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Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 20 post(s) |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
920
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Posted - 2012.08.09 13:39:00 -
[1] - Quote
Insert tired and overused Game of Thrones reference here.
Good news everyone! Now that we have Inferno 1.2 out the door we're going to start posting threads for stuff we are working on for the winter. My first set is the T1 EW frigs (Crucifier, Griffin, Maulus, Vigil). We're giving them the tiericide treatment which means that since they were formerly low-tier they are getting very significant buffs.
Our vision for these ships is that they become commonly used by newer players to take useful roles in fleets of many sizes. These changes are not being made in a vaccum, we expect to release them alongside a lot more balance changes in the Winter that should include the T1 EW cruisers and some tweaks to certain ewar mechanics themselves (among other things).
The Crucifier and Vigil are being given strong roles towards longer range disruption, and the fact that the Griffin and Maulus are more medium range oriented is intended and part of the overall environment change.
We also realize that these changes will make the current problems with EAFs even more obvious, and we're putting a lot of thought into them as well.
Like all the posts we make in this forum, these ships are a work in progress and we're looking for as much feedback as possible.
Without further ado, here's what we've got so far:
CRUCIFIER:
Frigate skill bonuses: 7.5% Bonus to Tracking Disruptor effectiveness per level 10% Bonus to Tracking Disruptor optimal range per level Slot layout: 2 H, 4 M (+1), 3 L, 2 turrets Fittings: 27 PWG (+2), 235 CPU (+20) Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 250(-24) / 400(+25) / 350(+21) Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 330 (+80)/ 180s (-7.5s)/ 1.8333333 (+0.5) Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass): 350 (+68) / 3.35(-1.09) / 1064000 Drones (bandwidth / bay): 15(+10) / 45(+40) Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 64km (+16.5) / 540 (+100) / 6 Sensor strength: 14 Radar Signature radius: 38 (-8) Cargo capacity: 265 (+100)
GRIFFIN:
Frigate skill bonuses (unchanged): 15% Bonus to ECM Jammer strength per level 10% Bonus to ECM Jammer cap use per level Slot layout: 2 H (-1), 5 M (+1), 2 L (+1), 2 launchers Fittings: 24 PWG (-1), 240 CPU (+15) Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 400(+9) / 250 / 250 Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 245 (-5)/ 135s (-52.5s)/ 1.815 (+0.482) Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass): 325 (+38) / 3.5(+0.14) / 1056000 Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0 Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 65km (+5) / 500 (+100) / 6 (+1) Sensor strength: 17 Gravimetric Signature radius: 42 (-8) Cargo capacity: 260 (+100)
MAULUS:
Frigate skill bonuses: 7.5% Bonus to Sensor Damp effectiveness per level 10% Bonus to Drone MWD velocity and Drone control range per level Slot layout: 2 H (-1), 4 M (+1), 3 L (+1), 2 turrets Fittings: 26 PWG (+1), 230 CPU (+10) Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 300(-13) / 350(-1) / 400(+71) Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 275 (+25)/ 150s (-37.5s)/ 1.8333333 (+0.5) Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass): 375 (+69) / 3.25(-0.626) / 1063000 Drones (bandwidth / bay): 20(+10) / 30(+20) Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 64.5km (+14.5) / 520 (+100) / 6 Sensor strength: 16 Magnetometric Signature radius: 40 (-8) Cargo capacity: 275 (+100)
VIGIL:
Frigate skill bonuses: 7.5% Bonus to Target Painter effectiveness per level 10% Bonus to Target Painter optimal range per level Slot layout: 2 H (-1), 5 M (+2), 2 L (-1), 2 launchers Fittings: 25 PWG , 225 CPU (+15) Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 350(+76) / 300(+26) / 300(+42) Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 235 (-15)/ 130s (-57.5s)/ 1.8077 (+0.57) Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass): 400 (+47) / 3.22 / 1080000 Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0 Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 63.5km (+18.5) / 560 (+105) / 6 Sensor strength: 12 Ladar Signature radius: 36 (-8) Cargo capacity: 250 (+100) |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
920
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Posted - 2012.08.09 13:54:00 -
[2] - Quote
Michael Harari wrote:Increased drone velocity is actually harmful, since it makes the drones overshoot.
