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Blobing/Powerballing and the future

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Deschenus Maximus Amarr Digital Fury Corporation Digital Renegades	Posted - 2007.07.04 06:20:00 - [1] Why I think the blob is here to stay : CCP said that they do not like the blob. They elaborated that they do not like the fact that people bring more and more people to fights (blobing and outblobing basically) and also dislike the ½ powerball + formation (the spherical mass of ships that fleets end up in). CCP has tried different ideas so far to break up both the outblobbing and powerballs (Titans and Stealth bombers, mainly), wich, in my and many peopleÆs opinion, failed. This post will delve into the ½ why? + of the outblobbing/powerballing and the reasons why I believe they are both here to stay. First of all, why do people always try to outblob each other? Well, the reason is simple : the more guns you have, the faster you take down opposing targets, which means the less losses you take. People, in general, donÆt like losing ships, and especially donÆt like losing ships stupidly. So why engage outnumbered, or even at equal numbers? Secondly, why does the powerball formation exist? Well, the reasons are that : a)since you can shoot through friendly/enemy ships and any other object, there is really no reason to try to set up some sort of pretty formation (reason why RL tactical formations exists is mainly to avoid friendly fire). b)and indeed, doing so could possibly decrease your efficiency (if you were to form a ½ line abreast + formation, for example, with sniper battleships, the ships on the furthermost left and right-hand sides would have a harder time to reach all targets than the centermost ships, as they would be in an oblique line to most of them, instead of a direct line). c)because most fights end up being at gates, or other warpable-to objects, and that the only practicle way of moving about is to ½ warp to x km +, you will inevitably end up all bunched up, as the ships will converge unto each other as they warp to their destination. Once there, why waste time trying to establish some sort of formation when you can just blastorise the opposition anyways? Now, how would one theorically fix both problems? Well, in the case of the purely numerical problem, you have, I think, two options, but both are really not all that good : 1)Limit the number of friendly and hostiles that can be in a system at one time (capping the system). You cannot simply put a indiscriminate cap, as that will simply mean that the defenders will fill that cap with as many people as they can, letting only piecemeal attacking forces through, to be picked off at their leasure. Now the problem is, how does Eve go about deciding who is friendly and who is hostile? Standings? How do you treat neutrals in that case? And how do you prevent alliances setting their Blues to Red temprorarily so they can fill the system to prevent the real reds from entering? 2)Limit the number of people that can target/shoot at one ship, in order to reduce the benefits of focused fire, thus reducing the benefits of large numbers. CCP have suggested this before, and silly as it is in a ½ how do you explain this from a RP perspective? +, it might have been a solutionà except that countering it is remarkably easy : you simply continue to bring the same large numbers, but assign targets to groups within your blob. For example, if only five people can lock and shoot at a target at a time, but you bring 50 people to a fight, you simply create 10 groups of 5 and call out 10 targets for them to engage i.e. Group 1 engages Target 1, Group 2 engages target 2, and so on and so forth. While this would make the FCing job more challenging/interesting, it would not help with the blobbing/oublobbing problem, as 10 groups of 5 would still have the advantage over 7 groups of 5, for example.
Deschenus Maximus Amarr Digital Fury Corporation Digital Renegades	Posted - 2007.07.04 06:21:00 - [2] Ok, so how about the ½ powerball + problem? Well, this POSSIBLY could be fixed, but the implications on the software and servers are pretty dreadful, I would think. What you would need to do is 1) make objects obstruct lines of fires for a shipÆs weapons, so you would have to resort to SOME sort of formation to ensure all your ships could fire, and 2) have some way of keeping formation even when warping and jumping. Now, I fear that those two things would create even more lag, which really isnÆt a good thing. Additionaly, those would be several more lines of code, which directly means several more bugs. Also, all this would do is flatten the ball into a powercircle, as that would be the formation allowing for the most concentration of fire on one objective. Finally, this would make anything other than sniping battleships and interceptors pretty useless, as support would only get in the way of the sniping shipsÆ lines of fire. So all in all, I rather doubt we will be seeing less blobs and powerballs in the future.
Deschenus Maximus Amarr Digital Fury Corporation Digital Renegades	Posted - 2007.07.04 13:30:00 - [3] Too long?
Malaan Tabfassh Penguin Mining Operations and More	Posted - 2007.07.04 13:41:00 - [4] No, but you mentioned the pros and cons and there is simply nothing to add
J'Mkarr Soban Amarr Shadows of the Dead Aftermath Alliance	Posted - 2007.07.04 13:53:00 - [5] I'll add something. No caps on system, that's bad. Bias the load on the servers proportional to people in the system to reduce lag. Whilst most people will say that this idea will just encourage more people to arrive in the blob, from what I've seen more people are added to make sure that the damage gets through despite the lag, the overkill is there to compensate for it. Large fleet battles ftw. Half the stories in the chronicles talk about them. Just make them easier. Another thing is it's really hard to discuss the kind of tactics we've seen in past real world battles, because we're talking about a place where we can get true 3D formations. I've come up with a few that I want to test at some point, although obviously I'm not going to tell you lot heh. Suffice to say you can't talk about 'line abreast' or 'right echlon' as these refer to small squadrons. You need to discuss the tactics and formations in terms of fleets, where each 'unit' in a fleet is a flight or squadron in itself.
