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[Odyssey 1.1] Warfare Links, Mindlinks, Gang bonuses

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Elizabeth Aideron
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#881 - 2013-08-28 14:27:46 UTC
Sarah Nahrnid wrote:
CCP Fozzie wrote:
:Edit: [url=https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3458485#post3458485]
:words:


I understand combat boosts being on grid, but why change mining bonuses?
*NOTE* I am not a miner I have before and hated it that said, if people are lazy bastards and don't want to work for a kill then just wow...


The linked post doesn't mention mining links, they can still be run from within a POS shield.

Quote:

Lets also not forget that some miner made the very ship we all sit in (with certain exceptions to be fair)


No they didn't.
Zeus Maximo
Mentally Assured Destruction
#882 - 2013-08-28 14:37:29 UTC
Sad to see CCP trying to nerf small gang warfare so hard.

It would make sense to nerf boosts for however much larger a fleet got but damn. People have been complaining in the patch thread that massive blobs greatly benefit from "these boosts" even though we can all see it takes them 30 seconds to lock a target and a half a second to destroy the ship. There comes a point when boosts go from being effective to just being there in the fleet for looks.

As stated earlier in this thread it is rather sad that CCP is taking away all the worth a t3 booster once had. Boosts have never been game changers but when it comes down to a player/small gang taking on more numbers it gives the fleet more confidence in their objective(as leadership should). It's also nice to know you can point 10k farther or be able to tank for a few more seconds when you put yourself in a tight situation. In the end nevertheless, none of the boosts were affecting applied dps so winning the fight came down to the pilot(s). Logi, falcons, and boosts are all the same when it comes to an advantage in a fight. Although "popular" demand suggests boosts to be nerfed one can only wait for the tears when those boosting alts are put into logi's/falcons.

CCP can try and criminalize boosts all they want but as I have been saying since the beginning of time on this subject, the best players will win 99% of the time. After CCP nerfed HM for tengus and now boosts for t3's it leads me to believe that the t3 market will go to crap. They should pat their developers on the back and let them know how wrong they were when they came up with the T3. Obviously you think they failed.

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Andreus Ixiris
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#883 - 2013-08-28 15:15:23 UTC
CCP, can we have some sort of confirmation (or denial) that the eventual intention is to move warfare link bonuses to on-grid only? There's some ambiguity here.

Andreus Ixiris > A Civire without a chin is barely a Civire at all.

Pieter Tuulinen > He'd be Civirely disadvantaged, Andreus.

Andreus Ixiris > ...

Andreus Ixiris > This is why we're at war.
Zeus Maximo
Mentally Assured Destruction
#884 - 2013-08-28 15:31:41 UTC
Andreus Ixiris wrote:
CCP, can we have some sort of confirmation (or denial) that the eventual intention is to move warfare link bonuses to on-grid only? There's some ambiguity here.


+1

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Veshta Yoshida
PIE Inc.
Khimi Harar
#885 - 2013-08-28 15:44:25 UTC
Zeus Maximo wrote:
...CCP can try and criminalize boosts all they want but as I have been saying since the beginning of time on this subject, the best players will win 99% of the time....

Wish that it was so. Assuming you count yourself among the best/good players, I dare you to try and kill a ship that is 30-40% smaller, has 30-40% more speed, has 30-40% more tank and applies tackle from 30-40% farther out.
That is what T3's has contributed to solo/small-gang since the alts matured .. it is quite simply not possible to compete without having links in todays Eve. You can try of course, but it is rather pointless.

You are right that proper blobs will generally just ignore links as the sheer damage of focused fire will kill **** regardless, but if CCP manages to solve both the application of bonuses issue (hassle to manually assign boosters as they drop) and the head-shot problem you are looking at a vastly improved medium and down theatre complete with a brand new tactical layer (ie. link killer squads).

It is perfectly alright if people retask their alts to logi/eWar as they have a hard limit (locked targets, slots) to how much they can affect the outcome of anything and defenses against the two classes have been (are being) improved a lot with tiericide: Neuting Armageddon's, Sentry revival, Sensor HACs, fast'n'small AFs etc.
In tomorrow's Eve you will need to protect special assets (links, eWar, logistics) a lot more than previously, which is a good thing as it adds weak spots to gang/fleet compositions and thus more complexity.
Baali Tekitsu
AQUILA INC
Verge of Collapse
#886 - 2013-08-28 15:47:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Baali Tekitsu
Idea to balance gang links:
Make them only available to ships who have a "small/med/heavy gang link receiver" fitted, with the fitting requs of a small/med/heavy neut. Power of the gang links received would be 50/75/100%, to compensate this make gang links stronger (a bit) overall.

