Originally by: DigitalCommunist

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.. tracking needs to change for long fleet battles to exist. Fleet battles should not be 150 people versus 1. The only way to do this is to split it up into class warfare, and it goes without saying that getting it right is a benefit to smaller fights as well. What appears to be one giant battle may actually be several happening on the same grid.

-Frigates are busy tackling and hurting other frigates.
-Destroyers are trying to screen them away from the BS.
-Cruisers are trying to kill everything.
-Battlecruisers are trying to kill cruisers, and maybe some BS.
-BS are trying to kill BS, and maybe some BC.

Isn't that how what we're led to believe? Isn't that what common sense tells us should happen? Does that happen? Hah, no. Your frig gets blown up when someone looks at you with a shifty eye. Your destroyer zipping around with mwd becomes a juicy cruiser-sized target to some Tachyon-fitted murderbehemoth. Your cruiser is eaten alive by support, and vaporized by BS. Your battlecruiser dies to everything. Your BS gets instafragged either on the grid before you load, or at the planet by a pair of interceptors who make short work of your plated armor.

Right now, three years later in EVE, and the outcome of fleet battles still come down to the same three things (in order of importance):

1. Number of battleships
2. FC's ability to call targets
3. Quality of mods/skills


Now, does anyone see whats wrong with this? All three factors are decided before the fight even begins. You take into consideration how slow fleets move, how easy it is to spy on "large" groups, and how mind-numbingly useful local chat is.. and you get.. blob warfare!

Blob warfare happens because people know their rough chances of victory before they ever engage, so they try to improve it with more battleships. Logically, its not possible to find a better FC or wait until everyone trains for Tech 2 guns. The other side sees this and responds with the same.

In class warfare, you're basically guaging your frigate pilots vs theirs, your cruiser pilots vs theirs, and your bs pilots vs theirs. Which means that you're likely to get a fight much sooner, and the fight is going to consist of mixed fleets. Mixed fleets mean less battleships. Less battleships means less damage. Less damage means longer fight.

Currently, losing your BS fleet means losing the battle, because the support stands no chance. It should be the other way around, without making battleships entirely useless and fleet battles the domain of rocket riding frigate jockeys.

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