I guess you can pat yourself on the back for how great this game is going to be with flat gear?

Here's the other side -

I killed a decent gun the other day like 3-4x times in his proto suit with a militia shotgun.

Some of you think that's worth bragging over but I think it's pretty much trash.

I'm killing a dude and I have no points whatsoever in shotguns but its just lololol on my side.

He was willing to risk something in fighting me and my squad. He GEARED to fight us. He was using the weapon he'd skilled up in.

People in militia gear and BPO assault rifles are risking nothing.

They can just keep respawning and zerging because it doesn't matter.

If you think about the implications in this for Lowsec and Nullsec it's pretty ugly.

There needs to be HARD gear checks for participating in those fights (I'd like the rewards reduced in hisec so that proto is not economical for people when there is lowsec to fight in).

I don't want to fight people that can't be bothered to RISK anything or PREPARE (ie get the SP together to get fitted in the first place).

My corp is prepared and ready to risk, are you?

I'll try and counter your argument.
- The guy you killed with a shotgun. That's not a militia vs proto argument. That's a gun balance argument. I'd say the shotty, particularly the militia shotty is a little OP. That aside, if you killed someone with a shotty, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. (either you lucky or good enough to get near him OR he was bad enough to allow you near him) Shotties are not effective at longer ranges.
-You say militia can zerg. Good for them, if it's so effective, you can slap on your militia gear and do it too. If you CHOOSE to risk isk for the advantage of using proto gear, that's your choice.

The reality is, right now, if corp A is better than corp B, and corp A uses proto gear than corp B, Corp A will win. Pretty easily. If Corp A is better, but Corp B uses better gear, Corp A still has a chance to win... meaning SKILL plays a role in Dust. (which is a FPS, in case you forgot) Either way, Corp A wins.

In prior builds, this was not the case. The team with more play time and/or money, won. (unless the "poor" team had MUCH higher skill) To say that this has something to do with risk is rediculous.

In prior builds, fits mattered A LOT more. Unless skill of players was very uneven, the team with better fits almost always won. You spend more money, you're almost GUARANTEED a win. Where exactly is the risk in that?

NOW, the gear still plays a considerable role, but SKILL matters as much if not more. My $.02

I'll try and counter your argument.
- The guy you killed with a shotgun. That's not a militia vs proto argument. That's a gun balance argument. I'd say the shotty, particularly the militia shotty is a little OP. That aside, if you killed someone with a shotty, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. (either you lucky or good enough to get near him OR he was bad enough to allow you near him) Shotties are not effective at longer ranges.
-You say militia can zerg. Good for them, if it's so effective, you can slap on your militia gear and do it too. If you CHOOSE to risk isk for the advantage of using proto gear, that's your choice.

The reality is, right now, if corp A is better than corp B, and corp A uses proto gear than corp B, Corp A will win. Pretty easily. If Corp A is better, but Corp B uses better gear, Corp A still has a chance to win... meaning SKILL plays a role in Dust. (which is a FPS, in case you forgot) Either way, Corp A wins.

In prior builds, this was not the case. The team with more play time and/or money, won. (unless the "poor" team had MUCH higher skill) To say that this has something to do with risk is rediculous.

In prior builds, fits mattered A LOT more. Unless skill of players was very uneven, the team with better fits almost always won. You spend more money, you're almost GUARANTEED a win. Where exactly is the risk in that?

NOW, the gear still plays a considerable role, but SKILL matters as much if not more. My $.02

I'll try and counter your argument.
- The guy you killed with a shotgun. That's not a militia vs proto argument. That's a gun balance argument. I'd say the shotty, particularly the militia shotty is a little OP. That aside, if you killed someone with a shotty, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. (either you lucky or good enough to get near him OR he was bad enough to allow you near him) Shotties are not effective at longer ranges.
-You say militia can zerg. Good for them, if it's so effective, you can slap on your militia gear and do it too. If you CHOOSE to risk isk for the advantage of using proto gear, that's your choice.

