Player Features and Ideas Discussion

looks like Rise has abandoned this thread already .. despite saying he would on here the day after it was put up

Again.. I do nto disagreee.. I was just stating that is understandable the frustration of the peopel that expect some new pve content. Jsut that.

Bring! Back! High power slot! TO! EAGLE!!!
Seriously, it's trash without 6th slot. it's hard to do plexing on Eagle cos i need to put probe launcher in 5th slot and there remain only 4 slots for dps. Seriously guys, bring it back, plrase, PLEEEEAAASE!

A quick question though, to everyone going on about the sentry drone rage and them being BS weapons.

Heavies aren't BS weapons? At gal drone spec 4, Ogre IIs pull 467 dps before any dmg amps. With a single drone nav comp they go 2574m/s on an ishtar with HAC IV.

I quit ratting with sentries the minute the recent garde nerf hit and heavies were buffed. Back then I managed around 24m/tick before the change. Post heavy changes I regularly make between 27 and 31m/tic, usually 29.

In a 1v1, the last thing I'd want to fight is an ishtar of any sort with geckos and a single ogre, or the two hammerhead/single hobgob combo.

The reason everyone complains about sentries being a BS weapon, but heavies aren't, is that sentries lend themselves to fleet warfare. Flight time for heavies makes them undesirable in a fleet.

However it isn't as though this scaling doesn't apply to other things as well. Megathrons, harpies, torp bombers, I've seen large fleets of all sizes that aren't easily counterable. In my experience ishtars regularly run or warp out and warp back in from battles even if they aren't in immediate danger. Because shield fits cannot tolerate being pinned down in enemy engagement range. Through free firing on drones I've seen 50 man BC fleets, which could not catch them, or apply dps well enough to kill them, manage to win the fight and drive off 30-40man ishtar fleets by free firing on drones. The number of times that entire waves of drones, or even several, could be killed off during an ishtar fleet's warp out/warp in, but never happened because FCs didn't call it, are numerous for me.

I'm not saying the ishtar doesn't need rebalanced, or that it doesn't outshine other hacs. I'm simply questioning the one sided labeling of sentry drones as "BS weapons" where heavies are not. The only reason I can see is because heavies aren't a problem for you. Sentries work well in fleets, and as such, they have become the bane of some people's existence. Therefor the cry for nerf falls solely on the sentry, which actually has seen several nerfs, whereas the heavy drone outshines it entirely, outside of sheer range or immediate dmg application.

As for PvE though, people need to stop kicking this horse. The Ishtar is indeed a good all around PvE boat. It isn't the best, even in its ship size. Nearly any of the pirate battleships is better, minus the nightmare unless you are in space with EM/Therm rats. Marauders outclass an ishtar for PvE, which the are intended to do. A single domi, while less mobile, can fit an appropriate amount of shield tank and manage far more dps than an ishtar can. Fed navy domi shield tanked blows it out of the water. A vexor navy issue comes damned close in everything but tank. And in cruiser sized hulls, the tengu is arguably better. Nerfing the ishtar in pve wouldn't bother me at all, but I dislike that doing so would mean the tengu is the only viable pve cruiser. If the ishtar gets nerfed the proteus drone subsystems need worked around with to give them the ability to use 5 heavy drones. The other T3s need balanced to be able to have viable PvE fits outside of exploration.

But to reiterate, an ishtar is not the be all end all of PvE. If I were running lvl 4s in highsec, there are tons of other boats I'd sooner choose. For incursions there are definitely better choices. For sheer isk/tick the ishtar isn't close to the top of the heap in anoms. It can come close to a tengu, but the tengu can have fighters assigned to it, whereas the ishtar cannot giving the tengu an edge. Nearly any BS will get similar or better ticks. For DED sites the tengu does just as well, and I've seen everything from domis and sins to other Blops running them.

It is cost effective, has good tank, tolerable dps, and drones lend themselves to afk ratting( Something I never do anyways). This is what makes it desirable. It isn't best in class, or even best at all. It is really good, but not broken for pve.

