CCP Rise,

I have to say I'm very disappointed in how you have handled this.

As for my own opinion on what is proposed..

You are making a drastic and rushed changed to what is really the only viable missile system left for solo/small gang PVP. Are they a little OP.. I don't think so, but if they are it's because they are the best fitting weapon system on those hulls.. Minor changed to PG, CPU, or even the modifiers on the Launchers and perhaps the missiles themselves would have brought them into perfect balance. But that's not an option apparently, you want to make a weapon system that takes away all of the best parts of using missiles, and combine it in a system that makes it so it is ONLY Viable in Blob warfare.

So much for this being the update to buff Small Gang PVP.

I'm not sure where the idea comes from that this plan came out of thin air in a few days has come from. Yes, it's late in the release cycle, but we spent weeks talking about how to deal with this problem and went through multiple review processes before anything showed up here, just like we do with all changes.

I also assure you that I am not ignoring negative feedback. There are absolutely a lot of people giving that in this thread. In the past when I've gotten negative feedback which is backed with well articulated arguments I don't hesitate to make changes (see industrial rebalance, electronic attack frig rebalance, battleship rebalance), but in this thread the majority of complaint is very disorganized and unhelpful, that's why I'm instead going with the positive feedback coming from the CSM, from our testing and from some posters here.

so... despite various bits of better judgement i've come back here and decided to crunch some numbers.

after all, what's a good shitstorm of whine to go through without someone beating a drum in the name of sanity at "this isn't actually that bad! and actually kind of awesome!"

so, i recall people a wee while back banging on the drum saying that the new rapid light missile launchers can only deal 20450 damage over the course of its 50 seconds or so of firing and that this would be useless as you couldn't kill your targets before they destroyed you and you reloaded.

so this got me thinking... what kind of fire power DO rapid light missile launchers do right now in the same timeframe?

using my majestic and wonderful powers of "turning on EFT" i replicated CCP rise's example caracal using rapid light launchers and 3 BCU's, T2 fury scourge missiles and turned all the skills to V. lets have a look and see how badly OMGWTFNERFEDANDRUINED these launchers are going to be after all.

so, at the current moment using the numbers available sans drones this caracal does 257 dps.

JAHA! you might say, 257x2 is more than 409! CLEARLY THIS IS A COMPLETE NERF AND EVERYTHING IS RUINED!

well... that's the thing... is it really?

I decided to grab out ye olde windows calculator and actually had a go at doing the most terrible of all crimes and plugging in the dps both versions of the weapon will do over 90 seconds. that is, to be specific, the 50 seconds of firing followed by the 40 seconds of reloading.

old rapid light missile launcher DPS without drones = 257

50 seconds at 257 dps = 12850 damage

50 seconds + 40 seconds ( reload) damage = 23130 damage

new rapid light missile launcher dps without drones: 409

50 seconds at 409 dps = 20450 damage

50 seconds + 40 seconds (reload) damage = 20450 damage (duh)

so the resounding earth shattering ruining of all that is holy difference which makes these new weapons completely worthless is!..

2680

well... sod... that's it? that's the number which is causing all this screaming and bawling? no wonder CCP rise is being dismissive of our entirely well justified complaints makes through reasoned argument and no superfluous use of the capslock!

why with 2680 dps we could kill a whole extra venture! a badly fitted one certainly!

so, what possible advantage does this change give the frothing bag of indignant rage also known as the RLML caracal user?

one of the interesting concepts within eve is the constant dance of gank vs tank. I'm sure some of you can understand the concept of the pros and cons of running a dps heavy fit with weak tank and a dps light fit with a heavy one?

the first ship is dealing a lot of damage, but also taking a lot so he has to hope that he does enough damage to survive.

the second ship is dealing a little damage, but he's got a massive tank so is attempting to outlast his opponent.

the interesting thing about these launchers is that it gives us this situation in a round about way.

