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Julius Rigel
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Posted - 2009.10.19 07:08:00 -
[1]
Could someone try to explain to me, in short and concise replies, what exactly the new "formations" feature is, and why we need to have it implemented?
As a pilot who has been flying formations for a few years now, I am not entirely sure what the purpose of the formations "button" (or whatever it is) is supposed to be.
Oh, and, INB4 "1/10" and "<tldrwalloftextwithoutpunctuationthatnobodyisgoingtobotherreading>".
Sincerely, Julius Rigel SRV racing
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Joe
Umbra Legion Shadow Empire.
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Posted - 2009.10.19 07:29:00 -
[2]
Its so people running 6 FOF Raven accounts can better control all their ships at once using just one Client, and gain extra benifits from doing so. |
Julius Rigel
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Posted - 2009.10.19 07:40:00 -
[3]
Originally by: Joe Its so people running 6 FOF Raven accounts can better control all their ships at once using just one Client, and gain extra benifits from doing so.
It scares me that this actually makes sense... What the fork, CCP!
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Salmeria
GoonFleet
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Posted - 2009.10.19 07:47:00 -
[4]
Edited by: Salmeria on 19/10/2009 07:47:14 I think an 'Align Fleet' button would be pretty grand!
edit: or 'Align Wing'
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Sturmwolke
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Posted - 2009.10.19 07:49:00 -
[5]
I don't know what EVE designers have exactly in mind, but it would probably flow along the path of fleet/gang battlegroups with extra bonuses or capabilities applied to ships within the formation. Think of it as gang link on top of gang link. The exact mechanics on how the formation will be maintained is still up in the air though, i.e. it haven't been disclosed, afaik.
If you've played Nexus : The Jupiter Incident, firing the siege laser required several ships to be in formation. |
Julius Rigel
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Posted - 2009.10.19 07:59:00 -
[6]
Originally by: Sturmwolke I don't know what EVE designers have exactly in mind, but it would probably flow along the path of fleet/gang battlegroups with extra bonuses or capabilities applied to ships within the formation. Think of it as gang link on top of gang link. The exact mechanics on how the formation will be maintained is still up in the air though, i.e. it haven't been disclosed, afaik.
If you've played Nexus : The Jupiter Incident, firing the siege laser required several ships to be in formation.
Yeah, I guess that's the idea. But it doesn't explain why such a feature is needed. I mean... it's like (small) rigs (and a lot of other features over the years). They are something optional you can add to your ship, but you're at a disadvantage if you don't, and everyone does, so essentially the advantage is null.
On the other hand, adding a "formations" button de-emphasizes the feat of manual formations, since "everyone can do that now". Much in the way cloakwarping was something unique and surprising when only covert ops covert ops ships could do it. Now that every other ship has cloakwarp, it has become a mundane thing that people take for granted.
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Cpl Punnishment
Caldari Steel Fleet Ocularis Inferno
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Posted - 2009.10.19 08:01:00 -
[7]
It was touched upon at FF during the PVP roundtable. We talked about SBs decloaking eachother and the want of some tool in order to avoid this. We suggested a few options. A sort of sonar "ping" for SBs in one's fleet in order to avoind being on top of one another. Then someone raised the point that SBs do not stay cloaked when warping together. We also put to them the possiblitiy of SB formations. *imagine 1944 bomber formations* in order to make "Bomb Runs." Well that is when the Devs said that they had been working on said formations for a while. But it sounded like a work in progress. And it didn't sound so much like you would be giving up control of your ship to the FC or anything.
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Lance Fighter
Amarr
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Posted - 2009.10.19 08:02:00 -
[8]
the align wing/squad whatever is an idea, but unfortunately it gives the squad commander the ability to completely **** up a speedtank you have on xyz ship.
Also, nexus was great, except i found myself not trusting the autopilots at all. I quite literally would micromanage every single ship.. Blane Xero > Lance is at -0.9 sec status with a 1 million bounty. LAnce is also amarrian. Thats 3 evil points |
Salmeria
GoonFleet
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Posted - 2009.10.19 08:07:00 -
[9]
i think align wing would be the best because that way you could just join the speed tanking wing where the wing commander doesn't bother.
also i think being able to set your actual orbit would be cool. like a ring would appear centered the selected object that you could manipulate with your mouse and then when you get it in position you just click and it sets your orbit to how the ring was.
