Ships & Modules

Actually most problems we can find in HACS vs those are not directly related to new tier 3 BCs but were already there, those BCs just helped to finish the job.

I'm confident on CCP Ybert...(can't spelz sry) abilities to balance properly HACS when time hits to balance those, he did an excellent job with T1 frigates, hope he will be able to do same with Tech 2 frigs/cruisers and so on.

I think Mfume made an excellent post, i'd just like to add this...

There are two major issues with Tier 3 BC:

First:

They ruined far more comps than they added to the game, leaving us with less (balance), and wether a comp is dead or not due to frequence of use is largely in the eye of the beholder. Looking at practical application they weren't really dead (the tactics they employed were still functional, even if they were impopular due to cost and scaling issues) and balancing the game around popularity is stupid. There's a difference between something that's been made impractical by game-changes (eg., 150km+ sniping) and something that has just been made impopular by trend.

The first in the larger picture:

Comps like AHACs are still an effective counter to both BS-tracking and HML-spam, it's just that they don't scale to "ludicrous numbers", no sub-supercapitals do. No ships in EVE were designed with such numbers in mind (besides the Tier 3 BC, where existing fleet-scale balance was taken into account, yet not all scales; which is the problem because they were designed seemingly with only Drakes and Alphamaels in mind). If there's an imbalance it's right there, bring more numbers to overcome anything, even if it's a direct counter to what you have. Bring more scissors to beat rocks. Bring enough scissors so neither paper nore rock will want to play.

In 2007 CCP aknowledged that AFK-Empires were a problem, yet they've kept feeding them for 5 years, turning a once vibrant EVE-online into a non-emergent, jabber-fed husk with instanced gameplay separating the world.

The legacy of the current company line is that WH play with WH, FW play with FW, NPC-null stick to NPC-null, 2-3 blocks involve themselves with Sov-null, lowsec stay in lowsec and Empire is no longer a starting area but it's own little bubble haven. It's about as non-emergent (and themeparked) as you can possibly go without throwing the entire sandbox out of the backyard. I am 'mad' because the sandbox is built around emergent interaction, they need to encourage that.


Second:

The whole "they are paper thin so that makes them balanced, no matter how much damage they do and how easy a time they have to apply their damage" is an issue as it's such a major favour for numerical advantage. If everyone can always kill everyone the side with the larger number will undoubtedly win in the long run. That's what's happening to Tier 3 BC and what the OP is beginning to catch up on (despite people like myself pointing it out since before the ships were introduced). Your typical symmetrical march and line-up warfare just got new field-cannons. The AFK-imperial age thrives.

The second in the larger picture:

The game had a 3-6 month honeymoon before the blobs caught on. Now, anyone with numbers to spare can easily throw away cost-efficient ships (the Tier 3 BC cost a bit more than Drakes, but are still BC and reasonably affordable), and these ships utterly destroy and offensively counter so many things that the typical 'Drakes' never did. Plus, they blend in better with your typical existing BC-blob than BS ever did. In the end, this has made Tier 3 BC augment the existing BC-blobs much more than it has come to counter them. All at the expense of several different "dead comps" and tactics that did counter them. Very few groups with lesser numbers are using Tier 3 BC to destroy larger numbers of mix gangs.


Also, are there seriously still people out there who belive the Cynabal is a better nano-platform than a Talos in today's environment? That's quite baffling. Having more speed alone does not make it a different type of ship. It's about what ship execute the gameplan best. Nano, in that sense, isn't really a speed limit - it's the name of a larger general tactic.

The whole T3 or T3 discussion is also pretty obvious. No other ships tend to be named by tier (which also say something about tier 3 BC as they are like a class of their own). Thus the definition T# refers to Tech in all other circumstances, and using it for Tier with the BC can make threads and arguments misleading. That's why i keep typing out the full name Tier 3 BC. I don't really care what the rest of you do, but simply typing out T3 can lead to unecessary confusion.

Vaga is about 800m/s faster than the 'Nado with an MWD and also can actually TRACK frigates. it also has better EHP

I don't see the issue you are talking about here. i'll still fly a vaga if im not fighting BS, and a nado if i am.

Working as intended?

I'd be happy with them just getting a nerf in sig res. That way they are easier to track/hit and not so damn slippery.

You should try Eve wiki ^^