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Balance Factor to nerf hull ME/TE based on PvP usage patterns
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Caleb Seremshur
Bloodhorn
Patchwork Freelancers
#41 - 2015-03-15 10:07:55 UTC
Zappity wrote:
Caleb Seremshur wrote:
Zappity wrote:
Maybe you should search for the term, "Ishtars online".


NO

don't you dare sass me on ishtars

-snip-

Your solution to the problem I do NOT agree with. At all. Period.

The solution to better balance is through modifying the resources in the game. Lowering them enough so that having gigantic fleets of supers is simply unsustainable and that titans stop being some laughable "end game goal" peddled to the newbies.

Your suggested approach of limiting resources would not help diversity at all. Diversity would not change, just the total number of ships. Or, more likely, the cost of those ships. This is a suggestion to help increase diversity within a class.


What we are dealing with here is the long term effects of an economic model with technically unlimited resources. The battle of B-R5B made barely a dent in the resource market for the game and this was hands down the most expensive fight in the game ever with trillions of isk being destroyed.

The only only only way to beat this deathspiral is to restrict resource generation and force entities to manage their space and harvesting capacity intelligently. The new industrial sov index as proposed by Fozzie is legitimately terrible and an insult. Instead of making supers a rare and valuable thing through having only so many able to be produced per year due to resource starvation they instead neglected to address basic issues with the game and the resulting proliferation of ships that theoretically cannot even function normally without a support fleet became so horrendously commonplace that now they are talking about completely changing how this ship class works because it is irredeemably broken.

I wrote a massive post about this in the CSM subforum years ago. I maintain the same position. This game will always be irrevocably ****** so long as idiots can continue to practically bot-mine forever without any consideration to the rational idea that maybe saving resources close to home for times of trouble is the practical way to run an empire but instead we see the incredible ecological **** of easily accessed resources day in and day out only because the game allows it. Only because the game allows it. A real world economy under EVE's misdirected sense of player entitlement and abuse would have collapsed completely years ago.
Tabyll Altol
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#42 - 2015-03-15 10:10:19 UTC
Zappity wrote:
What if there was a balance factor applied to hull production cost and time if that ship was used in PvP significantly more than its peers (i.e. within a class)?

The Problem

CCP does not have a great history when it comes to balancing overpowered ships in a timely manner. Things have to get really out of hand before they are corrected and this leads to stale, boring metas dominated by specific hulls. You all know what I mean. It would be good to increase diversity of hull use, even if this is just within classes, meaning that single hull types would be less likely to become absurdly dominant.

Assumptions

1. Diversity in ships is good.
2. Lack of diversity in ship types is bad.
3. Cost is generally a dangerous balancing tool but can be useful to shift cost/benefit balance in certain scenarios.

Solutions

1. CCP gets better, or at least faster, at balancing. This will happen Soon.
2. Something else.

CCP has usage stats for each hull and, I think, this can be broken down by PvP and PvE use. This means the distribution of use within each ship class can be determined. For example, assume that the usage distribution in the Attack Frigates class in PvP is:

Atron = 29%
Condor = 50%
Executioner = 16%
Slasher = 5% (note that I don’t know/care what the actual figures are)

The poor Slasher is clearly rubbish relative to the other frigates whereas the Condor is overused for disgraceful kite-scrubbing. While such a usage pattern would be a clear indication to CCP that a balance pass was needed it will probably take them another three years to get around to it. Until then, enter the Balance Factor to keep the Condor menace in check.

The Balance Factor is a ME and/or TE multiplier based on the PvP usage stats within a class. If a ship is consistently used much more in PvP than an average distribution within the class would predict then the ME and/or TE stats will be nerfed automagically during production. Such usage stats could be calculated as a weekly average or whatever makes most sense.

Using the above example, an average distribution across the class of four ships would obviously be 25% each. By the simplest, linear approach the Atron at 29% is given a Balance Factor of 16% (29/25 = 1.16), while the Condor at 50% is given a Balance Factor of 2.00 (50/25 = 2). This means that their ME and/or TE are multiplied by the current Balance Factor at the time the production run is submitted. The Atron base materials could multiplied by 1.16 (16% more minerals to build) while the Condor would multiplied by 2 (double the minerals).

