I’ve been playing for a bit more and I suppose this is what I’ve came up with.
Personal thoughts:
Lets start with the roles themselves, generally the roles given out to us is by far the best push forward I’ve seen since I started playing this game a month ago. The roles themselves promote team based play, and also follows on the line of play styles that some people prefer. However I did find that the way it was placed, and the way it was implemented did not seem fair for those that placed time into the game or money into it.
The way the roles are set up are 2 per faction, 6 roles, 2 per class. A primary and a sub role, with this the tree was altered but I will speak of that later on. The roles placed still pushes the player to determine the choice between factions. Which means that despite the choices, each faction has one role not granted to it. As if it were done to keep people cross functioning, the way it was put out could have been done differently with faction bonuses that focuses on tanks, weapon types, and ship stats. This is excluding the race selection you start off with.
Roles are also locked into what modules are used for it, the choices of modules being rather limiting to those specifically assigned to it. Ships of designated roles really do not have a choice, either because they can fit all of them or because there are not many granted to the ship itself.
Roles of each class seem to function quite well, Interceptors working with their modules to decide on their style of play and function. However the recon vessel can use some improvement as the Covert Ops seem to have a wide selection of tools for it. ECM ships seem to have a fairly limited selection of equipment now as you can equip a majority of the modules onto the ship. The bonuses which should differ from the roles seem more jumbled around then ever. Sometimes fitting for the role and at times would seem unfitting for it. Overall interceptors feel like the most balanced out and finely tuned class in terms of roles as they rely mainly on their active modules than anything else.
For fighters, it feels as if they are now the true counters of both frigates and interceptors but still remain as the middle ship of the game. At times they are extremely effective against certain targets. The tackler being capable of slowing down vessels and weakening them greatly to the point where they cannot seem to do much of anything. However the two engine inhibiting modules could if not should be combined. Though I noticed that tackler ships actually have less modules for it to be used in any other way, only having 3 modules for its role.Gunships which do the most damage are sadly the most flimsy of vessels with modules that are designed to ‘boost’ the effectiveness of the overdrive system. Which in turn is a very single type of role as the anti frigate vessel. Command ships are possibly the support of the fighters and can, well could be easily tanked up with resists and aid in combat. Though they still remain useful, its new ability diminishes this usefulness by reducing its energy capacity which in term stops it from keeping its command modules active. Using energy as a basis for its special module is a poor choice as you either turn off the modules you have active to use this barrier or to run away, the barrier being a lesser option. The bonuses of the roles are set but not as notable. Overall fighters feel very singular, more so than interceptors when it comes to their roles as their special abilities tend to be either a necessity or a burden.
Frigates are by far the most odd of choice, the roles are set but as their role suggests their stats are more effected by role more than those of the other classes. The engineer vessels are noted as support ships. Previously they were set as tanky vessels that supported at long range while keeping their team mates alive. Usually they are the ships that function behind enemy lines and this was an effective way to survive and play. Now the ship is granted drones which is designed to heal as well as combat at other vessels. Honestly the choice forces these vessels to enter close range combat, which in term limits the survivability of these vessels. That being said I do think that the disintegrator be granted to these support vessels. Not as a means of DPS but mainly as a tool to weaken shields, drain energy, and leaving lingering damage as how the legion and warden ships gave. The guard ship itself is designed mainly as a tank. Which is again a choice that complicates much more than one would believe, walls of these vessels are common in most games even while having limited healing ability. The ship itself should not be a tank but more of a front line frigate. Mobile and capable of keeping the enemy disrupted as any ship should be capable of fitting an effective tank. These are highly effective. But in return their firepower is limited, only having four turrets, they are slower, and they rely on other vessels to keep it afloat. The special module makes it so that the player ‘must’ get shot at in order to combat effectively. But honestly I think drones would have been a more effective choice on this type of ship. They are brawlers, as the drones are perfect for such a play style. They also add to the two lost turrets and grant healing abilities that are much needed for it. However their tanks are not focused, jerico ships are mainly shield tanking vessels however they are given a large sum of hull.
Sniper ships are much like the gun ships of the fighters, as they rely on their special ability for damage. Their modules also focus on ‘staying still’ and try to remain undetected which is not easy to do. Personally even if this role was buffed it would still remain unusable or pointless as many other ships can be designed to use their primary as a long range combat weapon. I tried my best to use them as defender ships but that can be done more effectively by guard vessels. I think that the role should be set to a destroyer to take out opposing frigates and do much damage in an area in exchange for survivability. Currently the jerico sniper fills this role pretty well. However the guided torpedo being able to do much damage still can be taken out by missile defenses which limits its usefulness even further against other frigates. That and only 4 ships in the game can use the guided torpedo. Overall these ships need more work than the others, their special modules not matching up with one another and forcing the ship to play in a singular role that requires another of its class to make it more effective.
