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

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.

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

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.

Bleh my experience as a militia locked character.

TL;DR there is no incentive to gear up.

As it stands now I basically have created a militia fit for every weaponized expected role when and where possible, and if not possible stuck with type 1 since type 1s are essentially the same performance as militia but higher fitting costs. .

The absolute bottom line, there is not a single piece of equipment you can field that I as a militia locked character cannot kill you in. This includes vehicles. While going proto may increase the amount of effort on my end to kill you. The simple fact I cost nothing to field means I do win in the end regardless on how many times you killed me, My isk efficiency would probably produce an erroneous number.

As for better gear they offer very little in performance as a whole (not just guns, modules as well) to the point I almost feel PUNISHED wearing it. Wearing better gear almost feels as though I die much quicker in it vs militia gear life spans. Maybe because the higher stuff gets me shot more often I don't know but my life expectancy going up in tiers is significantly shorter.

sigh dubbs u werent here from the BEGINNING
im not talkin about codex and neither is telc
we are referring to BEFORE codex when each tier of dropsuits not only had more slots and cpu and pg but also an increase in base health which combined with skills and ability to use more higher end gear made for higher tier gear vs lower tier to be a joke

i never agreed with the dmg nerfs now altho it isnt that big of a difference ppl just QQ too much
GEK lost 0.5 pts of dmg OMG IM CRIPPLED! ppl srs?
buffin standard and militia wasnt warranted tbh could of stayed at 30 and the others 32.5 and 34.1

Militia is NOT on the same level as intended. It's just not completely garbage now. YDUBBS, if you and I are of equal level right now, and you use proto gear, and I use militia gear, you will kill me 4/5 times. In early builds, I you were better than me, and using militia gear, all I had to do was use my proto fit, and I would kill you 4/5 times. Skill played no part before, now it does.

I would refer to my 2nd to last post. This is how the game will balance itself out. You guys are right, using proto gear in pubs will generally not be wise. As it should be... because this would ruin the game for new guys just venturing in high sec (which is effectively what we're playing right now)

You WILL want to use your good stuff, for when it matters... regardless of cost. Defending some sov territory? Of course you want to use the good stuff, you don't want to lose your home planet do you? Did you just lose 1mil isk in proto suits in a match in low sec? It's ok, you just won a 50mil isk contract!

This will all balance out. RIght now you guys are forget the meta game!

I think people are missing a big point when talking about guns. Proto guns are more expensive in isk and cpu and pg, they should be better in every possible way...currently their costs...all of the above...do not match what you get out of them. You can have a proto suit and an exile...the exile is cheaper, but also takes less room allowing you to add modules which will make your fitting even better...the top players should look at this ans see if it is even worth it to field proto weapons.

I am more receding to the cpu and pg cost of proto weapons...not the isk cost...isk doesn't matter.

EXACTLY!!!

This supports my point. It's easy to bank isk, because if you're good, you can run cheap fits. There's no NEED to use expensive fits. (unless you CHOOSE to, maybe if there are other skilled players, and you need that slight edge)

Losing isk against militia suits trying to zerg you, isn't a problem. 1. because you'll have saved up TONS of isk. 2. Because you can just as easily switch to a cheap fit that is almost as effective. Let your SKILL do the talking!

lol, you haven't proved any point. Your argument doesn't make sense. Risk is there if YOU choose.

No risk, no reward. If you risk a high end fit, you will have an advantage. This will net you a win against players of equal or lesser skill than you. It will not BUY you a win. You want fits to win matches, I want skill to win matches.
As I mentioned before, look at your corp mate's spreadsheet. Proto fits (the entire fit, not just weapons) still have a BIG advantage against milita fits. It's just not a god-mode like it was in prior builds.

Clearly, you and I don't agree on this. I'm done debating. You've made your point and I've made mine.

Ok, I'll bite. Clearly you don't play poker. (at least not at a high level)

A guy walking into a game with $20 in chips, when all players at the table have $2000 in chips, has practically NO chance of walking away with money. This is what you want, you want to have a stack of $2000 in front of you, so that you can just get that ONE hand that will wipe out the little guy. Even if he doubles up several times against you, all you have to do is win ONE hand where you put him all in... because you want to play NO-Limit poker. This is your world.

In mine, I'm saying that the new guy, will have a chance, because we should be playing LIMIT poker. You still have an advantage with your big stack, but you have to OUTPLAY the little guy, in order to take his money, because you'll only be able to chip away at him, a little at a time.

Your analogy is flawed. There is no "free chip". The "weapon" in poker, is the money you can wager in a bet. Not the stack in front of you. The stack in front of you is your isk. You want to have the bigger stack, and force people all in, because the size of your wager will be HUGE. I want people to play limit poker. The bets are smaller, so the "weapons" are more level. It doesn't matter if you have $2000 in front of you, and I have $100. In limit, I have a chance to outplay you. In no limit, even if I win several hands, your stack will still dwarf mine, and you just need to be able to throw your chips around until you catch me in a bad hand.

You are in denial.

You aren't as good as you think you are, get off your high horse and read my post again. Point blank. Full clip. No death.
If you complain that proto gear isn't strong enough, you are doing something wrong.

this silly argument again, skill is greater than gear unless both parties are just standing still and shooting at each other, the gear vs skill argument is usually put forward by people that can't handle the idea that they aren't number 1.

I have no trouble killing VK suits in my type II, killing a squad of VK suits on the other hand is quite a different story, as it should be, been getting between 20-30 kills per match in those HK ambush games using almost entirely Type II suits with a gek.

I skipped the majority of this trash. I can't bear to hear the "I'm paying more money than everyone else so I should always win" QQ.

The bottom line is that this isn't an easy balance and there are many more variables than 2 mercs simply standing 5 meters from each other in open space with gear variants.

That being said....I, much like Telc, hate the fact that I have spent millions of SP to get into Proto gear that I rarely, if ever, use. The risk just isn't currently worth the reward....at least in my opinion.

i agree that weapons are too close together now. However, old weapon values were too powerful... mainly because along with SP skills trained, a new player stood NO chance. Right now, there is NO real reason to use proto guns.

Solution, return the militia and standard variants back to where they were last build. Bump the proto weapons ALMOST back to where they were before, but keep them just short of old damage, AND reduce their price by a third. This (imo) fixes the problem for both sides. New players don't get auto-slaughtered by vets using high end gear, unless they get out played. Vets have a reason to use proto guns because they are a little more powerful, but also dont cost an arm and a leg to equip.

Compromise people. Neither the old build or this build are/were perfect, in regards to weapons damage.