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Jade Constantine
Gallente
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
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Posted - 2008.05.15 01:05:00 -
[1]
Okay, IÆm going to make a serious attempt at answering this question. I can understand why the other CSM candidates steered clear though, since it is a very contentious issue and something of an electoral minefield - but I think the Eve player-base deserve to hear the opinions of the people they are voting for, especially since there is a high likelihood that this matter of ôTitan Balanceö will come up for formal discussion at the CSM.
First of all experience-wise, I havenÆt flown a Titan personally û but I have spoken at length to people who have. I have seen Titan-class ships in operation and seen the effects of single doomsday weapons deployed in small-scale warfare. IÆve also followed with great interest the AAR and assessments of Titan role in larger fights and strategic deployment in territorial warfare thus far. IÆm quite aware of the potential damage and impact the doomsday weapon (singular) does on the battlefield, and IÆm similarly aware of the potential impact of multiple doomsdays coordinated or staggered on the fleet battle environment.
Now, IÆm going to stick by my assessment in the Manifesto that there isnÆt anything essentially wrong with the balance of the ship + doomsday weapon in concept. I definitely feel that the AOE weaponry should remain an option for this ship class and I think it would be unfair and unreasonable to remove this functionality at this point given the extreme skill training and expense of preparing characters for this role.
But, there are problems with the Titan class and the foremost of these is its ability to perform almost consequence-free hit and run attacks via doomsday with no ability for the victims to counter the tactic. ItÆs possible at the moment for a Titan to arrive on grid and almost immediately begin its warp out while triggering the DD weapon and enter escape warp after the weapon goes off. This isnÆt reasonable since if the hit and run attack is performed correctly its virtually impossible for any ship capable of surviving the doomsday to reach bubble/focused scram range on the Titan before it can leave.
Secondly, the proliferation of Titan class hulls will ultimately leave us with the situation where a group of TitanÆs has the option of coordinating DD firing to instantly destroy all heavy Indictors on grid. If all Titans are aligned and ready they will be able to disengage against an unlimited number of HiCÆs in this fashion and can simply escape after causing damage with the AOE.
IÆm going to suggest the following changes to deal with these problems:
1. A Titan should be unable to initiate warp for a period of 60secs after DD activation. This to be hard-coded into its stats: this enables a fair chance for enemy indictors to cross the grid and get points if they are quick and the Titan is unsupported by an appropriate defence force.
2. IÆd like to see the introduction of Capital ship grade warp scramblers that are able to scramble Super-Capital hulls with a decent range and fitting requirements commensurate with capital modules. These will allow capital ship ôtacklersö to gain and hold points on super-capital targets even in multiple Titan simultaneous DD environments where even HiCÆs would be instantly destroyed by the combined blast.
-cont
CSM Election Manifesto 2008 |
Jade Constantine
Gallente
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
|
Posted - 2008.05.15 01:07:00 -
[2]
Now these are both technical ônerfÆsö to the current usage and capability of Titans so to be fair there needs to be some rebalancing in turn to allow Titans to compete in situations where they are tackled and unable to escape without fighting and destroying their tacklers:
1. IÆd like to see the Titan hit points increased and defence advantage enhanced. If weÆre forcing these ships to stay around in fleet battles as the focal objectives for all likely hostility its only fair to give them the ability to better survive in this environment.
2. IÆd like to see a focused-script for the Doomsday Weapon that allows the Titan pilot to choose between the 60min recharge AOE weapon and a 1min ROF Anti capital weapon with good range and commensurate damage that will allow these ships to present a significant threat to capital ships in theater if they choose to focus on this role.
*This should be a tactical choice as to when to switch between the focused weapon with rapid refire and the AOE doomsday that will have one big bang then a 60 minute cooldown (where even the scripted mode wouldnÆt be available). This gives the Titan a real anti-capital role in supported fleets and means an additional sacrifice of capability against larger ships when it chooses to fire the area Doomsday.
In conclusion IÆd see these changes having the effect of keeping Titans on the battlefield where they are committed and reducing the effect of consequence-free hit and run raids where they doomsday and leave. I like the Titan class ship, and I think itÆs great as an aspiration for advanced pilots and powerful alliances û but it needs to be more ôepicö û and ôepicö in this context means playing a significant role in fleet battles both from being forced to remain longer, and able to actively fight when not in doomsday deployment mode.
Ultimately I believe the solution to the problem of ôcapitals onlineö in Eve is to alter the mechanics to make capital usage more dangerous and brutal and ensure that significant capital engagements end with significant casualties. When we start seeing multiple Titans, supercaps and caps dying in single terrible engagements then weÆll start seeing impact on alliance wallets and stockpiles of capital ships finally diminishing to the cost of endless and continuing war. This returns consequence and dynamic attrition to the business of wielding power and can only be a good thing.
CSM Election Manifesto 2008 |
Jade Constantine
Gallente
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
|
Posted - 2008.05.15 12:38:00 -
[3]
 Originally by: Bartholomeus Crane
The mass proliferation of capitals and super-capitals in the game is a bad thing. It takes away from the fun and upsets the balance in that the haves can always beat down the have-nots. It's now to the point that you have to have a fleet of capitals and super-capitals to hold space in 0.0 with an alliance. So, the idea of making capital combat more brutal sounds good to me. Also, I think that when a Titan jumps into battle, that should be a big deal. You lose Epicness when you have 4 Titans jump in.
