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Titan changes - update

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pmchem
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#601 - 2012-04-04 13:38:10 UTC  |  Edited by: pmchem
I mean Greyscale you make it sound like refitting in combat is commonplace and trivial. It's not -- the preflight decision is still the most important decision! Refitting in combat is rare and requires a lot of effort, attention, and skill by the pilot.

edit: fffff my post right before this (end of page 30) has my main reply

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Stonecold Steve
I N E X T R E M I S
Tactical Narcotics Team
#602 - 2012-04-04 13:43:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Stonecold Steve
CCP Greyscale wrote:
OK, so the approach we're currently considering is:

- Probably keep the lock count reduction on general principles
- Introduce an attribute that lets us scale turret damage based on raw unmodified sig radius, and set this to approximately capital-size on XL weapons
- Stop people from refitting their ships while they're being targeted
- Possibly revert the tracking adjustment, we're still considering this
- Put "revisit tracking formula" on our to-look-at list, and particularly consider revising how sig radius and sig res are treated (either make this comparison more prominent or pull it out and use the damage scaling on all turrets, possibly with some additional adjustments TBC)
- Put "revisit supercap EW immunity" on our to-look-at list

The damage scaling guarantees that we solve the problem we're trying to solve, which is why we're currently favoring that approach. It also stops people from ratting in titans so effectively, which is considered a significant plus. Finally, it's likely laying the groundwork for a more comprehensive tracking adjustment at some possible time in the future maybe TBC perhaps you see how I'm being non-committal here right.

Stopping mid-fight refitting is a "cute" solution that may or may not end up contributing to this in practice, but it's not behavior we want to support anyway so removing it now seems reasonable.

The tracking nerf on XL weapons may or may not still be needed, we'll see how that pans out.

The tracking formula is now very much on my radar; as above I make no predictions about when we might look at it but it does warrant another look I think.

Criticisms?


- Stop people from refitting their ships while they're being targeted.
First, it implies people take penalities while switching the modules (the penalities lies within the fact that the slot is empty for a certain amount of time. Since you implemented the "buffs now fill up instead of extending the maximum (lets use shields as an example) shields. This makes it so it neglects these new in-combat penalities.
If at all; make that so it only applies to the top slots?

I don't see why you would want to scale the damage, it's not a solution but rather a work around. A big gun should hunt like a big gun, in whatever ship you may fly. If it would hit you, it should do the full damage.

-- Possibly revert the tracking adjustment, we're still considering this
Keep it. If anything, it's tracking that you should turn to. Not the raw damage of XL weapons.

-- Put "revisit supercap EW immunity" on our to-look-at list
And what will you do with this? Takin EW immunity away that means subcaps can boost titans for superb tracking? Titan snipers incoming.

-- Stopping mid-fight refitting is a "cute" solution that may or may not end up contributing to this in practice, but it's not behavior we want to support anyway so removing it now seems reasonable.
It isn't, it involves taking penalties of empty module slots hence downgrading yourself for a moment. You might be able to do something which penalties this more? Lets say a fitting time penalty? 5sec per module reconfigurating?

The damage scaling guarantees that we solve the problem we're trying to solve, which is why we're currently favoring that approach. It also stops people from ratting in titans so effectively, which is considered a significant plus. Finally, it's likely laying the groundwork for a more comprehensive tracking adjustment at some possible time in the future maybe TBC perhaps you see how I'm being non-committal here right.
-- thb nobody gives a **** about titans ratting, they put in a huge risk while doing this. If people want to gamble with the 60billion ships for some little pocketmoney, let them. I fail to see how this would implement a better "situation" then currently present.

“Hasta la muerte, todo es vida.”
steave435
Perkone
Caldari State
#603 - 2012-04-04 13:52:07 UTC
Stonecold Steve wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:

[Stop people from refitting their ships while they're being targeted


Make that so it only applies to the top slots?

The main point is to make sure titans can't refit from a tank fit to a blap fit and back, which is done by changing the mid and low slots...So no, that's not gonna fix anything.
Stonecold Steve
I N E X T R E M I S
Tactical Narcotics Team
#604 - 2012-04-04 13:58:59 UTC  |  Edited by: Stonecold Steve
steave435 wrote:
Stonecold Steve wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:

[Stop people from refitting their ships while they're being targeted


Make that so it only applies to the top slots?

