Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Slave sets are one of those thing which everyone knows about, and which have a major shifting influence on the sandbox, but which no one really seems to talk about much. Like many things which have been with us since the early days of eve, they have had an enormous effect on what doctrines and playstyles emerged. The ability for armor tanks to add more than 50% of their base HP in armor without a single concession on the fitting, in a way which scales absolutely with buffer mods, rigs and so on, is far more powerful in the modern eve era than the shield boost bonus that crystal sets give. That this extends to capitals, unlike crystal sets, just tips them further over the line.

I think it is time to tone them down.

Overall, I would like to see slave sets effectiveness dropped to approximately:

HG: 32%
MG: 26%
LG 18%

I would prefer to accomplish this by reducing primarily the per implant set bonus, and slightly reducing the HP bonus on slots 3-5, to 2.5%, 3% and 3.5% respectively.

Why:

1. Armor capitals are too tough relative to shield capitals, and this helps even that out.
2. Buffer bonuses are inherently more powerful than rep bonuses with modern fleet sizes for fleet combat.
3. Oversized plates and slave synergize unfortunately well on t3s, HACs and other cruisers with the space for large plates.
4. It makes finding a competitive shield doctrine easier, and I like shield doctrines.

If somebody want´s to fly a t3 with such an expensive impset you should not be upset, you rather should get the firepower to pod him. Makes a juicy killmail.

-1

I think they are problematic on many other scales. T3 and capitals bring out the worst imbalances with them, but they are so much more effective than crystals, their shield counter-part. In modern fleets, local reps are a joke compared to RR. In modern solo, many people fly armor buffer, so applicable there. Hmm, active armor? More armor HP to chew through, so more time for your reps to catch. Looks like they help almost every application of armor tanking, vs only helping subcap local tanks for crystals, and so to balance the two somewhat, reducing the raw power advantage of slaves is not unreasonable.

That said, I like juicy pods, and want to keep being able to find them with slaves in, so I want them to continue to be valuable, without being over powered. How is that for a desire?

Actually other pirate sets should get proper boost to be so viable option like crystal , slave , nomad etc.
Implants are actually ok when people are using them , especially when there is free market , and you actually don't need blue list longer than you can remember to get them by yourself ( aka super construction).

Yes you could say they bring imbalance , but think from where this imbalance comes, lets take for example 'slaved' armor carrier:
- it will have more EHP
- it's resistances will not be affected
- dps will not change

If you have good fleet composition , you can still kill it , it will just take a bit longer.

Now when you have 50 ( or more) slowcats on grid first thing you need to consider is not how much EHP have specific ship, but will you be able to brake remote reps.

The same applies to subcapital fleet.
Currently the biggest imbalance is located in remote reps that specific ship receive.

Remember that those sets are quite expensive , and pods are so fragile.

Both implant sets are hardly comparable as they function in starkly different setups. Crystals have no use in big fleet fights and are not used in these scenarios. Slaves work well in fleets, but are not used in big fleets, especially not HG or MG, as their cost is prohibitive to the high likelihood of losing your capsule. Slaves on small and medium fleet doctrines like Low sec Sacrileges and Absolutions only work because you cannot lose your capsule. Slaves on caps can be seen as problematic, but as this is only one small group of ships compared to, for instance, where Crystals are very effective (Solo Tengus, Shield Boosting Marauders, Sleipnirs, etc pp.), I don't really see a need to change Slaves.

Instead of reducing Slave effects, call for the introduction of a Shield Buffer set and Armor Repair set.

You can talk about reducing the buffer advantage of armor tanks when shields stop regenerating on their own.

I'm hoping they'll make an active armour set and a passive shield set. That should equalize things a little.

Maybe to make the sets not exactly the same, the armour set could give a boost to repair speed (and corresponding cap reduction) whereas the shield passive set could boost raw hp less than armour but also boosts passive shield regeneration by a sizable amount.

Hopefully that would balance the tank types whilst still keeping them unique.

Shield caps are already much better than armor caps and the main reason armor caps are still being used is inertia. You can't mix doctrines and if you already have 200 armor supercaps, well.....

No thanks tia.