Viribus
Autistic Sharks Test Alliance Please Ignore
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Posted - 2011.04.22 18:21:00 -
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I thought it was the position of the CSM that the minutiae of game balancing wasn't their concern?
That said CCP probably has no idea what makes certain ships unpopular and in trying to buff them will manage to **** it up completely so I guess CSM input is needed.
The problem with the gallente ships themselves is that, while they're supposed to be very close range, they don't have the speed or acceleration to get there in comparison to minmatar ships, which have a more flexible engagement range. A competently-piloted 'cane, for example, can kite at point range with barrage or crash into someone and shove 700 dps down their throat with fusion or EMP. That said it's always impressive when someone with a Deimos manages to gank an idiot in a Vaga that let himself get into scram range, but "ganking idiots who don't know how the game works" isn't really a viable niche for an entire race of ships.
We talked about this on kugu and more or less agreed the best buff to gallente would involve:
- An across-the-board reduction of inertial modifier. Having gallente ships accelerate extremely fast but not have a very high top speed would augment their supposed role of close-range DPS very well. They'd have the acceleration to clear, say, 10-15km from a standstill very quickly, but not the speed to dictate range in any sort of extended fight, as a minmatar ship would.
- Increase in blaster tracking. The DPS advantage of blasters is more-or-less negated by the reality that, without a 90% web, they have some trouble tracking within their ideal range.
- Increase in the grid cost of top-tier autocannons. Gallente, being primarily small gang or solo oriented-ships (unless drone/blaster boats have some fleet role I haven't heard of), find most of their competition in minmatar, and at the moment autocannon fitting is pretty broken. Blasters do more DPS on paper, yeah, but you're almost never able to fit a tank and neutrons at the same time. A thorax, for example, after fitting an 800 plate and an MWD, can't even fit a full rack of Ions without downgrading one to an electron. A rupture can do the same with 425s and two utility highs. Virtually all cruiser and battlecruiser hulls can fit top-tier autocannons with no issue due to their disproportionately low fitting cost. Even a vagabond, which makes special mention of its low grid, can fit 2 T2 LSEs, a Y-T, and 425s with no fitting mods save a PG-4. I've literally never seen someone fit dual 425s to a minmatar battleship, since the only reason to do so would be for the extra tracking.
Other balance issues:
- Nearly half of the navy faction cruisers are awful and unused. The Navy Exequror, Osprey and Scythe are terrible. It really shouldn't take long to figure out why if you just compare them to T1 cruisers.
- Black Ops need more jump range, as was mentioned, but moreover I think their role in combat needs to be overhauled completely. Specifically, they should be the battleship-sized counterpart to force recons. The Sin should have a point range bonus, the Panther should have a web range bonus, etc. Along with an overhaul of their offensive systems and a general increase in speed and maneuverability to complement their role, because right now they are absolute pigs. An increase in range would be nice but they'd still be boring to fly if they're basically inferior versions of T1 BS.
- The Cerb and the Eagle are awful. Cerb needs a role (sniping missile boat is hilariously bad for obvious reasons) and the Eagle needs a general buff to DPS to make it competitive with the Zealot and the Muninn.
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