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Jester’s Trek: Iterations
Like a tackler approaching a dangerous target, I’m going to spiral in on a topic. Maybe I’ll catch it, maybe it’ll warp off. Let’s see.
First, go out and read “Balancing costs and benefits“, a blog post by frequent Titan pilot and CSM member Seleene. I’ll wait.
Iteration (n), definition 2: a problem-solving or computational method in which a succession of approximations, each building on the one preceding, is used to achieve a desired degree of accuracy.
Take a small handful of pennies: a dozen or so will do to start. Toss them on a large flat surface, like your dining room table. Spread them out a bit, but not too far. A dozen pennies in a square about a third of a meter on a side is good. Now take a single dime and put it in the middle of the formation of pennies. Now then, your job is to move the dime outside of the square that includes all the pennies. But you have to move the dime so that at no point is it moving directly toward or directly away from any of the pennies. Try it. See if you can do it.
I’m betting you can’t.
You’ve now just simulated the difficulty of a dictor pilot trying to tackle a group of Titans. Even if you somehow survive to get in among the Titans (let’s say you’ve got a warp in), chances are you’re not getting back out. One of those Titans is going to blap you. They are carefully watching your radial velocity on their Overview and when that number drops below their gun tracking (which I assure you they have memorized), F1… boom. You’re dead.
This harkens back to what I posted the other day about guns having a 100% chance to hit a target if tracking is taken out of the equation, and the fact that they’ll do at least 50% of base damage. Base volley damage on an Avatar is 13,000+ HP… better than a alpha-fit Maelstrom.
Remember, the to-hit calculations are all chance-based. “Titans are getting their tracking cut in half,” you remind me, and yes, that’s true. When I play table-top war-games, I like to specialize in a skill that I think of as “double tap”. The best “to hit bonus” in the world is not as good as taking two dice rolls instead of one to hit the target. I’d rather have two dice rolls than one high-bonus dice roll. And Titans have six dice rolls, not two. And twelve Titans have 72 dice rolls. Even if you cut their “to hit” chance in half, someone’s going to get lucky.
Next, remember what I said about proliferation. Titans are becoming so common-place in the alliances that rely on them that we’ve got people dual-boxing Titans. They’re spreading like mad. The problem with Titans isn’t the one Titan you have tackled, it’s the fact that this is going to come and try to rescue the Titan you have tackled:
Did I say your dime has to out-maneuver a dozen pennies? I lied. It has to out-maneuver double that. Or triple.
CCP had to do something to combat this, and the solution they chose was to greatly reduce the scan resolution of Titans, to a 5mm base. You can simulate this yourself in EFT if you like using a Phoenix dreadnought, a Tech 2 Siege Module, and two ‘Halcyon’ Warp Core Stabilizers. If you do not assign a pilot, you’ll find this “Titan lock-time simulator” has a 5mm scan res, just like Titans will have soon(tm). Now fit a pair of officer sensor boosters with scan res scripts to our simulator, and put in a Quafe Zero. You’ll find that scan res increases to between 15 and 16mm. That’s sufficient to lock a carrier in 30 seconds, or a super carrier or Titan in 20-25 seconds.
Seleene describes this as a “troll” by CCP. I describe it as “my Revelation”, which locks targets of this size only a few seconds faster.
Is this the scan res nerf the perfect solution? Maybe. Maybe not. Seleene, champion of iterations, describes it as “kicking the can down the road.” I describe it as an “iteration”, but what do I know. Perhaps when the Dominion sov system was being put into EVE, it shouldn’t have been pushed out to Tranquility until every designed sov enhancement associated with it, such as treaties, were implemented all at the same time. If the fact that “short term fixes have a nasty habit of turning into long term fixes”, all I can say is you knew this when you put down your 60 or 70 billion for your “big toy”.
Iteration, by definition, includes making changes, checking to see if they do anything approaching what was expected, and making changes again until you like the results. You don’t get to be the champion of only the iterations that you personally like.
