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But that's just it: they don't increase by that much. The SP required to get in a BC hull at all increases from 177k SP to 363k:ish SP; the SP required to get in a BC hull competently, but still uselessly increases from 447k to 664k SP. At this point, not only hasn't the training time increased fourfold, but you still can't actually fly the ship because you aren't able to do anything with it. For new players, the difference is a matter of days per race, which isn't much considering everything else they have to train to make those ships flyable. Include all of that and the training time for this popular ship class is pretty much the same as before.

If you absolutely have to have all twelve BCs and if you absolutely have to have them all at lvl V, then yes, the skill cost for the ship hulls alone will have increased from 1,832k SP to 7,954k SP… which would suggest that it now costs more than 4× as much to fly those ships. But guess what: at that point you still can't fly any of the ships because we haven't finished piling on the skill requirements. Once we do, the 6M SP that differs between the two systems will once again have been eaten up by the equipment and support skills (which will be much higher than in the previous example due to that lvl-V-itis we're suffering from here).

If we're talking about 4× BC V, we're talking about an SP difference on the scale of 35.7 M SP in the old system vs. 41.5 M SP in the new one (and I've actually dialled back the lvl-V-itis a whole lot with those numbers — they could and probably should be a lot higher than that), which means that, once again, it's nowhere near a 4× multiplier on the training time. Saying that it's “four times as much” is just ignorant on every level. Saying that it affects newbies is equally ignorant. It may affect the middle-aged player who isn't clever enough to figure out how to prepare for this change (which, incidentally, also deflates any argument that this “dumbs down” the game, since it benefits the clever ones and punished the dumb ones — a dumbing down would do the opposite).

It's about as likely as newbies with 36 million SP… The point I'm making is that while new players will have a very very very tiny bit harder time to cross-train, they will have a whole hell of a lot easier time to specialise, which has always been the way to “catch up” with older players.

…and this switch in skills doesn't change that. In fact, it makes it easier than ever to train for a new specialisation.

…suddenly he can fly exactly the same things exactly as well as he could before. Oh wait, that's not sudden at all.

/me gets the popcorn

What you might be missing is that as things stand now, you can specialize and still crosstrain, while with the new system, you are effectively starting over to get a new races dictor(or other specialized ship) meaning if you go caldari, and missiles get nerfed tomorrow, it will be that much harder for you to retrain to amarr.

You seem to be under the impression that nerfs are forces of nature, unpredictable, unwanted, and unnecessary.
If missiles got (more than accidentally) nerfed, it would be after some discussion, it would be when it benefited the game to do so, and it would be because they needed to be nerfed.

If you were using something that needed to be nerfed, you were getting the benefit of your training, and you were at that time using FOTM. If you switched to Amarr, it would be because you decided that was now FOTM.

You are really hurting your own argument, because before you were talking about versitility, and now you're framing it as nerf-dodging and quickly switching to the next FOTM, which is exactly what you said it wasn't about.

A Destroyer variant that has a "Point Defense" role would be excellent.

A Destroyer variant that is in effect a "Heavy Bomber" would be MORE than excellent. ;
Not a cloaky bomber, but a tanky bomber that can stay on station and defend itself from drones/frigs with small guns in it's left over slots... but it's main armament being two or possibly 3 bomb launchers.

Imagine the absolute necessity of a fleet to focus fire on a group of heavy bombers swinging around for another pass. :)

Of course, you would leave the mechanic that after a certain point you end up blowing up your own bombs in place so as to limit the size of these bomber groups, or at least force them to concentrate on different area's of the enemy fleet.

Also, not sure if anyone else has noted it, but it looks like you have the Scimitar and the Rapier in the wrong spots on the Minmatar skill tree, since the Scimi uses the Scythe hull, and the Rapier uses the Bellicose hull, not the other way round.

Oh god, both of you. The Heretic is the worst example you could use, as it's a Rocket-bonused interdictor. From Flycatcher to Heretic is easy. I know it's only an example, but please, choose something actually differentiated, like Flycatcher to Eris.

New main attribute for racial BC is Charisma.

CCP, the responses were greatly appreciated.

I think, overall, the changes are good.

I would like to say, though, as a new combat char, Battlecruisers is one of those few skills that I think "Oh **** yes, I can almost train it." Or..."Thank ****, I am training it and can soon cross train"

There are very few skills that are exciting to train. I think the first turret specialization, finishing core skills, finishing minmatar frigate V and Battlecruisers of any level are the things I'm most looking forward to...and I know core skills aren't exciting to raise.

I hope that is considered when you rebalance ships. If that's the case, if ship balance is redone in such an awesome way that the current break/relief skill that is Current-Era-Battlecruisers is overshadowed...then there'd be no cause for complaint, really. Well, with regards to cross-training, that is.

Came expecting some info and announcements of long overdue ship rebalancing so the game stops degenerating into Drakes and Tengus (and supercaps) online. Left disappointed.

Why are you messing with the skill tree? Seriously, this is not needed. Is this some way to slow the race to BC that new players pursue? If so just get on with making cruisers worth flying, proceed with abolishing tiers and replacing them with roles, and nerf the overused BCs.

Also, read only snippets of this thread because - 77 pages - serious timesink. So I can see that others have said it but I'll say it in my own way - You are dumbing down the game.

Command ships requiring logi 4 or hac 4 is not a bad thing. But now you will be allowing people to get into those ships much faster. BS 5 for capitals is not a bad thing, . . .

This dev blog is a serious disappointment. It indicates misdirected energy and effort on the dev team and more changes that dumb down progression in the game. Abolishing tiers for roles is the only good thing in the wall of text and pretty flowcharts on the blog page. Please get back to focusing on fixing sov mechanics, faction warfare, and ship balancing. These are desperately needed and long overdue. Messing with the skill tree is not.