Giving people more ways to defend themselves from ganking is not necessarily a bad thing, if it's about fairness. The same thing can be said not to allow a warp bubble be set up within the effect of a MSI. It shouldn't be used behind an acceleration gate for the same principle.

These should be no brainers no matter how much status quo is to be changed. Looking forward to see the balance changes.

I am much more worrie don the fact aht now you need to be able to kill your target within 32 secodns 9that measn blob) or you need to be in a blaster boat :(

Like I said, we have a significant set of balance changes currently before the CSM and I'll be sharing those with you very soon as well as going over some of the specific larger scope issues that have been raised.

idea how to make the MSI more interesting:
the more mass it hides the easier it is to scan it down. Imagine it would focus signature of everything in range at one point for sensors, creating a larger signature.

if there is too much around it it could even appear on the overview. Would also add another attribute for future, improved versions. (T2 etc)

The FW community is bringing up a good point about the mobile micro jump unit. With it only costing 1 million isk, you can literally use one of these every solo fight to escape nano long point kiters. This unit will completely destroy the play style of using nano long point kiters since anyone and their dog will have these units available to escape once they are long pointed.


Should the MMJU be available for gangs to jump 100km to catch snipers (or vice vera, snipers jumping 100km to escape/get range) and create all sorts of interesting and fun gang fights? Yes.

Should it be a get out of jail free card for solo pilots in the event they run into a nanolong point kiter with practically no investment? No, absolutely not. Increase the cost of the structure to at least 10 million. This way the unit is still cheap enough for it to be justified in gang use yes expensive enough that solo pilots will have to make a choice about using it. The option will still be there for solo pilots to use it, but at a cost.


If this module stays at 1 million isk i'm literally going to put one in every brawler ship I have because its 0 investment to me for a get out of jail free from nano long point kiters. This will destroy an entire play style if it stays this cheap.

That being said, these structures are intentionally provocative so even after this round of adjustments we expect them to be very disruptive to the status quo in a valuable and exciting way.

Beside the severe issues already pointed out in this thread by everyone there's a bad basic concept behind their design: they override EVE skillsets, advancement and fitting requirements.

I mean: any character, no matter the ship, no matter the trained skill, can spam any of this toys and produce overpowered effect, with a massive multiplier from numbers, far beyond what a specializzed character with a proper ship can do in the same area.

This can be accettable for personal utility tools, like the mobile depots and the tractor unit but becomes gamebreaking when it comes to toys able to heavly mess combat and such. This toys ca be used in the same way and with the same identical consequences by any character able to undock and and any ship witha a cargo; no skill training is required, no ships or fitting, no constraints, no player skill.

Not even a cost in terms of ISK (please don't tell me that 5 mil ISK is a balancement factor).

They will never be "good" or balanced. The only hope is to get them nerfed to the point to be usless.

This is an interesting statement to make. It seems to me that you believe that constantly and dramatically shaking up the game balance of Eve Online with wholly new mechanics is good in its own right; that you don't believe in destructive disruption of the status quo. I can't decide if I think you're shaking it up because you think that the core game design of Eve Online is fundamentally broken, or because you're hoping to use constant chaos to prevent the meta stagnation we saw for so many years. Either way it's pretty obvious that you're heavily betting on the sandbox nature of Eve to cover over the flaws.

I guess the point of this post is to say that I'm deeply concerned by the constant introduction of new mechanics and the whipsaw effect on game balance that comes has come with them. I'm afraid that this kind of cavalier approach to introducing new mechanics just for the sake of shaking things up will lead to a place of exponential chaos and a future outright collapse of the system. I'm also concerned that it may lead to a more mundane demise: a place where the core user base no longer recognizes a future incarnation of Eve as the game they've played for so long.

I don't believe that we need either of these two modules, and I believe they will be disruptive to the game in a way that is destructive.

-Liang

I definitely agree that not all change is good, but I would strongly argue that one of the areas of value provided by good changes in a sandbox game is the opportunity for players to explore new forms of gameplay, discover how changes affect their current gameplay, and compete with each other to be the first to capitalize on those new tricks.

