EVE Search - This expansion just became 25% less awesome?

CCP Ytterbium wrote:

Hey people, since this will go on Sisi soon and thus a Dev Blog may not be necessary, figured you would appreciate some comments on this.

Creating new ships is not a simple task and is almost never done right on the first attempt, as we need several iterations to outline, play and tweak with capabilities until we find a middle-ground we feel comfortable to release.

On this particular instance, the first pass that was spread around was particularly off the chart and needed to be brought down to more realistic numbers.

The role of the tier 3 battlecruisers is to bring battleship range and damage into mobile, small gangs by wielding large weapon systems, which translates into the following design points:

Supposed to be good as a damage platform against larger ship hulls (read battleships, capitals targets) while being difficult to hit themselves by those ships due to decreased signature radius and increased mobility
Better aimed for small, fast gang support than battleships due to their increased mobility
Provide a learning bridge between battlecruisers and battleships, while being themselves a little cheaper than battleships
Due to their large sized weaponry, supposed to be at a severe disadvantage against smaller hulls, especially at point blank range
Have significantly less standing power than battleships, or even other battlecruiser tiers, thus less proficient in static engagements, where their mobility is less relevant

In case of the Talos, the initial web strength bonus was unfortunately contradictory with the previous goals, because when combined with its dronebay and blasters, it gave this ship the unique capability to dispatch smaller ship hulls significantly more easily than it should have been able to. It also lead to other issues, like acting as a cheap, effective tackle, put it in a dangerous spot to compete with Serpentis faction ships, or limiting this ship weapon systems to blasters only.

For being EVE players ourselves we know the concept of pinning anything in web range to a dead halt with 90% webs before melting faces down with 8 Neutron Blaster Cannons II to be incredibly fun (had a lot of joy with tier 3 battlecruiser first stats myself during the internal play tests ).

However, as designers, we cannot in good conscience release a ship whose bonuses obviously go against the role goals it is supposed to follow. We understand that in this case it unfortunately created a lot of disappointment, but sadly these things are bound to happen when taking first pass data as granted.

Because indeed, we would like you to realize the initial data that was spread around was just that, initial data, and that it is supposed and expected to change at any time during the development process.

Tl;dr: if it's not on TQ, please don't take it as final. Even when it's on TQ, remember it's susceptible to change with time.

Hope that helps a bit.