EVE General Discussion

Managing 2 ships is more difficult than managing 1 ship.

Managing an OGB alt takes miniscule effort compared to dualboxing 2 ongrid ships, logistics or combat.

Nope. Every discussion about OGB boils down not to wrong interpretation by anyone. Instead it boils down to "we have an advantage and don't want you take it away from us" masked with "you are just too lazy", "L2p" and what not else.

Boosts existing is not a problem. Them being offgrid and out of reach is. Whoever thinks you can "shut down OGB by probing" and then kill the assailant whilst the OGB is warping probably hasn't undocked in a long while. I'd like to see evidence in terms of TTK that you can kill the actual enemy whilst his OGB is in warp. Assuming the actual enemy doesn't warp himself and simply won't engage until his links are active.

It's like arguing with bureaucrats. Pointless.

My entire fleet has an advantage up until the point the enemy's dedicated scanner (cuz we all know every FW fleet has one,this thread being about OGB and how it relates to the OPs experiences in a FW setting) gets probes close to me. So as I said in my last post, we can call it "pay to have an advantage," I concede that that's a more fair description of it.

But dude, don't act like its hard to swap your eyes back and forth between 2 monitors right next to each other, and to take your pointy finger and go click. Seriously, Im not gonna say it's PERFECT because nothing is 100%, but I'm gonna say it's damn near. I know in a yr of OGB including a campaign that lasted around 6 weeks trying to evict some very active players from a ls system I never was in any danger, and yes they did try to probe the booster down frequently. And Inever lost my main combat toon because of paying a pittance of attention to my OGB on the other machine. Im not a pro at this game, either.



Don't poo poo it man, I have a feeling yuo have to know how easy it is.

Yeah I see where youre coming from, but frankly I think the problem isnt so much 1v1 or 1v2 as it becomes an exponentially larger issue as the size of the boosted fleet goes. Sure maybe your sole boosted Rifter can die. But what if it's a 5v5 encounter, now youve got all 5 opponents with more tank, more speed, better reps, etc. It's an exponential advantage, too.

If you REALLY want to discuss a mechanic you cannot defend against and is completely OTT, let's talk watchlists. :P

+

Im wondering how you're supposed to know when the OGB is in warp?

edit:typo

Like it's going to matter when you're doing your FW 1v1 and suddenly a Damnation drops out of warp 5km away from you. Or if a recon decloaks next to you or whatever the alt flies.

The only thing it would make a difference for, in FW, is the fact you can't warp them in the smaller complexes. On gates, stations, ... it wouldn't make the slightest difference, stop deceiving yourself.

As for gangs, for God's sake, take your own booster with you. You have this awesome game feature that makes your entire gang 20-30% better, like why would you not use it? Is that stubbornness, or do you just like putting yourself in disadvantaged situations?


He's moving on Dscan? Unless you always keep it at max range 360 degrees, then yea, I see your problem. You can set ranges, directions, ... It's not that hard to see when stuff is moving.

A docked booster isn't providing bonuses.


The little guy is hardly out there engaging in solo pvp in low-sec. No, don't talk to me about yourself, or some "guy you know" who's a total outlier. The majority of the little guys are mining Veld and running level threes, and complaining about wars and ganking on the forums because their CEOs taught them to be afraid of the game.


If a player is using a combat ship with a dedicated booster, it's only fair that you use a combat ship with a dedicated prober. Then, when the fight is no longer 1vs1+1 but 1+1vs1+1, we can start talking about fairness and balancing.


This was exactly the problem before people switched to alt-boosting. The forums were full of complaints that people were "breaking" their "1vs1s" by uncloaking their Falcon alts whenever a fight was going south. It was like a new thread every hour for years about that topic, until CCP finally nerfed ECM, and people started running booster alts because they had slightly more utility as a result.

And before Falcons, people were complaining about alt combat ships.

As I've said before, the issue here isn't that offGB is somehow imbalanced, but that people can't deal with their "honorable duels" becoming "sociopath ganks" whenever someone decides to bring an alt into what they thought was their entitled 1vs1 battle.

No, we're fine with any numerical advantage as long as the ships are on grid, which is the whole point of this discussion. It's not a coincidence that people use OGBs instead of Falcon alts, first of all your kills appear as solo on killboards, and it's almost risk free and effortless compared to using a recon on grid.

Do you think that OGB not being the only crappy mechanic makes it somehow acceptable? Nobody disagrees with watchlists, Skynet, disposable cyno alts, streaming alts etc etc etc being pants on head ********, but this isn't a thread about everything that's wrong with the game currently, just about balancing off-grid links.

And really, the discussion isn't any longer whether OGB is ok or not, CCP has already stated that it will cease to exist as soon as they can actually code it so. I suggested a way which achieves on-grid links in a way that uses existing mechanics (ie not requiring a rewrite of Destiny), preserves the invested value of booster alts, and introduces a new and interesting fleet role.

I'm interested in discussing that suggestion, alternatives and improvements, but this pointless bickering about whether OGB sucks is just what it is, pointless. It's not IF they should go, it's WHEN and HOW.

True. So if the discussion was about making offGB a more active experience without screwing the power balance between small and large fleets by bringing boosts on grid, there wouldn't be anywhere near the amount of negative feedback you see right now. But that's not the case, and I feel inclined to point out how bringing boosts on-grid is going to make everyone field enough ships to be able to take them out instantly. This will hurt small-gang pvp, not help it.


Boosters are unarmed, and most will have paper-thin tanks. If you find and attack the booster, you should be able to kill it even if the booster's actual combat ship lands on grid with you, because it would still be the same as fighting one enemy. Boosters don't increase DPS, and don't have the ability to escape when tackled (once again, due to the fitting limitations). If you can't kill the booster and die yourself while trying even though you got the drop on the booster before the combat ship arrived on grid, you would have most likely lost the fight even if the booster didn't exist.

And if you're flying a 10m-ISK T1 frigate that can't actually kill a booster anyway and your complaint is that your enemy, also in a 10m-ISK frigate is using a 300m+ alt in an advanced ship that results in this advantage purely because the booster is off-grid, then you're being intentionally obtuse.


Exactly.


It's because they're trying to balance the game around the abilities of a one-month-old player doing FW content.


Nope, you're saying this now, but crying about the next best thing is exactly what's going to happen if offGB is nerfed. We'll go back to the day of the Falcon, and people like yourself are going to complain about that too. I've been here long enough to be sure of this.