Science & Industry

You're discounting the risk of a nerf to T2BPOs, the item your BPO makes, or the market changing and you being unable to sell at the price you paid.

Datacores were passive income with nothing put in them and would always result in a profit. A T2BPO needs to be fed at least once a month and can easily lose you buckets of ISK if the price falls.

Translated.

My T2 BPOs are such money machines they usually sit there doing nothing...

More like, set up 7-10 buy orders in a trade hub, move a massive amount of goods to a system with a free manufacture slot, THEN THAT ONE CLICK (actually, several more, but ok, there is one single very important one), then waiting, then another important delivery click, then moving a massive amount of goods from the system you manufactured in into a trade hub, then babysitting sell orders for your stuff to sell.
Even if you give up a whole load of ISK on the market orders and just buy from sell and sell to buy, there's still the moving of the stuff to and fro.
And if you also give up even more money for a freight service, there's really not that much left over afterwards.


Oh, you meant GETTING the T2 BPO initially, from the lottery ?
So, you mean working up standings back in the day working them up was a relatively grueling task, and probably doing so on a whole truckload of alts to get a decent chance of a BPO actually dropping ? Did I mention a lot of science skills were generally also quite expensive, especially when also compared to ISK income levels back in the day ?

Were you even around back when the lottery was still running ?
Because I sure as hell was, for quite a long while too, but it sounds like you weren't.
And by the way, I never got even a single T2 BPO offer from the lottery, let alone a non-crappy one.


Nobody was GIFTED one by CCP, except those that were subsequently REMOVED.
Every other one was EARNED through either work or luck or a combination of both during the lottery.
That, or paying metric truckloads of ISK to whoever won one.
You know, the way almost all people that have one worth mentioning today have gotten it.
It's funny how you seldom even acknowledge that any time you type a reply, let alone properly address it.


I'm still not seeing any decent reason as to why they should be removed, only as to how weird the way they were introduced was, which is not even the beginning of a reason for justifying their removal.


P.S. It's also extremely funny how the overwhelming vast majority of poll responses look like so far : https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=114789
If you discount that one single guy who didn't even bother to ANSWER the poll but just droned on about why T2 BPOs are bad, it looks like there isn't much support against T2 BPOs (NOT EVEN A SINGLE 9a SELECTION), but quite a bit for it (eight 9b answers, against the removal, nine if you count mine).
And it's not like the poll is a secret or anything, it's even been repeatedly linked in this very thread, where allegedly we have some people with opposing views.

Please dont insult my intelligence... and neither those which, with no guaranties (?), spent hundreds of billions to buy the bpos...



one more time, please dont insult my intelligence... or Akita's... (i wont bother argumenting again since she did it perfectlly... see below...)



all this "working" also applys to datacore "passive" income - those were nerfed (with no compensation)... let me guess: some are more equal then the others... good point indeed...



IF by "that one single guy" you are reffing me let me say i clearlly stated my oppinion about your "poll" - its way too complicated for ppl to bother answering... ofc i mean ppl with only the marginal interes of seeing a fair and balanced enviroment... i wasnt talking about ppl with huge concerns about the faith of their "preciousssss" - the t2bpos owners and their intereses...

Not you. A guy called Revolution Rising. Post #7 in the poll. You didn't post in that thread.


So... wait a second... you want to say people have no problem arguing a lot about T2 BPOs in many-page threads with long posts, after researching the issue of T2 BPOs to a sufficient depth to actually contribute something to the discussion as opposed to (for the lack of a better word) troll around, yet still somehow, copypasting a few lines and deleting those answers that do not apply is all of a sudden too complicated to bother doing ?
What's next, translating Shakespeare into Chinese for somebody, then complaining that attaching it to an email and sending your bank account details in order to get paid for doing it is too much hassle ?


T2 BPOs were nerfed without compensation too.
REPEATEDLY.
And in a much, much larger proportion.
The first and largest of those nerfs came the moment invention was introduced.
Subsequent nerfs to T2 BPOs were due to various direct and indirect buffs to invention.

Funny enough, this most recent datacore change is ALSO a buff to some invention branches, and therefore a nerf to T2 BPOs (in particular those which require mecheng datacores and/or ship tech datacores, which basically means, ALL DAMN SHIPS, which constitute the bulk of valuable BPOs).
Funny how that works, eh ?
Are you going to sit here and pretend that T2 BPOs were never nerfed ? Or that they weren't nerfed as much as datacores just were ? Here's a hint in form of a concrete example : when profit drops from 500 bil ISK/year to around 10 bil ISK/year for a BPO... you just know that's a nerf, a pretty hard one too. And that's exactly what happened to the Cap Recharger II BPO when invention was introduced.
Or is that not enough of a nerf ? How much harder would you think the nerf has to be for you to consider it a nerf ?
You do know that you CAN nerf T2 BPOs even harder (almost just as hard as before) for every other T2 BPO that was less affected back then by simply buffing base invented ME/PE levels to 0 from -4, or allowing T1 BPCs to influence T2 BPC ME/PE levels. Or don't you realize that ?

