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Latest EVE dev video talks ship balance and features coming this winter
Several weeks ago, EVE Online developer CCP Games restructured its company and announced a new laser focus on in-space features for EVE Online. Since then we've seen an absolute deluge of news updates and devblogs on features due for release in the winter expansion. In the first two of CCP's new In Development video series, CCP Guard explored the art department and showed off the new nebula effects, EVE's sharpened shadows and the new tier 3 battlecruisers. In the latest In Development video, Guard talks to the EVE feature teams about the absolutely massive list of balance changes and features coming with the winter expansion. CCP Soundwave admits that developers have "probably done more rebalancing in the past month than we have in the past two years," before rattling off an impressive list of changes and new features. Skip past the cut for a brief summary of the changes and to watch the video in HD.
EVE Online's faction ships due for a boost in Dominion expansion
When EVE Online's faction ships were introduced to the game they were, by design, a cut above the rest in addition to lending a certain amount of bling to being a pilot in New Eden. Faction ships had stats that made them worthy of the high amount of Loyalty Points required to obtain such a ship, the risks entailed with mission running in lowsec or 0.0 space, or alternately the high ISK costs to obtain them. But as Tech II ships, Marauders, and other advanced or specialized ship classes entered the game, it became apparent that faction ships in EVE Online were becoming antiquated. CCP Games would like to get more players to actually fly those ships again instead of relegating (a few of) them to shiny hangar ornaments. EVE game designer CCP Ytterbium looks at the changes CCP Games is making to navy and pirate faction ships with the Dominion expansion and explains the reasons for these changes in his dev blog "Adding Flavor to Your Faction Meal". Have a look at the dev blog for Ytterbium's discussion of the various ship bonuses, new slot layouts, aesthetic changes, and how CCP envisions these faction ships rising to greater prominence in New Eden in Dominion and beyond.
New faction battleships coming to EVE Online with Dominion expansion
The developers at CCP Games only just recently announced the next EVE Online expansion called Dominion, and its focus on planetary control. While they say it will bring new features like the COSMOS social network and Epic Mission Arcs for pirate factions, that's not to say that CCP Games isn't looking at other aspects of the game, particularly when it comes to those factions. Dominion will give some much-needed attention to faction ships, both those of pirate factions and Navy ships of the main empire factions. EVE Game Designer CCP Ytterbium posted a thread aimed at getting player feedback. He wrote, "As some of you may have guessed by now, [the] Dominion release will bring improvements to most in-game faction ships, as we do feel they do not perform properly in their intended roles at the time being."
EVE Online to introduce new NPC race with Apocrypha expansion
PvE gameplay in EVE Online can be profitable, but blasting apart NPC ships can also get repetitive after a while. Anyone who's run a solid week of missions knows this all too well, and the combat dynamic between players and NPCs is something CCP Games will start remedying in the next game expansion: Apocrypha.EVE dev CCP Ytterbium's dev blog "When Evolution Leaps Forward" has some big news about what's in store for players as of March 10th in Apocrypha. The devs tasked with revamping the game's PvE experience are making some substantial changes to the distribution of bigger and badder NPCs. They're also introducing a new NPC race to New Eden: the Sleepers, an ancient race with technology beyond what is currently available to players, but whose secrets can potentially be unlocked.
EVE's new Weapon Grouping feature explained
Weapon Grouping is one of the new features coming to EVE Online, via the multi-staged release of the Quantum Rise expansion. Players spotted and have been giving updates on what they've seen on the Singularity test server, but now EVE dev CCP Ytterbium has posted a dev blog that explains this new feature in great detail, right down to screengrabs of Weapon Grouping in action. If you've been waiting to hear more about this, you'll want to check out CCP Ytterbium's dev blog, 'Weapon Grouping', for his visual explanation of how you'll soon be able to consolidate your weapons into a single icon, and reload all of them at once. He also lays out the scenarios when you wouldn't want to take advantage of this feature, like when attacking multiple targets (although there's a solution to that built into the feature). Additionally, he's written a lengthy FAQ that should help dispel some of the confusion surrounding Weapon Grouping.
Changes to combat and contracts in EVE confirmed by devs
New changes to EVE Online seem to be on the way as reported by players on the test server, and confirmed by CCP Games developers on the forums: weapon grouping and contract refinements, in addition to the previously-reported certificates. Having several high slots of weapon turrets and needing to change ammo types mid-combat has likely frustrated most EVE players at some point. Now, it seems that it'll be possible to link up weapons systems (turrets and launchers only, at first), simplifying reloads and ammo swaps. EVE dev CCP Ytterbium says, "This feature allows players to group weapons together into one slot. From there you can swap all ammo at once without doing the usual ritual of right-click gun 1, load ammo, right-click gun 2, load ammo again etc..." He does caution that the feature is nowhere near ready to go live on Tranquility, and should be considered a work in progress. More information on this feature (which is a welcome change for many EVE players) will be detailed in a future dev blog, he said.
