Market Discussions

This is not a thread for balance discussions. I am neither advocating nor arguing against the removal or any changes to T2 BPOs. What I am suggesting is that T2 BPOs are considered a serious problem by the CCP staff, and they are taking steps to curb the benefits of owning such an item, with future changes down the line making them worthless or altogether removed.

So what if that could be averted? T2 BPO prices go back up. Further balance passes are rolled back, ignored, or never begun. Capital sat in T2 BPOs appreciates. The passive income flow from owning and using them remains. How long can you hold onto the golden goose?

How? The intentional destruction of T2 BPOs. The destruction of so many, a significant portion of existing stocks, that CCP delays or cancels any future plans to touch them. Quite simply the number must be decimated to such an extent that their balance, lack thereof, or player awareness is a near non-issue. How many would be required? Half, 3/4, 90% of existing stocks? First we need a number to see how many are in existence. According to a thread by Grendell categorizing all T2 BPO types in existence, we come up with approximately 350 unique print types in existence. I read somewhere, long ago, that there were roughly ~10 of each T2 BPO seeded. I cannot verify the truthfulness of this number, nor source it. I will, however, call it a fair assumption. We know there are not many of each individual type in existence by inferred referencing of sales and publicly known holders.

So we have 3500 T2 BPOs. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less. Some have gone inactive, been destroyed, forgotten. How many need to go away to ensure CCP takes no heed? Well, do we have another part of the game where one item is blatantly overpowering of its competitors but allowed, nay, sanctioned, to exist? AT* ships are just plain superior to their counterparts, their barrier for entry being scarcity and value. A quick glance at the official EVE online wiki and you may see that a number of AT ships have been rewarded, totaling around 560. Being a little conservative and getting nice round numbers, we see that CCP is quite all right with 500 bundles of overpowered goodness running around, or roughly 1/7th of my estimated number of T2 BPOs.

So if a group, collective, organization, or individual were to destroy 2800 T2 BPOs would they be able to hold on to their remainders indefinitely? What is the expected value of this decision? How long will EVE last, and T2 BPOs remain in existence, even if their threat/imbalance is lacking? Even a powerful entity, like Grendell, does not hold that many T2 BPOs. What about the CFC's coffers? We may remember their years of hulkageddon, where they profited like madmen off holding some of the only hulk BPOs in existence. Even if the CFC does not currently own an appreciable number of T2 BPOs, it certainly has the wealth to purchase very, very many. I cannot begin to estimate the wealth of an entity (i.e. CFC), versus a person (i.e. Chribba), but both could at least come very, very close to reaching the sheer economic weight required to attain a monopoly.

Now, what of their profits? Maybe they could cherry-pick what to destroy. ECCM modules, shield rechargers and power relays, basically all the godawful modules could be safely gotten rid of, barring some minor risk to their future rebalancing and popularity. Ships have always been incredibly expensive BPOs, and per-item are probably worth several of the lacklustre modules or any ammos. They also tend to have the most market share, and produce the most income. This raises questions of market impact vs visibility. An entire paper could be subsumed by such a subject. I will refrain and assume that each BPO is more or less equal to its peers in terms of CCP wrath. In this way one might pick incredibly popular modules (10mn Afterburner II), and keep its production well, well nestled inside consumption. Ammo is a funny choice, with the crius expansion simultaneously hitting T2 BPOs and making T2 ammo production not the horrible option it currently is. Some of the more popular (I.e. bonused damage types, scourge rage heavy/javelin/precision) ones being retained for a decent share. Now if this BPO collection is spread among a collection of persons, there must be some metric to determine wealth put into the "pot" and thus destroyed, likely a random generator weighted by value, with isk payouts to cushion some of the smaller players. That is an interesting group dynamic that I also will not cover here.


Of course I do not expect this to ever come to pass. Such a public, noticeable outlay of capital is.... well, it's not a good idea in 99.9% of cases. However this is EVE, and people continue to do insane, audacious things that fascinate me to no end. Publicly destroying an immeasurate amount of wealth with the stated goal of playing chicken with the devs would be one of those fascinating things. I do not believe it will come to pass, but one day someone with enough brains and guts may make me look the fool, and I eagerly wait for that day to come.





*This is not a stealth nerf AT ships thread. Really.

The problem with a cartel action like this is that while there are definitely potential rewards for participating in the cartel, there are greater ones still for those individuals that do not participate.

My fingers got tired of typing towards the end, otherwise I fully agree. Even assuming a "perfect" cartel, there remain BPOs outside the hands of the cartel - inactives, sentimentals, or people who won't sell for a price that is profitable in any human lifespan. I think it would also be interesting to aim your gaming towards a specific type of T2 BPO, i.e. modules. There are prons and cons, for both CCP and major players, to eliminating or maintaining T2 ship BPOs. These have a special place not only in their economic, but also their military value. Alliances have held very popular T2 ship BPOs as a sort of strategic reserve, ensuring a constant stream of reasonably priced T2 ships that are popular. This means your abstract, or very real, industry backbone is not unduly overburdened trying to provide these ships. There thus exists some value is diverting CCP's attention from T2 module BPOs, which would be a great deal cheaper to stockpile.

Not for half a decade. If we need t2 ships of a particular kind, we need them quick and in volume not a little bit cheaper but trickling in ever so slowly. T2 bpos cannot ever provide the strategic advantage that having the ability to spin up massively parallel invention on a dime can, and is far more expensive and inflexible.

You know, I was going to ask how compensating whichever set of greatest fools happen to hold the BPOs at the time is "best overall for the game" but I think asking you to explain how injecting 350 trillion isk into the economy is best overall for the game will make you look more ridiculous.

("15 days of PLEX" is off by an order of magnitude)

Although CCP says they don't have any intentions for removing T2 bpos, but with the changes they've made to exploration (making it easier):

1- It has caused encryptor and datacore prices to crash.
2- Therefore reducing the price of invention
3- and causing the final price of T2 items to fall
4 -which has greatly reduced the profit margin of T2 bpos
5- and therefore making T2 Bpos less valuable

With the new changes they are making to copying blueprints (making it a lot faster to copy blueprints) bpcs prices will fall. Again making invention easier and therefore reducing the value of T2 Bpos.

I believe that if you read that thread about bpo changes in industry they quite explicitly state that they will do 'something' about them. They just seem to be unsure ATM what exactly.

Some number which is clearly beyond my comprehension or ability to write down

Alex I'd like to solve the puzzle. What is an isk faucet?