The main point is to make sure titans can't refit from a tank fit to a blap fit and back, which is done by changing the mid and low slots...So no, that's not gonna fix anything.


So lets state the following situation;

Titan with supercap buddy?
supercap uses ECM burst
target locks are lost,
Titan quickly refits some modules (maybe due to the extra keys a hightech keyboard gives)
*Live long and prosper?

“Hasta la muerte, todo es vida.”
spellbound spirit
#605 - 2012-04-04 14:00:16 UTC
pmchem wrote:
I mean Greyscale you make it sound like refitting in combat is commonplace and trivial. It's not -- the preflight decision is still the most important decision! Refitting in combat is rare and requires a lot of effort, attention, and skill by the pilot.

edit: fffff my post right before this (end of page 30) has my main reply


Triage play that RnK explains in quoted video is one of the things that make many people actually want to play the game knowing that their skill in combat can make actual difference. Greyscale, you should watch the vid, and honestly say, that as a PvPer you wouldnt like to have possibiities like those utilised by RnK in the video. You really should stop nerfing things that give people advantage if they have skill, cause right now you're making eve pvp numbers pvp(and "press f1"), is that a your design goal?
Helothane
Ascendent.
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#606 - 2012-04-04 14:17:47 UTC
Any particular reason why not just have Titans be able to fit a Siege module? That would allow adjusting down their damage in non-siege mode, but allow them to be more effective against the kind of targets that they are intended to be used against.
Pharon Reichter
R.I.P. Legion
Fanatic Legion.
#607 - 2012-04-04 14:24:05 UTC  |  Edited by: Pharon Reichter
You are taking this sh** too far.

Nothing i have seen this far is in any way a well thought elegant and long term solution. Remember this game is a god damn SANDBOX. It isn't meant to be played THE way you want to be. It's meant to be played the way players want.

With every iteration of the proposed changes you touch more and more aspects of the game play that you shouldn't touch. And i honestly approach the point where i start to think that the first solution - turning titans into a useless ship is preferable.

You want to give a certain alliance the help they need. Fine do it. But don't fu** the whole game.

And to give not only criticism but also suggestions it has been said over and over again. Make a subcap ship class that has that specific role - titan counter. Make it in any way you want - ewar , damage , cap drain , jump interdictor (you cannot jump into the system) .... there are countless of good ideas that could be used.

It's clear that the *said* alliance doesn't see caps as a viable counter to titans ( too much isk and skills to risk ) ... so give them a medium cost ship that needs medium skills , and can be a counter to titans. Bring MORE tactical alternatives to the field not less. Make it so you can both win or loose depending on HOW you play. Because as it is now you are clearly taking the "just bring more" path.

OH and P.S.

one of the reasons i have the thinfoil hat on is the speed you want to put into this change. You are charging head on AGAIN into an issue that has been there for some time and passed trough many inefficient changes. Maybe it's time to revist the whole role of the titans ? give the owners something FUN to do in combat while not making them overpowered in groups ? Well no you prefer to get out another rushed nerf.
Raivi
State War Academy
Caldari State
#608 - 2012-04-04 14:49:30 UTC
Greyscale, if the new XL gun attribute works the way I expect it will, a titan will be doing about 15% damage to a maelstrom and 9% damage to a drake. I think that kills blapping completely.

Would you consider not changing the refitting in combat in Escalation since it seems less likely it will be needed to balance titans? The current uses of refitting have a fairly well established and well balanced place in eve tactics, and losing them would be a shame.

I propose leaving the refitting changes out of Escalation and implementing them in Incursion if you feel they're needed at that time.
Tetania
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#609 - 2012-04-04 14:50:37 UTC
I'm pleased to see the signature factor being brought into titan turret damage and short of a role redesign I think that should be the best answer to the Titan issue right now. We are also seeing a change on tranquility where titan blobs are appearing to be less invincible than popular opinion behind these nerfs might suggest. Maybe give that some time to play out while working on the new role for Titans.

With regards to the combat refitting issue I would like to add my voice in opposition to this change. Combat refitting is what really separates small gang carrier warfare from anything else in eve. As others have stated in blobs it is less of an issue anyway as the "There are too many ships around you to refit" control that already exists in game kicks in. If you really want to limit titan combat refitting then do it with an alteration to that code.

