Player Features and Ideas Discussion

In generell there's nothing to complain about the link changes, they are going into the right direction so far.

But i'm a little bit disappointed by the uninspiring ideas CCP Fozzie and CCP Rise coming up with in the last weaks. The proposed changes to HAC's were already dissatisfying, now Fozzie annouces halfhearted changes to Command Ships. They are not resolving a few issues that were the main cause for their different using numbers.

1. Damnation vs. Vulture
The Damnation will get 2 bonuses to tank (4% resists and 10% armor HP) while the Vulture will just stay with 1 bonus (4% resists). The Vulture is for shield what Damnation is for armor, so they need comparable EHP, but you'll give them different bonuses. That's not what it should be; it will make the Vulture much more weaker than the Damnation (around 30 - 40%, depending on fitting) and so much more unattractive. In greater medium- und largescale Command Ships need a huge EHP to survive the first alpha volley and that logistics have a chance to catch up. While the Damnation already has nearly enough tank for this, the Vulture is too weak. In the greater picture this differences make shieldtanking in generell unattractive and will be one of the reasons why the largescale doctrines will shift further to armortanking in the future.

2. Active bonuses
The Sleipnir (btw. WHY DO YOU CHANGE THEIR HULL TO HURRICANE, WTF?!) was always interesting for their superior active tank and dealing with 600 - 700 DPS. It made the Sleipnir very attractive for solo and smallscale. But in my opinion that's not what their specialization should look like. They should be dedicated fleet booster - maybe with little bit DPS, but the focus should be especially in tanking (to survive) and boosting (their specialization). The problem here is that active tanks don't survive in medium- to largescale. They don't have the needed EHP to do that. Buffer is FOTM and here should be the main focus; they need resists and HP for shield or armor. But you'll give Eos, Astarte, Sleipnir and Claymore an active tank bonus without any alternatives. You'll never see them on the battlefield in the future, because Proteus/Loki are still better for this job despite their 1/3 lower bonus because they can be fit with buffer tank and survive much longer.

3. Command Processor
It's already said a few times in this thread: Their's nothing worse than Command Processors needing medium slots to fit. The same slots shield tanking ships need for their tank while armor tanking ships won't have problems with fitting them besides their already superior cpu/pg availability. It won't hurt Command Ships that much with this proposed changes, but tech 3, now with 3 dedicated bonuses, will still be affected by this.

As Grath said, maybe take them out of the game and give any important leadership skill the ability to fit one more link for every skill level. That would make perfect sense since there's already nearly no ship able to fit more than 5 links (right now i only have one ship in mind that's able to fit 6 links).

4. Wingbooster
It's already said a few times, too: Give wing boosters they bonuses. At the moment they are the only ones in fleet never getting bonuses.

5. Diversity
In my opinion CCP is wasting the chance to get 2 different roles for their Command Ships. While you tried it per race, do it by splitting Fleet Command and Field Command, so every race has 2 ships with different roles. And besides this you now have a tanking ship and a DPS ship but with overall the same stats in every race - guess what will be used more in the future...

As said DPS shouldn't be the focus for Command Ships - their role is to give bonus and survive as long as possible and not to make damage. So while you don't need to change anything to the role bonus (they are perfect in the proposed changes), you should change the tanking bonuses and take a look at the other 2 bonuses available. This 2 should define which role the Command Ship fits in.

An idea would be to make Fleet Command the dedicated medium- to largescale Command Ships with brick tank (like the Damnation) and changethe weapon bonuses to something useful for fleet commanders and bonus ship pilots.

Don't take the numbers to seriously, they are only examples, as the 2 other bonuses are as well:



This pilots don't need DPS, they need useful tools helping to command the fleet (like probing for example) and resistances to ewar. That would perfectly define in which situations they will used more.

Compared to this Field Command would be dedicated to PvE, solo, small- and maybe to the smaller mediumscale in which the risks to get alphad by the first volley is unusual. Their primary focus isn't just surviving but also to give some DPS, because that's what's needed more and more the smaller the group gets. Here you can change the ewar- and probing bonus to weapon bonuses and (if you really want active tank bonuses - something i already said wouldn't support) change one tank bonus - best would be the HP bonus - to an active tank bonus:



While this are all just examples, now you have dedicated Command Ships fitting into different roles and make them both useful, depending on what fleet you're forming with them.

EDIT: Sorry for my simple and bad english, it's not my native language and i was always bad in it :)

I'd say the primary feature of Command Ships should always be their survivability. No matter what else they're doing, choosing to primary one should be a difficult choice, as there will always be some pressure to do so because of the links.

