Player Features and Ideas Discussion

EDIT:

So now that the phoenix buff has been confirmed lets talk about how this affects the Revelation.

If CCP wanted to follow the same formula for the Rev as they did for the new phoenix, then we could see something like this:

• Replacing 5% Capital Energy Turret Rate of Fire bonus per level with 10% Capital Energy Turret Damage bonus per level
• Replacing 10% Capital Energy Turret Capacitor Usage bonus per level with 4% Armor Resistance bonus per level
• Reducing Capital Energy Turret base capacitor usage by 25%

What would this accomplish?

It would give the Rev a specialization, in dealing less raw damage with worse tracking than the Moros and Nag all at a higher cap use, but having greater resilience and staying power with a great tank and no ammo usage. It does exactly what Amarr is supposed to do, while keeping the dreads different enough to prevent homogenization.

Removing the 10% cap bonus and building it partially into the turrets would still make the Rev Cap hungry, as it should be. It would still be limited to EM/Thermic damage types. It would still deal less damage than the Moros and Nag, but the gap wouldn't be as large as it currently is. The addition of a real second bonus would give the dread line up some flavor in combination with the new Phoenix.

Remember that Rate of Fire bonuses are more powerful in overall DPS than equivalent damage bonuses, so a single 10% Damage bonus would be a nice middle ground between its current single ROF bonus, and the double bonuses (ROF and Damage) of the Naglfar and Moros.

Originally lasers were supposed to be wtf-awesome, with the high cap penalty ensuring only amarr ships could wield them so they didnt becoem the de-facto weapon ssytem (kinda like autos and arties were on EVERY factions ships for a while), problem was, people complained, lasers have been nerfed, repeatedly, but the drawbacks to using them havent been changed.

but dont worry, if trends serve, CCP will be doing away with thsoe pesky to balance lasers soon, reaplcing everything in the amarr lineup with neut/missile/drone boats with no clear defined roll or guiding purpose.

Funnily enough the rev uses less cap than the moros




Armor resist is practically useless on a dread and the Moros and the Nag both have double damage bonuses so its not too crazy to give the Rev double damage as well. Tracking and optimal would probably be hilariously op though

I'd cut another 20% across the board for Large, beams and pulse.

The smaller and larger categories have yet to be taken care of. The major issue I still have with how it was handled, is that they only "acknowledged the issue" when it was pointed out to them that the original draft of the Apocalypse could only fire it's guns(and just it's guns) at the time for seventy seconds.

That's not encouraging.

50% mining yield bonus while in siege per level.

Adding T2 cap guns could help a little. Access to Scorch is a huge buff to most ships.

I think T2 capital weapons would be awesome. However, the weapons would need to be rebalanced around the ammo bonuses.

Sorry couldn't type while heart was doing 200bpm

Replace cap reduction bonus with max cap bonus, there, you can out rep a moros without hitting its dps.

The main issue is that since the Naglfar and Moros received double damage bonuses and the Revelation didn't, it is out-damaged and out-tracked at ranges where lasers usually shine. Yes, it is a sad by product of the power creep, but just leaving things where they are for months or years is just reinforcing the idea of "X dread is just BETTER than Y" instead of " X dread is better at ____ but Y dread is better at ____".

The Revelation using slightly less cap the Moros to fire its guns is a bit of an oddity, and not needing to reload is a natural trait of lasers not an advantage, just like not needing cap is a natural trait of projectiles. In an ideal world, the Rev would be able to project its high damage over a longer optimal range than blasters/autos, but loses out on the close-range damage/tracking of the moros, and the long falloff of autos. This base turret model holds true in subcaps, but falls apart at capitals because the double damage bonuses of its competitors wipes out any niche that lasers had to begin with.

Imagine for a second that the reload time on the Naglfar's guns were 20 seconds to balance the lack of cap usage, and to mitigate this, the Nag was given a "10% reduction in reload time per level" as its second bonus. See the issue? Fold the penalty into the guns to where the Rev will use naturally use slightly more cap than the moros, but in turn will get something that gives it a reason to be used, other than its beautiful golden hull.

Right now there is next to no reason why a new pilot looking to train into dreads would pick the Revelation over the Naglfar and Moros. If I wasn't loyal to Amarr, I would have already just trained for one of the others and followed the rest of the player base. I'd rather advocate against this factional bias and get the Revelation competitive again,.

The Moros and Naglfar have their respective advantages where they beat each other, but the Revelation is just worse. Lets change that.

As boring as a second damage bonus is, it is unfortunately the way they have gone with the other two and it would shift the Rev's damage curve to the right, so it would actually out damage the moros at medium ranges. It is the simplest solution.

Other ideas might be better, but they are ALL off the table until CCP acknowledges this is a balance issue, instead of leaving the Rev out in the cold, while it embraces its favored children Moros and Naglfar.