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Strategic cruiser balance pass

Author
Sylveria Relden
#61 - 2017-04-18 14:55:27 UTC
Jenn aSide wrote:
Eugene Kerner wrote:
I think it's sad that everything has to be "balanced". Different ships for different tasks is what I love.


Balanced doesn't mean "equal", it doesn't mean everything is good at everything.

And ironically, the way T3s are, they kill the "different ships for different tasks" idea.

Need a cloaky ship that can go somewhere and light a covert cyno and survive? Then use a T3C because Recons aren't nullified and can't get near as much EHP.

Need a fleet combat ship with lots of EHP? Screw a battleship (those just get bombed, even if you have defender missile dessies with you), get a Proteus or a Tengu.

Need an exploration ship. We have bonused exploration ships, but screw those, Tengu is better because it can survive the more dangerous sites.

If you love different ships for different tasks you will love EVE after these abominations get fixed.


Agree completely with this, as well as your previous assessment of the distinguished groups of people after the balance pass, which is it will definitively mark the difference between those who fly FOTM versus concept.

It would also be very interesting if CCP released some comparative data on how well the previous balance passes to the ships/tasks previously did now that they've had ample time to accommodate them in the game. How many of the adjustments actually made a difference in the game since the balance passes? Do people still choose T3's as their "go-to" cruisers, or do they now choose a variety of other vessels to pilot (specialty cruisers, battleships, etc.)? They could even go as far as to give statistical information over a period of time showing mission levels and the top chosen ship types for them, etc., which would further establish the justification of a balance pass. (not that they NEED to, since they ultimately make the choices here)

Most people can see the writing on the wall clearly. As to those arguing semantics, or trying to justify avoiding a balance pass- CCP introduced the ships, the training times, the drawbacks, etc... and they can also make adjustments and changes as needed, too. Nothing in this game is "written in stone" and unchangeable. They could even go as far as to remove the modular ships completely- thus establishing an absolute difference in ship choices. (not that this WOULD happen, but it's always a possibility)

What's the motto that's frequently used here? "Adapt to survive"?

TL;DR If you didn't read the entire post perhaps you're probably ADHD. (seek help)

Cade Windstalker
#62 - 2017-04-18 18:21:45 UTC
Rroff wrote:
Cade Windstalker wrote:

Those players will either go off looking for something else to abuse or they'll quit because they were looking for a reason and this is the one they picked. They'll probably go off to some other game with worse balance where they can lord over someone else with something that probably needs to be nerfed.


I see what your problem is.

As an aside games that are balanced to perfection tend to be incredibly bland and short lived a game needs character and texture and that comes from things not being too finely tuned in balance - that isn't necessarily an argument that T3s don't need changing but the changes people often call for won't do what they think they will do.

Regarding loss of players - the number of people complaining about the balance of T3s is minimal while these people themselves are saying what an outcry the kind of nerfs they want will cause - you can guess where the balance of player loss lies.


You seem to have mistaken what I want, and I think also what constitutes a well balanced game.

I don't believe everything will every be "perfectly" balanced. That's an unrealistic goal for a game of any complexity, let alone one as wide and varried as Eve with such a wide ranging and constantly shifting meta. There are things in the game that have stayed in one state for *years* and only became a problem after someone figured out a unique way to abuse them at a certain scale. That's never going to change.

The example I like to bring up for a well balanced but interesting game is Starcraft 2. Generally speaking SC2 and its various incarnations have been quite well balanced but they've also had a lot of variety and Blizzard has continued to make balance changes to them to promote that variety and ensure that multiple options are available to a player at every stage of play and every unit has a use, even if it's not always a very prevalent one. Some units literally only exist to be used in niche strategies or as counters to them. That's fine and the game is one of the best balanced RTS games to ever see competitive play.

I'm all for niche ships and not everything needing the same level of use across all aspects of the game. Some ships are only going to be popular for missioning, Mining ships don't need massive PvP applications, and a ship that's good for solo or small-gang play doesn't need a strong showing in fleets. The problem is that T3Cs are and have been for *years* incredibly prevalent and oppressive across a huge swath of the meta. CCP knows it, most of the players involved in pushing the meta know it, and the CSM has certainly known it for years now.

