Rig Changes

[StevieTopSiders]

So some T1 frigate changes are coming out, but who gives a shit? They're still gonna get dumbpstered by the Taranis/AF's unless you can pull some dual-web rails/arty shit.

What's really gonna affect gameplay, however, is the proposed rig changes.

This change is the first of many steps to rebalance active versus passive tanking, and promote usefulness of active tanking in small, mobile combat while making associated rigs more compatible with Gallente armor repairing bonuses. In general, we want races that need to use speed in combat (Gallente and Minmatar) to favor active tanking, while races that have more a static philosophy (Amarr and Caldari) prefer passive tanking.

Any kind of armor / shield rig that promotes passive tanking would now have a penalty to ship velocity instead of signature radius. Any kind of armor / shield rig that promotes active tanking would now have a penalty to ship signature radius instead of velocity. Penalty amount themselves are not changing.


Rig list:

Passive rigs: any kind of resistance, HP gain, shield recharge rate, shield powergrid reduction rig
Active rigs: any kind of repair / boost amount, repair / boost capacitor reduction, repair / boost cycle rate or remote repair / boost rig

Original Dev Post

After some discussion on IRC, the IT theorycrafting crew has come to a number of conclusions:

1. Shield and armor are becoming the same. Trimakrs/CDFE's are gonna slow you down; Boost/Rep rigs are increasing your sig.
2. Goodbye Vagabond.
3. Hello armor Cynabal.
4. Legion/Tengu boosts are now awesome. With a 15% hp increase, you can forgo straight-up hp rigs; the resistance bonus means you don't need resistance rigs, and the other two links will make your now-buffed armor reps/shield boosts even more effective.

I'm not happy with the changes, because:

1. Active armor tanks aren't sig-tanking anymore. Ghey.
2. Shield is basically the new armor. I'm in favor of a slight speed nerf + sig increase, but I think making them Trimarks 2.0 is retarded.

So yeah, thoughts?

[Yue]

These changes aren't ideal. If anything shield extender rigs should have a cap amount or regen pen, not a speed pen.

[Alizandro Goderaski]

Is this the Evolution chill-out thread? Un-nerf the resistance rig change!

[Quesa]

Depending upon the actual numbers, this will only slightly change small engagements.

Additionally, I don't see why rigs need to have 2 negative aspects to them in the first place (destroy to remove and other negative). Secondly, this goes against all the consistency in the game when it comes to mods that are about shields, usually mean larger sig.

[Midori Tsu]

This change is dumb. They should of made the shields sig penalty into something else.

[Checkbox Poll]

Another change that was not thought out by CCP devs. Why not just boost active-tanking rigs to not suck?

[Quesa]

In small/solo engagements, active tanking (shield and armor) is pretty good. In large scale, it will likely never be as good.

[poaw]

In small/solo engagements, active tanking (shield and armor) is pretty good. In large scale, it will likely never be as good.

I think they're merely trying to push the status quo away from a 2x LSE Cane > all but a few specialized active tanking ships, and towards making active tanking without specialized booster/implant/link investments a more favorable proposition without increasing turning the people who do go the high-end route into unbreakable beasts.

Besides the changes screwing up the penalty themes for all the rigs the change seems alright for what they're trying to accomplish. I give it a 3 and half mics, 7 thumbs, and 1.75 stars up.

[Manfred Hideous]

So some T1 frigate changes are coming out, but who gives a shit? They're still gonna get dumbpstered by the Taranis/AF's unless you can pull some dual-web rails/arty shit.

What's really gonna affect gameplay, however, is the proposed rig changes.



Original Dev Post

After some discussion on IRC, the IT theorycrafting crew has come to a number of conclusions:

1. Shield and armor are becoming the same. Trimakrs/CDFE's are gonna slow you down; Boost/Rep rigs are increasing your sig.
2. Goodbye Vagabond.
3. Hello armor Cynabal.
4. Legion/Tengu boosts are now awesome. With a 15% hp increase, you can forgo straight-up hp rigs; the resistance bonus means you don't need resistance rigs, and the other two links will make your now-buffed armor reps/shield boosts even more effective.

