The o7 Show, CCP’s monthly live stream TV show hosted by CCP Guard that has been running for almost nine months now, is quickly becoming the preferred method to drop some bombs on the prevailing meta. Last o7 show, you may remember the large shake up on the mineral market that has yet to fully settle. Today’s o7 show is likely going to have similar effects. The short of it is Ishtars are getting a powerful (but unspecific) nerf, combat battlecruisers and their navy equivalents are getting buffed, and while missiles are getting strong new modules and a damage buff, their counter is being significantly nerfed. If this doesn’t signify the return of the much maligned Drake, little else will! Fleet warping also stands to have some significant rebalancing, so read on for details. These announcements are far from the only thing that happened on the o7 show today, so let’s start from the beginning.
From the top
After the standard intro stream, we were greeted by a lone CCP Guard saluting the audience. After a quick introduction, we were given the now customary How Do You Say It segment featuring CCP Chair, a crowd favorite. The Einherji, Firbolg, and Jackdaw were all subjected to the various pronunciations of the CCP staff. Afterwards, CCP Mimic joined CCP Guard to discuss some of the recent fan art that was sent to CCP. While the images were only shown briefly on the stream, you can view them on a recent dev blog announcing the winners.
The topic then shifted to Eve Valkyrie. The first wave of Pre-Alpha testers have begun, giving players the chance to test the game on their own computers. This is a huge step for the development team. CCP also asked that people interested in playing Valkyrie apply for the testing team on their Pre-Alpha website. While on the subject of sign-ups, CCP Mimic also brought up the alliance Sov Warfare testing that will take place on the Duality test server, unlike the Entosis Link playtesting on the Singularity test server earlier this year. While CCP is hoping to entice entire alliances to participate, players in alliances unwilling to join the tests are encouraged to join Spectre Fleet, who will be welcoming all comers.
Eve, the gathering
Upcoming Eve Meets were also discussed. Of particular note was Eve Vegas and Eve Down Under. Both of which are currently selling tickets as well as doing giveaways for current ticket holders, encouraging players to purchase tickets as soon as possible. Also of note was the announcement of the CCP Euro Tour 2015. This will be a series of four stops across Europe. More details of the tour should be announced soon, but we know that it will start in Nottingham on the 19th of September, before heading to the Paris Player Gathering, followed by the Berlin Player Gathering, and concluding at Evesterdam in Amsterdam.
CCP Guard plugged Operation Magic School Bus before switching to a prerecorded video segment. Started by CSM Member Mike Azariah, Operation Magic School Bus sets out to give away fully fitted ships to new players in starter systems. The video segment was by Hendrick Tallardar called The o7 Report. Covering the past month of sov null activity, Hendrick also reviewed the past month’s worth of titan and Revenants losses in a manner very similar to his monthly Nullsec Recaps.
CCP Rise and CCP Guard donned black-on-black chef costumes complete with white hats for the segment Does It Fit. With fitting fully on the mind, CCP Rise then set up a Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher equipped, armor tanked, nano Typhoon fed by a steady diet of navy cap boosters and navy missiles. With perfect skills, the fittings did in fact fit, though an implant was recommended for pilots with less-than-stellar skills. According to CCP Rise, this ship is best used as a “blinged out”, linked, and implanted solo brawler, or as one part of a small roaming gang. More on that later. CCP Rise suggest players hoping to eke out a bit more performance port the fit over to the Barghest, where it will fill the same role with even more power.
The Moment We’ve Been Waiting For
The interview segment has been the stage for the bombshells since the beginning of the o7 show, and today’s o7 show did not disappoint. o7 veteran CCP Fozzie was accompanied by newcomer CCP Larrikin at the interview table to discuss some of the balance changes we can expect in the near future. In addition to the sov changes that we have discussed at length, CCP Fozzie and crew have been busy working on missiles and nerfing the Ishtar. While according to CCP Fozzie the nerf bat is at his desk, CCP Larrikin and CCP Rise have been the ones working on “signficiant changes” to bring the Ishtar more in line with other ships.
The biggest change to missiles are the incoming missile modules that have been discovered on SiSi. These modules will affect missile speed, missile flight time, and missile precision while capable of using scripts to further hone these traits. Presumably, these will work very similarly to current tracking computers and tracking enhancers; there will likely be a mid-slot version requiring capacitor and capable of using the scripts as well as a low-slot version giving a flat bonus. Heavy missiles will also be receiving a five percent damage increase across the board, laying to rest fears that the new modules would bring overall nerfs to missiles, similar to the tracking changes to drones.
On the ship front, CCP talked about the upcoming T3 destroyer for the Gallente dubbed the Hecate. A very pretty flying wing design, the Hecate will be designed to use both blasters and railguns equally. While the final numbers are being nailed down, it should appear on SiSi “very soon.” According to CCP Guard, it will be an ideal ship for some of the new SKINs. Also discussed on the ship front was upcoming balance changes for the combat classes of battlecruisers. Based on their tone and word choice, a buff will be coming to these ships soon to bring back some of their former glory. The changes will be coming in July, with more details to be released. Combined with the missile changes, your FC might just say yes when you ask to bring your Drake.
