Laurent - Post noted, fantastic post. I'll type up a lengthy reply shortly.

Stuff

^^since the resistance mechanic is already in the game and all players are familiar with it, it won't be hard to implement.

anyone who has used an smg against a fully shielded opponent or a scrambler rifle against armor knows that their weapon seems to 'burn through' either shields or armor, and then does noticeably less damage to its counter part. that is resistance. applying moodules that upgrade resistances could be the key to balancing shield verses armor.

if armor mods gave some kind of resistance to damage to armor then it could offset the movement penalty.


p.s. with regards your comment about flux nades not being lethal. i think flux inaddition to removing shield should do some kind of armor damage. shields recover way to fast, their must be a reward for using them.

To CCP_Remnant, please do share the numbers you have in mind for the new modules, and the penalty tweaks. Those things need to be out to the community as soon as possible. It will allow discussions and maybe avoid you guys some issues afterwards.

In my opinion, ferroscale plates, those with no penalty should give less HP than a shield extender of the same tier. Especially if at some point shield extenders get a penalty like many suggests they should have.

Energized plating will probably be the type of modules you use to fill a hole in your fit lol.

playing with resists is a dangerous thing.

Giving say a base 6% per level of heavy suit skill to resists would effectively give an unmodded heavy the rough equivalent of 1300 HP without adding any sort of plates. More Vs. lasers.

It's a very delicate balance point and native resists can absolutely goatfuck the equation if they are done wrong.

I think having 1600 HP heavies is slightly unnecessary without cranking plates in all slots. with your idea they would only need 2. plus the HMG isn't a marshmallow gun anymore. it eats people alive.

After some contemplation I'd like to point out that we can't balance armor too well. The OP suggestions are excellent and the inclusion of any one or two of them would fix armor tanking. As our dear Dev mentioned earlier - a few of these things will be going in and they look to solve many problems. However - there is one problem it may inadvertently create that I would like to point out.

That is the potential of a damage disparity.

The one sacrifice shield tankers must make is the damage mod. Damage mods are very powerful. If armor tanking becomes just as viable as shield tanking stand alone - then armor tankers will be able to HP up and run a set of damage mods. Shield tankers will not be able to HP up and run damage mods. They will only be able to HP up more with the use of regulators and speed up with the various mobility mods. Armor tankers will have that option as well however giving the shield tanker a bit less in the way of options.

So either armor gets equal parity to shield stand-alone plus has some of their options removed or its not quite as good as shield.

I'm Amarr so I'm tanking mix tanking - I just wonder if the shield tankers might find themselves a bit hard up in comparison to what they can do once armor gets up to where it should be.

Regardless I love the changes listed. They are good needed steps forward.

right now these shield tankers make my heavy look like a clown that performs barmitzfa's and birthday parties and doesn't get tips.

stuff

nicely posted laurent.

I agree with your point of armor vs. shield regen to a point. I think base regen on the rep modules needs to be higher, as there is nothing stopping shield users from dropping two regulators in the lows for faster recharging, and dropping one or two shield regen rate boosts in the highs while still maintaining a rather beefy tank.

so we can afford some more wiggle room there, because shield extenders are not the be-all end-all of shield tanking. they are merely the most user-friendly.

i know you love long posts, so i'll make this short.
armor plates right now give a movement penalty. if inaddition to the movement penalty a resistance to damage taken to armor only was added it would offset the lower mobility, and recharge/recover rate.

since most weapons now are more effective against armor than shields it will help offset the deficiency.

this is meant to compensate not empower.

shield tankers get rapid recharge, armor gets resistance.

ideally with head shots (skill) it wont make a difference.



(P.S. the blank 30% resistance for the heavy suit is just to offset its low mobility. however, the exact details are mentioned on my thread. this is not the thread for this. go here for info on heavies and resistance >>>> https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=81725)

Last but not least. Repair rate vs recharge rate.
This isnt much of a problem in my opinion. Shield is expensive in CPU and PG. Plates are less expansive. Native recharge rate for shield is superior and should remain that way. Because if you fix armor plates so that people use complex, they will have space to fit more reppers, or continue to rely on teammates to heal them.

I really dont think armor users should EVER be able to reach the efficiency of shield recharge. Otherwise, balance will go the other way. Also, it makes sense that an energy based defense reloads faster. I asked a long time for buffs to repair modules. And in my opinion, the bonus given by the skill, allows to reach a decent amount per complex repper.
Also, let's not forget even armor tankers have shield and its regen.

So, maybe it could be buffed. but not by much. Like plates, set a linear progression : 2/4/6 per sec.
To get more buff, use specialty\racial bonuses.

