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[Rubicon 1.3] Drone Assist change

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Grath Telkin
Amok.
Goonswarm Federation
#701 - 2014-02-07 06:53:41 UTC
Andski wrote:
CCP Rise wrote:
Archons began showing the power of sentry doctrines before that, and the addition of tracking and optimal bonuses for drones on the Ishtar and Dominix catapulted this philosophy into the forefront of fleet warfare. The resulting meta is causing two major problems that we hope to address through this change.


CCP Rise wrote:
We believe a flat cap will:

  • Limit large scale assist substantially
  • Leave room for smaller scale assisting (there are several use-cases for assist that we wanted to preserve, such as incursion drone managers)
  • Be very easy to communicate to players
  • Affect carriers more heavily than sub-caps (because they can field 10 drones per ship rather than 5)


    • yes clearly domis were the only thing causing problems here

    insightful as always, Grath


    Way to only read the part you like Andski, fitting as it is for you its still silly to quote when he not 4 posts later says that he does in fact want it to heavily effect sub caps, namely a particular one doing 5x more damage than the next closest ship.

    I mean i know its a goon thing to ignore any facts that dont fit your actual version of things but when you look at the whole package it becomes plainly obvious that he's an idiot.

    Malcanis - Without drone assign, the slowcat doctrine will wither and die.
    Andski
    Science and Trade Institute
    Caldari State
    #702 - 2014-02-07 06:59:59 UTC
    you couldn't be more transparent about this by saying "nerf the domi but leave my crutch untouched"

    Twitter: @EVEAndski

    "It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths."    - Abrazzar
    Grath Telkin
    Amok.
    Goonswarm Federation
    #703 - 2014-02-07 07:03:20 UTC
    Andski wrote:
    you couldn't be more transparent about this by saying "nerf the domi but leave my crutch untouched"


    This will have zero effect on archon fleets, sorry, if anything it just means we'll lose less dudes who get up and leave mid fleet cause they know they'll still get kills.

    Anybody in your alliance that can see our forums can tell you what you just said makes you look comical in the same way you laugh at the special needs guy who just crapped his pants.

    Malcanis - Without drone assign, the slowcat doctrine will wither and die.
    Andski
    Science and Trade Institute
    Caldari State
    #704 - 2014-02-07 07:05:18 UTC
    "we're actually laughing about this on p-l.com, which is why i'm whining like a ***** the same way I did after the titan tracking nerf"

    Twitter: @EVEAndski

    "It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths."    - Abrazzar
    Grath Telkin
    Amok.
    Goonswarm Federation
    #705 - 2014-02-07 07:09:45 UTC
    Andski wrote:
    i'm whining like a *****


    This would be the best description of your posting about archons for the 3 weeks preceding B-R yes, I'm glad you remember

    Malcanis - Without drone assign, the slowcat doctrine will wither and die.
    Andski
    Science and Trade Institute
    Caldari State
    #706 - 2014-02-07 07:13:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Andski
    oh yeah about B-R, we're terribly sorry that we humiliated you, humiliated Manny and made your supercapital hegemony bullshit a thing of the past

    Twitter: @EVEAndski

    "It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths."    - Abrazzar
    Grath Telkin
    Amok.
    Goonswarm Federation
    #707 - 2014-02-07 07:15:39 UTC
    Andski wrote:
    oh yeah about B-R, we're terribly sorry that we humiliated you, humiliated Manny and made your supercapital hegemony bullshit a thing of the past


    I dont think that word means what you think it means, or the people you think feel that feel that, one of the two, pick one and run with it

    Malcanis - Without drone assign, the slowcat doctrine will wither and die.
    Xython
    Federal Navy Academy
    Gallente Federation
    #708 - 2014-02-07 07:15:44 UTC
    Andski wrote:
    oh yeah about B-R, we're terribly sorry that we humiliated you, humiliated Manny and made your supercapital hegemony bullshit a thing of the past


    I personally am disappointed we didn't make it to 100 dead titans. Maybe next year. Gotta have stretch goals, after all.
    Captain StringfellowHawk
    Forsaken Reavers
    #709 - 2014-02-07 07:18:35 UTC
    CCP Rise wrote:
    Hello, some news:

    Coming soon, in a Rubicon point release, we are planning to add a hard cap to the number of drones that can be assisted to a single player. Currently, we are planning to set that cap at 50.

