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New dev blog: Rebalancing EVE, one ship at a time

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Sunviking
Doomheim
#1641 - 2012-03-09 14:38:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Sunviking
"For example, that means lowering the Covetor's Mining Barge requirement from 5 to 4, but also reducing Battleship requirement from 5 to 4 for capitals."

This single sentence is going to be quite possibly the biggest change to the EVE Economy for a while. Unlocking Covetors for the thousands of characters that don't have Mining Barge 5, will increase access to that additional 50% yield you get on the Covetor over the Retreiver and also the Rokh. Ore and Ice is going to flood the market.

All Combat oriented non-Mining characters across the EVE cluster will be able to join in on their corp's mining activities for the 3-4 day's training time it takes to get Mining Barge 4, and start achieving decent mining yields for Ore and Ice.

Not saying it is a good or a bad thing, just putting it out there for everyone Shocked

Makes me wonder how it going to affect botting too, for better or for worse.
Xyla Vulchanus
Players vs. EVE
Goonswarm Federation
#1642 - 2012-03-09 14:45:22 UTC
Sunviking wrote:
"For example, that means lowering the Covetor's Mining Barge requirement from 5 to 4, but also reducing Battleship requirement from 5 to 4 for capitals."

This single sentence is going to be quite possibly the biggest change to the EVE Economy for a while. Unlocking Covetors for the thousands of characters that don't have Mining Barge 5, will increase access to that additional 50% yield you get on the Covetor over the Retreiver and also the Rokh. Ore and Ice is going to flood the market.

All Combat oriented non-Mining characters across the EVE cluster will be able to join in on their corp's mining activities for the 3-4 day's training time it takes to get Mining Barge 4, and start achieving decent mining yields for Ore and Ice.

Not saying it is a good or a bad thing, just putting it out there for everyone Shocked

Makes me wonder how it going to affect botting too, for better or for worse.



Yeah apparently CCP believe that the best way to improve the game at this point is to make mining even less profitable and to get more people into caps quicker. It's like they don't know anything about their own game at times.
Alistair Cononach
The Legion of Spoon
Curatores Veritatis Alliance
#1643 - 2012-03-09 14:51:54 UTC
I, for one, would like to hear at least one semi-concrete idea/plan for the improvement of one low-tier Tech 1 hull

For example, tell us (in general terms) what you're going to do to make the Crucifier be something anyone in EVE would actually fly

Second, I think with the change to "Racial Destroyer" there needs to be more than just a vague "we're thinking about it" response in re: additional Destroyers being added to the game, and in short order

The announcement would, IMO< have been far smoother if it coincided with an announcement that each race will get two more Dessie Hulls (not reskins either, new hulls), doing X and Y. And two new Tech 2 variants as well

Then, instead of rage, most folks are going "wow, tiericide and new hulls, yay!". Sure, most would want to be sure they won't lose the abillity to fly tomorrow what they can fly today, but the focus would shift to the new shineies, not to complaints.
Ursula LeGuinn
Perkone
Caldari State
#1644 - 2012-03-09 14:52:40 UTC
FloppieTheBanjoClown wrote:
What I'm taking away from all of this is that I need to throw out any training plans I have and make sure I have destroyer, battlecruiser, and all racial cruiser skills to 5 JUST TO BE SURE I get the maximum number of free skill points and don't have to waste time training multiple skills later if I want to try out a specific ship.


That's what I'm taking away from this, too. You shouldn't need the racial cruiser skills at V, though — III should be enough, or IV if you want to be safe.

"The EVE forums are intended to provide a warm, friendly atmosphere for the EVE community." — EVElopedia
Galen Gallente
The Oasis Group
TOG - The Older Gamers Alliance
#1645 - 2012-03-09 15:19:30 UTC
Q: If you want to make skills consistent, why don’t you make all of them generic instead of inserting racial variants for destroyer and battlecruiser classes?

A: That is mainly because turning all ship racial skills into generic copies would achieve the opposite of what we want to fix here: having access to too many hulls by training one skill. Besides, it would create even large skill reimbursement issues, as we would now have to merge all four racial copies of frigate, cruiser, battleship and capital skills into one.

********************************************************************************************
WoW False argument is False.

1 - If you make it so many hulls are opened up you allow players to experiment much faster, because we all know that players day one in EVE know exactly what they want to do and specialize in.... oh wait that is only new characters that are usually experienced players training up alts.....

2 - Keep Racial Specializations by class be a secondary bonus that makes that racial hull better, really getting all you can out from the ship. This would parallel the current training system and would then be directly convertible between the 2. Maybe drop them down a multiplier and keep the generic skills a low multiplier so when converting current characters over the total skill points remains approximately the same.

