Sorry Brisc, but Arrendis’s long term predictions made me rich, not yours. You still get my vote for effort though.
You having a different opinion is fine, Brisc.
You responding with that childish 'You’re right, I’m wrong, so I’m going to make a false appeal to authority and say these two people don’t matter compared to the likes of Pando and Shines and ‘a dozen other major FCs’ and throwing this pity party and playing victim isn’t fine. It’s the kind of crap I’d expect to see on reddit. Granted, you do spend a lot of time there, so IDK why I’m surprised.
Let’s go back to the beginning, before you started getting emotional.
‘Seriously, stop.’
Laughable.
Nobody is asking for these structures to be invincible. What we’re saying is that making this set of changes will make it even more difficult for smaller entities to exist, period. Your specific issue, based on your repetition of ‘one guy in a gunner seat’ can be solved in a multitude of different ways that don’t require nerfing structures into the ground. Be that changing the way defenses are laid out, multiple gunner seats like the old POS’s, distancing the actual defense modules from the structure itself so they can be destroyed, even just not nerfing the PDS so hard. Read back through the thread, I’m not going to repeat all of them for you. You have eyes.
Discouraging people from forming small* groups will adversely affect large groups. Arrendis explained this just fine, I don’t need to repeat his words.
Structures themselves require significant work. We agree on that. But you seem to be putting your effort behind what appears to be another bandaid fix that will adversely hurt the smaller alliances. Maybe that makes sense if this were a real world, super serious real life galaxy. This is a game. There has to be some give for that element. Part of that rework can be re-visiting how structures are marketed by CCP and the reality of how they work. Again, Arrendis explained this better than I could in a short recap.
In their current form, no, structures aren’t really fun for anyone. Agree. But that doesn’t mean this is the right change to ‘fix’ them. Things like the PDS and Bomb launcher might be annoying, but they are at least effective to slowing down an assault on the structure. As YOU said, right now, the only way a small group really can realistically win against a large group is through a stalling/boredom campaign. No, that’s not fun. It’s literally the name of the game in this campaign. But if these changes go through like this, this will again implement another change that encourages centralization into bloc entities, or else people to just stop playing. See above for ways you could re-vamp structure combat defense so there’s more to it ‘than one guy in a gunner seat.’ Also, as others have pointed out, ‘one guy in a gunner seat’ has been a staple of Eve for a long, long time. Heck, it was even no guys in a gunner seat at one point.
Dark Shines and Pando are bloc level FC’s. They have been for what? 6+ years? Are you SURE they’re the best voices to listen to for all your PVP information? They’re very good at what they do, yes, but they’re human as well.
Issues regarding structure engagement at the corp, alliance, and bloc level, I believe it was Luigi put together a good post on that a bit up. Please see that. The minimum damage threshold is an issue when it comes to structures in general, but also structure ‘combat’ such that it is.
Honestly, dude, a lot of people tried to put forward a lot of thoughtful advice. Go re-read it. We agree, structures are and have been an issue. They need work. But Eve doesn’t need more things that discourage decentralized corps/alliances/entities and strongly encourage centralization. Look back at '14, '15, '16… do you think it’s coincidence that there just so happened to be so many more identified and independent groups back then? Or could there be changes CCP made to the game that placed burden after burden after burden on people trying to do their own thing, and made it highly advantageous to be in a large group, while implementing very, very, very few reasons to NOT be?
headdesk
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All those words and not one, not a SINGLE suggestion besides “just don’t do this.”
Headdesk, indeed.
Yes it does. Their defense changes what can reff them easily making them more killable
If that’s what you came to than you really are choosing to not listen. There have been suggestions on other things to do, reasons why people are concerned about it, suggestions to fix some of the other aspects of structures that complicate the issue.
In fact, I believe YOU are the only one in recent posts who has said ‘don’t do this.’ Everyone else has said this is a concern and here’s some options for something else you could do to fix it.
But no, you’ve dug your heels in and decided you’re dying on this hill. Okay. So be it.
Better yet, let’s put the impetus in your court.
You’re the player representative. What kind of suggestion are you looking for, since 40 posts of discussion doesn’t seem to be enough suggestion?
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State the problem, explain why it’s a problem. Look at how Aurora structured her post. She explains what they want to do, then explains why they want to do it.
