Assembly Hall

So it is working as intended then?

If they intend to make eve a game that can't be played unless you are multi-boxing alts then yes its working as intended.

Is that good for the game?

What feedback are you refering to? If the players already prefered group play why would CCP need to give huge isk incentives to join in groups e.g., incursions? Its not based on what players want its based on what ccp wants. Many players don't look to eve as their social medium and ccp is trying to change that. CCP want more of players lives invested in the game. It's understandable from a business perspective.

But lets assuming they "intend" to drive out all the solo players. Making it so you are no longer solo because you have an alt in a booster ship is unlikely to be what they are intending. (Although I do think they may intend to try to get everyone to feel they must have alt accounts to play so that they can make more money. I addressed this earlier in the thread and still believe such a view is short sighted. Its the sort of approach a company that wants to sell a game would take not one that hopes to have a game long term.)



Well this particular situation is pretty clearly just for alts. Or do you know people who like to sit their main at a pos giving their fleet a boost and not doing anything else? No one seems to be stepping up and saying that doing that is a very important part of their main's gameplay. I'm sure such people exist, but are there numbers great enough to justify losing the number of people who thinks it sucks that you have to mess around with multiple accounts in order to play this game competitively?

It was a loaded question and if he's dumb, it really makes no difference where he is, he'll still diaf horribly.

So they all have counters, it's just back to the 'we can't be arsed' argument.

when your commanding a fleet your on grid. plane and simple. deal with it.

you dont see the great captain picard in his commandship giving orders from earth do ya?

If the counter to this is - "well get your own army of alts to multibox" then that is crap.

Notice no one is denying that you will need these booster alts to be competitive after the t2 links hit the market.

Now the only question is how long will it take before people realize that eve is a game that in order to play it you must invest in alts that you multibox around the universe?

I can tell you if I knew eve was going to be a game that you *had* to multi box alt accounts to be competitive I never would have installed it. Does ccp really want the game to get this reputation?

Like I said the only reason they would want this is to get the short term burst of new accounts so that they can demonstrate numbers to sell the game. But in the long run this sort of thing will ruin the game.

well if you think about it the Command ships are the Awax of EVE, being able to give bonuses across the fleet in system is reasonable so long as that ship is in space. like any other command and control unit it should not need to be on a particular grid to be effective.

If your angry that its out there doing its thing scan it down and kill it

Otherwise don't get annoyed cause someone else has the good sense to keep these potent tools out of your gun sights. That just means your tactics need to include scouts to hunt and and scan these ships downso they can be killed. That Means you have to actually develop a strategy and not just fly in guns blazing.

Tactics out do fire power in the real world too, figure it out don't ask GOD to change the rules


That being said I do agree that a ship using these gang units should be much easier to lock down in a scan (on account of its actively transmitting a fleet wide signal to make that bonus) so that way using those module should make it difficult to hide the ship.

Likewise Jamming these ships should interupt the bonus as well since it would sever the gang link communication

So it would give rise to the use of a cloaky ship with probes and ECM to shut this bonus down

But thats just my two cents

This change would be good for solo play and bad for fleet/carebear play.

Let's look at some extreme examples.


Example 1 (SOLO):
I'm in a HAC. My opponent is in a HAC. They've got a ganglink T3 in a POS in system, I don't.

They are going to win 9 times out of 10. My only real option is to try to escape.

This is bad. There's very little I can do skill wise to compete with the benefits of a ganglink. They're at no risk. Particularly when we look at the diminutive returns of modules. Let's take reppers, on a reference fit sacrilege.

Medium armor repairer II, no ganglink: 318.
Corpum C-type medium armor repairer, no ganglink: 393.
Medium armor repairer II, level 5 legion ganglink: 425.

A T2 with a legion ganglink is better than a corpum c-type. These reppers cost almost the same as the legion does. Each. A sacrilege would need two, to be ALMOST level.

In this situation, it was actually FAIRER when it was possible to make them totally unprobable. I could jump my own T3 in, warp to a safe, and not look at that screen for the next 5 or 10 minutes. Still unfair everyone needs multiple accounts to compete, though.

Let's look at a counter example, though.
Example 2, fleet battle if ganglinks were grid only:

A large subcap fleet jumps into a system to take down some caps/supercaps. The defending fleet has triage carriers set up; they can keep their command ship alive. The subcap fleet, however, do not have triage set up. Their command ship will likely get primaried and popped. This puts the defending fleet at an unfair advantage.

SO:
What if the range of gang links was directly affected by how many people are in the fleet?
I think it's wrong for a single person to be able to have one toon sitting in a safe/POS and another performing PVP and

What if the range calculation, based on how many fleet members were in system at the time, scaled to such a way that 2/3 in fleet, = on grid, 4-10, within a couple of AU, 10+, slowly increasing to the entire range of the system. This makes sense, and would do the opposite of "dumbing down" play: it would require boosters to position themselves properly to be able to assist everyone at critical points.

Whilst this looks like a solo nerf and a group buff, it really isnt'. Let's be honest, unless my target is a frigate, if the opponent has 20 friends in system, I'm going to lose anyway.

In example 1, I try to burn to the booster and if I can make it, maybe I take out a nice T3. In example 2, the subcap fleet is big enough that their booster can be anywhere. This seems pretty fair to me.

In addition, it would also mean that stupid/careless pilots who stray outside of the range of their fleet booster (ie they warp to a gate 200AU away) can still be picked off, for their stupidity.

This solution:

• Works for solo/small gang, unless you're solo(ish) fighting a huge fleet (not going to work unless you're Garmon anyway :P)
• Works for fleet VS fleet
• Punishes stupidity

I have to say I dissagree.

My main reason for this is that even with smaller gangs of say 10-15 people there are many times where you might want scouts or a few tackle to be positioned across multiple gates in a system.
With midsize and larger gangs this 'Nerf' would becomme more pronounced.

Loosing vital gangboosts for ships offgrid is an idea I dont like.

I think that would be an excellent compromise. Maybe make one of the skills increase the effectiveness of gang links accross distances to allow it to get above 20% but not too much higher. I think the incentive should be to get the pilot to have a reason to be on grid and in the battle with bonuses instead of just being 100% immune and safe while contributing to the fight.