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Titan changes - update

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Ganthrithor
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#641 - 2012-04-05 05:06:54 UTC
I'm Down wrote:
Mechael wrote:
5mok1ng gun wrote:
I must say that the devs never amaze me anymore hiding such a game change like the proposed Ships Ship Maintenance Array change in whatever stage of conception it’s in within a thread about “ Titan changes – update “ since it impacts ALL capital ships.


Can't really blame them for this. What starts as a bandaid fix for Titans ends up touching on the core of the issue - Titans have no real role in EVE, and once roles come into play, all ships are affected.



This is where experience and understanding core game play is so necessary to have any say on the fix. I've probably got more capital combat experience in my left nut than any other 2 FC's combined in game. I'm approaching somewhere near 75 Supers killed in combat, and only a handful of those were raw ganks. I've also watched somewhere near 57 of my friend and allied lose their supers, and participated in probably another 100 odd kills or losses where I wasn't in control of the fleet.

Something like changing titan's ability to fit in a fight is about 0.000001% of the problem. Basically, this is how 99% of fights unfold in terms of supers"

One side commits, the other side counters if they have better numbers, super numbers dictate the day, dreads have 0 impact other than fodder, support spectates.



Basically the rule of thumb with supers is that titans are about 10x the combat value of every Mothership, Motherships are about 40x the value of any dread. That's of course assuming it's an actual fight and not 40 dreads vs 1 random mothership.

Primary issue with titans is that they have no natural counter. FIRST AND FOREMOST. The one "natural counter"... Dreads, got screwed long ago when supers became anti capital platforms. Dreads fall quickly to Doomsdays, the 1 shot wonders, which makes it nearly impossible to fight large titan numbers. Dreads die in under 30 seconds to any lightly coordinate mothership group.... IE choose a random target near the top of the list and see how many fighters end up on it.

BS and below suffer only because the tracking to range balance is ****** up.

But who's honestly going to be so liberal with titans if all the sudden, dreads are a threat again. I fought this battle intensely when the first changes to supers were made with fighter bombers and DD 1 shot bull, and it flew under the radar, but lets face facts, you removed the role of normal caps when supers became the blap mobile.

So ask yourself this honest question Greyscale. Is the problem really the guns on titans, or the fitting array, or the amount of target locks, or is it that you have 2 ship classes that counters any ship in game capable of effectively killing it. Because when you realize that this is the true problem, you'll see that Titans and SC will always spawn in mass on a grid, in higher numbers simply because remote repair + the encouragement of insane resist due to cost of ship vs cost of gear factors and the overall unkillability of them encourage this.

Even if you implemented lower damage though some crap sig/balance damage scale rather than adjusting the tracking formula, there's a natural counter to your solution which is, bring more titans and start focusing fire. Eventually, the damage will still blap, and the ship is still near impossible to kill. And even when you nerf titans into oblivion, we're already working on a solution which involves BS vs 3600 DPS fighter bombers once we "adjust" their sig and speed for them... and yes, we've tested it on SiSi.

Fix the core problems, quit looking for the easy solution that avoids the core problems.


A good post.

Death2DDs.
Sigras
Conglomo
#642 - 2012-04-05 05:45:01 UTC
Demon Azrakel wrote:
I am not sure you understand grouping. All calculations are done independently, some shots miss, some hit. What you get printed out is the total and an average quality of hit. If you get two excellent hits and one miss (think a dread with three guns here), the game will tell you "well aimed" or something. And yet one gun missed. All that grouping guns does is is make it so you hit f1 instead of f1-f6. The calculations do not care, it just prints out a total damage and average hit quality.

im pretty sure you're wrong about that; gun grouping was put into the game as a help to lag. As quoted from the original dev blog:

Original Dev Blog wrote:
As a side effect, we want to emphasize that using this feature will have a beneficial effect on overall latency since calculations are counted from one combined group and not eight individual modules in an extreme scenario; as such we highly recommend its use for fleet battles. Below is a comparison between the individual and grouped mode.


Am I mistaken about this?
Dr 0wnage
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#643 - 2012-04-05 07:32:34 UTC
Grey, as i see people here trying to tell you, the issue we have with titan tracking is a symptom of the real problem, not its cause. The real problem here is there is a huge gap between battleships and supercaps that capitals are in their current form are unable to fill. Even with some work it will still be very difficult to fill that hole without the addition of new capital class ships.

