DUST Search - [Feedback] Shields > Armour GÇô A continued imbalance

D legendary hero wrote:

SponkSponkSponk wrote:

If they want to encourage pure shield or pure armour tanking, they need more percentage bonuses (like shield rechargers).

e.g. if shield extenders and plates provided percentage bonuses you could still provide equivalent protection on suits designed for it, e.g.:

http://i.imgur.com/0y6sXIK.png

However, it means that you can't dual tank effectively because your base armor is too low to be worth it (you could use non-percentage stuff like reactive or ferroscale plates)

with reference to your last sentence minmintar suits need an extra low slot per level starting from milita (which has zero) on upward. because their base ehp is really low, and they are supposed to be the most versitile suits, and fastest. yet, their speed is only marginally better than other suits.

its a delicate balance because too much speed and you essentially have a medium suit with scout speed, too much versitility and they become your all-in-all go to suit for everything, too much ehp..well you get the point.

adding this one extra slot per level will enable your minmintar suit to do more and be more versitile while simulataneously, still being the weakest in terms of tanking.

i mean seriously, i can get 550+ ehp on my milita galente suit, but now where near that amount on my milita minmintar, and the trade off, is only .30m in speed.... that is laughable.

onw im using milita as an example but of course going up hgher its easy to see that the minmintar can't tank as they should. (they should not tank better than anyother suit, but they shouldn't be so far behind that they are 200+ ehp behind.)


