Player Features and Ideas Discussion

You see, this is pretty much the point. RLMLs are turned into "gank weapons" with this 40 second reload time.

Gank weapons and weapons for PVe and PVP now have a starker contrast.




This is because to most of the player base, suicide ganking (for which a 40 second reload issue is moot) and blobbing hapless players in gate/bubble camps (also where a 40 second reload time is not a problem) is not fun. They don't even consider 50 to 1 to be PVP and small gangs and 1 v 1 with a 40 second reload time you can forget it. Lesser skilled players who rely on larger ships in lower level missions (meaning smaller rats) can have an easier time with RLMLs until they are ready to graduate to higher missions or a smaller ship with better tanking skills. On the previous page it was brought up that the RLML and larger variant could be added to the "bag of tricks" and not necessarily a stepping stone weapon for caldari noobs. I have around 75 million SP and find that these new launchers fill a niche perfectly for cases where larger ships in are going to be dealing with smaller ones. There's simply a lot of creative potential around these rapid launchers. On the other side though, they take the damage potential of a ship downward to being outclassed if coming up against an equal sized and tanked hull for a potentially embarrassing loss.


It would be simpler to say "these are now gank weapons for people who don't use artillery". There's nothing wrong with gank weapons, though understandably the increased tanking of indies has made things harder on blaster cats, simply coming out and saying "the Caracel is the new Blaster Cat for ganking" would have at least warned everybody that their RLML fits were on the way out.


"Not fun" - perhaps. But from the looks of it, people appear to have more fun in small gangs and 1 v 1 where the old RLML looked more attractive. The gankers and blobbers don't appear to be having as much fun, as indicated by their propensity to constantly complain about highsec in the general forum.

I'll try to hit a few points raised in the last page or two, sorry if it's not everything.

Few comments about ignoring feedback still. I think maybe this is just because the only thing that counts as acknowledging it is to act. You're right that a lot of people have said they don't want the change, and I haven't reversed it, but to me that isn't ignoring. I've listened intensely, not ignored, but I can see how lack of action based on a set of feedback isn't satisfying and feels like disregard. I'll just keep saying that it's not and that I value the feedback and it influences our decisions even when that isn't apparent.

On rolling out RHML with the new mechanic and leaving RLML - We definitely considered doing this but we really disliked the inconsistency. With both systems sharing a name and a lot of other patterns (fitting requirements, ammo use being down a size, etc) it seemed really bad to have them working in entirely different ways. I acknowledge that with those motivations aside, it would have been nice to try the mechanic on just RHML first.

On metrics - there's a few things that are getting pointed out which are absolutely true. A few small points on our use of metrics:
1. We look at a range of things including, but not limited to, mod activations, damage done by the mod type, amount bought/sold and some stats associated with the ships most likely to use the mod.
2. Metrics are very useful but also limited, we don't expect to get the whole story from them, especially considering how complex EVE is, but that doesn't mean it isn't a useful resource. Same thing could be said about using forum feedback I would say.
3. The big thing mentioned above that we keep in mind constantly is that a lot of the usage in EVE has momentum associated with something other than the powerlevel or immediate preference of the player. Skill training, access to assets, aesthetics and simply developing patterns around certain things all make the metrics a lot different than they would be on the test server where every ship looked the same and everyone had max sp. We try to keep that in mind always.

Finally, I just want to say that the 'fun' factor of the mechanic is very difficult to evaluate objectively. There's evidence pointing in a lot of directions, and I still like the idea of doing something different more than sticking with something very safe and normal. The evidence that says it is fun, since I'm sure you will be skeptical of that claim' is both direct (my experience and the experience of some players posting here or talking with me directly) and also the existence of similar mechanics in other games. War Thunder for instance has this mechanic on every single plane in the game and people seem to find that very fun generally. I'm still trying to gather as much info as possible and if you guys are using it and are able to say it's not fun (separate from it not being good, which is a different issue and could be corrected with numbers tweaks like 30s reload or more ammo per launcher) please post and let me know.

There never will be the ability to please everyone.

If there was some kind of internal timer for reloads so missiles could be switched faster if it's not in the "empty reload" cycle so that people with RLML's could more quickly react to damage types needed before starting to engage.

Also I'm not sure what affect reducing the front loaded damage slightly in line with a reduced 20 second reload instead would do. Maybe it would not provide enough front loaded damage to wipe the smaller ship off the field at which point the 20 second reload would be theoretically even more painful than a 40 second reload after you've killed a ship outright.