I have read everything everybody has said, and I’ve gotten a few things from what folks are saying that I can pass on or take back. But the whole “don’t touch the PDS or the bomb launcher” isn’t going to fly because I think they need to be fixed.
I have no issues with other suggestions, like tether, but no tether on hull timers, as was suggested, will effectively reduce the number of defenses to one on big structures, because nobody will risk defending a hull timer where their fleet will get trapped before the fight even happens. Multiple gunners doesn’t really make a difference. Increasing the damage cap is another double edged sword that doesn’t help the small groups at all. Neither of those solutions seems to really help small groups, despite being made by small group people. The idea of limiting how much stuff a structure can hold hurts the small guys more than the big guys and just leads to structure spam, which is something they’ve been trying to fight.
So what, exactly, do the small groups want that I can pass on?
The increase of Damage cap doesn’t hurt small groups as I posted, If a group large enough to make cap hits my structure or corps of similar size, we most likely are losing it however im going to make it painful.
Will this effect medium corps? yes, maybe, but that can always be adjusted.
XL structures however don’t need the same level of protection from the “Big Guys”, because they should be considered Alliance Level Assists and if a 300+ alliance cant defend its keep from 20-30 guys do they really need it?
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Honestly, Brisc, all I wanted was for you to stop talking like someone from a giant bloc and applying that line of existence to everyone else because you know what’s best for them. It does not directly translate, just like low sec doesn’t translate to WH, or Null to High, and so forth.
You can’t say people won’t defend hull timers. Some will, some won’t, some GF’s will be had, some blue balls. That is no different than any other time in Eve.
You also can’t complain endlessly about one man in a gunner seat… and then scoff at the idea of requiring more gunners. You either want more commitment from the defender, or you just want free farms, be it the structure or their ships.
IIRC Luigi’s post wasn’t just about increasing a damage cap, but adjusting the damage threshold as well. This same idea can be applied to structure reinforcement timers.
Further, who said ‘don’t touch the PDS or Bomb Launcher?’ IIRC, everyone has either said ‘yeah, the bomb launcher is a little irksome, but it helps in this case’ or ‘just don’t stomp on the PDS quite so hard.’ Moving it from basically a smart bomb to a… I don’t even think there’s a good equivalent to what it’s being suggested as now, is a huge step change.
You want a ‘problem/solution’ post and then go out of your way to dismiss everything out of hand with nary a line and handwave.
So here’s your problem and solution
(And I do not make myself so arrogant as to assume to speak for all the smaller scale players in this game, merely my experience after being on the receiving end of multiple changes that have wiped out my playstyles over the years):
Your concern with the current structures seem to be about how you can’t do anything about the PDS or bomb launcher and they apparently stifle gameplay because of it. The concern is nerfing specifically these two modules so hard will discourage even further people from trying to do their own thing and put out their own structures(as has been said over and over and over again), which ultimately lends toward centralization into mega alliances. It may not be fun to fight in its current state, but per your own words in how you won the last war, holding out until the enemy loses steam is a viable strategy. These modules help facilitate this. Since you haven’t merely handwaved it away, a solution you can apply that would give you the enjoyment of finally blapping that mean PDS and bomb launcher unit would be to move the defenses off the structure itself, as batteries are. They would then be targetable entities that would offer some strategic choice in the engagement, and also provide a bit more of your ‘super real space galaxy’ feeling in that you can actually destroy parts of the structure network as you go, not just have it work perfectly until it explodes. If you really wanted to ‘require people to defend their stuff’ then go even further and require these batteries to be manned to some degree.
Also, go ahead and pass on all those things you’ve dismissed there. Aurora has specifically stated there’s a big set of re-works coming to structures that apparently we’re not going to get to see anything of to understand the larger context.
Thank you for your benevolence, Brisc, and entertaining my thoughts as some random nobody who doesn’t make the list of ‘a dozen prominent FCs.’
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@Brisc_Rubal Honestly some of these guys have a point especially @Arrendis ,
If you and the CSM and CCP want these things better…then re-design the F’ing things for Highsec, make them useable and defendable, somewhat with a gunner till backup can arrive…or at least can take a few ships with them instead of just being plinking targets the way they are now.
I am sure since we have Edencom weapons, CCP can make the PDS work in HS as well, and the AOE defense things like burst jammer and web probes for example.
