Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The first round never gave them web bonuses, that was the first thing to go off the Kronus and the Paladin in the rework. They almost put back 7.5% resists but that didn't work well with the MJD or Bastion and was stepping on the toes of the Serpentis. The ships actually *did* get T2 resists. There was never any suggestion of RR bonuses, no idea where you got that. You can look at the full thread here for reference.

Also if you read what CCP said about rebalancing the class they specifically said they wanted to keep the PvE functionality, that these were PvE ships and they didn't want to invalidate that. Any possible PvP uses were entirely up to the players to find and use.



With certain fittings or with Bastion on, sure, but Command Ships in general have far better base resists and can mitigate damage through speed better than a Battleship can.

Plus a small gang that local tanks its ships because it doesn't have Logi would probably avoid running big slow Battleships, so I'm really not seeing the use-case here.

As for the idea to make certain sizes of ship boost better, I'm just really looking for a compelling reason for this. If you don't have one and just think it would be interesting that's fine.



Heh, this is way too true... lol.

Though I rather hope that Drake goes flashy as soon as he boosts the flashy Baitboat.[/quote]



This is an interesting idea, but there's not really anything to stop it from just being scaled up, so long as you have sufficiently high-SP pilots. Once upon a time RR-Battleship gangs were the OP thing in Eve, I can totally see someone doing 50-man pair-boosting Command Ship fleets.

"The first round never gave them web bonuses, that was the first thing to go off the Kronus and the Paladin in the rework. They almost put back 7.5% resists but that didn't work well with the MJD or Bastion and was stepping on the toes of the Serpentis. The ships actually *did* get T2 resists. There was never any suggestion of RR bonuses, no idea where you got that. You can look at the full thread here for reference."



Thats from thread you linked the very first iteration of a original idea of marauder re balance was t2 rezist battleship that move and can RR no bonus so it dont go OP all in effort to reduce ridiculous bastion tank and immobility of same.PVP as all hell if you ask me fk yeah.







"Marauders were initially released during the Trinity expansion in 2007 and were aimed for PvE activities. However, as time passed and we rebalanced other classes, especially the Pirate Battleships, they lost appeal as a whole.

We also believe that designing them for a very specific activity doesn't fit the emergent nature of EVE, and as such we wish to expand their use to PvP as well."

And if you read that quote from very thread you linked you will see that they specifically wanted to open up Marauders for PVP and not as an afterthought bud rather admitting making a ship PVE is a flawed design. untill sea of tears start pouring in that is.

Further more you couldn't even activate bastion module in high sec without first lowering your security settings from "happy happy carebear" to lower levels.

Further further more if one need / want to do pve or pvp it needs internet spaceship with internet spaceship weapons fitted as perfectly illustrated with pirate ships that do both better ie pve functionality is a just term that doesn't mean nothing really.
until ships with 5% l4 mission per level start poping out that is...they are coming.



Just an idea if they are introduced as command battleships their tank goes t2 so you point about tank doesnt stand.

you know as good as I do, that they arent going to be on grid. People will stop using them or just in fleet warfare when they can be protected.


im not afraid to pvp without boosts, I'm just saying I can engage in far less fights.

For your purposes sure, IMO that's not a bad thing. You're now given a meaningful choice between using boosts and risking that second hull or not, as opposed to off-grid boosts where, if you have the account and the ability to run two at the same time, there was never much of a question as to the better choice here.

I always am, unless thanatos but fighters don't count. But I don't mind fighting that "one" dramiel that multiplied almost unexpected to a Zealot, Stork, Ares, Tengu and the last one didn't even bother, because they had to bail from a one girl army

This whole discussion kicked off with the assumption that link mechanics are bad. To argue links are broken requires a reason to the effect that somehow, their existence dominates a type of game play to the extent that they have no reasonable counter. This is a nonsensical proposition and if it were true, restricting links to on-grid skews their use further in favour of prepared defenders than allowing them to be used in an off-grid manner. (If you wish to posit some other definition then let me open the flood gates to other broken mechanics.)

