Maybe I'm not reading this right, which is a very real possibility, but the first part of the post seems to indicate that AR users are hitting with 90% accuracy at 15meters? Is that right? That may be the case against heavies, but good luck getting anywhere near 90% accuracy against a scout suit or even a decent assault straffer. This smells strongly of a "nerf AR" thread and tries to use misleading and misguided calculations to back it up.

Also, you're completely ignoring LR, Mass drivers, shotguns, etc etc which can have major impacts on how the other weapons and suits are balanced. Practice doesn't always follow theory.

This is too theoretical and, frankly, inaccurate. If CCP gave accuracy numbers for each character, which I wish they did, you'd find 90% is way too high for AR (even if you could somehow manage to make all your encounters 15m).

I'm sorry but what was the point again?

A heavy has way more EHP than an Assault suit and both can deal identical damage. The immediate downsides of the heavy suit are cost as well as slower speed and the lack of the utility slot.

Also, heavy suits have a role in that they offer weapons exclusive to it.

- So what was the point again? that HMG's suck, or did I miss anything?

First, I would like to say good job on taking the time to go through all this.

However, like others have mentioned, 90% is way too high. In some games (like CoD), they actually track your individual weapon accuracy. I'd say the average for ARs is somewhere around 20-40%. I'm willing to bet that Dust is actually lower than that considering aiming is slightly more difficult/clunky in Dust compared to CoD.

That still doesn't account for actually aiming at moving targets while you're moving, etc. The benefit of the HMG and downside of AR in a real-world (I use the term to refer to a Dust battle in practice) are, ironically, the inverse upsides and downsides you mentioned in theory. The AR is more accurate, and HMG less so, but that also means you have to be more precise when aiming your AR at a moving target, which is exactly why 90% is too high for any real-world scenario. The HMG, on the other hand, has that sort of cylinder of fire that allows you to be a decent bit off but still do moderate damage.

Your completely ignoring the speed of the 2nd type Logisuit.

And yes, scout is broken. A scout can sneak up on a heavy, hit him square in the back, and the heavy will have time to turn and mow him down before he gets a third hit off.

I want about .3-.5 more base speed on scouts.

In warfare, the ability to deal damage has always outpaced the ability to defend against it. It's a law of nature, or else all the predators would have died out long ago.

Your talking about endgame stats here. Well, lets look at them in the hands of endgame players. Because every weapon can kill every suit with minimal differences in TTL, then in the hands of pros, it becomes, not a COD frag fest, but a highly precise tactical game of maneuvering, cover, numbers, flanking, and the all important X factors.

That is something I really like about this game. Everything is OP. In the hands of a real killer, anything will tear you to shreds if your not on your game.

I feel sorry for the scrubs though. Maybe they could use more EHP.

the proto logi suit with complex kinetic catalyzers is the fastest dropsuit in the game. This is pretty typical for minmatar equipment.

With the profile dampening skill, I wouldn't be surprised if a Shotgun scout could be very productive. And that's really what the scout is for, isn't it? If you're seen as a scout, you shouldn't really win the fight if the other guy has gear and a skill level roughly equal to yours--just like if a scout comes up behind you and gets that first shot, you're the one who loses.

we need the other racial basic suits in order for a solid comparison.

Please make a video of you shooting people in the head 90% of the time with the AR while you're both moving, then make a video of how you only manage to hit people with two-thirds of your shots with an HMG. These two don't mesh, in my mind.

Just admit this is a "nerf AR" thread so we can all move on.

Then, at best, they need a small buff to dropsuit profile. Making the scouts faster is only going to make the only counter someone has to them (seeing them first) all but meaningless. They tried giving scouts a lot of speed a few builds back and they were just impossible to hit. It made running a Shotgun scout (or really any close-range weapon) face-roll easy.

Either way, night all.

it's a stealth "buff heavy and scout proto suits" thread.

because endgame logis are absolutely potent when you specialize them. You can stack four shield extenders and four armor plates, or four reppers, or something equally silly on them.

but heavies are pretty much meat socks at the proto level. seen the end of the last closed beta build. proto logi, scout and assault all over the place in pubmatches.

never saw a single proto heavy.

