Player Features and Ideas Discussion

And around and around and around we go.

If you want to ignore the hundreds of posts that have explained this already, that's fine, but don't then assume that no explanation is avaialable.

Hybrids were buffed a year ago. If a Caldari pilot stopped whatever he had been training prior to that buff, and instead immediately began training for those hybrid turrets, including gunnery support skills, he would have finished a few months ago now.

The Minmatar pilot spends seven or eight months training gunnery support and projectiles and he can fly an entire fleet worth of marvelous ships. I know because I fly Minmatar. The same could also be said of Amarr or (today) Gallente. But Caldari?

His seven or eight months gets him the Drake and a bunch of clowns on the forums telling him he should devote ANOTHER seven or eight months towards training gunnery skills so he can add the Rokh to his ship lineup. How in the world is that a reasonable thing to suggest? And why in the hell would a Caldari player do that? Why not instead train projectiles or lasers and have a complete fleet of ships at his diisposal?

The Caldari pilot who was silly enough to follow your suggestion would have invested months and hundreds of dollars, and at the end of this weapons marathon he would be able to pilot.... what? One decent ship? Maybe two? You think the Rokh is WORTH devoting that time for? You think the Moa is that nice? Are you freaking high?

This was posted earlier in this thread to show how ravens don't suck......it didnt really have the intended effect but works here



In summary the "not bad raven" jams the rokh for god knows how long and STILL pops.

And for some weird reason you think that's my fit...

nrvrt once said that was your fit u saud "he has" i.e the guy that designed it

Ok, mr OG Smith

How long your Rifter survives against blaster Harpy?

Well...

Rifter wins against Retribution
Rifter wins against Vengeance
Rifter wins against Enyo
Rifter wins against Ishkur

Dude... wat?

The Rifter isn't even that great as a T1 Frigate these days. Let alone against any of those AFs.

Already posted. No cap booster, the Maelstrom perform fine without one, so I thought a Raven, having capless weapons too, didn't need one ; long point, in a LR fleet BS... Funny you.

Do you know the Raven have the same number of midslot than the Maelstrom ?

As for the skill training : With missiles, caldari ALREADY have some great ships, drake and tengu being quite good at everything ; learning something else would bring them ANOTHER line of ships. Of course, frigates still don't exists, but nevermind.

With hybrids, as caldari pilot, you would earn some frigates (strangely though, caldari defenders here tend to ignore their ships despite them being among the best in their class), Eagle, Naga, Ferox, Rokh. And yes, ALL these ships are fairly good in the ASB era combined with blasters (and blasters + range bonus = kiting blaters win).

With ECM, you have another 4 more ships.

Of course you can train another race of ship and have more than only four, though no race is one weapon only, and even minmatar need to train some other skill trees (like armor tank on top of shield, and missiles). And minmatar ships are not Caldari ships. Even though there is only one ladder of power for some people here, caldari hybrid ships do have their strength. Indeed, if you are only looking for fotm, go for winmatar, but don't cry about caldari having less options than the others, it's wrong, and they don't need more time to train for all their things.

Vulture
or for pure boosting
6 gang link OGB Tengu

OT, training a gunnery tree is indeed a *****. But frankly, those that have avoided and been able to avoid it have been far too lucky. And I do not think it is half a year, but I could be wrong in that (I didn't do it all at one shot). Regardless, one could decide to go with meta 4 tech I guns for quite a while. It's not impossible. I pvp'd and pve'd with them for a time, until I trained tech II. Only elite assholes will turn you away. This is a game. People just need to find the right buddies.

But turning to my purpose for this post, I want to address your use of the phrase "Caldari players." At one point it may have had more meaning. Back when the learning skills were in the game, you started with a pitance of attribute strength and total starting sp, and your rolled race affected your starting attributes. I started in that environment as the worst ass stink in the game Amarr (I liked the idea of lasers ). Even so, very early I recognized the importance of cross-training. Meanwhile 3 charsima Achura were flooding into the game and having a grand time getting into level 4 income making much faster with Drakes.

But enough about me , the important thing is that much of those mechanics are gone and have been for a while. Anyone that has so far been able to get away with training Caldari Drake and Tengu and HMs only has been enjoying an anomaly. One that will be closing even more as this process continues I bet. This game has always been about diversifying. Sure it's good to concentrate in something (master it) but to think that that one area of mastery will/should be rewarded in perpetuity is misguided. One will always need to have some diversification in one's sp portfolio to survive and find wide enjoyment in the game.

I've been saying this for years in almost every post I put on the S&M threads. Every character should have two races of ships trained. And in so doing by extension, every character is going to have to have two general weapon systems trained. And an even smarter stretegy is to have two races that tank differntly trained even though is necessitates more sp investment as well.

Being diversified gives a player options. Options for pve. Amarr laser boats love to kill bloods and sanshas and are good at it, but the poor missioner that only has lasers if he for whatever reason finds himself getting loaded with anagel or gurista missions. More importantly for pvp, especially with the rise of logi supported and even monoculture fleets, if tank only one way you run the risk of being left out if your gang or alliance is running the other tanking modality.

Being diversified also gives one perspective on the game. This usually makes one a better poster. If you can not just see the performance of another races ships and weapons in eft or pyfa but also have actually used them you come to "know" the benefits and drawbacks of both races and weapons systems in relation to each other. Then you are better at seeing actual imbalances. Returning to me, I have had Lili trained in tech II lasers and projectiles but also all tech II missiles at all sizes for subcaps (and tech II drones through heavys and sentrys as well). Lili's first tech II weapons system was HAMs (other than tech II light and medium drones). I have another character that has tech II hybrids and missiles also (Gallente and Caldari being a rather easier pair to cross-train). I've run pve in drakes, and pvp in drakes (and falcons ). I know very well how strong the ship and the weapon system is and it informs my support of the present HM nerf.

Lastly, being diversified is the best, only insurance one has in the game, from being stuck in the suck. Whether that suck is real or perceived. A strategy of only training one weapon system and race (not even to BS) and expecting to be able to do everything in game with that is a fail strategy (even if up til now it has been possible to do for HMs and Drake/Tengu). Such a strategy should not be reinforced, encouraged, or salvaged. And going back to your second sentence, no, Caladari is not in the doldrums right now. Minmatar may be in the best position, but it is Gallente that one could most say has "****" right now. Caldari has been the major benficiary so far in the ship rebalancing. That they may be losing the hands down favorites for BC and Cruiser sized ships is not relegating them behind Gallente. When CCP has gone through a whole pass on the ships and mods we shall see. And as Fozzie says, they will start all over again.