Skill Discussions

Hey. First time writing here. Decided to address a bugbear that has been gnawing on me ever since i first started playing eve many winters ago.

Missle skills.

A while back ccp has published a blog in which they stated that they are moving away from unnecessary complexity in game mechanics. Which is why it baffles me so that missle skills still remain unadressed, neglected even.

While turrets have a single skill appropriate for their type and size (Small projectiles, large lasers etc.), which then branch of into subgroups, missles have 2 skills which the pilot has to train for(like rockets and light missles), each accompanied by an appropriate subgroup.

Not only does this take up valuable training time, this makes little to no sense, adds unnecessary complexity and looks very inorganic next to the uniformity of the gunnery skills.

I propose that the missle skills for each tier be consolidated into a single skill as such:
- "Rockets" and "Light Missles" should become "Small Missles" or "Light Missles"
-"Heavy Missles" and "Heavy Assault Missles" become "Medium Missles" or "Heavy Missles"
-"Cruise Missles" and "Torpedoe" become "Large Missles" or "Cruise Missles"
-"XL Cruise Missle" and "XL Torpedoes" become "XL Missles"

This should bring missles more in-line with the other weapon types and smooth out the learning curve a bit.

***

Strawman Corner:

Objection: Turrets are are all race-specific while missles are universal.
Argument: While true in some cases, the amount of non-caldari ships that have bonuses to missles are limited at best. In fact, it is widely accepted that missles are cladari specialty and can thus be considered a faction-specific weapon as well.

Objection: Missle skill group is smaller than the turret skill group:
Argument: True. But missles also have separate dedicated support skills, which are equal in number and multipliers to the gunnery support skills and signifantly pad out the learning time. Besides, the bulk of the SP cap comes from XL -sized weapons and the fact that the gunnery group has 3x the amount.

This is when things started getting boring.

You can´t compare missiles to turrets 1:1 imo.

You got: small hybrid for gallente ships, small lasers for amarr and so on.
But you can use rockets on different ships (like kestrel and breacher).

So - it´s fine as it is.

I will argue that turrets have 3 paths to follow: laser, hybrid and projectile. Drones have 4: separate skills for each T2 racial variant. Missiles only 2.

Skill differentiation works differently for each class. Missiles let you choose your damage type but you need to train short/long range separately. Turrets let you pick short/long range but you need to train damage type separately. Drones, you also need to train T2 damage types separately.

I don't see this as needless complexity. They are choices that have consequences.

.....

Missiles are fine. Close this topic

I truly don't see the need to turn EVE online into a game where you can just jump into any ship & have one type of Missile, because this is how things would go. If you follow this kinda path. I love the different Missile types, because each one has its own play style.

I believe the original reason given for not consolidating them was that Guided Missile Precision did not affect the 'unguided' short range missiles.

However GMP was changed to affect both in order to fix persistent issues with the unguided missiles relating to damage application.

Therefore the reason to separate no longer exists. But while it would be nice, missiles are an after-thought for so many of the eve playing population I cannot ever see this becoming a 'must fix' issue that needs to be resolved urgently.

So I agree, but cannot see it happening.

[EDIT] Perhaps if it were resolved, missiles would be more used rather than discounted because of the extra training time. Certainly when it comes to capital sized launchers the extra training time becomes rather excessive.

If you are going to compare radically different systems then you need to look at the whole picture

ISK Cost of skill books required
Training Required for all required skills (assuming a maxed Per/Will attribute split with no implants)
Include the relevant weapon support skills appropriate to that specific weapon.

Drone Specialisation applies equally to
Light, Medium, Heavy & Sentry Drones

Railgun Specialisation requires separate
Small, Medium & Large skills

Missile Specialisation requires separate
Light, Heavy & Cruise skills

Now do the math on costs & approx. training times.

All this of course does not take into account how those different systems work in game under non-optimal conditions (a.k.a live play)