Player Features and Ideas Discussion

NPCs shooting player owned structures/ deployables is a slippery slope to go down.

Also.... You get caught in bubble. Enemies appear to violence you. Behold "content" has been generated, just not the content you wanted.

The bubbles themselves represent content.

It's a little understood concept that content is not just defenseless PvE Miner/Ratter/Hauler getting violenced by "brave" hunters.

Firstly though, Don't bump F&I threads. Beyond being kinda annoying, it is against the rules.
http://community.eveonline.com/support/policies/forum-moderation-policy Rule 15

• Fuel use isn't the answer, as it doesn't balance them, just adds another step to the resident's task list of to do items before ratting.
• Timers are a bad balancing tool as they will just replace them more often-- maybe cost them more, but their risk is not balanced.
• 'you can just pop the bubbles' is a straw man argument and does nothing to address the fact that when you jump into a system and you are inside a bubble, you mathematically have zero chance of catching someone off guard with the SOLE exception of them being on grid with you.
• Even without a bubble, catching a ratter is mathematically impossible unless they don't react within about 6 seconds of you popping up in local. [Math based on the fastest cruiser vs slow BS] Bubbles just makes that time to react go up to afk-able levels.

This is about the balance of using bubbles defensively as a way to hinder other player's ability to be the risk that goes along with the rewards of generally being in a null sec system. Hopefully, we can all agree that there really is no risk posed to you by the npc rats you are killing in and of themselves.

The issue, as I see it, is abuse of bubbles around gates. Combined with the insta-intel of local, it leads to zero risk for ships in the system to even be remotely bothered by someone entering the system assuming you notice the person in local before he is on grid with you.

Previously, (now years go) I posted a pretty in depth look at the mechanics surrounding 'the roam'. I did the math to show that even without bubbles, just based on the pure time to jump in and warp to a belt for instance (this was in the context of local being overpowered), a typical ratting raven was at zero risk even against a nano'd vagabond (at the time the slowest ratting ship vs arguably the fastest aligning solo pvp'ing cruiser) if the raven reacted in less than 6 seconds. This was without a bubble on the gate, and the raven at a deadstop, facing the wrong way from warp. This is assuming you know exactly where to warp to in the first place. Obviously the deck is stacked against the aggressor here.

With this said, I struggle to find anything less of restricting a bubble from enveloping the gate area as a balance.
The change could use the same mechanics as the the latest breed of player deployables, and simply restrict anchoring within 20km + the bubbles range of a stargate. Also, restricting them from anchoring within 2 * bubble range in order to stop players from simply building a 'bubble' of bubbles around the gate might be appropriate, but since you would be able to warp off the gate through the bubbles, it might not be needed.

Player-ship spawned bubbles (dictors/HICs) obviously wouldn't have these restrictions.

I don't think that the bulk of players supporting nerfs to bubbles (or local for that matter) are asking for an "I win" button, just a legitimate chance at an encounter.

Evasion implies some type of cleverness and that you are at risk in the first place.

Please, I'd like to know this reason why you would bubble a gate on a grid you are not present on (like for a camp) if not for the purpose of gaining an additional buffer of reaction time between seeing someone in local and getting safe.

So intys and nullified T3s should be the only mathematically possible roamers that can tackle someone reaping the rewards of being in null sec? Seems like the 'sandbox' just got awfully small.

If you acknowledge that risk vs. reward is a central tenant to Eve, which I and many other subscribe to, that you must also acknowledge that a 'helpless' ship reaping premium rewards is out of balance.

Maybe you are just playing dumb to support your own opinion, but to think that a solo/small gang, roaming null sec is riskfree itself and effortless is about as far from the truth as possible. The fact you think this all happens "a few minutes" from logging in makes me think we aren't playing the same game.

The attacker in this scenario is going into a situation knowing that they are attempting to attack people in their own homes, where they can quickly re-ship to counter whatever the attacker brings, where the defender has the advantage of safe havens like stations and pos shields. The added numbers than come from others in the surrounding area to group together and form a counter gang against the attackers. So many advantages for the defender. The attacker has one advantage-- surprise on the initial encounter.

I never asked for anyone to be distracted, nor wait around to get tackled. I asked that we examine the in-game mechanics and reality of the scenario in order to balance the reward that null space PvE'er enjoy with the true lack of risk they experience.

Mobile Warp Disruptors are really the coup de grâce on solo/small gang roams and need balancing.


edit: just to make sure nothign has changed since i last did the math, I've run preliminary numbers on Sisi. Given a crow with all inertia stabs in the lows and two t2 rigs for agility, and a full mid-grade (HG aren't available) nomad pirate implant set plus highest agility hard wires, the minimum time to warp off grid [i used a belt 150k km away] is 18.7 seconds. A Domi with all bulkheads in the lows [arguably the slowest sub-cap to warp out] can get into warp in 13.2 seconds. So yeah, my point above about the 'helpless' ratter having a built in handicap of 5.5 seconds still exists.

tl; dr;

This is sorta true, and therefore invalidates arguments that bubbles need changed. If the pilot is on his toes, you're not going to catch him, bubbles on gate or not, in anything other then an interceptor, which is immune to bubbles anyway.

That is why CCP added tackling frigates to all anoms. Occasionally your target will be pre-tackled for you even if they're paying attention.



But disregarding that, think about what the inverse of your tl;dr would imply. I'd be okay with changing local to 10 second delay, but if so CCP had better change the PVE content to something appropriate for grouped players in semi-PVP fits.

Otherwise your next thread will be "why have all the cowards gone to run missions in highsec?"

No, simple make presence of a gate damage them until they are destroyed.
They are ok every place else than gates, and still sometimes they also make their job near the gates, and usually you have some logistics there to keep this bubble alive.

Also this couldn't be much farther from the truth, bubbles do nothing more than slow non nullified ships down. They do nothing in the way of protecting sov. If a major power bloc wanted to take a system its far far far more efficient to bridge or jump into it than to fly. As for intel, thats the nature of the game, its a social game; Players have formed alliances and coalitions, they have banded together and share intel networks to protect their interests. They're playing the game as they want and just because it provides them with an easy counter to whatever small gang trololol fleet comes at them doesn't make the game broken IN FACT its what makes the game so great.