Kindakrof Caldari Cruor Frater Coalition of Carebear Killers	Posted - 2007.07.04 14:06:00 - [6] Edited by: Kindakrof on 04/07/2007 14:05:09 It's not an easy problem to solve. How about just lowering the bomb requirements a bit? (as in less skills needed for the use of them) --- --- ---
Deschenus Maximus Amarr Digital Fury Corporation Digital Renegades	Posted - 2007.07.04 14:58:00 - [7] Originally by: J'Mkarr Soban I'll add something. No caps on system, that's bad. Bias the load on the servers proportional to people in the system to reduce lag. Whilst most people will say that this idea will just encourage more people to arrive in the blob, from what I've seen more people are added to make sure that the damage gets through despite the lag, the overkill is there to compensate for it. Large fleet battles ftw. Half the stories in the chronicles talk about them. Just make them easier. I'm not very good with technical matters. What do you mean by biasing the load? Originally by: J'Mkarr Soban Another thing is it's really hard to discuss the kind of tactics we've seen in past real world battles, because we're talking about a place where we can get true 3D formations. I've come up with a few that I want to test at some point, although obviously I'm not going to tell you lot heh. Suffice to say you can't talk about 'line abreast' or 'right echlon' as these refer to small squadrons. You need to discuss the tactics and formations in terms of fleets, where each 'unit' in a fleet is a flight or squadron in itself. Yes, it's possible that some fleet formations can be of use (I've thought about this myself), but what CCP considers a problem IS the lack of "line abreast" and such small formations, and that's what I was discussing in the OP. Originally by: Kindakrof Edited by: Kindakrof on 04/07/2007 14:05:09 It's not an easy problem to solve. How about just lowering the bomb requirements a bit? (as in less skills needed for the use of them) To make bombs effective, you'd need to make them cheap, not too skill intensive, and deadly, which would lead to fleets of bombers instead of fleets of BSes, so you're back at square one basically.
Hajyt Caldari EnTech Pax Familia	Posted - 2007.07.04 16:28:00 - [8] I never understood the arguement against blobs. The only way they are bad is if they cause lag....and thats it. People complain about a huge fleet being able to destroy a little fleet. Do they expect the weaker force to win? If you can't build a strong force you deserve to lose a head on battle tbh. People just don't understand that they can't win everytime, and not everytime they lose is because of a game flaw.. "omg we lost! how? well it was 20 vs 150, but we would have won without their blob!! blobs must be nerfed!" No ****. You would have won if they didn't have so many ships. haha The problem isn't blobs, its the lag created by blobs. Don't try to "fix" blobs, fix the lag.
Eric Lupanasia	Posted - 2007.07.04 16:42:00 - [9] Well, there is one thing they could do to get the groups to spread out: Make it dangerous to bunch up. - Heavy / cruise missiles have blast radius damage- not extensive, but any frigate hanging on the coattails of a battleship is going to get rattled. - Exploding ships do damge to nearby ships- now, I've never seen a capital ship "go up", but I imagine this allowing for a slow chain-reaction type explosion. Imagine having to disengage all targets and run for your life because that dreadnought behind you just took a fatal hit, and its powerplant is about to blow. Hey, I'm the kind of guy who loves firing artillery into groups of infantry. So sue me. ------------------- "There can be good done while profiting."
R3dSh1ft Dark Knights of Deneb Against ALL Authorities	Posted - 2007.07.04 16:49:00 - [10] reduce price on stealth bombers' bombs so they are affordable for fleet fights. give us formations so we can hold the fleet in some kind of order. make focus fire less effective to encourage splitting the fleet down into smaller tactical units. make friendly fire more likely by having turret fire that goes through a friendly ship damage said ship. when a ship explodes, it should create splash damage to hurt nearby friendly ships. this wont completely stop blobbing, but it would discourage powerballing and create a more tactically interesting alliance vs alliance combat situation. DKOD - an awesome synchronised killing machine

Hllaxiu Shiva Morsus Mihi	Posted - 2007.07.04 16:50:00 - [11] Originally by: Kindakrof How about just lowering the bomb requirements a bit? (as in less skills needed for the use of them) I think people just don't like the idea of firing feroxes at other people. (yes, one bomb is the same price as a battlecruiser) --- Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail. - Emerson
Tajidan Mortis Angelus	Posted - 2007.07.04 16:58:00 - [12] how about collision damage plus blast radius¦ of xplosions? no more bumping, no more blobbing, no more jita madness instead you would have, kamikaze-domis, need of formations, need of station traffic control. just my 2cents :I
Kharadran Sullath Caldari	Posted - 2007.07.04 17:44:00 - [13] I believe CCP needs to spend more time with the issue in question, and that two things are needed to remove the blob. 1. Both cheap and advanced/expensive anti-blob warfare. 2. Another, new game aspect that works against blobs, e.g. normal shots hitting objects, a "stacking penalty" on ships being to close together, some damage/navigation benefit of being in formation etc... My two cents anyway. ------ --Don't get saucy with me Bernaise!--
Vmir Gallahasen Gallente Omniscient Order	Posted - 2007.07.04 18:22:00 - [14] Originally by: Hajyt The problem isn't blobs, its the lag created by blobs. Don't try to "fix" blobs, fix the lag. And once the lag is fixed, it will enable people to bring more people, and the lag will return, and we'll have to fix the lag again, so that people will bring more people, and ... See where I'm going with this? You'll be back at square 1, only it'll be laggier and blobbier (is that a word?). The server hardware can only take so much. Not only does encouraging smaller blobs decrease lag, combat actually becomes fun. Watching the blue squares shoot at the red squares doesn't really take any actual thought, aside from the FC who is doing all of your thinking for you. Originally by: Hajyt The only way they are bad is if they cause lag....and thats it. I disagree strongly. A few years ago, if two sides had roughly the same numbers, you'd go at each other guns blazing, screaming your battle cries. Now, if a similar situation develops, one side will inevitably jump half a dozen carriers onto you and then a second fleet twice your size jumps in from the other side, and there's just no fun for either side. Are you saying that's the kind of fighting you actually enjoy?
