Make Eve Risky again!

[Bananaboat_Blues]

Its been said before but I will be saying it again cause I think its important to stick to what made Eve a unique and interesting game.

I’ve roamed around regions of small, medium & big alliances, and have found that Rorquals have become to main source of income / production etc. ship in the game. This is not a bad thing, CCP buffed the ship & made it stand out as a ship you could almost afk while making money in droves.
Since then they have nerfed its isk making capability by reducing drone speed, mining amount & so on. (this is not a rant about Rorquals needing to get buffed)

However it seems CCP has missed a key factor in “nerfing” the Rorqual. Its unique capability of fitting a P.A.N.I.C module. This module is one of its kind, & introduced the playerbase to a “I can’t die no matter what you do to me or how prepared you were to kill me or how many people you are” Button.
Initially the module was used for combat purposes, since it made the Rorqual with its 7 mid slots a perfect ship for jumping long range & holding down enemy supers & titans while being invulnerable for 7.5 minutes (assuming max skills). This obviously got nerfed as it was a broken mechanic, but since then CCP has not looked at it since then.

It was even revealed that a CCP dev supposedly had been monitoring the situation of Rorquals dying etc. to make sure the ship was not too OP in defending itself untill help could arrive and supposedly concluded that enough Rorquals were dying and the situation was “fair”.

The problem about monitoring quantity of Rorquals dying is that if its noted where said ships are dying a pattern will instantly emerge. The obvious result is that Rorquals die in droves outside the reach of the major alliances / coalitions space, while inside very few die.
The reason for this is obvious and I am therefore not going to dive into why this is the case.

However. I feel the Rorquals panic module needs to be nerfed so that it balances the scales both for mid / small groups and for the massive Rorqual blobs of regions like Esoteria, Deklein, Branch & Delve.

It was proposed in other posts both on reddit & here on the forums to reduces the invulnerability time for the module, which would make response fleets have to emerge faster.

Another option was to make the panic module not function if a Cyno was already activated & vice versa.

Third option was for the module to consume / lock the given rock the Rorqual has targetd to activate the module thereby making it more risky to mine with 20 Rorquals or the like, while not affecting smaller groups at all.

Other options were of course a mix of the above options.

I hope we can have a constructive discussion regarding this issue (imo), and hopefully CCP wish to join in on the coversation

[elitatwo]

Aww… I came to see a proposal for removing incursions and gating anomalies to only allow subcapitals and left disappointed.

All I see is blobbh muppet complaining about blobbh muppets in nullsex.

[Old_Pervert]

Is the problem Rorqs, or is the problem the capital umbrella that XL alliances offer?

I had a similar thread on the subject, moreso on the fact that an XL alliance’s cap umbrella removes risk for the majority of capital ships. While I remain of the opinion that it is too much, the discussion had was quite stimulating.

[Bananaboat_Blues]

I mean if it wasn’t because the Rorqual could go immune to damage for 7.5 minute while having a cyno up, the XL alliances capital umbrella wouldn’t mean as much.

The options listen above reduce the chance of survival (assuming ship can’t tank normally) for everyone (also the small group ones), however the impact would be bigger on larger alliances, as they are much cooler targets, cause after all killing 1 Rorq vs 15 Rorqs which would you choose right?

[Old_Pervert]

What I wouldn’t give to bridge in a wave of smartbombing battleships into a Goon rorq fleet while they have their excavators out on the rocks. I’d be giddy. Heck, I’d be fully erect. Hard to turn down 3-500 billion in kills lol.

If I did do that though, I’d want to stock up on drone AIs first! Would probably make a noticeable impact in the excavator market lol.

Rorqs have enough tank that they don’t need a PANIC in an XL alliance; sure they have it fit just in case, but in 90% of cases, they have more than enough buffer to survive long enough for a cap blob to save them.

[Bananaboat_Blues]

Quote Old Pervert > Rorqs have enough tank that they don’t need a PANIC in an XL alliance; sure they have it fit just in case, but in 90% of cases, they have more than enough buffer to survive long enough for a cap blob to save them.

