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New dev blog: Rebalancing EVE, one ship at a time

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Ger Rees
EntroPrelatial Vanguard
EntroPraetorian Aegis
#2061 - 2012-05-22 08:59:08 UTC

I'm not a huge fan of the idea of changing requirements such as heavy assault ships IV to be able to fly command ships,
I like that eve makes you start at the bottom and get good with smaller ships first, but that's just my opinion...

I Definetely like that you are removing the level V requirement for some of the t1 ships, the covetors barge V req. made no sense at all...


Finally, and most importtantly: I would love to see an Amarr drone or even tracking disruptor battleship... We seriously need one...
Argyle Jones
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#2062 - 2012-05-22 17:37:59 UTC  |  Edited by: Argyle Jones
CCP Soundwave wrote:
Smoking Blunts wrote:
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
The skill requirement changes for destroyers and battlecruisers is very tricky to tackle indeed. We fully acknowledge having to re-train for ships you can already fly is not appealing at all.

As said in the blog, nothing is set in stone yet, we are considering various reimbursement options as this is still quite a high level change.



it not just not appealing its crazy.

pre patch i can fly all cs's and all dic's. post patch im ******. i either pick to fly a claymore or damnation or a vulture (eos is **** anyhow) and then im screwed for the next 80 odd days retraining for ships i could already fly.

you either reduce the ranks of the destroyer and bc skills so reimbursed skill points from the old cover all 4 races, or you just give people all 4 races.




We'll find a suitable reimbursement that makes everyone happy. I'm not terribly fussed about giving away a little extra if it moves we move the ship progression system into a better place.


I'm just wondering why the ship progression system is so important that it's worth having to reimburse skillpoints over in the first place?

There seems to be this track of uniformity going on over at CCP. We are getting uniform item names. We are getting uniformity between faction warfare and null-sec in the naming conventions for sovereignty. We are getting a single window unified inventory. Now you want to make all ship progression uniformly identical.

Are you not worried that you're reducing the complexity of the game, the variety that makes it interesting and the learning curve that appeals to many of your more serious players? I certainly fear that if you continue down this track, EVE could lose some of its depth, character and complexity to the point where it becomes another bland MMO in the pile.

Also, please consider that while you would like to draw in more new players, most of your older player base have several characters. For every old bittervet that quits the game, you have to draw in several new players to turn the same profit. A quest to eliminate the learning curve and simplify EVE might backfire economically.
Phoebe Prime
The New Federation
Shadow Ultimatum
#2063 - 2012-05-22 17:43:11 UTC
Argyle Jones wrote:
CCP Soundwave wrote:
Smoking Blunts wrote:
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
The skill requirement changes for destroyers and battlecruisers is very tricky to tackle indeed. We fully acknowledge having to re-train for ships you can already fly is not appealing at all.

As said in the blog, nothing is set in stone yet, we are considering various reimbursement options as this is still quite a high level change.



it not just not appealing its crazy.

pre patch i can fly all cs's and all dic's. post patch im ******. i either pick to fly a claymore or damnation or a vulture (eos is **** anyhow) and then im screwed for the next 80 odd days retraining for ships i could already fly.

you either reduce the ranks of the destroyer and bc skills so reimbursed skill points from the old cover all 4 races, or you just give people all 4 races.




We'll find a suitable reimbursement that makes everyone happy. I'm not terribly fussed about giving away a little extra if it moves we move the ship progression system into a better place.


I'm just wondering why the ship progression system is so important that it's worth having to reimburse skillpoints over in the first place?

There seems to be this track of uniformity going on over at CCP. We are getting uniform item names. We are getting uniformity between faction warfare and null-sec in the naming conventions for sovereignty. We are getting a single window unified inventory. Now you want to make all ship progression uniformly identical.

Are you not worried that you're reducing the complexity of the game, the variety that makes it interesting and the learning curve that appeals to many of your more serious players? I certainly fear that if you continue down this track, EVE could lose some of its depth, character and complexity to the point where it becomes another bland MMO in the pile.

Also, please consider that while you would like to draw in more new players, most of your older player base have several characters. For every old bittervet that quits the game, you have to draw in several new players to turn the same profit. A quest to eliminate the learning curve and simplify EVE might backfire economically.



