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Active Tanking (CCP, please read)

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Mr Painless
Perkone
Caldari State
#81 - 2011-11-10 23:55:19 UTC
Turkatron wrote:


How is nuet vulnerability an issue? There are no ships in this game that are not effected to some extent by nuets.
Even drakes rely on invulns which can be shut off, they drop quite fast without them.

Have you ever flown a well fit active tank in pvp? Be honest. Cap issues: nuets, cap charges are pretty much the only things that keep active tanking from being completely overpowered in any situation where the opponent's DPS is less than your EHP. If my active shield tanked ships had no cap problems and were invulnerable to nuets (or less vulnerable) then the only thing that would concern me is falcons. Do you really want a sub-capital ship that can tank 2-3k dps or more (solo) and not have cap problems?


Sure, every ship is vulnerable to neuts, but not every ship is vulnerable to the same degree. An active tanked laser boat is surely more vulnerable to neuts than a passive Drake. How is opponent's DPS less than my EHP, i truly don't know, but you probably meant my active tank value ;).
In fights that involve more than a dozen ships (not necessarily blobs), most active tanks will last shorter than passive when primaried, regardless of cap. Being neuted on top of that surely doesn't bring the scale back to active tanks, you must agree on that.

I find your concern regarding small scale PvP and boosted active tanks reasonable, but the reality is that most fights in EVE involve more than "a couple" of ships, and active tanks are at a glaring disadvantage there.
Ogopogo Mu
O C C U P Y
#82 - 2011-11-11 00:09:39 UTC
Large Collidable Object wrote:
One of the things that would vastly improve active tank viability would be a stacking penalty on dps from numerous ships.

It would also help getting rid of this terrible 'ctrl+click broadcast window, hit F1' stupidity large scale pvp in eve currently is.


That sounds a lot like the damage system from Sins of a Solar Empire, where your effective DR goes up scaled by the number of ships attacking you. It would be interesting but it's more of a nerf to focus fire than a buff to active tanking, plus it still favors buffers by giving the logistics more time to target. It might lead to some more interesting tactics than ctrl-click-F1-loop, but not really in the scope of active tanking.

Plus, the engine needs to tell the difference between people actually damaging you vs. a neut, a logi, or those 8 trial accounts you have following you around shooting civvy guns to boost your resists. If you do it by averaging damage over time, then alpha fleets are even more necessary.

Also, the effect on PvE is funny. (The Assault Level 4? I'm having trouble tanking; quick, grab all the rest of the spawns!)

SMT008 wrote:
On armor repairers : built-in +15% Omniresistances, affected by compensation skills


The math on a multi-repper/booster ship starts to look frightening, especially with all compensation skills to 4 and an EANM II added in for armor (no such module for shield). I do think the passive shield compensation skills are terrible at this point, but this seems like an odd solution at those percentages.

Still want to see where this discussion goes. It's either fix active tanking, or change the game environment to favor more 1v1/small skirmish, thus favoring active reps.
MaiLina KaTar
Katar Corp
#83 - 2011-11-11 00:10:33 UTC  |  Edited by: MaiLina KaTar
CCP Greyscale wrote:
The tricky bit in resolving this is finding a way to let active tanking scale effectively at higher DPS ranges without making it totally overpowered for smaller engagements...

It'll scale correctly if you do the following:

  1. Remove activation cost of armor rep / shield booster (yes... I'm serious... read on).
  2. Turn them into toggles and restrict them to one per ship.
  3. Incoming damage Di will drain capacitor C instead of armour HP while the module is active.
  4. On damage taken: C -= Di * X.
  5. X modifies Di dynamically and is actually a function I'm too lazy to flesh out. It normalizes Di against C and allows you to do fancy stuff like...
    6. - balancing EHP versus traditional buffer tanks.
    - adding modules which allow extensive customization of tank behaviour. I'm talking about stuff like making your tank particularly good at tanking specific types (f.e.: large hybrid turrets, small emp missiles, high rate of fire), as a tradeoff to being particularly weak against others.


