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Bloggers #41, TomB's new epic, Gangs of New Eden

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Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 24 post(s)
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 13:00:00 - [1] Edited by: Alex Harumichi on 07/11/2006 13:07:44 Originally by: Sensi Milla A gang limit of 50 will needlessly cripple alliance combat when Kali hits, since nobody will be able to train the skills until they are released - and even then, with good skills it will take at least a month to match a 50 man gang limit. Slight hyperbole. With Leadership V you get 10 people in squadron. That's, what, 5 days of training, even if you have no leadership to start with -- and pretty much everyone has at least Leadership 3-4, it's only rank 1. For 50 people, you need Wing Command 4. So that's a rank 8 skill to level 4, which is... dunno, 7 days (just a guess)? So that's 5 + 7 = 12 days, less than 2 weeks. ...and everyone else will be in the same boat, it's not like you'll be the only alliance dealing with this. So we'll see smaller gangs for a few weeks. Sky isn't falling. Of course, if your Charisma is 3 then it sucks to be you. Nobody forced you to take that minimized charisma, now it's payback time for all the training time you've saved up to now.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 13:06:00 - [2] Originally by: TomB Originally by: Sensi Milla A gang limit of 50 will needlessly cripple alliance combat when Kali hits, since nobody will be able to train the skills until they are released - and even then, with good skills it will take at least a month to match a 50 man gang limit. You'll be capable of having a Fleet of 256 members right away, the only problem is that you won't be capable of having the Fleet Commander active until he has sufficient skills to run an army of that size. So the only difference is that this single Commander can't be giving gang bonuses to this big group of players. Now I'm confused. I thought the new skills affected the number of members you could have in your squadron, or the number of squadrons you could have in your wing, etc... but the above implies that you could form a max-size fleet with zero Leadership skills. How does that work?
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 13:12:00 - [3] Additional question: I'm a bit puzzled as to why squadron commanders don't (apparently) get the best bonuses from their wing/fleet commanders, which the non-leader pilots under him do, and likewise wing commanders apparently(?) don't benefit from fleet commander bonus? Wouldn't it make more sense like this: squad members: get highest of squad/wing/fleet commander bonus squad commanders: get highest of own/wing/fleet bonus wing commanders: get highest of own/fleet bonus fleet commanders: are uber and don't need no stinkin' extra bonus
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 13:22:00 - [4] Originally by: jeNK "Milking the cash cow" springs to mind. So we have pvp alts/mains Industrial alts Research alts + more (capital alts/mains?) and now gang alts. Funny, I do all those (fairly well) with my main. Guess nobody told me I needed all those alts.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 13:41:00 - [5] Originally by: jeNK Originally by: Alex Harumichi Originally by: jeNK "Milking the cash cow" springs to mind. So we have pvp alts/mains Industrial alts Research alts + more (capital alts/mains?) and now gang alts. Funny, I do all those (fairly well) with my main. Guess nobody told me I needed all those alts. Says it in the blog "Specialised path" So you're happy to train rank 12 skills+ everytime a new feature comes out that is a necessity if you want to continue playing? k, good for you. Well, I have yet to see any rank 12 skills that are a necessity to the way I play. Pretty much all the "necessary" stuff is max rank 5. But yeah, if a new rank 12 skill came out that I felt was necessary to me, hell yes I'd train it. You know what the good thing about those high ranks is? Not that many bother to train them, or just train on mono-focused alts, giving you an edge if you do have them. It always a trade-off. But this is digressing a bit from the point of this thread.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 15:11:00 - [6] Originally by: Adam Reed Hang about... "gang bonuses of any kind (skills, modules) have been disabled completely" ...now, I know this thread seems to be all about combat, but I just want to check - this doesn't mean non-combat gang bonuses have been scrapped as well does it? The extra 10% yield for a gang with Mining Foreman level 5 is what I'm principally thinking of. Ummm, I'd think that's exactly what it means. "...of any kind (skills, modules)...". I think it's pretty clear. Otoh, it's trivial to train Leadership (rank 1) to 4 or 5, and even with just 4 you have a "fleet" size of 8 -- enough for many mining ops. Push it to V, and get a few quick levels of Wing Command, and you're suddenly at 30 or so members -- and that's only about 5 days of training. Not a biggie.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 15:15:00 - [7] Originally by: Mr Ninjaface All the wings and squad crap is just useless Speak for yourself. I think the fleet organization it gives you is a big bonus. I've been in too many fleets which have been total chaos due to confusing FC and poor organization. Sure, a good FC can overcome all that, but you don't always have the luxury of a good FC. Having the game enable you to organize scout wings, sniper wings, etc in a clear fashion is a big help, especially with the style of smaller gangs we tend to use in pirate hunts and empire warfare in general.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 15:26:00 - [8] Originally by: Sha'Uri Dark Oh and evenly distributed stats FTW! Quite. I'm staring at my "Charisma 20" with much love atm. I expect the whinefest from the Charisma 3 brigade will be quite entertaining, once they figure things out.