Can I get a tl;dr?

I would like to see this done combined with extra basic suits added each with its own role bonus like the frigates of eve. You'll have your ewar one support one assault one and tankier one etc to give variety this game sorely needs without having the current proto or gtfo tiers. the role bonuses would encourage people to get to level five of the suit but still keep them effective at the lower levels.

Its an MMO, not a standard FPS. Also, aurum only lets you get things sooner that you can already get with SP and ISK. Know the game.

Just curious, not disagreeing with your post at all, but how would they monetize if you didn't need SP or aurum gear to unlock awesome gear?

Mary'd.

(New term, it means when someone comes in and tries to educate people despite said people already knowing what they're talking about. Make it happen bunnies)

First mistake is saying that proto w/o HP mods is better than basic with HP mods. You're wrong. Basic, Advanced, and Proto suits of the same type, without HP mods, have the exact same EHP.

The Eve side tiericide only applied ships within the same level class.

Example... Amarr
Basic Amarr Battleship reqs for Armageddon, Apocalypse, and Abaddon: Spaceship Command 4, Amarr Frigate 3, Amarr Destroyer 3, Amarr Cruiser 3, Amarr Battlcruiser 3, and Amarr Battleship 1 (The differerence in the old skill reqs were Armageddon: Amarr Battleship 1, Apocalypse: Amarr Battleship 3, and Abaddon: Amarr Battleship 5)

Amarr Navy Issue Faction reqs for Armageddon (NI) and Apocalypse (NI) : Spaceship Command 4, Amarr Frigate 3, Amarr Destroyer 3, Amarr Cruiser 3, Amarr Battlecruiser 3, and Amarr Battleship 2

Amarr related Pirate Faction Battleships reqs for Nightmare: Spaceship Command 4, Amarr and Caldari Frigate 3, Amarr and Caldari Destroyer 3, Amarr and Caldari Cruiser 3, Amarr and Caldari Battlecruiser 3, and Amarr and Caldari Battleship 1

Amarr Black Ops Battleship reqs for Redeemer: Spaceship Command 5, Amarr Frigate 3, Amarr Destroyer 3, Amarr Cruiser 3, Amarr Battlcruiser 3, and Amarr Battleship 5, Science 5, Navigation 5, Warp Drive Operation 5, Jump Drive Operation 5, Jump Drive Calibration 4, Electronics 4, Cloaking 4, Black Ops 1

Amarr Marauder Battleship reqs for Paladin: Spaceship Command 5, Amarr Frigate 3, Amarr Destroyer 3, Amarr Cruiser 3, Amarr Battlcruiser 3, and Amarr Battleship 5, Gunnery 2, Weapon Upgrades 5, Advanced Weapon Upgrades 5, Science 1, Engineering 2, Energy Grid upgrades 5, Marauders 1

So, as you see, the tiericide was rather minor as far as skill reqs for a class of battleship were unified with minor adjustments to ship attributes.

Firstly, you can kill any other suit with a milita rifle. Second, I'm quite guilty of running proto suits, though not usually Duvolle guns. CCP is experimenting with different design doctrines, and they have a lot of work ahead of them. They have recently increased defensive options, like rechargers. If rechargers or armor repairers are too good, everyone will stack them. If they make small tweaks to milita gear, the could make it easier on new players, but make easier isk farming for everyone. They want to promote consumption of ISK and AUR, but who would bother paying for minor upgrades? There are typical stacking penalties in Eve, but the are not applied to shield or armor extenders. Even if they do something to discourage the stacking of EHP mods (run speed or hit box size for shields) everyone would focus on quick recovery or gank power. They have a cool ISK system to discourage proto overuse, but it doesn't work well enough, and will fall apart when I can dump Eve ISK or supplies into my Dust wallet or inventory. CCP knows this, and I doubt they know how to solve that one yet either. Regardless, my Exile is still deadly.

Ignore the numbers: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pet88sKPbMV7G4PqvgRySV1Df5kRyioMIaiSABFIwII/edit?usp=sharing

There, I just created a bunch of variation.


About your idea:
Rename Basic suits (From the list above) as T1.
Assault and Logi are T2, where they aren't just better than T1, they are specialized.
T1 is a mesh of a logi and an assault, can do both but a bit worse.

Have T1 and T2 gear, T2 gear is more CPU/PG intensive and has greater downsides in addition to the upside.

Old prereqs were lvl's 1,2 and 3 for T1 ships within a class, not 1, 3 and 5, but other than that it's rather spot on. Dusts system, while similar, really isn't compatible with the concept. It would be like having a fast version, a tanky version, and a high damage version of each suit which were at the same level rather than the STD/ADV/PRO suits we have now.