In that regard, disruption itself is one of the values provided by a good change to a game.

I also wholeheartedly disagree with your assessment that any of these additions risk causing exponential chaos or making EVE unrecognizable. They are new tools with which to interact with the sandbox (specifically to modify your local environment) and insuring that EVE players have access to a diverse and healthy "toolbox" is at the core of our job as caretakers of the sandbox.

As for specific concerns with the details of these structures, we do think that a lot of the points raised in this thread so far (including many of yours) are extremely valid and we think that the next iteration of the design should go a long way to addressing those specific concerns.

I've been chatting with the CSM about the latest iteration of the design since earlier this afternoon, and things are looking positive from that end so far. Current plan is to give the CSM (especially the North Americans that got off work more recently) some more time to look over and comment on the changes and then if all looks satisfactory I'll bring them to you all in the morning Iceland time.

Have a good night everyone.

I've been chatting with the CSM about the latest iteration of the design since earlier this afternoon, and things are looking positive from that end so far. Current plan is to give the CSM (especially the North Americans that got off work more recently) some more time to look over and comment on the changes and then if all looks satisfactory I'll bring them to you all in the morning Iceland time.

I for one would love to deploy the Mobile Scan Inhibitor inside and outside Faction Warfare plexs. Would be interesting to see fleets on both sides of the acceleration gate mask their compositions and numbers before engagements. I anticipate a lot of scouts meeting untimely ends and a potential for more fights in general as players slide into complexes against unknown odds.

I for one would love to deploy the Mobile Scan Inhibitor inside and outside Faction Warfare plexs. Would be interesting to see fleets on both sides of the acceleration gate mask their compositions and numbers before engagements. I anticipate a lot of scouts meeting untimely ends and a potential for more fights in general as players slide into complexes against unknown odds.

Not only that, but the MSIs will replace the skill of a good d-scanner (or even prober) with the requirement to bring along a whole gang if you hope to land tackle on somebody. Removing a requirement for actual player skill is never a good step to take.

I think adding 'terrain' to this serious spaceships game is a good idea.

I agree that not having character skills tied to it in some ways (either the deployer, the users, or both) is an unusual choice for a game so focused on character progression.

Having said that, I disagree that there's no player skill involved, especially in gangs (player != character, in case that wasn't clear). Get even 5 pilots to use one of these together and see how well their fleet can control their formation and ranges in a combat situation; further, this coordination scales poorly as fleet size goes up which (IMHO) is A Good Thing.

If anything, I think using the MJU in combat will demand MORE player skill - from everyone, not just the FC - not less.

Ok, other example: cloacking.

Actually requires:

- Specific training
- Specific module and fitting
- Specific ship

Have havy limitations:

- cannot use any module
- is decloacked by proximity
- ship fitting is limited
- speed limitations
- poor tank and DPS
- limited engagment opportunities
- targetting delay after decloacking

And more.

MSI not only give cloacking bypassing all the requirements (nothing is required, only having cargo space), not only ignore any penalities... but (as this wasn't already overpowered enough) allow to extend the cloacking to any number of ships around!

it's probably the most overpowered and unbalanced thing ever seen in the MMORPG history.

But, hey, is balanced, it costs 5 milions ISK!

Just spit-ballin' here...
MJU:
1) Micro jump skill could reduce spin-up time, perhaps half as much as for the fitted module. Since this means it'll be even harder for your fleet to stay together through a jump, it's a mixed blessing.
2) A new skill, or the existing anchoring skill, could improve the activation radius of the MJU - could be the deployer, the activator, or both (AFAIK - maybe there's a tech issue with tying it to the deployer?). Or the spin-up time. Or the jump range. Or the anchor skill could reduce the onlining time. Or... etc. etc.
3) New skill could affect the duration.

Yes, please don't compromise on these excellent new tools to the point of making them ineffectual. The CSMs mostly represent themselves and maintaining the status quo.