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[Winter] Support Frigates

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Spugg Galdon
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#241 - 2012-08-21 09:42:53 UTC
Destroyers are gonna have great fun welping these.
Monster Dude
Raging Angels
#242 - 2012-08-21 09:56:33 UTC
It would be 100 times better to make logies endup in kill mails.
E.g. If logistic repping a ship that getting in killmail (shoting it ) then logi gets in killmail too.

Then players would fit nano logistics for frig roamings... An no special frigates would be needed.
Spugg Galdon
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#243 - 2012-08-21 10:06:32 UTC
Agreed that there should be an "Assisted by" section on the kill mail which would have details of whatever assistance was supplied during the fight. This would include gang links Twisted

I would imagine the kill mail would look more like this:

|>Killed by:
Pilot
Ship
Weapon
Damage dealt
|> Assisted by:
Pilot
Ship
Assistance (remote repair / shield transporter / remote ECCM etc)

This way people won't get "Solo" kills that aren't solo kills and if someone is using an off grid booster it will be known
Paul Clancy
Korpu no Byakko
#244 - 2012-08-21 10:25:35 UTC
Dear CCP Fozzie, there's three questions about these ships.

1. Bantam without launchers, but you say you don't want to make noobie's train 'wrong' skills?
2. Exactly same bonuses within armor/shield tank, shouldn't there be more racial diversity? such as more range but less healing or vice versa?
3. No more drones for Navitas? Just one light drone for any of the ships? Maybe do Navitas as 'repair drone' boat? (also note the string above.)
ITTigerClawIK
Galactic Rangers
#245 - 2012-08-21 11:34:15 UTC  |  Edited by: ITTigerClawIK
Michael Harari wrote:
how does this not make solo pvp exponentially harder?



how is it "solo" combat if there is a second person on a team involved?

PS: i love the fact that we have logi frigates now, but it sadens me deeply that i will not be getting my rocket inquisitor :( i was looking foward to it ALOT
Klown Walk
Federal Defense Union
Gallente Federation
#246 - 2012-08-21 11:53:31 UTC
More changes that makes pvp just about having more numbers. This will kill solo frigate pvp, I can't see myself using a Taranis trying to pick of tacklers/frigates in a gang after this change.
Erim Solfara
House of Solfara
#247 - 2012-08-21 12:04:19 UTC
This should be the tormentor, not the inquisitor, and the new tormentor should use the inquisitor hull.

Why the disparity between the races?
Bagehi
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#248 - 2012-08-21 13:30:38 UTC
Frigates live and die on their speed. Making this ships slower than the rest of the frigate gang means they are just going to die horribly, plus, the suggested rep range puts them in range of large neuts. They'll need some other boost to be functional. Interceptor warp speed would be my suggestion. It would allow them to bounce in and out of a fight fairly effectively. Plus, it would make them an ideal ship to bring in small gangs to suicidally rep the bait ship while the rest of the gang is inbound.
CCP Fozzie
C C P
C C P Alliance
#249 - 2012-08-21 13:49:02 UTC  |  Edited by: CCP Fozzie
Ok I'm gonna do another response post, try to cover the major themes so far. This is responding to subjects brought up both in this thread and on third party sites, although those of you hoping for me to respond directly on third party sites will be best served asking specific questions you want answered here on the official forums since this is where I will be replying.

Discussion of tanking imbalances:
So some people have been asking if we care about some of the design problems inherent in our current tanking situation, and if we're going to redesign these ships to compensate for these problems.
Firstly, we are very aware of the many problems we're facing in tanking design at the moment. The balance between active and passive tanks, and between armor and shield (and honour) tanking are both in need of work. ASBs have made parts of this problem better (adding new interesting gameplay and making "active" tanking more popular) while making other parts worse (too good in many circumstances, and skewing the meta further towards shield). Armor and shield tanking balance suffers because mass (and velocity) penalties are far more severe than signature radius penalties in most circumstances, and to a lesser extent because of the difference between shield hitting at the start of a cycle and armor hitting at the end. This is especially harmful for active tanking Gallente blaster ships that need that speed to get within range.
These problems are real and we are working on them, but the solution isn't to skew the ships themselves too far in the opposite direction. Our goals are to hit the problems at their source.
That being said there may be things we end up doing to these ships to help smooth things out, such as reducing cycle times and/or tweaking the mass of the armor tankers down a bit. We're going to keep working on these ships up to and beyond release in the Winter.