consider, lets say the RLML caracal is fighting 3 targets. for the sake of ease of thought we'll assume that the combat plays out exactly the same way with both the old and new RLML caracals dealing 100% of their possible damage against 100% of hitpoints (its flawed but we are just doing a thought experiment here) and, in return, our 3 targets are dealing 150 dps each back. why? because reasons.

as a bit of an arse pull number lets say that between the frigates they have 21.7k hit points to play with, equally split. now clearly! the new rapid light missile caracal is completely doomed! he can't deal enough damage to defeat his foes in a single reload and he'll just die with empty launchers! but... will he?

to be frank? no... why? because burst damage has certain distinct advantages over prolonged duration damage and understanding this is important to making a decision on these weapons. so for this example i'm assuming everything is 100% applied

now hold on connall! this is absurd? you're assuming 100% damage application and arglFLAR-

yes, i am. but i am a fair fellow so lets flip it around, how much damage would a current RLML caracal deal in the same timeframe? as we know from above the answer 12850.

so, with this little thought experiment we are dealing 12850/21700 damage to these suspiciously identical targets.

each "target" has 7300 hitpoints each.

1:7300/7300
2:7300/7300
3:7300/7300

so lets apply our current caracal to the various targets over 50 seconds and mark the points at which the dps will suceed in killing them.

1:0/7300 - 28.4 sec - 150dps
2:1750/7300 - not dead yet
3:7300/7300 - not dead yet

huzzah! one foe vanquished and another on the way! enemy dps has been reduced by 150 meaning that the caracal is now taking 300 incoming dps for another 6.84 seconds before having that dps go down to 150.

now, how about the same situation with the "new" RLML's?

1:0/7300 - 17.84 sec - 150 dps
2:0/7300 - 35.69 sec - 150 dps
3:1450/7300 - not dead yet

huh... well that's not too shabby now is it?

THIS is the advantage of the new system: burst dps.

remember firepower goes both ways both you shooting at them and them shooting at you. there is very much an advantage to dumping out a similar amount of damage in a shorter time frame as, if fighting multiple smaller targets LIKE THIS WEAPONS ARE INTENDED TO the faster you remove opponents from the field the less time they have to apply dps in return to you. yes, you are going to be "offline" for 40 seconds, but you have killed more of the enemy permitting them less time to deal damage to YOU. is

yes, i'm aware i'm being a little patronizing and YES i'm aware this is all "ideal situation" stuff, but the basic concept of burst damage vs prolonged needed some damn explaining and a thought experiment seemed the best way to explain it. ^_^

Was playing around with the rlml on a cerberus against a rocket fitted t2 vengeance. every time it was close to structure the cerb needed to reload. That should not happen, that a hac can't beat an AF.

Same test with raven vs said cerberus. Without overheat raven couldn't kill cerb.

Rapid launchers were not good for pve before these changes, so it is not different after.

People keep saying that. Its not true. You dont get DPS similar to now by splitting weapons.

2. I don't know the last time I brought a 3x BCU II Cerberus to a fight and outran anything... ever. For example: A Cerberus at 1376 m/s vs a Thorax... at 2028 m/s is just disgusting. .

Just some minor commentary here...

1. I don't know the last time I won a 1v1 BS fight in under 50 seconds.

@bouh: My example was more specifically geared towards if I were to engage another cruiser and it calls its friends, or perhaps I am doing a fw plax and am having to shoot rats. If I were just using the caracal to shoot lightly tanked or untanked tackle and warp out the new rlms would be far too good at this, giving the opponents much less response time. This again turns it into a 1 trick pony where in the majority of situation the omen or thorax will be flat out better.

Even a powergrid increase for rlm that would force the caracal to reduce its tank to a similar level of the omen or thorax would be much better because then it will be able to deal with a changing situation and adapt via being able to swap ammo easily.

