Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Bear with me, this may turn into a mega-threadnaught.

Currently, one huge problem with Nullsec is the lack of any sort of truly meaningful, small-scale PvP. The gameplay mechanics, as they stand now, overwhelmingly mandate that the largest blob wins. From a pure hardware perspective, CCP has created a strange incentive for players to overburden the servers to the point of atrocious lag. This seems a little backwards to me.

I'm not saying blobs should not exist. There should be times when huge numbers of players get together and discharge massive amounts of ordinance into one another - such as a particularly important POS-bash.

That being said, I've come up with a few ideas for increasing the importance of small-gang PvP in sovereignty warfare. Granted, I've never actually participated in sovereignty warfare, primarily because I never found it interesting. Sov warfare should be fun for its participants - not merely the corp CEO's and fleet commanders.

Firstly, gatecamps. These are a fundamental problem both for people trying to camp a gate, and for people trying to travel between systems. Let's face it, if you are camping a gate, then you actually have to sit and wait by the gate until something comes through. Not to mention, gatecamps make travelling about nullsec (without cynos or bridging) nightmarishly challenging.

And so, I present my solution: Combat in Warp.

Combat in Warp would need to bring a whole new array of game mechanics into consideration, since the general method of PvP and piracy would shift from "Tackle and stop them from warping" to "Chase them down" (Interdictors would be the exception here, and would still allow for conventional tackling and bubbling as we know it today).

Firstly, when a ship begins to warp away, it will need to leave a "Warp Trail", at the point which it begins charging its warp drives. This will be an item that appears on the overview. Clicking on this warp trail will bring up the "Pursue to Destination" command (in place of 'warp to'), and the "Intercept in Warp" command (in place of dock/jump). Yes, I do have ideas of how to prevent ships from infinitely warping around and accomplishing nothing, but more on that later.

The reason the warp trail is generated as soon as the target begins trying to warp is quite simple - the pursuer could align and charge their warp drives as well, and follow the target in warp without ever untargeting them.

Pursue to Destination will warp the pursuer to the target's destination as quickly as possible. Just like the 'warp to' command, a variety of ranges will be available for this, and the pursuer could even set a default range of their own choosing. Intercept in Warp is similar, but instead of flying past the target and waiting for them at their destination (assuming they are faster), this will slow them down once they reach the target, and match their in-warp speed.

If the pursuer is slower than the target they are pursuing, then they will simply arrive after the target does. If the target warps off before then, then there will be another warp trail, ready to be followed.

Obviously, warp speed would become a very important mechanic - as would warp acceleration (which happens very slowly, at present). Equally important would be a mechanic designed to limit the frequency of warping: a warp drive capacitor, solely responsible for operating the ship's warp drive. A minimum energy consumption would be mandatory, otherwise extremely short warp distances could allow people to warp almost without limit. Once this reserve is depleted, it must recharge. More on warp drive extenders and rechargers later.

Current warp scramblers and warp disruptors could still remain useful and viable in PvP, but they would need to be altered significantly. A Warp Disruptor, for example, could increase the amount of warp capacitor needed to initiate warp. Scramblers could act as pseudo-neutralizers, slowing, halting, or even outright draining a target's warp capacitor.

(On the note of warp scramblers, I'm not completely sure if the MWD-shutoff functionality should stay or not. This really seems more aptly suited to become a stasis webifier script, in my opinion.)

The warp trail itself will need to have a finite lifetime, for very obvious reasons - but this will, of course, be dependent on the size of ship. A frigate's warp trail may only last 20 seconds or so before disappearing, whereas a capital ship's may last for a few minutes. Tying the warp trail duration to the signature radius of the ship seems like a sensible enough solution.

Fear not, tacklers - the same things that make interceptors and frigates good tacklers currently will still make them good pursuers for tracking and slowing down enemy ships. Namely, high speed and agility (in warp). Their fundamental role will not change drastically at all.

Now onto the really intricate part - warp drive customization. This alone will probably be so complicated, it will likely need its own tab on the fitting window. Having high / mid / low slot modules affect the warp drive simply will not work.

