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If you're set on keeping this 50% MWD Sig Reduction as the role bonus, i propose at least tweaking it to be something unique and useful.

Keep the -50% sig bloom reduction
Add +25-50% MWD speed boost
Add +25-50% MWD activation cost

What would result would be a frigate that could close range quickly and survive the trip (sig reduction, speed boost), while not being able to sustain that speed like their interceptor cousins (capacitor crippling cost to activate their mwd more than 1-2 cycles).

@Popehost
An AFs brawling capabilities are significantly higher than any combat interceptor.
With that said, they already have pretty good cap and are able to shrug off drones if you put in the effort.
The AFs with capless weapons in particular are quite good at this, and they can tackle a Curse if you run a nos and get the scram before you A. They notice you coming, and B. You get the tackle before you're cap dead.

AFs are the big game hunters. While they don't do as much damage as Destroyers, they do what they can while being faster & tanking significantly more. They may be middle ground for what you describe, but they are top of the heap when it comes to brawling & handling cruisers and the like.

@Alekseyev
That doesn't really add anything. AFs are already fast enough to catch cruisers and larger ships.
All you'd actually be doing is adding an unnecessary penalty to a ship that's already tricky to fit.

Not to mention, you would end up with ships that would be cap dead by the time they actually got to their target, where they then have to combat neutralizers & drones. And the flip side of that is for people who DONT want to get in close, is they will just kite with long range guns and an injector, while doing interceptor levels of speed.

Role Bonus of something modest like 25% AB speed boost for AFs

Then give an inherent Interdiction Nullifier bonus to every Frigate size hull in the game. Boosting their role as skirmishers and fast raiders for Null Sec, while keeping the status quo in Low.

Maybe a % reduction to PG and CPU fitting requirements and a % increase in cycle time for small AB's instead of the MWD sig reduction?

Dear CCP,

May I first off say that I spend most of my time (about 95% o it) flying frigs/AF's/Faction frigs and consider myself able to give a meaningful response to this thread. So may I start with:

WHAT THE @#%^ ARE YOU THINKING?

Where shall I start. Yes these are balanced... but only with each other. By adding a new slot to each ship you have now taken something all ready powerful and just making it so that no sane person would fly anything else in low sec other than one of these. The exception to this is of course the retri. The retri needs a mid slot, but the solution is to either take off a high slot whih it doesn't need or remove a low slot (I would lean towards the latter as the retri is way over tanked, this is not a issue currently as it is only really used for pve).

Frig fights are meant to be fast, they are meant to be wild, and most of all exhilarating. By adding more HP you are now drawing out these fights, making more 1v1’s able to turn into ganks from reinforcements arriving. I am not criticizing that playing style, but if that is what the goal is, a good plan should be executed to make is successful, not adding more HP. Both the proposed new slots and HP will make it so that all other ships that aren’t a AF will have a more difficult time killing them. The destroyer buff essentially would be for nothing, as now any AF could take on a destroyer due to its insane tanking ability.

Last major issue are the bonus’. While I was and still am a advocate for adding an additional bonus to the AF’s, there is no written rule that the bonus’ all need to be +5% (or more) per level. AF’s all ready have a HUGE tank. The crazy resistances of assault frig needs to be taken into account. At the moment, they are not bad, in fact, I like flying them. But for me I always thought that a fourth bonus along the lines of +2% per level would give them that little push they needed, while not breaking the balance of the whole game (and more importantly, the low sec experience). Again, destroyers, cruisers and any bc not fit specifically to fight frigs would be very hard pressed to survive with such huge bonus’.

Now that all of the bad is taken care of, we can concentrate on the “meh”

A +10 CPU is not game breaking. In some cases it will be more helpful on some ships than others, but it’s not game breaking.

The MWD bonus doesn’t help most low sec solo pvpers, and appears to be geared towards null sec players. This is a fine role bonus, but should only be applied if the other aspects of the AF’s are not hugely buffed. AF’s would destroy the roles of interceptors if they maintained their HP, slot and added bonus. So I am not against this, but it does need to be kept in mind that interceptors need to be kept important. (maybe a 33% instead of 50% would be better).

If I were to change AF’s, my changes would be the following.

...

Give each frig +10CPU (I see no real issue in that)

Remove a low slot from the retri and give it a new med slot. Again I stress this as the retri is the best tank of any of the frigs in game right now, which is fine since it is a PVE ship, but if you give it a PvP role, it needs to be balanced.

Give each AF a +2% bonus per level to something (it could depend on the AF’s, or give them a universal bonus of +2% to AB speed, making them better with both ab and mwd).

...

The most important thing about this change is that it doesn’t make them the be all end all of the game, they can be made better without making them overpowered.

Thanks for your consideration CCP

Keep the MWD sig bloom reduction. It makes a HUGE difference.

I've only had a small play with the new AF's on sisi. But burning around blobs in my Retri, I was barely getting scratched by the long range guns.

The extra slots added are severly limited by the available CPU and Power Grid. Keep those as well please.

Yes, this will massively change how frigate combat works. BUT, how many people were whining that EVE was becoming stale to the Crucible expansion?

I, for one, am looking foward to this patch.

