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[Summit] State of Balance

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Cade Windstalker
#41 - 2013-08-29 00:54:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Cade Windstalker
Aquinas II wrote:
I completely disagree. Look at the role bonuses for other T2 ships. You don't see heavy dictors without their bubbles, or force recons without their covops cloaks, or logistics without reppers, or command ships without fleet boosters. The role bonus is what defines the purpose/specialization/role of the ship. The changes to HACs aren't anything like that at all. Prior to the introduction of T3s and the rebalancing of the T1 Cruisers, the role was pretty clear: HACs are massive improvements over their T1 roles. That is no longer the case and the ships needed some serious consideration. Instead of serious consideration we got an ill-conceived bonus and a huge backlash. Instead of listening to the community's response and spending months returning to the drawing board and coming up with something different, we got a slightly buffed version of what nearly everyone hated.

The problem is that HACs don't have a clear role, and CCP hasn't done much to address this. The Sacrilege is a great example. It was a heavy tackler that would get in close and point something with its strong tank (that could support a dual armor rep setup) and moderate HAM DPS and 3 light drones It was pretty good at this. After the "buffs" we now have a HAC that can hit with heavy missiles from long range with improved EWAR resilience while MWDing around at a reduce penalty and using a single flight of unbonused medium drones. Who was asking for that? What the hell kind of role is that filling? It's bizarre and makes no sense. People said so, and they were ignored. This isn't the only HAC with a really ambiguous role, but I think it helps illustrate the point.


There is absolutely nothing stopping you from fitting a Sac as Heavy Tackle right now, and the MWD bonus actually supports this role quite well by allowing it to dictate range and stay out of web and scram distance from most opponents. The high sensor strength, solid capacitor, and excellent tank all support this.

However it's also still an extremely viable combat ship. It's lost very little overall and the idea that you somehow absolutely need to fit to a role bonus is misguided.

Assault Frigates got the same treatment and are more popular than ever, with or without a MWD.

You can fit a Command Ship without links perfectly well for combat, exploration, mission running, incursions, and probably a few other roles I'm forgetting.

You can even do something similar with a Dictor, though the skills required to get into the ship mean few people would bother given the cost but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Also, your definitions of "ill-conceived" and "huge backlash" need work. Neither of these has occurred to any great extent. There have certainly been people like yourself who wished for a more "creative" bonus but personally I'm more in favor of not completely invalidating the current use of HACs in favor of a niche roll that could easily leave them completely moth-balled by most pilots.

Aquinas II wrote:
I don't think this is at all an unrealistic goal. It was possible before the Amarr BS changes. Look at this Fit of the Week: Starter Mission Armageddon article as an example. I'm not upset that CCP changed the Geddon, but they didn't help other ships take it's place, and with the capacitor nerfs to the Apoc, and the Abaddon's dependance on cap from external sources to really shine, there isn't much to like here for solo L4 (sure it's possible to slog through, but not at all desirable or balanced with the other races). All fits start to look pretty similar too to compensate for being cap starved, which is counter to most of what EVE is about.


I'm really failing to see some of the issue here. The Apoc is in a better position than the Armageddon ever was to apply its damage in missions and has great tracking, a respectable drone-bay able to field a full flight of Lights and Mediums, and has good base cap use to start you off.

Mission fits have trended toward "every fit looks the same" since the start of Eve. It's the nature of AI based PvE combat that players will find an optimal solution and refine it down to a hard science. If you looked up CNR or Navy Scorpion fits you'd probably find a large number of very similar looking and equally viable fits as well.


Aquinas II wrote:
I'm mostly frustrated because people complained very loudly about these issues, and were again ignored. There's a pattern with this and the HACs. CCP needs to do a better job of communicating proposals much earlier and addressing the concerns of the community when there are many months to refine and improve the proposals. I hope the CSMs can help CCP see that the process BSs and HACs were balanced with was very problematic. They feel rushed and ill considered to many of us.


Complaining loudly does not mean that your complaints are correct.

