EVE General Discussion

Introduction: I am player that stopped playing EVE online around February this year due to non game related reason at that time, I wouldn't mind to play it again but don't feel like getting into a game whose developer is leaving imbalanced aspects of it to linger on for year/years (friend allowed me to post this from his account if you wonder how can I write this). This summer I was offered 5 days of free time by CCP and as I played game for those few days this is what I encountered http://postimage.org/image/2i2sq0xtw/
There were some nice changes to starting missions for new players, new turrets and captain quarter thing that only lags game for me and doesn't offer something of use, that is not to say that new things aren't welcomed to the game but these changes improve little in terms of actual joy that game can provide while as showed in screen shot above dramiel imbalance that wasn't fixed for was it a year now? is completely ruining entire frigate pvp aspect of it.
So as I talked with CCP customer support guy (one who offered me that free play time) about why I quit eve, I came upon this idea that could possibly improve quality of EVE, he told me that he forwarded it to CCP dev's but since I got feeling that it will probably be ignored I decided to make forum post about it and see if EVE community would like this to be approach that CCP should take towards there game, I named it ...

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Jist of it is that CCP takes new approach towards game balance by focusing on easy to implement changes with series of frequent mini-patches. It starts when...

CCP makes big announcement on EVE login screen and on website/forums about new way to approach game balance, while asking there player base to participate in it to improve EVE for us all.

A decision is made what will be current target of balance focus.

For example decision is made that frigates will be current focus groups and few sticky topics are made with names like
BALANCE FOCUS: Dramiel
BALANCE FOCUS: Electronic Attack Ships
These are purpose specific topics with certain rules such as:

-Only balance suggestion posts can be made.
-Posts have to relate to target of current balance focus.
-Try to contain all your suggestions to a single post (edit and re-edit it if needed).
-State your reason for why you want specific change, what do you expect out of it and how do you see it affecting the state of a game.
-All the posts that are off the topic will be deleted, so that purpose of the balance focus is maintained and that topic isn't derailed by chatter about unrelated things.

CCP dev (that has a clue about this area of game) collects ideas that players propose, you guys decide what would be sensible thing to do and weights player made suggestions with your own. Small patch is written which changes/adds small things about current balance focus item like stats, bonuses etc. Patch is uploaded to SISI and players+devs test it for few weeks seeing how new changes fair in the game, new sticky topic during testing phase is posted for sake of collecting feedback, adjustments are made where needed and after few weeks mini patch is deployed on TRANQUILLITY.


After first item of balance focus has been changed CCP can make a pool for all different things that need addressing to see what players want, what game needs so that it can be next target of balance focus. So every few weeks to a month new area of game is fixed for the enjoyment of the players and bigger bank account of CCP:)

Exsamples (dont nitpick them that isnt point of this post these are just possible things to give idea of what could be done):
BALANCE FOCUS: Dramiel (removes drones nerfs tank)
BALANCE FOCUS: EAS (speed buff, minor tweeks to individual ships)
BALANCE FOCUS: Faction Warfare (changes ship restrictions on beacons adds LP gain on them, gives bonus to faction per amount of systems they control etc. in order to add fuel back to FW)
BALANCE FOCUS : Super Carriers (no clue I dont play in 0.0 but surely this community has lot of great ideas)
BALANCE FOCUS: X (x being what ever is needed)



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CCP I am not game developer and perhaps I am missing the point of why this approach couldn't be taken but I do know that...

-I can mod a ship in single player space game in matter of minutes, it is obvious this wont work for MMO where ideas have to be collected/discussed, patch written and tested only to be deployed later on but it should be done in weeks and not years
-That other gaming company's are patching there online games regularly, some even on weekly basis by adding new content, balancing old one, fixing bugs and some times putting all 3 type of changes in a single patch.
-That if gross lack of balance pushed me away from playing it that I am not the only one who sees things this way, meaning that if you get me back to game that certainly there would be other players who see things the same way and would return to EVE or perhaps not quit it if they are thinking about it now.
-That in "light" of recent bad publicity that CCP got on different pc gaming websites, this would be a great way to reverse that with probably much less effort then what it takes to build whole new aspect of game, show that you care about your community and if you succeed in making this a well balanced game that it would pay off in future since word of mouth from satisfied customer is a great advertisement.

o7

Then I come in and ask the following question:


What counters the dramiel?

rocketboats that allways hit it? They are all too slow to actually hold'em down.

gunboats? Dram's too fast so it can reliably get under the guns.

upsizing? Then the problem is catching and holding, once again

Daredevil? Maybe, but if it doesn't catch the dramiel almost instantly, it cant tank the dramiel for very long and it cant shoot out where it needs to to efficiently counter AB drams.

Kitsune? Dram runs,

Sentinel? Sure it can neut the dram to kingdome come, dram dont need cap to shoot so it uses its own drones and guns and removes sentinels drones and removes at the same time 100% of sentinels' dps.

Hyena? ...People fly this?

Keres? Don't think so!


all in all, a good dram pilot does not have a counter, and for people like me who have a passion for getting into a frig and go solo, this is infuriating as the only drams you kill are dramiel pilots with an IQ of about your average doorknob.






And please don't get me started on blasters.

EDIT: Maybe a ishkur could handle a dramiel as a efficient counter. Except it cant catch it.

Lets not turn this into dramiel discussion that wasn't the reason for writing of this topic. I just used dramiels to point of one of many imbalanced areas that this game has.

If this or something alike this ever comes to fruition focus of balance should be anything from:

Any kind of frigate/ship that is out of line be it that it is over or under powered, blasters, supercaps, FW, possibly something in relation to pve.....

To adress some of the things that were mantioned above, FOTM(onth) wouldnt be such an issue as long as it doesnt turn into FOTY(year) and rock-paper-scissors system is what I would like to see in this game so that it truly boils down to players ingenuity to counter his opponent be it with ship, fitting or fleet composition but right now we got rock-paper-scissors-BAZOOKA!!!

lol missionrunning in tama just lol.

The cruisers, battleships, Black ops as a class could use some love.

Frigates are probably the most balanced class. Dramiels are powerfull but they can be killed with Daredevils, Hookbills. A variety of t2 frigates and destroyers can fight them off. Plus I think they are going to be nerfed anyway.

One last bump to see if people take notice and like this idea.