I still do not see any good reason to remove T2 BPOs altogether, instead of the more reasonable alternative of just buffing invention further, where it matters.
You also do realize that CCP knows that too, or don't you ? And they specifically choose not to buff invention like that because THEY consider T2 BPOs to be a non-issue even in their current form.
Radically buffing invention even further would come a long, long time before any potential removal of T2 BPOs. But not even that is happening.

There is no "right" compensation for something that's purchased for collector's value and a passive income. People sink BILLIONS to get a very small passive return. An AliBaba lamp would be no different from a BPO, except you'd be able to sell the BPCs and not even have to bother manufacturing your stuff to make a profit.



Then post that. But it's not going to capture anything more than the unthinking, knee-jerk reactions of the people answering.



That's not how the lottery worked. CCP manually added a bunch of BPOs to the stack every few months. They kept the BPO numbers low on purpose. Had the lottery continued, invention would never have been introduced, and the profit would have only dropped slightly since at that time, BPOs were the bottleneck in T2 production by a HUGE margin.

You keep saying "gifted". Even within quotes it's still detestably misleading. But let's ignore that for a while.
I personally have nothing against introducing even more BPOs into the system, in fact, as a consumer of T2 goods, I would actually appreciate it, would it not be for the bad side-effects - adding more BPOs into the mix only makes things worse for most types of industrialists, no matter which way or at which price you introduce new ones (unless it's a price so high almost no sane person would ever buy them, so then why the heck introduce them).

Let's see what would happen if new T2 BPOs would get introduced.

For current T2 BPO owners - the increased amounts of T2 BPOs would drive profits lower and lower, until T2 manufacture would be barely more profitable than T1 manufacture. T2 BPOs also lose collector status, which drives their price down even further. Eventually, you make T2 BPOs as worthless as they can possibly become without actually removing them.

For new T2 BPO owners - pretty much same as above, with the added insult to injury of enabling them to become the architects of their own NAV's demise.

For inventors - eventually, the inventor profession becomes almost completely useless, as no T2 item can be invented for a profit, because T2 BPO production fills the entirety of demand, unless invention is the process through which new T2 BPOs are acquired, in which case, see above paragraph.

For datacore gatherers (there's two now, R&D and FW, we're talking of R&D because at least for FW you have alternative uses for the LPs), this spells the end to any halfway reasonable income if they persist in following that profession, because nothing really uses datacores anymore. That remains the case even if invention is the way to get new T2 BPOs, it just takes a while longer and the decline is slower, but ultimately, R&D also becomes practically useless.

Congratulations - you just destroyed any shred of profitability from four separate classes of industrialists, just because your "morals" demand either a removal of T2 BPOs or an unlimited supply of them.
Hope you're happy.

...

Besides, how exactly ARE you going to introduce new T2 BPOs into the game ?
I hope you're not suggesting a return a luck-based distribution method akin to the lottery, or are you ? That's the very essence of what most people despised about the entire thing, the heavy influence of luck on when and what you'd get, if you'd get anything.
Making it a very low chance result of invention would be almost just as luck-based as the lottery, by the way, from a statistical standpoint. So that's no way to do it either.
Making it a longer-than-normal public NPC-issued auction on the contracts system would only hasten the demise of the inventor and datacore harvester professions, which would also be quite bad. The only silver lining would be that it would be a huge ISK sink (at first), but then, that would have ripple effects throughout the entire game economy, possibly kicking up a deflationary feedback loop which would put any remaining large liquid ISK amount holders into tremendous positions of power, which is arguably also a bad thing.
The only halfway reasonable option would be to have it as a LP shop reward requiring a token amount of LP/ISK but a metric truckload of datacores, which would keep the whole system afloat for quite a while longer, but eventually would still meet with the same fate...
...why, you ask ? As more T2 BPOs get created and more of the market is taken over by T2 BPO owners, supported inventor population goes down, datacore demand drops, datacore value decreases, which makes the LP shop offers cheaper, which makes new T2 BPO creation cheaper, and it's a downwards price spiral from there onwards.

So, really, there is no good way to introduce new T2 BPOs even if CCP wanted to introduce new ones.
A "good way" being defined as causing more benefit than harm.


NOT "many more". CCP has been seeding T2 BPOs sparingly in time, and they tried to do the seeding at least somewhat proportionately to the increase in player population counts.
Since player population has not increased radically in the past few years (and even went back every now and then since around the time of Incarna), even if they would have kept the lottery going, the number of T2 BPOs in circulation would have not increased significantly.
A much more likely scenario would be that the vast majority of "new" T2 BPOs would have been actually "replacement" BPOs for those destroyed or located on banned accounts.