I sincerely doubt that this is the case. Making it easier to find items or pick out what item does what based on names and location is a matter of convenience. They aren't huge game changers, just cleaning up all the lose ends over the years.
Creh Ester
Presence under Leisure
#2064 - 2012-05-22 18:48:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Creh Ester
I see that a lot of people claim to like this. Well, We'll see.
Personally, I hate it. And my gut reaction is: A lot of unnecessary and complex changes for reasons that will only seem good to anal retentive persons suffering from some kind of compulsive organization disorder syndrom. And changes are always bad. Always bad. Sometimes, they are necessary, but even then they are bad.

Yes, I can certainly see that people think a lot of ships are useless or obsolete, and see the tier system as the culprit. And this is true. However the reason it's true, is because of all the other faulty game-design that EVE is full of. In this context I'm thinking specifically of lack of fuel-costs for ships, + lack of costs for ship damage, + the dreadful size handicap system.

Smaller ship sizes immediately makes much more sense when they are coupled to an operating cost!
Size handicaps or purchasing costs will never make sense of all ships. They only benefit suicide gankers and goons who can always find something cheap and good enough. (like so many other poor-adviced exploit-enhancing things as: ready trained trial alts, ready trained new alts, crippling modules, gang modules)

Role may seem, to above mentioned anal retentive CODS person, as a better idea than tiers. Granted, tiers was a terrible idea. However, why do we have modules at all if our devs are going to decide the 'role' for everything?

Do I have a personal ax to grind? Yes I do. I've adapted. I've already found roles for many 'obsolete ships'. Now CCP starts by ruining my Merlin and my Incursus. I'm not pleased. Not pleased at all.

I'm also not pleased that this nonsensical, vain, useless struggle to artificially contrieve all ships useful by assigning impractical and useless balancing just continues and continues, year after year. People will continue to fly only a few types of ships. Those which happen to work well. Until the inevitable day when CCP desides to nerf those well and deep into oblivion and uselessness (who uses a Raven these days for PvE?). And then we have to find the new best choice, and so on. - Braindead!

My suggestions are far more radical, and I absolutely don't expect to see them. But they would work, unlike this and other potato-mash from CCP (don't they have a single mathematician in their ranks?). Remove hull and armor reppers from the game. (yes, completely change tanking and make armor and hull damage always cost). And make ships need fuel.
Now, flying and fighting with those ships will suddenly cost money. Operating costs. A very good reason to think twice before taking that T2 BS out for a spin down to the grocery. It would also give ships a new role-attribute, range.

So dear CCP, now the Merlin and Incursus both have three hybrid towers, and the same role, "shortrange brawler". So how are they now different and both valid? And you said this rebalancing was to avoid obsolete ships? Well, since almost regardless of how you fit these two ships now, the Incursus tend to end up with almost twice the tank. And it does that even as it's faster, deals more dps, and still have two empty slots left, and CPU and PG to go. So tell me, dear CCP, how is the Merlin not utterly obsolete now? Does "balance" mean something else to CCP? Explain, please.
Gishna Okel
United Allegiance of Undesirables
#2065 - 2012-05-23 07:21:04 UTC
Creh Ester wrote:


So dear CCP, now the Merlin and Incursus both have three hybrid towers, and the same role, "shortrange brawler". So how are they now different and both valid? And you said this rebalancing was to avoid obsolete ships? Well, since almost regardless of how you fit these two ships now, the Incursus tend to end up with almost twice the tank. And it does that even as it's faster, deals more dps, and still have two empty slots left, and CPU and PG to go. So tell me, dear CCP, how is the Merlin not utterly obsolete now? Does "balance" mean something else to CCP? Explain, please.


Balanced for a Dev who flies Gallente perhaps.
Vimsy Vortis
Shoulda Checked Local
Break-A-Wish Foundation
#2066 - 2012-05-23 13:47:39 UTC
The level of tank you can get out of an incursus is absolutely absurd, to the point where it makes almost every other frigate look like a joke.
Picaroon Standoffish
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#2067 - 2012-05-28 13:24:16 UTC
First thing, Congratulation CCP for looking at a complicated old design as the ship system.
I don't care about the SP change of DS and BC. And I agree with the fact that "if you could fly it yesterday, you can fly it tomorrow", it make sense and it's logical for all player.

