Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The gallente work on drones and hybrids and do not use missiles as their trade mark. They usually also focus on armor bonuses.
The caldari use missiles and shields typically and use drones as well just not to an extreme extent to where they get bonuses or huge drone bays.
The guristas are a combination of caldari and gallente, typically missiles and drones.

First off, let us look at the worm.
Right now it has amazing resistances to fit a great tank, and kites beautifully to hit from a distance with rockets to do a lot of damage to its victim. Having 3 rigs really helps it compared to many t2 ships as it makes it more versitile, and it is a deadly and beautiful ship. The bonus to gallente allows you to carry backup drones which makes shooting the drones down very time wasting while you apply dps, but some may argue that this is not able to best some of its competitors.
After the change, it will be able to use only two drones which will be more tanked, yes, but let us look at the drone damage. Before it did the equivalent of 5 light drones of damage from drones, and had some great range bonuses allowing it to stay far away from the firefight while slinging lights, or kiting outside of scram range while slinging rockets. People generally don't shoot the drones even in a 1v1 fight knowing there are plenty more on the way.
After the summer update we will be seeing 6 light drone equivalent, and 6 light drone equivalent of health on a target that can be focused down much easier. There will be fewer targets to lock so if anything, killing the drones will be more viable as killing one destroys half of its dps and constantly popping drones means you can keep half the drone dps off. This is not a large buff, nor anything very useful at all, and the increase in damage is debatable depending on what you use this ship for. Additionally someone got the brilliant idea to make gallente bonus not drones but....missiles??? What are you thinking CCP please take your pants off your head and put your underwear on the right way, the skinny side of the thong does not go in the front!
This is the least of the problems.

Next comes the gila.
They claim that it is overshadowed by the ishtar and new dominix. First of all, cruisers like the ishtar and gila have small sig radii enabling an entirely different style of gameplay versus a dominix. They additionally are great at fitting passive shield tanks for sleeper work in c1-c3 sites.
The ishtar is a lighter tanked faster cruiser that is bonused to sentrys but won't hold up in a c3 due to heavy neuting that will occur, but is a trade off of damage versus survivability. Additionally rapid light missiles are great at long range with the range bonus of the current gila at popping incoming frigates at long range, or adding some serious significant dps to taking out smaller ships in pvp. The gila is also capable of doing tremendous damage with sentrys, while fitting a buffer tank of almost 100k ehp with 220 passive regen with the bonus of utility highs, while the ishtar is good at dealing amazing drone damage at long ranges and sniping, as well as fitting many many other roles different from the gila that we will not go into here. Unfortunately the ishtar suffers as when neuted in a wormhole for example it cannot use its prop mod and then dies very easily, while the gila trades damage for survivability and uses missiles instead of guns, which opens up a unique set of possibilities.
With the new gila, it will be unable to deal with frigates unless it fits rapid lights, and the medium drones do 500 dps themselves. If you have to recall one to keep it from dying for whatever reason, that means all of a sudden you lose 250 dps which is a huge number. Additionally, the additional missile slot and damage mod for missiles doesn't help a lot since this ship is not meant to fit a lot of missiles, it uses its highs in very creating utility ways in both pvp and pve. Neuts with a killer tank and great drone damage is one of my favorites, and you never know what to expect from a gila right now in pvp. In the future you will know there are very few options and you can easily kite the missiles AND the drones by just staying out of web range of this very slow ship, even after the speed boost. It is also losing its sniper role as the drones will take eons to get to their target at any meaningful range, which leaves this ship greatly lacking compared to any other cruisers for the most part. You will only be able to use this ship effectively versus ships that are slow that medium drones can keep pace with, and that heavy missiles can apply dps to properly, and then it will have no tank to speak of due to the large amount of webbing and such you will have to use the mid slots for. Also did i mention once again, guristas are instead of providing say, a drone bonus, are providing MISSILE DAMAGE? They don't even pay attention to their own l
I'm sure there are many other complaints you guys have about these guristas cruiser changes they are making or ways they can at least improve the usability of these ships instead of cramming them into highly niche unusable conditions, stripping them of any of the creativity and versitality they offer at the moment.
Please CCP take your pants off your head and stop putting your underwear on backwards.

