CCP Ytterbium
C C P
C C P Alliance
736
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Posted - 2012.06.15 17:03:00 -
[1] - Quote
Hey folks, thanks for the feedback, here are some answers for you.
- WHY WORKING ON FRIGATES FIRST WHEN SO MANY OTHER SHIPS CLASSES ARE BROKEN?(battlecruisers in particular): thatGÇÖs mainly because we are not just fixing ships, but overhauling EVE balancing as a whole by removing tiers. This is an extremely tricky move, which is why we want to start to get experience with frigates first before we move to the more problematic hulls.
Also, frigates suffer the most from current tiers issues, and as the first vessels provided to new players, not reflecting a good image of the game if they are being told to skip them entirely to train for battlecruisers. Finally, it's virtually impossible to hit everyone wishes at once with one set of changes, as we have hundreds of ship to go through and there is unfortunately no guarantee we can directly fix the ship you are interested in. We know it's hard to ask such a thing after years of neglect, but please be patient, we will get to them eventually 
- HAVE YOU CONSIDERED MOVING SOME FRIGATE HULLS INTO DESTROYERS? Yes, we have in the past, but that idea was dropped it would create inconsistencies between the different model sizes. Besides, we preferred introducing new toys for you to play with, because all that new glittering usually is much more excitGǪ ooooh, shiny!
- ARE THERE GOING TO BE INDUSTRY / INVENTION ADJUSTMENTS PLANNED TO ALL THESE OVERHAULED SHIPS? Yes, that is part of the GÇ£tiericideGÇ¥ project, but we want to wait until we finish all ships from a specific size before this is considered to avoid frequent disruptions to the economy.
- WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH THE HULK AFTER THE CHANGE? Exact modifications are still vague, but the plan is to quite reduce its cargo hold and add an ore bay of the same size than the removed cargo hold. That means cargo expanders and rigs wonGÇÖt affect the ore bay at all, requiring players to unload ore more frequently. This is by design, as we want the Hulk to be moved into a fleet purpose that has to rely on others to make proper use of its best mining output. That also means we will not be introducing items that affect the ore bay size.
- DRONES USUALLY DON'T MIX WELL WITH LONG RANGE COMBAT DUE TO TRAVEL TIME; HOW DO YOU PLAN TO TACKLE THIS? Again, this is quite a bit early to tell, but an option is to have drone frigates provide a bonus to drone speed and tracking instead of just raw damage. Not only it avoids making them too much overpowering next to other frigates, but also provides an appealing purpose next to the larger drone hulls.
- WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG TO MAKE SUCH CHANGES? WHY ARE YOU TAKING SO MUCH TIME REBALANCING THINGS WHEN YOU STATED PERFECT BALANCE WAS NOT POSSIBLE? ThatGÇÖs tied to the first point of this reply: we are totally revamping EVE balancing philosophy, and that unfortunately takes time. Even if perfect balance cannot be achieved, we still wish to take proper time in our balancing process to weight options, consider player feedback for iterations instead of just rushing to get everything done as fast as possible.
- ARE WE RECEIVING NEW MODELS FOR THE REVAMPED SHIP ROLES, LIKE THE BANTAM? Nope, not at the moment. It could be worse though, you could be flying a Moa
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- ARE WE RECEIVING A DEDICATED GAS MINING SHIP? A point that needs to be taken into consideration GÇô if that is possible we will integrate it into the Skiff, otherwise you may have to wait for a dedicated hull to arrive.
- HOW ARE YOU GOING TO TACKLE CAPACITOR ISSUES WITH TECH 1 ATTACK FRIGATES? First, by increasing their capacitor quite a bit, then by possibly having a fixed role bonus, even if we are not too fond of that on tech 1 ships. A most likely option would be to have a capacitor reduction to warp scrambler and disruptors on them just like on Interceptors.
- ARE YOU CONSIDERING CHANGING SOME FRIGATES TO FILL A LOGISTIC ROLE? Not at the moment, as we do not believe frigate hulls would be quite tailored for such a role: they are too frail and lack range to do the job properly. See the answer below for a more details on logistic ship plans.
- SINCE MINING FRIGATES ARE GOING AWAY, IS THERE ANY PLAN TO DO THE SAME WITH THE POOR MINING CRUISERS? Definitely, we want to remove mining bonuses from the current tier 1 cruisers and properly emphasize their logistic role when we start overhauling the cruiser class.
- ARE YOU PLANNING ON REVAMPING TECH2 SHIPS THAT MAY BECOME OBSOLETE WITH SUCH CHANGES, LIKE THE ELECTRONIC ATTACK FRIGATES? Well itGÇÖs not like EAS are not obsolete already, but hell yes we do want to improve them. However we first want to finish all tech 1 hulls before we move into more complex matters to have a frame of reference we can base ourselves upon.
- ARE YOU PLANNING ON CHANGING FRIGATE SKILL LEVELS AS PER OF THE "TIERICIDE" INITIATIVE? Yes, forgot to mention that point in the blog. Plan is to move all tech 1 frigate skill requirement to 1, while level 4 is used to jump into destroyers.
- WILL EXHUMER SHIP SPECIALIZATIONS BE AFFECTED BY SUCH CHANGES? Most likely not, except maybe for the Skiff as mentioned above.
- ARE YOU CONSIDERING A ROLE OR ANY KIND OF BONUS TO MAKE FRIGATES BETTER AT LIGHTING UP CYNOSURAL FIELDS? We donGÇÖt necessarily want to make capital fleets easier to move than they already are, but if such an attribute is considered it will most likely be on the support frigates (Magnate, Heron, Imicus, Probe).
- WILL THE BANTAM BE A MISSILE SHIP AS PROMISED A LONG TIME AGO? The blog specified it would be changed to a sniper role to take over for the Merlin overhaul, which means using hybrids turrets. If you like missiles, the Condor and Kestrel will be your hulls of choice. We also would like to remind you that quite contrary to popular beliefs, Caldari main weapon systems are missiles, ECM and hybrid turrets. So you better start training those gunnery skills as we also plan to overhaul the Moa and Ferox to be actually used as gun boats in the future.
- COULD YOU PLEASE AVOID USING LIGHT MISSILES ON FRIGATES, AS SUCH WEAPON SYSTEM ISN'T THAT GREAT IN THE FIRST PLACE? We may look at them if we find they arenGÇÖt that great during the frigate balancing.
- WILL THE NEW ORE BAY ON MINING BARGES SHOW UP ON SCAN OR DROP ORE WHEN THE SHIP IS DESTROYED? That question is still being investigated and will be tackled when we get to the actual mining barge balancing.
- WILL THE EXHUMER SKILL ALSO BE AFFECTED BY THE "TIERICIDE" INITIATIVE? Yes, all Ex...
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