Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hello
With CCP stating that they wanted to apply the concept of tiericide to modules sometime in the future, I wanted to get ahead of them and post some concepts about how to do that for Faction modules specifically.
Currently faction items follow the meta line and go from best to worst. I propose to change the items by faction “flavor” if you will.
A good example for this is in the resistance modules, I will go with ENAMs for this.

There are two different levels of ENAMs in the faction area. The 20% and the 22.5%.
The 20% include

Shadow Serpentis Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane Faction -20 %
Federation Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane Faction -20 %

The 22.5% includes
True Sansha Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane Faction -22.5 %
Khanid Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane Faction -22.5 %
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane Faction -22.5 %
Dark Blood Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane Faction -22.5 %
Ammatar Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane Faction -22.5 %

Here are two groups of modules that do the same thing as the rest of their group respectively. I feel that this is not conducive to game play and the sandbox, as there is no benefit to fit one over another save price, and in the odd case for fitting.
What I propose in this case is to give each faction item in this group its own small flavor, to match the ideas of the faction that it belongs too.

For example, the Serpentis are an enemy of the Federation who deal mainly Thermal, Kinetic. So in this case the Shadow Serpentis ENAM would get a small percent bonus to those two damage types.

Another is that the Imperial Navy’s primary enemy is the Minmitar, although they do have to deal with the Sansha and the Bloods, so they would get a small bonus to explosive and a smaller bonus to EM Thermal.

Another is that the Sansha (At one point they armor tanked) primary enemies are the Caldari and Amarr, so they would get a bonus against those damage types. Also Sansha are known for their immense raw armor HP due to the Slave set, so it could also get a % bonus to HP like the slave set does.

The Federation one could give a rep bonus, etc…

It also may be good to look into counter bonuses for each race aswell to make up for its bonus.
For example the Sansha one could give you less explosive resist, or the Imperial one has a kinetic resist drop.

The point being that each faction module would be useful is some situation, instead of the current “blah, get the best thing” that we have now. It would also give reason for people to obtain these faction items from the LP store, as some of them (example Ammatar ENAMs) are very hard to find. It also would add flavor and meaningful lore to the game in a way that is immersive and still beneficial to game play.
Thank you, please leave meaningful comments.


***EDIT***

After a discussion I had with another player about this, I was informed about a common idea to have faction set bonuses. Kind of like the slave set for example. I did notice that while I am not directly proposing this it is a unintentional side effect. As for example having multiple Sansha ENAMs would stack their bonuses to give you even more tank. How these should stack is up to CCP, but I see the effects of this as a way to get more unused faction modules into the market and into combat.

Sounds fair.

They aren't really eanms then tbh.

Still it is basically the only real way to apply tiericide to mods, make the same mods not best for multiple attributes. So guns with the best damage modifier wouldn't necessarily have the best optimal or tracking, or fitting. It is how the named mods especially should have been put into game at the start, and there are some instances where it does happen (though only usually with fitting requirements). Its easy to do for mods with lots of attributes, like turrets (damage mod, rof, tracking, cap use, optimal, fall-off, capacity, grid, cpu). which have at least 9 useful ones. The problem comes with mods with less attributes, a cap recharger for example only has 2 changeable values (cap recharge and cpu) unless you start messing around with the 1 grid values etc. A resist plating only has 1 (resistance) assuming you aren't messing with 1 grid. In these cases it is basically impossible to have them all on an equal playing field.

Uh, you do realise that what you are proposing is exactly what he was talking about basically. Except instead of just the 'base' attributes, allowing a small side bonus not normally on that type of module if need be to make them different. Which solves your issue of cap rechargers & single resist plating. EANM's + extra basically.... which, given they are Faction modules makes sense that they take the T2 stats then add a bonus somewhere.

I'm not sure what you mean about module tiericide.... Can you point me to that reference, so I know to what extent you are refering too.

Are you saying that different tier modules will be made uniquely different?

