Ship balancing

[jimmychrist]

As per http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard...readID=1525620 CCP Tallest from team BFF started looking at ship balancing. Supposedly he's starting with buffing warp speed on the logis and nerfing the Dram in terms of agility and scan res.

The thread is from tenth of June and I erroneously assumed they would have found time to change at least the warp speed by now. It seems like a home run in terms of low hanging fruit.

I'd love for them to do an overhaul on the t1 cruiser lineups but at their current pace that would take them until 2013. I'd settle for them giving the assault frigs some love.

What other ships, other than supercarriers fuck them forever, should they do next and why?

[Midori Tsu]

gallente because everyone knows they need fixing.

[Traakile]

I don't see the reason why logi needs a warp speed buff. It'd be nice, but not that needed. I also agree on "fixing" Gallente but i have no idea as in how, probably by changing some part of hybrids or giving up and giving gallente projectiles.

Edit: Just actually read the CCP post, now it seems logical for the logi warp speeds to be buffed to a correct level.

[Midori Tsu]

I don't see the reason why logi needs a warp speed buff. It'd be nice, but not that needed. I also agree on "fixing" Gallente but i have no idea as in how, probably by changing some part of hybrids or giving up and giving gallente projectiles.

From what i've heard from many people, fixing gallente would be changing the attributes of ships to make them more agile, maybe even changing the bonuses. Simply changing hybrids won't do anything, the problem is with the ships, not the guns.

[Pvc]

From what i've heard from many people, fixing gallente would be changing the attributes of ships to make them more agile, maybe even changing the bonuses. Simply changing hybrids won't do anything, the problem is with the ships, not the guns.

Problem is gal ships are not the only ones using hybrids so the order has to be: Fix hybrids -> Fix Gallente. More likely they'll also have to add "Fix Caldari" in there too unless they manage to alleviate fitting issues with such a hybrid fix.

[StevieTopSiders]

Here's the Gallente thread on FHC. The problem is that Gallente are primarily armor tankers, which does not lend itself to getting into Blaster range. Another problem is the active rep bonus that some ships get. Who the hell uses active rep? Yet another problem is blaster tracking. It needs to be raised to allow the Gallente ships to hit something while speeding around them, but then you allow BS'es to rape Frigs.

The last problem is the most interesting, because I think I have a solution. It involves changing the damage equation. Transversal is the bane of accuracy, and it rears its ugly head, whether your Brutix is orbitting that Rifter or if that Rifter is flying circles around you.

Let's start with the second scenario: a Rifter is orbitting your blaster Brutix. Imagine that the Rifter starts at 11:00 from your Brutix. Your guns are pointing at 12:00. Your tracking computer says, "Rifter at 11:00, guns move over." The guns move over and fire, but by that time, the Rifter is at 10:00. This tracking works okay. Imagine, however, that your Brutix is orbiting the Rifter. Currently, tracking would dictate that you miss, because the transversal is high. Imagine, however, that since your Brutix "knew" your projected path around the Rifter, it's tracking would nullify the transversal you are producing. This would allow a Brutix orbiting a stationary Rifter to do full damage.

I think I kinda explained it, but that's my 0.02 ISK.

[Pvc]

Could you make that same point without using such a contrived/rediculous example? I mean, stationary rifter (to say nothing about the fact you're pitting a battlecruiser against a frigate) is not something you're likely to run into.

[Traakile]

I think it means his guns would be able to do full damage to webbed and targets that are still but still can't WTFRAPE frigs like they once did in web range. I think the problem indeed lies within the tracking formula in which sig radius and weapon tracking are, to my understanding of game mechanics, the same or at least very alike.

I don't know what it would be called, but relative transversal velocity would be a cool name.

[Pripyat]

The problem lies in giving ships that are slow and agile as bricks weapons with a optimal and tracking that requires them to be close to an opponent.

[HandofSatan [banned]]

The game would be a lot better if they swapped Projectiles to Gallente ships and Hybrids to Minmatar ships.

[Chef]

The game would be a lot better if they swapped Projectiles to Gallente ships and Hybrids to Minmatar ships.