The problem is your sandbox works a little too well at times. When side A brings 1200 maelstroms, there are only 2 viable counters. One being MOAR MAELSTROMS, and second being tracking titans. Were sitting in this damn box with a bucket and no shovel!!!

Were on the right track here with the tracking changes, especially scaling damage. BUT, without addressing the cause of the problem this change alone won't fix anything. Your trying to put a band-aid on a cut that needs stitches...

We don't need the fix right now, you have time to do it right. Adjusting the tracking is a start but you need to accept that wider changes are needed. As of now you are completely avoiding the main issue. What im seeing in this thread is great and seems to be moving us in the right direction. Were here to help bud, put us to work Smile
Pesadel0
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#644 - 2012-04-05 07:55:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Pesadel0
Ganthrithor wrote:
I'm Down wrote:
Mechael wrote:
5mok1ng gun wrote:
I must say that the devs never amaze me anymore hiding such a game change like the proposed Ships Ship Maintenance Array change in whatever stage of conception it’s in within a thread about “ Titan changes – update “ since it impacts ALL capital ships.


Can't really blame them for this. What starts as a bandaid fix for Titans ends up touching on the core of the issue - Titans have no real role in EVE, and once roles come into play, all ships are affected.



This is where experience and understanding core game play is so necessary to have any say on the fix. I've probably got more capital combat experience in my left nut than any other 2 FC's combined in game. I'm approaching somewhere near 75 Supers killed in combat, and only a handful of those were raw ganks. I've also watched somewhere near 57 of my friend and allied lose their supers, and participated in probably another 100 odd kills or losses where I wasn't in control of the fleet.

Something like changing titan's ability to fit in a fight is about 0.000001% of the problem. Basically, this is how 99% of fights unfold in terms of supers"

One side commits, the other side counters if they have better numbers, super numbers dictate the day, dreads have 0 impact other than fodder, support spectates.



Basically the rule of thumb with supers is that titans are about 10x the combat value of every Mothership, Motherships are about 40x the value of any dread. That's of course assuming it's an actual fight and not 40 dreads vs 1 random mothership.

Primary issue with titans is that they have no natural counter. FIRST AND FOREMOST. The one "natural counter"... Dreads, got screwed long ago when supers became anti capital platforms. Dreads fall quickly to Doomsdays, the 1 shot wonders, which makes it nearly impossible to fight large titan numbers. Dreads die in under 30 seconds to any lightly coordinate mothership group.... IE choose a random target near the top of the list and see how many fighters end up on it.

BS and below suffer only because the tracking to range balance is ****** up.

But who's honestly going to be so liberal with titans if all the sudden, dreads are a threat again. I fought this battle intensely when the first changes to supers were made with fighter bombers and DD 1 shot bull, and it flew under the radar, but lets face facts, you removed the role of normal caps when supers became the blap mobile.

So ask yourself this honest question Greyscale. Is the problem really the guns on titans, or the fitting array, or the amount of target locks, or is it that you have 2 ship classes that counters any ship in game capable of effectively killing it. Because when you realize that this is the true problem, you'll see that Titans and SC will always spawn in mass on a grid, in higher numbers simply because remote repair + the encouragement of insane resist due to cost of ship vs cost of gear factors and the overall unkillability of them encourage this.

Even if you implemented lower damage though some crap sig/balance damage scale rather than adjusting the tracking formula, there's a natural counter to your solution which is, bring more titans and start focusing fire. Eventually, the damage will still blap, and the ship is still near impossible to kill. And even when you nerf titans into oblivion, we're already working on a solution which involves BS vs 3600 DPS fighter bombers once we "adjust" their sig and speed for them... and yes, we've tested it on SiSi.

Fix the core problems, quit looking for the easy solution that avoids the core problems.


A good post.

Death2DDs.


This rigth here is what balance should be about, giving proper counters not nerfing a class because they can blap our rifters standing still.


Disable DD on dreads or take them out of the game , bring capital disrupter that prevent remote reping and prevent use of DD and that can only be fitted in dreads and used against capitals, and voila no more ****** game balance has to be done .
Mechael
Tribal Liberation Distribution and Retail
#645 - 2012-04-05 07:58:45 UTC
Pesadel0 wrote:
This rigth here is what balance should be about, giving proper counters not nerfing a class because they can blap our rifters standing still.


Well, it's both really. Maelstroms should not counter rifters (neither should Titans for that matter.) As it stands, tracking in large groups is totally ****** and this does need to be rectified.

