EVE General Discussion

Hi,

I've seen all the posts about supers and i think the correct way to fix it is to nerf the blob and not the ship.

So you say, how do you do this? I say, rework the fleet booster system so that it boost fleets that are balanced and penalises fleets that are not.

So what is a balanced fleet? A balanced fleet should be a fleet that has the correct ratio of ships in each class to fulfil the job it is intended to do.

Example,

Each titan fielded should have the correct support in order for everyone in fleet to receive the booster, if too many titans are fielded the fleet should be penalised. By how much should depend on how unbalanced the fleet has become.

Now what's the correct ratio of ships per titan, well I don't really know but i would expect something like 2 - 3 supers, dreads, carriers, a decent amount of bs, bc and frigs.

I also think that this could be played around with by creating specialist fleets, like logi fleets, sub cap dps fleets, small skirmish fleets, each fleet with correct composition receiving a bonus based on the job it's doing if it's setup right. The options are pretty endless for each fleet type

What will this do?

It will remove one ship class blobs from the game: Penalties for unbalancing

Remove the need for major nerfs of majorly unbalanced ships: Overblobing a ship actual is the counter

Open PVP up to younger player: Alliances will need players that can fly every ship type to get the correct balance

Please discuss and let me know if you think something like this would improve the game or ruin it. Remember it doesn't mean you can't fly you supers, it just means you can't fly them all together at the same time :)

I could get behind something like this, it has to be done right and that is the tricky part.

I keep thinking what would happen if the USA blobed it's super air craft carriers, nothing else but air craft carriers? It could be done but on a very short time frame and only so far from a base of operation, as anyone that has been in the navy will tell you logistics is key to any navy ship. You have re-fueling, foodstuffs, spareparts, replacment personel and support personel.

I know this is a space game in the future and details as spacific as these are not fun game design, but to support a blob of super caps you need logistics, how you throw that in to the mix to make superblobing have deminishing returns is the key.

I never liked nerfing anything in a game, as in the real world it is always about changing tactics or developing NEW counter equipment/tactics/weapons/defense.

Just saying

How about limiting the on-grid presence of supercaps to 'x' per alliance? Some BS about the same anti-ewar ability also effecting their ability for X or more of the same ship to operate on the same grid... messes up their command frequency or something.

Of course, one goes down you can always bring in another to take its place, but at least you won't be getting 100,000 dps from the get go.

The on-grid idea: People would put each super in its own alliance.

One way to do this fleet balance thing is first nerf the supers, then add back stuff for being in a balanced fleet. And the best way for that to happen is what gets added back is due to the capabilities of the other ships. That is, make supers unable to do task X, to get task X done the fleet needs to contain ships that can do task X.

The result would be that supers by themselves are sitting ducks. But in a balanced fleet they are properly supported and can do their job. Not because of some fleet or grouping bonus, but because of what the support ships can actually do.

Unfortunately, this is the hardest method of solving the issue. But my guess is its what CCP wants to do, and why its taking a long time. Do it wrong and you break alot of stuff.

Any idea that comes up around externally influencing/managing fleet composition fails because 'being in a fleet' is only a convenience. If you removed the fleet mechanic from the game entirely, PL would still drop 40 Supers on your shuttle if they were bored. Being in one fleet as a blob, or seven small fleets that act together, as a blob, or 250 individual super pilots is the same thing. Given that once you sit in your super, you cant get out, what choice is there?

They managed it in PVE (incursions) because they sneakily witheld the reward if people didn't meet the fleet composition. But in PvP the reward is killing the other fleet - its schadenfreude. CCP can't withold that, so they can't strongarm the would be blobbers into having sensible fleets.

Blobbing will always happen in Eve. Mostly its manageable, with Supers it isn't - because the only thing that will kill a blob of Supers, is a bigger blob of Supers. Therefore there are 3 options:

- Remove Supers from the game (Why would anyone work for the end game mechanic, ever again?)
- Nerf Supers so something existing in game can take them out (requires little effort/thought)
- Introduce something that can take out a blob of Supers, like they did with Stealth bombers and battleships (requires lots of effort/thought)

Guess which one will happen?
SK

The "once you are in a super you cannot get out" issue also need to be fixed. For example, you should be able to password protect the super and anchor it in a POS shield. Or when you get out of it, it warps off and disappears just as if you had logged off in it.

Very very true, I like that line of thinking, what if supers moved really slow, or took a long time to move from system to system, that way you would have to stage supers around your systems to make sure you had enough on hand to defend. reminds me of the game Risk.... hmmmmm

You can certainly get out of them, you just leave it floating in the shields/space or a Capital Ship Maintenance Array.

Oh great another person crying because they are going to lose their huge advantage. Please cry else where