Did FoxFour read it

I'm in agreement with the plate penalty being too heavy handed. It's penalisation being speed also puts the Gallente scout in an awkward position, having it's two strengths potentially impinging on one another. Shifting the penalty to stamina would remedy this.

Armour is in a very rough place compared to shields in almost all areas of capability. This does call for them to be evened out but this doesn't necessarily mean armour being brought up to the same kind of level as shields, bringing shields more in line with armour is also an option. Giving it trade-offs of another kind, reducing the hp granted by complex extenders, perhaps increasing the delay on shield recovery or a reduction to recharge speed. The extender is the main one I'd advocate, going overboard and reversing the situation between armour and shields I would not.

The decision about which direction to take it, which one should be made to meet the other, is a gameplay one. Where do you want the TTK to be at? Do you want to trivialise non-lethal damage or make people bear their wounds longer?

The bottom line is that by buffing one thing you are also, in essence, nerfing everything else and vice versa. As most of the tools in Dust revolve around either making someone's health hit zero or preventing your own from doing the same shields and armour tie into this particularly heavily.

Make passive shield regen slower, add shield transfer arrays. Fix modules accordingly, giving armor a pure HP advantage (still) unless shield extenders get a noteworthy penalty.

in the dust keynote a while back ( i'm going to have to re watch it there was mention of new armor mods one of them was ferro scale plates witch didn't have the movement issue but had another drawback i also think part of the issue is just what the games has set for the sentinels design they work best on maps like domination when they can either take a dropship or a lav into the lone point when its neutral or spawn there when its caped

along side ferroscale plates was mention of the sentinels opposite the commando a slightly more mobile heavy that trades a some of the heavy's trademarked shield and armor for the ability to carry two light weapons and a side arm

edit: i don't really think their is much to be changed not everything is in place yet it really kittens me off that they rushed the launch to have it take place on 5/14

starting to see your point one way to fix this is to make plate armor self healing but nickel and dime it and like you said up the amount repaired by armor reps and make reactive armor plates when the come out give damage resistance in addition to hp


edit somthing like 1/2/3 on plates and 5/8/12 on reps migt do it

Resistance on plates is an interesting idea, and one that's worth noting.

I run both, does that cause some form of time paradox?

FoxFour said he'd read this later on IRC.
Maybe I'll stop calling him SoxFour.

I'm disappointed by the lack of feedback, particularly from shield tankers.
Do I need a more provocative title? What about "LOL DUST SUX SHIELDS R SO GUD"?

Shield tankers to busy pub stomping to care. Especially with the TACAR nerf around the corner they gotta get as many kills a possible.

I like somebody's suggestion that armor should have an endurance and sprint penalty rather than regular speed penalty. Basically if you have complex armor you can't 'sprint' worth crap.

My response:

1) Logi=gun off the field- sort of true, but a player hiding while their shields recharge is also a 'gun off the field'.

2) Just to be fair you didn't factor weapon usages/effectiveness against these different suits.

For example the AR does 110% to shield and 90% to Armor.

AR-Against the complex modules...
Complex shield has 59.4 EHP
Complex armor has 126 EHP

So technically when you are considering the AR, the complex armor is 2.12x better than complex shield. When looking at scrambler rifle it is 2.61x better.

3) "In the time it takes to be killed....shield recharge rep wins out over all" Shield depletion delay time is big elephant in the room here IMO. The 5-10 seconds that a shield player's shield is depleted is their big weakness.

I like somebody's suggestion that armor should have an endurance and sprint penalty rather than regular speed penalty. Basically if you have complex armor you can't 'sprint' worth crap.

My response:

1) Logi=gun off the field- sort of true, but a player hiding while their shields recharge is also a 'gun off the field'.

A logi actively repping someone during combat takes their gun off the field - the hiding while shields recharge is only 'after combat'.

2) Just to be fair you didn't factor weapon usages/effectiveness against these different suits.

For example the AR does 110% to shield and 90% to Armor.

AR-Against the complex modules...
Complex shield has 59.4 EHP
Complex armor has 126 EHP

So technically when you are considering the AR, the complex armor is 2.12x better than complex shield. When looking at scrambler rifle it is 2.61x better.

That's true, but you still need to fit repairers on armour, which reduces the buffer tank available.
In addition, that's giving a fairly narrow view of things. The AR may be the most used, but the resist profile for armour is generally worse due to the explosive hole, and there are plenty of weapons which do more damage to armour than shields. The SMG, HMG, MD, and a number of other weapons completely wreck armour. The explosive hole is so big on armour as well that it's a huge disadvantage.
I covered resist profile in the second post, I think.

3) "In the time it takes to be killed....shield recharge rep wins out over all" Shield depletion delay time is big elephant in the room here IMO. The 5-10 seconds that a shield player's shield is depleted is their big weakness.

Shield recharge delay goes down to about 3 seconds at the high end. Also, if shields aren't fully depleted, it starts ticking from the first shot, so you sometimes recharge under fire.

Answers in bold inside the quote.

First. My thanks goes out to the OP. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. Your OP brilliantly lays out the issues.

