Booster (drug) rebalancing.

[Mfume]

It's been bugging me for awhile now how imbalanced the slot 2 boosters are, specifically how good Drop is (which I don't see as a negative) compared to Frentix and Sooth Sayer. Just to save everyone digging around EFT and in-game, Strong Drop is a 37.5% tracking boost, essentially a full tracking bonus. Frentix and Sooth Sayer both top out at 20% additional optimal and falloff.

What if Frentix and Sooth Sayer gave the equivalent of full (50%) range bonuses with a strong booster? Competitive with Drop's awesomeness? Or is there some potential for bad gameplay I'm missing?

Maybe even take it even further than that, up to something like 75% or maybe even 100%. Could allow for some pretty awesome setups, with a bit of "fog of war" in the form of severe side-effects.

[StevieTopSiders]

Sounds like a palatable change.

On a related note, I, personally, am in favor of nerfing side effects to make boosters more sought after, providing more income to those who manufacture them and rewarding the (we would assume) small gang players who are shelling out ISK for hardwirings, drugs, and implant sets.

[Sponk]

Let them go into WTS contracts plox.

[Tsubutai]

Let them go into WTS contracts plox.

This is the most urgently-needed booster fix. As for the changes to frentix/soothsayer, I guess they'd significantly increase the power of kitey/mid-range turret ships, and a lot of people would argue those aren't generally in need of a buff; I don't think you'd find much support for a proposal that amounts to "pulse abaddons should be able to hit out to 100km for full damage and cynabals should have machariel-like falloff". OTOH, the boosters themselves are almost completely unused, so.... eh. Not hugely fussed about it one way or the other.

(mfume just wants 60km-optimal-with-EMP muninns, hax tbh)

[Alain Colcer]

i am ok with balancing their usefulness across the board, but the big change that boosters need to become readily available is an adjustment in their manufacturing process....

it is just way too many steps to make a final product that not many engage in it, and since its one of the few things that, like moon goo and reactions, needs to be made almost entirely on POS arrays (and therefore income for null-sec alliances), it needs to be reviewed.

[Sponk]

reaction chains are also something that causes /wrists

[Leboe]

Change side effect chance to something that always happens, but be sure to redo the penalties at the same time. Make sure they're different from current modules (shield mods increase sig, so blue pill shouldn't increase sig)

Boosters are on the market, put them on contracts

phoneposting~

[Rynnik]

Change side effect chance to something that always happens, but be sure to redo the penalties at the same time. Make sure they're different from current modules (shield mods increase sig, so blue pill shouldn't increase sig)

Boosters are on the market, put them on contracts

This is pretty much the way ahead in my opinion. Penalties should always be present but they should never affect one of the 'holy grail' stats like speed which would make them unusable. Just a smart penality rebalance where it affects 1 or max 2 things every time you use them and smart management means you can effectively get off scott free (like using Mindflood in a logi right now).

I use boosters every single time I PvP right now, and am fine with them the way they are, but if the change is coming I think this is the best scenario. I just don't want them to be 'mandatory' like they would have been if they went ahead with flat out removing all penalties.

[Mfume]

Let them go into WTS contracts plox.

This is the most urgently-needed booster fix.

Is that really an issue affecting their use? I just buy them from market hubs and jump straight to lowsec off the undock.

As for the changes to frentix/soothsayer, I guess they'd significantly increase the power of kitey/mid-range turret ships, and a lot of people would argue those aren't generally in need of a buff; I don't think you'd find much support for a proposal that amounts to "pulse abaddons should be able to hit out to 100km for full damage and cynabals should have machariel-like falloff". OTOH, the boosters themselves are almost completely unused, so.... eh. Not hugely fussed about it one way or the other.

(mfume just wants 60km-optimal-with-EMP muninns, hax tbh)

With potential 30% speed and tracking penalties and a 10M+ pricetag, I'd think long and hard before building my fleet around a strong booster. But I'd at least *think* about it, instead of right now where I basically look at the penalties, the price and the end result (an additional 6km of optimal w/ high alpha ammo) and realize just how dumb I'd have to be to even carry it.

Change side effect chance to something that always happens, but be sure to redo the penalties at the same time. Make sure they're different from current modules (shield mods increase sig, so blue pill shouldn't increase sig)

This is pretty much the way ahead in my opinion. Penalties should always be present but they should never affect one of the 'holy grail' stats like speed which would make them unusable. Just a smart penality rebalance where it affects 1 or max 2 things every time you use them and smart management means you can effectively get off scott free (like using Mindflood in a logi right now).

I use boosters every single time I PvP right now, and am fine with them the way they are, but if the change is coming I think this is the best scenario. I just don't want them to be 'mandatory' like they would have been if they went ahead with flat out removing all penalties.

I dislike the idea of fixed penalties because, like you said, with smart management, you'll never feel the effects and that will drive them into the mandatory category. I like the random penalties we have now because even if the other slot 2 boosters got boosted, there'd be a very real risk-reward scenario going on when you popped them. Would you be willing to double the falloff on your Cyna in exchange for a third of it's speed and tracking? Maybe, maybe not, depends on how you're fit and planning on fighting, etc.

[BLEURRRRGH]

Frenetix and Sooth were handy under some circumstances; I remember flying sniper HACs a few times and using Frenetix so I could drop a TE and fit another MFS, while still hitting at he prescribed range. I know a few Munnin pilots did the same with Sooth, though that became less effective following the projectile / TE buff.