3 - Also the whole "dumbing down the game" argument is crap to begin with. Making the system more consistent is a good thing. However this should also be applied across guns/missiles/drones/support skills.

So take a couple more steps back and look at the monstrosity that is the current skill training tree/graph and really look at it.

When you figure out a pattern you like for one set of systems apply it to ALL THE SYSTEMS FOR CONSISTENCY!!!!!
Blue Harrier
#1646 - 2012-03-09 15:31:05 UTC
Tinfoil hat on;

Reading between the lines of text I have a small inclination that the Devs have hit a wall. I think this is all tied in to Dust.

There has been some mention of using aerial bombardment on to planets (possibly even aerial mercenary drops) and CCP don’t have any ‘slots’ to put these new ships in.

By streamlining the skill trees it would open the way for extra ships and skills to fly them to fit the above rolls.

Tinfoil hat off.

Otherwise, on paper it all looks a ‘good idea’, how it will work in practise remains to be seen but I guess it’s a simple case of ‘Adapt or Die’.

"You wait - time passes, Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold." from The Hobbit on ZX Spectrum 1982.
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises
Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
#1647 - 2012-03-09 15:35:22 UTC
Xyla Vulchanus wrote:
Sunviking wrote:
"For example, that means lowering the Covetor's Mining Barge requirement from 5 to 4, but also reducing Battleship requirement from 5 to 4 for capitals."

This single sentence is going to be quite possibly the biggest change to the EVE Economy for a while. Unlocking Covetors for the thousands of characters that don't have Mining Barge 5, will increase access to that additional 50% yield you get on the Covetor over the Retreiver and also the Rokh. Ore and Ice is going to flood the market.

All Combat oriented non-Mining characters across the EVE cluster will be able to join in on their corp's mining activities for the 3-4 day's training time it takes to get Mining Barge 4, and start achieving decent mining yields for Ore and Ice.

Not saying it is a good or a bad thing, just putting it out there for everyone Shocked

Makes me wonder how it going to affect botting too, for better or for worse.



Yeah apparently CCP believe that the best way to improve the game at this point is to make mining even less profitable and to get more people into caps quicker. It's like they don't know anything about their own game at times.



Because everyone has Astrogeology 5...

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter
Revman Zim
Infinite Point
Pandemic Horde
#1648 - 2012-03-09 15:39:45 UTC
Blue Harrier wrote:
Tinfoil hat on;

Reading between the lines of text I have a small inclination that the Devs have hit a wall. I think this is all tied in to Dust.

There has been some mention of using aerial bombardment on to planets (possibly even aerial mercenary drops) and CCP don’t have any ‘slots’ to put these new ships in.

By streamlining the skill trees it would open the way for extra ships and skills to fly them to fit the above rolls.

Tinfoil hat off.

Otherwise, on paper it all looks a ‘good idea’, how it will work in practise remains to be seen but I guess it’s a simple case of ‘Adapt or Die’.



I don't agree or disagree with the above line of thinking. However, +1 for an "out of the box" thought that has been missing for some 80 pages.
Nagarythe Tinurandir
Einheit X-6
#1649 - 2012-03-09 15:47:56 UTC
Martineth wrote:
CCP is about to make one of the most common mistakes that game developers on MMO's are doing, but unike a handflull of them they think they ought too cause time has cought up with them. Rebalancing ships my big shiny greek Buttweiser

You find cyclones scythe's desies and the lot obsolete? Yes they are. But they are part of a history that served us and served us well. Eve has a privillege only a handfull of MMO's has ever had. It matured, so did its content and so do its players. There is no need to rebalance an old cyclone to give it some more use. Its time is over, let people fly it like an old car model is driven.

We got the right to preserve what is a nearly 10 year history. Out with new Tiers and let us choose what we like.

Dont take my word cause i say it, HILMAR did as well. In last or overlast fanfest a player asked him if it is possible to make eve items more basic and condensed cause he was against the plethora of items in game. Hilmar replied that the tools are given for players to use and we choose-vote for out items by choosing or neglecting an item. True sandbox

But.... you want to give old hulls a new polish right? OK here it is how i think it should be done

e.g, a Cyclone. Players should have the right to take the basic hull and send it over to an NPC corporation that will enchance it slightly on certain fileds. Brutors would give it some more gunpower. Creodron some more drone cababilities. Sisters of EvE some more cargo etc. Make some of these echancements stackable up to a degree, make the ship unsellable and make it unique in a way. Make it smt like a new F16 block 52 adv. Same hull as the 1976 F16 but with new capabilities. Good and better cyclone but under no circumstance a better ship then a tier 2 or tier 3 ship. Its time has passed.