But ... fixing roles is even more important. I'd argue that the two are intrinsically tied.

Whether or not you win the game matters not.  It's if you bought it.
Ganthrithor
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#646 - 2012-04-05 08:01:13 UTC
While this debate rages, here is a picture of a puppy.

http://i.imgur.com/XsyDW.jpg
Jace81
Sacred Sacrifice
Absolute Will
#647 - 2012-04-05 09:21:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Jace81
Hmm after much thought and observation the answer is simple; people say There unchallenged no counters makes them OP the Solution is just remove the E-war immunity then they will need support to not get locked down no other changes are really needed!

If you can stop it from shooting with ECM its countered if you can disrupt its tracking it's countered Shocked

Just my .2isk
Bouh Revetoile
In Wreck we thrust
#648 - 2012-04-05 09:27:11 UTC
I think titans actually lack a counter. But the tracking formula need to be looked at anyway because this is the mechanic which allow them to be so powerful against subcap
The tracking problem of XL guns is not specific to XL gun. They scale exactly the same as other guns do. The problem is that they are at the end of the scale, so the problem are apparent, but the same goes for the other turrets
XL gun tracking with 3 or 4 tracking computer with scripts is the same or better than short range L gun tracking; but the same goes for L and M guns
There is actually one point where XL gun don't scale the same as the other guns : damages. Damages of XL gun is *a lot* higher than the other size of turrets. Titan have fifteen times the dps of a dps BS whereas a BS only have at most two times the dps of a BC

Infact, titans are OP because they accumulate a lot of screwed mechanics. Their power don't scale the same as other ships, immuning them against lower class of ships ; the EW immunity + massive amount of ehp immune them against blob ; DD immune them against dreads

Balancing titans may be addressed with any of these parameters ; it depend on the role to give to them. CCP seem to take the direction of making them anticap and support plateform, and hence, consider removing their ability to massively kill subcap

EW immunity adjustment may make them vulnerable to blob of subcap
Damage adjustment against sig address blaping (and yes, if you do it right, damage adjustment will address blaping, because power of blaping is also a consequence of the 15000 dps thing, not only alpha)

CCP Greyscale already explained why they don't like combat refiting

Effectiveness of titans against dreads don't seem to be on the radar

Blaping is a consequence of the turret damage formula. I already explain the two way of addressing the problem of XL gun tracking gaisnt smaller target, and I already explain why I think the best way is to play with the hit chance and not with the damage modifier. I also explained how a quick and dirty fix could be made for titans (directly modify the hit chance with an adjusted sig ratio)

About the sig used for turret damages with subcap : right now, important things in fleet are speed/agility, tank and dps. Size don't matter, because you can kill almost anything with a big gun, so if you ship is agile enough for your need, bring as much firepower as you can. Shield BC offer a good compromise of all these, and that's why we can see so many of them. Adding sig to this set would do great things for frigates and and a little for cruisers OR very bag things to L guns, depending on how it's done ; anyway, that would give more importance to size of ships without necessarily making any class more OP than another because lower size would allow to avoid big guns whereas big guns would allow for huge firepower. Pretty much how everyone expect the things to be infact. Thoug I'm a bit out off topic here

About the sig ratio affecting optimal range : IMO, that would negate the tracking idea completely. If you want sig to be considered in the hit ratio of turrets independantly of any other parameter, then it need to be alone in its own member. Right now, the sig ratio only determine how easily you can outtrack a turret, it's balanced in some way. The parameter simulating what you are saying is the falloff. Falloff simulate the diminution of the accuracy with range. Optimal range, by definition, is the range where you can accurately hit your target. Though you have a right point : at long optimal range (starting at 30km I guess), only interceptors can outtrack any turret because speed is too low to make a high enough transversal velocity for any other ship and MWD negate your speed in this matter. But that's more of a problem related to the sig ratio only considered here than a flow of the range or tracking idea IMO.
Sigras
Conglomo
#649 - 2012-04-05 10:16:36 UTC  |  Edited by: Sigras
CCP has already stated that titans are meant to be the anti capital ship platform, like it or not, thats what CCP says their role is, and we can discuss whether or not thats a good role for them at a later date, but currently, thats what they should be doing.

So my question is, in light of this, what are supercarriers supposed to do? What are dreads supposed to do? Titans have become the one stop shop as far as cap ships are concerned because they are "anti capital ship / anti structure / anti POS" ships.

