EVE General Discussion

Ring mining was a good fix because it at least replaced income being lost, while not just introducing yet another bottleneck. If you take a 3rd, (or 4th depending on how you count the nerfs) to moongoo, you are only creating a new bottleneck. Yes, we already know what it is. Alchemy isn't the end all be all solution, You are going to need a solution that puts the income in the line members hands, and is taxable. PI was a great system for this.

We had already laid out the "We do X if Y happens" scenerios. Alchemy everything is about the most lazy half assed solution you guys could do. It's nothing more than a bandaid. The only thing it has going for it is, the spec manip bottleneck might not appear if you get ring mining in early next year. Then again, given the ISK we have to throw around, it probably will.

Yes, I agree. They need to really create "alternate" ways to take over a system than : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTduy7Qkvk8 (watch this, you'll laugh).

So, really... Using Eddie Izzard in an argument means I win.

That said, there's a few ways I imagined. I also think CCP should PROMOTE a method of "nomadic space travel", but not make it obligatory. Imagine the return of the "Mothership" as a ship that you can "dock" in and your corporation can nomadically travel EVE and mine, and then go back to base, etc.

That kind of nomadic travel would be very cool. I also think that there's other challenges with that idea, but ya... I mean some healthy nomadic gameplay for players that WANT it, would be fun. I actually think EVE is too "small" for nomadic entities, at least with the way jump mechanics work right now. You can jump pretty far and wide. You can be across EVE in about 10 minutes if need be. A mothership might take a full 2 hours to "charge the jump drives" before jumping. Meaning that you have to defend it, and etc, etc.

This goes back to another thing that I've said is that each system in EVE needs to feel bigger. The POS system detached from Moons and in the control of individuals would be a strong step for that. Also, a local channel that is less obvious who is in a system (especially low/null sec systems), would mean people would be more "comfortable" living in those spaces even if there is danger around the corner. That would make all of EVE "feel" bigger, without more space and promote nomadic interaction.

you getting better rats/pirate sites and roids/grav sites means someone else is getting worse ones? i approve of this greatly

that would encourage a lot more roaming, active defense fleets, etc. it would also distribute the targets so you sometimes get big fleet fights but you often get smaller fights.

I agree on some points and on others I don't.

Alchemy is the answer to killing monopolies, but it should also provide opportunity for conflict at the same time.
First would be distributing all the RAW moon materials evenly across null and low sec and remove the rares.
Then make what was rare into an alloy (IE alchemy, combination of 2 items to make a third like PI.
Next work POS's or make a seperate item that doesn't require a POS.
Why, say another alliance is flooding the market.
YOu can Raid them to destroy there production lines,

THis brings me to the part where you said "(like do you choose where to invade because it's possible for an alliance of your size, do you choose your enemy because you don't like them etc). "
The problem is, this is just a game. we don't really hate or dislike anyone in this game.
Some of us have friends in alliances that are red (which tends to make them primary when we meet) but it doesn't change the fact that we are friends and they would do the same to us.
And people naturally form communities and work towards stabization.
SO what we need is some mechanics that allows us to have a conflict without having to pull out the nukes.
In other words there need to be some mechanics in game that require or work best with raiding parties.

SOV just doesn't work cause the cost is to high and people will escolate.
So we need something else.
THat leaves us with T2 production.

Daily hit and run into enemy territory would be a lot more fun if we had a target.
And if people come out and defend it all the better,
Not sure if I am making sense or not.

PS - Make it so a small group can put something off line (with enough time and fire power) for repairs but requires a capital fleet to destroy.

I'd question if this is the case though; So we basically have a situation with an ultra valuable resource that's ostensibly a conflict driver, yet the claim seems to be that 0.0 is static. If those moons aren't providing interesting content, surely they can't be conflict drivers?

That's really the big thing I'm thinking about right now. Are they conflict drivers? Or even more importantly, are they a good conflict driver? Is the degree people fight over them (which doesn't seem to be much right now) worth the amount of money they provide? If we cut down on the income from moons, that also means we might deal with the issue of unlimited pockets, which I think would do much more in terms of interesting combat.

I'm also not sure if you'd be willing to make this 'vampire' be profitable enough/penalizing enough to encourage low-level hatred, or if you could make it taxable enough that you get leadership strongly incentivized to demagogue some hatred. While I think people would like, say, a 25% income from ratting boost I don't think they'd go to war for it.

The "working class" ways to make isk are just so outclassed by other methods that if you care about income you quickly graduate from ratting/mining/anoming. Exploration can't really be buffed without flooding the market and destroying the value - and these are now largely split up with newbies handling the finding the sites, and bittervets chain-running the hard ones. You can't really make industry viable in nullsec without major revisions in the first place, and even then it's hard to imagine how you'd even upgrade it without breaking something.

I dunno i may be mitt romney speculating about the plight of the working class since it's been a very long time since I ratted or anything like that, but I'm just not seeing how you do it. Ratting and mining haven't really increased in value to match the mudflation of eve (and hell, you're thinking of cutting the value of ratting). It's now the working in a third-world sweatshop of eve instead of the blue-collar middle class assembly-line job of eve.