What about reducing the cycle times so the reps can hit fragile frigates faster?:
It's definitely an option we're keeping open, both to help deal with the armor/shield imbalances and also because these ships will so often be repping low buffer allies.


Gonna quote one post since it sums up three good questions so succinctly:
Paul Clancy wrote:
Dear CCP Fozzie, there's three questions about these ships.
1. Bantam without launchers, but you say you don't want to make noobie's train 'wrong' skills?

Turrets are 100% a viable and correct weapon system for Caldari pilots. They have turret ships at all levels in every tech level. Also the hardpoints on these frigates are not intended to be primary weapons in most situations. There's two reasons I put them on:
a) Because I think some people will experiment with fleets of combat fit logi frigates as a fun (but not generally optimal) setup
b) Because part of giving people freedom and choice is allowing them to make choices like putting killmail grabbing guns on a logistics ship. Learning why you should not use those guns is a key step in the life of a logi pilot.

Paul Clancy wrote:
2. Exactly same bonuses within armor/shield tank, shouldn't there be more racial diversity? such as more range but less healing or vice versa?

In the case of logistics ships adding differences on the scale of range and rep amount will quickly create optimal ships and sideline the rest. We are separating the ships into the slightly more durable (Inquisitor and Bantam) and slightly more mobile (Navitas and Burst). We'll keep tuning those to make sure they're as distinct as possible without making any of them useless.

Paul Clancy wrote:
3. No more drones for Navitas? Just one light drone for any of the ships? Maybe do Navitas as 'repair drone' boat? (also note the string above.)

A Navitas built as a dedicated logistics drone ship was actually a design I spent a lot of time working on early in the process. There were definite issues balancing it, but the nail in the coffin was that logistics drones are much more SP intensive than normal reps. We needed all of these ships to be similarly viable for newer players.


Don't you care about the fact that the Tormentor used to be the mining frigate so it breaks the pattern of mining frigates becoming logi frigates?
Not really, no.


What if these ships ruin solo pvp?
So this is a big question and is the main reason I'm moving relatively carefully here. I understand how much solo players rely on killing key enemy ships fast and how anything that helps gangs keep their ships alive is going to make solo harder.
In the end I believe that the stats on these ships will make them managable for solo and small gangs to face. The rep amount is very low (even accounting for ship size) compared to the commonly used rep ships, and the logi frigates are sluggish enough that you can use speed and maneuvering to your advantage against them. We're going to be testing these ships for a longer period than we have ever tested new ships, and we will be taking all of that testing into account. If we need to tune these ships to reduce or increase their power, we have time to do so. And we're not firing and forgetting once they are on TQ as well.



Now for the big one. Why didn't we keep the Inquisitor as a rocket frigate so that the Khanid ships would have a tech one precursor?

This is a big issue brought up by these changes, and I want to address it in some depth. Currently the Khanid line of Amarr T2 ships uses missiles but Amarr only has one tech one missile ship, and it was almost unusable.
CCP had a choice to make when planning for the Amarr tiericide.
a) Create a whole line of T1 Amarr missile ships that have similar styles to the Khanid ships to act as a stepping stone. This would mean making the Inquisitor into a mini-Vengance, and the Maller and Prophesy into HAM ships.
b) Increase the use of drones on Amarr ships and turn drones into the full fledged secondary...

Game Designer | Team Five-0

Twitter: @CCP_Fozzie
Twitch chat: ccp_fozzie
Kraschyn Thek'athor
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#250 - 2012-08-21 13:49:46 UTC
I'am looking really forward this.
There were a breach in the repping chain, since an T2 Logistic Cruiser cannot keep pace with Frigattes.



I find the introduction of T2 Logistic Frigatte rather easy.
Give them defensive boni, done!
Something like 10% MWD Signature Reduction/Level, 5% Shield/Armor Resistances per Level, 10% Hitpoints for Shield/Armor per Level....



