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[Scylla] Ishtars

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Tusker Crazinski
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#161 - 2015-02-28 22:06:41 UTC
lol, still hilariously op

drones in general need to be much more susceptible to being shot, and not have nearly as much slots as they do.

TrouserDeagle wrote:
do something to push it toward armour tanking


Armor ishtar is much more OP than the shield one in small gangs and solo
Alexis Nightwish
#162 - 2015-02-28 22:40:56 UTC
Lug Muad'Dib wrote:
Nolak Ataru wrote:


Where did CCP say they are battleship weapons?


CCP Rise wrote:


This "Ishtar has bonuses to battleship weapons" line that keeps coming up is interesting. We talked about it some earlier here. There's parts of it that we can agree about but it's also something that makes drones interesting across all drone using/bonused ships. You could use the same argument to say that Dominix's shouldn't get bonuses to light drones or that Vexors shouldn't be able to use lights or heavies or sentries.

We feel that in general it's an interesting and positive part of drone design that they aren't fixed to ship sizes nearly as strictly as other weapon types. We just need to find ways to have balanced ships as well.



This is a flawed argument. The problem isn't so much being able to use drones outside their size class, it's that they receive full bonuses without any sort of drawback.

Let's take two other ship types that have weapons above their size class:
Bombers and Tier 3 BCs.

Both of these ships have definite drawbacks to their high damage potential, most noticeably their paper tank. These ships are very much glass cannons. Additionally they are locked into that weapon. So while it's not impossible to downsize their weapons, they receive no bonuses to them if they do so.

Drone boats, especially the cruiser class ones, bypass this completely. They can use any sized drone, with full bonuses applied to them. This allows them to to selectively choose their damage and application for maximum effect without any of the drawbacks that Bombers or Attack BCs have.

This leads me to see three possible solutions to this fundamental problem:

Solution 1) Keep CCPs current philosophy of drone boats having the unique ability to be upsized (or downsized) by applying their bonus to all drones, but their drone bandwidth must be adjusted like this:
Frigates: 25mb
Destroyers: 40mb
Cruisers: 50mb
Battlecruisers: 100mb
Battleships: 125mb

Solution 2) Abandon CCPs current philosophy of drone boats, and make all drone boats more like the Guristas line. They would still have their large bandwidth:
Frigates and Destroyers only gain bonuses to light drones.
Cruisers and Battlecruisers only gain bonuses to medium drones.
Battleships only gain bonuses to heavy and sentry drones.

Solution 3) A hybrid of the first two. This solution results in drone boats gaining no bonuses to upsized drones, but full bonuses to drones of their size or lower (again they would still have their large drone bandwidth):
Frigates and Destroyers only gain bonuses to light drones.
Cruisers and Battlecruisers only gain bonuses to light and medium drones.
Battleships only gain bonuses to light, medium, heavy, and sentry drones.

CCP approaches problems in one of two ways: nudge or cludge

EVE Online's "I win!" Button

Fixing bombs, not the bombers
O2 jayjay
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#163 - 2015-02-28 22:54:59 UTC  |  Edited by: O2 jayjay
Finally!

100 bandwith would have fixed the problem but this fixes sentries. Still dont like the fact that is get BS dps drones for a crusier. Dont see the Deimos out punching a brutix.

+1
Petrified
Old and Petrified Syndication
TOG - The Older Gamers Alliance
#164 - 2015-03-01 00:56:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Petrified
baltec1 wrote:
Would rather have seen the ishtar lose the sentries entirely.

Baby steps.
I believe they are pairing down than simply gutting, the former being the better option.
There is such as thing as beating the dead Ishtar with the nerf bat.

Cloaking is the closest thing to a "Pause Game" button one can get while in space.

Support better localization for the Japanese Community.
Petrified
Old and Petrified Syndication
TOG - The Older Gamers Alliance
#165 - 2015-03-01 01:01:56 UTC
Tusker Crazinski wrote:
lol, still hilariously op

drones in general need to be much more susceptible to being shot, and not have nearly as much slots as they do.