As far as the thorax and omen having tracking issues, standard drop fixes this issue very easily for the omen. You need standard drop and a defensive web for a rail thorax to deal with tackle well if it lands on you. Both of these ships can easily handle tackle at range and unlike the new rlms, they are gaurenteed to atleast be able to shoot at it (barring the enemy gang using various ewar) every single time.

Er, try not plating and trimarking your Cerberus.

No trimarks on the Cerberus friend. Had Medium Core Defense Field Extender Is....

So what part of Rapid missile launchers being for attacking smaller ships than yours are you not comprehending? And most of the people in this thread for that matter? An a Caracal is a kiting ship tank is low on kiting ships...

Cerberus, clean, with a 10MN MWD reaches 1730 ms.....

After much pondering, I have found a use for the new RLML's.

They're kinda nice as an option other then neuts in the Stabbers utility highs. Conceivably in other utility highs elsewhere as well. That doesn't help them much as a main weapons system, and only kind of works because you don't use the neuts on a stabber that much anyway. But it's a thing! And it really does look sort of viable on paper.

This is definitely the most difficult thread to try and interact with that I've made so far, so please excuse the delay between post if you can find it in your hearts to do so.

I've been discussing the response to this change almost constantly since the thread was posted, both with the CSM and with my fellow designers. I'll cut to the chase and say that the conclusion is to go ahead with the change, with the understanding that it needs to be carefully looked at following release.

It really seems there's two different discussions taking place. One is simply whether or not rapid light missiles deserve a nerf of any kind, and the other is whether or not the proposed mechanic will be fun/powerful.

I understand that the current RLML missiles are very strong and you guys like them and that many people would be very unhappy for them to get a significant change regardless of the method we chose. We definitely feel they need a change though. It's a weapon system designed to be best in a particular kind of situation rather than being the best choice for most situations and so one way or another it was going to get tweaked. However, if this change means the system isn't powerful in the situations it's meant for (dunking smaller ships), it will get adjusted until it is. The second part of this topic is whether or not the other medium weapon systems are actually viable. The way players are behaving says they are, but following this release I'd like to have a conversation internally about missiles as a whole and figure out where we stand. Maybe there is some more changes needed and I'd like to look into that.

As far as the long reload mechanic, the feedback is mixed in this thread and mostly positive elsewhere (CSM, internal development, external forums) from what I can tell. Again, I will say that the concerns about ammo swapping are completely valid and I've talked to my team and we can hopefully address that sometime after Rubicon. Part of the reason I lean towards putting this change in is the common sentiment in most balance threads that homogenization is a big fear among our players. I think favoring new types of interactions rather than adjusting numbers slightly within the same mechanic makes the game more interesting, and everything I've heard from the community points that direction as well (except sometimes when doing something new means changing something old). On top of this, there's no arguing that front-loading damage is powerful. As others have said, artillery is a good example of that. Whether or not it's powerful enough to compensate for the sustained dps nerf is just something we will find out once people get it in their hands.

I think we will come out of this with a very fun pair of weapon systems. If we don't, it will get changed.

PS - saying I don't play the game or use Caracals is completely ridiculous, I think you guys can find more reasonable lines of attack.

Can the mobile fitting service be used to manually reload these things? Like as if i were docked at a station and dragged and dropped the ammo into my launchers?

So what part of Rapid missile launchers being for attacking smaller ships than yours are you not comprehending? And most of the people in this thread for that matter? An a Caracal is a kiting ship tank is low on kiting ships...

There have been plenty of good arguments made in this thread as to why you shouldn't implement this change. You're the one who's chosen to simply ignore them all and proceed to implement a massive change to a weapon system simply because you're too incompetent to balance out the other existing weapons systems that RLMLs would otherwise eclipse.

If you want an all rounded cruiser weapon system, look for HML, or HAM if you don't need range, but you might need something to help damage application in some cases. I don't have time today to look at the application numbers, but I'm pretty sure they are far from bad considering all their caracteristics.