If anything, in between “f2p” and “time-unlimited trial” would probably the best way to describe aplha clone status. Fact of the matter stays that it was designed as a mode to experience the full game for an extended amount of time, not some demo-level or time-locked trial.
As for balance, you might disagree but the reality is simply otherwise. Gallente is by far the most popular alpha faction and Amarr the least popular. Something has to be done, as this is simply not good for the game.
Gallente is the most popular over all followed pretty closely by caldari, years back it was the other way around, but it seems as the dirty gallente have taken over! And the Amarr and minmatar have always been less popular. I think the reasons are almost completely driven by racial descriptions, and have not a whole lot to do with ship balance. Don’t really think it is good or bad, omegas can train into anything. And in the alpha lineup there are very few worthless ships, and no completely over powered ships.
I’m sure that even if all four factions were balanced, the prettier one would be the most popular.
I dunno. That default white and gold scheme for Amarr looks nice and they really do have some nice smooth sleek ships. Meanwhile Gallente have the hotdog stand, the mutant potato, and more. I don’t think it is just looks here.
Amarr ships are definitely the prettiest. Those blue hue skins are the dogs.
Does anyone else know what this fella is on about?
Some low-hanging fruit suggestions:
Move specialist industrials to a new ORE industrial skill, and give all characters ORE industrial at the highest faction industrial skill they currently possess. Alphas could all use ORE industrial at level 1.
Make medium and small smartbombs better, so that they might see more usage, esp for bigger capacitor Amarrian ships. Range in particular should be buffed.
Giving the Arbitrator another turret & launcher? Maybe. The Dragoon maybe too: it’s bloody slow, and with only 2 mids is completely shut out from work without a decent sized gang really (and obviously PVE too). And let’s face it, as a form of EWAR cap warfare scales badly for small ships - good luck capping out anything bigger than even a cruiser, which can probably hit you very hard as you pootle around…
Don’t worry. Amarr Alphas get one of the best Faction Cruisers. Hard to get more DPS than an Omen Navy Issue with Alpha skills.
I dont see the problem. Alphas can do what Omegas do when they want to branch out: Create alts. I have 2 maxxed out Alphas for each race. I rarely use them because i have Omega account, but why not? They are free.
With Alphas you can even go so far and create 1 character (or more) for each region/PvP hotspot.
Yeah, I’ve been wondering how many of the new characters were genuinely new players and how many were just more alts for the ones already playing.
I wonder if CCP will ever release actual statistics on that.
[quote=“Remiel_Pollard, post:12, topic:5625, full:true”]I’ll bet anyone I can teach a newb in a Dragoon to neut and kill anyone in an active-armour Hecate in the same amount of time it takes to get the skills to fly it.
[/quote]
If it takes you as long to kill a Hecate as it takes to get the skills to fly a Dragoon, you’re doing it wrong.
oh wait…you can’t because alpha Amarr pilots can’t use rockets or light missile launchers. It’s like they’re cross-racial or something.
If you don’t have the skills to fly a Dragoon, how you gonna kill an Hecate with it?
Numpty.
Did you look up what “split guns” and “universal high slots” means yet?
Nope.
Make some other kill it with Dragoon?
Some low-hanging fruit suggestions:
Move specialist industrials to a new ORE industrial skill, and give all characters ORE industrial at the highest faction industrial skill they currently possess. Alphas could all use ORE industrial at level 1.
Ehh, This is something I agree with but Im on the fence since this would would make the salvaging trade a little more aggressive since it would drive up the demand of the Noctis but if I go alpha, i can simply use my noctis to make some decent cash for a while. Now an idea to perhaps maybe balance them out is give their industrial, the sigil, a dedicated passenger hold or something useful to kind of give them an edge up, like say a module hold or unassembled ship hold.
Just make the Noctis require the ORE skill at level 2 (in my mind I thought it required more anyway) , that shuts out alphas and doesn’t really add any time for omegas
“Universal High Slot” example: Ship has 5 highslots: 5 turret and 5 launcher hardpoints. That’s universal, cuz you can fit 5 turrets, or 5 launchers, or a mix of turrets and launchers, neuts, nosferatu, cloak, probe launcher, etc.
“Split Guns” example: Ship has 5 highslots: 3 turret and 2 launcher hardpoints. That’s split guns because you can’t fit a full rack of turrets or launchers; you must “split” your guns between turrets and launchers.
Good to know. Why should the Dragoon and Arbitrator be changed into universal high slots when we already have SoCT and Condord ships?