Main challenges to this solution:

  • Making the UI easy to understand and monitor .
  • Weapon groups, depending on how they're implemented.
  • Balancing EHP versus buffer tanks. In my opinion active tank EHP should be a little higher because of the commitment in cap and damage output.
    • Since buffer tanks usually don't repair themselves however, the difference shouldn't be all that much. If it's too much in favour of active tanks, buffertanks will become useless. So it would be best to keep EHP roughly equal intially and then play around with X until you find that sweet spot where both tanks can shine in their respective domains.
Cryten Jones
Advantage Inc
#84 - 2011-11-11 00:24:20 UTC
MaiLina KaTar wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
The tricky bit in resolving this is finding a way to let active tanking scale effectively at higher DPS ranges without making it totally overpowered for smaller engagements...

It'll scale correctly if you do the following:

  1. Remove activation cost of armor rep / shield booster (yes... I'm serious... read on).
  2. Turn them into toggles and restrict them to one per ship.
  3. Incoming damage Di will drain capacitor C instead of armour HP while the module is active.
  4. On damage taken: C -= Di * X.
  5. X modifies Di dynamically and is actually a function I'm too lazy to flesh out. It normalizes Di against C and allows you to do fancy stuff like...
    6. - balancing EHP versus traditional buffer tanks.
    - adding modules which allow extensive customization of tank behaviour. I'm talking about stuff like making your tank particularly good at tanking specific types (f.e.: large hybrid turrets, small emp missiles, high rate of fire), as a tradeoff to being particularly weak against others.


Main challenges to this solution:

  • Making the UI easy to understand and monitor .
  • Weapon groups, depending on how they're implemented.
  • Balancing EHP versus buffer tanks. In my opinion active tank EHP should be a little higher because of the commitment in cap and damage output.
    • Since buffer tanks usually don't repair themselves however, the difference shouldn't be all that much. If it's too much in favour of active tanks, buffertanks will become useless. So it would be best to keep EHP roughly equal intially and then play around with X until you find that sweet spot where both tanks can shine in their respective domains.



Fricken Awesome to be honest!



-CJ
Adunh Slavy
#85 - 2011-11-11 00:35:37 UTC
Cailais wrote:


CCP Greyscale wrote:


The tricky bit in resolving this is finding a way to let active tanking scale effectively at higher DPS ranges without making it totally overpowered for smaller engagements. The most obvious fix I can see is some method of boosting active tanking's burst repair potential without making it sustainable at those levels. Adding permanent resistance bonuses to reps makes the modules somewhat more useful but also serves to homogenize fittings towards primarily relying on EHP.


A couple of options spring to mind. One is to add a form of ammo to armour reps - for an injection of HP. Another is to add scripts to armour reps. Such scripts would modify the repair rate/amount with some counter balance in terms of agility / speed or capacitor.

C.




This is a decent solution, and it adds something to the game that it needs badly, and can be expanded into other things.

First, it does satisfy the need for "burst" or high repair for a while that can not be sustained forever, even more so if this "Ammo" as Cailais calls it, is of sufficient size, say perhaps half the size of cap boosters.

The other important thing this ammo could do is create consumables that use up minerals, PI materials and whatever other resources can be thrown at them. Eve needs more consumables.

This sort of concept could be expanded into other modules beyond shied boosters and armour reps. - Any active module could use some sort of charges/ammo to boost the stats. From shied reps to microwarp drives. These things would be in addition to scripts.

Make these charges/ammo specialized and it creates an even greater need for specialization and more pressure upon the divisions of labor, that Eve badly needs as well.

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.  - William Pitt
Turkatron
#86 - 2011-11-11 00:46:21 UTC
Mr Painless wrote:
Sure, every ship is vulnerable to neuts, but not every ship is vulnerable to the same degree.

Why should they be? Balance is not the same as everything being the same.

Mr Painless wrote:
How is opponent's DPS less than my EHP

EHP = Effective Hit Points... shield + armor + structure with resists taken into consideration.

Mr Painless wrote:
In fights that involve more than a dozen ships (not necessarily blobs), most active tanks will last shorter than passive when primaried, regardless of cap. Being neuted on top of that surely doesn't bring the scale back to active tanks, you must agree on that.

