These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Ammo Re-balance
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Stan Durden
Solar Forged
#1 - 2013-11-29 08:37:37 UTC
I was just playing around with EFT a bit and wondered if CCP has considered re-balancing ammo.

I have enjoyed most/all of the changes I have seen so far. I like the concept of making every ship worthwhile to fill some role.

I think most will agree many types of turret ammo don't seem to get used. Maybe there is a way to re-balance the ammo to see more use out of the ammo which sits between short range and tech 2 long range.

I have not come up with any solid ideas, but just to throw a few brainstorms out there... Perhaps some of the projectile ammo could have a proximity fuse with a small explosion radius giving the chance of a small amount of damage in a miss. Perhaps a crystal could randomly distribute heat on the racks which could damage modules over time. Perhaps a hybrid charge could have an effect of increasing the mass of a target making it slightly slower or less agile.

Those are just a few (probably terrible and would break the game) ideas from thinking about it for like 10 minutes.

I guess one irritation I would like to avoid is trying to keep track of a mountain of stats. If the ammo types simply have slightly different variations on tracking, range, cap use, damage. Then I guess it may be able to reward someone who analyzes exactly which ammo would be best for orbiting at 29.4KM but I don't know how practical or useful the current minor differences are. I don't think it would help to just simply make tweaks to the minor, mostly unimportant, differences.


-SD
Spugg Galdon
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#2 - 2013-11-29 08:41:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Spugg Galdon
I tried to push something like this a while ago but I got very little support.

Original Thread: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=64006

The Post:

Spugg Galdon wrote:

Currently, T1 ammo (including faction versions) is mostly useless for Lasers and Hybrids. There are really only two different ammo types that people actually use which is shortest range and longest range. All the other ammo types do is off marginally better range in overlapping steps or small bonuses to capacitor usage. Projectiles get damage type selection, high tracking and long range ammo types. So how about Lasers and Hybrids get some better ammo options. I've listed some suggestions below (just suggestions!) for an ammo rework that would give each ammo type a real "role" that they can be used in.

Two "Short Range" High damage ammo's that give the weapons a choice in damage type within the weapons damage profile
Multifrequency (short range EM) ........: Hi EM low Thermal -50% optimal
Infra-red (Short rng Thermal) .............: Hi thermal damage low EM -50% optimal

Two "Short Range" Speciality ammo's that offer either a ROF bonus (useful for specific ships) and a High Tracking ammo
Gamma (short range hi RoF) ............. : +100% RoF -50% Damage -50% optimal (Double RoF but 1/2 the damage per shot)
X-Ray (Short Range hi tracking) .........: -50% optimal +10% tracking low dmg

Two "Mid Range" Ammo's
Ultraviolet (Mid range Mid dmg)...........: +25% optimal
Standard (V.Low Cap Use Mid Rng) ..: +25% optimal -50% cap use -20% damage

Two "Long Range" ammo's. One offering heavy volley damage at the expense of tracking and one "Extreme" range ammo
Microwave (Sniper/Alpha low RoF)......: +75% dmg -75% Rof +40% optimal +100% Cap use
Radio (Extreme long range)..................: +60% optimal


Two "Short Range" High damage ammo's that give the weapons a choice in damage type within the weapons damage profile
Antimatter (Short rng Thermal)..............: High Thermal low Kinetic damage -50% optimal
Lead (Short rng Kinetic)...........................: hi kinetic low Thermal -50% optimal

Two "Short Range" Speciality ammo's that offer either a ROF bonus (useful for specific ships) and a High Tracking ammo
Uranium (Short-Mid rng Hi RoF).............: +100% Rof -50% dmg -25% optimal -25% falloff (Double RoF but 1/2 damage per shot)
Plutonium (Short-Mid rng Hi tracking):.... -25% optimal & falloff +10% tracking low dmg

Two "Mid Range" Ammo's
Thorium (Hi falloff low optimal)................: +50% Falloff
Iridium (Hi optimal Low falloff)..................: +50% Optimal

Two "Long Range" ammo's. One offering heavy volley damage at the expense of tracking and one "Extreme" range ammo
Tungsten (Sniper/Alpha low RoF)............: +75% dmg -75% Rof +40% optimal & falloff +100% Cap use
Iron (Extreme long range)..........................: +60% Optimal & fall off
Master Sergeant MacRobert
Red Sky Morning
The Amarr Militia.
#3 - 2013-11-29 08:50:07 UTC
Stan Durden wrote:
I was just playing around with EFT a bit and wondered if CCP has considered re-balancing ammo.

