Player Features and Ideas Discussion

REBALANCING

• Pirate ships, tech 2 and tech 3 ships will be rebalanced before capital ships.
• Boosting mechanics will be reworked further at some point.
• T3s won’t be nerfed to the brink of uselessness but the subsystems will be rebalanced to ensure every one has a viable role in different situations.
• The webbing bonus Serpentis ships utilise may be removed.

With the recent marauder change, two ships capable of 90% webbing are gone (Kronos and Paladin), leaving only the Serpentis line-up capable of that. Are 90% webs planned to be eliminated from EvE alltogether?
What are your feelings on 90% webs?

I think Fozzie and Ytterbium might be okay getting rid of them, I kind of like them, guess we'll see where we end up after pirate rebalance.

I think there's a couple of problems with you OP, but I can see that there's a bit of confusion stemming from how quickly the question got answered in a AMA format.

I'll start by confirming that some kind of change to the Serpentis and Blood Raider web bonus is something we have been thinking about for a while.

Web strength bonuses are some of the most powerful bonuses available to any ship, which makes them very interesting and valuable but also makes some of their results problematic. Interestingly, the way the strength of the bonus presents itself is very different in different contexts. At the frigate level with the Daredevil, the power of 90% webs primarily comes from range control. At the battleship level with the Vindicator it primarily comes from transversal control (especially when used as a force multiplier). At the cruiser level it falls in the middle and ends up being (relatively speaking) less powerful and less oppressive as a result.
I am not going to try to claim that we have our plan of action worked out, and there will be plenty of discussion before we implement our Pirate ship balance pass.

One thing I can say for sure though is that we consider the solo Daredevil and the force multiplier Vindicator to both be too strong in their current states, and that we recognize that the primary source of their disproportionate power is the web bonus (for different reasons as I said above).

The problem isn't the web bonus. Not at all. The Vindi is one of a small handful of ships that can look a larger fleet in the eye and then black their eyes, in an outright, point blank fight. Not resorting to nano-snipy-crap. A real, go big or go home brawl. It's a very important ship for small -> Mid gang PVP, because it allows the fleets willing and able to use them the ability to take fights they wouldn't otherwise even be able to think about taking.



The problem MIGHT be in the way webs stack, and the price tag. A properly fit Vindicator is an expensive ship. It represents a significant investment of SP, isk, and commitment to a fight. It SHOULD be able to stand up to larger fleets.

But even in that, vindi's can be undone by ECM. They can be damped into nothingness. They can be neuted. They already have a fairly low lock range.. And they're already a BS, they take a while to lock anyway. With their Commitment to their webs, they often do not fit a cap booster, or if they do, certainly not an ECCM or sensor booster. They are slow, slow slow ships. Even with links, faction, and overheat, their effective web range is still less than half the distance ECM or damps could shut a ship down from. If a Vindicator wants to get anywhere on the battlefield, it pretty much HAS to MWD. That MWD+ a few TP's are going to make it's signature radius absolutely huge. So Even TP's are effective on vindi's, though not as 'right now' effective as just jamming it, still effective.


There is just no reason to change this.

Dev's are saying 'oh well you don't have to lose your minds....'

Well how many pages did we have to get through on the gallente BS thread before Dev's listened when we said a 6 low 5 midslot Megathron was a bad idea.... How long is the marauders thread?

Last I checked, the whole point of F & I forum section was to discuss features and ideas.

Well... CCP has floated the idea of removing the serpentis web bonus.

The community is responding by and large with a resounding 'NO.'

We don't WANT every ship to be a drake with a different skin. You guys did well with the Frigates and cruisers... but since those it's kinda been mis step after mis step.



This change will really really hurt the small to midsize alliances, in particularly in low sec. We rely on our Vindicators and pirate/faction BS to fight people who would otherwise just bury us under drakes. Those are some of our most important ships for counter blob warfare. It's not because they are ridiculously OP Nerf pls! It's because they are well designed, role specific ships that we have to be very selective about when we field and do not field, because they are a significant commitment in isk and material to a fight. Taking those ships out of our arsenal is pretty much going to guarantee that the bigger blob always wins.

Please stop nerfbatting everything that is decent and replacing it with a fall off/trackingfire rate and MWD signature reduction bonus.

Variety, is a very, very good thing.

90% webs are insanely OP and do need to be nerfed at the very least but maybe making serpentis a more shield focused very fast blaster line is more interesting ... since armour and blasters aren't a very good combo anyway.... speed and gank is a nice alternative...

Also the fact that blood raiders line also has the 90% web atm means they could still keep one line with it maybe reduced to 75% web or change it it too web range like the Bhaalgorn has..

I think this is hardly relevant for most players, and reads more about a complaint about something that hasn't even happened. In before lock due to ranting.

A little early to cry about a nerf, don't you think?

Different is not always worse... if 90% web is removed from the game, it's still entirely likely that the pirate ships will all have something worthwhile.

Well, that's the thing. "Waah, no, don't change anything" is not useful feedback. Given that a rebalance is in the pipeline, you should expect changes... the only question is, what they'll actually wind up being. It's not useful to just argue against whatever change happens to happen... but it might be useful to actually suggest possible changes.

Some CCP devs, again, want to get rid of 90% web. Okay... if it is concluded that 90% is too much, what else might they get to compensate? Maybe 5% effectiveness plus a web range boost? If you actually want to influence the discussion, you need to propose ideas, not merely argue against change itself.

Actually all we know is that a couple of Devs are ok with the idea of 90% webs going away. Not even that they want the webs to go away.
Anyway, will it affect a couple of things like incursions. Yes. Will players adapt just fine like players always do. Also yes. If the web bonus goes away, some other bonus will come in to replace it. Which will open up different game play options.