I disagree on the Rorquals having enough tank/ buffer to get saved without panic.

Specially when using fleets specially made to hunt them (T3BC spam / Legions).

The panic module is just there providing a 100% guarantee that help will always make it in time within the XL alliances. which leads to a blocks mentality that all Rorqs will be pushed there else constantly farmed

[Old_Pervert]

I watched a rorq die just the other day. He was a blue renter, and although we came with subcap support to help him (so that we could kill shiny WH ships, we honestly didn’t care about the renter), he still died because we had insufficient numbers to push them off and instead bugged out ourselves before we whelped. Then we camped them in for a while till they brought in reinforcements, at which point we got soundly beaten. It was a fun fight.

He did have a PANIC and he did use it. But we’re not an XL alliance, we’re minuscule in comparison. Had we more people online and not have to wait for people to respond to the ping, we definitely would have gotten there before he burned his PANIC.

Had our caps not been deployed for war, the spooky WH people would have been deleted in the shade, after our fighters blocked out the sun. Any reinforcements they brought would have whelped along with their initial fleet. There would have been no capital escalation that we could not have matched twice over, given current intel on super movements in the area.

To make it even better, we totally would have baited them in with our existing subcap response, then just lit a cyno on them to surprise buttsex them.

Capital umbrellas are a problem. At least… in my opinion they are. Others have different opinions, and valid points to support that opinion.

[JakeMiester]

Honestly,

As much as I love PANIC for my own characters, it is a broken mechanic. The ability to make a ship invulnerable to literally any size force for that long disincentivises any scale of group from “Ganking” these kind of ships. To be able to kill Rorqs in any kind of time you need to drop 15b worth of T3s/BCs or dreads which will ultimately die to any group ready to respond. Ultimately you should be safe for around half of the time you currently are, to give established fleets time to respond, but adhoc pings minimal time to save the ship.

[Bananaboat_Blues]

Old Pervert Capital umbrellas are a problem. At least… in my opinion they are. Others have different opinions, and valid points to support that opinion.

I agree capital umbrellas are a problem, but its not something that can be easily fixed, but would a reduced timer on the Rorqual have made any difference for your renters survival, the answer is no, cause as you said you didn’t have the numbers. However a reduced timer might have had an impact on a XL alliances Rorquals

[Old_Pervert]

As mentioned, the only reason we didn’t meet them before the rorq even activated his PANIC was because we were waiting for more members to log in. An XL alliance wouldn’t have that problem, because they generally have more members online.

Once we did get more members, admittedly the panic didn’t help. But our cap fleet would have. It would have responded faster (much faster) and it would have had a very different outcome.

I certainly agree that capital umbrellas are a very difficult problem to fix, however a shorter timer would not have affected the outcome in Delve (for example) either as they would have had a faster response time given the number of people online.

As you mention, Sleipnirs and Legions is a very dangerous combination. A subcap fleet going up against that will most definitely take losses… a capital fleet will lose fighters but be otherwise completely unharmed. They can react faster (all they need is a cyno on the rorq) with far less warning to the opposing force, and completely dunk a subcap fleet unless the subcap fleet vastly outnumbers them.

[Bananaboat_Blues]

Hence why I wish to make Rorquals in panic incapable of lighting a cyno

[Old_Pervert]

I can burn a cyno cepter over in very short order though… takes 20 seconds per gate on average, they should have more than enough tank to hold for 3-5 minutes even with 20 sleips punching their teeth in.

Assuming the cepter warps in at 50, it should survive long enough to get at least one cap through, and then said cap just lights its own cyno to bring in everyone else.

[Bananaboat_Blues]

Sure but that would still make more of a “challenge” than now which is the intention

[Darkwing_Duckington]

The biggest issue I can see is that they can PANIC and Cyno at the same time. At the point that a Rorq cynos up in any decent alliance you can consider it saved as you have no way of killing it to remove the cyno and it gives them plenty of time to form caps and jump to their guaranteed beacon directly on top of you. If they could not Cyno and PANIC simultaneously I don’t think it would be as much of a problem as if the Rorq lit a cyno you have a good chance of killing it if they don’t form quick enough or if they Panic you can try and delay their support fleet by putting down a cyno inhibit and putting up drag bubbles inline with gates or cynos in system.

