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[Rubicon 1.3] Drone Assist change

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Igor Nappi
Doomheim
#1181 - 2014-02-10 18:12:05 UTC
GeeBee wrote:
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=21473406 This Is A Battlereport Which Clearly Shows The Overpowered Ability Of Drone Assist In Smaller Gang Warfare. The Ishtars Kiting Ability, Damage, Damage Projection, And Alphastrike Is Far Above Anything Else In Its Class.

Following That Fight We Switched To A Dominix doctrine To Counter ishtars As The Only Thing To beat drone doctrine Is More Drone Doctrine.

i Know FirstHand the Power Of drone assist Since I've Been multiBoxing Sentry Assist Domis For The Last 4 Years.

sent From My Phone Very Terrible will Edit Later.


This post should win an award or something.

Furthermore, I think that links must be removed from the game.
Dave Stark
#1182 - 2014-02-10 18:30:58 UTC
considering this nerf is going to go ahead anyway, have ccp decided if they're going to stick with the terrible 50 drone limit, or do something slightly more sensible like a bandwith limit?
Benar Ellecon
Card games on MOTORCYCLES
#1183 - 2014-02-10 18:43:37 UTC
Anthar Thebess wrote:

My proposal:
- frigates/destroyers/cruisers/battle cruisers can have max 5 drones assisted.
- other ships can have 25 drones assisted with the exception for command ships that can go to 50 drone cap when fitting some new module reserved only for Command Ships.


This ^

Fly with your hair on FIRE!
X Gallentius
Black Eagle1
#1184 - 2014-02-10 18:45:00 UTC  |  Edited by: X Gallentius
Igor Nappi wrote:
GeeBee wrote:
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=21473406 This Is A Battlereport Which Clearly Shows The Overpowered Ability Of Drone Assist In Smaller Gang Warfare. The Ishtars Kiting Ability, Damage, Damage Projection, And Alphastrike Is Far Above Anything Else In Its Class.

Following That Fight We Switched To A Dominix doctrine To Counter ishtars As The Only Thing To beat drone doctrine Is More Drone Doctrine.

i Know FirstHand the Power Of drone assist Since I've Been multiBoxing Sentry Assist Domis For The Last 4 Years.

sent From My Phone Very Terrible will Edit Later.

This post should win an award or something.

LOL at classifying a 254 ship fight as "Smaller Gang Warfare". However in my neck of the woods, the sentry fleet concept does great at "Larger Gang Warfare" fights ranging from 20 to 40 ships. And it has NOTHING to do with "drone assist." It has more to do with "excellent damage projection at longer ranges."

They rival the talwar "blobs" we see in effectiveness where decent tank + long range is very hard to beat and requires specific setups to take down.
MeBiatch
GRR GOONS
#1185 - 2014-02-10 19:23:14 UTC
Malcanis wrote:


Grath has repeatedly assured me that this change won't affect the "FoTM" at all.


indeed PL will still use carriers and now that the cfc has thier vicotry in the drone assist the will stop using domi's and move back to maels.

so ccp will show a sharp decrease in drone usage and say yay we were right...

even though the only reason why there was a sharp increase in drone usage in the first place was because the cfc said that's all-they are going to use...

but yeah this is a good precedent if cfc uses only one type of bs for its fleets then expect CCP to conclude that ship is way to good and nerf it....


I have to say i am rather excited when the scorp is the only usefull BS left after rise has nerfed all of them due to cfc overuse.

There are no stupid Questions... just stupid people... CCP Goliath wrote:

Ugh ti-di pooping makes me sad.
Dr Cedric
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#1186 - 2014-02-10 20:04:54 UTC
So i followed this discussion for the first few days, but haven't caught up with everything. Please forgive me if I'm repeating something already brought up.

I like the idea of a 50 drone limit, but I really think there needs to be a game-based mechanic to allow it to happen. Having an arbitrary number on something feels like CCP is putting up an artificial wall in the sandbox.