I'm not happy with the changes, because:

1. Active armor tanks aren't sig-tanking anymore. Ghey.
2. Shield is basically the new armor. I'm in favor of a slight speed nerf + sig increase, but I think making them Trimarks 2.0 is retarded.

So yeah, thoughts?

Active tanking is a nice idea but CCP wants to encourage it by breaking buffer tanks. I'd as soon get a big nos bonus to active tankers to counteract the people who will suck your cap dry and punch holes in your eggshell tank.

If buffer tanks really need to be adjusted to make them less win, then Yue had the better idea. Lower cap pr regen or eves give fitting penalties to CDFE.

None of this will make any difference for active tank bonuses in fleets. If you want to survive in a fleet long enough to whore mails, you need a buffer. I guess the plus side is the buffer rigged ships (armor and shield) will still be close to the same *relative* speed since both will be slowed.

[Reb]

Another knee-jerk reaction from ccp. All spaceships are not the same. They need different tactics and different doctrines. This is just another move to dumb down eve. One of the things that has kept eve interesting is the mirage of viable fits on different ships.

Also the DREAK I mean wtf it will be slower but smaller?

[Hilmar Keller]

I'm not sure if active tanking needs a buff. It's the kind of thing that requires a lot more SP and practice than passive tanking, but when you've got it, you can pull off some legendary Garmon-level nigger jiving. So that they would totally change the functionality of the most commonly-used rigs in order to make active tanking easier and more effective both nerfs things like nanocanes and vagas (which really don't need a nerf) and buffs things like Cynabals and armor AFs (which definitely don't need a buff).

E: DUAL REP EEEEEEVERRRYYYOOOOONEE

[anzoxe]

if they want to make active tanking more popular they should remove op as fuck t3 links and provide a more fair option.

also missile ships suck more since lmao nosig canes.

[Yue]

Active tanking is a nice idea but CCP wants to encourage it by breaking buffer tanks. I'd as soon get a big nos bonus to active tankers to counteract the people who will suck your cap dry and punch holes in your eggshell tank.

If buffer tanks really need to be adjusted to make them less win, then Yue had the better idea. Lower cap pr regen or eves give fitting penalties to CDFE.

None of this will make any difference for active tank bonuses in fleets. If you want to survive in a fleet long enough to whore mails, you need a buffer. I guess the plus side is the buffer rigged ships (armor and shield) will still be close to the same *relative* speed since both will be slowed.

Indeed. Active tanking can only work in small gangs, and I'm more than fine with that. If you make it so that it's 'good' in fleet-fights it's going to really ruin shit. Active tanking already has distinct drawbacks (vulnerable to neuts/being volley'd through). If they wan't to go in a different, better direction, I think my suggestion for CDFE's having some sort of negative impact on cap regen/amount or what manfred said about fitting reqs (i'd say grid I guess) makes a hell of a lot more sense than some bullshit speed reduction AND it has the added benefit of having things still be 'different'.

[Alizandro Goderaski]

This'll make double mse sabers much easier to kill Thanks CCP!

Also, Dual rep SFI got a bit bigger with this change.

[Mfume]

if they want to make active tanking more popular they should remove op as fuck t3 links and provide a more fair option.

Most active tanking setups depend entirely on links to work. I don't know why you think T3 links hurt active tanking, but you're dumb for it.

My preference for rig changes would be to leave penalties and effects of buffer rigs intact, but boost DPS and projection rigs to the level of trimarks and extenders. Just imagine if you could put a T2 RoF + T1 damage rig and come out with 40% more DPS? Would that not be enticing? Imagine if a single falloff rig would boost falloff something like 30%. Or if a T2 metastasis rig functioned about as well as having a 7.5% per level tracking bonus.

