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New dev blog: Rebalancing EVE, one ship at a time

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Gripen
#541 - 2012-03-06 20:57:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Gripen
DevBlog wrote:
... stuff ...

Sometimes I think you guys are reading my mind =) ... but some of details seems to be lost during transition. Is it OK if I plug one idea here?

I like concept of turning current skill tree into "skill grid" where one dimension is a Frigate > Cruiser > ... progression and the other is ship line skills or for weapon skills one direction would be Small Turret > Medium Turret > Large Turret and the second could be generic gunnery skills.

Other part of idea I had is to revitalize learning skill approach where training one skill gives training speed bonus to the other skills and then remove fixed skill requirements. Imagine that you wouldn't need to train for example Small Artillery Specialization to start training Medium Artillery Specialization but Small Artillery Specialization would give additional bonuses to training speed of Medium and Large specializations so training them from the start would be unoptimal. Same principle should apply to the other dimension, for example for ships: Assault Ships skill would give additional bonus to training speed of all racial frigate skills.

With those two changes character advancement will become more interesting with new planning dilemmas: whatever to train for bigger ships\weapons straight away or use standard progression which will yield maximum possible skill points/time in the end; and whatever to skill "horizontally" for choosen race ships and their weapons or to pick preferred ship class and train "vertically" all ships from all races belonging to chosen class.
Jessy Berbers
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#542 - 2012-03-06 20:58:37 UTC
I do NOT agree with these changes at all...
It is silly as i am one of those players who is now finnaly teethering on wanting cross train and thus these changes will only make it even more annoying for me to get into a different races ships.

For instance, with the current system i would be able to train just proj weapons up to t2 small variants and fly a destroyer, and then for the medium size do the exact same thing but fly a rather viable BC.

But with your planned new system, this will make it needlessly difficult to get into these other races and fly the ships proficiently and not just be a sitting duck while skills train up, or just forced to use ships from the previous race while training up the other.

This also means, getting used to the new races weapon systems the ships themselfs also being just a chore.

Instead of a nice smooth transition without having to worry all to much about Destroyer skills, BC skills and the like.

LEAVE THE SKILL SYSTEM ALONE!

Greets

Jessy
Aase Nord
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#543 - 2012-03-06 20:58:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Aase Nord
Steve Ronuken wrote:
Aase Nord wrote:
Liang Nuren wrote:
Aase Nord wrote:
So... My dear CCP devs.....
I can fly all races T3 cruisers...
and comandships...
with perfect leadership skills...
What am I going to loose ?


CCP Soundwave has repeatedly said you'll lose nothing. I suspect that you may lose ISK when you get podded because it'll push your total SP high enough to need a new clone type! :P

-Liang


Thank you for that ansver....
But....
I would like to hear that from CCP Smile


Go back to the first post. then read all the dev responses. profit.


Dont know why.....
but I have a feeling this will end bad for me..... Sad
Bruce McRaven
Doomheim
#544 - 2012-03-06 20:59:33 UTC
This has the potential to become super awesome

Please don't screw it CCP! Blink
Kingwood
I N E X T R E M I S
Tactical Narcotics Team
#545 - 2012-03-06 20:59:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Kingwood
I can fly all 4 races' BCs - as long as I'm not required to skill another 3 months in order to fly the ships I have in my hangar I'm fine with the change.

However, I don't agree at all with the proposed role changes. While removing the Tier system is something I've been advocating for a long time, you're trying to now force all ships into a certain role which will not work and goes against everything Eve stands for.

For instance, why do you classify a Megathron as an "Attack vessel" when you could also plate it up and have it function as a "Combat vessel"? What I'm afraid of you're going to do with your proposed changes is take away the freedom and creativity of fitting ships away from the players and forcing them down a single line.

Staying with the Megathron example, I have flown it both nano'd ("Attack vessel" style) and plated ("Combat vessel" style). I do not want to be forced to fit it according to someone's arbitrary design decision. Why is the Scorpion classified as a "Support vessel" when I can also fit it as a nice 700 dps, 95k EHP brawler? Where is the "Anti-tackle" role, if you're gonna go along with this?

