Player Features and Ideas Discussion

It is actually amazing for those different iterations, like to iteration I:

*Why are you taking away the paladins/kronos web-bonus, oyu used to fit two of them and blap frigs at 10m*
*Pls abandon the tank bonus and give them them more damage, cause Level 4s / Anoms deal nearly no damage at all*
*Pls give them T2 resists to make them viable in incursion*

and then to iteration II:

*What the hell is that crippled web-bonus, we never used a web on any marauder ever !!1! they are pure sniping boats, CCP fail*
*Wtf you're taking away the 7.5% rep-bonus. Marauders ****, can't tank a level 4 anymore*
*Why are you giving them T2-resists, they massively lose in tank that way. My Paladin ow got weakest resist thermal and that's not good for domain-missioning... you suck*

Honestly, if people think that either iteration I or II would be a step back compared to the old ones, you are probably bad at pixelnavigating and should feel that way.

What I often see in this thread is complaints about losing the web and complains about re-instating them. Then complaints about active tank buff and compalints about active tank nerf.

Interestingly enough, this time I am not ready to dismiss this as player fallacy. I think these schizoid reactions are to be expected because CCP is trying to make all Marauders work in more or less the same way. However when Marauders are cureently very different from each other in the way they tank and gank, when you iterate horizontal across the board changes you will definately create substantial imbalances.

It is normal that palyers expecting CCP to iterate a "solution" for their ships react badly when 50% of them see their current set up nerfed.

Perhaps CCP should ponder on the general powercreep on all hulls in 2013 and proceed to do the same with Marauders. +50% dps in bastion or some such ****, I d expect...

I think what u meant to say is that ppl who took the extra time to train into marauders, don't want to see their pve effectiveness drop. If CCP is planning on a general buff as indicated by the first iteration bastion mode, pg on vargur, mjd bonus, etc, give the pve ppl who trained for it better pve performance.

It feels like they are making some of the pve loadouts less effective in order attempt to give them a pvp role. If you assume the majority of ppl who trained and use marauders did so for pve, its kinda a slap in the face.

Golem:

The web bonus would be pointless on it, since conflicts with a painter fitting and a torpedo explosion velocity bonus would be far more useful. The speed nerf is very contra productive, a torpedo BS balanced on javelin range is useless since it offers nothing over a CM fitting in normal game play and with the much lower speed it can't move within range quick enough to apply faction or rage torpedo DPS.

Vargur

The web bonus on it is also mostly wasted, in normal game play you stay out of web range with it and the speed nerf makes it far less viable than the mach, because it takes a lot longer to adjust ranges(both with artillery and auto cannons). Another tracking or optimal bonus would be far more useful to improve it with artillery and give it a slightly different focus than the mach.

Kronos

Removing the sentry's will wreck the dps with rails(and it is mostly a sentry/rail platform, the vindicator does blasters just better) and the speed nerf hits it hard for repositioning(no 100km jumps just gimp your dps, most of the time you want to move it within 30-50km range to the spawn to apply max dps with sentry's and rails).

Paladin

While the optimal bonus is perfect, a tracking bonus would probably the better option, given that it is the best marauder already. Also the drone bay nerf kills the sentry potential.

Suggestions:

- add the drone bay nerf, mjd gimmick and speed nerf directly to the bastion module, this way the ships don't lose a lot of potential for the ability to fit a module that you might more often then not never use
- give the Vargur, Golem and Paladin 25m³ spare drone bay over her current value, to improve her ability to utilize sentry's
- give the Kronos 125/275 drone bay to utilize 2 waves of sentry's, so you can flexible adapt to range, similar as with the rails
- give the Kronos the optimal and tracking bonus to drones, like on the domi, instead of the falloff one, since it doesn't add much to rails and blasters are very situational in pve
- give the Golem at last as much speed as the new navy raven and increase the missile velocity bonus a bit to improve torp range and give people the option to fit another damage application rig instead of range rig
- give the Golem a torpedo explosion velocity bonus(yes just for torpedo's) to make torpedo fittings on it viable again
- give the Vargur another tracking or optimal bonus instead of the web one, to make more different to the mach for pve
- give the Vargur and Golem a CPU reduction bonus to shield transporters, so they can utilize spider tanking similar as to the armor marauders
- give them a 25% cap reduction and 100% range improvement to cap transfers, remote reps and shield transporters, to further improve her already preferable use in spider tanking gangs compared to faction BS
- give them a 25-50% cap use reduction for micro warp drives, because the mwd is more often than not the bigger cap drain then the tank many pve scenarios
- give the Kronos and Paladin back the 90% web, the bonus came from the marauders(and already nerfed down from a bonus that did let you do pve without light drones to standard pre QR webs) and the only reason it landed on the serpentis ships was because they where completely useless without it, like any point blank ship that can't apply dps at point blank(aka any other blaster hull that is still dysfunctional at point blank in favour of watering the concept down with minmatar influences over the years) and it is very useful in group pve(to pin down targets), to keep up sentry and turret damage up(very important for the Kronos if you ever pve in mini space) and helps incredible for incursions