    As most of you surely know by now, drone assist has been a very hot topic over the last 6 or so months. Archons began showing the power of sentry doctrines before that, and the addition of tracking and optimal bonuses for drones on the Ishtar and Dominix catapulted this philosophy into the forefront of fleet warfare. The resulting meta is causing two major problems that we hope to address through this change.

  • We feel that drone assist, at a large scale, leads to passive gameplay that most players do not enjoy. Assist places too much control in the hands of a single person and leaves the majority of the fleet with little to do. note: we spent a lot of time considering the value in delegation of ship systems and navigation overall (why not have assisted turrets? why have fleet warp? etc) and while this discussion will likely continue, we feel it depends heavily on the amount of delegation taking place. Amount might refer to the time something is delegated or the importance of the system being delegated (is it a primary system or a secondary one). Moral of the story: while some cases of drone assist can be fun, large fleets based on assist are not.

  • Drones, for the time being, are the most taxing weapon system for our hardware, which means overall play experience has suffered some because of the popularity of sentry doctrines.

    • We are making this change primarily to address the first point, but also hope to have a positive effect on performance by allowing more room for other weapon systems in the fleet meta.

    Why a flat cap?

    We believe a flat cap will:

  • Limit large scale assist substantially
  • Leave room for smaller scale assisting (there are several use-cases for assist that we wanted to preserve, such as incursion drone managers)
  • Be very easy to communicate to players
  • Affect carriers more heavily than sub-caps (because they can field 10 drones per ship rather than 5)

    • This solution meets each of these points in a more effective way than any others we considered.

    Why 50?

    To arrive at 50 we began by starting at complete removal of assist, and worked our way back up until we had caught all the use-cases for assist that we didn't want to impact negatively. That included frigates on gates trying to catch cloakers, small fleets trying to use assist to avoid e-war, logistics pilots who are too busy to manage their drones, and most importantly, incursioners. We believe 50 will leave all these uses unharmed while also heavily discouraging large fleet use. If it turns out that fleets are still able to rely on assist easily at 50 (which we feel is unlikely) we can and will make further adjustments.

    Before I go, I want to say that we've been looking at this for some time now. We've watched the discussion in the community evolve and also kept a close eye on TQ behavior. We began discussing this change with the CSM via internal forums just prior to the summit, and then spent significant time discussing it in person with them during the summit. Their feedback was valuable, as always, and gives us confidence that this is a good direction.

    As always, leave your feedback and we will do our best to answer any questions.


    So when is the Point release Estimated to come out?
    Andski
    Science and Trade Institute
    Caldari State
    #710 - 2014-02-07 07:21:01 UTC
    Grath Telkin wrote:
    I dont think that word means what you think it means, or the people you think feel that feel that, one of the two, pick one and run with it


    "we're going to turn the tide after the rest of the euros are out of the office"

    "we're going to turn the tide after the americans are out of the office"

    Twitter: @EVEAndski

    "It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths."    - Abrazzar
    Keith Planck
    Sebiestor Tribe
    Minmatar Republic
    #711 - 2014-02-07 07:30:20 UTC
    Haha, only 50 assisted drones.

    Incursion runners are gonna be PISSSSSED

    ♞
    Delarian Rox
    Science and Trade Institute
    Caldari State
    #712 - 2014-02-07 07:38:18 UTC
    Sheeana Harb wrote:

    As an active incursion runner I strongly believe this change will (negatively) affect incursions as it's not uncommon to see more than 70 drones(small and medium) at a single site.
    On the other hand, heavy drones and sentries aren't used due to their slow dps application(heavies) or the need to keep moving(sentries).