Aria Jenneth Caldari Omerta Syndicate	Posted - 2007.07.04 18:28:00 - [15] Let's see ... I like the idea of splash damage from exploding ships (this might even make bombs more effective, as ships merely damaged by the initial blast could be wiped out by a chain-reaction storm of novaing vessels. I just love the image). Another possibility would be to cause weapon accuracy to plummet based on the quantity of focused fire a target is taking. If you've ever wondered how a battleship or, for that matter, frigate under fire from multiple hostiles can be distinguished from cataclysmic energies being unleashed on the space around it, you can see where I'm coming from on this. You could call it "targeting interference" and have statistics for various weapons based on the amount of interference they create to allow frigates to gang up more effectively than battleships. As a thought, this could be based on a reduction to target sig radius.
SiJira	Posted - 2007.07.04 18:36:00 - [16] well written but there really is nothing to discuss as you answered it all ____ __ ________ _sig below_ the jet cans are made so that people that dont mine can get free ore miners ritually donate the ore to anyone wishing to take some
Cailais Amarr VITOC	Posted - 2007.07.04 18:45:00 - [17] Actually the problem of the blob is not quite the conundrum that many people might believe. In order to realise a solution however you need to think strategicaly rather than tacticaly. What am I on about?? I'll try and explain, below is a pictorial image of how fleet battles currently play out: Now White Fleet have something to defend (a POS, Outpost, or bottleneck through to a region for example). White fleet (having only one point in space to defend at a given time) mass their forces and 'blob up'. Red Fleet on the other hand have only one point in space and time to attack (White location), in order to defeat White's massed fleet they also 'blob up' - Each forces increases in numbers to match the other, eventually toppling the node. Pretty obvious so far eh? Now onto a solution... If however White Fleet had to defend multiple points at the same time it would have to split its forces to cover them all. Minus 1 blob. Additionaly if Red Fleet had to defeat / conquer / destroy all of those points simultaneously (or close to it) then Red Fleet would also have to split its forces - Red couldn't just roll through each point sequentialy. A pictorial representation would be like this: For this concept to actually work in Eve these 'key point objects' would need to be spread across systems in order for them to provide a benefit to White (i.e. you couldnt just pile them into 1 system). Additionaly they should be objects that are destroyable by a relatively small force (too tough and Red would need lots of big blobs). Currently the only 'key point objects) in Eve are POS's and Outpost - both pretty tough to destroy with a small force and expensive to loose (hence defending them with a large force very appealing). So what should the 'key point object' be? Well I'm thinking it's probably something like a Communication Relay tower, Belt Mining Factory, or 'player housing' (think a home in a 'roid) which can recover swiftly from an attack provided its sister objects in other nearby systems are still functional. There you go, blobbing 101 solved tl;dr - make the attacking fleet and defending fleets split up by adding lost of alternative targets. C. - sig designer - eve mail
Leneerra Minmatar Trinity Nova KIA Alliance	Posted - 2007.07.04 18:50:00 - [18] Another thing to do would be adding extra objectives in other grids in the same target system that also influence the primairy battle. So not only have other systems to attack, but also have goals for small groups in the same system affecting the main battle, imo this would work especially for pos sieges.
Cailais Amarr VITOC	Posted - 2007.07.04 19:10:00 - [19] I just had a idea of the kind of object I mentioned above - as Leneera has pointed out it need not be across systems, it might even work 'off the same grid'. The idea is Affinty Jump Portals, simply the Affinity Jump Portal device 'regenerates' damage provided another 'linked' Affinity Jump Portal exists elsewhere (probably fairly close by). The Affinty Jump Portal regenerates faster the more sister 'linked' portals that exist. EG: If Portal 'A' is attacked and 'offlined' it will recover (supported by B, C and D) However if portals B and C are 'offlined' by an attack this process will take much, much longer - if portal D is also destroyed Portal 'A' can never recover. Now if these 'Affinity Jump Portals' were (for example) corp owned and controled and allowed warp jumps between them they would prove to be very useful objects to a corp - additionaly if they were comparitively cheap and relatively easy to 'offline' (no need for your uber dread fleet here) they would meet most of the criteria I have mentioned. C. - sig designer - eve mail
Dalts	Posted - 2007.07.05 17:37:00 - [20] Now just read thro quickly, and was wondering if anyone thought a system whereby the number of pod pilotted ships within a certain radius of your ship affected ur sensor range and locking time would help out, so that if u form a bunch u end up losing the ability to hit a smaller group as they would then be out of your locking range, something along those lines.

Reithan Caldari LEGI0N SOUL CARTEL	Posted - 2007.07.05 18:59:00 - [21] Originally by: Cailais ...stuff Ok, your pictures are cool and your idea's pretty good - except for one problem. In most of EVE, Jita being a notable exception, there is more than one system per node. So even if you spread your two blobs between 3-4 nearby systems, it's likely they'd still be on the same node and lag just as much. Another solution is to just fix it so so the nodes can reallocate on-the-fly instead of only on downtime. Or possibly to distribute the servers not by node/cluster but by player.
Kristoffer Amarr Blackguard Brigade Phalanx Alliance	Posted - 2007.07.05 19:26:00 - [22] Originally by: Vmir Gallahasen I disagree strongly. A few years ago, if two sides had roughly the same numbers, you'd go at each other guns blazing, screaming your battle cries. Now, if a similar situation develops, one side will inevitably jump half a dozen carriers onto you and then a second fleet twice your size jumps in from the other side, and there's just no fun for either side. Are you saying that's the kind of fighting you actually enjoy? This post says it all. Fights a few years ago were so much better.
