Player Features and Ideas Discussion

There's so much going on with these changes and I fear that a few people are getting confused and also that maybe, possibly, some at CCP are so focused on implementing these changes that they can't see the forest from the trees.

The stagnancy problem that eve currently faces is not because of the system that is in place, although it doesn't help, its because holding space is relatively easy and in the larger picture it is relatively cheap compared to what you may get out of it (moongoo, taxes, etc...)

The space multiplier currently in place really doesn't add much restrictions in terms of how much space an alliance can or should control, a couple of high end moons and they are already pumping out more money than required, let alone tax applied to its members.

Attacking space from already entrenched players can be a pain in the backside unless their alliance is run terribly and mismanagement plays a huge part in a lot of successful attacks over the years but human error has always played a huge role in EvE and will more than likely continue - but the changes being implemented here really don't fix the situation at all, its simply swapping one flawed system for another that may remain flashy and new for a few months but once again result in stagnancy and boredom.

The goals were as follows:



Some of the above are pretty self explanatory but I will pick the few I have issue with.

Goal #1.

When POS's were the main sov mechanic CCP understood that grinding HP was boring and pointless. CCP then introduced a new system that once again involved grinding HP. Grinding HP is not fun! Its the reason I left a while back and only came back recently. This new system, while on the surface isnt a crap-shoot of structure grinding it can essentially be called the same thing. Whether you are doing damage or not, you still have a module cycling on a structure. Whether its a single person cycling on the structure of 100, it doesnt matter, its essentially the same thing if there is no one to fight against.

Nullsec back in the day was fought over because it was one of the better ISK making areas and there was very little in empire that could give you the same kind of combat that nullsec does. Now you have empire incursions, wormhole space and faction warfare - So what is the reason to stay in nullsec?

In order for Goal #1 to be met you need to implement additional changes that are not involved here. Nullsec space needs to be made more valuable than it currently is. My method would be to double the amount of all CA's from relic sites to plex's. The doubling in requirements for high end minerals will already provide the miners with more income also from nullsec.

As nullsec has been eaten away at by various other methods of playing eve (as listed above) various other entities seem to have vacuum up a lot of those willing to tough it out in nullsec which is another issue that requires addressing.


Goal #3.

This goes to the very core of human nature and the desire to succeed. One sided fights within Eve has always been a thing and will remain as such. If you think you will somehow influence how many people side (a) will bring then you are deluding yourself. Once the initial entosis goes through and the various contestation points open up then numbers will be what matter in this current system. Sure you have given the defender various crutch's to use such as deciding the rough time for the contest and also giving them the ability to capture nodes upto 4x faster but you are leaving what is probably the most important ingredient out of the mix. How big is the alliance? How many systems does it own? Why have you not taken into account these very basic statistics? If huge numbers had a detriment on how quickly you could recapture your contestation points then I can assure you there would be a huge purge within all null-sec based alliances. If the amount of systems you owned also played a part then you can be sure a lot more space would free itself up than is currently available. If an alliance owned so much space that it essentially gave the people attacking them an advantage because they could take points faster then you can bet your ass all leadership of every alliance would sit down and re-evaluate exactly what it is they need.

The point of these two changes would be to reduce the overall size of alliances (even if it is simply by kicking the inactive) and also create a system that condenses the space used - and with the changes I said in Goal #1 then you have enough room for more people in less space, thus freeing up more space. Smaller alliances owning less space also gain the ability to hold out against larger enemies also.

Now this is where the catalyst gets put in.

Cycle all high end moons every 6 months and only allow those who have sov in the system to moon mine. If you want to throw out from RP then you can play it off as "layers" that cycle and so on - personally I don't give a damn how its portrayed, but it does add flashpoints into the game that are heavily needed.

Cont..

"before release" you mean "in the next 10 days" when the idea has been documented and in discussion for what? 3 or 4 months now?