EDIT
They could stay off grid then

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Zeus Maximo
Mentally Assured Destruction
#887 - 2013-08-28 16:25:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Zeus Maximo
Veshta Yoshida wrote:

Wish that it was so. Assuming you count yourself among the best/good players, I dare you to try and kill a ship that is 30-40% smaller, has 30-40% more speed, has 30-40% more tank and applies tackle from 30-40% farther out.
That is what T3's has contributed to solo/small-gang since the alts matured .. it is quite simply not possible to compete without having links in todays Eve. You can try of course, but it is rather pointless.


I'm under the assumption that you are describing a 100mn gang that is easily countered by sensor dampening ships paired with web bonused ships. Killing a ship in eve is easy no matter what boost or mods they have on. You just have to bring the proper counter to fight. Would you bring a bs fleet to fight a 100mn gang? Would you bring Amarr to fight a neut heavy fleet? Would you bring a frigate gang against a destroyer gang? Eve is easy if you use your head. Excuses that someone used boosts to beat you won't get you far in the pvp community.

Now if most understood what the tank bonus actually was then we wouldn't even discuss this part. When you add resists to your ship it takes into account what is not covered. If you have 60% resists that means 40% is not covered. Lets say your boost is applying 40% more resists. 40(not covered) x .4(your boost) is 16%. Your resist will now be 76%. If we did it your way(60% * .4) then the resists would be 84%. Huge EHP difference between 76% and 84%. In the grand scheme of things this all narrows down to 2,000-5,000 more damage taken on a killmail.


Veshta Yoshida wrote:

You are right that proper blobs will generally just ignore links as the sheer damage of focused fire will kill **** regardless, but if CCP manages to solve both the application of bonuses issue (hassle to manually assign boosters as they drop) and the head-shot problem you are looking at a vastly improved medium and down theatre complete with a brand new tactical layer (ie. link killer squads).


When someone loses to a ship they believed to be inferior their first reaction tends to be "how?" A lot of the blame falls under the assumption that a person only beat them because they had boosts. I have yet to hear a valid response to this statement over the years.

If boosts were so good how come entities during the alliance tournament don't use them every match? If they were effective how come they don't win every match when using them? History has shown that they don't make a difference as many would like you to think. Boosts don't win fights.


Veshta Yoshida wrote:

It is perfectly alright if people retask their alts to logi/eWar as they have a hard limit (locked targets, slots) to how much they can affect the outcome of anything and defenses against the two classes have been (are being) improved a lot with tiericide: Neuting Armageddon's, Sentry revival, Sensor HACs, fast'n'small AFs etc.
In tomorrow's Eve you will need to protect special assets (links, eWar, logistics) a lot more than previously, which is a good thing as it adds weak spots to gang/fleet compositions and thus more complexity.


I'm getting the impression that you are talking in a blob sense. Boosters are the most effective in a small gang/solo scenario. Who cares how much you tank when you have 10 people shooting you? Who cares if you can point farther when the enemy fleet has more tacklers than you have mods on your ship. People that use boosters apply them against small gangs where a logi or falcon would also be extremely effective. If anything the top 50 pilots on the killboards that I have flown with just use them for point range. You know why? Because people bite off more they than can chew and try to run away. Longer point prevents that :)

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Sexy Cakes
Have A Seat
#888 - 2013-08-28 16:41:16 UTC
blah blah blah all hypothetical

at the end of the day you are still 35%+ better by the use of something that is not commited to the fight at all

Get used to the fact that OGB's are getting phased out

Not today spaghetti.
Zeus Maximo
Mentally Assured Destruction
#889 - 2013-08-28 17:29:42 UTC
Sexy Cakes wrote:
blah blah blah all hypothetical

at the end of the day you are still 35%+ better by the use of something that is not commited to the fight at all

Get used to the fact that OGB's are getting phased out



CCP shouldn't have to phase out 12 million skill points

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Onictus
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#890 - 2013-08-28 17:47:33 UTC
Sexy Cakes wrote:
blah blah blah all hypothetical

at the end of the day you are still 35%+ better by the use of something that is not commited to the fight at all

Get used to the fact that OGB's are getting phased out


Exactly why the toon I was training for a booster alt went full stop like 6 months ago, fortunately before I got to anything expensive. On grid boosting just means that boosting is going to only be availble to the blob.

