Test Server Feedback

I think that if we were to slap EW bonuses like scram range or web range onto blaster hulls all you will get is everyone sticking AC's or Pulse lasers on them and holding range because there is no real advantage of fighting in your targets scram/web range when you don't have to.

Seriously. If you give me a long range scram I will be flying a shield tanked Brutix scrambling people from 20km away and shooting them with 425's with barrage all day!

Or long range webs I will be armour tanking my Brutix, fitting Pulse lasers, dual web and a disruptor. Even with the targets MWD going my 24 km webs will let me dictate range and I never have to enter scram/web/neut range.

I'm sorry but EW bonuses to T1 hulls is not the answer.

Then you will have every ship of every class of every race fitting one blaster to slow down enemies.

Adding to lots of others changes mentioned in this thread I would like to throw this suggestion into the ring. It's copied and slightly edited from another thread, but this one seems more appropriate.

I am not saying this is the perfect one-fits-all-solution and will solve the Hybrid/Blaster issue alone. In fact I see this suggestion as one element/module of a more extensive change to hybrid weapons and plattforms.

As many other before me I also agree, that it's not the weapon system alone that needs adjustments, it's the also ship that uses it.

And I also like the idea of faster accelerating ships, that don't touch the domain of Minmatar Ships. So we cannot just change the agility value. And btw, big, heavily armored ships and high agility seems an odd combination.

My suggestion would be to make the Gallente something like the Masters of MWD. Thorax, Deimos and Vindicator already hint that the Federation has its knowledge in this field.

Hm, how to combine these requirements (faster acceleration without touching agility; MWD)?

As we know, an active MWD adds mass to our ship. (Details)
And higher mass means lower acceleration and speed.

So how about Gallente Ship Bonus to...

... decrease Mass Gain by MWD
Results while MWD is active:

• improved acceleration
• higher top speed
• higher agility (can be countered by an agility malus while MWD is running)

So now we have a ship that when using MWDs accelerates better and can reach higher speeds than before, but has trouble adjusting the direction it is burning. Not the best for orbiting/kiting (Hurray for Minmatar!) and now we come to the problem Velicitia,Pattern Clarc & others already mentioned (in other thread): Overshooting your target.

... control/avoid overshoot better/easier

• reduce cycle time of MWDs -> allows shorter MWD-pulses
• reduce cap need per cycle -> overall cap cost keeps as it is now

Overshooting is still possible, but now it depends more on player skill than cycle time.

Other suggestions (possible, but not necessarily mandatory)

bonus on webifier range (faction mods already show, that the federation is quite capable in this field)

move mag stabs (and only these!) from low to med slots. This way blasterboats can fit a tank to cross the gap without sacrificing damage (what should be their domain). Instead the decision is now between damage/EWar/Cap.

Overall result:
Gallente ships can close the gap to the enemy faster to get in blaster range and avoid being hit for too long without an ability to strike back. And all this without touching the agility/speed(-tank) domain of Minmatar ships and similar.
Kiting still works, as Gallente ships don't have their agility.

Currently the tall guy will just have to focus on primarily balancing hybrid turrets vs projectiles and energy weapons.

The ships and modules will have to be balanced after the this - including a look into :

• Fail optimal bonus (or fail game mechanics not supporting the bonus)
• Armor rigs and plates slowing down blasterboats while Shields don't hinder autocannon ships

Plz lets get the following things sorted first :

Hybrid ammunition revamp

• Fewer options for range (like -50%, -25%, 0% and 25% range bonus)
• More variation in kin/therm damage distribution (each step of range have a 20/80 and 80/20 distribution)
• Cap bonus on ammo need to be linear and cost more cap the longer range
• 10% more damage to all ammunition
• To enable hybrids to adobt to fast changing range and make them reload in 5 secs instead of 10 secs

Hybrid damage balance
With a general 10% increase on hybrid ammo the railguns still need an additional +10% damage to be on par with the other weapon groups. Extreme range with the poor ranged game mechanics we face atm should not be a strong parameter in damage comparisons. Getting them to deal equal damage at their shortest range should be a fine balance while the secondary advantages like Alphastrike, Range, Reload times, tracking and signature resolution should be the spice setting them all apart for taste and preference...