But in my opinion, the high money tears aren’t even about that, not really. The simple fact is that Titans will now have to wait 100 seconds to lock up a dictor, or 80 seconds to lock up a hictor. Therefore, they’re going to have to rely on strong sub-cap support in order to attack those ships, and can’t just blap them themselves. They soon won’t be able to just jump their super cap fleet into a fleet of sub-caps with impunity any more. And this appears to terrify every Titan pilot in the game.
I find myself unsympathetic to say the least.
I’ll have more to say about the cost side of the equation later in the week. That deserves its own post. But here’s a hint: “expensive” and “invulnerable” have different definitions in the dictionary, I assure you.
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It's all fine and dandy that CCP nerfed these things but they had better iterate on them later and actually make them useful in some capacity other than as mobile jump bridge. This better not turn into a long-term fix.
The game does not end at the battleship class, nor should it.
HAHA you think the nerf as planned matters at all.
How does having to wait an extra 30 seconds have any effect at all on my ability to shred sub caps with my Erebus?
If they're still there when i get a lock they're still dead.
means it takes alot longer to kill lets say 5 hics holding you down, means more time for something to come kill you. makes a big difference. So no need to make yourself feel better that your titan is not AS MUCH op as before with that comment.
What are the maximum number of targets that a titan can lock? If it's five or six, then other than the initial wait to get those five locks, then maybe not such a big deal. As you kill a ship, you start locking up the next one … by the time you've killed your fifth or sixth ship, the new target locks should start coming online.
isnt it being dropped to 3 max, too lazy to check but i think thats also a new change coming.
That would make the increased target locking times mean something then.
yup. It won't be blap blap blap, as they say.
With less scan strength, lest max targets lockable, and less tracking. Titans are much much more vulnerable when solo but still doesnt solve the problem when there are 50 titans on grid if they are properly spread out.
Yes. It's being reduced to 3 maximum locked targets.
Hi, meet my friend the Sig Amp, and the Auto targeter, that increases my maximum locked targets by 2.
Also, meet "Lock Queing"- This means that even if are near your maximum targets locked you can start the locks on as many more as you want, and wont get the "too many locked targets" until the lock countdown completes.
So basically a minute is. This means that i can have a que of targets in lock and blap away, and while the initial volley will be delayed by about 40 seconds, it will still come, and it will still be followed by more.
This patch in its current incarnation means exactly that more titans are now better, so instead of fixing the problem, you're going to make it worse.
I might be wrong about the sig amp but the auto targeter works fine to add to your maximum locked targets.
Sig amp is your answer? so that means not only sacrifice tank for tracking but now sacrifice tracking for a sig amp. Which means you wont hit jack unless they stationary
So sig amp isnt the golden answer bud. Sorry to shit on your parade again.
"means it takes alot longer to kill lets say 5 hics holding you down, means more time for something to come kill you. makes a big difference"
No, it doesn't make a BIG difference (a few more seconds to lock), but it does make A difference, which is what iterations are about. It makes a difference, which will play out over time. Depending on the results, other changes will be made. Iterations are not about big changes.
The fact that infini-whiner Grath is raging just goes to show that this nerf is quite alright.
Defintely a decent band-aid i would say.
But i feel Supers are in a good place now. Titans need a role, maybe it be capital killers. I dont care. The problem isnt that Titans are over powered. Its that their ability to acquire is OP. This all goes back to moons and sov mechanics, bot influence on the economy. Everything. CCP needs to make Titans alot harder to build and easier to kill. Which the easier to kill is being touched on with this next nerf i believe.
And I was worried about $5 gas…WTF was I thinking…..
with something of a problem like titans are now, it's probably better to over-do the nerf and then slowly knock it up if it's warranted than tip-toe'ing around. as everyone here would agree, there's too many titans to start with and they're too versatile "over-doing it" is the right thing for now.