The proposed changes remind me of World of Warcraft - being forced down a class route with little to no deviation. So yeah, rethink this, because it won't work the way you imagine it will work out.

Removing tiers is good, no question there. Forcing arbitrary, limiting roles upon ships is bad.

Edit: Also, the reason some ships are not flown has NOTHING TO DO AT ALL with EHP and available fitting slots.
Vanessa Vansen
Vandeo
#546 - 2012-03-06 21:00:01 UTC  |  Edited by: Vanessa Vansen
well, how about something else ...

Common Skills: (one for all, not one for each race!)
Frigate -> Destroyer -> Cruiser -> Battlecruiser -> Battleship -> Carrier/Dreadnought -> Titan
Frigate -> Industrial -> Freighter -> Jump Freighter

So, with those skills you know how to fly ships in general, however you need to know how to fly, e.g. Amarr ships ...

Amarr Control Systems
Caldari Control Systems
Gallente Control Systems
Minmatar Control Systems

edit: forgot Ore Control Systems

* inspired by T3 subsystems
* easier to spread between races

edit2: page 28 already, somebody hit a weak spot Big smile
Adunh Slavy
#547 - 2012-03-06 21:00:51 UTC
CCP Soundwave wrote:

No one is saying you have to retrain them. Our principle for the reimbursement here will be "if you could fly it yesterday, you can still fly it today". Ytterbium will post the further details of this once it's written up.



Yay!

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.  - William Pitt
Edward Olmops
Gunboat Commando
#548 - 2012-03-06 21:00:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Edward Olmops
What about making this Ship Type/Faction-Skill thing a matrix?

Skills:

Hull Size Skills:
Frigates - Rank 1
Destroyers - Rank 2
Cruisers - Rank 3
Battlecruisers - Rank 4
Battleships - Rank 5

Race Skills:
Amarr Small Spaceship Design - Rank 1
Amarr Medium Spaceship Design - Rank 3
Amarr Large Spaceship Design - Rank 5
[...]

Specialized Role Skills:
Heavy Assault Ships
Logistics
Black Ops
[...]

Each ship could have the bonuses tied directly to the skills like
Vexor
Cruiser Skill: +5% Hybrid Damage (more generic medium hull bonus)
Gallente Medium Spaceship Design: 10% Drone HP & damage (Gallentean style bonus)

Ishtar
Cruiser Skill: +5% Hybrid Damage
Gallente Medium Spaceship Design: 10% Drone HP & damage
Heavy Assault Ships: +50m³ Drone Bay, +5km Drone Control Range (special role bonus)

Effects on skilling difficulty:

Single frigate before change: Rank 2
after: Rank 2

Single cruiser before: Rank 5
after: Rank 6
[...]

Training the first ship/race combination becomes slightly more difficult, but cross-training becomes easier.
If you start to cross-train, you already have the generic bonus.
Effects on reimbursement:

1. Destroyer and Battlecruiser skill stay as they are.

2. Frigate, Cruiser and Battleship skill will be SPLIT UP like this:

assuming you have Amarr Cruisers so far:
Amarr Cruisers V - Rank 5 = 1.280.000 SP

first the generic skill is learned to the original level (always possible, since the rank is lower)
Cruisers V - Rank 3 = 768.000 SP

rest goes to Amarr Medium Spaceship Command which will end up on level IV
1.280.000 SP - 768.000 SP = 512.000 SP

If someone has cross-trained, the second and further skills will be set to their original level. Remaining skill points will be used to get the first race skill back to original level, the rest is reimbursed.

If the sample char would have had Gallente cruiser as well, these 1.280.000 SP are automatically used to buy Gallente Medium Spaceship Design V (Rank 3) -> 768.000 SP gone.
of the remaining 512.000 SP, 256.000 SP are used to bring Amarr Medium Spaceship Design to V.
-> 256.000 SP free SP reimbursed

so someone who had level V on something before will end up either with the new ship skills at IV/V (not so big a loss if 1 out of 2 bonuses is a bit lower) OR
(if he had cross-trained) with exactly the same abilities plus some free SP.
In the worst case a veteran player (all T1 skills maxed out) could get a stunning 4.352.000 SP reimbursed through this operation since the total number of required skill ranks for T1 spaceship command drops from 68 to 51.