Think about it, in order for a high / mid / low slot warp core mod to be worthwhile, even a single module would have to massively boost the warp drive stat(s) of a ship - and that kind of hard division between 'combat' and 'pursuit / travel' ship should not occur. It will make travel-fits completely uncatchable, and combat ships completely powerless against anything with even a single warp drive mod. Or, far more likely (if these mods were high / mid / low slot modules), they would be only situationally useful.

This seperate tab of the fitting window will contain dozens (maybe more) of warp core module slots. This way, warpdrive-slot modules can be purchased and installed seperately from high / mid / low modules. A mechanic such as 'Warpdrive Capacity' could be used, analogous to CPU and powergrid.

Continued

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where to begin:

1.) While having the option to pursue ships warping away, I don't think your suggested alterations for warp disruptors and scramblers are at all an improvement over the current system. Rather, I think it limits the functionality of using frigate hulls to tackle stuff.

2.) Having a "spawn location" as you put it, for traveling through a gate has ENORMOUS benefits to both those coming into system, and defending the system. Do you understand the consequences to an incoming gang if all their members randomly spawn through the system?? You destroy the cohesiveness of a gang with every jump!!

3.) Traveling through nullsec is not as crazy hard as you imply. I wonder how much you've actually done it. Additionally, Jump Portals (BO and Titan) and WH's are already common tools used to get around gate camps.

4.) Your proposal instantly destroys safe-spots and cloaking. As you can just follow a person's warp trail to their destination!

5.) I don't see how your proposal helps Small-gang PvP. Yes, small ships will be better at following ships into warp, but once they snag the target the blob will still land and destroy them! I don't see any benefits or incentives for people to stick to small groups, nor does this create any real targets best suited for small groups.

6.) How is sov tied into this? Realize Titan Bridging is used to enter a battle as much as gates... and now titan bridges have much, much more power, as a gang can stick together when it enters a system.

7.) How is this making a role for small gangs in the sov game?

Warp Dropout?? --> Is that a bubble on scan.. I'll just drop out of warp so I don't land in it...
Warp Pursuit?? --> What exactly is this balancing??



OMG NNNNNNNOOOOOOOO..... Interdiction nullifiers are already OP, and the only thing that limits them are the fact they gimp the effectiveness of very expensive ships!

IMO, this idea just doesn't work....Not to mention it, it doesn't boost small gang warfare, has nothing to do with Sov warfare,and turns most PvP encounters into a cat & mouse game.

I understood your mechanics; I don't think you understood my questions. Let me spell this out:

IMO, Warp Dropout is a BAD IDEA!!! If you naively warp to a gate, and someone setup a bubble to drag your precious away from the gate and gank it... YOU SHOULD LOSE YOUR SHIP. None of this craptastic "I'll push a button and be safe now" idiocy. All this mechanic does is reward lazy pilots that don't use scouts, don't bother to use tacs, ignore intel, and fly carelessly when neutrals/reds are in local. How is your concept even remotely in the spirit of the game?? It's nothing but a "get out of a jail free card!!"

Additionally, I think your Warp Pursuit concept is also FAIL. Playing along with the op's imperfect ideas, you're suggesting an additional mechanic to further keep your ship safe. You want to limit who can chase you??? Really?? What exactly does this balance, beyond the losses some dimwit experiences when flying their ship through dangerous space??

Let me also spell out big issues with the Op:

1.) This suggestion does NOTHING to add significance to small-scale PvP. Instead, it ONLY provides a bunch of chase mechanics which have some interesting subtleties, but create more problems than they solve. Namely, they make tackling a ship unnecessarily difficult. Additionally, it pretty much transforms small skirmishes from being an on-grid activity where weapon range, ship agility, remote reps, ewar, all matter, and instead transform it into a strung out cat-n-mouse chase that negates the tactical value of the aforementioned concepts.

2.) No, gatecamps are NOT a fundamental problem! Additonally, the Ops suggestion for random spawning in system breaks a lot more game paradigms than gate camps. Its not a good idea.

3.) The op should look into changes to local chat & intel tools then, and not fundamentally nerf tackling ships.