1v1 in Eve means me and all my friends v you and all yours. The addition of links is no more pay to win than Faction / Deadspace fitting or N+1. N+1 and Falcons killed the Rifter Drifter not links. Want to bring back 1v1s? Make duellers unable to be targetted outside the duel until they warp, jump or dock (and immune from new bubbles).

In a nutshell the counter for Links is combat probes. The counter to the prepared ground advantage that defenders have for setting up their Links is to allow off-grid boosting. Allowing prober v booster fights to play out alongside larger battles makes for a more interesting time and also partially counters pay to win - as it makes it harder to dual box links.

In battle, defenders have the advantage of prepared ground. In Eve this means bookmarks, ships at optimals and Links. The attackers benefit from deciding whether and if so how to engage while knowing the fleet comp of their enemy in advance.

Now add off-grid links: Defenders would use Command Ship Links at a POS or Citadel. Attackers would know this from their vigilant scouting of the camp. It is simple to probe down a Command Ship, it is simple to land a fleet on it outside the 75km scram range of the POS. Meanwhile it is simple for attackers to bring cloaky nullified T3 links doubling as scouts. These are decloaked only when the fight begins. A Links Command Ship has its tank so compromised that it may easily be alphaed off the field by even a medium sized roaming gang a T3 even more so. Think the POS is too much of an advantage, increase the minimum distance of links to the POS to 100km so Links can be hit by snipers etc outside the POS's point range. This means whoever is dual boxing defending links must remain vigilant lest the attackers primary links not the defenders. Meanwhile attackers in T3s are able to establish their links at a safe and decloak only once the attack begins.

Forgetting links is like forgetting EWAR. But if both sides bring T3 links cloaked at safes (eg 2 roaming gangs or large scale fleet fights), then the battle of links plays out at alongside the main fight, with both sides attempting to probe down and kill opposing links as their FCs get their main fleets in position to fight. It also means in large engagements flying links requires continuous attention. This (if only by accident) also reflects the Entosis mechanics forcing FCs to innovate beyond blobs of DPS and Logi. The fact it often takes a Virtue Prober points to a potential issue with Slippery Pete doctrines in general rather than anything to do with boosting. The solution to it (if it is right to regard it as a problem) is not on-grid boosts but signature radius penalties for active link modules (cf MWDs). Notably in the case of T3 links at safes, neither side of a fight is advantaged. Hence T3 Links cannot be considered a broken mechanic unless the cries of F1 monkeys who regard the task of flying the crucial links ship worse than logi should be given any weight. A PvP alliance with no-one wanting to fly links, is like a PvP alliance with no one wanting to FC, Scout, Stock the market, fly logi etc. You may consider that links do not favour new players given the 14m or so SP required in Leadership skills. However Alliances whose leadership cannot afford to supply links should be closed.

Now consider the solution of requiring links to on-grid: In addition to the defensive benefits of on-grid Citadels and POSes the defender's links will also be on-grid, but cloaked potentially thousands of kilometers away from the fight, and they will not decloak until the fight was committed and not before aligning to their next on-grid tactical thousands of kilometers away. Since the defenders should have a mix of tackle and long range DPS and Logi / EWAR, there will always be someone to warp to links defence if required. Defenders have their entire deployment to make links bookmarks. Attackers do not. Defenders may additionally be protected by strategically placed bubbles designed to drag probers onto the guns of the defending Citadels / POSes. Should defending Links be probed by a nullified T3 the risk remains that you've warped your T3 to bait links, or else it would be aligned to its next on-grid tactical thousands of kilometres away or it traded one of 6 links for stabs. So for small gang situations dual boxed on-grid Command Ship links remains a viable tactic while leaving attackers materially worse off.