It means they will be considered but it also means that you should probably stop yelling so loudly and listen to what others are saying. The majority of people seem fairly happy with the HAC changes, Command Ship changes, and Battleship changes and having talked with and listend to some of the CSM they do not seem to share your view. Some of the may wish that certain ships took a different role but they do not seem to share your concern that the entire process is being horribly botched. (if I'm wrong about this then well, Paging Malcanis!)

You should also keep in mind that "the concerns of the community" are not necessarily your concerns. Personally, based on my observations in this thread and elsewhere, I feel that the community, especially the HAC using community, is more concerned with these old and much storied ships being able to perform in their current role than they are about finding some "new and innovative" use for them.
Grath Telkin
Amok.
Goonswarm Federation
#42 - 2013-08-29 03:28:58 UTC
ABC's feel like they destroy all the hard work done to balance the other ships, fix it, they've completely obliterated any form of 0.0 fleet balance because a ship that costs 1/3 the materials to build as a BS punches as hard as a BS, meaning that human wave attacks in t3 BC's can overcome BS fleets, and yet still track well enough to be a threat to cruiser sized fleets, and with a little Ewar they're able to destroy sig tankers.

The cost to benefit ration for ABC's is currently way to high and something needs to be done about what they do to the ship meta because currently its stupid, I was trying to come up with another word for the ABC's but stupid just fits best.

Malcanis - Without drone assign, the slowcat doctrine will wither and die.
Cade Windstalker
#43 - 2013-08-29 03:38:32 UTC
Grath Telkin wrote:
ABC's feel like they destroy all the hard work done to balance the other ships, fix it, they've completely obliterated any form of 0.0 fleet balance because a ship that costs 1/3 the materials to build as a BS punches as hard as a BS, meaning that human wave attacks in t3 BC's can overcome BS fleets, and yet still track well enough to be a threat to cruiser sized fleets, and with a little Ewar they're able to destroy sig tankers.

The cost to benefit ration for ABC's is currently way to high and something needs to be done about what they do to the ship meta because currently its stupid, I was trying to come up with another word for the ABC's but stupid just fits best.


Um, I'm a little confused here. First off, I can't get the image of null-sec asteroids attacking Battleships out of my head now.

Second once I realized what you were talking about I became even more confused. Attack Battlecruisers have no innate bonus to turret tracking and do not track any better than similarly bonused Battleships so saying that they "still track well enough to be a threat to cruiser sized fleets" is erroneous. If they're tracking that well it's because that's how they've been fit, not because this is something that can't be done with a Battleship.
Aquinas II
PostgreSQL
#44 - 2013-08-29 06:50:36 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
There is absolutely nothing stopping you from fitting a Sac as Heavy Tackle right now, and the MWD bonus actually supports this role quite well by allowing it to dictate range and stay out of web and scram distance from most opponents. The high sensor strength, solid capacitor, and excellent tank all support this.

However it's also still an extremely viable combat ship. It's lost very little overall and the idea that you somehow absolutely need to fit to a role bonus is misguided.

Assault Frigates got the same treatment and are more popular than ever, with or without a MWD.

You can fit a Command Ship without links perfectly well for combat, exploration, mission running, incursions, and probably a few other roles I'm forgetting.

You can even do something similar with a Dictor, though the skills required to get into the ship mean few people would bother given the cost but that doesn't mean it can't be done.

The point isn't that you can't fit the Sac as a heavy tackle, it's that very little of the new additions are things that support this role. Somewhere in the HAC thread the numbers were crunched and the MWD sig bonus only provided very marginal benefits and only under very situational circumstances against certain types of opponents. When I look at the new Sac, it doesn't scream "I'm heavy tackle" like before. It screams "I don't have a distinct role--my bonuses were added willy-nilly by someone trying to rush through changes without listening to feedback." I noticed how you avoided explaining how most of the changes to that hull, the heavy missiles, velocity on missiles, and medium drones, really aren't what was needed to support this role at all and don't make a whole lot of sense or form the basis of a cohesive ship.

