Take it to the Limit One Less Time

So CCP had an interesting interview regarding the battle of 6V.  Especially with regards to the technical side and TiDi.  As many people (myself included) have said; the bottom line is we’ve passed the point where the EvE game client + the current technology can handle loads players are putting on it.  The inability to take advantage of multithreaded cores and the way that technology has developed away from CCP’s needs has brought us to the point where nearly any coalition can bring more ships than any server can handle.  

I’ve already talked about how CCP needs to develop the technology and the programming to handle this, but it looks like it’s very basic architecture level.  That’s a lot of work to fix.  A ridiculous lot.  The bottom line is they really don’t have the ability to fix things at that level in any kind of timely fashion.  Especially as CCP Veritas said (cribbing in the whole interview bit)

TMC: With this battle, do you think that EVE has reached a limit of what TiDi can do for it? Is it time to look for new hardware or new ideas?

CCP Veritas: I’m going to say an answer, and you’re not going to like it. Then I’m going to say some more words, and you’re going to like it. Ready? The answer to your question is no. That’s because the answer for it was nine months ago, and that’s when I started looking at performance again.

So I’m guessing CCP has made progress, and has gotten themselves to where they at least have the project going.  The problem is they are chasing a community that has passed them.  This is not a good strategy, this was a forseeable problem, and there should be a nearly constant team working on it to bring solutions about before they are needed, not 9 months after the fact.  Fleets will expand to fill the infrastructure that the game contains, and then go +1.  That’s the EvE way.  

So there’s two kinds of infrastructure, the nuts and bolts of the actual game, that is, the code and hardware that runs the code which we’ve clearly overrun and then there’s the actual gameplay mechanics that bring fleets together.  

Fleets can jump using Titan Bridges to Cynos skipping intervening gates, arriving rapidly straight onto the battlefield.  The most powerful ships in the game are frequently relegated to the role of Taxis.  The Erebus should be in interbus colors for all the ferrying it does.  I’m all for the Titan having it’s bridge sharply limited.  Have an upper mass limit of what can go through, then a cooldown equivalent to the old Titan Doomsday cooldown.  Sure they can use more titans to get fleets moving, but how many Titans do you want sitting crippled even in the safety of a POS?  This would make it harder to move numerous fleets around.  It’s a brute-force solution, but it’s better than watching 4k people struggle with the client for 6 hours.  

The other big thing is looking at the objectives and strategy.  Right now there’s huge timers for big structures that attract massive fleets.  There’s no incentive to split your fleet as it A) runs counter to strategy by splitting your offensive and defensive power, and B) slows down your actual attack and completion of the objectives.  But what if we could change B?  What if there were smaller objectives in every constellation, rather like FW bunkers, that gave the controller an advantage in fights elsewhere?  Having secondary objectives for every battle would be fantastic.  Perhaps a nerf or buff to structure hitpoints, added or subtracted range to capital jumps/bridges.  Make each battle a series of interconnected parts, rather than dueling steamrollers.  

Anything other than “+1”

I’m using it every time I can