On another note I don't even want to know what happens to the rattlesnake, it will what, do missiles more like a raven while having lame drones?

CCP has said they want to create many opportunities and creative flying with all their ships, but what the hell is happening forcing all these ships into very tiny niche situations instead of creating new ships? There are 4 faction battlecruisers while there are 8 faction cruisers, and no pirate bc's while there are many pirate cruisers. These would be perfect platforms for new creative roles with the new skill changes versus screwing over the current ships!

OP is clearly either forgetting or deliberately ignoring that the revamped Guristas ships will finally feature useful missile DPS instead of being wholly reliant upon their drones.

Gigan: They locked the dev post when people started complaining.

I LIKE flying drone ships that are versitile and work more like a carrier where the high slots are utility highs, it has a high tank like a mini carrier and is capable of fitting to deal with many different threats, there is no need to take this away when you could easily at the very minimum give us a battlecruiser capable of doing this, or put a new battlecruiser towards the '3 man gang' so to speak.
The worm isn't so bad as I was saying, it is the fact that they are removing a critical type of game play by altering the gila especially, and the rattler I imagine very soon after. Both are great for ded complexes, the gila especially in dangerous territory like npc null, or running wormhole sites as it is capable of actually defending itself at the same time as running npc sites, and it can also be fit for pure pvp at the drop of a hat, often at the same time!
The stats don't matter that much either on paper when the drones will still suck just as bad as they do now at actually applying their dps, and will get primaried by sleepers instantly just as mediums do now. Sentrys also do more damage right now than the new stuff people are talking about.
As for the 60% bonus to drone damage/hitpoints per level, i'm more thinking put the missile bonus and shield bonus on the caldari if they're going to **** them up so bad, and instead put something like the role does a percentage bonus to med drones, it can fly 125mbit of drones just as it can now, but the gallente skill adds a % per level bonus to ALL drones. More skilled pilots would be able to be more diverse with the ship, while noobies would not be able to just sit there and plop the drones on the field and tada, instant dps without having to actually work on two unique races to maximize both their missile and drone capabilities, traits from two seperate races.
Personally, if they announce a new battlecruiser that can use all flavors of drones effectively and works as a mini carrier with utility highs, or can be used as a drone and missile boat or whatever, then this complaint becomes a non issue, it's just when there is such a gaping hole with no pirate battlecruisers and so few faction battlecruisers to speak of, why gimp the gila into a niche corner? Heavy missiles work great on bc's and vs bc's, so do med drones, personally I think it would just make more sense to do this kind of thing to a battlecruiser, but obviously there can be room for argument on each side.

Also before anyone says again this will just make a great brawler, I don't think anyone can argue it would be a better idea to just swap the way the drones are now to allow it to keep its drone bandwidth and have it specialize in med drones so it keeps its ability to deal with various types of threats. The two drone idea and only mediums is just way too much of hammering it into a niche. This ship change also doesn't have to make it so there are no viable highly tanked drone boat complex runners for dangerous territory, as larger ships lack the ability to gtfo quickly and re-engage without the aggro of the npcs on you, and most ships leave you running like a ***** instead of 'SURPRISE! BEND OVER' at the gate if you do decide not to suicidally engage with npc aggro on you inside the site.

