Dev Blog: October Balance Pass!

[Sepheir_Sepheron]

Firewalling ratting carriers huh? Man the things people hunt with claws vary greatly but if you’re engaging a pvp fit capital with them it doesn’t matter if your weapons are being firewalled or not… Also who is warping when pointed by a fleet of crows?

Rockets need to get in overheated web range and neut optimal.

[dewk]

The main concern isn’t about the extra mid-slot, but the lose of a low-slot to get it.

Being an armour tanking faction the lose of a low-slot is a major loose. Many believe a high-slot would have been the better option to sacrifice for the mid-slot.

As for tracking there is the low-slot tracking enhancer that increases not only tracking speed, but also optimal range.

But it’s been noted the precursor ships are naval factor ships, though have not the best EHP when comparing to other naval faction ship of the same class. The mid-Slot is an issue for the frigate and battleship. Though as to how to address this is questionable, though a few ideas have been floated in `blog-triglavian-technology-ships-weapons

[Peter_Yurgin]

https://zkillboard.com/related/30004393/201809192200/
As you can see interceptors can die often to smartbombs.

[Scooter6976]

@Arrendis

@Scooter6976

k ik, goons do everything, just more. but I wasn’t interested in talking about goons. nor what the rest of ns does.

Then maybe you shouldn’t have been harping on ‘null bears’ if you don’t wanna talk about what nullsec does. And you and others have been accusing the CSM of doing crap to make things safe for Delve. Delve is Goons. So don’t try telling me you’re not talking about us. And don’t try telling anyone that when you’re throwing around ‘null bears’ as a perjorative, as an insult, that you’re refraining from calling people names.

Also, the country of origin in SA referred to above was Colombia, not Guatemala. Guatemala’s in Central America. So, you know, if I want help with things, maybe I’ll wait for someone who doesn’t get their facts wrong repeatedly. (And honestly, if you know bears only as honey-eaters… holy carp, do you not know bears… especially Kodiaks. Bears are omnivores. That means predation, especially in the case of Polar bears.)

And if you think the people flying rorqs and ratting carriers in Delve (like that Thanatos, once again) aren’t going on combat ops on their alts, you should consider educating yourself. I’ve already talked about the balance issues in this patch. The balance issues in this patch are… nothing. There’s no real benefit to any of this, and the balance issues being addressed aren’t major issues that need immediate fixing to begin with.

Nothing here couldn’t have been addressed better, with less outcry, following a comprehensive review and explanation of how each ship class is supposed to fit into the big picture, and what roles and purposes the devs want them fulfilling.

@Solecist_Project

They even literally admit that ■■■■■■■ over a much smaller part of the player base is absolutely a-okay in their perspective! And the best part is that they’ve been doing it to that same group over and over and over again

I’ve made a similar point in the thread Brisc started to discuss an idea for fixing the HIC change. No, it’s not alright. And yes, it’s pretty obvious that if they’ll screw over one group, they’ll screw over another when they think that’s advantageous to them. I’m not ignoring that part of the pattern at all. This is not the way a company should be treating their customers. And that’s a thing in all of this. When it comes to how they treat us, don’t refer to ‘players’. Refer to customers. Frame it with the blatant reminder of ‘people who pay money so you keep your job’.

@Cletus_Graeme

How can you be so sure it’s the interdiction nullification that’s the root of the problem?
If it was then shouldn’t we expect to see widespread use of ALL combat inties in this way and also other ships with this option (e.g. T3s)

Well, first, you don’t see the other combat inties as much because the Claw’s damage bonus makes it the best of the group. That’s kinda obvious.

Second, you don’t see this with things like T3Cs because while they are nullified, they’re not insta-warp… in other words, it’s “the combination of getting into warp before the server can register a tackle, plus bubble-immunity”.

You know, just like you quoted there.

@Brisc_Rubal

Stilettos will still be useful for tackle, which is what they’re bonused for. Raptor is still good fast tackle with four mids, like Stilettos. Taranis isn’t as useful, sure, but it’s kind of shitty now anyway.

The stuff they were good at before they are still good at, they just aren’t as slippery as they used to be.