Also for gods sake, fix ecm before you start buffing ecm ships.
I've done a fair bit of testing with the 10% per level bonus and it's worked well so far. May get changed though with further testing. I also tried a 20% per level bonus for fun and it did break things in quite funny ways.
As for the second part, I have plans. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
922
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Posted - 2012.08.09 14:59:00 -
[3] - Quote
We completely understand that the drone speed and control range bonus on the Maulus is a fairly weak bonus. I consider the extra 10m3 dronebay the bigger portion of the buff to it's damage dealing.
The drone speed and control range was mostly chosen since it's a bonus that has good synergy with damps as well as little chance of becoming too powerful. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
923
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Posted - 2012.08.09 15:09:00 -
[4] - Quote
Cameron Zero wrote:Quote:VIGIL:
Frigate skill bonuses: 7.5% Bonus to Target Painter effectiveness per level 10% Bonus to Target Painter optimal range per level Slot layout: 2 H (-1), 5 M (+2), 2 L (-1), 2 launchers Fittings: 25 PWG , 225 CPU (+15) Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 350(+76) / 300(+26) / 300(+42) Capacitor (amount / recharge rate / cap per second): 235 (-15)/ 130s (-57.5s)/ 1.8077 (+0.57) Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass): 400 (+47) / 3.22 / 1080000 Drones (bandwidth / bay): 0 / 0 Targeting (max targeting range / Scan Resolution / Max Locked targets): 63.5km (+18.5) / 560 (+105) / 6 Sensor strength: 12 Ladar Signature radius: 36 (-8) Cargo capacity: 250 (+100) This will see the Vigil's speed bonus removed, right? Guess it's time to say good bye to the fastest T1 frigate in the game and go looking for something else that can play with the Interceptors. ;p
The new Slasher isn't quite as fast as a level 5 Vigil, but I think you'll still like it. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
923
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Posted - 2012.08.09 15:16:00 -
[5] - Quote
I'd rather make target painters good, but that's actually a fairly complex issue. (Doesn't make me any less interested in doing it, just means it might take some time) |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
941
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Posted - 2012.08.13 11:17:00 -
[6] - Quote
Hey everyone. Thanks for the feedback, it's been great to see so much discussion on these ships.
Remember that we have plenty of time to tweak things and take feedback into account with all these ship changes so we'll be continuing to iterate up to and beyond the winter release.
From the feedback you've been giving I'm preparing the next (and definitely not the last) set of slight tweaks to the ship design, including heavily considering giving the Griffin and the Vigil their drone buddies back. Will update the OP soon.
To answer a few specific concerns:
I don't think we'll be seeing the full speed of an old level 5 Vigil return. The only way to balance that kind of speed on a t1 ewar frigate is to make the ship otherwise suck, which isn't really the direction we want to go with it. If you are looking for a superfast tech one frigate I advise taking a peek at the new Slasher, it's pretty dope.
The idea of matching the painter bonus with a missile damage bonus was actually the first one on the table, but we rejected it mainly because painters have virtually no effect on frigate size missiles in practical use. Look for the idea to return at ship sizes where it can work more effectively.
We'll be getting the proposed changes to ewar out to you guys as soon as we can, don't worry it will be available to you long before the patch release so we can have a good discussion about them. I totally understand that you can't give full feedback on these ships until you see those details, and I'm going to be setting aside time to focus on this thread again to digest the extra wave of feedback once we make that ewar post.
As for the Maulus, I'm keeping the idea of changing the drone bonus to a damp cap use bonus in mind as a strong option. I do however believe that with the design of the ship as it is making that switch would reduce the power of the Maulus. I look forward to letting you guys get your hands on the ship on the test server as I think the relative weakness of that one bonus belies the fact that the rest of the ship stats (especially the big dronebay) have turned it into a very powerful and fun frigate for small and medium gangs. If you guys still think it's underpowered after getting a chance to kick the wheels I can always swap the bonus to damp cap use to help focus it even more on the ewar role.
