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Black Ops

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Swearte Widfarend
Ever Vigilant Fountain Defenders
#121 - 2012-07-24 16:06:51 UTC
I think it's a bit depressing that one of the most broken hulls (since it's inception) is going to be so far down the line.

I understand your plan of progression, but Titans were touched out of order and Supercarriers were touched out of order. Granted, they were overpowered and needed adjustment, but it's pretty telling that one of the two least used ship classes (I"m guessing EAFs are pretty rare too) isn't a higher priority.

If it's broken and people use it, you'll nerf it out of order, but if it's broken and they don't you won't fix it out of order.

Democracy is only as good as the despot managing the voting booth.
Doddy
Excidium.
#122 - 2012-07-24 16:45:36 UTC
Blops are pretty chill at the moment, a longer jump/bridge range and bigger fuel bay might improve their bridging abilities but would this actually be a good thing? People should have to work for thier hot droppage. Combat effectiveness wise maybe buffing them a little to be closer to t1 bs would be good but you risk making them op, its a fine line there.
Doddy
Excidium.
#123 - 2012-07-24 16:50:02 UTC
AetomHaert Mother wrote:


Here, I will make it easy for you. Double the fuel bay, give them all a remote rep range bonus and boost the resists to bring them in line with other Tech 2 ships. Give the Redeemer an ewar bonus so it can be useful (think Bahlgorn without the webs) and there you go. Treat them sort of like mini carriers. Remote reps grant survivabilty, and ewar grants force multiplication. The extra fuel does not allow them all access without impunity, but does give the ship a little more allowance for expedient movement without the complexities of dropping cans for fuel etc. during the very short covops cyno window.

Here is the trick CCP, you don't have to buff or nerf something in leaps and bounds in order to improve balance. Simply making a small change, giving it a month to simmer and see the results then gently nudge again will suffice.


Are you seriously saying an RR range bonus on a bs hull is a small change?? Lol
AetomHaert Mother
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#124 - 2012-07-24 18:05:27 UTC  |  Edited by: AetomHaert Mother
Doddy wrote:
AetomHaert Mother wrote:


Here, I will make it easy for you. Double the fuel bay, give them all a remote rep range bonus and boost the resists to bring them in line with other Tech 2 ships. Give the Redeemer an ewar bonus so it can be useful (think Bahlgorn without the webs) and there you go. Treat them sort of like mini carriers. Remote reps grant survivabilty, and ewar grants force multiplication. The extra fuel does not allow them all access without impunity, but does give the ship a little more allowance for expedient movement without the complexities of dropping cans for fuel etc. during the very short covops cyno window.

Here is the trick CCP, you don't have to buff or nerf something in leaps and bounds in order to improve balance. Simply making a small change, giving it a month to simmer and see the results then gently nudge again will suffice.


Are you seriously saying an RR range bonus on a bs hull is a small change?? Lol


I am not saying all these changes need to go in at once. However, with the inclusion of the warpycloaky basi in the ATX prizes, this seems like the natural progression, along with the contest of the ytterbium's post which included a want for a more survivable hull. I am asking for some changes, not all of them at once, this way we can get this issue looked at in a more timely manner not the normal :ccp: :18months: standard meme that we have been hearing for the last 8 years. Again, look at incursions and how they were added, changed and iterated upon. You do not need sweeping changes, give it a little tweak so we do not have the FW issues of recent times.

EDIT: Don't mince my words when I am trying to help, and/or support GOOD behavior by the game devs.
Santo Trafficante
Kira Inc.
#125 - 2012-07-24 20:44:17 UTC  |  Edited by: Santo Trafficante
Seriously am i the only person in EVE that specialises in Black Ops ships cuz i do realise that it will fulfill my solo piracy ways
Am i the only person that realises the power of the Cloak speed bonus ?(This is the main reason I LOVE THOSE SHIPS)
Am i the only person that realises the power of no recolaboration time on the claok ?(Isnt that obvious ? This is total badass !)

However they can get sum stats/fuel buff ,BUT REMOVING those amazing Skill bonuses is a no no ! So gentlemen start using creativity and love when u fit ur ships and one day u will realise that there are many ships that are capable of this and that and u never knew about it.

