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[hellgremlin]

The problem is not with the Drake itself, it's with blobbing of Drakes. But that is not a problem unique to the Drake. If you had 50-60 Arty-Canes with logi-support doing the same stuff as the Drakes are... You're going to have very similar issues.

This is actually incorrect - Drakes use missiles, which apparently are a lot more taxing on Eve's servers than turrets are. The problem with Drake blobs is that they use LOTS of missiles. Say you've got a blob of 50 drakes, 7 launchers each. That means those 50 Drakes are generating 350 objects every time their weapons cycle - and each object's position must be tracked by the server until it reaches effect.

[Z.Sinraali]

Is that a balance issue?

[Inara Subaka]

The problem is not with the Drake itself, it's with blobbing of Drakes. But that is not a problem unique to the Drake. If you had 50-60 Arty-Canes with logi-support doing the same stuff as the Drakes are... You're going to have very similar issues.

This is actually incorrect - Drakes use missiles, which apparently are a lot more taxing on Eve's servers than turrets are. The problem with Drake blobs is that they use LOTS of missiles. Say you've got a blob of 50 drakes, 7 launchers each. That means those 50 Drakes are generating 350 objects every time their weapons cycle - and each object's position must be tracked by the server until it reaches effect.

I was talking in terms of balance issues, not lag issues. In terms of lag... yeah, missiles kinda kick the server in the nads. Which is why they request you stack your missiles, it only generates 1 object instead of 7 (at least, that's the way it was explained to me).

[hellgremlin]

Ahh, misunderstood.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Server issues regarding missiles aside, which I don't think can be fixed without a fundamental reworking of the engine EVE uses (and maybe not even then), here's my list:

Legion: What Bacc said, with the addendum that I don't think any of the active tank Legion fits will ever be truly viable in PvP - far to succeptible to neuting/general cap issues; careful application of subsystems might produce a fit that is viable on its own, but horribly succeptible to neuting.

Blasters: I'm honestly not sure blasters themselves need buffing, as they still offer impressive in-your-face damage. Instead, I'd go for the finer "fix ships on a case by case basis" way.

Rails: Durr, hurr hurr. I once tried ratting in a raildomi, and I couldn't even hit a rat BS caught on an asteroid 25km away for above 200 damage/volley with four heavy rails.

EWAR drones: Not technically a ship class, but what was the last time you saw anything but EC- drones on the field?

Rokh: Heavily related to the blaster issue... I'd suggest it get a greater range and perhaps tracking bonus to set it apart from being an overpriced, shield tanking mega.

Dreads: Bit of a sticky situation here, as removing the "locks itself in place with no RR" mechanic makes it kind of broken... what about multiple versions of the Seige Module, each of which would directly relate damage and defense multipliers with the amount of time you must remain on field? ("Extended Seige Module, Brief Seige Module, Instantaneous Seige Module")

Deep Space Transports: Seriously, what's the point of a transport that has a smaller base cargo capacity than its T1 counterpart and a hell of a lot slower than the transports? I've been thinking these things need a massive cargo boost to bring them to fill the "between industrial-and-orca/freighter" niche.

This is in addition to what Bacch layed out, because he covered a lot of stuff I'm to lazy to cover again. 

[Casiella]

Anybody who thinks DSTs need a boost really doesn't understand how to fit and fly them. They are made of awesome and win already.

[Bacchanalian]

The problem is not with the Drake itself, it's with blobbing of Drakes. But that is not a problem unique to the Drake. If you had 50-60 Arty-Canes with logi-support doing the same stuff as the Drakes are... You're going to have very similar issues.

Not at all true.  Arty canes cannot fit a tank anywhere near what a Drake can. 

HML Drake w/point+MWD+2xBCS II, CN Scourge

Volley:  2474@any range
DPS sans drones:  368@any range
EHP:  93,667
Engagement range:  75km

Arty Hurricane

Volley:  3958@17km  1649@55km
DPS sans drones:  479@17km  200@55km
EHP:  59,191
Engagement range:  55km

Sorry, but there's really no comparison there.  The hurricane also cannot fit a point.  And has major tracking issues. 

