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[Odyssey 1.1] Heavy Assault Cruisers - round two

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Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 23 post(s)

CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 1825	Posted - 2013.07.29 12:02:00 - [1] - Quote Hello! Lets get back to this HAC thing. The first HAC proposal raised discussion around tons of topics. Common ones included our overall design for tech levels, the way HACs intersect with tech 1, tech 3, and faction ships and of course specific input on ship-by-ship stats and performance. I want to try and cover as much of this as possible so get some tea or something. Lets start with role. We've had several presentations and posts and dev blogs now which explain that tech 1 is general and tech 2 is specialized. While this is certainly our high-level goal, it will be compromised occasionally when the specifics of a certain project have other goals that pull in another direction. HACs are an example. The reality is that when HACs were first introduced they were just cruisers on steroids. The defensive benefits of added resists were the most distinct 'specialization', but they were nowhere near as specialized as something like Recons or Stealth Bombers. With the rebalance effort here, we discussed entirely new roles or specializations that would be more in-line with the high level ideas we have laid out for all EVE ships, but ultimately decided that it wasn't worth completely throwing out the ships we had. Not only do they have a lot of history in the game, which leads to attachment, but they also have a lot of legitimate use already which we wanted to avoid disrupting if possible. Now all that said, most of the feedback was in agreement that you would prefer to have their role more clear and pronounced. Basically, we didn't go far enough by adding the role bonus and it would be better if they stood out more from their competition as being specialized in some way. So, we focused on their resilience. HACs are tough but mobile cruisers that can take a lot of punishment. What we want to do is extend that tenacity to some of their other systems, namely electronics and capacitor. All HACs will gain 7-8 sensor strength, putting their average Sensor Strength at 22 which is right around combat battleship range. All HACs gain 15k to 25k lock range All HACs have their cap recharge per second set to around 5.5 rather than the former 3.5 - 4.5 cap/sec Along with these changes, we are going to go ahead with the originally proposed role bonus. I've seen and participated in tons of talk about this bonus and I keep seeing the same problem - the tracking formula is not intuitive and the confusion leads to this bonus looking less powerful than it actually is. I've made another set of graphs to help illustrate, but please keep in mind that this is just one example and results may vary. DAMAGE GRAPHS On the left is the damage that three different ships (Null Blaster Talos, HML Drake and AHAC Zealot) do to a Sacrilege with its MWD on without the role bonus. On the right is after the role bonus. You can see that the Zealot, which tracks extremely well, isn't heavily affected, but the Talos and the Drake lose about 25% of their DPS. Now we can have a new discussion about how important that 25% is, but its important to understand that we are usually talking about an extremely significant amount of damage mitigation when MWD is active. And again, we know that not all HACs will be running MWDs, but we feel that those configurations are plenty powerful and prefer to support a larger variety of applications by adding the MWD bonus. Alright, lets get to specifics. The big takeaway from feedback (both CSM and public thread) was that we have more room to make HACs more powerful without putting too much pressure on their competition, so watch for that as you read through all the changes. Note: the differences appearing in (parentheses) are as compared to the version of ship on TQ currently, not the first iteration.


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 1825	Posted - 2013.07.29 12:02:00 - [2] - Quote f


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 1825	Posted - 2013.07.29 12:04:00 - [3] - Quote Going upstairs for food, be right back to answer questions =)


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 1843	Posted - 2013.07.29 13:07:00 - [4] - Quote The sac recharge rate is actually wrong in the OP, will fix it. Forgot to adjust it after we removed the bonus. The Cerberus kinetic bonus is not a relic in the same way that the Sacrilege recharge bonus or the Ishtar drone bay bonus were. We talked a lot about the role of damage specific bonuses with the CSM, as they raised the same concerns. Its obvious that the bonus is a bit of a handicap from the perspective of the Cerberus pilot, but we like the gameplay it adds and so we would only want to remove it if the Cerb was really needing more power, which isn't the case. Knowing what kind of damage your opponent is likely to do is just as interesting as knowing which kind of damage your opponent is likely to be weak to. It lets creates interesting decisions for both the Cerb pilot and the Cerb's opponents and we like that.


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 1846	Posted - 2013.07.29 13:17:00 - [5] - Quote MeBiatch wrote: Why is a tracking bonud compelling on a thorax but not a diemos? Because Thorax doesn't also have a falloff bonus and a second damage bonus. The combination would just be way too much on the Deimos.