TrouserDeagle wrote:
do something to push it toward armour tanking


Armor ishtar is much more OP than the shield one in small gangs and solo


My personal take is that Drones (that non-piloted menace we all know and love) need to be more susceptible to interference and disruption when it is applied to the drone deploying ship. ie: tracking disruption, range and sensor dampening, etc.

Cloaking is the closest thing to a "Pause Game" button one can get while in space.

Support better localization for the Japanese Community.
Reddish Garemoko
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#166 - 2015-03-01 03:09:09 UTC
I've been spanked by an Ishtar. But by continuously bowing to the desires of the community to never lose or be outgunned, no completely awesome weapon can ever be allowed. Meh. Why nerf a great piece of equipment? IMO any ship can be beaten by some fleet and no ship is invincible, so why not just re-balance pvp a different way. Let's allow ships be "overpowered", it's fun. It's the way we want it, really. But get a level playing field in different ways, maybe make it extremely expensive to run, or make it reduce skill points every time you fight it, dozens of different ways to "re-balance" in a way that allows Eve to have a horrible menace running around, some excitement with a mechanic that curbs it in some other way. It's such a bummer to invest skills and time in a plan and then have the program castrated just when you finally build/buy the damned thing.
Drodecas
the Goose Flock
#167 - 2015-03-01 04:36:14 UTC
In bigger engagements the proposed changes will have little effect. As In a big Ishtar blob a lot of drones are not triggering as the target is already dead. for medium sized fleets <60 Ishtars it wil.
The problem with the Ishtar is that it enganges all types of target from 0-120km, This will not change.

To make a ishtar that is less hard to counter do one of the following:

1 Remove the tracking bonus: Can now sigtank them and orbit the drones more easy.

2 Remove the optimal range: long range ships have the ability to engange them.

3 Reduce the targeting range: long range ships have the ability to engange them. Damps are more effective.
Petrified
Old and Petrified Syndication
TOG - The Older Gamers Alliance
#168 - 2015-03-01 05:06:06 UTC
Alexis Nightwish wrote:

Solution 3) A hybrid of the first two. This solution results in drone boats gaining no bonuses to upsized drones, but full bonuses to drones of their size or lower (again they would still have their large drone bandwidth):
Frigates and Destroyers only gain bonuses to light drones.
Cruisers and Battlecruisers only gain bonuses to light and medium drones.
Battleships only gain bonuses to light, medium, heavy, and sentry drones.


You have an excellent point regarding Oversized weapons. I lean towards liking solution 3 that you propose the best but with this modification:
Frigates and Destroyers only gain bonuses to light drones.
Cruisers only gain bonuses to light and medium drones.
Battlecruisers only gain bonuses to light, medium, and heavy drones.
Battleships only gain bonuses to light, medium, heavy, and sentry drones.

Cloaking is the closest thing to a "Pause Game" button one can get while in space.

Support better localization for the Japanese Community.
Serendipity Lost
Repo Industries
#169 - 2015-03-01 05:43:32 UTC
The problem is that the ishtar drops its sentries AND THEN runs out of range at high speed and small sig radius.

It's the drop and run combo that makes it OP.

Reducing it's damage by 20% does nothing. If it takes 20 ishtars to alpha a target, then reducing it's damage by 20% requires.... hmm.... an additional let's just skip the math and say and additional 5 ishtars. So reducing damage by 20% has zero effect on a 50 ishtar fleet it's still going to alpha crap off the field while zipping around at 2k+m/s at a range of 120 km to the fight.

Except on a few small gang fringe cases this 'nerf' actually changes nothing. Anyone crying that this is an unfair nerf that will ruin the usefulness of the ishtar had damn well better be giggling while they say it.