In the above example the maximum multiplier would be 4. This could be tweaked. The shape of the curve to the maximum multiplier could be logarithmic rather than linear such that minor distribution biases would be virtually unnoticeable but be punished increasingly heavily as bias increases.

Ships below the line (Executioner and Slasher above) do not get a ME discount because reprocessing could start to create minerals. Which is bad. Reprocessing for all hulls would be unaffected so even though the overused ships require more materials they do not return more materials when reprocessed.

Objections

Objection 1: Just nerf the Ishtar already and everything will be fine. Everything will be fine until the new dominant ship becomes clear and everyone trains into it. This will take a few months and then the Gila or Eos or Velator will be the new Ishtar.

Objection 2: Only goons and PL will be able to afford the Ishtar and I won’t be able to fight them and they will take over the world and I will cry. Let’s assume the Ishtar accounts for 30% of the PvP use of the HAC class. This means the other seven have 10% each. They would cost the same to produce while the Ishtar would cost 384m instead of 160m. The cost/benefit analysis for the Ishtar is now considerably different. Remember the purpose is only to increase diversity.

Objection 3: This is not a substitute for good balancing. I agree. This is designed only to minimise the impact of imbalance and hopefully avoid repetitions of Hurricane, Drake, Tengu, Ishtar etc dominant metas. This would also allow the metas to shift more, as fleets avoid certain hulls due to cost but then move back as the price again becomes reasonable. There could be some interesting game play around strategic stockpiling.

Objection 4: This doesn’t help battleships because this would only be within a class. No, maybe it doesn’t. Get your own solution. Or maybe it does because the next best ship is up a class or two.

Objection 5: People would still just fly that ship because price is not a good deterrent. Generally true but you could sure have a lot more viable ships to choose from with significant production cost increases.

Objection 6: But, ma sandbox! This is about ship balance, the most un-sandboxy part of the game.

Any others?



Nice idea but i have to point out that there is a big problem in that idea:

E.g The big coalitions would be able to get ships much cheaper. They would introduce two differen doctrins e.g. Wolf / Hawk. So now the only take the wolfs to push them in the statistic and the Hawk goes straight down --> the price will fall and the producer will now produce much of the hawks if they have a big enough stock they will switch the doctrin. Without any change of the ships from CCP they would massive reduce they cost to build ships.

There should be a "minimum" cost for each ship.

but a nice idea +1
Caleb Seremshur
Bloodhorn
Patchwork Freelancers
#43 - 2015-03-15 10:16:44 UTC
Tabyll Altol wrote:


Nice idea but i have to point out that there is a big problem in that idea:

E.g The big coalitions would be able to get ships much cheaper. They would introduce two differen doctrins e.g. Wolf / Hawk. So now the only take the wolfs to push them in the statistic and the Hawk goes straight down --> the price will fall and the producer will now produce much of the hawks if they have a big enough stock they will switch the doctrin. Without any change of the ships from CCP they would massive reduce they cost to build ships.

There should be a "minimum" cost for each ship.

but a nice idea +1


That's right. Quoted for posterity. You just completely broke this proposal and in exactly the same way I did. It arbitrarily penalises people for pushing a doctrine, even a bad one. It's a trash proposal in its current form and would be exploited immediately.
Zappity
New Eden Tank Testing Services
#44 - 2015-03-15 10:18:08 UTC
You are right. I originally liked the concept of reducing cost for the underutilised ships but this would lead to the behaviour you describe. Also that it could create minerals upon reprocessing. Hence, "Ships below the line (Executioner and Slasher above) do not get a ME discount..." in the OP. The cheapest you could ever build the ship would not be lower than now.

Zappity's Adventures for a taste of lowsec and nullsec.
Ben Ishikela
#45 - 2015-03-15 18:54:55 UTC
Tabyll Altol wrote:

Nice idea but i have to point out that there is a big problem in that idea:

E.g The big coalitions would be able to get ships much cheaper. They would introduce two differen doctrins e.g. Wolf / Hawk. So now the only take the wolfs to push them in the statistic and the Hawk goes straight down --> the price will fall and the producer will now produce much of the hawks if they have a big enough stock they will switch the doctrin. Without any change of the ships from CCP they would massive reduce they cost to build ships.