Preface: What bugs me with this thread is that everything in it has been said many many many many many times before. By before i mean for more than a year. But people were just NOT using armor except heavies as any suit was pretty much shield oriented as soon as T2, B-s and Vk1 landed. And even before, people were just mostly using shield.

Nonetheless, OP's work is solid and well detailled. So Kudos. I'm gonna try giving a reply worth the worthy of it.

This shield vs armor debate is tough to break down as you need to take into account an awfull lot of different criteria. Things as they are could be balanced with only a few changes. Too many could simply turn the OPiness the other way around.

1.My main issue with shield, and it's been discussed a bit is that it doesnt have any real penalty being used. The bigger hitbox suggestion is a good one but it may prove being difficult to code (only assuming there, no knowledge) and not very gameplay friendly. People would need to be able to assess or even see the growth of their hitbox so they can play accordingly. And balancing it, god the horror.

I would simply go with the same thing EVE has : Adding shield extension raises you radar signature, making you a lot easier to be detected.It may push at some point shield user to not just use buffer but also profile dampener. The same way armor users are kinda pushed to use biotics to compensate for their loosy speed.

2.Regarding the armor penalty, it's just a total non-sense. Proto plate giving 1.5 more HP but 3.3 more penalty is like saying "DONT USE ME". There we all agree. HP numbers should be re-assessed to follow a more logical progression.

I'd go with unchanged numbers for shield.
Armor plates : 45, 90, 135.

At max skill, you'd get 148 HP for a complex plate. Which compared to the 72 for a shield extender sounds about right. (after all, basic shield is 22 and basic plate is 45)

3.Regarding the movement penalty, it shouldnt be reduced too much. Worse, it should be bigger Why ? because it wont only help armor users, but also shield users. "Why not add a plate as it wont slow me down so much anyway"
=> 4,8,12%

4.You could thus have a racial skill for every basic frames that would add up to specific specialty\racial bonus. Remember those are wild examples to illustrate my post.

5.Last but not least. Repair rate vs recharge rate.

omg the armor tankers are getting a buff lol this is epic ccp if this is your plans just take the caldari class out its complete crap...not even a challenge for me to pop. armor tanks are the only tanks in dust that are even remotely worth it that is why all the old caldari pros have switched out to gallente tanks ccp pay attention. not saying amor is good i think these improvements are awesome and may even make your tanks more than an expensive coffin. but you are incorrect in thinking as far as tanks go you have the worst of it. i have been running tanks and av in dust 514 for over a year. tanks in general are under powered. i hope armor gets some serious buffs as then there will be ONE good type of HAV in dust.

- Main reason why Armor is inferior is because there is no any kind of ewar in DUST. Free mid slots is gold because you can put more ewar and counter ewar modules.

- The game will be whole another thing when webs are introduced. Armor will be able to slow down enemies.
- Damps: Shorten the range of your enemies weapons
- ECM: Offuscate the vision of you enemy. (not completely)
- Painter: Make enemie's sig bigger so you can make more dmg to him

I think those modules should be introduced into DUST too. It would give a lot of variety and strengthen the armor role in the game.

- But some drastic balance changes should be done to the current layout.
Like: Add more HP buffer to armor compared to shield.
Add more speed to shield compared to armor.

Resistances are also a must to be added in the game. This will have 2 effects. There will be Logis outrepping dps. Which imo can add some nice tactics into the game.
2nd one is That it will bring armor more to a balance compared to shield. Armor will have more HP and when u add resistances it will be more EHP overall (effective hit points).

EVE has a quite nice balance atm. DUST should take some ideas from it.

omg the armor tankers are getting a buff lol this is epic ccp if this is your plans just take the caldari class out its complete crap...not even a challenge for me to pop. armor tanks are the only tanks in dust that are even remotely worth it that is why all the old caldari pros have switched out to gallente tanks ccp pay attention. not saying amor is good i think these improvements are awesome and may even make your tanks more than an expensive coffin. but you are incorrect in thinking as far as tanks go you have the worst of it. i have been running tanks and av in dust 514 for over a year. tanks in general are under powered. i hope armor gets some serious buffs as then there will be ONE good type of HAV in dust.

I covered this.
It takes a gun off the field, and shield regen is similarly effective.

EVE is still imbalanced when it comes to armor vs shields, and they are just now fixing this. The modules you have suggested while they do make sense, and add a nice perk to armor we are not space ships we are infantry units thus these effects would have to be toned down to the scale of infantry units and won't be as beneficial as they would be in EVE.

Gun off the field?

No.

Logi's have their place and their Rep tool is just as good.
They can equip rifles as well and aggress the target, just as anyone else.

SUPPORT is necessary.

Run without it, and you will complain about the mechanic.

Those without support, fail. Horribly.