-EDIT-

I seem to remember a dev blog or post a 18 or so months ago, explaining that boosters were going to undergo a massive overhaul. One of the ideas tabled by the dev was side effects being prolonged and passive, increasing in severity if boosters were used regularly, with pilots suffering withdrawal and reduced combat ability if they get addicted and stop taking them.

The dev was imperative that it was still on the drawing board, though. Wouldn't be surprised if it was dropped, seeing as they cut a load of staff a while back.

[Sponk]

Existing Standard Drop (before skills) (for reference)
Bonus: tracking speed +25%
Penalty: 20% chance of (-20% armor repair or -20% velocity or -20% shield or -20% turret falloff), with ~5% chance of multiple penalties

Fixed-Penalty Drop (before skills)

Standard:
Bonus: tracking speed +25%
Penalty: -4% armor repair + -4% velocity + -4% shield + -4% turret falloff

Improved:
Bonus: tracking speed +31.25%
Penalty: -9.7% armor repair + -9.7% velocity + -9.7% shield + -9.7% turret falloff

Stong:
Bonus: tracking speed +37.5%
Penalty: -14% armor repair + -14% velocity + -14% shield + -14% turret falloff

I dislike the idea of fixed penalties because, like you said, with smart management, you'll never feel the effects and that will drive them into the mandatory category.

I don't see how a fixed-penalty system can be managed any differently than the existing system. In fact, I think it's harder to exploit.

[Rynnik]

I dislike the idea of fixed penalties because, like you said, with smart management, you'll never feel the effects and that will drive them into the mandatory category. I like the random penalties we have now because even if the other slot 2 boosters got boosted, there'd be a very real risk-reward scenario going on when you popped them. Would you be willing to double the falloff on your Cyna in exchange for a third of it's speed and tracking? Maybe, maybe not, depends on how you're fit and planning on fighting, etc.

You may be right that it will push it into mandatory, but really this is the case right now with Mindflood in quite a few setups and it doesn't seem to sell more or be more popular then others. (Pretty mandatory if you fly logi with us though).

The problem with the random side effects and the current system is that I almost never get ANY negative effect (skills @ 4); and when I do it is usually irrelevant. Then 1 time in probably the 100+ times I have been on drugs I had the worst possible outcome so I just went and did something else since solo work in that situation was going to be lame.

I had forgotten the whole addiction / withdrawl mechanic discussion though. I think that could be a really cool route to go with no negatives when you are actually on the stuff but making it tougher and tougher to get your high (IE cost more and more isk to get the effect) with fairly dramatic withdrawl. Would be a ton of effort to get right though and is probably beyond the scope of CCP effort.

[Sponk]

withdrawal and addiction is easy to model. Reduce the bonus based on the number of times you've used it in the last X days.

Go X days cold turkey and it resets.

[Tyrus Tenebros]

Withdrawal and addiction would work better if you gained negative penalties of you DIDN'T take the drug.

E.g. negatives crop up for 24-76h and at severity level 1-3 based on how many times you took a drug over the last month, and go away while youre high. Severity 3 penalties should ne bad enough that it night almost make sense to be always on drugs while flying rather than wait it out

Keep in existing sideffects but at maybe half current chances to compensate

[BLEURRRRGH]

Withdrawal and addiction would work better if you gained negative penalties of you DIDN'T take the drug.

E.g. negatives crop up for 24-76h and at severity level 1-3 based on how many times you took a drug over the last month, and go away while youre high. Severity 3 penalties should ne bad enough that it night almost make sense to be always on drugs while flying rather than wait it out

Keep in existing sideffects but at maybe half current chances to compensate

That's what CCP implied.

[Mfume]

I don't see how a fixed-penalty system can be managed any differently than the existing system. In fact, I think it's harder to exploit.

Well, you said penalties would be much less severe. Right now, even with maxed skills, you get hit fairly hard by strong and impro boosters on an which I like: it's unpredictably in a game with very little that can't be spreadsheeted.

[Sponk]

Fixed-penalty: good bonuses, but wide-spread, smaller penalties.

Random penalty: good bonuses, with a chance of narrow, large penalties in which case you don't go on the roam after all. Either way, you pvp without the penalties.

[BLEURRRRGH]

Random penalty: good bonuses, with a chance of narrow, large penalties in which case you don't go on the roam after all. Either way, you pvp without the penalties.

That was always my process. Take drugs on my main, if I get bad side effects, log off and go on the op with my alt. only other circumstance under which I would take boosters was when things were getting hairy and it was a matter of life or death. Drop helped me kill that bastard tackler that nearly got me killed a good few times.

The problem with boosters at the moment, in my opinion, ignoring their relatively high cost (not saying this is a bad thing), is that sometimes the side effects were simply so severe that it wasn't worth flying.

[Diziet]

Booster on the market is fine. But not being able to do booster on contract is just stupid. Have to set up a retarded wtb order just to get around the contract system is lame.

I use boosters alot with skills at 5/4. I have found it is a rarity to get any penalty using standard. With improved I usually get 1 or none. Sometime 2. With strong I seem to always get at least 1 penalty.

I really can't believe people who take the drugs before the fighting actually starts. I have done it a few times and it seems to me to be a curse that guarantees you won't get a fight.

[Mfume]

Random penalty: good bonuses, with a chance of narrow, large penalties in which case you don't go on the roam after all. Either way, you pvp without the penalties.

I've never popped a booster before an op and maybe a handful of times before actually locking primaries and dunking dudes. Most times it was X-instinct when I was locked up by around 90 Drakes in my Loki/Guardian (AHAC fleet) or a Drop booster when the call was made to clear tacklers in a Muninn or autocannon Tempest.