I think I'm going disagree partially - you don't lose the Epic nature of the fight when 4 Titans jump in. You lose the Epic when they jump-in ... hit warp, and use the 30 second align to trigger doomsdays and inevitable killmail lag to clear their exit from the battlefield and subsequent cloaking at safespots. I would like to see those Titans arriving and announcing their presence with strong anti-capital warfare weaponry, getting tackled and committed, forming the focal point of the battle for both sides and having the option to change script and trigger the AOE doomsday if they need to clear the decks of sub-capital assailants while continuing to slug it out with capital class foes (knowing that triggering the AOE takes their main anti-captial gun out of the fight for an hour).
Making capital fights feel like capital fights is the key here - and my guy instinct is that capitals should not be performing hit and run actions. Deal with this situation and the rest is naturally self-balancing. Eve would have epic capital clashes with many super-cap deaths a side and wars would be decided by these engagements. With the best logistics in the world at the moment it takes a lot to build a Titan, if you are losing these at a rate of 1-2 each couple of weeks you are not going to sustain the war effort indefinitely.
Current malaise with Eve turning into "capitals online" is because in reality - not many capital ships actually die. Hit and run usage of Titan's is bad for this - so, as I said, nothing much wrong with the AOE doomsday - just ensure the ship that deploys it is committed to the fight and needs a support fleet.
Quote:
I don't think Jade's ideas are the answer, but at least he has stated an opinion on it. Flaming is easy, come up with your own ideas if you know it all.
Yep, I'm very interested to see other people's proposals on the Titan issue. My answer to the op was a considered piece written after talking over the issue with a lot of clever people who have been involved with Titan warfare in Eve but it still needs a lot of discussion and refinement - but hey, at this point as prospective candidates we're are supposed to be showing our thought processes and general take on a variety of issues and hopefully this kind of issue/thread can give an insignt into the sort of CSM reps we'd make.
CSM Election Manifesto 2008 |
Jade Constantine
Gallente
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
|
Posted - 2008.05.15 16:17:00 -
[4]
Edited by: Jade Constantine on 15/05/2008 16:26:07
Originally by: Pezzle
AOE weapons of this scale promote more blobbing because they impact not simply one or two ships at a time but entire fleets or wings. With smart bombs you can pull out of range and still remain active in that engagement. With a DD you cannot.
No Pezzle, thats a silly argument. Goonswarm have already showed us that Blobbing is not the answer to killing Titans (having failed to kill Shrikes Titan with an uber blob attack that ultimately broke the node and allowed the target to escape.) The answer is quality not quantity, and this is going to become increasingly apparent as alliances present multiple Titans to double up on DD blasts. I'm afraid you just need to accept that you don't shoot a super-capital with a fleet of light ships and ships and expect to win through on pure weight of numbers.
Ultimately you need to fight Titans with capital ships, and the issue that needs addressing is how to keep Titans committed to the fight rather than simply performing drive by DD attacks and escaping. Once Titans start dying in proper numbers to concentrated capital fights then the problem of Titan proliferation is going to reduce - these are very expensive ships and no alliance can handle regular losses in this class for any length of time. They will revert to a flag-ship role in only the most critical of engagements once we have mechanics in game to ensure that once committed they are likely to remain committed until battle outcome is resolved.
CSM Election Manifesto 2008 |
Jade Constantine
Gallente
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
|
Posted - 2008.05.15 16:23:00 -
[5]
Originally by: Arithron
Given that you are proposing that Titans become easier to kill, and that you acknowledge that such losses will impact on the large alliances, can you explain how this will PREVENT blobbing? Large alliances will bring HUGE fleets with a Titan to prevent its loss... Elsewhere you have stated that you want to see smaller fleet engagements rather than blobs...your ideas for Sovereignty etc. These two different proposals of yours appear to be in conflict with each other?
You can't PREVENT blobbing you can present disincentive to Blobbing. You achieve this best in the current environment by taking sovereignty warfare away from fixed and timed reinforcement battles at POS in favor of more distributed goals separated in space and opportunity and allowing some genuine tactics to enter the equation of force disposition and deployment.
Specific proposals in regard to the Titan are designed to ensure that consequence-free doomdsay deployment is off the table and use of these ships becomes more of an issue economically because entering a battle becomes a significant risk. Though related these two issues are not contradictory.
CSM Election Manifesto 2008 |
Jade Constantine
Gallente
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
|
Posted - 2008.05.17 12:54:00 -
[6]
Any more CSM candidates prepared to express an opinion about what they think should be done about Titan balance in this thread?
I've seen,
Zoolkan
Max Torps
Ben Derider
And Myself
Actually answer the question so far.
CSM Manifesto 2008 | Destroy Outposts! |
Jade Constantine
Gallente
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
|
Posted - 2008.05.18 13:50:00 -
[7]
Quick update:
Actual battle-reports of a 3 Titan "blob" on the live-server. Interesting background reading for candidates expressing an opinion in this thread. Maybe "goon" Titan's don't need a "nerf"
Just saying 
CSM Manifesto 2008 | Destroy Outposts! |
Jade Constantine
Gallente
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
|
Posted - 2008.05.19 01:16:00 -
[8]
Originally by: Scatim Helicon
Originally by: Jade Constantine
Actual battle-reports of a 3 Titan "blob" on the live-server. Interesting background reading for candidates expressing an opinion in this thread. Maybe "goon" Titan's don't need a "nerf"
You're suggesting that Titans are balanced because every so often one dies to the lag/desynch wildcard?
Suggest you read my posts (directly under the op). When you've done that - lets talk 
CSM Manifesto 2008 | Destroy Outposts! |
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