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[Odyssey 1.1] Tech 1 Industrials

First post First post
Author
Vayn Baxtor
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#441 - 2013-06-20 23:48:16 UTC
Quote:
What I don't understand is doesn't this break into the roles of the T2? I mean they are the same way, stealth for cargo space and larger HP for +2 to warp core stabilization. Doesn't seem really worth it.


All T2 ships have to be looked at once they're through with the T1 bracket - at least that sounded like the battle plan.

Quote:
If I can come up with 7 ideas in 5 minutes, surely you can do something more interesting than giving one hauler a launcher slot to make it different than the others. What you are doing to the ships right now is unimaginative, and you defend it by saying that each race must be balanced with the others. If they are so balanced as to lose any real differences between them, you might as well make one line of ORE haulers and be done with it.


QFT. This. And That.

Using tablet, typoes are common and I'm not going to fix them all.

Ruze
Next Stage Initiative
#442 - 2013-06-20 23:57:11 UTC
Something which concerns me pretty strongly, as I've seen it fall increasingly to the wasteside in the last few years:

Why is flavor so low on the importance list?

I mean, if CCP Rise and Fozzie were specifically in charge of balancing only, I would be less worried about our future. But from an outsiders perspective, it seems that they have quite a bit of say over roles, purpose, flavor and balancing all in one.

And it seems that neither care about lore or flavor. It's almost as if it's the part of the job they would rather do without. Like the annoying co-worker or the nerdy kid on the dodgeball court. Rather be one man down than deal with them.

I may be completely incorrect. It may just be really hard to be fair and have uniqueness at the same time. But I don't think ship design, or game design, should be all about stats. Stick some extra time in the Indy rebalance, because from the smallest mining frigate to the biggest jump freighter, it's a very important part of the game.

Don't just dismiss it as useless because it doesn't pew. Maybe you guys aren't. But it sure feels like you are.

If you're driven to threaten others with harm or violence because of what they do in game, you can't separate fantasy from reality. That "griefer/thief" is probably more sane than you are. How screwed up is that?

Taleden
North Wind Local no. 612
#443 - 2013-06-21 00:04:13 UTC
Echoing the comments about flavor, CCP Rise do you have any comment on the boringness of having to shield tank all inustrials, even Amarr and Gallente, because balancing toward armor tanking is thrown off by cargo expanders?

An Amarr or Galente pilot currently needs no shield tanking skills -- except for industrials. If you simply removed cargo expanders from the ship class, and then made cargo rigs hit structure instead of armor, then you could make Amarr and Gallente industrials armor tankers as they really should be.
CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
#444 - 2013-06-21 00:43:57 UTC  |  Edited by: CCP Rise
Quote:
Echoing the comments about flavor, CCP Rise do you have any comment on the boringness of having to shield tank all inustrials


There is so much wrapped up in this comment that I don't even really know where to start.

I think you're assuming that A: you have to tank industrials (you don't), B: you have to max expand industrials (you don't), and C: industrial flavor is derived from its tank(I don't think it is?).

I think the real problem here is that because we're putting any time into these ships, you guys want them to pop with something new. In the past, their flavor mostly was based on their art along with some quirks like having 5 Gallente indies or battle Badgers. On the whole haulers are just not very exciting compared to a lot of other classes in EVE. I can understand you want something new to make them pop more, but please keep in mind that it was never there to begin with. These ships mostly just carry stuff around for cheap, that's what they do. The purpose of this balance is just to make sure that there is some depth of choice and that each race has access to a cheap ship to carry things around that isn't painfully worse than the Itty 5.

On flavor generally... I think the word is used in so many different ways that I'm not even sure how to answer. I think Fozzie and I are really focused on mechanics that lead to interesting gameplay. I can't speak for him, but I think that "flavor" often emerges as a result of good design, or is intentionally added to lead to interesting play. We both care about it, especially in EVE. On top of that, we don't do anything alone, and there's plenty of people in the department who are extremely concerned about story, history, and aesthetic to make sure that I don't do anything too disruptive. These people played a hugely important part in decisions around the industrials.