Epicurus:
I could want a ship that doesn't just use medium drones, the one kind that gets 'special' attention and instant frying from sleepers while being too far away to get scooped up before they go pop. Additionally I could want the dps that sentrys provide if I choose to use them at long range to kill smaller things that are incoming or to hit things that are staying far away but like munching on drones. Mediums are the problem child of wormholers that try to use drones because of the fact that sleepers ALWAYS kill these very fast, and if you have to recall one to keep it from being killed by a sleeper bs it has to fly all the way back, while half your dps is now lost. You have to recall it anyways, no need for half your dps to be lost.
Additionally in ded plexes, med drones have a hard time working against fast targets, and you can no longer as you said easily destroy small targets, OR use it in a wormhole in a c3 class setting.
If there was a way to be able to actually use the drone side of this now without getting them owned by the sleepers or npcs in a ded complex every 15 seconds, then I'd have a lot less of a complaint. If I can still use lights to deal with frigates, I'd have a lot less of a complaint.
As for the sentry and cruiser combo, you drop your sentrys and orbit them with a very heavy passive tank and scoop the sentry taking damage to keep it alive, or use your high slots to remote rep it to drone tank, both of which I do. The cruisers sig radius means the worst hitting ships don't do full dps to you, which is critical in high difficulty sites, and the sentrys are required to do dps to targets that would otherwise instantly kill your yes, even 500% health bonused, non sentry drones. In places where there is heavy neuting you have to use a passive tank with a small sig, and drones of diff types gives you the versitality to apply your damage effectively from a small tackler that tries to hit you, to a whole range of npcs themselves, or you can even re-engage almost any ship class at the gate as you can select what you are best against, the whole purpose of drones imo. Now in places where you get neuted badly, there is no way to survive at all while still dealing half effective dps.
They are taking away the ability to be versitile on a very interesting cruiser, and turning it into a single role pvp only ship that has no use in wormholes anymore even as a pvp boat. The ishtar just cannot hold up as it is missing a rig slot that is critical and has no resistance bonus per level to shields. There is nothing to fill the role that they are removing a ship from, and they have stated before they wish to create new and interesting roles and not destroy roles ships play. They could easily create a new ship once again to meet their new role of a high damage high hp low count medium drone boat, or atleast leave us the versitality to deal with a wide variety of threats with this ship, instead of crimping us into a corner of very niche uses. 'Oooh close range brawler with some drones' is not a new role at all and there are plenty that exist in the medium drone boat role while now there is nothing to take the place in this much needed role. I prefer not to be stuck in either victim or killer, and be able to both kill someone, and run ded complexes or sleeper sites while I scout around with my alt.
If you happen to have a drone boat that can field all varieties of drones, isn't a billion+ isk, has a relatively small bc or less sig radius and can fit a passive tank, or can fit a passive tank to compensate for the large sig radius....let me know. Guns and missiles cannot change class on the fly. Hybrids change range on the fly, missiles change damage type, projectile change damage type AND range, lasers damage versus range tradeoff, and drones switch their target class size to be able to effectively apply their damage to various classes of ships. Medium drones also get eaten alive by sleepers as they are easy breakfast for them, there is no need to restrict this boat into just medium drones to give it a purely pvp role, when everyone could be satisfied.

Although I can sympithy with people who have their play style forcefuly adjusted by by changes to roles and uses.
and I dislike the trent of stepping over the relation between the ship bonus and where it origions from.

I realy don't get the extreme reaction this change get, there are 2 piriate lines centred arrund drones there is an amaizing assault cruiser centered arround drones not to mention a certain battleship and it's navy brother.

and with the new adjustments you hav three very good usable and diferent cruisers cruisers.

The Guirista line is moved a little more towards Caldari, with it's missile bonus and fewer drones om the field, yes it will change how you should use them, though I think to call it a single niche ship is too harsh, you'll need to review how you fly it but I think there are enough possabillities left.


It can still run missions . it can Still PVP, you can still explore with it.

The ishtar will never deal the same damage as an Ishtar as it is currently.
The Gila will always, no matter how you spin it, be more TANKY than the Ishtar.
Great you can sit here and try to post without reading, get lost.
Ironically for pvp the Gila will take less skills than an Ishtar, and no. Faction was NOT meant as a mid step it was meant to be a unique ship type with a unique roll.

