Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I don't know about the internal workings of CCP- but it definitely feels like the balancing team dances to the art's tune, not visa-versa. The new Apoc was probably complete before CCP Rise even was working with CCP at all. As for missile turret changes to the Armageddon, for all we know that happened before Rise had a chance to look at it as well. I'm just saying there are probably more factors at work here than one person, or even four people can account for.

Was cruising around the feature / ideas section and finally looked that the new Navy Omen and Amarr Battlecruiser.
I won't insult you guys by asking guess what...
Yes that's right we have removed the laser -50% cap use and stuck on something guaranteed to break you cap with just guns.
Welcome to Amarr... get remote rep and remote power or go home.

I agree with most of this; but one thing. I don't think it was the fact that the Harbinger was better than the prophecy, it was that the prophecy itself was broken. The prophecy was given a laser bonus, but literally did more damage with blasters. It's only role was as a bait ship, so much so it earned a reputation for it. It was, in almost all respects, a ship that failed without needing to compare it to the Harbinger.

As you said, that isn't the case here.

Difference in experience, I guess. I really see the prophecy a lot more than I used to, both in pve and pvp. Doesn't mean I like the Geddon, just saying that the Prophecy seems to be filling a slot that wasn't there before.

I'm not convinced the labor involved in creating these models is as intense as it's made out to be. Though a different game, Pirates of the Burning Sea used to derive most of their ship models from players. And they were damned fine models, typically being built by individuals who had an eye for the artistic.

While I am by no means attempting to undermine the people who put in that work, when you're talking about a game, you're talking about an art team. How long does it really take a team of talented computer artists to build a model and stretch a skin over it? Now, granted, you'd probably have to create 4 models, because the Amarr couldn't be the only race with 4 T1 BSes. But, still, we can't be talking about years here.

It's all one company. One would like to think there are fairly strong lines of internal communication, governed by a management or administrative type. The process should likely go something like this:

(((One Year Ago)))
Rebalance team: "We've decided that we want to make a neut-drone BS the Amarr."
Art team: "Okay, we'll get on that."
(((Six Months Ago)))
Rebalance team: "How's that ship model coming?"
Art team: "We're in final testing."
(((Yesterday at fanfest)))
Manager: "And here's a sneak peek at the new Amarr BS"
Crowd: "Mass cheering."

Unfortunately, what we appear to have here is this:

(((One Year Ago)))
Rebalance team: "We've decided that we want to make a neut-drone BS the Amarr."
Art team: "Too bad, we're busy."
Rebalance team: "???"
Manager: *Looks up from a magazine.* "Pff, who cares?"

Or perhaps:

(((One Year Ago)))
Rebalance team: "We've decided that we want to make a neut-drone BS the Amarr."
Manager: "Okay, but there's no need to get anyone involved. We can just take one of the current models."
Rebalance team: "Fine by us. We hate the Armageddon model anyway. Everyone else must, too. We'll use that."
Manager: "Now that's constructive thinking."

This is a gaming company. They should be putting in work on their game. They should not be undermining that game's popularity -- regardless of the scope of the changes -- for a fairly large subset of the playing population. They should always, always be seeking to enhance their product, and one of the best ways to do that is by adding content. They should not be in the business of stripping popular boats of their appeal simply because they're too lazy and/or badly-managed/structured to add new content. The end result is rebranded, not new. It doesn't count.

Meh, it's never like that. First, there's five or six departments sending requests to that art department. Rebalancing, new ships, new station environments, ui, etc, etc, etc. Somebody created that graphic for the new stargates. And which is more important? We obviously argue ships, but not everybody agrees with us.

If you can't release a variety of content in an expansion that affects your entire playerbase in some way, the expansion is a flop, plain and simple. UI and visual in-space improvements/changes are the easiest ways to do that. Go over the expansions, and you'll see I'm right.

So that art department, which is made up of artists (some of the most difficult people to work with in any job, because 'you can't rush art'), is flooded with requests, half of them probably not properly explained (Yeah, I want you to make something squiggly and warp-ish-ey for gates). And then the ships? How many times ahve those artists changed those ships? It's a 3d element that comes with lo-res, and apparently very hi-res copies. Yeah, probably not easy.

Finally, how many times has their work gone down the trash? If we convince the balance team of Fozzie and Rise to drop the Geddon changes, all that art work goes to naught, unless we get a khanid faction ship or something later.

I kinda regret bringing up the art department, but I think this is it right here. Take the pre- retribution prophecy for example. It still had the resist bonus, and was still a brick. Utility was added, but it wasn't changed into something completely new; rather it was grown and expanded into a ship with a variety of uses.

It's possible the prophecy will need to be trimmed back, or buffed, based on it's performance, but it now has a role beyond simply being a stuffed pinata. In all of tiericide, no ship has been so completely dismembered in the same way the Armageddon has, except for a single class of ship: Logistics.

That said, CCP actually removed the one missile boat we had in order to make that Logistics happen, so I feel pushing the Armageddon in a missile direction isn't exactly good.

Also, where's our drone frigate? CCP Rise has flat out admitted the Dragoon is underwhelming, so if we go by "applicable classes" that leaves us with an Arbitrator>Prophecy>Armageddon lineup- at best.

Actually, you wouldn't. The Apoc, with the new bonuses is greatly superior at applying damage with 'short-range' weapons except right in close when the blaster boats win. On top of that, because of the way weapon ranges interact with T2 ammo, the Apoc can 'brawl' out to 60km. Whatever the issues are with the new Amarr BS designs, short-range Apocs are not one of them, especially when you consider that they hands-down beat shield tanked BS when it comes to utility because of those free mid-slots, and that their damage application is good enough to make up for the lack of space for 3-4 damage/tracking mods in the lows.

As for (fleet) sniping Apocs, if you fit beams they out perform arty Maelstroms in everything except alpha, and if you fit tachs compared to a Rokh they have a little less range, but handle things getting in 'close' much better. They'll have less tank than is ideal, but the Rokh won't have as much more as it once did (and in fact has the same if you want a decent range of sensor and tracking boosts), and the Rokh also needs to use a PG rig to fit everything (though the Apoc needs RCU, PG rig and CPU rig). Even if you do go for more tank on the Rokh and to heck with tracking and sensor resolution, you'r Rokh is still slower, has a 50%+ larger sig radius, and aligns slower. Oh, and when running a MWD has the same cap life (i.e. they're both tied to their logi support). Even the Maelstrom has problems with cap life when running an MWD - it just has the massive advantage that it gets cap back when firing its guns only (and it's also slower and clumsier than the Apoc, with a bigger sig).

Really, the Apoc isn't suffering much, if at all, compared to similar battleships. It's different, but not worse. There is still a bit of a problem with beam laser cap use, in that I don't think using mega beams should run a BS cap dry in 2-1/2 minutes, but I also think that a lot of the problems with Amarr cap, and BS cap in general is because of the huge cap hit you take from MWDs, and that an MWD is non-optional in current PVP. Everything is much saner if Afterburners are fitted, but the speed hit is simply too great.

quick question-when EXACTLY will this happen?