Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Sorry for being so harsh but how can you be happy about a 175dps 8k EHP Merlin with full tackle? How is that balanced in any way shape or form?

On another note, wouldn't it be smarter to FIRST introduce the new newbie mining ship before you remove the racial mining frigates, I mean right now Amarr newbie miners are pretty much fcked. I really don't understand your logic to do it in this order.

When the bantam gets reworked into a combat ship you better give us the missile launcher hardpoint it clearly had back in 2001:

http://community.eveonline.com/download/videos/default.asp?a=download&vid=58

I do not wish to detract from sorting the tier issues for frigates, but:

Frigates need to be viable against:
The neuting power of 2xmedium neut Canes, because they have too much PG and can fit them them without issue. (Arties and their need for PG should require a bit more fitting compromise, and perhaps a reduction in PG cost).
The dual webs that a Drake can fit because it has so much tank to spare. Modern gameplay dictates that tank won't save you, mobility and dealing with tacklers will.
The speed of tier3 BCs, that will actually be tricky to run down without being 2-shotted before you're under their guns. Again, speed tank, best tank. They happily trade the EHP of a BC or BS to pack more dps and yet end up more survivable.

You can certainly make small changes to massage the weaknesses of each individual frigate hull while not diluting the racial variance, but you could also similarly be tweaking each racial weapon's dps/ranges/tracking by 5% and still have 5x as Drakes and Canes being encountered by almost everyone in almost all space because they're OP by a much larger varience.
Picking OP ships with just flat out more tank/dps/speed and otherwise equal stats is not a smart tactic that should be praised or protected, it's a sign that the game is sick and in need of more directed attention than starting from the smallest cheapest weakest ships first. IMHO.

Let us see both sorts of changes, a handful of frigates->cruisers->etc done right, at the same time as 1 or 2 most prominent complains addressed simply by changing some basic ship/weapon number values. Crucible was well received not just because of the AF changes or the Gal boost, but also spot things like nerfing the Dram so it didn't **** all over every other frigate that our beloved noobs might try to fight one in.

(the bombardment role was removed as feedback shown it wasn't great to start with)

ah thats a shame as i was hoping attack ships would be mobile turret platforms like vaga's
so bombardment described missile boats well as spewing out missiles and if they become rather mobile it could be hard to counter them and makes them seemingly OP slow/ weak defence in exchange for plenty of dps and range seems a fair exchange.
also a note on why use a caracal / cerberus instead of drake could be resolved with giving drakes dmg and rate of fire bonus for assault missiles only 30k doing 700-800dps with range assaults is pretty nice role for them instead of drakes being tanky 100k Heavy missile spewing ships doing similar dps to cerb this would give the drake and cerb specific roles thus worth using both ships.

I agree with this 100% - bombardment can be long ranged specialists, and combat the close range brawler, regardless of weapon systems.

I suggest putting drone ships into the combat role, as I see attack ships as kiters that might not want to wait for drones to travel to and from the target (hit and run).

A non range bonused frigate can't use the exact same fit and strategy as a range bonused one that's much faster. A Scorch punisher will be dangerously close to scram range and with beams you run into other issues. Not saying it can't work but it's hardly ideal for it. And when faced with similar tactic rail Merlin.... the Merlin wins again.

Merlin can also dual prop while retaining 7+k EHP and its speed is so dangerously close to a nanoed Punisher it will easily either get out of point range or grab it into scram range, long before the 7k EHP runs out.

Just out of curiosity; what is it in particular that makes you think the Merlin is overpowered?

mm.. true then maybe there needs to be a larger difference in dps between heavies and hams if you compare blasters to rails there is a large difference in dps of about 300dps.
hams to heavy missiles is about 100 dps, so nerf heavies dps and range in line with other long range systems like rails to get same range needs spike which reduces dps even more severely to 440 dps on a brutix more than half of its dps with blasters using void and buff hams dps.

Merlin is still the slowest by a significant margin - not only that, but its also significantly less agile. Null hits out to about 5/6km with any sort of reliable DPS - outside that its nigh on useless. So yes, it gets great DPS/Tank. But consider what happens when you add in its slow speed and extremely limited Range?

All the other brawling frigates get 3 turret slots and a damage bonus; so if DPS is an issue it comes from the fact that it uses Hybrids, not the bonuses or number of turrets. The tanking bonus isn't unique to the Melin either, both the Punisher and Incursus have one (either as resistance or rep bonus). All the brawlers bar the Punisher get at least 3 mid slots too.

If the Merlin provides the best tank/DPS + heavy tackle combo for tech 1 frigates, then that's op success for CCP; that's what the bonuses and slot layout give it the ability to do. You can't fit all the ships similarly and expect them to perform equally, that would be boring and remove all the nuance from the races; some ships are better at specific tasks than others.
The new goal is tiericide. Combined with racial nuances this means that while the overall role of two ships could be the same (racial brawler), their tactics and fittings could be completely different; understanding how each one is usually fit lets you predict and counter it.

In other words, I still don't see where there is a problem.

e: also see Mira's post above.