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Early Promise, Early Problems:
Chain Doomsdays – In the past, my crew has been extremely quick to break newly introduced mechanics. Whilst watching the twitch stream from EVE Vegas, we worked out a way to ‘Chain Doomsday’. The proposed changes to some of the superweapons feature a smartbomb-like neutralizer. This will neutralize the capacitor on any ships close to the Titan when the weapon is fired.
This was presumably to prevent people from jumping in multiple Titans to a single cyno and firing super-weapons left and right. The first obvious work-around is to light several cynos and jump your Titans in at different spots on grid – though splitting your forces in this way is incredibly risky, and thus not particularly viable.
Alternative workarounds are possible though:
Either of these options allow you to effectively fire repeated (but not simultaneous) doomsdays in quick succession. This seems pretty interesting, and would definitely require a lot of coordination to pull off. Whether it’s intended or not I can’t say. I would assume CCP did not intend for the chain firing of superweapons to be possible, as this was one of the primary reasons the AoE DD was removed in the first place.
DPS Scaling and Force Auxiliaries – The relationship between capital level DPS output (Dreads/Carriers/Supers/Titans) and the tanking abilities of the new Force Auxiliaries have the complete capability to control the scale of capital fights, and also the prevalence and necessity for sub-capital support within those fights.
For example, if a Force Aux can tank 50k DPS if it’s not under cap pressure, you could either use 5 Dreads to kill it, or a single Dread and a bhaalgorn or two. If you’re without sub-capital support, you’re going to need to field a lot more DPS to kill the same target.
Essentially, you’ll need more capitals to achieve the same effect as you do currently in terms of having a fight where both sides rely predominantly on capitals.
If, however, Force Auxiliaries have similar tanks to current triage Carriers, you’ll be able to kill one with a couple of Dreads, which means there’s little reason to field any more than that on either side, because if you can kill the Force Aux, you can kill the rest of the fleet. Ultimately, what we see here is that beyond a certain point, the Force Aux will simply become cannon fodder; at which point it’s probably not even worth fielding them in any significantly larger number. Between the focus group and the developers – we need to look at what numbers of capitals we’d like to see in various scales of capital fights, where they should start, and where they should top out at.
Fighter ‘Squadron’ Practicality – Whilst the new squadron controls do add a much needed increased level of complexity for Carrier and SuperCarrier pilots in terms of the skills they need as a player in order to fly their ship effectively… I’m not so sure of its practicality in for example TiDi scenario’s or extremely crowded grids, where your ability to see and control your fighters (and whatever else is going on) is going to be vastly reduced. I foresee similar problems with the new Superweapon UI, but we’ll see.
I’d also be concerned about the effects of trying to use the new control UI in addition to current ship controls, for example clicking in space to move your fighters around and accidently telling your ship to move instead. But it’s all work in progress and too early to make any snap judgements, so we’ll see.
A future vision – The Capital Battlefield in 2016:
EVE is an incredible game, it can be played on many different levels in many different ways. To most, having a capital ship is a sign of success, investment of time and resources and high stakes pvp. When flying a capital, you enter a field that is both incredibly rewarding, and gut wrenching when it goes wrong.
Supercapitals, the signature of progress and power, and the demonstration that in EVE, even the best can fall. You’ll see supercapitals in trailers, dating way back to 2008 – in the biggest fights, on gaming media, on killboards – remembered by the victim and the victors for years afterwards.
So what about the future? I certainly don’t want that to change. The changes we’re looking at right now for the Citadel expansion are drastic, and in an entirely new direction. I’m honestly excited to see where this goes.
For a start, the most important skill in capital combat is knowing when to ‘go balls deep’ and when to hold them back. Once you make that decision, if it’s the wrong one, there’s very little you can do. The proposed changes however make capital combat more dynamic, and there’s more room for pilot skill.
Everything we’ve seen, from the new UI for controlling fighters, the new superweapons that require you to aim them. There will be no more jump in, lock up cap buddy, align and throw out fighter-bombers. Capital combat will be much more involved for you as a pilot, you’ll have a lot more to think about, and more buttons to press. There will be a bigger difference between skilled Titan pilots (as players) to people who’ve never flown them before.
You’ll probably have Titan pilots in your fleet who are insanely good at hazing subcap fleets with their sickle doomsdays… you’ll have other pilots who you wouldn’t want to let them fire a sickle DD if you have friendlies on field because they suck so bad they’ll probably haze half your own logistics wing.
For once, the decision to jump in will no longer be the biggest mistake you can make! As a veteran supercap pilot, I want to see the pace of capital combat pick up – I want flying 3 Titans and 2 Supers at once to be impossible to do properly. Capitals right now are not rare, but they are elusive – you’ll only find them if you know where to look – this new role they’re taking on has the potential to change that.
Retrospective & Outlook on CCP’s Balancing:
At almost 13,000 words – this is the second longest document I’ve ever written (next to my dissertation a few years ago). There are very few in EVE whom have had the fortunate route through the game that I’ve had to gain my experience and knowledge of its mechanics. I see many posts on eve-o and on reddit, with people proposing wacky and wild suggestions – new ideas are always good, but people forget that there’s a reason why things have been changed in the past to the way they are now. I’m keen to prevent capitals from stepping back into the past, and I’m also keen to help people understand why some of the changes (like the EHP nerf) are necessary for us to move forward.
I doubt that there are many people around who would argue they had already considered everything I’ve written here – even those who profess to be experienced capital pilots. There will undoubtedly be many things I’ve overlooked, stuff that I should have written about that I’ve neglected to mention, or been too brief in my consideration. The focus group is important because of that – not one of us can say that we’re the one who could best balance capital ships in EVE – and I think it’s fair to say that includes developers.
I first met CCP Fozzie at fanfest last year, my conversation with him wasn’t lengthy – but I got what I needed to know. The dev team perfectly understands the problems with balancing and game mechanics, and the history that led to where we are now – whether it’s jump fatigue, Ishtars, T3 destroyers, or capitals. In the months after FanFest 2015, we saw the #FireFozzie shitposting campaign appear all over the place. Don’t get me wrong, I can be a huge troll – but I was honestly disgusted by the community’s reaction on occasion. And for the sake of the game, its community and its developers – I hope that never happens again, and I hope this report will help many players to understand the changes of the past, and those in the near future.
Additional Notes & Mentions:
Notes:
Thanks in no particular order:
