| Author |
Topic |
Astria Tiphareth
Caldari
24th Imperial Crusade
|
Posted - 2008.04.14 13:37:00 - [ 601]
 Originally by: Danae Melios
I think that CCP is selecting the wrong type of model to build a fun game around. This definition of borders is one that has been exported around the world by European dominant society. Its primary function is to promote stability. The only way controlling borders would happen in the way that they seem to mean is to be able to shut them down to unwanted guests. Lock down the system, the constellation, the region. That is what protected borders are all about.
There are other models to go off of, however. We had a very interesting discussion in my GIS thesis seminar class about how other cultures, such as many desert regions, use lines of control between population centers. They CAN lock down cities, but often they don't even have formal national borders because nobody wants to be bothered patrolling sand. Think of the Arabian peninsula; most maps show several countries there with dotted instead of solid borders for that very reason. Extension of power only happens through contesting population centers.
I don't have enough experience really to comment on the rights and wrongs of the current sovereignty model, but this point I think is quite an interesting one. After all, areas of control, what you call 'your territory', aren't just lines on a map, they're resources of one form or another. If EVE had no gates, the above post would be spot on, because who cares about a bunch of vacuum? What resources, what strategic locations you control, that's the key. The gates make the game more complex in that regard, in that control of gates equates to control of passage, and therefore borders develop naturally as a consequence of this. Without changing the gate system (NightKhaos has at least one method of doing that well covered) borders I think are inevitable. From an external perspective (i.e. what seems to make sense vs knowledge of the existing POS Online) I do think that whatever claim is made to a system needs to be more than about planting a flag aka station. Yes you have to maintain POSes, and that's a complex logistical task, but it places the onus on claiming space as the entire purpose of having some stations. Stations, static structures, have never held territory ever in the history of humanity, and it seems odd that they would do so here. Look up the Maginot Line for a good example. That doesn't stop stations being defensive fortifications or production platforms or rallying points, but frankly, setting aside gates and the camping thereof, stations would not without some serious deus ex machina prevent a hostile fleet from strolling right past it and doing something in a deeper system (short of a very big long range gun and that's just silly  ). Placing stations seems the wrong way to go about enforcing a claim to a system. One problem with alternatives is the need for objectives that enable some form of limited success/defeat/back-and-forth. In WW2, the Germans went around the Maginot Line and took Paris, forcing France's surrender. How can this be applied to EVE, where an absolute 'you lose I win' isn't really feasible? For my part, I'm not sure an arbitrary 'you have taken the flag' approach is needed, but closer to a 'you have been here long enough' type of counter. Claimed space evolves by itself in the way in which an empire runs. Your core systems contain only your ships and your vassals, protected by gatecamps (simplified of course). This over time increases a 'you have been here a while' counter, which in turn translates to the various sovereignty levels. In other words, spend a long time in a system, actively use a system without adversaries (those of negative standing to you perhaps) for a long period and it's clearly yours. Conversely contested or less travelled systems won't build up the counter. Taking a system isn't about planting a flag, it's about driving your enemies out and keeping them out. My 0.02 ISK. |
Cailais
Amarr
Nasty Pope Holding Corp
Talocan United |
Posted - 2008.04.14 17:39:00 - [ 602]
Originally by: Astria Tiphareth
For my part, I'm not sure an arbitrary 'you have taken the flag' approach is needed, but closer to a 'you have been here long enough' type of counter. Claimed space evolves by itself in the way in which an empire runs. Your core systems contain only your ships and your vassals, protected by gatecamps (simplified of course).
This over time increases a 'you have been here a while' counter, which in turn translates to the various sovereignty levels. In other words, spend a long time in a system, actively use a system without adversaries (those of negative standing to you perhaps) for a long period and it's clearly yours. Conversely contested or less travelled systems won't build up the counter. Taking a system isn't about planting a flag, it's about driving your enemies out and keeping them out.
My 0.02 ISK.
I agree with this - simply planting a 'flag' doesnt do the concept of soveriegnty justice. You only need to compare the sov map against pilots in space to see that so called 'claimed' systems are empty apart from moon guzzling POS's. The question is how do you measure time spent in a system? Ideally the players should be doing something - otherwise its a simple case of dropping a POS and filling it full of afk players. Hence my suggestion that npc rat kills are used as a measurement of player activity in a given system. This makes sense (to me at any rate) as it exemplifies the Corp / Alliances attempt to drive out npc pirate factions from 'their' space. Equally, because belt ratting is an 'external' activity you have to place yourself at some risk to accomplish it. However there in looms the spectre of a 'sov grind' - its probably up for debate wether grinding out belt rats is preferable to refueling POSs. In order to placate this somewhat Ive suggested that a corp/alliance's claim itself is erroded by npc belt rats destroyed in their system by third parties. This provides a limited objective for the small gang (penetrate the corps/alliance held space - blast a few rats - weaken their claim in the process). If a corp or alliance protects its space its claim recovers its health over time. C. |
Phthonos Nemesis |
Posted - 2008.04.14 18:03:00 - [ 603]
I was thinking about possibilities for small ship combat. I haven't fully fleshed out this idea, but I wanted to put it out there. Would it be possible to use a mechanic similar to Deadspace Acceleration Gates to limit access to systems or structures? Ownership of a system would allow you to build an Acceleration gate to a "complex", like NPC plexes. Those gates would only allow certain size ships at basic levels. As sov level increases, you can upgrade the gate to allow larger ships, or would be able to have further into a room. Good ISK sink too.
CovertOps/BlackOps ships could have modules to decrypt or unlock gates, to allow use by hostiles, or to reverse engineer the target and build a combat portal to the complex, in the system, but away from the owners Gate. Give something for the scanners to find. This way the combat wouldn't be around the Acceleration Gate, but in the complex, and the Covert/BlackOps ships would try to sneak in and get intel from the gate.
Once an attacking force captures a "room",then they can bring in heavier ships and jump to the next "room". Or reconfigure the covert warp gate to go to the next room.
The structures within the plex might have something to do with ownership, or with economy. Refining? Manufacturing? Take that from away from POSes and make POSes moon mining only?
|
Goumindong
SniggWaffe
|
Posted - 2008.04.14 19:01:00 - [ 604]
Originally by: Cailais
...
