good lord, please go find a hobby. Throwing numbers around like this is probably just as boring for you as it is for anyone reading the thread. This is a pointless exercise.

I don't play COD very often anymore for a reason (everyone is the same with no real benefit to leveling up), that said this looks like a re balance that would require a skill reset of some sort or even just an asset reset, which would be just as bad/good. Can you clarify what you mean without throwing a spreadsheet at me? I am whole-heartedly opposed to any new resets as I have seen so many I just want to work on skilling into the gear I've wanted for the last 2 years.

good lord, please go find a hobby. Throwing numbers around like this is probably just as boring for you as it is for anyone reading the thread. This is a pointless exercise.

Sounds good but seems like an awful lot to change and balance while we already have so many pressing issues at hand.



Some people like numbers, thank you very much. If this thread bores you then move on.

It's for the best.
I know it's a lot of work, in fact CCP are doing it in EVE for 4 or 5 expansions now, and they still haven't even touched capital ships.
But the sooner they start before there are 101 variants of suits, the less work they will have.
Dust needs it.

GDI Cat! I'm in the middle of working on the exact same topic- just in a different way. We should compare notes when I'm done.

Awesome!
Come to Dust IRC, we'll talk there.

I can't get on IRC at work.

After work :P

How to go about such a change is difficult. You can't just remove ADV and PRO; that's slashing content. And in a content starved game, that's a good way to get players to leave.

However, we can do some interesting things to retain the previous depth and feeling of investment, while crafting a system that keeps everything useful.

I'm going to run through a little case scenario to show what I mean.

Here's a skill tree I cooked up for the Skill Tree Think Tank thread.

Looking at the tree, you'll find that I've marked Standard equipment to be unlocked by the basic operation skill. Case example: Hybrid Weapon Operation unlocks standard "tech 1" versions of the Nova Knive; Assault Rifle; Shotgun; Plasma Cannon; Sniper Rifle and Forge Gun. There's also a proficiency skill for each weapon, and a bunch of Weapon Upgrade skills.

So here's where things start to get a bit wild; proficiency unlocks the ability to use ADV and PRO gear, so what do we do?

We can turn ADV weapons into "tech 2" modular weapons which can fit various upgrade modules unlocked by the Weapon Upgrades branch.

By default, the ADV weapons are nothing more but STD weapons in terms of stats, but their modularity allows you to specialize them a la mass effect 3 weapons bench (in other words, you slap a 4x scope on your rifle, you lose hip fire accuracy in exchange). Each ADV weapon has various amounts of slots depending on the weapon in question and is fitted just like any suit or vehicle.

We turn PRO weapons into faction, pirate, and officer weapons. They become semi-rare to very rare loot drops and their performance varies from "straight upgrade from STD but worse than ADV" faction, to "straight upgrade from STD, about as good as ADV" pirate, to "better than ADV" officer.

This solves the current power creep problem.
STD becomes baseline equipment. They scale exceptionally well with your support skills, and have great bang for buck.
ADV becomes a more expensive, but customizable STD weapon where increasing one trait diminishes another.
PRO becomes a high risk reward option that is rarely seen in anything but the most serious fights (adjust drop rates as nessesary).

Missed the point.

Indeed he did.

Good to see you finally put this up! If they're going to do the radical changes they say they are, emulating the Reykjavik team and discarding the Tier system is probably in order.

This proposal provides players with skill for Frames with the ability to actually be useful, rather than just get stomped on by Specialists.

Shameless self promotion and cross posting from gbghg's thread.


My thread is here, in case anyone cares about the skill tree.

This is not slashing content.
In fact this adds even more content.

REMEMBER, EVERYTHING IN THIS THREAD IS AN EXAMPLE, AVOID DEBATING ABOUT SPECIFIC ITEM BALANCE, ONLY THE IDEA

Then why the wall of numbers? Would have been better spent explaining why tiericide in dust is needed. Also, I like numbers, just only when used appropriately in a way that makes some amount of sense, rather than distracting from the point.

Concerns - Current system allows people to pay a premium for performance. This is not inherently a bad thing, and its certainly how it happens in EVE. Where in the new system will this have a place?

In the current system the power or edge you have over opponents is primarily better equipment. Lots of skills are solely about unlocks, and the inherent skill bonuses are minor at best. In your proposed system, where the equipment itself has less tiers, would having skill ranks themselves for their inherent bonuses be the most important differentiating factor? They would need to be much more powerful than current skill bonuses.

Sorry my initial post was rude, but people should be skeptical of jesus-feature-overhaul-ideas of core gameplay design. We certainly need to examine it more critically than "it was good for eve so its good for dust." Tiers in EVE were bad because they combined differing roles with increasing costs and increasing general performance. Here, with the exception of some weapon/equipment variants only being available at ADV/PRO level, a higher tier usually conforms to the exact same role.

Not a fan of having 5 versions of the gallente medium frame, either. You're taking customization that should be left to the module fittings and transplanting it unnecessarily to the suit choice.

Another random comment, in the current system the light/medium/heavy suits are too similar to scout/assault/sentinel suits. Hopefully that will change when CCP gets the suit bonuses sorted out.

I'm pretty sure that those people in this thread complaining about your op just didn't take the time to read it. If they did they might see that what you are saying is one of the most well thought out solutions to the std/adv/proto system that is keeping a large portion of the playerbase from being competitive.

I really like the idea. I think that the diversity of adding in multiple variants of everything and keeping it all at an accessible level would make the game experience much less of a grind.

Few problems though. How would they overhaul the entire system and how would they keep everyone from piling onto a FOTM suit (ie: balance issues that will need constant tweaking).

All in all though this is a great idea and I support it.

I don't understand your "how would they overhaul the entire system" comment, can you explain?
And the answer to the FOTM thing would be, they should stop making stuff that is so godly OP that it becomes a FOTM.
OP stuff doesn't get latched on to unless it's godlike, and those can be avoided. (LLAV, Caldari Logi, Flaylock, TAC AR, those are all obvious if they just give it 5 seconds of thought)

I'm fine with something being slightly stronger or slightly weaker, as it will eventually get fixed and since it's only a slight thing, most players won't bother latching onto it/moving away from it.