Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I agree that these changes seem underwhelming. I think the focus should be on tanking. The Heretic getting an armor resist bonus and the Flycatcher a shield one. Both with plenty of slots in the primary tank for a robust fleet interdictor. The Sabre and Eris should both something akin to the Tornado and Talos. Fast, high dps, lightly tanked small gang machines. Bump the Eris up to a 3rd mid at the expense of a low, choose one weapon system (preferably hybrids) and go from there.

The sigs are fine, dictors are already hard enough to kill when they are moving at the speeds they move.

So the Eris is the only ship with mixed weapons - where you need to use all 7/8 slos to get the same damage while having a splitt weapon. Wasn't it sayed that in Minmatar ships it was a bad design choice and you learned from it?

And your "to get the heretic on the same level then the gallente" it got more base amor and a resist per level (wan't that bad design too?). Way to go. (And don't let me start why gallente get the most STRUCTURE in ships - while Amarr get most armor AND resists)
Also 5% more damage is a nerf to the damage of the eris when you kill her 10% tracking.


Another point I want to raise:

A solid tackle (TM) needs 3 med slots: propulsion, Scram/dis and a web.
An interdictor (thanks to the bubble) can mostlikly skip the disruptor and go for a scram, adding with a web to help the tackle.
Only ship with 2 med in a tackle role: the eris.

So basically you take away the choice from gallente by making them the worse of the pack.
2 slots? check
worse armor tank? check
mixed weapons were you need to fit BOTH the compete with the comeptiton? check

and all these tradeoffs are for ... 0.1 sec allign time and +5m/s speed (vs the heretic).


OR just to rephrase: why would i pick the Eris out of the interdictors?

It might be just a hunch, but is your rebalancing not a bit to hard on the "pulse of current meta"?


Sincerly

What about rolling the interdiction launcher bonus into the base timer of the module and adding a 7.5% to hull resistance in its place?

I'm sorry, despite the good effort, this is NOT the way to go with the rebalance.

Dictors need 3 things to work properly to make them unique and useful for their price.

1. Get rid of Warp Interdiction Spheres and make 'dictors and hictors the only ship able to field Mobile warp disruptors. Hictors would keep their highslot point. This frees up their fitting quite a bit, and makes them invaluable ships to have in null and wh space. Hictors are as valued as they are because they not only perform a unique and extremely valuable role (supercap points), they also have the fitting and toughness to be useful in a brawl. Making Dictors the "smaller" versions of these also keeps in line with the skill progression they have, just as you have been doing with Assault frigates and HACs.

2. Drop a high slot (or two) for fitting slots.
If Interdictors become the only ships that can field Mobile Warp disruptors, they don't have to fit the warp interdiciton sphere launcher, and can balance their fitting a bit better. The inherent problem with destroyer balancing is that CCP is still actually stuck on the tier system, in respect to slots for ship classes to a degree. Since the destroyer falls between the cruiser and frigate size classes, but it also has an in-born role with its inception, it suffers from slot misappropriation. Interdictors are not t1 destroyers, and thus do not need a full 8 high slots for direct offensive power. Dropping one or two highs and keeping the missile or gun limit on each to 6 would allow ships like the flycatcher to finally, FINALLY be freed from the horror that is having a single lowslot. It is beyond awful that dictors got balanced into a corner like this, and is one of the many reasons that they are underused in direct pvp situations outside of popping bubbles for camps.

3. Up their defenses.
While it makes sense that interceptors wouldn't get a big HP or resist buff, I implore CCP to find some room to appropriate decent resists. Something on the order of force recon boats would be acceptable, and the level of EWAR frigs would be perfect. They are EXTREMELY high-value targets that remain easy to catch. The fact remains that regardless of how you try to balance their speed or sig radius, there remains an entire weight class of frigates beneath it, many of which are more than capable of chewing up and spitting out any interdictor in a direct engagement. While ships like the Sabre are fairly powerful, they still lack appropriate defenses for their price tag and role, and the fact that they have less HP than their t1 counterparts is a miserable situation for them to be in.

Let them into the light a bit so they can fight, please. They are all beautiful, wonderful vessels that have clear potential that is being squandered by an outdated and stale game mechanic. If you don't get rid of interdiction spheres, at LEAST drop their fitting needs and increase the staying time of interdiction sphere bubbles significantly. And fix the damnable rate of fire bonus to something like bubble time or something useful.

It's perfect considering that's the direction they started taking with the Ares. Equal viability for both is what they're supposedly investing in, so it would be kind of nice if they could actually follow through with what they said they would instead of half-assing it.

Best slot setup for 6/6 gun/missile setup on the eris would be 7/2/5. Would allow for good dps. Heretic should get 7/3/4, I think.

Split weapon systems, especially turret/missile splits on gallente ships really need to stop. I liked it on the typhoon, it was my favorite ship, but it's a minmatar focus, and I was still quite happy when the extra hardpoints were added to allow specialization. Turret and missile splits on gallente ships just suck, and the eris will be severely underpowered if it keeps such an awful setup.

Dropping a highslot and moving it to a low or mid for each dictor would be awesomely useful.

Not Empty Quoting.

So what the **** ccp? You guys run out of ideas? Time lines looming? Out of budget? These have larger sigs then some cruisers, less base tank then t1 destroyers, and seriously, what the **** split wep systems? Gallente DO NOT NEED 3 wep systems. Give em drones and hybrids. Thats what gallente pilots train for. Every race does not need missiles, especially on gimped garbage split wep systems. First the ares, now this.

I've been a huge fan of the changes so far. Especially the t1 frig and cruiser changes. Its getting ridiculous now though. Either do it right or don't do it at all.

I can definitely agree with you on that last point, and towards the end I said if they don't remove dictor bubbles from the game, they should at least drop the fitting reqs a bit so the ships don't get penalized for CPU so much for using them. Would you think it'd be good if they rolled at least part of the firing rate bonus into the ship, left a utility high on all of them, and buffed HP, resists, and gave extra slots? I'm just frustrated at how pathetic they are in actual combat. I mean, if you have one with you camping the gate, it should at least be able to contribute to the fight if you catch something with your gang, you know?