Man, never have I seen something so simple yet so relevant and apt to a given situation such as this. This sums everything up perfectly.

We also want to make sure that new players have a fighting chance against more skill point rich players ...

Best regards,
- CCP Blam!

Thumbs up if your forgetting tanking and skilling into something else.

This approach may be at the heart of the all of the issues surrounding "balancing" that have plagued this game from as far back as I can remember. And not just as far as vehicles go.

I believe it is misguided and in this case it seems a very muddied way to go about making changes to how the vehicle skill progression works. In the case of tanks, what could that even mean? What does "fighting chance" mean? As far as I could tell new players have always had a fighting chance against players with more SP.

Is the goal for a day one player to be able to take out a starter anti armor fit and solo kill any tank on the field? Or is this meant to give a new player in a militia tank a chance against a tank someone has invested millions of ISK and SP into building? Or is it meant to give 4 new players with mics who can work as a team (even if they have never played a match of Ambush OMS in their lives) a fighting chance? What is a new player? A player in a starter fit? Or a player who has been working at the game long enough to skill AV grenades? SInce the starting bonuses and classes have been removed there aren't going to be any new players with AV grenades on the field anywhere. Will a new player even bother to go looking through the market to find more and better anti vehicle weapons if the tanks on the field are not really anything to fear or worry about?

This devalues and deadens game play for high SP level players. And is harmful to newer players as it discourages team work, and does not give them anything to work toward. Instead they are handed the illusion that more advanced gear may be of some benefit. And from experience I can say it is more and more disappointing to keep skilling up my character only to find that each higher level is about the same as the last level.

It seems like every single choice we can, or even maybe eventually will be able to make in this supposedly vast sand box is being structured to support one and only one game mode. Instant battle. Every time another wave of game flattening decisions is made, the game becomes ever more generic and bland.

Instead of flattening the gear, vehicles, and weaponry to cater to this imaginary concept of "the new player" much more effort could be better spent coming up with ideas on how to give players even more choices on what to use in battle. Choices that make a significant difference and do give players significant advantages over other players. Then give players more and deeper risks and rewards so that the least rewarding gameplay option is to take the highest possible level tank into an Instant battle to shoot at players in starter fits and militia tanks.

This (edit* giving players a fighting chance) is almost like saying that in EVE you would want to give a player in their very first ship the ability to take down the first battleship or carrier they stumble across. Solo. I don't think this is exactly what the tiericide initiative is all about.

The games that are the most fun to play long term, that are the most engaging challenging and rewarding do not try to hand hold their new players. Those games do not give them anything up front that will make it easier for them defeat the highest level opponents. Those victories are something that players have to work for. And they are much more satisfying because of that. Dust 514 would be a much better game for everyone if new players earned their fighting chance. Instead of just having it handed to them.

Thumbs up if your forgetting tanking and skilling into something else.

Thumbs up if your forgetting tanking and skilling into something else.

I'm still going to spec tanks. I think the new fits should be interesting even with the PG drops. It'l change the whole battle for tanks, make different strategies usefull. Mixing it up a bit never hurt :b

I am pretty sure they didn't make a mistake.... they flat out lied to get us to skill into PG upgrades. If they hadn't nobody would have gone tank. Fire this guy.

Hi all. I've been reading through and we appreciate your feedback.

You're right about the vehicle engineering skill. For the other posters, I'm assuming you mean the vehicle core upgrades skill?

The reason for lowering the overall bonus was to allow us to create a more varied difference in between our different vehicle roles within the same class. This will become more apparent in the future when we release even more roles with different slot layouts. We also want to make sure that new players have a fighting chance against more skill point rich players who can enjoy the benefit of compounding premium module bonuses in the same fitting. We'll be keeping a close eye on how this nets out in vehicle combat, and ensure that we still afford you the ability to create interesting and unique fits to compliment your combat experience.

Best regards,
- CCP Blam!

Hi all. I've been reading through and we appreciate your feedback.

You're right about the vehicle engineering skill. For the other posters, I'm assuming you mean the vehicle core upgrades skill?

The reason for lowering the overall bonus was to allow us to create a more varied difference in between our different vehicle roles within the same class. This will become more apparent in the future when we release even more roles with different slot layouts. We also want to make sure that new players have a fighting chance against more skill point rich players who can enjoy the benefit of compounding premium module bonuses in the same fitting. We'll be keeping a close eye on how this nets out in vehicle combat, and ensure that we still afford you the ability to create interesting and unique fits to compliment your combat experience.

Best regards,
- CCP Blam!

Hi all. I've been reading through and we appreciate your feedback.

You're right about the vehicle engineering skill. For the other posters, I'm assuming you mean the vehicle core upgrades skill?

The reason for lowering the overall bonus was to allow us to create a more varied difference in between our different vehicle roles within the same class. This will become more apparent in the future when we release even more roles with different slot layouts. We also want to make sure that new players have a fighting chance against more skill point rich players who can enjoy the benefit of compounding premium module bonuses in the same fitting. We'll be keeping a close eye on how this nets out in vehicle combat, and ensure that we still afford you the ability to create interesting and unique fits to compliment your combat experience.

Best regards,
- CCP Blam!

I

Seriously, do that to the infantry, see how many run that suit.

Point is, you arnt close a gap, you are making the battle field vehicle free. Some might like this, others don't. I am the one that "don't"

as a FG, fewer tanks makes me sad

Yah know. Nuked the heavy and the tank. This can't honestly be a mistake. Did they do this to test different suits? Is this one of those psychological tests?

But yes, by removing tanks, you kinda removed the main purpose of a heavy. Wasn't it at one time the description we got on them was an infantry that could stand toe to toe with an HAV?

Please correct me here.

Last build PG was the problem for all HAVs. The AUR gunnlogi has more CPU than the ISK one, but that does not make a difference because PG is the limiting factor. Even if you gave the AUR gunnlogi 1,000 CPU you couldn't fit it any better than the ISK one.

Last build almost all of the CPU reduction skills were useless. No HAV driver needed to skill up things like shield extenders to five because there was no incentive to do so.

Do the vehicle skills work with every vehicle? If I skill up dropships and LAVs, do I get those bonuses applied to HAVs too? It just says the bonuses are applied to vehicles, and no specific ones. I tried to test it on alts, but I could not get very far.

I'm not sure what the current AV v HAV balance is like atm. I am waiting to skill up trees and I haven't done any corp battles in this build.

I've heard HAV guys go from they are bad, to amazing, then bad again. D: If the damage reduction is increased on shield extenders + armor it'll make it much better, so hopefully the other vehicle skills will apply.

Hi all. I've been reading through and we appreciate your feedback.

You're right about the vehicle engineering skill. For the other posters, I'm assuming you mean the vehicle core upgrades skill?

The reason for lowering the overall bonus was to allow us to create a more varied difference in between our different vehicle roles within the same class. This will become more apparent in the future when we release even more roles with different slot layouts. We also want to make sure that new players have a fighting chance against more skill point rich players who can enjoy the benefit of compounding premium module bonuses in the same fitting. We'll be keeping a close eye on how this nets out in vehicle combat, and ensure that we still afford you the ability to create interesting and unique fits to compliment your combat experience.

Best regards,
- CCP Blam!