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[Retribution 1.1] Armor Tanking 1.5

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Jane Schereau
#501 - 2013-01-22 23:42:07 UTC
Fozzie,

I applaud CCP's efforts at trying to improve armor tanking. More importantly, I praise the willingness to admit it is broken. Yet as others have said, fixing a broken system by adding a form of an alternative version of it is not solving the original problem, its getting around it.

This addition to armor tanking you propose does nothing for the PvE aspect of armor tanking, that uses no plates and needs sustained repair modules.

The skill for reducing the mass of the plates may have its uses, and so long as it is a low-ranked skill, may work out well.
I would ask why reducing the mass of the plates you acknowledge no one uses was even considered...

As for the changes to rig penalties, they are the biggest mistake of these changes. You are absolutely right that a velocity drawback makes no sense in rigs that boost armor repairers. But PG drawbacks, although somewhat logical from a 'scientific' point of view, will be a huge nerf to solo PvPers using Gallente ships. As others have stated, and you acknowledged, armor tankers already have to choose between gank and tank. You know how much PG blasters use. This will cause armor tankers to make even more drastic choices, unable to have both a good tank and neutron blasters (or other equivalent) unless we have very advanced skills.
The additional skill aside, this also creates an even bigger gap between new players an old ones. As I mentioned in my previous reply, the Incursus was the only ship a new player could stand a chance if solo. So while all other ships have a much better chance with the new repairer, the new Incursus is receiving less of a boost with the new module, if it is a boost at all. And seeing how none of the armor tanking changes affect armor tanking for PvE, the Incursus is now hugely nerfed for this activity.

I would like to offer a suggestion to CCP, which I hope you will consider. You just rebalanced a lot of ships, and have more to rebalance. When you are done with fixing armor tanking, they will all need to be rebalanced again.
The suggestion is as follows:
Stop the work on rebalancing ships and put all focus on fixing armor tanking. Once that is done, it works, and is stable, go back to rebalancing ships. Not only will the player base be extremely content at a system being fixed for real quicker, but CCP will save man power by only having to look at rebalancing the remaining ships only once.

Personally, my priority would be a complete fix to active armor tanking, for both PvP and PvE, with ship rebalances coming later. I think a lot of other players feel the same way.
Fon Revedhort
Monks of War
#502 - 2013-01-22 23:43:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Fon Revedhort
I still don't get the idea of diving into compex stuff when there are some simple things right at the surface and a lot can be achieved by tweaking just them alone. I'm talking about rig calibration costs, rig stacking penalties etc.

"Being supporters of free speech and free and open [CSM] elections... we removed Fon Revedhort from eligibility". CCP, April 2013.
B'reanna
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#503 - 2013-01-22 23:49:05 UTC  |  Edited by: B'reanna
@fozzie

your last post did clarify a lot of things that people had questions about.
it still think that most of the changes are in the right direction and am sad to see the heat rig go.

BUT you didn't address at all the fact that the asb takes one slot while to get similar performance from an aar your going to need several slots probably rig slots. atm i think that in a nutshell is the biggest problem with the purposed aar as it stands now.

other than that ill restate that i much prefer the purposed aar cap + booster to the asbs booster only and strongly recommend looking into changing the asb to also be cap + booster. this will at lest go some ways to balancing slot usage as now asb users will have to think about a cap booster as well.

edit: also im not sure if i'm interpreting this correctly but when you addressed the ship bonuses it comes across as your desire is to get active amour tanking to be worthwhile only on ships with the built in bonus. Thus ships without this bonus while possible to active armor tank would be suboptimal in this configuration.

if that is the case im not sure if that makes me happy or sad and wont comment on it at this time. if That isnt the case then disregard
Alticus C Bear
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#504 - 2013-01-22 23:49:33 UTC
I think the key point here is do you feel the Incursus is overpowered with normal SAR’s now (it is strong but vulnerable to neuting and easily escaped from)? It sounded in the OP as though you believed that the AAR would be too powerful with a 10% rep bonus but very little other than this mod is changing with active armour. Surely the answer would be to tone this module down (say 0.5 reps unloaded and 2 loaded) and allow the 10% reps to work with conventional reppers. The fact that this mod needs to be this powerful to work with non-bonused ships surely suggests a problem elsewhere with normal reps, again it does nothing in regards for normal reppers on non-bonused ships.

Given the fitting drawback for active rigs even the dual rep Incurses may need to lose an armour rig which could be enough of a nerf. Without a strong bonus ships like the Myrm may still be better with Dual XLASB.

