Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Update: As per CCP Zulu's latest dev blog, Capital ship balancing is on the list for next patch!
Update 2: After CCP Tallest's blog much of the discussion has moved there as it should but i will keep this post updated with my views on the subject w/ edits and tweaks as we go.

The current imbalance in EVE's Capital and Super-Capital class ships is of course apparent to everyone. The question is simply, how do we fix it? My solution is as follows and follows three important rules:

1. Don't break a mechanic to counter another broken mechanic.
2. Less is more. (use already in game mechanisms to fix the problem)
3. Stick to defined roles. Every ship should have strengths and weaknesses regardless of value.

Starting at the top and working my way down i will present small tweaks to the current class ships that when combined i feel will give us a very rewarding and exciting big boy toy game.

Titans
Currently there are three main issues with titans. First being turret tracking, second the doomsday, and third the ability to log off mid combat and live. So Following the three rules laid out above, how do we "fix" these issues? Surprisingly its more simple then people think. Lets look at them individually.
1. Titan turret tracking is stupid straight up. Reduce tracking speed to that of a sieged dread and you still maintain the titans role as a capital killer but fixes the problem of an Erebus instapoping a Cynabal with its guns...
2. The fix for the doomsday is already in game and is currently used by bombs. Basing the DD damage off sig radius would completely fix the issue caused by titans taking out support and command ships via DD. By adjusting the damage to the point where carriers and dreads would still be killed in one shot and at the same time making it so sub cap ships couldn't be killed the same way would further define the titans role as a cap killer. In fact, with the DD based on sig radius, it should deal more damage to super capital class ships thus expanding its role as a super capital killer.
3. The aggression log off mechanic needs to be changed. Simply put, once your fifteen minute aggression timer has worn off your ship will disappear from the game. If you continue to take aggression, that timer will continue to be reset. Simply put, if you go into a fight, you either get out or you die. Since super caps are really the only ships affected by this rule, the change would not be game breaking but would simply remove an exploit that many supers use to save themselves.

Super Carriers
Super carriers are really an easy fix. Lets look at their main issues. First, their immunity to EW is an issue and secondly the damage done by fighters in super blobs is clearly overpowered. Fighter bombers fill their role quite nicely and really don't need a change.
1. Immunity to EW. 2008 called, it wants its broken mechanic back. Its time SC have this ability removed and in its place, given exceptionally high EW strengths. For example, a SC would have a warp core strength of 6, making it possible to hold it down with a conventional fleet but not a few solo ships. SC would also then be able to ECM burst each other.
2. Fighter damage to subcaps by super blobs is an issue. This can be solved by setting the fighter per level bonus to one per level as it is on the carrier. SC are cap killers by role anyway and should focus on using their bombers in a fight anyway...

Dreadnoughts
The poor dread, clearly the capital ship most in need of some love. The following two changes should give them new life.
1. Its time we reconsider what the dreads role is in this game. After much thought and a bit of wormhole running its clear that the dread as an anti-sub captial platform is where it needs to be. Add a bit of tracking and an explosion velocity bonus to the citadels and this can easily be achieved. Yes, its not what dreads were initially intended to be used for but times have changed, so a "refit" is in order. Doing so would create a very nice balance between the sub / cap / super classes being that subs kill supers, caps kill subs, and supers kill caps.
2. 5 minute siege timer. Nuff said!

Carriers
Carriers i find to be the ship needing changed the least. A slight HP buff wouldn't hurt them but its not overly necessary. The one change i would like to see is for carriers to be able to use fighters while in triage. This would allow them to fill a true support role by repping supers, and engaging hostile support at the same time. All the while having a tank that keeps them alive long enough to do it.

Overall HP
Many have been calling for HP nerfs on supers and this i don't agree with. These are expensive ships and usually die far to quickly as it is so a nerf is not the right answer. The difference in the tanks on these ships is an issue however. All SC class ships should have a tank somewhere in the range of the NYX. 34m effective with a solid fit is a good spot for these class of ships. The poor Hel needs some love and the Aeon needs a HP reduction hardcore. As far as the titans are concerned, these ships should be by far the largest tanks in the game. Increasing all the titan tanks to somewhat match the Avatar's would be my vote.

