Ships & Modules

I always knew what your complaints were about - I just disagreed. I don't think that the Tier 3s are horrible design. I like the fact that there's a giant glass cannon out there that lets you whack and be whacked with abandon. I like the fact that it's just good enough that people are encouraged to fly it, without being so good that people feel that they must fly it.

The biggest down side that I can see from these ships is that they're using BS sized weapons - with all the good and all the bad that brings. They come with battleship sized EFT DPS, and that attracts people despite the fact it's quite difficult to bring the full brunt to bear. They also come with battleship sized engagement ranges - and that's where I think the Tier 3s are most problematic.

I feel like that's one of the reasons I've been shifting so hard towards things like 100mn tracking fits. A small gang PVPer like me must find a way to even the odds a bit when people are bringing more than we have and upshipping us. I think I've found some ships which are better at it than the Talos, so we probably won't be seeing me flying the Talos anymore. Which is a shame, because it's such a dead sexy looking ship.



This was always true though. It's never been a good idea to take your T2 and pirate ships up against people that were T1 blobbing. I think it'll be interesting to see where they go with the T2/Faction mixup. I'm mildly encouraged by the results from the T1 rebalancing, and I certainly appreciate that we have actual reasons to fly around in Ruptures - despite the fact that they're outright worse than the Vaga and Muninn.

It almost feels like what you're really complaining about is a Gallente centric complaint. That's why you complain about the Talos but not the Oracle or Tornado. I don't feel that the Rupture and Stabber obsolete the Vaga and Cynabal... but I kinda do feel that way about the Atron/Taranis and Thorax/Deimos. The answer is trivial as to why - the level of commit is equal for both and the level of survival and result is about the same. I look forward to seeing what the balancing team does to the HAC lineup.

-Liang

I'm continually impressed by how much rage Liang can generate even after all these years. Seriously; kudos dude.

Personally I don't have hugely strong feelings on this issue. The vaga is still fine at what its always been good at (ie running and gunning and running away) and it takes skills and a little luck (in terms of where you drop from warp) to use them well either solo or in a gang.

The tier 3 BCs are getting a bit of a kick to their mobility, which I think is well deserved. No matter what people will still use them because they do lots of DPS and are pretty cheap. They are in all respects here to stay.

Now... if you want to talk about ships that need some relative balancing, the vaga and the cynable perhaps need some looking at...

Noisrevbus,

Are you aware that this situation where T1 is practically as viable as T2 is just temporary, and a direct result of dev resource scarcity, not their intention?



What do you think is the "position" of a tier 3 BC?

It is an expensive battlecruiser, with higher SP requirements than the others. Battlecruisers in general are indeed the most offensively allround competent ships in EVE, this we all know. Why tier 3s would be more of an issue?



Wut, more is always better, has been and will be. You can create a new ship and give it totally random attributes ranging from 1 to millions, and more of that ship is still always overblown better.

This is your hegemony of buffer-projection, and as sad as it is, it's the fundamental mechanic of any system based on reducing X from Y. When X>Y, killmail happens. Also, I find it contradictory when at the same time you despise having the numbers, and only consider upengaging as goodfights. And think that a Thorax+Exeq gang somehow creates less content than a Proteus gang.

I think the exact opposite is true. More people having access to viable ships means more engagements all around, and giving players cheap, low-SP role ships makes the engagements better, longer and more fun to everybody, while at the same time improving the individual and team skills.

In short, tiericide is the single best thing CCP ever did to promote goodfights. Fly out to low and see for yourself :)

Until this thread I thought you knew... oh wait, I have no idea who you are. Yes, I've flown both variants and I have a really strong dislike for the Talos as discussed because of a lack of damage mitigation, lack of range control, vulnerability to being tackled, and a distinct lack of options for reducing transversal. I think it's fine for what it does, but calling it "nano" or "obsoleting the Vagabond" is just outright silly.

This isn't a case of a ship obsoleting the Vagabond... it's a case of someone not valuing what the Vagabond does.

-Liang

How far would you presume that temporary situation extend?

