Player Features and Ideas Discussion

What about preventing ships with an active bastion module from jumping or using wormholes? We already use MWDs on plated orcas to collapse holes anyway. I don't understand your concern with marauders.

The bastion module should do something useful. Consider at least extending web range, rather than web effectiveness. Perhaps a web strength bonus on the hull, web range bonus on the bastion module?

Local armor rep is still bonused in bastion. This effectively makes bastion like having the marauder you are used to tank wise and more, only crippled.

Which would be a glorious solution if it could be used in reverse for the rep bonus. But it can't as we have gained nothing that would allow us to make it up outside of bastion. What this means is that today's working Paladin config doesn't work under the proposed in a situation you would actually use it. It's a total loss for every active tank config outside of bastion including those with webs since that bonus was reduced as well. T2 resists are largely meaningless when you know you won't be tanking that damage.

CCP. Could you explain what use you actually see these ships seeing?
And how the new stats fill those roles any better than the current stats do?

The only spot I can see improved slightly is Paladins in Incursions (Outside Bastion mode).
Bastion mode also makes them the go to ship for crazy EWar heavy PvE missions.

However I see literally zero PvP application. The reason battleships hardly ever get used for PvP and people prefer the T3 cruisers, shield nano BC gangs or smaller ships often is straight up mobility. A Battleship fleet has to be large enough to take a blap dread hotdrop and have it's own cyno in the wings with it's own dreads & carriers also. Otherwise it will get shadowed & tackled by a faster more manoeuvrable fleet.

Marauders are now even worse at this than they already were before this update.

So. I see even less PvP being done in Marauders than currently is.

I think an explanation of your actual vision for how these ships should be used in general game play, not just a once a month outing, but how you expect a pilot to use them in a daily fashion is needed. Not just a bunch of stats.

PvPer's complain. Incursion runners complain.

The Rep boost bonus has always been what sets these ships apart from Pirate Battleships for mission running, and now it's been severely gimped. T2 resists are pointless in 80% of missions, or 100% if you're Amarr.

I am one of the few people in this thread that probably has actually trained Muraders to V and uses them for their intended PVE purpose. And after reading this, and many of the suggested follow up posts - I've got mixed feelings. Most of them negative (unfortunately).

I see bad game design repeating itself - Semi - Spammable Micro Jump Drives ----> Ultimate Kiter.... If this isn't bad, why the nano nerf?

I see a ship role repeating itself - We just got new hulls that fill this position - Tier 3 Battle Cruisers

I have some serious reservations about the existing proposals. They sound neet, but it also sounds strikingly similar to another role that currently exists - Tier 3 Battle Cruisers.

Tier 3's are supposed to be the Kiting, At range boats - utilizing large caibre weapons. A tier 3 Battle cruiser, just off it's 8 large guns, already pushes out the same DPS as it's equivalent Murader. With a MWD it's faster and dictates range better - and is far cheeper. Why would I want to utilize 1-2 muraders doing this when I can have 20 Tier 3's?

Forcing a fit to rely on the Micro Drive and Long range artillery support - means the ship is going to become fragile... As people fit tracking and damage mods... And to put yet another super kiting fleet on the board is going to produce more player based complaints... Isn't the inability to catch your target what caused player base frustration and the Nano Nerf several years ago?

****

The 'triage' module (Lets call it what it is for simplicity) - is an interesting idea. And level V's just became easier to accomplish with a dedicated, single ship uber tanker - no logi required. But again, the relative short range on the webs mean output DPS from these "Bastions of Defense" immobile defense stations just became a non issue.

Triage carriers, from my understanding, are only really used in POS repair situation, or by logi carriers in large fleet fights. And super caps going into 'triage' do it when they are un-harassed and are POS bowling. No one actively commits a triaged capital to a live combat situation without the express mindset that the ship in question - is going to go boom.

So you want to do this to a battleship? that can cost as much as a small carrier? So we have new skills and new modules - that won't be committed to a fight in a practical sense, and take the Murader out of it's only current effective niche role - Mission Running.


********

The Murader currently has a very strong PVP backbone and intelligent bonuses for PVP without being horribly broken. The one MAJOR flaw is that the sensor strength is so low that light drones jam them. This is one focal point is the primary reason Muraders are not utilized in fleet combat, are not deployed to wormholes, and will never leave high sec. A gallente Frigate can reliably jam these beasties out. Do a hot fix, push those sensor strengths over 20 (like you did the HAC's), and you would instantly see Muraders suddenly becoming fielded and utilized across new eden.

The ships aren't perfect. The web bonus (which is great for PVP, not for PVE) then make sense, as the muraders become close range brawlers of doom, but still kited, and shot down by the kiting ships (Tier 3's).

As far as the graphical transformation - I have a sinking suspicion that the art department has been tasked. The shiny has had money spent on it, which means that feature (good or bad) is probably already in the pipeline and cannot be stopped.

CCP, please consider putting that on a Clone

**********

CCP, guys, split the ship hull. Give us two variants. Something similar to the old (current), and THEN go play with the new wonky, I will jump into two bad ideas at once.

Try a re-balance on the Muraders BEFORE your do a re-design.

PVE Reballance - Mission runners don't use webs, we use dual tracking links and long range guns. Change the Web Speed Bonus to something else. A simple change to making it a Web RANGE bonus instead would make it ver viable.