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 1846	Posted - 2013.07.29 13:20:00 - [6] - Quote Tsubutai wrote: Why does the sacrilege only get a 5%/level missile velocity bonus when all other range-bonused missile hulls get 10%? To be honest I'm surprised this got through without any of us catching it. Switched it to 10% Thanks.


CCP Fozzie C C P C C P Alliance 6811	Posted - 2013.07.29 13:33:00 - [7] - Quote W0lf Crendraven wrote: CCP Rise wrote: Tsubutai wrote: Why does the sacrilege only get a 5%/level missile velocity bonus when all other range-bonused missile hulls get 10%? To be honest I'm surprised this got through without any of us catching it. Switched it to 10% Thanks. Why do you think a range bonus on the sacri would be a good idea (keep in mind that hmls are almost completely useless)? Maybe because missile velocity bonuses are even more beneficial to HAM fits than to HML fits? Game Designer \| Team Five-0 https://twitter.com/CCP_Fozzie http://www.twitch.tv/ccp_fozzie/


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 1863	Posted - 2013.07.29 15:44:00 - [8] - Quote M1k3y Koontz wrote: Kane Fenris wrote: @ CCP so you wont fix the vagabond problem that it has to use barrage to do any dmg? this problem keeps it from fullfilling its role as point range kiter, but it seems you feel diffrent about this. and i strongly believe the stats of beeing one of the most used cruisers is just an afterglow of its former glorious days Rise is happy with a brawling Vaga because of his precious XLASB vaga that he made a video about. Too bad we aren't all Kil2. Would love to see this video if you can link it for me =) Generally pretty happy with this feedback. Little nervous about Ishtar and Cerb because of everyone being so happy, but hopefully we haven't gone too far. For those of you concerned with Vaga I have to say your expectations are a bit over the top, except the complaint that the Cynabal is too good relative to Vaga, which I already said I agree with. Sacrilege folks seem a bit divided depending on how they imagine using it and I promise to keep an eye on the active capabilities following the cap adjustment once people get to start using it, but I think it will be fine.


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 1864	Posted - 2013.07.29 15:51:00 - [9] - Quote Quote: Question Rise.. can you tell us what are the LIKELY next classes that you shall visit? (not askign for ay time, just which direction.. completing t2 cruisers before moving of size? ) I can't be specific, but I can tell you that you should be watching for a post from Fozzie coming up soon =)


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 1865	Posted - 2013.07.29 16:23:00 - [10] - Quote Quote: Soon or Soon (TM)? Smile As always with Fozzie and I there is only Soon no Soon tm If you feel cheated because of the Ishtar "only having three bonuses" you may want to consider that actually it has 7 Sentry drone optimal Sentry drone tracking Heavy drone mwd speed Heavy drone tracking Drone damage Drone hitpoints Drone control range Counting bonuses is usually not an effective way to evaluate a ship, many of our bonuses are actually combinations of bonuses so it rarely makes sense. As the Dominix has proven, Drone tracking and range bonuses are extremely powerful and the combination of this with the rest of the improvement HACs are getting has the Ishtar looking very scary.



CCP Fozzie C C P C C P Alliance 6815	Posted - 2013.07.29 17:15:00 - [11] - Quote Maximus Andendare wrote: Rise, any comment on the Ishtar's Heavy drone bonus and its effect on the Navy Vexor? 7.5%/lvl outclasses Navy Vexor's 5%/level, and it largely seems like the Ishtar, with its stronger sensor str, faster & better tracking drones, larger bay, T2 resists, etc. make it a clear winner. Navy Vexor is faster and more agile, has extra tracking and speed for drones smaller than heavies, and is (depending on FW warzone status) cheaper. Game Designer \| Team Five-0 https://twitter.com/CCP_Fozzie http://www.twitch.tv/ccp_fozzie/


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 1895	Posted - 2013.07.30 10:44:00 - [12] - Quote Hi all Wanted to post and let you know I haven't disappeared or something, just had to go home and sleep and stuff. I've been reading all of this and will continue to do so. I would not expect any changes at the scale of this last iteration, maybe some small tweaks after a few more days of feedback at the most. We are a little concerned that some overpowered configurations might be popular following these changes, but I know many of you are still worried they aren't powerful enough. I'll keep reading for now and if we decide to make any changes you will be the first to know. Thanks!