Anyone who has had the experience of fighting in a small group of carriers with subcaps 2-10 caps with less than 50 total in fleet will probably put that experience in their top 5 moments in eve, I know I do. It may not have been a designed mechanic but it is a superb one and pretty well balanced already.
Raivi
State War Academy
Caldari State
#610 - 2012-04-04 15:45:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Raivi
CCP Greyscale wrote:


Reposting my reply from the CSM forum here so everyone can see the discussion:



This sort of gameplay is emergent and cool and interesting and something we very much enjoy seeing players discover, but it also sits in a particular kind of design grey-area where it's not really something we want to be seeing (for reasons I'll describe in a second), but something that's benign enough that we're not actually going to take action to nerf it just because of that, but also nevertheless something that we're not going to explicitly exempt from larger changes if they happen to impact it.

The reason we don't really like this sort of thing is that pre-fight fitting decisions are supposed to be one of the fundamental decisions of EVE combat. Most MMOs let you change your weapons and armor more-or-less on the fly. We don't, and there are clear and long-standing design principles behind that. SMAs let you make that decision *closer* to the fight, but they're not there to let you change your fitting *in* the fight. Yes, we need more interesting decisions that players can make during combat, that's one of the fundamental problems with our combat model right now IMO, and yes, removing this option will take some interesting decisions out of combat, and that makes us sad.

That said, it is nevertheless the case that the design team here doesn't feel that explicitly supporting this kind of gameplay by exempting non-supercap ships from the restriction we want to take here is a direction we want to be taking the game in over the medium term. We would rather remove this particular option in the short-term to maintain the importance of pre-fight fitting, and then solve the larger problem of a lack of interesting decisions during combat in the medium term with mechanics that explicitly and properly support such decision-making in the full range of combat scenarios, rather than grandfathering in an exception to the general design intent to leave a small bandaid on a large wound.

We're still listening to the feedback here, obviously, but we feel we have a lot of reasons to be moving in this direction right now.


I think the concern many players will have with this is that CCP very rarely mentions that they want to increase the significance of player choice. It hasn't seemed like a priority in the past and we are afraid that it will be ignored in the future.

These kinds of "unintended" game mechanics make up the most interesting tactics in eve, and it seems to me that it's better to support that innovation (as long as said mechanics do not become overpowered) instead of discouraging it.

I'll put it another way. People who enjoy developing new tactics can sometimes feel like they're fighting against CCP more than against their ingame enemies. We want you guys to be on our side in making eve deeper, but the results often aren't there.
I know the idea behind all the new modules is to open up new player choices, but if someone finds a use for them beyond the ideas you had in mind when you developed them, will that also fall into this "grey area" that you don't want to be seeing? Should we be getting a list of approved tactics that we can legally employ with any given module or mechanic?
SuperSpy00bob
North Eastern Swat
#611 - 2012-04-04 15:59:49 UTC
I'm a little dubious to support a quick fix to titans with a promised 'we will fix them properly soon(tm)'.

How about just committing to fixing them for real, in whatever time frame it takes, and ignoring any interim band-aid attempts?

I think it's fair to be weary of CCP leaving quick fix changes in far too long while promising to 'do it right' "later".

Also I think you should be cautious of any changes to XL turrets in general as any change there will greatly change Dreadnoughts, which I'm sure many people will agree don't need any more negative attention. What?
Tropic9
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#612 - 2012-04-04 16:11:29 UTC
I too am a little worried about how the sig based damage reduction will affect the ability of dreadnoughts in WHs.

This change would presumably make dreads ineffective at combating sleepers, thereby reducing the number of options players have to run those sites.
Lanasak
Doomheim
#613 - 2012-04-04 16:32:57 UTC
yeah CCP totally interfered with the sandbox when they removed remote DDs
Alavaria Fera
GoonWaffe
#614 - 2012-04-04 16:50:36 UTC  |  Edited by: Alavaria Fera
Lanasak wrote:
yeah CCP totally interfered with the sandbox when they removed remote DDs

Balanced by cost.

Wlll be interesting to see if people will still hotdrop 10 titans on a rfter roam again. Of course if titans had their damage reduced a lot against say drakes, it would be hilarious to see drakes tanking titan turrets.