Modules are now more limiting than they were previous patches, not because of what they do, I like the team play type of play, but because of how many modules you can equip onto them its a bit limiting. Putting modules based on role, forces players to just pick out those modules and pushes developers into creating new modules to keep the ships ‘customizable’. Also this limits players who prefer flexibility rather than effectiveness from playing the roles they wish to play it.
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Improvement suggestions:
The tree is by far most linear than the previous one. It is confusing, forcible, and expensive as the line forces you to purchase one ship to move up into another. The need for credits increase as the need for modules solely used for one role as well as the ships in order to move up further, it gives the game a ‘grinding’ feel more so than before. However there are ways to keep roles into different lines, making it so that a person can focus on the roles that they desire per faction. Of course there will be gaps but those can be closed off by shifting a few ships a rank backwards or forwards.
To make it more fair the implants we gain should effect the tech level they are in and below instead of rank. This way the ships of the same tech level will benefit from belonging in that tech level.
The roles being limited to two makes it so that many of the ships were altered that the fact is that players who either grind for them or payed for them have lost interest on these ships. It would anger some and frustrate most where what could have been done was to kept the roles set and place the new changes in. However I do think there is a better way to improve the tree, giving branches for certain roles of ship that brake off from the primary role. I believe that insead of a single sub role the factions should be granted an equal number of roles thus making it so players can choose which role of the faction they will prefer. Ships with each faction granted bonuses, stats, tanking ability, and primary role would make it appealing for players to cross faction.
If roles were spread out by giving 3 per faction, 2 sub and 1 primary, the primary or the ones the faction seems to focus on would be much like this.
Empire: Recon, Gunship, Engineer
Federation: Covert Ops, Tackler, Guardship
Jerico: ECM, Command, Long range gunship
Adding premium ships into the tech tree to expand primary roles and separating sub faction ships into sub roles would actually give more choices to the player and still keep a healthy grinding factor that would make it so that players would still play your game. At the same time refunding the Galactic standards these players spent on their ships and give the option to make a GS purchase on any ship with the perk of max synergy and free repair cost. Keeping the game as a Pay or play model.
The interceptors more or less define the way the ship roles are to be set, as their modules remain as tools and not as a means as to make the ship more ‘effective’ in battle. However they could be more improved in a sense. Their bonuses can cater towards a specific role to improve on their battlefield effectiveness.
Fighters are in a need of more modules but they still remain effective as the type of ship that counters the other two classes. Their roles can be better expressed by granting them more bonuses for their modules, weapons, and granting specific missile sizes to compliment the roles they play. Command ships however do not need this special module and I do think the phase shield should return to it. Granting resist bonuses to both hull and shield. Granted these command ships would and should function as a tanky support fighter.
Frigates are something that just gave them missed matched special abilities. Forming roles that are often complained about and often not used. The guard ship being a beefy tank, the engineer vessel being more of a brawler, and the sniper which is overshadowed from the others. Swapping the abilities would probably grant them more proper use. Drones for guard ships would give them a defensive or offensive ability, disintegrator with engineer ships allow them to remain behind the battle line and heal their allies while suppressing the enemy with their long range weapon, guided torpedo for snipers would grant them the added firepower needed to take down fortified positions at any range, granted they can maneuver quickly in exchange for survivability…
Modules could be set for every ship, within its class however the roles would determine the effectiveness of the module on that ship, if it does not match to the ‘role bonus’ then the module would not be as effective. For example, a ECM ship would be more effective with ECM modules than those of a Covert ops ship. This would keep players choice fairly obvious but granted some flexibility between the choice of modules. Some modules that focus on a role can instead have a different effect depending on the role it is used on. Such as the sniper module that boost damage, it can be set to make guided torps immune to anti missile defenses, and also grant an extra drone for the drone ability lasting the amount of time the module remains active. This will give more choices to the ships. Still as ships could be able to use other modules, of different roles, they would still need to rely on their team to get the ‘best’ out of the modules. Given the choice of flexibility or effectiveness should be put out there.
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Personal opinions:
This patch is something I desired since I started playing this game, however it is not what I expected it to be. The game feels more simple, easy, as if no thought was needed on the choices on what I have to do within my selection of class, role, builds, implants, faction, its all very linear. Given these patches I’ve notice that this game lacks ‘players choice’ and it does so now more than ever. I would say that the dev’s would think of the players as stupid and not knowing what they desired but the game is very simple even before the patch. There are many ways to make a player enjoy a game, get money from them, lessen the complaint, and even cater towards a majority even if wanting to alter something for the minority of players.
Well that was my two cents about this patch. Despite all that, this is a neat patch, and I am sure it can be further improved. I like roles so I’m not too fed up of it and its ‘something’ so I’ll just hop on into a ship and play a few games with my corp. Hope more improvements will come soon!
I agree with most of what youv’e said.