Player Features and Ideas Discussion

CCP Fozzie:

so are we getting the hull changes (to the sleipnir, nighthawk, absolution, eos) in 1.1 as well?

Sleipnir still needs more CPU.

If they don't change the eos into a myrm hull I'm going to flip tables and kick puppies.

The rest I don't really care about.

When are you going back to all the bad t1 ships that have been left behind? (atron executioner tristan punisher rifter corax ferox etc)
And are T2 frigates/destroyers going to get done soon? They're pretty horrible at the moment.

For command ships though, swap the slot layouts on claymore and nighthawk, switch one of the sleipnir's damage bonuses for ROF and drop that ******** turret tracking bonus on the eos for something useful.

Space Jesus has talk. You should read this at wake up and 10 times before hitting your bed Fozzie.

What I don't get is your absolute closed idea about Damnation being the only possible choice for commanders because they have enough ehp.
You're not offering options but instead force this ship as only possible setup because anything else will simply die, thus not funny to fly thus no one will jump in with a smile knwoing a first or second volley they get the right to watch the rest of the fight on twich tv.

Just say it if you can't because of whatever code but stop pushing the same reasonning over and over when everyone and his grandmother is able to see the mistake in your decision.

I can understand his motives. If he gives every CS the tank of damnation he will have to kill its gank. ANd people will complain again that they do no damage and are thus not good for anything.

He can't give them bot tank and gank because they would be way to overpowered. Imagine a CS doing 1200 dps (like astarta can) while having ovek 250k ehp (damnation). I call that bad balancing.

So if his goal is to give all of those ships good enough dps he needs to reduce the tank.

I really don't get what you did there Fozzie. That were minor tweaks, nothing special and mostly not needed. This patch will be the most frustrating one since Incarna, because you balanced HAC's and Command Ships into ****. I can't believe it, really.

Why do you want to nerf the Damnation which is in the whole thread the only ship everyone agrees with as perfect as it is right now. It's tanky enough to achieve it's role in fleets. But you throw 300 Armor HP away. That's unbelievable

And what's with the Vulture you ignored completely? It should be at least comparable to the Damnation.

I don't know why you refuse to change the roles in both ship classes, that makes really no sense. Don't you see the aweful lot demands here in the threads? They have mostly the same topics they critisize.

This changes won't change anything in usage, that's for sure. You made it just worse with the Damnation nerf... Tech 3's for the win despite they will boost less



There are 2 Command Ships for every race. As a lot already suggested in this thread CCP could split them into 2 different roles: 1 for medium- and largescale, 1 for PvE, Solo and Smallscale. The first with superior tank and tools for fleets, the letter with mainly damage and average tank (active tank if there's no way around). Both with bonus to links and they are perfect to achieve every role they are specialized for. It's not that hard to do exactly that. But CCP just ignores that.

While I'm not arguing your general stance, your supposition isn't really accurate.

Command ships are commonly used even in very small gang conflicts (many of them are tough, powerful ships even now), and part of the over reaching goal of this update is that they be a very useful combat ship with or without gang links.

This exactly. Fozzie, you are not making on-grid boosting an option and instead you are just making flying boosters more annoying than it already is.

My views:

As long as it is not possible to put wing commanders on grid (so until skirmish boosters have Damnation level of EHP) POS boosting should stay in the game. I understand you want to make bonuses vulnerable and I do agree with that. But until on-grid boosting is a viable option, making running off-grid boosters more annoying isn't going to change anything. Fix on-grid boosting first, then force off-grid boosters out of their POSes.

Skirmish boosting ships absolutely have to have Damnation level of EHP. There seriously is no other way. If they don't, they are not going to ever be used in full fleets. Your current design would leave a fully tanked Claymore to around 150k EHP and the others aren't too far from that. Do you really think a ship which is insanely important but has less EHP than a fleet BS will ever survive when fleet BS die by the dozens if not hundreds in a proper fight.

If command processors were made to be rigs then the only ships that would ever use them would be off-grid t3 boosters. You would be unlikely to drop any tank from your on-grid command ships because they need all the EHP they can get. If they are changed to be rigs then at least I think carriers should have the ability to fit more than 1 link without command processors.

While Vee says off-grid boosting should be removed, personally I think it should stay stay in the game. Simply put it is the easiest solution with no new code being required, no need to invent frigate sized boosters for frigate fleets etc. But considering how you announced that it would be going away something like a year ago and it still hasn't leads me to believe you are not able to do it without a considerable amount of resources spend on it or without having too much stress on the server. Whatever the reason, off-grid boosting seems to be here to stay for at least the next few years. And it is not a bad thing. There are many fleet doctrines, small gang and full fleet sized, that need bonuses but can't bring a command ship on grid with them. As long as bonuses are as overpowered as they are now all fleets will want to have them so off-grid boosting allows us to have better and more interesting fleet concepts overall. Also as I have explained before it allows us to have more mobile fleets because you can sacrifice a few DPS ships to reposition but you can't sacrifice your bonuses.

In longer term I believe we need something in between no bonuses at all and full links. This would mean either nerfing the bonuses even more so that the gap is not as big (and simultaneously rebalancing most ships and weapons in game because everything is balanced based on the fact that people always have bonuses) or putting lesser form of bonuses in between no bonuses and full bonuses. This is because generally right now you will not be fighting in nullsec unless you have bonuses. So I want there to be an option to at least considering of keeping on fighting if you do lose your bonuses. While the warfare skills give some bonuses already it is not enough because it's just "base" stats (raw armor/shield, agility, targeting range) and not what the links actually give (better reps, tackle range, stronger ewar etc.) So what I would like to see to bridge this gap is that a perfect 5s leadership character could give maybe 30% to 50% link bonuses while being in any ship. It would still be worth bringing a dedicated bonus ship but you would not instantly be ****** if it dies.

All fleet command ships need to have enough PG to be able to fit 3 links, full tank (meaning 2 plates) and an MWD without fitting mods. Also preferably a probe launcher on top of that but that is not as important.

Even if you do all of this and manage to get people to use on-grid command ships they of course can do nothing while they are on the grid except run away. They will be fully tank fit which leaves no room to fit guns. No that the guns would do any real damage without DPS mods. Or that they would ever hit anyone when the command ships would be anchoring on the logi anchor and staying as far away from the fight as possible. So what fleet command ships need is not DPS bonuses. If you want to make them fun you will need to give them utility.

This entire round of changes feels really sloppy, even more so with today's revisions.