Upcoming Feature and Change Feedback Center

First off thank you CCP for being open for suggestions on power projection with capitals. It has long been overdue in my opinion. I will give a reply to your points and also outline the general problem that is with the status quo.

The current problem:

Let us say that I go on a deployment to Curse. Curse is a NPC region known to have a lot of fun pvp, our alliance likes to deploy there and the conquerable nullsec regions around Curse are hostile to us. I deploy from Tenal with the rest of our alliance, in a move op that takes about 3 hours, by taking gates and an occasional cyno jump. I take with me an Archon filled with pvp ships, I also take some ships with me for alliance mates who can't fly capitals yet. I also take an alt with me who brings a dreadnought.

I have a fun deployment from Curse, we have a lot of sub capital fights and a few good capital fights which are good fun.

All of a sudden I get called by my work, something is up, and the next two weeks I don't have time to play EVE. After two weeks I get back in game, and I see that my alliance has deployed elsewhere and that there are no move ops that I can join. I calculate the jumps that I have to make to get back home:

23 jumps. (28 for players that do not have Jump Drive Calibration V)

Seeing that in the current system and my current playtime available I can make 3 to max 4 jumps on an evening that I play - it will take a full weeks worth of my play time to catch up again. And yes, I have invested that time in the past because I still love this game, but it is becoming too much.

For those complaining about:

"Look for more local pvp"
"Stop trying to use capitals because they break the game"

No. Every single newbie that starts this game looks in awe at capitals (I did back in '09). And they want one too. And capitals are awesome (except their power projection). Should we go back to the old days where everybody could teleport around the map? No, but the current situation is not working either. And looking for more local pvp - I like to be able to go fight who I want to fight, even if they are not next door.

Also CCP - Keep in mind not only capital owners are negatively affected by the status quo - Newbies are as well, as in the past they would get help by veterans who were willing to transport their ships for them.

Now my 2cents on:

• Altering jump ranges

Yes please. With the fatigue I can live. The jump ranges I cannot. Bring back the old jump ranges. If not, please refund us our Jump Drive Calibration skillpoints.


• Altering jump fatigue curves

No need of changing in my opinion. Force projection should be limited. However - make it - including with jump ranges - that players are able to get from halfway the universe to their location in 1 or 2 evenings of playing - and from one side to the other in 3 days.


• Moving jump fatigue from character based to ship based

No, prone to abuse. I'll max out jump fatigue on a ship and then insurance fraud it (supers/titans excluded).


• Alternative FTL systems (Hyperdrive anyone?)

I am open for new ideas, but not sure what the idea behind it is?


• Sovereignty effects on Jump Fatigue (e.g. jumping out of/back into capitals reducing jump fatigue)

This should be for jump bridges. Alliances invest heavily in their infrastructure with very little real reward for it, the effort > reward at this point.


• Balance of Jump projection v's Gate projection v's Wormhole projection

Jump projection v.s. Gate projection is unbalanced at this moment, I see most alliances taking gates with their capitals as jumping is too problematic. Wormhole is... a wild card. It can feel a bit overpowered at times, but it is always fun to be able to launch surprise attacks.


• Jump Fatigue effecting combat effectiveness instead of limiting movement

No, capitals still jump into combat 90% of the time. This gives local capitals that did not need to jump an unfair advantage.


• Move-Mode for Capitals for move ops (e.g. Transforming into move mode (24 hour process) reduces combat capacity to near 0)

Maybe, but not 24h. I would like to see original jump ranges with a 1 hour transforming process into move mode, once at destination a 1 hour transformation process back into combat mode, then a 24 hour cooldown before it can be used again. All with all this will keep all parties happy, you cannot be dropped on during a fight as it will take at least 1 hour to get back into combat mode, and capital owners are happy that they can move more freely.


• Active methods of reducing jump fatigue (Modules, Skills, Drugs)

Mmm no. I already have modules for warp speed, align speed etc. This needs to be fixed at the core and not another module.


• What does local-content mean to you?

Current local content for me is having people roam around our space and we engage.

What my preferred local content is, is huge fights where entities fight for their very existence. However this is not tied to capitals, it is tied to all the regions being too balanced and there being no greed nor incentive nor reward for needing someone elses space. But to be very honest, this is the content that is lacking in this game at the moment and is also your biggest issue why veterans are quitting EVE (and yes, that is a lot of people I know who have quit for that reason).

Big Issues but can be fixed,, !!!!

* Altering jump ranges

OMG
Yes please. With the fatigue I can live with the change.
The jump ranges I cannot. Bring back the old jump ranges.
If not, please refund us our Jump Drive Calibration skill points, our Capitals. Supers. Titans, now the game has changed , there was a expectation of jump range when we bought them.