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Lance Fighter
Amarr
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Posted - 2009.10.19 08:09:00 -
[10]
Originally by: Salmeria
also i think being able to set your actual orbit would be cool. like a ring would appear centered the selected object that you could manipulate with your mouse and then when you get it in position you just click and it sets your orbit to how the ring was.
clever, i like it. +1 Blane Xero > Lance is at -0.9 sec status with a 1 million bounty. LAnce is also amarrian. Thats 3 evil points |
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Julius Rigel
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Posted - 2009.10.19 08:11:00 -
[11]
Edited by: Julius Rigel on 19/10/2009 08:12:34
Originally by: Cpl Punnishment It was touched upon at FF during the PVP roundtable. We talked about SBs decloaking eachother and the want of some tool in order to avoid this. We suggested a few options. A sort of sonar "ping" for SBs in one's fleet in order to avoind being on top of one another. Then someone raised the point that SBs do not stay cloaked when warping together. We also put to them the possiblitiy of SB formations. *imagine 1944 bomber formations* in order to make "Bomb Runs." Well that is when the Devs said that they had been working on said formations for a while. But it sounded like a work in progress. And it didn't sound so much like you would be giving up control of your ship to the FC or anything.
Yeah, I can't imagine how we managed to accomplish this before stealth bombers could cloakwarp. EVE probably wouldn't exist if not for stealth bombers + cloakwarp + stealth-bomber-cloakwarp-anti-decloaking-formations...
Originally by: Salmeria also i think being able to set your actual orbit would be cool. like a ring would appear centered the selected object that you could manipulate with your mouse and then when you get it in position you just click and it sets your orbit to how the ring was.
Or you could just orbit manually. You know there's this feature wherein if you double-click anywhere you will fly in that direction, right? Right?
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Cpl Punnishment
Caldari Steel Fleet Ocularis Inferno
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Posted - 2009.10.19 08:58:00 -
[12]
Nice snarky comment.. No one, including Devs, have said very much at all what these new Formations will do. I wouldn't get too worked up about it. As far as SBs go, ship capabilities and tactics change. People adjust accordingly. I don't feel that it is too big a deal one way or another. So if for whatever reason they come out with formations, it does not mean that you have to use them.
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Julius Rigel
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Posted - 2009.10.19 09:09:00 -
[13]
True enough, I would not have to use them, but in the event that they render something I already do in-game redundant, it would be a case of either using them, or being at a disadvantage, no?
So imagining that formations will be these extravagant shapes of ships flying around, they would take away the need to manually make these extravagant formations, or to put it another way: "That's not impressive, anyone can just click a button and do that!"
Not to use the word "worried", I am interested to know if this new feature is planning to take a **** on something I have worked hard to accomplish. Call me egomanical, but that's the way I feel.
Of course, this may not be the case at all, since as someone pointed out, we don't know much about formations yet. But in general, doesn't anyone else feel like all these new features are taking the gameplay out of the gameplay? If there's a button to make your autopilot travel, align, form up in a formation, autotarget back and so on, at what point is the game playing itself?
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Phantom Assault
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Posted - 2009.10.19 09:10:00 -
[14]
Originally by: Lance Fighter
Originally by: Salmeria
also i think being able to set your actual orbit would be cool. like a ring would appear centered the selected object that you could manipulate with your mouse and then when you get it in position you just click and it sets your orbit to how the ring was.
clever, i like it. +1
Yeah maybe be able to elongate the circle so that you could have an elliptical orbit. Like NASCAR lol. Faster in the straight aways, a bit slower in the turns. By doing this, a pilot could coordinate an intercept vector for a yo-yo effect. It could add an interestiong demention to dog fighting in small fast ships. Possibly be able to save maneuvers like a turning double-back roll or something. lol.
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Zartanic
Red Federation
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Posted - 2009.10.19 09:14:00 -
[15]
Maybe its an attempt to get fleets looking more like they do in the promo videos.
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Julius Rigel
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Posted - 2009.10.19 09:16:00 -
[16]
Originally by: Zartanic Maybe its an attempt to get fleets looking more like they do in the promo videos.
In that case, a "l2formation" warning on first login would have been much cheaper.
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Slightly Green
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Posted - 2009.10.19 09:25:00 -
[17]
It's also possible that it's a way to cut down on bandwidth. Instead of calculating the positions of each ship, it can short-cut because of the formation. Not quite sure how this would work, since things would still need to be displayed at each client, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it wasn't a consideration.
S. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBbidbJQ-cU
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Azirapheal
Amarr 24th Imperial Crusade
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Posted - 2009.10.19 09:34:00 -
[18]
hmm. tbh the only use i would see for formations would be if ships in the way really blocked line of fire... but then our ships are just graphical representations of a tiny dot which is either hit or missed :(
Originally by: Azirapheal i never ever thought id live to see the day.... that titans were nerfed for being FOTM HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA
Originally by: CCP Zymurgist SoonÖ
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Cpl Punnishment
Caldari Steel Fleet Ocularis Inferno
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Posted - 2009.10.19 09:39:00 -
[19]
I don't feel that formations should grant any particular bonus to the fleet. I hear what you are saying about being able to fly in a sort of formation without any help from CCP. I mean, it can already be boring enough trying to find targets as is. I am not sure that I would want to be flying in a formation that much anyway. I do think that it could be fun for SBs. This is one niche that, even with something like a formation, still requires a lot of teamwork in order to be sucessful. It wouldn't break my heart either way I guess. Its just funny to try to coordinate a bomb run on a target when you have SBs warping into the target at multiple vectors.
