Closer to 10 months.

I think after people try out these changes they'll find that their old uses for Dreadnaughts all continue to apply. There is no magical threshold that 5% tracking can cross to make Dreads useless. There's no hidden trap within the tracking formula that makes the turrets in the game act differently than an informed player should expect. This will simply be a small (generally less than 5%) reduction in average applied damage when not using heated TCs, and a small increase in average applied damage for the players who push the limits with their tactics and fittings.

If you could blap webbed players with your Moros before, you'll still be able to do it.
If you could farm sleeper escalations using supported dreads before, you'll still be able to do it.
If you could burn down a bounced supercarrier with your dread hotdrop before you'll still be able to do it.
If you could alpha an orbiting Archon with your Omegafleet Nags before you'll still be able to do it.
If you could hit those Omegafleet Nags with your titan guns before you'll still be able to do it.
If you could mine veldspar with your Revelation before you'll still be able to do it.

I think you will all find that this change results in pretty much the same gameplay as before, and only serves as a very slight reduction in total effectiveness compared to the status quo. If you discover differently on SISI or potentially later on TQ, let us know in a calm and reasoned manner and we'll always be very open to reevaluating these kinds of attributes.

Then why is it necessary? If we can do everything we can do now after the nerf, why bother nerfing the tracking? What I am hearing is "We are going to nerf this, but it won't really make a huge difference."

Give us a glimpse in to the thinking behind this. Are dreads tracking too well currently? Is there a worry that a 7% buff to tracking when overheating 2 TCs is too powerful and would cause massive tracking dread blobs to spread across New Eden? A worry tracking titans would come back? Essentially what I am asking you to do is make the case that this 5% change is going to make a worthwhile difference. For me, and I am going to assume for a lot of us who have voiced our opinion in this thread, this is a nerf to something that wasn't broken in the first place and a small buff wouldn't make it broken.

so much for aebe and his superior math skills.

So in one day you've managed to nerf TP's and capital turrets. Your making bad decisions for all the wrong reasons. Your player base has told you what needs fixed, what needs looked at, and what doesn't need to be in the game at all. Yet you insist on adding unneeded and unwanted changes. Then you have the gaul to ask why your subscription base is dwindling?

You nerf the crap out of missiles, then a few expansions later nerf the missile boats, now it's the TP...another missile nerf.

You nerfed dreads a few expansions ago turning the Phoenix into an even more worthless heap. Now you nerf the rest of the dreads to bring the Phoenix back up to snuff but then nerf the TP at the same time effectively nerfing the Phoenix even more. Bad ideas are bad ideas CCP. These are all bad ideas. Fix what's broken and maybe you'll quit bleeding players from the game.


Edit: P.S. - serious question...did EA or Sony secretly buy you guys out or something?

Agreed. If it won't make a huge difference, then why waste time doing it?

On the subject of time "wasted", these changes to one base attribute (on just 6 items in this case) are extremely fast to implement and test. This did not take time away from any other feature designs.

If you could blap webbed players with your Moros before, you'll still be able to do it.
If you could farm sleeper escalations using supported dreads before, you'll still be able to do it.
If you could burn down a bounced supercarrier with your dread hotdrop before you'll still be able to do it.
If you could alpha an orbiting Archon with your Omegafleet Nags before you'll still be able to do it.
If you could hit those Omegafleet Nags with your titan guns before you'll still be able to do it.
If you could mine veldspar with your Revelation before you'll still be able to do it.

I think you will all find that this change results in pretty much the same gameplay as before, and only serves as a very slight reduction in total effectiveness compared to the status quo. If you discover differently on SISI or potentially later on TQ, let us know in a calm and reasoned manner and we'll always be very open to reevaluating these kinds of attributes.

On the subject of time "wasted", these changes to one base attribute (on just 6 items in this case) are extremely fast to implement and test. This did not take time away from any other feature designs.

are any of those feature designs ship balancing?

That's exactly what this change is, a minor maintenance tweak. Making small, contained changes more rapidly is a very good method of balancing as you can fine tune attributes into the best possible state and watch the results without as many secondary effects. This change (as well as several of the other balance changes I announced yesterday) fall into that small contained iteration category.

On the subject of time "wasted", these changes to one base attribute (on just 6 items in this case) are extremely fast to implement and test. This did not take time away from any other feature designs.

It appears there are many people who seem to believe that this 5% will somehow crush Dreadnaughts or significantly decrease their use. I disagree, but I also welcome everyone to test these changes for themselves when SISI is next updated. As proven many times before, we are always open to adjusting or canceling proposed changes based on good solid feedback.

With this change, the upcoming T3 nerf and the the lack of any substantial content being added to the game, i see 2014 being the year i stop playing EVE.

It's not a massive nerf but frankly, i'm tired of training up for something only for it to be nerfed again and again. For what i use it for, the moros has gone from being a awesome endgame ship to a complete ******* joke.

Taht is a very whine approach to the game. No nerf to ANy ship shoudl amke anyoen leave. Only babaies would do that.

LEarn that you train to what is NOT flavor of the monht. so when you get there. it WILl be flavor of the monht. WOrked for me for 7 years.

Now, let's talk about this change in particular.
I can understand why some people feel this change is coming out of left field, especially if their particular playstyle happens to be in areas where dreadnaughts are not seen as often.
The initial trigger for thinking about making this change came from concerns raised about how the Tracking Computer buff would affect the area of the game where tracking fit Dreadnaughts are at their strongest, in wormhole PVP. This caused us to do some thinking about the specific interactions at play, and we determined that although the effect of the overheating change would be fairly minor, we could play it safe and make a fairly minor maintenance change to capital turrets at the same time.

Now, let's talk about this change in particular.
I can understand why some people feel this change is coming out of left field, especially if their particular playstyle happens to be in areas where dreadnaughts are not seen as often.
The initial trigger for thinking about making this change came from concerns raised about how the Tracking Computer buff would affect the area of the game where tracking fit Dreadnaughts are at their strongest, in wormhole PVP. This caused us to do some thinking about the specific interactions at play, and we determined that although the effect of the overheating change would be fairly minor, we could play it safe and make a fairly minor maintenance change to capital turrets at the same time.

Then why bother at all? You're argument here counters itself. If a 5% nerf doesn't stop dreads from doing anything they currently do, then don't do it. I don't see any point in having even a 5% nerf to a ship that is expensive and puts itself at risk to fulfill its role

Stop typing like a tard, you tard.

This game takes years of investment and when i finally reach my long term goals, CCP seem to drag me back down. And due to the lack of any substantial new content, it feels like an all "take and no give" relationship at this point.

So yeah, forgive me if i'm not enthusiastic about running in circles for the rest of my time in eve like you, you sad sack.

Fozzie you are a NOOB, go and play Lego instead.

In the other hand I like to congratulate to you for successfully NERFING the subscriber numbers AGAIN.

This means tracking will be 5% down vs current TQ values when not overheating any TCs, about 2% down when overheating one T2 TC, and about 1.5% up when overheating two T2 TCs. Using higher meta TCs makes the crossover faster.

Anyone that really LEAVES because of these TINY changes is really a coward or a baby.