I can see why the change of skills - pre requiste can bring a better process to change/add ship in the futur, and I do love consistency.

So here is how I see it for great consistency (all racial skills):

Frigate IV -> Destroyer IV -> Cruiser IV -> BC IV -> BS IV -> Capital IV -> Titan

The messy part is the capital ship really Let see the role of the cap ship:
Carrier -> Logistic / drones / Booster(for super carrier)
Dread -> Damage

A cruiser drone boat require only cruiser skill, a logistic boat require only cruiser skill, and damage board require only cruiser skill, only the booster boat is only a BC specialization but still require only that ship! Only the role change...

So consistency mean that Carrier and Dread require only Capital ship skill. And only their role change...

Now the T2 ships are about specialization, see the problem with the cap ship which have already specialization?
T2 ship should require the ship size skill to V as it is the case already.
- Should it require smaller size T2 skill? as CCP I don't think so.
-Should player decide to train a smaller size T2 with the same specialization? depend on if they want to learn to use that specialization for cheaper. Plus usually big ship mean fleet, small ship mean more roaming.

So again Capital ship specialization? They should exist, Cap ship should have a T2 version requiring Capital V. And here is where you can use the name carrier and Dread and Super Carrier.

So should titan be specialize? well consistency would require yes. Can have damage titan, fleet helper titan.

And here you have consistency for you PvP/PvE ship. In the future is a ship is needed to be added, choose a hull size and get the role of a T1 and a specialization of a T2.


Now about non combat stuff.

Frigate II -> Industrial IV -> Freighter
Why frigate II ? At the moment all the frigate that have the role of giving you more cargo require frigate II...

Transport ship require Industrial V, and JF require Freighter V (people gonna hate that one, but T2 ship mean T1 skill at V)
Also adding another Freighter specialization would be nice, so specialization are to be chosen... Like adding a specialization for ship transporter, a ship with a small cargo bay and a big ship cargo bay.


About Mining stuff.
Frigate II -> Mining Barge IV -> Exhumer IV -> Industrial Operation ship IV (Industrial Command ship) -> Industrial Capital Ship
Why frigate II ? At the moment all the frigate that have the role to mine require Frigate II.

Cruiser or not Cruiser? Well Only the Osprey is a Mining cruiser, so it's either Frigate IV -> Cruiser IV -> Mining barge, and introduce a Mining cruiser for each race. or drop the Osprey mining bonus. and keep just Frigate as a requirement for Mining Barge.

Renaming industrial command ship? Well the current name define a specific specialization for the sub cap ship!
T2 sub capital and capital? they should exist and require the skill at V of course.
Industrial Operation ship:
- One would be more on system operation center with better bonuses and a way to store more ore (more ore cargo or compression, less effective that rorqual of course), but lot slower and less agility.
- One would be more belt operation center with better assist (drone/remote repair), speed/agility, but less ore storage.

Industrial Capital Ship: About the same idea but more focus for 0.4- aspect
- System operation center: more bonus, better compression/ore hold.
- Belt operation center: Lot less effective compression (with a loss?), removing the industrial core 0 speed and greatly reducing it's cycle time, better assist (drone/remote repair), less storage, more agility/speed/tank.


That would give plenty of SP to some people (some will love, some will hate, learning skill have done the same thing, veteran gained time before the update and free SP after, new player don't but can start playing on the first day and not a month after!) Some people hate you because they trained skill they wont need anymore (especially titan pilots), for those where the ship can be docked, they should see that as a plus! and for the other ones, well you may be considering reimbursing the SP.
In term of time require to train, it can be modify by modifying the other requirement skill.

To my opinion it a consistent way to do it. T1 ship have role, next step require smaller size to IV, and specialization (T2) require the ship size to V. All ship have specialization (and more than one would be better).

- All T1 skill are Racial skills, all T2 skills are Generic.
-Easier way to improve/add ships in later increments.
- I haven't touch the T3 as I have ever used them and they seem consistent to me.
- Add more to capital / Transport / Mining.