What do you think the new Sac's role is meant to be when you look at all of the additions? How do those additions make it better than the alternative ships competing for that role?

The approach should have been:
1. What is the Sac's role?
2. Ok it's a heavy tackle, are there heavy tackle situations (e.g. tacking certain types of ships in certain fleet comps) that we could build the Sac for that would really make it outshine everything else for that particular niche?
3. What bonuses would we need to give it to accomplish this?
If this process had been done, I guarantee the Sac wouldn't have received the changes it did.

My point isn't the Sac was nerfed and it can't be heavy tackle, but the process is broken and the new Sac is an example of why (we now have a ship with very weird bonuses that don't make a lot of sense). The amount of time between round 1 and round 2 of the HAC rebalancing was too short and indicative that not enough time was given to really digest, consider and address the community feedback.

Quote:
Also, your definitions of "ill-conceived" and "huge backlash" need work. Neither of these has occurred to any great extent. There have certainly been people like yourself who wished for a more "creative" bonus but personally I'm more in favor of not completely invalidating the current use of HACs in favor of a niche roll that could easily leave them completely moth-balled by most pilots.

I think if you read both HAC threads all the way through, you will find that there are a lot of very well-reasoned criticisms of the changes. Very little of the support was more than "Looks great! Keep up the good work CCP!" People aren't shooting statues or rage quitting, but when well-argued, articulate and valid criticisms are raised, ignored by CCP and then left unaddressed by CCP as they move on to the next class rebalance, it means CCP is doing it wrong--at least it seems this way from the outside looking in.
Aquinas II
PostgreSQL
#45 - 2013-08-29 06:54:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Aquinas II
Cade Windstalker wrote:
I'm really failing to see some of the issue here. The Apoc is in a better position than the Armageddon ever was to apply its damage in missions and has great tracking, a respectable drone-bay able to field a full flight of Lights and Mediums, and has good base cap use to start you off.

Mission fits have trended toward "every fit looks the same" since the start of Eve. It's the nature of AI based PvE combat that players will find an optimal solution and refine it down to a hard science. If you looked up CNR or Navy Scorpion fits you'd probably find a large number of very similar looking and equally viable fits as well.

The Apoc is cap-starved from birth. If CCP gave it back it's laser cap-bonus and removed the slots currently needed to fix the cap issues you'd have probably 1 mid slot and 1 or 2 rig slots left for fitting useful stuff. Compare that to the balance on other BSs. There has been a lot of excellent feedback to this effect in the 159 pages of the [Oddysey] Tech 1 Battleships - Amarr thread. I would really like CCP to test these ships to confirm they're working as intended and they are well balanced with the counterparts from other races.
Quote:
Complaining loudly does not mean that your complaints are correct.

Very true and I didn't articulate my concerns well. What I should have said is that there is a high volume of well-reasoned, constructive feedback in the thread I linked. I don't think the changes were tested thoroughly enough internally. Again, my primary concern is with the process of rebalancing moving forward with future rebalances so these mistakes aren't repeated. I'm glad CCP is posting things ahead of time, but there should be several months of testing and evaluating feedback from the initial post to the final changes, not a few weeks. The way CCP gave ample time for people to prepare for the destroyer and battlecruiser skill changes is an example of how to do it right. Kudos to CCP for the way that was handled.
Quote:
It means they will be considered but it also means that you should probably stop yelling so loudly and listen to what others are saying. The majority of people seem fairly happy with the HAC changes, Command Ship changes, and Battleship changes and having talked with and listend to some of the CSM they do not seem to share your view. Some of the may wish that certain ships took a different role but they do not seem to share your concern that the entire process is being horribly botched. (if I'm wrong about this then well, Paging Malcanis!)

You should also keep in mind that "the concerns of the community" are not necessarily your concerns. Personally, based on my observations in this thread and elsewhere, I feel that the community, especially the HAC using community, is more concerned with these old and much storied ships being able to perform in their current role than they are about finding some "new and innovative" use for them.