And all those "death to 1 vs. 1" talking.

Your 1 vs. 1 is also ruined with an Blackbird on the second account for example.
There are dozens of ways that an Dualboxing vs. One gives advantages.
A T1 Logi Frig against any other Combat Frig in a One vs. One is a sure thing lost to the Logi Frigatte.

But Logi Frigattes will open up some new opportunities.

For better one vs. one Fighting, we would need other "rules".
Area that restrict Access, like long tunnels in an asteroid. Physical obstacles that can't be shoot through....

Like in the real world. Nobody stops the onslaught on a plain area without cover.


Veshta Yoshida
PIE Inc.
Khimi Harar
#251 - 2012-08-21 14:42:50 UTC
CCP Fozzie wrote:
... We made the decision to drop the rocket Inquisitor and make it the Amarr logistics frigate, as the better of two good options...

Why choose when you can have both without significant breakage?
Veshta Yoshida, on page 10 wrote:

<.snip.>
My idea, was and is, to have look and feel like combat frigates that were refurbished to fill a need in the armed forces;
- Give each two (or three) weapon slots of racial type.
- Double the amount repped bonus, makes it an even 100% at lvl5 .. Smalls will in effect rep as much as a Medium.
- Replace cap bonus with a racial damage (or RoF) bonus.

Avoids creating a one-trick pony which is I believe contrary to current design philosophy (T2 = focused, T1 = generic, T3 = TBA).
Avoids having logi frigs being only flown by alts/dual-box characters as they will have nothing to do at all.
Shifts the planned rep-over-duration-of-fight towards the front end of the fights (where it matters, see avg. frig fright duration above), with cap becoming an issue if it drags on.

Give the Amarr logistics frigate launcher slots and a rocket bonus and you get to keep the missile line alive as well as giving players the option to go all-out combat, logistics or a mix of the two .. AND .. it partially solves the issue of armour coming in at the end of the cycle removing the need to speed SAR's up .. only need a 200mn plate to live long enough in most cases, tested with a Guardian using only SAR's.

Speaking of the Guardian, that ship is why I hate having another ship that only does one thing especially when it is a T1 hull which are supposedly the ones with the widest focus.

In short: Don't make the choice, leave that to us! Big smile
Lili Lu
#252 - 2012-08-21 14:48:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Lili Lu
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Discussion of tanking imbalances:
So some people have been asking if we care about some of the design problems inherent in our current tanking situation, and if we're going to redesign these ships to compensate for these problems.
Firstly, we are very aware of the many problems we're facing in tanking design at the moment. The balance between active and passive tanks, and between armor and shield (and honour) tanking are both in need of work. ASBs have made parts of this problem better (adding new interesting gameplay and making "active" tanking more popular) while making other parts worse (too good in many circumstances, and skewing the meta further towards shield). Armor and shield tanking balance suffers because mass (and velocity) penalties are far more severe than signature radius penalties in most circumstances, and to a lesser extent because of the difference between shield hitting at the start of a cycle and armor hitting at the end. This is especially harmful for active tanking Gallente blaster ships that need that speed to get within range.
These problems are real and we are working on them, but the solution isn't to skew the ships themselves too far in the opposite direction. Our goals are to hit the problems at their source.
That being said there may be things we end up doing to these ships to help smooth things out, such as reducing cycle times and/or tweaking the mass of the armor tankers down a bit. We're going to keep working on these ships up to and beyond release in the Winter.

Good to hear. I know for me it has been frustrating seeing the design changes on frigates and destroyers roll out an only too well reinforce the existing disparities in the game. It only elicits from me sarcastic posts as without any indication of concern on your part it gets depressing. Thanks for this post, but please also consider expediting some of the module fixes as this has been needing to be addressed for years. It’s almost all shield kiting all the time right now.

CCP Fozzie wrote:
What about reducing the cycle times so the reps can hit fragile frigates faster?:
It's definitely an option we're keeping open, both to help deal with the armor/shield imbalances and also because these ships will so often be repping low buffer allies.
thanks again.

