Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hello gentlepilots! It's once again time to start soliciting feedback on more ship balance changes! We'll be starting off our Summer lineup gently with some proposed tweaks to a few of the previously adjusted T1 frigates and a change to the Naglfar that was frankly a long time coming (and that I didn't want to create a whole new sticky for).

Naglfar
I'll start us off with the Nag change. Many of you know that in the past CCP has expressed a desire to remove the outdated and very annoying split weapon systems on the Naglfar Dreadnaught, but that fitting a third capital turret on the hull was too problematic and held up the idea. Instead of requiring a complete redesign of the classic Naglfar hull to do our rebalancing, or waiting until our comprehensive Dread rebalance to touch this most glaring flaw, CCP Ytterbium decided that we'd get the job done using the tools available to us.

So we're removing both the two launcher hardpoints from the Nag (and two highs), and replacing them with a fixed +50% Capital Projectile Weapon damage role bonus that puts the two-turreted Nag on roughly equal footing with its three turret peers. We're also removing some fitting to compansate for no longer needing the launchers fitted (although in practice this is fairly insignificant). You can expect us to swap the capital launchers for capital turrets in the build requirements at some point soonish (same way as we did for the Ragnarok) but I unfortunately cannot guarantee that the build requirement changes will happen at exactly the same time as the ship stat and bonus changes.

Full Naglfar changes are:
New Fixed Role Bonus: +50% Capital Projectile Weapon Damage
-2 High Slots
-2 Launcher Slots
-144000 Powergrid
-180 CPU

Frigates
And onwards to the frigate tweaks! Overall we're very happy with how the frigate changes have worked out so far. The gap between the best and worst frigates is massively smaller than it was pre-Inferno. Although it will take more time to fully see these ships settle into the metagame, there are some small changes we can make in the medium-term to help smooth out a few rough edges.

Some of you will notice that there are certain imbalances that these changes do not fully rectify (for instance the current strength of light missile speed fits, the slight relative weakness of the Rifter, Breacher and the solo Punisher). We're hoping to smooth out a few of the rough edges via stat changes to the ships themselves, while some others will be addressed via changes to other parts of the metagame.

Summary:

EXECUTIONER:
+50 Armor

TORMENTOR:
+1 PWG
+50 Armor
+25 Capacitor
+12.5 Cap Recharge Time
Cap/s unchanged
+15 Velocity
+0.05 Agility
-100000 Mass
-0.24s Align time

PUNISHER:
-25 Capacitor
-32.5s Cap Recharge Time
+0.222 Cap/s

KESTREL:
+50 Hull

TRISTAN:
+15 Veloity
-150000 Mass
-0.48s Align time

RIFTER:
+1 PWG
+50 Armor

BREACHER:
+50 Hull


Entire ship stats:

EXECUTIONER:
Frigate skill bonuses: -10% to small energy turret capacitor use and +5% small energy turret damage per level
Role bonus: 80% reduction in Propulsion Jamming systems activation cost
Slot layout: 4H, 3M, 3L; 3 turrets, 0 launchers
Fittings: 45 PWG, 140 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 250 / 450 (+50) / 350
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 360 / 180 s / 2
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 410 / 2.85 / 1090000 / 2.91s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0
Targeting (max targeting range / scan resolution / max locked targets): 27.5km / 920 / 4
Sensor strength: 8 Radar
Signature radius: 31
Cargo capacity: 115

TORMENTOR:
Frigate skill bonuses: +5% to small energy turret damage and -10% to small energy turret capacitor use per level
Slot layout: 3H, 3M, 4L; 3 turrets, 0 launchers.
Fittings: 50 (+1) PWG, 130 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 350 / 500 (+50) / 400
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 425 (+25) / 212.5 s (+12.5) / 2
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 335 (+15) / 3.1 (+0.05) / 1080000 (-100000) / 3.13 s (-0.24)
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 10 / 10
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 40km / 620 / 4
Sensor strength: 9 Radar
Signature radius: 35

