folks for the Biomassed show this weekend. I'm looking for long time varsity level nominees to help represent the community... who do you folks want me to try and get on the show? Ps... sounds like the Devs dig the show as well. I'm not exactly "varsity level", but I've been around the block a few times in my Amarr logi (major topic of the day, obviously) and I'd volunteer if I weren't working this weekend. So, I'd nominate Mortedeamor since she rocks the Amarr logi as well as anyone. (The other usual suspects would be CCL, Shayz, maybe RedBleach?) I'll have to put out the call then. Mortdemor, Crazy Cat, John, Shayz...ping me on Skype or twitter and lets see if we can pull a couple of you on the show. Sorry, like I said, I'm working all weekend, its very unlikely I will be able to participate. Tonight or last night would have been perfect. Oh well. But, I will pass along my personal proposal about revamping the equipment bonuses to add to the discussion. Existing bonuses stay, unchanged. New bonus is a global bonus to all equipment types. Instead of trying to pair up the races somehow, or choosing between one of the two parts of a primary racial bonus, just give every logi suit every bonus, but much weaker. So, instead of 10% to spawn time or nanite clusters, etc, you get maybe 3%. So at level 5 you get the 50% out of your primary bonus, and then 15% for everything else. This way, every logi, regardless of race, gets a little extra boost out of whatever equipment they want to use, and scouts are no longer basically just as good at being logi's as logi's are. We've differentiated the entire class just a little bit more. From a design (can't realiy call it lore) perspective it also makes sense in that a military contractor would design a support suit to have enhanced functionality with all support equipment, compared to say a heavy duty combat suit like the commando. Perhaps the individual races would customize them further, explaining the single racial bonus. As for the Amarr sidearm, it just seems like it's something CCP unilaterally decided to do to make their balancing math easier, with no real consideration to, well, anything else at all. The only reason is so they don't have to think too hard about the new slot counts. Nobody complained about it, asked for it to be removed, or proclaimed it OP, just CCP not thinking something through entirely in terms of how it would affect the players. Bad idea is bad. (The godfather of tactical logistics)
John Demonsbane Unorganized Ninja Infantry Tactics League of Infamy 3738	Posted - 2014.07.12 05:07:00 - [5] - Quote Looks like I fell way behind on this discussion. RL strikes again. My quick 2 cents: 1) We have to strictly avoid any offensive bonuses for logi suits. A sidearm, in and of itself, is a sufficient "bonus" to make an Amarr logi suit more combat-oriented than the others, all else being equal. Survivability bonuses are maybe a little different, but as we saw with the old cal logi bonus or the global inherent armor reps, supposedly "defensive" bonuses will often be highly desirable to slayers. 2) Any thoughts on my proposal of a small global logi bonus? I totally agree with zdub that pokey's proposal really makes the non-minmatar logi's even more obsolete, but if you made the additional bonuses small, what you really accomplish is making all the logi suits more desirable for support-oriented players than scout suits currently are. (The godfather of tactical logistics)
John Demonsbane Unorganized Ninja Infantry Tactics League of Infamy 3745	Posted - 2014.07.12 19:04:00 - [6] - Quote Pokey Dravon wrote: John Demonsbane wrote: Looks like I fell way behind on this discussion. RL strikes again. My quick 2 cents: 1) We have to strictly avoid any offensive bonuses for logi suits. A sidearm, in and of itself, is a sufficient "bonus" to make an Amarr logi suit more combat-oriented than the others, all else being equal. Survivability bonuses are maybe a little different, but as we saw with the old cal logi bonus or the global inherent armor reps, supposedly "defensive" bonuses will often be highly desirable to slayers. 2) Any thoughts on my proposal of a small global logi bonus? I totally agree with zdub that pokey's proposal really makes the non-minmatar logi's even more obsolete, but if you made the additional bonuses small, what you really accomplish is making all the logi suits more desirable for support-oriented players than scout suits currently are. 1. I think the Amarr always kind of slightly fall off the edge of the role and blur the line with another, the Amarr Logi with sidearm is a good example of this as it has a sidearm like an assault but (albeit limited) gear like a Logi. I don't think its is necessarily a bad thing, as it appeals to those who may want a little of both worlds and are ok with less of a focus. Keep in mind that the defensive bonuses I've outlined are also being given to Assaults who DO have offensive bonuses, meaning that while a Logi can put up similar defenses, the Assault will still "Out-Slay" them, meaning it will always be the superior slayer to the logi. 2. The problem really boils down to...how small? The bonus needs to be small enough so that each logi still feels unique, but strong enough so that people actually care. Like +1% to repair tool rate per level is a small bonus, but someone who wants to run as a Pocket-Logi Scout isn't going to really be turned off by that lack of 1%/Lvl bonus. So how much is enough? 