1400's Hyperion alpha fleets? Lol... would fuck the goon doctrine up for a bit...

edit: actually, 1400's Rokh fleets :lol:

[Pvc]

edit: actually, 1400's Rokh fleets :lol:

Rokh would need a MAJOR upgrade to it's power grid for that.

[Traakile]

Rokh would need a MAJOR upgrade to it's power grid for that.

I think almost all Caldari gunships need like two fitting mods to fit a rack of the highest caliber guns.

The EVE-O forums (when I still read them on a daily basis) used to have massive threads about fixing hybrids with all kinds of ideas. Good and bad alike, mostly bad. Some of the highlights were penetrating resistances and stacking damage among all sorts of percentage changes to tracking and damage.

[HUN73R]

The problem lies in giving ships that are slow and agile as bricks weapons with a optimal and tracking that requires them to be close to an opponent.

You are right and general, but there are more issues as well. I've ran the numbers back in the day when I believed that CCP is actually looking to fix it's stupid game.
http://eve-search.com/thread/1332697/page/1

Basically there are so many things broken with hybrids and the ships using them, fixing this would need a major overhaul not only for the 3 turret systems, but for the shipsusing them.

I don't see this happening anytime soon.

[Dipluz]

I think the problem with gallente was they nerfed the little extra resistance they had, comparison to amarr. gallente might have a little problem with tracking yes, but hey we arent all flying solo? I think the biggest problem with blasters is their falloff, but then again if both laser, hybrid and projectiles have huge falloff, theres not much difference between the weapons. the hardest thing with gallente (if you become primary) is to get in range with your enemy, so normally you have to use a little tactics (warp ins) to get really close up on your enemy.

[ihaveahelmet]

I'd like to see dreads' siege timer be brought in-line with that of carrier triage.

I'd like the Nidhoggur and Chimera to have more CPU (as well as a little more PG on the nid) so that fitting for combat triage wouldn't such a pain.

I'd like T3s to have their fifth subsystem and the Legion's covert sub to at least have a dmg bonus to either guns or drones.

I'd like EAFs to have some of their attributes tweaked (lower sig radius and boost their lock range among other possible things) to make them more attractive.

I'd like the tier system for t1 frigs, cruisers and battlecruisers to be removed.

I'd like the Retribution (and maybe the Coercer) to have a god damn second mid slot for fuck's sake because combat ships with a single mid is alkjjgdfjlhjgll;djkl;hj

I'd like Black Ops to have more jump range and maybe have their capabilities reviewed so they can operate as something more than mobile portals (no, a covops cloak is NOT a solution).

I would like Marauders to have their sensor strength unnerfed.

I would like the Eos and by extention Information Warfare links be made as relevant as the three other fleet commands.

Yeah, they've got a lot of work.

[Aralyn]

Rokh would need a MAJOR upgrade to it's power grid for that.

WIdot did have an alphafleet Rokh fit when we first started rolling out the alphafleet doctrine (and, it was at least partially my fault). You had to run Meta4 guns and fitting rigs, but you could match the Alphastrike of the Mael, and the Rokh resist bonus made up for the loss of shield rigs. Not perfect, but it worked (heh, and I survived a bombing run when nearly all the Maels around me popped, so ), and we phased it out once enough time had passed for people to train into Maels (after all, Caldari pilots should really have been flying Scorps).

[Wonderfish]

Let's start with the second scenario: a Rifter is orbitting your blaster Brutix. Imagine that the Rifter starts at 11:00 from your Brutix. Your guns are pointing at 12:00. Your tracking computer says, "Rifter at 11:00, guns move over." The guns move over and fire, but by that time, the Rifter is at 10:00. This tracking works okay. Imagine, however, that your Brutix is orbiting the Rifter. Currently, tracking would dictate that you miss, because the transversal is high. Imagine, however, that since your Brutix "knew" your projected path around the Rifter, it's tracking would nullify the transversal you are producing. This would allow a Brutix orbiting a stationary Rifter to do full damage.

