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Yes we do.

Come to think of it, if new players were given slight pause for thought before they rush for battleships, that probably would benefit them.

As a heavily cross trained pilot myself, count in my vote for being concerned about my ability to continue flying ships I already own. Thank you, CCP, for taking the time to get feedback before making any such critical changes to the game. I look forward to reading the CSM8 minutes of this discussion (That's a hinthint with a lil nudgenudge for you.).

I have to say, that if done correctly, the changes outlined within the devblog hold significant promise, but I am less concerned with the minutae of reimbursements (trusting that we will be able to fly something tomorrow if we can fly it today) and more concerned with the efficacy with which we fly them. Just being able to get into say, my Drake, isn't the same thing as flying a Drake that has the level 5 shield resists bonus. On that note, I link back to a blog snagged from an earlier posters signature and get on with the meat of my feedback:

http://carebearconfessions.blogspot.com/2012/03/on-ships-skills-and-balancing.html

This idea, as the kernel for a line of ship role specific skills and associated bonuses, has a lot of merit. I especially like the part where a dedicated alt can skip significant amounts of training in ship sizes they don't care about. Simultaneously, a new player being guided by an existing player or solid corporation can begin to contribute to that group much sooner, despite having fewer ship bonuses in whatever they fly ('cause let's face it, if you come to EVE to play with a friend who runs missions, your tech 1 frig isn't gonna help that much on a level 4, as an example). A similar pass of weapon related skills is required.

Expanding upon the framework of Spaceship Command and Advanced Spaceship Command presented in the blog, there could be an assortment of new skills sorted along the "Ship Lines" referenced in the CCP Devblog. You could add, say, a line of skills all labeled with a "Captain" designation. Industrial Captain, Logistics Captain (defensive support), Electronic Superiority Captain (offensive support), Artillery Captain, Assault Captain, Blockade Captain could be the list, for an example.

There is some satisfying potential in the thought of dropping your Certificate for Elite Assault Captain on a virtual table in an Establishment while engaged in a genital size contest. (This is your subtle reminder not to forget the poor mutant bastard child that is Incarna amidst all of this Crucible and Inferno business.)

These skills could apply an additional role suitable bonus that is the same across the board for all ships of the appropriate "line". For an example, Assault Captain could provide small increases to rate of fire, maximum velocity, and ship agility for all ships of the Assault line, regardless of race or size category. Blockade Captain, fitting in the "ship of the line" category, could provide an additional amount of shield, armour, and structure to all Blockade line ships, contributing to their ability to actually serve as the solid core of a firing line. Artillery Captain will require a larger number of effects to accommodate the fact that missiles and turrets calculate their ranges in different fashions. Industrial Captain, similarly, has a lot of ground to cover.

In my suggestion, these are flat out in addition to the existing statistics of sub capital ships. Cap ships would not receive this bonus, as a small part of combating the proliferation of cap ship fleets. The Captain line shouldn't, in of itself, render cap ships obsolete, but provides a more interesting assortment of skill choices and possibly some additional decision making tension. For example, a small fleet of cap ships that might laugh at a fleet of battleships (below an obscene critical mass of battleships, anyway) might be a lot more respectful when an entire Wing of Assault line ships tears into one of them. I don't have any further thoughts on cap warfare balance at this time, but a small and universal increase in sub-cap ship capabilities couldn't hurt the situation.

I would suggest seeding these skillbooks some amount of time in advance of enabling their effects, to give our intrepid wormhole folks (amongst others) time to acquire copies and train up.

I feel like I'm forgetting something, but I'm sure I got the point across. I do have a pet peeve for you, though, in regards to the CCP Devblog: Considering the semi mythical status of the Drake as a tank, the Drake and Ferox ought to be switched in your list. A lot of other ships should be classified out as examples, too, such as putting say, the Apoc into the Artillery Captain / Bombardment Line category.

