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Titan changes - update

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Venerietta Tar
Lynx Resources
#81 - 2012-03-27 16:43:39 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
Stuff.


I think it's about time you played your game a little more.

If you seriously think Capital-class missiles do any damage of value, you're doing it wrong and you should re-evaluate the way you play.
Innominate
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#82 - 2012-03-27 16:45:45 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:

Also, can you guys please stop +1ing - if you're under the impression that we're doing balance work based on how many posts there are in a thread you're barking up the wrong forest never mind the wrong tree. I'd hate to have to get someone to come in and clean the thread.


We're trying to flag the posts that you need to actually pay attention to. i.e. The ones which are based on how the game mechanics work, not how you assume they work.
Kazanir
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#83 - 2012-03-27 16:46:46 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
Specifically, we're reverting the changes to SCAN RESOLUTION that were announced in the above-mentioned thread.


Do you realize that without the scan resolution changes, that the tracking nerf and target limit will do extremely little to affect titan damage against fleet ships?

Basically, a turret titan using Strong Drop (which doesn't have any impact on armor titans as it stands) can currently hit for maximum overall DPS against a fleet battleship or battlecruiser, no matter how that ship is moving, whether its MWD is or not, etc. The proposed tracking change will serve to nerf overall titan damage by somewhere between 10% and 17% depending on other factors (like whether the target is painted at all or not.)

On its own, this is a trivial nerf that will have absolutely no impact on how dominant titans are in every strategic engagement in EVE. The scan resolution nerf, while harsh, was absolutely critical to these changes being effective *at all*. Reverting them is a mistake and will lead to this nerf being completely meaningless.

I'm happy to expand upon the math for this but I'm trying to get in front of this issue so I'm posting quickly to try to establish the premise here.
Kyle Myr
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#84 - 2012-03-27 16:47:10 UTC
EnderCapitalG wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
EnderCapitalG wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
I suspect the larger problem for missile-blapping is that the target has plenty of time to warp out, and you end up firing a lot of missiles at not very much.


This is incorrect. Missiles have to deal with their explosion radius and the target's sig radius, which is effectively the same as modifying Turret damage via sig radius.


Citadel cruise has a velocity of ~4k/s, so at say 50km you've got 12.5 seconds between "hey that titan has a blinky red box around it I wonder what's up with that" and "oh god I got hit by a missile I totally did not see that coming".


Are you screwing with me?

Citadel Cruise missiles hilariously low amounts of damage due to their explosion velocity and radius against subcapitals.



In case this isn't abundantly clear, this post refers to the fact that the damage formula on missiles compares a target's absolute velocity with a missile's explosion velocity, not its missile velocity.

Missile velocity is the entirely separate stat which you, CCP Greyscale, refer to when you quote the 50km range of Citadel Cruise missiles when you multiply their flight time. This is not the issue at hand.

The issue at hand is the fact that Citadel cruises have their damage affected by their explosion velocity and explosion radius. This means they do extremely little damage against sub capital ships, but do perfectly acceptable damage against capital ships and structures.

As it stands, Leviathans are performing admirably in the 'incredibly powerful fleet boost and anti-capital offense' role that you have stated Titans should have. I hope this post clarifies this point.
Jita Bloodtear
Bloodtear Labs
#85 - 2012-03-27 16:48:19 UTC
Have you considered not letting drug boosters affect capital ships? There's a lot of things ingame that seem like they were intended for subcap use only, and that they become extremely powerful when used with capitals or supercapital vessels.
Calmoto
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#86 - 2012-03-27 16:48:46 UTC  |  Edited by: Calmoto
even in regards to his post, the biggest problem with missile blapping is not that they will warp out (you cant even missile blap anyway)

its that ccp actually did capital missiles right and XL turrets wrong

so if you can understand why you cant missile blap then maybe you can stop turret blap
Kyle Myr
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#87 - 2012-03-27 16:49:27 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
EnderCapitalG wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:


Citadel cruise has a velocity of ~4k/s, so at say 50km you've got 12.5 seconds between "hey that titan has a blinky red box around it I wonder what's up with that" and "oh god I got hit by a missile I totally did not see that coming".


Are you screwing with me?

Citadel Cruise missiles hilariously low amounts of damage due to their explosion velocity and radius against subcapitals.


CCP Greyscale wrote:
La Dasha wrote:

If that was really the case, then Leviathans would be used for subcap blapping with TP/web support.


