Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Agreed. I think a poll would definitely show that the community overall is not in favor of these sweeping changes. If the poll was even more specfic, such as 'if you primarily fly Gallente, how do you feel about changes to X; if you primarily fly Amarr how do you feel about changes to Y?' the results would be even more lopsided.

As far as the Armageddon is concerned, what I keep going back to is these niche boats that practically nobody flies. While there will always be a crowd that loves ships like the Bhaalgorn and the Scorpion (and even, to a degree, the Domi fits into this category), do they constitute the norm? Is this playstyle what most people are looking for? And the answer to that is a resolute and thundering 'no.'

At the end of the day, your average Amarr player wants to shoot things with lasers. At the end of the day, your average Gallente player wants to tear things up with fleets of drones. Why is this like this? Because that is the lore we were sold on -- that is the world that has been EVE for nearly a decade.

I do not understand the desire to turn every ship in EVE into a one-trick pony. Real-world militaries have never been like that. Real-world militaries possess ships and vehicles and planes with overlapping roles. A frigate can do much of what a destroyer can; a destroyer can do much of what a cruiser can. And different classes of destroyers and cruisers all basically do the same thing -- just with slightly different approaches; different armaments. Nations, overall, might favor a certain tactical approach -- for the U.S. during the cold war it was (and remains) aircraft carriers; for the Russians it was fleets of missile-toting battlecruisers and cruisers. And you didn't really see one trying to ape the other because each believed their approach to warfare was correct.

Such was the case with EVE. You had boats that excelled at some things, and others that excelled at other stuff. But they were all essentially linked to one another by a pan-racial identity. Amarr: big laser guns and armor tanking. Caldari: missiles and shields. Gallente: drones and a lot of armor tanking. Minmatar: projectiles and shields. People liked that status quo. They liked the diversity that came with picking a race; choosing a path to follow.

What I have failed to see metastasize throughout this entire process is the crowd of people clamouring at the gates for changes that homogenize the races. Ask your average EVEer if you think that's a good thing, and they're not going to give you a positive reply.

Perhaps the most damning quote comes from CCP Rise himself. From the OP (underline added):



What? And, in God's name, why? How many Amarr players out there were going Dragoon -> Arbitrator -> Prophecy and then QQing that they didn't have an Amarr battleship? Hell, that progression of ships didn't even make sense until a few months ago. Surely -- surely -- there are not great masses of people out there deeply wounded because they couldn't chase a neut-drone build all the way into BS as Amarr.

Ergo -- and I cannot emphasize this enough -- these changes are ruining a ship for the majority to please a minority that, until a few short weeks ago, did not even exist.

This is why CCP Rise needs to explain himself. This is why these changes fail. Because they simultaneously destroy a good boat and strip a race of its unique flavor. But, of course, this post will be ignored... I am sure 'for the good of the game.'

Dont know where you get your numbers. Because all market sites i checked show that in last 180 days there have been on average 56% more sales of Armageddon hull compared to the Abbadon, not the other way around. Now i dont doubt that you guys at CCP have more accurate data and i would really like to some some hard numbers from you ppl proving the statement that Armageddon hull is not used.

I want my 8 low slots&utility high Amarr gunship back.

You are getting a ton of versatility and a chance to get out from the yoke of the limitations of lasers.

- Abaddon is, and has been since it was introduced, the massive fleet ship with no compare ..

great performance

in that theatre and still used even in the post-alpha Eve (albeit sometimes sporting arty itself ). Was good, will remain good .. in the large scale engagement.
- Apocalypse had/has range, it is probably the single feature of the hull that allows room for it on the market, however small. Adding tracking to that just makes it stronger at what it does and has done through the years .. now we just need to get rid (read: nerf into ground) tier3 BCs, sort potential cap issues and find a solution to probing making snipers lame ducks and it will dominate like nothing else.
- Armageddon was the cheap effective alternative, only used when range was not an issue and logis were sparce. Usage had dropped off since the last general EHP buff all those years ago and the hull itself only recognizable because its navy sibling became abundant overnight (thank you farmers ..|.. ).