2%? 3%? At that point it's pushing that Flatlined-Logi levels and we find ourselves at the previous problem. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18i0Z93RGQbZD-_OMwXmYDJk4ORDBml5Xq_2k_4sF8UY/edit?usp=sharing So we have the two options, the Flatline with a weak bonus across all equipment but threatens to make Logis feel too similar, and then the Specialist which gets two specialties, the primary being the full bonus and the secondary being either a full or reduced bonus. We just covered the issues with the Flatline, so looking at the Specialist; Is it the concept of the dual bonus that you don't like? Or just the particular pairs that I whipped up? Also assume Amarr Logi gets to keep the sidearm. Lol. The Amarr logi losing it's sidearm is an automatic deal breaker for me, so that is always assumed! It's not that I have a problem with dual bonuses per se, it's just that all the prior suggestions along those lines made, as you correctly pointed out, rather arbitrary pairings. The problem with those becomes that everyone would want the rep tool and maybe to a lesser extent the uplink bonuses (if it worked properly, of course). With the exception of the Caldari having a rep tool bonus making the least sense, it would be hard to justify why the Gallente should get it over the Amarr, and vice versa. The proposed change to giving everyone a rep tool bonus naturally eliminates that, but then you wonder if the Minmatar logi, being a little squishier than the others, takes a hit. (Not that I care what befalls the shoe shiners union, as Cubs used to say, but naturally we need to be a littleobjective here) The other thing is, I'm trying to push what I'd like to conceptually see in Charlie, which, unlike Rattati's vision of it being primarily a buff to assaults, I'd like to see it as a revival of both medium frames relative to lights. Especially since I keep seeing proposals ranging from everyone to Rattati to IWS to Aeon Amadi with the same tired "nerf logis to buff assaults" rhetoric that has been floating around here since at least 1.4... it's still a bad approach, and while it at least had a modicum of logic behind it then, it's totally irrelevant now since this is scout/sentinel 514 we are playing today. Even still. the answer is the same now as it was then: If you want to buff assaults, then buff the damn assaults! Which, speaking about the defensive bonuses going to both medium frames, that's a good start but remember that logi's to a large extent (Amarr being an exception) still have greater slot counts and fitting resources than the corresponding assault suit and so we do still need to make the logi's less able (but not impossible, of course) to fit in a combat-focused way, either by: - Forcing all equipment slots to be filled, which sounds good (and tbh is something I've been pushing for like 8 months now), but I think I saw that it may not be easy to hot-fix, and it's honestly probably not as effective as we think it would be because there's nothing to stop people from just dropping some compact (or even higher tier triage) hives in the slots. - A more elegant but harder to balance solution is to decrease logi fitting power while simultaneously increasing the fitting bonus to equipment. Still looking for the (again, probably 8+ months old so it's hard to find) original post I made on that subject. If I can't find it I'll just run the math again, it's not like it was super complex to begin with. (The godfather of tactical logistics)
John Demonsbane Unorganized Ninja Infantry Tactics League of Infamy 3749	Posted - 2014.07.12 21:57:00 - [7] - Quote Alaika Arbosa wrote: Why would it be a deal breaker if the Amarr Logi were to be brought into line with the other Logi suits while getting a different though equivalent bonus to the others? I am just curious, personally, I don't see it as being a real Logi, it is the "Not-Assault Assault" IMHO Because it is one of the primary reasons I chose the suit back in the day, and the couple million SP or so I have invested in sidearms would be completely wasted. Also, as I have said before, the Amarr logi bonus is the only one that is likely to require someone to lone wolf it from time to time. The sidearm saves my ass time and time again. (The godfather of tactical logistics)
John Demonsbane Unorganized Ninja Infantry Tactics League of Infamy 3755	Posted - 2014.07.13 04:24:00 - [8] - Quote Holy crap, it's a Checkmate sighting! Anyway, I found it. Actually only about 6 months old, it was an interesting read going back through those old threads from pre 1.7 to 1.8. A couple people pretty accurately predicted the rise of scouts and the death of medium frames, even before the final patch notes for 1.8. So, the bottom line is this: If you are seriously that concerned that logi's are going to infringe on the assault role (while inexplicably ignoring the massive contribution 1.8-era scouts made to the death of the assault), just go forward with another CPU/PG decrease and simultaneously increase the fitting bonus to equipment. Done properly, you should be able to make essentially the same exact support-oriented fitting you can now, but be very much hampered trying to make an offensively-minded logi fitting, as in the example I linked. (The godfather of tactical logistics)