So what do you think of the proposed nano-nerf?

On the one hand, it would be nice not to have to nano-fit everything to be effective in pvp - on the other hand... CCP have a bad track record as regards balancing, IMO. Their approach to balancing at times seems comparable to performing neurosurgery with a broadsword...

Bringing polycarbs in line with other rigs seems only fair, but I'm not too sure about the web and scrambler changes.

Can only hope the changes will be thoroughly tested and reviewed before being implemented - don't want to see more of my ships nerfed into oblivion like my pilgrim... :/

I think the news is both good and bad. It's good because I experienced first hand the ridiculousness of fighting 60 - 90 HACs that fly at "ludicrous speed" where the only thing that could beat them were other HACs running similar fits. That's not a balanced game. Unfortunately the real problem is the very dynamic and infastructure of the game itself.

A few months back the devs did ask for feedback on ideas on whether and how to change the 0.0 mechanics so they're not as bad as they are now (i.e. mass PoS spamming and the reduction of PoS warfare) but I think it's safe to assume that such a post was there to silence forum whiners, much like the myth that is that new software/hardware system that is meant to be getting rid of the lag that CCP have had in the pipeline for x number of years now.

The sheer amount of PL tears that has come out of the announcement has made it marginally worth it but some of what they say is indeed true; the blob warfare and ultimately even more chronic lag will be the result of all this. I don't really have a problem with blob warfare per-se; if you can keep a large alliance in check and sport more ships than the enemy then I don't really see a problem with that, the problem is that the game can't handle the blobs. So you're already outnumbered and then find that you can't actually bring in all your help because the game can't handle it. That's just crap.

I'm sure most people dreamed of Star Wars-esque fleet combat scenes with thousands of ships fighting each other ranging from the small fighters to the huge motherships, but I got a nice big kick in the teeth in my first "big fight" in Cloud Ring where the server couldn't hack 200 people in the same system, and I consequently lost two battleships to lag. It's annoying, because what could be fun isn't; I don't understand how people can find staring at a screen for 15 minutes before they get a new frame fun, while constantly wondering "have I died yet?". It boggles my mind. So when my corp decided to join IRON I quickly declined; screw jumping straight back into 24/7 gate-camps, blob/lag warfare and constant PoS warfare, there's no fun in it and there won't be until atleast the lag is gone, which isn't going to happen, is it?

So I entertain myself in other ways. Small roaming gangs in my Falcon, playing the market, reading up on the politics (when it's not laced with some of the most embarassing crap I've ever seen from grown men and women), etc.. But I think my days in the huge 200+ lag fights are done for the foreseeable future.

It's nice to know that I atleast won't need to worry SO much about being chased by a Cerberus going 17km/s.

Hey, if your corp had joined IRON you might see me in allied fleets (I'm in RZR now ^^)

Lag makes large-scale engagements unfeasible, most of the time. Yesterday, for instance, we had a Mexican standoff with BoB since no side was prepared to jump to the other... so our large fleet was on one side of the gate, and a similar sized BoB one on the other. But lag made jumping not an option for either side :/

Similarly, when Shrike was tackled in 49- a few months ago, grid didn't load for me until the node crashed - I didn't even know whether I was on the gate within DD range, or had warped to a POS.

I've lost battleships to hostiles I couldn't see, or because my game was so lagged that I was unable to MWD out of a bubble because my ship wouldn't respond to commands until it was too late.

Fleet fights can be great fun, but it's really the luck of the draw as to how much lag will affect you. It's no fun when primaries called by your FC don't load for you until they explode, or when your guns don't activate until the target is already dead.

Small roaming gangs, with current game mechanics, require speed to survive, and roaming gangs are where most of the fun in game is. Nanoships can be countered - rapiers/huginns, and to a lesser extend curses, are pretty effective at that. Applying more severe stacking penalties to overdrives so that speed doesn't just come down to which ship has the most low slots, bringing polycarb bonuses in line with other rigs, adjusting the bonus given by pirate implants (or adjusting loot tables so snake drops become very rare indeed) - all these would have done something to address excessive speed while still keeping speed ships viable.
And what exactly is excessive? Why shouldn't a faction fitted interceptor with maxed out skills, snakes and a command ship bonus go >20km/s, given the amount of skills and isk invested in such a ship? Yeah, vagabonds and nano ishtars can be annoying - but they die a lot too.

In 0.0, unless you bring superior numbers - which more often than not means lag, lag and more lag - you need to be able to move fast, hit & run. I would really miss it if fast roaming gangs were no longer possible - and when the opponent may have jump bridges or hotdrop caps on your gang, then they effectively bypass the speed nerf :/

To an extent I am relieved to learn that the lag I experience is not unusual. I'm talking about 30 ships or so, which still leaves the game playable and periodically I get a few seconds of lag free play. Haven't lost a ship yet- but I can imagine the frustration of that happening. Certainly not entertainment.

I am bitterly disappointed too. Especially after repeatedly seeing the Empyrean Age loading screen, every single new eve player is now imagining these massive (lag) battles. This puts a dampener on a number of eagerly anticipated game moments

I've got to read up on nano-nerf as this is Greek to me.

