Hi I have been playing for a few weeks now, and I have to say I hate the direction of the balance of the last few patches.
Just to say this to start, I dont like the frigate classes. They are slow and boring. Their main skills are 1 button (or 0) and have much less play to them than actually flying around and dodging and shooting. I can understand that some people may enjoy it (though I can’t see how you wouldnt get bored), but I have purely been playing interceptors and fighters.
This game is usually tons of fun. Several of the gametypes really push people clustering very close together, which, when they use teamwork, nearly renders the interceptor class useless. The only time they can be useful is when you have several interceptors working together, which (understandably) never happens in pub games. I’d like to be able to get to higher level play, but this game’s amount of farm is pretty high. It is also worth noting that it is a LOT easier for frigates to generate income than interceptors, because of the various auras and ways to generate assists. You basically have to buy the extra reward pass, but even then it takes a long time to unlock ships and items. This is not wow. Its free to play. It is taking newer players too long to get to higher ranks, so very few people queue on the higher queues. So people cant practice and get organized. Something has go to change. Having 1k avg players isnt good enough. Most evenings I can’t even find a queue.
Minor digression aside, I do not feel like balancing the game (which was stated in last patch notes) around people complaining in forums is a good policy at all There are lots of frigate players. Even with their strong map presence, people playing frigates in pubs still get caught out and killed by interceptors. And then complain because this happens. This is -supposed- to happen. Interceptors -should- beat frigates most of the time 1v1. This is not a 1v1 game. So why are we balancing around 1v1? If people are attempting to complain about interceptors in situations other than 1v1 (The captain mode and beacon hunt should nearly never have 1v1s) than they are doing it wrong, and we should not be balancing the game around their complaints. Note I am not complaining about frigates being overpowered or anything, and just don’t like the balancing direction this game is taking. This is -not- a rage post. I don’t think frigates should be removed at all; they fill their role in gameplay, and can be a really tactile and rewarding experience.
I may be baised because of ship preference, but nerfing the “fun” ships and buffing the “boring” ships is really disheartening for me. Interceptors are plain not overpowered simply due to the fact that they are already awful in 2 of the gametypes (which seem to queue the most for some reason, could be just random bias). The only one that is is ok in those modes is the ECM ship. This, coupled with the long grind, bad queue times, and terrible lag that makes dogfighting nearly impossible is making me and my play group open this game less and less. It can be a really really fun game, and the “pay-to-win” system is really fair and well done i think, but if this game wants to hope to compete with Star Citizen (or even still be running when it comes out), some ‘re-thinking’ or fresh approach or something is going to have to happen.
Tho I suppose the game could just end up being a bunch of new players that sit and click from across the map, and then get bored and stop playing. That would be too bad 
tl;dr: I don’t think balancing a game around people complaining in the forums is a good direction for a game to take (lots of failed games have done this. Im looking at you gw2). And the direction the people in the forums seems to want is camp-heavy, “unfun”, “easy” gameplay with little dogfighting. Me and my friends all this this is a boring direction, and others will also agree.