There really needs to be a skill associated with drone assisting somewhere in this equation. Not only that, but there really should also be a ship stat to limit (or maximize) the number of drone a ship can remotely assist. Simple enough to get the numbers to add up to 50 without a lot of headache I'd think. +5 drones per level of skill, added on top of base ship number. Allow some type of ewar against it .

This could even create new role and possibly another ship design: the drone-monger! Maybe this could be the fabled 5th tech 3 subsystem, or another addition to fleet based ship design.

The point is: do this in an elegant way that keeps the sandbox open, rather than taking away from it

Thanks!

Cedric
Mike Azariah
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#1187 - 2014-02-10 20:11:13 UTC
I waited 60 pages, to see if the noise would settle out, wrote a blog post while I was waiting.

Look, the difference between Incursions assist and slowcat is the incursion pilots are still really active in the fleet, not going off to make a sandwich. THAT is why I argue that some drone assist needs to stay.

Other options were considered and the hard cap was what was settled on so I ask this of you forum pundits.

What will happen next?

Will drone usage change in null?

Will Incursion fleets end because they cannot maker the ball o doom?

Will the intended outcomes be achieved or do you even agree what the intended outcomes are?

I can assure you this was NOT a kneejerk reaction to any recent battle in the past month so drop that garbage now.

m

Mike Azariah  ┬──┬ ¯|(ツ)/¯
Ransu Asanari
Perkone
Caldari State
#1188 - 2014-02-10 20:22:57 UTC
Mike Azariah wrote:
Look, the difference between Incursions assist and slowcat is the incursion pilots are still really active in the fleet, not going off to make a sandwich. THAT is why I argue that some drone assist needs to stay.


So Logistics ships who are busy managing cap transfers and shield/armor repair have their attention focused on those activities, and assist drones so their DPS can be applied to the fleet. They are decidedly NOT AFK.

How does this not extend to Slowcats, who do the exact same thing (Logistics), but on a capital level? Spider Tanking requires you to be constantly switching rep targets and adjusting cap chains. Have I missed something here?
Fix Sov
#1189 - 2014-02-10 20:31:55 UTC
Ransu Asanari wrote:
How does this not extend to Slowcats, who do the exact same thing (Logistics), but on a capital level? Spider Tanking requires you to be constantly switching rep targets and adjusting cap chains. Have I missed something here?

I guess that's why they'd also begun using supers in their carrier fleets, using them as logi, leaving the carriers' only job to deploying drones, assisting them to the trigger and rubbing out a few for the next few hours.

The current sov system is too heavily reliant on the defender saving systems by stuffing as many people as possible into the system for the final timer, instead of incentivizing attacking (and defending) multiple systems at the same time by splitting their forces into multiple fleets and using actual intelligence/strategy. This must change.
MeBiatch
GRR GOONS
#1190 - 2014-02-10 20:32:55 UTC
Mike Azariah wrote:
I waited 60 pages, to see if the noise would settle out, wrote a blog post while I was waiting.

Look, the difference between Incursions assist and slowcat is the incursion pilots are still really active in the fleet, not going off to make a sandwich. THAT is why I argue that some drone assist needs to stay.

Other options were considered and the hard cap was what was settled on so I ask this of you forum pundits.

What will happen next?

Will drone usage change in null?

Will Incursion fleets end because they cannot maker the ball o doom?

Will the intended outcomes be achieved or do you even agree what the intended outcomes are?

I can assure you this was NOT a kneejerk reaction to any recent battle in the past month so drop that garbage now.

m

why is a hard cap on number set?

is nothing open for discussion?

Why cant we get a hard cap on bandwitdth which is much more logical?0

The thing about previous balancing attempts is ccp s says this is the idea we are thinking about...

now its become this is the idea we are putting in the game now ***** about it for 100 pages...

is there zero room for adjustment or changes or is this just whats going to happen now...

