That sounds like blobbing on both sides which does not apply to this.
When goons show up for an armor timer with double the numbers of the North, does the North undock?
You’re contradicting yourself. You say it doesn’t apply, and then you provide a direct example of when it does. I never said every engagement was a 6k+ 20 hour fight, merely that both sides will blob.
To answer your scenario, the answer is “maybe”. Will we take the fight they’re looking for? No, that’s stupid. Will we harass them in small stuff? Sure, if the opportunity arises.
I’m in the north. CO2’s going to have an armor timer coming up soon, and it’s gonna probably get ignored because Goons is blobbing and we’ll simply not win.
So, take it from someone who has been on both sides of the blob: This is working as expected.
They’re the bigger fish in this particular arena. They don’t “deserve” the win, but the meaning behind this accurately describes why they’re going to win that fight:
Nerfing their numbers just because they have them, that’s the ultimate blueballs. “Sorry folks, too many people, the last 500 who joined can go do… uh… something else…”. Are they going to get those 500 people turning up next time? Maybe, maybe not. Knowing how fickle eve players are, I’d be leaning towards not.
Not a contradiction. If both sides are similar, then no one side gains any advantage in terms of buffs/debuffs.
The net sum of mechanical disadvantages would be negligible when both sides have huge numbers (within 10%?) of each other since both sides suffer similar penalties. When one side has way more, the side with more suffers more penalties. You may screw with them in expendable ships since getting kills is now MORE POSSIBLE with their penalties in place. For example logi might not be able to save your primary because they can’t lock fast enough. Without something like this in place it’s impossible to break a target, so what’s the point of undocking?
Have you heard of the game Perpetuum? The way they handle ganging up is similar to this. If too many characters are close to each other, they interfere with each others electrical subsystems making each individual less effective in combat. At a certain point you don’t want to bring more people because of diminishing returns. It prevents one group from recruiting half of the server and completely destroying the other half. Not that it’s a good game or anything, but I felt a mechanic like that could find a place in Eve.
Even with this in place, the big fish in the pond will still win. I’m not suggesting it cripple the big guys so much that a HAW dread could solo a fleet of 100 machs or anything. It might however encourage more multi front wars with multiple objectives.
The problem is you simply cant tell the sides. Any mechanical method you put in place players can work around.
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Telling sides is the hard part. Standings could help with that, but could be gamed. 3rd parties of a healthy but low size would thrive!! But yes they could work around it; at the cost of inconvenience. All those nice fleet tools like broadcasts, fleet warps, and even comms chatter take a big hit. You would be less unified of a force in an effort to prevent an X% debuff. If you have enough guys, maybe you choose to just take the hit?
I know this is about as easy to agree with as jump fatigue, but look what that did for the game. Not being afraid of the big bad PL jumping through 9 cynos to drop on your single dread lead to everyone using their toys more.
I was hoping for ideas on how to iron this out tbh. Something simpler that gets the same thing done.
There is nothing that looks anything like your idea that is going to get the job done. Because your idea simply doesn’t get the job done.
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Are you posting with an alt or something? Your Killboard shows you have never even been in an alliance fleet before. Is it safe to assume you have a deep understanding of existing mechanics? If so, pick out a point from above and explain what it’s missing, or why it should be dismissed. Maybe an adjustment can make it viable?
If you love the blob then you really don’t have anything to add. There are hundreds of players that recognize N+1 blob warfare is not healthy for any game.
‘Everyone in that fleet’. Well that’s easily dealt with.
‘Standings’ Well that’s easily abused by setting your enemy to blue with one of your fleets.
‘Comms’ Uh, everyone uses 3rd party Comms anyway, so Comms are never going to be affected.
Also the penalty will never stop blobbing because it will still be more effective to bring more people. That or its even more abusable if adding 100 pilots makes the enemy 25% as effective.
And you are also imagining that most fights are two sides smashing at each other, forgetting all the third partying and alliances of convenience that happen at fights.
You are trying to just apply the stick to blobs here, it’s not going to work.
As for accusing me of ‘loving the blob’ LMAO. I’ve been calling for years for changes to actually break the blob (or at least force the blob to have skill.).
Just applying group based debuffs is not the direction to go.
Dead zones between Sov so you don’t have to blue your neighbouring system to avoid constant fighting just 1 jump away, DPS caps on ships so that instant volleying simply never happens and that small groups can always take some ships with them, those are some mechanics that actually start to add up to making blobs without skill less effective and less required.
Good. Constructive. I like this.
Lets see:
Standings aren’t fleet based, but if many guys in the fleet are red and blue to eachother that could confuse the system. It would also confuse the hell out of F1 monkeys who shoot at everything even if it’s not broadcast. Everyone spread points! Yes it’s a hard one to fix though.
You could use the aggression flags to help with this too. To skirt around the mechanic you would have to aggress members of other friendly fleets (who can’t be too close to you because of proximity accrual) constantly to make the game think you are in the enemy fleet. I don’t like that it would have to work like this because it breaks realism horribly, but we are talking about ways to circumvent the system…
If you are trying to get position on the enemy, you need to align to different things, take fleet warps and such at different times since proximity accrues a higher penalty over time. This means you need to jump gates in stages, fleet warp to different pings from different pilots to different points on the grid and other stuff. Having everyone on the same com channel would get quite confusing. Much easier to separate them at least until fighting time. OR you could just accept the penalties and do it the old way we all know how to do. The comms argument is not the strongest, but would add to the complexity required to ‘beat the system’.