IMHO Speed tank is king! I've mentioned this in a previous feedback post, But due to the way DUST applies reverse acceleration penalties to fast rotational movement, it is impossible to hit fast moving targets at close range. Shield Tanking is currently better, because you can only speed tank if you shield tank [/u].

The best tank at the moment is a fast dropsuit, stacked with speed /endurance mods and some shield and damage mods. At 0 - 20 meters, you will literally strafe faster than the enemy can track with the mouse/right thumbstick. If you are engaged at 20 - 40 meters you still have the speed to sprint faster than a player can accurately track. This is compounded by the rotational penalties applied to medium and heavy suits, and any armor tank (armor plates reduce rotational speed).

Also, neither the scrambler rifle nor the Flux grenade are significant counters to shield tanking. While dealing increased damage to shields, the scrambler rifle is incredibly difficult to hit with. Hit box detection, speed tank, lag, and rotational reverse acceleration, combined with the lower rate of fire mean that actually applying scrambler rifle damage is more difficult. DUST 514's lag compensation mechanism seems to work in favor of faster rate of fire weapons (more rounds down range in any given moment means more chances for the lag compensator to apply). Also, even though the Scrambler rifle does more damage to shields, it is still incredibly effective against armor, both dealing massive damage, and better hit probability due to the slower speed of armor tankers.

Flux grenades are plagued with the same dsync and hit detection problems as Flaylocks and Mass Drivers. I can't tell you how many times I have dropped a Flux grenade directly on someone and they have not taken any shield damage. This is partially due to the speed tank. Speed tankers in scout suits can jump above the flux radius of damage. I have seen numerous people jump completely over the flux radius.

As for the shield/armor balance, I submit the following ideas which I think synergize well together.

STEP 1: What if shield extenders actually extended the dropsuit's hit box? Isn't that what a shield EXTENDER is actually doing...extending the shield? It would work something like this. If a shield extender is fitted, and the dropsuit's shield is active (not depleted) then the hitbox would be increased according to the penalty associated with the shield extender module. This penalty would increase the better the module and the penalty would stack the more modules fitted. When the shield depletes, the hitbox returns to its normal value until the shield begins to recharge.

STEP 2: Move all shield moduels to high slots. Significantly lower shield recharge rates and increase shield recharge delay across the board. Add a base armor repair rate to dropsuits (like a built-in nanite repair capability). Then give all suits a bonus to their racial tanking ability that increases with the number of modules fit. Minmatar and Caldari get a bonus to shield extender amount, shield recharge rate and recharge delay. Gallente and Amarr get a bonus to armor amount, armor repair rate and reduction to movement penalty. These bonuses would have a base value if no appropriate modules were fit, but would increase proportionally with the number of modules.

Lore friendly bonuses from the EVE universe (my understanding)
Minmatar: Speed and Shield bonuses (fastest)
Caldari: Shield and range bonuses (Shield Tankiest)
Gallente: Armor and Shield bonuses (balanced tank and speed)
Amarr: Armor and damage bonuses (armor tankiest)

STEP 3 Add mid-slot range modules (increased optimal, increased falloff). This would balance the many low slot utility modules. Honestly, I'm not sure about what type of modules these should be, but there need to be more high-slot utility modules. Having the damage and range modules in high slots would seem to be EVE appropriate. Caldari and Minmatar have inherently better range projection, but to maximize it they have to compromise their tank. Amarr and Gallente are known for their close range face melting, but have to compromise tank in order to increase speed.

I've always been puzzled how the Armour Plates are the only module with a drawback. I've heard some explain this as weight slowing you down, but in the far future why do we make things stronger by making them heavier? Why can't we just use more durable material that isn't made out of concrete? (better material would explain the increased cost in ISK as well as the increased CPU/PG strain on the suit).

As it seems counter-productive to complain about the speed penalty (as I'm sure it is a balancing factor), I'll focus on the way that it scales as I think it is absolutely absurde. The basic module grants you 65 hp to armor and a 3% speed reduction. This module is, in my opinion, the BEST armor plate you can purchase. While the Advanced and Proto armor plates grant more HP, they also take an inordinate amount of speed with them. Here's the current spread between HP gained, Speed Reduction, and SP required to use these modules:

Module________________Armor HP__Speed Decrease__SP Investment
Basic Armor Plates_________65________3%____________55,970
Advanced Armor Plates_____85________5%___________242,510
Complex Amor Plates______115_______10%___________932,760

So while Complex Plates offer less than 2x the protection of Basic Plates, they reduce your speed by more than 3x!! Advanced Plates aren't any better, giving you 1.2x more protection, again at the cost of almost 2x speed reduction over the Basic Plates.

While using a Complex Armor Plate does save you a module slot, it costs you almost 1mil SP to get a massive speed reduction that is far worse than 2 Basic Armor Plates in armor granted, speed penalty, SP investment and ISK cost.



I like ZDub's suggestion better than mine (as it has math and stuff), so while you'll see it later in this thread:

Here are two more threads on how Armor Plates are ridiculously penalized:

Armor Plates
[Request] Infantry Armor Plates

Here's my OP in my Armor Thread:

-snip-

Good news ... it only took CCP ~ 10 years to start trying to balance Armor vs. Shields in EVE. ... hopefully we'll see a response here "Soon(tm)".