That's a fair point. I still don't think you can read the HAC threads and come away with the impression that "the majority of people seem fairly happy with the HAC changes." I'm not really yelling loudly by the way, just expressing concern that some of these changes felt rushed/forced. We're probably going to have to wait a very long time for the next HAC balancing pass and I think this really was a missed opportunity with some great ships that will be largely overshadowed by T3s that can fill these roles better, or T1s that can do them nearly as well for a small fraction of the skills and price after being buffed.

I don't claim to be much of an expert, or anyone special in particular. Of course I defer to the CSMs with their expertise in handling interactions with CCP. All I can say is the earlier we are able to provide feedback with proposed changes and the longer they can be tested before being finalized, the better the final outcome will be. I think we all want the same thing: an EVE where all ships have a niche to fill and a reason to fly them with complexity and diversity in a balanced way.
Cade Windstalker
#46 - 2013-08-29 16:34:48 UTC
Aquinas II wrote:

The point isn't that you can't fit the Sac as a heavy tackle, it's that very little of the new additions are things that support this role. Somewhere in the HAC thread the numbers were crunched and the MWD sig bonus only provided very marginal benefits and only under very situational circumstances against certain types of opponents. When I look at the new Sac, it doesn't scream "I'm heavy tackle" like before. It screams "I don't have a distinct role--my bonuses were added willy-nilly by someone trying to rush through changes without listening to feedback." I noticed how you avoided explaining how most of the changes to that hull, the heavy missiles, velocity on missiles, and medium drones, really aren't what was needed to support this role at all and don't make a whole lot of sense or form the basis of a cohesive ship.


Hi, I actually ran those numbers and the sig bonus is actually a very powerful tanking bonus if used correctly. Using just a T2 MWD (meaning 500% speed, 500% sig blood base) you get ~50% damage mitigation orbiting a Null Talos (Tarcking TC, 2TEs, All 5s) at 15km, at 20km this is ~40% damage mitigation. If you're trying to burn in on someone and then hold a long point on them this is a big deal.

The best part is it also works if you're in a MWD-HAC gang with ABing Logi tearing people up. If you've got faction or deadspace MWDs fitted you're going to have even more sig reduction and even more beyond that with Skirmish boosts. Some rough estimation says it shouldn't be too hard to get down below a 400 meters sig with a boosting Slephnir.

Aquinas II wrote:
What do you think the new Sac's role is meant to be when you look at all of the additions? How do those additions make it better than the alternative ships competing for that role?

The approach should have been:
1. What is the Sac's role?
2. Ok it's a heavy tackle, are there heavy tackle situations (e.g. tacking certain types of ships in certain fleet comps) that we could build the Sac for that would really make it outshine everything else for that particular niche?
3. What bonuses would we need to give it to accomplish this?
If this process had been done, I guarantee the Sac wouldn't have received the changes it did.

My point isn't the Sac was nerfed and it can't be heavy tackle, but the process is broken and the new Sac is an example of why (we now have a ship with very weird bonuses that don't make a lot of sense). The amount of time between round 1 and round 2 of the HAC rebalancing was too short and indicative that not enough time was given to really digest, consider and address the community feedback.


I think you're a little too busy trying to shove these ships into a role and not spending enough time thinking "I have a bonus, now where and how can I use this?" because that's what we have. We have a fairly generic bonus with a ton of potential applications to it. Just because it doesn't nicely fit into a single specific per-defined role doesn't mean it's bad, if anything that makes it good. It's something no other cruiser has and it allows the community to find and define roles for the ship. If the community, as a whole, (as in, not just your little piece of it) can't find meaningful roles for the ship then CCP will likely go back and address this but personally I already see too many potential applications of such a bonus to give even remote odds that the community won't find tons of uses for these ships and their new bonus.

Aquinas II wrote:
I think if you read both HAC threads all the way through, you will find that there are a lot of very well-reasoned criticisms of the changes. Very little of the support was more than "Looks great! Keep up the good work CCP!" People aren't shooting statues or rage quitting, but when well-argued, articulate and valid criticisms are raised, ignored by CCP and then left unaddressed by CCP as they move on to the next class rebalance, it means CCP is doing it wrong--at least it seems this way from the outside looking in.


