Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Agreed, there is definitely some gameplay enhancements that can be made with tweaking rigs but rather than doing a major overhaul in time for inferno its something thats better approached as well thought out incremental changes released with the smaller patches.

Thank you for listening to user feedback and not rushing the changes.

I have to say that what you are saying is complete nonsense.

Local active tanking is already good for solo fights, group active tanking (logistics) is good for groups.



Edit: as far for the so called disparity, shield and armor are balanced.

Have you ever shield tanked? Shield tanks have less EHP than armor tanks and often get hit harder thanks to the sig bloom. Also it really messes with tackle and EW.

What about taking a page from the side effects of the blue pill? You tank more but have the possibility of less overall shields. Give that as a penalty to active shield/ armor rigs. Make the resistance rigs for both shield and armour passive.

If that is the baseline you want to work from, then think about the requirements for each, types of situations where each could have advantages over the other, then evaluate what modules make or break that.

Perhaps the way to approach this is to make passive tanking the appropriate style for your kiting/mobile ships, and active tanking for the stationary ones. There are still problems with Amarr/Lasers and active tanking, but at least you are working from a racial ship type that isn't still mostly broken (lol Gallente).

Don't start with just rigs, run the whole gamut. Modules, rigs and ship bonuses all at once. But start with a plan for each of the tanking styles that isn't 1/3 of the equation.

Random thoughts...

What if Active Recharge/Regeneration happened over the cycle of the module, rather than at the beginning or end of the cycle? What if having an armor repair unit fitted provided some passive regeneration to armor (at a very slow rate, like the built in shield regen)?
What if passive tanking modules reduced the repair rate of any active repair (remote or local), and vice versa, and rig drawbacks enhanced these changes?

Tanking should also take into account the "role" of the ship. If it's a hit-and-run ship, it might need bonuses for passive tanking, while a stationary brawler would need bonuses for active tanking. Or, more accurately, a reduction in the drawbacks for using the "appropriate" rigs for the ship's design.

I have an idea, how about we stop obsessing over "ship roles" and let ships do multiple things depending on their fits? You know, since that seems to be the whole point of configurable hulls...

CCP should be lookng at buffing active tanking so it's possible on a greater variety of ships (rather than only capitals and BS/BC that are specifically bonused for it). More ships should be able to be fit in more ways. CCP should be focusing on making variety possible, not pigeon-holing more ships into more specific "roles."

That still leaves us with the mess that armor tanking is at the moment. In many situations it's just not really an option, as you can no longer move (or at least not fast enough to not die). I don't have anything against differentiating between armor and shield tanking, but having the "brawler-race" (Gallente) pay for having tank by slowing them down is just not working. To quote Sigras a few posts up: "The problem is that in small gang warfare, speed is life."

Either find an alternative for the speed penalty or make the sig penalty actually meaningful (while it isn't irrelevant it's not nearly as bad as the speed hit for armor tanks). A great way would be to revamp the tracking formula to include damage scaling (or something with similar effect). Talk to CCP Greyscale about this or read a great discussion in the Titan Changes-Thread, starting at roughly page 30.

As about having drawbacks or not, rigs are in many ways similar to modules but not quite the same. Their permanent nature is the most obvious difference, it also factors into the fact that they were - as I understand it - intended as tradeoffs. Get more of this, give up a little of that. Problem is that the applications are so vastly different that with the exception of a few niche applications one of 3-4 rigs will be used. More HP is useful in any PVP situation, more HP regeneration (+rep amount or -rep cycle time) is useful for any PVE situation, having more or faster charging cap is even universally good (likewise having more PG). Having specialty rigs like +warp speed is nice, but with few exceptions not worth the drawback or slot, at the very least it doesn't beat getting more HP, regen or a better cap (and that's even a reasonably often used rig, let's not talk about Inverted Signal Field Projectors for example).
All those things need to be put into an actual balance. Some rigs are basically free, yet still not used. EVER. This should say something about the balance of rigs in general. Drawbacks come into play much later, but can also be used to achieve some more balance: drawback amount should be somehow related to how universal the advantage of a rig is. Why again are energy grid rigs without a drawback? I understand that they are extremely universal, and therefore the drawback needs to be equally universal, but I'm sure something can be found, right?

Also, why is salvage tackle an armor rig?

EDIT: Forgot one thing, there is also a pretty huge discrepancy between armor and shield rigs in terms of cost. Large armor resistance rigs are about 12-15 mil, Shield resistance rigs are all below 500k, and that's market price and not material cost (closer to 200k).
Why?
If you look at the material composition, all armor rigs (resistance or other) need Armor Plates as the key ingredient driving the price. Shield rigs are split between Ward Consoles and Malfunctioning Shield Emitter, the latter being required for the resistance rigs. WHO THE HELL DESIGNED THAT? Seriously, please take a good long and extensive look at rigs in general, there are so many problems, it's not even funny...

Suggesting to revamp damage formula so that sig matters more is one of the most brilliant acts of pharisaism I've ever seen. Everyone knows that it's unlikely to happen any time soon. It's just too much of a hassle. Besides, doing that for the sake of mere rigs is just plain illogical itself and on top of that may spoil more things that it actually fixes.

CCP just has to come up with a clear vision of what rigs actually are - a mere module or something giving you an edge in your primary attribute at the expense of something secondary. Without adopting such a thought any attempts of fixing things on the fly are just bound to be chaotic and inconsistent.

Those suggesting that armour rigs should reduce shields are acting as die-hard pharisees, too. Who the hell gives a crap about having 10-15% less shields while armour tanking?? Go sacrifice something significant!

I remember Gleam crystals reducing the shields of my Prophecy in like 2 or 3 times (so that I had like 1/3 to 1/2 of the initial value). Guess what? I coudn't care less - and that particular thing was probably the least important of all penalties (others included increased cap usage, reduced tracking and sig bloom).

This is a perfectly obvious-in-hindsight, straight out excellent idea.

Get rid of the calibration stat altogether and implement this. It fixes so many problems with rigs that it's just not funny (including triple-trimark II'd supercaps)