Because being an assault seems to require the least amount of thinking. You just shoot straight and tank a few hits.

A light frame has to think on how to stay hidden and getting the job done quick, while a Heavy has to think on where your support is because getting caught out in the open is terrible w/ 0 support, as well as their guns overheating.

Assaults have always required more thought than the average assault player is willing to produce.

Something has bothered me for a long time with Dust- the clear difference between what dropsuits players use, and how they actually play.

Assaults have always been the most common, but it seems to me like the vast majority of assault players played like commandos and sentinels- grinding through the front line.

Why is that? Seems to me like the reason is that assaults have always been presented as the regular, go-to dropsuit for any situation. Every trailer is centered on them, and Dust's mascot is the Caldari assault. Currently, Nova's mascot is the Gallente assault.

Should there be more focus placed on heavy frames, to reflect how players actually play the game?


Of course, this goes by my personal perspective of the dropsuit roles:
Heavies: sit in the heaviest fighting on the front line
Logis: support the heavies
Assaults: maneuver to take pressure off the front line
Scouts: sneak around taking ungaurded points and picking off snipers/AVers

Actually, if you're talking about the suit featured on the splash screen, I believe that suit is in fact that Caldari Scout, not the Assault. Unless my memory is failing me, that is.

The DUST site featured the Caldari Assault with the Assault Rifle, and many other wallpapers or footage included that dropsuit. Which is why the Caldari Assault is seen as the mascot by many here, he'll the devs have it as their avatar.

Something has bothered me for a long time with Dust- the clear difference between what dropsuits players use, and how they actually play.

Assaults have always been the most common, but it seems to me like the vast majority of assault players played like commandos and sentinels- grinding through the front line.

Why is that? Seems to me like the reason is that assaults have always been presented as the regular, go-to dropsuit for any situation. Every trailer is centered on them, and Dust's mascot is the Caldari assault. Currently, Nova's mascot is the Gallente assault.

Should there be more focus placed on heavy frames, to reflect how players actually play the game?


Of course, this goes by my personal perspective of the dropsuit roles:
Heavies: sit in the heaviest fighting on the front line
Logis: support the heavies
Assaults: maneuver to take pressure off the front line
Scouts: sneak around taking ungaurded points and picking off snipers/AVers

Since we're theorycrafting, I'll use the real-world use these would be put to:

Sentinel: Fire support for an infantry push. Militarily, the only reason one would armor and arm up something like a sentinel is if they were expected to spend lots of time in the open, exposed to enemy fire. Open-ground fire support, vulnerable to fast-movers in close would be the realistic military result of the sentinel. Military equipment that would be expected to have sufficient cover and external protections to keep it from being casually gibbed would result in the defenses having been sharply pared down to save on costs.

Commando: This would have been a heavy combat vanguard/shocktrooper. Not special Forces, but the first soldiers and marines charging headlong into enemy fire to sow havoc. This is the kind of thing the USMC, for example, would kill to get their hands on were the dropsuit classes actually available. This would be the kind of suit you charge open ground with, or kick in doors in urban combat.

Logistics: Would have been medics, resupply and defensive fortification engineers, not just attached to the fatties at the hip.

Assaults: Majority of main-line infantry. You would see a full company of these guys for 20 commandos, and maybe 6-10 sentinels. Maybe ten logis to provide support to the company.

Scouts: Only a squad worth, so about ten who comprise the early-warning defense/outriders and sentry assassinations. A cloaked scout with a clear comms signal would be far more valuable than a platoon of assaults.

Edit: And the main infantry would still think the heavy guys are just a buncha lazy, muscle-headed slackers who lift iron to look good (not because we often had to pack 80-120 pounds of equipment in the field individually depending on the situation)

Assaults have always required more thought than the average assault player is willing to produce.

I don't buy it.

I don't buy it.

I think its true.

Look how many MinAssaults there were. Largely because they were very fast (at times faster than a Amarr Scout).

When Scouts were OP, a significant part of the problem was how much they could tank. Gal Scouts were running around with 1000HP and surviving knife strikes. Annoying as hell.

RE: The larger group of roles, I think if there can't be a case made for differentiation of Commandos and Assaults, then they should just be combined. I think Commandos were better balanced and could be amended with some extra speed and better EWAR than Sents, and you would get better balanced front line fighters.

IMO Sents should have been largely defensive measures and a nucleus of coordinated attacks. They were bitches to deal with in enclosed spaces and cities, as they should have been.

They're built around flanking and the like. Almost every player I saw would just mindlessly zerg with them.

Well, by the time Assaults became the go-to suit again, they required less thinking than any other frame, other than a Sentinel who had a logi attached to.

Whenever I switched from my scout to assault, I could basically just play however I wanted within close quarters and do much better than my scout, even when I stepped into the scout role's shoes.