You do know that quite a few of the csm members are really close to the heads of their respective alliances and thus know quite a bit about the problems in null. What I believe CCPs stance on null right now is a wait and see because there is a lot of exaggeration on media sites as to how few if anyone will want to live in null because of the mostly crap isk/hour. I'm quite certain that if the complaints continue well after fozziesov hits that CCP will make the changes, hell they probably have a tentative hotfix ready if there is a mass exodus. CCP isn't ********, they've been getting feedback for months, have a little faith.

Fozzie sov has not even been implemented yet and like all the rest you already know that it will not be enough.

I wish I had your crystal ball, or time machine or whatever it is that you are using to see ahead in time there are a great many things I could do with that right now.

You get a -1 and my standard answer.
Wait till it hits nad the players have a chance to sort it out in game live and then we will see.

The difference is that this system guarantees it isnt boring for 100 people in subcaps for hours wasting ammo because alliance leadership doesnt want to risk any capital assets...

A system without ridiculously high HP amounts removes the artificial barrier to entry that has existed in null sec sov for years, and that in and of itself is a huge step forward.


This is a non sequitur... Goal 1 is that the process of fighting over a system is enjoyable. This has nothing to do with how "worth it" the systems you're fighting over are... In fact people constantly do things that are not worth anything because the very act of doing them is fun *cough* video games *cough*

The idea is to make the mechanic of taking systems itself fun not to make the systems so valuable that people will put up with drudgery to take them...

I think you're missing the point of #3... Minimize the systemic pressure to bring more people or larger ships than would be required to simply defeat your enemies on the field of battle.
The point is that if there were a 20 man alliance in cruisers trying to take space from a 10 man alliance in cruisers, the 20 man alliance still couldnt do it because the massive HP totals they'd have to grind through means they'd run out of ammo... The point of #3 is to reduce the artificial floor on fleet sizes that grinding HP creates.

Sure you're always going to need more people and bigger ships to defeat your enemy, but if you can beat your enemy with a 50 man frigate fleet, that fleet should also be able to take the system.

If we reduce the high HP to its most basic form then its simply down to time of which this new system does not change at all. Whether one person has a module active on it or a hundred, it doesn't matter, it is essentially the same thing with different underwear on.


I am still at a loss as to where the "fun" begins here? You will have the same alliances, with the same amount of people, doing the same thing they have been doing for the past few years, the only difference is they need to grind time rather than HP... Nothing with the system changes, their size counts for nothing, the systems they own count for very little (provided they get the Sov index's up) but essentially when it comes down to it, nothing will change. There will be no vast exodus into nullsec from some super secret alliances that have been planning their entire eve lives to go and take space in nullsec. There will not be some exuberant uprising of renter alliances throwing the **** back at their overlords... these changes do absolutely nothing at the very core of what nullsec is about.


This would be a legitimate argument if the game was brand new fresh out of development and everyone started on an even keel, its not, they don't, pointless reply is pointless.

Nice try but still not working.
All we have in your OP and all of your subsequent posts is speculation based on your opinions since there is no data available.
CCP has been working on the sov changes for more than a year if you follow hints in the dev blogs.
Fozzie sov specifically has been in testing and open for player feedback on various test servers for more than 4 months.
Based on all of the data and player feedback collected in all of that testing CCP is convinced that this is the right step to take next.
So here you are minus all of the data collected throughout all of that testing, minus all of the feedback that has been provided by players during that testing and yet you KNOW FOR SURE that the upcoming changes are not going to work. (falls off chair laughing at you)

Picking myself up off the floor you still get a -1 to your OP.
For now we will stow this idea along with all of the other Fozzie Sov will not work ideas that have been posted over the last few months and then bring them back out IF they are needed.

This is another non sequitur... What you just said has absolutely nothing to do with what I said...

I agree with your statement completely... unfortunately, your suggestion will change how profitable moons are, and therefore makes your statement non-applicable... Only an idiot would risk more than he could possibly make which would pretty much always be the case with depletable moons.

