Backstage - OOC Forums
General Discussion => General Non-RP EVE Discussion => Topic started by: kalaratiri on 01 Aug 2013, 11:38
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And finally, the last late one. (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=264773)
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." - Laozi
For Odyssey 1.1. we're going to be taking a swing at aspects of our warfare link features, as well as rebalancing command ships. We believe that the package of changes we've put together will be a significant step forward for the game, but it's definitely not the end of iteration on these features.
For years one of the most hotly discussed issues surrounding warfare links is their ability to apply bonuses to fleet members anywhere in the same solar system. We will not be changing this aspect of the feature in Odyssey 1.1. There are some serious technical hurdles to adjusting this aspect of the features, which are being worked on as we speak but for which we are not currently ready to announce an ETA.
What we will be changing for 1.1 is:
- The strength of the bonuses provided by Warfare links
- The way that skills, ship bonuses and implants affect the strength of warfare bonuses
- The specific types of bonuses provided by the Information Warfare mindlink and Information Wafare: Sensor Integrity warfare link
- The method by which mindlink implants can be obtained
- The fitting requirements of warfare link modules, and their use within starbase forcefields
- Many aspects of Command Ship balance, including what bonuses they receive to warfare link strength
- The base rep amount of all armor repairers and most shield boosters
I'm going to split our changes into three threads for 1.1 and one for a discussion of graphical model changes that will not be implemented in 1.1. but may come later this year. This thread will cover the changes to warfare link modules, bonuses, and effects, including the changes to mindlinks and strategic cruiser Warfare Processor subsystems.
The other threads are (hyperlinks to come):
Command Ship Balancing (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3426027#post3426027)
Local armor and shield rep changes (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3426047#post3426047)
Command Ship model changes (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3124398#post3124398)
Let's start with some changes to the warfare link modules themselves:
- Warfare links (other than mining links) can no longer be activated inside a starbase forcefield
People can still orbit just outside the forcefield I know, but they will at least have to keep an eye on that character so it's an improvement.
- Powergrid need of all warfare links modules decreased by 100.
This goes alongside the balance changes to command ships, battlecruisers and strategic cruisers. We want to be able to balance a ship's fittings such that fitting choices allow people different tradeoffs for the choice of what to do with their unbonused "utility" highslots. Some may want to leave it empty or go with a small neut, some may want to fit a gang link for 100 or 110 pwg, some may want to go with a medium neut at 175 pwg. All of those choices provide different benefits and will require different sacrifices.
Quick mention of the changes to Strategic Cruiser Warfare Processor subsystems:
The Warfare Processors will now provide a 2% increase in the strength of warfare links per level of their racial defensive subsystem skill. They will also now provide bonuses to three different types of gang links:
- Loki: Siege, Armored, Skirmish
- Proteus: Armored, Skirmish, Information
- Tengu: Siege, Skirmish, Information
- Legion: Armored, Skirmish, Information
Next we'll cover the changes to the link bonuses themselves.
In 1.1 some links will be getting reductions in their maximum possible strength (although none of them are dropping below the maximum levels that were possible before the introduction of Strategic cruisers and Tech Two links). We are also smoothing out the advancement path for gang boosting gameplay, making the base links stronger and reducing the effect of the modifiers on that strength. This will make the training path for gang boosting more of a slope and less of a cliff.
Our changes to the modifiers to warfare link strength are:
- The four Warfare Specialist skill bonus changed from the current 100% bonus per level (after the first level) to 20% bonus per level.
- Mindlink bonus reduced from +50% to +25%
- T3 Warfare processor subsystem bonus changed to 2% per level. Command Ship link bonuses changed to a static 15% bonus. Orcas and Active Core Rorquals keep their 3% and 10% bonuses respectively.
And below you will find the changes to the base strength of each warfare link, including the maximum available boost (with all skills and the mindlink and maximum ship bonuses) both before and after the patch.
