Ending the gap between Cap and Subcap and a revision of ship size progression

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
1

this is probably the worst balance idea ever, but i think its time we should consider a change such as this to finally stop with this “Carriers are opressive” nonsense.

Theory:

Capitals and Supercapitals were originally intended to be situational rather than usual. they represented the epitome of shipbuilding and power in a game where people were still struggling to form a seasoned fleet of with battleships and thus seeing one of these things was a novelty and something to recognize.

fast forward to these days the economy and the skill injector system allows people to invest into capital ships with such an ease that even Titans are used to gatecamp or even farm anomalies. Rorquals provide a large influx of prime materials for supporting the production of other capital ships and the ISK generated by players is more than enough to buy cheap carriers or dreads for a few billion (fit included, or so people say).

this should be more than enough to warrant taking a look on how Caps and Supers are envisioned in this game. the fantasy of the single titan surrounded by smaller vessels should now be considered a “small gang” compared to what can be achieved by players, it is evident these ships arent as “unique” as they were before.

thus the whole system must be reworked.

The other end of spectrum:

ever since the changes to warp speeds battleships have become a rare sight in general. being close in speed to the capitals that come above them these lumbering ships have been replaced by Battlecruisers and other medium vessels like HACs which can get close in tanking potential while remaining much more agile.

this doesnt stop Rattlesnakes, Machariels and other high profile ships of this size to excell in some activities but for the most part Battleships are struggling to get good fights and this leaves a gap on how the progression advances in terms of ship sizes.

from Battlecruisers and down we have seen a lot of iterations to ensure certain classes dont become as annoying, albeit there’s still a lot missing in order to properly bring some ships into great use. in general most of the roster here is usefull in its own way, only things like ECM boats or logi frigates may required some revisions to ensure they can do their job properly.

Ending the Gap:

with the high end of subcaps struggling to be competitive and caps and supers being increasingly easier to obtain. it is obvious that the old classification of Subcap and Cap (and Super) have to be removed. Capital Ships as a skill could still exist (or not, depends on what players think) but this classification should stop and instead a single progression should be achieved.

The New Progression:

each ship class would still provide to the general progression of T1 going specialized with T2, generalistic with T3 or upgrade with Pirate/Navy.

increasing in size should mean an almost linear increase in stats. to fulfill this idea the current caps and suppers would get their main stats reduced in orde to put them in a proper position above Battleships. in addition to this, Battleships could receive some buffs to further empower them over Battlecruisers and closer in stats to true capital ships.

What About Capital Modules?:

with caps and supers no longer having the stats to support current fitting and power requirements. Capital modules would get a proper adjust not only in CPU, Capacitor or PG requirements but also in overall power.

imagine a meta where Battleships can do the same crazy stuff as cruisers can do right now. fitting Capital Batteries, Oversized ABs or Capital Shield Extenders (Stealth buff to Nightmares, Machs, Rattlesnakes and practically all the Caldari and Minmatar battleship roster). this not without fitting restrictions to balance their use.

this may sound gamebreaking to some, but that’s how it happens with current subcaps (not much for frigates due to their anemic stats and number of slots but yeah) and could help a bit to ease the pain of the Battleship enthusiast.

HAW weapons along with Doomsdays and Fighters would still be a force to recognize but their overal DPS would still be somewhat controlled so it would apply properly to Battleships and Battlecruisers, decent DPS towards Cruisers when applying grapplers or application mods and struggling against Destroyers and Frigates no matter the fighter squads used. (this is only assuming that current capital weaponry deals too much DPS compared to the tank of caps and supers after the stat squish).

there would still be some restrictions in terms of what modules could be used. for example the Doomsdays, Clonevats, and other of these special modules would still be limited to capital ships. but this should be a marker for what each size provides.

rather than being just an inverse proportion between tank, damage, application and agility. moving to larger sizes would provide access to new functionalities that other ships in the same classes dont provide. (we already have these in the case of Microjumpdrives, Stasis Grapplers and current capital modules), perhaps each ship size would have special utility modules that provide extra functionalities to the fleet.

TL:DR

  • Tech still follows the same typical graph seen from the rebalances

  • increasing in ship size provides increases in overal stats at the cost of mobility but also opens new functionalities due to size specific modules that provide extra utility to each of the base classes from Frigates to Titans.

