Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Escalation doesn't have these updates...

Don't rain on my parade, vagrant!

Yes! Get rid of factional mining frigates and cruisers and give us a ORE mining frigate!

Great comments in here, let's address some of them.

• MERLIN: we can see how the loss of the shield resistance bonus poses a problem to this hull; we first wanted to get feedback on a possible medium-long range overhaul for that ship, but as people mentioned here, that's very difficult to achieve for a slow frigate or even for any kind of platform using small weapons in the first place. Back to the drawing board!


• CAPACITORS: also fair points regarding capacitors, in some cases (Punisher especially) we initially wanted capacitor to be the drawback of these frigates, but it may be quite difficult for them to do their jobs while being affected by neuts. We'll iterate on that.


• TORMENTOR: the point of this ship is to give a more all rounded, comfortable hull to use for engagements than the Punisher, which explains the range and quite significantly increased fittings. This is still up for constructive discussion as well.


• ONLY 5 SHIPS?!: unfortunately for Inferno, yes. We initially wanted to revamp all frigates for this release, however problem is we are lacking Dev power at the moment (I am assigned to other projects as well, and Tallest is playing daddy with his twins ) so yep that is lame, but sadly we will have to cope with that for now.


• MINING SHIPS & TORMENTOR CHANGES: the plan is to completely change mining ships into more interesting hulls, and possibly add a basic mining role to Rookie ships and/or bit more advanced one for a special ORE frigate. Since we can't do much more than 5 frigates for Inferno, that means the other mining frigates will stay that way until we overhaul them, hopefully to be touched soon after Inferno.

Also, some players have expressed issues understanding where we are going without having a more accurate picture of the other frigates, allow us to give you a glimpse of things to come.

• COMBAT FRIGATES: have a balanced damage / resilience / speed ratio next to the other frigates. Includes the Tormentor, Punisher, Merlin, Incursus and Rifter.


• ATTACK FRIGATES: in general faster than the other frigates, with good damage, suited for interception or just damage dealing, but less resilient than combat frigates. Includes the Executioner (turret ship), Bantam (turret ship), Atron (turret ship), Navitas (dedicated drone ship), Slasher (turret ship) and Burst (TBD, possibly drone ship if role doesn't conflict with Navitas)


• BOMBARDMENT FRIGATES: classification is mainly cosmetic, not much different role wise than Combat / Attack frigates. Mainly use missiles, speed / EHP between Attack and Combat frigates and depending on their individual purpose. Is made of the Inquisitor, Condor, Kestrel, Tristan and Breacher. Supposedly being split up by two versions, those that are close range based with high damage (rockets) and the others being more of a medium range platforms (and thus light missile based).


• SUPPORT FRIGATES: split in two, first, the purely scanning frigates - Magnate, Heron, Imicus, Probe - and EW frigates - Crucifier, Griffin, Imicus, Probe. All need a boost, but their role should not be changed much.

Remember, theses classifications and frigate affiliations are still likely to change, and are mainly used to help us sort them out for now. These are just concept changes still, there will be other discussion threads for them specifically, so don't freak out

Nooooo !! :'(
My poor poor tristan, going to caldarize more... :'(
Please, tell me gallente won't have a whole missile line. :'(

I have arguments : secondary weapon system of gallente is already drones, they absolutely don't a third weapon system ! And missiles are so much caldari... Give us a rail plateform maybe ? Or leave it with its split weapon system ? Maybe a more shieldy blaster boat (with more med slots than low slots ; could also be a combat ewar ship that way) ?

BTW, you swaped Maulus for Imicus.

Just keep in mind that the Dramiel is pretty much the only "t1" frigate that's viable outside of super-close range scenarios. This is due to it's insane speed and ability to fit a decent tank. All the other frigates are too slow, too fragile, or both, and can't survive at mid ranges at all when any ships between BS and frigate size are on the field.

I don't think you want to make T1 frigates that are as powerful as Dramiels, though, so best gear them towards close-range bullet-dodging :)

As I said before, I think you could also afford to throw some bigger stats / bonuses at frigates than other classes of ship-- they're so weak to begin with and are typically flown by newer players. As long as their T2 equivalents are still "better," I see no reason not to give T1 frigates a pretty big set of buffs.

Can I be CCP Shortest? I really am short.

e: I don't think I look as good in a Quafe shirt as guard though :\

What, no Vigil?

If this is the vision, I'll say again Drones. Drone ships are by definition well rounded comfortable hulls. They are very flexible and can accommodate many roles because the mid and high slots can be multipurposed. Scanners, neuts, ew, salvagers, codebreakers, and such that normally are impossible to fit on a combat ship without killing the dps are fine on a drone ship. Also, Drone frigates can often, in PVE at least, operate from beyond turret range of frigates to in-your-face range.

And again Amarr need the drone hole plugged. Amarr use drones even more than missiles, so the hole should be plugged in T1 frigates since it is silly to have a T2 drone frig, T1 and T2 Cruisers that use drones as primary damage, and no T1 counterpart frigate.

I'm also going to agree with an above poster. Gallante are the primary drone race. There is something wrong with giving them a dedicated missile frig. Especially when drones are just fine. This is paving the way to create a Missile hole in the Gallante line. Since it is silly to have a t1 dedicated missile ship, then no dedicated missile boats in higher classes. Stealth bombers are an exception, so there is no need fill a hole there. I know we just introduced cool missile effects, but there is no need to put missiles ships in every race just to show them off.

edit- Didn't mean to be rude. Thank you Ytterbium for attending this thread and taking our comments seriously.

Thanks for replying CCP Ytterbium. I want to give you my perspective on the whole ships lines thing
My primary advice is to give all Caldari ships (all lines) the racial resistance bonus

Caldari Combat (Merlin): CCP seems to want them to use hybrids (read railguns). This is quite difficult, the current optimal range bonus isn't good enough to make railguns work. The T1 Caldari ships of this line need a gimmic -> giving them very good sensors so that they can lock on first from longer range and making them very hard to jam.

Caldari Attack (Bantam): The attack definition seems to suggest high speed blasters? Maybe an combination of an active tanking bonus and a resistance bonus? This would make them attrition brawlers / tackle.

Caldari Bombardment (Condor, Kestrel): Beside the racial resistance bonus, the other bonus should be a ROF bonus for the close range models (DPS) and a general damage bonus for the long range model (alpha)

Caldari Support (Heron, Griffin): Please add a bonus for ECM drones for the T2 EW sub-line.