If we dont respect the fact that in our universe old and obsolete ships are rare yet here to show to new players how it was in the good old days we miss th chance to point out a simple fact that no other game in my humble opinion can with the same degree.

To show to new players we got roots, we got history and by stickign around you are participating into a better eve. So lets roll out these tier 4 BC's and tier 2 desies and let the older models become obslete. It is NOT a condition. It is a rightfully earned privillege of Ageing. Let them age with grace and respect them by letting them as they are.

They served, and served us well.


i do not know what you had for breakfast, but it must be one hell of a cereal...
you are proposing flatly stat-creep and loss of diversity and even think its a good idea. i do not even know where to start explaining why this is a ridiculous idea...
so instead of fixing/balancing a game, just throw in new tiers of ships every now and then?
until the new tier 20 punisher mk-x puts out around 500 dps and tanks with 20k ehp?
something like that?
let the player choose which new toy he enjoys the most?
simplyfied: bad game design. and talking about dumbing eve down...


to the matters at hand

all the proposed skill changes are far from beeing final and ccp got the importance of this issue since the 30th page in this thread. ccp may have some weak spots but i guess the devs are not mentally challenged.
in fact the skill change will not occur in the next expansion, if they get implemented at all. that would be in like 3 months? they never get things sorted out in that time frame. most people in here still seem to forgett, that the dev blog was an outline/ a proposal. there will be changes to the plan.
in my opinion the whole skill change idea smells like new ships across the size spectrum, which ccp likes to bring into a freshly balanced and coherent environment.
you can call me an hopeless optimist for that, but believe me, feels better than raging hard all day over some unconfirmed and not established changes.
Korbin Dallaz
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#1650 - 2012-03-09 16:07:40 UTC
I recently moved into a space that has Sansha rats. Since I had BC 4 already I trained Amarr cruiser and jumped in a Harby to try out lazors. It did not take much for me to transition from Galenete to Amarr to give lazors a try that way. I liked the lazors enough that I started training Amarr so that I can fly an Amarr BS soon

I almost never see all level 5 days on SiSi. So the destroyer and the Battlecruiser class ships are an important part of the game. It is a spot where players can try other races out without having to commit 6 months of training to find out you don't like it. Especially now with the Tier 3 Battlecruisers, you can try small medium and large guns out of any race without having to train all the way up to Battleship 4 just to get a taste. I think removing that is a really bad move. If you insist on doing so i suggest that you alternate weeks or days or something like that where on some regular schedule you have all level 5 on SiSi so people can fly other ships to decide which direction to go with training

When I first started playing this game I made a minmatar toon. I am a PvE only player and rapidly grew to hate minmatar ships for mission running. I was a bit upset when 4 months into the game I discovered that I've been training the wrong race the whole time. No biggie because I was able to try out the drake and discover what an awesome mission boat it is and then started cross training.

In this game currently each race has a definite role and use. Minmatar are supposed to be the PvP kings. Caldari the PvE kings. Amarr are the dps king and Galenete are very versatile, not king of anything but good at everything. The new player making their first character does not know that. It would seem to me that you are locking new players into one race for a long time before they are competent enough to crosstrain. The only way I can see this working out is if you dumb down all the races and re-balance everything so each race is exactly equal. WoW did this and it's a big part of why that game sucks, If you guys are going to head down the wow path of balancing all the races and classes it will be the end of this game. Please stop trying to be WoW. That game sucks and is dying. If you try to be like them you will die also

Keep the different roles of the different races and leave these 2 points of experimentation of small, medium and large turrets.
Nagarythe Tinurandir
Einheit X-6
#1651 - 2012-03-09 16:22:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Nagarythe Tinurandir
Korbin Dallaz wrote:
I recently moved into a space that has Sansha rats. Since I had BC 4 already I trained Amarr cruiser and jumped in a Harby to try out lazors. It did not take much for me to transition from Galenete to Amarr to give lazors a try that way. I liked the lazors enough that I started training Amarr so that I can fly an Amarr BS soon

I almost never see all level 5 days on SiSi. So the destroyer and the Battlecruiser class ships are an important part of the game. It is a spot where players can try other races out without having to commit 6 months of training to find out you don't like it. Especially now with the Tier 3 Battlecruisers, you can try small medium and large guns out of any race without having to train all the way up to Battleship 4 just to get a taste. I think removing that is a really bad move. If you insist on doing so i suggest that you alternate weeks or days or something like that where on some regular schedule you have all level 5 on SiSi so people can fly other ships to decide which direction to go with training

When I first started playing this game I made a minmatar toon. I am a PvE only player and rapidly grew to hate minmatar ships for mission running. I was a bit upset when 4 months into the game I discovered that I've been training the wrong race the whole time. No biggie because I was able to try out the drake and discover what an awesome mission boat it is and then started cross training.

