Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I'm not a skilled graphic artist, though I have a visual in my head of what/how it would work having made the suggestion of the direct heading inputs before. If there are any skilled graphic artists who want to put their hand up to do said mock up I'd be most happy to work with them over skype to create some to send into CCP.

If they introduce this change they should also introduce a new skill of fleet ops that reduces the standard deviation for a trained pilot by 10-15% per level. That way an unskilled fleet ops pilot can throw your fleet but well skilled pilots form a tighter more cohesive formation. Make fleet structure relevant and a real skill instead of blob A versus blob B

Actually this is also a very good point. A fleet should be about the individual pilots being skilled in operating as a fleet and should work from squad level up. New pilots would be squaddies under command of their leader. (s)he should know their limitations and work to them. Wing commander should know the squads etc etc. If there is some reason why a well trained fleet doesn't outperform a blob there is a problem with blobs, not the fleet control methods.

I was thinking along the lines that the more accurately you pilots warp the tighter formation you can design giving more spider tank option, better concentration of fire etc. Thinking of the B17 box formations in WWII, the thighter the pilots flew the more likely the turret fire was to drive away fighters (or at least put them off to reduce their effectiveness).

I retract the suggestion though in favour of fleets actually needing skilled pilots to manage such things. It kind of bugs me that blob tactics work best, it just seems that a skilled fleet with varied squads should be able to wipe a blob out but from all I see this isn't the case. Maybe that's just my perception based on the chatter in the forums though.

No, the formation is its own reward. If there's a tactical advantage to making a formation, then you don't need to add an artificial advantage on top of that. If there's no tactical advantage, then I don't see the point of implementing the feature. We have enough links and fleet bonuses and implants and skillbooks and ship bonuses and all that. No need to add more.

I think there is a natural advantage to be gained from formations, however, so I'm in the "redundant" camp rather than the "excessive" camp when it comes to why that is a bad idea.

Sounds like a good middle ground but most the time logi are not directly beside the fc. If they are 30km off the main fleet and the fc fleet warps the entire fleet to get away from a bomb run then when the fleet lands on gate the logi are a ways off.

Honestly some of these ideas are fine so long as they dont take too much control away from the individual. But we really dont NEED them. CCP should spend their time on stuff we need.

Actually it does. Without going into what I do for a living, or inadvertently taking this discussion to the secret level, the concept of a “primary” and/or coordinated focused fire is tactically used in modern aerial combat. For example, a four-ship of F-15C’s could be directed to wall formation by their flight lead. From there, coordination over interflight radios could take place to distribute targets amongst the individual aircraft. At the command of the flight lead, the jets could simultaneously launch missiles against one or multiple enemy aircraft.

In Eve, coordinated focused fire already takes place by the FC directing the primary over comms. It’s up to the players to lock the target and fire. The mechanic exists to make that happen. However, when compared to a real life example of formation usage (i.e. a four-ship of F-15Cs rapidly moving to wall formation), in Eve there is no mechanic to quickly set up a formation in the overwhelming majority of circumstances. IF individual ships were no-kidding controlled by joystick and throttle then we wouldn’t need a formation mechanic, because hand-eye coordination would have a high-fidelity mechanism to affect the positioning of ships in the game. However, in my opinion, since ship control consists of mouse clicks and button actuations, there isn’t a sufficient level of control to enable the tactical usage of formations with the current state of game mechanics (in the overwhelming majority of instances). In reality, military aircraft can very rapidly maneuver into and out of different formation positions as the situation dictates.



No, my opinion is that “doing things which are challenging and are affected by the human element” is extremely fun. On the contrary, I am asserting that the fleet mechanics, as they exist currently, don’t give players enough control authority to maneuver their ships as dynamically as they should (and thus, the human element is inhibited by the lack of control in fleet mechanics). Furthermore, I feel that enhancing fleet mechanics would create a more challenging style of play as fleet commanders and players would have to react to enemy fleet formations as well. Overall, it would add another layer of creativity to the game.



I think your metaphor for an automated market system being, in principle, the same as my suggested fleet formation mechanic is an illogical stretch. I am not for “botting” or letting players run macros that automate fundamental aspects of the game which were designed to be manual. What I am suggesting is that “manual mode” (as you put it) with respect to fleet mechanics is lacking. Specifically, players don’t have enough control when it comes to coordinating their movements with other ships. My mechanic wouldn’t make fleet warping less “manual” (using your term). On the contrary, it would make it more “manual” by giving players a variety of new control options (instead of just taking fleet warp as a blob or warping individually).

I agree that there is a lack of control capability. I don't agree that it is prohibitively cumbersome. Yes, it is cumbersome to maneuver.

But your idea doesn't do anything about the cumbersome interface, it just adds more features to be accessed via that interface.

It sounds like what you really want is an easier way to control your ship. If you think EVE would be better with a joystick, why not propose that instead?

Also, do take the time to read the other replies to the topic. Nevyn Auscent has an alternative solution that is both a "formation warp" warp feature while also leaving the human element intact. It seems like a reasonable compromise between the absolute software precision of warping together and the "cumbersome" nature of having to actually play the game.