The problem is that the system, once you get to defining how much effort its going to take to hold systems wont do anything. Its very similar to having a small gang attack a POS now, its just not valuable. This is because when talking about taking and holding sov there is a base limit that you would need to hold, and you essentially get to the point where you have to have a large number of pilots living in a system in order to take it[or your opponents will just out-rat you]. It also does bad things to attacking alliances[something we want to mitigate], since you need a critical mass of players living in an area, attacking another area means weakening your hold on everything else you own which lets someone else easily come in and set up shop. There is no real reason to attack someone if you are also going to lose your space... The short answer is that its better to design these types of systems to benefit and harm alliances organically than it is to design these types of systems to benefit and harm alliances directly. But economically its hard to starve an alliance and really make anything hurt without severely increasing the amount of stuff or isk that an alliance can produce passively since the empire production would still be in place and be sufficient. And if you increase costs of holding space at the same time[say give every system produce 10b isk/month but make POS's fueling 10x as expensive so that you need the system production to meet the POS fueling/module costs and so have to protect it, and non-0.0 operations simply wouldn't have the oomph to supply an empire] but this increases the barriers to entry for 0.0 exploitation and that is something we don't want to promote. A better question is "in what way could we separate 0.0 alliances from wealth production in empire?" And then we could introduce other, more available, methods of funding. Its going to be very difficult to do this in any other way than increasing the costs of moving goods, services, and isk because empire has such minimal risk its high end production can almost always be supported. One way would be to restrict isk transfers to market mechanics and direct, in station trades unless the characters are in the same corp. This means that if you have an alt-corp producing stuff for you to sell, you have to physically move a character from empire to your producers in order to transfer isk. Of course this doesn't change much due to jump clones. Of you could simply disallow trades of any sort unless the characters were in the same alliance. But then contracts fix that "problem" While its hard or impossible to make 0.0 empires unable to produce well enough in empire, the organic mechanic combined with the "flag" type capture of systems via sovereignty is still better than the NPC mechanic proposed being the way in which sov was determined. |
Salient Soldier
Minmatar
The Hull Miners Union
|
Posted - 2008.04.14 19:05:00 - [ 605]
Edited by: Salient Soldier on 14/04/2008 19:33:26Edited by: Salient Soldier on 14/04/2008 19:31:58 Originally by: CCP Nozh
- Capturing a system would require a presence at every gate.
- Capturing a constellation would require a presence at every constellation gate.
- Capturing a region would require a presence at every region gate.
So... EVE:King of the Hill edition... where blobs sit on gates and wait for other blobs. The keyword here is wait, sounds like a lot of waiting for something to happen and not a lot of doing. Gate idea isnt necessarily bad, but i think it needs to be supplemented with other points of interest throughout a constellation. OR just rework the current system... |
Salient Soldier
Minmatar
The Hull Miners Union
|
Posted - 2008.04.14 19:11:00 - [ 606]
Edited by: Salient Soldier on 14/04/2008 19:39:05This is from my post which you can read in its entirety hereJUGGARNAUTS & SOVEREIGNTY REVISTED First off, the recent sovereignty changes are little too extreme. Take morsus mihi, an alliance that has turtled itself into Tribute. They have 5 titans, and a huge cap fleet, and a giant jump bridge network. Even if you manage to get a jump on one of their systems with say 200 BSs, and had another 200BSs on standby out of system (because lets face it, these nodes can only realistically handly 200ish people and even then its lagged to all hell) .. you are confronted with 2 choices.. knock out the cyno jammer or the jump bridges. Chances are, you're first fleet is going to get DD, or double DD to oblivion. Well then you bring in your other 200 ships into the lag fest, hopeful to down a titan still hanging around the carnage. Oh but look, theres now 10 MoMs and 20 carriers on grid. Only half your BS pilots load grid before getting wiped out by the shredder pos and fighter pwnage. The rest die soon after. So, 40 or so MM just pwned your 400 guys. A little ridiculous. Yes, the home turf guys should get the advantage in battle, but the scale really needs to be lowered. This is why the role of system sieging needs to be turned over to a mini dread, a ship that needs no cyno, a ship that can mix it up with caps and non caps, a ship that can withstand multiple titan DDs, and that ship is the JUGGARNAUT. Now instead of a laggy 200man BS fleet, you can roll in with a 50man JUGGARNAUT fleet and have some chance of at least clearing the way for your cap fleet. And the currently impossible become possible. The major point is, again, if you want to hold space you should have to defend it with more than your handful of super weapons that your pile of t2 bpo's and legion of carebears has afforded you. AND the experience should be fun and accessible to all. --- Now i do like the idea of having multiple objectives in different systems to attack/defend. Its the only real way your going to de-blob the universe. Of course with Juggarnauts you could send in 4 groups of 50 into 4 different systems, forcing the enemy to split up as well using the current system. |
Alski
Ministers Of Destruction. |
Posted - 2008.04.14 19:27:00 - [ 607]
Originally by: Phthonos Nemesis
....Ownership of a system would allow you to build an Acceleration gate to a "complex"...
....CovertOps/BlackOps ships could have modules to decrypt or unlock gates, to allow use by hostiles, or to reverse engineer the target and build a combat portal to the complex....
I love the idea of using deadspace type areas and/or hacking to unlock areas or (in my idea, change the functionality of deadspace areas) I’m currently working on a very well flashed out sovereignty concept of my own, the basics idea of which is to break up the blob and make sovereignty more based around the actual player to player combat, not shooting pos’s, simply: if you can hold the field long enough to accomplish your objectives you can successfully contest sov. The breaking up the *attacking* blob I think I have very well sorted, its breaking up the defending blob that’s proving to be much much harder to find a sensible mechanic to achieve. Phthonos’s idea just gave me a new direction to go in, but my big idea is still far from ready to be posted, so I’m just gonna throw this question out there… When you have successfully broken up the attacking blob by giving them multiple objectives that have to be completed simultaneously – How do you force the defending blob to break up when the main objective is just going to be “kill the attackers”? |
Letrange
Minmatar
Red Horizon Inc
Cascade Imminent |
Posted - 2008.04.14 20:42:00 - [ 608]
Ideas for consideration:
Humm let's see. Local may in the future be going bye bye. This will definitely make for some serious changes in game play. The value of the cov-ops and cloaking series of ships will go up accordingly. This will promote good recon work as one of the primary skills in pretty much anything.
