Crickets? I thought as much....

Number of 'Nerf Gallente!' threads in past year: None
Number of 'Nerf Amarr!' threads in past year: None
Number of 'Nerf Caldari!' threads in past year: None
Number of 'Nerf Minmatar!' threads in past year: Countless!

That's saying something.

There have been a substantial number of nerf Caldari threads, some of them started by the same Amarrian supremacists arguing that projos are overpowered.

Amarrian supremacists arguing that projos are overpowered.

No.
There's been 'Nerf Drake!', 'Nerf Tengu!' and 'Nerf Falcon', but never 'Nerf Caldari!'

Ed: Besides, most Nerf Minmatar threads are centered around the Hurricane and Vagabond. Occasionally you see complaints of Arty Maelstrom fleets, but that's relatively rare.

which was also a mistake IMO, and one based on the laughable idea that falloff is only half as useful as optimal

The problem with minmatar, as far as I can tell, is falloff bonuses. The bonuses to falloff (10%/level) are from a time when TEs didn't give their insane bonuses themselves (which was also a mistake IMO, and one based on the laughable idea that falloff is only half as useful as optimal)...

Quoting this for hilarity.

Nobody flies Harb fleets because the Drake can sport more tank and better damage projection while having a similar speed (PDU fit). Canes sidestep this meta because the 2x medium neuts and superior EFT DPS make up for the lost projection when it comes to ganking caps/supers, while Arty Canes (relatively rare) are still useful in a medium gang context as a relative handful can alpha through reps or alpha the logistics themselves.

Also: I'm not sure where this meme of "autos outrange pulse" got started, but it simply isn't true. A (220mm, 2x TE) Vaga might have 40km of falloff and this is a considerable range advantage over a Harb, but a HPL (+2x TE/TC) Zealot sports an optimal of 44km. Apples to apples, pulse have more range, period.

This entire scenario you have laid out is less about tanking styles or range bonuses and more about the fact that in EVE, most gang PvP is semi-consensual. I've slipped out from nanogangs in a plated BS fleet before, simply because avoiding PvP in EVE is easy if you're prepared (in our case, false scout jumps and delay bubbles on gates). Even when unprepared, armor gangs are perfectly capable of escaping, insofar as they are typically built to ride out the 60 seconds necessary to deaggro and jump/dock.

However, sometime after Monaclegate some small segment of the community has taken it upon itself to demand that projectiles and Minmatar ships be nerfed into total oblivion by reversing the entire projectile boost -- and more. Of course we have the usual troll suspects like Naomi and more recently Zarnak (the OP)... but there's a bit more to this one as well.

Hilarity? Oh you sad strange little man. Is 28km too close to you in that cane of yours? Typical kids these days. If they cant stay out of point web and scram range they wont fly it. Pussies the lot of you I say!! Lol.

This thread didn't reach page 24 because of a couple of troll suspects. There is a significant dissatisfation with balance in the game. That disatisfaction is there despite CCP's current overtures.

...

I understand the point that you have tried to make repeatedly. Hybrids are bad vs. everything. I agree. But I also think that it's easier to balance Gallente vs. Amarr then Gallente vs. Minmatar. Tweak the fittings so I can fit a propulsion mod rather then a fitting mod. Slightly increase speed and agility. Maybe we're already at the spot where blaster boats can quickly catch laser ships. We'll see. As it is right now they're not balanced vs. Minmatar ships that have twice the range and twice the speed. If Gallente/ Caldari are balanced vs. Minmatar there's a better chance they'll be balanced vs. Amarr.

As an example if I'm looking at the Naga as a Caldari pilot I have to wonder why I have the slowest tier three BC, with significant fitting issues and the largest signature radius. This is a new ship! Do they get it? Do they get it at all?!? Has anyone at CCP sat down and tried to fit a rail boat before? Where do they get their fitting numbers from? It's maddening. And you look over at the Tornado pilot who has to decide how many LSE II to fit on his ship when you had to struggle just to fit one named. To repeat - these are new ships; a chance for CCP to step away from past frustrations.

Lastly, when you take a look at how long things are allowed to be unbalanced in the game it's hard to make the argument for patience. Electronic attack frigates have been broken since November of 2008. That's three years. Assault frigates were almost fixed. 18 months ago. Hell - hybrids were pretty much broken in November of 2008 too. It is my belief that the squeeky wheel gets the oil. I'm putting pressure on the situation not only from the 'buff hybrid' viewpoint but also the 'need an alternative to Minmatar' viewpoint. Let CCP know what standard we're holding them to!

You have more faith in CCP then I do.

Eh, its certainly not equal to optimal either. IMO they couldn't introduce falloff to TDs without giving them an opposing force in TEs and TCs. Still, I'm not inclined to nerf falloff on TEs and TCs because it'd unnecessarily splash over to Hybrids. The falloff bonuses are also not so suspect to me - it shouldn't be surprising that a ship with a range bonus performs well at range.

Beyond that however, the AC does more damage, as it will still be doing about 40% of its DPS at 12km, whereas the pulse will be doing no damage at all.
It ss, in my opinion at least, a well balanced idea, and is probably the reason why falloff works the way it does, instead of losing all your damage at 1X falloff (and just making the numbers bigger).