(Even have a Hookbill fit theorycrafted that should be able to smoke most of the new AF's)

I'd say the reason this bonus even HAS to exist is that perhaps the 1MN MWD shouldn't even give a 500% sig radius penalty.


The 1MN MWD Should probably only give a 250% penalty to sig radius so that all frigate sized ships can benefit from not becoming a HUGE FREAKING TARGET to all ships on the field.

At that point, tone down the interceptor bonus, and every frigate (and destroyer) can benefit from this reduced sig radius penalty from trying to move fast to give them all a slightly less deadly experience on larger battle fields.


This frees up the whole role bonus to be used for something a bit more interesting for assault frigates.


I hardly think that anyone is going to tell me that a T1 frigate with a 250% bloom is going to be WAY OVERPOWERED compared to a Jaguar with the same sig penalty from using an 1MN MWD.

I see the Assault Frigate as the little X-Wing flying amindst all the massive ships, doing necessary tactical support and damage where necessary. The biggest inhibition to this reality is that larger ships can easily disable Assault Frigates quickly (neut, scram web - dead)

So, countering the Neutralizer - Scram - Webs Trio of Frigate Doom is what the T2 AF should bring to the table that the T1 Frigate is unable to do.


This is why I recommended some kind of resistance to one of this Trio of Near Instant Frigate Killers as a Role Bonus.


Let's say we gave the AF a 50% Resistance to Neutralization. This would let it keep using Capacitor in scenarios where other ships would simply shrug the Assault Frigate aside.

Is it a "Win" button? No.


Neutralizers - it just means you need another neutralizer to do the same effect. You can still web it to a stand still, but now at least it can run its defensive modules, weapons, etc.

Perhaps a Webifier Resistance? So Webs are only half as effective? Well - that can benefit it in many scenarios without being "overpowered". You could still neutralizer it to turn off its AB/MWD - and the webs would still slow it down - just not as bad. If you neutralized it - then the AB is off, and 1 web is equal to the same as you originally were at with the AB on before the resistance.

The other one is to make it immune to the MWD Off effect of warp scramblers. That would most likely be overpowered and why I didn't recommend it as one of the counters to the Trio of Insta Frigate Death.

Trouble with energy neutralizers?

• Make neutralizers and nosferatus signature dependant.
• Make a role bonus towards cap use on certain modules (AB, MWD, Reppers etc.)
• Increase natural cap recharge or cap amount on assault ships.
• Have assault ships support/promote cap boosters without removing critical tackle/propulsion modules.

Trouble with webifiers and bigger guns?

• Reduce the general signature radious
• Support Afterburners to go faster even when scrambled
• Make Assault Ships go faster in general

There are many creative ideas, however afterburners are the natural counter towards webs...
So no reason to invent artifical web reduction. Tbh getting scrambled and neuted in an assault ship fitting a microwarpdrive is a far worse scenario for an assault ship than getting webbed...

AFs are not supposed to chase down things. They're supposed to kill them after... If you want to support their role with a role bonus you should make them able to run modules like AB, MWD or repairers even when low on cap or promote the use of cap boosters and/or nosferatus.

Pinky

I fly nothing but frigates, and these changes are really really bad imo and might be the only possible thing that could turn me off this game.



To start with - the MWD bonus. From what I've read in here, and the reasons supporting it, this is basically proposed because AF's dont see enough play in null? Well guess what, ceptors don't see that much in low. Both have their uses, and deciding to make AF's into slightly slower / bulkier / more aggressive 'ceptors really isn't a good idea. Yes interceptors aren't the strongest puppies in the frig class, and i could understand people wanting the perfect frigate for the job, but that's the trade off for the speed / sig bonuses. If you gave them the combat stats of the AF class as well, it creates a massive imbalance, which is essentially what's happening here. AF's that can fill interceptors roles will honestly imo not improve the quality of fights, no matter what you think it will achieve.

And that's assuming we are talking about Assault Frigs with their CURRENT statistics.




The bonuses suggested make we wonder if whoever is behind them, actually PLAYS the game or just reads eft stats. Does the Jaguar have the ehp, or dps, or amount of module slots as two rifters put together? Nope not at all. Yet how often do you see a Jag lose to a pair of Rifters ? Is there seriously a Jag pvp'er out there that WOULDN'T engage two Rifters?

There is really a great balance between frigate classes right now. Sure, a couple of them could do with a tune-up (Retribution tbh), and yes, even though Inty's can hold their own in frigate fights, they just aren't quite as sturdy as AssShips. But nearly all frigates serve a role, and provide a lot of freedom and choice between possible set-ups & frig classes for finding one to serve your intended purpose, rather than finding one that can do it all . Why are these changes even being suggested? Everything I've ever read from administration on this game basically states that changes generally have to be brought into play with the goal of improving the game but keeping balance. And as cool as it would be to have superbuffed assault ships that can zoom around the field like 'ceptors, it really does NOT serve towards keeping a balance. Sometimes you just have to look at the bigger picture. I always guess rock, so my immediate reaction is to say that I would love it if rock beat both scissors and paper, but tbh if it did, nobody would ever want to play scissors paper rock.