I'm not sure why CCP is so against taking sentries away from all but BS hulls, but it sure would solve a pile of current issues with the game. Since the introduction of drone modules sentries have been out of balance and abused. Keep them in game, but put them as BS only.

The ONLY current problems with sentry drones is:

1) Cruiser and BC hulls are too small and too fast to be able to drop that kind of damage on the field and run out to crazy range.
2) Carriers have too many ehp and can sit there and tank too much damage while the sentries are assisted to smaller ships. In large fleets they have proven capable of deliberate player induced soul crushing lag when deployed in large numbers.

BS damage (sentry drones) is balanced on BS hulls. BS damage that quick locks (drone assist) w/ millions of ehp (carrier) it unbalanced. BS damage deployed by a hull (cruiser / BC) that is fit for pure kite is unbalance.

Stop blaming sentries. Blame the archon and the ishtars for having them.


TL/DR Quit treating the symptoms and fix the problems.
Arthur Aihaken
CODE.d
#170 - 2015-03-01 06:54:29 UTC
Cut sentry drone range by half.

I am currently away, traveling through time and will be returning last week.
Serendipity Lost
Repo Industries
#171 - 2015-03-01 08:24:53 UTC
Drodecas wrote:
In bigger engagements the proposed changes will have little effect. As In a big Ishtar blob a lot of drones are not triggering as the target is already dead. for medium sized fleets <60 Ishtars it wil.
The problem with the Ishtar is that it enganges all types of target from 0-120km, This will not change.

To make a ishtar that is less hard to counter do one of the following:

1 Remove the tracking bonus: Can now sigtank them and orbit the drones more easy.

2 Remove the optimal range: long range ships have the ability to engange them.

3 Reduce the targeting range: long range ships have the ability to engange them. Damps are more effective.


4 Get rid of the ishtar's sentries. It's the OP thing they are deploying. Removing them from non BS hulls will fix many things.
Bogdo Lama
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#172 - 2015-03-01 11:16:11 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
Would rather have seen the ishtar lose the sentries entirely.


Imo ishtar always had too big drone bay for that hull size. Id make it bandwith 100m3 and 125m3 bay. So would be only 4 sentry and no spare sets.
Corraidhin Farsaidh
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#173 - 2015-03-01 11:42:52 UTC
Having kept up with tis thread I now firmly believe that the sentry range and tracking bonuses need to be switched to heavy drones. This adresses the drop and go tactics as the fit would need severe changes to get the same performance from sentries but as a heavy drone platform it would be awesome.

Rather than make many changes to an existing hull to nerf it to death I would rather change it's role bonuses slightly to make non-sentry drones much more attractive.

No doubt people would start complaining about tarball fleets of dual webbed ishtars warping to 0 on them but at least they couldn't complain about not being able to shoot back!
Drone Plague
Doomheim
#174 - 2015-03-01 11:48:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Drone Plague
baltec1 wrote:
Would rather have seen the ishtar lose the sentries entirely.
Drone doctrine should be scaled which would remove sentries from Ishtars altogether

i.e.

T1 Frigates = Up to Light drones - No bonus
T1 Frigates (Gallente) = Up to Light drones + Small Gallente Bonus
T2 Frigates = Up to Light drones - Bonus on Light drones only
T2 Frigates (Gallente) = Up to Light drones - Bonus on Light drones only + Small Gallente bonus

T1 Destroyers = No drones
T2 Destroyers = No drones

T1 Cruisers = Up to Medium drones - No bonus
T1 Cruisers (Gallente) = Up to Medium drones + Small Gallente Bonus
T2 Cruisers = Up to Medium drones - Bonus on Mediums
T2 Cruisers (Gallente) = Up to Medium drones - Bonus on Mediums + Small Gallente bonus

