Dev blog: Balance Changes Coming In The March Release

I ask, why?

You’ve not actually laid out an argument other than an appeal to history.

Yes, I understand that.

But the practical result would nonetheless be people preferring BS.
The reason people dont roam in BS currently, is because of the AU speed.

If its increased to 3AU, it stands to reason that players that at this moment have no problem roaming in Cruisers at 3AU, will also have no problem instead roaming in 3AU BS.

Do you see what I mean?

This leads to a power creep, where BS, with their far larger EHP/dps, supplant cruiser/BC roaming.


Furthermore if AU is increased universally, across the board, this has a dramatic effect on the reaction time of defense fleets. The AU speed change does not change the human/communication time required to mobilize for a defense.

BS from 2 to 3 AU is a 50% increase.
Ergo, Frigates would be from 5 to 7.5AU.

That would make sense if that was the case, but AU/s is not the only factor here. Industrials also move as 3AU/s and travel significantly slower than cruisers in terms of real-time per jump due to their low agility and warp speed acceleration.

When BS’ warped at 3AU/s (along with all other ships) they were not the dominant roaming ship. That was primarily held by Battlecruisers. Which runs as evidence that goes against your argument. In addition, cruisers are (post Retribution & March Patch) significantly stronger. Very few people would swap their Orthrus for a Raven, as the Orthrus is better at the role they’re trying to fill.

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Ok.

So is the AU speed not why people dont roam in BS?
If it isnt, then what is the point in increasing it.

As someone who leads defence fleets, no, it won’t. Warp speed doesn’t impact how long it takes me to ping for Carriers or a Titan to bridge my nerds. If anything it’ll allow the attackers more freedom of movement.

It will certainly make them faster but you implied that it would make them as fast as cruisers, which is incorrect. Hence me correcting you on it and pointing out that the analogy you were using to predict behaviour was flawed.

Exactly.

AU increase wont affect the time it takes you to ping a defence.
But it will reduce the time it takes for the enemy to already arrive to prompt that pinging,

They will be there faster, than ever before.

Is that a bad thing?

I think so, yes.
Its a huge meta change that defender reaction time vs speed of arrival of enemies is reduced by 50%.

Please answer these.

I implied no such thing.

I stated it would make BS as fast, as Cruisers are now.
Which is absolutely true.

Furthermore, since alignment times are not changed, it means aggressors can arrive on site and aggress faster, whilst the targets escape is still restricted by the unchanged alignment time.

For example, Frigates would travel at 7.5AU, as compared to 5, to tackle ships that still have the same alignment time to enter warp.

Ie: A 50% increase in AU, is directly correlated to a 50% decrease in reaction time of a target.

Im not trying to hang you up to dry, or attack you.

But I think you will agree that these are valid things to consider regarding a universal AU increase.

The whole point of discussion, is for all of us to provide input, so we all understand the issue better.

no, it’s not. Warp speed is not the only aspect of travel, align time is as most important. You oversimplify it. It’s one second per 1 AU warp increase. Doesn’t matter that much with slow align BS.

proposal was not to increase by 50% but by 1 AU on all hulls. It’s hard to catch what are you thinking about sometimes.

You still arent understanding.

Alignment times are NOT changed, only AU is.

Currently a Frigate arrives at a rate of 5AU inorder to tackle a target.

If that is increased by 50% to 7.5AU, that directly means the Frgate will arrive 50% faster to tackle, and the targets reaction time is reduced by a correlating 50%.

That is irrational, inequitable and unfair.
A 1AU increase for all ships is not proportional.
If BS is increased from 2 to 3AU, thats a 50% increase.
If Frigate is increased from 5 to 6AU, thats a 20% increase, only.

But, as we’ve already discussed, it’s only 50% reduction in travel time on paper, it is not that in real life. The time saved occurs in the window between previous max warp speed (2AU/s) and new max warp speed (3AU/s) and the accelleration time between those two.

To break out some maths, let’s take a 27 AU warp. The formula for working out time spent in warp is as follows;

T = ln(v/k)/k + (27k-d1-d2)/v + ln(v/s)/j

Here’s what that warp looks like currently;

image

59 seconds (ish)

And here’s what it would look like with a warp speed of 3AU/s

image

51 seconds (ish)

Or, to be exact, a 14% decrease in travel time, which is significantly less that 50%. And this is before we talk about align times, but I do not have the calculation for time-to-3/4-speed to hand to prove that point some more.

The 14% increase will add up only over LONG DISTANCES, i.e, cutting 1-2 minutes of travel time (mostly from 50-100 AU warps, where the increase is closer to 20-30%) over the course of an entire roam without impacting the tactical maneuverability of the doctrine to a great extent, which will lead to them being used more without increasing their power level. As I’ve said before, there are other tools, but saying “You just shouldn’t roam in Battleships” seems like a suboptimal state of the game, as ships are balanced within the context of its counters, and ships like Battlecruisers and Cruisers are intended to have their power mediated by the potential of running into Battleships. If people do not have the option to roam in Battleships under any circumstances due to the large amount of time it adds to roams, that upsets the ecosystem of balance. Hence why I suggested this.

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read with understanding what I wrote. Where is the proposal to incease warp speeds by 50%? Just because it happens with BS (1AU increase is in fact 50% for that type of hulls) it doesn’t mean 50% for all other types of ships.

that why slowest ships gets the most benefit without going over edge with the smallest and faster we already have.

Changing it would upset the current balance in the ecosystem.

People do have the option to roam in BS, if they are prepared to take the time to do so.

Otherwise, they can use frigates/cruisers/BC.

Speeding up BS just so they can roam faster is not a reason to re-align the entire AU system that EVE operates at.

Then its a crap deal for other non-BS ships.

Why should slower ships get the most benefit?

Currently, people do not do so, because the amount of time it would take to roam in a BS is inordinately large compared to the benefit in power gained, which I believe makes this current balance ecosystem unhealthy, and is why we see such a large amount of weird doctrines specifically designed only to hunt Cruisers and BCs, as those are the only opponents you’re likely to ever face outside of strategic objectives. Hence my desire to change the situation.

Also I’m a little miffed you didn’t even comment on all the pretty maths I did proving you wrong :frowning:

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