Making them ongrid would still be cooler.

Just learn to dualbox a bit better and you're fine

Luckly is not your opnion that matters but of the main game designers.

And I can return your statement.. if you want to kjeep your booster safe PILOT IT! Stop tryign to dumb down the game to the point where you don even need to be on keyboard!

T3s seriously need to not be able to fleet boost better than a dedicated command ship, its ridiculous, so yeah limiting their ability to boost large gangs AND be offgrid AND be almost unprobable needs to go.

For the people whining that command ships cant be used in main fleets, really? 200k ehp not enough? Command ships are fine and fully usable but should be limited to on grid. T3s being better at almost everythign than dedicated ships is whats wrong.

Maybe this is what is needed and included in those BC T1/T2 rebalance, since those WILL be rebalanced soon. Of Grid boosting harms more the game than it's good. People never stop arguing "get friends" "L2P with friends" "omg miner = bot" but then when something is about to change like OGB some players always talk about "small gang" and very little about the solo/tandem dudes with the obvious OGB.

There's a noticeable difference in between being good at the game and being good at exploiting game failures or bad mechanics in need of changes, to take advantage over other players. OGB is one of those bad mechanics that need severe changes, the only thing I can hope it's properly done and not like giving ASB's to shield tanks and throw a RAH bone to the underdogs.

I'm all for having boosting ships on the field. Let it be CS, T3 or BCs with a link. Yes BC's can fit links and before the introduction of T3 cruisers this was the way the roaming gangs used to do it.


Have the boosting ships on the field AND have them to target the boost-receivers like Logistic ships do. If any change would make running fleets more complex and interesting, then this would be it. It won't be an alt-job anymore, so you'll have to train that one into a Retriever pilot...

*edit: Also the argument of having boosters forced to be on grid as a nerf to small gangs is complete bull excrement. Where were you before the T3 cruiser?! Ohwait... Retriever pilot....

They should just make the boosting less effective if not on grid.

- 100% boosting effectiveness to any fleet member on grid, 66% effective on any vessel off-grid..

or something like that.. would make all parties happy, make both options viable and give us tactical choice.

how is that?

our 5 man frigate gangs run with loki links.. why don't yours?

Are we trying to address the issue of off-grid boosters being unbalanced, or new players not being able to afford links.. I'm confused.

Small gang vs blob, small gang should be less effective..

Obviously I appear to be misunderstanding the point your trying to make.. But given your condescending attitude, I'm not particularly interested in continuing the conversation.. My 2c is in so I'm done.

Numbers usually aren't that close.

Like what I saw today. 200 of them vs 400, 500 by the time they ran off.

It's going to depend on numbers. I think the real issue is that a lot of people who think they fly a small, organized gang really aren't that great themselves.

1:10 is pretty harsh, but 1:1 or 1:2 I feel is a very realistic number. Same goes for absurd mechanics like neutral repping, they really don't help. But it all falls under the "Alts: how they are harming EVE" header.

Though I still firmly believe the current skill system with offline training are the main culprits. I was once asked how long it would take to max out turret skills. I asked "All of them? For all races and ships?" and the guy said "Yeah." I simply shrugged and said "Two years?" The guy let out a guffaw and I never saw him playing EVE ever again. The sad part is, I was almost spot-on, I checked later - 45 mil SP in turrets in total, at 2.5k/hr would take 2.05 years. Nobody is going to make this kind of commitment to an MMO. Being able to fly all ships perfectly? 5.5 years. Seriously? I may be dead, or married, or both in 5.5 years.

Yeah I think that is true of skills alone.

But then when we throw in the booster alts well, obviously he will no longer be competitive until he decides to dual box one himself.

Whilst I agree on the fact that there's severe demand for a buff to small gangs, their main problem is the complete lack of objectives for small gangs in the current sandbox except for general 'air superiority' or simple kb-padding.


CCP does a fine job at the bigger ship Gëá better front , but entirely fails to find advantages for smaller numbers compared to bigger ones.

Regardless of that, CCP should remove any kind of offgrid boosting to avoid having more and more people heading down that road. It's an entirely flawed mechanic that by principle is just as bad as offgrid remote repping would be and it shouldn't exist in the game (I'll spare from me copy-pasting the countless reasons why offgrid boosting is a horrible mechanic and point you to this thread instead).