There should be a "minimum" cost for each ship.

but a nice idea +1

Well, the coalition certainly compete against each other or there is something else to be fixed.
Therefor if the prices of wolf/hawk would be beyond balance, then the enemy of the coalition, that pushed it, would abuse this first and built massive amounts of these ships and use them *1*. Therefore increasing price for the underused. Therefore at some point increased useage of the other ships. Therefore balance.

*1* If the price is only tied to usage in combat (be it on killmails or total damage or whatever), there is a delay, before the opposing party can profit on the pusher's endevour, because it needs to produce them prior to usage of course. Therefor i propose to tie these production costs ME requirements to the number of present ships & overall produced & the height of stockpiles. (there are some exceptions to make about inactive accounts and such, but thats a solvable detail)
sidenote: increases incentive to kill the ships you want to fly later. because getting rid of it would reduce the costs.

+1 for minimum cost. But this does not have to be set. It should balances itself if index is properly tied to production. If not, it has to be artificialy set to be above refining profit. But should a ship ever reach that point, the metric of this selfbalance mechanic or the ship itself is broken. Therefor, if the selfbalance is fine, the ship would obviously need a buff. Therefore less work needed on detection by CCP. Therefore more balance passes. Therefor good!

Ideas are like Seeds. I'd chop fullgrown trees to start a fire.
Donnachadh
United Allegiance of Undesirables
#46 - 2015-03-16 01:29:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Donnachadh
Zappity wrote:
Please remember that the proposal is to balance within a class. The fact that noobs flock to, let's say, exploration frigates, would not make any difference as long as the distribution within the exploration frigate class is not imbalanced.

It does matter, if your mechanic causes an increase in the prices of one or more of these ships due to overuse then that most certainly affects players especially those who are new and have restricted ISK.

Zappity wrote:
The additional cost is in materials. There is no isk sink or faucet here.

Right it will not have any affect on the market prices? what are you smoking.
But in a very limited way you are correct. I did make the mistake of thinking the adjustment would be made by the game at sale time.
So let us just say that your idea adds 10% to the materials needed to manufacture a ship. Do you really think that those who are producing these ships will absorb the lost profits? The answer is no they will not, they will pass the additional cost of materials onto those who buy the ships, in game or real life this is simple economics.

Zappity wrote:
Finally, I'd like to comment on the recurring theme of 'taking control away from the players' and 'markets should control'. When dealing with ship balance, or more properly imbalance, we are talking about something which already threatens the sandbox. In the real world the competition would do something to make their product better, or perhaps in an EVE-like world sabotage the dominant ship. Such approaches are not open to us - we are already artificially prevented from dealing with imbalance.

The balance of a ship CANNOT be done by price, there are those in the game that can afford and will spend the money to buy the best. So in a very real sense the only affect your proposal will have is to further aggravate the balance issues by making it harder for some players to buy these ships due to costs.
Lienzo
Amanuensis
#47 - 2015-03-16 01:52:26 UTC
I doubt we'll ever get balance by cost, unless maybe there was a cost-limited rate of availability for a material unique to each ship. Even then, balancing by cost doesn't really work. That would really only serve to limit the number of players in play at any given moment, which is bad.

One thing that could work is an RNG for each weapon class or market group that changes at downtime. The daily news feeds in the billboards could play some auto-generated blurb about an advance from Ishukone labs et al tied to the daily roll. The stats are then subject to a random fuzz factor every single day, making complaints about balance only tied to the mean capability of the system. If people keep whining, CCP can just threaten to raise the standard deviation on the RNG.

Tomorrow sentry drones might be good, but the day after autocannons would get a little time in the sun, and then rinse and repeat when humpday rolls around.
Ben Ishikela
#48 - 2015-03-16 02:17:07 UTC
Id like a little RNG. Flavor the day!

It could be rolled for each regions independetly. look them up in system effects tab.

Ideas are like Seeds. I'd chop fullgrown trees to start a fire.
Zappity
New Eden Tank Testing Services
#49 - 2015-03-16 07:04:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Zappity
Donnachadh wrote:
Zappity wrote:
Please remember that the proposal is to balance within a class. The fact that noobs flock to, let's say, exploration frigates, would not make any difference as long as the distribution within the exploration frigate class is not imbalanced.

It does matter, if your mechanic causes an increase in the prices of one or more of these ships due to overuse then that most certainly affects players especially those who are new and have restricted ISK.
Why? Instead of using an Imicus they can use a Probe. But this is a silly example because they are not overly used in PvP, which is where the Balance Factor would be defined. In practice this would only become relevant for ships used in large fleet doctrines if balanced right.