Slot count differences and tiered mods with passive skill bonuses have that effect. If we had single suits in a catagory with helpful yet not game breaking bonuses it wouldn't be as much of an issue, but that breaks the whole intended economic effect of wearing proto all the time, not that it ever actually works out that way.

The EHP and DPS gap you just mentioned.

I don't want to read what you wrote because its long and im very tired, but based off your title I would say..... No? Tiers are the only way veterans can feel like their time has payed off. Being equal with everyone despite playing five times more is just a horrible feeling. Like..... whats the point? If I want to play equal with every other nooblet coming into the game ill go play COD or BF3.

Technically, we were never supposed to leave beta with all our skill points to begin with.
The system of vets killing the game for new players is unbelievably true.

Even if you're a vet, you make a new character, and leave Academy, you don't stand a rat's ass of a chance. It's nasty dude.
But in reality.... the huge problem for new players is that they simply CANNOT escape the protobears.

They just can't.

Even if they join up with a corp, it makes no difference. It will be months and months, before they can be solidly competitive gear-wise.
This is perfectly fine for any game with the mmo moniker.
The difference between every other mmo and Dust is... newbies can escape to the PvE world to train and be prepared for PvP.
In Dust, you can't. You HAVE to pull your pants down, and lay face down, ass up, and take it for MONTHS, before you're able to fight back effectively. It's not like that in game like CoD or BF3, where you can pick up a gun, and down anyone no matter how long they've played. Dust has chosen to implement elements from both genres, but it's badly mixed. You can't have only pvp, with characters that get dramatically stronger than others, and then tell the new players that they have NO CHOICE but to sit there and get there ass handed to them, month after month after month, and do NOTHING else.

Tell a new player to just take it, and he's going to laugh at you.

So we need to get some PvE into this game... otherwise the OP's post is going to be the most sound way to retain new players.
Fk how long the veterans have played, the newbies HAVE to be capable of killing you, or doing something else until they can. :(

Given the right amount of CPU/PG that would be much closer to how the weapons are done.

Off the top of my head if we got rid of the tiers I would think you would have to give high sp vets modules / perks like better scanning or more range on rep tool and nanohive; an active shield they could activate for like 1-3 secs etc.

Dont want to think too much about it though - unless CCP is going to change course.

Touch my hard earned proto gear and die. I earned it thru blood, sweat, and a lot of cursing. I am all about leveling the field but touch another mans gear and your asking for it. Do you feel lucky punk do you

Honestly... the solution is not to nerf proto gear, it is to buff std/adv gear.

Give std and adv gear the same number of slots as proto gear, and maybe a 5% bump in CPU/PG.

It would level the playing field a lot while still giving a sense of progression.

To me, it's simple: Increase the ISK cost of Prototype level gear to a point that significantly prohibits the continuous, uninterrupted use of said gear.

I've put many, many hours into this game, so I could finally have access to the Prototype level gear that gives me a decided advantage on the battlefield. Take that away and I (along with a huge chunk of the foundation of the already dwindling player base I suspect) would immediately stop playing the game.

Is Prototype level gear a "crutch" for me? No, it is not. I've been playing FPS games for 15 years and have always had the level of skill to consistently dominate on a level playing field. To me, proving how much skill I have (in a game with horrible hit detection and shooting mechanics nonetheless) on an even playing field doesn't keep me engaged. Like someone else said, there needs to be that carrot to chase, and the carrot is earning the ability to use gear that is superior to all other gear in an obvious way.

However, using this gear should be something that is done in moderation or only in certain situations. Much like one's decision to use a fitting they have equipped with their limited supply of officer level weapons, the decision to run Proto-gear should come with the realization that running it indefinitely is not sustainable. Right now, I can run proto-gear 100% of the time and still make money or, at worst, tread water with my wallet, because my deaths in any given match total 0, 1 or 2 about 95% of the time.

I think those players who have put enough time into this game to get to Prototype level gear should get to enjoy the advantages of said gear, when they want to use it and take the hit to their wallet. My Gallente gk.0 fit right now costs about 120k ISK per fit. That may seem like a lot to some players, but I don't think it is nearly enough. I honestly think it should cost me 300k ISK to run that fit, meaning that even if I play an entire match without dying, I would still be losing 50-100k ISK on an average Ambush match. If I did happen to die a few times, I would be going 1 million ISK in the hole. If that were the case, a lot more players would embrace/be forced to use Advanced/Standard/Militia level gear a reasonable amount of the time.

Why didn't it work? What is the fundamental flaw? Did it just come down to the biggest corps funding the purchases for their players, with the smaller corps not being able to afford to do the same?

What, no one realized that we have tiers because it's a f2p game and the company that makes it has to make money? You guys seriously don't see this and talk about balancing through 'tiericide'? Good luck I guess.

Skills, not gear.

Say it with me GÇö SKILLS NOT GEAR, SKILLS NOT GEAR!