What I was trying to say deals directly with this. If the enemy has enough DPS to push past your repair/second then no amount of capacitor buff is going to matter. I don't usually fly active tanks against more than 10-15 ships unless the gang is creatively setup to deal with it. IE. some form of remote repair, but even then if their DPS exceeds your EHP then it does not matter because you will be alpha'd. Buffer is the only form of tanking that will scale with increasing gang size and even that has a limit. There's a good reason you see buffer sleipnirs. It's just a simple matter that active (local) tanks are ineffective in anything that isn't a very small gang. I don't see that as a problem. You don't normally go roaming in a solo carrier do you? Or tackle with a falcon? Local active tank does not have a place anywhere but solo and small gang.

Mr Painless wrote:
I find your concern regarding small scale PvP and boosted active tanks reasonable, but the reality is that most fights in EVE involve more than "a couple" of ships, and active tanks are at a glaring disadvantage there.

If you pick your battles, you can get mostly small gang fights. You just have to look for them, they are out there... Changing your own gang to be small helps as well.
Baljos Arnjak
Dark Praetorian Order
#87 - 2011-11-11 00:51:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Baljos Arnjak
CCP Greyscale wrote:
I'm going to disagree and say that the real problem with active tanking is its lack of scalability.

With buffer tanking, your survivability against an arbitrary amount of DPS is always directly proportional to your EHP. No matter what situation you're in, adding 50% EHP keeps you alive 50% longer.

With active tanking, there's a range of DPS where you survive indefinitely (effective rep amount > incoming DPS), a fairly thin range DPS where it's "balanced" (effective rep amount ~= incoming DPS), and then a huge range of DPS above that where your tank is effectively pointless (effective rep amount << incoming DPS) and has no impact whatsoever on your survivability.

This is I think also a major issue with "blasters" - a lot of the blaster platforms have to choose between fitting an active tank which isn't going to help at all half the time, and fitting a passive tank which discards one of their major hull bonuses and slows the ship down to boot.

The tricky bit in resolving this is finding a way to let active tanking scale effectively at higher DPS ranges without making it totally overpowered for smaller engagements. The most obvious fix I can see is some method of boosting active tanking's burst repair potential without making it sustainable at those levels. Adding permanent resistance bonuses to reps makes the modules somewhat more useful but also serves to homogenize fittings towards primarily relying on EHP.


What about a way to shunt some of the incoming energy (DPS) to enhance your rep amount and/or capacitor via a new skill and module that works in conjunction with active reps? At lower DPS levels the added benefit would be negligible and at higher levels it could amount to a huge benefit that would enable to you endure longer than you normally would. Sort of like a scalable shield boost amplifier that derives it's bonus as a percent of damage taken (up to a maximum percent determined by skill/bonus/module). Just an idea Big smile

Fake edit: Sorry for posting 5 pages late, lol.
Herzog Wolfhammer
Sigma Special Tactics Group
#88 - 2011-11-11 01:02:29 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
I'm going to disagree and say that the real problem with active tanking is its lack of scalability.

With buffer tanking, your survivability against an arbitrary amount of DPS is always directly proportional to your EHP. No matter what situation you're in, adding 50% EHP keeps you alive 50% longer.

With active tanking, there's a range of DPS where you survive indefinitely (effective rep amount > incoming DPS), a fairly thin range DPS where it's "balanced" (effective rep amount ~= incoming DPS), and then a huge range of DPS above that where your tank is effectively pointless (effective rep amount << incoming DPS) and has no impact whatsoever on your survivability.

This is I think also a major issue with "blasters" - a lot of the blaster platforms have to choose between fitting an active tank which isn't going to help at all half the time, and fitting a passive tank which discards one of their major hull bonuses and slows the ship down to boot.

The tricky bit in resolving this is finding a way to let active tanking scale effectively at higher DPS ranges without making it totally overpowered for smaller engagements. The most obvious fix I can see is some method of boosting active tanking's burst repair potential without making it sustainable at those levels. Adding permanent resistance bonuses to reps makes the modules somewhat more useful but also serves to homogenize fittings towards primarily relying on EHP.




