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[Winter] Ewar Tweaks for Retribution

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Slayer Blowfish
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#301 - 2012-11-05 19:59:27 UTC
There are two important things people keep missing:

1) ECM, unlike most other e-wars, is chance based, and provokes the most negative reaction in a player on the receiving end because of it. No one likes to be punished randomly, with no way to control the outcome. The best example is ECM drones. You can potentially lose a fight to ECM drones even if your sensor strength is very high, because once you're locked out, you're locked out for the full duration of the 20s.

2) ECM, unlike most other e-wars, suffers less from stacking penalty. As an example, a non-specific e-war other than ECM is projected onto a ship with a 10% effect and applied with 6 stacks. The target receives cumulatively 31.7% of the e-war effect, or, 317% of the base effect. Now, consider the effect to be ECM, in which case the effect is a 10% chance to jam. Applying 6 provides a cumulative chance of 1 - (0.9^6) = 0.469, which is 469% of the base effect. Furthermore, there is no ceiling to this stacking in ECM - you can apply as many jammers to a ship as you like, and the chance based mechanic ensures that all are effective. This is also why ECM drones are such an issue, because you can simply throw as many as you have on one target, and gain benefit much beyond stacking any other kind of e-war.

The solution to both is rather simple: make ECM duration based instead of chance based. Not only are you making the effect easier to predict and thusly easier to counter-act, you can also solve the stacking penalty problem. By enforcing subsequent ECM on the same ship provide diminished duration effect, you will a) provide a ceiling to the max jam duration, subject to ECM resistance, and b) brought the actual ECM stacking penalty in line with all other e-wars and module stacking mechanics.

For the record, I also think the falloff mechanic for other e-wars (which is chance based AFAIK) also problematic. Changing them all to diminished effect based on range outside of optimal would be nice as well.
Lin-Young Borovskova
Doomheim
#302 - 2012-11-05 20:00:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Lin-Young Borovskova
Goldensaver wrote:
YES!

Nerfing TD's!

Also, I like the thought of being able to skill up to be more resilient against ECM. That's going to be nice.
The range nerfs also aren't bad, that'll be nice to force them to be a little closer.

I like that Damps are getting fixed... but they can be really farking annoying. Unlike ECM, they almost never miss.

The TP's are nice. Still not as useful as other Ewars in most situations, but when they do get used, they'll actually get used to better effect now. No complaints there.



Good news about Damps, but before clapping hands need to test it out on bonused and unbonused hulls, clearly taking away from mods themselves some % is good to prevent everyone and his cat to fit them, same for other EWAR mods.

Tp's will become far more useful imho, remember missile changes !! -it's also an awesome change+lot better for larger guns tracking smaller stuff "ya can't get meh nananananéreuh" , this is an awesome change.

However this question remains CCP Fozzie: when are scramblers and webs get a T2 effective range for 12km?

brb
Dibblerette
Solitude-Industries
#303 - 2012-11-05 21:01:24 UTC
TBH, I hate this.

More skills that aren't really fun for anyone (takes time out of my queue, trolls the ECM pilots) instead of fun stuff. At least cut them down to rank 1 or 2 tops, that way I don't waste TOO much time.

Why not just buff all ships sensor strength a little bit instead? Correct me if I'm wrong, but does sensor strength go beyond a half a point? I mean yeah, once you got up to rank 4-5 you would see a difference, but only on the larger/pricier hulls anyways. Also, will this stack with ECCM and whatnot?
Bouh Revetoile
In Wreck we thrust
#304 - 2012-11-05 23:00:03 UTC
All these moaning about some lvl3 skills to learn, that's amazing. Patience is virtue, and such a boost to ECM protection is really worth it IMO.
Crash Lander
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#305 - 2012-11-05 23:44:25 UTC
Bouh Revetoile wrote:
All these moaning about some lvl3 skills to learn, that's amazing. Patience is virtue, and such a boost to ECM protection is really worth it IMO.


First I like the new skills and patience is indeed a virtue... but my subscription money is not. If a bunch of skills take for example take a month to train means that in practice you pay one month of subscription for it. As a newer player I would much rather spend that month training for one the other gazillion 'must have' skills (t2 guns/tank/support or ships that I can better use with the fleet).

Besides as mentioned the reasoning provided for making it 4 skills instead of 1 (more competitive new players through specialization is an oxymoron though that's for another thread). All the older players are going to have these trained to 4/5 first thing without a second though.
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#306 - 2012-11-06 00:09:23 UTC
Milton Middleson wrote:
I think they should seriously consider doing the OGB nerf in much the same manner that they implemented the early FW changes. Except with less warning.