One way I can see this working is that local info is basically made up of information that is collated on gate jumping. I.e. if you don't transmit who you are the gate don't activate. Therefore the system you end up in will always know who you are. This is the current situation.
There could be a change of policy that only the controlling entity of a gate would get a list of who's in local that entered thru gates they control. For systems with faction control nobody gets the info (or make it standing based where the corp or pilot needs 8+ standing to get the info for example) For player controlled systems only the players belonging to the gate get that info (this is assuming some form of gate ownership like seems to be under discussion here. substitute gate for system ownership if not going for gate control).
The idea here is that entities in control of a system would have an advantage in local knowledge but people visiting would not. You could tailor the system so that newbies in empire space have a local but if they go outside of empire they loose local. Most of low sec no one would have a local and areas under alliance control would have a local only for those that control the systems.
--- damn this should probably go in the discussion on removing local if it wasn't for the issue of sovereignty effects.
|
Zaiyo Modi
Minmatar |
Posted - 2008.04.14 20:55:00 - [ 609]
Edited by: Zaiyo Modi on 14/04/2008 21:36:48 Originally by: Alski
When you have successfully broken up the attacking blob by giving them multiple objectives that have to be completed simultaneously – How do you force the defending blob to break up when the main objective is just going to be “kill the attackers”?
I would suggest exploring the idea of giving each side tools to deal with blobs when blobs are positioned at certain places. It would be important that the tools are not weapons that can be used everywhere. Hacking a structure in deadspace to force a portion of the defending blob to warp off (like a log off warp):How about giving a cov ops pilot the ability to use hacking on some symbolic flight control structure inside a deadspace area, which would force a fair amount (random?) of ships to spontaneously be given emergency warp off orders, forcing some ships to warp off 1 au or so, but outside the deadspace area. By the time they arrive back to deadspace, the blob should is broken up. The bigger the blob, larger bigger number of ships will be forced to do an emergency warp off leaving remaining defenders alone for the next 2-5 minutes, as the shoo'ed pilots are moving back into the deadspace area and moving to the center on afterburner speed. The pilot doing the hacking would have to uncloack and quickly hack a certain structure before being targeted and killed. Perhaps a suicide mission by the cov ops pilot. --- Technical: CCP would have to either accept people being able to cheat this by placing an item on the Ctrl + Spacebar to prevent accidental warp-off, or CCP would have to make sure the ships cannot abort their warp off manouver. Friendly warp scrambling might be a valid tactic to keep friendly ships from warping off. Would be abit artificial perhaps if warp scrambled ships were allowed to be warped off by a hacker. --- If the attackers are doing the blobbing then perhaps defenders can be given tools to use structures at a moon or whatnot, to force a number of ships of any party outside a nearby pos shield (if any) to make an emergency warp off. --- Hrm, if the server starts to lag and cannot perform its taskks then I guess this idea wouldn't work that well if lag would continue after the blob has been lessened. --- If attackers assault a structure at a moon or planet or station, and defenders blob up to attack, then the attackers could perhaps utilize the same structure and hack it, forcing parts of the arriving blob to disperse before the attacking party gets molested. Haha basicly, hacking a special structure would allow for dispersing the amount of ships on the battlefield, making them pace themselves. The random effect could be interesting. |
Jason Edwards
Internet Tough Guy
Spreadsheets Online |
Posted - 2008.04.14 21:45:00 - [ 610]
How about a new starbase down 1/3 the cost of the current starbases they are now but make them very very very strong destructible objects that have the ability of equipping with armaments. Being capable of being equipped fairly easily by jump freighters while perhaps freighters are also still effective.
Sovereignty then is held by the alliance as you have your station. You then can spread out from your sovereignty by strength of forces. Say you have full sovereignty in your capital. You then get 2 jumps from you at second highest *Province*. 2 jumps from that at protectorate and 2 jumps from that you have territory.
Sovereignty tiers include Territory, Protectorate, Province, and Constellation Capital.
If your capital isn't "constellation capital" but rather only "province" then it only goes as far as 4 jumps before you dont have sovereignty.
To extend your sovereignty. You need to build another starbase somewhere. The effect is also slow. It takes awhile before you can obtain top strength. So you can build that starbase and it might be a week or something before you reach out 6 jumps.
Then to challenge and defeat sovereignty. It should be a daunting task. Like seriously a giant 100+ dread fleet pounding the starbase for over a day to even destroy the starbase; or some real long period of time.
Now these are combat starbases. Instead of being invincible and things like manufacturing/science being upgradable... instead you upgrade combat and defensive abilities. These upgrades then attack dreads and are dangerous to dreads. |
Cailais
Amarr
Nasty Pope Holding Corp
Talocan United |
Posted - 2008.04.14 22:35:00 - [ 611]
Goumindong, I just want to come back at you over this segement of your comment here: Originally by: Goumindong
It also does bad things to attacking alliances[something we want to mitigate], since you need a critical mass of players living in an area, attacking another area means weakening your hold on everything else you own which lets someone else easily come in and set up shop.
There is no real reason to attack someone if you are also going to lose your space...
The short answer is that its better to design these types of systems to benefit and harm alliances organically than it is to design these types of systems to benefit and harm alliances directly.
Granted attacking one area might mean weakening your hold on another - but isnt that how warfare essentially works? Its a element of risk to devote some of your defensive resources to conducting an offensive attack: that makes sense to me. It makes more sense when we consider that the organic attack is extremely difficult (even impossible?) to achieve for all the reasons you list. Granted Alliances may not make large scale efforts to claim territory, rather expand slowly and progressively from their current location (as opposed to leaping half way across the galaxy to nuke a system because somebody made a comment in COAD they didnt like). Also, and this is pretty key - there's every reason to attack someone if you dont own any space: thus giving reknewed impetus to younger alliances seeking to carve out a niche. I can see how my proposal wont be very popular with established alliances - but should this system be all about maintaining the status quo? C. |
Cheopis
Amarr
One Stop Mining Shop
One Stop Research |
Posted - 2008.04.15 00:24:00 - [ 612]
Edited by: Cheopis on 16/04/2008 18:09:43
Edited by: Cheopis on 15/04/2008 00:51:31
There are 21 pages of posts here, chances are pretty good that that I'm about to suggest has already been suggested, but I figure it might lend weight to have more people suggest the same thing so, here goes.
