Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The entire point of this nerf is to significantly reduce server loads by eliminating missile spam in fleet battles. They are not goiong to turn around and make cruise missiles the new lag weapons. Hell, they are so opposed to long range missile combat that they changed the Naga from missiles to hybrids -- and they did so knowing that they were pissing in the faces of every Caldari missile pilot. Caldari Missile pilots who were excited that they would FINALLY have something other than the Drake to fly got screwed as usual, and Gallente hybrid pilots got their choice between two new BC's.

So no, I think you would be foolish to look for some fix for cruise missiles. Torpedoes maybe, as they time out basically immediately, but Cruise Missiles I think you can write off.

CCP is (probably) trying to find some "sweet spot" at which long range missile fire isn't totally worthless, but is a poor choice for fleet combat. They could probably accomplish this without screwing Missile pilots completely, but that would require a complete rewrite of the missile combat system, and there is no way they want to tackle that. They want fleets using direct fire weapons, and I think they will continue these nerfs until they achieve this.

If you were remotely right they would be nerfing mssile dps through rof rather than alpha and changing rof bonuses to damage. But oh look they are doing completely the opposite so you are wrong, yet again.

Right so you are saying everything is fine because a cane using 2 low slots (for tes) and a med slot (for an invul to get back the drakes resist bonus) does ALMOST (but not really) the same damage at that range? We will just pretend drakes don't have those 3 slots to do something else with right.

Yeah, except I am basing the statement on what CCP said just last year in their previous "nerf the drake" trial balloon. THEY were the ones who initially named server load as their motivation for nerfing the Drake. And it makes sense if you look at the numbers.

Two-Hundred HM Drakes engaging two-hundred HM Drakes adds 2,800 additional server tracked objects every six seconds or so, and over longer ranges it is entirely possible to have multiple volleys of missiles in flight at the same time. So yeah, server load from missile spam is HUGE. Instead of tracking 400 ships and some drones, the servers have to keep track of an additional FIVE to TEN THOUSAND individual missiles crawling across the field.

An ROF nerf helps here, but it doesn't address the reason blob fleets like Drakes in the first place -- Alpha damage. It helps lag a bit, but unless the reduction is large enough to eliminate a second salo, it would have minimal effect on server load and no effect on fleet doctrine.

The missile velocity bonus, however, does reduce lag. It gets missiles off the servers faster. And reducing missile range gets them off the server faster still. In that 200 on 200 fight, even removing one additional volley from the servers saves them from tracking an additional 2,800 objects. That's a huge savings right there.

But even that's not enough. CCP doesn't want every blob to be a Drake blob. So they added the new long range direct fire BCs to see if that would do the trick. Apparently it didn't do enough. So we are back here again. And it seems this time CCP plans to do the job correctly and just nerf the crap out of them. I'm sure they would love to find some sweet spot where HMs work fine for small gangs but suck for blobs, but that's probably impossible without a major rewrite.

CCP is free to step in here and clear this up if they like. But until then I'll go with what they said previously and what my own objective reason tells me.

The only thing I can see why this wouldn't work is because you don't have windows where your missiles will not hit. If you are using long range ammo in a gun you can get under there tracking and not take any damage. With missiles you can not do this. I really think people just need to be patient for the changes to be updated or for solid numbers to be giving on all the changes that are going to happen with missiles. We are still 2 months out and they already got cruisers into the mix. Maybe they will get battle cruisers in as well as they are seeing that they cannot properly fix the weapon systems without changing the hulls. Lets wait and see I am fully behind the ideas 100% and cant wait to see what all comes about from this.

So why are we bringing them more in line with Turrets then?

Look, he's got a point. The missile ammunition is what needs to be mainly focused on for change here. Not the launchers themselves. (Albeit, I think the fitting requirements should be changed with HAMS).

The ammo needs to be tweaked to be LIKE turrets (exchange tracking w/Explosion velocity) or something.

Remove damage types and focus on Short-range powerful, long-range weaker mentality and don't overly nerf the launcher.

TLDR
Focus on the ordinance, and the fittings; not the launchers.

OT Smithers in terrible posts shocker. FYI, missiles other than Heavies exist.

If only I had already answered that question we could have avoided this whole debate.


I also wanted to once again let people know that I'm still reading, and that since I got back from the weekend I've been continuing to work on an adjusted proposal to pass to the CSM then on you all.

This to be honest, i know you guys are going as fast as you can but i think balancing cruisers and not bcs would be a mistake, especially if you are touching weapon systems. Probably better to hold the cruisers back till the bcs are ready than that.

Just like I said before. We appreciate your hard work. But you should pull back with missiles untill you can have a look at the damage output and range projection of all missile platforms.