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Dev blog: Command Bursts and the New World of Fleet Boosting

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Soleil Fournier
Fliet Pizza Delivery
Of Essence
#381 - 2016-08-30 04:08:18 UTC
And a side note since this is relevant to command ships.....Gallente and Minmatar command ships are only active tanked....making them really bad for big fleets. They both need a buffer tank option so pilots aren't forced into flying Amarr/Caldari command ships. That allows players to choose their ships based on the command bonuses and racial preference.
Alea
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#382 - 2016-08-30 04:10:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Alea
Janet McJewstein wrote:

How many people will unsub their booster accounts?

I have an account just to run boosts. Once this new patch hits, I'm pulling the SP from that toon and closing the account. How many other people are in the same boat?


I have two max skilled fleet booster accounts and if this goes live as described I may just do that plus sell off my small collection of Rorqs, I mainly run mining boosts and I'm not throwing away a Rorq every few days.

CCP must really, REALLY hate me as they have nerfed about every aspect of my gameplay over the past two years, for the life of me I have no idea why I still play this game.. Well.. If I didn't have a buttload of PLEX laying around I may have quit a couple years ago so I guess I just answered my own question.

Whomever is making the last few years decisions on what changes are to be implemented in this game, must hate Eve with all their being.
Skyy Dracon
The Milkmen
Churn and Burn
#383 - 2016-08-30 04:12:35 UTC
Winter Archipelago wrote:
Two questions:

Firstly, since they give a combat timer, will a neutral using these bursts to "interfere" with a war or other combat event acquire a Suspect timer?

Secondly, will the new bursts appear on a killmail to see who is giving and receiving boosts?

Good questions. I'm hoping they prevent "accidental" flagging through the 'safety' switch at very least.
Skyy Dracon
The Milkmen
Churn and Burn
#384 - 2016-08-30 04:14:32 UTC
It makes me laugh, how many people are decrying any change that actually requires ACTIVE gameplay instead of AFK client running.
Delt0r Garsk
Shits N Giggles
#385 - 2016-08-30 04:30:29 UTC
Drazz Caylen wrote:

Delt0r Garsk wrote:
This happens EVERY single time a change is made. Guess what. Your not getting em back.
Not sure if you are old enough to remember learning skills, but we did get a complete refund when that system was overhauled. So much for not getting anything back. On top of that, I'm fairly positive this was not the only occasion when we received SP back. Sure, these skills were removed instead of just changed, but we're talking about reduced requirements here which definitely puts a hole in those skills which needs to be addressed.

Yes my first account was that old. But i didn't stay long.

There is a clear difference between a skill that is *removed* from the game. While CCP has "shifted" skills before. If they still do something useful they have not refunded skills. Cap pilots with JF being perhaps the most obvious example (cry me a river, it takes 6-10 hours to move across new eden now). Removing skill requirements to fit Rigs being a more subtle one, but then if people don't understand that reducing some of those drawbacks are totally worth the train time..Meh.

AKA the scientist.

Death and Glory!

Well fun is also good.
Llurren
Blackwater USA Inc.
Pandemic Horde
#386 - 2016-08-30 04:32:00 UTC
Thanks for the post covering the upcoming changes. I appreciate the advance planning and testing at work here.

Speaking as someone who spends most of his time in combat fleets through Low and Null, I think these changes are on the right track. Running off-grid boosts has always been a low-risk/high-yield activity that didn't make a lot of sense. A few thoughts here:

Command Ships: Feels like they're getting the sort end of the stick here. The former vision was that they were highly specialized ships designed to provide boosts to an entire fleet. The limitation of only two base links means they're not going to be able to provide "core" support for a specific set of links without making tank sacrifices. As they've always been primary targets, this will certainly weaken them on the field. I can lose a rig slot (tank, most likely) to get that third boost back and provide all the core links, or I can only use two and keep my tank.

Charge Types: I see the rationale behind "ammo" but sigh slightly at the thought of more things I need to remember to bring with me on every fleet.

It will be interesting to see what a max-skill pilot's range, strength, and duration end up being.

Keep up the good work!

"I grok people. I am people… so now I can say it in people talk. I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much… because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting."
Skyler Hawk
The Tuskers
The Tuskers Co.
#387 - 2016-08-30 04:32:49 UTC
These are certainly big changes, but on the whole I think they could be positive for the game. One question that immediately jumps out - the devblog mentions that there will be "balance tweaks being to combat-focused boosting ships alongside the new system." Does this mean that the T3 warfare processor subsystems will be reworked so they're not hot garbage? With resist bonuses, they could be quite attractive.
Delt0r Garsk
Shits N Giggles
#388 - 2016-08-30 04:37:15 UTC
Skyler Hawk wrote:
These are certainly big changes, but on the whole I think they could be positive for the game. One question that immediately jumps out - the devblog mentions that there will be "balance tweaks being to combat-focused boosting ships alongside the new system." Does this mean that the T3 warfare processor subsystems will be reworked so they're not hot garbage? With resist bonuses, they could be quite attractive.

t3 links are not garbage. In terms of fairly slippery and hard to probe down + pretty good bonus made them the most common choice for roams. You can move them around a lot easier than a command ship.

