Player Features and Ideas Discussion

There should be a damage mid slot module that activates and uses cap and can be run with scripts.

Hey everyone, sorry for the delay, been a bit of a hectic week. I've got some time now so I'm going to write up responses to some of the questions and comments that have come up a lot in the thread so far. Thanks to everyone providing their feedback, every bit helps.

Why nerf things when you could buff things instead?

This is a question that comes up often in any thread where we are discussing decreasing the power of an item or ship. I can completely understand where it's coming from. Buffing things makes people happy in much larger numbers, it simply feels good to see the effectiveness of your equipment increase. Many other games rely on constantly improving gear to drive engagement in their content and that method of development can work very well for those games.

I'm going to start by quoting my answer to this question from the Heavy Missile thread before Retribution, because what I said there still applies.

I would be lying if I said that we never allow power creep in EVE. It's quite simply much much easier to balance upwards and considering how powerful of a tool it is for creating short term customer satisfaction, some power creep is very hard to avoid. However we do need to be very mindful of how much we let ourselves indulge. There are cases where for the long term health of the game ecosystem we simply have to reduce the power of certain items and ships. We believe this is one of those times. I can promise you that we're committed to eating our vegetables and making adjustments either up or down based on our best estimation of what the game needs. We won't decrease the power of items and ships unless we deem it necessary but we also won't forget that our job is to manage the health of the game over the long term. This will not be the last set of "nerfs" you see us make for Odyssey.

No real life company or military would ever limit themselves for balance, so why does it make sense here?

This is one of those areas where a game simply cannot follow real life examples. Whenever possible we try to ease the suspension of disbelief by bending game systems into metaphors that have some parallel with the real world, but when it comes down to it the demands of a game mean that balance is more important than realism. We'd rather have a fun game that has some unrealistic elements :cough:fluid dynamics:cough: than one that matches reality more closely at the cost of gameplay value.

Why are TEs overpowered? What about them is broken?

TEs have been in their current form for so long that it's easy to forget exactly how much they provide for so few drawbacks. In their current form they give the same range bonuses as a range scripted Tracking Computer, while also giving a significant tracking bonus for free and requiring less CPU and no cap. Since falloff was added to tracking modules TEs have been dominant alongside short range weapons. The value of low slot TEs has been part of the reason for the dominance of shield tanks over armor tanks in small gang pvp over recent years. After these changes I'm confident that TEs will still be very useful and powerful modules.

What about faction TEs? They don't seem to have an advantage.

The reason that my OP didn't clearly show the advantage of faction TEs is because the extra bonus from faction TEs has always been in tracking, not range. Since the tracking bonus is not being adjusted in this change I elected not to display it. Adding range bonused high metalevel TEs may be an option in the future, but for now the tracking benefits of faction TEs make them a sought after module so I do not see a desperate need to change them at this time.

Is it intentional that this change hurts the Cynabal and Machariel?

Many people are expressing surprise that we are making this change without somehow compensating the larger Angel ships. I can tell you that the effect this change has on the Cynabal and especially the Mach is intended. The Machariel has absolutely exceptional projection using high tracking autocannons and after this change it will still be very powerful and viable. The slight decrease in its ability to project using short range weapons is both intended and necessary to keep it in balance.

A 33% decrease in range seems like a lot. Isn't that too drastic?

This has been pointed out by several people in the thread already but I want to quickly touch on it again. It is important to note that a 33% decrease in the bonus provided by one module is very different than a 33% decrease in the overall range of the ships that fit that module. In most cases the actual range difference is very small. For example a dual TE Talos with Null would go from 16.4+28.7 before the change to 15.1+24.7. Significant to be sure, but not the catastrophe that losing 1/3 of its optimal and falloff would be. You can easily test the affect of this change on your favorite setups right now in EFT or PYFA, by swapping T2 TEs to T1. Give it a try!

Is the intent of this change to shrink the range of all engagements and force people within scram range?

This change will reduce the damage that some ship fits apply from long range. However there is no shortage of options for dealing damage at multiple ranges...

Thanks for explaining your reasoning behind the balance Fozzie, I agree that these are good changes

I can't believe the people complaining that they can "no longer" kite with short range guns loaded with short range ammo.
Typically these people fly Cynabals. 425mm guns with RF Emp.

No, you should not be doing great damage with these guns outside disruptor range. Load Barrage!

If we need to go farther, we can very easily do so in later iterations.

well.. sensor booster nerf is.. ok.

TE nerf is much to big... 5% would be a good thing to start with and look at it.. nearly 20% is bullshit ( looking into it with stacking penalty its more then 20% )

ffffff.... lol

Could you share this counter to TDs (apart from "use missiles")?

Also, speaking of power creep, i think the AT frigs need some love after the t1/af buffs. (CLEARLY THIS IS AN IMPORTANT ISSUE FOR MANY PEOPLE).

Also, have you considered just increasing the fitting cost of TEs to match the damage modules?

Pvp Shield tankers have midslots at a premium wrt tackle requirements and usually have less overall EHP than armor. With the changes to the active tank rigs the speed difference isn't as great (plus those extra mids for tackle/EWAR/TC). Of course one is always free to plate+trimark the **** out of a ship and turn it into a brick as before.

Perhaps 30/10+20/15 bonus spread would be more equitable?

This is a tremendous nerf for various types of group PVE gameplay, and most obviously incursion runners.


Most obviously how this hits newer players...
Many "newbie friendly" fleets will lose their ability to run the NMCs since many ships won't be able to shoot out far enough to hit the mara spawn in the first wave.

These fleets will face even less isk efficiency as they try and engineer some not terrible way to get it dead, and even more likely, they will ban what few battlecruisers they do allow, often the only way for newer, lower sp characters to even try incursions.

Quoting some numbers I saw somewhere else:



If you make this change, please re-balance PVE content to match, or many encounters could be come too difficult (various missions come to mind).

@CCP Fozzie
Are we going to see TCs/TEs affecting missiles this patch?