Don't nerf the ships or their weapons because people are blobbing with them.

Then please unnerf nano.  Because the issue with nano wasn't that 1 or even 5 nano ships were zomgwtfwecan'tkillthem, it was because with 50 of them they were unstoppable.

I remember being told that I would never be able to PvP with missiles and that I had to train for a Hurricane (I didn't), as Drakes/missiles are utterly worthless against other players... most of my kills are with a Drake and now people are begging for it to be nerfed.

Most of mine are with the Vagabond and came after the nerf.  Nerf doesn't mean broken necessarily, it means rebalanced.  Unfortunately, CCP has a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater (for instance, the Vagabond is one of about 5 non-frigates that can still nano reasonably well).  Regardless, the Drake is far and away better than its battlecruiser peers.

The Hurricane used to be (and still is to a certain degree) an amazing solo BC or small group (3-5 people) ship. It used to be considered OP, but then people realized how to counter it and now there's no problems. The same cycle for every "OP" ship that comes around, just give it a bit of time and a new FOTM will wipe the field with it.

Solo is one thing.  It's great for Sisi.  It's as rare as winning the lottery on TQ.  Unfortunately, the word "counter" doesn't come into play when you get into fleets of over 40 that can project damage equally at 75km or point-blank, and does so with nearly 100k EHP (more if you drop the tackle) and supported by logistics.  And really, the key difference here is that range--almost no other ship in the game can project that much damage at any range without making sacrifices to its EHP, damage, or general effectiveness. 

The drake has always been a touch silly in my opinion.  It's a ship that even shit-fit is extremely difficult to kill solo.  You can't do anything to mitigate the missile damage reasonably enough to survive it.  With turret boats, you can TD/neut/speed tank them.  With HMLs, speed tanking them simply makes them hit you harder due to the MWD sig bloom.  The drake with a basic t2 fit can stack nearly as much EHP as an RR BS (Typical MPL II 2xplate RR Geddon=104k EHP, Neutron II 2xplate RR Mega=115k EHP, by comparison--neither can engage past 50).  There is no ewar that can counter missiles other than ECM (or damps if you can keep the drakes at range--in which case unless you're in drakes of your own, you won't be hitting them), and ECM is a very controversial type of ewar that at the end of the day counters everything.  Other offensive weapons have multiple counters.

The only thing I'd like to see changed is ECCM == 1 guaranteed lock (maybe 2 for meta4/T2) and provides the bonus to sensor strength to "roll" whether it jams the other locks past that one. I think that would fix a lot of the problems/complaints without making ECM useless.

That would really complicate balancing issues w/re the base number of targets a ship can lock.

ECM already took a kick in the balls when they made it inviable from outside of sentry range. As Caldari are the only race with one e-war type with a bonus, it should be potent. And I will stand by that theory until they give Caldari a second e-war bonus for their recons.

Agreeing with you here.  They crippled ECM in my view.  There were counters to ECM boats, and frankly any competent FC built them into his fleet.  The fact that most FCs are incompetent is not a reason to nerf something (see also; nano).  By contrast, things that have no counter besides "don't engage" should be looked into (see also; drakeblob).

Also, one of the most powerful e-war mechanics is also one of the most underrated e-war type in the game: Target Painters. I've heard people bitch time and time again that TPs are useless, and they are either dumb, mis-informed, or being intentionally misled to false conclusions.

Depends on the situation.  It's a cost-benefit analysis.  Is it worth sacrificing tank or webbing power on a Rapier/Huginn to fit a TP?  Is it worth sacrificing a midslot in general to fit a TP?  If you're hunting frigates or smaller ships with BS sized weapons, probably.  If you're engaging similar sized or up-engaging, absolutely not.

I'd like to see more Rapiers/Huginns with TPs fit during combat, they make me happy.

Comes down to a cost-benefit situation.  And in the majority of your day-to-day combat situations, the TP is of marginal use.