Assuming I did the calculations correct a basic militia AR with no mods or skills would only do 12.9 DPS less than the sixkin. This is all done by your method, missing 1/10 bullets ect. So I'm wondering if this is the case how will endgame be significantly different than it is now? A fully specced Duvolle will only shave off roughly .25 seconds. You're not including any armor mods are you? Even one of those should easily add .2 seconds on to survivability. Also by looking at the numbers you included the bonuses from shield control and field mechanic already correct?

You make many good points and I enjoyed the data. I tend to agree with you and never supported the nerf to dropsuit hp. It could have used some adjustment but the idea of removing HP gains always seemed short sighted. And I have no problem with adding some HP to some different higher tier suits. But make scouts faster (in bold, no less) seems to be a really simplistic proposed solution and not really related to the evidence. WHat do you mean by "faster?" Sprint speed? Strafing speed or speed of lateral movement? Jumping speed? Turning speed? Or just faster in all possible ways that the character model can move?

Also, there is a glaring flaw in your argument. It assumes "best case scenario". And then draws a conclusion about the future of the game but "best case scenario" won't ever actually occur in the game itself.

And it only allows for tactical decision making in terms of micro balance (one v. one gunfights) and relegates any other strategies to the parlor.

Because players are human they will probably just want to use what is generally considered the "best" set up and will all gravitate toward whatever that is. If it is assault rifles people will still use them even if there are changes made so that in rigorously controlled data gathering type scenarious the assault rifle proves to be inadequate. Heck, even if you give players more and more options they could very well ignore them because people just kind of do things like that. ANd some people will use something that everyone else thinks is crappy, just because they happen to like how it looks...

And if almost everyone is running high damage assault rifle fittings and assault suits then the game becomes COD for those people anyways, no matter what the other choices are, if enough of them do it. Because it will be about who can turn the corner first and get the jump on their opponent or who can chill out and camp a swag hiding spot.

In pub matches.

I disagree that no amount of "meta game" will make a difference if by meta game you mean teamwork and communication between players.

In the end I think there is not too much to worry about. CCP has got your back. There's enough new stuff on the way that the game should remain interesting and fulfilling even if a glut of players go all assault all the time. And from what I have heard of EVE CCP always does a good job of balancing the pure numbers of balance with the murky balance of player choice. And will keep changing things around if the situation you predict would ever happen. Fear not, CCP will keep it fresh. And nerf it to oblivion. Then add flaylock pistols. Then nerf it to oblivion. Then add fighter aircraf. And nerf it to oblivion. Then add Gallente heavy suit...

That's a long way of pointing out DPS grows faster, and for cheaper, than EHP. Right now gank and alpha is the way to spec.

HMG's inherent potential and niche is the clip size. Realistically, unless anything drastic happens, dust will boil down to single "ideal" gun choice for a role, like CS did in its day: ak and m4 were pretty much the only used weapons along awp.

The ideal gun for heavies, frankly, is not HMG. Balac's ar is the most likely candidate for me. Comparison of heavies with hmg (which is built to suppress fire) and ar (which is built to quick kill) is, to me, a waste of time. Heavy ar vs. Assault ar is the more logical choice, if you want to get a feel of the end game as it's shaping up atm.

Forgot to say I added +1. Once people start realizing this we can start discussing if this is okay. I dislike it immensely, personally.

Nerf ar damage and limit damage mods to 1 per suit

wait, people still use damage mods? i dropped those a long time ago, you MIGHT kill someone 1 or 2 bullets sooner AT THE VERY MOST

extra shields are much more valuable in my opinion.

there's supposed to be a stacking penalty so you can't do things like that. I'll try throwing 2 complex mods in my advanced suit and see what happens, maybe my 4.1 KDR will jump into the 5s.

Not sure if someone said this already but 1.8 sec survivability vs 1.0 something according to the author's calculation is a huge difference in favor of the heavy. in FPS 0.8 seconds is far from trivial. I think, although, he made an excellent post and put a lot of work into the calcs I think his math defeats his thesis. I'd say I favor the performance of the Heavy based on his numbers. As far as the cost is concerned I think it's great to keep things unbalanced for the meta game of territorial control when that actually becomes available. This will give an incentive to ppl to risk more isk (more expensive suit) even for a marginal combat advantage if this means that your corp in the end is able to accomplish an imprortant conquest.

