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Skill tree changes:

Basically, they've screwed themselves in the ass if they try to implement this... So many negative things can and will happen, and most of them are the one's we have not thought of yet.

So far:

hurts new players
Clone upgrades for the added skill points in terms of cost
skill point loss if the clones aren't upgraded properly by the players after patch
skill disciplines being affected

no real reason it's even needed.


Here's a better thought. How about you make ships actually have roles at the different levels where bigger is simply not almost always better.

How about you pour time into tracking mechanics, proper ship values for classes, and make roles for smaller ships other than disposable tackle?

How about a system where Webs weren't the be all answer of fighting smaller ships in fleet combat. How about a system where capitals were nearly unkillable in fleets and carriers/supers didn't get RR power?

But no no, you just keep wasting time on skill trees that have little to no impact on the game in positive manner... that really makes players pay you salaries.

2 minimal effects they could fix in a variety of safer, more effective, less timely ways.

And you're only assuming HAS skill will be removed from commands.. they've not said this yet.

Ok, here are some, hopefully, clever questions:

#0 - What if you started EVE and did not learn any racial ship skill, just the battlecruiser skill on level X? So you don't have the primary skill required to actually fly a battlecruiser, but you already trained the skill "battlecruisers". I know it is a hypothetical question, but it nicely summarizes the next three questions.

#1 - What if you have the battlecruisers skill on let's say V and some random racial skills for frigates but no cruiser skills?

#2 - What if you have the battlecruisers skill on lets say IV and some random racial skills for cruisers but all below level III?

#3 - What if we take question #1 and #2 and say that the racial skills are all equal or have different values, but still below the level required to actually fly a real battlecruiser?


I hope you see my point and the limitation to your approach. You say you want to hand out free SPs to people so they can continue to fly all the battlecruisers with the same bonus as before. I say you forget about those that have the battlecruiser skills but can't fly battlecruisers (same goes with destroyers of course). I say use the principle of unallocated skill points and let people train for it if they want to continue using battlecruisers (command ships) and destroyers of all 4 races. I say don't hand out millions of free SPs to those that already have battlecruisers on V and can easily learn all 4 racial cruisers skills in no time, while leaving out those who a) are new to the game, have limited SPs and can't get there in time, b) are away from EVE and can't adjust their training queues or c) are just not aware of the coming changes and will be like w t f the day the patch will be applied.
II don't see what real harm it would do if you use unallocated SPs, but I see several question and exclamation marks if you continue like you proposed.

But you /don't/ get the drake's shield resist bonuses with that.

Great, glad to read this, especially about t2 BC, aka Comand ships.
Dear developers, can we hope that those changes (BC, BS, CS rebalancing) will be introduced in single one expansion next summer?

Bless you.

Will there be any move towards making OOC boosters subject to aggression flags like OOC logi?

Warfare mindlinks currently only effect one set of bonuses. Is there any discussion of rationalizing mindlinks to match the racial ships? For example, the Skirmish Warfare Mindlink becomes the Minmatar Warfare Mindlink and specifically boosts Claymore and Sleipnir. This would put a premium on the person that invests the time to be able to use mindlinks, Command Ships and their new paired Warfare Links.

Regards,

Hong Hu

Limiting the players fitting options is easier. The more felxibility we are given, the harder it is to figure out balance for a huge number of possible loadouts. My personal voite would be a variation on rig slots, except for weapon hard points. You decide what weapons you want, and install the hard points for them, the same way you would for rigs.

And maybe I really don't understand the Role-based versus Tier-based concept. All these change seem like it makes the linear progression even more entrenched. Destroyers and BCs used to be side branches. Now they will be in the racial linear progression. Isn't that MORE tiers and less role based ? And by limiting the weapon types available coupled with racial bonuses, again, you are forced into a linear racial progression to get to the role you want . But it's still MORE tiers with no sideways offshoots with distinct roles....

It seems they've forgotten to implement the new skills ;-)

I find it kinda hard to get the informations about the new patch - especially the things they finally didn't implement because of problems or other things.
I think they postponed these racial skills for something - but why? I can't find informations about this without spending hours of forums reading...

For a solution to Off Grid Boosting I thought maybe a gang module that blocks incoming signals to the grid that way if a gang is worried about off grid boosters they can fit the module to one of their BCs. This allows the carebears and miners to have boosted fleets while PvP players can choose to limit the enemys fleet. Perhaps have the module have the same stats as as a gang link and be limited to the same ships it can be fitted on.

The difficult bit i can see is being able to set the grid for local or off grid boosts it gets even more difficult if there is a T2 version that prevents all boosting local and remote to the grid.

I really like the ideas with the Command Ships, and you at least get one sub system of the T3 balanced. You get less bonus then a Command Ship but you can in small gangs with only one ship boost only the most usefull six links out of nine possibles.
But maybe aou should chnage the name to Commando Ships, because they will be, if the balancing went well, strong BC stronger then HAC´s, which are also nearly as expensive as Tier-3-BS with nearly as good tank but faster and armed with medium guns. So more or less nice elite ships (I don´t think that thes bling-bling-"I-am-a-pimp-with-no-balls"-T3s deserve to be called elite because they are too expensive).

You also wrote that the rokh is fine as it is, well I think it should get a little bit more cap , so that it could last longer then 15 min while permant firing (T2-guns) and with active Hardeners.

The debate with the racial destroyer and BC skills, ok i think the most player had already enough time to train at least destroyer on 5 all frigs and cruiser up to 4 and the BC on something around 3-4. If not, theres is still enough time until next year. the only ones I would pity are new players or new acoounts in general. Because i think also the skill rank will stay the same it is not really fair for them, but i alos would like to know how long it will take to train Command Ships or Interceptors after the old and the new system. For interceptors I think only the Racial Frig level 5 will be deleted, but for CS?