Player Features and Ideas Discussion

please give the non-combat ships 3 turrets. make all ships in eve useful in combat, as long as they don't have combat bonuses why not still let them equip 3 turrets?

This idea that only ships with bonuses to weapons get to equip more weapons, makes no sense.

If the probe had the hp, and turret slots of the rifter, but no combat bonuses that would be reason enough to fly the rifter over it for combat purposes. But let us at least still have something to add in combat when we are in non-combat ships.

In a way... how does the combat bonuses on the rifter make it better than a probe? What I mean is, even without skill points, if you took the ships in a pure stats and fittings with all skills at 0 eviroment I think you would find the rifter still beat out the probe without even breaing a sweat.

The way you've balanced ship now, you could remove all ship bonuses from eve all together and the ship balance would stay about the same. Once you figure this out as a player the game gets really stale.

Why not make bonuses make a real different in the ships you fly? The probe and the rifter for instance at level 1 skills should be on level ground in combat. THEN once skills are trained to 5 the rifter should blow the probe out of the sky no problem.

I hope one of the Gallente frigates turns into a Gallente version of the Fed Navy Comet.

The thing that kind of bugs me about this is statement is that the corporation that "favors missiles over drones" puts as many drones in its bays as the other shipyards (see Arazu vs. Lachesis). Impeach Jacques Roden, that missile loving crook! :D

Stop trying to get me to fit Rails on Caldari.





I do.



I always thought that Caldari Range Bonuses (Actually, All range Bonuses) should apply to both Optimal and Falloff. Currently Caldari are punished with a substandard bonus if they want to use blasters (Or Railguns with Javelin) Likewise with Lasers: When using Multifrequency or Conflagration, most of the range is in falloff. Simply using an optimal range bonus is forcing laser users to use Scorch/Aurora, and forcing Caldari Pilots to use Rails, or miss out on half of their ship bonuses.
Just something to think about. (I'd love to see how much the Eagle 'sucks' with double falloff blasters...)

Back on topic: Resists/Damage Merlin looks great. Significantly Slower and Less Agile than the Rifter though... Caldari are supposed to be the most agile race, not sure this is something that should stop (Especially considering that the Merlin is the slowest by a considerable ammount - not sure how this will work, considering how easy it is to outrange Blasters and get under Rail tracking) Either give a boost to speed and agility to make blasters more Viable, or Consider what I wrote above.

wait wait wait.

TORMENTOR

you gave it a 25% damage bonus and took away the 10% bonus to range...

which is fine but then you took one of it's turrets away? what? no! go back to the range bonus!!!! The range bonus version of this ship had more dps than the new one that has adamage increase.

So what you basically did was take it's range and damage, and called it a buff.


......

also explain to me why a ship with only two turrets needs a reduction in cap use? wtf

maybe of that was a 90% reduction in energy use

In what way is this at -all- consistent with Caldari gunboats? The Moa is not a brawler, nor is the cormorant, nor the eagle, nor the ferox. Some would argue this but I would also argue that the Harpy isn't, either.

You're shitting on Caldari ship philosophy. If the existing role doesn't work (And I would argue that no, certainly the current Merlin doesn't really work as a railboat) then fix that instead of trying to make it a Gallente ship. The biggest problem the current Merlin has is that it only has two turrets and no damage bonus which means it's not very usable by newbies and non-damage-bonused rails alone don't do enough damage.


Optimal + damage bonus with three turrets is a great idea. Merlin could still be used as a blasterboat, but the bonuses would reflect what other Caldari gunboats are. Three bonused rails could actually be very, very usable in frigate combat

MERLIN:

Again, good comments regarding the ship general role and range bonus, so it has been replaced with the old good school shield resistance bonus to turn it back into the heavy tackler / brawler you all learned to care about and love fondly.


New bonuses: 5% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret damage and 5% to shield resistances per level
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 350 / 175 s / 2
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 310 / 3.6 / 997000 / 3.36 s



i really liked the range + resist bonuses of the caldari gun boats. they fixed the problem of using blasters useable at range.
and with the latest hybrid buff adding a dmg bonus to it would over power them IMHO.
giving the the merlin another gun while keeping its utility high would more them put it up to par with the rifter
DONT touch my moa!!

caldari have always been slow that is why they needed the range for their blasters

Unfortunately, Scorch has that mid-range role monopolised, with the extra bonuses of superior tracking and rapid reload to high-damage ammo.

My ideal Merlin would have optimal and damage bonuses too. Losing the shield resist would be a problem, but you should still be able to whack a MSE on for reasonable EHP. The Merlin's old role of heavy tackle can be transferred to the Kestrel, by giving it a shield resist bonus and an extra medslot.

By the way the only difference betwen a drone and a missile is the number of uses.

As with any proposed balance change, there are plenty of people in this thread commenting on what they think the numbers mean without truly understanding. In an attempt to help everyone make more informed comments, I've broken down what's changed as well as providing some sample fittings and the stats the ship would have with those. First up is the Incursus, but the rest will be coming throughout the week. Check them out here: http://evefng.blogspot.com/2012/05/frigate-changes-incursus.html

I really do feel that forcing roles onto the ships is a bad idea. I also think this whole balancing thing is happening arse about face. We're trying to give ships roles and we have no idea what the role should be before the ships have even been balanced.

Maybe a better route would be to buff all the lower tier frigates up to the higher tier frigates by giving them the equivalent number of fitting slots and shield/armour/structure. Then start looking at changing their bonuses.

Also. As has been pointed out. Trying to squeeze frigates into the suggested roles of combat, attack and bombardment seems to not be working. Most frigates can't really do the bombardment role because of the limitations of small weapons (missiles aside). I also believe there is an unfilled role frigates could fill which is Electronic Support (Remote sensor boosts/Remote ECCM)

So, to that end; to avoid forcing roles on to ships, as I have suggested before, let the player choose their ships role when assembling their ship. The chosen role will give a "Role Bonus" to that ship. This role bonus can only be changed by repackaging and then assembling the ship.

Examples:
[u]Frigates:[u]

PUNISHER: 10% bonus to Small Energy Turret Capacitor use and 5% bonus to armor resistances per skill level
Combat Role Bonus: 5% bonus energy turret RoF per level
Attack Role Bonus: 10% bonus to afterburner speed per level
Bombardment Role Bonus: 10% Bonus optimal range per level

MERLIN: 5% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret damage and 10% to small hybrid turret range per level
Combat Role Bonus: 5% bonus shield resistanceper level
Attack Role Bonus: 10% bonus agility per level
Bombardment Role: 10% bonus optimal per level

INCURSUS: 5% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret damage and 10% bonus to fall off per level
Combat Role Bonus: 10% bonus to armor repairer effectiveness per level
Attack Role Bonus: 7.5% bonus Hybrid Tracking per level
Bombardment Bonus: 10% falloff per level

BREACHER: 10% bonus missile explosive damage and 10% bonus missile explosion velocity per level
Combat Role Bonus: 10% bonus to shield booster effectiveness per level
Attack Role Bonus: 5% reduction signature radius per level
Bombardment Role Bonus: 10% missile velocity per level

As you can see, the player would choose their role bonus and the role bonus is matched to try and max that role out. Some ships are designed to be better at some roles than others which is why some ships are getting double range bonuses for bombardment.
Role bonuses should also be fairly racial. For example Amarr and Caldari combat role defensive bonuses should be resists or hitpoint bonuses where as Galente and Minmatar should be active tanking bonuses.
Attack role bonuses should gear the ship for mobility or the ability to hit targets whilst moving fast or hit fast moving targets.

What do you think?