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Beren Hurin OMNI Endeavors 571	Posted - 2013.07.03 15:44:00 - [1] - Quote You guys can't forget weapon damage profiles and their effects on tanks' resistances. I don't think we can say that 500 shield HP = 500 armor HP. When it comes to the AR, 600 Shield HP = 500 armor HP. When it comes to the scrambler rifle, 700 shield HP = 500 armor HP. Mass driver: 500 shield = 800 armor.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 951	Posted - 2013.08.05 15:35:00 - [2] - Quote Check out my post about tracking w/ armor tanking. IMO, the reason why the speed penalty to armor matters is because the framerate/hitdetection/stability issues means close range fighting is preferred. If those things generally get better, and aim-assist makes shooting/tracking at longer ranges a much more doable thing, we will see armor tanking be the preferred tank at longer ranges. Having armor tankers taking shots at 50m back with +25% damage from damage mods adn 100% effectiveness of weapons range and a bonus to shield while the shield tankers with their ARs are doing about 75% damage with poor dispersion, should be where the meta goes. Logis can sit there and dual-stream rep their team at 70m from the fight will be pretty powerful, too. I just think the community has learned DUST as a 'CQC' game. This HAS to be unlearned, otherwise, armor will be 'rebalanced', and THEN we will learn that mid/long range engagement is doable, then they will be nerfed again. This is probably mostly a function of all of the starter suits being close range suits. From the beginning you SEE the value of shields, and damage mods, and range fighting isn't the intuitive answer to countering this. You don't even 'SEE' that you died because of damage mods necessarily either. I'm really also thinking that armor vs. shield suit is about slot use as well. With this active scanner/TACNET change, the gallente/amarr suits will be able to fit dampening mods, much easier than caldari/minmatar suits. I think the Gallente meta should be more along the lines of focusing on "SUPRISE CQC! Plasma to the face!" rather than buffer tanking.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 951	Posted - 2013.08.05 15:43:00 - [3] - Quote Cross Atu wrote: Until both the skill buffs and the "naked" mods are balanced for both sides of tanking there won't be actual balance between the two types. 0.02 ISK Cross I want to just tease out that point you made there Cross about armor and how the points that logis can get from armor tanks, in a way, shouldn't be disregarded as a side-benefit of an armor meta. Theoretically, armor tanking teams SHOULD be able to get orbitals faster, and in a way are REWARDED for taking extra damage, and even dieing in battle, if they can revive their teammates into survivable situations. Suits with more than 2x the armor HP as shield HP are better oriented to make use of injectors anyway. Also, I'm spamming this in a lot of places, I REALLY think 'range' is an underestimated form of 'resistances' right now. Somebody with a weapon that allows them to both stack damage mods for ~20% extra effectiveness, while also taking -25% to -50% damage at >50m from AR can make the speed penalty from armor, and the slower armor regen not as much of an issue.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 951	Posted - 2013.08.05 15:57:00 - [4] - Quote Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: Beren Hurin wrote: Check out my post about tracking w/ armor tanking. The problem with your post is that it isn't the ability to outtrack turning ability - armour still makes it easier to aim at a target. It's easier to hit a slow moving target than it is to hit a fast moving target, even if you can turn fast enough to somewhat hit the fast one. Did you read it? The point is that when you are aiming at a 10m/s shield scout or a heavy at 50m, its like the same difference as if you were aiming at something moving like .5 m/s or .51 m/s up close to you? Instead of distracting this thread, please direct a reply on that thread there though. My main point was that, I'm not sure I'd want armor tanking to have too much balance to speed reduction, because the logical counter-nerf would HAVE to be some nerf to the damage mods. If armor tankers could have equal or better buffers to shield tanks, AND have regen that wouldn't require eHP sacrifice, AND not have the speed penalty that they do, I do not see how that would be balanced while they could equip damage mods at the same time. If there is any module I would add for armor tankers it would be an: Ancillary Repair Booster - A highslot module that compounds the effectiveness of armor repairer modules, but has an endurance recharge penalty. STD/ADV/PRO - +25%/+35%/+45% armor repair module repair rate (or just flat repair rate). 