Player Features and Ideas Discussion

While I can't be sure I think that Ishtar is not getting nerfed because of the null lobby - it's their primary farming ship (ab orbit, deploy heavy drones to kill rats, go afk) and nerfing it would force them to actually play the game and farm with more expensive, easier to catch battleships.

But now we will have curse + ishtar so i guess it's a sign of progress .

This change may look appealing and maybe fun to some, because it's totally unfair - but in return all it will achieve will be the opposite. Repeated changes of this kind make the game boring and linear in the end.
Players will never surrender to the game and choose to lose ships because the game was made this way, but find other ways instead, or simply do something else (perhaps just play another game).

It is funny how CCP gradually makes life unbearable for people with thin wallets who live in lowsec, while vets literally swim in hundreds of billions.
I may sound controvesial now, but how am I supposed to farm isk - what if I want to pirate ? Why was ship insurance introduced ? No sentry jamming ? Warp to zero where ever I go ?
The Risk- Averse players are people who often have thin wallets, and the ship they undock is often a good part of their total wealth. That is their playstyle. Feel free to judge them but keep in mind that the best excuse for this ''rebalance'' joke is the Risk Averse pvp-er, how people love to call it. This guy will now have to sweat even more to be able to afford what he wants to fly because of a change made for changes' sake, pushed by people who farm moons and blob since the dawn of time, and have long forgotten what this game has to, or might have to offer

Rook:

Caldari Cruiser Bonuses:
7.5% bonus to kinetic missile damage

Why? This is a bad idea... Give us all dmg types. Dmg lockin is bad mkay?

I do think we are on the same page with this.

Upon further review, I think swapping the Blackbird EWAR bonus to the Rook might actually be better. Force Recons and T1's will need less of a range advantage from my perspective. The Rook could use the range bonus to increase it's survivability quite a bit.

As for the damage bonus things...i'm not a fan of the kinetic lock in and the options I'm offering in that regard to simply iterate on what Rise put out to make the change more palatable. That said, I would actually prefer the old RoF bonus, however, I would really like to increase the drone bay and bandwidth to 30 / 30. This allows you to put out 3 medium EWAR or utility drones for fleet support or a little extra dmg drones for self defense.

Gime ma EM damage hybrid ammo!

Or just a general Damage bonus would do

Hell i would even settle for a 5% to all damage types with a 7.5% to kinetic. at least you get options rather than the current lots of kinetic damage with pathetic Em, therm &explosive damage

It's almost like T2 Ship resist profiles are designed specifically to resist their opposite races primary damage profile.
So of course you see Kinetic a lot when lots of Kinetic damage is done.

Thermal is just as common a resist for T2's btw.
Only EM & Explosive don't feature much on T2's, and that's because nowhere near as much does EM or Explosive damage.

And of course, this is ONLY T2 ships. There are more than just T2 ships in the game, and Resist != Immunity.

I've changed my tune a bit with these changes. I actually don't think the d-scan immunity really does much that covert-ops cloaking doesn't already do. People have brought up a lot of situations that will be "broken" with the d-scan changes.

1): "What if I'm running an anomaly in wormhole-space, this guy can warp straight to me and point me immediately."
Covert-ops is better at this. You can have an alt or corp-mate run combat scan probes to see a combat recon. If you're solo, then the combat recon still has a delay while he's finishing warp. You can also move away from the warp-in, so the combat recon has to move to get to you. If you're pointed by sleepers in the anomaly, then a covert-ops cloak would've grabbed you anyway. For signatures, look for combat probes.

2): "I can't get a 1v1 fight against this guy because he could have a combat recon off-grid that I can't see on d-scan."
He could also have a covert-ops ship off-grid that you can't see on d-scan. You can turn off your cloak as you land so the calibration delay ends as you finish warp.

3): "A combat recon can land on me as I'm hacking containers and I can't see him on d-scan"
You can see the combat probes on d-scan. If you don't see those, you can see (and hear! Love those warp-in/out effects!) the combat recon landing and be out of there before he's locked you, as well. Also, most relic and data sites I've seen have containers pretty far from the warp-in.