Make Sovereignity more meaningful, that way it's more worth waiting for.
At Sov 2 allow 2 station or gate guns, player manufactured, to be placed at gates and player built outposts. At Sov 3 allow 4 guns at each location. At Sov 4 allow 6 gun emplacements. At Sov 4, perhaps even allow drones to be permanently on station with gun emplacements. What works in Empire space to mostly keep the peace should be able to be duplicated to at least a minor degree in 0.0 if an alliance has the resources to do so.
Allow sovereignity to be more meaningful in player stations. At sovereignity 3, allow alliances to completely bar non-alliance trade inside their station if they wish to do so. At Sov 4 allow station owners to completely remove all neutral players from stations, and relocate their equipment and clones, ships, etc to the nearest NPC station. If there needs to be a movement charge, so be it, thats acceptable.
Sovereignity means nothing if it means nothing. That was not a miswording - sovereignity means little if an alliance cannot control who resides and destroys the economy in their stations. Sovereignity means little if we cannot emplace static defenses to at least beat off small attacks. Yes, these things can be done by players, but if you want to make sovereignity something worth the time and effort of the average player, then a little more safety and a little more control of the occupancy of stations would be key.
There are benefits to Sov levels, sure, but they are mostly invisible to the average player. Make Sov meaningful to the average player and it will be greatly improved.
*****Edit***** Read through some Dev posts today.
Requiring that all static defenses at gates and outposts be player manned is a recipe for inequity. A very large alliance with many time zones well represented will make much better use of said manned defenses. As it is now, the very poor AI of automated POS defenses is... painful. Requiring players to operate all gate and station static defenses makes some alliances second-class-citizens. Make them like POS guns - automatic, but also mannable. Perhaps there might be targeting scripts for automated guns to make them semi-effective in automated mode, but have it cost a lot of fuel to activate the controller mechanism? Say you put a script in that has guns target the largest signatures first, then fire on the slowest moving of those targets as a priority. Perhaps there might be a script to allow you to designate specific shiptypes as priority targets.
Maybe Sov 3 or 4 systems could have cloak locus designators. These devices would slowly develop a more and more precise measurement of where every cloaked ship was in the system. The longer you spend cloaked in system, the more closely the cloak locus designator would be able to determine your position. Once the locus of a stealthed ship was known well enough, the detector mechanism could do something like gang warping to warp ships onto the cloaked ship. The cloaked ship would get an update that it was being tracked, and a warning when it was closely located. This will force cloakers to move around, making them move through gates where they are actually in moderate danger. It should _NOT_ be perfectly safe for even cloaked players to sit in system 23 hours a day 7 days a week.
Holding and developing land over time is great, I like that aspect. It makes sense. Instant gratification arguments, if they are adopted, will simply lead to a much more shallow game. The biggest problem I have with sovereignity at this time is that you really don't have any sort of real control of day-to-day trade or passage. |
Dorvil Barranis |
Posted - 2008.04.15 04:22:00 - [ 613]
Goal: The purpose of a game is to have fun. Any revision to sovereignty mechanics should further the aim of making the game more enjoyable. This can be done by increasing the diversity of 0.0 activities, including helping to break up the blob, encouraging a greater variety of players in 0.0, allowing smaller alliances to influence sovereignty and the economies of sovereign powers, and encouraging a greater variety of PVP engagements.
What is Sovereignty?: Sovereignty resents the economic and military control of systems, constellations, and regions. It also gives goals for alliances, and gives them something significant to fight over. Sovereignty should give benefits to those that have it, such as better intelligence and reduced fuel costs, but also require effort to maintain. Tying sovereignty to any one activity or objective is too limited, and will encourage players to sink as many ships and resources as possible in to that one objective.
Proposal: If sovereignty was gained and lost through a variety of activities, this will encourage and reward a variety of play. Such activities would include POS ownership, outpost ownership, gate control, mining, and collecting NPC bounties. Some details will need to be worked out, but this is a general starting point to work from.
Sovereignty Points: A point value would be tied to the various activities that influence sovereignty. This will also allow the system to be dynamic, and subject to periodic tweaks, without having to be completely revised to be adjusted. If you have more then 51% of the sovereignty points (SP) within a system, you hold sovereignty on the system, and get your alliances name on the system. Systems without a clear majority are considered contested. Holding sovereignty of all systems in a constellation give you constellation sovereignty, and all constellations within a region gives you regional sovereignty. The SP you have are reduced by a percentage each downtime, possibly cut in half, and the sovereignty percentages are adjusted. The purpose of reduction is to prevent an alliance that has held a system for a year of having an overwhelming number of SP that a new comer could never compete with. Any alliance with any percentage of sovereignty will be able to view the current percentages of control, and what has scored points for those percentages. This information is only available after each downtime, so that it cannot be used to immediately reveal threats to sovereignty.
Sovereignty Activities: The following activities yield SP:
Gate Control: Camping a gate for an hour gives you control of that gate, which yields SP each hour. Control of the gate may also allow you to establish gate monitors which will provide intelligence about gate activity. I personally don't see to much need for sovereignty linked gate guns, but if they exist, you would have to control the gate to establish them. I strongly object to tying sovereignty to gate control alone, as gate camps are already the most common PVP battle, and the idea is to encourage diversity of play.
POS & Outposts: POS ownership yields SP each day, the bigger the POS the more the SP. However, this will not be an overwhelming number of SP, so that spamming POS or blobbing enemy POS is not the be all end all of sovereignty. Also, move all POS structures except hangers and ship maintenance outside of the shield. This will allow smaller gangs to harass an enemies economy by disabling their moon miners and other structures. Having your POS put in to reinforced mode will cost you SP, as will having your control tower destroyed. Outpost control will also yield SP each day, and losing an outpost will cost you SP.
continued . . . |
Dorvil Barranis |
Posted - 2008.04.15 04:23:00 - [ 614]
Bounties: Collecting bounties also gives your alliance SP in the system. This will allow PVP alliances to feel that they are not wasting time with ratting and complexes, and will give an incentive to go in to someone else's space and “steal” their rats. Drones will also have an SP value in line with bounty based NPCs.