Yeah, I'd go back to the lab on a lot of cookie-cutter fits with that kind of change.

[StevieTopSiders]

Most active tanking setups depend entirely on links to work. I don't know why you think T3 links hurt active tanking, but you're dumb for it.

My preference for rig changes would be to leave penalties and effects of buffer rigs intact, but boost DPS and projection rigs to the level of trimarks and extenders. Just imagine if you could put a T2 RoF + T1 damage rig and come out with 40% more DPS? Would that not be enticing? Imagine if a single falloff rig would boost falloff something like 30%. Or if a T2 metastasis rig functioned about as well as having a 7.5% per level tracking bonus.

Yeah, I'd go back to the lab on a lot of cookie-cutter fits with that kind of change.

Buffing damage rigs is a good thing to do, imho, but I think they need to raise the calibration of tanking rigs, too. No ship has troubles filling up with CDFE's and Trimarks, but good luck fitting a bunch of colission accelerators that will get stacking-penaltied to hell.

[poaw]

Why is everyone looking at the changes from the perspective of shield tanks. The changes would be amazing for active armor tank setups.

And the addition to additional sig on active tanks won't be anywhere near as big a deal as everyone is making it. After 93 sig you're not sig tanking HMLs anyway, and if you're in something smaller like an AF you already tank them so hilariously easily that you probably won't even notice a difference unless you're a massive math nerd.

If you're really looking for alternatives, then like I said on EVE-O forums, they could just increase the actual penalty on shield rigs so that they're just as noticeable as the penalty on armor rigs instead of a complete joke like they are now.

Buffing damage rigs is a good thing to do, imho, but I think they need to raise the calibration of tanking rigs, too. No ship has troubles filling up with CDFE's and Trimarks, but good luck fitting a bunch of colission accelerators that will get stacking-penaltied to hell.

There is a reason for this. IIRC Rigs were introduced immediately after they had to do an across the board HP boost because everything was melting and fights were basically over before they began. They probably aren't looking to overhaul everything just to fuck with the rig choices (and from appearances they seem comfortable with the balance between the rig types and are really trying to adjust active v buffer tanks through rig changes), but if they wanted to they could look at varying the amount of calibration available on ships so that some of the ships with somewhat underwhelming DPS like the Sacrilege could go full on rapeface, while preventing triple T2 Collision Accelerator Macherials from blowing up literally every sub-BS active tanker in a single volley.

[Fatyn]

Not goodbye vagabond. You can still fit a vaga perfectly fine with 2 polycarbon rigs and a DC. I would predict that agility/speed and damage rigs will become more common on typical 'nano' shield ships with small adjustments to fittings to maintain EHP. This isn't a bad thing as currently a lot of rigs are shit because CDFE is such a no-brainer.

I'd say stuff like the standard hurricanes and nano drake setups are more heavily affected - difficult to replace the EHP from three extender / resist rigs. There may be a general slight downwards trend in the speed of a lot of ships as people are forced to choose between tank and speed for small gang based setups. Remember though the drawback is only 5% per rig with shield rigging 5, and that the 5% penalty is itself stacking penalized (small difference). Finally the removal of the signature radius penalty will mitigate a bit of damage.

I'd guess that shield nano will still be perfectly fine, and the sky will not fall in. Active shield tanks (Sleip? Mach?) and passive armour tanks (AHACs) aren't changed at all. I'm interested to see what kind of 'nano' active armour tanking setups become viable.

[anzoxe]

Most active tanking setups depend entirely on links to work. I don't know why you think T3 links hurt active tanking, but you're dumb for it.

my point is that t3 links aren't as accessible to everyone as 3 shield tank rigs.

[Manfred Hideous]

Aside from the people not using active tanks (in fleets at least) is there even really a problem to fix? There are plenty of other things to get working in this game than to be prodding us to use active tankers more.