In this game currently each race has a definite role and use. Minmatar are supposed to be the PvP kings. Caldari the PvE kings. Amarr are the dps king and Galenete are very versatile, not king of anything but good at everything. The new player making their first character does not know that. It would seem to me that you are locking new players into one race for a long time before they are competent enough to crosstrain. The only way I can see this working out is if you dumb down all the races and re-balance everything so each race is exactly equal. WoW did this and it's a big part of why that game sucks, If you guys are going to head down the wow path of balancing all the races and classes it will be the end of this game. Please stop trying to be WoW. That game sucks and is dying. If you try to be like them you will die also

Keep the different roles of the different races and leave these 2 points of experimentation of small, medium and large turrets.


in order to "quickly" test another race with a bc you need to train to frigs and cruiser of that race plus the weapon system, atm.
a few days (we are talking about max. 4 days here?) more will not change that experience drastically.

and a word to your "race roles": let's keep that, NOT!
a game, where every race has a place in every aspect of the game sounds like much more fun to me. racial flavors are good, though, but in ways of play style.
but a pvp-race, a pve-race ... just no. one reason for the rebalancing of ships to get rid of that.
Korbin Dallaz
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#1652 - 2012-03-09 16:35:39 UTC
Nagarythe Tinurandir wrote:



but a pvp-race, a pve-race ... just no. one reason for the rebalancing of ships to get rid of that.


And I"m telling you that is the main thing that ruined WoW and I feel it will ruin this game as well. The removal of specialization from WoW is one of the biggest reasons that I came to Eve. To have all 4 races be the same except for the look of the ship is pointless. Why even have different races then? This is very much a step in the wrong direction and I'm not looking for you to agree or disagree with me. Just watch and see. If they do "balance" the races it will dumb this game down and turn it into WoW / Spaceship Barbie.
Altrue
Exploration Frontier inc
Tactical-Retreat
#1653 - 2012-03-09 16:37:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Altrue
Globally the skill change is a good idea. But it represent a lot of work for practically no change for most of eve players, and a huge possibility to annoy most of them.

Concerning the new "ship roles" however, I'm very scared about what I read. Actually, if you guys design the new balance with the same attention you gave to the "eve ship examples" that you wrote for each "ship role" in the dev blog, we will have an enormous problem. Because what I read proves that you haven't understand how your own ships are working.

One of my pleasure in eve is the do exotic fittings to surprise and have fun. The other is to discover a new extention with interesting content, around two times a year.
With the changes you're planning to do, I think that you will kill one of this pleasure, while the second will be substantially reduced because of the bad balance of devs involved in developping new tangible content.
Remember the last two years...

Al.

Signature Tanking Best Tanking

[Ex-F] CEO - Eve-guides.fr

Ultimate Citadel Guide - 2016 EVE Career Chart
Creat Posudol
German Oldies
#1654 - 2012-03-09 16:55:11 UTC
Danny Husk wrote:
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.
(emphasis mine)

What on earth are you smoking? It has been said dozens of times in this thread, the mere hurdle for getting into a BC for a completely new player is only a couple of days longer than it is now. The change is a far cry from "out of reach" for anyone with this change. Most new players currently also don't train 2-3 races' cruiser skill to get access to 6+ BC the skill itself might allow, but will stick with one race in the beginning (and for good reason). It takes enough time to train up one weapon system in the beginning anyway...

They also said that they intend to rebalance all ship classes one by one (most likely starting with frigs and destroyers), which will eventually come round to BCs as well. The Drake will be brought in line somehow, or at least taken down a peg.

But yea, +1 to hoping they will include at least one more destroyer in Inferno! Having a racial skill for just one ship per race is a bit... thin.
Knarf Truesdale
The Milkmen
Churn and Burn
#1655 - 2012-03-09 16:57:18 UTC
I like the way CCP is stating unequivocally that "if you can fly it today, you can fly it after the change". When did CCP start making absolute statements? Big smile

Anyone else notice that the Minmatar Ship Tree shows the Scimitar as a Rapier and vice versa? Right manufacturer, wrong hull/icon.