As long as again, what you could fly yesterday, you will be able to fly it tomorow, I would just quote the first line of the EULA
Quote:
ESRB Notice: Game Experience May Change During Online Play

If you hate change, don't play an online game!

Disclaimer: This is not what I think how the change should be, It is a concept (so not fully detailed, I am no game designer!) to what I think changing the ship system for more consistency could be!
And sorry for the wall of text, not especially well formatted!
ergherhdfgh
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#2068 - 2012-05-31 11:25:05 UTC
so you guys announced these changes far enough in advance to allow us to prepare. I burned remaps on 3 toons to be able to train battlecruisers and destroyers to 5 before the changes, including one toon that might never have a need for it. Now the expansion has come and gone and you did not make the skill changes.

If you decided not to make the changes to the skill system I'm glad as it was a bad idea IMHO. However your stating that this was for sure happening cost me 3 remaps. If this was just an idea under consideration you should have said that. I've now wasted over 4 months of training time for skills I may never use.

If you decide not to do this then it may be a good idea to take a look at how many people remaped to Perception / Willpower after this was announced and consider giving out a free remap to everyone if that number is high.

Want to talk? Join Cara's channel in game: House Forelli
Integra Arkanheld
Andorra Paradis Fiscal
#2069 - 2012-06-01 09:18:39 UTC
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
Destroyer / battlecruiser skill revamp is not coming for Inferno. We will make sure to let you know in advance if and when this happens for a future release.

Please remember, the time line for ship balancing spans over several expansions, as:


  • There are too many changes to put that in a single release - not only ships need be looked into, but some modules / weapon systems need rebalancing as well (ex: active versus passive tanking, missiles...)

  • Even if we could, this would not be wise to change everything in a single release - we want to approach this through iteration steps. That means rebalancing one ship class at a time, gathering feedback / data, iterating on it while balancing the next class and so on.


The estimated process is to start with Tech 1 ships, frigates first, then move our way up. Since Tech 2 and 3 are variations of Tech 1, they will be tackled later when we are confident we have a good baseline to work with.

Hope that helps Blink


As you know that you will put the 4 racial destroyer and battlecruisers skills, and that you will do it in months, why do not you seed already the skills so people can begin to train the skills? Then when you make the change, you give back the skill points from the old obsolete skills, and activate the new ones. People will have time to train for the new skills, and also all the points restored from the old skills to not have problems when you make the change.
It will take months to make the destroyers change, and again months to do later the battlecruiser changes, so if we can train now the skills, we have more than enough time to be prepared.
I already have the 2 skills at L5, but I think it is too much to receive the 8 new skills at L5 when there will be the change.
Jame Jarl Retief
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#2070 - 2012-06-01 13:32:08 UTC
ergherhdfgh wrote:
If you decide not to do this then it may be a good idea to take a look at how many people remaped to Perception / Willpower after this was announced and consider giving out a free remap to everyone if that number is high.


It wouldn't be a bad idea - to give everyone a free remap when the change goes live. Because most of us probably did remap Perc/Wil just for that reason. I know I did.
Nalianna
Perkone
Caldari State
#2071 - 2012-06-04 04:09:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Nalianna
Argyle Jones wrote:
CCP Soundwave wrote:
Smoking Blunts wrote:
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
The skill requirement changes for destroyers and battlecruisers is very tricky to tackle indeed. We fully acknowledge having to re-train for ships you can already fly is not appealing at all.

As said in the blog, nothing is set in stone yet, we are considering various reimbursement options as this is still quite a high level change.



it not just not appealing its crazy.

pre patch i can fly all cs's and all dic's. post patch im ******. i either pick to fly a claymore or damnation or a vulture (eos is **** anyhow) and then im screwed for the next 80 odd days retraining for ships i could already fly.

you either reduce the ranks of the destroyer and bc skills so reimbursed skill points from the old cover all 4 races, or you just give people all 4 races.




We'll find a suitable reimbursement that makes everyone happy. I'm not terribly fussed about giving away a little extra if it moves we move the ship progression system into a better place.


I'm just wondering why the ship progression system is so important that it's worth having to reimburse skillpoints over in the first place?

