EVE General Discussion

A big chunk of the problem comes from the Vast fitting room so bringing that into line is a big help alone.

Going to address both of these things together.

First off, baltec1 is free to suggest whatever he wants, he and I both know full well that CCP aren't out here pouring over this thread hanging on every word looking for ideas. The presentation and panel at Fanfest made it abundantly clear that CCP already have their own ideas on where these ships are going to sit and what they're going to do with them.

Arguing with the minutia of baltec1's proposal is stupid and pointless. He does not have any control over CCP and several things they've already said already contradict elements of his ideas.

You're the one going on alarmist rants based on what he's posting as if it's what CCP is actually going to do.

When baltec1 goes off the deep end with you then I'll start calling him out on it. Until then I agree with him generally and agree on some specific points, I don't have to post that to disagree with you, especially when I feel you're contributing less to the discussion while being far more vocal.

baltec1 is, at best, speculating. He does not have a direct line to CCP, and if you'd paid any attention to his comments on T3Ds you'd know that his opinion does not always reflect what CCP actually does. Responding to him like his word is god is giving him far too much credit and just make you look foolish, or at one person said here like you've been eating the tin foil...

Now please, if you have any interest at all in this being a productive and civil discussion, take a deep breath and can the hysterics. It's not forming any kind of coherent or logical argument over where you think T3Cs should land, you're just responding and badly to another person's conjecture.

They have SP because they were OP so without SP injectors there was some CD factor when losing it, now there is not and it has nothing to do with new players. New player can fly titan from day one if he would pay for SP and the hull.

Cade Windstalker summed up where I would see T3C.

Balancing cruiser class ships is very tricky. There are so many classes and variants. Balancing hull that can do any cruiser role and still be useable would be much simpler without some existing hulls (like navy ones). We can nerf T3C to the level of navy hulls and then what? Why do we want another ship that will perform as navy hull and can be switched to something worse than recon? The whole T3C strategicness should be that we don't know in what configuration T3C hull will land of field and can perform as T2 hull with some drawbacks. Not under T2 with drawbacks.

Here's why I disagree with some of this and don't think you're going to get a lot of the rest.

First off, you should really watch those Fanfest videos on Youtube. Like a full third of the Ship and Module Balance presentation was T3Cs.

Most of this is guesswork, some of it is directly stated by CCP in the aforementioned videos.

So, things I don't think you're going to get:

The Rigs. CCP have already said they're going to make the rigs removable as a role bonus on the hulls (possibly in addition to the heating bonus, we don't know). Given the reaction so far, and the much reduced number of subsystems already taking care of most of the balance complexity issue, I don't think they have much reason to reverse course on this.

The role bonus. This is probably the *least* OP thing about T3Cs and has remained a defining element of T3 ships.

Materials. CCP already said they're going to re-balance the material costs for the subsystems so that demand for one T3 hull will have more of an impact on that hull as opposed to the others by putting more demand on the core component of that hull's subsystems. No idea where they're planning to lead the overall cost though.

Oversized Modules. If I had to guess CCP are looking to land these as pocket BCs, somewhere between a BC and a Cruiser in terms of sig, speed, DPS, ect. This suggests heavily that oversized modules will be at least niche practical in some cases. Whether or not that includes oversized prop mods... we'll have to see.

Things I disagree with:

The SP loss. This isn't about the ISK cost. Because of how injectors scale it actually costs a new player less to put a T3C skill back than it does an older player. The problem is that the older player doesn't actually have to pay that ISK cost on top of being less likely to lose the ship in the first place. Someone with 160m SP can just retrain the skill normally and probably won't lose another ship in the ~2-5 days that's going to take them.

There isn't even a particularly good argument that SP loss discourages T3Cs in fleets. We've been seeing this for six years now, T3Cs have been a staple of Null, Low, and WH fleets for basically that entire time and not once have I ever heard of a large or even medium sized entity saying they won't use them because of the SP loss.

On top of this because of the aforementioned scaling of Injectors a perverse incentive is created where a dedicated T3C pilot is better off not training more skills so as to not surpass any of the SP thresholds for Injectors and be able to more easily replace lost SP. This further favors older players significantly and essentially asks a newer player to train a different character if they want to use these ships.

Other:

Tank. Doesn't really belong in any of the above, I just think saying "bring them down to T2 levels of tank" is ridiculously non-specific. Among the various T2 Cruisers you have a huge variety of tank levels and tanking styles. Logi have less EHP but tank more on sig, HACs speed tank and have good EHP, Recons don't get full Cruiser resists, and HICs are the flying cinderblock of Cruiser tank.