It needs to be removed ASAP.

T3 offgrid boosters - if used and fitted properly - can be flown absolutely risk-free, offering bonuses to a gangs shield, speed and sig-tanking as well as their ewar capabilities without any range limit.
...

Remotely boosting the abilities of local reppers is every way equivalent to off-grid remote repair. Where is the extra shield boost coming from?

The fundamentals of the system are broken: you can boost from inside a POS shield where you cannot be shot.

I play the game to have fun, yes. Up until 3 years ago, I played it for killmails - pure highscore hunting. Getting a KM just satisfied me and I wouldn't get to sleep without at least 1 kill.


I made my isk elsewhere and used my other sources of income to fund that.

But that's exactly what's wrong with the game - people fly around in lowsec in expensive ships with absolutely no purpose, running high sec l4s, production chains and market alts to fund it, which renders the pvp entirely meaningless.

From a tactical/gameplay perspective, there's almost no point in running small gangs.

Call me a moron, but I think that's just a terrible design flaw in a so-called 'pvp-focused game'.

I don't know what you mean. I have no issue with leaderships skills. You are the one resorting to nonesense in order to support what is obviously a bad mechanic.

The OP is right these are alt accounts. It doesn't matter how many are in your gang somone better be dual boxing an alt or you will be at a severe disadvantage.

If they had to be on grid then people would have their mains use their leadership skills and use command ships in battles. It wouldn't be relegated to alts.

Nah, it's not as bad as I described, I shortened it a bit to make a point. I explained that to be good at any one thing (especially small frigates) it doesn't take that long. He still didn't feel it was worth it, waiting months or perhaps even years to see some content. At the time I was aiming for a Marauder for L4s, and he asked how long my skillplan was, and I had about 180 days left. And he said that on average he plays an MMO for 3-5 months tops, unless new content keeps being addes. It's how most players are these days, which is why I maintain that until CCP stops and smells the 2012, the game isn't going anywhere good. What worked questionably well 9 years ago just doesn't work now.

And realistically, the cap you speak of, the absolute one, still takes a couple of years to train for even for a frigate, if you want to absolutely max everything, including targeting, capacitor, navigation, gunnery, drones, etc., to squeeze every last ounce of performance out of a ship. If you only go to IV, yeah it's quick. But all those 5, 10 and 20% do add up compared to V. That's the second major minus for most new players.

The point I was trying to make is that most people are not willing to commit to 3 months, never mind 3 years. Let's face it, there hasn't really been an MMO recently where to max out something the time frame is measured in years. Last one I can think of is Lineage II, where at higher levels you would maybe make 1% of a level in an hour. But even so, with some EVE skills even at 2.5k SP/hr you are still only gaining 0.13% of a "level" an hour. This may have worked in the good old days, when MMOs were few and far apart, and there wasn't much choice. But in today's MMO market, it just doesn't fly.

But back to the topic - it's true that not everyone has a booster alt. But there's a pretty huge difference between having one and not having one. And yes, it can be dealt with - such as bring more friends, bring your own booster alts, etc. But there's a concept from other MMOs that people also understand very well, called a "pocket healer". That is, a dedicated healer character attached to your main, usually played by another person and not an off-grid alt sitting at a POS like in EVE. And everyone knows that going solo or even 2v2 against someone with a pocket healer is a losing proposition most of the time. And in EVE, this is done with an alt. An alt means a second account. A second account means $30/mo instead of $15. Which isn't a killer by itself, but when you add to that the huge minus that is the skill system and a huge handicap a totally new player starts off with, it becomes too much for most players. Hence EVE's "growing" 450k subs, most of which are alt accounts. Not healthy, IMHO.

Yes - I'd call figuring out the distance at which your T3 booster can be probed to a warpable result by an all V scanner in a fully t2 grav-capacitor-rigged T3 and a full lg virtue-set along with Poteque hardwirings and using the value in dscan whilst hitting that on the second screen every now and then basically risk-free.

That's what I meant with 'zero risk if used properly'.

Must be my bad English, I beg your pardon.

[edit]: I'm al little confused though - would you consider determining the value and hitting dscan risky?

So we can agree there's no risk in fielding the T3 booster using the methods above.