Would you put 2bil in T3 and a commandship booster with a 500ish mil in ship and AND a billion in clone on grid against better numbers dual boxing?

...I wouldn't

Its no nevermind to me.
Zeus Maximo
Mentally Assured Destruction
#891 - 2013-08-28 17:51:18 UTC
Onictus wrote:
On grid boosting just means that boosting is going to only be availble to the blob.


Exactly. CCP only wants boosts on grid for blobs.

CCP does not want solo/small gangs to be viable

"It is not possible either to trick or escape the mind of Zeus."

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Cade Windstalker
#892 - 2013-08-28 17:54:16 UTC
Presidente Gallente wrote:
....

The main problem I see with links on-grid is that this will take away the boost from solo players or very small gangs while it will be another exclusive feature for bigger fleets only which still have the advantage by numbers, logistics and everything you can imagine to pimp a fleet to be awesome. They can field their booster easily on grid beeing repped up while a small gang trying to play with them and skirmish links will definitely lose their booster because it can't stay long at distance on grid or has to jump out when fighting at a gate.

We still have the issue that bigger roaming fleets just can be countered if you bring well skilled and equiped numbers or you need to stay docked and let them pass. With links it's possible to play against them on grid. And to me it makes more sense to boost the weaker ones instead of boosting the stronger setups only at the end. But it seems that CCP wants to see the bigger fleets and blob-fests what might be a problem because everyone who's playing EVE for years knows what kind of players and how many players you finally need in a corp to field a decent bigger gang anytime.


Two issues with this. One, if you're using off-grid boosts you're no more "going solo" than the guy dual-boxing Sentry Domis in top belt is.

Second, there's still nothing stopping you from harassing smaller fleets without boosts. They are by no means required to give a larger fleet headaches as long s they're made up of less skilled pilots. If they're as good as you are then the boosts aren't likely to have helped anyway.

Sarah Nahrnid wrote:

I understand combat boosts being on grid, but why change mining bonuses?


Read the patch notes, Mining Boosts can still be used from inside a POS you just can't active your shield link. They're not touching mining bonuses until they do a balance pass on Mining boost ships to make bringing them on grid less of an ulcer inducing experience.

Zeus Maximo wrote:
Sad to see CCP trying to nerf small gang warfare so hard.

It would make sense to nerf boosts for however much larger a fleet got but damn. People have been complaining in the patch thread that massive blobs greatly benefit from "these boosts" even though we can all see it takes them 30 seconds to lock a target and a half a second to destroy the ship. There comes a point when boosts go from being effective to just being there in the fleet for looks.

As stated earlier in this thread it is rather sad that CCP is taking away all the worth a t3 booster once had. .....


No, they are taking away precisely 1/3rd of the effective value of T3 boosters. The new max values for boosts with Command Ships are, except in cases where links have been rebalanced, equal to the old levels and since T3s get a 2% boost compared to the 3% boost from Command Ships they are 1/3rd less effective.

Andreus Ixiris wrote:
CCP, can we have some sort of confirmation (or denial) that the eventual intention is to move warfare link bonuses to on-grid only? There's some ambiguity here.


This not in the least bit ambiguous per this post earlier in this thread that I've linked more times than I can remember now.

Zeus Maximo wrote:

CCP shouldn't have to phase out 12 million skill points


Because having your out of corp boosts on-grid for high-sec wars is going to be oh so risky...

Seriously, they haven't phased anything out, they're just adding some risk to it. You know, risk, that thing that gets brought up (quite rightly so) every time someone tries to make High Sec completely safe. OGBs are at almost no risk. There aren't any significant trade-offs involved, it's just "do you have them or don't you?".

From Fozzie's post (linked above) links being redundant should make Command Ships and T3s with a couple links extremely viable as part of a small fleet comp.
Zeus Maximo
Mentally Assured Destruction
#893 - 2013-08-28 18:19:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Zeus Maximo
Cade Windstalker wrote:

Because having your out of corp boosts on-grid for high-sec wars is going to be oh so risky...