Donnachadh wrote:
Zappity wrote:
The additional cost is in materials. There is no isk sink or faucet here.

Right it will not have any affect on the market prices? what are you smoking.
Don’t be impolite. Please look up the definition of ‘isk sink’ and ‘isk faucet’. This proposal only describes a materials sink. As for the rest of your comment, the whole point is to increase the market price. I make no apologies for that – it is intended.


Donnachadh wrote:
The balance of a ship CANNOT be done by price, there are those in the game that can afford and will spend the money to buy the best. So in a very real sense the only affect your proposal will have is to further aggravate the balance issues by making it harder for some players to buy these ships due to costs.
Why can’t it be done by price? It is already to some extent – people fly normal ships instead of faction, people use T2 instead of faction modules, despite these being better. Large fleets tend to be a balance between cost and performance.

But anyway, this proposal is not exactly about balancing by price. It is about encouraging ship diversity by price. There is a subtle but important difference.

Zappity's Adventures for a taste of lowsec and nullsec.
Zan Shiro
Doomheim
#50 - 2015-03-17 15:42:28 UTC
Zappity wrote:
Why can’t it be done by price? It is already to some extent – people fly normal ships instead of faction, people use T2 instead of faction modules, despite these being better. Large fleets tend to be a balance between cost and performance.

But anyway, this proposal is not exactly about balancing by price. It is about encouraging ship diversity by price. There is a subtle but important difference.



Some players do run faction ships and shiny mods. You won't see it in fleet force fed fits either because SRP not covering or you don't have SRP at all. In a fleet fight if you are the well disciplined grunt you are supposed to be you will follow that FC down the rabbit hole to wherever it leads. Sometimes....it leads to bad things and you march to your death as it were.

More small scale you pick and choose your fights and can get creative. When I pvp'd for example fair but not full market buy orders kept me in at least C type if not B D mods for small scale, or faction/ds prop mods for at least frigates sometime cruisers.


For the second part you won't encourage diversity by price by and large. Every race in every ship class shows some polarization. The most basic one is well if 3 ships tiers (use the old term since i like it) exist 1, if not 2 of those ships can just suck. roll back the clock to pre naga and caldari had lolrox and drake. You did not have to ponder hard as to why drake was spammed and lolrox was, well, only useful as a base time in CS creation. It sucked ass. Has gotten better with medium buff but...I think it still sucks. Just less so now.

Moral to this story, sometimes fotm exists because the sister ships suck. Kind of harsh to penalize a player because ccp hasn't found a good recipe for some ships.


Now lets bring in naga. that is limited versus drake because of role. Sometimes you need to have a glass cannon sniper, probably more often you need a ship that can take body shots. Moral to this story...ccp polarized by role. More specific, less general purpose something is the less people will dust it off.

Take away from this is if either by sister ships lacking or a very narrow role...boost the price of the fotm ship and it will still sell.

Going on with the caldari roll....I have always paid more for my rokh's. Pre-tiericide, post tiericine...I paid. Scorpion is not a bash or massive fleet bs (you aren't jamming all in a 400 on 400...that not jammed will want you dead). Scorpion even had a great low price once. Dropped 70-80 mil for em...which I did for specific roams type stuff. Expecting node crushing party time...it stayed home.

Raven even post cruise buff is still lacking as an all around fleet BS imo. I know well flying both I get better applied damage on rokh...that is instantaneous (the instantaneous getting me that better applied damage in fact). It too has always been cheaper, but that did not hook me in. So I pay rokh premium price. Make it 40 mil more...I will pay. I am not saving to dethrone chibba's wallet and much like I am in real life...I don't spend my money on crap when I have better options. Why I buy dyson for example. Man those things aren't cheap but its a vacuum that sucks hard (in a good way) and lasts a really long time.


Since you have a hardon for ishtar,,,you would not fix this. a pure gallant pilot has 2 hac choices, always has. Ishtar or diemost. If we can call that a choice. Even before sentry doctrine buffs...ishatar (when not even an op hac, it was outshined by many in the past) was chosen only because it sucked less than diemost.

A few million more isk to not be in turd of a ship...people will pay this.
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