Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I don't like that some of the ships are getting role bonuses (like the new attack frigs, for example.) I've never been a fan of those.

But I do think that designing each ship with a solid purpose (or, two purposes for T1 ships) is a very good thing.

I do worry too that they might wedge ships too tightly into roles at the expense of versatility, I've been worrying about it ever since the fanfest presentation about ship rebalancing where they were talking about half a dozen 'roles' which they wanted each ship to fit into.

Also, a better example for you than the Phoon would probably be the Rifter. When you engage one, you don't know if it's armor buffer tanked, armor repper tanked, MSE, scram-web-AB, long point-MWD, etc. About the only 'given' on a Rifter is that it has projectiles (and I've seen a couple arty Rifter fits too, so not even ACs are guaranteed).

As long as the T1 ships are more general in nature than the T2 ships, I still see no problems.

For example, T1 combat vessels would do tanking and damage. T2 combat vessels would be highly specialized in one of these, blowing the T1 out of the water in that area. It comes at the expense of the other, though, in which the T1 version would actually be better. This way, each ship has a purpose, T1 ships are still pretty general while not all being bland and samey with the rest of the ships in their class, T2 ships are highly specialized, and no ship is rendered obsolete. Prices can be adjusted, but T2 should still be generally more expensive thanks to being by far the best in their role.

The danger of not giving T1 ships roles is that they all become bland and generic and every T1 Minmatar cruiser is just like every other T1 Minmatar cruiser. I like to think of them as the base upon which the T2 hulls are ... well, based.

Based on the frigates that are being / have been re-tooled, it looks like T1 ships are going to be specialized in the same way that T2 ships are, but with fewer bonuses. That doesn't make the T1 ships more general, it makes them do the same things as their T2 counterparts but worse.

For example, the way things are going, on a Minmatar ship you might end up with a T1 ship that had a bonus to proj RoF, and a T2 ship that had bonuses to RoF and falloff (making it an autocannon-focused ship). What might be more interesting is a T1 ship that had bonuses to projectile damage, a small bonus to proj falloff and optimal (like 1/3 of the bonus that the T2 hull gets but to multiple things), and maybe a missile bonus on the side. It would just be a lot more interesting if you didn't know if a Hurricane (for example) was going to be an artycane, autocane, or HML cane, in addition to wondering about how it was tanked, etc. If you wanted to specialize in using autocannons, you'd train for a Sleipnir / Vaga which would have stacked bonuses that are all AC focused. If you wanted a ship that could do several things passably, you'd take the swiss-army Cane.

I'd prefer to see T1 ships be extremely versatile, but not as good as T2 hulls at any one job, rather than just being less-good versions of their T2 counterparts. The redone frigates all seem to have very specific bonuses. The Incursus is a good example-- it's bonused to hybrid damage and armor rep amount. Since active tanking a frigate is only useful provided you can dodge fire from larger turrets (IE a sniping rail fit would be totally worthless against anything but [potentially] other frigates) this sort of forces the ship into active tanked blaster setups. It would have been more interesting to see CCP just add to the Incursus' base stats and slot layout until it could field a number of cool setups rather than making it bonused for specific things.

Similarly, the proposed "attack frigate" changes seem to place those frigates squarely into the role of "worse interceptor," which, to be fair, they had already defaulted to since they were just totally useless for anything else, but... eh. I suppose frigates are kind of a special case in that they need a huge buff to be remotely useful, and if CCP Obscure Metal stops the role specificity at the frigate line there wouldn't be too much of a problem. What I'm worried about is this approach being extended to larger ships. I don't want them re-tooling the Hurricane into an arty platform that's inferior to a Muninn while the Cyclone is changed into an autocannon-focused worseVaga(TM). If some T1 ships need a buff, they should be buffed in ways that are beneficial to a variety of setups rather than turning them into watered-down versions of T2 ships.


tl;dr: after talking a lot about how they want all T1 ships to be good ships in their own right rather than something people fly only while waiting to skill / save their way into objectively superior "higher tier" ships, it seems like CCP are taking T1 ships and turning them into watered-down T2 ships which will only be flown until their owners can afford the genuine article (a T2 ship of the same line / specialization). No me gusta.

