Jita Park Speakers Corner

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Solution: SOV system with lots of targets that can be hit and repped, giving wars a much more fluid feel to them, and removing the incentive to blob up in "800 maelstroms" or "200 titans" over a single timer.

i think he was talking about a limit on number of ships on fleet, or maybe just limitating supercap.
if stargate and/or cyno had mass limit, you wouldn't be able to field easily lots of shield, and/or very big ships, and so would be forced to use mostly a few very efficient ships from stargate/bridge, and field very few supercap with cyno
that would mean less blobs, and less use of supers
(well at least i think he was thinking something like that :p)

Once again, no i'm not really suggesting that - all i'm saying is that it's surprising that discussion do not go in that direction more (from volume to time, from limiting the weight of titans on a given field to staggering mass as a whole).

If you ask me about my preferences, they lie entirely in supplementing and replacing some existing volume-based structure-interaction mechanics with time-based alternatives. It's inline with what both Mittens and Seleene has discussed on various occassions (yet not actively enough, as was my point here).

I want to hack into your POS and rob your silos, bump your Titans or offline some modules that annoy you enough to react with short notice, start your own short timers to fix it out in space and force you to spread thin in your multi-region empires if you want to be active enough to deal with broad-scale incursions from many small groups (not sansha).

I want to find other ways to grief you that take the same amount of time regardless (within some reasonable limitation) the size of my fleet and the size of my ship. This game need more of the tension that exist when you put that tower or control-unit up, than when you try to take such things down. It will hardly solve every issue, but it's a good place to start.

This thread isn't really about me though, or discussing isolated issues - so let's get back to asking Seleene questions, shall we?

The fundamental problem with all truly valid counters to blob tactics is simple.

EWAR is impossible to coordinate effectively on that scale for full effect. So, in the end all blobs become "moar numbers and moar dps". The super carriers AOE ECM effect is one example where that was attempted to resolve the situation, but this goes back to making those ships the central element in those fleets.

The supercaps were able to "counter blobs" because they were ridiculously more tanky and more ganky than all the blobs put together. This obviously made people unhappy due to the basic nature of trying to play a game.


The tactics that work on small gangs break down as you get so many on the field that it's not possible to coordinate 50 ECM ships or 50 Sensor dampening ships to apply support properly. Logistics stays working for the most part because primaries are called and single ships are coordinated - when multiple ships are "primaried" and logistics have to coordinate repairing 10-20 ships, it becomes much more chaotic and breaks down. This doesn't happen in blob warfare because the commander sticks 300 people in one room and can only relay orders to one group. What SHOULD be happening for higher levels of coordination is 300 people are led by 30 squad commanders of 10 people, or 10 commanders and 30 per commander (for example, any break down beyond 300 would be great).

Really, you don't need 400 people shooting 1 ship to kill it. EVE null sec alliances, for the most part, don't have the coordination to break squads into 10 man "Gank squads" that have plenty of DPS to break down DPS into groups that focus fire. Basically, EVE Commanders run on a HEAVILY centralized command structure based on 1 person giving orders. A decentralized fleet composition with units able to break down into smaller groups amid the chaos would be more effective if people developed the infrastructure to support it. (Training, Communications, and Execution)

10 DPS ships in optimal is enough to break 1 tank in about 30 seconds to 1 minute in general - with logistics you can counter that, but not with 10 different ships being pounded by 10 different firing squads in a coordinated fashion... you'll just overload the logistics communication centers.

So, without breaking down people into smaller units to coordinate on a bigger battlefield - something that they have tried to support through the in game EVE Voice (however the implementation when used in practical application isn't functional - that's for another thread on how I would improve EVE Voice for fleet command). Combined with the inability to effectively coordinate EWAR on a mass scale when it's not being primaried - blobs become very effective.

For example, let's say we had a 100 man sniper maelstrom fleet facing you down. The most effective tactic would be to tracking disrupt them. If i had 100 guys and told each to fit a tracking disruptor, it'd be currently impossible for me to coordinate 100 of those people to properly TD 100 of the snipers with enough efficiency that the tactic would work - because I can't directly show who has what affect being applied to them and i'd end up with 10-20 people TDing the same person just because inefficiency.

