Ships & Modules

When will you engage the community re: the omni-directional tracking link changes?

I know you said it was to bring them more in line with other weapon systems, and on paper it has, but I think you (and other members of the balance team) have neglected the various issues and drawbacks of sentry drones that made the inflated numbers on the OTLs needed. This, in practice, has resulted in a much larger nerf then you either intended or at the very least failed to mention.

Sentry drones are stationary, so they have no way for the player using them to persistently move so that they can adjust transversal, thus the enhanced tracking on the OTL was needed to compensate for this. Other turret systems CAN due this, so there is no way, in this regard, that Sentry users can, "remain competitive" with these changes as they stand.

Also, Sentry drones can be destroyed, unlike turrets, thus neutering the damage of those ships that rely on them. This really only applies to subcap ships, of coarse, as the others can field copious reinforcements. This, yet again, is an area in which sentry users have a distinct disadvantage over other weapon systems.

CCP Dev team, please roll back these changes until such a time where an overhaul on sentry drones themselves can be tweaked. Otherwise, this change is too heavy handed.

Hi I was looking for the CCP Fozzie appreciation page, seems this is something different...

I do empathise with you as I use Sentry Drones a lot.

I just want to make sure you've read this thread first https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=313116

The nerfs are more noticeable, but there were also some buffs to some areas aswell. Also expect more changes so there may be more buffs (and nerfs )-:) on the way.

Edit: also just pointing out that you can Overheat omnis now.

To the posters suggesting using overheating, I'm away from my Eve Client at present so can't check actual figures, but I'd suggest that the modules would have to be capable of overheating by circa 50% to give the missing optimal ranges back, and besides, thats a PVP do or die tactic, not something you'd do routinely in PVE.

OP as you say, I think the lack or engagement with the community is the single most disappointing thing about the whole affair, especially as feedback was asked for. The initial post stated that there would be a reduction in optimal range and that this was intended.

While other CCP employees engaged with the community over things such as the Nestor and the ESS module, and both the game and players benefited from something better than the original design (hopefully), CCP Fozzie never engaged with the community at all in the whole Omnidirectional tracking links thread and didn't respond to issues that players raised.

It comes across like this to me.

Large fleet battle occurred in HED-GP
Many players had a terrible gaming experience
Drones were seen as the problem
CCP Design and Performance? teams called together to come up with a solution to discourage the use of this fleet doctrine in future (as was stated in the HED-GP devblog)
Changes were made in the Omnidirectional Tracking Link, resulting in a large nerf to the optimal range of drones.

With no indication that the feedback was even read, I probably won't bother posting any more feedback for CCP Fozzie as I feel like I'm wasting my time somewhat.

Perhaps CCP Fozzie realised that the changes would be so unpopular that engaging in feedback would be futile (if so please don't post in the Feedback and Ideas Discussion" thread, perhaps the "Eve Information Portal" would be more appropriate), but I would suggest that customers are always more understanding when reasons for unpopular changes are explained and it has been shown that side effects and alternatives have been both considered and discussed.

On a lighter note, perhaps CCP Fozzie is a genius as he's just created months of work for the design team in rebalancing all the drone ships that don't have hull bonuses like the Dominix and Ishtar do.

Spookily I am moving out to null sec in a couple of weeks, so thanks for the tip

..and seeing as the Federation Navy Omnidirectional Tracking Links at 50M a pop, now typically only give 1km extra optimal range, overheating cheap T2 Omndirectionals may well be the way to go!

Well perhaps CCP will comment on that particular assumption as they have the stats.......in the meantime here's the link to the HED-GP Devblog that mentions the fleet/doctrine re drone changes in the final paragraph.

Ah sweet :-) Just to make sure I would check the station first, if your alliance/corp own it, then it should be free. It has been for me. In NPC null space its more annoying :-S

This is all balanced by the fact that you can carry and drop more than a single batch (with different range/tracking/dmgtype) and that they don't use neither slot or cap.

This is not the point of the thread. Whether you feel the nerf was appropriate, inappropriate, or just poorly implemented, the point is that its a significant enough nerf to deserve a devblog, or at least some additional communication.

-It was not mentioned in the 1.1 stream
-It did not get a devblog.
-It got one fact-only post from Fozzie acknowledging it as a nerf, and a few brief factual follow up posts, completely absent of justification, stats, or meaningful analysis. We can really only guess at CCP's intentions, which is an indication of a failure to communicate. Nerf + poor communication = justifiable butthurt
-People that do not waste their time on the forums were pretty surprised, and in this case I don't blame them.
Clamour for a full drone overhaul has been building in the last year, and there are legitimate worries that this is just a bandaid, and CCP will allow the outdated drone mechanics to fester for another year or two.

As many people have pointed out, this nerf hurts non-bonused ships far harder than the ishtar and dominix. Particularly due to the significant decrease in the relative usefulness of the faction omnilink. The ishtar and domi range bonus (at level 4) was roughly equivalent to an extra faction omnilink (sans the effect of stacking penalties). Now the bonus is an insurmountable advantage that no number of dedicated omnilinks can overcome. Its pretty easy to argue that the Ishtar and Domi alone were what precipitated this nerf, so the fact that they are the least affected by the changes is not an insignificant point.



Gardes are the drones most affected. Gardes have the worst falloff. With two range scripted faction omnis your gardes get 20km of falloff. My rough estimate says that vs kinetic weak enemies with thermal as secondary weakness, gardes get outperformed by wardens once you're about 5km into garde falloff, if not sooner (disregarding tracking). On the flipside, it means you can still put 700 explosive DPS onto anything from a very very very long way away, even on an unbonused ship.

I'm actually rather happy that we have more options now to use for sentries instead of going for only gardes (at least for PvE). Curators and Bouncers can take a lot from the extra falloff (wardens already had a lot of range to begin with), and actually it now makes sense to prefer Curators against Sansha or Blood Raiders due to the goodish tracking and range for respectable EM damage.

Fixed it for you.