Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Edit: the core of the problem is the relation between buffer and local reps. Attacking resistance bonuses isn't fixing the core of the problem, at best this is unhelpful, and at worse, actually hurting balance between hulls more than it already is.

If combat battlecruisers are more like heavy cruisers, I'd be more inclined to consider HACs as something more like a modern aegis cruiser or something. But like I said, trying to apply hundred year old naval concepts here leaves you coming up short, so why bother?

Edit: the core of the problem is the relation between buffer and local reps. Attacking resistance bonuses isn't fixing the core of the problem, at best this is unhelpful, and at worse, actually hurting balance between hulls more than it already is.

thing CCP Fozzie could do right now is to give the Faction Plates the same HP bonuses that the T2 plates got in addition to the lower mass ( right now faction plates are as unused as the T2 plates were 6 months ago ) to justify Faction plateshigher costs.

Will the changes give you a reason to fly these BCs insted of HACs or Commandships, if you can?

I think it's pretty safe to assume that all commands (except sleipnir and claymore, which already have +1 slot) will be receiving +1 slot making their total slotage on par with the rebalanced BCs. I think it's also safe to assume that the 6 year old BC HP buff that was missed on Commands (fail much ccp?) will at the very least be partially applied to Commands.

These are correct assumptions (bar sleip and claymore; extra high is not the same as extra mid or low), but given the price difference I don't see how comparison of these classes is valid. By that logic we should ask why use Phoons or Pests when Machariel is available.

As for CCP much failing, a couple of my favourite quotations:
command ships are pretty fine as-is - CCP Zulupark, 2008
Is the Nighthawk really underpowered? - CCP Greyscale, 2011

The core of the problem IS, unquestionably, the significant relative difference in effectiveness between the two bonuses. W/o addressing this CORE issue any buffs to armor reps will not address this disparity. If you "attack" resistance bonuses making them more than 3% worse at active tanking than rep bonus you've increased the gap of "niche" effectiveness in favor of the local rep bonus which is, as already stated, the core issue here. Furthermore, fixing active armor tanking via a 50% rep amount bonus will only make it viable on only ships with said bonus. If you instead address the disparity between bonuses and THEN go and fix the reppers themselves you will be making active tanking far more viable on un-bonused hulls.

Either way, if rep bonus is to become useful, ccp must take one of these avenues of approach. 10% rep per level is a good start, however a nerf to resistance bonus coupled with an overall buff to armor reppers (leaving active rep bonus unchanged) is probably the better option.

"There are lies, damn lies . . . and statistics."

Thanks very much for giving us a clear timeline on the skill change; please sticky that somewhere that isn't buried in this poor neglected forum (it needs to go in a post of its own at least in GD and Skills Discussion, with a clear subject line).

That said, this comment about the Ferox shows the sort of trap you can stumble into if you start making (or justifying) decisions based too much on "metrics." The fact that you find the 250mm rails are the most common module fitted to the Ferox does not mean either that (1) rail fits work well; or (2) people use those fits. People put rails on them because honestly that's the only thing that makes sense . . . because of the crappy bonus you gave the ship. Just because this is the only fit people resort to when they happen to stumble into this hull doesn't mean that it works out well or that they keep using it. It could be that they slap rails on it, take it out once, find out it sucks . . . and then move on to the Drake.

Assuming you have the stats available, you would also need to look at how many Ferox hulls total are in game vs. the alternatives, how often they undock and how much time they spend out when they do, how many total kills on NPCs and players this hull gets, and the ratio of kills to hulls destroyed (if you really wanted to understand what's going on, you would break down the kills and deaths by blaster / rail fits as well). That would give you a much more accurate picture of how the ship plays, whether people are using it, how much, how often, and for what purpose.

Or . . . you could just listen to people who use the boat (or don't), and hear their reasons why. You could also play the game, which I'm sure you guys do, but since you also all have day jobs, I'm sure you are never really going to do that nearly as much as it would take to get a seat of the pants feel for how every little thing works out in practice.

Maybe the optimal bonus works and maybe it doesn't; either way, you should be careful looking at stats like this to answer this question for you, because what they don't tell you is more significant than what they do. This particular stat is marginal enough that it's almost negative information; you know less about the real situation after learning it than you would if you never thought about it at all.

Attacking the resistance buff won't cause people to start putting reps on ships with no defense bonus at all. They'll still go for buffer. People rarely even put reppers on the ships that have an active rep bonus, only doing so in special select circumstances. They still go for buffer. How does nerfing the resist bonus on a prophecy fix the gallente issue? It doesn't. The core of the problem is how bad reppers are. Not how good the 5% resist bonus is.

Now, if you buff reppers, that would make the resist bonus that much better, I'll admit. And you can adjust things after that. But the balance between armor and shield is already poor, and nerfing armor resist bonuses is not helping anything.