It's not an isolated issue, it's not the exact relation between the tech levels today that is important, but rather the direction the game is headed. It's not like we suddenly woke up the day after Retribution and realized that there's an issue with BC. It's been going on for years and will go on for years to come.

That tie into your next question.


It's new, and it isn't expensive. If we identify an issue with a certain class of ships: Do we go about solving that issue by introducing more ships that reproduce said issue? It has nothing to do with being offensively allround, it has everything to do with bang for the buck. That's the bottom all current rebalance is being done around. The main attraction of BC have been cost-effect, overblown cost-effect is ultimately bad for the game.


That is a very strange quotation. How you can strip one portion out of a longer segment and then ask a question the very segment you stripped it from went on to answer?

I'm not talking about the fact more will always be better.

I'm talking about the fact that more is comparatively better on Tier 3 BC than it is on HAC or Tech III.

That goes for both expenses and gameplay-related balance. It's easier fighting more Vagabonds in less Vagabonds than fighting more Talos in less Talos. The same goes for the Proteus. It's easier fighting more Proteus in less Proteus. It also have a much higher impact on numbers and upkeep if you fight Vagabonds with Vagabonds and so on. The damage you inflict on your opponent limit the value of their numbers.

If there is actual loss involved with taking losses then a more varied approach to killing hostile ships will enable ships that do not lend themselves to tanking and projecting, which primarily excels at holding grids. When killing ships matter less, holding grids will matter more.


Tiercide and promotion of cheap ships are two completely different things.

If they want to make the Ferox just as good as the Drake by equalizing tiers of slots be my guest.

The problem is the underlying discussion of realizing that there was an ISK-balance in place already, underneath the ship-balance (tier 2 BC were 50% more expensive than tier 1 BC, and said bottom was the only reason most people never paid any attention to that). Introducing ships on the principle of "more explosions with less importance" will feed the value of numbers. Having more ships is naturally balanced by risking more assets; bottoming out the game screws with nature.

I am in lowsec almost every day, but i fail to see how killing your Rupture, Thorax or Merlin will impact either you or me. I do not stand to gain ISK from doing it, and you do not stand to lose ISK from being subject to it. The outcome is pointless beyond "honour". That is, same as the first question, nothing new - it's a trend that has been going on for quite a while now where it's just increasingly pointless to take certain risks so we congregate with peers (lowsec for lowsec etc.). That i am in lowsec every day does not make me consider myself a "lowsec only player". The sandbox is about broad interaction - our behaviour, encouraged by the game direction, is headed elsewhere. Have been for quite some time.

I am in lowsec every day, when was the last time you were out of it?

whaa whaa my mini ships are no longer op whaaa

Definately so, but now the entire game gravitate toward said sweet spot instead of trying to limit it's impact.


This is where we disagree. We can begin with the common issue for all BC: rigs, the difference in rigs alone match the hull cost of the BC (~40m disparity). The second is loss of insurance: any ship with a higher purchase value (and higher insurance) also stand more to lose when insurance tick out. The third thing we can use as an example is a bit more tricky to understand: while many people (me included) at least Tech II fit our Tier 3 BC, they have less slots to fill and their general attributes make expensive fitting less important.

It comes back to relatives again. It goes without question that fitting your ship with superior options is better than not, but if you flip over to the opposite perspective you will learn that Tier 3 BC (much like the Drake) outperform other ships in budget fitting and maintain their role better (the lack of mobility on a BS, for example, make it more dependent upon specific ammunition types - the same goes for a smaller class of turrets - mediums without Scorch or Barrage is far more restricted than L-ammo on Cruiser mobility). The list obviously goes on, but there are some tidbits that make these ships extremely affordable and appealing to scale up, since you can bottom them out toward essentially no cost at all (70m purchase, 76m return, 22m insurance; budget fitting). People did the same with Drakes, budget fitting, extreme volume and you could throw away entire 100-man fleets without much strain on SPR. That's why the Drake remained so popular against the bottom (BS, Carriers, all the most common ships in large fights), since it bottomed out. They were not "good" at fighting BS or Capitals, they did projection-buffer like the BS though, without cost.