I have enjoyed most/all of the changes I have seen so far. I like the concept of making every ship worthwhile to fill some role.

I think most will agree many types of turret ammo don't seem to get used. Maybe there is a way to re-balance the ammo to see more use out of the ammo which sits between short range and tech 2 long range.

I have not come up with any solid ideas, but just to throw a few brainstorms out there... Perhaps some of the projectile ammo could have a proximity fuse with a small explosion radius giving the chance of a small amount of damage in a miss. Perhaps a crystal could randomly distribute heat on the racks which could damage modules over time. Perhaps a hybrid charge could have an effect of increasing the mass of a target making it slightly slower or less agile.

Those are just a few (probably terrible and would break the game) ideas from thinking about it for like 10 minutes.

I guess one irritation I would like to avoid is trying to keep track of a mountain of stats. If the ammo types simply have slightly different variations on tracking, range, cap use, damage. Then I guess it may be able to reward someone who analyzes exactly which ammo would be best for orbiting at 29.4KM but I don't know how practical or useful the current minor differences are. I don't think it would help to just simply make tweaks to the minor, mostly unimportant, differences.


-SD


I don't like your ideas but I do agree that the ammo needs a balance pass.

Splash damage was used on Torpedoes before but you just end up with criminal flags in hi-sec.

Nerfing Hybrid ammo is a no no atm imo and cetainly not by slowing down ships (it was tried with Javelin and removed).

Same for nerfing crystals with additional heat dmg.


I do think the following should be implemented:

1. Projectile weapons need to use a small amount of cap (ver small but not zero).

2. Hybrid ammo needs to be rebalanced to make ammo other than AM and Tech 2 really useful. I do have an idea for this area as:
a. Change the Hybrid Ammo range to have a minor (small) variation in damage amount.
b. Make the range bonus / penalty range slightly narrower.
c. Change the amount of cap used by the ammo to be higher for the highest damage ammos and lowest for the lowest damage ammos.
d. Group them into three sub groups (similar to what has been done with Proj ammo) so that you have 3 variations of damage at short range, medium range and long range.

3. I have not thought much about Crystal Ammo but I think it could probably do with a similar rework. I love that Standard Ammo has the default range and the lowest cap consumtion but they could with a pass. Radio is almost unusable imo.

"Remedy this situation or you shall live out the rest of your life in a pain amplifier"
Stan Durden
Solar Forged
#4 - 2013-11-29 09:03:34 UTC
Master Sergeant MacRobert wrote:
Stan Durden wrote:
I was just playing around with EFT a bit and wondered if CCP has considered re-balancing ammo.

I have enjoyed most/all of the changes I have seen so far. I like the concept of making every ship worthwhile to fill some role.

I think most will agree many types of turret ammo don't seem to get used. Maybe there is a way to re-balance the ammo to see more use out of the ammo which sits between short range and tech 2 long range.

I have not come up with any solid ideas, but just to throw a few brainstorms out there... Perhaps some of the projectile ammo could have a proximity fuse with a small explosion radius giving the chance of a small amount of damage in a miss. Perhaps a crystal could randomly distribute heat on the racks which could damage modules over time. Perhaps a hybrid charge could have an effect of increasing the mass of a target making it slightly slower or less agile.

Those are just a few (probably terrible and would break the game) ideas from thinking about it for like 10 minutes.

I guess one irritation I would like to avoid is trying to keep track of a mountain of stats. If the ammo types simply have slightly different variations on tracking, range, cap use, damage. Then I guess it may be able to reward someone who analyzes exactly which ammo would be best for orbiting at 29.4KM but I don't know how practical or useful the current minor differences are. I don't think it would help to just simply make tweaks to the minor, mostly unimportant, differences.


-SD


I don't like your ideas but I do agree that the ammo needs a balance pass.