I've typed a lot of text walls today =P

@ccp_rise

Dokten Ral
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#445 - 2013-06-21 01:11:45 UTC
It's not much to add, but as an Iteron pilot I really did enjoy the little breadcrumb reward of getting a new ship every time i leveled the skill as a newbie.
Zaxix
State War Academy
Caldari State
#446 - 2013-06-21 01:23:31 UTC
I certainly respect your opinion, Rise, but there is a group of true haulers in EVE, and what may be boring to you PvP types has been the focus of many an EVE career.

I'm still very eager to hear the underlying reasoning for teh cargo space changes between races. Mainly because I want know how or if that reasoning will be used to change freighters. Whatever might be boring about T1 haulers, freighters are most definitely iconic and none more than the Charon. Was that maybe answered somewhere earlier in the thread?

Bokononist

 

CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
#447 - 2013-06-21 01:27:52 UTC
Ya I wouldn't mean to sound dismissive of hauling as a profession at all, I'm just saying that from a ship balance and fitting perspective, hauling isn't as complex as combat.

Maybe it could/should be, but again, I don't think this rebalance is the place to start, which is why we decided to hold off on anything drastic until we get a better sense for where industry in general is heading.

@ccp_rise

Viceorvirtue
The Hatchery
RAZOR Alliance
#448 - 2013-06-21 02:11:18 UTC
A bit more about the tanks of the t1 haulers and why I feel the way I do about them

Currently you seem to be selling these haulers as either 'fast and tanky' or 'large cargo but non tanky'. If properly tanked, all of these haulers will be able to survive a single nado shot, with the exception of the ones with 4 midslots. However, all of these haulers when properly tanked will die to 2 nados. This is assuming they do not sacrifice rigslots or lowslots so they can carry max cargo.

Let me repeat that:

Nados needed to kill 'tank and fast' hauler that fits tank but sacrifices nothing to carry max cargo: 2
Nados needed to kill 'non tanky cargo focused' hauler that does the same as above: 2

Note: I believe badger mk1 and mk2 may take up to 3 nados if you get very poor shots, but I may be incorrect on that as I am just doing the math in my head atm.

There is, atleast from a suicide ganking perspective, no real difference between the tank of these 2 types of t1 haulers. If you want to push the 'tanky vs non tanky' issue, I seriously suggest you change it so that the 'non tanky' version actually have to sacrifice cargo space be that in the form of rigs/dcu/whatever in order to tank as well as the 'tanky' version.

If it is by design that all these haulers tank so easily, then please change the sell point to '25% align speed vs ~40% more cargo' as that is far more appropriate for what the stats presently are.

Personally I feel that you should as a cargo focused hauler be forced to sacrifice cargo space if you want to survive a tornado shot. As a sidenote: why dont ship scanners work most of the time and only give partial scans? Intended feature? Ive failed several ganks vs haulers that were tanked due to this. It's off topic so I'll likely make a topic about it tomorrow.
zerokmatrix
Federation Mission Acedemy
#449 - 2013-06-21 02:18:01 UTC
Thank you for "saving" the Mammoth,

I adore the look of the ship it sorta looks like a battlestar to me

I deliberately trained all of my PI characters into Minmatar indies just so they could use the Mammoth. I could not stand the thought of them flying ugly itty's.

I just wish the minmatar cloaky transport (Prowler) was the mammoth model and not the wreathe.

Btw while on the subject of the Prowler, I had just got used to Prowler model, after i started flying them.
I especially liked the glowing forcefield box in the middle
Then along came V3 and the look was "improved" and the box was gone!!
But at least i could still enjoy my minmatar covert ops with it's green lights and nice patterned sails.
But that also got "improved" with V3 and the things i loved about that ship were gone also.
Then of course there was the frills incident.

Anywho, it seems like the art department is not very in touch with the players when it comes to minmatar ships but that is just my opinion

It is still ok to have an opinion on here isn't it, or am I gonna get banned for writing this?

Oh well, I do like to live life on the edge :)

PS.

Molic Blackbird
Orion Faction Industries
Orion Consortium
#450 - 2013-06-21 02:59:55 UTC
CCP Rise wrote:
Ya I wouldn't mean to sound dismissive of hauling as a profession at all, I'm just saying that from a ship balance and fitting perspective, hauling isn't as complex as combat.