BenYGW Caldari Caldari Provisions	Posted - 2007.07.05 19:27:00 - [23] Possible RP way to discourage powerballs: Make sensor boosters act as small radial sensor dampers. Kindof makes RP sense: ship 1 sends out its radar signal, but when it bounces back it also receives the returning signals of the other couple of hundred ships around it. Perhaps make this increase the sig rad on the guns of the ships around, so reducing damage instead of range & locktime. yeh, its obvious there are ways that the ships could protect themselves from this effect, but it does make some sense ;)
Del Narveux Obsidian Angels Enterprises	Posted - 2007.07.05 19:30:00 - [24] Blobbing wont go away until concentrated fire gets nerfed somehow, all the AOE type weapons are doing is turning blobs of battleships into blobs of capitals. I wrote a nice long thread on this with details, but the easiest solution I see without a lot of lag-generated diminishing-return junk is a module that makes you invulnerable for a really short time. If it made more sense for 50 ships to shoot 50 ships, or 15 ships instead of just 1 ship, blobs would vanish overnight as no one wants to deal with the lag. _________________ [SAK] Alumnus--And Proud Of It! -- aka Cpt Bogus Is that my torped sig cloaking your base? Originally by: Wrangler Well, at least we have forum PvP..
Daimos Bellurdan Black Reign FATAL Alliance	Posted - 2007.07.05 19:37:00 - [25] Edited by: Daimos Bellurdan on 05/07/2007 19:40:42 Edited by: Daimos Bellurdan on 05/07/2007 19:37:54 Originally by: Cailais ... If however White Fleet had to defend multiple points at the same time it would have to split its forces to cover them all. Minus 1 blob. Additionaly if Red Fleet had to defeat / conquer / destroy all of those points simultaneously (or close to it) then Red Fleet would also have to split its forces - Red couldn't just roll through each point sequentialy. A pictorial representation would be like this: ... If red has to destroy all points simultaneously, what would stop white from simply blobbing at one point and defending it ? Even if white tries to defend multiple points what would stop red from simply blobbing more and attack each point with double the fleet that white has got there ? The problem is simply: People blob to lose less ships by killing off the enemys faster. No matter the global strategy and positioning, everyone strives to minimize losses and the best way to do it right now is to blob. Amassing ships will only become less likely when: 1. The cause of a ship loss is the huge number in your fleet. (bigger fleet = higher chance to lose my ship) 2. Small fleets can be used effectively to attack/defend/harass. When I combine the two points I come to the conclusion: small fleets should be able to kill big fleets while in small fleet battles the fleet with the best teamplay wins. Bombs are too expensive and not good enough to do this. What is needed is a weapon that kills off huge fleets and does not have to be amassed itself. Something like this: Plasma thrower You fire a plasma ball at a target. The plasma ball hits the target and does 1 damage. It then jumps to a random target in 15km range from the original target and does 25% more damage. The ball jumps until all ships in range of the last victim have been hit by the ball once. A ship can only have one of these weapons fitted. The damage is capped at 750 dmg. ROF: 1 minute. Ship #10 would receive 9.3 dmg. Ship #20 would receive 86 dmg. Ship #29 would receive 646 dmg. Ship #30+ would receive 750 dmg. This would effectivly kill powerballs. With the damage percentage value you decide just how big blobs should get and you also need multiple ships with this gun fitted to make this tactic effective. One ship would do the following damage to a fleet of x ships: 05 ships: 10.3 dmg; 2 dmg/ship 10 ships: 41.6 dmg: 4.2 dmg/ship 20 ships: 428 dmg: 21.4 dmg/ship 30 ships: 3976 dmg: 132 dmg/ship 40 ships: 11476 dmg: 287 dmg/ship 50 ships: 18976 dmg: 380 dmg/ship 20 ships firing this weapon at 40 targets would do 28720 = 5740 dmg to each target. 40 ships firing this weapon at 20 targets would do 21.440 = 856 dmg to each target. The bigger the hostile fleet, the higher the damage a ship would get from the weapon. The good thing is: You still need a specific amount of ships with the weapon to do lethal damage. Of course the values will have to be tweaked to the way you want engagements to happen. I guess the sig radius of ships should be important for the damage as well. Its just an idea...
Lord WarATron Amarr Black Nova Corp Band of Brothers	Posted - 2007.07.05 19:55:00 - [26] Edited by: Lord WarATron on 05/07/2007 19:58:53 There is nothing wrong with the blob. If I get killed by 100 people shooting me, then it sucks to be me! Now the main problem with eve is that everyone in a blob is pretty much 100% effective. In other words Eve Rewards those who blob as there is little incentive otherwise. Eve does not have a combat system like.... Nexus the Jupiter Incident Star Wolves/Star Wolves 2 etc etc. In other words - in those "eve like" games - There is a point to formations, autofiring, and turret locations etc etc. There is a point to line of fire, and a point to angular directions of ships. In other words - it forces people to form up smaller, more focused, squads, since the guys in the middle of a giant blob are not 100% effective. In other words - You are meant to kill a blob by peeling the onion. However - in eve you kill it with a sledgehammer lagfest, or you dont kill it at all. Blobs are not the problem - the problem is lack of any incentive to formation, turret angles, line of fire etc etc. -- Billion Isk Mission
Matthew Cooper Minmatar Who What When Where Why and How	Posted - 2007.07.05 19:56:00 - [27] Originally by: Daimos Bellurdan Something like this: Plasma thrower You fire a plasma ball at a target. The plasma ball hits the target and does 1 damage. It then jumps to a random target in 15km range from the original target and does 25% more damage. The ball jumps until all ships in range of the last victim have been hit by the ball once. EVE - Star Trek Armada Edition? -sig- [ 2007.06.13 23:37:00 ] Ginger Magician > THEY Wont ban me [ 2007.06.13 23:37:03 ] Ginger Magician > i am too famous
000Hunter000 Gallente Magners Marauders	Posted - 2007.07.05 20:05:00 - [28] Originally by: Matthew Cooper Originally by: Daimos Bellurdan Something like this: Plasma thrower You fire a plasma ball at a target. The plasma ball hits the target and does 1 damage. It then jumps to a random target in 15km range from the original target and does 25% more damage. The ball jumps until all ships in range of the last victim have been hit by the ball once. EVE - Star Trek Armada Edition? Akira class is kewl! oh but to get back on topic, yeah tbh formations would be kewl but too hard to implement right now i think. tbh i do think it is silly that i can shoot at a target on the opposite side of a station or object, or even through another ship without doing damage to said objects CCP, let us pay the online shop with Direct Debit!!! Magners is now recruiting, evemail me or Dagazbo ingame.