Because the optimal bonus on it is probably to powerful on a hull with the damage bonus, because it is actually worth more than 3(37.5% one) 4 slots(10% one) on your ship after stacking, while the tracking bonus is worth about 1.5 slots. Also for me there is zero reason to fit a mjd on it for pve, because it just gimps your dps and a mwd is the better option for nearly every situation. I think most people might underestimate the value of the tracking bonus, given how good my navy Apoc with puls and my tachyon NM performs with it, I like it a lot.

I would disagree with the T2 resists since they are optimal for omni tanking(no real big hole now) and laser damage is extremely easy to tank with armor anyway. The Vargur is nowhere close to the pve speed of the Paladin in Amarr space and this is the main selling point. Tank is not a problem for me currently(I use 2 TS EANMs a medium armor repper on mine) and I hardly believe many people that not over tank her marauder today will miss the active tank bonus.

The web bonus is very handy for pve in minmatar space and multi boxing L4 or WH to, like putting a 90% web on a frig and shoot it with a ship that actually can track and lock quickly(like my navy apoc) to completely go with sentry drones instead of waiting on your light drones to do the job(what speeds pve up immensely). The only reason it got not utilized on the paladin so much for L4 is that it is not needed for most L4 in amarr space, in mini or gallente space is is very handy.

Yes, an explosion velocity bonus is potentially more useful - because it benefits both short and long-range weapons. A stasis web bonus hardly conflicts with a target painter bonus, as a reduction in target speed has the same (if not more) benefit than an increase in explosion velocity. With an explosion velocity bonus of 25-37.5%, there would be absolutely no reason to run anything other than a cruise missile fit on a Golem (because with the target painter bonus it could literally pick-off anything on the field from extreme range in Bastion mode).

Well, it could pick off targets with extreme range, but we already can't lock targets as far as we can shoot CMs, and I'm sure as he'll not giving up more slots for targeting range.

That said, I think all these bonuses kinda gimps the golem.
I say this because we now have 2 mids for TPs, 1mjd, 1cap booster, 1 shield booster, leaving just one slot for resists, and maybe rigs for resists.

I still STRONGLY feel that we should give up the 8th high for an 8th mid..
We aren't going to be fitting webs on our ships more than likely, but we still don't have enough mids to make a good load out.

The Kronos and Pali are less gimped in this case, but even they could probably go for an extra mid as well.

Drop a ballistic control for a passive signal amplifier and you solve the range problems. As for the Golem being "gimped", by my count you still have 2 slots available for resists (passive EM and adaptive invulnerability). With the significant reduction to the MJD cooldown, it effectively replaces the need for an afterburner or MWD. Let's not forget that with the T2 resists this easily puts you into the high 80's and 90's - so you could probably run a medium or large Deadspace shield booster cap stable (that frees up another slot).

Addendum: You could also drop down to a single TP by running a pair of T2 rigors.

this.

The downside is a massive speed and drone bay nerf, reducing the dps and ignoring well know issues of the particular hulls(damage shortage of the Kronos, Vargur to similar to the Mach, Golem more usefull with CMs instead with Torps etc.).

As for the earlier question about the web, ofc it collides with the painter bonus, since every slot you use on a web you can't use for a painter. Ofc the web got the bigger benefit(after like 15s slowing stuff down) but the application is not instant like with painters and you will most of the time not get till web range(because the target is dead anyway or you get kitted in pvp, because you sit in brick, even for BS standards). The idea is to only add the explosion velocity bonus to torpedo's(because they are kind of bad since the last CM update) and make the Golem again more viable with trops.