Wormholes

Let's just iterate this point... Wormholes. Newer Players.

Wormholes...

Newer Players...

Are you kidding me? You're thinking of adding this to hisec because of your new player experience scheme. Since when was living in a wormhole for a new player? They don't have the skills to survive living in a wormhole. Lack of tank, lack of support skills, lack of weapon system skills, lack of general game knowledge overall and not understanding how wormholes work. They would just get bored of not being able to survive sites and not being able to survive PvP against T3s.

And as stated earlier, most new players don't go into wormholes in frigs other than scanning ships anyway to have a poke around.

Nice to know CCP is more bothered about new player retention than its current playing member base.

Having a nigh unclosable WH in your chain that allows HICs, Ceptors, AFs and Dessies through, is going to mess up the smaller wormhole corps. Especially considering when you can amass the fleet on the other side of the hole before actually spawning it in the system in question. A group of 20 T2 frigs isnt that much of an issue when it comes to Capital escalations and the like, but tone that down to a group of T2 frigs in a lowclass wormhole that can easily mess up 3 battleships.

Don't get me wrong, I love the thought of more PvP and more targets to bomb etc etc, but this new hole because "it encourages new players" is utter bull...

I doubt this will be true but I sure would like it to be. It sounds like fantastic fun.

There has to be a mechanism for doing a cloneswap inside of wormholes before this is implemented.

More interaction!

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Ok, so here is my thoughts, concerns and ideas.

First I live in a C1 currently, and this is by choice, I have lived in C1, C2, C4, C5. I don't really plan on ever leaving wormhole space and the time I was homeless I found a hole, jumped in and roamed the pipes for sometimes weeks at a time looking for kills and so on. I will let my killboard speak for itself, I am not a carebear either. A little slow right now but it's summer.

So as far as more wormholes spawning, as far as a C1 goes, this would make them much harder and much more of a pain to live in, and from your graphs in the dev blog C1s are low volume as C4. C1 is for smaller corps and corps starting to dabble. Well one major issue with them right now is they have plenty of connecting holes that are already nearly impossible to close. There have been times I have logged in and said this is useless even staying in my own wormhole because there are 4-5 wormholes connected, so I jump out the static wormhole dive looking for kills in safer C2. Closing the static wormhole with 4 pilots takes a half hour or more because of mass restrictions, yes it takes 40 jumps at least. Say you get on and play for 3-4 hours and you have 4-5 hours, your spending pretty much most that time closing the holes if you do it properly. That's why C1's have so many connections is because no one wants to close them, just takes too long. Most of the connections come from C2's, but you get C4, C5 and C6 even. Then they just stay open the life of the wormhole. So, more connections to a C1 would cause more problems in that class. Right now you can pump so many T3 cruiser through them like say a C6 to C1 connection that the corps that live in a C1 are vastly outnumbered. So ridiculous to even try PVP like that, thought I have caught a couple blowing timers. I used to think C3's were bad ad getting connections but they are at least easily to close. Until I lived in a C1. So if you increase the number of connections, please adjust some of the problems closing C1's. I would suggest halving the mass on the statics to and from a C1. The Z971 from high sec are fine. Another thought would be to 3/4 the mass on the statics but increase the mass limit by 50% So like the static N110 reduce from 1 billion to 750 million and increase the mass jump limit to 30 mill. Like right now a Onyx with a MWD can't jump through and even a couple Proteus that can't go through with MWD on.

I am not apposed to more connections, but I can see them being even more of an issue on the smaller guys. Where I would increase them more on the higher end wormholes. Perhaps make the increase number of connections scale the same percent ratios as you have the new effects in wormholes. C1 get the least amount, C6 get the most. I do plan on moving back up in wormholes eventually, so I have that in mind. Just from what I have seen in my time. When I live in a C5 most of our incoming K162 were from null and not W-Space. Which I had the same issues then people complain about null now, there is a Local channel and if you head out to null looking for fights they just POS up until you go away but that's another issue. But in the lower class wormholes most of your K162 come from W space and the higher end wormholes trying to find a chain out to high sec. Which really low end holes don;t need more connections, we have no issues finding fights. Just jump out the static and start scanning in high sec. On a good roaming night I can traverse 30-40 holes looking for fights.

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So as far as the frigate wormhole. I absolutely love this idea. Since moving into a C1 I have had more fun Frigate fighting that I ever thought possible. In the higher end wormholes it is all about the T3s, heck I didn't even have some T2 frigate skills trained up. I never used them. Since living in a C1 I have experienced a lot of new techniques, and really a lot of fast paced action fights. I know i have caught my fare share of Covert Ops coming down the pipes too not expecting frigate warfare. So I love this idea. One thing I would change though, limit the number of jumps on this hole. Like say 4 jumps one way in 5 minutes. This would prevent say a C6 corp with 70 people online just moving 70 frigates into a hole against a corp of 6. This could really be a lot of fun really, and make wormholers thing differently about fleet compositions. I know I trained so hard and so fast to get into every T3. Only to go to a C1 and reinvent my wormhole fighting style to frigates. Like I said a wormhole staying open the entire duration doesn't phase me, that's life in a C1. But it would be nice to close some holes once in a while.

They already can do this just using normal holes, so what is really changing? Just that they can go out and back in again. What are they going to do with 400 frigs in your hole? RF some POCOS, if they try to go for towers a) the hole will be gone before the RF timer and b) they will horribly die when the residents fight back.
The only change is once every month or so you will have a hole you cannot close for 16h.

With the existing mechanics you can close the hole to prevent them streaming in reinforcements but with this new wormhole, you don't have that option.

A 400 man fleet could easily maintain system control while they wait for their pos bashing fleet to arrive.

The heavy dictor won't be able to keep up with the frigs and dessies if they are planning to roam so it would most likely be used as a cloaked bubbler on the "exit" hole to slow/impede any force attempting to chase the frigate gang.

Probably not much of a factor.

That's my main reservation, or what I like to call a lack of flood control with these wormholes.

It depends on the mechanic.

Risk vs reward? A lot more risk for the small wh corp where is the lot more reward? Oh yeah they can roam more holes looking for pvp too, that's their reward! Perhaps they'll make enough off pvp salvage to make up for all the mining they will no longer be able to do or all the sites they'll no longer be able to run with frig fleets roaming about.

Perhaps as the sleeper loot dries up that small corps currently supply to New Eden the prices will skyrocket and make up for the loss of revenue null sec frig fleet roams induce. Keeping your small corp supplied is going to get interesting with a increase in frig roams and cloaky haulers being hunted in the pipes.

Your small corp is going to need people to monitor more connections, engage in more pvp, roam more into the new more numerous connections, and explore the changes to the other class wh's being implemented.

I wonder what it is that small corps in wh's contribute to new eden? What is their part in the economy and if this move will depress it?

They have to be making something to pay for plex, if the changes impact their ability to sustain themselves will this add to or take away from player retention?

Did CCP add enough to their equation to make if worthwhile in terms of isk generation for current wh residents?

I do not live in a wormhole but I do like going into them solo for their goodies and the risk of being jumped by residents or cloaky roamers. Not so sure i'd like to run into a large bomber fleet roaming thru for giggles from null sec so they could train newbies on live targets. Trying to evade or outfight a few opponents is a challenge doing that solo against a fleet is not practical. Oh darn I said the word CCP does not like for players in this social game to use, "solo", forgive me sometime I venture off into internet space without 20 or so pals with me, I know it's my bad but friends are not always available online from my time zone.

This being an international game some of my New Eden friends are on the other side of the world or the other coast of my country and our times do not sync up for multiple hours of gaming that often.

So yeah I solo often, my bad.