[Matariki Rain]

Also, one of the most powerful e-war mechanics is also one of the most underrated e-war type in the game: Target Painters. I've heard people bitch time and time again that TPs are useless, and they are either dumb, mis-informed, or being intentionally misled to false conclusions.

Depends on the situation.  It's a cost-benefit analysis.  Is it worth sacrificing tank or webbing power on a Rapier/Huginn to fit a TP?  Is it worth sacrificing a midslot in general to fit a TP?  If you're hunting frigates or smaller ships with BS sized weapons, probably.  If you're engaging similar sized or up-engaging, absolutely not.

I'd like to see more Rapiers/Huginns with TPs fit during combat, they make me happy.

Comes down to a cost-benefit situation.  And in the majority of your day-to-day combat situations, the TP is of marginal use.

I'm enjoying listening in on the discussion, so this is a very minor terminology quibble. I think "opportunity cost" better reflects what you're describing than "cost-benefit": what else could I do with this slot if I didn't put a target painter on it, and how does that compare?

[Atandros]

"Opportunity cost" is an elaboration, not a more accurate rephrasing. In the terminology of the dismal science, opportunity cost is one type of cost among many others and as such is included in cost-benefit analysis (that isn't very intuitive, of course, but it's conceptually very helpful because it makes clearer that "paper losses" are as real as the ones that show up in your figures).

[orange]

In "small" numbers - say 20-30 ships - is there a significant balancing issue?

Do the balancing issues appear when fleets begin to exceed X number?

Just because something seems balanced at 10 or 20 ships does not mean it will be unbalanced when scaled up (or down). 

ECM is considered unbalanced in 5-man engagements, it is likely to remove at least 2 ships from the fight and may make it nearly impossible for its opposition to fight.  If we scale this up to 20-ships, the relative impact of a single ECM ship is diminished and the ECM ship can be targeted by other ships for elimination.   In even larger engagements, ECM ships barely have the opportunity to take part because they are destroyed very quickly by more firepower than the FC knows what to do with.

Is ECM balanced?  It likely is at the 10-20 ship range, move up and down the scale and it either is overpowered or its effectiveness is in the noise.

[Ken]

Hmm, tactics are dynamic and depend on the overall size of the battlefield.  That's a good point, orange.  My original question was largely based on the impression that some ships seem to be viewed as broken no matter what size fight they're stuck in.  I've never heard someone say, "Oh, you've got to train for the Deimos," for example.  For another, I don't think I've ever seen a Hyena outside of the ship preview window.  On the other hand there are ships that are the American Express of EVE, like the much-discussed Drake.

As someone who flies Minmatar, I'd be interested to hear more about why Inara thinks TPs deserve more attention.  Always seemed silly to me that they only have an effect on missiles.  "Target painting" should also make it easier for turrets to track imo.  Anyway, all ewar deserved a re-look and a revamp.  Maybe if they sat down and tried to strike a real paper-rock-scissors balance we'd see more damps and painters out there?

What are people's thought on reworking point-defenses (all we have right now are... defender missiles ) or on the idea of 'super-rigs' that could alter the role of a ship using a rigging slot (think an Angel Cartel rig that fits on a Gallente ship to swap out hybrid bonuses for projectile)?

[Ulphus]

What are people's thought on reworking point-defenses (all we have right now are... defender missiles ) or on the idea of 'super-rigs' that could alter the role of a ship using a rigging slot (think an Angel Cartel rig that fits on a Gallente ship to swap out hybrid bonuses for projectile)?

At the moment, people are reluctant to engage unless they think there's a good chance they'll win. Uncertainty increases the amount of safety margin people want before they engage. If you know they have 10 ships, but you don't know what, then you want to bring along 15 to not be suckered. Then either you totally stomp them, or you get a close-ish fight (for some reason, people try to avoid a situation where the options appear to be getting a close fight or getting totally stomped).

If the uncertainty level were raised (by rigs such as you suggest, or other methods) then the margins people would want would go up. More running away, fewer close fights.

So in summary, I don't think they're a good idea.