Let’s be clear here, Brisc, I mentioned the Stiletto because it’s the 2nd-place alpha (the thing you said Combat Inties were still good at) among all interceptors, until you start mounting artillery on Maledictions and Ares. And it’s less than half what a Claw has (515 to 1100). The Arty Malediction and Area come in at 671 volley.

However, the way you really want to apply damage now is not actually pure volley damage, but, as one of my guys said yesterday, “tyool 2018, its about 10 second dps bursts. You dont need mass alpha to break huge internal tanks, you need short term dps to break a bricktank before help can arrive”. So the real application for the Malediction is rockets, and the Ares, probably rails. I’d have to look at the Ares again when I’m not exhausted.

I mean, this is what I do as ‘the guy who runs the fitting team’: look at what things are useful for, how they can be made useful, what unexpected roles we can find for them. (It’s also why I populate the team with a bunch of diabolically-creative people like Gennel and Locke. They make it real easy by pointing out literally every trick I miss.)

So among the combat interceptors, the ones that ‘what are these for now?’ was being asked about, the Claw has alpha, the others… no. But the Claw’s alpha doesn’t compete with a Wolf’s, and an interceptor isn’t useful for tackle. Not when AFs go more or less just as fast on-grid, and don’t die when you sneeze on them. That’s why the Stiletto won’t really see fleet use, except for a +/-1 Scout. Even burning perches, you might as well use an AF, because it’ll still be useful when the fighting starts.

And by the way, if you want on-grid speed? Fastest sustained speed possible is a Wolf. It’s ridiculously expensive, and it’s not really a fit I’d suggest taking into combat even in its cheap version, but… yeah. 16b gets you a Wolf that’ll run at 13.5km/s for 90 hours. (Edit to add this parenthetical: with heat, it’s 19.8km/s. So don’t carry EMPs, carry nanite paste.) Then you slow down to 12km/s because you ran out of drugs. So…

@Brisc_Rubal

But, in the end, if there really IS no use for these ships OTHER than nullification, than CCP needs to fix those ships so that they have more value than strictly nullification (which is, honestly, what we told them and why that indicates nullification on combat ships like this is overpowered - if the ship sucks without nullification, than that’s a design flaw).

Yeah. They do need to do that. Cuz right now, they bring nothing to the table without the bubble immunity.

yes, lets talk about geography and the daily diet of RL bears. you crack me up man.

ps: haven’t mentioned delve once, but now you’ve forced me to. <<
perhaps you are meaning to simply confirm what I was implying; these changes are bad for anyone that isn’t in ns bearing. the alts you speak of, those must b the ones flying around in the cancer you think needs a nerf. ty, for again proving my points. id get tired of watching you whinge, except its soo entertaining!

[Scooter6976]

@Dornier_Pfeil

@Brisc_Rubal

… all to counter a fleet of ships that a guy with less than 5 million skillpoints can use effectively

That is a feature not a bug. It is EvE gospel that new (or at least newer) players have a place in the game for themselves. Being critical of a mechanic that allows someone of less than than 5 million sp to participate is a black mark on you.

one of many in this thread. more to come too im sure…

[Scooter6976]

@Brisc_Rubal

@Dornier_Pfeil

That is a feature not a bug. It is EvE gospel that new (or at least newer) players have a place in the game for themselves. Being critical of a mechanic that allows someone of less than than 5 million sp to participate is a black mark on you.

This isn’t about participation. It’s about completely dominating. It’s one thing to be useful, it’s another thing to have an I-win button.

claws are I win buttons? rofl

[KRISDOX]

Just pointing out that with careful planning, combat interceptor can be fun and engaging gameplay. I also wanted to refute that rorquals have nothing to fear from combat interceptors claim by brisc rubal as I often join these combat interceptor fleet and managed to kill several rorquals only with combat interceptors which I had link here: https://zkillboard.com/character/257933766/kills/reset/group/883/losses/

[Festmester_Uctionsson]

Crows sacrifice a third of their DPS to be instant align?

They never become instant align.

With T2 rigs and full Inertial Stabilizers in low, it’s about 2.2 seconds.

