Jester’s Trek: COTW – Nerfs

By Ripard Teg | Aug 16th 2012 5:41PM
64 Comments

We are proud to present selected stories from this magnificent internet spaceship blogger. If you would like to read more we invite you to visit his blog here.

Jester’s Trek: COTW – Nerfs + 70%

So far, while several CSM members have been grumbling into their coffee in my general direction, only Two step has been courageous enough to respond directly to my post yesterday.  Unfortunately, his response is rather… well… you read it:

Uh, supers already got nerfed. From what I hear, they are being used a lot less in nullsec (the big fight yesterday was the first major super loss in a *long* time).

I think the minutes didn’t capture our desire for tech to be nerfed properly. It came up several times, and as you can see, CCP did manage to get to it well before the winter…

My response:

Sigh. Very slowly, then: the problem with supers isn’t whether they get used or whether they don’t get used. The problem with them is that they’re freakin’ impossible to blow up unless you have “16 or 17 Titans.” Hint: that is a problem.

More succinctly: the problem with supers is that they get produced in large numbers but die in tiny numbers. And since only a small fraction of the EVE player base can afford the freakin’ things, those players amass great personal fleets of them. This needs to get fixed, and the CSM needs to help CCP find the fix.

In a game that needs more conflict drivers, describing alchemy as a “nerf” for tech is rather ridiculous. It’s worse than a nerf: it’s the equivalent of a NASCAR yellow flag, making tech moons not really worth fighting for. In the meantime, everyone keeps driving but nobody passes. The incredible bank of these things just keeps going to the same dudes.

Again, very slowly: Tech at 100k per unit is the exact price tech was at prior to OTEC… you know, when tech was just ridiculously overpriced and over-needed instead of hilariously, ludicrously, incredibly overpriced and over-needed. Guess what: a Hulk is still 70% tech, even with alchemy.

Why the CSM can’t see these things is a mystery to me.

I also find it difficult to believe that the CSM’s need to see tech nerfed wasn’t captured in 165 pages and only the gods know how many back-and-forth updates.

Thanks for responding, Two step, and thank you even more for having the courage to beard the lion in its den so to speak, but damn man: a stronger response.  Please.  Put it on your blog if you want to, but these are major issues that need to be responded to.  Now.

As for the rest of the CSM, same same.  You more important members have blogs.  Use them!  We’re supposed to be having a town hall.  Have one!  Where is this famous “increased communication” that we were promised?  So far, you guys can’t even equal CSM6′s record in this regard, and CSM6′s record was sad.

EDIT (16/Aug/2012): I missed it, but the CSM is having a Town Hall.   Which I can’t make, because I already have a commitment for this Saturday.  Sigh.  More than three days warning would be nice.

Ripard Teg

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  • F26

    You should put in the title this sad excuse for a ported blog was just you crying about supers. I don't like being mislead in the name of whining vendetta against supers. -1 reader for any of your future blogs.

    • EVE

      Yeah all this guy does is bitch about everything I'm sick of reading his shitty little blog. Also why do you care about supers so much if you are in shitty ass syndicate.

  • SpeakerofTruths.

    Forget about supers. You can grind FW for a month in a frigate and get yourself a super these days.

    NERF FW.

    • Spaceman

      Yeah. First there was incursions and now the FW isk printing press. CCP really needs to overhaul the PvE stuff in the game and find a decent balance.

      • Asdvap

        FW takes isk out of economy and transfers isk from player to player. It doesn't generate isk it generates LP. Which is then transferred via the purchase and sale of items into ISK that has been made from actual faucets, like missioning or complex running. It is not an isk faucet, it's an isk sink.

        • derrp

          FW is not an isk sink. By your logic mining is an isk sink because it does not generate isk but generates materials (which is what LP does in essence, if you want to convert it to isk) that you then sell or use to make items that you then sell.

          • Asdvap

            You spend isk on LP purchases sending it into the ether of some tracking wallet somewhere that CCP accesses to get cool stats sometimes. Thus it is an isk sink. You likely haven't done much PvE or Faction Warfare if you didn't realize this. Until you can get LP items for free from it, it will remain a sink.