CCP Fozzie wrote:
Gonna quote one post since it sums up three good questions so succinctly:
Paul Clancy wrote:
Paul Clancy wrote:
Dear CCP Fozzie, there's three questions about these ships.
1. Bantam without launchers, but you say you don't want to make noobie's train 'wrong' skills?

Learning why you should not use those guns is a key step in the life of a logi pilot.
This. Enough said Fozzie. If a budding logi pilot wants to killmail whore he can relase his one light drone and assign it to the killmail god in the gang. Good luck to him sometimes finding the moment to do so in a quickly beginning and fast moving frig fight as well Lol
Lili Lu
#253 - 2012-08-21 14:58:06 UTC
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Paul Clancy wrote:
Paul Clancy wrote:
2. Exactly same bonuses within armor/shield tank, shouldn't there be more racial diversity? such as more range but less healing or vice versa?

In the case of logistics ships adding differences on the scale of range and rep amount will quickly create optimal ships and sideline the rest. We are separating the ships into the slightly more durable (Inquisitor and Bantam) and slightly more mobile (Navitas and Burst). We'll keep tuning those to make sure they're as distinct as possible without making any of them useless.

Thanks for this clarification as well. I was wondering why the hp disparities, and the slot disparites were puzzling as they meant a weaker tank on some. But please also remember that the Navitas in particular will have other difficulties to overcome. Its low slots will have competing interests unlike the Burst. If it chooses to armor tank then those mods will compete directly with mobility mods in the lows. Worse, it cannot try to rig for both as those rigs will directly nerf each other. Again, please consider module and rig fixes on an expedited timetable or the Navitas will simply not see much use.
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Paul Clancy wrote:
Paul Clancy wrote:
3. No more drones for Navitas? Just one light drone for any of the ships? Maybe do Navitas as 'repair drone' boat? (also note the string above.)

A Navitas built as a dedicated logistics drone ship was actually a design I spent a lot of time working on early in the process. There were definite issues balancing it, but the nail in the coffin was that logistics drones are much more SP intensive than normal reps. We needed all of these ships to be similarly viable for newer players.

Agreed. Training for the remote repair modules are of prime importance. The repair bot training can wait until cruiser or even tech II logi tbh.
Mascha Tzash
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#254 - 2012-08-21 15:10:25 UTC
CCP Fozzie wrote:
I'm not going to rule out creating t2 versions of these someday, but the t1 versions are all that's coming for winter and t2 versions would be a somewhat more difficult balancing problem if we ever do them.


By reading this, I fear BS are getting attention in 2014 or even later. Not that BS matter more than any other class, but there are also some... lets call it strange things happening. And these would be sitting there for at least 2 years from now.

It's 100% correct to take the first steps of a very new aproach more than carefully, like you do in this phase of redesigning ships. I also like the fact, that even design drafts are presented and discussed.

But I also fear, that this will go on like this:

Summer 13: Destroyers
Winter 13: Cruisers
Summer 14: redoing Destroyers
Winter 14: BCs
and so on....

Hopefully I will be prooved wrong...

best wishes and go on with your good work Smile
Lili Lu
#255 - 2012-08-21 15:12:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Lili Lu
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Paul Clancy wrote:
Don't you care about the fact that the Tormentor used to be the mining frigate so it breaks the pattern of mining frigates becoming logi frigates?

Not really, no.
Agreed. Hull switcheroos are nbd.

CCP Fozzie wrote:
Paul Clancy wrote:
What if these ships ruin solo pvp?

So this is a big question and is the main reason I'm moving relatively carefully here. I understand how much solo players rely on killing key enemy ships fast and how anything that helps gangs keep their ships alive is going to make solo harder.
In the end I believe that the stats on these ships will make them managable for solo and small gangs to face. The rep amount is very low (even accounting for ship size) compared to the commonly used rep ships, and the logi frigates are sluggish enough that you can use speed and maneuvering to your advantage against them. We're going to be testing these ships for a longer period than we have ever tested new ships, and we will be taking all of that testing into account. If we need to tune these ships to reduce or increase their power, we have time to do so. And we're not firing and forgetting once they are on TQ as well.

