Ships & Modules

+10% drone damage/HP per level? That'd do it for me.... :)

-Liang

The entire ship class is very underused. So let's talk about ways to fix that as a whole.

-Liang

They already have that bonus, don't they?

The potential of BlackOps:

I still maintain that the popularity of BlackOps is rather a trend and larger perspective thing than an actual gameplay thing (fitting issues aside). If you look at design decisions over the past few years covert warfare is the only aspect of the game that have seen a balanced (or maybe even favourable) leaning toward smaller scale. CCP provided the tools but they are not utilized because other sides of the game gain attention.

I understand that it's a complex concept to understand, but it's similar to the example of Deimos in Crucible. Deimos were budding prior to Crucible and was one of those ships alot of people talked about leading up to that expansion. It was the leading example of targetted Gallente improvements set for that patch. Yet once the patch hit and it (along with other similar platforms) saw direct improvements the ships fell further into obscurity, why was that? It was because the other things around them gained much more, unforseen.

I look at my Blops as covert support ships, similar to Recons even though not all of them have EW bonuses.

From that viewpoint the Sin is no more better or worse than any other Blops. It has it's appeal, it's up to you to use it. Drones are very allround which makes the Sin a good fit for what Blops are all about. It may not have the direct sniper appeal of the Panther, the quick midrange damage application of the Redeemer or the EW of the Widow, but it does all of it reasonably well. It's the same appeal most drone ships have, with added personal quirks, while you have to fully appreciate that to enjoy them.


The world around them:

Larger groups don't utilize Blops as Titan bridges are easy to come by at their scale and provide more allround options, while a larger subcapital fleet is still a better choice to blitz through a cyno jammer than inserting covert operatives in behind a system in lockdown.

Among smaller groups roaming PvP is (for lack of a less ominous phrase) "dying". Many groups steeped in the old "nano" ideal have not taken up on the offer to have their toys replaced. In part with good reason (nano offered a more allround, up-front and explosive style of gameplay), and in part out of spite or adaption issues. That sort of gameplay is essentially turning into an isolated game within itself today, just like Declarations, Piracy, Wormholes or Factional Warfare. Rabble rabble, bring Solo back! etc.

Among specialist groups the use is not widespread and still mainly limited to the superficial appeal (once again, to put it in simple yet not entirely accurate words: mostly "just used for ganks" as the criticism tend to go). Many actors specializing in covert warfare are still young - and while some of them are good at what they do - the amount of groups who have overcome the glaring hole adapting from more allround small-gang tatics to more specialist covert tactics and actually take unfavourable fights in them are extremely few and far apart. I can only think of two groups over the stretch of almost five years now who pushed beyond the obvious difficulty of finding yourself without a comparable tank and/or logistics support.


Here is the climax:

Drop Blops with Triage and they will be underwhelming compared to a Titan bridged equivalent gang or other options you may have in that weight, scale or pricing. The people doing this will consider this to be the most important shortcomming of the ships, and they will ask for Tech II resists, more firepower and things like that.

Use Blops to bridge and most people still do that only as a budget alternative to Titans. They still keep themselves somewhat regionally limited, just drop from point A to point B and keep a camping mindset locking down (entry-) systems. The people doing this will ask for longer bridge reach.

Hardly any groups appreciate the ability to both bridge/drop and move through gates, meaning you can move your operations around on the fly while maintaining hotdrop capacity. That is the unique aspect of Black Ops as a concept. Then again, that form of roaming PvP is turning inside itself at the moment - not because of ship limitations but lack of targets and lack of content attention. Ships in space.


Those are the main reasons the ships are not profiling or becomming popular, to me it's just not a question of limitation or lack of potential in the ships. I don't think they should specificly safely drop ganks further from entries or duke it out with Battleships dropped in a Capital escalation style engagement. They can still be used in such setting but it require a higher order complexity.

All in all the problem is competent covert groups and attention to that scale of gameplay (note: scale, not style)

give them a mini doomsday. :P

Note that it says roaming PvP.

I'm usually not one to give into pitchfork mentality, but that was the most easily understood description i could give it. The sentiment was simply that not many groups use Blops because not many groups still partake in the emergent quality of roaming. The lack of groups participating there have little to with ships and more so to do with a perpetuation of dry target pools. The whole emergence thing that EVE is based on. Objectives for ships to be in space, and content derived from ships in space meeting other ships in space.

It's not that solo- or small gang is dying as much as it's dying as a natural piece of EVE's ecosystem. The same logic applies to the things i mentioned as examples next to it there. Take piracy for example. There are still pirates, but it's more of a lifestyle thing today. Phenomenons like Amamake, OMS and Tama are awesome, but it's construed rather than occuring. It's ships in space for the meta-derived understanding that you need to be in space to create desired content.

We're treading difficult waters here in terms of conveying definitions, but i distinguish "created content in a sandbox" as emergent opposed event. A creative community is awesome, but that is not what a sandbox imply. Roaming PvP existed as player events in games like WoW too, but they can't be described as sandboxes.



We might need to flesh that discussion out a bit more for it to be fruitful. I'm not quite sure if i get you, or you me.