Elise and I did a good Q&A on all this stuff last night on the Voices of the Void podcast which will hopefully be out in a day or two. Jester can talk about pennies and words all he wants, but CCP very much IS kicking the can down the road. At present they have no definitive timeline for EVER doing a proper role-revamp of titans. THAT is what my frustration is. They aren't even talking about it in any form.
This change? It took CCP Greyscale less than 10 minutes to do before handing it off to QA. This change was done with minimal solicitation of information by either the CSM or the community, it was literally booshed out with minimal notice. Compared to the last round of supercap changes done by CCP Tallest, where there was some back and forth and an exchange of ideas, this was a joke.
Folks, feel free to blame CCP if you have the perception that the entire point of a titan was all about combat. It was never developed properly and there are still ways that they could be moved forward without players in them feeling they've been screwed over. The way to do this is by expanding / explaining their role and providing new content for them that goes beyond just always shooting things. OFC, that would take giving them a proper look at.
Yes, you are right; Titans need a serious overhaul (like the one Tallest did, or probably bigger), but so does soooo many other things in Eve – get in line with all the other frustrated Eve players.
This is just a small iteration to counter a serious imbalance, and hopefully a good one, we will see. Don't expect small iterations to have the same process as major changes… it's just too expensive in dev hours.
Seleene posted this comment to my blog as well, and 0.0 grunt pretty much states my response. I've already blogged that Titans can and should get a proper overhaul, but something had to be done to balance how their abilities were being exploited. This is a good iteration in that direction.
I agree I belive Capital, super Capital ships need a overhaul a big one.
I realy don't know how / what to do with them at the moment.
I think CCP should iterate over the entire ship line not just the subcap ships that they are considering.
its fine to split ship in to categories but they have to spend some time on the Captal ships they are after all the "End game".
and i hate to see titans go for Smartbombs that just feel dumb.
With the previous post on how to reconfigure the ships of eve i think they should try and add more capital ships and perhaps even another type of SuperCap.
I think fleet battles should be won and lost not only by the number of ships but the composition of the fleet what would happen if Super carrier could carry reinforcements in conjunction with cloneVats and ships in bay a podded player could reship and be back in the fray instantly.
What would happen if having a titan on the field (your side you get a resistance bonus to subcaps)
the bonus should ofcourse be deminish like normaly stats so fielding multiple ships make no point.
what would happen if Cruiser and Battle Cruiser would give some bonus to battleships
what would happen if Battleships would give bonuses to Frigates and Destroyers
what would happen if Frigates and Destoryers would give bonuses to Cruisers and Battle Cruisers
my prediction is we would no longer see the blarps of titans there is more use to have diverse fleets
more use for new players to come to Null and have fun … when even Rifters are useful for FC we will se a huge increase in players in nullsec.
and i think we need a few other things
1# specialized Battleships size Ewar ships that can EWAR supercaps
2# specialized Capitalships that can blarp subcaps with ease
3# specialized Battleship size ship that can carry XL weapons and deal a blow to bigger ships. (Glas cannons)
in other words CCP needs to sit down with CSM discuss the ships, roles, try and make it so we don't end up in you have to fit your ship like "this" to be efficent and give us more fleet combat more ships lost and more wrecks for me to salvage
Yeah less titans is a good thing.
Nerfed titans is a good thing.
Get full fleets going again with every ship imaginable working together – WAYYY more fun, it's the way CCP wants EVE and the vast majority of players.
Even being in a fleet of 400 drakes is boring, I can imagine it is for titan pilots too.
While I agree with Seleene that this iteration might not be the best solution, CCP are iterating on features rather than ignoring needed iteration for shiny new features which will then just be put on the list for iteration and left there in favour of more new shiny features.
CCP Greyscale has been known for ham fisted changes (anomaly nerf), but at least with CCP's change in direction to more iteration over existing features there's a good chance that this will be revisited and iterated again if there are problems with it (again, just like the anomaly nerf).
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVcysUTgXDs
this is more fun