I think I kinda explained it, but that's my 0.02 ISK.

Within all that blah text, i totally see where youre going with that. Just to mix things up a bit i'll try and explain things with everyones favorite game, WoT.

When you take something fairly large and immobile like a heavy tank, say... a Tiger, and circle it with a light vehicle, the heavy turret will likely have a hard time keeping up with it (we're going to assume that the gunners aren't predicting and counter-rotating to compensate because this is supposed to make sense relative to eve mechanics, after all). However the light tank orbiting/circling the heavy will be able to account for it's movement path and actually shouldn't have to move the gun much at all when you look at it.

Obviously this is a pretty far fetch (inb4 wot hater negrep) and isnt terrible easy to apply to eve mechanics, it is however fairly easy to visualize what bits are interacting. Although i dont think relative transversal fits it quite right, maybe effective transversal?

At any rate, hopefully this clears the waters a bit for the gist of the idea.

[Manfred Hideous]

The game would be a lot better if they swapped Projectiles to Gallente ships and Hybrids to Minmatar ships.

Or did away with Hybrids and let Gal/Min use projectiles and Amarr/Cal use lazorz.

[Traakile]

Within all that blah text, i totally see where youre going with that. Just to mix things up a bit i'll try and explain things with everyones favorite game, WoT.

When you take something fairly large and immobile like a heavy tank, say... a Tiger, and circle it with a light vehicle, the heavy turret will likely have a hard time keeping up with it (we're going to assume that the gunners aren't predicting and counter-rotating to compensate because this is supposed to make sense relative to eve mechanics, after all). However the light tank orbiting/circling the heavy will be able to account for it's movement path and actually shouldn't have to move the gun much at all when you look at it.

Obviously this is a pretty far fetch (inb4 wot hater negrep) and isnt terrible easy to apply to eve mechanics, it is however fairly easy to visualize what bits are interacting. Although i dont think relative transversal fits it quite right, maybe effective transversal?

At any rate, hopefully this clears the waters a bit for the gist of the idea.

That's a fine example, makes a lot of sense.

It would solve the immediate issue of flying blasterboats at extremely close ranges but it would still leave blasterships as gankships and pretty much useless in most situations, to my knowledge. Personally, I stopped flying Gallente gunships as soon as I trained Minmatar and until they change Gallente/hybrids in some way, I'll probably never fly them again.

[Rer]

The fact that its standard operating procedure for most serious PvP corps to say 'stop flying Gallente, train Minmatar' should have sent alarm bells to CCP years ago. Not to get all bittervet but at this point I'm honestly beginning to believe that they, much like we, just don't know how to effectively fix Gallente without giving the entire race a massive overhaul (which at this point honestly, I'd be okay with).

My two personal issues are blaster/rail tracking issues and the ship's effective speeds while armor tanking, but the rabbit hole goes so much deeper than that, so its hard to just continually say 'Fix this and everything will be fine' when I know that's not the case.

[Securitas]

Hi Rer "Have Important Stuff Tomorrow" Eirikr.

[Rer]

I woke up, checked the Killboard, am now going back to sleep.

Fuck you, and I'm glad you guys are having fun.

[Spoiler=...]Damnit I was being so careful too, even got off of Steam and Facebook so Golden couldn't track me. Damnit Hell's Kitchen, I was supposed to be asleep hours ago!
In b4 wave of neg rep from my Overlord[/Spoiler]

[Mfume]

The fact that its standard operating procedure for most serious PvP corps to say 'stop flying Gallente, train Minmatar' should have sent alarm bells to CCP years ago. Not to get all bittervet but at this point I'm honestly beginning to believe that they, much like we, just don't know how to effectively fix Gallente without giving the entire race a massive overhaul (which at this point honestly, I'd be okay with).

My two personal issues are blaster/rail tracking issues and the ship's effective speeds while armor tanking, but the rabbit hole goes so much deeper than that, so its hard to just continually say 'Fix this and everything will be fine' when I know that's not the case.