[Inara Subaka]

As someone who flies Minmatar, I'd be interested to hear more about why Inara thinks TPs deserve more attention.  Always seemed silly to me that they only have an effect on missiles.  "Target painting" should also make it easier for turrets to track imo.  Anyway, all ewar deserved a re-look and a revamp.  Maybe if they sat down and tried to strike a real paper-rock-scissors balance we'd see more damps and painters out there?

That's the beautiful thing, it DOES already.

From the tests I've done on Sisi (accidentally deleted the spreadsheet with the numbers, because I'm a dumbass) 2x target painters from a Golem used against a cruiser hull being shot at by a BC increase missile dps by about 24%, Drone damage by about 30-32%, and turret damage (@ half-falloff) by 18-19%. And if you're interested in tinkering with these to see the results yourself, I'm more than happy to jump on Sisi and run the tests again. (Disclaimer: I ran these in Fall 2009, some variation is to be expected)

What are people's thought on reworking point-defenses (all we have right now are... defender missiles ) or on the idea of 'super-rigs' that could alter the role of a ship using a rigging slot (think an Angel Cartel rig that fits on a Gallente ship to swap out hybrid bonuses for projectile)?

I think current e-war against turrets is fine (TD's make most turrets utterly useless). And as much as I'd like to see Defender Missiles not suck... I'm even more hesitant to boost a point-defense against missiles without giving them an option of module based upgrades (missile velocity, explosion radius, explosion velocity, flight time, etc...). There's no way to 'boost' your missiles except with skills or ship bonus', turrets have a counter to TD's in the form of TE and TC's.

Something I remember reading when I was first starting paying attention to e-war mechanics was one of the devs saying "all e-war has a counter". And, with the exception of TPs, they are right (and one could argue that Halo implants are the counter to TPs).

Code: [Select]

ECM → ECCM
TD → TE/TC
Web → AB/MWD/ODI
Scram → WCS(lol)
SD → SeBo
Neut/Nos → Cap Booster
And, many of those "counters" have uses aside from being simply counters. ECCM helps protect against probing, TE/TC help hit smaller targets, AB/MWD/ODI gives maneuverability, WCS... well, you're a derp if you fly with them , SeBo allows you to catch smaller targets/get reps on friendlies faster/etc..., Cap Boosters help with local cap usage as well.

TPs are completely unique in there is no modular counter to them (one of the reasons I think they are quite potent, and underrated). And I think that buffing/redesigning another e-war system for use against missiles would be... well, I'll be blunt: it'd be yet another kick in the balls to Caldari PvPers. (note: A modular counter to TPs (something that allowed you to make your sig radius smaller) would probably be OP anyways, so it's probably for the best if they don't introduce them.)

And 'super rigs'... not a fan, at all really. If you want a projectile ship using your Gallente ship levels; fly a Cartel ship or fly a Myrm. There are some things that should be fairly 'consistent' and ship bonus' are one of those things. I would like to see more customizability within the ships (modify slot layouts via rigs or drawbacks of some type; maybe hardpoints in exchange for slots; etc...), but changing the bonus'/role of a ship via a rig doesn't seem like a good idea to me personally.

[Alain Colcer]

It's funny, long time ago i wrote a small proposal on EWAR in general on the SHC forums, basically it was this:

- Fitting Painters, Dampeners, TrackDisruptor or Jammers on anything else besides the dedicated EWar ships was futile, as their effectiveness would be minimal.

- All 4 basic Ewar modules would have 2 effects, 1 "sure-shot", 1 "chance-based".

- Jammers would reduce the number of target locks an enemy ship can have down to 1 only, and have a slight chance to break lock for a small ammount of secs (4-5?). ECM bursts would remain the same.

- Tracking disruptors would disrupt tracking, and only have a chance to reduce turret optimal/falloff

- Dampeners would reduce targeting range and have a chance to make targeting resolution poorer.

- Painters would allow the friendly fleet to target the painted ship regardless of conditions and have a chance increase its signature.

So the idea is that fitting the specific EWar module would always allow the pilot to ensure at least 1 effect, and the EWar ship-hull would increase the power of the chance based attributes significantly to compensate.

[Borza]

Afterburner is kind of a TP counter.