[anzoxe]

Aside from the people not using active tanks (in fleets at least) is there even really a problem to fix? There are plenty of other things to get working in this game than to be prodding us to use active tankers more.

it's part of ccps "fixing eve online one ship at a time"

if this is what it's going to be like I don't like it

[Viribus]

One of the few decent arguments for rig penalty changes is that, because speed and sig affect speedtanking equally, the armour penalties are objectively worse than shield penalties, because while both penalize your speedtank, armour rigs (and plates I guess) have the added drawback of reducing your ability to dictate range.

Does anyone know if they're going to create a shield boost amount rig to complete the homogenization?

[Le'Blob]

my point is that t3 links aren't as accessible to everyone as 3 shield tank rigs.

Sounds like a pubby excuse for being bad. If someone is going to throw 14mil SP into an otherwise worthless skill set, and fly a ship that does absolutely no dps, and tanks nothing, then they deserve some kind of force multiplier out of it.

[anzoxe]

Sounds like a pubby excuse for being bad. If someone is going to throw 14mil SP into an otherwise worthless skill set, and fly a ship that does absolutely no dps, and tanks nothing, then they deserve some kind of force multiplier out of it.

but what if they trained it just for that force multiplier

edit:i'm not saying links should be removed, they're just very very good compared to other force multipliers.

[Viribus]

This is going to be a links thread, isn't it

[Le'Blob]

but what if they trained it just for that force multiplier

edit:i'm not saying links should be removed, they're just very very good compared to other force multipliers.

So are falcons, and people train up alts to just be falcons. Let's nerf those too.

[Quesa]

So are falcons, and people train up alts to just be falcons. Let's nerf those too.

Done.

[anzoxe]

So are falcons, and people train up alts to just be falcons. Let's nerf those too.

i agree

[Manfred Hideous]

So are falcons, and people train up alts to just be falcons. Let's nerf those too.

Screw that. I just finished training my mining alt to do exactly this. I finally have an anti-falcon alt and you want him nerfed.

[Burnizz]

Stacking penalties on ecm please.

[Arrador]

or buff the ever-loving batshit out of ECCM.

[Yue]

I'd rather see a huge buff to ECCM like arrador suggested. That way ECM can still work on people not fit against it.

[Kanloch]

But then you lose a midslot to ECCM, sacrificing things such as tank, points or prop.

Which can be possible in bigger fights, but then ECM generally isn't used there.

In smaller fleets can you sacrifice the slot(s) for the ECCM needed to counteract ECM?

[Manfred Hideous]

I've been very close to killing ships when their falcon buddy nuked my targeting. Of course it's situational and my lowered tank might be a problem but I can have all the tank in the world and still die if I can't shoot back.

Actually, I guess a low slot ECCM (backup array?) mod would help without screwing my Can'e tank. I'd lose some DPS or range but I'd be OK with that if the damned things actually worked.

[Midori Tsu]

Actually, I guess a low slot ECCM (backup array?) mod would help without screwing my Can'e tank. I'd lose some DPS or range but I'd be OK with that if the damned things actually worked.

You should see the fits we come up with. More dps, less range, more speed.

It's a pretty cool fit imo.

also, even with a single backup array falcons still poop all over your targetting.

[Manfred Hideous]

Of course this would only work if ECCM is buffed. I've considered getting imps for sensor strength but I am spacepoor and I like flying more than one race.

I'm always interested in new fits... Feel free to share (in fittings)

[Yue]

Eh, if they buffed eccm a bit it might work a little better against the constant falcon-spam we see in syndicate/most small-gang pvp. Using one slot for eccm seems like a decent trade to not be completely shutdown. Needing an anti-falcon-falcon-falcon-falcon is getting kind of.....annoying.

But enough of that topic de-rail.


As for the rig changes, so far it's just in 'idea' stage so I'm very curious to see what CCP decides to do with the huge pile of feedback they have gotten so far. I really hope they re-consider the speed penalty of the CDFE rigs in favor of something a bit more logical.

