Before December 4th, flying with logistics was a rarity. Something done occasionally to mix things up, to try something new. Fweddit experimented with a Circlejerk doctrine involving Drakes. We had some success with it, but it was a specialty doctrine, useful only in particular situations.
I can count on one hand the number of times I've been in logistic fleets since I joined faction warfare until the release of Retribution. Nearly every fleet I've flown in since Retribution has had a contingent of logistic ships.
I'm not asking that T1 logi be removed. I'm simply suggesting that they may be a tad overpowered, and that maybe their "healing" skills could be blunted somewhat.
With the release of Retribution, any fleet over 15 ships, and logistics has become a necessity. FCs won't undock a mid- to large-sized fleet without logistics. If your logistics pilots aren't online, then you don't undock. And even if you have the logistics pilots available, there's still some grumbling. People just don't seem to enjoy flying logistics. People are sucking it up, climbing into their Augorors, because the fleet won't undock otherwise.
Faction warfare doctrines pre-Retribution barely paid any attention to logi. Faction warfare doctrines post-Retribution have logi fits built into them.
Those days of just undocking with 15-20 people, heading out on a roam, are over. Now it's all about making sure you have the right fleet comp before an undock is even callled. It requires more planning, more of the right people with the right skills.
Ad hoc fleets, spontaneous roams. A thing of the past. And that makes me sad. Faction warfare has always been improvisational to some degree, and that's been lost with the advent of powerful T1 logistic cruisers. Now, if you don't have the logi, you don't fly. You can't compete in fights without it. As a result, doctrines have all started to look the same. The fights have started to look the same. Stalemates are becoming more commonplace.
Logi on one side needs more logi on the other side as a counter. Thus there's little in the way of ingenuity in fleet composition. It's logistics escalation. That doesn't strike me as great design.
I'm not sure the solution. Or if there should be a solution. It's hard to call the logistic changes bad, but neither have they been good for faction warfare. All I know, is that fighting in lowsec has changed, and it doesn't feel like it's changed for the better. Something crucial has been lost. And it feels like a shame.
/me quietly hides behind her vulnerability vector idea which would solve the stalemate problem. :)
ReplyDeleteGet logi to show up on killmails. To be enjoyed by itself, flying logi needs uncommon people, not quite as uncommon as mining does, but evidently, not available in sufficient supply. Make social recognition easier to come by for the people who fly logi for that, instead, and it will surely make up the difference.
Once there's enough people ready to fly logi, the improvisational quality will come back.
I love flying logi, it's a challenge, more so than just applying DPS.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, assign some drones to someone in fleet and voila! You have now successfully killmail whored.
Yeah. Adaptation will occur over time, most likely. But those days of the kitchen-sink fleet, the hallmark of our warzone ... those days seem to be over and done with.
Deletekitchen-sink fleets are provably wrong and bad.
DeleteGood riddance to "those days"
The T1 logis indeed make the situation much worse. It is now possible to fly with a 50/50 mix of logi and DPS ships, which make it difficult to actually kill anything. This is somewhat... boring.
ReplyDeleteThis has been my experience, as well.
DeleteExactly how do you break a chain of 5, 10, or even 20 logi's, which are cap transferring and repping each other?
bring 5, 10, or even 20 logi's.
Deleteand a few celestis
and a few blackbirds
You break them with alpha. Or with jams. Or damps. Or capacitor warfare....
Delete20 logis cap transfering and repping each other can be broken. Often breaking only a few links in the chain can cause it to fail spectacularly. Its possible to break the T2 varieties, it is likewise possible to break the T1s
I don't know where you've been PvPing but in my experience, with the exception of a few set piece ganks logistics is always a necessity.
ReplyDeleteT1 logistics simply lowers the level of entry for logistics and in my opinion makes it easier to find logistics pilots. In the past my corporation would not allow guardians to be flown without logistics V which is a major undertaking. Now with T1 logistics we can relax that requirement and allow some of our more blood thirsty pilots who focus on damage performance to fill the gap when necessary.
I think the entire premise that logistics is was rarity (which appears to be the basis for your argument to have T1 logistics nerfed) is somewhat incorrect.
If you are having trouble finding logistics pilots for spontanious roams you need to look at your recruitment. We have dozens of logistics capable pilots in every timezone and our alliance is much smaller than fweddit. Add to that, most of those pilots actually enjoy flying logistics. These people are not a rare breed - you just need to actively recruit for them.
"I don't know where you've been PvPing but in my experience, with the exception of a few set piece ganks logistics is always a necessity."
DeleteI figured, because I mention FACTION WARFARE over and over and over ... that your question wouldn't need to be asked.
You mean there is something besides null? Inconceivable!
DeleteSo you are suggesting that T1 logistics be nerfed to support your irrelevant faction warfare arena.. awesome. Lets just push logistics back into the hands of veterans to support faction warfare.
Delete(also, if you're not using logistics in small gangs you are absolutely 100% doing it wrong)
I hear sensor damps of both kinds are quite awesome.
ReplyDeleteMaybe enable the use of lockbreaker bombs in low sec?
ReplyDeleteOne celstis can generally lock out two enemy logistics. serve been using them in the Tuskers as our go-to anti-logi ships.
ReplyDeleteThere are more ways to deal with enemy logistics than just throwing more logistics in the field.
So in other words, nerf an entire class of ship just because they are now relevant and embarrass cobbled-together "kitchen sink" fleet compositions? In my view, where CCP failed all these years was in prioritizing game mechanics and ship designs that would make everybody to just want to be pew-pew types. They have rightly buffed and streamlined the roles of many of the support ships, and that has made the game more complex. If you don't like enemy logi, why don't you bring some e-war to nullify them? Oh wait, because then somebody would have to do something other than pew-pew, and we hate that.
ReplyDeleteNerf them because the power-cost ratio on them is absurd. Which makes bringing a shittonne of them into a fight trivial. An Augoror has 3/5ths of the power at about 1/8th the cost of a Guardian. That's simply overpowered.
Deleteplayers set prices Po...you cannot state that price and power have any correlation.
DeleteSupply and demand have some control, but all ships are manufactured from a reasonably set amount of materials. The prices of those materials fluctuate somewhat, but the price of a Guardian will always be more expensive than a Augoror by a significant amount. There's no player manipulation that can narrow that gap by much.
DeleteThe only thing you haven't explained is why it shouldn't be trivial to bring logi onto the field? It's trivial to bring, say, a Rupture or a Thorax, isn't it? Why should it be trivial to bring pew-pew, but not trivial to bring logi? Not really following your logic.
ReplyDelete