Player Features and Ideas Discussion

How about instead of going the very boring route of making everything the same...

I like the idea of a mid or low-slot "Point Defense Gatling Gun" system. Has a % chance of destroying each incoming missile - and has a better chance of destroying a larger missile than a small missile. Perhaps a better chance of destroying either guided or unguided missiles as well for game balance reasons, although I'm not sure that would make much logical sense.

There - now you have a better version of the defender missile with a chance based result that ships can equip. The PDS would need to apply only to the missiles targeting that ship so you couldn't just sit 50 ships on top of each of other and make sure no missiles get through (e.g. a firewall).

Alternatively, maybe you create a similar module that goes in the mid or low slot that any ship (or maybe even just a capital ship?) can equip and that has a 5km or so range for taking out missiles, but has a reload time and can only shoot down 1 missile at a time. Then, even if you have a fleet doctrine with 200 ships carrying 2 of the modules, you can wipe out 400 missiles per salvo. Say the salvo is 5 seconds, if the enemy is firing a ton of HMLs at you, you can only neuter the dps of about 80 drakes with those 200 ships.

Also, I really like the idea of the minimum arming range for guided missiles.. not for unguided missiles.. which gives unguided missiles another advantage.

As cool as that last part sounds, my fear is a) it would increase lag time due to calculations of several volleys in the air and b) now instead of any dps....it now negates it entirely. Say what you will arty people...you still have those volleys that do hit.....also, c) it would negate any effectiveness of precisions *unless those aren't included* however....and finally d) since only T2 can load those, what would you do about people with T1 only? Believe it or not, there are some people out there without the training to fit T2 on all their missiles and it's not like they would have close range ammo.....?

I've been racking my brain trying to figure out how to balance it out a little more, but short of just making missiles hit like guns and therefore negating all weapons systems down to a turret *which would then favor turret/missile combo ships* it's really difficult to find a viable solution, even if some people who EFT warrior everything and fail to see actual missile damage. and how it's rare do you ever see a full volley on anything other than a PoS with no resists....

As far as the cane...I would rather see them remove a high slot and make it a low or mid rather than nerf the PG as it severely hampers those that are shooting for a decent tank on it

They're not going to nerf missiles to hell and back, they're going to nerf heavy missiles to hell and boost the rest of them. After thinking on this for a while I'm fine with it.

First post in a forum for EVE... but don't feel I can stay silent on this.

First, I totally recognize the need for some sort of rebalance on the Tengu, as it is way too suited to RR sleeper fleets as it is. That being said...

TL:DR version: reduce range slightly, leave damage where it's at, no opinion on the EWAR stuff.

20% reduction in HM damage: way too much! 5% - 10% if you must, but should not be necessary (see further discussion below)
25% reduction in HM range: a bit high, but I understand the need just from running sleepers in a Tengu (perhaps the better approach would be to reduce the range bonus on the accerlerated ejection bay)
Introducing EWAR to affect missiles: I'm not sure how much this will affect things. Most small PvP fleets include a Falcon or two from what I have seen already, or other EWAR ship. This may simply change the FOTM for dedicated EWAR pilots. If we start seeing tracking disruptors on every ship out there, then obviously it is too useful.

When choosing weapon types in EVE, you basically have to consider the tradeoffs.

Missiles:
-- Very little variation on damage output, but generally lower damage output than similar size turret platforms
----- No variation on damage due to range, effectively "all" or "nothing"
----- Large variation on damage due to speed of target
----- predictable variation on damage due to size class of target
-- No player skill involvement other than choosing appropriate targets to shoot at (ie shooting the light tackler with cruise missiles is not going to get you anywhere)
-- Usually longer maximum range than guns of same size class

Guns:
-- Somewhat higher damage output for same class, but with much larger variation in that damage
----- Damage falloff for range outside optimal
----- Can have very significantly higher damage than normal based upon random chance
----- Large variation on damage due to relative motion of target
----- No built-in variation on damage due to size class of target
-- Much higher player skill involvement when using guns. Have to make sure you try and keep target with as low a transverse velocity as possible. Pick targets near the limit of optimal range if you can, so that transverse is reduced, etc.
-- Usually much lower optimal range than missile range, and lower maximum range

The important thing to consider here is what to expect when you see either a missile boat or a gun boat that is about to fire on you. When you see a missile boat, you can expect a fairly consistent amount of damage every X seconds, and that damage will be the same based upon resists every time it hits you. This is not the case for gun boats! If I see a Hurricane lining up on me, their alpha strike could do WAY more damage than their "normal" output if they get lucky. Let's face it, most gun boat pilots live for that "golden salvo" that gets the "wrecking" hit or two, reducing their poor victim to goo in very short order.