Hybrid tracking
With the blaster boats designed to be grinding their hulls against the enemy where tracking gets really tough and webs can no longer stop an enemy ship totally the blasters really need the proposed 20% tracking increase. This will set them apart from autocannons that currently have better tracking and doesn't really need it with the autocannons working just as good kiting as they do close range.
The railguns too have a very very bad tracking and would benefit equally. Sniping is almost dead on TQ anyway and as such there is no reason to gimp the railgun tracking anymore. Let all hybrid systems benefit from a 20% better tracking.

Making railguns unique
As mentioned above hybrids need a unique role to set them apart from artillery and beam lasers.

• Artillery have the ability to use different types of damage as well as a unique hard hitting alphastrike. Also they use no cap.
• Lasers have a near instant change of crystals to adopt really fast on range. They also have unlimited T1 ammunition, hits very hard and the large lasers have a tier 4 Tachyon dealing waste damage on long ranges if a pilot can make them fit.
Futhermore beams seems to generally do more dps than the competitors and outrange projectiles.

• With the above suggested changes the railguns should have about equal dps as artillery and still less than lasers. They will have the ability to hit better and further out. A fast change of ammunition securing a better adjustment to range, but they will only have 25% the alphastrike from artillery and they will only be able to use thermal/kinetic ammunition.

To further seperate classes of weapons from eachother I would suggest differentiating guns on their signature resolution. Small variations could give the smaller tiers advantages lost in raw dps. It could also be used as a unique advantage on either railguns or beams whereever it will fit best.

Anyway I hope to see a revised set of hybrid changes soon.
The 3 types need to be balanced while all being unique - both things are still not taken care of...

Pinky

In regards to tracking enhancers benefitting AC falloff more than blasters I propose a minor change to tracking enhancers and tracking computers:

Tracking enhancers seems to favor shield setups more and the minmatar and caldari setups doesn't need much more range.
I suggest on a T2 Tracking Enhancer:
Optimal bonus 15% -> 15% (or less as it isn't too important for anyone)
Falloff bonus 30% -> 15% (less AC pwnage but still a decent bonus)
Tracking bonus 9,5% -> 9,5% (All the ships really need this bonus the most)

Tracking computers will limit caldari tank and shield minmatar setups while Amarr and Gallente might better fit these with their armor tanks. I suggest on a T2 Tracking Computer with scripts:
Optimal bonus 15% -> 20%
Falloff bonus 30% -> 40%
or
Tracking bonus 30% -> 40,0%

Would be nice and change a little bit of power balance up to the medslots again where a tracking computer is rarely worth it. Also this would likely help the blasters more than the AC's and help balancing everything a little more.

Pinky

Btw Nothing is wrong with the active tank bonuses - what is wrong is the modules benefitting from them in teh light of the many hitpoint buffs... Boost all LOCAL ONLY shield boosters and armor repairs with at least 50% hitpoints pr cycle while changing the crystal implant set into shield hitpoint implants as a counterpart to slaves...

But yes ineed with the current combat mechanics the active rep bonus might seem obscene even if the brutix handles itself very fine indeed hehe

Pinky

In big fleets with logistics buffer tanking has huge advantages, but that doesn't mean active tanks cannot shine in many other situations? Before the huge hitpoint buffs active tanks was prefered in most pvp situations...
What I was saying don't blaim poor performance on roles, when the problem in reality is in the game mechanics or the module that gets the bonus...

Add to this a range nerf to scorch and you have a winning Hybrid buff for sure :)



As far as my experience with Blaster/Gallente ships on the test server.

Ares: I understand that this ship can be fast and all ceptors will see a "relative buff" post dram nerf but I think it's still a bit sub par. Give it another 10m/s and add +5m3 bandwidth and +5m3 drone bay.