Triggered by: Wars of Sovless Agression, Bending the Knee, Twisting the Knife, Eating Sov Wheaties, Bombless Bombers, Fizzlesov, Interceptor Fleets, Running Away, GhostTime Vuln, Renters, Bombs, Bubbles ?
Bouh Revetoile
In Wreck we thrust
#615 - 2012-04-04 17:33:53 UTC
I found a quick and dirty fix for turret damages which do not turn them like missiles !

As I already explained, modifying the damage modifier is a poor idea. The thing to play with for turret is the chance to hit. If you want a hard cap to turret hit chance -- and hence to their damages, because this is the way turret damage should be caped, by the hit chance value -- just multiply the hit chance by the sig ratio

Turret formula give you the hit chance X
Put X' = X * (target sig radius / turret sig res
And you're done
XL turret sig res is 1000
An armor BS not microwarpdriving sig is 400
That mean that even with 100% hit chance (X = 1), aiming at this BS (whatever its speed), hit chance fall (and hence cap) to 40%
Any transversal velocity will of course decrease this value
Note that the damage modifier in this scenario is also caped to 90%
That mean that if the blap titan aim at a standard sig BS sitting at 0m/s in its optimal range, dps will be reduce to 36%
Secondary effect will be the titan pilot missing a lot of its hits, hurting its mood and making him to cry because its erebus/avatar is now as effective as a leviathan

Why is this better ? Because it's more turret like, and with luck you can land a wrecking hit. And because a MWDing Maelstrom will be shred to pieces for being that silly to run an MWD with blaping titans around

You can tweak the sig ratio (target sig radius / turret sig res) with exponent or multiplier to reach any objective you want.

Please Greyscale, do this instead of a modifier on the damage value !
Sigras
Conglomo
#616 - 2012-04-04 18:02:31 UTC
Is there a particular reason you decided to use raw unmodified signature radius to scale damage and not final signature radius?

Additionally I think the problem you're having with titan tracking may stem from the stats of the guns; all of the XL guns have a signature resolution of 1000 whereas the smallest explosion velocity you can get on a XL missile is 1750 (citadel cruise)

This is out of line with all of the other sized gun > missile relationships; take heavy missiles with an unmodified explosion velocity of 125 and all of the guns have the same explosion velocity.

I believe that if you changed the stats of the gun to match the stats of the missiles you'd be closer to your solution because honestly, what are the XL guns supposed to be shooting at thats 1000 m^2 anyway? even small POS gun batteries are 2000.

(specifically because you asked for it)
This fix is better for gameplay because it keeps consistency throughout all of the gun sizes, and doesnt restrict the players into a predetermined "i can fight this and i'm totally helpless against that" mentality. the less hard counters IMHO the better, just look at SC2 vs SC1

Lastly I vehemently disagree with removing the ability to refit in combat and I suggest adding it back in with a time delay based on the signature radius of your ship or somehow based on ship size or mass. figure 1/2 second per 1,000,000 m^3 of unpackaged volme per module, so a battleship could refit one module every 1/4 seconds, a carrier one module every 7 seconds, and a titan, one module every minute and 15 seconds

(again because you asked for it)
This fix is good for gameplay for a few reasons:
1. It doesnt remove significant choices players can make in battle (removing player choice is bad for the sandbox)
2. It gives players a reason to undock a triage carrier (I dont know of anyone stupid enough to go triage without the ability to refit unless theyre in a wormhole)
3. It requires players to have more foresight in battle as refitting will take longer while not locking them into the role they fit for
4. It makes logical sense that larger ships take longer to refit.
5. It still fixes the problem with instant refitting titans.

Thoughts?
Sigras
Conglomo
#617 - 2012-04-04 18:28:07 UTC
Grayscale, you also said that the problem wasnt that Titans are hitting too often, the problem is that when they do hit, they insta gib what theyre shooting at.

I really think weapon grouping is your culprit here. If I understand the mechanic correctly, one chance to hit calculation is done and the resultant damage is multiplied by the number of weapons in the group right?

well look at it this way:
If you have a single group of 6 titan guns with a 50% chance to hit, (forgetting the damage variation for a minute) they will nail your target with a ton of damage 50% of the time
As opposed to:
If you have 6 independent guns each with a 50% chance to hit, the chance that all of them hit is .5^6 or 1.5625%

essentially what gun grouping does is amplify the alpha strike potential of any given ship, which isnt usually a problem unless, as in this case, youre relying on one ship to destroy the target in one volley.

