Abyssal Deadspace stuff that needs attention from CSM/CCP

[Gustav_Mannfred]

Hi

I have been running higher tier abyssal sites for quite some time and found some things, that need attention from CCP.

1. Angel and Marshal rooms

These rooms are very hard to do and for most ships nearly impossible to complete. The Angel room is very hard to complete for frigs, because nearly every ship webs and the Cynabals have perfect application at 80km. The Marshal room does way more dps compared to other rooms and Thunderchilds can oneshot most MWD ships. The Marshal room does total 2500-3000dps while other rooms in T6 do 1000-1200dps.
Possilble solution:
Remove webs from all angel rats except the Echoes and reduce the range of the Cynabals. This should make the room more doable for frigs.
Change the Missiles on the Marshals, let them use Torpedos and reduce rof. Also nerf the damage of EDENCOM ships. They have extreme alphas. The Skybreakers have very high dps compared to other frigs you find in Abyss.

2. The mathematically broken Firestorm filaments

I don’t know if that is a bug or intended. Some NPC’s you find, especially Deepwatchers and Leshaks are pre damaged when they spawn. Deepwatchers spawn with like 70% armor damage and Leshaks spawn with 0 armor and 0 shield. However, in Firestorm sites, the Deepwatchers spawn with like 40% armor damage and get the 50% armor hp buff too. In the end, you end up having to go throught more than twice their hp. Similar thing happens with Leshak, in Firestorms you have to chew throught 6500 Armor hp each while in all other weather they start with 0 armor. This effect does not occour in Gamma filaments, The leshak there have 0 shield at the begin just like in all other weather effects.

3. Cost of some filaments is very high

When you look at the price of filaments, you see that Gamma and Firestorm are very cheap, while Electrical cost over 50m for T5/T6. This makes these filaments barely worth to run because in some case you get less loot then the price of the filament. Also, if someone posts a guide on how to run certain weather effects effectively, the prices skyrocket very hard, because the supply of high tier filaments is so low.
Possible solution:
Increase the amount of filaments that can drop at the same time. You can find up to 30 proving ground filaments in one cache, make it so with abyssal filaments too. That would solve the supply issue and makes all weather effects worth to do. Alternatively the loot could be changed, so that more expensive filaments drop more loot to make up for the hight price.

4. Loot in Tier 5 and 6 sites could be better

Home | Abyss Tracker (eve-nt.uk)
As you can see here, the value of the loot increases by about factor 2 each tier you go up. After Tier 5, this is no longer the case, the loot from T6 is about 1.7 times better than T5, while T5 loot is about 2 times better. In T5 and T6 you need ships that cost 3B+ to complete, and thus you have a very hight risk of getting ganked at the exit. For that the reward seem rather low sometimes. Also, T5 and T6 can have either 50% or 70% penalty. The 50% ones drop much less loot than the 70% ones. In T6, the 50% drop average 60m of loot, while the 70% ones drop average 120m of loot each.
Possible solution:

• Make it so, that T5 and T6 always have the 70% penalty
• The factor from T4 to T5 and T5 to T6 should be 2.25. So T5 should drop around 80m of loot and T6 about 180m of loot. Maybe the loot in frig sites could be kept the same so that it does not get overfarmed, as the frigs used are often less than 200m total, while the Cruiser cost between 3 and 10b isk.

5. Bring back the Proving conduit

I keep this short, as there are several other threads on the forums about that, but as it has to do with abyssal deadspace, I thought I put it here anyways. The old Abyssal PvP 1v1 cruisers (Vote!) (Ideas) More Abyssal content? Why not? - Communications Center / General Discussion - EVE Online Forums The results from this poll speaks for itself, nearly 60% of the players want the old arena back. The idea is to have both the old arena(2nd gate in T3-T6 sites) as we used to know it and the proving ground events.

Let me know what you think, I hope CCP and the CSM adress these points above.

[Maik_Estemaire]

First of all good post.

For the first point I can’t really speak for frigates, but the high dps of Marshals and alpha of Thunderchilds is definitly out of tune with the other rooms.

To the second point I can only say that firestorms are maybe mathematically way harder than other rooms but not impossible.

For the third point I can just say, it should maybe increased a little bit but not to much because it should stay something special.

To the fourth point I can only agree, because who doesn’t like more income.

And lastly the proving grounds were interesting but I don’t really comment on that, because I am to new to eve.

Something I would like to add is that t6 should have the 70% effect as given and not just a higher chance to get 70% than in t5s, because that would fit better into the t1-t5 progression.