The reason on grid boosting disadvantages attackers is that their links will be much easier to tackle or drive off the field than the defenders' because they have no prepared ground and fewer options to warp to. This means attacker's links will be compromised from the outset or there will be a long wait prior to the fight as your links pilots motor around the defended system making bookmarks - sound fun anyone? Much better to let them boost from off-grid.

Finally for HiSec and Lowsec links use - I do agree with those who say the mechanic should reflect logi use in terms of setting a suspect flags. No links to war targets or criminals without flags. Of course then there is HiSec mining boosts. On grid Orcas: Nope. The counter to bump mechanics requires a jump drive and Orca's don't have them.

PS: CCP - mess up this change and I have 2 perfect links accounts I will no longer need.

For anyone who missed it, there was a brief comment on Fleet Boosting changes by CCP Larakin on the o7 show.

The even shorter summary is that they were described as a "Buffing smart-bomb" with a huge radius (I would assume something in the dozens or hundreds of km, but he didn't specify) that works independent of position in fleet. So Squad Members can buff with Command Ships.

Definitely agreed, and I'll admit this is partly wishful thinking on my part.

I've been running a lot of Incursions lately and these changes are something the entire community is looking at and thinking about. A small range burst would significantly increase the danger to the fleet and probably the number of Command Ships they would need to bring on-grid, which would increase the barrier to entry to HQ fleets.

At the same time I think it's more interesting for larger fights if Command Ships can be used to make positioning and formation matter a bit more, especially as we're getting more tools to adjust our position and orientation from CCP.

I have used all commandships over the last 6years and I have been always on the grid of the fight.
A few points I want to make.
-The booster positions are limited to 6 positions any more is not effective.
-A pilot who is ongrid boosting needs to free fly and predict the FC to not get killed.
-A 200k ehp tank is considered huge on most ships on a commandship in a fight with 256 pilots per fleet that ship is gone in a second as soon as it is in range. That is why all shieldcommandships need to be fast as they can not tank as well as their armor counterparts.
-The Damnation is a rock and the only real commandship in the game it can tank 500k ehp and can do ewar while boosting but it is a slow moving rock if it gets seperated the booster is gone.
-Most pilots hate flying booster it needs huge amount of time to get the skills and it is not fun as your only job is to stay alive for the next 6hours and it is expensive.

They should remove offgrid boosting and buff the shield commandships.

NO to boost over time and NO to aoe boost both lift the restrictions on how much boost can be applied and reduce the risk for the boosting pilot.

Up to you if you want to keep your boosting toon(s), but personally I'll take the unsubbing of the (relatively) small number of boosting alts for a more healthy overall PvP scene, which might bring people back to the game or stop them from leaving in the first place.



Personally I'm against anything that doesn't make the Command Ship stay on-grid and in the fight to be effective. That's the whole point of these changes, making you have to risk the ship and actually have someone *playing the game* to get that benefit, because it really is quite a powerful one. Alternatively set your Alt to "Keep at Range" and drag it along, but that's riskier than manually piloting it.

As for Isk and Time spent... that's always been a good way to do better at Eve. I have enough SP that my T1 frigates with T2 fittings can whelp (or at least give a run for their money) a lot of people's AFs just because I'm getting more out of the modules I have fitted and I have a lot more fitting options. If you start throwing Faction and Deadspace on there the difference gets more pronounced.

That said, if you throw 2-3 newbies at me in T1 Frigs I'm going to have to rely on piloting experience more than SP if I want to beat them, because N+1 is way stronger than SP+100,000,000.

Also those same newbie pilots can bring a T1 fitted BC booster and do pretty well, since CCP did a lot to even out the boosting curve when they did the Command Ship rework.



I can think of literally no reason they wouldn't make them auto-repeat unless someone at CCP has gotten *really* sadistic towards those server hamsters (seriously, auto-repeating modules are easier for the server to handle than processing command spam)

How short of a range is too-short though? Also what about giving some ships range bonuses (like capitals)?