Enyo: This ship needs more cpu, wtf is the point of it compared to an ishkur if it can't even use it's 4th low properly... It trades a mid slot and 4 light drones for 1 low slot and 1 more turret... Un-gimp this ship and give her +25 CPU please.

Thorax: Looking much better after the reduction to fitting requirements however I still feel that it needs another 5 to 10m/s speed buff as well as another 15-20 grid.

Myrmidon: Nothing has really changed for this ship. I'd suggest removing 2 of the turret slots and giving the ship another 25m3 bandwidth.

Brutix: Spent a bit of time in this ship on test and it is FAR more "fitable" than before. The lack of lows is still a huge issue and the small speed increase only ends up netting you another 50ish m/s with MWD. I'd suggest increasing the ships base speed by another 5 MS as well as giving it another 25ish Power grid. I'd also like to see this ship get another low slot however I feel that the addition of a slot is dependent on if CCP decides to buff the other tier1s as well.

Astarte: I also spent a good amount of time testing out this ship on the new test build and have to say that like the Brutix, it has been improved by a small margin specifically in regards to fitting it. The increased speed is really not very noticeable especially considering that the new tier 3 BC are at least 500ms faster with mwd... This ship should receive more or less the same additions that I just proposed for the Brutix. Another 5-10 ms speed, 25ish grid, and another low slot. I believe that this new low slot should be granted as well as an additional slot for the Absolution, and Nighthawk(+grid too). Seleip is already way better than these 3 Field commands so no additional slot is needed there.

Megathron: Perfect CCP!!, finally can get a decent pvp fit w/o the use of faction gear or co-procs. The new tracking buff to blasters ontop of the Mega's Tracking Bonus is allowing for more dps at all ranges. Ship seems to be filling it's niche nicely.

Hyperion: This ship is still a mess... The problem with this ship is that you cannot tank and dps at the same time... and if a Blaster ship cannot dps then wtf is the point of it considering it MUST commit to engage, something that many other ships with comparable DPS and Tank do not have to do.

The ship needs another 2-3% grid, another low slot, and probably another 25cpu (to be able to utilize that low slot). I'd also go as far as increasing it's drone bay (not bandwidth) by another 25m3 giving it at least a small amount of innate anti tackle flexibility when compared to the other tier 3s.

Talos: Honestly? The tier3s are a broken mess right now so I don't have any "useful" suggestions other than CCP needs to rethink these ships from concept. Highest tier large weapons costing under 100 pg just seems silly when highest tier mediums are close to 200.... I'd suggest decreasing their speed and upping the sig a little so they do not step on the role of far more expensive ships such as HACs.


Blasters as a whole: The changes to fitting and tracking are a very nice step in the right direction and I must applaud CCP on not going overboard however I still feel that some minor tweaking is needed.

Changes I'd like to see would first and foremost be some unique flavor shared between all Hybrid weapons. The idea that sparked my interest the most was a small boost to the chance of wrecking hits for ALL Hybrid weapons. This change combined with a rework of current ammo's (think projectile ammo) would most certainly improve the overall effectiveness of Blasters w/o creating a new FoTM, something that needs to be avoided at all costs.

Railsgunz!! The fitting reductions and 10% dps increase is certainly a step in the right direction. I do however think that another small DPS increase is needed of about 5%. The other major issue is the dedicated Caldari ships "designed" to field these weapons. More grid is generally needed as well as maybe another Turret slot on the Ferox and Eagle as both these ships will be superseded by the naga as a cruiser/BC sized sniper.


Thank you CCP for the updates and the mild amount of recent transparency Keep up the good work and make sure to pay attention to your community.

Jerick

I always imagined those bots blowing a chunk of metal into the holes like you patch roads and replace a broken brick in a wall... That said indeed the wait for armor reppers to cycle can be fatal

lol RR is already super usefull and how do you calculate those numbers? You nust be forgetting how resistance is calculated... The resistance wont be stacking penalized but you will still get less from adding more resist modules.