Andre Vauban wrote:Wow, what a thread. OGB are a horribly abused mechanic, however moving them on-grid is not a fix. All this will do is encourage the larger side in fleet fights and raise the bar to fighting to "if I cannot alpha a linked, boosted, CS off the field, I cannot fight". If one side doesn't meet this criteria, there will be no fights because this means the side that can alpha a CS (the more powerful side) gets to use links while the other side does not. This tips the balance of power even more towards the larger fleet.
What we have today is FAR better as the barrier to entry to get a cloaky T3 booster is fairly low. If CCP doesn't like the way links work, they should just flat out delete them from the game. Moving them on-grid with no other changes is a knee-jerk reaction that is actually worse than what we have now.
Links on grid is just one change amongst a larger effort to reshape pvp on the grid, viewing it in isolation is misleading. For example, links are on grid but the new grid is ******* huge, I don't see any reason why your CS has to be fit in the style of "hah im a brick" and sit @ 0. Probing changes, grid size, AOE MJD and other new AOE weapons inbound, links on grid etc. are all part of a goal to bring more relevance to the grid in a tactical sense.
What we currently have is sit boosts off grid or on station, anchor up, F1. What we will have is more options and more tactical depth, do you want to brawl in heavy armor, sacrificing relative grid mobility and likely having to settle for a damnation sitting with the fleet? Or do you want to take a ranged shield fleet with a nano Nighthawk? Perhaps you will go with quick aligning/always aligned booster sat @ 7,000km off the fight with a couple of anti-tackle ships in support? Perhaps you will go with two aligned boosters @ 7,000km in seperate groups. Perhaps you decide to add redundancy to your fleet and have less obvious ships running gang links spread through out the fleet.
Sounds like more choice, more tactical depth, more relevance of your entire fleets positioning and more engaging gameplay, perfect counters to Anchored Blob N+1. We might even reach the point where a real person makes a better booster/command ship driver than an alt.