Or it means that CCP has taken those criticisms into account and decided that while they may have valid points the points in favor of their changes are equally or more valid.

I've also seen a lot of people in those threads raise a lot of completely erroneous points like that sig somehow doesn't help you speed tank or that even with this bonus you should shut off your MWD when you get close so you don't take as much damage (both of these claims are entirely erroneous, if you're going to shut off your MWD it would have to be for your own tracking reasons because you take WAY less damage at close range with it on)
Kesi Raae
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#47 - 2013-08-29 16:44:44 UTC
Malcanis wrote:
Kesi Raae wrote:
Are CCP and the CSM happy with the way Minmatar, Minmatar Faction and Angel ships are balanced with each other?

For other races their faction ships aren't straight upgrades like Minmatar/Angel (e.g. Machariel > Tempest Fleet Issue > Tempest) and in some cases have completely different roles ( e.g. Drake and Navy Drake). I think an effort to make make Minmatar faction and Angel ships have a little more variety and less redundancy would be good for the game.


Pirate ships are due for a rebalance. Angel ships (esp the Mach) have already been flagged as particularly urgent candidates.


Ah yeah, and I'm looking forward to it and hope CCP try and make Angel ships a little more interesting than Minmatar faction with better stats.

I still find it odd that the Minmatar fleet ships are straight upgrades over their T1 counterparts and the only balancing point is cost while with the other factions this isn't the case. Yeah, other faction's fleet ships are still better than their T1 counterparts, but they generally have different bonuses and aren't objectively better in every way.
Cade Windstalker
#48 - 2013-08-29 16:52:04 UTC
Aquinas II wrote:
The Apoc is cap-starved from birth. If CCP gave it back it's laser cap-bonus and removed the slots currently needed to fix the cap issues you'd have probably 1 mid slot and 1 or 2 rig slots left for fitting useful stuff. Compare that to the balance on other BSs. There has been a lot of excellent feedback to this effect in the 159 pages of the [Oddysey] Tech 1 Battleships - Amarr thread. I would really like CCP to test these ships to confirm they're working as intended and they are well balanced with the counterparts from other races.


Sounds like you have really lousy cap skills and should fix that if you plan on using lasers.

I based this fit off Jester's fit but used mission specific hardeners and dropped the Damage Control because the ENAM is better.

[Apocalypse, Mission Fit]
Core C-Type Large Armor Repairer
Armor EM Hardener II
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Capacitor Power Relay II
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II

Experimental 100MN Afterburner I
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II

Mega Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I, Multifrequency L
Mega Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I, Multifrequency L
Mega Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I, Multifrequency L
Mega Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I, Multifrequency L
Mega Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I, Multifrequency L
Mega Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I, Multifrequency L
Mega Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I, Multifrequency L
Mega Modulated Pulse Energy Beam I, Multifrequency L

Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Auxiliary Nano Pump I


Hammerhead II x5
Hobgoblin II x5

Cap stable at 44% with all 5s with the AB off, should do great in most missions with the Apoc's drones and tracking bonus. Tanks 450 cap stable against Sansha rats. Even if it's not 100% cap stable it should be fairly close and there's enough fittings left to swap a Cap Recharger for a Cap Battery if you need more cap time to get the DPS down.


Aquinas II wrote:
Very true and I didn't articulate my concerns well. What I should have said is that there is a high volume of well-reasoned, constructive feedback in the thread I linked. I don't think the changes were tested thoroughly enough internally. Again, my primary concern is with the process of rebalancing moving forward with future rebalances so these mistakes aren't repeated. I'm glad CCP is posting things ahead of time, but there should be several months of testing and evaluating feedback from the initial post to the final changes, not a few weeks. The way CCP gave ample time for people to prepare for the destroyer and battlecruiser skill changes is an example of how to do it right. Kudos to CCP for the way that was handled.