I suspect the larger problem for missile-blapping is that the target has plenty of time to warp out, and you end up firing a lot of missiles at not very much.



Yay context.


Ok, I understand the context of your post, but warping in and out isn't necessary mechanically against Titan missiles currently. The damage formula alone means that small, fast ships with low signature radii are able to speed tank their weaponry.
Woo Glin
State War Academy
Caldari State
#88 - 2012-03-27 16:50:11 UTC
lmao CCP greyscale more like CCP battleclinic
Therese Ishihara
Council of Exiles
Brave Collective
#89 - 2012-03-27 16:51:01 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:

It seems like it'd be just as easy just to introduce a sigrad-based damage scaling on XL turrets, which takes you to approximately the same expected DPS in most situations but in a more consistent (ie, less burst-prone) manner, and with the advantage that we can use much simpler math (linear/quadratic scaling) so the average user has a better chance of being able to estimate the likely outcomes. In either case though, it seems like a lot of effort to go to just to force people to fit target painters to their supercarriers; furthermore, the decision we've made is based partly on a desire to avoid special-casing so this sort of approach isn't really on the table right now.



Shouldn't target painters be a role for subcap ships anyway? Maybe it would give the Hyena a use again.
CCP Greyscale
C C P
C C P Alliance
#90 - 2012-03-27 16:51:48 UTC
Kyle Myr wrote:
Ok, I understand the context of your post, but warping in and out isn't necessary mechanically against Titan missiles currently. The damage formula alone means that small, fast ships with low signature radii are able to speed tank their weaponry.


Yup. However, it is likely to be a primary reason why nobody's bothered to set up blapleviathans with TP/web support (aside from the fact that you'd need either lots of officer webs or a paper-thin recon to actually pull it off, rather than just slapping a TPII in a mid), which was the discussion we were having. Again, yay for context.
Destiny Calling
North Eastern Swat
#91 - 2012-03-27 16:52:09 UTC
oh hey look my 100 billion isk ship is useful again.
pmchem
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#92 - 2012-03-27 16:52:38 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
pmchem wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
pmchem wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:

I don't entirely understand what you're suggesting here - the hit chance is already scaled based on a comparison of the signature resolution and the target's signature radius. My math is rusty, please explain further.


In the current formula, if target transversal is zero and the target is within falloff range, then the exponent in chancetohit = 0.5^(exponent) will be zero and the chancetohit will be = 1.

However, if you added a new term in the exponent (or as a prefactor), then you could have it so chancetohit is less than 1 if the turretsigres is much larger than the targetsigrad. For example, add a third term to the exponent where the value of the term is zero if targetsigrad > turretsigres, and a large number when targetsidrad is zero. This value would have to be added, not multiplied (as is done in the first term in the exponent). If you wanted to do this as a prefactor, you would have a smoothly decaying function where if targetsigrad > turretsigres the function = 1, but if targetsigrad = 0 then the prefactor = 0. This is often done in classical molecular dynamics for cutoff or switching functions. I could write up a couple example formulas for either case if you're interested, (but it may take me a bit, I have work too!).


It seems like it'd be just as easy just to introduce a sigrad-based damage scaling on XL turrets, which takes you to approximately the same expected DPS in most situations but in a more consistent manner, and with the advantage that we can use much simpler math (linear/quadratic scaling) so the average user has a better chance of being able to estimate the likely outcomes. In either case though, it seems like a lot of effort to go to just to force people to fit target painters to their supercarriers; furthermore, the decision we've made is based partly on a desire to avoid special-casing so this sort of approach isn't really on the table right now.


Sigrad-based damage scaling on XL turrets (basically making that damage calculation partially similar to how missiles are handled) would also be a fine solution. For more discussion about my suggestion and other sigrad based talk, please see cynonet two's thread in jita speaker's park ( https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=55493 ). That OP is very good.

In regards to target painters, there is a stacking limit to target painting effects and it would be possible -- and hopefully not difficult -- to rebalance both XL turret sigres and capital/supercap sigrad to further differentiate those massive ships from tiny little subcaps. It would be entirely possible to have it so no number of TPs would help XL turrets hit a battleship. I haven't run the numbers (I'm away from EFT) but the changes required may be minor or even non-existent, if a proper sigrad function was chosen.

