Player Features and Ideas Discussion

...Continued from my previous post.

I'd say the changes that CCP has proposed are not outrageous, but I disagree with letting them go live as-is. Effectively, CCP is promising to remove the kinetic-only focus of Caldari medium-sized ships and give them true damage flexibility. This can actually more than make up for the flat damage loss in PvE when fighting enemies not weak to kinetic damage. There is also the option of HAMs, which previously weren't even a consideration. The range penalty also seems reasonable, and CCP has promised to fix T2 missiles and additionally give Rage missiles a slight damage boost. In regards to the Drake itself, it makes sense that it will not beat the Harbinger at every range damage-wise because it will have a tanking bonus, damage flexibility, and zero cap use.

The problem lies in the fact that missiles and turrets are both going to be weak to tracking disruptors. Also, with the proposed changes, heavy missiles are still considerably easier to fit than beams are.

What I propose:
1. Swap HAM and Heavy fittings. This will bring missiles in-line with other weapon systems. Rockets are easier to fit than light missiles, blasters are easier to fit than rails, HAMs should be easier to fit than Heavies. I feel that this is reasonable because close-range ships need additional fitting room for tanking modules, and with medium-sized missiles it's currently bass-ackwards. Various adjustments may need to be made to the ships themselves such as grid or CPU tweaks, but I stand behind this change.

2. Missile disruptors - you already have these in game. If you're going to nerf the damage and range of heavy missiles, please consider the consequences of leaving defenders as they are in PvE. However in PvP, there is currently no real option for missile disruption as, frankly, defenders suck and need addressing. There have been several good proposals so far on this topic, but here's my take: Either fix defenders, or remove them and add in a new missile disruptor module. Give it to Gallente or Minmatar ewar ships. At the very least, if you're set on adding this effect to tracking disruptors, make them require a special script to effect missile ships, perhaps even separate range and explosion velocity scripts. I feel that adding this effect to TDs puts too much ewar power in Amarr ships though (which are already fantastic in their roles), and this is a wonderful opportunity to fix Gallente's weak ewar ships.

3. Look at the ships themselves! Obviously you already are, but consider how terrible all of the other ships in EVE that primarily have to use medium missiles are - ships such as the Caracal and Caldari faction cruisers, the Damnation and Nighthawk, and the Lachesis. Also, consider that there are a lot of ships that have missile hardpoints and spare highslots, and already don't generally opt to use missiles in them - ships like the Rupture, Cyclone, Stabber, Curse, Ferox (it got an extra turret though), Bellicose, Blackbird, Moa, Vagabond, Muninn, and perhaps others I've missed. Even ships like the Lachesis which have a bonus to both hybrids and missiles tend to ignore their missiles. I fear that these hardpoints, which are already overlooked, will become more than useless.

I've noticed (what is to me) a disturbing trend for CCP to tie weapon systems very closely to ships and take away fitting variation - things like giving the Ferox and Moa another hardpoint instead of making missiles actually valuable in its spare highslots. When Minmatar ships were not doing so well, CCP opted to boost autocannons rather than improve supplementary damage systems in their ships. This is obviously a perfectly valid way to improve these ships, but the result is that every cruiser has 5 turrets and every BC has 7 turrets and all of them fit only the weapon systems in their highslots that they're bonused for. Please consider at least trying to make missiles a valid supplementary weapon system.

Honestly idk if the devs are even still reading at this point, but meh. I read a bunch of posts, certainly not 87 pages' worth, but a lot. I didn't see anyone mention a separate disruption module for missiles. I think it's an incredibly simple and elegant solution, and will keep the "disruption" modules in their current state of effectiveness; if you fit a TD now, you are banking on running into a turret ship, otherwise it's useless; if you fit an Explosion Disruptor (or whatever it might be called if implemented) you're banking on running into a missile ship, otherwise it's useless. Everything everyone said earlier where there would be literally no reason to not fit a TD with the proposed changes is right on, it really would be the new ECM.

I am hugely in favor of having some way to mitigate missile damage other than being a frigate or getting out of range, just like there is against turret ships, so I would really like to see some form of this go through. I want to see nullsec Drake blobs die in a terrible ******* fire. But straight-up adding missile disruption to current TD's is flat-out wrong.

Missiles and turrets are different as it has been said countless of times. Though, that's not a reason for heavy missiles to do turret close range ammo dammage. Infact, that is the case right now : a Drake with HML can have the same dps as a long range turret ship with close range ammo. The difference is that the Drake don't lose dps over range. That is insanely overpowered.

Now, missiles are that way : they do the same dps at all range they can reach and changing this to be more turret like is silly, you would better have to get rid of missiles completely.

With these changes, missiles will still do 50% (FIFTY PERCENT !!!) more dps than turret at long range. Maybe we could consider that turret doing 30% more dps at close range (you know, the range were you are pretty doomed because of tracking and close range weapon dps and commitment) is a fair trade off.

You arent meant to fight back, you are meant to get more people than they have. They are better at the game than you because they have more people.

Most people, including Fozzie, bring attention to the fact, that HML do the same damage anywhere within the maximum range, but other long-range systems have such things as falloff. And thus missiles long-range damage should be nerfed.

However, sevaral things are left out:
- other weapon systems can use close-range ammunition, thus getting higher damage for the targets closer - missiles have the same base damage and no ammo variants (almost) I wonder, when comparing HML with hybrids, did you compare them with Antimatter or Lead (or what is there more distant, Iron?)?
- other weapon systems can have perfect hit, thus getting actual DPS higher then theoretical
- missile damage can only go lower, then theretical

And all the rest obvious things already mentioned: delayed damage, firewalls etc.
20% damage decrease is too much. 10% should be OK.

They compared HMLs to tremor, spike, aurora, completely ignoring that 99% of the time artycanes have rf emp, fusion or pp loaded.

At ranges people actually fight at in small gangs (point range) they outdamage prenerf HMLs, and vs targets smaller than bcs, they outdamage HMLs out to very silly ranges.

But they can change ammo, missile boats can't.

With the changes proposed would giving all missiles a resist to there damage type not be in order?

For target sig HML's are getting help by the way of modules allowing them to use other slots than rigs to enhance their damage application. And while the difference at short ranges is being widened we have only really 2 choices here. Missiles retain damage but have shorter range leaving no true long range medium missile option and HAM's stay semi-obsolete, or have hams be the right choice for their role with some added flexibility and condemn HML's to long range/low damage and have a weakness in the middle.