Tr 3 are gun ships. It makes sense because snipers work best a gun ships.

Pretty much this.

I assume CCP feels missile users have been adequately compensated by stealth bombers and the various spear-chucking ships strewn across the races: Khanid ships, Gurista ships, Lach, Huginn, Typhoon, and to a lesser extent all those minmatar ships that traditionally fit neuts in their utility slots, but could fit launchers.

Not that I find this to be an incredible solace myself, but having to make an educated guess that's what I assume they'd say. Regardless of the reasoning though, I don't think any torp, cruise, or capital launcher pilot would delight in any new hulls being throw there way as it stands. Outside of the "ooh shiny and new," value the weapons themselves are anywhere from "of narrow use," to "completely broken," in terms of effectiveness.

Personally, I think priority one for launchers is to have the larger variety work on equal sized targets with t2 ammo. Rage torps and cruise missiles should not be useful only in bashing structures. XL torps should not be speed tanked by a capital ship moving at the speed of continental drift.

Ed: As far as drones go, I think they're in a similar situation (ie. lots of ships with extensive drone bays, a few off-racial and faction ships with a drone bonus, and their own ship class in carriers) but rather than being ineffective, not that drones don't have their drawbacks, are not provided more hulls for different reasons. I could go on about that, but I think one look at how popular the ishtar is, why that is, and where it's drawbacks lie should give you an idea.

If you really think the Naga sucks then you have no clue what you're talking about. Really, no clue whatsoever. And yeah, they're turret ships just like the T1 destroyers.

If you really think the Naga sucks then you have no clue what you're talking about. Really, no clue whatsoever. And yeah, they're turret ships just like the T1 destroyers.

Only that those who are not trained in guns are getting the shaft.

And before that anyone having trained hybrids instead of missiles was getting the shaft as the Drake is far more useful than the Ferox and the raven > Rokh. For once, just once, it's the other time round and now you're going to start a whine thread about it?

The tier 3 BCs have fairly niche roles, none of these roles work well with slow drones or missiles.

OH LOOK THIS THREAD AGAIN. IT'S ONLY BEEN DISCUSSED 498765293476563947596 TIMES WHY WE DONT HAVE THOSE SHIPS.

Npt at all. your "but you have gallente" doesn't make sense because you stated you'd like the Talos to be drone based. Besides, why should one have to fly gallente if you wanted a hybrid ship. Also, For gallente it's the same thing; generally the droneboats out perform the turret ships and this once it's a GOOD gallente turret ship.

Why didn't you ask for a missile Oracle, some of their ships are missile based? You can ofcourse try your hardest to sound fair, reasoned and logical but all we're really hearing is "bawww, i didn't train Hybrids".

Npt at all. your "but you have gallente" doesn't make sense because you stated you'd like the Talos to be drone based. Besides, why should one have to fly gallente if you wanted a hybrid ship. Also, For gallente it's the same thing; generally the droneboats out perform the turret ships and this once it's a GOOD gallente turret ship.

Why didn't you ask for a missile Oracle, some of their ships are missile based? You can ofcourse try your hardest to sound fair, reasoned and logical but all we're really hearing is "bawww, i didn't train Hybrids".

No missle tier 3 ship either? WTF?

.... and have nothing to do with their anti-capital role?

If you're talking about PvE, then I think you can afford to stick to your single weapon type skills. If you do any sort of PvP, you're very likely going to need to skill up in all weapons.

I started as Caldari/hybrid, and reluctanly skilled up in missiles, because they are that much better in PvE. Missile flingers have the Drake; they don't need a T3 BC. Period, end of story.

So, please, stop with the whinefest about not having a T3 missile boat. Caldari hulls are hybrid hulls, too, not just missiles.

Adapt or cry. Seriously this entire thread is a whine about your personal expectations.

I have gun skills but they suck compared to my missle/drone skills. I'm over 30mil sp between the two of them.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with torps, they're a very powerful anti-BS weapon, and pretty good against Drake spam too.