There are no stupid Questions... just stupid people... CCP Goliath wrote:

Ugh ti-di pooping makes me sad.
MeBiatch
GRR GOONS
#1191 - 2014-02-10 20:34:55 UTC
Fix Sov wrote:
Ransu Asanari wrote:
How does this not extend to Slowcats, who do the exact same thing (Logistics), but on a capital level? Spider Tanking requires you to be constantly switching rep targets and adjusting cap chains. Have I missed something here?

I guess that's why they'd also begun using supers in their carrier fleets, using them as logi, leaving the carriers' only job to deploying drones, assisting them to the trigger and rubbing out a few for the next few hours.


you mean because RSD are overpowered and can shut down carriers?

a 15 million isk ship can make a 750 million isk ship useless with just 2 mods...

pretty messed up balance if you ask me...

for a while i was totally with ccp on changes to ships and mods... but now it seems things are getting out of hand.

There are no stupid Questions... just stupid people... CCP Goliath wrote:

Ugh ti-di pooping makes me sad.
Fix Sov
#1192 - 2014-02-10 20:40:15 UTC
MeBiatch wrote:
a 15 million isk ship can make a 750 million isk ship useless with just 2 mods...

There are counter-mods available, and balancing anything by isk value is dumb. "hi I'm more expensive than you I shall be impervious to whatever you do".

The current sov system is too heavily reliant on the defender saving systems by stuffing as many people as possible into the system for the final timer, instead of incentivizing attacking (and defending) multiple systems at the same time by splitting their forces into multiple fleets and using actual intelligence/strategy. This must change.
MeBiatch
GRR GOONS
#1193 - 2014-02-10 20:45:30 UTC
Fix Sov wrote:
MeBiatch wrote:
a 15 million isk ship can make a 750 million isk ship useless with just 2 mods...

There are counter-mods available, and balancing anything by isk value is dumb. "hi I'm more expensive than you I shall be impervious to whatever you do".



well there is a reason you dont soo much ecm used against carriers because sensor strength scales by size of ship.

this is inverse when it comes to locking time.

imagine if firigs had 90 sensor strength and carriers had 6. this would be crazy... but this is how RSD work as its a zero sum game and always works... hence the reason why you see super carriers take on the logi role as rsd do no t work on them...

its that simple.

now if capital ships are supposed to be in a leugue of thier own... i would like to see a capital ewar ships or even battleships that are designed to use e-war against capital ships.... but a low sp carrier should not be so strong as a high sp carrier.

its just out of wack...

There are no stupid Questions... just stupid people... CCP Goliath wrote:

Ugh ti-di pooping makes me sad.
Dave Stark
#1194 - 2014-02-10 20:45:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Dave Stark
Mike Azariah wrote:
I waited 60 pages, to see if the noise would settle out, wrote a blog post while I was waiting.

Look, the difference between Incursions assist and slowcat is the incursion pilots are still really active in the fleet, not going off to make a sandwich. THAT is why I argue that some drone assist needs to stay.

Other options were considered and the hard cap was what was settled on so I ask this of you forum pundits.

What will happen next?

Will drone usage change in null?

Will Incursion fleets end because they cannot maker the ball o doom?

Will the intended outcomes be achieved or do you even agree what the intended outcomes are?

I can assure you this was NOT a kneejerk reaction to any recent battle in the past month so drop that garbage now.

m


what will happen next? cfc go back to using megathrons, because it's no secret that they switched to domis for the express purpose of getting drone assist nerfed.

will drone usage change in null? well if the biggest group of players in the game stops using drone ships because they've got ccp to nerf them by exclusively using them then obviously they will.

will incursion fleets end? no, obviously not, however they will suffer a completely unnecessary inconvenience.

will the intended outcome be achieved? yes, in the same way i can still walk 40 miles to work if some one decides to steal all 4 tyres on my car. i'll have still got to work.