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 15:29:00 - [9] Originally by: Sister Bliss At least allow the commanders to benefit from each others (and their own) links. All the other changes look good though. Agreed. Commanders should definately benefit from the skills of other commanders. It makes ingame sense (they are working together, aren't they), and makes ooc sense (these people put a lot of effort and sp into their command skills, they need to get at least as much benefit from them as their "subordinates" do). Otherwise the job of a FC (or squad/wing lead) doesn't look very inviting. Lots of skills to train, lots of hassle, reduced personal reward.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 15:37:00 - [10] Originally by: Smagd Erm, brother, it's in the blog: You form a regular gang (up to 256 whatever) but zero gang assist skills and modules and apply (nerf!). Well, maybe I'm just dense but the blog isn't totally clear, imho. So we can still have an old-style gang, and that has a max of 50 now? But then you can apparently convert that to a "fleet", even without any skills, and now suddenly the max size is 256? Wtf? Am I seriously misunderstanding something here? Why not use fleets in that case over gangs, and why the arbitrary cap of 50 in gangs? I thought the skills decided the size of the fleet (or squad/wing) you could form in the first place, but apparently they only determine who can act as leader, and you can have a "leaderless" 256-person "fleet" with no skills(?). Originally by: Smagd Then you skill the skills (and I somehow doubt you'll get a rank 8 skill to IV in 7 days with a low primary charisma attribute Why would I have a low charisma? Because some twinks think minimizing your charisma is always a good idea? Well, this is where they are proved a bit wrong. If you created a balanced character, I think that 7 days is in the right ballpark. If not, well, blame yourself.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 15:40:00 - [11] Originally by: Daniel Jackson any way, what about the mining implants, will they still work as usual, when u invite people to the gang ? or do they need to be commanders as wel? I think it's quite obvious they need to be commanders, since the implants give boost to gang modules, and it has been stated that all gang bonuses (skill, module) are only applied from the commander(s). But again, unless you have a silly-low Charisma, it's trivial to train Leadership V and a few levels of Wing Command, which in turn solves your problems.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 15:50:00 - [12] Originally by: Darpz sorry don't like it. I like the interface changes, but I don't like the new gang setup for a numbers of reason It nerfs carriers and command ships hard since it forces them to be commanders for the gang bonus's to apply but this doesn't work normally because well carriers sit in safe/pos away from battle and command useually do that same or are support killers since they do not have the ablity to work at the ranges that battles happen. That's a valid complaint. I pretyt much like the new system because it fits the style of battles that we have -- but that's mostly smaller-scale Empire warfare and antipirate fights, and small and medium range. For 0.0. fleet/sniper warfare, I guess it's a valid complaint that there are atm no suitable "command ships" for fleet commanders. Of course, you could try having the FC in whatever ship he/she wants, and having the wing commanders in command ships. You don't need to have the FC give all the bonuses for everyone, you can share out that stuff -- which is also a good idea because not flying a command ship means the FC isn't an automatic primary But yeah, I can see some of the problems. I have zero-to-no experience with long-range 0.0 fleet warfare, we do most of our fighting in lowsec Empire. If this change goes through as planned, there is clearly a need for a fleet command ship (one that has enough targeting range for fleet ops, at least, and can run command modules). Of course, that would become an automatic primary, but... win some, lose some
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 15:52:00 - [13] Originally by: TomB Commanders can give bonuses, commanders receive the bonuses they give. They do not get bonuses from other commanders, i.e. Squad Commander does not receive bonuses from the Wing or Fleet Commander. The ONLY reason for this is a technical issue, it's on our list for fixes. This is how it is currently on the Test Server (SiSi). Ah. Cool. I was wondering why that "commanders get no benefit from each other" thing was there, this clears that point up.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 15:55:00 - [14] Originally by: Mr Ninjaface TomB you added all the board cast stuff etc (i need cap armor/shield) The current targeting system makes cap transfers sheild transfers hard during battle if you have say a cap transfer on your apoc but you also have 7 turrets. You then have to lock you friend and cap transfer him then in the heat of the battle remember not to start shooting the crap out of him because hes locked. Can we have a sperate locking system for gang mates on that you cant activate hostile modules on unless you specify that you want to do so or something. Agreed. How about just a blanket much-faster locktime on your squadron mates, for instance? We all agree that Logistics still needs some help in order for it to become useful in fleets, and one of the major gripes is the slow locktime on gangmates. If being in the same squadron gave a locktime bonus on each other, that imho would help logistics nicely.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 15:59:00 - [15] Originally by: Mongo Smith Thanks for the prompt responses TomB. Not sure if its been mentioned before or not, one feature that would be useful would be the ability to rename each wing/fleet/squadron to aid in the organisation. Seconded on both counts. Thanks for the feedback TomB, and yes, being able to give names to squadrons/wings would be very nice and would reduce the confusion. "Snipers" is a lot less confusion-inducing than "Squadron 2"
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 16:03:00 - [16] Originally by: Paddlefoot Aeon Yeah TomB... thanks for the quick response. Naming each squad (Blue, Red, Green, etc...) might help when issuing orders on a larger scale operation. We demand a Pink Squad!