Lastly, there will be a huge change to the way fleet warp works. Currently, a character in a leadership position in a fleet can warp their subordinates anywhere within a system; POS, bookmarks, probe results, gates, and planets are all fair game. Coming soon, however, only celestials, gates, stations, anoms, and the like will be fleet warpable. Most importantly, however, fleets will require a ship to land at a probe result or perch bookmark before the rest of the fleet is able to initiate warp. According to CCP Larrikin, fleet commanders will be able to warp the fleet to member. While I doubt even CCP has all the specifics worked out on this new mechanic, the goal of this seems rather clear: making the individual pilots more involved in the fight. While many players have already decryed the death of bombers in addition to a variety of other doctrines, this has the intended consequence of slowing down bombing runs, according to CCP Fozzie.
As always, CCP requested that players give constructive, well reasoned feedback on all the proposed changes. While not announced, there are already some dev post on the subjects linked above.
And now for something completely different
Next up on the docket was The Rematch of B-R5 featuring Lazarus Telraven vs Manfred Sideous. Given just two minutes to fit up the tech one cruiser of their choice, the giants of the B-R5 battle faced off in a one on one battle to the death. Manfred Sideous chose a Caracal Navy Issue fit with a buffer shield tank and heavy missile launchers. Lazarus, on the other hand, went for a hull-tanked Exequror Navy Issue with blasters. When they undocked, Laz quickly burned for the Caracal and tackled Manny under a barrage of missiles. Manny’s Caracal seemed to be doing well, while Lazarus Telraven’s shield and armor plummeted. As the first bit of the Exequror’s hull began to disappear, the shield failed on the Caracal. It was a race to zero that Laz won with only one third of his hull remaining, ending the rematch with the same result as B-R5
An attempt to drum roll by CCP Guard preceded the announcing winners of the Alliance Tournament raffle. The names were announced by CCP LogiBro, and thankfully posted in a dev blog shortly after the end of the o7 show. For those alliances who neither made the cut for the buy in, nor won the raffle, there will be a silent auction for the four remaining slots tomorrow at 11:00 UTC. For alliances that don’t know what they are fighting for, this year’s tournament is sponsored by Sansha, featuring the Imp frigate and the Fiend cruiser. The commentators were also announced: Sir Squeebles, Apothne, Chessur, and Elise Randolph will be the voices of Alliance Tournament XIII.
Final Moments
The o7 show ended with CCP Fozzie and CCP Larrikin going on a trip to the lowsec system of in CCP Rise’s Rapid Typhoon. While the outcome is predictable, losing both ships and their pods (though only Fozzie’s was a golden pod!), the CCP team did manage to shoot down a few frigates while they were out. More to the point, however, CCP Fozzie was quoted as saying “ECM overpowered” and “Alright, that’s it, we aren’t doing the battlecruiser changes”, calling the players jamming him ECM Nerf Activists.
During the free time CCP Fozzie had while being jammed, he and CCP Larrikin discussed yet another facet of the incoming missile rebalance: firewalling. As per CCP, firewalling was an unintended mechanic discovered by a small group of players and exploited by many, many more over the years. As it stands right now, CCP sees the mechanic as being a bit too powerful at neutralizing incoming missile damage. Therefore, there will be a series of changes to address this. First off, all missiles will be getting a buff to their hitpoints that will vary based off of their meta and size. Presumably, bigger missiles will have more HP along with a similar increase on top of that for faction missiles. To add variety and choice to the game, missiles will also get a same type damage resistance much as bombs do currently. This is to encourage players to learn what type of damage their opponent’s smartbombs deal and match their damage type in order shoot through it.
As a brief aside, this firewall mechanic change stands to be the most interesting part of the missile changes; firewalling works by ensuring all ships equip the same kind of damage and then tank that specific type of damage heavily so as not to destroy your friendlies. This means that the best missile to penetrate the firewall is also the worst to fire at the firewalling ships. Moreover, firewalled logis would be wise to tank the same damage type give the likelihood that it would penetrate the defensive perimeter. Time will tell what this new mechanic will bring.
CCP Larrikin and CCP Fozzie also discussed that assault frigate, logistics, and black ops rebalance will happen soon. Given that CCP is happy where they’re at, logistics stand to be rebalanced the least. According to Fozzie, the most attention logis need are some good SKINs. Assault frigs and blops stand to be changed quite a bit more, but details were scare. Module tiericide was promised to continue as well.
Last on the o7 show was the date of the next one: July 11th. Players were encouraged to participate in the o7 show, offering the email address [email protected] as the best way to get your segment included on the next o7 show. CCP Guard closed it out on his trademark ship, claiming “You should always fly one ship, one you cannot afford to lose: the friendship”
“Or a structure tanked Typhoon” -CCP Larrikin
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Set’s Chaos.
