Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So here's my idea,

Why not reclassify T3 cruisers as T3 Strategic Battle Cruisers?

In doing so, there's much less balancing factors needed, as many of their fitting capabilities and stats fall in line with that of a BC, but in a cruiser sized hull, with cruiser base ship stats.


So, instead of nerfing them to fall in line with other cruisers, which would take quite a bit of hammering and fine tuning, you could instead, make them BC class ships and alter their ship related stats, as opposed to their bonuses and fitting potential.


Classify them as BCs and you can nerf the velocity, sig radius, warp speed, scan res, targeting range, etc. etc. to fall in line with that of BCs.


This would be a much more intuitive balancing pass for CCP....
Classifying them as BCs would mean they're easier to counter with other BCs as well as BSs, but would also give a solid anti-cruiser hull to rebalance other BCs around, as many of them have lack luster performance (as based on other threads) considering the current cruiser meta.


Edit.... This also has some merit, as the other T3 class are destroyers... It would make sense to have T3 destroyers and BCs.

TBH I have a feeling that sometime this year t3 cruisers are going to change entirely over to the platform that t3 destroyers are now on. No subsystems, just three 'modes'. When you weigh this against all the trouble they are having adapting t3 to the new pbr...well...

Obligatory "how about just take them right out of the game?"

That's the general idea.
Obviously they may still need nerfing, but if changed in this manner, they would need a nerf brush as apposed to bat.

I don't feel that the variable subs are the problem, it's the numbers attached to them. Reducing many of those, or increasing as the exact math requires, would move them in the right direction. Otherwise I think you'd probably need to split it into about 6 unique hulls or one hull with as many modes. Their versatility isn't the problem, it's how good they are in every one of those roles at the same time.

Against. They are not strategic bc's. Part of their lower skill requirements is so newer players can use them for their exploration and missions/expeditions as well. Better would be to fix the offending subsystems. And yes, eve players always find and abuse the crap out of mistakes, forcing a fix. To reform them as t3 bc's in line with the t3d's would require multiple entirely new ships, and would only serve to further confuse bc's and bs, as well as take that highly versatile platform away from new players as well as old.

Nope, they said in a dev blog, they're keeping the two T3 flavors separate. "Strategic" use subsystems, while "tactical" switch modes.

I'm sorry, but you aren't limited to one role if you sub right. At least 2 HAC/recon configurations exist, as well as the hunter/killer scanning + cov ops + 80% of a HAC configurations. or the spider fits or or or or.

Actually, the change wouldn't justify leaving their bonuses alone.
They would still need some balancing, as they're still stronger than most BCs.
However, the cap between T3 and BC is a lot easier to work with than T3 vs cruiser.

That said, if you rebalance them in the cruiser class, all it does is help to further the current cruiser meta.

Turning them into BCs means they can be a strong counter to cruisers, while putting their stats at a point that can be countered by BSs and some BCs.

I feel they'll balance out much better, and require less effort on CCPs part.
Also, this would give a baseline for BCs.

there in lies part of the problem with balancing them as cruisers.

As they are now, they're being used as more effective tacklers, command, recon, cov ops, and whatever else.

breaking them down a notch is good for meta balance.
Means hacs, recons, tacklers, and whatever else become more relevant in WH space.

See, T3's (based on CCP's tiericide model) are not supposed to be a "be all end all" ship.
They're supposed to be less powerful at a specific role compared to t2, more variable than t1(which I would argue CCP didn't do too well at giving t1, faction, or pirate a mix in variation. They all seem to be somewhat locked into roles, and if you go outside of those roles, they're not near as effective.

However, t3 was supposed to be along the line of faction in power, which is under t2, but with the most variation capability, while t2 was supposed to be between faction and pirate, in the realms of power, but with much more specialization..
This meaning that no other ship should be as powerful as what said t2 does, but other classes have more versatility, t3 being purely versatile.

Instead, T3 is set in a way where it's along the same lines as T2 in power level, but stretches from the most versatile ship, to equal with t2 in specialization... also, based on their class (cruiser) they're more powerful than many pirate and navy cruisers.

If they were put into the BC catagory, they would lose mobility, gain sig, and many other aspects that would help to put them where they are supposed to belong, and would require much less subsystem rebalance to do so.

It's also a difference between the nerf stick and the nerf bat.
The more CCP has to balance, the worse off balance can turn out (no offense CCP).

t2's should be used for the specialization tactics you explained above.
However, t3 should be used as an alternative with reduced specialization compared to t2, but with increased versatility.

As it sits now, the only sub system setup that is balanced compared to T2 is logistics.
In almost all other fitting capabilities of t3, there's no reason to take t2 over t3 as you'll get the same power as t2, but with increased versatility, utility, and survivability.

Pic of tiericide model for comparison (couldn't get it to link properly without full link)
https://www.google.com/search?q=CCP%27s+ship+tiericide+model&biw=1708&bih=789&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=XtiFVY-3Dsn1oATz8oDoCA&ved=0CCwQsAQ&dpr=0.8#imgrc=0Q5T0c0bAyNN5M%253A%3BTi17_9DMv41bkM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fimages.gameskinny.com%252Fgameskinny%252Fresized_71dfde80c8106c41248df762afc1f21d.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.gameskinny.com%252F30zqh%252Fcountdown-to-eve-online-fanfest-tiericidal-maniacs%3B640%3B281