After that amount of work is done, then add the bonus crap for being LS, NS, and WH to them. Otherwise all this garbage…is well just garbage and CCP can stick it up their arse.
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So here are my thought and some of my corp thoughts the PDS adding ammo and reload time that’s awesome i always wondered where they got the ammo from but the DMG decrease not needed as most fleets can stay out of the PDS.
I’m sorry the bombs i’ve never had a problem with the fleets we go on to reff the stations, we have our dps and logi ships and the bombs don’t kill us or force us off grid. Lowering the bomb that can load and increasing the time it takes to load them is ok i guess but removing them from stations that are smaller doesn’t make sense.
As for reducing the DMG of the missiles i dont think will fix anything except it will be even more AFK when reffing a station witch is what i thought CCP wanted to get away from. Increasing the missile speed is good.
As for the DD that shouldn’t be changed if FC are getting head shot from them they should chose to use something else. As a keepstar is huge and should have good advantages on killing subs and capitals but as with and station bring the right comp and the right amount of pilots and you can kill it.
So as for the changes that i see that need to be done is add more gunner seats i agree with this as you want more pilots involved and these stations are hugh they are not small by any means.
So for the Medium stations i would have 2 gunners for them and i would work it if they don’t have the gunners in that the DMG cap goes up so you can remove the shields/armor/hull faster as their is no one manning it no need to change the DPS of the station. It would make it faster to reff and not waste to much time. This would get more people involved in my option.
For the Large stations have 3 gunners and have the same concept as the medium stations as if their is no gunners your DMG cap goes up and for every gunner your DMG cap goes down same can be used for the DMG of the station too and for the xlarge stations i would have 4 gunners. I think this would fix some of the problem with stations.
In my opinion stations are not meant to be killed fast as they are not small things and can have a lot of defences. They are meant to be strongholds like the fortizar to be able to set one down and jump on your enemies and not have it removed easy so you can last a bit longer fighting in their space.
Let me know your thoughts on this as anything can be fine toned and i always like to hear other peoples options
EVE went to hell when “content” became unironically a synonym for “engagement”.
If all we want is to bash spaceships together, why have a sandbox in the first place? Might as well replace it with lobby and NvsN set matches.
A lot of people do in fact not play EVE for to get engagements. They might enjoy engagements, but fighting just part of the fun, not the reason to play EVE instead of some other game. For them, “content” is empire building, or mission running, or building spaceships, or exploration, or the lore, or running alliances. Or, yes, having a home station at the edge of space from which to stage exploration excursions or mining fleets or whatever.
EVE is a PvP game, but not all content is pvp, and engagements are not the be-all-end-all of the game for everyone. Not even for everyone who quite likes pvp. The function of structures originally was not to “get us fights”, it was to give us a sense of “our place” in space. A place we must fight over sometime, a place we can also lose, sure, but a place.
If structures have only become throw-away force multipliers for fleet fights, they’ve failed their original purpose. Which is fine, it sometimes happens in development that things change radically from original intent - but like @Arrendis says, if that’s what they are intended to be now, CCP should clearly state the changed design intent.
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well wormhole corporations gonna be evicted even more now,there will be no point to put astrahus in c2 or c3 wormhole because cheeky fleet will ground it within few days knowing its now almost defenseless… CSM forgot that wormholes still exsist.
anyway eve is nolonger sandbox gameplay because its forced pvp gameplay,no pvp = eviction.
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Well imagine that. You want someone’s space, you have to work for it.
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Citadels should be getting a buff, not a nerf. Jump bridge POS that were set up right were ‘scary sticks of death’ and its laughable how weak the replacement structures are.
Was it not enough to put jump bridges outside of the weapons range of nearby citadels?
This post should be “Hey, in order to bring L and XL structures more in line with damage projection of similarly priced captial vessels, citadel lock ranges are being extended to 4000km’s and damage is being increased by a factor of 10” instead of this kowtowing.
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So, I’ve had some time to sleep on things, and think about things, and first, I want to say this in public:
@Brisc_Rubal, I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention to patronize you1be patronizing toward you here, but clearly, that’s how it came across. I get a bit of tunnel-vision when I argue about stuff, and can easily lose track of how my tone’s coming across to the people I’m arguing with… especially when I should be discussing things, and not arguing with them. That’s on me. I am, at times, a colossal asshole, as @Elsebeth_Rhiannon and @Lauralite_Anne_Brezia can attest2, and I apologize for that. It shouldn’t have happened, and you deserve better, especially from a friend.
