I think 35 s is still too long - it's too still frustrating to use and hence too un-fun. Personally I'd aim for reload time being half that of the shooting time, adjusting ROF and capacity as needed to get reasonable burst and sustained DPS.

When people are playing a game like EVE in PVP they want fast moment to moment reactions and control in a fight, long waiting periods where you effectively useless are the worst ideas in MMOs, this is the same reason you see people frustrated over stun-locks in other games.

I really like the sound of these rapid missile launchers. Going to have to try them out and see what they are like in practice as have not had a chance yet. Nice idea though, I like the concept of doing massive burst damage and then a long reload time.

This is Eve, not WOW. I'm sure most Eve players are patient enough to realise that despite a long reload time they are still doing good dps and massive burst damage which is sometimes more useful particularly in situation where you need to break past a shield recharge rate or surprising an enemy.

The way you describe it is as if Eve players are sugar infused 12 year olds foaming at the mouths because there are no pretty explosions happening on the screen for 35 seconds.

This is Eve, not WOW. I'm sure most Eve players are patient enough to realise that despite a long reload time they are still doing good dps and massive burst damage which is sometimes more useful particularly in situation where you need to break past a shield recharge rate or surprising an enemy.

The way you describe it is as if Eve players are sugar infused 12 year olds foaming at the mouths because there are no pretty explosions happening on the screen for 35 seconds.

This is Eve, not WOW. I'm sure most Eve players are patient enough to realise that despite a long reload time they are still doing good dps and massive burst damage which is sometimes more useful particularly in situation where you need to break past a shield recharge rate or surprising an enemy.

The way you describe it is as if Eve players are sugar infused 12 year olds foaming at the mouths because there are no pretty explosions happening on the screen for 35 seconds.

Physically they may be older than 12, but mentally/emotionally ..... I'm not so sure sometimes.

Hello

I posted an update recently in the old rapid missile thread on this topic but I assume many of you haven't been watching that so I'm making a new thread for the time being with some updates for 1.1.

The basic gist is that we aren't satisfied with some of the pain points resulting from the change (especially ammo swapping) and want to continue to iterate until they are in the best possible place. For this patch we weren't able to get in a fix for the ammo swapping. We tried a few versions and all of them had enough issues that we didn't feel comfortable deploying. For 1.1 we are going to do the following:

All rapid missile launchers will have 35 second reload timers rather than 40 seconds

Rapid Light Missile launchers will have their capacity increased to 20 missiles per magazine for tech 2 and 19 missiles per magazine for tech 1

Rapid Heavy Missile launchers will have their capacity increased to 25 missiles per magazine for tech 2 and 24 missiles per magazine for tech 1

This change is meant to increase their power slightly, and make them feel a little better to use by cutting down the reload time.

We were looking at a really wide range of options for these systems since the initial reaction was so negative, but over the last few weeks we started seeing more and more people adjust to using them and even start liking them, so, rather than make drastic changes so quickly we want to give it more time and see what happens with usage and feedback over the next couple months. Large changes are still on the table and I won't be finished with this until we address the ammo swapping issue.

Thanks for reading and responding

We were looking at a really wide range of options for these systems since the initial reaction was so negative, but over the last few weeks we started seeing more and more people adjust to using them and even start liking them

I'm sure EVE players are patient enough the problem is in EVE a fast kill is normally a better kill.
35 Seconds where you can't apply any DPS is time your opponent can.
* Repair any damage if active tanked.
* Nuet more of you cap if using neuts.
* Get more cycles on ECM mods/drones if they're being used, if one of these lands at the 34 seconds mark ... ouch!
* Call in reinforcements if the fights not going well.
* Have adaptive hardeners adjust to your damage type.
* Continue to damage your ships making a close fight not so close.

I'm sure EVE players are patient enough the problem is in EVE a fast kill is normally a better kill.
35 Seconds where you can't apply any DPS is time your opponent can.
* Repair any damage if active tanked.
* Nuet more of you cap if using neuts.
* Get more cycles on ECM mods/drones if they're being used, if one of these lands at the 34 seconds mark ... ouch!
* Call in reinforcements if the fights not going well.
* Have adaptive hardeners adjust to your damage type.
* Continue to damage your ships making a close fight not so close.

Adding all that to the fact missiles are not greatest of weapons systems in all cases any way and it's too much of a gamble for most people to want to use. There was a vast amounts of feedback and pointing out the flaws before the initial changes were made (the major one being we can't switch damage types more than once a minute) but the missiles were pushed out any way and to my knowledge been a flop.

CCP Rise: Okay we'll shorten it by 5 seconds.

Players: NO! 20 SECONDS!

CCP Rise: 5 seconds.

Players: 20 SECONDS!

CCP Rise: 5 seconds.

Players: 20 SECONDS!

CCP Rise: 5 seconds.

Players: 20 SECONDS!

CCP Rise: 5 seconds.

Players: 20 SECONDS!

CCP Rise: 5 seconds.

Players: 20 SECONDS!

* CCP Rise has left the conversation.

The people who have mentioned ECM are spot on - a single successful jam cycle of ECM is 20 seconds. That is frustrating enough as it is because it is something outside of your control. Now imagine that you're unable to shoot for almost twice that length of time, with the difference being that you did it to yourself.

That's what using the rapid launchers is like. It's voluntarily jamming your ship for the equivalent of multiple ECM cycles.

Out of ammo? You just jammed yourself for 2 cycles.

Don't forget the high burst you had before you "jammed" yourself.