George Moros
RestlessSpirits
406
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Posted - 2014.08.18 11:21:00 -
[1] - Quote
Here's my take on the subject:
First of all, I agree that dual tanking should be discouraged. Not impossible, but discouraged.
Second, of all the proposals I've read here not one contains a viable solution that would prevent dual tanking. For example, no matter how you redistribute initial shield/armor ratio of dropsuits, there's still no reason why someone wouldn't stack plates on a dropsuit that initially has only 50-ish armor (or vice versa in case of shields). Also, if you give role/dropsuit fitting bonuses to shield/armor modules, there's still no reason why someone couldn't put both kind for that extra EHP they'll get.
In EVE dual tanking is possible, but rarely seen in practice (in fact, almost never - any dual tanked fit is considered as noob and/or fail fit). It is however, not an extreme rarity to see (as True Adamance linked a battleclinic Harbinger example) a ship that is using a shield tank although it is nominally an armor tanker. But, as a rule of thumb, majority of ships are either shield or armor tanked, and in 95% of the cases their tank type corresponds to their racial lore.
The reason for this is quite simple - in EVE there are useful modules to be put both in mid (equivalent of DUST's high slots) and low slots, besides tank.
Damage mods (which in EVE go to low slots), are mandatory for any PvP fit that actually shoots at the enemy (i.e. most of them). And they are mandatory because they give a much more significant bonus than a mere 5/7/8% current proto variants do. If you don't fit them, you'll see a significant difference in your performance.
Also, there are modules that go to mid slots that are also mandatory for any viable PvP fit - propulsion modules, warp scramblers and, to some extent, stasis webifiers. These are, in most cases not optional, but mandatory for any PvP fleet.
So, even if you're flying a completely "common" PvP ship (meaning, not some specialized role such as logi or ewar), you'll still need at least two mid and two low slots in your fit which are not tank modules. If you compare this to DUST, you'll see that the only dropsuits that commonly fit modules other than tank (except for maybe damage mods) are scouts. And even that is correct only if the player is actually playing the scout as a scout, and not merely a "assault with a cloak".
There is also one other factor that contributes to EVE's single tank philosophy, and it is the ability to increase resists of your shield and/or armor. A usual PvP fit ship will increase his damage resistances to at least 60-70% for all damage types. If you do this for armor, then stacking an armor plate of 1000 HP will actually give you cca 3000 more effective HP. If you then stack a 1000 HP shield extender without boosting your resistances, you'll get only a fraction of that amount, making the investment in CPU/PG far less effective than for the armor plate. Combine this with the fact that there are actually other useful modules to be put in the place of that shield extender, and the choice is rather obvious - you'll either shield or armor tank, but never both.
To illustrate, I'll link the above mentioned first Harbinger fit . Again, high slots correspond to DUST's weapons and equipment, medium slots are DUST's high slots, lows are the same. In mediums, he uses all 4 slots on non-tank modules (propulsion, warp scrambler, webifier, capacitor management). Of the 6 low slots, 2 are for damage mods, 4 are armor tank. This is a typical Harbinger PvP fit "as it should be done".
The second one illustrates that EVE's mechanics still provide room for improvisation and innovation, without making the fit unusable, just somewhat specific. In this fit, Harbinger is shield tanked, with 3 modules used for tank, and only one for other stuff (propulsion). The sacrifice being made here is that the ship has no means of preventing it's target from escaping, and has to rely on fleet mates to do the job. However, this is compensated by stacking 4 damage mods, which makes it a DPS monster.
So, to conclude, if you want to prevent dual tanking in DUST, you have got to have useful non-tanking modules to fit. And not just useful to some specific roles, but useful to (almost) anyone. This is by far the most important thing to have. Only if you have that, can other aspects be considered to further make dual tanking not viable, such as racial bonuses to resists or plate effectiveness, or whatnot.
This turned out to be quite a wall of text, so my apologies. :)
Pulvereus ergo queritor.
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George Moros
RestlessSpirits
406
|
Posted - 2014.08.18 12:07:00 -
[2] - Quote
On second thought, maybe there is a way to prevent dual tanking in DUST without making other modules useful (meaning, more useful than they currently are). However, this would require for DUST to abandon some design concepts that mimic EVE both in mechanics and lore (which is kind of weird, since I actually like how EVE works in that respect).
OK, here's the thing:
All tanking modules (both shield and armor) go to the same slot type (either high or low, completely irrelevant at this level). Now, if you want to make a certain dropsuit "biased" toward shield or armor tank (depending on role / race / whatever), simply put a fitting and/or effectiveness dropsuit skill bonus to that dropsuit toward those module types.
All other modules would then go to the other slot type.
This would be the most straightforward method of "forcing" players to use only one type of tank I can think of.
The price for this would be to abandon the EVE based racial tilt in high / low slot ratio, and make the ratio entirely role based. For example, sentinels would have more tank slots and fewer "other" slots, while scouts would have the opposite. Assaults could be somewhere in the middle. You get the idea.
Pulvereus ergo queritor.
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George Moros
RestlessSpirits
406
|
Posted - 2014.08.18 12:48:00 -
[3] - Quote
Meee One wrote:
Slight problem with that idea...
Armor takes 2 slots
-Plate
-Reps
Shields take 3
-Extender
-Recharger/energizer
-Regulator
And shields cost a butt load of CPU/PG to run purely,all lost to a single basic flux grenade.
If your armor goes you're dead.
But if your shield goes you can still fight.
Armor is 10x easier to fit,lasts 10x longer,and as the last line of defense it's 100x more important.
The penalty to speed plates give is negligible,because it doesn't hinder repair rate or armor tank in any way.
Extenders on the other hand buff and gimp shields at the same time.
If plates added a negative repair rate,or hindered repair rate then it would be semi equal.
But i'd say the main problem is grenades,reduce flux effectiveness and it wouldn't 1 shot 800 shield tanked sentinels.
I understand what you mean, but your remarks have more to do with shield vs armor balance than with the issue of putting them all in the same slot type. Also, I wasn't suggesting that (for example) Caldari dropsuits should have zero armor as inital value. If you lose your shields, you'll still have (some) armor left. Finally, in the model I proposed, there's absolutely nothing that specifically prevents you from fitting armor plates to a Caldari dropsuit, if you think that it would be prudent to do so. In fact, you could probably fit more plates in this proposed model than you can now, providing that you forego the built-in bonus to shield tank the Caldari dropsuit would have.
But it's not just that... think of the other issues you could solve by implementing this. One of the most whined about issues currently is the brick tanked slayer-scout. If you give scouts just one (2 at best) "tank slot", you will solve the issue immediately.
Pulvereus ergo queritor.
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