J Falcs
Bojo's School of the Trades
35
   |
Posted - 2013.05.14 13:14:00 -
[1] - Quote
SUMMARY
(1) Logistics skill (and all specialties) should not be race specific, but general. Only basic suit skills should be race specific.
(2) Get rid of tiers (standard, advanced, proto), plateau the cost of suits since there will be no more tiers, raise the cost of modules, and raise the cost of specialty suits.
***The below assumes that the dropsuits will be rebalanced. As it stands, I feel the suits were given bonuses at random with little though to the racial philosophies or true specialization. See other threads for more discussion on this. In particular, if you are a logistics fan, see Logibro's (although I disagree with some of his points, I would take his system in a heartbeat).
***I will speak in terms of Logistics because that is the role I play, but my points are to be across all suits and skills.
SPECIALTY SKILLS
I understand that people like to state Dust 514 is not EVE, but the comparisons cannot be helped. I was internally defiant to the end that the devs would decide against making the specialty skills race specific. What I mean is, in EVE, you have your race based ship skills (for example, Minmatar Frigate, Minmatar Cruiser, and Minmatar Battleship). If you want to specialize into Tech 2, there is an additional skill that corresponds to the specialty (for example, Logistics, Heavy Assault Ships, Electronic Attack Ships).
Despite leaks of the skill tree and reports from Sisi that the Logistics skill was also race specific along with the race basic suit skill, I felt this would not be the case on May 6. But, I was mistaken. I would have to raise two logistics skills along with two basic suit skills if I hoped to have access to two different sets of logistics suits (in my case, I wanted to go Minmatar and Gallente).
So, what I am suggesting is simple. Keep the high 10x training skill multiplier on the Logistics skill (and obviously other specialty skills), but remove its racial restrictions. This allows a player to jump into different specialty suits, albeit at the cost of an additional 3.1 million SP for the basic suit. But the logistics skill is now a one time training.
TIERICIDE
I know I am not the first person to recommend this. I forgot whose thread I saw mention this first, but I am still completely surprised that tiericide was not implemented in Dust 514 when in EVE the tiericide initiative is a fantastic development decision.
Because this would take way more space than I care to use, I will just say that a medium basic suit should be completely viable as a cheaper alternative to its more expensive specialist suits. A specialist suit is paying extra to be better at one aspect of the game while sacrificing isk and other general abilities, i.e., a logistics sacrifices some speed, stamina, etc. to provide logistics support to the battlefield.
The basic suits should be the standard, not sub-standard. The specialties should be special, something that augments a specific purpose, but not be a generalist. I hate that the medium basic suits are all but worthless to me now that I have it at level V.
As to making the suits cost more (proto costs) leave that to the modules and equipment. If you wanted to look at EVE as an example. Make standard T1 (medium fitting requirement, lowest performance, cheapest), make advanced "named" (lowest fitting requirement, medium performance, medium price... normally), made proto T2 (highest fitting requirement, highest performance, highest price).
BRIEF REBALANCE DISCUSSION
I couldn't help myself. Just a bit discussion on rebalancing. I feel the different specialty suits do not have a defined role. I understand that players want the sandbox feel to the game, but that does not mean suits cannot be specialized or role specific. If it was a true sandbox game (and I saw this mentioned elsewhere as well), then there would only be one suit with various slots, and the individual modules would be buffed up to provide the specific role (which may include being unable to fill all slots due to fitting requirements).
But that is not what we have. We have different suits with specific intended roles. Yet, the bonuses do not show that. By balancing the individual suits with individual bonuses, it removes tiericide while still providing specific roles. It also opens up options to players without having to invest millions of SP to simply fill in one more role.
The best suits to make my point are mediums because they have two clear intended specialties, although they miss the marks when it comes to bonuses.
Medium Basic Suits - First, each race has two suits; one suit has one equipment slot and the other has two equipment slots. Now, players can decide what role they may like to play. Second, each suit would have bonuses gearing towards (but not overshadowing) its specialized version. For example, the suit with two equipment slots will have one bonus towards equipment use (whatever that will be) and the suit with one equipment slot will have one bonus towards weapon use (or whatever is deemed "assault" enough that differentiates it from logistics).
Logistics Suits - Each race will have two suits. Look to Logibro's thread for ideas. But whatever the decision, there should be at least two bonuses. They should be directly related to its role as a logistics suit so (although Logibro disagrees with me to an extent) both bonuses should be equipment related.
Assault Suits - Each race will have two suits. Again, see other threads, including Logibro's, for ideas. But, an assault to me should be the second fastest suit in the game, with the best possibilities of active tanking, and best able to pop in and out of battle. So the bonuses should be geared to this type of gameplay.
|
J Falcs
Bojo's School of the Trades
36
|
Posted - 2013.05.14 18:41:00 -
[2] - Quote
VictorMaximus wrote:I like where the OP is going. It gives newer players a taste of the specialization to come, earlier access to logistics suits (something desperately needed), and it gets rid of the tiers which were a bad idea in EVE, and a bad idea here.
It also cuts down on the clutter of the suits. You have a nice basic -> specialized path.
Would you consider the specialized suits Tech 2, or simply just a specialized T1 suit? I would think T1, similar to say, the specialized assault/logistics frigs/cruisers in eve.
I ask because it seems like DUST has no idea what to do with T1 / T2 like EVE has, and its going to need to be sorted at some point. Especially when the markets get joined.
I would like there to be T1 and T2. I like the idea behind T1 and T2, and I would hope that Dust at some point reaches that point.
When I wrote the OP, I envisioned a T1 and T2 Dust world. Every time a new specialization is added, a new generalist suit is added to the T1 basic suits that blends some of the specialization with another specialization. |