I think my solution (especially now that TiDi is such a success) would be to disallow XL gun grouping. This would require the titans to have much more coordination if they want to go titan blaping.
Demon Azrakel
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#618 - 2012-04-04 18:58:57 UTC
Sigras wrote:
Grayscale, you also said that the problem wasnt that Titans are hitting too often, the problem is that when they do hit, they insta gib what theyre shooting at.

I really think weapon grouping is your culprit here. If I understand the mechanic correctly, one chance to hit calculation is done and the resultant damage is multiplied by the number of weapons in the group right?

well look at it this way:
If you have a single group of 6 titan guns with a 50% chance to hit, (forgetting the damage variation for a minute) they will nail your target with a ton of damage 50% of the time
As opposed to:
If you have 6 independent guns each with a 50% chance to hit, the chance that all of them hit is .5^6 or 1.5625%

essentially what gun grouping does is amplify the alpha strike potential of any given ship, which isnt usually a problem unless, as in this case, youre relying on one ship to destroy the target in one volley.

I think my solution (especially now that TiDi is such a success) would be to disallow XL gun grouping. This would require the titans to have much more coordination if they want to go titan blaping.


I am not sure you understand grouping. All calculations are done independently, some shots miss, some hit. What you get printed out is the total and an average quality of hit. If you get two excellent hits and one miss (think a dread with three guns here), the game will tell you "well aimed" or something. And yet one gun missed. All that grouping guns does is is make it so you hit f1 instead of f1-f6. The calculations do not care, it just prints out a total damage and average hit quality.
steave435
Perkone
Caldari State
#619 - 2012-04-04 19:03:17 UTC
Bouh Revetoile wrote:
I found a quick and dirty fix for turret damages which do not turn them like missiles !

As I already explained, modifying the damage modifier is a poor idea. The thing to play with for turret is the chance to hit. If you want a hard cap to turret hit chance -- and hence to their damages, because this is the way turret damage should be caped, by the hit chance value -- just multiply the hit chance by the sig ratio

Turret formula give you the hit chance X
Put X' = X * (target sig radius / turret sig res
And you're done
XL turret sig res is 1000
An armor BS not microwarpdriving sig is 400
That mean that even with 100% hit chance (X = 1), aiming at this BS (whatever its speed), hit chance fall (and hence cap) to 40%
Any transversal velocity will of course decrease this value
Note that the damage modifier in this scenario is also caped to 90%
That mean that if the blap titan aim at a standard sig BS sitting at 0m/s in its optimal range, dps will be reduce to 36%
Secondary effect will be the titan pilot missing a lot of its hits, hurting its mood and making him to cry because its erebus/avatar is now as effective as a leviathan

Why is this better ? Because it's more turret like, and with luck you can land a wrecking hit. And because a MWDing Maelstrom will be shred to pieces for being that silly to run an MWD with blaping titans around

You can tweak the sig ratio (target sig radius / turret sig res) with exponent or multiplier to reach any objective you want.

Please Greyscale, do this instead of a modifier on the damage value !

If there's a choice between a mechanic that produce consistent results and thus will be dependant on player skill and a mechanic based on the luck of the draw, relying on player skill is always the better choice. Some randomness is fine, but the kind of modifications that would be applied with that suggestion is way over the top.
steave435
Perkone
Caldari State
#620 - 2012-04-04 19:04:34 UTC
Stonecold Steve wrote:
steave435 wrote:
Stonecold Steve wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:

[Stop people from refitting their ships while they're being targeted


Make that so it only applies to the top slots?

The main point is to make sure titans can't refit from a tank fit to a blap fit and back, which is done by changing the mid and low slots...So no, that's not gonna fix anything.


So lets state the following situation;

Titan with supercap buddy?
supercap uses ECM burst
target locks are lost,
Titan quickly refits some modules (maybe due to the extra keys a hightech keyboard gives)
*Live long and prosper?

If you manage to pull that off considering the limited range of the ECM burst and win the dice roll against the targets sensor strength in every case and then manage to re-fit in the half second or so it takes to re-lock the titan (no, special keyboards won't help you, you need to use the mouse to drag mods around), then you deserve to get that refit.