I realize this will never stop blobbing. I never said it would stop it. The goal is such: If the enemy blobs you, it will be easier to give them a black eye after you undock and fight. Yes you will die and lose, but you will take some down with you. The other option is the standard blueballs stand down.
If you bring 100 extra guys it will not affect the enemy you are fighting since penalties accrue over time due to proximity. How long are you going to be at point blank on your enemy? Compare that to how long you and your buddies (even multiple fleets of buddies) will be waiting on gate in spitting distance of each other? Aggression could be used to halt accrual, but that would likely be used to game the system and/or be too complex to implement effectively.
I don’t see this as a bad thing on paper. How many are they bringing? That is what would calculate their penalty. As long as they are not in proximity to the other fleets this will not affect either side. Nothing mechanics can or should do about that. If a betrayal is in order it will happen. Once again, not trying to prevent the blob, just leveling the field slightly in order to facilitate fights that otherwise would never start!
Sorry I meant that to everybody in reference to the discussion. Anyone who does love the blob will not want things to change.
Not sure I follow. Fights should be encouraged IMO and you should have the choice to blue them or neut them. Not sure how this applies to anti-blob solutions. Please clarify.
I agree with the intent as that would make it meaningless for everyone to hit one target, but splitting guns and burning down multiple targets would would be a thing. That would be great though since otherwise logi have no chance! Since structures somehow magically have this ability we have to suspend realism a bit and allow this to ships I suppose? Here’s the problem with that though. If you have a damage cap on everything so it can’t be alpha’d, everything will catch reps. As long as you have enough logi nothing ever dies. (spais can tell your fleet who the next primary will be, so logi can pre-lock)
We sort of have that with the HAC DC module, but it’s not perfect and nor should it be. I don’t like when alpha erases ships since that’s no fun. I read an idea recently suggesting noise generated by locking someone stacks up and makes it take longer for others to lock the same guy. Makes it better to lock up several guys at once and test Logi’s ability to spread reps. I liked it, but you could just lock your buddy to prevent the enemy fleet from mass locking him as fast.
People should not be punished for working together.The real issue is the server instability.
If your neighbour is one jump away it gets highly tedious not blueing them, since not blueing them = shooting them in 95% of Null space. If instead there is a dead zone where no-one can claim sov then you don’t have to blue them because they aren’t right on your doorstep, so to get to you they have to roam, it might only be a small roam of 3 or 4 systems, but it’s amazing how much of a difference that makes. (could also be no structures and then be the highest income ratting in those systems, which then creates fights because people can be caught on gates rather than instant warp to tether of course, but that’s a further extension and a different matter).
This then means that since you aren’t blue with all your neighbours and they aren’t blue with all their neighbours, you don’t end up with a massive chain of ‘you are blue to my blues so I will blue you also otherwise fights get awkward’.
Which then means that some of the pressure to form larger groups is gone, leading to a natural solution to the blob, of removing some reasons it forms in the first place, rather than trying to put artificial penalties onto it.
Once you have DPS caps, logi caps can also exist including cap transfers. And should have been a natural progression of logic in your mind that such things were implied. All the other ideas suggested have been utterly abusable in ways like you listed. Also which primary, there will be lots of them.
You don’t need to change the game. You need to change the way you think.
Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the greatest generals in history, and he remained undefeated for many years. He was a highly aggressive and effective commander; and yet he would often have inferior numbers. Yet, he would still win. Do you know how?
Napoleon was able to beat superior numbered opponents because of a simple military concept commonly known as “Defeat in Detail”. Very simply put, he managed to distract his opponent, and have them split their forced among several objectives, and thereafter concentrated his army to achieve decisive victory with superior numbers at the ‘point of contact’.
Guess what? This concept also works in EVE Online. The trick to winning any battle in EVE Online is to separate your opponent, limit the point of engagement, and then apply concentrated firepower at that point of contact… Thereafter, you reform your force and eliminate the enemy forces consecutively in quick succession.
Admittedly, this tactic is difficult to pull off. It requires superior communication, agility, speed, command and control. Stop trying to change the game. Learn to play the game better.
I have a significant amount of PvP experience in FW campaigns, and nulsov, and I can tell you that there is a definite ebb and flow to war in EVE Online. The numbers equation changes on a 24hr cycle. Sometimes you have numbers. Sometimes you don’t. The mark of any good FC is the ability to undock and effectively engage under both conditions.
It always is a challenge undocking, as an FC, with an inferior force. But, you need to do it. You need to learn how to do it - and when you do, you sometimes need to change your objective. You need to move the goalposts. Instead of winning the objective, or achieving decisive victory, sometimes all you can do is harass. Sometimes you nip at their heels like ravenous dogs. Other times you’ll want to achieve limited victory, by isolating an enemy group and destroying it.
Stop trying to change the game. Learn to play the game better.
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If they defeat me they should 
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