Carriers
Carriers i find to be the ship needing changed the least. A slight HP buff wouldn't hurt them but its not overly necessary. The one change i would like to see is for carriers to be able to use fighters while in triage. This would allow them to fill a true support role by repping supers, and engaging hostile support at the same time. All the while having a tank that keeps them alive long enough to do it. This is an intresting idea but consider non 0.0 applications this would make carriers a bit overpowered, you would have guys undocking niddys from station to rep his buddy in a mega and using triage to super rep while being able to assist wiping everyone out with fighters, it would unbalance things a bit i believe. Carriers are pretty good with the Either they are super self or remote repping ships, or they can fight. I can see some bot sitting in a Sanctuum now triage tanking while smashing stuff not that they need to but try tackling that with a conventional fleet and kiling it, better bring along your bhaalgorns everywhere. What needs fixing is the chimera's **** CPU all carriers can fit out what they like but the Chimera where u need a shoe horn to fit it..


Overall HP
Many have been calling for HP nerfs on supers and this i don't agree with. These are expensive ships and usually die far to quickly as it is so a nerf is not the right answer. The difference in the tanks on these ships is an issue however. All SC class ships should have a tank somewhere in the range of the NYX. 34m effective with a solid fit is a good spot for these class of ships. The poor Hel needs some love and the Aeon needs a HP reduction hardcore. As far as the titans are concerned, these ships should be by far the largest tanks in the game. Increasing all the titan tanks to somewhat match the Avatar's would be my vote. I disagree, super caps are fine with the HP they have Amarr are heavy armor tankers and just like the archon vs the thanny the nyx does huge damage, The hel does need lots of love to rebalance it the real problem with supers is the SLAVE implants, there is no shield counterpart such as a Shield extender version this is the huge problem. Also Crystal sets dont work with any caps so they are not on par with Slaves.


Now what is really missing is a Tier 2 dreadnaught, there is the Tier 2 carrier i.e. Super Carriers where is the Super dread??? The ship that costs what a MOM/SC costs and has the role we are missing to bash supers and other caps, there should be some balance between Super caps. need something there, honestly they need to drop the titan down to a tier 2 Dread and make a real TITAN not these ships that are giant jump portal light beam logistics ships that can be killed 1v1 by a SC. but thats just my opionon. anyways doc good post.

Some interesting ideas here, initially i was thinkiing 'wtf, reduce deployed fighters???!' but it does make sense: farm out support to sub capitals. So yeah, it's not a bad idea



I think the NC. and WN + Rdn used alot of titans was because Goons + Co. threw hundreds of BSs at them, and i mean hundreds.

One idea i had to reduce the abilities of the DD without reducing the DD was to make it run on a unique fuel, one that had its own bay and needed special ships to farm it, move it, refine it etc, and a titan could only hold enough for a few shots at most? Make it more interesting by having the hauler not able to use a titan bridge?

Also the problem with dreads was they may face hundreds of BSs, and simply wouldn't have the EHP buffer to survive .

In regards to the Hel, i have put a fair bit of thought into it, and have 3 possible ideas on how to to give it a 'leg up': 1) disallow the slave set to bonus SCs. 2) Change the Crystal set to add base shield amount. 3) Give the Hel an increase in Capital RR amount as well as an activation cost reduction. One tanked up Hel RR'ing another does not allow as much sustained damage as an equivelent Aeon.

A few other different ideas i had was to make the SC models larger, so a bunch of them would have serious issues getting into RR range of each other.

I don't agree with the Ewar immunity at all, they are very expensive ships and should have clear advantages beyong DPS and EHP

would be nice to have a 'Juggernaut' or third tier dread as the carriers have the third tier super carriers

Bump, these are solid ideas.

bump love these ideas. keep it up.

