Dreads are mainly antistructure, with a bit of anti-cap. Carriers still do pretty decent damage against subcaps AFAIK. Supers can switch between anti-cap and anti-subcap depending on their choice of fighter drone. Titans are pure anti-cap.

It's amusing the pile of people in this thread who ignore all the well-worded arguments to the contrary, and just immediately yell 'CCP just let blobbers win eve" when it's not the case at all. If you can't hold your space without using a group of overpowered ships with no effective counter in the game, something that is against everything eve has ever been about... maybe you shouldn't be holding any space. Has that thought occurred to you?

As for the people who keep posting "Lol blobbers use drake fleet, just orbit the anchor lol" they show their ignorance on the matter of how real large-scale battles in eve are fought. The amount of planning, logistics, strategy, espionage, and luck that goes into winning a battle, shows that numbers are only a small part of any of this. Anybody in this thread posting about how goons have somehow just won eve, because one overpowered ships is getting a nerf it desparetely needs... jusg ignore their posts. Because they have no idea at all about eve, how fights are won, or what really matters to win them.

Up until now Greyscale, Titans were never "pure anti-cap". Indeed, pre-dominion their primary function was to mass murder subcap fleets with their AOE Doomsdays. In Dominion you replaced the AOE with a directed weapon, capable of hitting any ship, and in addition you enhanced the regular XL weapon bonuses "so that the turret locators actually might get used [to]enable a Titan to make its presence felt on the battalefield" " to quote your own devblog.

Now however, they are suddenly "pure anti-cap" as if they were never intended for anything else.

They develop what we want cos we pay for the game. If it's to be as you want, will be if you have the majority. And probably you have. Still doesn't mean you're right. You are just more than us.

This has never been a stated balance goal in any discussion I've been party to. In particular, predicating "can survive as a small alliance in nullsec" on "can afford a large supercap fleet" would be extremely silly, because it excludes exactly the type of players who we're most keen on being able to maintain small holdings in nullsec, ie newer, poorer players.

It's amusing the pile of people in this thread who ignore all the well-worded arguments to the contrary, and just immediately yell 'CCP just let blobbers win eve" when it's not the case at all. If you can't hold your space without using a group of overpowered ships with no effective counter in the game, something that is against everything eve has ever been about... maybe you shouldn't be holding any space. Has that thought occurred to you?.

If you can't hold your space without using a group of 1600 zerglings with no effective counter in the game, something that is against everything eve has ever been about... maybe you shouldn't be holding any space. Has that thought occurred to you?

If you can't hold your space without using a group of 1600 zerglings with no effective counter in the game, something that is against everything eve has ever been about... maybe you shouldn't be holding any space. Has that thought occurred to you?

Thanks for confirming my decision not to train for supercaps was a good one CCP.

Why shouldn't Titans be able to hit MWD'ng drakes with sig's the size of moons?

Technology advantage has always been a counter to pure numbers throughout history. Bringing numbers to a fight in Eve has always been a problem compounded by the fact that ships fire magically pass through any non targets in the way without causing damage.

If fleets in large numbers had to actually manoeuvre in order to bring DPS onto a target then the blob would be less advantageous than it would be now.

Game balance. Maybe you'd understand the need for it if your PvP experience consisted of something other than nopod ~honour~ matches in hisec.

Especially drake and maelstrom pilots by any chance ?

All that first quote is saying is that it's never been our intention that you need supers to survive as a small alliance in nullsec. There's a lot of people reading into it a lot of things that aren't actually there.

WRT the second point, I would suggest webs (where applicable), dictors/hictors, and not using titans to play docking games.

Andski, have you had social time with Eve devs? Is this why you got the recruitment channel rules changed almost immediately after you demanded it? What is your relationship with CCP beyond just playing the game?

Sorry, docking games? If I'm repping shields/armor at a POS in my carrier, I can warp and dock in 31 seconds. That's 2 seconds faster than a Titan on grid can target me.

CSM Hijinks

The CSM matters. Seleene and Elise fought like lions, but were brought down in the end. Vote, motherfuckers - every vote we get is a tear in the eyes of our enemies. Here's the link: http://www.eveonline.../Vote.asp?c=438

We shot past 10k on the exit poll, but the poll is only a guideline; we cannot assume we have won. Continue to fight to get people to the polls. God forbid we get 20%+ of all votes cast, the howling from the masses will be unforgettable - and it will be a howling we can enjoy for an entire year.