[Cade_Windstalker]

@Bananaboat_Blues

The problem about monitoring quantity of Rorquals dying is that if its noted where said ships are dying a pattern will instantly emerge. The obvious result is that Rorquals die in droves outside the reach of the major alliances / coalitions space, while inside very few die.

I’m just going to leave this zKill link here… That’s the Goonswarm page for Rorquals for anyone who won’t or can’t click it. They’ve lost more of those than they’ve killed in the last year or so. You can also do the same sort of filtering by region to better account for people dropping corp or not being in a main alliance.

@Bananaboat_Blues

The panic module is just there providing a 100% guarantee that help will always make it in time within the XL alliances.

It’s not, actually, because if you’re really prepared to hunt Rorquals the actual timer someone has to get the cyno up is about two minutes. That’s the time it takes for a Mobile Cyno Inhib to anchor and screwball basically any chance anyone has of saving those Rorquals.

---

Basically my point is this. I caution anyone against basing a proposed change entirely on theory and best-case scenarios because people screw up all the time. In the case of the Rorqual they screw up to the tune of 223 Rorquals per month, on average, since January. While a majority of those losses happen to groups or individuals that would generally be considered smaller a fairly decent number happen in larger alliances as well. Plus a non-specified number happen to the alts of pilots from those groups who have, for whatever reason or other, decided to put an alt in a renter alliance and do their mining there.

[Scipio_Artelius]

@Bananaboat_Blues

if its noted where said ships are dying a pattern will instantly emerge. The obvious result is that Rorquals die in droves outside the reach of the major alliances / coalitions space, while inside very few die.

Obvious to what extent?

The data shows a pattern of exactly the opposite:

** base map created by Rixx Javixx

Goons have themselves lost more than 10% (inside Delve) of the Rorquals lost since the original rebalance on 15 November.

Between Goons and the large Russian alliances, around 50% of rorquals lost have been within their home regions.

So where is this obvious conclusion that all the loss happens in the little guys and outside the homes of the big groups?

Note:
Since the 15 November 2016 rebalance, there were 2167 rorqual kills to Monday. Graphing Rorqual loss since 1 January 2014:

Based on rorquals, I really can’t see the point of this thread. They are dying plenty and they are dying close to support.

For rorquals, EVE has never been more dangerous, no matter where they are being used.

[Bananaboat_Blues]

But said image of location of dead rorquals is manipulated, cause things went crazy when suddenly the umbrella was removed obviously shits gonna get set on fire.

Do try to look away from the tiny moment of Goons deploying & letting all Rorquals dying.

[Scipio_Artelius]

@Bananaboat_Blues

Do try to look away from the tiny moment of Goons deploying & letting all Rorquals dying.

Don’t like the actual data, so find ways to justify ignoring it.

Your assumptions were wrong and the argument isn’t improved by sticking your head in the sand.

[Bananaboat_Blues]

I’m not tho you are using “corrupted” data, due to a single event that “balanced” out the killing scales

[Scipio_Artelius]

@Bananaboat_Blues

I’m not tho you are using “corrupted” data,

Lol. The data is just the data. It’s not corrupted in any way. Just the raw stats of loss by region.

Goons lost 63 rorquals in a single week after deploying north. They’ve lost 219 in Delve since November.

Pull the bowstring longer.

Your original “it’s obvious” was complete ■■■■■■■■ because you didn’t even bother looking at any data before you drew your conclusion about what it would show.

It shows the opposite of what you claimed and now you’re still trying to justify why you were right, even though you didn’t do anything to confirm it yourself in the first place.

Even if you remove those 63 lost, Goons and the large Russian alliances have still lost almost half of the rorquals killed since November.

You are just plainly wrong.