On that note I think we're taking our samples of player sentiment from *very* different parts of the playerbase. Pretty much every time T3 discussion has come up seriously, especially in Features and Ideas, but even in unrelated ship threads, T3Cs get mentioned, often in the same breath as T3Ds. You don't have to look particularly hard to find people who don't like these ships, whether because they feel forced to use them or just find them frustrating to fight against.

The only time you find people jumping up to defend T3 hulls is when the serious prospect of them being changed or nerfed comes up, but you see this with every change no matter how justified or well supported by available evidence of OP-ness. That doesn't mean that the balance of public opinion lies against the nerf, it means that people are more likely to speak up about something they don't like than something they do.

That's why you see people ranting about how CCP should get around to fixing T3Cs/Ds in unrelated ship or module balance threads, but the T3 support is generally limited to threads explicitly calling for or discussing nerfs.

There were quite a few Reddit threads discussing the leaks from the summer when we first got confirmation that CCP was looking at changing T3Cs. Go take a look and you'll find that the *vast* majority of support is either calling for or assuming a nerf is going to happen.

Rroff wrote:
This is the thing though - we looked at it a lot because outside of casual roams, etc. quite often there are situations where you want those durable fleet ships that can brawl (i.e. Gallente blasters) with atleast a decent chance against the full spectrum of threats in today's Eve.

-snip-

-Proteus - Now we are talking - generic fit it has the EHP to make it survivable, waaay too small sig, reasonable mobility, good damage, not cheap but not so costly its a significant barrier - but then being the top pick it makes it viable to bling out a bit which further turns it from a great choice into a monster.

Nerfing the Proteus does nothing really to shift the balance of power unless you savage it and that doesn't change the fact that the other options are lacking.


See, this is what gets me, you can list off all of those ships that the Proteus is *strictly better than* including several with comparable total hull costs, and look at that and go "nah, it's just fun to fly, it's not imbalanced!"

That's ridiculous and an absolutely blind way of approaching the game and the meta. If a ship is amazing in a way that almost every other ship struggles with, and it's not an amazingly specialized roll that requires a special bonus, that ship is almost certainly OP.
Frostys Virpio
State War Academy
Caldari State
#63 - 2017-04-18 19:41:33 UTC
Rroff wrote:


Nerfing the Proteus does nothing really to shift the balance of power unless you savage it and that doesn't change the fact that the other options are lacking.


Nerfing the Proteus in that case mean you have to make a choice instead of selecting the obvious best answer in your proposed list.
Rroff
Antagonistic Tendencies
#64 - 2017-04-18 20:44:46 UTC  |  Edited by: Rroff
Frostys Virpio wrote:

Nerfing the Proteus in that case mean you have to make a choice instead of selecting the obvious best answer in your proposed list.


Cade Windstalker wrote:

That's ridiculous and an absolutely blind way of approaching the game and the meta. If a ship is amazing in a way that almost every other ship struggles with, and it's not an amazingly specialized roll that requires a special bonus, that ship is almost certainly OP.


Best of luck with that approach - the reality is you'd be ******* in the wind trying to use any other ship the days when say the Brutix, etc. would have been a viable choice for that fairly fundamental game and race role have long gone as the game has developed - yeah you go chose that Megathron* and see what happens ;) typically in those fleet the t1 BCs and BS, etc. get primaried and blapped off the field in short order - the end result of taking the Prot out of that equation is just going to push gameplay even more towards high mobility ranged fleets.



* That isn't to say Mega fleets, etc. aren't viable but that is in a different context where the Prot wouldn't really be an option.
Asmodai Xodai
#65 - 2017-04-18 21:34:25 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:

See, this is what gets me, you can list off all of those ships that the Proteus is *strictly better than* including several with comparable total hull costs, and look at that and go "nah, it's just fun to fly, it's not imbalanced!"

That's ridiculous and an absolutely blind way of approaching the game and the meta. If a ship is amazing in a way that almost every other ship struggles with, and it's not an amazingly specialized roll that requires a special bonus, that ship is almost certainly OP.


That's exactly what jumped out and 'got' me too. I was like 'geez, the guy just listed the next 15 best options available, then threw the proteus in there for comparison, then concluded the proteus was by and large the only thing you'd want to fly when compared to those ships... and then concluded that the proteus isn't OP and shouldn't be nerfed?'
Rroff
Antagonistic Tendencies
#66 - 2017-04-18 21:43:27 UTC  |  Edited by: Rroff
Asmodai Xodai wrote:

That's exactly what jumped out and 'got' me too. I was like 'geez, the guy just listed the next 15 best options available, then threw the proteus in there for comparison, then concluded the proteus was by and large the only thing you'd want to fly when compared to those ships... and then concluded that the proteus isn't OP and shouldn't be nerfed?'


