Connall Tara
Conquering Darkness
76
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Posted - 2013.05.04 15:09:00 -
[1] - Quote
Whelp... I guess I'm going to have to break my fan boyish trend of teiricide love and hopefully argue against these changes. This'll be new...
now while I could sit down and quote-war this whole affair to buggery I think it would be better to just try and cover why I believe this may be a mistake for the rebalancing effort. In previous teiricide effects it should be noted that ships, as a whole, have seen an upward trend in power, performance and efficiency. Condors are very much as worthwhile as merlin now, while before the changes the condor was barely more useful than the minerals it was built from, mainly as a means to invent and produce crows.
The battleship line however... has not seen these kinds of changes. Unlike any other class within eve the battleships were VERY close to being internally balanced with only the caldari and gallente really suffering from GÇ£worthlessGÇ¥ ships in regards to pvp, specifically the Raven and the Hyperion, while both the minmatar and amarr had a solid and dependable line of battleship class vessels. There were issues with these other races as well of course, the typhoon had significant issues reaching its full potential needing not two but three separate weapon systems brought up to scratch while the amarrians tended to decide which ship they would use not on purpose, but on price.
Overall, I'm very much in favour of the new battleships statistics and intentions, however I would also suggest that the biggest balance issue inherent with battleships is not the distinctions between teirs 1-3, such as with previous classes of ship, but the clash of roles, purpose and effect the battleships have to fight with against the battle cruisers.
Now don't get me wrong, IGÇÖm not going to sperg out about how battleships should be the end all of combat, they most certainly shouldn't. Battleships certainly have advantages in terms of tank and raw fire-power, large guns give them a significant edge in terms of reach which easily make them the premier fleet damage platform available in the game. Combined with stiff tanks and ample room for the odd bit of support module the battleship has its place as the stalwart ship of the line... or at least it did. The impact of the attack battle cruiser class has sadly seriously impacted this position in the eve ship line up. As the size of an engagement increases, the unfortunate demand for alpha begins to outstrip the need for tank and the battleship's durability becomes a hindrance as the reduced speed and agility they have to surrender for it become more crippling problems, something attack battle cruisers have in ample supply, even after the changes. When battle's reach these inordinate sizes the combat admittedly becomes less about tank/gank as much as alpha/reload. Its rather unfortunate and something we can only hope CCP is working on.
Of course this is only talking about large scale combat, but what about smaller engagements? How about roams? Not much better here really. Outside of its natural environment, the fleet, the battleship finds itself in need of smaller escorts to protect it against craft its unable to escape or hit. The battle cruiser is simply a much more favourable platform in these instances, the attack battle cruisers have the straight line speed and massive damage to be effective at this level while the more standard combat battle cruisers bring a blend of speed, durability and fire-power the battleships simply can't compare to. This is natural and I believe a solid balancing point, however this is also where the issue arises, the battleship class has steadily been marginalised as newer ships have been introduced into the game, the attack battle cruisers were the first step but the new line of navy battle cruisers are going to encroach on this even more so with their excellent damage and superior application via tracking and explosion radius bonuses.
My other major concern is the explanation provided for this GÇ£price rangeGÇ¥. I'm a firm backer of the teiricide movement but the decision to balance future prices based on current market performance seems a bit absurd. I've got a couple of questions about this.
1) Why has the decision to change prices been based on current market performance and not ship performance? It seems counterproductive to the concept of the rebalancing project which is intended to ensure that all ships are useful, pricing based on current trends is based on current balance layouts as much as anything else.
2) Has the crossover in tasks and the predicted prices of the new battle cruisers been taken into account in these decisions?, and if so can you describe this in what you believe we'll see in isk efficiency?
OK technically 2.5 questions but you get the idea.
For the too long/didn't read explanation it seems highly questionable to be basing a balance decision on the current state of the market rather than the value of the ships as they will be come odyssey.
I want these changes to go through, but I want to try and ensure that these decisions are being made from a balance point of view rather than one born of economic pressures. The economy should react to the nature of the ships, not the reverse.
Fly reckless cohost and all round bad pilot o7 |