Boosting The Battle: Command Ships vs T3s

At this point, its pretty apparent that CCP is going through a large-scale rebalancing effort for all ships. As I've talked about in previous posts, I think its been very well done so far, with the exception of only Supercapital roles perhaps. One thing I'd like to bring up is the current roles of fleet boosting ships. I know that Rixx posted a piece on how he thinks off-grid boosting should be removed altogether, but I'm not going to argue either way on that issue. While off-grid boosting is still a part of the game, I think the balance between Command ships and T3's needs to be looked at.

Right now, Strategic Cruisers are much more effective at providing links. The easiest comparison to look at is the Loki & Claymore. With the Loki Defensive - Warfare Processor subsystem, the Loki gets 5% bonus to effectiveness of Skirmish Warfare links per level. The Claymore only gets 3% per level of Command Ships. Right off the bat, that seems like a problem to me. That's especially true given that the Defensive Subsystem skill is a 1x multiplier versus Command Ships 8x, and Command Ships require a much larger skill investment overall with Racial Cruiser and Battlecruiser V.

This isn't even the start of the problem though. Tech 3's are incredibly versatile. Anyone who is using a T3 as a pure booster (alt) will clearly set it up with the Covert Subsystem and likely an expanded probe launcher. This can easily be setup with 3-4 warfare links to boot, no problem. What you get out of that is an unbelievable advantage: a ship that can launch probes, cloak up, provide a warp-in and then GTFO and boost you to victory. That's a pretty awesome advantage for "solo" or "small gang" pvp.

The Claymore, on the other hand, has almost none of those advantages. It has the lower bonus for warfare links and none of the cloaky-warp upside. You can fit an expanded probe launcher on it, but it has no bonus for scan strength of probes or fitting requirements. It can field three warfare links without need for Command Processors, but the Loki has no problem tacking on two or three of those to get the links fitted. The only advantage currently to Command Ships is that you can fit these three links without gimping a combat fit. But with boosting as it stands today, very few people bring their link-fitted ships on grid anyway.

This whole deal doesn't seem quite right in my opinion. T3's should not outdo Command Ships in the role that CS's were designed for. Strategic Cruisers were meant to be a jack of all trades, not the ultimate ship for every task. The balance is clearly off.

What's the answer then? There are a few options. First of all, if RJ's proposition of ending off grid boosting goes through, the problem would solve itself in terms of balance between these classes. No one will leave a gimped Loki on grid to get primaried, but the Claymore (and other fleet command ships) can hold its own, especially with appropriate Logi to prop it up. But if those changes don't go through and off-grid boosting remains, the bonuses on these ships need to be changed to bring them in line. Either Command Ships need a buff or T3's need a nerf or maybe even both. A cruiser should not be beating a dedicated bonus-providing battlecruiser hull. No questions asked.

I hope CCP takes a look at this over the next few months (years?). Its not necessarily an overwhelmingly important fix, but the current situation is out of balance nonetheless. Give Command Ships back their rightful place in fleets and as off-grid alts!!

Moar Ship Rebalancing

CCP rolled out yet another set of changes for ship classes. I'm beginning to feel like an old timer, thinking about back in the day when Merlins had missiles and the Navitas was a mining ship. Anyway, I can't really complain about many of the incoming changes to frigates. A lot of the lesser used (see: anything that is not a Rifter, Incursus, Merlin or Punisher) frigates are getting buffs or total re-designations. I'm not sure that all of the theory crafting that CCP is undergoing will make all of these ships useful, but I don't see much being detrimental. I'm almost going to miss my split weapon system (hybrid/missile) Tristan though. Just picked up a new batch from Jita today.

Mining ships are also getting tweaked a bit. It may sound ignorant of me, but in all honesty, I don't care very much. The buffs to the lesser used ships won't outpace the mining bonus for the Hulk, meaning we won't see a great change from the status quo. The one positive coming out of the mining rebalance is the introduction of an ORE mining frigate. Instead of having 4 very sub-par mining frigates, have one ORE specialized one. It makes perfect sense to me.

The last point CCP brought up in the Dev Blog was more Destroyer rebalancing. The Crucible expansion left the Thrasher and Catalyst well ahead of their counterparts, and there are apparently some changes inbound to balance the four. Hopefully that means a buff for the Coercer and Cormorant as opposed to nerfing the previous two. Also, CCP alluded to creating 4 new missile-based destroyers. Start training those rockets and light missiles.