The reality is, right now, if corp A is better than corp B, and corp A uses proto gear than corp B, Corp A will win. Pretty easily. If Corp A is better, but Corp B uses better gear, Corp A still has a chance to win... meaning SKILL plays a role in Dust. (which is a FPS, in case you forgot) Either way, Corp A wins.

In prior builds, this was not the case. The team with more play time and/or money, won. (unless the "poor" team had MUCH higher skill) To say that this has something to do with risk is rediculous.

In prior builds, fits mattered A LOT more. Unless skill of players was very uneven, the team with better fits almost always won. You spend more money, you're almost GUARANTEED a win. Where exactly is the risk in that?

NOW, the gear still plays a considerable role, but SKILL matters as much if not more. My $.02

Edit: PS. Regarding the game being flat. I love how those who make your argument use absolutes. The game will not have flat gear. There is STILL a difference in damage AND accuracy AND capacity AND recharge times AND range, etc etc. Add to that, the fact that proto suits, allow you more cpu and pg, and allow you to add modules to tank SEVERAL HUNDRED more HP than opponents using militia gear. Yeah, seems pretty flat to me.

I think the problem is that people want to be indestructible and run god mode in proto gear.

Think about it:
When you factor SP into shields, armor, weapon dmg, etc AND the old dmg values, a new player had NO chance against a vet in proto/complex gear. This ruins the FPS side of the game.

The way it is now, skill actually plays more of a role in the game. Newer players have a chance against vets, because their skill can overcome the smaller difference the fits give you. It makes it a fun FPS in HIGHSEC, and still DOES make a difference when you have 2 players of EQUAL skill.... the one with better gear will STILL win the majority of the time. In Corp matches, you can then spend money to get every advantage possible out of your proto gear, because while expensive, the gear is being used to cash in on a contract. (many of which will be worth 10s of millions of isk.)

I don't see what's wrong with this. It naturally balances things out. Players will tend to use lower level gear for pubs/high sec, and probably will reserve the expensive stuff for matches that mean something.

Only complaint MIGHT be that the proto gear might be A LITTLE too expensive. The only change I'd like to see, is maybe a 10% reduction in advanced and proto suits/guns. That, and maybe return the militia gear to it's original values.

PS. People tend to also forget that damage is only ONE component of a weapons value, the proto weapons also tend to have higher accuracy, ammo capacity, range, better charge times, etc. Yet another reason, why we're better off now.

In conclusion:
THANK YOU CCP!!!

Thanks for stopping by and not reading the thread.

Well, i want a nerf in the ISK/SP difference between Standard, Advance and Proto things. Because no one want to spend 40ISK+ per battle just for a use a "proto weapon" who will give you the same result (all based in your skill) as an advance does. Just a waste of SP.

Also the SP difference. 1 200 000+ SP and 40 000+ ISK per battle just to have 1 or 2 more modules? Just get all the vehicles skill with those SP and snipe with a nice Gunlogi. It have no sense to spend so much SP. But meh, at least the black color is nice

The problem is, even now, people ARE running god mode with proto gear.

Take your corp for example, most of you have skilled up to proto gear, and I see a lot of you using that proto gear in pubbies. I use standard, just because I don't feel the need to spend ridiculous amounts of money and stand to gain nothing. With my standard fit(logistics, if you cared), I can tear through militias, standards, and most advanced fits with ease, but when I run into your corp members, it's like running into a brick wall. Even if I keep my AR on target and push a total of 60 rounds into their asses, it only barely cuts through their shields and barely scratches their armor. This removes the whole premise of skill>gear, because I just had the tactical smarts to sneak up behind this guy, get point blank, and then unload a full clip into his back but only ended up giving him a boo boo that he probably has a repper mod to fix.
Just leave gear as it is if you ask me, you already have your god mode.

The problem is, even now, people ARE running god mode with proto gear.