            Mining is not an isk sink or an isk faucet, but rather an isk transferring mechanism. You transfer materials into isk from other players, then the materials are made into an item which is sold/used by other players, for isk from other players. The only real isk faucets(IE a part of the game that makes isk from nothing) in the game are bounties, mission/incursion rewards, and wormhole bluebooks. The manufacturing section of the game, is literally just about transferring isk to places from places.

          • masterochi

            ASDVAP is absolutely correct in this regard. Manufacturing barely pays, and frankly a mission makes me more ISK than building a BS and trying to sell it.
            'Crafting' sucks in Eve.

          • Anonymouse

            Unless you do the walmart thing and sell in bulk….

      • Mr. Peanut

        At least FW encourages pvp and isn't risk free isk. The main problem with incursions was that you could make lots of isk while risking little to nothing. At least FW follows the logic of greater reward with higher risk.

  • Sameyaa

    Ripard Teg it is good that you choose to express your opinions. I am glad you did that, really… now please allow me to explain about how stupid your opinion is….

    BEFORE all the super nerfs: Supers had incredible ehp, they had full sets of fb and fighters as well as unlimited regular drones. Titans could instapop anything cruiser and up. When fielding a hand full of titans and supers you could tear apart any subcap fleet. There was simply no way a subcap fleet could keep a titan/super fleet tackled becasue all hictors aswell as dictors would get instapopped. A few minuted into the fight half the subcaps would be dead. At this point there was only one counter – a counter drop with more supers. Even if shit really hit the fan you used to be able to logoff or self destruct. THAT is where all this "nerf supers and titans" arguments came from.

    • guest

      http://i.imgur.com/W4YHQ.jpg

      get Skillz, Titans were never able to insta pop a proper used ship of a proper skilled pilot (no shield rigging skills ftw!)

      • hirrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

        You clearly dont remember when you could DD anyhting you could lock

        • guest

          oh wow.. one subcap down every 10 minutes.. i remeber times when a whole grid died at once :P

          • -a-

            try 30 subcaps down every 10 minutes

            and those subcaps usually being logistics, command ships, hictors, dictors etc.

          • DekCo

            Not sure why your comment is being negrepped. Guess they don't know what your talking about. Triple armored BS ftw unless there were two titans, then you were fucked.

          • ViperRum

            try 30 subcaps down every 10 minutes

            and those subcaps usually being logistics, command ships, hictors, dictors etc.

            Exactly. And then there are the super carriers that would kill just as many ships as well. In the first 10 minutes you'd lose 20% of a maxed out fleet.

          • anon

            And how is that any different from ze blob bringing 800 vs 200 – same end result but now with tidi at 10%

    • http://evedreams.wordpress.com/ dreamersofreality

      Incerdible EHP wasn't the issue with Supers.

      It was the drones, and to be exact it was too may NORMAL drones. Full sets of FB and Fighters is fine, it was the billions of normal ones that wasn't. Having a hard cap on supers on how many normal drones one could have in the bay would of been the PERFECT fix. Say 30 or 50 of any type of normal drone (sub fighter ect) could be carried in the bay, this would be a scripted number that is hard wired into the hull. To also fix the issue of "carrying more drones" in your hangers, this scripted number checks ALL holds of the ship. So the only way one could possibly carry more drones then whats allowed would be to have a weak little hauler sitting nearby, a ship that can be one shotted.

      Titans still can blap anything on field as they could before, because this games mechanics are based on % chance. Two or 3 titans back then and even now still can't hit a ship thats got its trans running. Get 10-15 on field and then they would be able to hit EVERYTHING regardless of trans. Reason being they have 6 guns each multiplied by 10 and given a 1% chance to hit said target, ya at least 2-3 of those guns will hit each volly since they now have a 60% chance to hit that target. The stupid nerf was the removal of drones from titans, its not like 5 heavy drones or even 25 light drones were OP, the reasoning behind there removal was stupid same for dreads too.