Exactly as I stated: "bawww, I didn't train Hybrids"


Just because YOU chose to not train hybrids and went for other stuff instead, you know the better stuff, doesn't mean CCP has to forever and ever keep Hybrids **** and the other stuff OP. So all this is just a whine because CCP had the gal to introduce something you didn't train for (and actually made it good), anything else you state or come up with as a reasoning is just that, in disguise.

Caldari has been due for a good hybrid ship that actually has a place in things, same for Gallente. Deal with it.

Come again?

Did you mean to say "stealth bombers," there because if you did: I totally agree.

Your missing the point of the thread.
I think the Naga is great it's just too bad that you need guns skills to make it great.
I have no issue with the caldari line up as a whole.
Only that those who are not trained in guns are getting the shaft.

No, I didn't. What's your point?

Torps are a sloppy mess that require so much tackle and painting on a target that they're best used for light shows and maybe the occasional ambush.

Myth bolded.

Sure, if you're firing torps against Gurista frigates, then you may find them lacking.

Torps are a battleship weapon, designed to be used against other battleships. The only additional tackle that they require is a painter - web support is not necessary against almost all BS - and even the painter is unnecessary against six of the twelve BS.

Not sure if serious.

The other less then 10% of us train missles/drones and not guns.

What EVE have you played for the last two years? open the old forums and find me a couple constructive threads that mention PVE and a gunship not named dominix, mach, or be some kind of marauder.

Hell, look at the drakemonths that recently ended, where even in nullsec land they were the only ship in space.

The problem is that the developers try to shoehorn hybrid stuff into Caldari (when it should be Gallente) and to prevent them from having too many ships, scatter some missile stuff across other races. They really don't have a consistent theme that they stick with.

Caldari should really be pure Shield/Missile. At least somebody should, given that it's a whole separate skill TREE.

There should be missile destroyers/tier 3 bcs for Caldari. Caldari pilots who want a missile anti-frigate boat are forced to use Caracals; and Caldari pilots who want to use suicide gank torps are left with nothing while every other race has a suicide ganker.

Screw drones, they're an adjunct source of damage that everyone uses, and their main niche is protecting battleships from frigates. There shouldn't be any ships that rely on drones as their main source of damage as it essentially makes combat an AFK afair for their pilot.

Missle/drone combo is already the rarest used. Mainly due to it being so niche.

Just... no. Missile boats are a "perk" for Caldari, not the sum total of the Caldari design philosophy. Yes, the "theme" has been watered down a bit but it isn't because there's *too much* useful hybrid access, it's partly because of not nearly enough and partly because they've never figured out how to handle the whole "superior electronics" idea they had (especially when the answer to "crap we screwed up when we added the Falcon" was "screw up ECM even more"). Boo-hoo, you HAVE to use a Caracal hull for cruiser-size missile-based anti-frigate. Well, assuming you mean long-range T1 cruiser-size missile-based anti-frigate with light missiles, because you should be able to cause at least a little bit of concern with an HML Blackbird, and a good bit more if you move up to a Rook. Sure, the Cerberus does it better, but does CONCORD come out and pod you for not using one?

Also, as far as I can tell, *nobody* can use "suicide gank torps," or at least nobody seems too keen on whatever it takes to make it work. You do realize suicide ganking has existed for a lot longer than the T3s, right? How many "suicide torp" Ravens have you heard about? Maybe caracals back when *they* could throw (much more effective) torps at an indy and hope they land but...

I'll let the drone pilots comment on getting drones to do what you want, since apparently I haven't figured out whatever magical button I need to press that will automatically spit out replacement drones and tell them to all go to new targets... or are you talking about a couple PVE missions? The ones where all the drones do is save you hitting 'F1' a bunch because even the idiot drone AI can't screw the triggers up?



... you don't say...

The issue with missiles in general needs to be and will addressed, but that is a separate discussion altogether, that we will happily discuss with the player base when we come down to it.

On the contrary, this was the issue at hand. Perhaps I read too much into the OP. My inference was not a whine about no torps on the naga, but that tier3 bc's highlighted something we already knew about large missile and drone weapon systems: that they perform very poorly outside stealth bombers in pvp compared to their turret counterparts.