Overall, I have to say CCP is on point with all of these changes once again, and believe me, its nice to say that. Happy anniversary of Incarna, by the way ;)  CCP is gunning for all ships to have a role somewhere. Right now, there are tons of ships we, as players, don't even dream of flying. It'd be great to see more variety on the field as opposed to Drake, Maelstrom, Abbadon, Tengu, & Hurricane. As long as CCP gets the balance right, its going to be a fun couple years to be an internet spaceship pilot.

Titan Tracking Issues Revisited (Changes Announced)

Looks like I got that Titan tracking post out just in time. CCP released the official changes today via CCP Greyscale in this forum post. The changes were a pretty short list, but it seems like it could be effective.

• Base Titan tracking is halved
• Scan Resolution dropped to 5
• Max locked targets changed to 3

 I can't really knock any of these changes. I like that CCP decided to combat the issue not by nerfing the tracking all to hell but also by affecting targeting matters. A scan resolution of 5 is really, really low. CCP intelligently based this number on officer grade Sensor Boosters, which makes sense given that Titan pilots don't normally object too strongly to pimping these ships a bit. The maximum of 3 locked targets seems a bit weird to me in terms of immersion, but I understand it from a technical point of view (Immersion-wise, the most advanced ship in the game can only lock up 3 ships? Ehh). So CCP's general thought was "cut the tracking, but let's also cut down on how quickly they are able to lock up sub-capitals." I can't really argue with that. Let's look at the numbers.

I'm not going to run through the full analysis from yesterday, but here's a couple side-by-sides.

Pre-Nerf

Post Nerf

Its pretty darn clear that Drakes have a much better shot at survival now. The lock time is going go up as well, so hopefully this gives a fleet of Drakes a chance. 

The Tornado saw similar increases as well. And if you remember from yesterday's post, they weren't in too terrible of shape already.

Pre Nerf

Post Nerf

The Tornado now looks almost like the AB Thorax from yesterday. Tier 3 BC's could be really effective in anti-capital fleets, especially with the new changes in mind. Just keep moving.

The changes that CCP Greyscale proposed look pretty solid to me. The primary use of Titans probably shouldn't be to rip apart cruisers and battlecruisers. With these changes, they won't be able to do that. The occasional tracking fit Titan will still be able to one shot some BC's, but it should be much less of a regular occurrence. With the 3 target max, I'd also think they'd be more inclined to shoot larger targets, but we'll see how that works out. I've got to applaud CCP for these changes. Titans are still mega powerful, but they're more in balance with the role they're supposed to have. 

I'd also like to applaud CCP for knowing when to throw out the bad ideas. Check out some of Greyscale's potential "rebalancing" ideas in that forum thread. Example: Titans can't lock subcapitals. Wtf? I don't know if there was any CSM involvement in this whole discussion, but either way I'm glad that some of these terrible ideas got taken off the table.

Settling Back In

Hello again blogosphere! Its been a little while. I've been keeping up with things from a distance, but haven't had the time to write in a couple weeks due to settling back in at school for my last semester of undergrad! \o/  Anyway, let's catch up.

The Crucible patch dropped yesterday, and it seems like more good things. Personally, the new UI is taking a little getting used to, but its not bad at all. I think the biggest thing from this patch is the AF "rebalancing." I've heard a decent amount of clamoring that the Assault Ships weren't properly rebalanced. I'd agree to some extent. Does the patch make them better? Certainly. Its just that it wasn't really a well thought out type of better. Some ships needed an extra slot (Here's looking at you, Retribution), but many didn't. I'm not sure why extra low/mid slots were given out across the board. It seems like CCP heard babbling about "this ship needs an extra slot," or "this ship needs grid/CPU" or "Assault ships need a 4th bonus," etc and just decided, Hell, we've give them all of those things plus a totally random MWD signature bonus. That'll do the trick. Well, maybe it did, but it definitely wasn't what most of us were expecting.

On a totally unrelated side note, it seems that the prices of tons of modules have been trending upwards since the release of Crucible. I've been wondering for a while now how long this will hold. I'm not an economics wiz by any means, but my assumption is that the flood of returning players with Crucible drove the prices up on most commodities; however, there should be natural price levels based on the relation of ships/mods and their component minerals. So without doing the math, I think we have a pretty inflated market right now. Makes a trader a bit nervous.

That's my take on the state of things right now. Should be able to log in and actually get some action  by Friday. I'm looking forward to posting and actually playing more over the next couple weeks.