The BC and Destroyer changes were a completely different basket with them directly affecting the skill-tree. They made a fairly basic decision and wanted to make sure no one was caught going "but my skills!!! T_T" when they did it. That doesn't mean they were internally fiddling with that stuff for a year, that would be silly.

Most HACs were never in a particularly bad spot as ships, they all had their roles and uses, the problem is that the A-HAC doctrine required things that only a few of them had and that left the others out in the cold. The MWD change and other tweaks are fairly minor and shouldn't need huge chunks of revision time to determine if they're going to be good changes or not. You may not agree with the direction of the changes but that's completely separate from whether or not the changes are balanced or not.

Aquinas II wrote:
That's a fair point. I still don't think you can read the HAC threads and come away with the impression that "the majority of people seem fairly happy with the HAC changes." I'm not really yelling loudly by the way, just expressing concern that some of these changes felt rushed/forced. We're probably going to have to wait a very long time for the next HAC balancing pass and I think this really was a missed opportunity with some great ships that will be largely overshadowed by T3s that can fill these roles better, or T1s that can do them nearly as well for a small fraction of the skills and price after being buffed.

I don't claim to be much of an expert, or anyone special in particular. Of course I defer to the CSMs with their expertise in handling interactions with CCP. All I can say is the earlier we are able to provide feedback with proposed changes and the longer they can be tested before being finalized, the better the final outcome will be. I think we all want the same thing: an EVE where all ships have a niche to fill and a reason to fly them with complexity and diversity in a balanced way.


I think you should take everything you read on the forums with a grain of salt. The majority of people on the forums are always going to be bitter vets or disgruntled in some way. The question is how good are their points and how valid are their concerns? CCP seem to have done a good job of responding to valid concerns in the HAC and Command Ship threads and tweaked their changes accordingly.

I also find the conclusions that "we're going to have to wait a long time for another HAC balance pass" to be completely erroneous, especially in a patch that's seeing the Dominix getting a tweak less than 2 months after its first balance pass.

As to the T3 complaint, that's valid and I personally hope it will be addressed when the T3s get their balancing pass but I don't think the T3 balancing pass should be bumped up just because they currently overshadow HACs a bit. They need to be adjusted to the rebalanced state of a lot of ships so it makes sense that they come last.

Now, shall we stop clogging the CSM's thread?
Grath Telkin
Amok.
Goonswarm Federation
#49 - 2013-08-29 18:19:56 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Grath Telkin wrote:
ABC's feel like they destroy all the hard work done to balance the other ships, fix it, they've completely obliterated any form of 0.0 fleet balance because a ship that costs 1/3 the materials to build as a BS punches as hard as a BS, meaning that human wave attacks in t3 BC's can overcome BS fleets, and yet still track well enough to be a threat to cruiser sized fleets, and with a little Ewar they're able to destroy sig tankers.

The cost to benefit ration for ABC's is currently way to high and something needs to be done about what they do to the ship meta because currently its stupid, I was trying to come up with another word for the ABC's but stupid just fits best.


Um, I'm a little confused here. First off, I can't get the image of null-sec asteroids attacking Battleships out of my head now.

Second once I realized what you were talking about I became even more confused. Attack Battlecruisers have no innate bonus to turret tracking and do not track any better than similarly bonused Battleships so saying that they "still track well enough to be a threat to cruiser sized fleets" is erroneous. If they're tracking that well it's because that's how they've been fit, not because this is something that can't be done with a Battleship.


Battleships can do the same thing, they just cost 4x as much, so why bother with a slower BS fleet at all? Its more prone to getting bombed, its slower, more apt to get caught by said BC's, and the financial loss suffered from the inevitable alpha death of 60 cheap BC's means that its a waste of time unless you can roll a CFC fleet that simply massively outnumbers anything it might face.

The ABC's are eliminating the 0.0 rolls of both roaming ships and fleet ships by doing too much too well. Regardless of stated intent this is whats actually happening, and so it needs to be addressed in balance.