One thing about this change is that is adds some more utility to battlecrusiers. I can quite a few of em having a link in the high now.

AKA the scientist.

Death and Glory!

Well fun is also good.
Torgeir Hekard
I MYSELF AND ME
#389 - 2016-08-30 04:56:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Torgeir Hekard
>it requires support that is not always available to small fleets or solo players

Yes, yes, so the solution is to take links from a solo player and make him kill that enemy command ship that's boosting things around.

And we take the 3rd free link from the CS so you need more command ships. Removing a gun in favor of a link is a common and sensible choice which is already a tradeoff in itself. Why remove the choice?

And we are killing utility ship roles like inties and range-tanked stuff (like frigate electronics and solo logi), because their job requires to be outside the fleet core area.

This whole thing further enforces anchor-F1 meta by requiring more link ships and punishing spread-out positioning.

Not to mention links are a massive SP hog. Full links are what? About 15M SP (okay, can do 13m). And you NEED them (unlike weapon specialization V). That's on a level of decently trained weapon tree, including T2 large weapon systems. That you need to train together with 3 weapon trees, because command ships use all weapon systems.

A character can decently perform a focused role for 15m sp in gunnery OR 15m sp in missiles OR about 5m sp in ewar OR about 5m sp in drones. A character that needs to decently perform in a fleet boosting role in a field command ship needs ALL of that SP with a Fleet Command tree cherry on top. I guess you'd need about 70m SP for a decent all-round boosting character. And you need more of them. Characters that didn't train all those exciting capitals and black ops to be able to fly a brick that's gonna sit on the back line and stare at 2min link cycles. So your small fleets now need to consist of bittervets pretty much.
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#390 - 2016-08-30 05:00:46 UTC
Ryzhik Belka wrote:
So, just to clarify : as a small time miner, chilling in the belt with my alt, all I can expect from this change is less yield, less shield, and a bunch of useless SP in Leadership, right ?
Not the "I quit" change, of course, but I'm not really wild about it either.


For me, there is minimal change. I was boosting with my Orca in the belt anyway, since it provides a convenient buffer between the mining ships and the hauler.

I wouldn't mind the ability for exhumers to fit mining command bursts though. Let's see what the Porpoise turns out to be.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Moraguth
Ranger Corp
Vae. Victis.
#391 - 2016-08-30 05:04:39 UTC
Gene Greyy wrote:
Moraguth wrote:
Raven Ship wrote:
Stuff


I'd like to introduce you to the bastion, siege, and triage modules, the cynosural field generator, and the doomsday device. All of which have severe penalties to movement when activated, thus forcing you to commit to your activity of choice for at least a few minutes. They all have amazing capabilities while the module is active, and are fairly meh otherwise.

Mila Joevovich wrote:

To Fozzie, Team Fiveo, and CCP in general. Please, if you are going to screw over the non-pvp community like this, why not just drop the pre-text of having any pve at all? Just save us all the time and be rid of the carebears altogether? They're scum-bags anyway and they won't be missed...nothing of value will be lost (as I've heard time and again). So why not just get rid of mining, exploration, and any other non-pvp activity. Just call it a day and get rid of us altogether, why not?

I'm sure you would all be overjoyed to have us gone anyway. The market scammers would be a little put out but it's a small price to pay to be rid of the filth that is carebears. You obviously don't need them anyway, you're never going to listen to them either so, why not just be rid of this part of the game? You don't actually need an economy, just seed ships into the game, get rid of all the ice belts, roids, blueprints, PI, and exploration. In fact, just get rid of High sec altogether. Wouldn't that just be a pvp paradise?

So, what do you say Fozzie? It sure would save me the time of wasting my breath trying to stand up for non-pvp activities. I'm sure you'd be happy to not even have to skip over these posts like you always seem to do anyway. What do you say, rid the game of all those scum-bag, coward, worthless, gutless, spineless, pansies and move on with the people you want (and everybody else wants) in this game. I think it would be an amazing game without us constantly ruining for you!!!! This is fully serious, I'd just like to have a real answer instead of being insulted, intimidated, humiliated, and outright ignored.