Like none at all.


I would love this Twisted

In fact I already have the training schedule in place for when my OGB will need to come on-grid to boost.

Now if only there was a way to fit an interdiction maneuvers warfare link to a Rattlesnake, I would be one very happy carebear.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#307 - 2012-11-06 00:11:29 UTC
Dibblerette wrote:
TBH, I hate this.

More skills that aren't really fun for anyone (takes time out of my queue, trolls the ECM pilots) instead of fun stuff. At least cut them down to rank 1 or 2 tops, that way I don't waste TOO much time.


Who trains skills for entertainment value? Why shouldn't you make sacrifices to train useful skills? Make that decision between Wing Commander 5 versus all sensor compensation skills to 5? Yes please!

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Vladimir Norkoff
Income Redistribution Service
#308 - 2012-11-06 01:32:37 UTC
Meh. Not enthused.

ECM - "We also want to reiterate that we are not looking at these ecm changes as a complete solution to the problems with that mechanic." Understatement of the year. Gives more range to all ECM ships (except Recons) at level V. Not exactly a nerf. And adds new skills to train that will marginally reduce ECMs effectiveness. Just look at how "well" ECCM mods work to get an idea of how much these skills will affect ECM. The ECM mechanic itself needs to change, not these pointless stat changes.

Damps - Ahhh... 7.5% bonus to damp ships. Hmmm. Now where did I hear that idea before? Let me think. Oh wait! I know!... FOUR @#$%ING YEARS AGO WHEN WE TOLD YOU @$$CLOWNS THAT WAS WHAT WAS NEEDED WHEN YOU INITIALLY @#%^ED UP DAMPS!!!! *nerdrage* But that's right, damps were "working as intended" then. Stupid #$!@tards. No, I'm not gonna be grateful that you finally fixed it. I'm gonna be pissed that you kept @#$%ing us in the ass for 4 years.

TDs - So level V skills on an unbonused hull has reduced effectiveness by 3%? Yeah that's a wallop of a nerf. Sure TDs are used on every frig in existence, but that doesn't tell us anything. Nope. TDs are juuuuust fine.

TPs - Yeah they need the love. Though I'm forseeing some abuse with Rapier + Stealth Bombers thanks to the GMP change. Bombers torping frigs to great effect! Wheeeeeee!!!
Sizeof Void
Ninja Suicide Squadron
#309 - 2012-11-06 02:32:33 UTC
Mara Rinn wrote:
Why shouldn't you make sacrifices to train useful skills? Make that decision between Wing Commander 5 versus all sensor compensation skills to 5? Yes please!

Not a fair comparison. The choice between WC 5 and all of the sensor compensation skills to 5 is an easy one. WC 5 is one of those skills you train up only when you've got virtually nothing else left to put into the skill queue, except cross-training Titans.

For many of the newer players, though, I think it is more of a question of training one of these new sensor compensation skills up to 4/5 vs training up AWU, or something similar. In any case, their queue just got longer.

So, no matter which decision they do make, they will end up falling further behind the older players - particularly if they don't have Cybernetics trained up to 5 yet and/or cannot afford the +5 implants.
Sarmatiko
#310 - 2012-11-06 02:33:21 UTC
CCP Fozzie, I have noticed that Golem on Duality received significant boost for TP bonus (10% bonus to effectiveness of target painters per level instead of 7.5%). Will other Marauders get this boost as well?

off-topic: while someone already messing with Marauders stats, can we get some slight boost to the tractor beam speed and salvage bonus, to get on par with Noctis? Roll
Trinkets friend
Sudden Buggery
Sending Thots And Players
#311 - 2012-11-06 05:31:44 UTC
Re: the imbeciles whining about damps blotting out the sun...

...either you solely fly frigates (where a single unbonused damp can ruin your day completely because ur hull cannot lock much past dissy range to begin with

...or you are living in some parallel universe.

I admit, a fixed Maulus which in't completely gmped into uselessness, it may in fact become an I-Win Button of a frigate (again, your raw lock range is initially pissy so a single damp will be dangerous), but only solo. Even with a fully pimped-up alt in a Celestis, you cannot solo any cruiser due to a) the fact that it takes 3 damps to knock their range down below dissy range b) you then cannot fit a dissy yourself not with a prop c) cap use is murderous.

Seriously, you lot give me aneurysms. There is a reason why almost everyone shield tanks Lachs and Arazus, and that is because you get mobility, a OMFG long point, and are the darling of nado gangs.

