Player Features and Ideas Discussion

As for the Battleship changes, they WANT us to get onto Duality this weekend and try them out! They specifically state they will be looking to this thread for all commentary on our beloved disco balls of death!

~~~ PLEASE keep all your posts intelligent! Don't just be all "rawr rage rant!" We want to give them specifics, details, and even reasonable proposals for fixes for anything too wrong! ~~~

(btw, dear Devs, I still insist even with the laser bandaid that cap is too much of an issue for PvE, and recommend a small tweak to cap rechargers to help with this. This way your not touching it on the hull (and thus altering how it works in PvP, and outside of the usual isolated cases of rare fits) and pretty much ensure that the issues for PvE will be much better addressed.)

I'm on Duality, and I have joined the channel Amarr Test but I see no one else here. I will give this a few hours hoping for others to arrive :( .

Just finished some fittings in Duality, and here are my thoughts.

First of all, I always thought, and still think that the Abaddon was one of the most messed up ships when it came to capacitor, simply because it was the ONLY battleship to use Lasers that didn't have a "cap bonus" per say. Allow me to show:
- Apocalypse, had 10% cap reduction per level, up to a max of 50%
- Armageddon, had 10% cap reduction per level, could only fit 7 turrets, which kind of work like 8 turrets due to the 5% rate of fire
- Paladin, can only fit 4 turrets, which is kind of the same as 50% less cap with 8 turrets, you choose
- Bhaalgorn, can only fit 4 turrets, same as the Paladin
- Nightmare, can only fit 4 turrets, same as the Paladin
- Redeemer, can only fit 6 turrets, has 10% cap reduction per level and 5% rate of fire (same as the old Armageddon)

Did I miss any ship? Oh yeah, the Abaddon:
- Abaddon, can fit 8 turrets, no cap bonuses

So, we come to this thread, and people get vocal, as a result the new Apocalypse gets a quite good cap boost after it looses its original bonus:
- Apocalypse:
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / recharge per second) : 7000(-500) / 1002s(-152s) / 6.99 (+.49)

But the Abaddon, which never had a cap bonus, continues with the "old" cap base and recharge:
- Abaddon
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / recharge per second) : 6375 / 1250s / 5.1

It is then quite easy to realize that the Abaddon will continue to have cap issues. It continues to be the ONLY battleship that doesn't have cap recharge bonuses, or a faster recharge in the hull, solution applied to the "new" Apocalypse.

Now, I just finished fitting an Abaddon and an Apocalypse in Duality.

It is important to notice that NEW LASER CAP AND POWER REQUIREMENTS ARE LIVE IN DUALITY, which means that this is what we will get if nothing changes. You can confirm this at the screenshot.

As a PvE, and I've run a LOT of missions, I tend to fit ships to have around 4 mins cap. To me, that is enough and suits well my gameplay.

With all that in mind, check this screenshot and COMPARE THE CAP TIME:
http://puu.sh/2E9Fx.jpg

While the "new" Apocalypse depletes in 4:15, the Abaddon depletes in 2:24.

My opinion so far is that the Apocalypse is a capable ship, that does damage farther, more accurately and can run its repairers while keeping two Tracking Computers (or you could drop one for an AB, whatever, not part of the problem) for even more tracking or range. The Abaddon on the other hand, won't have the tracking, or the range, OR THE CAPACITOR.

The way I see it right now:
- Abaddon:
-- +5% to Large Energy Turret damage
-- +4% Armor resistances (-1% per level)

- Apocalypse:
-- +7.5% to Large Energy Turret optimal range
-- +7.5% Large Energy Turret tracking speed (replaced large energy turret cap use)
-- Hidden special cap bonus in hull

I hope this was illustrative and helps CCP Rise or whoever else to review and tune an old problem with the Abaddon.

If you read all this, thanks.


TL,DR: The Abaddon needs to receive the same cap revision in its hull as the "new" Apocalypse did.

You are only looking from your narrow perspective.

As CCP said in dev blogs and in introduction of these balancing posts, tier3 BS (minus the hyperion) are actually very good, so why buffing them ? That would completely negate what the tiericide is supposed to do.

Remember the objective is to bring tier1 and 2 BS to the level of the tier3, so we don't have tier anymore. And not only a buff to a tier3 BS would invalidate the tiericide, but it would also make it better than the other ships, because the premise of all these balancing is that top tier ships are mostly balanced, and the Abaddon is the icon of them all : it may very well be the most balanced ship in fact.

Now, if the Apoc is better for your need, that's fine, because that's exactly the objective. There is no point making all ships identical so you can pve with them and only see a different graphic. The Abaddon is already one of the mightest BS in the game, even if it's not for pve.

Well clearly even the Tier3 BS are not balanced so by that definition they will all be unbalanced.
Hyperion has poor cap for an cap intensive ship
Abbadon can't even run its guns for long
Maelstrom has poor cap aswell but ASB and projectiles give it a nice non cap using option
Rokh has poor cap aswell and very poor mobility which limits its options somewhat.

Best sollution halve the matar ships cap.

To those of you ignorantly parroting partial quotes from CCP Devs...

They have made it abundantly clear all these balances are for PvP, what we are now trying to point out to them is that this does not address the huge and at times overwhelming problems with PvE that are overall apparently getting ignored.
~~~Congratulations, the Apoc is just as good as it was before for PvE, and the Abaddon gets a slight touch up to it's cap use... ~~~
It does not address the fact that Minmatar and Caldari hulls are not having to give up seven slots just to get cap stable (before implants, with three 6% implants (slot 6 - cap, slot 7 turret cap reduction, slot 8 cap) you can take off 1 rig, which is even more of a sick joke in regards to it) when they fit out their mission boats, they are instead able to use all slots and rigs towards actually running the site whether it be tank, damage, manueverability, e-war (yes, this does provide some benefits in sites)...
I am not asking directly that hull cap be adjusted, as apparently CCP is happy with where it is for PvP, and I recognize that any changes could have potentially far reaching consequences therein.
I am, instead, suggesting changes that overwhelmingly would only impact mission running (of course there is always those few and rare special fits, but those will always exist and by and large the majority won't use them just as they currently don't) by either providing us with stronger cap rechargers (also, why are there no Deadspace of these?), or (keeping in mind that a good number of PvP fits might use them, so this could on a small scale do things to PvP) stronger CCC or other cap affecting rigs.
(For what it's worth, I'd most strongly advise leaving Eluctiation rigs alone, those obviously see more use in combat then others.)
I spent 4 hours last night tweaking around (with a "naked" clone) a cap stable Abaddon fit that would also take into account the resist nerfs. I will not atm go into all the flaws I specifically ran into on that, as I ran out of time to run it in some missions, instead I will wait till I do that later today.