The core concept is sound, I agree - though I will never agree that this is a balanced situation. I think the core difference of opinion comes from the fact that you're thinking of it as doing DPS whereas I'm thinking of it as doing useful DPS at useful engagement ranges. Simply put, I don't feel that 1 falloff is even remotely as useful as 1 optimal - and neither do you when you get right down to it. Taking two guns doing 1000 DPS, would you rather have 250 optimal + 1 falloff or 1 optimal and 250 falloff?

-Liang

The other distinction is unpowered vs powered. ECM jam a ship and it cannot target. All the ships hit these issues but powered weapons systems ALSO face neuts to shut them down. This is how we end up with such "good" bastardizations as Amarr hulls fitting projectiles.

Now take your 2 guns doing 1000 DPS and neut the hell out of those ships and tell me who's doing what. When you are immune in such a fashion to a very popular fit, there should be associated penalties which do NOT exist for unpowered systems. Missiles have a few downsides to them but every downside has a positive offset to it. The powered systems though - they will remain less popular when they can be off-lined by very popular PvP fitting options.

yada... yada... yada... Easy stuff to debate over and over but IMO - enough changes for now. Let's see what the hell we get from the current batch that's going live soon. THEN start looking at whatever else might need fixing.

Simply put: There is no way in hell to predict how all these current changes are going to show in the game until it's live for a while. we'll hear mass about "over powered now!" and "underwhelming!!!" as folks get used to how these things "fit" in how they play so it'll be a while until a balance is struck on how things "are".

Again: Let's see what we have before asking for changes based upon "what is" and not what will be here in a couple of weeks.

Number of 'Nerf Gallente!' threads in past year: None
Number of 'Nerf Amarr!' threads in past year: None
Number of 'Nerf Caldari!' threads in past year: None
Number of 'Nerf Minmatar!' threads in past year: Countless!

That's saying something.

I don't think that he forgot to mention them. I think it's more along the lines that they aren't "Minmatar" ships. They are Angel faction ships that have insane falloff bonuses along with amazing speed and agility. You don't nerf an entire weapon system because of unbalanced ships. :P CCP knows this which is why the Dramiel is already getting nerfed this Winter.

Yes, yes, the nerfmatar whiners will still say "But they use ACs!". This still doesn't make AC's OP'd, nor does it make them Minmatar ships, no matter how they will try to spin in to support their side that Minmatar is OP.



My issue with this train of thought is that if you make a race that is supposed to be able to disengage at will, then why take away the weapon system that allows them to use that? At the point to which you take away this weapon system, they can no longer fight in the ranges that allow them to disengage and are thus no longer used. They can keep range and do no damage, or get in range of their "then nerfed" guns and be outclassed by every other ship. IMHO that is bad logic.

An abaddon fit similarly has 2.5% less DPS but 10% more EHP and about three times the range, and deals more damage at ranges beyond 7.5km

I'm glad you're impressed with the changes but you'll soon see they're not nearly enough. a 2.5% dps advantage is not a good enough reason to put yourself in the zone of scramwebneut despair, especially when you have to give up EHP to do it which more than negates your advantage in the first place

Basically - you, and the rest of the Nerf Minmatar crowd, are demanding The Damp Effect. If you were in charge of the game, we'd go through the whipsaw balancing that is driving Rift into the ground and we'd constantly see systems go from overpowered to useless and back because you'd be buffing and nerfing all at the same time

I'm sorry, but this is just a pathetic QQ rant in the face of Crucible.

I don't know if you've noticed, but Eve does this already. The difference is that years pass between balancing patches.

So, a single patch makes up for years of CCP's balance neglect in your eyes does it? Improving minmatar as much as they did was a mistake and is a perfect example of what you've called the Damp Effect. Now Minmatar have made up 60% of the top ships used in PvP for three years straight. It needs to be fixed, and nerfing one thing is a lot better than buffing everything else to compete with the overpowered thing.

The Abaddon is on the same tier as the Hyperion and the Maelstrom. You're trolling.

If you want me to compare a close range gank fit mega to a sniping Amarr bs, you are the one trolling sir

So... I reference an Eve module that was nerfed in an Eve patch on the Eve forums and you're asking me if I noticed that they did exactly what I said they did.

Really?

My thoughts on Crucible: http://liangnuren.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/crucible-is-like-a-marriage. The tl;dr: I think its as good as we could possibly ask for. Better, even, because I happen to know that the CCP devs are working bucket fulls of overtime to make this patch happen.

Furthermore, your assertion that they've made up 60% of the top ships in PVP for three years straight is total bullshit. We had an entire year where the top ship used was the Drake.

1 Drake
2 Hurricane
3 Abaddon
4 Armageddon
5 Zealot
6 Tempest
7 Maelstrom
8 Dramiel
9 Rifter
10 Cynabal
11 Sabre
12 Rapier
13 Scimitar
14 Tengu
15 Hound
16 Vagabond
17 Manticore
18 Loki
19 Harbinger
20 Capsule

Caldari
Winmatar
Amarr
Amarr
Amarr
Winmatar
Winmatar
Winmatar Angel Style
Winmatar
Winmater Angel Style
Winmatar
Winmatar
Winmatar
Caldari
Winmatar
Winmatar
Caldari
Winmatar
Amarr
People who tried to kill someone but died during it

60% Winmatar
20% Amarr
15% Caldari
5% Pods