So here's something that's been bugging me for a while, and which I've put a bit of thought into, "why does Dust have tiers, when it's older sibling went through something called tiercide? Tiercide (from what I've gathered, I don't play eve) aimed to completely rebalance pretty much everything so that no ship was fundamentally better than another ship, just better at a given role. This approach meant tier 1 ships (the racial basic suit in dust) were the general ships that could be used in various roles, while the tech 2 ships (the specialised variants, assault, logi etc) were very good at one role but not so much at others. This means that every ship has a place, and none are simply rendered obsolete by moving up a skill level. This is a very good idea, it means that everything has the potential to be used and nothing should be ignored because the next ship in line is better in every way. We need the same thing in dust.

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.

So T2 Light would be Scout/Pilot and T2 Heavy would be Commando/Sentinel?

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. :(

I think a good way to solve the proto stomp without removing suits or a huge overhaul of mechanics is to give all suits the same module as the proto counterpart but seperate them through CPU/PG. This lowers the HP difference by a lot, and give basic suits a lot of diversity right from the get go. Another option is to remove the basic and ADV suit, and just make a singular suit across race and role, and the diversity would come only from how you build the suit. Along with this increasing the damage weapons do and lowering ADS movements speed, and increasing X, Y sensitivity to make the game deadlier and closer to the gameplay of most other FPS games, so bob already has a skill advantage, but also keep the uniqueness of the fitting system.

i've also suggested this before too... we need to tighten the obscene powergap that increased module slots creates when you go up to proto gear.

At the very least make it so adv is one slot less and std is 2 slots less.

example:

Cal Logi Proto: 5/4
Cal Logi Adv: 5/3
Cal Logi Std: 4/3

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.

One of the problems with DUST is that we have no equivalent to low sec and null sec, like they do in EVE.

In EVE high security levels protect the lower level guys. Lower security levels give the upper level guys, with much better equipment and SP, more opportunity to reap greater rewards for the greater risk of lower security space.

In DUST, we are all in the same big pot of guys trying to make a buck.

I'm not sure how to give a similar balancing mechanism in DUST.

There aren't enough of us to cover the whole EVE universe.

Making more tiers outside of the academy might help. It could be based on SP or equipment levels. Of course there would also be wide open tiers where anyone could fight with any type of equipment.

Perhaps the reward system could be used to stratify folks a bit better? Jobs in high security space might offer lower ISK rewards and jobs in low security space might offer higher ISK rewards. Expensive proto gear couldn't be replaced easily if proto gear can't make money. Penalize SP for losing too many clones to discourage people from playing militia gear in these matches.

Perhaps a list of battles could be generated which show the security level for each battle. Before each game starts a player might wish to decide which security level he could fight in. Proto gear, or recent academy graduates could be banned from high security and low security jobs, respectively. This would make sense because an EVE corp would not want to pay the higher costs for proto armed mercs (who have higher overhead) in high security space, where the jobs would be much easier (CONCORD pretty much keeps things quiet and prevents big, expensive wars).

Make fewer NULL cannons, CRUs, available clones, drop areas and turrets in low sec, so people have to be more aggressive and more likely to use better suits.

Penalize players who use up a lot of clones if they wear militia gear in low sec space by reducing their SP.

Maybe make hackable objects have different difficulties in different security types of space, so only proto suits can hack harder objectives and only lower tier suits can hack easier objectives.

In any case, I hope they can figure something out. We are eating our young in pubstomping matches.

Oh, and fix the AFK issue. That would help, too.


Munch

CCP isn't going to base matchmaking on skill points or gear levels , it is stated in my previous post . As for the security levels , it is represented by the 3 game tabs. Instant action is in High sec planets and both factional war and PC is in low sec. The matchmaking will be based on player skill . I think the idea is since proto players are usually get a lot of kills,wps, wins , etc they will be matched together more likely, and if some player that usually runs standard gear and plays really well a lot of the time, they will most likely be matched with the proto players. And lastly , I think they will balance the tiers so one won't be better than the other.

If the tiers are flattened out as you're supposing, then there will be a lot of, "If tier two isn't better than tier one, and tier three isn't better than tier one or two, then there's no point in skilling up."

If the tiers are flattened out as you're supposing, then there will be a lot of, "If tier two isn't better than tier one, and tier three isn't better than tier one or two, then there's no point in skilling up."

So you feel that though I've been constantly participating in, gaining practical experience in, and beta testing, MMOs since 1999, I'm ignorant. Your own arrogance laced ignorance astounds. You should know your target before attempting to offend and insult. If I were to assume based on your statements, I would guess you were between 10 and 14 when I started my foray into MMOs. But to assume would be folley as you could have started earning your degree in your late 30s which might put you at around the same age as myself. Now that isn't to say that age makes a difference, but I do have a good 16 years of comprehensive adult experience behind me.

Here. Maybe this will help.

A massively multiplayer online game (also called MMO and MMOG) is a multi-player video game which supports large numbers of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played over the Internet. Many games have at least one persistent world.

MMOGs can enable players to cooperate and compete with each other on a large scale, and sometimes to interact meaningfully with people around the world. They include a variety of game play types, representing many video game genres.

This describes Dust.

After thought: After a little research, I've reached a conclusion that CoD type games are MMOs in the barest sense as they use the internet to connect players to each other. In my mind they're still not true MMOs as they lack dedicated developer maintained servers and a "persistent world".

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.

And there you go, I said it was as much an MMO as the newer cod or battlefield. Just the simplest thing like interacting or questing with NPC's in open space area'd are not present in Dust(yes drones, but we heard about them for a year or two, if not more now). Instead of telling him off Shijima, go google Battlefield Heroes and compare that mechanisms of that game to how dust is. By all means, reading your 3-4 posts, your conclusions about an MMO describes most of the mechanisms of Battlefield Heroes and that game is not a f'kin MMO.

Either works, as I've said before, removing or nerfing proto is just an idea. What this post is really about is removing/narrowing the gap between tiers.

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.