I think we should also consider the effect skills have on a dropsuit.

Basic level player:

Armor Plating I
Dropsuit Armor Upgrades I

+5% base dropsuit armor HP, + 2% armor module HP

Combat Rifle Proficiency 0
Augmented Ammo 0

+15% damage vs armor

Proto level player:

Armor Plating 5
Dropsuit Armor Upgrades 5

+25% base dropsuit armor HP, + 10% armor module HP

Combat Rifle Proficiency 5
Augmented Ammo 5

+35% damage vs armor

Just with these two players in the exact same same loadout, the vet gets 20% more hp from their suit and 8% more hp from their modules, and does 20% more damage. How many more shots does the newberry have to land on the vet (edit: compared to the vet on the newberry) to take them out? What other FPSs can you think of that give vets such an advantage?

"But that's just the way of New Eden"

This system works in Eve because you can pick your fights. There is no d-scan to see what's in that plex in Dust. There is no pulling range and warping off in Dust. You fight against who and whatever Scotty tells you to.

I realize this won't be a popular opinion but to me it's just crazy for Dust to not have some sort of mode where all stats are equalized. A mode where I don't have to think 'did I just die because I got outplayed or because that guy just has more hp and does more damage than me?'

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I agree to a point, skills are less detrimental than STD vs PRO. I do believe that passive modifiers are detrimental enough to cause a problem.

I've been wanting to work this out for a while, so this is mostly because I'm interested to see the numbers.

Using an Assault M1 with 2 x Basic Shield Extenders, 2 x Basic Ferroscales, 2x Basic Light Damage Mods and a Combat Rifle the new player that has just unlocked the gear has:
288 Shield HP
271 Armor HP
and does:
24 HP/round damage to Shield
32.8 HP/round damage to Armor

Conversely, the vet with V's in the applicable skills and augmented ammo V has:
335.1 Shield HP
314.5 Armor HP
and does:
25.2 HP/round damage to shield
39.6 HP/round damage to Armor

For the new player to take down the vet they need to land (335.1/24) + (314.5/32.8) =~ 23.5 rounds
For the vet to take down the new player they need to land (288/25.2) + (271/39.6) =~ 18.3 rounds

Even in the exact same suit, a new player going toe to toe with a vet needs to land about 30% more shots to come out on top.

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Looks like today is going to be a numbers day for me. Keep in mind that what I outlined almost never happens, that is a vet going into a pub in STD gear.

Keeping the new player in STD gear (because let's face it, isk and SP limits are real for them) and;

Putting the vet into the same fit with everything at ADV level gives them:
372.5 Shield HP
347.5 Armor HP
and they do:
27.3 HP/round to Shield
43.1 HP/round to Armor

For the new player to take down the vet they need to land (372.5/24) + (347.5/32.8) =~ 26.1 rounds
For the vet to take down the new player they need to land (288/27.3) + (271/43.1) =~ 16.8 rounds

A new player going toe to toe with a vet in ADV gear needs to land about 55% more shots to come out on top.

Now things get nasty
Putting the vet into the same fit with everything at PRO level gives them:
407.7 Shield HP
402.5 Armor HP
and they do:
30.45 HP/round to Shield
46.8 HP/round to Armor

For the new player to take down the vet they need to land (407.7/24) + (402.5/32.8) =~ 29.25 rounds
For the vet to take down the new player they need to land (288/30.45) + (271/46.8) =~ 15.2 rounds

A new player going toe to toe with a vet in PRO gear needs to land about 93% more shots to come out on top.


I admit this is a rare(ish) case, but if the vet puts on their try hard pants and pulls out an officer weapon:

For the new player to take down the vet they need to land (407.7/24) + (402.5/32.8) =~ 29.25 rounds
For the vet to take down the new player they need to land (288/33.6) + (271/51.5) =~ 13.8 rounds

A new player going toe to toe with a vet in PRO gear with an OFC weapon needs to land about 112% more shots to come out on top.

We also have to look at skill level and not just level of gear because some people just suck at the game while others are better.

Through all of this meta talk thats one bigass factor that people are leaving out of the equation.

Some people suck at the game.
Some people are really good at it.

In a PC you can kinda expect guys like D4GG3R and Arianna to do well. In a meta locked/tier locked game mode they're still gonna be styling on hoes.

To the OP. People wouldn't risk their proto/officer gear even half as much if they aren't squaded up ( other than Thales ect. ) prolly never officer gear solo.

One or two people running good gear won't cause a stomp, squading in pubs is much more powerful. Most people will never know the feeling of seeing 12+ people from the same Corp opposing them in pubs... I saw it for years.

The playerbase is to small to divide it further. Get rid of fire teams in pubs and people will be forced to play what they can afford. Just because some people want to go full lemming at the objective and don't care about strategy because they only run cheap gear dosnt mean we all want to play that way. This isn't call of duty **** costs isk.

I agree that this is a problem, a fairly big one earlier in the game's life. I have often wondered why the bonuses are not more flattened. For example, EVE did a massive re-work on their skills. It used to be that X Missile Operation would give you 2% damage per level and X Missile Specialization gave you like 5% more damage per level. Now Operation was an easier skill to level than Specialization, so it was easy to get a small benefit and very hard to get the huge benefit. The change made it to where the easier skill would give you the bigger number and the harder skill the smaller number. They did it with most weapon skills.