All defensive (Siege and Armored) links:
T1: 4.8%
T2: 6%
Max bonus per link with all modifiers: 25.9%
Former max bonus: 35%
Information Warfare: Electronic Superiority bonuses to ECM and Target Painters:
T1: 6.4%
T2: 8%
Max bonus per link with all modifiers: 34.5%
Former max bonus: 35%
Information Warfare: Electronic Superiority bonuses to Tracking Disruptors and Sensor Damps:
T1: 4%
T2: 5%
Max bonus per link with all modifiers: 21.5%
Former max bonus: 21%
Information Warfare: Recon Operation:
T1: 6.4%
T2: 8%
Max bonus per link with all modifiers: 34.5%
Former max bonus: 35%
Information Warfare: Sensor Integrity:
T1: 9.6%
T2: 12%
Max bonus per link with all modifiers: 51.75%
Former max bonus: 53%
Skirmish Warfare: Evasive Maneuvers:
T1: 6.4%
T2: 8%
Max bonus per link with all modifiers: 34.5%
Former max bonus: 35%
Skirmish Warfare: Interdiction Maneuvers:
T1: 7.2%
T2: 9%
Max bonus per link with all modifiers: 38.8%
Former max bonus: 53%
Skirmish Warfare: Rapid Deployment:
T1: 5.6%
T2: 7%
Max bonus per link with all modifiers: 30.2%
Former max bonus: 35%
Mining Foreman: Laser Optimization and Harvester Capacitor
T1: 5%
T2: 7.5%
Max bonus per link with all modifiers: 42.2%
Former max bonus: 42.2%
Mining Foreman: Field Enhancement
T1: 13.6%
T2: 17%
Max bonus per link with all modifiers: 95.7%
Former max bonus: 95%
We are also making some changes to the specific bonuses from the Information Warfare Skill, Information Warfare Mindlink and the Information Warfare: Sensor Integrity link:
- The Info Warfare skill and mindlink will now give a bonus to scan resolution instead of lock range
- Information Warfare: Sensor Integrity link will provide its bonus to both sensor strength and lock range.
We are planning to extend the bonuses from the defensive gang links to local capital repair modules.
And finally we're making some significant changes to the availability of mindlink implants:
- Adding normal T2 mindlinks (including mining mindlinks) to the Concord LP store for 20,000 Concord LP and 20m isk (~60-80m final product sale price).
- Adding Navy Mindlinks with the 25% bonus to two different disciplines at once (matching racial command ship bonuses) to the normal racial LP stores at 150,000 LP and 50m isk (~200m isk final product sale price).
Links at the top lead to the threads for Command Ship and local repair module changes, and we're very interested to hear your feedback on these changes in the thread below.
Gaawd formatting /o\
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as i said on FHC, omfg! gallente backbone is now complete (coupled with CS changes)
i won't care about off-grid boosting with these changes tbh.
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Links will be less powerful than before ?
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yes they will be slightly less powerful.....but a nerf was needed
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What was so powerful ?
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What was so powerful ?
It was particularly evident in armour and skirmish links. T2 points with an unheated range of 33km, webs unheated at 15km. And T1 ships with all 70%+ resists and RR that cycles half as fast.
It got to the point that if you didn't have links while the other side did, you may as well not engage as they're going to flatten you.
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It won't be until on-grid boosting is mandatory that the wound will heal. Until that happens, the 'outside POS bubble' thing is just a band-aid and won't do much.
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If you want some idea as to how strongly people feel about links, this thread (http://failheap-challenge.com/showthread.php?13255-Links-are-Shit-gay-lame-amazing-whatever-links-discussion-here-pls) might provide insight. Although, it is Failheap so there might be slightly more rage than average in there.
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What was so powerful ?
It was particularly evident in armour and skirmish links. T2 points with an unheated range of 33km, webs unheated at 15km. And T1 ships with all 70%+ resists and RR that cycles half as fast.
It got to the point that if you didn't have links while the other side did, you may as well not engage as they're going to flatten you.
Never really noticed that when I was still pvping. Maybe doctrines have changed in the meantime though. vOv
But I believe you, I don't feel especially anything on this. Maybe links have become too powerful when they decided to introduce ASBs and AARs, and new resist mods. Bad design. If they feel that is the way to fix it by nerfing them accordingly, why not. By experience, nerfing something is never good for the meta since the simple fact that something gets nerfed make people stop using it. It's not only an Eve thing, it's something present on most games with a meta behind.
Like Kat said, until they make on grid boosting mandatory, it's mostly pointless. These mechanics ruin everything. Especially solo pvp btw.
I don't understand 2 things :
- Why links do not behave like any remote mod, with an optimal and a targeting mechanic. Make them powerful instead of nerfing them, maybe even boost them up, but bind them to targeting : the commandship would have to actually target the guy to apply it's (powerful) bonuses. Would make commandships more common in fleets as you would need more of them the same way you need logis. At the same time, increases the power of coordination and teamplay. Believing that somehow FC will always fly in commandships is foolish. FCing skills are not linked to ingame mechanics.
- Why it takes them AGES (years) to make ongrid boosting mandatory, at least. Smells like an alt boosting lobby or something.
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Make links AOE to prevent gridfu and we're golden, I think. It;d give us something more than 't2 just gives better boosts' as well, as an extended AOE range would be a good benefit.
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They've already stated multiple times that AOE is not happening. Too much server load with all the constant range checks.
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And yet they do it with HICs and bubbles and forcefields.
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When you consider how many more things that ganglinks have an effect on - and I don't mean just stats, you can have upwards of 250 people in a full fleet - it's a hell of a lot more intensive than a HIC, bubble or POS shield.