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 1901	Posted - 2013.07.30 11:27:00 - [13] - Quote I don't have an ETA for Singularity unfortunately. We are having some trouble getting stuff moved there atm and we aren't sure when it will be resolved completely. Will be before 1.1 release of course, so hopefully theres enough time for us to react a bit to sisi testing before it goes live. My position on the Vagabond remains relatively unchanged. Its the second most popular HAC after Zealot currently, doing about as much damage per day in PVP as Maelstrom or Apocalypse or Maller or Omen or Cyclone. From there we are giving it significant buffs in this pass in the form of mitigation through the role bonus, added cap recharge, added electronics stats, and a new free bonus to shield boosting. I'm happy to concede that the Cynabal makes it seem like the Vaga should be better, but as I've said, this is a problem with the Cynabal not the Vaga. I think the Vaga is probably at the very bottom of the list of HACs that I would worry about.


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 1934	Posted - 2013.08.02 12:19:00 - [14] - Quote Hi guys Sorry I've been away. Been out of the office for two days because of barfing etc. I'm behind on the thread so I'm going to get caught up today and respond to some of the common points in a few hours.


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 1937	Posted - 2013.08.02 17:22:00 - [15] - Quote Alright, I'm still kind of out of it and I'll probably give another check-in here after the weekend, but here's where I stand for now: I think our biggest concern is the Deimos. While the combination of the new layout and speed, added to the rail buff probably makes for a skirmisher that will be extremely powerful, we do appreciate the fact that a lot of people feel disappointed with it as an in-your-face brawler. I think the expected performance as a brawler varies quite a bit based on what kind of PVP you like (what size etc), but I would like to push it back towards that role in some way. We want to at least give back some of the base hp in armor, maybe at the cost of some of the added shield hp. I don't have numbers for this yet but I'll get them to you guys early next week. The other thing I would really like to do is give the Deimos an armor rep bonus. I think it could fit in nicely as a replacement for the MWD cap use bonus as long as the cap recharge is high enough that the kiting fits are handicapped. This wouldn't have much affect on large fleet AHAC type application, but would open up more possibilities at small scale. It also fits really well racially compared to the cap use bonus which is sort of unusual. I'm sure a lot of you won't love an active bonus because it doesn't apply to your style of play, but it would come in at little-to-no cost and offer smaller scale fighters more diversity and a more efficient brawler. Following the Deimos there's a few ships which seem to be drawing more attention than any others, but for most of these I don't expect to make big changes before 1.1 goes out. This list would include Vagabond, Muninn, and Sacrilege. Vagabond: I'm still fairly confused about how there is so much resistance on this ship design. The complaints range quite a bit but I think the most legitimate one is that the Vaga struggles to project damage compared to its competition (Deimos/Cerberus mostly). I think you have to accept that the Vaga has huge advantages in some other areas that should easily outweigh its slightly lower damage projection. Compared to Cerberus for instance, you have an enormous speed advantage, a utility high, and significantly lower Signature. How valuable you think these things are will vary of course, but you can't expect the Vaga to push damage out as well or it simply becomes better in all cases. Muninn: I understand wanting the 4th mid, but I don't think we will do that. I think by adding a low the Muninn will get better at everything it already does (mostly arty/shield fleets), by using the low for more speed or more damage, while also picking up the possibility to run armor variations. This might not be insanely popular but I think it's important for Minmatar to have the option to do both, and the Vaga is pointed towards shield even more now than it already was. Sacrilege: The Sacrilege was definitely one of the more difficult ones to pin down, but I think we're in a pretty good place. We looked at a few other options for its layout and bonuses but because of the power of the resist buff it's very easy for it to become too strong. We also really like that it tends to fit in to fleets as a ship with enormous utility rather than being all tank and gank like a lot of the other HACs. For that reason we really wanted to leave the utility high and the 4th mid. It would often make a better straight up brawler with another low, but by going the route we went of adding more drone dps and more fitting room, we improved it a lot as a brawler while preserving its character as a very high-utility HAC that can do a lot of different things. Ishtar: A little side note here. If you are confused about the slot count being one lower, thats very standard for our primary drone weapon ships. In general I think the Ishtar is certainly among the most powerful ships coming out of this rebalance so we definitely aren't looking to make it any more so. On 1 slot vs tech 1 counterpart rather than 2: Honestly we never talked about adding a slot to every ship, but I don't think it makes much difference. If we did do that, we would have to pull power away from other metrics to make up for it. Whether the whole class has 12 or 15 or 18 it should hopefully still be balanced to function in the role we have in mind, and so it's not as if adding a lot to all of them would suddenly make them all much more powerful. Thanks for the well wishes, I'm doing pretty okay now. Please comment on the Deimos changes and I'll check back tonight or early next week after the alliance tournament is over. Also - if you want to hear me get grilled about HACs and other things as well, tune in to EVE Radio tonight at midnight EVE time where DJ Funkybacon is going to interview me on all this stuff.