Maybe it could/should be, but again, I don't think this rebalance is the place to start, which is why we decided to hold off on anything drastic until we get a better sense for where industry in general is heading.


So, because there might possibly be some sort of change to industry in an unspecified future, there won't be any major changes to industrials? I've heard talk of a so called 'Industrial expansion' for so long it ceases to mean anything other then just 'talk'. In the mean time, we'll be left with this broken balancing pass on the industrial ship line for years.



Alvatore DiMarco
Capricious Endeavours Ltd
#451 - 2013-06-21 03:03:02 UTC
Quantum Rise was the "Industry Expansion".

....Oh wait.
Ruze
Next Stage Initiative
#452 - 2013-06-21 03:22:07 UTC
CCP Rise wrote:
Quote:
Echoing the comments about flavor, CCP Rise do you have any comment on the boringness of having to shield tank all inustrials


There is so much wrapped up in this comment that I don't even really know where to start.

I think you're assuming that A: you have to tank industrials (you don't), B: you have to max expand industrials (you don't), and C: industrial flavor is derived from its tank(I don't think it is?).

I think the real problem here is that because we're putting any time into these ships, you guys want them to pop with something new. In the past, their flavor mostly was based on their art along with some quirks like having 5 Gallente indies or battle Badgers. On the whole haulers are just not very exciting compared to a lot of other classes in EVE. I can understand you want something new to make them pop more, but please keep in mind that it was never there to begin with. These ships mostly just carry stuff around for cheap, that's what they do. The purpose of this balance is just to make sure that there is some depth of choice and that each race has access to a cheap ship to carry things around that isn't painfully worse than the Itty 5.

On flavor generally... I think the word is used in so many different ways that I'm not even sure how to answer. I think Fozzie and I are really focused on mechanics that lead to interesting gameplay. I can't speak for him, but I think that "flavor" often emerges as a result of good design, or is intentionally added to lead to interesting play. We both care about it, especially in EVE. On top of that, we don't do anything alone, and there's plenty of people in the department who are extremely concerned about story, history, and aesthetic to make sure that I don't do anything too disruptive. These people played a hugely important part in decisions around the industrials.

I've typed a lot of text walls today =P


I think I got caught in this response.

I want to say that I can definitely understand the issues here. As a matter of course, T1 industrials have always been very specialized. There wasn't much flavor, outside the art department. You could almost argue that they were the first T2 ships, being so limited in scope and design.

But I would hope that you guys would catch the name of the group, 'Industrials', and add some new flavor that doesn't focus on just hauling. Industry in EvE is so much more than cargo hold.

The clay you've been given to work with didn't have much to it. And I hope you guys know that I, personally, have really fought for you guys on your rebalances (outside one particular Amarr battleship, but that's history already).

Just don't stick yourself into treating T1 industrials as just haulers. We've got T2 industrials for specializing. There is so much more that can be done with this basic ships, including ore holds and ore reprocessing bays and arrays and the like. You could give the ships true flavor and variety. This is an 'outside the box', 'maybe takes longer to iron out than a few weeks' kinda suggestion.

It's not like we haven't been waiting how many years for T1 industrials to finally get updated?

Either way, thumbs up to you guys. Balance isn't easy.

If you're driven to threaten others with harm or violence because of what they do in game, you can't separate fantasy from reality. That "griefer/thief" is probably more sane than you are. How screwed up is that?

Taleden
North Wind Local no. 612
#453 - 2013-06-21 03:39:39 UTC
CCP Rise wrote:
I think you're assuming that A: you have to tank industrials (you don't),


If we're not supposed to tank industrials, why are you creating an entire collection of "Industrials focused on speed and tank"? What else do you expect people to put in the 4-6 mid slots that you have on every industrial?

CCP Rise wrote:
B: you have to max expand industrials (you don't)


No, but lots of folks are going to, which forces you to balance the ships against that assumption in order to avoid one of them being overpowered capacity-wise when fitted that way -- you even admitted as much in your original post:

"Cargo (capacity / capacity with max expanders, t1 expander rigs and all 5 skills)"

Forcing yourself to account for cargo expanders closes a lot of doors and leads to less interesting and varied ships. But it's an easy thing to fix, so why not fix it and give yourselves more freedom to vary the ships?