If you actually paid attention I outlined why none of those are a particularly good alternative let alone the next best option for that specific role.

Take away the prot and you are left with a bunch of very poor choices for a fairly fundamental role - some of them might have suited the Eve of yesterday in that role but things have moved on.

In a serious fleet role they need to be able to stand their ground - in a serious engagement the t1 stuff will go down hard, the deimos lacks the ehp to survive fast target switching and the bigger stuff will get blapped by bombing runs, carrier fighters, dreads and so on.
Wanda Fayne
#67 - 2017-04-18 23:45:26 UTC
Rroff wrote:

If you actually paid attention I outlined why none of those are a particularly good alternative let alone the next best option for that specific role.

Take away the prot and you are left with a bunch of very poor choices for a fairly fundamental role - some of them might have suited the Eve of yesterday in that role but things have moved on.


Sounds totally OP to me...
shrugs.

I have a 400k EHP Proti. Nuff said.

I hope CCP follows what they did to the T3 destroyers in the last balance pass. Reducing the subsystem bonus overlaps and giving logical options.

"your comments just confirms this whole idea is totally pathetic" -Lan Wang-

  • - "hub humping station gamey neutral logi warspam wankery" -Ralph King-Griffin-
Asmodai Xodai
#68 - 2017-04-19 00:06:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Asmodai Xodai
Rroff wrote:

If you actually paid attention I outlined why none of those are a particularly good alternative let alone the next best option for that specific role.

Take away the prot and you are left with a bunch of very poor choices for a fairly fundamental role - some of them might have suited the Eve of yesterday in that role but things have moved on.

In a serious fleet role they need to be able to stand their ground - in a serious engagement the t1 stuff will go down hard, the deimos lacks the ehp to survive fast target switching and the bigger stuff will get blapped by bombing runs, carrier fighters, dreads and so on.


Oh I paid attention. That's just it though. You are saying all the other choices are very poor choices blah blah blah. Well SURE they are... of COURSE they are... compared to the Proteus.

I'm not saying this in a mean or insulting way, I'm just saying, you're so blind to the issue here that your brain is automatically skipping over the obvious 'but that's just it!' part of this.

It's like you have a bunch of cavemen back in the stone age with thrusting spears and bow and arrows. But we arm you with handguns and a rifle. And all of a sudden you are saying "what you guys don't understand is that thrusting spears and bows and arrows and blah blah are very poor choices... that's why I use these guns." It's like... what?
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#69 - 2017-04-19 00:20:31 UTC
There are several big issues with T3C.

First is the number of bonuses they are getting ( averages out at 8 bonuses) with most being 10% per level.

Second is the massive tanks they get coupled with the small cruiser sig and ability to run an AB forever. This means on paper they beat most battleships in EHP but in reality they are getting upwards of 3x more effective tank than battleships.

Third is the ability to fit both a cov ops cloak and be nullified at the same time. This makes them effectively unstoppable.

Next is a crazy amount of fitting room these ships have for a cruiser. For example a proteus can be getting 468 CPU and 1820 powergrid while a thorax gets 412.5 CPU and 1025 powergrid. Hilariously the proteus gets more powergrid than the command ships.

The rigs were always a problem as you cant have a ship that can change on the fly when the rigs cant be removed so that was a much needed fix.

The original idea behind these ships was to have a cruiser that was very adaptable, what we got was a pocket battleship that did the job of some 60+ ships only better. In the tiercide plan CCP have these ships slated to land somewhere between t1 and faction cruisers so given where they are today T3C are in for one hell of a beating from the nerf bat.
Khan Wrenth
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#70 - 2017-04-19 00:34:15 UTC
baltec1 wrote:
The rigs were always a problem as you cant have a ship that can change on the fly when the rigs cant be removed so that was a much needed fix.

Ah, one of my favorite forum regulars! Good to see you.

I have a question about the quote above. I don't keep up with places like Reddit where stuff like this probably already got hashed out, but your reference to the rigs seems oddly phrased, or very deliberately phrased.

