I'm going to try and avoid most of the tempest in the teacup over the fighter changes targeting the 1% reaping rewards in their carriers and supercarriers while ratting. Instead I'm going to point out something that should be obvious but seems to be ignored in all of this.
Capital ships should not be efficient platforms for ratting. Period.
What I mean by this is that it never made sense to me how rats never escalated or disengaged when faced with a superior force. Wormhole drifters at least were made smart enough to escalate when faced with capital ships forcing wormholers to invest more capitals in risky w-space to reap the rewards offered. And the new Blood Raiders shipyards also escalate to match the force arrayed against them. But regular anom rats? Plink away at ships orders of magnitudes larger with sub-caps while ignoring fighters ripping them to shreds.
One will argue, and often do, that the investment in a capital ship demands that ratting be easy and rewarding. The risk, they posit, comes from losing the ship to other players. Which is bullshit and we all know it. Null sec space with its intel networks, immediate local, and nearby allies means that ratting carriers dying is by far the exception and not the rule. Obviously if it was a real risk fewer players would be doing it so much and so successfully.
Besides, investment should never be considered a strong balance factor because once the investment is paid, the payout and its duration over time far outstrips it. This has been true when super Dramiels with snake implants were untouchable, it was true when Svipuls were dominating, and it was true in any other case where time/ISK investment were far outweighed by the advantage gained.
If CCP is going to allow carriers and supercarriers to be used for ratting, I think they should make it as difficult as ratting in a battleship successfully. Have rats target fighters with prejudice; have deadly capital rats spawn with capital warp scrams; or have the rats run away from the carriers. Anything to make the reward scale appropriately with the risk.
And anyone complaining that the current reward from carrier ratting is matched by high sec incursion running, I'll point out another obvious fact: two wrongs don't make a right.
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To be fair, the forum post about this includes this as the final line about the changes, "We are working on changes to Anomalies that will reduce the effectiveness of Carriers and Supercarriers. These changes will be announced at a later date."
ReplyDeleteOf course you are correct. But the RMT cartels' clout is such that CCP will never, ever reduce the null sec ISK generation to anything that is fair to the rest of the game styles.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that they reversed out a big chunk of these changes is testament to the firepower of the cartel lobby group.
And as for the RMT mouthpiece "to be fair" comment, we all know CCP's track record with changes announced at a later date....
We all know your track record Dins... all empty accusations, complaints, and bile about a game you don't even play.
DeleteHey RMT cartel mouthpiece, I never ever said I don't play the game. You stated that, not me.
DeleteYou have actually indicated neither, but it doesn't matter really. You're either a sad loser who can't let go of your anger about a game you stopped playing or a hypocrite who throws name-calling tantrums in comment thread complaining about CCP yet still gives them money.
DeleteSo which is it? Angry loser or angry loser AND hypocrite?
(See, by assuming you don't play, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt!)