Splash damage was used on Torpedoes before but you just end up with criminal flags in hi-sec.

Nerfing Hybrid ammo is a no no atm imo and cetainly not by slowing down ships (it was tried with Javelin and removed).

Same for nerfing crystals with additional heat dmg.


I do think the following should be implemented:

1. Projectile weapons need to use a small amount of cap (ver small but not zero).

2. Hybrid ammo needs to be rebalanced to make ammo other than AM and Tech 2 really useful. I do have an idea for this area as:
a. Change the Hybrid Ammo range to have a minor (small) variation in damage amount.
b. Make the range bonus / penalty range slightly narrower.
c. Change the amount of cap used by the ammo to be higher for the highest damage ammos and lowest for the lowest damage ammos.
d. Group them into three sub groups (similar to what has been done with Proj ammo) so that you have 3 variations of damage at short range, medium range and long range.

3. I have not thought much about Crystal Ammo but I think it could probably do with a similar rework. I love that Standard Ammo has the default range and the lowest cap consumtion but they could with a pass. Radio is almost unusable imo.




You misunderstood me on both the hybrid and crystal ammo idea. I am not sure they are good ideas in any case. But the idea was to apply those effects to the target ship. I was just trying to imagine what effects you could get out of weapon systems that worked this way. So maybe the crystal can't chip off chunks of armor very well but maybe by applying heat it would start effecting the modules of the target ship. Or for the hybrid, I really don't know what the hybrid charge is supposed to be made of (plasma?) but I could imagine charges designed to do some damage and then once the kinetic energy was spent fuze the mass of the charge to the target ship, weighing it down.
Icarus Able
Refuse.Resist
#5 - 2013-11-29 09:24:28 UTC
Master Sergeant MacRobert wrote:


1. Projectile weapons need to use a small amount of cap (ver small but not zero).




**** NO. Projectiles are already weaker in everything but flexibility. Anyway how would a projectile weapon use cap?


But yeh Ammo does need a bit of a rework. THe hybrid charges drop off in damage too quickly compared to the range boost you get and as as they really dont have anything else going for them they suck. Im not sure i like your ideas but yeh be nice to have a reason to use anything other than 1-2 ammo types.

. Problem with getting hit with an ammo slowing you down is that you'll just get groups of people blobbling targets. It would be like having a webbing ship without having to deal with the paper tanks or a rapier/huginn.
Alvatore DiMarco
Capricious Endeavours Ltd
#6 - 2013-11-29 09:57:53 UTC
It has been my experience that anytime someone says "Projectiles should use cap", that person invariably has never actually used a projectile weapon in any meaningful way.
Barrogh Habalu
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#7 - 2013-11-29 10:36:35 UTC
Icarus Able wrote:
**** NO. Projectiles are already weaker in everything but flexibility. Anyway how would a projectile weapon use cap?

Turret servos? P

Future of T3 cruisers - multi-tool they aspired to be instead of sledgehammer they have become
Stan Durden
Solar Forged
#8 - 2013-11-29 10:37:30 UTC
Alvatore DiMarco wrote:
It has been my experience that anytime someone says "Projectiles should use cap", that person invariably has never actually used a projectile weapon in any meaningful way.


Then how about you post with your main. Or did you mean you have tons of experience with projectiles in pve?
https://zkillboard.com/character/1083880992/

I think it is good there are some weapon systems that don't need cap to run otherwise neuting becomes even more OP. However, I won't dismiss out of hand someone else for having a different idea for a way to balance things.

Thinking about the balance of weapons I do think it is odd that hybrids get lower reload time, and projectiles get more choice in damage type... Wouldn't it make sense that those two features should go together? Obviously there would need to be other nerfs to balance putting those two buffs together. But each on its own has much more limited application then both together would. Hybrids hardly ever switch ammo unless you are switching between null and void. Whereas with projectiles if you selected EM before you engaged and now you realize the target is an armor tank do you keep firing EM or wait 10 seconds for a better damage type? It can be a hard call sometimes but typically you keep shooting. Ammo switches do happen but not often.
Master Sergeant MacRobert
Red Sky Morning
The Amarr Militia.
#9 - 2013-11-29 14:23:30 UTC
Stan Durden wrote:
Master Sergeant MacRobert wrote:
Stan Durden wrote:
I was just playing around with EFT a bit and wondered if CCP has considered re-balancing ammo.