I'll file this under the "If you change my gameplay in ANY way that I view as negative, you're KILLING my hopes and dreams and all desire to play the game. WAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!" section. Thanks for your constructive and valuable criticism. Especially since mining and mining links are the CORE gameplay for ALL non-pvp in the game. And the barbaric concept of wanting balance and parity for all gameplay mechanics is pure applesauce! Why shouldn't people who don't particularly want to engage in pvp while undocked be completely immune to all pvp activities? /sarcasm through the same absurdity you used



Well, with respect to that last part, it was not criticism unless you count the constant insults that the carebears have to endure from the HTFU crowd. It was a simple question, and one that I posed as well. If you really want pvp all the time then, why not just get rid of pve? It's a reasonable question and one that maybe you should consider...you might actually like it better.


Just to be clear, I avoid ship pvp like the plague. I'm horrible at it. I'm pretty useful in a support role, but nearly worthless anywhere else. In eve, just about everything is pvp in one form or another. And as the devs have said since beta, the only time your ship is safe is when you're docked (and even that's not 100% true anymore!) and the only time your isk is safe is when it's in your wallet.

That being said, I agree that every ship that is actively affecting other players must be vulnerable. Even if all you're doing is helping other people who just want to be left alone, I think you have to be subject to surprise attacks if for no other reason than to ensure you're not AFK.

Do I hate suicide gankers and wish they would all die in a fire? Yes. Do I like to pretend they're all whiny, sociopathic, sexually-frustrated teenagers left alone with their emo music in their parents' basements? Absolutely (even though I know it isn't true, it still makes me feel a tiny bit better when they catch me). But I believe it is still a vital part of the game. We can debate the balance issues on how easy/hard it is, but I don't think I can advocate for its removal (or any of the other game mechanics that I personally wish would die in a fire), and I kind of have to fight to keep it in the game.

I realize I went off on a tangent about suicide ganking there for a minute, but my feelings for that apply to other mechanics as well. Including off-grid boosting of any kind, including the initially pve kind like mining.

I got a Feature Added!

Stop calling an Abaddon "abba-dawn".  It is "uh-bad-in" dictionary.com/abaddon
Zeera Tomb-Raider
Vega Farscape
#392 - 2016-08-30 05:10:10 UTC
I dont rely like any off it,not iven the extra low slots on som mining ships if the price off that is getting the rest of this update as well,
May Arethusa
Junction Systems
#393 - 2016-08-30 05:18:20 UTC
Caldari 5 wrote:
Johnny Galnetty wrote:
If I have the math right the AoE range on the links seems super short.

This has a negative impact on the some of the more specialised roles in fleet like tackle (inty/dictor) and EW.

Agreed, 15km base is too small(max skills is only 29.25km) Especially on a Command Destroyer in a Frigate Fleet where people fly in and out of that range in Seconds when nearly bouncing off you.


Not really. If anything, flying with (and expecting) skirmish links has had a negative impact on your ability to fly your ship. Can't live without them? I suggest you start practicing. I've done nothing but fly tackle in fleets for years, and I really don't expect these changes to impact me much, if at all.

By limiting range and number of bursts available, you're forcing people to decide which they value most while providing the option to cover all the bases by sacrificing slots in your fleet, or pilots in DPS/Logi/EW. Want all the links for all the things? Then bring enough Command Ships/Destroyers to do that. Want specific links for specific wings? Then fit accordingly and get used to anchoring on Command Ships and Destroyers.

As for your concerns about frigate fleets, if they can fly out of range in seconds, they can fly back into range in a similar amount of time. This is of course ignoring the fact that most useful frigate doctrines revolve around anchors, so see my previous point.
Sgt Ocker
What Corp is it
#394 - 2016-08-30 05:20:23 UTC
CCP Phantom wrote:
As a quick reminder: we welcome all feedback, but please stay constructive and within the forum rules. If you dislike something, please point out specifically why you don't like it.

Thank you!

Don't like this!!
Why?
Removal of passive boosts gained from implants and skills.

Present - Small gang of say 8 (2 tackle, 2 logi, 4 dps), squad commander has max leadership skills so passive boosts although not "boosted" are very useful (more so with faction implant) .

Future - Same small gang, Either needs 2 extra in fleet with very limited choice, expensive ships that will be primary at every engagement.
Or, they just don't go out.

-- - -- - -- - --
Forcing players into using the current limited variety of command capable ships, is not good design. For such drastic changes, new classes of ships should be available.