You just don't have much of a point besides "I feel in my gut that this is the way things should be, and damn the consequences" while also being oblivious to what the consequences would actually BE.

hahaha so your trying to convince us that T2 BPO`s should be removed becuase they make invention pointless, or generally HURT THE GAME SO MUCH for 25 pages and now your requesting to seed them again so the newer players (like you) can afford them too?

Do actually understand that, that one sentence just INVALIDATED all your previous postings?



so BASICLY,

your treating CCP to change EVE how you think it should be, or you will keep "reminding" em to do so?
that is kindoff terrorism dude.

I have never suggested reintroducing T2BPOs - so all your demonstration is pointless (at least for me it was)... i agree 90% with your arguments so i will not debate fyrther...to conclude i'd (also) say that a RE would be a mistake unless the system would be totally reversed (lottery back in, invention out) and that would be a even bigger mistake as it would screw the inventors... and it would also reflame the debate "luck"...



so basically you consider a 500 bil / year BPO to be something "fair" and say the seeding system was supervised in order to protect that kind of "fair" isk-printing machine... and then you wonder why i want the BPOs removed?... are you kidding me? why would someone be that "deserving" to have one of those? and consequentlly: was the system which alowed that to happen a "fair" one?

as for the "POLL" - i WILL start the sinlqle q. poll when / if a real poll type of thread would be available - the read / copy / paste / delete is nothing like read question / chose answer / click answer - done...

anyway; thx for your effort and goodwill to add my q. to your poll but... see above...

But we don't have 500 bil/year BPOs anymore, do we ?
And I never claimed I liked the lottery system, quite the contrary actually, did I not ?
Me stating how things were and how things are does not necessarily mean I support how things were or are, it just means that's how things were or still are.

That being said...

EVE is not supposed to be perfectly fair. It's only supposed to be "reasonably" fair, or, in other words, "reasonably unfair".
EVE is designed to give some degree of advantage to those that have numerical superiority, financial superiority, foresight, seniority, or even just more gameplay experience.
EVE is also designed in such a way that either single one of those many possible sources of advantage in a sufficient quantity can easily trump all others taken together, at least in certain fields.
You always have something to look forward for, and always a way to dethrone an apparent leader if only you're sufficiently better at something than he is at something else.

And that's one of the main reasons why we LIKE EVE.



Fairness is not a boolean quality, it's a full spectrum from "completely and totally unfair" to "perfectly fair and balanced", with "reasonably unfair" and "reasonably fair" much closer to the middle.
That "perfectly fair and balanced" part, by the way, is so difficult to achieve without complete sameness to not be ever worth bothering to achieve it if you ever desire a good degree of diversity... you could say it has one heck of a stack-nerf, the closer to it you get, the harder it gets to make it even more balanced.
So, the real question is:
"Is the existence of T2 BPOs sufficiently unfair to warrant their removal instead of dampening their unfairness in other ways?"

...

Now, does a T2 BPO confer some advantage over an inventor inventing the same item ?
Obviously, it does. And it's supposed to.
Now, does that T2 BPO offer a sufficiently UNFAIR advantage ?
My conclusion was that no, it does not offer that much of an UNfair advantage.
Why is the advantage at least somewhat fair, then ?
Because it comes at a heavy price, a price determined by the free market, and as such, by its very definition, it sort of has to be a reasonably fair price.
If the price the advantage comes at is a fair price, then the advantage is also at least somewhat fair.

What's the one advantage a T2 BPO offers ?
It makes manufacturing of the T2 BPO cheaper than through invention.
The T2 BPO itself is useless in direct combat, it's the price of the corresponding T2 items that matters.

IT USED TO give the potential advantage of denying your opponents access to even remotely reasonably priced items if you managed to monopolize most of the T2 BPOs for your side, but with invention that's no longer possible.
Invention might be a tad more expensive, but it's certainly NOT insanely more expensive.
Also, denying access to a certain T2 item is all but impossible, because nobody can hold any monopoly over any T2 item production, so all items are always available in sufficient quantities on the market at most at a price that's not radically higher than invention breakeven.

Now, is there some situation where an inventor could actually have an advantage over T2 BPO manufacturers ?
As it happens, yes, there are situations where invention has some degree of advantage over T2 BPO manufacture. And that's when your demand for something is high enough that you can't make enough of the item for your needs with just a T2 BPO.
Sure, the T2 BPO owner could supplement his production with invention too, but isn't that pretty much one of the best arguments that invention does have some advantages over the T2 BPO ? If the T2 BPO would really offer an universal advantage, shouldn't the BPO owner just get a second BPO of that item for his own needs instead of supplementing the need with additional invention ?

So please do tell me again, how exactly is it that T2 BPOs offer a sufficiently UNFAIR advantage to justify their removal ?
And "they let people manufacture slightly cheaper stuff" is not even remotely unfair enough to warrant a change, let alone a removal.