Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I will edit this post shortly to give notice on how completely the Drake fails against something that is prepared to fight it (which isn't so much something you can do with the Cyclone, given that if you think it's going to just pull out explosive missiles it'll pick something else to shoot at you).

Yikes, you misinterpreted my statement. What I meant was that the act of fitting an 8th launcher inherently consumes a lot more CPU and PWG. That in turn means, assuming no CPU/PWG changes, that you'd have to compensate by cutting back somewhere else in your fit, be it the Tank or Utility.

I figured that was a good idea since it promotes varied fits while simultaneously tackling the major complaint about Drakes: doing too much, too well, at the same time.

Time to stock up on Prophecies and Feroxes, no reason to use the Brutix and Myrm.

Please consider testing not only with [All V] characters and not only for Blob-PvP. Drake will be pretty weak for a new players. Also Caldari will become one and only race that don't have a BC for L3 missions / rattings against anyone but Guristas/Serpentis/Mercs. And since their T1 battleships are bad for PvE Caldari will be left with Tengu and Navy/T2 BS that are not accessbile for a new player at all (price and skill wise). This is not a small problem as some might think, inability to upgrade from L2 missions without months of accumulating SP may turn away some newbies who would otherwise stay.



My main concern with those repair bonuses is that it's just boring. "Amarr have passive bonus, Gallente have active bonus - let's just throw weak boring active repair bonus on both Gallente BC." I understand that you had another things in mind when you made such controversial decision but we (players) don't like this concept and don't want to accept it. Give us funny/interesting/useful bonuses instead of plain copy-pasted "gallente use active tank".
Active repair bonus is essentially absence of bonus at all when it comes to fleet warfare, even for small-medium size roaming fleets. Brutix and Myrmidon are not that good on their own to only have a single bonus. Active repair bonuses limit ship usage. If you think that they are that good that need only half of bonuses than take some power away from hulls.

Sorry but...
What?

Let's check how many rats don't have kinetic as largest or second largest resist hole:
Amarr, Sansha, Blood Raider.
The guys with lasers (and rogue drones).
Everyone else?
They do (Gurista/Caldari/Mordus, Angel/Minmatar/Thukker, Serpentis/Gallente, Merc, EoM).

Compare it to a Harbinger.
Everyone but Laser dudes (and rogue drones) have EM as third most solid resist at least, Angels and Guristas I think as strongest.
Thermal? Less than half your damage (assuming Multifreq or Scorch), and apart from Mercs (and the ones mentioned above), only second weakest resist at best.

Declining laser missions (hurt your shields worse anyways) and drones, which aren't that common in Caldari space, you are golden, and don't have to think about ammo.

Smallprint: I'm assuming a BC skill of 4 to run L3s, at that point you are breaking even more or less after the change.

Try a Raven and see how good it is compared to Dominix/Maelstrom.

You need to stop expecting to receive a ship that is good in all situations and against all enemies. Such a ship would be self-evidently OP.

In any case:

Cyclone with 5x HAMLs and 2x BCS: 413 missile DPS, fully selectable.
Drake with 6x HAMLs and 3x BCS: 418 missile DPS using non-kinetic.

Yes, I know that the Cyclone has a BCS fewer, a larger drone bay and the two turret slots, but the damage selectabilty from drones is limited, those turrets will often have neuts or be using Barrage and the lowslots may be limited because of ramming multiple ASBs on. The point remains that you're overstating the Cyclone's applied damage advantage and if there is a problem, it's with the Cyclone rather than the Drake, because as everyone keeps trying to tell you, blaster and laser boats are even more locked into predictable, counterable damage types than the Drake.

I like to fly Autocannon-fitted Prophecies in PvP and at first I hated the idea of Prophecy becoming a drone boat, since turning it into a HAM boat would make much more sense. But after looking at the new slot layout, I see that's gonna make it a very good exploration vessel, vay better than Vexor or Abitrator.
However, I still found it a silly idea to turn a Cyclone into a missile boat (I hope you don't plan to do the same with Vagabond or Sleipnir at later date, CCP Fozzie). Consequently, that leaves Minmatar as the only race without a drone boat.

About the other changes, I like that you decided not to remove an utility high on from a Drake, so it's still gonna be good for clearing C1/C2 sites.
Also I welcome an idea to give 10% damage bonuses to Drake and Brutix in return for -1 launcher/turret (except that Drake is gonna blow if not doing kinetic damage). I still don't like the repair bonus on Brutix (mainly because I think of Brutix as a PvP boat and a Myrmidon as a PvE boat), would prefer a bonus to armour HP as seen on Augoror Navy Issue (the only faction version of a T1 logi that doesn't completely blow, but that's a story for another thread).

Suppose he meant the Guristas maybe?

Another thing i dont get is... why u dont just announce the whole reballance changes u planed till summer now... and test them till summer... so there will be much more time to test... and i guess the outcome will be more usefull...
Just making the "between"-patches more juicy is not what the community wants... im sure REALLY ballanced setups are more important than the speed of making them...