Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The PvE focus of these ships isn't what "ruined them." What held them back, and continues to hold them back, is this conflict:

1. In Level 4 Missions, more DPS equals more ISK. A robust, sustained local tank, paired with high DPS, projection and application, is the ultimate mission runner.

2. Such a ship would obsolete many, many others in PvP, and would kill the soul of Tiericide for the Battleship class.

So the Marauder, as it currently exists, was an attempt to marry DPS, application (Web, TP), and durability whilst substantially reducing it's effectiveness in PvP. The reason this attempt was a failure was twofold:

1. Pirate (and some faction) Battleships are capable of dealing the same theoretical DPS, but their projection bonuses are stronger and their velocity is higher. They are also almost as durable. For this increased performance, you need only 1/4 the training time and 50-70% of the ISK.

2. Less significant, but relevant when you consider that Pirate BS's have stronger than average Sensor Strength, is that the way CCP chose to reduce Marauder PvP effectiveness (low sensor strength,) makes these ships very vulnerable to NPC ECM as well.

Catering to PvE didn't break these ships. The dichotomy between catering to PvE without dominating PvP, combined with the superior performance of Pirate Battleships, did.

Yeah, I know... the idea has some merit. But it also has the potential for taking the Bastion module places CCP doesn't want it to go into.

Remember, they want Marauders to have "more" of a PVP role, not become the defacto fleet doctrine for Null sec fleets.

That's why I'm leaning towards making the Marauder itself be at least a "serviceable" PVP vessel in and of itself, with Bastion mode giving it everything it needs to be a superb PVE vessel... although reversing that would work as well. Making the Bastion module be the key to both may do more harm to the Marauder class than good.

For something completely different...

There is one weapons system in EVE that is...

1: Completely stationary.
2: Properly bonused can be deadly to anything from frigate size on up.
3: Works well at almost all ranges.
4: Works very well in PVE, especially in conjunction with a MJD.
5: Is very popular in certain fleet doctrines.

Yep, the humble Sentry Drone.

So what if the Marauder hull was based around a large drone bay instead, along with it's MJD advantages... and what if the Bastion module had bonuses that not only improved it's tank but also enhanced the range and tracking of sentry drones?

Transformed it would become a bit of a Death Star, surrounded by it's immobile sentry's. MJD is the primary method of movement for PVE sentry use anyway. Also the Marauder hull "could" be used as part of an existing sentry drone fleet, but Bastion mode would likely not be used due to lack of remote rep in that configuration.

Just food for thought, they would seem to be made for each other.

Even in PvE it tends to only truly shine with sentries, which actually already have some resistance to EWAR. The range amplification of Bastion helps the other weapons systems increase their attractiveness at MJD distances, but those that are largely falloff based will draw significant disadvantages at range.

First step choose primary role for them.
Ok so let it be PVE because PVP with those costs for sub cap have no sense to be primary, then look how this PVE direction can give them little PVP possibility.

We got tractor bonus, it's good but should be at least x2 bigger otherwise it's wasted bonus.
We got less ammo consuption, great but with less DPS than pirate and navy BS's it's no win, and 4 high damage guns like on golem sometimes make DPS even smaller because of wasted dmg in those salvos.

So what to do? The most important thing in PVE is time efficiency. Most of scenarios it's = highest DPS, speed is important too but You can always fit AB/MWD.

We got Bastion module, ok let it be, now it's important to give it bonuses so marauders will be better than pirate/navy BS's.
EWAR immunity? Good with last NPC EWAR changes
Better aplication/range? Always better
More tank? Could be but it's not important, it won't speed up things. Some may say "bu bu but You can now fit more modules for DPS etc." how could i do it on Golem? Or 5th gyro on vargur?... it won't outperform DPS of pirate/navy BS's, and sitting still for 1min when You can kill stuff on the go for another pocket will cut time efficiency even more.

So yeah it's hard to rebalance them without increasing raw DPS so they will be best in thier role. I like that idea to make them better than pirate/navy BS's for PVE with something else than bigger DPS, but it's hard/tricky and current changes are too small (tractor bonus) , not useful or in bad direction.

And to make things even harder, ships must be fun to play and not too gimmick, no one want's to skill that long for micromanagement hell...

Hope that CCP will figure this out, otherwise marauders will be useless.

I would still say the benefit is somewhat situational as while range amplification closes the gap somewhat between sniping performance and high DPS close-mid range fits, it still has drawbacks on causing some weapons to suffer heavy DPS loss to being in deep falloff if they hit at all at the longer end of MJD sniping.

at least they should change the bastion deactivation to like this:
you activate it has to run 1 cycle , but after that when it only takes 10 sec to unactivate, who thinks it is a good module when it needs average 30 sec to turn off possibly up to 60 , then you add warp off time 10 seconds... it warps to safe slower than a carrier from 0 , totally useless for 0.0 or low sec pve , when enemy can catch you from 2 jumps away before you can warp off

oh and it only gives tank and minimal optimal,the only good think is ewar immunity but then it is its drawback too ? :O
it should give some dmg too , dunno much about pve but inst dps the limiting factor and not the repp amount?

I cant realy seem much use for this bastion module , it just doesnt give that much for its huge drawbacks and does that item should be the power of a marauder? no way

this whole marauder thing needs a rethink , probably the transformation is already in work so as usuall ccp will stick to that ,but everything other thing could and should be changed, drop out the current marauder and start from blank, it doesnt have to resemble the current marauder at all, just be unique and good for its role

Oh, and yes, I still think the most natural weapons system the Marauder hull should be built around (especially considering it's MJD bonus and proposed T2 resists to the hull), and what the immobile Bastion mode should augment, is Sentry drone use.

I'd rather see the local repair bonus return in some form than see them break with the T2 resists convention (likely to the complaining of everyone planning to use these ships for incursions or PvP).



Tons of Battleships have this or little drone-bay. The Rokh is one good example, the Apocalypse is another. Seems to come pretty standard with the really tanky ships and a host of other T1 battleships have only 75 bandwidth and drone bay.



Ytterbium was fitting for the increased range of Bastion and the reduced tank, in general you would either do a MWD, webs, and Blasters (fun, but not necessarily optimal) or Rails, with a MWD, or AB and webs for anything that you can't track with the rails and the drones don't finish off while you're blasting through Battleships.



Generalized in the sense of "Jack of all trades, master of none". Not in the sense that each T3 in a fleet won't be filling one or two specialized roles.

Post-T3 Rebalance the idea seems to be that they'll be able to do a lot of things well but none of them better than the base hull that's specialized in them. We're already seeing a bit of this with the Command Ship changes.

For T2 the Marauders seem to be focusing on tank and damage projection/application, not on being more versatile. See: Battleship sized HACs are a bad idea...

You can, of-course, always fit a ship for any number of situations but a ship's bonuses determine its specialization.

There's this infographic halfway through this ship balance devblog that explains why this is. Likewise, why weren't these exact same complaints being used for HAC's when they were being rebalanced compared to faction cruiser hulls? T2 cruisers are typically less maneuverable, have less raw damage, require more training time, bring comparible tanks for regional rats, and (with some exceptions) also require greater isk investment. Since T2 is all about specialization, it looks like CCP is trying to add real specialization to marauders with the bastion module. Killing NPC's isn't a specialized task and giving a tractor beam bonus doesn't make the ship specialized for PvE (despite what the description might say).



From the OP...



Their proposed role is no longer going to be just a PvE focused battleship. Like I mentioned previously as well, a tractor beam bonus is hardly grounds for being claiming a ship is specialized for PvE.