  • caps and supers (and their modules) receive a stat squish to put them in a more linear progression from current subcaps

  • battleships receive buffs to bridge and balance that gap between Battlecruisers and Capital ships

  • some capital modules are still restricted to capitals only, but Battleships can use some of the regular capital modules with their proper pros and cons.

What can be Expected:

seeing that Capital ships are overal nerfed in power they may not be as sought for the big nullsec battles. HOWEVER, they still provide the same functionality they had before (Triage, Doomsdays, Clone Vats, Maintainance and so on). with the economy supporting loosing them without much penalty they are now balanced with the rest of ship progression in the game. they arent no longer the I Win button they were considered a decade or so ago, rather, they are the end of the line in terms of the general ship progression instead of something apart from the rest.

with Capital Mods being avaliable for use by Battleships, it is possible that some clever individuals find crazy ways to carve further use of this ship class into roles that were extinct or never really existed. agility issues ensued, Battleships may become more popular for big fights compared to whelping capital ships. but the utility provided would be in a much different way as what Carriers, Dreads or Titans would provide for fights of this scale due to the class specific modules on the new progression system.

Battlecruisers and down would probably not notice the effect of this changes but much like the larger end of the spectrum, each ship size would AND SHOULD, receive their own niche modules that could help tip the tide of the battle, which modules those would be? i dont have the brain to think about it atm but something would come sooner or later much like how Microjump Field Generators appeared.

Conclusions:

i dont think this proposal would change the current issues with Carriers but i honestly think this is just a consequence of a much larger issue which is still basing the balance of ships on that old format. the economy and the more SP invested pilots of today have broken that vision and as such we have to move further and cut the progression of ships from the smallest to the largest into a proper line. with new things to differentiate the diverse amount of ship classes we have and those that will come in the future (hopefully).

with this i end the OP. now you can downvote me or something.

2 Likes
2

Simple: Make caps anti structure and anti cap tools.
As it stands now the worse against subcaps are fighters HAW guns can be managed with proper piloting fighter spam cannot.
Some things that could be done is reduce application coming from light fighters and heavy long range fighters to small targets,make the NSA longer cycle preventing movement just like siege module and a prerequisite to deploying fighters

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Interesting take on the problems… I like the way you think about it, but my spidey-sense tells me that it needs some refinement. Maybe you would be interested in discussing these matters?
Now that marauders are same price as capitals, I don’t see much wrong in the theory behind this suggestion though. Personally I think a combination with your suggestion here and a re-specialization of the capital size class, would be perfect.

But to be honest, it mostly depends on CCP and their vision of the game… They could just specialize capitals as Dread Saboteur suggest. Limit their usefulness in general situations, and then you’d see BS come back into popularity.

But again, I need to discuss it in detail to make a fair assessment of it. It is a huge change you are suggesting.

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If you nerfed capitals into the ground, you still wouldnt see battleships come back.
They are slow, expensive, dont do squat worth of damage compared to faction BC and T2-3 cruisers.
So it turns into if capitals got nerfed, faction navy battlecruiser would become the most useful ship for applying damage, and I dont think thats right.
As the only good battleships are battleships that have bonuses that counter battleship weaknesses.
(Warp speed)
(Movment speed)
(Tracking)

But as always, sticks in the mud dont get anywhere in eve, live and adapt.

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Might be true, but the game is becoming a Capital slug fest.
Not really the advanced combat I once saw Eve bringing bringing to the table.
Something has to change or the Null-sec dominance is only going to grow further and further into Low ans High.
We are fast approaching Serenity server conditions where a few enormous powerhouses dominate everything in the game.

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i would indeed like this argument to be discussed with the more seasoned pilots, perhaps even as a discussion for the CSM and/or Developers.

the idea isnt to nerf capitals into the ground. its about reducing their overal power so they follow the same growth with the rest of the ships in the game.

of course, nullsec will probably still use them due to the utility provided by Jump Drives and the like. i was fearing things would go the other way around and people would complain about it.

however, the main point of this idea isnt to leave capitals unusable or make battleships shine but rather to streamline the ship progression system in terms of size.

Battleships get a special focus on it as the gap fillers between medium and capital ships and would probably benefit for a lot of things from being able to use Capital sized modules.

still, the main evolution of the concept is that eventually the ship progression follows some sort of diagonal graph. im gonna have to update the thread with an image or something to illustrate the points.

