Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I will be brief.

I have played since 2009 and right when Incarna was launched, I have witnessed the entire rebalancing initiative from its conception to its current state. What I have learned is thus, in bullet point fashion.

• T1 ships are meant to be the most common ship flown in game. Not just because they are cheaper but because they can be flown sooner and are perfected faster.
• T2 ships are specialised in one direction or another. They are very skill intensive to fly in the first case and take many more SP further to be maximised. In effect they are their own ship line.
• T3 ships can generally be accessed just after T2's. At this point in time they're a bit slower than HACs, have a bit better EHP and otherwise apart from a few specific subsystems have been outclassed by various T2 ships in those specific roles (as was intended).

In having gained access to every ship in the game (ie I have trained for every t2 and t3 hull available, I can fly dreads and carriers soon(tm)) I have seen something. A very little something about the T3 hull. It is a solo ship. It is a ship that has modules which innately mimic T2 ships but fall short. It is a ship that is costly to build and hard to gain the materials for. It is a ship designed for the most dangerous space in the game. It has the capacity for solo work and this where it should be the most utilised. It should have diminished appeal for fleet work. It is not these things right now but it could be.

My thoughts are these.

1. Remove SP loss - these are draconian and arbitrary limitation that is no longer needed as a balancing factor.
2. Consolidate all subsystem skills in to a single T3 skill. This single skill will gain synergy bonuses from relevantly trained T2 skills which will apply to the specific subsystem you have fit at the time.
3. Rebalance the subsystems with this new model in mind - combat subsystems should be synergetic and should have poorer synergy with non-combat subsystems. In other words, make slot layouts less subsystem specific.
4. Generally lower EHP values on T3's. T2s have ~50% more ehp than T1's, T3's should have maybe a scratch more again for 160% the ehp of a T1.

I reserve the right to modify or expand the lists at a future date.

My main objective for these modifications is because I want to create more scenarios where T3's do what they were designed for - these ships were advertised as being flexible and adaptable. Right now there are ships that are pidgeon holed in to a couple of roles which is in contradiction with this mission statement, but I attribute this more to the march of time and of the global rebalancing effort than strictly to T3's themselves.

I will preface the skill consolidation with the assumption that right now T3's are quite balanced internally, within a vacuum. The skill consolidation works as thus:

T1 Cruiser skill
| --- Level 1
| ---- Level 5
T2 Cruiser skills - Logi, HAC etc \\\ T3 skill plugged in. T3's available to fly. T3 Subsystem skill available
|
|
T3 level 5. \\ T3 subsystems skill level 5.

This basic model does not do justice to the graph in my head. What I want is to take the 5 subsystem skills which are level 1 and replace them with a single level 6 (or level 8 or whatever) skill that never loses SP against it but that applies a bonus per level to the bonus per relevant t2 skill in addition to existing bonuses we see today.

Much like set bonuses of games of Yore this is my open objective. If you have for example trained Logi V then logistics based subsystems should grant bonuses based on this level. HAC V should grant bonuses to combat related subsystems and if you have HAC 1 it should offer a straight 20% of the bonus of HAC 5.

This is only a draft but I wanted to put it to the floor here before taking it to the CSM forum section to iron out any bugs.

The skill loss is there for a reason. The multiple skills are there for a reason.

This is not Hello Kitty Online.

It sucks when I lose a Proteus (usually because of my own stupidity), but it doesn't happen often and the 4 days loss of training is not really a disincentive for me to keep flying them.

It's the cost of the bloody things that I hate.

I see no need to change the current mechanic.

Mr Epeen

Than HACs.



The reason for their existence is probably not as concrete and irrefutable as you've permitted yourself to believe. At this point in the balancing program T3s are being outclassed in a number of roles and perhaps as part of the T3 rebalance addressing one of their most obscure pain points should be a considered.

also T3 skill loss doesn't stop anyone from flying them really as you will consistently see from wormhole and pirate groups. Furthermore I shall mention the nullsec T3 blobs.



I'm curious how you have arrived at this conclusion, bearing in mind not everyone is able to afford one. Does your sweeping generalisation apply to FW and highsec as well?

If they did that why fly any other ship.

However a line of implants that reduced effects of skill loss (including when you get podded without a proper clone.) would be interesting.

While you still lose SP if you sacrifice say slaves or crystals you can greatly reduce SP lost. Or you can use another implant set and earn a vastly improved combat modifier.

So people who wish to not lose SP can invest into them, and people who don't care can continue on with how they do.

Infact make it a random drop in Wormhole space from sleepers across 3 grades like the others. Call it an Augmented Memory Chip. Give it a similar bonus percentage grade as the others to the point where you can get around 50% maximum SP loss reduction.

This provides a marketable commodity that provides incentive to go to other areas of the game, it provides more player options, and it maintains a hierarchy of specialization. Ideally you would want a slaved Proteus but you could chose to protect your SP investment, while you lose a lot of survivability you can protect yourself incase of loss as well.

Exactly. T3s come with high risk and high reward. Tech 3 means better than T1 and T2.

I just wish we could start getting tech 3 modules.

coming from someone that clearly said he would not fly ANY other ship if there wasn't skill loss, thats pretty hilarious

Whats wrong with spending money for time? Worked for sec status.

Nobody gonna point out that incarna was not in 2009?

To be fair, I had to read that a few times to catch it.