A "burst repair" effect would be a big help but what chances to be overpowered? I don't know. A major problem with armor-tanked slowboats (BS) is they get picked to death while webbed in multiples and drones merely peck at them.

Let's imagine some possibilities to throw about as idea fodder:

- repair modules that have a max burst where the first cycle repairs that max amount, but following cycles have diminishing returns. For example a module can repair say (picking even arbitrary numbers here) 100 HP on the first cycle, and then 20 percent less of that burst on each cycle.
- as in the first case, but instead of less repair amount per cycle, each cycle taking a bit longer.
- perhaps a combination of both longer cycles and less HP repair.
- scriptable repair modules where "burst repair" at high rate can be sacrificed for shorter cycles or a lesser diminishment on each cycle - basically letting the player trade off per their needs.
- extra repair nanite modules that use nanite paste or some other kind of "fuel" like a cap booster uses cells.





Bring back DEEEEP Space!
Pere Madeleine
The Gentlemen of Low Moral Fibre
#89 - 2011-11-11 01:26:41 UTC
Personally, I think active tanking is fine for solo or very small gang PvP. There are plenty of good active tanking ships that work very well for solo use, or small gang work with no logistics support, such as the Maelstrom, Myrmidon, Ishtar, Cyclone etc. Especially shield booster fits with Crystals.

They also have plenty of use in solo PvE, where buffers just don't work, they're totally essential for lvl 4 missions for example.

Active tanks are not the only thing in Eve that doesn't have a use in large scale PvP. Cruise missiles are another example. Likewise there are things that have no place in solo or v. small gang PvP, or in solo PvE, such as logistics ships. Not everythign needs to be universally useful, as long as it has a niche it excels in.

To me, Active tanks do have that niche. However, it's perhaps too easy to get a multiple rep active armor tank that is cap stable as long as the boosters last, and the peak rep amount on such a fit is not quite high enough to offset the fitting requirements and rep delay.

The other big advantage buffer tanks get is they are easier on the CPU and PG, meaning bigger guns can be fit, or more ewar, propulsion or cap stability.

If I was rebalancing them, I'd leave shield boosters as they are. Maelstroms can have a fearsome tank, for example. But I'd double the rep amount of armor reps, along with their cap usage, while increasing PG requirements by a little under 100%. This would allow armor reppers to fit an extra resist module, or damage module, meaning they can have a higher rep amount without having to sacrifice so much DPS etc. To better balance armor reps with shield boosters, I'd also create active armor tanking implants equivalent to Crystals (and maybe passive shield ones too, for the sake of equality, though instant shield transfer may be enough of an advantage to render that one undesirable).
Nova Fox
Novafox Shipyards
#90 - 2011-11-11 01:27:11 UTC
Ammo Based Reppers that give pvpish bonuses with really long reload times sounds like a real winner. Prevents AFKing missions too and you can possibly make the ammo large enough that carrying around lot of them (like cap batteries) not as viable.

Scripts are an option imo but not for reppers thesmevles but for resitance modules.

Dust 514's CPM 1 Iron Wolf Saber Eve mail me about Dust 514 issues.
Zircon Dasher
#91 - 2011-11-11 01:32:55 UTC
Nova Fox wrote:
Scripts are an option imo but not for reppers thesmevles but for resitance modules.



Did't CCP say NEVERMOAR to scripts after the bitching in.... Rev2(?).... when they added current scripts?

Nerfing High-sec is never the answer. It is the question. The answer is 'YES'.
AlleyKat
The Unwanted.
#92 - 2011-11-11 01:48:12 UTC
Give active tanking a peak rep rate?

Most active repping only occurs at around the 50% mark for solo to mid-sized PvP anyway, so why does a rep need to give 100% of its ability 100% of the time?

We all agree that in organized warfare there are other ships involved and remote repping, so...

100% tank = 50% rep
50% tank = 125% rep
0% tank = 100% rep

The percentages should not go up or down in chunks but just be a scaling figure.

This gives an overall boost to repping and scales nicely across all rep types and hull classes.

Close range blaster PvP will lose out on approach to optimal, but when in optimal (and hopefully dealing damage with hybrid buff), they can reap the rewards of committing to the fight.