I agree with some of these points. But the last point (further specialize) is a bit too nebulous for me to comment on. I think they already embody that point, and probably will even after the CCP rebalance, so I'm not sure what you'd want to be different? Also, I understand the desire to keep DPS/tank roughly equal to T2's, but that's also the sticking point as to why T3C are bad - they are equal to or better than the other cruisers. At the very least, they have to have worse application (either by range, tracking, or both), so that there's still a legitimate reason to consider switching out to HACs.

I also very much agree on the rig slots. Either remove them (make it easier to balance the hulls), or reduce them to 1. It follows the pattern already established by CCP, T1 has three slots, T2 has two slots, T3 should have one slot (both destroyer and cruiser, quite frankly).

As for SP loss, I feel it's a bad mechanic in general because it's only a drawback if you explode. If you have something really OP, naturally it explodes a lot less often than other things. So having a drawback that only kicks in on the rare occasions you've already blown up is kinda...dumb? But if SP loss is going to stay, I say up the ante and increase the number of subsystem ranks you lose. Maybe one of each subsystem?

But I have another idea which intersects another point you brought up...



How's about instead of SP loss, we introduce a new role "bonus" for T3C. Role Bonus: pod ejection not possible. Lose your pod upon destruction of the ship. It's certainly not the first time a penalty has been listed as a role "bonus", and it would give pause to those who pair T3C with a really powerful set of implants. And yes it's still a drawback only imposed upon exploding and kinda dumb in that regard, but at the very least I think it's an interesting discussion point.

Honestly, as far as an alternate bonus to the current overheating (which I don't really see a reason to change, it's unique and useful) I'd only see changing to a reduction on SP loss making any sense. Leveling the X strategic cruiser skill to 5 would now have more meaning than currently as it will actually save you SP loss by training this skill as I'd wager to bet most people train to 1 and stop. It makes some sense too since you are more familiar with the hull you would have a better understanding of how to protect yourself in the case of a catastrophic failure (it goes boom).

It's diversity is the exact reason it cannot have the power of T2 ships. That makes them the default choice simply because it would have all of the pros on top of being versatile. The only way this ship can be balanced with it's versatility is if the base stats are brought below that of the T2 hull ever so slightly. Versatility should never come with base power, as it's power is gained through it's versatility. Currently it has the versatility and power/defense/fitting capabilities hitting way above it's weight which is why you see such an outcry.



Quickly, your worries about a hit to WH income seems rather foolish. As I've pointed out before, if these ships are brought into line it opens up the possibility of seeing a new T3 hull released. Who knows, we may actually see a T3BC with the stats we see in the current T3C or more. If this did happen these ships would obviously require more WH materials meaning an increase demand for WH goods. But the odds of us seeing any more T3 hulls remains bleak if they do not first reign in the power of the T3C. I'd think you guys would be in favor of such an outcome.

I think there is a radical option that could make the reletive nerfs needed to make T3Cs not overpowered.

CCp has said that T3Cs will become the only ship that can unfit rigs. This is good because originally strategic cruisers were supposed to be about flexibility, but rigs kill that idea. Why not go a step further.

Nerf the T3Cs to the point where they are always a worse choice than a specialized ship ie not as good as a HAC at HAC stuff, not as good as a Recon at Recon stuff, not as good as a dedicated exploring ship at exploring, not as good as a dedicated mission ship at running missions ect.

Then add one huge versatility item that lets T3C pilots switch roles on the fly. Let Tech 3 Strategic Cruisers (that don't at that moment have a weapons timer) refit from their cargo holds without need of a Ship Maintenance Array or Mobile Depot.

That way, Fleet Commanders would have options other than "crap, lets go home, they brought Rattlesnakes and we fit to fight Hurricanes". Wormholes would have an all in one platform for places they don't have citadels. Explorers could turn into Raiders if the opportunity presented itself etc etc.

If that's too powerful, then consider a hull bonus on Tech3 cruisers. 90% reduction on time to anchor mobile depots (so 10 second mobile depot time, so a tech3 could land , quickly refit and scoot before getting scanned down).

Just an idea.

Salvos Rhoska
Same deal, slightly different formatting.

1) Rigs:

I get where you're coming from here but I don't think you're taking into account what Rigs offer and how they tend to be used. As things stand the subsystems are getting peared down immensely, from 1024 possible combinations to 81 and we're losing a slot entirely. (4x3 instead of 5x4). They *could* replace rigs with that 5th slot, but I think that's a fundamentally worse option.

Rigs offer a lot of different bonuses, sure, but they're all much smaller in magnitude than even most modules and much less than the subsystems themselves, so replacing three rigs with one subsystem for equivalent benefit would result in cutting off choice and in a subsystem that feels under powered.

Rigs are also a significant source of EHP on a lot of buffer fits, so in order for CCP to account for this they would effectively have to allow you to double-fit tank through subsystems. Just the prospect of this is a bigger mess than just leaving rigs as-is and factoring them into the balance of the ships.