[StevieTopSiders]

They pulled the changes after admitting they were bad. They said that they would continue to watch the thread for good ideas, though.

[foobaloo]

Thanks for the wake-up call people .


Among the reasons you listed on why this is a bad move: it is trending to make shield and armor tanking the same, penalize ships with little capacitor than can't afford active tanking, doesn't prove to be consistent in general, would affect active tanking as well due to the signature increase / affect to resistance rigs, doesn't scale well at all and does little to fix the issue itself in any shape or form.

In conclusion, this is just too much controversial / poorly thought to be a first step to anything, we need to take a step back, breathe, and have a look at the whole passive versus active tanking situation through modules and ships as well as changing rigs before committing to more changes.


Obviously, this concept will be scrapped (meaning not going in for Inferno), we will however keep looking at this thread as they are good ideas coming up here.

• listens to player feedback
• recognizes a terrible idea
• admits errors and flaws

Who is this person and how did he end up at CCP?

[anzoxe]

why don't they talk to the csm about this

i'm sure someone on it knows about mechanics and can give a possible solution to change rigs for the better.

[Mfume]

why don't they talk to the csm about this

i'm sure someone on it knows about mechanics and can give a possible solution to change rigs for the better.

the "game mechanics" guys basically ran like retards and voted each other out. the only exception is (allegedly, i dont know the dude) elise randolph.

[Yue]

the "game mechanics" guys basically ran like retards and voted each other out. the only exception is (allegedly, i dont know the dude) elise randolph.

Yeah this was kind of a bummer to see.

[Quesa]

why don't they talk to the csm about this

i'm sure someone on it knows about mechanics and can give a possible solution to change rigs for the better.

I find it amusing that people still think CSM is more than a PR bit.

[Mfume]

I find it amusing that people still think CSM is more than a PR bit.

You are showing the fact you were basically AFK for months.

[Quesa]

Years, don't sell it short.

[ihaveahelmet]

My preference for rig changes would be to leave penalties and effects of buffer rigs intact, but boost DPS and projection rigs to the level of trimarks and extenders.

Extenders and trimarks are also exceptions in the game as being the only modules/rigs to not suffer from stacking penalties. In fact, they're better: the more you put on the ship the better the buffer% rigs become individually, because the effect is compounded instead of only being based on the base hp value of the ship.

[anzoxe]

the "game mechanics" guys basically ran like retards and voted each other out. the only exception is (allegedly, i dont know the dude) elise randolph.

prom 4 csm 2013

[Manfred Hideous]

Extenders and trimarks are also exceptions in the game as being the only modules/rigs to not suffer from stacking penalties. In fact, they're better: the more you put on the ship the better the buffer% rigs become individually, because the effect is compounded instead of only being based on the base hp value of the ship.

But is this necessarily a problem? Specifically is this what unbalances buffer vs active or is active not really appropriate for situations where buffer rules? Basically, I agree that active tanking needs some love but I don't think CCP was going to go about fixing it. It would be pretty much as bad as it is today and its misery would have company with the buffer nerfs.

[ihaveahelmet]

I don't think I'd call for a nerf of them (or a buff of other things), I mostly posted that as an anecdote.

The only rig buff I would stand for would be a reduction of calibration points used by damage rigs; 200 and 300 is way over the top for the benefits they bring.

[Manfred Hideous]

I don't think I'd call for a nerf of them (or a buff of other things), I mostly posted that as an anecdote.

The only rig buff I would stand for would be a reduction of calibration points used by damage rigs; 200 and 300 is way over the top for the benefits they bring.

I also think that by and large, the rigs are fine. And thanks to the noctis, they're hella cheap these days.

I can see a few ways they could help out the active tankers to make them more playable but they're in for a surprise if they think they'll be used in large fleets where buffer isn't just an option but a necessity. I'm glad they backed off so quickly if only so they can take some time and think this through.