Keep up the feedback I really do appreciate it. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
941
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Posted - 2012.08.13 12:43:00 -
[7] - Quote
Lunaleil Fournier wrote:CCP Fozzie,
I posted this in the destroyer thread for Ytterbium, but would appreciate your opinions on ship variation and uniqueness as well .... (I'd say maybe the racial EW bonuses should be a role bonus, and a ship bonus be added to add uniqueness in the case of EAFs)
I am concerned that ships undergoing re-balancing are starting to look a bit too.....standardized. While standardization makes balancing easier, it saps uniqueness and variation from the different races and ships within the same class.
The slot layouts for destroyers....8/2/3 or 8/3/2. You did this also for the EAFs.....2/4/3 or 2/5/2. All ships within these two classes also have bonuses that mirror each other (racially, of course)
Where's the variation? Why are there only 2 slot layouts per class instead of 3 or 4? Where's the destroyer that uses speed and damage to take out frigs, the destroyer that's slower but focuses on scram/web to take them out, and the destroyer that doesn't have the big damage but tanks the assault frigates better? (I'll refer to these as sub-roles)
Lets take Combat Recons for example. Same role, EW based. 4 different slot layouts. All have racial EW bonuses, but fight very different because of their sub-roles....Huginn based on slowing people down, Lachesis based on locking people down, Curse based on disabling ships down, and Rook based on jamming ships down. Shouldn't all ship classes try to be as varied and interesting?
Can you take some time to explain your philosophy on keeping ships within the same class unique, while making them balanced?
It's an excellent point, but one thing we've found is that making viable ships with few slots (like frigates that are stuck at 9 or 10 slots, or destroyers which have 8 of their 13 slots locked up in the highs) limits options for slot layouts quite a bit. Once we get to ships with more than 10 slots it gets easier and easier to vary the slot layouts between each ship.
We're counting on other statistics and bonuses to vary the way each ship flies more than the slot layouts for frigates and destroyers. That being said we're always looking to take feedback into account and you may see some slot changes to increase variation as best we can while keeping all the ships useful. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
945
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Posted - 2012.08.13 15:10:00 -
[8] - Quote
To a large extent we are intending the Slasher to take the place of the old Vigil. You're right that it was a really fun ship: I have great memories of defending POS against overwhelming assaults using nothing but alpha clone vigil characters and gunners. That being said, part of the revamp of the EW frig class is that we want to make all of the ships viable for ewar, not just for being fast. In the case of the Vigil, it will be getting worse for solo play, although I do believe that the optimal bonus will give it a place in fleets (try to fight an army of Tengus and then tell me TPs are useless). We also want to make TPs more usable in more situations, but that will primarily involve changes to the rest of the environment as opposed to changes to the TP module itself.
As for the fittings question, yes I do think we can reasonably increase the PG on the Vigil without causing problems. Main reason for the intentionally tight PG is to prevent people from too easily fitting heavy buffer tanks, but we may have pushed that a bit too far. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
970
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Posted - 2012.08.14 12:54:00 -
[9] - Quote
Ok new update taking some of the feedback so far into account as well as some more testing.
We found that although the Maulus' 10% per level drone speed bonus was working quite well in most test cases, it was still causing drones to repeatedly overshoot against targets with very small hitboxes. This meant that the Maulus was having a hard time applying damage to shuttles and pods primarily. Combined with the desire many of you have voiced to see the ships focused more clearly on an ewar role and the fact that the ship is intended to be viable for newer players who will have weak cap skills, we're swapping the drone bonus for a 10% reduction in dampener cap use per level.
We're also making a series of small tweaks to the ships in this iteration, details of which are below:
Griffin: +5 dronebay and bandwidth Maulus: Changed bonus to damp cap use, +2 pg Vigil: +5 dronebay and bandwidth, +1 pg, +1.5 km lockrange, +10 velocity, -2 signature radius
The OP has been updated with these changes. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
974
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Posted - 2012.08.14 13:16:00 -
[10] - Quote
Del Vikus wrote:CCP Fozzie wrote: Vigil: +5 dronebay and bandwidth, +1 pg, +1.5 km lockrange, +10 velocity, -2 signature radius
Look, I'm glad you've been open to suggestions...but I fear that you're inventing your own here. Among which of the feedback posts have folks been saying, "Removing that drone nerfed the Vigil"? Correspondingly, giving it BACK doesn't change the fact that it's still lost a lowslot and the only useful bonus it had. Yay for 1 more PG (it could use another), but the rest is just laughable.