I quite liked the sound of the overheating rig, have you considered a rig to reduce heat damage, if heating is to be promoted then this could be crucial to Armour where multi repper fits burn out very quickly. It would also fit with a more sustained Burst tanking, you could also have its affect apply to hardeners.

Armour tanking even with the changes is slot heavy fittings heavy with reppers and cap boosters.

Have you considered changing cap boosters fittings and capacity? They seem even more linked to armour tanking (ASB fits do not need them) the volume of charges they hold seems low compared to the ASB’s, this could help solve some of the cargo issues.
Vess Starfire
Interfrequencies
#505 - 2013-01-22 23:50:51 UTC
If fitting XLASB on Cyclone "is part of what makes Eve so great", make sure we can use XLAAR on Myrmidon!!

And if that will need fitting mods, find a way to let us split 6 lows between them plus armour tank PLUS damage mods.

Or is oversize mod fitting for shield only?
Fon Revedhort
Monks of War
#506 - 2013-01-22 23:56:41 UTC  |  Edited by: Fon Revedhort
Weasel Leblanc wrote:

Replace resist bonuses with nice, chunky raw HP bonuses. It'll let those ships keep their buffer tank options while not letting them be better at active tanking than the actual active tanking ships. Plus, it'll be a minor stealth nerf to logi shenanigans, since base HP doesn't stack multiplicatively with extra HP from logis like resists do.

This would be even more ******** than saying that PvP is all about burst tanking and PvE about sustained one. Why pigeonhole ships into predifined roles? By your logic each and every amarr ship should be rendered totally boring, effectively losing an option of active tanking altogether.

Also, there's already a raw HP bonusing method - check out faction/pirate ships. They all have increased hit points even when players don't really want them and would rather pick something else instead. Needless to say that it's pathetic.

"Being supporters of free speech and free and open [CSM] elections... we removed Fon Revedhort from eligibility". CCP, April 2013.
fukier
Gallente Federation
#507 - 2013-01-23 00:07:44 UTC  |  Edited by: fukier
Quote:
The extension of active rep bonuses to remote reps is something I feel would take fleets in the wrong direction, and if anything I am investigating ways to make resist bonuses a bit less powerful in those environments.


i can respect this as long as you do something about the bonus for resist... something like 5% bonus to passive resist mods would work for me... as IMO the problem is 1. active mods 2. the fact the ship gets the bonus without any mods fit.

I myself have always been an advocate of nerfing RR... IMO RR should stack and have diminishing returns after x amount of reps are put on a ship...

Also i would love to see logi ships nerfed and add a bs sized logi ship as this would balance it out...

thank you though for responding :)

fuk
At the end of the game both the pawn and the Queen go in the same box.
Rynnik
Evasion Gaming
The Ancients.
#508 - 2013-01-23 00:11:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Rynnik
CCP Fozzie wrote:

Powergrid usage penalty on active rigs
When looking for a replacement for the speed penalty on active tanking rigs our goal was for the penalty to be something significant (useless penalties are something we want less of) without being onerous. The rep PG penalty had the advantage of being much easier to work around through fitting adjustments than the speed penalty, while being significant enough that it could not be completely ignored. I'm open to possible changes to that mechanic, either through changing the penalty itself or adjusting the PG use of medium and large reps a bit.
Second underline emphasis mine.

Have you done a first principles re-evaluation of rig design with this balance pass? If not could I encourage you to take the time to go back to the drawing board long enough to verify that current design is meeting the aims you want it to?

Personally I don't think rig penalties are creating any sort of interesting game-play decisions - despite negative drawbacks being a great way to stimulate what I think you are getting at, it all sort of seems to fall on its face. I don't think I have ever agonized over the speed loss (arguably the worst rig penalty in the game) of fitting trimarks because it is such an ingrained part of the game that going for max armour buffer means you get the shaft for speed; I am pretty sure the community agrees NO ONE cares about the shield rig penalty. I currently agonize over the decision to spend that much CALIBRATION on the damage rigs and potentially leave an open third rig slot on a T1 ship - not the CPU or PG penalty that probably isn't an issue with my perfect fitting skills or access to implants anyways and is mostly just a new player problem. And this ignores all the rigs where the penalty is 100% meaningless by design or accident - or in the case of the Electronic and Energy Grid rigs non-existent... So... What would be the impact of flat out removing all rig penalties?

For the time being the rigging skill would be only a fitting gateway (for the ability to put your own T2 rigs on at level 4 and no purpose to level 5) until you could revisit them and perhaps have them directly affect the results of rigs, mess with calibration or SOMETHING other than a penalty reduction. (How about trimarks even taking 100 calibration to fit and armour rigging taking off 5 calibration per level so triple trimark fits are only possible with level 4? /related brainstorming) I believe the result might be something like fits that were always putting on trimarks and CDFEs would continue to do so and you would have a much easier way ahead in making sure that rig amounts, calibration, and the entire design actually delivered interesting fitting game-play if you wanted to modify that player behaviour in future re-balancing. I don't think you are accomplishing the desired intent now or could accomplish it without an entire revamp of the penalty system. (And maybe someday, somehow we would even end up with a useful, attractive option for drone rigs! lol)

To get back to the thread topic, after simply stripping the penalties off all rigs, add in your mass reducing skill and do another balance pass on the RAH (there has to be SOME circumstances where it is better than a EANM for them to start being used Blink - maybe a special synergy with active reps?!?) and re-evaluate armour tanking at that point with an eye to improving active armour tanking to an attractive alternative in appropriate circumstances.

At least consider it, on the off chance you haven't already thought about the idea and discarded the option.
Vladimir Norkoff
Income Redistribution Service
#509 - 2013-01-23 00:29:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Vladimir Norkoff
Freighdee Katt wrote:
So [the AAR] has to sit there loaded and shut down almost all the time, waiting for when you need the burst rep. It would make some sense if there were a way to run it as a normal rep while it's loaded, and only trigger the burst rep on demand, so you don't have to wait until it is reloading to use it as a gimp normal repper.
Maybe have it only consume cap charges and do the burst tank when it is overheated? And make it so that it doesn't generate any heat while loaded with cap boosters? Would work into Fozzie's idea of overheating and tanking being tied together. Just an idea.
Zarnak Wulf
Task Force 641
Empyrean Edict
#510 - 2013-01-23 00:58:54 UTC
Anything that gets suggested in truth by CCP will get met with tears and rage quitting by someone. It is a ***** of an issue to deal with.
Liang Nuren
No Salvation
Divine Damnation
#511 - 2013-01-23 01:07:51 UTC
CCP Fozzie wrote:

Resist Bonus vs Rep Bonus
Differences between Shield and Armor tanking as a whole
Addition of new skills and modules



Comments:
- Ok, I can see how resist bonuses need to be balanced on the individual ship hulls. For instance, the Prophecy, Maller, and Abaddon all have some really glaring weaknesses. Sure. I'm actually even ok with having ships that are "for small gang" and ships that are "for fleet". And the people who are complaining about not having a "fleet" BC are out of their minds - they weren't going to be dropping fleets of neutron Brutixes anywhere. Lol
- I think that sig radius is already an extremely powerful mechanic that people just aren't aware of. It's simultaneously one of the best and worst tanking mechanics in the game - and it's almost wholly dependent on having a decent player behind the wheel. Be very very careful boosting that without making it WTFOP or brainless.
- The new skills seem particularly aimed at noobs instead of vets, but the point about being to level 2-3 is well taken. Even 4 in a skill is only a couple of days.

Quote:

Powergrid usage penalty on active rigs
When looking for a replacement for the speed penalty on active tanking rigs our goal was for the penalty to be something significant (useless penalties are something we want less of) without being onerous. The rep PG penalty had the advantage of being much easier to work around through fitting adjustments than the speed penalty, while being significant enough that it could not be completely ignored. I'm open to possible changes to that mechanic, either through changing the penalty itself or adjusting the PG use of medium and large reps a bit.


I think the argument isn't that we shouldn't be making trade offs for active tank power, but that active tanks are already making tremendous sacrifices. It's eminently reasonable to run a shield tanked Brutix. Active repping will cost the extra grid cost of the reps, the extra grid cost of the cap booster, and the additional vulnerability of requiring capacitor in the first place. Most of the time you're downgrading your guns and active repping will also mean your ship doesn't scale beyond 2-3 man gangs without some pretty serious ISK investments.

I think it's reasonable to require grid as a penalty if you respect the tremendous sacrifices a local tank is already making. Maybe try reducing the grid cost of reps before increasing their amount?

Quote:

Reducing ganglink bonuses and increasing effectiveness in other ways
As I've said before, this is something we definitely want to do. Links are both too effective in their direct bonuses as well as their ability to be used off-grid. However getting this specific issue fixed is going to need to wait until after 1.1. Once we have the room to implement some changes to the way warfare links work from the ground up, expect changes to a lot of other modules and mechanics to happen at the same time.