OK, on to the thoughts…
The PDS:
I really think this needs to be an actual point-defense system. I get what CCP was trying for with the current incarnation, basically a whole mess of flak cannons with tracer rounds streaming up into the sky, going after incoming fighters and small things, but… clearly, it ain’t working as intended. So why not?
I think it’s because the intention, while totally cool and thematic for structure defense… doesn’t fit EVE. Not mechanically, at least. With the exception of drones and fighters, nothing comes at you from all sides simultaneously. The ‘smart bomb’ style of defense only hits the automated stuff… and your own defense fleet, if they’ve actually defended you, and have a weapons timer.
Maybe split the difference with my ‘make it actual point defense’ idea (because as lovely as the ‘give them shield arcs’ thing is, it would represent a massive overhaul of the shield system in EVE, and I don’t think CCP’s going to do that) and make it a weapon that does X damage across Y targets… but not as a bounce, as a reverse BFG: an inverted cone.
You Q-target a point, and the damage applies to things in the cone from that point, back to the edges of the structure’s hit-box. But here’s the thing: it’s not ‘everyone gets all the damage’, but rather ‘a set amount of damage is applied. The more targets you hit, the less each one takes, as each one’s soaking up some of the incoming fire’.
Keep it short range… maybe a little longer-range than it is now, so that fighter-bombers can’t sit outside of PDS range with impunity, but with the reverse-cone AoE, clearing them off will be more than ‘push butan, kill bacon’. And little things will be able to dive in, make an attack run, and then get the hell out again with a chance of not being the thing that gets targeted.
The Bomb Launcher
The biggest problem with the Standup Bomb Launcher is that it’s… it’s not a bomb3. It’s an indestructible missile. You shoot it at a cruiser, it course-corrects to follow that cruiser. I’ve seen them make 180-degree turns to chase destroyers and frigates. And short of warping off… there’s nothing you can do to avoid it.
Structures already have AoE neut projectors. Make the bomb launcher into a counterable AoE damage projector. Again, Q-targeting required. It is not self-guided. And rather than a single indestructible bomb, it’s a cluster munition, shotgunning out a dozen bombs that each do a percentage of the current damage, but which all can be countered with Defenders, even if it takes multiple defender hits to kill each of the sub-munitions. If they’re not countered, they have an overlapping field of boom that means anything caught in the middle gets the full damage of the current bomb launcher, but things on the outskirts get less.
Bomb vs. Battleships
As far as the ‘bombs are so oppressive for battleships’ line from the FCs… yeah, gonna call bull on that one. FCs, like everyone else, are lazy AF. Battleships show up, form a ball, and just shoot the structure. Cruiser/HAC fleets, the individual pilots react quickly enough to warp off. Battleships don’t bother.
They don’t have a harder time with the bomb launcher than cruisers and smaller do. They’ve got the EHP (especially now, my god!) to sit there and get repped through it. You know me, Brisc, I’m the guy in a battleship fleet sitting there in a cruiser, doing the remote repair. Unlike the FC, I actually get to see the damage each ship takes, and not just listen to fleet members whining4.
Battleships just don’t take that much, comparatively. It’s the little things that do. The bomb launcher, not the PDS, is why small crap gets told to stay at perches. You never hear ‘battleships, stay up there until the cruisers have distracted it’. Doesn’t happen. Battleships have the least to worry about from the bomb launcher as-is. FCs just get annoyed at battleships being slow and fat because the general battleship gameplay is, well, slower and less kinetic, less exciting.
Missiles vs Caps
Ok, so, upthread someone said a well-fitted Astra will kill 1 dread every minute (but it appears to have been edited out? Dunno, can’t find it now). First off… uhm… not quite. A well-fitted Astra does ~20k dps with everything. That means it needs 75 seconds (1.25 minutes) to kill a 1.5M EHP Nag. (Hey, guess what, capitals get more resists now, too! You know what doesn’t? Structures.) A faction-fit Rev, rocking in at just over 3M EHP, 2.5 minutes.