I'd have no issues personally with giving blasters a modest baseline optimal buff (maybe 15% or thereabouts?), a big buff to EFT DPS on the order of 20% and a boost to tracking to the point where scram-tackling a blasterboat becomes a mistake as big as "hit MWD and approach." So assuming they can catch people, in a close-in situation like decloaking off the gate, landing in a bubble, etc. the blasterboat's silly high DPS nearly guarantees the fight.

edit: and for the love of christ reduce the fitting on blasters, the Brutix should be able to fit a full rack of highest tier without fitting mods, just like all the other BCs.

The hulls I'm not so sure about, if you give them enough baseline speed to effectively catch Vagas while plated and trimarked, then they are going to be retarded fast when someone inevitably shield-tanks them. While the tear value would almost be worth it, it's just a bit silly if (for example) our new and improved Deimos is faster than the Vaga, which gets a speed bonus.

[HUN73R]

I'd have no issues personally with giving blasters a modest baseline optimal buff (maybe 15% or thereabouts?), a big buff to EFT DPS on the order of 20% and a boost to tracking to the point where scram-tackling a blasterboat becomes a mistake as big as "hit MWD and approach." So assuming they can catch people, in a close-in situation like decloaking off the gate, landing in a bubble, etc. the blasterboat's silly high DPS nearly guarantees the fight.

It will change nothing. They already have the best trackingand 15% optimal is halarious. It's like giving dreads 15% and expect them to fight titan fleets.

[Sa'Shena]

Maybe increasing Gallente ship agility would help? It would make them the fast aligning armor tankers of the game, the idea being that if Amarr are the bricks, Gallente get the swiftness. Its not going to help you run anyone down, but it will mean when someone tells you to get the fuck out all those Amarr ships are still going to be turning (And then dying) while you are gone.

[HeliconOne]

Tallest has supposedly jumped on to supercaps now but I sort of wish he'd handled a few more of the 'quick fix' options first since supercaps aren't exactly going to be a 5 minute job, and unlike most of the other ships will probably need a whole lot of co-ordination with other teams regarding the big picture of sovereignty mechanics, 0.0 production, etc. There's plenty of broken ships that could have been given simple stat and bonus tweaks (virtually every T1 frigate except the rifter, destroyers, eris, nighthawk, assault frigs (retributor!), EA frigs, raptor, half of the navy faction ships, blackops BS) and posted up for feedback weeks ago, and Tallest seems to have vanished from the forums now so I worry that he's too buried in supercap fixes to make the simple changes that would fix whole swathes of the existing subcap range.

[jimmychrist]

In kind of related news,the results from the CSM crowdsourcing thing is in. Top ten issues are;

1. Docking games fix (CSM)
2. Corporation and Alliance tool overhaul (CSM)
3. Overhaul of roles and grantable roles system (CSM)
4. War-dec mechanics (CSM)
5. Remote repping and aggression (CSM)
6. Add the feature of switching characters without relogging. (CSM)
7. Black Ops Improvements (CSM)
8. Assault Frigates 4th Bonus (CSM)
9. History of who added/kick character from Corporation
10. More Control Over Medals (CSM)

[Galtiner]

Tallest has supposedly jumped on to supercaps now but I sort of wish he'd handled a few more of the 'quick fix' options first since supercaps aren't exactly going to be a 5 minute job, and unlike most of the other ships will probably need a whole lot of co-ordination with other teams regarding the big picture of sovereignty mechanics, 0.0 production, etc. There's plenty of broken ships that could have been given simple stat and bonus tweaks (virtually every T1 frigate except the rifter, destroyers, eris, nighthawk, assault frigs (retributor!), EA frigs, raptor, half of the navy faction ships) and posted up for feedback weeks ago, and Tallest seems to have vanished from the forums now so I worry that he's too buried in supercap fixes to make the simple changes that would fix whole swathes of the existing subcap range.

TBH none of the things you listed are 5 minute jobs, although I agree that they all need adjustments (except the Raptor, IDK I don't fly Caldari)

[HUN73R]

In kind of related news,the results from the CSM crowdsourcing thing is in. Top ten issues are;

10. More Control Over Medals (CSM)

[Arrador]

It will change nothing. They already have the best trackingand 15% optimal is halarious. It's like giving dreads 15% and expect them to fight titan fleets.