Chelone	Posted - 2007.07.05 20:12:00 - [29] Originally by: Deschenus Maximus CCP said that they do not like the blob. They elaborated that they do not like the fact that people bring more and more people to fights (blobing and outblobing basically) and also dislike the ½ powerball + formation (the spherical mass of ships that fleets end up in). Um, lol. Why do people blob? I dunno, maybe because they want to PLAY THE GAME? "OMG someone trained 2 years of combat skills, now they want to USE them?" D - U - H! As for the sphere, CCP designed it to prevent massive ship collision. If they don't like spheres, maybe they could make us into cubes, like the borg.
Reithan Caldari LEGI0N SOUL CARTEL	Posted - 2007.07.05 20:22:00 - [30] I think the best solution, in very general terms, is just to make it so that once you pass some "x" number of ships in a grid/system it creates some sort of penalty to all the ships there. The only problem with that is that it would have to penalize the opposing blobs equally, or it would be heavily exploitable - in which case, it doesn't really stop the blob, it just makes it slower. If you create a penalty for having a big fleet, people will just break it into small fleets and fly those fleets together LIKE one big fleet. If you create a penalty for too many ships in an area, then it hurts the non-blobber as much as the blobber, since they're both penalized the same. It just won't work. I mean, it's easy military strategy: if one soldier is good, a thousand soldiers is better. The only times that's not true is when you're using guerilla tactics or stealth tactics, or when area-of-effect weapons come into play. Area of effect weapons are here now - but they're so expensive that they'd only be cost-effective if used in a coordinated manner against an extremely large blob - which is impossible due to lag. To fix this they could either be made more powerful, or cheaper. Both would probably not be necessary. As to tactics - as of now there is nothing in EVE that guerilla-warfare or stealth does better than a blob. If that was fixed then those tactics MIGHT be used, at which point at least it wouldn't ALL be blob warfare. The only OTHER solution is to simply make player UNABLE to blob up. Perhaps a dynamic grid cap, so that once a grid reaches "X" capacity new ships warping in would have a chance to "miss" the grid. That way 2 blobs meeting each other would be a hugely choatic event, very random and thus - undesireable. You can say, "But then one blob would just cap a grid and sit on it!!!" Yes, they could...and then you just camp their system until they de-blob. Though, they wouldn't want to engage your blob either then, as they'd scatter...so...you end up with a mexican standoff (no offense meant, it's just a movie-term). So, the only other solution - random warp out! Once a grid passes "X" capacity, the close proximity of so many warp drives destabilizes the area causing pilots to be pushed out of the grid at random. People would not engage blob vs blob for the same reasons as above - but the attacker and defender would be on equal footing. If 2 huge blobs ran at each other, the excess would randomly be trimmed off till the battle was of a good size. Due to the random nature this MAY favor one side or the other, but it may not. I dunno - there's really no good solutions. Screw it - just fix the lag.

Lookzor	Posted - 2007.07.05 20:26:00 - [31] I aggree that line of sight would be very nice in EVE, would make for interesting asteroid field battles to say the least. However, if the objective is to reduce lage then it's one of the worst things that could happend. Imagine that every time you fire a small autocannon(or other rapid fire weapon) the game had to make sure that the target just wasn't out of range but it had to check LOS with all nearby ojects aswell. Say hello to MAJOR lag, Perhaps I'm a bit ignorant about the coding required but it seems like it would require more bandwith.
Toramt	Posted - 2007.07.05 20:28:00 - [32] Ships that get hit with munitions get jarred some amount. This should throw off the guidance of any other incoming weaponry -- can your targeting system account for the change in momentums created by fifty different shells / beams / missiles hitting a given target? Each hit in the last X seconds should serve to reduce your signature radius by some amount for the next few seconds. 500 (arbitrary number) turrets / missiles bearing down on one target should make it so jittery that hits go down considerably, and lock times increases. This makes it better to spread the focus fire over several targets to avoid jarring them into immunity. Some balancing would have to be done to avoid everyone from friendly-firing their dread just to give it some immunity.