CCP Rise wrote:
and C: industrial flavor is derived from its tank(I don't think it is?).


No more than combat ship flavor is "derived from its tank," but it's certainly an ingredient, don't you think? Gallente and Caldari gunboats have some similarities, except that Gallente ships are usually armor tanked, which makes them a little more different than they would be otherwise. The same could be -- and new players would expect it to be -- true of the industrial ships, except it's not.

As a concrete example, I don't see how a Sigil is any competition for a Badger in this proposal. The Badger is naturally shield tanked so it gets either a capacity or a speed boost from its low slots while still fit for nearly maximum tank. The Sigil meanwhile can either have a gimpy shield tank in order to match the speed and/or capacity of the Badger, or it can have a comparable armor tank but much worse speed and capacity. The Badger looks hands-down better than the Sigil, simply because the Sigil cannot be tanked as intended without sacrificing other aspects of its primary role, while the Badger requires no such compromise.

CCP Rise wrote:
I think the real problem here is that because we're putting any time into these ships, you guys want them to pop with something new. ... On the whole haulers are just not very exciting compared to a lot of other classes in EVE.


Yes, we are hoping they'll pop a little, because as you say they've been pretty uninteresting for most of EVE's history. But that's no excuse to not fix it; this is exactly the time to make them pop a little in order to improve the game for all those players who spend most of their time in EVE flying these "not very exciting" ships. If you gloss over them in order to get to your personal favorite combat ships, you're doing your playerbase a disservice. That's what we're concerned about here.

CCP Rise wrote:
I've typed a lot of text walls today =P


You and us both, and we appreciate your dialogue. We all just want to see this iteration done well so that we don't have to try to get your attention to do it again a year from now. :)
Halycon Gamma
Perkone
Caldari State
#454 - 2013-06-21 04:19:30 UTC
Currently, when I want to move low m3 high value goods, it's in either a blockade runner or a frigate. Gate camps pretty much dictate that anything slower than that, no matter how much I tank it, is going to die. Align time and sig radius is a hauler's tank. If I need to move something larger, it's either an Orca or an Iteron 5.

I don't think our lack of enthusiasm for these changes has anything to do with this rebalance not "popping", but because it changes nothing at all for those of us who spend time ferrying goods around New Eden. The only thing this rebalance really does is give 3 racial choices to replace the Iteron 5 and make them a tad less survivable in the process. The more survivable ships you've supplied are less survivable than other options already in the game which can be reached in under a month's training time.

I'm glad you're looking at industrials, I really am. But given the choice between this, and not rebalancing them. I'd rather you didn't touch them at all and place them in the back of your mind for a future real rework once we're closer to the "industrial changes" as a whole you're talking about. Or if you do touch them, only add in the three racial variants of max capacity to give the Iteron some competition. Because that is the only real take away from this for us.

Industrial ships do need some love, but a half hearted attempt because of time constraints from more pressing ships to rebalance is worse than no attempt at all.
Ruze
Next Stage Initiative
#455 - 2013-06-21 04:38:27 UTC
Halycon Gamma wrote:
Currently, when I want to move low m3 high value goods, it's in either a blockade runner or a frigate. Gate camps pretty much dictate that anything slower than that, no matter how much I tank it, is going to die. Align time and sig radius is a hauler's tank. If I need to move something larger, it's either an Orca or an Iteron 5.

I don't think our lack of enthusiasm for these changes has anything to do with this rebalance not "popping", but because it changes nothing at all for those of us who spend time ferrying goods around New Eden. The only thing this rebalance really does is give 3 racial choices to replace the Iteron 5 and make them a tad less survivable in the process. The more survivable ships you've supplied are less survivable than other options already in the game which can be reached in under a month's training time.

I'm glad you're looking at industrials, I really am. But given the choice between this, and not rebalancing them. I'd rather you didn't touch them at all and place them in the back of your mind for a future real rework once we're closer to the "industrial changes" as a whole you're talking about. Or if you do touch them, only add in the three racial variants of max capacity to give the Iteron some competition. Because that is the only real take away from this for us.

