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Zeylon Rho
Subdreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
149
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Posted - 2013.05.12 06:49:00 -
[1] - Quote
We're all aware of certain lack of uniqueness in suits/specs outside of logis. This is a separate matter from the "OP" discussions, but related to the extent that suits and specs have not been balanced or made desirable on their own merits. The crux of the matter, role-wise, is that Logis HAVE to spec into logistics to fulfill their role to any marginal degree, and every other role can be filled at much lower SP cost with the basic-frame at that level.
There are two sets of changes I think can be made to rectify this:
1st: Adjust Suit and specialization passives across the board to be both useful and desirable.
One of the reasons the Caldari Logistics passive appears so good is that increased shields are useful to pretty much anyone in the game. The Amarr Sentinel bonus of feedback damage reduction on the other hand isn't useful to anyone. Passives aligned with specializations need to be practical and useful across four possible racial variants (including unreleased ones). Racial passives should at least in some degree be representative of their approach to warfare (inside that role at least).
2nd: Adjust suit stats to make them desirable beyond the basic frame.
The ideal basic frame is a happy medium in relation the roles attached to that size. An assault suit should offer compelling reasons to use it for the assault player, while the Basic suit could still serve some role to players that had skilled through there on the way to Assault/Logistics. For example, if the assault suit had zero equipment slots, but was otherwise combat-superior - an assault might still fall back to basic suits for some equipment-requiring roles. The larger picture within suit design is making the various roles fit into certain niches with balanced and varying strengths.
Example:
For assaults, I'd add 20 hp to their base suit hp at adv, and add 40 hp at proto. The portioning on this would vary according to race.
For instance, if Caldari Assault is at:
210/120 right now, ADV would move to to 230/120, and PRO to 260/130. Since it's base, passives will still effect it, regardless of what they put in slots, making the gains relatively larger. Logistics base (C-1) is 180/90. So, the Caldari assault hp bonus over logi goes from 60 to 110 (close to doubles) from standard to proto with the hp scaling up. The fact it's base means that most of this advantage requires no slot apportioning. The fact that it's base also means it's relative value is higher, due to passives.
Now a Caldari logi might still be able to use their TWO extra slots (Assaults are 4/3, Cal-logi is 5/4) to try to match HP, but it becomes more complicated.
The passives on assault shields/armor bring them to 262 base shields, and armor to 150.
That's 412 total.
Logis with passives go to 225/112 or 337.
This means on naked suits, with passives, the gap expands to 75 from 60. Now let's load on shields. Maxed shield extender skill gives you a 10% bonus, maxed Logistics suits gives you a 25% (let's ignore the recharge bonus Assaults get for for a moment).
Assaults with all shield extenders will get 290 more shields with their 4 slots. Logis using all 5 slots (and having a higher bonus) get 445 shields or so (35%.. not exactly like in-game maths) for their trouble (and using an extra slot). Adding to the previous totals, that puts assaults at 702 total hp (no armor, just shield attachments) and Logis at 782ish. This is the status quo. Note that the Logis need to use an extra slot to beat the Assault total here, without one complex extender, their total drops just below that of assaults. Despite having more hp, both are very vulnerable to things like flux, and the assaults will have faster recharging shields (both by default, and a larger gap with bonus).
An obvious point here is that the Logis can achieve "about" the same HP with the same number of slots, then use that extra slot for a weapon damage modifier, out-damaging the assault that went all shields.
This is why a base-suit mod can fix things.
With the modified suit hp, the assault base with passives jumps to 488, and then in the same scenario their shields with the same number of slots is 778. This is still very slightly lower than the logi, but it's parity. The logi has to use every upper slot (and benefit from a class bonus) to beat the assault on shields by 4hp. The assaults shields in this scenario will recharge faster, they have more armor (at base) underneath, and faster base movement speed. If the logi drops an extender to do more damage, they are then at a 80+ hp disadvantage against the assault. An assault dropping a shield extender loses less, because less of their capability is predicated on module usage.
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Zeylon Rho
Subdreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
153
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Posted - 2013.05.12 07:11:00 -
[2] - Quote
Other suit buffs?
That's an example of suit hp buffing, but I think the bonuses across the board need to be looked at it. Is the Amarr logi slot allotment fair? All the other logis have 12 slots counting High + Low + Equipment at proto, the Amarr has 9... and a sidearm. Is a sidearm worth three slots? Maybe it's worth two slots? Slots can make a big difference obviously, so examining those layouts is another target for balance. In the case of the Assault, we previously reference dropping an equipment slot in relation to the basic frame. This modification could be present only in certain racial variants in exchange for an advantage like increased speed or a different slot.
Currently, the basic suit frames tend to mirror their sub-specializations exactly with respect to slots, etc (logi aside). The HP buff is one way to get people using the Assault suits, but it's not the only change that can be made to suits. For instance, the Minmatar Assault suit might have 2 equip slots at proto level, and the Amarr Assault suit might have no equipment slots, but feature increased speed in comparison to the Basic Amarr medium frame.
Passive specialization bonuses
The bonuses for all specializations need a look, something to make them desirable. While I find Gallente Logis appealing in terms of slots for example, their fitting bonus is like a core-skill redo, and it's underwhelming. An armor-tanking Gallente logi bonus might be better (they'd be sacrificing speed to use it if it were attached to plates), but at a lower percentage than the 25% shield extender bonus because armor plates have so much hp. Similarly, things like reducing feedback damage for Sentinels are borderline-insulting as advantages unless heavy weapons are being introduced that ALWAYS damage the user.
An overall assault bonus to something like reload speed (all light weapons, handheld, or the like) might make more sense (since not all assaults should be shield-focused, but they should all be attacking), and perhaps having the Caldari specific bonus be shield recharge oriented would gel well with that race.
With Sentinels, I'm inclined to say that the Heavy Reload bonus should probably be across the suit/class-type, as they're the only heavy weapons class. In considering the Amarr variant in particular, I found myself asking what sorts of passives would be appropriate, desirable, but not over-powered to the role. A 1 or 2% per level bonus to shield resistance (like the vehicle mod) would provide a beefier outer-shell for a heavy, but wouldn't have quite the same imbalance issues as an armor-specific bonus would introduce combined with repping logis. The Amarr in particular lacks Upper Slots, which also prevents them from shield stacking to abuse the shield resistance stat.
These are just some ideas, to recap:
a 20hp bonus at ADV for assault, and
a 40hp bonus at PRO for assault
to their base suit HP cancels out most of the advantage previously seen. A logi can still compete at defense by maxing module allotment in that direction, but only by sacrificing attack. The assault requires less focus on protective mods to be viable. The class roles can be losely defined as:
Logistics: flexible and capable of filling a variety of roles/specs (defensive/offensive/scanning/speed), but achieves this by being forced to sacrifice relative superiority/mediocrity by juggling modules.
Assault: a greater tanking focus which scales with suit spec, and passives oriented on aggressive approaches.
Heavy: Area denial class, meant to be able to take punishment and fend off multiple opponents
Scout: Stealth/speed class with focus on avoiding detection, sabotage, intelligence, and piercing enemy lines.
I've avoided using the word medic because I think that's an overly simplistic and reduced way to approach the only real equipment toting class in the game. If a Logi is packing a scanner/droplink/hive for a forward position, they aren't a medic. If a logi is packing remotes and three types of proxy mines - they are a demo expert not a medic. No other class can do that.
In a sense, anyone playing a class as a team-player is a support class. |
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