Seriously, they haven't phased anything out, they're just adding some risk to it. You know, risk, that thing that gets brought up (quite rightly so) every time someone tries to make High Sec completely safe. OGBs are at almost no risk. There aren't any significant trade-offs involved, it's just "do you have them or don't you?".

From Fozzie's post (linked above) links being redundant should make Command Ships and T3s with a couple links extremely viable as part of a small fleet comp.


Who said I'm only talking about high sec wars? That makes most of your post irrelevant and off topic.

What if Im wanting to bust a gate camp in low and I need that extra speed boost to better cope with their tacklers. If I aggress and Fozzies changes go into effect, booster gets aggro timer(also on grid), then those sentry guns are gonna love my booster. 5,000 EHP isn't very much......

Risky enough to fly a loki booster:
12 mil skill points for 3 gang links
5000 EHP
can only perma run AB since gang link are so cap reliant
cant run gang links while cloaked
defensive sub is for boosts
due to command processors there is no power for guns
no drone bay
600+ mil ship
expensive clone for probing/sig radius

I'm sorry that in order for me to take on a 5 person gate camp I sometimes use a ship that costs more than their fleet and potentially has more skill points in leadership than they have trained individually.

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Cade Windstalker
#894 - 2013-08-28 20:13:16 UTC
Zeus Maximo wrote:

Who said I'm only talking about high sec wars? That makes most of your post irrelevant and off topic.

What if Im wanting to bust a gate camp in low and I need that extra speed boost to better cope with their tacklers. If I aggress and Fozzies changes go into effect, booster gets aggro timer(also on grid), then those sentry guns are gonna love my booster. 5,000 EHP isn't very much......


This is not what Fozzie is talking about at all. You would not get PvP flagged or suspect flagged for activating gang links. What Fozzie's idea, which is not being implemented in 1.1, is that Links would trigger a 60 second weapons timer, preventing you from jumping through a gate or docking for 60 seconds.

This would not in any way trigger a combat or criminal flag.

Someone suggested that boosting someone with a combat flag should pass that along but Fozzie pointed out that this was unfeasible due to the load it would put on the server with even moderately sized fleets.

If you are jumping your boosts into a gate-camp I would be far more concerned with them being alpha'd off the field by said camp if you only put 5k EHP of tank on them.

Zeus Maximo wrote:

Risky enough to fly a loki booster:
12 mil skill points for 3 gang links
5000 EHP
can only perma run AB since gang link are so cap reliant
cant run gang links while cloaked
defensive sub is for boosts
due to command processors there is no power for guns
no drone bay
600+ mil ship
expensive clone for probing/sig radius

I'm sorry that in order for me to take on a 5 person gate camp I sometimes use a ship that costs more than their fleet and potentially has more skill points in leadership than they have trained individually.


Congrats, sometimes I actually risk a ship worth that much using a character with over 6 times that SP total! Big smile

You could also probably actually bring a second ship on-grid and take out the camp rather easily without any boosts at all.
Zeus Maximo
Mentally Assured Destruction
#895 - 2013-08-28 20:44:22 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:


This is not what Fozzie is talking about at all. You would not get PvP flagged or suspect flagged for activating gang links. What Fozzie's idea, which is not being implemented in 1.1, is that Links would trigger a 60 second weapons timer, preventing you from jumping through a gate or docking for 60 seconds.

This would not in any way trigger a combat or criminal flag.

Someone suggested that boosting someone with a combat flag should pass that along but Fozzie pointed out that this was unfeasible due to the load it would put on the server with even moderately sized fleets.

If you are jumping your boosts into a gate-camp I would be far more concerned with them being alpha'd off the field by said camp if you only put 5k EHP of tank on them.


I'm glad this was cleared up. Still can't find the server load part but it's nice to see some logic there. Much appreciated Lol


Cade Windstalker wrote:


Congrats, sometimes I actually risk a ship worth that much using a character with over 6 times that SP total! Big smile

You could also probably actually bring a second ship on-grid and take out the camp rather easily without any boosts at all.


I don't know what you're proud about? I was simply stating that my booster indirectly helps me out while being harmless to the entire system. I'd rather just have me on the killmail....

