In the afternoon of March 13, CCP Falcon tweeted that he’s currently working on the mother of all balance dev blogs, and stated that it’s going to be an interested second half to the week. He was not wrong.
This particular spring balance update is coming, penciled in for the April update. It will cover adjustments to aspects of capital and super capital gameplay, and lays the groundwork for future developments in the summer.
The first major point is Force Auxiliaries, introducing a scaling system where both remote repair and capacitor transfer have diminishing returns. This means that we should avoid situations where one side chucks in an entire hangar full of dreads and fail to get a kill due to the number of FAXes on the field. This shouldn’t affect low number skirmishes, but it will have a dramatic impact on gigantic battles where titans are fielded. However, these diminishing returns will also impact sub-capital logistics, and we will have to wait to discover how this new mechanic will play out.
High Angle Weapons are also set to take a major hit. These HAW guns allow capital based ships to better fight sub-capitals ships and NPCs. The incoming update cuts the DPS of a HAW titan in half, while allowing dreadnoughts to maintain their current damage due to a 100% bonus to HAW damage for siege modules.
On the subject of carriers and supercarriers, fighters are having their damage output adjusted. Light fighters dealing explosive damage will have their explosion radius increased by 15%, and their explosive velocity will be reduced by 30%, meaning less damage will be applied overall when firing on small targets. One of a carrier’s signature modules, the almost-instant-locking Networked Sensor Array (NSA), will be altered to disallow warping while the module is active, meaning you cannot warp away from hostiles while your NSA is active.
The final major change to capitals is a reduction in insurance payouts. It’s been traditionally seen that the majority of capitals are easily replaced once they are lost if they are a standard Tech Two fit, and insured with platinum insurance. The reduction in payout is set to reduce how easy it is to absorb capital losses.
Rorquals also took another significant nerf with an incoming reduced bonus to shield boost amount provided by the industry core, cutting the tank by 50% for a T1 Industrial Core and roughly 40% for a T2 Industrial Core. The PANIC module has also received a base activation time nerf from 5 to 4 minutes, up to a maximum of six minutes with level five skills. Some mining drones also took a hit, with a reduction in ‘Excavator’ drone yield of 20% and ‘Ice Excavator’ cycle time of 20%, as well as increasing the drone volume to 1100m³, resulting in a minimum loss of at least two drones every time you lose any Rorqual hull.
Alongside this, there are a number of incoming subcapital changes, including a nerf to Vexor Navy Issues and Gilas, a mild nerf to Feroxes, as well buffs to the Harbinger, Cyclone, and Corax.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom, for there is more on the way. Starting in the May release, CCP will focus on introducing at least one new ship and new modules. We can expect more on these soon, possibly as soon as Evesterdam on March 23 and 24. In July, we can also expect some long-anticipated implants sets, potentially including the ‘Shield Slaves’ our community has long awaited.
CCP Falcon concluded his post by stressing they want feedback they want to know if this is enough to deliver change. Remember, give feedback on the official forums to have your voice heard!