The last few PvP engagements I have been in, I have seen 0 Drakes or Tengus on the opposing side. I've seen plenty of Minmatar BC's and HAC's, and Caldari ECM ships, but no HML ships. I tell folks that are just starting to get their feet wet in PvP to bring a Drake because of the buffer, not because of the missiles.

In my opinion, missiles and guns are two very different playable styles, and lend themselves to different aspects of the game. Trying to make missiles into guns is not the way to go! Part of what makes the game interesting is the different play styles and techniques.

What I never want to see in chat is the following conversation:

Newbie-of-the-week: What skills should I work on next? Heavy missiles or medium guns?
Random-veteran: It doesn't matter, they both work effectively the same now.
Newbie-of-the-week: What do you mean?
Random-veteran: Since the start of 2013, missile launchers are just turrets with more expensive ammo that do less damage...

There should be a place for a statistically consistent, slightly lower damage output weapon like heavies are now. I'll concede that the range on them is somewhat out of balance, and really only broken in the case of the Tengu, but that's an issue with a specific ship, not the weapon as a whole. But when you consider that gun-boats do higher average damage, and have the potential to do MUCH higher damage than a missile ship, that seems to me to be well in line with where the damage output should be.

Suggestion: post a survey for Drake pilots and ask them WHY they fly a Drake. I'd be willing to bet that for a very large majority, the answer will be, "Passive drake shield tank = awesomesauce for mission running...."

-- Nariyama

Fun fact - I used to fly a Pulse and Beam laser shield tanked Myrm in 0.0 roams. The damage projection of lasers is great and the Myrm has plentiful mid- and low-slots. Mostly it was for the lulz, but on paper it looks to perform about as well as a Harbinger or Hurricane filling the same role, sans the flight time of drones.

It's not a bad ship, it's just often overlooked because nobody wants an armor rep bonus and midslots utility mods are very weak right now.

As a both turret and drake pilot I'm going to go head and call bullshit right here.

Are you not understanding the meaning of "combat" in combat ship? If I want to do Ewar or Logi I dont complain, but I want to shoot stuff. Tell me how you deal substantial DPS in Basis and Falcons and you win EVE.




I know of a lot of tests where ppl claimed the Rokh is great or the blaster Ferox rocks, and they all got their asses whooped hard with Megas in case of the Rokh or any BC with a pilot who doesnt completely suck vs the Ferox. Caracal is good for some niche things (which are nice, anti-frig for example, or sniping), but not really handy in many other situations when for example Vexors, Arbitrators, Thorax or Stabber and Rupture shine. By no means the Caracal has a good chance in comparison to those, if its not far outside their range. And - HML should get nerfed, remember??



When will the NH being looked at? 2016? Cruise is not even on a list so far, so that might actually never happen (I am sure they dont want another missile platform spamming the server with load). Like I said before - I really would appreciate if NH would be buffed to be on par with Abso and Sleip (which it absolutely is NOT, heck, I could even kill a friends NH in 1on1 with my Drake quite easily because the NH fails so much at PvP atm), and if the Raven/CNR would have their role in PvP and be viable ships again. And I want a ship with the versatility, speed and power of the Machariel, but using missiles. Give us that or nerf the Mach and maybe generally large ACs (which really have too much falloff).

Its been sort of covered by others, but here was what i was talking about:

2x BCS II
DC
Reactor Control Unit II

2x LSE's
2x Invuln fields
Exp 10mn MWD
T2 point

7x T2 HAML's w/ rage scourge

5x hobs

3x shield extender rigs

103k ehp (197 dps recharge) and 576dps. a good brawler for baiting, breaking RR and general station games, and it doesn't require any implants. but this is with the current drake bonuses. If the bonuses were to change to match the raven's and caracals, this same fit would do over 600dps to long point range and still have 87k ehp.

While I think 20% is a bit strong of a nerf, what other ships using medium weapons get that much damage at anywhere close to heavy missile max ranges?

Also the drake is fine the way it is does average dps for a bc and got good defense where as cane does excellent dps fair to average defense.