There seems to be this track of uniformity going on over at CCP. We are getting uniform item names. We are getting uniformity between faction warfare and null-sec in the naming conventions for sovereignty. We are getting a single window unified inventory. Now you want to make all ship progression uniformly identical.

Are you not worried that you're reducing the complexity of the game, the variety that makes it interesting and the learning curve that appeals to many of your more serious players? I certainly fear that if you continue down this track, EVE could lose some of its depth, character and complexity to the point where it becomes another bland MMO in the pile.

Also, please consider that while you would like to draw in more new players, most of your older player base have several characters. For every old bittervet that quits the game, you have to draw in several new players to turn the same profit. A quest to eliminate the learning curve and simplify EVE might backfire economically.

This ^

I'm not that old a player, but I have 4 accounts and have been recently reevaluating my continuing to play. At the centre of my thoughts and feelings on this is the fact that, as above, EVE seems to be becoming all one level. There is less and less variety, any ship, weapon or module that looks too OP gets nerfed (only to have another FOTM take its place), and it doesn't really matter what race you've trained, you get the same relative skill progression. There SHOULD be humps and bumps, as well as easy bits to the training, and different ones at different levels for different races. There SHOULD be some races that excel at some things that noone else does well, and if you want to learn to do that you just have to put up with the fact that it's harder for your race until you get the base skills up, at least. What about a race that only uses and specialises in small, extremely effective ships, while others only really use larger ships, only relying on small ships for shuttles? That opportunity is probably long gone, but that's the general idea and that idea could still find a place to some extent....

The fact that EVE is turning into a game where race means nothing, and everyone gets the same advantages as everyone else in everything regardless of race, is the main reason I'm feeling more and more that it's not the place for me. And before everyone jumps on me because I should be in FW, yes I know I can train anything I want to train - again, that isn't the point - if I specialise in one race, I should expect to get some benefits to that as well as the obvious drawbacks. Right now, I don't see that there is any benefit at all in specialisation, again, (possibly) with the exception of FW.

And yes, I know I'm moaning. You don't need to tell me to go back to console games or whatever. Isn't that kinda the point? At some point CCP may have to deal with the fact that too many have left and they can't get enough new players on board to take their place. There is a saying in business - it's a lot easier to keep a happy customer than it is to find a new one.
Nalianna
Perkone
Caldari State
#2072 - 2012-06-04 04:36:23 UTC
Creh Ester wrote:
So dear CCP, now the Merlin and Incursus both have three hybrid towers, and the same role, "shortrange brawler". So how are they now different and both valid? And you said this rebalancing was to avoid obsolete ships? Well, since almost regardless of how you fit these two ships now, the Incursus tend to end up with almost twice the tank. And it does that even as it's faster, deals more dps, and still have two empty slots left, and CPU and PG to go. So tell me, dear CCP, how is the Merlin not utterly obsolete now? Does "balance" mean something else to CCP? Explain, please.

Firstly, I love your ideas!! I can pretty much agree with everything you wrote.

Your comment about the Merlin rang a bell with me and my "obsession" with specialisation. I learnt, as a Caldari pilot, to see the Merlin as a kiting machine, rather than a short range brawler. And the guns it used had to be railguns to complement its missiles, rather than blasters, because, well, Caldari kite. But now, without missiles, if it's useless for anything other than short range fighting, and for that, you have to use blasters, why would you NOT train an Incursus and be done with it? As a Caldari-specialised pilot, I would not fly the Incursus (although I can, as I have the skills), but I would not fly the Merlin either, as I now see it as a fairly useless ship - I only ever really relied on the missiles anyway. I know others who feel the same. I guess you could say Caldari aren't really short-range brawlers anyway, so why would they ever use the Merlin anymore? It used to be my favourite ship as a noob too!
Integra Arkanheld
Andorra Paradis Fiscal
#2073 - 2012-06-04 11:42:11 UTC
There are more and more modules, but ships have very few slots. Now that you upgrade everything, why not make for example a fitting screen for ships with 2 levels? 1 for active modules, and 1 for passive modules for example? this way, there would be a maximum of double modules slots, increasing a lot the number of possible combinations.
Another option would be to have frigates stay normal.
Destroyers have 2 levels of fitting slots (so double number of frigates).
Cruisers 3 levels, BC 4 levels, BB 5 levels, capitals 10, and super capitals 15.
This way the configurations possible would be enormous. There would still be the limit imposed by modules stacking penalties, the maximum cpu and powergrids of the ships, limiting what can be fitted to ships, but we could see the possibility of using many modules that now are no used due to the lack of modules slots. Also to limit usage, small modules might use 1 slot, medium 2, large 3, capital 5 module slots, limiting the number and type of modules used in ships.
Ranger 1
Ranger Corp
Vae. Victis.
#2074 - 2012-06-04 21:12:07 UTC  |  Edited by: Ranger 1
Nalianna wrote:
Creh Ester wrote:
So dear CCP, now the Merlin and Incursus both have three hybrid towers, and the same role, "shortrange brawler". So how are they now different and both valid? And you said this rebalancing was to avoid obsolete ships? Well, since almost regardless of how you fit these two ships now, the Incursus tend to end up with almost twice the tank. And it does that even as it's faster, deals more dps, and still have two empty slots left, and CPU and PG to go. So tell me, dear CCP, how is the Merlin not utterly obsolete now? Does "balance" mean something else to CCP? Explain, please.