DUST could certainly do the same thing. Buff Shield, Armor, CPU, and PG on Suits but lower the effectiveness on Engineering, Electronics, and the skills that govern defensive stats. It would mean that the difference between "I have 2 million SP" and "I have 15 million SP unspent because I have everything I want" would be smaller but one would still clearly be better. Engineering would be nerfed to be only 10% PG rather than 25% but every suit would have a PG buff so that Level 5 Engineering would be the same but people with lower skills invested would have a bigger benefit.

The change can also be done by front loading skills. The first level would give you 50% of the total bonus and the next 4 levels would fill in the rest. IE, Engineering would give 12.5% more PG at level 1 but levels 2, 3, 4, and 5 would only give 3.125%. Total is still 25%.



And if DUST weren't fully dependent on like 2,200ish veterans that continue to play, I think it would be a bigger concern. There are virtually no new players coming into the game. Anyone who is still playing this game at this point is a veteran. The people that are still playing have probably been playing long enough to have amassed enough money to run prototype. It is the same thing that happened to me when I finally realized "Why am I still using Standard gear when I have 80,000,000 ISK?" That wasn't "locked PC" or "playing in Squads"; that was just "I played the game long enough that it built up." If my mediocre ass can do it, I assure that anyone can.

Trying to help the newer player now is like trying to figure out the best way to prevent white rhinos from killing people; there is a larger concern here.

Sorry to steal your info Shaun, I hope you don't mind me reposting it. All credit goes to him, I'm just a copypasta machine.

We also have to look at skill level and not just level of gear because some people just suck at the game while others are better.

For this reason, I'm inclined to agree that the performance disparity presently afforded by gear and SP is too significant.

I personally believe that TTK is key; everyone died faster in Chromosome. I'm very much concerned that we're moving in the wrong direction with regard to TTK, and I anticipate that NPE will suffer as direct result.

To the OP. People wouldn't risk their proto/officer gear even half as much if they aren't squaded up ( other than Thales ect. ) prolly never officer gear solo.

One or two people running good gear won't cause a stomp, squading in pubs is much more powerful. Most people will never know the feeling of seeing 12+ people from the same Corp opposing them in pubs... I saw it for years.

One or two people running good gear won't cause a stomp, squading in pubs is much more powerful.

a lot of people here know this feeling. keep your random sh*t talking out of serious threads.

I'm willing to concede I'm completely missing something here, but:

Nearly every other fps has a 'squad' mechanic, yet very few of them suffer the frequency of pubstomping that Dust does. Other than the gear that squadded up mercs run, what makes squads in Dust so much more powerful?

I'm willing to concede I'm completely missing something here, but:

Nearly every other fps has a 'squad' mechanic, yet very few of them suffer the frequency of pubstomping that Dust does. Other than the gear that squadded up mercs run, what makes squads in Dust so much more powerful?

Communication and familiarity

I appreciate that from a player on the other end of the spectrum.



I guess TTK is what my numbers all boil down to. Very generally speaking a vet has a 93% higher TTK than a new player, so trying to shorten it on the higher end is inevitably going to cause death-by-stray-bullet problems on the lower end. To be fair, credit to whichever devs do the numbers on that stuff. Bringing a game to a 'playable' state, knowing that two players running the same class could have a 93% difference in TTK must be a nightmare.

While I appreciate the math in the OP, the TTK disparity between a given newbro and a given vet is not necessarily shared among all newbros and vets. HP levels vary by class, by tier and by loadout. A PRO Assault unit, for example, can fit high-end HP modules whereas a STD Assault unit cannot. Directly buffing HP modules would benefit both the PRO and STD Assault units, assuming they're both running HP modules, but the PRO unit would benefit by greater degree. And compared to a Commando , for example, the PRO Assault (in this scenario) would benefit by far greater degree, due to difference in slot count between the two classes.

Adjustments to TTK -- whether up or down -- do not impact all classes, loadouts and tiers by the same degree.

If the difference in stats between STD/ADV/PRO/OFC and also those provided by skills were all brought closer in line with each other then making tweaks to a more global TTK goal would be much easier. Even if it's just in one unique mode, removing the effect of those differences completely would bring on some of the most balanced gameplay Dust has ever seen. Scotty has a pretty good idea of the skill of the players he's putting up against each other, but he has no idea what gear they're going to bring.

I kinda run apex or standard suits only in pubs. I have 500 sheild and 194 armour (rasetsu) or 440ish armour and 194sheilds(in my gall assault) I repair and regen sheild really quickly at the cost of super stacked HP. Just apply enough alpha damage before I can react or wear me down from multiple fights.

Becuase everyone deserves a fair chance.
I avoid reps by logis(they can wp ***** off of someone who is actually trying)
I don't always die to milita but when I do its because he saw me near dead after giving someone in proto a whuping with a supposedly "underpowered weapon" (assault rifles best ftw beetches). Only in PC or sometimes fw I will run proto. Maybe one match of pubs in proto but that's when I feel like I have some isk to spare.

I kinda run apex or standard suits only in pubs. I have 500 sheild and 194 armour (rasetsu) or 440ish armour and 194sheilds(in my gall assault) I repair and regen sheild really quickly at the cost of super stacked HP. Just apply enough alpha damage before I can react or wear me down from multiple fights.

Becuase everyone deserves a fair chance.
I avoid reps by logis(they can wp ***** off of someone who is actually trying)
I don't always die to milita but when I do its because he saw me near dead after giving someone in proto a whuping with a supposedly "underpowered weapon" (assault rifles best ftw beetches). Only in PC or sometimes fw I will run proto. Maybe one match of pubs in proto but that's when I feel like I have some isk to spare.