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weel barrow
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Posted - 2008.12.09 11:06:00 -
[1]
There is a thread on CAOD and in this forum about 'The way that EVE is going'. This thread is not aimed at replicating the broader discussion of blobbing but to look at one particular option that could be introduced. While removal of jump bridges etc might be valid solutions their discussion would be better served in other threads.
This post will cover some effects of the in-game fleet mechanics.
--------------- Just as fleets through leadership skills provide bonuses for it members there should also be some downside. Call it the 'fog of war', 'bandwidth saturation' or 'bureaucracy'. As the fleet size gets bigger there should be some corresponding negative effect( not just lag :-) ).
This downside would provide some disincentive to forming huge fleets while still not taking them out of play. It would provide a small nimble force some small increase in ability vs a large lumbering mass of ships.
This negative effect would scale from zero at a certain fleet size (purely arbitrary at say 30 people) and increase with fleet size over that. At its maximum it would definitely not be larger than the current bonuses provided by a fleet with highly skilled leadership positions but should eat into them. These people have spent alot of time training these skills after all.
The negative effect could take a number of forms which are supportable by roleplay elements.
Possible Negative Side Effects of Increasing Fleet Size
Heavy EM interference in a large fleet can negatively affect sensor systems causing a degradation to scan resolution, scanner strength, targeting range or no. Of lockable targets. There is only so much bandwidth available for fleet ships to pass sensor data between each other. This could manifest itself as a scaling % of effect with increasing fleet size or as an increasing chance of a random negative sensor effect for each ship.
Delay in entering warp - the warp flux drive thingy can take longer to stabilise a safe warp when a large number of ships are warping together due to interference from other ship drives. This delay would be negligible in small fleets increasing to a low number of seconds (3 seconds?) in a larger fleet. It could be applied to the whole fleet or be a random chance per ship. The larger fleet would be more susceptible to enemy dictors picking off stragglers while still maintaining an overall firepower advantage.
ROF decrease - A large number of friendly ships operating close together can increase the chances of fratricide. While not modeled in EVE increasing the number of ships in a fleet will result in times when a weapons line of sight to a target is blocked by a friendly ship. This requires the ship's crew to take a little longer to ensure a safe engagement which results in a ROF decrease with increasing fleet size.
All of these negative effects should be relatively subtle but become a consideration when large fleets hit the field. -------------------
Ganging with a few mates should bring some advantage that is greater than the sum of the parts, this is a multiplayer game after all, and it also makes sense from a roleplay viewpoint as the ships can share sensor data. Once the group becomes a certain size then some of this advantage is lost through communication inefficiencies, information overload, warp drive interference etc
A way to try to beat this system would be to have multiple smaller fleets operating in the one TeamSpeak channel as a single fleet. Doing this would however limit warp-ins as members would be in different fleets and it requires additional skilled fleet boosters to be available. The FC should make a decision to form a large fleet and accept some penalty which is offset by the fleets own boosters or to have smaller independent fleets operating on the battlefield. It opens up a whole new area of tactics.
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weel barrow
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Posted - 2008.12.09 11:08:00 -
[2]
To recap: In order to provide some disincentive to forming huge lumbering blobs some penalty which scales with fleet size is introduced. In general a much larger force should always maintain superiority over a smaller one however some inefficiency is introduced so that a small force can take advantage of its more nimble command structure.
Goal would be to see a greater number of active fleets, FCs, scouts etc and an increased depth to battlefield tactics and inter-player communications.
If we could keep the thread just to scaling effects related to fleet size it would be great. JBs etc are covered plenty elsewhere.
cheers
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Kiki Arnolds
Caldari Allied Caprican Heavy Industries
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Posted - 2008.12.09 16:27:00 -
[3]
All this would do is nerf people with leadership skills trained. The moment the penalties for a large fleet exceed the booster effects, you get multiple fleets, operating as one unit, just without fleet like abilities. It will not result in 'new' tactics beyond warping both fleets to the same places. CCP added skills like fleet command to encourage large fleets, it is too late to really change that, other than by changing objectives to require groups acting independently (change to how sov works)... ç¦ |
weel barrow
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Posted - 2008.12.09 20:34:00 -
[4]
A well boosted fleet would overcome the drawbacks as thats the idea of having skilled leadership pilots in feet command positions.
What it would do is make leadership skills more important for fleets to have and provide smaller groups a 'slight' boost when attacking larger forces than they currently have. This would hopefully see more fights.
Multiple fleets acting together would not be able to use the same warp-in pilot and would need to have more people active in these roles.
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