That being said, I am not necessarily for dumbing the game down. Sure I like the "align" feature. I don't use the auto-target feature, and not sure that many people do. I wouldn't want to encourage more in the way of large blob fleets by giving big fleet bonuses for formations. That would be lame. I don't mind manual flying. Although, I like the idea about setting different types of orbits.
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Julius Rigel
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Posted - 2009.10.19 09:41:00 -
[20]
Originally by: Slightly Green It's also possible that it's a way to cut down on bandwidth. Instead of calculating the positions of each ship, it can short-cut because of the formation. Not quite sure how this would work, since things would still need to be displayed at each client, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it wasn't a consideration.
S. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBbidbJQ-cU
(Didn't check the YT, believe it or not my school-supplied laptop does not have Flash installed.)
That's a good point, bandwidth was certainly a big player both in the speed nerf, the Dscan nerf, the weapon grouping feature...
But [speculation] for example if you were flying in a V formation with 3 pilots, one would be in front while the two others would be located behind him. If a fourth, larger ship fell into formation with them, the formation would need to grow to accomodate this ship, so it would become assymetrical. This means they are either going to have to pre-render every single combination of every single ship in game for each formation. I would not need to illustrate the exponential number of pre-made formations that would involve. Instead I think formations need to be "dynamic", simply disseminating flight vectors to each pilot while keeping each ship its own separate entity for collision and other purposes.[/speculation]
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Julius Rigel
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Posted - 2009.10.19 09:57:00 -
[21]
Originally by: Cpl Punnishment I don't feel that formations should grant any particular bonus to the fleet.
Neither do I, frankly this idea is completely ******ed. Nobody ever gained speed or thicker hull plating by flying close to their wingman. That's like saying red ships are faster.
Originally by: Cpl Punnishment I hear what you are saying about being able to fly in a sort of formation without any help from CCP. I mean, it can already be boring enough trying to find targets as is. I am not sure that I would want to be flying in a formation that much anyway.
Of course you are assuming that "formation flying" means going the same direction at the same velocity while next to one another in a geometric shape. In my book, a formation can just as easily involve some sort of maneuver, for example splitting in opposite directions to make a (possibly short range blaster type) ship follow one pilot and not the other, or in the case of stealth bombers, warping in from different ranges in order to come out of warp in sequence instead of simultaneously. Really, the sky, or pretty nebula background graphic as it would be, is the limit when designing fleet manevuers. I could probably fill multiple threads on just the subject of designing formations, feature or not. But that will have to be in another thread another time.
Originally by: Cpl Punnishment I do think that it could be fun for SBs. This is one niche that, even with something like a formation, still requires a lot of teamwork in order to be sucessful. It wouldn't break my heart either way I guess. Its just funny to try to coordinate a bomb run on a target when you have SBs warping into the target at multiple vectors.
This I don't quite understand. If you are warping to a point in space at 50km and your wingman is warping in at 50km from the opposite side, you still both need the same amount of time to align to the target before launching your bombs. If you were to warp in formation to the same target, you would still require the same amount of time to align to the same target before launching bombs. In fact the formation might impede your ability to hit a target, since you would be flying in the same direction, as opposed to angling slightly towards each other, if you can visualize the situation.
Originally by: Cpl Punnishment That being said, I am not necessarily for dumbing the game down. Sure I like the "align" feature. I don't use the auto-target feature, and not sure that many people do. I wouldn't want to encourage more in the way of large blob fleets by giving big fleet bonuses for formations. That would be lame. I don't mind manual flying. Although, I like the idea about setting different types of orbits.
I think in the end you're just not going to have time to stop in the middle of a fight and do a probe-esque maneuver with your mouse to adjust your orbit to just the right angle and distance.
Turns out I'm ranting after all.
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Jekyl Eraser
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Posted - 2009.10.19 10:07:00 -
[22]
It's purpose is to nerf solo pvp
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Julius Rigel
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Posted - 2009.10.19 10:10:00 -
[23]
Originally by: Jekyl Eraser It's purpose is to nerf solo pvp
Yes, the only purpose of this is to nerf solo PVP and air shows!
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Slightly Green
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Posted - 2009.10.19 10:10:00 -
[24]
Quote: But [speculation] for example if you were flying in a V formation with 3 pilots, one would be in front while the two others would be located behind him. If a fourth, larger ship fell into formation with them, the formation would need to grow to accomodate this ship, so it would become assymetrical.