[Sol_Mortis]

ECM changes are trash. Will you be able to lock a ship that is Sensor Damping you? Will your weapons work at normal range against ships that are Tracking Disrupting you?

I like how introducing the change you imply there will also be some sort of buff to them, but go on to reveal that “no, we are just nerfing them to the point of making them completely useless if you are flying solo. Also this breaks pretty much ECM ship but oh well maybe we might do something about it someday or maybe not.”

I can just go get in an Arazu or Lachesis with damps that reliably work every time, but it sucks that I’m losing an option to choose from. Very anti-sandbox.

[Arrendis]

@Scooter6976

perhaps you are meaning to simply confirm what I was implying; these changes are bad for anyone that isn’t in ns bearing. the alts you speak of, those must b the ones flying around in the cancer you think needs a nerf. ty, for again proving my points. id get tired of watching you whinge, except its soo entertaining!

You really should try to stick to being coherent.

[Arrendis]

Tsk. Nomads, baby.

[Zachri]

@Brisc_Rubal

Stilettos will still be useful for tackle, which is what they’re bonused for. Raptor is still good fast tackle with four mids, like Stilettos. Taranis isn’t as useful, sure, but it’s kind of shitty now anyway.

The stuff they were good at before they are still good at, they just aren’t as slippery as they used to be.

That is an analogy of “here is a small swiss army knife, it can be used to do a number of interesting things, now we are removing a core element but it is ok because now you can only work screws with it”.

I think one important aspect you are missing is the concept of flexibility requirements of emergent behaviour. It strikes me that you’re either just repeating something of a discussion / narrative elsewhere, or you’ve gone a little too close to the detail level from a mechanistic perspective.

There’s three angles in all this:

1. It never is about just mechanisms.

2. It should also always be about room for emergent behaviour.

3. The bulk of the observations described in the devblog are demonstrably somewhere between “incorrect”, “incomplete”, “ignorant”. From various angles, I should mention. These are not value statements, just classifications. There’s been ample argumentation and information passed back and forth in this topic clarifying the particulars, so there’s no real need to go into each aspect again. Suffice to say that this touches on something which historically is not an unknown where it comes to CCP’s product level after the summer. Historically such tweaks have never been without detrimental effects.

I honestly wonder if any CSM member is able to approach change / development topics from a different angle than CCP’s product level, namely, the functional foundation on which mechanisms rest. Emergent behaviour. If this is an unknown thing, or it’s a ball dodged in discussions, that’s a big sign on the wall.

[KRISDOX]

Just to be clear, Inty fleets are my favorite fleets and i hate to see this gone with combat interceptor changes, we hunt for capital ships, dreads, carriers, rorquals anything big. This is the fleet I look forward to every single weekend together with about 80 other pilots. There’s something about smallest ship class being able to bring down capital ships, to me it’s a very interesting gameplay. The last rorqual we managed to kill seconds before their response fleet arrived. We also met strong counters being deployed on us: smartbombing battleships, more capitals, corm fleet, AF fleet and more. In these engagements we had lost ships (5k ehp is roughly average tank on these combat interceptors) and had to abandon our targets because of these counters. I can tell you more ways to counter but that should give an idea, so the argument that there is no strong counter is not making sense to me because I see it very often deployed against our inty fleet. One of the reason of nullified combat ceptor is preferred is because its DPS and second, in most ratting/mining systems people bubble the gates and being nullified enables combat interceptor fleet to scatter and warp to celestials or anomalies catching targets. Even with being able to immediately warp to celestials I still very often hear fleet members said on comms that they missed a tackle by a few seconds big or small targets (including several rorquals). Taking away the nullification means that it will be much more difficult to secure tackle and bringing the fight to these targets because we have to clear bubbles first before warping to celestials. I really cant see combat interceptor having any role if the nullification is removed, and as many has pointed out without nullification there are many other ships that can do better in tank, dps, and even speed than combat interceptors. If people are just gonna say git gud, then how much more git gud should one has to be? we are literally using the smallest ships to engage the biggest ships in the game. This smallest class vs biggest class fights are the few remaining interesting gameplay in EVE. Maybe if we have a CSM who actually knows how to use interceptors we may not get this change? I mean how many people put autocannons on their raptors? https://zkillboard.com/kill/61383568/ https://zkillboard.com/kill/64609556/

[Peter_Yurgin]

https://zkillboard.com/related/30002457/201809200000/
These guys just welped an interceptor fleet.