I also don't think that having T3Cs be special for being able to remove rigs adds too much complexity or that uniqueness in this way is a bad thing, so long as the ability is clearly stated and the appropriate warnings are turned off since they won't apply.

2) Role bonus:

First off, the hull skill can't be lost to ship death, and the ship itself is a low tier skill. While this may not technically be a role bonus it's pretty much a role bonus. There's almost no reason to ever fly this ship without the ship skill at 5.

I agree that it's a powerful bonus, but I don't really think it's OP or that it's anywhere near the most broken thing on these ships. They still can't overheat indefinitely and in practice this has just never really factored much into the way the ships play or the reasons people fly them. I think if this were more the case it would mean the ships were getting to a better state rather than being used because they're just stupidly good in every way.

Also the overheating bonus on the hull only increases the duration you can overheat modules for, not the effect. That bonus is on a subsystem and is sticking around as an option in the new subsystems.

Plus the T3Ds have the same bonus, so it seems likely CCP will try to preserve the themeing here and nerf other stats on the ship rather than remove the bonus, which IMO is the better choice anyway since it allows for more granular tweaking as opposed to removing the bonus entirely which affects every module that can be overheated.


3) Materials:
The cost of the ships and the value of the subsystems is largely a result of demand and supply. The cost is going to shift almost no matter what happens here because demand for the ships is going to drop. Given that it might actually be better for the WH economy if CCP made the ships cheaper in terms of build requirements to increase demand for them so WHs don't flood the market with supply.

They've already said they're re-balancing the material requirements, beyond that we know nothing concrete about how the price may or may not change.

4) Oversized modules:
Kinda somantics here, it's possible to fit an oversized AB on a Stabber for bumping, but it's useless for anything else at that point. Impractical to me means there are no practical fits that can use those modules.

Also "oversized modules" is a pretty broad category in general. For example I don't think we'll be seeing Cruisers that are unable to fit LSEs or 1600 plates.

5) SP loss:

I really fundamentally disagree that SP loss is in any way a core mechanics of T3Cs. The T3Ds don't have it, the T3Cs don't need it, and the only reason to keep around the equivalent of an additional 660m-2.6B cost to losing one of these hulls is to justify keeping them at a power level they probably shouldn't be at.

As I said, this affects newbies more than vets and isn't working as any kind of modulator on the use of these ships.

Given that I feel the default should be toward removing the SP loss, given that it doesn't exist elsewhere in the game at this point and has the reverse of a healthy impact on the use of these ships, making them easier for older players to access and use.

6) Tank:

Except based on the mix of subsystems and their layout (again you should really watch the fanfest presentation and use that as a starting point here) we're still going to have the ability to run EWar and tank subsystems. You can't run tank and cloak at the same time, but that still puts a T3C that can tank as well as a HAC able to tank better than a Combat Recon, because the subsystems don't align cleanly to the existing ship roles, and they're not supposed to.

The whole point of a T3C is that you can mix and match things a bit and get something that's not as good at a focused job as a dedicated ship, but maybe brings a little more of something else to the party. You can't really get around this with the way the various subsystems that define the T2 hulls are spread around the different slots.

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Lastly, seriously, go watch the part of the Fanfest presentation on Youtube dealing with the T3Cs and where CCP are heading with them. From some of the stuff you've said here it sounds like you haven't seen any of that and haven't factored it at all into your ideas here.

I'm aware, I did in fact read your entire post, I just disagree with your logic on several points, especially around the rigs. Leaving rigs in place mades it easier to balance the ships because

A. Rigs offer less of a bonus than subsystems and

B. Other ships have rigs, so you only really need to get the base hull options to a balanced point and then rigs can be checked for malign cases. You don't need to take every possible combination into account the way you would with another subsystem option without a clear parallel on an existing hull.

I'm still kinda wondering if you've watched that presentation, because by not at least watching it you're just setting yourself up for disappointment. CCP have already outlined where they're coming from, and you're going to have a much better time of it if you can see where they're coming from and work with that as opposed to just saying that you don't like their entire direction and trying to get them to back-track.

It's quite likely that they've already considered all of these various options and rejected ones that deviate wildly from what they've already got for one reason or another. Trying to propose something radically different is going to end up being like banging your head into a brick wall unless you've got some really really good arguments against the current approach, and looking at what you've presented I don't think you do, just a lot of "well this *might* be harder to balance".

A) For the versatility, the thing that is supposed to be the key point of T3C.
B) Why does weapon timer kills the idea? IMO it only mean you have to at least partially disengage if you were in combat.
C) Giving them a role bonus is not impossible during a balance pass. I'm pretty sure they just stamped one on all T1 BC for increased range when they did a pass on them.