J'Mkarr Soban Amarr Shadows of the Dead Aftermath Alliance	Posted - 2007.07.06 13:29:00 - [33] Originally by: Deschenus Maximus Originally by: J'Mkarr Soban I'll add something. No caps on system, that's bad. Bias the load on the servers proportional to people in the system to reduce lag. Whilst most people will say that this idea will just encourage more people to arrive in the blob, from what I've seen more people are added to make sure that the damage gets through despite the lag, the overkill is there to compensate for it. Large fleet battles ftw. Half the stories in the chronicles talk about them. Just make them easier. I'm not very good with technical matters. What do you mean by biasing the load? Dynamic load balancing, the amount of resources for a system scales up with the number of people in that system. It's elementary distributed systems design, tbh, I don't know what they were thinking not implementing it. Originally by: J'Mkarr Soban Another thing is it's really hard to discuss the kind of tactics we've seen in past real world battles, because we're talking about a place where we can get true 3D formations. I've come up with a few that I want to test at some point, although obviously I'm not going to tell you lot heh. Suffice to say you can't talk about 'line abreast' or 'right echlon' as these refer to small squadrons. You need to discuss the tactics and formations in terms of fleets, where each 'unit' in a fleet is a flight or squadron in itself. Yes, it's possible that some fleet formations can be of use (I've thought about this myself), but what CCP considers a problem IS the lack of "line abreast" and such small formations, and that's what I was discussing in the OP. Originally by: Kindakrof Edited by: Kindakrof on 04/07/2007 14:05:09 It's not an easy problem to solve. How about just lowering the bomb requirements a bit? (as in less skills needed for the use of them) To make bombs effective, you'd need to make them cheap, not too skill intensive, and deadly, which would lead to fleets of bombers instead of fleets of BSes, so you're back at square one basically.
James Duar Merch Industrial We Are Nice Guys	Posted - 2007.07.06 13:53:00 - [34] Couple of points: 1. Warping together happens because there's no way not to do it. If CCP want it to stop they can implement a way to specify where around something I want to come out of warp. 2. Line of Sight solves nothing - it's space, it's voluminous, even in a 5km sphere it's pretty statistically unlikely your weapons will be obstructed by other ships. 3. System caps are stupid. What CCP need are more tangible benefits to splitting up into multiple engagement areas. The fact is there's no reason to do so with mechanics as they are. The other problem is they favor SP over anything else - when you have fixed numbers, more SP will typically win. The only real answer I can give you for making things more interesting is really that area defensive systems need to implemented - deployable shields and the like. And I mean that this needs to be extensive - shield bubbles which enemies can't enter, bubble breaching systems, remote resizers to force people out, that sort of thing. Basically, when two fleets hit each other they play a tactical game of trying to either get a few ships in the open from defensive shields, or trying to breach a bubble with some ships in it etc.
Reithan Caldari LEGI0N SOUL CARTEL	Posted - 2007.07.06 14:35:00 - [35] The topic of formations, in my mind, brings up an easy remedy to the lag problem with blobbing. CCP has always said they want to introduce flight by formation and even warping in formation. Which most players I've seen discuss it agree: it's a really cool idea. Now, just make it so that any ships flying in a formation are counted as just ONE single entity by the server for purposes of collision checking, movement, etc. This means if you have you entire blob didvide into formations of 6 ships each, you basically reduce the load on the server to the equivalent of a blob almost 1/6th the size you actually have. This, additionally, would allow you towarp in formations, counteracting the "Powerball" blob formations, and would probably open up cool new "Formation Bonuses" and things like actual coordinated fire strikes and such. In short - Formations are the answer. CCP - You said you want to reduce lag, you said you want to implement formations. They are the same solution. DO IT!
Venkul Mul Gallente	Posted - 2007.07.06 14:51:00 - [36] Originally by: Eric Lupanasia Well, there is one thing they could do to get the groups to spread out: Make it dangerous to bunch up. - Heavy / cruise missiles have blast radius damage- not extensive, but any frigate hanging on the coattails of a battleship is going to get rattled. - Exploding ships do damge to nearby ships- now, I've never seen a capital ship "go up", but I imagine this allowing for a slow chain-reaction type explosion. Imagine having to disengage all targets and run for your life because that dreadnought behind you just took a fatal hit, and its powerplant is about to blow. Hey, I'm the kind of guy who loves firing artillery into groups of infantry. So sue me. Think of what people will do in Jita with those suggestion and you will see why they are bad. The are nice it thounght in a starship battle, but when you use them in high sec suicide ganking (or even a legitimate war but in system packing neutrals) the effect are devastant. And who will be blamed by CONCORD for the damage? Someone kill a freighter at Jita 4-4 and the owner, beside losing ship an cargo, lose 5 points of standing for damaging and destroing a lot of ships around him witht he ship blast? Or if he don't lose standin what will block some enterprising guy from putting x frigates on the undocking point at Jita 4-4 and start firing on them, killing passers by with the ship esplosion and avoiding the sec loss as they are in his corporation?
Reithan Caldari LEGI0N SOUL CARTEL	Posted - 2007.07.06 15:01:00 - [37] I think if ships explosions had blast radiuses someone would pack a gate or undock with a couple hundred noob frigs, pop them and watch the fireworks. Someone say free doomsday?
Laboratus Gallente BGG League of Abnormal Gentlemen	Posted - 2007.07.06 15:11:00 - [38] Collision detection and line of sight for fire are pretty much the "easy" answers. That would mean that a normal "blob" would only end up shooting at their own guys in the back, when they warp in, ships would have to align to form battle lines, so that they could direct fire. Would be cool... ___ P.S. Post with your main. Mind control and tin hats
Gaia's Wrath	Posted - 2007.07.06 15:37:00 - [39] Here are my 2 cents. Gang Penalties, for example when a gang reach x number of players all ships in the gang take a lock time or range hit and the penalty increases by a factor for every next level of players in the gang, ie 10 players = -10% to target range or lock time, 20 players = -20%, etc to some set cap. Now when the gang is in a fleet structure these penalties don't apply. Also with the squads in place the squad members would only be able to fire on targets not locked on by another squad. Now this could be overridden by a wing or fleet commander however there would need to be a locking or range penalty that would be reduced to zero depending on the fleet or wing commanders fleet/wingcommand skill level. This would still allow for mass locking but at a cost and would encourage the move away from the mob blob while encouraging fleet structure to get full benefits.
