Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Because they're probably going to half-ass it like RLML's? Or because their hate boner is having ED problems and takes a little while to get to full strength?
And for anyone else looking on, -6% RoF is a significant drop but not game breaking. It does equate to roughly 6.4% lower dps, but by itself it isn't huge, much like Hyperion and wormholes though, it is just one more straw added to the pile that shows a trend.

It's not the cuts I'm concerned with; it's the hemorrhaging with missiles in general.

I agree with your take on the changes to the Crow. The Crow is currently able to do too much at once without having to choose. I still think a 4/3/3 slot layout instead of the 4/4/2 it's getting would make more sense while still limiting it, but overall I think we're on the same page.

My take on how to fit them is colored by my experience, which is primarily in small-ish hisec and losec gangs where getting caught on a gate isn't really an issue. This is nice because it lets me fit more for speed than 2-sec align time, which mitigates damage nicely. I can see where you're coming from in terms of nullsec though: point well taken (no pun intended).

Except missiles are not one homogenous lump, each individual type needs balance. Just because other missiles are not to your liking currently does not mean that light missiles should be over tuned to compensate so that you feel your skill points in missile skills was not wasted.

Again, get it back on topic discuss the interceptor changes not the LML changes the changes to LML were not made specifically to address your crow/malediction issues they are a balance issue across many other hulls and are being addressed for that reason not just for the interceptors.

And they decided to break the news of a completely uncalled for 6% RoF nerf in an Interceptor balance thread. If they nerfed Beam laser RoF, or Arty RoF, if such a significant way this thread would have exploded. If they wanted us to stay on topic, they should have done a better job revealing the nerf. As such, I choose to get upset about Fozzie's 1-line reveal of an unannounced nerf to every hull that would ever use LML's, you can bicker about the Inty's and I'll bicker about this.

choosing between tank and damage is something everyone should have to do

by your logic i should be able to fit a drake tank on a tornado

you also don't have to gimp your fit to get sub-2s align ceptors today, the malediction today does 97 dps, 4k EHP, and has 2s align with a 30 km engagement window (mjolnir furies) or 79 DPS with a 40km engagement window (CN mjolnir)

with the new changes the crow may actually be catchable on gates and the malediction will be forced into short range to apply damage (while retaining its ability to do pure tackle)

this is unironically a good thing

do they not have covert cynos where you live

oh yeah that's right, you guys refused to drop on our guys ever

literally had all of deklein covered with covert cynos and then refused to take the easy kills because there was a modicum of risk involved with covert drops compared to interceptors

Nice little nerf there, would be nice if this was an actual rebalance and focus on role instead (fast interception/tackle)?

So are you going to make rockets actually work now? 10km rocket range for terrible applied damage is not a very good trade off, especially when going within 10km is a pretty big risk vs quite a few targets.

Soo. are you planning to have one long range and one short range ceptor for each race and set them up so they actually achieve this in some fashion or would this make too much sense?

Imho, these changes don't really adress the problems with interceptors but just try to nerf the powerful and buff the weaker inties ( and completly fail to achive balance in this).

There are imho three main problems with these ships atm:

1. Travelling inties are almost invulnerable (besides smartbomb camps). You just need to get them to less then 2 sec align time. Even with an align time slightly over 2sec you will travel very, very save, since it requires a special setup gatecamp to catch you.
On the other hand inties belong to the fastest and most agil ships in eve. Together with the bonus to warp disruptor range makes them great kiting ships that can also easily break away from a fight.

This means that inties can in 99.8% of the time choose weather or not to engage. A couple of years back, this was considered very bad game design. As a result speedmods were nerfed and the nano-era ended.

2. Some interceptors are clearly better than others. Thanks to its 4th mid the crow was able to contest the place the stiletto had before: as dedicated tackler in fleets. Especially thanks to the Crows better damage projection, it was soon favored over the stiletto, even it the stilettos scanres is higher. The malediction on the other hand has less range than a crow, cannot fit the prefered tackle setup in its mids (That would be mdw, point, sensorboost and medium shield extender OR mdw, point, scram, medium shield extender). The high agility and good dmg projection made the malediction into a great ship for roaming hostile space.

3. Light missiles: Basically outranges while still outdamages most of the small long range weapons. While the range seems ok for ships that use rapid light missile launchers, at the same time it is a bit over the top for most small ships. Especially on ships like the crow and malediction

So why not just do this:

-15% light missile Flighttime
AND
a flight time bonus to rapid light missile launchers to compensate for this (basically for rapid lights, all will stay the same).

For all ships in eve cap the minimum allign time at 2.1sec. While i hate hard limits such as this one, the fact that everything faster than 2sec allign time is nearly invulnerable is based on the server architektur and servertick and never was inteded gamedesign. In such an situation a hard limit should be reasonable.

And then:

Crow:

Scan resolution - 80 (puts it into a worse spot compared with the stiletto but doesn't really change much else)

First bonus: 7,5% Kinetic damage per level (thats 2,5% less than before)
Second bonus: 100% Increase missile flight speed - 50% decreased in missile flight time (basically same as the gramur BUT resulting in no range bonus)
Targeting range: -2km to 30,5km

Malediction:
- 0.1 inertia maybe even -0.15

Stietto:
+2km targeting range to 31,5km
-10000 Mass

Ares: ( just ass CCP Fozzie suggested)
Increase Small Hybrid tracking bonus from 7.5% to 10% per level
-40000 Mass
+0.1 Inertia
+40 Capacitor
+30s Capacitor Recharge Time

For the Raptor and Taranis i would follow Fozzies suggestions. Crusader could use a bit more cap recharge rate.


With this, we won't have uncatchable inties anymore and:

The crow is suddenly much less special. The better targeting range and speed of the stiletto should make it an viable alternative especially for catching fast moving ships (like ceptors) on gates. The crow might still be better as a general fleet interceptor thanks to its better damage projection, the stiletto will be great at catching ships in gatecamps etc.

The malediction becomes a lot easier to catch what should balance it already. No further nerf to the weaponsystem needed.
For the ares I am not sure if this will be enough but we could still see. Also i would like to see how the other Interceptors would fit in with this. Especially Claw, Taranis, Crusader and raptor.

link the fit that does all of this