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[hellgremlin]

Low balancing is shit. High balancing is exciting. Current balancing is BORING.

[Desiderya]

So in the end, some T1 hulls still retain their own purpose like a hurricane, a drake, an abaddon, whatever, and other T1 hulls are only good for noobs that can not fly the pimped T2 counterpart, or for FW pilots due to plexes limitations (they had to make sure that T2 variants are not allowed in the same complex class, which is quite telling in itself, like T1 frigs allowed but no T2 frigs because they outclass them).

Yes. Assault Frigates are better than their T1 counterpart. This is working as intended, the same way as navy and pirate versions are better than the T1s. However, the current rebalancing effort is designed to close the gap between them. A Merlin might not be as good as a Harpy, but it is still a threat - and a fair bit cheaper.

Low balancing is shit. High balancing is exciting. Current balancing is BORING.

As with everything in EVE this is highly subjective. I disagree completely as I for one consider low balancing pretty exciting for my part of the sandbox - and then I don't discard all other aspects of the game as "shit". But everyone is entitled to an opinion.

[orange]

Ok so, they continue to do this bit by bit. As much as I am glad they give some love to T1 hulls, now we will get T2 corresponding hulls obsolete ? Whats the point ? They are going to boost up T2 hulls after and make the T1 hulls useless once again ?

Stealth OTEC-nerf 

Stealth LDIS business destroyer 

[Lyn Farel]

Yes. Assault Frigates are better than their T1 counterpart. This is working as intended, the same way as navy and pirate versions are better than the T1s. However, the current rebalancing effort is designed to close the gap between them. A Merlin might not be as good as a Harpy, but it is still a threat - and a fair bit cheaper.

This is precisely this that I find dumb. Are we in WoW with T1, T2,..., T(n) ? Who the hell flies a punisher, or whatever, outside of FW ? Noobs that can not fly corresponding AFs yet ? Same for interceptors. If the difference is just "pay more and get a better tier" then people will pay more, especially at the frigate level. I just don't get that mindset.

And I am not even speaking about T3.

[Graanvlokkie]

Yes. Assault Frigates are better than their T1 counterpart. This is working as intended, the same way as navy and pirate versions are better than the T1s. However, the current rebalancing effort is designed to close the gap between them. A Merlin might not be as good as a Harpy, but it is still a threat - and a fair bit cheaper.

This is precisely this that I find dumb. Are we in WoW with T1, T2,..., T(n) ? Who the hell flies a punisher, or whatever, outside of FW ? Noobs that can not fly corresponding AFs yet ? Same for interceptors. If the difference is just "pay more and get a better tier" then people will pay more, especially at the frigate level. I just don't get that mindset.

And I am not even speaking about T3.

The intention is to remove the tiers within the classes T1 ships, so each T1 ship has a role to play. I think this is a good thing, as there was so many T1 ships in every class and race that never gets flown and everyone defaults to the top tier T1 ship of the class. Why fly a Bantam when you can fly a Merlin, or a Ferrox when you can fly a Drake.

Removing the tiers within a class of ship means there will be a time when a Bantam may be the better ship when compared to the Merlin, or the FC calls for Ferrox'es instead of Drakes 

[Desiderya]

This is precisely this that I find dumb. Are we in WoW with T1, T2,..., T(n) ? Who the hell flies a punisher, or whatever, outside of FW ? Noobs that can not fly corresponding AFs yet ? Same for interceptors. If the difference is just "pay more and get a better tier" then people will pay more, especially at the frigate level. I just don't get that mindset.

I think you got it wrong, because interestingly enough, the "WoW tiering" is closer to what we have at this moment than what is proposed by CCP. The Tiericide is to guarantee every T1 ship a role and therefore  a reason to be flown. Frigates are the most striking example of this - not even a new player will want to fly anything aside the top Frigate of his race because they all suck.

Why fly them? Because it's fun, really. I've seen pirates/nullsecers flying around in the new T1 frigs, not just to prey on FW targets in minor complexes, but also to ask for ( and get ) duels.

[Lyn Farel]

Of course it is nice to see that they are doing something to remove the intra T1 discrepancies (removing tiers). I guess I am just eager to see them do the same thing between techs (T1, T2, T3).

[Casiella]

But then you remove the impetus to train for something better, and that hamster wheel is a big part of what keeps people coming back to EVE. (Until they have 200m SP and don't have anything interesting left to train for, but that's another issue.)

[Lyn Farel]

I already have 100M SP and nothing left to train anyway.

Only T2 has incentives to train for something better. T3 just asks the same skills than a T2 cruisers with a few complementary rank 1 skills. Yes, T2 requires long training, but it is also the case for capital ships that are T1. Also, remains all the T2 equipement, guns especially. I have nothing against that. But ships ? Meh.

