CCP gives us tools and performance improvements to make 1000 vs 1000 pilot fights possible. Players escalate warfare to coalition bloc level, because min-maxing power gamers do that, and try to jam everyone they know and their brother into a system for a 2000 vs 2000 fight.
Predictably, the node falls over and bad stuff happens to the pilots involved.
Pilots then petition ship losses. CCP,
predictably, tells them to forget about it. Players then whine and complain. Those players deserve an Eagle Kick to the face.
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| Those players deserve an Eagle Kick to the face. |
Remember a bunch of posts by folks decrying combat in EVE as it is a numbers game, and if only there was terrain that would make fleet engagements more interesting ?
ReplyDeleteWhat folks haven't cottoned onto, is that the nodes are the terrain. Great big tubes of connectivity. Terrain so flat and open that it takes 3000 players before the terrain begins to affect combat. Currently folks appear to be upset with the concept that perhaps EVE should set population caps in systems.
Look, if naval combat can be considered any kind of analogy for EVE, then consider the battle of Salamis. Big fleet out on big ocean spread out. Defenders in smaller big place with narrow place lying in between limiting the engagement opportunity. Big fleet baited into narrow place and cut to pieces as big fleet couldn't properly engage.
EVE allows large fleets to jump into a destination without the use of continuous channels, so the analogy falters a bit. However, If the home team gets their first, there's limited combat as the incoming folks trickle in and are obliterated.
Gee, just like Salamis.
Folks want tactical fleet fights? Make the terrain smaller for fighting. Put pop caps on systems. Put mass caps on cyno activity to limit the rate of influx into a system.
Look, the old strategy was flood the node to crash it so folks couldn't land. Then CCP beefed up nodes to eliminate that strategy until the fleets sizes ballooned to bring the old strategy back. Why did they bring it back? Because that is the only way to bring the 'terrain' into play.
You want more strategy? Provide meaningful terrain. The design of the EVE universe provides lots of choke points. However, jump drives make a mockery of those choke points. Now jump drives made a different kind of choke point, but they're not as limiting. Set limits on the rate of travel by mass through cynos. lots of sub caps and a few caps, or more caps but way less sub caps. Set population limits by player. Let the brain trusts max/min these two 'terrains'.
By increasing the difficulty of massive fleet engagement, you will get more strategic and tactical gameplay
On the one hand, I understand what you are saying. We have had plenty of warning in null sec that nodes aren't going to hold up to big fights with lots of drones. Nodes have crashed or behaved badly before and they will again. Going in with the expectation that everything would just work would be pretty silly.
ReplyDeleteOn the flip side, you come across with a tone as though feel that null sec blocs are somehow doing this to themselves (Min-maxing power games? We call those people "dead" in any PvP game.) and that the game mechanics are just fine.
But CCP put in tidi so that bigger fights could occur. CCP loves big fights. CCP encourages big fights. CCP wants big fights. This sort of thing gets them more press than almost anything else in the game. Now they are getting the biggest fights ever, their servers aren't up to it, and we have a situation where the bloc that gets in a system with 2,500 ships first wins. Is that working as designed?
I think you get what you get when you commit to that large of a battle. The idea of applying for a reimburse from CCP wouldn't even occur to me. But if CCP wants these big fights, they have to make them work.
I'm going to take a whole blog post to respond to this, but short answer is: players will always overwhelm the node eventually; expecting CCP to reimburse a willful act of foolishness when one goes into a battle like this is beyond the pale.
Delete"Nodes have crashed or behaved badly before and they will again" Wilhelm, it aint the Node that are behaving badly, it's the players,especially the one who KNOW and understand the mechanics and limits as the game currently exists... The players will ALWAYS send in moar troops as long as the other guys does... cause numbers win... In EvE as it is IRL... Better tech and tactics can ALWAYS be swamped... If you can't kill em fast enough, you lose.
DeleteWhat is needed is, as Knug said, is "terrain" effects and changes in the OP mechanic of the current Jump Drive enabled Titan Bridge. Period.
Like Kirith, my post on this topic was started last night...
The basic issue of stupidity being the RUS/CFC fleet jumping head 1st into the waiting fleet, and hoping either to mob them or crash the node. This issue is never going away as everytime CCP increases the limit the NS blob grows. What needs to happen is for SOV to be able to be taken without fighting over a timer in each system. So that we get 20 fight in 20 systems rather than one fight in one system.
ReplyDeleteCFC uses drone fleets to prove a point about how broken they are, even though they know this will only increase server load. Alpha maelstroms/tempest? might have been a better choice in this situation.
ReplyDeleteCFC cynos directly on grid instead of offgrid and then warping once the fleet is assembled. greed=bad. So eager for those super kills that they didn't kill any.
Why are you fighting again? You have these otec-b0tlrd-accords anyway. Fights are meaningless except as a circus for the masses. Bread has been divided already.
We are coming up on the four year anniversary of the DG fight in Providence Kirith, next Tuesday. I can't remember if you were there for that or not, but at that time it was the largest fleet fight at around 2,500 total in system. iirc. I find it brings to mind exactly how far things have come since then, not only in numbers, but also in performance. At one point that day I was locked in darkness for 37 minutes while the grid loaded, only to be brought back in my pod sitting in station. And that was only one of many problems we had.
ReplyDeleteThings change, but the essential elements remain constant.