Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Crucible added changes to supercaps, and especially supercarriers, that went a long way to help alleviate the "Supercaps Online" issue. There are, however, two issues remaining that are still problems in my opinion.

First, the good:

• Changes to the agression timer/logoff mechanics were amazing. This means committing supers to the field is now an actual commitment.
• Removing drones from supercarriers was an excellent change. Combined with the logoff changes this puts supercarriers in a role that is more realistic and much more balanced than they were before.
• The reduction in siege and triage cycle time was very good, meaning people are far less afraid to field dreads than they were before.

Next, the two issues remaining:

• Titans, specifically armour tanked titans and especially the Erebus, can track ridiculously well for their size, often times better than a battleship.
• Dreads are still relegated to structure and POS shoots as supers can speed tank them due to the siege tracking penalties.

What I propose here is, in my opinion, the best way to handle these two. It does so in what will hopefully be a balanced manner. without over-nerfing titans.

The Idea:

Remove the ewar immunity of supercaps (supercarriers and titans) and replace it with the following three bonuses:

• Immune to warp scramblers and warp disruptors (ie, can only be tackled by hictors and bubbles, as they are now)
• Immune to remote boosting (friendly remote EWar such as remote ECCM and remote sebos)
• Reduced effectiveness of remote ewar (hostile EWar such as remote sensor damps and tracking disruptors)

First, the reasoning behind the first two:

• Making any old ship, even rifters, able to tackle supers would drastically over-nerf them. Everyone would be so afraid to use them that they would be relegated to their pre-Dominion role as internet space buses. The current mechanics of requiring an anchored bubble, a dictor or hictor bubble or a scripted hictor point is a good state of affairs and should not be changed.
• Making remote boosting work on supers, specifically titans, would not only offset any nerfs brought about by this change but exacerbate the issue. Suddenly a titan with half a dozen T1 frigates giving it remote tracking and remote scan res boosts can blap anything and everything on field.

And now the nerf itself:

• Changing titan tracking itself or adding some kind of siege module would over-nerf them, essentially making them very large, very expensive dreads.
• Allowing hostile EWar at a reduced effectiveness (50%, 25%, number would need to be tested) creates an interesting situation. Alone, unmolested, the titan is still a **** machine. If its opponents bring appropriate numbers of the appropriate type of EWar, it is suddenly ineffective and in danger. In a realistic engagement it can be expected that there will be less titans than subcaps and so a subcap fleet of sufficient size could realistically engage a super fleet. This brings about the requirement of subcap support for the supers and creates the kind of rock-paper-scissors engagement that we're looking for.
• Allowing webs neatly resolves the dread issue. A super that has half a dozen webs on it can now suddenly be tracked by a sieged dread, creating the possibility of a subcap-supported dread fleet being a serious threat to a super fleet.
• Note that this will not make them easily jammable. Titans have a sensor strength of 200, making the likelihood of jamming them about the same as trying to jam a POS gun.

I've heard many suggestions, ranging from the simple "nerf titan tracking" to the more intricate suggestions such as making specific subsystems of supercaps targettable and destroyable (things like guns, jump drive, warp drive, etc). None of them have really seemed to fit the bill. I do believe that this change does. It is an indirect nerf to titans that requires organization and sufficient numbers on the part of their opponents to work. It can be alleviated, but not totally countered, by bringing subcap support.

I've always believed that subtle nerfs are the best type of nerfs. See how Blizzard changed the entire Protoss vs. Protoss metagame on most maps by simply not allowing units to warp in on ramps. The agression/logoff mechanic change was one such nerf and I was very happy to see it. I believe this idea is another one that will work well.

Because titan blobs = fun gameplay.

This makes me giggle.

The Issue with Titans (and Supers in general), is that after you have a decent number in a fleet, there is no counter other than a bigger fleet of the same. They should be powerful, yes, but there still needs to be a rock-paper-scissors game to be played. Titans and Supers make the game Rock-Paper-Bazooka.

