Equal, not Ultimate

  A recent hot topic has been of New Eden is the potential nerf of Drakes. In my opinion, games become too much about “we must balance everything perfectly!” and less about the variety. So Drake fleets have become FOTM ship lately, owing to their ability to hit out to 60km and mount an impressive tank. After a page or two talking about this issue on the Eve-O forums, my head began to hurt and I had to go have a lie down. After I was able to return to the computer I did some thinking and debated with fellow corp members.
 
  I originally had a post written out with yet another rant adding to the mix of people. Zomg are you nerfing the Drake for?!?one! Which I do have a few points I will bring up. But I got to thinking and this post is more about my thoughts on ships in general and their uses in the universe. First my rant/points on Drakes. For as long as I can remember, and as long as I have piloted a Drake, any time DPS was mentioned in relation to the Drake there were laughs. Drake? Do damage? lolwut?! Now all of a sudden, the outspoken forum trolls call for balance because “zomg a drake can do massive damage!” Perhaps, with the notorious lag of nullsec, this is frustrating and the alpha from a fleet of them can be destructive. But quite frankly, that can be said of any large fleet in null. Easier to nerf than fix lag, eh CCP? Outside, where fleets are generally mixed and tactics vary, that applies less and less. Look at aHACs. A fleet of them can take out, I myself have watched it happen, 15 carriers and 35 battleships. It’s called smart flying and smart tactics. Drakes are a good counter for an aHAC gang. Nerf it and you lose that tool, making the HAC that much stronger. You might see the return of battleships a bit, but again...aHACs. If a ship is becoming prevalent, it means it works for an intended purpose. You certainly can’t take on a cap fleet with Drakes. Supercaps are a whole issue themselves, and could use a nerf. . One of the better comments I found on the forum post:
 
     "The drake+scimitar gangs aren't invincible same as the ab armour hacs aren't invincible. Drakes are fine, they are arguably the best BC but they are very limited in there usefulness to a lot of the common fleet types out there. Stop whining.”

  I digress.

  I have found in Eve that while there are certainly the big differences between T1, T2 and now T3 ships and each class of ship has tiers, there really isn't a mindset of any ship being "best". There simply cannot be a best. There are too many different situations and tactics to be considered. T1 ships even have a place at times for veteran pilots. While your skills and piloting get better, your ship scales with you essentially. In other MMOs, they tend to fall into the trap of "new expansion brings better gear!1!" and you have to then grind for it since your current gear is obsolete and scorned. *cough*WoW*cough*

  You can specialize in a ship if you want and be the best pilot for it in the game. The tier system does seem to give an arbitration, but not enough to make much of a difference. A Hyperion class battleship is tier 3, but you never see those out in space. I think that is a good thing, truthfully. It becomes more about the utility of the ship and how you can fit it out, rather than "bigger is better!" type of mentality.

  I may try to ease off of Eve for a bit. I've been going at it hardcore lately at the expense of my scholarly studies, heh. I'll still be on and off....just not as much. Blogger is giving me trouble with the formatting of posts as well. So I'm sorry if colors and font size get wacky. I'm trying to attack the HTML and get it to iron out. Doesn't like copy/paste apparently >.>

Just my thoughts.
-Mem