Do you not read the ships yourself? Do you not inspect the stats yourself?
Gila has 3 rig slots, Ishtar has 2 which results in the Gila being able to fit a better tank.
Ishtar has 1 more low slot, Gila 1 more mid slot. Gila has more tank, Ishtar more gank. I use them both, I know.
Ishtar uses guns and has less highs, Gila uses missiles and has more highs. This means gila is more able to fit utility highs, while Ishtar is better for a close range blaster boat. This has nothing to do with 'cry cry I want a gila to be as effective as an ishtar without having to skill t2' as matter of fact, the Gila is currently more effective in certain scenarios while the Ishtar just can't cut it, and this relates to tank, not gank. Read the bonuses, Gila is meant to tank, Ishtar is meant to gank. I've also been around longer than you as this is not even my oldest character by any means, check someones SP first to see where they might be coming from instead of assuming they're whining over SP it makes you look like an idiot, unless you wish to just come off as a simple forum ragetroll.

I also really feel sorry for the person after saying I'm hysterical, how about you instead contribute to the discussion instead of just posting a useless comment that has no virtue?

On a final comment about that you can still explore with it...You actually can't use it for sleepers anymore because of the fact that even with the hp boost, sleeper battleships will still fry the medium drones in a matter of seconds.

The devs clearly stated their objective on the blog, the stats (alongside the drone changes) accomplish that.
You can ither calm down and deal with that or carry on like chicken little.

These ships will even be useful in PVE environments because their drones can avoid getting 1 vollied. I don't see an issue with CCP's plan at all.

First up, you're ********. I bet you're still trying to figure out why anybody would ever use medium hybrids on a Thorax, what with the huge penalty to tracking and damage (sarcasm because of his inability to understand hull bonuses for people out there who can't read it).

Protip: result = base * (Bonus1+100%)*(Bonus2*100%)*...*(Bonusx*100%) where x = number of applicable bonuses.
This means that for the Worm, it gets 1.00*(3.00+1.00) = 400% total light drone damage and hitpoints for 8 effective drones. Not 6.

Note: this is an informational for not just you, but all the other mouthbreathing ****-for-brains out there who can't seem to get it in their heads that these bonuses work like literally every other hull bonus in game in that this is +x amount improvement, not =x amount of normal. So the Worm gets 8 effective light drones and the Gila gets 12 effective mediums.


Alright, you've heard of Roden, right? The Gallente developer who has a tendency to use missiles? Look at the pre-rebalance Ares, Eris, and every other current Roden ship. Yeah, they get ******* missile bonuses. And even if they didn't, I'd rather see that than a 60%/100% bonus per level.


I would like to note that first of all, nobody except you cares about PvE balance in light of the more problematic thing that is PvP balance. So kindly go **** yourself, I'd rather have a broken ship for shooting red crosses than a ship that you can't engage without 10x its number.

Secondly: anybody who shoots a Gila's drones is pants on head, window licking ********. Each of those mediums will have ~10k EHP. And it carries 10. So yeah, you can try and kill its drones, but you'll be dealing around 100k damage killing them all, meanwhile the drones have been damaging you the whole time, as has the Gila with those missiles (which as you complained are bonused, so, dealing decent DPS.)

Tracking disruptor's don't work on drones. Its like ECM, you can target the drone, activate the ewar mod, but the penalty will not apply.

The only ewar that works on drones is a Target Spectrum Breaker. And yes I have tested this. You can too............ if you have a single friend, alt, random stranger you just met, etc....., and 5 minutes of free time.

Oh and to the OP. That's one massive wall of tears. I heard a lot of retards complaining about the Dominix changes when it lost its dual weapon bonuses. They simply couldn't comprehend how overpowered it was going to be. I think the new rattlesnake will be an absolute monster, dealing Vindicator DPS while still having a 200K+ EHP tank and be much much less venerable to enemy EWAR.

I cant wait to see how the new Guristas ships play out in the Alliance Tournament.