Player Features and Ideas Discussion

While it is all well and good that Destroyers are good for ganking and various advanced activities, they are the best ship available for people with low skill levels.

I am just under 4 months in the game, I fly my Coercer about 60% of the time.

It is important that reasonable fits work for people who are working on building up skills.

I like the Coercer as it is. Some day I will have the skills to do all the cool T2 stuff that is talked about here in the blog, but right now the important thing is that it work as a low skill ship.

I use it for: rat'ing, level 1 and 2 missions, courier duty, cleaning up belts after mining in high sec, and other utility tasks.

Funny but if you look at how destroyers are used in the real world navies today, they get all the odd jobs. That is the way we should look at destroyers - not specialized in anything, but good enough all around to support low risk solo tasks.

I would be perfectly happy if nothing changed with the destroyers - they work as is. I am very OK with the changes proposed by CCP.

Trying to make them better for veteran players while potentially reducing they utility for people who are just getting started would be a very bad thing in my mind.

OBTW - I use a 26km, 70DPS fit with salvager and tractor as a base - it is a great low cost starting point for someone who wants to hunt 0.5 space. The nice thing is as every skill finishes the Coercer just gets better and better, just like a destroyer does for a new captain in the Navy as they learn to really handle it.

Yes, yes you should. It is very confusing

Please leave the cormorant's mid slot count alone. If you must change the slot layout take the generally useless highslot.

Right now the cormorant has utility options the other destroyers don't like the silly but sometimes effect ewar fit. A low slot does very little for this ship given the tight fittings for rails (if you want blasters fly a catalyst). As many others have stated it will be reduced to being worse than a thrasher in almost every way most of the time (slightly longer range with sniper fits in the proposed layout) and it will fall back into relative disuse.

The changes to the other 3 are welcome, especially the coercer. I might finally fly one.

I think 4 mids is what makes the cormorant interesting, please dont remove one !

Spot on!

I think there is a real danger here of ending up with basically "a destroyer" with 4 different skins. Balance can never be achieved if the definition of balance is to have exactly the same DPS and EHP, range and sig and so on. Basically we would need just one ship and just one weapon system of each size, I honestly don't think that's desirable, and I fear that this is the direction we seem to be headed here.

If given the choice between freedom to try different fits and playing to the racial flavor I've chosen, versus being shoe-horned into a very specific fit in the name of balance, I'll pick freedom any day of the week. Yes, even if that means that other races ships will perform better in certain situations.

Some of us don't necessarily care so much about whether another ship of the same class can squeeze 5 km more range out with 7 months of training. What is important is that all the ships are usefull, fun and viable to fly, and that they are "good", not necessarily "exactly equal in any situation".

While people argue on forever about the difference 3 PG or -2 Sig radius will do in a max-skill, Tech II PvP engagement, I'd like to chime in and say that there will always be an über-ship of the month, it's completely unavoidable. Someone will find a way to equip and rig one of these so that they will outperform the rest, and no up-front design will be able to foresee the ingenuity of players in this respect. If you try to achieve that with an up-front design effort, you'll end up with what is basically a single ship in four different disguises.

If they are meant to be anti-frigate, then let's do that. +5% bonus to Webifier and Warp scrambler range per level. Only got 2 mids? Then you have to chose between warp scram or web.

The counter a destroyer should be a cruiser, not a kiting frig. Perhaps a brawling assault frig could be acceptable though...

Seriously, get rid of the drone, hell knock it down to 7 turret slots but give it grid and cpu like the other destroyers. Then tell us that a neutron blaster (forget ions even) overpowers other destroyers. Also, it should be able to fit 150 rails. Tell us that 7 150s without an optimal bonus like the corm (which really should only be 7.5% or 5%, and 7.5% or 5% is sufficient for the catalyst falloff bonus) is overpowered.

Also, why not take away the damage bonus on the Thrasher and replace it with a fall-off bonus.

Right now the situation is sorta sad as you try to keep 8 turrets on the catalyst (and figure in it's pita drone damage as well even if most people don't have time for the damn drone interface) but limit its dps with fittings. Forcing it to use second tier guns and only short range ones at that. Setting it like the rest with 7 turrets and no drone then frees it to make use of the falloff on blasters and allows it to fit rails even if it's falloff bonus won't benefit the sniping as much as the optimal benefits the corm.

As for the coercer, having 8 turrets could stay as compensation for the crap cap use bonus and not having a range bonus.

edit - and do something about TDs and ASBs. Both mods are getting heavy use at alomost every level now and really screwing armor turret boats.

If Destroyers are meant to kill faster frigates that are usually equipped with mwd's or ab's, shouldn't they all have at least 3 mid slots so they can each fit a fit a prop, scram, and web and the power grid and cpu to support them?

I don't know about everyone else and I haven't read more then the first post in the thread, but my first thought is, I'd like to see the Destroyer bonuses changed. I never like them and probably never will. Tracking bonus is nice generally speaking but Optimal bonus is kind of messed up.

I don't think I have ever used a Destroyer for sniping and I probably never will, and besides it doesn't really get that much range anyway, even with small artillery, rails, or whatever. Even with what it does get, the DPS is kind of sad.

Besides that, Destroyers are not tanks so to speak, so speed assisted by an MWD or AB is a strength for them and it really improves on their maneuverability and combat readiness as well as improving the ability to mitigate damage with a speed tank.

I've flown all the Destroyers of course, as most people have I imagine, and though a little weak, they are very fun in most regards and I often find my issue with optimal because I'm using close range guns. Regardless of that, I don't think they really need any type of range bonus.

Actually, I'm thinking of Role Bonuses, which you haven't mentioned or grouped with the Destroyer bonuses. Either way, my issue is the same. I don't see a great need for Optimal bonus and always found it out of place given the 50% bonus has virtually no discernible effect on short range guns which benefit more from falloff.

On the other hand, a 50% bonus to falloff would probably be too much and I'd still likely look at it and wonder if it was appropriate or really all that useful.

I also consider the Destroyer as a base model ship and sort of in the same category as a Battlecruiser given it has role bonuses at all. Still a base model ship though. It'd almost be nice to see a new model some time. New ship, not redone model, but that would be nice too.

Then we could have a HAD, (Heavy Assault Destroyer ), or maybe just an AD or an EAD, or both, or something. I really like Destroyers, even if I don't often like their models. Great ship. Kind of the staple of newbiedom.

Right, while I'm at it on the models, could we do something about the Catalyst separating into two distinct pieces that flip and converge along two points of a central axis--seemingly randomly--in space. I'm not sure why that was happening, or if it is still happening, but it happened quite a lot when I was still actively playing and I think I petitioned it and posted here about it once or twice.

I'm not sure what bonus would be better, but Optimal is odd. I think I'd like to see something that doesn't buff it up to much, but clearly sets it apart from other ships in a way that defines its role and makes it much more distinctive.

Maybe:

ECM Countermeasures as a level bonus of +10% to Sensor Strength per level. - Not overpowering but definitely unique and useful in todays battlefield in EVE. Also useful in some missions.

If I think of some others equally unique to that, I'll post them here later. I rather like that one tbh.

I think a large problem with the destroyers in general is simply their lack of mid/low slots. What about reducing every destroyer down to 6 high slots, and giving them all an extra low slot and mid slot. The Coercer gets to have a 6/2/5 arrangement, the Cormorant could get 6/5/2, the Catalyst could have 6/3/4, and the Thrasher would have 6/4/3.