Mining: Harvesting a systems asteroids yields SP. This will encourage 0.0 alliances to admit and protect dedicated miners, and encourage a greater variety of players in 0.0.
PVP Combat: Although it would be nice to give and take away SP for PVP ship kills, any gains have to be kept to a minimum to prevent people from gaming the system, such as by building ships, giving them to an alt, insuring them, and then letting them get blown up to score SP. Also, someone could have an alt join an enemy corp to get their ship blown up 20 times, and cost the enemy alliance SP. SP can be rewarded for PVP kills, but it has to be small enough that economics prevent this from being a viable method of disrupting sovereignty.
Overview: This system will allow smaller gangs to disrupt a larger alliances sovereignty, which will encourage a greater variety of engagements, and let the little guy stick it to the man without getting blobbed by 100 ships every time they do so. Tying sovereignty to 5 gates instead of POS is a step in the right direction, but why not go hog wild, and tie sovereignty to as many activities as possible? To hold sovereignty you have to control who operates in your space, so there is still a reason to gate camp your entrances, but it is not the only thing to do to influence sovereignty, so it is less likely to encourage a blob. Thank you for your time.
|
Conlin
Gallente
LangToun
|
Posted - 2008.04.15 16:12:00 - [ 615]
I enjoyed the read and liked some of the ideas till I got to the bit where it said , "The defender gets to choose when to defend !!" .
I,m sorry but that idea is extremely stupid .
Alliances that get to choose when to defend will just decide the timezone when the other alliance is less active .
Doomed to fail that one .
Since when did defenders ever get to choose when to defend ?.
Madness . |
Zaiyo Modi
Minmatar |
Posted - 2008.04.15 16:19:00 - [ 616]
Conlin, where did you read this, can you please elaborate and put it in context?
The strontium levels in a pos these days surely is a way for defenders to dictate the time of a final fight. So concidering this, your thoughs about this or that feel abit unwarranted. Unless you want to add to what you wrote with some more elaborate argument and examples of context. |
Zaiyo Modi
Minmatar |
Posted - 2008.04.15 16:33:00 - [ 617]
I um also want to express some idea of the way capital ships could be dealt with in the future.
---
I wouldn't mind seeing someone exploring the idea of having the game change focus from building up effective firepower as in that coming from a blob of ships or capital ship firepower, to "mobility".
Blobs and/or capital ships would then not be overpowered, but just an handy asset that can be used to build up a defence or be used in a clever way to gain initiative and strike hard when they are moved around.
Instinctivly, the dropping ships with a cyno would perhaps have to be changed to working in a different way, so that mobility and actual movement is needed to gain an advantage or being necessary to bring weapons to bare at all.
Focus on "mobility" would mean, that the initiative for combat is favouring the party being able to move around.
If building up great firepower is wanted, then they can always do so in defence covering a limited area like a planet/moon, or great firepower could be used as a reward for moveing about cleverly or in luck.
Though the idea of combat from "mobility" would arrange for a more paced combat favouring the ones being able to position themselvs properly, eventually, there would be a blob problem i guess. But the issue of overpowered fleets (when people say "capital ships online") would not be "unfair" when game mechanics are arranged to limit the advantage of powerful-assets, when these powerful-assets cannot realisticly cover multiple locations in space in a short amount of time, to gain superior firepower. I believe the dropping of capital ships and blobs warping around is what makes these things overpowered.
So one aspect of what I would call "fair" gameplay, would mean that if you have lots of assets like capital ships but only small space to protect, then you gain a serious advantage. So a roaming group of lesser ships should not so easily dominate the scene if facing capital ships.
Basicly, imo, big ships should be powerful and encourage fights with other big ships, and not be that vunerable to lesser pieces of assets.
Moving combat off the gates to other places in a system would suit this idea I think, and be necessary, where capital ships/fleets may rule in their glory whereever they go. That way smaller roaming gangs arent faced with doom when moving between system, because stargates are camped by ships with capital assets.
When ships do end up in a blob of ships there will probably be a problem of lag, but then I am sure other tools can be invented to try prevent this or balance stuff.
---
Fairness to me means:
- Everyone knows or should be able to learn about the rules of gameplay, but not the tactics
- Exploits should be dealt with by CCP, or disclosed within the list of rules for gameplay, like bumping ships.
- Bigger ship beats small ship as a general rule, due to isk and skill investment, and the sci-fi plausability we probably appreciate.
- Timing should favour the one with the initiative, but a gameplay that allows a group of players to gain lasting control of an area because other groups are offline at the time, such a gameplay lack tools for strategy. Strategy should be complementary to ship to ship combat in the grand scope of the game. |
Goumindong
SniggWaffe
|
Posted - 2008.04.15 17:28:00 - [ 618]
Edited by: Goumindong on 15/04/2008 17:30:08 Originally by: Cailais
Goumindong,
I just want to come back at you over this segement of your comment here:
Yes, but the degree of this occurring is not such a linear result. It would be like saying "Alliances have an allocation of 1 POS per 10 players in the alliance". CCP has dedicated a lot of effort to ensure that there is not a hegemony of the rich and old. But they cannot simply let the game become a hegemony of the many as well. The two most powerful alliances in the game after such a change would be Goonswarm and Bruce[Assuming even play time]. And it would be based solely on the number of people we could plunk down in any given area. Numbers need to mean a lot[Because otherwise you get a hegemony of the rich and old], but they should not be everything. The system which directly penalizes alliances for making pushes against other alliances is not a good one. If new alliances are having a hard time moving against older alliances then the problem lies in the mechanics of POS warfare being too difficult and having too much benefit. Quote:
I can see how my proposal wont be very popular with established alliances - but should this system be all about maintaining the status quo?