With local reps, the Rev’s repping 28k/s… which means the citadel can’t kill it unless it caps the Rev out, and good luck doing that to something huffing Navy Cap Booster 3200s right before it cycles. So apparently, the well-fitted Astra will kill 1 dread every minute if the dread is bad.
And if that’s the case? Good!
I really don’t think these missile changes are beneficial, overall. I think reducing the damage the structure can do to hostile capitals, just after capitals get more tank, only means ‘yay, we’re back to capitals not dying even when people are dumb with them’.
Suggestion For How To Fix Citadels…
Or at least, how to make Citadels a far more fluid component of any battlefield.
Liquidate them! Ok, no, that’s just a fluid joke. Don’t do that.
No, instead, I think a far better option is one that doesn’t reduce the number of options, but increases them, one that would require a fair amount of work from CCP, but which would make structures far more responsive and introduce play/counterplay options into every single structure bash and timer fight. And coincidentally, it’s one I’ve suggested before.
Make Structures Hackable
No, not entosis crap. Entosis can eat my shorts. ‘Lock butan, orbit butan’ gameplay is boring as hell.
I mean make them hackable. The hacking mini-game. Give people an option to rock up and—if they can survive the attempt while the structure and any defense fleets might be shooting at them—shut down parts of the structure’s defenses. Or temporarily screw with the ACLs, so they can, for like 5-10 minutes, disable tether/docking. Or enable it, even.
Don’t want 1 guy in an otherwise-undefended citadel to be a major pain in the ass for your fleet? Turn off his guns. Sure, it’ll only last X minutes, but that’s X minutes where he ain’t got guns to annoy you with.
You can’t tell me that having that option increases tedium. Give people more options, give them more interesting things to do. Because customers with interesting things to do? They tell their friends about this cool move they got to pull in EVE, and maybe you guys should come back. Give them enough cool stories to tell, enough evidence of ‘yeah, the company is totally listening to their customers now and enabling interesting gameplay, not shutting it down’, and people will come back.
And you’ll retain newbies, who want to get to do the cool things, too.
1. I totally intend to patronize you, as I intend to continue to enjoy the streams you do every week on Twitch. So that’s a bit of messed-up language use, eh?
2. And both are probably right now going ‘Arrendis can apologize? Are we in some weirdo alternate reality?’ Ok, Else probably isn’t, I’m pretty sure she’s gotten one from me in the past, too. But it’s something I definitely need to be better about.
3. Yes, we have real-world fin-stabilized bombs that can course-correct, but they course-correct because they’re moving through a medium, not the vacuum of space. The ‘bomb’ here would need thrusters, and if it’s got thrusters, it ain’t a bomb, it’s a missile.
4. Hell, I’ll come right out and say it: FCs do not have the first clue what’s killing their fleet. CCP should not listen to FCs about that kind of crap. They don’t. Generally in a fight, they don’t even know what they’re losing unless the logi is telling them, because they’re focusing on their tactics and the other guy’s tactices. And that’s fine. That’s their job. Keeping track of what’s dying on our side is my job.
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I think the way players would deal with this is by bringing even more N+1 to reduce the damage taken to bearable levels, and I am not sure if that is the kind of gameplay you wish to encourage here.
What’s that? Counterplay? OMG! (Seriously, not looking to be a jerk here, just making light of it a bit, but you’re describing exactly how it should work: Challenge → counter → counter-counter)
Also, if they do that, you just target carefully to minimize the number of hostiles in the cone. And none of this ‘HERE’S WHERE IT WILL LAND’ displays, either. Let people have to scramble to get out of the DPS cone while they’re taking damage and can’t be sure exactly where the cone is.
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I’d say some visual indicator like currently exists with PDS flak focusing in on targets in range, but have it more ill-defined in the variation you’ve suggested, giving people an impression of where they need to get away from, but only really knowing when they’re no longer getting hit by damage.
Right, while it’s firing? Absolutely. But all of the projectors that get q-targeted have a ‘look, here’s where it’s going to land’ that’s visible a good 5-10s before the effect hits. So people can move out of it and not get hit at all. And frankly, that’s annoying, and kinda dumb. You can’t dodge other weapons-fire, after all. (Yes, sig radius applies to most weapons… it should apply there, too.)
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yeah, burst projectors are neat, but are very limited in their applicability
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