I disagree that 0.0 is static: that's largely an allegation tossed around by empire-dwellers who are unaware that the entire north has basically changed hands twice in a short period of time. It's the worthless regions - the south - nobody cares about that have seen the real stagnation. I mean, we invaded Delve with absolutely no intention of trying to hold it or install anyone in there because it's now worthless and nobody wanted it - and it has broken trusec and used to be an amazing region.

The stagnation in the north you're seeing right now is largely because everyone knows the tech nerf is on the horizion: what's the point of breaking longstanding alliances, or risking huge amounts of money, to get a resource that's about to run out? OTEC is a combination of tech being overly regional (unlike the old prom/dysp bottleneck that promoted conflict by having great regions and bad regions, but was spread over the entire galaxy). Because tech is concentrated in about 6-8 regions, it's easy to concentrate power over it. That's why a tech nerf is much more important than a moongoo nerf in general: you need to spread out the wealth to make people want to leave scalding pass and conquer Esoteria, but every region in the game has some of the conflict driver.

Right now, your region is either worthless or hilariously profitable: there needs to be a smoother rise in region value so you can have people working their way to the top.

I disagree with you there CCP Soundwave. That would only enable large alliances of thousands of people to hunker down in their systems/regions and make even more profit while everyone else gets shafted. While I understand that "EVE shouldn't be fair", I simply don't think it will cause any more conflict that EVE already has.

EDIT: for example, Goons upgrade their space and it nerfs Raiden(dot) space. Is a 1200man alliance going to fight a 9000man alliance because the larger alliance's upgrades nerfed the smaller alliance's space? Doubtful.

They are conflict drivers to a degree. They are not good conflict drivers.

Line members dislike fighting over tech, as they don't see an immediate gain. Sure, ship reimbursements and a general feeling of yay, we took their ISK happens. But no one likes grinding down tech moons. What people DO enjoy is kicking people out of their space, or taking an asset that has an immediate impact to their own financial prosperity.

The future conflict drivers of null should be income streams that the line member receives, that is then taxxed by the alliance. I hate to beat a drum here, but PI was a perfect system for this. It tied into SOV, it gave members direct income, and it was directly taxable at POCOS. Everyone loved PI/POCOS.

Moons need to be redone much the same way. If you just alchemize, all you are doing is reducing all nullsec income, with nothing to replace it. It won't even be the Tech cartels hurt the most, it is going to be the guys living off the other R64's that aren't as valuable, that suddenly become even less valuable overnight. You change null sec alliances from competing with each other for resources, to competing with average joeblow mining R8's and R16's in lowsec.

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Are they conflict drivers?

I don't think they're conflict drivers anymore because there aren't any ambitious EVE alliances that can stand up to PL/Goonz/etc.

The issue is simple.

The Null Sec Powers that are out there right now are "secured" in some fashion. They might not all be "mega" or "filthy rich", but they have been doing it a long time and are established and know what to do and their players are used to the gameplay. They know they will not beat goonz/PL/other tech holder blues because it's going to cost them their current space from another group nearby. So, the risk isn't worth it given the extreme danger.

So, that only leaves the HI Sec groups that have the incentive and motivation to get that "ISK faucet". Besides the obvious challenges with hi sec pilots, their main issues are two-fold :

1 They don't know how to live in null sec,
2 They can not build super capitals for ISK and Sov reasons.

So, to "Grow" a FRESH hi sec alliance, get it in a position to invade a null sec space, would take a LOT of social challenge, coupled with a lack of financial resources and a lack of technology. Makes it impossible for the "Fresh face" to come in and change things up. Remember, most of this is about perception, not saying it isn't possible.

Once upon a time, this was possible. Not in todays supercap ridden, uber rich mega alliance EVE.


Or even more importantly, are they a good conflict driver?

No. There's enough structure shooting. The focus should switch to the functionality of outposts/i-hubs providing enough of an economic benefit that they're worth disabling as though they were moons. Why did armies attack forts of the enemy in history? Seems like you could have just avoided them. Well, conquest was about breaking the opposition and supplanting them, not "kicking them out" all the time. Null Sec populations should be somewhat stable, and not force whole groups to move out, you should be able to conquer and retain the population for your own usage. This concept would go a long way for null sec sov. Build populations, maintain populations, the controlling powers fight over the sovereignty, but when one side loses, that doesn't mean everyone gets kicked out, just the controlling factions. Think about it. People as resources...



If we cut down on the income from moons, that also means we might deal with the issue of unlimited pockets, which I think would do much more in terms of interesting combat

Yes. Unlimited pockets = bad. More importantly, are you THINKING about removing all moon goo income with Ring mining or just reducing it? I think the economy of moon goo will become bad quickly when you consider the cost of running a moon vs profits and it will probably die off in the face of ring mining. just throwing that out there. I'd be totally cool with removing almost all moon goo to ring mining. But I guess that's a tough answer from an economic stand point.