I'd say that you are reading things into the OP that aren't really there, and that including the failed Naga design in any commentary about missile ships does nothing but muddy the issue. Basically:
- With regards to the Naga: Ytterbium more than adequately explained why they chose a turret based ship.
- With regards to missiles: Ytterbium promised more upcoming dialog for addressing the deeper issues relating to missiles.

I'm really curious how they plan to address some of the underlying issues with missiles.

-Liang

Don't misconstrue my posting to be some commentary on the naga as a turret ship. I've made it abundantly clear that it should be that way and I like it that way. My commentary was simply to point out that it wouldn't work any other way and that indicates a problem with torpedoes and cruise missiles. I was also quick to applaud his promise of an upcoming missile discussion.

I think i'll have to wait for that dialogue to have my questions answered.

As designers, we can tell Caldari have three main points going for them as a race and that is, missile, hybrids and ECM. To be an all-rounded Caldari pilot, one must realize all aspects have to be considered and learned, just like, for example, a pilot has to consider training for hybrids, drones and dampening to master most of the Gallente tech 1 ships.

However, we are players as well, and we can freely admit only having one side of the coin for a new expansion is indeed frustrating. Favor the Naga as hybrid, as missile pilots feel shafted. Make it missile based and hybrid users will hunt your family down with torches and pitchforks. It is, in essence, a no win situation, no matter how much you try to please the player base.

Part of the problem is that Missiles are a huge tree for something someone is supposed to train alongside the huge gunnery tree. If someone wants to cross-train Caldari... they essentially have to retrain every weapon support skill from scratch. Conversely, for Gallente, drones are used by everybody as they fulfill an essential role in PVE and PVP (even if you're not flying a dedicated drone boat). So really, all a pilot has to do to cross-train Gallente is work on Hybrids and Damps.

In practice, most players only train 1 type of weapon: turrets or missiles because of the way the skills are set up that they do not benefit eachother in the slightest. However, turret users have far more options. Pure hybrid-users have access to all of Gallente and half of Caldari, while pure missile users have access to half of Caldari. People who have both skills have access to everything, but that leaves out new players.

Part of the problem is that Missiles are a huge tree for something someone is supposed to train alongside the huge gunnery tree. If someone wants to cross-train Caldari... they essentially have to retrain every weapon support skill from scratch. Conversely, for Gallente, drones are used by everybody as they fulfill an essential role in PVE and PVP (even if you're not flying a dedicated drone boat). So really, all a pilot has to do to cross-train Gallente is work on Hybrids and Damps.

In practice, most players only train 1 type of weapon: turrets or missiles because of the way the skills are set up that they do not benefit eachother in the slightest. However, turret users have far more options. Pure hybrid-users have access to all of Gallente and half of Caldari, while pure missile users have access to half of Caldari. People who have both skills have access to everything, but that leaves out new players.

I don't want to be like those Minmatar pilots

why battleship+ sized missiles are not very appealing on ships other than stealth bombers.

Because they trade away too much applied DPS. Cruise trades it for raw (but mostly useless) range while torps trade it for EFT DPS numbers. I'd say that fixing both of them is relatively straight forward (and I have ideas, obviously), but I figure its best to leave that to CCP.

-Liang

Correct. That's what i'd like to read about.

Honestly the only reading that can be done is figuring out which way CCP wants to lean on the balancing act. I'm sure that any communication by CCP will be fascinating to read, but whining by the players isn't a whole lot more than just that.

-Liang

Let me paraphrase you.

"I believe, as Caldari, that my skill training queue should be as straightforward as an Amarrian's. I want a world where all I have to do is show info on citadel torps and work through the checklist. I don't want to be like those Minmatar pilots who are confronted with a training queue which is bloated with missile skills, gunnery skills, shield skills. Oh, and poor them for having to train armour skills too. Ha ha, us Caldari, we got it easy with missile + shield."

-snip!-

Hearing more about that way CCP wants to lean was the intent of my gentle yet firm coaxing. I've been attempting to pull this thread out of whine mode so we can better penetrate this fascinating subject matter.

C'mon Ytterbium, just a tip. Just to see how it feels.