As demonstrated by the T1 industrial imbalance, people love diversity. Even RPers like it- RP isn't about homogenizing the races so that everyone has a viable option. It's about having to make do without, because you chose to only fly Caldari.

Command Ships need more diversity. Other niches the Command Ships could have instead of 'oh, they can shoot stuff too':

- EWAR. Make them tanky Recons. They lose the mobility, the subterfuge, the range of the Recons, perhaps are even limited to only having one target, but in exchange they get strong EWAR bonuses and can act as an EWAR scalpel (rather than a force multiplier). The Heavy Neut Curse is stupid, but it'd be interesting to see an EWAR CS that can do it.
- Utility. As has been mentioned, FCs may take on probing roles, so a CS with bonuses to probing could be useful.
- Ship Scanning. This is probably one of the most under-utilised things in EVE. Why not have a CS with bonuses to scan accuracy and the ability to target 10+ ships- they can probe for weaknesss, monitor cap, provide intelligence.
- Anchoring. Somewhat eclipsed by the fact that they should be tanky enough as they are, but you could designate the Prophecy the 'anchor' CS and justify the sky-high tank compared to the other CSs in other niches (I suspect the Vulture would be the shield variant).
- Warp-ins. Yeah, make a CS that's tanky and fast (hello mr. Slepnir?). If it can shoot frigates better than a Cruiser, you're doing it wrong, but if it can charge around the battlefield soaking up fire and giving the fleet a nice warp-in without popping like an interceptor with a moment of bad transversal... that seems like an interesting niche role.

Kinda hating these changes.


l2dev.

The saddest part about this quote monstrosity is CCP Fozzie completely played into the troll.

This was part of a discussion regarding the rorqual deployed mining bonus.

Ok, so after some EFT testing, general thoughts:

Put the resistance bonus as a role bonus for all of them.
Just like HIC, that's the way to go to make the class balanced.

-capacitor would benefit from a buff to at least HAC level
-active bonus on Gallente/Matar makes them OP for really small gang action while making them almost useless in fleet situation. Except for Claymore which is definitely better for fleet than the Nighthawk thanks to better native resists and slot layout.
-damnation still the only one with a buffer tank worthy of very big fleets, all the others are lacking. Absolution gets closer though.
-comparison with the gank/tank T3 still bad for many of them. I know you intend to nerf T3 somehow, doesn't mean CS shouldn't be good at that.
-fix heavy missiles or no HML ship will ever be balanced. Tengu/Drake needed a mild nerf, HML did not need the gigantic nerf they had.

Another thing you need to realize:
5% explosion radius bonus is weak
10% explosion velocity bonus is not good enough to make HAM/HML hit their intended targets (cruisers) properly
7.5% tracking is much stronger than both of the above




Absolution:
+the tank buff is quite huge and most welcome.
+the fitting is rather good.
-feels useless with beams, lacks damage projection

Better than Legion for tank/gank (mostly because Legion lacks a lowslot though), and brings two links.
Sensor and fitting is still bad compared to Legion (why?) and speed/signature/agility too (but that's normal!).

-> Add a damage projection bonus (Tracking probably the best, optimal would do)


Damnation:
-lacks dps, will only be a link boat when you promised us all CS will be able to either provide full links or some link & good dps
-tank is over the top and makes every other CS virtually useless for fleet situation.

-> remove HP bonus for another damage bonus (drone damage! like Curse)
-> add another damage bonus (drone speed/tracking to every drone? or a second missile bonus to get good damage?)
-> make missile bonus apply to Rapid Light


Astarte
-the PG is a bit tight, impossible to plate+neutron without fitting mods...
-tank/gank nowhere near Proteus (you win like 50dps, and lose 45% EHP, lots of fitting, speed, agility)
-will never get used in fleet for lack of EHP/resistances
~rails seem funny, good dps with some range
---self active-rep is way over the top...

-> get rid of the active rep bonus for... a tracking bonus?


EOS
-self boosted active tank way over the top, will be a solo monster... What's the point for a CS?
-feels really OP dps-wise compared to most others. Only with Ogre, true, but still...
-tracking bonus really feels out of place.

-> no idea what to do with it, but it feels both lacking for big fights (heavy drones suboptimal weapon system, not enough resists/EHP) and violently OP for solo or 2/3 men gangs (over the top active reps, drone damage, and anti-frigate tracking)


Vulture
+some rail damage at 70~100km. Not sure if useful.
-EHP/resistance nowhere near what Damnation or Absolution can achieve with much cheaper fits (even without slave)..
-cannot be fitted with active tank properly
-big capacitor problems (rails and link -> barely stable, add two hardeners and you will never last a fight). If you use a cap booster your tank is even worse

-> feels like a bigger/slower railTengu/Eagle with 2 links. Don't know if it's good or not. Will only be used for links, Tengu is better for everything.
-> add more damage, so with 3 links you fall below Tengu dps, with 2 links you are better?