The Vigil changes are intentionally minor. We can keep tweaking as we go forward (especially as they hit the test server so people can try them out)
The Vigil won't be getting the 5% speed bonus back, sorry. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
974
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Posted - 2012.08.14 13:31:00 -
[11] - Quote
Michael Harari wrote:What about removing the actually harmful speed bonus on the maulus' drones? 50% velocity means light drones will lose tons of damage to overshooting
I had originally tested the +50% bonus and found that as long as you don't fit any navigation computers on top of the bonus the drones responded quite well against most targets. Going back and retesting with shuttles and pods found that the problem still existed for the really small hitboxes.
So as I posted above we're dropping the drone speed bonus and replacing it with a cap use bonus for damps.
I still really like the concept of a drone "sniper" and feel it would have good synergy with damps, but for now we'll have to shelve the idea. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
979
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Posted - 2012.08.14 15:36:00 -
[12] - Quote
Marcel Devereux wrote:Can you please comment on why the Malaus does not have the largest drone bay? You gave the Executioner 3 flights of drones while the Malaus only has 1.5.
Having lower drone bandwidth but larger bays is a racial trait of Amarr droneships. See the Sentinel or Arbitrator for similar layouts. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
984
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Posted - 2012.08.14 20:23:00 -
[13] - Quote
John Nucleus wrote:CCP Fozzie wrote:Marcel Devereux wrote:Can you please comment on why the Malaus does not have the largest drone bay? You gave the Executioner 3 flights of drones while the Malaus only has 1.5. Having lower drone bandwidth but larger bays is a racial trait of Amarr droneships. See the Sentinel or Arbitrator for similar layouts. I think you missed the tormentor with this philosophy. It only has 10/10.
Tormentor isn't considered a true Amarr droneboat, it's a gunboat that also has a significant dronebay as a secondary weapon, like the Armageddon.
And yes I know this can get somewhat complicated, but in the end the main goals are always balance and interesting gameplay. The racial traits are useful guidelines to help towards those goals. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
985
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Posted - 2012.08.14 21:23:00 -
[14] - Quote
Marcel Devereux wrote:CCP Fozzie wrote:John Nucleus wrote:CCP Fozzie wrote:Marcel Devereux wrote:Can you please comment on why the Malaus does not have the largest drone bay? You gave the Executioner 3 flights of drones while the Malaus only has 1.5. Having lower drone bandwidth but larger bays is a racial trait of Amarr droneships. See the Sentinel or Arbitrator for similar layouts. I think you missed the tormentor with this philosophy. It only has 10/10. Tormentor isn't considered a true Amarr droneboat, it's a gunboat that also has a significant dronebay as a secondary weapon, like the Armageddon. And yes I know this can get somewhat complicated, but in the end the main goals are always balance and interesting gameplay. The racial traits are useful guidelines to help towards those goals. Understood but your racial guidelines for Amarr drone boats are consistent across the board (i.e. 3:1 ratio). For Gallente you have the Vexor at 1.33, the Eos, Ishkur, and Myrmidon at 2, the Dominix, Ishtar, and Utu at 3, and the Dominix Navy Issue and Sin at 3.2 (seems to be the case for T2 and faction drone boats except for the Ishtar). My pattern recognition implant is malfunctioning and I can not discern a guideline for any race other than Amarr. Can you please state the drone boat guidelines for each of the races. I'm looking forward to the complicated equation for Gallente ;-)
It's simply what would be balanced for the ship itself. Generally the Gallente extra dronebay improves as the the ships get larger and more advanced but that's not in stone. I can say for instance that I'm going to be introducing an entirely new ratio for that list before the end of the week. Sorry in advance. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
986
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Posted - 2012.08.14 21:35:00 -
[15] - Quote
Marcel Devereux wrote:CCP Fozzie wrote: It's simply what would be balanced for the ship itself. Generally the Gallente extra dronebay improves as the the ships get larger and more advanced but that's not in stone. I can say for instance that I'm going to be introducing an entirely new ratio for that list before the end of the week. Sorry in advance.