4): "These risk-averse carebears can farm their sites risk-free since nobody can see them on d-scan!"
Combat recons aren't amazing solo combat ships for sites. Their tanks are a bit weak; they probably wouldn't be able to handle a 4/10. Also, rat wrecks appear on d-scan. If they have the presence of mind to destroy wrecks as soon as they make them (at which point they'll still show up for a second while they lock them), then good. Braindead carebear-ism should die a horrible death, but if people are taking the proper steps to pay attention to reduce risk while they're doing PvE in a dangerous environment (reduce, but they can still never eliminate it) then more power to them.

5): "This makes AFK cloakers better!"
How? You can't scan down someone who's cloaked, you can scan down someone who's immune to d-scan.

I am a little concerned about medium FW complexes, though (larges are no problem; they have no acceleration gate, so you can warp a cloaked scout at range, for example). The wiki says that T2 cruisers can enter them, and if that's the case you can't be sure there wouldn't be two or three Curses in there. One solution would be to prevent T2 cruisers from entering mediums. Temporary solution for players is to pick fights in small complexes instead. In other cases, I don't think it's going to be as good as broken or amazing as most think it'll be. I will agree, though, blanket immunity feels like poor design though (I still think bastion mode should have a resistance to EWar effects instead of an immunity to them).

Marginal impact at best. Combat Recons are not going to be any real threat to wormhole PVE players or at least not any more of a threat than already exists with the Stratios and other T3's. They simply do not have the capability of being a strike ship (especially in WHs), because of their design limitations and the "hybrid tax".

I would gladly invite any Combat Recon to come visit me in a WH Site while im slugging it out with Seekers in my Tengu. Here is how it would go down.

CR warps into my site.
Seekers target/shoot CR.
I target/shoot CR.
CR Dies.
I keep playing.

They don't have the damage to be a threat, and they do not have the tank to play in sites...and unlike T3's, SB's, Astero, Stratios, or heck even some Force Recons, they can not come into the site with me without taking aggression from the sleepers. I feel comfortable in saying that Combat Recons will have no tangible impact on PVE in WH's, or at least not anymore than is already present with the other ships I mentioned.

*
For people who are unaware of what a hybrid tax is, it is a base reduction in quality of an entity that serves to function in more than one role at the same time. In this case the Combat Recons sees an innate reduction to its combat capacity (Damage/Tank) because it serves the secondary function of providing EWAR. As such people don't like them because they are not optimized in performing a singular role and are often bested by other ships that can perform those roles.


Now if CCP were to axe the EWAR capability from Combat Recons and change the EWAR bonuses to more combat specific ones (more damage, +resists etc) then Combat Recons might actually have the capacity to be a real threat to people. As it stands right now, DSCAN immunity is nothing more than a Gimmick trick on a ship class that has no defined role, and inferior in operation compared to ships that do have defined roles (or be made to have defined roles in the case of T3s).

With the exception of the Curse, the respective Force Recons of Minmatar and Gallente and Caldari are nearly the exact same as the Combat Recons, with similar fitting.

A quick comparison

Lach (4/7/4)
10% bonus to Hybrids Tracking
20% bonus to Points
7.5% bonus to Damps
10% to Hybrid Optimal

Arazu (4/6/4)
5% bonus to Hybrids
20% bonus to points
7.5% bonus to Damps
Cov Ops Cloak
Cov Ops Cyno

So what do you gain here...better tracking and optimal range damage wise? I suppose that would be nice. I guess if you shield fit them it would also be beneficial to have a Lach for that extra mid slot. Lach has 1 more weapon but the Arazu gets 25% more damage which is close in straight up damage potential...as well as the free slot to place a cloak in, or a missile launcher to actually end up having more upfront total damage output than the Lachesis if thats your thing.

The Lach has a bit more base Armor HP, but nothing to write home about, and a bit quicker lock speed, again nothing exceptional. Then the Arazu has the ability to forgo any damage, and act in a pure utility role with Cov Ops Cloak, Cov Ops Cyno can be an on grid warp in as well.

Similar story between the Huginn and Rapier, and the Rook and Falcon.

The only Combat Recon with a notable increase in its base functionality is the Curse vs the Pilgrim, the rest of them are all more or less carbon copies, with the same EWAR application and similar damage application. And after the change. 1 will have a Cov Ops cloak, the other will have DSCAN immunity...or Gimmick Cloak. Force Recons still can do Black Ops, Combat Recons still can not.

Pretty freaking unique eh!.