Has the CSM considered the fact that it might be better to fix the issues drone assist makes worse rather than just flat out nerfing drone assist? it seems like a very lazy change to me. short of maybe "i can't see who's targeting me so i can call out for reps" there isn't really a single issue that can't be solved by actually addressing the issue causing it. i mean, sentry drones are also common to basically all of the issues, as well as the assist mechanic. if people would have whined about it being sentry drones, not the assist mechanic would you have waved the nerf bat at the drones themselves instead?
2D34DLY4U
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#1195 - 2014-02-10 20:58:27 UTC
Mike Azariah wrote:
I can assure you this was NOT a kneejerk reaction to any recent battle in the past month so drop that garbage now


http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/what-a-hed-ache/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

Mike Azariah wrote:
What will happen next?


Everyone will adapt to whatever new doctrines becomes kosher.

Lag will continue since O(n2) problem will be the same, value of n is unchanged just different mix of n=players+drones with more players & less drones.

Coalitions will grow in size until fleets reach new slightly larger node capacity, learn to throttle presence in nodes or crash them if needed.

A large fight will get streamed on twitch and outsiders will call us retards when they see us fighting in 10% TiDi.

CCP will do a TV series.
ISD Ezwal
ISD Community Communications Liaisons
ISD Alliance
#1196 - 2014-02-10 21:20:20 UTC
I have removed some rule breaking posts and those quoting them. As always I let some edge cases stay.
Please people, keep it on topic and above all civil!

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Commonly known as flaming, personal attacks are posts that are designed to personally berate or insult another forum user. Posts of this nature are not beneficial to the community spirit that CCP promote and as such they will not be tolerated.

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Off-topic posting is permitted within reason, as sometimes a single comment may color or lighten the tone of discussion. However, excessive posting of off-topic remarks in an attempt to derail a thread may result in the thread being locked, or a forum warning being issued.

ISD Ezwal Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs)
xHxHxAOD
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#1197 - 2014-02-10 21:23:17 UTC
GeeBee wrote:
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=21473406 This Is A Battlereport Which Clearly Shows The Overpowered Ability Of Drone Assist In Smaller Gang Warfare. The Ishtars Kiting Ability, Damage, Damage Projection, And Alphastrike Is Far Above Anything Else In Its Class.

Following That Fight We Switched To A Dominix doctrine To Counter ishtars As The Only Thing To beat drone doctrine Is More Drone Doctrine.

i Know FirstHand the Power Of drone assist Since I've Been multiBoxing Sentry Assist Domis For The Last 4 Years.

sent From My Phone Very Terrible will Edit Later.

lols that fight is no where near small or med gang stuff. with 250+ people in that fight with no seeable logi which means its closer to more like 300 people there is no way u can call that small or even med gang at all. from the kms it looks like u had both armor and shield fleets which is just fail unless u tried to reship from on to the other but u said u only switched to domis so i dont think so. and the best part most of ur dps is eagles which do kin/therm dps which is just as fail as that is the ishtars highest resists anyway. ps as for ishtars duh they have good dps and damage projection with sentrys that is how ccp made them to be. now as for alpha even with gardes and 3 dda u only do a bit over 3k alpha which even med arty can do that. all large guns can do that or more so i really dont see the problems here. no as to the kiting they must have kited away from the drones so why did u not use bombers or smartbombing bs to kill the drones. u know its not like ishtars can carry hundreds of senterys to replace being kill dont blame ishtars sentrys and drone assists for the cfc stupidity and inability to counter in game tactics that can be countered.
Promiscuous Female
GBS Logistics and Fives Support
#1198 - 2014-02-10 21:36:02 UTC
Grath Telkin wrote:
The end result should be enough with this bandaid crap that you're doing.

Any change to any drone mechanics should come as an overhaul of the entire drone system, no just one part because one part of the player base waged some forum campaign that amounted to 10 posts a day because they were fighting an enemy that used Sentry Drones.