I was under the impression that these ships weren't going to be losing much of their speed (i.e. "oh no, I'm only going 30km/s instead of 40km/s"); it's more the nano-ishtars and ships of similar ilk that will be getting a kick in the teeth. That's the impression I got anyway.



Is that really a fair counter? Is that really balanced? Surely every race should have a counter to these ships, not just the minmatar. That's my problem really; sure there's a counter, but it's a one race counter that means that only the people with 20m+ SP can afford to cross train into these countering ships.

Hyena doesn't take that long to train for, neither does a blackbird - and a jammed vagabond isn't going to do much. A nano-ishtar whose drones have been killed isn't going to do much either. A good tackler in a fast interceptor who knows what he's doing is great against vagas - as long as his support also know what they're doing and when to warp to him as he locks down the nano-ship. I could even show you a killmail of an ishtar killed by a couple of pilgrims ^^. And IIRC, a former CEO of mine decimated a TRI gang in his raven - set up specifically as an anti-nano ship, but still showing that it's possible.


Properly set up bubbles and tacklers are quite effective against nano gangs - pull them out of warp 70km behind a gate and tackle/bubble them before the can get away.

And.. you're saying it's unbalanced that it takes 20m+ SP to counter a nano-ship... but then is it really balanced that a ship that takes 100s or millions, if not billions to fit, and 25+m SP to fly well should have low SP/low isk counters?

Isk isn't hard to come by in Eve, and training a L5 minmie nano-intie doesn't take that many SP either, surely! If you specialise it will take what, 10M SP to get all the necessary skills?

Edit the "morning after" a night out: I have no idea where I was going with this.

I read up on this, and my view as a new eve player is that I will be sorry to miss out on this aspect of eve. Though as soon as I learned that Calderi ships were not good at this, I was secretly pleased (being Calderi).

I have not had time to form strong opinions about the balance of the game, but I do not have much against somebody having a slightly better ship. Investment of time and money should matter (no matter how hard or easy it is to make money).

I came across a post, Who argues the nano nerf?, that categorized eve players and summarized their views for and against the nano nerf. I am sure you will find it amusing.

Edit: May I add that after having read the developer's justification of the nerf- I feel that balancing is required (though if they did not do it, I would still be happy, and would love to exploit it)

Pretty much sums it up. I got pissed off when my precision missiles weren't even able to catch up with those PL beggars, and when they did it they hit for like, 0.1 damage

CCP have a very bad track record when it comes to balancing - not sure whether their nerfs are not fully thought through or not fully tested, but previous heavy-handed balancing attempts have rendered ships (need I even mention pilgrims?), ship classes (AFs, anyone?) and arguably even whole races useless (Amarr used to be the nerf victims, now it seems Minmatar are next).

I don't want to see that happen again, tbh - and the proposed changes are simply too sweeping. Quite a few people have argued that such changes cannot be tested fully on the test server as the SISI environment is completely different from TQ.

And quite frankly... with some of the dev responses you wonder whether the devs are taking the piss, or whether they've actually played the game recently... did you see the vaga setup one of the devs posted that included t2 rigs and a full snake set? I don't really think multi-billion isk vaga setups are that common that they require such wholesale game changes!

Balancing should be done by way of minor adjustments - in the case of nanos this can by done by adjusting stacking penalties on speed mods, bringing polycarb bonuses in line with other rigs, cutting down on the availability of speed implants, introducing longer range webs or maybe even area of effect web bubbles - not by introducing an overpowered mod that goes against CCP's previously stated intention not to have mods with 2 simultaneous effects (scrams that both shut down your mwd and prevent you from warping - when sensor boosters, tracking comps, tracking disruptors need scripts to switch between their effects), not by crippling the most effective counter against nano-ships (the minnie recons), not by rendering missiles unbalanced compared to other weapon systems as there is nothing comparable to a tracking disruptor affecting missiles (sure, CCP could introduce a 'missile guidance disruptor' mod - but I don't think that's likely).

And yeah... when people have invested this much training into a ship class - in particular command ships and gang skills which are also going to be drastically effected - is it really fair that overnight this is taken away from them as their current chosen shipclass becomes worthless and months of training turn out to have been a waste of time?

While it is true that Nano's have to be nerfed - the actual nerf itself does seem to go too far. I thought the objective was to make the game balanced - not just swap out what the most successful form of playing is to be.

I see the nano-nerf has turned into yet another missile nerf. Joy of joys. My Caldari character with 5M SP in missiles is overjoyed :/

Been trying to keep up with eve news but not doing a good job

Delighted myself, as have only missile skills (724k SP though) , and developing some drone skills- cannot use turrets to save my life

Going to check the details...

The nano nerf only really needed to add warp scrams deativating MWDs but they decided to nerf EVERY ships speed which IMO is just plain stupid but nothing i can do about it

and the missle nerf really doesn't effect mission runners(level4) much other than making drones more inportant than they were before since it doesn't screw with the missles DMG to BSs