Firstly, I love your ideas!! I can pretty much agree with everything you wrote.

Your comment about the Merlin rang a bell with me and my "obsession" with specialisation. I learnt, as a Caldari pilot, to see the Merlin as a kiting machine, rather than a short range brawler. And the guns it used had to be railguns to complement its missiles, rather than blasters, because, well, Caldari kite. But now, without missiles, if it's useless for anything other than short range fighting, and for that, you have to use blasters, why would you NOT train an Incursus and be done with it? As a Caldari-specialised pilot, I would not fly the Incursus (although I can, as I have the skills), but I would not fly the Merlin either, as I now see it as a fairly useless ship - I only ever really relied on the missiles anyway. I know others who feel the same. I guess you could say Caldari aren't really short-range brawlers anyway, so why would they ever use the Merlin anymore? It used to be my favourite ship as a noob too!


1: The Merlin is not to be taken lightly now, even compared to the Incursus.

2: Missiles are not a prerequisite weapons system for a kiting vessel, Rail guns do that task quite nicely as well.

I believe there is still room for tweaking these changes, after all they are still getting a handle on how they want ships rebalanced. I also am somewhat excited to see some of the traditional roles for the various races being rethought.

Example:
The Caldari have always hamstrung themselves by not developing close range brawlers in all ship classes.
The Gallante have always hamstrung themselves by not developing more sniping vessels.

The trick is to cover the necessary bases and yet still retain the "flavor" of your particular race. To do this we will probably see further changes in the slot layouts, and also likely see even more modules introduced to allow things like say a shield boosting tackler to exist and be effective. Probably more to the point I have little doubt we will see a great many bonuses replaced, and perhaps new bonuses introduced, to help the process along.

View the latest EVE Online developments and other game related news and gameplay by visiting Ranger 1 Presents: Virtual Realms.
Martin0
Brave Empire Inc.
Brave United
#2075 - 2012-06-05 09:52:12 UTC
PLEASE CCP don't make missile armed gallente ships.
Gallente are supposed to be the drone race still the amarr recons have more drones than gallente one;
i'm fine with amarr having drone, i'm not fine with gallente having LESS drones than amarr).

Having a different kind of ship is cool, if the lanchesis became a TRUE missile boat (4 launcher slot, change the hybrid damage bonus) it wil be awesome.
But PLEASE make the arazu a drone boat.
Andy Landen
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#2076 - 2012-06-05 11:50:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Andy Landen
Vimsy Vortis wrote:
The level of tank you can get out of an incursus is absolutely absurd, to the point where it makes almost every other frigate look like a joke.

Then fly an incursus and keep your mouth shut until someone in CCP figures out your immense wisdom and worships you as the spaceship genius that you see yourself to be. Make the players all cry on the forums with their beautiful tears about how insane your incursus tank is and make them beg CCP to change it. I have yet to fear an incursus, so go ahead and show us that the incursus makes them look like a joke.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein 
Lin-Young Borovskova
Doomheim
#2077 - 2012-06-05 14:39:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Lin-Young Borovskova
Martin0 wrote:
PLEASE CCP don't make missile armed gallente ships.
Gallente are supposed to be the drone race still the amarr recons have more drones than gallente one;
i'm fine with amarr having drone, i'm not fine with gallente having LESS drones than amarr).