KEEP our tractor range - We shoot out stuff at 40+++ KM (My kronos shoots out missions at 80+ KM, with my sentries hitting at those ranges). That 40km tractor beem really does make a difference in completion times and convience of use. (Yes, We paid for a 1.0-3.0 billion isk ship for convience. Were old foggy crotchety eve players, we deserve a little reward in ease of use).

I don't know how putting T2 resists on my boat will compare to my 37.5% repair bonus. I need to be able to tank level IV's and still put damage modifiers on my ship. Weigh that carefully please.


********

How to get a Murader to PVP
How to get a Murader to leave High Sec

Push Sensor Strength to over 20 like you did our Hacs.


Pirate Navy Ships are still faster, do more DPS and have far more "Fun" slots for more interesting layouts. They are still the natural counter to a Murader.

Unleash the Murader as it currently is, I think you guys will be pleasantly surpised at just how well they will mesh and jive with the existing Ship Landscape as they are currently written.

The only major point of ship re-balance I see needing to happen to keep muraders from perma tanking / cur their cargo bays in half or more.




******

That's how you address a re-balance.

Push the re-design to another hull.

PLEASE:

Re-Balance FIRST

Re-Design SECOND

I understand this argument, I just don't agree with it. The Marauders have always been good at tanking, regardless of what the obsolete in-game description for the class says. Adding things to buff that and bring them up to a full T2 specialization is not at all out of line with the ships.

Bastion is going to be divisive but overall it's a cool idea and fits with the class as its been in the past.



Yes, the problem is that you're condemning two of the four to having to fit more mods against most rats, where as with T1 hulls it's much more even and entirely based on what resist type you're tanking on. If a Paladin wants to make use of its explosive resists it need to be fighting Rogue Drones (which pay poorly overall) or Angels where the two best damage types to deal are the ones it can't deal.

The Vargur is in a somewhat better place by being able to swap damage types fairly freely but still has to fit more mods against most rats than either the Gallente or Caldari do.

I really liked what CCP was trying to do in the first place. Make a T2 battleship, which is supposed to be awesome, that is only PvE oriented into something that also has PvP applications. The original concept for the bastion module was on the right track, in my opinion. It gave the marauder solo PvP potential and increased it's application in wormholes, plexes and level 5's at the cost of being forced to commit to one position for 60+ seconds and a hypervulnerability when not in bastion mode.

The revised bastion stats require about the same number of defensive fitting slots for PvE as is required now, the tank is a little better than the status quo but not by enough to make it worth the ISK risk in PvP or higher end PvE, it leaves the ship even more vulnerable when not in bastion mode than the first iteration and the hull has an extremely questionable web bonus where it could have something else. In PvE, nothing bigger than a frigate gets within 20km of a marauder and drones typically deal with the frigates.

I can pretty safely say that with the new stats I would never even think about putting a marauder into PvP. We're talking about a 1b ISK hull (not including mods) that requires a lot of extra training, doesn't work well in a fleet, is highly susceptible to alpha and has to be locked in place for a relatively long time in order to operate at its full capacity. Using a marauder to solo rather than something like a hyperion or maelstrom would be on par with using a freighter rather than a shuttle to fly to the back end of Syndicate.

Lastly, I don't think it makes sense for the bastion mod to not use fuel. Marauders already have a giant cargo bay that can accomodate a little fuel. Or hell, maybe even give them a small fuel bay to store the bastion fuel as well as the LO they will need for the cyno they will inevitably be wearing.
Besides, there is an excessive supply of heavy water and almost no demand for it, so making it a fuel used by mission runners would go a long way to helping it become a profitable resource and indirectly influence the cost of other ice products (increased profitability -> more miners -> more market competition -> lower/more stable isotope prices).

The original bastion idea had benefits that matched or outweighed the drawbacks. The new bastion idea has drawbacks which greatly outweigh the benefits. If the changes on the table are implemented I will be seriously considering whether to sell my marauder and, according to CCP's ship progression, "downgrade" to a navy battleship to get a better tool for PvE. Something about that doesn't seem right...

My griping about changes without making suggestions is about as useless as the paladin's capacitor bonus (cap boosters: we use them), so if I was king for a day I would:
- get rid of the web bonus in favor of some variation of a defense bonus (or if that's not an option at least change golem/vargur to web range for variety)
- change the paladin's capacitor bonus to a damage application bonus (tracking or ROF)
- swap the golem's TP bonus for a built-in explosion radius bonus (5% or so) and drop one mid for one low
- apply T2 resists
- give the bastion mod a mild damage application bonus (20% to tracking, 10% to explosion vel+rad)
- make the bastion module use 25 heavy water per cycle
- someone mentioned a probe strength bonus and ability to fit expanded probe launcher, which is a fantastic idea
- get rid of the MJD bonus (great idea for the blackops revision, though!) and make it able to warp out of bubbles (like T3's with an interdiction nullifier)

Just caught that and deleted my post but IMHO Mass penalty should still be back and just disabled on jumping gates/wormholes.

Well, thanks for the useless bonus I guess.

Bastion gives you Optimal and Falloff bonus which makes you think LR weapons, yet now you want us to stay within 10km. Golem getting a TP and web bonus sounds doubly aweful too.

*sigh* Still a few months yet, hopefully they'll get unborked.