EVE Information Portal

Nice long Devblog - Don't forget the final touch on hybrids and nerfing the retardedly tier 3 battlecruiser stats though...

- Removing balance based on tiers is a great improvement on the game. Will give better variety and gameplay for sure.
- Splitting destroyers and batlecruisers makes sense, but sounds like a scheme to nerf skill heavy veterans. Bahh.
- Plz make sure the new BC skills have lower "training time modifier" as those were put high due to being an omni skill.
- For branching into T2 ships plz keep the level 5 skill requirements on the T1 counterpart.

Pinky

They're removing the tier system?!?

Does this mean I won?

Please tell me I won!

CCP MUST answer:

Does "Fly today what you could fly yesterday" mean you will fly it AS WELL as you did yesterday?

Or are we going to be flying crippled ships?

I think it is relatively straightforward to envision how ships across a class get balanced. The Cyclone receives a dps and HP boost to bring it in line with the Hurricane. The Stabber gets additional slots and the stats to make use of them so it isn't horribly gimped relative to a nano Rupture.

How should balancing within a line work out? According to the blog:

Look at the Stabber hull. If you compare today's Stabber Fleet Issue to the Stabber, you see that the SFI is a "plain improvement" over the Stabber in every way except the utility high slot loss and the CPU/slot ratio. The Vagabond, however, is an improvement over the Stabber in two significant ways:

1. The Vagabond is a better "attack vessel" than the Stabber, that is, it is more capable of skirmishing. It has the falloff bonus and a higher speed.
2. The Vagabond is a "plain improvement" over the Stabber. It is higher DPS, higher EHP, higher targeting range, higher sensor strength, and generally is just better (except cargo capacity and sig radius, two stats that might actually help with its role as a skirmisher).

I think the difference between T2 and T1 should include aspects of #1, that the Vagabond is superior to the Stabber in its defined role; but not aspects of #2, that the Vagabond should be a "plain improvement" over the Stabber. Hopefully Inferno is accompanied by some economic rebalancing to accompany the ship rebalancing, as the price premium for a Vagabond over a DPS/EHP equivalent Stabber is far too large today.

That isn't to say that T2 should not have more EHP or DPS than T1. A T2 "combat ship" should definitely be able to tank harder than a T1 "combat ship". A T2 "bombardment ship" should be able to out-DPS a T1 equivalent at the same range, or out-range the T1 ship at the same DPS. But the improvement that the T2 ship delivers over the T1 equivalent should be focused on its ship line role, not on being a broad-based "plain improvement". You should also make sure that the faction ships are not better than the T2 ships at their supposed specializations.

How are those T2 BPOs doing? You mad that T2 BPOs for Triage Modules and Siege Modules aren't in your hangar?

Okay so here is some ideas on how this total revamp can go...

Every category of ship size needs 5 ships: Combat, Attack, Bombard, Support, and Logi

Remove the miner frigates (as a class) and make mining barge trainable on trail accounts but prevent them from using retrievers my giving the retriever a requirement that cant be trained by trials like astrogeo or something. Finally the procuror has a place in the world.

The old miner frigates will now become logi ships that have bonuses to fitting small reppers and boosters

dessies need 4 more ships and BCs need 3 more, and BS need 2 more...

T2 will now have 5 classes as well and each of them will have 2 ships
T2 combat will be like the current AF
T2 attack is the current inty
T2 bombard would be similar to bombers
T2 support is EAS
T2 logi is...well logi

The two versions are as such: for the 3 main combat roles you have the different weapon specializations:
Amarr = laser/missile
Caldari = missile/hybrid
Gallente = hybrid/drone
Minmatar = proj/missile

The support ships will be be split ewar systems
Amarr = Neut/TD
Caldari = ECM/??? maybe a new missile disruptor type module to replace defender missiles
Gallente = point/SD
Minmatar = Web/TP

Logi will be split between "ECCM" and repair
Amarr = Tracking links/Armor
Caldari = ECCM/shields
Gallente = remote sebo/armor
Minmatar = new remote sig radius lower thingy/shields

Current covops will meld into support and bombardment (cov ops and bomber)

Current recon will become support

Current HACs will be cut into T2 Combat and T2 Attack ships (Sacril and Zealot respectively)

Current command ships will be made under the support role

Current logi will no longer fit large reppers but now fit reppers that match the ship size (yes this means a BS sized logi)

HICs will move into the T2 Attack role and could be moved up to battleship in size since they ARE meant to counter super caps after all...

this means we'll have an utter EXPLOSION of new ships

75 ships per race not including cargo ships, capitals and the rookie ship

balance between frig and dessy and cruiser and BC should be made in a way that they are simply bigger but also slower versions of the same, two cruisers should be able to compete with a BC

Also a suggestion is to make a new ship size between BC and BS that fits only 4 or 5 large guns (which bumps the number of ships for each race to 90)

Sadly I think this would largely kill off some of the variety we have in ship fittings as there will be so many different ships that fitting a ship to not do it's role will be even more silly with the existence of a ship that DOES do that role.

Perhaps a lot of the T1 ships should be generic enough that they can move around in role but the T2 variations should very explicitly be made to only do the role they are made for.

Oh almost forgot, navy ships should be like meta 2-3 versions and pirate ships should be like meta 4 if not meta 7 to match their module counter parts

speaking of morons, LOL at all the people bitching when nothing has been decided yet. Guess some people think "high level" discussions as being written in stone.

Looks interesting. Definitely am interested in seeing what the final changes look like -- how the skills will be reimbursed, if at all, and what the new skill requirements will be. Do have some concern about training times and utility. For example, command ships are quite specialized, and some are of decidedly limited utility (i.e. Eos). Less of a concern about interdictors. But the overall idea seems sound. Way back when I was first training for them, it did seem rather odd that battlecruiser skills were independent of the usual racial progression.

I'm not sure why changing skill requirements is a necessary part of ship balancing forr the most part, however, but am not going to complain, and it does make sense in some instances.

While you're redoing skills, it may be a good idea to insert related skills into skill descriptions so that players can know which additional skills they may want to train. For example, referencing Nanite Operation and Nanite Interfacing into the description for the Thermodynamics skill might be useful.

Anyways, looks like a well-thought-out change overall.

nonononononNONONONONONOONO

DONT DONT DONT


















NEINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN NONONONNO

THIS IS AN AWFUL IDEA

It changes years of everyone training this skill to get into capital ships, so now its changed to a much quicker process to make capital/supercapital alts and or mains that in my opinion is the dumbest change thats listed here.