And yes - I use 3 screens, triple box and am actually quite used to frequently hit D-scan on all of them.

As a matter of fact, despite disagreeing with you quite often, I usually appreciate your posts, but this comparison is just bad.

Comparing the effort , risk and reward to keep an interdiction nullified t3 booster with a cov ops cloak (-¦ a dissolution sequencer if you don't want to probe on it and a varying number of ECCMs depending on your ship and greed for links) sitting in a proper safespot with that of sitting in a belt in a mining barge must be a bad attempt at trolling.

Considering it takes me (qute a novice prober) 30 secs - 1 min to spot a guy in a grav site, I think that example is still far, far off from comparing to an anti-probe T3 booster setup.

Imo, OGB falls in the same category of Falcon, pocket cyno alt, RR neutral alts: super cheesy garbage that a good PvP game should never let happen. These things get quickly put on diminishing returns or nerfed in other games.

Small gangs need goals and benefits, but T3 offgrid boosters have to go.

Yes - it will leave ~the blob~ even more overpowered than it already is, but nonetheless, OG-boosting is a flawed mechanic. However, people would still be able to fall back to 100 mn AB ongrid T3 boosters that are just as hard to hit, but at least people know what they're up to.

Fixing the issues with numbers>everytthing might take CCP forver and tbh, I'm afraid it will never happen.

However, fixing off grid boosting would be a start to fix the T3/CS imbalance, because current 6-link off-grid 5%/lvl boost abominations wouldn't work as well anymore. More nerfs to T3 boosters certainly will be necessary, just as well as boosts for fleet CS, but imho, it's a good first step.

It is not a working system. It adds virtually nothing to the game, and forces people to avoid specific systems, corporations, and players because fighting someone who is boosted is just not worth their time.

Lots of people who fly solo or in small gangs don't want to dual box an alt to stay competitive against other solo pilots or small gangs.

Now if you want to have small scale combat against another solo or small gang you are at a severe disadvantage if someone in your gang is not dual boxing one.

I am addressing the op in this thread. I do not know what your proposal is.

The accute pressure to dual box comes when you try to fight a frigate with your cruiser (let alone another frigate) only to find that frigate can point you at 40k and sensor damp you to 25k and is so fast and agile you can't possibly even target it let alone catch it. So you either need to call for back up and hope they can come or die a slow death. Yay fun times, great game.

Now yeah that might not cause a problem for someone who never undocks unless they are with a fleet to help them blob everyone. But for others who like solo and small gang pvp it sucks.

FW plexing is a great example of how to get allot of great small scale pvp. It could be improved allot. But it really works well at getting allot of good small scale fights. But the boosters are just shitting this up. Go into a medium fw plex in a cruiser and find a hookbill there guess what you will probably die before you can even target the hookbill long enough to get your drones on it. (they will just be popped anyway assuming they can catch the enemy).

Yeah well I am not the best pilot but I'm not the worst either. Even though we hang out in the same part of new eden, I think you haven't fought the same pilots, with the same boosters that I have.

No you haven't. I looked at your killboard and the links you provided. I notice very few kills outside of ammamake. Afraid to leave the alt boosters behind?

Very nice kills against eve university BTW. Whats that again? Oh yeah, thats the alliance where people who are new to eve can learn basic mechanics isn't it?

Again I am not saying I am the best at pvp. However, there is nothing in either of our killboards that would suggest you somehow outclass me in pvp. So your claim that I am just doing it wrong is going to fly unless you get more specific.

And no I didn't ship up for the fights I have had against boosted frigates. I just jump in the plex in whatever ship I happen to be in at the time. I actually go roaming system to system since I don't rely on alt boosters in a pos to be an iwin button.

So it's about ego. You want to be able to talk about how you fight outnumbered and win, and then brag to all your friends about it what an elite PVPer you are.

Fighting outnumbered is supposed to be hard. "I can't fight outnumbered and win" isn't a balance argument.

Moreover, you only need one boosting character for a fleet of virtually any size. It's dumb to say that OGBs are a boost to small gangs when it's far easier for a blob to have boosts.

Very few people use ganglinks to get an even bigger advantage over weaker prey anyhow, not to say no one does it, but most people use ganglinks to compliment their fleet capabilities or to give them a chance against harder foes.