--Edit: decided to skip FCing my usual Incursion fleet today and instead go straight into Duality over this. I will be in the channel Amarr Test for those interested in joining me.

My question is, WTF does not being able to fire for more than 2 1/2 minutes have a damned thing to do with PVP?

Or is it some bizarre balancing factor of our race that we are the motards who are super duper vulnerable to neuts?

Because I really want to know. In what way Amarr are so OP that we deserve all of these "balancing factors"? Are armor tanked mid range battleships such a monstrous threat to the game that we need to have:

Armor being noticeably weaker than shields, in both passive and (especially) active tanking.
Lasers being probably the highest overall cost of any weapon to use, Beam and Pulse alike, for NO benefit besides not reloading.
The slowest overall ships of all the game's races.
No ability to cross fit above cruiser size hulls.
Capacitors on par at best to other races, despite 3-4x as much need for them.
Total and complete vulnerability to the single most commonly used utility, neuts.
[Edit: And I completely forgot the 5-7 slot tax for our cap.

And what do we get by paying all this?

No reloading.
Lasers look cool.
Scorch.
Semi tanky ships (which is being nerfed)

So... yeah. Fair trade?

So, unless you have an example of an amarr ship unable to run "something" for "some time", they are already perfectly fine. Besides some carebear actually asked for its ship to run all its guns and the armor reper for 5 minutes. That is "everything" "for a long time". Five minutes are an eternity in a pvp fight, and IMO, they are a very long time for pve.

First, pulse baddon are already very effective, and that's undeniable.

Second, in BS pvp, you often, if not always, have a cap booster.