I'm sure a lot of thought has gone into this design because it is a risky one for sure. But Burst DPS isn't a new thing in Eve and certainly isn't a new thing in MMO's across the globe.

What I have not seen is any general ideas in regards to just how powerful the front loaded damage is. if it's powerful enough could people split their Missile groups and fire them seperately so as to minimize and reduce the time between reloads?

How many posts are in this thread specifically saying that pre-Rubicon RLMLs saw so much use exactly because of HMLs being the way they are? I'm willing to wager ISK that it's more than a few.

i would support a moddest range increase but no damage bonus please.
HM were op for such a long time...

though i still think te/tc/td working on missiles would be the best solution.

Specially since crow fleets are fotm.

Bouh, I have a pretty good handle on the two sides in Faction Warfare, as I've flown for one of the former best Gallente alliances and ran my own Caldari focused corp before now.

As you'd expect, and I can understand that playing in the faction warfare meta game, it creates a certain, shall we say... impression, that the opposition always seem to have the upper hand.

But given you're average efficiency flying purely Gallente ships is 93%, and with only a recent loss of a Maulus to a Caracal, I'm not sure how you could have come to this conclusion about the Caracal farming frigates?

However. I will detail one such example when it did go right for me and my gang.

There were only three of us with RLML Caracals that came across a 16 or so man frigate gang at a gate. The Caracal's we used, went for a buffer fit, as its tricky to make an active tank work on them. Judging whether to engage or not, really came down to one choice - that was their experience. They were all relatively new players, and so there was a good chance they might decide to aggress and be poorly fit. Both things were true.

The result was a little chaotic, and yes, it really was a bit like fish in a barrel, but mainly because of the way they approached the fight, combined with their terrible fits and low skills and experience. For example, they did not expect us to be packing RLML or that two of my guys were loaded with precisions.

The fight was over very quickly, with most of them warping off once it was clear their friends were dying at a decent rate. Most of them lived.

At the end, we were quite pleased, but I would not say that sort of occasion was common place, far from it, its the only such occasion I can recall.

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=15880788

I also opened up a convo to chat to their FC after the fight to discuss the engagement, as I believe in helping new players get better at PvP and encourage them to try again and learn from the fight. Frankly, its not the sort of fight I get a kick out of, I prefer more complex, close run sort of engagements.

But given the changes in place now, that fight will no longer be possible. First of all, we wouldn't have risked reloading the right missiles for the job, because they could have opened fire at any point, leaving us with our pants down for 40 seconds. Not a good idea against so many ships.

Secondly, when the fight began, we would have been able to quickly take down the first two - possibly three frigates, but due to the sheer fact of locking up and calling targets takes time and wastes missiles, we'd soon be hitting the 40 second reload. You can't afford to split weapons in this instance, because you need to start melting ships fast or die.

And then... we would have sat there. Like lemmings. With the gate guns pummelling us, and not able to do a damn thing. All that would have happened, is the two un-pointed Caracal's could have warped off, and left the first Caracal pointed to die.

So, what will happen now, is that, we wouldn't even engage in that fight, because there would be no real chance of us coming out on top, and whether you like it or not, that is how many EVE fights are considered and undertaken. Very few are brave enough to take a gang or fleet into a fight they know they will lose outright, or take heavy losses.

Against a better fit Gallente frigate gang, quite frankly, we'd all be dead. Scram. Web. Blasters. Sort of dead. And that happened to me too.

I'm sure there are some very expensive, gang linked Caracal's out there that have done better, solo or not, but in terms of hitting F1 and simply doing an impression of Charlie Sheen each time (Winning!) those fights for me were few and far between.

Will be even fewer between now. RLML in a gang like that would no longer work, for the reasons I've explained.

The lauchers are not the problem... the damage aplication of the AMMO itself is the problem...
If you dont want to fix the ammo, fine... then give us a module like a "Ballistic Guidance System" Low slot, with scrips
15% Exp velocity +5% sig radius and an other with -15% explosion velocity -15% explosion radius,
At least it will compete with the ballistic control systems for damage... That way we could actualy SAVE the heavy's from being the **** they are...


has for RLML and RHML,

Missiles are about adaptibility to the combat itself, the 40s.... just removes that since you cant change ammo in a fight.
the fitting requirements. Its been mentioned before in this thread...