EDIT: i do realise CCP will do sum changes to them no matter what i just hope that it wont ruin the fun for sum peeps who enjoy using Black ops the way they are right now.
Gabriel Karade
Coreli Corporation
Pandemic Legion
#126 - 2012-07-24 20:51:44 UTC
Ytterbium,

I'm a bit concerned by your post that you guys are going to do the old 'sledgehammer to crack a nut' job on Black Ops and break something in the process. They aren't as 'broken' as a lot of the masses would have (Covert Ops cloak - god no, they don't need that at all) and actually tweaking is the order of the day.

As Emperor Ryan has already eluded to, these are very specialist ships for specialist roles; Mildy have great success with their BOPS doctrine, Noir. has slowly been developing our own take on Black Ops, Dirt Nap Squad do completely their own thing too. The biggest issue, which I think all would agree on, is the fuel usage - it simply isn't sustainable for longer term, larger scale operations. Range could possibly do with a tweak upwards, HP's might do well to also be included.

They aren't exactly slouches in the DPS department - I've flown my Sin on combat drops and in-system fights since 2010 (sadly, kill-mails were broken in the early days and show as ‘unknown’), recently it just got a whole lot better and a well flown, properly fitted Sin is a beast. I do hope you don’t turn it into a glorified taxi service.

If I had one general complaint it’s that they're too expensive for what they are, in my opinion the simplest solution is to reduce the build costs, with a [wet finger in the air] target market price of 350-400M, making their use more palatable. It would also from a game balance be much less risker than tearing up the script and going off on a tangent making new ships.

TL:DR

Don't go OTT on 're-balancing' Black Ops, tweaks now, don't break in the longer run.

War Machine: http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=386293
Gabriel Karade
Coreli Corporation
Pandemic Legion
#127 - 2012-07-24 20:54:06 UTC
Santo Trafficante wrote:
Seriously am i the only person in EVE that specialises in Black Ops ships cuz i do realise that it will fulfill my solo piracy ways
Am i the only person that realises the power of the Cloak speed bonus ?(This is the main reason I LOVE THOSE SHIPS)
Am i the only person that realises the power of no recolaboration time on the claok ?(Isnt that obvious ? This is total badass !)

However they can get sum love by sum stats buff ,BUT REMOVING those amazing Skill bonuses is a no no ! So girls get ur faces
out of ur asses and start using sum love and creativity when u fit ur ships !
The cloak speed bonus is often overlooked and misunderstood - and yes it is awesome Smile

(Align into warp like a frigate hull? - yes)

War Machine: http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=386293
Sentient Blade
Crisis Atmosphere
Coalition of the Unfortunate
#128 - 2012-07-24 21:42:38 UTC
kerjin wrote:
UPDATE Ship SET Fuel_Bay_Capacity=2000, Maximum_Jump_Range=4 WHERE Type="BlackOps"


You've obviously never used the static data dump.
kerjin
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#129 - 2012-07-24 21:59:59 UTC
Sentient Blade wrote:
kerjin wrote:
UPDATE Ship SET Fuel_Bay_Capacity=2000, Maximum_Jump_Range=4 WHERE Type="BlackOps"


You've obviously never used the static data dump.


If I get the syntax correct will that make it more likely to be executed ?
Ganthrithor
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#130 - 2012-07-25 05:41:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Ganthrithor
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
Back from vacation and thought this thread could use some dev love.


Yes, Black Ops definitely need some attention; the main problem with them is the lack of role focus. Some (like the Redeemer or Window) are trying to achieve a purpose directly on the battlefield, similar with recons by having an electronic warfare or damage related bonus. On top of that, they also are trying to fulfill a fleet support role with their cyno capability, which is quite in contradiction with the previous one.

And they aren't great at both: their raw HP is quite lower than tech 1 battleships (and tech 2 resistance boosts aren't stellar either), have less turret and missile hardpoints than tech 1 counterparts and remain more expensive to run, which doesn't make them appealing for direct engagement purposes. They also lack autonomy in their support role, as they are quite short ranged, fuel hungry and this issue is amplified by their small fuel bay forcing them to rely on other ships to resupply frequently during an operation.

