Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The new multiboxing meta: have identically-skilled pilots in identically-fit reships ready to warp in as you die.

Looks like we're going to separate the men from the boys, as they say.

Proposed Solution

Step 1 - Allow broadcast to warp target.

Step 2 - Allow each pilot to set their warp-speed (up to ship max), in the HUD.

Outcome:

1. Interaction goes up
2. Everyone has to be on their toes
3. If all goes well, everyone can land together
4. Plenty of opportunity for mistakes, and for pilots to shine

My clickfinger hurts just thinking about this.

This needs to be offset by an improved UI that doesn't require your eyes to move to the edges of the screen.

Except, as one of your own alliance mates points out, this task will be completed by the FC, and therefore do jack all for the average fleet member.

With that covops also playing the role of being the linchpin for positioning the fleet, it's a great way to make sure that they all go home after it dies waiting for its fleetmates to land. Unless it's going for something like a badger or a shuttle, I suppose.

EVE is the most fun while playing on just one client. Multiboxing happens because some people will simply play as hard as they can. Take the ability or benefit away, and then we can start playing a game that is balanced and played under the assumption of using just one character per player. You get better balance decisions that way.

As for uses of alts, there will always be scouting. I don't see that going away until EVE is declared one-client only. You'd think that won't happen any time soon, but lately I've been surprised at the bold decisions that impact multiboxing. It would be an interesting development.

This change, though, removing align and orbit, and approach, and keep at range... the bulk of the impact is on players who don't know what's going on, but maybe that's a good thing. It requires more instruction by experienced players, which is the type of thing that builds bonds.

It's bad, though, because EVE is already confounding, and I often wonder if this game's intellectual barrier to entry is a bit much. I worry about that because I'd like to see more players in EVE. The unsettling thing about that possibility is EVE would have to be more enjoyable first, then the increase in player numbers follows.

Right now you have Fozzie ideating changes like these that would forcibly improve gameplay, but a lack of intuitive UI design to make up for the loss of awareness.

It might seem odd that players react to a single change like this with so much conviction, but it's because of the context of isolated changes within the rest of the game. I think the biggest deficiency outside of these types of changes is the UI. I hate seeing it even called a UI, because the goal should be more of a HUD. The client design strategy can be accurately described as tables.

I miss Soundwave. I could tell he understood this type of interplay.

It can be but doesnt mean it will be. FCs tend to lose their cov ops alts a lot which is why they fly FC ships with probe launchers. There will be a need for multiple scouts in fleets and an FC cannot fly that many things.

Completely setting aside the foolishness of '1-3 ships in each doctrine'...

Add in different top speeds within each general ship category, different skills for the pilots, and different times to accelerate into warp, and different times to accelerate from 'entering warp' to their max warp speeds, and different times to decelerate again...

So: I need to warp 50 Dominixes, 9 Armageddons, Baltec1's Navy Megathron, 5 Guardians, 6 Oneiros, 2 Augorors, an Exequror, 3 Damnations, 4 Loki, 6 Proteii, 3 Vigils, and a Hyena.

Dominix: 2.0 au/s. Max velocity*: 109 m/s. Inertia Modifier: 0.1254
Armageddon: 2.0 au/s. Max velocity: 100 m/s. Inertia Modifier: 0.13
Megathron Navy Issue: 2.0 au/s. Max velocity: 130 m/s. Inertia Modifier: 0.105
Damnation: 3.0 au/s. Max velocity: 150 m/s. Inertia Modifier: 0.7
Guardian: 3.3 au/s. Max velocity: 209 m/s. Inertia Modifier: 0.61
Oneiros: 3.3 au/s. Max velocity: 230 m/s. Inertia Modifier: 0.615
Augoror: 3.0 au/s. Max velocity: 235 m/s. Inertia Modifier: 0.56
Exequror: 3.0 au/s. Max velocity: 240 m/s. Inertia Modifier: 0.61
Loki**: 3.0 au/s. Max velocity: 237 m/s. Inertia Modifier: 0.34
Proteus**: 3.0 au/s. Max velocity: 237 m/s. Inertia Modifier: 0.4
Vigil: 5.0 au/s. Max velocity: 410 m/s. Inertia Modifier: 3.22
Hyena: 5.5 au/s. Max velocity: 375 m/s. Inertia Modifier: 3.93


My scout is 10km directly behind the enemy fleet (for the sake of simplicity), exactly 100 au away. For the first, and most straightforward example, we'll assume everyone has been previously aligned (say they're aligning toward the station grid the enemy fleet is on).

1)So, since we're stipulating everyone's already nicely aligned and at max speed, this one's simple:
Give me the countdowns for each ship category. 100 au.

2)Now give me the countdowns for each ship class if the situation abruptly changes and a second enemy fleet comes in through a gate 23.48 au off the fleet's staging point (safe spot, POS, wherever the fleet was going to take that 100 au warp from). We'll be nice and simple and say that it's a nice, clean 90 degree heading change.

3)Now give me the countdowns for that same situation, except half your battleships only have Spaceship Command IV (we'll be nice and say it's half of each type), meaning they have 2% lower final agility than the ones w/Spaceship Command V. 3 of the Logi have SSC III, and one of the Vigils only has SSC I.

and do all of this on the fly, with under 30 seconds to react.

Still think it's easy?

* - all speeds base, no plates, no rigs, purely for demonstration purposes.
** - for purposes of this example, Lokis and Proteii have been given the subsystems of common builds, and an assumed subsystem skill of 5.


*** - HIDDEN STEALTH TRICK QUESTION: Baltec's actually flying his HARPYFLEET fit, so his Megathron Navy Issue warps at the same 5.5 au/s as an assault frigate, with similar velocity/agility numbers. (really, Baltec, I love those insane fits of yours.)

Fun fact, I have a commandthron that can double up as a scout prober :getin:

I suspect people won't do much of that for the same reason they don't use covops as tackle in a gate camp, or roaming fleet.