Joel II X wrote:Let me get this straight, you want to change shield mods to a static number to buff shield suits?
So, a Shield Recharger oates of giving 35% bonus, it would give, I dunno, a 30hp/s bonus? And along with this, you want to give all suits the same regen?
I can see how it helps shield suits, but you're also saying that it'll make armor suits benefit less from them. However, if that have the same regen, wouldn't they benefit just as much from the same module as a shield suit?
Maybe I'm just misunderstanding everything due to being tired?
Probably the latter.
Shield Recharger would still give the 45% bonus (complex). The modules wouldn't change. However, the suits themselves would. Delving a bit further into this, if we look at say, the Minmatar Line-up we see this:
Recharge Delay Depleted delay
Scout: 40hp/s ----- 4s ----- 5s
Assault: 25hp/s ----- 6s ----- 8s
Logistics: 20hp/s ----- 5s ----- 6s
Commando: 18hp/s ----- 6s ----- 10s
Sentinel: 20hp/s ----- 4s ----- 6s
It is all over the place but seems to gravitate toward a rough area in different places. (The Caldari are worse, with Sentinels, Commandos, and Scouts showing massive discrepancies in the value differences, btw). Under this change we would see all of the Minmatar suits reflecting the same values, meaning that some would be buffed and others would be nerfed, but they would all reflect the same benefits and negations from shield modules, with primary differences based on their base shield HP and fitting slots, accordingly (much like Armor).
So if we were to say, just go with the average of all of these values (again, just as an example), it'd look like this:
Recharge Delay Depleted delay
Minmatar: 25hp/s ----- 5s ----- 7s
So, all of them would receive a buff in recharge except for the Scout. All but the Sentinel and Scout would receive a buff, or stay the same, with Recharge Delay. Depleted delay the Assault and Commando get a buff. This standardization then allows us to balance the percentage based modules much easier and we can adjust the suits in other areas. The Minmatar Scout may receive additional base shield HP to compensate for the drop in recharge capability, for example, or adjust the entire racial shield standardization to 30hp/s, 4s, and 6s, respectively.
What changes is that if this were to happen with the above values, you would see Shield Rechargers offering a much greater benefit to (almost) the entire race's line-up of suits as opposed to dynamically benefiting Scouts the most and Commandos the least. Likewise, Shield Regulators which would also have dynamic values based on the role would apply neatly to the entire racial line. Shield Extender penalties would apply similarly as well.
Ultimately this would lessen confusion, add more diversity to fittings, provide an easier balancing spectrum, and result in more time spent working on other things. It would however mean some pretty crazy changes that might be wonky in the short-term that would invariably need to be adjusted.