No, it should not be about maintaining the status quo, but the variable sov system which relies on ratting and mining and camping gates et all simply replaces the current status quo with a worse one. The change should be about making the game better first and foremost, any other considerations, including changing the status quo for changes sake should take a back-burner to making the game better. There will be more people in 0.0[because of the density required to hold space], but there will be less combat[because people will be grinding sov instead, and PvP kill/death ratio numbers are easily exploitable as well would discourage the creation of new FCs], and there will be less change of sovereignty[because its so hard to attack when you don't own a system and because you must necessarily reduce your hold on systems you already own in order to do so], with maybe a few patches of rolling sovereignty where alliances take space and then abandon the space they leave behind. Originally by: Conlin
I enjoyed the read and liked some of the ideas till I got to the bit where it said , "The defender gets to choose when to defend !!" .
I,m sorry but that idea is extremely stupid .
Alliances that get to choose when to defend will just decide the timezone when the other alliance is less active .
Doomed to fail that one .
Since when did defenders ever get to choose when to defend ?.
Madness .
Defenders have gotten to choose ever since the players and CCP decided that station ping pong was not fun. |
Conlin
Gallente
LangToun
|
Posted - 2008.04.15 18:09:00 - [ 619]
Page 16 .
And yeah I know all about reinforced pos,s , defenders do choose once the attack has been initiated .
I was hoping for a change in that area as pos warfare atm is more balanced towards defenders and it dont work as it is . |
Goumindong
SniggWaffe
|
Posted - 2008.04.15 18:58:00 - [ 620]
Originally by: Conlin
Page 16 .
And yeah I know all about reinforced pos,s , defenders do choose once the attack has been initiated .
I was hoping for a change in that area as pos warfare atm is more balanced towards defenders and it dont work as it is .
It not working has nothing to do with the defenders picking the time of final engagement. |
Cailais
Amarr
Nasty Pope Holding Corp
Talocan United |
Posted - 2008.04.15 21:06:00 - [ 621]
Originally by: Goumindong
The two most powerful alliances in the game after such a change would be Goonswarm and Bruce[Assuming even play time]. And it would be based solely on the number of people we could plunk down in any given area. Numbers need to mean a lot[Because otherwise you get a hegemony of the rich and old], but they should not be everything.
I see what youre saying, but then in order to thrive a larger alliance needs more space (you couldnt pack all of GS into 2 or 3 systems) so the larger alliance spreads out. Population pressure and density would then define when an Alliance needed to go to war to secure more 'living space'. Quote:
The system which directly penalizes alliances for making pushes against other alliances is not a good one. If new alliances are having a hard time moving against older alliances then the problem lies in the mechanics of POS warfare being too difficult and having too much benefit.
It doesnt penalize an Alliance, rather it stops rewarding it for holding more territory than it can possibly use, or needs. Quote:
My edit There will be more people in 0.0[because of the density required to hold space], but there will be less combat[because people will be grinding sov instead,
...not if theyre grinding sov down: not up, a key point. Quote:
...and PvP kill/death ratio numbers are easily exploitable as well would discourage the creation of new FCs], and there will be less change of sovereignty[because its so hard to attack when you don't own a system and because you must necessarily reduce your hold on systems you already own in order to do so], with maybe a few patches of rolling sovereignty where alliances take space and then abandon the space they leave behind.
Well this in my view actually creates, not diminishes, strategic planning and operations: the concept of 'we're sacrificing our hold over XXXX in order to capture YYYY'. Is 'rolling soveriegnty' such a bad thing? It suggests a dynamic and interesting universe to me with alliances being more nomadic and less entrenched. If you have sufficient numbers to spare to reduce control of a system great - but then you have to hold it. Sure Large Alliances will dominate but then they do this anyway - at least using my suggestion they will need to leave some of their number 'at home to guard the fort', rather than rely of reinforced POS's to do the job for them; even against smaller gangs. C. |
NvyoU |
Posted - 2008.04.16 00:19:00 - [ 622]
Edited by: NvyoU on 16/04/2008 00:26:26Edited by: NvyoU on 16/04/2008 00:23:46Edited by: NvyoU on 16/04/2008 00:22:04 Originally by: Alski
Originally by: Phthonos Nemesis
....Ownership of a system would allow you to build an Acceleration gate to a "complex"...
....CovertOps/BlackOps ships could have modules to decrypt or unlock gates, to allow use by hostiles, or to reverse engineer the target and build a combat portal to the complex....
I love the idea of using deadspace type areas and/or hacking to unlock areas or (in my idea, change the functionality of deadspace areas)
I’m currently working on a very well flashed out sovereignty concept of my own, the basics idea of which is to break up the blob and make sovereignty more based around the actual player to player combat, not shooting pos’s, simply: if you can hold the field long enough to accomplish your objectives you can successfully contest sov.
The breaking up the *attacking* blob I think I have very well sorted, its breaking up the defending blob that’s proving to be much much harder to find a sensible mechanic to achieve.
Phthonos’s idea just gave me a new direction to go in, but my big idea is still far from ready to be posted, so I’m just gonna throw this question out there…
When you have successfully broken up the attacking blob by giving them multiple objectives that have to be completed simultaneously – How do you force the defending blob to break up when the main objective is just going to be “kill the attackers”?
Some great discussion here!  Just wanted to pick up on this last bit Alski; Surely the problem you mention is a fix in itself? By virtue of the attackers having to attack mulitple objectives at the same time the defenders have to act accordingly or risk losing the overall fight. It sounds daft but the defenders main objective isnt killing the attackers its defending and by that virtue - killing the attackers. So, you can have 10 varying objectives - ranging in fleet compositions and size requirements which maintain or increase the global objective timers for either side. Its in the best interest for the defenders and attackers not to blob up because: A) A sub fleets composition and size may be enough to maintain or incriment the global defence/ attack clock based on one of a group of many objectives. Brute force no longer becomes and option when mass no longer gives the advantage? B) If you do blob in one area any global timer would still incriment against you quicker - playing cat and mouse with two big fleets is no longer viable - the global flag rewards those who chooses to disperse and fight. The ebb and flow of battle comes from region wide faints, pincer movements, reserves and reinforcements being brought in to play? There are many elegant solutions put forward here that need to be tied together, I feel Sov should be claimed by fighting for many objectives (existing game mechanics and new) defined by players within a framework thats grounded in the game world. Thoughts? |
Zaiyo Modi
Minmatar |
Posted - 2008.04.16 00:29:00 - [ 623]
Originally by: NvyoU
There are many elegant solutions put forward here that need to be tied together, I feel Sov should be claimed by fighting for many objectives (existing game mechanics and new) defined by players within a framework thats grounded in the game world.