PUNISHER:
Frigate skill bonuses: 5% bonus to Small Energy Turret damage and 5% bonus to armor resistances per skill level
Slot layout: 4H, 2M, 4L; 3 turrets, 0 launchers
Fittings: 55 PWG, 124 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 350 / 500 / 450
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 400 (-25) / 180 s (-32.5s) / 2.222 (+0.222)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 330 / 3.35 / 1047000 / 3.28 s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 25km / 640 / 4
Sensor strength: 9 Radar
Signature radius: 37

KESTREL:
Caldari Frigate bonuses: +5% to missile damage and +10% to missile velocity per level
Slot layout: 4H, 4M, 2L; 0 turrets, 4 launchers
Fittings: 45 PWG, 180 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull): 500 / 350 / 400 (+50)
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 330 / 165 s / 2
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 320 / 3.27 / 1163000 / 3.56 s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 50km / 620 / 5
Sensor strength: 11 Gravimetric
Signature radius: 38

TRISTAN:
Gallente Frigate bonuses: +7.5% to small hybrid turret tracking and +10% to drone tracking and hitpoints per level
Slot layout: 3H, 3M, 3L; 2 turrets, 0 launchers
Fittings: 35 PWG, 130 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull): 350 / 450 / 650
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 350 / 175 s / 2
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 325 (+15) / 3.44 / 956000...

Excellent - room for a covert cyno now on the Nag :D

No need for a siege module!

Yes to the double damage bonus, the skill bonuses are not changing.

As for the utility high, we think the ship will be quite competitive with the three highs and the damage bonus. We did consider leaving a utility high on it but decided to keep it more in line with its peers.

Because blasters?

For the Naglfar could you consider biasing the armor/shields towards armor and/or adding an additional low slot.

I ask this because it cannot have escaped your notice that shield capitals in pvp are on the verge of going the way of the dodo - probably already deceased in your former alma mater. There are enough pilots and ships to impose doctrines to this - and as armor based capitals have had the best stats (armor and damage versus shield and ????) the doctrine will be armor based. The current best use for a Nidhoggur is in triage, repping a POS.

A Naglfar without an armor tank will be as welcome in a capital fleet as a Mael would be in an Abbadon fleet irrespective of the changes you are making here.

The capital turrets are all pretty balanced. They don't really have a short range like the sub cap blasters so the extra DPS isn't making up for much.

I don't have anything to comment about frigate changes, but the way you fixed the issue with Naglfar seems like just hiding stuff under the carpet to me. Of course, it would be perfect if Naglfar had 3 turret slot like all other dreads. Are your graphical designers too lazy to change the ship's model to accomodate this? But you changed the Megathron model some time ago, even though it wasn't an ugly ship.

However, I wouldn't mind having split weapon systems on Naglfar it if its launcher slots had any bonus, in that case I would change ship's bonuses to this:

10% to capital projectile turret damage (or rate of fire) per level
10% to citadel missile explosion velocity per level

Also, siege module should have its penalty to explosion velocity removed. You already did the same with tracking. Penalties to scan resolution and number of lockable targets are also rather annoying.

On a related note, capital turrets have rather pathetic sounds, way underwhelming for such devastating weapons of mass destruction.

Now see, without a glimpse into these meta changes I can hardly comment on the frig changes, except that the rifter needs more of your love.

Someone like you says it would be nice if there were a third turret because of the graphics.
A Naglfar pilot says "SWEET! My guns work better and only require half the ammo as before!"

Shield capitals are going the way of the dodo because the ships' weapons are bad. It has nothing to do with the tank. Nag isn't used much because of the horrible split weapon, Phoenix is rarely used because good luck hitting anything with citadel missiles. Fix those two issues and people will use them again (let's not forget the Phoenix fleets of old).

Rolling out a collection of tier 2 dreads with the alternate weapon system for each race would likely even things up with the tank preferences for cap fleets.