The current plan is to take one these two listed roles out of the Black Ops ship class and reshape them to do the remaining one well. If they are disruption ships using EW, they should have more presence on the battlefield for their pricetag. If they are support tools for surprise attacks and small gang movement into enemy space, then they should have the proper bay, range and tools to do so accordingly.

The role dropped out of the Black Ops would then be moved to a new class in the tech 2 battleship range to replace for the loss.

We acknowledge some entities out there are using Black Ops with great effect when backed up with the proper organization, structure and out-of-the-box thinking to make use of them in unorthodox situations. While we don't want to take that away, Black Ops should be more effective without such heavy commitment into them (a statistic query we ran at the beginning of this year shown there are more Titan than Block Ops pilot on TQ). They should be great force multiplier tools for small groups to take on larger ones by surprise, and should be able to do so relatively well without relying on a dedicated support structure.

So, when would this be coming out? Unfortunately, not for a while. As explained in the various blogs before, our current priority is to fix tech 1 ships as a whole before moving to more advanced hulls. That is because we need a solid frame of reference to rely on and compare hulls to before we can move to more delicate and complex ships, like Black Ops or tech 3 hulls.


Also don't forget this is just our long term plan for now, and things may change in the future. In all cases they are not forgotten, but will take time to get to.

Hope that helps!



Just saying this is a pretty bad idea. Blackops can only really fill one role at a time as it is (you either fit for combat or you do a cargo expanded bridge fit). Making a blackops that had a huge fuel bay and could bridge large gangs without support craft would make blackops hotdrop gangs way too easymode to run (as it is, players need to coordinate roles and work together to achieve their massive element of surprise, which is good).

On a similar note, a "combat focused" blops with T2 resists or whatever it was you were considering would also be bad. Currently blackops are pretty balanced when combat fit due to the fact that you trade the element of surprise for light tanks and only average DPS output (for a BS). My Panther is sort of like a jump-capable Sleipnir rather than an all out brawling battleship. I feel like a really solid brawling BS with a jump drive would be pretty overpowered since you'd get excellent combat abilities plus the element of surprise.

You could totally fix blackops as a class by simply reducing the amount of fuel the blops consumes to jump itself (and maybe a *slight* reduction in bridge fuel use, but not enough to make practical to bridge gangs without a fuel truck) and buff the jump range (maybe double it).

Personally I also think you could give them covops cloaks without things being too unbalanced (it would result in being able to warp cloaked, higher scan resolution, but increased recal time-- the recal time balances out the scan res improvement and the cloakwarping makes them a better covert ship all around). Some people disagree with me on this, though.

Oh, and for what it's worth, I've owned a Redeemer and Panther and used blackops BS for both bridging and combat, so I'm one of those half of one percent of EVE players who knows what they're talking about.
Companion Qube
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#131 - 2012-07-25 06:43:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Companion Qube
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
Hope that helps!

Sounds like black ops could use a two hulls to fulfill the different roles. Is there any real need to add another class of hull when HACs, recons, command ships and many others have two hulls per class?

It seems like a fleet support blackops cyno hull and a combat oriented hull would be a pretty nice way to solve the dual role problem.
MotherMoon
Tribal Liberation Force
Minmatar Republic
#132 - 2012-07-25 06:54:54 UTC  |  Edited by: MotherMoon
Quote:
"If they are support tools for surprise attacks and small gang movement into enemy space"


impossible with local, sorry, guess you have to make them EW combat ships.

now if using a Covert ops cyno gave you 5-10 minutes of freedom from being on that stupid free intell list, then sure, you might actually be able to surprise someone with an attack. But as it stands, having 40 reds show up in local out of no where, is not going to go unnoticed.

http://dl.eve-files.com/media/1206/scimi.jpg
MotherMoon
Tribal Liberation Force
Minmatar Republic
#133 - 2012-07-25 06:57:12 UTC
Companion Qube wrote:
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
Hope that helps!

Sounds like black ops could use a two hulls to fulfill the different roles. Is there any real need to add another class of hull when HACs, recons, command ships and many others have two hulls per class?