My Review,

Rules:
1. Don't break a mechanic to counter another broken mechanic.
2. Less is more. (use already in game mechanisms to fix the problem)
3. Stick to defined roles. Every ship should have strengths and weaknesses regardless of value.[/quote]

I wished more posters where like you, these are great limitations and reasonable goals for yourself.

Titans

1. Tracking I agree needs to be toned down but to make it bad as a seiged dread would make it useless to even consider slapping on. It needs to be fast enough in the ranges of between (to hit a 'chance' of hitting a battleship that decided to be unlucky) and (carrier). It should no way be hitting cruisers clocked out at max speeds.
2. Im a bit iffy on this one, You could make it so it actually requires true alignment with target in order to hit though and since titans arnt space ballernias it would serve the function just fine.
3. For aggression timer I see no harm being applied to ALL ships.

Super Carriers

1. I totally agree ever since the 'down grade' super carriers should technically not class as a 'super capitol' thus should lose the ewar immunity. Or if they have ewar immunity, make it to all remote supports as well like remote repairs. More emphasis on the projected ewar blaster would be nice.

2. As for fighters and bombers in general, I think ccp needs to whack all carriers with an interation of the first drone balance. Which was reduction in number, and increase in effect, well go from there afterwards.

Dreads

you broke rule 1 here
There is currently no mechanic that increases damage against larger ships outside missiles and missile explosions and ship sizes. Also I think its a bad idea but I would love a more viable means on anti cap damage from dreads.

I think the 10 minute timer is till good for committing to the fight and its a heavy decision to make. however Id like to see lesser of a gap between seige mode and unseiged mode in terms of damage.

Carriers

This will have to get the bean ball for now and well have to see where carriers stand after above changes take effect

HP Buff
I have to agree about not removing the HP buff, I still see a titans melt in minutes and with the sizes of fleet wars comming too these days removing it would only quantifiy the problem just as bad.

Actually if anything this one is breaking rule #2 by implementing a new mechanic instead of using something already in game.

The issue is Dreads are fairly well balanced against everything but SC and Titans. Simply increasing their damage would change this current balance in a negative way. Or would it? This is the issue ive been giving the most thought.

One possible change that's come to mind is to do just that, simply increasing the dreadnoughts damage and tank. Call it an eve wide refit by each of the races. Double dread DPS and double their EHP. Possibly add the option for a viable dual rep setup? The drawback of course would be that the engineers would need many, many more armor plates and shield generators, therefor increasing the build cost two fold as well. This change too could be applied to carriers, but not to as big of a degree. Increasing DPS and HP by 50% would give them the survivability and damage necessary to help counter large support fleets. Again, cost would increase by 50% as well.

By increasing the gap between Battleships and Carriers / Dreads we open room for new classes of ships to take on roles. Im thinking specifically of two ideas in particular. Escort Carriers and Siege Battleships.
http://kero40.deviantart.com/art/ESCORT-CARRIERS-COMPILATION-180571190?q=boost%3Apopular%20in%3Acontests%2F2010%2Feveonline&qo=60
http://www.eve-search.com/thread/1169873/page/1
Escort Carriers being Orca sized / priced carriers able to field 5 fighters and have bonuses to RR. Siege Battleships would be T2 Tier 3 battleships with a price tag of around 1b to 1.5b (half the price now of a dread) and would fill the gap between battleships and dreads with an emphasis on anti-capital support.

A careful balance would have to be reached of course with any new ship implemented but i think we can see that changes can be good and the addition of new content can find a place if old content is changed to accommodate it.

I just thought preventing SC bombers from attacking structures would bring back the purpose of the Dreadnaughts

I would also if possible increase the size of the Bombers to 5 are launched and Multiply their power by 4 and their HP so conventional fleets can attempt to deal with the bombers on an individual basis.

instead of cynos using x LO every y seconds, have them use x LO for every y ships. people only use 1 round of LO to hot drop 200caps on you anyways.