What about skill reqirements?
Will anyone not be able to fly something he could have flown before?
(assuming you always need lvl IV to get to the next skill as indicated in the Dev Blog)
Skills would have separate requirements, i.e. Amarr Medium Spaceship Design would require Amarr Small Spaceship Design IV as a prerequisite whereas Cruisers would require Destroyers IV.

It might now be that some characters do not meet the requirements for higher skills that they already have, because for example they left out Battlecruisers and trained Battleships directly.
In this case, the SP would have to be applied to the necessary prerequisites first.

(hey, anyone still following? Lol)

Example 1:
I have concentrated on Battlecruisers (worst case, no crosstraining, minimum SP on lower tiers).

old:
Amarr Frigates IV - 90.510 SP
Amarr Cruisers III - 40.000 SP
Battlecruisers V - 1.536.000 SP
total: 1.666.510 SP

new:
Frigates IV - 45.255
Amarr Small Spaceship Design - 45.255 SP
Cruisers IV (required for Battlecruisers) - 135.765 SP
Amarr Medium Spaceship Design - 135.765
Battlecruisers V - 1.024.000 SP (rank reduced from 6 to 4, these extra SP come handy here)
total: 1.386.040 SP (would leave 280.470 free SP)

It is slightly worse if the example pilot would have only Battlecruisers IV, because this would only "free" 90.510 SP, but these would still be sufficient to buy the required Amarr Medium Spaceship Design IV.
Odd side effect: the sample pilot is better at flying Amarr Cruisers after the change...
Worst case actually is if you only have Cruisers III and Battlecruisers I in which case you would lose the ability to fly Battlecruisers... but in that case we are talking about just a day or so to get back this precious Battlecruiser I skill after having finished Amarr Medium Spaceship Design IV...


Example 2:
Focus on Battleships, no cross-training, left out everything else.

old:
Amarr Frigate IV - 90.510 SP
Amarr Cruiser IV - 226.275 SP
Amarr Battleship V - 2.048.000 SP

new:
Frigates IV - 45.255
Amarr Small Spaceship Design - 45.255 SP
Cruisers IV - 135.765 SP
Amarr Medium Spaceship Design - 135.765
Battlecruisers IV - 181.020 SP (rank reduced from 6 to 4)
Battleships V - 1.280.000
Amarr Large Spaceship Design IV - 226.275 (dropped 1 level)
total: 2.049.335 (plus 315.450 extra skill points)


Again, only one skill drops one level.
(you might lose Battleship at all if you don't have Battlecruisers IV and only Battleship I or so. But again, then we're only talking about very few skill points to get the ability back)

Cap skills:
requirements unaffected - lvl V can only drop to IV. So either you could fly Caps that all require Battleship V before the change - then you will still be able after. If not, you still can't fly them, but maybe you now meet the requirements to buy the skill (only IV required as indicated in the Dev Blog)
Tinkietoo
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#549 - 2012-03-06 21:02:44 UTC
Val Vherosan wrote:
World of Spaceships!

This is revolution not evolution and chances are that everything will be horribly unbalanced if this happens - judging on how well CCP knows their own ship types.

But the real question is if this is really, really the best you can do CCP? While the player base is screaming for the next Apocrypha do you honestly think this is the best way to spend your precious development time?



this: World of Spaceships!

Next step = premium spaceships?
Edward Olmops
Gunboat Commando
#550 - 2012-03-06 21:03:02 UTC
Vanessa Vansen wrote:
well, how about something else ...

Common Skills: (one for all, not one for each race!)
Frigate -> Destroyer -> Cruiser -> Battlecruiser -> Battleship -> Carrier/Dreadnought -> Titan
Frigate -> Industrial -> Freighter -> Jump Freighter

So, with those skills you know how to fly ships in general, however you need to know how to fly, e.g. Amarr ships ...

