Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Why Entosis?

Fozzie, it's still unclear in my mind why Entosis is being picked as the way forward. Perhaps if I explain my interpretation of Entosis, you can help me fill in the blanks.

1. Compared to what is currently required for flipping Sov, Entosis as a module is incredibly OP.

2. To balance the OP-ness of Entosis, Entosis vulnerability is limited to a small time window.

You've mentioned your dislike of EHP based objectives, and I can understand that. I disagree with it, but I understand the sentiment.

Military control of the grid is mentioned as a key aspect of Entosis, but it's already a component of Sov and ownership warfare. It's not a revolutionary thing that Entosis will enable.

The popular belief and often stated justification for Entosis is the scalability (based on the defending force). But. Like military control, I don't think defensive scalability is unique to Entosis either. I don't understand why it's cited as being new to Entosis.

It seems to me that you're removing the EHP grind, and leaving the timers in place. Of the two, the timers are by far the least engaging aspect of Sov gameplay, but they're being left alone. (?)

Why are you not going with a solution that reduces both the EHP grind and timers equally? Why Entosis?

The potential for griefing is going to be a lot higher with Entosis. At least with the renter business model, there is a commitment to defend systems by a type of allied force, however weak. I mean, station services harassment and extortion is about to become a legitimate profession.

You can make Sov warfare more linear right now, without involving Entosis. Disconnect station ownership from sov like you plan to do with Entosis, and simplify the timers between shield, and armor, and onlining.

To put it simply, there are ways within Dominion sov to reward the defending force willing to put up a fight. The consequences are already bad enough for not maintaining an active presence in sov. If you're not already following what nearly happened in ED-L9T, NC came within 2 minutes of losing Sov to a group of 20 Ishtars. On two separate TCU timers.

Which, by the way, were the only four minutes that NC was present in that system in four days.

Timers in general, and invulnerability... imo... are indications of sloppy game design and room for improvement. Invulnerability is video game make-believe in its purest form. Surely, there are better ways to reward defenders for fighting until they have zero military control. In contrast, timers allow players to log out, instead of being active and engaging. (why are timers OK?)

Are you sure it's a worthwhile change to enable small groups to take and hold Sov? The way I see it, lowering the barrier to entry only makes it easier to gain a false sense of hope. The players who occupy most sov systems are renters, and these are the very same people who will occupy sov systems post-Entosis.

Do you know they do things like attempt to repair station services with ratting carriers that are either so unskilled or afraid of four or five Ishtars (without logi) to risk a single Triage cycle? They're using T1 logi drones on Thanatoses at undock. Is this the group you should be catering to?

At least with EHP objectives, progress scales with the force committed to killing a structure. Timers are absolute no matter what size force you have, big or small.

EHP objectives are decent, compared to timers. Timers that pause the game and give no incentive for being logged in. I mean, I'm there in space, looking to interact with the game, but when I attempt to lock a structure during a timer, I get a popup telling me there is no gameplay to be had... despite my presence being uncontested.

I want to affect someone, but I can't, despite having 100% military control of the grid. It's about to be this way across all systems owned by an alliance, 20 hours of the day?

This took less than an hour just now, Sisi of course. Undisturbed. But it's the situation you hope to fix with Entosis, right? If you leave the timers in place, are you really changing anything? http://i.imgur.com/qXFdgXS.png

Don't you think SBU timers are enough warning? You know how jump fatigue reduced the radius of help that can arrive to an engagement, and effectively made EVE bigger? By reducing timers, you could have a similar effect--by allowing less time for reinforcements to arrive, you localize sov. In other words, too much invulnerability time and warning begins to negate what you tried to make happen with jump fatigue.

Why would you limit jump drive use but still allow days for reinforcements to form? The only explanation I can think of is wanting gate travel to happen, as if that is a strong indicator of health and activity. But really, all you accomplish is more gate use and not much else. (was this a result of game balancing based on statistics? I think maybe yes, too much importance was placed on gate travel, and it became the only thing you achieved?)

If you want sov ownership to reflect occupancy, don't give organizations 2 days to get their ships moved?

It rather is.

You discount the other new mechanics, which will require accomplishing simultaneous objectives over, say, a constellation.

Spread out, escalate in one place, detract from an another, and possibly lose everything in the end.



Tell me more.

Been there, done that.



Does not compute.

Clowns like that will be ejected back to Empire out of the (safe) buffer zones.



Agreed. Is cancur - however, we haven't seen the complete details yet.

In the end, the most important part is Reviving koality CAOD participation rates und poasting with the new Sov thingamajig this coming Summer!

Or Eve is kill.

Fozzie OP Greate Success then.

I still think POS spam & ensuing dynamics was the pinnacle of Eve around the BoB times, which incidentally, is around when player PCU numbers started to peak, following the biggest player expansion ever.

http://eve-offline.net/?server=tranquility

We're currently back to those PCU levels of the year 2008/2009. Going by the graph, the current sov should've died horribly back in 2011/2012, or 2013 at the latest.