I'm uncertain wether you discuss the spontaneous quality of extended solo PvP (as i like to call it when you have a couple of ships flying solo tactics, in contrast to a diverse squad-sized gang), the difficulty of certain tactics or criticizing the need to tow assets in certain situations and how that would make the gang grow out of size. I'd be prone to agree with you on some things and others not, depending on what you pressed for.

The potential i was referring to had more to do with tactical understanding, and learning how to fly control tactics in a manner that let you do more than just gank.

In the meantime, i'll adress this...



This is interesting, as it has already been done and is one of the unique tactics displayed with Blops as opposed to Titans or pure jumpdrive compositions. Feel free to expand on why it's problematic.

This is your one example that actually adress said "potential".



I too would like a 1000-1500 dps sniper, i'm just uncertain wether i'd have one without feeling guilty .

If anything the Sin is one of the ships that stood the most to gain from the new drone damage modules.

Taking a 2B isk ship deep into enemy territory = problem

Make it half that cost and, make it so people cant go using em as cheep mission runners and add more black ops crapp to the bonuses.

fewf, there.

That still assume you are hotdropping though, and not really roaming.

Let's base it off your example.

Those 8 Drakes with 2 other support are more likely 5 Drakes, 2 Recons, 2 Scimis and 2 other support (links, etc.).

Compare that to taking out a gang of Bombers, Recons and Stratcruisers that actually do roam and then slap on a Blop or two in tow, either on alts or people who enjoy them. Run cynos on any main ship(s) in the gang. The real benefit here is that you can infiltrate and exfiltrate on demand rather than on principle.

In a world where at least the sovnull response have become stockade, wait and possibly form up to push out after a good while (or even box in contellation pipe-wise to bleed you out), that benefit is greatly undervalued. That's what i meant about looking upon the Blop as a support-ship, like a Recon, rather than a mainline ship (as you would look at it if you did typical Blopsdrops). Then you look at any ship in the gang to perform a specific task.

Maybe that is what you meant by an overblown infrastructure, but at the same time, that's how i'd adress any gang wether it's Drakes or a Covert gang. We're back at the popularity-potential crossroads again. It's more than possible that it's keeping people uninterested in running Blops, but it's difficult for me to base a ship-balance discussion out of wether something is appealing to derp around in. I'd assume there are more things keeping people from derping around in Blops (skillpoints, pricetags, you name it) at the same time it's not impossible to derp 8 Blops a cynoscout and a Carrier either, if we're looking only at the strain of organisation. I don't know, i guess i just don't see the 8 Drakes as very competetive.

Maybe my perspective is a bit too high demand. Still, we're talking ship balance.

The old nano gangs were particularily popular for their ability to get around camps, or ideally exit the killzone of the camp to be able to engage and break it up.

The problem most roaming groups have today is bleeding ships. It's rare to see full welps, but bleeding ships is very detrimental to roaming where you are far from reships. It also tie back to the ever recurring cost-effect discussion. Small roaming groups have always utilized tech and specialities to enable undermanned action. Bleeding ships in such a group is just as appealing against you as it is for roaming groups when dealing with form-ups, camps or the like (blitz the support, leave the rabble). I'm not lamenting that fact, it's a natural thing, though it's important to understand it. Lynchpins get lynched.

Orient yourself within that somewhat abstract logic and see the appeal of Blops as mobile bridges.



We should probably drop that more philosophical discussion. I think we understand each other well enough to form an idea of the other's perspective. From my standpoint roaming involves all those pitstops (often consecutively). That we even discuss in terms of separate environments is something i am going to take as a reinforcer.

The example i used was how roaming groups (typically basing out of the areas you mention) seem to be congregating in their respective region. The same behaviour that go for the big sov political wars, it's all congregation and little interaction between regions, securities or scales.

From my perspective they used to interact more. Roaming groups would commonly visit each of those environments during a single typical roam. They still do, to some degree. Yet, now trends are turning into little ecosystems of their own, like goldfish bowls instead of the ocean EVE is supposed to be.

Like you implied, which i wholeheartedly agree with, roaming is a good example since that used to be perhaps the premier way to interact and connect the world. The mainstay of small-gang PvP. That's why the whole scaling thing is a big issue for me, because i see all these fishbowls polarizing more and more, and that is bad for the game - at it's very core: interaction, emergence, sandbox.

Oh well, it's an interesting discussion (i keep falling back to it to some part in almost every topic i post in these days) - but it feels like it's taking a bit too much attention here where it's soundly off topic.

The relation is there though, i still belive Blops would be more popular if roaming got incentivized. I belive the basic hotdropping we see is a result of high end roaming depopulating and congregating to isolated areas of the game (where dropping just get further incentive as a single Titan can cover the entire region so you don't need mobile bridges).

The two groups i referred to in my initial post (one of them using the in-ex bridge approach, discussed below, as one of their signature moves) are today in NCdot and PL.



It mainly depend on what you are bridging. Stick to frigate sizes and there will be no larger problems. That's part of my pet peeve though and why i'm for fuel changes. The difference up to bring the cruiser sizes is just so damn daunting it's stifling creativity.

This

Plus allow them to deploy stealth weapons - mines maybe?

Make Blops a sort of 'stealth bomber command ship', combined with the removal of local chat, they could develop really effective deep-strike fleets

Change it for Megathron hull or just use the last contest Gallente BS design winner to replace that old stinky potato.

Ever considered, you know, not warping the Blops with the tackle?