They still need a tracking boost. They have the best tracking per rad, but also have the shortest range which leads to not-so-good relative tracking. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radian

[Arrador]

A Flamebait fix I'd like to see for hybrids would be to swap hybrid bonuses across gal/cal. Give Gal the range bonus on hulls, and give caldari the damage bonus. You "sorta" mitigate the problem of hybrids that Prip pointed out, and you have a range bonused armor tanking BS for fleet warfare.

The rage and tears would be hilarious

[LuciTheMeek]

Fix the nighthawk relative to the Drake; whether that means giving the NH an extra launcher and dropping one off the drake (with a commensurate increase to 7.5% damage or RoF per level on drake) and/or giving the NH a powergrid boost I don't know.

[jimmychrist]

A Flamebait fix I'd like to see for hybrids would be to swap hybrid bonuses across gal/cal. Give Gal the range bonus on hulls, and give caldari the damage bonus. You "sorta" mitigate the problem of hybrids that Prip pointed out, and you have a range bonused armor tanking BS for fleet warfare.

The rage and tears would be hilarious

Not a bad idea

[Rer]

This is probably unintentional flamebait but something I just thought about last night. In regards to DUST514 comes out soon^tm, I thought about Planetary Bombardment and how that will fit into the game. Then I thought about how Dreadnoughts aren't used for anything other than shooting structures these days.

Now I'm not saying going from structures --> planets, is all that huge on the 'fun' factor, but what about making it so that only Dreadnoughts are able to effectively bombard a planet? You could come up with some lore jazz about Titan's Doomsday doing too much ecological harm, thus making future infrastructure nonprofitable, whereas a Dread's guns would be suitably large enough to inflict the needed damage to planetside installations without WTFBBQing the surface of the planet.

Anyways, random thought is random, just thought I'd share. I apologize given this is more stupid theorycrafting than actual ship balance.

[Sirius Danger]

Nerfing the Dram is a terrible idea, if you're going to pay 60-80mill for a frigate and fit it for 100mill+ then it better be able to pwn. As far as buffing Gallente, hard to say exactly what I would do because you don't want ship with Minmatar agility and speed flying around with blaster DPS in addition to strong drone bonuses. I believe the guns are fine the way they are and would agree that the ships are the problem. If you were to balance the guns then you would lose the diversity in role use between races and while you may be fixing the game, you would ruin it. I don't an idea how to find the happy middle-ground here, but the bonus swap concept sounds interesting.

[Pvc]

Nerfing the Dram is a terrible idea, if you're going to pay 60-80mill for a frigate and fit it for 100mill+ then it better be able to pwn.

I too, think expensive ships should obsolete everything else in their class and then some.

[StevieTopSiders]

This is probably unintentional flamebait but something I just thought about last night. In regards to DUST514 comes out soon^tm, I thought about Planetary Bombardment and how that will fit into the game. Then I thought about how Dreadnoughts aren't used for anything other than shooting structures these days.

Now I'm not saying going from structures --> planets, is all that huge on the 'fun' factor, but what about making it so that only Dreadnoughts are able to effectively bombard a planet? You could come up with some lore jazz about Titan's Doomsday doing too much ecological harm, thus making future infrastructure nonprofitable, whereas a Dread's guns would be suitably large enough to inflict the needed damage to planetside installations without WTFBBQing the surface of the planet.

Anyways, random thought is random, just thought I'd share. I apologize given this is more stupid theorycrafting than actual ship balance.

Would you like us to pretend that you didn't steal this idea from the Eve: A Future Vision trailer?

And in regards to the dooder who thinks Drams should be good, because they're expensive...

[Mfume]

It will change nothing.

It will fix the the problem of ACs and pulses being better at being blasters than blasters are. Also, increased tracking would give them an effective kill-tackle-and-GTFO button, which every other race already has. Not sure how Caldari blasterboats would get balanced though, they'd have some ridic range on them.