Having a different kind of ship is cool, if the lanchesis became a TRUE missile boat (4 launcher slot, change the hybrid damage bonus) it wil be awesome.
But PLEASE make the arazu a drone boat.



Well Eos would like to have a talk with you, probably the most useless Command ship around and would be far more useful with missiles and huge bonus to speed/agility or speed/tracking.

That would make it useful.

Also: Arazu/Lachesis have such horrible dps, however can carry some drones but the problem about drones is they're bad, fragile and don't bring that much for the ship it self unless specific situations.

A huge boost to Damp bonuses is needed and maybe decrease point bonus making it a ridiculous 106km point with claymore bonus, 70 max with disruptor would be enough and balanced with web bonus but increase slightly for scram up to 30km with max fleet bonus.
Take drones away and give those massive missile speed and some dmg bonus (force them to use HAMs)

Capacitor recharge/amount/cpu and agility need some tweaks too so the choice of making those shield tank or armor tank means you loose damps (if they're ever useful even after massive changes) or armor without being very slow ass bricks

Edit: actually Lachesis shield tank goes for about 60K+ ehp with an underused to useless bonus (damps) and the armor version up to 35+K ehp slow brick anaemic dps completely worthless in fleets unless very specific situations.

brb
Tanae Avalhar
Doomheim
#2078 - 2012-06-06 03:26:32 UTC
Nalianna wrote:
Creh Ester wrote:
So dear CCP, now the Merlin and Incursus both have three hybrid towers, and the same role, "shortrange brawler". So how are they now different and both valid? And you said this rebalancing was to avoid obsolete ships? Well, since almost regardless of how you fit these two ships now, the Incursus tend to end up with almost twice the tank. And it does that even as it's faster, deals more dps, and still have two empty slots left, and CPU and PG to go. So tell me, dear CCP, how is the Merlin not utterly obsolete now? Does "balance" mean something else to CCP? Explain, please.

Firstly, I love your ideas!! I can pretty much agree with everything you wrote.

Your comment about the Merlin rang a bell with me and my "obsession" with specialisation. I learnt, as a Caldari pilot, to see the Merlin as a kiting machine, rather than a short range brawler. And the guns it used had to be railguns to complement its missiles, rather than blasters, because, well, Caldari kite. But now, without missiles, if it's useless for anything other than short range fighting, and for that, you have to use blasters, why would you NOT train an Incursus and be done with it? As a Caldari-specialised pilot, I would not fly the Incursus (although I can, as I have the skills), but I would not fly the Merlin either, as I now see it as a fairly useless ship - I only ever really relied on the missiles anyway. I know others who feel the same. I guess you could say Caldari aren't really short-range brawlers anyway, so why would they ever use the Merlin anymore? It used to be my favourite ship as a noob too!


Forget rails and blasters on a Merlin go with autocannons, you'll be much better off for range compared to blasters and dps compared to hybrids.

Someones **[u]always[/u] watching**
Nalianna
Perkone
Caldari State
#2079 - 2012-06-06 04:09:17 UTC  |  Edited by: Nalianna
Tanae Avalhar wrote:


Forget rails and blasters on a Merlin go with autocannons, you'll be much better off for range compared to blasters and dps compared to hybrids.

Now this just shows me how unbalanced this game has come to be that putting autocannon on a ship that has hybrid turret bonuses can actually out-do hybrids on that same ship. You are saying that autocannon will have better range than blasters and better dps than rails? That sort of makes sense if it's true, can anyone else verify it? But what about with lvl 5 training in all appropriate skills? That will bring up both dps for rails and range for blasters. On the same hybrid-bonused ship, wouldn't that change things? Again, can anyone verify this?
Andy Landen
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#2080 - 2012-06-06 12:44:22 UTC
I support this. Finally, skill progression in ships that makes sense and naturally leads players along their career paths. Combined with the ship tier re-structuring, we are moving in a good direction.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein