Victor Moody Stahl
Amarr Templars
Amarr Empire
127
   |
Posted - 2014.11.19 01:52:00 -
[1] - Quote
So, here's my initial feedback:
General Bandwidth Thoughts
I love it. It's awesome, and I really feel like this will do a lot to counteract the rampant equipment spam that happens in anywhere from 30-70% of pub/FW matches, with FW matches trending towards higher instances of equip spam, in my experience.
That said, I do think that certain equipment options should cost less bandwidth- Compact nanos, for example, should cost very little bandwidth. Proxies, even under the likely mechanics proposed in Cross Atu's Logi thread, would probably still require a reduced bandwidth value. Stable variants of deployable equipment (mostly thinking of Stable links) should also have a reduced BW requirement, in addition to their reduced PG/CPU needs, but be penalized in other ways.
Using Stable links as an example, having an increased spawn delay or a decreased number of links carried/spawns per link would be a could mechanic. Stable links also need a little work anyways, as the only drawback of most of the Stable variant equipment in general tends to mean that the lower-tier version is only a usable option if you're ISK-pinching.
Bandwidth Tieri(ciding)
Simply put, hell no to getting more BW at higher suit tiers. The disparity between proto-grade and basic level suits is already quite hefty when fully fit, even when considering identical SP investment into a given role, and this would simply widen the gap.
Moreover, I'm sure that there's a few logis that would agree with me that this overly penalizes new players, and further makes lower-end, lower-cost logi rigs even more unattractive to use.
I would also like to see the following:
Scouts at a universal 8 or 12. My gut feeling is that we start low, at 8, and then iterate from there if necessary. This is especially important at the low end, because due to the mechanics of the Amarr Logi bonuses, it has been in my experience a highly common use case to start in a scout suit, drop some links in a good preliminary spot, and then either end up needing to respawn or finding a supply depot to swap to an Amarr Logi fit.
Because "presto!" my previously deployed links that I set up on using a scout suit are now made ultra-awesome by my logi rig. IMO, this aspect of the sandbox should be retained- I really do feel like I should still be able to do this.
For the record, such an action is to compensate for the slowness of the Amarr Logi, by making use of the mobility of scout suits to get links into good spots quickly, before actually using the AmLogi suit to make the links awesome.
Sentinel Bandwidth
I would argue that a Sentinel suit should have a small amount of bandwidth. In this case, I would also recommend the opposite direction of iteration that I recommend for scout BW- start off with 8 BW across all Sentinel suits, and then see if it's too much. If it is, then reduce it to 4 BW, at which point a heavy could still help his team by having a link set out, or a nanohive set up for himself, but it's of very limited utility.
Other Assorted Thoughts
I'm not sure that assaults and commandos need more BW than scouts. Part of this has to do with the fact that scouts tend to have an- at least intended- role that is more equipment-centric, but also because equipment selection for assaults and commandos tends to, at least in my experience both seeing and using these suits, be more self-benefit rather than team-benefit in terms of choice.
That's not to say that these classes never carry things like needles, links, or rep tools; rather, it is more likely that dedicated assault and commando players tend to prefer nanos or scanners. There's a few that do favor RE's as well, but they tend to be a minority in my experience.
This being said, the more defensive/supportive nature of commandos does lead to them, at least IMO, be more likely to select things like dedicated triage or rep/resupply hives, so giving commandos a slightly higher BW value than assaults and scouts is a potential way to not only differentiate the former from the latter two, but also to maybe help define the commando role slightly better.
Buff Logis | Nerf Scouts
|
Victor Moody Stahl
Amarr Templars
Amarr Empire
128
|
Posted - 2014.11.19 06:35:00 -
[2] - Quote
Samki Licui wrote:CCP Rattati wrote:Every dropsuit has a built-in Equipment Controller, which has a certain Bandwidth Capacity (in MHz). Shouldn't units of bandwidth capacity be in bits per second (Kbps, Mbps, Gbps, etc) instead of cycles per second? My first thought when I see "MHz" is to think "which frequency" or "which channel", instead of "amount of data transfer capacity".
As someone who is currently pursuing an IT networking certification, I can confidently say that bandwidth is in fact expressed on multiples of Hz, rather than bits.
From a technical perspective, bandwidth refers to the width of the channel that is used for data transmission; it's also used to refer to the frequency used by wireless transmission technologies.
Bitrates are used to express throughput, which is the appropriate term for data transfer rates. Actual "capacity" isn't actually relevant for networking technologies- any limitation on total download/upload is purely a case of economics.
SponkSponkSponk wrote:Bandwidth in Eve is measured in Mbit/sec (an encrypted control channel between the ship and each drone)
I believe that this is correct as to the intended representation that EVE is using. However, from a purely technical standpoint, it's incorrect, as I outlined above.
Buff Logis | Nerf Scouts
|
Victor Moody Stahl
Amarr Templars
Amarr Empire
137
|
Posted - 2014.11.21 02:50:00 -
[3] - Quote
I believe the main point is "solo" scout. While I would contend that it's reasonable to expect a single AV-weapon (IE, swarms, PLC, forge) user to be able to kill a tank on their own, I think it may be unreasonable to expect a scout to solo remote-bomb a tank.
Primarily because it involves very little actual sacrifice on the scout's part. As in, it requires very little sacrifice of anti-infantry armament (or mobility, in the case of commando suits).
So, that could be just a little bit problematic.
Buff Logis | Nerf Scouts
|