I have enjoyed most/all of the changes I have seen so far. I like the concept of making every ship worthwhile to fill some role.

I think most will agree many types of turret ammo don't seem to get used. Maybe there is a way to re-balance the ammo to see more use out of the ammo which sits between short range and tech 2 long range.

I have not come up with any solid ideas, but just to throw a few brainstorms out there... Perhaps some of the projectile ammo could have a proximity fuse with a small explosion radius giving the chance of a small amount of damage in a miss. Perhaps a crystal could randomly distribute heat on the racks which could damage modules over time. Perhaps a hybrid charge could have an effect of increasing the mass of a target making it slightly slower or less agile.

Those are just a few (probably terrible and would break the game) ideas from thinking about it for like 10 minutes.

I guess one irritation I would like to avoid is trying to keep track of a mountain of stats. If the ammo types simply have slightly different variations on tracking, range, cap use, damage. Then I guess it may be able to reward someone who analyzes exactly which ammo would be best for orbiting at 29.4KM but I don't know how practical or useful the current minor differences are. I don't think it would help to just simply make tweaks to the minor, mostly unimportant, differences.


-SD


I don't like your ideas but I do agree that the ammo needs a balance pass.

Splash damage was used on Torpedoes before but you just end up with criminal flags in hi-sec.

Nerfing Hybrid ammo is a no no atm imo and cetainly not by slowing down ships (it was tried with Javelin and removed).

Same for nerfing crystals with additional heat dmg.


I do think the following should be implemented:

1. Projectile weapons need to use a small amount of cap (ver small but not zero).

2. Hybrid ammo needs to be rebalanced to make ammo other than AM and Tech 2 really useful. I do have an idea for this area as:
a. Change the Hybrid Ammo range to have a minor (small) variation in damage amount.
b. Make the range bonus / penalty range slightly narrower.
c. Change the amount of cap used by the ammo to be higher for the highest damage ammos and lowest for the lowest damage ammos.
d. Group them into three sub groups (similar to what has been done with Proj ammo) so that you have 3 variations of damage at short range, medium range and long range.

3. I have not thought much about Crystal Ammo but I think it could probably do with a similar rework. I love that Standard Ammo has the default range and the lowest cap consumtion but they could with a pass. Radio is almost unusable imo.




You misunderstood me on both the hybrid and crystal ammo idea. I am not sure they are good ideas in any case. But the idea was to apply those effects to the target ship. I was just trying to imagine what effects you could get out of weapon systems that worked this way. So maybe the crystal can't chip off chunks of armor very well but maybe by applying heat it would start effecting the modules of the target ship. Or for the hybrid, I really don't know what the hybrid charge is supposed to be made of (plasma?) but I could imagine charges designed to do some damage and then once the kinetic energy was spent fuze the mass of the charge to the target ship, weighing it down.



"Effects" on the target have to be robust enough to cope with scale. At first consideration, it is unlikely to assign an attribute that is balanced exponentially (stacking would be necessary and I predict that there would be too much load on the servers - I think it may have trouble keeping up with damage from large fleets).

"Remedy this situation or you shall live out the rest of your life in a pain amplifier"
Kirimeena D'Zbrkesbris
Republic Military Tax Avoiders
#10 - 2013-11-29 15:32:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Kirimeena D'Zbrkesbris
Barrogh Habalu wrote:
Icarus Able wrote:
**** NO. Projectiles are already weaker in everything but flexibility. Anyway how would a projectile weapon use cap?

Turret servos? P

those are powered by sheer manpower (maybe hamsters).

Projectiles' main selling point is selectable damage profile and no cap use, but it is true only for t1 short range ammo. There is no choice of damage in long range ammo nor in T2 ammo. This is seriously crippling artillery (small and medium at least, large is barely ok because of alpha). For comparison: missiles as another weapon platform with selectable (pure)damage types has choice from 8(!) T2 ammo - 4 long range and 4 short range ones.
Projectile ammo re-balance is long overdue.

Opinions are like assholes. Everybody got one and everyone thinks everyone else's stinks.