    Is it possible to have separate caps for sentries and small/medium drones? The current 50 for sentries and let's say 100 for small/medium drones?


    I completely agree with that. 40*5*5 just enough light drones to assist in incursion fleet. But this cap can be 1250 to keep amount sentries assisted at 50(one squad, just enough) and solve occasional "i have only hammerheads" problems in incursion fleets. And by the way, there is no reason for fighters and bombers to have larger bandwidth than sentries because if they can only be launched from carriers and motherships thats enough. This will solve "fighter assist" problem and all should be fine.
    Ian Ovaert
    Doomheim
    #713 - 2014-02-07 07:41:38 UTC
    50 drones is to much.
    Use the current fighter assist mechanic : Up to total drones you have on your ship.

    If incursion runners also abuse drone assist i don't see the reason why CCP didn't fix this earlier.
    James Amril-Kesh
    Viziam
    Amarr Empire
    #714 - 2014-02-07 07:46:15 UTC
    Delarian Rox wrote:
    Sheeana Harb wrote:

    As an active incursion runner I strongly believe this change will (negatively) affect incursions as it's not uncommon to see more than 70 drones(small and medium) at a single site.
    On the other hand, heavy drones and sentries aren't used due to their slow dps application(heavies) or the need to keep moving(sentries).

    Is it possible to have separate caps for sentries and small/medium drones? The current 50 for sentries and let's say 100 for small/medium drones?


    I completely agree with that. 40*5*5 just enough light drones to assist in incursion fleet. But this cap can be 1250 to keep amount sentries assisted at 50(one squad, just enough) and solve occasional "i have only hammerheads" problems in incursion fleets. And by the way, there is no reason for fighters and bombers to have larger bandwidth than sentries because if they can only be launched from carriers and motherships thats enough. This will solve "fighter assist" problem and all should be fine.

    Fighters cannot be assisted.
    They can be assigned, but that's not the same since that's subject to a very strict cap of five.

    Enjoying the rain today? ;)
    Cassiel Seraphim
    Imperial Academy
    Amarr Empire
    #715 - 2014-02-07 07:46:56 UTC
    I apologize for not reading through the 37 pages to see if someone else said the exact same thing, but if someone did it doesn't hurt if it gets repeated I suppose.

    What exactly is the problem? Is it sentries or the assist function? To me it seems like these are two separate issues.


    Assisting drones:

    First of all the assist function bypasses a lot of things, like locking speed and locking range restrictions. Electronic warfare, while extremely efficient if you can identify the assistee, is on the other hand completely useless on everyone else. The differently sized ships all have a balance when it comes to potential damage, application to small and large targets, locking speed etc. That balance is completely thrown out of the window with the assist function. Plus, being able to do damage while sleeping at the keyboard is just bad.

    This problem also scales with the damage and application of the drones themselves. A horde of 100 dps light drones that need to travel to and from targets to apply their damage are of course not as much of a balance issue as a horde of 800 dps sentry drones that has good optimals and tracking to just shoot anything reasonably close.


    Sentries:

    For the most part, it's sentries that doesn't scale very well, even with limits such as the ones proposed now. It's the instant application of good damage that makes it hard to handle when it can be directed by just one or a few selected individuals.

    Balancing tracking, range and damage aside, I think the uniqueness of sentry drones and how they operate, being like stationary turrets, should stay in the game. But I don't think it's unreasonable that when you're dealing with a weapon system as powerful as normal turrets and launchers, that you'd be forced to direct this weapon yourself instead of hitting snooze-mode.


    Suggestion - Assigning sentries:

    What would happen if you removed the ability to assist sentries and moved them over to the assign functionality that you have for fighters?