Lastly, I do think that both EHP progression and weapon damage progression have been nerfed too much to not make it worthwhile to buy more expensive stuff. I will say though that even though the suits all have the same hp (approx) as the base model, extra slots are an effective incentive for suit advancement. With weapons though, proto are about the same as militia making them superfluous. I think CCP takes huge swings to and from nerfs instead of little tweaks which makes no sense to me. In the past duvole AR was ridiculously OP compared to base AR, but now it's not at all different. I think there is gotta be a middle ground - I am thinking that advanced weapons should be 12-15% more powerful than militia, and proto 20-25% more powerful than militia - this would probably land things in a reasonable balance

Your math makes a lot of assumptions.The first one being that the AR user only misses 1/10 of his bullets....ok people miss more than that and because of your mobility as a heavy you feel that but scouts and other assaults are a different matter.
15m? really ?so your argument is that the HMG should be a long range weapon.
Put down the part where every thing between you and 15 meters gets melted...instantly.Example turn a corner and boom Hmg heavy...melted.You example is if the heavy is out in the open....which he shouldnt be.Hevies should be in the objectives not out in the open.

Being a closed beta tester I have had the opportunity to see alot of good tactics and alot of chicanery.But the best are when people use there suit as intended..

Scouts cross the field and drop a uplink near the objective letter and before you know it 4 heavies spawn in and its murder time.I would also like to point out that....CHICAGOCUBSFOREVER,HowdthatTaste,BlondieRoads,ExmapleCore,Aldin Kan......All way up on the leaderboards, and all are Heavies.HMG melts people in the short range.

I was one of the people that actually helped to get the Hwss a little better for heavies and reduce the heat build up for HMG's and I dont even play a heavy....but yer not happy with that.People just want to keep on complaining.

This thread hides under the guise that its scientific with scewed/misleading math.This thread in now way draws comparison between the HMG magazine size and the AR's Mag size.

This is just the age old argument of HMG versus AR'S in every shooter.....

Why cant my LMG have the same accuracy,range and weapon handling as the AR?
because you have a larger magazine capacity thats why .....

Very true. One of the first things i tell new players is 'Gank grows faster than tank.'

Makes skill training decisions a lot clearer.

And then .8 build rolls out and all this speculation is made moot.

I agree 200%

Volgair, Let's acknowledge this:

1. You wanted to boil some factors down, and come up with some basic metrics whereby you could compare basic EHP vs. DPS figures between suits, and you poured a lot of time and effort into that.

2. In order to do so, you needed to make many assumptions to come up with the numbers with which we could compare, as well as leaving out many other factors in order to focus on just some basic stats. Those assumptions and factors included/not included are up for debate, which everyone is doing a surprisingly civil job of doing

2. (a) my 2 cents, is that different fitting configurations, as well as tactical play, honesty do throw your simplified calculations out of the window....

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I think your point about Assault suits doing the job of killing the most efficiently, in the majority of situations, is correct. Feature Working As IntendedGäó

However, DUST will not just be about KDR, even though if you want to play it like that, go ahead. Many EVE players only play for the killboards.

But in both EVE and DUST, the gameplay is much larger, and a central part of the game will revolve around winning matches for your team, and the other suits, weapons, and playstyles act as force-multipliers which are hugely important for carrying your team to victory. I personally quite like the non-traditional styles of play myself, but realize they are meant to be a compliment to my more effectively-deadly teammates.

Out of curiosity, ISK aside, what is the time-to-death in COD? sounds like it's a fraction of the fraction of a second you're talking about, Volgair.

And same question for BF3.

And maybe most illuminating, in HALO?

You seem to be totally ignoring comments about lasers. Didn't proto laser end up ripping things up at the end of the closed beta?

I'm not a top player but from what I saw, basically achieving HAV dominance is what won matches. AR are useless against a HAV. Heavies are very important to achieving HAV dominance.

If your post is about balancing PUG death matches then sure AR assault is the go to style. Once we actually connect to Eve I think PUG death matches will matter a whole lot less. PUG death matches should not be the standard of how to balance this game. Corp battles should be and tactics are a lot different in corp battles compared to PUG matches.

I will say this though I do support upping the HP of suits. I would enjoy that type of gameplay more.

You read my mind.

Stop playing TDM it is not what DUST 514 is going to be.

TDM is for tryhard derp derps who are more focused on KDR than Factional Warfare.

So your proposing to increase EHP for suits across the board and banning advance and proto gear in pug matches.

I don't really think that has anything to do with corp battles but I could get behind both those changes.