Realtalk:

Every single titan nerf has been to reduce their effectiveness towards subcaps. Titans on paper are actually not designed to hit subcaps for ****, it's only when you get a bunch that it's nearly impossible to maintain transversal from them all. **** they have dread guns on them and their drones were taken away, what about these things suggest they were designed as anti subcap platforms? I just don't understand this reasoning. Sure you've been taking advantage of their inability to balance these things vs subcaps properly but being an anti blob weapon clearly wasn't their intent by design and now we have them on record confirming this is the case.

Dear very important space ship personality,

the main purpose of AE DD was obviously to kill subcaps in large numbers.
The main purpose of focused DD was clearly to be able to kill every ship with one shot (including subcaps).

So as you can see the idea that supercaps should be a pure anti-capital weapon is rather new.

However, I do like that this was changed and do think that supercaps still need balancing. Making them useless is not the solution though.

I had a beer with Soundwave and Greyscale several months back, interestingly enough

Tell me about Being Objective CCP Grayscale you tool.

I can wait for your next announcement showing us all the brilliantly thought out counter to 800 maelstroms.

We're absolutely listening.

Titans are an anti-cap/supercap ship and we need to limit their ability to kill subcaps. That's a change that's happening and is unlikely to change. The practical details on how that happens we'd love as much feedback on as possible. We've been talking about the lock timers this morning based on feedback from the playerbase, looking at what adjustments we can possibly make. The changes in the OP are still subject to change if we get feedback on how to achieve our goal better.

A calculator. So you can count the numbers of our enemies and realize this is a red herring since they bring as many on the field as we do.

If you can't hold your space without using a group of 1600 zerglings with no effective counter in the game, something that is against everything eve has ever been about... maybe you shouldn't be holding any space. Has that thought occurred to you?

So dreads and supercaps are anti structure ships within the current nullsec warring. So titans are just supposed to sit around and wait for someone to shoot structures?

I feel that nerfing supers to uselessness is rather myopic will only lead to less dynamic gameplay. There needs to be an ability to counter titans, but fights should not be reduced to who can field the most subcaps. I think that is a poor direction especially for pilots who have spent years training into these ships and want them to be used. However, CCP seems ok with saying to the 800 or so titan pilots that they would much rather keep their subcap customers happy (even though must of them have no clue about capital combat or why a titan could blap a MWDing drake).

To me this general direction is bad for eve online, tracking probably needed a nerf, but now it'll take 18 seconds to even lock another titan with three cormack sebos's (Who the hell balances around 3 meta 14 sebos?). Base Titan scanres will be a third of a sieged dreadnaught. I feel that taken together with the previous nerfs CCP is driving titan pilots to mothball their ships. Theres really no significant reason to fly a titan and the only thing they have to look forward to is some vague promise of changes down the road. Well Ive seen how long it takes CCP to get back to things like gallente ship balancing or faction warfare and Im not to keen on waiting around that long for titans to be useful again.

This wasnt something so critical that it needed to be addressed outside of a thoughtful look at the ship and its role in fleets.

Dear very important space ship personality,

the main purpose of AE DD was obviously to kill subcaps in large numbers.

The main purpose of focused DD was clearly to be able to kill every ship with one shot (including subcaps).

So as you can see the idea that supercaps should be a pure anti-capital weapon is rather new.

However, I do like that this was changed and do think that supercaps still need balancing. Making them useless is not the solution though.

GF ccp, blobs just won eve

Dreadnaughts are primarily anti-structure tools, with anti-capital as a secondary role. The capital ships you're looking for to deal with battleships are carriers.

Right there in the beginning of Greyscales post he mentions this is a stopgap cause it is too disruptive and not what they intended at all. They will be redesigning the hull to actually be good at its stated role instead of leaving it broken so it can do everything.

We would be totally happy with an outcome where people stop expanding their titan fleet. It shouldn't be coming as a huge surprise to anyone that, all other things being equal, we would prefer a situation where there were fewer titans in EVE.

People who're augmenting their fleet strength with supers we're OK with, and they should continue to be OK after this change. We're not happy with situations where supercaps are making up the bulk of the fleet strength. If that's becoming less viable, then this is a desirable outcome for us.