Apollo Gabriel
Mercatoris Etherium Cartel
193
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Posted - 2011.11.11 06:50:00 -
[1] - Quote
CCP Ytterbium wrote:TALOSGeneral efficiency: we do realize it suffers from some problems next to the other hulls. Unfortunately, as some of you pointed it, the real issue here comes from blasters, and how they compete against similarly close ranged weapons like autocannons and pulse lasers. Thus, this is little more that can be done by tweaking the hull itself, since the problems mainly come from:
- Damage projection: blasters have issues projecting damage, especially considering Tech2 ammunition like Scorch and Barrage, which greatly empowers pulse lasers and autocannons and leave hybrids far behind for little increased damage to compensate. The issue is also widened because blasters benefit less from tracking enhancers and falloff related bonuses than their Minmatar close weapon counterpart.
- Mobility and armor tanking conflicts with each other: no surprise here, fitting plates into your Gallente armor oriented slot layout decreases its mobility, which is a direct contradiction with how blasters are supposed to work. This leaves little to no choice but to fit shield extenders on Gallente ships (I'm looking at you, Mr. Brutix and Hyperion ) to keep some mobility and actually try to apply the blaster damage output. Also let's not forget Minmatar ships are usually faster than Gallente by design, while Gallente traditionally use the shortest weapon system available.
- Lack of usefulness in gang/fleet engagements: thus, because of blaster low damage projection and Gallente poor mobility when armor tanked, blaster ships are found lacking in gang warfare, as either your target or yourself are long dead before you can reach it. Besides, having blaster ships moving all around the battlefield to engage its target leads to coordination issues with the rest of the fleet, especially if logistics are implied.
So yes, we are aware of all of that and CCP Tallest and myself, among others, keep discussing of possible ways to fix the issue blasters face at the moment. However, what you must understand here, is that there is no magic trick we can pull out of our hats to fix all these issues instantly, as they require looking into massively complex tasks that have a lot of repercussions themselves. For instance, let us give you a quick insight of the indirect problems we have to face regarding blaster balancing:
- Do we want to nerf Barrage and Scorch? If yes, by how? Wouldn't that kill their usefulness as a whole? If no, can we add even more falloff to blasters, knowing it may be over-inflating the balance of power again?
- Don't we need to have a look at shield extenders/armor plates as well? If we nerf them, are we confident with possible changes to passive tanking? Can't we make active tanking more useful on PvP setups, so that passive tanking is less used for blaster platforms and more on Amarr platforms, designed to be more static than Gallente? Doesn't that require looking into NOS/Neuts as well? How about Cap boosters? Overheating?
- Can we make Gallente ships faster than Minmatar knowing they also use railguns? Wouldn't that be defeating the original design goals for Minmatar ships?
Turning the Talos into a drone oriented ship: this ship is not supposed to be a drone boat, as it would allow it to hit smaller targets far too easily. We will maybe consider reintroducing its 25m3 dronebay if it is found really underperforming, but this is really unlikely for the moment
Please consider exchanging Projectile and Hybrid stats (in the future) as the fastest ships which can dictate range should be able to hit the hardest and gtfo if needed.
Just my 2 isk on the issue at large. If CCP has a developer in charge of Factional Warfare, please come forward and show yourself.
CCP admiting you don't have a plan for FW would be better then keeping up believing in the FW fairy. |