I'm excited by the admission that the direct bonus is as problematic as the off grid nature of it. I'm super excited. It feels like now is the perfect time to take care of the armor/shield side of it though! But, I'm super excited despite my bajillions of SP in Leadership (amongst all my alts). I can wait. I can wait.

I CAN'T WAIT!!!!

-Liang

I'm an idiot, don't mind me.
Liang Nuren
No Salvation
Divine Damnation
#512 - 2013-01-23 01:12:33 UTC
Takeshi Yamato wrote:
CCP Fozzie wrote:


Limiting oversized mods as a way to simplify balancing
I completely agree that limiting more modules to certain ship sizes would make my life easier. :)
However giving people the freedom to be creative with fits is part of what makes Eve so great and I don't want to lose that. It's going to take more work and more time but finding a balance without unnecessarily removing player choice is the ideal we're shooting for.


Paradoxically, allowing oversized mods reduces player choice because the oversized mods end up being the better choice. Choices are only meaningful when it's not obvious which choice is best.

How many shield tanked frigates fits use small over medium shield extenders?

How many cruiser fits use 800mm plates over 1600mm plates?

How many people even use 50mm, 100mm plates and micro shield extenders?

If you disallowed oversizing of modules and instead gave each shipclass two types of plates/extenders/repairers (a "light" and "heavy" version) then you could balance them against each other within the class. Lighter plates/extenders wouldn't have to suck anymore when compared to the heavier plate/extender and you could bring the two closer together in terms of effectiveness to create some real choices. Right now you can't do this because they are shared by multiple shipclasses and what's balanced for one isn't balance for another.

In fact this system opens up the door for more variety as you could for example give light shield extenders a totally different penalty (say cap recharge) than heavy extenders (sig radius).

So all said, I think my proposal would be an excellent way to increase player choice while making balancing much easier (and arguably actually possible).


I think it's too early to say whether the penalties for "oversized" mods are sufficient. 1600 plates are going to be significantly more massive than 800 plates and 100mn ABs have tremendous drawbacks (30 second align time anyone?). LSE is a cruiser mod and nobody fits it to destroyers/frigs so it's kinda moot there.

I am a fan of the flexibility provided by the current system.

-Liang

I'm an idiot, don't mind me.
Pinky Denmark
The Cursed Navy
#513 - 2013-01-23 01:25:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Pinky Denmark
I would just like to say there is NOTHING wrong with resist bonus as long the ship doesn't have too many tank slots. I.e 5 medslot Ferox is hardly uber, but a 7 lowslot prophecy might end up getting abused...

Also ASB and AAR could be fun if you fixed the core of local reps - People would also accept the skillbooks, overheat rig and mass adjustment as well as different drawbacks for armor rigs much better if they were announced together with real balancing. a base 20-25% more rep on both armor and shield tanking would be very cool and easily toned down by decreasing the effects of pirate implants and minlinks to half the bonus.

At least until you get to change off-grid boosting. Legalizing more boosters in hi-sec could also be a help.
And why not get armor rigs a drawback like mass or agility instead of making them directly incapable of moving keeping up with shield tankers. Especially Minmatar shield tankers already have a huge advantage in that area.

You guys have so much potential but right now players are not seing an aproach to "attend the core of the game rather than focus on new features". I completely understand how cool it is to invent new things and add options, but it takes away your focus and it will be a near impossible task to balance active tanking or armor tanking if you do it at the same time as introducing lots of new stuff...

Pinky
fukier
Gallente Federation
#514 - 2013-01-23 01:25:42 UTC  |  Edited by: fukier
To expand on my previous post about changing how the 5% to resists bonus will work...

My idea is to take away the base 25% to armor or shield resistance and replace it with making a 25% bonus to Passive resistance mods... This would mean the bonus would not work on lets say an Adaptive Inul or a EX hardner II... but the bonus would work on an energized adaptive resist...

This would make the skill better for armor (armor needs something to be better) as there is no passive invul for shields plus it would not make the bonus op either...

if you do this then the bonus will be brought inline with an active tanked bonus...

now a Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II with max skills on an abbadon will do 31.25% increase to resistances.

or an em ward amp II on a ferox will do 58.59375%

pretty much this will make the 5% bonus make passive mods eq to an active but not need any cap to run...

this will make the bonus usefull and not op anymore...
At the end of the game both the pawn and the Queen go in the same box.
Maximus Andendare
Stimulus
Rote Kapelle
#515 - 2013-01-23 01:29:03 UTC
Vess Starfire wrote:
If fitting XLASB on Cyclone "is part of what makes Eve so great", make sure we can use XLAAR on Myrmidon!!

