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The Next Fleet Role
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Alaric Faelen
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#1 - 2016-12-25 19:46:39 UTC
I often say that Eve needs additional fleet roles more than it needs more ships. A fleet is more than the sum of it's parts and each of the various fleet roles offers surprising depth if you take the time to really explore them. With boosts finally being on grid, there is one more active role to master.

What should the next dedicated fleet role be? The next whole mechanic that is a force multiplier for the overall fleet.

We have EWAR, Logi, boosting, (long range/infinite) tackle, probers, Blops....so what is another stand alone role that could make use of a dedicated and bonused hull? What ship classes do you think would benefit from an expansion?
Neuntausend
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#2 - 2016-12-25 19:55:07 UTC
If you can't even imagine what this new fleet role would be, then I would say you don't need it. Kind of a "if it ain't broke..." type situation.
Rroff
Antagonistic Tendencies
#3 - 2016-12-25 19:56:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Rroff
TBH Eve kind of covers much of the range of potential roles plus with the customisation options of ship loadouts, etc. means you can fill in many potential gaps as a meta demands.

One thing I kind of think is a bit under-represented in Eve, though largely not really that relevant traditionally in Eve or to these kind of fleets, is a proper "tanking" role - the ability for one ship to absorb/block damage (possibly with a penalty) intended for another ship in the fleet could have some interesting meta potential though probably not something that would be well received.
Neuntausend
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#4 - 2016-12-25 20:07:25 UTC
The classic "tanking" role is quite silly in most games. It relies on mechanics that entice the opponent to attack you. However, no matter how good a "taunt" may be, a player would not do that unless forced to, and artificially forcing players to attack just a certain target would be stupid.

Tanking works for example in the dungeons and dragons pen and paper RPG: A "tank" gets close to an opponent and binds him in melee combat. If they wanted to pull back, the tank can just follow suit, or get an "attack of opportunity" in while his opponent is withdrawing. If they wanted get to the squishy party members, they'd have to get past the tank first, who has positioned himself in a small tunnel so they can't just go around him. That makes at least a bit of sense, but in a fully 3 dimensional space without walls or obstacles (as in "space"), why would anyone want to shoot the tank?

Beyond that, the tank role does exist in Eve in the form of "bait" ships and "bait tanking". You can entice enemies to shoot you by landing on grid first, and you can bind them to you by maintaining very low armor/shield hp to make them think you are about to die (when you are really not even close).
ShahFluffers
Ice Fire Warriors
#5 - 2016-12-25 20:20:30 UTC  |  Edited by: ShahFluffers
Rroff wrote:
TBH Eve kind of covers much of the range of potential roles plus with the customisation options of ship loadouts, etc. means you can fill in many potential gaps as a meta demands.

One thing I kind of think is a bit under-represented in Eve, though largely not really that relevant traditionally in Eve or to these kind of fleets, is a proper "tanking" role - the ability for one ship to absorb/block damage (possibly with a penalty) intended for another ship in the fleet could have some interesting meta potential though probably not something that would be well received.

Indeed, the concept is not well received.

Unless EVE has Line-of-Sight Mechanics (which opens up a whole other Pandora's Box of issues), such a "defense / tank" ship would have to rely on some gimmicky mechanics to function to way you envision.

Example: It would either have to force people to target it and not another ship... or it would absorb any damage incurred by a ship it has been "linked" with).


This is where the problems start.
Because Remote Reps are a thing... it would entirely possible for a single ship to overtank itself (see: super high resistances and HP) and have all Remote Reppers focus on it.
This would effectively allow such a ship to tank a small fleet while the ships it is "protecting" deal damage or crippling Ewar.

This would create metas of "one tank to rule them all" while all the ships it is protecting would fit for pure gankage.
And Ewar ships are purposefully designed to be "flimsy" due to how powerful they can potentially be in a fight.


Now... you could prevent this by disallowing Remote Reps to be used on such a vessel... but then you would have to give it **something** to compensate... like a massive tank or a bonus to tanking... which can also get pretty absurd in small gang warfare if Marauders are any indication (10,000 dps active tank on a Kronos? 20,000 dps active tank on a Vargur? Hell yeah!)

Otherwise, such a ship is basically a "suicide ship."



Now IF (and this is a big "if") Line-of-Sight mechanics become a thing in EVE, Battleships could easily fill the role of "big meatshield" for a gang.

How did you Veterans start?
Rroff
Antagonistic Tendencies
#6 - 2016-12-25 20:21:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Rroff
Neuntausend wrote:
The classic "tanking" role is quite silly in most games. It relies on mechanics that entice the opponent to attack you. However, no matter how good a "taunt" may be, a player would not do that unless forced to, and artificially forcing players to attack just a certain target would be stupid.


Yup hence why some kind of ability to deflect/transfer damage from a target ship to another ship (yourself) in some form would be required.

ShahFluffers wrote:

This is where the problems start.
Because Remote Reps are a thing... it would entirely possible for a single ship to overtank itself (see: super high resistances and HP) and have all Remote Reppers focus on it.
This would effectively allow such a ship to tank a small fleet while the ships it is "protecting" deal damage or crippling Ewar.

This would create metas of "one tank to rule them all" while all the ships it is protecting would fit for pure gankage.
And Ewar ships are purposefully designed to be "flimsy" due to how powerful they can potentially be in a fight.


Now... you could prevent this by disallowing Remote Reps to be used on such a vessel... but then you would have to give it **something** to compensate... like a massive tank or a bonus to tanking... which can also get pretty absurd in small gang warfare if Marauders are any indication (10,000 dps active tank on a Kronos? 20,000 dps active tank on a Vargur? Hell yeah!)

Otherwise, such a ship is basically a "suicide ship."


Indeed which is why I mentioned some kind of penalty would be required as a balancing aspect.

Potentially it could work kind of like HIC bubbles where it cycles up temporarily making the "tanking" ship unable to receive remote reps but then you'd have the problem of n+1 and that kind of thing with such ships cross cycling like the old 2+ carrier triage mechanism.