You realize your argument makes no sense to the proposition? The high TTK equating to higher skill refers to engaging enemies when you both have proportionately higher TTKs, not using a relatively higher TTK suit than your opponent.

That said, lower TTK gameplay requires more skill.

People asking for higher TTK, are going to get tore up, just as badly as they are now, for the fundamental reason that the people killing them, can and will acquire lethal firing solutions first.

Why fool yourself into thinking otherwise?

Would like to try. CCP could try this for a week then have us tell them what we thought, who knows.

Getting rid of aim assist would almost double TTK and reward real skill.

I would be thrilled with a 25% base HP buff.

A 15% buff to shield extenders. No buff to plates.

A 50% buff to rep and reg modules.

Removing AIm Assist.

Removing Sentinel splash resistance.

Add a gotdamn shield rep tool.

You realize your argument makes no sense to the proposition? The high TTK equating to higher skill refers to engaging enemies when you both have proportionately higher TTKs, not using a relatively higher TTK suit than your opponent.

Irritated.

People complaining this is a twitch shooter with instant TTK have no idea what they're talking about. TTK is actually pretty long here, generally.

The people who would benefit most from a TTK increase would be protosuit users. Most of the whining for increased TTK I see is from really bad players who are upset it didn't take ten minutes to kill their shiny.

If CCP one day patched this in, would you be happy, angry, or ambivalent?

• Doubling Derpsuit Base HP
• Doubling Derpsuit Armor/Shield Module HP
• Doubling ammunition carried (not magazine size)

Don't bother doubling TTK

Just remove AA. TTK is now higher for a good 90% of the playerbase.

Irritated.

People complaining this is a twitch shooter with instant TTK have no idea what they're talking about. TTK is actually pretty long here, generally.

The people who would benefit most from a TTK increase would be protosuit users. Most of the whining for increased TTK I see is from really bad players who are upset it didn't take ten minutes to kill their shiny.

TTK seems just about right. It is possible to turn the tables on someone who gets the drop on you, but it requires good reaction time and positioning (i.e. you are aware of your environment and know where to go for cover when fire comes from an unexpected direction and you can get on target fast). Grossly inflated TTK would reduce the need to seek positional advantages, with superior aim and strafing sufficient to win most engagements. Moreover, it would do little to mitigate the advantage that vets have over newer players. A sound tactical approach is something that anyone can apply, regardless of gun game. If surprise and position don't matter much, raw numbers and aim will win the day. In addition, chance/luck matters less as engagements lengthen (simple model detailed below).

-Aramis

Imagine combat modeled as a short series of Bernoulli distributed trials, with the ultimate victor being the individual who wins more of these handful of virtual coin flips. Now lets say the our bitter vet has a 70% chance of winning any one of these individual trials and our noob a 30% chance. In a short/moderate TTK scenario, there are perhaps 3-5 such trials (get the drop on a guy, get on target, stay on target, strafe, kill target). With a longer TTK, there are more such trials in each combat, making the outcome more likely to go in favor of the vet. I realize that this is a rather coarse model, but it's probably fairly accurate.

Wow.... so many people here think that RNG bullet distribution ending a battle early = skill.

Short battles are mostly RNG from your gun. The shorter the conflict the more that RNG means.

Therefore Skill = RNG?

You people lobbying for short kill times amuse me... really.

Lower TTK=COD

COD=No skill pretty simple equation.

No, HP will actually mean something, people who don't stack hp will have a better chance of survival. Low TTK makes the game's fitting meta completely pointless. "What's the point of running an armor stacked x when it dies as fast as a scout"

Beyond that you're a scrub, and I can kick your teeth in with basic gear bruuh.

Longer TTK = player is too bad and he needs extra seconds to aim and fire back.

No one is lobbying for short kill times, we're lobbying against unreasonably long ones.

When a gun does X amount of damage, and the target has X amount of eHP. Those are direct stats. Which is the complete opposite of RNG.

When someone kills another person in this game. It's because, in some way or another, that target was within their field of effect.

