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Mon Palae
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Posted - 2004.04.13 14:47:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Mon Palae on 13/04/2004 14:54:43
I think it is probably wrong to assume CCP makes changes based upon what is written in the forums. I think the forums merely serve to alert CCP to what might be a problem. If they see 50 different thread with people largely in agreement on the same issue they probably go have a closer look.
I doubt CCP just goes with the change even then. The devs likely hopped into a frigate and went and found a fight. They probably did it multiple times with different configs and fleets about. One can only assume that what they experienced is not what they originally intended so they go to the drawing board and try to tweak it. If the tweak is too much they will tweak again. And so it goes in a never ending cycle to fine tune a game such as this.
I suppose if there is a HUGE cry for something from the playerbase CCP may respond to appease them. After all they are selling a product and it ultimately makes sense to give the customer what they want. Usually the customers in this case are broadly spread in what they want so an issue that sees all (or at least a notable majority) in agreement is somewhat rare but times that it does CCP seems to respond.
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Mon Palae
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Posted - 2004.04.14 18:04:00 -
[2]
Edited by: Mon Palae on 14/04/2004 18:11:11
Edited by: Mon Palae on 14/04/2004 18:09:45
I think people need to look a bit more closely at the proposed changes. This is my read on what is being proposed:
Missiles: Cruise missiles and (I suppose) torps will not be able to hit fast targets at close range. So an orbiting frigate at 2km cannot be shot down by a cruise missile. If that same frigate is at, say, 30km it can be shot down and it cannot outrun a cruise at full speed. So, spread your forces. Battleships at 30km intervals who overlap fire and can cover their mates.
Drones: Ogres will be unable to hit frigates that are maneuvering and at speed but that says nothing about what other drones can achieve. Will the lighter drones kill a frig as fast as Ogres do today? Nope but neither should they...the speed with which Ogres instagank frigates today is a real stop on effective use of frigates in battle.
Why do you only see Kestrels/Breachers/Rifters today in frig use? Because anything else that gets close to a battleship dies fast.
As for "unhittable" frigs consider the whole purpose behind an Interceptor. Just like its name sounds. Sure another frig may be jetting away at 1800 m/s but the Interceptor is racing at 2500 m/s and can then match speed. Their relative movement will be low. The guns on the interceptor should therefore have no trouble hitting the opposing frig. The battleship lumbering along at 250 m/s would. If not an Interceptor class then an Incursus should likewise eat up Kestrels...just be a bit harder for it.
Additionally, while a missile may not be able to hit a good frig pilot zipping about that is one less missile aimed at a mate of yours. That is one more ship the enemy has to worry about even if that ship itself cannot actually get a hit in because it is moving too fast. As such it still has value in a battle.
The notion of "small cheap things" killing "big expensive things" is well established throughout history. Expensive heavy calvary eventually had to face hordes of cheap pikemen. Expensive and hard to train knights eventually had to face hordes of cheap and poorly trained crossbowmen. Heavily armored, expensive tanks being taken out by man-portable antitank weapons or even something as simple as a hole dug in the ground as a tank trap. Hideously expensive, to the point of almost bankrupting whole countries, battleships were undone by comparatively cheap planes and torpedoes. And then by even cheaper still antiship missiles. There is a reason the United States has mothballed its battleships. As stunningly tough as they are they are too prime a target that can be taken out too easily.
Granted EVE is a game and does not reflect the real world directly in favor of gameplay mechanics but the notion that big expensive things aught to be immune to little cheap things is not correct. Doubtless further tweaks will be necessary down the road but getting people off the battleship-at-all-costs-because-it-does-everything-better-than-anything-else treadmill is a good thing for EVE overall.
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Mon Palae
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Posted - 2004.04.14 19:48:00 -
[3]
Edited by: Mon Palae on 14/04/2004 19:51:26
 Quote:
Your smaller signature radius, in conjunction to the upcoming tracking changes, will ensure your survival is longer lasting.
I have personally been the subject of an ultra-fast locking battleship. Locked my frigate in a second and then locked my pod in a second after my frig was history (or so it seemed...it happened very very fast and I admittedly was not using a stop watch). I don't see how lowering the sig radius helps all that much. Instead of being target locked in 0.7 seconds I'll get locked in 1 second? Not a big help.
Quote:
Why the obsession with trying to kill a battleship with frigates only and frigates only equipped with cruise missiles?
I'm pretty sure there are turret-based frigate setups which outdamage cruise missiles.
I think the obesession is not so much with having frigs trying to outright kill a battleship on their own. Right now the ONLY frigs useful at all against a battleship are the missile heavy frigs. Frigs simply cannot get close as drones eat them alive in an instant and they are very vulnerable to missiles. As Jade mentioned the only real viable role for them is to warp in, launch and warp out.
What would be nice and I think what CCP is after are ways to get a frigate in close and give it a prospect at survival for more than 10 seconds. Pirates and mercs and bounty hunters should love it. This affords them a chance to have frigs jet in and scramble/web a battleship or drone heavy/missile toting miner allowing the bigger guns time to follow on behind and finish the job.
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Mon Palae
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Posted - 2004.04.14 22:43:00 -
[4]
Edited by: Mon Palae on 14/04/2004 22:45:09
Quote:
But I miss discussions of Cruisers. Are they for anything than agent missions and mining? I wonder if the proposed changes will cut out a clear role for cruisers, too.
I think it is definitely time for some love to be given to cruisers. With all these changes they are becoming the odd-man-out. They don't have the speed or maneuverability of frigs to help them there and don't have the durability and greater flexibility of battleships. I'm not saying they are totally worthless and an enemy still has to pay attention to one but it seems these changes makes a cruiser's role in the scheme of things harder to justify.
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