Another thing that old system was good at: Making logistics and actual geography of regions, constellations and supply lines matter.

Anyone remember baby Titans being aborted on a 2-weekly basis?

Good times.

I hope we can reach & exceed that Era in every way.

I can't be sure, but I think we're in agreement here. Just to make my opinion clearer, I think EHP grinds are good. If I had to pick between EHP and timers, anyway.

The time I spent on Sisi was just me getting a sense of how hard it is to ref a system. In terms of the number of dreads needed to ref the structures in one siege cycle, I found that each structure was:

Poco: 2 dreads
Ihub: 8-10 dreads
Outpost: 8-10 dreads
refining station service: 3-4 dreads

The reason I bring this up is to illuminate exactly how OP an entosis module is. For each objective, that's how many dreads are being replaced by one Entosis module. Counting the run-up cycle, those figures are cut in half.

That is, assuming all it will take is one effective Entosis cycle to reinforce something.

When the Entosis times are released, the number of five-minute Entosis cycles required is the number of times those dreads are being split in terms of DPS. I'm curious to see exactly how much DPS will be replaced per cycle.

Sure, we know how much EHP will be replaced, but Entosis is moving the EHP requirement over to a time requirement... which I disagree with, but whatever. I'll make do.

I'd rather see structure EHP increased 10x, 20x, 50x... whatever, as a buffer for the defenders. Enough EHP to get rid of timers. Basically the opposite of the Entosis direction.

I think SBUs should be the only timer in the process, perhaps 24 hours (and no more), with a huge EHP buffer. After that, there are no timers, only EHP buffers.

I think that's understandable. Maybe it comes down to playstyles, and what you're looking to get out of gameplay.

I'm happy for you if Entosis is to your liking.

I'm still bothered by a flat Entosis minutes requirement, that locks any group of attackers into a minimum length of time. At least with EHP grinds, you can reduce the time spent by bringing more people. The entosis minutes system removes that incentive. So even if you bring 256 max dudes, you're still going to linger around like a group that only brings 10.

I think there's a strong case to be made for the feedback of watching damage notifications flash on the screen. It lets you know you're affecting the game, in a press-button-get-bacon type of way. Fleets watching a timer, notsomuch.

I think the Entosis link yes the boring part is the person running the link. However I think it should take a couple times for Sov structures then have complexes popup in the constellation then have a race to see who can get the most complexes done. So a 4 hour timer starts to claim complexes if no one gets enough complexes or the sov holder get the majority of complexes then they keep there sov. If an invader get the majority of complexes in 2 hour they get the sov. So more people can get it done faster with smaller groups doing more complexes. This will Also create conflict and fights as 2 or more groups race to fight for the complexes. This I think this would be a lot more fun then sitting in a dread hitting f1 every few minutes after your guns reload. This would also give the bonus to the sov holders since they would have ships and manpower available at close range in a fight. The invaders would have to have logistics and fleet replacement and be able to get back in the fight quickly so they would probably not go to far from home to start.

I despise all capitals alike.



One ship doing that, not twenty.



Again - one ship.

Sure, they can wait around if they suspect incoming hostiles and/or the system not being secure. In an situation with both parties present in sufficient numbers, it will make for a very dynamic engagement.

Time to dig up that dusty Grid Fu manual... 750 km by 250 by 250 visibility rectangular piece of Art is a Go.

man power is only being disincentivizrd in situations where it is unnecessary. The effort to take the system or structure needs to more reflect the defenders participation, rather than simply blabbing as much as possible with as much DPS you can muster, to overtake absentees landlord holdings.

In other words, the amount of resources to take something, is exactly the same if you attack someone's home system versus snatching a backwater buffer system is exactly the same, any fights generated not withstanding

I'm still not satisfied with the bit about determining military control of the grid. Killing the thing is already a good indication of who is winning.

What Entosis does differently is ensuring that one side has fought to the last man, or has left completely. Or has run out of entosis links. This strikes me as very wishful thinking.

I mean no disrespect when I say that I find the attempt amusing. I'm left hoping there's simply a big chunk of future changes that we aren't being told, that would make this revamp worthwhile.


Doesn't the current system already scale in difficulty based on the defender's participation? What I see is that timers are guaranteed while the option of accelerating the process is being removed completely. I don't understand how this fits in with making sov easier to defend if you live there, and the reduction of power projection through jump fatigue.

EHP buffers, rather than timers, would support the idea of scaling based on the fight. If Entosis has to be used, it could be required in conjunction with an EHP buffer. For example, a structure can only be flipped when it is out of EHP and has been Entosised. Doesn't this satisfy the military control requirement? So why is Entosis being used exclusively.

Is this not trading an EHP buffer for a time buffer? Feels oversimplified, to put it lightly.