[Shipwreck_Jones]

1. One way of looking at it is that certain rooms are significantly harder than others, and therefore, they should be brought back in line with the others. Another way of looking at it is by taking a look at the risk to reward ratio for the abyss as a whole. Bringing those rooms in line with the others might make runs more consistent, but the reduction in risk would also necessitate that rewards be toned down as well.
3. Filaments cost what people are willing to pay for them, and you can still make damn good money in the abyss.
4. People are making good money in the abyss, and by your own admission, it’s seeing lots of activity. Seems to me like isk efficiency is fine the way it is.

Most of this post really seems like you just want more money for nothing -which seems particularly out of touch considering all the nerfs other players have been dealing with during resource scarcity. So, I’ll tell them you what I’ve told them. If you want more money, chase new strats and/or new opportunities.

[Caldari_Joans]

o7 Gustav,

Thanks for compiling these points. I’ll add some perspective below but caveat it with most of my experience is in T6 Darks, specifically in the Ikitursa.

1. The tank on my Ikitursa is built for the Marshall room and 50% weather Angel and Sansha spawns. It is complete overkill everywhere else. For the pirates, the difference in incoming DPS feels manageable as a cruiser. I think it is part of why Abyssals are interesting to me at the moment. That said, whenever I test frigs or destroyers these are the spawns that dumpster them. If you account for Angel and Sansha specifically then you are likely short on damage in other rooms. For the DED room, Marshalls are manageable but it’s definitely an “overheat required” room. I don’t need to overheat elsewhere so I think this is fair. You can get RNG cloud placement that makes approaching these ships lethal though. Same as with the frigs/dessies. If you start trading DPS for tank then you’re going to short yourself for time in Overmind, Karybdis, and Deepwatcher rooms. The Thunderchilds are a different story. I enjoy fighting them because there’s an interesting risk/reward element with them on the field. If you can tank them then you can use your positioning and their weapon system to your advantage. However, I faced four at once the other day and they applied over 5400 damage in a single server tick. My quick math suggests that while the AB version of the fit will fair better you are still going to bleed hull every time they fire. I have some theories on how to beat this spawn but I need more runs to actually get the room again. Same as above, if you fit specifically to counter this spawn you will trade too much DPS in other rooms, and this is on a fit that has a lot of “great for time” rooms. Reps alone won’t beat it. You need more buffer.

• Video of the Thunderchild spawn. Their damage lands in a single tick and before the Blue Cloud.https://youtu.be/qVlLpPxbICI

2. I have limited experience here but just know from the testing I’ve done these sites aren’t very fun because it’s straightforward max-EHP grinding. Specific to the Iki again I think you’ll be very close on time for T6 Firestorm if you run short of three Entropic Radiation Sinks.

3. The differences in price is pretty severe but, for me, that’s part of the sandbox. I think your point about increasing their drop rate has merit though. If you introduced higher keys one tier lower that may fix the supply issue. At one point in December there were four T6 Dark filaments on the market.

4. The jump to T6 does seem to have limited returns once you consider the investment you put into cruiser hulls. Current loot amounts are acceptable on my end; however, the entry fee for T6 cruisers can be difficult to recoup. While RNG is a part of the Abyss if the risk is too high then Cataclysmics will continue to see limited activity. A slight bump in rewards might be the better option vs under tuning all of T6. The latter can just lead to a situation where bling makes everything 100% risk free. If this is the top-end of PvE Abyss difficulty then bling requirements make sense. If T6 always had 70% penalty then this would actually bring Angel & Sansha spawns back in line difficulty wise for cruisers in Darks. At that point the Thunderchilds are the main issue. Not sure how I would feel about the change in practice though. Needing to account for 50% rooms is part of the challenge in our Dark Iki fits.

5. Abyssal PvP was never my thing (different convo) but if the players that want it feel it was in a healthy enough state to maintain then this seems like a simple request.

[Makshima_Shogo]

I’m not sure why but you used to get a pvp timer if you came out of a t4 or above and now you don’t get any timer at all, making it super safe to spam these sites from jita.

I would in general ask to reduce bs hp’s but maybe increase their damage to compensate so you can burn them down quicker for a dps race which is way more fun than hitting them for 8 minutes and worrying about running out of time.

Also why do npc’s have unrealistic tracking, it would be much better to make their ships track like player ships instead of 80x better tracking.

[Malango]

Agree with everything. The firestorm thing is retarded. I just don’t bother with them now. Like you said leshak rooms are awful in firestorms. And loot has sucked for me over all in T6s.