10%/15%/25% endurence regen drawback. If you want better regen, you essentially then have to sacrifice shield eHP, or damage mods. This would let you magnify the equipping of fewer repairers, while increasing armor tank. Then, if they did reduce speed penalty in some way through skills, or on the raw mods, this would kind of cause 100% armor tankers to have more of an endurance penalty, rather than a raw speed penalty.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 998	Posted - 2013.08.07 12:26:00 - [5] - Quote Alright, another module idea then... IF a problem with armor tanking is its ability to be annihilated by explosives so as to completely nullify their teamwork aspect. What if: you added a highslot Damage Control module. It could increase the clone survivability rate after being killed. Basically it would increase that extra HP that is hit after all armor is depleted. Or it could give clones a few extra seconds after dieing. I am understanding and agreeing more though, that WHILE the key to armor tanking is teamwork, explosives are in very direct oposition to that teamwork. I am still undetermined whether the problem is that people haven't learned to adapt out of the solo focus yet or if mechanics make it that much more difficult. For example, remote repair tools have the ability to repair outside of anything's splash range. So if an armor tanking team were to attack an objective, they could all fight withing eachother's optimals while exposing each other only to isolated explosives damage. Also, being able to identify and stay up to date on targets easier, would let your team know, "Hey this area is covered by explosves we can't go there until we can suprise them" would help. They have talked as if this is a direction they may take EWAR, where you can scan an area and see the suit/weapons of the chevrons.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 998	Posted - 2013.08.07 12:39:00 - [6] - Quote Cross Atu wrote: ... 1) The other thing to consider with range is that not all armor tankers have it, the HMG is attached to the Heavy, the Heavy suit armor tanks (most often) and the HMG is not a long range weapon. A Heavy with a LR is usually less effective than a faster frame with the same weapon and that can be extended to the AR and Scram as well (if perhaps to a lessor extent). For the Heavy to gain ranged advantage they essentially need to FG snipe after being placed by a DS... 2) ...Further if a major value of the "slow-moving-can't-out-run-anyone" armor tanking line is range then we have a serious problem because the armor tankers have no way to maintain that range against the faster moving shield tankers. Part 1: I agree here. But, I think the Amarr Heavy paired with the minmatar heavy weapon was about the worst combination they could have started with. I don't think it is too hard to imagine a Minmatar heavy with a balanced slot layout and at least 10% faster base speed compared to the Amarry Heavy. Its also not hard to imagine that the Amarr heavy weapon should have significantly more range. For this reason, I don't think we will get a proper idea of each races tanking meta + weapon combinations until all of the racial heavies come out. The new problem for a lot of gunplay will become "How do I chew through all of this Heavy HP". Part 2: Well this was the point of my "scrambler shuffle" post. If I'm at 85m away from you and you have to get within 55m of me. You can sprint straight at me or off to the side a little bit with minimal transversal. Or you can zig-zag toward me trying to strafe my guns. In the former you can close distance faster than I can backstep, but for the 6-7 seconds you are still not in your optimal you should be a VERY easy target for my charged shots to hit. In the latter, if you are closing range by strafing, you are drastically reducing your forward speed letting me keep my range. Also I've tried to compile a lot of my ArmorBro stuff here.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1019	Posted - 2013.08.07 19:27:00 - [7] - Quote So they are working on scanning changes right now...and I'm working on a scanning 101 post atm, but I'm thinking... It makes me wonder if this might be their attempt at fixing shield/armor issues. If they make it much harder to see enemies as a team...THEN they made having SQUAD supporters from scanner/logis more important....THEN they made shield tankers have bigger profiles (caldari assault with 3 complex shields LOOKs like a heavy) that would REALLY change engagements. You'd be walking around with your armor squad...scanning every 8-9 seconds or so. In that time your squad could move about 50 m. You'd have a 100m-200m advantage on anything you can see, unless they are in vehicles, or unless they have dampeners, or are similarly armored. As things stand right