* Altering jump fatigue curves

Force projection should be limited. However, make it - including with jump ranges - that players are able to get from halfway the universe to their location in 1 or 2 evenings of playing - and from one side to the other in like 3 days, for a example.

* Moving jump fatigue from character based to ship based

That could cause other issue which would or could end up worse.
So No from me, as would be prone to abuse. I'll max out jump fatigue on a ship and then insurance fraud it (supers/titans excluded).

* Move-Mode for Capitals for move ops
(e.g. Transforming into move mode (24 hour process) reduces combat capacity to near 0)

Maybe, but not 24h. I would like to see original jump ranges with a 1 hour transforming process into move mode, once at destination a 1 hour transformation process back into combat mode, then a 24 hour cool down before it can be used again. All with all this will keep all parties happy, you cannot be dropped on during a fight as it will take at least 1 hour to get back into combat mode, and capital owners are happy that they can move more freely.
This Game needs to be FUN ! .
We don't need this being a second job, it will drive players away to other games, ...ARK, AA3, etc there is a long list remember..which can be FREE, or at very little COST.

* Active methods of reducing jump fatigue (Modules, Skills, Drugs)
Cant say I like that idea, much at all. Lets fix it at the point of issue.


* What does local-content mean to you?

Current local content for me is having people roam around our space and/or us in their space and have engagements.

Preferred local content is, is large fights, where groups fight for their space and/or to take space.
However this is not tied to capitals, it is tied to all the regions being too balanced and there being no greed nor incentive nor reward for needing someone space.
But to be very honest, this is the content that is lacking in this game at the moment and is also your biggest issue why veterans are quitting EVE (and yes, that is a lot of people I know who have quit for that reason).

Quotes from https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=6078209#post6078209

He is seriously not kidding.

No, sorry don't know him. I know other game developers play Eve we have a guy trained in Animation, Motion capture in CEI getting his masters degree.

Alliance Jumpbridges should not accrue fatigue at the same rate as other jump devices.

Setting up and keeping such infrastructure running is decidedly 'non-trivial', by removing or reducing fatigue from bridges, you actually start to give people a 'reason' to own space.

Perhaps you may also wish to prevent Jump capable capital ships from using jump bridges (so Freighters can still use them, but Supercarriers can't).

Remove fatigue from Jump Freighters... having it literally adds nothing to the game. It makes sense for damage dealing caps but for freighters and even the rorq it's just dumb.

An arbitrary rule that prevents players from doing normal actions they have relied on for years is a fundamental flaw in the current system.

As a game designer rules should prevent exploiting the game or giving an unfair advantage but at the core all rules should be created with a vision to encourage players to play the game.

A rule that encourages the opposite result in this case log off and wait to be able to take actions after days or weeks is a very poor rule to put in place.

Jr designers make this common mistake they create a rule thinking that it is a one way street for players to force them in a desired direction. Humans will always test all directions and attempt to break all rules, if faced with a choice of taking a risk or avoiding risk most will choose to avoid risk unless they feel reward is greater then the risk.

If you are auditing the design ask the questions that the above force upon you.

The data that you have collected over the past few months should prove my above statements false or true, if they are true they should inspire the right questions to be asked during the audit.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

No, the flaw is in how people got used to be able to do whatever they wanted with no limitation at all and now can't deal with a system that put limitation on what they do. There should of been limitation from day 1 and this is where the whole issue was. It took years of cap proliferation to show it was broken but that does not mean it was not broken.

There's negligible amount of build where you fly going on. Almost 95% of null market is shipped in from high sec. Building isn't fun so punishing jump freighter pilots with a dumb fatigue mechanic is counter intuitive to keeping nullsec a worthwhile place to be.

Sorry I don't agree, all I can tell you is that it's very hard to put magic into a game by magic I mean a mix of ideas that form a product that people fall in love with. Tampering with design threads that are core to player interaction is very dangerous to do if you don't fully understand all the implications of making an adjustment.

Setting up metrics for the players reaction would be step one of this process these metrics should form questions that can be fed into a database and this database can be formulation of simulated version of an idea going live.

If an idea proves to be good enough it still needs to be tested on players in a test environment if this is successful, it is deployed, along with a backup plan if the change is not going in the direction desired.

My professional design instincts which have been tested for over 26 years building games are something I rely on but even with all my experience I still get caught up on ideas that sound good to me. I usually build them with my own hands then play them myself, only then can I judge them after that, peers exposed, finally after many adjustments I might be ready to ask for resources to be given to make it a final part of a game.

I am really good at this trust me it is my gift, I was born a game designer.