  • Sameyaa

    After nerf:
    A titan/super can be kept permanently tackled by a single dictor. Once tackled they cannot self destruct or logoff. Supers/titans can easily be killed by a subcap fleet now not requiring even a cap fleet. They cannot even kill battleships now. A tracking fit avatar does LESS damage than a abbadon to a mwding drake that has no transversal. So essentialy atm the entity that has subcap superiority automatically wins even if the super. Since supers have only one set of fb now, those fb are usually killed by subcaps or smartbombed to death which leaves only the titans for dps. And we all know how terrible the dps of a full tank fit titan is. And aside from the occasional dd's a hand full of supers combined with a full subcap fleet can easily tank and kill a fleet with more supers and titans. And as you saw yesterday, when the -a- supers got tackled it was all over since they did not have subcap superiority.
    ago.

    • DekCo

      And as you saw yesterday, when the -a- supers got tackled it was all over since they did not have subcap superiority.

      The 100+ supercaps fielded by the other side had absolutely nothing to do with that at all.

      • M1k3y

        So 120 Titans and Supercarriers had NOTHING to do with the death of 15 Supers? Yes having the subcap majority is important to winning a battle, especially now that Titans/Supers can't kill entire fleets w/o support.

        The first Hel to go down was pretty much alpha'd by doomsdays. After that, top damage on the supers was, the vast majority of the time, a supercap. Don't go pretending Supers were unimportant in causing the death of -A-'s supers.

        • DekCo

          I forgot to to put quotes around the first sentence so my bad. Still you should have figured it out. It was the last sentence in Sameyaa's post. The second sentence of my post was pure sarcasm and nothing more. Hope that clears it up.

    • Bear1990

      " A tracking fit avatar does LESS damage than a abbadon to a mwding drake that has no transversal"

      Dafuk do you get your stats from? Did you fit Mag Stabs to your Avatar?

      • Sameyaa

        if you dont know try it on sisi… thats what its there for…

    • http://evedreams.wordpress.com/ dreamersofreality

      Supers were the anti blob. Goons cried, CCP nerfed, and the games been on downhill slide ever since.

      • Ex -A-

        SC's became the blob.

  • Sameyaa

    "The problem with them is that they’re freakin’ impossible to blow up unless you have “16 or 17 Titans.” Hint: that is a problem."

    LOL dude have u even been a superca battle recently?? before ncdot started fighting solar in geminate, there was a engagement where ncdot dropped only supers and carriers. Solar had subcap superiority, but had considerably less caps on field. ncdot fbs and drones from carriers were swiftly killed by solar subcaps leaving them defenseless while 10 solar nyx's went to work getting multiple ncdot supers in structure before they got in pos shields. What does this tell you? with the crap ehp nyx's have u can easily kill one with just a few supers.

    Anyways, for you to argue that supers need even more nerfs is comical to me. I think u should buy a super and try it yourself before you sperge your biased opinions that were only true half a year ago.

    • Corteztk

      Can you say Titans? I think mom's are reasonably balanced. Titans still just can't be balanced with the numbers they exist in.

      Super caps should never have been able to be built in the quantities they exist in.

      • Sameyaa

        A tracking fit avatar does less damage to a mwding drake with no transversal thana abbadon mate. read my previous comments i made 3 posts but they got split between other ppls posts.

        • Corteztk

          sameyaa we aren't talking about damage they put out. We are talking about killing them when one side has 50 they can put on field. It's almost impossible. Only way to kill a titan is with more titans. Unless you can get one alone for some weird reason which rarely ever happens.

          • Sameyaa

            But you can make that arguement about any other blob. Like a CFC mael blob… only way to counter them is a bigger blob? so should we nerf maels?

          • Corteztk

            I'm sorry Sameyaa but that is a stupid argument. There are many counters to Maels. That is called balance.

            Please show me the last time a titan was killed when someone had 20+ of them on field. Without the other side having more titans. You can't….why? because there is no other counter.

          • Sameyaa

            titans can easily get killed now. only reason you havent seen any die after the nerf is because no one fields them anymore unless they are sure that they have overwhelming advantage. IE: only coalitions that use titans atm are CFC and HBC. The same people who also outblob you with subcaps on any given day.

            Are you telling me that if pl only used 20 titans (with no subcap support) against 300 -a- tengus that the titans would own the field now? offcourse not. PL needs the subcaps that test brings to make sure that their supers are safe. That is how the game works now. Supers>caps. Subcaps>supers.