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First off, no proof to back up the statement. Second off, who cares? CCP states all the time that they love it when players do things they never intended or envisioned. They call it “emergent gameplay.” For instance they say they never thought players would want to live in wormholes, nor did they intend for this to happen. But they love that it happened.

As for me, I just consider them ships, same as any other. I don’t want CCP to define the situation that I’m going to use them in, I’d rather that be left up to me.

Believe it or not, some of us got into capships without using a single skill injector, or without any assist from any player, corp, or alliance. Some of us just had to grind, and forgo a lot of skilling and opportunity going into other ships while doing so.

People love to say things like this, as if there’s something wrong with it. If frigates and cruisers and everything else can be used to gatecamp or farm anomalies, why not Titans?

It was the same “I hate big ships crowd” who are currently agitating against capships who got battleships nerfed.

No.

Capships aren’t an “I win” button.

2 Likes
8

They could start with fixing battleship lock on speed, when I lock on to an AF, I should be able to walk away and come back with a drink before it is done.

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No, Not against other capships.
But what we are trying to say is that the diversity of the type of PVP you can find is going down.
Capitals everywhere.
PVP outside Capitals is stagnant.
And that you keep on stubbornly holding on to the gameplay you personally likes the best, disregarding the rest of the types of PVP as being sub-par, and in turn brushing off the many many players worsening experience of sub-cap PVP as not worthy of consideration in how the mechanics are set up, is frankly super selfish. Entitled you might even say.
Eve Online PVP is an Eco-system. And when you only legitimize the type of gamplay you enjoy you in turn put a strangle-hold on the community.

So… This argument is flawed. As yes. CCP likes when people do stuff they don’t expect. Issue here is just what happens when they generalize everything to accommodate:
What used to be the highest specialized ships (capitals and especially supers) is now so powerful in everyday eve, that they are used a ton. One problem. The bonuses they have with the massive nature of them is still there. The rest of the game has not been followed to accommodate for these changes in the role of capitals.
This is the heart of the problem.
Sub-caps don’t really have a decent counter to capitals in everyday eve.

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They used to before the ECM changes.

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i made two graphs depicting the current stat to size growth and how it looks after the changes.

this is very rough and basic but its just to give an initial sample of how things go. i basically checked the shield hitpoints in a sample ranging from Merlin to Leviathan and made some divisions to look for the aproximate multiplication of the stat.

this isnt an accurate method and it would require basically checking each and every stat of the ships involved in the study in order to provide a much clear graph. but i have to get me the free time to do that data comparison.

the growth is mostly fine among Subcap size. destroyer is 2 times a frig, cruisers is 5, BC is roughly 10, BS is close to exact 20.

but then we jump to capital ships and things go completely bonkers. this would make sense in the game if Capital and Supercapital ships were something ephimeral, things that require such a material sink that only a few of them exist at the time and that due to this are worthy of having some kind busted stats to justifify fielding them.

but this doesnt happen anymore. alliances/coalitions have enough tools and wealth already to finance the mass production of these ships and thus we have to blurry the division between these last classes and the Subcaps that precede them in the progression.

the new graph envisions a more reasonable progression curve. Subcap stat growth is still the same but capital ships follow the pattern apropiately which also opens a possibility for something that could be equally important which is reducing structure EHP and damage to a similar pattern.

again, this change envisions that Capital modules will get looked at in order to make them follow the same growth. probably also balance NPC stats to make things fair for those running against Shipyards, DEDs and so on.

1 Like
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UPDATE:

i made a more closely analisis of the raw stats from the Merlin to the Leviathan using the Phoenix instead of the Chimera.

stat growth between frigate to dread is roughly x300, whereas titan goes still to x900. of course, this estimate only applies to certain attributes like Shield, Armor, Structure hitpoints, signature radius, among others but its still theorical. much of the growth between ship sizes is incremental rather tan multiplicative, either because of balance reasons or because CCP doesnt have a standard for stat growth for the ships.

Conclusions:

  1. perhaps stat progression could follow this kind of pattern. this would destroy the existing metagame because of increases and decreases of stats around all the ship sizes. however this can still be mitigated by declaring certain stats as not viable for those for balance reasons.