I don't think it's a viable approach, it's strategically worst one, in fact. For the first, those missions we have now - no, PvE engine itself - is very crappy, boring and outdated. They mostly remind some kind of stub than a real content.
I think the best approach will be developing some new engine capable to auto-generating missions on the fly, within some bounds. If coupled with addtional challenge inducing elements (more ewar capable vessels, dynamic content shaping missions based on player actions and decisions, more choices like several different pockets from which only one can be chosen, "boses" which are more difficult to kill and which will try their best to disengage from combat when their end is nigh, so webs/points/good propulsion (or friend/alt in ceptor) will be reasonble addtion to setup as those "boses" will have good chance of faction mods drop; perhaps some additional interactions with mission environments, like minigames, or ability to hack and control different structures in the pocket, influencing the battlefiled. The key concept should be randomization, though. And the more rewarding the mission, the less it should be predictable and more challenging (in terms of mobs' dps/ehp/ewar/AI) of course.
Roguelike RPGs are good example how much fun and replayability such concept can offer. And if it possible to create such engine for Eve, it will be much more effective than creating and rebalancing static missions, imo.

I shall repeat. Halve sentries tracking.

The whole problem is that sentries can kill frigates and AB cruisers too easily.

Sentries advantage over Heavies should be instant damage at long range. The drawback should be : be worse at short and moderate range.

The dominix and ishtar bonus just makes it worse.

That was actually my entire point. We run armor ishtars. We love to land on top of things, and with everyone having a point, we scatter to grab everything we can.

Removing the point to put on an omni does exactly what I said it would, that is, reduce ewar capability on an armor fit ishtar. ( on shield it would reduce tank or mobility). Congrats on showing that I was correct. We now have to rely more on having dedicated tackle ships, and cannot point everything we land on. Actually seems like a pretty decent nerf. We keep our damage application sure, but now enemy fleets have a substantially better chance at escaping and reengaging at their preferred range. Oh also, our armor fit ishtars don't do damage mods. We have baseline dps for any sentry we carry. So don't pull the 700dps out to 60km crap on me. Not all ishtars are the same, not all ishtars are shield fit.

So what was your point? Because I feel pretty vindicated on this one.

The point is, whats going to happen is a different ship is going to be used for heavy tackle to warp in a grab points on stuff, then the Ishtars are going to warp at range with no point and that extra omni to negate this small tweak. You can say that won't happen all you want but, everyone knows people will adapt to make the nerf as neglegable as possible, even one of your own alliance member states that.

You state that you will have to use other ships for tackle. What is it the null people are always saying? Adapt or die? You will adapt to using a different heavy tackle but you will also adapt so that the nerf to the Ishtar itself is completely negated...

But it isn't negated.

A fleet brings bubbles and interceptors, almost every fleet does. Issue is dics get popped early on most of the time(hero dictors), and Hics seem to only be used for tackling capitals, rarely see them.

So what you end up with, is as the battle goes on, and you've bubbled your enemy, they start burning out of the bubbles after they alpha your dictors. Eventually they are out, or the bubbles die. Until near the end of the flight, interceptors are busy burning warp points for the FC as being in the action would mean they get vaporized.

The answer? Point proteus.

However in a small fleet of say, 50-60 people, the 2-4 long point proteus are never going to do the job that the 20-30 ishtars with point/scrams did, ever.

And, I'm not complaining. I'm not saying that this is unfair, or that our fleets can't handle it. I said that, as in my original point, ewar ability will go down. We will not be able to spread points nearly as well. Our enemies will be able to escape, and rewarp at better engagement ranges far better than they previously could. The nerf works as intended. If we want to maintain similar damage application, we have to give up our ability to hold others hostage. It seems like a fair trade off.

What you seem to be complaining about is our ability to adapt to the nerf and keep same or better tracking, no matter what we give up.

Just half the tracking of sentries.