Should I start drinking now to drown my sorrows? Maybe poor one out for Gallente ?-)
Oh I really like the ship, but it doesn't fit any established bandwidth/dronebay ratio that's all. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
1045
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Posted - 2012.08.17 13:17:00 -
[16] - Quote
Obsidiana wrote:It's page ten and several posts in. While plenty of people are fine with the changes, many have expresses concern over TP as a Minmatar bonus. This has taken place in this thread and many others.
CCP Fozzie, thank you for replying to so many in this thread. I appreciated every dev post. It seems clear that you don't agree with the TP change or do not have the authority to change it. Could you at least counter debate my points?
1. In this time of drastic change, isn't this a good time to consider changing the Minmatar EWar?
2. EWar ships are directly protected by direct disruption. TP is not direct disruption. Doesn't that leave it directly unprotected? Is this not a fallacy in applying ship design philosophy?
I actually recall when the bonuses on these ships where changed to EWar. Caldari was not always the ECM race. The Scorpion was not always an ECM boat.
3. Would it not be a smaller change to switch one type of EWar for another than to reduce all EWar down to one?
I read about the Minmatar missile buff coming in the future. They are set to have a TP bonus on those missile ships. I expect they Typhoon to retain its strong defense. By CCP standards, this will be the second EWar BS.
4. Doesn't a Phoon with a strong defense and offence break the EWar design philosophy that says the opposite?
5. With this new initiative, doesn't it make sense to give a TP bonus to the Breacher? Wouldn't it out shine and be more useful than the TP Vigil? Wouldn't the total small gang or fleet damage be greater with fully revamped TP Breachers in most cases?
1. We have seriously considered it yes, including considering having TDs shared between Amarr and Minmatar. What we concluded was that increasing the number of situations where target painters are useful was a better long term goal.
2. The primary damage reduction method for the Vigil is speed, range and signature radius. On larger ships it will be a combination of those factors and heavier local defenses
3 and 4 are basically covered above
5. Was part of the original plan, but the problem is that frigate missiles do not receive significant benefits from TDs. The idea isn't going away though.
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
1050
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Posted - 2012.08.17 16:26:00 -
[17] - Quote
mkint wrote:CCP Fozzie: what metrics are you going to use to determine if these changes are successful? I.e. these frigs not only get used more but get used for their intended purpose? I can't imagine any changes you could make that would make td and damps a better choice than fitting 'wrong' ewar. If any of these balance changes fails, how will you detect that and how will you compensate?
Feedback from the forums, the test servers, the CSM, the pvp experience of devs using the ships, with a light salting of statistics here and there. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
1050
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Posted - 2012.08.17 16:47:00 -
[18] - Quote
GeeShizzle MacCloud wrote:heyy fozzie! nice to see u on the forums and keeping in touch with us! in terms of these ewar frigs etc... and general frig combat, i couldnt be cheeky and ask u to check out the second part of this post could i? <3
I'd kinda rather just let frigates in certain circumstances use ewar against supercaps so that the supercaps need to be supported by fleets that can pick off the ewar frigates. |
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CCP Fozzie
C C P C C P Alliance
1065
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Posted - 2012.08.20 13:01:00 -
[19] - Quote
Bouh Revetoile wrote:Sui'Djin wrote: interesting idea. Why shouldn't painters be able to also decrease a targets' signature (via inverter script)? This way they could also have a defensive roll and maybe help logistics. It would make painters more versatile.
This would be support ; though, maybe a script to increase sig res of ennemy turrets ?
This was one of the suggestions that came up in internal brainstorming as well, unfortunately it actually has the exact same effect as a tracking disruptor since sig res and tracking are both equal in the tracking formula. |
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CCP Ytterbium
C C P C C P Alliance
1351
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Posted - 2012.12.04 10:43:00 -
[20] - Quote
Unsticking, let's make some space for future threads. |
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