I suggest removing their guns, reducing the DD to 1,000,000 damage and giving them +1 DD per level of DD operation so at level 5 they can use 5 DDs This would keep them as anti capital ships and remove their anti structure capabilities.

To further balance this, I would remove the "cannot receive RR" restriction from the siege module (not the triage module); this would mean that dreads + carriers are the counter to supercarriers because supercarriers cant do enough alpha to break their tank, titans are the counter to dreads + carriers because they'll just insta pop the dreads, and supercarriers are the counter to Titans because they cannot be easily one volleyed by the DDs.
Pesadel0
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#650 - 2012-04-05 10:55:03 UTC
Mechael wrote:
Pesadel0 wrote:
This rigth here is what balance should be about, giving proper counters not nerfing a class because they can blap our rifters standing still.


Well, it's both really. Maelstroms should not counter rifters (neither should Titans for that matter.) As it stands, tracking in large groups is totally ****** and this does need to be rectified.

But ... fixing roles is even more important. I'd argue that the two are intrinsically tied.



Well i'am more to the opinion that if a lone or a gang of frigs put themselves in tactical situation were they can be ***** slapped by 100 maels , were they are doing it wrong and should be blaped.
Andy Landen
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#651 - 2012-04-05 13:28:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Andy Landen
Lord Zim wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
- Put "revisit tracking formula" on our to-look-at list, and particularly consider revising how sig radius and sig res are treated (either make this comparison more prominent or pull it out and use the damage scaling on all turrets, possibly with some additional adjustments TBC)

I think you should look into making distance modify sig radius, since the further away you are from the other target, the smaller it is relatively, and the harder it should be to hit. I don't think falloff really simulates that properly as it is today.


I agree with this. Falloff should be the decreased chance to hit with distance. I am glad to see great support for removing eWar immunity and stopping the effort to disable refitting while locked/mid-combat.

I want to see collision damage. If a fleet is holding at 1500m on a Titan, instead of the Titan saying, Hey! Who bumped me? He might say, Would someone wipe that mess off my hull? (as the frig or cruiser goes splat). Little ships will respect its presence a lot more.

I want to see Doomsdays being limited to structures and the other weapons boosted to Dread standards at least. One-shot DDs make only the Titan and Supers viable and thus deployed on the battlefield. The rest are only deployed with the knowledge that they will likely die, which is a hard tactic to follow.

Edit: Even if Titans were meant to be anti-cap ships, 1 shot alpha per DD is pretty ridiculous. I mean seriously, where are those anti-battlecruiser platforms that 1 shot drakes?! Bad idea. But my understanding was that CCP intended titans to be alliance tools for alliance scale operations like sov warfare. Making the DD only hit structures would effectively make the Titans as I understood CCP's intentions, owned by alliances and used for alliance matters instead of owned by everyone because the alternative is to lose.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein 
Creat Posudol
German Oldies
#652 - 2012-04-05 17:07:13 UTC
Sigras wrote:
Grayscale, you also said that the problem wasnt that Titans are hitting too often, the problem is that when they do hit, they insta gib what theyre shooting at.

I really think weapon grouping is your culprit here. If I understand the mechanic correctly, one chance to hit calculation is done and the resultant damage is multiplied by the number of weapons in the group right?

well look at it this way:
If you have a single group of 6 titan guns with a 50% chance to hit, (forgetting the damage variation for a minute) they will nail your target with a ton of damage 50% of the time
As opposed to:
If you have 6 independent guns each with a 50% chance to hit, the chance that all of them hit is .5^6 or 1.5625%

essentially what gun grouping does is amplify the alpha strike potential of any given ship, which isnt usually a problem unless, as in this case, youre relying on one ship to destroy the target in one volley.

I think my solution (especially now that TiDi is such a success) would be to disallow XL gun grouping. This would require the titans to have much more coordination if they want to go titan blaping.


Don't forget that this titan will also only intablap every second ship, or at least need 2 shots on average. Also that comparison of the chance of all 6 (single) guns hitting at once is only relevant if the target isn't destroyed with 5. Many ships that shouldn't be instablappable at ALL with guns that size (anything frig sized, or more relevantly dictors or even HIC) can probably be shot with just half the guns, which is the exact amount of guns that would (on average) hit with a 50% hit chance.
So, with weapon grouping disallowed for XLs a titan would on average need 2 volleys against anything tanked to the exact extent of the guns alpha. It would still need just one shot against anything sufficiently smaller (requiring 1/2 total alpha or less). Currently it needs 2 shots on average for all ships that can't tank at least 1x total alpha damage, as it would also have a 50% chance to miss anything on the first attempt. You can't just ignore the "other 50%" of that hit chance!

