Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I stand corrected. Hope you feel better.

Hi,

Ishtar:

I am still hoping for a 6th low slot even if we lose something for balance and to appease the non drone boat pilots.

With regards to the Ishtar HAC skill bonuses, they become useless when using the std 5x OGRE fit for med/close range. So is it excepted that you only need HAC lvl 1 to fly the Ishtar if you don't intend to snipe? Could the bonuses be tweaked even further please, i feel we are nearly there .

I think the drone bonuses are correct but why separate? Other HAC's have bonuses that stack with there choice of weaponry i.e. Dmg, rate of fire, fall off and optimal all applied to the weapon they have mounted. What is been currently given to the Isthar is the same as giving separate bonuses to auto-cannons and Artillery on a Minmatar HAC or separate rail and blasters bonuses.
This will then allow you to add a separate small but useful bonus as currently the Ishtar is not quite there yet.

I think the majority realize that it's going to take a few rounds to get it right /GL pleasing everyone.

Thanks,
Boz.

aka Bozzith, Columbo Miner.

Is this where you give the deimos a rep bonus ? =D

You can take the drones and/or the utility high as payment.

The equilibrium is still too high for how these ships compare to t1

Alright, I'm still kind of out of it and I'll probably give another check-in here after the weekend, but here's where I stand for now:

I think our biggest concern is the Deimos. While the combination of the new layout and speed, added to the rail buff probably makes for a skirmisher that will be extremely powerful, we do appreciate the fact that a lot of people feel disappointed with it as an in-your-face brawler. I think the expected performance as a brawler varies quite a bit based on what kind of PVP you like (what size etc), but I would like to push it back towards that role in some way. We want to at least give back some of the base hp in armor, maybe at the cost of some of the added shield hp. I don't have numbers for this yet but I'll get them to you guys early next week. The other thing I would really like to do is give the Deimos an armor rep bonus. I think it could fit in nicely as a replacement for the MWD cap use bonus as long as the cap recharge is high enough that the kiting fits are handicapped. This wouldn't have much affect on large fleet AHAC type application, but would open up more possibilities at small scale. It also fits really well racially compared to the cap use bonus which is sort of unusual. I'm sure a lot of you won't love an active bonus because it doesn't apply to your style of play, but it would come in at little-to-no cost and offer smaller scale fighters more diversity and a more efficient brawler.

Following the Deimos there's a few ships which seem to be drawing more attention than any others, but for most of these I don't expect to make big changes before 1.1 goes out. This list would include Vagabond, Muninn, and Sacrilege.

Vagabond: I'm still fairly confused about how there is so much resistance on this ship design. The complaints range quite a bit but I think the most legitimate one is that the Vaga struggles to project damage compared to its competition (Deimos/Cerberus mostly). I think you have to accept that the Vaga has huge advantages in some other areas that should easily outweigh its slightly lower damage projection. Compared to Cerberus for instance, you have an enormous speed advantage, a utility high, and significantly lower Signature. How valuable you think these things are will vary of course, but you can't expect the Vaga to push damage out as well or it simply becomes better in all cases.

Muninn: I understand wanting the 4th mid, but I don't think we will do that. I think by adding a low the Muninn will get better at everything it already does (mostly arty/shield fleets), by using the low for more speed or more damage, while also picking up the possibility to run armor variations. This might not be insanely popular but I think it's important for Minmatar to have the option to do both, and the Vaga is pointed towards shield even more now than it already was.

Sacrilege: The Sacrilege was definitely one of the more difficult ones to pin down, but I think we're in a pretty good place. We looked at a few other options for its layout and bonuses but because of the power of the resist buff it's very easy for it to become too strong. We also really like that it tends to fit in to fleets as a ship with enormous utility rather than being all tank and gank like a lot of the other HACs. For that reason we really wanted to leave the utility high and the 4th mid. It would often make a better straight up brawler with another low, but by going the route we went of adding more drone dps and more fitting room, we improved it a lot as a brawler while preserving its character as a very high-utility HAC that can do a lot of different things.

Ishtar: A little side note here. If you are confused about the slot count being one lower, thats very standard for our primary drone weapon ships. In general I think the Ishtar is certainly among the most powerful ships coming out of this rebalance so we definitely aren't looking to make it any more so.

On 1 slot vs tech 1 counterpart rather than 2: Honestly we never talked about adding a slot to every ship, but I don't think it makes much difference. If we did do that, we would have to pull power away from other metrics to make up for it. Whether the whole class has 12 or 15 or 18 it should hopefully still be balanced to function in the role we have in mind, and so it's not as if adding a lot to all of them would suddenly make them all much more powerful.

Thanks for the well wishes, I'm doing pretty okay now. Please comment on the Deimos changes and I'll check back tonight or early next week after the alliance tournament is over. Also - if you want to hear me get grilled about HACs and other things as well, tune in to EVE Radio tonight at midnight EVE time where DJ Funkybacon is going to interview me on all this stuff.

Yes adding a cap hungry dps bonus to a active tanked ship makes a lot of sense

But by giving it a bonus that wont help at all in most of the cases isnt really a bonus...
For the time it is treated like the zealot that doesnt get any significant change.

After TE changes it still needs something more to compensate. DPS bonus instead of range is somehow better in the way that you risk alot if you get in stasis range with this ship and it stills does around 75% if it's damage in the range that it usually stands.


PS. All HACs have a different role. They shouldnt be all so fast...

On the Deimos:

In my mind the preferred change would be to give the TRACKING BONUS instead of the MWD cap bonus. Would suit more play styles. Would be very nice with the new hybrid changes... So I say: Do eeeeeet!!!

The active armor bonus, with the 4th mid could work. But will see more resistence from the player base I imagine. Useless in big fleets etc etc..

The Deimos... Ok let's see. It's massively cap hungry, and everybody hates armor rep bonuses, but the most recent changes to reppers maybe enough to use it....

Maaaaybe...