Amarr Control Systems
Caldari Control Systems
Gallente Control Systems
Minmatar Control Systems

edit: forgot Ore Control Systems

* inspired by T3 subsystems
* easier to spread between races


Same idea as mine... Shocked
Dammit! Lol
As always in EVE.... maneuvering for hours to write the post and then someone else is 10 seconds faster... -.-
Alunis
Focused Annihilation
#551 - 2012-03-06 21:04:03 UTC
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
The skill requirement changes for destroyers and battlecruisers is very tricky to tackle indeed. We fully acknowledge having to re-train for ships you can already fly is not appealing at all.

As said in the blog, nothing is set in stone yet, we are considering various reimbursement options as this is still quite a high level change.

EDIT SO PEOPLE CAN SEE IT:

  • New destroyer and battlecruiser skills would be same rank than existing ones
  • We have a "if you could fly it before, you can fly it now" philosophy, that means properly reimbursing/giving skills not to leave people stranded in ships they could fly before the change. Again, nothing is fixed yet.


After reading this Devblob I am absolutely annoyed at the idea that CCP would think after all these years that they could pull off pushing separate skill trees for Destroyers and Battlecruisers after so many of us have cross trained to be able to fly most if not all the races as we've built up our characters over the last 7 to 8 years.

My 8yo alt can fly nearly every subcapital and by this looks of this blog post this means that CCP is going to shaft me and many like me because they've decided there needs to be a skill point sink due to all the people that have tons of skills trained already and now they want to make it where there is more to train so that people don't skill cap so quickly.

This change for me means I will no longer be playing Eve. I'm not about to waste my time having to spend months training for three other races that I already have several implant sets for and have invested billions in ships, fittings, and implant sets for command ships due to training up all the other cruiser skills and weapons skills to match them.

This meant I spent all this time training up shield and armor tanking skills, weapons skills, and ship skills for absolutely nothing when I could have just focused on training a specific race instead and not have invested in other racial ships and implants to support those ships.

What a total waste of time.
Rhaegar Thrax
Dark Fusion Industries
#552 - 2012-03-06 21:04:08 UTC
As I'm currently taking classes in automatisation and programming, I can appreciate how making a simple framework for a given system, will make your life that much easier, when you want to expand and add to that system.

This is great news CCP, and will probably help you out a great deal in the future, even if there's a lot of work the coming months.
Hanakar
NIGARU PBR
#553 - 2012-03-06 21:04:09 UTC
If some of the prerequisites for T2 ships are going to be removed, I think you have to do a full skill reset, or at least have the option. If you no longer need to have Assault Ships and Heavy Assault Ships to get to Command ships, who would have trained those skills up if all they wanted was to go straight to Command. No one. Those are now wasted skill points.


Do whatever is necessary to keep us flying what we now have, then give us the option for a full reset to work some of this stuff out.
Raneru
Viper-Squad
Pandemic Horde
#554 - 2012-03-06 21:04:35 UTC
I cant wait for the Eve Newsletter email that proudly tells me that in the upcoming exciting expansion I'll be able to fly 15 less ships! Lol
Grey Stormshadow
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#555 - 2012-03-06 21:05:08 UTC  |  Edited by: Grey Stormshadow
Sounds like justified plan - green light on.

Just keep in mind that training skills up to level 5 should always provide something extra for the ship regardless if you're flying tech 1 or 2... So check that ship specific bonuses are in order when you do the changes. This includes spaceship command and advanced spaceship command skills together with other support skills.

Get classic forum style - custom videos to captains quarters screen

Play with the best - die like the rest
Messilina
People's Front of Matar
#556 - 2012-03-06 21:05:23 UTC
Why not just go ahead and do what you want to do anyway regardless of what anyone thinks. We all know that you're just progressively buttering up the players to switch to a level system where you can buy experience via plexes and implimenting p2w. Just make sure you add dungeons and player respawns while youre at it, and make sure to replace the market with an auction house full of naked dancing Brutor women.
Vanessa Vansen
Vandeo
#557 - 2012-03-06 21:05:44 UTC
Edward Olmops wrote:
Vanessa Vansen wrote:
well, how about something else ...