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 16:06:00 - [17] Originally by: Mr Ninjaface hardly worried about lock time but for example. you ask for cap your gang mate locks you and starts cap transfers while fighting some other guy. FC calls a new target say a BC. The guy locks it and activates his guns (f1-7 (8 is cap transfer)) But then before he gets his guns off guy in squad 2 in his maelstrom gets a wreaking hit from 3 of his guns and the BC insta pops. Your guns then cycle to the guy your cap transfering because suddenly as you activated your weapons your target was gone. Ah, yeah. I've done the friendly fire vs logistics thing myself once Not sure how to solve that, tbh.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.07 16:40:00 - [18] Edited by: Alex Harumichi on 07/11/2006 16:45:22 Edited by: Alex Harumichi on 07/11/2006 16:43:33 Originally by: Lily Savage FC in a carrier at a safe spot - how's he going to call targets? Can other ppl apart from the FC call targets? Maybe, just maybe, CCP doesn't want you to park your carrier (and FC) in a safespot. Not that it would be very smart in Kali, anyway. The new probe system looks like it will make safespots something you don't want to sit in for over half a minute if there's a hostile covops in the same system. Busting them will be easy and ultrafast, especially when looking for big ships like a carrier.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.08 09:12:00 - [19] Originally by: Admentus Cor'vion Biggest problem is "Hey, lets pile 3 months of skills to characters who wish to command gangs". Hmmm. Unless you're talking about gangs of over 40 people, it's a training time of max 12-13 days even if you're starting from scratch. Assuming you're not a charisma 3-5 twink, in which case you do lose (and can blame yourself). For bigger gangs/fleets, yes, the training time will be longish, you need Wing Commander V which is rank 8... so that's what, 40 days extra about? So for 50 people you'd need something like 50+ days, starting from scratch. After that it speeds up for a while, because with Fleet Command III (quick to train even though it's rank 12 or something) you get 150 people (3 wings). So you'd actually need those 3 months if you wanted to lead fleets of 200-250 people. How many people really need to do that? I suspect the quick-to-train-for max 40 people fleet is big enough for a vast majority of situations. If you really need huge 200+ person fleets, then yes, you need someone to train for many months in order to be an FC. And remember, you can still form those fleets without any skills. The training req only applies if you want to have someone give gang bonuses to the whole fleet -- which is a big thing when we're talking about 200+ people being boosted. So yes, this is a slight nerf to the gang modules. It also makes sense, the old system of parking a command ship / carrier in a safespot and having it boost 200+ people with no effort was idiotic. Also remember: this will affect everyone. It's not like you're the only ones having to train this; if you train this and your enemies don't, you'll have the edge. Sure, big alliances who are used to easily boosting everyone in a mega-gang will scream, wail and gnash their teeth (witness this forum and the one in the Kali dev section with the Goon whinefest ). That's to be expected.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.08 09:14:00 - [20] Originally by: James Duar The problem is, we're going to have to live through this before it gets changed back to something useful. I don't have this reaction often, but this is looking like one of the changes to which there is no "adapt" mechanic - you just die. Lay off the hyperbole, it's bad for your health. If you suddenly "just die" because you don't get gang bonuses for the few weeks someone trains up the skills, then you have problems that are no way related to this change....