Ah, I just reminded myself the thing I was forgetting. As a few other posters have referenced, you should also not go overboard on the new ships or any redesigns that result form sorting ships into role categories. The different races should feel MORE distinctive, not less, as a result of this implementation. For example, my beloved golden fleet should embrace primarily Blockade Captains, while our corporate Caldari friends should represent the masters of Artillery. The Gallente Federation can take an emphasis on Blockade Captain ships to provide the backbone for the dramatic proportion of their rebel, ahem, Republic, allies that are Assault Captains.

There's my two kredits.

Yet, you stated it's good for them to be able and rush into T2 ship sooner!

Tippia are you on some crusade against stupidity? i think you have pretty much crushed evey stupid comment that cpp hasn't been bothered with

Its what he does, personally I'm very grateful as constant facepalming makes my head hurt after a while

Why so overcomplicated? You have bc or destroyer skill on lvl X, you will get racial bc skill on this level (skill, no free skill points) - you can fly exact the same ships as before. Only clones are more expensive.

Btw, when you have bc on lvl5, training 3 racial battlecruiser are 6 day - everybody train them, exact same situation as with training bc and destroyer skill on lvl5

I like the changes on the skills needed for flying certain ships. Where the changes needed, maybe not, but they are ok.

I think that rebalancing ships is great thing, helps to change the current meta (I play lol) and keep FC changing their tactics and evolve which is good.

However, when it comes to ship balancing issues looking forward, I would like you to keep a few things in mind when determining a role for ships not currently being used much.

As a player in a corp doing primarily small gang pvp, 10-30 people including links, scouts etc, there are times when you do highly specialised fleets such as alpha tornados. Those fleets are so specialised that you can only engage under certain conditions meaning that sometimes you cant take a fight and often other fleets wont fight you (who jumps into a alpha fleet sitting 70k of a gate with a sabre on the gate?)

Same thing with rr bs being neutralised by bombers and other examples like that. My point is, that while having counters to specialised fleets is good, it shouldnt be that way that people set out looking for fights in specialised fleets and end up going home without a fight simply because the right target wasnt there.

I understand that theres a huge difference from roaming fleets and fleets meant for tower/customs/SBU bashing but at least for roaming fleets finding the right fleet to fight can be difficult at times. So, when rebalancing, I would like to see you create ships that will either fit into existing fleets, or will make it possible to create new fleets which can engange several diffierent kinds of fleets.

Good fights are the ones, that last for more than 30 seconds, where people on both sides die and where the individual pilot makes a difference. Good fights are not pressing F1 and see that lone straggler instapop.

I dont like the drake fleets much, but I understand why its being used as much as it is. It can engange a wide variety of enemies meaning the risk to go home with blue balls is reduced (if you fly a drake blob, then its prolly the blob rather than the drake).
Tengues are another good example (albeit expensive), they can snipe and brawl depending on enemy and the individual pilot skill is important.

Does it make sense? I DONT want fleets that are identical and which doesnt evolove because counters are found, but tbh a good fight means everything in eve and any change that will bring more of those are welcome.

The reason your answers to these questions aren't making any sense is because you are still dancing around the one simple problem that obviously drives this entire plan: The Drake.

The whole thing comes down to this: We put some ships called BCs in the game a while back, and one of them was stupidly OP. In fact it was so stupidly OP that our T2 cruisers are an embarassment compared to it. This is even more of a problem since the T2 cruiser takes 5x as long to get into. We see now that this stupidly OP ship never should have happened, or should have been just another Tech 2 hull. But we can't nerf it, because people will scream bloody murder. And we can't buff the T2 cruisers, because then they would be stupidly OP.

So what we're gonna do is: move all the BCs far enough up the training curve to put them out of the reach of vile noobs; pull the T2 cruisers down the curve a bit to make them seem like a better deal; then make all the other BCs just as stupidly OP.

Balance achieved.

Also we'll throw in some new dessies. Maybe. And caps will be 30 days shorter. So it all works out in the end.

After reading the blog I just felt the urge to do this

Seed the Racial Destroyer and Battlecruiser skills now.