  2. the jump from subcap to capital and supercap is still proven to be too extreme for the avaliability of these ships in the game. so the idea of squishing their stats to what the reworked graph shows is still in place.

  3. there could be some changes to capitals in general apart of the stat squish to follow some of the feedback provided by some of the commenters in this post:

-NSA becomes a support module for FAXes so they can tank and lock faster to save friendly targets

-Triage is removed from them and given to Carriers but reworked as a full siege module, no logistic additives.

-HAW weapons are restricted to Dreadnoughts

-both HAWs and Fighters get proper stat squishes to follow the changes to capital stats.

-Carriers, Dreads and Faxes become the next progression from Battleships with the added functionality of having each class its own Siege module. their general role is to excell against other caps, supercapitals, structures and against medium to large subcapitals if using application mods and/or tackle.

-Titans and Supercarriers are worked on to excell at destroying structures, other supercapitals and capitals without the use of a situational modules, they would still use doomsdays and other fleet support modules but could no longer use HAWs or apply to subcapital targets even with application modules.

Other things to consider with these changes:

  1. Structure EHP and Defensive potential, with Caps and Supers getting less tanky and their weapons being less powerfull to balance their avaliablity, its possible that structures may required a nerf in their stats to balance the sieges

  2. NSA may require nerfs when used by FAXes but honestly they cant heal anything that is on siege so the beenfit of fast locks and the like is balanced for more smaller targets that are in dire need of reps.

  3. the huge stat changes to ships and structures may prove benefitial or too beneficial to certain T2, Faction or T3 ships, this is a side effect. there’s a lot of stuff that can be expanded on from this sole change.

  4. Capitals and Supercapitals could be expanded further in variety now that they arent as powerfull as before, there could be some new additions to the formula.

  5. possibly Iapetans making an appearance for the first time in the game. this one is uncharted territory but i’d like to think of them as a real mobile base rather than an ultimate weapon. providing services and being more of an anti structure platform solely, perhaps good at fighting other supercaps but only that.

1 Like
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What’s more everywhere? Frigates or capitals? What’s more everywhere? Cruisers or capitals?

I’ve joined nullsec groups here and there, for testing purposes, just to see what’s the big deal. In every case, I couldn’t even get into fleets, because the only doctrines they had, and would use, were cruiser doctrines, frig doctrines, etc. All T2 frigs, T2 destroyers, T2 cruisers, and T3 cruisers. They didn’t even have any battleship doctrines (well, technically I think there was a Rattlesnake doctrine one organization had, but I never saw a ‘fleet up’ with it).

I’d bet every bit of ISK I have, and real money too, that I could place my ship in some random far-flung quadrant of Eve right now, travel to the other end of Eve, and not see a single capship. I’d see 90% cruisers and frigs, maybe a couple industrial freighters, and if I was lucky, a BS.

LOL, yet I want no rules changed to cater the game around how I personally want it to be.

Your issue is, you don’t like player choice. If players are choosing to fly capships and engage in other types of playstyles (and they are), you don’t like that, and want to forcibly change it. I’m totally okay with player choice and agency and open sandbox, you see. If 100% of Eve flew nothing but frigates or cruisers right now, out of their own free choice, I’m fine with that.

Says the guy who wants rules and mechanics changed to cater the game around his personal vision and playstyle preferences.

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First of all. You only see the capital ships when they are deployed for engagements.
second of all, yes there are more cruisers, but what comparison is there between them? Capitals have like one or two orders of magnitude more combat force.

What is missing? Battleships. As you have observed yourself.
Battleships used to me the backbone of any fleet. Hence this threads existence.

Dude. You read capital hate into everything I say. No. I do not want to mold Eve in my image.
I am highlighting an issue that is persistent.
Go and live out of Molden Heath for a while. You’ll see what I am on about. Illamur - atlar would be good places to start.

How many times do I have to repeat myself? No. there is a difference in forcefully changing stuff, and saying that there is a problem that needs to be discussed.

I don’t have any doubt that you haven’t experienced the things that there is being discussed in the threads we are discussing in. I respect that. But you aren’t giving others the same luxury.
Maybe you are lucky.
Maybe there is some other reason.

Maybe part of the reason why you don’t see caps in your cap, is because the supercap fleets that have dropped on me are extremely risk-averse. Even if it isn’t the general trend for cap pilots, it sure looks like it, especially when a cap pilot like you are saying they don’t see capitals. I don’t know.