  • Space troll

    Ripfag motard, just a piece of common sence, eh 20 bil.ship should be hard to to kill, with exemptton of the he'll of course, you need to learn how to organize welp fleets,but let's face some people can't go face to face with goon or PL, Fucking deal with it learn to accept your limits and not cry to CCP every six months beggingb for a nerf because you couldn't find your way out of a wet paper bag. HTFU and get your ballz out of the jar, over and out!

  • herp

    Obviously none of you are reading the article. He writes that loads of supers are being built while few are being destroyed (this has nothing to do with ehp or nerfing). With other shiptypes people tend to buy them as they lose them, but with supers you just wanna hoard them as it will make your alliance stronger. It's kinda like a cold war arms race.
    What needs to be done is this: Give people incitement to actually use and lose supers (or maybe restrict numbers in some way), not only in situations where one side drops 50 supers and titans to kill a few. This might be hard for some people to grasp because "nooo my super is fine don't nerf..", but really it's the hoarding of them which is gamebreaking and not the ship itself.

    before raging, sorry for my engrish..

    • herp

      incitement should be: incentive

      • M1k3y

        I agree, a fleet of 5 supercarriers/Titans with a subcap support fleet isn't going to break the game. Fielding 100 supercarriers and 25 Titans is game breaking.

  • Lolman

    flying a titan is a badge of honour, making you the alliance whip boy of sending other capsuleers to the meat grinder

    with the current rules i would never fly one.

    instead i envision fleets that are balanced built
    where the
    friggates boost the destroyers
    destroyers boost cruisers
    cruiser boost Battlecruiser
    battlecruiser boost battleship
    battleship boost cap ship
    cap ship boost supercap ship
    and supercap ship boost the other ships
    that way we would leave the unified drake fleet, maelstrom fleet, etc…
    sure biggest fleet would still win but i like that way of thinking
    making mothership beeing able to take aboard clones and extra ships so if you die you can enter your clone on the MS and enter your second ship already on grid.

    doubleing titan guns dammage so capship have a hard time surviving under its gunfire
    reduce tracking some more to protect subcap from the increased fire.

  • fu-

    learn to play asshole

  • lol

    i read his blogs just to laugh at his stupidity

  • ViperRum

    More succinctly: the problem with supers is that they get produced in large numbers but die in tiny numbers. And since only a small fraction of the EVE player base can afford the freakin’ things, those players amass great personal fleets of them. This needs to get fixed, and the CSM needs to help CCP find the fix.

    Exactly how many supers does your average super pilot/player have on average? I'm curious about this claim.

    Is it true that a player has 2 or 3 or more of them so in case one dies…or is it the case that there are simple more and more players getting supers?

    Yeah, your typical empire side player is not going to have one, but they can't use them anyways…game mechanics and all that. So right there a large segment of the games population has effectively cut themselves off from supers.

    • Trolls > Goblins

      "Is it true that a player has 2 or 3 or more of them so in case one dies…or is it the case that there are simple more and more players getting supers?".

      Both.

      You'd be amazed over how many pilots, or small corporation-sized entities, not part of large blob blocks also have multiple supers.

      Then again, numbers is the problem. Titans get attention because they are still blobstoppers, even after the AoE DD. If CCP gave agile alternatives to hammering through hitpoints and holding grids, then Titans wouldn't be such a problem. They are only good at clobbering hitpoints and holding grids. It's odd that Ripard never get to that end-station on his journeys. Arguing about Titans while defending structure-based income and not adressing numbers in that relation strikes me as very odd.

  • ViperRum

    Again, very slowly: Tech at 100k per unit is the exact price tech was at prior to OTEC… you know, when tech was just ridiculously overpriced and over-needed instead of hilariously, ludicrously, incredibly overpriced and over-needed. Guess what: a Hulk is still 70% tech, even with alchemy.

    Change the alchemy ratios. Make it 40 platinum technite and you'll see the price come down even more. I'd have to do some number crunching but off the top of my head, I'd say it would drop to 60,000 isk.