J'Mkarr Soban Amarr Shadows of the Dead Aftermath Alliance	Posted - 2007.07.06 15:56:00 - [40] Originally by: Laboratus Collision detection and line of sight for fire are pretty much the "easy" answers. That would mean that a normal "blob" would only end up shooting at their own guys in the back, when they warp in, ships would have to align to form battle lines, so that they could direct fire. Would be cool... LOS would only mean that the ships firing would stop firing if they didn't have LOS to the target. Computers are powerful enough to do it now, never mind in the future . Plus missiles can navigate around other objects to get to their target. And like someone said, I've only seen very few occassions where there have been so many ships in one blob that there wasn't a true LOS. Whilst LOS would go a bit to spreading open the blob (and that's all it would be, instead of 5km from each other, they'd be 10, which also means less damage due to bombs) it adds a huge, massive amount to the lag, as all the calculations would need to be done server side. Also, it requires better collision detection, because at the moment the 'ship' is just a small sphere in the centre of the model, not all the edges and everything.

James Duar Merch Industrial We Are Nice Guys	Posted - 2007.07.07 02:37:00 - [41] Also, for god's sake, the "powerball" is not a problem in and of itself. If ships are in a sphere around you or a tight sphere shooting you, the punchline is, you still die, and lag is as bad as it ever was (probably worse because there isn't a camera angle to get the ship models to not render).
Raathe	Posted - 2007.07.07 16:44:00 - [42] It is my opinion that CCP does want to see tactical formations become a necessity in combat. Bombs are a step in the right direction; however, there are a few more steps required. 1) Like many have said, implement line of site. When doing this use the shield signature radius as it's hitbox (if it has shields up at the time). 2) Implement collision damage. It should be rather severe and more than capable of destroying either ship involved in a collision. 3) Ship destruction should leave environmental contamination in a large radius in addition to a shockwave that decays according to a 1/r^2 rule. The shockwave would deal kinetic damage. Now I know a shockwave doesn't make sense in space since there is no medium to propogate it. The shockwave would simply be a model for shrapnel and gases propogating outwards at a high velocity. The contamination would be radioactive and deal slow damage over time as EM damage. With these 3 things added to the game it adds a deep level of tactical depth. Right now with the blob it is simply a numbers game. Two adversaries are able to bring 100% of their fire power to bare against each other without any tactical reason to do otherwise. So the fleet with the most guns wins. With the 3 points I have made above in combination with bombs, it will require a squadron commander to decide on a tactical formation for the member vessels. Also, due to the damage caused by ship destruction the squadron commander must consider the individual placement and composition of different types of vessels. I will elaborate on this in the formations section. Formations will have their pros and cons. Lets consider some simple examples. Sphere formation: This is the 3D analog of a circle formation. Pros: the sphere formation is not vulnerable to flanking or any other attempts at using direction as a tactic to defeat the squadron. It would be suitable for defending a position where the direction of attack is entirely unknown. Cons: The primary disadvantage of this formation is roughly only 50% of the fire power of the formation can be brought to bear at a given time to defend the position. The SC would also be restricted from using a large number of shield tanked vessels as they provide a larger profile and make it difficult for ships to shoot through the formation on the side opposite of the attack. Also keep in mind that the ships in this formation and any formation would be spread rather far apart due to the dangers posed by ship destruction and bombs. Wall Formation: This is the 3D analog of the "line" of naval warefare. Pros: This formation can bring to bare a large percentage of the squadron's firepower on an attack from behind or the front. If CCP wants to make it interesting though they could make turrets have limited effectiveness in certain directions. This formation would likely be popular for defending a static point where the angle of attack is expected. Cons: This formation leaves the squadron vulnerable to flanking as it will be unable to bring any considerable firepower to bare against a flanking force. A very small force could flank this formation and do considerable damage and take minimal losses. This opens up the possibility of squadrons of smaller ships using hit and run tactics to weaken heavily fortified positions of greater numbers. Cone Formation: This formation is the 3D analog of the delta V formation. It is a compromise between the sphere and wall. Pros: It is able to defend a position where the angle of attack is not known to a high degree but a general direction. Cons: There is no attack vector that brings 100% of the squadrons firepower to bare. It is also very vulnerable from attacks from behind. The firepower profile from behind is very weak. To implement such a system more robust warping and formation tools would need to be implemented. Also there are likely some technical challenges, but that is for the CCP engineers to work out, not us.