If I had access to Tranquility stats, I would for sure make an in-depth analysis of these issues. Seeing if my experience is more or less common than I and the people I bump into experience.
But we need CCP to do that.

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And who got those nerfed? Largely the same people crying about capships now. And who was on the other side of the issue then (the ‘defending battleships’ side)? Me.

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Yet you are defending the notion not to restore capitals to be tools, primarily, for Null sec.
Yet you still say that I’m being selfish for wanting to restore some sort of structure that makes sense with capitals and especially supers/titans.
I’m sorry if the things that would need to be changed stops you from solo killing in low sec with capitals.
But that playstyle is ruining the middle ground of PVP.
The reason that I am up at arms about these thing is that now that Null is moving away from capital warfare (partly because of the changes to capitals the past 2-3 years), pilots like you are moving to Low to ■■■■ everyone over, because that where the easy and risk averse PVP capital content is now.
That makes no sense. Lore wise, Ship wise, and an a dynamic PVP sense.

17

i dont think we should bar capitals from doing solo PvP, the issue is how people wants to stick to the idea that these ships have to be over the rest of the classes in the game.

yes they cost way more materials to produce but that’s why Rorquals are now harvesting 24/7 to fill the quota of materials.

yes they take more skills, but Skill Injectors have bypassed or reduced the time it takes to learn to fly them and someone that can buy and fly a capital ship isnt exactly poor.

so compared to what it was years before they are way more easily produced, can be way more easily learned to fly and fitted. they dont completely replace subcaps for certain activities but their proliferation offsets the value they were supposed to have and causes a break in the balance due to their exaggerated power.

proliferation by itself cannot be eliminated, only managed, Pirate Ships got an increase in material costs and i think something about the avaliability of BPCs but these measures would have less impact on capital ships as the BPOs can be obtained (i think) and it would just mean more influx of alts/players harvesting the materials to compensate those costs.

the only feasible way to fix this is to rebalance the whole ship progression system and bring down capitals to a proper stat curve with the rest of ships in the game. people will still have the benefits of capital ship utility but their stats will be balanced to the avaliability they have now.

1 Like
18

Restore production to Sov space only for supers/titans.
Ban supers/Titans from empire.
Restore gate limitations an all capitals.
Restore their weakness in not being able to apply DPS to smaller ships.
That would stop a lot of proliferation.

Balancing the entire ship-progression is a huge undertaking. I think your suggestions are interesting, and they might just be crazy enough to work. so still, +1

I just really don’t like the argument about skill-injector though. That argument is a Pay-To-Win argument. If not in PLEX payed for in real money, or multibox to earn massive isk to pay for it.

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19

i agree in some of the points but fo the most part would be advocating for capitals to mantain their current state of power under the excuse of travelling limitations.

balancing the entire size progression would bea big undertaking but in honesty, subcaps dont really need it. its the jump from battleship and up that needs to be tweaked.

i like the idea of applying the fixes to all ship sizes because of OCD and rounded/dity numbers compared to CCPs incremental advancements. but yeah that would be a big task to complete for the balance team (or is it? its just changing some values after all, not modifying mechanics).

i still agree that capitals should be restricted from high sec and that they should have proper application limits against smaller vessels, BCs and down for Supers, Cruisers and down for Capitals.

the points i postulated in the comment following the graphs has some examples of what could/should be done to ensure this balance but the proliferation wont be stopped by just limiting their movement. the P2W argument may be right but in EVE nothing is P2W actually, a person could spend a lot of money to inject into using a Titan but it would probably die easily to a seasoned group.

the main argument is that Capitals arent as distant to obtain as they were back in the days, the time required to learn to fly them has been lifted by Injectors and the influx of prime materials provided by Rorquals is powerfull enough to provide the means to make them ships for regular use rather than having them carefully saved up in a POS like it happened in the past, only being released when there was an actually important objective to cover.

that epoch has ended, caps and supers are now regular picks and thus they need to be looked at to ensure their power is in line with the rest of the ships in the game while still being important due to their utility, rather than their raw stats.

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20

im gonna make a revision of some data and make a proposal or something for the Assembly Hall. this thread can still be used for discussing the matter.