"...that was a much needed fix"

That makes it sound like something already happened. I'm not aware of any announced balance changes for T3C yet. So are T3 ships getting rigs removed completely? I remember someone on the forums long ago made a very convincing argument for removing rigs from T3 ships. Is that something CCP is going to do?
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#71 - 2017-04-19 00:44:29 UTC
Khan Wrenth wrote:
baltec1 wrote:
The rigs were always a problem as you cant have a ship that can change on the fly when the rigs cant be removed so that was a much needed fix.

Ah, one of my favorite forum regulars! Good to see you.

I have a question about the quote above. I don't keep up with places like Reddit where stuff like this probably already got hashed out, but your reference to the rigs seems oddly phrased, or very deliberately phrased.

"...that was a much needed fix"

That makes it sound like something already happened. I'm not aware of any announced balance changes for T3C yet. So are T3 ships getting rigs removed completely? I remember someone on the forums long ago made a very convincing argument for removing rigs from T3 ships. Is that something CCP is going to do?


Plan so far is to have them be removable like any other mod.
Cade Windstalker
#72 - 2017-04-19 04:03:41 UTC
Rroff wrote:
Best of luck with that approach - the reality is you'd be ******* in the wind trying to use any other ship the days when say the Brutix, etc. would have been a viable choice for that fairly fundamental game and race role have long gone as the game has developed - yeah you go chose that Megathron* and see what happens ;) typically in those fleet the t1 BCs and BS, etc. get primaried and blapped off the field in short order - the end result of taking the Prot out of that equation is just going to push gameplay even more towards high mobility ranged fleets.



* That isn't to say Mega fleets, etc. aren't viable but that is in a different context where the Prot wouldn't really be an option.


That's called a trade-off. If you want tons of EHP you sacrifice other things for it. If you want tons of speed, you sacrifice other things for it.

If you can get all of the things at once the ship is OP.

You also seem to have missed that a good chunk of the ships out there being kitey and playing the high-mobility ranged game are, in fact, T3Cs, and you're overly focused on the Proteus and what you can get away with in a fleet setting with Medium Blasters. That's a bit of a square peg you're trying to jam into that round hole.

Basically you seem to be salty that the meta currently favors kitey ships, and your 10km range Medium Blasters aren't measuring up. Welcome to the meta, don't let it hit you anywhere sensitive. It'll swing around eventually to something friendly to your preferred style of play, in the meantime I suggest adapting or stepping away from it.
Rroff
Antagonistic Tendencies
#73 - 2017-04-19 05:02:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Rroff
Cade Windstalker wrote:

That's called a trade-off. If you want tons of EHP you sacrifice other things for it. If you want tons of speed, you sacrifice other things for it.

If you can get all of the things at once the ship is OP.

You also seem to have missed that a good chunk of the ships out there being kitey and playing the high-mobility ranged game are, in fact, T3Cs, and you're overly focused on the Proteus and what you can get away with in a fleet setting with Medium Blasters. That's a bit of a square peg you're trying to jam into that round hole.

Basically you seem to be salty that the meta currently favors kitey ships, and your 10km range Medium Blasters aren't measuring up. Welcome to the meta, don't let it hit you anywhere sensitive. It'll swing around eventually to something friendly to your preferred style of play, in the meantime I suggest adapting or stepping away from it.


Trade off lol no matter the trade off you don't get something suited to the role which is the point of what I'm saying. The rest is just wrong and an assumption on your part - as anyone who has actually played with me could verify.

I was talking about the fleet blaster prot because it is the one brought up most often in this thread.
Coralas
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#74 - 2017-04-19 06:17:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Coralas
baltec1 wrote:


The original idea behind these ships was to have a cruiser that was very adaptable, what we got was a pocket battleship that did the job of some 60+ ships only better. In the tiercide plan CCP have these ships slated to land somewhere between t1 and faction cruisers so given where they are today T3C are in for one hell of a beating from the nerf bat.


For the proteus, that would give you the option of a deimos that requires a whole new skill tree or a stratios that requires a whole new skill tree, level 5 skills and has no cargo capacity.

Which has to go into a hauler mode to carry enough gear to do the clark kent thing at destination, and then when it does, its going to barf up a ton of stuff that it has to leave at a depot or your local docking option if you've got it because the flexibility doesn't fit in the cargo without expanders and a cruiser with expanders is not a combat fit.

I also think it has ramifications for the current "most systems are occupied" phenomenon in null (ie a great many systems became useful to run anoms and escalate from, after CCP changed the composition of ihub generated anoms in bad truesec systems - along with the sov changes).

