EVE General Discussion

1. Drones are only considered OP when used by key ships. Maybe the issue isn't the drones but those key ships.

2. Even if point 1 is untrue and drones are simply OP, they are OP in PvP. They are not OP in PvE. If it's the drones that are to be nerfed, then the AI better get reverted back to what it was. Where you could use them with impunity against NPC ships.

3. Perhaps smart bombs should be made "smart".

If you're going to say drones are fine as they are now, at least provide reasons for your opinion.

Medalyn listed a bunch of pros/cons for drones (mostly pros, which is the problem). Why are drones *not* OP? What are some pros that other weapon systems have over drones?

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You just perfectly summed up why drones are such a great primary weapon system. They are really unique since you can "disarm" a drone ship. I hope CCP adds another drone-based pirate faction so we can just have fucktons of drones. The meta would shake up so much. Maybe they could buff defender missiles as a sort of counter against drones and you will see people running cruisers with rlml smartbomb combos as a hard counter for drones lol.

I for one welcome our drone overlords.

Right. The flexibility of drones to just bypass this "downside" by using sentries is part of what makes them imbalanced.


It evens out, but drones are way better than those weapon systems in terms of range/damage application and flexibility (not to mention even on-paper DPS is often equivalent or better in some cases). They use no ammo, they have ewar immunity, free utility high slots, etc. etc.
EDIT: Also neuts are a lot more useful than smartbombs most of the time, so in terms of small-gang fights you're more likely to see a counter for cap than drones because it's simply more useful in a wider range of scenarios (you can also stop reps, prop mods, etc.).


Not necessarily. Provide more utility highs for turret ships/make the existing ones actually usable (reduce fitting requirements on these ships for non-turret/launcher modules?), or give drone ships less high slots. Many ways to go about re-balancing, and this still wouldn't address other advantages of drones that come at no trade-off when compared to other weapon systems.


Not sure what you mean here. How do you need to sacrifice mobility in order to switch your drones?


So unlike TQ, you know that they will be within 250 km of you, and that their fleet power will be roughly equivalent to yours. I don't see how that would impact your decision of whether or not to use drones in a meaningful way. What exactly are the counters that you wouldn't want to field in an AT? These really just seem like the same decisions you'd be making on TQ.

Ya know, for once I'd like to see someone say something like, "make x and y better to compensate against or be more evenly-balanced with Z"

BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOO

wtf is wrong with you people who always cry for nerfing something when instead you could be asking to buiff other things to be more in line with that which you think is OP?

Goes back to something I said a while back; Iv'e been playing mmos since the days before anyone had a (ermagherd) 3D video card. These games all end the same way: the gaming directors end up getting all their "feedback" from the vocal minority of whiners, and after enough of their whines get taken care of, the silent majority jumps ship and heads off to the next mmo to do it all again, right down to the whiners ruining THAT game, too.

It's the circle of life, MMO-style.

You don't buff your way out of an imbalance as that leads to power creep.

Drones have their downsides.

There is no implant set that improves them. There are no boosters to improve them. Their damage is the low side of average. They can be destroyed fairly easily if they don't come out of a Gurista ship. If anyone bothers to counter them you run out quickly. Ships intended to use them as primary weapons lose a slot for the privilege. Honest to god, if I could get 8 mids and lows on all my drone ships and only have 2-4 highs, I'd take that deal.

They have their upsides too.

No one likes to counter them, because it's not as fun to kill a drone as it is to kill the ship it came from. They are resistant to Ewar, though this is in no way the immunity claimed by the OP---in fact a healthy knowledge of drone targeting mechanics makes them about as challenging as any other NPC to deal with. They do have rather amazing application potential, though this comes at the cost of a lot of raw damage when you step down to smaller drone sizes. Even the argument of the range of light drones comes with the draw back that any mobile drone further than about 15km from your ship is on a suicide mission.

Most of the upsides of drones have downsides of their own, and then drones as a whole have downsides.

Drones were a joke before Ishtars and Domi's got a free Omni-tracker built in. Somehow this breaks EVE. Even the introduction of Drone Damage Augmenters didn't cause the uproar that the tracking bonus did. Drones have counters, it's just inconvenient.

Lastly... if you are being kited by a ship using sentries, you might want to look into how sentries actually work, and adjust accordingly.

Why not? You can create almost the exact same list for them? If drones are OP, then so are highslots and for much the same reason.

A quick switch between sentries means you have to sit next to them. A switch between anything else will not be quick because the drones will have to travel between you and the target. If you want to be able to get out, you will have to be right next to your drones at all times, rather than in a position of an advantage.

…and you also know the composition and intent. You know how they will move. All of this means that drones are always a good idea, and some particular drones are a particularly good idea — an assumption that does not hold up if you remove the restrictions of an AT match.

On TQ, you don't know what drones to bring and what will be done to them. They might turn out to be completely useless because they can't actually engage any of the targets, or even reach the target if they can engage, or — hell — they'll pretty much just insta-explode if you try to bring them out. It's not whether you choose to use them or not, but about whether they can be used in a meaningful way. In an AT match, there's very little that will ever make them useless; outside of one, there are so many situations where they will be more of a liability than anything.

The difference is that buffing your way into power-creep in an (always ultimately failed) attempt at balancing something out is impossible without creating far bigger balance issues than the one you tried to fix to begin with.

Nerfing is a far more precise and efficient balancing tool than power-creep buffing can ever hope to be.

They're not different than any other part of your fit for the simple reason that they are part of your fit. These days, swapping other fitting options out is almost easier than it is with drones.

Not to mention that ships that can carry enough drones to actually take advantage of any kind of drone versatility are themselves not as capable as the non-drone ships. Most ships can't fit to match every size target. Some drone-based ships can, but they pay a price for that ability: they can't hit nearly as hard against any given type of ship as the non-drone ships can. You switch versatility for power — not a particularly strange or unbalanced concept.

You seem confused as to how these ships work.

Have you ever tried to outrun a heavy drone? It's actually pretty easy. You can't outrun sentries, but you don't have to stay close enough to be hit by them either.

No fast drone switching is occurring in any fight where you are putting out sentry damage and also applying neuts. To hear you tell it, ships are putting out sentry damage from light drones that are impossible to damage and have become magically immune to ECM. The weapon system as a whole has most of those properties, but not in any one drone. You get high dps, or high tracking. You get great range, but anyone with a MWD can outrun weight appropriate drones. Each advantage you list for drones is mitigated by complications that generally do not exist for other weapons.

They are great weapons, but they are not God mode.