I want to address some confusion that cropped up last time: The current goal is to created a design for dropsuits' base stats, in regards to shield tanking, that makes it easier to balance the suits and modules as a whole. Shield modules differ compared to armor modules in that they are percentage based gains/losses as opposed to hard-set values. This makes it difficult to balance the suits and shield tanking in general as any changes have overarching, dynamic effects across the entire spectrum.

The ratio thing doesn't really work with armor because armor has set repair values unless you're talking about just base stat values.

The already exists with base stats. Shield Scouts have most regen and it goes down from there.

Except for Cal Commando having way worse regen than it's Sentinel counterpart.

By what they mean by ratio is how much regen you can have vs how much raw hp.

Looking just at armor, you have to compare plates vs repair modules. For armor you have a terrible conversion rate. (Compare plate of any level vs rep of same level. You have some absurd ratio of hp to regen rate)

Meanwhile shields have less ehp overall and thus benefit from FAR higher regen rate out of combat, and let us be honest, the armor rep through combat is not enough to be a factor in a majority of cases.

It should also be noted that this thread and the posts here in are aimed at improvements to shield tanking not alterations to armor tanking. Such alterations indeed come later on, but they are cast as a consideration after improvements to shield tanking so as to maintain the iterative balance approach.

For now, I really like the idea. The only issue I see is Assaults and Scouts are too close regen wise since they are only separated by 5 HP/s shield and no delay difference.

Example: I would like

Cal Scout: 50 regen 3 sec delay
Cal Assault: 40 regen 4 sec delay
Cal Logi: 35 regen 4 sec delay
Cal Commando: 30 regen 4 sec delay (one second depleted because that is what makes them special)
Cal Sentinel: 30 regen 4 sec delay (one second depleted delay because that is what makes them special)

This is just for Caldari though. I have other opinions on the other races which I will post tomorrow.

- As it is: Are you certain this isn't an overbuff for the Caldari Assault? Protofits says you'd be able to make a ck.0 regen at 75 hp/s after less than a second while having over 800 ehp. That's tough.

The presence of a unified method is vital to attaining and polishing the game.

As with the speed to eHP ratio the particulars are up for negotiation so long as the method is evenly and universally applied.

In this case we have several clear premises at work

1. Armor and shields should exist within an inverse ratio (if you're good at one you're bad at the other)
2. The speed to eHP ratio should be maintained
3. Regen and raw HP should exist within an inverse ratio (if you have a lot of one you generally have less of the other)
4. Racial combat paradigms should be applied as one axis in correspondence with frame size/role as the other axis

the question of logi and assault raw HP vs base regen values. I will reiterate here what I stated in the speed vs eHP thread, either role could hold either end of that balance so long as neither role holds both ends.

For a more in depth analysis at the numbers, you can check out this screenshot of the spreadsheet with my considerations/notes on the nuances: http://i.imgur.com/eshWaQK.jpg

Big buff to Gal Assault? Didn't see that one coming.

Do you really think that today's GalAssault needs a buff to shield performance?
A simple Yes/No will suffice.

There's an additional proposal (that would have to come after standardization of course) to change the Caldari Assault and Gallente Assault's base HP values to correlate more with their combat philosophy. More specifically, taking away subsidiary tank HP and giving it to primary tank HP. Caldari shields are 275 and armor is 155, with Gallente being a mirror of this in it's respective areas. So, you'd more likely see a Gallente Assault with 330 armor and 100 shields after that change.

This is just one additional proposal, of which there are many that are being considered.

However, regardless of what proposal it is, it would be something that would have to come after standardization took place as it would be chaotic to balance otherwise. There are going to be some oddities and outliers in this system that will need more refined work but the baseline/foundation must first be established.

Armor is actually in a good state right now and doesn't need to be changed IMO. Why alterate something that doesn't need a fix ? This is pretty much what CCP used to do before and we know where it lead us.

If it's not broken, don't fix it.

There's an additional proposal (that would have to come after standardization of course) to change the Caldari Assault and Gallente Assault's base HP values to correlate more with their combat philosophy. More specifically, taking away subsidiary tank HP and giving it to primary tank HP. Caldari shields are 275 and armor is 155, with Gallente being a mirror of this in it's respective areas. So, you'd more likely see a Gallente Assault with 330 armor and 100 shields after that change.

This is just one additional proposal, of which there are many that are being considered.

However, regardless of what proposal it is, it would be something that would have to come after standardization took place as it would be chaotic to balance otherwise. There are going to be some oddities and outliers in this system that will need more refined work but the baseline/foundation must first be established.

A few notes:

1) Caldari Sentinel Shield Recharge Depleted Delay: As a reminder, this thread is -not- about Depleted Delay values. That will have to be addressed after a standardized form is illustrated on so that we have something to work off of. I appreciate the feedback and concerns but it's best addressed when the time comes :)

2) There are no plans, proposals, or current considerations to change armor. I think the majority, if not the whole of the CPM, is in agreement that to buff shields and nerf armor at the same time would be a bad move (pendulum balancing). We are also, to my knowledge, in agreement that shields need to be brought up and armor not brought down to reinforce the high TTK that Dust 514 is known for. To nerf armor at the moment would not fix anything and only further institute the broken shield design (of which I use that term loosely).

3) The next iteration of this proposal will switch Assault and Logistics on the design path. Logistics should reasonably have a higher regen than Assaults, lacking Assaults' EHP and further constituting a relationship with the EHP to Speed Ratio design format.

4) I cannot comment on Basic Frames at the moment, but I will look into creating a proposal with which they would follow a similar spectrum. They likely may not be as powerful, or more powerful, due to their lack of specialization. It is too early to tell without additional research.

Thanks for the feedback ^_^

"Unified Theories" sound good, but I can't get behind the proposed buffs in the HP department. These will only lead to a widening of the performance gap between both Vet & Newbro and HP-oriented & Non-HP-oriented playstyles. Both of these are bad for Dust, and I can't see how the benefits of this proposal will outweigh the drawbacks.

Chromosome had its flaws, but it was a good time to be a newbro. They bumbled about, just like today. They dropped like flies, just like today. But when a newbro got the drop on a vet, he had damn good odds of killing that vet. Prototype or not. HP tanked or not. I fell in love with this game as a newbro in Chromosome. Call it nostalgia, but in my opinion, that is the direction we should be heading in if we want better NPE, higher retention rates and a healthier playerbase:

* Higher odds of success when outplaying/outpositioning one's opponent
* Fewer get-out-of-jail-free cards afforded by HP tank
* A better balanced playing field for non-HP-oriented playstyles

Player thinking, planning and skill should play a part in any shooter. And in a shooter with as many loadout options as Dust, different playstyles and configurations should be encouraged rather than marginalized in the wake of King HP. When a newbro gets the drop on one of us and manages to keep his shots on target, we owe that newbro good odds of success. Spin-and-win is an NPE killer, and reinforcing the predominant meta by slowing TTK will ultimately amount to another free pass for vets (and another kick-in-the-teeth for those of us who don't stack HP).

That's my two cents, at least.

PS: The correct answer to my question, was "No. GalAssaults are not in need of a shield buff."

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