That wouldn't be so hard to arrange. I've certainly seen it done in other games without problems. As to your other point, I'm not talking about rendering, so much as positional data.
I don't know how Eve tracks positions, etc, but I presume that the following needs to be handled:
X, Y, Z, X-Rotation, Y-Rotation, Z-Rotation, Velocity.
... for each ship.
If you have a dozen ships, it's starting to get to be a reasonable amount of data being transferred. (Well, not really, but it's an economy of scale)
Let's now say that the ships are all in formation... so instead of tracking the positions of each ship, you track the position of the single formation.
X, Y, Z, X-Rotation, Y-Rotation, Z-Rotation, Velocity.
If you have a dozen ships in the formation, you wouldn't need to duplicate this 12 times... you'd just need to provide a single numerical formation offset, and let the client handle the rest.
Now, I'm sure that's a kludgy and inefficient way of demonstrating the point I'm trying to make, and probably not how they'd actually do it even if that is one of the reasons behind formations... but I think it's still reasonable to believe that formations are the ship equivalent of weapon groups when it comes down to cutting back on bandwidth in major fleet engagements.
S. http://www.mordorbbs.com/
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Julius Rigel
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Posted - 2009.10.19 10:28:00 -
[25]
I certainly understand what you mean (by the way, I don't think EVE actually deals with the rotations (yaw, pitch and roll, as they are called), but rather the direction of a ship defines where it is facing, and some sort of trickery is used to approximate "turning" when the vector is not linear.).
But even though I get what you're saying, something tells me that it can't be as simple as just mashing the formed ships together into a single entity like that. The only concern which comes to mind as a concrete example would be collision. Once a ship inside a formation hits a ship outside of the formation, it's going to need to leave the formation "entity" in order to do the appropriate movements away and so on. This would probably on a larger scale result in a lot of breaking formation, moving around a bit, then moving back to the formation and rejoining the "entity", so I imagine that in a big fleet battle, in addition to the normal amount of collisions there would be the added stress of breaking and forming formations. In short, in my head it equates to a big wet mess.
I also recall reading and / or hearing something about the player "units" in EVE and that it is very complicated to transform them in ways such as putting one inside another or (speculating again) removing the individual player unit in favor of a single formation unit.
I just imagine it's a big headache to deal with individual and group units in the EVE mechanics. I feel for the code monkeys burdened with development of this. Truly.
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Joe
Umbra Legion Shadow Empire.
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Posted - 2009.10.19 10:28:00 -
[26]
Originally by: Julius Rigel
Originally by: Cpl Punnishment I don't feel that formations should grant any particular bonus to the fleet.
Neither do I, frankly this idea is completely ******ed. Nobody ever gained speed or thicker hull plating by flying close to their wingman. That's like saying red ships are faster.
Traditionly Formations have been used (in WWII) to help groups of Planes combine all their pilots line of sight, increasing "situational awareness" for the group.
In eve i can see sensor strength bonus's for all ships in a formation, as their ship computers all share intel.
I'm sure there will be negative side effects too, besides the obvious vulnerability to AOE weapons. |
Julius Rigel
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Posted - 2009.10.19 10:44:00 -
[27]
Edited by: Julius Rigel on 19/10/2009 10:49:03 Sure, ok, I can see that. But I'm still a very strong proponent of what I would call emergent (dis)advantages. Just as flying in formation creates a natural vulnerability towards bombers, it should also create some natural advantages. Just from a design point of view, I would call making "artificial" benefits and leaving the downsides to the game mechanics sloppy. I'd much rather see this feature designed in such a way that it would integrate properly with game mechanics, eliminating the need for any artificial trickery. But that's just me.
Edit: As for "situational awareness", don't you think this would apply in EVE as well? In my opinion, in the chaos of a large fleet battle, knowing that the 10 pilots in your squad will STAY at your side and move together should be a great help in itself, bonus or not.
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Ariane VoxDei
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Posted - 2009.10.19 10:59:00 -
[28]
Originally by: Julius Rigel Could someone try to explain to me, in short and concise replies, what exactly the new "formations" feature is, and why we need to have it implemented?
Needed because it looks awesome - if done right. The videos you could make with formations would kick much more ass.
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fatherted1989
Red Horizon Inc
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Posted - 2009.10.19 11:02:00 -
[29]
It's ****ing hard to sort out a good bomber run, looking forward to this.
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Haraldhardrade
Amarr Pax Amarr
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Posted - 2009.10.19 11:06:00 -
[30]
I have no idea why there should be formations.....other than more skills to train :| Caveo of Minmatar , torva vacuus regimen of deus es plurrimi periculosus of bestia
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