  • ViperRum

    Sigh. Very slowly, then: the problem with supers isn’t whether they get used or whether they don’t get used. The problem with them is that they’re freakin’ impossible to blow up unless you have “16 or 17 Titans.” Hint: that is a problem.

    Bullshit.
    http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=12…

    According to Mr. Teg there should have been well over 60 titans (or at least 16-17 that got off multiple DDs). I see one only one (that also died to subcaps) in that BR.

    • http://evedreams.wordpress.com/ dreamersofreality

      16-17 is according to two step in the CSM minuets. Read the other article first before posting.

      • Stating the Obvious

        > Seleene/Elise: "16, 16-17 to go through an Aeon. Not a lot."

        Read the other article before commenting.

  • John Douche

    Yet another dumb article by Retard Reg.

    FYI: Supers need to be like this to be different from the rest of the ships. They take a long time to build and require the effort of many players. When one super cap dies then it has to be done with just as much effort, it will guarantee epic fights and veterans still can get the "shakes" after many years of EVE.

    Someone at EN24 should put a limit in his articles.

    • DekCo

      You realize Ripard doesn't post directly here don't you? You also know that its his own blog and riverini chooses which subjects will appear on this site right?

      It says quite a bit about you really. You only know eve from what this biased website says about it.

      If you want to see everything Ripard has to say about eve take a look at http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/.

      You want to pretend to be a vet but in reality your fairly new to the game.

      • John Douche

        Why would I care for how the dumb shit gets onto here? I do not. It needs to stop, because it waters down the quality of EN24.

        • -.-

          Dude , the way you look at things is funny.

          But the best thing i have heard in a while is "waters down the quality of EN24"
          Seriously WTF!

        • scrublords

          > water down
          > quality
          > EN24
          > lol

        • FormerReader

          I do hope you are being ironic. EN24 has negative quality so watering it down would improve it. Perhaps you mean to say it is concentrating it's "quality" and it is getting to be too much for you?

          • John Douche

            EN24 has got value. You would not be here to read it and post comments.

            If you had to read more blogs by Jester would you only get dumber than you already are.

            How would you feel about avoiding your fate?

      • lol

        YEA right… thats why at the top of artile it says

        Posted by Ripard Teg in Opinion

        AIRITE? gtfo with your alt ripard

    • seany1212

      Effort of many players? Long time to build?

      Sisi shows you can build titans with the effort of just a few players (yes the costs are not realistic but it shows that again you only need a few) and when you have the funding of a super alliance cost should neither be a factor.

      As for the taking a long time to build do you really assume that each super alliance has only a single super oven?

      • John Douche

        Just stop with the whining on supers. Apparently do you think they are easy to build so you should have a problem, right? Next time think before you post.

        • John Douche

          …shouldn't have…

          (And I need to check my grammar before I post, lol)

  • eve pilot

    llink supers to the 0.0 sov costs this would give each alliance an absolute limit on how many they could field before they go bust so e.g titan 1billion per month supercarriers 600mil per month for each ship held by the said alliance ths would mean new pos mods like a super decomissioning hangar for breaking down surplus supers.this would also mean super pilots would to save not losing their super spreading out among other alliances who are prepared to cover their costs.

    • anon

      Or they would all just join NPC corps and let CCP foot the bill – Dumb idea tbqh

  • thatguy

    Starting a reply with "sigh" is incredibly immature.

    "for having the courage to beard the lion in its den"..

    just lol'd at that point.

  • Thisshouldfixit

    Simple truth: wars are ignited by resource shortages, period.

    Be it Tech, be it trit. If there is a shortage, fights will erupt.
    EVE needs more shortages and these shortages must be unequally distributed for territorial purposes.

    Hence:
    Tech on one side of the universe is GOOD.

    Pro tip:
    Seed *other* shortages* in *other* parts of the EVE universe.

    Issue solved.

    • Anonymouse

      So remove trit from nulsec? Cool, so just like how we can't get zyd, meg and morphite in highsec. They already complain anytime they have to mine veld or scordite for the mins instead of their king, arkonor…

  • anon

    The ONLY counter to a CFC 1400 man blob, is a blob of similar or equal size, and currently that can't be done – therefore CCP NERF BLOB's K Thx