Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Not necessarily. If you have your target webbed and painted, they should do more damage.

I think you mean HAMs. Even webbed and painted HMs have horrid damage application against frigs.

I'd like to follow up on this ~metrics~ post because it's been a month since the RLML nerf was implemented so we can get an idea of how it's affected the game now that players have had a chance to try out the new launchers at length. The following figures are based on sales volumes in The Forge for two seven day periods, one before the nerf was first proposed by CCP Rise (29/09/2013 - 05/10/2013) and the last week (27/12/2013 - 21/12/2013):

RLML II unit sales have fallen by 38%, from 7257 pre-nerf to 4536 post-nerf
HAML II sales have fallen by 28%, from 19933 to 14440
HML II sales have fallen by 9%, from 17300 to 15793

For comparative purposes, for the same seven day periods:

425mm Autocannon II sales have increased by 3%, from 7684 to 7925
Heavy Pulse Laser II sales have increased by 4%, from 7877 to 8180
Heavy Neutron Blaster II sales have fallen by 19%, from 8950 to 7246
Total T2 sentry drone sales have increased by 60%, from 87610 to 139946

On average, top-tier medium close-range weapon sales declined by 4% between the two seven-day periods, giving us a baseline figure to use when comparing the sales of the missile launchers.

It seems clear that the nerf has dramatically reduced the sales (and presumably by extension, the usage) of rapid light launchers, to a much greater extent than was apparent in the weeks immediately after the nerf.

t is equally clear that there has been no compensatory increase in the use of HMLs or HAMs, in contrast to Rise's predictions. In fact, the pre-nerf sales figures seem to make the entire rationale for the change rather questionable - even at the peak of their supposed OPness, HMLs and HAMLs were both outselling RLMLs by more than 2:1, which is hardly consistent with Rise's argument that RLMLs were crowding out HMLs and HAMs.

The decrease in missile use is presumably not attributable to an across-the-board change in the number of active players since there have been no major reductions in the sales of medium turrets, and sales of some other weapon systems - notably, sentry drones - are up dramatically.


Similar trends are apparent in the sales of T1 cruisers:

Caracal sales have decreased by 19%, from 2290 to 1850
Vexor sales have decreased by 1%, from 2388 to 2290
Thorax sales have decreased by 5%, from 1538 to 1469
Rupture sales have decreased by 7%, from 1053 to 983
Stabber sales have decreased by 6%, from 868 to 818
Omen sales have increased by 3%, from 776 to 799
Maller sales have increased by 11%, from 590 to 654
Moa sales have decreased by 55% (!), from 1236 to 551

The mean change in sales numbers for non-Caldari cruisers is thus -0.8%
The mean change for Caldari cruisers is -37%

In keeping with the trend seen for weapon systems, there was a very pronounced decline in the sales of the most popular missile cruiser and RLML platform in the aftermath of the RLML nerf, which is not reflected in the sales of other racial hulls.

Fozzie, you said that a 6.5% reduction in RLML use was "easily within acceptable ranges." Is the same true for the current 38% reduction?

Denial… it's not a river in Egypt.

But rlmls were op and needed a new exiting change so it's ok that they are not used anymore.

Do I sense an inty pilot?

and RLML's weren't OP, HAM/HML's just sucked worse.

Let's do this to guns now!


and make drones have to return to your ship to reload!

I'd be happy eliminating drone assist...

It depends on who's quoting the numbers. DPS with reloads factored in is about 55-60% of stated maximum, though.

prolly but I really wish the nerfs were evening the playing field instead of shoving missiles off the bottom of the chart.