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 1939	Posted - 2013.08.02 18:52:00 - [16] - Quote Sorry I didn't say anything about the Caldari HACs, it's because I think they are probably both in really good shape. We are seriously concerned that the Cerb will be too strong. The biggest issue is probably Rapid Light Missile Launchers which have incredibly damage application and projection for such a tiny fitting investment. I think its a good dynamic to be choosing between raw damage potential and application, but a rlml Cerb will be kind of insane. And in general the ship is shedding a lot of its past handicaps such as terrible speed and fitting difficulty. The Eagle is a little harder to judge, but I think it's probably more towards the side of being too strong than being too weak. The Eagle is definitely more of a fleet ship than a small scale skirmisher, but it got much much better for that role in this pass. Added sensor stats, lower sig, added fitting, and most importantly the trade of a utility high for an extra mid means that we are expecting ahac style eagle fleets to be very strong, especially when you consider the rail buff. We'll have to see how it goes but we are not worried about the Eagle. About the price question - I would say if its rising in price but you don't think its worth it that you shouldn't buy it, but clearly someone thinks it will be worth it. I don't think the price of HACs necessarily would be required for their power level, but I also don't think it needs to be lowered. With these changes they will more than justify the price for lots of players (me included).


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 2069	Posted - 2013.08.06 15:36:00 - [17] - Quote Alright guys, updated the OP with the Deimos changes. Removed cap use for MWD bonus Added Armor Repair amount bonus Gave back a lot of base hp for armor and structure Removed small amount of base shield hp Improved base cap recharge to compensate some for MWD cap use bonus loss The MWD cap use bonus earned the Deimos 4.5 cap per second, the new Deimos has a base cap recharge that is now 2.1 cap per second stronger than the old Deimos. Obviously this means the recharge is worse when MWDing than before, but the new recharge is useful when not MWDing as well. By adding armor and structure hp along with the new rep bonus, there should be plenty of support for Armor brawlers at all scales as well as the new options for shields afforded by the extra mid and rail buff. Thanks guys - looking forward to 1.1!


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 2076	Posted - 2013.08.06 16:36:00 - [18] - Quote I love that in the last page there has been complaint that Vaga isn't good, Vaga is too good, Eagle isn't good, Eagle is fine, Sacrilege isn't good, Rep bonus Deimos is awesome and Rep Bonuses are bad. I think we are reaching a good place here =)


CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 2105	Posted - 2013.08.07 11:50:00 - [19] - Quote Another small update Vagabond powergrid raised to 900 (+45) Zealot CPU raised to 340 (+20)


ISD Cura Ursus ISD Community Communications Liaisons 177	Posted - 2013.08.07 18:40:00 - [20] - Quote Upon a request, A duplicate post removed. The thread was saved. A Duplicate post was removed at user's request. ISD Cura Ursus Lieutenant Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs) Interstellar Services Department



CCP Rise C C P C C P Alliance 2220	Posted - 2013.08.12 15:50:00 - [21] - Quote Hey guys just a heads up for you - all of these ships, along with the command ships and pretty much everything else, are on singularity now for testing. Please go have a look and let us know what you think in the test server feedback forum or in these threads on features and ideas. Thanks!


ISD Ezwal ISD Community Communications Liaisons 420	Posted - 2013.08.31 19:49:00 - [22] - Quote I have removed some rule breaking posts and those quoting them. Please keep it civil people! 2. Be respectful toward others at all times. The purpose of the EVE Online forums is to provide a platform for exchange of ideas, and a venue for the discussion of EVE Online. Occasionally there will be conflicts that arise when people voice opinions. Forum users are expected to be courteous when disagreeing with others. ISD Ezwal Lt. Commander Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs) Interstellar Services Department


CCP Ytterbium C C P C C P Alliance 2673	Posted - 2013.09.11 09:49:00 - [23] - Quote Unpinning, 1.1 has been released.

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