[Peter_Yurgin]

It isn’t because of the ship that makes your fleet so dangerous. You have 80 pilots in it. When you have those kinds of numbers you should be able to kill anything that shows up.

[Sazina_Ibruin]

@Brisc_Rubal

Are we making changes based on what frustrates people? Because if so, I have a list…

Perhaps people need to just HTFU?

Or, perhaps, we can balance out systems that are unbalanced so we reduce the levels of frustration. If you’ve got a list, put it up.

Based on I have read so far… number one system on the list would be CSM

[Scooter6976]

@KRISDOX

Just to be clear, Inty fleets are my favorite fleets and i hate to see this gone with combat interceptor changes, we hunt for capital ships, dreads, carriers, rorquals anything big. This is the fleet I look forward to every single weekend together with about 80 other pilots. There’s something about smallest ship class being able to bring down capital ships, to me it’s a very interesting gameplay. The last rorqual we managed to kill seconds before their response fleet arrived. We also met strong counters being deployed on us: smartbombing battleships, more capitals, corm fleet, AF fleet and more. In these engagements we had lost ships (5k ehp is roughly average tank on these combat interceptors) and had to abandon our targets because of these counters. I can tell you more ways to counter but that should give an idea, so the argument that there is no strong counter is not making sense to me because I see it very often deployed against our inty fleet. One of the reason of nullified combat ceptor is preferred is because its DPS and second, in most ratting/mining systems people bubble the gates and being nullified enables combat interceptor fleet to scatter and warp to celestials or anomalies catching targets. Even with being able to immediately warp to celestials I still very often hear fleet members said on comms that they missed a tackle by a few seconds big or small targets (including several rorquals). Taking away the nullification means that it will be much more difficult to secure tackle and bringing the fight to these targets because we have to clear bubbles first before warping to celestials. I really cant see combat interceptor having any role if the nullification is removed, and as many has pointed out without nullification there are many other ships that can do better in tank, dps, and even speed than combat interceptors. If people are just gonna say git gud, then how much more git gud should one has to be? we are literally using the smallest ships to engage the biggest ships in the game. This smallest class vs biggest class fights are the few remaining interesting gameplay in EVE. Maybe if we have a CSM who actually knows how to use interceptors we may not get this change? I mean how many people put autocannons on their raptors? Raptor | Brisc Rubal | Killmail | zKillboard Raptor | Brisc Rubal | Killmail | zKillboard

ty for that! rofl
you have summed it up well. they are complaining about the smallest flimsiest lowest dps ship class in game being an ‘I WIN’ button. my first post in this thread; I called these changes absurd. the only thing worse is the csm + friends attemps at justifying it. lots of misleading information, misdirection, deflection, distraction. it like watching a cable news channel. ya kno, some ppl actually believe the garbage being tossed around here, just because of the ‘csm’ thingy next to the guys name. sad really. dictator scooter wouldn’t allow his meat shields to run amok in the forums. just saying.

[Othello_Warspite]

I personally see the problem the CSM has as one of spiraling disengagement among many areas of New Eden. Lowsec gets no love, so why would they work to get a single person elected, who may not even be in touch with the elements that concern a significant portion of their constituents?

I think it’s long-since time to move to more focused focus groups. It’s just going to result in MORE feedback, and more diverse feedback. This is good.

[Peter_Yurgin]

https://zkillboard.com/related/30002457/201809200000/

An interceptor fleet just bit the dust. It’s called using a little smarts. They are only frigates, tech 2 ships sure, but only frigates.

[Sol_Mortis]

CCP worries about the feelings of people who get blown up because of ECM, but not worried about the feelings of people whose ECM offensive modules and main defense do literally nothing to an enemy ship in a 1v1.

You are just making a different person feel helpless and not have fun, only in this case it was because their ECM modules flat out DO NOTHING not because they failed to counter-fit.