Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Well, I was able to build all skills lvl 5 fits for all strategic cruisers and they all had comperable dps and tank to my tengu pve fit, however, they were limited to close range.
But, the could also easily fit an afterburner and get 600-700 m/s.

Now, I can agree that the tengu definitely needs nerfed to be more in line with the other t3's, however, this needs to happen AFTER the battleships are rebalanced so that I have something to use for pve.
Right now the tengu is the most effective lvl 4 missile boat and while the tengu is OP, this also has a lot to do with how sub par the missile boat bs's are.

Now, as far as my proposed changes to guided missiles.
This would make the drake and tengu more in line with other ships of their class without actually directly nerfing range and dps.

That said, the drake and tengu would still need individual nerfs, but that's a different thread.

If server load is what they are trying to curb then they need to increase the velocity of the missiles more than 6.66%

Of course this would effect range, so change the ammo types of all missiles to fall in line with the turrets.

Change the fitting requirements for the HAMS and HML's (Swap them)

Remove the Fury and Precision T2 ammo ship penalties
Increase damage on Fury
Increase damage and ability to hit smaller targets on Precision

Fury's range should be reduced, Precisions range increased. Again making it more in line with up close and powerful, longer range and weaker.

Remove the stupid Kinetic buff on the ships.

With the above changes you shouldn't have to muck with the DPS or range, just changing the ammo types alone to fall in line with turrets would fix everything.

actually, increase missile velocity and reduce flight time just enough to give them the same range, but missile boats never have more than one volley in the air at a time, no more waisted volleys for missiles, and missiles don't take forever to reach a distant target anymore, but still longer than instant turrets.

I don't know if that's what I think should happen, though....

Why not bring the other T3's up to the par of the Tengu. It's obvious for mission running, that shield tanking is far superior to armor tanking. The problem I always run into when trying to armor tank anything is cap issues. You almost ALWAYS have to rig for cap, and/or have to use all your mids for it. But as you said, that is all for another thread

While your proposed changes do intrigue me, do you not think that considering sig radius and velocity are a factor in missile damage, does their raw DPS not need to be higher from the stand point that there is no way to counter that with mods or rigs, as opposed to tracking you can rig and mod for?

oh oh i have to say, you kick already the learing skills, now you go on to kick the missile skills, beause the characteristics of turrets and lauchers becoming the same and there is no need for two skilling trees. ..... then you remove the skilling books and continuie by giving SP by killing NPCs....

you do a misstake after the next...

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how many player quit because you remove the "learning" skill?
how many player quit because you remove the hangar.?
how many player quit because you force the new invertory? before you change it..... with lot of bugs now
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now you continue the Story and you lose more and more eve player and replacing it with world of warcraft zombies

I like this summary, because it keeps the thread on the topic .

What it doesn't do is factor in any other differences than damage at longest range. That's extra interesting because that perspective contain the same error half the people on these forums and CCP themselves do with this change.


Today assuming 3x dmg mod / 6-slot tanks:

An HBL Harby will put out 460 dps @ 60 and then gradually lose dps up to 82km.
An HML Drake will put out 490 dps @ 60 and then maintain 410 dps up to 84km.

The Harby will also gradually raise it's dps at closer range up to 690 with Gleam.
The Drake will raise it's dps down to 75km and stop around 550 dps with Fury.

The Harby will have a 55k unboosted tank.
The Drake will have a 65k unboosted tank, assuming the 6-slot / two midslot utility.

The Drake have the ability to fill up it's utility with tank mods, but then outsource accuracy control (webs, painters).
The Harby have the accuracy control inherent through it's ability to manipulate transversal and the range/tracking mods.

The problem is that everyone, including CCP, look at the balance only from a large fleet projection-buffer perspective, and scenarios where larger groups can outsource layers of the necessary effects and buffers can be volleyed.

That is the same reason they want to apply TD to Missiles without realising what it does to the accuracy-component in the context of them not having transversal modifiers. Think about what effective application of TD at smaller scales will do in combination with sig-tanking (AB) concepts to Missiles - which it won't do to Turrets. Think 100mn setups with TD.



If CCP wanted to nerf the Drake, they should have adressed Tech I insurance and things like medium rigs on BC.

Tearing up the entire pre-existing balance and looking to replace it over the course of years of ship-design is a bad idea. Especially when it throws the balance of scales further. Small gang HML will hurt alot more than larger fleet HML. The same HML scale that already outsource effects, won't face effective application of TD and will either just remain or adapt other cost-effective options (like 252 dps Caracals or w/e someone mentioned here).

Were small gang Drakes the problem? EVE history is full of other gangs beating Drakes until buffers begin to get volleyed (other BC, Cruisers, even Frigates [counting HAC and Bombers]).