[Arrador]

Not sure how Caldari blasterboats would get balanced though, they'd have some ridic range on them.

We'd have optimals within autocannon's falloff and be dealing the same, if not less dps.

[HUN73R]

They still need a tracking boost. They have the best tracking per rad, but also have the shortest range which leads to not-so-good relative tracking. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radian

It will fix the the problem of ACs and pulses being better at being blasters than blasters are. Also, increased tracking would give them an effective kill-tackle-and-GTFO button, which every other race already has. Not sure how Caldari blasterboats would get balanced though, they'd have some ridic range on them.

Because when you go out in your blaster navy mega your primary goal is to shoot tacklers. Backing up a claim that the weapon system that lacks both optimal and falloff actually needs more tracking(the only thing fine with it) with a wiki article on RL physics only mean you haven't bothered to look at the numbers yourself or never actually took a blaster boat out in a fleet to see it's shortcomings.

I might be right tho, you could be some experts...

[Arrador]

Because when you go out in your blaster navy mega your primary goal is to shoot tacklers. Backing up a claim that the weapon system that lacks both optimal and falloff actually needs more tracking(the only thing fine with it) with a wiki article on RL physics only mean you haven't bothered to look at the numbers yourself or never actually took a blaster boat out in a fleet to see it's shortcomings.

I might be right tho, you could be some experts...

I posted the wiki article to explain the term 'relative tracking' and because most people just look at the rad/S EFT number and say "Blasters have the best tracking!". Also, look up the tracking/damage calculation formula in eve.

Also, first t2 weapon system I trained and flew were blasters yo, failox ftw.

[Mfume]

I believe the guns are fine the way they are and would agree that the ships are the problem.

It's a half-full/half-empty argument. With a boost to damage, it would fix Caldari blasterboat problem of one or no DPS bonuses (two range bonuses but only one dmg bonus on the eagle, wtf ccp?!) on the hull and make them competitive against the Hurricane and Harbinger. Additional optimal on Gallente blasterboats would help with the issue of applying DPS. While tracking boost would mean you don't DIAF to something like a cookie-cutter Dram fit orbiting you at 500. Would also make Void even better than AM in the DPS vs. EHP brawls you find sometimes.

Admittedly, all three at once would probably put blasters on the fast track to FOTM in small gangs, but Minmatar and Amarr would still be competitive, just not a complete no-brainer the way they are now. Blasters would still be complete shit past small gangs but don't worry, autocannnons are pbad in those circumstances as well.

We'd have optimals within autocannon's falloff and be dealing the same, if not less dps.

That's fine, like I said earlier, blasters should be better at being blasters (massive fuckoff dps at close range) than autocannons or pulse lasers. Caldari make up the advantage with better projection, Gallente would make it up by having high DPS.

[Mfume]

Because when you go out in your blaster navy mega your primary goal is to shoot tacklers.

1. I don't solo or small gang in BSes.
2. When I do go out solo/small gang, yeah, tacklers are one of the main preys, unless my insurance is about to run out.

hey, i'll make you a deal, you tell me where this mythical land of where solo'ing dudes get nothing but a continuous string of engagable fights and no one baits. then i'll agree that giving extra tracking on turrets with short range* is unnecessary.

*Which I suppose is a hull/fitting issue as well, most can't get a medium neut on there unless they take a big chunk out of their DPS and don't have mids for double webs.

Also: small blasters are fine. I'm just talking about mediums.

[poaw]

Nerfing the Dram is a terrible idea, if you're going to pay 60-80mill for a frigate and fit it for 100mill+ then it better be able to pwn. As far as buffing Gallente, hard to say exactly what I would do because you don't want ship with Minmatar agility and speed flying around with blaster DPS in addition to strong drone bonuses. I believe the guns are fine the way they are and would agree that the ships are the problem. If you were to balance the guns then you would lose the diversity in role use between races and while you may be fixing the game, you would ruin it. I don't an idea how to find the happy middle-ground here, but the bonus swap concept sounds interesting.