That said, a dampbird is quite hilarious.

~~ Localectomy Blog ~~
Fon Revedhort
Monks of War
#312 - 2012-11-06 06:03:22 UTC
Damps suffer from the same flaw of game mechanics: severely overpowered when stacked in excessive numbers against one single target, while being OK when applied as intented (1-2 per ship).

"Being supporters of free speech and free and open [CSM] elections... we removed Fon Revedhort from eligibility". CCP, April 2013.
Zeus Maximo
Mentally Assured Destruction
The Pursuit of Happiness
#313 - 2012-11-06 08:33:27 UTC
Thank you CCP for this wonderful gift of love and fairness. I greatly appreciate it!

"It is not possible either to trick or escape the mind of Zeus."

U-MAD Membership Recruitment

PoH Corporation Recruitment
Rek Seven
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#314 - 2012-11-06 09:23:23 UTC
Why do damps need a buff to optimal range?

The strength of ships like the arazu lie in their ability to redue the locking range of an enemy while remaining in point and damage range.

The strength bonus alone would have been enough.

The wishlist is pretty much complete...
Sarah Schneider
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#315 - 2012-11-06 09:55:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Sarah Schneider
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Hey everyone, thanks for the feedback so far.

One change to report at this time, we're extending the range boost to the Kitsune as well.

I'd also like to address the questions about why we've chosen skills as the route to increase sensor strength. Compared to just nerfing the base values of ECM or increasing the sensor strength of all ships, using skills provides new choices that players can make about priorities. Decisions like whether to train your sensor compensation skill to 4 or get and extra level of surgical strike, whether you should train another race's sensor corp or focus on your favorite race in order to specialize, are the kind of choices the skill system is designed to create.

We also believe that providing skills to help defend against things like ewar gives useful tools to players. With the introduction of these sensor comp skills there will be skills that mitigate every form of ewar except target painters. As we move forward I would not be averse to adding a sig radius reducing skill as well, as part of a general movement towards making signature radius more noticeable to everyday pilots.

As for the choice to make four skills instead of one, a basic premise of the eve skill system has always been that a newer player can overtake an older player in ability through specialization. Instead of making older players unbeatable the skill system is intended to use generalization and increased options as the benefits for older players, while giving newer player the option to be just about as good as anyone else at specific roles and specific sets of ships while they work towards adding more options for themselves. The four skills allow a newer player who focuses on one race first to get the same resistance to ECM as a much older player while only investing 1/4 the SP. Players are also welcome to broaden their scope, and training the first few levels of each skill will be a very quick affair, while getting them to level 5 for the last 5% bonus would require significant investment.

To answer one other question we're getting about unprobable ships, these skills will not make any ships unprobable since becoming unprobable was made impossible a little over a year ago. They will however make probing ships more difficult and some ships may require higher skill levels and better equipment to catch.

So... "fixing" the ECM mechanics itself have never came across as an idea, at all? There are many posts, even blogs/articles dedicated to ECM and some of them have really good stuff written, there are even some really viable options there to really balance the ECM platform such as what Keller wrote :

Quote:
What I am proposing is a modification to the ECM formula – or rather, a second formula which applies only when the jam is successful. I am not proposing any changes to success probability. If the effect of ECM is addressed, then the current probability mechanics are actually quite balanced. This second formula, in the event of a successful jam, is as follows:

L = 20 * (J / S), L <= 20

L is Length, or the duration of the jam effect, while J and S remain Jam strength and Sensor strength, respectively. L has a ceiling of 20, which means that an ECM boat with ECM strength greater than its target's sensor strength (think Falcon vs. frigate) will jam the target for 20 seconds but no more than that. What it means for larger ships - Battlecruisers, for example - is that when a jam succeeds, its effect duration is less than the module's cycle time. To perma-jam a target will require more ECM modules in concert, and the odds of a precious gap appearing between jams is much greater. This allows ECM victims to retaliate against ECM users and also gives a de-facto buff to ECCM modules (which not only decrease ECM probability but also duration).

However, any successful jam, regardless of ECM strength, will successfully break a lock.


I don't know about what others may think, but it seems like this sort of idea is pretty much preferable in comparison to keeping something that's a known issue and slapping some other stuff which can be viewed as a quickfix which may produce new problems. With no disrespect but have you even considered this sort of alternative? or does CCP's sole intent was to add new skills for the sake of adding new skills alone?

"I'd rather have other players get shot by other players than not interacting with others" -CCP Soundwave
ToranBrades
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#316 - 2012-11-06 10:53:34 UTC
I might not be able to offer an alternative way for how ECM is supposed to work, but those four skills are just poor design.