It seems like a fleet support blackops cyno hull and a combat oriented hull would be a pretty nice way to solve the dual role problem.


true... like the recon ships

well the new tier 3 BCs don't have a tech 2 version yet.!

http://dl.eve-files.com/media/1206/scimi.jpg
Keno Skir
#134 - 2012-07-25 07:10:15 UTC
Excellent, thanks for the reply dev man :)

Black Lanterns Blog <- Read my ramblings -.-

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Chribba
Otherworld Enterprises
Otherworld Empire
#135 - 2012-07-25 07:13:46 UTC
CCP Ytterbium wrote:
Back from vacation and thought this thread could use some dev love.


Yes, Black Ops definitely need some attention; the main problem with them is the lack of role focus. Some (like the Redeemer or Window) are trying to achieve a purpose directly on the battlefield, similar with recons by having an electronic warfare or damage related bonus. On top of that, they also are trying to fulfill a fleet support role with their cyno capability, which is quite in contradiction with the previous one.

And they aren't great at both: their raw HP is quite lower than tech 1 battleships (and tech 2 resistance boosts aren't stellar either), have less turret and missile hardpoints than tech 1 counterparts and remain more expensive to run, which doesn't make them appealing for direct engagement purposes. They also lack autonomy in their support role, as they are quite short ranged, fuel hungry and this issue is amplified by their small fuel bay forcing them to rely on other ships to resupply frequently during an operation.

The current plan is to take one these two listed roles out of the Black Ops ship class and reshape them to do the remaining one well. If they are disruption ships using EW, they should have more presence on the battlefield for their pricetag. If they are support tools for surprise attacks and small gang movement into enemy space, then they should have the proper bay, range and tools to do so accordingly.

The role dropped out of the Black Ops would then be moved to a new class in the tech 2 battleship range to replace for the loss.

We acknowledge some entities out there are using Black Ops with great effect when backed up with the proper organization, structure and out-of-the-box thinking to make use of them in unorthodox situations. While we don't want to take that away, Black Ops should be more effective without such heavy commitment into them (a statistic query we ran at the beginning of this year shown there are more Titan than Block Ops pilot on TQ). They should be great force multiplier tools for small groups to take on larger ones by surprise, and should be able to do so relatively well without relying on a dedicated support structure.

So, when would this be coming out? Unfortunately, not for a while. As explained in the various blogs before, our current priority is to fix tech 1 ships as a whole before moving to more advanced hulls. That is because we need a solid frame of reference to rely on and compare hulls to before we can move to more delicate and complex ships, like Black Ops or tech 3 hulls.


Also don't forget this is just our long term plan for now, and things may change in the future. In all cases they are not forgotten, but will take time to get to.

Hope that helps!

Until then can't you just boost the LY a bit pretty please Lol

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Nefilus Drey
The Illuminatii
Wrecktical Supremacy.
#136 - 2012-07-25 07:20:33 UTC
Improve fuel bay size, jump range, EHP and DPS.

Remove EW bonus.

Dont change to covops cloak.
Cat Casidy
Percussive Diplomacy
Sedition.
#137 - 2012-07-25 07:43:49 UTC
Andrea Roche wrote:
Hemmo Paskiainen wrote:
Andrea Roche wrote:
Ms Kat wrote:
Andrea Roche wrote:
Black ops are OP as hell.
Look at Burn Eden stats using them and how efficient they are and how very rarelly they lose a back ops ship!
Sorry but their stats speaks miles on how good they are already, nevermind buffing them further!






you obviously know nothing about BLOPS please biomass



lol
Is BE capable of a great efficinecy at it? Yes or No? Answer is obviously Yes.
So, remind me who does not know anothing about blops again Lol
Just cos you suck at it, does not mean blops are crap

roche you are a rly big troll, pls donr steamwalls in my polite topic and troll the **** out of people. The are in need of revision. It doesnt realy mean that if a group used it efficienty its a pro ship. It mean merly that be knows how to use it and pich the right fights with enough ppl. You should check my panther kills, i have super efficienty and im not even using guns! :p and also, why are they always using redeemers an widows and hardly never sins? ... You cant rly judsay bo or god or bad as the differance between them ishugh... One of the resons i trained them all & to l5, i guess theres nothing wrong having 6 bo in my hangar :p




Within the first 3 pages there is at least 5 people that have said that black ops do well atm. So is that means they are ALL trolls or do they happen to agree that they dont need a buff? Its not a troll, its a fact and the stats support it.



