Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Yup, and that is why I'm fully expecting an upcoming change to plates/mass and rigs (or conversely, shield extenders getting a speed/agility penalty).

First of all, and I think this has been said a 100 times in this thread but just to reiterate, BCs (other than tier 3s) have a role bonus for gang links therefore every BC should have at least one utility high slot. SO WHY ON GODS GOOD EARTH HAVE THE HIGHS GENERALLY BEEN REMOVED?!!?!?!? (EPICMOST FACE PALM). Common Fozzie, you've done an awesome job so far so don't fail on the BCs please. Also, please keep in mind that CCP Devs have a horrible habit of nerfbatting back to the bronze age anything that is well used by the players/considered overpowered e.g. Nos. So just because people like the Drake and the Cane please do not NERFHAMMER the arse off them. Admittedly, the Drake changes aren’t too bad but the Cane... (sigh). Both took a bit of a beating with the last patch what with heavies getting a clobbering and the cane losing its grid so please leave well be. The only thing you could do with the Drake is maybe lose the resists bonus and give it double damage a la the binger and cane or give it a missile velocity bonus and combine that change with a speed increase. Having said that we're looking at COMBAT battlecruisers that are supposed to get stuck in and stay on field not run in, smash u in the face and run away again.

Also DON'T remove any slots on the tier 2s just add slots to the tier 1s FTW. All BCs should have 18 slots. The tier 3s only have 17 on the basis that they have overpowered guns and are lightweight and speedy. Oh, and the fact they're already AWESOME :)

So here's my 2 penneth on each ship:

Prophecy - I like the drone boat idea but it needs 2 extra highs and at least one if not two extra turrets/launchers. Possibly a little extra speed and not sure why the grid has been hammered. So you'd have a slot layout of 7/4/7.

Harbinger - Is fine barring the cpu/grid nerf and the high slot that's been taken. Although I haven't fitted a binger since the change to medium energy weapons so not sure how well it fits. Ideally you want to get the same as a shield cane but be able to fit 2 Nos say in highs (CUE FLAME AT MENTION OF NOS on any ship other than a frigate)** Also a slight speed buff so it can get in and out and kite as it doesn't have an kind of bonus to tanking. Oh, please leave shield level alone or round it to say 3500.

Ferox - FOR GOD'S SAKE GIVE THE POOR THING A DAMAGE BONUS INSTEAD OF OPTIMAL!!!!!!! It will need an extra high slot as a utility slot. If you give it a damage bonus you might have to lose a turret i.e 6 turrets. Also, it needs to be able to get into range quickly so a bit of extra speed please.

Drake - Fine, just don't lose the high slot and leave the cpu and grid alone OR do as suggested in my first paragraph (which I know everyone will hate!)

Brutix – OMGWTF POINTLESS ARMOUR REP BONUS!!! Either double damage it like the cane and binger or give it an optimal range bonus. A bit extra speed for kiting purposes as well wouldn’t go amiss. Also, needs an extra high as a utility slot and agreed with extra low. Maybe 3750 or 4000 shields, maybe.

Myrmidon – Needs 7 highs, otherwise happy with the changes, notably the extra drone bandwith (and now for the Eos? 125 bandwith PLEASE!) People have winged about the armour rep bonus on the myrm but if you’ve ever flown a triple repper myrm you know how good they are. On that point, maybe leave the grid alone or don’t kick it in the nuts as much.

Cyclone – LOVING THIS!!!! BUT… at least 6 launchers needed please! Keep the 8 highs. Oh, whilst I’m here, maybe slightly buff ASBs so that they can carry a couple more charges. They were ridiculous before admittedly. Or put them back almost as they were but make it so you can only fit 1 per ship. Anyway, Cyclone new darling of the pvp and pve crowd GO!!!!

Hurricane – LEAVE IT ALONE!!! It’s a great ship, it’s had it’s nerf but it’s still good to fly. Nuff said.


As a final word, please try and keep the ships varied. If we end up with ships for different races doing pretty much exactly the same thing its gonna be boring. Hence not 100% sure about the double damage bonus on the binger as is a little too canesque for my liking.


TibbeH!



**Nos SSHHHHHERIOUSHLY needs a buff after it took a right royal nerf hammering. Please buff it so you can drain a ship dry but you will only get cap for your own ship up to say 33%-50% of your cap.

This is why it would be helpful if Fozzie would announce any relevant module changes before or at the same time as ship changes. If there are tweaks in the works for plates, we should know about that before we whip out the calculators. If something exciting is going to happen to active armor tanking, we need to know more than "wink wink Santa's coming". Until we hear what the nudge nudge wink wink changes are, I'm going to assume that this will just follow CCP's usual plan of "we're doing this now because eventually we're going to do something that will make it cool".

If we don't have accurate information about the whole picture they have in mind, then there's little point in telling us what the ship changes are. If they want early feedback, we need more than half an idea of what's going on.



If you have AWU V and use at least a 5% powergrid implant or an ACR, you can currently cram heavy pulses, a 1600, and a mwd onto the Harbinger if you make some serious sacrifices in the CPU of your other mods, but god help you if you want a neut or nos on there. I think you still need a PG implant of some kind even to use an 800 with heavy pulses. I think you can get focused mediums and a 1600 on there without too much issue now, but you're still brought up short by its CPU and have to make some tradeoffs either with ANPs or meta mids. It's always been kind of a headache to fit the Harbinger relative to the other battlecruisers, though fitting the Prophecy was no peach either.

I haven't mathed out whether or not six heavy pulses, a 1600, and a mwd are possible with the new fitting changes -- reports seem to be mixed on whether or not you gain or lose fitting once skills are taken into account. I think it's fair that you need to go out of your way to get all of that on the Harbinger, but it should probably be slightly less of a pain to fit with T2 modules. Battlecruisers are about when noobs start hitting their T2 stride.

To use the Brutix with Blasters, it has to come close.
Why not doing the same trick, like the Assault Frigs?

Swap the active repper bonus with an 12% MWD Signature reduction/Level. This would give them an MWD Signature similiar to an Cruiser.

Wait.
If everyone claims his side is worse off, whom are we supposed to be rallying against?

Very constructive..

The active tanks actually can be very nice, however the ships need to have enough buffer for the reps to make a difference... I do however think it's a shame for both the Brutix and the Myrmidon to have an active rep bonus as well as I really hoped the Drake would lose the resist bonus for a more aggressive role creating more diversity in flavour for both Gallente and Caldari.

Then what would be the point of the Moa?

Don't forget though that CCP don't like you having unique ships to fly at least not in their version of 'balance' what they are actually aiming for is for everyone to be the same so that you can just train a given race and have at it. Diversity is on the way out, 'Balance (read uniformity) is on the way in'.

Pretty soon it won't even matter what skills you have, let alone what ship you fly...

In both regards I agree, if CCP intends to make changes to mechanics behind tanking and have balanced these BC changes with them in mind then how can we give input about them without that same knowledge? It's like being given a book with half it's pages missing and being asked to give a report on it.

As for the Harby, all the fits that I have seen posted in this thread that people say won't work, don't show one fitting rig or module. Which when people complained about the cane PG nerf they were told to htfu and use modules, rigs and implants to make up for it. I would imagine that would now apply to the Harby. *shrugs*