Malcanis - Without drone assign, the slowcat doctrine will wither and die.
Scatim Helicon
State War Academy
Caldari State
#50 - 2013-08-29 18:20:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Scatim Helicon
Malcanis wrote:
Yeah I get what Mr Helicon means by 'metacide' now, and it would be a great thing to do, but it would be a huge amount of work to complete. Maybe if it could be done piece-meal, one category at a time (eg: this month lets do hardeners, next month lets do prop mods and so on)


In my head metacide would have to be approached in the same way as the current ship balancing efforts have been. Assign it to a dev or two to establish guiding principles, pick out a category of module types to rebalance, get feedback, adjust accordingly, and move on. Yes, it'd be a big and long running project given the range of modules available in-game, but so is ship balancing and we're getting that. There's a LOT of low-hanging fruit to pick as well - the recent rebalance of T2 armour plates was a 5-minute fix which completely revived a set of T2 modules that until then had been totally overshadowed by the meta-4 equivalent (if Greyscale could only have done something about the other meta-levels as well).

Every time you post a WiS thread, Hilmar strangles a kitten.
Aquinas II
PostgreSQL
#51 - 2013-08-30 10:20:45 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Hi, I actually ran those numbers...

Is it a 50% damage mitigation improvement over using an AB? One of the suggested role bonuses was boosting AB speed increase by 5% per level. Surely this would provide comparable benefit but be able to be much more useful to all HACs (For some hulls a MWD doesn't make sense), and not just when orbiting large guns. I think you've cherry-picked one of the cases where the bonuses will be the most beneficial. I still think it's a very situational bonus, and in many scenarios, very marginal, especially considering many hulls probably aren't even conducive to MWD fits in the first-place, or you could be fighting ships with excellent tracking, smaller guns, or you could be target painted and taking full damage anyways etc. It's not a role bonus like the other classes get allowing them to have some interesting niche, logistics running reppers, force recon with coops cloaks etc. (yes AF's get it too, but I think it's been well argued that it's much more helpful on frig hulls) which returns to your point:
Quote:
I think you're a little too busy trying to shove these ships into a role and not spending enough time thinking "I have a bonus, now where and how can I use this?" because that's what we have. We have a fairly generic bonus with a ton of potential applications to it. Just because it doesn't nicely fit into a single specific per-defined role doesn't mean it's bad, if anything that makes it good. It's something no other cruiser has and it allows the community to find and define roles for the ship. If the community, as a whole, (as in, not just your little piece of it) can't find meaningful roles for the ship then CCP will likely go back and address this but personally I already see too many potential applications of such a bonus to give even remote odds that the community won't find tons of uses for these ships and their new bonus.

You may be right about this. It still feels like a missed opportunity: that CCP didn't want to be bothered with trying to figure out something new, interesting and creative for these ships to do (perhaps because they're trying to cram in too much in this update and don't have enough time). There are so many interesting possibilities like the AB speed bonus, the ability to fit a MJD, a large reduction in overheat damage buildup, an AOE webbing module, complete immunity to ECM, Damps, TD's, An AOE that disables Cap transfer for a brief time or deployed in a fixed area as a new kind of bubble, or a module that would turn up to X bandwidth of drones against it's owner. Some of those (maybe all) might break EVE, but it would have been nice to have a brainstorming thread discussing the merits of various possibilities before the first round of proposals. It feels like CCP Rise fell in love with this MWD bonus and really didn't want to publicly discuss or consider alternatives which is my main concern (how the rebalancing process can be improved going forward). Again this is from the outside looking in. I'm sure the CSM would have a better perspective on this.
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Or it means that CCP has taken those criticisms into account and decided that while they may have valid points the points in favor of their changes are equally or more valid.
I've also seen a lot of people in those threads raise a lot of completely erroneous points like that sig somehow doesn't help you speed tank or that even with this bonus you should shut off your MWD when you get close so you don't take as much damage (both of these claims are entirely erroneous, if you're going to shut off your MWD it would have to be for your own tracking reasons because you take WAY less damage at close range with it on)

You may be right about this too (you're certainly right that there are lots of factually inaccurate posts in those threads--and some people would never be happy, while others would blindly cheer on CCP even if the proposals were a complete disaster). I still think the rebalance process should be opened to the community earlier on going forward, with more time to process feedback. Ship balancing is one of the most critical tasks CCP does.
Aquinas II
PostgreSQL
#52 - 2013-08-30 10:28:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Aquinas II
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Sounds like you have really lousy cap skills and should fix that if you plan on using lasers.