Which would you choose to become the cross-racial platform? The one that does more of the same (Arma) or the one with a unique ability/bonus/feature and very illustrious history (fleets 6-7 years past were predominantly Apocs, vast clouds of laser toting Apocs blocking out the suns abusing the snot out of Tachs).

I almost wonder if CCP should just strip the resist bonus off the Abaddon completely. It'd make the Amarr line easier to balance, though maybe introduce some more tears...

Kübler-Ross model
1. Denial.
2. Anger.
3. Bargaining.
4. Depression.
5. Acceptance. <----- You are here.

Stop that nonsense! Get back on your horse soldier, THAT IS AN ORDER!

The fat lady is still busy stuffing her face and is in no shape to sing anytime soon so keep it up.

Buck up Amarr! What have we always done when CCP decides we make a good toilet to squat on? Dug in and shoved it right back up the hole!

Especially since the new Apoc model, which I actually really like, (it doesn't look like a pimp's haircomb, for instance)

Seeing as once again my post was cut, I'm not going to bother to write it all down again. At this point I'm just beating a dead horse.

It's homogenization across all races, which is bad. We have the navy/pirate ships to fill in when we want to take a peek outside our normal race specific ships.

Let's talk "more work." I am fully aware that what I suggest is more work, and that's exactly what I think should happen. More quality work should be done balancing things. To put it in perspective, even if it's slightly off topic, in the past 12 years of my career, what do you think works out better in the long run: attention to detail and proper planning of changes or broad changes that take less time? If the answer isn't apparent, then I have some bad news for you.

As far as resists go, it's not simply 20% vs 25%. The loss of that 5% translates into more than a 30% nerf after you include damage taken/repair cycles/cap usage to offset the loss.

I'm almost positive that CCP is set in the way they want to go and this will be an issue similar to Incarna, where later on it gets fixed due to the absolute gutter-trash changes.

I just don't see this vast pool of players who look at the Amarr, say 'okay, I'm going to go neut-drones instead of lasers,' climb the tree, and then find themselves 'foiled' by the lack of a BS catering to their distinct needs. Where is this group of subscribers? Where are these huddled masses; their love of EVE crippled by the absence of an Amarr battleship tailored to meet their 'special flower' desires?

This is not World of Warcraft. You do not pick a faction and then get locked into the race/class combinations available to you. If your buddies are all Amarr, and you want to primarily sail drone ships, then by God, you train Gallente. It isn't rocket science. And one of the neat biproducts of that system was that each race maintained its own uniqueness over the years; populated by players that by-in-large favored 1-2 particular playstyles. And you didn't like those playstyles, you flew something else. That's how all of us believed the game worked (how wrong we apparently were -- in actuality, we were apparently just waiting for CCP Rise to show up and rectify things).

This is why these changes are so rotten. They're rotten for those of us who like the Armageddon -- like the iconic, inexpensive, 'bread-and-butter' style BS, and they're rotten because they damage the uniqueness of both the Amarr and the Gallente. Don't you think Gallente players would be up in arms if you took, say, the Mega and forced it to suddenly fit lasers? And don't tell me it's not the same thing, because it's exactly what is going on here. We Amarr players neither asked-for nor sought a ship like what the Armageddon is about to become. It's not something we clamored for -- we weren't waving pitchforks and torches on a stormy Transylvanian night, out to pull a shadowy figure from a castle tower and drive a steak through the unfortunate's heart. The mob was not out in force.

No, this is someone's ridiculous, overblown pet project; some personal crusade to rewrite almost a decade of EVE history and lore just to suit their own screwed up playstyle. So yes, I'm pissed off because this was my boat and you're ruining it, but I'm also floored that this is part of a wider campaign to dumb-down and neuter the game overall to suit a staggering minority of gimmick-focused players who want to fly Gallente but can't bring themselves to fly their ships. If you want to mess with the system, then add new boats to fulfill this supposed niches; do what you did with the silly Dragoon (that practically nobody flies). But don't wreck it for the rest of us. That isn't in any way right or fair.