Sounds good. Solo in this game is such a rarity anyway. As long as the alt (formerly Falcon, now tech III booster) is brought into line (which please expedite in the case of tech III ss’d off-grid boosters) it becomes less of a concern.
Lili Lu
#256 - 2012-08-21 15:13:36 UTC  |  Edited by: Lili Lu
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Paul Clancy wrote:
Now for the big one. Why didn't we keep the Inquisitor as a rocket frigate so that the Khanid ships would have a tech one precursor?


This is a big issue brought up by these changes, and I want to address it in some depth. Currently the Khanid line of Amarr T2 ships uses missiles but Amarr only has one tech one missile ship, and it was almost unusable.
CCP had a choice to make when planning for the Amarr tiericide.
a) Create a whole line of T1 Amarr missile ships that have similar styles to the Khanid ships to act as a stepping stone. This would mean making the Inquisitor into a mini-Vengance, and the Maller and Prophesy into HAM ships.
b) Increase the use of drones on Amarr ships and turn drones into the full fledged secondary Amarr weapon. Create some pure droneboats in the style of the Arbitrator and Sentinel, as well as more ships that have a strong unbonused dronebay as a secondary weapon like the Armageddon.
c) Attempt to do both

The choice was made to reinforce the use of drones in Amarr ships, which meant that there would not be room for a full line of missile ships at tech one. CCP would love to expand the missile capabilities on Amarr ships in other ways, but that would be a more long-term goal.

At the time that Ytterbium's blog was released discussing the summer balancing work, this was the point the design was at. The Inquisitor and Tristan were both planned to be missile ships at that point, but neither race was planned to have further tech one missile ships in their lineup. When we made the decision to create the line of logistics frigates we also decided to scrap the missile frigates for those races. It was an easy choice for the Tristan since missiles for Gallente are so minor. It was a bigger loss for the Inquisitor for sure, as I am sure we could have created an enjoyable armor tanking rocket frig out of it. But creating the logistics frigates will open up so many more avenues for interesting tactical choices and provide a stepping stone into the chain of logistics ships (which will also include revamped tech one logistics cruisers). We made the decision to drop the rocket Inquisitor and make it the Amarr logistics frigate, as the better of two good options.

This does leave the Khanid tech two ships without tech one introductions, but we believe that the ships will still provide good options for Amarr T2 pilots. The fact that individual classes of missiles are significantly faster to train to than turrets helps this situation as well. We may be able to add more missile ships in the future, but for now we do feel that the plan of expanding Amarr drone options will result in a solid lineup of ships.

Good explanation. But still some concern. Essentially both Minmatar and Amarr will have to train all three weapons systems to a high level if they want access to the full range of ships. Caldari and Gallente will not. You may find an increase in people choosing those races then. But that has already been the case. I belive your stats would show top choice being Caldari, then used to be Gallente but now probably Minmatar, and Amarr usually at the bottom. If it becomes even more skewed please address it without letting too many years go by, heh.
As for the Amarr use of drones, well it fits into rp. They would love some disobedient machines to command and whip when the obedience and morale fail to improve.P
Rodj Blake
PIE Inc.
Khimi Harar
#257 - 2012-08-21 15:20:49 UTC
CCP Fozzie wrote:


Since that dev blog was released the plans for frigates have changed. The Tristan is now planned as a drone boat and the Inquisitor as a logi frigate instead of missiles.
Both of those races have no other tech one missile bonused ships, so the decision was made that a logistics frigate would serve them better.


Please reconsider this.

The Inquisitor has always been a great little ship that offers something a little bit different.

Dolce et decorum est pro Imperium mori
Maliatida
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#258 - 2012-08-21 15:28:37 UTC
Releasing and proliferating logistics without first assessing how adversely logistics affects small fleet battles is an awful idea.

You say you've taken this into consideration, but I really don't think you understand how easy they will be to mass considering how little effort they will require to fly and how quickly new characters will be able to effectively repair remotely. Frigates keeping transversal at speed at 25km+ away are not viable targets for virtually anything that you can solo in. Their repairs are more than enough to push tanky ships easily into the unkillable category. Raw hitpoint transfers with no diminishing returns multiplied by a broken tank set-up that universally favors increased resistance bonuses means you are taking an existing problem and adding to it.