Change drone assign when you

Overhaul the drone code

Overhaul fighter mechanics

Overhaul the Drone UI

Fix non Sentry Drone tracking and Movement

Fix Ewar Drones


Its like "hey guys, we know that drones in general actually suck the sweat off a dead donkey's balls, but these guys cried really really loud and long about this one part, so the rest of it can sit and stew for a year while we address their cries".

Ah yes, the old "throw everything in front of the change that I don't like to delay the change for years" approach, truly the best way to approach game balance
Mario Putzo
#1199 - 2014-02-10 21:41:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Mario Putzo
Mike Azariah wrote:
I waited 60 pages, to see if the noise would settle out, wrote a blog post while I was waiting.

Look, the difference between Incursions assist and slowcat is the incursion pilots are still really active in the fleet, not going off to make a sandwich. THAT is why I argue that some drone assist needs to stay.

Other options were considered and the hard cap was what was settled on so I ask this of you forum pundits.

What will happen next?

Will drone usage change in null?

Will Incursion fleets end because they cannot maker the ball o doom?

Will the intended outcomes be achieved or do you even agree what the intended outcomes are?

I can assure you this was NOT a kneejerk reaction to any recent battle in the past month so drop that garbage now.

m



Assuming this isn't just a damage control post because the CSM look like a bunch of useless bodies thanks to Mynna and Malcanis. Im going to reply and hope for a concrete response, since it also seems Rise has bailed on this thread as well. (i don't blame him the null politics **** is out of control)

Will drone use change?
No. People will still bring drones in subcaps and capitals, people will still deploy drones, with or without drone assist.

Will incursions end?
No. Players will adapt, us PvE folk always adapt when nullsec breaks our toys. Either by actually adapting, or just leaving the game.

Will the intended issues be fixed?
No because if the issue is people actually hitting buttons and having "fun" then having any drone assist at all does not fix this, since drones are used regardless if drone assist is or not then the lag issue also is not solved

Not a kneejerk reaction, give me a break. First off Drone assist has never been an issue, at least not until N3 started killing Baltec Fleets in the fountain war, when CFC Leadership first had their groupies run off to various forums and troll N3 members about their boring fleets. (Kugu/EVEO/ScrapHeap all had these discussions) This lasted until about October, when CFC declared they would fly nothing but Domi's until drone assist was nerfed.

2 Weeks after HED and now we have a "fix" specifically targeting Drone Assist, and Server load. Doesn't get any more Knee Jerk than that.


Now I don't think Drone assist impacts the game either way. I don't care if it is in or out. I want to know what CCP actually plans to do regarding the issue with drones causing latency through the whole server when 4K dudes brawl in nullsec. The issue is not Drone Assist, we all can see that. The issue is with drones themselves and this "fix" does not fix that. At all.

Back to the drawing board. Or why even post a discussion topic if there is no room for discussion. Either axe Drone assist entirely or not at all, assist cap doesn't change the game to people mashing buttons. 25 people playing instead of 1 out of 250 isn't a fix
Tyberius Franklin
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#1200 - 2014-02-10 21:43:30 UTC
Promiscuous Female wrote:
Grath Telkin wrote:
The end result should be enough with this bandaid crap that you're doing.

Any change to any drone mechanics should come as an overhaul of the entire drone system, no just one part because one part of the player base waged some forum campaign that amounted to 10 posts a day because they were fighting an enemy that used Sentry Drones.

Change drone assign when you

Overhaul the drone code

Overhaul fighter mechanics

Overhaul the Drone UI

Fix non Sentry Drone tracking and Movement

Fix Ewar Drones


Its like "hey guys, we know that drones in general actually suck the sweat off a dead donkey's balls, but these guys cried really really loud and long about this one part, so the rest of it can sit and stew for a year while we address their cries".

Ah yes, the old "throw everything in front of the change that I don't like to delay the change for years" approach, truly the best way to approach game balance

Or we could actually prioritize drone overhaul for the near term instead of pretending that this band-aid moves the state of drones as a whole into some level of acceptability.