And if that will need fitting mods, find a way to let us split 6 lows between them plus armour tank PLUS damage mods.

Or is oversize mod fitting for shield only?
Ding!...Sorry...You may not fit a LAR on your Myrm until you have 150% of its powergrid!

Enter grid and you're already dead, destined to be reborn and fight another day.

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Bubanni
Corus Aerospace
#516 - 2013-01-23 01:46:21 UTC
Change all % resist to hp %

Supercap nerf - change ewar immunity https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=194759 Module activation delay! https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1180934
Taoist Dragon
Okata Syndicate
#517 - 2013-01-23 02:03:07 UTC
I would like the AAR to use nanite instead of cap boosters.

You REPAIR stuff with nanite and it is smaller than cap boosters.

You use ENERGY to replenish your shields as they are not physical.


Just a little tweak to give them more flavor. Stats we'll have to wait to see how effectvie they are.

That is the Way, the Tao.

Balance is everything.
Some Rando
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#518 - 2013-01-23 02:32:50 UTC
Apostrof Ahashion wrote:
Currently X-Large Ancillary Shield Booster takes 200cpu and 500pg, and repairs 286ehp/s. Heavy Capacitor Booster II+X-Large Shield Booster II+Shield Boost Amplifier II takes 325cpu and 2476pg, and repairs 241ehp/s. Who would ever again use Shield Boosters after you introduced Ancillary? Yeah it needs to reload but so does Capacitor Booster, and you can fit two of them and still use less fitting space and mid slots than standard booster. It is so much better than standard boosters that no one is using them now. And you need less skills to use them efficiently / at all. That is a job poorly done.

This bears repeating so many times it's not even funny. Please fix the modules we have before adding new ones. I literally have Shield Compensation trained to 1 and I don't have to touch it ever again because of ASBs.

I like the mechanic of the AAR, but I fear it will overshadow everything else just like the ASB has for shields.

Regarding the plate adjustments: Just do it to all plates and do it like 25%, or even 30%. Having some artificial limitations because "everyone uses them" isn't good balancing.

I'm not too keen on having another skill to train, either, let's try to avoid that and just build it into the plates.

CCP has no sense of humour.
Omnathious Deninard
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#519 - 2013-01-23 02:48:00 UTC
It would be nice to see armor repairing work more like a constant effect (as some one else stated before), activating a armor repairer would drain nGJ/1Second and repair xHP/1Second. The Repair Systems would increase the repaired amount by y% per level.



The HP/GJ/S ratio needs to be looked at for armor repairers
(Repair Systems V)

Small Armor Repairer II 40GJ 80HP 6s = .4444HP/GJ/s
Medium Armor Repairer II 160GJ 320 HP 12s = .2222HP/GJ/s
Large Armor Repairer II 400GJ 800HP 15s = .1777HP/GJ/s


This is a steep change from small to medium, and not much of a change from medium to large. This should be looked at before introducing new modules into the Armor Tanking system.

A quick look at shield boosters HP/GJ/second
Small Shield Booster 20GJ 30HP 2s = .75HP/GJ/s
Medium Shield Booster 60GJ 90HP 3s = .5HP/GJ/s
Large Shield Booster 160GJ 240HP 4s = .375HP/GJ/s
X-Large Shield Booster 400GJ 600HP 5s = .3HP/GJ/s
This is a nice step from small to X-large.



Ingoring all other factors for the moment, why would someone want to use armor repairers when shield boosters are far superior? Shield boosters also get the shield boost amplifier

If you don't follow the rules, neither will I.
fukier
Gallente Federation
#520 - 2013-01-23 03:00:44 UTC
Also i got an idea for the AAR people are upset it uses cap to operate and i agree that having to use cap plus cap boosters seems wrong....

So i suggest instead of it using cap booster charges it uses nanite repair paste instead...

each size of AAR uses a finite amount of nanite repair paste so that it eventually forces a reaload (eq amount of time it would take to go threw cap charges)

the crux about it is nanite paste takes a very small amount of space... so you can still have your 800's for the cap injector and then have nanite paste for overheating and AAR

i am also hopping for nanite repair paste to work on drones while they are in the drone bay...
At the end of the game both the pawn and the Queen go in the same box.