One way of helping this out is if your overview showed what affects were being put on what ships. AFAIK this information is already being sent to the client because we see the special effect of EWAR turned on and "pointing" towards the target ship, but noone has the capacity for awareness to track that during a fleet of 100 people (if they don't already have special effects off). One tool that would help fleets coordinate EWAR is to show what ships on the overview have an effect being applied to them (in theory, this is already being done, so an icon on the overview would work). I'm not going to focus on how the UI implementation of this could be better. I think the improvement that would make this work is to put this information "on the screen" and not on the overview, as we all know CCP wants to move into improving UI interface away from staring at a list on the overview, and more onto the screen we look at. Then, we can look at our screens and say "Ok, we need EWAR on xyz" and pilots can identify which targets need ewar applied to them on a mass scale - without a lot of "talking" for the coordination aspect.

In the end, the tools provided make it difficult to train people to deal with situations on a mass scale that go beyond "blob" tactics. An EVE Voice system that promoted decentralized command (the current one doesn't, despite the break down of channels.) And a method of identifying effects on ships on the field would be a strong first step to helping players manage these situations.

I know offering "implementations" is often frowned upon, but this could also be shown on the current target but grayed out or dimmed, as it is an effect from someone else.

I've hit on this in a couple previous posts as well as in a recent blog post (which I cannot link properly because the forums are being stupid)!!! Here ya go:

http://seleenes-sandbox.blogspot.com/2012/02/q-part-ii-low-sec.html

Have a read of that and it should clear up some of my thoughts on it. To simplify things tho, yes, I would like to see some form of increased player interaction with NPC's overall.

As for something more specific like 'toddler sov", that's a cute name but I wouldn't really want to put the 'sov' label anywhere near a system like this. I'd like to see players have increased options for how to shape the sandbox in the areas that have been nigh untouchable for nearly nine years now. The best way to do that is with slow and careful, ever-evolving iteration on NPC interactions that allow players to become directly involved with world shaping.

I feel like I've already covered this ground a bit but if you have a more specific question feel free to ask and I'll answer as best I can.



Well, according to the latest tweets by CCP Diagoras, PL doesn't even have EVE's largest supercap fleet. Still, I understand what you are asking and, first of all, the issue isn't so much a single Titan, but the proliferation of Titans. I believe that at the current rate they are being churned out that CCP is going to have to take action very soon to mitigate what's becoming a major problem.

That being said, I don't think that a single titan is overpowered because a lone titan is pretty much dog food against a support fleet. Over and over, the issue doesn't seem to be one of A TITAN doing anything bad; it's the scale of the problem when you have multiples of the same ship class, be they Titans or Battleships or whatever, all shooting at the same target - one of them is going to get a glancing blow of some kind and BLAP, that's it.

One of the biggest complaints has been that Titans shouldn't be able to solo sub caps. Well, unless the sub caps are being dumb, they can't. I've been in fights lately where we've watched everything from Tengus to the new battle cruisers smartly kite the titan guns unless there's something to lock them down.

One of the most prolific comments has always been, "Titans should require a support fleet to be effective." Well, that's what's happening right now. When PL drops even blap-fit titans, they are supported by billions of ISK in Lachesis and Loki / Proteus tacklers. In our previous campaign, very often, our ISK losses in the 'support fleet' have exceeded anything we've done to the enemy.

I am 100% in support of FIXING this problem, but I think most people would agree that there's no silver bullet for titans / supercarriers. The problem is bigger than 'titan guns'. This stuff goes back to when 50 battleships were blapping frigates too. Once you get XX number of big ships in a blob, ONE of them is going to score. That is where the main problem lies, IMO, and where we should be looking to START to curb things, quickly and smartly.

Some more questions:

* High Sec Incursions, how would you like to see them changed?

* In the last minutes as well as changing Local Chat Intel there was mention of cloak detection, your thoughts on that?

* Any more details on how you would wish to alter Wardecs, as well as thoughts on CCPs focus on crimewatch? Basically all things PvP in High Sec.

That's a perfect sample of short-sighted vision CCP showed in past. Some are still saying that having OP ships is good when they are few?

So DD is ok?
So the portal is ok?
How about craploads of HP?
Or EW and tackling immunity?

Okey, some think so... but those who don't - please, vote for me

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=780635#post780635