CCP 2009:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgvM7av1o1Q CCP 2012:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r0KHMrjmk0

moar 2009 please.
Danny Husk
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#1656 - 2012-03-09 16:59:22 UTC  |  Edited by: Danny Husk
Creat Posudol wrote:
What on earth are you smoking?

Good point. Rank 6 skill x4 + Rank 2 skill x4 is "only a few days longer" than Rank 6 skill x1.

Thanks for clearing that up for us.
Korbin Dallaz
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#1657 - 2012-03-09 17:42:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Korbin Dallaz
Creat Posudol wrote:


Most new players currently also don't train 2-3 races' cruiser skill to get access to 6+ BC the skill itself might allow, but will stick with one race in the beginning (and for good reason). It takes enough time to train up one weapon system in the beginning anyway..
.

This is different for different Races. Minmatar pilots for example due to mixed weapon systems and mixed tank already have to train: Sheild, Armor and speed tanks as well as projectile and missile skills. So a brand new minmatar pilot is working up through the ships and gets to level 3 missions and is having a rough time in his Hurricane but has T2 heavy launchers already and BC5 he can just train Caldari cruiser 3 and be a good drake pilot. This allows him to mostly stick with his Minmatar specialization as we moves on in the game towards low and null sec stuff where the minmatar ships will serve him better

Remove that option and CCP seems to be wanting to " balance " all races and make them all equally competent at all things. If you do that then a new player will be able to learn everything that he needs to know by looking at the images of the different race's ships by looking at them in the new ship viewer on the Eve website before they ever start an account or hit the character creation screen. So once you decide which ships look prettier that's as much as you'll ever need to know. Cross training will be simply for looks or style since there is no real functional difference. That is removing a huge part of the flavor of this game.
Creat Posudol
German Oldies
#1658 - 2012-03-09 17:46:30 UTC
Danny Husk wrote:
Creat Posudol wrote:
What on earth are you smoking?

Good point. Rank 6 skill x4 + Rank 2 skill x4 is "only a few days longer" than Rank 6 skill x1.

Thanks for clearing that up for us.


It is, because my reply was in reply to his statement about ships being out of reach for noobs. They will only train the skills as far as they need them (Frig, Destroyer, Cruiser to 4, BC to 3 or 4). It was not about someone who wants to be "perfect at everything with all Vs"!

Context. It matters!
Nagarythe Tinurandir
Einheit X-6
#1659 - 2012-03-09 17:50:07 UTC
Korbin Dallaz wrote:
Nagarythe Tinurandir wrote:



but a pvp-race, a pve-race ... just no. one reason for the rebalancing of ships to get rid of that.


And I"m telling you that is the main thing that ruined WoW and I feel it will ruin this game as well. The removal of specialization from WoW is one of the biggest reasons that I came to Eve. To have all 4 races be the same except for the look of the ship is pointless. Why even have different races then? This is very much a step in the wrong direction and I'm not looking for you to agree or disagree with me. Just watch and see. If they do "balance" the races it will dumb this game down and turn it into WoW / Spaceship Barbie.


please do not bring wow into this. it is a completly different story.
in a nutshell, you think it is better to do pvp with only one race. and pve only with another one?
am i the only one who thinks that is terrible?
for that matter: minmatar is a much better "pve-race" because minmatar can switch ammo types with all their weapons and thereby maximize the damage done on different npc-factions. caldari has that ability only with missile boats. so you reduce caldari to kestrel, caracal, drake und raven. 4 ships out of an entire fleet.
caldari sports a lot of ewar -> far more useful in pvp.
can you make out a trend there?

all 4 races should not be the same. that you got right. but every race should offer good possibilities for pve, pvp, ...
other wise 0.0 and low would be populated by minmatar pilots only, because there is a lot of pvp going around in that areas.
having only one race for one aspect of the game is dumbing the game down. giving alternatives creates different ways to achive the same goal -> diversity => complexity
i can understand your anxiety for 4 races which are exactly the same. but that is not going to happen. balancing does not equal homogenisation. in fact, thats what makes proper balancing such a pain in the a....
Mirei Jun
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#1660 - 2012-03-09 17:57:22 UTC
Ship updates are great -its been needed for a long time.

One minor concern is cross training for new players. It appears training into different battle cruisers is going to take significantly longer under this system. This is perhaps an acceptable side affect, but will hinder a new player's ability to participate in fleets. Other then that I have no complaints.

As a player of the current game, being forced to train more skills on characters (even if its just new characters) is nothing but an annoyance. However if additional ships and roles are added to Eve the long term benefit is worth it.