Declarations of War – Revisited

Questions from Mickey Simon here

1) Do you think anything needs to be done to make small gang/solo pvp “better”, is stuff fine as is, or do you think they need to swing it towards larger fleets some more?

I don’t think you can ever stop making small gang PVP more fun. Fixing station docking ranges, neutral rr (empire especially), making sure the AF 4th bonus is spot on, balancing ECM and Sensor damps, and giving small gangs a legitimate roll in attacking 0.0 infrastructure are what I think should be prioritized. I don’t think these changes will swing things *away* from large fleets, which will still maintain their role and in fact will benifit from some changes like docking range and ECM/Damp reform, but rather make small gangs more fun and, in 0.0, more significant.

2) How do you feel about the ECM mechanic? Does it need a nerf, a buff, a change, or to remain unchanged?

I’d like to see adjustments to the duration, depending on where CCP wants to go. If they want bring all ECM into line and have the ship to ship version just break lock like the ECM drone and Burst ECM then the duration should be shortened to 5 seconds with the cap use cut by 75% to match. If they are wedded to the “cant lock” mechanic, the duration cut from 20 seconds to 10. This will be very beneficial for the following reasons. 1. Overheating ECM’s will damage faster 2. The increased number of attempts will lessen the effect of non ECCM’d ships being completely and totally crippled, double/tripple ECCM’d ships from being completely invulnerable 3. It will increase the role of player skill in ECM management due to more frequent opportunity and need to move jams around and 4. Stealth nerf to cap ships online, particularly carriers in small scale fights since the increased number of attempts/successes coupled with their tragic lock time will make sub cap gangs supported by EWAR more competitive against them.

3) What do you think about cloaks on interceptors? Should these be a more viable strategy?

I think ships aside from Cov Ops, Bombers, Force Recons, Blockade Runners, and Black Ops (ie things that can use black ops jump bridge) should have their cap regeneration suspened while cloaking. And that said cloaks should have a small cap use when active (1 per second maybe?). Total effect of this should be yeah, cloaking an inty is a very viable tactic, but not an indefinite one. You want to lock down a system afk or be otherwise unfindable, use the stealth ships that were designed for it or deal with the occasional need to decloak and recharge. Yes I’m aware such a change would bite Noir. in the ass, i’m fine with that cause it’d be good for the game.

4) What areas of the game do you hope to influence?

Empire PVP, 0.0 PVP, 0.0 infrastructure development, removing ceilings/floors in the market, corporation/alliance management, and the merc market. I’d like to say WH since i’m a big fan but aside from increasing the things players can build in them (infrastructure opportunities but not sov) i can’t think of anything that’s wrong with them.

5) Do you feel that RR mechanics (neutral AND outlaw) need to be changed? Or are they fine as is?

Remote effects need to generate an aggro timer as it applied to being able to jump, dock, and be probed out. I read Lana’s point, and I think it’s a fair change that remote repairing a -5 shouldnt give you GCC unless they have one too when you rep them.

6) How do you feel about the overview? Could it use an upgrade to not be ****ing ******ed, or is it fine as is and I’m just a whiny soab?

I think the interface could be more intuitive and easy to navigate, but otherwise I’m fine with it. For some reason mine wont save distinct tabs (changing one changes them all) but i think that’s just me

7) Rock pokemon are annoying? C/D?

C.  Strongly C.