For those of us who are gurista specialist and focused on both missles and drones it's been a very sad few months.
From the forums I've read people already seemed to be against drones when it comes to the larger ships for pvp purposes. ((cheap neut domi is the only decent option without dropping down to cruiser size))
Those who are gurista heavy would rather fly the gila over the myrm and now with the drake nerf the gila is better then any bc we could chose from. Seems to be a huge case of no love in the BC class of ships for us.

Awwwww poor thing. Ok, ok, fine, since you look desperate with your whimpering and puppy eyes here is one for you

Tip: there are dev blogs incoming on ship balancing, and don't worry, they will give you plenty of things to talk / argue / rabble / whine / set things on fire when they go out.

*inset cliche evil villain laugh here*

Ironically you could have trained T2 large rails from scratch in a sad few months.

Tr 3 ships are not unique in this either btw. How about gun-skilled people who want to use Stealth Bombers, they have to train up a load of missile skills. Or how about when people get to caps... oh wait carriers only use Fighters/Drones.

Tip: there are dev blogs incoming on ship balancing, and don't worry, they will give you plenty of things to talk / argue / rabble / whine / set things on fire when they go out. [b]

Awwwww poor thing. Ok, ok, fine, since you look desperate with your whimpering and puppy eyes here is one for you

Tip: there are dev blogs incoming on ship balancing, and don't worry, they will give you plenty of things to talk / argue / rabble / whine / set things on fire when they go out.

*inset cliche evil villain laugh here*

This thread could use some blue light.

We have to admit creating the Naga was possibly one of the most challenging ship balancing task we had to tackle so far. Not only because finding a proper role for it without overlapping with the Talos too much, while still remaining effective was crazy difficult, but mainly as we knew that no matter which kind of direction we picked it would still generate a heated debate among the community.

The core problem here lies with the Caldari combat philosophy, or at least how it is externally perceived. Some believe Caldari to be missile based, other hybrids based. And to be honest, that is quite a logical assuption to do so, as most of the Caldari hybrid hulls are quite underused (or were before Crucible), and the most popular ships remain missile based (Caracal, Drake, Raven).

As designers, we can tell Caldari have three main points going for them as a race and that is, missile, hybrids and ECM. To be an all-rounded Caldari pilot, one must realize all aspects have to be considered and learned, just like, for example, a pilot has to consider training for hybrids, drones and dampening to master most of the Gallente tech 1 ships.

However, we are players as well, and we can freely admit only having one side of the coin for a new expansion is indeed frustrating. Favor the Naga as hybrid, as missile pilots feel shafted. Make it missile based and hybrid users will hunt your family down with torches and pitchforks. It is, in essence, a no win situation, no matter how much you try to please the player base.

The first iteration of the Naga attempted to please all interested parties by having both missile and hybrid bonues, but as the feedback quickly shown, it was quite a failure, as it was not achieving any specific role and lacked a purpose.

So, in the end, we had to go for the option that made the most logical sense. Tier 3 battlecruisers are supposed to be mobile, heavy damage support for fleets and hybrids were the most appealing to reach such goal. Torpedoes are too short range based for a hull that frail, while cruise missiles have their own issues for long range combat.

It is not to say cruise missiles are fine and that we don't want to tweak them, but the Naga is, and will remain a hybrid ship as it best fits its role. The issue with missiles in general needs to be and will addressed, but that is a separate discussion altogether, that we will happily discuss with the player base when we come down to it.


Crap, made a wall of text Well, hope that helps a bit no matter what.

CCP must just love missle/drone pilots.

They gave us a nice new BC to play with.
What no tier 3 drone ship. Damn.
No missle tier 3 ship either? WTF?

Atleast we still have the drake.
Your nerfing the drake too?

Thanks for the love guys. Really. I'm so sick of hearing how missles and drones are over powered.

Well atleast the new BC's are good at killing all those mission runners.
I mean how often to you see missle or drone ships running mission? Oh, yeah all the time.

No drone Tier 3????

Try the talos man

Tier 3 battlecruisers are supposed to be mobile, heavy damage support for fleets

As opposed to gunnery V small V spec IV, medium V Spec IV, large V spec IV and sharpshooting V and whatever the tracking skill is (depending on long/short range). Per turret type.