I liked the idea of Warp Scramblers/Warp disruptors affecting the need-for cap to initiate warp instead of disrupting it completly.

I'd base it around a formula:

(Warp strenght of Disruptor - Warp strenght of Scrammed vessel) = Cap initiating multiplier

Cap to start warp = Regular cap (As is now) * Cap initiating multiplier in GJ

Follow Destination is also interesting and in many way we do that already by eye balling the target's heading and warp off. Combat in warp is probably not a good idea, since your ship disables its guns there for a reason. I'd rather it being "follow destination" simply put, where your ship aligns and follows the target's path, and arrives there. Sadly that'd make interceptors overpowered.

Unless the window was exceedingly small like:

Time to permit following = mass * Target's Scrammed Warp Strenght (reducing it actually helps and makes i harder to follow) * a modifiying number in seconds, for an average of 1 to 10 seconds. But 10 seconds is a long time and there's no way of preventing a pursuer from reaching you, unless they randomly land within grid range, but already farther than 100km, making interceptors having just enough time to catch up. However, this could be used to pursue an individual indefinitly, so I'd simply suggest that Follow destination spend a lot of cap (and the amount of cap could actually determine how well you land on grid).

The Warp Dropout is an idea people wanted for a very long time. And things like Warp Pursuit would be the perfect kind of scenario for using something like that. It would make it easier for people with Higher Warp Speeds to overshoot you on accident.

As for the pursuit limiting, it would reduce the chances of enemies discovering sweetspots, which I believe is something you were complaining about earlier.

If you want, I can make it like this:

Instead of limiting what types of ships can pursue a Warp Trail, I would make it so that certain classes would be penalized, that way you could still chase someone using something like a Destroyer, but you couldn't do it as easily as someone in something similiar to an Interceptor or Covert Ops or something like that.

Gotta remember, Combat-in-Warp would involve a whole slew of game mechanics changes. Interceptors would likely get per-level ship bonuses to warp speed, since it would become the primary tackling mechanic. Not to mention, they could have significantly greater warp-drive fitting capabilities, allowing the interceptor pilots to modify their drives for even greater speed and functionality. Compared to interceptors, most everything else would seem 'nerfed' in terms of warp drive speed.

Misanth - great ideas! I've always been a huge advocate of nerfing high-sec ISK faucets - and of the time that I did spend in nullsec, the mining and ratting capabilities were horribly underwhelming. I've got ideas circulating in a high-sec missioning thread about this issue precisely - and another addressing the disproportionately tiny risk involved with high-sec incursions, compared to the massive ISK payout.

Now that you mention it, jump bridges are a pretty massive gameplay problem. For those that have them, moving around in nullsec is virtually incosequential and provides for almost risk-free transportation. For those that do not have jump bridges, nullsec movement is incredibly hazardous. The argument for jump-bridges existing -would- work, if they could be set up for <1 mil ISK and could be trained for in a matter of hours - but they're not easily accessible (and even if they were, it would just be revoltingly carebearish). That kind of harsh division between the player base is just bad game design. Trash 'em all, bring back risk.

Free & easy transportation of anything and everything (via jump freighter) should not exist. It should be a ****** to haul stuff out to nullsec. Someone on another thread (I forget who) said: "No player should ever be free from unwanted PvP" ...and jump freighters allow this. Trash 'em all, and bring back risk.

And probably most important - system upgrades. Everything else in Eve has diminishing returns. Apply them to nullsec system upgrades. A fully upgraded system shouldn't provide any more than 20-30% more ISK than a non-upgraded one. And like always, the first upgrades need to give the largest bonuses, and have the lowest cost. Every cruical and non-broken gameplay mechanic in Eve is subject to diminishing returns.

Combat-in-Warp fixes quite a few problems - but getting rid of jump bridging, jump freighters, and rebalancing (aka, nerfbatting) system upgrades will fix just about everything else.

Still reading up on POS reinforcement. I'm pretty sure that player structures turning invulnerable might be a slight obstacle to small-gang anti-sovereignty warfare, but further study is needed.