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Tyberius Franklin
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#896 - 2013-08-28 20:58:01 UTC
Zeus Maximo wrote:
Andreus Ixiris wrote:
CCP, can we have some sort of confirmation (or denial) that the eventual intention is to move warfare link bonuses to on-grid only? There's some ambiguity here.


+1

Already provided earlier in the thread.
Cade Windstalker
#897 - 2013-08-28 21:20:33 UTC
Zeus Maximo wrote:

I'm glad this was cleared up. Still can't find the server load part but it's nice to see some logic there. Much appreciated Lol


I didn't save that post and I don't feel like digging it up at the moment. I believe it's in this thread but it might be in another one where Fozzie posted.

The basic gyst of the issue is that you'd have to be running checks against the criminal and aggression status of every member of the fleet in order for that to work which if you've got a 255 man fleet with ~31 people passing boosts around at the very least you'd get a massive lag spike as soon as someone flipped an aggression timer if not just a flat lag increase to large fleet fights in general.


Zeus Maximo wrote:
I don't know what you're proud about? I was simply stating that my booster indirectly helps me out while being harmless to the entire system. I'd rather just have me on the killmail....


Your booster is giving you very direct assistance. More so than someone bumping a ship to prevent it's warp or a neutral party sending back intel. Command Boosts aren't significantly different in this respect than remote repair or remote sensor or tracking boosts.

Also, again, any smart fleet is going to alpha that ship off the grid instantly.

Honestly if it were up to me I'd make it so you can't provide boosts to war targets unless you're in their corp but that would screw with too many other things and probably get in the way of revamping the war-dec mechanics as a whole.
Domanique Altares
Rifterlings
#898 - 2013-08-28 22:01:11 UTC
Zeus Maximo wrote:


Risky enough to fly a loki booster:
12 mil skill points for 3 gang links
5000 EHP
can only perma run AB since gang link are so cap reliant
cant run gang links while cloaked
defensive sub is for boosts
due to command processors there is no power for guns
no drone bay
600+ mil ship
expensive clone for probing/sig radius

I'm sorry that in order for me to take on a 5 person gate camp I sometimes use a ship that costs more than their fleet and potentially has more skill points in leadership than they have trained individually.


Sounds like a fitting and ship selection problem, to me. Maybe you should try something with some actual tank to do your boosting. I hear they make these things called Command Ships that can fit links and have a decent tank at the same time. They appear to be cheaper than your gimmick fit Loki, too.
Zeus Maximo
Mentally Assured Destruction
#899 - 2013-08-28 23:13:49 UTC  |  Edited by: Zeus Maximo
Domanique Altares wrote:
Zeus Maximo wrote:


Risky enough to fly a loki booster:
12 mil skill points for 3 gang links
5000 EHP
can only perma run AB since gang link are so cap reliant
cant run gang links while cloaked
defensive sub is for boosts
due to command processors there is no power for guns
no drone bay
600+ mil ship
expensive clone for probing/sig radius

I'm sorry that in order for me to take on a 5 person gate camp I sometimes use a ship that costs more than their fleet and potentially has more skill points in leadership than they have trained individually.


Sounds like a fitting and ship selection problem, to me. Maybe you should try something with some actual tank to do your boosting. I hear they make these things called Command Ships that can fit links and have a decent tank at the same time. They appear to be cheaper than your gimmick fit Loki, too.


The day they let Command ships warp through bubbles is the day I'll start using them. T3 Boosters are much more than boosters. Having probes aboard also helps me find other peoples boosters/pounces. Hard to replace a cloak.

Cloaky scout is best scout.

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Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#900 - 2013-08-28 23:22:34 UTC
Zeus Maximo wrote:

The day they let Command ships warp through bubbles is the day I'll start using them. T3 Boosters are much more than boosters. Having probes aboard also helps me find other peoples boosters/pounces. Hard to replace a cloak.

Cloaky scout is best scout.


What you are describing is a very reasonable tradeoff, of the kind ccp are correctly seeking to promote.

You have chosen to forego maximised and multiple bonuses in return for the ability to evade warp disruption plus the ability to cloak and scan.

I would wager that you would make this trade even if the T3 did not offer gang link bonuses at all because of the very high utility value of the cloak, probes and interdiction nullifier.

This is an example of using the T3's versatility in a way that does not make it OP.

I think it shows that the gang link changes are in the correct direction. I also think it hints that even a 2% bonus per level on a T3 is on the high side.



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