I'm talking about one example of many possible ones and it doesn't always work out in your favor, but in the position of smaller fleet V blob you'd be making use of the links that gave you the most chances to control range and get out if your overwhelmed.

[quote=Kahega Amielden]

How so? Set one person as the fleet booster and put the right people in the squad/wing/fleet command positions and everyone gets boosts. Where is this incorrect?

And with Loki boosts the larger gang has a better chance of running you down and stopping you from getting away. I fail to see the advantage.

Not arguing that point - merely that off grid boosts are bullshit.

The game as it stands would be better without boosts at all...And if certain command ships were underpowered to the point that they weren't used, it would still be an improvement over the current situation. The only reason why I would call for a rebalance first rather than just nerfing them into the ground until they can be fixed is that it would be unfair to the people who currently have SP in leadership and dumped ISK into CS/boosting t3s.

I think your playing the wrong game... otherwise you'd better start calling to nerfs to implants, cynos, cloaking devices, etc. to.

Implants are a stupid mechanic because there's such a difference in risk between fighting in lowsec vs nullsec...in the former, it's very easy to keep them even if you explode a lot. Cyno hotdrops are equally dumb.

So I guess the only thing in your list that isn't broken is cloaks, as they have plenty of built-in disadvantages.

I recall explaining why I thought implants were a poor mechanic. I never bashed you specifically for using them.

Already answered; the statistical advantages from invisible things like faction mods are minor. Even the statistical advantages of things like implants are pretty small relative to cost.


Regardless, there's little point in continuing this since apparently everyone's bitty. CCP and the CSM have already spoken, and OGBs are not going to be here for very long.

I remember making a suggestion that it should not be possible to activate gang links while inside or within 5k of POS shields a while back. Was immediately flammed. Now people are suggesting pretty much the same thing. Funny.

Most of these guys just think what the CSM wants them to think.

If something is called OP by the CSM they make it their personal crusade to make sure that everybody on the forums knows they think its OP. Most of the time they are horribly misinformed.


I've always thought boosting inside a POS was broken though.


Edit: seems like you hit a nerve there, got three instant quoted replies in 1 minute. lol.

Some people also boost from POS for PVE, etc.

The game would be immediately better, if they removed off grid boosts. Immediately better.

it would terribly damage the unprobable boosting alt style of combat
lol

Battleclinic inicates you are averaging about 5 points per kill, while I am averaging 10 points per kill. This simply means that you tend to have 2xs larger forces per kill than I do.

Not to mention your booster ship isn't even included in your kills. I almost never use one.

Small scale pvp would be vastly improved because these boosters have a larger impact as the size of the gangs goes down.

Face it your off grid booster is a crutch. That is why you rarely pvp outside ammamake. That is why you are in every one of these off grid boosting threads trying to justify an obviously bad mechanic.

Just try walking without the crutch you will be able to do it.

I shoot the falcon or the rr ship because they are ... wait for it.... on grid. BTW you realize they nerfed a falcons range so that they had to be more committed to the combat. Do you think they should extend it back out?

And even if I die, I at least know after the fight not to fight them again. So I avoid them. There aren't that many people who do that and they quickly become well known to the locals.

Who is getting boosts is not so easy to determine.

He also advocates the use of Falcon alts. I'm so glad he doesn't work for CCP.

Not if they are in a pos in your corps home system.

1)Ok you admit you use them.

2)BC points do tend to show how much you blob. And no I don't use faction cruisers or carriers to rep my merlins. So no dice there.

3)You make a bad comparision about how boosters help less as the gang size increases. Boosters will almost always decide a 1v1 but they won't always decide a 200 v 200.

4) Yeah ok try to dodge the actual facts about your and my actual killboard and just go with your raw assertion. I'm in fw so I want off grid boosting removed to help me blob. Nice.

Right you don't use off grid boosters but you are so butthurt about the notion that they would be removed that you post in every thread about it.

That makes sense.

Some of the times I know people are using off grid boosters because of the range of their points and the disruptor that showed up on their killmail. I also know because lots of people admit it. Its not really a secret nor is it a crime to use boosters. Hell I am training a booster alt up myself. It sucks that eve is going in this direction, but until they change this rule its alts online or gtfo.

What is your problem? Seriously leave the crutch behind.