Industrial ships do need some love, but a half hearted attempt because of time constraints from more pressing ships to rebalance is worse than no attempt at all.


I'd hate for this rebalance to be considered a pin in a completed assignment and the haulers not get looked at again for another 10 years. Better to have the expectation of change 'soon' than know this is all there is.

I'm also proposing that if this IS what we're getting, please rename them to 'Industrial Haulers' or something more clearly labeling what they are. Industrial is a bit too broad.

If you're driven to threaten others with harm or violence because of what they do in game, you can't separate fantasy from reality. That "griefer/thief" is probably more sane than you are. How screwed up is that?

Veronica Rios
Interference Inc
#456 - 2013-06-21 05:03:58 UTC
I have a question about "extra" haulers from the invention/t2 production perspective..

All races are pretty much aligned with new type of haulers except Gallente. Occator requires Iteron Mark III blueprint copy for invention and t1 ship for production. Is it going to remains this way? do you have plans to change it to Iteron Mark V?
Mara Pahrdi
The Order of Anoyia
#457 - 2013-06-21 05:46:41 UTC
CCP Rise wrote:
but on the other side, giving them a job that was interesting and valuable but only available for Gallente and Minmatar felt unfair.

I don't get this. It takes literally no time to train into these things now.

You could have given one of them a role as a dedicated ore hauler, or an industrial battlecruiser or whatever comes to mind. Anything would have been better than this really. Apart from pure role playing, there's no sense in racial symmetry when it takes almost no time to train into.

Remove standings and insurance.

Caitlyn Tufy
Perkone
Caldari State
#458 - 2013-06-21 05:47:45 UTC
CCP Rise wrote:
On the whole haulers are just not very exciting compared to a lot of other classes in EVE. I can understand you want something new to make them pop more, but please keep in mind that it was never there to begin with. These ships mostly just carry stuff around for cheap, that's what they do.


Respectfully, I disagree. Haulers aren't very exciting because there's nothing exciting about them, not because it couldn't be. As I pointed out in post #300, the huge majority of people use one T1 hauler and one T1 hauler only - the one with the largest cargo bay. That's not because that's there is, but because the others are simply underwhelming considering the alternatives.

You can't take a T1 hauler into low sec really, because it's far too vulnerable. Think about it - catching them is easy and given enough time, a single frigate will wear down an industrial. You can't use it as a high speed, small cargo hauler, because they're too slow. And obviously, if combat badgers exist, there's a niche here that could be cool.

Here's what's going to happen with your rebalance: the tanking haulers will be ignored, because they remain too slow for serious hauling. Warp speed of 4.5 AU/s can't compete with large cargo frigates (6 AU/s), which have more than enough cargo space to do any L1/L2 mission and small cargo ferries. They won't be taken into low, because they're still far too easy to catch at their alignment time. So the only thing they have going for them is a slightly better tank.

As for the large cargo haulers, it used to come down to "how long do you want to train / which T2 haulers do you want"? Now it's down to "which one can carry most?" And Bestower is the only one that can load 13 Giant Secure Containers.
Mara Pahrdi
The Order of Anoyia
#459 - 2013-06-21 05:54:23 UTC
Steve Ronuken wrote:
Makes sense, I guess.

It'd be nice to have something like a ore hold, or a fitting service on the others, but it would be limiting for anyone but the gallente.


I mentioned this in a previous post (somewhere) but I can see the following Industrial roles:

1: tanky
2: fast - This is a lot less useful. As fast can be covered by a different class. A frigate sized courier
3: big
4: Specialist cargo (ore/gas/ice)
5: Fitting service
6: Fleet hangar


And we already have:
7: Salvager
8: PI specialist cargo.


Liked your post, though I do not agree. I only fly cheap and fast T1 hauler setups with medium sized cargo. Anything else either travels in a freighter, a heavily tanked and boosted Orca or a cloaky BR.

Remove standings and insurance.

Dave stark
#460 - 2013-06-21 06:22:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Dave Stark
CCP Rise wrote:
These ships mostly just carry stuff around for cheap, that's what they do.


so is this, essentially, the answer to my t1 indy ship vs orca question?

they all suck have no attractive qualities in comparison to the orca because they're cheap?