Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Mornin!

Below you will find the first pass on pirate faction frigates ready for public review. It is our hope to deliver a rebalance on all 15 non-SOE pirate faction ships this summer(yay). Before I lay out the numbers for the frigates as they stand currently, I want to talk a bit about the themes for each faction, where those themes stand in relation to the frigates, and how that might connect to the cruisers and battleships down the line.

Sansha: Sansha needs help. The Nightmare is getting used, mostly as a PVE platform, but the Succubus and Phantasm are among the least used ships in EVE. That means we have an opportunity to try something new! The theme we are currently excited about revolves around afterburners. By giving a substantial boost to the velocity bonus from afterburners we create an extremely powerful frigate, a lot of new options for the cruiser, and affect the Nightmare the least, which matches well with the impact we want.

Blood: This line is very similar in some ways to Sansha. We have a battleship in the Bhaalgorn with a unique and valuable niche and then a frigate and cruiser that almost no one uses. The main difference with Blood is that, when it comes to energy warfare, you get very different roles at different sizes even with the same bonus, so it can be difficult to find a way to tie all three together. What we are proposing at the moment is to change the web effectiveness bonus to web range for the Cruor and Ashimmu(which is a broadly useful bonus AND doesn't overlap with Serpentis AND matches the Bhaalgorn) and then to give all three "old NOS", that is, Energy Vampires would continue to leech from your target until their cap reaches zero, regardless of your own cap level. This would be role bonus functionality that stacks on top of the old bonus to energy turret damage as well as the NOS/Neut effectiveness bonus from Amarr. This should offer a lot of new and powerful options to Blood Raiders without having any negative impact on the Bhaalgorn's current role.

Guristas: This has probably been the hardest faction to figure out. The Rattlesnake and Gila both have their uses but are both overshadowed in many ways by the new Ishtar and Dominix. We wanted Guristas to keep a drone theme but to move in a new and unique direction rather than trying to compete directly with other popular drone ships. As the Worm shows below, we are looking at giving each Guristas ship a bandwidth that allows for only two drones, but a large damage and hitpoint bonus to those drones, leading to very high overall drone damage and toughness. Additionally, the former missile velocity bonus will change to kinetic and thermal missile damage, giving Guristas even more punch. I understand that you will need specifics on the other two Guristas ships to make final opinions on the theme, but for now just look at the Worm and let us know if it seems fun and we'll go from there.

Serpentis: One of the strongest and most fun pirate factions at the moment is certainly Serpentis. We didn't want to make major changes in theme, but there is a big conversation that can be had about the web strength bonus. As it stands, at 10% per level, it is one of the strongest bonuses in the game and in the right situation it can feel downright broken. For now, I intend to leave it at full strength. While it is very powerful, I believe it delivers on the excitement and special feel that pirate factions ought to provide. If you disagree and feel that this bonus is having a negative impact on your gameplay please let us know and we can continue to weigh the pros and cons here as this balance pass continues.

Angel: And last we have the most popular pirate faction, which is doing pretty well at all three sizes. The biggest problem Angels face is direct competition with other Minmatar ships and a light case of OP. The Dramiel isn't getting any big changes and the other two Angel ships probably won't see any huge change in style or function either, but wait for later threads to discuss their specifics please.

For the frigs we are in a situation where there are two performing well (Dramiel and Daredevil) and 3 that are virtually unused. That means the buffs for those 3 (Succubus, Cruor, Worm) come in the form of pretty heavy attribute gains as well as re-design in terms of bonuses. In general this class is getting some updates to bring them into the post-tiericide world so things like base speed and lock range will get tweaks across the board.

Anyway, here you go, let us know what you think:
(note: it's possible that there's typos or other small errors in these stat lists so if you notice something really odd just let me know)

SUCCUBUS

Amarr Frigate Bonus:
7.5% bonus to Small Energy Turret tracking speed

Caldari Frigate Bonus:
20% bonus to Afterburner velocity bonus (was 5% energy turret damage)

Role Bonus:
150% bonus to Small Energy Turret damage (was 100% energy turret damage)


Slot layout: 3H(-1), 4M, 3L(+1); 2 turrets, 0 launchers
Fittings: 44 PWG(-14), 170 CPU(-5)
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 650(+41) / 550(+6) / 540(+23)
Capacitor (amount / recharge / cap per second) : 450(+15) / 210000 (-24375) / 2.14 (+.09)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 340(+53) / 3.5(-.35) / 965000 / 4.68s(-.4)
Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0
Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 32km / 650 / 5
Sensor strength: 13
Signature radius: 33(-2)

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CRUOR

Amarr Frigate Bonus:
15% bonus to Energy Vampire and Energy Neutralizer effectiveness

Minmatar Frigate Bonus:
20% bonus to Stasis Webifier range (was 10% bonus to Stasis Webifier effectiveness)

Role Bonus:
100% bonus to Small Energy Turret damage
note: Energy Vampires...

This is good- and I love the idea for the sansha ones

Interesting....

The new direction for Sansha and Guristas is odd, but interesting. Can't wait to test some of it.

I'm glad that the Serpentis get to keep their web bonus

Damn nice, I will fly that Worm that has been in my hanger for years now. :)

I like these changes. You've managed to boost usefulness while also increasing the individual flavor and uniqueness of the different factions, especially Sansha, Gurista and Blood. Can't wait to try them out.

reserved

CRUOR for all the fleets!!

I really like these changes. The NOS change on the Blood ships is a very interesting one to have

I like, though I think Cruor should get a range bonus on ewar, even if its just on nos and not neuts. As it stands the web bonus is useless when neuting and the neut bonus is useless while webbing....... yeah I know it helps you catch stuff but still.

Guristas could make Gila and Rattlesnake very interesting. Question is Gila 50m3 drone or 20? and Snake 75m3? Hmmmm!

Double ASB worms, it'll be the pvp 2xmerlin on crack.

Excited for the curor and succubus personally.

I must say that I feared for this day afraid that all the good ships (dramiel, daredevil) would be ruined but I am now relieved. Good work Sir! May you continue on this path on the cruisers and battleships and not ruin the good ones! Thanks.