I'm not posting this because I'm a noob trying to fly missions in Amarr laser boats. I'm not advocating changes to benefit myself. I'm posting it because it's another example of how the balancing process went wrong. CCP not listening to the players and the result is that the Amarr are really poorly balanced in terms of having a passable L4 runner that builds on the previous Amarr skills of lasers and armor relative to other races.
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I based this fit off Jester's fit but used mission specific hardeners and dropped the Damage Control because the ENAM is better.
[your fit]
Cap stable at 44% with all 5s with the AB off, should do great in most missions with the Apoc's drones and tracking bonus. Tanks 450 cap stable against Sansha rats. Even if it's not 100% cap stable it should be fairly close and there's enough fittings left to swap a Cap Recharger for a Cap Battery if you need more cap time to get the DPS down.

This fit helps prove my point: you've got 5 modules dedicated to Cap. Ignoring the turret slots, that's over 35% of the ships free slots used just to fire guns and keep cap stability at 44%… and it requires excellent skills including "Energy Grid Upgrades 5" which is pretty ridiculous for a T1 fit L4 BS. And all of this is for a relatively mediocre performing mission runner. If you added up all of the skill points required to fly this and the same number into a toon from any other race, it would destroy this thing in running L4's efficiently. This was my point and the one raised in the Amarr BS thread by nearly everyone. And like with the HACs CCP really didn't offer much in the way of explanation. I'd like CCP Rise to fly the fit you posted in the hard L4's for a day and then do the same with the other races using same the number of skill points to build those characters and report back about his experience.
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The BC and Destroyer changes were a completely different basket with them directly affecting the skill-tree. They made a fairly basic decision and wanted to make sure no one was caught going "but my skills!!! T_T" when they did it. That doesn't mean they were internally fiddling with that stuff for a year, that would be silly.

I think when it comes down to altering existing content, the earlier CCP can reach out to the community, the better the changes will be. I can understand the desire to keep some things under wraps and do the big marketing reveal of shiny new features. Balancing, isn't like that imo and doesn't really benefit from secrecy. Having time to discuss feedback as well as test the changes (both internally and publicly on Sisi) will result in the best balances in the end.
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Most HACs were never in a particularly bad spot as ships

I disagree. After the introduction of T3's, Attack BC's and the T1 rebalancing buff (including the Navy Cruisers) the pretty clear roles for HAC's started to be filled as well or better by other ships (for much less ISK in many cases). They became overshadowed and underused, especially for the significant amount of SP's required for them. The solution was obvious: make them do some role really well, better than anything else, but keep them from being OP by limiting their effectiveness to mostly that job. Instead what we got is a bunch of very pricey ships in a very crowded pool of competing boats with overlapping roles.
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I think you should take everything you read on the forums with a grain of salt. The majority of people on the forums are always going to be bitter vets or disgruntled in some way. The question is how good are their points and how valid are their concerns? CCP seem to have done a good job of responding to valid concerns in the HAC and Command Ship threads and tweaked their changes accordingly.

I think the Command Ship changes went much better. It gives me hope that CCP will continue to improve their balancing efforts.

"I also find the conclusions that "we're going to have to wait a long time for another HAC balance pass" to be completely erroneous, especially in a patch that's seeing the Dominix getting a tweak less than 2 months after its first balance pass."

The Amarr L4 issue is still out there. I'm not holding my breath for changes, but I could be surprised. Nerfing things that are OP is much easier than deciding to buff something that's underperforming.

"Now, shall we stop clogging the CSM's thread?"
Fair enough.
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