I understand the desire to avoid special-casing. But, I would counter that the amount of adjustments made to both XL tracking and Titans so far in an effort to balance them make this worth it. It's a problem which must be addressed, and tracking nerfs have proven to be an ineffective path. Besides, who says XL guns aren't special? These are huge, massive turrets and it's just really hard for them to accurately target such a small ship. It fits right in with player understanding of how turrets _should_ work -- big turrets have a real hard time hitting small things. Once you get to a massive differential with XL turrets shooting subcaps, this difficulty would be made explicit (regardless of transversal).


Yeah, fair enough. We'll have another look into this, although I'm concerned that the amount we'd have to add to sig radii (and not just all caps, but all starbase mods as well) to put XL turrets safely north of TP-stacking limits might end up being problematic.





Also, can you guys please stop +1ing - if you're under the impression that we're doing balance work based on how many posts there are in a thread you're barking up the wrong forest never mind the wrong tree. I'd hate to have to get someone to come in and clean the thread.



All we can ask is that CCP takes another look. I honestly believe it's a good and fair solution, and that it may perhaps be less work than first estimated. A roleplaying or game mechanic explanation for XL turrets being unable to hit Rifters would be quite sensible and believable. Thanks.

(note: had to delete the first quoted post here, too many levels of quotes!)

https://twitter.com/pmchem/ || http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/community-spotlight-garpa/ || Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal
EnderCapitalG
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#93 - 2012-03-27 16:53:57 UTC  |  Edited by: EnderCapitalG
CCP Greyscale wrote:
EnderCapitalG wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:


Citadel cruise has a velocity of ~4k/s, so at say 50km you've got 12.5 seconds between "hey that titan has a blinky red box around it I wonder what's up with that" and "oh god I got hit by a missile I totally did not see that coming".


Are you screwing with me?

Citadel Cruise missiles hilariously low amounts of damage due to their explosion velocity and radius against subcapitals.


CCP Greyscale wrote:
La Dasha wrote:

If that was really the case, then Leviathans would be used for subcap blapping with TP/web support.


I suspect the larger problem for missile-blapping is that the target has plenty of time to warp out, and you end up firing a lot of missiles at not very much.



Yay context.


Everyone loves graphs, right?

Here's one: http://i.imgur.com/ipTTd.png

This Leviathan can only apply 1/8th its effective damage against a MWD Maelstrom.

Edit: Please note this is sans resists. With resists it becomes something laughable like 280 DPS.
Any turret titan can apply 100% of the damage.

Edit2: Here is a graph with highest resist to kinetic selected: http://i.imgur.com/FOp7y.png
Snot Shot
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#94 - 2012-03-27 16:55:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Snot Shot
Spiff O'Tool wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
...

We're aware that this is going to reduce the overall efficacy* of the changes, but we feel that the scan resolution reduction had too much of a negative impact on the titan's other options, and we're not happy with any of the other possible changes we'd previously considered.

...


Are you still planning on fixing the Titan blob vs subcaps "somehow", just not in this way? Or are you reversing your entire position on Titan blobs?

I think the response to this one would be to “Log in your Capitals!”……Pirate…………just because you’re too scared to log them in doesn’t mean those who do should be penalized for nothing else to shoot on the field except your subcaps….Roll
.

Twitter = @Snot_Shot  - “If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything"

evesnotshot.blogspot.com
Calmoto
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#95 - 2012-03-27 16:55:34 UTC
your "nerf" isnt going to work

the people we fight atm dont even use webs and tps to kill us

post nerf a little effort on their part and its like nothing even happened

andf its only you who is going to look stupid for doing things half assed
Shadoo
North Eastern Swat
#96 - 2012-03-27 16:56:11 UTC  |  Edited by: Shadoo
Thanks for the update, I think this will somewhat retain the currently stated role for anti-capital combat after the change viable when fit for capital combat.

I hope that you will take the time to work on the ship in the very near future and consider carefully if you'd still like to try to somehow fit this ship to a combat role given the age/wealth of the players in the EVE universe.

It just seems like you are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with the Titan Combat role, and timescales/budgets allowing can find the resources needed to give this wonderful "end game" ship a unique and exciting role that truly benefits the collective, not the indivitual who choose to field them.

In the meanwhile absent a proper re-evaluation of the Titan combat role and refocus to something cool & unique -- if you really wanted a purish anti-capital role for the titan without the slightest chance of being in any sort of anti-support role -- have you considered removing the ability to fit turrets/launchers altogether and instead buffing the Doomsday Device cycle/dmg to match the overall DPS vs. capitals while making the DD module able to activate in low-sec (since really -- why would it today still be limited to null sec?)
Shadooing Some Metagaming
These are not the droids you're looking for
#97 - 2012-03-27 16:57:55 UTC
Shadoo wrote:
Thanks for the update, I think this will somewhat retain the currently stated role for anti-capital combat after the change viable when fit for capital combat.