Why is it when people compare gunnery to missile training times they always include the support skills for gunnery and ignore them for missiles?

Not all of the missile supports apply to every missile. You can put together a hell of a bomber pilot for very little SP investment. I know. :)

-Liang

Not all of the missile supports apply to every missile. You can put together a hell of a bomber pilot for very little SP investment. I know. :)

-Liang

One launcher skill does not apply to unguided missiles in much the same way one gunnery skill does not apply to capless turrets. Valid argument that missile trained alts skill into their t2 large/med weapons marginally faster though.

And what use is Controlled Bursts skill to minmatar? or Trajectory Analysis to amarr?

But thats an aside, my point is that the hue and cry from gunnery pilots about training times difference is usually pretty biased. When you factor in all support skills training times difference is very marginal.

And every comparison I see from missile users is similarly biased. Simple facts: I have 18M SP in gunnery to 11M SP in missiles.

-Liang

And every comparison I see from missile users is similarly biased. Simple facts: I have 18M SP in gunnery to 11M SP in missiles.

-Liang

And even THAT is another way of saying that missiles take a mere 61% of the total SP I have dedicated to guns.

-Liang

There are only 7 missile launcher weapon systems in the game and 54 different turret weapon systems. (sub-capital)

Only 61% of the training is not a good deal overall as those gunnery skills support almost 8x as many weapons. I'm not saying that is broken, but it certainly leaves no room for complaints about missiles being light on sp. As I said, it's quite valid to point out the efficient nature of training strait into a battleship weapon system for a specific use, but for the number of weapons and ships you are getting, it's much less efficient overall than gunnery.

Isn't it much more efficient because only 61% of the SP covers missile ships across all 4 races?

-Liang

No, the fact is that missiles are easier to train because there's less total SP to be had to max out. And, of course, this actually lines out exactly with the reputation each weapon platform has. Its just a fact.

However, that doesn't matter because the real fact of the matter is that missiles and gunnery are well balanced in terms of both utility and reach. However, we're doomed to always have losers who QQ about how one is harder to train than the other.

-Liang

Who said anything about harder to train? That's completely idiotic and non-senseical. They're both perception/willpower skillsets, have the same training modifiers, and like every other skill in EVE they simply train for you - no input required except throwing them in the queue.

I think i've been careful to say, repeatedly, that missiles take fewer sp to train for and can be surgically trained for with much less time. As you say, that's a fact. The whole debate about missile and gunnery balance isn't the subject matter at hand.

Unless you weren't addressing my post, in which case, vOv.

Way to stick with the conversation there.



No, I was addressing the perpetual QQ about how SP intensive either weapon system is.

-Liang

This thread could use some blue light
We have to admit creating the Naga was possibly one of the most challenging ship balancing task .................

............Crap, made a wall of text Well, hope that helps a bit no matter what.

Why is it when people compare gunnery to missile training times they always include the support skills for gunnery and ignore them for missiles?

Small point to make, how is giving the Drake a non-predictable damage Type and allowing it to deal consistent Damage up to OMGWTFBBQ range a nerf??

Yeah, its not only faster to train (don't have to train supports to get T2 weapons) but its also 1.3M SP that doesn't need trained at all.



And every comparison I see from missile users is similarly biased. Simple facts: I have 18M SP in gunnery to 11M SP in missiles.

-Liang

I imagine when you say you have 18 mil in turret skils you are crosstrained in every turret type. There are 18 Turret types and 7 Launcher types in sub capital ships, yeah you got 7 more mil in Turret skills but you have 11 more weapon systems. Compare the skill points you need for 7 turret systems to 7 launcher systems and you won't find that big a difference and its quite possible that the turrets are less skill intensive. Especially when you consider that to train long and short range versions of a turret weapon specialization you only need to take one skill to level 4 but to train long and short versions of a launcher system you need to train 2 different skills to level 5.

Especially when you consider that to train long and short range versions of a turret weapon specialization you only need to take one skill to level 4 but to train long and short versions of a launcher system you need to train 2 different skills to level 5.