Take your corp for example, most of you have skilled up to proto gear, and I see a lot of you using that proto gear in pubbies. I use standard, just because I don't feel the need to spend ridiculous amounts of money and stand to gain nothing. With my standard fit(logistics, if you cared), I can tear through militias, standards, and most advanced fits with ease, but when I run into your corp members, it's like running into a brick wall. Even if I keep my AR on target and push a total of 60 rounds into their asses, it only barely cuts through their shields and barely scratches their armor. This removes the whole premise of skill>gear, because I just had the tactical smarts to sneak up behind this guy, get point blank, and then unload a full clip into his back but only ended up giving him a boo boo that he probably has a repper mod to fix.
Just leave gear as it is if you ask me, you already have your god mode.

You can easy kill a Proto Suit if you hit it with a full 60 clip. It's so far away from be a "god mode". If you can't kill a Proto Suit is because the guy that feel a shoot, move around and get cover, but that's the same with an advance B suit.

The worst way to play this game is going straight to red points. No one can survive if you want to play as RAMBO, with standar, advance or Proto. The best way is play cover and trying to get your enemys from behind. "Who shoots first, shoots twice".

If I take you from behind, I can kill you with a Gek as a Duvolle. If you can't take me because i play cover and I keep my distance, you won't kill me if I use a Proto Suit as an A/B suit because 1/2 modules are just like 10 bullets.

If you kill a decent player is because you take him from behind, you shoot first, or maybe you take him with some friends. But that's the same using Proto or Advance suits.

Most of the guys says "you have more modules". The best shield module is 66. If 3 guys are shooting you, 350 shield and 416 shield is the same. What's 66? 0,5 second of an elm-7?

Playing with Proto or Advance is practically the same. Now, the problem is when I die. Why do I need to feel difference between Proto and Advance just when I die?

PS: snipers kill me with 2 shot. Nice way to be GOD.

Sorry for the english. See you

You are in denial.

The gear isn't killing you, we are.

The Duvolle has a 31% damage increase per second over the standard that alone is a reason for it to be so expensive. 31% is more than than lv5 weaponry and 2 complex damage mods, then you have the people who put on damage mods and have weaponry lv with a Duvolle. So not only does it have a passive 31% increase over the standard that gap only gets even further away as you apply skills and damage mods.

For me this is enough to reason such high price for proto AR, I have not figured out the other weapons damage increase do to the lack of interest in those weapons on the forums.

If you don't believe me I will show you my logic and math to get these numbers.

i think his argument is that ur gear saved ur life
technically u are right you are killing them

what logi is sayin is that ur gear allows u to play sloppy and careless vs lower tier gear and get away with it
i.e. no risk to u or very little

lets take ur argument and take it down my lane a bit
i invest 2M+ into my suryas by ur logic anything but a proto forge/swarms or another marauder tank shouldnt be able to scratch me because im riskin more and he isnt "geared" to fight me
ur whole point on gear doesnt just pertain to dropsuits btw

also lets look at this another way
ur corp is currently the best on the game dont think anyone questions that, when u want only proto gear to stand a chance then the corp that keeps winning (urs in this case) can continuously fund these without problem which then leaves no one to challenge u or very little. Your idea kills off any competition for ur corp or at least decreases it drastically.

I want FW and Nullsec to actually be populated, if a brave corp like Mike said wants to take on a proto gear corp with adv gear they should have a fighting chance....obv if they are equally skilled its gonna come down to gear but if the adv gear corp has drastically superior tactics and skill then why should they be deemed to lose automatically? Dont u actually want competition and lots of it?

Also as mike said if a team is zergin u with standard gear u can also scale back down urself u know...if ur better FPS wise no need to rock proto vs a lower tier gear team and like Mike said if a team comes at u with **** gear and ur in better gear and they are terrible or equally skilled fps wise they will be destroyed still.


This game is suppose to be about choices ur taking away choices by only wanting ppl to play by ur rules.
But anyway we've been back an forth on this numerous times now
MMO personality vs FPS personality just not gonna see eye to eye on how big an advantage should gear give u.


PS: also what happens when a corp gets rich enough and cant get any fights in FW and Null against other proto gear...they bring their buffed gear into hisec to farm noobs next....and since its buffed they will prob not die....at least not against infantry which means hisec now becomes a farming ground with no risk involved.