I do not understand, what you mean by "many objectives defined by players within a framework thats grounded in the game world." ? |
NvyoU |
Posted - 2008.04.16 01:22:00 - [ 624]
Edited by: NvyoU on 16/04/2008 01:22:50 Originally by: Zaiyo Modi
Originally by: NvyoU
There are many elegant solutions put forward here that need to be tied together, I feel Sov should be claimed by fighting for many objectives (existing game mechanics and new) defined by players within a framework thats grounded in the game world.
I do not understand, what you mean by "many objectives defined by players within a framework thats grounded in the game world." ?
I'm saying we need Sov mechanics that fit in with everything we as alliances - corperations and players achieve within Eve. Territory and resources are fought over because they are strategically important and mean something to either side. Alliances/ corps invest in assets - giving them degrees of importance which should be reflected in objectives set out too gain and hold Sov by other Alliances. |
Alski
Ministers Of Destruction. |
Posted - 2008.04.16 04:32:00 - [ 625]
Originally by: NvyoU
So, you can have 10 varying objectives - ranging in fleet compositions and size requirements which maintain or increase the global objective timers for either side. Its in the best interest for the defenders and attackers not to blob up because:
A) A sub fleets composition and size may be enough to maintain or incriment the global defence/ attack clock based on one of a group of many objectives. Brute force no longer becomes and option when mass no longer gives the advantage?
B) If you do blob in one area any global timer would still incriment against you quicker - playing cat and mouse with two big fleets is no longer viable - the global flag rewards those who chooses to disperse and fight.
Thoughts?
That’s a very very interesting idea, and wasn’t exactley the direction that my own idea was heading in  the thing that’s really tough for me to figure out – and this comes back to my original question - is what kind of objectives could you have that require both the attackers and defenders to split forces? Perhaps having a fleet of a certain size on a grid, and holding that grid as well as several other grids… and once all grids are held by the attackers all the other grids have to assaulted simultaneously by the defenders? Things like that sound easy in practice… but what kind of mechanics can you have that will severely disadvantage the attackers if they decide to just hit one grid with 30 people on, with there own 100 people? In my own idea I was looking at interlinked dreadnaughts or maybe a new class of ship altogether, that would somehow “protect” the smaller attacking gangs from overwhelming firepower, as well as both having to be assaulted at once in order to drop this protective field or whatever it could be. The “global timer” though is an intriguing idea I wish I’d had kicking around before, the problem I see though is that it would have to have some kind of starting trigger, and possibly a reinforced type of mechanic or else an attacking alliance could just invade at an off-peek timezome for the defenders and just sit and hold objectives without a fight… it’s still a nice idea, but in a real-time 23/7 MMO balancing it seems incredibly tough, I’d love to hear some ideas on it though. |
Shadowsword
The Rough Riders
Ares Protectiva |
Posted - 2008.04.16 06:22:00 - [ 626]
Imho, the only way to break up the blob in the case of simultanneous objectives, is first to break up the capacity for that blob to travel quickly.
If you remove jump bridges and create a new ship that can reprouce the effects of a cnyo-jammer for a whole system, it might just work... |
xttz
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation |
Posted - 2008.04.16 07:32:00 - [ 627]
I think a key part of breaking down the blob lies in the current soverignty mechanics. Or to be more precise, sov levels.
Before Revelations 2, multiple-week fights over a single system (or several systems at once) were common, resulting in system control shifting constantly. With the level-based sov we have now, its very easy for defenders to just give up if the other side throws in a single blob at their weakest time, reinforces every tower, and opens the potential to remove all defending bonuses within 2 days. Losing the highest level of soverignty is the current indicator to abandon a system, as it takes 5 weeks to reclaim. This results in a mechanic where a single huge blob of capital ships can login twice a week to conquer one and never need risk other combat. I'd like to see this spread out to see which side can control a system for a more sustained period.
Soverignty levels should instead be based on alliance control / presence in a system, rather than just time. The best current example of this is that an alliance can place a single small tower in a neutral system and gain the bonuses of sov3 by simply waiting 5 weeks. This does not lend to risk/reward, as Sov3 systems are valuable tactical tools while small towers are practically disposable to larger alliances. Instead I would suggest that sov levels can only reach a certain 'ceiling' depending on the quantity/size of starbases in the system, along with other factors like the proposed gate control or neighbouring system sov. It should be possible to reach high levels of soverignty faster, at a higher risk/cost in fuel. This encouarges more focus on true provinces and capitals, rather than having alliances drop single cynojammer towers in every single nearby system. I believe you will see less 'hard borders' of dozens of sov3 jammed systems by making it more expensive to maintain those borders.
In a similar vein, sov in contested systems should rise and fall in a more fluid manner. A focused, all-out attack could chip off the highest level of sov and remove the best defense bonuses, but defenders would still have something to work with rather than rushing to assemble a blob defense within 2 days. It should take at least a week of fighting to remove all defender benefits from a system, resulting in larger numbers of smaller fights. If neighbouring system sov affected a contested system, this would encourage the tactical capture of these weaker points first. It would also mean that defenders who lost all their starbases in a system in a very short space of time (due to a focused attack, poor stront timing or simply spies) would have a shot to fight back - neighbouring systems would conribute to defense bonuses.
Bonuses provided by sov levels should also be changed to reflect this, in order to prolong system invasions into multiple smaller engagements. Uncontested systems could have invulnerable starbase towers or longer strontium timers, but those bonuses can be removed at the next downtime by a focused assault to capture gates. As hostile presence in a system increases, the defenders gradually lose their defense bonuses. Conversely, they can regain these bonuses faster by beating back the attacker.