This thread could use some blue light.

We have to admit creating the Naga was possibly one of the most challenging ship balancing task we had to tackle so far. Not only because finding a proper role for it without overlapping with the Talos too much, while still remaining effective was crazy difficult, but mainly as we knew that no matter which kind of direction we picked it would still generate a heated debate among the community.

The core problem here lies with the Caldari combat philosophy, or at least how it is externally perceived. Some believe Caldari to be missile based, other hybrids based. And to be honest, that is quite a logical assuption to do so, as most of the Caldari hybrid hulls are quite underused (or were before Crucible), and the most popular ships remain missile based (Caracal, Drake, Raven).

As designers, we can tell Caldari have three main points going for them as a race and that is, missile, hybrids and ECM. To be an all-rounded Caldari pilot, one must realize all aspects have to be considered and learned, just like, for example, a pilot has to consider training for hybrids, drones and dampening to master most of the Gallente tech 1 ships.

However, we are players as well, and we can freely admit only having one side of the coin for a new expansion is indeed frustrating. Favor the Naga as hybrid, as missile pilots feel shafted. Make it missile based and hybrid users will hunt your family down with torches and pitchforks. It is, in essence, a no win situation, no matter how much you try to please the player base.

The first iteration of the Naga attempted to please all interested parties by having both missile and hybrid bonues, but as the feedback quickly shown, it was quite a failure, as it was not achieving any specific role and lacked a purpose.

So, in the end, we had to go for the option that made the most logical sense. Tier 3 battlecruisers are supposed to be mobile, heavy damage support for fleets and hybrids were the most appealing to reach such goal. Torpedoes are too short range based for a hull that frail, while cruise missiles have their own issues for long range combat.

It is not to say cruise missiles are fine and that we don't want to tweak them, but the Naga is, and will remain a hybrid ship as it best fits its role. The issue with missiles in general needs to be and will addressed, but that is a separate discussion altogether, that we will happily discuss with the player base when we come down to it.


Crap, made a wall of text Well, hope that helps a bit no matter what.

Fact: I can use all missiles.
Fact: I can use all turrets.
Fact: I have significantly more SP invested in gunnery than missiles
Fact: It is easier to train a specific T2 missile platform than a specific T2 gun platform.
Fact: You don't have to train the supports to 5 in order to use T2 large missile platforms
Fact: Cross training all missile ships in the game requires less SP than cross training all gun ships.
Fact: Missile performance plateaus earlier and has less total SP that can realistically be dedicated to it.
Fact: Training one full turret tree is approximately equivalent to training the entire missile tree.

-Liang

Also this supposed drake "nerf" is not really a nerf. added range just makes Hams alot more viable in pvp and alot of times a higher damage output is more beneficial then a little more tank

Myth bolded.

Sure, if you're firing torps against Gurista frigates, then you may find them lacking.

Torps are a battleship weapon, designed to be used against other battleships. The only additional tackle that they require is a painter - web support is not necessary against almost all BS - and even the painter is unnecessary against six of the twelve BS.

Did anyone actually try the torp Naga when it was on SISSI? It sucked hard. The tier 3 BC only have about 30k EHP. That's enough to roll up, shoot a few times, and then GTFO. The rail Naga was the best choice.

I think people are still missing the two main points of what I started this thread:

1. BC balance is way off now when comparing the weapons skills aspect. (( was already bad for drones ))

2. Missle/drone combo is already the rarest used. Mainly due to it being so niche.
It's sad that hybrids got buff, All guns got tier 3 bc's and the drake gets a small nerf all in the same time period. (( the timing was awful ))

I have no issue with all 4 tier 3 BC's being guns. (( it just would have been nice to see them released with faction BC's at the same time ))

I'm also a bit WTF that ccp changed the drake before dealing with the hurricane.

It could have been worked on.

There is nothing the naga can do that the Talos cant do better... Sniping? Talos gets better tracking and dps. Not quite the range.

There is no reason to fly a naga when the Talos is better in every way....

How about not bothering with threads like these until AFTER Inferno and the tiercide?