3 guesses what beats Bazooka.

Someone who actually gets it, this game can't be balanced as it is, so you might as well focus on making it fun for as many people as possible.

I say eradicate all the sub caps from sov warfare entirely.

/other side of the super coin

This is why Titans work as is. EVE combat is effectively numbers, be it hitpoint vs hitpoint down to 2 guys dueling it out with one winning by just a few dozen structure points left or massive numbers of pilots lagging out systems as their FC's yell out orders so you "snipers" can fire on a single target using a tactic that was utilized by Napolean (except its massive numbers on one target, not volley fire that hits by blind luck). You bring massive numbers, they bring a bigger gun (Titans are force multipliers, if you got 10 BS pilots and they bring a titan worth 10 BS alone but they have 10 titans total thats like 100 pilots) and just slowly obliterate you while your little guns just "bounce off" their massive hitpoint buffers. That is why I find any reason that any one can do something without breaking and exploiting (like that Monkeysphere a year ago) the game deserves to do what they do and you can pull the same sh*t as they can; you just lack the means to do so (as in, you don't own titans or have sufficient numbers to counter them) and don't like that you lose to some "lame tactic" and request that Momma CCP fix your problem when the solution is already out there.

I absolutley do not want to agree with a guy from TEST so.... No I do not agree with OPs choice in alliances. (I was going to like your post but TEST. Nope, no like for you)

ON THE OTHER HAND.... I have had a hurricane tackle a rapier, almost kill it only for the rapier to drop a cyno and a Erebus got droped on me (my alt). So I think the titans should be jammable, but youd need like 10 falcons or 20 scorps, just for a 25% chance of jamming. EWAR needs to happen agaisnt titans.

Why?

Why should a titan not be vulnerable to EWAR? (inb4 vets crying) DO DROP IT BY ITSELF TARD!

Nothing stops blobbing (besides Lag) and it doesn't need to. Being able to bring 800 of your closest friends to a fight is the advantage you get for having put in the legwork to build a large alliance and to find an FC who can handle the fleet.

The reason Carrier/Dread/BS fleets are good for the game is that they are beatable through strategies other than "I'll bring a bigger fleet of the same stuff"

Scrub BS fleet gets beaten by AHAX, Ahax get beaten by Hellcats, Hellcats get beaten by Thundercats (I don't remember the RPS chart of modern fleets atm, so that could be horribly wrong). In a never ending chain of fleet compositions with different strengths and weaknesses.

Carriers get demolished by someone fighting at long range, since their fighters can be destroyed on approach. Or at short range where the fighters can be webbed down and popped before you can recall them.

tl:dr

The simple solution is to switch the current roles of the titan and the dreadnought.

Let me explain:

Current setup:
Battleships fight battleships
One side starts losing
They drop tracking titans
GG

Now the only way to beat tracking titans is really to drop supers of your own, and it comes down again to "Who has more supers"

Better setup:
Titans are the ships that must seige. Tracking nerf on titans.
Dreads natively do much more damage out of seige, tracking buff.

Essentially what you get is that titans can hit structures, and other supers.
SC's still **** dreads, carriers, and (in numbers) titans.
Dreads however now become able to kill battleships.

Since dreads are cheaper, more people can field them. Anyone whose fought dreads knows however, that 100 battleships can easily melt dreads however.
This means that dropping a couple dreads with a battleship fleet that might otherwise lose could be a good idea to try and sway the battle, dropping only a couple run you the risk of dying in a fire, but are also able to help out with the battle. (still vulnerable to cap killing setups such as a-hacs or whelpcanes)

so a regular fleet battle cannot be just ended by dropping supers, but rather can (with risk) be SWAYED by dropping dreads.

Obviously, if someone drops a ton of dreads, then it becomes increasingly tempting to drop supers, and THAT is where they should be.

The regular progression in a battle, dropping battleships, caps, supers, instead of battleships ---------> supers

my .02