EVE General Discussion

Give it a rest with the fracking patch notes :) of course I read them .. after re-subbing.

I guess i'll just sit in station and spin one of the other very popular Caldari gunboats while training hybrids and dreaming about a cost-efficient Caldari PVP missile boat. The spin counter is excellent! My life now has meaning. Specializing in weapons is for wussies - i'll train lazors next.

Yep, it is

Yes, YES, let's beat whoever was in charge of that with a candlestick, how dare they tweak a ship that was not released yet! Let's strangle them with a cordless mouse! Let's find out, who made that change again, was it CCP Tallest? No, no... Little Tim, the toymaker's son? The ghost of King Lysandus? Or was it... Yes! Stanley, that talking grapefruit from Passwall!

Grab the pitchforks, the torches! How dare they make us train for guns that shoot drones that shoot missiles, no hold it... it was Hybrids, or whatever, doesn't matter! The arrogance! Tie them to a chair and force them to watch a whole Twillight© season non-stop for hours! Sickle the cycly slight with a sickly popsicle! ...Oh no, wait! ! Let's just use... THE© WABBAJACK©!


More seriously, we knew from day one we could not please everybody with the Naga no matter what we did with it. The real problem is not because players are lazy to train hybrids, but due to Caldari Hybrid ships being mostly underpowered, which leaves Caldari-oriented pilots little choice but to specialize into missiles to stay competitive. The little Merlin, Moa, Ferox, Rokh and their tech2 variants have been abandoned in the orphanage, all ashamed of themselves and hiding in a corner until we can give them the fondling love they rightfully deserve. Poor things.

So, of course, it is a natural development that players get used to "Caldari is a synonym for missiles", but that doesn't make it true.

We tried to cater to everyone with the first split bonus version of the Naga, but it was a failure. As feedback rightfully pointed out, it had no defined role or special flavor on the field, so we had to decide to either go missiles or hybrids. And before you ask, sadly no, leaving both missiles and hybrids bonuses wasn't an option either, as that would have left the Naga too versatile as a whole, please remember it is a tech1 hull, not tech3.


So we had to weight the options here:

• Torpedoes: that created quite a certain number of issues; while their damage output looks nice in theory, they actually lack projection and suffer from damage reduction due to their high explosion radius. This conflicted with the Naga paper-thin tank, lack of general mobility in the field. We could have given it Stealth Bomber-like Torpedo explosion velocity, velocity and flight time bonuses but it was conflicting with an already existing ship class while not delivering not much new value itself.


• Cruise missiles: not much better as well, mainly because of their long travel time, which aren't that great for long range combat.


• Thus, using missiles delivered little short or even long range appeal for this ship. However, going for hybrids made much more sense, and we found out giving it a hybrid damage bonus would complement its long range role very well, despite conflicting with the Talos a bit (which is a complete different topic on itself). It also fits the existing high tier Caldari philosophy better, as they are railgun platforms, or at least deeply want and tryingveryhard to be.

So yes, the Naga is hybrid-based and will stay like that. If you like to play Caldari, we recommend you start training for hybrids, because having a look at the underused railgun boats definitely is a main course menu.

Whoa, an actual explanation that makes perfect sense. Dude, if you'd mentioned this after the change there would (or should) have been much less heartbreak out there.

Thanks for a highly explanative post that clears things up nicely. So is it safe to assume, based on the tone of things, that hybrids are going to receive further lovin' across other ships as well?

I started training guns up to give the Naga it's due... this would be good news to know the training will definitely project across more than just the Naga.

Best part of the post there.

CCP Ytterbium,

I, along with most of the eve player base, very much appreciate that you and the team confirmed work on the Caldari hybrid boats. However, could you please please please please confirm that the Nighthawk is being looked at as well? It is currently very underwhelming in PvP, not to mention it has less power grid than it's TECH ONE variant? There is literally no reason to use a nighthawk in PvP over a Drake at the moment, and you know we all love diversity.

Sincerely,

Someone who has BC level V but has no reason to train Caldari cruiser V to get access to the Nighthawk

You have but to change the Rokh's range bonus to a damage bonus and you will make me a happy man.

Oh, and the Ferox's tanking bonus to a RoF bonus please...

Thats cos it has already been said on the other threads which you are just too lazy to look at.

And the posts aren't attacking your source of information, they are attacking YOU for been a MORON.

Its that simple. Stop acting like a Moron and people will stop treating you like one.

Naga is fine with Rails/Blasters, its one of the best of the T3s, it would have sucked with torps.

If you can't be bothered to read the patch notes, the only person you can blame for not knowing what was in them is YOU.



Now I WANT a gun that shoots drones! That would rock! Enemy frig sitting at 100km off gate scouting, no problem, BANG, 5 drones on him ;)

You mean 350dps at 80km with a better tank than almost every battleship for 30 million isn't a good pvp deal? Oh it gets light drones to fight frigates as well!

You can even use the natural tank of the drake to run a couple of webs and you still have more tank than most other ships.....

CCP Ytterbium: Thanks for the explanation.





Yes - in the same way a cost-efficient Gallente PVP gunboat could be Brutix or Talos