Player Features and Ideas Discussion

How the **** can you people defend T3D...

These things should have never been put into the game. A sandbox mmo-rpg as durable as Eve shouldn't have powercreep, and this ships completely ruined the balance.

T3D obliterates T1 cruisers, all Frigates, all Destroyers, and then, to add insult to injury, they cost less then 50m isk.

PS: The cherry on top of the ****** cake, TD3 can enter small FW complexes.

there are lots of OP things in eve that need nerfing FACT, i just point them out like other people do, i have done threads about buffing various things from time too time and in various threads, but people do tend too focus on things that effect them and them ONLY, which as we know doesn't lend itself too a balanced state of affairs.

The fatigue and mode bonus decay are both bad ideas. Decay especially just leads to clickety-click-click to refresh. Fatigue is just annoying and defeats the purpose of having switchable modes.

Just nerf them, especially Svipul and confessor.

The svipul needs a hard nerf, the confessor just needs to be restricted to mwds with a slight and I mean slight range nerf.

People who used to use AFs now use T3s. There are only a few edge cases where it is worth using an AF over a T3. Also AFs would be dangerous to a T3 if they were half decent as they counter one of the main advantages of the T3 which is its low signature. So once AFs are in a good place that will naturally balance T3s in the overall meta.

Well, the lissues in bigger perspective are:

In-between classes ships like destroyers and battlecruisers (though these ones are pretty well balanced with particular role to serve) with their weird postion in hierarchy implicitly turn them as superior-lower class ships (stronger, more durable, more cap - but same gun sizes). Combat destroyers being essentially "frigate killers" by design/idea automatically lead to question - in combat role, why fly a frigate when you can fly a destroyer (at least in T1 vs T1 senarios) ? T2 AFs fared well (relatively, though those have had other issues since forever).

But then once came T3, first to cruiser hulls leaving HACs in shadow (and not only those) up to these days. Now the same was repeated with destroyers. The whole T3 concept is somewhat flawed (especially with relation to T2) and at the edge of being unbalancable with relation to T1 and T2 - particularly if T3Ds (in this case) are supposed to retain "frigate killer" role.


Aside fixing glaring issues like price, instawarping or oversized prop modules (which should be fixed at module level instead of by tinkering with t3d stats) I'm curious what they are going to do.

These boats are brilliant for PVP, and for PVE content, giving newbros a quick route into doing higher-end pve content, as well as being wonderfully effective in group PVP.

As it stands though, the mode switching is a little lackluster for quite a few situations.

I can't really speak for PVP content, as that isn't an area I'm well versed in, so I won't even try.

For pve however, You'll spend almost all your time in Sharpshooter and Propulsion, never really using tank-mode except for the rare cases where the rats can actually -hit- you.

And in those cases that they can, you'll never leave defensive.

This reduces the mode-switching to a lazy-refit, instead of a feature. Makes the thought process in PVE as follows (and I would imagine, in PVP)

"Can the rats hit me? If no, Sharpshooter, better application, no worries. If Yes, Tank mode."

and then.

"Is the ride the gate more than 40 km? If yes, Prop mode, if not, stay in current mode."


I've even gone so far as to bring up a new alt in the ways of combat to see if having lower skills and needing to train up would affect the decisions in a mission, or a combat site. And, really, it didn't. Within a week, the newly trained alt was running level three's with impunity, and within two, was running level 4's as if it were a non-issue. Any sites she probed down, in high, or nul-sec, (didn't do lowsec, because reasons) were also a complete non-issue.

Whats more, I can break down the modes spent in time-wise. Tank Mode: ~15%, Prop Mode: ~3%, Sharpshooter Mode: ~82%

Combine sharpshooter being the superior mode, along with sharpshooter being rather lackluster on all but the Amarr and Caldari hulls (at least for PVE. I get that the massive tracking boost is awesome for PVP on the Svipul) and that the Gallente sharpshooter mode barely makes a dent in the range of its weapon system....

I have a somewhat hairbrained suggestion as to how to make the other modes a bit more attractive.

Give all of the hulls a role-bonus to the range of their weaponsystem so that they can all (with long-ranged weapons) reach out to 50 km comfortably. Further with the right ammo, but 50 as a goal for longrange weaponry.