RNG would be your bullet doing a random amount of damage, hitting a random target around the field, who has a random amount of HP.

Bullet spread is RNG.
Heck.. hit detection is also RNG for this game...

Also, the combat times from the closed beta were brilliant for fights. You actually felt like you were in a fight, not just slapping someone with a stick of ham and saying, "Tag!". After a 1v1, you felt kind of jittery about the conflict then.... Now.. Blap. Over. Done. Gun has fired. Who did I kill? I don't know. Wasn't important enough to remember.

If you want fast kills you need to use short range weapons (such as knives).
If you want slower kills, then it should be for ranged weapons.

The difference between weapon performance and armor types would be clarified for many people with longer combat bouts. Right now, I can talk to half of the people I play with and they have no idea that guns have damage profiles. Targets drop so fast it's not worth knowing unless it's vs a Tank.

Why even have damage profiles for weapons, if the game makes it so that you can't spot the difference between an armor or shield oriented weapon without reading the specialization tips or visiting the forums.

I take your point.

But remember, in closed beta. Everyone hated Sentinels when they were actually capable of 1v1 against a tank. It took 3 or 4 people to take a Sentinel down. (Sentinels were also extremely hard to skill into.)

The way to balance TTK, so that the damage profiles matter, would be to reduce the severity of the PROFILES (and global weapon damages by a slightly less percentage); NOT double base eHP as mentioned in the OP. (This has been suggested NUMEROUS times.)

The lack of aim assist and lower weapon damage during beta produced a much longer TTK than we have now.

And fights back then were more satisfying and more fun. Sometimes it took two clips to kill someone and you felt like you earned that kill. Or you managed to get away from several reds instead of insta dying to them.

Today's TTK is stupidly easy and boring. Killing someone or dying in a fraction of a second is not enjoyable. It's not satisfying or challenging and it sure as hell is not fun. Twitch shooters never are.

Imagine combat modeled as a short series of Bernoulli distributed trials, with the ultimate victor being the individual who wins more of these handful of virtual coin flips. Now lets say the our bitter vet has a 70% chance of winning any one of these individual trials and our noob a 30% chance. In a short/moderate TTK scenario, there are perhaps 3-5 such trials (get the drop on a guy, get on target, stay on target, strafe, kill target). With a longer TTK, there are more such trials in each combat, making the outcome more likely to go in favor of the vet. I realize that this is a rather coarse model, but it's probably fairly accurate.

This is the truth of the matter.

Aim assist has a HUGE influence on balance and TTK in this game, and all you need to do is have a Blue on Blue duel in FW or PC to realize the truth.

We could tweak numbers left and right to try and get around what Aim Assist does to the game's nature, or we could just get rid of Aim Assist and get back to the days where bullets didn't magically hit people, movement during duels mattered, and sidearms were the difference between life and death.

The major blocking issue to this is the improvement of Hit Detection. Fix that and there's no excuse for AA existing in this game.

I think its already been well established that doubling HP isn't the best direction to take, and I don't think anyone is arguing that as it is.

In closed beta, heavies were much more difficult to take down quickly. What you aren't taking into account is that heavies also did much less damage, and had a fairly different role. The HMG didn't have insane DPS, short range, and fast overheat like it does now; in beta it was a weapon that did decent damage, had moderate range, and did sustained damage over an extended period. Heavies were meant to be able to eat damage and dish it out consistently against multiple opponents in a sustained engagement. The heavy in beta isn't really comparable to today's insta-kill HMG wielders that barely live longer than a medium frame.

I would stay away from modifying damage profiles, mostly because it is a defining factor in Dust and gives different weapon types unique benefits and detriments to fitting them in particular situations. Increasing TTK by 15-25% would make each engagement much more meaningful, which makes sense in a game where each death is a potential financial loss. It would also open each class up to a much more open range of possible balancing factors, a lower TTK is a restriction to the range of viable HP/ewar/rep/speed combinations.

EDIT: Lowering/Increasing