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Phoebe blops changes discussion
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Vic Jefferson
Stimulus
Rote Kapelle
#21 - 2014-10-11 16:30:15 UTC
Arya Regnar wrote:
Medalyn Isis wrote:
Black ops ships will still be perfectly viable. If you need proof the math is below.

Target 4ly, 5ly some less ly maybe lets try system next door ly.
What about 15 ly?

You know most renters will just move far enough from your staging system with this and then you can just forget about dropping them altogether.

Edit: this just makes some nullsec systems 100% safe.


Yes, because blops should be a riskless way to set up easy kills. What?

Switch your staging system. Find and use WHs to gain entry to or leave enemy space undetected or only jump past a blockade and scout the rest of the way. The whole paradigm of being basically invincible leading up to the drop, and after the drop once you leave grid now at least has significant drawbacks, and an actual decision is put on the player - absolute safety vs the potential for more havoc. This may lead the way to everyone in the group actually being important to success, rather than just having to have a good hunter;this is way more balanced, fair, and cool than before. People who really know their stuff will only use the actual bridge on the actual drop, and not use it as a crutch get in/out free card.

Vote Vic Jefferson for CSM X.....XI.....XII?
Burneddi
Avanto
Hole Control
#22 - 2014-10-12 02:04:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Burneddi
Vic Jefferson wrote:
Yes, because blops should be a riskless way to set up easy kills. What?

Switch your staging system. Find and use WHs to gain entry to or leave enemy space undetected or only jump past a blockade and scout the rest of the way. The whole paradigm of being basically invincible leading up to the drop, and after the drop once you leave grid now at least has significant drawbacks, and an actual decision is put on the player - absolute safety vs the potential for more havoc. This may lead the way to everyone in the group actually being important to success, rather than just having to have a good hunter;this is way more balanced, fair, and cool than before. People who really know their stuff will only use the actual bridge on the actual drop, and not use it as a crutch get in/out free card.

I can't speak for everyone, but in our (Pasta's) case I think the reason we use so much blops and cloaky camping (the latter of which I admit is a boring tactic for everyone) is the fact that it's simply the most efficient way of ganking ratters.

It's not really that it's in and of itself an extremely efficient tactic -- having to dedicate a character to each system is far from the epitome of efficiency. It's just that nullsec has such a large amount of easy instantaneous intel, the kind of which there was a keynote speech at this year's fanfest, that any other method of ganking I can think of simply isn't very good. The way current rental empires function makes awoxing all but useless, and local and intel channel intel based on local mean that people can evade you before they actually even see you.

On-topic, blops are only really "a riskless way to set up easy kills" when ganking carebears, which isn't exactly a very big deal because it's hard to imagine a scenario where ganking people who can't and don't even intend to fight back would have much risk. On the other hand, if you end up dropping on a well-planned bait, or just screw up and drop someone who can fight back, suddenly there is quite a bit of risk since blops are quite weak in situations like that. Not that any carebear would ever bother doing that; rat bounties pay out better than player bounties, after all.
Vic Jefferson
Stimulus
Rote Kapelle
#23 - 2014-10-12 05:22:56 UTC
Burneddi wrote:
On-topic, blops are only really "a riskless way to set up easy kills" when ganking carebears, which isn't exactly a very big deal because it's hard to imagine a scenario where ganking people who can't and don't even intend to fight back would have much risk. On the other hand, if you end up dropping on a well-planned bait, or just screw up and drop someone who can fight back, suddenly there is quite a bit of risk since blops are quite weak in situations like that. Not that any carebear would ever bother doing that; rat bounties pay out better than player bounties, after all.


Yes. That's the point. You can be counter dropped or outplayed or whatever when the drop is happening, and you have fragile, expensive ships, there is risk there. Now, with these changes, you can either accept risk throughout and depend on a team effort to move around, or you can accept only having one drop. This is a good tradeoff. If the targets are as soft as you make them out to be, then what do you have to worry about when walking back? You don't need a free ticket home.

Vote Vic Jefferson for CSM X.....XI.....XII?
Soldarius
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#24 - 2014-10-13 18:45:59 UTC
Burneddi wrote:
Soldarius wrote:
The whole point of the change is to stop the incessant and constant hot-dropping of jump-drive-capable ships onto every engagement or money-making ship across eve. Its bad for the long-term health of the game.

Wrong. The point of these changes is to lengthen the traveling time over long distances. Furthermore, CCP has explicitly stated numerous times that they do not want to hit blops too hard with these changes, "too hard" meaning that their intention is not to ruin the intended use of the black ops battleship:

CCP Greyscale wrote:
Black ops are working in a generally OK manner on TQ right now, and we want to minimize harm to their use with these changes.



The current changes almost completely ruin the manner blops work on TQ right now, while the only point of these changes in regards of blops is to prohibit their use as long-distance travel vessels. It is completely necessary to restrict them somehow, as if they were completely exempt from these jump changes they could be abused by bridging stuff across the universe in a flash. However, limiting their intended use is something CCP has stated they want to avoid, yet have been thus far unsuccessful with it.

If you can come up with a less convoluted suggestion to nerfing long-distance jump travel but keeping the intended short-distance usage of blops intact, I'd be glad to hear it. As they stand now, however, the jump changes will all but kill blops. Any "nomadic" blops gangs will probably just completely call it quits, whereas entities like PASTA who stage out of a single area will be somewhat hindered but not catastrophically so (as in, we'll have to make sure not everyone gets fatigued, and people can only drop once every two hours).



As much as I really dislike someone figuratively pointing a finger in my face and saying "Wrong", your argument and the follow-up quote from CCP Greyscale is hard to refute.

But I would like to point out that the constant and incessant hot-dropping as I characterized it is a natural result of the current ease of long-distance travel via jumpdrive/bridging. The current blops model is no different than that of a large fleet waiting on a titan. Cyno up! Bridge!

If CCP's intended use of blops is to bridge/cyno in on top of ratters/miners all the time, then that is indeed working as intended. But lately I have been asking myself just how different is a blops drop from a conventional drop?

Also, has CCP considered the effects of a T3 fleet using covert bridges to travel long distances. And then refitting to a combat fit via mobile depots? T3s are the most broken ship class in the game. Still no rebalance in sight.

http://youtu.be/YVkUvmDQ3HY
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