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.08 09:25:00 - [21] Originally by: Eewec Ourbyni [ It's more the complete and total lack of any cross bonus'. Before you got the bonus your gang mates gave out and they got yours. Now normal "rank and file" pilots only get the bouns' from possibly three people in their chain of command. That means that small gangs are up the creak right there. Are you honestly trying to tell me that in a lowsec gang of 10 people only 1 person was giving out any bonus to the gang? So it's not just the new leadership skills the fleet/wing/gang commander needs to train, but also all of the other bonus' they wish their fleet/wing/gang to have. That's a lot of training. I realize that. But also keep in mind that everyone is in the same boat. It's not like you get hit by this and your enemies don't. In effect, it's a uniform reduction of bonuses for everyone, which won't have any effect in your warfare. Assuming it's pvp you're talking about, it will of course have some effect for ratting and mining gangs in the beginning.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.08 09:28:00 - [22] Originally by: Eewec Ourbyni Originally by: Alex Harumichi The amount of whining from people here who are shocked and dismayed that Leadership skills and Command ships suddenly will start applying to, you know, "leadership" and "command", is quite amusing. Need more popcorn. That would be because up toill now it wasn't needed to get CCP to slit those skills up into better named groups so they were Command, Leadership and Support... notice the complete lack of any group called support, then look at the skill descriptions and notice how many mention the role of support rather than leadership or command. Up to this change this syntactic error in the skill groupings wasn't important, now it is, so now you get the complaints about it. Yeah. I was just making light fun of peoples' extreme reactions there, I do realize why they are complaining of course. Well, some of them at least. I personally see this as bringing much more good than bad, but it will be a huge change.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.08 09:32:00 - [23] Originally by: Boogey Trollias Originally by: Alex Harumichi So you'd actually need those 3 months if you wanted to lead fleets of 200-250 people. How many people really need to do that? Almost everyone in a bigger alliance whom fleet commmands even occasionally. And in addition to that you will have to read lots of skills for gang bonuses and command ships AND in addition to that having any level of leadership in fleet hierarcy makes it basicly impossible to go afking. Ok, fair enough. I don't really have an anwer to that, other than either use multiple smaller fleet and coordinate via TS or train up the new skills. Both have their own problems, of course, and as you note, you'd need multiple people with FC skills to be able to switch roles while you go AFK (or go link dead, or whatever).
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.08 09:51:00 - [24] Originally by: FireFoxx80 so the "Squadron Command" skill that people have trained up for warfare links, will not be the skill to enable the commanding of squads in Kali? No. Had you actually read the dev blog, or even TomB's comments on the previous page, you'd know that the skill is the good ol' Leadership. Yes, it's a bit confusing, but (as TomB noted on the previous fricking page), they can't rename it right now for technical/resource reasons.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.08 10:00:00 - [25] Originally by: FireFoxx80 My bad. The hierarchy thing is a little mushy. Agreed.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.08 13:28:00 - [26] Originally by: Xurx Quote: It nerfs carriers and command ships hard since it forces them to be commanders for the gang bonus's to apply but this doesn't work normally because well carriers sit in safe/pos away from battle and command useually do that same or are support killers since they do not have the ablity to work at the ranges that battles happen. That raises another question tho....why is a ship (carrier), able to do damage (assigning drones), and not be in any harm ?(sitting at a ss/pos) It's good to realize that scan probing is getting a huge boost in Kali. Safespots will be a lot less safe, finding big ships like a carrier will be ultrafast for a competent covops pilot (we're talking 20-30 seconds here). In the worst case, the carrier won't even have time to align for a jump to the next safespot before it gets a covops-led gang on top of it. POS will still work, of course.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.08 13:55:00 - [27] Originally by: Hllaxiu Originally by: Alex Harumichi Dunno, that sounds like real-life warfare to me. If the commanding officer is killed, there is a mad scramble to figure out who is next in line to command. Whose military were you in? Well, I was thinking of an in-combat situation, where things are hectic and information flow is often... lacking. Sure, you have your chain of command, but if the commander is suddenly killed there will always be some delay before everyone figures out who is the highest-ranking officer still alive after the attack that took out the "FC". For a short while, the low-level command is on its own until the brass realigns itself. And a year in the Finnish military, if you want to know.
Alex Harumichi Gallente Gradient Namtz'aar k'in	Posted - 2006.11.08 16:21:00 - [28] Originally by: Garia666 I thinks its very sad that DEVs make such changes without notifying before hand. Yeah put some more skillz in.. More skilz more Moneh .. Force people to be something they dont want to be but have to do because they have the skilz and equipment. You just push it to your members there troath .. What do you think this is, other than advance notification? Or did you mean that the players should get to decide how everything works? It's not a democracy. And it's "skills". No idea what "there troath" is, but it sounds nasty.

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