Okay then, it sounds like we are in agreement. I am also worried about T1 ships just being watered down versions of their T2 counterparts. So long as the T1 ships are given multiple legitimate roles to fill, and T2 ships are better at one specific role but worse at anything other than what they're specialized in, we're good. Which is, I think, what we're both saying. Maybe we just got to the same conclusion by different means.

Bottom line: T1 should not be worse T2. T1 ships should have a general role to fill (all around combat vessel, all around EWar vessel, etc) at which they are actually better than their T2 counterparts. They just should not compete with T2 at the one thing the T2 specializes in.

The problem I see with making T1 hulls capable of fielding almost everything is the need to make all of the stats pretty much the same and the only difference is name and looks.

If the Caracal and Moa were both capable of fielding blasters as easily as HMLs then their PG, CPU and such will have to be so generic as to be nearly the same. Maybe you could have one faster or one stronger but then you would end up with each one being used to fill a niche their uniqueness provides resulting in cookie cutter builds anyway.

Instead there needs to be some focus to each ship. You can have focus without forcing a role. So Caldari focus is hybrids or missiles but within that focus the ships can go long or short range based on pilot preference. Minmatar would have shield or armor as possibilities with projectiles as their weapon of choice. Gallente gets hybrid or drone as their focus.

So in the end there would be better choices than currently where ships only have one basic role, but there would still be an overall focus giving each empire it's own flair and tactical strengths and weaknesses.

Hm. I see it working, so long as T2 ships are highly specialized. Example, using Minmatar ships again, the Rupture. Combat vessel. It tanks, it does damage (take your pick, AC or Arty.) T2 Ruptures (note the plural) would then become highly specialized. You'd have a tanker that's incredibly hard to kill but doesn't do as much damage as the Rupture. Then you'd have the art platform, designed around pure alpha, but it doesn't tank as well as the Rupture and is probably too slow to kite with autocannons. It warps in, lands the alpha, and warps out if things get too close. Then you could toy with having a T2 autocannon style Rupture. It may not tank very well, but it does have enough tank to survive long enough to get up close and personal with Hail.

Prices would of course need to be adjusted, with T2 being quite significantly more expensive than T1 but no where near as wide a gap as there currently is. The price point is a big deal, because there aren't any ships that are just outright better at everything anymore, and so prices shouldn't be quite so drastically different. You just pay a little extra (say, two or three times as much, rather than 10 times as much that we have today) for the specialization.

The "Role Rebalance" in my opinion is a good thing. However, I feel that CCP is going the wrong way about it.

If ships are to receive a "role" bonus depending on what role CCP think that ship should be why can't we choose the role bonus on how we want to fly it.

This would be set when the ship is assembled and can only be changed if the ship is repackaged and assembled again.
For example:

The Moa:

Currently has a Hybrid optimal and a shield resist bonus

If we swop the resist bonus for a hybrid damage bonus the ship becomes okay at brawling and sniping.

If we then give it a choice of role bonuses which could be:
Combat: 5% shield resistance per level
Attack: -5% MWD cap usage per level
Bombardment: 10% hybrid optimal per level

The ship can then be configured into the selected role by the player.

Another example (battlecruisers):
Brutix - drop the armour rep bonus for a 10% hybrid fall off bonus
Then:-
Role bonus:
Combat: 10% armour rep amount per level
Attack: -10% MWD cap penalty per level
Bombardment: 7.5% Hybrid tracking per level
Command: Able to fit gang links

Oh god, I'd shoot myself if they made all ships use subsystems. I'm pretty sure there's maybe 6 decent subsystem combinations between all the racial T3 cruisers. Most of them are garbage.

So people are freaking out about a system that has not even begun being implemented for the most basic frigates?

CCP's idea actually has fantastic merit. Simply put your fears are laughable since so many ships in Eve appear to be ignored anyways for the cookie cutter fits and expectations of most people.
Yes some of the ships will be boxed into specific roles, but how is that different from the current system and their T2 counterparts?

My recommendation: do not panic and let us see how the frigates come out first.