If they do not quite make it, then their survival goes up a few points, but ultimately pilots who have them outside the blaster optimal, but inside their optimal will kill them anyway - if they have fitted an anti-blaster setup.

The other idea I had on this (not in combination with the above) would be something along the lines of an after-effect for repping, in that modules activate and for a period of time (say, 3 seconds) the ship that activated the repairer will not take as much damage. It could also be calculated as a percentage.

So, if it takes 15 seconds for the modules to cycle, the first 20% of that cycle (3 seconds) the ship will not incur as much damage. Once again as it's a percentage, it scales across all modules and repairers.

This also means that if someone is dual-repping, they can time their reps and reap the rewards of it, but it should not multiple the effect of reduction if they time their reps incorrectly, bringing skill into the equation.

Don't know what the reduction in incoming damage should be, but 50-75 % would be interesting to measure.

AK

This space for rent.
Terminal Entry
New Fnord Industries
#93 - 2011-11-11 03:39:29 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
I'm going to disagree and say that the real problem with active tanking is its lack of scalability.

With buffer tanking, your survivability against an arbitrary amount of DPS is always directly proportional to your EHP. No matter what situation you're in, adding 50% EHP keeps you alive 50% longer.

With active tanking, there's a range of DPS where you survive indefinitely (effective rep amount > incoming DPS), a fairly thin range DPS where it's "balanced" (effective rep amount ~= incoming DPS), and then a huge range of DPS above that where your tank is effectively pointless (effective rep amount << incoming DPS) and has no impact whatsoever on your survivability.

This is I think also a major issue with "blasters" - a lot of the blaster platforms have to choose between fitting an active tank which isn't going to help at all half the time, and fitting a passive tank which discards one of their major hull bonuses and slows the ship down to boot.

The tricky bit in resolving this is finding a way to let active tanking scale effectively at higher DPS ranges without making it totally overpowered for smaller engagements. The most obvious fix I can see is some method of boosting active tanking's burst repair potential without making it sustainable at those levels. Adding permanent resistance bonuses to reps makes the modules somewhat more useful but also serves to homogenize fittings towards primarily relying on EHP.


Making the armour repairer a mid slot module might go some way to helping to fix Blaster boats. It may need a lot of ships to be tweaked though....

Just a thought.
Corina Jarr
en Welle Shipping Inc.
#94 - 2011-11-11 03:59:08 UTC
Note: this is only my opinion. Not fact.

To me, active reps are not for large scale PvP, but rather small scale PvP and PvE content. Just like you would not use a freighter to mine with and a Hulk to carry ships around the galaxy.


Anyway, unless active reps are brought into overpowered proportions, a ship using such will not even finish its first cycle before dying to massive alpha. Again, my opinion.
Sphit Ker
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#95 - 2011-11-11 04:01:56 UTC
+1

On armor repairers : built-in +15% Omniresistances, affected by compensation skills

> Make this an active bonus, much like hardeners.

Capboosters charges volume : -50%

> Also make spent charges rechargeable while in space. Somehow… Proximity to star?

---

Why do I even care? Because I've been there. Active taking in PVP sucks. There's nothing to account for the major pains of fitting such a setup. For it to be more than a vague attempt at not dying right away, it requires damn near EVERYTHING AT V along super awesome fleet boost bonus and combat boosters AND top-end modules. A-types and so on and even then that's still funny.

That's not right and you know it!

On the other hand, boosting active tanking could very well throw PVE tanks way beyond overpowered so there's that.

It knows what you think.
Tamiya Sarossa
Resistance is Character Forming
#96 - 2011-11-11 06:10:53 UTC
Active tanking has a very effective niche in PvP - small gang action where it's valuable to appear to be losing a fight when you are not, in order to keep the maximum number of targets aggressed/on the field.