Goons "crying" in this thread are most likely just trolling you, because they already know the change won't be effectful at larger scale.

If you want to deal with the dominance of cost-effective, projection-buffer platforms at large scale - you generally don't build the game around that perspective, as CCP have done with Tier 3 BC and do now with the Tech I redesign .

Stop screwing with our ship balance and give us Ring mining instead - 100x more effectful for the appeal of Harbingers as smaller scale ships that lack smaller scale targets. Your focus should be on what Dominion screwed up, not it's bieffects.



The good, the bad and the abstract.
There are three levels of this discussion you should be mindful of:

1. The balance - How will your changes affect the whole game, not just select ships in specific situations?
2. The perspective - Are we changing Drakes based on what it do (projection + buffer) being seen as imbalanced?
3. The direction - What are the ideals our game was built on (single shard, sandbox, hardcore death, interaction, emergence, open/broad skillsystem)? Are your changes actually within that ideal, or complete opposites?

If you look at what the players criticize you for here, it's any of those things:

If you are rebalancing Missiles based on Drakes in Large fleet, you are essentially using (2) to motivate (1).

If you are streamlining Healers based on it being a common and coveted role in fleets you are using (2) to motivate (3).

That's what we are criticizing you for (even the most crass criticism, "you kill small gang" [2] or "you turn us into WoW" [3] root in that).

If you build the game around trends you are reinforcing those very trends.

That is interesting, because most of us agree that there are issues with Drakes (projection-buffer, cost-effect, scaling up).

Do we change the Drake (1), projection-buffer in large fleets (2), or the cost and roles of ship classes (3)?

eg.,
The Drake is OP (1), large fleets are OP (2), the cost-effect is OP (3).
Heavy missiles are OP (1), projection-buffer is OP (2), tank-healer relations are OP (3).

Keep in mind that if you try to solve (2) or (3) by doing (1), you are reinforcing (2) and (3).

If (1) is OP because of (2), which in turn is OP because of (3), are you going about this the right way?

If you change (1) to preserve (2) and (3), with (3) being the pillars of EVE - are you changing ships or the ideals of EVE?

The ideal order to build a game would be going from the larger to the smaller, from the core to the peripherals.

It's complicated, but do you understand my concerns and reservations?

HINT TO EVERYONE.

IF YOU LIKE AN IDEA POSTED BY SOMEONE, THE GIVE IT A THUMBS UP.

This way CCP knows what comments to look at.

They're not gonna read 100 pages of comments..

Like "the like and get's like thread' ?

Are you saying that people who post on this forum represent the majority ?

Where would you fit them?

I don't fly (and have no fittings for) HAM Drakes, so the following fit is not battle tested. It is, however, something that's probably fairly reasonable and close to what people who fly these things do use. It requires all Level 5 skills of course.

HAM DRAKE

sm neut
7 - T2 HAM

10mm MWD
2 - T2 LSE
T2 Disruptor
2 - T2 webs

T2 DCU
2 - T2 BCU
T2 Reactor Control

Med Anti-EM
Med Defense Field Extender
Med Polycarbon

DPS: 468 (573 heat) Mobility: 185m/sec ( 1095m/sec MWD ON) (1550m/sec mwd heated) Align: 7.5 sec (all off)
Resists: 54% em / 47% therm / 60% exp / 67% kin
EHP: 56.413

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So, again, where exactly are you going to put these TE's? You COULD replace one of the BCU's with a TE, but that would lower your Battlecruiser DPS down to 386. In other words, your point blank range Battlecruiser is going to be doing lower DPS than many assault frigates at the same range.

One of the problems I have seen in every thread discussing the Drake, is that people tend to post the best possible numbers from every stat and attribute, and then combine them as if such a thing were actually possible in game. So they will post the DPS of a scourge Rage HAM Drake, the speed of a twin nano kite drake, the missile range of a HM drake, and the tank of a L4 Mission fit, all liberally rounded up to the nearest 100, and as if this were all possible at the same time on the same boat. So you get comments like this: 'Dude! The Drake gets an 90K ehp tank, it does 800 dps, it goes 1900 m/sec, and it can shoot out to 190km! Can your battlecruiser do that!!!'

In the real game, the Drake as it is usually flown does about 350 dps against BC or larger targets, hits out to about 60km (farther if they are chasing you), moves at about a 1000 m/sec non-heated, and generally has a 40k -60k ehp tank. And that's pretty damn nice as is. It hits for modest damage at modest range, and it can take a beating.

An argument can easily be made that the Drake, thanks in large part to the weapon range and tank, is overpowered. But before we whip out the chainsaw and get busy, let us at least play with the Drake as it actually is rather than as we imagine it to be.