Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Welcome to the Tech 1 Battleship rebalance, fasten your seatbelts!

Some of the changes herein are significant, so I'm going to lay out our overall tiericide and balance principles at the top of each race's thread, and also provide ship-by-ship explanation. I encourage you to read both before hitting the caps lock key, you may find answers to some of your questions and concerns.

Tiericide -
Our effort to destroy ship tiers continues. With battleships, the tiers were most evident in HP amounts and price. All variations had an equal allocation of slots already (19), except drone bonused hulls or disruption hulls, which won’t change. As usual, we will be dividing battleships into roles rather than tiers. The distribution will be as follows: One 'Attack' Battleship for each race, and two 'Combat' Battleships for each race (except Caldari, who will retain the only 'Disruption' Battleship for the time being). With these new roles in mind, we will be adjusting hitpoint amounts for all combat battleships near the former tier 3 hitpoint numbers, while the attack hulls will sit closer to the former tier 2s. As with other ship classes, attack battleships will be faster, more agile, and will focus more on damage application and projection than their combat counterparts. Cost of production will be adjusted to reflect tiericide, but so far we have not settled on exact numbers.

Exciting roles for every ship and every race -
One of our main goals during this balance pass is to see that each battleship has a lot to offer, and that each race has access to all of Eve's environments. Formerly, the battleship line had strange overlaps and gaps which left certain races excluded from certain styles of play and other races with more than one option for a certain role. This new distribution should hopefully provide new options and excitement for players of all races.

I am breaking the post into four, by race, with the hope of isolating feedback. We look forward to hearing what you all have to say.

Without further ado:

CALDARI

Rokh:

The Rokh, like most of the former tier 3 battleships, is in a very healthy place currently. It hasn't been changed, except for a tweak to the resist bonus. This change is significant, and we are going to dedicate an entire thread to discussing the power of resistance bonuses later in the day. If you want to talk about this bonus here, in relation to the Rokh specifically, feel free. The general idea from our end is that the current bonus to resistance is one of the most powerful ship bonuses in the game. It adds to the power of local tanks (active and passive) as well as remote tanks, which has consistently positioned ships with this bonus at the center of some of the most powerful gameplay available. We feel that the Rokh is a good example of this powerful gameplay, and expect it to thrive despite this change.

Caldari Battleship Skill Bonuses:
+10% to large Hybrid Turret optimal range
+4% Shield resistances per level (-1% per level)

Slot layout: 8H, 6M, 5L; 8 turrets , 4 launchers
Fittings: 15000 PWG, 780 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 8500 / 7000 / 7500
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / recharge per second) : 6000 / 1250s / 4.8
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 89 / .136 / 105300000 / 19.85s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 50 / 50
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 90km / 75 / 7
Sensor strength: 24 Gravimetric
Signature radius: 500

Raven:

The (cavalry)Raven is becoming the Caldari attack battleship. Its bonuses were a natural fit already, and although its giving up some base hitpoints, the substantial increase to speed and added mid should open up plenty of new opportunities for Caldari missile pilots without hurting anyone who was already happy using it.

Its also gaining power grid and CPU output so that torp focused fits and fits that want to use propulsion mods are more easily accessible. Keep in mind that we will be taking a more detailed look at battleship sized missile systems in the near future.

Caldari Battleship Skill Bonuses:
+5% bonus to Cruise and Torpedo Launcher rate of fire
+10% bonus to Cruise Missile Torpedo Velocity

Slot layout: 7H(-1), 7M(+1), 5L; 4 turrets , 6 launchers
Fittings: 11000 PWG(+1500), 750(+50) CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 7000(-500) / 5800(-841) / 6400(-241)
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / recharge per second) : 5500(+187.5) / 1160s / 4.74
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 113(+19) / .12(-.008) / 99300000 / 16.52s (-1.1s)
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 50(-25) / 75
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 75km / 85 / 7
Sensor strength: 22 Gravimetric
Signature radius: 420(-50)

Scorpion:

The Scorpion, while being an oddity in the battleship line up, seems fairly happy. We have adjusted its hitpoints slightly, so they would roughly match the attack set, but otherwise there are no changes.

UPDATE: Based on player feedback we are going to let the Scorpion trade one of its high slots for another low slot.

Caldari Battleship Skill Bonuses:
15% bonus to ECM Target Jammer strength
25% bonus to ECM Target Jammer optimal and falloff range
25% bonus to ECM Burst range

Slot layout: 5H(-1), 8M, 5L(+1); 4 turrets , 4 launchers
Fittings: 9000 PWG, 750 CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 7000(+359) / 5500 / 6500(+1031)
Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / recharge per second) : 5500(+187.5) / 1087s / 5.06
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 94 / .116 / 103600000 / 16.66s
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 75 / 75
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 90km / 110 / 7
Sensor strength: 24 Gravimetric
Signature radius: 480

I think the scorp could use a bit of armor instead of hull, that'd make it a better ship in armor fleets. Currently it has quite a low EHP when armor tanked, and it's losing a lot of EHP when shield tanked, due to the ECMs in the mids.

I think the faction ships are still down the road... *fears for his SNI*

We have a special balance pass in mind for you entity.

I'll quote what I said in the Reddit thread:



I really wish something would be done about the scorpion. Since 2008 or so, ECM has been nerfed many times (at least 3 that I remember); it is only marginally effective, and even then only when you fill every mid and low slot for jamming, with maybe holding back two slots for tank.

So, basically, it's a ship that's only effective when hero tanked, and yet it's primaried first in almost every fleet I've been in, so what's the point? It's not cost effective, it's not mobile, it's not effective at jamming for more than a couple of cycles before it explodes, it has little to no tank, no PVE role.... Its role needs to be rethought, IMO.

As there currently seems to be place to ask this question...

With regards to the reduction of Resist bonuse from 5% to 4% (Both armor and shield), how will this affect other ships in game with these bonuses? Will their resist bonuses be similarily be adjusted by -1%?

meh... without a boost to cruise and torps the raven is still... meh...

hopefully there will be a thread about large missiles too...

Rokh - I like, seems fair as you have nerfed the abaddon a little bit.

Raven - Yeaaaaaaaaaa, I love it tbh, although I don't like the removal of 1 heavy neutraliser! But that's just me, coz theyre way OP

Scorpion - Actually disappointed, I wanted to see a bit of a slot change, Preferably 5 High, 8 Mid, 5 Low. Allows for the pilot to choose between Full utility scorpion, with an armour tank/smartbombs etc , or a 4x Torp 1x Neut scorpion, with shield tank, 1 ECM and a decent enough amount of damage to actually warrant it in a solo/dual combo. I think this is a BIG flaw in the Scorp that needs to be addressed.

Scorpion Changed As per this idea I see, Go me! :D

The rebalanced Raven...I don't have any words for it. I was FORCED to train T2 torp launchers for the Naglfar, but I ain't regretting it when I see this new Raven.

Enough PWG to actually fit torps, more CPU for mission fits, an additional medslot (WOOOOT), more mobility, all that in one package.

The only thing that might be a problem is the mass. I remember the Raven being SUPER-BULKY. Maybe it was just me but if the time needed to accelerate doesn't change, its max speed won't ever be reached and that speed buff won't do much.

So, as Caldari my only option basically is ranged damage, thus less DPS? Since the Megathron even got faster than it already was, the Rokh is no option anymore for blaster fit.


... Or am I missing something? I'm not a veteran ...