If a better NPE and more balanced battles are the goal, there are FAR better ways to do it.

I have issues with Metal Level balancing.

1.) The Meta Levels aren't balanced. At all.
As good as an Officer Weapon is, it isnt 10x better than a Standard Weapon. Not even close.
Maybe 1.5x better, but not 10x.

2.) Variants are higher meta, despite being the same performance wise. This ties into #1.

3.)Why would anyone run in the Prototype tiered battles? Would there even be a point in PRO gear anymore?

4.) If they were to increase ISK payouts in PRO battles, whats to stop AFK ISK farming from becoming a rampant issue in those battles? Ties into #3.

5.) Even if this were rebalanced so that metal levels were balanced, and payouts and AFKing were made right...
It would create another issue of dividing the playerbase, and that would end up with exponentially increased waiting times before battle. It would be like FW except all the time.

As such, I believe that a feature like thus would only do more harm to the game than good, currently.
It should be put on the back burner until all the issues above are accounted for...

Here are my answers to this...

1. Adjusting meta levels would be easy to do.

2. Whether or not they need to be adjusted is another issue. Solid arguments could be made that non-consumable items (user has less to lose) and Aurum items (user gets early access to the technology) should have a higher meta-level than their traditional ISK based variants.

3. Who cares if no one wants to run proto? I have no problem with proto only being used in PC and FW. Players may also choose to not run proto in battles that allow proto in order to reap better payouts. In this situation, other players (who are looking for an advantage) would run proto.

4. AFK could easily be handled by further reducing ISK payouts for time in battle and increasing it for warpoints gained in battle.

5. Dividing the player base is the idea. Give new players a chance and there will be more of them and the size of the player base will grow. Right now, Queue times for the battle academy are just as quick as those for regular public battles. So dividing the player base in this case did nothing to queue times.

Like I said, I really believe that DUST is a great game that appeals to a huge number of players, the problem is new player retention, something has to be tried, if not this then what do you recommend?

Here are my answers to this...

1. Adjusting meta levels would be easy to do.

2. Whether or not they need to be adjusted is another issue. Solid arguments could be made that non-consumable items (user has less to lose) and Aurum items (user gets early access to the technology) should have a higher meta-level than their traditional ISK based variants.

3. Who cares if no one wants to run proto? I have no problem with proto only being used in PC and FW. Players may also choose to not run proto in battles that allow proto in order to reap better payouts. In this situation, other players (who are looking for an advantage) would run proto.

4. AFK could easily be handled by further reducing ISK payouts for time in battle and increasing it for warpoints gained in battle.

5. Dividing the player base is the idea. Give new players a chance and there will be more of them and the size of the player base will grow. Right now, Queue times for the battle academy are just as quick as those for regular public battles. So dividing the player base in this case did nothing to queue times.

Like I said, I really believe that DUST is a great game that appeals to a huge number of players, the problem is new player retention, something has to be tried, if not this then what do you recommend?

Tiericide.
It solves literally every issue.
You name it. It solves it.

So many problem in this game stem from the absurd power disparity there is between new players and vets. A vet is often 150-200% more powerful than a newbro, and its a serious issue and disease that has plagued the game since its earliest days.

I'm very very iffy on metalevel lockout personally. At most I would be okay with it being used to gate an area for newer players to play safely, but I'd be very cautious about it.

Why are you iffy about it?

I know it is not perfect, but it is the only thing on the board that addresses the scourge that proto-stomping is.

In my opinion, what most people describe as "proto stomping" has less to do with differences in gear, or even experience, than with differences in coordination and communication levels.

Any effort which improves new players' coordination and communication, or controls for the amount of it between both sides in a battle will more dramatically reduce what is described as "proto stomping" than limiting access based on gear.

This is just an opinion of a mid-experience player who has only run Proto suits in pub matches maybe 10x, ever.

Proto-stomping isn't a scourge. That's your first mistake. Most of the proto-stompers would still stomp the noobs even with militia fits. It's about skill and skill points more than the suit, as well as squad coordination over voice comms.

Second, the whole point of different tiers of gear is to have a risk/reward mechanic. You can risk more money in a fancier suit for an edge, but it's a sharper cost if you lose. Forcing people to a metalevel removes that decisionmaking. And proto vs. proto is pointless, because it's the same as militia vs. militia. So basically, tiers of gear are pointless if you can't decide to escalate to a higher tier of gear.

There's a lot of better ways to tackle the problem. For instance, I'd like FacWar to be more rewarding than pub matches if you win, so that good players farm out their ISK in FacWar instead of pubs.

I agree that the elite teams do not win because they are using proto gear. Coordination of attack (running together), mastery of game mechanics, map knowledge, maxed core skills, all of these are factors that contribute to victory.

That said, these vet squads are also running 6 deep, all decked out in full proto gear. Doesn't matter how many times they die in a match, it's proto all the way all the time. You don't see squads of Nyan San or Capital Aquisition or Outer.Heaven or Fatal Absolution (or any of the other stompers) running Quafe BPO suits and using combat riffles.

So they have all the advantages I listed initially plus they have the best gear in the game. Furthermore, maxed skills are much more effective on Proto gear due to the fact that bonuses in DUST are multiplicative, this makes the usage of the gear that much better.

I know that personally, the inequality in gear was one of the most infuriating things when I started playing and was getting stomped. If you have all the disadvantages of a new player topped with the fact that you need to put twice as many bullets in your enemy to kill him than he has to kill you, the game borders on lunacy and only masochist and/or philosophers can deal with it.

BTW, I'm not a noob (but I'm far from elite) I play a dozen hours a week and I have north of 45 million SP. The proto-stomping is not a huge issue for me personally (I still get stomped but not frequently) but I did recommend the game to a few friends who loved the academy and quit within days of "graduating" to the real player base. As a result of this and to help new player retention, I run basic or advanced gear in pubs unless I am up against a team that is stacked with players running proto.