Before ship tiericide, lower tier ships had unique roles but with significantly reduced functionality. They were artificially limited in fitting, slots, and stats so that lower tiers were "less" effective than higher tier ships. In there case, tiericide was about removing those limits from lower tier ships, so they would be just as effective, albeit with a different role.

However, modules are already defined by a unique role and their tiers typically reflect fitting requirements, operational effectiveness, and rarity/origin. Or are they thinking of making each tier different and unique? Is this just for faction/deadspace/officer modules?

I was curious why you would suggest adding a rep bonus to an EANM.... that seems uncharacteristic of the modules function!

Well yes i do realise, what makes you think i didn't ..... I didn't propose anything i just expanded some issues involved. I don't see why you would add additional attributes, it would only make balancing harder. And there is absolutely no point in only tiericiding faction mods, that would be dumb when you could do the whole lot (you would still need tiers though, just like ships will still have tiers - t1, faction, t2, pirate faction, t3.

In truth even with only 2 attributes you have 4 possible variations which is enough to cover all named mods and is only an issue for faction mods where we have lots of factions with the same item (why did ccp do that anyway?). So it is only an issue with single attribute items and here i dare say you could just make them all the same.

This is highly module dependent... There are several examples where lower meta modules have easier fitting requirements in exchange for being slightly less effective. Additionally, higher meta modules typically have significantly lower drop rates, which equates to a higher demand (and hence value) in exchange for that "better" module.



One of the major differences in these modules is their influx into the game... faction items, be it dropped from a faction rat or bought with LP, have price tags that represent their desired use and rarity.

Are you suggesting that CCP is planning to reduce all named modules to a single named module? And you're suggestion each faction module be unique based on the faction, rather than all be created uniform?

I like the idea of faction modules having unique racial traits... but you can only do so much... and some modules, like an Armor EM Hardener, have way too many variations (9 Faction, 12 Deadspace, and perhaps 12 Officer) to NOT duplicate stats without altering the base functionality of the module...

In truth, while I think many modules could use some tweaking, I really don't think that they need to be tiericided...

To reiterate. This post is about Faction module changes, and how we can make them more related to their factions, and make unused one more common.

Doddy, I feel you are missing the purpose behind this whole thing. Faction modules fail to relate to their factions in any way. If I am reading your last post correctly then you want to leave faction the way it is, and instead make the changes for Deadspace and Officer, where this would make little to no sense game-play wise and would not fit lore or common associations.

Faction unlike Deadspace and Officer, lacks clear progression. This can be fixed by making its classification distinct by making it more diverse in a single meta level or two. This solves two problems that face Faction. The first is the market, that the cost does not equal better for some of the faction modules. Second the reason to fit faction in a meaningful way, ie for your ship race, with other faction mods, and other more emergent and tactical uses.

*Correction* I see that you are not leaving faction alone, but I still have to point out that Deadspace and Officer don't need to be fixed in this way for the reasons that I have stated in my first paragraph.

" If you can point me anywhere in "lore or associations" where a centus mod should be differnt to a sansha one i will be amazed."

Lore wise maybe not, but in terms of game-play Deadspace mods work in a +1 stat fashion with Officer following that after. The point is that Faction modules have many similar modules sharing the same effectiveness level. With Deadspace and officer you have steady progression from start to finish. Its simple really, one area is working as intended, the other is not.

Deadspace and officer both need to be looked at, I agree I just dont think that faction flair would be the best option for them. They need their own reasons for fitting than simple they are better. Or maybe thats the reason.


Personally:

I would have T1 remain the same,
Meta items would have small variations on fitting and effectiveness
T2 would be specialized versions with better stats at the cost of skills and manufacturing.
Storyline takes less to fit and is as, if not more effective thanT2 and takes less skills.
Faction has racial flair which makes fitting certain faction mods better for the overall fit.
Deadspace is a direct progression over T2 in a +1 stat fashion but takes more to fit.
Officer mods are massively min maxed, huge bonuses, huge penalties.