Also, the hit chance of a titan is quite often much higher and nowhere near that 50% you use as an example.
Ganthrithor
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#653 - 2012-04-05 17:39:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Ganthrithor
Greyscale:

What about removing DDs, reducing Titans bonus to XL weapons to a flat 125% (and leaving XLs unchanged), and adding a new class of turrets specifically for Titans that allow them to do similar DPS to their current XL setups but with 2-4x the gun signature size. Then go through the DB and douple/quadruple the size of capship sig radii as appropriate to match.

This would let Titans either fit for flexibility (but lower overall damage) or anti-cap/structure duty (but sacrificing their ability to hit subcaps). Axing DDs will make using normal caps against Titans a little saner. I don't even think you'd need to go through the DB and change POS gear sigs to work with the new guns because structures don't move. It would even make your PvE titan problem far less severe by drastically reducing their DPS.

edit: In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like this solution. Much of the current problem with Titan tracking isn't that its impossible to out-transverse ~*a*~ titan, but that it's impossible to keep transversal low for every titan in a large blob of them. When just one Titan gets the opportunity to shoot at your subcap while your transversal is low, you get blapped. If Titans' XL weapon volley damage drops drastically, however, having low transversal against 1-2 titans becomes far less of an issue, as you can eat the volleys without dying, then get repped back up.

With a flat 125% XL damage bonus, even an arty-Rag, king of alpha, would only volley for 40.6k damage-- less than half the tank of a fleet battleship even assuming a good hit. For closerange weapons (the kind that track subcaps well), you're looking at ~16k alpha.

Some pros regarding this approach:

- No need to modify gun mechanics
- Minimal DB changes required (just inflate cap / SC sigs)
- Fits with EVE's existing philosophy (no arbitrary limits on gun damage, flexibility in ship fitting options depending on one's intended role)
- Allows you guys significantly more freedom to "play" with the stats on Titan-specific weapons without affecting other ship classes
- Makes regular caps a more viable counter to supercaps (by axing DDs)
- Allows Titans to stay flexible in terms of role (shoot caps, shoot subcaps, shoot structures) without enabling them to wipe the floor with subcaps
- A group of Titans set up for anti-capital warfare will be vulnerable to subcaps. A group configured for anti-support will be vulnerable to caps (they'll lack the DPS to quickly kill Dreads / Carriers) while still being far less effective against subcaps than current tracking titans.
- Would seriously "tone down" ratting Titans (you mentioned you wanted to do this)

Some detractors:

- Art team would need to cook up some new turret models / animations at some point (only 6 though, it can't be too bad. e: I guess 8 now, with missile racks being a thing :3), although in the meantime I don't think people would mind if you just kept using XL gun models with new names and stats.
- People will cry about the removal of Doomsdays and you'll have to read their posts
Steel Heid
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#654 - 2012-04-05 23:34:57 UTC
I like Ganthrithor's idea a lot. You don't even need new models for the new class of turrets, they could be tech II, higher caliber or other advanced variants of existing XL models. Don't forget about buffing hics and dics, I want more titan killmails. What happened to the supercarrier point module idea?
Pharon Reichter
R.I.P. Legion
Fanatic Legion.
#655 - 2012-04-06 07:31:15 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:


Already doing this SmileThe "balance team" is pretty small, and we talk to each other about all of these things, don't worry Smile And yeah, we'd love to move balance to a place where the "core concept" ship is making up say 40-50% of the fleet rather than 80%+.




Found your problem. If you don't have the resources why don't you wait until you do instead of pushing for a mindless quick fix ?
Lanasak
Doomheim
#656 - 2012-04-06 09:10:49 UTC
Ganthrithor wrote:
Greyscale:

What about removing DDs, reducing Titans bonus to XL weapons to a flat 125% (and leaving XLs unchanged), and adding a new class of turrets specifically for Titans that allow them to do similar DPS to their current XL setups but with 2-4x the gun signature size. Then go through the DB and douple/quadruple the size of capship sig radii as appropriate to match.