Even the most valuable moon in existence (dysprosium) is only worth 35 billion every 6 months and that's gross not net! That titan you risk every time you take a moon is worth about 3x what that moon will ever be worth, and that's assuming you get to the moon at the very beginning!

If you really want to promote active ISK generation then read what I wrote in the first link I gave you:
"I firmly believe that the answer lies in adding moon materials to ring mining, and moving the moon miners outside the shield bubble to allow them to be the target of small gang disruption.

This would put alliances on the defense as their moon miners would begin to get reinforced left and right if they werent there to defend their space."

I'm sorry, in what universe are there 48 weeks in 6 months? try 26...

If people feel they have a vested interest in holding a particular piece of space then they will feel more engaged with a fight and have a desire to win. Desire is what drives people in this game, a desire for more isk, a desire for a supercap, a desire to be better than others - whether you term this as fun or not is down to your particular taste but I myself consider being better than others to be "fun" and winning fights against others to be even more "fun".

I can see the merit of the system that CCP is proposing, it really does look good on paper and if you didnt fit the context into it, but once you place alliances such as the CFC group into it then you can see it start to crumble.

With a userbase that is dropping I don't see any new groups venture into nullsec, the only thing you see are old groups disbanding and then them creating new groups which is simply recycling. I dare say there will be one or two new ventures into nullsec but once again this will be at the behest of the larger alliances who already control space. Fozziesov will do nothing to give any new group an advantage simply because they start at such an uneven keel.

My point regarding your 10/20 alliance cruiser post was that there are already entrenched alliances out there with a large amount of sov. These alliances already have billions/trillions of isk stowed away and syphoned off elsewhere (RMT) to deal with any eventuality. Smaller entities are not going to be able to deal with them with fozzie sov. Entire constellations can be locked down without much fuss as it stands. There is no detriment to having a giant alliance or holding large swathes of space other than you may need to split your forces up to deal with the smaller attackers.

There needs to be something that influences alliances behaviour by making them reduce their sov or put a lot more energy into maintaining it. Both of which will eventually have the desired effect. Give smaller attackers a larger advantage over the much bigger alliances and you will start to see a change in alliances. You will start to see the "grunts" realize that being in a giant blob of crap may not be the best way forward after all.

Attack the foundational problems and the rest will fall into place, play with the mechanical issues and things will remain the same, as will be shown in the future.

It's too close to release to speculate on what will need to change now. Better to have the release, and re-evaluate after it's had a chance to play out a bit, based on hard evidence.

I do not believe that the reasons for the stagnation of the 0.0 game can be addressed with game mechanics changes. I think these are the reasons:

Effective Bureaucrats. The major players have simply gotten really good at the corporate functions that are required to manage a lot of people. They have IT and HR functions that put many actual corporations to shame.

Effective Politicians. There just isn't the same level of animosity and blood lust at the top of the game as there was in years past. Goons, PL, the Russians, taken together, have it pretty much locked up, and none of them are genuinely interested in killing each other, and in fact cooperate when push comes to shove. As long as that remains the case, 0.0 will be stable, a.k.a stagnant.

Learned Helplessness. Can't fight the system. Pointless to even try. You can't beat them, so you'd better join them, and if they won't let you join them, you can always rent from them. As long as this is the attitude of the vast majority of 0.0 players, things will stay the same.

The GHSC Effect CCP made a fateful choice when that happened to make out of game social engineering a legitimate part of the game. It's now an ingrained part of the culture. The established players have no shortage of alts with which to infiltrate your corp/alliance/coalition, and no compunction about pretending to be your friend in order to influence the direction of any upstart from within, or ultimately bring them down.

The issues are cultural, not mechanical. Eve is a mature game that has played itself out, and this is the end result. The best one can hope for from fozziesov is a temporary blip in excitement and participation. Then it'll be back to business as usual.