Common Skills: (one for all, not one for each race!)
Frigate -> Destroyer -> Cruiser -> Battlecruiser -> Battleship -> Carrier/Dreadnought -> Titan
Frigate -> Industrial -> Freighter -> Jump Freighter

So, with those skills you know how to fly ships in general, however you need to know how to fly, e.g. Amarr ships ...

Amarr Control Systems
Caldari Control Systems
Gallente Control Systems
Minmatar Control Systems

edit: forgot Ore Control Systems

* inspired by T3 subsystems
* easier to spread between races


Same idea as mine... Shocked
Dammit! Lol
As always in EVE.... maneuvering for hours to write the post and then someone else is 10 seconds faster... -.-


Yep, but I don't mind sharing the honor, your's is more elaborate Big smile
Korvin
Shadow Kingdom
Best Alliance
#558 - 2012-03-06 21:05:49 UTC  |  Edited by: Korvin
I always considered Destroyers and BC as a specialization.
Why should we change that?

Making lower tier ships useful is a great move, but looking at the picture:
T1 -> Navy -> Pirate
Isn't it the same tier levels, you want to get rid of?
Pirate ships are also specialization, cross training needed to achieve.


p.s. I'm glad CCP are working on a game balance philosophy and plan, not a casual non systematic fixes.
I think this is the right direction to evolve.

Member of CSM 4&5 ... &8
Svennig
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#559 - 2012-03-06 21:06:40 UTC
The Economist wrote:
Svennig wrote:
Akelorian wrote:
Svennig wrote:
Akelorian wrote:
CCP Soundwave to Goons: Herp Derp BS4 for Capitals
CCP Soundwave to Eve: Yea we ruining your game like promised


Honestly, I just don't know how I feel about this. I'm not sure how much the BS V requirement deters people from caps. For me, it was just something that needed to be done - it didn't stop me and, as it was on a dedicated alt, it wasn't as if I could have trained something else.

I'm not sure how much I'm bothered about BS IV for caps.


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.


But this just means that the alt is, what, 30 days quicker? I mean what's that in a carrier skillplan which (if done right) takes a hell of a long time and the racial BS skill is one of the smallest parts?

Surely all this will do is get more newbies into carriers, and that's good for people who want to gank them? For anyone else (for example, goonswarm as you've mentioned), this turns a year skillplan into a 330 day skillplan. That doesn't seem to be terrible.

Rationally, I'm ok with it. But something in the back of my mind does say that BS IV isn't right, but I can't rationalise it so it's probably not sensible.


Aside from any other concerns; Id say for me it's more that bs V for caps is and should be a mental barrier and a bit of a milestone for your progression in the game. Moving up into them should take a bit of consideration, a bit of agonising about investing the time in pre-reqs etc. [it also has a bearing on alt accounts and capital proliferation as well since, I for one, if this were to go through would very rapidly get 6 previously noob cyno/utiity alts in carriers whereas currently bs V is too much of an investment, especially when plex prices are rising and every sp spent on an account is a precious commodity for me to make them cross that training hurdle into a new area of specialisation.]


The only thing I can think of that's like that is supercarrier holding alts, which will now be much easier to make.

When I first thought about flying caps I downloaded a skillplan for the alliance fitting. It was a bloody long plan. It was never just about sitting in the hull - people who think that way will soon lose their ships. I don't know how much less agonising there's going to be if we knocked 30 days off it.

To be clear: Yes, BS IV lets people get into the hull quicker. But that's nothing compared to everything else you need to have.
None ofthe Above
#560 - 2012-03-06 21:06:50 UTC
Largo Coronet wrote:
.... Any plan that makes it harder to get into subcapital ships and easier to get into capitals & supercapitals IS A BAD PLAN. The biggest problem with the game is how it's becoming Supercaps Online and you want to increase that?


I have to say, I had a WTF reaction to that too.

The only end-game content in EVE Online is the crap that makes you rage quit.