By "flat 125%" do you mean 25% per level or "ahahaha **** your titan V skill" 125% role bonus?
MisterAl tt1
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#657 - 2012-04-06 12:18:29 UTC
I've read through some posts and here are my points of concern:

1. Re-fitting in combat. CCP states it is not like it was thought to be and thus can be changed the moment they need it. I suppose it is one of those points, that actual implementation is much better, then designed. Taking it away would limit tactical abilities and would reduce the interest in the game. Very sad. If the problem is with supers - deal with supers. One of the best fights I've had was mostly fun and hard cos of constant jammers re-fit in fight.

2. XL sig scaling. Has CCP once again forgotten, that there are places like wormholes? Or has CCP forgotten there are other ships using XL turrets, but titans? I agree, that after Dreads buff they are a little overpowered in WH engagements, since they can easily kill even T3 ships, if properly prepared. However, the suggested change can greatly impact even PVE aspect too - dreads are commonly used to shoot Sleeper BS. Drastically limiting Dreds use for PVE in wormholes can put some corporations between the choice of staying in WH with lower profits (and still living in high-risk environment where you have to use expensive ships), or go farming Incursions.

If going forward with XL scaling I would suggest, that for wormholes such side-changes are needed to keep dreads "alive":
1. Modified sig-radius used in calculation
2. Sleepless Guardian BS sig radius increased

And some option to still making dreads in WH able play their role in sub-capital engagements. Though limited.
Creat Posudol
German Oldies
#658 - 2012-04-06 17:43:07 UTC
Pharon Reichter wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:


Already doing this SmileThe "balance team" is pretty small, and we talk to each other about all of these things, don't worry Smile And yeah, we'd love to move balance to a place where the "core concept" ship is making up say 40-50% of the fleet rather than 80%+.


Found your problem. If you don't have the resources why don't you wait until you do instead of pushing for a mindless quick fix ?


Yea, because throwing more people with more opinions at a problem surely solves it in no time... It's not the amount of work that has to be done (which would require more people), it's just that the problem has to be analyzed, possible solutions evaluated and finally one has to be implemented. Since this is about a small fix for the short term, and not about a redesign of an entire ship class, few people will produce better results. For idea-input - where multiple people would possibly come in handy - there is this thread (and quite a few older ones I might add). This is the perfect use of resources if you ask me.
Pesadel0
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#659 - 2012-04-06 18:13:00 UTC
MisterAl tt1 wrote:
I've read through some posts and here are my points of concern:

1. Re-fitting in combat. CCP states it is not like it was thought to be and thus can be changed the moment they need it. I suppose it is one of those points, that actual implementation is much better, then designed. Taking it away would limit tactical abilities and would reduce the interest in the game. Very sad. If the problem is with supers - deal with supers. One of the best fights I've had was mostly fun and hard cos of constant jammers re-fit in fight.

2. XL sig scaling. Has CCP once again forgotten, that there are places like wormholes? Or has CCP forgotten there are other ships using XL turrets, but titans? I agree, that after Dreads buff they are a little overpowered in WH engagements, since they can easily kill even T3 ships, if properly prepared. However, the suggested change can greatly impact even PVE aspect too - dreads are commonly used to shoot Sleeper BS. Drastically limiting Dreds use for PVE in wormholes can put some corporations between the choice of staying in WH with lower profits (and still living in high-risk environment where you have to use expensive ships), or go farming Incursions.

If going forward with XL scaling I would suggest, that for wormholes such side-changes are needed to keep dreads "alive":
1. Modified sig-radius used in calculation
2. Sleepless Guardian BS sig radius increased

And some option to still making dreads in WH able play their role in sub-capital engagements. Though limited.


Dreads aren't PVE machines, didnt you read grey post a PVP ship isnt a pVE ship so you will get your nerf eventually.
MisterAl tt1
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#660 - 2012-04-06 19:12:12 UTC  |  Edited by: MisterAl tt1
In wormholes dreads are PVE machines too, not the least cos they trigger capital escalations people farm. And if CCP did not plan capitals to be used in PVE in wormholes - why would they make additional spawns of nasty BS when capitals come to grid?
Now they spawn sleepers and shoot them (and sometimes they can even die, in newbies hands). With such a nerf they would be needed just to make spawns.

To clarify for those not knowing wormholes - single carrier, attempting to farm here, would die at the first site he attempts. So would 4 carriers.

And more to refitting in battle. CCP states that without refitting you would have to think prior to the battle. Now you have to think in the battle (not the easiest thing to do under stress). With such changes - many people wouldn't have to think at all - their commanders would for them.

Eventually now people able to THINK in battle have advantage over those who does not. And CCP plans to take that away. All hail F1-monkey!