Nighthawk
+tank improvement is quite good
-still lack PG and now CPU too! Impossible to active-tank for pvp.
-still horrible slot layout
-worse than Tengu in every single way except the two links
-dps lacking

-> need another damage bonus
-> more fitting (not much, +30/+50?)
-> the usual 7/6/4 slot layout.
-> make bonus apply to rapid light


Claymore
+dronebay useful
+can achieve better buffer tank than nighthawk thanks to better slot layout and base resists...
-HML so bad it's no use even with the explosion velocity bonus
-lacks dps even with HAM, and cannot reliably overload
-self-rep absurdly OP (hard to fit but still)

-> remove self rep bonus replace with another damage
-> make bonus apply to rapid light

Sleipnir
+the small resistance buff is good
+2 utility hi will be useful for passive fits
+arty/buffer fits might be really interesting

-the speed, agility, CPU, drone, dps nerf are a bit extreme when you add them all together
-still not enough EHP for fleet fights (half what an Absolution can bring with the same dps)
-do not really compare with loki, but feel lacking compared to RF Hurricane. Not enough of an improvement.
-hard to active tank properly (but when you do with 5 fitting mods it becomes totally OP...)


-> remove the active tanking bonus, replace with... Tracking?
-> add some CPU
-> dronebay to 50 like Claymore? Will make up for the gun damage loss.

Changes look Good

Astarte is a linked brawling monster. Perfect for small gangs.

Eos

Bay is buffed but still only two flights of heavies, would like 300bay at least.

I still feel a sentry bonus would be more appropriate here than the Ishtar, this would enable the Eos to sit off a fight, if it got the optimal/tracking bonus a domi has it would sit well with those fleets and brawling Eos heavies would still benefit from tracking. This would give Gallente a brawler and a more stand offish command ship.

I do feel given the feeling that command ships should be encouraged to be on grid and their general near battleship level mobility and sigs that they could be given microjump drive options. This is the one sub battleship class where I feel it is appropriate.
My other suggestion would perhaps to vary the link bonuses within each race with different combos between the command ships.

You are giving ships that are meant for fleets bonus to local boosts, nobody uses a local booster in a fleet. its a pointless bonus, and makes no sense. You need to give at least one of the Mimi and Gal a local resist bonus.

Aye, this should be pretty much mandatory at this point...

One ship of each race should have 1 tanking bonus and 3 offensive bonuses, the other one of each race should have 1 tank bonuses of various racial flavors, 1 hp bonus, and 2 offensive bonuses.

Here's an example of the changes i'm after.

Eos: Drop the tracking bonus in favor of a HP bonus

Vulture: Drop one of the range bonuses in favor of an HP bonus

Claymore: Drop a ROF bonus in favor of an HP bonus

Damnation: Stays the same



Other changes: -1 low +1 mid on NH, change from 50% kinetic dmg bonus to 25% rof bonus on NH.

I'll go ahead and throw my opinion out there. As far as I'm concerned all of these "you're ruining fleet ships" people can keep crying. as a solo/small gang pilot my initial reactions to these command ship changes were "HELL YEA BABY!" but after loading the new changes into EFT to start making beast fits...this is just utter crap.

http://i.imgur.com/lsS3OPC.png - Old Claymore

http://i.imgur.com/BcZlMx9.png - New Claymore that a change in t2 rigs can't even touch

give me my damn neuts back. The 490 dps is irrelevant and the tank/neuts more than made up for it. But now no amount of isk can make that fit work like it used to.

http://i.imgur.com/jp2EMvq.png - You seriously intended the fit to look like this? or worse? 2 powers and a cpu rig to make something work that worked before without even a fitting implant.

I'll take my SIGNIFICANTLY LESS DPS yet UNDENIABLY BETTER FITTING POTENTIAL old claymore over this ****. You turned the underdog into a gimped freak that thinks it can play with the big boys.

and I haven't even looked at the others yet.

I won't be looking for responses to this as I don't usually post on the forums, I just read the main topics and form my own opinions about what's new (which btw, again coming from a full time solo/small gang pilot, seriously thank you for the much needed buff to active tanks, much appreciated). just wanted to let you fine devs know what an amazing ship with great potential you screwed up.

Post that loadout pls.