I hope that you will take the time to spend more time on the ship in the very near future and consider carefully if you'd like to try to somehow try to fit this ship to a combat role given the age/wealth of the players in the EVE universe.

It just seems like you are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with the Titan Combat role, and timescales/budgets allowing can find the resources needed to give this wonderful "end game" ship a unique and exciting role that truly benefits the collective, not the indivitual who choose to field them.

In the meanwhile absent a proper re-evaluation of the Titan combat role and refocus to something cool & unique -- if you really wanted a purish anti-capital role for the titan without the slightest chance of being in any sort of anti-capital role -- have you considered removing the ability to fit turrets/launchers altogether and instead buffing the Doomsday Device cycle/dmg to match the overall DPS vs. capitals while making the DD module able to activate in low-sec (since really -- why would it today still be limited to null sec?)

I agree with everything this illustrious poster has said
Kyle Myr
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#98 - 2012-03-27 16:57:56 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:

...
Yeah, fair enough. We'll have another look into this, although I'm concerned that the amount we'd have to add to sig radii (and not just all caps, but all starbase mods as well) to put XL turrets safely north of TP-stacking limits might end up being problematic.





Also, can you guys please stop +1ing - if you're under the impression that we're doing balance work based on how many posts there are in a thread you're barking up the wrong forest never mind the wrong tree. I'd hate to have to get someone to come in and clean the thread.


There is an impression that the iterative balance process we know is occurring with Titans out of cycle due to their strong impact on the game may be stopping short due to the many posts in the previously mentioned thread in your OP. I am simply posting in this thread to point out mechanical changes which use currently existing formulas to solve this problem.

Given that capitals have signature radii of ~3000 while capital guns have signatures of ~1250, and that all of these ships move at a rate where velocity does not factor into the equation terribly much (or at all, in the case of star base mods), there may be room to play with this formula. I don't have a spreadsheet of all relevant interactions in front of me, so I can't say for certain that there would be no problems, but considering the severity of the problem and previously proposed solutions, I'm simply saying that another look may uncover some new ground.

I'm not trying to have a seance to call up CCP Phantom, unmaker of threads. I feel that a reasonable discussion of balance here can bring about changes which keep Titans in a useful anti-capital role while removing their ability to counter all other ships when massed.
Innominate
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#99 - 2012-03-27 17:01:05 UTC
Shadoo wrote:

In the meanwhile absent a proper re-evaluation of the Titan combat role and refocus to something cool & unique -- if you really wanted a purish anti-capital role for the titan without the slightest chance of being in any sort of anti-support role -- have you considered removing the ability to fit turrets/launchers altogether and instead buffing the Doomsday Device cycle/dmg to match the overall DPS vs. capitals while making the DD module able to activate in low-sec (since really -- why would it today still be limited to null sec?)


Right here. A titan fix that works using existing mechanics and completely avoids the more difficult problems.
Kyle Myr
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#100 - 2012-03-27 17:02:33 UTC
Shadoo wrote:
Thanks for the update, I think this will somewhat retain the currently stated role for anti-capital combat after the change viable when fit for capital combat.

I hope that you will take the time to work on the ship in the very near future and consider carefully if you'd still like to try to somehow fit this ship to a combat role given the age/wealth of the players in the EVE universe.

It just seems like you are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with the Titan Combat role, and timescales/budgets allowing can find the resources needed to give this wonderful "end game" ship a unique and exciting role that truly benefits the collective, not the indivitual who choose to field them.

In the meanwhile absent a proper re-evaluation of the Titan combat role and refocus to something cool & unique -- if you really wanted a purish anti-capital role for the titan without the slightest chance of being in any sort of anti-support role -- have you considered removing the ability to fit turrets/launchers altogether and instead buffing the Doomsday Device cycle/dmg to match the overall DPS vs. capitals while making the DD module able to activate in low-sec (since really -- why would it today still be limited to null sec?)


Once again, Shadoo proposes a perfectly reasonable solution.

This would retain the unique ability of Titans, make them a solid anti-capital platform, and give them a fair amount of utility with which to use the rest of their high slots.

I can see this being something of a last resort, as it puts Titan combat abilities outside of the normal realm of EVE combat, but making the doomsday device something more of a regular use weapon than a 10-minute cycling deathtrap.