Wow 5 people in three pages who agree with you! What's your interpretation of those stats?

.
Tarryn Nightstorm
Hellstar Towing and Recovery
#138 - 2012-07-25 08:38:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Tarryn Nightstorm
Astald Ohtar wrote:
[multi-quote snippy-snippy]

Most active Clandestine warfare dropping carebears tengus in anoms with a dozen of black ops .

Funny how black ops operations turned into Ninja-kills-fest from some clueless carebears . You don't see any BOs in actual fights , aside from some widows cloaked a 100k from low sec gates .


U mad, bro? Because I sense much mad in you.

Stand-up ::gudfytes:: is not what the BLOPs-based gang is for, even when you leave aside the truism that most "PvP" in EVE is actually ganking (Which is absolutely fine, by the wayTwisted).

Get in fast without being seen, smash the, ideally, highest value target/s into junk, disappear into the aether--that is the very archetype of a perfectly-executed gank, my friend, and always was. That's always what this class was/is supposed to be about, CCP has never made any bones about it AFAIK, aside from couching the ships' descriptions in lore-based fluff.

If anything, the BLOPs based gang is the best tool of psychological warfare for the "underdog/little guy" to use against the zerosec l33t-kid tards, as you're never going to be able to fight them directly without either becoming them, or getting squashed like a roach.

To me, that's always what they were for -- and why I, many moons ago found the Widow to be such a huge inspiration. I have one now...I've only used it to jump between convenient losec/hisec exit points on the way to trade hubs like maybe, twice--the equivalent of profiling the Lamborghini down the boulevard like a total nouveau-riche douchebag, and yet, it nonetheless remains inspiring to me--not necessarily because what it is, but because of what it potentially could be....But I'm digressing due to sleep deprivation (it's 2.30am hereUgh), sooooo....

A proper buff will only help them do this better, and make them more popular so more people will want to, who will themselves be able to intrinsically do it better, because they have a now-better tool for the job.

This can't possibly be a bad thing for those of us on "this" side of what Herzog Wolfhammer rightly calls the nullsec "Wall of Carebear," a/k/a those of us who like to play in the real sandbox, not the predictable, safe-ish, semi-consensual battleground/arena that is sov zerosec.

Star Wars: the Old Republic may not be EVE. But I'll take the sound of dual blaster-pistols over "NURVV CLAOKING NAOW!!!11oneone!!" any day of the week.
ovenproofjet
Gallifrey Industries
#139 - 2012-07-26 09:14:27 UTC
Gabriel Karade wrote:
Ytterbium,

I'm a bit concerned by your post that you guys are going to do the old 'sledgehammer to crack a nut' job on Black Ops and break something in the process. They aren't as 'broken' as a lot of the masses would have (Covert Ops cloak - god no, they don't need that at all) and actually tweaking is the order of the day.

As Emperor Ryan has already eluded to, these are very specialist ships for specialist roles; Mildy have great success with their BOPS doctrine, Noir. has slowly been developing our own take on Black Ops, Dirt Nap Squad do completely their own thing too. The biggest issue, which I think all would agree on, is the fuel usage - it simply isn't sustainable for longer term, larger scale operations. Range could possibly do with a tweak upwards, HP's might do well to also be included.

They aren't exactly slouches in the DPS department - I've flown my Sin on combat drops and in-system fights since 2010 (sadly, kill-mails were broken in the early days and show as ‘unknown’), recently it just got a whole lot better and a well flown, properly fitted Sin is a beast. I do hope you don’t turn it into a glorified taxi service.

If I had one general complaint it’s that they're too expensive for what they are, in my opinion the simplest solution is to reduce the build costs, with a [wet finger in the air] target market price of 350-400M, making their use more palatable. It would also from a game balance be much less risker than tearing up the script and going off on a tangent making new ships.

TL:DR

Don't go OTT on 're-balancing' Black Ops, tweaks now, don't break in the longer run.



You guys are doing Black Ops now too?! :Fistbump:
Just Lilly
#140 - 2012-07-26 09:40:50 UTC
So, spaceships for 2012 (except bops), WIS for 2013..Black ops for 2014 or 2015 ... \o/
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