To try to make this more clear, I will do an example.

I have run multi-box PVP set ups before, with numerous differences in ship types and tactics (double to quad gank destroyer runs, dictor/falcon, double BC, etc). The benefit of doing this is being able to engage and kill targets that are difficult or impossible to kill with a single pilot. The downside is that for most of the effective set-ups (like dictor/falcon, logi/anything), there is a steep skill point demand for two effective pilots, piloting multiple ships can be difficult, and the losses from errors made while piloting multiple ships can be costly. What you are introducing is another force multiplier that requires minimal skillpoint investment, ease of piloting, and virtually no way to lose significantly by using them.

An example: say I created three new accounts to specifically sit in and remote repair effectively with these new ships. I estimate about two weeks to fly them at 80%, a month to 95% efficacy. Fit for speed on a deadspace entry with my main character sitting on the warp-in at 0. Set alts to orbit, train repairs, fit ships for speed and cap stability, minimize windows (as I never need to pilot that ship again and if I lose it, who cares it's a t1 frigate). Put main character in a resistance ship with all the tackle needed to lock down any ship that comes in, and anything short of a massive retaliation specifically designed to kill me will just flat out lose, and anything that may actually kill me I will spot a mile away via local and d-scan.

This is all assuming I am doing this alone, but you can extrapolate if I recruited more people to do this with me. How will you be addressing such concerns? Do you actually know how badly logistics harms small gang engagements? Do you realize how easy it is with a frigate or a frigate gang to avoid confrontations with a fleet that could even potentially have a heavy neut (why the god would these ships ever get within range of anything that can fit a heavy neut? Really?)? What you should realize is that what you are adding is a very easily piloted pocket healer role that will be exploited to no end to buff tanks on ships that are already approaching the point where engaging them with anything less than an alpha fleet is a waste of time.
Maliatida
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#259 - 2012-08-21 15:31:21 UTC
How you should be viewing this is not as "oh cool newbies can get into new ships!" but rather "oh no vets are going to exploit the everloving hell out of these new ships," as the second is going to have more impact on the game as a whole and more of an impact on the new player experience, as they quickly realize that on top of off-grid boosters, they are facing veterans with multiple pocket healers and no viable way to lose their ship.

I genuinely cannot fathom a reason you could see this change as a net positive.
Lili Lu
#260 - 2012-08-21 15:44:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Lili Lu
Fozzie, concerning the logi frigates and ewar being aimed at them. Currently ecm is the best choice against any logi. For tech II logis there is a slot for eccm and due to the high sensor strength it is effective.

However, on these frigs an eccm will be useless (aside from fitting and cap costs) as it is wholly percentage based. Is it not possible to alter the eccm modules to make them a combination of some small whole number bonus and then a percentage on top of that? Then it might be worth figuring out how to fit and power an eccm or even use a low slot eccm on these ships.

Also, with improved damp boats, damping logis will become more popular. Here one would probably use range damping as it will affect the much shorter ship lock range and engagement ranges. Might it not be possible to build into these ship some extended lock range even if the reps can't land at that range, much like is the case for tech II logis. Reagardless I suspect many folks will want sensor boosters, signal amps, or even sensor rigs to address the threat of range or scan res damping.

Lastly, returning to the perpetual ecm problem, CCP has tried to nerf it twice already and at the same time you rebuffed ecm boats to compensate. I do not think you can succeed at nerfing it, and logis do need to fear and compensate for ewar anyway, whether ecm or damps. Simultaneously the game could always use new skills. Presently there are skills to increase lock range and lock speed, tracking range and tracking speed, but there are not skills to reduce signature or increase sensor strength.

I propose that you consider introducing sensor integrity skills (e.g. ladar sensor integrity, etc.) and a skill for a very slight decrease in signature radius. As long as the sig skill does not wipe out the increase that will come from improved painting boat percentage it would be a good addition to the game. As for the eccm skills and module alterations they would help 1. reduce the rage against and op'd ness of ecm, and 2. increase the relative utility in fitting an eccm module. This indirect nerf to ecm boats is probaly the best way to address that problem.