[Gymir Asaadan]

The upward trend of balancing right now is changing everything, but combat inties have long needed a boost, ever since the AF boost actually. There is no real reason other than "cause I like that ship" to fly any of the following ships anymore, unless you can't fly AF's

Crusader is completely outclassed by the Retri now, retri is even competitive in speed.
Claw has long been shittier than the Jaguar, now it's far worse and it is also worse than a wolf, with no discernible role.
Taranis is marginal, but the Enyo is much better in "almost" every way now, minus the almost if you are honest about the capabilities.
Crow is outclassed in both forms, rocket and light missile, by the hawk, Hawk is also better at tanking and can be close to as fast, not like you tackle with a hawk or a crow these days when the raptor can do it 10x better.

None of the combat cepters above can match up in tackle ability with ANY of the tackle ceptors, because the tackle ceptors get bonus range to warp disruptors and are well fit for their niche. In fact, combat ceptors will need to be looked at long and hard, to determine if they even have a role anymore, or if they are just clones or rather worse clones of AF's? If that's the case, they either need to be redesigned into a different role, or removed.

According to the dev blogs, the t2 variants of ships are supposed to be more specialized, while their t1 counterparts are supposed to be more generalized. But they immediately contradict their own point by making the t1 ships more specialized in a role, and then taking their t2 counterparts and making them more powerful, but no less specialized, in a role. If that's what they are meaning to do then that's fine, it's just an important distinction.

[hellgremlin]

Hmmm.

Am I the only one who wants T2 to be significantly better than T1, T3 being significantly better than T2, and for 130m SP mothers like me to be burning gods of annihilation feared by all?

[Casiella]

No, you're not, I promise. (And that's from somebody whose max level character is less than half that).

Also, please note that since T1/T2/T3 ships are built completely differently, they offer different levels of content to the industrialists and suppliers, too. EVE isn't exclusively a PVP game in the sense of pew pew.

[Victoria Stecker]

According to the dev blogs, the t2 variants of ships are supposed to be more specialized, while their t1 counterparts are supposed to be more generalized. But they immediately contradict their own point by making the t1 ships more specialized in a role, and then taking their t2 counterparts and making them more powerful, but no less specialized, in a role. If that's what they are meaning to do then that's fine, it's just an important distinction.

I think this is where the issue is. If you look at the t2 cruisers, BCs, BSs, etc. everything is very specialized. There aren't really any cruisers that are simply better versions of their base model, they all do something special (over generalizing ofc, possible exceptions include the zealot, the field command ships (nighthawk, abso, sleip) which are simply bigger and badder versions of their t1 model). They are also prohibitively expensive - in the upgrade in ability for ships that size is really expensive.

Frigates, on the other hand, are cheap. A t2 frig is inexpensive enough that you aren't as worried about losing them. You have all the specialized ones - the EAFs and the tackle ceptors and the bombers, but then you have the ones that screw it all up: The Assault Frigs. They aren't specialized - they are just all around good at everything. They fly decently fast, they hit hard, they can tank. Why fly anything else?

I think this screws up the T2 philosophy. In every other case, the T2 variant is either highly specialized (Logi, HACs, CS, Blops, Inties, EAFS, Bombers) or just too expensive to want to fly into pitched fights. And then there's the AF.

[Lyn Farel]

Yes Victoria. Though you can still find the same cases here and there for cruisers too : a curse will always be better than an arbitrator in everything, a zealot better than an omen in everything. Since they basically have the same base T1 bonuses, more slots, more resists and stats... Well.


_____

Edit : to me if they really want T2 in the game in terms of combat balancing, AFs, as much as I love them, should disappear unless they take another role, like for example the one they were designed for in their bonuses initially. Same for T2 combat cruisers. They all have range bonuses. They should be specialized in long range fighting, but at the same time perform quite poor at short range against their T1 counterparts. Look at a rail harpy, it can reach 90km of range. Why not focusing on the specialization that is supposed to be T2's field of expertise ? AFs could be sniping frigates (they would have to find a good way to make that relevant), HACs, same thing (they already are used like that a lot).

For field commandships, though, I do not know. They are almost useless atm and they would probably need a whole new role.

Then you have the EW T2 ships. They get the same bonuses than their T1 counterparts, which is stupid. A curse should not be specialized in both TD and neutralizers, but neutralizers only, etc. For the falcon, I do not know. But then there is a question : why an arbitrator would be T1 and the curse T2 ? They both deal in what we call "debuffs" in any MMOs. The pilgrim on the other hand, has its own niche that is very fitting to T2.

I think they really should think like this : if you do a T2 variant of a T1 hull, then take the specific elements of that T1 hull, like the inquisitor for example (missile T1 frig) and make it a bomber. Your bomber is not supposed to be tougher with missiles than your inquisitor, at the contrary it should even be weaker. BUT it will be specialized in bomb launchers, cloaky things, torpedoes, etc. They did it quite well with bombers. Why not thinking the same with all other T2 hulls ?

[Morwen Lagann]

[Assault Frigates] aren't specialized - they are just all around good at everything. They fly decently fast, they hit hard, they can tank. Why fly anything else?

Because some of us know that just because it's "flavor of the month" doesn't mean it lacks an aftertaste of poop and nerf foam.

The problem with AFs stepping on (combat) interceptors' toes is stupidly easy to fix: remove the fucking MWD bonus and make it a small boost to ABs.