why did they talk to the group whose job it is to represent the players views first rather than coming straight to the players?

nope you got me there. I can't see any reason a group designed to represent the players views would be consulted in this.

meantime in-between your entitled raging and my inconsequential cheering of changing a boat I am not a fan of for no other reason than that :- there is some really good well thought out commentary on this thread.....

Nerf the Drake and the Tengu becomes more popular for PVP.

Well with a buff to missile velocity, will it maybe interfere in the bonuses the Cerberus have... I don't mind nerfing the Drakes eHP but buffing the range on missiles am I not that happy about. However going from 5% kinetic damage to a general damage bonus/buff seems fair to me.

Tier 3 BCs seem to be some sort of Bizarro-world. My impressions was that the Talos was superior to the Naga already.

ECM: I don't see any changes mentioned yet, just discussion. Hooray for Sensor Damp boost, though!

I wouldn't mind a range bonus on the Drake in place of the shield resist bonus. It might open up some fun fits like a SeBo Drake with range rigs which makes 150km warps around the target. Or it could just be a HAM gankboat.

Awesome sauce.

Just answer this question - if Drake is nerfed, what would you fly instead? NightHawk? ... or crosstrain to fly other races?

DRAKE (and to an extent, tier 2 battlecruisers):

There is a reason why it is the most used battlecruiser out there. The problem with the Drake is that it is does everything too well for little cost or sacrifice, while being easy to train for. Thus, and to an extent most of the tier 2 battlecruisers create a certain number of issues that should be addressed:

(Yes, leaving tier 1 battlecruisers out of the discussion because there is no point arguing with the obvious fact they need some attention).

• Overshadow other tech 1 hulls: the leap in performance between cruiser and tier 2 battlecruiser classes is just too great for too little cost (average slot count, EHP mainly). This, coupled with the gain in damage for having access to more weapon slots, as well as extra fitting power (ever tried squeezing turrets into an Omen and keep a decent fit?), makes the small loss of speed irrelevant when leaving the cruiser class as battlecruisers still remain fairly mobile. That's partly why the Hurricane also is so popular.


• Overshadows tech 2 counterparts: Heavy Assault Ships and Command Ships are suffering from this situation. This is most apparent with the Nighthawk, but any ship that shares a common role with them is affected. Why take the time to train up and pay for an expensive hull when there is an easy to get into and cheap option available that almost have the same performance?


• Incorrectly funnel new players: don't get us wrong, we don't want to screw new players, on the contrary. The core problem here is that tech 1 frigates and cruisers should be appealing enough to be viable platforms in both PvE and PvP. What's the point of a Bellicose? Exequror? Maller? Moa? They shouldn't be things you just skip on the way to a greater purpose, like a leaf of salad in my 250gr double-layered onion and egg hamburger.


• Have odd, conflicting, or too much versatile roles: Drake has both a shield resistance and damage bonus, making it quite effective at passive tanking, but doesn't give it a focused purpose. Then you have the Myrmidon, which doesn't really know what it is supposed to do, like some Japanese anime characters don't know which gender they are trying to be: it's a mix of a turret ship without turret bonuses (and often ends up with autocannons fitted, the blasphemy), but also is a drone ship for its drone bonuses, while lacking the bandwidth or bay to support this claim. Some examples to solve this could be to turn the Drake in line with the Caracal and Raven in term of role, as a heavy offensive medium range missile platform, and to turn the Myrmidon into a proper drone ship. That would also help having a consistent, logical progression line between the cruiser and battleship roles as well, if we are careful not having the larger versions override the smaller ones.

There are a lot of ships that needs to be looked into and were not mentioned here: they evolved, they rebelled and they have a planGäó. If all goes well, expect a blog to come out soonGäó.

I won't smile until I get a refund of my heavy missile skill points.

im 8 years in the game and can fly any race well or at max skills (barirng supercaps) for every combat ship, so it no longer makes any difference to me which race they boost or which they nerf: Im not biased toward any of them.

Having said that, the Drake is all too prevalent in fleet makeups. It does everything very well, and requires very little isk to purchase.

If CCP is all about maximising the diversity in the game, then drakes need their enormous tanks downgraded a little.

im 8 years in the game and can fly any race well or at max skills (barirng supercaps) for every combat ship, so it no longer makes any difference to me which race they boost or which they nerf: Im not biased toward any of them.

Having said that, the Drake is all too prevalent in fleet makeups. It does everything very well, and requires very little isk to purchase.

If CCP is all about maximising the diversity in the game, then drakes need their enormous tanks downgraded a little.

can i point out that reducing the tank and increasing the gank on a drake isnt exactly a nerf

that ship had plenty of tank, it can spare a little bit

also, STFU about nulsec alliances and your batshit insane conspiracy theories

In my view, the problem isn't that the Drake is overpowered GÇö it's that most other Battlecruisers are terrible. In fact, a lot of ships in this game are terrible, and are overshadowed by just one or two of the ships in their respective categories. The initial design goal to endow every race's ships with a certain statistic-based "theme" has made EVE incredibly difficult to balance.

If every ship in every category actually excelled at something specific instead of being a useless mess, these balance issues wouldn't be so prevalent. In 2003-2005, when people didn't know exactly how everything worked, didn't have access to every module and there were still years of player trial-and-error to be done, it wasn't a big deal. At this late date, though, every strength and weakness of every ship and module is now starkly apparent to pretty much everyone (though opinions do differ).

There's a developer in this thread claiming that the Drake is easy to train for. It takes two months of training to fly one adequately, three months to fly them fairly well, and at least five or six months (plus implants) to fly them expertly.

Six months is "easy"? You do still want new players to continue subscribing to EVE, right?

#1 this isn't going to be a "little bit" nerf. Removing the resist bonus will gut its ability to tank anything other than Kinetic. That will destroy its Lvl4 ability right there.

#2 CCP went to the CSM FIRST instead of the community about this load of crap. They need the green light from a bunch of nullsec players before they can even talk to us about it? This should have been posted the moment it arrived as in idea at the office so we could have said it was a terrible idea then instead of now.