If you train Signature Analysis or or Long Range targeting, you don't do that counter damps primarily. However, training those 4 anti-ECM skills would mean people "have" to train them soly for the purpose of countering ECM.

Just +1ing the perception of the addition of four "obligatory" skills that don't add any perceived value to the game (yeah, perceived as Learning skills V2 here as well). Ofc I'll train them, but meh, looks like bad design.
Gypsio III
Questionable Ethics.
Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
#317 - 2012-11-06 11:37:57 UTC
Nah, I quite like them. They lead to greater variety in ships' sensor strengths, making ECM jam predictions somewhat less obvious. A single skill is relatively easy to train up for a newish player, making specialisation still relatively easy, relative to flying all races. That's a better way of doing it, as opposed to a flat 25% sensor strength buff.

It wouldn't stop me entirely nuking the terrible chance-based binary no-effect/RAGE ECM mechanic at the first opportunity, or deleting ECM drones altogether, but it's a sensible simple thing to implement while we're waiting for a less stupid ewar mechanic.

eg.


  • Delete ECM and ECM drones.

  • Give Caldari Remote Sensor Dampeners, suitably beefed up to befit the race that's supposed to have the most powerful ewar. "Permajam" should still be readily possible, but the victim can hope to escape it by his own piloting actions.

  • Give Gallente a missile-disruption ewar (don't give that effect to tracking disruptors, they'd be fundamentally overpowered).

  • Give Caldari a secondary ewar of logistics disruption, reducing amount and range of remote assistance modules, helping to replace ECM's anti-logistics role, particularly in fleet environments.


The old idea of ECM reducing the number of lockable targets down to a minimum of zero has potential too.
Bouh Revetoile
In Wreck we thrust
#318 - 2012-11-06 11:45:01 UTC
ToranBrades wrote:
I might not be able to offer an alternative way for how ECM is supposed to work, but those four skills are just poor design.

If you train Signature Analysis or or Long Range targeting, you don't do that counter damps primarily. However, training those 4 anti-ECM skills would mean people "have" to train them soly for the purpose of countering ECM.

Just +1ing the perception of the addition of four "obligatory" skills that don't add any perceived value to the game (yeah, perceived as Learning skills V2 here as well). Ofc I'll train them, but meh, looks like bad design.

I think of it more the other way : all skills are used because of their own utility, though, because of a falcon, you have the opportunity to train a skill to protect you against some specific ships and modules. There is no precedent for this in the game, and it's somewhat *very* powerful, hence the 4 skills.
Bouh Revetoile
In Wreck we thrust
#319 - 2012-11-06 11:50:35 UTC
Fon Revedhort wrote:
Damps suffer from the same flaw of game mechanics: severely overpowered when stacked in excessive numbers against one single target, while being OK when applied as intented (1-2 per ship).

Let me rephrase a little bit :
"TD suffer from the same flaw of game mechanics: severely overpowered when stacked in excessive numbers against one single target, while being OK when applied as intented (1-2 per ship)."
"Neut suffer from the same flaw of game mechanics: severely overpowered when stacked in excessive numbers against one single target, while being OK when applied as intented (1-2 per ship)."

I already said it : that's how EWAR work. It's either effective and you are pissed, or it's ineffective and nobody use it. These modules give you a noticeable advantage over your oponent. The opponent often notice it, and he is then pissed off, because he don't have the module/fit to counter it.

That's why TD are seen as overpowered IMO : a lot of people already stack TE on their ship to work with extended range so a TD is the exact counter to their fit. It's not that TD are overpowered, it's workinng as intended IMO.
Pinky Denmark
The Cursed Navy
#320 - 2012-11-06 13:10:09 UTC
I like this a lot. I guess the skills is a good way to nerf ecm drones too... So damn annoying (especially if people can exploit the ecm drone cycle time by recalling and re-engaging them)

Plz however notice most ships getting a better sensor strength while being revamped and ecm ships are not THAT overpowered against multiple oponents, however very overpowered against single enemies. I suggest an alternative that might work, however might go against the principles of the sandbox a little:

Would it be possible to code ecm in such a way that any ship can only apply 1 jammer to each ship at any given time?
I guess this is a limitation somewhat against the sandbox principles, but it will strengthen the ecm ships when outnumbered and have less effect against single ships... This means less permajamming, but a good force multiplier against multiple enemies - Just the way it should be.

Results would be eccm actually being very usefull and ecm would be less game breaking than currently.