now... Any medium suit has to sacrifice a valuable lowslot (speed/PG/CPU/armor regen) in order to hide from an STD scanner (or have dampening 'V' trained). Even then, to hide from a regular ADV scanner (or the AUR STD one), they would need dampening V and a PRO dampener, OR dampening IV and 2 dampening mods. These slots are a lot more valuable on a shield oriented suits as they have very few lowslots to spare and low base armor amounts. However, as far as balancing via a profile penalty on shield mods...this would also harm armor tankers, as you'd probably equip at least one or more shield mod, increasing your own profile. So if you do anything, rather than putting a penalty on shield modules, modify base suits' dB. I think Gallente medium suits should start at 45 dB, Amarr 46 dB, Caldari 52, and Minmatar would stay 50. Light and heavy suits would be modified by the same proportions. I really think this scanning change is going to have a very different 'feel' to battle. So lets say that armor tankers start going around also equipping w/o dampeners in their lowslots with the buff/nerfs I'm suggesting... Gallente and Amarr medium suits would be able to avoid detection from other non-skilled medium profile suits... At dampening V Gallente and Medium suits could avoid the STD scanners. @ dampening V + basic dampener they both can avoid ADV (36 dB) scanners. @ dampening V + PRO and ADV dampener they can avoid all PRO (28 dB) scanners but the Duvolle Focused (15 dB) @ dampening V + 4x PRO dampeners they can avoid all scanners. This would also advantage armor scouts much earlier in thier tier/skill progression by making gallente/amarr scouts able to avoid ADV scanners (36dB) with just dampening lvl 1 and a STD dampener. They could hide from all PRO 28 dB scanners with a PRO dampener. They would need 3x PRO dampeners then to hide from everything.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1140	Posted - 2013.08.21 19:30:00 - [8] - Quote Here's my suggestion for a role/application for reactive plates. Basically make them significantly resistant to any burst damage that breaks through shield. So in the end you get less eHP against constant damage, but you are harder to kill from OHKs or grenades. High armor dropsuits, and quick-regen dropsuits would do the best with this.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1146	Posted - 2013.08.22 03:27:00 - [9] - Quote D legendary hero wrote: SponkSponkSponk wrote: If they want to encourage pure shield or pure armour tanking, they need more percentage bonuses (like shield rechargers). e.g. if shield extenders and plates provided percentage bonuses you could still provide equivalent protection on suits designed for it, e.g.: http://i.imgur.com/0y6sXIK.png However, it means that you can't dual tank effectively because your base armor is too low to be worth it (you could use non-percentage stuff like reactive or ferroscale plates) with reference to your last sentence minmintar suits need an extra low slot per level starting from milita (which has zero) on upward. because their base ehp is really low, and they are supposed to be the most versitile suits, and fastest. yet, their speed is only marginally better than other suits. its a delicate balance because too much speed and you essentially have a medium suit with scout speed, too much versitility and they become your all-in-all go to suit for everything, too much ehp..well you get the point. adding this one extra slot per level will enable your minmintar suit to do more and be more versitile while simulataneously, still being the weakest in terms of tanking. i mean seriously, i can get 550+ ehp on my milita galente suit, but now where near that amount on my milita minmintar, and the trade off, is only .30m in speed.... that is laughable. onw im using milita as an example but of course going up hgher its easy to see that the minmintar can't tank as they should. (they should not tank better than anyother suit, but they shouldn't be so far behind that they are 200+ ehp behind.) Their speed is only part of their benefit. GIving them more eHP would be overpowered. They also have more stamina, which means they end up sprinting about 25% further than other suits of the same class. Basically they can make the most use of cardiac regulators and kincats.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1224	Posted - 2013.08.25 03:08:00 - [10] - Quote Cross Atu wrote: D legendary hero wrote: they have ~40% less ehp. but make up for that in almost double the movement speed, and as i mentioned a smaller hit box. And as I mentioned I'm pretty sure that hitbox size thing is a forum myth. Do you have any links confirming that it's a real thing or are we both speculating here? I'm pretty sure I've seen confirmation that hitboxes are different sizes based on suit size.

Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1224	Posted - 2013.08.25 03:34:00 - [11] - Quote https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1141246#post1141246 CCP Wolfman wrote: Quick info dumpGÇª The collision box changes size slightly as the pose of the model changes when sprinting. WeGÇÖre tuning this so that you donGÇÖt get the issues with catching on things anymore. The hit box doesnGÇÖt change size. The hit box is a different size for the different dropsuits, so yes the heavy is bigger and the scout is smaller. There seems to be a lag related issue with hit detection and that is most likely the problem youGÇÖre experiencing. WeGÇÖre looking in to that. I thought I've seen it before this, but this wasn't too long ago.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1444	Posted - 2013.09.06 15:53:00 - [12] - Quote Cosgar wrote: Well, I don't know if anyone else noticed, but with the lateral and backwards movement caps back in place, the new movement penalty values are near pointless. On top of that hit detection, aim assist, hit box fluctuation or whatever has eliminated the purpose of pure armor tanking, pure shield tanking and any other variant tanking styles in between. It's all about who has the highest EHP through hybrid tanking while modules like reppers, regulators, rechargers, and energizers don't matter because everything can kill you in 3 seconds. Disagree. I see WAY TOO MUCH fighting in AR range. That is the gun that WILL level you in no time flat. At about 65m the AR gets about 30% efficiency while the ASR/SR/Laser/MD and TAC AR all can hit really hard still. We shouldn't be arguing that your tank should be able to last so long for such and such a time. The longer a tank can last, the mmore irrelevant weapon damage profiles become, unless we want more weapons that do 30% damage to one or the other tank types. When you can take away 350 shield with one burst shot of your SR at 65m, and then follow up with a few more rounds you are engaging a strategy of tanking (kiting/tactical sniping) that isn't currently existing. People need to spread out. Don't forget that shield tanks were good, not because of how long they could survive, but because how quickly they could reengage after the fight. It was regen that mattered. Now we are all getting out of the bad strafing habit. If you are engaging in open terrain, then that is a huge risk. If you are engaging around or near cover, you have a better chance at surviving. Also, if you can engage and have an escape route that is not in the enemies LOS you have a better chance of getting away, especially if you are outside the detection zone of 10m-15m for most suits.
Beren Hurin The Vanguardians 1444	Posted - 2013.09.06 16:43:00 - [13] - Quote Cosgar wrote: I understand you bias against strafing, but it needs to be an essential part of gunplay or maps need to be re-worked to accommodate this short TTK, duck and cover style. It's not even about armor vs shields anymore because everyone just hybrid brick tanks since aim-assisted weapons can hipfire from extreme ranges and connect. Yeah I already posted on the manus peak map. I agree that map more than any has very little cover. But you get my point that TTK is directly proportional to weapon efficiency? When people are fighting against a really high DPS weapon inside its optimals they shouldn't expect the TTK to be very long right? And if you can strafe the fire of the highest RoF/highes DPS weapon then how do you balance weapons that are low RoF and medium DPS? If strafing is THAT effective against that kind of weapon, using any other weapon type becomes pointless, you see? If RoF is REQUIRED in order to land a significant fraction of your weapon's damage then either they would HAVE to buff the lower RoF weapons to hit even harder, or do something to negate the effectiveness of strafing as a counter. If for example there was a type of locus grenade (that I have suggested) that slows the enemy down, that could be helpful for combating it. But the most damaging aspect of strafing is its ability to negate incoming damage, especially against low RoF weapons. You can't say that there is a skill equivalent between the AR and the TAC-AR when it comes to landing shots. There is a huge advantage to that high RoF inside the optimals.
Beren Hurin Onslaught Inc RISE of LEGION 1764	Posted - 2013.11.06 20:45:00 - [14] - Quote Yep I think armor tanking is a seriously competitive thing now. Along with shield tanking and hybrid bricking (hybricking?). Speed tanking isn't really viable for anything other than just having the speed to get around to kill/place equipment (and I haven't heard a good reason for why it needs to be) With added weapon ranges, they (scouts/speedy guys) may be able to be a little more competitive at tactical/skirmish ranges, but it would be REALLY hard to try and make it somehow so there is a mechanic that MAKES speed an actual way to mitigate damage. It only was a possibility because hit detection was so buggy. Speed tanking was a bug, IOW. Instead of speed tanking the third option isn't so much tanking, but detection/avoidance with signal disruption. It shouldn't be underestimated as the ranges of weapons start to stretch out. If people are looking further down the horizon on the outer circles of their TACNET for targets, they will have to divide their attention. Being able to slip in closer, or be able to more comfortably search for cover because you are dampened enough to avoid a scanner means you will be able to get the jump on the enemy squad.
Beren Hurin Onslaught Inc RISE of LEGION 1764	Posted - 2013.11.06 21:12:00 - [15] - Quote Beta Bob wrote: It does need a balance and it should balance out at the highest level max gun skills vs max health skills should not be as one sided as it is now. Atm when you play one might as well be roaming the battlefield naked for the shields and armour make no difference at all I feel like the loudest folks on TTK here are the PC folks. I think in pub/FW matches with completely manageable latency (most of my experience) I'm at EASILY able to get by as a very logi oriented logi that gives most of my fitting budget to equipment rather than tank ending up with 500ish eHP. 500 eHP can die to a sneeze according to some folks, and can't stand up to the lucky core locus grenade, but more often than not, since I can detect enemies ahead of time I can keep enough distiance between us to make my scrambler rifle or mass driver deadly enough, and in those instances where I am close, I feel like I have enough of a grasp on the scrambler pistol that I am safe. I do not expect to be able to dive into 3-4 people and come out alive as some people think they should. The problem with PC still isn't TTK is it latency. Poor lag forces a closer gun game because AR has the best DPS and RoF combo. AR requires close range, and close range fighting requires enough of a balance of speed and tank. This favors shield tanking for a variety of reasons that are pretty obvious. Therefore, I think it stands pretty clearly to reason that the problem with the meta now isn't weapon/suit stats, its hardware/network capability and reliability.