If you do something similar on a BS you will see quite remarkable performance drops relative your own class of ships that will gain allround performance equivalent of the ISK you save, and other classes of ships that will better be able to exploit your weaknesses (eg., being slower make you rely more on adapting your ammunition per situation).


Well, it is the things we talked about when you came into the thread. It's the balance of offense to defense to expense. They are not only glass-cannons, they are inexpensive (if you can sympathize with my logic above) glass-cannons which result in an amassment of resources. They create a situation where they can kill essentially everything and be killed by essentially everything, which may lead one to belive they are balanced through that - but my point is that they are not. If they cost something to lose, then they might be. Since you can bottom out their cost and pile on with numbers though, you create a situation where a large group of these ships counter most undermanned approaches. That's a funny thing when we discuss accessability - because you make undermanned action very exclusive. It's not impossible, but by trying to appeal to the broad masses you alienate the broad masses from up-engagement, since you have made that so inaccessible. Do you get where i'm comming from? I understand that this is logic wrapped around itself in several twists, it's difficult to follow - but it's very important to be able to discern it.

If that is inaccessible, most people will choose to amass numbers and align in powerblocks, or isolate ourselves in areas of the game where you can control scaling or dictate meta-sandbox rules (all of it lead to less frequent conflicts and less interaction). Up-engagement is positive because it means you extend your target pool to take more fights.

I can use your next quote to illustrate it further...


I've used the anecdote about typical "Drake gangs" before. For quite a long time when their popularity was hizzed and snarled at, several groups still engaged them with success and risked interaction with them. It wasn't the Drakes you killed though, because killing the Drakes themselves was pointless and the Drakes weren't really the ships that killed you - the support did, and the support was worth killing. That was what triggered the demise of the old post-nano Vaga gangs and gave birth to most other HAC-concepts and similar that remained for a good while (SHAC, AHAC etc.). The way the game has progressed however it's become increasingly more difficult to engage the support of a larger gang.

Mobile snipers that extend beyond the Drakes and move beyond the capability Battleships are way way more powerful at knocking out your support, or your more expensive options in the same role; and they enable the support of a larger gang to control a smaller gang more easily. Cheap logis is another step in that direction because you remove yet another ship from the rewarding target pool. Sure, they are easier to kill but you have essentially outsourced a powerful element to a free class of ships that can just replace performance with more players and still have a decreased associated risk/cost.

Is that directed at me?

I don't own a Vaga.

Did you have something to contribute to the thread?

One more thing.

Don't mistake my complaints here for me not flying the ships. Same as with the Talos: I fly Thorax, Vexor, Execs, Ruppies, Celestis and Blackbirds and so forth as much as the next guy at the moment. It's more or less all i have been flying the past few days. I even enjoy the shallow appeal of having free ships to throw away at the performance levels of HAC, because i like flying HAC. I know it's a short-lived joy though. I know it favours numbers, so gangs will just scale up as time go by and it will reproduce the exact same effects that changes to BC have had on the game. It will make engaging the larger gangs feel more pointless over time and even in lowsec people will just more and more crawl into their pockets of percieved safety, assuming the there will be a continued presence of roaming there. Free ships don't make people take more risks, not long-term.

That's the problem with egoism and hardcore-death, you enjoy not losing anything yourself - but when you realize you can't hurt your opponent, things quickly turn rather dull. If only everybody else wasn't allowed to fly the new Cruisers .

edit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0X3TtK4E9A /thread?

So the only thing I learned here is that Liang is either trolling or doesn't do much roaming.

The vaga was always poor at killing anything other than frigs because of limited DPS and a terrible capacitor. Even before the talos came about a lot of people were favoring nano battlecruisers over vagabonds. Not to mention that the cynabal is straight up better anyway.

The talos is popular because it lets people kill things very fast up to about a 50km engagement range and can disengage easily due to its speed and agility, whilst having a big enough capacitor to hang around on field for ages. I feel like they're a touch too strong but nowhere close to being as overpowered as some people claim.