My No. 1 gripe with T3 command link alts is that they're, well, alts.
Alternate accounts are a symptom of bad game design, an off-grid link nerf eradicates the need for a T3 link alt.
To be brutally honest... I am a fleet commander. I should be commanding my fleet on grid.
Thing is though, off-grid boosting T3s aren't nearly as invincible as they once were. The number of players getting the implants necessary for T3 probing on their alts is increasing. In every major engagement so far in the south, at least one "unprobeable" boosting T3 has been probed out and killed. Off-grid bonuses are still very much a risk, and there's no sense getting rid of them entirely. Swapping bonuses with command ships is the best thing to do. Each month, the number of boosting T3s killed is increasing. I can list off several members of my alliance and TEST who now have alts skilled and implanted for catching these T3s, who did not have that capability a month ago. Now that people have seen how easy it is to catch off-grid boosters, more people are prepared to do it. It's emergent gameplay, no sense to get rid of it.
So people need to train more alts to deal with other people's alts?
It's shite gameplay, there's plenty need to get rid of it.
honestly, for the next summit, ask CCP if it's possible to release each session independently, so if you can release 1/4 of the minutes 2 weeks later you can do it.
it will avoid us having part of the stuff outdated, you having more pressure from us, and ccp will have less whine thread at the same time.
after all it's what was decided for patching :P
and you really need to poke ccp to do a devblog or at least a good forum post about the players contracts for winter, cause at first it seems like shit as a big feature for the next expansion, but when you read more it seems interesting but... not clear enough.
i saw lots of comments saying how poor will be the december expension, and this feeling have good chance to spread on the next few days, as more people read the minutes and blog posts who talk about them.
Last edited by raiden55; August 3 2012 at 11:24:20 PM.
It's a flaw that the new T3 ships have laid bare in a way that previous CS's could not. It doesn't de-level the playing field, it just means you can't have an afk alt do it. I see it as a plus to everything combat related. It's low hanging fruit; easy to implement, and it makes sense.
Lark pretty much said it already - it takes a lot longer to train up a alt capable of actually getting 100% on a properly fit link T3 than it does to actually fly said ship. And even then you're flying around in a ~2b pod (virtues) contributing nothing of note to the fleet until such time as there is actually someone unprobeable to be found. And then when you start probing you have to hope the guy doesn't see your combat probes, of which you'll need several and probably more than 1 scan cycle.
All of that to catch a guy who to all intents and purposes doesn't even have to do anything once he's in position in a safe. If the other guys don't have a max-skilled virtue pilot then you are invulnerable.
The disparity there in effort and reward is massive... jump a guy into the system where the fight is taking place, warp to safe using covops cloak, activate links vs a guy in a 2b clone with near-as-dammit max probing skills and max equipment who is doing nothing else but looking for you.
Last edited by Durzel; August 3 2012 at 11:43:59 PM.
Eve's vast tree of skills demands alts. It may be shitty game design but it's brilliant business-wise. All those alts need to pay for subs or consume PLEX that somebody, somewhere, paid for. Even if you've got 200 million SP, you can't be in multiple places at once to pvp, run invention jobs and manufacturing, light cynos, play the market, manage corps, fueling POSes, etc.
Link alts (about 18x in skills) and probing alts (about 21x in skills) take around the same time to make. A probing ship costs 50m + 2b pod and can probe other things then links. T3 link alts cost 600m + 100m pod + skill loss on death and u get to give links and scout.
All bringing bonuses to grid will do is benifit the blob. I do agree something should be changed with links, but bringing them to the grid really doesn't help
tapatalk
WRT small gangs:
Off grid boosters are shit game design need to go. If small gangs would get "ruined" by removing off grid link alts, then they obviously have some massive issues that need to be worked out if the only thing propping them up was such an overpowered gimmicky crutch. Take the crutch away and we might actually figure out what the problems are and fix them properly.
Last edited by Resi; August 4 2012 at 09:03:41 AM.
As a casual bad who roams in gangs of two or three and isn't about to invest the money or time isking for plex to run an alt, I can't wait for them to get rid of off grid links.
Stealth boost to my Claymore \o/
I ran my Damnation on grid in AHAC gangs, BS Fleets and smaller engagements, never had any issues with it as a Damnation is essentially unkillable with decent logi support due to the all round 85-90% resists. Bringing links back on grid is a good thing, they just need to be in ships designed to stay alive.
I very much disagree on this, I was massively irked when they announced that T3s were going to get better bonuses than a ship that takes as long to train as a CS, T3s are supposed to be the jack of all trades to the T2's specialist. They need to offer the ability to bring "Better than BC" command bonuses to a small fight where you don't want to eat the big DPS loss that bringing a Fleet CS along does. If you want the best bonuses you take a DPS loss and bring a Fleet CS, otherwise you take a T3 which does both but not as well.
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