The days of 80m isk Dram hulls has passed. I think they're at 50m now. 100m ISK fittings I haven't seen in awhile either. Therein lies the problem, it's a reasonably affordable hull, which can be fitted quite cheaply that still rapes most of the other frigate class hulls out there. Additionally what about every other pirate-faction frig that gets bent over by the Dram? Some of them cost even more than the Dram. So by the cost = strength equation a DD should be running around raping roughly 2x as hard as a a Dramiel.

That is poor balance, because you effectively have reduced the number of viable frigates to the one (and maybe a few of the frigs that are direct counters to it). It's obsoleted even specialized t2 hulls at their own jobs. It's as fast as a ceptor with a tank comparable to most AFs. There isn't a reason to use anything else unless you just want to fly something different.


EDIT: What is up with those nerfs anyway?

[StevieTopSiders]

I posted the wiki article to explain the term 'relative tracking' and because most people just look at the rad/S EFT number and say "Blasters have the best tracking!". Also, look up the tracking/damage calculation formula in eve.

Also, first t2 weapon system I trained and flew were blasters yo, failox ftw.

Rails were my first T2 weapon system... Blasters second.

On what wiki have you posted?

[Sirius Danger]

The days of 80m isk Dram hulls has passed. I think they're at 50m now. 100m ISK fittings I haven't seen in awhile either. Therein lies the problem, it's a reasonably affordable hull, which can be fitted quite cheaply that still rapes most of the other frigate class hulls out there. Additionally what about every other pirate-faction frig that gets bent over by the Dram? Some of them cost even more than the Dram. So by the cost = strength equation a DD should be running around raping roughly 2x as hard as a a Dramiel.

That is poor balance, because you effectively have reduced the number of viable frigates to the one (and maybe a few of the frigs that are direct counters to it). It's obsoleted even specialized t2 hulls at their own jobs. It's as fast as a ceptor with a tank comparable to most AFs. There isn't a reason to use anything else unless you just want to fly something different.


EDIT: What is up with those nerfs anyway?

My other response post was deleted for reasons unknown, but simply put I would agree with you. No reason to fly a ceptor or an AF if you can afford a Dram.

[HeliconOne]

TBH none of the things you listed are 5 minute jobs, although I agree that they all need adjustments (except the Raptor, IDK I don't fly Caldari)

Retribution: -1 highslot, +1 midslot. That's not even a 5 minute fix, its a 5 second fix. Admittedly it would still be an assault frigate and would still need further help (4th bonus etc), but it would at least raise the ship up to something approaching the same level of the rest of the assfrigs, rather then being in its own special category of awfulness that it lives in now.

The whole point of the CSM request was iterative ship balancing - come up with an improvement, implement it asap, monitor results, come up with and implement more changes if necessary. The logi warp speed is a no brainer, ridiculously low hanging fruit which should have been used as a quick early victory to demonstrate some results, it should have gone live within a week of the proposal being made. Instead people had other suggestions for further logistics rebalances and Tallest either wants to consider every possible fix before implementing anything or is otherwise unable or unwilling to get the obvious quick fix pushed through, so instead it looks like we're going to wait six months for anything to change.

[HUN73R]

Also, first t2 weapon system I trained and flew were blasters yo, failox ftw.

Yeah. Why did I do that. All the mocking I had to take, turning to lrhac gangs in deimos... atleast they weren't discussing wether to kill me or not, like they did for the eangle guys...

[vexter]

Balancing must have a limit, control, a stopping point set in stone. It would be a cluster fuck if CCP rushed in and balanced out every viable tactic that someone figures out. aka "fist of rape" "firewalls" ect...

Rather then talk so much about balance, and making massive changes to appease those that didn't train the skills for the current flavor of the month why not do this. 1 yearly skill point reallocation, not to exceed more then 20 percent of your total skill points. And you loose 1 percent of your total SP for using the service. Then the haters can just reallocate to keep up with the trends of eve, and CCP can stay out of our sandbox and let the players work most of this out.

And ya, the dram prob needs adjusted, but damn I love that ship, its just sick.