I seriously don't think a radical overhaul is needed, significantly boosted overheating bonuses would achieve the desired effect of giving active tanks an impressive burst tank and thus make them more competitive in survival time when primaried, while also not upsetting the current PvE balance. It's also easy to implement!
Jenshae Chiroptera
#97 - 2011-11-11 06:28:10 UTC
Check sig for fixes

CCP - Building ant hills and magnifying glasses for fat kids

Not even once

EVE is becoming shallow and puerile; it will satisfy neither the veteran nor the "WoW" type crowd in the transition.
Zagdul
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#98 - 2011-11-11 06:30:59 UTC  |  Edited by: Zagdul
CCP Greyscale wrote:
I'm going to disagree and say that the real problem with active tanking is its lack of scalability.

With buffer tanking, your survivability against an arbitrary amount of DPS is always directly proportional to your EHP. No matter what situation you're in, adding 50% EHP keeps you alive 50% longer.

With active tanking, there's a range of DPS where you survive indefinitely (effective rep amount > incoming DPS), a fairly thin range DPS where it's "balanced" (effective rep amount ~= incoming DPS), and then a huge range of DPS above that where your tank is effectively pointless (effective rep amount << incoming DPS) and has no impact whatsoever on your survivability.

This is I think also a major issue with "blasters" - a lot of the blaster platforms have to choose between fitting an active tank which isn't going to help at all half the time, and fitting a passive tank which discards one of their major hull bonuses and slows the ship down to boot.

The tricky bit in resolving this is finding a way to let active tanking scale effectively at higher DPS ranges without making it totally overpowered for smaller engagements. The most obvious fix I can see is some method of boosting active tanking's burst repair potential without making it sustainable at those levels. Adding permanent resistance bonuses to reps makes the modules somewhat more useful but also serves to homogenize fittings towards primarily relying on EHP.

Add or change the armor repping rigs so that instead of their drawback being mass added (slowing the ship) that local reppers consume more cap.

On ships like the brutix where it needs to close range, you're going to want the fight to be as short as possible anyway and having a cap booster with an active armor tank would achieve this.

This puts the choice into the player's hand: Do I want to rep more or rep faster and in both cases (nano acc / nano pump), consume more cap. Or do i want to go with a slower ship (trimarks/anti-RESISTANCE pumps) and be heavy buffered.

Dual Pane idea: Click!

CCP Please Implement
Roger Soros
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#99 - 2011-11-11 09:28:31 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
I'm going to disagree and say that the real problem with active tanking is its lack of scalability.

With buffer tanking, your survivability against an arbitrary amount of DPS is always directly proportional to your EHP. No matter what situation you're in, adding 50% EHP keeps you alive 50% longer.

With active tanking, there's a range of DPS where you survive indefinitely (effective rep amount > incoming DPS), a fairly thin range DPS where it's "balanced" (effective rep amount ~= incoming DPS), and then a huge range of DPS above that where your tank is effectively pointless (effective rep amount << incoming DPS) and has no impact whatsoever on your survivability.

This is I think also a major issue with "blasters" - a lot of the blaster platforms have to choose between fitting an active tank which isn't going to help at all half the time, and fitting a passive tank which discards one of their major hull bonuses and slows the ship down to boot.

The tricky bit in resolving this is finding a way to let active tanking scale effectively at higher DPS ranges without making it totally overpowered for smaller engagements. The most obvious fix I can see is some method of boosting active tanking's burst repair potential without making it sustainable at those levels. Adding permanent resistance bonuses to reps makes the modules somewhat more useful but also serves to homogenize fittings towards primarily relying on EHP.


Simple solution
1) align the fitting cost of a armor reps to the corrispective plates
2) reduce armor reps cap consumption per circle
3) armor hitpoint repped need to be added at the start of the circle not at the conclusion
4) add a passive res bonus with stacking penalty to the module
5) insert stacking penalty to the amount of armor repped if more than 1 module is fitted and online
6) make overload not only increase the amount of armor repped but also remove the penalty (to counter incoming damage spike)
7) change armor rep booster rigs drawback to -10% armor hitpoint
MotherMoon
Tribal Liberation Force
Minmatar Republic
#100 - 2011-11-11 09:38:54 UTC
simple fix, the more people locking on to a target, the longer it takes everyone else after to get a lock.

BAM active tanking is fixed. your welcome.

http://dl.eve-files.com/media/1206/scimi.jpg