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- Why links do not behave like any remote mod, with an optimal and a targeting mechanic. Make them powerful instead of nerfing them, maybe even boost them up, but bind them to targeting : the commandship would have to actually target the guy to apply it's (powerful) bonuses. Would make commandships more common in fleets as you would need more of them the same way you need logis.
This seems like a good idea to introduce additional logistics type ships. There are already modules like the Remote Sensor Booster and Tracking Link that lack a ship with a direct bonus to them. It would seem "straightforward" to either add some more modules and an entire line of ships that provides electronic logistics support, beyond the shield/armor-cap support of the current line of logistics ships. Essentially, anti-EW ships.
This being said, I don't think these should be Commandships.
Believing that somehow FC will always fly in commandships is foolish. FCing skills are not linked to ingame mechanics.
However, if the intent from CCP is that Combat Battlecruisers and by extension the Commandships should be the preferred ships for an FC, then they should focus on those ships being just that. At this point, CCP should know the kinds of things FCs look for in their choice of ship (ability to survive generally) by now.
Creating battlefield choice should help shake up tactics used. For example, if it was "normal" for an FC to fly a Combat Battlecruiser/Commandship, due to the ship-types resiliency, opposing FCs are left with choices in well balanced fleets. Do they go after an enemy's Logistical Support, Electronic Warfare, or Commanding vessel in order to slip the battle in their favor? It may be faster to first take a chuck out of the logi support, but the extra pressure on the suspect FC and having him drop out might cause the enemy to become disorganized much faster.
In really big fights, spies abound and FCs tend to be well known, they get primaried first currently.
However, ganglinks do not necessarily need to be tied to who the FC is, however, I think CCP should spend some time on creating a solid supporting skill path for those who like to Command.
When you consider how many more things that ganglinks have an effect on - and I don't mean just stats, you can have upwards of 250 people in a full fleet - it's a hell of a lot more intensive than a HIC, bubble or POS shield.
That in itself is a question worth evaluating. Should the Fleet Commander position (in the Fleet Hierarchy) actually supply significant bonuses to the fleet as a whole? What about the Wing Commander? Or should Squadron Commanders be the focus of where these ganglinks reside?
Would doing this change how fleets fly or would it all still be one big circle?
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When you consider how many more things that ganglinks have an effect on - and I don't mean just stats, you can have upwards of 250 people in a full fleet - it's a hell of a lot more intensive than a HIC, bubble or POS shield.
Why is that different ? A bubble or especially a HIC - which is as mobile as a commandship if not more - also apply a radius-ed effect to other people. Only the essence of the effect is different.
And I am pretty sure what is costly is the constant pathfind-like check they have to run in real time continuously. I'm also pretty sure that people use more bubbles than commandships in fleets as well. For now...
To me the excuse sounds clunky, but I can understand that they do not want more of that stuff around since they maybe know how stressful it is for the servers already.
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It won't be until on-grid boosting is mandatory that the wound will heal. Until that happens, the 'outside POS bubble' thing is just a band-aid and won't do much.
Eh, not really.
Off-grid boosting as it is is overpowered. This is purely down to the fact that t3s give better boosts and are all but unscanable. These changes make having off-grid boosting with a large gang not very viable but they still have a use for smaller gangs and 'solo' pilots.
These changes give CCP a chance to take a step back and look what they really want to do with gang links.
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These changes make having off-grid boosting with a large gang not very viable but they still have a use for smaller gangs and 'solo' pilots.
These changes give CCP a chance to take a step back and look what they really want to do with gang links.
How so ?
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A large part of the problem with OGB is that one of the places you usually find them is inside tower shields. Where they're effectively invulnerable without nuking the tower.
Which, I'll be honest, is perfectly fair when we're talking about people having these things in their home (I really can't begrudge a small alliance having a tower that's specifically for holding linkboats in their home system, for example), but when you have people with multiple towers and towers with linkboats in every single system... it gets stupid. If the temporary solution is to make it so that these links do not work while inside a tower forcefield, then that's fine.
At least now, these linkboats are not as invulnerable as before: they can either give boosts and be catchable, or they can be invulnerable and not give boosts at all.
Basically, CCP's taken the first step in the changes they want to make, and they're going to see where it goes. It's perfectly possible that this coupled with the CS changes will go a long way to fixing the problem - if it does, it means that CCP doesn't necessarily need to roll out a huge list of further changes to nerf it into the ground; they can just take small steps.
Not that I expect it to happen, of course. But it means keep an eye on your linkboats' d-scan while they're linking. They might get popped.
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I don't understand how it's any better. The linkboat can hug the forcefield and offer boosts, and when somebody shows up on grid they just burn back inside. It's not as if these things are capitals that can't quickly flee into the POS if something warps in or uncloaks. They're fast and agile ships, often pretty heavily tanked.
