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

Arkena Wyrnspire wrote:

[P5] Penalties
Fitting armour plates doesnGÇÖt only slow your movement rates (both sprint and normal), it also slows down your turn rates, and by extension your aiming ability. Also your strafe speed, which makes you much easier to hit.

This is completely unreasonable for an FPS game. Movement speeds are harsh enough, but reducing the playerGÇÖs actual ability to aim in a game where aiming is everything is an unreasonably harsh penalty. This impacts accuracy directly, reducing your ability to hit people at distance or headshot people.

It hurts your CQC ability because people can actually strafe faster than you can turn, meaning it becomes a severe disadvantage in CQC. It prevents you from responding to the threat behind you as quickly as you need to.

The penalty, of course, affects mobility. This is important for two main reasons.
The first is how easy you are to hit, and the second is power projection.

The ability of other players to hit you is important. If youGÇÖre getting hit more, you are being damaged more and you are dying more. If youGÇÖre running across an open stretch and someone starts shooting at you, the longer you spend in the open running the more damage youGÇÖre taking and the more likely you are to die.

Your strafe speeds are also slowed, so when it comes down to a straight 1 on 1 gunfight you can easily be outgunned as it's so much easier to hit you.

Mobility should be a drawback of armour, but in its current form itGÇÖs penalising far too heavily for what it gives. For example, the scaling of the speed penalty between tiers is awful.


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EXASTRA INVICTAS Crux Special Tasks Group Gallente Federation 135	Posted - 2013.06.17 16:01:00 - [1] - Quote Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: [P5] Penalties Fitting armour plates doesnGÇÖt only slow your movement rates (both sprint and normal), it also slows down your turn rates, and by extension your aiming ability. Also your strafe speed, which makes you much easier to hit. This is completely unreasonable for an FPS game. Movement speeds are harsh enough, but reducing the playerGÇÖs actual ability to aim in a game where aiming is everything is an unreasonably harsh penalty. This impacts accuracy directly, reducing your ability to hit people at distance or headshot people. It hurts your CQC ability because people can actually strafe faster than you can turn, meaning it becomes a severe disadvantage in CQC. It prevents you from responding to the threat behind you as quickly as you need to. The penalty, of course, affects mobility. This is important for two main reasons. The first is how easy you are to hit, and the second is power projection. The ability of other players to hit you is important. If youGÇÖre getting hit more, you are being damaged more and you are dying more. If youGÇÖre running across an open stretch and someone starts shooting at you, the longer you spend in the open running the more damage youGÇÖre taking and the more likely you are to die. Your strafe speeds are also slowed, so when it comes down to a straight 1 on 1 gunfight you can easily be outgunned as it's so much easier to hit you. Mobility should be a drawback of armour, but in its current form itGÇÖs penalising far too heavily for what it gives. For example, the scaling of the speed penalty between tiers is awful. Excellent point here that we all know and feel the effects of too well. I am one of those with the opinion that armor tanking penalties should apply to stamina and stamina recharge rate. Make it so we can't jump as high, or run nearly as far/long, but don't turn an armored scout into a medium suit aiming/speedwise but with even less tank, and don't turn medium suits into heavy suits aiming/speedwise but, again, with even less tank. Reducing our stamina/stamina recharge gives similar effects to actually being slowed down, without the TERRIBLE drawbacks of not being able to properly aim or sidestep to cover. That said, I would also like to see implementation of the racial flavorings where Amarr suits favor plates and buffer but Gallente favor armor regeneration. I really don't understand why CCP have made Minmatar/Caldari Shield, Gallente Armor, and Amarr "both"?
EXASTRA INVICTAS Crux Special Tasks Group Gallente Federation 136	Posted - 2013.06.17 16:25:00 - [2] - Quote Arkena Wyrnspire wrote: [P8] The new modules Here we get to the new stuff, the modules which are meant to GÇÿfixGÇÖ armour. They fail in their mission. These new modules are the Ferroscale Plates, which give less HP than normal plates but without any speed penalty, and the Reactive Plates, which give an even smaller amount of HP but with a small amount of regeneration and a small speed hit. Now this all sounds good in theory, but thatGÇÖs until you get to the numbers that CCP decided to put on the plates. Complex Ferroscale plates: 60 HP Complex Reactive plates: 45 hp, 2hp/s, 4% movement penalty For comparison, normal plates: 115 HP, 10% movement penalty. And for more comparison, Complex Shield extenders: 66 HP -lots of really good information that I am cutting to make the post itself smaller- I agree here wholeheartedly. For starters, Ferroscale Plating. They offer LESS HP than equivalent shield extenders, have high fitting requirements, and remove the armor speed penalty entirely (which shields don't have to deal with for one). Considering shields come with a very high natural regeneration rate, and the Ferroscale plates DEMAND an armor repairer (for abysmal recharge), this is an important thing to note. We are getting rid of our armor tank's greatest drawback, at the cost of being just a statistically worse version of a shield extender. A Ferroscale plate should offer ~75 armor at the complex level, giving it a slight edge over shields in RAW EHP. However the armor tanker will still have to spend one or two slots dedicated to armor repair modules, which will not only cut down on overall tank but also eliminate a significant amount of buffer. I have a feeling CCP was attempting to balance these under the assumption people would be using these plates bare with a dedicated logistics running around and repping you in combat. Which is nice in theory but is just not in practice. Coming up to the Reactive Plate modules, we feel kind of awkward and dirty now, don't we? We're getting an armor buffer amount that would crumble under angry stares and mean comments, let alone actual bullets. On the plus side, we are getting reduced movement penalty (still a penalty, still stacks =\) and slight armor regeneration rate. It is of my opinion that these plates should be used in order to amplify your armor repair rate by a good margin, whilst sacrificing speed (as per armor) and your raw HP advantage. I think these plates should be closer to complex shield extenders in HP gain, even if they are undercut slightly. For example, a 55 aHP @ 2hp/s could grant us a fitting like: Gallente Assault 1x Complex Armor Repairer, 1x Complex Armor Plate, 2x Reactive Plates 210 + 115 + 55 + 55 = 435 Armor Regen: 10.25 aHP/s Armor Penalty: 18% movement This is significantly closer to the fitting you provided of: Gallente Assault 2x Complex plate, 2x Complex armour repairer 210 + 115 + 115 = 440 12.5 HP/s regen 20% movement penalty We notice that we would come up only 5HP short on overall HP, and 2.25 HP/s in regen, with 2% added mobility. They're fairly close, which may not be a good thing. Alternatively there is: Gallente Assault 1x Complex Armor Repairer, 3x Reactive Plates 210 + 55*3 = 375 Armor Regen: 12.25 HP/s Armor Penalty: 12% movement That's 8% less movement penalty than a "standard" complex fit (which considering Complex plates aren't used, and enhanced are used instead, this is a VERY comparable fit for actual gameplay). But it doesn't quite feel good yet, huh? Shields still get higher buffer, and double the regeneration, all without the movement penalty. There is no clear area where armor tanks can say "We've got you, there!" so my suggestion alone may not be quite enough. Perhaps reducing the movement penalty from 4% to 3% as well (making 3 plates give a 9% penalty instead of 12%) would help? Although that's only making it better than it currently is, and not giving it a clear role on the battlefield, let alone being comparable to shields. At the same time, this brings me to my previous point that Gallente should favor active armor and Amarr passive buffer. The Gallente Assault suit should be getting a LOCAL armor repair bonus. The problem is that while this may make Gallente Armor tanks a very viable thing, it would NOT fix the core problems with armor. There certainly are a lot of things and situations to consider, eh?