RHML. Thank you for adding a broken weapon system to a already broken Ammo. I don realy have nothing even remotely usefull to do with them... Xept maybe, a Widow, in a belt... waiting for some shield ship to appear, and i already have loaded EM heavyes and have a weab a painter a scram...
Add more charges! like 75% more... Or/and remove the loading timer, or make a skill that removes the loading time of all missile lauchers for 50%.... You want to build a burst damage, weapon system for missiles... Ok, then you are in a whrong tree... you should have used HAMS and RLML has rockets for pvp... you removed a PVE tool, 2 in fact.
so much that could have ben said... but every thing i could say was already said in this thread. Thank you.

Ps: Sorry for my english.

Well as far as "appearing to care" so to speak, few people know what a schedule around software development is like, and what it's like to get back to something you put down for a "short time" originally and finding layers of dust on it much later. I had health problems from developer schedules.


The 40 second reload just seems ridiculous. Admittedly it makes more sense for this long reload for RHMLs than RLMLs.


But how about a compromise? Reading your post and thinking about this a though hits me: maybe if we could slide the DPS of the rapid launchers by scripting them? Some modules already have scripts added to them, and maybe for rapid launchers, they could be scripted to so that initial salvo damage/rate/reload can be tradeoffs?

Some players are apt to really like the initial damage (for ganking or "sacrificial smack the logi" plays) and not care about longer reload times. Others, like some of the people posting here, may prefer more stable DPS and a shorter reload time, as conditions warrant.

It's logical that the long reload time keeps rapid launchers from being OP, especially the heavy launchers. But if these can be scripted such that players can choose more launching longer reloads or a slower rate with shorter reloads, then this might be good for everybody involved and add depth to what is already a great module. Someone with one bay on a Gallente ship having to deal with a tackler will certainly want to script the rapid launcher for a "get this damned thing off of me" kind of action and a mission runner running them on drakes or cyclones will have different needs.


Please consider making rapid launchers scriptable so that individual players can decide how their launchers will operate. I think this will be popular and very interesting.

I would argue that it would have made logical sense to do this prior to the RHMLs or extending that mechanic to the RLMLs. Similarly, as has been said more times than I can count, you are not fixing the root issue. The root issue is that the weapon system that is Missiles is BROKEN. I understand that fixing it is a long and arduous project.

However, do you think that patching duck-tape on what amounts to a leak on a nuclear reactor fixes the problem? I hope that you understand the analogy instead of getting caught up in semantics.

RLMLs pre-Rubicon were used due to the HMLs being nerfed to the point of not being usable. That isn't an issue that is unique to HMs. It is also the case with every missile size larger than LMs and Rockets. Those of us that have used missiles for long periods of time and know the mechanics and speak to this. I for one spent hours of my own free time dissecting that damage application equation for both missiles and turrets.

I admit that i have m own ideas of fixing it. Yet it is a very glaring mathematics problem that should have been addressed years ago. If before you start adding modules like the RHML or making massive changes such as the recent nerfs. End result is this: You will have to fix missile mechanics, then re-balance all the modules and all the ships that use them.


Well, what all of us have been telling you is that you shouldn't have released the RHML and changed the RLML mechanics to be the same. It could have been a simple change such as terming the RHML the Swarm Heavy Missile Launcher. Thus no naming or inferred relation.

1) Agreed but doesn't tell the story either. It takes time for people to adjust. Especially those that don't read the forums or dev posts like I and some others do. Most of my alliance members I am fairly certain don't read the forums or dev posts. I am sure that isn't a surprising metric t my fellow players...

2) Agreed, however the Forums give you more immediate feedback based on experience (Gained from testing on SiSi). Which is for intents and purposes the ideal situations in Tranquility.

3) FYI: The test server doesn't always have max sp or every ship looks the same. From the time I spend there, I would say there is more innovation on SiSi than tranq. Simply as the costs or risk is much lower if the idea is a flop.

People were using old RLMLs in place of HMLs because HMLs are so trash. The HML nerf was justified at the time, but not after the med turrets got fixed. The problems was that RLMLs with Fury did almost the DPS of CN HMs, but applied it much better. Consider a triple BCS Caracal:

Old RLMLs (Fury): 266 DPS
HMLs (CN): 284 DPS
(HAMs (CN): 395 DPS)

That was a 6.8% increase in raw DPS using HMLs, but with much worse precision. HMLs were only used where the extra range was really needed, and quite often it wasn't needed. This is a result of recentish changes to increase damage of LMs and Fury variants, it created an overlap between RLMLs and HMLs.

I'd say repeal the 10% damage cut that HMs got, but keep the precision nerf. It we end up with a Drake problem again, nerf the Drake, although I suspect we won't given its reliance on kinetic damage and the fact that BCs don't obsolete cruisers any more.