If I have missed any of the main arguments, please let me know and I will include them.

2. It will hurt small gangs
Now this is the big one. Every player knows that CCP hates nothing more than small gangs and every single balancing attempt by them had the one and only purpose of hurting small gangs.
The assumption that a 200 man fleet should be able to curbstomp a 10 man elite peeveepee fleet is simply ridiculous and sadly shows how detached CCP have become from reality. Under realistic conditions, the smaller fleet should always have an advantage over the larger one.

Quality thread, + 1 for OP.


You missed two other important points, one of them being already repeatedly mentioned by other posters in this thread.

1. It didn't work with Logi and ECM either
Being on grid, targetable and attackable is a serious handicap for any force multiplier. Logis and electronic warfare ships already suffer from this rather unfortunate condition and subsequently found themselves primaried in fleets. The mere fact that those ships were vulnerable led to nobody using them anymore. Ever.
Seriously, shall our beloved booster ships become as obsolete as Logis and ECM ?

2. It will hurt small gangs
Now this is the big one. Every player knows that CCP hates nothing more than small gangs and every single balancing attempt by them had the one and only purpose of hurting small gangs.
The assumption that a 200 man fleet should be able to curbstomp a 10 man elite peeveepee fleet is simply ridiculous and sadly shows how detached CCP have become from reality. Under realistic conditions, the smaller fleet should always have an advantage over the larger one.

You're cute. The problem isn't 200 vs 10 that's the problem. It's 15 vs 12 and two kills in it feels more like 40 vs 10 due to the overwhelming effectiveness of gang links. Gang link strength is the core culprit here, and bringing them on grid won't solve that.

-Liang

Ed: BTW, I should be clear here. Delete gang mods. All of them.

If you're using an alt to boost then the skills are doing precisely this. They are increasing the statistics of the ship(s) that are actually in combat. What is 10m sp really worth in terms of isk (the only measure that matters)? Nothing significant.

OGB is in the game and the pay to win model is also already in, but it really should be moderated. Allow it to be an advantage but give players tools to detect and counter it.

Also although the economic reasons for keeping it are good, making changes to increase accessibility are also valuable for the same reason. Where OGB is truly sticking out is the 'low resource' pvp types like FW where casual play is suffering. If we're talking about 0.0 just bringing more material and balancing numerically imbalanced engagements is more important.

You're cute. The problem isn't 200 vs 10 that's the problem. It's 15 vs 12 and two kills in it feels more like 40 vs 10 due to the overwhelming effectiveness of gang links. Gang link strength is the core culprit here, and bringing them on grid won't solve that.

-Liang

Ed: BTW, I should be clear here. Delete gang mods. All of them.

OK, serious proposal, without any sarcasm and trolling:
How about they just remove the boosting role from Command ships and t3 altogether and keep it exclusive to the t1 battlecruisers? Plenty of them are used, so it wouldn't be easy for the enemy to quickly find the booster and kill it.
Change the fleet mechanics so that there could be multiple boosters and distribute the links between your regular battlecruisers (since they can only support one single link per ship).
As a nice side effect, T1 BC bonus to ganglinks isn't as horribly overpowered than on t2 or t3 versions.

If more numbers cant beat smaller numbers then OGB is not the problem. It comes down to the pilots and the ships they are in. You should better analyze the fight if thats the issue.

Next....

You assumed that it was the 12 that lost their boosters. In reality, the 15 can feel like it's 10 vs 40 just as easily if they're the ones that suddenly lost their links. Again, the problem here is the overwhelming strength of gang mods.

-Liang

Serious proposal: delete gang mods. All of them.

-Liang

Lets be extremely logical:

More is better
2 is larger than 1
2 cross beams holds more weight than 1
2 guns is better than 1
2 dps is greater than 1 dps
2 logis is better than 1 logi


Explain to me why 12 ships cannot destroy 10 ships?

If boosts were so effective how come during the alliance tournament fights, the fleets with the boosted ships never won?

Your reading comprehension is absolutely terrible. You're trying to make it out like it's 20 vs 10 when the proposed problem is 12 beating 15 as though it were 40 vs 10. As to why fleets with boosted ships never won in the AT... well, confirming that AT PVP is exactly like TQ PVP. That's why kite setups work so well in the AT and suck so bad on TQ.

-Liang

If you dont know how to run Dscan for a boosting ship then I dont know what to tell you. The new probing mechanics are extremely easy to use considering they allow you to probe down a booster alt in seconds.

My point was that winning fights in eve more or less comes down to skill.

I guess you are saying the 300 spartans had boosts

1. the larger force is more able to defend its boosting ships due to being able to proportionally field more logistics
2. the larger force is more able to attack the smaller force's boosting ships because its superior DPS overpowers them quicker
3. the larger force, by its very nature, is more able to field backup boosting ships to immediately replace the ones lost due to enemy action

My point is that gang boosts provide the equivalent of multiple pirate implant sets and deadspace mods for your entire fleet. Bringing them on grid really doesn't change that. It is an insufficient and bad solution to an already bad problem. The correct answer is a complete rethink of the entire mechanic. That is to say: completely delete links in their current incarnation.

-Liang

If Rorquals aren't realistic as On grid boosters, then CCP needs to make them realistic for on grid boosting. We shouldn't be making exceptions and invulnerable ships. Give them a reinforcement timer if they get attacked whilst deployed or something, but don't make an exception for them. Or give them fighters or something. I don't really care how you change it, but that's a better alternative to making an off grid exception.

This paradigm should become the "classic" usage of on grid boosting vessels.

It was my understanding that the bonuses were going to be scaled down fairly significantly.

It is totally unreasonable to ask them to risk in game assets.

Good gameplay isn't actually the priority.

'Pay to win' mentality would usually be frowned upon, but it is a very appropriate game mechanic in a harsh sandbox like EVE.

Getting rid of OGB is gonna get rid of small gang pvp.

I'm sorry that you find it impossible to PvP in small gangs without an off grid booster.