EVE General Discussion

This thread may be labeled 'Fixing Technetium' , but at its core what its really about is fixing EvE itself. EvE has been broken since T2 and moon goo was introduced. It tossed the universe into epic imbalance. At that point, equality was discarded in a once truly fair universe. A caste system was created, the haves and the have nots.

Now, one could argue that this was always the case. Pre T2 EvE, there were those in control of ABC mins raking in the ISK, and obviously the average noobling did not have access to this. Yet it was at least possible for a group of motivated high sec guys to get together and make a go at attacking 0.0 and profiting from it, in say, the course of 1 weekend. In today's EvE, you can have 20, 50, 100 motivated guys in BS, and you arent going to be able to take away someone's tec moon. Where as you might have been able to take control of ABC mins for a weekend with such a force in old EvE, there's really nothing to gain in even attempting such a thing in today's eve. The point being is that you used to be at risk of losing access of your ABC income, you had to be continually ready to fight for it at all times. Today the process is so involved, it requires a massive amount of people, and resources, and time. The players who meet all these requirements are now in the massive blob that controls all these resources (or at least they were at one point, and the current blob hasnt bothered to take away the old blobs income).

That's the main difference, that's why EvE is boring as hell. The blobs are boring. Larger scale does not equal larger portions of fun. EvE needs to revamp its end game where 20 motivated guys can cause a disruption to the 'Win Button' , and take a little bit of that win button for themselves, and scurry back off to wherever they came from. Risk vs Reward in this game is all out of whack. And sadly, worm hole space is a poor substitute to having a 0.0 end game that's actually engaging and fun.

To fix eve i think drastic measures are needed. First the change i suggested in my older post, make moon goo something that spawns like anomolies according to 0.0 sov levels. Second, require more system activity to get the most out of your upgraded sov. That way it makes sense for those who dont want to spend the time to upgrade a system, to hit and raid active and upgraded systems. Being able to raid your neighbors resources should be part of the game. That way expansion may give way to protection and cause alliance blob coalitions to break up a little. Third, reduce the number of WH systems down to 1/3 of what they currently are. The current player base isnt large enough to have an active 0.0 AND permanent wh residents. At least not yet, CCP you got ahead of yourself: Increase your player base by making eve more engaging and fun, then open up 3k new systems.

and eve is fun because of massive empires and massive wars rather than crappy 20 man guild raids

There is nothing preventing POS refineries being better than NPC station refineries. If CCP wants to move towards player-driven economy, POS refineries must be the pinnacle of refineries, with NPC station refineries being inefficient things that are poorly maintained.

No more buying and perfect refining in Jita? Oh my...

And of course what purpose is there for heroes without a villain?

Woe... Space Stallions!

Oh of course not. Any perticular way the haves maintain their haveness may or may not be a good idea. It's just that there being haves and have-nots in general makes the game more interesting, it's hardly a flaw.

If the haves should have quite as much, or get it in the ways they do, that's all up in the air and depends entirely on how good the mechanics underlying it are and what behavior they encourage.

Well, resources should always come from two or three sources.

1. A fixed, guaranteed source. Which may be finite in nature, may be regional in nature. These are things like certain items only being sold at certain NPC LP stores, which only exist in certain regions. Or things like tech moons, which are pretty much permanent in nature. Or even which types of ore appear in the asteroid belts. Some of these fixed/guaranteed sources are very small in size (such as the ORE LP stores only existing in the Outer Ring).

2. A semi-diffuse source. Such as rats that drop specific items, which don't drop from other rat factions. Since those rats are mostly found in a particular set of regions, it's still a conflict driver. Semi-diffuse sources could be things like clouds of dust/gas that move from system to system, or rats deciding that they are going to be more focused in region X over Y, because they've been hunted more in Y. While you may obtain item X from elsewhere, it should be 10x as likely to drop in the target region(s). Or exploration site types which are more likely to appear in a small set of regions.

Depending on the item in question it might come from #1 or #2. Or favor one over the other. Just because something is sold in the LP store (guaranteed source) doesn't mean it shouldn't also drop as loot in a particular region. If you want something, options #1 or #2 should be your primary choices.

3. A very diffuse source. Equal chances of dropping anywhere across the EVE universe, but you have to spend longer to gather the same quantity as you would from method #1 or #2. It acts as a safety valve against someone managing to corner up #1 and #2.

The flip side of this is that there should never be recipes that draw only from one product source. T2 production is a very good example of this - it requires minerals, moon stuff, PI goods, plus some NPC-sold items. Rigs are a bad design because they are built solely from salvage, with no inputs from other source types.

Who do you think the timers protect more? The large coalition which can assemble 200 people at a drop of a hat at any time around the clock, or the small corporation with their two lowsec towers that got hit in the middle of the night, who get a day and a half to organize and call all their friends to help?

I never thought I would agree with a goon but this goon speaks truth.