Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The Caracal is getting a revamp and will become awesome. RoF bonus is sweet!

Yeah and there's this whole TD's already affect turrets thing. The stock retort of "lol fit a TE/TC then" assumes available lowslots. I'm pretty sure no-one runs with spare slots . This will result in sacrifice and yes, before you bother LOLTRIPLEREP....what about the Drake?

This translates into a real decrease to turret boat effectiveness be it direct DPS or their repping ability- and aside from the Myrmidon, I don't see active armor boats tearing up the cosmos.

This is very correct. However, bringing HM's in line with other systems and balancing both the underused and the overused ships, we will maybe see more diversity in ships used, which is the entire point.

We are seeing slight powercreep in the tiercide. Almost all ships get a buff, and winmatar are mostly kept where it is because their ships are so good.

What do you think will happen when the tiercide hits battlecruisers? 5% RoF and a velocity bonus on the Drake with missiles the way they are now. Holybatmanshit, no other ship would be used EVER.

No by all means. Most missile hulls need an increase in pvp effectiveness, considering the powercreep that will inevitably hit turretships as well. I also think the Drake should get a buff in the form of RoF bonus, but then we have to look at the missile platform.

By nerfing missiles a bit, you get to individually buff all the ships that use missiles without making them OP.
I don't think anyone wants to see the revamped drake get a negative bonus to missile velocity to compensate the great range inherit in HM's, just because that great range would be a good thing for some other missile ships. You follow where I'm going with this?

Better to nerf missiles and give long range missile ships a great velocity and flight time bonus, and short range missile boats a small bonus instead of a small bonus to long range boats and a negative bonus to short range boats

Indeed, and I see a case (a strong case) for sorting these boats, but I can't quite reconcile why the TD thing? Why not more surgical to target the known issues?

Seems odd.

I have flown some solo (dualboxing) with an Arbitrator support. Did you know, a single Arbitrator can make the effective range of a Minmatar battleship go down to about 5-10km or make the guns track worse than a titan? VS any ship with turrets, the arbitrator is just as effective as a Falcon, yet is is beyond useless vs any missile boat, where the Falcon is still because Falcon.

I think you have to note what turrets "simply do better". Turrets instant alpha better, but they have less versatility in forms of damage types. They hit small targets better, but only if they are at sufficient range and not moving too fast.

A curse can buttraep a cane so hard! kill it's range with one TD loaded with optimal script, neut off his prop and let the drones and HM's do their thing.

so your plan is to fix what isn't broken and leave it like that for half a year or even a year instead of fixing the problem and ONLY the problem.
what does this have to do with heavy missiles?


you are assuming that the rest of the hull stays the same as it is now, which does not need to be the case. let's say the drake hull bonuses you proposed actually go live like that. all you need to do is remove one launcher hardpoint (and maybe tune down CPU) and the drake's DPS are perfectly fine. the range will be about the same as now (i do not oppose the range nerf) and the brick tank is down by 25%, which together with the drake's abysmal sig and speed will probably make it one of the squishiest BCs.

same can be done with all other ships. in fact, considering that they are already underused, you would probably need to buff them EVEN MORE after the HML nerf which makes the risk of overdoing it even higher.

so here is the two likely scenarios:

1. heavy missiles get shafted:
- drake and tengu are now in the middle of the pack
- drake and tengu both lose their unique roles as good mission runners
- almost all other HML ships become completely useless until they are finally rebalanced in a year or two
- after the rebalance, one or more hulls may become as OP as the drake is now which will cause the same turret pilot tears

2. heavy missiles get to keep their DPS, only range is nerfed:
- drake becomes much less valid in blobs, tengu is also somewhat affected. both ships will move down a little on the killboards but stay strong options until they are rebalanced.
- PVE players do not need to throw away their favorite hulls and train turrets from scratch
- the other HML platforms stay at least somewhat competitive until they are eventually slightly buffed in their rebalance pass
- the likelihood of another balance issue with heavy missiles is minimal due to well-known behavior of the weapon system.


P.S.: in cas you're wondering; the idea of tracking for missiles is so stupid i don't even include it in my speculations.

Every. Single. Missile. Hull. Ever.

They're going to HAVE to fit a TC/TE or lose DPS. If they fit TC/TE, they WILL lose EHP.


The introduction of TD affecting all missiles (even going to far as to affect unguided when the rigs dont work on them) is a direct and immediate reduction in combat effectiveness to ALL missile hulls.



As for the caracal, it'll have to use its two bonus slots to keep at/just under todays DPS, which last I checked isn't blowing anyone's minds.

I say from the point of view of missile boats being hugely underwhelming (aside from the two problem children): Why do missile boats need weakened at ALL?.

Eve kill stats are popular to show how devastating HML are: Tell me....how many missile launchers are in there which aren't heavy flavored?