SiJira	Posted - 2007.07.07 16:59:00 - [43] Originally by: Gaia's Wrath Here are my 2 cents. Gang Penalties, for example when a gang reach x number of players all ships in the gang take a lock time or range hit and the penalty increases by a factor for every next level of players in the gang, ie 10 players = -10% to target range or lock time, 20 players = -20%, etc to some set cap. Now when the gang is in a fleet structure these penalties don't apply. Also with the squads in place the squad members would only be able to fire on targets not locked on by another squad. Now this could be overridden by a wing or fleet commander however there would need to be a locking or range penalty that would be reduced to zero depending on the fleet or wing commanders fleet/wingcommand skill level. This would still allow for mass locking but at a cost and would encourage the move away from the mob blob while encouraging fleet structure to get full benefits. so you are against large fleets ? ____ __ ________ _sig below_ the jet cans are made so that people that dont mine can get free ore miners ritually donate the ore to anyone wishing to take some
Raathe	Posted - 2007.07.07 17:01:00 - [44] In my last post I discussed primarily defensive properties of the 3 formations I mentioned. I should also discuss attack. Sphere formation: Pros: There really are not substantial advantages to attacking with a sphere formation unless you know the defender will have maneuverable squadrons of ships that can flank your attacking force or attack from behind. If this is know for certain ahead of time this may be a good formation for large slow vessels. However, an attacking fleet could bring squadrons of small vessels of their own to defend against such attacks. This would make this particular formation unpopular for attacks since it sacrifices so much firepower. Wall formation: Pros: This formation allows the attacking fleet to bring most of it's firepower to bare against its target position. Since the direction of the defense is known ahead of time this formation is a safe bet. Only in situations where it is possible a large fleet of large ships could flank the attacker would this formation not be desireable. Cons: Vulnerable to flanking or any kind of dynamic battle space. Inverted cone formation: This attack posture would have the point of the cone at the back of the formation and the cone would envelope a single point of attack, such as a stationary object or capital ship. Pros: This formation can bring a large percentage of it's firepower to bare against its target if it is able to envelope it. It is also has a 2pi steradian angular cross section for which it can defend itself effectively. Cons: This formation is very vulnerable to frontal attacks on the leading edge of the cone. The ships at the back point of the cone would be unable to aid in the squadron defense. I've only mentioned 3 possible formations. A squadron commander could be given a number of tools for building and maintaining formations. The 3 points in my previous post also make it so that numbers do not necessarily determine the victor if the adversary uses superior tactics. This would primarily result from forcing ships to maintain very large distances between each other to avoid collisions and damage from destroyed ships. It would also aid in mitigating the effect of bombs used against a squadron. If a force does happen to have superior numbers it would encourage them to break their forces down into squadrons of differing formations and defensive or attacking postures. This would add yet another dimension of tactics to combat. Now there may or may not be technical issues with implementing the 3 points I mentioned. However, no one except the system engineers are qualified to comment on the feasability of such features. As such I do not feel it is very relevant to this discussion.
SiJira	Posted - 2007.07.07 17:07:00 - [45] overall cool ideas to eve but what you are all trying to fix will always be done no matter if it takes more gangs more leaders or some other tricks to bypass these absurd rules ____ __ ________ _sig below_ the jet cans are made so that people that dont mine can get free ore miners ritually donate the ore to anyone wishing to take some
Hannobaal Gallente Dragonfire Intergalactic Crusaders of Krom Dark Matter Coalition	Posted - 2007.07.07 17:19:00 - [46] There is nothing wrong with large fleets aside from the lag issue. Fix that, and there is no problem. If you don't like the fact that the people you choose to fight have superior numbers, bring more of your own, don't fight those people, or just deal with it. ------------------
Lordus Wellington	Posted - 2007.07.07 17:41:00 - [47] Edited by: Lordus Wellington on 07/07/2007 17:41:36 Why not increase the dispersal of ships around a gate as you come into the system tenfold. Say 250km Radius ? Would this create a need to organise your inbound fleet more ? It would certainly require forming up for the different ship classes to interact properly. Also maybe less instant server load when people hit lock/fire as a fleet came through a gate. It would require more time analyze, manover and target the Fleet coming through the gate if its at long range. Also it may break up gate camp blobs into smaller blobs to cover the larger dispersion as ships come in. In essence it would slow down the instant blob v blob after a fleet comes through a gate becuase it would require ships to manover into there different roles ranges. As regards Warp Blob to 0km... dunno
ghosttr Amarr ARK-CORP FREGE Alliance	Posted - 2007.07.07 18:16:00 - [48] Well we have yet to see any real changes from rev 2. I think that the stealth bomber weapon was made a bit too expensive to make any real impact. At 20 mil a pop not too many people are going to be using them. . Do not read this thread!!!
Kiyirari Grumpy Old Farts Gruntfuttocks	Posted - 2007.07.07 19:23:00 - [49] Edited by: Kiyirari on 07/07/2007 19:25:29 I'm quite in favour of flight formations with a combination of friendly fire incidents or not being able to fire through another ship. I guess an auto safety feature could be added to guns which deactivates the gun if a friendly ship pass's your line of fire. Maybe able to add that to a filter list ? Not over keen on splash damage from exploding ships, could prove interesting tho it would be bad for close range tackles given the fact that various sized ships may have different sized explosion splash damage radius. Thus giving the option of what jam to use eg 7.5km or 20km, including orbitial ranges and correct ammo to use to avoid splash... Or possible a % chance of being hit by flying debris based upon the size of your signature radius of your ship or a variable degree of thermal/explosive damage depending on how close you are to the center of the explosion similar to the way missile are work out for damage related to velocity & sig. just some ideas, some of it would know dout add lag etc but thats my 2 cents worth to the topic. Revenge is my god and my guns are her angels
cal freyr Minmatar Republic Military School	Posted - 2007.07.08 05:28:00 - [50] Introduce friendly fire (shots can't go through objects anymore)? :P I'm a little t1 frigate noob. Nice to meet you. Got scram?

BluOrange Gallente Agony Unleashed Agony Empire	Posted - 2007.07.08 07:16:00 - [51] Blobs are not the problem. Powerballs are not the problem. Lag is the problem. (If you don't like being in a situation where people won't engage without an overwhelming advantage, find a more aggressive bunch of people to fly with and/or fight; they're out there.) That said, a sphere is a damned good attacking formation - if your target is at the center of the sphere. With warp drives, that's not so difficult to arrange. Recruitment FAQ


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