I completely agree with this.
That would be the best way.
Perhaps if reactive plates were rejigged as resistance modules then they'd have their own part to play.

What about some kind of nerf to shields? The time to kill is too long in this game (current explosives excluded). Limit the amount of shield extenders you can fit perhaps?

I'd honestly go the other way a bit. I think the average time to kill could stand to be increased by about 20%.
The faster you make all deaths the faster new players die as they'll take the harsh end of the stick there.
The faster the average rate of death is the more effect you need out of your gear in a short time to make it worth running at all, this compressed risk vs reward is problematic as, taken too far, it will discourage players from fully leveling skills and thus shorten the lifespan of the game.
Also, the shorter the average lifespan becomes, i.e. the easier it is to kill someone, the more focus it puts on pure slayer tactics and meta within the game which isn't an improvement IMO. Besides the blow to support roles it all increases the FotM behavior and the use of things like redline sniping, murder taxi, etc. as ways to mitigate risk.

To kill faster under present, or even higher average, eHP standards it's relatively simple. Shoot them in the back and/or head, that's a OHK with many militia weapons using zero damage mods or SP to support them. Even with 20% more eHP in game there would be many weapons that are OHK simply by investing SP into their use (to say nothing of stacking on damage mods).

0.02 ISK
Cross

I'm starting to lean towards this as well, I still have concerns about role overlap/contention between the reactive plates and the standard plate + rep combo but that may need a fix of its own.

Cheers,
Cross

this is one of the most popular threads recently....

where are the DEV'S??? they need to be HERE agreeing with you!!! telling you that this will happen

It's actually slowing down quite a bit now.
I'm fairly certain that they've taken note - my work is done, at least until the next round of balancing comes out and I have to complain about role definition/armour OP/armour UP.

We'll see in 1.4, I guess.
Thanks for your support.

When is enough, enough?

I'd honestly go the other way a bit. I think the average time to kill could stand to be increased by about 20%.
The faster you make all deaths the faster new players die as they'll take the harsh end of the stick there.
The faster the average rate of death is the more effect you need out of your gear in a short time to make it worth running at all, this compressed risk vs reward is problematic as, taken too far, it will discourage players from fully leveling skills and thus shorten the lifespan of the game.
Also, the shorter the average lifespan becomes, i.e. the easier it is to kill someone, the more focus it puts on pure slayer tactics and meta within the game which isn't an improvement IMO. Besides the blow to support roles it all increases the FotM behavior and the use of things like redline sniping, murder taxi, etc. as ways to mitigate risk.

To kill faster under present, or even higher average, eHP standards it's relatively simple. Shoot them in the back and/or head, that's a OHK with many militia weapons using zero damage mods or SP to support them. Even with 20% more eHP in game there would be many weapons that are OHK simply by investing SP into their use (to say nothing of stacking on damage mods).

0.02 ISK
Cross

Until everything is fixed.

And if that becomes increasingly unlikely? Like 1.4 adds shield boosters to infantry or the regen bug doesn't get fixed soon. In a relationship its good to know when you feel like its okay to walk away. When does that happen here?

[REQUEST] Infantry Shield Transporter - https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1107071#post1107071
Status: Good idea, we can add this, but after we balance armor vs. shield tank first.
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1154291#post1154291

Oh hey, they might be doing that.

Personally, I'll give it 10k more words before I walk away.

100 likes for Goebel!

I think that the time to kill for the higher end, i.e. prototype, suits is fine. It's rarely instant or quick apart from with particularly high damage, and they can soak up a fair bit of normal fire.
The problem comes for the lower tiered suits. They have minimal HP compared to the prototype suits, and due to the way weapon scaling works dps remains similar (though it does increase) as you go up through the tiers. This means that while you can have a longish TTK for the protosuits, it's much much shorter for the militia and standard suits.

It's a little more of a problem when you need to restock your gear like you do - it's more frustrating to be instagibbed, even in a relatively cheap suit, than it is when that suit is free. That's not really a balance concern though.

The other problem with low-end gear coming up against high end gear is that the slightly lower dps, in addition to being used to softer targets, means that the high end gear seems practically invincible to the average newbie - A prototype suit can bully through a substantial amount of low-grade militia fire.

When thinking about TTK I would much prefer the toughness of lower tier gear to be increased specifically rather than do a blanket increase. Of course, with weapon nerfing TTK increases anyway, so over time I think we can expect TTK to go up a little bit.

I was most specifically comparing the tanking mods to the weapon dps, so while I do think a moderately higher average TTK would be a good thing it is most specifically a statement of "to balance armor tank vs shield tank it is better to buff armor tank than nerf shield tank even if this means that some players hybrid tank and created a somewhat increased TTK".

The ability to endure more fire shouldn't be too heavily throttled when it comes to mods used because, as you know, each mod fit is taking up a slot which could be providing another advantage so we need to be very careful about not creating artificial bottlenecks or ceilings to value of any given mod type or it can negatively effect overall balance.

Playing my "I've invested not even 1 SP into anything and run only starter fits" character for testing purposes it is speed most of all which I feel the lack of. My dps is lower but I can compensate by being more careful with where and how I fire. My eHP is lower but I can compensate by being mindful of where and how I engage, albeit this is harder to accomplish than the dps compensation and leans on map knowledge which a truly new player will not have as much of. Range is just a matter of knowing what weapons you're up against, and is a bit of a coin toss how quickly someone will pick it up.
But speed, speed is almost a hard cap on performance and it effects almost everything.
Getting into and out of fights/cover, getting to and from objectives and hot zones, moving to resupply yourself or support allies, essentially every aspect is effected by speed and the less of it you have the more other attributes you need to approximate the same level of function. While I understand why CCP removed the free LAVs doing so was one of the biggest blows to new players in quite a long time. Leaving the issue of "murder taxi" aside for the moment those new players now cannot adapt and react as well as the higher SP players can because they do not have access to the same mobility.

While I agree that in the hands of a skilled player a properly fit prototype kit can handily take on militia gear it is positioning and adaptability which wins those fights more often than raw HP or dps. Give a vet militia gear and good ground against a new player with proto gear and poor placement and the vet wins most days of the week. This statement is not simply hypothetical either as the "game show" even displayed.

I agree that low meta gear vs high meta gear is not ideal and hopefully matchmaking will address that, but I also think that balancing low meta gear against high meta gear isn't the best practice either, taken to its fullest extent there can't be balance between the types until meta ceases to have meaning.

0.02 ISK
Cross

is CCP going to fix this or not? thats all i want to know. and if o, when? an ETA is nessesary.

https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&find=unread&t=101975
I CAN DIE HAPPY

Well. I'm a very happy man. There'll be a little more on this topic (about reactive plates, in particular) but this has made my day.
This is the culmination of 3 months of campaigning! <3 you all.

People already started crying OP and they want to nerf my Logi suit :(

I saw that. What the hell is wrong with people?

https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=101975
I can die happy.

Everything is OP, nothing is okay.

Pretty much. Let's consider this a preview to the butthurt that will ensue when the Gallente and Amarr assault get armor related bonuses.