    Individual pilots would be able to assign their drones to, let's say an interceptor pilot or a heavy assault cruiser pilot who doesn't have drones of their own but perhaps the skills to use them. It would be in a much more controlled fashion and it wouldn't be completely broken if scaled up, because each recipient would have to have the skills to direct them and would also be limited to a normal flight of drones put under his command.

    People would still be able to achieve great things with coordination and discipline, which is good because player skill should matter.
    tiberiusric
    Comply Or Die
    Pandemic Horde
    #716 - 2014-02-07 07:48:46 UTC  |  Edited by: tiberiusric
    Dear CCP Rise - can you go back and redo your user stories please. This does absolutely nothing whatsoever to discourage from large fleet usage.

    All this does is make you now have more people that need to be assisted, so instead of just one person you just assist 5,6,7 archons instead of one. Might be a tiny bit more difficult organisation wise but does nothing more and makes completely no difference. Nice try to pretend you did something about this.


    Quote:
    Sure, these fleets will still be extremely viable, but FCs will have to work harder to consolidate drones to work in sync like they currently do. With these changes, a Subcap trigger for a Dominix fleet, will only be able to control drones from ten Domixies. While a trigger for slowcats will only be able to control drones from five Archons. What FCs would need to learn to do, would be to have multiple triggers work in sync,


    Do you really think people who FC large fleets are stupid? 7 people now have 50 drones, we used a little known trick called a count down, 5,4,3,2,1 fire.. not very hard is it.

    Quote:
    On paper this sounds easy, but when you’re in fleets of 250 people, getting people to assist drones to the right person can be difficult.


    Honestly, it really isn't

    A ship plus your skills plus mods allows you to have a maximum number of drones that YOU can control. This should be the amount that can be assisted or up to. For example if you have a ship that can only use 10 drones at one time, then if he completely ran out of them then he could only be assisted with 10 drones, or if he had 5 left he could be assisted a further 5.

    Its completely mind boggling why you have one way of limiting the number of drones someone can use but then completely turn that on its head and circumvent that by allowing him to be assisted with much much more than that

    All my views are my own - never be afraid to post with your main, unless you're going to post some dumb shit
    James Amril-Kesh
    Viziam
    Amarr Empire
    #717 - 2014-02-07 07:50:39 UTC
    Grath Telkin wrote:
    Haha man James you are such a sheep, 3 weeks ago you cried in every forum created about how they couldn't be beat

    Funny, that's not actually what I said.

    Grath Telkin wrote:
    and how it was the end of days and the servers would explode and on an on and on while being told 'no you're wrong' literally the whole time, now here you are like you'd been confident about it the whole time.

    I don't disavow anything I said back then. Drone assist still needed to be nerfed, and all I'm saying here is that it's pretty clear CCP isn't doing so out of deference to us.

    Grath Telkin wrote:
    I also enjoy knowing you missed the point of all the posts I made in this thread and called my post 'a gem", clarifying the exact level of autism you currently suffer from.

    Oh no, I completely understood your point. Your point was ridiculous. That's why it was a gem.

    Enjoying the rain today? ;)
    James Amril-Kesh
    Viziam
    Amarr Empire
    #718 - 2014-02-07 07:59:42 UTC
    But yes CCP, thank you for nerfing that thing we couldn't beat after we beat it.

    Enjoying the rain today? ;)
    Lephia DeGrande
    Luxembourg Space Union
    #719 - 2014-02-07 08:03:30 UTC
    tiberiusric
    Comply Or Die
    Pandemic Horde
    #720 - 2014-02-07 08:03:33 UTC  |  Edited by: tiberiusric
    James Amril-Kesh wrote:
    But yes CCP, thank you for nerfing that thing we couldn't beat after we beat it.


    You beat it because you actually grew some balls and the brought it. but it wasnt really hard to work out was it? I mean the bombing runs was a very good counter as well. Well done for that but sadly we are left with another entity that still has a billion supers and titans.

    All my views are my own - never be afraid to post with your main, unless you're going to post some dumb shit