Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I would like to say that this post is meant to reach to ccp regarding the way of pvp which has been in my opinion totally forgoten in all ccp's plans and by csm acording to the minutes. I know that a verry small group of players is touched by the issues which ill list here but its not the reason to totally abandon all atempts at balancing when changes might be easy and non intrusive to other peoples playstyle.
I would like to start by analizing the current gameplay mechanics which affect (in negative way) people who solo or fly in extremly small gangs.

-Scouting
This is the main thing which limits the "true" solo of flying araund with one account, and limits players to cruiser/frigate hulls. Im not saying that flying in anything larger is impossible but you will be loosing many ships to large gangs you jump into or get baited by on gate. Using second account for scouting then becomes a must, but it doesnt have to be like that when possible solution is easy and doesnt affect other peoples gameplay alot.

-ECM
This is a subject which was brought up hundreds of times on this forum but it still remains a huge problem if you are flying alone or in a small group. Theres severall issues with this, starting from the fact that its chance based rnd mechanics which in itself negates all tactics or flying you can do. Second problem is that its basicly a td and dampener rolled into one module, damps reduce your locking range while td's make you miss more and being jamed means that neither you can lock or shoot. Third thing is lack of stacking penalty which in practice leads to ships being permajamed.
Ecm drones are a prime example of how rnd works in practice and that having low chance to jam is not a problem if you are facing one target and have few ecm modules to use on it. Take a six sided dice and imagine its an ecm module with 17% chance to jam a target, start throwing it and the ammount of times it hits a jam "side" wont be inpressive. Now take 3-4 more dices and start throwing them at few seconds apart and youll notice that theres a dice on jam "side" moust of the time even if the others dont land.
Argument that theres counter to ecm can be only made by people who never faced it in practice. Counter to ecm drones are smartbombs which limit your ship choise and fitings by quite a bit and an all other ships lead to permajam situations. And eccm modules althou incerasing your sensor strenght dont provide you with eough time to even kill a tackling frig. Just remember the dice thing and you will see why.
Ive used eccm modules, pirate implants, and even flown with sensor integrity link (and yes all that ofthen in combination) and still wasnt able to make it work well enough when faced even with one ecm ship.
ECM is totally broken from solo/small gang perspective and dominates theese types of engagments as a i win button to whoever side brings it.

-Tier 3s
I saw ccp stating that theese ships are fine (and in majority of cases they are) but on solo side they are the biggest nightmare to face right behind ecm. Its a 1k dps with good rage projection agility and speed. In practice they are to active tanks what hurricane was before only worse. I know that ccp is currently working on rebalancing bc's and active tanking but it might still leave active tanking as neiche tactic and a gimmick. Active tanking ships capable of kiting are less affected by this than those who are forced to fight in scram/web range.
Hurricane is a bane of active tanks because of big dps and two medium neuts which wreck havoc to your cap and make timing of you cap boosts and armor reps a must. But cane is in your scram range which means that you are able to shoot back and have a chance of reducing incoming dps. Tier 3s on the other hand dont have neuts but have more dps and are able to apply it from outside your web scram range while you are locked down by other ships or are in too slow ship to catch him and moust of the current active tank ships which fight in scram/web range are too slow for that. Upcoming bc changes and active tank changes are a step in right direction but we will see.
Second blow to solo which introduction of theese ships brought is good old tactic of spliting up enemy gang and engaged them one by one. As i said awesome dps, damage projection, speed and agility of these ships make it extremly hard thing to do especially when faced with multiple oponents. Im not saying its inpossible to do any more, but its much more harder and the number of available hulls to choose from when going solo is limited.

-Off grid gang boosting
I agree that this mechanic needs to be looked at changed. But the side effect of removing OGB is that it becomes much harder for solo players and small gangs to have an edge over oponents who bring superior numbers. Its also big problem for soloing in active tanked ships. Theres a large number of people who have alts capable of off grid boosting, so what will happen is that theyll just adapt by mixing theese ships into gang composition. Gate campers will simply keep them on grid far away from "action" and in case of any danger warp out. So it leaves solo pvpers basicly without that edge which is crucial power multiplyer i right hands. Active setups i used where only effective with OGB which only tells you how broken the normal active tanking is in current metagame. A boosting ship also allowed me to solo in larger hulls without dying to first sabre/falcon gate camp. And using on grid boosting will be extremly hard when dualboxing, even harder if you have one screen like me. Its going to be even harder for solo or small groups of players to deal with larger numbers or just even the playing field against those who use them.