Suggestion - Introduce command capable ships for each class of ship to allow any fleet comp to be viable. Also helpful for those new to boosting, they can cut their teeth in smaller ships as they train up to command ships. Adding this new layer of micro management should be accounted for by allowing players to learn the ropes as they train up (frigates, destroyers, cruisers, etc). Not just get skills and learn as you go in a dedicated command ship.
EG; Command Frigate T1, T2, Command Cruiser T1, T2 (expensive T3's aren't always the best or most suitable option)
Command Ships are ok for larger fleets and small gang battlecruiser, battleship roams (if there is such a thing) but you wouldn't take one out in a T1 cruiser roam.
Command Destroyers, while capable of fitting links aren't really suitable for much other than their primary role of jumping ships 100K off, they'd need a major rework to be suitable for what is suggested in the blog.


Removing off grid boosts is a great idea and well overdue, just don't break boosting by turning into a micro management mini game.

Please keep in mind - Eve is a game of alts. Many times fleet boosters are multi boxing.

My opinions are mine.

  If you don't like them or disagree with me that's OK.- - - - - - Just don't bother Hating - I don't care

It really is getting harder and harder to justify $23 a month for each sub.
Kenneth Fritz
DND Industries
#395 - 2016-08-30 05:24:38 UTC
Delt0r Garsk wrote:
FT Diomedes wrote:
Delt0r Garsk wrote:


And command ships losing a default burst/command mod is not so cool. 3 is better.



Given that they combined two of the shield and armor links into one module, for the most part you are on an equal footing now. You really only need to make a tough choice if you are boosting skirmish links under the new system.

We really like to run two shied links (resits and cycle times/rep)+ the range link for scrams etc.

And just to all those ppl saying "just put links on grid" You do know that grids are now thousands of kms in size. This would amount to changing NOTHING.

Really where were all these people (the links are fine the way they are) when this was/has been hashed out and discussed for years?

And why is mining such a special snowflake?



Mining is a "special snowflake" because without it you wouldn't have well, anything. Everything you use to do whatever it is you do starts with some poor a$$ in a belt or anom mining the ore that is used to make it.

Who's your end of the world buddy?
Drago Misharie
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#396 - 2016-08-30 05:31:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Drago Misharie
CCP Fozzie wrote:
I'm really excited that we're finally this close to such a highly anticipated feature rework! After so many discussions with so many of you about what the new system needs, we're finally almost here.


I read your post on twitter regarding the max range and still I have to scratch my head with mining boosts.

The belts are many times bigger than the max boost range. Many of the belts being mined require you to warp from one side of the belt to the other.

How can you possibly boost with such a short range even if you are on grid?

Are the belts going to be shrunk to match up with the nerfed boosts?

If so, isn't this going to make it even harder to avoid people from being able to warp right in on your booster?

Seems like this is going to be a nice cluster of ships for stealth bombers to take out.

Food for the cloaky campers, everyone will be camped.
Delt0r Garsk
Shits N Giggles
#397 - 2016-08-30 05:34:07 UTC
Kenneth Fritz wrote:

Mining is a "special snowflake" because without it you wouldn't have well, anything. Everything you use to do whatever it is you do starts with some poor a$$ in a belt or anom mining the ore that is used to make it.

You know we mined almost everything we needed to make a lot of stuff. We don't in fact have a roq just for the clone bay ya know.

So if you mine a little slower, there will be plenty of others around to take up the slack. Don't worry about. And if you leave well again plenty of us around to mine what we need.

AKA the scientist.

Death and Glory!

Well fun is also good.
Tess Storm
The Graduates
The Initiative.
#398 - 2016-08-30 05:34:22 UTC
Kind of stupid, first you lose 10 thousand pilots because of the fatigue issues, now you are targeting miners. Do you really want to lose more subscribers? Most miners have 6-9 accounts.
Its awfully nice to have boosts, but if I want to mine ice and player X wants to mine ore, we now need to have separate boosts??
CCP is stabbing itself in the heart of subscribers.

Personally, I think this is an awful idea.

Why not make the game fun again, stop making everything difficult.
Delt0r Garsk
Shits N Giggles
#399 - 2016-08-30 05:40:05 UTC
Drago Misharie wrote:

If so, isn't this going to make it even harder to avoid people from being able to warp right in on your booster?

That is kinda of the point. To make boosting harder and more risky.

As for size of belts and everything. Travel in a group perhaps. You know kinda of like a fleet of mining ships with support ships, even some anti gank support, stripping all ore from one end to the other, in that order. Rather than say having one ship 150km "over there". In actual fleets we call that "Dafuq dat guy doin'?".

AKA the scientist.

Death and Glory!

Well fun is also good.
Delt0r Garsk
Shits N Giggles
#400 - 2016-08-30 05:41:54 UTC
Tess Storm wrote:

Why not make the game fun again, stop making everything difficult.

Wait you said fun again... as in afk mining? Fun really, is that what kids are calling it these days.

AKA the scientist.

Death and Glory!

Well fun is also good.