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Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 8 post(s) |
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CCP Chronotis
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Posted - 2010.10.14 17:55:00 -
[1]
Drakes on their own are reasonably balanced. When you get 50+ of them all buffer tanking and alpha striking people at upto ~85km as the current FOTM strategy is out there, this underpins their usefulness (max buffer for sig/speed tank and max range with same damage) so this is a scenario specific issue to large fleet warfare. There are counter strategies to this, but drakes+scimitars is an easier to coordinate. The drakes tank or specifically its passive tank does concern us where both can be equally affected in a similar way. Food for thought anyway, we rarely intervene with emergent strategies and tactics as a counter usually matures after some time but will keep an eye on this thread to see what the rest of you think.
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CCP Chronotis
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Posted - 2010.10.20 19:41:00 -
[2]
The follow up really to this is should it be the only ship that does not have to choose between tank and gank. It is certain the range and buffer plus focused common skill set make it favourable for post-dominion fleet fights. and that as I stated in my original post, the ship in small gangs or scenarios is very much more balanced since this focused setup is less appealing there where fighters are close ranged and in small numbers med slots count more.
Talking balance: Fitting any of the other class ships, you are instantly forced into a choice when trying to fit weapons of equivalent range and power. Most will sit at around half the EHP of the drake when trying to do so, whilst the combination of factors (lows for PDU and BCU) and med slots for tank enable it to deliver a pretty awesome package for fleet fights.
It is a hot topic internally as the number of drakes present in fleet fights is rising dramatically in the last six months and with this behaviour change we are witnessing a large impact on performance as the missile usage causes high additional load.
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CCP Chronotis
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Posted - 2010.10.20 20:45:00 -
[3]
Originally by: darius mclever
Originally by: CCP Chronotis
The follow up really to this is should it be the only ship that does not have to choose between tank and gank. It is certain the range and buffer plus focused common skill set make it favourable for post-dominion fleet fights. and that as I stated in my original post, the ship in small gangs or scenarios is very much more balanced since this focused setup is less appealing there where fighters are close ranged and in small numbers med slots count more.
Talking balance: Fitting any of the other class ships, you are instantly forced into a choice when trying to fit weapons of equivalent range and power. Most will sit at around half the EHP of the drake when trying to do so, whilst the combination of factors (lows for PDU and BCU) and med slots for tank enable it to deliver a pretty awesome package for fleet fights.
It is a hot topic internally as the number of drakes present in fleet fights is rising dramatically in the last six months and with this behaviour change we are witnessing a large impact on performance as the missile usage causes high additional load.
i think one thing you want to factor in, drakes are often used to counter armor tanked HACs with AB.
Yeah, I more referred to those in the "emergent strategies" bit of my original reply here. We aren't saying the ship on its own is overpowered beyond the fact it doesn't have to choose as much as the others its fitting. When put in that blob scenario is is very powerful and unfortunately causes far greater load than would be ideal.
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CCP Chronotis
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Posted - 2010.10.20 20:58:00 -
[4]
Originally by: darius mclever Edited by: darius mclever on 20/10/2010 20:51:06 so instead of workaround the missile issue with nerfing drakes so they get less popular ... how about fixing missiles instead?
(and yes i use missile boats a lot, in different flavors)
All cards are on the table, we are merely analyzing for now with a high degree of concern its rapid rise in popularity and being open about it. The main two balancing points we are looking further at are its shield recharge and its ability to fit both for EHP and damage/damage projection very easily compared to others. The rest is scenario specific and not a fault of the drake.
Consider the two issues separate if you will, the balance vs the rest of the class and the load it creates in fleet fight scenarios. We do indeed hope to address all missiles at some point. This is merely a heads up on an early stage investigation where nothing is set in stone.
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CCP Chronotis
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Posted - 2010.10.20 21:00:00 -
[5]
Originally by: Kaliba Mort
I'm hoping you are not alluding to nerfing the drake because missiles cause load.
Nope, not at all, the balancing part as stated above is considered separate discussion which mostly revolves around class comparison and explaining popularity. We would definitely not nerf it because missiles caused load. That is a side effect on its own.
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CCP Chronotis
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Posted - 2010.10.22 11:00:00 -
[6]
Some really good opinions here. Remember this is atypical of our usual communication which comes following on from some action or pending change. Here we are experimenting in communication and catalyzing an open debate on a question posed regarding drake popularity and whether it is due to it being imbalanced and gathering opinion on that.
As stated in earlier responses which I see some of you skipped(!), we would never nerf the drake because it used missiles and missiles cause additional load, that would be nonsensical indeed as many note.
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CCP Chronotis
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Posted - 2010.10.28 17:51:00 -
[7]
Originally by: Malcanis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E9uVtP7IQ4
http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/skyral/thefirewall.mp4 if you want to download it.
Dont worry about drakes. They're easily countered.
We have no doubt that new strategies would emerge given time as posted earlier in the thread (though smartbombs also are quite load heavy albeit pretty - nice vid btw!). It still does not change the reality that we want to ensure enjoyable fleet fights for all which is our primary objective for fleet fights. Currently the drake and the many fleets utilizing it are burdening the server with much higher load simultaneously being the chief cause of the lag and then resilient to lags effects since over the sheer weight of fleet numbers we need to cope with.
The logical path is to drill down and find the root cause of this popularity, something we have done by posing the question openly with you all as well to which many of you have objectively or passionately replied and broached the topic nicely which has been very cool to see. If the reason is imbalance in the ship itself or with the missiles, then its typically something that is straight forward to change in a much shorter time frame than our longer term investigation and refactoring of the missile system for example which would take significantly more man-hours (lots and lots comparatively but it will be done someday).
The fighter bombers are receiving fake missiles but changing missiles you are I fire from a ship takes a lot more design and code work since we need to redo many of the game mechanics surrounding missiles if that is to happen and is not something we would label short term or even medium term to an extent given the size of the change.
As CCP Atlas commented on here, we are exploring all possibilities right now. One thing that has risen from our analysis of fleet fights for example of the many drake pilots, is that only half are grouping their launchers. This obviously causes a multiplicative load value since we must track 7 missiles instead of 1 or 2 as would be usual with grouped weapons to comment on one of the other avenues we are exploring alongside investigating game balance. This could be vindictive in that they are deliberately causing load to utilize it as a weapon in lag resilient setups or we prefer the better scenario that we need to add a little more incentive to group weapons which is also being explored as well.
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CCP Chronotis
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Posted - 2010.10.28 18:37:00 -
[8]
Originally by: Hori To
been told to ungroup guns for fleet fights, because ungrouped guns perform better under laggy conditions.
We are aware of this request from FCs to do this and why. It is also being worked as well with potential good changes going out to remedy this this.
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