What is the risk in having one in a pos in your home system?

1) I almost never use them. If you used them as rarely as I do there is no way you would be posting in every thread to keep them.
2) BC points per kill and per loss can indeed be a decent indicator of how much one blobs. They are a much better indicator than just accusations on a forum.
3) Of course you don't know its a 2v1 you are walking into so its easy ganks for you and your corp isn't it?
4) What is the big concern you have that removing off grid boosting will ruin eve? Or will it just take away your crutch? And no I never said what you quoted. But yes I did use the frigate soloing a cruiser that can't even lock the frigate as an example of how outrageous the advantages to off grid boosting are.

The problem with offgrid boosting in general is power creep.

People keep arguing how it helps them soloing gatecamps and fighting superior numbers, but will people turn their offgrid alts off as soon as they're not fighting superior ships and numbers? I guess not.

Eventually, having a booster alt will divide characters interested in solo and small gang pvp in those having one and those not having one, making offgrid boosting alts a quasi-prerequisite to do either, since everyone will assume a solo pilot or small gang has one and properly blob them as a consequence.

Whilst it helps solo/small gang in the short run at the moment, it raises the entry barrier for successful solo and small gang pvp and thus, hurts that segment of the game in the long run.

I use OGB extensively, and hate them. They take time to set up properly before fights - off scan, etc, which takes away from the fluidity of combat when both sides are hesitant to engage before their boosters are in place. When using OGBs, you're either fighting other people with OGB's, in which case parity is maintained, or you're screwing with a blob of relatively incompetent players. I'll gladly take the nerf to fighting dumb blobs for not having to haul around a link alt just to keep up in goodfites with competent PvPers.

As for probing, people rarely try to probe OGB's if you set up the safespots properly, and if they do you've got plenty of time to see them coming and hop around safes. It's not hard to hit D-scan every 30 seconds or so in a fight.

Lastly, I have a lot of linked BC fits I'm dying to try out. Three man gang with Wing Commander/Squad Commander/Squad member a fleet can have two of their favorite links going on-grid on BC hulls without significant fitting nerfs, which sounds a hell of a lot more fun for everyone involved.

A blob of some noobtards that has not brought OGBs now will clearly be even less likely to have the organisation/skills to bring on-grid boosts after the change, therefore the mystical small-gang vs blob warfare will still be possible and far off from a catastrophy.

Fitting an Interdiction Maneuvers II Link instead of neuts works without problems on a Hurricane, throw a mindlink into your head and you can boost 90% of what an offgrid Loki would boost with it. You can't tell me that 10% loss are that much of a terrible catastrophy.

By keeping it for the time being, you're killing off an entire generation of new eve pilots that didn't join via SA forums.

Or they just make it on-grid as the "boost" to blobs will be barely noticable.

P.S: More examples of how the blob is catastrophically boosted pls

Any numbers limit you put on ingame fleets will easily be circumvented breaking down the fleet into multiple small gangs, neglecting any disadaventage using OOG comms. Hence your proposal is naive and futile.

Nevertheless, offgrid boosting hurts the smallest guy first and is flat out a wrong and abusive mechanic. I can live with a complete removal of any gangboosts, but offgrid boosting has to die.


(And in case I didn't mention it before, I have 2 characters with close to perfect leadership skills (never really bothered with information warfare links), CS V and flying multiple T3s with all subsystems @ V).

Does the WoW community cry about EVE players this much?

You sure they know what we even are? I'm going to go search WoW forums to see what they think of us.

If I don't make it back.... Any pro-ogb warrior can have my assets. Wish me luck.

Your sole argument is "because I would unsub".

And your suggestions are basically to nerf boosting in different ways, so, I'm not really sure what point you are trying to make?

Then at the end you say "stop thinking about your play style" yet half your idea is clearly geared up to your play style.... off-grid boosting is fine so long as its just for a small number of players and after that you are a "noob blobber" and must use a CS on-grid. What?

How would you make solo/small gang viable in this game without blobbing or fags bootisng with alts?

If I can agree on most of your proposals I wouldn't like to see those links be fitted in whatever ship. We need new small hulls able to do this why not a New destroyer?
Providing buffs to gangs/fleets whatever should require dedication, at least some dedication.

Over all I like your ideas.