As well as the level-based structures such as jump bridges and cyno beacons, why not adjust starbases to be more powerful based on sov. Tweak the tower bonuses to apply per level of soverignty. For example:
Amarr towers have a 25% damage bonus to lasers. Adjust this to 15% per level of sov. Starbase defenses now scale well to the larger forces that will be attacking them, but are weaker in under-developed systems with small numbers of starbases.
|
Mithfindel
Zenko Incorporated |
Posted - 2008.04.16 10:06:00 - [ 628]
Stealing from Gaven of PIE from another thread, I'd personally like the "magical" sovereignty be replaced with infrastructure-based effects. Leave the sovereignty flag there to mark who owns the system. However, base the effects on what has been installed in the system.
Example: In addition to basic (current) POS, there are industrial POS (weaker defense, bonuses to industry, can mount several industrial POS modules) and defense POS (stronger defense, not much use to produce anything, can mount several defensive modules, possibly slightly more expensive).
As an example, to have a Capital Ship Assembly Array you currently need sovereignty at level X. In the infrastructure-based system, you'd instead need an industrial POS with a "power generator" bridged to the Cap Yard POS. Since the two towers are industrial ones, and you don't want them to go pop, you'll need two defensive towers anchored with a "remote tower reinforcement" module, making the target (industrial) towers invulnerable as long as their defense POSes are online.
Another example of a magical sovereignty effect based on waiting X days is the constellation capital invulnerability. Instead it could be implemented with "remote system reinforcement" modules that target an entire system in the same constellation (perhaps with a limitation that the target system must have an outpost or a conquerable station). Only one system reinforcement module anchorable per system, each adds certain % to remote system POS shield resistances, and the POS supporting these would require a chain of "power generators" or equal modules supporting them (advanced versions of which might require a station in the system).
Similarly POS fuel efficiency could be done by a POS module to be anchored in the system, for example a "Starbase Process Control" module. Outpost invulnerability? POS module for that, à la Death Star Shield.
The system can be balanced to avoid impenetrable fortresses, for example by making it so that system that reinforces the capital cannot be reinforced (or a POS-reinforcing POS cannot be reinforced by other POS), but the need to chew thru the supporting systems means that the capital is still safe for a moment.
Also, the system can be expanded to include regional sovereignty, if such thing is found necessary: Make a module that can be anchored only into a remote reinforced (constellation capital) system, and require a certain amount of these modules to target a (constellation capital) system in another constellation to make it the region capital.
Additionally, if wishing to avoid things going "too fast", the effects provided by some modules could possibly require a downtime to be activated/deactivated.
The cons in the system:
- More complexity to the game
The pros in the system:
- Provides a simple in-character explanation to the sov effects
- Gaining the benefits from sovereignty means that you actually must use the system
- Assuming a high moon count system, technically allows it to be shared by two alliances if there's enough space for both to build their infrastructure.
Individual starbase level, tier 1: Support other POS in same system
- basic "jack of all trades" POS (current - legacy POS to avoid problems)
- industrial POS (basic industry, may provide power to other POS, can be remote reinforced)
- defense POS (may provide shields/invulnerability to other POS, cannot be remote reinforced)
System level, tier 2 (supported by tier 1 POS, require remote power source):
- industrial POS (advanced manufacturing, provide power to other system)
- defense POS (provide shields/invulnerability to other system ("invulnerability field transmitter"), can make in-system station invulnerable, can possibly be remote reinforced)
Constellation level, tier 3 (supported by tier 2 POS):
- industrial POS (cap yards, possibly advanced refining/assembly)
- defense POS ("invulnerability field receiver", generates the constellation capital immunity)
Next level, what.. |
Drethon
Gallente
Selinir
|
Posted - 2008.04.16 13:12:00 - [ 629]
Something that seems interesting to me is have gate control be a hacking type of thing. Any ship equipped with a hacking device can take control of a gate after say an hour. Once control is gained the corporation that now controls it can make the gate accessible or inaccessible based on standings, war, etc. Meaning a corporation can leave the gate as a public gate or lock down the gate as desired.
When unlocking the gate it can be made publicly accessible in a half an hour but another hour after that is required for the new corporation to lock down the gate for themselves.
When a corporation has control of enough gates that they can lock down a system/constellation/region jump ships start to become useful. Of course the gate can still be unlocked from the "free" side of the gate blockade but a ship can also jump into the locked down space an unlock a gate from inside.
This will require a change to perhaps the covert ops frigate to allow them the ability to sneak through locked down gates or possibly use a mini jump drive that can jump between locked down gates.
What I envision is a large alliance locking down an entire region. An attacking corporation sends a scout into the region to locate a quiet system. A Black Ops battleship is jumped into the system and uses a Jump Portal to bring the fleet into the system. While the fleet works to defend the gates in the system the scout ship sneaks off into another system. As the battle continues the scout ship locks down all of the gates into another system. The fleet then jumps in to defend the newly controlled system.
This is only a half thought out idea but I really like the idea of working the sovereignty system like castles. Once the wall is built it is difficult to knock down but there are different options ranging from all out siege assault down to covert attacks they may not even be detectable until they are over. |
Zaiyo Modi
Minmatar |
Posted - 2008.04.17 12:17:00 - [ 630]
Edited by: Zaiyo Modi on 21/04/2008 13:31:49I started drawing on my deadspace idea, a png image can be viewed with the link below: Example with one entry gate and offset scrambling structure Example with two entry gates and centered scrambling structureI also had an idea of "levels of system control" earlier. The examples above would be a drawing of an upgraded level of system control, which is achieved by simply building a certain main structure. At this level the main structure would offer say anchoring of other structures of limited usefulness, like an area of effect scrambling tower covering say 100km. Earlier I imagined another type of structure to actually offer shield hardening bonuses to all anchored structures, initially thought to be hidden away at some second level of deadspace. But perhaps it would look better if that structure simply is located in the same area, but that it has a password protection, and can be hacked, based on skill of the one "locking the tower" and the one trying to hack himself into it. A big fleet would in theory be able to blow things up eventually without having to lower the shield hardening bonuses boosting all the surrounding structures, an effect coming from the special structure just mentioned. And if anyone are able to hack it, then a semi-random timer starts to count down, eventually the tower will turn off the hardening bonuses. --- Edit: Uhm, I now wonder if drones and fighter drones get to use MWD in deadspace? I wouldn't mind. |
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