For solo flying or gang flying, in most cases we've encountered (inb4 I-RED is terrible), by the time we realize the enemy gang or pilot is linked it's could easily be too late. I'm not an FC, so maybe I'm just bad at this... but I fail to see how forcing a linkboat to be 1m outside the forcefield helps anything.
The simple fact is that OGB still exists, and it takes all of half a second for the boat to burn back into the forcefield, even without propmods. Unless you have somebody camping the linkboat inside the POS while your gang is fighting elsewhere in system - this changes nothing.
EDIT: Sid has pointed out that now the pilot has to at least pay attention to his link alt every now and then while using it. That's about as good an answer as I can find on why anybody would be remotely satisfied with this other than as 'a step in the right direction'.
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Forcing linkboats outside of a bubble make it a lot less convenient, because there is the threat of someone with a couple of Tornadoes showing up for some 5 seconds of fun, whereas the typical OGB boat is very difficult to probe down. We're not talking about command ships here but about cloaky Tech3s with a paper tank, a tiny signature and a buffed sensor strength, crammed to the nook with warfare links. The change in efficiency for those alone makes the situation a lot better. In space somewhere they can at least get probed down, as hard as it is, or on gates/stations they can get bumped off. On a starbase, too, because the typical buffing starbase is a small pos with no furniture except maybe hardeners or hangars. If you put down a deathstar it makes things a lot more safe, as it should be.
In my opinion the change in efficiency of cloaky (ie, mobile) boosting platform is a solid move. Gameplaywise putting gang support modules on grid is extremely sane and important. I'd like to see non-battlecruiser, tech3 or capital platforms for those links, though, to be useful in different kind of gangs at different efficiency (size of the bonus/fleet size).
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How so ?
If you are going 'solo' and want a link alt. An off-grid t3 is still the way to go. Not quite as good as before but good enough + you get a choice of three types of links that are getting bonused
For larger fleets you will want a command ship in your group (you could put this off grid, but the chances of it being scanned down greatly increase) that provide the high bonus to two of the leadership groups (woop for Navy Mindlinks too).
This means that CCP don't have to be in a too big a rush to bring up some hard-arsed fix to OGBs that will break the game and/or make them so useless as to not have them.
I don't understand how it's any better. The linkboat can hug the forcefield and offer boosts, and when somebody shows up on grid they just burn back inside. It's not as if these things are capitals that can't quickly flee into the POS if something warps in or uncloaks. They're fast and agile ships, often pretty heavily tanked.
For solo flying or gang flying, in most cases we've encountered (inb4 I-RED is terrible), by the time we realize the enemy gang or pilot is linked it's could easily be too late. I'm not an FC, so maybe I'm just bad at this... but I fail to see how forcing a linkboat to be 1m outside the forcefield helps anything.
The simple fact is that OGB still exists, and it takes all of half a second for the boat to burn back into the forcefield, even without propmods. Unless you have somebody camping the linkboat inside the POS while your gang is fighting elsewhere in system - this changes nothing.
EDIT: Sid has pointed out that now the pilot has to at least pay attention to his link alt every now and then while using it. That's about as good an answer as I can find on why anybody would be remotely satisfied with this other than as 'a step in the right direction'.
Knowing if they have OGBs isn't that difficult. If it's in your home region you should have fairly solid Intel about your locals, if you've engaged them frequently you should have a fairly good idea of who that booster is. If you're not in your home region, then if they are in a fleet of a decent size, I'd assume OGBs and play it around that.
Tbh, the POS thing is just a bit of sugar coating. The big change is the nerfing of the t3 bonus, now if you want to get the biggest boosts you need a command ship. If you fly a command ship you are more than likely going to have it on-grid with the fleet or have a POS set up which is only practical for defensive play.
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I think that solo + link alt is an oxymoron. Unless we consider solo multiboxing still being solo.
What is the point of T3 links if commandships are better ? Just to do "solo" pvp with an alt link ?
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That's why it was called "solo" and not solo.
Are you seriously asking what the point of T3 links are or are you just being facetious?
They're smaller which is a consideration for Wormholers, they're easy to move around (cloaky), they're relatively safe offgrid (sig/sensor ratio), they offer a wider array of bonuses which can make them better than a command ship and if this 'has to be on grid to boost' thing ever makes it into the game they don't have the huge tag on them saying, 'HELLO, I AM THE BOOSTING SHIP', provided they're not the only T3 (of that type) in the gang, and provided that T3 gangs are more common that command ship gangs. ;)
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I am not being facetious. I may have played the game for many years, that does not mean that I deduce everything and all every time. So yes, I am seriously asking it because i'm curious to see what I forgot. Actually I am asking for opinions, like, you know, the concept of sharing info. I'm not a T3 aficionado.