If the covert/nullified ship isn't good enough to actually do the escalation anymore, most people would be far keener on abusing the predictability of the walker to keep the escalation in blue space - ie cluster up into the same old deadends they used to and fly an interceptor to the citadel containing their rattlesnake when they get an escalation, which might have to be moved 1 or 2 jumps tops. I certainly wouldn't do what I did before, which is go fetch them from red space.
Salvos Rhoska
#75 - 2017-04-19 07:12:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Salvos Rhoska
Whatever changes are made need to consider solo/duo combat explorers and nomads (whether PvP or PvE driven) as well.

In the current ship trees, T3Cs are the optimal choice for that.
The game lacks an equivalent to the SoE exploration line for PvE combat purposes.
TC3s fill that role, albeit with a higher cost and the risk of SP loss.
Gimme Sake
State War Academy
Caldari State
#76 - 2017-04-19 10:26:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Gimme Sake
Salvos Rhoska wrote:
Whatever changes are made need to consider solo/duo combat explorers and nomads (whether PvP or PvE driven) as well.

In the current ship trees, T3Cs are the optimal choice for that.
The game lacks an equivalent to the SoE exploration line for PvE combat purposes.
TC3s fill that role, albeit with a higher cost and the risk of SP loss.



Why should SoE have an equivalent pve exploration ship when they're pretty much specialised for that purpose? Not to mention that you can, also, get at least decent pvp fits for Astero or Stratios.

There are way too many aspects of the game where T3 cruisers are by far the best option available.

I agree that, like the name strategic implies, they should be a valid option, just not the best. Especially when there are ships designed for the respective role.

"Never not blob!" ~ Plato

Salvos Rhoska
#77 - 2017-04-19 11:04:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Salvos Rhoska
Gimme Sake wrote:
Why should SoE have an equivalent pve exploration ship when they're pretty much specialised for that purpose?


Why do you ask me?
I never claimed there should be.

I pointed out that there isn't, and that T3Cs fill that role.

Asteros/Stratios are quite poor at combat pve.
They are data/relic optimised.
baltec1
Bat Country
Pandemic Horde
#78 - 2017-04-19 11:20:55 UTC
Coralas wrote:


For the proteus, that would give you the option of a deimos that requires a whole new skill tree or a stratios that requires a whole new skill tree, level 5 skills and has no cargo capacity.


More like between a thorax and a navy exequror

Coralas wrote:

Which has to go into a hauler mode to carry enough gear to do the clark kent thing at destination


Nah. You don't need a huge number of mods to radically change the ship.

Coralas wrote:

I also think it has ramifications for the current "most systems are occupied" phenomenon in null (ie a great many systems became useful to run anoms and escalate from, after CCP changed the composition of ihub generated anoms in bad truesec systems - along with the sov changes).

If the covert/nullified ship isn't good enough to actually do the escalation anymore, most people would be far keener on abusing the predictability of the walker to keep the escalation in blue space - ie cluster up into the same old deadends they used to and fly an interceptor to the citadel containing their rattlesnake when they get an escalation, which might have to be moved 1 or 2 jumps tops. I certainly wouldn't do what I did before, which is go fetch them from red space.


Quite frankly I'm not too bothered if this makes doing things like 10/10s harder and riskier. If fewer run them then supply of the rewards drops and the people who do put in the time and effort get greater reward. I honestly think exploration was swung too far towards being easy.

Gimme Sake
State War Academy
Caldari State
#79 - 2017-04-19 11:33:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Gimme Sake
Salvos Rhoska wrote:
Gimme Sake wrote:
Why should SoE have an equivalent pve exploration ship when they're pretty much specialised for that purpose?


Why do you ask me?
I never claimed there should be.

I pointed out that there isn't, and that T3Cs fill that role.

Asteros/Stratios are quite poor at combat pve.
They are data/relic optimised.


You still have the Gila for combat exploration if Stratios isn't enough dps for you. Some hacs do pretty well also. Yeah you can't run 10/10 ded in them but that should be battleship/marauder or team up business.

"Never not blob!" ~ Plato

Rroff
Antagonistic Tendencies
#80 - 2017-04-19 12:14:28 UTC
Gimme Sake wrote:
or team up business.


A lot of it should purely be in the realm of team up business - that is half of what is wrong with this game :s