Well they have been changing it up. 4 racial rifles each fulfilling different roles on the battlefield. Balanced suits for the most part. And vehicles are under the weather for now. It's a fun game to play if you have a friend or 5 to play it with.

I'll stay with Battlefield where I don't have to put up with pesky f2p mechanics. Honestly Battlefield does everything Dust does but better

You have to remember though. dust is a free to play. it's the first time that CCP ever made an FPS. It's the first time CCP ever worked with a console. It's one of the only games to overhaul its graphics, audio and environments midway through open beta development. It still has more unique and distinct guns than most games out there (including CoD, BF, destiny, and most FPS's on the market). Mainly due to the fact that there weapons aren't restricted to just lead so there guns can charge up and have spool up etc. It's suits and absolute customization ability surpass almost any game on the console market. The different damage types (that actually do stuff) fulfill various roles on the battlefield, and simply enough everyone is a different fight than the last. As everyone has different movement, shield, armor, weapons, and repair/recharge rates. It has one of the best concepts of about any game on the market, they just released it to early and drug the fans through glass and nails to get to the point they are at now.

F2P games are fundamentally flawed and they force payment through excessive grinding and often of times are set up to where you'll need to spend more than $60 USD if you want to experience everything the game has to offer. Dust 514 is a perfect example of this and consequently I don't enjoy playing it as much. A games quality is while derivative of the many factors involved with the development will always be compared to similar products with different factors as well. It does not matter if a product had better factors or not with its development because whichever game is better will be more desirable to play. Now those guns you mentioned as being more "unique and distinct" aren't really that. The ideas behind the weapons rely on pre established sci-fi stereotypes combined with modern day weapons. All the assault rifles look the same and the same goes for every other weapon class in the game adding to a shitty F2P design and you essentially buy stats not guns. In Battlefield you have 20 unique Assault Rifles that all look, feel, recoil, sound and fire different. The inclusion of suits are just a practice in poor game design as they are not visually distinct at range and lead to consistency frustrations. Not to mention have another F2P model that encourage buying stats. A good concept does not make a good game and in Dust 515's instance it's basically a Battlefield knockoff that includes EVE online. It doesn't sound nearly as good as concepts behind games like Sunset Overdrive, Dying Light, Titanfall, Bulletstorm.......etc

You don't have to spend a penny on dust ever. It does not force you into buying any weapon in dust ever. The only thing you can buy are BPO's (basic suits that don't run out) and AUR variants they work like this... Lvl 3 wants a level 5 weapon. He can play a few more days or just buy an aurum weapon (which can be lost in battle) which is [u][b]exactly[/b][/u] the same as the level 5 one you buy with ISK. The only difference is the level 5 one has more SP applying to passive abilities. Dust is the only F2P game I have ever seen that never forces you into buying anything to play. You can't buy SP so it just takes playing it to get better. They supply militia variant everything that take no SP to use and are cheaper. Which helps rookies, they also have an academy now to get people on there feet faster. Every standard battle rifle looks very different. assault rifle: a carbine CQC-short range plasma weapon. Well rounded. High mag capacity with a preference towards indoor environments. Scrambler rifle: semi auto high accuracy medium range variable charge weapon that fans out its barrel when charging. Looks like a cooler mythoclast in some ways. Uses a plasma induced laser channel. Rail rifle. Long-medium range fully auto high damage weapon with poor hip fire and very high kick. Thick, split barrel. Uses rail flechette rounds. Combat rifle: multi-tool CQC-medium range burst fire weapon, low damage but a high cyclic fire rate of 1200 RPM per burst. Bulpup old reliable design. Uses lead Each weapon has different variants in it class either making semi auto weapons full auto visa versa. The weapons of a class look the same but the different battle rifles are all very unique in functionality.

No if I want to play the absolute best I can play I'm going to have to buy a better weapon or grind it out for an unnecessary amount of hours. The variety in Dust is still laughable in comparison to many other games And again you're practically buying stats in that game. It's cool that you like it but don't delude yourself into thinking that it goes beyond your thematic preference

I'm not saying that it's better than other games. But it has a better more expandable basis and better core. And no you don't have to grind that long to get a good weapon. takes about 6 days to get a level 5 weapon now, if you play about 3-4 hours a day. Like I keep repeating nothing you buy with real money is better in any way than stuff you just buy with ISK. And you [u][b]cannot[/b][/u] buy SP in any way. There is no rank in that game anyways, making it difficult to tell how good a player is. they have labels you get from playing a side activity of factional warfare now. You remember how dust works right? You buy all the stuff to put on your suit and if you die and bleed out in the suit you loose everything on that suit. Making real money purchases more of a sample platter.