Short range weapons with the long range ammo should hit a sweet spot of about 30 km, but because of the differences in weapons, this is likely not possible, and also likely overpowered for some of them. At the same time.... Lolscorch.

With range having been removed from sharpshooter, that mode can then be re-named to Fire-Control, and repurposed. Have the mode give a little bit of tracking/Application bonus, higher scan-res, and a minor AOE Non-stacking bonus to scan-res and tracking to squad, at the cost of a higher sig-radius (more signal coming from the ship) Makes 'Fire-Control' mode attractive to use in small gang, but also makes you -actually- more vulnerable to use it.

Tank mode, I feel, shouldn't give resist bonuses, or at least not as much. Its a destroyer, should be more focused on repping itself, rather than counting on logi to save it. give all tank modes a sig-radius reduction, an agility reduction, and a bonus to active-rep. For the gallente hull, perhaps give it a massive bonus to hull repair as well for hillarities sake.

Propulsion mode - Here, the modes are all very much varied, but the hulls that shine the most with it, are the ones that fit oversized mods. Seeing as all of this is supposed to be taken from the same technology, and that racial flavor is kinda important, this is both a good, and a bad thing. Svipul reins supreme with the oversized mod, with a close second of the Confessor a close second. Caldari's lack of real speed gain plays a detriment in favor of massive agility... too much agility, with too little ability to dictate range to take advantage of its weapon system. ((Speaking from doing cruiser burner missions in the jackdaw)) The Gallente, then get the caldari's agility, with the great speed of other modes - to only one prop mod type. In short, prop mode on Amm/Min is great, lackluster on Gal/Cal. I must admit, i don't have a suggestion for how to make the prop mode more attractive, just a bit of thought on why its not as attractive as it could be.

Summary, Tank mode isn't attractive enough because you aren't vulnerable enough in other modes, resist bonus favors too heavily into logi-ship gameplay favoring larger fleets (60k EHP jackdaw/Confessor fleet anyone?) Tank should favor local tank, and make the ship less focused on maneuvering, more focused on repairing. Sharpshooter should make you MORE vulnerable, instead of 'default' vulnerable, and prop mode is bum.

Fair call.

The way I see it they can keep the agility bonus in speed mode. This still makes them difficult to catch. Like frigates. Frigates don't insta-warp unless they are nano-fit specifically for it, so I think T3Ds could be the same (pretty sure a dual nano Svipul in speed mode doesn't need to use the mode-switch trick). T3Ds fit to slip through camps would work, they just have to be fit for it.

The current mode-switching mechanic is just awkward. Mix it with insta-lock svipuls and it's just a game of chance with server ticks.

In regard to what's holding the mode switching mechanic back I'll just state the obvious: it's the way ship fitting in EVE works. You are always better off to choose a known role and use all your fitting modules to maximize your effectiveness in that role than you are to try to make a hybrid fit that does everything. In an RPG, a specialist pretty much always beats a generalist. Basically what I'm saying is that the fundamental design of tactical destroyers fights against one of the core pieces of EVE's design, and that's why the modes mechanic is under used.

How do you fix that? Well, for one, reduce the number and strength of bonuses that are changed with the mode switching and increase the number and strength of the bonuses that are always active. This reduces pressure to specialize for one particular mode. A more involved option would be to give T3Ds a specialized cargo hold that only allows modules, then let them refit from that hold on the fly, like a built-in mobile depot.

As long as the size of such a "refit hold" was very limited I don't think it would be any more over powered than a mobile depot can be with larger ships.


As far as T3Ds interaction with assault frigates, it was basically inevitable. T3Ds are a small ship class built to excel in front line combat. Their cost increase over assault frigates is inconsequential and they serve the same role but do it better. If not obsoleting assault frigates was a goal, then T3Ds should have been given a role other than direct combat. Keeping assault frigates relevant by artificially restricting T3Ds from FW areas is contrived design cheese.

About the modes in PvP how I use them solo ...

Default: prop mode (switch to instawarp defense mode in case of non-bubbled camp), then switch back
When about to engage a target, sharp mode to get the lock fast, or prop mode to reduce range
In fight keep in sharp/prop until first damage taken (or yellowboxed, depending on enemy's alpha), then switch to defense or GTFO in prop
When winning the fight, back to sharp to get the pod
Prop, GTFO

Sounds reasonable complex to me.