T1 BattleCruisers = Up to Heavy drones - Bonus on Lights and Mediums
T1 BattleCruisers (Gallente) = Up to Heavy drones - Bonus on Lights and Mediums + Small Gallente Bonus
T2 BattleCruisers = Up to Heavy drones - Bonus on Lights and Mediums only
T2 BattleCruisers (Gallente) = Up to Heavy drones - Bonus on Lights and Mediums only + Small Gallente bonus

T1 Battleships = Up to Sentries drones - Bonus on all up to Heavies
T1 Battleships (Gallente) = Up to Sentries drones - Bonus on all up to Heavies + Small Gallente Bonus
T2 Battleships = Up to Sentries drones - Bonus on all up to Sentries
T2 Battleships (Gallente) = Up to Sentries drones - Bonus on all up to Sentries
+ Small Gallente bonus

Carriers = Fighters and sentries Bonus on both
Supers = Fighters and Fighter Bombers Bonus on both
Corraidhin Farsaidh
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#175 - 2015-03-01 12:19:43 UTC
BC's should always be able to use sentried as they are designed to either have higher tank with medium guns or sacrifice tank for larger guns. No reason why this shouldn't include sentries. And why remove drones from destroyers? The algos would be completely gutted by that for a start.
Tineoidea Asanari
Perkone
Caldari State
#176 - 2015-03-01 14:46:24 UTC
Easy fix for sentrys: Make them lose tracking and/or range the more far away they are from their host.
Rroff
Antagonistic Tendencies
#177 - 2015-03-01 14:53:33 UTC
Tineoidea Asanari wrote:
Easy fix for sentrys: Make them lose tracking and/or range the more far away they are from their host.


Thats not a bad idea but likely to significantly increase server load.

I wonder if both sentries and fighters should have the "proper" tracking formula like titans where signature difference have more weighting (then give drone bs some bonus towards that) doesn't entirely fix ishtars but does reduce their sentry use to being most effective against larger targets.
Ben Ishikela
#178 - 2015-03-01 18:13:17 UTC
Tineoidea Asanari wrote:
Easy fix for sentrys: Make them lose tracking and/or range the more far away they are from their host.

That i like.
Also take the SUM of distance from target plus distance form host to determine if the target is still in control range.

+1 to everything that sugests things like: heavyDrones20m3, ishtar100mbit and boost to heavies.

Ideas are like Seeds. I'd chop fullgrown trees to start a fire.
Terra Chrall
Doomheim
#179 - 2015-03-01 20:02:51 UTC
Removing sentries from cruisers or entirely would change the very nature of these drone boats. It would be like removing the range bonus from an Eagle. Mobile drones, ie non-sentry, are brawlers. They have to move into range, and are vulnerable to being easily destroyed with smart bombs.

I don't do large scale fleets, but from everything I read about it seems to be a long range game these days. If you remove a ships ability to fight from range then you have drastically changed that ship. Mobile drones are a close range weapon, sentries are ranged. Doesn't matter where the ship itself is.

There are many interesting ideas about keeping sentries, as should be the case. The only other option would be some large buffs to mobile drones which would likely make them OP in PvE and smaller scale PvP.

The two things I see complained about late in this thread are the drop and run behavior and the good tracking from a stationary sentry. Some have suggested limiting the range a ship can be from their drones, this idea has some merit but it also a significant nerf to the very mobile nature of PvP.

What if Sentries were no longer stationary?
What if sentries followed their owner? Give them good speed since they would not move independently.
They keep being a ranged weapon. But the faster the owner is moving and more transversal he has the worse the sentry is going to perform.
Now you have a versatile ship with all the benefits of a drone boat, only drop and run is gone. And tracking is much more meaningful as the drones movement affects it.
Battleships often sit still so this will not affect them. Mobile ships would have to move around like other ships do in order to apply their damage most effectively.
Tineoidea Asanari
Perkone
Caldari State
#180 - 2015-03-01 20:19:31 UTC
Terra Chrall wrote:
What if Sentries were no longer stationary?


Then you can juste make them (or drones in general) vulernable to tractor beams. Would be hell of a fun :D