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That's the problem: it's a mediocre mix of two things with no advantage in either. That is exactly what we already have and it is already not working. Making it not work more consistently and evenly doesn't fix the problem that it doesn't work.

The problem here is that they're trying to balance four drones with just two stats. That means that we will have two drones that matter — the ones that max out one of stats — and two that (still) don't — the ones that offer no advantage. To have that kind of difference-balance, they need more relevant stats so that the two irrelevant drones have an area to excel in. Fundamentally, the problem is this pretty silly notion that they must do different amounts of damage and that this notion ignores the fact that resistances and damage profiles already does that.

Amarr drones will be pointless against fast target — you'll want minny drones for that for the simple reason that if you pick too slow a drone, it doesn't matter whether it does the right damage type or not since it won't catch the target.
Amarr drones will still be pointless against EM-weak targets — resist weaknesses can only be relied upon against rats, and all EM-weak rats are also thermal-weak, so you'll still want gallente drones against those.
Likewise, Caldari drones will be pointless against tough targets — you'll want the most damage against those and that's still Gallente drones, and you gain no real advantage from getting to the tough target slightly faster.
And for kinetic-weak targets, it's the same problem with Caldari drones as for Amarr drones — it's only an advantage if you can reliably predict it, which means it's only relevant against rats and kn-weak rats will be thermal-weak anyway. Hell, even now, there's an actual advantage in using Caldari drones against kn-weak rats and look how popular they are as a result…
At no point will these weak drones offer any kind of compelling advantage or useful application over the two races that max out one of the stats. Middle-of-the-road mediocrity is not a convincing selling point over specialised excellence.


So as long as they keep that same wrong-headed design pattern, where four drones are squeezed into a two-dimensional continuum, two of those drones will always be meaningless. There's really no reason to separate the drones in damage output at all. Just make them do the same damage and let resists matter, and then find three other characteristics that can be used as a trade-off for speed, and where each drone race has its own distinct advantage. If they can't find three characteristics, then skip the speed differentiation as well, and just let the damage type be the only differentiator.

So are you making "Focus Fire" work yet?

Rather than comparing pure numbers, also consider you're switching damage types. Yes, the Amarr drones are slower than Minmatar, but they'll do a much better job at hitting low EM resist.

I didnt mean mix as in 2 amarr 3 gallente, I meant as a mix of dps/speed. Maybe I find Gallentte drones too slow, but still like having more DPS than minmatar drones. That's when I would go with Caldari. Not a hard decision.

There is no "best-at" role anymore, so pick your flavor and go with it.

Gallente have tracking problems on fast frigates, Minmatar are unideal for slower targets that can be hit by higher damage drones. Use one of the others as a compromise for non perfect scenarios. As I said, not that hard.

If you're making a damage type choice, it's most likely because you're going after rats. If you're going after rats, you don't need the speed, and Gallente drones will do more damage (since all EM-weak rats are also Th-weak).

If you're going after a fast target, which is the better choice: a drone that has a higher chance of catching the target but which might do slightly less damage, or a drone which might not catch the target, but does more damage on the off chance that it does.

Yes there is, and they're the exact same roles as now since the design pattern is exactly the same as before. If you expect fast targets, you go Minmatar; if you expect tough targets, you go Gallente. Betting that a target should happen to be slightly slower and EM-weak, or just a tiny bit too fast and kinetic-weak is such a long shot that it's just not worth risking.

Smoothing out a differentiation that isn't working because you always pick the drones that are the best at something doesn't suddenly mean you're not going to pick the drones that (still) are the best. It's the same differentiation as we currently have and which is currently not working. It's not going to work any better just because it becomes numerically prettier.

Interesting

On first glance the changes seem fairly solid. but I was wondering if there is an ETA on a revamp on the Drone-UI? That thing has been God-awful for so long I hate using drones just so I can use that as little as possible.

"We are also reducing the maximum number of drones available to Supercarriers from the current 20 to 10."

This part broke my heart, as a player who always loved the idea of owning lots of little drones zooming around you, Carriers and Supers were my natural progression.

I own a Carrier and enjoy all 10 (14 with my DCU's) drones zooming around, and was excited to move onto a wyvern once i had enough funds, to enjoy 20 little drones zooming around, was even panning to get 5 DCU's to say i did have 25.

I personally feel you have destroyed the 'uniqueness' of the supercarrier and its 20/25 drones (even tho improving server load makes sense)

=(

Nice work , but still waiting for Some love on the Ewar drones would like to see which ewar drones are used ....

make the skill electronic warfare drone .. useful

This^

IDK why this wouldn't happen. Just give all the drones the same base stats for their class/type and modify the damage output. CCP does this with missiles now anyway.